Minisode 3: Deplatforming Part 2

[@twitchton]

All I'm saying is praise the divine leader, Buster the Eternal.

[@theodorebear6714]

Cute little doggy. ❤️ 🌞

[@brimming]

Great video, love the channel! This is actually the first time I've ever heard someone (besides youtube themselves) bring up any positive aspects of removing the dislike counter. I downloaded the firefox add-on to bring it back as soon as I could. But I never gave a ton of thought as to *why* I wanted to see it. As you said, it makes it harder to find good tutorial videos, but the vast majority of videos I watch are not tutorials. After giving it some thought, I realized that when I see a video I don't like, I crave the vindication of seeing a large number of dislikes. It's not enough for me to decide I don't like it, I want reassurance that I'm in the majority. I get that reassurance from seeing a large dislike/like ratio. I don't think that's a good thing. Thanks for giving me a lot to chew on!

[@themorbidzoo]

Oh wow, I hadn’t thought of that but thinking back on it I totally had that same weird relationship with the dislike counter, you’re so completely right. In more than one way it was just another asset in what I think is a really disturbing gamification of narcissism. Thanks for watching!

[@JustsomeSteve]

​@@themorbidzoo A disturbing gamification of narcissism? Isn't that a bit harsh :P? I'm pretty sure it's explained by the "Normative social influence". You know, that Asch conformity experiment and so on... (Correct me if I'm wrong) Don't you study "Communication studies" and isn't this part of it? Edit: Disclaimer, this is Kitchen Psychology. I never studied it. So take it with a big grain of salt.

[@danielulrich7409]

Hey hey, it's another stranger telling you your content is superb You are the most well-thought-out channel I follow. You go through every nook and craney you can climb into in a given topic and with this you manage to provide a staggering amount of retainable knowledge. The insights you give is something every other KZbinr is either too lazy, can't be bothered, or simply not capable of putting together and putting out. I also admire the dedication you give to this channel. Each video is *fabulously* consitent in terms of following the channel's intents (which i interpret as well-thought-out and in depth breakdowns of diverse artistic mediums/aka movies). The research and time you put into you're content really shows, mostly because it contrasts itself from other contents in its category/(video essays in general). I also like that you're channel is relatively small. 17.1K people is a lot (except in the big picture), but for KZbin culture, this means you can host a really niche community. I remember scrolling across the all-entrapsing KZbin algorithm and seeing a video interviewing Markiplier, and for one of the questions he was asked his biggest regret. He answered saying that it was going big, because he lost the direct one-on-one connection he was able to have with his audience. If you're channel would end up going big, you would most definetlely deserve it, but at the same time it would be like seeing a friend or family member move away. Ofcourse, that outcome is perfectly natural, and all-around apart of life though. At the moment someone can scroll through the comments and immediately recocognize that you read each and every comment, and I think it's also really cool that you interact with the majority of comments (hearting included) and that you also give really genuine replies that everyone can agree that no one else gives. I'm also pretty confident that you will end up reading this, so, thank you for carefully sowing together this content for all of us, and creating such a niche and lovely community! I love your content, and your opinions and philosophies are incredible. For this, you have my eternal respect. Cheers -Dani

[@C0n0li0]

Absolutely enamored with this content! Your delivery is reminiscent of that of Dan Olson from Folding Ideas-confident, assertive, and clearly well educated, and is as powerful as it is entertaining. Your sense of humor, thoughtful and passionate analysis, and overall wonderful presentation have me hooked, and I look forward to seeing what more you have in store!

[@themorbidzoo]

I love Dan, that's a huge compliment. Thanks so much 😊

[@michaelwerkov3438]

@@themorbidzoo agreed though. Not to compare you to Dan, but reminiscent... in a good way. And for all of the channels I'm subbed to, I am kinda passed that the algorithm only now served me any of your videos... and only because I was looking at robocop and it was like, "how about The Thing?". All the good politics, and it's 80s satire and horror that gets me here.

[@dayegilharno4988]

@@michaelwerkov3438 :) Exactly my experience - Maybe we just need smarter algorithms, not deplatforming...

[@teresaellis7062]

Thank you for explaining why I love her content better than I can. 🥰

[@rob9943]

By far my favourite channel about bad news and upsetting realities

[@estebancespedes3515]

It's completely criminal that you have less than 15k subscribers, your analysis is next level.

[@delugesofgrandeur]

What's sad to me is that her The Thing vs The Thing video has over a million views, but her intellectual dives like this don't break 20k.

[@Colorcrayons]

I HATE how this and the preceding video has such few views... The content surrounding the topic being discussed is incredibly relevant right now. I must have watched these a dozen times over the past couple years, and has inspired discussion points in a couple essays.

[@ahobimo732]

"Who will watch the watchmen?" This problem has been around for at least a couple Millenia, so obviously, there are no simple solutions.

[@themorbidzoo]

There's a pretty good argument to be made that books and literacy caused the invention of nations and nationalism and by extension the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. New comm techs always have similar problems

[@matthewlawton9241]

This is also a piss poor excuse to not move forward. People making this and other slippery slope arguments are almost always trying to halt progress, not aid in its form. Progress WILL have mistakes. This is sad. It's also real life.

[@DreamersOfReality]

"Progress" is such a shit excuse to cause untold amounts of human suffering, and "Progress" can only be seen via hindsight. Modern bigots justify the genocidal killing of at least 100 million people as a result of the colonization of the Americas by bringing up technology. They say my people had to be enslaved, and nearly exterminated by the Spanish, because we were never going to invent airplanes. But it was never inevitable that the European settler-colonial empires were going to either. It happened that they did, but nobody at the time expected "Progress". Besides, saying that the genocides and cataclysmic loss of life were a worthy price, merely betrays a monster who will do anything to get what they want. What worth is a drug that will never save as many people as it killed to produce?

[@stephenmontague6930]

Beautiful, wonderful, great work here - just maybe didn't follow this idea - "Oh my god. Easily & quickly identifying someone's opinion as good or bad without actually having to engage with it - is exactly the kind of thing we don't want people to do." Not sure if I ever used the Like / Dislike counter to judge someone's opinion - I used it to glimpse what the audience felt & how controversial the speaker was. If Likes vs Dislikes was 50-50: "Huh, that's interesting, I wonder what's going on here..." then continue to investigate by considering the video & reading the comments - really, I could be wrong, but that's how I remember the old experience. Nowadays, so many comment on "Oh, it's too bad you only have X subscribers..." - people like seeing the stats - it's probably just part of our nature, and an open popularity contest may be better than a hidden algorithm, but to "Be better" (for who? for what?) is very difficult to pin down, and I love how you consider these ideas.

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks so much. :) I think there are reasonable ways to use the dislike counter, but in essence it’s just another cog in the addiction machine. It’s human nature to be interested in other people’s drama, which is really all the dislike counter provides unless you’re looking at tutorials, but like everything else on social media it masks that less-than-dignified need by presenting itself as numbers and therefore useful information. I don’t think stats are in human nature, I think they’re just a convenient way to gameify information. I think there’s a way to structure social media without algorithmically deciding who gets to see what, we’re just so used to information being assigned numerical value that it seems like a default instead of an arbitrary human choice.

[@Jace2000Ice]

You're videos are such a breath of fresh air from the insanity of social media discourse. Like cake but for critical thinking

[@themorbidzoo]

Thank you 😄

[@ryangoepfert9112]

One point I also think is worth making is how the deplatforming argument ostensibly creates a hierarchy of speech that is ultimately arbitrated by these mega platforms. Furthermore that said hierarchy must be defended if so.

