Trump's ability to make good hires was simply abysmal. Anyway, in the current political environment cordial, productive discourse with the incoherent Left is just not possible. For my part, discernment is fairly straightforward: I do not suffer fools gladly so, "Whoever is not with me is against me." Good piece, thanks.
This is part of why I have been reluctant to monetize my substack. But then, my pursuit of truth above all other concerns has kept my subscriber numbers so low as to make monetization negligible. I'm also aware that I can say what I need to say without running afoul of the matrix precisely because so few people read my work, that I am perceived to be no kind of threat.
About the only writers I trust anymore are writing on substack. All of them are actively opposed to covid, woke and trans authoritarianism.
In a republic or democracy, focusing on just an Awakened elite is a losing strategy -- unless you have a plan to leverage that elite to affect a more massive movement. Witness the half century of failure of the Libertarian party.
Lumping everyone into Us and Them is rarely a good strategy. There are many varieties of liberal. For example, LBJ was an aggressive warmonger against the communists even as he pushed social democracy at home.
The dampen the ratchet effect requires giving the non-Woke a viable alternative within the *local* Overton Window. For example, the Republican Party has gone on in on supporting fossil fuels. The oil companies are among the last big corporations to reliably support the Republican Party.
In rural America and in energy producing states, this is a nice solid coalition. But in university towns, tech centers, and the beautiful parts of the country this positioning is outside the local Overton Window. To challenge the Left in such districts requires a Conservation Party or some kind of Eco Caucus of the Republican Party. Otherwise, the voters are left with the choice of Privileged Trannies and Street Crime vs. Destroying the Damn Planet. The tranny worshippers win.
A true dissident elite needs to play the Transmission Belt game. Be the Counter Conspiracy.
I also especially enjoyed reading this piece, and think the 'behavior under stress' heuristic is the most dependable -- possibly because it is consistent with all the other predictive factors you identify. I take this "transvaluation of values" you speak of through idea-communicating vehicles like Substack and other personal example as simple mutual encouragement of individuals treading water in roiling cultural seas; i.e., it helps minimize Jordan Peterson-style faltering and maximize Trump-style resoluteness. Finally, I propose adding another heuristic to your pile: "Building cooperatively instead of instigating right-on-left drama."
Anti-vaxxers are our friends and each one of them potentially saved lives during the Covid reign of terror. Make new antivax friends by giving them a chance to denounce the “craziness” and test them by seeing if insulting mask-wearers or predicting inevitable clot-doom for the vaxxed triggers their amygdala.
Same with guns. Passionate love of the beautiful works of art that are guns is nauseating to liberals. Around women, voice praise of the beautiful (not present company) and make fun of the ugly—liberals are very sensitive to criticism and will pick on it.
By the way, I was in a Japanese bathhouse once and saw this squishy-faced guy rambling on about inane politics. I noticed that he had a tiny penis, about as long as my big toe. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: these men with pudgy faces, lacking proper male jaw and brow development, all have tiny penises and obsess about other things as a result. There is no saving them, ever. Stay away from them, just like women do. And avoid unfeminine women too. It’s the sex hormones that make humans capable of love of one another and the truth, and these unfortunate maldeveloped specimens do not have the capacity. Roger Dommergue was right.
> Nietzsche and Shapiro have opposite understandings of what “facts” constitute. Compare their physiognomies; intensity, directness at the seriousness of life on the left, smug arrogance and dissembly on the right.
One of those people also ended up in a lunatic asylum. Guess which one.
Hi Eugine, I attribute Nietzsche's descent into madness with his development of a worldview that was akin to pantheism. A world where God creates the laws of the universe and then peaces out to leave us to fend for ourselves is a world where injustice is unpunished, and for a man with a mind geared toward justice that becomes a hard burden to carry. At least that's my working theory.
"the distinction is a relative one and context dependent, depending on the objectives of the person making the distinction"
There are literally ~7.5 Billion distinct universes walking around.: genetically and neurologically. When people say, " I can't believe this person did this horrible thing." My thought is always, 'I can't believe people don't do it all the time'. Not because I want them to, but because I sorta expect it if nothing else due to the law of averages.
Motivation is the master of reason. Frens are ultimately aligned by motivation, but discerning such, especially given the way competence interacts with motivation to produce highly variable behavioral outcomes is a perpetual challenge.
"Did someone get an untested mRNA vaccine because society pressured them to?"
Nothing was "untested" about the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines; they took months to be tested. The two obviously untested widely used vaccines were Sputnik V and Medigen, and I don't think it would have been a good idea for them to have been tested more.
My "aha moment"s were the "second amendment people" brouhaha and the notable lack of brouhaha at "worst of the worst".
"Was someone silent about election fraud due to employer pressure?"
There was about as much (probably more) pro-Trump election fraud than pro-Biden election fraud in 2020. Trump lost because of his failure to deal with COVID in the same manner as Prayut, Ardern, Moon Jae-In, or Lacalle Pou. The core demographic that lost Trump the election were 5% of college educated White men (who were notably underrepresented in states that swung to Trump, like California, Nevada, Arkansas, and Florida).
Trump's ability to make good hires was simply abysmal. Anyway, in the current political environment cordial, productive discourse with the incoherent Left is just not possible. For my part, discernment is fairly straightforward: I do not suffer fools gladly so, "Whoever is not with me is against me." Good piece, thanks.
This is part of why I have been reluctant to monetize my substack. But then, my pursuit of truth above all other concerns has kept my subscriber numbers so low as to make monetization negligible. I'm also aware that I can say what I need to say without running afoul of the matrix precisely because so few people read my work, that I am perceived to be no kind of threat.
About the only writers I trust anymore are writing on substack. All of them are actively opposed to covid, woke and trans authoritarianism.
