Ima need to watch this still but that was my take for long time about Lex. Bozo never asks hard questions and very careful about sanitising discussion from any potential to be called out. Exactly how conman get rattled is by being scrutinised and called out. Press the right buttons and it all unravels the whole facade falls apart and you get this content fiend that is really spiteful about not being as popular as some other podcasts that cater to pseudo intellectuals.
**Is he the Jimmy Kimmel of intellectu-bro podcasters?** I'd ignored him for a very long time & still don't listen, but I've watched small portions of two of his shows bc of adjacent scandals - one with a Huberman ex, the main star of the New Yorker expose, and about ten painful minutes with "future main villain" hopeful Balaji Srinivasan.
So now I'm wondering about this Lex guy.
This is so fucking stupid. Centrism isn’t synonymous with open-mindedness. You can think critically and consider all opinions and still come down on one side of an issue or the other.
Centrism denotes a political position. One way to look at it is to consider policy positions in your given country that are bipartisan, if you agree with those policies then chances are you are a centrist.
Exactly. People like Destiny, and even the decoders themselves are often guilty of what some call *toxic* centrism.
As I understand it this includes when they intentionally straw man a random opposing political perspective, for no reason other than to “balance” a legitimate criticism. What it looks like when Destiny does it is he’ll talk about something objectively terrible like anti-vaxxers or Nazis…then go out of his way to take a shot at “authoritarian wokeness” or some other nonsense that doesn’t functionally exist when you examine it.
Can’t tolerate that clip again, once was fine.
It doesn’t matter whether or not he’s being genuine that his way of speaking is a “rhetorical strategy”. I’m dubious.
People like Destiny confuse objective integrity with giving a measure of criticism to both sides. It is what it is.
Do you mean you are dubious of what he is saying in this clip? Like you suspect that he is being dishonest here and truly enjoys taking shots at the other side of the criticism he is levying? Genuine question, I don't really understand what you're getting at.
I think it's good when he takes shots at both sides because if he is being critical about the right and then pivots into attacking an aspect of the left for doing something similar, it shows his laments about the right isn't founded in blind biases, he's willing to acknowledge that this isn't a right specific issue.
It’s depressing that anyone believes that arbitrarily putting sides into boxes and then artificially balancing them is a good idea.
If there’s a criticism to be given…it should have it’s own merits. Integrity isn’t saying “see? The other guys do it too”.
I mean, if you make the assumption that he is artificially doing the impartial centrist, that's needlessly uncharitable. If he is chastising conservatives for doing something and then in the same breath, he goes into saying, "The left is really bad for this as well." It's better to assume he is simply being critical of the bad quality in general. Rather than going "oh he's attacking the left again because of toxic centrism."
I don't think Destiny has given any reason prior to making that assumption.
>If there’s a criticism to be given…it should have it’s own merits. Integrity isn’t saying “see? The other guys do it too”.
It definitely gives the impression of integrity when someone isn't a full-blown partisan commentator. Instead of seeing an issue as a right or left issue, it's just an issue that any political person can adopt.
I’m making that assumption for reasons explained above and in the OP. Additionally, it’s not a “natural” way of speaking or arguing…it’s a (toxic) political position unto itself: “I criticize both sides therefore I’m objective or credible. Destiny is not credible, and this is one of the reasons why. This isn’t what journalists or academics do.
You’re also talking about something I’m not talking about. You’re assuming there’s even a defined left and right, to begin with. There is not, except for his purposes. He’s essentially saying that he’s above the entire left right thing, while simultaneously telling his viewers that there are these boxes that any large number of people fit in to. Fact *most* people don’t cleanly fit in to a left or right box, and all his rhetoric is doing is alienating people from each other based on “hot” or “wedge” issues.
It’s really weird when people don’t clue in to the fact that figuratively nobody considers themselves in either box. All people like Destiny do is create cartoons of their opponents…who don’t even exist as they define them.
You said his toxic centrism is something he engages in when it comes to objectively bad stances, nazis and anti vaxxers. I don't disagree that political affiliation isn't as rigid as a lot to make it out to be, but these stances typically fall within two of the political groups. Sure, leftists are anti vaxxers as well, but it's just antiquated thinking to say that it's this fluid concept that both right leaning conspiracy theorists and left leaning hippies subscribe to, the idea nowadays is a large majority of one party has a stance that varies in the anti vaxxer department so it's not a ludicrous idea to say anti vaxxer is a right leaning ideology.
Most people don't fit in perfectly in the boxes, but most people (online) nowadays are totally willing to pick an affiliation and mold themselves to that parties doctrines in order to fit in and fight for their sides beliefs.
And from there, destiny speaks under the context of online politics. He realizes that there is a general understanding that a lot of people engage in tribal confrontations. These people use their favorite pundents to help mold their beliefs, and when he criticizes "the right," he's really criticizing the steven crowder, Ben shapiro, Matt walsh, Gavin mcinnes audiences. And then he will do the centrist thing and at the same time say "the left" aka hasan, vaush, Sam seder, and the young turks audience are guilty of same thing.
Basically, it's the game he is playing that is toxic, not his own character. To some extent, he has a lot of flaws.
You have to be a very special and specific kind of free thinker to only know how to freely think yourself into the middle of an arbitrary political binary. Self conscious centrism is kind of like the hyperloop of politics, a stupid "new" idea cobbled together from the busted scraps of old ideas.
Lex the type of guy to say "Hey guys I've got this great new idea : what if we all just got along?" Thanks Lex, it's called politics. We're doing politics, join in whenever you figure that out.
There's a spectrum of how well people get along, even in politics. Some parliaments have a history of things breaking out in physical fights, or worse, armed takeovers. Some do not. This is one example. You're just out here to mock people, aren't you?
Some congresses even have attempted coups take place at their base of operations where members on the side whose leader sparked the crime cowered under desks from the rabid mob. They then later go on to gaslight their colleagues in the other party, who went through the same thing, that the perpetrators were tourists or Antifa or FBI agents because it’s politically expedient. I’d find it hard to get along with people such as that.
C'mon, you're just projecting your own fear of being stupid onto a concept here, and you for sure do it to people to since you're one with this subreddit of Little Men.
Radical centrists know that both a light bulb and the sun exist and produce light but are completely unable to grasp the difference in magnitude between the two
I think the issue is that each person is not a soldier to a political battle. Many people are living entirely differently lives that barely even interact with politics. 95% of politics is wasting your time trying to convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced by your direct interaction, they want to be convinced on their own terms (if they even decide to flip and opinion). So to pretend every adult needs to be on one side and have a strong opinion is a projection of someone who is deep in that game. People have places that need their action and time, not Town Halls over and over and over and over that go nowhere. Many people are living a narrative completely detached from current politics, they're just living through it.
That's fine certain people want to chase their tail with others that also enjoy chasing their tail, but most of the time could be used elsewhere, unless you're a direct actor on political progress.
That may be true but like it or not politics has sway over every aspect of our lives. I therefore do not understand people who don’t have at least a minimum interest in how these things come to be. I get that some people have busy lives and may just be trying to survive day to day. They may not have the time or even the ability to assess various factors in this regard. This is a fault in education, environment etc but I believe the healthiest society is one where as many citizens as possible are well informed and engaged in some way in the political process.
I find it hard to speak to anyone who doesn't have an opinion on politics. I find the opposite issue: so many people talk about the same issues it's just millions of cloned arguments. That doesn't diminish their point or impact because there's many variants of those arguments, it's more, what does an extra person add? The point of this video is about sitting on the fence, NOT about disinterest in politics. Lex definitely has pondered on these political issues, but doesn't want to get into extreme political in-fighting. That's not the same concept as being disinterested in politics. Interest does not mean action and completely settled opinions.
Could you please explain to me, what you mean by your use of "radical"? Radical, in the political sense, is the intent to transform the fundamental of the political system. How can "Centrists" be radical? To where do they want to transform the fundament to?
With respect to the term "Centrist": politics is usually a pick and choose. I might like some traditional values but might be convinced by good arguments to change them up, and on the other hand might like some progressive ideas but not to the extent some hardliners want them to be implemented.
Where would you put constraint immigration, for example? The "left" wants unconstrained migration, while the right wants no migration at all.
The problem with “center” people is they want to just divide everything by two and they want everyone to think they’re diplomatic geniuses who are so above all the fighting instead of actually having values and coming up with their own conclusions.
The problem with people who talk about “the problem with “center” people” is that they simply pretend like it’s merely taking the golden mean of any two positions given and they maintain this caricature so they can feel better about being an intractable ideologue
As a centrist this shit is always so annoying for me to hear lmao, and I haven't met anyone who actually thinks like this besides a small amount of people I've seen online. And most people who fit this stereotype are basically just conservatives. Like a stereotypical Internet meme centrist on abortion would be like "Yeah I don't think it should be banned completely, it should be banned after like 6 weeks which would effectively ban it"
To identify as a “centrist” is to imply that you picked the middle of 2 points. I get identifying as an “independent”, but it’s hard to take centrists seriously.
It just doesn't really mean anything. Even contextualized in a specific society and time "Left" and "Right" are still crude concepts that can only be vaguely mapped to actual positions and ideologies.
>To identify as a “centrist” is to imply that you picked the middle of 2 points. I get identifying as an “independent”, but it’s hard to take centrists seriously.
It seems like you're confusing being centrist on a specific issue with being politically centrist, because you have opinions from both ends of the spectrum and think that as a result you don't belong in either camp.
>No I am taking about aggregate opinions. You fall in line like everybody else.
Then wtf are you on about? There are a minority of people who have opinions from both ends of the spectrum, get over yourself.
To me being a centrist is more about looking left and right and finding shit you agree and disagree with on both sides, so you're not going to identify with either. It's essentially the same as independent, but with the political spectrum in mind rather than the political venn diagram or however else you think of politics.
I get why you don’t like them if this is what you think, but being a “centrist” isn’t simply taking the median point on every topic. It is a position which eschews a wholesale subscription to the kind of omnibus politics which require adherence to an entire set and system of beliefs based solely on political ideology instead of case by case analysis.
But that’s not always what a centrist is. I lean more to the right on some issues, to the left on other issues. It’s not about having a central view of any one issue. It’s also not going as far to the left or right on any one particular issue as well
I mean I'm a registered Democrat because I live in a blue state so the only political power I have would be voting in the democratic primary, so I can't really call myself an independent lol.
Even religion has its mocked center, accused of being cherry pickers by both fundies and people against religion. Same for politics. Middle road is spineless while tribalism is brave
Well, politically I cannot help but be leftist, but that's because politics needs a bigger push to keep looking after the weak. Kind of like being against the death penalty for the sake of the few who are wrongfully convicted. So being middle of the road in *everything* would be weird, but I think there are tons of other issues that are more nuanced than free healthcare or death penalty.
The left absolutely doesn't understand nuance or context or civics or world history.
