[Applause]
hi my name is offending and my speech is
about not judging people so before I
begin I want to make sure that something
is understood when I say judge not I
don’t mean that you shouldn’t be able to
judge empirically quantifiable things of
course there are gonna be people in the
world who are gonna be faster than you
they’re gonna be people in the world who
are gonna be stronger than you but
ultimately what I’m saying is that you
shouldn’t judge somebody’s mind
regardless of how uneducated no matter
how uninformed or how underdeveloped you
might think their beliefs are because
ultimately when you judge someone’s mind
when you open the door to judgment you
close that same door to ideas so when I
hear the words the next chapter what I
immediately think of is the stages of my
own life the next one being hopefully
university I think of how every single
day I’m planning tomorrow and every
single year I’m planning the next year
and over the course of my life I spent
every single moment poring over the next
one and granted I’m not a telepath I
can’t possibly know what’s going on in
the minds of everyone else in the world
but so as a result you might wonder to
yourselves why is this relevant why
would I bother thinking about others
well when we stop trying to imagine why
others might believe what they believe
we stop trying to risk losing their
perspective we risk losing all of the
things that they have garnered over the
course of their lives now who here
remembers a time when they’ve engaged in
an argument with someone put your hands
up
okay now put your hands down if if you
feel like you’ve lost more than half of
your arguments see nobody’s put their
hands down so that’s the so if we assume
that there’s a winner and a loser to
every single argument that we must
assume that there should be roughly
50/50 in terms of winning and losing but
as you just saw there nobody really
feels like they ever lose an argument so
does anybody see what’s inherently wrong
with that it’s that when we judge other
people we end up judging their opinions
as wrong without really considering what
they have to say
so Socrates has said that when the
debate is over
slander becomes the tool of the loser
but before I continue I’d like to say
just ignore that for a second how many
people here feel like they have once
engaged in a debate proceeded to insult
the other person in some way shape or
form and then decided that they still
want that debate of course I’m not
saying that insults automatically make
you inherently wrong you can still have
a logical argument while resorting to
insults but insults in debate are
unconstructive ninety-five percent maybe
a hundred percent of the time and again
I’m not saying that debate is bad I’m
not i thrive I personally thrive on
discourse if you were to ask any of my
friends what do you think of offending
they’re probably gonna reply
unilaterally that I am argumentative and
to me debate argument is my preferred
form of learning so on the other day I
was divided debating with my friend
Cedric about the merits of affirmative
action and of course when it comes to
charge topics like this we all know how
it usually goes right I say my piece he
says his piece I call him something
similar to a flibbertigibbet and he
calls me a Jimmy cricket and then we
both walk away fuming convinced that
each of us want that argument hence why
nobody put their hands down and in this
case that didn’t happen we put aside our
personal differences and decided that it
was worth analyzing why we believed what
we believed and when it came down to it
the arbitrary distinction between his
belief and mine
was simply because he thought there
wasn’t enough evidence to show a
conclusion and I believe there was and
I’m not saying again that affirmative
action is not worth something I’ve
changed that stance of my own many times
since and I will continue to change that
stance into the future what I’m saying
ultimately from this is that the ability
to be flexible in your beliefs to change
your beliefs in the face of new evidence
is vital to the development of a human
being so when I was seven
I’m not sure where I picked this up but
I was absolutely convinced that the
earth was flat now I was thoroughly
convinced I was asked it was on the top
of my list of things I was absolutely
convicted about it was right next to the
fact that I was probably greatly
talented artist who was gonna be the
next Leonardo da Vinci now when I told
this to my parents nobody got mad at me
my parents didn’t call me uneducated and
call me child light didn’t call me dumb
they just took me to the beach and they
took me to the beach put me on their
shoulders and pointed to the horizon
whereupon they said if the earth is flat
why can’t you see all the way across the
ocean and that’s that’s all it took for
me to change my opinion on that and
there is my conclusion after a lifetime
of debate I feel like two wholehearted –
two wholeheartedly believe in absolutely
anything it’s about faith in a certain
belief even in the face of new
information that might prove me wrong
otherwise prevents you from developing
as a human being yet around the world
people continue to try to shut down what
other people have to say and nowhere is
