I ask you to consider the idea that the reason that you don't understand Trump when looking at him through the lens of a cult is that it's not a cult.
You're not going to find that many Trump supporters who don't disagree with him on something. A lot of Christian conservatives don't like his stance on abortion and think it's too permissive. A lot of libertarian conservatives dislike a lot of what he did and didn't do -- a lot of people think that he should have pardoned Assange and Snowden which was totally in his power. A lot of fiscal conservatives don't like just how much money he spends. A lot of people deeply criticized him for hiring John Bolton as well as many of his other appointments. Many of his supporters are disaffected liberals who think the Democrats are acting authoritarian. A lot of people don't like how he talks online. A lot of people criticizing how he's running this campaign. Some people even think that his decisions during covid including project warpspeed were bad. They don't directly blame him for the vaccines being dangerous, but he let them get their Trojan horse into the city. I see it on my feed all the time, people on the right reminding other conservatives about that fact as a warning not to get complacent and not to put Trump onto a pedestal of infallibility.
The guy has built a coalition of a bunch of different disparate groups, and none of them think that he is a perfect person or a perfect candidate. It's a misconception that you only support a politician when you pretend you would marry them, but that isn't something among his supporters. That's something that the left does. They say that you need to fall in love with a Democrat. People fell in love with obama, they fell in love with kennedy, they fell in love with clinton, but you don't need to fall in love with Trump to support him. All you need to think is that he's going to steer things in generally the right direction and he's going to do his best.
It's possible to think project warpspeed let a Trojan horse in the gates and it was a bad call but still think he's the better bet for running the country. When cults see their all powerful leader make mistakes it causes anguish and cognitive dissonance, but if you think the guy you support is a human and he makes a mistake frankly anyone could have made and their opposition is destroying cities for 6 months at a time, forcing people to take experimental drugs or lose their livelihoods, taking pot shots at political candidates, denying people food to homeless people based on race or other overtly evil things, it puts mistakes in context.
A lot of his current allies are people who previously spoke out against him, including his current vice presidential candidate. There are people who used to support him who now speak out against him. That isn't the actions of a cult of people, it's the actions of a fragile alliance built from political horse trading.
Given the reality of the situation before you, I would ask you to consider where all of your narratives come from. Are you the one who thought that Trump's following was a cult, or did someone tell you that, and you picked it up, but you're finding it kind of frustrating the fact that it doesn't really seem to fit the facts?
You're not going to find that many Trump supporters who don't disagree with him on something. A lot of Christian conservatives don't like his stance on abortion and think it's too permissive. A lot of libertarian conservatives dislike a lot of what he did and didn't do -- a lot of people think that he should have pardoned Assange and Snowden which was totally in his power. A lot of fiscal conservatives don't like just how much money he spends. A lot of people deeply criticized him for hiring John Bolton as well as many of his other appointments. Many of his supporters are disaffected liberals who think the Democrats are acting authoritarian. A lot of people don't like how he talks online. A lot of people criticizing how he's running this campaign. Some people even think that his decisions during covid including project warpspeed were bad. They don't directly blame him for the vaccines being dangerous, but he let them get their Trojan horse into the city. I see it on my feed all the time, people on the right reminding other conservatives about that fact as a warning not to get complacent and not to put Trump onto a pedestal of infallibility.
The guy has built a coalition of a bunch of different disparate groups, and none of them think that he is a perfect person or a perfect candidate. It's a misconception that you only support a politician when you pretend you would marry them, but that isn't something among his supporters. That's something that the left does. They say that you need to fall in love with a Democrat. People fell in love with obama, they fell in love with kennedy, they fell in love with clinton, but you don't need to fall in love with Trump to support him. All you need to think is that he's going to steer things in generally the right direction and he's going to do his best.
It's possible to think project warpspeed let a Trojan horse in the gates and it was a bad call but still think he's the better bet for running the country. When cults see their all powerful leader make mistakes it causes anguish and cognitive dissonance, but if you think the guy you support is a human and he makes a mistake frankly anyone could have made and their opposition is destroying cities for 6 months at a time, forcing people to take experimental drugs or lose their livelihoods, taking pot shots at political candidates, denying people food to homeless people based on race or other overtly evil things, it puts mistakes in context.
A lot of his current allies are people who previously spoke out against him, including his current vice presidential candidate. There are people who used to support him who now speak out against him. That isn't the actions of a cult of people, it's the actions of a fragile alliance built from political horse trading.
