GTAA host Ben Burgis is a philosophy professor, a columnist for Jacobin magazine, and the author of a few books--starting with one with the same name as the podcast. He's debated right-wingers ranging from Charlie Kirk to Walter Block, appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience, and been called a "glib c*nt" by Gavin McInnes. Past GTAA guests have included Slavoj Žižek, Ana Kasparian, Richard Wolff, Glenn Greenwald, Sam Seder, Emma Vigeland, Jesse Singal, Norman Finkelstein, Thaddeus Russell, Bhaskar Sunkara, Nathan Robinson, David Pizarro, Tamler Sommers, Matt Christman, Amber Frost, and Touré Reed.
The regular show is at 8 PM EST on Mondays, with a postgame for GTAA patrons starting at 10. There are debate breakdowns at 8 EST every Thursday.
patreon.com/benburgis
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I don't see the utility of debating this idiot who has proven many times that he'd an intellectual failure. I guess Ben has to eat.
I thought Ben did a great job in this debate!
D is such a dipshit edgy contrarian
Matthew Frye Jacobson, a Yale professor of African American Studies had a decently critical review of Kendi's book.
Destiny's opener hinged on straight racism. Also giving up the bag.
Dude, you're a professional speaker. Maybe work on the uhms and the conciseness of your speech. That was painful
Destiny invoking the casualty number psyop (the UN has NOT rejected the original numbers; all they did was put ALTERNATIVE numbers up on their site) to matter-of-factly argue that Israel is not indiscriminate in their blowing up of entire neighbourhoods reminds me of him accusing (underage) Palestinian militants of R wording Israeli women on Oct 7... Like, I know he's dumb, but I think he's also a liar -- he can't be this gullible. It's as if he has an Israeli war cabinet lawyer feeding him this stuff.
But, guys, we are trading partners! That's something, right? haha, what a dumb ass. We used to trade with South Africa, jeez.
The ( J ) wrote their own Religious texts. Then they interpreted their own self written texts. Now, they refer to their own self written texts as if it's an encylepedia.
Faulty and dishonest education is a problem in colleges, especially the IVY Leagues, which someone coined the name Poison Ivy League.
Destiny's Top 5 Dumbest Arguments on Israel-Palestine: 5. "Israel couldn't have deliberately expelled the Palestinians in 1948, because they would have lost the support of the US and Britain if they did." 4. "The Palestinians have only ever used violence. And by the way, what good have all the boycotts, UN resolutions and ICJ actions done for them?" 3. "The IDF never forced a Palestinian civilian to act as a human shield. They simply knocked on their door and asked nicely." 2. "If Israel dropped a nuclear weapon on Gaza, that wouldn't qualify as genocide." 1. "Hamas uses cookies to make rocket fuel."
@@purplecrown505 These are misrepresentations of what he said. You can’t even accurately describe his positions.
@captainbeefheart5815 2, 4 and 5 are from the Lex Fridman debate. 1 and 3 are from the debate with Omar Baddar. The onus is on you to explain how I've misrepresented him.
@@purplecrown505 1. He didn't say Hamas uses cookies to make rocket fuel. He said there's a possibility that Hamas COULD use the cookies to make rocket fuel which is why Israel bans cookies as part of the blockade. 2. This is misleading. He said that dropping a nuke on Gaza wouldn't NECESSARILY be genocide if done without genocidal intent. The same way the US didn't genocide the Japanese when they dropped nukes. However, if Israel dropped a nuke on Gaza in the current circumstance, this would almost certainly require genocidal intent. 3. Are you sure he said they NEVER did that? Or was he talking about a particular situation where they just asked? Also misleading because he acknowledged that they might feel pressured to do it in that circumstance. Time stamps for 4 and 5?
Mr Bertandernie had simply no ability to deal with the facts. Good job by Ben.
Hamas IS evil. Palestinians are not. They are not the same.
Lol the comments on the debate channel are very different. Ben got cooked
Yeah because Destiny has a huge audience of mindless fanboys who will claim he has won every debate he’s ever done even though he’s done poorly in many debates especially in recent times.