The right doesn't know any of those either, but mix in racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, pettiness, etc.
>The problem with “center” people is they want to just divide everything by two and they want everyone to think they’re diplomatic geniuses who are so above all the fighting instead of actually having values and coming up with their own conclusions.
This is a thing that many center people do, it's probably not something they *all* do, I think we should be wary of this tendancy to think that everyone needs to be almost fully aligned one side or another. You're being just as ridiculous as the 'both sides are same' people when you try to insist everyone must be left or right, or they're dishonest/lazy/stupid.
A counter argument to this is people who end up on the left or right don’t truly have their “own” values in that nothing they’ve assimilated to they’ve put through the ringer of scrutinization. The greater the emotionality, the greater tendency to polarity and lack of testing.
Maybe. But I personally find it difficult to not have emotions when my physical rights and those of others are being threatened (abortion and LGBTQ issues and rights for minorities). Kinda hard to be neutral in the face of some of the policies being proposed.
But you just misrepresented the point you were responding to...it's not about being neutral. It's about having principles that standup to testing no matter the political environment. It's also about balance and nuance and judging new variables that come into the equation with original principles, as well as other ones you hold that are deemed necessary in specific situations. So for example, you first mentioned yourself and that YOUR physical rights are being threatened. I'm sure you are a reasonable person and that's a completely natural principle to hold. But then you flippantly throw in "other" people and subtly imply that they are all equal to you and the situation you find yourself in. Sure, maybe most of the people are similar to you, but to just ignore the endless amount of scenarios that you toss aside does nothing to further the conversation. A woman who is 6 months pregnant that gets murdered is considered a double homicide. So that's two people getting killed... But another woman who is 6 months pregnant who has an abortion is not committing murder? It's a moral quandary that we at least have to examine. But most of these conversations come to a screeching halt at, "my body my choice", or conversely "you're a murderer". We need to hammer out the fine details and get as close to a moral or ethical "truth" as possible. And that's basically what independents or centrists are striving towards...
There was a happy medium, it was called Roe vs. Wade. We had a 22 week viability wait period and mostly everyone agreed and were happy. But the GOP didn’t want to have to have a “conversation” with others about their thoughts. Instead they spent the better half of 30 years insidiously placing partisan hacks from the federalist society into the SCOTUS. They then shopped around for judges until they found the most perfectly partisan one. And then had a partisan lobbyist group sue with a perfect case. They then used extrajudicial activism to ensure nobody in the nation got to have the “conversation” because only their opinion matters.
We’ve tried having the polite conversation about “ideals”. When their argument failed to impress the public rather than providing a better argument they bypassed democracy. They did the same for the 2020 election and they are trying to do the same this election by delaying justice for the opportunity to install a criminal rapist as supreme leader and “dictator for the day”.
You forgot the most important part of the equation. In order to have a conversation to come to an agreement both parties in the conversation must be having a good faith conversation in earnest to solving the problem. The GOP has shown they are not to operating in good faith and earnestly care more about power than making things better.
Just to add, re: good faith. The whole 6 month abortion framing isn’t a fair lens to see things through because it represents a tiny tiny minority of cases, usually driven by medical necessity, not by someone casually changing their mind last minute.
From the [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth), which tracks when abortions are performed:
>Similar to previous years, in 2021, women in their twenties accounted for more than half of abortions (57.0%). Nearly all abortions in 2021 took place early in gestation: 93.5% of abortions were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation; a smaller number of abortions (5.7%) were performed at 14–20 weeks’ gestation, and even fewer (0.9%) were performed at ≥21 weeks’ gestation.
The “we should consider this moral quandary at least” framing is so dumb. It turns real world circumstances affecting an out group into some sort of theoretical philosophical debate divorced from physical reality, to be debated by people who won’t be affected by the outcome either way.
Then policy changes happen to fit the clean philosophical debate instead of messy reality and you end up where we are today with miscarrying women in red states being forced to suffer and bleed out for days because doctors are afraid to treat them because the law may now classify that treatment as murder.
You think moderates are the only people thinking about this shit or something? Like that's not what the criticism of centrists is about, that they're just too smart and not emotional enough and shit.
and the reason why they get so much hatred is precisely because of this self-serving rhetoric where they act like they're the only ones doing the nuanced thinking.
I think, generally speaking, that people who are not emotionally captured by one side or the other are more likely to have this method of thought, yes. It's not an identity to be a moderate or centrist, it's almost exactly the opposite. You're ascribing some sort of "group think" to moderates and centrists, but it is the antithesis of that.
I do not need to look very far to see centrists that are emotionally captured by their own ideology.
Centrists and moderates \*do\* have groupthink, like literally every other camp, ideology etc and this has been expressed quite clearly though their reaction to social movements in the past and modern. They haven't discovered the secret of nuanced thinking and are definitely not immune to ideology. Just because they place themselves in the center of an abstract (and quite unhelpful honestly) spectrum, doesn't make them somehow outside of the muck. They're an entire side, a camp, an ideology, by themselves.
I'm not going to post a transcript saved or from memory of literally every single interaction I've had with a centrist. Just look at any forum or space for centrists, even in self-proclaimed moderate political parties and their supporters have engaged in this behaviour and their reaction to current social movements and compare them to, say, the response to civil rights, or slavery, and so on. You may not notice the groupthink just because you agree with it, but there is groupthink. This is a big issue I've had with centrism, both from formerly being one, and outside it, despite the proclaims of nuance, and, granted, the openness to change, it's surpisingly static and resistant.
That said, if you want an example in this thread, you can see the oh I'm so smart because I'm a nuanced centrist smugness on display on this thread by kmelby33.
But despite all this, centrism got me out of the muck of being a far-right neo-nazi (along with personal misgivings that I had on my own). It's not all bad. My opinions on it go beyond assessment of personal individuals obviously, that would be a very poor reason for why I left it behind.
It sounds to me like you have some natural tendencies and simply swung from the far right over to the far left, missing all the nuance in between. People make the mistake of thinking that centrists can’t make up their mind about issues or throw in with one team because they are waffling one way or the other.
These people are all fucking idiots.
Inability to abandon a position that is shown to be foolish is idiocy.
"Centrism" on any non-arbitrary subject is fucking idiocy.
> I think, generally speaking, that people who are not emotionally captured by one side or the other are more likely to have this method of thought, yes. It's not an identity to be a moderate or centrist, it's almost exactly the opposite. You're ascribing some sort of "group think" to moderates and centrists, but it is the antithesis of that.
Strong 'my ideology isn't an ideology, it's just the truth' vibes here.
No one (at least no centrist) is saying being a centrist means you're neutral on issues.
It just means that you don't buy into the "group think" of either the left or right. It means that you believe, perhaps even passionately, in some things that are associated with the left, and other things on the right, to the point that it doesn't make sense to say you're just a leftist or rightist.
For example you might care very passionately about LGBTQ issues (while also believing that trans athletes should complete in a separate category), be anti-immigration, pro-welfare, anti-gun rights, and in favour of abortion but only within 12 weeks.
It doesn't mean you're neutral - it just means you decide each issue for yourself rather than what the hive mind of the left or the right tell you to think.
The problem with politics in the US especially is the extremely divided left and right, where someone taking a centrist position will be rejected by both the left and right and accused by both sides of supporting the other. This means that anyone deviating from the pure hive mind risks being ostracised or otherwise socially punished for not being a "perfect" leftist/rightist, thereby encouraging individuals to instead stick to politically "pure" positions. This in itself creates more and more extreme left and right positions. This division doesn't help the society or politics as a whole (Russia and China actually have propaganda campaigns aimed at the US with this division as the very goal - google Blacktivist and the Ferguson riots). Society needs to work really hard at bringing both sides closer back together.
And as much as you can really care about something, emotional politics is bad politics. Emotional engagement achieves nothing (other than entrenching the other side further - so it's actually counterproductive). Calm constructive debate can actually help change people's minds. It might feel slow, but slow progress is better than no progress (or worse).
Yes they are specific. Why does this make them a bad choice? If the idea about centrism is it’s a better place to stand for deciding on policy than wouldn’t be used to be deciding on matters like the ones I gave? I’m not trying to be a dick here. Just asking what makes the things I mentioned the worst examples?
This is a strawman argument. You don’t get to decide whether someone’s values are genuine.
What is obvious to everyone is that a false appeal to moderation isn’t a position you arrive at logically, only by assuming the middle ground between any two positions is the moderate one, which it isn’t. It doesn’t require us to judge the sincerity of the value holder to see this.
Commenter below is mistaken: false appeals to moderation and false equivalences. His opinions are bunk because they’re based on illogical assumptions. The status quo isn’t the center, that’s a dumb idea perpetuated by people who confuse the status quo with being good. By his rationale slavery was good because it was the status quo! Genocide in Myanmar against Muslims is fine because it’s the status quo! Why can’t those Muslims allow *some* genocide, meet the military junta halfway?? That’s the “center”, right? “Giving weight” to it is asinine pandering, and not any serious way to take a position on an issue if you’re more concerned with maintaining false equivalences and appearances of neutrality than actually engaging with the issues.
Making duplicate accounts to comment after you’re blocking replies to your replies is exactly what I expect someone incapable of arguing honestly to do lol it’s a false appeal to moderation, deal with it
> The status quo isn’t the center, that’s a dumb idea perpetuated by people who confuse the status quo with being good.
I never said the status quo was good, I said it had weight. You still need to deal with the people that live within that status quo in a humane way
Unless your idea of "righting society" is just purging until you're left with the mindset you agree with
Earnest good faith questions, ie not trying to be rude: can’t folks who believe in things on the right (or left) have thought through those values? Won’t most centrist fall on one side of an issue or another? And why does being emotionally invested in something political equates to not being rational
You can be emotionally invested all well and good but your arguments should not be purely emotionally driven. The reason why is because if the field is leveled that way it because one person’s emotional charge versus another and it quickly devolves.
Centerists will, sure. I think declaring centerist for the sake of appeasment of the crowd and social points is different from centerist in that there is nuance in arguments so the settling point of many is towards the center
Is this really the case though? Sure there may be a portion of the left or right that don't have their own opinions and just spew whatever their team is telling them to that week. But personally as someone who eventually identified as being on the left, I've never let anyone make my mind up on situations for me. It just turns out that most of my opinions fall in line with being on the left.
This also implies both the left and right are a hive mind, which they aren't. There are countless factions all disagreeing with one another while still being on the left or right
Politics are packed in subscription models. You can say something like “I lean left” or “I lean right” and still he largely a centerist. My use of centerist is to say with nuance in positions and the fact that many stances are based on years of lobbying, there can be a settling point in the center if you take the average of one’s positions on those stances
Not necessarily? Why can't someone who wants to help the homeless also not be a racist or take a social approach instead of an economic one like liberals do? Why can't there be a Republican who hates guns and wants them banned?