Given the reality of the situation before you, I would ask you to consider where all of your narratives come from. Are you the one who thought that Trump's following was a cult, or did someone tell you that, and you picked it up, but you're finding it kind of frustrating the fact that it doesn't really seem to fit the facts?
I think for someone like that, it isn't about the money, it's about making your artistic vision happen, using the clout you built elsewhere to push through a project that was never financially viable but it's your dream as a filmmaker.
Sometimes those stories end up becoming some of the biggest movies of all time, but often they just end up being a big waste of money except for the guy who gots to make his dream movie.
Sometimes those stories end up becoming some of the biggest movies of all time, but often they just end up being a big waste of money except for the guy who gots to make his dream movie.
Furthering the metaphor, I bet there is a sort of ideological immune system that will eventually tap the brakes most of the time, but for something that doesn't have that immune system by design and just keep on getting eaten up.
To be honest, you're not entirely wrong. Lol
It's been enjoyable for me to watch but I get it lol
It's been enjoyable for me to watch but I get it lol
https://youtu.be/I5g_7AtUzQg
These two have some interesting things to say, and this episode is about the "pod people" effect of wokeness.
Given what happens every time, inauthentic people injecting themselves into hobbies so they can eat them from inside, you can see the pod people actions, and also why we might have an instinct against such people -- like a brachnoid wasp, they lay their eggs inside your favorite properties, and when they think they can get away with it those eggs hatch and they start to devour those properties from the inside out.
You can see from there why normalish people get the heebie jeebies from such people, because you can sense their inauthenticity. "As a little girl I always loved Warhammer 40k!" No you didn't.
But here's a further take: thinking about it this way, I'm not sure progressive ideology is itself inherently pod peopleish or even inherently woke the way we think about it. I kind of think that default liberal ideology was super powerful (a famous study around 2007 showed 75% of millennials agreed with it), and so the pod people were drawn to it. It looks like the cause of the disease, but it's just the current carrier, like a zombie beetle carrying around wasp larvae. I'm not even sure it's "patient zero", I think those pod people ate up organized religion before they caused it to collapse, and now they're eating stuff like opposing racism and the like, but they'll jump to a new host once this one is dead (and make no mistake, it's dying). The pod people also force others to conform or be expelled, so that explains why some people who used to be cool seem to have stopped and started acting like pod people full-time.
I can't predict what the next host will be, but it'll be something super popular. It may even be "anti-wokeness" seeing how badly progressive ideology has been destroyed, where they'll inject themselves into it, take power for themselves, make it totally insufferable with pod people, and people will start to hate this thing too. I can imagine something wholesome like anti-pedophilia being taken over, because then you get the power to accuse individuals of horrific crimes due to your movement, and they'll even eat that host so badly people just won't care anymore.
These two have some interesting things to say, and this episode is about the "pod people" effect of wokeness.
Given what happens every time, inauthentic people injecting themselves into hobbies so they can eat them from inside, you can see the pod people actions, and also why we might have an instinct against such people -- like a brachnoid wasp, they lay their eggs inside your favorite properties, and when they think they can get away with it those eggs hatch and they start to devour those properties from the inside out.
You can see from there why normalish people get the heebie jeebies from such people, because you can sense their inauthenticity. "As a little girl I always loved Warhammer 40k!" No you didn't.
But here's a further take: thinking about it this way, I'm not sure progressive ideology is itself inherently pod peopleish or even inherently woke the way we think about it. I kind of think that default liberal ideology was super powerful (a famous study around 2007 showed 75% of millennials agreed with it), and so the pod people were drawn to it. It looks like the cause of the disease, but it's just the current carrier, like a zombie beetle carrying around wasp larvae. I'm not even sure it's "patient zero", I think those pod people ate up organized religion before they caused it to collapse, and now they're eating stuff like opposing racism and the like, but they'll jump to a new host once this one is dead (and make no mistake, it's dying). The pod people also force others to conform or be expelled, so that explains why some people who used to be cool seem to have stopped and started acting like pod people full-time.
I can't predict what the next host will be, but it'll be something super popular. It may even be "anti-wokeness" seeing how badly progressive ideology has been destroyed, where they'll inject themselves into it, take power for themselves, make it totally insufferable with pod people, and people will start to hate this thing too. I can imagine something wholesome like anti-pedophilia being taken over, because then you get the power to accuse individuals of horrific crimes due to your movement, and they'll even eat that host so badly people just won't care anymore.
