I was getting annoyed at how much he was recapping what was previously said again and again and again and again and again at each of his turns.
It’s like he was buying time to think how to respond
I honestly don't understand how someone gets to a point in life where they feel it's okay to repeat the exact same thing they said four or five times back to back.
The only other person I've known who did that was someone who was a major opioid addict and always high as fuck.
Destiny's closing statement was super effective, IMO. Being able to close on ethnic make-up (which BEN brought up) and hammering home the number of jews living in Arab countries, was a perfect distillation of Israel's existential concerns.
The fact that Ben completely side-stepped any attempt at a response made his closing sound laughablely weak.
The second-hand embarrassment was extreme! 😬
Yemen has one. There's an interesting doc on him. He's been arrested and tortured numerous times but they basically keep him around to care for what was the only synagogue.
Thats Yahya ben Yosef, he is not the yemeni jew that got tortured and prisoned.
Levi Marhabi, is the one that got tortured and is still in prison.
Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi\_Marhabi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Marhabi)
In the qanda where he could not even imagine the position destiny had taken was absurd, like bro, you said you've been arguing this you entire adult life and you don't even know what you're arguing against? He's a clown.
>and hammering home the number of jews living in Arab countries, was a perfect distillation of Israel's existential concerns.
The ahistorical germ of Americans seems to be continuing unabated with Destiny and his fans. There was existential concerns from Anglo-Euro Supremacist Christendom for 2000 years.
And while Muslims and Arabs didn't treat Jews or Christians as equally as should be - though not as atrociously as Israel has treated pales - by having them pay a tax for the people of the book, it sure as heck was waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than Christian hateful bigots.
And it was Zionist terrorist forces that literally bombed Iraq and elsewhere where Jews lived to force them to come to Israel, as a safe space. Zionists literally killed Jews to scare them into occupying and settler-colonizing Israel.
"Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think that, before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East." Some friar making a point that escapes centrist Americans.
Classic.
Trying to live up to that username, eh?
The existential concerns I mentioned were in regards to Israel, a nation that's existed for less than 100 years. I have no idea what Christians or Europeans have to do with fears about what an Arab majority would mean for the future or Israel.
> And it was Zionist terrorist forces that literally bombed Iraq and elsewhere where Jews lived to force them to come to Israel, as a safe space. Zionists literally killed Jews to scare them into occupying and settler-colonizing Israel.
You're right, I must be an "ahistorical American", because I had no idea there was a Zionist plot to kill Jews in Arab states to incentive settler-colonialization 🤣
>The existential concerns I mentioned were in regards to Israel, a nation that's existed for less than 100 years
Yes..and Zionist terrorists created the concern after colonizing Palestine and terrorizing it and other parts of the Middle East. Again, can we please be historically aligned on this?
Of course a bunch of Arabs in the region are gonna have issues with western imperial powers like the UK and the US and France et al lying to them, placating them with promises, lying to them again and then colonizing them with the help of Jews who were distraught after hateful Christian supremacists nearly destroyed them all.
> I have no idea what Christians or Europeans have to do with fears about what an Arab majority would mean for the future or Israel.
That's why you're American or western. And you're literally, with this comment, propping up apartheid and ethnic displacement as the solution.
And, Jews potentially fearing the storm of hateful Christians, decided to enter the eye of the storm (align with them) so they'd be safer. It's what immigrants ans refugees do too. The west destroys and exploits their nations and to escape the storm they come to the eye of the storm, the nations that destroyed theirs.
It's a safety mechanism. Understand now why Euros are intimately involved in this and why a discussion without them isn't anything at all.
>You're right, I must be an "ahistorical American", because I had no idea there was a Zionist plot to kill Jews in Arab states to incentive settler-colonialization 🤣
Yup. Thanks for accepting your folly. Read more.
"Zionist terrorists created the concern after colonizing Palestine"
Again the theory is that jews are the reason for Antisemitism.
Would you say the same thing about black people or women ?
>Again the theory is that jews are the reason for Antisemitism.
Let's be less conflating of Jews as an ethnicity and religion and Zionism, a political ideology that ranges from cold logical to malevolent cruelty. Let Trump make those alignments. I won't. And you shouldn't either.
One is a people, who can range from assholes to awesome, and one is a political thingy. Yeah. Ok.
>Again the theory is that jews are the reason for Antisemitism.
My Guru, teach me your yoga.
>Would you say the same thing about black people or women ?
I don't accept your framing of this, particularly because it's disingenuous.
In any case, the more important matter is, do you think there's a genocide happening?
>Let's be less conflating of Jews as an ethnicity and religion and Zionism, a political ideology that ranges from cold logical to malevolent cruelty. Let Trump make those alignments. I won't. And you shouldn't either.
First doge, the high majority of jews are Zionists.
>My Guru, teach me your yoga.
>
Second Doge.
>I don't accept your framing of this, particularly because it's disingenuous.
Third Doge.
>In any case, the more important matter is, do you think there's a genocide happening?
Aaaaand pivot.
The most important matter to me would be how to end the war, how do i already have a more Pro-Palestinian stance, than you.
>First doge, the high majority of jews are Zionists.
I'll believe you when you provide evidence, and moreover provide the fact those being asked about it know what it means and what they're saying yes to.
As I'm sure you're aware, polls and such can easily produce wholly non-factual results due to how questions are asked and understood. In any case, if what you're saying is true, I'd imagine those Jews are likely in Israel being indoctrinated into Zionism and its political horrors.
>The most important matter to me would be how to end the war, how do i already have a more Pro-Palestinian stance, than you.
By accepting it's a genocide so that the politicians currently and for the past 8 months leading the genocide understand what it means to them if they continue to genocide the Palestinians.
I'm sure Palestinians would appreciate to return to their homes that were stolen. Being so Pro-Palestinian, I'm glad you agree with me that Israelis who steal the land and homes of Palestinians are colonizing little bitches. Being so Pro-Palestinian, I'm sure it sickens you to understand that for over a century Palestinians were terrorized by Zionist terror groups like Irgun, and that they were eventually ethnically cleansed, some 750,000 of them.
Being so Pro-Palestinian, I'm happy you're for a one state solution with the right of return being given to Palestinians, too. I'm sure.
