Gurometer: Red Scare
Added 2023-12-12 13:27:49 +0000 UTCWe hope back on the horror train to try and quantify just how little enjoyment we extracted from the Red Scare podcast... then we focus on the Gurometer and see how Anna and Dasha score. Spoiler... they are not that high!
Also featuring discussion of an exciting new Nootropic drink, whether Chris or Matt is the real bad one, and talk of next Decoding and an upcoming guest.
Enjoy!
Comments
I totally get that too: I always think of him as 'Hubermensch'.
Ymirsdreams
2023-12-15 21:30:27 +0000 UTCI should have mentioned that I don't find them personally charismatic. I am as flummoxed as you were, which is why I did the image searches. I figured there had to be some other reason they have such a big following.
Linda Sears
2023-12-15 20:20:40 +0000 UTCI want to push back on two points y’all made. One is that they don’t have charisma, and the other is that they don’t care enough about anything to put effort into it. From a cursory look at their images, I’d say they do care a good deal about what they look like, which means they work on achieving certain looks that fit ideas of what is hot. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t put selfies on Instagram. Much of their charisma may come from their appearances. Just some thoughts. For comparison, it is like Attia and Huberman (who I always want to call ubermensch) showing off their muscular bodies.
Linda Sears
2023-12-15 13:54:02 +0000 UTCThey totally don't fit the guru mould. But if there was a different set of metrics for other types of toxic influencers and one of the metrics was misanthropy, then they'd score max points on that. I think that's an interesting difference in their positioning. Their audience overlaps a bit with those of the gurus because of the general RW/anti-"libtard" ideology. But the gurus, on the whole, are still mostly with the conservative shtick of posing as the "good people" in the vein of the old saw "for evil to prevail it is only necessary for the good to do nothing". "Society must be defended!" and it is the role of the gurus to rally the last of the "good people" left to stave off the coming apocalypse. For the alt-right, the apocalypse has already come and gone and society is irretrievably fucked (pardon my French). The militant far right thinks this means that only insurrection and blood and fire can bring about national rebirth. But the misanthropic wing thinks that anybody who believes in social redemption is a deluded loser, that humanity has always been not worth saving, there is nothing but ruins and the future belongs to those cynical and morally nihilist enough not to care and amuse themselves by attacking everybody else. It's still elitism, but its less conservative (the fall is about to happen!) and more FR (the fall has already happened) adjacent and based on a negative virtue ethics (salvation lies in dark buddhist detachment, via irony, nihilism & cynicism), rather than the more orthodox deontological (with or without god) or, at a push, consequentialist ethics
Paul Bowman
2023-12-13 16:50:15 +0000 UTCI'm not officially a vet, but I have it on good authority that if you notice your cat lacks social skills they might be pawtistic.
Ymirsdreams
2023-12-12 16:05:15 +0000 UTCRegarding the discussion about self-aggrandisement / self-depreciation: Would the behaviour described in the following joke score a 1 or a 5 on the gurometer self-aggrandisement dimension? >There is an old Jewish joke, loved by Derrida, about a group of Jews in a synagogue publicly admitting their nullity in the eyes of God. First, a rabbi stands up and says: “O God, I know I am worthless. I am nothing!” After he has finished, a rich businessman stands up and says, beating himself on the chest: “O God, I am also worthless, obsessed with material wealth. I am nothing!” After this spectacle, a poor ordinary Jew also stands up and also proclaims: “O God, I am nothing.” The rich businessman kicks the rabbi and whispers in his ear with scorn: “What insolence! Who is that guy who dares to claim that he is nothing too!”
mobitobi
2023-12-12 15:30:54 +0000 UTC
