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

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

Heteroscedasticity

I think it's a bad strategy to conflate hyper masculinity and rightist politics. They might be peas in a pod, but if we treat them as the same it pushes people into the arms of rightists.

Michael

Password managers, removing my info from WhoIs, having a separate work email and keeping the email I use for logins hidden from the public, liberal use of the block button, and a whole lot of white male privilege. Crash Override has some good resources for preventing hacking and doxxing: <a href="http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com/preventingdoxing.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com/preventingdoxing.html</a>

Ian Danskin

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

Ryan Aston

It's kind of up to who invites me on their podcasts! I did record one recently for Blast from the Past with RagnarRox (who is commenting upthread, hey Ragnar), wherein we talk for a REALLY LONG TIME about Myst and Riven. I'll be sure to post something when that goes public!

Ian Danskin

GamerGaters were fond of quoting Bane from The Dark Knight Rises.

Ian Danskin

<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the+fire+rises" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the+fire+rises</a>

Michael

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

This. Totally. All the way. :)

Kait Hatch

The one thing I love about your works more than anything (it's been like that ever since TIPF) is that you take ideas and concepts I often encountered and pondered a lot about myself and put them into words that are far more concise, eloquent and on point than I could ever put them myself. Really excited for when this series goes public.

Ragnar

Welp, we'll have to agree to disagree, David.

Ian Danskin

I think it's a better strategy, but... it's complicated. Like, when someone throws out the "Bill Clinton actually does those things," are you supposed to let that slide? There's a lot of sexism wrapped up in the idea that he doesn't even need to criticize his opponent, he just needs to criticize her husband. So if you stay on-topic, are you saying that sexism isn't important? It's a kind of win-win for the Right. My reflex is to dismiss a bad argument in as few words as possible and get back on subject, but I don't know if that's the best option or not. I don't know how it works in practice.

Ian Danskin

Also the Left doesn't play the Right's game as well as the Right does.

Ian Danskin

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

Volnaiskra

just spitballing, but what are your thoughts on trying to focus on one issue and never leaving it? for example; in your video you talk about trump and the sexual harrassment / assault. if you never let the opposition move from that point rather than letting them move the goal post, is there any use in that? besides just responding to them in the first place (which has it's own repercussions towards WOC), what would be the repercussions of holding your ground in an argument with alt-right?

james

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

Alex Hambrock

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

Jonathan Vair Duncan

Yup, that's on my list of things to fix. Thanks for keeping an eye out, though! :D

Ian Danskin

only comment: at about 5:40, you say "integrity and certainty" but the words show up in the opposite order.

wow, I edited my last comment a lot

The Packbats

I had to deal with a misogynistic entitled asshole making inappropriate remarks toward someone in a meetup group I help organize once. Going into the conversation in the first place *knowing* that he was gonna try to change the subject - Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender, DARVO - was a huge help when it came to establishing, beyond question, that we were on to his shit, that he was on notice, and that, if he kept acting up, we *would* throw him out. (edit:) So, like, in that sense it *is* prescriptive advice? "If you have to have a conversation with an alt-right person for some reason, know that they will change the subject and know how you will stay on topic in spite of that." That's might be me imposing my history on the video more than the video giving me advice, tho.

The Packbats

'fraid not. As I said in the Introduction, I don't have solutions yet. Part of this process is trying properly understand the problems, after which I can sometimes safely say what not to do. In an earlier edit I gave suggestions on how to respond when someone tries to derail you, but I scrapped it because, heck, I have no idea if that actually works! And that's the trouble: in all the research I did, I never found a way of dealing with the problem that I felt fully understood what the problem was. So I'm partially hoping this series will lead to some useful discussions and expanded resources that can give me some ideas, and I'll share those as I find them. But, for now... there are gonna be some downer endings.

Ian Danskin

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

Jacob Geller