Comments by "Mark Pawelek" (@mark4asp) on "Unsolicited advice" channel.

  1. From time to time we're all weak. But there's a huge difference between states of weakness we find ourselves in and the condition of weakness we put ourselves into. One is an accident of life, and the other is near suicidal pathology.
    6
  2. Another paradox or irony; Malenkov kept himself alive by being weak. No enemies = no existential threat. We're passengers, or mere observers, in our own lives. But what is the purpose of life? Is it to stay alive or to make our (positive) contribution to the world?
    4
  3. Don't believe people - believe in their arguments. Imitate the intellectual habits and practice of those with believable arguments.
    2
  4. Julian Huxley - his brother helped create UNESCO and was its first Director General. Prior to that he also helped create the WWF. In total he was key to founding at least 4 NGOs/IGOs! Was H.G. Wells in on that "secret group" too? Is it fair to call them a "secret group"? It implies secret society.
    2
  5. “Intellectuals” are more dangerous than “Pseudo-Intellectuals” Because “Intellectuals” are clearly held in higher esteem, and it seems we're not allowed to criticise them.
    1
  6. Virtue epistemics is good. I'm persuaded I must read: "The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology", 2011, by Jason Baehr. So - I'm up-voting you. I doubt whether freedom from cultural bias is such a good thing. Surely it's more important to be biased in favour of good cultures than to tbe free of any bias. No one is bias-free. This idealization of "bias-free" is debatable. Freedom from cultural bias could be a useful tool - similar to devil's advocacy - for the purpose of analysing ethics and comparative ethics.
    1
  7. Despite criticizing Joe, I love his content. I'd love Joe to do a show on what's gone wrong in politics; and can the Swiss model save us?
    1
  8. For me, a strong argument, is one which rests on foundations, or first principles of communication. Deal with the core issue. This forces me to deal with the opponents argument. I must convince my oppoents they are wrong by understanding them, steel-manning them, and then explaining to them why their argument is wrong. Ideally I should reframe their argument in terms which undercut it. I will probably have to understand my opponents motivations as well. So that I can explain to them how and why their original arguments undercut their inner, or core, objectives.
    1
  9. "What makes a man a Sophist is not his faculty but his moral purpose" <- Clearly wrong. What makes one a Sophist today is whether one allies with intrinsic or with instrumental reason. Those driven by instrumental reason have no great respect for objective truth. Those driven by intrinsic reason aim for objective truth.
    1
  10. Why Learn Rhetoric? <- So that we can defend ourselves when it's used against us. For example by implying there are reasonable and unreasonable debates; and that unreasonable debates end in lies, fraud, and bad policy.
    1
  11. Loneliness & ennui have long been known to be part of the human condition. Nowt to do with social media.
    1
  12. 1. Why is every Internet channel having a go at blokes? Put a brake on it please. Don't dis' "nice guys". We need more of them. 2. BTW: I like your discussion of Nietzsche. Nietzsche by example. Also: the changing nature of Nietzsche. Instead of the usual "this is what Nietzsche thought", or worse "this is what Nietzsche REALLY thought"!!
    1
  13. You diagnosed a symptom but aren't addressing it by giving us a counter debate style. For example, should we refuse to debate or talk with those who degrade and mock opponents? Because that plays into their hands. Such people are forever trying to censor and cancel their critics. Because they often believe that they can push their ideas by stopping public expression of all ideas contrary to theirs.
    1
  14. Always a joy, for me, when the YouTube algorithm recommends one of Joe's videos. Alongside Peter Boghossian - Joe is surely my fave Internet philosopher. I just now searched Joe's channel for "Intrinsic Instrumental rationality" but found nowt. I'd love Joe to do a video on Weber's concept of Intrinsic versus Instrumental rationality - because I think this is the defining issue of our age! It seems the university has now been entirely colonized by proselytizers for instrumental rationality. That this preference among our elites for instrumental reason had a detrimental effect on society - in that it corrodes the value society places on objective truth. It's now become hard to defend objective truth, because one is never defending it against a concept of subjective truth - as no one advances that as an ideal. Instead, pragmatists (AKA - ends-justify-the-means) thinkers will argue for pragmatism or even for a "utopian" concept of truth. This pragmatic version of truth will be "if it works for me, it works". The Utopian version of truth will be, for example: "I want to live in a world where trans-people have rights, so, ... when I say "people can be born in the wrong body", or "I can be any gender I want to be" - what I really mean by that it "we should be able to". In other words - activists will create the "utopian" societies they want to live in by framing the social conversation in their terms - not in terms of objective truth. Another example of utopian truth trumping objective truth are the Net Zero policies enacted by elites to stop "climate crisis" and "global boiling". Religion - as a pragmatic - ends-justify-the-means - project poses the same dilemmas for truth as activism.
    1
  15. Joe's explanation of Leiter's ideas don't seem to touch on free speech but instead on freedom to access to information. Free speech, for example, in the political and policy realm are about what solutions to social issues can be advanced. For example, the so-called "climate crisis". This is an example of a minority of political and scientific elites forcing the rest of society into neo-Malthusian, neo-eugenic social policies (such as expensive, rationed energy). They did this by trashing free-speech and open enquiry in the scientific realm. It's not so much that freedon of speech is great. More the case that censorship and restriction of enquiry is catastrophically bad.
    1
  16. Brave New World is a paradoxical Utopian (distopian) novel. But at the end of his life Huxley fell for fallacy and wrote an actual Utopian novel called Island. I've read both but I think I'd rather live in Brave New World than Island! I joke. TBH, I could not suspend disbelief to believe in Brave New World. In contrast Island is way more plausible (realistic). So being an actual Utopian novel (rather than a mere warning) Island is a dangerous book as many people will take it seriously - as Huxley intented us to. Island was his (anti-Capitalist) manifesto.
    1
  17. You should not trust Brian Cox. He's an ideologue for some bad ideas.
    1