YouTube Hate Speech

[9thdoctor]

There’s a well known atheist on YouTube who calls himself Thunderf00t. He mostly makes videos debunking creationism and otherwise exposing bad religious rhetoric. Smart, well done stuff, I'm sure I've posted a thing or two here before. He’s not an Objectivist (I’ve never heard him comment on Rand), and seems to be pretty similar to Richard Dawkins all around. I gather he’s having censorship issues, with some of his videos being taken down on the grounds that they are hate speech. Other YouTubers have stepped up and mirrored his videos, so here’s one you can still see, it was just taken down from his channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bnVlxV5KbU

I’m not going to go into why I don’t think there’s any “hate speech” there, I assume anyone visiting this site will agree.

Here’s his latest, where he discusses what’s happening:

He’s asking people to “like” this video (vote for it, in effect). How that makes a difference, I don’t know. In order to "like" it, I think you'll need to open it at the YouTube site; on my system I just right click and choose "Watch on YouTube" and a new tab (or window) opens. Then there'll be a thumb up / thumb down thingee underneath.

[Selene]

Interesting ND.

Did you happen to see this?

Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist

He is regarded as the most famous atheist in the world but last night Professor Richard Dawkins admitted he could not be sure that God does not exist.

He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that he preferred to call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist

.

The two men were taking part in a public “dialogue” at Oxford University at the end of a week which has seen bitter debate about the role of religion in public life in Britain.

Last week Baroness Warsi, the Tory party chairman, warned of a tide of “militant secularism” challenging the religious foundations of British society.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9102740/Richard-Dawkins-I-cant-be-sure-God-does-not-exist.html <<<there is a video of him in the article

[BaalChatzaf]

Interesting ND.

Did you happen to see this?

Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist

He is regarded as the most famous atheist in the world but last night Professor Richard Dawkins admitted he could not be sure that God does not exist.

Quite correct. The question of God's existence is totally outside the fold of empirical corroboration or refutation. How can one prove something does not exist? Only by showing the assumption of existence leads to a logical contradiction. Lack of evidence for existence is not proof of non-existence. As the old saying goes: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I’m not going to go into why I don’t think there’s any “hate speech” there, I assume anyone visiting this site will agree.

Dennis,

If that wasn't hate, it was certainly smart-assed in a really nasty manner.

Telling people that the most sacred thing they feel in life is equivalent to masturbating in public is extremely offensive. And telling them that they are teaching their children to masturbate in public makes it even worse. When you know you are characterizing rather prudish people like that, you're just adding urine gravy on to the crap steak.

This guy knows exactly what he is doing. And he wants to feign innocence? The level of his presentation shows he's not that dumb. And frankly, neither are you.

Wanna be smart-assed? OK. I'm cool with that.

Wanna push the buttons of prudes? Fine.

Satire? Even better.

Wanna tell me that you're sure I fully agree that you're not being a smart-ass or hateful by saying people are really whacking off in public rather than feeling reverence--and they are teaching their kids to do it--and that you simply can't understand why anyone would be offended by that?

Gimmee a break!

Now, I'm not that stupid.

Dayaamm!

(Sometimes I believe atheism is just a different form of fundamentalism.)

Michael

[9thdoctor]

Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist

He is regarded as the most famous atheist in the world but last night Professor Richard Dawkins admitted he could not be sure that God does not exist.

That's consistent with the view he stated in The God Delusion.

If that wasn't hate, it was certainly smart-assed in a really nasty manner.

I won’t dispute that. The question is whether this ought to be allowed on YouTube. Of course, YouTube is free to set its own standards, but presumably they’re open to feedback from customers. I suppose we could get into what ought to be considered "hate speech"; inciting murder, yes, this Thunderf00t video, no. Where's the line? I don't know.

[Selene]

Guys:

I have some real problems with the phases "hate speech" and "hate crimes."

Apropos to this discussion is from today's Drudge Report:

Lawyer: Lesbians’ assault on gay man can’t be hate crime

Three women identified by their lawyers as lesbians were arraigned yesterday on a hate crime charge for allegedly beating a gay man at the Forest Hills T station in an unusual case that experts say exposes the law’s flawed logic.

