Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "PragerU"
channel.
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+derpion derpson
Yes, Ben Shapiro's book may not be available in your country. I apologize if my assumptions were unfair to you on the basis of your nationality. Since this video is about the tendentiousness of the US media, I assumed you were someone who had a stake in the subject. But if you're not living in the US, you don't have much stake in whether the US media is fair, manipulative or whatever (or, for that matter much data upon which to base your opinion). You must understand, I get the leftist viewpoint and such "arguments" as they can muster crammed down my throat every time I watch TV or a movie, or do almost anything else. I don't have to track down books on the subject, it tracks me down. Not so for those on the other side. If they want to be able to form arguments or address our opinions, they have to seek out niche outlets like Prager U, or talk radio. They CAN live in an bubble insulated from opposition. I can't.
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Leftists are always complaining about authoritarian corporate power, here it is on display and they are silent, or supporting the bad guys. Here is what separates the leftists from the liberals. “This is not a left/right issue. It is a free speech issue, which is why prominent liberals, such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, are supporting our lawsuit,” (Prager )
Concerning the "private property" dodge, quoting from the complaint:
http://www.bgrfirm.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/PRAGER_U-_v_GOOGLE-YOUTUBE_complaint_10-23-2017_FILED.pdf
Defendants believe that they have unfettered, unbridled, and unrestricted power to censor speech or discriminate against public speakers at their whim for any reason, including their animus toward and political viewpoints of their public users and providers of video content, because Defendants are for profit organizations rather than governmental entities. Google/YouTube, you are wrong.
As the California Supreme Court has stated: “[t]he idea that private property can constitute a public forum for free speech if it is open to the public in a manner similar to that of public streets and sidewalks” has long been he law in California. Fashion Valley Mall, LLC v. N.L.R.B. (2007) 42 Cal.4th 850, 858. The United States Supreme Court also recognized more than a half century ago that the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution can apply even on privately owned property.
/end quote
Folks, the venue (California courts and/or California juries) may well militate against their winning (due to the bias of California courts and juries), but they wouldn't have brought the suit if they didn't have a case. It is not as simple as you're trying to make it. And as for taking sides, do you want to keep your free speech?
Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
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+Arthur Webber
"John C. I can't find that survey, could you give me a link or something?"
That is John C's typo for the Lichter Rothman report:
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_media_elite.html?id=b-VoAAAAIAAJ
https://www.mrc.org/media-bias-101/exhibit-1-1-media-elite
You can find it by typing "lichter rothman report" in the "Duck Duck Go" search engine.
Google is more flaky, I got nothing until I spelled "lichter" right, DDG gave me the hits for "lictor rothman report"
The original report on the survey reveals, for example, that more than 80% of the decision makers at network news programs executives, editors, reporters, anchors voted for Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election, an election in which Ronald Reagan got 51% of the popular vote and Anderson, the independent got 7%.
Rothman update to 1995:
https://www.mrc.org/media-bias-101/exhibit-1-8-media-elite-revisited
"Do you have any sources for your other claims?"
Leftward media bias is well documented:
Ben Shapiro's book is documentation of this as well.
https://www.amazon.com/Bias-Insider-Exposes-Media-Distort/dp/1621573117
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_Mass_Distortion
https://www.amazon.com/Left-Turn-Liberal-Distorts-American/dp/1250002761
https://www.westernjournalism.com/top-50-examples-liberal-media-bias/
Slander by Ann Coulter
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The Soviet Union would have collapsed under German pressure without US aid. We supplied them, among other things, with food, trucks, Sherman tanks, P47 strike/fighter aircraft, the tooling for an entire truck factory. We supplied shermans to every allied power in droves before the war was over. A key factor in the collapse of the European Axis was the loss of North African oil. In the North African campaign, we were still playing 2nd fiddle to UK in terms of force levels at that stage, but we were the reinforcement that broke the tit for tat stalemate between Allied and Axis theater forces, this plus aid to UK setting the stage for the endgame. Without the US, UK could not have opened the western front in time to forestall our strong colleague, the USSR, from overrunning much more of Europe. We didn't take superpower status from WW2, we earned it.
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The vast bulk of military and humanitarian aid came from the US, even before the declaration of war, and well before Hitler ever attacked USSR and continuing past the war's end. The whole point of the German U-boat offensive was to starve the UK into submission. This only makes sense in a context where US is feeding UK.
