Populist Ideology

[Leo Gura]

This is a good look at the problems with Krystal and Sagaar's Rising show:

I don't agree with the bad motives that Vaush ascribes to Krystal and Sagaar, but he does make some good points about how they over-emphasize populism and ascribe conspiratorial motives to corporations and elites.

I see this popular trend of blaming everything on corporations and "elites", which fails to understand the true depth of the problem. Corporations and elites are often more developed than the ignorant populist masses how demonize them.

Populism is turning into a toxic ideology. Just pointing this out to those of you who are jumping on the populism bandwagon.

What Vaush and Krystal and Sagaar all don't understand is that corporations don't just act out of a desire for money. Corporations are evolving too! A corporation like Amazon, Facebook, or Google has many stage Green employees who will stage an uprising if the leadership isn't supportive for progressive Green causes. And also, the leadership of these corporations also tends to be progressive. For example, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook is himself gay, so obviously he's gonna want Apple to be supportive of gay rights. That's not corporate pandering, that's actually corporate evolution. A company as evolved as Apple cannot be anti gay because many of their loyal customers are stage Green.

[Extreme Z7]

Vaush's response to their response to critics:

 

[Leo Gura]

Saying that Krystal Ball works with fascists is too much. Vaush is doing himself a disservice by being so uncharitable.

Krystal simply has a populist ideology. She's obviously not sympathetic to fascists.

Both sides are mischaracterizing each other.

[Raptorsin7]

@Leo Gura  Do you listen to any stage yellow political thinkers?

[Joel3102]

I predict Vaush is the next big thing on left YouTube. His channel is exploding 

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Raptorsin7 said:

@Leo Gura  Do you listen to any stage yellow political thinkers?

Such as?

[Raptorsin7]

@Leo Gura Sorry i think my comment came off wrong. 

I meant do you know if analysts who cover similar ranges of issues but are stage yellow. The guy above is obviously smart, but there's a lot of toxic green too. I'm just curious if you listen to people who don't come with the baggage of so many leftist commentators in the media. 

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Raptorsin7 said:

I'm just curious if you listen to people who don't come with the baggage of so many leftist commentators in the media.

Hard to find such people. I'm sure they exist, but I haven't really put in the time to find them. Naturally they will not be mainstream popular channels.

You will probably find that sort of stuff more in books than on YT. If you want serious Yellow analysis, books is where it's at. Don't limit yourself to the laziness of YT.

[Parththakkar12]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Populism is turning into a toxic ideology. Just pointing this out to those of you who are jumping on the populism bandwagon.

Individually, we have infinite power, i.e. we can do anything as people. However, in society, we occupy certain positions in the system. These social positions have limited power, have finite degrees of freedom and have certain constraints on them.

In the posts I've linked, I talk about the amount of power different roles in the system have. The elites, in our current system, have a lot more power than the masses. They are able to dictate the narrative of what people believe and don't believe. People don't critically examine what they're being told, which creates a cult-like dynamic. I also explain why critically examining their narrative is important for democracy to actually work.

I'm not advocating for bitching and moaning about the elites or demonizing them. Those are what you may call 'conspiracy theorists'. There are some of them though who understand what I'm saying here and are calling for people to start critically examining the mainstream narrative.

I'd like to know your thoughts/opinions on my analysis of systems. Also, how exactly are you defining 'conspiracy theorist'?

Edited June 24, 2020 by Parththakkar12

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Parththakkar12 said:

The elites, in our current system, have a lot more power than the masses.

Obviously. This is true by definition.

The thing you have to take into account, though, is whether maybe they deserve that power. The reality is that some people are much better leaders than most, and are much more visionary, talented, capable, educated, hard working, etc.

I'm not saying that Bill Gates deserves $100 billion because he worked a billion times harder than his employees. But you have to admit, Bill Gates is an exceptional leader and visionary who accomplished things that very few normies could. So of course he has more wealth and power than a normie.

And I would offer the following point which most populists will find hard to swallow: Bill Gates is more developed than the average person and he actually uses his wealth and power in a more responsible way than a normie would. If you give $100 billion to a normie they will get corrupted by it and use it for all sorts of selfishness and evil. I think most normies don't appreciate how evil Bill Gates could be if he really wanted to with that amount of wealth and power. Bill Gates is an exceptionally developed person relative to the national average.

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They are able to dictate the narrative of what people believe and don't believe.

To some degree. But largely what normies believe is not so much dictated by elites as it a function of collective cultural forces which are beyond the control of any one individual elite, or even a well organized group of elites.

And also, elites themselves do not control what elites believe. Elites themselves are products of their culture which they are nearly powerless to stop.

The boundary between elites and normies is not so clear-cut.

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People don't critically examine what they're being told, which creates a cult-like dynamic.

Yes, but this is a generic problem of the mind which will not be fixed by dethroning elites. A mob of normies could be even more cult-like because it has no sensible leadership.

In many situations a small group of highly educated and talented elites is far preferable to a mob of ignorant normies. Which is precisely why elites have a lot of power. You have to wonder, how did they get it to begin with? They got it because they were more effective than a mob of normies.

A small team of 10 highly exceptional and ambitious people is superior in effectiveness to a mob of 100,000 mediocre people. To distribute power evenly across those 100,000 people could actually create a disaster.

[Extreme Z7]

@Leo Gura You seem to be talking about populism a lot lately.

Since this is mainly a personal development forum, I'm curious to know what you think are the direct negative effects that having a toxic populist ideology has to one's personal life, if any, as opposed to just talking about the large-scale systemic effects of populism.

