Sept. 21, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:22:39
4200 Alternative Influence: YouTube Censorship Manifesto - Rebutted!
The George Soros’ Open Society Foundation funded Data & Society Research Institute recently released a report titled “Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube” by Rebecca Lewis. The report claimed that 65 political commentators had created a “Alternative Influence Network” by adopting “brand influencer” techniques with the goal of “selling” a far-right political ideology. The “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” style report sought draw collaborative connections between many political commentators including Stefan Molyneux – and far-right ideology, and was thus widely spread by the mainstream media. Report: https://datasociety.net/output/alternative-influence/Your support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Those of you who've been following me for some time know that I don't usually engage in trollish nonsense, but sometimes something comes up which is so hideous, so morally reprehensible, so egregious, and so propagandistic that it's well worth a look.
So that's what we're going to do.
This is going to be a very, very interesting tour through how propaganda works.
So the report is called Alternative Influence, Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube.
And it's by a woman named Rebecca Lewis.
I'm going to assume her gender.
And it's from a group called Data& Society, which is funded by Soros Foundation and a whole bunch of others, which we can put a link to, but let's see what dear Becky has to say.
So, in the executive summary, she talks about, this report identifies and names the Alternative Influence Network or AIN. So, already my first question is, is it a network?
Who is it? Well, it's people who've been on each other's shows.
It's a network! No, it's not.
It's just people who've been on other people's shows.
I don't imagine everyone who's ever been on Conan O'Brien or everyone who's ever been on Crosstalk or everyone who was ever on Charlie Rose.
Actually, it was mostly Charlie Rose on other people, but it doesn't mean that it's a network.
It's just people you've had a conversation with at some point or another.
So what is the AIN? It is an assortment of scholars, media pundits, and internet celebrities who use YouTube to promote a range Of political positions.
Alright, well so far I don't suppose anyone can find anything wrong with that.
So, what is Rebecca talking about here?
What kind of political positions?
She says from mainstream versions of libertarianism and conservatism all the way to overt white nationalism.
So you see, she managed to get overt white nationalism in the very first sentence.
No evidence, no proof, just overt white nationalism in the very first sentence.
And I like the way that she sets up this continuum, right?
This is how programming works.
This is how you get people to back off, to not think, to react.
So libertarianism, you see how the line works, right?
Libertarianism, conservatism, Overt white nationalism.
See, it's all a continuum.
You see, that is the mental framework she's trying to put you into.
Content creators in the AIN claim to provide an alternative media source for news and political commentary.
They function as political influencers who adopt the techniques of brand influencers to build audiences and sell them on far-right ideology.
This is, again, wonderfully constructed sentences that, I mean, I feel like George Orwell trying to deconstruct his own novels here.
So, claim to provide an alternative media source for news and political commentary.
Well, do they or do they not?
Right? Claim to provide Well, of course, we provide an alternative media source for news and political commentary because there's the mainstream media and then there's the alternative media.
That's not that complicated. So I don't know how she says we claim to provide an alternative media source for news and political commentary because if we actually do that, then there's no need to use the word claim.
And if we don't, there's no reason for the entire executive summary or the document as a whole.
And the idea that we're, I don't know, I can't speak for others, the idea that I'm some sort of marketing genius that's using post-modernist programming techniques to sell people on far-right ideology is crazy.
Now here you see we have libertarianism, conservatism, white nationalism, and far-right ideology.
So what that means, of course, is that libertarianism, right, so she's got it right here, libertarianism, Is far-right ideology, you see?
How? How is that possible in any...
I shouldn't laugh. I mean, it's the serious stuff.
We'll get to the serious stuff, but it is just so ridiculous.
How on earth is libertarianism, which is small government, free markets, you know, the government generally limited to...
National defense, the courts, the police, maybe the prison system and so on.
Tiny, tiny government.
How on earth is that a far-right ideology?
Because far-right generally means Nazism or National Socialism, which is a giant dictatorship based upon ethnic and nationalistic lines.
It is National Socialism.
So how is a giant dictatorial government, which is far-right, Right there in the same category as libertarianism, which is tiny government at best.
But this is not designed to make an argument.
These are designed to give you keyword triggers to evoke your emotionally negative response, right?
Emotionally negative And so, you know, white nationalism and far right, these are all Nazi keywords, right?
It's designed to give you a negative idea of who she's discussing.
And of course, no proof, no arguments, no content as yet.
So this report, she says, presents data from approximately 65 political influences.
Oh, wait. Wait, what?
What? Oh, you see, she says content creators in the AIN, the Alternative Influence Network, claim to provide political commentary.
Oh, but they are in fact political influencers.
And so you see, claim is a way of undercutting.
Oh, he just claims that rather than it's true, right?
This network is connected through a dense system of guest appearances, mixing content from a variety of ideologies.
This cross-promotion of ideas forms a broader reactionary position, a general opposition to feminism, social justice, or left-wing politics.
Well, okay.
So...
A network, because people have been on each other's shows, often to debate, often with significant disagreements and so on.
Is that a network? I mean, Noam Chomsky's been on my show twice.
So this cross-promotion of ideas forms a broader reactionary position in general opposition to feminism, social justice, or left-wing politics.
Right. So she's saying that the dominant position in society is feminism, social justice, and left-wing politics.
It's a reaction to that, which means that the bulk of the data, the arguments, the perspectives, and so on is feminism, social justice, or left-wing politics.
And of course it is. Of course, because the leftists control Government schools from kindergarten all the way through to the end of high school.
They control the higher education.
They control universities, particularly in the social sciences, where in some faculty departments, 40% of the professors are outright communist, but we'll get to that later.
And then they control the media.
They control Hollywood. They control the vast majority of the mainstream media.
They control just about anything that you can name.
They control.
So fewer than 4% of psychologists and or social workers in the field are Republican or conservatives.
So the monolith that is occurring has provoked a backlash because people are sick and tired of being lectured to by dangerous scolds.
So she goes on to say, members of the AIN cast themselves as an alternative media system by Establishing an alternative sense of credibility based upon relatability, authenticity, and accountability.
Accountability. Lord, save us from accountability.
Cultivating an alternative social identity using the image of a social underdog and counter-cultural appeal.
All right, so what does this mean?
An alternative sense of credibility based on relatability, authenticity, and accountability.
So relatability is...
I get your problems.
I chat with you. You understand.
We understand each other. We can relate to each other's issues, right?
Authenticity. Well, that's emotional honesty and directness.
And accountability. I mean, accountability and telling the truth and being accountable to your listeners.
How else do you gain credibility, Rebecca?
How else would you gain credibility in this universe other than relating to people's issues, being honest, and being accountable to your listeners?
Cultivating an alternative social identity.
I don't even know what that means.
An alternative social identity.
What is that? Like some sort of hand puppet?
Is that a clone?
Is that an avatar? What does that mean?
Using the image of a social underdog and countercultural appeal.
Well, sure. She's already said that.
It's reactionary. Now, reactionary is when there's a big overwhelming movement coming your way and you're pushing back against it.
That's called reactionary. So naturally, you're a social underdog.
That's by definition. So she can't call us reactionary and then say there's nothing to this social underdog thing.
All right. And also the other thing, too, is that, is this a plan?
Like, is this what people do in this AIN? Do they say, well, today I've got to be relatable, authentic, and I've got to be accountable, and I really want to present this image of a social underdog in countercultural appeal?
I mean, I can't speak for others, but I don't think that way.
I think that would never cross my mind.
I just try to be honest and talk about the important issues, listen to people.
I've had thousands of conversations with listeners over the past 12 years, interviewed hundreds of subject matter experts, written books, put forward arguments and so on.
So the idea that I'm going to wake up and say, well, I've got to portray myself as a social underdog in order to manipulate a counter-cultural...
I've got to be relatable, you know?
Like, what kind of lunatic would sit there in the morning, look in the mirror and say, it is important for me to be relatable today.
I must be authentic and relatable.
I guess maybe Zuckerberg, but, you know, he takes his dog for a drag on its walking rope.
