The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ Dan defends Chud the Builder (Badly？)

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Brokonomics. Now in this episode I wanted to be rather self-critical

00:00:27.520 because, you see, I recently accepted an invitation to go on to a US-level show

00:00:32.940 talking about Chud the Builder, and I mean, I'll play you the clip. I'm quite critical of my 0.97

00:00:40.520 performance here because I think that if you are already on the right and you're familiar with what

00:00:45.600 I'm talking about, you're probably going to think, oh yeah, that was fine. I don't think I run over

00:00:50.620 many people who would have started out critical of this or many neutral observers. So actually

00:00:57.760 what I wanted to do is I wanted to analyse debate in a hostile environment and I'm going to use my

00:01:03.380 case here as an example of it because I wanted to learn from this so I can do better next time

00:01:08.040 but also just kind of get into the underlying points but more than anything I think this is

00:01:12.920 going to be something about how do you debate the left on ground that they're very comfortable on

00:01:17.460 because that's something, us on the right, we must always be holding ourselves to the highest

00:01:21.560 standards because we simply don't get the advantages that left-leaning media does.

00:01:27.580 They evolve in a world where all of these talking points are just assumed. They're inculcated in

00:01:35.240 the education system in the media and so we need to hold ourselves to the highest standard when

00:01:39.920 debating with these people. So what I will give you is my editor will put in the actual

00:01:46.920 exchange and judge for yourselves and then we come back and we look at what worked and what

00:01:51.580 didn't work and and how we can debate with the left better on these things now i i didn't know

00:01:57.480 who brad was going into this i i just got the invitation and okay fairly big channel fine um

00:02:04.160 i'm really busy at work i'll do my hour and a half drive back to winchester and as soon as i jump on

00:02:09.900 the call so i'm kind of tired and i don't really know what i'm walking into but uh but no should

00:02:14.480 have done better so uh yeah watch this and then we will uh then we'll analyze it all right joining

00:02:21.200 me now we've got the right-wing british commentator dan tubb from the lotus eaters podcast dan thanks

00:02:27.340 for coming on the show well thank you for having me brad absolutely i'm this is the point of the

00:02:32.740 show is to hash out different perspectives and have dialogue even on uh contentious issues and

00:02:38.440 i will say your commentary on this had me scratching my head you on twitter you compared

00:02:43.260 chud the builder to our generation's rosa parks absolutely you've said that you back him completely

00:02:50.360 i listen i i gotta tell you i find that to be um perplexing but here's so here's where i'd like

00:02:57.020 to start before we get into the specifics of this instance for which he's been charged

00:03:01.500 with a crime let's just talk about him in general so this is a guy who is a nuisance streamer he

00:03:08.420 goes out live streaming in public and causes a scene, 0.70

00:03:11.520 goes up to random black people, 0.64

00:03:12.960 calls them the N-word, slurs, tries to provoke a reaction. 0.98

00:03:16.280 To me, that seems like just a despicable thing to do.

00:03:19.400 He doesn't really do that, Brad.

00:03:21.840 I mean, I'll admit I hadn't seen him until a few days ago

00:03:25.100 when the controversy popped up and I looked at some of his stuff.

00:03:28.300 And generally, you find he's meeting people where they are.

00:03:30.960 If black people are talking to him and they're perfectly respectful,

00:03:35.280 he's perfectly respectful back.

00:03:36.640 what he does is if he sees them acting out of line which for whatever reason i don't know why

00:03:41.800 but doesn't seem to take very long you know say they're parking in the wrong place or behaving

00:03:45.300 badly he calls it out and then and then the energy that he's met with is what he responds with

00:03:50.820 so you so i listen i've seen a fair bit of his content i can't say i watch hours and hours and

00:03:56.720 hours of his stream but i have seen him have minor altercations with black people and just

00:04:01.200 start dropping the n-word with the hard r and that seems to me wildly antagonistic and

00:04:07.720 inappropriate just like a cruel thing to do to random strangers because they parked wrong or

00:04:12.000 something um okay so i mean yeah if you're going to be blocking fire exits and just generally

00:04:17.980 behaving in a way that you would you you would not yourself i mean the essential question here

00:04:23.020 is everybody going to be held to the same standard because i can tell you i would absolutely call

00:04:28.060 somebody out if i i do if i see somebody who's perfectly able parking in a disabled bay i call

00:04:33.460 it out if i see somebody blocking a fire exit on a building would you call them a slur call it out

00:04:37.320 would you call them that word well it's not really an issue in the area that i live because it's

