 Good day, May 40 here, listening to a podcast with Athenian Stranger, talking to Alex Gashuta. At least the 1960s. What I mean by that is media. I mean, I've been indoctrinated in less way of thinking since I was a child, just by watching. This is the credulous, just thoughtless reactionary position of so many people on the distant right that all the media just brainwashes people. If you believe in evolution, the entire basis of thought for the distant right is evolutionary and atheist. Then you'll realize we weren't born yesterday, we could not evolve to be gullible, or we wouldn't be here. So this idea that propaganda is just so effective, there's no evidence for this. Nazi propaganda, this propaganda didn't change minds, neither did this woke propaganda. In essentially American productions, I speak this way because I've watched a lot of television, this is the way people on TV speak. Yeah, you pick up some speaking mannerisms. And you get familiarity with some things that you'd rather not be familiar with, but it doesn't fundamentally change you from left to right, or right to left, or change you from religious to secular. You know, when I started watching TV, that was hugely influential on me in my teenage years. It was hugely influential on me because I wanted it to be. I wanted this exciting new world outside of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, right? TV didn't turn me from religious to secular. It took me along a road I wanted to travel. That's what's so funny about seeing these American journalists get orgasmic about what's happening in Iran, and also what's happening with that with soccer people or whatever protesting and stuff, the people protesting in China. They act as if somehow America doesn't have more propaganda than any other country in the world except maybe. The presence of propaganda isn't what makes for oppression, or doesn't destroy your capability of being human. All right? I mean, this guy is about to compare America to North Korea, which people on the distant right do all the time, and it's absolutely brain-dead. Oh, really? So, he sees the things that you don't see. You're too stupid to see this, but he sees it because he's so wise. You don't think ordinary people on the right can detect left-wing propaganda? People weren't born yesterday. They're not born gullible. We did not evolve to be gullible. We're not stupid. People on the right can detect left-wing propaganda. You don't need a PhD in classical studies to be able to detect left-wing propaganda. So, let's go look at some ancient Aboriginal art. I mean, this is greater than what Michelangelo produced. Oh, so prior to Donald Trump, people didn't realize the news was fake. The news is what different bureaucracies report. That's what the news is, because news is a business and you can package the reports of bureaucracies, whether they're juries or Wall Street or Justice Department or the House of Representatives. Look at these amazing Aboriginal engravings. Wow, a kangaroo, a sunfish, and several smaller fishes. Just amazing Aboriginal art here. Yeah, people realize the news was fake and gay prior to Donald Trump. News is a business. It hypes. Like journalists think it's okay to hype, meaning you're essentially lying about the importance of what you're reporting. So much of the reporting on Trump's ties to Russia was factually accurate, but it was hyped so that if you wanted to believe that Trump was fairly compromised by a relationship with Russia, you could believe that. But the reporting was more careful than that, it was more factual than that, but it was hyped. So as soon as I'd read these stories about Donald Trump's ties to Russia, my eyes would glaze over. I just find it so boring. It was just so inconsequential, but it was factually accurate, but completely inconsequential. So just because something dominates the news doesn't mean that it's important. There's no necessary connection between hype and importance. A lot of things that are compelling are unimportant. A lot of things that are famous or attention-grabbing dominate the mainstream media. A lot important, such as the whole Trump-Russia story. It's actually accurate, but inconsequential. You don't think the US is constantly interfering in elections overseas. There's no evidence that the Russian disinformation campaigns on Facebook and Twitter had any significance. The newsworthy Israeli significant and the significant Israeli newsworthy. And I don't think we needed Donald Trump to tell us this. We think that we have choices and stuff like that, but then we don't realize that it takes someone like Donald Trump to come along and remind him. Oh, we think we have choices, but until Donald Trump comes along, we really didn't understand that we had choices. I mean, this is such track and it's so common to use this rhetoric in the distant right. But we were just mindless automatons until Donald Trump came along and showed us the truth that we were just seeing shadows on the cave dancing on our TVs. It took Donald Trump to take us out of the cave and into the sunlight of truth. The news is a business, like other business. It's fake like the ad for the Australian army, saying, joining the Australian army, you know, gave me a whole new life, shows this beautiful woman has become a driver in the Australian army. And it's her ticket to a whole brand new life. Okay, I'm going to wager that that's pretty fake. I don't think that the Australian army had that transformative effect. I look at commercials, all right, not necessarily accurate and truthful, but filled with hype. And so that's what a lot of businesses rely on, right? They rely on hype. They rely on exaggeration. They rely on saying things that are supposedly really important. But in essence, not so important. So you can't outsource your reality to someone else, right? Why would you just automatically trust what the news or some expert or academic says? Okay, Reeve Beach, Manly. Here we go. And he says that as though it means something, right? You could give me pro-gay propaganda or day long, and I'm not going to go out and suck a dick, right? You give me pro-cocaine propaganda or day long, and I'm not going to go out and snuck cocaine, right? He talks as though we're just incredibly vulnerable to propaganda. He talks as though we're all just unthinking automatons until Donald Trump came along and restored our humanity. And he's a professor of the classics. Give me a break. The number of big pharma commercials that you see constantly, you know, going directly to ordinary Americans. And he's talking as though we're helpless in front of big pharma commercials. So I see a big pharma commercial with Viagra, and I can't help but go to my physician to get some, because I'm just a mindless automaton. Like I evolved to be stupid and gullible, right? Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, right? Produced me just so gullible and stupid that I'm vulnerable to pharmaceutical advertising. It's so incredible that allowing free speech to pharmaceutical companies, right? You really think that people can't handle seeing some commercials for some pharmaceutical product. Even though it doesn't meet any of their needs, they're just going to feel like they've been turned into zombies, right? They've been bitten by a zombie from the commercial, right? This is the zombie bite theory of information. You give people, right? The left uses this, right? If people are exposed to the right-star podcast or some piece of, you know, alt-right information or entertainment, then they'll get bit by a zombie and they'll turn into radicals and they'll destroy their lies. If people read some forbidden books such as Bell Code by Charles Murray or and then Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, then they'll just mindlessly turn into some antisocial radical. And the zombie bite theory of information is bogus. That isn't how people deal with information. People take information. If it's conducive to the direction they want to go, they will use it. If it's not conducive to the direction they want to go in life, guess what? They won't use it, right? We weren't born yesterday. We're not gullible. Didn't evolve to be gullible. We're skipping over the doctor altogether so that the people will go to their doctor to ask for these medications. Yeah. We have evolved extremely good inner mechanisms to detect when other people are trying to manipulate us. Like, we're terrible at evaluating our own thinking. That's why we need to think socially. But we're very good at detecting when other people are trying to manipulate us. If we weren't, we wouldn't still be here, right? We didn't evolve to be gullible. I mean, it's just incredible. Anyway, I'm sorry. I sort of interrupted you there, but please do. No, no. I live in an offshoot of the empire and it's probably partly as bad as that which is we haven't gotten the gear up. We haven't gotten things up to that speed. I don't think you can have supplements advertised on TV, but I don't think you can have actual, I think this is EU regulation. Not necessarily a bad one. But yeah, it's an insane. So yeah, the European Union is going to fall apart when they allow direct to consumer pharmaceutical advertising. When they allow same freedom of speech to companies as they allow to individuals, then society will just fall apart because people won't be able to resist the allure of pharmaceutical advertising. I don't know. I've probably seen well over a thousand pharmaceutical ads in my life and I've never once gone to my doctor and asked for any of these products, but maybe I'm special. Maybe I'm as special as a Athenian stranger. Yeah, pharmaceutical ads. Did you realize they're robbing you of a big part of your humanity? I don't feel robbed of my humanity by advertising, by propaganda, right? Or the left-wing propaganda out there. I don't think it has reduced my humanity 1%. So this is such a common victimhood talking point on the distant right that is absolutely bogus and stupid, makes no sense, doesn't stand up to any critical examination. But because members of this victimhood group just repeat it endlessly back and forth to each other in different accents and different variations. It's like, oh, advertising, it just robs us of our humanity. Being exposed to the left-wing prospect is, robs us of our humanity. Having a left-wing teacher robs us of our humanity. Our institution is being dominated by the left. It just robs us of our humanity. I recognize that almost all our institutions are dominated by the left. I don't feel like it's robbed me of my humanity. I mean, how gullible and stupid you realize these people think you are. They think, oh, they're able to see through the BS, but you, you're too stupid to see that you're blind. You've been robbed of your humanity by pharmaceutical advertising and left-wing propaganda. Just not how people work. Things speaking to you, consuming all of your available attention, essentially robbing you of a big part of your humanity. Okay, so pharmaceutical ads and left-wing advertising, I just don't feel like it's rubbing me of all of my attention. I feel a lot of agency. I feel like I can determine where my attention goes. I don't have any problem with that. All right, my attention goes where I want it to go. My attention doesn't go to, you know, pharmaceutical advertising or left-wing propaganda unless I choose to engage with it. All right, my phone doesn't ring unless I set my phone to ring. Usually 95% of the time I have my phone on do not disturb. All right, I don't allow the outside world to run my life. I like to think I have a sense of agency over my own life and I'm not going to put up with it. All right, I love being here in Australia. I love my free time. I love directing my attention where I want, which is just, you know, being bored and focusing and kind of relaxing limbically in your surrounding. Like it's that is much important and amazing point is, oh wow, that's such an important and amazing point. Jesus, how stupid are these people? That people can't relax, you know, without just taking in left-wing propaganda and pharmaceutical advertising. People just helpless in the face of this and when they relax, then they take this in and they become programmed by it and it rubs them of their humanity. I don't know, I feel like I can decide what I want to take in and even if I take it in, doesn't mean I need to act on it. We've evolved very good mechanisms for detecting when institutions, advertisers, businesses, friends, family, community, strangers trying to manipulate and influence us. All right, we're not helpless. I think that sort of defines my existence, certainly on Twitter is. Yeah, this defines his existence, these bogus, stupid, idiotic, victimhood mentality points that have no validity. How are we supposed to slow down in this world that is so fast paced? How are we supposed to slow down? Oh, go for a walk, maybe leave your phone behind, turn off your notifications that people can't interrupt you. Listen to classical music, read a book, go to church, get a synagogue. Are we prevented from doing any of these things? How are we prevented from slowing down? I just don't see it. That's how the social media is. That's how they make us addicted to it, right? As you expect, the immediate returns on things. I can still remember. Oh, they just make us addicted and we have no choice. We have no say, we have no power. All right, we're just forced to mindlessly doom scroll on Facebook and Twitter. You can uninstall the apps. You can drop your account. You can reduce the amount of time you spend with social media. Yeah, businesses, not just businesses, individuals, communities, groups are always trying to act in their self-interest, right? They're trying to get you to do things. You've evolved really good mechanisms to see through their manipulations and act in your best interests. Remember when all you had to worry about was, now people will absolutely go insane if they can't find a YouTube instructional video on how to do whatever their math assignment is. Okay, if you go insane because you can't find a YouTube instructional video, there's nothing to do with YouTube. That has to do with you, right? You're operating with way too much anxiety, your likelihood because you lack connection in your life. You had a few more mates. You had a sense of community. You had a church or a synagogue, right? If you had good relations with family, extended family, all right, you wouldn't be nearly so anxious or just get to a good therapist or the appropriate 12-step program. It's treating us as though we're infants and stupid, but...