@@2vexy I could say the same about Ben stans. It's painfully obviously you have not watched Destiny and just regurgitate the same ad hominin arguments about him
@@nomad79 I have watched plenty of Destiny debates before I even knew who Ben was, I was a fan of him until I became knowledgeable enough to know that he’s wrong in a lot of ways. If you want a specific example, MouthyInfidel has an hour long podcast on his channel where he demonstrates Destiny being incredibly dishonest in a stream where he reacted to one of their videos on the conflict. Not a single Destiny fan I’ve talked to has ever been able to present a defence of Destiny regarding that video.
@@2vexy look mate of you think Ben came across well in that debate I think you just might be seeking confirmation bias. It was bad. I don't know about this particular debate example but I'm only really interested in discussing this particular one. It wasn't a good performance for Ben There have been far better pro Palestinian debaters than him
@@nomad79 I mean I think it was a bad performance from Destiny and I think anyone who doesnt is seeking confirmation bias. I think there were just as many issues with Destinys arguments as there was with Ben’s and he definitely didn’t “cook” Ben whatsoever. Like He just refused to accept Ben’s responses and in the second half he was completely straw manning Ben by making outlandish claims like how Ben apparently wants to destroy Israel even though he said nothing even close to that.
Finkelstein: because im against "american imperialism" - i will support or find any excuses for any dictator, terrorist or cannibal around the globe.
Leftist buzzwords bingo: 1. Problematic 2. Misogynistic 3. Homophobia
Imagine a dweeby nerd 🤓 going up to Achilles the warrior, push up his glasses, and say: “welll aktzuallleeeee, a wooden horse would never work because psychologically the Trojans would..” bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. Hey presto, I give you this video.
Density the gamer boy troll.
Ben kept rebutting destiny saying 'it's irrelevant that (pragmatic reason to support Israel) exists when deciding if USA should support them' YET he never gave any reason why USA should not support an apartheid state, or one causing a genocide. So the same argument applies: 'it may be the case Israel is an apartheid state, but that's irrelevant to if USA should support them and supply with munitions.'
"he never gave any reason why USA should not support an apartheid state, or one causing a genocide." Stop joking bro lolol
This is a bit right?
@@isawilraen9816 shoot me a time stamp if I'm wrong.
I now Destiny has a big platform and that's why people engage with him. But so does Alex Jones. Both bad faith actors with no qualifications. Ignore them
true, ignore public figures with massive audience, just keep doing your scuffed podcast with your loser socialist friends to your dwindling audience
@@shaneomahony968 The difference is Destiny whooped your boy and embarrassed him. Benny couldn’t even answer why Jews would care about the ethnic demographics of Israel.
I've only seen the opening statements and I've already posted half an essay, sheesh. I might have to skip the rest of it just for my own mental health.
Wow, I don't doubt that Israel would be committing even more atrocities if they didn't have such massive support from the US and its allies, I think that is very true, but to use that as a positive argument for Israel is bizarre. "Keep sending us weapons to commit atrocities or we'll do even worse!" Wouldn't that be, like, giving in to terrorism, Destiny? Also if you really believe they would do even worse atrocities, how is that a government that is worthy of support in the first place? He suggests by the standards of its neighbors Israel is conducting "cleaner war", but it's neighbors aren't military allies of the US. In fact we often consider their government as enemies and terrorist organizations, so what does that make Israel? Also I question that very premise considering that of the roughly 1200 people killed in the 10/7 attacks, some 300 were IDF members, Israel's numbers are worse than that... So, I just don't get why the idea of collateral damage only goes one way here, and the label terrorist only applies the opposite way. With that said I'm not defending the actions of Hamas on 10/7, in fact I think Israel could have used that attack as an opportunity to violently dismantle Hamas using precision tactics. Instead Netanyahu, the Likud party and the IDF chose this rapid mass destruction tactic, and left themselves open to the continued accusations of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
00:06 - Welcome . . . opening statements 00:16 - Dr Ben 04:41 - 05:01 - Steven
Destiny would have supported Custer against the Indians, Batista vs the cuban revolutionaries.
He is staunchly pro-human rights and anti-authoritarian. On what grounds do you assert he would support Custer and Batista?
@@f0lke His support of Israels genocide?
