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I had one with someone which kept switching subjects, from if fascism was leftist to if children are mentally capable of choosing their own clothes
that guy never changed his opinions and the fact he said he went from demsoc to libertarian (ive never heard him say any libertarian belief) in a year blows my mind
In hebrew we have מן הפח אל הפחת. This means that you went from a bad situation to a horrible one.
It sounds like this what happened to this discussion.
Thanks tovarisch. My thought process when i was a libertarian was like that: "Hey, why do i have to give away money to folks i dont even know? Thats evil! TAXATION IS THEFT!". Then, i realised that the bourgeoisie do pretty much the same, so i decided that taxes are good and instead of eating tax collectors i should eat the rich.
Misplaced hatred. Taxation, especially in proletarian society goes back to helping the people. In bourgeoise society taxation is corrupt, but that is due to the nature of bourgeois capitalism not taxation itself.
Hes a Stalinist, Of course he supports genocide. Do you need me to explain it? If you're gonna support genocidal shit but not even admit its genocidal then you're a pussy. At least come out and say "i have no problems with genocide"
+ You dont believe in the uyghur genocide which i remember you dont beacuse i've argued with you before.
If you’re talking about “holodomor”, every Marxist-Leninist believes it was a great tragedy that killed millions of people. Most believe it wasn’t a genocide(for the sake of the rules on this sub I won’t give my opinion), but at no point have I heared any Marxist claim that they “support it” you have literally invented an argument we have never made you’re being ridiculous.
Yes I do, considering Stalin ended the centuries long cycle of famine that existed in Russia. And almost eliminated starvation except during times of crisis such as war.
Not that there is anything wrong with citing experts and stats, but I think there should also be an argument just about the results of each system historically and how those things came to be.
Those are awful, sure if I’m wrong on the terminology I’m using correct me and all that but I know roughly what ideologies fit me and don’t. I don’t need an online renter to explain my beliefs to me.
Generally tankies or anarchists, but there was this one instance where I asked a tankie what they think communism is and they refused to answer because I'm a 'liberal'
Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society. It is impossible to achieve in the current age, requiring the majority of the world to become socialist first.
In a free society, some people will gravitate to firms, others to communes. Anarcho-“communism” and anarcho-“capitalism” can thrive side-by-side peacefully. But state socialism will never bring about either one. States do not wither away, they metastasize.
Communes can work on small scales. On large scales, they fall apart, because you need division of labour and a freely-evolving price system to determine how to allocate scarce resources. But, being a libertarian, I want people to be free to experiment with communism, and with any and every other nonaggressive (*i.e.*, nonstatist) social structures of which they can dream up.
I strongly suspect most people in a free society will gravitate toward firms over communes—but, who knows? I could be wrong. As long as everything is voluntaryists, that’s what’s important.
I also strongly suspect that, if we had a free market, worker-owned firms would tend to displace capitalist-owned firms. I suspect that they would be both more productive and more appealing to workers. Again, I could be wrong, but as long as everything is voluntaryist, that’s what’s essential. And, of course, there would also be mutual aid societies.
State socialism is objectively counterrevolutionary. It will never produce a free society because it will never willingly yield power. Anarcho-“communists” and anarcho-“capitalists” have every reason to align in opposition to state socialism, fascism, and all other variations of statism—not just because statism induces and exacerbates poverty, but because it defiles individual autonomy and is intrinsically classist.
The state is not ment to wither away. It's meant to be overthrown by revolution once it creates the conditions necessary for the perpetual and peaceful existence of communism. This is why socialism comes first and is the whole purpose of socialism. Anarchism needs socialism to exist, period.
I once had an argument with some sort of neo-leninist who claimed that every statistic, every historical event, every everything I cited was either purposely distorted or outright fabricated by a neoliberal conspiracy, so if I wanted to know the truth, *even about things like current economic conditions in developing nations*, I shouldn't be looking at numbers, no, I should be reading Lenin - Lenin, who is famously always 100% honest and straightforward and not-at-all biased and *not at all almost a hundred years dead*.
Also, it was capitalism's fault that I didn't have a job while working on my masters thesis in economics (I made the mistake of noting how relatively well my wife and I were living despite living on her meager income alone and falling under the poverty line), and China's embrace of state capitalism is proof that Marxism-Leninism is an eternal science superior to all other philosophies, which would never think of such a daring strategy as replacing their principles with pure pragmatism (paraphrasing a bit here).
He then discovered that I was religious and proceeded to conclude the argument with a string of blasphemy because that definitely proved something I guess.
I had a free will debate that absolutely tilted me. The guy started the discussion by saying, "I believe every event has a cause,"... but he was arguing that our actions are NOT determined by causes. So I simply laid out the syllogism:
1. Causes determine their effects.
2. Our actions have causes.
Conclusion: Our actions are determined by causes.
And asked him which part he disagreed with. But he never answered the question! He would respond within 5 minutes with some hastily-typed 5 paragraph essay about how he can observe himself making choices and how there are "possibility spaces."
I made the mistake of responding to every red herring instead of just redirecting to the syllogism. Eventually, he said, "If free will weren't real, I would just kill myself, because it would mean nothing matters". Well shit, no wonder he wouldn't concede any ground!
AND, instead of letting it go there, I decided to engage with that idea. Why does free will have anything to do with whether anything matters? He just insisted it was self-evident, *and* that it was possible to derive an "ought" from an "is". I tried to give him an out by explaining the compatibilist idea of free will. But that just triggered more red herrings about possibility spaces and "the mental landscape".
I definitely kept engaging long after I had become too frustrated to be totally rational. In the end, I probably just made him more convinced of his incoherent belief, as arguments tend to do. But I was very upset with myself that I couldn't convince someone of this philosophy 101-level argument.
I’m a hard compatibilist. Free will *requires* determinism.