“My guess is that no sane jury would convict them under those circumstances, but what this really demonstrates is the idiocy of the hate-crime legislation,” said civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate. “If you beat someone up, you’re guilty of assault and battery of a human being. Period.

The idea of trying to break down human beings into categories is doomed to failure.”

http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220225lawyer_lesbians_assault_on_gay_man_cant_be_hate_crime/srvc=home%26position=2

I was tempted to put this under humor, but it fits here.

I have to congratulate the feminist movement on this one...we are, apparently, all equal now!

Equally violent.

Equally stupid.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

Good grief. That's beyond anything like common sense.

But as to hate speech, hate crime, etc., I'm ambivalent. I know for a fact they refer to a nasty cause-and-effect that does exist, but the problem with involving the government is always the problems that come with involving the government.

I see the hate speech cause-and-effect process in a parallel area I am studying.

In marketing, I have learned a concept called "stacking the benefits." It goes like this. Once you have studied a target market, meaning you not only know what the surface wants and needs are, but the emotions and visions that drive the people in that market, you present your pitch in relation to all that.

Copywriters get to the underlying stuff by playing the "so what?" game. It goes like this--as a quick example. You mention a benefit like "My widget runs better than the competitors." Then you ask, "So what?" Well, it will save you time. So what? So you will have more time to do other things. So what? So you will finally be able to see your kid in the school play and take you wife on a trip. So what? So you will feel good about yourself as the head of your family and shut your wife's yapping up.

(OK, that last one was a bit... er... stylized... )

Now imagine a seesaw where on one end you have the prospect's money and the other you have a basket attached to stack benefits on. You start stacking.

We all want to take care of our families, right? But there never seems to be enough time. Some things like widget-work just grind your life away. But suppose I told you there was a widget that cuts off 90% of the time to get the job done? Would you like that? Would you like being able to take off with your wife for a couple of days as the widget does the work unsupervised? Not to go anywhere in particular. Just to go wherever you wish at the moment. How about seeing your little girl in the school play? You know, the play you always seem to miss because of widget-work Wouldn't it be nice to see her beaming as the audience applauds? How many times have you missed that? Now what if this widget were more robust than the others so you wouldn't have shut-down times for replacement so often? And what if it came with a two-hour installation guarantee instead of the normal eight hours? Would you be interested?

As you stack the benefits, the seesaw on the benefit end starts going down and the prospect's money end goes up and up and up until the force of gravity finally makes the money slide right toward you.

You almost don't need to ask the prospect to buy when you go through that. He wants what you've got--on more levels than he realizes.

I believe hate speech works much the same way, except you put an emotional explosion by the target at one end of the seesaw and have a basket for hate bricks at the other. Then you start stacking the hate bricks.

On another thread here on OL, they are discussing a poster on SLOP who recently got banned named Darren. If you want to see a great case study of stacking hate bricks, look at the sequence of posts he made targeting an explosion by Perigo (you can see the thread here, but then scroll to the post called "Puddin'-Head Perigo" by Darren dated "Thu, 2012-02-23 17:21"). I'm not saying he did this on purpose, nor whether getting banned was his desired explosion outcome. But it is a really good example of how easy it is to manipulate another person with stacking hot buttons. I believe this guy on some level knew he was stacking the hate bricks to get some kind of explosion--probably some sputtering he could laugh at and mock. I'm just not sure how aware he was of how well he did it.

First Darren made some taunts he was already using, "Puddin'-Head," "Objerktivist" and so on. These were attempts to coin colorful phrases, which is one of Perigo's vanity points. He was competing with Perigo's schtick. Then the clever put-down ("your consciousness survived the death of your brain") that Perigo claims to have authored first and totally denying Perigo the authorship. Then taunts and more taunts, a double hate brick hitting two of Perigo's hot buttons: Rand worship and homosexual stuff ("Homosexuals now permitted to attend seances, but not if they're also women Presidents"). As the tipping point hate brick, you have the slur against Brant ("It seems you've started your weekend drinking early") with booze being a really sore spot with Perigo.