@@f0lke How can you be staunchly pro human rights while rationalizing a genocide and an apartheid state? Additionally he is a moral anti realist, and he is a psychological egoist when it comes to moral principles. If that is the case, then it is quite likely that he will not support human rights if he judges that it will benefit him. There is a distinction between making a statement that you are something and actually being something. And his current behavior does not point to him being a staunch supporter of human rights.
@@optimisticdeterminist2291 tbf Destiny's ethical principles can hardly be taken seriously - years ago the whole philo community he was in, tried to explain in excruciating detail to him why his ethics takes are vacuous and that he misunderstood "moral realism" completely, and he admitted to this dozens of times - it's been years, but nothing changed - he still repeats the exact same points verbatim, still hasn't read anything beyond a bit of Russel's Brief Introduction of Philosophy and instead of engaging with any of it in any serious matter, he just acts like this never happened and claims to have sound ethical takes :'D but yeah your wider point IMHO stands absolutely, well put!
@@f0lke "I support human rights" is as significant and consequential a statement as "I support oxygen"
AMAZIN
I thought this guy went away when he was outed as one of them gays
The most nebulous opening statement ever. More democracy, more freedom for its citizens and its a good trading partner. So, Israel doesn't cheat the US in trade agreements? Or they have more stuff the US can't get elsewhere? Cherry tomatoes and hummus? How do you even measure democracy? More voting? Russia is a democracy. Does Russia have more democracy than UK because the UK has an unelected Monarchy and a house of lords? How do you measure freedom? Under the law or in actual practice? Soviet filmmakers had more freedom than US filmmakers. There was a lot more censorship on films in the US. Is it judged based on raw numbers? The freedom to wear whatever type of shoes i want is probably less important than the freedom of movement within a country. All individual freedoms are not created equal. "Well, I know a lot of Russian filmmakers and they have a lot more freedom than I have. All they have to do is be careful about criticizing the government. Otherwise, they can do anything they want" -George Lucas
Murray Rothbard, nearly six decades ago, predicted that either Israel would abandon its quest to be a regional hegemon and make peace with the Arabs - or face a catastrophic guerrilla war. The catastrophic guerrilla war is now underway - while technological advancements in arms now seems to favor the guerrilla army over the state. Rothbards excellent pamphlet on the origins of the movements for a Jewish homeland - of which Zionism was but one among many - is well worth reading and is titled 'War Guilt In The Middle East' 1967
lol no, Murray rothbard was just a gutter antisemite
Maybe you should have given yourself an argument
As long as you are not actively being enslaved or executed on live TV, steven thinks your quality of life is sufficient. No more questions needed for him.
What is this seven minute upload? Lazy ass can’t even stay online during the debate
if we are talking about democracies in the middle east, Lebanon is objectively way more democratic that "Israel". It's definitely far from perfect but at the very least 80% of the population under its jurisdiction can vote (excluding palestinian and syrian refugees unfortunately) and they have multi-party elections. Sure, they have a weird confessional system and their economy is in free fall but if we are just talking about democracy and freedom of speech they are objectively better than "Israel".
Most boring men on earth
Does anyone else feel like destinys weird debate tactics just make him come off as if he doesn’t understand what the other person is saying? Like 90% of the time i see this dude i come off with that impression regardless of whos right or wrong
Could you give some examples from the debate of these tactics he employ? I have yet to discern the difference between "debate tactics" and just simply being a good debater, but I would love to learn more about it. Please, educate me.
how about Ben’s debate tactics of rambling incoherently mixed with a ridiculous amounts of “umms and uhhs”
@@steph1387 You know that you have to feel sorry for a person when they believe something is incoherent just because its nuanced and something they disagree with. Additionally, do you rate whether someone is coherent or not solely on whether they use onomatopeia or not while thinking? That seems like a strange and rather irrational choice. Some of the smartest people I know actually do the same as Ben because they want to think about their answer. If someone always gives a lightningquick answer, it might actually be a red flag pointing to the fact that they are not trying to engage the question honestly.
@@steph1387nice to be able to see comment histories on yt now. Cool pfp btw, you’re quite the Destiny fan😊
easy Destiny W, the worst part was when Ben was asked to steelman the Pro-Israel side and Ben couldn’t come up with anything… cmon Ben you’ve supposedly been arguing with Pro-Israel people since October 8th and you really don’t understand the other sides position at all?