But, um... This idea that it's all a manipulation, that it's not just genuine interest, passion for the truth, a desire to bring important information to the minds and hearts of people, but it's some sort of plot and some sort of plan and some sort of manipulation, well, that's called projection, right?
Which is that people who are manipulative think that other people are being this as well.
All right. Members of AIN use the proven engagement techniques of brand influencers to spread ideological content, ideological testimonials, political self-branding, search engine optimization, and strategic controversy.
I'm sorry. It's just mad.
Who thinks this way? Who thinks this way?
Well, I guess...
Enough people do that it's a thing, but I've never, you know, like the idea that we're all calling each other up, you know, at midnight or three o'clock in the morning, Alinsky style and saying, well, it's important for us to work on our political self-branding and let's engage in strategic controversy.
You know, it's like, I'm interested.
I like to debate. I don't know.
It's just kind of weird. So the AIN as a whole, she says, facilitates radicalization.
Oh! Ooh!
Ooh! If we are subatomic particles, we'd be free radicals, baby!
The AIN as a whole facilitates radicalization.
Dun-dun-dun! What does that mean?
What does that mean?
Radicalization. I don't even know what that means.
Radicalization. I mean, there are genuine dangerous conspiracies out there in the world.
You know, there are terror groups, there's ISIS, there are race-baiting people who are desperate for a race war from just about every race.
There are 40,000 odd out-and-out communists teaching in American universities.
Communism Was responsible for, I've seen the latest figures, latest calculations, communism responsible for the deaths of 200 million people.
There are very disturbing quasi-pedophilia images and videos all over social media.
There's a lot of this terrorist recruitment.
There's a lot of deep, dark, and nasty stuff going on on the internet.
And what? Do you not think that people get radicalized when they start watching ISIS training videos?
Do you think that people don't get radicalized when they go to university and they're told that all men are rapists or men are oppressive or the only difference, the only way that any groups end up any different is because of racism and sexism and homophobia and so on?
I mean, do you think that's not radicalization?
Of course it is! But because she's in that world, she can't look and see the world that she's actually in.
It's like the fish saying, water.
What water? So audiences, she says, are able to easily move from mainstream to extreme content through guest appearances and other links.
So this is another false dichotomy she's setting up.
So there's the mainstream you see.
Yeah, the New York Times, the Washington Post.
That's the mainstream you see.
But somehow out on the internet, there's this extreme content.
Now, none of these are arguments.
They're just emotional appeals, right, to our desire to stay in sort of the middle of the Hegelian dialectic, you know, thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, to stay kind of in the middle.
The Goldilocks philosophy, not too hot, not too cold, just right.
That's where we want to be. So the mainstream is considered to be centrist, and there's extreme stuff out there on the internet, to which I guess I can only ask Rebecca.
Which one of these people, 60-odd people that you've looked at on the internet, which one of these people or which group of these people got America into endless wars into the Middle East?
Any idea? Anyone?
Any one of those people?
Were they cheering and chanting for increased and expanded wars in the Middle East?
I'm going to guess that was not a very common thing.
And given their reach, given their reach much smaller than the mainstream media, they have much less effect on people.
So the idea that the mainstream you see...
is centrist, but there's extremist stuff out there.
Well, the mainstream media is pro-war, it's pro-debt, it's pro-government, it's pro, you name it, horrible things.
That, to me, is extremist content.
You know, when the New York Times publishes articles praising socialism, Which is a very extremist philosophy that results in extreme weight loss and extreme filled graves in the back lot 40 of Siberia.
Yeah, that's extreme content to me.
You just look at the mainstream media.
They're extremists, man.
They are extremists. Now here you can see the big difference between the mainstream media and the alternative media.
The alternative media as a whole kind of trusts their audience.
So I will present the facts and I will certainly give my opinions, my perspectives, my conclusions.
I don't tell people what to do on my show.
I don't tell them how they should think.
I don't tell them what to think. I try to teach them how to think as I continually teach myself how to think.
So here you can see it's like negative, negative, negative, not a single fact as yet because she needs to poison the well.
She needs to give you as many negative words as humanly possible before giving you any content so you dislike whoever's coming.
Whoever she's going to start quoting, you have to dislike them, right?
So she says, when viewers engage with this content, it is framed as lighthearted, entertaining, rebellious, and fun.
Ah, she said, this fundamentally obscures the impact that issues have on vulnerable and underrepresented populations, the LGBTQ community, women, immigrants, and people of color.
Very interesting, but very honest.
You see here, lighthearted, entertaining, rebellious, and fun.
And then she says, you can't have any of that because there are sad people in the world And so no fun for anyone.
No fun for you. And this is the joylessness of this whole left-wing movement, which did actually start out kind of fun and kind of funny in the 60s and so on.
It has just gone through the usual cycle where it's just become a joyless Puritan exercise in you can't have fun because people are dying somewhere in the world.
You can't enjoy yourself because there's a hungry child out there somewhere.
And you can't enjoy yourself because somewhere out there is a sad woman who feels victimized.
And I find this hideous.
Hideous. Like, seriously, I want you people to stay away from my daughter because when you get into her ear and start telling her that she's a victim and there's a patriarchy and men are pigs and men are rapists and there's a rape culture and so on, like, you're...
You understand? You are breaking women down here.
You are breaking immigrants down.
You are breaking people of color down by continually whispering how evil people like I Am or are, which is, you know, I'm a white male and so on.
It's nasty stuff.
It's nasty stuff. So, vulnerable.
Why? I mean, gays make more money than straight people.
Women, when they're young, make more money than men do.
Immigrants often have a higher per capita income, particularly in the East Asian community, than whites.
Why are you telling everyone they're vulnerable?
Well, of course, you have to do that so that you can, like, when you can convince people that they're vulnerable, then the question is vulnerable to who?
And the answer is people like me, right?
People like the other people in this group of 60-odd people that she's analyzing.
There are victims, which means there must be victimizers, and that would be us, right?
That's the game, and it's a pretty black and bleak game and ends very, very nastily throughout history.
So, She goes on to say, and in many ways, YouTube is built to incentivize this behavior.
The platform needs to not only assess what channels say in their content, but also who they host and what their guests say.
You know what, Rebecca? They really don't.
They really don't need to do that because of a little thing called free speech, my dear.
Free speech.
No, YouTube does not have to police who goes on whose shows and what people say outside of...
Death threats and bomb threats and all kinds of, yeah, no problem with that.
That's nasty stuff. But arguments?
No! No, what are you talking about?
YouTube needs to say, oh, I'm sorry, you got an email from YouTube.
You can't go on this guy's show.
You can't have a debate with someone.
You can't talk about this.
What are you, crazy?
What's the matter with you people?
If we're wrong, if other people are wrong, do you know what you do?
You put on your adult pants and you go out into the fray and you debate with people.
And you provide your reason, you provide your evidence, you provide your arguments.
You don't run to the teacher, he's saying mean things.
Ah, it's pitiful.
It's so pitiful.
It's so pitiful.
In a media environment, she says, consisting of networked influences, YouTube must respond with policies that account for influence and amplification as well as social networks.
Hmm. What on earth does that mean?
What are these policies, Rebecca?
What are these policies? YouTube then gets to say, well, Rebecca doesn't like these arguments.
Rebecca doesn't like these facts.
So everyone else should shut up and go away?
What astounding arrogance.
Unbelievable arrogance.
I'm not saying Rebecca should shut up.
I'm not saying Rebecca shouldn't be allowed to write this stuff.
It's nasty stuff. Ugly stuff.
It's censorious, semi-fascistic language control, but she should have the right to say it because I can respond to it.
But the idea that you can't Argue back against people so you gotta run to people?
Alright, so we'll have a look here.
So then she starts talking about for a short time on January 4th, 2018.
Now see, that's not even one day.
For a certain tiny time slice in one day earlier this year, the most popular live stream video on YouTube was a broadcast dominated by white nationalists.
