Comments by "Mark Pawelek" (@mark4asp) on "Triggernometry" channel.

  1. Some of the books Paul Taylor name dropped. - The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, And Ecclesiastes, By Robert Alter (translation & commentary), 2010 - Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism - A Study Of "Brainwashing" In China, by Robert Jay Lifton. 1961. Republished: 2014. - Darkness at Noon. Arthur Koesler. 1940
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  2. The way Jaron sits on the fence re: Hunter Biden and prevaricates in support of his allies is classic.
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  3. Bill Clinton is the antidote to Oligarchy? <- No, not quite; but I think Clinton's financial advisors will agree with you.
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  4. "Progress" was pwned by US Democrats. So I think we can say that "progress" is woke, rather than woke is progressive. It's such a compromised word; an entire catalogue of, literally, reactionary ideas were branded progressive by the Dems. Instead, realists should talk of advancement, or improvement.
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  5. I was pretty unconvinced by Kevin right from the start. On top of that - people who have to deal with psychos daily (e.g. ex-prison counsellors) tell us that very little a psycho tells us is likely to be true. So psychos cannot be diagnosed by surveys; only be their behaviour. The second thing they tell us is that academics know f-all about psychos.
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  6. Konstantin is really a satirist. Read Gulliver's Travels, Animal Farm, or Don Quixote - satirists are often intellectuals.
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  7. Apparently, Michael Shermer wrote a book on Conspiracy; if the background scenery is to be believed. He's written a lot of books. I read one of his early ones from 3 decades ago: "Why People Believe Weird Things"; it's honesty and sincerity impressed me then but it didn't actually deliver and explain why people believe weird things. It just explained they did; Shermer too. His weird beliefs could've killed him. He was shocked into skepticism by an actual near death experience due to belief in weird things. Shermer was a skeptic when there were hardly any. His skepticism predates New Atheism by at least a decade or two. Today, many ex-New Atheists call themselves skeptics. That must be in homage to Shermer; because it's certainly not in homage the the skeptics of the Enlightenment; who will rolling in their graves with how narrow-minded, and authoritarian, the "skepticism" of many ex-"New Atheists" is.
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  8. He basically sounds like any British toff too :- conceited, narcissitic, vainglorious.
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  9. The end point of capitalism is not the commodification of everything. It is merely the accumulation of more capital. Commodification is merely a way to accumulate; a means to the end.
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  10. One of the most useful things on the Internet are these long form interviews and discussions. One of which we're listening to now.
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  11. Amazing how close my comment is to yours. I wrote and posted my comment without reading yours. These thought leaders and influencers like Sam need to be more rigorous in defending their ideas. If they want respect from me. For example when Sam tells a lie he needs to defend his lies, or renounce them. LOL - Apparently, Sam thinks I'm an "odious person" because I strongly disagree with some of his ideas (I agree with most). I strongly disagree him because Sam told lies; which I called out. I dislike lies. I find lies and liars odious myself.
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  12. He's in the tribe of elitists. Narcissists who love to look at themselves.
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  13. Wokism reminds me of both Leninism, evangelical religions, & all the isms, schisms & lifestyles I've encountered in my life. With most isms-schisms it's join now, do as we say, and we will change you (for the better). Wokism isn't like that at all; you're not required to change yourself, you just have to change other people by badgering, censoring & cancelling them; not so much by talking to them, but possibly by talking at them. It's a bit like Leninism in the way it concentrates on changing other people without much emphasis on changing oneself. Like most progressivisms: Wokism has that Utopian aspect. Except the Utopianism isn't really there at all - unless we consider witch-finding a kind of Utopianism! Wokism has a dream of Utopian with nothing actually getting better and everything getting worse. So paradoxically - Wokism is similar to old-skool blue-rinsed Toryism, but without the self-improvement. So wokism ends up dividing everyone against everyone else, and putting everyone into a ghetto where you're banned from talking to everyone except those in some other intellectual ghetto.
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  14. He came to these conclusions at least 3 decades ago.
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  15. It certainly would not have been funny had he mentioned it because one isn't allowed to make any jokes about the "religion of peace".
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  16. Matt isn't wrong. You said it yourself. What does mean: to "be cancelled" by Matt? Does it mean he's blocking you? I doubt it. Does it mean he's lobbying YouTube to shut you down? No. What's the consequence of Matt's cancellation?
