He's a well-known fan of cigars. I'm willing to believe in this case a cigar is a cigar.

Yes, that's his picture. I watched a minute and a half of the first video you posted. That was enough. First the host criticized Dennis Prager for forming a 401C3 and accepting donations from people who choose to donate – but I notice under his own video he has a link to Patreon and he asks for donations himself. Then he said, "Oh, and he's a Jew." So in addition to being hypocritical, he also makes unnecessary anti-Semitic jabs.
So, to answer your question, yes it appears were talking about the same Dennis prayer. Did you have any other questions related to the material covered in the video I posted?

@Wordmage The host is Jewish. He was doing a satirical Trump impression. And no, I don't have any other questions.

@Wordmage, for God's sake The Majority Report IS THE PRAGERU of the left! Hahahahaha. It's always hilarious to me when someone shoots down a source they question with another questionable source. Only, my questionable source isn't questionable, right? The myopia is breathtaking. PragerU is what it is. He's a religious guy giving his opinions about a lot of stuff--some I agree with, some I don't. End of the story. Just say that. Don't dig up some choadish site that's doing exactly what you're criticizing to do your talking for you.

Another stupid idea: Because someone has a thing you don't agree with, that does NOT invalidate everything the person has ever said. I'm sure Seder says something occasionally that isn't stupid. I've never seen it, but I'm going with the law of averages. I don't agree with Prager's thoughts on sexuality. But, the research itself isn't clear, and in the progressivism bifurcated into an intimacy model vs. a purely preference model. My own theory isn't really represented in the literature, and that is that sex is WAY OVERBLOWN. So many people feel anxiety over this thing. Geezus, ED is rampant because men are being told it's not okay to be men, and women aren't any happier. Why? BECAUSE ED! Sex is a freaking mess, and all 'science' is doing is screwing it up more, and they're screwing it up more because even the research is constrained by THE LEFT'S political correctness. You can't even propose a different idea without being shouted down by 100 butch women and 100 femen and their 'allies'.

I'd write a book myself, but I've read the research, and I still don't have any idea how sex is supposed to be. I'm GUESSING sex is suppose to add to people's happiness. It doesn't seem to be. It's hard to believe we're still this ignorant on the whole thing. We've finally started understanding relationships through attachment theory, modern relationship research, and the study of neuro-biology. Our understanding of sex needs to catch up.

@chuckpo My take on sex is that it's complicated by two things:

1. It's still pretty taboo. We talk, write, and teach about it so little that it's very difficult to learn. And what we do learn often turns out to be highly problematic. It may be a radical idea, but perhaps legalizing sex work could help.
2. You're going to hate this one, but men and women still aren't entirely equal, and capitalism creates all sorts of power dynamics in the places where we spend most of our time. That makes things like casual sex really problematic, as Aziz Ansari, previously everyone's favorite expert on modern dating, found out. We end up having to follow ever-changing professional norms and can't bring our whole selves into the workplace. When and where are we supposed to meet people anyway? As we like to say on the left, sex would be better under socialism.

@WilyRickWiles, a reasonable response.

Nothing says sexual appetite like starvation/bread lines, killing, classism, secrecy and oppression. I'm not sure where that saying ever came from, but I'd have to see the research that says birth rates skyrocket under socialism. I can plop down several articles that argue the opposite, but you won't like the sources I post anyway.

No, I don't think the economy will impact how people have sex in that way. But, capitalism and socialism put the exact same power dynamics in the places we spend most of our time. Capitalism is just honest about it. Hey, explain widespread rape fantasies. The genre is growing. I have several psychological observations about what inspires those kinds of fantasies--both for men and for women--all configurations male dom, male sub, fem dom, fem sub. What's most striking about these fantasies, and then what might that say about society at large? What do you think feminists think of rape fantasies?

