domain:nfinf.substack.com
So I was holding this back until confirmation, but honestly, I don't know if I can blame anybody for believing this is a false flag. Not that I think it is, but come on, if you prompted a Hollywood writer to come up with a scene about "killing discourse / debate / free speech", would anyone come up with something better than "milquetoast political pundit, who likes to make appearances under the tagline 'change my mind' gets shot in the throat by a political opponent, during a Q&A at a university, as a member of the audience is making a comment on how peaceful the other side of the political spectrum is"?
Too symbolic. Too surreal. Simulation theory confirmed.
07mk
17hr ago
I haven't seen much of his videos, but from the clips I saw, he seemed unusually nice and kind in how he made his arguments shutting down arguments he considered wrong or even absurd.
Tree
17hr ago
Whoever talks faster, and is more skilled with "debating" has a clear advantage, regardless of whether they actually believe in their ideas or not. Regardless of whether their ideas are good. As long as you can present them as being such, you can have the upper hand.
For the process to work (and consequently the entire liberal project), you don't need the correct idea to win every time, regardless of rhetorical skill. It is enough for the correctness to be correlated to winning, and I believe it is. I think even destiny and charlie kirk (I don't watch their stuff either) would have trouble defending manifestly absurd positions, like the sexes being as strong as each other, anti-vax nonsense, or black people having to live in fear of random white people violence.
gattsuru
17hr ago
When discussing tradeoffs, guys being able to look at porn at work isn't going to win against making it difficult for women to be employed there.
Is there a difference between this style of "tradeoff" and "that have been systematically stripped from and denied to myself and my allies for decades or more, and will never in any case be allowed to protect us in any way in the future"?
No I would prefer they shut up and keep their opinions to themselves.
That's not an option in a diverse liberal democracy, though. The choice is just between how someone with evil ideas like his pushes them forward.
I don't know. I get the sense that if Kirk personally tried to enact God's law the most likely outcome is he would be dead or in prison from the attempt. That could be better than convincing a large number of people that gay people should be stoned to death for being gay.
The problem isn't Kirk, it's the millions of people who think like Kirk who don't see a peaceful democratic way to coordinate to make their voices heard. This is a harm in itself, but also a risk of major second-order harms that are tough to predict and prevent.
I defy you to watch the clip above and tell me that Kirk is "nice" and "kind" in it.
Not particularly nice or kind, I agree. But it's about as nice a way as I've seen someone deliver the message that these people are incompetent affirmative action hires who don't deserve the roles they got, which they did due to their race. Yeah, it's mocking and mean, and he could've been nicer, I suppose, but it's hard to be nicer than that when trying to make a point like that, which is an important point that ought to be made and publicized by people who truly believe it. But by the standards of political commentary about people in the opposite side, he looks basically like the nicest and kindest person on Earth.
So maybe it's more accurate to say that the world would be more peaceful and better to live in if people decided to try to emulate being "less un-nice and less un-kind" like Kirk. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king and all that.
gattsuru
17hr ago
First the violent nutjobs took FLCL references, and now they're taking the concept of getting rawwed by a werewolf in tight jeans. Is nothing sacred.
SkoomaDentist
17hr ago
Goddamn furries!
NullHypothesis
17hr ago
Could I get a source for the first claim where Kirk believes that it is God's perfect moral law that (I'm assuming gay people) should be stoned to death?
For the second, here is the best source I could find. The source is listed as The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023, but it's surprisingly difficult to find the actual unclipped source even with this information. The earliest episodes I can find are for November 11, 2023: https://salemnewschannel.com/host/charlie-kirk/full-episodes?page=37
https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1679829904026730496
Transcript:
Charlie Kirk: You really have to wonder... in fact, if we would've said three weeks ago, Blake, if would have said that Joy Reid, and Michelle Obama, and Shiela Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative actions picks we would've been called racist. But now they are coming out and they are saying it for us. They are coming out and saying I'm only here because of affirmative action. We know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously. Play cut 52.
Video of Shiela Jackson Lee before the court: I rise today as a clear recipient of affirmative action, in particular higher education. I may have been admitted on affirmative action, both in terms of being a woman, and a woman of color, but I can declare that I did not graduate on affirmative action. This is my personal story.