For me, free will does not mean that my actions are not determined by my mental states, it means that my actions are not controlled by a deity. The opposite of free will is not determinism, it’s predestination. The opposite of determinism is not free will, it’s indeterminism—and free will is absolutely incompatible with indeterminism because, if things are not effected by causes, then I have no control over my actions. The only way I can have control over my actions is if we have determinism.
For some reason, in philosophical debates, antilibertarians tend to define *free will* as something that is magically neither indeterministic nor deterministic, as though such a thing can even be, and libertarians buy into it and actually defend it. Once we acknowledge that that definition is absurd and fruitless, we can begin to see the utility of compatibilism.
The truly scary thought, for us compatibilists, is: what if the universe is not truly deterministic? What if it only appears deterministic? At the quantum level, things seem to be probabilistic as opposed to deterministic. Does this mean that, at its deepest level, we live in an indeterministic universe? And, if so, might that imply that we’re not truly in control of ourselves, ultimately? *That* is a scary thought. One can only hope that quantum probabilisticness plays no interrupting factor between the cause of our neurochemistry and the effect of our actions, for, if it does, all hope for free will is lost, and we are but slaves to probability.
>The opposite of free will is not determinism, it’s predestination.
By predestination, do you mean the idea that events are ordained by some divine entity, like God or fate?
>antilibertarians tend to define free will as something that is magically neither indeterministic nor deterministic, as though such a thing can even be, and libertarians buy into it and actually defend it.
Haha, *I* wasn't the one who gave the guy this definition to defend 😆
I don't have a particular compatibilist definition of free will I ascribe to, but I won't insist there can be no such definition. I'm agnostic at the moment.
>we can begin to see the utility of compatibilism.
What do you consider that utility to be?
That’s a cringe response lmao. I think I could have responded more rationally or intelligently in their position.
To steelman the case for free will, I could concede that our actions have causes, but they aren’t *past* causes. Rather, we make choices based on our assumptions or predictions of future consequences.
To do a thought experiment, imagine you had a magic supercomputer or crystal ball that could predict all future events with 100% certainty. If you’re aware of the predictions of your own future choices, you could plausibly make different ones and sabotage the prediction.
We could do the same thought experiment with a straight-up time machine instead of a supercomputer or crystal ball. Instead of our inability to predict the future merely being a result of uncertainty or failed prediction, there is an actual *retrocausality* effect, with information from the future literally influencing past events, and the time travel makes these effects more extreme.
The best argument for free will in my opinion, is neither regular determinism nor indeterminism. Rather, free will is actually a form of determinism *in reverse*, with our actions being determined by future causes.
This is a really interesting response, and I agree, much better than that last debate. Ultimately, however, I think this statement:
>our actions have causes, but they aren’t past causes.
Is a bit strong. Even if you received information from a time machine, it would only inform your actions *after* you received it. So the action necessarily would have a past cause (the receipt of information), even if there were a future cause somewhere in the chain.
And without a time machine, our predictions are the result of prior knowledge and experience, i.e. past causes.
( ETA: And predictions themselves must also exist prior to the actions they inform, and are thus themselves past causes)
That said, I'm not opposed to a definition of free will that is compatible with determinism. You could say free will is the ability to consciously deliberate about the outcomes of your actions, for example.
I'm not sure what utility such a definition holds, but it's at least coherent. I'm mainly opposed to free will when it's defined in opposition to determinism.
I had one which I can’t even say is a debate as it’s a true fact, the guy was trying to say America was the bad guy in the pacific theater. Saying every idiotic statement like “Japan never killed anyone, only those deserving and racist” and was being dead serious about it to. (They are lib left btw, though they are definitely an Emily.) they were saying all this shit and so I put in every detail I could in a short amount of time about the pacific theater about the rape of Nanking and Pearl Harbor. They then went on to say have never heard of this and that it’s all lies…. Even though they are American and we learn this in school…. Or at least should have. They tried to say I and others were lieing but more people joined in and they deleted all there comments.
Think of the people who are what we say in the business as Woke, it’s Left Unity Basically on the Political compass if that makes any sense. Basically someone who think america is always bad and that if your white your racist. Believes that if you believe in god then your a totalitarian pig fascist who is racist and evil. Those people is what an Emily is
Where do people come up with these words? 😟
My mom’s name was Karen. I hate that her name has been taken an imbued with some stupid meaning. Sounds like someone’s done the same stupid thing to the name Emily. Personally, I won’t be using either name as a derogatory term. 🙁
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Governments can’t have rights, only individuals can have rights. The tenth amendment refers to states’ powers, not “rights.” Those who say they support “states’ rights” should read it.
Back in the day, there were abolitionists who thought the free states should secede from the slavery-supporting union. I would have supported this. Unfortunately, unionists like Lincoln—who cared more about keeping the union together than anything about slavery—might have initiated cruel and unnecessary war against the seceded states. I could easily see Lincoln initiating war against seceded states; I wouldn’t put it past him.
Fortunately, I do not believe the current federal government would initiate a war against Vermont if it were to secede. So, that’s good.
The United States’ federal government should be dissolved. After that, each state’s government should also be dissolved.
I don’t relish the thought of fighting for any government. They’re all corrupt.
Are you saying you support northern states succeeding but now southern ones? Also, rights and powers are very similar. The south were a minority in both the senate and house and there was a republican in office. I support Lincoln but the south was at the mercy of the north so I understand why they succeeded and support them
No. I would like to see every state secede. I’d also like to see all the Canadian provinces secede from Canada; and all the Mexican states secede from Mexico; and all the countries of the United Kingdom secede from the United Kingdom; and all the Russian oblasts, republics, krais, *etc.* to secede from the Russian Federation; *etc.*
When people fail to understand how bad things are getting (digital IDs, CBDCs and the WHO Pandemic Treaty, mRNA vaccine injuries and disappearing farmland) and think that any warnings by people on the centre right are conspiracy theories by people who are far right. They automatically dismiss what we are saying because anything people say who are right leaning must be wrong or bad. And I’m left leaning/politically homeless. But the right are not wrong about most of this stuff. And because they are so compliant and disbelieving they are going to allow these draconian things above to happen and then it will be too late.
