Joshe

We’re not conceding to the right. We’re saying to get rid of the baggage because the average citizen is too easily manipulated by it. Even with your framing, they’ll still be able to implement effective attacks. They/them ads will still continue to roll. My idea of a good strategy is to take away their most effective attacks. Give them no culture war attack lines, then what will they have left? Not much. You’d have a much higher chance of beating them this way.

That's all true. 100% agree. But the narrative they latched onto resonated with them precisely because it was either that one or the other one. It was a binary choice. They chose a side, then the billionaires and algorithms reinforced their decision as well as prompted many to join out of memetic desire, tribalism, etc. I had a friend whose young girlfriend asked him "What are we, Democrats or Republicans?". lol. See, people want to know which side they're on. They choose whichever team aligns best with their identity, as I'm sure you know. Once they choose a team, they do not switch easily. This is why I think your strategy will not work. I agree with you on how malleable the psyche is, but the point I'm making is, once the psyche builds its identity around a tribe or ideology, undoing that is not as simple as you make it sound. Messaging alone, even if consistently, perfectly delivered, would not be enough.

But how did the current narrative become dominant? A massive coalition self-organized in rejection of the counter-narrative because they despised it. Their cups are already full, and I don’t think it'll be easy to empty them. You're not just talking about creating new, appealing narratives, you're talking about dismantling deeply entrenched structures and replacing them entirely. So, what pathway do the Dems have to create a more dominant narrative?

I get it, but I think that would just amp up the culture war because it’s still saying “yeah, we’re for this, and you’re not, and you’re weird and overly obsessed with this stuff”. I see it boiling down to the same ideological disagreements because the right would relentlessly press for the left to state their positions and sooner or later, Dem politicians would be at podiums saying “ yes, I think trans is ok”. Lol. I do think your proposed framing is much more solid than anything we’ve seen, and definitely the way to go if this stance was adopted, but sooner or later it would distill down to the same culture war disagreements, and would very likely lose. Maybe not as badly, but lose nonetheless. If the Dems decide to keep this rhetoric, then I agree with you, they should adopt your stance. It could pay off in the long term, if they managed it right, but probably not by next election. Woke has too much baggage for now, no matter how you frame it, and the Dems don’t have nearly enough influence to offload that baggage. I suppose it could work if you get lucky with transmission.

I understand the idea, and it sounds good, I just don’t think it’s gonna work. The way I see your strategy playing out is just amping up the culture war. You can’t simply dominate the frame with “yeah, we’re all about that Woke, and you’re wacky and weird for making it a big deal”. That’s never gonna work because the majority would disagree in body, mind, and spirit, so a dominant frame will not get you there with the current citizenry. I’m sure it could be effective to a degree, but not effective enough. Besides, it takes extraordinary character to dominate frame like that, so is it really feasible to train the Dems on that? I doubt it. Plus, no single politician or even group of politicians can sway the cultural frame on their own. They’d need constant, concerted effort across media and influencers, and I see no path for that. Also, Kamala did not abandon anything. She tried to avoid it but her history spoke for her, which was capitalized on with the they/them ad.

All culture war stuff must be quietly abandoned. Not saying toss those values out, just don’t advertise and never crusade on them. The Dems screw themselves when they decorate the White House lawn with rainbow flags. Any advantage it gains is offset 100 or 1000 times over in the other direction. This was clearly a mistake. Kamala might have won without the trans smears. The majority chose a coup-attempt convicted felon over a they/them candidate. Doesn’t matter if she ran on it or not because the opposition successfully made it the main point.

Or because certain truths, if acknowledged, are powerful enough to destroy their identities.

Creativity and reason are different realms. Conservatives are usually far more adverse to complexity, nuance, and intellectualism. The left can be adverse too, just not as much. Also, I don’t see the people who would attack you for that as representative of the left. They’re a loud minority. Most people wouldn’t give a shit, as far as I can tell. Maybe it’s mostly the youngsters, which I have little experience with.

It appears the doubling down is in full effect. I saw a MAGA guy today who said that yes, Trump’s meme coin is a scam, but he still loves him. Then I saw a school teacher who said her school was gonna be losing federal funding and she may lose her job, but that’s OK with her because it’s gonna make America great again, and she cares more about the future for her grandchildren than her job. Lol.

Loneliness occurs in people who rely too much on the external world for their sense of self. Most people, I’d say at least 80%, need the external world to let them know who they are. With that orientation, when there’s no one around to validate their existence, it often causes sadness, boredom, depression, or fear. To them, loneliness is like an existential crisis. The ones who derive their sense of self from their own critical thinking don’t suffer like that. The same people who suffer from loneliness are the same people who complain about boredom. But if you have a rich inner world and don’t need others to validate your existence, boredom and loneliness are very rare. In other words, loneliness is a consequence of too much extroversion or warped ideas about what one needs to be happy. A rich and secure inner world can solve that problem, but that world can’t be built if you spend all your time extroverting. Just thinking out loud really. Might be some holes in this but there’s definitely some truth to it.

