Vlad's main channel ua-cam.com/users/VladVexlervideos Support Vlad's work on Patreon! www.patreon.com/vladvexler Support Vlad via PayPal www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB
It's getting harder and harder to pay attention to the disasters in western journalism. I'm focusing on just raising money for Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers I follow on instagram now.
After Navalny revealed all his poisoners from the FSB, and one of them even confessed directly over the phone, I don’t understand how doubts can still arise about who is involved in his death...
An uncomfortable truth. Like so many things (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, climate catastrophe, income inequality, rich getting richer/poor getting poorer). It's painful to admit that you support policies (or don't do anything) that doesn't align with who you think you are (a good, moral person), so to suppress this dichotomy, you pretend there is no conflict, no truth. Hide in the shadows. A very sad, lonely, frightening existence. I wish more people were empowered enough to seek truth, rather than hiding from it. The truth will set you free - if you let it!
@garydavidson1970 But a false one. Have you ever heard of Kirill Budanov?? He is the chief of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence and one of Zelensky's close advisory team. He declared about a week ago that Navalny died of natural causes. Check the facts and draw your own conclusions
I was very much in that latter camp before I discovered this channel, Vlad. My thoughts previously being along the lines of, "The world's gone mad, once people see that Brexit/Trump/something else, isn't what they think, they'll return to their senses and we can get on again". - I now see that I would have waited an awfully long time, getting more and more frustrated 😆.
I would just like to say without getting into a fight that Brexit has been good for me. I was a leaver and I am guessing you were a remainer. I think it is clear that now that Germany is neutered, broke and heading back to its traditional totalitarian ways. Civil society in EU is collapsing before our eyes. The green agenda has been implemented with such fanaticism that the welfare programs traditionally enjoyed by Europeans are no longer affordable. And again without trying to be argumentative I hope you will realise there is no going back to the "good old days" of EU acceptance.
Unfortunately BREXIT has a much deeper root in me than most younger people as since it's inception we have been lied to and not had referendum votes during major changes to what was a basic economic agreement to an encompassing political agreement which would not have passed originally, the EU has turned into a political engine for Germany and France since its inception against the interest of most other states in Europe. Political union in Europe is as dead as a dodo, open borders are going to be a continuing problem until they will eventually be closed, all these things the UK asked the EU to look at prior to BREXIT and was basically shown the door. Germany as most of the EU countries reliance on Russian energy has enabled Russia to start a war in Europe so it's mantra that it was formed to stop further wars in Europe doesn't even hold water. I hate the EU with a passion, it is undemocratic and bureaucratic, the EU share of World trade will decline by 2030 from 15% of World Trade to 11% of World Trade, it is a failed project and it needs to revert to a economic agreement for the whole of Europe (Apart from Russia!) to get back on track, all defence should be done under NATO and Hungary should be excluded until it's democracy is actually free from major corruption and democratic. Trump thrives in the US because a sizeable section of its community is ignored so it will vote in someone who represents them, it will most probably happen with the right wing in the UK as the loony left are having more unfettered control, it's moving away from the centre when choppy waters are met!?!
Ive written 3 books on narcissism / recovery from narcissistic abuse and I KNEW things were not going to go back to normal when it all went wrong. People have invested their identity in these narcissists / projects / leaders. They have lost family and friends, they are isolated or surrounded by other believers. My greatest worry for the US was not Trump continuing as he has, but Trump just leaving the country and never heard from again - you would have had 35 million people +/- that would be left with a giant hole in their personality to fill, and many would turn to much more extreme beliefs to fill it.
Thanks! I was so glad to see so many people come out for Navalny's funeral. I hope his sacrifice was not in vain and something positive can come from his death.
I do, too. Never regretted deciding to watch one of Vlad's videos or Vlad's newest video instead of someone else's content. The nuggets of knowledge, wisdom & insight are eeerywhere in Vlad's content; you'd hafta try to not find any on purpose to actually come away from one of his videos without even one teensy nugget of goodness in your noggin that wasn't there beforehand!
Tucker alwags does what Tucker does. He creates disinformation under the guise of asking questions, while knowing fully well what the answers to his questions are.
He’s def a person that has a tendency to muddy the waters. I don’t see why people are in to him tbh, his reasonings many times makes no sense whatsoever.
As someone who is generally skeptical of institutions, I feel caught in the middle of two worlds that are both headed the wrong way. On one side, I see the "death of truth" resulting from decades of having institutions that 1. don't admit their wrongs, 2. don't understand that the wrongs they do admit to can legitimately translate to mistrust, and 3. don't admit that they have legitimacy-damaging negative motives or influences. The people in this group understand that this opacity is wrong, but they struggle to get past it and gain a fuller understanding of these instutitions. That's how we get wild conspiracy theories. On the other side, I see people who think they understand the first group while not understanding them at all. They do not recognize their institutions' role in creating and growing the first group mainly because they get their information from the same institutions that have a hard time admitting their faults. This group thinks that critics of the institutions are, like you said, "just ignorant", or an -ist or a -phobe. That's how we get "white supremacists" around every corner. Both sides have blind spots originating from their information diet. Honestly, I do not know how big they are for each side, but I believe that each person's answer to that depends on their own information diet (ex. mainstream vs. alternative).
I respect Lex and his journey but like the interview with Oliver Stone, I physically couldn't finish listening. I feel I gained insight into the mind of Carlson but that intense degree of close-mindedness (in this case US-centricity) just kills my motivation. I personally don't see the issue as a lack of rationality, but rather the effect of radicalism (either direction) on the human psyche. That's only going to get more intense as more of 'reality' is subsumed by algorithm-driven ecosystems.
You don't have to listen to it, even if it gives you some insight the time you spend is an opportunity cost. There are better things to do with your time.
True, there is no need to listen. Most of what we spend our time in is not based on need. What we value as individuals and therefore chose to focus on with that time is deeply subjective. 'Better' implies some objective standard. Telling someone that they could/ought to be spending their time better mascarades a subjective value judgment and as an objective assessment. If someone is neglecting their needs in life by focusing on wants, then there is room for discussion but I gave no indication of that in my comment. I'm assuming your reply was trying to be helpful, but it's not really. Personally, I would also caution against gamification of your life...the idea of time as opportunity cost and the implied maximizing of value. Stoicism is a helpful tool in life, but describing this conscious experience (living) using economic terms seems fraught.
@@jay3517 I often just use AI tools to automatically transcribe a podcast and then ask another AI to summarize it, stops me from wasting too much time finding out if they are saying anything of substance.
Your sort of right . But what is most obvious in my experience is the death of stable enduring community that sort of gives you a a voice and agency just by birth and a platform for politics and business and social action , a community that knows you. Its collapsed generally. Even for people for existing social networks with elements of tradition that survive they are weaker and much less protective. The old extended families were very powerful ney works that found people , jobs , friends spouses shared information and opportunity. And on a local basis they would all , even with out marriages ( which inevitably happened between strong rooted families) share a common Church meet or members of families would meet on Sunday. And other community organization followed. So we would naturally dominate local politics and select and try out people for still higher office. And when we did choose them we d promote them collectively. Now England wasnt so disimilar at least rural England which as in Alberta interlinked with the cities. This sort of world is partly gone and been replaced by very vulnerable transitory isolated individuals or nuclear families. The world of farmers in prairie Canada was somewhat similar to this but the economic basis of status was much weaker and as always technological change is your enemy but an enemy you cant escape. 90 % of the population disappeared with extreme hyper industrialization of agriculture and extreme concentration of wealth. And the new industrial families are often rootless , sometimes old origina families and some of thier net works survived the radical economic change. But still an awful lot has been lost. The elite in Calgary is an oil elite unstable ,individualistic and ruthless. To them the old families are ornaments or toys, were as distespected and isolated from real power as natives. One can try a guerrilla rear gard action. But its impossible to do much. If theres a political problem you phone up boys you went to school with 70 years ago or yr cousins but you will be blasted away by the megaphone of an oil billionaire . We re very weak and the original families were privileged people. Poor isolated people might as well tilt at the oil industry or the media it generates as Don Quixote would tilt at windmills. Thats how i see it. Im old i get to die soon ,run out the clock and let the new ones inherit hell on earth.
The west has an enormous identity crisis, which makes its so weak and inept. And this phenomena was already described in 1998 by Bassam Tibi, who wrote a very important Book about it. It described how already in the 90s left liberal dogmatism took over the political landscape. It was written because already in the 90s there were lots of people who refused the german values, lived from german wealthfare state and werent thrown out of the country even if they commited a horrible crime. Same thing happened in all western countries in europe not just germany. He proposed that germany needs an "european leading culture (Leitkultur)" which holds us together. Unfortunetly nothing happened and things got even far worse. Either Europe changes in the next 10 years radically and imposes this "Leitkultur" or we can say goodbye to our freedoms, somekind of dictatorship will be established.
Vlad. To use your own terms, the western public have become depoliticised. It has happened because the political class hold elections, make promises and seem to empathise with anything that will get them votes but only behave as Uniparty. The voters have woken (sic) up to that and now feel they have no power so they don't vote. The risk is they vote for extremist parties and people. I do not mean AFD which is just another party - you want to know what an extremist party looks like? Just let the political class carry on a bit longer and we are likely to get it - nationalist, isolationist, economically and socially damaging and they will set class agains class, race against race. It is disappointing you do not even acknowledge any fault in the USA voting system or the influence of unregulated social media organisations.
The duopoly in American is certainly a tragic truth, it pushes too many discussions into two sided discussions. If the US introduced an single-transferrable-vote system and a standardized and fair un-gameable vote districting algorithm then there would probably be more reason for people to engage with politics as issues that are important but not championed by either the blue/red side would actually receive more attention. But the truth is if it were like that Republicans as they are today would not win another election for a good while, you know, until they actually started running on actual productive politics that aren't designed to scare people into voting for them.
The way I see it is democracy is like a delicate garden. It doesn't just occur naturally - takes careful, consistent, organized effort to maintain. Without enough care, weeds take over and the garden is lost.
As someone or other said, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes, and I can never shift the thought of the similarities of our times to Weimar Germany. Not only were people embracing political extremes, but all sorts of other, frankly, nonsense - all sorts of wacky pseudoscience and alternative health stuff, conspiracy theories, bizarre philosophical movements, etc. (an awful lot of Nazi mysticism comes straight from theosophy). Interwar Germany was eerily similar in being the same sort of ridiculous bullshit factory paired with a love of extremist politics that we see in the modern world. One wonders how much the causes of both might be similar. I would certainly hope we don't have the same end point.
Something I noticed mostly on Lex Fridman's video with Tucker is how the comment section feels so artificial like it's being spammed by bots giving positive reviews. Or is it just me?
I did notice the same but I think that it's more probable that it's my wishful thinking. It just might be that a very small number of "bots" are now powerful enough to spontaneously generate a deluge of genuine reactions in an sufficiently established environment as Lex's comment section.
@@JA-gz6cj Oh. I am definitely not denying that. What I said is that they might be way more efficient than we want to believe. The insanity might be almost self-reinforcing by now.
