Defense Against The Dark Arts: An Introduction

post by Lyrongolem (david-xiao) · 2023-12-25T06:36:06.278Z · LW · GW · 36 comments

Contents

  Context  
  Guys, It’s literally just bullshit  
  Winning: The heuristic solution  
  Winning: The algorithmic solution (Warning: Very taxing on attention span) 
  Politics: The Dark Side’s Dream 
  Conclusion and summary:  
None
37 comments

Epistemic status: I’m a non expert analyzing personal anecdotes and lower level political issues, take with a grain of salt.

Edit: The post is specifically about the Dark Arts as we see them in politics, not in intra or interpersonal relations. Thank you AnniePosting for recommending this specification. 

Context  

(for those who haven’t read, I highly recommend checking out my dialogue with lsusr [LW · GW] linked above, it’s a relatively short read and introduces some important context to what I’m about to go over. But I will provide a shorter summary in this post just in case.) 

Previously in the Dark Arts dialogue, I introduced some basic information on my encounters with the Dark Arts in public forum debate, how I used it to my advantage, and my analysis on what makes it work. However, after interacting with some commenters, I realized there was still a ton that people might be interested in. One of which being how to properly defend against the Dark Arts in real world situations. 

(By the way, thank you Richard Horvath for your valuable comments, they are what inspired me to write up this post 

 I think this is an important addition to the site. There had been articles before about the "dark" side/arts, but I think this is the first one where the examples are not thought experiments and abstractions, but actual real world experience from an actual user. 

It is helpful for understanding politics.

 

 I think something along the lines of "Defense Against the Dark Arts" with actionable steps on recognizing and defusing them (and how to practice these) would be great. If you feel like you have the energy and time, more articles on offensive usage (practice) and on theoretical background (how to connect your practical experience to existing LW concepts/memes) would be also nice. But I think the first one (defense) would be the most useful for LW readers.

On that note, I think it may be helpful for me to expand a bit on ‘The Dark Arts’ as I see them. 

For me, the Dark Arts are more than just ‘thought experiments and abstractions’, as Horvath says. They are something that I come into contact with more or less every day, not just in debate. I see it everywhere, in politics, in everyday interactions, and in patterns of thinking I see from people around me. This may seem incongruous to many people, and I think part of the reason for that is the misleading name of ‘the Dark Arts’. 

What does ‘the Dark Arts’ imply? Immediately, the name conjures up images of wizards practicing secretive techniques in their hidden castles, scheming against the righteous defenders of reason. It’s practitioners are thought of as skilled and conniving, with a good understanding of human cognitive weaknesses that allow them to exploit them to their own advantage. 

Having experienced them firsthand, however, I find the actual ‘Dark Arts’ to be much less glamorous.  

Guys, It’s literally just bullshit  

Here is one personal example that reveals what the Dark Arts looks like in practice:  

Now, I understand I sound obviously crazy already, but hear me out. Russia's Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which have a range of roughly 1,000 miles, cannot hit the US from the Russian mainland. But they can hit us from the Arctic. I add that hypersonic missiles are very, very fast. [This essentially acts as a preemptive rebuttal to my opponent's counterargument (but what about MAD?).] If we're destroyed by a first strike, there is no MAD, and giving Russia the Arctic would immediately be an existential threat. 

This is one of my debate arguments for why the US should send military forces into the Arctic region. As many of you can see already, it’s batshit crazy. If I ever brought up this point seriously in an actual conversation with an actual person, you would probably laugh at me and write me off as a lunatic. What’s surprising isn’t that it’s stupid, that’s the entire point, the surprising part is that it somehow works. (I won the debate, the judge was thoroughly convinced even if my opponents weren’t)  

The technique I use, which can be broadly summarized as ‘supporting a stupid narrative with legitimate evidence’, isn’t unique to debates. It’s everywhere.  

Anyone who has ever read the news should understand what I’m talking about. Remember the room temperature superconductor?  

What about the YouTube craze where China’s entire economy was going to collapse? 

Or the early narratives that Ukraine was going to roll over when the Russians invaded?  

And of course, we can’t talk about dark arts without going into politics. 

The End For President Joe Biden Has Arrived, for the dozenth time. 

