Positions: Difference between revisions
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The following sections are the current contents of the Positions page, written by '''[[Destiny]]''': | The following sections are the current contents of the Positions page, written by '''[[Destiny]]''': | ||
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! style="width: 200px;" | <p style="color: DarkViolet">Get It From Me</p> | |||
! style="width: 320px;" | <p style="color: Peru">Compromise</p> | |||
! style="width: 290px;" | <p style="color: Teal">Sources</p> | |||
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| [[File:BrainPos.jpg|230px|left|Brains]] | |||
| [[File:MsgPos.jpg|250px|center|The Message]] | |||
| [[File:BookPos.jpg|280px|Book Book Book]] | |||
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!<p style="color: DarkViolet">Get It From Me<br>As a content creator, I am often misrepresented by people who disagree with me. <br>Form an opinion about me based on my actual positions.</p> | |||
!<p style="color: Peru">The real world is complicated and the best answers are usually found between two extremes.<br> | |||
My positions can be better understood if you avoid black and white and allow for nuance.</p> | |||
!<p style="color: Teal">Online political discourse has become increasingly unhealthy.<br> I want debate to be grounded in facts and research. You can see some of the resources that I base my positions on here.</p> | |||
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== '''About''' == | == '''About''' == | ||
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People in America (and around the world) have problems right now that need to be solved. And that's best done by working within the current system, building coalitions with like-minded people, and voting for the best candidates (at both a local and a national level). | People in America (and around the world) have problems right now that need to be solved. And that's best done by working within the current system, building coalitions with like-minded people, and voting for the best candidates (at both a local and a national level). | ||
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| | ! scope=col | !!Ideologies | ||
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| '''The Alt-Right''' ||I do not support the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right alt-right], nor any of the prescriptions they make for society. I do believe it is important, however, to acknowledge some of the conditions that lead people to becoming radicalized (feeling disconnected from society, having no sense of purpose, feeling economically left behind, etc.) and how these beliefs translate into political action. I believe some on the alt-right are effective at identifying frustrations that one might have with our current economic or social system, but they offer no realistic solutions to any of these problems, and their explanations for said phenomena are often mired in anecdotes. | | '''The Alt-Right''' ||I do not support the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right alt-right], nor any of the prescriptions they make for society. I do believe it is important, however, to acknowledge some of the conditions that lead people to becoming radicalized (feeling disconnected from society, having no sense of purpose, feeling economically left behind, etc.) and how these beliefs translate into political action. I believe some on the alt-right are effective at identifying frustrations that one might have with our current economic or social system, but they offer no realistic solutions to any of these problems, and their explanations for said phenomena are often mired in anecdotes. |
Revision as of 05:57, 27 October 2023
The Positions Page, also known as positions.destiny.gg, is a sub-section of the Destiny.gg website used by Destiny to provide a written log of various aspects of his political positions, personal life, and interactions with others in the streaming space.
The following sections are the current contents of the Positions page, written by Destiny:
About
Who am I? | My name is Steven Bonnell and my online handle across Twitch, YouTube and Instagram is Destiny. I'm most well known for my political content online, but I started my career as a Starcraft 2 livestreamer. Today I livestream most aspects of my life, including gaming, online debates, and canvassing for political change. Throughout my life I have always tried to ensure the consistency of my beliefs, and to test my ideas I would argue with others. |
My political advocacy | Starting in November of 2020, I attempted to spin up an organization to mobilize youth into direct, local political action. Our first efforts were in Georgia, where we knocked on over 20,000 doors in support of Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock. For my next effort, I wanted to focus on my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska to see if we could mobilize enough volunteers to get a progressive candidate elected to office. Unfortunately because of how people and news organizations mischaracterized my actions, I was forced to stop campaigning for my mayor of choice. I've also interviewed a number of individuals (1,2,3,4)running for state and local offices while exposing fraud in other candidates. |
Why this page exists | Many things are said about who I am or what I believe in. Oftentimes, people make absurd claims about my beliefs, such as that I advocate for the indiscriminate killing of BLM protestors, that I'm a nazi, that I'm a communist, etc. This is partially my fault as I have a history of being hyperbolic in some circumstances, and I often engage with people who aren't really interested in good faith conversations. Part of this is also due to my huge backlog of content and the nature of the internet - I understand that sifting through thousands of hours of debates to find my fully fleshed-out views is not a practical demand to make of people.