[@themorbidzoo]

💯💯💯

[@yakubduncan9019]

Seriously, thank you! It's so frustrating to me when people point out the hypocrisy of the other side but don't forward their own reason for arguing their point.

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks for watching :)

[@davidcastillo1683]

As an MMA fan who had no idea who Tate was and then gradually saw him ingratiate himself into the culture, I don't have the energy to add anything to the way Shitbird Logic trickles down on social media to even the most passive users. Instead I'll say what everyone else has said. You're an absolute gem. You're like if Terry Eagleton grew up on John Carpenter films instead of church.

[@themorbidzoo]

Hahaha thanks 😂

[@davidcastillo1683]

@@themorbidzoo I don't know why I didn't clarify how wretched MMA culture already is, and why Tate's presence managed to rise below even *that* vulgarity - but yea. Not to sound like your parents but I hope you stick with this. I'm not cool enough to know if "BreadTube" has become passe or whatever, but you combine all the best elements of Jonathan McIntosh and Natalie Wynn with...dare I say, a dash of Pat Finnerty. Ok: graveling over.

[@blinkfilms1]

Great intersection to the discourse about archive of our own and what content is immoral vs harmful vs triggering

[@MaxisGameplays]

I wish you had more videos. Your arguments are extremely well put together and I just get swept off my feet by... I guess your intelligent charm? Can't wait for more, or... hope for more.

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks so much :) Busy now, but hoping to get on a good upload schedule by next year!

[@NeedsContent]

There's a concept called The Paradox of Tolerance. The gist is that the only thing a tolerant society can *not* tolerate is intolerance. If allowed, intolerance will grow until the tolerant society becomes intolerant. Therefore, even a tolerant society has to be intolerant towards intolerance.

[@georgecisneros5281]

Yes. We’re all familiar with that cultural Marxist line.🙄

[@rhyscooper3693]

​@@georgecisneros5281That's a really empty and useless argument to post. Are we all supposed to be so ashamed by the line "cultural Marxism" that wherever some bad faith commenter states it, we're all supposed to run away screaming? Why not actually engage with a nuanced and articulate point rather than try pull such a basic "us vs them"? It might work in far right circles but people here are too educated to fall for such cheap marketing tricks... It's a media communications analysis page, after all.

[@Hubbletheory]

​@@georgecisneros5281yes we're all familiar with that neonazy dog whistle :* cultural Marxism indeed

[@RasserMeyer]

Holy friggin' heckers. This is some of the most thorough analysis of the century. I love it

[@edvanburen5911]

THANK YOU for pointing out that that slippery slope arguments are only USUALLY stupid AND acknowledging that sometimes they could be called "just-the-tippery slope"

[@kevinvandenbreemen584]

I really liked your counterargument here to the slippery slope. I confess I had been worried for similar reasons when Twitter deplatformed Trump some years ago (no, I am not a Trump supporter -- I dispise the man). However you make an excellent point when you mention evaluating every decision to deplatform on a case by case basis. It's hard to have the dystopian nanny state that the proponents of the slippery slope argument trot out when any deplatforming is done with careful consideration.

[@jadefalcon001]

Funny thing about when you quoted the person saying he's "basically a criminal and probably a sex offender." TURNS OUT...! Your point is entirely valid - none of that was actual known fact at the time. But in this one particular case, smoke/fire, etc.

[@HelenaRedgrave]

Came for the film analysis, stayed for the anti-capitalism.

[@themorbidzoo]

Lol you're my ideal audience

[@MissElaineDumont]

I see your Paradox of Freedom of Speech and raise you with Paradox of Tolerance and say that we simply have not other choice to utilize force in order to protect the open, tolerant society from people who's ideology INHERENTLY seek to abolish it. That was something even Kropotkin already wrote about and said that issues like these should be the sole exception from unanimous decision. Simply put: We cannot allow the Fascists who refuse to stop being Fascists the opportunity to decide, that they will get away with it. We either stop them from spreading Fascist Propaganda in any kind of way or risk the that exact spread and find ourselves confronted with them threatening to overtake our society, because they always will if they can.

[@rhyscooper3693]

It's such a bad faith and circular argument, too. That a person who fundamentally disagrees with basic rights like that of free speech, deserves not just free speech to promote their antagonistic project but also access to every platform to deliver it.

[@teresaellis7062]

I love your well thought out arguments and dark humor, but I do also generally follow up your videos with something light and silly. I hope you keep being awesome.

[@mossy3565]

Aged. Like. Fine. Wine. Classic video. Absolutely amazing

[@themorbidzoo]

🍻

[@KINKYmustache]

Excellent follow up. I hope your channel will remain this consistently good.

[@sh1tster]

Just discovered you today and subscribed! I look forward to hearing what you have to say about anything!

[@lakesidemfg3552]

Slippery slopes are a bigger danger than you theoretically imagine. There are plenty of analogues in employeer/employee relations during the last 30 years

[@artharris515]

I am so glad you do this because it saves me from having to think and write stuff like this. That, and the fact that I'm not nearly as smart and articulate as you are. Keep going! I can't wait for the next video.

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks so much 😊

[@geoffrygo]

Love this! My takeaway from all the attention seeking that lives on / in social media is that I need to have a little more intention when I use them. Like know why I'm opening my phone, specifically, and not get lost into any scrolling behavior. Or set aside a certain amount of time for mindless scrolling. Idk though even under control it still results in exhaustion and fatigue.

[@themorbidzoo]

Gotta curate your feeds very carefully. I'm a big believer that news shouldn't be accessed through social media, for example, or at least should be prioritized differently

[@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368]

@@themorbidzoo If everyone did that, people wouldn't have stumbled upon your channel via the recommend algorithm. Granted, the news feed might rank higher --traditionally -- but in terms of cultural consumption shaping perspective, people are always going to seek out their bubbles. If they want to challenge their beliefs, they will.

[@rhyscooper3693]

​@@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368That's not necessarily true. I found this channel because the algorithm recommended one of her videos based on a similar media analysis video I was watching. I am still very deliberate about the content I consume because there's a lot of content and I have limited time; recommendation algorithms can simply help find the specific kind of content I'm looking for.

[@gargamel_harasha]

Watching this after Andrew Tate's arrest made this video age like fine wine!

[@themorbidzoo]

🍻

[@joeycook6526]

Very articulate, thoughtful, and effective. I have no idea how this channel ended up on my feed (I got here through the The Thing video), but I definitely approve.

[@themorbidzoo]

Haha thanks, glad you got here 😁

[@ablationer]

As a bit of a tangent, I don't think taking away dislikes was a good idea. At that point, why even have likes? Shouldn't views be enough? I understand not wanting people to immediately jump to the like/dislike ratio to make up their mind about whether they should or shouldn't like a video, but as a metric I think it's a fairly useful tool. Anyone with at least half a brain should be able to separate what OTHERS are feeling towards a video from what THEY should be feeling, based on, y'know, actually watching it. That might sound like I'm overestimating the average viewer, but doing the opposite is downright patronizing. "No, YOU'RE not smart enough to be trusted with this dislike bar, let ME take it away from you so that you don't hurt yourself". I honestly think it's pointless and penalizes the average viewer which, I would hope is at least smart enough not to base their entire opinion on a silly little bar. Sure, you can always re-enable it with an addon, but at this point it's making people jump through hoops just to get back what shouldn't have been taken away to begin with.

