Apparently Davis Aurini is capable of sometimes telling the truth.
As you may recall, the bald, semi-Nazi stain on humanity released his version of The Sarkeesian Effect (that was officially not his version of The Sarkeesian Effect) last week to something less than universal acclaim, with one critic describing the “film” as “worse than a dead squirrel in your wall.”
Ok, that was me.
Weirdly, it turns out that Aurini actually agrees with some of my criticisms. While still maintaining that his not-version of The Sarkeesian Effect is a “damn good film,” he admitted on a livestream last night that the section of his film critiquing Anita Sarkeesian’s alleged lies was “crap.”
He then suggested it would have been much better … if he’d actually watched Sarkeesian’s videos.
Yep. He spent a year — and tens of thousands of dollars of other people’s money — ostensibly making a film about Sarkeesian. But somehow he never got around to watching any of her videos.
ETHICS!
You can hear the whole segment on “Bechtloff’s Saturday Night Livestream: Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour” on Youtube here. (The link should take you to the relevant portion of the livestrean, which starts just short of an hour and twenty minutes in.)
Here are the highlights.
In this first clip, Aurini responds to someone with a question about his attacks on Sarkeesian’s alleged dishonesty.
This clip ends a bit abruptly because Aurini was cut off by Bechtloff before finishing his sentence. Luckily, he went on to elaborate on his point. And threw in in a racial slur while he was at it, because why not?
And here he admits he didn’t bother to watch Sarkeesian’s videos.
It’s about ethics in making an entire film about someone without actually knowing anything about them.
EDITED TO ADD:
We Hunted the Mammoth has obtained this footage of Davis Aurini as a child.
H/T — Thanks to the alert reader who pointed me to the relevant section of the livestream.
@Alan
Yes but that would violate the non-aggression principle. You see, in a true libertarian fantasy land, nobody ever does anything bad. They just magically all get along.
@Fabe
Because that would violate the non-aggression principle, as I mentioned to Alan. Violence is only applied as a response to other violence. The first act of violence in this example, using libertarian vocabulary, was the stealing of the wallet. Since the arbitrary courts have decided that the wallet was actually stolen, it’s okay to now respond with violence. And then it’s perpetual war until the end of time, presumably. So, the libertarian society is awesome until someone commits any crime of any sort, and then it’s fucked.
@Anarchonist
I wasn’t tryna make Kale out to be a violent radical. Dismantle is aggressive language, so… ya know… Point is, sorry, entirely my b
Also, I happen to think there’d be more than 1 pseudo drawback to getting rid of capitalism. Like it or not (not a huge fan, dontcha know), capitalism works, it’s relatively stable, it raises people out of extreme poverty pretty quickly, etc. IMO, the negatives outweigh the positives, but said positives are there
@Kale
No prob, pal 🙂
I like what Germany does with its codetermination system (by law, both shareholders and workers have representatives in management). It’s not perfect, but it’s really cool
Germany is fun too, but all anybody talks about is Sweden. Sweden, Sweden, Sweden! XD
“We know what happens in truly ‘libertarian’ states where there’s no government. We have enough real world examples.” this is a big part of why I rejected the philosophy after studying it for a while. That and the success of Nordic socialistic-mixed-with-capitalistic democracy.
re: Rape culture in Libertarianism, rape fantasy was a big, gross part of Rand’s work.
OK so a long as both parties agree with the courts ruling everything is all nice and peaceful but if even one party disagrees then its Ok to use Violence? or am I not getting this whole libertarian thing?
@ IP & Fabe
Just as an aside, there was a case here a few years back about which boxer was entitled to a particular belt (confusion over division rules etc). Both parties and the judge expressed regret that trial by combat had been abolished as it would have been a lot cheaper way if resolving the issue.
(It was Lord Wellington’s government that abolished it btw)
“it raises people out of extreme poverty pretty quickly, ”
I dont wanna be all internet unpleasantness, but sorry, no. Capitalism keeps people poor. Socialism helps the poor. Otherwise youre good, i like you personally, just sayin.
