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some waffle about my last video (Patreon)

Published:
2020-05-24 16:31:21
Edited:
2020-05-24 16:32:21
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Hello folks! 

I have to apologise about something. I had planned to make a short discussion video about my last video, talking about the choices I made when writing it and such. 

But I was unable to! Like, physically. I sat down to record that video, and I couldn't talk. I got the weirdest stage fright and totally froze up, which was surprising, as that's not something that usually happens to me. I think it's to do with the fact I was unsure of whether the approach I took was the right one, which made me anxious.

I tried to stream myself reading through the script, hoping that being live & talking to the stream chat would ease me into it, but I froze up again. Eventually I abandoned trying to read the script and just spoke to the chat, which worked: I was able to talk about the things I wanted to talk about, albeit less coherently since I was playing a video game.

In future, I think the thing to do would be to do post-video Q&A streams just for patrons, so that I can respond to questions instead of trying to talk off the top of my head. That seems the best of both worlds, & will be the plan going forward. 

In the meantime, though, here's me waffling about my last video. Apologies that it is in a lesser form than I intended.

Thanks as always :3

Files

death penalty waffle

hello patrons! apologies about the video game

Comments

Anonymous

Hi Shaun. I wrestle with these difficulties, as I imagine anyone that is of a similar disposition to me, do. I think the reason that you didn't get any push back is because, as you say, your video would be effective. Again, I have had my own internal struggles with this issue and whilst I can't speak for the whole of the "left", I think if there are those that are respected within the community making any sort of argument that can lead to any sort of change in those that, in this case, support the death penalty, we'll take that and take it in good faith.

Anonymous

Oops, sorry. I never know if return is, well, return or crlf. Anyway, I've gone on enough. I hope you take my drivel as the support it is meant to be. You are amongst a few other creators that gave me the confidence to try to do my own small effort at supporting "the cause". So clearly, thank you for that as well as the great, thoughtful and insightful content. I hope you and yours are all well and safe. Take care. Dave

Ben Fischer

Just in time for brunch!

wendigotypes

not a lesser form at all imo! it'd just be cool to be able to read the chat also, i guess. thanks for the vid! have you thought about just making two videos about a topic from the get-go, like one for convincing racists (or giving people arguments to convince racists) and one for non-racists?

Jeff Martin

You're internet famous for talking about stuff like propaganda, I'd be pretty paranoid if I were in your shoes, myself. Break a leg chief. If I were uber wealthy I'd give you a ton of money but eh guess what

Carl Faust

I think you made one of the best arguments I've ever heard in opposition to the death penalty. Here in California, governor Newsom's moratorium on capital punishment is a debate that comes up every once in while with my friends and family, and I found some of your arguments to be especially persuasive. Side-stepping the ethical debate was a pragmatic move, because there is very little you can do to convince a person that (even if the judicial system was flawless) killing prisoners is just wrong. If you follow that rabbit-hole down too far, the topic quickly derails, and you'll find yourself debating basic philosophical questions like "how do I even KNOW what's good and bad?" when you should be convincing someone to use their vote to stop killing people.

q T π

thanks for the video, it's a cool insight in the thought process behind a video like this. ooo (hugs)

Peter

I'm glad that you have enough personal conviction to be hesitant about this stuff. I think that's a sign of healthy self- reflection. No need to apologize. :-)

themaefive

I do think you’re being hard on yourself. In my experience, trying to change a right winger’s mind with the moral or emotional argument is too much. It’s skipping crawling and going straight to jogging. They just haven’t worked up to that type of nuance yet, typically. Think of the content they watch and the stuff they believe. You made a comprehensive and straightforward videos that they can actually follow and digest. You made it with such care and never veered into any condescension. It’s a fantastic video and I worry about you beating yourself up over it. You do such great work, Shaun, I really hope you understand how extraordinary you are.

gridsleep

It's funny that, to be more humane, human executions had to change to putting the violator to sleep, as with animals at the veterinarian's. What you went through might be a case of some nagging thought that you may be turning into a propogandist. It would worry anyone except maybe Goebbels, so, don't worry about it.