Stack stack stack the bricks of hatred in post after post. The seesaw finally tipped. The reaction came tumbling down propelled by its own weight. And Perigo had no idea he was manipulated into doing that by a stack of hate barbs--ones that show an almost intentional incremental sequence of digging deeper and deeper into his irrational irritations.

Hate speech does that. It's not just inciting people to kill others. It's baiting people until you push them past their self-control. Master manipulators can do this easily.

Once again, I am uncomfortable with the government trying to regulate this. However, I do agree that it should be an intent element in trials where, say, a person exploded, did something really stupid, and honestly doesn't know why.

Also, I suggest ongoing education about these processes as the remedy. When people see what you're doing, this kills the effectiveness of it. Then the hater-manipulator becomes seen by his targets as a fool.

About YouTube's policy, I hold it's Google's property. I do believe the Google people are aware of the kinds of psychological triggers I discussed. (God knows it used them enough during the Arab spring.)

But if people want access to the YouTube audience, they have to play by Google's rules. Otherwise, there are plenty of places on the Internet to post their stuff. Unapproved satirists will just have to build up their own audience instead of baiting an already formed one.

Ain't that a bitch? There you go. That's capitalism and individual rights for you.

Michael

[Selene]

Michael:

I like the imaging of the slide.

Finding the pain, as you know, is the Sandler imaging with the submarine.

Yours works better, since it is active in the mind as the benefits stack to the tipping point.

Nice.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

I would like to claim authorship, but I can't. I got this from Mark Hoverson, a young star in the multilevel marketing world. As I know he is an avid student of Dan Kennedy, he probably got that image from Dan. And as Dan is one of the best read people in the information marketing business ever, he probably got if from some obscure book or presentation somewhere.

That's why I didn't bother giving attribution. (I probably still should have.)

I don't do multilevel marketing, but I have learned that if you want to study deeply from the prism of sales into the underbelly of human nature, successful MLM people are the best ones to look at. Their lives depend on keeping their morale up in a world of sleaze and high rejection rates. Rejection hurts like hell. And they usually have to sell unicorns in a world that doesn't believe in unicorns. Ya' gotta be good to pull that off.

Be careful if you do study them, though. You don't want to become the proud owner of a brand-spanking new unicorn and not know why the hell you bought it--but at least you have a down line to grow.

You mentioned David Sandler before. I went through one-half of an audio course of his called Close the Deal. I need to finish it. I've also skimmed over a book of his I have called You Can't Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar, which I intend to read for real. So I was pleased to see you put up his sales submarine somewhere here on OL.

Incidentally, one of the coolest insights I got off of studying Sandler is about first born children. They tend to be more selfish because of the growing up reality, so they usually don't know how to share very well as adults, or even sell for that matter. The kids further down the pecking order get so many hand-me-downs, all they know how to do is share.

Wouldn't you know it that I am a first-born?

Michael

[Selene]

Michael:

Same here.

I thought you had read it in the researching that you have been doing.

MLM's are a breed of their own. I got involved in one to see what the paradigm and methodology was about. I essentially went there to recruit for our organization and had absolutely no intention of staying.

I do not like them at all, but they did teach me a lot about their approach and the human psyche. If you are one of the original people in the sales line and you know how to pick people who can manage themselves, have serious drive and are not too troubled by the ethics issues you will make lots of money. Not my cup of tea.

Sandler works and it is actually fun. For example, imagine having the absolute stone cold balls to walk into a high pressure sales situation carrying nothing, not even a pen.

As you sit down, asking for a pen and paper. I'd have thought you were crazy to even try it. Well it works. The pattern interruption and confidence it exudes is stunning.

It is literally "working without a net."

Fascinating system.

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Adam,

It occurred to me that the reader might misunderstand something, so let me clarify. I only got the seesaw metaphor from Mark Hoverson and an overall view of how to use it to illustrate persuasion.

The fictional example was my own (right off the top of my head) and so was the idea of applying it to one form of hate speech.

Apropos, one of the best approaches to pitching I have come across, but have not done my in-depth studying on yet, is by a young dude named Oren Klaff. I have him in my study queue, but I have already seen a bunch of interview videos and skimmed over his written stuff with a great deal of interest..