00:04:42.340 almost an exclusively white area but yeah i think i if i would call out anyone who who behaves badly 0.99

00:04:48.380 okay but you're not are you calling out the behavior they're doing wrong like hey asshole 0.99

00:04:51.680 you're parked in a disabled spot or are you saying why are you parked in a disabled part 0.99

00:04:56.100 disabled spot slur like that's the i don't understand that why wouldn't you attack the

00:05:00.760 thing they're doing rather than just start attacking their identity in racist ways well i

00:05:05.220 think i think it does and look if if they are going to act aggressively towards him but you

00:05:09.240 have to understand this is not happening in isolation this is this is not uh this is not

00:05:12.660 an incident that has come out of nowhere the reason that we're in this situation is because

00:05:16.980 there is a massive double standard applied to whites behavior that we would not get away with

00:05:23.080 is often excused. 0.55

00:05:25.380 Yeah, I mean, let's look at this particular incident.

00:05:27.360 Okay, so he was leaving a courthouse.

00:05:29.060 There was a man who had said on social media

00:05:31.620 that he was going to go and get Chud.

00:05:34.720 He'd driven for an hour to be there to cause a confrontation. 0.86

00:05:38.440 You know, I could understand.

00:05:39.720 There was a lot of assumption that this incident occurred 0.99

00:05:42.580 because Chud was going around being obnoxious 1.00

00:05:44.800 to perfectly innocent people

00:05:46.380 and calling them names and all the rest of it.

00:05:48.600 No, this guy had driven for an hour to be there

00:05:51.160 And he accosted him.

00:05:52.400 He attacked him.

00:05:53.240 He jumped on top of him.

00:05:54.180 He started punching him.

00:05:55.180 Well, hang on, hang on.

00:05:55.860 How do you know that?

00:05:57.580 Well, because we've seen the video.

00:05:59.100 I mean, we've seen some of the stuff that's come out.

00:06:01.120 There's no video of the shooting.

00:06:02.860 The video cuts in after the shots are fired.

00:06:07.140 Okay, but I mean, look.

00:06:08.480 So you can't tell what happened in the aftermath.

00:06:10.960 The arrest warrant says that he escalated the confrontation

00:06:14.840 by reaching for the gun.

00:06:17.300 Chud did.

00:06:18.420 Okay, well, I mean, I've seen some stuff. 0.76

00:06:20.720 Okay, and look, I'll put my hands up

00:06:22.040 if the stuff that I've seen is completely wrong,

00:06:24.080 but there is audio that's come through

00:06:26.360 of the paramedic attending him

00:06:29.200 saying that, yeah, he's got cuts and abusions on his head.

00:06:32.320 You know, he was assaulted.

00:06:33.760 Look, I'll give it to you.

00:06:34.920 Because the whole fight happened,

00:06:35.560 but that doesn't tell you who started the fight.

00:06:38.060 Sure, and look, if it turns out,

00:06:39.840 if it turns out there's good evidence

00:06:41.440 that Chud just walked up and shot this guy,

00:06:43.240 then absolutely, yeah, he should go to jail. 1.00

00:06:45.200 But actually, I think, you know, what happened

00:06:47.120 is that this guy assaulted him, he attacked him.

00:06:49.640 We know that he drove an hour to be there.

00:06:52.620 Well, because we've seen what this guy has put out.

00:06:56.000 I mean, it's been shared.

00:06:57.700 And look, if it turns out all of that is an AI fabrication,

00:07:01.060 yeah, fine, you should go to jail.

00:07:02.340 But from everything I've seen so far,

00:07:04.220 suggests that this guy was there to provoke a confrontation

00:07:07.140 and he got it.

00:07:08.500 Let's just turn this around.

00:07:09.620 Let's say a white guy had driven an hour

00:07:12.200 to have a confrontation outside a courthouse

00:07:14.880 and attacked him and started punching on him.

00:07:16.660 and then the other guy pulled a gun and shot him.

00:07:20.200 There wouldn't be any of this, Rua.

00:07:21.860 The problem is that we are held to separate standards.

00:07:26.180 At a minimum, we should be held to the same standard,

00:07:29.340 and that simply isn't happening.

00:07:31.000 But my question here is,

00:07:32.400 I don't think we actually know that this guy just started punching him

00:07:35.280 and then Chud drew his firearm.

00:07:37.460 I don't think we know exactly what happened.

00:07:39.020 We can only go based on the arrest documents,

00:07:41.380 and there is surveillance video that will be introduced at trial

00:07:44.600 but is not available to the public.

