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POSITIONS

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The Positions Page, previously positions.destiny.gg, (was) a sub-section of the
Destiny.gg website,
used by Destiny to provide a written log of various aspects of his political
positions, personal life, and interactions with others in the streaming space.

Destiny's Blog functioned similarly to his positions page.


Currently Destiny uses Obsidian to consolidate his thoughts and outline debate
points/questions.





The following sections are the archived contents of the Positions page written
by Destiny.

Get It From Me

Compromise

Sources

Brains The Message

As a content creator, I am often misrepresented by people who disagree with me.
Form an opinion about me based on my actual positions.

The real world is complicated and the best answers are usually found between two
extremes.
My positions can be better understood if you avoid black and white and allow for
nuance.

Online political discourse has become increasingly unhealthy.
I want debate to be grounded in facts and research. You can see some of the
resources that I base my positions on here.




Positions Page Archive:

About... Expand Who am I? My name is Steven Bonnell and my online handle across
Twitch, YouTube and Instagram is Destiny. I'm most well known for my political
content online, but I started my career as a Starcraft 2 livestreamer. Today I
livestream most aspects of my life, including gaming, online debates, and
canvassing for political change. Throughout my life I have always tried to
ensure the consistency of my beliefs, and to test my ideas I would argue with
others. My political advocacy Starting in November of 2020, I attempted to spin
up an organization to mobilize youth into direct, local political action. Our
first efforts were in Georgia, where we knocked on over 20,000 doors in support
of Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock. For my next effort, I wanted to focus on my
hometown of Omaha, Nebraska to see if we could mobilize enough volunteers to get
a progressive candidate elected to office. Unfortunately because of how people
and news organizations mischaracterized my actions, I was forced to stop
campaigning for my mayor of choice. I've also interviewed a number of
individuals (1,2,3,4)running for state and local offices while exposing fraud in
other candidates. Why this page exists Many things are said about who I am or
what I believe in. Oftentimes, people make absurd claims about my beliefs, such
as that I advocate for the indiscriminate killing of BLM protestors, that I'm a
nazi, that I'm a communist, etc. This is partially my fault as I have a history
of being hyperbolic in some circumstances, and I often engage with people who
aren't really interested in good faith conversations. Part of this is also due
to my huge backlog of content and the nature of the internet - I understand that
sifting through thousands of hours of debates to find my fully fleshed-out views
is not a practical demand to make of people.

As I've evolved both in my political and social views, and as I've continued to
produce more hours of content, it is now possible that you could cherry pick
almost any 30 seconds of me to claim I represent any given political or social
viewpoint. As such, it is necessary to take preventative measures against this,
as I have dealt with such behavior already. In 2021, I committed myself to a
strategy of being more rhetorically effective, especially concerning how people
represent me or my beliefs.

As a part of this strategy, the following pages are my effort to "set the record
straight" insofar as my actual beliefs, as opposed to what others claim them to
be. I'll include within these pages a record of most of my political and
philosophical positions, as well as any positions I have relating to current
events.

Current Events... Expand Breonna Taylor It is stated that Breonna Taylor was
killed in her bed or while asleep almost ubiquitously across social media
(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) despite this not being the truth. What happened to Breonna
Taylor was wrong, and the police conduct that day deserves to be called into
question. However, starting that discussion with an incorrect description of
what happened weakens our arguments against those on the right that disagree
with us. This is because we now have to begin by making concessions about lies
or misrepresentations from people who purport to agree with us. Furthermore, it
casts doubt about the truth of the rest of the argument for those in the middle
who are unsure of where the fault lies.

A user in my community, "DaSkrubKing," provides a detailed breakdown of what
happened the night of Breonna Taylor's death. The key takeaways for what
happened are:

1.Louisville police were serving a "knock and announce" warrant at Breonna
Taylor's apartment thinking she would be the only one present.
2.Police officers knocked on Breonna's door, awakening her and causing her to
answer through the door asking who was there, though the police deny hearing
anything.
3.Breonna returns to her bedroom and wakes up her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, and
they both get dressed. Walker and Taylor believe that the ex-boyfriend, Jamarcus
Glover (a suspected drug trafficker), is at the door.
4.Walker and Taylor exit the bedroom, police knock the door in, then Walker
fires a single shot hitting one officer in the leg.
5.Walker drops his gun and crawls into a bedroom, Taylor is struck multiple
times by police returning fire, and the injured officer is rushed off to the
hospital.


Breonna Taylor was neither asleep nor was she in bed when she was killed by
police officers. This does not excuse their actions or make her death any less
tragic, but stating that she was killed while she was asleep in her bed is
simply incorrect.