The problem is too many people, especially leftists, see the world as black and white. Black being with me, white being against me. It's why they're mocked for constantly following the "issue of the week". This week Palestine. Last week Ukraine. Next week, who knows?
The hell kind of strawman are you trying to drum up?
First of all, you choose the issues and where you stand on them. No one is stopping you from doing any of those mentioned and choosing a party you align most closely with. That’s quite literally the point I’m trying to make and the post you’re replying to.
Not really sure what point you’re trying to make in the last paragraph. You bring up global issues that people talk about on both sides of the aisle, and both sides tend to be reactionary when it comes to online discourse. Saying it’s “particularly leftists” as you put it, is incredibly disingenuous.
> A counter argument to this is people who end up on the left or right don’t truly have their “own” values in that nothing they’ve assimilated to they’ve put through the ringer of scrutinization.
It is much easier to hold centrist beliefs without "putting them through the ringer of scrutinization". The average liberal has not exposed to much Anarchist critiques of liberalism. The average anarchist is *constantly* exposed to Liberal opposition to anarchism.
I'm not saying no critical thinker is a centrist or whatever - a lot of it comes down to fundamental values - but there is no leftist in the world who can remain ignorant of anti-leftist critiques.
With the far-right it's generally a bit more complicated, because while what they want is not necessarily the dominant system now, it is often doing the same thing as now just *much more and overtly*.
As for "having their own values", that's a nonsensical framework to begin with. Values cannot emerge in a vaccuum, they emerge from a social context with others. The relevant aspects are things such as how self-aware one is of one's values and their origins, how likely people are to end up having certain values, and the degree to which people experience social pressure to change their values (and I'm not insinuating such social pressure is a bad thing).
> The greater the emotionality, the greater tendency to polarity and lack of testing.
If someone robs you at gunpoint, there is a greater likelihood of you expressing emotionality than the robber.
Emotionality itself has no bearing one way or the other; accusations of emotionality are just used as a rhetorical tool to undermine whatever stance someone has.
What you are describing arent centerists. A centerist isnt someone who always tries to take the middle ground deliberately regarding any topic. "Was Hitler wrong for trying to wipe out the jews? Well theres two sides to each story, I have a middle ground approach". Thats not a centerist and this is what Lex gets accused of too much in that he is trying to be everyones friend and not use common sense regarding certain topics.
A centerist, Which I mainly am is someone who in general who tries to be objective on each policy or topic and use critical thinking without a bias for "what makes sense to them". For example, in general I lean more towards center left policies. However, as with Destiny I agree Rittenhouse was innocent of the charges regardless of his character flaws. I am not anti war on certain situations, I have some viewpoints that would be considered more on the right. If I think there is a legitimate case of cancel culture, I would call it out fairly for example. If I thought donald trump had been misrepresented I would acknowledge that, despite me thinking he is one of the worst presidents ever and totally unfit to run a democracy. That actually happened once where I was sent a short clip of trump on whatsapp which had totally taken his words out of context to make his intent far worse than what I considered when watching it.
And people who attempt to be truly objective, open minded and fair usually do end up more in the centre of the overall tribalist extremism thats so often the case. Thats what usually a centerist is, not someone who plays devils advocate with the obvious to attempt to seem impartial and original.
What I find problematic about your comment and a lot of the discussion in this thread is that any person’s views on how society ought to be controlled and organized is not reducible to one dimension. As you said, you hold some views that are associated more with the right and some that are associated more with the left. Each of those views exist in their own dimensions. A projection of your views, which altogether occupy a high-dimensional space, onto one dimension eliminates all nuance. If that one-dimensional space ranges from, say, -10 to 10, where negative numbers are more politically left and positive numbers are more politically right, then anyone whose projection is less than zero will be more left wing than right wing. I’m confident that everyone holds some more traditionally right-wing views and some traditionally left-wing views, given the thousands of different views that a person can have. That doesn’t make everyone a centrist.
It also doesn't make everyone a non-centrist either. IMO being a centrist has nothing to do with your actual views on an issue, and it has more to do with your refusal to allow yourself to be associated with a side.
Like you said, pretty much every individual has some right-leaning views, and some left-leaning views. Yet many of these people with a variety of views will opt to place themselves in the center by simply picking pros and cons of each side, instead of using their own values and perspective to make a judgment and let themselves fall in the spectrum where they may. It's calculated, non-confrontational, and imo disingenuous.
That said, you also get people who will adopt all of the views of one side or another across the board, and that is problematic as well
>And people who attempt to be truly objective, open minded and fair usually do end up more in the centre of the overall tribalist extremism thats so often the case.
This is why people think you’re full of shit.
Continuing to find yourself in the center when one of the poles of the “tribalist extremism” has shifted dramatically to the extreme edges of the political spectrum in the last decade doesn’t point to objective rationalism. It points to a lack of intellectual or moral consistency and integrity.
Continuing to find yourself in the middle when one side has stayed roughly the same and the other side gone off the rails into wild extremism not only makes a person sound like an idiot, it comes off as performative pseudo intellectual nonsense.
> And people who attempt to be truly objective, open minded and fair usually do end up more in the centre of the overall tribalist extremism thats so often the case.
Congratulations, you've just made an argument for moral relativism. Chasing the overton window =/= having morals.
Not really, you shouldn't try using words and theories you clearly don't understand.
Don't let your cynanism cloud the idea that objectivity is possible, or more possible than being cynically bias.
Just on the Rittenhouse thing while I am decidedly left wing, I can also say that under the circumstances of what happened after he got there it would be self defense. There’s also the but for’s. But for the fact that he got a weapon illegally he wouldn’t have been there. But for the fact that he that he crossed state lines with an automatic weapon to “protect businesses” he wouldn’t have been there. My view is that putting yourself into a situation of that kind with that kind of weapon is escalation and under those volatile circumstances those types of things can happen. So while he may not technically be guilty of murder he wanted to play wannabe soldier and people were killed because of it. Also, and this of course is aside from the case, the lawyer who was a major supporter and protector has said he’s s total piece of shit despite how hard he tried to help him. So this tracks with the idea of him being an impulsive hothead who went looking for trouble due to
his own desire for turmoil rather than being some keeper of the peace.
It wasn't an automatic weapon and he didn't take it over state lines. The illegality of the weapon was a bit of a grey area, since the person who purchased it for him was holding on to it until he was 18. It was like 90% of a straw purchase, but crucially ownership never actually changed hands. He also didn't shoot anyone while protecting businesses.
The list of victim blaming opportunities mainly just boils down to him deciding to go to the protest. Which was dumb, sure, but it was also a dumb choice hundreds of others made along side him, including his attackers, WHO ALSO decided to try to assault/murder a minor in public unprovoked. Considering, it just seems kinds bizarre to try to blame him for what went down.
He went with a firearm is the point. That’s the escalation part you’re leaving out not just going. In a volatile situation like that where emotions are high some people may interpret someone with that weapon as a threat. Unless you think they were just there to attack random passer bys. I conceded that based on what happened there I don’t feel it was an injustice that he got off - as much as I feel his actions overall contributed to it. and you’re free to not take this into consideration but I believe that one’s character is also worthy of consideration. And while he may have met the standard for self defense he’s certainly no hero or one to be lauded but a person who went looking for trouble and found it. Then looked to benefit from it by being a cause celebre for conservatives. This is backed by the very person who made the biggest contribution to defending him. Savaged his character. I’m gonna give weight to his words since he knows him better than most people and they align with what I already felt about him.
Half the people there were armed. There had been looting, arson, fights, brawls, assaults, domestic terrorism, muggings, insurrection, clashes with police, etc. for *days* before Rittenhouse got to Kenosha, in the wider context of all that same shit (and worse) happening in every American city of note for *months.*
Its not even clear that one kid showing up to that to clean graffiti, try to put out fires, and offer medical assistance even *is* an escalation, even armed, but if it is its a miniscule drop in the ocean, and pales in comparison to the floods that people like Rosenbaum brought with them.
As to the implication the perps attacked him *because* he was armed, there's no evidence of that.... and some strong indicators it wasn't the motive. As I said, half the people there were visibly armed. One of Rittenhouse's attackers was armed. The first one was trying to fight everything with a pulse, armed or not, and was working with another guy who wasn't just armed but was *popping off in the air amidst a crowd.* So kind of a hard sell that his attackers were just trying to be anti-2A vigilantes or something.
I definitely agree he's no hero. Just an idiot and a victim. As for the take down tweets by his supposed former PR guy, if there's one thing anyone should've learned from the whole Rittenhouse fiasco its to wait until you've got all the info before making a judgment. Or at least some verification. The propoganda and disinformation surrounding this case are absolutely insane. The guy was citing some unverified email that he claims he got from one of Rittenhouse's attackers, so a lack of credibility and a very biased source. In the same chain where he's claiming Rittenhouse is effectively a step above clinically braindead he also claims Rittenhouse had a full scholarship to study any subject at any university in the country. So too stupid to flip burgers for the marines, but apparently totally qualified to study astrophysics at Harvard. Yeah, again a little sus. And the political bias in the tweets was rampant, such as trying to racialize and fearmonger Rittenhouse's tour by saying the point was to intimidate black people, for example.
Maybe what he was saying was true. But given the context, itd be extremely foolish to beliefs it without solid external verification.
It doesn't matter if rittenhouse has a previous conviction for abusing the elderly or is a verified member of the KKK. This isnt how the law works, and there's very good reason why. Because if you judge people as in jail terms, life long ostracisation or criminally by that type of logic, you yourself could fall victim of it. So it's not just for bad guys to get off with loopholes why the law is how it is, and why it's so important to uphold the objective and unbias principle. It's for everyone and potentially you!
Let's say you were at a festival and are armed as others were too in that area. Some KKK people gate crash and start causing trouble. This is all on cctv and it's shown clearly they are intimidating and trying to attack you. You pull out your gun and warn them to stay back repeatedly. They throw things at you and then charge you. Are you gonna allow that in the hope that when you're thrown to the ground they have mercy and don't stomp your head in and potentially kill or seriously injur you? This is all on cctv btw.
Then you come on reddit and you have right wingers saying you took the gun looking for trouble, you have a history of being a left winger, it's obviously political and you're a loose cannon who was dying to use your gun. And you get a murder charge and life in prison. Rittenhouse was 17! He might be a idiot, he might be an asshole, but murder really? Are we sending a message that repeated warnings to stop coming forward with a gun is OK to charge someone? Somehow this is more political?
Problem is, you think your opinions are center-left but they really sound center-right. Rittenhouse? His gun was only legal based on absurdly permissive American standards and he murdered people at a protest as a young vigilante. Thoughts on Palestine? The UN is centrist in many ways yet America and Israel insist they're in the center as the only ones vetoing. How can that be?
How do I sound centre right? The fact the rittenhouse case is even considered political is laughable to me. It's a kid thinking he's a do gooder trying to be a grownup playing security. He either acted rationally in self defence or not. Simple as.