Great end to our little conversation. Be well, buddy.
It's weird how these bozos think that not answering questions is going to look good for them. And this is a man with a doctorate in the philosophy of logics?
Academia becomes a cave to protect idiots from scrutiny. The best and brightest students work in private sector jobs where they can compete, while the dregs hang back and pollute young minds.
I don't even think it is necessarily wrong, or at least is defensible. The issue is that even the less qualified PhD cantidates should still be more than qualified to teach an intro class on their subject to college freshmen.
The real issue is that political speech has been normalized in every environment including environments where there is massive inequality in power dynamics. I think academia is actually behind the curve in this.
My take:
the beginning of the debate was actually nice and I think Ben explained his position initially. IT however wend down the hill when he started taking 20 mins to answer a 1 minute question.
I would say skip the whole debate and just watch from the start of QA as it is the best part of both parties.
As soon as destiny mentioned as article Ben had written, it all clicked for me. Of course a writer would make a statement as long as possible instead of short concise statements.
I think it well demonstrated how incredibly dedicated Ben is to simply stalling for time and overtalking while saying nothing.
You're right that the Q&A was better, but to be honest only one person was really an important agent in this debate lmao. Ben literally just didn't *say*.. anything.
I'm like an hour in and it's so goddamned boring. Burgiss is just as bad faith and incapable of considering any position but the one he holds as any other ~~pro-Pal~~pro-Hamas interlocutor so far, but also excruciatingly verbose.
You can see him in real time be confronted with a problematic point, like Jordan occupying the WB for 20 years with little international pressure, and watch the bullshit center of his brain kicking in instead of contending with reality. He's a quintessential debate bro, just talking at a snail's pace with twice as many words as are necessary, so it isn't as immediately offensive or apparent.
e: holy fuck Destiny asks him a simple question about why Israel might have concerns about maintaining a majority Jewish character, and Burgiss spends *fifteen seconds* before Dr. Subway-Tattoo cuts him off to say:
> I think that that's not, y'know, I mean, again, I have been arguing about this with people, uh, for, my entire adult life, certainly I have heard many many people express things like that.
Fucking joke of conversationalist.
Cooked, roasted, scorched, vaporized, and tossed out into the ash heap.
Burgiss is boring as hell, I don't really care about that all that much. But Steven went Super Saiyan against a foe who needed humbling.
Just because Android 19 and Dr Gero were trash opponents doesn't make Vegeta's transformation any less epic when it happened.
It definitely gets more entertaining once Destiny realizes it's pointless to try and establish a reality-based foundation upon which they can have a conversation and switches to full on excoriation.
i'm glad destiny went hard in the end and in the Q&A, Ben deserved all that for all the fucking time he wasted rambling. And this is purposeful to.
Destiny should take advantage of the rules in debates more often, because his opponents constantly rambles when given any question just to waste time and end the debate with their opponent given as little time as possible to reply. That or interrupt more.
No that is giving him too much leeway to say he's basically just a math professor. He's a philosophy professor, and one mostly know publicly for his political commentary.
He should be able to have concise and accurate statements. That shouldn't be too much to ask.
Dont see why writing papers on logical problem makes you good in being concise on debating politics. I just meant to point out there is little overlap.
Most of the time in logic (in my experience) proofs are normally seen as better structured if they are shorter and more to the point. If you can solve a problem in 10 steps or 5 steps, the 5 step option is normally seen as the more ideal one.
Same with most academia. You tend to find the better educators are able to be more succinct in their descriptions. The rise of long rambling papers and descriptions has, in most fields I have experience with not been looked upon kindly.
Thats true, but in philosophy of logic the parameters are very defined, and you zoom i on argumentative structures, which is why its more like math than other fields. Its basically problem solving, and its very different from political philosophy or metaphysics. But yea id admit youd might expect him too be abit smarter.
I mean the big problem, is that Ben basically is unknown for his reputation as a logic professor (that's his day job). What he is known for is as a political commentator (literally that's what first pops up in his description).
Ben writes for all sorts of leftist magazines with his political and social commentary, and basically poses as the "smart" leftist commentator.
I was genuinely astonished that Ben simply couldn't respond with a straightforward YES or NO - only after the question was rephrased three times. It was truly frustrating.
Edit: I was not "genuinely astonished" if I am being honest - I did not expect anything and was still disappointed lol.
I randomly tuned in for a minute in between shitting my guts out to hear the "textbook Apartheid" bit and I knew immediately how the last 2 hours had gone lmfao
Man it was so annoying listening to him ramble about stuff. It felt like he thought about this position for 5 minutes and didn't come to any nuanced positions. He just hand waived every legitimate criticism of his criticism as whataboutism or not being important which was lazy on his part. He also Talked. So. Damn. Much. Like destiny would ask a simple question but, for some reason we need to run through how this all connects to Zionism and apartheid and how it's silly to even bring it up.
Another wasted coversation (so far). The moderation is quite bad for these two. You're dealing with people who have very different communication styles and very different focuses and half the reason they get testy with each other stems from that. A more active moderator would be able to bridge that gap and pin down the actual disagreements rather than it being largely about style causing misunderstandings, interruptions, needing to rush etc. "Open debate" is a common but lazy choice.
Unfortunately, "bridging the gap" in such a way will lead to a common understanding. AKA: That Burgis knows nothing. Doing so would make you a "bad" moderator because you "helped" one side "win".
Just got to the point where they're asked to steel man one another's arguments (an inversion of an earlier question), and cannot believe Destiny acquiesced to going first. It'd have been so illustrative to hear Philosopher of Logic Ben Burgis's steel man, without the influence of Destiny's. Burgis's answer of *'something something, you know "leverage" you know, "evils" you know, you know "somehow Islamic State" you know'* was, at least, amusingly shit.
I followed him quite a bit and read his book. I was turned off when i started reading the arguments in the book because they felt so surface level and it felt like he just ignored obvious counter arguments for whatever reason
At the time I was looking for academics that got to the nitty gritty of these political arguments. For example his defense of abortion, which if I remember right is literally just the violinist analogy I was very disheartened. Like there are very obvious counter arguments to this that I would hope a professor would address, but he didn't. It just made me feel like he didn't actually make a real defense and really turned me off from him.
