Conspiracy Theorists tend to be environmentally sensitive, but unable to epistemologically explain their phenomenon. Under a humble elite, they would be guided towards an answer that matches the facts to their senses.
Take the Moon Landing Hoax, for example: Did we land on the moon? Probably, by the skin of our teeth. But did we engage in delivering the promises of the Moon Landing? absolutely not. There was an implicit promise that our society would explore and conquer where no man had gone before; There was a real frontier spirit. The inability/unwillingness to go further proves the moon landing to be a hoax.
It was something that was there to trick and deceive the public and all discussions about the moon landing center on the point of “why can’t we go back? Why can’t we go forward?”
This meme leads people to look closer and find incongruities in us even going in the first place.
Conspiracy Theories, when not epistemologically true (occasionally they are), tend towards being mimetically true. The confusion between memes and epistemology lies at the heart of conspiracy. Yes, congress and Hollywood is made up of lizard men, but is it a meme or a fact? Yes, the world has been flattened by rationalism, but is the earth’s real state, a meme or a fact? Yes, there is a cabal of pedophiles running the world, but are these 4chan posts, memes or facts?
In Post-Modernism, The discrimination is tougher than you might think, which is why humility is the main virtue that I would like to see out of anyone who is attempting, especially because memes have a tendency on a long enough time scale to create facts.
that’s the power of Myth…there’s a reason people started referring to the practice of “meme magic”.
Also consider the idea of “functional fiction”. Or Allegory. The fictional nature of the Lord of the Rings or Chthulhu Mythos does not negate or diminish an allegorical truth therein. The idea of “values” or “principles” existing beyond historical validation.
I read your section on the manosphere with great interest, as I plan to put something about feminism on substack in the near future and there was a lot of information I was not familiar with (never having spent any time with the manosphere). However, I wondered about your statement describing Roosh V as " fundamentalist Christian, with similar hatred of women."
There are many different sorts of Christians - they are people too you know, and come in different shades, sizes and colors, some not so appealing - but I don't see how anyone serious about the Bible could be guilty of hatred of women. The Bible teaches that God created us male and female - are we to despise what God has made? Paul also points out that men and women both need each other - without women we would not be here ("Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man" I Corinthians 1:11). True, the Bible has teachings about women at home and in the church that are not agreeable to most people today, but that is not hatred.
Plus, I do not thing the hard sciences have anything to say about the existence or non-existence of God, the reality of a life after death, and so on. Science is confined to the material plane, but there are spiritual realities and other ways of being and knowing apart from the sciences. The fact that people disagree about the nature of God does not constitute and argument against his existence in some form or another.
I wasn’t saying all Christians think that way about women, in fact Christians tend to be the relatively less misogynist compared to other factions. I was saying in regards to Roosh V his misogyny is effectively similar in level since before he was ‘reborn’, it’s just different.
Yes, it’s synthetic frankenfood of very questionable nutritional value. ‘Progress’ isn’t always good and ‘science’ shouldn’t always be implicitly trusted.
This has been a most enlightening series. Thank you for doing this.
The Manosphere is honestly something that never interested me. I have my own heroes to look up to, I don’t need some “self-help” grifter. My heroes are Tolkien, Blessed Karl, and Theodore Roosevelt.
As for Conspiracy Theories: I was never into Moon Landing or Anti-Vaccine or Earth is Flat. I got all my vaccines except for Covid, my family just didn’t trust it. However, we all got Covid last Christmas and after a few weeks it went away. Although, some foods don’t taste right anymore, so that sucks. Anyways back to conspiracies: The ones I think are true are ones having to do with government/CIA operations, experiments like MK-ULTRA, and assassinations of leaders like JFK. Yes, I believe the CIA got him and LBJ was in the know. (I also think FDR had Huey Long killed as well)
Empiricism leaves you an ignorant idiot who doesn't know anything until you have some labcoat numbers proving it to you. Conspiracy is perfectly rational behavior which would be expected in a world with sufficiently self interested, rational and powerful agents to carry them out. Basic game theory would suggest that they are common.
