They pretty clearly meant "ideas", plural, which are pairwise not equal to each other in some metric (presumably,merit).

> Luckily, this information is not hard to find for non-entitled people who don't live in a bubble:

This isn't what respectful discourse looks like and doesn't meet the standard I expect from HN.

> link

There are four quotes given, entirely out of context, "on race". Without looking them up, simply applying basic charity and awareness of basic American right-wing arguments, it's clear that none of them establish what you'd like them to establish.

The first and last do not propose that black people are inherently unqualified for particular jobs or roles. Instead, they propose that employers use discriminatory hiring practices to hire black people preferentially, for the specific purpose of measuring up to some external standard for racial diversity.

It should be clear why many would consider discriminatory hiring practices based on race to be racist, and therefore consider complaints such as this to be in fact anti-racist. There are also any number of factors that could cause a racially unbiased hiring practice to produce racially biased results, including but not limited to: past racism enacted by third parties (perhaps generations ago, resulting in racial correlation with socioeconomic status, which is reinforced by generational wealth); differences in inclination and interest (which may in spring from cultural differences); and workers generally preferring employers of their own race (whether due to actual racism of the workers, low social trust in general, higher ability to make connections in that environment, etc.).

The second conflates several identity markers with a mark of achievement (being in the WNBA) along with what Kirk presumably considered a moral vice (smoking marijuana). But setting up this example doesn't actually associate those identity markers with the moral vice, just as they don't associate them with the achievement (aside from the part where being a lesbian implies being a woman, and being a woman is a prerequisite to play in the WNBA, and if you are about to object with anything whatsoever related to transgender issues then you are missing the point, perhaps deliberately). Possibly Kirk considered being a WNBA athlete a lesser achievement than being a marine, but it doesn't make a big difference to the argument. The point, clearly, is to posit that people belonging to certain identity groups are being held to a lower standard for ideological reasons — which is to say, the same sort of thing going on with the employment examples. In particular, their (supposed) vices are overlooked.

(It's also noteworthy that this source capitalizes "black" while leaving "white" lowercase; this is an example of the exact sort of institutional bias that these arguments critique.)

The third describes a particular pattern of racially motivated criminal behaviour. It seems that Kirk might have considered the killing of Iryna Zarutska to fit this pattern. However, pointing out that these things happen is not attributing that behaviour to an entire race, or stereotyping the race. It cannot be, because it's commonly understood that very few people overall engage in violent crime (society could not have ever existed otherwise). The only "group" that can meaningfully be stereotyped this way is the one labelled "criminals".

Kirk points out race here because, presumably, he is aware of statistics that show racial disparities in who tends to do the attacking, and perhaps in who tends to get attacked. I am deliberately being vague about this because I am not interested in debating the numbers, nor spending time on researching citations, nor in being seen as the sort of person who routinely cites them. But from everything I've seen, it really isn't something that can be disputed in good faith. Again, there are many possible contributing factors to this, and simply observing the statistical fact does not allege any specific explanation.

[flagged]

Getting killed over politics is not an index for "debate" quality. Giving someone such credit because they died is nonsense.

It is not just about quality but how they are fundamentally different. One appears to be a debate the other is a debate. The person who got flagged made the same point which I responded to.

It is like comparing a mediocre magician who is ok at giving an illusion of a debate that gets a reaction from an audience vs people who give thought provoking points.

A quick example: Someone says they don't believe in objective morality. He responds with "do you think hitler was objectively evil?".

The whole point is you either answer A) no, and get a reaction from the audience for looking bad cause hitler or B) yes, and now you have conceded.

It amounts to a party trick.

Your comment seems to imply that Kirk was simply not as good at holding a good-faith debate as the "finest minds".

It's not a question of skill or aptitude, but rather that he actively sought performative "owning the libs" arguments than genuine rigorous intellectual debate.

[flagged]

> The purpose of debate is to challenge people's views, even if they strongly disagree, in order to convince if not participants then bystanders to change their mind.

Debates are not two parties seeking the truth together. Unless you're very, very careful and good faith, and your counterpart is very, very careful and good faith, debates are a race to the bottom of psychological manipulation. They're not contests of facts; there's no way to objectively score them; they're not good ways for participants or bystanders to learn.

