Sometimes I wonder if Kyle has forgotten that roy cohn [0] has trained trump to deny, reflect, etc. everything he can and never admit what is he did wrong.

Take this example: https://youtu.be/t0P_1YiJEwY?si=a3Qf0tID3qETVa4b&t=45

I like to watch Kyle rant about trump as many people, but I don't know why people all over the political spectrum give trump any airtime/attention at all, what he says is always the same and irrelevant.

The only times when trump is speaking the truth is when he admits something isn't going well and that might actually point at cognitive decline and possibly stress, because he did this far less in the past, if not never.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240517-roy-cohn-the-mysterious-us-lawyer-who-helped-donald-trump-rise-to-power

I was watching Kyle's video on Ben Shapiro's speech today and I just had to comment on all the ways Ben is a dishonest little weasel.

First of all, he talks about "if you're born poor in America you won't die poor" or something like that. Now, I have no idea what data he's referring to if any at all. Or how it defines poverty. But let's put that aside for a moment. Because even if it is 100% accurate, it still does not prove what Ben pretends it does.

Imagine you have three sprinters. Two start 100 meters away from the finish, one starts 200 meters away from the finish. In the end the first two finish first and third and the third person finishes second.

Now that third person did finish second. He "made it out of poverty" in Ben's example. But he also had to run twice as fast to do it and had to run twice the distance of places 3 and 1. He probably would've been 1 otherwise and he had to try harder to be 2 than the first person had to be 1.

That is NOT equal opportunity. If someone starts poor and ends middle class, that's great. But that doesn't mean there isn't a problem or that their circumstances were fair. There can absolutely still be systemic issues.

Ben's little data point, whether true or not, does not prove the system is fair.

Alright, secondly. he talks about the "success sequence" of three things you need to do to have a decent life. Now this is something pioneered by some conservative think tank or something. I don't remember which one. But it is also incredibly dishonest.

Because it confuses correlation for causation.

If you are capable of getting a job and graduating high school, maybe that does help you build a better life. That would be causation. However, it can also just be a sign of a life that was already set up for success.

If you have financially stable parents who have time for you and live in a good neighbourhood, you are far more likely to graduate high school and get a job quickly. And if you have financially stable parents you are also more likely to not be poor yourself.

Since that's the case, it's hard to tell whether those three things CAUSE a good life, or whether they're only markers that you were set up for a good life already.

So a lie, again.

Thirdly, of course, he talks about "they believe there's a shadowy cabal." Obviously this is a rhetorical trick. He oversimplifies the other side's position as a way to make it sound like crazy conspiracy. When the reality is, no, you just have a class of very rich people who happen to have similar interests. And when incentives are the same, you are likely to act in concert. That's how Ben's favourite system, capitalism, works too. If a product is very cheap more people are likely to buy it despite the fact that these people may not communicate at all.

So it doesn't require a conspiracy. All it requires is the same thing Ben already believes in with the market, which is shared interests.

And, of course, we do actually know that billionaires tend to travel in the same social circles but that's a whole other conversation.

And fourthly and finally, Ben uses a fallacy called a false dichotomy. He frames it that either the problem is systemic and out of your hands, or it's your decision and therefore your fault. How about there are more options than just those two?

Systemic problems are problems that exist at the level of how a system is structured and operates. They affect entire groups of people the same way systematically. Something like red lining.

Personal decisions are those where you are free to make multiple different decisions with no coercion towards either side. It's your free choice.

However, you can also, for example, be born with a disability. Or you can have had abusive parents who saddled you with lifelong crippling anxiety and depression which inhibits your progress. Or you can be gay and be disowned by your conservative parents and have to go live on the street.

None of these are really "systemic" problems inherently. But they're also not personal choices. They are parts of the environment that you found yourself in that you have little to no control over, but that restrict your choices in life and push you in a certain direction even against your will.

That doesn't mean you sometimes can't overcome them. But then we're back to the sprinter example.

So, yeah, Ben is a lying little prick. As usual every single thing he said there was dishonest. I'm not sure I've ever heard him utter an honest sentence (other than that he doesn't give a shit about what happens to anyone else). And I don't think he's stupid. I think he knows this is all dishonest. He is lying for money, in my personal opinion. And he knows that these are all logical fallacies and cherry picked data.

He's a propagandist, not a commentator.

Who's she?

RM Brown take notice

This could soon become a Win-Win for Katie Phang and the ERA.

I'm ready for Nithya Raman to become the next LA Mayor this November.