Is it actually a good thing to trust the institutions?

[teo123]

I think that the category called "animals" is just too wide to make a coherent argument about it there. It's absurd to equivocate a dog, who obviously has feelings and desires and is able to communicate them to us, with an insect, which is probably just a reflex-driven machine.

[AMP3083]

Unlike anarchy, government can be improved. We can fixate on those stupid things and undo them.

Why Government Can Never Be FIXED!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhguDB6eOeg

Larken beat you to it, as always.

[teo123]

He is otherwise a very bright guy.

I don't know about "bright", but he is educated, I guess. Sounds a little too bookish though, and that can be a pain in the ass. If he was bright, he'd try to find another way around his opponent, instead of keep pushing logic and evidence, because sometimes it just doesn't work. If pushing to encourage people to use logic and evidence doesn't work, it's on him, not them. Figure out some other way to get them to see your perspective, and if he can't figure out another way, too bad. I actually have a video on my channel titled 'Logic & Evidence Are Not Enough'.

Anyway, not a big fan of Ask Yourself and I admit the guy can be arrogant, but I think he's right in this case.

...
You are arguing against logic and evidence.
You are arguing against logic and evidence.

"Too bookish"
Then read a book?
....
This is a debate. Debate, you know, based on arguments (logic) with evidence...

I don't have neither an Amazon account nor a credit card to buy that book. And even if I did have, I still wouldn't read that book. It's a book that perpetuates the myths used to justify the oppression of the Native Americans and the Aboriginals. That's like ten times more insulting than any conspiracy theorist is.

[EquALLity]

I don't know about "bright", but he is educated, I guess. Sounds a little too bookish though, and that can be a pain in the ass. If he was bright, he'd try to find another way around his opponent, instead of keep pushing logic and evidence, because sometimes it just doesn't work. If pushing to encourage people to use logic and evidence doesn't work, it's on him, not them. Figure out some other way to get them to see your perspective, and if he can't figure out another way, too bad. I actually have a video on my channel titled 'Logic & Evidence Are Not Enough'.

Anyway, not a big fan of Ask Yourself and I admit the guy can be arrogant, but I think he's right in this case.

...
You are arguing against logic and evidence.
You are arguing against logic and evidence.

"Too bookish"
Then read a book?
....
This is a debate. Debate, you know, based on arguments (logic) with evidence...

I don't have neither an Amazon account nor a credit card to buy that book. And even if I did have, I still wouldn't read that book. It's a book that perpetuates the myths used to justify the oppression of the Native Americans and the Aboriginals. That's like ten times more insulting than any conspiracy theorist is.

No... I'm saying that if someone thinks someone else sounds "too bookish" that they should educate themselves. I wasn't talking about a specific book. I have no clue what book you think I'm talking about.

PS I'm talking about AMP, not you.

[AMP3083]

When I say "too bookish" I mean someone who has been reading so many books that he eventually becomes the books, and in the process loses himself. They become too contrived and not the real thing. I'm probably not as educated in many areas here as you guys are, but I do love education. Sometimes it's more important to just connect with the other person, and we must try not to let too much of our own education get in the way of that.

[teo123]

I have no clue what book you think I'm talking about.

I thought you were referring to the book called "The Better Angels of Our Nature" by a neuroscientist called Steven Pinker, that I and Brimstone were discussing.
That guy thinks he has solved one of the biggest questions in sociology: what causes violence and how to decrease it.

Well, there are two possibilities here:
A) He is a brilliant guy who has figured out all of the todays sociology, and even something more, by himself, from his knowledge of some distantly related field of science.
B) He is missing a few very important things.

And I am pretty sure it's B. His theories go vastly against both the most basic common sense and the evidence from recent history (that decrease in government power almost always results in less violence).

In linguistics, there have been quite a few attempts to prove phonosemantics (a fringe theory that phonemes themselves carry some meanings in languages) using "psychological experiments". They have repeatedly just shown their profound ignorance of linguistics. Nevertheless, they have attracted audience ignorant in linguistics.