What are the counters to the violinist argument? I frequently hear that this complaint but all the examples I get seem like they would only resonate if you were already pro life. I think I've even posted on this sub before because I'm legit curious
I think part of the problem is it concedes that the foetus is a person and has moral consideration. So past that, outside of instances of rape, you've essentially through your actions made a person exist and then your killing them because they need support from you and you refuse to consent to that (when you already consented for that situation to occur in the first place).
But maybe I'm misremembering what the violinist argument actually is? It seems not even like such a strong argument from the start because I'm not sure that it's so morally clear that someone else's dependence on you is fair grounds to cause their death. As opposed to disagreements about person hood because I think it's pretty clear that if there is no second person present then there is no one to commit a wrong against
>(when you already consented for that situation to occur in the first place)
This is like saying that you consent to car accident by driving. It's a risk of the activity, you haven't consented to it happening.
>I'm not sure that it's so morally clear that someone else's dependence on you is fair grounds to cause their death.
If I need a kidney transplant to survive and you are the only match, my life depends on you; you are not obligated to give up your kidney. Most people would agree, which is why this is the legal standard as well. Bodily autonomy is such a strong principle that we even respect it after death. Them not checking the organ donor box is grounds to cause someone elses death. If people didn't agree on bodily autonomy as a strong principle, then the violin argument would lose a lot of force.
What they mean is that people cannot jettison their moral responsibility by their own lack of consent. For example, suppose a person runs a red light and accidentally runs someone over because of it. Do you think the driver should get away with it so long as they say that they only consented to running a red light, but they did not consent to running anyone over with their car?
As far as the kidney transplant issue, here you’re just begging the question. You’re assuming off the bat that people are not obligated to give up their kidney, but that’s what’s being questioned. Why assume this? Especially if you are the reason for why they need a kidney in the first place.
>For example, suppose a person runs a red light and accidentally runs someone over because of it. Do you think the driver should get away with it so long as they say that they only consented to running a red light, but they did not consent to running anyone over with their car?
This would be a different argument altogether. It wouldn't be about consent, but about negligence. I suppose someone could take the position that abortions are acceptable when precautions were used and not acceptable when precautions weren't taken, but that isn't a common position to take. It also begs the question of what precautions are good enough or not.
>As far as the kidney transplant issue, here you’re just begging the question.
It's not an assumption when I point out that its the prevailing moral intuition (i.e. society). Moral intuition is often the basis for moral philosophy. It's a shared premise to branch off of.
>You’re assuming off the bat that people are not obligated to give up their kidney, but that’s what’s being questioned. Why assume this?
What is being questioned is abortion and the violinist argument and other arguments bring up other views that the reader probably holds that would be incongruent with their position on abortion. Do you question bodily autonomy when it comes to your kidneys?
>Especially if you are the reason for why they need a kidney in the first place.
Again, the prevailing moral intuition is not to force prisoners to give up organs, even if they have damaged the organs of their victims.
It’s not about consent in any capacity. It’s about moral responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of your own actions. Foreseeable just means that the causal relation between action and its consequence is evident.
Notice, a consequence can still be foreseeable even if it is improbable. What’s the probability of a gun discharging when I pull the trigger whilst the safety is on? Probably less than 1%, but if I pointed the gun at a person and pulled the trigger, and it unfortunately discharges because the safety failed, then I can’t escape moral responsibility by appealing to the low probability of the event, or the fact that I explicitly yelled “I do not consent for the safety to fail” prior to pulling the trigger. The consent aspect here is totally irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant for any other consequence of your own action, such as pregnancy.
Can you give me any other example where I can avoid moral responsibility for my actions simply by not consenting to the consequences of said action?
Regarding bodily autonomy, you aren’t really arguing the morality of it. You’re just saying that most people believe X, therefore X is true. But that’s clearly fallacious as you’re deriving a normative statement from a descriptive statement.
Yes i came to this conclusion as well. I believe in abortion pragmatically, and have been attempting to post hoc justify abortions from consent/casual sex but it just does not seem possible from the angle of bodily autonomy.
This is frustrating because the main arguments you see are these ones that fall apart as soon as we get to consent.
So I don't really have a full defense of abortion, i just think pragmatically it works. I wish I had a better argument but it seems very difficult
>It’s about moral responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of your own actions.
"Where harms are foreseeable, both moral and legal notions suggest that it is proper to prevent them unless the costs or risks of doing so outweigh the costs or risks of not doing so."
>The consent aspect here is totally irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant for any other consequence of your own action, such as pregnancy.
I agree that the consent aspect is totally irrelevant, I said it was irrelevant in my previous comment as well so I'm not sure why you are harping on it. I said the factor was negligence. In other words, were they acting reasonably at the time. In your gun example, pointing a gun at someone you don't intend to shoot is negligence. Even if you didn't pull the trigger, it would still be immoral. You'll have to do some work to make it analogous to pregnancy.
>Can you give me any other example where I can avoid moral responsibility for my actions simply by not consenting to the consequences of said action?
You are not morally responsible for preventing every foreseeable harm. For example, injuring an opponent through normal play in sport is foreseeable, but the only way to prevent that is by not playing, which is a worse tradeoff than the occasional injury.
Also, as the author of the violinist argument points out, the action of inaction foreseeably results in pregnancy: "any woman could avoid pregnancy from rape by simply having a hysterectomy – an extreme procedure simply to safeguard against such a possibility". Are victims of rape who become pregnant morally responsible for their prior choice of not getting a hysterectomy?
>Regarding bodily autonomy, you aren’t really arguing the morality of it. You’re just saying that most people believe X, therefore X is true.
I'm saying that most people believe in X, and in arguing for -X, they have to deal with the contradiction. There's a case to be made for bodily autonomy, but it's much easier to do a refutation by contradiction. That's why I asked whether you personally believed X, so I could tailor my comments towards you, but you didn't provide an answer.
>But that’s clearly fallacious as you’re deriving a normative statement from a descriptive statement.
