6 ms·

"However, I fear the repercussions of offending others who do not have an open mind." You're dead right and it's damned terrible. I long for both formal and i

"However, I fear the repercussions of offending others who do not have an open mind." You're dead right and it's damned terrible. I long for both formal and informal debates on many topics but without my opponents becoming annoyed or offended (as so often they do nowadays). These days it seems almost impossible to debate any subject without upsetting someone. I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. For instance, I remember Bertrand Russell, Malcolm Muggeridge and A.J.P. Taylor and many others and it was wonderful and exciting television. What so many people fail to realize these days is that one can learn so much from discussions and debates of this kind. Incidentally, such discussions always remind me of the wonderful formal debate between Socrates and the sophist Thrasymachus in Book One of Plato's Republic on the topic of justice. It's so good that every time I read it, it sends shivers of excitement down my back.

signal11 6y ago
About TV debates — A lot of these have moved to podcasts and YouTube these days. Eg the Oxford Union debates on YouTube, some of which are quite popular. I suspect some talk radio, eg PBS and BBC Radio 4, will also have interesting debates. Radio 4’s magazine programmes like The Life Scientific, In Our Time, The Public Philosopher, Reith Lectures etc certainly make for extremely interesting listening.
- hilbert42 6y ago
  I know, thanks, they're great. Recently I've seen quite a few. Only several days ago I watched for the first time in many decades the program about A.J.P. Taylor and his controversial 1961 book The Origins of The Second World War (which, incidentally I have a copy of). You're right, we really need to spread the word at every opportunity.
- throwaways885 6y ago
  But this is precisely a problem because of the demonetization that occurs on anything sensitive. These podcasts can't easily sustain themselves on a platform that actively de-ranks their content.
fractallyte 6y ago
In the good old days, there was Spitting Image, which delighted in offending everyone... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image
- andrepd 6y ago
  You mean the very programme that was revived last year...?
datavirtue 6y ago
Free to Choose is absolute gold if you want to see rational debate among diametrically opposed groups about modern political and economic topics. Compared to what we see today it looks like something from another planet.
- nostromo 6y ago
  I watched Ayn Rand interviewed by Donahue in 1979 recently. I was shocked that this was daytime TV 40 years ago. Give it a watch sometime and compare it what you see on TV today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv0zTiv-i7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv0zTiv-i7s
  - JohnWhigham 6y ago
    Yup, Donahue was great. He does another interview with Milton Friedman as well.
andrepd 6y ago
> I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. There are orders of magnitude more such content now than there was for instance 40 years ago. There's probably hundreds of hours of your favourite philosopher/economist/pundit's lectures/debates/speeches at your fingertips. Click-click and you literally begin to hear them talk in less than 30 seconds. This probably includes those very programmes from ages ago! This whole type of complaint reeks of "back in my day" appeals to nostalgia.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  Of course with an abundance of content comes the issue of curation. Media used to be curated by people with sometimes lofty goals of trying to be highbrow, and having their journalism subsidized by classified ads. Now everyone has to be a tabloid. With an abundance of content also comes niche-ization, where to get a loyal audience you need to keep pandering to their pre-conceived notions. Debates between opposite sites these days get condemned by both sides.
adamrezich 6y ago
people have been programmed, on a massive scale, to react emotionally to certain learned key phrases and terms. when this automatic emotional reaction occurs, all logical processing ceases immediately, and the person you're talking to either immediately leaves the conversation (if you're lucky) or starts emotionally, verbally attacking you as though your non-conforming line of thought is a pathogen and their overreacting response is an antibody swarm. you're a strawman caricature of everything evil and wrong if you question basic learned political orthodoxy, even if you make it clear you're approaching the topic with an open mind. TV and social media "debates" between politicians are 100% posturing, signaling, and rhetoric without any substance, and almost nobody can see it, everyone thinks their guy won. it's as though we've forgotten how to think for ourselves and have opinions and stances that lay outside dogmatic groupthink. I even know a few people who think of themselves as "free thinkers" who nevertheless hitch their proverbial cart to some political eceleb personality's proverbial horse, buying into everything they say, wholesale. people want to be told what to think, not how to think, as it's much easier that way.