Now, that again, just gets you into, oh my gosh, white nationalists are live streaming on YouTube!
But why is it a problem if white nationalists do it, but not other racial nationalists do it?
Like, why is it, you know, there are lots of black activists who want segregation.
Mexico has in their constitution that you can't change the ethnic makeup of Mexico.
Why is it only a problem if white nationalists?
I mean, have you ever seen the phrase black nationalists?
There are a lot of them out there.
Black nationalists?
You don't see that. So it's only white nationalists who are problematic, which frankly is really and horribly and deeply racist.
Because if you have a standard called ethnic nationalism is really terrible, but you only apply that to white nationalists, you're a racist.
You're an out and out racist.
All right. So, boy, dominated by white nationalists.
Now, that's interesting, because you've got to ask yourself, what does it mean when you say it's dominated by white nationalists?
I mean, if I do a solo show, am I dominating that show?
No, it's just my show.
So, what is she talking about?
She says, more specifically, it was a stream by YouTubers Andy Worski and Jean-Francois Garaby facilitating a debate between a white nationalist and And a libertarian.
Ah, see here now, she says libertarian all the way to white nationalism earlier.
Now it's a debate between a white nationalist and libertarian.
In other words, they're opposing each other.
The debate topic was scientific racism, which they refer to as race realism.
A contemporary incarnation of the long-standing claims that there are measurable scientific differences between races of humans.
Now, I think she's got a Her master's in social work, so maybe she didn't really dip into the science, but there are measurable scientific differences between races of humans.
There are. In fact, if you were a doctor who was not a race realist, you would be sued into the ground for malpractice because then you would be treating all races as if they had the same chance of certain medical issues, which would be absolutely malpractice.
Now, I don't know, this phrase scientific racism has come in, which is a pure oxymoron.
If it's science, it can't be racist, right?
I mean, even jamming these two words together is insane.
It's insane. Because scientific racism, if there are differences between races that are scientifically measurable, it's not racism.
Is it racism to say that blacks tend to have curlier hair than whites?
No. It's a simple identified fact.
Measurable scientific differences between races of humans.
Now this, of course, goes into the race is just a social construct, which, you know, two black people from sub-Saharan Africa are not going to give birth to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed person with white skin.
They're just not—and vice versa, right?
Two Blonde Swedes are not going to give birth to somebody who looks like exactly they came from subso black who came from subso.
It's just not going to happen. There are measurable differences.
There are about half the differences between races of canines and so on.
Anyway, so long-standing claims.
Did she actually investigate any of these claims?
Did she talk to any experts in the field?
Did she talk? No, of course not.
Because she's already got the answer.
So why would she already knows it's racism?
She already knows that it's bigotry.
So why on earth would she want to look up any of the facts, right?
It's like me practicing to walk every morning, man.
Arguing in favor of scientific racism was infamous white nationalist Richard Spencer, known for having popularized the term alt-right.
Here we go. Ostensibly on the other side was Carl Benjamin.
A YouTuber who goes by the pseudonym Sargon of Akkad.
Ostensibly on the other side.
What does that mean? Was he on the other side?
Was he opposing Richard Spencer?
And see, this is interesting, because if you dislike the ideas of Richard Spencer, and I know that I do, if you dislike the ideas and arguments of Richard Spencer, surely you should want to engage him in a debate and prove him wrong in front of people.
I have had this argument with a whole number of people on my show over the years.
So here now, if you oppose Richard Spencer and you publicly argue and debate and prove him wrong, you're sucked into the void of the vortex of Richard Spencer-land.
So basically you can't oppose him.
Why would she not want people to oppose Richard Spencer?
Why? Because he's a Democrat?
Because he's a socialist-ish kind of guy?
I mean, why? Ostensibly on the...
No, he was on the other side.
The debate became the number one trending live video worldwide on YouTube.
10,000 active viewers, 475,000 times.
So people are very interested in this topic, right?
So Rebecca, people are very interested in this topic.
Racial differences and ethnic differences and so on.
People are very interested in this topic.
Why? Because we're trying this massive experiment in the West where we're jamming a lot of cultures and races and so on together.
Right? So in many major cities in America, half the people don't even speak English at home.
Given that most freedom literature is written in English, what does that mean for the future of freedom?
These are very, very important questions.
So just getting mad at people for talking about important questions is, I don't know, I just, I fundamentally don't understand it.
All right, four participants carried out the debate via Google Hangouts.
Video was four and a half hours.
They were joined at various times by other YouTubers.
So, they discussed whether monogamy was a development of Western culture, whether there are biological qualities that constitute whiteness, and so on, right?
So, Spencer has had years of experience arguing his racial theories and spoke with more confidence than Benjamin.
I don't know. I haven't watched the debate, but...
Again, he's just more confident.
Is he right? Is he wrong?
What's his data? What are his arguments and so on?
Anyway, so then you go to YouTube comments.
You go to YouTube comments.
And I don't even know what to say about that.
It's not an argument. Somebody liked what Richard Spencer has to say.
So what? So what?
It's still 40,000 Marxists in higher education, massive concentration of leftists in just about every social science and massive concentration of leftists in primary school and junior high and high school teaching the children with control over the children.
The parents are forced to pay for the indoctrination of their kids in government schools and then children are generally lied to about the value of their degree and then propagandized and radicalized in the social sciences and softer sciences in university.
But you see, a Google Hangout that people voluntarily come and watch, that's the big problem when it comes to indoctrination.
Alright. This debate is part of a larger phenomenon in which YouTubers attempt to reach young audiences by broadcasting far-right ideas in the form of news and entertainment.
Is it part of a larger phenomenon?
Don't you need to prove that?
Don't you need to establish that in some possible conceivable way?
How do you know? An assortment of scholars, media pundits, and internet celebrities are using YouTube to promote a range of political positions.
Alright, so here we're back to this like copy and paste stuff.
Libertarianism over white nationalism.
I guess the beginning was an intro.
Fundamental contempt for progressive politics, for contemporary social justice movements.
It's reactionary, as defined by its opposition to visions of social progress.
That's kind of begging the question, right?
I mean, the whole point is, is endless race and class and gender-baiting and massive amounts of government programs and huge amounts of waste and so on, is it social progress?
That's the fundamental question, but she, of course, assumes that it is, right?
Okay, Alternative Influence Network.
So, YouTube, 2018 Pew Research Center, 73% of US adults, 94% 18 to 24-year-olds visit YouTube.
And trust in mainstream media outlets is continually in decline.
Only 32% of Americans claiming to trust the media in a 2016 Gallup poll.
Now, if you're a free market person, okay, so there's, I guess, outlets, so to speak, like mine and countless others, who are...
Devoted to telling the truth and not being politically correct and following the science and the data and the evidence and the arguments and the reasoning wherever it leads and communicating that process to the audience.
So why is it a problem with the mainstream media declining?
The mainstream media constantly race-baiting, constantly gender-baiting, constantly baiting hostility between religions.
Massive warmongers, you know, the fact that the US has blown up half the Middle East and wasted seven trillion dollars and killed hundreds of thousands, if not more, of innocent Muslims in the Middle East.
I mean, is that not terrible?
Is that? No! The big problem, you see, is some debate that Google has for people voluntarily being there.
But the left controls the mainstream media and they don't control YouTube.
You understand, right? So non-leftists, individualists rather than collectivists, right?
The individualists are much better at creating memes.
So what's happening? The European Union is trying to ban memes and a variety of other things are occurring that are trying to stop people from having the power or the capacity to create memes.
So this is what we control, academia, the media, we control schools, we control television, Hollywood.
But YouTube, we don't control.
So we got to get our sick collectivist tentacles into YouTube to shut them down because we can't compete.
Because they ask questions.
And we are ideologically certain and fundamentally stupid.
All right. The AIN, Alternative Influence Network, relies on YouTube's ability to support a type of micro-celebrity.
Niche celebrities who are well-known within specific communities.
The platforms modern broadcast yourself, blah, blah, blah.
And so, yeah.
They can go to Patreon.