this more evident in the modern
political theater
recently there has been an undeniable
shift of power from the political left
to the political right and the response
on social media and without condemning
or condoning this event the response on
social media by everyone I effectively
know has been pretty consistent people
go on and we’ve all seen the Facebook
post we’ve all seen the Twitter feeds
that say things similar to how could
this have happened what is wrong with
the world today and these things might
reflect what you want to feel but at the
same time they do serve a very negative
purpose they alienate everyone who could
ever possibly disagree with you they
immediately make you feel like anyone
who disagrees with you is inherently bad
that somehow their opinions become part
of their moral character and in this
case at the risk of being called a
racist if someone on the right were to
say that black people can commit crimes
at a disproportional rate to their
population the right response if you
were on the left we’re not deaf
absolutely not be to call them a racist
and immediately shut off the dialogue
that would go
but it would rather be to point out that
because of the nature of an
discrimination and history as well as
the nature of inheritance one one group
of people who have historically been
discriminated against is naturally gonna
be associated with the economic class
they’ve been discriminated into and
again I’m not saying that there are no
genetic differences between the races
when it comes down to is that there are
very real and very valid points on both
sides of the argument and to balance out
the scales at the risk of being called a
sexist when someone say on the Left were
to say that cite the famous statistic
that’s women make 77 cents to the man’s
dollar someone on the right the correct
response would not be to immediately
call them something similar to a
feminazi but rather to think about it
and remind remind yourself that this is
not an incorrect statistic it doesn’t
take into account many things right and
it could be worth pointing out that men
generally take more high-stress jobs or
pursue high mate or high high-paying
majors but again this is not me saying
that men are better than women no far
from it again I don’t think that society
doesn’t implement like norms doesn’t
teach women to pursue certain jobs that
pay less and teach men to pursue certain
jobs that pay more and I don’t think
that that’s not a problem what I am
saying again is that again on both sides
of the argument there are very
legitimate people so to censor speech
for any purpose is to risk oppression in
history we have seen countless dictators
do the exact same thing Adolph Hitler
Mao Stalin people in history censor the
opinions of those they don’t agree with
in order to keep themselves in power Al
Capone America’s most infamous public
enemy number one when captured Desai
expressed the opinion the absolute
sincere opinion that he was simply a
misunderstood and underappreciated
public benefactor Francis Crowley the
most notorious cop killer of the 20th
century was sentenced to the chair
whereupon he wrote a letter to his
sister saying he believed that his
punishment was not the result of his
unprovoked attack of policemen
but rather simply a punishment for him
trying to defend himself given that some
of the greatest criminals and comics in
history died believing with absolute
conviction that what they believed was
were was correct
shouldn’t it be worth remembering that
everyone anyone you disagree with ever
has a reason for sharing their opinion
and that reason is the exact same as
yours it’s because they believe that
their opinion and their values are the
right ones and that they’re worth
sharing but suppose for a second that
there’s an objective right there is a
universal doctrine of correct and
incorrect so if we were to censor things
on that spectrum then we probably start
with the very wrong and over time after
the censorship of this very wrong
opinion becomes normalized we might tend
to think wait there’s something that’s
kind of wrong and so we censor a little
bit wrong and when that becomes
normalized when people stop hearing the
opinions that are a little bit wrong we
tend to believe everything on this sided
spectrum and we start censoring be kind
of not totally right
and so I’m sure you can see where this
is going this puts us down a slippery
slope where we cannot stop and it
ultimately ends in a system of
oppression and that oppresses free
speech it’s free speech being the
ultimate champion of personal freedom
and yet despite this slippery slope
people around the world cry an outrage
when confronted by opinions they don’t
like when confronted by microaggressions
or small slips of slip-ups on the public
stage people alienate oohs people make
it impossible to criticize one side of
the spectrum without immediately being
associated with people on the other side
people forget that everybody in the
world has a reasonable reason to believe
what they believe when I once I was
debating with another friend of mine and
this was one of the most well versed and
most well educated one of my friends and
after debating with him somewhat I found
myself immediately called referred to as
