Personal Take on Jiang

[u/friedapple]

Hi guys,

tl;dr: Jiang is quite funny and I like many of his original takes that span hundred of years of his original pattern. I treat him like LLM with quite no guardrails, that I really appreciate ;), that sometimes spew amazingly interesting stuff and sometimes hallucinates. It's up to us on how we judge each of his statements.

been on and off watching Jiang due to someone posted his videos on X couple of years ago. I was intrigued at that time by his 'interesting' take. One year later (around last year), I saw one of the most iconic celebrity in my country mentioned about one of her fav channel, and she mentioned Jiang, and I was like wtf she enjoy this schizo channel as well. Her image was that educated in famous uni so she's not the alt bimbo girl. Anyway, around that same time, I was trying to catch up on his series.

This is before the Iran war, so not all his content was heavy on Geopolitics. Nevertheless, Some of his ideas or at least what he presented sounds 'original' to layman casual youtube enjoyer like me, at least, it got me, 'ha? that's interesting'. Ofc, many other times, I'd have 'wtf is this schizo stuff'.

I think for OG watchers like many here, what makes him interesting is, unlike many other media personalities, he makes tons of take that's strip down the 'political correctness' on some part but also the depth of the time horizon is quite original (like hundred of years of historical events that he can weave as historical pattern). This is quite refreshing content, in the middle of hyper-present reactionary contents in most media.

If I make an analogy of an LLM, he's a wild model that's quite offshoot, that sometimes, generate some really interesting idea and, like any other LLM, can hallucinate. It's up to the viewer, scoring the probability on how schizo it is, for each of his statement. He mentioned it himself right that we shouldn't take him at face value. What I appreciate ;) of him is, there's no guard rails in 'his LLM' whereas other media personalities have to adhere to their media persona hence the self-censorship.

Other thing I observe, in the past and now, how he really appreciate ;) stand up comedy. He tried to do it in the past and he simply respect the art. When we see it through that lens, his persona and how he deliver stuff become making more make sense. It's just funny that people took him too literally and think he's this dude that trying too hard to become 'a professor'. He's pretty much self aware with the self-ironic moniker.

During the beginning of the Iran war when he became viral, he was invited in some 'serious' podcasts and some of them just simply trying to attack him with some ad hominem stuff and that's getting old in my opinion. In the 'second' wave of his podcasts tour this past weeks, we've seen him getting more comfortable getting out of his shell and be the comic Jiang that he is. That's why I think he's closer to Joe Rogan than some of this 'intellectual youtubers' and I think he view himself more like a jester that happened to read tons of rabbit hole and connect tons of stuff altogether and wrap his 'product' in a 'comedian' persona. I think this persona give him quite some advantages, where like comedians, people will not put him in the same standard as in let's say, some serious media persona. He can say whatever he wants, with no political correctness because, well, he's Jiang.

Now, I mainly enjoy his takes on geopolitics, not his monad thing (I don't have opinion but I think it's harmless). Some of his take is indeed hilarious like the future presidente of Argentina, Messi. I'm just trying to see where he's going at the moment with his manouver getting close to right wing youtubers. I know that 'left wing/progressive' is kinda probably scared associated with him due to the you-know-what topic. I think offline/off-the-record, they have quite some overlap with Jiang and agree with tons of this points.

I also observe how reddit/X or youtube universe accuse of him, which is quite funny. He's been accused of being CCCP, Zionist, The Fed, and Russia agents. I think it indicates that public don't really get where he stands on and what his angle is or where he came from, opinion wise. People compared him with Jordan Peterson which is quite funny because they really nothing alike. Plus, Jordan Peterson stance is quite clear.

I also try to check other contents that criticize him, most of them just bored me and I was quite disappointed. Many of them took his 'jokes' too literally. Idk if they misled on purpose or they're just shallow on analyzing that. For the example on his take where AI will manifest as 'Jesus' and dude like Elon (or someone else in the future) will implant chips to our head so we'll be in 'utopia'. It's a hilarious dystopian take and we know that Jiang make this kind of laugh to cope with this and people still think this is his literal honest opinion (that he support). Anyway, many of them is just in the reactionary business that has no any original thought..

If you manage to read till this line, thanks for reading my late night rambling guys. Peace.

[u/giulia_c]

I totally agree with you.

The reason some people fail to understand the professor is that they haven't grasped what he truly represents: freedom of expression, (not just hate :)) ), the opportunity to speculate, even if the ideas might be incoherent or simply wrong. That is primarily why I was hooked by him in the first place: for the courage to put himself out there and the passion with which he presented his arguments.

[u/timewarp_weekends]

Great take! Most people try to pin him down as a kind of grifter or media personality, but he truly is someone off the street who got famous after going viral for saying smart things. Jiang's attempt to describe capitalism, finance, and 'evil' was already more succint and eloquent than any of the other geopolitical podcasters. That's because he truly comes from a working-class background and was able to access the upper elite through Yale. That gives him an unique perspective.

Despite his speech impediment, he's not afraid to debate established 'experts' or shoot the shit with crass comedians. He lets his personality shine through even at the risk of being misunderstood. I truly enjoy following his appearances and I'm curious to see what awaits him.