Joshe

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.

Warner Bros allegedly reached out to the Trump admin to ask what they could do to improve their relationship with Trump and Trump admin suggested they give Don Jr his own TV show, after pointing to Jeff Bezos and how he gave Melania Trump 40 million for her personal fluff piece documentary. If true, it’s interesting that Trump would share in the profits like this. Makes me think all this fleecing of billion dollar entities is just an appetizer, crumbs tossed to loyalists while he focuses on schemes so drenched in rot, the full sum of corruption we’ve seen so far, from a man already in a league of his own as the most corrupt president in American history, won’t come close in scale and depravity to what’s coming. I think there’s a final act coming, which will end in collapse. When it happens, the size and filth of it, and how far he takes it, will force even those under his spell to see him for what he is. There will be zero ambiguity. He’ll leave them no way to explain it, no lie to hide behind. Like telling yourself your lover isn’t cheating on you, despite wise and trustworthy counsel telling you otherwise, and then the day comes when you walk in on them in the middle of the act. That’s what it’s gonna be like. 1. Denial - Clinging to defenses. Repeating the script. Refusing to see. 2. Betrayal - The gut-level realization that he never cared. That the loyalty was one-sided. That they were used. 3. Exposure - No more filters. The truth is laid bare, undeniable, and overwhelming. 4. Disorientation - A moment where nothing makes sense. The narratives fall apart. The certainty is gone. They don’t know what to believe, or who they are without him. 5. Collapse - The emotional and psychological breaking point. Identity, pride, community—shattered. Silence replaces slogans. 6. Recognition - The cold, unavoidable truth. The realization of who he really is, then the dissonance from the thought that they were the ones all along who suffered from TDS.

Doesn’t look good for Garcia. From Axios: “The Department of Justice said Tuesday that even if Abrego Garcia manages to return to the U.S., he will be detained and removed from the country.” The Justice Department released records from the Prince George's County Police Department in Maryland showing Abrego Garcia was arrested in 2019 on suspicion of being in the country illegally. According to the document, a confidential informant "who has provided truthful accurate information in the past" accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of MS-13.”

He definitely seems odd to me, though I’m not sure why. Probably because I’ve been watching him for several years and still don’t have a solid read on him. He’s the only person I can think of who I can’t get a read on. He’s probably a good dude, maybe I just don’t have experience with his particular personality.

I’m suspicious of this one. David’s new book sales probably went the through the roof after posting this video. The comments are filled with people saying they just bought the book after the video dropped. If this story is actually true, Pakman lucked up big time. I’d hate to think this is a scheme to drive up book sales but I do wonder. I still like Pakman but something about him seems off. Almost seems like an intelligent sociopath or something.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-intelligence-investigating-whether-fbi-involved-2020-capitol-riot-2025-04-09/ Trump admin investigating if the FBI was instrumental in the sparking of the Jan 6 riots. Lol. Hmmm, wonder what Tulsi will come up with. Then there’s Fox News, which just hit an all-time high in viewership—surpassing ABC, NBC, and the rest. If the day comes when Tulsi’s sham investigation—or whatever narrative they manufacture to exonerate Trump of all wrong-doing of Jan 6—is made public and Fox runs with it, millions will take it as truth. And with that, the American public inches closer, if not over the line, of epistemic collapse. If that day comes—if the Jan 6 propaganda is released and accepted as fact—this won’t just be about a misinformed belief or a political difference. It will mark the mass adoption of a false narrative that required the coordinated decay of truth itself. It’s not one lie; it’s the culmination of years of manipulation, loyalty tests, media distortion, and the hollowing out of institutions. If half the country accepts this version of Jan 6—a version built not on evidence, but on propaganda engineered by loyalists placed in key positions—it wouldn’t just be frustrating for those living in reality. It would be unbearable for many of us. Not because those living in unreality are wrong, but because the machinery of truth itself would have been successfully hijacked and repurposed to serve an easy-to-identify con artist and his loyalists. It would leave those still grounded in reality in a condition where coexistence itself begins to feel surreal—because they can no longer occupy the same social, moral, or even psychological space as people living in something so unreal, while being expected to treat it as valid. It’s not just disagreement—it’s dissonance so deep it corrodes the very possibility of shared life. But I guess humanity has always lived on the edge of unreality. From folklore to state propaganda, the line between belief and truth has never been fixed. Falsehood is often more attractive than truth. It flatters, simplifies, unifies. It gives people heroes and villains, clarity and belonging. Truth, on the other hand, is often complex, inconvenient, isolating, and slow. Mass belief in untruth is not new. From myths and cults to propaganda and conspiracy theories, societies have always built large swaths of meaning on foundations that can’t hold up under scrutiny. What’s unique now is how fast it spreads—and how deeply embedded it becomes in institutional systems. Truth rarely wins by being true alone. It needs stories. It needs champions. It needs infrastructure. Without those, it often loses to the more appealing fiction. This moment may feel new, but it’s part of an ancient pattern. The people who cling to reality have always been a minority. The burden of clarity has always been heavy. What’s different now is the scale—and perhaps the speed—of collapse, along with the hard-won progress that’s everyday being erased. Maybe it’s too early for truth. Or maybe it was never meant to survive in a species wired for comfort, certainty, and tribe. We like to think we’re on some upward path toward truth, but history suggests otherwise. If anything, this might be as close as we ever get. What will you do when you realize you can't share reality with half the country anymore? Lol.