It’s easy to laugh at the obviously ridiculous claims after the fact, but we have to keep in mind that they can fool many people, myself included. Recall the original articles about the room temperature semiconductor. Could you have crafted a coherent argument for why they can’t exist, citing the laws of physics? What about China? Could you have clearly articulated why the Chinese economy wouldn’t have collapsed? Or with the Ukraine conflict? How did you know that the Ukrainians wouldn’t be steamrolled by ‘the world’s strongest military?’ The analysts, think tanks, political leaders and general public in the West certainly seemed to believe they would’ve been. 

The Dark Arts practitioner hasn’t lost. Even if for some reason you disbelieved the claims being made, you can’t claim to have truly ‘rebutted’ them, in the sense that you understood why the claims could not be true. You have played a game against a Dark Arts practitioner, and the result was a draw, not a victory. Not very optimal, is it? 

As rationalists, our goal is to raise the sanity waterline, promote critical thinking, and improve discourse. A draw will not do. We need to win. 

Winning: The heuristic solution  

As we all have limited resources in terms of time and mental energy, it’s not necessarily reasonable to expect everyone to spend countless hours familiarizing themself with every topic. There isn’t enough time in the world. With that said, I’d like to put forward some time efficient solutions which I have used in debate before. Some of these will be obvious, but I think it’s important to include them in the interest of being holistic. Keep in mind though that these are the techniques I personally favor, not the exhaustive list, and they may not necessarily work for you.

1. Go straight to the source

We live in a world where media pundits, youtubers, influencers and politicians love to speak for the facts. Often, an easy solution is to just go to the facts and let them speak for themself.  

We hear ‘the studies prove’ so often now it’s almost an expected feature of reading the news. Dark Arts practitioners have gotten more clever in this regard. Rather than deliberately making up facts, they do superficial or flawed analysis of legitimate evidence and then shrug when they’re proven wrong. “Hold on”, they might say, “I never said that, I was merely drawing off the evidence!”  

No they weren’t.  

Let me raise my nuclear armageddon argument as an example. In the source I cite, Kinzhal does indeed have a range of 1000 miles. But Russia’s new system, Avantgarde, has upwards of 3000, which directly contradicts my claim that the Arctic is a necessary strategic springboard for a nuclear 1st strike.  

The Dark Arts practitioner doesn’t need to outright lie or fabricate. They can simply quote part of the source and neglect important relevant information. Consider, for example, this source that violent video games cause violence.  

Any journalist can easily look at the source and say, “aha! Case closed!”, except the study itself would contradict them. See the language of the study:

 It is noteworthy, however, that the longitudinal effect of the participant's amount of violent video game play at Time 1 on the participant's aggression at Time 2 was not reliable. Hence, although there were significant correlations between participants’ aggression and their violent video game use at both time points, the present study does not show that repeatedly playing violent video games leads to long‐term changes in aggression.

 

 Even though the longitudinal design allows ruling out a host of alternative explanations for the impact of violent video games on the player's social network, causality can only inferred by using an experimental design.

 

 Verheijen, Burk, Stoltz, van den Berg, and Cillessen (2018) tested the idea that players of violent video games have a long‐term impact on their social network. These authors found that participants’ exposure to violent video games increased their friend's aggressive behavior 1 year later. However, given that the authors did not examine whether the violent video game player's increased aggression accounts for the impact on their friend's aggressive behavior, it is unknown whether violent video game play indeed instigates an aggression cycle.

Need I go on? In short, there is weak evidence conducted by non-experimental meta-analysis of flawed studies showing video games cause violence. Given that the point has already been thoroughly debunked scientifically, this should come as no surprise. But then, these same very flawed studies have managed to enter the public consciousness and dictate policy for years. 

There are many other sources. Many other articles. I could get into them all, but time doesn’t permit me to. The essential message is the same, go directly to the damn source. Don’t take the journalist's word for it, not even if they cite other journalists who seem credible. Often news can be circular, where one source cites another and the actual study gets lost in the middle. None of this is relevant, except for the actual source! 

2. Understand studies don’t prove anything 

Studies can be experiments, meta-analysis, surveys or any other manner that scientists and researchers use to find information. But they rarely, if ever, ‘prove’ that a claim is true. Published research can easily be wrong. P-hacking and preferential reporting of results can provide an outright wrong conclusion. Correlation does not always equal causation. Methodologies can be flawed, and even well intentioned researchers can sometimes reach the wrong conclusion. 