00:07:46.160 but I get what you're saying about if this guy came and instigated a conflict with Chud

00:07:50.780 that would be you know a sign that he was part of the problem so the flip side there though

00:07:56.020 is that Chud very clearly was going into these situations looking to antagonize and start a

00:08:02.180 fight where he could kill someone so here's a tweet from Chud on May 7th so just a few days

00:08:06.840 before this happened the series finale is a dead on the pavement and you monkeys rioting when I

00:08:13.740 walk free stay tuned so that's going to undercut any claim of self-defense because clearly this

00:08:19.520 streamer was going around looking for a fight to escalate so he could kill someone that's not what

00:08:25.500 self-defense as a legal mechanism exists to serve yeah look and i agree he's almost certainly going

00:08:31.840 to go for jail for a very long time like derek chauvin did even though derek chauvin didn't do

00:08:36.480 anything wrong he followed procedures exactly in the court it was emerged that okay even the

00:08:41.040 prosecution agreed that he did well okay that's a whole separate issue let's not go down that

00:08:44.480 rabbit hole no he's no it is the central issue the central issue is that people are held to a

00:08:49.860 different standard across the the first world and if you're white you are held to a simply higher

00:08:55.140 standard i mean you can see this in the bail conditions you got you can see it in the fact

00:08:59.120 how so well that it's five times larger than the largest fine for a similar case uh do you know

00:09:05.040 why that would be though there's actually a totally non-racial reason than the average

00:09:08.460 so the reason is that the reason for that has nothing to do with race it's because he was

00:09:13.420 already released on bond from another arrest and charged just days before and when you're on bond

00:09:19.060 then violate the terms of your release they hit you with an extra large bond to keep you in prison

00:09:25.240 it has nothing to do with him being white you're just pushing race identity victim nonsense

00:09:29.900 okay and do you do is it your position that white people are treated exactly the same under the

00:09:37.200 legal system? I don't think there's systemic discrimination against white people in America.

00:09:42.800 Okay, well, I can understand why you're coming from that then, because there clearly is. 0.91

00:09:46.800 Like, what's okay, based on what? Well, judged on the behavior of the legal system.

00:09:53.980 You know, it's not just in your nation, it happens in my nation as well. So, I mean,

00:09:57.580 just a few days ago, the video that you referred to earlier when I talked about Chad the Builder,

00:10:01.240 there was a guy in Southampton, not far from where I live. He was a young 18-year-old

00:10:06.620 university student who was walking home a couple of indian guys aggressed on him uh they stabbed

00:10:12.020 him um and then when the police turned up the indian guys who were who were older and bigger

00:10:16.300 than him um they told the police that he had been racist so what they did the police did is they put

00:10:21.080 him in handcuffs and they watched him drown in his own blood on the floor after having been stabbed

00:10:25.620 there is there is this that's horrible but that's an anecdote in the uk doesn't is not

00:10:30.100 Yeah, and you get these anecdotes every single day.

00:10:33.980 This happens all the time. 0.97

00:10:36.200 You see quite often black criminals let off 0.92

00:10:39.360 with very minor sentences. 0.95

00:10:42.060 I mean, take Irina Zenska.

00:10:43.760 I mean, there are hundreds of these examples 0.90

00:10:46.380 where they do something horrific

00:10:48.300 and they are repeatedly let out of jail 0.99

00:10:51.040 time and time again until they kill somebody.

00:10:53.300 Absolutely, that's a problem. 1.00

00:10:54.220 But that isn't because they're black that they're let off. 0.86

00:10:58.080 And this is why I support Trud the Builder,

00:10:59.700 because what he is doing is he is pushing boundaries.

00:11:01.780 So you do support him.

00:11:02.760 You're like, he might go to jail for decades

00:11:04.800 and he might have killed the person unjustifiably,

00:11:07.000 but I do support him.

00:11:07.780 I do back him.

00:11:08.360 Here's his give, send, go.

00:11:09.320 Give him money.

00:11:11.040 No, I mean, what you're suggesting,

00:11:12.680 what you've been asking me before is,

00:11:14.960 okay, if a completely different set of events had transpired,

00:11:20.040 look, I'm not saying that I support him

00:11:22.340 irrespective of what he did,

00:11:23.740 if it turns out he did something completely different

00:11:25.940 to what it seems that he did do.

00:11:28.060 There are circumstances.

