10 Comments

I like the idea of "steelmanning", a word I hadn't heard before discovering Peter Boghossian. This seems to me the only way of ever finding your way to the truth and what is right for any given topic. You just might end up changing your own viewpoint, and that's a good thing.

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Yes! You would certainly have more integrity steelmanning an argument vs strawmanning.

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Peter,

I don't always share your viewpoints but I respect your integrity in the pursuit to understand. I respect you even more for engaging people who do not share your viewpoints. Kudos.

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This video has a quote that is very worth repeating: "If you are not willing to step across the political aisle and agree with someone because evidence backs them, then you are an ideologue. You are the cause of the problem. I would go further to say that you are not American. You are acting in a very un-American way." --Peter Boghossian

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"Some viewers expressed vehement disapproval, citing concerns about giving a platform to someone whose views might differ drastically from prevailing sentiments."

OH NO! Anything But That! I only pay attention to people who always agree with me.

Bill Cosby On Prejudice Pt 1 (1971)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1bHW_TS4gM

Bill Cosby On Prejudice Pt2 (1971)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ABC7owfdOU

I love the last lines (I paraphrase) "Ya I'm A bigot. There's not many left. Just me and another guy. And I don't like him."

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I completely agree. I feel it is important to have as much understanding of your opposition’s view as it is your own. It’s imperative we don’t shut off differing opinions. It can help to develop our own arguments, understand others, and develop empathy.

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Too many people (Left/Center/Right) do that (shut off differing opinions). People that do that, I have to wonder how solid/well thought out are Their ideas?

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Usually not very.

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Thank you Peter for being so honest (intellectually) and open to new ideas, even those very different to your own. I hope one day I can discuss/ debate with you the merits of PROUT as a viable alternative to capitalism and communism, and its preference to economic democracy as oppose to political democracy, which is very popular these days. My video on Prout. https://youtu.be/ilI98ACBOL0

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I haven't read the book yet -- it is out this week on Amazon. But it has been in my sights.

If the authors are approaching their subject the way I think they are.....what they are discussing is totalitarianism, of which Communism is one version. It began in earnest in North America in the mid-60s. The signs were everywhere, but almost no one at the time picked-up on what it was. Seemed like Freedom! Progressiveness! The Age of Aquarius! Which was the hook, actually, to lure the punters. Trap them through their vanities.

The Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov attempted in the 70s/80s to get the word out about how the Communists capture American minds. But it bounced off.

I have spent decades trying to point this out. I find it almost amusing that it was ony after the West was well into the COVID scamdemic that questions started being raised. People such as Joost Meerloo and Hannah Arendt and Gustave Le Bon had asked these questions a very long time ago.

This phenomenon of totalitarianism in the modern West has been visible for over 60 years, but the trouble was that most folk were blind. The totalists were taking their time to butter-up their prey.

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