As I've evolved both in my political and social views, and as I've continued to produce more hours of content, it is now possible that you could cherry pick almost any 30 seconds of me to claim I represent any given political or social viewpoint. As such, it is necessary to take preventative measures against this, as I have dealt with such behavior already. In 2021, I committed myself to a strategy of being more rhetorically effective, especially concerning how people represent me or my beliefs. As a part of this strategy, the following pages are my effort to "set the record straight" insofar as my actual beliefs, as opposed to what others claim them to be. I'll include within these pages a record of most of my political and philosophical positions, as well as any positions I have relating to current events. |
Current Events
Breonna Taylor | It is stated that Breonna Taylor was killed in her bed or while asleep almost ubiquitously across social media (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) despite this not being the truth. What happened to Breonna Taylor was wrong, and the police conduct that day deserves to be called into question. However, starting that discussion with an incorrect description of what happened weakens our arguments against those on the right that disagree with us. This is because we now have to begin by making concessions about lies or misrepresentations from people who purport to agree with us. Furthermore, it casts doubt about the truth of the rest of the argument for those in the middle who are unsure of where the fault lies.
A user in my community, "DaSkrubKing," provides a detailed breakdown of what happened the night of Breonna Taylor's death. The key takeaways for what happened are: 1.Louisville police were serving a "knock and announce" warrant at Breonna Taylor's apartment thinking she would be the only one present. Breonna Taylor was neither asleep nor was she in bed when she was killed by police officers. This does not excuse their actions or make her death any less tragic, but stating that she was killed while she was asleep in her bed is simply incorrect. The claims we should be making about Breonna Taylor's death, which are grounded in the reality of the situation, are as follows: •It seems obvious that insufficient notice was given before the door was broken in. Only one neighbor reported hearing anything at all before police broke in the door. |
The GameStop short squeeze | I've written extensively on my view of the wallstreetbets "fight" with Melvin Capital over the GameStop stock. The summary of my position is essentially the following:
There was never any reason to believe a massive short squeeze was coming. The big winners were not "little retail traders." Robinhood did not halt trading to "protect hedge funds." Most alternative media figures/outlets got many fundamental facts of the case wrong. For a longer and more formal write-up of my view on the GME situation, see my write-up here: BrainStop. I've also done a video review of said document on my YouTube channel. |
Kyle Rittenhouse ("mowing down protestors") | In general, I do not support vigilantism. I think Kyle Rittenhouse was clearly misguided in his attempts to cross state borders and should have stayed home. I also think there are steps he could have taken to minimize the risk of him needing to discharge a firearm.
Of a larger 20+ minute debate with someone, a short 16 second clip was cut to make it sound as though I support violence against Black Lives Matter protesters when this couldn't be further from the truth. I am incredibly heated in this clip, but I am clear when I state that my main frustration is with the few rioters burning down private businesses and the idea that Trump's only path to victory was with continued arson and destruction of privately owned businesses across the US (full conversation in August of 2020 with context part clipped). I have always defended the existence of BLM and its purpose, sometimes in front of live audiences as the only liberal member on a panel.