Take, for example, Jonathan Haidt’s claim that social media use is associated with declining mental health.  

Haidt is transparent, a well respected researcher and author. Yet, a statistician’s review of his sources resulted in many critiques.  

For instance:

 Academics face strong career pressures to publish flawed research. And publishing on topics in the news, such as social media and teen mental health, can generate jobs for researchers and their students, like designing depression-avoidance policies for social media companies, testifying in lawsuits, and selling social media therapy services. This causes worthless areas of research to grow with self-reinforcing peer reviews and meta-analyses, suck up grant funds, create jobs, help careers, and make profits for journals. 

The 301 studies that make up Haidt's informal meta-analysis are typical in this regard. He doesn't seem to have read them with a sufficiently critical eye. Some have egregious errors. One study he cites, for example, clearly screwed up its data coding, which I'll elaborate on below. Another study he relies on drew all of its relevant data from study subjects who checked "zero" for everything relevant in a survey. (Serious researchers know to exclude such data because these subjects almost certainly weren't honestly reporting on their state of mind.) 

 Haidt's compendium of research does point to one important finding: Because these studies have failed to produce a single strong effect, social media likely isn't a major cause of teen depression. A strong result might explain at least 10 percent or 20 percent of the variation in depression rates by difference in social media use, but the cited studies typically claim to explain 1 percent or 2 percent or less. These levels of correlations can always be found even among totally unrelated variables in observational social science studies. Moreover the studies do not find the same or similar correlations, their conclusions are all over the map.

The findings cited by Haidt come from studies that are clearly engineered to find a correlation, which is typical in social science. Academics need publications, so they'll generally report anything they find even if the honest takeaway would be that there's no strong relation whatsoever.  

Should we blindly trust the statistician’s claims? Probably not. But the lesson is the same. When in doubt, review the evidence yourself, and even afterwards keep an open mind. It doesn’t take malice for the wrong conclusions to be supported. When intellectual dishonesty is involved, it gets even worse.  

Consider the influential Stanford prison experiment, which was revealed to be a fraud. 

 A new exposé published by Medium based on previously unpublished recordings of Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford psychologist who ran the study, and interviews with his participants, offers convincing evidence that the guards in the experiment were coached to be cruel. It also shows that the experiment’s most memorable moment — of a prisoner descending into a screaming fit, proclaiming, “I’m burning up inside!” — was the result of the prisoner acting. “I took it as a kind of an improv exercise,” one of the guards told reporter Ben Blum. “I believed that I was doing what the researchers wanted me to do.”

 

 (Update: Since this article published, the journal American Psychologist has published a thorough debunking of the Stanford Prison Experiment that goes beyond what Blum found in his piece. There’s even more evidence that the “guards” knew the results that Zimbardo wanted to produce, and were trained to meet his goals. It also provides evidence that the conclusions of the experiment were predetermined.)

Did the study prove anything? Well, yes, kind of. When the ‘guards’ were placed in a position where they were deliberately told to mistreat the ‘prisoners’, and follow unscientifically engineered procedures to obtain a particular result, they got that result. 

Evidence is important, but accept it uncritically at your own peril.

3.Learn to identify credible sources

At some point, we have to accept that arguing against an ill intentioned or misinformed expert is an uphill battle. If you don’t read history, you can’t properly rebut the Lost Cause narrative. If you don’t study physics yourself, it’s hard to argue against a researcher using a bad study. If the Dark Arts practitioner knows his subject better than you do, you likely won’t be able to differentiate between bad and sound logic. 

The solution, or part of it at least, is finding other experts who are reliable. In general, this is much easier. Whenever you see a source of information, ask yourself, who is the author? Do they have subject specific credibility? Do they have any special interests? Are they being paid by a specific organization? Are they a member of a tribal group that biases them towards a specific conclusion? 

Here is a source by an ecologist arguing that overpopulation may eventually cause an unstoppable climate crisis that will eventually cause climate catastrophe. Said ecologist implies that population control, particularly of poor 3rd world countries, may be a part of the solution. 

