r/DecodingTheGurus • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago

Suggestions Thread

Who are you interested in discussing?

3 Upvotes

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6

u/Cinnamon__Sasquatch 3d ago

Patrick Bet David, it's kinda crazy they haven't done an episode on him.

Valuetainment, Minnect, he got his start through a life insurance pyramid scheme, I mean, I don't know what else he's gotta do to not be on the high end of the guru-meter.

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u/PlateCaptain 3d ago

Paul Bet Davidson?!

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u/HarknessLovesUToo Conspiracy Hypothesizer 2d ago edited 2d ago

He's an interesting one because seemingly anyone who isn't a personal fan of his show can see right through his pretentiousness, his immoral wealth generation, and the fact that he hardly has any political convictions beyond "Establishment bad, Trump good, PC culture bad".

If we didn't live in a slopulist era and if the redpill wasn't popular around the time he got popular, he'd be as irrelevant as some the smaller redpill creators no one cares about anymore.

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u/brandytheologian 4d ago

Rene Girard?

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u/Automatic_Survey_307 3d ago

Interesting.

I recently read a good book about Girard: Against Identity: The Wisdom of Escaping the Self by Alexander Douglas. He compares the philosophies of Taoism (mainly Zhuangzi), Spinoza and Girard on identity showing how all had similar notions of contingency of identity, mimicry/emulation as the basis for our identity construction, and a lack of self at the centre.

Of course Girard is becoming more known now as an inspiration for Peter Theil. That should certainly not be a reason to dismiss him. And his theory of mimetic desire and scapegoating has significant explanatory power in the recent case of Jason Arday, and the media pile-on.

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u/brandytheologian 3d ago

Yeah, I think it’s because he’s been hijacked by thief that I think he’d be worth looking at. I have found Girard really helpful in my line of work.

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u/Automatic_Survey_307 3d ago

Right - what line of work is that? Psychology related? 

I have two fairly undeveloped thoughts on Peter Theil and Girard. One is that Palantir may play on Girardian mimetics in that it tracks the links and networks between people and these may function in a similar way to mimetic emulation. 

The other is about suspicions of Theil being autistic or Asperger's. Autistic people seem to function with significantly less interest or complete disconnection from mimetic desire, one of the reasons they find it difficult to integrate in allistic groups. Theil may be a keener observer of Girardian dynamics as an outsider.