(Jesse Lee Peterson panel in October of 2020|Conversation with call-in defending the existence and effectiveness of BLM's protests|Panel debate in August of 2020|Support in November of 2018 of Kaepernick kneeling in the NFL|Attacking Dave Rubin's criticisms of Kaepernick's protests in September 2017) I have continually defended protesting, and even rioting against public institutions while condemning the rioting/looting of private businesses, as I believe the latter feeds into Republican tactics to draw attention away from the overwhelmingly positive protests. (Discussion about Minneapolis protesting/looting in May of 2020|Debate with conservative/Neo-Nazi(?) Ethan Ralph in June 2020|Discussion on my stream in September of 2020) My specific issue in this debate was that I didn't believe it was morally acceptable to defend rioters destroying private businesses, regardless of their legitimate grievances with the local police. When I think of rioters attacking and destroying private property, I generally support citizens' rights to defend that property. I think back to the Korean-Americans that were defending their property in the '92 LA Riots, the Black Panthers in California defending their communities, or the tragedy of the "Black Wall Street" Tulsa massacre in 1921. I was especially moved by the frustrated, black local business owner who was screaming out in frustration about looters and rioters destroying his business in the '92 LA Riots.
It's incredibly frustrating that people have intentionally and maliciously misconstrued a 16 second cut from a larger conversation to make it sound as though I don't support the BLM protests or somehow approve of racist white people indiscriminately killing protesters when this is an issue that I have been ruthlessly consistent on throughout the years. I unequivocally support BLM's right to both protest and riot against the public institutions that they view as oppressive. I have not changed or wavered on this stance in years. |
Politics
The State of Political Discourse | In 2016, as Donald Trump was rising as a contender in the Republican primary, I noticed the political discourse online was so far removed from reality, people weren't having conversations in the same universe. My main goal in entering politics was to bring reasonableness into online political conversations, or to at least ground the disagreements in fact so the conversations could be more productive. Unfortunately, most of my conversations have been unproductive and hardly qualify as "intellectual discourse."
I believe most content creators suffer from the following problems: •They tend to be uninformed about the ideas they are discussing (e.g.: many lefties don't know Labor Value Theory; many online Republicans don't know anything about immigration or sociology). •Give an informed opinion about, or bring in experts or expert material concerning, current events and interesting topics. |
Affirmative Action | I don't have a strong position on affirmative action. It can be a powerful tool, but only when implemented properly; it is a political lightning rod which makes it very hard to reasonably discuss.
Affirmative action tends to run into trouble in universities where huge mismatch problems occur — minority students who are given too much preferential treatment in admissions will massively under-perform their peers, causing them to dropout at disproportionately high rates. Though some argue (1,2) in favor of aggressive affirmative action for higher education, they often only look at the enrollment rates as indicators of success, rather than actual college achievement. Outside of universities, one can go too far in forcing integration as well, for example: California's "woman quota" for corporate boards. Affirmative action programs that incentivize students to take part in additional education opportunities to prepare them for a college environment would be more in-line with my view of effective policy rather than simply shoving them into classrooms with more qualified peers and expecting them to perform at competitive levels. Additional reading:
-The author tracks down many of the black students in Columbia's class of 1973, some of the first who were enrolled as "affirmative action" became a more important social issue for universities to focus on. |
Diversity | Diversity is a good thing, and has been shown time and time again to benefit both countries (1,2) and companies (1,2,3,4,5,6). Countries and companies that engage in high levels of diversity seem to outperform their less diverse counterparts, and it seems to be the case that having a more diverse representation across your population and workforce can be an advantage in and of itself.
Though it seems hard to imagine, just having a more diverse workplace can be predictive of your ability to outperform average returns in a given environment (1,2). There are modern examples of avoidable problems that boil down to a company simply lacking a diverse team. One well-known example is racial discrimination that occurs in face recognition technology. Another example is soap dispensers not recognizing black hands over white hands. |
Global Warming | Global warming is real and anthropogenic (i.e.: caused by humans).
It seems that the best approach to dealing with climate change is with the aggressive incentivization of greener energies and the implementation of carbon pricing policies. The former polls incredibly well with Americans and the latter is almost universally agreed upon by economists to be effective in moving markets to aggressively seek out more carbon-neutral ways of operating (1). |
The Green New Deal | I do not support the Green New Deal, a policy championed by the Justice Democrats.