The claims we should be making about Breonna Taylor's death, which are grounded
in the reality of the situation, are as follows:

•It seems obvious that insufficient notice was given before the door was broken
in. Only one neighbor reported hearing anything at all before police broke in
the door.
•Brett Hankison, one of the officers involved in the raid, was rightfully fired
and charged for exiting the building and blindly firing 10 rounds into the
apartment complex through a window and a patio, penetrating the apartment into
the next unit where another occupant and their child slept.
•Even if they aren't used for every single interaction, this incident shows the
value of having police body cameras in specific, high-risk scenarios.

The GameStop short squeeze I've written extensively on my view of the
wallstreetbets "fight" with Melvin Capital over the GameStop stock. The summary
of my position is essentially the following:

There was never any reason to believe a massive short squeeze was coming. The
big winners were not "little retail traders." Robinhood did not halt trading to
"protect hedge funds." Most alternative media figures/outlets got many
fundamental facts of the case wrong. For a longer and more formal write-up of my
view on the GME situation, see my write-up here: BrainStop. I've also done a
video review of said document on my YouTube channel.

Kyle Rittenhouse ("mowing down protestors") In general, I do not support
vigilantism. I think Kyle Rittenhouse was clearly misguided in his attempts to
cross state borders and should have stayed home. I also think there are steps he
could have taken to minimize the risk of him needing to discharge a firearm.

Of a larger 20+ minute debate with someone, a short 16 second clip was cut to
make it sound as though I support violence against Black Lives Matter protesters
when this couldn't be further from the truth. I am incredibly heated in this
clip, but I am clear when I state that my main frustration is with the few
rioters burning down private businesses and the idea that Trump's only path to
victory was with continued arson and destruction of privately owned businesses
across the US (full conversation in August of 2020 with context part clipped).


I have always defended the existence of BLM and its purpose, sometimes in front
of live audiences as the only liberal member on a panel. (Jesse Lee Peterson
panel in October of 2020|Conversation with call-in defending the existence and
effectiveness of BLM's protests|Panel debate in August of 2020|Support in
November of 2018 of Kaepernick kneeling in the NFL|Attacking Dave Rubin's
criticisms of Kaepernick's protests in September 2017)
I've consistently pushed back against "white lives matter" and similar types of
irresponsible rhetoric from the right. (Jesse Lee Peterson panel in October of
2020)


I have continually defended protesting, and even rioting against public
institutions while condemning the rioting/looting of private businesses, as I
believe the latter feeds into Republican tactics to draw attention away from the
overwhelmingly positive protests. (Discussion about Minneapolis
protesting/looting in May of 2020|Debate with conservative/Neo-Nazi(?) Ethan
Ralph in June 2020|Discussion on my stream in September of 2020)


My specific issue in this debate was that I didn't believe it was morally
acceptable to defend rioters destroying private businesses, regardless of their
legitimate grievances with the local police. When I think of rioters attacking
and destroying private property, I generally support citizens' rights to defend
that property. I think back to the Korean-Americans that were defending their
property in the '92 LA Riots, the Black Panthers in California defending their
communities, or the tragedy of the "Black Wall Street" Tulsa massacre in 1921. I
was especially moved by the frustrated, black local business owner who was
screaming out in frustration about looters and rioters destroying his business
in the '92 LA Riots.


It's incredibly frustrating that people have intentionally and maliciously
misconstrued a 16 second cut from a larger conversation to make it sound as
though I don't support the BLM protests or somehow approve of racist white
people indiscriminately killing protesters when this is an issue that I have
been ruthlessly consistent on throughout the years. I unequivocally support
BLM's right to both protest and riot against the public institutions that they
view as oppressive. I have not changed or wavered on this stance in years.

Politics... Expand The State of Political Discourse In 2016, as Donald Trump was
rising as a contender in the Republican primary, I noticed the political
discourse online was so far removed from reality, people weren't having
conversations in the same universe. My main goal in entering politics was to
bring reasonableness into online political conversations, or to at least ground
the disagreements in fact so the conversations could be more productive.
Unfortunately, most of my conversations have been unproductive and hardly
qualify as "intellectual discourse."

I believe most content creators suffer from the following problems:

•They tend to be uninformed about the ideas they are discussing (e.g.: many
lefties don't know Labor Value Theory; many online Republicans don't know
anything about immigration or sociology).
•They don't read any of the material they are covering (e.g.: many people only
read headlines, or just take a Twitter thread and repeat the information from it
without reading the linked articles or sources).
•They are more concerned with monetary gain, optics, and advancing their careers
than they are with advancing their expressed ideologies (e.g. they will eschew
politically effective or more righteous actions in favor of things that further
their own career, such as collaborating with only the most popular politicians
they can or promoting causes which will also grow their own popularity).
•They are often blatantly hypocritical when comparing their lifestyles to the
ideas they advocate for (e.g.: they will oftentimes talk about the importance of
transparency in public figures or make fun of celebrities for donating very
little money to social causes while they will hide their income and commit
little to no resources to causes they support).
My general goal with online politics is to:

•Give an informed opinion about, or bring in experts or expert material
concerning, current events and interesting topics.
•Have an informed discussion that involves reading through the articles or
sources being discussed on stream.
•Move people to take politically effective action.
•Exemplify my political and ethical values in the way I live my life.
I think that political positions should be the result of a consistent system —
namely, an underlying ethical and epistemic framework. For a more in-depth
explanation of this, please see the page on why philosophy is important.

