Emerald

Thank you It helps me keep my sword sharp.

I tend to be kind of on and off on here over the years, and just come back when it resonates. So, I don't really want any responsibilities on here. I just come here to get into little intellectual debates for fun.

Thank you for the nomination, but no thank you. I just like to come here every in my off times to goof around.

There's a transactional element to relationships. But that's not all there is to a relationship. And if you don't see that, your ideology is clouding you and holding you back from making deep connections with people.

I see. I didn't know it was a Blackpill thing.

That's true. There's a great video that Innuendo Studios came out with 5 or so years ago called "How to Radicalize a Normie." And it goes into the process that a lot of people who end up as Nazis end up going through.

The term normie has been around a long time before Blackpill. I probably first heard it in high school or college. (early 2000s) But I think it came from much earlier than that, like 60s and 70s... hippie times.

Didn't you know that fruitcakes that wear make-up, dyed hair, and shiny ostentatious suits are the alpha-ist of males? Example one... Example two...

Do you mean that the word "normie" is often used in the Blackpill online spaces? Or are you just saying that my use of the word "normie" is blackpilling you about life?

My favorite qualities in men.... and favorite Masculine qualities in general are encouragement and the desire to help. My experience has been that a lot of men will go out of their way to support you and help you do what you're trying to do. There's also this really "into it" kind of way that a lot of men are with their passions. And this is one is one that I've always aspired to. Like, when my son gets into something... he get WAY into it and wants to know everything about it. I see the same kind of quality with my dad and my husband with their respective interests. And there's this specific orientation to it that's hard to put into words. It's got frenzied mad scientist energy to it.

They've actually been really effective at convincing their target audience. And they were under the radar of most people for the longest time. Neo-Nazis have been rising in popularity since around 2015. That's when I started to learn about them. But back then, if you called them out on it, the average person would be like "You're a crazy paranoid SJW. They're obviously not Nazis." And you'd get accused of crying wolf if you tried to tell people about it. It's only in recent years that people are starting to wake up to it. So, unfortunately, their games have been quite effective.

To the average person definitely. But it becomes easier to spot when you know what the common dog whistles and symbols are... and the way that they talk about things. Secret Nazis are always using symbols to communicate with one another and signal that they're also Nazis. The main difficulty is that Neo-Nazis are pretty effective at spreading their talking points. So, normies can also pick up on those and start using them.

It's more like 10% of them are serious about White Nationalism and Neo-Nazism from the start... and those 10% radicalize the other 90%. But that 10% "hide their power level" from normies, which is what Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists call strategically hiding the fact that they're secret Nazis in order to maximize their impact on normies. And then these secret Nazis start making "ironic" edgy jokes about women, minorities, immigrants, gay, and trans people in a way that has plausible deniability. Like, "Come on guys. He's obviously joking. Why do you have to be such a woke scold? Everyone gets canceled for everything now-a-days. Comedy is under attack." And because the Nazi rhetoric is couched in a joke, the normies don't think the people who started them are really Nazis and will assume they're joking... and they begin joking along with them. Then, you have a bunch of Nazis and non-Nazis telling the same jokes. And it muddies the waters further because it is ACTUALLY true that some of them are joking. And over time, these online space just become Neo-Nazi spaces... and the veneer of the jokes are only there to pull in unsuspecting normies.

Nope! Also incorrect.

And this is the example you use to show me that political behaviors aren't psychological?

It seems to me that it is you who doesn't know which game you're playing. 80%+ of people's political behaviors are purely emotional and psychological.

I'm sure that he knows what he was doing. First off, apparently Twitter has been a pretty Neo-Nazi-friendly space since he took over. Also, you can't be a megalomaniac that's rubbing elbows with the far right and do a Nazi salute... and also be given the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't intentional. Clearly it was. I think people can excuse it and do mental gymnastics about it because they still hold the idea that being a Neo-Nazi is a rare thing. But it really isn't that rare... it's quite common and banal. That's especially true in this current era since mainstream Conservatism and Fascism have been becoming more and more indistinguishable from one another over the past 10 years or so. I think people need to realize how common and prevalent Fascism is. And gaslighting ourselves out of recognizing it isn't doing us any favors. It didn't do us any favors 10 years ago. And it doesn't do us any favors today.