Literally the stupidest people in the room at all times.
"Trump got to select 2 supreme Court justices. You should dissolve the supreme Court so if he wins trump can select all the supreme Court justices"
"Trump got to select 2 supreme Court justices. You should dissolve the supreme Court so if he wins trump can select all the supreme Court justices"
It isn't egalitarian to say that some people are better morally than others and will choose to do better things than others. It's inherently hierarchal, with a hierarchy of morality.
My brother is a good example, where he's smarter than me genetically, and better off physically, but he morally failed to make good choices and so despite having similar and in fact better biology, and similar culture having been raised in the same household, he's far worse off in life than me.
The nexus of nature, nurture, and choice is what's important, and you can't nurture your way out of nature and choice problems, and you can't choose your way out of nature and nurture problems, but to be someone who deserves to be king, one needs the nexus to meet at the pinnacle of all three. It doesn't mean the lesser people are bad people, nor does it mean they don't deserve a good life, but they shouldn't be king, and if you put them there then you're doing everyone wrong including the falsely elevated.
My brother is a good example, where he's smarter than me genetically, and better off physically, but he morally failed to make good choices and so despite having similar and in fact better biology, and similar culture having been raised in the same household, he's far worse off in life than me.
The nexus of nature, nurture, and choice is what's important, and you can't nurture your way out of nature and choice problems, and you can't choose your way out of nature and nurture problems, but to be someone who deserves to be king, one needs the nexus to meet at the pinnacle of all three. It doesn't mean the lesser people are bad people, nor does it mean they don't deserve a good life, but they shouldn't be king, and if you put them there then you're doing everyone wrong including the falsely elevated.
Nature, nurture, and free will all contribute to our behavior.
You can't teach a dog to recite Shakespeare, it doesn't have a mouth to speak.
Someone who has never learned Shakespeare will never recite Shakespeare, they don't have the knowledge to do so.
And someone with the biological means and the cultural upbringing may still choose to never recite Shakespeare because it is our choice whether to do so or not, and two similar people may make different decisions.
Without understanding this, people will fail to act appropriately because they might try to culture those who lack the faculties to have culture, or they might fail to impart culture, or they might assume you can treat men like a piano key and they will always play the same note.
You can't teach a dog to recite Shakespeare, it doesn't have a mouth to speak.
Someone who has never learned Shakespeare will never recite Shakespeare, they don't have the knowledge to do so.
And someone with the biological means and the cultural upbringing may still choose to never recite Shakespeare because it is our choice whether to do so or not, and two similar people may make different decisions.
Without understanding this, people will fail to act appropriately because they might try to culture those who lack the faculties to have culture, or they might fail to impart culture, or they might assume you can treat men like a piano key and they will always play the same note.
The same reason people get fat -- outside of a civilization like ours where food is so plentiful everyone is fat, often people are on the verge of starvation so you don't have a need to be a musclebound monster, you need to be just as built as you need to be for the circumstances.
It's pretty cool, I've been running a minetest server for ages now, but I sort of forgot about it. Recently someone asked me to help out with something in the server and I found all kinds of cool things people built. Sometimes if you build it they do actually come.
(BTW, minetest with what used to be called mineclone but is now called VoxeLibre is a great thing that doesn't have accounts some central authority can ban)
(BTW, minetest with what used to be called mineclone but is now called VoxeLibre is a great thing that doesn't have accounts some central authority can ban)
One of the biggest dangers is assuming that because someone is intelligent they will come up with the right answer, and that because someone is unintelligent they will come up with the wrong answer.
Intelligence is a tool, like a knife. A knife can be used to create, or to destroy. It can be used to set up a camp or perform a life-saving surgery, it can be used to stab an innocent person. It can be used to oppose tyranny, but it can also be used to support tyranny. Ironically, intelligence is a tool, and like any tool it's stupid. It only becomes smart with wisdom and humanity behind it.
We are the most intelligent civilization in world history, but we are the least wise. We've extremely intelligently disregarded all our historical wisdom, sure that we can rebuild new wisdom with our vast intellect. Unfortunately, that's cutting off your left hand to make your right hand stronger -- it works, but you can never grow your left hand back. That shows though, that you can't assume that if there's a right answer that the people who come to that answer are necessarily more intelligent.
