Joshe

He just posted this on Twitter: https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1973953812517040164

Trump let’s Maxwell out of prison. Lol.

The Psychological Architecture of Post-Truth Propagation: A Concentric Model Overview This model maps the psychological architecture underlying post-truth political movements, revealing how they function as collective psychological defense systems rather than ideological persuasion campaigns. By focusing exclusively on psychological mechanisms, the model explains why post-truth beliefs prove so resistant to factual correction and rational argument. The concentric structure illustrates how unresolved psychological pain at the core radiates outward through unconscious mechanisms, creating a self-reinforcing system that recruits and maintains believers through emotional contagion rather than logical conviction. The Three Layers Core Pillars: The Psychological Engine At the model's center lie the fundamental psychological drivers that power post-truth movements. These aren't political beliefs but rather deep psychological needs and defensive strategies: Authoritarian Psychology represents more than a preference for strong leadership—it reflects a psychological orientation toward external authority as a means of managing internal chaos and uncertainty. This psychological structure seeks to outsource the burden of ambiguity and moral complexity to a powerful figure who provides certainty. Identity Merging describes the dangerous fusion of personal and political identity. When political beliefs become psychologically indistinguishable from the self, any challenge to those beliefs triggers survival-level psychological defenses. This isn't mere loyalty; it's a complete enmeshment where the political becomes personal at the deepest level. Shame Avoidance identifies the core emotional driver. Shame—unlike guilt—attacks the entire self, making it psychologically unbearable. Post-truth beliefs offer protection from shame by creating alternative narratives where the self remains virtuous and powerful rather than diminished or wrong. Coping Mechanism (Pain) reveals the ultimate function: these beliefs serve as psychological painkillers. They manage deep emotional pain and trauma by transforming it into righteous anger and externalized blame. The post-truth framework becomes a psychological medication that must be continuously administered. Propagation Mechanisms: The Unconscious Transmission System The middle ring contains the psychological processes through which post-truth beliefs spread. Critically, all operate below conscious awareness, bypassing rational evaluation: Emotional Osmosis describes how feelings transfer between individuals without conscious processing. Like cellular osmosis, emotions flow from areas of high concentration to low concentration, spreading anxiety, anger, and certainty through groups via mirror neurons and emotional contagion. People "catch" feelings before thoughts. Mimetic Desire (from René Girard's theory) explains how humans unconsciously copy the desires and beliefs of others, especially during uncertainty. We don't want things directly; we want what others want. In post-truth contexts, people adopt beliefs not through evaluation but through unconscious imitation of valued group members. Symbolic Dominance Transfer captures how displays of strength and certainty trigger ancient dominance-submission psychological patterns. When leaders project absolute confidence, followers experience psychological relief by submitting to that certainty, transferring their anxiety upward in the hierarchy. Projection and Blame-Shifting serve dual psychological functions: protecting the ego from uncomfortable self-knowledge while providing targets for displaced emotional pain. These mechanisms operate automatically, creating external enemies that explain internal distress. Passive Enabling describes how the discomfort of confrontation leads to psychological accommodation. Rather than challenge post-truth beliefs—risking conflict and social rupture—people unconsciously adjust their own reality to maintain social harmony. Peripheral Supporters: The Psychological Vulnerabilities The outer ring identifies not demographic groups but psychological orientations that make individuals susceptible to post-truth contagion: Family Absorbers prioritize belonging needs over truth-seeking. The psychological need for family cohesion overrides critical thinking, as the threat of family rejection activates primal abandonment fears that overwhelm rational processing. Low-Info Voters aren't necessarily unintelligent but rather operate with limited cognitive bandwidth for political processing. Overwhelmed by complexity, they rely on cognitive shortcuts and emotional heuristics that post-truth narratives exploit. Cultural Conformists derive psychological safety from group alignment. Their self-esteem depends on social position, making them exquisitely sensitive to group beliefs and unable to risk the psychological threat of nonconformity. Conflict-Avoidant Moderates experience such psychological distress from confrontation that they'll unconsciously distort reality to maintain peace. Their "both sides" frameworks aren't intellectual positions but psychological defenses against the anxiety of taking stands. The System Dynamics The model's power lies in revealing post-truth politics as a psychological contagion system rather than an information problem. The core's unresolved psychological pain doesn't stay contained—it radiates outward through these unconscious mechanisms, recruiting others with similar psychological vulnerabilities. This explains why fact-checking fails: you cannot fact-check a psychological defense mechanism. The concentric structure shows how each layer reinforces the others. The peripheral supporters, through their enabling and conformity, validate the core's defenses. The propagation mechanisms ensure continuous psychological reinforcement. The core, feeling validated, intensifies its psychological investment. It's a self-reinforcing psychological system. Why This Matters: The Gift of Clarity This model matters because it brings clarity to those standing in bewilderment, watching reality itself seem to fracture around them. For those who've felt gaslit by the failure of facts to matter, who've watched loved ones disappear into alternate realities, who've questioned their own sanity as truth became negotiable—this model offers the profound relief of comprehension. The bewilderment is real and legitimate. It's the vertigo of watching half the population reject observable reality. It's the cognitive dissonance of seeing intelligent people embrace obvious falsehoods. It's the exhaustion of engaging in good-faith arguments that go nowhere. It's the heartbreak of losing family members not to death but to an impenetrable psychological fortress. This model explains why you're not crazy. The phenomena you're witnessing follows psychological laws as predictable as gravity. When you understand that you're watching psychological defense mechanisms, not intellectual positions, the bewildering becomes comprehensible. The person rejecting climate science isn't evaluating data—they're managing psychological pain. The relative embracing conspiracy theories isn't thinking poorly—they're medicating shame. Understanding this doesn't make the phenomenon less tragic, but it makes it less maddening. It's the difference between watching a loved one's mysterious illness and understanding their diagnosis. The illness remains, but the bewilderment lifts. You stop taking it personally. You stop exhausting yourself with futile interventions. You stop questioning reality itself. This clarity also explains your own psychological experience. The anxiety you feel watching post-truth spread isn't irrational—you're correctly perceiving a psychological contagion. The exhaustion from fact-checking isn't weakness—you're using the wrong tool for the job. The grief over lost relationships isn't overdramatic—you've lost someone to a psychological defense system that won't allow them to return. Conclusion The Psychological Architecture of Post-Truth Propagation model offers a framework for understanding one of the most pressing challenges of our time. By mapping the psychological mechanisms rather than the political content, it reveals post-truth movements as collective psychological defense systems that spread through emotional contagion rather than rational persuasion. This psychological lens explains both the intensity of post-truth beliefs and their immunity to factual correction. When we understand that we're dealing with psychological pain management rather than information deficits, we can begin developing interventions that address the actual problem rather than its surface manifestations. The model ultimately suggests that the post-truth crisis is, at its core, a mental health crisis playing out in the political arena—a collective psychological symptom of societies struggling to process rapid change, social fragmentation, and accumulated trauma. Until we address these underlying psychological realities, fact-checking will remain as ineffective as using logic to treat a broken heart.

