The marketplace of ideas is bullsh*t

L.P. Koch | Luc Talks

There’s little doubt we are living in Babel-land. Discourse seems to produce a set of irreconcilable camps more or less shouting at each other, hearing what they want to hear, supporting their teams no matter what, desperately clinging to some hard belief in an attempt to escape madness as history is reaching a breaking point. A look at some of the recent outrage cycles should be enough to make the point: Darryl Cooper questioning aspects of the WWII narrative, Douglas Murray debating Dave Smith over Israel, James Lindsay calling everybody and their grandma “woke right,” someone using the n-word and getting cancelled… All of these dramas have led to rivers of digital ink being spilled on analysis, with little persuasion across the tribes to show for. Clearly, good ol’ “facts and logic” don’t seem to convince anybody to change their tack about anything.

A recent study brings home the point even more dramatically. Researchers in Zürich let loose an AI to argue people out of their opinions on Reddit, comparing how well it does to human posters doing likewise — with depressing results: the most important of which is how rare it really is that someone’s mind is changed, AI or not. Humans were typically able to achieve “conversion” in only 3% of cases. The AI did a better job with a success rate of 9%-18% — still low, but magnitudes higher. What makes this even more depressing is that the AI did not achieve these success rates by brilliantly gathering facts-and-logic and providing sources, but essentially by emotional manipulation: the AI tailored its message to the recipient, pretending to belong to the same group (“as a conservative…”) and adapting its narrative framework accordingly. It also boldly stated unproven facts, hitting its human counterpart with dubious but authoritative and emotionally charged statements instead of well-reasoned arguments. Not a good look. It also drives home that short of emotional sophistry, there is little that can bridge the gap between opposed opinion-groups, and even sophistry rarely succeeds, and is probably not sustainable.

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Smith: An Examination Of The Leftist Cult And Their Religion

Brandon Smith
Alt-Market.com

There is a common misconception among newer activists in the liberty movement that the idea of the “false left/right paradigm” means that there is no political spectrum; that the entire notion of left vs right is a fabrication. This is not exactly the case. When we talk about false paradigms in regards to politics (or geopolitics), what we are actually referring to is the elitist class, otherwise known as globalists, and the fact that they have no left or right political orientation. They do not care about Democrats or Republicans, they have no loyalty to either party. Their loyalty is to their own agenda, and they will exploit BOTH sides to get what they want whenever possible.

Beyond the globalists, average people do indeed fall on a political spectrum that could be broken down and simplified to a set of basic ideals or ideologies. On the left side of the spectrum we find the collectivists and socialists, who believe that society (the group) is vastly more important than the individual and that the actions of individuals must be strictly monitored and governed to prevent negative effects on the group.

The core argument of the leftists is:

“We are all a part of society and must act in harmony with society so that the system continues to function. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...”

On the right side of the spectrum we find the individualists, sovereignty activists and true conservatives. People who, in varying degrees, believe that society should be restricted from dictating the life of the individual and that group participation should be voluntary. Where leftists seek to centralize, people on the right seek to decentralize.
The argument of the conservative is:

“Without the individual the group does not exist. The group is an abstraction created in the mind. When groups do form they should only exist to serve and protect the inherent rights of individuals, not be used as a mechanism of control by weak people who are afraid to function on their own...” 

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Paul Joseph Watson on Social Media Censorship

Paul Joseph Watson

What must happen next. It's crucial that you sign up at http://summit.news/newsletter 

KEY ARTICLE: Platform Access is a Civil Right - https://humanevents.com/2019/05/03/pl...

‘Dystopian approach’: SEC gives blessing to MasterCard’s idea of cutting off right-wingers

RT

Blocking payments to individuals or groups by financial service firms impedes freedom of speech in a free society, journalist Ben Swann has told RT, following reports that MasterCard is allegedly on course to censor the far-right. 

The New York-based firm is reportedly being forced by left-leaning liberal activists to set up an internal “human rights committee” that would monitor payments to “white supremacist groups and anti-Islam activists.”

“The problem is that everyone has their own views and, in a free society, the idea of a free society is that you are free to have your belief systems, as long as you’re not harming anyone else physically,” Swann told RT America. “But your belief system belongs to you and you have the right be wrong. White supremacists have the right to be wrong.”

MasterCard is not the only holder of purse-strings that is mulling the selective banning of individuals from their services and funds. Patreon and PayPal have previously barred individuals from receiving payments using their platforms, due to their extreme views.

But unlike crowdfunding platforms, being cut off from one of the leading American multinational financial services corporations will, most likely, have a much greater impact on the financial stability of an individual or a group, especially after the US Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly blessed MasterCard’s undertaking. By doing this, Swann believes the government granted “big corporations the ability to control what voices are heard.”

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William Lind looks beneath the global warming narrative

Watts Up With That?

Summary: William Lind takes a sharp and accurate look at the politics of climate change. In modern America, always look beneath the glossy surface of narratives in the news.

A March 15 article by Larry Kummer at the Fabius Maximus website discusses how global warming advocates have misused a worst-case scenario to generate panic. Titled “About the corruption of climate science”, Kummer’s article details how politicians are misrepresenting climate projections, especially one called RCP 8.5. That their goal is to create fear should not surprise us: from the government’s perspective, fear is a growth industry.

Russell Kirk called conservatism “Politics Of Prudence" and prudence suggests we should pay some attention to climate change, or, to be more precise, increasing volatility in weather. That is something we can observe happening. Conservatives’ belief in stewardship means we owe it to future generations to hand them a planet in at least as good condition as we received from our forefathers. Reducing our own consumption, including of fossil fuels, is desirable.

But the Left seeks far more. In fact, its goal is nothing less than total control of every aspect of human life, which we call “totalitarianism”, justified by fear of climate change. Since everything a person does, including breathing, affects the climate, if climate change is a huge threat, someone needs to control everything. That “someone” should obviously be whoever is most concerned about the climate, i.e., the extreme environmentalists and the larger coalition of which they are part, the culturally Marxist Left.

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Princeton group aims to make men ‘tremendously vulnerable’

Campus Reform

Princeton University offers a bi-weekly discussion group on "healthy masculinity" that aims to make men "tremendously vulnerable" in order to get them to "dismantle the institutional privilege that men enjoy."

According to Princeton's website, stereotypically masculine behaviors like "being the breadwinner" and "not showing weakness" are among the harmful aspects of the "guy code."

Princeton University officials are encouraging male students to join a bi-weekly discussion group that aims to make them “tremendously vulnerable.”

Led by licensed psychologist Jean Semelfort, The Men’s Allied Voices for a Respectful & Inclusive Community (MAVRIC) Project recruits male-identified students to help them resist “traditional gender norms” and cultivate a more “healthy masculinity."

"We can’t dismantle the institutional privilege that men enjoy if we’re not willing to ask hard questions of ourselves about the privilege we’ve been granted in our own lives."    Tweet This

“We as men can unpack our own internalized ideas about what it means to be a man,” writes Carl Adair, the Princeton English professor who runs the blog for the MAVRIC Project, who also asserts that “We can’t dismantle the institutional privilege that men enjoy if we’re not willing to ask hard questions of ourselves about the privilege we’ve been granted in our own lives.”

“We’re asking ourselves to be tremendously vulnerable—which runs against the grain of everything men are taught,” he adds.

School officials said that the project has been active since 2013, but only within the past two years has it established an online presence. Now, in addition to the discussion group, the project maintains an active Facebook page, a reflection blog, and hosts invited speakers. 

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