DocWatts

Talk about someone who not only went off the rails, but careened off the edge of a cliff. Yikes. I remember thinking several years ago that he was a halfway sane guy who wanted more of a dialogue between the Left and the Right. Now I'm not sure if he was always a closest fascist, or if that's changed over the last few years.

Since one's level of consciousness is directly tied to the Survival Strategy of whatever Cultural and Socio-Economic Context that Individual happens to be living in, something tangible we could do is improve the living conditions for ordinary people as American society transitions from Orange to Green. Investments in education will pay dividends in this regard, even recognizing that our educational system is outdated and far from ideal. The basics of Media Literacy and Epistemology should be required courses alongside History and Algebra as part of a primary education curriculum. Even a rudimentary level of College Education provides some degree of inoculation against being taken in by Conspiracy Theories and by Propaganda. Doing what we can to reform Late Stage Capitalism so there's not as many desperate, hopeless people in our Society who become vulnerable to manipulation by Bad Faith Actors will also pay Dividends. To demonstrate this with a parallel, there's a reason why Nazi ideology wasn't taken seriously in the relatively prosperous decade of the 1920s, and only caught on in mainstream German Culture with the immense suffering and deprivation of the Great Depression to serve as a Catalyst.

I'm rapidly coming to the same conclusion myself; of the numerous interactions I've had with the MAGA Crowd, not one of them has given me reason to believe that any of them are likely to be shaken from their delusional convictions. Independent fact checking sites such as Snopes or Politifact will be shrugged off as partisan shills, and even Republicans who criticize the President will be dismissed out of hand. Statements from Trump's own mouth will always said to be taken out of context, even when you patiently explain to the person how Trump's own statements conflict with whatever delusional argument they're trying to make. Might as well to try to convince a Religious Fundamentalist that God doesn't exist, for all the Luck you'll have trying to shake a MAGA Cultist from their delusional Conviction that Trump is a secret genius at war with the Deep State, whom the whole world is conspiring against.

Couldn't agree more; while his deconstruction of Christian morality is insightful in some aspects, these are unfortunately wrapped up in the self-aggrandizing Power Fantasy of a weak man who was a sycophant for Elites, and had nothing but disdain for %99 of humanity.

Not sure if Bertrand Russel has been mentioned on this thread or not, but here he offers a Yellow perspective on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (whose philosophy is a Red/Orange deconstruction of Blue). Near the end of the clip, he uses a thought experiment of an imagined conversation between Nietzsche and the Budda as a framework for exploring the ethical ramifications of Nietzsche's philosophy.

This matches an intuition I've had for a long time now; because fact of the matter is that Conservatives aren't going away our lifetime, but there's no reason why healthy Conservatism shouldn't be within the bounds of a functional pluralistic Democracy (unlike the proto-fascism of Trump). Having reasonable and sane people on both sides of the political isle does nothing but benefit the system as a whole, and progressives lump the halfway reasonable conservatives with the batshit crazy ones to thier own detriment. I also feel bad that people of integrity who happen to be Conservative have no representation on a National Level. I never understood why some elements on the Left demonized people like John McCain, who from all accounts was a decent and honorable person. I guess hindsight is 2020 when all the reasonable people have been driven out of the Republican Party until all that's left are proto-fascist bottom feeders.

Same! I've been replaying Subnautica recently, and the video / audio design is masterful in the way it evokes feelings of both wonder and dread.

Conservative Intellectuals with thoughtful points of view do in fact exist. The idea that Trump is one of them though is laughable. If we look deeper at Trump we can see a deeply damaged individual who was unfortunately brought up by parents who wanted to raise a sociopath and succeeded, rather than a deep and nuanced thinker.

If you happen to enjoy exploration and/or survival games, I'd highly recommend Subnautica. Simply put, it's almost certainly the best Survival/Exploration game I've ever played. The game drops you on an alien Ocean world and asks you to survive without any weapons by exploring your environment and understanding its ecology.

Late to the party here, but a genuine question : how different is someone who idolizes Lenin/Trotsky that different from an American who idolizes 18th Century Aristocrats, many of which owned Slaves, and happen to share at least some culpability for a genocide that killed millions of indigenous people? Understand that I'm not setting up a false equivalency between the American Founding Fathers and the founders of the Soviet Union, but I often see a lot of black and white thinking on this topic, with people either praising or condemning without taking into account the full historical context. The reason I bring this up is I'll often hear Vaush or someone else on the socialist end of the online Left casually drop a reference to the writings of Lenin/Mao, and knowing the crimes those people have committed, kind of recoil in the same way I would as if someone dropped a casual Mein Kampf reference to support a point, and I'm a bit conflicted as to whether that's a justified reaction or not.

