@freemo That is fair I have problems believing media too. My sources are mostly entertaining streamers that play games and talk policies, reading articles from peer reviewed sites or fact checking sites that are independent. Debates are good too because it's not a one way conversation. The mainstream media is dead to me. Most of them in my country are for example owned by our prime minister and multiple conflicts of interest were recorded, but people are still voting for him because they get news from those sources.

First time seeing breitbart so I will take a look thanks. I saw some videos from PragerU. Maybe they were the most controversial ones, but it was always a shitshow. I watched the last one about "What Does Separation of Church and State Mean?" and the ending is hilarious. Did you see that?

@vnarek I did not see that one. I dont really watch PragerU or even read Breitbart too often. I just have seen a handful of articles and videos from each that made a few compelling points. I agree they are largely shitshows, but thats true of any left or right leaning media. But as I said, they did have compelling points mixed in with the bullshit and lean at least.

@freemo I yet to see one with had good takes from PragerU, but maybe it's my social bubble. This is the reason I wanted to look at some right-wing media to see if my beliefs can be hold to a challenge.

I do find left-wing media (not the mainstream) more reasonable. Do you have an example where they are not reasonable or they lie? I think it is possible they do this on issues that I don't care that much about.

@vnarek I suppose that ultimately depends on just how easily your views can be challenged in the first place.

I cant speak for you but I usually find most left-wing people are quite dismissive of anything right win even when good arguments are made. Though I also find most right-wing individuals are equally dismissive of left-wing ideas.

I dont know you personally but it may have more to do with your own intolerance of right-wing ideas than the specific way PU presents it (though i havent checked on PU in a while, perhaps their quality went down hill).

I also am probably a bit unusual in the sense that I usually find both left and right wing politics make good arguments, and bad arguments and that most well thought out solutions do not resemble either left or right wing agendas.

@freemo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_yS0X5s0lo here it is. It is their last video. I have problem with those graphs at the end. Where they reduce those problems to the absence of religion. It is interesting that the phrase is not in the constitution (i didn't know that). Look yourself I am interested what you think about that.

@vnarek watching

@vnarek I'm 2 seconds in and he said that separation of church and state isnt in the constitution... I really hope he mentioned the first amendment soon... Or how the bill of rights was defined by the founding fathers and not just tacked on as a later evolution... I hope this gets better, but not a good start...

@freemo Yeah as I am not that well read in U.S history this would not strike me. I had a problem mostly with the end of the video, because it seemed as reductionism of complicated problems like crime rates.

@vnarek Ok got through it, that video was ups and down for me...

I agree with the one criticism you made earlier, that the ending was weak and not really well rooted in fact.. To claim marriage, crime, and all the ills of society is due to the removing of religion from our government is... well.. a weak argument as presented. We also have doubled our life expectancy, is that too due to seperated of church and state? There arent too many pirates around these days either? Yea the connection at the end was baseless, weak, and totally ruined the reputable nature of the rest of the argument.

With that said, the video had slant and an agenda, when you have such an agenda you get shitty arguments like that to fill in the gaps. Its the same pattern i see in most strongly left-leaning videos. When your that desperate to make an all encompassing point your going to have some pretty big gaps to fill with bullshit.

But there also are a lot of very good abnd valid points in the video, so a video with bias agenda and bullshit, sure, but about as decent as you can get when you have lean (no worse than left leaning stuff like i said)..

For example they **were** correct that the modern notion of church and state is largely a fabrication and the constitution itself had no intention of such a separation. The only original intent is that a law would be unable to restrict religion or give any single religion precedence. But nothing about the constitution or its wording would, for example, prevent prayer in schools, or prevent a bible verse from being printed on a government building. So they made some valid points in that regard as well.

I think its a good quality video in the sense that if your looking for lean right or left, thats probably about as good as it could get. If you want something truely accurate without any gaping holes you'd have to ditch the lean in the first place.

@freemo Yeah I understood that point and checked the facts. My main issue is the delivery of the message I think. They tried to frame it as an argument against division of the state and religion which falls short I think. But yeah there was some truth in what they said.

@vnarek yea if we are just talking about "should a country seperate church froms tate" they really didnt make a single valid point to argue that in either direction.. They only point they made that was valid and somewhat accurate was a description of the history of it in the USA.

@freemo What about left leaning media? Do you remember some video you saw that was misleading equally?