Despite Hitler's incompetent meddling, the whole eastern front affair ended up coming to the balance of a hair, and would have had a different outcome if either the US or UK had not been aiding the Soviets. The Germans would have been sitting on the Soviet rail and industrial hub to the north, poised to cut off the ports further north, and in the south securing Crimean oil. As a result of the Ukrainian genocide, the Ukrainians were the only people in the world who hailed the Wehrmacht as liberators, so they wouldn't even have had to occupy the Ukrainian heartland. Push to the starving Urals, invade the starving UK, and that's a win. Germany could have made up aircraft losses eventually to support the invasion if US B-17s had not bombed German aircraft production in massive daylight bombing raids. The UK could not have fuelled their Spitfires unless US kept running the U-boat blockade. The honor goes to France and UK for standing first against Reich tyranny, but all would have been in vain without the US contribution, before and after the declaration of war.
On the African front, 300 Shermans were already delivered to Montgomery by the battle of El Alamein, and the 2 front Allied offensive, US from west, and UK/US from east drove Rommel out of Africa. I will refrain from reciprocating the insults, in the name of Allied solidarity.
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There is nothing about physics plus matter that predicts or allows for consciousness. The notion that consciousness arises from matter and physics is not a simple error, like 2+2=5, but a category error, like 2+2=blue. The notion that it does is a scientistic superstition, an urban legend.
One can not rule out reductionist intelligence. The Artificial Intelligence field is an attempt to achieve just that, an attempt which has made practical progress, but not with the speed or ease that the pioneers confidently predicted.
Can't there be a rule that a certain level of intelligence is always conscious?
If there were it could not, by definition, be a rule of physics, thus it would contradict materialism.
Since we know that there is something beyond physics, particularly conscience, in other words, ourselves;
there is no rational basis to reject free will.
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Mr. Waters can, of course, brazen it out, "You can't prove 2+2 does not equal blue." I wonder if that sort of thing would have impressed his grade school teacher.?
But as an argument against free will, it won't do. You must prove your sum. Until you have some notion of how consciousness arises from matter and physics, the notion that it does is a mere superstition. And the argument from reductionism to no free will depends on reductionism being true.
My second statement of my argument was not a new argument, as I made clear. I still don't understand what you thought I meant the first time and I suspect that is why I can't make heads or tails of your first response. The only thing that is clear is that the argument you first responded to is not the argument I made. Reading your first response is like listening to one half of a telephone conversation. Perhaps if you want your original response, of which you seem to be proud, to impress, you should summarize, in your own words, the argument to which you thought you were responding.
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John Waters asserts:
"2+2 = blue" is nothing but a straw man.
It was not an argument, it was an explanatory analogy. By taking the same principle out of the realm dominated by pop scientism and wishful thinking, I hope to engender impartial thinking about the principle, which once accepted may be profitably applied to the subject at hand. So much nonsense has been disseminated about this in the general culture that this is necessary.
"If by "consciousness" you mean something other than the interactions of
our brains, then the burden of proof of its existence is on you."
My argument only has force for those who believe that consciousness exists. To those who claim to have an open mind on the matter, my argument has nothing to say. If you mean by "the interactions of our brains" materialism, then you have not answered my objection. If you mean something else, you have not even contradicted my conclusion.
Something cannot be it's own cause.
So far, so good.
In order for my mental processes to be determined by my mental processes.
Whoa, nobody claimed that.
Try, "Our mental processes are our mental processes." There is no a priori reason to attribute their cause to a hypothetical something else. Indeed, unless that something else is also mind or reason, doing so invalidates reason itself. We accept reasoned thought and reject caused thought. We don't put tightly reasoned mathematical theorems on a par with mental notions resulting from a splinter pressing on the brain. The distinction is precisely that the first notion is reasoned, and the second is caused by irrational forces. We ordinarily allow no exception to this principle, yet those who claim that all thought is caused by irrational forces ask us to make the unacceptable exception the rule.
Ah, Occam's razor. The simplest explanation. Except, you have not provided an explanation, simple or complex. You are holding the razor by the blade. You mention burden of proof, as if we were positing some supernatural explanation of a phenomenon. We arrived at the notion of free will, not by speculation or philosophizing, but by freely choosing. Our notions of justice and responsibility are built on it. Every time you make a moral judgement that judgement is predicated upon the notion of both free will and an objective standard of right and wrong by which are choices are to be judged. And except for psychopaths, none of us can go a week without making moral judgements. And a world view which cannot be lived does not have to be taken seriously. The only notions we have asked you to prove are the notions you use as assumptions to disprove free will.
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