The absolute inability to understand what cooperative governance would look like was actually hilarious, but also sad, because dummies like that actually tell people in power what to do.
As a scientist studying mutualism and cooperation between plants and microbes, I deal with this even in the biological sciences. We have been trained (particularly in the US) that dominance of the 'fittest' is the only way the world works, a natural order. I don't find it a coincidence that the world's largest consumer of everything, the world's largest exporter of extraction capitalism, arms, as well as 'rise and grind' side-hustle bullshit teaches everyone in school that at the evolutionary level cooperation is not an option.
May 24, 2022·edited May 24, 2022Liked by Daniel Bessner
The fans of wisdom are call Danny mean and rude on the stack better, Danny better apologize 😉I love American prestige and want to really listen to part two but don't want to pay to listen to wisdom.
These guys were not ready for Danny. That was an absolute massacre.
I appreciate Danny schooling their tired, overused neoliberal BS from a Marxist perspective.
The one guy's point that we should use our arms shipments to Saudi Arabia as leverage was perhaps the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time and I think Danny did a great job calling him out on it. The DC blob using arms shipments for government reform in Saudi is less likely than world communist revolution.
It's also irritating when these Brookings institute ghouls ask what his ideal world system would look like, then start condescendingly asking him how such an idealistic world would come into being. That's the point of an ideal! Glad he was able to keep his cool cause I wouldn't have.
Full disclosure, I haven’t listened to this whole episode yet, and don’t listen to the WoC show at all, but the host proffers that he is an economic agnostic when Danny mentions NAFTAs effects on Latin America? What prognosticating or pronouncements can you make about American foreign policy if you don’t make an even cursory effort to understand how US economic power functions globally, and has arguably been as important as US military power since 1945?
I struggled to follow the positions of your opponents here. They folded everytime Danny presented an obvious challenge or counter-argument.
Perhaps their fundamental problem is a believe that America actually has commendable "values" beyond protecting the interests of corporate power at all costs.
Based on this exchange it's difficult to understand why anyone would subscribe to Wisdom of Crowds podcast. The hosts were incoherent.
Danny was like a giant cat toying with a couple of small, blind mice.
This was incredible. To the credit of the Wisdom of the Crowds folks, it was nice to witness an intellectually honest debate between Danny and what I think can be fairly characterized as a mainstream liberal view of the “US role in foreign policy. ” But holy cow, Danny did an excellent job of exposing how shallow the mainstream liberal viewpoint is. I mean, not “knowing much about NAFTA’s economic impact on Latin America” is a pretty big blind spot for a purported “expert” on foreign policy my dude. Derek and Danny, you gotta push for them to release the full episode, I want to hear the rest but I’m not giving these guys my money
That was a wild listen that devolved into a tragic comedy at the end.
It's insane that they're saying that not arming Saudi Arabia is unrealistic but then advocate for an American foreign policy that's based on its propagandised ideals as the realistic option.
It really illuminates that any analysis abstracted from the underlying economic motivations is utterly insufficient.
The moment of silence after Danny challenges them on whether America is a meaningful democracy says it all.
I always love when liberals are challenged on their conception of democracy and authoritarianism.
I'd love if the podcast did deep-dives on ideologies, abstracted from singular events, and frameworks within Foreign Policy circles.
I listened to this a week ago, but wanted to make sure to come back and compliment Danny here. Excellent job not falling into their chicken-shit "norms" and political correctness traps of using only the "correct" (orwellian) terms for their shitty bloodlusting ideology and policies. Took it straight to them and they couldn't handle it. Thoroughly enjoyed this.
It was this type of idiocy (and frankly, deep dishonesty and cowardice) that these two trained morons exhibited here that made me realize a while back that US academia was definitively on the downward slide...and that I should leave. Mindless morons. Or as others have put it a while ago, "Voltaire's bastards", "Excellent Sheep," etc. etc.
