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In this episode, an authoritarian and some anarchist(s) have an unhinged conversation about policing.
Participants: Yassine, Kulak, & Hoffmeister25 [Note: the latter's voice has been modified to protect him from the progressive nanny state's enforcement agents.]
Links:
About the Daniel Penny Situation (Hoffmeister25)
Posse comitatus (Wikipedia)
Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison (BJS 1997)
The Iron Rule (Anarchonomicon)
Eleven Magic Words (Yassine Meskhout)
Blackstone's ratio (Wikipedia)
Halfway To Prison Abolition (Yassine Meskhout)
Defunding My Mistake (Yassine Meskhout)
Recorded 2023-09-16 | Uploaded 2023-09-25
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Notes -
I think you're part of the equation here. Despite your long posts (and now that I think about it, maybe because might be more appropriate) I don't really know what exactly you believe, so it's hard to scrutinize you. My impression is that you tend to take the position of skepticism and criticism, rather than that of laying out your values, ideas, and policies. I don't necessarily have anything against that, I do it all the time too, but it's hard to expect scrutinizing questions when I do that.
I have no desire to be opaque so any feedback you can give me on that front would be helpful. It might be useful to categorize my writing into two fuzzy groups: advocacy versus criticism. I would like to think that my advocacy pieces are unambiguous and checking through some recent posts I think for example my post on how trans identity is based on gender stereotypes would firmly fit under advocacy. Would you agree?
Regarding criticism, I readily admit that's a big hobby horse of mine. I just really love critical thinking and find it worthwhile to point out fallacious thinking irrespective of whether I agree with someone's positions (there's almost a hygiene impulse on my end when someone who agrees with me uses fallacious reasoning to advance their positions, because then I'd worry other people would attribute that reasoning to me). I would like to think that I'm not shy about expressing my positions directly and I can't think of an instance where I refused to delineate what I actually believe, but sometimes I genuinely don't care or know enough to have an opinion on a given matter.
If I had to guess, the confusion arises because pointing out flaws in someone's arguments gets interpreted as attacking the position itself. A denial seems to be met with suspicion and I don't know what I can do to disavow it. I suppose one option is just add a disclaimer "I am solely critiquing the arguments for X without taking a position on X itself" but 1) that will get tiresome 2) if people don't believe my denials they won't believe my disclaimers and 3) I would think the onus should be on others not make the assumption in the first place. I'm open to hearing any ideas you might have.
I notice that @ArjinFerman said "I don't know what you believe" and in response you worked your way around to saying people need to assume they know what you believe even less.
I don't think the issue here is that people are making unfair assumptions about you. It's that you're mostly just not taking positions. Which is fine, you don't have to. But if you want your positions to be challenged... take some.
And honestly, I don't think the trans post really counts. It's long on interrogating gender theory and short on explaining what it is that you actually think. Like yes, it's impossible to "be trans" without embracing some form of gender stereotype... but you also don't seem to actually be rejecting gender stereotypes yourself? It reads more like you're pointing out an inconsistency in someone else's worldview than that you're articulating your own.
One of my positions is that people should have fewer positions. A prime source of fallacious thinking is when folks want to believe something that is not supported by the evidence. I think it's perfectly ok to say "I don't know" or "I don't have enough information to have an opinion" rather than fill the gaps with junk.
At the same time, I genuinely find it baffling to say that I don't take enough positions. Just narrowing it down to the issue of policing: I think absolute and qualified immunity should be abolished, I think drugs should be completely legal, I think an intermediary solution to property crime by addicts is giving them free heroin, I think police should be held to exactly the same criminal and civil standards for use of force that civilians do, I think ideally police should have more firearm restrictions than civilians but barring that civilians should have access to the same guns as the military and police, I think prison sentences for virtually all offenses are way too long and driven too much by retribution, I think driving offenses should be enforced by cameras rather than police stops, I think driving offenses should be punished by a point system rather than fines, I think a significant number of QOL crimes/offenses like drinking in public should be stricken, I think felons should be allowed to vote, etc etc etc etc. There's way more than that in other areas like my support for 100% open borders, being against affirmative action, or being against car-oriented urban planning.
So yes, people shouldn't assume they know what I believe unless I actually say it or there's some other evidence for it. There's no shortage! And it's annoying having to play whack-a-mole with "No I never said that" or "No I don't believe that". This post from @HlynkaCG is a prime example of this. I think paraphrasing something I said would've been totally fine but in this case I never said anything that comes anywhere close to even plausibly being interpreted that I believe "Jan 6th is the greatest threat to democracy since 9/11 or Pearl Harbor." I can't recall if I ever described my evaluation of J6's "threat" but if asked I would describe it as bumbling, ineffectual, and embarrassing; words I would never use for either 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. There are people who made the idiotic comparison like Kamala Harris, so my only explanation here is that for some people it's easier to attack me for dumb things other people have said rather than address my own statements.
You're correct on this, the trans post was not the best example. There's some semblance of advocacy ("I believe that trans identity is based on stereotypes, here's why") but it's better characterized as a critique. You're also correct that I'm not rejecting gender stereotypes, at least not completely. I had a post on that topic sitting in drafts that I haven't gotten to yet but generally speaking, I try to keep the arguments I make relatively narrow and focused so as to avoid unnecessary confusion.
I thought you already conceded you tend to assume the perspective of a critic. This is, again, absolutely fine, but again you can't really expect to be cross-examined when you're not giving people that much to hang on to. It's a sound debate tactic - you are minimizing the attack surface - but a bad conversation tactic.
...or I should say, bad asynchronous text-based conversation tactic. A lot of it comes down to form. I listened to this episode of your podcast, and noticed that when you stake out your position, you summarize it to a sentence, and leave it at that, for example when you said you're in favor of giving people free drugs to minimize property crime. That works in a verbal conversation. I feel that I was interviewing you I could take this as a starting point, and get into the thick of things. I feel like I could also do that if we were in a chat room, but I don't think that works in asynchronous text-based communications.
Another thing is - and sadly it's a lot harder for me to pinpoint what the issue is - there's something about your writing style that makes me zone out and ask "wait, what the hell were we talking about?" by the end of the paragraph. Funnily enough this is in stark contrast to Kulak. I think you guys could learn a lot from each other, because I get the same feeling from him when he shows up on a podcast, but his writing is pretty enjoyable.
At the end of the day, feel free to keep doing what you're doing, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just that you expressed a desire to get scrutinizing questions, and I'm just saying what's stopping me from giving them. Other people might not have such issues.
Ok, fair enough. In my opinion I've staked plenty of positions that can be attacked, and I have no intention of faking agnosticism to minimize my attack surface. I think that's demonstrated by my willingness to readily offer my opinions whenever asked. I still find it odd that anyone would think I'm trying to hide the ball here, and so I wonder why instances of my genuine agnosticism are interpreted as intentional obfuscation.
Regarding the episode, I play the role of host and it can be tough to balance. I don't want to invite someone on just so I can hear myself talk. It's obviously different if someone is interviewing me and I agree with you on the limits of asynchronous text-based communications.
If you can ever figure out what it is about my writing style that makes you zone out I'd be happy to hear it. I'm always open to actionable feedback. I prioritize making sure that my advocacy pieces lay out my arguments in a clear and easy to follow structure, but if someone disagrees but can't pinpoint why, there's not much for me to work with unfortunately.
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