Affirmative Action I don't have a strong position on affirmative action. It can
be a powerful tool, but only when implemented properly; it is a political
lightning rod which makes it very hard to reasonably discuss.

Affirmative action tends to run into trouble in universities where huge mismatch
problems occur — minority students who are given too much preferential treatment
in admissions will massively under-perform their peers, causing them to dropout
at disproportionately high rates. Though some argue (1,2) in favor of aggressive
affirmative action for higher education, they often only look at the enrollment
rates as indicators of success, rather than actual college achievement.

Outside of universities, one can go too far in forcing integration as well, for
example: California's "woman quota" for corporate boards.

Affirmative action programs that incentivize students to take part in additional
education opportunities to prepare them for a college environment would be more
in-line with my view of effective policy rather than simply shoving them into
classrooms with more qualified peers and expecting them to perform at
competitive levels.

Additional reading:
•50 Years of Affirmative Action: What Went Right, and What It Got Wrong — by
Anemona Hartocollis, published on March 30, 2019


-The author tracks down many of the black students in Columbia's class of 1973,
some of the first who were enrolled as "affirmative action" became a more
important social issue for universities to focus on.

Diversity Diversity is a good thing, and has been shown time and time again to
benefit both countries (1,2) and companies (1,2,3,4,5,6). Countries and
companies that engage in high levels of diversity seem to outperform their less
diverse counterparts, and it seems to be the case that having a more diverse
representation across your population and workforce can be an advantage in and
of itself.

Though it seems hard to imagine, just having a more diverse workplace can be
predictive of your ability to outperform average returns in a given environment
(1,2). There are modern examples of avoidable problems that boil down to a
company simply lacking a diverse team. One well-known example is racial
discrimination that occurs in face recognition technology. Another example is
soap dispensers not recognizing black hands over white hands.

Global Warming Global warming is real and anthropogenic (i.e.: caused by
humans).

It seems that the best approach to dealing with climate change is with the
aggressive incentivization of greener energies and the implementation of carbon
pricing policies. The former polls incredibly well with Americans and the latter
is almost universally agreed upon by economists to be effective in moving
markets to aggressively seek out more carbon-neutral ways of operating (1).

The Green New Deal I do not support the Green New Deal, a policy championed by
the Justice Democrats.

While I support strong action being taken to curb the effects of climate change,
I don't necessarily think it's appropriate to pair these changes with other,
non-environmental policies, e.g. a federal jobs guarantee. I think that climate
change is a serious issue that needs to be addressed both through policies that
have been demonstrated to work (e.g. cap and trade) and through innovative
policies and technologies.

Immigration Coming soon! Illegal Immigration It's incredibly hard to precisely
measure the impact of illegal immigration, although it does appear that
undocumented workers have a negative impact on state and local budgets and can
apply some downward pressure on native wages (1,2).

The most effective way of dealing with illegal immigration would likely be some
form of amnesty, similar to the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) signed
into law by Ronald Reagan in 1986. The IRCA conferred benefits unto the workers
who were able to adjust their status as well as to the state and local
governments who were able to more effectively levy taxes, though it also had a
small, negative impact on competing native workers and future immigrants and
caused an increase in government transfer to the newly legalized population (1).
Any well-designed amnesty program would do well to pay attention to these
benefits and drawbacks to ensure that we can appropriately capture the benefits
of any such amnesty in order to benefit the population as a whole, without
causing targeted harm to more vulnerable sections of the labor force.

International Trade Agreements I am highly in favor of international trade
agreements, especially large binding agreements like the now-dead Trans-Pacific
Partnership that Obama championed. This is mostly for two reasons:

1.International cooperation — International trade agreements lay the groundwork
for even more international trade agreements. Ever-increasing cooperation is one
of the only hopes we have at solving global warming.
2.American soft power — In forfeiting the TPP, America cedes ground to China and
their Belt and Road Initiative. Soft power is more important than you might
think. Without it, we lose the ability to exert pressure on other countries to
respect the values of democracy, personal freedom, political freedom, and basic
human rights.

Reparations After the civil war, former slaves were promised 40 acres and a mule
by William T. Sherman. This was approved by President Lincoln. Later, the
federal government reneged on this promise, which seems pretty unfair.

There are many different reasons for wanting reparations, but I think that the
best one is purely for the purposes of finally repaying a debt that was
promised.

