Esoteric Entity has apparently taken to lying about me since our debate,1 perhaps he was embarrassed by a lackluster effort on his part and has decided the best strategy is to make it someone else’s fault. I do not know for how long he has been doing this or to how many people so I am writing this as an evergreen response. If in the future it is revealed that he has engaged in more despicable activity I will update this post as required.
Eso’s Narrative of Our Debate
Above Eso makes the following claims:
- I lied about the topic of the stream to him such that he would prepare on the wrong topic;
- I constantly asked “loaded questions;”
- I constantly interrupted him, which prevented him from explaining his position;
- I come across as a “raging narcissist,” and;
- I am a grifter.
Claim: “LiquidZulu Lied About the Debate Topic”
Below I attach the entirety of our Discord DM history, keeping track of what the topic of debate is understood as at each point. First, I shall note what topic the actual stream itself exudes–the topic that Eso says was the wrong one–then we can compare the actual with the planned to see if there is any mismatch.
First, the title of the stream is “Discussing Hoppe With Backalley Philosophy,” and the first line of the description clarifies that I am “[discussing] the Backalley Philosophy critiques of Hoppe with Esoteric Entity.” What I refer to here is a series on the Backalley Philosophy channel, of which Eso is a host, titled “The Road to Serfdom: A Critique of Hans Hermann Hoppe.”2 So, the metadata of the video itself indicates exactly what I thought it to be about: namely discussing Eso’s criticisms of Hoppe, levied in the series that he co-auhtored. This is further backed-up by the very opening of said discussion where I explain that I “watched through the series you did […] you had some criticisms of [Hoppe’s] work, I have just gone through that series briefly earlier today to […] get the main points of contention I have with your criticisms.” To which Eso responds “yeah, thats fine” (this will come in handy later). Eso then elaborates and says that it would be more productive to “just discuss various topics on a stream beforehand,” citing the discussions free-form nature as back-up.
I open very clearly by explaining that I want to debate either Eso or Filthy Heretic about their series. Eso wants to see some examples of debates that I have done prior to giving me an answer on this request.
In hopes of getting some sort of a date pencilled in I offer the compromise of doing a “conversational type video” as against a straight up debate. Some people are put-off by the D-word, so I am perfectly willing to change the framing to ease their mind that I am not going to go into bloodsports mode. I gave Eso examples of exactly what said “conversational type videos” look like.
Eso says that we would have to be more specific about the point of contention, rather than a broad discussion of Hoppe’s work, I said that I would get back to him after I re-watch his series to find such a specific point of contention.
Eso prompts me for a response, I explain that I have not yet found the specific point of contention, and he proposes that we could do the free-form discussion after all, in order that we may find points of contention. Now, a free-form discussion means a discussion without a specific point of contention. Before we had it that the topic was a broad overview of the Backalley Philosophy critique of Hoppe (i.e. not a specific point of contention, i.e. a free-form discussion on Hoppe), then we moved into a search for a specific topic for discussion, now we have moved back to that initial free-form discussion of the BA criticisms of Hoppe.
We set up the debate, the current topic being the free-form discussion of the criticisms of Hoppe.
The debate goes forth.
The debate ends amicably.
Now, we have it that the topic at the time of the stream was a free-form discussion of the BA critiques of Hoppe, let’s compare that to the stream itself as analysed above:
First, the title of the stream is “Discussing Hoppe With Backalley Philosophy,” and the first line of the description clarifies that I am “[discussing] the Backalley Philosophy critiques of Hoppe with Esoteric Entity.” What I refer to here is a series on the Backalley Philosophy channel, of which Eso is a host, titled “The Road to Serfdom: A Critique of Hans Hermann Hoppe.” So, the metadata of the video itself indicates exactly what I thought it to be about: namely discussing Eso’s criticisms of Hoppe, levied in the series that he co-auhtored. This is further backed-up by the very opening of said discussion where I explain that I “watched through the series you did […] you had some criticisms of [Hoppe’s] work, I have just gone through that series briefly earlier today to […] get the main points of contention I have with your criticisms.” To which Eso responds “yeah, thats fine” (this will come in handy later). Eso then elaborates and says that it would be more productive to “just discuss various topics on a stream beforehand,” citing the discussions free-form nature as back-up.