Charlie Kirk: I'm here because of action affirmative she can't even say the laugh.-We know, we know. It's very obvious to us that you are not smart enough to be able to get in on your own. I couldnt make it in on my own, so I needed to take opportunities from someone more deserving. You know, this is how arrogant Joy Reid, and Ketanji Brown Jackson and Michelle Obama and Shiela Jackson Lee are, they are so narcacisstic they think this is persuasive. They think we're like Ohhh. Of course. That's why we need affirmative action. Because you ahve impressed us with your brilliance. Of course. Oh no, imagine the world without Joy Reid. Imagine the world without Shiela Jackson Lee, or Michelle Obama, orKetanji Brown Jackson. They think this is persuasive. They think, as they kind of now reveal, I'm only here because of anti white anti asian forced discrimation policies that turned me into a bitter resentful activist that hates white people honestly through out policy.
Additional context of the clip
On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action in higher education. After this decision, many high profile black women came out to speak about how affirmative action impacted their lives. The four women Kirk mentioned wasn't because soley they were black, but because they came in support of affirmative action, or outright stated they benefited from affirmative action.
Shiela Jackson Lee - it's in the video
Michelle Obama https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/29/michelle-obama-affirmative-action-00104211
Ketanji Brown Jackson She has the least obvious self claimed benefit about affirmative action that I could find, but she did defend it in her dissent: https://thehill.com/homenews/4073556-read-jackson-dissent-supreme-court-affirmative-action/
She was also appointed after Biden vowed to nominate a black women, which I think is some evidence enough that affirmative action played a role in her getting to where she was https://www.reuters.com/world/us/retiring-us-justice-breyer-appear-with-biden-white-house-2022-01-27/
Yes, Kirk did say are affirmative action hires, that they stole a white person's spot, and that they don't have the brain power to be taken seriously. That does come off as quite rude and mean spirited. But it was in response to the black women admitting they got to their positions due to affirmative action. It's not like he just randomly named the first four black women he could solely for the purpose of insulting them. Did they or did they not benefit from affirmative action? If not for affirmative action, would they be where they are today? Had it not been for affirmative action, would someone else, possibly white, be in their position instead?
9/10 times I see someone quote something bad Charlie Kirk said, it's all made in assumption that you would agree that these things are bad with zero to no effort to actually address the argument he is making. It's all "look at this mean thing Kirk said" with no effort to explain why it's bad or wrong. And each time I have looked in context of the quote, I come away thinking that it wasn't as bad as people that want to "reveal" his true character make it out to be.
Ultimately, that claims boils down to Kirk said mean things about public figures based on a response from said public figures. You could say my summary is too charitable, I will respond that the other summary is too uncharitable, so one should look at the quote in context and make the decision for themselves how bad what Kirk said really is.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
17hr ago
Still playing Silksong. Still getting rekt. I'm now stuck at the Last Judge, but at least there's more to explore now than when I was stuck on Moorwing. That was horrible hah.
Throwaway05
17hr ago
I think the point is that a small and unpopular ideology has hijacked large swathes of the administrative organs of power, abused them, and is increasingly doing harm to society.
Now people who are otherwise principled are abandoning those, and those who aren't are considering doing worse things.
If the majority of people feel the use of something that should be common sense and stabilizing is abuse then it doesn't matter what the point was. It's abuse.
The threat of of this HR stuff is used to oppress me and others, and from what I can tell often the things we might otherwise say are fine or acceptable (and sometimes not) but you can't assess that safely because of the chilling effect.
Misuse of these tools and perceived misuse generated by other abuses is tearing society apart.
Sorry I'm going in circles here.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
17hr ago
Hostile work environment doctrine was introduced to prevent employers from evading discrimination laws by, say, hiring black people but making fun of them for their race at work so that blacks simply wouldn't want to work there.
Ah, but telling white people that they are harmful or evil or oppressors due to their race is A-OK? Because that's the order of the day at some employers (including the well-documented case of Google) who dismiss for "hostile workplace" directed against their favored groups.
My take is that its the fragmented regulatory, consumer and financial markets that are the biggest problems here. It's not that there is a ton of regulation its that there are 20+ versions of the onerous regulations.