They can do partner programs and so on.
And so, yeah. Because of their high visibility and marketing potential within communities on social platforms, some content creators become influencers in their communities.
So, you see, different communities have different perspectives.
Rebecca, isn't that diversity?
I mean, isn't that diversity?
Isn't that what everybody wants on the left?
Oh, a different perspective, multiculturalism, and so on.
Well, of course, we know that that's not what the left wants at all.
They want a wide variety of Of cultures and races who vote collectivist because they come from collectivist cultures.
So, yeah, boy.
Other people have different perspectives and argue for them online and so on.
And the other thing too, how do you become an influencer?
How do you become an influencer?
So what is an influencer? So she says people who shape public opinion and advertise goods and services.
Through the conscious, conscientious calibration of their online persona.
See, this is the thing.
You've got to understand how this works.
We are both authentic and incredibly manipulative at the same time.
You see, it's our authenticity and our accountability, you see, that drives our popularity.
But at the same time, it's a conscientious...
Calibration of my online persona.
Me, me, me. Twist, twist, twist.
Me, me, me. Apparently, I'm conscientiously calibrating my online persona.
Or, you know, alternatively, one possibility is I tell the truth.
It's one possibility.
And how do you become an influencer?
Well, you can see the contempt she has for the average person who can't judge the quality of an argument she thinks.
They can't judge the effectiveness of the data that's presented.
She can't judge expert interviews versus somebody just ranting randomly.
So, you see, it's just manipulation.
It's the only reason people become influenced.
Not because we tell the truth. Not because we take on challenging issues.
Not because we go counter to the warmongering, race-baiting narrative of the mainstream media.
Nothing like that. You see, it's just manipulation.
Ah, projection. You think it's a view.
You think it's a window. It's just a mirror.
Influencers often develop highly intimate and transparent relationships with their audiences.
And then inserting advertisements for products and services into their lifestyle content.
Okay, I haven't seen that.
While the individuals of the IAN are not generally selling goods or services.
Ah, you see, so political influences, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, so we do, but we don't.
But we do, but we don't. All right, digital media scholar Crystal Aberdeen has noted that celebrity and influencer culture is often ascribed to presumed frivolity that leads to its underestimation among academics and journalists.
Now, she obviously likes academics and journalists because they're on the left, like collectivists, right?
Whereas individualists like myself and the other people in this group, she doesn't like.
So... Online celebrities can often convey deceptively subversive and powerful messages.
Yeah, boy.
See, Borat's on the left, so that's good.
But you see, if you're not on the left, he's leftish, I guess.
But if you're not on the left, then that's just terrible.
You know, it's just horrible. All right.
Increasingly understanding the circulation of extremist political content Does not just involve fringe communities and anonymous actors.
We have to scrutinize polished and well-lit micro-celebrities and the captivating videos that are easily available on the pages of the internet's most popular video platform.
Am I really well-lit? Am I well-lit?
I don't know. I still look like a giant thumb with Easter egg spots all over it.
But anyway, well-lit.
What does that mean? I'm well-polished?
Okay. There's many things that I am.
Polished and well-lit. Not really one of them.
All right. So part of the way influencers build followings is by becoming nodes around which other networks of opinions and influencers cluster.
So this is going on other people's shows.
And so here we go.
Let's have a look at all of this.
So she analyzed both the content of YouTube influencers as well as their collaborations, who they are broadcasting with.
And so she collected data from each influencer's video titles and at times video content.
So she didn't watch all the videos, just so you know, right?
She's got a whole report here. She didn't watch all the videos.
And she collected data for approximately 65 influencers across 81 channels.
And subscriber counts range from about 10,000 for a pro-white gender traditionalist woman who goes by the pseudonym Wife with a Purpose to about 2.5 million.
For former reality television host and current YouTube talk show host, Jo Rogan.
Well, I guess Jo got snagged as well.
So she watched hundreds of hours of content and all that kind of stuff.
And that's fascinating as well because she watched hundreds of hours of content.
Now listen, I'm gonna be authentic in a carefully calibrated way.
I'm gonna be authentic. Listen, when I sit down and I watch a lot of content from people I disagree with, they usually have a couple of good arguments.
Like, I can watch a Michael Moore film.
I get some good arguments out of that.
I can read a Noam Chomsky book.
I can get some good arguments out of that.
So the idea that she's watched hundreds of hours of content and not found one fact, one argument, anything that is even remotely compelling, that is...
Boy, that's a sealed chamber now.
Nothing gets in and out.
Nothing gets in or out.
That is just amazing.
Well, you know, this argument was actually pretty good.
I watched this argument and I had a tough time pushing back against the data or nothing like that.
It's like, they're Nazis.
I'm paraphrasing here. They're Nazis.
Watch hundreds. Oh, they're still Nazis.
Nothing has changed, which, you know, it's just wild.
All right. The boundaries of this network are loose and constantly changing.
Some people have deleted their channels, blah, blah, blah.
Here we go. Here we go.
Let's have a look at how this all works.
So, figures are connected by an interlocking series of videos, references, and guest appearances.
A hodgepodge of internet celebrities claiming a variety of political positions impart their ideologies to viewers and each other.
That's right. I have people on my show I disagree with quite a bit.
We can have friendly conversations about areas of common interest, or sometimes we'll have a debate, or sometimes we'll disagree.
That is... That's diversity, isn't it?
That's the marketplace of ideas and so on.
And here you go again. See, this is the programming happening again, right?
Many identify themselves primarily as libertarians or conservatives.
Others self-advertise as white nationalists.
So again, libertarian, conservative, white nationalists.
That's the continuum. You're being programmed to think about all of this sort of stuff, right?
All right. So they don't like social justice warriors.
There's one primary idea.
Doesn't like social justice warriors.
You know, it's interesting. I mean, I don't know, Rebecca, if you consider yourself a social justice warrior, but I will say this.
If social justice warriors or this leftist collectivist stuff involves trying to get YouTube to shut down these conversations, these channels, that may be one of the reasons why this group is dislikes, right? So originally targeted at feminists, and of course, because feminists, I mean, we're not talking about equal rights for women.
I mean, feminism has gone way beyond that a long time ago.
But yeah, I mean, if I say all of Group X or a large percentage of Group X are rapists or potential rapists or patriarchs, exploiters, wife beaters, like, you name it, right?
Well, those people will get upset.
And rightly so. And rightly so.
So sure, if you feminists are continually...
Abusing men at some point, yeah, you're going to get some pushback and all of that, right?
All right. So...
So among the 80-plus channels she catalogued, found a highly connected network of influencers across numerous ideological positions.
That just doesn't catch Joe Rogan.
Jordan Peterson is in there as well.
The network includes media pundits with mainstream appeal.
Now, Jordan Peterson...
He's not a media pundit.
I mean, he is a deep, occasionally murky thinker with some very powerful data to bring to bear on social issues.
He's analysis of Economics and intelligence and his empathy for people at the left end of the bell curve and intelligence is wonderful and powerful stuff.
So, just Jordan Peterson?
A media pundit?
He's not a media pundit. The guy is a best-selling professor of psychology.
Anyway. Self-identified white nationalists such as Richard Spencer.
Ah, you see, while Peterson and Spencer have never collaborated directly.
I'm sorry. What is that flyby collaboration?
They were seen at the same airport at the same time.
What does that mean?
While Peterson and Spencer have never collaborated directly, they have both collaborated with the same influencer, Carl Benjamin.
But Carl Benjamin was opposing Richard Spencer.
So I'm not really sure what that means.
So, let's see here.
So, in a live-streamed video from less than a year before, April 2017, Jordan Peterson and Carl Benjamin, target of a card, have a friendly conversation in which they promote gender traditionalism, deny the existence of a gender pay gap, and claim that IQ is the highest predictor of success.
I'm not sure what gender traditionalism means.
See, funny thing about life, you need more of it if you're going to continue As a society, right?
So, if you want to have kids, someone has to have kids.
