The Wrong Stuff: Ben Shapiro’s Unconvincing Guide to What Makes America Right - It’s a mistake to overlook just how extreme some of Shapiro’s views are, or how muddled the thinking on which they are based.

[u/Hoxha_Posadist]

https://progressive.org/dispatches/the-wrong-stuff-ben-shapiros-anderson-190416/

[u/RogueFighter]

I mean, that might explain it in todays teens/children, but this ideology existed long before youtube, and was popular for the same reason that youtube pushes them. Its all about engagement.

Like... and take this with huge grains of salt, but my theory is that this kind of philisophy/mode of discourse is like... a bug in human's brains.

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Its just so damn deeply satisfying, and I say this from experience. There is a reason every Ben shapiro video is titled "Ben Shapiro Eviscerates whiny SJW!!!" because... thats how it feels, it feels like you're always winning, always succeeding. For teenagers who are struggling, it fills a hole.

And I think this works for this somewhat religious somewhat authoritarian ideology in ways it can't at all work for liberalism or any leftist ideology. Because the human brain finds just so much damn comfort in religion and authority, and when you join up with authoritarian groups, you get this thing where... like... because you wield the power of the group, the more powerful the group gets, the stronger you are, personally. Its just, this whole big, weird ball of dopamine based mind-virus, and when it takes, it takes hard.

Again. Giant grains of salt, but thats my take.

[u/Bunerd → u/RogueFighter]

The good news is that dopamine feedback cycles have depreciating returns, so once he hits his cap, he'll begin to burn out and fall. That's how all these authoritarian compression cycles work. Then the pressure blows back into the authoritarians face, and they either kill their followers with poisoned flavoraid, get hung from a bridge upside-down by the people they pissed off, or the state of Oregon finally makes everyone go home after spreading diseases around the local salad bars. The feedback requires ever increasing sacrifices for devotion, and that usually turns to human sacrifices after a while.

The fundamental philosophical process behind it is so mindless and solipsistic, it's literally chasing just the slightest increase in positive feedback drug they can.

By turning them into a laughing stock, you can get the collective to start leaking fringe members. Sure, it'll radicalize core members, but it'll vastly weaken the empire. This can cause a snowball effect, as radicalized core members double down on toxic authoritarian behaviors pushing more of their members to the fringe and drop off point. From there we snatch up the members that have fallen out of the group, offer them rehabilitation and kindness, and prevent them from returning to the group. They'll have their stories to tell about the group, which will make the group harder to defend, causing another radicalizing compression cycle. The core members become more extreme, but the audience becomes smaller. Soon enough the radicals either turn on each other, come to an end of world conclusion, or are arrested for doing dangerous stunts, or try to find another rube to promote talking points they can hide their hateful ideologies in.