Logistically, implementing reparations would be difficult (Who exactly gets the
money? How much money is equivalent to 40 acres, adjusted for inflation?). I
acknowledge that reparations are probably not politically feasible.

Social Justice It is incredibly important to incorporate notions of equity into
our view of the world when it comes to enacting policy or new laws. I think it
is vital to recognize that many people have had disadvantages throughout US
history and that the outcomes of those disadvantages are still noticeable today.
Any policy we design should take these differences into account. Systemic Racism
Systemic racism is racism embedded into a system. The important thing to note
about systemic racism is that no-one in the system is necessarily to blame. For
example, say that the hypothetical police force of Oceania was systemically
racist — it had a computer system programmed to assign more police patrols to
black neighborhoods than white neighborhoods. In this system, it is possible
that every single police officer in the force is a black-loving certified
anti-racist, yet the police would still be functioning as a racist institution.

We have strong evidence that there are some lingering forms of systemic racism
in the United States. For example, by looking at maps of where redlining was
practiced, we can see that the effects of redlining still affect outcomes (in a
statistical, on-average way).

Just like in Oceania, this doesn't necessarily mean that ordinary people are to
blame. Of course, there are probably racist people in the country somewhere
still in charge of bank loans or city planning — but, for the most part, I think
that we have that sorted out. We need to focus on the more complicated problems.

I believe that systemic racism clearly exists in some forms. I don't have a
strong opinion on the best policies to address it.

Voting Voting is important.

People in America (and around the world) have problems right now that need to be
solved. And that's best done by working within the current system, building
coalitions with like-minded people, and voting for the best candidates (at both
a local and a national level).

Ideologies The Alt-Right I do not support the alt-right, nor any of the
prescriptions they make for society. I do believe it is important, however, to
acknowledge some of the conditions that lead people to becoming radicalized
(feeling disconnected from society, having no sense of purpose, feeling
economically left behind, etc.) and how these beliefs translate into political
action. I believe some on the alt-right are effective at identifying
frustrations that one might have with our current economic or social system, but
they offer no realistic solutions to any of these problems, and their
explanations for said phenomena are often mired in anecdotes.

My debate with Erik Striker & James Allsup is emblematic of most discourse that
I've had with alt-right figures; when confronted with challenges to their ideas,
they retreat to anecdotes and offer no solutions. Most concerningly, the policy
positions they offer for political change generally require some extreme amount
of state-sponsored violence and are highly unrealistic in achieving any positive
end.

"Protecting our Demographics" Many on the far right express a great concern over
protecting the demographic make-up of whatever community they reside in. They
might allude to "western values," "white values," "euro-centric values" or some
other type of "values" that they are trying to protect. Generally they state the
reason to protect these values stems from both an earnest desire to preserve
their culture as well as protecting their voting interests.

I believe that this endeavor is futile for several reasons:

•I reject the notion that there is a consistent and coherent definition of
"American values."
-e.g. City dwellers from San Francisco aren't going to have very many "shared
values" with rural inhabitants of midwestern states.
•I don't believe there is any way for an individual community to control who is
allowed to immigrate there without it violating the rights and interests of
other states.
-Immigration policy is set for the benefit of the nation at the federal level;
states exercising local immigration policy would run counter-intuitive to the
rest of the state's rights to determine federal immigration policy.
•I don't believe a group of people have a right to indefinitely maintain their
representation irrespective of immigrants (from other states, or countries).
-The idea that one group of people can live somewhere forever and reject foreign
immigrants simply because they have a different voting preference is
nonsensical.

Capitalism I consider myself to be a capitalist.

At a high-level, capitalism seems to be the best-known economic system to
generate wealth. I believe the responsibility of any economic system should,
first and foremost, be to allocate resources in an economy as efficiently as
possible to create the largest possible base from which to draw taxes to
redistribute to those who need it most. I recognize in many western countries,
especially the United States, we seem to have a big problem with the
"redistribution" part.

There are different kinds of capitalism, ranging all the way from laissez-faire
(e.g. free market) to state capitalism (e.g. China). Completely free-market
systems have serious downsides (e.g. monopolies, unequal bargaining power) and
don't properly account for negative externalities (e.g. pollution, global
warming) without government intervention. Thus, I believe that capitalism should
be tempered by a strong government that tries to correct for these problems,
similar to how Nordic countries function. Not surprisingly, this is the economic
model of nearly all advanced economies in the West.

Libertarianism Libertarianism is concerned with maximizing liberty and personal
freedom. I viewed myself as a libertarian when I was a teenager and have read
books by Ayn Rand.

I am still pro liberty and pro freedom, but my political views have evolved.
Libertarianism does not seem to do a very good job at solving some major
problems, like social inequality and global warming. The latter, in particular,
seems likely only to be solved by regulation and governmental cooperation at a
global level.

