simulation argument

Jon Bois tells the story of a 2008 bodybuilding forum thread in which users spent a weekend arguing over how many days are in a week. It is episode six of his Pretty Good series for SB Nation.

An Innuendo Studios Alt-Right Playbook episode about a rhetorical tactic of dismissing partial fixes to problems. It frames this as a style of argument that treats flaws as unfixable facts of life.

Innuendo Studios' video from the Alt-Right Playbook series on how bad-faith actors control the conversation through debate tactics and moving goalposts.

An Innuendo Studios video essay from the Alt-Right Playbook series that uses the Seinfeld 'the card says moops' scene to explain bad-faith argument tactics. It describes how reactionaries use sincerity and irony as shields in online debate.

A BBC Question Time clip in which Ian Hislop argues against capital punishment, rebutting the deterrence argument. He points out the problem of executing innocent people.

A Philosophy Tube video essay on data, surveillance and the algorithms built on personal information, touching on Cambridge Analytica and the 'nothing to hide' argument.

Not Just Bikes argues that self-driving cars will worsen sprawl and car dependence and harm cities. The video compares car-centered and people-centered urban design and weighs what cities should do instead.

Brian Will makes the case for procedural programming over object-oriented programming, arguing that OOP's promised encapsulation and decoupling are largely illusory. He analyzes real code examples and the problems of tying data to behavior in classes.

A long video essay by Natalie Wynn of ContraPoints on cancel culture, drawing on her own experience of being pile-on targeted by other leftists. It is theatrical and discursive, mixing argument with performance.

Ross Scott of Accursed Farms makes a 76-minute argument that selling video games as a service is a form of consumer fraud. He lays out legal arguments that games are goods, covers ownership and programmed obsolescence, and discusses game preservation.

Casey Muratori shows how typical 'clean code' object-oriented patterns can cost large factors in performance. He benchmarks them against simpler data-oriented code.

Oh The Urbanity! questions the framing that urban planning reforms like bike lanes and traffic calming wage war on suburbanites. It argues that suburban and urban residents alike want less traffic on their own streets.

A short anarchist-leaning video by Larken Rose arguing that the Constitution and similar documents cannot legitimately grant anyone the right to take other people's property. It uses a rhetorical 'paper that lets me rob you' setup to challenge belief in political authority.

CityNerd lays out a data-driven method for deciding where high-speed rail should be built in North America and identifies 56 city pairs that justify it, based on population and distance.

Jonathan Blow's hour-long livestreamed response to a RustConf 2018 closing keynote about entity systems in Rust. He argues that index-based entity systems amount to manual memory management that sidesteps the borrow checker, and he talks about friction for game developers.

Tony Heller presents a short video arguing that climate science relies on data truncation, cherry-picking and selective presentation of statistics. It is a one-sided polemic against mainstream climate claims.

Peter Schiff, during his 2010 Senate campaign, argues that government loan programs and subsidies push college tuition up.

Gary's Economics argues that the UK housing crisis stems from wealth inequality, treating housing as an asset like shares that rich people bid up. He contends that simply building more housing won't fix affordability.

A clip from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe in which a forensic psychiatrist argues that intense news coverage of school shooters encourages copycat attacks, alongside Brooker's satire of formulaic news reporting.

Tom Scott describes trying ChatGPT to fix his Gmail labels and being unsettled by how capable it was. He argues that we cannot know where we are on the technology curve, comparing it to Napster.

Adam Something gives a short, sarcastic argument that carbon capture does not live up to its promises. He says the energy it uses would be better spent replacing fossil sources directly.

Anders Puck Nielsen analyzes the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage using Kilcullen's theory of liminal warfare and prospect theory. He argues from the operational design that Russia is the most likely culprit, then discusses how hybrid warfare might be used against Europe.

Sabine Hossenfelder weighs the arguments for and against nuclear power, covering waste, fuel supply and newer reactor designs. She is skeptical that fast breeders and thorium solve the problems.

A clip of psychologist Jordan Peterson discussing why few women reach high-paying, high-pressure jobs. He talks about the tension between a demanding career and having a family.

A video essay arguing that the next major real-time strategy game will fail unless it gets the fundamentals right. It covers the playerbase and demographics, what older RTS games did well, and the roles of the engine, spectacle, development tools and player-generated content.

An hour-plus Some More News episode that critiques Ben Shapiro's arguments and record of errors. It is a long, comedic and opinionated breakdown.

A 10-minute clip from a Jonathan Blow Twitch stream in which he argues that game engines do not really need separate scripting languages. He questions the value of embedded interpreters when the main language can do the job.

Thunderf00t critiques Starlink's economics and technical claims alongside other unfulfilled Musk promises. It argues Starlink is a poor business.

Louis Rossmann explains why he stopped using GrapheneOS, describing his interactions with its lead developer Daniel Micay. It includes chat logs shown in the video.

A former libertarian argues against libertarianism, describing the worst-case scenario if government disappeared overnight. It is drawn from the School Sucks Podcast episode on the natural state.

A short clip of economist Milton Friedman discussing the dynamics of illegal immigration and its relationship with the welfare state. It is part one of two.

A short clip of Milton Friedman clearing up misconceptions about redistribution of wealth and inheritance tax, arguing that a heavy inheritance tax encourages wasteful behavior.

A Last Week Tonight segment on tech monopolies, their hidden harms and possible remedies such as antitrust reform. John Oliver covers lobbying and legislation along the way.

A TVO current affairs panel debates Canada's Bill C-16, which added gender identity and expression to human rights law and the Criminal Code. Jordan Peterson argues it threatens free speech, and other guests respond.

Thunderf00t's critique of SpaceX's claims, arguing its launches are not actually cheaper than competitors or the Space Shuttle. It questions the economics of reusability.

A long, sarcastic critique of Elon Musk's Loop tunnel transit idea and related Boring Company and Hyperloop claims. It leans on transit-planning arguments about capacity and throughput.

A campaign-produced compilation of clips of Donald Trump condemning racism and white supremacy on 38 occasions, published in 2020.

A short animated excerpt of Alan Watts describing 'prickles' (rigorous, scientific types) and 'goo' (soft, spiritual types). He argues the real division is between prickly goo and gooey prickles.

Louis Rossmann reacts to lobbyist ads in the Massachusetts right-to-repair ballot fight that suggest repair access would enable domestic abuse and discrimination, and urges support for the campaign.

A short clip of Michio Kaku arguing that America's weak education system leaves a shortage of high-skilled tech workers, so H-1B visas bring in talent. It is an excerpt of a longer panel.