I was thinking recently how ignorance has brought us at this point in time. Call me a radical if you want, but in the face of everything that is happening I do believe now that in order to participate in democracy one must prove that he knows how to use a brain.
...so...the solution to the problem.....is then to try to understand the other political actors and their fears, needs and goals. Not demonize them as this only creates distance and makes it harder to engage in dialogue.
Which is why I have immense respect for people with enough patience and compassion to do it, because it can sure be exhausting. The most important thing is not to try to convince them that you are right or they are wrong but to get them to actually think logically on their own, a harder task than it may seem...
Back in 2014, in the wake of the Crimean Anschluss and the Donbas intervention, I had a couple of chats with a friend, which he recorded and uploaded on Soundcloud. Back then, looking at Brexit, looking at the protest vote tendencies, and what Putler was doing, I characterized what was happening as "the West is having an identity crisis", and I suggested there's a very real chance that Trump may win (this would've been sometime in the spring of 2014). It's been a decade, and none of the systemic issues have really been addressed all that well.
I am very interested in the 2024 US elections because they concern me even as a European. Everything becomes clear when Trump says he loves the uneducated. Carlson's interview was already doomed due to the circumstances. What sensible should have come out of it if he has to worry about ending up in Russian prison...apart from, that Carlson and sensibleness don't match.
Alright, this is the same theme of two perspectives that both are killing our democracies, so what are the actual solutions? Or if none yet exist, who's in media is known to work towards them?
Well described. Whatever the issue, people are becoming more and more entrenched and there is no attempt at diplomacy with the other side. They are all idiots to be mocked, no attempt at understanding, persuasion or honest debate. Vicious cycle gets worse and worse until...
@@crmathenyAs a left winger, I sincerely appreciate people like you who can appreciate people on the right. Someone has to have the patience. Mine has run out.
@@wordscapes5690 I know what you mean about exhaustion, wheeeee. But it's weird -- the more I phrase my political opinions without reference to the left v. right index and instead with reference to newly-salient orthogonal indices (liberal v. authoritarian, idealist v. realist, universalist vs. identitarian, progressive v. traditional, anarchic v. hierarchical, etc.) the more I find myself able to make sense to myself and others. Politics is a big tree with many under-utilized branches.
@@crmatheny Dividing all things political into the universal left-right divide is always a simplification. So I like that you're more precise with your language and use multiple axis to compare political ideas along. The left-right axis is a silly one, because it merely reflects current general stance towards political ideas. Where an idea lies on the left-right axis is subject to change over time. But an authoritarian idea will always be an authoritarian idea, whether it's the left or right that's in favour of it.
I do a little local US TV show that my father started decades ago; I participate as the panel member from Ukraine/Europe/abroad. The old retired lefties exhibit this behaviour precisely, bashing the MAGA-types with the same old "you're stupid" rhetoric in louder and louder tones. And, yes, they're right to a point that where those Trumpist are is so far down that it's one lie after another, but how did we get here? Well, for example, the predecessors to the MAGA and Tea Party folks asked questions like "how does affirmative action solve racism?" to which they were told you are stupid and ignorant. If you're old enough to remember how the Republican party manipulated working class folks to vote red, you'll also likely remember plenty of Democratic rebuttals that were counter-productive. Eventually the number of people banished as "ignoramuses" took over the Republican party from the people who thought they could manipulate and control them. There's a sci-fi like plot in this story.
The political miracle of fooling people into believing that the Republicans were the party of the working man . . . It's partly that the Dems, especially under Bill Clinton, dropped the ball and essentially abandoned labour, in favour of the influence of Wall St. and the financialization of the economy. The donor class was calling. But the far-right Koch Bros' (oil and coal funded) project of purchasing and blanketing talk radio and saturating the AM radio airwaves across the country with decades of 24/7 blue-collar brainwash, - in the truck or car, and while at work, that had to have a numbing sensation! Then you get home and turn on this new guy Rush Limbaugh and sit down to some toxic infotainment that, decades later, eventually spawns more and more people like Tucker Carlson. All of this has had the intended effect of polarizing society to where it's near tribal in the era of Trump (well played Vlad!) But let's not forget Ronnie Reagan's legislation rolling back regulations and clearing away cumbersome and awkward requirements of broadcasters... such as the appearance of impartially through balanced reporting (terrible as it was), soon to usher in fact averse "news" outlets such as Rupert Murdoch's FOX News, Breitbart, etc. And what about campaign finance reform? And what about the separation of church and state? Anyways, at least the taxes have never been lower, wink. Respect from Canada
Picketty demonstrated the long post war boom helped the middle class. In the US and UK middle class rot really started with Reagan/Thatcher neocon economics. These drew resources away from the middle class and in the US in particular damaged many mid west manufacturing communities. The purported belief was that the 'trickle down effect' would lift all boats, and take care of the fallout. It didnt, at least not for those in the lowest economic quartile. It is unsurprising that in those countries most wedded to neocon economics, we are now seeing the fallout in the form of significant societal discontent and a drift towards authoritarian solutions. Those countries that exploited what benefits neocon globalisation could provide, while maintaining a healthy scepticism towards where it was headed have done better. They maintained a strong social safety net ensuring all sectors of society benefitted. Unsurprisingly these countries are continuing to maintain strong democracies.
Your point about opaque political systems leading to accepting false or simplistic narratives is spot on. I see it all around me, even amongst family and friends. It's an irrational - but understandable - response. As for the other half, whom I characterize as the Obama-Hillary smug elites, are simply reacting to the first half with disdain when they deny that there is a social crisis. Is there any way out of this impasse?
By recognising that the “deplorables” (mostly decent voters doing their best) might often have the truth wrong, but they are right that they need political agency for which the political system makes no room. The only room they get is destructive, and so they use that.
Don’t shift anywhere in a knee jerk way. A good start is to reflect on why what’s happening is happening, what centrist politics may have done to bring it about. There is a growing literature on democratic degeneration and regeneration. Also, you are in a good place here to be part of conversations about this. I’m fanatical about keeping our democracies.
If you're centrist you will most likely be looking at both sides of any particular issue and you are free to support whatever arguments make the most sense to you. A centrist position allows you to easily lean one way or the other on any particular issue.
Back to 2014, to David Simon's 'Some People Are More Equal Than Others' speech. About rejuvenating the social contract. The full original version (not the pop up fest redo) is on sp0t1fy podcasts hosted by ideas at the house.
It’s not the centrist position that is the problem. It’s the blindness among some centrists that the radical extremism (sorry for the redundancy) on the right wing will just go away or that eventually sane conservatives will find the courage and wherewithal to put a lid on it (as they have in the past-see how they dealt with the John Birch society). But to address the blindness to the social crisis, we have to understand the nature of the social crisis, and then we must figure out how to address it in a way that doesn’t reinforce the division. That’s a tough nut to crack, imho.
Vlad, I would love to hear your advice for those of us in the UK where we also have two warring groups concentrating on invented or exaggerated issues, rather than constructive discussion of how to solve the many real and growing social problems that exist. I'd say this applies to those in power and the opposition, as well as many commentators.
The politician sure do like to steer the discussion towards a single or few issues that get people riled up, that way the media will be incentivised to give them coverage because of the increased eye-balls.
Thank you Vlad we appreciate your words and insights, Tucker Carlson loves attention and just like his small audience they swim in drama and false beliefs and as you well know drama creates more drama which then shakes their tree of belief and as the branches/leaves fall from the tree it multiplies into more delusion coated in more dramas!!! When one then lets people like trump prune the trees it quickly creates a bigger mess with no fruit able to grow which then needs cutting back to the ground in the hopes that it grows without the dramas by the one who first pruned the tree!!!! Growing trees that bear fruit for the future requires one to be patient with compassion and benevolence to appreciate the opportunities that can manifest an orchard that keeps bearing the food of life without any diseases growing in the fruit.
One of the last things that Alexei Navalny called for was "NOON AGAINST PUTIN" - He called for all his supporters to go to the nearest police station and protest and demonstrate at NOON on SUNDAY 17th MARCH. Let's see how many will actually show up.
The diagnosis is spot on, thank you, but was is the cure? This has been unraveling for quite some time now. I live in Norway, which seems to be politically in a much better shape than many other Western nations, yet even here I no longer see parties I would full-heartedly want to vote for. And in the States I would have been completely lost long ago, plague on both your houses. In the recent months I sometimes think that the end of the world as we know it might be just around the corner. A couple of catastrophic events, like a collapse of the Ukrainian defense or a nonconclusive (for a sufficiently large part of the population) outcome of the American elections, and that's it, we are doomed.
You're not alone in thinking that way about those things. Dunno if that helps, but at least it's the truth. As an aside, I'm an American, & over my 4 decades (+/-) of coherent thought processes (mostly coherent, anyway), I've often found myself wishing I'd been born a Norwegian. Y'alls country & culture have much to be admired. That's just my opinion, but I know I can honestly tell ya' there's a pretty heckin' decent amount of fellow Norway & Norwegian admirers here in the States. I'm just lucky I was able to do a lot of overseas traveling between the ages of not quite 1 yr old & 32, so at least I'd figured out by the time I was 8-9 that "American Exceptionalism" was a load of bollocks & that was when I hadn't actually heard/read about "American Exceptionalism" yet. Less than 25% of American citizens ever travel any further beyond the borders of the US than _maybe_ a cruise or something with friends or family to somewhere in Mexico or perhaps Jamaica or the Bahamas, but those trips are almost always tailored to what Americans would already think of as being a good time or think of as something interesting; there's not a lot of demand for full-on "cultural immersion" type of tourist experiences in 'Murica. Thank gawd n sweet baby jeebus my parents were the type who expressly sought out that sort of thing whenever they/we went to other countries, and that every 1.5-2 years from under age 1 to 32 I got to go overseas with my folks. We'd always make our way to at least 2 and up to 5 different countries every time we went on one of our trips (I got to go to a few countries 2-4 times). Sadly though, we never made it to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Romania, Estonia, or Ukraine, among other eastern (and western) European countries that I *_really_* wish I'd been able to visit. Now I'm too old, I have chronic illnesses, I'm physically disabled, & my traveling days have been over for quite a while. But at least for all those years, I got to have the sorts of experiences & meet the types of people that over 75% of Americans never will. I'm just *_SO_* grateful I never believed America was the best country in the world, or the best at much of anything really (despite the indoctrination that starts in kindergarten, sometimes sooner), because I'd been to countries as a child that'd been doing things better than the US for centuries before the 1st European settler-colonisers ever put one single foot of theirs down on North or South American soil. I'm extremely lucky I was adopted by my parents instead of some other couple, or I could've easily ended up believing American Exceptionalism isn't a load of bollocks, and that woulda (unbeknownst to me) condemned me to a very sad, pitiful & pretty danged awful existence.
If ignoring the Tucker Carlson camp is just as toxic as being part of it, what exactly do you recommend Vlad? Dialogue? How do you engage people whose beliefs are shaped by fundamental distrust in democracy?