00:11:28.980 I'm not saying that, you know, there are no circumstances 0.52

00:11:31.120 which I think a white person... 0.66

00:11:32.560 Of course, I'm not saying that.

00:11:34.000 What I'm saying is that there is a separate legal standard 0.78

00:11:36.580 and that white people are held to a radically higher standard. 0.77

00:11:41.200 And the legal system needs to start treating people fairly.

00:11:44.820 Now, what Chud the Builder is doing, 0.89

00:11:46.380 the reason that I compare him to Rosa Parks, 0.97

00:11:48.040 is he is pushing boundaries.

00:11:49.480 You're just trolling people. 0.99

00:11:50.720 You know that's ridiculous. 0.98

00:11:51.460 No, I'm not. 0.94

00:11:52.240 No, I'm not. 0.97

00:11:52.660 It's absolutely ridiculous. 0.92

00:11:54.160 She was resisting racial apartheid in America. 0.88

00:11:57.120 And that's what Brad's doing.

00:11:59.820 Brad? I'm Brad.

00:12:01.200 Sorry, Chud. Chud, sorry. 1.00

00:12:03.740 American name's Romeo. We don't get a lot of those around here.

00:12:06.220 You know, that's what Chud was doing.

00:12:08.320 I'm sorry, sorry.

00:12:09.140 So he's resisting a non-existent racial apartheid

00:12:12.060 against white people in America

00:12:13.040 by going around calling random black people 1.00

00:12:14.800 monkeys and chimps and calling them the N-word. 1.00

00:12:17.360 If you believe there is 0.91

00:12:19.140 that the double standard is non-existent,

00:12:21.840 then I can understand why you'd think that.

00:12:23.380 Okay, but it's not freaking Rosa Parks' civil rights error.

00:12:26.000 Even if you think there was some systemic bias against white people in the criminal justice system, which I actually think data indicates the opposite.

00:12:32.880 But even if I granted you that, you can't actually seriously suggest it's remotely comparable to a system of Jim Crow segregation we had here in America with separate drinking fountains sitting at the back of the bus. 0.58

00:12:44.960 Literally, you can't have this job.

00:12:46.800 You can't work here.

00:12:47.620 You can't go to this school.

00:12:49.220 You're seriously making a comparison there, not ironically.

00:12:53.060 No, this is not ironic.

00:12:54.320 I would rather have to drink out of a separate water fountain

00:12:56.980 than have a family member attacked

00:12:59.540 and then see that person walk free

00:13:01.820 because some liberal judge has decided, 0.98

00:13:04.060 but there's too many black men in jail 0.74

00:13:05.420 and therefore they don't need to be treated the same. 0.93

00:13:07.640 And the comparison with Rosa Parks,

00:13:09.380 I am 100% serious about that.

00:13:11.840 Rosa Parks was put up to it. 1.00

00:13:13.700 She was an agitator. 1.00

00:13:14.840 This was a prearranged stunt. 1.00

00:13:16.140 She was an activist. 1.00

00:13:17.040 Yeah, and she went out and she did it to provoke people. 0.71

00:13:20.380 Well, to protest a system of racial apartheid 0.74

00:13:22.680 against black people, 0.99

00:13:23.420 which is a noble cause. 1.00

00:13:24.940 Yes, fine.

00:13:25.660 Yeah, fine, fine. 1.00

00:13:26.560 That's what activists do. 0.99

00:13:27.620 They initiate situations

00:13:28.720 they can then legally and socially challenge.

00:13:30.600 And I tell you what,

00:13:31.440 at the time,

00:13:32.160 if there were podcasts there,

00:13:33.340 there would have been people saying 0.99

00:13:34.460 that why was she provoking people? 1.00

00:13:36.160 Why did she do that? 0.99

00:13:36.920 It's because she was making a point. 0.98

00:13:38.600 This is what Chud is doing.

00:13:40.060 He's going out there.

00:13:40.380 By calling people slurs on the street

00:13:42.600 and monetizing it. 0.91

00:13:44.900 So do you think black people 1.00

00:13:46.200 don't use those slurs? 1.00

00:13:48.100 I think they do, yeah.

00:13:49.900 Okay.

00:13:50.840 Do you think,

00:13:51.440 and so,

00:13:52.380 I mean, like I say,

00:13:53.100 think that's comparable to white people calling black people racial slurs them using it for each

00:13:57.260 other now so it's fundamentally different is it yes yeah the meaning of insignificance of words

00:14:02.420 is different based on context and social relations yeah now look i i don't go around saying that

00:14:06.760 because i'm generally quite a polite guy but so you did say you might if somebody's in your parking

00:14:10.740 spa or in a disabled parking spot uh well i don't know if i'd go there but the point is i would call

00:14:16.800 people and i do i do call out people if i see them misbehaving if i see them doing something

00:14:21.360 they don't do.