It was both frustrating and amusing to hear these fools run up against their political programming, the limits of their brain-dead neoliberal ideology. Loved the constant need to try to "label" everything and force everything into their neat little abstract categories. Reality and its HISTORY is evidently too much for them. They are frauds and were exposed. Such little bitches...but this is what the US populace has become now, at best. This is about as good as it gets, folks. Expect nothing good to come out of this god-forsaken country. Excellent job taking these brainwashed frauds to task! Hope they lost a lot of sleep over it. Frauds!
And just so we're clear, they're more comfortable with global nuclear holocaust than even slightly rethinking their psychopathic neoliberal/imperial ideology. That's one giant FUCK YOU...to you, dear listener. It is not "rude" to reply in kind, but basic justice. The horror! The horror! Fuck these people.
Great exchange, but I'm left curious about specifically what Bessner doubts in the polling methodology for Americans' attitudes on police funding? Maybe he meant police reform more broadly than de-funding, as in things like de-militarization? This Pew study surveyed over 25,000 Americans based on a random sampling of household addresses:
Maybe he thinks there are sociological reasons why people who are for defunding police wouldn't take part in such surveys, thereby skewing results? I'm curious as to what he thinks about the idea that the "defund-the-police" protests served to distract working class people from elites' covid profiteering, wasting their energy on the outrage hamster wheel.
I'm confused about Bessner's argument about democracy; does he not think democracy exists in any meaningful sense? Every time his opponents bring up democracy, even in the most abstract terms, Bessner jumps on them saying simultaneously that:
- People in the US have a bankrupt understanding of democracy that focuses too much on voting
- US foreign policy "does not care about democracy at all"
What point is he trying to make? This point is a complete non-sequitur from the point his opponents were trying to make, which is that withdrawing US military presence from region will do nothing to improve governance in that region.
Also, Bessner states that global wealth redistribution will do more to improve governance in the global south, but that is also a non-sequitur because military presence and wealth redistribution are not mutually exclusive.
I don't think either side did a particularly good job articulating their ideas in this debate.
The absolute inability to understand what cooperative governance would look like was actually hilarious, but also sad, because dummies like that actually tell people in power what to do.
As a scientist studying mutualism and cooperation between plants and microbes, I deal with this even in the biological sciences. We have been trained (particularly in the US) that dominance of the 'fittest' is the only way the world works, a natural order. I don't find it a coincidence that the world's largest consumer of everything, the world's largest exporter of extraction capitalism, arms, as well as 'rise and grind' side-hustle bullshit teaches everyone in school that at the evolutionary level cooperation is not an option.
Get 'em Danny!
The fans of wisdom are call Danny mean and rude on the stack better, Danny better apologize 😉I love American prestige and want to really listen to part two but don't want to pay to listen to wisdom.
These guys were not ready for Danny. That was an absolute massacre.
I appreciate Danny schooling their tired, overused neoliberal BS from a Marxist perspective.
The one guy's point that we should use our arms shipments to Saudi Arabia as leverage was perhaps the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time and I think Danny did a great job calling him out on it. The DC blob using arms shipments for government reform in Saudi is less likely than world communist revolution.
It's also irritating when these Brookings institute ghouls ask what his ideal world system would look like, then start condescendingly asking him how such an idealistic world would come into being. That's the point of an ideal! Glad he was able to keep his cool cause I wouldn't have.
Would love to listen to part two.
Full disclosure, I haven’t listened to this whole episode yet, and don’t listen to the WoC show at all, but the host proffers that he is an economic agnostic when Danny mentions NAFTAs effects on Latin America? What prognosticating or pronouncements can you make about American foreign policy if you don’t make an even cursory effort to understand how US economic power functions globally, and has arguably been as important as US military power since 1945?
Operator, I'd like to report a murder.
I struggled to follow the positions of your opponents here. They folded everytime Danny presented an obvious challenge or counter-argument.
Perhaps their fundamental problem is a believe that America actually has commendable "values" beyond protecting the interests of corporate power at all costs.
Based on this exchange it's difficult to understand why anyone would subscribe to Wisdom of Crowds podcast. The hosts were incoherent.