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, Extreme Z7 said:

what you think are the direct negative effects that having a toxic populist ideology has to one's personal life

Not much other than its makes one closedminded, dogmatic, and perhaps stuck at a certain stage of the Spiral.

I mostly speak of it in the collective, large-scale context.

[Parththakkar12]

21 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, but this is a generic problem of the mind which will not be fixed by dethroning elites. A mob of normies could be even more cult-like because it has no sensible leadership.

Absolutely. Hierarchy is needed, leaders are needed. Leaders are the life-blood of the whole system. Nothing gets done without leaders. Leaders, by definition, will have the most power. The elites are not only leaders in the system, they are ideological leaders too. A leader will also naturally have the most narrative-control.

Problems start when the elites get too identified with being elites, or normies get too identified with being normies. When elites get too identified with being elites, they will then create narratives which benefit themselves at the cost of people. They will also create narratives demonizing 'conspiracy theorists' because it benefits them. People will blindly believe it. When I look into the perspectives of high-quality, nuanced 'conspiracy theorists', this is most of what they try to call out. This is unsustainable, it will hurt the system.

Now why do I think there is something in the conspiracy theorist's perspective? Because as far as I've seen, they are able to integrate the mainstream narrative in their worldview, they're able to explain why the mainstream is pushing a specific narrative. But the mainstream narrative is not able to integrate the perspective of the 'conspiracy theorist'. They create an 'us vs them', project it onto the 'conspiracy theorists' and then demonize/ridicule them. I see more fear in the mainstream perspective.

I don't think anarchism is the solution. Rather, I think the solution to this issue would be to have elites who have higher levels of consciousness. The more conscious our elites get, the more integrative and nuanced their perspectives will be, the more democratic and fair it will be for everyone. For this, the solution would be to become more conscious yourself and help raise the consciousness of people. When people become more conscious, they will naturally want elites who are more conscious. Now, if becoming more conscious takes you outside the current control structures and systems, the current elites will really resist it.

[Akemrelax]

44 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You have to wonder, how did they get it to begin with? They got it because they were more effective than a mob of normies

Or maybe they got it through inheritance like Donald Trump.

[Leo Gura]

19 minutes ago, Parththakkar12 said:

Problems start when the elites get too identified with being elites,

You might be surprised to learn that most elites don't identify as being elites. "Elites" is a notion that normies invented in many ways.

I don't wake up every morning thinking to myself, "I'm an elite". But some normie might think of me as an elite if he sees my bank account. Often times an "elite" is just a passionate, hard working person doing his best to help the world as he sees fit.

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Now why do I think there is something in the conspiracy theorist's perspective?

The fundamental problem I have with conspiracy theories is that they misunderstand the motivations of people. They tend to ascribe evil motives to people without recognizing that all humans, be they normie or elite, are acting out of what they think is best for the world.

What needs to be understood is that when a normie wakes up in the morning and goes to work, he thinks he's doing something good. And when an elite wakes up in the morning and goes to work, he thinks he's doing something good.

16 minutes ago, Akemrelax said:

Or maybe they got it through inheritance like Donald Trump.

But how did his family get it to begin with?

Of course later generations can free-load off the wealth of their ancestors. And in such cases the wealth quickly gets lost. Trump lost daddy's $400 mil. He would be richer if he just put all that money into a bank CD.

[Parththakkar12]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You might be surprised to learn that most elites don't identify as being elites. "Elites" is a notion that normies invented in many ways.

I don't wake up every morning thinking to myself, "I'm an elite". But some normie might think of me as an elite if he sees my bank account. Often times an "elite" is just a passionate, hard working person doing his best to help the world as he sees fit.

Point. What I meant was an elite, who occupies a position of power, starts to believe stuff along the lines of 'I'm here because of my hard work. I deserve it while those losers out there, they don't!' That's what I meant by identifying as an elite, or a 'winner in the free market'.

You are a huge exception to this, because you're living your Life purpose. Your life's work is integrating perspectives.

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The fundamental problem I have with conspiracy theories is that they misunderstand the motivations of people. They tend to ascribe evil motives to people without recognizing that all humans, be they normie or elite, are acting out of what they think is best for the world.

What needs to be understood is that when a normie wakes up in the morning and goes to work, he thinks he's doing something good. And when an elite wakes up in the morning and goes to work, he thinks he's doing something good.

Makes sense.

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, Parththakkar12 said:

Point. What I meant was an elite, who occupies a position of power, starts to believe stuff along the lines of 'I'm here because of my hard work. I deserve it while those losers out there, they don't!' That's what I meant by identifying as an elite, or a 'winner in the free market'.

I believe I am here because of my hard work and that I deserve it and that many people don't because they didn't do what I did to get to where I am.

By definition, anything you have you will feel like you deserve. Especially if you worked hard for it. It's almost impossible to have a decent degree of success without feeling like you deserve it.

If you did what Bill Gates did, you'd feel like you deserve it.

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You are a huge exception to this, because you're living your Life purpose. Your life's work is integrating perspectives.

LOL. And their life's work is helping mankind in other ways.

Bill Gates' life's work was to make PCs available to everyone in the world. How many lives has Bill Gates saved by making PCs more mainstream and efficient? 1 million? 10 million? 100 million?

How many lives have you saved with your work?

You see... it's all so much more complicated than it seems.

[Preety_India]

 

I'm an elite too in my own right. I work very hard every day. Extremely hard. Harder than @Leo Gura. It's just that much of my  hard work is only chipping wood to get that nasty tree out of the way 

 

 

[Max_V]

@Leo Gura Have you ever watched Destiny's content? And if so, what are your thoughts?

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Max_V said:

@Leo Gura Have you ever watched Destiny's content? And if so, what are your thoughts?

No