00:14:22.140 Now, like I said,

00:14:22.580 I'm from a white area,

00:14:23.420 so it doesn't particularly

00:14:24.100 come up for an issue around here.

00:14:25.200 But yeah, I call people out

00:14:26.140 if their behavior is out of line. 1.00

00:14:27.940 And the videos I've seen of Chud, 0.73

00:14:29.200 that's what he's doing. 0.95

00:14:30.080 And then they become

00:14:30.780 very aggressive

00:14:31.520 and they, you know,

00:14:32.640 to his phrase, 0.89

00:14:33.740 they chimp out.

00:14:34.860 That's a racist phrase, though.

00:14:36.460 They just say they're angry.

00:14:37.760 Why are you making it

00:14:38.480 a chimp thing? 1.00

00:14:39.400 That's just intentionally 0.96

00:14:40.240 racially inflammatory.

00:14:41.700 Well, I'm not saying that.

00:14:43.500 Oh, come on.

00:14:44.200 Say it with your chest.

00:14:45.060 You are saying it.

00:14:47.860 Okay, fine.

00:14:49.140 Yeah, okay.

00:14:49.660 I'm not going to get mad at you.

00:14:50.680 It's just the truth.

00:14:51.440 But don't hide behind the, I'm just quoting him.

00:14:53.260 You clearly are echoing him.

00:14:54.860 Well, it's not a phrase I naturally reach for,

00:14:57.240 but I mean, whatever.

00:14:58.080 I mean, as long as it's descriptive to the point.

00:15:00.580 But, you know, there is a behavioral standard.

00:15:03.820 There is a massive, and your point earlier,

00:15:06.220 you talked about the, you pushed back on my idea

00:15:09.720 that whites are treated differently in the legal system.

00:15:12.400 Well, and you pointed to actually,

00:15:14.580 no, it's the other way around.

00:15:15.700 Yeah, that's because of criminality.

00:15:17.640 That's because of a propensity to criminality. 0.94

00:15:21.340 Well, so even when white and black people are charged with similar crimes or the same crime, 0.95

00:15:28.520 there's disproportionate sentencing and criminal justice outcomes in a way that is worse for black people.

00:15:33.040 In the U.S. criminal justice system, I really can't speak to the U.K., to be clear.

00:15:36.760 I'm familiar with the U.S. system of criminal justice.

00:15:39.860 And there is ample evidence.

00:15:41.880 You can debate the scope of it, for sure.

00:15:43.640 And I think it's often overblown by progressives who want to claim America as like an evil, dystopianly racist society.

00:15:49.640 But there is some evidence for sure supporting the idea that, if anything, the U.S. criminal justice system treats black people disproportionately worse.

00:15:59.580 There's really no statistical evidence that white people get harsher sentences for the same crime or anything like that.

00:16:05.500 That doesn't exist.

00:16:06.340 well look um i i can't speak to the rest of those uh those statistics or the people who compile

00:16:14.640 them because quite often this is very agenda driven and it's incredibly easy to manipulate

00:16:18.500 statistics all i can tell you is that every day i see examples of um you know and you and you might

00:16:26.260 say is anecdote but no it's pattern recognition it's an echo chamber you're on twitter and you 0.89

00:16:31.700 see the same videos because you engage with them when you see them a black person behaving badly

00:16:35.960 like, share, repost on my podcast. 0.99

00:16:38.200 So, of course, it shows you more than that.

00:16:39.960 That doesn't tell you any statistical reality

00:16:41.940 about the world.

00:16:44.420 All I can tell you, look,

00:16:45.860 I've been podcasting for about four or five years now,

00:16:49.340 and it is our job to engage with these stories

00:16:52.560 as they come up.

00:16:54.020 And every day for those five years,

00:16:57.760 I've been seeing example after example,

00:16:59.960 and I am noticing a pattern.

00:17:03.040 Now, you can say, okay, well,

00:17:04.240 oh, this left-wing organization has produced these statistics

00:17:06.860 and they say something else.

00:17:08.000 But I'm just telling you, I see a pattern here.

00:17:12.820 Okay.

00:17:14.080 A couple final things I want to get your thoughts on real quick.

00:17:17.500 Kind of rapid fire.

