Joshe

Creativity and reason are different realms. Conservatives are usually far more adverse to complexity, nuance, and intellectualism. The left can be adverse too, just not as much. Also, I don’t see the people who would attack you for that as representative of the left. They’re a loud minority. Most people wouldn’t give a shit, as far as I can tell. Maybe it’s mostly the youngsters, which I have little experience with.

It appears the doubling down is in full effect. I saw a MAGA guy today who said that yes, Trump’s meme coin is a scam, but he still loves him. Then I saw a school teacher who said her school was gonna be losing federal funding and she may lose her job, but that’s OK with her because it’s gonna make America great again, and she cares more about the future for her grandchildren than her job. Lol.

Loneliness occurs in people who rely too much on the external world for their sense of self. Most people, I’d say at least 80%, need the external world to let them know who they are. With that orientation, when there’s no one around to validate their existence, it often causes sadness, boredom, depression, or fear. To them, loneliness is like an existential crisis. The ones who derive their sense of self from their own critical thinking don’t suffer like that. The same people who suffer from loneliness are the same people who complain about boredom. But if you have a rich inner world and don’t need others to validate your existence, boredom and loneliness are very rare. In other words, loneliness is a consequence of too much extroversion or warped ideas about what one needs to be happy. A rich and secure inner world can solve that problem, but that world can’t be built if you spend all your time extroverting. Just thinking out loud really. Might be some holes in this but there’s definitely some truth to it.

True. This dude gives off an insightful vibe, which makes his advice seem potentially good. But more often than not, you’d be wasting your time following it.

Every MAGA member only exist as such because they deceived themselves. They have to keep the truths they're running from at bay. This is why anti-intellectualism is a key element of MAGA and why instead of embracing AI, they talk shit about it and avoid it. They intuit that if they embrace AI, sooner or later it will threaten their psychological stability, and they're right. Most MAGA die-hards joined MAGA precisely because it relieves them from the burdens of complexity, nuance, and critical thinking, and let's them jump straight to being right and righteous. Trump showed them they can be dominant without all that thinking bullshit. "Common sense is all you need". Here are few comments my conservative family members have made make about AI: It doesn't know everything. It can be wrong a lot. It's biased. I think it's evil. A tool of satan. They're afraid of it because they sense it will confirm what their haters have been telling them all along.

Ego-Reinforcement Through Political Performance (Ideological Peacocks) More often than not, these types argue under the banner of ideology, but they're really serving their own egos—not the cause. 🧠 Nature of the Phenomenon Core Behavior: Active political engagement (online or in person) Motivated not by truth-seeking or civic duty, but by: Feeling superior Gaining attention Performing dominance Owning or embarrassing others Psychological Drive: Ego inflation via ideological combat Avoidance of inner insecurity through external dominance Emotional reward from mockery, certainty, and rhetorical victory It’s best understood as a modifier—a motivational overlay that operates across several existing psychological types, especially: Authoritarian-fused types: it amplifies their public boldness Cognitively insecure types: it helps them mask doubt with volume Passive enablers (online variant): some cross into active performance just for kicks How They Contribute to the System: Amplify and normalize toxic discourse Make extreme takes feel cool or untouchable Create an illusion of widespread belief by flooding the space with performative content Reinforce the group’s belief that their side is smarter, stronger, and more dominant

Trump started publicly laying the psychological groundwork for a 2028 run. He set up the Michigan rally crowd to chant "3, 3, 3". Then invites guest speaker to podium whose first and only words are "Trump 2028 anybody?" The chanting and messaging were designed to appear organic and to activate mimetic desire (people want what they see others wanting) and utilize emotional osmosis (uncertain supporters absorb the tone and boldness of those around them). These are just a couple of the key mechanisms operating on top of existing psychological pathologies that give Trumpism it's power and resiliency. They serve to normalize, reinforce, and amplify what would otherwise be rejected by society. These are just mechanisms, not the pillars. I think I finally cracked Trumpism. It's a complex model, so not sure when I'll have the time to refine and polish it, but I'll do a post when I can. Interesting stuff that provides far more explanatory power and depth of insight than anything I've come across.

Those thumbnails are quite different from what he was posting a year or two ago. The current thumbnails seem to be appealing to a desire for low-effort, high-reward magic pill solutions, which attracts a broader audience. So yeah, unless he's just clickbaiting but has good insights in the videos, it looks like he's dispensing with his integrity.

Cool. Thanks man. Yeah, it's been fun and challenging.

All the things that go into building a culture. History, transmission of ideas, environmental circumstances like what is or isn't available, survival challenges, the human psyche, etc. All of these sit on top of biology. Together, they create the actual specific thing that can be embraced, the conditions that trigger the embrace, and the means by which it happens. Biology is most fundamental in that culture wouldn't exist without it, but necessity for existence is not the same as causal dominance of specific constructions. That would be like saying gravity prefers skyscrapers because, thanks to gravity, they're the tallest structures on Earth. Saying the soil generates its own seeds is like saying hunger invented lasagna. lol. You've drifted way out there in some wild theoretical bubble bro. I mean, if this was a question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and the contestant polled the audience, 90+% would say environment is the main factor in whether someone becomes religious or not. Even people in the 30th percentile would get that one right. My position is that these studies are already likely overstating biology's causal role in ideological subscription because they can't account for realities in which the observed ideologies don't exist. They're only measuring what's there to measure. This is a huge problem. Just because something exists doesn't mean it inevitably exists and it most certainly does not mean it exists because biology called it into existence.