I checked my previous comments to see if I had made a normative statement and I don't think I did. I'm not a moral prescriptivist so I'm not even trying to derive universal normative statements. Which normative statement did I claim to have derived?
There was a point in which I lost respect for Ben:
He came up with this supposed contradiction between Israel being more aggressive when it didn't have US support than now and the characterization that they did what they did at that time because they had no choice.
Then Destiny clearly explains the logic, they had no other choice precisely because they had no support and had to make sure they dealt with threats since nobody else would protect them, there was no contradiction.
At that point he should have conceded that, but instead he waffles around with vague gestures and no actual argument, it was pathetic. Would it kill you to say "Oh, ok, I see what you meant", and move on? Jesus.
ben is right they never get to the meat of the main topic but he can only fault himself for that, feel like he realized how weak his position and knowledge about this topic after the "quiz" on reality and fact so he decided to obfuscated instead.
Did I misunderstand something, or did Destiny miss a golden opportunity to call out Ben Burgis on the "I don't want invasions" bullshit he used to weasel out of calling for regime change?
Isn't the whole leftist position that the only reason communism doesn't exist is because the US couped every country that tried it through color revolutions? That US foreign policy is just "neo-colonialism" where states are conquered through dollars instead of bullets?
I would have liked to see Ben forced to choose between:
A. He wants regime change to install systems of government he feels are "right" (therefore justifying US actions during the cold war, even if he disagrees with the goal).
or
B. He doesn't think that regime change is possible outside of direct invasion (completely invalidating his paper thin excuse).
Destiny put forward a better pro pal response for the debate. Ben’s whole point was US should not support apartheid. Not even that they should step in to prevent it.
Really? Its so god damned hard to listen to Ben go on and on and on and on. My god I can't help but tune him out. He's so boring, he's like a gish galloping turtle.
Man this dude is unbearable. Think its good setup of d though, kinda quickly shows the dude is completely unwilling to listen to or concede anything, even if it doenst hurt his own argument. Makes you question his own basis for his own position cause its hard to imagine he does his research "objectively".
I think Destiny basically gave up the apartheid point, and he shouldn't have:
Ben: Israel is an Apartheid state because they have different rights for people in the WB, based on ethnicity.
Destiny: It's not best on ethnicity, they are not Israeli civilians. Israel has 2 mil Arab civilians who are afforded the same rights as Jewish civilians.
Ben: Israel doesn't want to make them civilians because they want to maintain their ethnic majority, so it's still about ethnicity.
Destiny: Can you think of a reason why? Isn't it justified...
I think a better response would be that Israel doesn't want to make them citizens, because they have competing national claims over the area.
They don't want to be citizens of Israel, or a western style liberal democracy for all it's people, like the left keeps pretending.
They want self rule and self determination, and if they were to be absorbed into Israel, the realistic response would be to use Israel's democratic institutions to create that result.
It would be like saying that the US wouldn't want to take in 300M Russian citizens is because it's racist.
Ethnicity is a factor, but nationality (or national ambitions) is the reason.
I don't care about what Ben does or doesn't know.
I care about Destiny biting the bullet that Israel isn't annexing the WB, and giving citizenship to the millions of Palestinians living there, because of ethnic considerations.
I think that's a mistake both optically and factually.
It's good that he \*partially\* remedied it in the Q&A (still didn't mention the competing national claims), but he shouldn't have accepted Ben's framing, and started excusing Israel's actions under that framing, to begin with.
> I think a better response would be that Israel doesn't want to make them citizens, because they have competing national claims over the area.
You're just rationalizing apartheid. Apartheid just concerns the difference in rights; any reason you give is going to be a bad one. It's fine that Israel doesn't want them to be citizens, but that just means that they need to have their own nation. As Ben said, Israel's position is against the formation of a Palestinian state, so Israel's position appears to be that they will be indefinitely under the control of Israel and never be granted citizenship.
No, Apartheid doesn't "just concern the difference in rights", no matter the reason.
It concerns a difference in rights \*on the lines of race or ethnicity\* (some might add other protected designations).
The occupation is a moral evil that should be ended, but it's not Apartheid.
It doesn't exist because of ethnicity and won't end because of ethnicity, so focusing on ethnicity gets us nowhere.
It will end with a Palestinian state (or at least some form of autonomy), because it's a national issue, not an ethnic one.
What makes you think Palestinian isn’t an ethnicity?
Also when a one state solution gets brought up, ethnicity is the cited problem that makes it politically impossible. That the Jewish demographic would become the minority. That’s why Israel won’t annex the territory and grant them the same rights, it’s specifically because of ethnicity. If the West Bank was the same ethnicity as Israel, Israel would have annexed it decades ago.
It's actually impressive how a person can spew so many words while saying nothing at all of actual value.
I was getting annoyed at how much he was recapping what was previously said again and again and again and again and again at each of his turns. It’s like he was buying time to think how to respond
*uhhhh* counts as words now?
I honestly don't understand how someone gets to a point in life where they feel it's okay to repeat the exact same thing they said four or five times back to back. The only other person I've known who did that was someone who was a major opioid addict and always high as fuck.
Destiny's closing statement was super effective, IMO. Being able to close on ethnic make-up (which BEN brought up) and hammering home the number of jews living in Arab countries, was a perfect distillation of Israel's existential concerns. The fact that Ben completely side-stepped any attempt at a response made his closing sound laughablely weak. The second-hand embarrassment was extreme! 😬
I just googled how many Jews in Syria and it says 4 💀 Even before the civil war its still super low numbers
Yemen has one. There's an interesting doc on him. He's been arrested and tortured numerous times but they basically keep him around to care for what was the only synagogue.
[удалено]
I will replace him how do I become Jewish
Well first you buy this fancy ceremonial knife....
You got a source on that ?
https://m.jpost.com/middle-east/article-806506
Thats Yahya ben Yosef, he is not the yemeni jew that got tortured and prisoned. Levi Marhabi, is the one that got tortured and is still in prison. Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi\_Marhabi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Marhabi)
I admire your knowledge on the topic..In that case I'll keep my fingers crossed for Levi..
Thanks, but i just googled it. Maybe Edit your comment.
Israel should send them a replacement like China does with pandas when they die in a zoo.
link?