00:17:19.600 Sure. 0.98

00:17:20.320 If your mom parks in the disabled parking spot at the grocery store 0.99

00:17:25.060 because she's just being lazy and I see her behaving badly, 1.00

00:17:27.960 I can call her a fat s*** and that's fine. 1.00

00:17:30.280 no i don't think really think that is fine but look my mother but earlier you said 1.00

00:17:36.800 he could that was justification for calling black people the n-word uh no uh the the cases i'm

00:17:42.960 talking about is when you get some you know 20 year old kid turn up and he and he bounces out

00:17:47.280 of it with his baseball cap on backwards he's clearly not disabled the direction of the

00:17:51.860 baseball cap batter whether you can call

00:17:53.880 someone the n-word

00:17:55.300 I don't know what you're driving at there Brad but no

00:18:01.740 look if people are behaving 0.79

00:18:03.620 but the issue with our countries

00:18:05.720 is that poor behavior is not

00:18:07.900 called out and it should be

00:18:09.820 I agree but I think it's

00:18:11.800 poor behavior to antagonize people

00:18:13.620 and call them slurs

00:18:15.760 to monetize it 0.91

00:18:17.780 for rage bait

00:18:18.540 look the videos i've seen of him that that is not what's happening he he he which you admit is not

00:18:25.280 that much and then and then they get up in his face they get aggressive uh and actually most of

00:18:29.800 the time they're using that word that you don't like before he does okay that's not the same so

00:18:35.920 let me put this in context right i so i'm i'm a gay person which is obviously not relevant to this

00:18:40.760 conversation another one of my good friends who i make content with is also gay if we jokingly 0.81

00:18:45.680 call each other a f**k, that is obviously very different than if a person corners me in the 0.99

00:18:52.480 street when I'm with my husband or boyfriend and starts screaming at me, I'm a disgusting 0.99

00:18:57.560 f**k. You understand the context and the in-group, out-group does make the word use different. 0.99

00:19:02.880 And that's not some like double standard. It's just how language works. 0.98

00:19:08.260 Screaming anything at anybody in the street is not a particularly good idea. But, you know,

00:19:12.120 To give the example, if you were behaving poorly in public

00:19:17.700 and somebody had a confrontation with you

00:19:19.800 and you got up in their face and you're getting aggressive

00:19:22.220 and you're screaming and you start screaming that at them

00:19:25.060 and they scream it back to you, I mean, this is an argument.

00:19:28.060 No, look, let's go back to the Rosa Parks thing.

00:19:30.660 She went out in order to provoke a reaction 0.73

00:19:33.580 to highlight a difference in the system.

00:19:36.560 Chud has done the same thing.

00:19:38.420 I looked into this.

00:19:40.240 There are apparently 10 statues of Rosa Parks across the US. 1.00

00:19:42.780 I think there should be 10 of Chud. 1.00

00:19:44.240 Good grief. 1.00

00:19:45.420 All right.

00:19:46.160 Well, I'll just be honest.

00:19:49.240 I think you're just doing a contrarian bit.

00:19:51.220 I think you're just being...

00:19:52.160 I'm really not.

00:19:52.880 I'm really not.

00:19:53.560 You're just being antagonistic, and that's fine,

00:19:55.520 because you know what? 1.00

00:19:56.240 Whether it's Chud saying slurs,

00:19:58.340 I'm not going to support him shooting people,

00:19:59.900 probably, in my view, indefensibly, 1.00

00:20:02.440 but I will support his free speech right to be an asshole, 0.99

00:20:05.260 and I will support yours to be a contrarian. 0.99

00:20:07.540 If somebody is attacking you,

00:20:10.220 if somebody has jumped on you and is punching you,

00:20:12.260 if that is indeed what happened, okay?

00:20:14.080 It's not.

00:20:14.680 There's just no proof of that.

00:20:15.840 And you and I weren't there,

00:20:16.040 so we don't know exactly what happened.

00:20:17.340 But if somebody jumps on you and starts punching you,

00:20:19.480 do you have the right to defend yourself?

00:20:21.260 Absolutely.

00:20:22.100 But we have no reason to believe that's what happened.

00:20:24.640 We have no reason to not believe that's what happened,

00:20:27.240 but neither of you and I were there.

00:20:28.620 So let's find out.

00:20:30.200 All right.

00:20:30.580 Well, I do appreciate the spirited conversation.

00:20:33.180 Thank you for joining me.

00:20:34.560 Enjoyed it, Brad.

00:20:35.060 I enjoyed it as well.