Now, eeny meeny miny you, it is nature who has determined that women grow the baby and give birth and are needed to breastfeed, all those kinds of things.
Gender traditionalism means you need kids And if you don't have kids, your civilization dies.
You know, women's rights, kind of a uniquely Western concept.
And so if the West as a culture dies because nobody's having any kids or transmitting these values, women's rights will vanish from the face of the earth.
Now, I kind of want women's rights to continue in the face of the earth because...
I have a wonderful daughter, a lovely wife, many female friends who I want to see do well.
And if, let's say, you end up replacing Western culture with, say, Muslim culture, I think it's theoretically possible that women's rights, women's independence might take just a tiny little bit of a blow, right? Gender traditionalism simply means we should have kids, and that means that women should breastfeed.
Deny the existence of a gender pay gap.
Now here you can see the gender pay gap is real and it's only caused by sexism.
Now they've not denied the existence of a gender pay gap.
Do you know why? Because there's a gender pay gap.
Nobody denies the existence of a gender pay gap.
What they say, I haven't watched this one either, but I can guarantee you that what they say is that the gender pay gap is for reasons other than rampant male sexism and denigration of women.
It's not because men are exploiting and destroying and preying upon women.
It is because of other reasons.
Women want to have kids.
Women choose less high-paying occupations.
Women take more time off.
These are choices. Women are free to have choices.
And some of those choices on aggregate are going to result in lower salaries.
I mean, not a lot of women going into oil and petroleum engineering.
A lot of women going into social work and so on and teachers.
And claim that IQ is the highest predictor of success.
Shouldn't you verify that claim and claim that IQ is the highest predictor of success?
Well, it kind of is.
You know, it kind of is.
You can look up IQ studies going back more than a century in the field of psychology and IQ is the highest or one of the highest predictors of success.
So you got hundreds of hours into watching these videos.
Any fact checks at all?
No. Because, you see, on the left, on this collectivist mindset, all group differences are the result of bigotry.
All group differences are the result of bigotry.
Some group differences can't be explained as the result of bigotry, like why do East Asians, like Japanese, Chinese, South Koreans, why do they make more money than white people in majority white countries?
Why? Well, IQ explains that, because they on average have a higher IQ than white people.
Why do the tiny minority, like the Ashkenazi Jews, make even more money than East Asians?
Because they have a higher IQ. So IQ explains group differences.
Why do Hispanics make less money on average than East Asians?
Because they have a lower IQ. Why do Blacks make less money on average than Hispanics, because blacks have a lower IQ on average.
Again, lots of individual differences.
Never judge an individual by group averages, but when you're zooming out and you're talking about massive group averages and differences, that's the example.
So you have two competing explanations for the differences in group outcomes.
One is all racism, all prejudice, all sexism, all the time.
Another is it's complicated.
Yeah, there's some sexism.
Yeah, there's some racism. But there's also these other factors which need to be taken into account.
And anyway.
Okay. So here, what's interesting, and I'm trying to not poke the cliché hot button, but I can't help but notice that this woman...
I'm going to say it.
This woman has not actually dealt with any facts.
She's only talked about relationships.
Because, you know, apparently cliches could be hard to avoid at times.
Okay, so figure one. How tightly connected influences in the AIN are.
Blah, blah, blah. Okay, so here we go.
This is the big scattergraph here.
Okay, so guest appearances on the network.
The network! It's not a network.
It's just people who occasionally do shows together and mostly forget about each other the rest of the time.
Guest appearances on the network from January 1st, 27th through April 1st, 2018.
A partial representation of collaborative connections.
See, partial.
Why? Oh, you see, here we go.
Libertarianism, conservatism to over-white nationalism.
Just that repetition. You've got to grind those phrases in so that people start to think, well, libertarianism, that's one step away from conservatism.
That's one step away from white nationalism.
It's really not. Ah, so partial representation.
Why? How did you choose?
How do you choose who's in there and who's not in there?
Anyway, so I'm not going to read all of these, but...
Hey, there's Lauren Southern.
And I'm in there.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Here we go. Stefan Molyneux.
I'm sort of right there. Look. I'm square.
Yeah, I've done a lot of interviews with people.
And there's Dave Rubin and Brittany Pettibone, Blonde in the Belly of the Beast.
There's Sagan of a Cot. Wait, who's bigger?
Who's darker? I don't know.
Black Pigeon Speaks. I know some of these people.
I don't know others, but...
Yeah, these are all...
Oh, there's Milo! Milo Yiannopoulos.
So... Oh, Computing Forever.
Oh, he's just way out there.
But, yeah, so...
I don't know about you, but this kind of strikes me like, you know, in A Beautiful Minds, Russell Crowe's character's got all this...
Magnesium influences the price of everything.
The future of the world is determined by sunspots.
I've got these diagrams.
It's just kind of stalky in a way, I think.
Women and minorities and LGBTQ issues and so on.
Well, there's some minorities in here.
There's some gay people in here.
There's women in here.
Just wanted to point that out.
But you see, this, what does it mean?
People have done shows with each other.
People find each other's arguments interesting.
And these people are not all libertarians, certainly not.
Not all conservatives. There are some people, like Tim Pooles pointed out, that he's kind of left a center on a lot of social issues.
But there are lines, you see?
And when there's lines, there's lines.
So anyway, I just think that's...
See, this is like, you could have spent some time, you see, analyzing arguments to find out where people are incorrect, right?
You've made a mistake here, you've made a mistake there.
You could analyze arguments, or you can do all of these rubber band things, which is weird.
It's weird. Spider lines are not an argument.
What does this mean? I don't know.
All right. So I'm not going to get into all of this.
You can get into all of this.
And this, you know, six degrees of separation stuff is kind of weird, right?
So Ben Shapiro is connected to white nationalist Richard Spencer through the vlogger and commentator roaming millennial.
No, he's not.
He's not connected to Richard Spencer.
I shared a glass that had been washed three days before that was once drunk by person X. We have a connection.
Listen, I don't know, I guess this woman does.
When you go on someone's show, You don't go on that person's show saying, I have to scan through everything they've ever done and see if there's any controversy.
Do you know why? Because everybody has some controversy who's had two seconds thought in their entire life.
If you have half a brain, you've had some controversy.
Of course, right? Because if you haven't had any controversy, You're not thinking for yourself.
So, you don't go through everyone's history.
Oh, well, they interviewed this person, they interviewed this.
Can't, right? So, what this is designed to do is to break down community, to break down any kind of connections that people might, and make people isolate, right?
What's the whole point of the Olinsky, the rules for radical stuff, right?
Freeze an enemy.
Polarize it. Isolate.
Isolate, right? The whole point is to cut all of these lines.
Nobody can talk to anyone else!
It's brutal. That's brutal.
And it is a particularly kind of Mean Girls thing, right?
Which is we're gonna ostracize and isolate you and so on, right?
So Dave Rubin, comedian turned pundit, who hosts a YouTube talk show of 750,000 channel subscribers.
He's a classical liberal. A variation on a libertarian embrace of small government and individual liberty.
Ah, see, that's interesting.
So she includes libertarianism in far-right ideology and then says it's small government and individual liberty.
In other words, individual liberty is far-right.
And that really couldn't be a better advertisement for the far-right than I could think of, right?
Because it's not. Far-right is fascistic and national socialist, according to most people's, right?
Ah, the intellectual dark web rears its sticky, webby head.
So the intellectual dark web is kind of a construct that's been invented so that...
The mainstream media can say, okay, well, we'll accept people who are in the intellectual dark web, but not other people, right?
So like Cernovich and me, we're not...
Okay, we'll give you guys nice pictures, but other people, no, right?
So it's a way of drawing a line and dividing a particular group of people or whatever it is, right?
It's natural. It's divide and conquer kind of stuff, and people fall for it all the time.
So... Reuben also hosts a range of influences outside of the sub-community, including those with more openly extremist views.
These guests include Stefan Molyneux, a talk show host who promotes scientific racism, and Lauren Southeron, a Canadian citizen journalist who has since been barred from entering England because of her vehement anti-Islam and anti-immigration activism.