"Omniliberalism" In politics, it can be useful to know which particular ideology
someone subscribes to. However, I do not fall perfectly in-line with any
particular ideology. I describe myself as an Omni-Liberal, which is a made-up,
tongue-in-cheek term to encapsulate the general position of:

•Having the core values of liberalism (e.g. freedom and equality).
•Taking the best parts of all different kinds of political ideologies and using
them together in a pragmatic way.


I don't feel dogmatically attached to any particular form of government or
economic system. If it can be demonstrated that some economic system (socialism,
capitalism, etc.) can consistently produce better economic and social outcomes
for a given society, that would be the economic system I would advocate for. As
of right now, I believe that free markets with strong social safety nets (see:
Scandinavia) are the most effective way of achieving these ends.

Populism I do not support populism.

Populism is usually defined as "the people" versus "the elites." This happens on
both the right (e.g. the alt-right & Donald Trump) and the left (e.g.
Bernie-or-Busters). Populism is powerful because it feeds off negative emotions,
but is often not based on facts.

Socialism/Communism -The Academic Arguments-

While exploring more socialist ideas I've come across a number of people
attempting to defend their ideologies. I've had discussions with many people who
identify as socialists, including Michael Albert (an economist, see this video),
Ben Burgis (Jacobin columnist, see this video), and many, many more (Search
YouTube for "destiny socialism").


My primary disappointment with most socialists is the broader lack of
understanding concerning the general functions of their economic systems. A few
issues without satisfactory answers are:

•What level of violence is acceptable to attain a socialist state?
-It is often stated that capitalists are to be expected to side with fascists in
order to defend their capital interests, and it's stated that capitalists will
use any means necessary to defend the status quo. If that is true, then does the
advocation of a socialist state necessarily advocate for violent revolution? If
this is something we could simply achieve through voting, and if the people
truly wanted such a state, why have we not realized it by now?

•How do we decide which businesses are allowed to exist in a socialist society
without allowing capital investment?
-Is this done via some government bureaucrat or citizen council? If one cannot
get their idea approved, or find sufficient other workers to operate their
business with them, is that new business simply not allowed to exist?


•Is any form of investment whatsoever allowed in a socialist society? -How do
businesses raise additional capital for expansion? If one wants to expand their
business and open new stores, is it contingent upon them finding other workers
willing to buy in and own part of one's new expansion of business? If that new
expansion grows, is one diluting the ownership of one's current work force? Does
one need to dilute every employee's ownership every time a new worker is brought
in? How does that affect one's democratic leverage in the business?

•How are labor markets determined in a socialist society? What if everyone wants
to become a teacher?
-What if everyone wants to become a teacher? If we remove profit incentives and
wages from society and socially dictate where goods and services are allocated,
what incentive would anyone have to pursue a socially necessary job that they do
not wish to pursue?

•How can we calculate which goods/services a nation needs if we do away with the
commodity form?
-The calculation problem has never been adequately addressed or solved for any
country, and even in the case where it is brought up within businesses, your
final inputs and outputs are still decided by market conditions, not votes or
councils.



Online Socialist Activism-
A lot of the online discourse (e.g. on Twitch, YouTube, and Twitter) around
socialism comes from people who are willfully ignorant or misinformed on
economics and how capital markets work. A number of prominent, socialist content
creators seem to display fundamental misunderstandings of fact, such as
Philosophy Tube's video on housing, and tend to respond negatively to even the
slightest bit of push back against their beliefs.

While there are plenty of highly intelligent people who identify as socialists,
my interactions with "online socialists" or "online lefties" from 2018 to 2020
have generally left me with a very low opinion of the community at large.



Co-ops-
Co-ops, or cooperatives, are businesses owned by the workers. Many socialists,
especially market socialists, seem to point towards co-ops as being an effective
step away from a fully capitalist society, or one where businesses have private
ownership

I don't believe anything is inherently wrong with co-ops, and I support them in
the cases where they lead to greater economic productivity. Despite the slight
increase in productivity, however, there doesn't seem to be any good way for
co-ops to effectively raise capital. Also, I still question whether co-ops would
retain their benefits if everyone in society were to join one, rather than the
select few people that have the necessary capital and/or skills to join one of
the few co-ops that exist today.



Political Ineffectiveness-
A major gripe that I have with "online socialism" is that it is politically
impotent.

All government policies have pros and cons. As citizens, our best course of
action is to debate these policies to determine which will be the most effective
and to pressure our representatives to push those that are politically feasible.

