I posted a FDR video on my Facebook wall (feminist straw woman attacks). Here are the comments:Cambridge student I met on the internet:I'm sorry but what a pompous, abstruse, obnoxious bastard. I can't comment much on the topic and really, I have to admit, I haven't watched much further than the first fifteen minutes of the video as I find his attitude unbearable.However, it does *seem to me* (and I use those words intentionally because people should recognise that all arguments are subjective, otherwise they would not be arguments at all but rather universally-recognised facts) that this man is not dealing with quite a few of the points this woman raised, which could well be fairly valid, and brushing them off as not fully-formed arguments. He mentions that "this is a philosophy show, which means you need to bring one fact to the table". Last I was reading and studying philosophy (which really I should be doing now considering my Metaphysics exam in three days time - damn procrastination), I had the impression that philosophy dealt with ideas. Something which, I think even he cannot doubt, that this woman did present.Me:Did you really just write a lot without making an argument? Also, not all arguments are subjective; if I were to tell you that mice are mammals because they meet certain criteria which qualifies then to be so and you were to say that they don't "seem to be" mammals to you, then because you hadn't brought up any relevant facts I could dismiss your argument.She replied:Did you just mimic Stefan by doing exactly the thing I said infuriated me - attempting to undermine someone under the facade that they are not presenting an argument? In any case, Facebook comments, as you well know, aren't limited to making arguments so there should be no problem if I did write a lot of text without including an argument. Facebook comments can simply be just complaints about the unpleasant attitude of someone featured on a video.As to the subjectivity/objectivity thing. Yes, you can dismiss someone's subjective argument based on a lack of evidence to back it up, but this is not a case for there being objective arguments. If you said that you think mice are mammals, that's subjective. If you said that mice are mammals because they meet the criteria that fall under the definition of mammals, that's a tautology. It is contentious whether you would call a tautology an argument, and even if you did, they are not very useful arguments since you are just reinstating a universal fact. To quote Ayer, "tautologies, though they may serve to guide us in our empirical search for knowledge, do not in themselves contain any information about any matter of fact." That is my point, Stefan cannot claim to provide objective arguments any more than the woman that he was slating.Furthermore, the modest approach ("it seems to me", "I would contend", "it is my view that", etc.) is the approach most commonly adopted by even the most reputable modern philosophers, if you read their works. Stating your own beliefs as facts, which is what Stefan was trying to get the poor woman to do, is simply arrogant; especially in the world of philosophy where fundamental problems have been furiously debated for millennia without having reached a general consensus.
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I don't know where to go from here and I would like for someone to explain to me how I have gone wrong.
I can see a good case for why some short narrated animations with stats and sources would be helpful to fdr community. More people would take the time to watch a short clip than invest 25 minutes to a couple of hours in a nuanced podcast. These sorts of short animations could inspire people to commit more time to looking at more fdr content. Short animations could be shared in workplace lunch breaks and school lunch breaks where currently a podcast can't be shared as easily because of the time restrictions. I can see the counter argument to making these short animations being that because they are short there will eh less time for objection handling, but I think that can be done in the comment section rebuttals. Thank you for sharing the brilliant graphics!