I want to talk about two rhetorical tricks that are being sort of hotly debated right
now following a lot of the recent discussion about Israel, Palestine, Dave Smith going
on Joe Rogan.
They are just asking questions and I'm no expert, but let's start with I'm no expert.
How many times have you heard people open discussions or participate in discussions
where they begin by saying something like, look, I'm no expert, but here's what I think
about what's going on.
The current example of this of course is Dave Smith on the Joe Rogan show where he specifically
claims to not be an expert on the Israel-Palestine situation and then he goes on to speak very
confidently about exactly what has happened and is happening.
I find this to be sort of a rhetorical sort of backdoor trick that's borderline dishonest.
It's like a flavor of the Motton Bailey where you, the Motton Bailey for those that don't
know is when you have two sort of retort, we have two separate arguments.
One's easy to defend and one's hard to defend.
You jump back and forth between the two arguments when you get challenged as a
like a defense tactic.
And this I'm not an expert thing can be used kind of in the same way as a defense mechanism,
a rhetorical trick to not have to be held to account for the positions that you're putting forward.
I'm not an expert.
I'm not saying I could defend any of this, but here's my position.
Here's what I think is happening.
Spoken very confident.
And then when somebody comes along and they're like, no, you're absolutely wrong.
Here's why ABC and they ask, you know, why are you out here, you know, publicly speaking
so confidently about the stuff which you clearly are not an expert on?
And they're like, yeah, I don't claim to be an expert.
These are just my opinions.
Do you see what's happened?
They've taken a position publicly and rather than defend it rather than succeed
or fail on the merits of the position they've taken, they fall back to being like,
look, I'm not an expert.
I don't have to defend this stuff.
If I'm an amateur, I find that very, very disinjected.
It should go sort of one of two ways.
If one is really knowledgeable on something, you should claim the expert title
and defend it as such.
If you've really done your research, if you have deep knowledge on the topic,
whether or not you're trained in college or written a thesis on it that was approved,
credentials are only an indication, an indicator for an expert or for expertise.
Someone that has deeply researched something over a long period of time
can be an expert in something without ever having acquired any public credentials.
So that's not what we're talking about.
For example, I never went to college for any computer engineering,
but I am absolutely an expert in many areas of computer science
through decades of self-study and practice.
And that's fine.
And if I go out there and I take a public position on a topic
and I speak with confidence, I'm going to also take on the associated title of expert.
And if somebody questions my position, I'm not going to retreat and say,
oh, yeah, well, I didn't go to college for this.
I'm not an expert.
I'm an amateur.
You know, don't listen to me.
I don't have to defend these positions.
Nonsense.
That's spineless dog shit.
If you speak confidently, you need to take on the associated burden of proof
and seriousness of your positions that an expert does.
Or you need to not speak confidently as an expert would.
Your entire speech should be littered with reminding people that you haven't
done the research, you don't know the full the entirety of the situation
or the players or moving parts involved.
And you're you should be asking a whole lot more questions than making statements
because you don't know what you're talking about.
So you should be asking a lot more questions than making statements.
I find that at least in this recent chat with Joe Rogan,
I wish Dave had picked one of those two, let's say
intellectually honest lanes.
He either should have spent the last couple years going around speaking
confidently, declaring himself an expert because he definitely does have
a lot of knowledge of the region and the situation going on
that he's gotten from other people that are also experts.
And that's fine.
So speak confidently.
Defend yourself as an expert.
Let's find out if you're right or wrong.
Let's have let's listen to him talk to another expert
and let's decide who's right and who's wrong and on which parts
but not use this as a sort of a rhetorical defense escape hatch.
Or he spent the last two years going around as an amateur
asking important questions and trying to figure this out.
And it's also fine to do that publicly on podcasts
and in public conversations with people.
It's totally fine to go on a learning adventure with other people.
But during that process, you ask a lot more questions
than you make statements and you do it with humility
and you do it to learn as you go.
And you don't speak confidently with a bunch of conclusions
because you're not an expert.
So don't act like one.
I'll leave you with one more example of this in action.
It's John Stewart, host of the Daily Show.
Wicked smart comedian, funny guy, fast thinker, fast talker,
great retortation.
Maybe the the through line here is comedians do this a lot.
They provide social commentary
and then they jump back and hide behind.
Oh, I'm just a I'm just a dumb comedian.
What do I know?
Bill isn't me. I'm not an expert.
I'm just providing confidently asserted, witty social
conclusions and taking positions that I don't want to have to defend.
It's like you need to ask them at the beginning of every conversation.
Oh, hold on, hold on.
Is your clown nose on or off for what you're about to say?
Let me know how seriously you want me to take you right now.
And if you don't want me to take you seriously, say so up front, please.
And if you do, say that up front, please.
The second thing is a more nasty, insidious trick
that I've seen for many years around certain topics.
It's very common in conspiracy theory circles.
It's very common with the more racist topics
like the Jewish question or things like that,
where you'll you'll be interacting with somebody on the topic.