00:20:36.340 Thanks so much.

00:20:36.940 so there you have it that was the uh exchange you know judge for yourselves how you think i did on

00:20:41.980 that one honestly i think it did better as as spectacle uh than it did as sort of the the

00:20:47.460 technicals of debate so i think i did land my core frame repeatedly that is you know two-tier

00:20:53.140 justice and its unequal behavioral standards and chud as a boundary pusher um self-defense not yes

00:20:59.780 not yet disproven um but brad what he did do he was able to largely control the the moral camera

00:21:06.060 angle you know he kept dragging away from you know systematic double standards into are you

00:21:10.840 personally endorsing racist slurs and he he was quite skilled in in getting me to try and defend

00:21:17.780 the least defensible surface level version of the argument okay now i think my my my biggest

00:21:27.500 technical weakness was not being as extreme it was it was imprecisely using the extremes so you know

00:21:35.160 the Rosa Parks comparison it's high impact but I should have defined it more narrowly so you know

00:21:41.240 I'm not comparing moral stature or virtue and it would be impossible to do that with a left-wing

00:21:46.000 crowd anyway. What I'm comparing is tactics and deliberately breaching taboos or rules that expose

00:21:55.220 unequal enforcement. Now without that narrowing Brad was successfully able to make me appear as

00:22:02.180 if i was saying you know chud equals rosa parks morally and that is the easier version to ridicule

00:22:09.960 if you are on the left especially if you're starting from the left what did work bigging

00:22:15.640 myself up a bit what did work is uh no collapse under more pressure you know he he repeated he 0.74

00:22:21.820 repeatedly tried to get me to you know force me to disavow um you know the despicable racist guy 0.98

00:22:28.840 say it with your chest. And I just wasn't giving him any ground on any of that. 0.93

00:22:33.800 My strongest pivot was probably the essential question here, is everybody going to be held to

00:22:38.620 the same standard? And that should have been my home base. Every exchange should have returned

00:22:44.120 there. What I also did is I created the broader frame. So Brad wanted me to stay trapped in Chud

00:22:50.120 as an individual. And I tried to move to what behavior gets tolerated, what behavior gets

00:22:56.520 punished who gets the benefit of the doubt who gets made an example of and i think that was the

00:23:01.600 right move and to an extent i exposed brad's asymmetry so you know the moment where brad says

00:23:08.820 that the you know black in-group preference is is different because of context and social relations

00:23:13.580 he did give me a clean opening there and you know he he conceded the entire debate essentially at

00:23:20.600 that point because it's not about neutral rules it's about identity weighted language norms now

00:23:27.420 if I come into that and said good so you agree that speech is being ranked by group status

00:23:33.420 and my argument is that law and media interpretation bait framing and social punishment

00:23:39.460 is increasingly operating the same way and instead I let it stay on the narrow point of the

00:23:46.540 slur etiquette which which was a tactical mistake now where he boxed me in is is he used he very

00:23:53.880 much wanted to focus on the specific case and he wanted to use it as as a trap against my

00:23:59.580 systematic frame so i wanted to argue that this case sits within a wider pattern whereas he wanted

00:24:06.640 to argue did did this individual say slurs did he provoke people uh and then did he shoot somebody

00:24:13.720 so he kept collapsing the system into individual contact and where I gave system claims without

00:24:22.540 hard proof ready to hand because you know like I didn't know what I was walking into

00:24:25.860 I wasn't going to court or anything you know he labeled it as as anecdotal and I kind of needed

00:24:33.280 a clearer bifurcation there I should have said there's two questions one did Chud commit a crime

00:24:39.160 in this incident I don't know because I wasn't there you don't know because you weren't there

00:24:43.500 on the basis of everything i've seen no that's not the case to two why is he being symbolically

00:24:48.940 treated as a civilizational level menace while comparable or as is often the case much much worse

00:24:59.180 violent offenders are processed without this moral intensity and that second question is what i'm here

00:25:05.900 to discuss and if i'd done that i would have denied his ability to make every answer hinge on whether

00:25:12.380 chud personally behaved well like i said i wasn't going into court so you know i i didn't have a

00:25:19.340 whole stack of papers with with you know counterpoints and examples you know and and i said

00:25:24.100 okay he jumped on top of him and started punching him and and brad immediately pushed to you know

00:25:29.720 how do you know that that was a bit of loss of epistemic authority really but i wasn't there

00:25:35.840 nor's brad um i i i believe every account of what actually happened i mean is it so hard to believe

