Alt-Right Playbook: Control the Conversation (rough cut)

I think the "debate as winning"/"truth isn't important" perspective so being dominant on the alt-right is actually the main reason I'm so morally offended by them (which speaks volumes about my privilege, I guess). What has been intensely depressing is seeing how large sections of people who identify as "Skeptics" have drifted closer to the alt-right. I mean you would hope that education and an interest in critical thinking would naturally lead people to prioritize truth over winning, but I'm no longer so hopeful. I guess this was sort of OT. Good video!! I think when your recommendation to not play their game is sound. I believe it's better to ignore than to explicitly/officially take distance from debate since the right often construes that as not being confident/being wrong.

Ian, you do amazing work, this is a great video. I need to ask something related but off-topic; like yourself, I'm also a filmmaker and I'm all set up to make videos like this, with a good PC for editing, a photography backdrop, cameras and audio equipment. Basically set to go. Early in 2017 I scripted up a video to talk about the concept of "Virtue Signalling" and why it had become such a popular term with the alt-right, and really broke down the way the Right uses, and alters, language in discourse. (Some of the points I wrote you also make in this video.) I spitballed doing this video as something of a prototype to see if it's something I could do regularly and garner an audience the way you have, the way Dan Olson has, Lindsay Ellis, hbomberguy, etc., all of you cool kids I watch and think very highly of. Problem is, the aggression it would bring upon me and mine, it bothers the hell out of me. Back when GamerGate kicked off, I made a couple of comments on Twitter and the Shitheads ended up doxxing me and emailing my editor on the website I write for. I had to monitor their shitheadery on KotakuInAction to make sure it went no further. These "people" cannot be reasoned with. Having done (spectacular) videos ON such topics, how do you deal with what is essentially a potential and ongoing threat to you and yours?

Ian! This is off topic, but I loved your guest spot on the Gaming Broad(cast). And as an avid podcast listener and a fan of your work, I was wondering if more podcast type material is the pipe works or at the very least the periphery?

The statement at 7:05 ("but the right sees this as a personal failing on the part of the woman...") needs to be reworked and/or rethought, in my opinion. Initially, I was confused because I just didn't understand your point at all. Though after rewatching that bit a few times and thinking about it what you might have meant, I now gather that what you're saying is probably that the very fact that a woman allowed herself to feel alienated was in itself a moral failure (in the eyes of the right). That strikes me as a dubious generalisation at best, and a flat out fallacy at worst. I can't imagine many people holding such an odd opinion. It makes no sense to me personally, but it also doesn't fit with the large number of Republicans who criticised Trump after the Access Hollywood tape. Nor does such a laissez-faire attitude to bawdy/prickly talk (as the woman is presumably supposed to foster, instead of feeling alienated) fit with the traditional conservative values of personal propriety, self-control, and "family values". Sure, some portion of Republicans - especially those on the more extreme alt-right - might hold this view, but to so broadly say that "The Right" sees it this way is surely a blanket oversimplification, and something of a smear and/or strawman argument. In the spirit of Joubert, Plato et al, and seeking the truth, this statement should probably be treated with a bit more nuance, or at the very least explained more clearly. For the record, I'm probably not as familiar with your political landscape as some, due to being an Australian. But I've been watching the US fairly closely this year, and the oil/water partisanship over there strikes me as both surprising and destructive. Especially since, to someone like me at least, the two main sides of your partisan divide are so similar - both Democrats and Republicans are arguably centre-right parties in most respects, really, (though recent populist elements in each have widened the spectrum a little). I would never vote for as right-wing a party as the Democrats myself (though thankfully Australia doesn't have your first-past-the-post system, so a vote for a smaller party is never a wasted vote here), let alone the Republicans. But I'm still disappointed whenever I see such broad and simplistic statements from 'the left' as in 7:05. To me, making such sweeping and spurious claims about your opponent does little more than contribute to the partisanship and ensure that the two sides will never agree on anything. Anyway, just some thoughts I had while watching it.

This video series might actually end up sort of...complementing an argument I've found myself making distressingly more than I'd like, which is that the left should not imitate the rhetoric and techniques of the right even though the right has shown that doing so allows you to win. Rhetoric and rhetorical technique are not cleanly separable from political action. When you engage the right with their own weapons not only are you unable to win, you're poisoning your own politics.

Thanks again for the update, Ian. Really appreciate your efforts.

Lovely video as always. I definitely see the benefit of releasing them close together, because this video ends on a pretty downbeat note. Not taking the bait is good advice, but also means this piece is mostly on what not to do. I assume later episodes will be a little more prescriptive, and I look forward to seeing those.