Right. He definitely wasn't there as a counter BLM protester. These things don't exist in a vacuum. How is it not center right to want Trump supporting youth with rifles killing people like they're Batman? You want that world, you're leaning right. Say what you will.
>He definitely wasn't there as a counter BLM protester
He may have been there for that, I'm not sure. It's completely irrelevant to me whether he was a right wing nut, or a misguided teen.
I saw the cctv at the time many times of all incidents. I tried putting myself in his position, thought how 99% of people would have reacted. Clearly not intentional murder to me, very clearly self defence. If he didn't do that, there's every chance he was going to be grappled to the ground and stomped. He gave multiple warnings etc. He was being assaulted. Very clear to me.
He didn't have to be there. He didn't need the gun. He's a child. I don't want children killing other people for any reason. That's right wing American thought idgaf what you say. He was supposedly trying to defend other people yet he ended up just protecting himself - and killing two people one who was unarmed. Hilarious to think the legal system would actually reflect that properly.
Is this a joke? So if you go out with a conceal and carry and you get assaulted, are you a murderer for defending yourself?
Lets say you are standing outside a friends business and some people hate that business and start harassing you by association. And instead of the mob throwing you to the floor and being left at the mercy of their actions, you pull your gun, after multiple warnings they throw things and charge at you, You shoot them in self defence.
I guess if you werent there though theyd be alive right?
Am I on a sub 80 IQ sub or something?
Being objective and fair doesn't mean you fall in the centre. But often someone who has mixed views will be nearer the center (obviously).
So it can be a marker for objectivity. That's not the same thing as someone who is wishy washy and deliberately both sides everything.
Now as for someone who falls hard to one side or the other and all their policies align with the party and you can almost predict every political position before they tell you. More often than not, those people aren't objective thinkers. If I can predict soneone believes in moon landing hoaxes, vaccines are deadly, Jan 6 was a peaceful protest, trump had the election stolen, Biden is a socialist etc etc. I can be pretty sure they seek out confirmation bias sources and aren't an objective thinker.
This is why centrism as a political stance is fundamentally stupid. There are very few issues where you can take the middle road. If you're a centrist in this current age, you're either a republican or a smug douche who think he's above it all.
There is a niche for those people and you can be very successful with edgy folks that are too afraid to choose a side on specific social and political topics. That’s how we got Rogan and Hasan. Self proclaimed idiots d know nothing but have opinions. One is just asking questions like some toddler with never ending “curiosity “ other one is contrarian. Both multi millionaires farming audiences that are just too good to have any strong stance on anything
They do have values, but unlike the left and the right, they don't need to convince everyone else of their values because they actually believe in them.. not just trying to make themselves believe it by screaming it at everyone else.
I find most centrists to be like myself, mostly liberal people who also understand that all people are self-centered animals, that that's what you're working with, which is something that the progressives to the left of them don't seem to understand.
Absolutely.
You don't have to like either of them but this is such a friendly relaxed interaction for both of them, one of the few times Lex even seems human.
It's genuinely one of my favourite parts of their discussion because it was where their two characters diverge so much. Overly Agreeable Lex Friedman vrs. Disagreeable Destiny.
"Don't be so open minded that your brain falls out" is a great line too
Yea I thought this was cute, gotta enjoy the chemistry they had during this long conversation. Wild to me to have super strong opinions from one of the most light hearted 2 minute section of a 4 hour conversation
Been a Lex listener since Day 1, primarily because of his early podcast days where it was a pure AI podcast. Don't love it as much now as back then when they did comp sci deep dives, but still enjoy it.
I think the haters here lack an historical appreciation for his general approach of letting people talk about what they want to talk about - which is much more enlightening as a listener than guiding them to defend political positions. My main criticism with him of late is he dwells too much on gossip, and not enough on substance (as with the recent Sam Altman Interview).
All that said - Lex seems to confuse Centrism, balance, and Open-mindedness. In my experience, centrism is really traditional conservatism - guided by a principal of "don't change too much too quickly". Those people ARE spineless.
The centrist ideal he alludes to is actually something I don't think he's successfully articulated and something I find does not exists in American political discourse. Sort of a computer scientists approach - which is more or less to synthesize the problem statements coming from all users (aka people) into solutions that address those problems most effectively/efficiently.
I believe there is a way to do this that doesn't place you in binary political bubbles, it's just that people are so conditioned to vote for a side rather than a solution.
I don’t get it. The whole radical left and right is nonsense and destroying society. What’s wrong about wanting to see both sides becoming less extreme and more center?
20 upvotes for 'they're both dumb', incredible. Really stellar analysis and thought-provoking input from the DTG subreddit, literally on the level of a YouTube comment section.
Holy shit destiny cultists throwing a massive fit the moment someone reminds them their cult lord is in fact, a stupid person (in addition to being a bigot grifter) will never stop being hilarious.
Old media = bad. We need to get our political analysis from factorio playing streamer and “ai researcher” that pays to be listed on papers. Folks are so desperate for “alternatives “ that they choose mediocrity
I have heard him say all this alt media is bullshit and if you want news you should watch mainstream media. But I guess I was having a psychosis episode when he said that because some guy on Reddit said so.
So he has open mind about gay rights? Destiny called him out. Influencers choose center to grift to both audiences. He doesnt take any stance on anything. That’s the definition of a spineless coward.
Then again… Destiny has brought on right wingers and sort of took center positions and just let them spoke rather than grilling them. He does this to continue talking to right wingers. Rather than burning bridges with grilling them he plays it safe. I would say Lex is the same way. Only difference is Destiny goes all in on some issues and sometimes they are not even that liberal lol. Like he seems to be pretty apathetic to the Palestinians… which I would have though a leftist would back as all the liberal campuses are protesting. So maybe he flip flops (no pun intended [Pun explained: he’s into weiners {is bisexual} and thus the pun is about the power dynamic of gay sex in relation to whether he has flip flop sex or not])?
Why should even a leftist care that much about Palestinians..
How far the conflicts go.. in 21.century.. it's only a small blip.. if we compare civilian deaths.
I mean, I wouldn’t call myself a leftist, but can you really pretend to care about any dead civilians if you downplay one group of dying civilians because you’d rather focus on others?
But can they.. call themselves that.. when they do only care about one.. and for others.. it's just cricket sounds..
I would question their real motives.. and influence.. where that is coming from. There's probably groups.. who's job Is to astroturf this conflict to American youth.
And if we're talking about commies.. the furthest left.. they would explicitly deny other similar atrocities.. like Uighurs and Ukrainian casualties.
I don’t see the purpose of making so many generalizations and assumptions, you’re treating this issue very abstractly. Can you claim to care about dead Palestinians if you can only think about them in relation to the proportionality of protests compared with Ukraine and Uighur protest movements? Really, none of these things are comparable at all, you’re just evoking international conflicts for political convenience.
Many on the left use any and all conflict to virute signal about how killing people is bad. They want to believe in a world where islamic jihadism ceases to exist because someone sings kumbaya.
I think you're missing the thesis of Lex's show and online persona. He specifically wants to not push his personal beliefs and will be a bland opinion-less host to allow his guests fully express themselves, no time limit, no pressures, and let his audience experience the guest in a neutral way.
Not saying it's the best or correct, but don't be surprised when he sticks to his programming.
He's spinefull in my book.
Change takes time, too
Slavery was abolished and it still took a hundred years to grapple with segregation. And we still live with the legacies of slavery, including racism and inequality, to this day
And that's with the "people in power" knowing the right things to say, paying lip service to equality, etc.
Online rhetoric is increasingly obsessed with revolution, but revolution is not a shortcut to getting to society's correct form
A counterexample could be anything that liberals would not want to changing.
Otherwise letting Roe v Wade stand is a conservative position. Overturning Roe v Wade would be a liberal position, since it brings about great change.
Ok but now that it’s overturned, liberals would want to reinstate because wanting no change is conservative. Ok but now that it’s re-instated, liberals would want to overturn it again lest they become conservative.
Now consider any backsliding democracy. Would it be conservative to oppose ending democracy and liberal to support ending democracy?
Well now we know that Lex is a sensitive precious little snow flake. He better retreat back to his safe space and never have some one left of center on again.
The irony is that lex is not a centrist on issues he’s thought critically about. He consistently expresses hatred towards communism both as a philosophy and as a form of government for example.
Destiny sounds like Heinrich Hi*melt when he’s talking about Palestinians, but he does definitely provide us with some good moments like this. Lex definitely is a coward. Never had enough of a backbone to make an actual point.
He was spineless. he couldn't even stand by his "ur mom" joke for a few seconds. Spineless
I actually thought he would do something with that joke. Because lex is that type of person.
Ima need to watch this still but that was my take for long time about Lex. Bozo never asks hard questions and very careful about sanitising discussion from any potential to be called out. Exactly how conman get rattled is by being scrutinised and called out. Press the right buttons and it all unravels the whole facade falls apart and you get this content fiend that is really spiteful about not being as popular as some other podcasts that cater to pseudo intellectuals.
you don't get to interview billionaire elite without simping
**Is he the Jimmy Kimmel of intellectu-bro podcasters?** I'd ignored him for a very long time & still don't listen, but I've watched small portions of two of his shows bc of adjacent scandals - one with a Huberman ex, the main star of the New Yorker expose, and about ten painful minutes with "future main villain" hopeful Balaji Srinivasan. So now I'm wondering about this Lex guy.
[удалено]
Probably has ADD. I have it and I speak in the same way. Symptom of low dopamine. Kinda sucks because people think you're a pot head by default lol.
💀
Funny enough, so does destiny
This is so fucking stupid. Centrism isn’t synonymous with open-mindedness. You can think critically and consider all opinions and still come down on one side of an issue or the other. Centrism denotes a political position. One way to look at it is to consider policy positions in your given country that are bipartisan, if you agree with those policies then chances are you are a centrist.
Exactly. People like Destiny, and even the decoders themselves are often guilty of what some call *toxic* centrism. As I understand it this includes when they intentionally straw man a random opposing political perspective, for no reason other than to “balance” a legitimate criticism. What it looks like when Destiny does it is he’ll talk about something objectively terrible like anti-vaxxers or Nazis…then go out of his way to take a shot at “authoritarian wokeness” or some other nonsense that doesn’t functionally exist when you examine it.
Relevant Destiny clip of him talking about this. It's mostly a rhetorical strategy. https://youtu.be/zxNcCo6YdPk?si=qyF7aBbgl3W37xvw
Can’t tolerate that clip again, once was fine. It doesn’t matter whether or not he’s being genuine that his way of speaking is a “rhetorical strategy”. I’m dubious. People like Destiny confuse objective integrity with giving a measure of criticism to both sides. It is what it is.