Intelligence is a tool, like a knife. A knife can be used to create, or to destroy. It can be used to set up a camp or perform a life-saving surgery, it can be used to stab an innocent person. It can be used to oppose tyranny, but it can also be used to support tyranny. Ironically, intelligence is a tool, and like any tool it's stupid. It only becomes smart with wisdom and humanity behind it.
We are the most intelligent civilization in world history, but we are the least wise. We've extremely intelligently disregarded all our historical wisdom, sure that we can rebuild new wisdom with our vast intellect. Unfortunately, that's cutting off your left hand to make your right hand stronger -- it works, but you can never grow your left hand back. That shows though, that you can't assume that if there's a right answer that the people who come to that answer are necessarily more intelligent.
Ironically, while many "right wingers" or "conservatives" think we need to build something new, it makes a lot more sense to start learning ancient wisdom again, including the old poems such as the epic of Gilgamesh and other Mesopotamian legends, early and later Greeks, Romans, early Christians such as St. Augustine, legends from cultures like the celts or the nords, and stories from eastern Europe. I think we can even learn a lot from cultures such as China, where Confucianism is the most conservative ideology in existence, or India where they have the largest canon in existence accumulated over millennia. Building a slightly different progressive postmodern ideology I think isn't actually a win for the right, it's just another form of win for the left.
The only thing that can work that isn't merely a retarded version of leftist ideology is to use that ancient wisdom as the soil from which a new vibrant plant can grow. Looking at the past and learning from our ancestors, from there we can determine a path forward built on the knowledge we used to have about how humans work as the foundation. Jordan Peterson does this in his book Maps of Meaning, where he looks at ancient stories through the lens of common archetypes and finds often the same stories are told over and over again. Some of the things people get mad about him saying aren't really thinks he's saying, but things all of humanity's wisdom tell us told through many cultures stories. Instead of looking at them as literal stories, they make much more sense as allegory and symbolism.
Answers that are correct often start small and grow as people around you see the wisdom in what you're doing. Find the right answers and over time it will grow.
The only thing that can work that isn't merely a retarded version of leftist ideology is to use that ancient wisdom as the soil from which a new vibrant plant can grow. Looking at the past and learning from our ancestors, from there we can determine a path forward built on the knowledge we used to have about how humans work as the foundation. Jordan Peterson does this in his book Maps of Meaning, where he looks at ancient stories through the lens of common archetypes and finds often the same stories are told over and over again. Some of the things people get mad about him saying aren't really thinks he's saying, but things all of humanity's wisdom tell us told through many cultures stories. Instead of looking at them as literal stories, they make much more sense as allegory and symbolism.
Answers that are correct often start small and grow as people around you see the wisdom in what you're doing. Find the right answers and over time it will grow.
Reminds me of the quote attributed to Gandhi, but incorrectly:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"
It doesn't matter who said it, I think it's fitting. They're fighting and they're losing because you can't bully everyone forever.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"
It doesn't matter who said it, I think it's fitting. They're fighting and they're losing because you can't bully everyone forever.
Notwithstanding the fact that certain ideologies are deeply hostile to most normal people right now, I tend to agree with you. Good ideas are good ideas, and bad ideas are bad ideas, we need to retain the good and filter the bad regardless of their source. One of the rhetorical tricks used by net evil factions is to package good ideas with horrible ideas so you can push through your horrible ideas, because the good of the good ideas can be dwarfed by the bad of horrible ideas.
As for your main point, I think a lot of people have been damaged into thinking that the only way things can work is top down, and that's one of the reasons everyone's feeling so shitty -- Someone convinces you that you can only be granted change rather than making it for yourself, and suddenly you've had a slice of your humanity taken away from you.
I remember, I had a similar event when I was a younger man. I had just broken up with a crazy lady. She was the sort who would try to control you through constant accusations, and the only way to sort of keep the peace was to comply. So once I left her, I had my crappy bronco ii, and filled in some of the holes with riveted tin, and I spraypainted the whole thing from top to bottom in mat black. Looked like shit, but it was like "I'm doing this, I don't need to ask permission, and if it turns out like shit it's my thing that looks like shit". It was a big moment for me, a realization that you can and sometimes should just do things.
It did end up looking like shit, but I wasn't done. I ended up tearing out the dash and the headliner and doing it all up custom (padding and fabric), and it looked terrible and probably would have killed everyone in a 5 mile radius if I ever got in a crash, but I didn't care because it was my customized piece of crap. I even redid the dashboard plastic, taking plexiglass and painting the back in black with a stencil so it looked like one piece of glass with openings for the various things. Again, didn't look great, and if there was any resale value I had destroyed it completely by making it look terrible, but it was my little piece of crap.