Inversely, most socialists that I talk to have no actual policy positions. They:

•live in a land of fantasy where all capital is abolished
•lack meaningful plans to achieve that end
•have no plans for solving real world problems that we face right now

Philosophy... Expand Why Philosophy is Important When doing online debate about
politics, it is extremely important to have a philosophical foundation from
which to draw practical conclusions. Politics is downstream from philosophy, and
you could argue that it is simply the practice of applied philosophy on a
societal level. While I have no formal education in philosophy, through the use
of resources such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Wikipedia
articles, I have taken pains to construct some sort of philosophical heuristic
to solve policy issues. This has allowed me to more effectively understand my
own and others' arguments through the underlying philosophical values and
processes at play, as well as create a consistent set of rules to abide by when
evaluating various political issues.

My applied political positions always follow from my moral system. I think the
world would be a better place if people reflected more on their internal,
fundamental values and used those as guiding principles to establish their
political values, rather than blindly following an ideologue, or using inherited
positions from their parents, religion, country, or party.

A lot of political debate boils down to either having some differing,
fundamental position, or a disagreement on some empirical claim. Instead of two
people arguing at a surface level about an issue, it is sometimes more useful to
dive down to try and figure out what the other person actually believes at a
fundamental level. A great example of this is abortion — people will often
debate back and forth about the legality of abortion while ignoring that they
fundamentally disagree on whether or not a fetus should carry the same (or
similar) moral consideration as an infant child.

My Foundational Beliefs I have a video where I break down how I construct my
philosophical worldview, which I highly recommend watching for a fleshed-out
understanding of my position. However, if you don't have the time to watch now,
here is a short and incredibly basic summary of my philosophical foundations:

•Part I


i.I exist.
ii.I have an experience.
iii.I want to maximize my experience.


•Part II
i.Other humans exist.
ii.Other humans have an experience like mine.
iii.Other humans want to maximize their experience.


•Part III
i.Humans synergize to create better experiences.
ii.If I synergize with others, it will maximize my experience.
iii.Others will synergize with me to maximize their experience.


I don't believe that moral facts exist, or if they do, I don't believe they are
perceivable to us. Therefor, I build all of my policy positions from this
fundamental moral framework. I think about policy positions in a similar way
that Rawls' veil of ignorance would demand of us — society should be constructed
in a way that maximizes the experience of as many people possible. This means
satisfying as many people's needs and desires as possible, so as to incentivize
everyone's participation in our society. I view this as being similar to a sort
of Pareto efficiency that could exist in how we reallocate goods and services
with government policy.

On Maximizing One's Experience Within the statements of my foundational beliefs,
I often talk about maximizing one's own experience and helping others maximize
theirs. I often run into a problem where people assume the most naive
construction of this idea possible. It is assumed, especially when words like
"hedonism" and "egoism" get used, that I conceptualize a moral world to be one
where everyone just does whatever they want, be it murdering, stealing, etc.
because it makes them happy. It is also assumed that I make no distinction
between "lower and higher" pleasures. This is obviously a ridiculous position to
hold, and just a slightly fairer reading will get us to construct more
reasonable interpretations of what it means to "maximize" one's experience.

A thought experiment I often use is the following: You and four friends enter a
room with five candy bars. You can either eat all of the candy bars because it
would "maximize your experience," or you could share the candy equally. The
naive construction of my belief would entail the former, but let's think about
the consequences of this. My friends are now unhappy, they might not want to be
friends with me anymore, next time they won't share with me, and really the
outcome is in the long run (and potentially even immediately) I have certainly
NOT maximized my experience. My friends being sad would make me sad, them not
being friends with me anymore would be upsetting, you can imagine the rest.

It's clear then, when I say "maximizing experience," that we have to take a more
intelligent, long-term, holistic view towards what this actually means. If I
start with 0 utils, and I can get 100 now or 25 every year for the rest of my
life, in four years I have already surpassed the experience maximization
potential of the first option. If I do something that makes me happy at the
detriment of those around me which makes my experience at the end a net negative
anyway, clearly I haven't maximized my experience.

I would hope that this is straightforward and obvious to understand, however it
appears to be a tripping point either due to lack of thought or bad faith on the
part of many people I interact with.

Violence I am generally opposed to violence as I don't believe it is an
effective way to accomplish political change, at least not at this point in time
in the United States. That being said, I believe there are plenty of groups of
people who could, at points, justify the use of violence in self-defense, even
if I don't believe it would be a pragmatic or politically effective thing to do.
Defense of Property I believe that people have a right to defend their property
insofar as three important criteria are met:

1.You possess the property in a way that your state and community recognizes
your possession.
2.You have reasonably exhausted non-violent options to protect your property.
3.The other person is effectively "on notice" and understands they exist in an
environment where another person will protect their property.


-For example, if someone wants to destroy your local business or your house,
then you have a right to defend your property by all means necessary.