[@themorbidzoo]

Respectfully, I am not interested in lies that make people feel nice about themselves, I’m interested in how people predictably and demonstrably abandon rationality because of the particular sets of choices and information presented to them. My entire point with these two videos is that there are unconscious reactions to stimuli in all forms that everyone has whether they know better or not, and we need to construct our comm tech interfaces with those irrationalities in mind instead of pretending humans are logic machines. We are simply not.

[@ablationer]

@@themorbidzoo And my point is that if we keep taking away choices and information from people from fear of them acting irrationally, we're essentially taking away their ability to even make a choice to begin with. Sure those choices might be irrational, but so what? Is that really better than having no choice at all? Is choosing poorly really a less desirable outcome than not having a choice at all?

[@themorbidzoo]

@@ablationer if those choices are having a demonstrably negative effect on society, as a lot of social media features are increasingly being shown to have, then YES lol they should absolutely be changed to make certain antisocial behaviors less likely, why is this even a question. What’s more, no content choices are removed in the case of the dislike button at all, what’s removed is information that colors the viewer’s opinion of a video before they even see it. That, to me, sounds a lot more like taking away choice, encouraging people to give in to convenience instead of critical thought.

[@DreamersOfReality]

They do have a point in that the like button no longer has a real function. It too should be removed.

[@elevatorman7945]

Finally, a non-biased, down to earth, and purely logical explanation.

[@nikolademitri731]

I’m late to this video, but this is excellent and I’ll be referring people to this video (these videos) when the subject inevitably comes up again.. ✊

[@andresoavepereira6360]

Your channel is amazing and your content is as deep as it's fun. Thanks for the videos :D

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks so much 😊

[@maikciveira8721]

I just found your channel and it's brilliant! Instant fan here!

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks! 😊

[@luttsapa5012]

Your mention of government oversight of social media to facilitate its function as something not designed around profit motive is interesting. I don't know if there is anyone in the english speaking community that has looked into the functioning of say Chinese social media sites that run with government oversight. I think it would be interesting to look into, but I predict that the intersection of people who, have an in depth knowledge of chinese social media, its culture, and how its government oversight functions, have knowledge of social and communications sciences, and speak to the international community is in the single digits. Probably none of them are making youtube videos. Great video all the same, until people realize that how social media works also changes how discussion is carried out on these platforms then there will be no easy solution to its problems.

[@themorbidzoo]

One of the professors on my dissertation committee specializes in the anthropology of policing and surveillance with China as his main case study. I've thought about asking if he'd contribute to a script on this topic

[@WhiteChocolate74]

Not China please

[@jimmyjones8676]

@@themorbidzoo Do it.

[@ezrareimer8160]

I found this channel because I was doing a bit of a retrospective dive into The Thing after watching the excellent episode of Guillermo del Toro's horror anthology called The Autopsy. Now I've delayed my report card writing because I keep getting caught up in your other videos. Your delivery and style remind me a lot of one of my other favourite content creators, ContraPoints. Keep up the fantastic work! I might direct my students to you as we discuss and dissect online communication in my interactive digital media class.

[@themorbidzoo]

Wow, thanks so much! I'm honored to be someone's procrastination tool 😄 And yes, The Autopsy is easily top 3 in that anthology, it's real real good. Glad your finding my comm videos useful, I'll definitely be making more. Thanks for watching!

[@Ariel_6277]

I JUST came across your channel and binged most of your videos!!! I a new fan and I love your views and thoughts! Another great video! 😊

[@themorbidzoo]

Aah, thanks so much!! 😊

[@Ariel_6277]

@@themorbidzoo Anytime!! ❤ You’ll have this Cuban singing your praises all the way from Miami! 🇨🇺 ☕️

[@shinykoffing1857]

Thanks for another great video! It’s a shame that you don’t have more subscribers tbh

[@Handles_Are_Bad.Phuk-them-off]

Send her to the eyeball zone!

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks for watching! :)

[@GrandArchPriestOfTheAlgorithm]

Must this blessing shield you from the wrath of the Holy Ones & Zeros.

[@grizzlednerd4521]

Seriously, as alway, a great quality and well considered video. I also enjoyed the tag line "Remember, Jesus weeps when you fallate your arguments". 😉 I feel a particular connection with this video as decomposing arguments is, very much, part of what I do for a living. At one organsiation, I arranged for posters in meeting rooms listing and describing the a Top 10 "weak arguement types". I often wished I's someone like you in the room as an ally.

[@themorbidzoo]

Thank you! That's neato, what do you do for a living?

[@grizzlednerd4521]

@@themorbidzoo I consult on Information Security and Risk at a bank. I deal with a constant morass of conflation, biases, and lazy language/thinking on the daily.

[@themorbidzoo]

@@grizzlednerd4521 😯😯

[@michaelv2304]

I adore your channel

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks :)

[@DiathenEridani]

Beautiful Genius.

[@Oravankarva]

Beautiful snd smart. Damn. And i don't care about Andrew but you right. And i really love your analysis about the thing.

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks so much 😄

[@OIP_1]

large brains? on my youtube feed?

[@MarKarda]

Well, lets just keep working, praising our divine leader Buster the Eternal and feeding the algorythm then. At least we got your big bright brain in the notifications. And we dont even foresee nor grasp the full potential of the metaverse yet, geez that shit is gonna be crazy in 45 years. I´m planning on being dead by then so GG izi. Great vid, thank you always! nice earrings btw

[@themorbidzoo]

Thank u darling all hail Buster, destroyer of worlds, the lil scamp

[@michaelwerkov3438]

Does mx. Morbid zoo have an academic history? Like... youtube is cool and all, but I wanna know where these people got going and read things and stuff. But I'd be lying if I suggested it wasn't kinda masochistic and that I dropped out of an attempt to be a person with things to say because all you all have way better things to say.

[@themorbidzoo]

I'm in the dissertation stage of my Communications PhD. :) Thanks so much for the kind words and the views!! Your comments made my day

[@kalle3940]

Like... The best way for men to achieve rights is the complete and total liberation of women.

[@kimfreeborn]

"Language is arbitrary and every category that humans rely upon to organize thought is basically made up." This tack on Postmodernism leads ultimately to the position that no position is justifiable and that nonbeing and being are equivalent. Your transitioning from relativism to nihilism. Here there can't even be a slipper slope because nothing rationally matters anymore. Such philosophical positions require much more plasticity than the human condition or reality will allow for. Yes, you will say but what is reality? I think the greater danger is that one thinks they have it all figure out when they really don't. And this is really where people are these days. Instead of admitting they have anything to learn they would rather believe they already know everything. Either we know everything or we know nothing therefore everything is permitted nothing is justified.

[@themorbidzoo]

This is a tempting and understandable assessment of postmodern-y thought that in my opinion is ultimately incorrect. There's a very wide spectrum between relativism and nihilism, and most philosophers on that spectrum would say that nihilism ignores the observable realities that govern everyday life. A true nihilist kills themself. If they don't, they're acknowledging a willingness to participate in this world, which means they don't really think it's quite as meaningless as they claim. We don't need to have strict, knowable rules for the universe to find meaning in it. An acknowledgement that human culture and the way it's organized is arbitrary doesn't preclude rule sets existing within whatever cultural circumstance we happen to be in as humans. We can know all sorts of things, but the things we know are only applicable within whatever system we're engaging with at that moment, essentially what all of Foucault's work is about. I find this very freeing (and, to your point, intensely meaningful and non-nihilistic), because it allows you to see possibilities for yourself and the world that your cultural context might have blinded you to, and also makes it easier to be kinder, less panicky, more intuitive, and ultimately happier. Thanks for the watch!