Not sure if you're trolling Leo or just want to be like him, but this sounds exactly like something he'd say, but probably not about racism. My guess is trolling. If so, I have to admit, it's pretty funny. lol Every now and then you gotta add in a "Ta daaa!" at the end — but don't overdo it or it just seems weird.

It will make the truly intelligent even more intelligent and the not so intelligent even more cognitive lazy, so they will decline. IMO, a large part of unintelligence is simply having a low need for cognition, so a lot of it comes from people just not wanting to think.

It follows perfectly if you account for the other things culture is rooted in. The soil can filter what spreads fastest, but it can't grow seeds that don't exist. I asked 4 different AIs which is more causal and the highest for biology was 45%. Gemeni 2.5 puts it at 30%.

Because they’re not just trained on large datasets. They’re likely trained on large datasets of historical fallacy/error. In other words, it knows about every error all notable intellectuals have made, errors entire groups and civilizations have made, etc. Then, they can be trained on the structure of the errors, not just the content of them. Once those patterns are in its neural nets, it would have access to the most sophisticated epistemic framework that far exceeds that of any individual who contributed to its training. But of course, it would have no power or relevance in the realm of metaphysics, as it lacks sentience and experiential knowing.

TBH, I'm not equipped to accurately parse studies like this, but the only problem I see is I failed to realize the study generalizes the 40% biological influence across the whole population, not just twins. My error was just meant to supplement the main point, so it doesn't change anything. The study found that biology is not the most influential factor. And the 40% figure doesn't mean biology determines 40% of someone's actual ideology. It means biology influences around 40% of emotional-political leanings and attitude biases. If we swapped out "emotional leanings" for "full ideological subscription," that number would drop significantly, because ideologies require scaffolding built around those emotional biases. Without the scaffolding—no ideology—no authoritarianism. Biology clearly doesn't erect that scaffolding. The whole point was: Identical wiring can’t even duplicate ideologies. So it should spring from common sense that if identical brains develop different ideologies, biology isn't doing the heavy lifting. If you take 100 kids and put them into an isolated Christian cult, every single one of them, despite their predispositions, will subscribe to the cult ideology. Despite some being more or less enthusiastic about it than others, all will adhere via the mechanism of external scaffolding. Same principle applies to everyone else, just with less forced indoctrination. Seems you're blurring the line of predisposition to ideology and ideological construction. The study found a "profound link" between genetics and political predispositions, not deterministic causation of ideological subscription. And just to be clear, "profound" just means significant. As in, "40%". Again, that's talking about political predispositions, not 40% causal of ideological construction. I never disagreed that biology plays a significant role in predisposition to certain tendencies. That's basic understanding of humans. My position was that biology doesn't even come close to being the deciding factor in determining one's ideological destiny, but external influence reliably and predictably does. This is what the study is actually extremely clear on. Plain and simple. Even if we grant this and go extreme, to say, 80% heritability, this would still not support the idea that biology is the most influential factor in ideological construction. It would just mean emotional needs are even more biologically driven. How and what those emotional needs manifest as depends on the external environment. If a brain were a fertile field: Biology determines how fertile the soil is for certain kinds of plants (emotional tendencies). Culture provides the seeds and decides what gets planted. No matter how fertile the field, if no seeds are planted, no ideology grows. Therefore, biology is AT BEST, 50% causal since the seed must come from outside the biology. But if you apply a little bit of thinking, you can realize that even with the best soil, and the seed, it's not a given that the ideology will take root, due to the malleability of the psyche and inconsistent conditions across the field, thus moving to much higher than 50%.

Structured belief systems only exist because of external influence. Which already means external influence is at least 50%. Then, given everything we know about how malleable the human psyche is and the nature of thoughts and beliefs and how they shape perception, it’s obvious that external influence is a major factor in what gets expressed. This bumps it up to at least 70%. Once you factor in everything else we know about conditioning and reinforcement, it probably pushes it to 90%. But don't just take my hunch for it. Here's some science: Identical Twins Study - Hatemi et al., 2014 — published in Behavioral Genetics. They looked at over 12,000 twin pairs across five countries. They found that about 40% of political ideology is genetic. The other 60% comes from environment — culture, exposure, reinforcement, life experience. This is with identical twins. Same DNA. Same basic brain wiring. Usually raised in the same home. If biology was the dominant driver, twins raised together would almost always land on the same beliefs. But they split all the time, authoritarian vs libertarian, religious vs secular. Sixty percent of the difference between them is explained by the environment. Even identical wiring cannot duplicate belief systems. When you get to non-identical siblings or strangers, the split is even wider. Biology biases emotional needs. It does not build political ideologies. Belief systems have to be constructed. The fact that twins ideologically split 60% of the time proves you're wrong. If they split 60, what do you think the number would be for unrelated people? Maybe something like this:

In-group bias is hardcoded, which is definitely a precondition for racism. In-group bias might be 10–20% of the total influence, enough to prime people to be receptive to a narrative, but it’s the narrative and identity-building that produce racism.