Facially, they're theater. But a system's purpose is what it does, and these performances serve as a venue/foundation to hone/push messaging. You'll almost never see right-wing "debaters" go up against "big" left-wing names like an Ezra Klein or Destiny (Ben Shapiro is kind of the exception, but he's far more conciliatory with someone like Klein--he did do one with Destiny, it went pretty badly for him, so it of course became a one-time thing).

Kirk et al lose--they lose frequently! You rarely see it because they have far bigger megaphones than their victorious rivals. But have these (many) losses changed their views? No. Debates are not two parties seeking the truth together.

He absolutely shouldn't have been murdered and the rise of political violence is terrifying for the country's future.

However, he has directly stated that empathy is bad and that shooting victims are an acceptable price to pay to avoid gun control.

I refuse to feel sympathy for someone who vigorously argued against doing anything to prevent what happened to him and who vigorously argued against caring about the people it happened to.

As one of the people against whom his hate was routinely monged, I agree wholeheartedly. I won't mourn him personally because he was proud to tell us all how thrilled he would be if me and my partner got what he got, but I'm also not gonna engage in the gloating and performative grossness that the more hideously online seem to enjoy whether they're left or right. The people I love aren't safer because of this. In fact, we've already been tried and found guilty.

I agree wholeheartedly.

He wasn't even a hate monger though? Just because he was a republican means he's a hate monger and racist? I don't get it. I haven't seen one person accusing him of this stuff actually cite a quote that seemed like hate speech or racism? They just don't like facts being used in a debate that hurt their feeling. It's ridiculous. People need to grow up. There is a complete lack of maturity on the part of his critics. They want to live in a censored thought bubble and don't value the first amendment (or seem to understand it).

That's not really steelmanning. You can't steelman a position by saying it's not the real position but it dupes the rubes.

The great replacement theory is the theory that there is an intentional effort to dilute or replace the capital-W White, meaning the historical English/Scottish/Scotch Irish, population of the US, with immigrants and former slaves, and it usually involves a part that says that it is being done to weaken the country against its international competitors. A third part that is usually involved is that the process is being facilitated by and for the benefit of people like "international bankers", "cosmopolitans", "elites", etc., terms which have an antisemitic history.

To steelman it, you would have to steelman at least the intentional dilution part. Not just to say that it is hard to meet our demand for labor without immigration but that someone is coordinating it. Further, I don't think it has any meaning without the part that says it is being done to weaken the country, which you would have to show that not only would it weaken the country, but that is the intention of these coordinators.

Without that, you just have a demographic argument. If "Whites" do not have many children, and the population would otherwise shrink as a whole, while immigration is needed to satisfy demand for labor, then their proportion will shrink, but it is not "great replacement" without it being intentional/directed.

>So instead the US uses immigration to fill the gap left by declining fertility rates

Because that is working so good for Europe? At some point you need to understand that replacing a population is not the solution for low fertility population.

If anyone reads this and think it's not the fault of the politicians, or at least the boomers for "not wanting to help their children/grandchildren", it's pretty clear that their goal wasn't to solve the fertility crisis.

On top of that I don't even think most boomers need to be inconvininced. Increase capital taxes, remove the ceiling for SS taxes, give wokers a 4 day workweek, raise minimum wage, invest in 3rd places. A few steps give people the time and energy to meet and make families.

But it seems like we really will just go to civil war before we make sure rich people contribute to the nation.

Very much disagree - in a bad faith argument, countering does nothing, because the point is not to prove their position, the point is to hurt you, or play to their base, or to tire you or distract you and generally just to waste your time.

It’s more of a “the only winning move is not to play” situation. You win by refusing to take the bait, and shutting down the attempt to coerce you into playing along with the bad faith argument game.

Or, if you like - when faced with “heads I win, tails you lose,” the strategy is not to figure out a way to get the coin to land on its edge, or to end up suspended in midair, or to propose some sort of infinite ‘best two out of three’ regress - the strategy is to recognize the rigged game and walk away.