[@kimfreeborn]

@@themorbidzoo "arbitrary doesn't preclude rule sets existing within whatever cultural circumstance we happen to be in as humans. We can know all sorts of things, but the things we know are only applicable within whatever system we're engaging with at that moment." I would agree that this is a more articulate perspective on postmodernism. And it does open some space between relativism and nihilism. However, Michel Foucault opens this space by bracketing Justice and Truth to look at Power and Truth effects on the social body. While we can from this point say "Oh we are just playing games." We don't just leave things there. Because Power introduces violence back into the game as an Oppressor/Oppressed relation. We can add loaded terms like Truth regimes and Knowledge Regimes and its pretty obvious that these epistemes are not really arbitrary at all but forms of subjugation.

[@nimlouth]

I have no idea how I ended up here, but I'm happy I the dislikes are not visible because I actually had to watch the whole thing to see what was it all about and it ended up being straight fire! Also my arachnophobia is getting worse it seems because your prof pic is fking with me bad yikes.

[@themorbidzoo]

Hahah thanks so much 😁 Exposure therapy, look at it even harder lol

[@SleepyAdam]

Any opinions on decentralized social media networks like Mastodon? It's like a Twitter clone but everyone hosts their own server with their own rules, and all of them connect to each other and can communicate with each other. But it also has heavy content moderation tools in place to make it so you only see what you want to see. Instead of a big conglomerate making the rules for cash, it's smaller communities making their own rules for their own tribes, but it can still have massive amounts of people communicating with each other.

[@themorbidzoo]

I like Mastodon, and, to my point in this video I think it's interesting that the networks emerging as alternatives to the main platforms are basically "regressing" in terms of what you're shown as a user-- Mastodon basically behaves like early Facebook combined with Discord: open source, no algorithm, chronological feeds, locally focused. I hope platforms like them find enough funding and usage, because again, to my point, their lack of encouragement toward addiction is not likely to make them much money. In terms of hate speech, I truly think that most of our societal issues can be solved if our communication systems aren't actively sending toxic shit to people who wouldn't have sought it out or encountered it otherwise, which Mastodon apparently successfully avoids.

[@SleepyAdam]

​@@themorbidzoo That's a good point, but it's important to note that Mastodon as a technology does kinda minimize the need to make money. The fact that it's decentralized and anyone can just download the code and run it means you can host a bite sized instance just for yourself and it would be very low power and cost pennies to run, and you can still communicate with the greater world. Obviously that's not a viable solution for the average user but I like that it's an option as it means the desire to say something can outweigh the cost to put it out there pretty easily. It's less the cost of starting a new web company and more the cost of creating a small Minecraft server, yet it can still have massive reach.

[@annoyingmorlock]

End of capitalism ... this will freak out a lot of brainwashed people ^^ May The Morbid Zoo gain lots of subscribers and views.

[@ultraderek]

I find it interesting that you can confidently say that the people that have issues with online “political” censorship are of the free market bunch. A major free market correction is happening because companies have decided to become more politically active. 🎉

[@themorbidzoo]

That’s the hope! My only point is that we should stay aware that companies aren’t doing that out of the goodness of their hearts, and will absolutely change with wherever the political and therefore financial wind goes. For example, the removal/cancellation of demonstrably popular lgbt-positive shows and movies in the past few months is almost certainly crisis management from Disney doing the bare minimum in speaking out against don’t say gay laws and receiving pushback for it from the right.

[@anarchohelenism]

Smart people making videos on youtube? A rare sight! ❤

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks for watching :)

[@No_Use_For_A_Name]

I have a different argument to deplatforming. I've changed my mind many times over time about a lot of subjects, including this. I don't think there is a clear answer to this. I've always said, if you don't let people speak, no matter how bad their ideas are, you know what and where the bad ideas are. Then you can work towards fixing them. If you ban everyone you disagree with, they are going to all of a sudden going to stop thinking on that way, they will just go under ground, and now you can't see the enemy. Saying all that, I do think it's dangerous letting idiots like this Tate guy have a platform to gain admirers that hang on every word, and will behave the same as him. It is, it's dangerous. It would be nice if there wasn't a bunch of idiots who actually take those sorts of people seriously. Then we could have a good system of freedom of speech, while idiots get ignored. I don't agree with the slippery slope thing. I feel like in a general way, we are smart enough come to the right conclusions on most stuff. But I do still think it's dangerous trying to de platform people. If you didn't notice, I don't have an answer to the problem.

[@themorbidzoo]

Gotta address the system of communication itself, there's no other way

[@No_Use_For_A_Name]

@@themorbidzoo I just my comment back and saw how screwed up it is. I was typing on the fly and didn't check it. I assume you got the drift of what I was trying to say. I guess what I am about to say is sort of going down the slippery slope path, even though I said I don't agree with that. Problem with democracy is that teams are formed. Every team wants their say, and doesn't like what the others say, so you are going to have people trying to deplatform each other out of spite, if not anything else. There are things we don't all agree on, but which team gets to ban people? You know what I mean. Tate is different, Tate is a moron who treats women like shit. But saying that, its not all different, there are many parts of conservative that want to treat women like shit. Tate really is just towing that ultra conservative line. Just that with say, religions, they say its some how making a god happy treating women like shit, where as Tate only cares about him and his severe psychological issues.

[@matthewlawton9241]

" Then you can work towards fixing them." Your problem now is explaining why Nazi Germany became a reality. The answer is simple: People DON'T work to fix bad ideas. There's no stopping them entirely. There's a lot of truth to what you say; stomping them out is almost akin to cutting off a hydra's head, except on the internet the two new heads grow back underground so you don't necessarily know what they're talking about. However, this will happen no matter what. Ergo there is a moral imperative to hinder the spread of dangerous information in so much as we are able. Absolute fixes, aka perfection, is unattainable, and if you use that as an excuse not to reach for the next best thing, that's a problem.

[@rhyscooper3693]

There's nuance to this. I agree with your point about sending people underground can potentially obfuscate their actions and thereon make them more dangerous, but that's not always the case. Being out, open, normalised, and increasingly mainstream can be what is dangerous. These bad actors and deceptive messages will not necessarily face the resistance you'd hope, in part because we have limited resources - intellectual energy and time as individuals, as well as numbers of sufficiently educated activists. It can also take a lot more time and effort to correct a single lie than it does to just routinely lie. Construction is more effort than destruction. The video discusses the fact that people are delivered objectionable content as if it is normal and acceptable, and the concern is rightfully something along the lines of "if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth".

[@jeddarcy3465]

The slope doesn’t need to be slippery. That it is a slope is enough to get the ball rolling. As soon as an ideology gets one victory, it looks at its list of remaining priorities and selects the next one to pursue.

[@rhyscooper3693]

I don't know how the free speech debate can be "won". This isn't something that just ends with a resolution

[@lucafaithfull7397]

Great video, I love the detail and critical analysis you bring to YT, I love your lectures on government analysis and social analysis, however nothing will ever make me think that stripping the dislike button from YT is a good thing because despite the the problems it may bring the level playing field it created for YT channels of any size was invaluable. On a different note have you ever played or heard or frost punk? It would be interesting to see your priorities within the game

[@themorbidzoo]

I think getting rid of the dislike button is overall a good idea, but within the otherwise unchanged structure of youtube there's an argument to be made that it had some use. I have, and I want to play it as soon as I get some time!! I love those kinds of games, Civ 6 is like crack to me

[@lucafaithfull7397]

@@themorbidzoo awe yes you are quite right, I could imagine YT without the dislike button being better if a few other things had been changed with it's passing, like maybe making it easy for small non-company channels to get on trending tab, or something. That's Great!, if you were to ever do a let's play or analysis on the game, you got your first viewer right here :). no matter what happens, it is cool that you chat to your commentors like me and it's made my night, LoL keep on keeping on.