Meeting people in the workplace was squashed by the left and feminism. It's had some pretty grim results on even productivity, job satisfaction, meaning, purpose, etc. Take the human out of work, it seems people don't really want to work. Predictable outcome? I've argued this elsewhere. This topic comes under the heading 'destroy the model because it didn't work this one time.' Look what the left would readily destroy for transgenderism, and that's less than 1/2 of 1% of the US population. The workplace is the coming crisis, more than likely. We can only set people against their natures for so long. Tick, tick, tick...

@chuckpo The socialism you're picturing is clearly different from the one I'm picturing. Basically, more horizontal workplaces and society equals better horizontal polka (sorry, that was bad). From what I hear even the social democracy in Scandinavia has helped. An example of the ideal is probably the places where libertarian socialism (anarchism) has briefly taken hold. Consider Orwell's writings on revolutionary Catalonia. Or present day Rojava. Watch this video on the Portuguese Carnation Revolution and tell me the sex wasn't good.

@chuckpo Here's a person who recently coined the aforementioned catchphrase. [vox.com]
[jacobinmag.com]

She addresses some of the distinctions between the corporate feminism and Stalinism you attribute to the left and socialist feminism.

@WilyRickWiles, I'll try to get to the rest of the video. It's boring up to 8 minutes in. I know the socialism you picture. It's just never existed. You're asking others to join your idealism. Well, no problem. Utopia sounds great. Nobody's ever hit the mark, and when they miss it's usually devastating--catastrophic. Capitalism has an ideal too. That ideal is missed. BUT, capitalism has mechanisms built in that consider imperfect human nature. I still want capitalism to be better--to do better, but I won't trade it for the same bad things hidden behind layers of deception. There's a difference between some poor slob saying they're doing okay and some poor slob saying they're doing okay because if they don't they're going to be put to death or their family given extra hardships. We don't live in ideals. We live in a real world with real people--real good people and real bad people. That's a fact. I prefer captitalists dealing with it in plain sight rather than socialists dealing with it by disappearing families. I am NOT CONVINCED a new iteration of socialism has solved this problem. In fact, as I read socialist--all socialists, y'all NEVER get past the Miss American responses of it working. And, since it defies common sense and experience (history) in so many examples, the burden is on socialists to convince skeptics that the results won't be catastrophic. I've never seen anything close to convincing. I tend to be a romantic--an idealist. Idealism's great, but idealism untested by reason is dangerous. With me, you have to make an appeal economic/governmental, but also psychological, and a chunk of my trepidation is what you want doesn't make psychological sense.

@chuckpo I'm not advocating for an immediate shift to the anarchist ideal, as romantic of a notion as it is. There are too many advantages to the already-existing US state. Unfortunately, the ideal will probably only ever exist sometime far in the future, or today by necessity in relatively small communities that have already broken down.

Social democracy, on the other hand, is working in many countries of the world. We can do piecemeal social democracy and keep markets for everything that isn't a natural monopoly. If there's political will later on, we can experiment with democratizing the workplace.

As far as the psychological argument, I have nothing to offer you if you're seeking a society-wide restoration of traditional gender roles. But if it is human relationships that you are concerned with, I want to emphasize that it is capitalism and corporate interests--not the left--that are alienating us from our work and our co-workers, for example. More parity of economic freedom between men and women means that we can bring more of ourselves into all aspects of our lives and women can enter into more genuine relationships without the kind of dependency that breeds resentment.

@chuckpo Also, I'll note that there are plenty of cases where relative utopia didn't metastasize into totalitarianism, but rather slowly degraded into soft neoliberalism.

@WilyRickWiles, so it sounds like you're advocating the system within which we already exist. Okay. I think you underestimate the degree to which your 'social democracies' use capitalist principles.

Nobody said anything about traditional gender roles, though that system was fine too IF the problems were addressed. We didn't need to throw out the whole system. One vote per family was a reasonable system. The votes of every adult is better. One wage earner was a reasonable system. In some ways, I think it's a lot better than our existing system--a lot of ways. Given the number of women opting out of the workforce, we may see in some years something more definitive.