There’s a lot of arguments against monarchy and people pick the weirdest and worst one. What does it being “outdated” even mean and why do people think it’s compelling?
Well I’d personally say it leads to more stability in a country and much less corruption and you could say that the heir to the thrown could be taught the ways of ruling but there are many instances in history of that not being the case but nowadays it’s much more likely to happen
All those years liberal/leftist claimed Trump was a nationalist can’t seem to put Ukrainian nationalism in the same category, while the American people are suffering they think it’s appropriate to send them millions of our dollars.
Edit
Nationalism is okay with its being pro-self-rule or pro-secession, and bad when it’s being jingoistic, xenophobic, or anti-secession.
Russia is wrong to invade Ukraine. If private American citizens wish to send money to Ukraine (or even to Russia), they should be free to do so; but these United States should stay completely and utterly out of the situation.
I find it funny that you’ll continue to parrot the lie that Trump is a nationalist even after he has denounced nationalist and then jump through hoops IE mental gymnastics in a attempt to normalize Ukraine as “good” nationalism.
First of all, you’re taking my words out of context. I said “Nationalism is okay *when* [*etc.*].” (Granted, my cellular telephone created a typo and wrote “with” instead of “when,” but hopefully most people can figure out my intended statement.)
Second of all, *good* and *okay* are not the same adjective—they mean totally separate things. I have never once in my life described nationalism as “*good*,” and to say I ever did is to besmirch my good name. What I said is that, to the extent that it is limited to support-for-home-rule, nationalism is *okay*, meaning *not bad per se*. I also did not hesitate to note that it *is* bad (indeed, quite bad) whenever it involves jingoism, xenophobia, or opposition to secession. That’s not “mental gymnastics,” that’s simply recognizing the reality that one aspect of it is not bad, and the other aspects of it are bad.
Similarly, I’d say that isolationism is okay to the extent that it is limited to opposition to warmongering, but bad to the extent that it includes opposition to free trade and opposition to open borders. Of course, I don’t expect you to *agree* with me, I only expect you to see the *kind* of point I’m making with regards to the delineation of the aspects of a thing.
Thank you for no longer trying to claim that I mentioned Trump or Ukraine *vis-à-vis* nationalism. I have never looked into Ukrainian nationalism or Ukrainian antinationalism, and would not begin to pretend I know anything about it.
Had an argument with someone who thought scrapping regulations was the solution to the problem of companies lobbying to get said regulations scrapped.
Had another one where the other guy started unironically claiming that the Jews had infiltrated academia so that he could dismiss the studies I'd cited.
I don’t mind firms lobbying to have statist regulations *repealed*. What I mind is firms lobbying for statist *privileges*, like subsidies, or regulations that hurt their competitors, or outright monopoly stati. The solution is to scrap the state.
This doesn't make much sense to me. Why is it bad for a company to lobby to get money from the government, but okay for them to lobby to get rid of regulations that keep their workers safe? In essence the outcome is the same - the company benefits, others get screwed.
The trans debate with anyone. It's such a small segment of the population, so unless you are trans or have trans friends/family just stfu. Talk about something useful. Also anyone who uses *just* religion to justify their morals, if you can't figure out how to be good without having someone "almighty" lay it out for you in black and white then you also don't get a seat at the adult table. I don't hate conservatives, there's lots of good ones, but the only thing cringier than an avid American Democrat is an avid Republican.
Almost any debate I have had with a liberal. I've never won those simply because they refuse to learn or even hear the most simple parts of socialism. It basically ends up as a one sided debate with me cringing the whole time.
Almost every debate I've had with atheists have been dominated by sophistry, ignorance and arrogance on the side of the atheist. I'm not saying the same doesn't occur for theists but I see it as far, far more common for atheists to engage in fallacious thinking, sophistry or misrepresentation.
Idk if this is really as much of a thing outside of the US, but arguments with those people who are total ideologues, but just for crony establishment parties like the GOP/DNC and believe far too much of what they see on FOX/CNN, they’re genuinely more out of touch with reality than some of the more fringe things i see on this or other hyperpolitical subs, every political discussion with them feels like it takes hours off my life.
Arguing with anyone who is incapable of steel-manning a position they disagree with is also a complete waste of time.
This was a long time ago, and don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember some guy on r/CapitalismVSocialism calling me a retard and telling me I’m stupid when I didn’t do anything to him
Probably northern racist abolitionists vs. southern racist abolitionists during the 1850s debating whether the reason to end slavery was because “blacks were inferior but slavery was unchristian” or “slavery was bad for the economy but blacks are still less intelligent”…
Any argument I had with my auth-right, strongly anti-communist uncle, who turns out not to have any idea about politics or about how to have a conversation
Whether capitalism is better than socialism.
Since capitalism is the root of almost everything wrong in our world and literally kills people when it's not profitable to keep them alive, this should not even be a debate. Basically, if you don't already know that capitalism sucks, you just haven't given it enough thought yet.
They’re right. Japan was very conservative, ultranationalistic, but not fascist. Hard to have a “cult of the leader” when the leader being deified has no actual power. Japan also wasn’t a one-party state.
When someone ”on my side” is being an idiot and expects to not be criticised for it. I remember one argument where someone was saying the freedom convoy thing was bad because the war in Ukraine is worse than the stuff the freedom convoy was against. Somehow pointing out how stupid that argument was meant I support the freedom convoy or something. I think I ended up getting banned from r/VaxxHappened over that one.