True. This dude gives off an insightful vibe, which makes his advice seem potentially good. But more often than not, you’d be wasting your time following it.

Every MAGA member only exist as such because they deceived themselves. They have to keep the truths they're running from at bay. This is why anti-intellectualism is a key element of MAGA and why instead of embracing AI, they talk shit about it and avoid it. They intuit that if they embrace AI, sooner or later it will threaten their psychological stability, and they're right. Most MAGA die-hards joined MAGA precisely because it relieves them from the burdens of complexity, nuance, and critical thinking, and let's them jump straight to being right and righteous. Trump showed them they can be dominant without all that thinking bullshit. "Common sense is all you need". Here are few comments my conservative family members have made make about AI: It doesn't know everything. It can be wrong a lot. It's biased. I think it's evil. A tool of satan. They're afraid of it because they sense it will confirm what their haters have been telling them all along.

Ego-Reinforcement Through Political Performance (Ideological Peacocks) More often than not, these types argue under the banner of ideology, but they're really serving their own egos—not the cause. 🧠 Nature of the Phenomenon Core Behavior: Active political engagement (online or in person) Motivated not by truth-seeking or civic duty, but by: Feeling superior Gaining attention Performing dominance Owning or embarrassing others Psychological Drive: Ego inflation via ideological combat Avoidance of inner insecurity through external dominance Emotional reward from mockery, certainty, and rhetorical victory It’s best understood as a modifier—a motivational overlay that operates across several existing psychological types, especially: Authoritarian-fused types: it amplifies their public boldness Cognitively insecure types: it helps them mask doubt with volume Passive enablers (online variant): some cross into active performance just for kicks How They Contribute to the System: Amplify and normalize toxic discourse Make extreme takes feel cool or untouchable Create an illusion of widespread belief by flooding the space with performative content Reinforce the group’s belief that their side is smarter, stronger, and more dominant

Trump started publicly laying the psychological groundwork for a 2028 run. He set up the Michigan rally crowd to chant "3, 3, 3". Then invites guest speaker to podium whose first and only words are "Trump 2028 anybody?" The chanting and messaging were designed to appear organic and to activate mimetic desire (people want what they see others wanting) and utilize emotional osmosis (uncertain supporters absorb the tone and boldness of those around them). These are just a couple of the key mechanisms operating on top of existing psychological pathologies that give Trumpism it's power and resiliency. They serve to normalize, reinforce, and amplify what would otherwise be rejected by society. These are just mechanisms, not the pillars. I think I finally cracked Trumpism. It's a complex model, so not sure when I'll have the time to refine and polish it, but I'll do a post when I can. Interesting stuff that provides far more explanatory power and depth of insight than anything I've come across.

Those thumbnails are quite different from what he was posting a year or two ago. The current thumbnails seem to be appealing to a desire for low-effort, high-reward magic pill solutions, which attracts a broader audience. So yeah, unless he's just clickbaiting but has good insights in the videos, it looks like he's dispensing with his integrity.

Cool. Thanks man. Yeah, it's been fun and challenging.

All the things that go into building a culture. History, transmission of ideas, environmental circumstances like what is or isn't available, survival challenges, the human psyche, etc. All of these sit on top of biology. Together, they create the actual specific thing that can be embraced, the conditions that trigger the embrace, and the means by which it happens. Biology is most fundamental in that culture wouldn't exist without it, but necessity for existence is not the same as causal dominance of specific constructions. That would be like saying gravity prefers skyscrapers because, thanks to gravity, they're the tallest structures on Earth. Saying the soil generates its own seeds is like saying hunger invented lasagna. lol. You've drifted way out there in some wild theoretical bubble bro. I mean, if this was a question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and the contestant polled the audience, 90+% would say environment is the main factor in whether someone becomes religious or not. Even people in the 30th percentile would get that one right. My position is that these studies are already likely overstating biology's causal role in ideological subscription because they can't account for realities in which the observed ideologies don't exist. They're only measuring what's there to measure. This is a huge problem. Just because something exists doesn't mean it inevitably exists and it most certainly does not mean it exists because biology called it into existence.

Not sure if you're trolling Leo or just want to be like him, but this sounds exactly like something he'd say, but probably not about racism. My guess is trolling. If so, I have to admit, it's pretty funny. lol Every now and then you gotta add in a "Ta daaa!" at the end — but don't overdo it or it just seems weird.

It will make the truly intelligent even more intelligent and the not so intelligent even more cognitive lazy, so they will decline. IMO, a large part of unintelligence is simply having a low need for cognition, so a lot of it comes from people just not wanting to think.

It follows perfectly if you account for the other things culture is rooted in. The soil can filter what spreads fastest, but it can't grow seeds that don't exist. I asked 4 different AIs which is more causal and the highest for biology was 45%. Gemeni 2.5 puts it at 30%.