The issue is that you're seeing human relationships through the lens of an ideology... but you believe that you're seeing the truth because Social Darwinism has a scientific veneer. But Social Darwinism is not science. It's a pseudoscientific ideology. And the more you can deconstruct the Blackpill Social Darwinian ideology, you can allow yourself to love and be loved without this feeling like it's all empty transaction. So, you actually don't know how the magic trick is done. Your ideology just convinces you that you do.

Yes, definitely. There are certainly some external factors that can influence things. But only insofar as they set off internal psychological factors that are more deep-seated. For example, lots of people were bringing up inflation. And inflation is bound to create distress for people. But if people aren't willing to face into the vulnerabilities that they feel about that inflation, they will go into the process of externalization and blame. And they will be susceptible to scapegoating narratives about blaming people of certain groups. But if they're willing to face into the vulnerability, they will be less susceptible to that kind of propaganda. And they'll be more likely to think critically and realistically about these issues. Intelligence is another factor, because many people have some limitations about how complex their understandings of politics can be. But I even suspect that lower levels of political intelligence alone doesn't necessarily make a person that much more susceptible to scapegoating propaganda. There would likewise need to be underlying psychological dynamics that would cause a resonance with that kind of propaganda. So, it's really all about the emotions and facing into what's going on psychologically. And the lack of that can make someone susceptible to falling for victim narratives.

You're welcome. Thank you for sharing a bit more about the dynamic. There are probably different blocks to allowing connection in... at least partially because of trust issues. But IFS therapy is a good way to go about it. But even moreso Somatic therapy can be an excellent path to helping you with IFS. I had a relationship mirage dynamic since I was 3 that I resolved a few years ago on a medicine journey. And it all began with facing into and processing repressed emotions of terror. And through facing with this terror, it enabled me to "click into" a state of embodiment of a three year old 'part' of myself. And in that embodiment, it enabled me to move past a traumatic moment that I had been stuck in for 30 years... and al the mindsets and understandings that I had at that time. It's really in the process of turning inward that the issue will be resolved... even though it feels like it's an external issue. And you may even find yourself attracted to women that won't work for a longterm relationship because you're selecting for what that part of you wants... and not what would really work out longterm. Or there could just be general blocks to connected because of chronically unmet connection needs.

Yes, it would be case specific.

Yes, it can feel hopeless at first because it really recognizes the collective human fragility. And it puts the more fortunate humans on edge because there is a sense of being at the mercy of those vulnerable masses. But it also leads to compassion... which is where truth and love meet as one. And in the state unconditional absolute compassion, an accurate diagnosis arises... and with it, the cure.

I understand why you would be upset with them. I am too. And I do not mean to excuse the behavior... just to understand it. But the reality is that, if they could do better, they would do better. You are seeing a fundamental human fragility at work in this dynamic. Human beings are incredibly vulnerable. And never forget... it is only through good fortune of both nature and nurture that you and I are not presently down that rabbit hole with them. It's important not to take too much credit or identify too strongly with "being the good one" or "being the smart one" or "being the one that's not ignorant". Human beings are incredibly vulnerable to things like propaganda and Fascism. And the moment we start believing that we're somehow exempt from these patterns is the moment we become susceptible to them.