[@themorbidzoo]

Haha I chat in the comments instead of doomscrolling, it seems like a healthier use of time. 😁 I've thought about doing some game streaming, it's good to know at least one person would be into it!

[@jimmyjones8676]

@@themorbidzoo Consider Caveman to Cosmos.

[@riotfist9747]

Ngl, watch all your videos to be enlightened because your commentaries and analysis are next level. Which excuse me because it's rather awkward to say but that makes you so attractive of how smart you are. 😭😅 such a polarizing dynamic that I have with this channel.

[@themorbidzoo]

Hahaha thanks for watching 😁

[@matthewbrown3981]

Damn you. Once again I came to a video expecting to get pissed off, watched it twice but actually left slightly perplexed, feeling a strange sense of surprise and validation. I still don't know or care who Andrew Tate is and he seems like a very easy target. I would've enjoyed a different steel man example or less seething vitriol but its very abundantly clear you don't like that person. Thank you for also acknowledging that people lie and over-exaggerate those who they wish to silence- which only serves to amplify their message. (eg; Andrew Tate, I've literally never seen/heard of him until your last video)... I also didn't expect you to go to down the route explaining that social media thrives off negative attention. Respect. "The currency of social media isn't truth, it is attention." I love that.

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks 😁 glad it got you thinking, that's always my only goal. The reason I picked Andrew Tate for this case study is purely because he's a very recent example and, as you say, an easy target. IMO the reason deplatforming is a conversation worth having is because easy targets exist, people who pretty much everyone agrees public discourse would be better without. This could just as easily apply to "race realists" like Molyneux, or anyone else that flagrantly ignores all social media terms of service that say you can't build an audience off advocating for the oppression of others.

[@alphaiguess2900]

banger video queen 💅👍🤌🤌💀💖💯🤳💦💣

[@joshbowdish9851]

fantastic ending

[@turdanc]

I sometimes watch your content just to get mad at something. Keep up the good work!

[@themorbidzoo]

Hahaha happy to be of service 😁

[@davesamson1357]

rawr

[@elpolako-]

Many emotions on your face.

[@0xmorfu]

I think it comes down to whether you agree or disagree with someone who is being deplatformed. If you like it, you want them to stay. If you don't like it, depending on how much you care about free speech, you want it to stay, but once something becomes truly bad/evil to you, most people agree with the deplatforming. And it gets really bad if the deplatforming force seems irrational to you or is straight up evil. Really like your videos.

[@Lambda_Ovine]

The problem with this line or reasoning is that it must assume that every idea out there is equally good/bad and it's just that people disagree around them... but not every idea is equally good/bad, I mean, come on, advocating for violence against women? Those who argue for Andrew Tate to stay, they defend what he said. When the idea results on real tangible harm, I don't think is just as simple as "well, you just disagree with them, that's why you want them to be gone." There are reasons as to why people advocate for something to be gone or to stay, and those reasons need to be taken into account. It's obviously not the same to ban someone for, say. advocating for the genocide of lgbtq people on the name of God as to ban someone for saying that trans people are valid. I don't know about you, but I do not want to live in a society where constant advocacy is being cast upon stuff like violence against marginalized groups, slavery, lowering the age of consent...

[@0xmorfu]

​@@Lambda_Ovine I don't think there is an inherent good or bad in anything. However I do agree living beings and we as a society apply those labels and helpfully so. This is something that is in contant flux and has always changed and probably always will. Yes, someone inciting violence would be where I personally would draw the line. I have not seen that from Andrew Tate, though I don't know all his content. I was not arguing for his case specifically, nor do I think he is right or wrong about everything or nothing. The point I was trying to make is that there will likely always be gray areas and discourse on what is good or bad. See for example the change of meaning in violence. How can you ever draw a crystal clear line when everybody feels different about the specifics? To me nothing is more important that fairness, I just think it's a moving target. So in that sense I agree with the video, we have to look at each case individually. However I also see a danger in dogmatism, and the judging instance being ... unfair. Tnanks for your reply :).

[@themorbidzoo]

I love this conversation, this is how you disagree properly ✨

[@IRoYzI]

Thaaaaaank Yoooooou

[@vidya2144]

Hey Morbid Zoo, are you Jewish by any chance?

[@themorbidzoo]

White/Mexican :)

[@erickroeger1161]

Lindsay Ellis comes to mind 😐......yah careful cultivating your audience here,

[@Rafathy]

So your answer is not to metaphorically cure any cancer but just try your best to suppress and ignore it, essentially playing whack a mole with it. Cool. I enjoyed your video.

[@themorbidzoo]

I can't think of another way unless we fundamentally alter our economic system to deprioritize profit. The only alternative would be to nationalize social media the way China does, which I think is a pretty bad idea. Thanks for watching :)

[@thomasmann4536]

im a bit late to the party, but I would like to point out a libertarian/conservative point to argument no.2, which is that companies don't actually deplatform people for economical reasons, but for political reasons, which is only happening because of increasing entanglement of big corporations and government (i.e. going away from capitalism). Ergo, the libertarian/conservative is not presented with a dilemma, because the impediment on free speech brought through censorship is not a result of the free market, but a result of the market becoming less free. Also, the slippery slope is a fallacy if the points don't logically follow each other, i.e. the conclusion of step N doesn't follow from the conclusion of step N-1, as this is basically an argument chain the structure of A->B->C->D ... etc. It is basically a non-sequitur inside a longer chain^^ If the chain is logically coherent and sound then it's usually not called a slippery slope.

[@rhyscooper3693]

The slippery slope is a fallacy because it *assumes* that one action will cause another down the line, when this isn't necessarily the case, or perhaps even possible. A chain of causation is a logical sequence. It is reasonable to make arguments that openly espouse likelihoods along a proposed chain of caution, but not to eradicate the possibilities of disjunctures down the line. Many informal fallacies are not binary, hard and fast rules, but things to be concerned about when reasoning.

[@rhyscooper3693]

Companies absolutely do it for economic reasons, which can be tied to political reasons (as the two as not mutually exclusive) without implying government or other non-market actors get involved at any point - very few laws are passed dictating what happens on social media. Their consumers are who companies market to. Their advertisers can make demands to secure contracts. It has nothing to do with their becoming "big corporations", which is often just the natural tendency of capital accumulation anyway - it is the definition of capitalism to consume and grow like this. It's literally all built into the incentive system of capitalism, not something estranged from it. It is the free market operating exactly as expected.