Danny was like a giant cat toying with a couple of small, blind mice.
This was incredible. To the credit of the Wisdom of the Crowds folks, it was nice to witness an intellectually honest debate between Danny and what I think can be fairly characterized as a mainstream liberal view of the “US role in foreign policy. ” But holy cow, Danny did an excellent job of exposing how shallow the mainstream liberal viewpoint is. I mean, not “knowing much about NAFTA’s economic impact on Latin America” is a pretty big blind spot for a purported “expert” on foreign policy my dude. Derek and Danny, you gotta push for them to release the full episode, I want to hear the rest but I’m not giving these guys my money
That was a wild listen that devolved into a tragic comedy at the end.
It's insane that they're saying that not arming Saudi Arabia is unrealistic but then advocate for an American foreign policy that's based on its propagandised ideals as the realistic option.
It really illuminates that any analysis abstracted from the underlying economic motivations is utterly insufficient.
The moment of silence after Danny challenges them on whether America is a meaningful democracy says it all.
I always love when liberals are challenged on their conception of democracy and authoritarianism.
I'd love if the podcast did deep-dives on ideologies, abstracted from singular events, and frameworks within Foreign Policy circles.
I listened to this a week ago, but wanted to make sure to come back and compliment Danny here. Excellent job not falling into their chicken-shit "norms" and political correctness traps of using only the "correct" (orwellian) terms for their shitty bloodlusting ideology and policies. Took it straight to them and they couldn't handle it. Thoroughly enjoyed this.
It was this type of idiocy (and frankly, deep dishonesty and cowardice) that these two trained morons exhibited here that made me realize a while back that US academia was definitively on the downward slide...and that I should leave. Mindless morons. Or as others have put it a while ago, "Voltaire's bastards", "Excellent Sheep," etc. etc.
It was both frustrating and amusing to hear these fools run up against their political programming, the limits of their brain-dead neoliberal ideology. Loved the constant need to try to "label" everything and force everything into their neat little abstract categories. Reality and its HISTORY is evidently too much for them. They are frauds and were exposed. Such little bitches...but this is what the US populace has become now, at best. This is about as good as it gets, folks. Expect nothing good to come out of this god-forsaken country. Excellent job taking these brainwashed frauds to task! Hope they lost a lot of sleep over it. Frauds!
And just so we're clear, they're more comfortable with global nuclear holocaust than even slightly rethinking their psychopathic neoliberal/imperial ideology. That's one giant FUCK YOU...to you, dear listener. It is not "rude" to reply in kind, but basic justice. The horror! The horror! Fuck these people.
Great exchange, but I'm left curious about specifically what Bessner doubts in the polling methodology for Americans' attitudes on police funding? Maybe he meant police reform more broadly than de-funding, as in things like de-militarization? This Pew study surveyed over 25,000 Americans based on a random sampling of household addresses:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/26/growing-share-of-americans-say-they-want-more-spending-on-police-in-their-area/
Maybe he thinks there are sociological reasons why people who are for defunding police wouldn't take part in such surveys, thereby skewing results? I'm curious as to what he thinks about the idea that the "defund-the-police" protests served to distract working class people from elites' covid profiteering, wasting their energy on the outrage hamster wheel.
I'm confused about Bessner's argument about democracy; does he not think democracy exists in any meaningful sense? Every time his opponents bring up democracy, even in the most abstract terms, Bessner jumps on them saying simultaneously that:
- People in the US have a bankrupt understanding of democracy that focuses too much on voting
- US foreign policy "does not care about democracy at all"
What point is he trying to make? This point is a complete non-sequitur from the point his opponents were trying to make, which is that withdrawing US military presence from region will do nothing to improve governance in that region.
Also, Bessner states that global wealth redistribution will do more to improve governance in the global south, but that is also a non-sequitur because military presence and wealth redistribution are not mutually exclusive.
I don't think either side did a particularly good job articulating their ideas in this debate.