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Thread: O/T:- Smart Alec Lawyers

  1. #141
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
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    9,115
    Quote Originally Posted by drillerpie View Post
    I don't know what counts as right and left anymore because their meanings from some years ago (taxation and redistribution) have largely been replaced by adherence to or rejection of identity politics, but there are people outside of what could be described as the trendy (Guardian, NY Times) left who are worth listening to.

    My information diet is reading the news from the Guardian but in terms of YouTube and podcasts I go for IDW type people, which I think gives me two different perspectives. I don't know if it's me getting old, or whether the Guardian has gone downhill since Rusbridger was replaced as editor, or because I'm getting a more balanced perspective now (maybe a mix of all three) but I honestly find the Guardian becoming less and less trustworthy as it seems to be more involved in activism than accurately reporting what is happening in the world.

    I used to read it thinking it was fairly accurate reporting with a political slant especially in the opinion pieces, which I could adjust for. Now I'm finding factual errors, some through laziness, and what is worse, I think some are deliberate.

    If we leave the terms left and right and look for people who are 'progressives', meaning they want to improve society but don't have a blind loyalty to Labour/Democratic parties, and aren't afraid of discussing taboo subjects, then look for James Lindsay, Brett Weinstein, Sam Harris.

    They are all extremely intelligent, all have PhDs (mathematics, biology, neuroscience) and are extremely eloquent. I find their rational, logical arguments much more convincing than those of the average metropolitan-left journalist, whose arguments mostly boil down to what is acceptable to say at dinner parties in polite society, and pointing at and mocking those who say anything that might be considered unfashionable.
    I don’t like the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ anymore than you do. I suppose the only thing they have going for them is that they’re not subjective, unlike ‘evidence-based’ and ‘non- evidence based’, ‘intellectual’ and ‘emotional’, or ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’.

    I’ll keep an eye out for the people you mention, though I am familiar with Harris and Weinstein, not so much Lindsay.

  2. #142
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    6,029
    Quote Originally Posted by BigFatPie View Post
    I don’t like the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ anymore than you do. I suppose the only thing they have going for them is that they’re not subjective, unlike ‘evidence-based’ and ‘non- evidence based’, ‘intellectual’ and ‘emotional’, or ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’.

    I’ll keep an eye out for the people you mention, though I am familiar with Harris and Weinstein, not so much Lindsay.
    Well I'm afraid we disagree here too. I think left and right are completely subjective according to place, time, social group etc, hence something like public healthcare is universally accepted in one country while it is seen as a radical left-wing idea on another.

    Enforcing a country's borders is now seen in some circles as right-wing or even far-right position, whereas three or four decades ago it was a universally accepted state of affairs. Terms like fascist (which I think you have used to describe the current US president) are used freely in some sections of society to describe positions that other people consider fairly normal, like protecting public property from rioters. Ditto for white supremacist, which is now used not to describe the KKK but in mainstream newspapers to describe Medicins Sans Frontiers.

    James Lindsay with two other academics set about trying to prove that the scholarship behind critical theory is, ahem, not evidence based. He wrote clearly (to anyone not warped by this ideology) satirical papers and submitted them for publication to woke academic journals. If memory serves he wrote one study of a dog walking area in a park which purported to show that toxic masculinity in hetro***ual white males was copied by their dogs, who humped other dogs without consent. It concluded that hetro***ual men should be kept on a leash in nightclubs to curb rape culture.

    In case you're wondering, not only did it get published, it won an award for excellent scholarship.

    I'll post a link later to him talking about his work. Aside from these academic papers he's very well read and explains where critical theory comes from and what it aims to do in a way that is quite informative.

  3. #143
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Posts
    6,029
    There are various videos of him talking about this so I don't know which one to post, but this is as good as any.

    https://youtu.be/xWhuQOVTFGw

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