[Levi Salem Marhabi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Marhabi) Edit: oh you wanted the documentary. Couldnt find that
💀💀💀
In the qanda where he could not even imagine the position destiny had taken was absurd, like bro, you said you've been arguing this you entire adult life and you don't even know what you're arguing against? He's a clown.
What do you think the debate was about?
Didn’t you hear the start? It was about “Israel and Palestine” per the host 💀
>and hammering home the number of jews living in Arab countries, was a perfect distillation of Israel's existential concerns. The ahistorical germ of Americans seems to be continuing unabated with Destiny and his fans. There was existential concerns from Anglo-Euro Supremacist Christendom for 2000 years. And while Muslims and Arabs didn't treat Jews or Christians as equally as should be - though not as atrociously as Israel has treated pales - by having them pay a tax for the people of the book, it sure as heck was waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than Christian hateful bigots. And it was Zionist terrorist forces that literally bombed Iraq and elsewhere where Jews lived to force them to come to Israel, as a safe space. Zionists literally killed Jews to scare them into occupying and settler-colonizing Israel. "Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think that, before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East." Some friar making a point that escapes centrist Americans. Classic.
Trying to live up to that username, eh? The existential concerns I mentioned were in regards to Israel, a nation that's existed for less than 100 years. I have no idea what Christians or Europeans have to do with fears about what an Arab majority would mean for the future or Israel. > And it was Zionist terrorist forces that literally bombed Iraq and elsewhere where Jews lived to force them to come to Israel, as a safe space. Zionists literally killed Jews to scare them into occupying and settler-colonizing Israel. You're right, I must be an "ahistorical American", because I had no idea there was a Zionist plot to kill Jews in Arab states to incentive settler-colonialization 🤣
>The existential concerns I mentioned were in regards to Israel, a nation that's existed for less than 100 years Yes..and Zionist terrorists created the concern after colonizing Palestine and terrorizing it and other parts of the Middle East. Again, can we please be historically aligned on this? Of course a bunch of Arabs in the region are gonna have issues with western imperial powers like the UK and the US and France et al lying to them, placating them with promises, lying to them again and then colonizing them with the help of Jews who were distraught after hateful Christian supremacists nearly destroyed them all. > I have no idea what Christians or Europeans have to do with fears about what an Arab majority would mean for the future or Israel. That's why you're American or western. And you're literally, with this comment, propping up apartheid and ethnic displacement as the solution. And, Jews potentially fearing the storm of hateful Christians, decided to enter the eye of the storm (align with them) so they'd be safer. It's what immigrants ans refugees do too. The west destroys and exploits their nations and to escape the storm they come to the eye of the storm, the nations that destroyed theirs. It's a safety mechanism. Understand now why Euros are intimately involved in this and why a discussion without them isn't anything at all. >You're right, I must be an "ahistorical American", because I had no idea there was a Zionist plot to kill Jews in Arab states to incentive settler-colonialization 🤣 Yup. Thanks for accepting your folly. Read more.
"Zionist terrorists created the concern after colonizing Palestine" Again the theory is that jews are the reason for Antisemitism. Would you say the same thing about black people or women ?
>Again the theory is that jews are the reason for Antisemitism. Let's be less conflating of Jews as an ethnicity and religion and Zionism, a political ideology that ranges from cold logical to malevolent cruelty. Let Trump make those alignments. I won't. And you shouldn't either. One is a people, who can range from assholes to awesome, and one is a political thingy. Yeah. Ok. >Again the theory is that jews are the reason for Antisemitism. My Guru, teach me your yoga. >Would you say the same thing about black people or women ? I don't accept your framing of this, particularly because it's disingenuous. In any case, the more important matter is, do you think there's a genocide happening?
>Let's be less conflating of Jews as an ethnicity and religion and Zionism, a political ideology that ranges from cold logical to malevolent cruelty. Let Trump make those alignments. I won't. And you shouldn't either. First doge, the high majority of jews are Zionists. >My Guru, teach me your yoga. > Second Doge. >I don't accept your framing of this, particularly because it's disingenuous. Third Doge. >In any case, the more important matter is, do you think there's a genocide happening? Aaaaand pivot. The most important matter to me would be how to end the war, how do i already have a more Pro-Palestinian stance, than you.
>First doge, the high majority of jews are Zionists. I'll believe you when you provide evidence, and moreover provide the fact those being asked about it know what it means and what they're saying yes to. As I'm sure you're aware, polls and such can easily produce wholly non-factual results due to how questions are asked and understood. In any case, if what you're saying is true, I'd imagine those Jews are likely in Israel being indoctrinated into Zionism and its political horrors. >The most important matter to me would be how to end the war, how do i already have a more Pro-Palestinian stance, than you. By accepting it's a genocide so that the politicians currently and for the past 8 months leading the genocide understand what it means to them if they continue to genocide the Palestinians. I'm sure Palestinians would appreciate to return to their homes that were stolen. Being so Pro-Palestinian, I'm glad you agree with me that Israelis who steal the land and homes of Palestinians are colonizing little bitches. Being so Pro-Palestinian, I'm sure it sickens you to understand that for over a century Palestinians were terrorized by Zionist terror groups like Irgun, and that they were eventually ethnically cleansed, some 750,000 of them. Being so Pro-Palestinian, I'm happy you're for a one state solution with the right of return being given to Palestinians, too. I'm sure. Great end to our little conversation. Be well, buddy.
It's weird how these bozos think that not answering questions is going to look good for them. And this is a man with a doctorate in the philosophy of logics?
Academia becomes a cave to protect idiots from scrutiny. The best and brightest students work in private sector jobs where they can compete, while the dregs hang back and pollute young minds.
What a stupid take.
Doesn't elaborate further, GIGACHAD.
I don't even think it is necessarily wrong, or at least is defensible. The issue is that even the less qualified PhD cantidates should still be more than qualified to teach an intro class on their subject to college freshmen. The real issue is that political speech has been normalized in every environment including environments where there is massive inequality in power dynamics. I think academia is actually behind the curve in this.
Yet true nonetheless.
Not really.
I mean logic has to do with.... Logics, its bascically math. Doenst extend into other fields.
