Vaush
Ian Kochinski (born February 14, 1994), better known as Vaush, is an American left-wing YouTuber and Twitch streamer who debates and discusses politics online from a libertarian socialist perspective.
Quotes
edit- The problem with Cuties on Netflix isn't that 11 years are going to watch it and feel represented. The problem is that adults if we're being charitable are going to watch it to reflect on their youth, or if we're being uncharitable they're going to watch it while ******* it to the many provocative dance scenes done by minors.
- 11 September 2020 post on Facebook
- Social media platforms are terrible at acknowledging context and power relations when it comes to harassment, this is why so many trans people on Twitter get banned for calling their harassers TERFs, which is categorically not a slur. Hasan’s flagrant use of the word forced them to commit to a position. They committed harder than I expected, considering my ban.
- 16 December 2021 interview with Nathan Grayson of Washington Post
- People don't like being convinced that they're wrong. In fact, our brains are unmatched in their ability to self-justify, to make us feel that we are right and to shut out any information that contradicts that. On a purely logical level, most people aren't going to be moved on a incorrect belief they have by arguing with them about it.
- First and foremost, if you're dealing with somebody who cares about you in any capacity [...] the most valuable tool you have to convince them of any position is the empathy they hold for you.
- The problem with leftists is that they don't have an example to point to, right? What are you going to point to? China? The Soviet Union? No, no. If you're going to make an argument for anything leftist, you're kind of throwing darts at the wall. Not necessarily a bad dart or a bad wall, but you're having to work from first principles a little bit. This is why a lot of lefties struggle with electoralism, because electoralism is the bridge that exists right now that gets us from A to B and bridge-building is tough, but imagining the other side of the river is easy. In fact, you can see it from here, it's in your head.
- 31 August 2023 LIBERALS ARE NOT THE SAME AS REPUBLICANS FOR F*CK SAKE
- I do find myself agreeing with liberals on a lot of stuff. Not, mind you, because I don't have better ideas than them -- I do, and I've argued for them -- but because the other ideas that are being thrown their way are so bad that I can't risk the left being pulled down with them. I want you guys to have a better understanding of liberals so you can better critique them. I don't want you to be complacent like the liberal, I want you to know what you're up against.
- 31 August 2023 LIBERALS ARE NOT THE SAME AS REPUBLICANS FOR F*CK SAKE
- The ideological leftist -- the real leftist -- would be somebody who understands that the state is fundamentally incompatible with the Marxist vision of communism. [...] So the state is, at its best, an inconvenient mechanism for facilitating the transition towards that society, which is something that I believe. I don't think we can just jump into statelessness, but I do think that the state should be treated with a significant degree of, like, scrutiny, you know? Because time and time and time again, we have seen socialist revolutions kind of, like, fall or cut under themselves because the people who ended up in charge just didn't do the socialism, they just empowered and enriched themselves at the expense of the proletariat.
- 1 November 2023 Second Thought Doesn't Understand Socialism
- One of the most shamelessly predatory, pedophilic ideas I've ever seen taken half-seriously is The Wall. [...] The idea that women become unattractive and lose all sexual value after the age of 30. I know the harm of this specific idea is mostly hypothetical because the median believer in The Wall is, like, a fourteen-year-old boy who doesn't talk to women anyway, but it's still an example of how political ideologies can influence the extent to which predatory attitudes against women are socially normalized. To make a change for the better, y'know, you'd probably have to look into some kind of, uh, I don't know, uh, feminism thing.
- 18 February 2024 The Context Video
- "Do you believe in unity or only winning?" What unity is there with fascists? What do you mean by that? How do you unify with them? On what issues? If "winning" means, uh, like "everyone supports what I support" and that is unity, then sure, then that, to me, is winning. Right now, unity just means trying to build bridges with fascists.
- 21 August 2024 Dear Obama, There Is No "Unity" With Republicans
- No matter how good you are at debate, you always need both sides to be invested in doing it. Like, if I showed up for a debate and they just made farting noises with their mouth, I can't make a good point in that environment. It requires two people engaging with some standard of mutual competency. It's not even a matter of performing well, it's just unfun. All of the rhetorical skills that I'm interested in? Meaningless. You just scream your soundbites. That's it. Remember the debate between MoistCr1TiKaL and Sneako? MoistCr1TiKaL was objectively correct and reasonable the entire time, and Sneako was interspersing bad arguments with being pro-pedophilia? And after that, every right-wing account on Twitter was like "Yo, Sneako just OWNED MoistCr1TiKaL on trans kids", or whatever. No one cares. Nothing matters. It's-- This is what I mean about "no unity". How do you form unity with that? It's only power. They don't care about anything else. They'll do or say anything. They don't believe in anything.
- 21 August 2024 Debating The Right Is Worthless In 2024