You're welcome! The mirages can be resolved by understand they're projections being projected out from somewhere. To turn off the projections one must find the internal projector they're coming from. And that projector is a repressed aspect of the personality... usually repressed in childhood. That's where Shadow Work and Somatic Work come into play. There are difficult emotions that must be tuned into and faced with to access these repressed parts and work through he barriers to integration. Like, I used to have this mirage aspect myself... though I would suppress it because I knew it would lead me to a very unfulfilling romantic life. But in about a 1.5 year cycle, I'd get a really strong crush on someone. And there would be like this fixation and longing for that person that was really intense. And in one of my medicine journeys, the medicine brought me into feelings of terror that I had been repressing since childhood. And I processed a lot of that terror, which came up as shapes of tension in the body coupled with behind-the-eyes visuals of what those shapes of tension/terror look like. And after processing like 30 shapes of terror, I clicked back into a repressed 3 year old aspect of myself. And it brought me into a memory of being 3 years old and going underneath the bathroom cabinet to get out my mom's make-up pouch. And I pulled out her red lipstick and began smearing it on my lips and face. And this wasn't a repressed memory. I remembered it quite well from childhood. It was a family memory of "Hey, remember when Emerald got into the lipstick?" But what I hadn't remembered was my motivation for doing it. I was putting on my mom's make-up to try to be like her. And I transferred my feelings about my mom onto the lipstick... which then got transferred onto beauty in general... which then got transferred onto Disney princesses in the movies I was watching... which then got transferred onto Disney princes... which then got transferred onto boys my age. And I'd have these really strong crushes from the age of 3 onward... even up until a few years ago when I had this experience. And this memory helped me realize that I was playing out my feelings towards my mom onto these crushes. And the feeling this aspect of me had was that my mom represented perfection... and that I had to be IDENTICAL to her to be accepted and loved by her. But I look more like my dad than I do like my mom. And I didn't know that a part of me didn't like that fact. I was always consciously happy to look like a Wilkins because I'm closer to my dad's side of the family. But this child aspect of me that thought I needed to look and be IDENTICAL to my mom to be perfect and therefore valid... and hated the fact that I wasn't identical to my mom... and was terrified that I didn't look like my mom. And this created all these body image issues where I'd be obsessed with my face and body and just really loathing my appearance from the age of 3 onward. All this without knowing the real reason why. I just thought it was culture having images of pretty women everywhere... and that I wanted to be attractive to the guy that I like. This was always under the thought of being attractive or unattractive to the guy I like.... but also attractive or unattractive in general. But it was all about this terror that if I'm not perfect (which meant identical to mom) that I will have to do all the scary things alone. And I was actually right about that. But it was just this terrified little 3 year old part of myself... lost in a dark and claustrophobic cave. And it was feeling like it had to be perfect (aka identical to my mom) to be lovable and had to do all the scary things alone. And perfection meant wearing lipstick... meant being beautiful... meant having a boy attracted to me. That's why being like mom meant. And so, male attention became this sense that I am winning at being like my mom... and they also represented my mom in a way. So, every 1.5 years or so the tides would switch and I'd have a new male projection screen to play out the "being perfect enough to get my mother's love" drama with. And the feelings are a lot more intense than a relationship because they have to do with deep psychological dynamics. But once I actually experienced what was really going on, there was a huge shift in this dynamic. And I don't struggle quite as much with body image or crush mirages anymore. So, facing into the part of you that's causing it is essential. And you can use Shadow Work and Somatic Work.

I think with Dr. K, there's a few things going on. One is that his paradigm isn't quite holistic enough to understand the dynamic that's really happening with why contemporary men are susceptible to this kind of propaganda. First off, EVERYONE is susceptible to propaganda because of how our minds and emotions work. And that's true without exception. But more specifically, he's still seeing it as based on external factors like what the actual politicians are doing or not doing ... or the way that 'the left' is operating... or cancel culture... etc. He's not realizing that propaganda works on 100% internal and emotional dynamics... and that the focus on external "problems" (like Democrats, cancel culture, people calling people Nazis, etc.) aren't the real problem. And if those things didn't exist, there would just be another thing to take their place because those scapegoat topics are scratching an itch to externalize and depersonalize an internal personal problem. Another thing is that he has a mostly male audience. And there could be a degree of audience capture going on. And you can get lots of likes and clicks by reinforcing common male paradigms and giving men sympathy for these "problems" by telling men what they want to hear. And people love to hear that they're the victims and the good guys. But primarily, I think he genuinely holds some of these paradigms himself.... and has some of the same blindspots. I remember watching a video where he brought on a woman who was talking about an issue that women face on the internet... or in real life. I can't recall specifically. But Dr. K was asking her some questions and she was elucidating the female experience. And the questions and ways that Dr. K was asking the questions revealed to me that he had some blindspots in his way of thinking about gender dynamics and the female experience... even though he was doing his best to be understanding and impartial. So, I tend to think he genuinely believes on some level that society is harsher on men than it is on women... even if he does value mitigating that sentiment as well and understands in the abstract that women are also going through things. He just has a bit more sympathy and empathy towards men... and that might lead him to sympathize and empathize to where he takes these talking points at face value without exploring the underlying dynamics.