Because they’re not just trained on large datasets. They’re likely trained on large datasets of historical fallacy/error. In other words, it knows about every error all notable intellectuals have made, errors entire groups and civilizations have made, etc. Then, they can be trained on the structure of the errors, not just the content of them. Once those patterns are in its neural nets, it would have access to the most sophisticated epistemic framework that far exceeds that of any individual who contributed to its training. But of course, it would have no power or relevance in the realm of metaphysics, as it lacks sentience and experiential knowing.

TBH, I'm not equipped to accurately parse studies like this, but the only problem I see is I failed to realize the study generalizes the 40% biological influence across the whole population, not just twins. My error was just meant to supplement the main point, so it doesn't change anything. The study found that biology is not the most influential factor. And the 40% figure doesn't mean biology determines 40% of someone's actual ideology. It means biology influences around 40% of emotional-political leanings and attitude biases. If we swapped out "emotional leanings" for "full ideological subscription," that number would drop significantly, because ideologies require scaffolding built around those emotional biases. Without the scaffolding—no ideology—no authoritarianism. Biology clearly doesn't erect that scaffolding. The whole point was: Identical wiring can’t even duplicate ideologies. So it should spring from common sense that if identical brains develop different ideologies, biology isn't doing the heavy lifting. If you take 100 kids and put them into an isolated Christian cult, every single one of them, despite their predispositions, will subscribe to the cult ideology. Despite some being more or less enthusiastic about it than others, all will adhere via the mechanism of external scaffolding. Same principle applies to everyone else, just with less forced indoctrination. Seems you're blurring the line of predisposition to ideology and ideological construction. The study found a "profound link" between genetics and political predispositions, not deterministic causation of ideological subscription. And just to be clear, "profound" just means significant. As in, "40%". Again, that's talking about political predispositions, not 40% causal of ideological construction. I never disagreed that biology plays a significant role in predisposition to certain tendencies. That's basic understanding of humans. My position was that biology doesn't even come close to being the deciding factor in determining one's ideological destiny, but external influence reliably and predictably does. This is what the study is actually extremely clear on. Plain and simple. Even if we grant this and go extreme, to say, 80% heritability, this would still not support the idea that biology is the most influential factor in ideological construction. It would just mean emotional needs are even more biologically driven. How and what those emotional needs manifest as depends on the external environment. If a brain were a fertile field: Biology determines how fertile the soil is for certain kinds of plants (emotional tendencies). Culture provides the seeds and decides what gets planted. No matter how fertile the field, if no seeds are planted, no ideology grows. Therefore, biology is AT BEST, 50% causal since the seed must come from outside the biology. But if you apply a little bit of thinking, you can realize that even with the best soil, and the seed, it's not a given that the ideology will take root, due to the malleability of the psyche and inconsistent conditions across the field, thus moving to much higher than 50%.

Structured belief systems only exist because of external influence. Which already means external influence is at least 50%. Then, given everything we know about how malleable the human psyche is and the nature of thoughts and beliefs and how they shape perception, it’s obvious that external influence is a major factor in what gets expressed. This bumps it up to at least 70%. Once you factor in everything else we know about conditioning and reinforcement, it probably pushes it to 90%. But don't just take my hunch for it. Here's some science: Identical Twins Study - Hatemi et al., 2014 — published in Behavioral Genetics. They looked at over 12,000 twin pairs across five countries. They found that about 40% of political ideology is genetic. The other 60% comes from environment — culture, exposure, reinforcement, life experience. This is with identical twins. Same DNA. Same basic brain wiring. Usually raised in the same home. If biology was the dominant driver, twins raised together would almost always land on the same beliefs. But they split all the time, authoritarian vs libertarian, religious vs secular. Sixty percent of the difference between them is explained by the environment. Even identical wiring cannot duplicate belief systems. When you get to non-identical siblings or strangers, the split is even wider. Biology biases emotional needs. It does not build political ideologies. Belief systems have to be constructed. The fact that twins ideologically split 60% of the time proves you're wrong. If they split 60, what do you think the number would be for unrelated people? Maybe something like this:

In-group bias is hardcoded, which is definitely a precondition for racism. In-group bias might be 10–20% of the total influence, enough to prime people to be receptive to a narrative, but it’s the narrative and identity-building that produce racism.

The structure of the analogy is what's important: Latent predisposition → exposure → activation → expression Craving glucose ≠ craving a Snickers. Drive doesn’t create its own expression. Drive looks for a solution. The solution it finds depends on: What’s available How it’s framed What gets reinforced You're kind of proving my point by saying the result of craving a snickers bar is not the same as craving glucose. Craving order/certainty ≠ embracing authoritarian ideology. The mind needs exposure, repetition, framing, and buy-in to embrace an ideology. So, if biology can’t produce authoritarianism on its own, then biology can't be the primary driver. Which means you should, at most, be at 50/50. But even that is too high because how do you explain the billions of Christians around the world? Do they all share a specific brain structure that predisposes them to Christianity, or were they born into cultures that taught it to them? For the billions of Christians, the same specific brain structures is not a constant, but external influence is. Cause belongs to what can best explain the result across variation. The main constant is the input, not the biology.