Having now learned that I have the agency to do what I want even if it ends in something objectively terrible and even if it does the world doesn't end, I later started to realize the power in just doing your best. Most people don't try to excel, they just want to do what is standard or even just what is required. That can mean at work, but it especially means at home. There's overwhelming evidence in many ways that lots of people aren't putting in any effort, so just doing your best, doing what you think is right is actually a revolutionary act because history is written by those who show up.
There's another piece of that too, because a lot of other people are still stuck in the box, still thinking they need permission to act, permission to make decisions in their own lives. There's a lot of people who wouldn't ever think they are even allowed to paint their own piece of crap car, and people who think they aren't allowed to raise their kids right, and people who think they aren't allowed to make a video game, and people who think they aren't allowed to write a book, and people who think they aren't allowed to pick up trash. Whatever it is, people think they aren't allowed without getting some big corporate or government sponsorship, so they don't even try.
As for your main point, I think a lot of people have been damaged into thinking that the only way things can work is top down, and that's one of the reasons everyone's feeling so shitty -- Someone convinces you that you can only be granted change rather than making it for yourself, and suddenly you've had a slice of your humanity taken away from you.
I remember, I had a similar event when I was a younger man. I had just broken up with a crazy lady. She was the sort who would try to control you through constant accusations, and the only way to sort of keep the peace was to comply. So once I left her, I had my crappy bronco ii, and filled in some of the holes with riveted tin, and I spraypainted the whole thing from top to bottom in mat black. Looked like shit, but it was like "I'm doing this, I don't need to ask permission, and if it turns out like shit it's my thing that looks like shit". It was a big moment for me, a realization that you can and sometimes should just do things.
It did end up looking like shit, but I wasn't done. I ended up tearing out the dash and the headliner and doing it all up custom (padding and fabric), and it looked terrible and probably would have killed everyone in a 5 mile radius if I ever got in a crash, but I didn't care because it was my customized piece of crap. I even redid the dashboard plastic, taking plexiglass and painting the back in black with a stencil so it looked like one piece of glass with openings for the various things. Again, didn't look great, and if there was any resale value I had destroyed it completely by making it look terrible, but it was my little piece of crap.
Having now learned that I have the agency to do what I want even if it ends in something objectively terrible and even if it does the world doesn't end, I later started to realize the power in just doing your best. Most people don't try to excel, they just want to do what is standard or even just what is required. That can mean at work, but it especially means at home. There's overwhelming evidence in many ways that lots of people aren't putting in any effort, so just doing your best, doing what you think is right is actually a revolutionary act because history is written by those who show up.
There's another piece of that too, because a lot of other people are still stuck in the box, still thinking they need permission to act, permission to make decisions in their own lives. There's a lot of people who wouldn't ever think they are even allowed to paint their own piece of crap car, and people who think they aren't allowed to raise their kids right, and people who think they aren't allowed to make a video game, and people who think they aren't allowed to write a book, and people who think they aren't allowed to pick up trash. Whatever it is, people think they aren't allowed without getting some big corporate or government sponsorship, so they don't even try.
This might have been made by a wannabe socialist revolutionary (I literally don't know, it could honestly have been), but it's still filled with deep truth.
It's a good video that suggests that in the context of what we're talking about, we need to go small again, and have the people owning their own plot of land. Metaphorically, that suggests to me something I've been talking a lot about lately, having your own little slice of the world. Once game development is mechanized and made into a billion dollar industry of virtual serfs tilling someone else's land it was always ripe for perversion.
So it's like other things in life right now -- we need to make our own things, own them, not give them up in the face of rewards from empire. In so doing we'll be free, and likely happier. But a small farm will only ever produce a small amount and we need to refocus our visions to account for that. Instead of coveting the corrupt cities, we should be looking instead at what our own lands can produce. It won't be bright and shiny, it won't field giant armies to conquer the entire continent, but it'll be honest and it can be good...
So it's like other things in life right now -- we need to make our own things, own them, not give them up in the face of rewards from empire. In so doing we'll be free, and likely happier. But a small farm will only ever produce a small amount and we need to refocus our visions to account for that. Instead of coveting the corrupt cities, we should be looking instead at what our own lands can produce. It won't be bright and shiny, it won't field giant armies to conquer the entire continent, but it'll be honest and it can be good...