Vaush Quotes

I do think there is a bit of a glimmer of hope. For one, as I have pointed out [...], there is a global tide of fascism that is creeping up, but if we look at comparable examples of this happening in other countries [...], there seems to be a very pronounced lack of sauce in a lot of these fascist movements -- an inability to fully collapse the liberal democracies they're built off of.

People aren't always rational, countries aren't always rational. Fascism is not rational.

No matter how good you are at debate, you always need both sides to be invested in doing it. Like, if I showed up for a debate and they just made farting noises with their mouth, I can't make a good point in that environment. It requires two people engaging with some standard of mutual competency. It's not even a matter of performing well, it's just unfun. All of the rhetorical skills that I'm interested in? Meaningless. You just scream your soundbites. That's it.

"Do you believe in unity or only winning?" What unity is there with fascists? What do you mean by that? How do you unify with them? On what issues? If "winning" means, uh, like "everyone supports what I support" and that is unity, then sure, then that, to me, is winning. Right now, unity just means trying to build bridges with fascists.

One of the most shamelessly predatory, pedophilic ideas I've ever seen taken half-seriously is The Wall. [...] The idea that women become unattractive and lose all sexual value after the age of 30. I know the harm of this specific idea is mostly hypothetical because the median believer in The Wall is, like, a fourteen-year-old boy who doesn't talk to women anyway, but it's still an example of how political ideologies can influence the extent to which predatory attitudes against women are socially normalized. To make a change for the better, y'know, you'd probably have to look into some kind of, uh, I don't know, uh, feminism thing.

The ideological leftist -- the real leftist -- would be somebody who understands that the state is fundamentally incompatible with the Marxist vision of communism. [...] So the state is, at its best, an inconvenient mechanism for facilitating the transition towards that society, which is something that I believe. I don't think we can just jump into statelessness, but I do think that the state should be treated with a significant degree of, like, scrutiny, you know? Because time and time and time again, we have seen socialist revolutions kind of, like, fall or cut under themselves because the people who ended up in charge just didn't do the socialism, they just empowered and enriched themselves at the expense of the proletariat.

I do find myself agreeing with liberals on a lot of stuff. Not, mind you, because I don't have better ideas than them -- I do, and I've argued for them -- but because the other ideas that are being thrown their way are so bad that I can't risk the left being pulled down with them. I want you guys to have a better understanding of liberals so you can better critique them. I don't want you to be complacent like the liberal, I want you to know what you're up against.

The problem with leftists is that they don't have an example to point to, right? What are you going to point to? China? The Soviet Union? No, no. If you're going to make an argument for anything leftist, you're kind of throwing darts at the wall. Not necessarily a bad dart or a bad wall, but you're having to work from first principles a little bit. This is why a lot of lefties struggle with electoralism, because electoralism is the bridge that exists right now that gets us from A to B and bridge-building is tough, but imagining the other side of the river is easy. In fact, you can see it from here, it's in your head.

First and foremost, if you're dealing with somebody who cares about you in any capacity [...] the most valuable tool you have to convince them of any position is the empathy they hold for you.

People don't like being convinced that they're wrong. In fact, our brains are unmatched in their ability to self-justify, to make us feel that we are right and to shut out any information that contradicts that. On a purely logical level, most people aren't going to be moved on a incorrect belief they have by arguing with them about it.

Social media platforms are terrible at acknowledging context and power relations when it comes to harassment, this is why so many trans people on Twitter get banned for calling their harassers TERFs, which is categorically not a slur. Hasan’s flagrant use of the word forced them to commit to a position. They committed harder than I expected, considering my ban.

The problem with Cuties on Netflix isn't that 11 years are going to watch it and feel represented. The problem is that adults if we're being charitable are going to watch it to reflect on their youth, or if we're being uncharitable they're going to watch it while ******* it to the many provocative dance scenes done by minors.