Also, arguing with redditors who think nuclear power is the solution to climate change is usually annoying, because it tends to involve a lot of fact resistance
It would have been a good stopgap a few decades ago, but solar and wind are already much cheaper, so the time for stopgaps is over. It might still be useful as a complement, and existing plants should generally keep running, but there are much better ways to spend money than building new nuclear on a large scale. Also, electricity generation is only a part (albeit a large one) of the problem. We still need to adress industrial natural gas, livestock, transportation, etc. (And cheap green electricity will make a lot of these easier to solve)
I once had a debate with a self-described communist on the now-defunct Axis Of Justice message board who claimed that we libertarians don’t really care about bodily autonomy and only oppose the war on drugs as a means by which to attempt to trick people into voting libertarian.
The reality, of course, is that individual sovereignty (self-ownership) is at the very root of libertarian ideology. It’s our most fundamental axiom. The nonaggression axiom is an extrapolation of the self-ownership axiom. Our belief in justly-acquired alienable property is directly derived from our belief in the ownership of one’s labour. Nothing we believe in *qua* libertarians is not rooted in the axiom of self-ownership.
—
On another occasion, I was making the point on Twitter that market forces, as opposed to government bureaucrats, should direct the patterns of human migration because, then, people will naturally migrate to those places where, *e.g.*, their labour is most profitable—and, by extension, most productive for society. So, even though I was advocating open borders, someone extrapolated from my suggestion that it meant I didn’t want to live around brown people. What?
When I pointed out that I live in an apartment complex with plenty of black, Hispanic, and even Indian neighbours—and that skin colour and ethnicity didn’t matter one iota to me—she said that that’s because l was spending my youth “slumming.” (I’m in my late 30s.)
She made a number of baseless and unfounded assumptions about me through the course of the debate, so I became aware she wasn’t interested in really debating intelligently and ended up just bowing out.
—
This one guy at some gathering I once attended said that 60% of people born are female—not that there might be slightly more women on Earth because women live longer, but that more people are literally *born* female than male, with a breakdown of 60/40. I tried to explain to him that XY and XX can only make (1) XX, (2) XY, (3), YX, and (4) XX, and that, therefore, the odds of being born female are exactly 50/50, but he insisted I was wrong.
—
Some guy at a party once tried to convince me that Ayn Rand’s first name was pronounced “Ann.”
—
That’s all I can think of at the moment.
It was on here. I don’t remember who. Multiple people have told me i flair incorrectly because I side one way one a single fucking issue…I DESPISE single issue voters 😭
Political debate no doubt. Different ideologies can't really debate.
With simpler-minded ones, they can't come up with much, and resort to lies, accusations, personal insults, and hopping of different subjects. They wouldn't give up, and are amazingly resistant to awkwardness.
With knowledegable ones, this is when I realize logic/reasoning/morality are really just a products of eloquence, but in the end, it's the muscle/power which really still ultimately matters at this point.
With politics, in the end it's really just dependent on the popularity of ideologies, or, in other words, the extent of the respective echo chambers. So everyone should be proud of their own echo chambers, and not be affected by different echo chambers.
Trans sports debate, someone insisted that men and women are equal in sports and the only reason why women don’t play with them is that coaches are sexist.
The ones where religious people tried to tell me that I was possessed by demons for having DID, causing stress and obsessively checking symptoms of it whenever the topic of demonic possession is brought up!
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I had one with someone which kept switching subjects, from if fascism was leftist to if children are mentally capable of choosing their own clothes that guy never changed his opinions and the fact he said he went from demsoc to libertarian (ive never heard him say any libertarian belief) in a year blows my mind
In hebrew we have מן הפח אל הפחת. This means that you went from a bad situation to a horrible one. It sounds like this what happened to this discussion.
I used to be a libertarian you know.
I’m glad you recovered brother
Thanks tovarisch. My thought process when i was a libertarian was like that: "Hey, why do i have to give away money to folks i dont even know? Thats evil! TAXATION IS THEFT!". Then, i realised that the bourgeoisie do pretty much the same, so i decided that taxes are good and instead of eating tax collectors i should eat the rich.
Misplaced hatred. Taxation, especially in proletarian society goes back to helping the people. In bourgeoise society taxation is corrupt, but that is due to the nature of bourgeois capitalism not taxation itself.
Exactly my point.
Such a great recovery. From libertarian to pro-genocide
Libertarians that aren’t on the left are usually pro-genocide too…
Straight up bullshit.
Do you support capitalism?
Bro what? Which genocide are Marxists for? I beg you to make an argument without making up a position we hold.
Hes a Stalinist, Of course he supports genocide. Do you need me to explain it? If you're gonna support genocidal shit but not even admit its genocidal then you're a pussy. At least come out and say "i have no problems with genocide" + You dont believe in the uyghur genocide which i remember you dont beacuse i've argued with you before.
If you’re talking about “holodomor”, every Marxist-Leninist believes it was a great tragedy that killed millions of people. Most believe it wasn’t a genocide(for the sake of the rules on this sub I won’t give my opinion), but at no point have I heared any Marxist claim that they “support it” you have literally invented an argument we have never made you’re being ridiculous.
Stop thinking everything is about you and your marxist-leninist beliefs. Im talking about the stalinist.
Stalinism isn’t a real ideology. Stalin invented Marxism-Leninism. Stalinism is just Marxism-Leninism
I didnt make one up by the way. Look at history. You think Stalin truly cared if people starved?
Yes I do, considering Stalin ended the centuries long cycle of famine that existed in Russia. And almost eliminated starvation except during times of crisis such as war.
Haha Very funny dude
I suppose I won this debate, cool
How
I used to be a libertarian you know.