What do you know? Said ecologist was named Hardin, and he was a neo Malthusian, part of a white nationalist organization, and called for ‘coercive constraints on unqualified reproductive rights’ (we call it forced sterilization, or genocide). Perhaps not the most reliable source. 

Do a search on YouTube for ‘China will collapse in X days’, and you will probably find a variety of business youtubers from a year ago arguing that China was going to suffer complete economic collapse. 

What do you know? A Ph.D. in economics says otherwise. 

Good sources tend to be experts (have subject matter relevant education/experience), are honest about (or have no) special interests funding them, and most importantly, temper their analysis with facts. They allow the facts to speak for themselves. These sources are rare in the modern information environment, and I consider the discovery of each akin to stumbling into a treasure trove. But they exist, and I’m grateful for them. I encourage everyone to share their ‘reliable’ sources in the comments if they would like. It would likely provide great benefits to the sanity waterline. 

4.Know your limitations

Unless you actually are a subject matter expert, you likely rely on the evidence and analysis provided by experts and institutions to inform your worldview. Or, at times, tribal groups (though certainly we may not be proud of it). This is completely natural, and an expected feature of modern society. Certainly we can’t all be experts on everything! The amount of reading and studying required to become an expert is hardly negligible, and we don’t live forever. Sometimes our source of information is just the easiest one at hand. 

That’s why it’s important to be honest. If you rely on an external source for information, be honest about it. I am not an economist, but the sources I follow (which includes Ph.d economists) seem to believe China isn’t collapsing and won’t collapse anytime soon. I am not a defense analyst, but the sources I follow (which include social scientists and defense analysts) seem to believe the Ukrainian war effort is far from over. So on and so forth. We are all informed in some way by external sources. Take a page from academia, and be honest about it. Cite your sources, allow others to challenge them, and don’t be afraid to disbelieve them if they are disproven. And, as always, nothing stops you from simply stating you have no opinion. Just because the Dark Side wins once doesn’t mean they’ll stay victorious forever.  

Winning: The algorithmic solution (Warning: Very taxing on attention span) 

Heuristics are helpful, but at the end of the day, the surest way to counter the Dark Arts is simply to understand the subject matter. Intuitively, this is pretty obvious. A scientist will (hopefully) never fall for flat earther B.S, because they have actually studied the science. The more understanding we have of the objective world, the more we can master the facts, the less hold the Dark Arts have over us. After all, false narratives work far less well when we understand exactly why they are false. 

The process isn’t easy. It involves either actual academic study, continual learning from reliable sources, or real, lived experience. But since this explanation won’t be complete without an example, I thought I’d break down one example of the dark arts I have observed, algorithmically. 

Here is a video of Republican Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s response to a question asking why he doesn’t support Ukraine. 

Now, full disclaimer, I know we frown upon too much political bashing on LessWrong. At a certain point it becomes unproductive to discourse. However, since my post is about defense against the dark arts, and one of the most prominent fields of the dark arts is politics, I feel obliged to break down a political topic. 

In the interests of maximal accuracy, I have decided to choose a topic that I am familiar with, and a claim sufficiently weak that I feel comfortable providing a rebuttal to. I do not mean to insult anybody holding similar views. 

I am criticizing an opinion and the logic behind it, not any specific person. (yes, that includes Ramaswamy, as much as I detest his opinions) We are more than the sum of our irrationalities. 

That said, let’s break his main points down. 

1. Ukraine aid does not serve American interests
2. Ukraine’s war effort is doomed, and the result of more aid is a ‘post Zelensky warlord taking over’, like in Afghanistan 
3. Cutting off aid is the prerequisite for Putin ending the war

Using my knowledge of history and geopolitics, I’ll rebut these points, one by one. Pardon me, this will take a while. Also, before I start: I am a clear and unambiguous supporter of Ukraine aid, and I rely on external sources to make my argument. I am also not going to be charitable to what I view as an intellectually defunct claim. Feel free to contest my logic or my sources below. 

With that out of the way… 

1.Ukraine aid doesn’t serve American interests

To understand this point, we must first understand the competing narratives of the war, and the structure of the NATO alliance structure which was designed to combat Russian expansion. We must also get into Ukrainian history, as well as American political interests.

Let’s start with American political interests. Admittedly, this is a very complex and nuanced topic, and no one list will do justice to all of America’s competing and often contradictory aims, but broadly, I believe you can summarize them as follows.  

