https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=qH-_g3nbY5Y
So today I wanted to do a little video about being fooled and how to avoid it. This is a critical thinking tool that I’m hoping that you can use. So it’s a tool that I use and it’s to avoid being fooled by a particular construction. And it’s a construction you probably don’t notice because it’s very sneaky. And this construction is basically my right or the rights of others. When we’re talking about my right or we’re appealing to a group who have rights, it sounds very positive. It has a positive affect to it. We’re saying this positive thing should be manifest in the world. The problem is, and Jordan Peterson talks about this, but other people point it out too, your rights are my responsibility. So they’re making a positive statement, but that’s to highlight the negative. And the negative is the thing that somebody has to do. So they’re saying I have a right or this person has a right and therefore you need to do X, Y, and Z. And maybe that’s not true. First of all, how are they claiming they have a right? Is that true? There are rights we can claim, sure, absolutely. But it’s not unfettered. You can’t claim you have the right to take other people’s money with no reason. That’s not your right. And people do claim that. All socialists claim that. They claim I’m entitled to all of your work effort with compensation at my choosing. Okay, no, that’s not your right. You can assert that it’s your right. You can say that. Or you could say, for example, dogs should have the right to get married. And this isn’t an illogical or irrational statement. It’s not illogical or irrational. It’s just based on stupidity. If marriage is a right, and I don’t think it necessarily should be or is, then you can always call out an equivalency argument and say, well, if anybody, if these two people can get married, then anybody can get married. But the problem with doing things like this is that it destroys the thing that you’re doing it with. So if dogs can get married, what is marriage? Like now it doesn’t exist because it’s universal. And universalism often appeals to rights. It often says, well, if this person has a right, then I also have a right. And it also extends rights to be things that aren’t rights. So you might posit that, well, Elon Musk has a billion dollars and he has a right to have that billion dollars. Therefore, I have a right to a billion dollars. It’s not illegal. It’s not, you know, a bad thing. Right. But it’s also not irrational. It’s not illogical. You know, but it’s wrong. That’s the important part. And the implication is that somebody has to change something in order to get you your right or to get a group their right. Whatever that is could be the group of dogs that want to get married. I don’t know. Right. And when you’re not the person claiming the right, who are you to claim rights for somebody else? And if you are the person claiming the right, who are you to know what rights are valid? Because we don’t decide these things individually. You’re making an individualistic claim. Now, that’s one of two claims there. That’s either the claim that you are wise and knowledgeable enough about the world and contain enough intelligence and have worked out that you. Are able to make the assertion about a right. That’s a pretty big claim, but that’s an individualistic claim. This is a subjective thing at that point. In the other case, you’re claiming that you have the authority to speak for a group you’re not in or a group that’s not present or a group that you are in, but maybe are not representative of. So that’s a bold claim. Like you’re both bold claims. Like one is something like, well, I’m smart and in charge. And the other one is, well, I’m in charge of this group. And maybe you are, but maybe you’re not. And that’s where the problem comes in. So and even if you are, let’s suppose you’re in charge of some group of marginalized people or dogs that want to get married or whatever it is. The problem with that construction is that just because you’re in charge of something doesn’t mean you get to tell people outside of that group what to do. So don’t be fooled by this. When you hear people speaking as an authority for a group, don’t assume that that group is real. Don’t assume that they’re an authority. Don’t assume that the group agrees on the issue and don’t assume that the group agrees on that person representing them, because all of those might be false. There might not be a group. And to the extent there is a group, they might not agree on anything ever. And then, you know, because you can draw an arbitrary group. You know, you can make the set of all dogs that want to get married. I don’t know how to define that. But I just made the group like now it exists. Sure, propositionally. But it’s not a real group. Let’s face it. I just kind of made it up so that I could do this video in the moment. So is it a real group? Is it not a real group? It’s as real a group as many other groups are, you know, that are being claimed. And then they’re using that authority that they’ve self-generated either with an individualistic claim or a representative authoritative claim to impose upon maybe you, maybe other people, maybe you and other people. Right. Or maybe not even people, maybe the government. If I have this right and it’s being violated, it’s the government’s job to fix that. Maybe. Probably not. Probably not. The government has been pretty good so far with its collective intelligence at, you know, getting the right balance there, we’ll