Boy, Rebecca, you should learn a little bit more about some Islamic beliefs.
You might consider some of them radical.
It's possible. It's possible.
But of course, she doesn't want to pick on people who might hit back, right?
A talk show host who promotes scientific racism.
And again, that is a terrible thing to say, to call someone a racist because I talk about facts.
Just for those who don't know, and this should be obvious to anybody with half a brain, but I'll say it anyway because it needs to be said, I suppose.
I'm actually, I'm combating racism.
You understand? I'm combating racism.
I'm trying to cool racial animosity and I'm trying my very best, my level best, my very hardest to try and stave off escalating racial conflicts that can end in a race war.
I am doing my absolute level best to cool people's jets and restore Any kind of positive relationship between the races.
That is the whole point of what it is that I talk about.
I am trying to combat racism.
Because you see, if you have an explanation that says all group differences are the result of racism, then you are calling white people in general, racists.
Now, if there's another explanation, IQ, culture, environment, whatever it's going to be, then you're wrong.
And you're actually calling people racists unjustly.
And you are also telling black people that there's this horrible white conspiracy to keep black people down, to keep Hispanics down, and there's not.
There's not. I've met, I don't even know how many thousands of people in my life, and I've never met someone who said, yeah, I'm willing to sacrifice like a quarter of my income just to keep black people in ghettos.
It doesn't happen. This is not how the actual world works.
And so I am doing my very level best to reduce friction, hostility, paranoia, rage between the races by talking about scientific, factual, alternative explanations for differences in group outcome.
There are lots of talented Black people, talented Hispanic people, brilliant Blacks and Hispanics who can go as far as their talents will take them.
But if you say to those people too, well, there's this monolithic white racism and they all hate you and they all want to keep you down and so on, you're strangling their potential.
It's brutal on people.
It's hideous on people. And it causes an ever escalation of resentment and blowback.
So I just want to point that out that I am striving my very level hardest best to reduce racial tensions, to push back against racism by talking about scientific facts.
So, and I don't think she's correct about why Lauren Southern.
Okay. So, Ruben has also hosted Carl Benjamin, who, by the way, what a lovely voice, don't you think?
I mean, it's very soothing.
It's like somebody pouring heavily bearded hot chocolate into your ear, gently and nicely.
But... All right, so he's a skeptic.
Yes, that's fair.
Classical liberal. So this is like a mid-19th century liberal, small government and so on.
It's like libertarian, but with a bit more intellectual pedigree and so on.
And let's see.
Oh yeah, in his video with Spencer, Benjamin was presumably debating against scientific racism, a stance he frequently echoes.
So here's the thing, right?
Even if you argue against people, you infect people with their ideas.
You can't even expose people to the ideas of Richard Spencer.
You can't. Because why?
Why? Because people can't think for themselves.
Well, again, maybe that's projection.
But why? Why? I can watch a speech of Hitler's, who I vehemently oppose.
I can watch a speech of Hitler's, and I don't just, bing, Nazi!
I watched a speech of Hitler, right?
You can, the whole, it is a mark of intellectual sophistication and basic intelligence, and this goes all the way back to Aristotle.
It's a mark of intellectual sophistication to be able to entertain an idea without agreeing with it, to be able to put yourself in the shoes of an opponent to understand how they work and how they think, and doesn't mean you get infected, right?
If you don't have any intellectual barriers and you get exposed, well, look at this, this woman exposed herself Let me rephrase that.
This woman watched hundreds of hours of alt-media media.
Did she change her mind?
No. So you see, you can be exposed to literally hundreds of hours of opposing arguments and not budge or shift your intellectual position one tiny micro-inch.
So... So she...
Presumably debating against scientific racism.
What did he mean, presumably? Was he or wasn't he?
You watched it, right? No.
By participating in the debate, he was building a shared audience and thus a symbiotic relationship with white nationalists.
Oh dear, oh dear.
So you can't oppose white nationalists.
The other thing too, there are very few white nationalists and almost no Nazis left in the West.
Do you know who's mostly responsible for exposing people to the ideas of Richard Spencer and other people like him?
The mainstream media, who continually puts cameras in the guy's face and other people's face, who go down and anytime anyone gets together who's a white supremacist, they've got cameras in all of their faces, they're broadcasting these ideas like crazy!
If simply having anything to do with radicals is a bad thing, it's bad for Sargon of Akkad, it's bad for Dave Rubin, it's bad for whoever, if simply having anything to do, any engagement, any...
Contact with these radicals is really bad.
Well, it's the mainstream media who keeps pumping these people up, who keeps saying there's a Nazi under every pincushion.
So get mad at the mainstream media, they're much more influence than others.
All right, so yeah.
Now, Jared Taylor, interesting, I had a chat with Jared Taylor.
The only time I've ever heard Jared Taylor cornered with regards to what he wants done politically, he says that he wants to get rid of race-based laws.
He wants to get rid of all laws that take into account race.
That's not white supremacists, that's saying equality under the law, which apparently some people don't like.
So, let's see here.
Benjamin, this is Sargon, discussed one of his conversations with Robertson.
Even though he does not embrace white nationalist ideas, he says, quote, in many ways, we do have similar objectives.
We have the same enemies, right?
I mean, you guys hate the social justice warriors.
I hate the social justice warriors.
I want to see the complete destruction of social justice.
If the alt-right took the place of the social justice warriors, I would have a lot less to fear.
Right. And this whole article is complete confirmation of that.
Because the alt-right isn't sitting there saying, well, we've got to de-platform these people and we want YouTube to check and allow who's allowed to go on whose shows and what content they're allowed to say.
You can't complain about something when you're in the very process of manifesting it.
Oh yeah, Stephen Crowder.
Alright, so one could just as easily trace between the conservative entertainer Stephen Crowder, who is in fact entertaining, and the pro-white anti-immigration advocates Brittany Pettibone and Martin Selner through the talk show host and scientific racism proponents of Anne Molyneux in the latter case.
Molyneux was interviewing the couple about getting barred from entering the United Kingdom.
They were attempting to enter the country in part to interview Carl Benjamin and the anti-Islam Advocate Tommy Robinson.
So again, scientific racism proponent.
There's no arguments here.
There's no content. It's just negative, negative, negative, right?
Negative adjectives and negative descriptors and so on.
Across the AIN, influencers express a distrust of mainstream news media and a desire to use YouTube to create better alternative media system.
Yeah. Yeah, you know who else doesn't trust the mainstream media?
Just about anyone else who's not currently in the mainstream media or who likes the collectivist, socialistic, leftist bent of the mainstream media as a chance to advance their own radical agenda.
Socialism is a very radical agenda.
Communism is an even more radical agenda.
And, well, I think you get it.
So, indeed, among American audiences, only 14% of Republicans have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass media to report the news fairly, fully accurately and fairly.
Yeah, I don't know which 14% those are, but it seems rather high number to me.
Here's the thing too, and this just goes out to people as a whole, right?
So, the reason why people in alternative media Are skeptical of the mainstream media is because every time the mainstream media writes about us, they get things horribly, egregiously, nastily wrong.
They mislabel us, they don't provide any actual arguments, they don't provide or deal with any of the data, they just do these smear campaigns, this six degrees of Kevin Bacon association Games and so on.
I mean, they don't actually respond with any arguments.
It's all just nasty, nasty stuff that is said.
And so, yeah, if you ever want to, you know, there's a principle, Michael Crichton came up with it, said, you know, if you know anything about anything, like some particular topic, maybe you know computers really well, and then you watch the mainstream media, they get it wrong.
Like, the more knowledgeable you are about a topic, the more you realize the mainstream media gets things wrong.
Equally true, maybe even more true.
If you are not a collectivist, if you're not on the left, if you're not a socialist, if you're not a communist, if you're not on the left, then when you are written about by the mainstream media, you realize just what horrible liars in general they are, or at least how much they ideologically misrepresent and oversimplify things.