You are thinking of a good faith opposing argument. Not an argument where the other person is just trying to waste your time.

There's understanding disagreeable viewpoints and the there's failing to adhere to the paradox of tolerance.

There's no reason to steelman "black people shouldn't exist in the US", as the most extreme example. I can steelman it, but what am I getting out of this? What am I professing to an audience to steelman this? Steelmans are used to build empathy and sh synthesize solutions taking multiple viewpoints into account. This is the opposite.

> he didn't deny the gish gallop

Really checking all the boxes of bad-faith argumentation here, friend.

Nope, I'm not obese either. Miss after miss.

I think you've missed that it was a rhetorical question, likely referring to how he believed ideas such as "the civil rights act was a mistake."

First thoughts, having never been aware of this whole "20 X Vs 1 of Y" Jubilee format before are that;

* this seems highly contrived, and

* "Now Casting 55+ year old Trump supporters for an upcoming SURROUNDED video" (on the home page)

supports that notion.

This isn't the format of Buckley V. Vidal (perhaps the start of the end of intellectual debate in the US) and nor is it a debate in the sense of equal time, three rounds (case, defense, conclusion), etc.

I've moved on to looking at:

The Problem with Jubilee’s Political Debate Videos - https://fhspost.com/10276/forum/the-problem-with-jubilees-po...

The ‘one voice against 20 extremists’ format is designed to monetise hate - https://observer.co.uk/news/opinion-and-ideas/article/the-on...

which at a first rapid skim appear to flesh out many of the initial issues and feelings that I have.

Right now I have hedges to trim and a roof to tin so it'll be many hours before I can watch an hour and half contrived 'battle' and take notes .. but I will give it a shot.

Thanks for the link.

Jubilee does cut their videos just so you're aware. I've never heard of them ever releasing a full uncut version. They have good editors, it's hard to tell. They'll snip entire participant segments.

It was never the question that was bad faith. It is that he pretends like there is only one definition to the word, so there’s never a fruitful discussion. His entire existence at these events is to get video footage to use as marketing for his political group, not to actually debate in good faith.

An informed take from Forest Valkai on Kirk’s “what is a woman?” Debate style:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M0uCLgFMC-c

No, Kirk used the same debate bro tactics about people who were very informed and nuanced about the biological facts. Forest Valkai has explained this ad nauseum.

Kirk was bad faith because he tried to distill a complicated, nuanced argument into TikTok clips.

He ran into plenty of college students who tried the thing you described, but he was equally dismissive of the people who knew more than him on the subject.

It's bad faith because womanhood, like (for instance) adulthood, is a social construct. If I ask you, "what is an adult," there's no simple and rigorous answer to that question. You can say, "you're an adult when everyone agrees you're an adult," but that's a bit circular, and it risks making you sound dumb. Or you could get into different cultural ideas of adulthood, what happens when someone who's an adult in one culture enters a different culture where they're considered a child, the role that legal systems plays in establishing an age of majority, the social agreements that give that legal system the power to enforce certain rules based on that age, and so forth. But that's not going to come over very well in a snappy debate video where the other guy gets to edit the footage of whatever you say.

If a progressive were running the debate, they would never ask a question like, "what is a woman." They don't care that Republicans think trans women are men. They'd ask, "why should your conception of womanhood be used to determine who gets put in a women's jail when putting transgender women in male prisons measurably increases prison violence?"

"What is a woman" is a nebulous cultural question with no real importance compared to the actual lives and freedoms of transgender women.

[flagged]

The professors are likely willing to differentiate between biological sex and gender. Kirk purposefully conflated the two to suit his debate needs.

I think Medhi Hasan is among the best debaters alive, but I think he’s 100% wrong on his religious views.

Generally I’m a fan of Oxford style debates, such as Intelligence Squared.

Kirk was a rapid-fire debater who made all of his content to go viral. I don’t see much value in that style, because it steamrolls so much important nuance.

This isn't a valid accusation. I believe "both sidesism" has cursed Americans into locked thinking patterns where they can never develop, because they have to spend an eternity giving sober consideration to endless wrong-headed positions.

My viewpoints don't align with flat earthers, and also I criticize their unscientific methods.