While I support strong action being taken to curb the effects of climate change, I don't necessarily think it's appropriate to pair these changes with other, non-environmental policies, e.g. a federal jobs guarantee. I think that climate change is a serious issue that needs to be addressed both through policies that have been demonstrated to work (e.g. cap and trade) and through innovative policies and technologies. |
Immigration | Coming soon! () |
Illegal Immigration | It's incredibly hard to precisely measure the impact of illegal immigration, although it does appear that undocumented workers have a negative impact on state and local budgets and can apply some downward pressure on native wages (1,2).
The most effective way of dealing with illegal immigration would likely be some form of amnesty, similar to the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1986. The IRCA conferred benefits unto the workers who were able to adjust their status as well as to the state and local governments who were able to more effectively levy taxes, though it also had a small, negative impact on competing native workers and future immigrants and caused an increase in government transfer to the newly legalized population (1). Any well-designed amnesty program would do well to pay attention to these benefits and drawbacks to ensure that we can appropriately capture the benefits of any such amnesty in order to benefit the population as a whole, without causing targeted harm to more vulnerable sections of the labor force. |
International Trade Agreements | I am highly in favor of international trade agreements, especially large binding agreements like the now-dead Trans-Pacific Partnership that Obama championed. This is mostly for two reasons:
1.International cooperation — International trade agreements lay the groundwork for even more international trade agreements. Ever-increasing cooperation is one of the only hopes we have at solving global warming. |
Reparations | After the civil war, former slaves were promised 40 acres and a mule by William T. Sherman. This was approved by President Lincoln. Later, the federal government reneged on this promise, which seems pretty unfair.
There are many different reasons for wanting reparations, but I think that the best one is purely for the purposes of finally repaying a debt that was promised. Logistically, implementing reparations would be difficult (Who exactly gets the money? How much money is equivalent to 40 acres, adjusted for inflation?). I acknowledge that reparations are probably not politically feasible. |
Social Justice | It is incredibly important to incorporate notions of equity into our view of the world when it comes to enacting policy or new laws. I think it is vital to recognize that many people have had disadvantages throughout US history and that the outcomes of those disadvantages are still noticeable today. Any policy we design should take these differences into account. |
Systemic Racism | Systemic racism is racism embedded into a system. The important thing to note about systemic racism is that no-one in the system is necessarily to blame. For example, say that the hypothetical police force of Oceania was systemically racist — it had a computer system programmed to assign more police patrols to black neighborhoods than white neighborhoods. In this system, it is possible that every single police officer in the force is a black-loving certified anti-racist, yet the police would still be functioning as a racist institution.
We have strong evidence that there are some lingering forms of systemic racism in the United States. For example, by looking at maps of where redlining was practiced, we can see that the effects of redlining still affect outcomes (in a statistical, on-average way). Just like in Oceania, this doesn't necessarily mean that ordinary people are to blame. Of course, there are probably racist people in the country somewhere still in charge of bank loans or city planning — but, for the most part, I think that we have that sorted out. We need to focus on the more complicated problems. I believe that systemic racism clearly exists in some forms. I don't have a strong opinion on the best policies to address it. |
Voting | Voting is important.
People in America (and around the world) have problems right now that need to be solved. And that's best done by working within the current system, building coalitions with like-minded people, and voting for the best candidates (at both a local and a national level). |
Ideologies | |
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The Alt-Right | I do not support the alt-right, nor any of the prescriptions they make for society. I do believe it is important, however, to acknowledge some of the conditions that lead people to becoming radicalized (feeling disconnected from society, having no sense of purpose, feeling economically left behind, etc.) and how these beliefs translate into political action. I believe some on the alt-right are effective at identifying frustrations that one might have with our current economic or social system, but they offer no realistic solutions to any of these problems, and their explanations for said phenomena are often mired in anecdotes.
My debate with Erik Striker & James Allsup is emblematic of most discourse that I've had with alt-right figures; when confronted with challenges to their ideas, they retreat to anecdotes and offer no solutions. Most concerningly, the policy positions they offer for political change generally require some extreme amount of state-sponsored violence and are highly unrealistic in achieving any positive end. "Protecting our Demographics" Many on the far right express a great concern over protecting the demographic make-up of whatever community they reside in. They might allude to "western values," "white values," "euro-centric values" or some other type of "values" that they are trying to protect. Generally they state the reason to protect these values stems from both an earnest desire to preserve their culture as well as protecting their voting interests. I believe that this endeavor is futile for several reasons: •I reject the notion that there is a consistent and coherent definition of "American values." |
Capitalism | I consider myself to be a capitalist.