So:
- the title was set as “Discussing Hoppe With Backalley Philosophy”—this is what was planned;
- the description says “I discuss the Backalley Philosophy critiques of Hoppe with Esoteric Entity”—this is what was planned;
- I open the debate by explaining that I watched the series in question to try and get some points of contention to discuss—this is what was planned, I already told him in the DMs that I was watching over his series for this purpose, not a blindside;
- Eso agrees with the above, that we did indeed plan to discuss his critiques of Hoppe;
- Eso then wants to discuss “various topics” on the stream, citing the fact that the discussion is free-form, and assuming “various topics” means what was planned, i.e. his various criticisms of Hoppe, then this is of course what was planned (perhaps he wanted to instead discuss which sporting event is most entertaining, or at what time of year potatoes are easiest to plant, which would definitely not be what was planned).
On all counts the stream itself is in perfect lockstep with what was planned in the DMs—I did not lie about what the debate was. I was clear the entire time that I wanted to debate his criticisms of Hoppe, if he studied for some topic other than this he is a fool, and it is not my job to ensure that he is not foolish. If there was some manner of confusion over what the topic was supposed to be, the correct response to this would be for Eso to ask for a clarification whenever he felt it going off-track (which if he did would call into question exactly how free-form the discussion was), the correct response is not to pretend as if we were still on amicable terms and to concoct and spread lies about me behind my back.
Claim: “LiquidZulu Constantly Asked Loaded Questions”
It is at this point that a common theme in Eso’s accusations crops up: namely that he makes an accusation with zero evidence where the burden is on him. I certainly questioned him a lot during the discussion (which was the entire point), but which specific questions does he think are loaded? Note that a loaded question doesn’t just mean a question that is weally weally hawd to ansuw, rather a loaded question has baked-in a controversial assumption, with the idea being that the loaded-questioner is trying to sneak some premise past his opponent. It is on Eso to provide the evidence that I was doing this (the correct time to do that would either be during the discussion itself, or after I confronted him about this debacle).3
Claim: “LiquidZulu Constantly Interrupted Eso”
The point about Eso requiring evidence still stands, but on its face this claim is simply ridiculous. Eso spent the vast majority of the debate waffling along in massive run-on sentences with no clear sign-posting for what the point of the sentence is. He bloviated to such a degree, in fact, that several commenters assumed that he was either drunk or high. The person who brought Eso’s bitching to my attention, Ignis, cites 1:50:00 as the first time when I interrupt him, due to him going in circles:
Now, after almost two hours of discussion, if ones interlocutor keeps treading the same tired ground it is entirely proper for one to interrupt in order that the conversation may move forward. Unless of course Eso was not intending to actually move the discussion forward and was instead looking to trap us in an endless whirlpool of nonsense (which would be evidence that he is a grifter, not me. See: Claim: “LiquidZulu is a Grifter”).
Claim: “LiquidZulu is a Raging Narcissist”
Eso claims here that he has “seen screenshots” which evidence a “raging” narcissism on my part, but of course he does not provide a single one of these screenshots nor does he allow me to even defend myself on this count. Quite on the contrary to Eso’s claims, the Mayo Clinic says that “people with narcissistic personality disorder have trouble handling anything they view as criticism.”4 Now, who does that sound like to you? Someone who cannot appropriately handle criticism, perhaps concocting various lies to pass the blame onto another, and maybe such a person would prevent the individual who is the target of their lies from responding on the Discord server that they are being spouted on. Do I think that Eso is a narcissist? No. I am no psychologist, but there appears to be a very specific list of symptoms for classing an individual as a narcissist, but if Eso wishes to lob stones from his greenhouse, he should not be surprised when they come flying back.
Claim: “LiquidZulu is a Grifter”
I shall rest my response here on the analysis of grifting by ShortFatOtaku.5 He defines a grifter as:
a person who is willing to lie, cheat, or steal to make money. They will say things that they explicitly know to be false, or they will completely abandon the idea of consistency in their pursuits.
