Joshe

Regarding Jordan Peterson, Russell Brand, etc. The pattern often follows a similar trajectory: Build credibility through thoughtful analysis Gain a following that provides financial/social rewards Begin tailoring positions to maintain/expand that following Eventually end up defending positions they might have previously criticized The tragic part is how this transformation often happens gradually enough that the person might not fully realize how far they've drifted from their original intellectual integrity. The financial and social rewards create powerful incentives to maintain course even when part of them might recognize the compromise. There's also often a point of no return where their new identity and financial security become so tied to their new positions that walking back becomes nearly impossible without destroying everything they've built. Common patterns: Build Credibility Through Thoughtful Analysis Start with genuine academic/intellectual work Establish core reputation Produce nuanced analysis Stay within expertise Challenge ideas thoughtfully Gain peer respect Position as independent thinker Question conventional wisdom Support arguments with evidence Engage with critics professionally Gain Following & Rewards Social media breakthrough Discover viral potential Build platform across channels Get algorithmic amplification Financial opportunities emerge Speaking engagements Book deals Podcast appearances Brand partnerships Build dependent infrastructure Hire staff Get agents/managers Create business enterprises Form media partnerships Begin Tailoring Positions Shift content strategy Focus on controversial topics Reduce nuance for engagement Optimize for algorithms Create more frequent content Experience audience capture Echo audience preferences Attack common "enemies" Adopt audience language Reinforce existing beliefs Expand beyond expertise Comment on all issues Make bolder claims Simplify complex topics Monetization focus Launch courses Sell merchandise Create subscription content Host paid events Eventually End Up Defending Positions They Previously Criticized Embrace controversial narratives Promote conspiracy theories Question established facts Use "just asking questions" rhetoric Change relationship with truth Dismiss contrary evidence Avoid peer review React defensively to criticism Alienate former allies Attack former colleagues Dismiss experts as "elite" Frame critics as enemies Justify the transformation Claim personal awakening Frame as brave truth-telling Position as fighting system Cite persecution as validation

I think this is wishful thinking. What do you think they could do that others haven't been able to? They might be able to get something done about immigration, but what else? RFK seems to be the only one of them who cares about people, but the wish to improve and the ability to improve are two different things. Do you actually think RFK is a lone genius who will improve the physical health of the citizenry? Same with Elon. Anyone can hire a team or teams of efficiency experts and data scientists to figure out the best ways to run things. Will he improve education? Or will he just remove the agencies that hinder him from burning up as much rocket fuel as he wants and littering earth's orbit with his trinkets and dumping rocket fuel where he pleases? What value does Tulsi Gabbard bring to the table? What about Tucker Carlson? What about Vivek? What skills do they possess? They advocate for policies most people reject. Most people don't want bibles in schools. Most people like separation of church and state, but your team of super-heroes call for it. They also call for ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, etc, to have their licenses revoked. Do you think this would solve problems? What problems would they solve? What problems would they create? What actual logic do you have?

@Consept I agree. With the 2 examples I gave, I think both already had really big egos before they went off the deep end. It makes sense that the more you value praise and acknowledgement from others, the easier it is to part ways with your integrity, especially when doing so means more money and more praise. That addictive element could be a big factor. Nice insight. Jimmy Dore comes to mind. He was never intellectual but he once catered to the left and now his entire comment section is MAGA cheerleaders. @Phil King Good point. I also think there's something seductive about having an enemy you can take down before everyone's eyes. JP loves that shit. "Up yours woke moralist".

I agree. I never considered him an intellectual but others do and he does present himself as one. lol.

100% agree that messaging from the top is of very high importance and her chosen message is healthy. I’m not criticizing her for anything but I’m not so fast to call her a good leader based solely on what she says. I think character is #1, not messaging, and I simply don’t know enough about her at this time to make a judgement. That said, she’s a saint compared to Trump and I do find it odd that so many people here can’t see the obvious choice. Although, I think I understand why that is the case. It goes to show that many who claim to care about what is true actually care more about how they feel.

@thedoorsareopen I 100% agree with you about Trump but I don’t have a good enough read on Kamala to go ahead and call her integrous, but I’m also not saying she’s not. I do think it’s more likely her rhetoric is more designed than it is genuine, although I’m sure she does value the things she says she does, I’m just not sure to what degree. In comparison to Trump, it’s an obvious no-brainer. My point was that even if you don’t think Kamala has integrity or is virtuous as her speech indicates, she at least talks of virtuous and integrous things, which is miles apart from Trump’s speech where there is no semblance of them in sight. This is yet another clue for the people on this forum who like Trump over Kamala. But I’m sure they just chalk it up to her being a bullshitter.

