Hey /lit/! My friend has started getting very interested in Steven Molyneux, and he is constantly linking me videos, and talking about how much he agrees with everything he says.
I think he is going a little bit over the top in his obsession. Every time we go anywhere, he tells everyone about Steven Molyneux and how everything his says is right and very interested etc.
I read a few nights ago that FDR is kind of like a cult, and Molyneux is a weirdo who no one should listen to? If it's true that Molyneux is a weirdo, how can I convince my friend to no agree with him?
bunp
Redirect him to testimonies from people he "defooed"
>I read a few nights ago that FDR is kind of like a cult, and Molyneux is a weirdo who no one should listen to?
An understatement. The guy is hysterical, frantic, generally turbo-batshit.
>If it's true that Molyneux is a weirdo, how can I convince my friend to no agree with him?
I'm too autistic to help. I don't feel like he would even entertain a principled critique. Go dig up Molyneux's mad ramblings about how much he hates his mother. He uploaded the video, then took it down, but I believe other users had archived it in time. That would probably suffice
He's a bit of a sophist but his ideas are pretty good. I take what I can from him and don't take all of his stuff as gospel.
Who is this guy? I see his name sometimes and his wiki page makes him seem like a lunatic
ancaps are clinically retarded, tbqh
Delete this now. I'm deadly serious.
>>7475017
He's one of the guys behind the anti-feminist men4men movement, fuck I cant remember what its called *googling* MGTOW? but I swear it had another name 5-6 years ago when this shit started coming up. It's basically 'nice' guys who can't get laid banding together online saying they don't need women or something. I can't imagine what they are thinking since they are self-selecting themselves out of the gene pool, but I guess the internet let's lemmings band together on a common cliff sides.
You know how modern day feminism exists only to forgive lazy women and let them effortlessly realise through identity, personalities will be provided at the door.
This is the Wang to that Vagyin.
>>7475085
Oh so he is one of those MGTOW guys. His wiki page doesn't go into that.
I don't get this YT armchair "scholar"/"activist" movement family. Why you'd waste your time listening to some guys vlogging their opinions is beyond me.
>>7475099
>>7475085
He is not MGTOW at all, he is married. MGTOW is a group of men who refuse to get married.
He's an an-cap, anti-feminist, anti-socialist etc.
A lot of his videos are really good, i especially like his "truth about (insert historical figure)" series. The whole point is why we should avoid hero worship.
He used to encourage people with bad family situations to leave their family entirely, but he has since abandoned that strategy and gotten less crazy.
He now focuses on economics, world politics, refugees etc. I recommend watching some of his videos
>>7475085
wut?
I don't think he's ever once mentioned being mgtow. He's just an ancap who panders to /pol/.
>>7475149
OK, but why listen to his videos? What makes him different than any other of the YT social commentators?
>>7475174
The reason his show is the most popular philosophy show on the internet is because no one teaches like he does. Very informed videos, laden with facts and statistics, and he's also really talented at putting together metaphors.
Overall, his videos are entertaining to listen to, and it doesn't hurt that I agree with most of what he is saying.
>>7475174
I'd take a YT commentator any day over a leftist-statist PC meme academic
>>7474826
He is a smart guy and has some good ideas. Ancap is no worse than any other ideologies. Just tell your friend to shut the fuck up when he tries to talk about Stef.
>>7475187
I'm watching one of his videos and this doesn't seem worthwhile.
>>7475270
to each his own man. What do you want from me? If you dont like his ideas, no one is going to make you adopt them.thats what living in a voluntary society is all about :^)
>>7475189
Zizek is anti-PC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OzL0tGygso
>>7475284
It's not his ideas that are the issue. It's his presentation of them and the pseud-tier level of discourse. I'd much rather just read a book than listen to some YT commentator.
>>7475290
he is a statist and a literal communist, that's just like a higher level of PC
>>7475304
he's just pushing an exaggerated version of what the PC liberal elites think while pretending it's subversive. If he was truly smart, he'd be an anarchocapitalist
>>7475323
>anarchocapitalist
hi /pol/
>>7475343
if anything, /pol/ is national socialist/facist
>>7475290
I lean pretty far toward individualist, but gosh damn I'm finding myself agreeing with the meme-man.
>>7475290
Also, whose movies/books are those?
>>7475018
ancaps operate without accepting the absurdity and violence of state debt/state funding as a reality (and let's face it, a fucking gold mine!). they see the injustice in it and can't get past it.
most people view the injustice and violence of debt-funded states as an abstract enough concept to be thwarted for their own goals. the ancap can't get past the absurdity of the system, thus it becomes the crux of their thinking.
source: i'm a recovering ancap (recovering to what i don't know. help me live with this absurdity.)