say. Not that it does a particularly good job, but a small group is not going to do a better job. A small group that somebody ginned up yesterday that doesn’t exist is not going to do a better job than the government that’s been around for a couple hundred years. So that’s something to keep in mind. And so you don’t want to get fooled by that. You don’t want to get fooled by the trick of somebody stating a positive right and making a bunch of claims that they may or may not have the authority to make or the ability to understand. Right. So don’t get fooled by that because basically what they’re trying to do is force you to do what they want and usually how they want it. Right. Because rights can be very specific. I don’t know they’re all valid rights or that specific. In fact, I tend to think rights cannot be specific, but people are making these claims. And you should always be careful when anybody makes any claims. You should always put on your critical thinking hat and say things like, all right, well, if this is a group, can I prove it? Right. Because there’s a claim there and you want to check all the claims. In order for this to be a group, what else would have to be true? Right. You can say, OK, the axioms are this is a group. This is a right. And this is a right that that group has or claims and that it’s a valid right. But you can go through each of those, however many axioms there are, and question them. Right. And it’s good to question people. Like, just because somebody says something doesn’t make it mean it’s true. If they say it on the news, that doesn’t mean it’s true. If they say it with a badge, you know, or some sort of piece of paper to their PhD, it doesn’t mean it’s true. It might be right. It might even be true, but it might not. And most mostly people don’t say true things because people don’t know the truth. So you want to be careful. You want to use your critical thinking. You want to suss out. And check your intuition. Like, whoa, when somebody says that, how do I feel? Right. Am I empathizing with them? Empathy can be a very dangerous tool. Be careful when you use that. Right. Am I sympathizing with them? Maybe you shouldn’t sympathize with them until you know what they’re up to. Right. Or does it make me feel upset? Right. Does it make me feel like I’ve done something wrong? Because that’s a big danger sign. Usually if your intuition makes you feel like you’ve done something wrong when you’re just sitting there taking in information, that’s a sign that you’re being manipulated. Right. That’s a sign that there’s something afoot from the other person because that shouldn’t be happening. Right. You shouldn’t hear something from somewhere or read something or encounter a mean and have it make you feel guilty. All right. Because it’s not it doesn’t know you. And so if you’re feeling guilty from an accusation from someone who doesn’t know you, it could be valid, but it’s not likely to be valid. Right. Because most likely if that person or that group or whatever doesn’t know you and you feel guilty, that’s a projection. That’s not something that happened necessarily. It might be, but most of the time it’s not. And so we can use our intuition. We can use sort of the finding of axioms and sort of figure out how to locate axioms. What are these things? How do we how do we deal with them? Right. You can use the if this is true, what else has to be true? Right. You can use the tool of just questioning. You can use all of these feelings that come up and note them. And I know that that may require a little introspective capability, but it’s something you develop over time. And and it’s something that that you can use. But when people talk about a right without talking about the corresponding responsibility, you don’t have the contrast to understand if what they’re saying is valid. And contrast is an important clue. If people aren’t providing contrast, that’s because they’re hiding something. Now, I’m not saying they’re doing this deliberately. I’m not saying they’re purposely manipulating you. Right. All I’m saying is that they’re not providing you with enough information for you to make your own decision. Right. And and that might be on purpose. It might be an accident. It might be OK, but most likely it’s not. So you have to know again, you know, and this this this this goes back to intelligibility. You have to know intelligibility. Do I need to ignore this? Is it safe to do that? Do I need to listen to this authority who’s in front of me? Right. Or do I need to get more information so I can make up my own mind? And that’s important to know. And if the person giving you or acting as the expert of the authority is not giving you information along with what they’re saying, but they’re just making assertions or putting forth axioms, that’s a that’s a real question. That’s a that’s a red flag. So avoid being fooled. Avoid being fooled by my right. Avoid being fooled by the rights of these people, because those those that’s just a way of me accusing you of not being responsible. And if you feel accused, maybe that’s bad. If you feel accused by someone you don’t know who doesn’t know you or anybody who doesn’t know you personally, that’s a dangerous thing. So watch out for that and. And just be mindful of these things, of these constructions, because they’re everywhere. But once you start noticing them, you can avoid them. And doing that, you’ll be better to take it’ll be easier for you to take better care of the thing that I’m most grateful for when you watch my videos, your time and attention.