a neo-nazi and this was an opinion I had
never even begun to believe in
and this really goes to show that even
in the highest levels of intellectual
conversation you can still have people
who a lien eight others by immediately
putting other people on the most extreme
ends of the other ends of the spectrum
and again I don’t believe that all ideas
are equally worth sharing I don’t
believe that there’s no such thing as a
harmful idea that shouldn’t be given
opinion or shouldn’t be given a platform
on which to manifest itself but we have
to remember and I do believe that all
issues that are controversial today are
controversial because there are very
real very reasonable and very logical
people on both sides of the spectrum
arguing it every single day and even if
you can’t bring yourself to empathize to
compromise or to agree with the people
on those sides of the spectrum you can
still bring bring herself to realize
that like the seven-year-old kid who
thought the earth was flat when we
commit these people have never had the
opportunity to believe in anything other
than exactly what they believe today
because of the evidence that they have
been presented with so when we commit to
the notion that there is a black and
there is a white when we commit to the
notion that there isn’t us and to them
when we commit to the notion that there
are winners and there are losers we risk
creating a dichotomy in which there is
no exchange without conflict and we
forget that in between these two stances
there’s an entire spectrum of gray and
between and we forget that there in the
world there are new on stances there are
gay conservatives there are liberal
businessmen and we forget that and if we
took a statistical stance on this the
probability that any of us are either
totally black or it totally white is
this number you see on the board here
now has anyone noticed what the most
commonly uh turd words I’ve spent said
tonight are it is now I don’t think
because when people think that I believe
something they associated with part of
my identity it becomes part of who I am
and if I were to change that opinion
suddenly that becomes an act of
hypocrisy when I don’t think allows me
to establish that that’s not who I am
but rather simply something I believe
today and as the French moralists Joseph
Joubert said it is better to debate a
question without settling than it is to
settle a question without debating it so
as long as the opinion that you might be
referring to today could become the
opinion that you might believe in
tomorrow regarding that opinion just not
[Applause]
hi my name is offending and my speech is
about not judging people so before I
begin I want to make sure that something
is understood when I say judge not I
don’t mean that you shouldn’t be able to
judge empirically quantifiable things of
course there are gonna be people in the
world who are gonna be faster than you
they’re gonna be people in the world who
are gonna be stronger than you but
ultimately what I’m saying is that you
shouldn’t judge somebody’s mind
regardless of how uneducated no matter
how uninformed or how underdeveloped you
might think their beliefs are because
ultimately when you judge someone’s mind
when you open the door to judgment you
close that same door to ideas so when I
hear the words the next chapter what I
immediately think of is the stages of my
own life the next one being hopefully
university I think of how every single
day I’m planning tomorrow and every
single year I’m planning the next year
and over the course of my life I spent
every single moment poring over the next
one and granted I’m not a telepath I
can’t possibly know what’s going on in
the minds of everyone else in the world
but so as a result you might wonder to
yourselves why is this relevant why
would I bother thinking about others
well when we stop trying to imagine why
others might believe what they believe
we stop trying to risk losing their
perspective we risk losing all of the
things that they have garnered over the
course of their lives now who here
remembers a time when they’ve engaged in
an argument with someone put your hands
up
okay now put your hands down if if you
feel like you’ve lost more than half of
your arguments see nobody’s put their
hands down so that’s the so if we assume
that there’s a winner and a loser to
every single argument that we must
assume that there should be roughly
50/50 in terms of winning and losing but
as you just saw there nobody really
feels like they ever lose an argument so
does anybody see what’s inherently wrong
with that it’s that when we judge other
people we end up judging their opinions
as wrong without really considering what
they have to say
so Socrates has said that when the
debate is over
slander becomes the tool of the loser
but before I continue I’d like to say
just ignore that for a second how many
people here feel like they have once
engaged in a debate proceeded to insult
the other person in some way shape or
form and then decided that they still
want that debate of course I’m not
saying that insults automatically make
you inherently wrong you can still have
a logical argument while resorting to
insults but insults in debate are
unconstructive ninety-five percent maybe