The structure of the analogy is what's important: Latent predisposition → exposure → activation → expression Craving glucose ≠ craving a Snickers. Drive doesn’t create its own expression. Drive looks for a solution. The solution it finds depends on: What’s available How it’s framed What gets reinforced You're kind of proving my point by saying the result of craving a snickers bar is not the same as craving glucose. Craving order/certainty ≠ embracing authoritarian ideology. The mind needs exposure, repetition, framing, and buy-in to embrace an ideology. So, if biology can’t produce authoritarianism on its own, then biology can't be the primary driver. Which means you should, at most, be at 50/50. But even that is too high because how do you explain the billions of Christians around the world? Do they all share a specific brain structure that predisposes them to Christianity, or were they born into cultures that taught it to them? For the billions of Christians, the same specific brain structures is not a constant, but external influence is. Cause belongs to what can best explain the result across variation. The main constant is the input, not the biology.

You trolling me? You went from "interesting correlation" to 80/20 biology. lol. Brains are predisposed to like sugar. But if they knew nothing about it and were never exposed to it, they’d never crave it, never seek it, and never develop beliefs or behaviors around it. The sugar predisposition would be inert, dormant, unactivated potential, until someone came along and showed them sugar. And that’s one of the most biologically hardwired preferences we have. If something that deeply rooted needs activation to become real, it goes without saying a tendency toward something far more abstract, like authoritarianism, needs even more external input to take shape. Sugar preferences activate instantly after exposure. Belief systems don’t. They take time, reinforcement, and cultural scaffolding. Which makes it clear that environment and external input is the driving force, not the brain’s biology.

No doubt people are more suggestible to certain narratives due to brain, but that still puts the power in the hands of the narrative, not the brain. Obviously. So the question is, how much weight does biology actually carry. I’m open to it being something like 90/10 or 95/5, if not higher, with biology as minor and context, conditioning, and environment primary. So if that's “deeply understating,”, are you suggesting something like 30%-50%?

I agree both are at play. But neurobiological factors would play an insignificant role in explaining authoritarian embrace. It’s interesting research that could lead to great things, because if you can identify brains most compatible with authoritarianism, you can possibly apply that same concept to every fetish, every perversion, every twisted way of thinking, and every healthy way of thinking, and surely that would be useful. So it’s interesting and has great potential, but even if you identify brains compatible with X ideology, the mind has to build webs of beliefs and buy into specific narratives for X to take root. Which, in the case of political ideologies, requires outside influence. Without that outside influence, the predisposition would very likely not give rise to embracing X. Kind of like how being raised in a secular society would very likely not give rise to embracing religion, and vice versa. The predisposition seems more like dormant potential, of little to no consequence until activated by a compelling narrative.

I mean, you could say this about many things. Of course there's correlation, but the idea it would be significant seems absurd. Like religion, nationalism, or conspiracy theories, authoritarianism is something people subscribe to when it meets a need, not something hardcoded into the species. It's the fulfillment of emotions via available, compelling narratives. People adopt it, not because it's their destiny, but because they've been sold on it. In the case of the U.S, the offer is identity, certainty, and a sense of belonging to a side that thinks it's under siege, and they're driven by the prospect of meaning in triumph. It’s the result of two systems colliding. Cognitive/emotional vulnerability and a story designed to exploit it. It's just a well-timed story and a target audience. No brain glitch required. lol

A psychology based on anatomical structure or neurochemistry almost can’t help but be a specific way? Of course those variables predispose one to this or that, such as fear, tribalism, etc, but the psyche itself is too malleable to be seen as fixed. It seems it’s all about framing. If you had power over the collective framing and interpretation of authoritarianism, you could uproot it or entrench it, which kind of implies neurobiology does not account for authoritarian embrace, although I’m sure it contributes. If you take 100 kids and drill Christianity into them from birth, and tie their survival to it, nearly all of them will remain that way for life. If you take those same 100 kids and instead drill into them high principles, education, integrity, etc, and tie it to their survival, most all of them will carry their indoctrination to the grave. So, it’s all about perspective/frame. Society has unwittingly, in its ignorance, allowed the stage of polarization to be set. The more polarization, the more likely authoritarian embrace. I think it's likely that Trump is the primary factor of the current authoritarian embrace in America. If such a polarizing figure never came on the scene, American life would look very different than it does today and talk of authoritarianism would just be a boring academic idea rather than an actual reality to contend with.

I doubt we’ll ever see another politician who comes anywhere close to Trump’s depravity. Trump was a total fluke. No one else can emulate his strategy. Once he’s gone, if he leaves, and if the Dems don’t run AOC or Kamala, MAGA will wither and die by the next election.

If trump don’t run in next election, Trump Jr or Tucker Carlson will, and they’ll beat the current front-runners, AOC and Kamala. Lol.