This was a really interesting video which I had a lot of thoughts about.

I think that discussing narcissistic personality traits that appear commonly among many in our culture is valuable, just as I believe discussions concerning safe spaces, triggers, and what it means to be woke are valuable. The thing that all these have in common is that conservatives took these terms over and made them meaningless to suit themselves. This video features dozens of instances of American con artists and cult leaders leveraging a valuable discussion to their own benefit.

The experts in the video believed that they and people like them were inherently superior, or deserved to be considered among the elite group. They expressed no empathy or compassion toward the people they dehumanized. Since they make their money from the people they lie to through lying to them, they are skilled exploiters. I would call all these narcissistic tendencies even if none of them had diagnosed NPD.

The reality is that many Americans, especially those in business, don’t care how they get what they want as long as they get it, and have no qualms about doing whatever they can get away with. I think this is a consequence of our culture and economic system rather than individual moral failings.

I don’t accept that no one should be called out for their greedy and selfish behavior. I don’t accept the most greedy and selfish in our society are once again trying to blame their own vices on their victims. I don’t think it’s monstrous to behave the way that countless nobles, gangsters, and capitalists have throughout history have because it’s clearly very human behavior in the circumstances that allowed these people to thrive at the cost of others. It’s the circumstances that allow and/or encourage this behavior which are a problem.

The Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series are probably what you’re looking for. Golden age Square JRPGS, especially Xenogears, are also generally great Jrpgs.

I like this one because it’s almost close to being true.

Sterilization is back on the table for those the state deems unfit. We need another major anti-eugenics movement. This is sick.

If your peace of mind is based on the lie that everything is already fine, anyone disturbing your peace by reminding you it’s not fine for them is perceived as an aggressor against that peace of mind. The problem is cowardice.

There isn’t any evidence of a knife except for a closeup photo which was taken of a different person in a different place who had a knife.

To summarize, an officer committed a mass shooting on a public subway in the effort to shoot a $2.60 fare jumper.

I just watched some videos by a 19-year-old kid who wanted to study psychology in college. The first video I saw wqs about an easy meal to make in difficult situations and a reminder that people were starving. He was murdered on August 28th from indiscriminate bombing.

Toad in the streets, Link in the sheets.

You know, I think that’s accurate.

Being born to narcissistic parents was extremely controversial in my childhood home. I was the selfish little ingrate in the house who kept asking for things even though they already provided a house and food most of the time, and that was very polarizing for my parents.

I don’t know, more conservatives have gone after Trump than anyone.

And when it hunts underwater it is deaf and blind, sensing electromagnetic signals from its prey with the duck-bill.

Terrorist acts are illegal, but being associated with domestic terrorist organizations is not illegal in the United States. Affiliation with hate groups has been found by our courts to be protected under the 1st amendment. That being said any radical group not associated with white supremacist ideology is going to get be actively pursued by the US intelligence apparatus extrajudicially.

Ohio is such a weird state. It is notorious for being an unpleasant place to live and I have met dozens of Ohioans who are very pleased to live anywhere else. That being said I disproportionatly have enjoyed the company of the Ohio refugees I’ve met. It has a way of exporting some cool people

This is pretty mind blowing. Finding even one of the lost parts of Homer’s cycle would be nuts. I’m excited for the discoveries and all the gaps in our records we can fill in.

I have two main thoughts on this

1. LLMs are not at this time reliable sources of factual information. The user may be getting something that was skimmed from factual information, but the output can often be incorrect since the machine can’t “understand” the information it’s outputting.

2. This could potentially be an excellent way to do real research for people who were not provided research skills by their education. Conspiracy theorists often start off as curious but undisciplined before they fall into the identity aspects of the theories. If a machine using human-like language is able to report factual information quickly, reliably, and without judgement to those who wouldn’t be able to find that info on their own, this could actually be a very useful tool.

Hamas was using the school as a human shield, I’m sure.

You’re onto a very important aspect of fascist rhetoric. The lies have to be absurd. They have to be obviously wrong. They need the kind of people who are looking to belong to something greater than themselves, not people who look for evidence. Lies like these are a great filter to end up with uncritically loyal followers. Same as any cult.

Sartre wrote about the tendencies of anti-semites in 1944 who followed a similar model of “belief” to contemporary conservatives. Here’s a breakdown of that essay.

I think you’re making a similar mistake that I have made many times, which is to assume that others are putting more thought into their decisions and beliefs than they actually do.

Among the conservatives, there are a handful of bad actors who are aware of the grift and are deliberately lying to promote themselves and their scam enterprises. The rest of the conservatives are using the cultural practice derived from a religious and/or nationalistic upbringing to uncritically have “faith” in whatever the party line is. Regardless of intelligence, if someone is vulnerable to group dynamics like this (also existing in other cults), it is more important to conform and receive validation from the group than it is to pointlessly research whether or not the group’s belief is true and risk ostracisation.

It’s not really falling for conspiracies, it’s more like conforming to cult beliefs. Conservatives don’t really understand the things they say or why they believe what they do.