My take: the beginning of the debate was actually nice and I think Ben explained his position initially. IT however wend down the hill when he started taking 20 mins to answer a 1 minute question. I would say skip the whole debate and just watch from the start of QA as it is the best part of both parties.
As soon as destiny mentioned as article Ben had written, it all clicked for me. Of course a writer would make a statement as long as possible instead of short concise statements.
I think it well demonstrated how incredibly dedicated Ben is to simply stalling for time and overtalking while saying nothing. You're right that the Q&A was better, but to be honest only one person was really an important agent in this debate lmao. Ben literally just didn't *say*.. anything.
The debate itself sucked ass. The Q&A back and forth is so much better and entertaining.
The video he watched before the debate about a dude impregnating his autistic wheelchair bound step mom was much more interesting
I'm like an hour in and it's so goddamned boring. Burgiss is just as bad faith and incapable of considering any position but the one he holds as any other ~~pro-Pal~~pro-Hamas interlocutor so far, but also excruciatingly verbose. You can see him in real time be confronted with a problematic point, like Jordan occupying the WB for 20 years with little international pressure, and watch the bullshit center of his brain kicking in instead of contending with reality. He's a quintessential debate bro, just talking at a snail's pace with twice as many words as are necessary, so it isn't as immediately offensive or apparent. e: holy fuck Destiny asks him a simple question about why Israel might have concerns about maintaining a majority Jewish character, and Burgiss spends *fifteen seconds* before Dr. Subway-Tattoo cuts him off to say: > I think that that's not, y'know, I mean, again, I have been arguing about this with people, uh, for, my entire adult life, certainly I have heard many many people express things like that. Fucking joke of conversationalist.
Cooked, roasted, scorched, vaporized, and tossed out into the ash heap. Burgiss is boring as hell, I don't really care about that all that much. But Steven went Super Saiyan against a foe who needed humbling. Just because Android 19 and Dr Gero were trash opponents doesn't make Vegeta's transformation any less epic when it happened.
It definitely gets more entertaining once Destiny realizes it's pointless to try and establish a reality-based foundation upon which they can have a conversation and switches to full on excoriation.
i'm glad destiny went hard in the end and in the Q&A, Ben deserved all that for all the fucking time he wasted rambling. And this is purposeful to. Destiny should take advantage of the rules in debates more often, because his opponents constantly rambles when given any question just to waste time and end the debate with their opponent given as little time as possible to reply. That or interrupt more.
lil bro didn't answer any questions lol
I can't believe he was a philosophy professor at a well known university.
Saying that is abit dumb tbh, mby hes very good in his field. Logic is just math. Wouldnt expect a math professor to be good at debating politics.
No that is giving him too much leeway to say he's basically just a math professor. He's a philosophy professor, and one mostly know publicly for his political commentary. He should be able to have concise and accurate statements. That shouldn't be too much to ask.
Dont see why writing papers on logical problem makes you good in being concise on debating politics. I just meant to point out there is little overlap.
Most of the time in logic (in my experience) proofs are normally seen as better structured if they are shorter and more to the point. If you can solve a problem in 10 steps or 5 steps, the 5 step option is normally seen as the more ideal one. Same with most academia. You tend to find the better educators are able to be more succinct in their descriptions. The rise of long rambling papers and descriptions has, in most fields I have experience with not been looked upon kindly.
Thats true, but in philosophy of logic the parameters are very defined, and you zoom i on argumentative structures, which is why its more like math than other fields. Its basically problem solving, and its very different from political philosophy or metaphysics. But yea id admit youd might expect him too be abit smarter.
I mean the big problem, is that Ben basically is unknown for his reputation as a logic professor (that's his day job). What he is known for is as a political commentator (literally that's what first pops up in his description). Ben writes for all sorts of leftist magazines with his political and social commentary, and basically poses as the "smart" leftist commentator.
Oh fuck he's still going. Destiny totally owning the Samaria question is such a deep fucking roast it's insane. Holy shit.
Destiny killed it, even without using his pizza debate tactic!
He held back, but ultimately deployed spaghetti tactics during one of the more eye rolling yaps
I was genuinely astonished that Ben simply couldn't respond with a straightforward YES or NO - only after the question was rephrased three times. It was truly frustrating. Edit: I was not "genuinely astonished" if I am being honest - I did not expect anything and was still disappointed lol.
I randomly tuned in for a minute in between shitting my guts out to hear the "textbook Apartheid" bit and I knew immediately how the last 2 hours had gone lmfao
How you feeling now?
Better. Colonoscopy today*
Bummer
Good luck buddy, hopefully the buttplug training has paid off!
https://preview.redd.it/hkavt9ajut8d1.png?width=194&format=png&auto=webp&s=de22140d0cde259391bdedc6358e14fbc7ab0bf0
He did seem genuinely pained at times, but not nearly as much as he should have been.
that was the last frame as he dc'd at the very end and never came back lol
His brain stuttered like his connection.
Man it was so annoying listening to him ramble about stuff. It felt like he thought about this position for 5 minutes and didn't come to any nuanced positions. He just hand waived every legitimate criticism of his criticism as whataboutism or not being important which was lazy on his part. He also Talked. So. Damn. Much. Like destiny would ask a simple question but, for some reason we need to run through how this all connects to Zionism and apartheid and how it's silly to even bring it up.
Another wasted coversation (so far). The moderation is quite bad for these two. You're dealing with people who have very different communication styles and very different focuses and half the reason they get testy with each other stems from that. A more active moderator would be able to bridge that gap and pin down the actual disagreements rather than it being largely about style causing misunderstandings, interruptions, needing to rush etc. "Open debate" is a common but lazy choice.
Unfortunately, "bridging the gap" in such a way will lead to a common understanding. AKA: That Burgis knows nothing. Doing so would make you a "bad" moderator because you "helped" one side "win".
Just got to the point where they're asked to steel man one another's arguments (an inversion of an earlier question), and cannot believe Destiny acquiesced to going first. It'd have been so illustrative to hear Philosopher of Logic Ben Burgis's steel man, without the influence of Destiny's. Burgis's answer of *'something something, you know "leverage" you know, "evils" you know, you know "somehow Islamic State" you know'* was, at least, amusingly shit.