My bad. I thought you were highlighting intelligence in Trump. Yeah, I think it's mostly just bluster and telling people what they want to hear. He was doing that for a long time but it never really worked for him until he got into politics. As far as I know, most people who knew him didn't like him. It could just be my bias against him but I don't actually think he's charismatic. If you went back to before he was president and if you were to poll people who watched the apprentice, they might say he's entertaining, but I don't think they would call him charismatic. Here's how I think the idea that he's charismatic was born: People started listening to him because he gave a couple of good one-liners in 2016, people hated Hillary, and they were tired of the establishment. So he made people laugh a couple of times and he seemed like a viable solution to the corrupt government. Then, when he was attacked all the time, it made a lot of people double down on their choice and they found themselves defending him hundreds of times until eventually, liking Trump became an aspect of their identity. Bounty, the paper towel brand, held a $10,000 cash contest for whoever could write the best essay on why they love Bounty so much. The idea here is the more you get someone to say they like or dislike a thing, the more they actually do. So paying 10k to have 100,000 people write a love letter for your brand is money well spent. Same phenomenon occurred with Trump when he was attacked so much. THAT is why people listen to him. It's because they affirmed over and over that he is good. Not because he's just so charming and knows how to pull them in. Just an idea. I could be wrong, but in a world where Trump never came into politics, I'm pretty sure the people I know who love him now, would never call him charming.

Vivek and them can actually think and use logic and good reason. Regarding Trump, what other skill does he have aside from making people like him and making them believe the things he says? If someone can't go 5 minutes without telling a lie and if they are skilled at making people like and listen to them and believe them, what do you call that? Would you say that fits the definition of a con artist? If you watch a good documentary on Trump that goes over his life history, you'll see that his dad wanted to groom him for greatness at an early age, which eventually manifested into malignant narcissism. Trump himself published books that outline his history and mindset. It's all there in his own books. He was born an extravert and I think because of his dad's influence, he became super competitive and had a strong desire to be better than everyone else. To boot, he had a lot of drive and was very devoted to the task. He started projecting sort of an alpha personality, I believe sometime in his teens. If you know any real life narcissists, you know they can put in crazy work building their image. I think malignant narcissists are even more driven than normal narcs. So, his next-level drive was directed at bullshitting people, and he had all the time in the world to practice it because you can do that when you have a rich daddy. And that's what he did. And he got good at it. I don't call that intelligence. So, I think what you think is a form of intelligence is actually just a really strong drive to be better than others mixed with a silver spoon that allowed abundant opportunity to figure out how to trick people. I think you and I both could do what he did if we were extroverts with a silver spoon and our daddies warped us into malignant narcissists, and if we had the same degree of luck.

Yeah, he went to Yale law school. I think you usually have to be smart to make it to such high positions. Vivek seems brighter than Vance though IMO. There are many good influential spinsters now surrounding Trump. Tucker, Vivek, Vance. Unrelated, but have you ever see that movie on Netflix called "Don't Look Up"? It captures the essence our current situation really well. Pretty damn funny. Especially the scene where the centrist says he looks up and down. You gotta see it if you haven't.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I think the closest I saw was Andrew Wilson debating him on if Jan 6 was an insurrection, but it wasn't very satisfying. IIRC, it was just a semantic circus, but I do think Andrew is the best intellectual on the right I've seen debate him, although I don't follow all of his content, so I could have missed some.

On X, if you look at all the right wing attacks on Destiny, they're all the same. It's always about his appearance or his perceived social standing. They can't stand the fact they can't outwit him, so instead they make fun of his appearance and call him cuck and a feminine bitch, but if a Chad had his personality and he was on the right, they'd call him masculine because they tend to judge the world based on appearances. The other day, some popular chick was talking shit about his debate with some right wing chad and the entire critique was what he was wearing, his hair, etc, and talking about how the other guy was handsome, in shape, and dressed well. People who don't have an intellectual leg to stand on LOVE to attack the physical appearance of those who do.

I second dude. He has a lot of good content as well as a course. One thing you need to do is increase what he calls your "surface lexicon". Writing is obviously a good practice but if you want to improve as fast as possible, I think the best approach is to drill terms, phrases, and explanations of things you're interested in into your psyche. Pick your favorites. Over time, they become easier to access when you need them. Define the situations you're in most often and define the things you often need to express and just drill it all. Being an introvert and having high awareness, I get hung up on choosing words in real time. The other day, someone told me that my puppy was cute and I had to think about what to say and then wasn't sure if "thank you" made sense. lol. I also think there's some perfectionism that gets in the way. So I think memorizing phrases and terminology is the best.

Same here. I noticed the shift during covid and I first noticed it by a marked catering to conspiracy theories.

He chose material gain, wealth, power, and fame over integrity. If Trump wins, they'll hold a party where JP will attend and he and Russell Brand will lead them in prayer. Thanking God for sending Donald Trump, and JP will start crying again.

Good points. Thanks for explaining!