Naturally you, a pro genocide simp who flicks her bean to Destiny, would have such a take away from the "debate". 🙄
Why is Destiny?
This whole debate was just Destiny wasting an hour and 30 minutes asking Ben "explain to me what you mean by that" again and again. This tactic that Destiny uses all the time simply makes the debate not go anywhere and is unenjoyable to watch.
You are wrong. Steven didn't waste all of that debate-time, Ben did. At the beginning of the debate, Steven asked Ben whether or not they shared an understanding about some really basic factual grounds regarding the discussion they were about to have. Here, Ben could have just said "Yes." Instead, Ben spent great lengths of time qualifying this and that and why and how and if etc., only to end up saying that "We agree" in the end anyway. This is clear if you watch the whole debate and take notice. And BTW, I don't understand how do you consider the attempt to establish common factual grounds before a debate a form of "tactic." It's simply a smart thing to do, especially in this fake news era. Ben could have just said "Yes, we agree on this" and moved on. He didn't have to waste all of that time, but he did.
@@f0lkeBen clearly expressed agreement multiple times on some of the factual matters, he just also emphasised that he didn’t think it was relevant to the core of the debate. In other cases he expressed that he was agnostic or unsure but was willing to grant it for the sake of argument yet for some reason Destiny pressed him to agree with him, which is odd because if an opponent expresses agnosticism and grants it for the sake of argument then the only logical thing to do is just to move forward to the actual dispute which Destiny refused to do for some reason.
@@f0lke When someone gives you a conditional, like Ben clearly stated several times, that: Even if any F is the case, then G is not acceptable, then you are wasting time by going back to the non sequitur details within the range of F. He is wasting time, because a debate is structured around the argument. Additionally the claim that Ben ended up agreeing is factually wrong. You need to see that there is a distinction between pointing out that you might not agree, and even if it was the case, then it would be irrelevant for your argument, and agreeing. Destiny refused to even touch Bens argument. I suspect it is because he knew it would end badly. Therefore he attempted, from the very beginning, to steer the discussion into details that they would disagree on. He clearly states that is where he thinks the issue will lie, yet Ben points out that he does not think that is the issue. If this was an argumentative paper at university level, Destiny would fail the paper because he refused to deal with the premises at hand. Destiny only had empty rhetorical bluster.
The debate was wasted by benny going on irrelevant rants while not answering simple questions. Destiny just wanted to make sure they agree on the facts of the matter before moralizing and benny couldn't even do that.
@@captainbeefheart5815 You are not even attempting to give an argument. Additionally how can you even attempt politics without morals? Numbers in politics have no semantic meaning unless you attach a axiological value to them.
It was a good debate. I was kind of preoccupied with calling out Destiny's crime.
"Constructive engagement" anyone?
Watching the whole thing - my favorite part so far, is when Destiny asks a question about Isreal, Ben answers referring to Zionism, Destiny interrupts him immediately accusing Ben of switching the topic - "I asked about Isreal and he is talking about Zionism" - Ben replies with: "That's literally the same thing, Steven" - 👏
Only they're not, though? Zionism is a nationalist ideology advocating for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and the term was first coined in the 1890's. Israel is a sovereign nation state founded more than 50 years later, in 1948. So no, they're not "literally the same thing" at all. They're linked, of course, but they should be considered two very distinct "entities" in a debate. What was asked regarding Israel? Could you link the timestamp? Edit: NVM, found it. In the example you were referencing Steven is asking Ben why he thinks Israelis today are concerned regarding the ethnic makeup of Israel. Ben answers "because of zionism" for about 10 minutes. After this Steven explains what he believes is the reason: kzread.infoXdMRphk7ij4?si=UhAbR2BFmKnboEgv&t=4142 It seems that Ben is analyzing this question through a purely ideological lens, i.e. his argument is "The only conceivable reason for Israelis being concerned about the ethnic character of Israel is the ideology of zionism." Steven on the other hand is viewing this question through a more pragmatic lens: "The reason is probably because Jewish populations have been mistreated and/or killed in - or fled/been exiled from - every single muslim majority country that has had a Jewish population historically.", and that this fear of being mistreated, killed or exiled is the driving factor for why Israelis are concerned about Israel's ethnic makeup. I mean, both could be right, and it probably varies from Israeli person to person. But Israel and zionism "is litterally the same thing?" This "own" is your takeway from the debate? Sheesh.