Many disagreements over whether or not defense of personal property is justified
sometimes appear to boil down to a difference of underlying values. The value in
question is whether "property can be valued over human life", or some statement
to that effect. In my experience, middle-class and well-off people may
underestimate the personal sacrifice and the years of time invested into
obtaining a business, a car, or even something as simple as a stereo system or a
school instrument. As such, they will argue that no matter the value and
sacrifice associated with some property, even in the case of people living in
poverty, the life of the thief always outweighs said value. This is a conclusion
I take issue with.

Protesting & Rioting I ardently believe in a people's right to protest and I
will always support the right to protest, even if I don't necessarily agree with
positions being advocated for by any particular protest. For example, I would
support the right of a pro-life group protesting the right to an abortion, but I
wouldn't agree with the message of the pro-life group: that abortion is immoral,
or should be outlawed.

Rioting is a slightly more complicated matter. When I speak about rioting, I am
more precisely talking about protest that have some level of violence involved,
namely that of property destruction. I do not support riots which seek to harm
individuals in the United States at this point in time. I only support rioting
against institutions that represent some oppressive force in society, so I
generally only support rioting against public institutions, e.g. a police
department, city hall, etc. It's not inconceivable that I would support a riot
against a private institution, but only if that private institution was acting
in an illegal manner.


MLK & Riots-


MLK is commonly cited as opposition to my position on riots, however, I believe
this is due to misunderstanding selective quotes from MLK. I believe a broader
understanding of his speeches reveals to us that he was opposed to violent riots
throughout his life, even as he condemned the conditions bringing them about.

September 1966 talk with Mike Wallace
-KING (interview): I will never change in my basic idea that non-violence is the
most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for freedom and
justice. I think for the Negro to turn to violence would be both impractical and
immoral.

MIKE WALLACE: There's an increasingly vocal minority who disagree totally with
your tactics, Dr. King.

KING: There's no doubt about that. I will agree that there is a group in the
Negro community advocating violence now. I happen to feel that this group
represents a numerical minority. Surveys have revealed this. The vast majority
of Negroes still feel that the best way to deal with the dilemma that we face in
this country is through non-violent resistance, and I don't think this vocal
group will be able to make a real dent in the Negro community in terms of
swaying 22 million Negroes to this particular point of view. And I contend that
the cry of "black power" is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white
power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the
Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard.
And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the
economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.

April 1967 speech to Stanford University
-Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots
are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that
nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their
struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more
social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable
for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United
States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers
and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is
another way.

-But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning
the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous
activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots
do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our
society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the
final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that
America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro
poor has worsened over the last few years.

1967 lecture "Nonviolence and Social Change"
-Many people believe that the urban Negro is too angry and too sophisticated to
be nonviolent. Those same people dismiss the nonviolent marches in the South and
try to describe them as processions of pious, elderly ladies. The fact is that
in all the marches we have organized some men of very violent tendencies have
been involved. It was routine for us to collect hundreds of knives from our own
ranks before the demonstrations, in case of momentary weakness. And in Chicago
last year we saw some of the most violent individuals accepting nonviolent
discipline. Day after day during those Chicago marches I walked in our lines and
I never saw anyone retaliate with violence. There were lots of provocations, not
only the screaming white hoodlums lining the sidewalks, but also groups of Negro
militants talking about guerrilla warfare. We had some gang leaders and members
marching with us. I remember walking with the Blackstone Rangers while bottles
were flying from the sidelines, and I saw their noses being broken and blood
flowing from their wounds; and I saw them continue and not retaliate, not one of
them, with violence. I am convinced that even very violent temperaments can be
channeled through nonviolent discipline, if the movement is moving, if they can
act constructively and express through an effective channel their very
legitimate anger.

March 1968 speech at Grosse Pointe High School, "The Other America"
-Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last
two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames.
And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful,
massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem
from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely
intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I
feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that
brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you
tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that
without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions
that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause
individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in
violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the
language of the unheard.

Public vs Private Humor I enjoy all types of comedy, even if it's dark or
offensive. Regardless of how I feel, there is a wide chasm between the types of
humor that I enjoy privately and the types of humor I believe are responsibly
enjoyed publicly. I believe that public figures have to be more careful when
engaging with potentially problematic types of humor because one cannot control
the audience that may engage with particular types of humor. As public figures,
we should avoid empowering groups of people who have ideologies rooted in values
contradicting our own, even in speech/actions where we do not intend to do so
but it still has that effect.

An example of a type of "edgy joke" might be the way I engage with a close
friend relating to gender/sexuality/race. It might be an "inside joke" in
private where my friend and I have cleared with each other that it's okay to
joke about certain topics (e.g., my friend joking about me being Cuban, me
joking about them being black, etc.). If we were to engage in these types of
humor publicly without a large number of disclaimers, it's entirely possible
that people could take these jokes the wrong way and engage with them
problematically, e.g. "I heard Destiny make fun of xyz for being gay, now I'm
going to make fun of other gay people because it was funny!"