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  17. "Stephen Hicks is off-the-scale wrong on postmodernism" Hicks wrote a book explaining postmodernism; but his book isn't really about postmodernism! Hicks book is about Western philosphy post-Enlightenment; and Hicks puts Kant and Rousseau on the outside the Enlightenment tradition. I think Hicks is right. Hicks' point is that post-Enlightenment ideas (everthing since ~ 1790) are essentially subjectivist; and these subjectivist ideas have no way one can refute them. One cannot refute these subjectivist ideas on the facts because the concepts in post-Enlightenment thought aren't arrived at by evidence. So we critique them by logic instead? But these post-Enlightenment thinkers don't use your logic. So they're not listening to your critique. Hicks is interested in how we can refute and bypass these post-Enlightenment schools. I think it's a good project. Better than anything any of the post-Enlightenment dudes and dudesses have.
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  18. Cosmic Skeptic: - never gives an actual real world example - insults other people - calling them 'idiots'; pretty hateful eh? - based on his intuition, judgement (so-called), and opinion - the thinks he should be Hatespeech Finder General How hateful is it to call another person a 'fascist'? Why are the censors always the same people accusing random innocents of fascism?
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  19. Trump told the truth about some things - which is why they hate him.
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  20. I can't believe how conceited she is. She wants 40 years of colonialism to even begin to fix the issue. Yet, the problem is lack of civil society in Afghanistan. Islam controlled everything there for over 1300 years. British civil society it 400 years old. Beginning with the reformation, grew incrementally since then. She thinks we can build civil society & Western values in 4 decades? The wonder is we didn't leave decades ago. I'm told we didn't do it the "right way". What "right way" is that? What evidence is there to show there was a "right way"? In the whole interview she never even mentioned the role of Pakistan ISS in sponsoring the Taliban. Would she like us to take over Pakistan too?
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  21. Yarvin is a bad role model for dissidents. He makes many good points, but then undermines himself. His criticism seems to be that our current system is one of experts, NGOs, GOs, and IGOs running the world. They take so long to do anything that nothing gets done. For example, there's a new estate being built half a mile from me. 25 years ago they built an access road to the site and 25 years later? That estate is still not done! These criticisms are valid - we can no longer get anything done; because our current system promotes bad ideas. Because authority is separated from accountability and responsibility. The whole trend in governance is one of giving ever more power to expert-GOs and NGOs; and to dis-empower all systems of accountability. But how is "monarchy" the answer? Where's the accountability in monarchy?
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  22. Exactly when was that 100 year period of Pax Romana? Give us the dates. I recall war and conflict were a permanent feature of ancient life. Pax Romana operated in Europe and North Africa, but not in the middle east where Roman armies were in conflict with the Parthian, followed by, the Sasanian empires. We don't hail Rome for Pax Romana, but for its legal system and governance (despite the emperors).
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  23. The psycho talking to K Kisin has a PhD. He's a meglomaniac, possibly a political fanatic or dark ASPD. Shouldn't the media have a screening policy to filter out maniacs such as this who refuse to answer any question? How can one have a "debate" with a person who has no concept of fair debate? BTW: There wasn't a "loss of control" of legal & illegal immigration. There was a policy of maximizing immigration. The Tory Party did it. Why? Ask them, not me.
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  24. "They make these racists evil" Indeed they do. Racism existed in the past because it was institutional: Social Darwinism. etc. Racism was regarded as GOOD. Racism kept the race and our 'blood pure'. So the racists weren't evil; they were pillars of society. The institution was evil - not the people. Woke keeps telling us 'racism is institutional'. Given that: why are the script writers so thick that they're unable to represent how institutions work?
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  25. I was trying to understand this demonization of Darryl Cooper. Initially I thought it was liberals getting hysterical that their great hero Churchill was dissed. But No. Woke already did that and the Libs stood by passively as it happened. So why is Darryl Cooper getting dissed so heavily? Because we, the West, turned WWII into a foundational myth for today, and Darryl questions it. The myth begins with the conflict between Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. Everytime we discuss entering a conflict today we begin with the question "Will we be Winston Churchill, the hero, or Neville Chamberlain, the weakling?" Whenever TPTB go to war, the media always decide: "we'll be Winston Churchill, the hero". Darryl Cooper thinks it's time to rewrite the myth for a better one. Hence his demonization by TPTB.