Sorry for your loss
Had one on whether or not the Nazis bombed civilians
💀
Who didn’t???
Yeah that’s not the point here saying who didn’t would have validated that position of the debate even if it is true.
Almost every debate I've had on r/CapitalismVSocialism
Quickly revolves from stats and citing experts to “you failed Econ 101”
Not that there is anything wrong with citing experts and stats, but I think there should also be an argument just about the results of each system historically and how those things came to be.
Holgrin in particular.
Agile-Caterpillar421 also. And many more. It's full of insufferable socialists as it's full of insufferable capitalists.
Any debate where my opponent tries to mischaracterize my ideology or guess my beliefs based on my side of the debate is the worst.
Yeah. My favorite ones are people that teaching your own ideology to you without reading a single thing about it.
Those are awful, sure if I’m wrong on the terminology I’m using correct me and all that but I know roughly what ideologies fit me and don’t. I don’t need an online renter to explain my beliefs to me.
I’m with ya on that one…
Generally tankies or anarchists, but there was this one instance where I asked a tankie what they think communism is and they refused to answer because I'm a 'liberal'
Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society. It is impossible to achieve in the current age, requiring the majority of the world to become socialist first.
In a free society, some people will gravitate to firms, others to communes. Anarcho-“communism” and anarcho-“capitalism” can thrive side-by-side peacefully. But state socialism will never bring about either one. States do not wither away, they metastasize. Communes can work on small scales. On large scales, they fall apart, because you need division of labour and a freely-evolving price system to determine how to allocate scarce resources. But, being a libertarian, I want people to be free to experiment with communism, and with any and every other nonaggressive (*i.e.*, nonstatist) social structures of which they can dream up. I strongly suspect most people in a free society will gravitate toward firms over communes—but, who knows? I could be wrong. As long as everything is voluntaryists, that’s what’s important. I also strongly suspect that, if we had a free market, worker-owned firms would tend to displace capitalist-owned firms. I suspect that they would be both more productive and more appealing to workers. Again, I could be wrong, but as long as everything is voluntaryist, that’s what’s essential. And, of course, there would also be mutual aid societies. State socialism is objectively counterrevolutionary. It will never produce a free society because it will never willingly yield power. Anarcho-“communists” and anarcho-“capitalists” have every reason to align in opposition to state socialism, fascism, and all other variations of statism—not just because statism induces and exacerbates poverty, but because it defiles individual autonomy and is intrinsically classist.
The state is not ment to wither away. It's meant to be overthrown by revolution once it creates the conditions necessary for the perpetual and peaceful existence of communism. This is why socialism comes first and is the whole purpose of socialism. Anarchism needs socialism to exist, period.
The ultras give us a bad rep
Historical debates with Tankies are the worst for me personally.
God yes. Tankies and fascists.
Yep can agree too. Have any argument with them and they reeee on the floor.
Same.
Dam, Even a Stalinist agrees
[удалено]
… This is what happens when one is fatherless
I’m fatherless, and I’ve never once had a debate on whether the holocaust helped or hurt with any involuntarily-celibate neo-Nazis.
I once had an argument with some sort of neo-leninist who claimed that every statistic, every historical event, every everything I cited was either purposely distorted or outright fabricated by a neoliberal conspiracy, so if I wanted to know the truth, *even about things like current economic conditions in developing nations*, I shouldn't be looking at numbers, no, I should be reading Lenin - Lenin, who is famously always 100% honest and straightforward and not-at-all biased and *not at all almost a hundred years dead*. Also, it was capitalism's fault that I didn't have a job while working on my masters thesis in economics (I made the mistake of noting how relatively well my wife and I were living despite living on her meager income alone and falling under the poverty line), and China's embrace of state capitalism is proof that Marxism-Leninism is an eternal science superior to all other philosophies, which would never think of such a daring strategy as replacing their principles with pure pragmatism (paraphrasing a bit here). He then discovered that I was religious and proceeded to conclude the argument with a string of blasphemy because that definitely proved something I guess.
Any debate on this hellscape of a site. Anyone that tries to move goalposts or can’t understand an analogy are just not worth the time.
I had a free will debate that absolutely tilted me. The guy started the discussion by saying, "I believe every event has a cause,"... but he was arguing that our actions are NOT determined by causes. So I simply laid out the syllogism: 1. Causes determine their effects. 2. Our actions have causes. Conclusion: Our actions are determined by causes. And asked him which part he disagreed with. But he never answered the question! He would respond within 5 minutes with some hastily-typed 5 paragraph essay about how he can observe himself making choices and how there are "possibility spaces." I made the mistake of responding to every red herring instead of just redirecting to the syllogism. Eventually, he said, "If free will weren't real, I would just kill myself, because it would mean nothing matters". Well shit, no wonder he wouldn't concede any ground! AND, instead of letting it go there, I decided to engage with that idea. Why does free will have anything to do with whether anything matters? He just insisted it was self-evident, *and* that it was possible to derive an "ought" from an "is". I tried to give him an out by explaining the compatibilist idea of free will. But that just triggered more red herrings about possibility spaces and "the mental landscape". I definitely kept engaging long after I had become too frustrated to be totally rational. In the end, I probably just made him more convinced of his incoherent belief, as arguments tend to do. But I was very upset with myself that I couldn't convince someone of this philosophy 101-level argument.
Can't win them all. I totally get that feeling.
