Often people get their impression of someone like Kirk without ever actually engaging with the content. Too many hot takes and not enough real engagement. "It's cool to hate this guy..? Ok I guess he must be evil."

Painfully ironic given how open he was to debate.

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dotnet00 5 days ago | parent [-]

Has he ever changed his mind from those debates? Or does he always pretend to "win" them?

I ask because for a while it was a common "right wing faux intellectual" thing (think Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yulianopolis etc) to go around asking to debate. Then to not actually do much factual debating or any learning of other perspectives, and claiming that the left is simply uncapable of civilized debate because they eventually just refuse to go along with the act.

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donmcronald 5 days ago | parent [-]

This is it exactly.

When I talk to people that watch a bunch of right-wing content I shut down political topics immediately. They never change their position and are convinced their point of view is the only point of view. If you concede there's more than one side to a topic they care about, they think they've "won" and it reinforces their belief they're right about everything.

I consider myself to be a centrist. There are definitely things I like and don't like on both sides of the political spectrum. If someone gives me a solid logical argument for or against something, I'll either change my point of view or, more likely, end up with a better understanding of both perspectives.

I'm only one person, but my experience is that people on the political left or center are willing to accept the fact there are often two sides to an issue and that everything needs to be a balance. Most people on the political right won't do that.

It's really hard to argue against someone that never concedes anything especially if you're acting in good faith and acknowledge when they make a convincing argument for their point of view.

> claiming that the left is simply uncapable of civilized debate because they eventually just refuse to go along with the act

1000%

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zahlman 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I'm only one person, but my experience is that people on the political left or center are willing to accept the fact there are often two sides to an issue and that everything needs to be a balance. Most people on the political right won't do that.

If you say so. My experience has, broadly speaking, been the exact opposite.

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donmcronald 5 days ago | parent [-]

I've never even met someone I would consider an extreme leftist, but I've definitely met people that parrot far right talking points all day long and they're increasing in numbers.

Almost everyone I know would be center-left or center-right except the ones that have shifted far to the right from watching influencers. The center-right people will come towards the middle, so I should have been clear that I'm talking about the new normal of right wing politics that is way further to the right than it used to be.

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zahlman 5 days ago | parent [-]

> I've never even met someone I would consider an extreme leftist, but I've definitely met people that parrot far right talking points all day long and they're increasing in numbers.

Again, my experience is very nearly the opposite. I have to seek out rightist views if I want to hear them (I have them in carefully curated feeds so that I can make sure I understand their logic); I can scarcely avoid being exposed to leftist ones (before the Musk takeover, even opening Twitter logged out and in an incognito tab would do this; now I can still have that experience on Bluesky and on most Mastodon instances).

> Almost everyone I know would be center-left or center-right except the ones that have shifted far to the right from watching influencers.

I have been in communities full of people who were commonly accused of having "shifted far to the right from watching influencers", and consistently noticed that no such thing had actually happened if I listened to their actual views.

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donmcronald 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I have to seek out rightist views if I want to hear them (I have them in carefully curated feeds so that I can make sure I understand their logic).

I don't watch anything political on platforms with recommendation algorithms. If I want to understand something like a proposed law I go skim the legislation. I might read opinion articles from leaders in a field.

I pretty much only talk about politics to people I've known for decades. We should probably talk about something else. Do you like technology?

	▲	zahlman 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I pretty much only talk about politics to people I've known for decades. I'm guessing you don't know dotnet00 personally, but you still felt justified in replying with some ideological warring. My goal was not to "talk about politics" with you, but only to show that you are presenting a biased worldview that doesn't reflect a universal experience.

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8note 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

have you actually met these people? or are they all social media folks you dont know?

i think theyre talking about people they actually know and have met

	▲	zahlman 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> have you actually met these people? In many cases, yes. In at least one case I actually got to meet a "social media folk" in person. I've also in the past chatted with political livestreamers to discuss issues and solicit clarification.

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dotnet00 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I can't really comment on left-leaning equivalents, they don't really tend to bleed into my circles the way right wing ones do. I think Destiny is kind of a left wing equivalent?

I was mostly thinking about how the way they (that is, "debate me!" types) approach debate doesn't really lend itself to actual debate.

They love to throw around unnuanced statistics, relying on the ability to throw so much shit at the wall that the opponent doesn't have the time to dissect it on the spot. This one's poisonous because to viewers it lends legitimacy to numbers that may actually be deeply flawed.

Another popular tactic is to never clearly answer a question and constantly ask for more clarification than necessary. Eg when asked how many trans mass shooters there have been in some period of time, answer "too many", then when given the answer and asked how many mass shooters there have been in that period in general, deflect from the point by asking if that's counting gang violence (supposedly this is what Kirk was doing before he was shot, but I can't be sure).

With tactics like these, it's no wonder that people wisen up and begin refusing formal debate. Debating them lends legitimacy to people who are far less interested in being responsible about the truth.

A related aspect about this is age, Kirk was ~31, he's been at this since 2012. He didn't finish his college education, and his experience in politics "proper" was limited. If a 31 year old undergrad dropout with no experience in astrophysics went around claiming to debate astrophysicists on the nature of black holes, he'd be laughed off as a quack.

Many others are very similar, they are/were young and lacking in education and/or experience with what a meaningful debate looks like, instead assuming that debates work the way the idiot box likes to portray them.