TRIGGER WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF RAPE AND HUMAN INSTINCTS AND HUMAN NATURE.
Here is that reference to the connection between aggression and sex in mice that I mentioned. This is a thing that is very hard to use responsibly in communication but it is still a useful thing to know.
We are not mice, but sex is clearly used in combination with aggression and has a deeper meaning than mere sexual pleasure in human beings. My reference to prison should be self-explanatory, and war referenced this.
I did not mention the connection with male mice because there are a lot of things that prevent that from informing assumptions if one is aware of them. The biggest one is the connection between aggression and sex itself. Female people are perfectly able to be aggressive and express dominance, society is just not willing to let them learn how to express aggression and dominance on an equal footing with male people. Female people are involved in a smaller portion of sex crimes as perpetrators.
I can even point to the fact that one of the biggest complaints of parents of children with Tourette’s Syndrome is aggression, rage, boundary violations, dominance displays and that includes inappropriate sexual boundary violations. This includes female people with TS. We are a group that is rationally targeted with efforts to teach us to control our impulses and it’s worth it because we don’t actually want to hurt people and those skills come with powerful knowledge about these issues in general. If people with TS can do it, so can these adult children whining about people criticizing their behavior. I have no fucks to give beyond finding the right advice for how they can begin the work of learning control.
@EJ
I was going to refer to him as a “beady-eyed, gefilte-breathed, Noam Chomsky-looking New York sewer rat,” but I thought that might be too obvious. Okay then, I refuse to talk with a Jew; what then? I have the right to not talk to any group that I don’t want to personally speak or engage with.
@weirwoodtreehugger
I believe that you are a woman who thinks that she is into women, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that you’re into me. Not saying you are, and it’s totally plausible that you’d rather masturbate with an itching-powder caked-cactus than give me a shot, but all the same, I wouldn’t be surprised if I got you all temporarily confused there.
Social Justice Brony may or may not be female, but they keep talking about how they’re all “authoritarian” and shit, and they maybe want to teach me a lesson. I think they’re just projecting, honestly, with all this talk about “authoritarians,” people who can;t deal with black and white thinking something or other, blah blah blah I’ll deal with them in a minute.
I’d go one, but personally, I find the prospect of having sex with your ilk to be disgusting; leftist are just ewwww, considering the problems with hygiene, body hair, tattoos, piercings, polka-dotted dreads, etc. that one often encounters in their lot.
@Isidore
Just because he’s used roads before that were paid for by money the state had taken from citizens doesn’t mean he’s obliged to keep supporting that system. I believe that private investors who are paid to maintain and created roads are a far more effective and just alternative to state-run roads. I would greatly prefer it if it were the case, and I’ll bet that if I said something to the effect of “If you’re a socialist/commie/”anarchist”/whatever, than why do you work in a capitalist society and purchase products maid in said society” you would all just complain that there’s no current alternative.
@Scildfreja
“Galt, if you’re gonna flail angrily, make sure it’s an entertaining flail. At the moment you’re just being a poopy baby and it’s way more tedious than fun.”
It’s neither my job nor my intention to keep you and your perennially en-diapered, criblord pals happy. I can’t help it if you find facts to be tedious, that iS your problem.
I must eat before my dinner cools, so I’ll end things here abruptly.
I tend to think that capitalism had its uses in the past, but it’s time to move on to something better.
It might have spurred on industrialization, but it’s not really useful when we’ve already got the infrastructure and technology for socialism to work out. Capitalism is just too exploitative. We need to evolve past it.
Idk if that makes sense, I have have to go back to work and am banging this out too fast!
Yeah, anyone who thinks that capitalism raises people out of poverty quickly has never been in a situation of being in debt with low wages. It’s way more expensive to be poor than to be well off. I was going to try and list examples but I know I’m not going to come up with the best examples, so here’s a relevant article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/it-is-expensive-to-be-poor/282979/
@WWTH
Exactly my opinions on the matter. Perfectly stated
@Kale + @Kupo
Allow me to rephrase:
“The capilaist system can, and has, under optimal, or near enough, conditions, raise a good number of people out of extreme poverty pretty quickly.”