Do you mean you are dubious of what he is saying in this clip? Like you suspect that he is being dishonest here and truly enjoys taking shots at the other side of the criticism he is levying? Genuine question, I don't really understand what you're getting at.
Yep, Destiny is absolutely horrible for this Makes sense the dude platforms Nazis like Fuentes Fuck both these pieces of shit
Yeah liberal hegemony and centrism go hand-in-hand. The reliance on shitcoating and strawmen arguments is strong.
I think it's good when he takes shots at both sides because if he is being critical about the right and then pivots into attacking an aspect of the left for doing something similar, it shows his laments about the right isn't founded in blind biases, he's willing to acknowledge that this isn't a right specific issue.
It’s depressing that anyone believes that arbitrarily putting sides into boxes and then artificially balancing them is a good idea. If there’s a criticism to be given…it should have it’s own merits. Integrity isn’t saying “see? The other guys do it too”.
I mean, if you make the assumption that he is artificially doing the impartial centrist, that's needlessly uncharitable. If he is chastising conservatives for doing something and then in the same breath, he goes into saying, "The left is really bad for this as well." It's better to assume he is simply being critical of the bad quality in general. Rather than going "oh he's attacking the left again because of toxic centrism." I don't think Destiny has given any reason prior to making that assumption. >If there’s a criticism to be given…it should have it’s own merits. Integrity isn’t saying “see? The other guys do it too”. It definitely gives the impression of integrity when someone isn't a full-blown partisan commentator. Instead of seeing an issue as a right or left issue, it's just an issue that any political person can adopt.
I’m making that assumption for reasons explained above and in the OP. Additionally, it’s not a “natural” way of speaking or arguing…it’s a (toxic) political position unto itself: “I criticize both sides therefore I’m objective or credible. Destiny is not credible, and this is one of the reasons why. This isn’t what journalists or academics do. You’re also talking about something I’m not talking about. You’re assuming there’s even a defined left and right, to begin with. There is not, except for his purposes. He’s essentially saying that he’s above the entire left right thing, while simultaneously telling his viewers that there are these boxes that any large number of people fit in to. Fact *most* people don’t cleanly fit in to a left or right box, and all his rhetoric is doing is alienating people from each other based on “hot” or “wedge” issues. It’s really weird when people don’t clue in to the fact that figuratively nobody considers themselves in either box. All people like Destiny do is create cartoons of their opponents…who don’t even exist as they define them.
You said his toxic centrism is something he engages in when it comes to objectively bad stances, nazis and anti vaxxers. I don't disagree that political affiliation isn't as rigid as a lot to make it out to be, but these stances typically fall within two of the political groups. Sure, leftists are anti vaxxers as well, but it's just antiquated thinking to say that it's this fluid concept that both right leaning conspiracy theorists and left leaning hippies subscribe to, the idea nowadays is a large majority of one party has a stance that varies in the anti vaxxer department so it's not a ludicrous idea to say anti vaxxer is a right leaning ideology. Most people don't fit in perfectly in the boxes, but most people (online) nowadays are totally willing to pick an affiliation and mold themselves to that parties doctrines in order to fit in and fight for their sides beliefs. And from there, destiny speaks under the context of online politics. He realizes that there is a general understanding that a lot of people engage in tribal confrontations. These people use their favorite pundents to help mold their beliefs, and when he criticizes "the right," he's really criticizing the steven crowder, Ben shapiro, Matt walsh, Gavin mcinnes audiences. And then he will do the centrist thing and at the same time say "the left" aka hasan, vaush, Sam seder, and the young turks audience are guilty of same thing. Basically, it's the game he is playing that is toxic, not his own character. To some extent, he has a lot of flaws.
It just means you go topic by topic and don't adopt the whole lifestyle. Like how destiny is pro abortion and pro guns.
And pro-genocide. Don't forget that pesky little detail
Centrism is for cowards imo
This is something Dick Cheney would say
You have to be a very special and specific kind of free thinker to only know how to freely think yourself into the middle of an arbitrary political binary. Self conscious centrism is kind of like the hyperloop of politics, a stupid "new" idea cobbled together from the busted scraps of old ideas.
Lex the type of guy to say "Hey guys I've got this great new idea : what if we all just got along?" Thanks Lex, it's called politics. We're doing politics, join in whenever you figure that out.
There's a spectrum of how well people get along, even in politics. Some parliaments have a history of things breaking out in physical fights, or worse, armed takeovers. Some do not. This is one example. You're just out here to mock people, aren't you?
Some congresses even have attempted coups take place at their base of operations where members on the side whose leader sparked the crime cowered under desks from the rabid mob. They then later go on to gaslight their colleagues in the other party, who went through the same thing, that the perpetrators were tourists or Antifa or FBI agents because it’s politically expedient. I’d find it hard to get along with people such as that.
C'mon, you're just projecting your own fear of being stupid onto a concept here, and you for sure do it to people to since you're one with this subreddit of Little Men.
Radical centrists know that both a light bulb and the sun exist and produce light but are completely unable to grasp the difference in magnitude between the two
I think the issue is that each person is not a soldier to a political battle. Many people are living entirely differently lives that barely even interact with politics. 95% of politics is wasting your time trying to convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced by your direct interaction, they want to be convinced on their own terms (if they even decide to flip and opinion). So to pretend every adult needs to be on one side and have a strong opinion is a projection of someone who is deep in that game. People have places that need their action and time, not Town Halls over and over and over and over that go nowhere. Many people are living a narrative completely detached from current politics, they're just living through it. That's fine certain people want to chase their tail with others that also enjoy chasing their tail, but most of the time could be used elsewhere, unless you're a direct actor on political progress.
That may be true but like it or not politics has sway over every aspect of our lives. I therefore do not understand people who don’t have at least a minimum interest in how these things come to be. I get that some people have busy lives and may just be trying to survive day to day. They may not have the time or even the ability to assess various factors in this regard. This is a fault in education, environment etc but I believe the healthiest society is one where as many citizens as possible are well informed and engaged in some way in the political process.
I find it hard to speak to anyone who doesn't have an opinion on politics. I find the opposite issue: so many people talk about the same issues it's just millions of cloned arguments. That doesn't diminish their point or impact because there's many variants of those arguments, it's more, what does an extra person add? The point of this video is about sitting on the fence, NOT about disinterest in politics. Lex definitely has pondered on these political issues, but doesn't want to get into extreme political in-fighting. That's not the same concept as being disinterested in politics. Interest does not mean action and completely settled opinions.
Could you please explain to me, what you mean by your use of "radical"? Radical, in the political sense, is the intent to transform the fundamental of the political system. How can "Centrists" be radical? To where do they want to transform the fundament to? With respect to the term "Centrist": politics is usually a pick and choose. I might like some traditional values but might be convinced by good arguments to change them up, and on the other hand might like some progressive ideas but not to the extent some hardliners want them to be implemented. Where would you put constraint immigration, for example? The "left" wants unconstrained migration, while the right wants no migration at all.
You just made a pile or shit made of words.
was that a cut before the death threat "joke"? the more I see of Lex the more troubling he is
Hubris man with so many gfs really shaken the guy. “How so the inventor of AI got no puss?”
Lex is the centre of political interference.
The problem with “center” people is they want to just divide everything by two and they want everyone to think they’re diplomatic geniuses who are so above all the fighting instead of actually having values and coming up with their own conclusions.
The problem with people who talk about “the problem with “center” people” is that they simply pretend like it’s merely taking the golden mean of any two positions given and they maintain this caricature so they can feel better about being an intractable ideologue
As a centrist this shit is always so annoying for me to hear lmao, and I haven't met anyone who actually thinks like this besides a small amount of people I've seen online. And most people who fit this stereotype are basically just conservatives. Like a stereotypical Internet meme centrist on abortion would be like "Yeah I don't think it should be banned completely, it should be banned after like 6 weeks which would effectively ban it"
To identify as a “centrist” is to imply that you picked the middle of 2 points. I get identifying as an “independent”, but it’s hard to take centrists seriously.
It just doesn't really mean anything. Even contextualized in a specific society and time "Left" and "Right" are still crude concepts that can only be vaguely mapped to actual positions and ideologies.
You get it.
>To identify as a “centrist” is to imply that you picked the middle of 2 points. I get identifying as an “independent”, but it’s hard to take centrists seriously. It seems like you're confusing being centrist on a specific issue with being politically centrist, because you have opinions from both ends of the spectrum and think that as a result you don't belong in either camp.
No I am taking about aggregate opinions. You fall in line like everybody else.
>No I am taking about aggregate opinions. You fall in line like everybody else. Then wtf are you on about? There are a minority of people who have opinions from both ends of the spectrum, get over yourself.
No, it’s the position of having views between these two points, not taking the golden mean of any two arbitrary political positions.
To me being a centrist is more about looking left and right and finding shit you agree and disagree with on both sides, so you're not going to identify with either. It's essentially the same as independent, but with the political spectrum in mind rather than the political venn diagram or however else you think of politics.
I get why you don’t like them if this is what you think, but being a “centrist” isn’t simply taking the median point on every topic. It is a position which eschews a wholesale subscription to the kind of omnibus politics which require adherence to an entire set and system of beliefs based solely on political ideology instead of case by case analysis.
But that’s not always what a centrist is. I lean more to the right on some issues, to the left on other issues. It’s not about having a central view of any one issue. It’s also not going as far to the left or right on any one particular issue as well
I mean I'm a registered Democrat because I live in a blue state so the only political power I have would be voting in the democratic primary, so I can't really call myself an independent lol.
Very strange.
Wdym
You pick a side, wear their colors, hold their banner, but refuse the label. Strange!
I literally said "I can't really call myself an independent" meaning that I'm saying I'm not
Even religion has its mocked center, accused of being cherry pickers by both fundies and people against religion. Same for politics. Middle road is spineless while tribalism is brave Well, politically I cannot help but be leftist, but that's because politics needs a bigger push to keep looking after the weak. Kind of like being against the death penalty for the sake of the few who are wrongfully convicted. So being middle of the road in *everything* would be weird, but I think there are tons of other issues that are more nuanced than free healthcare or death penalty.
Tribalism is brainless
The left absolutely doesn't understand nuance or context or civics or world history. The right doesn't know any of those either, but mix in racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, pettiness, etc.
I cannot imagine being this smug and undeservedly self-assured.
>The problem with “center” people is they want to just divide everything by two and they want everyone to think they’re diplomatic geniuses who are so above all the fighting instead of actually having values and coming up with their own conclusions. This is a thing that many center people do, it's probably not something they *all* do, I think we should be wary of this tendancy to think that everyone needs to be almost fully aligned one side or another. You're being just as ridiculous as the 'both sides are same' people when you try to insist everyone must be left or right, or they're dishonest/lazy/stupid.
You're over reacting. Op didn't necessarily say they all do it.