a hundred percent of the time and again
I’m not saying that debate is bad I’m
not i thrive I personally thrive on
discourse if you were to ask any of my
friends what do you think of offending
they’re probably gonna reply
unilaterally that I am argumentative and
to me debate argument is my preferred
form of learning so on the other day I
was divided debating with my friend
Cedric about the merits of affirmative
action and of course when it comes to
charge topics like this we all know how
it usually goes right I say my piece he
says his piece I call him something
similar to a flibbertigibbet and he
calls me a Jimmy cricket and then we
both walk away fuming convinced that
each of us want that argument hence why
nobody put their hands down and in this
case that didn’t happen we put aside our
personal differences and decided that it
was worth analyzing why we believed what
we believed and when it came down to it
the arbitrary distinction between his
belief and mine
was simply because he thought there
wasn’t enough evidence to show a
conclusion and I believe there was and
I’m not saying again that affirmative
action is not worth something I’ve
changed that stance of my own many times
since and I will continue to change that
stance into the future what I’m saying
ultimately from this is that the ability
to be flexible in your beliefs to change
your beliefs in the face of new evidence
is vital to the development of a human
being so when I was seven
I’m not sure where I picked this up but
I was absolutely convinced that the
earth was flat now I was thoroughly
convinced I was asked it was on the top
of my list of things I was absolutely
convicted about it was right next to the
fact that I was probably greatly
talented artist who was gonna be the
next Leonardo da Vinci now when I told
this to my parents nobody got mad at me
my parents didn’t call me uneducated and
call me child light didn’t call me dumb
they just took me to the beach and they
took me to the beach put me on their
shoulders and pointed to the horizon
whereupon they said if the earth is flat
why can’t you see all the way across the
ocean and that’s that’s all it took for
me to change my opinion on that and
there is my conclusion after a lifetime
of debate I feel like two wholehearted –
two wholeheartedly believe in absolutely
anything it’s about faith in a certain
belief even in the face of new
information that might prove me wrong
otherwise prevents you from developing
as a human being yet around the world
people continue to try to shut down what
other people have to say and nowhere is
this more evident in the modern
political theater
recently there has been an undeniable
shift of power from the political left
to the political right and the response
on social media and without condemning
or condoning this event the response on
social media by everyone I effectively
know has been pretty consistent people
go on and we’ve all seen the Facebook
post we’ve all seen the Twitter feeds
that say things similar to how could
this have happened what is wrong with
the world today and these things might
reflect what you want to feel but at the
same time they do serve a very negative
purpose they alienate everyone who could
ever possibly disagree with you they
immediately make you feel like anyone
who disagrees with you is inherently bad
that somehow their opinions become part
of their moral character and in this
case at the risk of being called a
racist if someone on the right were to
say that black people can commit crimes
at a disproportional rate to their
population the right response if you
were on the left we’re not deaf
absolutely not be to call them a racist
and immediately shut off the dialogue
that would go
but it would rather be to point out that
because of the nature of an
discrimination and history as well as
the nature of inheritance one one group
of people who have historically been
discriminated against is naturally gonna
be associated with the economic class
they’ve been discriminated into and
again I’m not saying that there are no
genetic differences between the races
when it comes down to is that there are
very real and very valid points on both
sides of the argument and to balance out
the scales at the risk of being called a
sexist when someone say on the Left were
to say that cite the famous statistic
that’s women make 77 cents to the man’s
dollar someone on the right the correct
response would not be to immediately
call them something similar to a
feminazi but rather to think about it
and remind remind yourself that this is
not an incorrect statistic it doesn’t
take into account many things right and
it could be worth pointing out that men
generally take more high-stress jobs or
pursue high mate or high high-paying
majors but again this is not me saying
that men are better than women no far
from it again I don’t think that society
doesn’t implement like norms doesn’t
teach women to pursue certain jobs that
pay less and teach men to pursue certain
jobs that pay more and I don’t think
that that’s not a problem what I am
saying again is that again on both sides
of the argument there are very
legitimate people so to censor speech
for any purpose is to risk oppression in