Because of certain people obsessively trying to get "optics victories" over me,
this entire argument becomes reframed by them as "Destiny wants to say the
n-word in private." I don't regularly use any hateful language in private,
especially because I just don't know many jokes involving hateful language.
However, that's not to say that that there aren't any examples of such jokes.

Incest "Incest" as a topic has been explored quite extensively on my stream as a
way to illustrate the concept of "moral dumbfounding", i.e. you have a feeling
that something is immoral or "wrong," but find you're unable to explain exactly
why you feel that way. It seems hard, when pressed, to explain exactly why an
incestuous relationship is wrong without appealing to other arguments that
aren't intrinsic to these kinds of relationships. For example: parent/child
(these are wrong due to power differences or underage parties, not necessarily
the fact that they are incestuous), or situations involving reproduction (these
may be "wrong" due to the potential for offspring with increased risk of birth
defects being created, though this could have logical implications for other
kinds of eugenics).

I've used this topic several times on stream to see if someone is capable of
actually engaging with the topic, though it generally devolves into people
screaming at me while claiming I want "fathers fucking daughters" or something
similarly absurd. It is a useful measure of someone's ability to engage with
arguments in good faith, question their own worldview, and engage with the logic
of ethical matters. While I usually frame the argument from a position of moral
neutrality, I have previously made clear that I am not in favour of incestual
relationships and provided what I believe to be logical arguments for this.

Child Pornography I do not support child pornography and I ardently argue
against all forms of adult-child sexual relationships (pedophilia).

During a longer discussion I had arguing in favor of age-of-consent laws with
Amos Yee, there is a small section where Amos Yee questioned whether child
pornography could ever be used in a positive manner. I'd been made familiar with
some research indicating it was possible that this could be the case
(1,2,3,4,5,6,7), though there would obviously be significant hurdles doing this
in an ethical manner. It would be essential to ensure that no new pornography
abusing minors would be created and that anything being used as part of any
therapy was obtained in an ethical manner, though it's hard to imagine how this
would even be possible.

In entertaining this scenario, many who argue against me online are quick to
claim that I "advocate for ethical child pornography" or some other reductive
statement, though none of these claims are true.

Notable Critics... Expand Kaceytron Coming soon! Jack Allison Jack Allison is an
internet podcaster/ex-Jimmy Kimmel writer who is definitely not mad and who is
currently banned from using Twitter by his wife originalbackup.

Despite his time-out from social media, Jack still finds time to obsess over
what I do both on and off stream. After I took a step back from my canvassing
efforts in Omaha, Jack took it upon himself to email me to celebrate.
Unsatisfied with the lack of attention he received for his wacky antics, he
created a fake reddit account to further our interactions by impersonating a
photographer of WOWT, a local media station in Omaha. My web dev, Cake, pulled
some information from our back-end to confirm this dastardly ploy.

Jack — I mean, Brandon, flexes his prior media training and asks me what appears
to be several thoughtful questions regarding my canvassing experiment in Omaha.
I do my best to respond in good faith (these are the linked "off the record"
logs), but little did I know...it was all a ruse!

After thoroughly owning me, Jack takes to Reddit on his account to expose me for
my crimes, though he unfortunately doesn't have the required karma to post on
his new account. Since he can't seem to make progress on Reddit, he decides to
create a fake Twitter (backup from the now deleted account) to tweet about his
fake Reddit account's fake email that he sent to me to a whole bunch of people
on Twitter, himself included. Unfortunately for Jack, he accidentally leaks on
his stream that he's logged in to the very Reddit account he was masquerading
under.

Unlucky! And definitely not mad.

Personal... Expand College I attended the University of Nebraska at Omaha and
majored in woodwind performance but eventually dropped out due to conflict with
work at the time.

In general, I do not think that people need to have a college degree in order to
have good opinions or to know what they are talking about. Over the past several
years of debate and conversation my respect for college-educated individuals has
significantly dropped. That being said, a formal education certainly doesn't
hurt. I think laymen should generally defer to the consensus of experts. A good
example of this can be found in my discussion with Vegan Gains.

My Family I have a son called Nathaniel with my ex-girlfriend, Rachel. My
ex-girlfriend and I broke up a long time ago due to our toxic relationship, but
we are on good terms today and get along well with each other. I have an ex-wife
as well, but she is not the mother of my child. My Relationship Melina is my
wife. We met in New Zealand when she was 20 years old and I was 30 years old.

Melina and I are currently in an open/poly relationship. We treat each other as
primary partners, though we may pursue other sexual/romantic relationships as
well.

Links... Expand YouTube Instagram Twitter Rumble Kick Reddit' Email Wikipedia

Retrieved from "https://wiki.destiny.gg/index.php?title=Positions&oldid=4996"



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