It’s not distrust in democracy but in institutions. Many Americans seem to think the government is oppressing them and trying to control them. We need to make them realize it’s not the case.
@@abbybailey5933 I agree that the discourse on the populist right is about returning to real democracy and freedom by reigning in the "institutions" that supposedly undermined it. However, my point was a bit more general in the sense that mistrusting institutions ultimately equates to mistrusting the democratic system that generated them. It's true that democracy is not a stable self-sustaining system. But the surest path to destroying it is seeding mistrust in the way the system works. All textbook "active measures" that long precede Trump.
@@abbybailey5933it will be rather difficult, especially considering that is very much the case. I am not sure what reality you live in, but it is simply impossible to deny anti-democratic government overreach in the West
True, true. It could also be the general westerner idealisation of Russians ("...but Dostoyevsky, but Tolstoy!") which to me - a post-Soviet Europoor is weird, considering he is a Jewish man of Russian descent (read - the population of Russian/Soviet Empire that had most critical thinking skills and political savy). Love your patience, Vlad.@@VladVexlerChat
@@VladVexlerChat I think he is in some ways also algorithmically driven, just like Russel, but for him it's the collection of people he interviews combined with his interview style of not challenging properly what some of his more political guests are spouting political speech. He's basically just turned himself into a soapbox that his guests can come and stand on. There is a certain evolution in the types of his guests.
Trumpers come in 4 or 5 different flavors. There is a regional component as well. I have worked with several of these. After watching Lex's interview, Tucker is average, average education, average perspective. Some truthiness, some strange unquestioned assumptions.
Analytically this is all true and relevant for our political discourse. Except for one caveat. The individual himself. Captured by the algorithm, yes...but eventually, he came face to face with the regime, looking for something to sell. How many in the US media get to enter the despot's interpersonal orbit as a mutual PR exercise and then just go back to their usual routines as if the regime has forgotten about them? Oliver Stone? Steven Segal? Alex Jones did the rounds with the talking heads, a standard algorithmic circle jerk. Carlson did a deal directly with the devil. I don't know we can surely say the devil is done with him yet. US media elites don't come and go at their leisure from that den of iniquity in the same ways they might ride algorithms through other spaces. Even minor celebrities can't leave if the regime has political designs for them. Whether Carlson likes it or not, his algorithmic effect is tied up with the regime's aims...and the regime has an interest in maintaining that mutual relationship. People are acting like this was a one off, like it's over already and we're all reflecting upon it. It's not. Not for Putin, not for Carlson, and certainly not for the algorithm. Tragically, it's only just begun.
Question for anyone: what kind of change resolves the social trust crisis? New initiative institutions, I guess? What would that look like concretely? Roosevelt's WPA 2.0 with new journalistic/deliberative thrust?
Vlad, can you talk about the role of historians in bringing us, the society, closer to truth (I know truth is a difficult term) in regard to contested issues like 'N4z1 regime in Kyiv', 'oppression of Russians in Donbass', 'Crimea is Russian and gift to Ukraine was a failure', etc. ? I think the general public should have a database to be enabled to argue in the best possible way against misinformation and deception by trolls and guileful agents. Can a congress of historians create such a widely acknowledged scientific base on which we can build our discussions on international topics like the reasons for the war in Ukraine? Thank you! *sorry for the ill educated expression and bad English
I have not watched much Fridman, but I am surprised to hear you say he has integrity. Does he ever actually challenge this parade of fascist sympathizers that go on his show?
I have not watched that much of him either, but I did see him interview a member of the then dark web and he seemed more than a little in awe. To me he comes across as a bit naive. I don't quite know what message he is trying to get across with the black tie and suit. It looks amazingly uncomfortable.
There has long been a crisis in democracy, democracy does not necessarily act in the interests of its participants. At one time in a more deferential society, leaders were elected not because they would do exactly what their electors wanted them to, but because they were considered wiser and more adept than the other party and could be trusted to use their superior education and experience to lead, not to blindly follow, to take unpopular decisions when necessary and to explain to the electorate why they had to take those actions. In our current Western democracies, the elected repesentatives can make short term bad decisions so long as they are popular because they are rarely going to face any real consequences from their selfish actions. Trump is a fine example, he knows he can get away with what he does because he has advisors who will use every legal trick in the book to delay justice to the point where it will not matter any longer to him as he will either be dead or unfit to plead.
Great Video Vlad, I identify many times with the side that you mention......and I feel I take this position because I don't have the tools nor the solution to fix this substantial issue with democracy......what is your view or recommendation on how to act to improve the situation and not make it worst? Sometimes I have the feeling that this is exactly what putin or any dictator want on us.....to generate 2 sides of the story that fight each other to the infinite….they want the plurality of ideas to disappear.
With regard to organized trolling / bots on social media - MSM comment boards for example, that no doubt has helped get us to this place, it's clear that one of the intents is simply to "sow discord" in the public discourse. When you see the volumes of posts and patterns in communication style, often with a few themes or "talking points", you know you're in the zone. Another political tactic is as Steve Bannon says : "Fill the zone with sh!t "
@@GarrFagen-zc3em ok, but is this good?? I tried many times to use the “good” path, but it doesn't work, for me is like trying to explain to a flat earther that the earth is not flat......they don't want to know the truth.....and is harder when the truth is not scientific….
I know, it's complicated psychology. I read that it's similar to trying to communicate with people who have been victim of serious fraud or become drawn into a cult. I'm having a hard time recalling the process, however it involves empathy (recognizing that they are not alone, or the first to ever be badly deceived) and hinting at solutions that may help them move beyond it. Ultimately it's up to them to learn from it and move on, if they are ready. I also recall one author (writing on political campaign strategy, I think?) talk about the challenge as not an attempt to replace someone's belief but to displace the belief, through making them question the entrenched thinking, at first. If I locate the source again I will pass it along.
No, Lex Fridman doesn't have integrity. He poses himself as "culturally Russian" or "Grown up in the USSR" while he by no means a Russian and he was 8 or so when Parents took him off Moscow to USA in c. 1991. He went to Ukraine in 2022, made interview(s) there and has not published at least one - with Olexey Arestovich, and has not said why he has not published the interview.
I don't think the mainstream view is "we should do nothing and just wait it out", it's more like "we don't know what to do about this, so we carry on as usual until we find a solution". While the MAGA crowd feels powerless against the powers that be, the mainstream people feel powerless against the (perceived) stupidity and malignity of the MAGAs. So, Vlad, instead of repeatedly telling us that everyone is doing everything wrong, it might be more constructive if you outlined some possible approaches that you would consider less wrong.
Too many Tucker Fanboys on Lex's channel now. Bad move I think. I'm done with him now that he has the TATE/TUCKER/ALEX JONES/ MAGA monsters following him now.
I always find your analysis provocative. In this case I disagree, not because you're incorrect about two of the tendencies in US politics,(I make no claim about elsewhere in the world's politics), but because your comparison is both unbalanced (Those who believe DJT actually won, versus "centrist media") and incomplete. Those are not comparing people with people, even though you do mention "consumers of centrist media". Those who do watch the hegemonic pronouncements of such as the Times or CNN are not mindless, or not all of them are. The alliance of the Party of Trump (formerly known as the GOP) with Christo-fascist elements within that party has gone too far, and has generated not simply opposition, but generated political organization. The recent Alabama IVF nonsense motivated a large and immediate backlash which was sufficiently organized to force an ideologically-controlled majority of the Legislature to give in on issues they thought they had unquestionable power over. And that's just one example. The historically-unusual failure of the opposition party to gain much in the way of Congressional power at the 2022 midterms is another. "Centrists" are not simply mocking, or tut-tutting. They're organizing and voting. Win or lose, organization and participation is a net positive in the political space. The GOP is also losing a formerly solid group of voters, suburban women because they have gone too far to please the Christo-fascisti, aka Dominionists. The sex gap is only going to get worse for the GOP until they move closer to the center, and that can't happen very soon, because of the fear of Donald Trump. So while the Party is driven further to the irrational Right, the center-right among the electorate has little choice but to align with the center-left. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that most Americans are not so stupid as to buy into the "Who knows how killed Navalny? of Tucker. Even those who don't execrate Pres. Putin are not going to ignore the manifestly obvious prime suspect. They may even think its a good thing in some perverse way, that Putin is a strongman, but Tucker is being misled by the algorithm if he thinks this is going to boost his audience penetration. Thank you as always, Vlad. Wishing you good heath.
Vlad, I’m an avid follower of your channels. As a Social Philosopher, what influence would you say spiritual, socio-economic, and generational differences had on Russians who now find themselves in the hyper-nationalist, central blob, and pro-Putin groups in Russia?
No, I actually don't know what Tucker said, nor did I watch his interview with Putin. And you, the beautiful community, should think hard, if you want to give this man a platform. How many times do you need to reassure yourself, that he is not a sapere aude/truthful person. And quit twitter, for gods sake! Love you all!
For many decades now in the West, the educational system has taken a very relativistic view that there is no such thing as "truth." Truth, as many a teacher has explained to his or her students from young ages, is just a matter of perception and experience. It is personal, and therefore relative and quite indefinable. So it should only seem logical that the next step down that road would be that public discourse and accountability also no longer have much certainty in distinguishing fact from opinion, let alone comprehending that there could then be right-thinking sentiments and wrong-thinking sentiments. Perhaps it used to be more of just a philosophical question--one which the Bible accounts Pontius Pilate as rhetorically asking Jesus ("What is truth?")--but it is a belief that obviously has some enormous practical consequences as well, far outside of educational circles and the "Green Book" that C.S. Lewis panned in _The Abolition of Man._
The idea that centrism is hoping everything will magically get better seems incorrect to me. Surely centrism is opposing extremism, actively. It also frustrates me that you repeatedly say that the problem isn't gullible idiots being shaped by malefactors when a lot if it IS that. Sure, complaining about it amongst ourselves won't cure it, and calling them gullible idiots also won't - but you don't appear to have a plan either - sure, you're not a activism channel, but after watching many of your videos I'm not convinced that you are part of a solution.
@@sk.43821 Sure, getting more people to use their brains is good, but it seems to me a lot of the problem is the people that refuse to, which this doesn't seem likely to reach.
@@Hohum37 I agree with you. However, everyone fulfills a role. Vlad has his role. Others should use parts of his analysis and transfer this understanding into effective political concepts and convincing discussion. Of course Vlad could become a more active activist, but then somebody else will fulfill his role. And will we then complain about this person's 'inactive' role as well?
I find myself disagreeing with you over Lex Fridman; he most definitely is algorithmically driven. In many ways what he does parallels Joe Rogan and other podcasters. Particularly the fact he made consistent effort of bringing up celebrities like Elon Musk and philosophy to attempt to look smart. Not to say he’s unintelligent or a shill, but he most definitely has made use of the algorithm to expedite his popularity through trying to reach a bigger audience. A bigger audience, not a wider one with different viewpoints like you do so well at.