Your example of walking into a meeting with nothing reminded me of him. He wrote a book called Pitch Anything (it's on Amazon, too). It is based, of all things, on Neil Strauss's techniques for picking up girls in The Game. He used to live near Strauss and his buddies and was always shooting the breeze with them. He came up with the idea of applying the stuff they were talking about to his own business and it worked better than he imagined.

But this dude makes his living pitching millions to venture capitalists, not from writing, so he's the real deal.

I'm going to do something I rarely do. I just looked for a video to give you an idea, but I'm going to embed one from him I haven't seen yet. I am very familiar with the interviewer, Ed Dale, and I have seen several videos with Oren, so I know the one below has an almost 100% chance of being a great introduction. (Probably has a pitch for a product at the end, too, but you can ignore that part. Graaak--I hope Ed or Oren don't see this. )

Frankly, the only reason I'm embedding it here is because I want to see it myself and don't want to forget it.

It's about an hour, so be advised. I highly recommend taking some time out to view it. That's exactly what I'm going to do real soon.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hjIniaClejo?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Michael

[seymourblogger]

Adam,

Good grief. That's beyond anything like common sense.

But as to hate speech, hate crime, etc., I'm ambivalent. I know for a fact they refer to a nasty cause-and-effect that does exist, but the problem with involving the government is always the problems that come with involving the government.

I see the hate speech cause-and-effect process in a parallel area I am studying.

In marketing, I have learned a concept called "stacking the benefits." It goes like this. Once you have studied a target market, meaning you not only know what the surface wants and needs are, but the emotions and visions that drive the people in that market, you present your pitch in relation to all that.

Copywriters get to the underlying stuff by playing the "so what?" game. It goes like this--as a quick example. You mention a benefit like "My widget runs better than the competitors." Then you ask, "So what?" Well, it will save you time. So what? So you will have more time to do other things. So what? So you will finally be able to see your kid in the school play and take you wife on a trip. So what? So you will feel good about yourself as the head of your family and shut your wife's yapping up.

(OK, that last one was a bit... er... stylized... )

Now imagine a seesaw where on one end you have the prospect's money and the other you have a basket attached to stack benefits on. You start stacking.

We all want to take care of our families, right? But there never seems to be enough time. Some things like widget-work just grind your life away. But suppose I told you there was a widget that cuts off 90% of the time to get the job done? Would you like that? Would you like being able to take off with your wife for a couple of days as the widget does the work unsupervised? Not to go anywhere in particular. Just to go wherever you wish at the moment. How about seeing your little girl in the school play? You know, the play you always seem to miss because of widget-work Wouldn't it be nice to see her beaming as the audience applauds? How many times have you missed that? Now what if this widget were more robust than the others so you wouldn't have shut-down times for replacement so often? And what if it came with a two-hour installation guarantee instead of the normal eight hours? Would you be interested?

As you stack the benefits, the seesaw on the benefit end starts going down and the prospect's money end goes up and up and up until the force of gravity finally makes the money slide right toward you.

You almost don't need to ask the prospect to buy when you go through that. He wants what you've got--on more levels than he realizes.

I believe hate speech works much the same way, except you put an emotional explosion by the target at one end of the seesaw and have a basket for hate bricks at the other. Then you start stacking the hate bricks.

On another thread here on OL, they are discussing a poster on SLOP who recently got banned named Darren. If you want to see a great case study of stacking hate bricks, look at the sequence of posts he made targeting an explosion by Perigo (you can see the thread here, but then scroll to the post called "Puddin'-Head Perigo" by Darren dated "Thu, 2012-02-23 17:21"). I'm not saying he did this on purpose, nor whether getting banned was his desired explosion outcome. But it is a really good example of how easy it is to manipulate another person with stacking hot buttons. I believe this guy on some level knew he was stacking the hate bricks to get some kind of explosion--probably some sputtering he could laugh at and mock. I'm just not sure how aware he was of how well he did it.

First Darren made some taunts he was already using, "Puddin'-Head," "Objerktivist" and so on. These were attempts to coin colorful phrases, which is one of Perigo's vanity points. He was competing with Perigo's schtick. Then the clever put-down ("your consciousness survived the death of your brain") that Perigo claims to have authored first and totally denying Perigo the authorship. Then taunts and more taunts, a double hate brick hitting two of Perigo's hot buttons: Rand worship and homosexual stuff ("Homosexuals now permitted to attend seances, but not if they're also women Presidents"). As the tipping point hate brick, you have the slur against Brant ("It seems you've started your weekend drinking early") with booze being a really sore spot with Perigo.