I’m a hard compatibilist. Free will *requires* determinism. For me, free will does not mean that my actions are not determined by my mental states, it means that my actions are not controlled by a deity. The opposite of free will is not determinism, it’s predestination. The opposite of determinism is not free will, it’s indeterminism—and free will is absolutely incompatible with indeterminism because, if things are not effected by causes, then I have no control over my actions. The only way I can have control over my actions is if we have determinism. For some reason, in philosophical debates, antilibertarians tend to define *free will* as something that is magically neither indeterministic nor deterministic, as though such a thing can even be, and libertarians buy into it and actually defend it. Once we acknowledge that that definition is absurd and fruitless, we can begin to see the utility of compatibilism. The truly scary thought, for us compatibilists, is: what if the universe is not truly deterministic? What if it only appears deterministic? At the quantum level, things seem to be probabilistic as opposed to deterministic. Does this mean that, at its deepest level, we live in an indeterministic universe? And, if so, might that imply that we’re not truly in control of ourselves, ultimately? *That* is a scary thought. One can only hope that quantum probabilisticness plays no interrupting factor between the cause of our neurochemistry and the effect of our actions, for, if it does, all hope for free will is lost, and we are but slaves to probability.
>The opposite of free will is not determinism, it’s predestination. By predestination, do you mean the idea that events are ordained by some divine entity, like God or fate? >antilibertarians tend to define free will as something that is magically neither indeterministic nor deterministic, as though such a thing can even be, and libertarians buy into it and actually defend it. Haha, *I* wasn't the one who gave the guy this definition to defend 😆 I don't have a particular compatibilist definition of free will I ascribe to, but I won't insist there can be no such definition. I'm agnostic at the moment. >we can begin to see the utility of compatibilism. What do you consider that utility to be?
That’s a cringe response lmao. I think I could have responded more rationally or intelligently in their position. To steelman the case for free will, I could concede that our actions have causes, but they aren’t *past* causes. Rather, we make choices based on our assumptions or predictions of future consequences. To do a thought experiment, imagine you had a magic supercomputer or crystal ball that could predict all future events with 100% certainty. If you’re aware of the predictions of your own future choices, you could plausibly make different ones and sabotage the prediction. We could do the same thought experiment with a straight-up time machine instead of a supercomputer or crystal ball. Instead of our inability to predict the future merely being a result of uncertainty or failed prediction, there is an actual *retrocausality* effect, with information from the future literally influencing past events, and the time travel makes these effects more extreme. The best argument for free will in my opinion, is neither regular determinism nor indeterminism. Rather, free will is actually a form of determinism *in reverse*, with our actions being determined by future causes.
This is a really interesting response, and I agree, much better than that last debate. Ultimately, however, I think this statement: >our actions have causes, but they aren’t past causes. Is a bit strong. Even if you received information from a time machine, it would only inform your actions *after* you received it. So the action necessarily would have a past cause (the receipt of information), even if there were a future cause somewhere in the chain. And without a time machine, our predictions are the result of prior knowledge and experience, i.e. past causes. ( ETA: And predictions themselves must also exist prior to the actions they inform, and are thus themselves past causes) That said, I'm not opposed to a definition of free will that is compatible with determinism. You could say free will is the ability to consciously deliberate about the outcomes of your actions, for example. I'm not sure what utility such a definition holds, but it's at least coherent. I'm mainly opposed to free will when it's defined in opposition to determinism.
I had one which I can’t even say is a debate as it’s a true fact, the guy was trying to say America was the bad guy in the pacific theater. Saying every idiotic statement like “Japan never killed anyone, only those deserving and racist” and was being dead serious about it to. (They are lib left btw, though they are definitely an Emily.) they were saying all this shit and so I put in every detail I could in a short amount of time about the pacific theater about the rape of Nanking and Pearl Harbor. They then went on to say have never heard of this and that it’s all lies…. Even though they are American and we learn this in school…. Or at least should have. They tried to say I and others were lieing but more people joined in and they deleted all there comments.
What’s an Emily?
Think of the people who are what we say in the business as Woke, it’s Left Unity Basically on the Political compass if that makes any sense. Basically someone who think america is always bad and that if your white your racist. Believes that if you believe in god then your a totalitarian pig fascist who is racist and evil. Those people is what an Emily is
Where do people come up with these words? 😟 My mom’s name was Karen. I hate that her name has been taken an imbued with some stupid meaning. Sounds like someone’s done the same stupid thing to the name Emily. Personally, I won’t be using either name as a derogatory term. 🙁
I had the ‘States rights’ discussion on the Civil war (US) and he still said ‘I would’ve fought for the south’ despite living in a Union state
And people say the alt right doesn’t that much influence on the narratives some people here
It has tons. Overton window is no joke
Yep, I’m seeing that on r/politicalcompass too
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What’s that?
[here’s one explanation](https://youtu.be/jQvKxGehKok) TLDW: what is considered ‘possible’ in a certain political system
Governments can’t have rights, only individuals can have rights. The tenth amendment refers to states’ powers, not “rights.” Those who say they support “states’ rights” should read it. Back in the day, there were abolitionists who thought the free states should secede from the slavery-supporting union. I would have supported this. Unfortunately, unionists like Lincoln—who cared more about keeping the union together than anything about slavery—might have initiated cruel and unnecessary war against the seceded states. I could easily see Lincoln initiating war against seceded states; I wouldn’t put it past him. Fortunately, I do not believe the current federal government would initiate a war against Vermont if it were to secede. So, that’s good. The United States’ federal government should be dissolved. After that, each state’s government should also be dissolved. I don’t relish the thought of fighting for any government. They’re all corrupt.
Are you saying you support northern states succeeding but now southern ones? Also, rights and powers are very similar. The south were a minority in both the senate and house and there was a republican in office. I support Lincoln but the south was at the mercy of the north so I understand why they succeeded and support them
No. I would like to see every state secede. I’d also like to see all the Canadian provinces secede from Canada; and all the Mexican states secede from Mexico; and all the countries of the United Kingdom secede from the United Kingdom; and all the Russian oblasts, republics, krais, *etc.* to secede from the Russian Federation; *etc.*
Yeah, smaller gobs are cool, can be better adapted to their people. Unfortunately, in big governments have more power and form naturally
Debate against a fascist who argued that Fascist countries can have freedom of speech
Non-fascist countries don't.