>>7475344
/pol/ is just edgy. You can find someone of any political stripe there, so long as they use the same memes and articulation to state their points.
It's similar to how, in the U.S., every other word out of someone's mouth has to be Freedom, or in the Arab world, your slogan had better goddamn have some variant of 'Death to Israel' in it if you want any kind of support, regardless of what your actual ideals may be.
>>7475323
Ancaps are just Ansocs who are afraid of the S-word.
Molyneux is an ultra-liberal. They base their entire world-view on the liberal concept of human "rights".
Tell your friend the concept of human "rights" is a spook, then punch him in the face.
>>7475435
Is this a pasta? It triggered me.
For anyone actually wondering, ancaps are retarded purely because they worship dicks. They also put all their trust in the free market and dump issues on da gubmint which obviously has nothing to do with em, because theyre not willing to blame corporations, the logical conclusion to capitalism. But those are side details, its their crazy obsession with dicks i dont get it.
>>7475292
So you went into this video having already decided you don't like it? Ok my man
>>7475688
explain logic behind funding state programs on the taxes of future generations with no plan for debt reduction ever.
like i can understand coping with this idea, but you can't deny that state funding is pretty crazy
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Molyneux
He's a cult leader. Steer your friend away from him.
>>7475051
explain
>>7475085
He's just a /pol/tard, kek
don't try to shill your feminist nonsense here
>yfw u realize YT means youtube and not whitey
>>7475017
He made Fable
>>7476175
What the fuck kind of idea is that. Dont libertarians love the constitution? Isnt that what the constitution is doing? If anything, we should just make democracy more direct or whatever so that the next generation can change something as insignificant as state funding for something (in comparison to concrete constitution) if they wish to.
See, shits whack af, and its why there arent many libertarian intellectuals. Theres some classical liberal dudes like borges and nabokov, but most of the time they admit they dont know much bout politics, and they just happy as is and its what their fathers believed in and they put a lot of respect in that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ilFbbk9jw4
exposes the truth about the crusades, how they kept out the invading muslim hordes and were predominately good for Europe
im not even christian but thank Odin crusaders did what they had to do
>>7475688
This was a terrible argument you made. You did a really bad job.
>>7476175
Ok, im this >>7476319 fuckboy and i see i might have committed a grave error and fallen into your viscious trap. That debt shit isnt entirely a spook but definitely is exaggerated by molyneux types for sure. Oh no the debt uh gosh. They brush off global warming as "just nonsense" then protest for something to be done about the debt to china, a country we buy scissors from for like 2 cents and sell for 1 dollar. You dont think those scissor ceos making bank? Isnt that a good thing in economics land, where price is based on real things that arent real and there is a structure, because it exists?
>>7476319
>Dont libertarians love the constitution?
>>7476353
Dude most libertarians fantasize about what the post constitutional convention orgies were like.
>>7476364
>yfw the Constitution was created and intended to be a living document which would adapt with the times
>yfw the Necessary and Proper Clause was put in specfiically to help expedite this
>yfw libertarians rage hard as fuck anytime someone wants it to change
they like the basic 1776, non-globalized, industrialized ideas it has in it
they don't actually like it
He's a mixed bag.
Pros
>bases many of his non-ancap arguments on hard data
>makes logical arguments based on that data
>takes contrarian positions and arguments that many won't dare to take
>does fact-based explorations of contemporary issues and people from his unique vantage point
>does unique literary criticism from a Antifem/Anarchist/Randroid perspective just like a uni student might write a Freudian or Marxist interpretation of something. His review/video essay on Frozen is great.
Cons
>egomaniacal sadistic narcissist cultist(?)
>NAP views and book are inane
>Ancap politics are stupid and unworkable
>shameless plagiarizes from everywhere and everyone while never acknowledging his intellectual debts, so he can appear like a off-the-cuff supergenius to his drones
>>7476369
Who needs to amend the constitution when you can just wordhack and retcon?
>oh arms means blunt sticks 2day so that what it mean you can habe a stick xD
>>7476369
>the Constitution was created and intended to be a living document which would adapt with the times
this is always a code phrase for "we should just trash the constitution because it goes against my politics"
He's a cult leader.
Therefore your only course of action should be to make fun of your friend for falling for a cult, and to keep making fun of him until he gets so annoyed he either breaks off friendship (more likely) or quits Molyneux.
His little tirade against expanding the human knowledge base is pretty funny. Not because he's trying to be, but because it's completely absurd and a little worrying that he genuinely holds these views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UB9kkmwR5w
Stumbled upon this guy not knowing he was something worth listening to I'm happy I listened to some of his stuff but, honestly he's an internet personallity and the things he backs his videos with sources.