Think America’s nigh exponential economic growth over the centuries. Territorial expansion and the industrial revolution brought about rising standards of living compared to those in Europe. Not everyone shared in that, but still. Then, the post war boom creates a thriving middle class. Other factors? Of course. I reckon capitalism had something to do with it tho. Capitalism vs socialism helping the poor needn’t be mutually exclusive
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/emb1.gif
D’aww, shucks. Stop it, you
You could just play Bioshock. That whole game’s a scenario where the Randian Dream falls apart and you’re left with a group of drugged-up murderers prowling the broken remains of your city at the bottom of the ocean.
On the libertarian troll: I’ve always found the idea that you want to live in a place with courts and police and firemen and roads and such but not pay taxes similar to living in an apartment: You can’t just tell your landlord you don’t want to pay rent because it’s “theft”.
When faced with libertarians (autocorrect please stop saying librarian) I’ve always used one of two approaches.
1. Let’s talk about all the agencies/people you rely on before you even have breakfast. This always ends with being told “fuck you, fuck them, I got mine”
2. In which I start nattering on about baking, jam making and general home ec, effectively moving the conversation away from politics. I’ve never tried this approach online.
Has anyone here ever gotten a libertarian or an anti feminist to rethink or even reasonably discuss their position? Is the meltdown/tantrum inevitable?
Just some random thoughts, if I get annoying folks feel free to call me out.
Majority Report recently had a libertarian caller who kept using Liechtenstein as an example of libertarian paradise. That, along with the Sargon of Akkad trainwreck debate with Michael Brooks, drove a listener to change his IM user name to “Sargon of Liechtenstein”. I smile every time I hear that name. “Bernie Sandwiches” is another name that makes me laugh for some reason.
@ IP
Pub quiz time: What’s the link between Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan?
@Anarchonist:
And for good reason – it’s intolerable behavior. I may understand where it comes from, but I can hardly sympathize with it.
You’d think they’d take the saying “do unto others as they do unto you” to heart…
I dunno, you might be surprised. Plenty of formerly bullied people, if they become bullies themselves, pin their misfortunes on women and ethnic minorities. Even if their bully was a white, cis-het male – they’ll come up with some reason as to why women and minorities were partly responsible.
They’ll blame women for their anguish, because they didn’t sleep with them and showed interests in guys they consider to be “jerks.” With ethnic minorities, when it’s not just a case of white privilege, it’s because they do not want to deal with the notion anyone else suffers more than they do.
They’re the kind of people who’d complain about Latinos “stealing their jobs” or how a black individual only got a job because of “quotas.” They’re unable to admit either group faces systematic discrimination and that it still isn’t easy for them, because it would mean they couldn’t self-victimize and act like they have it worse than everyone else.
I can understand the argument that people should be able to opt out of paying for and receiving government services, but in practice that’s pretty much unmanageable, hurts efficiency, and strongly pressures people to make decisions that can come back to haunt them.
Firstly, there’s the indirect benefits of services; even if you don’t use a government-owned road, you benefit from people using the road to come to your store or stock the store you go to or similar. And you further benefit from it not being funded by tolls* so people have less incentive to minimize the number of trips. Public hospitals save on lost productivity.
Then there’s various things with efficency. There’s a lot of factors in play, but there is an inherent economy of scale; whatever an organization does, there’s going to be certain costs that must be paid to operate at all but do not rise linearly with size. For instance, if two hospitals don’t share resources and want to perform ten medivac flights a year on different days, they both need medivac helicopters. But one hospital that does twenty a year still only needs one. This extends to pretty much everything in some capacity; it’s especially significant for large-scale infrastructure like power grids.
Beyond that, when it comes to public safety issues it’s often best to handle them as soon as possible. Easiest to stop a contagious disease when it’s only infected a handful of people, easiest to put out a fire right after it starts burning, etc.