So we won't do the whole thing here.
It just kind of rambles on and on.
But I think that's quite interesting.
The underground press of the New Left in the 1960s pioneered a journalistic approach that focused on storytelling and authenticity rather than objectivity.
Right? So...
And she says they draw inspiration from alternative media systems of the past.
Right? So she's saying that We have learned a lot from the new left, but we are far right.
That we are emulating the new left, but we're far right.
It's wild. It's wild.
So, yeah, there are new kinds of experiments in relaying information in more meaningful and accurate ways than legacy.
Media. Institutional reputation.
And the ideal of objectivity.
Yeah, the mainstream media is not objective.
Not objective at all.
If you look at this woman who accused Brett Kavanaugh of this groping and hand-over-the-mouth stuff that occurred 36 years ago, there are about 100 times more stories on that than an ex-girlfriend of Muslim Democrat political leader who was a co-chair of the DNC,
I think. Keith Ellison, who has been accused of physical and verbal abuse by a woman, and another one of his exes, there's like a 911 call, she's got medical records, one of these women, and so the idea that the mainstream media is objective, and you just look at the corrections for heaven's sakes.
When was the last time you saw a correction that was a correction of something Negative that was said about a leftist figure that turned out to be false.
It happens to non-leftists all the time.
So the idea that they're objective is like, and just, you know, like in Washington, like the vast, vast majority of reporters gave to the Democrats and almost none of them gave to the Republicans.
So yeah, I mean, come on, there's no diversity there.
The idea that they're objective and even close to that is sort of ridiculous, right?
So, let's see here.
So, Dave Rubin.
Ah, yes, here we go. So, Dave Rubin.
Talk show host who gives a platform to many libertarian academics and anti-social justice warrior YouTubes.
He has a particular claim to individuality, publicly showcased his departure from the left-leaning alternative outlet, The Young Turks.
Ah, you see, The Young Turks.
They're not far left.
They're just left-leaning. And they are an alternative outlet, although everyone else is self-described or pretend or whatever it is, right?
Now, I'm sure that the Young Turks, which is very popular, would she ever say that they are conscientiously manipulating their public persona or engaging in whatever, trying to get up on social media rankings and all that?
Well, and I think it was Cenk Ugar of the Young Turks debated, ooh, ooh, that's right, Jared Taylor, some time back ago.
Does that mean that he is now absolutely wrong for giving a platform to Jared Taylor and introducing Jared Taylor to his audience?
And were there any positive comments under that video about Jared Taylor?
It only goes one way.
It only goes one way.
The Young Turks could be accused of absolutely everything that everyone else It's being accused of here, but because of them they're on the left.
Alright. So, oh yeah.
In 2016, he established a partnership.
This is Dave Rubin.
With Learn Liberty, an initiative housed in the Institute for Humane Studies at George Manning University, the IHS is heavily funded by the billionaire Koch family and chaired by Charles Koch.
Yeah. So Rubin is able to position himself as a free thinker and an outsider, even if he's promoted by a well-funded organization with the explicit aim of promoting libertarian ideals on behalf of wealthy donors.
Isn't that interesting?
Let's jump out of this report for a moment.
So you see, it's really, really bad for Dave Rubin to have any connection with any sort of centrally funded group.
But here, look at this.
This is the funding for Data and Society.
Generous gift from Microsoft, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Open Society Foundations.
I mean, you just name it. Look at all of these people.
Do they have any? UNICEF and so on.
Do they have any say on anything that they do?
Is there any influence? Again, if Dave Rubin...
Ah, that's terrible!
He's associated with some group that gets funded by this...
Ah, come on.
Come on. It's silly.
It's silly. Alright, so then the question of objectivity.
Now, I don't actually agree with this with a lot of people.
So, citizen journalist Lauren Southern has claimed, I would never pretend to be objective like you see CNN do and Fox News do.
She calls for quotes. Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson, Dave Rubin cites the incorrect media predictions for the 2016 presidential election as evidence that mainstream institutions mask their opinions as facts.
So, it's kind of like a post-modernist thing where people say, well, everyone's biased.
I'm just honest about my biases.
And, well, as a philosopher, I... I don't believe that everyone is biased, and you have to really fight like heck against your biases by going back to data, reason, and evidence.
So, I don't quite understand this lighting stuff.
So, in one video, conservative vlogger Blair White starts by telling our audience, hey guys, if I look different, it's because I have different lighting, and it's supposed to be like beauty lighting, but I feel like I just look so pale.
So, there's lighting. There's lighting in videos.
I believe there's also lighting at CNN, just not moral lighting.
Cultivating authenticity is itself a contradiction.
I don't know what that means.
Are you honest? I mean, I'm honest and So on.
So does that mean all honesty is manipulation?
Well, does this mean that this woman is being honest and therefore being manipulative?
Or this group? So let's just find I showed up one more time down here.
Not to talk about me, but you know, it's the stuff that I know the best.
So yeah, here we go.
Women, minorities, and so on.
And the political influences of the AAN consistently project the idea that non-progressives are persecuted against because of their beliefs.
You mean like in this entire policy paper where YouTube has been called on to shut down people who go on other people's shows and to police the content of peaceful conversations?
Yeah. It's not paranoia.
It's really not. And you should, if you haven't seen Candace Owens' video, Mom, Dad, I'm Conservative, is brilliant and absolutely hilarious.
She is just too funny for words.
And again, if you know something, right, so James Damore, who came on my show, the Google engineer, she says, this woman says, who was fired in July 2017 after sharing a memo promoting biologically determinist misogyny as an explanation for gender disparities within the company.
No. He actually didn't do anything like that whatsoever.
What he did say was men and women have in free societies, and the more free the society, the more men and women make different choices.
So men and women make different choices, and if we want more women in higher areas of authority or in management or executive positions, we should take these into account and specifically gear our company towards helping leverage women's strengths.
It was not misogyny at all.
But again, any biological explanations for group differences threaten the existing power structure which is built upon tabula rasa, blank slate, and all group differences are the result of bigotry and evil and prejudice and nastiness.
It is a religion, you understand?
It's got a devil, kind of a pale devil.
It's got a devil and it's just a religion and you can't argue against it.
In fact, arguing against the religion, like in some Islamic countries, is just downright evil and should be suppressed, right?
So, deplatforming, yeah, it's a big problem.
And what can I tell you?
It is a big problem and people have pretty hideous stuff that remains monetized and people that is pretty neutral ends up being demonetized and it is a big problem.
It is a big problem. Hi, Paul!
Hope you're doing well. So yeah, political correctness has gone wild.
It has gone wild to the point where even bringing up scientific facts puts you in the camp of being a hideously ugly, nasty, racist or whatever.
That's a problem, you know? You can't deny facts.
So, let's...
Here we go.
So, he talks...
She talks again about Dave Rubin.
And that he was watching an episode of The Bill Maher Show featuring the philosopher and horseman of atheism, Sam Harris.
And yeah, this is a pretty famous clip.
Sam Harris got into an argument with Ben Affleck about contemporary Islam.
And because Sam Harris was neither a slot machine nor an alcoholic beverage, Ben Affleck got really upset and opposed him.
And I think Sam Harris made some very good arguments in that, and that was something Everyone who's awake has a moment of awakening because we're born awake and then we're put to sleep In schools and through propaganda and then we have a moment where we wake up and we begin to think for ourselves.
So the famous philosopher Immanuel Kant said that he was shaken out of his dogmatic slumber by particular issues and that's what got him going.
So yeah, that happens and I think it's a very fascinating phenomenon and can happen in a number of different ways as well.
I mean certainly people who have been part of the far right have their own awakenings where they learn Different things and identify different things that they want to research and so on.
And I think that's useful and powerful and helpful.
All right. So let me just see here.
The golden one.
I like this. He fashions his politics around hyper-traditional gender roles, commitment to physical fitness and martial arts, and a self-aggrandizing mythology drawn in part from the Lord of the Rings and the tabletop miniature war game Warhammer 40,000.