• Promotion of liberal/democratic values
• Defense of the international status quo (preventing invasions/instability)
• Safeguarding global trade 
• Containing strategic rivals 

Broadly speaking, the US benefits greatly from the status quo, enjoying massive benefits from globalized trade and its exclusive economic and security ties to many of the world’s economic powers. It possess unparalleled security, as well as hegemonic military power. The US is thus interested in protecting globalized trade, partially through stabilization of the international status quo, and partly by restraining the ambitions of revisionist powers. It also aims to increase its own soft power and ideological base by supporting liberal democratic values in general, which grant it legitimacy at home and abroad. This isn’t a perfect summary, but in the interests of keeping this already bloated post at reasonable length, I’ll leave it here. This may be the Dunning-Kruger effect speaking here, but I find that historical evidence and popular discourse have made US interests relatively uncontroversial.

With that in mind, let’s turn to Ukraine.  

There’s much more history I can’t cover here, but I think for the sake of this post it makes sense to start with the Revolution of Dignity (Euromaidan). The protests, sparked by then president Victor Yanukovych’s decision to suddenly pivot to pursuing Russian economic ties instead of finalizing ties with the EU, was in many ways the start of the conflict. Despite overwhelming support by the Ukrainian parliament, Yanukovych opted out at the last minute. 

The Russian narrative would have you believe that this was a Western sponsored coup, or ‘color revolution’. Flat out ignoring that this was ultimately a popular action by Ukranian civil society in favor of European integration. 

Unfortunately, this was in large part what first resulted in the initial Russian military occupations, in Donbas and Crimea. Both were illegal annexations, widely rejected by the international community and supported only by sham referendums. 

The Western response was weak, as it has been against Russia in general, up till February 2022. The Minsk agreement, which effectively acted as an extension of German Ostpolitik, was implemented. In favor of greater economic ties and security guarantees to appease Russia, Ukrainian sovereignty was thrown under the bus. Russia would escape with light punishments in the wake of their invasion.  

Russian actions aren’t unique, however. Rather, history shows Russia acted very similarly in Georgia, where military force was used in response to threats of European integration. Yet, curiously, we do not see the same force applied to NATO member states. Finland’s accession did not spark a military invasion. The Baltics still remain safe from Russian military aggression. If there has been a consistent deterrent to Russia, it has been military force, vis-a-vis NATO membership.  

Russia’s overarching narrative is that NATO expansion is creating a security dilemma, threatening Russian security. But what do we actually see? Russian governments under Putin actively coercing states in favor of European using military force, in defiance of international law and respect for national sovereignty. Invasions of non-NATO states, and no invasions of NATO states. And, in the end, no NATO invasion of Russia.  

In all cases, we see countries asking to join NATO, not the other way around, because those countries understand that to defend their national sovereignty they need NATO membership as a safeguard against Russian invasion. Not as a defense against NATO aggression! On every level, the Russian ‘security dilemma’ is bullshit. What we actually see is imperialistic expansion and spheres of influence, ideas of a bygone era when the iron curtain still hung over eastern Europe. 

If Ostpolitik was ever credible as a strategy, it was disproved with the Russian invasion. Fostering economic ties ultimately only increased Russian leverage over Germany, and resulted in an acute energy crisis only barely averted by a warm winter, with the German growth model now in question. It also completely failed to stop the February invasion. If anything, it encouraged it. Russia learned a key lesson: that Europe and the world at large was not serious as it claimed about commitment to a rules based international order.  

So appeasement doesn’t work. Who’d have guessed?  

Where does that leave us? While sanctions have caused great damage, the Russian economy remains standing, and the invasion is ongoing. The Ukrainians have put up a heroic resistance, but Russia still maintains partial control of 4 annexed oblasts, as well as the Donbas region and Crimea. Western (and American interests) more generally would benefit from more aid, as continual aid attrits Russian military capability, ties down their war machine, and reinforces the only message that can hope to deter Russian invasion: that the west is serious. Fundamentally, the February invasion has shown that Russia does not have the military capability to face the united west. Russia has no prospect of further expansion if the west with its combined economic and military might contribute to a proper defense.  

