As promised, we follow up our prior episode on the forced retreat into the mental cave by explaining how the new social control scheme of no narrative at all is rapidly taking the place of the narrative/counter-narrative dichotomy that has been in place for nearly a century. Incapacitatingly stupid solutions are being supplanted by incapacitatingly stupid "noticing". All the wild opinions, conspiracies, and everything previously kept carefully outside the Overton Window - are now not just being allowed back in, but are being blasted at society like a bukkake fire hose - rendering people completely unable to function or organize due to total lack of agreement on the facts of reality itself.
If "God is dead" defined the 20th century, "consensus reality is dead" will define the 21st century.
As a bonus, you can hear out of touch with the kids Gen X'er Joel mix up Roblox and Discord.
This episode is an old (6/12/25), unpublished recording brought back from the dead, due to its high applicability to the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination. This was originally intended to be episode 33, but is now released as episode 35.
In this episode we talk about information overload and mental focus limiting, using the video game based concept of "view distance". We cover both how these things occur naturally - and, of course, how they're used as part of the social control scheme. These ideas are more relevant than ever in the context of current events.
We plan to do a follow up on this episode, directly tying these concepts to what we're seeing in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination.
“That a belief, however necessary it may be for the preservation of a creature, has nothing to do with truth, one can see, for example, in the fact that we have to believe in time, space, and motion, but without feeling constrained to grant them absolute reality.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Far be it from us to bring back a topic everyone else has predictably forgot about after saying they never would... but here we are, because here is where we must be.
In this episode that's been far too long in the making, we use good old Jeff Epstein as an example to talk about people who understand morality as an illusory construct and those whose don't - and why it results in those who don't failing to correctly comprehend and contextualize the behavior of those who do. Equally importantly, we also cover the facts and fictions around the historically recurring popular belief that the world is run by "evil people".
In this talk, we make a lot of ties back to prior discussions on morality and prior oft used analogies like the Snowpiercer train (with no additional recap or explanation), so it's important to be caught up on the rest of the podcast before jumping into this episode.
“One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. 'Good' is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a 'common good'! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
We finally conclude our "accepting the world as it is" multi episode discussion by addressing a question from a listener wondering what the purpose and benefit of this outlook actually is. From toasting Teslas to war in Gaza, we examine how people avoid working on themselves by latching onto large scale causes and boogeymen - permanently delaying fixing their own lives until the rest of the world operates the way they think it should. Focusing on changing the world first is merely a feel-good guise for a deep desire to avoid the one thing that actually might change the world: self-improvement.
We're back after a long travel hiatus to keep talking on the recent theme of accepting the world as it is - this time focused on Ted Kaczynski's ideas around self-propagating systems and the inevitable race to doomsday created by unrestrained technological advancement. We begin with a rather lengthy discussion of the nothing burger of the first Epstein release and what the purpose might actually have been - and conclude with an uncomfortable truth about the reality of the Epstein blackmail operation.
Episode notes:
Price inflation by good type:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/inflation-chart-tracks-price-changes-us-goods-services/
Uncle Ted's paper on self-propagating systems:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-why-the-technological-system-will-destroy-itself
Finally getting back to our philosophy roots - the third episode in this recent series of crash-landed conversations picks right up where we left off, using Snowpiercer as framing to discuss the philosophical implications of the current events we talked about in the prior two episodes.
Learning to accept the world as it is means two things can be true at once: our current group of elites are garbage, but also, what's actually necessary to keep society functioning isn't pretty, fair, or easy.
Failing to get back to recording fast enough to continue with part two of the prior episode, we once again feel the need to address a host of current events including the "terror" attacks, MAGA's H1B in-fighting, and Lugi again. Conveniently, these events are all relevant to the continuing conversation; so we use our analysis of them to bring us full circle back to the conclusions of prior episode - now yet again ready to move forward on the discussion of Snow Piercer and the issues with populism as a "solution" to the issues we've spent the entire podcast discussing.
We're finally back to talk Luigi Mangione and the reactions to the UHC CEO murder as a major signal of a captured shift in the national zeitgeist. This episode is intended to tee up foundational ideas for next episode, namely: the importance of maintaining a minimum functional trust level in society, systematized bad behavior as protection from idiosyncratic bad behavior, and the intended (or claimed) purpose of institutions versus what they're currently, actually delivering.
After too much enjoyment of the circus of cabinet appointments in the last episode, we address a listener comment (quoted below) from the same episode that we felt was a good opportunity to clarify our position on Trump.
As mentioned in this episode, anyone interested in coming on the show and discussing some of these topics without the 500 character comment limit - feel free to DM me on Reddit u/awdstylez
Comment from Xan on the prior episode:
"Beyond the obvious bad faith talking points, is there anything you would find objectionable about Trump? The narcissistic rage, his explicit desire to use the government for revenge against his "enemies", and his plan to deport millions, and Project 2025? Is your support of Trump just vibes deep down or is there some motive behind it?"