"Don't send messages outside the castle walls" - Vernon Howard

With Tom, it's not about values. It's about logic. If Tom is doing a threat assessment and thinks Trump is the safer bet, he's a fool. This isn't being used as a slur. It's a precise description. A fool ignores, distorts, or flips the truth of things to serve themselves. The vitriol you sense is for THAT, not Tom himself. I don't hate anyone. Well, tbh, I do hate Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Elon Musk, but I don't hate any of their supporters. What I hate is the truth being diminished and superspreaders of falsehood. That's the root. I am not anti-Trump because I'm anti those other people and their values. I'm anti-Trump because the whole thing is one gigantic falsehood. I would vote republican for the rest of my life if it meant that Trump would go away... because it's not about politics, people, or their values. Early in life I struggled with Christianity being so toxic to the people of the world. Not because I wanted people to escape it just like I did, but because I knew that it was important to not believe what is false. Falsehood has a cost. It's all about falsehood. Do you understand this perspective? You seem to think I'm locked into my own perspective, but I can assure you, that's not the case.

It's like we're collectively a teenager going through a rebellious phase. Just look at how JP's attire has changed over the past few years. He looks like a clown and the mature people are just shaking their heads wondering when will it end. How bout that time he asked his daughter if she went to town with Andrew Tate? That was funny.

😂😂😂 It's just knowing how to think and being honest. If Tom thinks Trump wouldn't intentionally try to steal an election, he's a fool. His idea about a mind-reading machine is ridiculous. "Because we can't be absolutely certain, we can make no judgement" is the kind of thinking biased people employ to avoid calling a spade a spade. The guy tried to coup the government and Tom has the position of "I don't know that for sure". 😆 Of course a malignant narcissist who is obsessed with himself and WINNING, will not admit that he lost. If you want to bring in "he was attacked for 4 years and he knows they were after him" or "he thought they cheated and so he was willing to cheat too", you're glossing over or outright ignoring the reality that he NEVER admits to losing or making a mistake. In any normal, unbiased person's mind who doesn't have a stake in the game, they would easily arrive at what is true here. It's so obvious, unbiased humans in the 20th percentile of intelligence could see it, but here we are with Tom, who's probably in the 70th, having a hard time with it.

@zazen You've made me open to the possibility it could be 20-30%, and I started at 10, lol, so good job. What are the best examples you have from around the world? Also, America has a huge influence on the world. How do you know us having Trump for 4 years didn't trigger it? My theory is Trump built an audience and this audience was largely a bunch of fools who are easy to dupe and sell things to, be it ideas or goods, and I think a whole lot of capitalists saw the dollar signs and politicians saw their paths to power. I think Trump highlighted this and people from around the world were taking notes. I remember noticing the shift when it occurred. I started asking myself, why are all these people all of sudden catering to right wingers. Later I found out, it's because they're following the money. Could this not account for a significant amount of the global phenomenon. This is just my theory, but is it not plausible?

Yeah, this is a good one. I can't understand Tom. He says that if he knew with certainty that Trump intentionally tried to steal the election, then he 100% would not vote Trump. @What Am I With all the data that we have on Trump and the 2020 election, if you had to bet all your assets and everything you own on the question "Did Trump intentionally try to steal the election?", would you bet yes or no? Be honest!

@zazen All humans have legit grievances. It comes with the territory. Life is hard. But like I said, before Trump the 80+ million who are all in a tizzy were not rabid before Trump and the propaganda machine ensnared them. The great truth tellers that are Trump and Tucker Carlson did not shine the light on legitimate, dormant grievances. Rather, they weaponized an unwitting population into serving their cause. Do you remember in 2020 when the entire right was crusading on "Save the Children", because they had been told the elite democrats were trafficking them? The shit went viral and every member in my community was on FB and social media posting "Save the Children!" My sister actually almost changed her career due to that propaganda. Before that, she never thought about pedophilia but all of sudden she had a legit grievance, huh? I can concede that a small fraction of what moved them are the things you mentioned but can you concede that a significant degree of their movement is born of sheer demagoguery? If not, to what degree do you think is fair to say?

I think you already have exactly what you need, which is the light shining onto the evil. It takes time for the old ways to die but now that the light is shining on them, their days are numbered. You will become more and more integrous as time goes on. Every time you do something you know is wrong, bring it into your consciousness and look at it closely. Eventually, you will be compelled to stop. The greater the sinner, the greater the saint. It is a blessing.

Well, it must be true since all of Twitter said it was. I wonder how much those Twitter posts contributed to your conviction? Instead of claiming it's a fact, why not just say you think it's highly likely? I myself would put it at 50/50 because I just don't know enough. I wonder if the collective right would put it at 95/5. All of your evidence is anecdotal and you still haven't explained how the YT search algorithm works. You're claiming to KNOW how that highly complex mechanism works. Think about that.