Kat

It makes sense— you work in the perfect environment for developing a bad case of analysis paralysis. Good luck and take care of yourself.

RND (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-14 08:00 I think the question to be posed here is, what was the video aiming to achieve? Your video was aimed at convincing a certain group of people (as you yourself stated): people who currently support the death penalty. Most of those are on the right, many have conservative moral views, a lot are at least implicitly racist. Saying things like a) "killing is wrong" and b) "it hurts racial minorities" won't sway them, most likely, because they disagree with a) and don't have a problem with b). Focussing on the big government thing is imo the best angle of attack, so to speak, because it brings up an inconsistency between their world view ("government is bad --> the less government, the better") and their view on a specific topic ("I support the death penalty"). [I just realised all of this is stuff you pointed out yourself but I'll reiterate it anyway because I think it's a sensible argument] Lastly, it is obviously impossible to always cover everything about every issue, and not every video has to be The Bell Curve (which is an absolute banger and I loved it but like if I were a right-winger I'm not sure I'd watch the full length tbh). Chosing your cut-off points can be difficult and sometimes feels bad but in the situation, taking the purpose of the video into consideration, I wouldn't blame you. Then again neither do I live in a death penalty country, nor am I part of a racial minority, nor right-wing, so maybe my opinion is not exactly relevant here. [btw keep up the good work you're an absolute gem and none of us deserve you]
2020-05-24 19:03 I think the question to be posed here is, what was the video aiming to achieve? Your video was aimed at convincing a certain group of people (as you yourself stated): people who currently support the death penalty. Most of those are on the right, many have conservative moral views, a lot are at least implicitly racist. Saying things like a) "killing is wrong" and b) "it hurts racial minorities" won't sway them, most likely, because they disagree with a) and don't have a problem with b). Focussing on the big government thing is imo the best angle of attack, so to speak, because it brings up an inconsistency between their world view ("government is bad --> the less government, the better") and their view on a specific topic ("I support the death penalty"). [I just realised all of this is stuff you pointed out yourself but I'll reiterate it anyway because I think it's a sensible argument] Lastly, it is obviously impossible to always cover everything about every issue, and not every video has to be The Bell Curve (which is an absolute banger and I loved it but like if I were a right-winger I'm not sure I'd watch the full length tbh). Chosing your cut-off points can be difficult and sometimes feels bad but in the situation, taking the purpose of the video into consideration, I wouldn't blame you. Then again neither do I live in a death penalty country, nor am I part of a racial minority, nor right-wing, so maybe my opinion is not exactly relevant here. [btw keep up the good work you're an absolute gem and none of us deserve you]

I think the question to be posed here is, what was the video aiming to achieve? Your video was aimed at convincing a certain group of people (as you yourself stated): people who currently support the death penalty. Most of those are on the right, many have conservative moral views, a lot are at least implicitly racist. Saying things like a) "killing is wrong" and b) "it hurts racial minorities" won't sway them, most likely, because they disagree with a) and don't have a problem with b). Focussing on the big government thing is imo the best angle of attack, so to speak, because it brings up an inconsistency between their world view ("government is bad --> the less government, the better") and their view on a specific topic ("I support the death penalty"). [I just realised all of this is stuff you pointed out yourself but I'll reiterate it anyway because I think it's a sensible argument] Lastly, it is obviously impossible to always cover everything about every issue, and not every video has to be The Bell Curve (which is an absolute banger and I loved it but like if I were a right-winger I'm not sure I'd watch the full length tbh). Chosing your cut-off points can be difficult and sometimes feels bad but in the situation, taking the purpose of the video into consideration, I wouldn't blame you. Then again neither do I live in a death penalty country, nor am I part of a racial minority, nor right-wing, so maybe my opinion is not exactly relevant here. [btw keep up the good work you're an absolute gem and none of us deserve you]

Butterfree/Dragonfree/antialiasis

For what it's worth, I was a little uncomfortable with the approach the death penalty video took myself, but it was a good, well-argued video and I could absolutely appreciate what you were doing in it, tackling it from an angle that could persuade someone who *does* see killing certain criminals as ethically just. It's a video worth having out there, even when that's not the end of it. I appreciated hearing more of your actual, non-for-the-sake-of-the-argument thoughts on it here, though.