Trump has been lambasted as "literally Hitler" for the past eight years, almost entirely for imaginary reasons. Now that MAGA is adopting almost word-for-word Third Reich policies - no one seems to be capable of making the connection.
In this mostly political and more casual than normal episode, talk centers around Trump's cabinet appointments, which continue to further confirm our predictions for what the future holds. We tie these current events back to POSIWID, the Victoria/Victor/Julie Andrews construct, and go into more detail on our "Lisa" addition to that framework.
Episode Corrections:
Tyler incorrectly references "Revolt of the Public" as "Revolt of the People"
Episode Notes
"Always has been" astronaut meme
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/255177692/astronaut-meme-always-has-been-template
Complete lack of relevant food/drug experience of the current HHS secretary
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xavier_Becerra
Hawk Tuah baseline test
More than just patting ourselves on the back for the accurate election prediction, we address how we were able to make this prediction over a year and a half ago, what the actual purpose of voting is, the importance of understanding counter-narrative control, Biden as an intentional fall guy, Harris as an intentional loser, and why the Trump win needed to be now and not in 2020.
Peanut the squirrel, election day predictions and analysis, Harambe (again), the importance of memes, comments on the Trump and Vance appearances on Rogan, our new logo Fritz Durden, and most importantly we introduce our theory of the ideologically split elites - we've got it all in this uncharacteristically off-the-cuff casual chat about what most people seem to think is the first day of the end of the world.
This episode also officially kicks off season two... whatever difference that makes.
Leave some comments! We want to hear your predictions as well.
We didn't want to make Joel a liar, so we finally hit on feminism as he promised half a season ago - using it as a construct to explore a larger and far more important conversation about the lack of willingness to explore origins of modern social, political, and philosophical issues. As a bonus we work in some Harambe (may he RIP) and CERN hell portal talk. If you go back in time, could you actually selectively prevent Harambe's needless death?
Bioshock Infinite ending:
"The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental."
- John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur
The truth does not set you free, and it sets you free even less if your idea of "free" is the "kid on Saturday morning" feeling we've talked about in the past. So what beats complicated, difficult, nuanced truth for most people? Feelings.
In this episode we talk wine moms, Kamala's intentionally shrinking base, everything as a conspiracy, and hit on the oft repeated idea of narrative/counter-narrative from the angle of "vibes only" capture.
Picking up right where we left off in the prior episode, we're ready to talk Sean "baby oil" Combs and how blackmail operators function as high level gate keepers to power and influence. As always, we tie these events back to prior discussions and use them to continue to build out our world-view. We also ask the questions that go beyond the contrived, normie positions on these topics: Why is all this being intentionally, publicly exposed now? Why aren't these operations needed anymore? We have some answers.
Episode notes
The Nietzsche quote I couldn't find on-air:
"Believers and their need to believe.- How much one needs a faith in order to flourish, how much that is 'firm' and that one does not wish to be shaken because one clings to it, that is a measure of the degree of one's strength (or to put the point more clearly, of one's weakness). Christianity it seems to me, is still needed by most people in old Europe even today; therefore it still finds believers. For this is how man is: An article of faith could be refuted before him a thousand times - if he needed it, he would consider it true, again and again, in accordance with that famous 'proof of strength' of which the Bible speaks."
- The Gay Science
Fatherland novel:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatherland_(novel)
Doocy at the press conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlVA3tjJGVU
Karine trying to change documented reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Be3muY9-E
"'Equality to the equal, inequality to the unequal' — that would be the true slogan of justice; and its corollary: 'Never make equal what is unequal!'” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols In this long overdue episode which we started recording two weeks prior, we hit on some no-longer current events like the second assassination attempt and the Trump/Harris debate, ultimately tying Haitians possibly eating cats to the heart of this episode's discussion: why is recognition of equality as a lie the new sin against the Holy Spirit and why is selecting for intelligence in nearly any area of life and society completely taboo? Apologizes in advance for Joel's wacked out audio sound that for some reason varied greatly between the first and seconding recording sessions of this episode.
Harvard admissions scandal:
https://blog.prepscholar.com/harvard-asian-admissions-lawsuit-application-strategy
"It never gets easier, you just go faster."
- Greg LeMond
We continue our tying together of all of season one in this extension of the prior episode's conversation, further elaborating on the idea of embracing and finding fulfillment in the struggle, because there is actually no achievable, lasting state of "win".
Statis itself is a myth and illusion. Conservatism is self-defeating. Jane Fonda is a traitor b*tch. Candide is the funniest book written in the 1700s. And Joel is recording in a haunted house with constantly creaking doors in the background.
