Joshe

@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.

MAGA is not representative of conservatism. Normal conservatism is nowhere near as repulsive as MAGA. MAGA is authoritarian, which is clear. Concentration camps are a strawman of what we're saying about MAGA. We're saying they want power and control and they're willing to be authoritarian to get it. This is 100% true. Can you admit this to yourself? If you can, now you can ask the question, to what ends would they be willing to go to achieve their goals? That all depends on how things play out. Will they setup concentration camps for their political opponents? No, because the optics would be too bad. But would they do other things like send them to prison for no good reason? Abso-fuckin-lutlely. And it's already in the works. Everything I've said here, as far as I know, is a fact. If these are facts, do you side with it or against it, and how strongly would you side with or against it? If you side with it, this gets you the "fascist" label. If you side against it but take no strong stance, this gets you the "conflict-avoidant moderate" or "passive enabler" label. If you strongly oppose it, this gets you the "common sense, reasonable, decent person" label.

She didn't forgive shit. It was totally performative - signaling virtue as if she's some saint. These people operate under delusions that are hard for more conscious people to fathom.

And he was applauded for it all. The biggest applause that I saw was when he mentioned retribution.

I actually think this is gold for their movement. There's no telling how many fence-sitters will now become Christian or right-wing. This is a culture war and the right is getting unprecedented exposure where the they're being painted as good and the opposition evil. No matter what happens to TPUSA, this feels like a huge win for the right in terms of bringing more people over to their side.