Jack Hunter Debating TheAmazingAtheist LIVE NOW [link inside]

[cstarace]

Full debate for anybody who is interested

 

[Dogsoldier]

I'm confused.

You guys are saying the AA is a dummy.But he is arguing for individual rights?Um?Thats a good thing to me?

I mean I don't think the state has the right to tell me what I can and can't do with my property and especially my own body.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

I'm confused.

You guys are saying the AA is a dummy.But he is arguing for individual rights?Um?Thats a good thing to me?

I mean I don't think the state has the right to tell me what I can and can't do with my property and especially my own body.

It's possible to be for both. The problem with AA is that he clearly thinks state rights are the antithesis of individual rights when that's not true. Other than that, it seems like there was a lot of ambiguity and AA didn't really know that much about Jack's actual beliefs. Jack Hunter seemed much more knowledgeable, but didn't explain things nearly as well as he could have. It was sometimes hard to tell where they even disagreed, and it seems they really took an off-hands approach to things like monetary policy where they would touch the surface and discuss things like inflation, but wouldn't really touch on things like legal tender laws or the root policies that caused the booms and busts, the business cycle, etc. It was all just skimming the surface, and I feel AA left just as ignorant of what people like Jack are really saying as when he came in. The market was never really discussed. Instead, they talked about how the dollar is headed for a crash without really explaining why and kind of debated the technicalities of how the dollar is performing over time. Jack tried to talk about what money really is, but it was kind of a superficial explanation and he didn't do a good job of actually saying what it is that a fiat currency isn't, or vice versa.

Then they talked about some of the cool-button issues (as opposed to hot-button issues) like the death penalty and freaking zombies. It really seemed like they kind of went into the debate thinking they were going to disagree on a bunch of things and spent time focusing on the technicalities that they do disagree on instead of really delving into the philosophy behind the policy and finding out where their common ground is. Basically, neither one really understood what the other was talking about and just kept trying to find things to disagree on. They are both at fault in that regard. I thought the debate, overall, was less of a debate than you would find between two libertarians, or between a libertarian and an anarchist, because both of those parties already know where they actually disagree. The wild card here was the amazing atheist because he was just shouting out his personal beliefs while Jack laid down the specifics of how he treats policy on different things according to a specific set of philosophical axioms that he follows. AA, it seems, is unable to point to a direct set of axioms that shape his view of the world, and so the two were really unable to connect and tell what they were supposed to be debating.

On top of that, the execution was poor on both sides. While they both had some bones thrown their way as a great opportunity to explain their positions in detail, they didn't take that opportunity. Even where they could have talked about axioms that shaped their political views, they seemed content to tinker around the edges.

Of course, it is entirely possible that I have no idea what I am talking about, but it's my impression that my view gets to the more deep reasons why we didn't see a debate like we would between two liberty-oriented individuals. I don't want to pin this on AA, but the impression I got was that most of the ambiguity was due to his ignorance of Jack's belief structure while Jack just plain didn't articulate what he was trying to say clearly enough. His eloquence was there, but his wording was not really addressing the real points of contention between them. Like I said, I could just be shooting in the dark, but these are reasons I thought it was a notoriously bad debate, not even on the same level as two people who can define what the underlying theme is to the other's beliefs and where that theme originates.

Perhaps I'm trying way to hard to case this and make it an airtight analysis of the debate substance, but I can't really know all of the reasons they had such a disconnect for sure. They agreed, then they spent their time talking about their own beliefs instead of really trying to counter the other's points. Then they disagreed and started talking about their own beliefs again. At any rate, I think this debate could have been way better than it had been with two different people with the same basic idelogies that the two in this particular debate had. They just didn't seem to know what they were supposed to be debating. There was no direction. It just could have been a lot better with two different people. That I know for sure, but my other analysis may or may not be a lot of hogwash, or may actually hit the point for some of you, depending on how you understand what I'm trying to say.

Wow that was long.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

Hearing him makes me want to vomit. I had to turn it off. It was like listening to a leftist Levin.

Levin is leftist.

 

[jmdrake]

LOL. I don't have time to watch, but the "Amazing Atheist" is a total idiot. See my sig.

 

[ShaneEnochs]

Levin is leftist.

Left of Levin.

 

[pochy1776]

Amazing atheist is not that bad. I regularly watch his videos. He is intelligent but has not refined it nor honed it. Which has some appeal to a lot of people on YouTube. I think FringeElements in better. He Used to be a libertarian idealist but then turned into a liberal realist. Here is one of his stupid video essays.

 

[trey4sports]

I like the Amazing Atheist.

 

[DerailingDaTrain]

Why is he debating a douchebag with a YouTube channel?