But what if Putin is right? What if the west can’t actually put aside their petty squabbles and stop Russia? That’s the bet of the Putin regime right now. That the west will give up on Ukraine. That nobody will defend the Baltics. That more and more of eastern Europe will fall until another Russian flag is flown over Warsaw. This is equally the bet of Beijing, still eyeing the Taiwan Strait. The world is watching closely to see if America is serious about it’s military commitments, or if we will return to another period of isolationism, the very same that allowed for Hitler’s European conquests. 

If Ukraine falls, the Baltics are likely next, and the world will face the terrifying prospect of a clash between nuclear powers. And, as America is distracted, maybe a Taiwan Strait Crisis as well. Or, maybe worse, the effective dissolution of NATO’s credibility, and rampant military and nuclear proliferation in Europe. In either case we are looking at massive economic disruptions, potentially more invasions, and the omnipresent shadow of nuclear war, an X-risk we thought we were done worrying about.  

So, does Ukraine aid serve American interests? Hell yes. Ukraine aid diminishes the power of a strategic rival (Russia). It promotes liberal values and supports the existing international order. It discourages future military conflicts, and the trade disruptions that happen as a result. (see oil and food prices spiking in the wake of Russia’s invasion) Aid also enhances Washington’s credibility as a security partner and the leader of the western alliance. All said, aid is practically a strategic imperative, and the fact that Vivek disregards it shows just how little he understands about foreign policy.  

2. Ukraine’s war effort is doomed

I won’t waste too much time on this point. To date, Russia has suffered catastrophic losses in the Ukraine war, more than enough to replace their entire initial invading force. Over 300,000 troops, 5000 tanks, 600 aircraft, and countless more equipment categories are estimated to have been lost. These are losses that would completely erase most European armies.  

Kyiv has not fallen. The Russians failed to stop the Kharkiv offensive. Manpower and equipment are being consumed at unsustainable rates, and all the while Russian troops take ground at a snail’s pace, if at all. We are witnessing the effective equivalent of a return to WWI era trench warfare, where grinding battles of attrition wear out the capabilities of both sides.  

The narrative is that the long war favors Russia. This is true, but only to a limited extent, as Russia is still ultimately unable to tap it’s full economic and military potential. It’s why the initial invasion was a ‘special military operation’ rather than a war. Putin does not want to risk domestic political survival with a true general mobilization, or a full transition into a total war economy. Russia must therefore rely on it’s shrinking stockpiles from the Soviet era, while Ukraine can continue to be supplied by NATO allies, which are still nowhere close to exhausting their economic and military potential.  

Ukraine still isn’t ‘winning’, but it won’t take much for a victory in theory to become one in reality. The west can simply get serious about supporting Ukraine, devise a coherent long term strategy, and supply the necessary equipment to win the battle of attrition. Between Ukraine and Russia, yes, a long war favors Russia. But between Russia and NATO there is no real contest. 

All that said, Ramaswamy’s claim about Ukraine becoming like Afghanistan is simply not grounded in the reality of what actually happened. Afghan civil society did rise up against the Taliban. Afghan troops largely surrendered after a short fight. The president fled the country.  

What about Ukraine? Ukrainians have died in the hundreds of thousands to defend their country. Civil society has mobilized for a total war. Zelensky retains overwhelming popular support, and by and large the populace is committed to a long war.  

Is this the picture of a people about to give up? I think not.  

 3. Cutting off aid will ‘solve’ the problem 

I hope this is obvious at this point, but no, if the west stops supporting Ukraine Putin won’t be satisfied. See my analysis of point 1 again. He’ll just resume his conquests. To stop him, the west needs to provide more aid. Again, current aid is not significant in terms of Western capabilities. The fact of the matter is that aid to Ukraine is only a tiny portion of the West’s economy. As it stands, aid from the US nets to about 75 billion from the US.  

For reference, the US budget for fiscal year 2023 is approximately 6.1 trillion dollars, with 850 billion being for defense. Ukraine aid is a tiny portion of the budget that delivers outsized results by actually wearing Russian capabilities down.  

Considering that much of the aid is military (ie: obsolete equipment we won’t use, or new equipment we want to test the efficacy of), the difference between cost and potential benefits are vast. Not supporting Ukraine is thus not really even a ‘selfish’ decision. It’s just a bad decision. But then, when has that ever stopped politicians?  