Sorry folks but I'm struggling to understand exactly what Vladimir is saying. I think he's saying that Tucker is playing with the truth to play his audience.? I don't think it would be difficult to be a lot more clear in telling us what he's thinking.
That Tucker Carlson, he's got this super weird nervous laugh. I'm on board with some of the more common sense and basic stuff he's saying, such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press being an important part in democracy, but with other stuff, he's waaay out there, such as with replacement theory, or his partizan support of Trump.
Yet again, you make me realise how lucky I was to find your channel & what a good choice I made when I decided to subscribe 1/2 way through the 1st video of yours I'd ever seen. You are a rare & unique individual with a rare & unique mind. You, the individual, and your unique mind are gifts you've chosen to share with your viewers, and I'm grateful for the freedom & frequency with which you share them with me/us. If the people who've become our politicians were 1/3 as politically astute or philosophically inclined as you, at this juncture we might have at least a few properly functional systems of government, working for the people, and by the people. Instead we have systematically & systemically broken forms of governance that give us the political representation of would-be rulers & royals (or wannabe dictators), bankrolled by the corporate and/or religious "special interests" to whom they're soley answerable, working for the money and power, by the power and (of?) money.
I get the problem. But I don't know what I can do to help fix that. I vote, I talk about politics (that is much more about policies and institutions and much less about individual politicians). What else can a regular person do? Could you make a video on this topic at some point?
I'm still in the angry break it all phase of my grief, I failed to realise how Mr Navalny underpinned all my unsaid hopes for my Russian friends, and just as many potential answers to the current conflict, between family. No one man has the ability, or the right to impact so many lives, this evil must end. yeh, I kinda had to edit that.
In a time where everything is being politicized I’m happy you are here Vlad. I see myself as a person that’s always seeking the factual evidence and truth about our world. The only thing I know for sure is that the truth doesn’t give af about what I think about it so feeling upset about it is just a waste of energy.
It’s gone beyond truthiness. George W. Bush was truthy. Bill Clinton was truthy. What we are seeing in some quarters isn’t a bending of the truth but a breaking of it and an absence of it. The demagogues and their followers say, “Up is down and down is up.” Clinton would have said “it depends on how you define down”. Bush might have said, “We’re moving sideways”. One could always talk to a voter for Clinton or Bush and show them evidence of the error in their thinking. You could show them the data. (You also had to be willing to look at their evidence/data and hear them out in good faith.)
I feel my most significant political act is to preserve family wealth and identity and the community we belonged to. The angry rabble rousers are rootless outsiders. But i follow politics. I feel deep hatred for the populists esp since a cousin helped organize them and legitimize them intellectually, because he wanted to be told he was a genius wanted to be fawned over. I can not fight him politically because that would burn up millions and jeoprodize the survival of the relatives i do care about who are nieghbours and friends. I cant do both. And the only political vehicle to fight the populist right are the socialists who dont respect or understand people like me. They are nevertheless the best people. But even generous socialists can properly represent old time stable families with inherited social position and resources. So my principal political act is just managing money or farms , doing my work so our rural community and extended family will survive. I cannot fight populists and climate science deniers financed by oil billionaires. It would be quixotic. And kids venting on the internet can t even do the little i can do.
There are a few certainties in life, one of them is death. Another one is that when Tucker Carlson opens his mouth he will say something stupid and he never disappoints us !!!
That was an excellent breakdown of the dichotomy of the two tribes, and you tied it back to the topic of Carlson. A cocoon was a good visual model as I understand it, too.
Dear Vlad, I found you when you appeared early in the pandemic on John Campbell's channel. I had watched Campbell for a daily digest of medical analysis about COVID19. I felt his information to be quite useful at the time. However, in the last few years, he seems to become, at best, an algorithm surfer like Tucker. It's a disappointment to me. I had recommended him to other viewers; now I cringe at the thought. I would be curious to hear your thoughts about how one becomes "red-pilled" like that. What are the economic pressures, but also, what kind of bargain does someone strike with themselves to become untruthful? What is the philosophy there? How does someone like Campbell shift away from a career in verifiable science into a peddler of rage? Nonetheless, I'm happy to have watched his channel, for it led me to your channels. Best of health to you.
Gradually - opposite things to what was said at the beginning are said now. When the change is infinitesimal on a weekly basis it’s hard for the content maker to hold themselves to account. A good illustration of the power of what I am talking about. I actually think 95% of people lose their way if they deal with serious cultural or political issues. It’s just a matter of extent. I am sure I have spoken about this at length in general terms and will do so again. You can search for Vlad Vexler algorithms.
I have just heard John Mearsheimer say that he is certain Navalny died from a blood clot. I'm not sure John is algorithmicaly driven. Should we be concerned?
As someone who strongly criticises you in most videos I enjoyed listening to this video. There is a lot I agree with. And I am not trying to get in a fight over this. I would just say ( without getting into a long discussion) that it is precisely your own certainty that 2020 election was correct that scares us on the other side. I hope you can accept that neither side "owns" the full truth. My opinion is that ( for a multitude of reasons)the State is way too powerful and constantly seeks to expand its power. The democratic institutions and govt agencies are now acting to Protect the State not as organisations Protecting the public. The speech by little Rishi Sunak after the Rochdale election was a classic example of the State seeking to protect itself from public opinion. Some people will believe Sunak is telling the "truth" but others will not accept it in the slightest. But my main point is that if the State itself acts in such an obviously irresponsible way then why should the public accept it? Keep up the good work, stay healthy and fit.
I am really confused how after all the various state recounts and legal challenges that were unsuccessful in finding significant voter fraud following the 2020 election why that can not be accepted by "the other side". Are you aware of Roger Stone's roll in the tactics and events leading to the outcome of the Florida dispute that tipped the Gore v Bush election of 2000?
I watched Tucker Carlson on Lex Friedman’s UA-cam channel and it hit me like a rock what I was watching ! - A young child gorged on conspiracy theories and at the same time on a sugar high ! I recommend you to watch the full interview but in your mind put a hyper child in TC’s place and it all becomes clear … we the adults in the room are expecting a young child in a man’s body to answer deeply political and societal questions and are then surprised by his childish answers !!!
You and you talks and insight and visions of a possible future it has helped me so much, it is hard to express even. Please keep making content for us all. ❤
💛💙💜💙💛 i think every person knows what is true, but some have gone down a rabbit hole and the reason they went down it still beckons them to continue, that the reward they're looking for is within their reach, if they just keep going.
What is true in the human realm🤔 safe&effective🤔the west is generally full of 💩 and we are fed endless lies by the MSM that were meant to accept as fact 🍻back down the rabbit hole white rabbit🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇
@@steverooke1717 Based on other comments I have read that you have written from this old abandoned UA-cam account that you hijacked, I imagine your comments were blocked for good reason.
We need you advising governments on this, Vlad. There needs to be a policy approach to this, or else the destructive reactions to the trust crisis will just continue.
You're half right Vlad, and somewhat paradoxically, guilty of what you suggest the center and left do with your own assessment. The center and left (for current lack of better terms) aren't deaf. They have heard the claims of dissatisfaction. Heck, many even share in it! The problem is that the claims from people on the right don't represent their true issue. You take them at face value and you're already in their dissonance. We are living in an era where the fundamental authoritarianism of the political right has simply run out of ways to hide its true agenda. Is not for us to break bread with liars and faux-malcontents. It's for us to disavow them and ideally protect our political institutions from them.
I've been experiencing this negative and unproductive division between me and my teenage son. Thank you for putting it so clearly in perspective; it gives me hope that we can address it over time as a society and in our personal relationships.
I really like the way Lex Fridman handeles all those outlandish views he is confronted with in some of his interviews. I whish i could be that level headed.
Thanks Vlad, for continuing to hold up the mirror. The problem of truth versus lie in the US goes to the heart of its system of marketing. Ever watch an American commercial? Ever try to devine the facts from that commercial? Ever listen to Donald Trump? "Only I can solve the problem." "I am the best, most knowledgeable about (pick your topic.)" "Everybody loves me." It's all marketing speech. We're conditioned from childhood to accept it. There is an old Scott Adams joke: "In most countries this would be illegal. In America we call it marketing."
Vlad's main channel
ua-cam.com/users/VladVexlervideos
Support Vlad's work on Patreon!
www.patreon.com/vladvexler
Support Vlad via PayPal
www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB
It's getting harder and harder to pay attention to the disasters in western journalism. I'm focusing on just raising money for Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers I follow on instagram now.
After Navalny revealed all his poisoners from the FSB, and one of them even confessed directly over the phone, I don’t understand how doubts can still arise about who is involved in his death...
These doubts can only be feigned through willful ignorance and malice.
If you don't have any morals or principles, you can doubt or believe in anything as long as it aligns with your interests.
Willful denial. It wouldn't matter what evidence is presented.
An uncomfortable truth. Like so many things (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, climate catastrophe, income inequality, rich getting richer/poor getting poorer). It's painful to admit that you support policies (or don't do anything) that doesn't align with who you think you are (a good, moral person), so to suppress this dichotomy, you pretend there is no conflict, no truth. Hide in the shadows. A very sad, lonely, frightening existence. I wish more people were empowered enough to seek truth, rather than hiding from it. The truth will set you free - if you let it!
Vlad sounding a wakeup call.
@garydavidson1970 But a false one.
Have you ever heard of Kirill Budanov??
He is the chief of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence and one of Zelensky's close advisory team.
He declared about a week ago that Navalny died of natural causes.
Check the facts and draw your own conclusions
I was very much in that latter camp before I discovered this channel, Vlad. My thoughts previously being along the lines of, "The world's gone mad, once people see that Brexit/Trump/something else, isn't what they think, they'll return to their senses and we can get on again". - I now see that I would have waited an awfully long time, getting more and more frustrated 😆.
So grateful to have made a small impact on your way of relating to the political world.
The boy who pointed out that the Emperor wore no clothes probably got a good spanking.
I would just like to say without getting into a fight that Brexit has been good for me. I was a leaver and I am guessing you were a remainer.
I think it is clear that now that Germany is neutered, broke and heading back to its traditional totalitarian ways. Civil society in EU is collapsing before our eyes. The green agenda has been implemented with such fanaticism that the welfare programs traditionally enjoyed by Europeans are no longer affordable.
And again without trying to be argumentative I hope you will realise there is no going back to the "good old days" of EU acceptance.
Unfortunately BREXIT has a much deeper root in me than most younger people as since it's inception we have been lied to and not had referendum votes during major changes to what was a basic economic agreement to an encompassing political agreement which would not have passed originally, the EU has turned into a political engine for Germany and France since its inception against the interest of most other states in Europe. Political union in Europe is as dead as a dodo, open borders are going to be a continuing problem until they will eventually be closed, all these things the UK asked the EU to look at prior to BREXIT and was basically shown the door. Germany as most of the EU countries reliance on Russian energy has enabled Russia to start a war in Europe so it's mantra that it was formed to stop further wars in Europe doesn't even hold water. I hate the EU with a passion, it is undemocratic and bureaucratic, the EU share of World trade will decline by 2030 from 15% of World Trade to 11% of World Trade, it is a failed project and it needs to revert to a economic agreement for the whole of Europe (Apart from Russia!) to get back on track, all defence should be done under NATO and Hungary should be excluded until it's democracy is actually free from major corruption and democratic. Trump thrives in the US because a sizeable section of its community is ignored so it will vote in someone who represents them, it will most probably happen with the right wing in the UK as the loony left are having more unfettered control, it's moving away from the centre when choppy waters are met!?!