Guy Zangvil

I really liked the video especially because it doesn’t explicitly state that killing people is immoral,since as long as solitary confinement+life in prison exist, death sentence can actually be argued as moral by some.

Kritzlof

You do a good job. Dont worry. Its interesting to hear your thoughts about it though.

alexis (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-14 08:00 imo, it's important that you chose the approach you did. if you aren't trying to persuade people from a different political and sociological position, you're basically just preaching to the choir. the video you made could change the minds of racists and slowly push them towards better views, or just affect whether they advocate for keeping/reinstating capital punishment. the video you presumably would have preferred to make would have shown all of us on the left that you care about things like this, but would probably have been far less likely to convince death penalty supporters (and anybody supporting you on patreon or following your twitch/twitter/youtube would probably know you care anyway lol) it's also worth pointing out that everybody in this sphere of leftist content has a different approach, focus, and appeal. for example, the recent three arrows vid on easy answers of conservatism talks about the evidence of racial bias in the criminal justice system in the us both vids show a different approach to problems within criminal justice and I think all angles of it are important. and your approach here may convince people to change their views on this specific issue without affecting their larger perspective (or pushing them slowly), whereas dan's (absolutely justified) disdain for certain arguments may put those people off but may also have an immediate impact on a larger sociological problem. I think both approaches can have really positive impacts and it's impossible for either approach to persuade everybody re: the stream plan - as somebody who doesn't really use twitch and given that your patreon is largely related to your youtube channel (even if your online persona is variably attached to twitter, youtube, and twitch), I think either streaming to youtube or ensuring that chat comments are included somehow in the final youtube upload is better than just uploading the twitch video. but assuming q&a/commentary/whatever streams are scheduled and linked to via patreon, any platform is ultimately fine ETA: sorry this is so long, jesus christ
2020-05-25 07:38 imo, it's important that you chose the approach you did. if you aren't trying to persuade people from a different political and sociological position, you're basically just preaching to the choir. the video you made could change the minds of racists and slowly push them towards better views, or just affect whether they advocate for keeping/reinstating capital punishment. the video you presumably would have preferred to make would have shown all of us on the left that you care about things like this, but would probably have been far less likely to convince death penalty supporters (and anybody supporting you on patreon or following your twitch/twitter/youtube would probably know you care anyway lol) it's also worth pointing out that everybody in this sphere of leftist content has a different approach, focus, and appeal. for example, the recent three arrows vid on easy answers of conservatism talks about the evidence of racial bias in the criminal justice system in the us both vids show a different approach to problems within criminal justice and I think all angles of it are important. and your approach here may convince people to change their views on this specific issue without affecting their larger perspective (or pushing them slowly), whereas dan's (absolutely justified) disdain for certain arguments may put those people off but may also have an immediate impact on a larger sociological problem. I think both approaches can have really positive impacts and it's impossible for either approach to persuade everybody re: the stream plan - as somebody who doesn't really use twitch and given that your patreon is largely related to your youtube channel (even if your online persona is variably attached to twitter, youtube, and twitch), I think either streaming to youtube or ensuring that chat comments are included somehow in the final youtube upload is better than just uploading the twitch video. but assuming q&a/commentary/whatever streams are scheduled and linked to via patreon, any platform is ultimately fine ETA: sorry this is so long, jesus christ