@Inliytened1 Yes, we're all susceptible to a degree, but the point is that these psychological mechanisms are being deliberately exploited by influential, powerful, and bad actors. Folks like Tucker Carlson and Steve Banon understand these mechanisms and they're intentionally exploiting them. It's the difference between "everyone gets angry sometimes" and "someone is pumping contagious, rage-inducing pathogens into specific neighborhoods 24/7." A good complimentary model or map might be "The Post-Truth Industrial Complex". Psychological vulnerability + exploitation infrastructure = post-truth crisis.

That seems wise regarding how we physically or verbally express ourselves to the wicked one, but being indifferent to wickedness in mind sets up a trap of rejecting reality and shirking responsibility. If we judge someone as "wicked", should we feel nothing? I believe it should be acknowledged and the emotions that stir from that acknowledgment be allowed. Maybe it's best to view it from two perspectives: inner cultivation and external responsibility. From the perspective of spiritual development, we should avoid the trap of ruminating too much on wickedness and letting it consume us, but from the perspective of worldly responsibility, rampant wickedness needs resistance. So, balance and restraint. Just my current opinion. I'm sure Pantanjali was much wiser than me.

That’s just one of the reasons. Symbolic Dominance Transfer, for lack of a better term.

I say allow your emotions but modulate their expressions in public. You can be happy that Kirk died and that’s fine if that’s what you feel, but if we put out a gleeful expression, we look like fools with no civility. It’s mostly about optics.

Damn bruh

Haha, apt analogy. Just curious, what made it click for you? Surely it was a multitude of coalescing factors but do you recall any specific thing that carried the most weight?

Nice vid. Lots of overlap with the core of the model.