It's too difficult to scale a business in europe because despite efforts and the goal of the EU it is in no way a single market. When you want to scale your business rather than just export consumer products this becomes a massive issue, which is why every notable new company in europe usually starts in their own country (and perhaps very similar neighbours) and then rather than expanding into Europe they launch in America and eventually list themselves there, and only then start expanding into the rest of Europe.
Just "assholes"? On my scale, if they're "assholes" then that automatically elevates Kirk to "kind" and "nice".
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
17hr ago
Now there is actually a (semi) synoptic gospel that does tell us it was recorded by an eyewitness the gospel of Thomas.
Gospel of Thomas is a different situation because it's young, likely 3rd Century, doesn't have 2nd century sources quoting it or talking about it, and the early Church did not treat it as of Apostolic origin. The early church treated Luke/Acts as having Apostolic origin and they had access to lots more sources than we do today.
Similar response to the Apocalypses of Peter. It's young and doesn't have popular attestation to Apostolic origin.
I am not arguing that every writing throughout history has been entirely honest, not propaganda, etc. The gnostic gosples are examples of people lying through their teeth to create their own cults where they have special knowledge people can't get through the (small-c intentional) catholic Church. A comparison might be made to the Book of Mormon in modern times.
However Luke/Acts does have popular acclimation of Apostolic origin. Luke uses "we" in Acts to describe him going on trips that match up with his presence in letters of Paul.
Another interesting thing, Paul quotes gLuke as scripture:
1 Timothy 5:17–18: Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in preaching and teaching; for the scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and, “The labourer deserves to be paid.”
Maybe you will argue that Timothy isn't a genuine Pauline letter but as you can imagine I'm not very persuaded by such arguments so far.
I've always felt like Bart Ehrman has just wildly different intuitions than I do to the point where we are reading completely different New Testaments. It's a personal failing of mine, but I saw him in a debate start to lose and then go on a rant saying (approximately): "If it were all true that would be horrible! It would mean gay people shouldn't get married and evil things happen and God lets them happen! It can't be true!" I wish I could find it again without watching dozens of hours of debates but his arguments haven't had the same credibility to me since then.
Acts has the martyrdom of Stephen and James in it. I disagree that Luke would shy away from Paul's martyrdom as some kind of defeat of Paul or his preaching, when so far he's treated martyrdom as a crown jewel on someone's life. Stephen gets one of the longest sermons recorded in the Bible before he "fell asleep."
Also something not explained by Ehrman's quote is why does Luke say Paul was in Rome for 2 years, instead of 5? It's almost certain that Paul was in Rome for more than 2 years.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
17hr ago
They are also often assholes about it.
gattsuru
17hr ago
The notices bulge one is a furry meme, rather than trans. (Not even girls-with-dicks side of furry, afaik; I've seen it more from the gay side, and not just in the sense that I would see more of the gay side.) Kinda has escaped containment since it originated as a bit of an anti-furry thing making (fair) mockery of cringy RP conventions, so might just be general too-online reference.
Rov_Scam
17hr ago
You can talk about edge cases all you want, but there's a Chesterton's Fence element here too. Hostile work environment doctrine was introduced to prevent employers from evading discrimination laws by, say, hiring black people but making fun of them for their race at work so that blacks simply wouldn't want to work there. "You can work here, but it will be hell" doesn't exactly advance the aims of the Civil Rights Act. You can argue that in some instances courts have gone too far, but you can do that with respect to any doctrine. When discussing tradeoffs, guys being able to look at porn at work isn't going to win against making it difficult for women to be employed there.
HereAndGone
17hr ago
Gay marriage, specifically, was about equal rights
It was about more than taxes and hospital visits, the compromises around civil/domestic unions and partnerships would have given them that. They wanted marriage and nothing less, to force it into the mainstream. Whether or not breaking the last few shreds of bonds holding civil marriage together was worth it for society in the long run, it was a very successful tactic.
However, now there is no reason to treat "only two persons" as the sacred inviolable unchangeable number, so why not "these three or more people really, really love each other and only want to be able to file taxes and visit each other in the hospital?" when it comes to poly marriage down the line? We've generally increased the age at which it's legal to get married, but why not lower it (e.g. if we're going to bring the voting age down to 16, or if we think 14 year olds are mature enough to be having sex and using contraception) in future?