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  26. "They didn't know what a psychopath REALLY was." <- I think most psychologists would define a psychopath as someone with no empathy for other people. A psychopath is definitely not someone who passes or fails a test with 11 questions asked. Primarily because psychopaths habitually lie. Most of us lie when we must - but we normally tell the truth. Psychos just lie for the sake of it - unless the lie will hurt them! I love the notion that the psychologist here, Kevin Dutton, thinks he knows what a whole group of people: psychos - REALLY are. BTW: No one suggests that all psychos are bad. People suggest that psychos who commit a lot of crimes are really bad. Here's an expert on bad psychos talking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwgoIx7vPTs
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  27. I hope you asked him what his alternative to democracy is? Given: we already "abandoned democracy" a while back, I also want to learn: 1. What system are we living under now? 2. Is there an alternative to this current (non-democratic) system we live under?
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  28. Woke scripts are due to ESG guidelines applied by asset managers. Movie producers look for woke scripts so that the movie gets the investment it needs. Lefty script writers (& producers) are not all thick robots regurgitating Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. They may be influenced by anti-capitalism, feminism & anti-racism, but they aren't writing scripts according to their commissar's directives. Why is it happening? ESG guidelines applied by big asset managers: Vanguard, Blackrock, ...
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  29. They are not even left wing communists. Radical yes - because they support a culture war against men, heterosexuality, whites, educational excellence, working economy, freedom. There radicalism is their culture war.
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  30. Given the claim "psychopaths can benefit society", please give us some specific examples. Theoretical scenarios don't count. Also: given the well documented harm done by psychos, please do a cost benefit analysis, CBA, which will tell us whether the mayhem, etc., balances these benefits. It seems psychos only respond to CBA. They analyze us to figure out whether to spend their time gaining benefit by using us.
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  31.  @sportscarman5  You're defining those people (security) as psychos - I'm not. My definition of a psycho is narrower than Kevin's. As I see it, people with no empathy for others are psychos. The rest (their behaviour) follows from that. When I say "no empathy" I mean zero empathy.
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  32. Feminists told me that all men are engaged in misogyny. I hink feminsts convinced themselves to hate men, hate reproduction, and hate the world. They justify their beliefs as "lived experience" - meaning they are under no obligation to explain nor justify their hate. I was walking up the escalator at London Bridge tube once with a feminst comrade of mine, almost 30 years ago. The ancient escalator made a continual screaching/whining noise. I said: "Oh God, it sounds like babies being tortured to death" She said: "let's hope it is"
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  33. Liberal democracy - isn't so much an idea or set of ideas. It is a set of compromises. For example - the compromise between science and faith - the Peace of Westphalia - which was a compromise between faiths There is ALWAYS conflict; it's intrinsic to human relationships. Liberal democracy was an attempt to deal with everlasting dispute by establishing frameworks for that: voting & representative democracy, political rights, debate, free-speech, religious toleration, ... The Crisis of Authority is the elites reneging on previous agreements.
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  34. The West is what happens when we glue Christianity to Greek civilizationj. Add Roman Law and (republican) political systems. Experience our history of Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment, and remember that history made us what we are. Freedom of expression - is best by test. We have free speech - not because everyone has a point of view we must listen to. We allow it because sometimes 1% of people have something very important to say. Something we must listen to in order for society to prosper and thrive. It's not possible to decide, in advance, who is right who we must hear - that's why we allow free speech. Because banning free-speech allows ASPD types and authoritarians to grift and corrupt society.
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  35. "whites owned slaves" - Maybe 0.01 percent of 'em did. But the rest - 99.99% did not. "capitalism relied on slavery" - This bullshit was invented by Karl Marx to guilt-trip Capitalism into self-destruction. They say capital accumulation - in the early phase - was crucially dependent on slaverey. In reality: banking provided capital - not the profits of slavery. Without slavery Capitalism would still have taken off, because the banking systems were already in place. The super-profits from slavery simply enabled those slavers and slave owners to become capitalists. Without such slave owners - other people would've owned the railways, cotton mills, mines, ... The scientific revolution, market economies, Intellectual Enlightenment, and innovation drove capitalism - not slavery.
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  36. Andy Slavitt : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Slavitt I explain people like Andy Slavitt in terms of Dems developing a culture of censorship and internal monologue. The Dems literally only talk to each other (internal monologue). If any of them are found talking to Reps they'll be demonized as rightists, libertarian, Fascist, or Nazis. Their culture of censorship means everyone is wrong apart from them. So they're happy to deplatform everyone. They literally think "libertarians are Nazis". So censorship and internal monologue depend on each other. The former enables the latter; and the latter justifies the former.