I don't think you can argue that capitalism is sexist. Capitalism would be the least sexist since it would pay the cheapest qualified candidate MINUS all other problems. Women bring a problem to the table--babies. Men don't have them, so corporations don't have to have any infrastructure for them--don't have to risk loss in production, loss in training, having employees choose not to come back after birth. Those are legitimate concerns--not sexist concerns. Capitalism is bottom line driven. The left tried to jump the shark, but it didn't make sense. You had men in high positions for generations. You can't just toss a woman in there and say, 'there you go--equality'. Men moved into those positions with service and experience. The left's feminist approach was naive and ignored history and psychology. That's not sexist. I marvel at all of the czars at the top of socialist/communist countries. In fact, just the sheer number of females in high political office in thos...no wait. I don't recall seeing a lot of gynocentric socialism going on. Wait what? Why is historical socialism so f'ing male?

That's because you're speaking from ideals and not from reality and history. You don't get to call something that hasn't been done successful. There is sexism in socialism--more likely just social evolution the same as we have had here.

Workplace regulation that has led to widespread dissatisfaction is all left. That's y'all. At least you get the good part of that too, but you do have to take the bad. We can NOT bring more of ourselves into the workplace, because the workplace is NOT a safe space for men. I'd suggest any man who lets any woman into his circle at work is running a grave risk. Women hold all of the cards. They can pinch your butt and have you arrested and fired for doing nothing but existing. That's not parity. That's the left's illusion of parity that grips so many areas in life today. That last paragraph is a good example where you weave this pretty ideal, but when you match that ideal to real people, it just doesn't work. Workplaces just aren't any damned fun, and nobody's very happy with it (according to research). Women are leaving, men in the labor force are declining. I don't know where you're getting this pipe dream from. Show me where that's working? Google that fired the guy for suggesting that women on average choose different jobs than men?

@WilyRickWiles

Also, I'll note that there are plenty of cases where relative utopia didn't metastasize into totalitarianism, but rather slowly degraded into soft neoliberalism.

Guess that depends on how you define Utopia.

@chuckpo I'll acknowledge your point about capitalism. I mean social democracy is all about a mixed economy. I'm advocating gradual and limited reforms.

I don't think I said capitalism was sexist per se. Just that it's not great at accommodating many aspects of human life. And that naturally leads to gender disparities. I do find myself irritated at people who focus solely on pay equity when flexibility is probably the larger issue. And again, think Scandinavia not the USSR.

The type of parity I seek in the workplace is one where there will be no basis to claim an abuse of power. And ultimately that's the problem underlying sexual harassment.

Rather than the left ushering in totalitarianism, I worry that centrists are tiring of the work of democracy. They're sick of the right's shit and they don't want to concede power to the "undeserving" left. They look at Dubai, Singapore, China, and the EU and like what they see. They will use all of the corporate identity politics you attribute to the left to create a meritocratic capitalist bureaucracy where everyone can be safe despite the inequality and the government will get shit done.

@chuckpo And to emphasize, the so-called equality you take issue with is an equality achieved through top-down HR rules. Mine is one achieved through workplace democracy and social democracy. It wouldn't happen overnight, but eventually there would be enough actual parity that there would be no basis for a person of either gender to claim sexual misconduct (except of course cases of assault).

@chuckpo Social democracy obviously being things like health care and workplace democracy being things like having decentralized worker governance (not completely different from how some unions work).

@chuckpo Valve [en.wikipedia.org] and Mondragon [en.wikipedia.org] are good examples of places with workplace democracy. Germany has a law that mandates some workplace democracy for companies of a certain size. [en.wikipedia.org]