We've now reduced marriage to "the state must recognise we love each other until the time we don't and want to break up" and that's it.
A set of statements in simple argument form:
-
Free speech (as a concept, not just under the 1A) is generally good. Certainly preferable to open violence.
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Belief in and support of Free speech requires you to allow people to actually speak.
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Killing someone who ONLY engaged in speech is very bad. Full stop.
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If you support and celebrate killing someone over mere speech, you do not believe in free speech (see 2).
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If you do not believe in free speech, you're estopped from complaining if your own speech is curtailed or punished. Stated differently, we are not required to extend the protection of certain moral/ethical rules to people who openly reject them.
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Therefore, cancelling someone for speech celebrating murder (see 4.) is easily morally permissible (see 3, we won't kill them, but we can do other things in response).
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And a step further, it actually helps protect the concept of free speech to punish those who openly do not believe in or support it.
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Therefore, actively identifying and cancelling people who are open about their rejection of free speech... is good.
Which of these do you disagree with, or think fallacious?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
17hr ago
Because he was not a very nice person? He was very often a rude asshole. Please, watch this clip and tell me Kirk in it could be described as "kind" and "nice."
Just for calibration, If that's "rude asshole", what do you call people cheering on his death?
Rov_Scam
17hr ago
Maybe, but it's hard to tell. If I'm an employer I have reasons for not wanting employees to tell nigger jokes at work or request blowjobs from female staff regardless of the liability situation, and as a matter of public policy we don't want employers to encourage the above as an end-around to avoid anti discrimination laws. The law involves tradeoffs, and most people's desire to bring politics into non-political jobs, or hear about other people's politics, is outweighed by the desire to prevent real discrimination. Talking about the apparatus of oppression only makes sense in this instance if you're talking about the employer's interest, because there's no free speech guarantee when you're on somebody else's time.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
17hr ago
I'm really struggling to see how any of this is actually about academia qua academia.
Wait, when you said "these people" you meant academics? I thought we're talking about progressives. I don't think academics are bad, though I'm extremely frustrated with their complicity. In fact, the reason I'm all Something Must Be Done about this whole thing, is that I think academia is pretty important to society.
ISTM that the goal would be some form of reducing that influence or the effectiveness thereof, rather than detonating all of academia, itself. Would that at least be a reasonable statement of a plausible goal?
Yeah, but the reduction has to be pretty drastic (even if it takes time). The levels of their dominance over the institution seems to be fairly massive.
HereAndGone
17hr ago
God's law in stoning people like you to death
Old Testament law, now we are under the New Testament grace, not law (since Kirk was a Christian, not a Jew). I think the problem has arisen from American Protestants hammering the Old Testament and ignoring the New except for the epistles of St. Paul.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
17hr ago
Why?
Because he was not a very nice person? He was very often a rude asshole. Please, watch this clip and tell me Kirk in it could be described as "kind" and "nice."
Wouldn't you want someone who believes in God's law in stoning people like you to death to make arguments to peacefully convince others through persuasion that this is correct?
No I would prefer they shut up and keep their opinions to themselves.
The most likely alternative to that seems to be using violence to actually enact God's law (something that we know God's followers have historically not been shy about doing). And that tends to be less pleasant - and often more effective, sadly - than argumentation pretty often.
I don't know. I get the sense that if Kirk personally tried to enact God's law the most likely outcome is he would be dead or in prison from the attempt. That could be better than convincing a large number of people that gay people should be stoned to death for being gay.
Like, maybe his opinions were evil or beyond the pale or whatever. But he did seem rather nice and kind in how he tried to persuade people of his evil opinions. I think if both people with evil and good opinions decided to emulate his way of being nice and kind while commentating, I think America would be a better, safer place, especially for the types of people that would unfairly suffer if all the people who thought like Kirk decided to eschew scruples around niceness and kindness.
I defy you to watch the clip above and tell me that Kirk is "nice" and "kind" in it.
Especially since the weapon used would likely have been legal even in our strictest pro gun control states like California and New York.
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