 This is pretty cool here did anyone else go through a reactionary anti-sjw phase from 2017 to 2019 and look back on it as Extremely embarrassing This is interesting to me because there absolutely was this wave of anti-sjw content on YouTube during this period and then the left kind of Changed the narrative right? I don't want to say like we took over but we we certainly shifted things back When it comes to the online overton window But I think that now we're once again in another anti-sjw period. It's not necessarily the same as the last one. It's not Just anti-sjw things. I mean now it's you know Gaze or groomers CRT is bad and you know, the right is currently dominating here But this post here written by this person kind of gives me hope and look not to toot my own horn, but um He's gonna explain what helped him get out of this anti-sjw reactionary phase So I went through a cringe phase from 2017 to 2019 where I practically worshipped Ben Shapiro and anti-sjw reactionaries online Looking back I realized how toxic and vile some of the things and jokes I made were to the point where I got in trouble for taking inappropriate for talking inappropriately around girls and saying racist things But the worst thing I ever did is when I made a joke where I called two German foreign exchange students at my school Hitler youth To this day, I don't know why I fell for such clowns like Ben Shapiro or Steven Crowder Luckily, I began to doubt these folks online because of my exposure to progressive youtubers like Kyle from secular talk and Mike from the Humanist Report and in 2020 I fully changed and no longer associated with these reactionary fools so this to me is I love these kinds of stories and hearing that I And Kyle, you know that we played a role in De-radicalizing this person This is literally like the one thing that I hope to get out of this channel aside from you know Radicalizing libs like I want to de-radicalize Right-wingers and I want to radicalize libs. That's what I want to do. That's my entire project but you know, it's interesting because I Don't necessarily go out of my way to try to cater to people who might want to shift But I tried to be as open and welcoming as I possibly can but look I shit on conservatives pretty relentlessly And so I often times wonder if I'm turning people off But I think that just if you're going to make the change there has to be that initiative yourself Like you can't just like scream at someone and expect them to change after they get screamed at for a long enough time There has to be that instinct within them, right? And so just getting exposed to this because you choose to seek it out. I think that's really important. I think that's really important I Think that most are too far gone. So stories like these will be rare. I agree with you I agree with you. Unfortunately. I think that a lot of people are too far gone one of the things that has been the most consistent with my channel is that during Late 2017 when you know, the channel blew up when I was talking about net neutrality I had a lot of people who weren't necessarily overtly political or were conservative But cared about net neutrality and they saw that my channel was one of the few that was actually taking this issue seriously and so they tuned in for the net neutrality videos and I've heard from I don't know how many but a Lot of them that said look I came for net neutrality and then I ended up being convinced to not be a conservative anymore Just after watching net neutrality and then watching other videos from you I think that what you said resonated with me and it made sense There's a time where I was talking almost exclusively about net neutrality when it was the number one issue But you know, I started to transition as the issue died down and I started to talk about left issues again and you know, that's when people say that they kind of like Were listening since that I had their ear with net neutrality then they stayed and then I ended up convincing them That to me is what I want to hear. There's sort of this appeal to people like myself and Kyle because You know, we actually do shit on Democrats and Republicans not necessarily equally but we we shit on both parties and you know, there's this sort of draw For people who don't fit into both of those parties, right? But I think that the reason why people like Kyle people like myself occasionally can draw in people to the left is Because when we shit on both parties, it is exclusively from a leftist perspective, right? When I critique Democrats, it's because they're not left and up. They're too right-leaning and you know My principles don't change depending on who I'm criticizing Whereas when you see other people like Jimmy door the opposite is happening, right? He attracts these right-wingers because he shits on Democrats, but then he never criticizes Republicans He self-censors and then what you do is you implicitly tell your audience that if Democrats are so bad Then of course Republicans they must be the answer But for me my goal is always to make sure That when I tell people what is and isn't bad. I always kind of direct them to you know Some sort of a solution Whether it's getting involved running for Congress volunteering for someone running for Congress doing direct action like I want them to take My podcast as a jumping-off point. So yeah Never browser but Thunderfoot amazing atheists are gone. Yeah, there was there was a really huge Anti-sjw period. I remember when I've watched the amazing atheists for 10 plus years. I watched them since like 2009 and You know, there was this period where I really kind of fell out from his content because I didn't like the anti-sjw things But I really value how he's kind of came around and said look I Think that wasn't necessarily great like I don't want to put words in his mouth But I've seen interviews with him, you know one with progressive voice for example And you know him talking about the way that he views that and how now he's kind of trying to Change that I just I really appreciate that because we're all human beings and that's the thing, you know, this person here They say that you know, it's embarrassing. I mean This is part of the human experience You know growing up people are shocked to know That you know a giant left-cuck like me was an evangelical Christian I mean I was indoctrinated so it was drilled into my head at a very very young age But I mean isn't even as an adult, you know I still held on to those beliefs and didn't really shake them until I got an Education and informs myself, you know, I actually sought out opinions that were different, you know from my own I actually sought out evidence to validate my beliefs and when I found out that they couldn't be validated that I changed But you know, there's one thing that I always maintain is that you know, there's gonna be two of our gone people There's gonna be people that can be convinced, but I think that one thing that's consistent is there's got to be the spark There's got to be the intellectual curiosity, you know, even though I was an evangelical I was a funny fuckhead as a young child. I mean I was a kid So I mean it's embarrassing, right the photograph of me getting baptized Incredibly cringe and embarrassing. I had bleach blonde hair. By the way, it was the 90s, but you know That's part of life, right? But still I can recall the conversations that I had with my pastor where I had questions I was curious, but the answers that he gave me were just fundamentally disappointing So one of the answers was or one of the questions rather was There's this disrepancy with God creating