Ive written 3 books on narcissism / recovery from narcissistic abuse and I KNEW things were not going to go back to normal when it all went wrong. People have invested their identity in these narcissists / projects / leaders. They have lost family and friends, they are isolated or surrounded by other believers.
My greatest worry for the US was not Trump continuing as he has, but Trump just leaving the country and never heard from again - you would have had 35 million people +/- that would be left with a giant hole in their personality to fill, and many would turn to much more extreme beliefs to fill it.
Thanks! I was so glad to see so many people come out for Navalny's funeral. I hope his sacrifice was not in vain and something positive can come from his death.
Thanks dear you. I think we can be hopeful about that, but not soon.
BTW, "an asset of algorithms" is such a wonderful distillation of the phenomenon. I always come out with something good from one of Vlad's videos.
I do, too. Never regretted deciding to watch one of Vlad's videos or Vlad's newest video instead of someone else's content. The nuggets of knowledge, wisdom & insight are eeerywhere in Vlad's content; you'd hafta try to not find any on purpose to actually come away from one of his videos without even one teensy nugget of goodness in your noggin that wasn't there beforehand!
Tucker alwags does what Tucker does. He creates disinformation under the guise of asking questions, while knowing fully well what the answers to his questions are.
He’s def a person that has a tendency to muddy the waters. I don’t see why people are in to him tbh, his reasonings many times makes no sense whatsoever.
He does exactly what you’re saying with that moronic countenance like he is wondering if he just soiled himself.
As someone who is generally skeptical of institutions, I feel caught in the middle of two worlds that are both headed the wrong way.
On one side, I see the "death of truth" resulting from decades of having institutions that 1. don't admit their wrongs, 2. don't understand that the wrongs they do admit to can legitimately translate to mistrust, and 3. don't admit that they have legitimacy-damaging negative motives or influences. The people in this group understand that this opacity is wrong, but they struggle to get past it and gain a fuller understanding of these instutitions. That's how we get wild conspiracy theories.
On the other side, I see people who think they understand the first group while not understanding them at all. They do not recognize their institutions' role in creating and growing the first group mainly because they get their information from the same institutions that have a hard time admitting their faults. This group thinks that critics of the institutions are, like you said, "just ignorant", or an -ist or a -phobe. That's how we get "white supremacists" around every corner.
Both sides have blind spots originating from their information diet. Honestly, I do not know how big they are for each side, but I believe that each person's answer to that depends on their own information diet (ex. mainstream vs. alternative).
I respect Lex and his journey but like the interview with Oliver Stone, I physically couldn't finish listening. I feel I gained insight into the mind of Carlson but that intense degree of close-mindedness (in this case US-centricity) just kills my motivation. I personally don't see the issue as a lack of rationality, but rather the effect of radicalism (either direction) on the human psyche. That's only going to get more intense as more of 'reality' is subsumed by algorithm-driven ecosystems.
You don't have to listen to it, even if it gives you some insight the time you spend is an opportunity cost. There are better things to do with your time.
True, there is no need to listen. Most of what we spend our time in is not based on need. What we value as individuals and therefore chose to focus on with that time is deeply subjective. 'Better' implies some objective standard. Telling someone that they could/ought to be spending their time better mascarades a subjective value judgment and as an objective assessment. If someone is neglecting their needs in life by focusing on wants, then there is room for discussion but I gave no indication of that in my comment. I'm assuming your reply was trying to be helpful, but it's not really. Personally, I would also caution against gamification of your life...the idea of time as opportunity cost and the implied maximizing of value. Stoicism is a helpful tool in life, but describing this conscious experience (living) using economic terms seems fraught.
@@jay3517 I often just use AI tools to automatically transcribe a podcast and then ask another AI to summarize it, stops me from wasting too much time finding out if they are saying anything of substance.
Your sort of right . But what is most obvious in my experience is the death of stable enduring community that sort of gives you a a voice and agency just by birth and a platform for politics and business and social action , a community that knows you. Its collapsed generally.
Even for people for existing social networks with elements of tradition that survive they are weaker and much less protective.
The old extended families were very powerful ney works that found people , jobs , friends spouses shared information and opportunity. And on a local basis they would all , even with out marriages ( which inevitably happened between strong rooted families) share a common Church meet or members of families would meet on Sunday. And other community organization followed. So we would naturally dominate local politics and select and try out people for still higher office. And when we did choose them we d promote them collectively. Now England wasnt so disimilar at least rural England which as in Alberta interlinked with the cities.
This sort of world is partly gone and been replaced by very vulnerable transitory isolated individuals or nuclear families.
The world of farmers in prairie Canada was somewhat similar to this but the economic basis of status was much weaker and as always technological change is your enemy but an enemy you cant escape. 90 % of the population disappeared with extreme hyper industrialization of agriculture and extreme concentration of wealth. And the new industrial families are often rootless , sometimes old origina families and some of thier net works survived the radical economic change. But still an awful lot has been lost.
The elite in Calgary is an oil elite unstable ,individualistic and ruthless. To them the old families are ornaments or toys, were as distespected and isolated from real power as natives. One can try a guerrilla rear gard action. But its impossible to do much.
If theres a political problem you phone up boys you went to school with 70 years ago or yr cousins but you will be blasted away by the megaphone of an oil billionaire . We re very weak and the original families were privileged people. Poor isolated people might as well tilt at the oil industry or the media it generates as Don Quixote would tilt at windmills. Thats how i see it. Im old i get to die soon ,run out the clock and let the new ones inherit hell on earth.
The west has an enormous identity crisis, which makes its so weak and inept. And this phenomena was already described in 1998 by Bassam Tibi, who wrote a very important Book about it. It described how already in the 90s left liberal dogmatism took over the political landscape. It was written because already in the 90s there were lots of people who refused the german values, lived from german wealthfare state and werent thrown out of the country even if they commited a horrible crime. Same thing happened in all western countries in europe not just germany. He proposed that germany needs an "european leading culture (Leitkultur)" which holds us together. Unfortunetly nothing happened and things got even far worse. Either Europe changes in the next 10 years radically and imposes this "Leitkultur" or we can say goodbye to our freedoms, somekind of dictatorship will be established.
Tucker is algorithmically driven
Nice. Yes, another influencer who perform for a particular audience that feeds him.
Algorithmically driven should become a standard pejorative descriptive term.
Vlad once again discussing issues with penetrating insight, rather than merely for what's good for the algorithm. Much appreciated.
Thank you!
So grateful for what you did here Vlad because that interview has been haunting me and for precisely the reasons you lay out here.
Interesting. Sorry it haunted you.
Vlad.
To use your own terms, the western public have become depoliticised. It has happened because the political class hold elections, make promises and seem to empathise with anything that will get them votes but only behave as Uniparty.
The voters have woken (sic) up to that and now feel they have no power so they don't vote. The risk is they vote for extremist parties and people. I do not mean AFD which is just another party - you want to know what an extremist party looks like? Just let the political class carry on a bit longer and we are likely to get it - nationalist, isolationist, economically and socially damaging and they will set class agains class, race against race.
It is disappointing you do not even acknowledge any fault in the USA voting system or the influence of unregulated social media organisations.
'merica, the best government money can buy.
Not a good look for "the beacon of democracy". No wonder the sheen is rubbing off.
The duopoly in American is certainly a tragic truth, it pushes too many discussions into two sided discussions. If the US introduced an single-transferrable-vote system and a standardized and fair un-gameable vote districting algorithm then there would probably be more reason for people to engage with politics as issues that are important but not championed by either the blue/red side would actually receive more attention. But the truth is if it were like that Republicans as they are today would not win another election for a good while, you know, until they actually started running on actual productive politics that aren't designed to scare people into voting for them.
The way I see it is democracy is like a delicate garden. It doesn't just occur naturally - takes careful, consistent, organized effort to maintain. Without enough care, weeds take over and the garden is lost.
As someone or other said, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes, and I can never shift the thought of the similarities of our times to Weimar Germany. Not only were people embracing political extremes, but all sorts of other, frankly, nonsense - all sorts of wacky pseudoscience and alternative health stuff, conspiracy theories, bizarre philosophical movements, etc. (an awful lot of Nazi mysticism comes straight from theosophy). Interwar Germany was eerily similar in being the same sort of ridiculous bullshit factory paired with a love of extremist politics that we see in the modern world.
One wonders how much the causes of both might be similar. I would certainly hope we don't have the same end point.
Something I noticed mostly on Lex Fridman's video with Tucker is how the comment section feels so artificial like it's being spammed by bots giving positive reviews. Or is it just me?
I did notice the same but I think that it's more probable that it's my wishful thinking. It just might be that a very small number of "bots" are now powerful enough to spontaneously generate a deluge of genuine reactions in an sufficiently established environment as Lex's comment section.
@@pllpsy665 look up the crazy amount of money russia is spending on propaganda, to think they are not spamming the comment sections is naive
i just saw the piers morgan interview with mearsheimer and it's the same thing
@@JA-gz6cj Oh. I am definitely not denying that. What I said is that they might be way more efficient than we want to believe. The insanity might be almost self-reinforcing by now.
@lucyruby819All by the Russian bots and spam creators directed by Mosow !
I was thinking recently how ignorance has brought us at this point in time. Call me a radical if you want, but in the face of everything that is happening I do believe now that in order to participate in democracy one must prove that he knows how to use a brain.
...so...the solution to the problem.....is then to try to understand the other political actors and their fears, needs and goals. Not demonize them as this only creates distance and makes it harder to engage in dialogue.
Which is why I have immense respect for people with enough patience and compassion to do it, because it can sure be exhausting. The most important thing is not to try to convince them that you are right or they are wrong but to get them to actually think logically on their own, a harder task than it may seem...
Truth is always a problem for the fascist. Hitler had a fit over the theory of relativity. Maybe it's a failure of education, but it seems cyclical.
Hitler's problem with relativity was that a Jew had promulgated it.
Back in 2014, in the wake of the Crimean Anschluss and the Donbas intervention, I had a couple of chats with a friend, which he recorded and uploaded on Soundcloud.
Back then, looking at Brexit, looking at the protest vote tendencies, and what Putler was doing, I characterized what was happening as "the West is having an identity crisis", and I suggested there's a very real chance that Trump may win (this would've been sometime in the spring of 2014).
It's been a decade, and none of the systemic issues have really been addressed all that well.
I am very interested in the 2024 US elections because they concern me even as a European. Everything becomes clear when Trump says he loves the uneducated.