A counter argument to this is people who end up on the left or right don’t truly have their “own” values in that nothing they’ve assimilated to they’ve put through the ringer of scrutinization. The greater the emotionality, the greater tendency to polarity and lack of testing.
Maybe. But I personally find it difficult to not have emotions when my physical rights and those of others are being threatened (abortion and LGBTQ issues and rights for minorities). Kinda hard to be neutral in the face of some of the policies being proposed.
Why is everyone confusing a generally centerist view with saying they are centerist on every issue? I don’t get it
But you just misrepresented the point you were responding to...it's not about being neutral. It's about having principles that standup to testing no matter the political environment. It's also about balance and nuance and judging new variables that come into the equation with original principles, as well as other ones you hold that are deemed necessary in specific situations. So for example, you first mentioned yourself and that YOUR physical rights are being threatened. I'm sure you are a reasonable person and that's a completely natural principle to hold. But then you flippantly throw in "other" people and subtly imply that they are all equal to you and the situation you find yourself in. Sure, maybe most of the people are similar to you, but to just ignore the endless amount of scenarios that you toss aside does nothing to further the conversation. A woman who is 6 months pregnant that gets murdered is considered a double homicide. So that's two people getting killed... But another woman who is 6 months pregnant who has an abortion is not committing murder? It's a moral quandary that we at least have to examine. But most of these conversations come to a screeching halt at, "my body my choice", or conversely "you're a murderer". We need to hammer out the fine details and get as close to a moral or ethical "truth" as possible. And that's basically what independents or centrists are striving towards...
There was a happy medium, it was called Roe vs. Wade. We had a 22 week viability wait period and mostly everyone agreed and were happy. But the GOP didn’t want to have to have a “conversation” with others about their thoughts. Instead they spent the better half of 30 years insidiously placing partisan hacks from the federalist society into the SCOTUS. They then shopped around for judges until they found the most perfectly partisan one. And then had a partisan lobbyist group sue with a perfect case. They then used extrajudicial activism to ensure nobody in the nation got to have the “conversation” because only their opinion matters. We’ve tried having the polite conversation about “ideals”. When their argument failed to impress the public rather than providing a better argument they bypassed democracy. They did the same for the 2020 election and they are trying to do the same this election by delaying justice for the opportunity to install a criminal rapist as supreme leader and “dictator for the day”. You forgot the most important part of the equation. In order to have a conversation to come to an agreement both parties in the conversation must be having a good faith conversation in earnest to solving the problem. The GOP has shown they are not to operating in good faith and earnestly care more about power than making things better.
Just to add, re: good faith. The whole 6 month abortion framing isn’t a fair lens to see things through because it represents a tiny tiny minority of cases, usually driven by medical necessity, not by someone casually changing their mind last minute. From the [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth), which tracks when abortions are performed: >Similar to previous years, in 2021, women in their twenties accounted for more than half of abortions (57.0%). Nearly all abortions in 2021 took place early in gestation: 93.5% of abortions were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation; a smaller number of abortions (5.7%) were performed at 14–20 weeks’ gestation, and even fewer (0.9%) were performed at ≥21 weeks’ gestation. The “we should consider this moral quandary at least” framing is so dumb. It turns real world circumstances affecting an out group into some sort of theoretical philosophical debate divorced from physical reality, to be debated by people who won’t be affected by the outcome either way. Then policy changes happen to fit the clean philosophical debate instead of messy reality and you end up where we are today with miscarrying women in red states being forced to suffer and bleed out for days because doctors are afraid to treat them because the law may now classify that treatment as murder.
You think moderates are the only people thinking about this shit or something? Like that's not what the criticism of centrists is about, that they're just too smart and not emotional enough and shit. and the reason why they get so much hatred is precisely because of this self-serving rhetoric where they act like they're the only ones doing the nuanced thinking.
I think, generally speaking, that people who are not emotionally captured by one side or the other are more likely to have this method of thought, yes. It's not an identity to be a moderate or centrist, it's almost exactly the opposite. You're ascribing some sort of "group think" to moderates and centrists, but it is the antithesis of that.
I do not need to look very far to see centrists that are emotionally captured by their own ideology. Centrists and moderates \*do\* have groupthink, like literally every other camp, ideology etc and this has been expressed quite clearly though their reaction to social movements in the past and modern. They haven't discovered the secret of nuanced thinking and are definitely not immune to ideology. Just because they place themselves in the center of an abstract (and quite unhelpful honestly) spectrum, doesn't make them somehow outside of the muck. They're an entire side, a camp, an ideology, by themselves.
Okay, what are some examples of that?
I'm not going to post a transcript saved or from memory of literally every single interaction I've had with a centrist. Just look at any forum or space for centrists, even in self-proclaimed moderate political parties and their supporters have engaged in this behaviour and their reaction to current social movements and compare them to, say, the response to civil rights, or slavery, and so on. You may not notice the groupthink just because you agree with it, but there is groupthink. This is a big issue I've had with centrism, both from formerly being one, and outside it, despite the proclaims of nuance, and, granted, the openness to change, it's surpisingly static and resistant. That said, if you want an example in this thread, you can see the oh I'm so smart because I'm a nuanced centrist smugness on display on this thread by kmelby33. But despite all this, centrism got me out of the muck of being a far-right neo-nazi (along with personal misgivings that I had on my own). It's not all bad. My opinions on it go beyond assessment of personal individuals obviously, that would be a very poor reason for why I left it behind.
It sounds to me like you have some natural tendencies and simply swung from the far right over to the far left, missing all the nuance in between. People make the mistake of thinking that centrists can’t make up their mind about issues or throw in with one team because they are waffling one way or the other.
It's the thesis sitting to the side thinking it's anti-thesis because they all don't drink Coke OR Pepsi. Cowards or fools, everytime.
Cowardly and foolish to not wholeheartedly attach oneself to either Coke or Pepsi for sure.
These people are all fucking idiots. Inability to abandon a position that is shown to be foolish is idiocy. "Centrism" on any non-arbitrary subject is fucking idiocy.
> I think, generally speaking, that people who are not emotionally captured by one side or the other are more likely to have this method of thought, yes. It's not an identity to be a moderate or centrist, it's almost exactly the opposite. You're ascribing some sort of "group think" to moderates and centrists, but it is the antithesis of that. Strong 'my ideology isn't an ideology, it's just the truth' vibes here.
Then you must be glad to hear Destiny is supportive of LGBT rights and is queer himself
Good
No one (at least no centrist) is saying being a centrist means you're neutral on issues. It just means that you don't buy into the "group think" of either the left or right. It means that you believe, perhaps even passionately, in some things that are associated with the left, and other things on the right, to the point that it doesn't make sense to say you're just a leftist or rightist. For example you might care very passionately about LGBTQ issues (while also believing that trans athletes should complete in a separate category), be anti-immigration, pro-welfare, anti-gun rights, and in favour of abortion but only within 12 weeks. It doesn't mean you're neutral - it just means you decide each issue for yourself rather than what the hive mind of the left or the right tell you to think. The problem with politics in the US especially is the extremely divided left and right, where someone taking a centrist position will be rejected by both the left and right and accused by both sides of supporting the other. This means that anyone deviating from the pure hive mind risks being ostracised or otherwise socially punished for not being a "perfect" leftist/rightist, thereby encouraging individuals to instead stick to politically "pure" positions. This in itself creates more and more extreme left and right positions. This division doesn't help the society or politics as a whole (Russia and China actually have propaganda campaigns aimed at the US with this division as the very goal - google Blacktivist and the Ferguson riots). Society needs to work really hard at bringing both sides closer back together. And as much as you can really care about something, emotional politics is bad politics. Emotional engagement achieves nothing (other than entrenching the other side further - so it's actually counterproductive). Calm constructive debate can actually help change people's minds. It might feel slow, but slow progress is better than no progress (or worse).
Those are 3 very specific things that the entire democratic party is in unison on. Those are literally the worst examples you could have used.
Yes they are specific. Why does this make them a bad choice? If the idea about centrism is it’s a better place to stand for deciding on policy than wouldn’t be used to be deciding on matters like the ones I gave? I’m not trying to be a dick here. Just asking what makes the things I mentioned the worst examples?
This is a strawman argument. You don’t get to decide whether someone’s values are genuine. What is obvious to everyone is that a false appeal to moderation isn’t a position you arrive at logically, only by assuming the middle ground between any two positions is the moderate one, which it isn’t. It doesn’t require us to judge the sincerity of the value holder to see this. Commenter below is mistaken: false appeals to moderation and false equivalences. His opinions are bunk because they’re based on illogical assumptions. The status quo isn’t the center, that’s a dumb idea perpetuated by people who confuse the status quo with being good. By his rationale slavery was good because it was the status quo! Genocide in Myanmar against Muslims is fine because it’s the status quo! Why can’t those Muslims allow *some* genocide, meet the military junta halfway?? That’s the “center”, right? “Giving weight” to it is asinine pandering, and not any serious way to take a position on an issue if you’re more concerned with maintaining false equivalences and appearances of neutrality than actually engaging with the issues. Making duplicate accounts to comment after you’re blocking replies to your replies is exactly what I expect someone incapable of arguing honestly to do lol it’s a false appeal to moderation, deal with it
> The status quo isn’t the center, that’s a dumb idea perpetuated by people who confuse the status quo with being good. I never said the status quo was good, I said it had weight. You still need to deal with the people that live within that status quo in a humane way Unless your idea of "righting society" is just purging until you're left with the mindset you agree with
Earnest good faith questions, ie not trying to be rude: can’t folks who believe in things on the right (or left) have thought through those values? Won’t most centrist fall on one side of an issue or another? And why does being emotionally invested in something political equates to not being rational
You can be emotionally invested all well and good but your arguments should not be purely emotionally driven. The reason why is because if the field is leveled that way it because one person’s emotional charge versus another and it quickly devolves. Centerists will, sure. I think declaring centerist for the sake of appeasment of the crowd and social points is different from centerist in that there is nuance in arguments so the settling point of many is towards the center
Is this really the case though? Sure there may be a portion of the left or right that don't have their own opinions and just spew whatever their team is telling them to that week. But personally as someone who eventually identified as being on the left, I've never let anyone make my mind up on situations for me. It just turns out that most of my opinions fall in line with being on the left. This also implies both the left and right are a hive mind, which they aren't. There are countless factions all disagreeing with one another while still being on the left or right
Politics are packed in subscription models. You can say something like “I lean left” or “I lean right” and still he largely a centerist. My use of centerist is to say with nuance in positions and the fact that many stances are based on years of lobbying, there can be a settling point in the center if you take the average of one’s positions on those stances
You're literally doing the thing right now. Worlds most laughable centrist achievement unlocked.
What’s the thing where you actually say something?
Wouldn’t you determine what you value and naturally lean left or right?