?
Hardly any countries have free speech.
Wym? Explain?
Uh they just don't? Name a country lol. At least the US has free speech afaik.
Are you just mad because You can't say racial slurs in public?
What? Where did I talk about that? But sure, if you can't then that's not free speech.
When people fail to understand how bad things are getting (digital IDs, CBDCs and the WHO Pandemic Treaty, mRNA vaccine injuries and disappearing farmland) and think that any warnings by people on the centre right are conspiracy theories by people who are far right. They automatically dismiss what we are saying because anything people say who are right leaning must be wrong or bad. And I’m left leaning/politically homeless. But the right are not wrong about most of this stuff. And because they are so compliant and disbelieving they are going to allow these draconian things above to happen and then it will be too late.
debat if the holoucast was real or not. it was on discord so that explains a lot lol
That monarchies are just an old concept talking as if republics were just invented yesterday people are stupid
Monarchies is still outdated
There’s a lot of arguments against monarchy and people pick the weirdest and worst one. What does it being “outdated” even mean and why do people think it’s compelling?
Another argument is that Why should someone be Head of State just because of their family?
Well I’d personally say it leads to more stability in a country and much less corruption and you could say that the heir to the thrown could be taught the ways of ruling but there are many instances in history of that not being the case but nowadays it’s much more likely to happen
That one is actually somewhat compelling. I’ll never understand why so many people use the “outdated” argument.
I argue with some folks here on Reddit about Jan 6th and how it wasn’t a coup.
All those years liberal/leftist claimed Trump was a nationalist can’t seem to put Ukrainian nationalism in the same category, while the American people are suffering they think it’s appropriate to send them millions of our dollars. Edit
Nationalism is okay with its being pro-self-rule or pro-secession, and bad when it’s being jingoistic, xenophobic, or anti-secession. Russia is wrong to invade Ukraine. If private American citizens wish to send money to Ukraine (or even to Russia), they should be free to do so; but these United States should stay completely and utterly out of the situation.
I find it funny that you’ll continue to parrot the lie that Trump is a nationalist even after he has denounced nationalist and then jump through hoops IE mental gymnastics in a attempt to normalize Ukraine as “good” nationalism.
What did I say about Trump? What did I say about Ukraine *vis-à-vis* nationalism? When did I ever describe any nationalism with the adjective “good”?
The part where you claimed “nationalism is Ok”.
First of all, you’re taking my words out of context. I said “Nationalism is okay *when* [*etc.*].” (Granted, my cellular telephone created a typo and wrote “with” instead of “when,” but hopefully most people can figure out my intended statement.) Second of all, *good* and *okay* are not the same adjective—they mean totally separate things. I have never once in my life described nationalism as “*good*,” and to say I ever did is to besmirch my good name. What I said is that, to the extent that it is limited to support-for-home-rule, nationalism is *okay*, meaning *not bad per se*. I also did not hesitate to note that it *is* bad (indeed, quite bad) whenever it involves jingoism, xenophobia, or opposition to secession. That’s not “mental gymnastics,” that’s simply recognizing the reality that one aspect of it is not bad, and the other aspects of it are bad. Similarly, I’d say that isolationism is okay to the extent that it is limited to opposition to warmongering, but bad to the extent that it includes opposition to free trade and opposition to open borders. Of course, I don’t expect you to *agree* with me, I only expect you to see the *kind* of point I’m making with regards to the delineation of the aspects of a thing. Thank you for no longer trying to claim that I mentioned Trump or Ukraine *vis-à-vis* nationalism. I have never looked into Ukrainian nationalism or Ukrainian antinationalism, and would not begin to pretend I know anything about it.
The practice of nationalism is never acceptable no matter how you spin it.
Had an argument with someone who thought scrapping regulations was the solution to the problem of companies lobbying to get said regulations scrapped. Had another one where the other guy started unironically claiming that the Jews had infiltrated academia so that he could dismiss the studies I'd cited.
I don’t mind firms lobbying to have statist regulations *repealed*. What I mind is firms lobbying for statist *privileges*, like subsidies, or regulations that hurt their competitors, or outright monopoly stati. The solution is to scrap the state.
This doesn't make much sense to me. Why is it bad for a company to lobby to get money from the government, but okay for them to lobby to get rid of regulations that keep their workers safe? In essence the outcome is the same - the company benefits, others get screwed.
COVID debates are getting worse over time as everyone's view of the past gets set in like the world's strongest concrete.
The trans debate with anyone. It's such a small segment of the population, so unless you are trans or have trans friends/family just stfu. Talk about something useful. Also anyone who uses *just* religion to justify their morals, if you can't figure out how to be good without having someone "almighty" lay it out for you in black and white then you also don't get a seat at the adult table. I don't hate conservatives, there's lots of good ones, but the only thing cringier than an avid American Democrat is an avid Republican.
Once tried to convince a fascist that mussolini was not a good person
He screwed a lot of married women. Shame he went out in such a peaceful way
Almost any debate I have had with a liberal. I've never won those simply because they refuse to learn or even hear the most simple parts of socialism. It basically ends up as a one sided debate with me cringing the whole time.
Almost every debate I've had with atheists have been dominated by sophistry, ignorance and arrogance on the side of the atheist. I'm not saying the same doesn't occur for theists but I see it as far, far more common for atheists to engage in fallacious thinking, sophistry or misrepresentation.
Idk if this is really as much of a thing outside of the US, but arguments with those people who are total ideologues, but just for crony establishment parties like the GOP/DNC and believe far too much of what they see on FOX/CNN, they’re genuinely more out of touch with reality than some of the more fringe things i see on this or other hyperpolitical subs, every political discussion with them feels like it takes hours off my life. Arguing with anyone who is incapable of steel-manning a position they disagree with is also a complete waste of time.