At a high-level, capitalism seems to be the best-known economic system to generate wealth. I believe the responsibility of any economic system should, first and foremost, be to allocate resources in an economy as efficiently as possible to create the largest possible base from which to draw taxes to redistribute to those who need it most. I recognize in many western countries, especially the United States, we seem to have a big problem with the "redistribution" part. There are different kinds of capitalism, ranging all the way from laissez-faire (e.g. free market) to state capitalism (e.g. China). Completely free-market systems have serious downsides (e.g. monopolies, unequal bargaining power) and don't properly account for negative externalities (e.g. pollution, global warming) without government intervention. Thus, I believe that capitalism should be tempered by a strong government that tries to correct for these problems, similar to how Nordic countries function. Not surprisingly, this is the economic model of nearly all advanced economies in the West. |
Libertarianism | Libertarianism is concerned with maximizing liberty and personal freedom. I viewed myself as a libertarian when I was a teenager and have read books by Ayn Rand.
I am still pro liberty and pro freedom, but my political views have evolved. Libertarianism does not seem to do a very good job at solving some major problems, like social inequality and global warming. The latter, in particular, seems likely only to be solved by regulation and governmental cooperation at a global level. |
"Omniliberalism" | In politics, it can be useful to know which particular ideology someone subscribes to. However, I do not fall perfectly in-line with any particular ideology. I describe myself as an Omni-Liberal, which is a made-up, tongue-in-cheek term to encapsulate the general position of:
•Having the core values of liberalism (e.g. freedom and equality). I don't feel dogmatically attached to any particular form of government or economic system. If it can be demonstrated that some economic system (socialism, capitalism, etc.) can consistently produce better economic and social outcomes for a given society, that would be the economic system I would advocate for. As of right now, I believe that free markets with strong social safety nets (see: Scandinavia) are the most effective way of achieving these ends. |
Populism | I do not support populism.
Populism is usually defined as "the people" versus "the elites." This happens on both the right (e.g. the alt-right & Donald Trump) and the left (e.g. Bernie-or-Busters). Populism is powerful because it feeds off negative emotions, but is often not based on facts. |
Socialism/Communism | -The Academic Arguments-
While exploring more socialist ideas I've come across a number of people attempting to defend their ideologies. I've had discussions with many people who identify as socialists, including Michael Albert (an economist, see this video), Ben Burgis (Jacobin columnist, see this video), and many, many more (Search YouTube for "destiny socialism").
•What level of violence is acceptable to attain a socialist state? •How do we decide which businesses are allowed to exist in a socialist society without allowing capital investment? •Is any form of investment whatsoever allowed in a socialist society? -How do businesses raise additional capital for expansion? If one wants to expand their business and open new stores, is it contingent upon them finding other workers willing to buy in and own part of one's new expansion of business? If that new expansion grows, is one diluting the ownership of one's current work force? Does one need to dilute every employee's ownership every time a new worker is brought in? How does that affect one's democratic leverage in the business? •How are labor markets determined in a socialist society? What if everyone wants to become a teacher? •How can we calculate which goods/services a nation needs if we do away with the commodity form?
While there are plenty of highly intelligent people who identify as socialists, my interactions with "online socialists" or "online lefties" from 2018 to 2020 have generally left me with a very low opinion of the community at large.
I don't believe anything is inherently wrong with co-ops, and I support them in the cases where they lead to greater economic productivity. Despite the slight increase in productivity, however, there doesn't seem to be any good way for co-ops to effectively raise capital. Also, I still question whether co-ops would retain their benefits if everyone in society were to join one, rather than the select few people that have the necessary capital and/or skills to join one of the few co-ops that exist today.