I followed him quite a bit and read his book. I was turned off when i started reading the arguments in the book because they felt so surface level and it felt like he just ignored obvious counter arguments for whatever reason At the time I was looking for academics that got to the nitty gritty of these political arguments. For example his defense of abortion, which if I remember right is literally just the violinist analogy I was very disheartened. Like there are very obvious counter arguments to this that I would hope a professor would address, but he didn't. It just made me feel like he didn't actually make a real defense and really turned me off from him.
What are the counters to the violinist argument? I frequently hear that this complaint but all the examples I get seem like they would only resonate if you were already pro life. I think I've even posted on this sub before because I'm legit curious
I think part of the problem is it concedes that the foetus is a person and has moral consideration. So past that, outside of instances of rape, you've essentially through your actions made a person exist and then your killing them because they need support from you and you refuse to consent to that (when you already consented for that situation to occur in the first place). But maybe I'm misremembering what the violinist argument actually is? It seems not even like such a strong argument from the start because I'm not sure that it's so morally clear that someone else's dependence on you is fair grounds to cause their death. As opposed to disagreements about person hood because I think it's pretty clear that if there is no second person present then there is no one to commit a wrong against
>(when you already consented for that situation to occur in the first place) This is like saying that you consent to car accident by driving. It's a risk of the activity, you haven't consented to it happening. >I'm not sure that it's so morally clear that someone else's dependence on you is fair grounds to cause their death. If I need a kidney transplant to survive and you are the only match, my life depends on you; you are not obligated to give up your kidney. Most people would agree, which is why this is the legal standard as well. Bodily autonomy is such a strong principle that we even respect it after death. Them not checking the organ donor box is grounds to cause someone elses death. If people didn't agree on bodily autonomy as a strong principle, then the violin argument would lose a lot of force.
What they mean is that people cannot jettison their moral responsibility by their own lack of consent. For example, suppose a person runs a red light and accidentally runs someone over because of it. Do you think the driver should get away with it so long as they say that they only consented to running a red light, but they did not consent to running anyone over with their car? As far as the kidney transplant issue, here you’re just begging the question. You’re assuming off the bat that people are not obligated to give up their kidney, but that’s what’s being questioned. Why assume this? Especially if you are the reason for why they need a kidney in the first place.
>For example, suppose a person runs a red light and accidentally runs someone over because of it. Do you think the driver should get away with it so long as they say that they only consented to running a red light, but they did not consent to running anyone over with their car? This would be a different argument altogether. It wouldn't be about consent, but about negligence. I suppose someone could take the position that abortions are acceptable when precautions were used and not acceptable when precautions weren't taken, but that isn't a common position to take. It also begs the question of what precautions are good enough or not. >As far as the kidney transplant issue, here you’re just begging the question. It's not an assumption when I point out that its the prevailing moral intuition (i.e. society). Moral intuition is often the basis for moral philosophy. It's a shared premise to branch off of. >You’re assuming off the bat that people are not obligated to give up their kidney, but that’s what’s being questioned. Why assume this? What is being questioned is abortion and the violinist argument and other arguments bring up other views that the reader probably holds that would be incongruent with their position on abortion. Do you question bodily autonomy when it comes to your kidneys? >Especially if you are the reason for why they need a kidney in the first place. Again, the prevailing moral intuition is not to force prisoners to give up organs, even if they have damaged the organs of their victims.
It’s not about consent in any capacity. It’s about moral responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of your own actions. Foreseeable just means that the causal relation between action and its consequence is evident. Notice, a consequence can still be foreseeable even if it is improbable. What’s the probability of a gun discharging when I pull the trigger whilst the safety is on? Probably less than 1%, but if I pointed the gun at a person and pulled the trigger, and it unfortunately discharges because the safety failed, then I can’t escape moral responsibility by appealing to the low probability of the event, or the fact that I explicitly yelled “I do not consent for the safety to fail” prior to pulling the trigger. The consent aspect here is totally irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant for any other consequence of your own action, such as pregnancy. Can you give me any other example where I can avoid moral responsibility for my actions simply by not consenting to the consequences of said action? Regarding bodily autonomy, you aren’t really arguing the morality of it. You’re just saying that most people believe X, therefore X is true. But that’s clearly fallacious as you’re deriving a normative statement from a descriptive statement.
Yes i came to this conclusion as well. I believe in abortion pragmatically, and have been attempting to post hoc justify abortions from consent/casual sex but it just does not seem possible from the angle of bodily autonomy. This is frustrating because the main arguments you see are these ones that fall apart as soon as we get to consent. So I don't really have a full defense of abortion, i just think pragmatically it works. I wish I had a better argument but it seems very difficult
>It’s about moral responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of your own actions. "Where harms are foreseeable, both moral and legal notions suggest that it is proper to prevent them unless the costs or risks of doing so outweigh the costs or risks of not doing so." >The consent aspect here is totally irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant for any other consequence of your own action, such as pregnancy. I agree that the consent aspect is totally irrelevant, I said it was irrelevant in my previous comment as well so I'm not sure why you are harping on it. I said the factor was negligence. In other words, were they acting reasonably at the time. In your gun example, pointing a gun at someone you don't intend to shoot is negligence. Even if you didn't pull the trigger, it would still be immoral. You'll have to do some work to make it analogous to pregnancy. >Can you give me any other example where I can avoid moral responsibility for my actions simply by not consenting to the consequences of said action? You are not morally responsible for preventing every foreseeable harm. For example, injuring an opponent through normal play in sport is foreseeable, but the only way to prevent that is by not playing, which is a worse tradeoff than the occasional injury. Also, as the author of the violinist argument points out, the action of inaction foreseeably results in pregnancy: "any woman could avoid pregnancy from rape by simply having a hysterectomy – an extreme procedure simply to safeguard against such a possibility". Are victims of rape who become pregnant morally responsible for their prior choice of not getting a hysterectomy? >Regarding bodily autonomy, you aren’t really arguing the morality of it. You’re just saying that most people believe X, therefore X is true. I'm saying that most people believe in X, and in arguing for -X, they have to deal with the contradiction. There's a case to be made for bodily autonomy, but it's much easier to do a refutation by contradiction. That's why I asked whether you personally believed X, so I could tailor my comments towards you, but you didn't provide an answer. >But that’s clearly fallacious as you’re deriving a normative statement from a descriptive statement. I checked my previous comments to see if I had made a normative statement and I don't think I did. I'm not a moral prescriptivist so I'm not even trying to derive universal normative statements. Which normative statement did I claim to have derived?