00:25:43.100 that a uh a um a black criminal um with psychosis who is on the record as saying yeah i'm going to

00:25:50.920 go after this guy uh attacked him jumped on top of him and punched him i mean it's not it's not 0.96

00:25:55.260 really a stretch is it but fine i could have gone with something a bit stronger something like you

00:25:59.380 know okay fine the you know the public record is incomplete but my my reading of this is the man's

00:26:05.820 appears to have gone there seeking a confrontation and look if there's unreleased footage and i

00:26:11.280 believe there is um that is going to be presented to the court at some point if the unreleased

00:26:16.140 footage shows that chard initiated deadly force i mean if if chard just went oh look there's a

00:26:21.460 black man walked over and shot him sure guy deserves to go to jail for a long time right 0.94

00:26:28.460 but my point is that the the public moral verdict is being issued before the evidence 0.96

00:26:34.160 is exactly the double standard problem i'm talking about and that would have sounded stronger because

00:26:39.420 it's more conditional the derrick chauvin detour i think that would have only really appealed to

00:26:45.740 people who already agreed because actually people on the left probably still do think that derrick

00:26:52.380 chauvin um murdered george floyd that he he knelt on his neck that's not true we know we know now

00:26:59.540 that i mean even the as i mentioned even the prosecution agreed he did not have the knee on

00:27:03.080 the neck he had the knee on the shoulder when you see the second video angle that's actually very

00:27:07.020 clear and george floyd died of fentanyl poisoning but i think the rule here because bear in mind

00:27:13.640 i'm i'm i'm speaking to the left here is is not to open a second radioactive case unless it

00:27:20.240 directly advances what it is that i'm trying to argue so that was probably a bad detail i think

00:27:26.640 I have to admit that and the the pattern recognition answer I mean it's true like it could

00:27:34.980 have been stronger against a statistical challenge because probably his best bit was the exchange

00:27:40.620 where he says well your your examples are anecdotes and and they're possibly algorithmically enforced

00:27:45.940 and I'm just saying well look I've I've seen literally hundreds of examples and I'm noticing

00:27:52.800 a pattern now every right ringer is going to hear that and be like yeah yeah that's true but i could

00:27:58.960 have taken it up a level i could have said look the thing that i'm pointing at is irrespective of

00:28:03.980 you know whatever your statistics maybe they're right maybe they're fine whatever the thing that

00:28:08.020 i'm pointing to is not just sentencing tables it's it's the discretionary leniency you know

00:28:14.860 The charging choices, the media amplification, the bail decisions, the prosecutor's ambition,

00:28:24.480 the institutional fear, and whether the officials are terrified of racial optics.

00:28:32.920 That would have been much harder to swat away, and that would have uprated my point significantly.

00:28:38.320 The mother analogy was a kind of a weird one.

00:28:41.380 you know his analogy was effectively because it converted an abstract slur into a you know a

00:28:47.220 personal insult against my mother and i answered you mainly and said i don't think that's fine 0.69

00:28:51.720 but really the premise there is ridiculous because my mother does not chimp out you know she she

00:28:59.780 doesn't i mean for a start she doesn't park blocking fire exits and park in disabled bays

00:29:06.180 and she just doesn't act badly in public so it's it's it's just not an issue and and and i can tell

00:29:13.120 you what would happen if she did park in a disabled bay and somebody pointed it out or or stared at

00:29:17.880 her uh you know as you know a video that i recently saw chud the builder he stands there staring at

00:29:24.500 these group of young black guys because they parked um blocking a fire exit outside a shop

00:29:29.560 in a clearly marked area you know don't park here and he just stares at them and they get out and

00:29:34.560 they start shouting and screaming at him and you know as chad would say uh or i should say my chest

00:29:41.720 um chimping out things my mother wouldn't do that and and if you did and if you did point out that

00:29:47.680 she'd done that she'd be like oh i'm so terribly sorry i'll move it at once so it's not really an

00:29:52.500 issue she just doesn't chimp out i mean that that's the that's the underlying um issue but

00:29:57.740 it would have he his point might have sounded good there because he managed to get me to retreat a

00:30:01.560 it because I was flummoxed by the juxtaposition of poorly behaved individuals who are hyper

00:30:10.700 aggressive to my little old dear mum. Not a comparison that really makes sense.

00:30:18.900 If you enjoyed that content, and of course you did because you are a smart person, then why don't

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - May 26, 2026

PREVIEW： Brokenomics ｜ Dan defends Chud the Builder (Badly？)

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