Carlson's interview was already doomed due to the circumstances. What sensible should have come out of it if he has to worry about ending up in Russian prison...apart from, that Carlson and sensibleness don't match.
Alright, this is the same theme of two perspectives that both are killing our democracies, so what are the actual solutions? Or if none yet exist, who's in media is known to work towards them?
Well described. Whatever the issue, people are becoming more and more entrenched and there is no attempt at diplomacy with the other side. They are all idiots to be mocked, no attempt at understanding, persuasion or honest debate. Vicious cycle gets worse and worse until...
Everyone is sat in there own personal bunker and debate is lost🤔Safe&Effective tm🐇
As a rightwinger I love your videos. You know what you are talking about.
Take care Vlad!
Aa a leftwinger I appreciate people like you on the right so much; there are common principles to find and defend together. Glad you're here for it.
@@crmathenyAs a left winger, I sincerely appreciate people like you who can appreciate people on the right. Someone has to have the patience. Mine has run out.
Same.@@wordscapes5690
@@wordscapes5690 I know what you mean about exhaustion, wheeeee. But it's weird -- the more I phrase my political opinions without reference to the left v. right index and instead with reference to newly-salient orthogonal indices (liberal v. authoritarian, idealist v. realist, universalist vs. identitarian, progressive v. traditional, anarchic v. hierarchical, etc.) the more I find myself able to make sense to myself and others. Politics is a big tree with many under-utilized branches.
@@crmatheny Dividing all things political into the universal left-right divide is always a simplification. So I like that you're more precise with your language and use multiple axis to compare political ideas along. The left-right axis is a silly one, because it merely reflects current general stance towards political ideas. Where an idea lies on the left-right axis is subject to change over time. But an authoritarian idea will always be an authoritarian idea, whether it's the left or right that's in favour of it.
Another name for algorithm is internet business model.
I do a little local US TV show that my father started decades ago; I participate as the panel member from Ukraine/Europe/abroad. The old retired lefties exhibit this behaviour precisely, bashing the MAGA-types with the same old "you're stupid" rhetoric in louder and louder tones. And, yes, they're right to a point that where those Trumpist are is so far down that it's one lie after another, but how did we get here? Well, for example, the predecessors to the MAGA and Tea Party folks asked questions like "how does affirmative action solve racism?" to which they were told you are stupid and ignorant. If you're old enough to remember how the Republican party manipulated working class folks to vote red, you'll also likely remember plenty of Democratic rebuttals that were counter-productive. Eventually the number of people banished as "ignoramuses" took over the Republican party from the people who thought they could manipulate and control them. There's a sci-fi like plot in this story.
The political miracle of fooling people into believing that the Republicans were the party of the working man . . .
It's partly that the Dems, especially under Bill Clinton, dropped the ball and essentially abandoned labour, in favour of the influence of Wall St. and the financialization of the economy. The donor class was calling.
But the far-right Koch Bros' (oil and coal funded) project of purchasing and blanketing talk radio and saturating the AM radio airwaves across the country with decades of 24/7 blue-collar brainwash, - in the truck or car, and while at work, that had to have a numbing sensation!
Then you get home and turn on this new guy Rush Limbaugh and sit down to some toxic infotainment that, decades later, eventually spawns more and more people like Tucker Carlson. All of this has had the intended effect of polarizing society to where it's near tribal in the era of Trump (well played Vlad!)
But let's not forget Ronnie Reagan's legislation rolling back regulations and clearing away cumbersome and awkward requirements of broadcasters... such as the appearance of impartially through balanced reporting (terrible as it was), soon to usher in fact averse "news" outlets such as Rupert Murdoch's FOX News, Breitbart, etc.
And what about campaign finance reform?
And what about the separation of church and state?
Anyways, at least the taxes have never been lower, wink.
Respect from Canada
Listened to it twice. Thank you, Vlad. What you say here is responsible and clear.
Picketty demonstrated the long post war boom helped the middle class. In the US and UK middle class rot really started with Reagan/Thatcher neocon economics. These drew resources away from the middle class and in the US in particular damaged many mid west manufacturing communities.
The purported belief was that the 'trickle down effect' would lift all boats, and take care of the fallout. It didnt, at least not for those in the lowest economic quartile.
It is unsurprising that in those countries most wedded to neocon economics, we are now seeing the fallout in the form of significant societal discontent and a drift towards authoritarian solutions.
Those countries that exploited what benefits neocon globalisation could provide, while maintaining a healthy scepticism towards where it was headed have done better.
They maintained a strong social safety net ensuring all sectors of society benefitted. Unsurprisingly these countries are continuing to maintain strong democracies.
...,Could have been a meteor,...
Who can say with firm certainty it WASN’T a meteor? 🤔😉🙄 *sarcasm*
Your point about opaque political systems leading to accepting false or simplistic narratives is spot on. I see it all around me, even amongst family and friends. It's an irrational - but understandable - response. As for the other half, whom I characterize as the Obama-Hillary smug elites, are simply reacting to the first half with disdain when they deny that there is a social crisis. Is there any way out of this impasse?
By recognising that the “deplorables” (mostly decent voters doing their best) might often have the truth wrong, but they are right that they need political agency for which the political system makes no room. The only room they get is destructive, and so they use that.
I understand that me being in the centrist camp is wrong and unhealthy.
Where should I go?
Don’t shift anywhere in a knee jerk way. A good start is to reflect on why what’s happening is happening, what centrist politics may have done to bring it about. There is a growing literature on democratic degeneration and regeneration. Also, you are in a good place here to be part of conversations about this. I’m fanatical about keeping our democracies.
If you're centrist you will most likely be looking at both sides of any particular issue and you are free to support whatever arguments make the most sense to you. A centrist position allows you to easily lean one way or the other on any particular issue.
Would you happen to have a list of said literature?@@VladVexlerChat
Back to 2014, to David Simon's 'Some People Are More Equal Than Others' speech. About rejuvenating the social contract. The full original version (not the pop up fest redo) is on sp0t1fy podcasts hosted by ideas at the house.
It’s not the centrist position that is the problem. It’s the blindness among some centrists that the radical extremism (sorry for the redundancy) on the right wing will just go away or that eventually sane conservatives will find the courage and wherewithal to put a lid on it (as they have in the past-see how they dealt with the John Birch society).
But to address the blindness to the social crisis, we have to understand the nature of the social crisis, and then we must figure out how to address it in a way that doesn’t reinforce the division. That’s a tough nut to crack, imho.
Vlad, I would love to hear your advice for those of us in the UK where we also have two warring groups concentrating on invented or exaggerated issues, rather than constructive discussion of how to solve the many real and growing social problems that exist. I'd say this applies to those in power and the opposition, as well as many commentators.
+1
The politician sure do like to steer the discussion towards a single or few issues that get people riled up, that way the media will be incentivised to give them coverage because of the increased eye-balls.
Thank you Vlad we appreciate your words and insights, Tucker Carlson loves attention and just like his small audience they swim in drama and false beliefs and as you well know drama creates more drama which then shakes their tree of belief and as the branches/leaves fall from the tree it multiplies into more delusion coated in more dramas!!! When one then lets people like trump prune the trees it quickly creates a bigger mess with no fruit able to grow which then needs cutting back to the ground in the hopes that it grows without the dramas by the one who first pruned the tree!!!! Growing trees that bear fruit for the future requires one to be patient with compassion and benevolence to appreciate the opportunities that can manifest an orchard that keeps bearing the food of life without any diseases growing in the fruit.
One of the last things that Alexei Navalny called for was "NOON AGAINST PUTIN" - He called for all his supporters to go to the nearest police station and protest and demonstrate at NOON on SUNDAY 17th MARCH. Let's see how many will actually show up.
Super important Video, really. Thank you for the clarity Vlad.
The diagnosis is spot on, thank you, but was is the cure? This has been unraveling for quite some time now. I live in Norway, which seems to be politically in a much better shape than many other Western nations, yet even here I no longer see parties I would full-heartedly want to vote for. And in the States I would have been completely lost long ago, plague on both your houses. In the recent months I sometimes think that the end of the world as we know it might be just around the corner. A couple of catastrophic events, like a collapse of the Ukrainian defense or a nonconclusive (for a sufficiently large part of the population) outcome of the American elections, and that's it, we are doomed.
You're not alone in thinking that way about those things. Dunno if that helps, but at least it's the truth.
As an aside, I'm an American, & over my 4 decades (+/-) of coherent thought processes (mostly coherent, anyway), I've often found myself wishing I'd been born a Norwegian. Y'alls country & culture have much to be admired. That's just my opinion, but I know I can honestly tell ya' there's a pretty heckin' decent amount of fellow Norway & Norwegian admirers here in the States.
I'm just lucky I was able to do a lot of overseas traveling between the ages of not quite 1 yr old & 32, so at least I'd figured out by the time I was 8-9 that "American Exceptionalism" was a load of bollocks & that was when I hadn't actually heard/read about "American Exceptionalism" yet. Less than 25% of American citizens ever travel any further beyond the borders of the US than _maybe_ a cruise or something with friends or family to somewhere in Mexico or perhaps Jamaica or the Bahamas, but those trips are almost always tailored to what Americans would already think of as being a good time or think of as something interesting; there's not a lot of demand for full-on "cultural immersion" type of tourist experiences in 'Murica.
Thank gawd n sweet baby jeebus my parents were the type who expressly sought out that sort of thing whenever they/we went to other countries, and that every 1.5-2 years from under age 1 to 32 I got to go overseas with my folks. We'd always make our way to at least 2 and up to 5 different countries every time we went on one of our trips (I got to go to a few countries 2-4 times). Sadly though, we never made it to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Romania, Estonia, or Ukraine, among other eastern (and western) European countries that I *_really_* wish I'd been able to visit. Now I'm too old, I have chronic illnesses, I'm physically disabled, & my traveling days have been over for quite a while. But at least for all those years, I got to have the sorts of experiences & meet the types of people that over 75% of Americans never will.
I'm just *_SO_* grateful I never believed America was the best country in the world, or the best at much of anything really (despite the indoctrination that starts in kindergarten, sometimes sooner), because I'd been to countries as a child that'd been doing things better than the US for centuries before the 1st European settler-colonisers ever put one single foot of theirs down on North or South American soil.
I'm extremely lucky I was adopted by my parents instead of some other couple, or I could've easily ended up believing American Exceptionalism isn't a load of bollocks, and that woulda (unbeknownst to me) condemned me to a very sad, pitiful & pretty danged awful existence.
If ignoring the Tucker Carlson camp is just as toxic as being part of it, what exactly do you recommend Vlad? Dialogue? How do you engage people whose beliefs are shaped by fundamental distrust in democracy?
It’s not distrust in democracy but in institutions. Many Americans seem to think the government is oppressing them and trying to control them. We need to make them realize it’s not the case.
@@abbybailey5933 I agree that the discourse on the populist right is about returning to real democracy and freedom by reigning in the "institutions" that supposedly undermined it. However, my point was a bit more general in the sense that mistrusting institutions ultimately equates to mistrusting the democratic system that generated them. It's true that democracy is not a stable self-sustaining system. But the surest path to destroying it is seeding mistrust in the way the system works. All textbook "active measures" that long precede Trump.