(Note: Much of my arguments are borrowed, and from sources like Perun, Kraut, William Spaniel, and more, who I view as credible. However, the presentation of my argument is my own. I know I didn’t link all relevant evidence, or address all possible counterarguments. If you take issue to my logic, feel free to dispute it in the comments.) 

Politics: The Dark Side’s Dream 

In some ways, Vivek Ramaswamy’s arguments are a strawman, arguments so fallacious no informed person should take seriously. Yet, in some other ways, his arguments are a reflection of the state of modern politics. See for example, some of the CNN questions from 4 months ago.  

Though wrong, his answers are straightforward, and reflect a clear, internally cohesive narrative. The uninformed judge cannot tell him from someone with a genuine understanding of geopolitics. In fact, he’s far more convincing than his opposing candidates, who defend Ukraine aid with overt emotional appeals.  

Consider this accusation from his opponent which drew gasps from the crowd.  

“You are helping a murderer over…” 

The debate, insofar as there was ever an actual debate, ended there. His opponent did not have any legitimate arguments for why we should continue Ukraine support. Or maybe she did, but lacked the time to properly present them, like I did. (Hell, even my own presentation is flawed, but then I don’t want the post to be 10k words and citing over 100 sources). She opted for insults instead. The comments reflect how an uninformed audience member may have reacted.  

 I don't agree with some of his views, but Vivek is entertaining to watch and he was the clear winner of this debate. That deserves props.

 

 Man this guy can talk

 

 I am common sense conservative. This man has my vote after many hours of research on all the candidates.

 

IMAGINE HOW STRONG OUR COUNTRY WOULD BE IF PRESIDENTS SPENT THEIR DAYS WORKING FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED THEM INSTEAD OF THE PEOPLE WHO BUY THEM. 

We see that the Dark Arts have triumphed over their less sophisticated counterparts in politics, overt dodging and name calling. As always, knowing the truth makes the tactics seem comical, but then not everybody knows the truth. 

A proper rebuttal to Vivek’s 30 second video would require proper understanding of American geopolitical interests. A genuine commitment to liberal democratic values that goes beyond applause lights. An understanding of what financial and military aid was given, as well as how it’s used. It also requires, essentially as a byproduct, a basic understanding of European history and political development. Is this hard to acquire? Not necessarily, but for the median voter it would not be entirely reasonable to demand these levels of knowledge for every important political issue. Presenting such a proper rebuttal on a short time frame is likewise extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. I wish I could do it, but I cannot. I must still take 5 minutes to rebut a 30 second claim, even if it’s completely wrong. 

This, in my view at least, is one of the primary reasons why politics has grown so toxic and polarized over the years. It’s a perfect situation for dark arts practitioners. When narratives matter more than facts, charisma more than credibility, and ratings over intellectual exploration, the result is the same sad circus we are used to. Vivek is not an anomaly. He is precisely the sort of speaker the system rewards.  

Conclusion and summary:  

The Dark Side has not won… yet. But it is gaining ground. It is infiltrating politics, and many other aspects of daily life. It is taking advantage of flaws in our minds and our societies, making discourse and coordination difficult. But not all is lost. 

Defending Against the Dark Arts is actually pretty easy. Heuristically, a few small steps can get you a long way. 

1. Go Straight to the Source
2. Understand studies don’t prove anything
3. Learn to identify credible sources
4. Know your limits 

Algorithmically, the challenge isn’t too difficult either. Most of the Dark Arts rely on a complete lack of knowledge. Even superficial and basic understanding of events is enough to invalidate a Dark Arts practitioner’s attacks. Defeating them on a grand scale will take time, and perhaps some societal change as well. But in the meantime, as a well educated individual of the middle class observing politics, the challenge isn’t that bad. Do your research diligently, and it will probably be enough.  

Note: In the spirit of this post, I’d like to present interested readers with a challenge. Look through my logic, and catch my mistakes. I have intentionally made some, catchable using the very same techniques I described. If you’re interested in practice, I think you’ll have some fun finding my errors. First person to find them all and post in comments gets… a virtual hug! (well, probably something else, I don’t know what, but I’m willing to grant any reasonable request)  

Cheers, 

Lyron  

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