Good point. Success would likely depend on how bad things get and the extent to which right-wing influencers and media acknowledge it. If that day ever comes, there'd be high demand to ease the dissonance. I intuit that day will come, but who knows.

I have a guilty pleasure of brainstorming ways to manipulate MAGA into shedding their delusions, while also getting paid for my efforts. Here's a brainstorm sesh with ChatGPT, which is an idea centered around the coming cognitive dissonance millions of Americans will experience when they start suffering from Trump's policies. Let me know if anyone else has any creative ideas.

They say you can’t fix stupid, which tracks with my experience. Most Americans would feel tortured and would suffer if forced to muster up the cognition required to read and understand that article, and even if you could get them into it, theyd reject many of its premises cause their echo chamber said otherwise. How do you get a large hoard of irrational, illogical, foolishly stubborn and willfully ignorant people to not be? That’s what has to be solved for the country to be fixed. Nice article though. Thanks for sharing.

Damn bruh! 😂 I'd never bring myself to do it but it is tempting. You could build a case that they're only responsive to vultures, so if you want them to change, you have to get their eyes and ears somehow, but obviously, ideas like this would require some moral compromise, so it would be a very fine line and hard to not corrupt yourself.

Prices going up bro. IMO, there’s a near zero chance Trump’s tariff bs will lead to a healthy, stable economy. I’m no economist, so I mostly rely on simple heuristics to arrive here. Like, an absolute fool and lunatic who knows nothing about complex systems, nor interested in learning about how they work, who randomly tweaks dials and pushes buttons on a 10,000 parameter control board, will fuck shit up with near certainty. It’s also likely not just a one time price change. You think Trump won’t shift on this multiple times? He’ll increase or decrease tariffs as he sees fit to dole out reward and punishment. Next time Zelenskyy doesn’t meet his “thank you” quota, he might get slapped with an extra 5%, or if a fascist regime builds a monument in Trump’s honor, they might earn 0%. If these tariffs remain, when we reach what some would like to think of as equilibrium, it will just be cope, and the US and global economy will be significantly less healthy than before the tariffs, and they likely won’t know it due to the complexity of the topic and propaganda that will shape public opinion over the next several years. Paying higher prices for everything will get normalized, while the Trump admin assures everyone America is stronger and richer than ever. And they’ll have deceptive charts to prove it. Kind of like that chart that mislead everyone into thinking Vietnam imposed a 90% tariff on US goods, when in reality it’s 1.2%. Right wing media will be looking for “Trump was right, he’s the business genius we always knew he was” angles for the next few years to make up for this colossal fuckup. It’s going to be so annoying listening to their viewers proclaim Trump’s tariffs were genius and worked out well for the next few years.

20-40 years before mass robot adoption

Trump comments on a 3rd term once again this morning. Says he's "not joking" about a 3rd term and "there are methods which you could do it". I think at least half of Trump supporters, if not more, will come to support a third term. They're simply too easy to manipulate.

I think he’s planning a 3rd term. I saw a commercial on TV today that was painting Trump as a strong, driven leader whose doing everything in his might to deliver a better country for the American people. It seemed like a campaign ad. I think they’re gonna attempt to propagandize the citizenry in hopes of getting enough support for a 3rd term. Their reasoning will probably be something like “The 2-term limit rule is only fair if the terms are consecutive. Trump didn’t get two consecutive terms, so he should get a chance to see how he can turn things around with two consecutive terms because that’s only fair”. The American people can definitely be manipulated into accepting this if they’re properly propagandized for the next 3.75 years.