This accusation is completely false. I do not ever say knowingly false things, I do not abandon my principles, I remain entirely consistent, in all of my online work. If I was truly a grifter, why on Earth would I take up such controversial opinions as:
- small tent libertarianism is superior both morally and strategically;
- all religion is based upon false metaphysical premises, there is no God nor any “possibility” for there being a God (this one gets me quite some flak from the paleo types, a common target for grifting);
- every state border on planet Earth should be instantaneously abolished;
- Ted Kaczynski was an evil man who advocated the apocalyptic ideology of primitivism;
- all forms of intellectual property should be abolished instantaneously (this one gets me a lot of flak from Randroids);
- Immanuel Kant is the most evil philosopher of all time, and;
- planned obsolescence is good?
Sure, various subsets of my beliefs could be collected into a valid grift, but the entire corpus of what I openly and loudly state online completely rules this out. My acceptance of Hoppe and various arguments that he makes would set me up for a nice neo-prag6 or paleo-libertarian grift; but then my open hatred of neo-prags and religion would surely disqualify me. My love of Ayn Rand and Objectivism could also work, but then my open and constant arguments against intellectual property and Objectivism as a “closed system” would have me burned at the proverbial stake. My support for open borders gains me popularity with leftists, which is then immediately shot down by my assertions that planned obsolescence is good and that people should be free to discriminate against blacks, Jews, disableds, or any other protected group that they wish. Which group exactly am I grifting for? Where are the gaping inconsistiencies in my position? I am one of the few libertarians who are so consistent that I will argue against the morality of stealing a penny to save humanity, or violating the rights of the suicidal to stop them from committing suicide. I’m more consistent than Walter fucking Block on that point—quite a strange strategy for grifting, but certainly not strange if my goal is to be consistent and honest.
On the other hand, it is proven in this post that Esoteric Entity is willing to openly lie and prevent any counters to his lies to be heard—if either party is the grifter here, it is him, not me.
Esoteric Entity Banned Me For Trying To Defend Myself
Below is my initial response after joining the server where he was making his allegations against me, attached are some select screenshots from our DMs, but this is superceded by Claim: “LiquidZulu Lied About the Debate Topic”:
Instead of responding to me and backing up a single one of his claims, he banned me from the server for “trying to start drama:”
Strange, I seem to recall that it was Eso who was bitching about me and trying to spread lies about our interactions. Oh, I get it: its not drama for him to concoct an elaborate tale explaining how he dindu nuffin and how I am the big bad guy, but it is drama for me to respond to these accusations. Moreover, not only did Eso ban me from that server to prevent me from defending myself further, but he also deleted all of my messages, such that nobody can even see what defense I was able to get out:
(for completeness here is the attachment to the above message by Sue Dominus):
Eso goes on and tries to claim that I was taking part in a Raid on this server, which justifies him to delete all of my messages (why he wouldn’t just time me out is beyond me):
This is simply false. I joined the server, sent my response, watched Donnie Darko, and saw that I had been banned. Discord’s community guidelines7 defines a raid under their “Respect Each Other” policy as follows:
coordinating server joins for the purposes of harassing server members
No such coordination took place, Ignis showed me what was being said and invited me to that server. I did not tell anyone else to join and break any rules, I joined of my own free will. That other people were defending me in chat is not evidence of a raid, it is not a coordinated server join for the purpose of harrassment. It is a spontaneously ordered server join, with my purpose being to defend myself, and perhaps other people had this same purpose also (I do not know, I was banned and apparently so were other people). It is not harrassment for me to defend myself against accusations being made in a public Discord server.
Footnotes
1 LiquidZulu, Discussing Hoppe With Backalley Philosophy, https://youtu.be/xs2bD5kECAo (https://archive.ph/zS44k)
2 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmfCIj-pVxS8_QnlfjifQRugzjTsZpAz6 (https://archive.ph/nFR0m)
4 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662 (https://archive.ph/notmB)
5 ShortFatOtaku, What Is A Grifter?, https://youtu.be/AcXIhqvssdE
6 See: LiquidZulu, These People Are Destroying Libertarianism, https://youtu.be/064I02yeLhg