Viewer Asks: Why Do I Bother?

I received this very thoughtful criticism on a Class video at YouTube, which I take to be most kind, and found it important enough to answer here.

I love these videos, but may I ask you something totally respectfully that sounds kind of rude?

Do you think the people who would benefit from hearing this actually care? Do you just make these videos for fun? As I get older I realize debating/bringing logic and proof is totally useless for 98% of the population. Just study advertising. It makes companies billions and billions of dollars, none of it involves facts or high level analysis.

Anyway, I really like the videos, just curious to know your opinion on debate and trying to change others viewpoints in general

In order:

Yes, you, and any, may ask, even rudely. My skin is thick.

Not really, no, I don’t think most care, and nor will they. I’d sure like them to, but I’ve been at this for a while now with no real success in the powers that be, so it’s rational to suppose there will never be any. On the other hand, miracles do happen.

And yes, in a sort of way, the videos are fun to make, but I think it’s better to say I have to make them, just as I have to write about these things. Once I have an idea along these lines, I have to get it out or it builds up pressure.

The ordinary academic path was taken from me, and anyway that route is now so far gone that this complaint has no weight. I do reach the odd colleague here from time to time, though if they’re in the system, they can’t acknowledge the connection without personal difficulty to themselves. So this is it. This or nothing, and trust in the Lord.

I, of course, have no official sort of funding, or compensation, or remuneration of any kind from any mainline source, nor even from any kind of energy—or any!—company, or think tank or any other entity in their employ. What I do have is the incredible generosity of readers and viewers like yourself, folks who, it seems unbelievable to say, part with a few bucks every month to keep me going, and to ensure all my work remains free and “open source” for everybody. That is in the true, old and now expired, spirit of the university.

Your estimate of 98% more or less matches my own. Although perhaps you’re more an optimist than I. Let me quote from my award-eligible soon-to-be some-seller second edition of Everything You Believe Is Wrong, written in complaint of the ineradicable fallacies in common use which rule, not only advertising, as you say, but the bulk of our political discourse:

Worse, there does not appear to be a reliable solution for this innate intellectual incorrigibleness. Every possible corrective action has been tried, from gentle admonishment to outright punishment. Nothing sticks, not for long. Fallacies thrust deep roots into our discourse, and it is only by the long passage of time, sometimes lifetimes, that once-popular fallacies are removed from the public sphere—usually to be replaced by new ones.

We can rail about this, and try correctives like replacing bad arguments with good ones, as we try in this book, but our effort will be mostly in vain. Cardinal and convert John Henry Newman, now a Saint, knew about the futility of logical demonstration: “Persons influence us, voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a man will live and die upon a dogma: no man will be a martyr for a conclusion.” So it will be here.

So it will be here, too.

And yet so it ever is. This is the human condition, credulity is part of our nature, and there is no removing it. We can only abate it from time to time, and count on that two percent (or a lot less) to carry us forward.

My hope is that even if most don’t follow my arcane and, yes, obtuse and confusing philosophical arguments, they’ll at least learn how goofy most of what passes for Science through the many, many examples I highlight. I don’t cheat with these, either, bringing you only the best and most prominent examples, the very ones Experts, rulers and academics tout as worthy. If I can help people build an initial skepticism to new claims, then I think I will have accomplished something.

For now, all I can do is thank you most sincerely for watching or reading. And if you really want to help me out, the best way is to pass on these videos and articles to others. You have my deepest and sincerest thanks.

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