All government policies have pros and cons. As citizens, our best course of action is to debate these policies to determine which will be the most effective and to pressure our representatives to push those that are politically feasible. Inversely, most socialists that I talk to have no actual policy positions. They: •live in a land of fantasy where all capital is abolished |
Philosophy
Why Philosophy is Important | When doing online debate about politics, it is extremely important to have a philosophical foundation from which to draw practical conclusions. Politics is downstream from philosophy, and you could argue that it is simply the practice of applied philosophy on a societal level. While I have no formal education in philosophy, through the use of resources such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Wikipedia articles, I have taken pains to construct some sort of philosophical heuristic to solve policy issues. This has allowed me to more effectively understand my own and others' arguments through the underlying philosophical values and processes at play, as well as create a consistent set of rules to abide by when evaluating various political issues.
My applied political positions always follow from my moral system. I think the world would be a better place if people reflected more on their internal, fundamental values and used those as guiding principles to establish their political values, rather than blindly following an ideologue, or using inherited positions from their parents, religion, country, or party. A lot of political debate boils down to either having some differing, fundamental position, or a disagreement on some empirical claim. Instead of two people arguing at a surface level about an issue, it is sometimes more useful to dive down to try and figure out what the other person actually believes at a fundamental level. A great example of this is abortion — people will often debate back and forth about the legality of abortion while ignoring that they fundamentally disagree on whether or not a fetus should carry the same (or similar) moral consideration as an infant child. |
My Foundational Beliefs | I have a video where I break down how I construct my philosophical worldview, which I highly recommend watching for a fleshed-out understanding of my position. However, if you don't have the time to watch now, here is a short and incredibly basic summary of my philosophical foundations:
•Part I i.I exist. •Part II •Part III I don't believe that moral facts exist, or if they do, I don't believe they are perceivable to us. Therefor, I build all of my policy positions from this fundamental moral framework. I think about policy positions in a similar way that Rawls' veil of ignorance would demand of us — society should be constructed in a way that maximizes the experience of as many people possible. This means satisfying as many people's needs and desires as possible, so as to incentivize everyone's participation in our society. I view this as being similar to a sort of Pareto efficiency that could exist in how we reallocate goods and services with government policy. |
On Maximizing One's Experience | Within the statements of my foundational beliefs, I often talk about maximizing one's own experience and helping others maximize theirs. I often run into a problem where people assume the most naive construction of this idea possible. It is assumed, especially when words like "hedonism" and "egoism" get used, that I conceptualize a moral world to be one where everyone just does whatever they want, be it murdering, stealing, etc. because it makes them happy. It is also assumed that I make no distinction between "lower and higher" pleasures. This is obviously a ridiculous position to hold, and just a slightly fairer reading will get us to construct more reasonable interpretations of what it means to "maximize" one's experience.
A thought experiment I often use is the following: You and four friends enter a room with five candy bars. You can either eat all of the candy bars because it would "maximize your experience," or you could share the candy equally. The naive construction of my belief would entail the former, but let's think about the consequences of this. My friends are now unhappy, they might not want to be friends with me anymore, next time they won't share with me, and really the outcome is in the long run (and potentially even immediately) I have certainly NOT maximized my experience. My friends being sad would make me sad, them not being friends with me anymore would be upsetting, you can imagine the rest. It's clear then, when I say "maximizing experience," that we have to take a more intelligent, long-term, holistic view towards what this actually means. If I start with 0 utils, and I can get 100 now or 25 every year for the rest of my life, in four years I have already surpassed the experience maximization potential of the first option. If I do something that makes me happy at the detriment of those around me which makes my experience at the end a net negative anyway, clearly I haven't maximized my experience. I would hope that this is straightforward and obvious to understand, however it appears to be a tripping point either due to lack of thought or bad faith on the part of many people I interact with. |
Violence | I am generally opposed to violence as I don't believe it is an effective way to accomplish political change, at least not at this point in time in the United States. That being said, I believe there are plenty of groups of people who could, at points, justify the use of violence in self-defense, even if I don't believe it would be a pragmatic or politically effective thing to do. |
Defense of Property | I believe that people have a right to defend their property insofar as three important criteria are met:
1.You possess the property in a way that your state and community recognizes your possession. -For example, if someone wants to destroy your local business or your house, then you have a right to defend your property by all means necessary. Many disagreements over whether or not defense of personal property is justified sometimes appear to boil down to a difference of underlying values. The value in question is whether "property can be valued over human life", or some statement to that effect. In my experience, middle-class and well-off people may underestimate the personal sacrifice and the years of time invested into obtaining a business, a car, or even something as simple as a stereo system or a school instrument. As such, they will argue that no matter the value and sacrifice associated with some property, even in the case of people living in poverty, the life of the thief always outweighs said value. This is a conclusion I take issue with. |
Protesting & Rioting | I ardently believe in a people's right to protest and I will always support the right to protest, even if I don't necessarily agree with positions being advocated for by any particular protest. For example, I would support the right of a pro-life group protesting the right to an abortion, but I wouldn't agree with the message of the pro-life group: that abortion is immoral, or should be outlawed.