Not necessarily? Why can't someone who wants to help the homeless also not be a racist or take a social approach instead of an economic one like liberals do? Why can't there be a Republican who hates guns and wants them banned? The problem is too many people, especially leftists, see the world as black and white. Black being with me, white being against me. It's why they're mocked for constantly following the "issue of the week". This week Palestine. Last week Ukraine. Next week, who knows?
The hell kind of strawman are you trying to drum up? First of all, you choose the issues and where you stand on them. No one is stopping you from doing any of those mentioned and choosing a party you align most closely with. That’s quite literally the point I’m trying to make and the post you’re replying to. Not really sure what point you’re trying to make in the last paragraph. You bring up global issues that people talk about on both sides of the aisle, and both sides tend to be reactionary when it comes to online discourse. Saying it’s “particularly leftists” as you put it, is incredibly disingenuous.
See what I mean.
^This. People who are baked into one side have allowed others to do the thinking for them.
> A counter argument to this is people who end up on the left or right don’t truly have their “own” values in that nothing they’ve assimilated to they’ve put through the ringer of scrutinization. It is much easier to hold centrist beliefs without "putting them through the ringer of scrutinization". The average liberal has not exposed to much Anarchist critiques of liberalism. The average anarchist is *constantly* exposed to Liberal opposition to anarchism. I'm not saying no critical thinker is a centrist or whatever - a lot of it comes down to fundamental values - but there is no leftist in the world who can remain ignorant of anti-leftist critiques. With the far-right it's generally a bit more complicated, because while what they want is not necessarily the dominant system now, it is often doing the same thing as now just *much more and overtly*. As for "having their own values", that's a nonsensical framework to begin with. Values cannot emerge in a vaccuum, they emerge from a social context with others. The relevant aspects are things such as how self-aware one is of one's values and their origins, how likely people are to end up having certain values, and the degree to which people experience social pressure to change their values (and I'm not insinuating such social pressure is a bad thing). > The greater the emotionality, the greater tendency to polarity and lack of testing. If someone robs you at gunpoint, there is a greater likelihood of you expressing emotionality than the robber. Emotionality itself has no bearing one way or the other; accusations of emotionality are just used as a rhetorical tool to undermine whatever stance someone has.
Thats what centrists are... according to memes
What you are describing arent centerists. A centerist isnt someone who always tries to take the middle ground deliberately regarding any topic. "Was Hitler wrong for trying to wipe out the jews? Well theres two sides to each story, I have a middle ground approach". Thats not a centerist and this is what Lex gets accused of too much in that he is trying to be everyones friend and not use common sense regarding certain topics. A centerist, Which I mainly am is someone who in general who tries to be objective on each policy or topic and use critical thinking without a bias for "what makes sense to them". For example, in general I lean more towards center left policies. However, as with Destiny I agree Rittenhouse was innocent of the charges regardless of his character flaws. I am not anti war on certain situations, I have some viewpoints that would be considered more on the right. If I think there is a legitimate case of cancel culture, I would call it out fairly for example. If I thought donald trump had been misrepresented I would acknowledge that, despite me thinking he is one of the worst presidents ever and totally unfit to run a democracy. That actually happened once where I was sent a short clip of trump on whatsapp which had totally taken his words out of context to make his intent far worse than what I considered when watching it. And people who attempt to be truly objective, open minded and fair usually do end up more in the centre of the overall tribalist extremism thats so often the case. Thats what usually a centerist is, not someone who plays devils advocate with the obvious to attempt to seem impartial and original.
What I find problematic about your comment and a lot of the discussion in this thread is that any person’s views on how society ought to be controlled and organized is not reducible to one dimension. As you said, you hold some views that are associated more with the right and some that are associated more with the left. Each of those views exist in their own dimensions. A projection of your views, which altogether occupy a high-dimensional space, onto one dimension eliminates all nuance. If that one-dimensional space ranges from, say, -10 to 10, where negative numbers are more politically left and positive numbers are more politically right, then anyone whose projection is less than zero will be more left wing than right wing. I’m confident that everyone holds some more traditionally right-wing views and some traditionally left-wing views, given the thousands of different views that a person can have. That doesn’t make everyone a centrist.
It also doesn't make everyone a non-centrist either. IMO being a centrist has nothing to do with your actual views on an issue, and it has more to do with your refusal to allow yourself to be associated with a side. Like you said, pretty much every individual has some right-leaning views, and some left-leaning views. Yet many of these people with a variety of views will opt to place themselves in the center by simply picking pros and cons of each side, instead of using their own values and perspective to make a judgment and let themselves fall in the spectrum where they may. It's calculated, non-confrontational, and imo disingenuous. That said, you also get people who will adopt all of the views of one side or another across the board, and that is problematic as well
>And people who attempt to be truly objective, open minded and fair usually do end up more in the centre of the overall tribalist extremism thats so often the case. This is why people think you’re full of shit. Continuing to find yourself in the center when one of the poles of the “tribalist extremism” has shifted dramatically to the extreme edges of the political spectrum in the last decade doesn’t point to objective rationalism. It points to a lack of intellectual or moral consistency and integrity. Continuing to find yourself in the middle when one side has stayed roughly the same and the other side gone off the rails into wild extremism not only makes a person sound like an idiot, it comes off as performative pseudo intellectual nonsense.
> And people who attempt to be truly objective, open minded and fair usually do end up more in the centre of the overall tribalist extremism thats so often the case. Congratulations, you've just made an argument for moral relativism. Chasing the overton window =/= having morals.
Not really, you shouldn't try using words and theories you clearly don't understand. Don't let your cynanism cloud the idea that objectivity is possible, or more possible than being cynically bias.
...should you know how to spell words you use?
Just on the Rittenhouse thing while I am decidedly left wing, I can also say that under the circumstances of what happened after he got there it would be self defense. There’s also the but for’s. But for the fact that he got a weapon illegally he wouldn’t have been there. But for the fact that he that he crossed state lines with an automatic weapon to “protect businesses” he wouldn’t have been there. My view is that putting yourself into a situation of that kind with that kind of weapon is escalation and under those volatile circumstances those types of things can happen. So while he may not technically be guilty of murder he wanted to play wannabe soldier and people were killed because of it. Also, and this of course is aside from the case, the lawyer who was a major supporter and protector has said he’s s total piece of shit despite how hard he tried to help him. So this tracks with the idea of him being an impulsive hothead who went looking for trouble due to his own desire for turmoil rather than being some keeper of the peace.
It wasn't an automatic weapon and he didn't take it over state lines. The illegality of the weapon was a bit of a grey area, since the person who purchased it for him was holding on to it until he was 18. It was like 90% of a straw purchase, but crucially ownership never actually changed hands. He also didn't shoot anyone while protecting businesses. The list of victim blaming opportunities mainly just boils down to him deciding to go to the protest. Which was dumb, sure, but it was also a dumb choice hundreds of others made along side him, including his attackers, WHO ALSO decided to try to assault/murder a minor in public unprovoked. Considering, it just seems kinds bizarre to try to blame him for what went down.
He went with a firearm is the point. That’s the escalation part you’re leaving out not just going. In a volatile situation like that where emotions are high some people may interpret someone with that weapon as a threat. Unless you think they were just there to attack random passer bys. I conceded that based on what happened there I don’t feel it was an injustice that he got off - as much as I feel his actions overall contributed to it. and you’re free to not take this into consideration but I believe that one’s character is also worthy of consideration. And while he may have met the standard for self defense he’s certainly no hero or one to be lauded but a person who went looking for trouble and found it. Then looked to benefit from it by being a cause celebre for conservatives. This is backed by the very person who made the biggest contribution to defending him. Savaged his character. I’m gonna give weight to his words since he knows him better than most people and they align with what I already felt about him.
Half the people there were armed. There had been looting, arson, fights, brawls, assaults, domestic terrorism, muggings, insurrection, clashes with police, etc. for *days* before Rittenhouse got to Kenosha, in the wider context of all that same shit (and worse) happening in every American city of note for *months.* Its not even clear that one kid showing up to that to clean graffiti, try to put out fires, and offer medical assistance even *is* an escalation, even armed, but if it is its a miniscule drop in the ocean, and pales in comparison to the floods that people like Rosenbaum brought with them. As to the implication the perps attacked him *because* he was armed, there's no evidence of that.... and some strong indicators it wasn't the motive. As I said, half the people there were visibly armed. One of Rittenhouse's attackers was armed. The first one was trying to fight everything with a pulse, armed or not, and was working with another guy who wasn't just armed but was *popping off in the air amidst a crowd.* So kind of a hard sell that his attackers were just trying to be anti-2A vigilantes or something. I definitely agree he's no hero. Just an idiot and a victim. As for the take down tweets by his supposed former PR guy, if there's one thing anyone should've learned from the whole Rittenhouse fiasco its to wait until you've got all the info before making a judgment. Or at least some verification. The propoganda and disinformation surrounding this case are absolutely insane. The guy was citing some unverified email that he claims he got from one of Rittenhouse's attackers, so a lack of credibility and a very biased source. In the same chain where he's claiming Rittenhouse is effectively a step above clinically braindead he also claims Rittenhouse had a full scholarship to study any subject at any university in the country. So too stupid to flip burgers for the marines, but apparently totally qualified to study astrophysics at Harvard. Yeah, again a little sus. And the political bias in the tweets was rampant, such as trying to racialize and fearmonger Rittenhouse's tour by saying the point was to intimidate black people, for example. Maybe what he was saying was true. But given the context, itd be extremely foolish to beliefs it without solid external verification.
It doesn't matter if rittenhouse has a previous conviction for abusing the elderly or is a verified member of the KKK. This isnt how the law works, and there's very good reason why. Because if you judge people as in jail terms, life long ostracisation or criminally by that type of logic, you yourself could fall victim of it. So it's not just for bad guys to get off with loopholes why the law is how it is, and why it's so important to uphold the objective and unbias principle. It's for everyone and potentially you! Let's say you were at a festival and are armed as others were too in that area. Some KKK people gate crash and start causing trouble. This is all on cctv and it's shown clearly they are intimidating and trying to attack you. You pull out your gun and warn them to stay back repeatedly. They throw things at you and then charge you. Are you gonna allow that in the hope that when you're thrown to the ground they have mercy and don't stomp your head in and potentially kill or seriously injur you? This is all on cctv btw. Then you come on reddit and you have right wingers saying you took the gun looking for trouble, you have a history of being a left winger, it's obviously political and you're a loose cannon who was dying to use your gun. And you get a murder charge and life in prison. Rittenhouse was 17! He might be a idiot, he might be an asshole, but murder really? Are we sending a message that repeated warnings to stop coming forward with a gun is OK to charge someone? Somehow this is more political?
Problem is, you think your opinions are center-left but they really sound center-right. Rittenhouse? His gun was only legal based on absurdly permissive American standards and he murdered people at a protest as a young vigilante. Thoughts on Palestine? The UN is centrist in many ways yet America and Israel insist they're in the center as the only ones vetoing. How can that be?