[@horseman3222]

you are on your best when you are not emotionally hijacked

[@br1na332]

Yup. The final point is what nihilistic abyss whispers in my ears with existential susurrations. How do we destroy something that surrounds and infects us so completely? And then looking around the world and history. How do we do it in a way that is sustainable, doesn't end with the authoritarian radicals (of any flag) shooting us in the back, and with any of us with our sense of self intact enough to actually do the good? It's bleak. We must picture Kronstadt smiling. All we can do is keep on keeping on and caring for each other, while trying to reframe the struggles of staying alive and pushing back or at least slowing down the spooling out of capitalism and authoritarianism as being a lot more cool, sexy, and cyberpunk than it looks. Maybe wear some cool sunglasses while engaging in mutual aid. Ultimately, more people seem to be on board with intersectional feminism and some form of socialism. If we spend less time fighting over whether the lines of the A should be on or outside the circle we can at least ensure some joy and art and care. Sorry. That one got a bit heavy. You genuinely bring joy and make the world a better place with your creations and sharing important ideas, so thank you ever so much

[@pladimirvutin1855]

Meth will help your upload schedule

[@WhiteMousse1980]

Please marry me and argue with me

[@doctaflo]

ugh, i know... the ache--it gnaws away at me minute by minute as the video timer ticks on

[@sinnattugaq]

Hi, I must admit that I’ve been watching all your videos, but Im still not sure what content you wanna make, I love both your analytical and political videos. And I am not sure if you take request..if you can say that. I just wondered that all the monsters are female coded based from a masculin perspective, like all females are bad ect. So I am just thinking if there is any monsters or something like it that comes from a feminine perspective, any cultural character or media that comes from the female feminine perspective, something that is describing a masculine monster? I have also wondered if you have looked into Silent Hill franchise? I have seen a lot of analytical video essays about it but it all seems a bit obnoxious. I wouldn’t call it probelmatic, but I feel like the discourse analysis about the stories in Silent Hill is so stale and male focused. A man’s suffering is artistic and interesting and philosophic, while the women is just left with “oh, it’s so sad that you are a SA victim.” and you end with committing suicide, because “the worst thing a women can experience is SA” there is no grayness to it. With my own research I find Silent Hill 3 especially interesting, With the main character Heather Mason the game have a female perspective and the monsters she manifest comes from the perception on how teenage girls think men perceive them. Like one of the monsters literally have a male sex toy as a head and skin bag shopping bags as arms and when they are hit they let out a sound that resemble a male voice trying to interpret a female Moan. A lot of it is pregnancy / birth horror. But idk if it is for men or women, does it represent fear from women. Or is it something about men seeing women not doing “female right” “well that’s not how women make children” ect Well, I hope I made myself understandable haha, anyway I find myself rewatching alot your content, so I can’t wait for more.

[@themorbidzoo]

Thanks so much! Ha, my interests pull me in different directions, I think that's why the algorithm still isn't sure what to do with me. It's super interesting that you noticed that. Part of the reason I'm so annoyed by people who complain about more recent, female-focused stories, even if they are sometimes clumsy and bad, is because women have been demonized for our basic sexual and reproductive functions for literal millenia. As you allude to, the primary female suffering allowed in male-focused media is sexual assault, because it provides an easy contrast between "man good" and "man bad" for literally any man who hasn't committed a sexual assault. It's the same reason filmed racism is always the most disgusting KKK type instead of the insidious, systemic type most non-white people experience. There are some examples of masculine monsters. One that comes to mind is Rawhead Rex, which is a story by Clive Barker that was turned into a terrible movie. But even Rawhead has a male protagonist. Recent movies with all-female casts like The Descent and Annihilation have overtones of the female experience, I think, but they're much more atmospheric than textual. Slither is a good masculine monster movie, but doesn't quite count IMO since it's also a comedy. I'm watching The Walking Dead right now in prep for a deep dive video, and I think it's often really good at writing toxic masculinity in a horror setting. I wish they had sustained that theme better, but I'm not sure how aware they were that it was even emerging as a theme since the show was developed and written by mostly, you know, men. I've only played SH2 but I know the entire series has hella monsters, I'll add it to the list. Thanks for watching :)

[@irubberyouglueonethousand5384]

You can't fool me! Go back to acting Aubrey Plaza 🤣😂

[@lmno2009]

Is that suggested fix of forcing people to opt in to sketchy content the same as how Reddit quarantines particularly toxic subs? Idk if I'd call Reddit a haven of wholesome content with no bad actors, but the way it works does tend to keep the extreme cringe out of main, for the most part.

[@themorbidzoo]

Yep! Lots of ways to do that kind of thing. Often, adding an extra step to make people engage with a decision instead of being passive about it is all you need to drastically change people's behavior.

[@haukes929]

Take a shot every time she says “slippery-slope”

[@manuele.floresc]

It's definitely a conundrum. It seems like the best bet we have with the social media structures as they are, is self-policing, not by calling for someone to be cancelled, but by actively confronting the problematic person and their takes. It won't get rid of the tumor but presumably would help in keeping others from being sucked into the tumor's sphere of influence. All other possible solutions are shrouded with danger.

[@themorbidzoo]

This is a possible avenue if we really prioritize media literacy in public education in the same way we prioritize reading skills. No matter what, it requires a change in offline culture.

[@llywelyngruffydd8474]

@@themorbidzoo With all due respect, if you are under the impression that Andrew Tate is a boogeyman who is teaching men to manipulate or abuse women, you are not media literate.

[@manuele.floresc]

@@themorbidzoo jaja, how tremendously helpful that would be! But I think at this point relying on public education seems like a lost cause; especially since those who can help don't know how. A good stop-gap might be with the big influencers addressing these things, though I understand their reluctance to approach "drama" channel territory. I've only seen it done with some success was with iDubbz's Content Cop about Ricegum. I definitely agree with your last sentence.

[@jimmyjones8676]

@@themorbidzoo They'll never do that because media directed public opion is how they've controlled society for th last hundred years. It's also why they're pushing for the ability to deplatform. They have a good thing going and don't want us plebs being able to speak undermining it.

[@cheesypoohalo]

So what you're saying is, the best social media is like... 4chan? But without annonymity maybe? And with all the features of Facebook/Twitter etc?

[@themorbidzoo]

Lol yeah, kind of! Either no user-directed algorithm or a completely publicly available one, no anonymity, and no amplification based on engagement. If there is an algorithm and if there must be news on social media, make it prioritize local news. But yeah, none of this is actionable unless social media stops having to make as much money as possible. Now it's even less actionable considering how many creators use it as a primary source of income, including myself. There would be huge and justifiable outcry.

[@MrNYC-2]

Andrew Tate says I shouldn’t listen to you.

[@theodorebear6714]

Hm- You say an opt-in / opt-out policy would not make things as addictive? I think that depends on what is prioritized. Prioritize 60% healthy content and 40% fun happy animals and other things that are fun yet harmless and there's still a high engagement rate. If it leads to a universal consensus against greed and addictive behavioral programming then I honestly won't shed a tear for addictive and harmful behaviors that have been prorgammed into people because of the lies of the status quo on social media.

[@joyg2526]

I don't know who this Tate guy is but I gotta ask: Is his sermon making converts or is he just preaching to the choir?

[@themorbidzoo]

Given his fame by the time he was deplatformed (one of the most Googled people in the world, as he loves to say), and reports from teachers hearing his name from students, he was absolutely making converts unless we're willing to think that an incredible amount of boys and men were already outspoken misogynists. I choose not to believe that, but we'll never know for sure unless social media platforms make all their analytics public.

[@joyg2526]

@@themorbidzoo It's hard to say what should be done. I agree some people deserve to be de platformed but the question is who is going to do it. The knife cuts both ways unfortunately. If the process isn't done democratically by a majority of users (?) the can punish people who don't deserve it. Whether by the company that runs the social media platform (terrible algorithms prioritize preemptively banning smaller content users over larger company accounts) or by a government appointed governing body (which can be corrupted by political biases depending on which party is in power) we seem to be screwed either way. Which is why I appreciated your video, there wasn't an easy answer. Also, I just saw a big KZbin channel had a video taken down (?) because of ridiculous reasons: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mX-YmYGwi9aehc0&ab_channel=AskaMortician

[@TheMorous]

wow that was horrible reason why slippery slope argument is bad

[@Lambda_Ovine]

ho no... I think capitalism is deeply flawed... :(

[@jamesthomison4356]

The "slippery slope fallacy" is when you assert that X will lead to Y without evidence If you can draw a reasonable path between X and Y, and back it up with historical examples of things similar to X leading to things similar to Y, or someone saying that a previous event W will lead to X which then happened, then it's a slippery slope but not a fallacy.