@@f0lke you're this close of realizing they're the same thing fam - just cross the edge destiny can never cross because he's a dense debate bro incapable of learning :)
Wow I didn’t realize he was actually this ignorant
NF makes a lot of sense here. I just wish I could listen to him without feeling he's haranguing me.
Talk fast Mr. Vermicelli
1:18 This an important sticking point for me. If Israel were earnest about either a one-state or two-state solution, I would have a much different view of the conflict. Destiny's position is that both the decades-long blockade of Gaza as well as their mass bombing of Gaza since October 7th are justified because Hamas presents a security threat to Israel. And thus, once Hamas is eliminated from Gaza, the blockade must be lifted. Whatever one thinks of the moral reasoning here, one of the premises is completely delusional. The blockade isn't going anywhere, even after Israel decides to wind down its current military campaign that includes the occasionally true pretenses of killing Hamas members and rescuing hostages. I find it depressingly fascinating how Destiny picks up on individual injustices that poke holes in the narrative that Israel is a good-faith advocate for peace (euphemistic "settlements" in the West Bank, blowing up an aid truck), but never comes to the conclusion that there's a pattern of dishonest behavior. I can hope that observing a continual accumulation of these events will eventually change his mind, but I'm not betting on it.
Destiny doesn't think any event is connected he has a completely atomized world view, this isn't the only time for instance he separate the protests on Kenosha from the broader BLM protests around the country, it's a failing of his
The issue is that the security threat is created by Israel's illegal occupation and denial of the Palestinians right to self determination. The security threat is created by Israel's illegal actions. Whether Hamas is destroyed or not is irrelevant as the cause of the security threat will remain. Any agreement to peace requires an end to the occupation and allowing the Palestinians to exercise their right to self determination.
He is a fan of empire... I think it goes back to his rejection of the Cuban revolutionaries in his own personal family history... every rationalization since has fallen on the side of 'might is right'.
easy Ben W
Anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of geopolitics will rightly conclude that Finkelstein was being kind when he said Destiny was a moron
Finklestein scored an own-goal in what should have been an easy victory, and many leftists cheered him on for it. He unironically argues that October 7th was morally justified. Not to be confused with the far more sane position that the massacre was a predictable but obviously condemnable result of Israeli policies that you'll hear from, for example, Vaush. Finkelstein can't even manage to stay internally consistent in this narrative because he said Russia has a historical right to invade Ukraine. In one case, we are supposed to believe that no form of resistance against an oppressor can be too much. In the other, the oppressor is justified from the outset.
@@synchronium24was Nat Turner's rebellion morally justified?
@@synchronium24 Finkelstein can be unnecessarily controversial in the way he frames his ideas but he has spent his life studying this topic. Vaush is a just as much of a moron as Destiny and should not be compared to a serious academic like Norm.....
@@synchronium24Finkelstein has never said it's "morally justified." What he said is that it was predictable and inevitable just like Nat Turner's rebellion. He plainly said that Oct 7 was an atrocity.
@@jemt1631 He said that both October 7th and Nat Turner's rebellion were morally justified. The problem for him is that the situations are not analogous and Nat Turner's rebellion really was justified.
EXCUSE ME MR BONELLI
Destiny's arguments will not age well, I think. Stupid name, by the way.
Ben, you smoked him destiny over here reading the taking points brought to you by the IDF
Ben cooked this dude, without breaking a sweat. Destiny can't deal with the real life death toll period
Lol
Lmao, Benny boy got smoked. Doesn't know shit about Israel/the middle east. He couldn't even describe why Israel cares about maintaining an ethnic majority in Israel. He dodged like a mfer cuz he was afraid of conceding any point that was obviously true that would undermine his dogshit arguments.
That's what typically happens when a Game Streamer thinks skimming Wikipedia articles is the same thing as having a firm grasp of a subject.
@@thecollector6746 see this BS again. You don't watch his streams , it's obvious
@@nomad79 Yeah, yeah...we know. Cope harder that people like you are mercilessly laughted at because you think your Wiki-Searches make you subject-matter-experts.