And then there’s the incentives of the pricing system. Obviously, paying for firemen is only a good deal if your house at some point catches on fire. Thing is, we actually do have historical examples of private fire companies, and there’s a reason why we stopped! So if you don’t have much money you might decide not to pay for it and pray you’re lucky enough to avoid it. Which sends the price up for everyone else, making it harder for them to justify the price, and the fire departments start buying houses that are on fire for less than the land value, and then Caesar Augustus declares himself First Among Equals and establishes a municipal fire department**.
Anyways, taxes are a prerequisite for good things because they fund things that benefit everyone but people will not voluntarily pay for in sufficient quantity. Governments not being able to collect taxes has pretty much universally ended badly.
*Sidenote: near Washington DC, there’s “the Toll Road”, which does charge tolls and is property of the Dulles Airport Authority as a grant from the state in some capacity. It’s strategically located such that bypassing it is frequently impractical for commutes to work, and people pretty much need to pay whatever tolls they set. Because [long and boring story about the mass transit budgeting process] the Airport Authority is using it to pay their portion of getting a Metrorail extension to the airport, which is creating resentment from people who want the line but would like the cost split out more evenly over the entire route. Doesn’t help that it was originally supposed to only have tolls until the cost of the road was paid off. It’s really, really soured me on the idea of privately-owned roads funded by tolls; clearly anyone who controls the only viable path(s) between two points can charge whatever they want and there’s little anyone can do about it.
** Sort of; Rome didn’t have the sort of public/private distinction we do and it was more a private fire department owned by someone who happened to be the Emperor and paid to fight fires anywhere in the city. In practical terms it was more like the central government owned a bunch of property and got funding by using it commercially.
Now Galt thinks I’m a lesbian who will go hetero for him? I think I’ve confused him way more than he’s sexually confused anyone here!
It’s so adorable that he has a crush on me but has to cover it up by pretending that I have icky feminist cooties.
He’d just better hope I don’t turn out to be a Jewish man from New York. That’d really confuse the poor dearie. 😉
Why would anyone want roads to be all privately funded and managed? Either one company would wind up with a monopoly and charge huge tolls, or there would be tons of little stretches owned by different companies or individuals and it would take you three hours to get a few miles because you’d be stopped at a toll every several yards. Plus the roads would be all patchworked because different owners would use different asphalt and maintain it at different times. It would be so hard on your car.
I like how, even when the system is working optimally and everyone agrees to go along with it whether or not they have any incentive to, the libertarian solution still takes three times as much time and money as the current system.
If the loser is just going to refuse to accept the verdict (because why would they) and declare war anyway, why bother with the courts at all? Why not just declare war right when your wallet gets stolen?
@Alan
Not a clue!
Oh my god, the gleaming opulent horse was four years ago? I’m so old.
Another gem from the Block/Seder debate went something like this:
Sam: So, who would own the land?
Walter: All you would have to do to own land, would be to claim it before someone else does.
Sam: Can I claim an entire continent?
Walter: No, it would have to be within reason.
Sam: What does that mean?
Walter: It would have to be land that you’re actually using. For example you might be planting crops.
Sam: What if I have a really big area and I’m planting crops on the whole thing, except they’re really far apart?
Walter: No, it would have to be within reason.
Sam: Okay, so how far apart can they be?
Walter: GOOD QUESTION. That’s exactly the kind of thing libertarians would discuss!
Sam: Siiiiiiigh. Sounds interesting dude. Who would eventually decide what’s within reason.
Walter: We all would decide. As a society.
Sam: Do you mean… the governme-
Walter: NO NO NO YOU’RE TAKING ME OUT OF CONTEXT
Is Galt actually Juicebro Cernovich? They both have that thing where they think being mocked by women online is almost the same thing as getting laid.
No, you unbelievable ignoramus, here are your words that you wrote yourself:
You did not write the words “like” or “as.” Therefore, this is your metaphor, not your simile.
For the love of god. Is this what the other troll meant when he said male brains can accept new information?