imo, it's important that you chose the approach you did. if you aren't trying to persuade people from a different political and sociological position, you're basically just preaching to the choir. the video you made could change the minds of racists and slowly push them towards better views, or just affect whether they advocate for keeping/reinstating capital punishment. the video you presumably would have preferred to make would have shown all of us on the left that you care about things like this, but would probably have been far less likely to convince death penalty supporters (and anybody supporting you on patreon or following your twitch/twitter/youtube would probably know you care anyway lol) it's also worth pointing out that everybody in this sphere of leftist content has a different approach, focus, and appeal. for example, the recent three arrows vid on easy answers of conservatism talks about the evidence of racial bias in the criminal justice system in the us both vids show a different approach to problems within criminal justice and I think all angles of it are important. and your approach here may convince people to change their views on this specific issue without affecting their larger perspective (or pushing them slowly), whereas dan's (absolutely justified) disdain for certain arguments may put those people off but may also have an immediate impact on a larger sociological problem. I think both approaches can have really positive impacts and it's impossible for either approach to persuade everybody re: the stream plan - as somebody who doesn't really use twitch and given that your patreon is largely related to your youtube channel (even if your online persona is variably attached to twitter, youtube, and twitch), I think either streaming to youtube or ensuring that chat comments are included somehow in the final youtube upload is better than just uploading the twitch video. but assuming q&a/commentary/whatever streams are scheduled and linked to via patreon, any platform is ultimately fine ETA: sorry this is so long, jesus christ

Ruhis

Here's to hoping this helps. Most of my family is right wing, sometimes awfully so, as are some of the friends I grew up with. Others are constantly inside some worrying echo chambers that steer them to the right, bit by bit. When I argue with family or loved ones, creating a wedge is very important. It gets them thinking and back into a more humane path, so to speak. "Practical" arguments like this are a good first step to stop their purely emotional train of thought and open the door to the moral argument later on. So for those of us that constantly try to stop relatives from talking shitty politics and borderline racism, well-structured arguments like this do matter, as they can think you're condescending if you immediately take the moral high ground and close themselves to any further reasoning. Many right wingers I know hate the left precisely because of this, we act as if we are always on a higher moral plane and, even if it is true, it is not a great way to start an argument. I understand being uncomfortable with it, for sure, but this is very useful ammunition for someone like me and many others. Don't be too hard on yourself :)

Ruhis

Absolutely, and what's worse, they see your moral argument as you thinking you're better than them, immediately rejecting anything else you say.

themaefive

It's often interpreted as a harsh start-up, yeah. And honestly, if you're comfortable engaging with them, great, that's important to do (esp since a lot of us don't feel safe doing it all the time). But there's no need to do it in the most taxing possible way for yourself. It's not sustainable. The practical argument is more accessible for them and less exhausting for you.

Lars Arney

Two videos on the same topic with wildly different approaches would actually be incredible, both as a direct approach to doing a genuine deep dive on a topic and as an indirect commentary on the way that framing affects affects a conversation

Lars Arney

current video? good, given the stated goal and audience. following it up with another that makes genuine moral arguments about why it's just wrong to kill people needlessly? without even mentioning the first video? that'd be a hell of a statement

Joseph O'Geran

Just a point of comparison here, but take Abortion as an issue: When discussing abortion, it's worth trying to corner as many perspectives as possible. I personally believe in the non-personhood of fetuses, therefore that they don't morally count, however lots of people I know do believe fetuses to be persons, but think Abortion should be permitted anyway, for a variety of reasons. Some people use bodily autonomy as an argument, some people use the fact that it's safer when not criminalised, ect., By allowing a vast range of opposition to a point and cornering an issue from as many perspectives as possible, you gain a more broad range of allies than you otherwise had. The Moral Arguement is what gets argued time and time again with the Death Penalty. Cornering the issue of pragmatics is what's more likely, IMO, to get people on your side.

Skelloween

You're so polite Shaun

John C.

I would be nervous talking about morality on the internet. I really appreciate the clarity that you present your opinions with. I really like this targeted format. It’s a good video to try and convert people away from destructive philosophies. That’s a noble cause.