@@abbybailey5933it will be rather difficult, especially considering that is very much the case. I am not sure what reality you live in, but it is simply impossible to deny anti-democratic government overreach in the West
@@abbybailey5933While we're at it, let's make them realize that 2 plus 2 is not equal to 4
I saw a car number plate the other day which read "I 💗 Lying" - This says it all...
I don't know about Friedman's integrity - he is very apologetic of Russia in general and Putin in particular.
Lex is not political and that can lead to political naivety.
True, true. It could also be the general westerner idealisation of Russians ("...but Dostoyevsky, but Tolstoy!") which to me - a post-Soviet Europoor is weird, considering he is a Jewish man of Russian descent (read - the population of Russian/Soviet Empire that had most critical thinking skills and political savy). Love your patience, Vlad.@@VladVexlerChat
It means that he is like a typical Russian, apolitical, which is what Putin and his mafia like the most.
I am sceptical also, particularly noting the tangled relationship between Russia and Israel and Russification of the Israeli body politic.
@@VladVexlerChat I think he is in some ways also algorithmically driven, just like Russel, but for him it's the collection of people he interviews combined with his interview style of not challenging properly what some of his more political guests are spouting political speech. He's basically just turned himself into a soapbox that his guests can come and stand on. There is a certain evolution in the types of his guests.
Trumpers come in 4 or 5 different flavors. There is a regional component as well. I have worked with several of these. After watching Lex's interview, Tucker is average, average education, average perspective. Some truthiness, some strange unquestioned assumptions.
Analytically this is all true and relevant for our political discourse. Except for one caveat. The individual himself.
Captured by the algorithm, yes...but eventually, he came face to face with the regime, looking for something to sell. How many in the US media get to enter the despot's interpersonal orbit as a mutual PR exercise and then just go back to their usual routines as if the regime has forgotten about them? Oliver Stone? Steven Segal? Alex Jones did the rounds with the talking heads, a standard algorithmic circle jerk. Carlson did a deal directly with the devil. I don't know we can surely say the devil is done with him yet.
US media elites don't come and go at their leisure from that den of iniquity in the same ways they might ride algorithms through other spaces. Even minor celebrities can't leave if the regime has political designs for them. Whether Carlson likes it or not, his algorithmic effect is tied up with the regime's aims...and the regime has an interest in maintaining that mutual relationship.
People are acting like this was a one off, like it's over already and we're all reflecting upon it. It's not. Not for Putin, not for Carlson, and certainly not for the algorithm. Tragically, it's only just begun.
Question for anyone: what kind of change resolves the social trust crisis? New initiative institutions, I guess? What would that look like concretely? Roosevelt's WPA 2.0 with new journalistic/deliberative thrust?
I will talk about this. It is not impossible to give people a sense of agency who lack it now.
Vlad, can you talk about the role of historians in bringing us, the society, closer to truth (I know truth is a difficult term) in regard to contested issues like 'N4z1 regime in Kyiv', 'oppression of Russians in Donbass', 'Crimea is Russian and gift to Ukraine was a failure', etc. ?
I think the general public should have a database to be enabled to argue in the best possible way against misinformation and deception by trolls and guileful agents.
Can a congress of historians create such a widely acknowledged scientific base on which we can build our discussions on international topics like the reasons for the war in Ukraine?
Thank you!
*sorry for the ill educated expression and bad English
I’ve added your question to the next long form q&A on the Chat channel. Timestamp will be included.
I have not watched much Fridman, but I am surprised to hear you say he has integrity. Does he ever actually challenge this parade of fascist sympathizers that go on his show?
I have not watched that much of him either, but I did see him interview a member of the then dark web and he seemed more than a little in awe. To me he comes across as a bit naive. I don't quite know what message he is trying to get across with the black tie and suit. It looks amazingly uncomfortable.
I doubt Lex's integrity though.
Thank you Vlad. The state of our democracies is very important to discuss right now.
There has long been a crisis in democracy, democracy does not necessarily act in the interests of its participants. At one time in a more deferential society, leaders were elected not because they would do exactly what their electors wanted them to, but because they were considered wiser and more adept than the other party and could be trusted to use their superior education and experience to lead, not to blindly follow, to take unpopular decisions when necessary and to explain to the electorate why they had to take those actions. In our current Western democracies, the elected repesentatives can make short term bad decisions so long as they are popular because they are rarely going to face any real consequences from their selfish actions. Trump is a fine example, he knows he can get away with what he does because he has advisors who will use every legal trick in the book to delay justice to the point where it will not matter any longer to him as he will either be dead or unfit to plead.
I despise Lex, he's a disinfo pro.
What do you think of Tucker Carlson?
@@immortaltyger1569 he's slime Frank Zappa sang of, and he is criminally stupid.
I'm getting scared 'cause you make so much sense. I don't even trust my own thoughts any more.
what a wonderful mind and shirt. :) You are wonderful. :)
Hee hee thank you
Tucker is definitely not a journalist 😉
Great Video Vlad, I identify many times with the side that you mention......and I feel I take this position because I don't have the tools nor the solution to fix this substantial issue with democracy......what is your view or recommendation on how to act to improve the situation and not make it worst? Sometimes I have the feeling that this is exactly what putin or any dictator want on us.....to generate 2 sides of the story that fight each other to the infinite….they want the plurality of ideas to disappear.
With regard to organized trolling / bots on social media - MSM comment boards for example, that no doubt has helped get us to this place, it's clear that one of the intents is simply to "sow discord" in the public discourse.
When you see the volumes of posts and patterns in communication style, often with a few themes or "talking points", you know you're in the zone.
Another political tactic is as Steve Bannon says : "Fill the zone with sh!t "
@@GarrFagen-zc3em ok, but is this good?? I tried many times to use the “good” path, but it doesn't work, for me is like trying to explain to a flat earther that the earth is not flat......they don't want to know the truth.....and is harder when the truth is not scientific….
I know, it's complicated psychology. I read that it's similar to trying to communicate with people who have been victim of serious fraud or become drawn into a cult.
I'm having a hard time recalling the process, however it involves empathy (recognizing that they are not alone, or the first to ever be badly deceived) and hinting at solutions that may help them move beyond it. Ultimately it's up to them to learn from it and move on, if they are ready.
I also recall one author (writing on political campaign strategy, I think?) talk about the challenge as not an attempt to replace someone's belief but to displace the belief, through making them question the entrenched thinking, at first.
If I locate the source again I will pass it along.
Vlad you are the best, thank you for your comments❤
No, Lex Fridman doesn't have integrity. He poses himself as "culturally Russian" or "Grown up in the USSR" while he by no means a Russian and he was 8 or so when Parents took him off Moscow to USA in c. 1991.
He went to Ukraine in 2022, made interview(s) there and has not published at least one - with Olexey Arestovich, and has not said why he has not published the interview.
Arestovich is well known BS master, often times embarassing himself. Probably because of that was not published.
I'm in the camp that the crisis is real but unfixable. 🙂
I don't think the mainstream view is "we should do nothing and just wait it out", it's more like "we don't know what to do about this, so we carry on as usual until we find a solution".
While the MAGA crowd feels powerless against the powers that be, the mainstream people feel powerless against the (perceived) stupidity and malignity of the MAGAs.
So, Vlad, instead of repeatedly telling us that everyone is doing everything wrong, it might be more constructive if you outlined some possible approaches that you would consider less wrong.
Hey Vlad. Would this crisis in our democracies be possible without the internet?
Yes. But it would be less extreme.
Slava Ukraini! Heroyam Salva!
Too many Tucker Fanboys on Lex's channel now. Bad move I think. I'm done with him now that he has the TATE/TUCKER/ALEX JONES/ MAGA monsters following him now.
I always find your analysis provocative. In this case I disagree, not because you're incorrect about two of the tendencies in US politics,(I make no claim about elsewhere in the world's politics), but because your comparison is both unbalanced (Those who believe DJT actually won, versus "centrist media") and incomplete. Those are not comparing people with people, even though you do mention "consumers of centrist media". Those who do watch the hegemonic pronouncements of such as the Times or CNN are not mindless, or not all of them are.
The alliance of the Party of Trump (formerly known as the GOP) with Christo-fascist elements within that party has gone too far, and has generated not simply opposition, but generated political organization.
The recent Alabama IVF nonsense motivated a large and immediate backlash which was sufficiently organized to force an ideologically-controlled majority of the Legislature to give in on issues they thought they had unquestionable power over.
And that's just one example. The historically-unusual failure of the opposition party to gain much in the way of Congressional power at the 2022 midterms is another. "Centrists" are not simply mocking, or tut-tutting. They're organizing and voting. Win or lose, organization and participation is a net positive in the political space.
The GOP is also losing a formerly solid group of voters, suburban women because they have gone too far to please the Christo-fascisti, aka Dominionists. The sex gap is only going to get worse for the GOP until they move closer to the center, and that can't happen very soon, because of the fear of Donald Trump. So while the Party is driven further to the irrational Right, the center-right among the electorate has little choice but to align with the center-left.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that most Americans are not so stupid as to buy into the "Who knows how killed Navalny? of Tucker. Even those who don't execrate Pres. Putin are not going to ignore the manifestly obvious prime suspect. They may even think its a good thing in some perverse way, that Putin is a strongman, but Tucker is being misled by the algorithm if he thinks this is going to boost his audience penetration.
Thank you as always, Vlad. Wishing you good heath.
Vlad, I’m an avid follower of your channels. As a Social Philosopher, what influence would you say spiritual, socio-economic, and generational differences had on Russians who now find themselves in the hyper-nationalist, central blob, and pro-Putin groups in Russia?
No, I actually don't know what Tucker said, nor did I watch his interview with Putin. And you, the beautiful community, should think hard, if you want to give this man a platform. How many times do you need to reassure yourself, that he is not a sapere aude/truthful person.
And quit twitter, for gods sake!
Love you all!
For many decades now in the West, the educational system has taken a very relativistic view that there is no such thing as "truth." Truth, as many a teacher has explained to his or her students from young ages, is just a matter of perception and experience. It is personal, and therefore relative and quite indefinable. So it should only seem logical that the next step down that road would be that public discourse and accountability also no longer have much certainty in distinguishing fact from opinion, let alone comprehending that there could then be right-thinking sentiments and wrong-thinking sentiments. Perhaps it used to be more of just a philosophical question--one which the Bible accounts Pontius Pilate as rhetorically asking Jesus ("What is truth?")--but it is a belief that obviously has some enormous practical consequences as well, far outside of educational circles and the "Green Book" that C.S. Lewis panned in _The Abolition of Man._
Why Talker Carlson didn't said that in Putin's face? 🤣🤣🤣 I thought he promotes "the freedom of speach"! 😂😂😂
Tucker was in Russia a suspiciously short time before Navalny's death. Coincidence?
The idea that centrism is hoping everything will magically get better seems incorrect to me. Surely centrism is opposing extremism, actively.