Rioting is a slightly more complicated matter. When I speak about rioting, I am more precisely talking about protest that have some level of violence involved, namely that of property destruction. I do not support riots which seek to harm individuals in the United States at this point in time. I only support rioting against institutions that represent some oppressive force in society, so I generally only support rioting against public institutions, e.g. a police department, city hall, etc. It's not inconceivable that I would support a riot against a private institution, but only if that private institution was acting in an illegal manner.
MLK is commonly cited as opposition to my position on riots, however, I believe this is due to misunderstanding selective quotes from MLK. I believe a broader understanding of his speeches reveals to us that he was opposed to violent riots throughout his life, even as he condemned the conditions bringing them about. September 1966 talk with Mike Wallace MIKE WALLACE: There's an increasingly vocal minority who disagree totally with your tactics, Dr. King. KING: There's no doubt about that. I will agree that there is a group in the Negro community advocating violence now. I happen to feel that this group represents a numerical minority. Surveys have revealed this. The vast majority of Negroes still feel that the best way to deal with the dilemma that we face in this country is through non-violent resistance, and I don't think this vocal group will be able to make a real dent in the Negro community in terms of swaying 22 million Negroes to this particular point of view. And I contend that the cry of "black power" is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. April 1967 speech to Stanford University -But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. 1967 lecture "Nonviolence and Social Change" March 1968 speech at Grosse Pointe High School, "The Other America" |
Public vs Private Humor | I enjoy all types of comedy, even if it's dark or offensive. Regardless of how I feel, there is a wide chasm between the types of humor that I enjoy privately and the types of humor I believe are responsibly enjoyed publicly. I believe that public figures have to be more careful when engaging with potentially problematic types of humor because one cannot control the audience that may engage with particular types of humor. As public figures, we should avoid empowering groups of people who have ideologies rooted in values contradicting our own, even in speech/actions where we do not intend to do so but it still has that effect.
An example of a type of "edgy joke" might be the way I engage with a close friend relating to gender/sexuality/race. It might be an "inside joke" in private where my friend and I have cleared with each other that it's okay to joke about certain topics (e.g., my friend joking about me being Cuban, me joking about them being black, etc.). If we were to engage in these types of humor publicly without a large number of disclaimers, it's entirely possible that people could take these jokes the wrong way and engage with them problematically, e.g. "I heard Destiny make fun of xyz for being gay, now I'm going to make fun of other gay people because it was funny!" Because of certain people obsessively trying to get "optics victories" over me, this entire argument becomes reframed by them as "Destiny wants to say the n-word in private." I don't regularly use any hateful language in private, especially because I just don't know many jokes involving hateful language. However, that's not to say that that there aren't any examples of such jokes. |
Incest | "Incest" as a topic has been explored quite extensively on my stream as a way to illustrate the concept of "moral dumbfounding", i.e. you have a feeling that something is immoral or "wrong," but find you're unable to explain exactly why you feel that way. It seems hard, when pressed, to explain exactly why an incestuous relationship is wrong without appealing to other arguments that aren't intrinsic to these kinds of relationships. For example: parent/child (these are wrong due to power differences or underage parties, not necessarily the fact that they are incestuous), or situations involving reproduction (these may be "wrong" due to the potential for offspring with increased risk of birth defects being created, though this could have logical implications for other kinds of eugenics).
