I have a feeling that the handful of pod casters propogating these theories understand thatthey are lying. As for their audience, most of them listen purely for entertainment and some of them are mentally ill.
…since about 1% of the population is schizophrenic, their are about 3 million people in the United States that might think this real.
I have a feeling that the handful of pod casters propogating these theories understand thatthey are lying.
I worry that, like everything else, it’s a lot more complex than that… It’s like on one axis there’s a spectrum from pure grifting to being an absolute victim getting shat on from every angle. On another axis there’s a spectrum of awareness (of ones self and otherwise).
Someone like Trump would be placed as basically a 100-level grifter with almost zero awareness. I say almost, because sometimes he will say something to make you think he does actually know deep down how shit he is, as if he can see his own shadow out of the corner of his eye, but only for an instant, and he won’t do anything about it before he moves on. The Curtis Yarvins, Peter Thiels et al would be near 100 for grifting as well, but also near 100 awareness. Those are the most dangerous to keep an eye on. Lots of those are billionaires, hmm.
Your average shitbag conspiracy/alt-reich podcaster could be anywhere in the middle of this cursed compass. They don’t have 100 grifting. They have some, but only enough to yap and get sponsors. You do need a basic minimum of awareness to maintain that - to be interesting and pass as a human person to some audience out there - but not quite enough to understand how shit you are or do something better or have empathy. It’s self-limiting. They run from very useful idiots (I think rogan probably fits that) to just consistent, static, known quantities that can only attract people who are messed up in a very specific way. (Alex Jones?)
Most people don’t grift at all, just never think of it or it’s a very low-level form of grifting they’re forced into because a bigger grifter is fucking them harder. But all of us are griftees at some point, we all get fucked from some angle and have varying levels of awareness. I guess that’s the “normal” baseline for like 99% of humans.
The ones firmly in the grifter quadrants have their own pecking order though. They play sick games amongst themselves that even the most depraved fiction writers wouldn’t write, because it would seem fake. The rest of us are just pieces on the board to them, running around like hoards of NPCs they get to shuffle around and fuck with. They don’t care about us beyond a number, they really only care about other influential people.
You can investigate someone and find out eventually how big of a grifter they are. But you can’t know what they’re truly aware of unless they tell you. You can only guess. Even if they tell you, they’re grifters so they’re untrustworthy. They try to gain power over each other while attempting to navigate this black box of everyone else’s awareness - who knows what, and who told them, and when, etc. The super-aware ones play the meta with each other’s awareness. And unexpected things happen with that kind of interplay. Sometimes they get their way, but they’re also always fucking up. Which either provides some schadenfreude or chaos down here on Earth.
not exactly deprogramming. Not quite reprogramming either…hmmm … I think they’re distro hopping.
I have a feeling that the handful of pod casters propogating these theories understand thatthey are lying. As for their audience, most of them listen purely for entertainment and some of them are mentally ill.
…since about 1% of the population is schizophrenic, their are about 3 million people in the United States that might think this real.
I worry that, like everything else, it’s a lot more complex than that… It’s like on one axis there’s a spectrum from pure grifting to being an absolute victim getting shat on from every angle. On another axis there’s a spectrum of awareness (of ones self and otherwise).
Someone like Trump would be placed as basically a 100-level grifter with almost zero awareness. I say almost, because sometimes he will say something to make you think he does actually know deep down how shit he is, as if he can see his own shadow out of the corner of his eye, but only for an instant, and he won’t do anything about it before he moves on. The Curtis Yarvins, Peter Thiels et al would be near 100 for grifting as well, but also near 100 awareness. Those are the most dangerous to keep an eye on. Lots of those are billionaires, hmm.
Your average shitbag conspiracy/alt-reich podcaster could be anywhere in the middle of this cursed compass. They don’t have 100 grifting. They have some, but only enough to yap and get sponsors. You do need a basic minimum of awareness to maintain that - to be interesting and pass as a human person to some audience out there - but not quite enough to understand how shit you are or do something better or have empathy. It’s self-limiting. They run from very useful idiots (I think rogan probably fits that) to just consistent, static, known quantities that can only attract people who are messed up in a very specific way. (Alex Jones?)
Most people don’t grift at all, just never think of it or it’s a very low-level form of grifting they’re forced into because a bigger grifter is fucking them harder. But all of us are griftees at some point, we all get fucked from some angle and have varying levels of awareness. I guess that’s the “normal” baseline for like 99% of humans.
The ones firmly in the grifter quadrants have their own pecking order though. They play sick games amongst themselves that even the most depraved fiction writers wouldn’t write, because it would seem fake. The rest of us are just pieces on the board to them, running around like hoards of NPCs they get to shuffle around and fuck with. They don’t care about us beyond a number, they really only care about other influential people.
You can investigate someone and find out eventually how big of a grifter they are. But you can’t know what they’re truly aware of unless they tell you. You can only guess. Even if they tell you, they’re grifters so they’re untrustworthy. They try to gain power over each other while attempting to navigate this black box of everyone else’s awareness - who knows what, and who told them, and when, etc. The super-aware ones play the meta with each other’s awareness. And unexpected things happen with that kind of interplay. Sometimes they get their way, but they’re also always fucking up. Which either provides some schadenfreude or chaos down here on Earth.