It also frustrates me that you repeatedly say that the problem isn't gullible idiots being shaped by malefactors when a lot if it IS that. Sure, complaining about it amongst ourselves won't cure it, and calling them gullible idiots also won't - but you don't appear to have a plan either - sure, you're not a activism channel, but after watching many of your videos I'm not convinced that you are part of a solution.
Cognisance is the basis and the path to solution. He is a philosopher.
@@sk.43821 Sure, getting more people to use their brains is good, but it seems to me a lot of the problem is the people that refuse to, which this doesn't seem likely to reach.
@@Hohum37 I agree with you. However, everyone fulfills a role. Vlad has his role. Others should use parts of his analysis and transfer this understanding into effective political concepts and convincing discussion.
Of course Vlad could become a more active activist, but then somebody else will fulfill his role. And will we then complain about this person's 'inactive' role as well?
I find myself disagreeing with you over Lex Fridman; he most definitely is algorithmically driven. In many ways what he does parallels Joe Rogan and other podcasters. Particularly the fact he made consistent effort of bringing up celebrities like Elon Musk and philosophy to attempt to look smart. Not to say he’s unintelligent or a shill, but he most definitely has made use of the algorithm to expedite his popularity through trying to reach a bigger audience. A bigger audience, not a wider one with different viewpoints like you do so well at.
Sorry folks but I'm struggling to understand exactly what Vladimir is saying. I think he's saying that Tucker is playing with the truth to play his audience.? I don't think it would be difficult to be a lot more clear in telling us what he's thinking.
That Tucker Carlson, he's got this super weird nervous laugh. I'm on board with some of the more common sense and basic stuff he's saying, such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press being an important part in democracy, but with other stuff, he's waaay out there, such as with replacement theory, or his partizan support of Trump.
Yet again, you make me realise how lucky I was to find your channel & what a good choice I made when I decided to subscribe 1/2 way through the 1st video of yours I'd ever seen. You are a rare & unique individual with a rare & unique mind. You, the individual, and your unique mind are gifts you've chosen to share with your viewers, and I'm grateful for the freedom & frequency with which you share them with me/us. If the people who've become our politicians were 1/3 as politically astute or philosophically inclined as you, at this juncture we might have at least a few properly functional systems of government, working for the people, and by the people. Instead we have systematically & systemically broken forms of governance that give us the political representation of would-be rulers & royals (or wannabe dictators), bankrolled by the corporate and/or religious "special interests" to whom they're soley answerable, working for the money and power, by the power and (of?) money.
I get the problem. But I don't know what I can do to help fix that. I vote, I talk about politics (that is much more about policies and institutions and much less about individual politicians). What else can a regular person do? Could you make a video on this topic at some point?
You can't leave the centrist camp, that's the nature of democracy. And no, there will never be a successful progressive populist.
I'm still in the angry break it all phase of my grief, I failed to realise how Mr Navalny underpinned all my unsaid hopes for my Russian friends, and just as many potential answers to the current conflict, between family. No one man has the ability, or the right to impact so many lives, this evil must end. yeh, I kinda had to edit that.
In a time where everything is being politicized I’m happy you are here Vlad. I see myself as a person that’s always seeking the factual evidence and truth about our world. The only thing I know for sure is that the truth doesn’t give af about what I think about it so feeling upset about it is just a waste of energy.
Colbert coined the word 'TRUTHINESS.'
he also single-handedly destroyed late night comedy.
It’s gone beyond truthiness. George W. Bush was truthy. Bill Clinton was truthy. What we are seeing in some quarters isn’t a bending of the truth but a breaking of it and an absence of it. The demagogues and their followers say, “Up is down and down is up.” Clinton would have said “it depends on how you define down”. Bush might have said, “We’re moving sideways”. One could always talk to a voter for Clinton or Bush and show them evidence of the error in their thinking. You could show them the data. (You also had to be willing to look at their evidence/data and hear them out in good faith.)
@@timmyg44
Wait what, it was Colbert, and not video game culture and streaming services Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. etc.?
I feel my most significant political act is to preserve family wealth and identity and the community we belonged to. The angry rabble rousers are rootless outsiders.
But i follow politics. I feel deep hatred for the populists esp since a cousin helped organize them and legitimize them intellectually, because he wanted to be told he was a genius wanted to be fawned over.
I can not fight him politically because that would burn up millions and jeoprodize the survival of the relatives i do care about who are nieghbours and friends. I cant do both.
And the only political vehicle to fight the populist right are the socialists who dont respect or understand people like me. They are nevertheless the best people. But even generous socialists can properly represent old time stable families with inherited social position and resources.
So my principal political act is just managing money or farms , doing my work so our rural community and extended family will survive. I cannot fight populists and climate science deniers financed by oil billionaires. It would be quixotic. And kids venting on the internet can t even do the little i can do.
tucker may not be a russian asset, but he sure does like putler and has said so in subtle ways.
There are a few certainties in life, one of them is death. Another one is that when Tucker Carlson opens his mouth he will say something stupid and he never disappoints us !!!
But how do we solve this social crisis?
The ability to disregard truth in favor of lies is something i just don't understand.
Thank you, Vlad! It's always good to listen to you. 🌻
That was an excellent breakdown of the dichotomy of the two tribes, and you tied it back to the topic of Carlson. A cocoon was a good visual model as I understand it, too.
Vlad, this is an off topic but I will ask it, respectfully, could you suggest a good introductory, yet academic book on political science? Thank you
The Philosophy of Social Explanation, 1974. Ed. By Alan Ryan.
@@VladVexlerChat Thank you very much
Dear Vlad, I found you when you appeared early in the pandemic on John Campbell's channel. I had watched Campbell for a daily digest of medical analysis about COVID19. I felt his information to be quite useful at the time. However, in the last few years, he seems to become, at best, an algorithm surfer like Tucker. It's a disappointment to me. I had recommended him to other viewers; now I cringe at the thought. I would be curious to hear your thoughts about how one becomes "red-pilled" like that. What are the economic pressures, but also, what kind of bargain does someone strike with themselves to become untruthful? What is the philosophy there? How does someone like Campbell shift away from a career in verifiable science into a peddler of rage? Nonetheless, I'm happy to have watched his channel, for it led me to your channels. Best of health to you.
Gradually - opposite things to what was said at the beginning are said now. When the change is infinitesimal on a weekly basis it’s hard for the content maker to hold themselves to account. A good illustration of the power of what I am talking about. I actually think 95% of people lose their way if they deal with serious cultural or political issues. It’s just a matter of extent. I am sure I have spoken about this at length in general terms and will do so again. You can search for Vlad Vexler algorithms.
I have just heard John Mearsheimer say that he is certain Navalny died from a blood clot. I'm not sure John is algorithmicaly driven. Should we be concerned?
John M. yes algos promoted and actually is perfect example of that
As someone who strongly criticises you in most videos I enjoyed listening to this video. There is a lot I agree with. And I am not trying to get in a fight over this. I would just say ( without getting into a long discussion) that it is precisely your own certainty that 2020 election was correct that scares us on the other side. I hope you can accept that neither side "owns" the full truth.
My opinion is that ( for a multitude of reasons)the State is way too powerful and constantly seeks to expand its power. The democratic institutions and govt agencies are now acting to Protect the State not as organisations Protecting the public.
The speech by little Rishi Sunak after the Rochdale election was a classic example of the State seeking to protect itself from public opinion. Some people will believe Sunak is telling the "truth" but others will not accept it in the slightest. But my main point is that if the State itself acts in such an obviously irresponsible way then why should the public accept it?
Keep up the good work, stay healthy and fit.
I am really confused how after all the various state recounts and legal challenges that were unsuccessful in finding significant voter fraud following the 2020 election why that can not be accepted by "the other side".
Are you aware of Roger Stone's roll in the tactics and events leading to the outcome of the Florida dispute that tipped the Gore v Bush election of 2000?
I watched Tucker Carlson on Lex Friedman’s UA-cam channel and it hit me like a rock what I was watching ! - A young child gorged on conspiracy theories and at the same time on a sugar high !
I recommend you to watch the full interview but in your mind put a hyper child in TC’s place and it all becomes clear … we the adults in the room are expecting a young child in a man’s body to answer deeply political and societal questions and are then surprised by his childish answers !!!
You and you talks and insight and visions of a possible future it has helped me so much, it is hard to express even. Please keep making content for us all. ❤
Very rational is our Vlad !
Insightful as always.
💛💙💜💙💛 i think every person knows what is true, but some have gone down a rabbit hole and the reason they went down it still beckons them to continue, that the reward they're looking for is within their reach, if they just keep going.
What is true in the human realm🤔 safe&effective🤔the west is generally full of 💩 and we are fed endless lies by the MSM that were meant to accept as fact 🍻back down the rabbit hole white rabbit🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇🐇
Willful ignorance.
@@seanpatrick1243 my response got removed🤔👍
@@steverooke1717
Based on other comments I have read that you have written from this old abandoned UA-cam account that you hijacked, I imagine your comments were blocked for good reason.
@@seanpatrick1243 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣👍
We need you advising governments on this, Vlad. There needs to be a policy approach to this, or else the destructive reactions to the trust crisis will just continue.
This was a great, and I think important, video. Thank you.
Thank you!
You're half right Vlad, and somewhat paradoxically, guilty of what you suggest the center and left do with your own assessment.
The center and left (for current lack of better terms) aren't deaf. They have heard the claims of dissatisfaction. Heck, many even share in it!
The problem is that the claims from people on the right don't represent their true issue. You take them at face value and you're already in their dissonance.
We are living in an era where the fundamental authoritarianism of the political right has simply run out of ways to hide its true agenda.
Is not for us to break bread with liars and faux-malcontents. It's for us to disavow them and ideally protect our political institutions from them.
Rubbish, the Right are far more likely to "call a spade a spade". Your claim sounds more like clairvoyance, and arrogance
No tall buildings nearby....
Ukrainian spy chief, Budanov, said he died of natural causes.
...or open windows.
I've been experiencing this negative and unproductive division between me and my teenage son. Thank you for putting it so clearly in perspective; it gives me hope that we can address it over time as a society and in our personal relationships.
The world saw American democracy in Iraq, afganistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syrian rebel support and so on
I really like the way Lex Fridman handeles all those outlandish views he is confronted with in some of his interviews. I whish i could be that level headed.
he probably thinks about the check he'll get from youtube while simultaneously thinking "holy crap this guy is literally insane"
Lex is the epitome of algorithmically driven vacuous ideological sludge.
Thanks Vlad, for continuing to hold up the mirror. The problem of truth versus lie in the US goes to the heart of its system of marketing. Ever watch an American commercial? Ever try to devine the facts from that commercial? Ever listen to Donald Trump? "Only I can solve the problem." "I am the best, most knowledgeable about (pick your topic.)" "Everybody loves me." It's all marketing speech. We're conditioned from childhood to accept it. There is an old Scott Adams joke: "In most countries this would be illegal. In America we call it marketing."