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  37. "But uisn't that a failure of eduction as well Matt? ... If that's what's taught since year dot, is it really their fault?" The failure of eduction is one where ONLY one idea - wokism - is taught as legitimate, and other ideas are cancelled as illegitimate. We see this mass cancellation and censorship by the elites in the climate 'debate' too. As they're the perps, then YES. It is their fault for messing up education.
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  38. The world is not a "model", it's real.
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  39. The green movement persuaded me that left-wing politics, and policies were - at best - performative victim mongering - blaming humans for being human. I'd given up on progressivism long ago. Today's leftwing movements are full of people and policies promoted by antisocial people: dark triads, narcissists and sub-clinical psychopaths. "Out of the crooked log of humanity, no straight thing was ever made" - Immanuel Kant
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  40. "The think they're doing the right thing" - nowt worse than selfish narcissists and psychopaths who believe they have the moral high ground to do evil.
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  41. Actually there is - much like there was freedom of expression: - in France in the 18th century - despite attempts by the Catholic Church to censor it. Despite Diderot suffering 3 months in prison for his 'Letter on the Blind'. - in Russia under the Tsars. - in Russia under the Soviets - they still had Solzhenitsyn. Despite the millions of critics exterminated by the Soviets. Once the light of free expression is loose, it cannot be captured in flask again. and dissapeared. The West (apart from the USA and Argentina) is currently run by idiots who have yet learn this crucial lesson from history.
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  42. The Left routinely called everyone else Fascist for over 4 decades. I remember this nonsense from Trotskyists in the late 1960s and early 1970s when I was still a teen. The difference today is it's no longer just the far left alone. Today all the left are doing it.
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  43. "For Hunter Biden, that was a mistake, ..." < - brought a smile to my face. I thought Greg was saying Hunter made a mistake. - Oh yeah - like the million other mistakes he made!! <- no journalists told the truth because they are pathetic poodles owned by billionaires.
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  44. I think our leaders (in the West) believed they were now at the End of History, and it was a green, woke end.
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  45. They also support the lie of a "climate crisis". I think the billionaires are the main reason our politicians bought into this lie. If they can bully us into wasting trillions in resources on net zero and similar nonsense why can't they do other mischief too?
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  46. Did someone say: "the habits which make students oppose freedom of speech are the same habits which make them depressed"? These habits and patterns of fear are engineered in us by government, media, establishment, billionaire funding, to control and pacify us. Using deranged socialists as tools who think they're going to create Utopia by leading us through Hell : - climate crisis scare - COVID extermination scare - mandatory vaccination with vaxxes having NO Phase 4 clinical trials and only curtailed Phase 3 trials. - sexual transitioning is good, therapy is hate-speech and transphobia - free-speech is fascism - all whites are thick racists - too thick to see their racism unless they've attended an indoctrination course in Critical (ha ha!) Race Theory. They've lost their minds. The kids at colleges oppose freedom of speech because their professors incoctrinate them into thinking it is Fascist, hateful, and will warp them. With traditional defenders of free-speech - such as the ACLU - entirely taken over by woke.
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  47. The term "conspiracy theorist" annoys me for many reasons: -- the term was invented by US spooks in the 1960s to discredit people who didn't trust the official narrative of JK Kennedy's assassination. -- in UK law, Conspiracy is the name of an actual law. Criminal conspiracy is thing which can land you in jail. Labelling someone a CT implies they're criminal. -- people, in and out of government, actually do conspire - in secret. They brain-storm tactics and strategies to achieve their ends - which involve misinforming the public -- it's one of these debate-ending diss-words - like Fascist, Trumpist, transphobe, homophobe, racist, flat-earther, climate denier. As such it's used to spread hate and mistrust, to stop debate and actual critical thinking.
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  48. I came to the conclusion that Sam Harris is a massive hypocrite. He claims to represent reason, but in many ways he's a traitor to reason and to the "intellectual honesty" he says he wants to represent. Much of the Left seem like that. He claims his master value is to be "honest". I don't think so. I think is master value is to be an accepted member of his tribe. Much of the establishment are like him. Notice how well he avoids debating his skeptical critics, such as myself? I'm not his only critic.
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  49. The government fix to a problem is going to be worse than the problem.
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  50. Climate change fanatics take climate model projections literally. COVID vax, lockdown and mask fanatics take COVID infection model projections literally.
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