>>7476191
>rationalwiki
holy shit kill yourself
>>7476981
but dude the free market
>>7475007
Not always necessarily. I mean, I agree for the most part and think FDR is a quote but he IS a good speaker regardless of ideas.
At any rate, I sort of admire him just because of at least one video I saw of his in its entirety. He took a call from a flat-earth conspiracist and spent over TWO HOURS trying to argue against him. Very articulate, very systematic, very amiable in that sense.
Its kind of insane that he has such off the wall ideas on so many other things though. Pity.
>>7476627
Came here to post basically this. I like that Molyneux is willing to be contrarian in today's heated climate, but he's also fairly nutso.
If I could edit your "Pros" column I'd add a caveat about your disdain for his anarcho capitalist tendencies; i.e. ancap isn't entirely bad. There's some good things to be learned from a more laissez-faire economic view, e.g. when Stephan covered the utter failure of the welfare state.
Speaking to your cons, I'd add blatant cultist to the list. He recommended, and verbatim, shunning statists -- i.e. eliminating them entirely from your life. I'm talking about he quite literally wanted you to never call Grandma back because she's pro-Obama or something.
>>7475290
Gosh, that interviewer will not let Zizek speak.
he's the sam harris of libertarians, doesn't correspond or interact with the academic philosophic community in any meaningful way and is instead content to prattle from on high to his "fans" via youtube. the worst part about these guys though is the paranoia and distrust in academia they seed into their fans to fool them into believing that their laughingstock status among actual intellectuals is somehow part of a grand ivory tower conspiracy against figures who aren't willing to "play ball". in short, there's really nothing you can do to educate your friend unless he's willing to put in the work himself.
>>7479621
grad student blew him the fuck out
search for danny shahar
>>7479637
seriously any phil. grad student could destroy this guy easily, especially since a majority of his arguments are just misinterpretations of locke and rousseau that have been debated and picked apart for ~300 years by actual academics.
I remember watching one of his videos a couple years ago during the height of the European debt crisis, when he economies of every country in Europe shrunk that year, including Germany's and he was going on for fifteen minutes or so about how he predicted it all, and that it was caused by Germany being too socialist and that from now on their economy will only keep on going downhill until it crashes completely.
I bet him and the followers of this idiot are feeling pretty silly now.
>>7476627
>data
>facts
U N J U S T I F I E D F A I T H S
>>7479782
You could *sniff* just say I D E O L O G Y
>>7476191
>http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Molyneux
Oh fuck, I think that linking him this will do the trick OP. If not then your friend is a complete maniac and you shouldn't talk to him any more.
>>7479823
>citing rationalwiki
You do know that rationalwiki is one step away from conservapedia in terms of the level of bias?
You wouldn't find a balanced discussion on rationalwiki if you went through all of its articles with a fine-toothed comb
>>7474826
When I was an an-cap, I used to LOVE his videos. I then studied politics academically at uni and gradually I watched more of his videos and saw the flaws and cracks in them. Once I spotted these, they showed up in further videos and his sophist mind showed itself.
I have no real way to convince your friend besides reading up on alternative political ideologies (if you're smart enough, you can convince him yourself with enough criticism)
Thunderfoot (a hater of Anita, so 4chan will love him) does a great video on his bullshit.
>>7475448
From someone who was and now is exactly as described, this is true, for me.
>>7476175
>explain logic behind funding state programs on the taxes of future generations with no plan for debt reduction ever.
You're assuming that we're accumulating debts that we cannot pay back. You're assuming the debts we create won't create further economic growth which leads to taxes/gdp growth/utility. If we borrow money at (5% APR), invest in infrastructure that has a fiscal multiplier larger than the APR rate, then you get back more revenue than you spent (borrowing the cash itself and opportunity cost) and you have a growing economy.
> with no plan for debt reduction ever.
You spend in a bust, tax and deflate in a boom.
Spending is supposed to be temporary.
However, since the 2007/8 crash, aggregate demand (how much money people spend each ear) has shrunk massively. this is because the rich (who spend less than poor per dollar of income) are capturing more of an economies active currency. So currently, we (most western nations) a stimulus to the general public so that we can spend and expand our economies. Without this stimulus, AD will stay down, and we will see the low growth rates we've seen in recent years (although this is for many many reasons)
>>7476918
as personally harmful as this may be, it is for the greater good, for both of you.
>>7480178
I don't give a shit about the website it's on, it's just an aggregation of quotes with sources, if after reading them you still support this man then you clearly either have mental problems or failed to grow out of the edgy 16 y/o phase.
>>7475323
grow the fuck up
>>7475323
>ancaps
>legitimately believing in internet meme ideologies
absolutely fucking can't make this shit up, also kill yourself.