Stack stack stack the bricks of hatred in post after post. The seesaw finally tipped. The reaction came tumbling down propelled by its own weight. And Perigo had no idea he was manipulated into doing that by a stack of hate barbs--ones that show an almost intentional incremental sequence of digging deeper and deeper into his irrational irritations.

Hate speech does that. It's not just inciting people to kill others. It's baiting people until you push them past their self-control. Master manipulators can do this easily.

Once again, I am uncomfortable with the government trying to regulate this. However, I do agree that it should be an intent element in trials where, say, a person exploded, did something really stupid, and honestly doesn't know why.

Also, I suggest ongoing education about these processes as the remedy. When people see what you're doing, this kills the effectiveness of it. Then the hater-manipulator becomes seen by his targets as a fool.

About YouTube's policy, I hold it's Google's property. I do believe the Google people are aware of the kinds of psychological triggers I discussed. (God knows it used them enough during the Arab spring.)

But if people want access to the YouTube audience, they have to play by Google's rules. Otherwise, there are plenty of places on the Internet to post their stuff. Unapproved satirists will just have to build up their own audience instead of baiting an already formed one.

Ain't that a bitch? There you go. That's capitalism and individual rights for you.

Michael

Michael Stuart Kelly darren knew exactly what he was doing. He's as post modern a thinker as you will ever see in your milieau anyway. What he did was to implode Perigo. That's stright up and straight out Baudrillard.

darren went at me and I was uncomfortable until I spent some down time contemplating him. The reason I did was that he is so spot on in movie reviews. I mean really really good. I can't not like anyone who knows how to read films.

And then................darren and I.............but that's another story. Not now.

Whatever he did he did on purpose. Very consciously. And Perigo deserved it. Perigo starts out the day reasonably rational, rationally reasonable and as the day progresses he gets more confabulated, more aggressive, and name calls more until later at night his fury erupts. Like guys in bars do when they spend the afternoon and evening drinking together. Do I think Perigo has a drinking problem. Yes, I do. I think BB was correct in saying that. You can tell by his syntax as the day and evening progress. No way LP could ever get the best of darren, who made me my avi, and I shall miss him sorely. That is if I stay around long enough to miss him there.

His Cambrian Period comment was a masterpiece of a comment..It was meant for me whether he intended it that way or not.

And no he doesn't do long linear comments or posts that carefully explain every little thing to every little mind reading them. Uh-uh.

The world is not linear so why should writing be linear. Just so little minds can follow it the way their teachers taught them? Rand didn't write that way. She wrote aphoristically. Like her mentor. Who was her mentor?

I'll never tell.

[caroljane]

Um, Seymour, you are aware that the day and evening in New Zealand progresses kind of opposite to the way it goes in Missouri? (and it's milieu not milieau, I'm sure that was just a typo)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What he did was to implode Perigo.

Seymourblogger,

Baited and manipulated the dude, OK.

But imploded that jerk?

Imploded him?

Really?

Sounds serious...

Michael

[caroljane]

What he did was to implode Perigo.

Seymourblogger,

Baited and manipulated the dude, OK.

But imploded that jerk?

Imploded him?

Really?

Sounds serious...

Michael

Sorry, you cannot implode another person, only cause them to explode. Implosion is an intensely personal experience..

Carol

One who knows

[Ellen Stuttle]

And no [Darren] doesn't do long linear comments or posts that carefully explain every little thing to every little mind reading them. Uh-uh.

Oh, really, re Darren's not doing "long linear" expositions?

Again, see this thread:

Rand and Darwin - Conflict or Not?

If your view settings on SOLO are the default settings -- that is, posts listed in reverse order (most recent post first) and 90 posts/page -- start on page 6 and read forward from there for the next few pages.

Ellen

[9thdoctor]

It seems the squeaky wheel approach worked for Thunderf00t. The banned videos were reinstated.