the earth and Dinosaurs because I'm learning about dinosaurs and how they existed millions and millions of years ago But yet God created the earth like 5,000 years ago. That doesn't make sense to me You know when when Adam was created and he named all the animals supposedly did he name Dinosaurs word was you know the garden of Eden Populated by dinosaurs and so I I said this to my pastor and his answer was well actually yes In fact, you know when God created the world he created dinosaurs at the same time And there's actually in the book of Job it talks about dinosaur tails being as or not dinosaur tails But the tails of creatures being as big as palm trees and so I thought holy shit. Okay, so I go and I read the book of Job Nothing, I don't get that reference I read it again nothing like I scoured this fucking book and I thought oh my god My pastor is full of shit another thing that really frustrated me and my pastor actually was condescending to me And that's how it really was like the seed that led to my atheism was I asked him I said look I Understand that God created the world. Okay, but I've got to ask and I'm like 11 12 at this time I've got to ask who created God and the pastor Could not answer that question. He said well God was always around and my answer was But there was a beginning at some point so if God created everything then it's logical to assume that The God who created everything also had a creator himself And if that creator had a creator then who created the creator that created the creator that created God and So it's like this conundrum, right? And I was explaining this to my pastor and he laughed at me And he said I think you just need to have more faith and to me as brainwashed as I was I thought Motherfucker and I didn't think motherfucker literally like I would never swear because you'd go to hell, but in my head. I thought okay You don't have an answer you literally do not have an answer and that to me isn't acceptable because I am Endlessly curious. I'm endlessly curious and I've always been a curious person like as a kid You know, I was very much into learning about the history of dinosaurs, you know as a young adult I was fascinated with astronomy fascinated with it So I liked science and it was kind of like this elusive thing because as a Christian You know, you kind of have to be a science denier at least it's drilled into your brain And so, you know my thought and this may be projection, right? my thought is that Well, since there was that spark there that intellectual curiosity there I feel like that has to exist in order for there to be, you know a change There has to be fertile round and so with a lot of people like this. I think that even through this anti SJW phase, I think that this person probably still was thinking okay Maybe I like these reactionary memes because they're funny Maybe I like Ben Shapiro because he's triggering the libs But at the end of the day that doesn't satisfy me intellectually, right? And so the people who get converted who aren't too far gone who, you know Join the humanist report for net neutrality and the end of being converted into leftism I think that they always kind of had That capacity to change in them, right? If somebody finds a Kyle video Because you know that they He came up in the algorithm and they stay and they watch more videos and they slowly but surely become a leftist I think that they probably already had to be predisposed to really question themselves to be more introspective But there are some people who I think are just not introspective at all who will never question their own beliefs and even today Like I'm very confident in my views and I feel like I've Perfected my own ideology and belief system, but at the end of the day I still want to make sure that I Have a system that can be scrutinized that holds up that I'm constantly fact-checking myself because Like I feel like just as a human being how could you not? Want to search for the truth like the objective truth just about everything life the origin of existence How could you not want that? Right and there are some people who just don't think about it. I've met people who Couldn't care less about like the Big Bang and where we all came from who don't think that our existence right now is a mystery and to me That's so perplexing Like how could you not just like the world is so the universe is so mysterious? How could you not think about how? Bizarre everything is Like the Big Bang we you know everything started like that, you know, how why do we exist? Questions that will never have answers to but I mean the continual pursuit of knowledge is something that I feel like It's it's got to be a trait of most people But I feel like some people just don't don't care they shut their brains off but you know, I maintain that There's got to be that spark there to ignite the flame But either way it's really cool when people say things like this and you know, they credit me as part of the reason why they decided to To change, you know, I think that they should give themselves credit too Because you know if they hadn't sought out alternative views then they would have never changed But um, yeah, I think this is really cool. And I just I wanted to share the shout out to competitive bid 7071 I really appreciate you posting this, you know, it It affirms that you know what I'm doing is Having an impact, you know, maybe I'm imperfect But I'm certainly trying and you know that effort is paying off at least minimally, right? Have you seen the video betting on infinity? It really elegantly demonstrates one of the biggest logical problems with religion Which one you choose is completely arbitrary based on where you were born exactly and that's the thing, right? That's one thing that also got me is, you know, my pastor would tell me You know, even if We're wrong and God is You know, not real There's there's nothing to lose by being religious and I would argue there is because being religious made me miserable I did give up everything I couldn't play with Pokemon cards at a get rid of video games like Halo But on top of that that that logic is flawed because by that logic, you know, if oh well you have nothing to lose So you might as well accept Jesus Christ into your heart. Okay. Well, what about the other Thousands of gods don't you have to subscribe to every single religion to make sure that you choose the right God? I mean Isn't it a coincidence that you happen to be born in the United States where cringe Christianity is prominent And that's the correct one I mean as confident as you are Other people who are born in different areas are more confident that their gods are the correct gods So it's such an arrogant stance to take and religious logic is just inherently flawed Like I think that if people use religion for their own personal growth You know, and it helps them and they're not trying to shove it down my throat Totally fine with it. But in terms of like, I don't know logic and rational thinking I can't not be an anti-theist because an anti-theist position is the one that's logical like religion teaches you literally to To dismiss facts like I don't mean to be offensive to anyone but literally I mean in fact It literally tells you to don't base your worldview on facts base it on faith and I just think that's No, that's not okay You have to base it on facts because if you base something on faith then anything can be real The tooth fairy could be real You know the Easter Bunny can be real, right? Jesus wrote the Constitution though. Exactly more evil has been done in the name of religion Yeah, northern you're absolutely right