@vnarek Yes. i'd say the mirror image of PragerU would be Vox, and pretty much all of their content is equally biased and inaccurate in much the same way the PU video was (that is, they throw in a few accurate facts but have such a strong agenda they have to fill in the gaping holes with bullshit).

As a practical example take this Vox video trying to claim race doesnt exist: https://youtu.be/VnfKgffCZ7U

Like the PU video it makes some valid points, for example how historically race was used as a weapon against minorities and to distinguish one race as superior, totally valid part of the argument. But the rest of the claim is completely unfounded in science.

Race is, generally, scientifically accepted. We have objective ways genetically to identify race. Second, the examples they use are loaded and overall inaccurate. For exampel they talk about "white" being redefined over history as a way to suggest race doesnt exist. except "white" is, simply speaking, not a race. A race has to do with geographic origin so you could say "european" is a race, which might be vaguely similar to saying "white", but subtly different and important. We can show through genetic means objectively that someone is of european origin, but white has no meaning, a russian, would generally be described as "white" on inspection but unless your a far-western russian you arent likely to be "european".

In the end I'd say the video I linked from left-leaning vox is on pretty much the same level of inaccuracy as the PU video you linked.

@freemo Shit this hurts. I don't watch Vox for political/social stuff. They are doing some interesting videos about music/culture (this for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62tIvfP9A2w). I would not define them as political. They tackle a lot of genres. Still, this is bad and misleading and more left leaning.

@vnarek yea, vox isnt really "political" but has a clear left lean.. seems they hit many topics but they do have many political videos.

The stuff they do that is non political isnt too horrible, some of its pretty decent. Just saying their political stuff (and there is a decent amount of that) is about as bad as PU but on the left.

@freemo For sure it does. I believe that could be true. This one was bad so there will be others.

If you want some interesting political videos from the left i think this girl is really good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWwiUIVpmNY She is hard left and does mostly political/social commentary. I like that it is more indie than say Vox or PragerU and she goes to more details. This is my experience with left leaning content creators.

@vnarek I have no objection to checking her out on request, but as I said at the begining I try to go out of my way not to invest much time in left or right leaning opinions. I dont generally find people who label themselves as left or right to have particularly insightful political views. All the most interesting political views I know of tend to come from people that are difficult to label anywhere on the spectrum.

Its basically the horeshoe theory, all the serious insightful discussions arent going to be able to be distilled into a right or left dichotomy which are largely the same just mirror images of eachother.

@freemo I get it. I use the left because I tend to agree with those policies more. This has problematic consequences that I am aware of as a possibility that I would be more forgiving to left leaning wrong doings if I label myself such.

I don't know anyone who can't be labeled nor left nor right actually.

@vnarek You are of course welcome to follow whichever you like of course. I have no interest in telling **you** what to follow, I am only explaining my own views.

To me the issue isnt so much that you will be more forgiving of the left, more so that it will indoctrinate your beleifs (akin to confirmation bias) and make it more difficult to persue truth. But it is your risk to take, not mine.

As for not knowing anyone labeled left or right, I can understand that. I think we have a verydangerous environment around the world right now of radicalism where 99% of people are polarized left or right and that polarization is the most harmful political quality we have in the world. So naturally with it being so widespread I do not doubt it can be difficult to find people who do not build their framework up within the left-right dichotomy.

With that said, you can now say you have met someone who does not fit the label of left or right... me..

I am more left than the left on some issues, more right than the right on others and not anywhere on the dichotomy in many others.. some examples

I am extream far left on education, I feel all levels of educations (all the way up to PhD and beyond) should be completely free for everyone forever (paid for by the government).

I am extream right on gun issues. I feel any weapon allowed on US soil to be used against its own citizenry by the government should also have equal access to purchase and own by the citizeny without any gun registries or mental health checks.

I exist no where on the dichotomy when it comes to welfare and healthcare, where I propose systems that have never been proposed by the left or the right (co-op based health insurance, and highly funded welfare with a reward based mechanism where the amount of welfare you get is based on the amount of work training you engange in, including the free school I mentioned)...

So now you can say you know somoene who doesnt fit those labels :)

@vnarek do you have a video of that PU video on church and state that you thought was poorly done. I'd like to see it. Might give me an idea on if i agree with you that PU went down hill or if i feel it might be due to your own bias (regardless of where I stand on an issue even if i disagree with an argument I can sometimes still give a source credit that the argument was attempted expertly).. might help for you to get a second opinion from someone who isnt left wing?