[@rhyscooper3693]

It's a chain of causation, not a slippery slope fallacy.

[@cambodianz]

The point being made at the 4:30 mark is a constant weak argument by people I’m pretty sure don’t understand capitalism enough to even give it a worthwhile critique, but I’ll instead say I think this is just a lazy strawman. I’m a market anarchist, so I champion “hard-line capitalism” (anarchism). I’m of the view that all human rights are property rights and that property owners are well within their right to exclude whoever they wish from their property and that no one is entitled to the labor of another. That doesn’t mean I’m obligated to support the decisions of any and all people exercising their property rights. This point is no different than if I ordered food at a restaurant and my food came out under cooked and covered in hair “hey, it’s a private company Mr. Capitalist, they can do what they want and if you don’t like it, I guess you’ll have to reassess your values.” would not be pointing out some hypocrisy in my position, just an ignorance in your understanding of it. Criticizing private actors behaving in ways I dislike is also part of the market. People bring issues to light concerning private actors all the time where the private actor is then incentivized in ways to change course they otherwise aren’t within socialized systems. It’s also interesting that the point being made immediately after this one about the artistic expression of the film industry being suppressed were all carried out by the state.

[@themorbidzoo]

Oh, I’m also an anarchist lol. If you understand capitalism enough to understand that all actions and opinions are broadly all market forces then this argument doesn’t apply to you. There’s a level of stupid that truly believes we should always have a free market except when companies do things that aren’t in line with certain ideologies, at which point the state should step in and correct them. Republican committee leaders are right now talking about punishing companies that make “woke” decisions like investing in renewable energy. That’s the kind of appeal-to-the-state bullshit I’m referring to with that argument. Like, at least when the left does that they’re honest about it. Anything else? I’d love to talk about something we actually disagree upon

[@cambodianz]

@@themorbidzoo yeah, the people you’re describing who claim to be in favor of markets until the market moves in ways they disagree with are called boomercons and they subscribe to all the same domestic imperialism/progressivism their left wing counterparts do. Murray Rothbard was once asked to speak with these people and he called them all a “bunch of socialists” before storming out of the room. I enjoyed your videos and think your arguments are incredibly well thought out, but like I said, your description of capitalism and what you’re referring to as a hypocrisy within is a strawman. You amending that here in this exchange to exclude people like me is great, but I think that kind of fidelity in your argument would improve your video. But that’s my two cents. And I’m only saying this because again, I think you have mostly well crafted opinions that are better than to be misrepresenting an entire economic system and it’s surrounding philosophy like that. If you were just another generic KZbinr railing against capitalism, I wouldn’t waste my time commenting.

[@themorbidzoo]

@@cambodianz I appreciate it! I like talking in the comments, but I too try not to waste my time unless it's clear that whoever I'm talking to is being sincere and thoughtful. Lol, in your circles are they still boomercons if they're not boomers? The number of crypto losers who are stunned that the government might not bail them out comes to mind. It sounds to me like you and I might agree on a lot, but call things by different names. Idk, maybe not, I'll explain. When I talk about capitalism and ending it and how much I hate it, I'm not talking about the general concept of markets and supply and demand and the freedom of individuals to specialize and buy according to personal will, I'm talking about capitalism as an ideological project. I consider the golden age of capitalism to be after the labor movement and before Reaganomics (discounting all the race/gender/consumerism turmoil of that era that certainly also affected markets), which is where we see shift from companies being beholden to their customers to companies being beholden to their shareholders and thus making bad long-term decisions in favor of good quarter-to-quarter numbers. The customer gets the externality cost for this behavior, and is increasingly unable to vote with their dollar because of the cronyism and monopolism that naturally derives from collusion between corporations and government. That's how we've ended up with things like planned obsolescense. In a truly free and fair market (to the extent that that's possible in a non-anarchic setting), I doubt we would have smartphones that are designed to deteriorate so you have to regularly buy a new one, but we have to so money can keep being made so the economy keeps running. This prioritization of exponential capital increase over a good product is very much "good capitalism" today, and is largely responsible for wastefulness to a quite literally existentially threatening degree. It's anti-innovation, an economic hostage situation. I support markets and people's ability to participate in them as uncoerced and equal members of society. I do not support the idea that it's a good thing for people to focus on building capital above all else, and that things will all work out if we just do that. That's an extremely dangerous gamble, and I am very risk-averse.

[@cambodianz]

@@themorbidzoo It sounds like what you're opposed to is what people in my circles call corporatism, and in that I think we are travelers. This is a consequence of collusion between the state and "private" firms who the state grants privileges and and protections from the market that otherwise would not exist, where these firms can then further lobby for regulations that hurt their competition more than themselves (Jeff Bezos cheering minimum wage raises being one). Murray Rothbard writes about this kind of regulatory capture extensively in his book "The Progressive Era". One of the bigger reasons why I'm an anarchist is my opposition to corporatism and corporate culture. Benito Mussolini had a fantastic word for the relationship created where the state outsources it's goals to "private" firms, which is why it's endlessly frustrating to me when I see people hurl it in a way to mean "someone I don't like". We have so many examples of this type of collision between government and big tech and big pharma that I think the left when at their best is especially suited to fight. Unfortunately, I think the Clinton regime really crippled that with his commitment to neoliberalism, Obama further weakened it and finally the left was completely broken by Trump when the tools of neoliberalism proved impotent against him. The left is at it's best when they're able to champion critical thought and the little guy and there's non of that anymore. They've abandoned even the semantics of such things in the same way that conservatives have abandoned even the artifice of "small government". Progressivism has been tried for 100 years and it has long since captured both parties of the duopoly. Left vs Right stopped being the real battle ground quite a while ago, it's now liberalism vs. progressivism.

[@cambodianz]

And to your point about crypto-bros, you're probably right. Nearly all the crypto folk I associate with are Agorists who want the state nowhere near their currency.

[@jamesthomison4356]

what are your thoughts on Alex Jones returning to twitter?

[@llywelyngruffydd8474]