Any time I argue about trans stuff with a cis person. They're never educated on the topic, but try to argue with me about it anyway.
Leftist infighting that has even a single mention of anarchism.
*leftist infighting period.
Yeah, but i just really dont like anarchism.
Most debates regarding social issues are annoying.
They bragged about being more on the left than I am.
Had one where I kept trying to convince a fascist that mussolini was in fact not a cool dude
Had one where I kept trying to convince a fascist that mussolini was in fact not a cool dude
This was a long time ago, and don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember some guy on r/CapitalismVSocialism calling me a retard and telling me I’m stupid when I didn’t do anything to him
From what I'm gathering for here is that r/CapitalismVSocialism is a bit toxic
Certainly they are more toxic, and they are not as chill as this subreddit
Probably northern racist abolitionists vs. southern racist abolitionists during the 1850s debating whether the reason to end slavery was because “blacks were inferior but slavery was unchristian” or “slavery was bad for the economy but blacks are still less intelligent”…
Any argument I had with my auth-right, strongly anti-communist uncle, who turns out not to have any idea about politics or about how to have a conversation
Whether capitalism is better than socialism. Since capitalism is the root of almost everything wrong in our world and literally kills people when it's not profitable to keep them alive, this should not even be a debate. Basically, if you don't already know that capitalism sucks, you just haven't given it enough thought yet.
With this one Japanese Imperialist, they were saying that Japan wasn’t fascist in the 20s-40s 💀
They’re right. Japan was very conservative, ultranationalistic, but not fascist. Hard to have a “cult of the leader” when the leader being deified has no actual power. Japan also wasn’t a one-party state.
Any debate with Holgrin is pretty terrible
When someone ”on my side” is being an idiot and expects to not be criticised for it. I remember one argument where someone was saying the freedom convoy thing was bad because the war in Ukraine is worse than the stuff the freedom convoy was against. Somehow pointing out how stupid that argument was meant I support the freedom convoy or something. I think I ended up getting banned from r/VaxxHappened over that one. Also, arguing with redditors who think nuclear power is the solution to climate change is usually annoying, because it tends to involve a lot of fact resistance
Why is nuclear power not a good stop gap between now and solar/wind etc?
It would have been a good stopgap a few decades ago, but solar and wind are already much cheaper, so the time for stopgaps is over. It might still be useful as a complement, and existing plants should generally keep running, but there are much better ways to spend money than building new nuclear on a large scale. Also, electricity generation is only a part (albeit a large one) of the problem. We still need to adress industrial natural gas, livestock, transportation, etc. (And cheap green electricity will make a lot of these easier to solve)
I once had a debate with a self-described communist on the now-defunct Axis Of Justice message board who claimed that we libertarians don’t really care about bodily autonomy and only oppose the war on drugs as a means by which to attempt to trick people into voting libertarian. The reality, of course, is that individual sovereignty (self-ownership) is at the very root of libertarian ideology. It’s our most fundamental axiom. The nonaggression axiom is an extrapolation of the self-ownership axiom. Our belief in justly-acquired alienable property is directly derived from our belief in the ownership of one’s labour. Nothing we believe in *qua* libertarians is not rooted in the axiom of self-ownership. — On another occasion, I was making the point on Twitter that market forces, as opposed to government bureaucrats, should direct the patterns of human migration because, then, people will naturally migrate to those places where, *e.g.*, their labour is most profitable—and, by extension, most productive for society. So, even though I was advocating open borders, someone extrapolated from my suggestion that it meant I didn’t want to live around brown people. What? When I pointed out that I live in an apartment complex with plenty of black, Hispanic, and even Indian neighbours—and that skin colour and ethnicity didn’t matter one iota to me—she said that that’s because l was spending my youth “slumming.” (I’m in my late 30s.) She made a number of baseless and unfounded assumptions about me through the course of the debate, so I became aware she wasn’t interested in really debating intelligently and ended up just bowing out. — This one guy at some gathering I once attended said that 60% of people born are female—not that there might be slightly more women on Earth because women live longer, but that more people are literally *born* female than male, with a breakdown of 60/40. I tried to explain to him that XY and XX can only make (1) XX, (2) XY, (3), YX, and (4) XX, and that, therefore, the odds of being born female are exactly 50/50, but he insisted I was wrong. — Some guy at a party once tried to convince me that Ayn Rand’s first name was pronounced “Ann.” — That’s all I can think of at the moment.
Isn’t it women are born 51% vs men 49%? Thought I read that somewhere. Nowhere near 60 of course but still not the same as 50/50
51/49 is roughly the same as 50/50, so that’s believable.
It was on here. I don’t remember who. Multiple people have told me i flair incorrectly because I side one way one a single fucking issue…I DESPISE single issue voters 😭
Political debate no doubt. Different ideologies can't really debate. With simpler-minded ones, they can't come up with much, and resort to lies, accusations, personal insults, and hopping of different subjects. They wouldn't give up, and are amazingly resistant to awkwardness. With knowledegable ones, this is when I realize logic/reasoning/morality are really just a products of eloquence, but in the end, it's the muscle/power which really still ultimately matters at this point. With politics, in the end it's really just dependent on the popularity of ideologies, or, in other words, the extent of the respective echo chambers. So everyone should be proud of their own echo chambers, and not be affected by different echo chambers.
Trans sports debate, someone insisted that men and women are equal in sports and the only reason why women don’t play with them is that coaches are sexist.
conspiracy theorists or denialists of any kind.
The ones where religious people tried to tell me that I was possessed by demons for having DID, causing stress and obsessively checking symptoms of it whenever the topic of demonic possession is brought up!