Okay, he's buff, man.
He is seriously buff and seriously shaved.
I don't blame him for having his shirt off if I look like that.
Well, that's how I go to the bank.
Let's do this last little bit here where I show up again.
Yeah, so they're upset with search engine optimization because everybody should just want to hide, right?
Why would you ever want to be part of The conversations in society just hide, hide, hide, right?
So let's just end up here because my...
Interview with Dave Rubin has shown up down here.
And let's get to that. And again, you know, you can read this whole thing.
I think it's interesting.
And here we go.
Okay. So in one illustrative example of this process, Dave Rubin hosted the Canadian right-wing influencer, Stéphane Molyneux, for an interview.
Now, technically, I'm what referred to as an anarcho-capitalist, which means I'm for a stateless society, no government at all.
So, I don't know how that puts me in the right wing camp, but again.
Oh no, I'm a libertarian!
See, and again, I've got books on my website, Everyday Anarchy, Practical Anarchy, you name it, right?
It's really not that hard to figure out, but this is the lack of research that goes into this.
So, here I am. What do I do?
That's so terrible.
Molyneux openly promotes scientific racism, advocates for the men's rights movement, criticizes initiatives devoted to gender equity, and promotes white supremacist conspiracy theories focused on white genocide and the Great Replacement.
Well, white genocide, eh, Great Replacement?
Well, that's just demographics. I mean, that's statistic, right?
So Canada was like 98% white, When I was growing up, and then in less than half a century, or a little bit over half a century, and this I got from a Canadian academic who told me about it, whites are going to be like 20% of the population.
So, yes, there is a replacement that's going on.
Just look at the birth rates of whites versus non-whites in Europe.
I'm sorry if the math is confusing, but there is a replacement that's going on here.
Scientific racism, again, that's just a non-issue.
who advocates for the men's rights movement.
So, I don't know what that means.
Advocates for the men's rights movement, and that's bad.
Does that mean that anybody who advocates for women's rights is also bad?
Do I critique initiatives devoted to gender equity?
No. See, and this is equity, right?
So there's equality under the law, there's equality of opportunity, then there's equality of outcome.
One is freedom, the other is tyranny, right?
You know, you got a running race.
If everyone just gets to start at the same spot, run as fast and as hard as they want, and then they get to end, that's called equality of opportunity.
If everyone has to cross the finish line at the same time, that's called equality of outcome.
So no, I do want gender equality.
Absolutely, I want gender equality under the law.
Gender equity of outcome is tyranny, and that's bad.
Alright, so when Molyneux appeared on Ruben's show, Ruben did not directly endorse his views, but the host also did not challenge them in any substantive way.
Ruben largely let Molyneux dominate the terms of the conversation.
Take, for instance, this clip from the interview when Ruben first brings up Molyneux's beliefs about IQ. See, they're just beliefs.
It's not that I've interviewed subject matter experts.
It's not that I presented the data.
It's not that I presented the history of the arguments.
They're just my beliefs.
And it's, you know, if it's an interview, it's interesting.
If it's an interview, it's one thing.
If it's a debate, it's another.
So Rubin said, people think that there is somehow a racist element to it.
Do you want to make your basic argument around race and IQ? Molyneux, I said, it's like saying, do you want to make your argument that the sun is the center of the solar system?
It's like, well, it's not a personal thing.
Like, this is not an idea I have come up with.
All right, I'm glad you counted with that, says Rubin, because in a way, my question accidentally was almost a setup.
And yeah, I was, I am, I was, I'm getting more used to it now, but yeah, I was heartbroken about race and IQ, saying this is one of the most difficult facts I've had to absorb in my life.
Rather than challenging Molyneux's racist claims, blah, blah, blah.
But is there evidence it's genetic?
Yes. Genetic in what regard, says Rubin?
I mean, if we took the brain of a 25-year-old black man and the brain of a 25-year-old white man, what is it that they're doing that they're different sizes, I say?
Yes. Yeah. And...
Yeah, that is...
Rubin follows up with a question about these factors without ever addressing Molyneux's claims about brain sizes.
Well, racial brain sizes are different.
It's not a claim. And if it's bad for Rubin to not follow it up, why wouldn't the woman who wrote this follow it up and find out?
Listen, if I'm wrong about that, please let me know, because I don't want to say things that are wrong, but I've checked the six different ways from Sunday, so...
So here we go. Further in the video description, Ruben posts a number of links to resources provided by Stefan's team about race and intelligence and encourages viewers to do more research on your own.
And that is exactly, that is exactly what I told people at the beginning of that interview, which is done very well on, and I admire.
Dave Rubin for having that conversation, for having me on, and he hit me with harder and harder topics, and I welcome that.
I think it's great. It's great to get the pushback, it's great to get the feedback, and it's great to bring these things out into the open.
And so, yeah, a number of links to resources such as interviews to subject matter experts and links to scientific studies about race and intelligence.
So yeah, do research on your own.
Here's the science, here's the data.
Among other promotional materials, Ruben lists Stefan Molyneux's Twitter account as well as the name of his book.
Yeah. I wrote a book.
It wasn't on Race and IQ. I've never written a book on Race and IQ. But anyway, so this is me and Dave having these conversations.
And yeah, apparently this is just terrible.
So here, take for example the following comment made about Molyneux's appearance on The Rubin Report.
Someone said, I never heard of this guy before, and they started talking about how he is super controversial and hated.
But I watched the whole thing, and I didn't hear anything that I would consider controversial.
He seems to be extremely intelligent.
I'm going to subscribe to his channel and check him out.
So, yeah.
Now, just in case you thought I was problematic, Larry Elder, who is a great thinker and debater.
2016, Rubin hosted an interview with the Libertarian and Conservative radio commentator, Larry Elder.
He is African American.
Elder tries to convince Rubin that racism does not exist in contemporary society.
And again, this is a problem.
It is a problem for the whole argument that all group differences are the result of prejudice and bigotry.
Any other explanations are racist and evil and so on.
Again, it is just...
it's terrible and it is kind of like a cult.
Like you can't question it, you can't oppose it, you can't bring any other data to it, and it's just terrible.
So anyway, I think we get the general idea.
And we go to the conclusion, and you can read that.
The show says, ah, in many ways, YouTube is built to incentivize the behavior of these political influencers.
Yeah, and if you, like if this woman, Rebecca, were to come out with an argument about race and IQ that's based on science, do you think that any of your backers would have a problem?
Do you think that George Soros' group might have a problem with you putting out that argument?
Of course, right? So your group takes a bunch of money from some significantly or largely left-wing groups.
That's going to have a huge influence on what you put out.
I don't take any money from any large groups.
I take my money from, or I ask for money from the listeners, from the watchers to the show, freedomainradio.com slash donate if you'd like to help out.
So who has more freedom?
Who has more independence?
So, YouTube monetizes influence for everyone, regardless of how harmful their belief systems are.
When I was a kid, I was just thinking about this the other day, so when I was a kid, you'd hear, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.
How is a belief system harmful?
Okay, some belief systems can be extraordinarily harmful.
One of the biggest murder fests in history was the Muslim invasion of India.
80 million people killed.
If you look at the death toll of communism, 200 million people.
So there are some belief systems that I guess when put into practice are harmful and the whole point is we want to keep examining and cross-examining these belief systems so that we can figure out which ones are harmful when put into practice.
So what can I tell you?
What can I tell you?
We just know that the antidote to bad ideas to bad speech is more ideas and more free speech.
So yeah, there is free speech and There is tyranny, and that's really all.
And, you know, if you can't compete, you know, if you can't compete, then you need to find another job, right?
Like, I mean, I can't compete in basketball, so I don't I don't play basketball professionally.
I'm not a very flexible person, so I don't do a whole lot of ballet for money.
In fact, none.
If you can't compete, you should do something else.
I don't know. There's no content here.
There's no content whatsoever.
There is just this sinister, dark, nasty idea that somehow YouTube needs to shut down people whose ideas this woman finds offensive or upsetting.
