Ep35 : Apples to Africans and Other Abstract Arguments
b"In this episode we travel back in time to November 14th, 2012, just a week after President Obama was re-elected. (caption: Devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in late 2012.)\\n\\nOur episode this week focuses on the idea of making abstract arguments to large groups of people.\\n\\nSince Jad an I are especially interested in political philosophies and how they can be used to better the world, abstract topics are very familiar to us, but we also understand that they often appear very strange to others. As Jad will soon point out, abstracting an argument can often illustrate to a person how their emotions are not actually in line with their purported values.\\n\\nFor example, after Hurricane Sandy devastated the United States, and after seeing how emotionally distraught people were about the situation, I made the comparison that this type of destruction is happening regularly in other parts of the world, only with the backing and blessing of the United States military. In other words, if one purported to feel sympathy for someone after their house was destroyed by a hurricane, wouldn't that same person feel sympathy for a person after their house was destroyed by a bomb? And if so, then wouldn't that person want to prevent that destruction anyway possible?\\n\\n\\nMaterial from Podcast\\nMusic\\n\\n70 Million by Hold Your Horses.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nTranscript of Podcast\\n\\nKevin: Greetings, and welcome to another Throwback Thursday episode of the JK Podcast, and anti-authoritarian free speech zone, passionately pursuing liberty, humanity, and equality. In this episode, we travel back in time to November 14th, 2012 - just a week after president Obama was reelected. Our episode this week focuses on the idea of making abstract arguments to large groups of people. Since Jad and I are especially interested in political philosophies and how they can be used to better the world, abstract topics are very familiar to us. But we also understand that they often appear very strange to others. \\n\\nAs Jad will soon point out, abstracting an argument can often illustrate to a person how their emotions are not actually in line with their purported values. For example, after Hurricane Sandy devastated the United States and after seeing how emotionally distraught people were about the situation, I made the comparison that this type of destruction is happening regularly in other parts of the world, only with the backing and the blessing of the United States military. \\n\\nIn other words, if one purported to feel sympathy for someone after their house was destroyed by a hurricane, wouldn't that same person have to feel sympathy for a person after their house was destroyed by a bomb and if so, then wouldn't that person want to prevent the destruction anyway possible? I'm joined by the co-creator of the show, Jad Davis. I'm Kevin Ludlow, welcome back to the JK Podcast. \\n\\nThe one thing that I'm always trying to do and admittedly I do it very, very poorly, but this is probably the primary reason that I'm so engaged in debating and discussing with people on Facebook just because it's a huge mesh of people that I can immediately have conversations with and people that I would never otherwise be able to converse with at this level, and every argument I'm going to give is going to be a reasonably wholesome - like, I never get into any sort of personal attack - and it took a while just to you know, to accomplish that in itself. \\n\\nBut having done it for so long now, the point is is that in every one of the situations and in every one of the debates I get into, I always try to find something that I can make the principal analogous to, so when somebody takes a really radical stance to say - or maybe not a radical stance per our country right now but what I would deem as a radical stance - say that a drone attack is actually beneficial. I mean I see that as radical, a lot of the country sees that as just daily life at this point."