I've used this topic several times on stream to see if someone is capable of actually engaging with the topic, though it generally devolves into people screaming at me while claiming I want "fathers fucking daughters" or something similarly absurd. It is a useful measure of someone's ability to engage with arguments in good faith, question their own worldview, and engage with the logic of ethical matters. While I usually frame the argument from a position of moral neutrality, I have previously made clear that I am not in favour of incestual relationships and provided what I believe to be logical arguments for this. |
Child Pornography | I do not support child pornography and I ardently argue against all forms of adult-child sexual relationships (pedophilia).
During a longer discussion I had arguing in favor of age-of-consent laws with Amos Yee, there is a small section where Amos Yee questioned whether child pornography could ever be used in a positive manner. I'd been made familiar with some research indicating it was possible that this could be the case (1,2,3,4,5,6,7), though there would obviously be significant hurdles doing this in an ethical manner. It would be essential to ensure that no new pornography abusing minors would be created and that anything being used as part of any therapy was obtained in an ethical manner, though it's hard to imagine how this would even be possible. In entertaining this scenario, many who argue against me online are quick to claim that I "advocate for ethical child pornography" or some other reductive statement, though none of these claims are true. |
Notable Critics
Kaceytron | Coming soon! () |
Jack Allison | Jack Allison is an internet podcaster/ex-Jimmy Kimmel writer who is definitely not mad and who is currently banned from using Twitter by his wife originalbackup.
Despite his time-out from social media, Jack still finds time to obsess over what I do both on and off stream. After I took a step back from my canvassing efforts in Omaha, Jack took it upon himself to email me to celebrate. Unsatisfied with the lack of attention he received for his wacky antics, he created a fake reddit account to further our interactions by impersonating a photographer of WOWT, a local media station in Omaha. My web dev, Cake, pulled some information from our back-end to confirm this dastardly ploy. Jack — I mean, Brandon, flexes his prior media training and asks me what appears to be several thoughtful questions regarding my canvassing experiment in Omaha. I do my best to respond in good faith (these are the linked "off the record" logs), but little did I know...it was all a ruse! After thoroughly owning me, Jack takes to Reddit on his account to expose me for my crimes, though he unfortunately doesn't have the required karma to post on his new account. Since he can't seem to make progress on Reddit, he decides to create a fake Twitter (backup from the now deleted account) to tweet about his fake Reddit account's fake email that he sent to me to a whole bunch of people on Twitter, himself included. Unfortunately for Jack, he accidentally leaks on his stream that he's logged in to the very Reddit account he was masquerading under. Unlucky! And definitely not mad. |
Personal
College | I attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha and majored in woodwind performance but eventually dropped out due to conflict with work at the time.
In general, I do not think that people need to have a college degree in order to have good opinions or to know what they are talking about. Over the past several years of debate and conversation my respect for college-educated individuals has significantly dropped. That being said, a formal education certainly doesn't hurt. I think laymen should generally defer to the consensus of experts. A good example of this can be found in my discussion with Vegan Gains. |
My Family | I have a son called Nathaniel with my ex-girlfriend, Rachel. My ex-girlfriend and I broke up a long time ago due to our toxic relationship, but we are on good terms today and get along well with each other. I have an ex-wife as well, but she is not the mother of my child. |
My Relationship | Melina is my wife. We met in New Zealand when she was 20 years old and I was 30 years old.
Melina and I are currently in an open/poly relationship. We treat each other as primary partners, though we may pursue other sexual/romantic relationships as well. |
Links
YouTube |
Rumble |
Kick |
Reddit' |
Wikipedia |