Spiral Dynamics also tells us that people tend to think of themselves as two stages higher than they really are; ie alot of Orange Libertarian types would probably think of themselves as Systems Thinkers, when in actuality they're more likely to be in a less advanced paradigm (logical positivism, or material reductionism). Red can have a conception of what Orange is without fully embodying it, just like Blue can have a conception of what a New Age hippie is, without a deeper understanding of the nuances of that worldview. And I'm not arguing that Trump has no Orange in him at all, just that his center of Gravity is at Red.

Compare Trump to someone like Jeff Bazos if you want a good comparison of between Red and Orange. If the concept of a fascist Cult of Personality forming around Jeff Bazos sounds ridiculous, that's because there's a tangible difference between an individual who's actually at stage Orange, and Trump who's only masquerading from Red.

Trump has been sued time and time again, and is something like a billion dollars in debt last I checked. He has a long history of refusing to pay contractors, and generally just screwing over people he's gone into business with. The only reason it may seem that he's not completely Red is because he lives in an Orange/Green society, that puts serious Constraints on what he's able to get away with.

Sorry, had to sneak this one in here

Also you'll have much more luck engaging in this process with someone you know and have a personal connection with, the mutual respect necessary for this process is going to be harder to establish with a random person on the internet.

That's actually a really good point now that you mention it... Though I think technically it would be the 3.0 version, since the beta version of the red scare launched along with the Soviet Union in the 1910s and 20s.

This sort of Cult of Personality seems to be unprecedented in American Culture, as far as its scope and reach, does it not? The closest analogue I can think of is someone like Jim Jones and the People's Temple Cult, but Jim Jones wasn't President and didn't have tens of millions of followers that were actively destabilizing democratic intuitions. Also unlike Trump, Jones actually believed what he was preaching, and wasn't merely out to grift his followers.

I think it's worth making the distinction between 'normies' who were taken in by a dumb argument but are otherwise sane and reasonable people, and people with a Cult like mentality whose attraction to dumb arguments are based around Group Identity, and use dumb arguments as an ego driven narrative of Personal Empowerment. If it's the latter group, likely nothing you say in the way or logical arguments or appeals to reliable sources of information will make a difference, because their attachment to the ideas you're trying to debunk are emotional, and likely to be taken as a personal attack on their Identity. Which makes getting them to seriously consider a different point of view very, very difficult. Assuming you find it worth the trouble to put the effort in, you could start from a place of identifying something they care about, and in a non-confrontational way try to show them that the argument they're espousing conflicts with one of their core beliefs. If they claim to be a super Patriot who supports the troops, you could try and show them how that belief conflicts with supporting someone who disgraces service members by calling them 'suckers' and 'losers'. Try to approach the issue from their own worldview, and with a degree of empathy, if you can. The more Confrontational approach will almost certainly be met with ego-backlash and defensiveness. The above is assuming that you actually know the person in question; for randos online, honestly I really don't think it's worth the effort.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but the places where psychedelics have been legalized in the States so far are for psychedelic assisted therapy in a clinical setting (as opposed to being able to being able to walk into a place to purchase them on your own).

The QAnon Conspiracy Cult in a nutshell... mind you that these people are still going to be with us after the door hits Trump's ass on the way out of the Oval Office.

If you're looking for something that's a work of art that's actually deep, I'd highly recommend Hellblade : Senua's Sacrifice for its nuanced depiction of living with psychosis, one that was heavily informed by Mental Health professionals working with the Dev Team. The game does an incredible job of weaving the main character's schizophrenia into the game mechanics, and does so in a very intimate way in the hopes that you'll cone out of it with more empathy for people struggling with Mental Illness. On top of that, the game takes place in a beautiful World heavily influenced by Norse mythology, and has well realized game mechanics that involve puzzle solving and melee combat.

Good on you, and agreed. The country would be in a much better place if the Republican Party made room for well meaning people like Arnold to challenge the orthodoxy of the party. And I think Governors are in a uniquely strong position to do just that, as they can't be disempowered to the same degree that a member or Congress that's part of a Voting Block can be for failing to tow the line.

Arnold's an interesting one, as it seems old Arnold is moving more towards Green.

Decades of right wing propaganda have set the stage for roughly a third of the country to be vulnerable to the Cult of Personality that's a necessary ingredient for fascism. That's highly dangerous in a pluralistic Democracy, and something that we will be struggling with as a society for at least a Generation.

Of course. And where you end up in Society is due to a compounding series of advantages or disadvantages that are rationalized in the West by labeling it a 'Meritocracy'. Positions are open to all! Provided you didn't get f*cked by the Birth Lottery, then you just didn't try hard enough. The Terry Pratchett example above was more meant to demonstrate someone who has an intuitive understanding of the Poverty Cycle (being poor is expensive, and makes just about everything in life more difficult); but point well taken.