- gnagatomo 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack
  - hilbert42 6y ago
    Yeah, exactly. And my amygdala is over sensitive and I wish I had a gain control fitted to it so that I could turn it down occasionally. (Anyway, at least I know it's prone to over-sensitivity, and that's somewhat helpful. ;-) )
- ex_amazon_sde 6y ago
  Social media did a lot to foster outrage and destroy nuanced thinking. But also decades of materialism and "me me me" culture: I think people learn to follow their desires no-matter-what when buying goods or services and the same emotional mechanism is transferred into "buying in" an idea. Modern advertising and branding is based on emotion and vague ideas. The same algorithms to target online ads have been used to influence politics (see cambridge analytica). > stances that lay outside dogmatic groupthink Yes, but with a caveat: an idea can be labeled "groupthink" and "too political" as a tactic to dismiss it easily.
pasabagi 6y ago
As a sort of counterpoint, I think it might be worth it to watch a classic of the 'free debate' genre, Buckley vs Baldwin[1], that happened in the sixties in Cambridge. It pitted a black civil rights activist against the young Buckley, later a stalwart of American conservatism. I don't know if it's my bias speaking, but I felt that in the debate, Buckley comes across as a bully, with very little argumentative meat, who doesn't really respond to Baldwin's points. For what its worth, I didn't really like Baldwin's delivery either, but at least I felt there were substantive points there that were worth addressing. In a way, this is probably the best one can hope for when you stage this kind of event - Buckley is, at least, well educated, but I can't help but think the debate might have been far more interesting if it was Baldwin vs Malcolm X - because ultimately the problem with the Buckleys of the world is that they defend institutions that were not built on ideals, but rather economics, and as such the defenses themselves are generally sophistic and without anything really interesting in them. If I was a student, I would probably agitate to exclude a Buckley, and instead reach for a Malcolm, and I expect somebody would accuse me of being anti-free-speech, since the debate that would result would no longer span a societal divide, and both parties in the debate would be on 'one side' of the broader social issue. However, from an intellectual standpoint, it just sometimes is the case that interesting positions aren't evenly distributed across the terrain of popular feeling and political rhetoric, and a lot of people are simply defending things that are convenient or traditional but have no moral basis. So inviting those people is a waste of time - they're just (at best) going to come up with clever excuses for whatever already exists, or whatever they would want regardless. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tek9h3a5wQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tek9h3a5wQ
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Instead of agitating for exclusion, agitate for more inclusion, e.g. demand both. People living lives of ‘or’ forget that ‘and’ exists.
  - telchar 6y ago
    Blindly applying your advice (which was offered without qualification - so that's how I'll respond) opens the door for all sorts of concern trolling and contextless talking point repetition. That often-paid messaging serves a purpose to drown out nuanced and insightful debate with low-information content to defend a status quo or to run interference for an unpopular position to gather support without significant rhetorical challenge. We see that plenty online and in broadcast media, and is like that Buckley is described as doing but these days often more rote and mindless. Allowing that sort of thing to mix with good debate waters down discussion. It turns people off to opposing viewpoints too, since they're so inundated with rhetorical noise that they need to dismiss most rhetoric out of hand due to the poor SNR. I don't think your position is a very good one.
kalleboo 6y ago
> I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. I never had that in my youth, but YouTube recently started suggesting videos from The Dick Cavett Show from the 60's and 70's. The show was broadcast on TV and I think counted as light entertainment, so I don't presume it's very special for it's time, but seeing these interviews conducted at a pace where people can actually express themselves with anything but pre-canned anecdotes, with an interviewer who is actually listening and engaging with the topic is such a breath of fresh air compared to what I am used to. A lot of the interviews I've watched seem like they touch on pretty controversial subjects for the time (religion, LGBT, race, drugs, alcoholism etc) (of course it helps that the clips that get uploaded and recommended are of historical figures, so there's a lot of survivorship bias there)
alchemst 6y ago
Oh come on, Thrasymachus is the OG strawman. All he does is go around saying how smart Socrates is, and how wrong he himself is.