I enjoyed this, and share your general disgust towards the groups disguised. Personally, I am inclined to go further: I suspect that right-wingess is fundamentally a function of a disturbed and dysfunctional personality type in much the same way that left-wingness is, and thus your project of building an alternative-alternative Right is doomed. I now describe myself as a 'racist centrist'.
However, I think you are entirely unfair to Eugyppius, and I think you should read his back catalogue and apologise. He is a sophisticated political thinker, in many ways developing the insights made by Curtis Yarvin before became a grifter, and actively anti conspiratard.
First, great job on this series. I think an overview of the Dissident Right has been long overdue and you have probably the most complete layout of who's who in the DR. Thank you for doing this, I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that.
As for conspiracism, I echoed points similar to yours on a recent Substack of mine:
"So while anything could’ve happened, only a few things could’ve likely happened. The fact is, every incident has a number of highly probable explanations and a number of less-probable explanations, even if they remain plausible. We’ve all heard Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is the most likely. Personally, I haven’t found this to be true, though the explanation always ends up being simple. I’ll instead offer up “Max’s razor”: the most probable explanation is the most likely."
I think both Left and Right have a difficult time accepting that there exist more likely and less likely explanations for every scenario. For the Left, the data is completely ignored when it comes to the reality of unarmed Blacks getting shot by police, only for the data to resurface when talking about the risks faced by police officers or crime rates among immigrants. The Right, however, is accused of being the more conspiratorial side, even though the Left just as often engages in it. I think a lot of it's because the Right is more reflexively conspiratorial, whereas the Left "trusts the science" until it doesn't on its sacred issues of race and LGBTQ+.
It's a problem with no solution. Except for maybe the Right needs to seize power. Holding power naturally makes a person less conspiratorial, because now you're the inside man. If we ever see the Right come to power again, maybe the Left will become the reflexive conspiracy theorists.
Conspiracy Theorists tend to be environmentally sensitive, but unable to epistemologically explain their phenomenon. Under a humble elite, they would be guided towards an answer that matches the facts to their senses.
Take the Moon Landing Hoax, for example: Did we land on the moon? Probably, by the skin of our teeth. But did we engage in delivering the promises of the Moon Landing? absolutely not. There was an implicit promise that our society would explore and conquer where no man had gone before; There was a real frontier spirit. The inability/unwillingness to go further proves the moon landing to be a hoax.
It was something that was there to trick and deceive the public and all discussions about the moon landing center on the point of “why can’t we go back? Why can’t we go forward?”
This meme leads people to look closer and find incongruities in us even going in the first place.
Conspiracy Theories, when not epistemologically true (occasionally they are), tend towards being mimetically true. The confusion between memes and epistemology lies at the heart of conspiracy. Yes, congress and Hollywood is made up of lizard men, but is it a meme or a fact? Yes, the world has been flattened by rationalism, but is the earth’s real state, a meme or a fact? Yes, there is a cabal of pedophiles running the world, but are these 4chan posts, memes or facts?
In Post-Modernism, The discrimination is tougher than you might think, which is why humility is the main virtue that I would like to see out of anyone who is attempting, especially because memes have a tendency on a long enough time scale to create facts.
that’s the power of Myth…there’s a reason people started referring to the practice of “meme magic”.
Also consider the idea of “functional fiction”. Or Allegory. The fictional nature of the Lord of the Rings or Chthulhu Mythos does not negate or diminish an allegorical truth therein. The idea of “values” or “principles” existing beyond historical validation.
I read your section on the manosphere with great interest, as I plan to put something about feminism on substack in the near future and there was a lot of information I was not familiar with (never having spent any time with the manosphere). However, I wondered about your statement describing Roosh V as " fundamentalist Christian, with similar hatred of women."
There are many different sorts of Christians - they are people too you know, and come in different shades, sizes and colors, some not so appealing - but I don't see how anyone serious about the Bible could be guilty of hatred of women. The Bible teaches that God created us male and female - are we to despise what God has made? Paul also points out that men and women both need each other - without women we would not be here ("Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man" I Corinthians 1:11). True, the Bible has teachings about women at home and in the church that are not agreeable to most people today, but that is not hatred.