In a republic or democracy, focusing on just an Awakened elite is a losing strategy -- unless you have a plan to leverage that elite to affect a more massive movement. Witness the half century of failure of the Libertarian party.
Lumping everyone into Us and Them is rarely a good strategy. There are many varieties of liberal. For example, LBJ was an aggressive warmonger against the communists even as he pushed social democracy at home.
The dampen the ratchet effect requires giving the non-Woke a viable alternative within the *local* Overton Window. For example, the Republican Party has gone on in on supporting fossil fuels. The oil companies are among the last big corporations to reliably support the Republican Party.
In rural America and in energy producing states, this is a nice solid coalition. But in university towns, tech centers, and the beautiful parts of the country this positioning is outside the local Overton Window. To challenge the Left in such districts requires a Conservation Party or some kind of Eco Caucus of the Republican Party. Otherwise, the voters are left with the choice of Privileged Trannies and Street Crime vs. Destroying the Damn Planet. The tranny worshippers win.
A true dissident elite needs to play the Transmission Belt game. Be the Counter Conspiracy.
I also especially enjoyed reading this piece, and think the 'behavior under stress' heuristic is the most dependable -- possibly because it is consistent with all the other predictive factors you identify. I take this "transvaluation of values" you speak of through idea-communicating vehicles like Substack and other personal example as simple mutual encouragement of individuals treading water in roiling cultural seas; i.e., it helps minimize Jordan Peterson-style faltering and maximize Trump-style resoluteness. Finally, I propose adding another heuristic to your pile: "Building cooperatively instead of instigating right-on-left drama."
Anti-vaxxers are our friends and each one of them potentially saved lives during the Covid reign of terror. Make new antivax friends by giving them a chance to denounce the “craziness” and test them by seeing if insulting mask-wearers or predicting inevitable clot-doom for the vaxxed triggers their amygdala.
Same with guns. Passionate love of the beautiful works of art that are guns is nauseating to liberals. Around women, voice praise of the beautiful (not present company) and make fun of the ugly—liberals are very sensitive to criticism and will pick on it.
By the way, I was in a Japanese bathhouse once and saw this squishy-faced guy rambling on about inane politics. I noticed that he had a tiny penis, about as long as my big toe. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: these men with pudgy faces, lacking proper male jaw and brow development, all have tiny penises and obsess about other things as a result. There is no saving them, ever. Stay away from them, just like women do. And avoid unfeminine women too. It’s the sex hormones that make humans capable of love of one another and the truth, and these unfortunate maldeveloped specimens do not have the capacity. Roger Dommergue was right.
> Nietzsche and Shapiro have opposite understandings of what “facts” constitute. Compare their physiognomies; intensity, directness at the seriousness of life on the left, smug arrogance and dissembly on the right.
One of those people also ended up in a lunatic asylum. Guess which one.
Hi Eugine, I attribute Nietzsche's descent into madness with his development of a worldview that was akin to pantheism. A world where God creates the laws of the universe and then peaces out to leave us to fend for ourselves is a world where injustice is unpunished, and for a man with a mind geared toward justice that becomes a hard burden to carry. At least that's my working theory.
A truth too often overlooked
"the distinction is a relative one and context dependent, depending on the objectives of the person making the distinction"
There are literally ~7.5 Billion distinct universes walking around.: genetically and neurologically. When people say, " I can't believe this person did this horrible thing." My thought is always, 'I can't believe people don't do it all the time'. Not because I want them to, but because I sorta expect it if nothing else due to the law of averages.
Great essay.
Motivation is the master of reason. Frens are ultimately aligned by motivation, but discerning such, especially given the way competence interacts with motivation to produce highly variable behavioral outcomes is a perpetual challenge.
"Did someone get an untested mRNA vaccine because society pressured them to?"
Nothing was "untested" about the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines; they took months to be tested. The two obviously untested widely used vaccines were Sputnik V and Medigen, and I don't think it would have been a good idea for them to have been tested more.
My "aha moment"s were the "second amendment people" brouhaha and the notable lack of brouhaha at "worst of the worst".
"Was someone silent about election fraud due to employer pressure?"
There was about as much (probably more) pro-Trump election fraud than pro-Biden election fraud in 2020. Trump lost because of his failure to deal with COVID in the same manner as Prayut, Ardern, Moon Jae-In, or Lacalle Pou. The core demographic that lost Trump the election were 5% of college educated White men (who were notably underrepresented in states that swung to Trump, like California, Nevada, Arkansas, and Florida).
Hi Eharding, mRNA vaccines have been tested throughout various human trials since the 1980s, and none have been approved to market, as far as I know, due to excessive side effect profiles. With respect to the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines, they removed the control group during their studies in their rush to get it out to market, and it isn't possible to allege that there were even medium term understandings of side effect profiles regardless: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/08/06/this-is-nuts-moderna-and-pfizer-intentionally-lost-the-clinical-trial-control-group-testing-vaccine-efficacy-and-safety/
Sputnik had a whole host of side effects as well, as documented by Russian blogger Edward Slavsquat.
Regarding election fraud in 2020, here's a cached version of a website that documented much of it: https://archive.ph/oGUxa . But regardless, I watched the hockey stick (prominently displayed on that link) play out in real time personally, where vote counting in key states were paused for many hours in the middle of the night (the infamous "pipe burst") and then, once counting started again, the vote patterns were all different. Trump won all bellweather counties and he won Florida by 5% in a state he won in 2016 by under half a percent. The core of the matter is, when you have vote by mail the potential for fraud is endless, and the Democrats assigned a tsar to oversee the fraud: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/07/29/u-s-postal-service-opens-permanent-political-division-dedicated-to-the-delivery-and-return-of-mail-in-election-ballots-dnc-lawyer-mark-elias-is-very-happy/