history we have seen countless dictators
do the exact same thing Adolph Hitler
Mao Stalin people in history censor the
opinions of those they don’t agree with
in order to keep themselves in power Al
Capone America’s most infamous public
enemy number one when captured Desai
expressed the opinion the absolute
sincere opinion that he was simply a
misunderstood and underappreciated
public benefactor Francis Crowley the
most notorious cop killer of the 20th
century was sentenced to the chair
whereupon he wrote a letter to his
sister saying he believed that his
punishment was not the result of his
unprovoked attack of policemen
but rather simply a punishment for him
trying to defend himself given that some
of the greatest criminals and comics in
history died believing with absolute
conviction that what they believed was
were was correct
shouldn’t it be worth remembering that
everyone anyone you disagree with ever
has a reason for sharing their opinion
and that reason is the exact same as
yours it’s because they believe that
their opinion and their values are the
right ones and that they’re worth
sharing but suppose for a second that
there’s an objective right there is a
universal doctrine of correct and
incorrect so if we were to censor things
on that spectrum then we probably start
with the very wrong and over time after
the censorship of this very wrong
opinion becomes normalized we might tend
to think wait there’s something that’s
kind of wrong and so we censor a little
bit wrong and when that becomes
normalized when people stop hearing the
opinions that are a little bit wrong we
tend to believe everything on this sided
spectrum and we start censoring be kind
of not totally right
and so I’m sure you can see where this
is going this puts us down a slippery
slope where we cannot stop and it
ultimately ends in a system of
oppression and that oppresses free
speech it’s free speech being the
ultimate champion of personal freedom
and yet despite this slippery slope
people around the world cry an outrage
when confronted by opinions they don’t
like when confronted by microaggressions
or small slips of slip-ups on the public
stage people alienate oohs people make
it impossible to criticize one side of
the spectrum without immediately being
associated with people on the other side
people forget that everybody in the
world has a reasonable reason to believe
what they believe when I once I was
debating with another friend of mine and
this was one of the most well versed and
most well educated one of my friends and
after debating with him somewhat I found
myself immediately called referred to as
a neo-nazi and this was an opinion I had
never even begun to believe in
and this really goes to show that even
in the highest levels of intellectual
conversation you can still have people
who a lien eight others by immediately
putting other people on the most extreme
ends of the other ends of the spectrum
and again I don’t believe that all ideas
are equally worth sharing I don’t
believe that there’s no such thing as a
harmful idea that shouldn’t be given
opinion or shouldn’t be given a platform
on which to manifest itself but we have
to remember and I do believe that all
issues that are controversial today are
controversial because there are very
real very reasonable and very logical
people on both sides of the spectrum
arguing it every single day and even if
you can’t bring yourself to empathize to
compromise or to agree with the people
on those sides of the spectrum you can
still bring bring herself to realize
that like the seven-year-old kid who
thought the earth was flat when we
commit these people have never had the
opportunity to believe in anything other
than exactly what they believe today
because of the evidence that they have
been presented with so when we commit to
the notion that there is a black and
there is a white when we commit to the
notion that there isn’t us and to them
when we commit to the notion that there
are winners and there are losers we risk
creating a dichotomy in which there is
no exchange without conflict and we
forget that in between these two stances
there’s an entire spectrum of gray and
between and we forget that there in the
world there are new on stances there are
gay conservatives there are liberal
businessmen and we forget that and if we
took a statistical stance on this the
probability that any of us are either
totally black or it totally white is
this number you see on the board here
now has anyone noticed what the most
commonly uh turd words I’ve spent said
tonight are it is now I don’t think
because when people think that I believe
something they associated with part of
my identity it becomes part of who I am
and if I were to change that opinion
suddenly that becomes an act of
hypocrisy when I don’t think allows me
to establish that that’s not who I am
but rather simply something I believe
today and as the French moralists Joseph
Joubert said it is better to debate a
question without settling than it is to
settle a question without debating it so
as long as the opinion that you might be
referring to today could become the
opinion that you might believe in
tomorrow regarding that opinion just not
[Applause]
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