Plus, I do not thing the hard sciences have anything to say about the existence or non-existence of God, the reality of a life after death, and so on. Science is confined to the material plane, but there are spiritual realities and other ways of being and knowing apart from the sciences. The fact that people disagree about the nature of God does not constitute and argument against his existence in some form or another.
I wasn’t saying all Christians think that way about women, in fact Christians tend to be the relatively less misogynist compared to other factions. I was saying in regards to Roosh V his misogyny is effectively similar in level since before he was ‘reborn’, it’s just different.
Brilliant work. Thank you!!!
You forget MGTOWs and TFLs
Why would anyone endorse ‘artificial meat’?
Vastly more productive and stops environmental destruction.
Think of all the land space used to grow animal feed which could instead be rewilded?
It's the next stage in agricultural productivity advancement.
It’s fake and gross for one thing. Don’t think it will go too far.
Do you have any arguments other than 'it gives me the ick'?
Yes, it’s synthetic frankenfood of very questionable nutritional value. ‘Progress’ isn’t always good and ‘science’ shouldn’t always be implicitly trusted.
‘Frankenfood’ is a term that confirms to me that it is purely based on an ‘ick’ factor.
This has been a most enlightening series. Thank you for doing this.
The Manosphere is honestly something that never interested me. I have my own heroes to look up to, I don’t need some “self-help” grifter. My heroes are Tolkien, Blessed Karl, and Theodore Roosevelt.
As for Conspiracy Theories: I was never into Moon Landing or Anti-Vaccine or Earth is Flat. I got all my vaccines except for Covid, my family just didn’t trust it. However, we all got Covid last Christmas and after a few weeks it went away. Although, some foods don’t taste right anymore, so that sucks. Anyways back to conspiracies: The ones I think are true are ones having to do with government/CIA operations, experiments like MK-ULTRA, and assassinations of leaders like JFK. Yes, I believe the CIA got him and LBJ was in the know. (I also think FDR had Huey Long killed as well)
Empiricism leaves you an ignorant idiot who doesn't know anything until you have some labcoat numbers proving it to you. Conspiracy is perfectly rational behavior which would be expected in a world with sufficiently self interested, rational and powerful agents to carry them out. Basic game theory would suggest that they are common.
I enjoyed this, and share your general disgust towards the groups disguised. Personally, I am inclined to go further: I suspect that right-wingess is fundamentally a function of a disturbed and dysfunctional personality type in much the same way that left-wingness is, and thus your project of building an alternative-alternative Right is doomed. I now describe myself as a 'racist centrist'.
However, I think you are entirely unfair to Eugyppius, and I think you should read his back catalogue and apologise. He is a sophisticated political thinker, in many ways developing the insights made by Curtis Yarvin before became a grifter, and actively anti conspiratard.
First, great job on this series. I think an overview of the Dissident Right has been long overdue and you have probably the most complete layout of who's who in the DR. Thank you for doing this, I know I speak for a lot of people when I say that.
As for conspiracism, I echoed points similar to yours on a recent Substack of mine:
"So while anything could’ve happened, only a few things could’ve likely happened. The fact is, every incident has a number of highly probable explanations and a number of less-probable explanations, even if they remain plausible. We’ve all heard Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is the most likely. Personally, I haven’t found this to be true, though the explanation always ends up being simple. I’ll instead offer up “Max’s razor”: the most probable explanation is the most likely."
https://agentmax.substack.com/p/overthinking-our-way-to-insanity
I think both Left and Right have a difficult time accepting that there exist more likely and less likely explanations for every scenario. For the Left, the data is completely ignored when it comes to the reality of unarmed Blacks getting shot by police, only for the data to resurface when talking about the risks faced by police officers or crime rates among immigrants. The Right, however, is accused of being the more conspiratorial side, even though the Left just as often engages in it. I think a lot of it's because the Right is more reflexively conspiratorial, whereas the Left "trusts the science" until it doesn't on its sacred issues of race and LGBTQ+.
It's a problem with no solution. Except for maybe the Right needs to seize power. Holding power naturally makes a person less conspiratorial, because now you're the inside man. If we ever see the Right come to power again, maybe the Left will become the reflexive conspiracy theorists.
Great work, again.