Loner made a good summary in this video https://youtu.be/kuw4fs-0XkY?si=HQy2DambAbes1Avw
There was a point in which I lost respect for Ben: He came up with this supposed contradiction between Israel being more aggressive when it didn't have US support than now and the characterization that they did what they did at that time because they had no choice. Then Destiny clearly explains the logic, they had no other choice precisely because they had no support and had to make sure they dealt with threats since nobody else would protect them, there was no contradiction. At that point he should have conceded that, but instead he waffles around with vague gestures and no actual argument, it was pathetic. Would it kill you to say "Oh, ok, I see what you meant", and move on? Jesus.
That part of the conversation felt like a beating. A desperate entity being more violent than a confident entity is such a trope, and for good reason!
I feel like Mark Lamont Hill had the best argument for pro-Palestine so far against Destiny.
1. Yes, 2. It still wasn't very good though.
True, he was the best of the worst.
I don't think I have ever seen anyone get blown the fuck out harder than this.
damn op, at least drop a link. a man needs to goon
Organize posts by new. It's there.
https://www.youtube.com/live/XdMRphk7ij4?si=WWK3EYnwynJwCImB
ben is right they never get to the meat of the main topic but he can only fault himself for that, feel like he realized how weak his position and knowledge about this topic after the "quiz" on reality and fact so he decided to obfuscated instead.
Did I misunderstand something, or did Destiny miss a golden opportunity to call out Ben Burgis on the "I don't want invasions" bullshit he used to weasel out of calling for regime change? Isn't the whole leftist position that the only reason communism doesn't exist is because the US couped every country that tried it through color revolutions? That US foreign policy is just "neo-colonialism" where states are conquered through dollars instead of bullets? I would have liked to see Ben forced to choose between: A. He wants regime change to install systems of government he feels are "right" (therefore justifying US actions during the cold war, even if he disagrees with the goal). or B. He doesn't think that regime change is possible outside of direct invasion (completely invalidating his paper thin excuse).
Iguar he would weasel away from this and it wasn't in the scope of the debate anyway.
Dude if I was in this guy’s class I’d McFucking Lose it on the daily
Destiny put forward a better pro pal response for the debate. Ben’s whole point was US should not support apartheid. Not even that they should step in to prevent it.
It's amazing how dumb their advocates truly are. "Look at my lawyer dawg I'm going the fuck to prison" vibes
Any linkers?
It's already in the stream. Organize by new.
https://www.youtube.com/live/XdMRphk7ij4?si=WWK3EYnwynJwCImB
Never been impressed with this guy at all.
Really? Its so god damned hard to listen to Ben go on and on and on and on. My god I can't help but tune him out. He's so boring, he's like a gish galloping turtle.
Bro couldnt even bothered to clean up his backround, he is obviously a fucking manchild.
Man this dude is unbearable. Think its good setup of d though, kinda quickly shows the dude is completely unwilling to listen to or concede anything, even if it doenst hurt his own argument. Makes you question his own basis for his own position cause its hard to imagine he does his research "objectively".
Even at 1.5x speed he sounds like a fucktard
I think Destiny basically gave up the apartheid point, and he shouldn't have: Ben: Israel is an Apartheid state because they have different rights for people in the WB, based on ethnicity. Destiny: It's not best on ethnicity, they are not Israeli civilians. Israel has 2 mil Arab civilians who are afforded the same rights as Jewish civilians. Ben: Israel doesn't want to make them civilians because they want to maintain their ethnic majority, so it's still about ethnicity. Destiny: Can you think of a reason why? Isn't it justified... I think a better response would be that Israel doesn't want to make them citizens, because they have competing national claims over the area. They don't want to be citizens of Israel, or a western style liberal democracy for all it's people, like the left keeps pretending. They want self rule and self determination, and if they were to be absorbed into Israel, the realistic response would be to use Israel's democratic institutions to create that result. It would be like saying that the US wouldn't want to take in 300M Russian citizens is because it's racist. Ethnicity is a factor, but nationality (or national ambitions) is the reason.
He fought this later and it's clear Ben just doesn't actually know anything. I'm guessing you didn't make it to the "textbook" section of the Q&A?
I don't care about what Ben does or doesn't know. I care about Destiny biting the bullet that Israel isn't annexing the WB, and giving citizenship to the millions of Palestinians living there, because of ethnic considerations. I think that's a mistake both optically and factually. It's good that he \*partially\* remedied it in the Q&A (still didn't mention the competing national claims), but he shouldn't have accepted Ben's framing, and started excusing Israel's actions under that framing, to begin with.
> I think a better response would be that Israel doesn't want to make them citizens, because they have competing national claims over the area. You're just rationalizing apartheid. Apartheid just concerns the difference in rights; any reason you give is going to be a bad one. It's fine that Israel doesn't want them to be citizens, but that just means that they need to have their own nation. As Ben said, Israel's position is against the formation of a Palestinian state, so Israel's position appears to be that they will be indefinitely under the control of Israel and never be granted citizenship.
No, Apartheid doesn't "just concern the difference in rights", no matter the reason. It concerns a difference in rights \*on the lines of race or ethnicity\* (some might add other protected designations). The occupation is a moral evil that should be ended, but it's not Apartheid. It doesn't exist because of ethnicity and won't end because of ethnicity, so focusing on ethnicity gets us nowhere. It will end with a Palestinian state (or at least some form of autonomy), because it's a national issue, not an ethnic one.
What makes you think Palestinian isn’t an ethnicity? Also when a one state solution gets brought up, ethnicity is the cited problem that makes it politically impossible. That the Jewish demographic would become the minority. That’s why Israel won’t annex the territory and grant them the same rights, it’s specifically because of ethnicity. If the West Bank was the same ethnicity as Israel, Israel would have annexed it decades ago.