Thanks @Bjorn K Holmstrom! In my view, this contagion is pathological, so I don’t see how to avoid that. I see it as an unconscious rejection of truth rather than political disagreement or a difference in opinion. We could easily collect 100 consequential falsehoods MAGA folk believe are true where there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. These truth rejections led to a guy who tried to overthrow our democracy getting elected again, so I think this is pathological. Should we avoid the truth? Maybe reframe it at the risk of gaslighting those not caught up in post-truth? Maybe just keep it to ourselves? I don’t really know what is best. My intuition says blasting it out would be less harmful than what we’re experiencing. How do we go about helping people accept the truth? I’d say we need to spread courage and education of the psychological mechanisms that make us susceptible. David Hawkins talked about how the level of courage is the threshold between truth and falsehood, which tracks well with my ideas, because without courage to accept reality and your own fallibility, you will likely double down into falsehood. What are your thoughts on this? Are you trying to figure out how one might use this information such that it wouldn’t offend? I attempted to include these but it cluttered things up and distracted from the psychological mechanisms, which were most important to me. It would be interesting to see them integrated. Hell yeah man, take any or all of it and modify it however you’d like - no attribution necessary. I’m no intellectual or anything - just a perplexed observer. Lol. I’d be interested to see how you adapt it into your work. If you feel the need to link back to it (which isn’t necessary) the Google Doc @DocWatts posted above is probably more accessible than the forum. Do you have a link or more info on your GGF? Sounds interesting.

For now, it's good to practice sorting facts from speculation. Speculations are fine so long as they aren't too heavily weighted. This entire thing has been riddled with false conspiracies, so anytime my speculation starts leaning towards what feels out there, I reel it in and remind myself that I simply don't have enough data to verify much of anything, and I sure as hell ain't gonna be led by the logic of online randos because there are too many fools that make it hard to know who's assessment is solid. Professional hitjob shouldn't be ruled out, but it shouldn't be more than 50% probability, because the information landscape surrounding this is a minefield of falsehood and we don't have enough data, in my view. I decided to stop looking at all the conspiracies because they're mostly false and a huge waste of time and energy. I'm just gonna wait and let everyone else flesh it out. Smarter, not harder. lol

lol. Bot farms are just something to keep in mind. We live in an age where they serve as a valuable tool for spreading ideas via emotional osmosis and mimetic desire. The wolves are always one step ahead of the sheep, it seems.

I think the more deluded and more egotistical, the easier it is to repress and carry the trauma. It’s like a deeply traumatized child - they can be fucked up and not know it for decades. Her neediness and all the distractions that she adores will prevent her healing. Her status position got elevated to the highest level she could ever imagine. Powerful and famous people she had never spoken to phoned in to tell her they were sorry. The vice president rushed to her side and flew her away on his private jet. There was a grand spectacle of a memorial where she was the main character, with millions of eyeballs watching her display her virtue. In other words, her ego got taken for the ride of its life and there’s no telling how she responds when the dust settles, but I suspect she will continue to seek distractions to avoid the work of healing. The ego ain’t got time for all that silence and reflection.

🤦‍♂️You are a deflection machine!!! lol, but it's all good.

Haha. Wonder if all those cancelled Disney+ subs had anything to do with it.

Exactly

Imagine your average bible-thumping young American. Now imagine they have the gift of gab. Now imagine they earn millions of dollars with that gift. Now imagine they rise to a high level of fame. Now imagine they're heavily depended upon by the highest government office on the planet. How could the ego not be massive? "We are God's chosen, which is why we are blessed. Not only do we believe we're God's chosen, but we have a whole community of Christians who affirm this to us daily. On top of that, we prove to ourselves daily that we are the most righteous via debate and our superior gift of gab. Also, we have massive influence over the world, we MUST be superior. We have millions upon millions of dollars. This also confirms we are superior. We are so important that the highest levels of government depends on us." If we plug an underdeveloped ego into the scenario above, we can make some educated guesses about what we're dealing with.

Preempting your "but he genuinely thought it was stolen" ChatGPT: Claude:

I'm not so sure Trump and Elon are comparable here. Trump is not an ideologue who cares about conservatism or capitalism. He cares about his power. And he cares so much about it that he would undermine and uproot democracy to keep it, just as he did in 2020 when he sent fake slates of electors to try to rig the election. Clearly.

Oh yeah, I don't doubt at all that she thinks she has forgiven the shooter. Thing is, most Christians would admit to themselves they don't have the ability to forgive someone like this the way that Jesus could. Especially not so soon. Any Christian who demonstrates this ability is either highly spiritually developed or incredibly delusional. I think we can safely remove the first option. Her "forgiveness" points to a massive ego. Combine this with her performative bullshit like fake crying interspersed with real crying, silently praying to God in front of thousands, moving her lips to let everyone know she's praying, her excessive flashy jewelry.... I could go on and on. It's clear to me the ego on this one is massive, and she's obviously delusional as hell. Put this into the context of who she was married to, and it basically confirms my read.

lol, I'm not assuming! I'm using real-world data. There is a small amount of reading between the lines, but not much.

She could have written it herself. I'm surrounded by Christians. I know how they virtue signal. And I know an actor when I see one. I can snuff bullshit out a mile away, and she was full of shit. Her spiritual ego is fucking massive. Blows my mind how people didn't see anything other than that.