@WilyRickWiles, it's literally impossible to eradicate power hierarchies. Why? Because there are natural powers in being who we are though talents, abilities, competence, ambition--just a ton of things. There will always be power inequality, and those 'biological' power inequalities will birth psycho-social power inequalities--they'll be used to construct artificial social hierarchies. Hell, age can be a huge power hierarchy, and it's necessarily so. Experience will always be advantaged over inexperience. Knowledge will always be advantaged over ignorance. Ambition will always be advantaged over a lack of ambition. Even physical attractiveness is advantaged over unattractiveness. I don't know why the left hates this idea so much. I'm not in the top band of very many hierarchies. I probably never will be. I have to reconcile with myself where I am and that I will inevitably cede power to others higher up the ladder--not because I want to--nature does it for me. I can't compete with Brad Pitt in looks. I can't compete with Hope Solo in soccer (or in looks). I can't compete with Bill Gates in business. Those are simply facts. They will always be above me and no amount of manipulating local artificials are going to raise me. SO, what do we do about that? Well, of course we LOWER THEM! Let's handicap all advantage, so I can pretend like there aren't people better than I am--THAT'S the left. That's socialism. That's grievance. It's untenable--it's idealistic (though twisted), and it's simply an illusion. All of those power disadvantages can be exploited.

I'm not sure what to make of your last paragraph of your first response.

@WilyRickWiles

Mine is one achieved through workplace democracy and social democracy. It wouldn't happen overnight, but eventually there would be enough actual parity that there would be no basis for a person of either gender to claim sexual misconduct (except of course cases of assault).

How?

@WilyRickWiles

...decentralized worker governance.

How?

@WilyRickWiles

Valve [en.wikipedia.org] and Mondragon [en.wikipedia.org] are good examples of places with workplace democracy. Germany has a law that mandates some workplace democracy for companies of a certain size. [en.wikipedia.org]

Let's just take one--codetermination. How is that system going to avoid a political hierarchy? How is that system going to eliminate workplace harrassment or eradicate sex-based problems in a company full of human beings? The seems every bit as rife with opportunity for bad actors as any other system. How bad do you want your idea heard? If you want to keep working here, vote this person onto the codetermination committee.

Human beings are for the time being human beings, and one thing we've shown is bad actors can exploit anything in any setting. How are you overcoming that to create this sexless/harrassmentless environment?

@chuckpo Sure you can't get rid of every kind of difference (nor would you want to), some of which may be valued higher on average, but you can at least create a system where people have enough economic freedom and democratic representation in the workplace not to be dependent on any of those powerful people.

@chuckpo Right now we are jockeying for power through appeals to the HR department in the authoritarian firm. Is that really better?

@WilyRickWiles, it's not better. It's NO DIFFERENT. It won't be even a little bit better, and it may take awhile for it to be even as good. And, I'm not saying it's good now. It has the risk of going VERY wrong--for the benefit of equaling the current system in the best case.

Ideals are great. You just can't force them onto human beings that aren't ready. People are NOT evolved.

Anyway, first good conversation we've had in a really long time. Maybe it's a restart for us.

@chuckpo Gotcha. Yeah I can't prove it would be better. At least not with my level of expertise. Though maybe someone like economist Richard Wolff could attempt to. What is self-evident is that workplace democracy would change the power structure in most organizations. With some good ethics, which I think the socialist community has, you might get a better outcome.

Is it unreasonable to compare it to democracy in government? Sure we might have the same outcome under a monarch, but isn't the freedom and dignity granted by democracy an end in itself? And that plus the economic freedom granted by social democracy might particularly be worth a lot to people who feel marginalized in the status quo. At least theoretically grievances could be adjudicated more openly and by peers.

Likewise, it's entirely possible that our lives are predetermined. But isn't our life worth more believing in free will regardless?

What I'm hoping for is not to force these ideals on people before they are ready, but for these changes to gradually be adopted at businesses that are ready for them--either through worker organizing or regulations like they have in Germany.

Thanks for a good discussion.

@chuckpo One more thing: I noticed a connection to the blog post I shared yesterday. [scholars-stage.blogspot.com] It mentions how civic life has escaped the reach of the average person in recent years, contributing to alienation, victimhood, and dependence on authorities. Workplace democracy (not to mention Congressional reapportionment and taxing the rich) could be a remedy for that.

@WilyRickWiles, disagree. I'm feeling compelled to end on a positive note. I think it might be a good time just to take the win and save the points for another time.