signal11 6y ago

About TV debates — A lot of these have moved to podcasts and YouTube these days. Eg the Oxford Union debates on YouTube, some of which are quite popular. I suspect some talk radio, eg PBS and BBC Radio 4, will also have interesting debates. Radio 4’s magazine programmes like The Life Scientific, In Our Time, The Public Philosopher, Reith Lectures etc certainly make for extremely interesting listening.

hilbert42 6y ago
I know, thanks, they're great. Recently I've seen quite a few. Only several days ago I watched for the first time in many decades the program about A.J.P. Taylor and his controversial 1961 book The Origins of The Second World War (which, incidentally I have a copy of). You're right, we really need to spread the word at every opportunity.
throwaways885 6y ago
But this is precisely a problem because of the demonetization that occurs on anything sensitive. These podcasts can't easily sustain themselves on a platform that actively de-ranks their content.

fractallyte 6y ago

In the good old days, there was Spitting Image, which delighted in offending everyone... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image

andrepd 6y ago
You mean the very programme that was revived last year...?

datavirtue 6y ago

Free to Choose is absolute gold if you want to see rational debate among diametrically opposed groups about modern political and economic topics. Compared to what we see today it looks like something from another planet.

nostromo 6y ago
I watched Ayn Rand interviewed by Donahue in 1979 recently. I was shocked that this was daytime TV 40 years ago. Give it a watch sometime and compare it what you see on TV today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv0zTiv-i7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv0zTiv-i7s
- JohnWhigham 6y ago
  Yup, Donahue was great. He does another interview with Milton Friedman as well.

andrepd 6y ago

> I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. There are orders of magnitude more such content now than there was for instance 40 years ago. There's probably hundreds of hours of your favourite philosopher/economist/pundit's lectures/debates/speeches at your fingertips. Click-click and you literally begin to hear them talk in less than 30 seconds. This probably includes those very programmes from ages ago! This whole type of complaint reeks of "back in my day" appeals to nostalgia.

kalleboo 6y ago
Of course with an abundance of content comes the issue of curation. Media used to be curated by people with sometimes lofty goals of trying to be highbrow, and having their journalism subsidized by classified ads. Now everyone has to be a tabloid. With an abundance of content also comes niche-ization, where to get a loyal audience you need to keep pandering to their pre-conceived notions. Debates between opposite sites these days get condemned by both sides.

adamrezich 6y ago

people have been programmed, on a massive scale, to react emotionally to certain learned key phrases and terms. when this automatic emotional reaction occurs, all logical processing ceases immediately, and the person you're talking to either immediately leaves the conversation (if you're lucky) or starts emotionally, verbally attacking you as though your non-conforming line of thought is a pathogen and their overreacting response is an antibody swarm. you're a strawman caricature of everything evil and wrong if you question basic learned political orthodoxy, even if you make it clear you're approaching the topic with an open mind. TV and social media "debates" between politicians are 100% posturing, signaling, and rhetoric without any substance, and almost nobody can see it, everyone thinks their guy won. it's as though we've forgotten how to think for ourselves and have opinions and stances that lay outside dogmatic groupthink. I even know a few people who think of themselves as "free thinkers" who nevertheless hitch their proverbial cart to some political eceleb personality's proverbial horse, buying into everything they say, wholesale. people want to be told what to think, not how to think, as it's much easier that way.