The Tate quote in question was taken entirely out of context. He wasn't teaching men to "manipulate" or "abuse" women. If you put it in context -- and by context here I mean the general debate about gender which the left pays no attention to -- he's teaching them to avoid being manipulated. You are living proof of why people like Tate shouldn't be deplatformed. There's a serious learning curve regarding gender issues that you haven't begun to scale. For instance, the General Social Survey shows that 1 in 3 men between the ages of 18 and 29 reports "sexual inactivity" for the previous year. That's disastrous. Forget feelings and fairness. Consider the long term economic and political consequences of 1 in 3 men potentially being locked out of family formation and thus having no real investment in the success of our institutions, no reason to structure their lives in socially beneficial ways. It's a consequence of a failed sexual revolution and there is no possibility of continuing on like this indefinitely without a serious reevaluation of it. That discussion will happen one way or another regardless of how you feel about it, and until you actually wrap your head around the issues in question, a lot of the criticisms of it are going to sound like Andrew Tate at first to you. Everybody is a scary boogeyman in need of coercion for the greater good when you have no idea what they're arguing or why they're arguing it, which is the single most important reason why we can't allow deplatforming. To the point: How would I know if somebody is a n*zi or a misogynist (or whatever) if I can't hear them speak? I wouldn't know what they thought about anything one way or the other. Derp. Am I just supposed to take your word for it? As for democracy, the whole point of it is that we shunt violent political conflict into institutionalized non-violent avenues which are subject to the rule of law. In other words, we debate and vote on things instead of killing each other. If debate is no longer possible because you're banning speech or manipulating how many people can hear it based on ideological concerns, then any vote decided under such conditions would be meaningless. Therefore democracy is meaningless. All that need be shown to regulate a company or industry is that there is a compelling public interest to do so. Because democracy isn't possible without speech, because the legitimacy of elections and therefore your government depends entirely on speech being free, I'd say the legitimacy of your government is the single most compelling public interest there is, since every other possible public interest is downstream from it. I could make other arguments. For instance, people like yourself tend to blame social changes they don't understand on technology like people blaming violence on video games. You're like hapless 1980s religious conservatives who think dungeons and dragons or heavy metal is the reason their kid dresses weird and smokes pot. The assumption is that these changes wouldn't take place were it not for the internet or social media, as if Boomer era social liberalism and "progress" are inevitable because apparently the real world is like a dumb Hollywood movie from the 80s or 90s where the Boomers celebrate themselves and so we can expect it to end with ever more social liberalism. You realize that prophecy isn't a thing, yeah? Nobody can actually tell the future, so we don't actually know how the movie ends. There is a wider statistical picture since the 1970s which you seriously need to take a good hard look at. Once you have, you'll finally understand why people like Andrew Tate exist or why there is an audience for whatever he's selling. I could keep going but whatever. This is sufficient. Now I'm going to make an argument by way of game theory which I think you'll like: In the most simple games, the losing position is to be the one who abides by an agreement while the other side breaks it. Conversely, the winning position is to be the one who breaks the agreement while the other side abides by it. So, for instance, if we're modeling an arms race, the worst position is to be the one who gets rid of his arms while the other side arms. Because civil society and equal protection is essentially an agreement where all sides agree to care about the other side's rights, like the right to speech, it's really the same principle at work, yeah? On repeated games, what we discover is that the way to minimize losses is to simply cheat if the other side cheats. And that logic applies here too. If the left is going to claim for itself the unilateral right to censor speech, then the right has to claim for itself the same right. Only when people like yourself face the risk of losing a job and being deplatformed will everybody finally arrive at the same conclusion as to the necessity of real legal protection for speech and academic freedom. Did you think that on a long enough time line there would be any other possible conclusion? This ends with the cancelled reasoning that they have to cancel the cancellers. Let's be clear about it. When people who think the way I do finally get power again (and we always do, if history is any guide), we will have no reason to care about your right to speech. See how this works? Civilized society requires reciprocity. This is probably a lesson that bourgeois social justice cool kids don't want to learn the hard way. Also, are you even aware that there are socially conservative critiques of free markets? My guess is that you probably aren't, which only further demonstrates the importance of free speech.

[@Handles_Are_Bad.Phuk-them-off]

thats an awful lot of word to say "I didn't pay attention to the video".

[@llywelyngruffydd8474]

@@Handles_Are_Bad.Phuk-them-off Don't ever post anything on the internet ever again. Thanks.

[@Handles_Are_Bad.Phuk-them-off]

@@llywelyngruffydd8474 sure thing, right after you blow me

[@themorbidzoo]

Lol you truly didn't pay attention though, did you. It's hard to respond to this because it has next to nothing to do with anything I said. Also, hey, if your girl is a sex worker and you don't like that, you break up. You don't try to codify a societal standard of taking her money in retribution. That is some sad, strange little weakboy shit. If you want to be treated like a man, grow up and act like one.

[@llywelyngruffydd8474]

@@themorbidzoo What does a "strongboy" do? The question isn't rhetorical. Nothing you've said here makes sense unless you think you're talking some dopey hypermasculinist cartoon character. The underlying assumption is what? That I'm proving I'm a "real man" or something? lol. Or that I give a shit about this one way or the other? I don't. In fact, most men don't. The masculine idealization you're accusing me of failing to live up to *is of your creation.* It is the creation of women generally and men who don't adhere to it disappear, which apparently is the case for 1 in 3 men now. Your post here demonstrates the point. How else does your post make sense if it isn't the case that YOU expect me to conform to the very same masculine idealization you're complaining about and identifying as the root of women's oppressor whatever else? You can't see that? That's unreal. This is the whole goddamn reason that somebody like Andrew Tate has an audience at all. It's because the sexual revolution has failed disastrously. That's the point which you can never seem to grasp. I don't want to be "treated like a man" at all. You get to decide what a man is? My job is to forever jump through flaming hoops to conform to this idiotic idealization which exists nowhere but in your head and if I fail to do this nothing I say is taken seriously? What the hell are you even talking about? In regards to the point about sex workers, he explained to some popular Twitch streamer somewhere that the the reasoning behind that is because women will either abuse you or dump you if they don't respect you. The point is that you are dumped or destroyed in a divorce or whatever precisely because you didn't conform to the very thing that feminists tell us is toxic masculinity. I've found this to be true as well. Are you under the impression that men care about this "respect?" I don't particularly want to earn this form of respect. Having to earn it is an obligation I don't even want and the value system that women employ when deciding if you're worthy of their all important respect isn't even a value system I adhere to. I don't think these traits are valuable at all. Women think they're valuable. Yourself included, apparently, or else how do I explain the sentiment behind your reply? I'm supposed to be a "strongboy" or else nothing I say is worth taking seriously, and the you complain about men behaving like Andrew Tate? Gee is it possible that they attempt to behave that way because of your expectation of them? You really can't connect cause in the form of your expectations of the opposite sex and the effect of men trying to adhere to that idealization? Men either adhere to this bullshit *which you have imposed* or they suffer the consequences. Those consequences look like getting cheated on, abused, dump, disregarded, destroyed financial in divorce and elsewhere, hence the myriad statistical pictures which show that women initiate 3/4ths of divorces and all the rest of it. That is the wider point you're failing to grasp. The discussion is not about sex workers obviously. The discussion is about the role that women impose, a role that men never asked for at all. *The discussion is about a social landscape where even below average women have a level of sexual and social opportunity that a man would literally have to be wealthy and famous to have,* which incidentally is why a woman can make 6 figure son Onlyfans in the first place. Did you imagine that "gender equality" was possible in such a context? The average woman can far more easily replace the average guy in any relationship or marriage. See the problem? And if she isn't doing sex work on Onlyfans, it's not like the same social condition which gave her that opportunity disappears and that is the social context in which men who search out the advice of somebody like Andrew Tate find themselves, so your dopey little Archie Bunker advice which tells us to just move on if we don't like it really kind of misses the obvious point, yeah? Do you understand what this conversation is about yet? And what I posted there has direct bearing on everything you argued. Do I need to go through it point by point?

[@thefrogthatknows5251]

Guy 1: Women are property. Guy 2: Women are not property. Guy 1: *Gets banned* Guy 1: But Guy 2 is doing the same thing!

[@ashleyhall6464]

Except Guy 1’s outlook has a far greater negative outcome/consequences for women.

[@thefrogthatknows5251]

@@ashleyhall6464 Precisely.

[@Ta2dwitetrash]

You seem smart enough to see past the woke propaganda.

[@Ryan-ob6gp]

and you seem to have *exactly* the correct IQ to use the word "woke" unironically.

[@treygreen6983]

Kinda obsessed with Andrew Tate. Calling it.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

Deplatforming is like violence. In an ideal world you wouldn't need it, and it's often wielded by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. But sometimes it's also the least bad solution realistically available, so you shouldn't deprive yourself of the option.

[@ΛλρληΛαρλωμ]

First

[@kreevisful]

Second

[@rockatansky3259]

excellent👏👏👏