Okay, here's the problem.

Miscellaneous General
1

I bothered to see one of Lee “HowTheWorldWorks” Doren’s videos when he was in one of his less arrogant and somewhat nicer moods.

I normally stop watching his videos the moment he calls somebody “clueless”, “morally bankrupt”, or other names just because they don’t the share the same opinions as a worker in Republican Party think tank, but he was talking about Hazlitt, and I made an approving comment.

Then there was an exchange of comments with somebody else who responded to me, saying such and such about the free market.

Here is the problem. Firstly, one of the things he wrote was, “Wikipedia is your friend” and another was “That’s the impression I get from YouTube users.”

It is not that the commenter was unintelligent. It is just that most of what people believe about any particular group online is through YouTube, Wikipedia, or Huffington Post. It extends even to serious mass media journalists like Joe Conason, who wrote a strange strange article on Bastiat and Hayek for the New York Observer, without knowing what either believes.

The trouble is that as far as Conason was concerned, Bastiat was a 19th century, French version of a Tea Party member, and just like the YouTube commenter, he assumed that Bastiat was just a guy who didn’t like paying taxes.

I have started to realize that the trouble with even well-intentioned (but occasionally arrogant) online debaters like Lee Doren is that while they might get a good message (and a bad message) propogated widely, people will only have a superficial knowledge of any such issue, because they will only search online for it. Of course, all people will have a superficial knowledge of anything specific and outside their main concerns, but even those genuinely curious seem to know of Frederic Bastiat only through internet communities.

What is the polite way of telling the genuinely interested people to do their homework and read up on their own instead of hearing it online? I myself have started reading Keynesian, Chicagoan, and other such books just so that I don’t misrepresent their views even remotely or marginally, but I wonder if your standard Online Progressive Community poster will do the same?

2

It seems the only solution is to attempt to edit the wikipedia articles, engage in discussion on youtube, be overall more ‘present’ online. I myself am not yet firm on my basics of austrian economics and theory of liberty and thus not ready to deal publicly with antiliberals. It is for me by far easier to “help” people be consistent if they already have a liberalist/libertarian leaning.

3

In this day and age, all too many people aren’t really arguing to gain further understanding of the nature of things or to sharpen their logical skills. Rather, they’re arguing to try to lord it over those who disagree with them and seek out rationalizations/justifications for their pre-established positions. To put it bluntly, they’re just trying to stroke their own egos.

Perhaps the best way to politely tell the genuinely interested people to do their own homework is to ask them whether they believe everything they hear. :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Challenge them to a debate at DDO! http://debate.org/