And they'll ask you a bunch of questions like, you know,
why are the Jews all working together in Hollywood to push a narrative?
X, Y, Z. Why are there so many Jewish people in positions of power?
And and I know even saying these words in these orders
is probably going to get this video, I don't know, censored
or even taken down by YouTube because they have no awareness
of the fact that I'm using this as an example rather than
saying that these are my positions.
But, you know, Google never cares about truth.
So they ask a bunch of questions
that all lead you to frame in and around an issue.
It's a bunch of questions, but without ever actually outright
stating the conclusion or the position that they want to defend.
No, no, because then they would have to actually defend the position from criticism.
It's much easier if they just asking more questions.
I'm just asking questions.
What they're actually doing is dishonestly floating a narrative
without owning the burden of proof to defend that narrative
or that hypothesis or position.
It is perfectly fine to ask questions to make hypotheses and test them.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about people trying to communicate a narrative or hypothesis
or a conspiracy conjecture about what's happening or how things actually work.
But the conclusion, they don't want to say out loud
because it might sound extreme or crazy or it might be racist
or some other very uncomfortable or unpopular thing to say
or conclusion or position to hold.
They don't they don't want to see that out loud.
They don't want to speak that out loud because then they'd be held to account for it
and they'd have to defend it.
It's much easier to stop before actually making any statements
and just just ask questions.
How slimy, how spineless.
OK, so how do we deal with these people when we encounter?
I find that the answer is actually very simple.
It just requires us to be a little disagreeable.
And I find that being a little disagreeable
actually just completely cancels out so many different manipulation tactics
like these, but including many, many more.
And by disagreeable, I just mean stating what's happening outright and directly.
Hey, man, it seems like you're you're taking some pretty strong positions
and you're pretty you're speaking pretty confidently about those positions.
But you're also saying you're not an expert.
So I'm just curious, are you know, do you know what you're talking about or not?
Are you an expert?
Do you consider yourself an expert or not?
Should I be holding you to account for the positions that you're saying or not?
Pick a lane, man. Just actually say that.
Now, do it politely. You can. Sure.
But just say it. Get them in a lane.
No, man, I'm not an expert.
This is just based on stuff I've heard. OK, cool.
Well, thanks for your opinions.
Do you have any recommendations for actual experts that I can go and pay
more attention to than whatever it is that we're doing here?
Or, yeah, man, I've researched this for years.
I think I am kind of an expert on topic.
Great. Let's have you talk to another expert and and see who's right about
what constitutes an expert is a different discussion we can say for another day.
Don't need to cover that here.
How do you handle the other people that just asking questions?
People the exact same way.
What are you trying to say here?
I'm just asking questions. No, no, no.
OK, say all these questions are answered in the way that you think they are.
By the way, what is that?
By the way, what do you what do you think the answers to all these
questions are? You know, please spell that out.
Be specific, be clear.
What do you think the answers to these questions are?
And if they even do that, which oftentimes they won't,
because that's the whole point of the tactic is to get to avoid being
nailed down to a specific position and owning it.
But if they do, the step two in these discussions is often left out.
And the step two is therefore what?
An example of this is another one.
Another reason why YouTube is going to shut us down here,
just because I'm saying the words, not because I'm holding these positions.
Of course, let's take the race realist position where,
you know, I'm sure you've heard these people where they're
they're constantly talking about the collective differences
in IQ between the various races of people and how they're sort of a
hierarchy of who is on average, which race on average
is where in the hierarchy of IQs.
Well, first of all, a lot of the times when you're interacting with these people,
they're doing the I'm just asking questions.
But if you're ever actually able to get them to state their conclusions,
which is kind of rare, it's almost like they state the conclusion
with like a dot, dot, dot question mark at the end,
like you're supposed to figure out what we're supposed to do about it.
Or or maybe they haven't even thought that far.
They're just like, they'll say something collectivist and absurd,
like the statistic show that black people are more violent dot, dot, dot.
So again, the thing that you do is to say, well, let's say that that's the case.
Let's say that that's the answer to this question that you're just asking.
Therefore, what?
What are you saying ought to be done about that?
What are you saying we ought to do, think, feel or behave differently
because of this point that you're incessantly pointing out
or calling out or this position that you're holding
or this conclusion you have in your head.
Therefore, what? What are you saying?
Just ask that question outright
and you'll know who you're talking to really is you cut through the bullshit.
And when you do, they'll usually respond in one of three ways.
They won't say anything
or they'll say they don't know in which case you're like,
then why are you bringing it up if this doesn't affect anything
or change our positions or change our behavior
or impel us to do something?
Why are you bringing it up incessantly?
Or sometimes they'll actually say, well, I think we need
segregation or something like whatever
to which you can immediately, you know, then you know who you're dealing
is what I'm saying.
So it's clarifying.
All right. That's all I have to say about those things.
I hope it gave you some interesting thoughts
about these two rhetorical tactics.
If you have any questions, let me know in the comments
if this video even stays up.
Peace, love and energy.