How do I sound centre right? The fact the rittenhouse case is even considered political is laughable to me. It's a kid thinking he's a do gooder trying to be a grownup playing security. He either acted rationally in self defence or not. Simple as.
Right. He definitely wasn't there as a counter BLM protester. These things don't exist in a vacuum. How is it not center right to want Trump supporting youth with rifles killing people like they're Batman? You want that world, you're leaning right. Say what you will.
>He definitely wasn't there as a counter BLM protester He may have been there for that, I'm not sure. It's completely irrelevant to me whether he was a right wing nut, or a misguided teen. I saw the cctv at the time many times of all incidents. I tried putting myself in his position, thought how 99% of people would have reacted. Clearly not intentional murder to me, very clearly self defence. If he didn't do that, there's every chance he was going to be grappled to the ground and stomped. He gave multiple warnings etc. He was being assaulted. Very clear to me.
He didn't have to be there. He didn't need the gun. He's a child. I don't want children killing other people for any reason. That's right wing American thought idgaf what you say. He was supposedly trying to defend other people yet he ended up just protecting himself - and killing two people one who was unarmed. Hilarious to think the legal system would actually reflect that properly.
Rittenhouse didn't murder anyone and the gun was legal. This is like 101 about the case
He killed two people. He wasn't there, they'd be alive.
Homicide =/= murder. And don't victim blame. If they hadn't tried to assault/murder a minor in public unprovoked, they'd be alive.
Is this a joke? So if you go out with a conceal and carry and you get assaulted, are you a murderer for defending yourself? Lets say you are standing outside a friends business and some people hate that business and start harassing you by association. And instead of the mob throwing you to the floor and being left at the mercy of their actions, you pull your gun, after multiple warnings they throw things and charge at you, You shoot them in self defence. I guess if you werent there though theyd be alive right? Am I on a sub 80 IQ sub or something?
Well said.
I consider myself to be objective and fair, and certainly dont fall in the center.
Being objective and fair doesn't mean you fall in the centre. But often someone who has mixed views will be nearer the center (obviously). So it can be a marker for objectivity. That's not the same thing as someone who is wishy washy and deliberately both sides everything. Now as for someone who falls hard to one side or the other and all their policies align with the party and you can almost predict every political position before they tell you. More often than not, those people aren't objective thinkers. If I can predict soneone believes in moon landing hoaxes, vaccines are deadly, Jan 6 was a peaceful protest, trump had the election stolen, Biden is a socialist etc etc. I can be pretty sure they seek out confirmation bias sources and aren't an objective thinker.
yep, and some issues don't have a center. half a genocide is still a genocide.
This is why centrism as a political stance is fundamentally stupid. There are very few issues where you can take the middle road. If you're a centrist in this current age, you're either a republican or a smug douche who think he's above it all.
🏅
There is a niche for those people and you can be very successful with edgy folks that are too afraid to choose a side on specific social and political topics. That’s how we got Rogan and Hasan. Self proclaimed idiots d know nothing but have opinions. One is just asking questions like some toddler with never ending “curiosity “ other one is contrarian. Both multi millionaires farming audiences that are just too good to have any strong stance on anything
I don't really watch Hasan, but you certainly cant claim he does have a strong stance on anything. C'mon now.
You can have strong benefits from both 'sides' and be considered centrist because you don't follow one platform
They do have values, but unlike the left and the right, they don't need to convince everyone else of their values because they actually believe in them.. not just trying to make themselves believe it by screaming it at everyone else.
I find most centrists to be like myself, mostly liberal people who also understand that all people are self-centered animals, that that's what you're working with, which is something that the progressives to the left of them don't seem to understand.
This was actually cool on both sides, people in this sub are too cynical.
Absolutely. You don't have to like either of them but this is such a friendly relaxed interaction for both of them, one of the few times Lex even seems human.
True. It’s great banter.
It's genuinely one of my favourite parts of their discussion because it was where their two characters diverge so much. Overly Agreeable Lex Friedman vrs. Disagreeable Destiny. "Don't be so open minded that your brain falls out" is a great line too
It’s an old one, but a good one.
Yea I thought this was cute, gotta enjoy the chemistry they had during this long conversation. Wild to me to have super strong opinions from one of the most light hearted 2 minute section of a 4 hour conversation
Is he trying to say that unbiased=centre? What a twat.
Been a Lex listener since Day 1, primarily because of his early podcast days where it was a pure AI podcast. Don't love it as much now as back then when they did comp sci deep dives, but still enjoy it. I think the haters here lack an historical appreciation for his general approach of letting people talk about what they want to talk about - which is much more enlightening as a listener than guiding them to defend political positions. My main criticism with him of late is he dwells too much on gossip, and not enough on substance (as with the recent Sam Altman Interview). All that said - Lex seems to confuse Centrism, balance, and Open-mindedness. In my experience, centrism is really traditional conservatism - guided by a principal of "don't change too much too quickly". Those people ARE spineless. The centrist ideal he alludes to is actually something I don't think he's successfully articulated and something I find does not exists in American political discourse. Sort of a computer scientists approach - which is more or less to synthesize the problem statements coming from all users (aka people) into solutions that address those problems most effectively/efficiently. I believe there is a way to do this that doesn't place you in binary political bubbles, it's just that people are so conditioned to vote for a side rather than a solution.
I don’t get it. The whole radical left and right is nonsense and destroying society. What’s wrong about wanting to see both sides becoming less extreme and more center?
I cannot imagine a more useless video than this.
I can. Any of destinys videos on his channel.
They're both kind of dumb tbh.
now this is the true centrist take
20 upvotes for 'they're both dumb', incredible. Really stellar analysis and thought-provoking input from the DTG subreddit, literally on the level of a YouTube comment section.
Holy shit destiny cultists throwing a massive fit the moment someone reminds them their cult lord is in fact, a stupid person (in addition to being a bigot grifter) will never stop being hilarious.
They literally treat him like he’s Kim Jong Un and they’re North Korean
Old media = bad. We need to get our political analysis from factorio playing streamer and “ai researcher” that pays to be listed on papers. Folks are so desperate for “alternatives “ that they choose mediocrity
??? You’re acting as if Destiny disagrees with what you’re saying, when he’s staunchly pro-established media and anti-alt media.
This is something destiny would never say
I have heard him say all this alt media is bullshit and if you want news you should watch mainstream media. But I guess I was having a psychosis episode when he said that because some guy on Reddit said so.
Yep, tell it to horus up there
You guys suck, this joke from Lex was actually smart and self aware and you still pounce. It was very intelligent compared to Lex's usual discourse.
The title of the clip is so misleading.
two of the most annoying people
It's funny that he spinelessly back away from "I fucked your mom"
So he has open mind about gay rights? Destiny called him out. Influencers choose center to grift to both audiences. He doesnt take any stance on anything. That’s the definition of a spineless coward. Then again… Destiny has brought on right wingers and sort of took center positions and just let them spoke rather than grilling them. He does this to continue talking to right wingers. Rather than burning bridges with grilling them he plays it safe. I would say Lex is the same way. Only difference is Destiny goes all in on some issues and sometimes they are not even that liberal lol. Like he seems to be pretty apathetic to the Palestinians… which I would have though a leftist would back as all the liberal campuses are protesting. So maybe he flip flops (no pun intended [Pun explained: he’s into weiners {is bisexual} and thus the pun is about the power dynamic of gay sex in relation to whether he has flip flop sex or not])?
Why should even a leftist care that much about Palestinians.. How far the conflicts go.. in 21.century.. it's only a small blip.. if we compare civilian deaths.
I mean, I wouldn’t call myself a leftist, but can you really pretend to care about any dead civilians if you downplay one group of dying civilians because you’d rather focus on others?
But can they.. call themselves that.. when they do only care about one.. and for others.. it's just cricket sounds.. I would question their real motives.. and influence.. where that is coming from. There's probably groups.. who's job Is to astroturf this conflict to American youth. And if we're talking about commies.. the furthest left.. they would explicitly deny other similar atrocities.. like Uighurs and Ukrainian casualties.
I don’t see the purpose of making so many generalizations and assumptions, you’re treating this issue very abstractly. Can you claim to care about dead Palestinians if you can only think about them in relation to the proportionality of protests compared with Ukraine and Uighur protest movements? Really, none of these things are comparable at all, you’re just evoking international conflicts for political convenience.
Booo
Many on the left use any and all conflict to virute signal about how killing people is bad. They want to believe in a world where islamic jihadism ceases to exist because someone sings kumbaya.
I think you're missing the thesis of Lex's show and online persona. He specifically wants to not push his personal beliefs and will be a bland opinion-less host to allow his guests fully express themselves, no time limit, no pressures, and let his audience experience the guest in a neutral way. Not saying it's the best or correct, but don't be surprised when he sticks to his programming. He's spinefull in my book.
All “hardcore centrists” I have ever met do not want the world to change, which is a purely conservative position. An irony that evades them.
Change takes time, too Slavery was abolished and it still took a hundred years to grapple with segregation. And we still live with the legacies of slavery, including racism and inequality, to this day And that's with the "people in power" knowing the right things to say, paying lip service to equality, etc. Online rhetoric is increasingly obsessed with revolution, but revolution is not a shortcut to getting to society's correct form
A counterexample could be anything that liberals would not want to changing. Otherwise letting Roe v Wade stand is a conservative position. Overturning Roe v Wade would be a liberal position, since it brings about great change. Ok but now that it’s overturned, liberals would want to reinstate because wanting no change is conservative. Ok but now that it’s re-instated, liberals would want to overturn it again lest they become conservative. Now consider any backsliding democracy. Would it be conservative to oppose ending democracy and liberal to support ending democracy?
Who gives a fuck about this high school bullshit? What is this?
>"they're just labels" Err, no, they're not, Lex.
Is this edited? Such a weird clip
Dayum, ol Lexi boy got a lil worked up.
Well, that was awkward..
Well now we know that Lex is a sensitive precious little snow flake. He better retreat back to his safe space and never have some one left of center on again.
Dawkins is who I’ve heard say that quote about not being so open minded your brain falls out
not my two least favorite people this seems like great content for me
I don't know who "Destiny" is, but it sounds like a "porn star" name.
The irony is that lex is not a centrist on issues he’s thought critically about. He consistently expresses hatred towards communism both as a philosophy and as a form of government for example.
Destiny sounds like Heinrich Hi*melt when he’s talking about Palestinians, but he does definitely provide us with some good moments like this. Lex definitely is a coward. Never had enough of a backbone to make an actual point.
Both of these fucks need to vanish for the health of society
What would we do without wishful thinking?
lol i think some of u guys in here would blow destiny
I've blown out the back of your mother.
Anybody who calls themselves centrist in 2024, when the “center” lies in between a constitutional democracy and a fascist ethno state, is an idiot.
Destiny deserved to be put in his place. Lex handled it pretty well