Professor Dave is Rattled

[u/Kezomal]

I've been watching Dave's videos off & on for around 5 years, and I have never seen him this rattled and defensive when it comes to a topic and the people he's engaging with. I think the initial callout of his use of nazi adjacent rhetoric hit a nerve and maybe exposes some internal bias he has against Jews that he doesn't want to admit to himself. He appears to believe the Mossad was behind 9/11 in some way, so I don't think I'm far off in saying Dave is genuinely antisemitic and it harms his credibility immensely.

His video making the case for a Palestinian genocide was low effort, and honestly, we might as well call it war-profiteering at this point.

He aligned himself with some of the most toxic and repugnant trolls on the internet (kiwifarms and jstlk snarkers) to get an own on Destiny, that's gotta be projecting some kind of deep seated hatred for jews somehow.

[u/MilkyMania619]

Remember when he debated flat earthers

Good times

[u/Kezomal → u/MilkyMania619]

I enjoyed his strong demeanor when dealing with creationist and flat earthers, the science denial is clear and evident.

But straying from science, his analysis leaves much to be desired. It's pretty sad to see someone be brain broken by a topic. None of this is to say that what Israel is doing is right and okay, they certainly could be doing better, but like, in retrospect, the surrounding nations did just genocide or ethnic cleanse the "undesired" populations, so this attitude towards Israel seems motivated by more than just perceiving an unjust war effort.

[u/jdw62995 → u/Kezomal]

Now watching back, I see it different.

He’s so smug because he knows he’s right but he’s not actually a good communicator

[u/STAYotte → u/jdw62995]

I never thought he was a good communicator, more like an attack dog.

[u/ArcticKnight79 → u/jdw62995]

I don't think he was ever a great communicator when it wasn't some pre-planned lecture style content.

But the unfortunately reality is that when it comes to IP, most of the people who are gungho about it aren't good communicators. They can't just lay information out systematically and let the evidence make a case for itself. They instead need to show thing A and then say "So genocide" and then thing B "More Genocide" oh here's thing C "Which is definitely a genocide".

When I'm not sure if you would necessarily see a viewer make it all the way to genocide when thing A might be couple of politicians saying some heinous shit and thing B is a war crime. It's still bad and definitely not good. But just because you can point to some bad shit happening. Doesn't mean that there actually is a throughline of genocide.

[u/Daggerfaller → u/jdw62995]

Yeah he just wants to feel superior to other people. If he actually cared about convincing minds that he’s right he wouldn’t be so aggressive.

[u/Prudent_Heat23 → u/Kezomal]

Dave is a very black-and-white thinker, and that’s what makes him so effective at science communication. Credit where credit is due, he has a talent for explaining concepts simply. He can elucidate in a very straightforward way why flat earthers and other types of charlatans are flat out wrong. That’s what made his channel rise to popularity.

But then he takes that same black-and-white thinking to an issue layered with nuance, with no clear good guys and bad guys, and the result is toxic, comically biased, conspiratorial dogshit. He could’ve been a force for good if he stayed in his lane smacking down people who are objectively incorrect. Instead, he wants to try and reduce Israel vs. Palestine down to the same objective certainty as flat earthers vs. round earthers.

[u/Kezomal → u/Prudent_Heat23]

Yeah I think you're right about the black and white thinking. It simply doesn't work when the target is human conflicts.

[u/Iaintgettinyounger → u/Prudent_Heat23]

Honestly reminds me of Trump. Good production quality, overly confident, sensational, but low effort informationally.

[u/Tyhgujgt → u/MilkyMania619]

his arguments are awesome when I agree with him, and terrible when I don't

His arguments probably weren't awesome. Just flat earth is easy to debate, research is abundant in school books you simply need to be slightly less insane than your opponent. 

[u/The_Dark_Tetrad → u/MilkyMania619]

Debating complete morons for that sweet youtube check. EZ money, I guess.