gnagatomo 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack
- hilbert42 6y ago
  Yeah, exactly. And my amygdala is over sensitive and I wish I had a gain control fitted to it so that I could turn it down occasionally. (Anyway, at least I know it's prone to over-sensitivity, and that's somewhat helpful. ;-) )
ex_amazon_sde 6y ago
Social media did a lot to foster outrage and destroy nuanced thinking. But also decades of materialism and "me me me" culture: I think people learn to follow their desires no-matter-what when buying goods or services and the same emotional mechanism is transferred into "buying in" an idea. Modern advertising and branding is based on emotion and vague ideas. The same algorithms to target online ads have been used to influence politics (see cambridge analytica). > stances that lay outside dogmatic groupthink Yes, but with a caveat: an idea can be labeled "groupthink" and "too political" as a tactic to dismiss it easily.

pasabagi 6y ago

As a sort of counterpoint, I think it might be worth it to watch a classic of the 'free debate' genre, Buckley vs Baldwin[1], that happened in the sixties in Cambridge. It pitted a black civil rights activist against the young Buckley, later a stalwart of American conservatism. I don't know if it's my bias speaking, but I felt that in the debate, Buckley comes across as a bully, with very little argumentative meat, who doesn't really respond to Baldwin's points. For what its worth, I didn't really like Baldwin's delivery either, but at least I felt there were substantive points there that were worth addressing. In a way, this is probably the best one can hope for when you stage this kind of event - Buckley is, at least, well educated, but I can't help but think the debate might have been far more interesting if it was Baldwin vs Malcolm X - because ultimately the problem with the Buckleys of the world is that they defend institutions that were not built on ideals, but rather economics, and as such the defenses themselves are generally sophistic and without anything really interesting in them. If I was a student, I would probably agitate to exclude a Buckley, and instead reach for a Malcolm, and I expect somebody would accuse me of being anti-free-speech, since the debate that would result would no longer span a societal divide, and both parties in the debate would be on 'one side' of the broader social issue. However, from an intellectual standpoint, it just sometimes is the case that interesting positions aren't evenly distributed across the terrain of popular feeling and political rhetoric, and a lot of people are simply defending things that are convenient or traditional but have no moral basis. So inviting those people is a waste of time - they're just (at best) going to come up with clever excuses for whatever already exists, or whatever they would want regardless. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tek9h3a5wQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tek9h3a5wQ

mensetmanusman 6y ago
Instead of agitating for exclusion, agitate for more inclusion, e.g. demand both. People living lives of ‘or’ forget that ‘and’ exists.
- telchar 6y ago
  Blindly applying your advice (which was offered without qualification - so that's how I'll respond) opens the door for all sorts of concern trolling and contextless talking point repetition. That often-paid messaging serves a purpose to drown out nuanced and insightful debate with low-information content to defend a status quo or to run interference for an unpopular position to gather support without significant rhetorical challenge. We see that plenty online and in broadcast media, and is like that Buckley is described as doing but these days often more rote and mindless. Allowing that sort of thing to mix with good debate waters down discussion. It turns people off to opposing viewpoints too, since they're so inundated with rhetorical noise that they need to dismiss most rhetoric out of hand due to the poor SNR. I don't think your position is a very good one.

kalleboo 6y ago

> I now long for the type of television programs that I remember from my youth—talking heads discussing and debating serious topics. I never had that in my youth, but YouTube recently started suggesting videos from The Dick Cavett Show from the 60's and 70's. The show was broadcast on TV and I think counted as light entertainment, so I don't presume it's very special for it's time, but seeing these interviews conducted at a pace where people can actually express themselves with anything but pre-canned anecdotes, with an interviewer who is actually listening and engaging with the topic is such a breath of fresh air compared to what I am used to. A lot of the interviews I've watched seem like they touch on pretty controversial subjects for the time (religion, LGBT, race, drugs, alcoholism etc) (of course it helps that the clips that get uploaded and recommended are of historical figures, so there's a lot of survivorship bias there)

alchemst 6y ago

Oh come on, Thrasymachus is the OG strawman. All he does is go around saying how smart Socrates is, and how wrong he himself is.