By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 24 Feb 25
The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 159 By virtue of the technological world we inhabit, we live in a propaganda-saturated environment. In fact, whether we like it or not, we all live in a psychological warfare battlespace, which requires us all to prepare ourselves for that environment. As ever, preparation begins with understanding. In this deep-diving episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay pulls back the curtain on “agitprop,” the combination of agitation and propaganda to wage psychological and political warfare, ranging from Communists like Lenin to Nazis like Hitler. You won’t want to miss this
The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Ep. 159 By virtue of the technological world we inhabit, we live in a propaganda-saturated environment. In fact, whether we like it or not, we all live in a psychological warfare battlespace, which requires us all to prepare ourselves for that environment. As ever, preparation begins with understanding. In this deep-diving episode of
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 10 Feb 25
The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 157 “We are the media now!” So we hear. Much of that media is social media, and social media is a psychological and political warfare battlespace. More than that, it’s incredibly fake. What we see there is mostly a well-crafted illusion meant to distort our perceptions of social and political reality. In this short episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay walks you through some of the many ways what we see on social media simply cannot be taken at face value. Join him for an unsettling look behind the
The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 157 “We are the media now!” So we hear. Much of that media is social media, and social media is a psychological and political warfare battlespace. More than that, it’s incredibly fake. What we see there is mostly a well-crafted illusion meant to distort our perceptions of social and political reality. In
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 23 Jan 25
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 110 Our present circumstance is a political warfare battlefield, like it or not. That means we are inundated with propaganda from all sides. Propaganda, of course, takes many forms, and one of the most common, subtle, and effective is what can be called “telling the truth, falsely,” or “being right, wrongly.” In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay outlines this bread-and-butter propaganda tactic to help you become better able to see it and resist it. Join him to improve your psychological warfare skill set. Additional episodes of New Discourses Bullets can be found here. Subscribe to New Discourses Bullets on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts,
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 110 Our present circumstance is a political warfare battlefield, like it or not. That means we are inundated with propaganda from all sides. Propaganda, of course, takes many forms, and one of the most common, subtle, and effective is what can be called “telling the truth, falsely,” or “being right, wrongly.” In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay outlines this
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 2 May 24
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 89 Regardless of the issue (BLM, Drag Queen Story Hour, Pride, or a college uprising), the ideological totalism of Woke Marxism uses classic tactics to advance itself. One of those is a kind of manipulation through what is called “planned spontaneity,” a clear oxymoron. Planned spontaneity is a “mystical manipulation,” in the words of Robert Jay Lifton, that gives the totalizing cult the appearance of incredible, widespread, organic support, if not omniscience. The current pro-Hamas (or pro-Palestine) student uprisings are no exception. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay explains this phenomenon through the lens
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 89 Regardless of the issue (BLM, Drag Queen Story Hour, Pride, or a college uprising), the ideological totalism of Woke Marxism uses classic tactics to advance itself. One of those is a kind of manipulation through what is called “planned spontaneity,” a clear oxymoron. Planned spontaneity is a “mystical manipulation,” in the words of Robert Jay Lifton,
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 25 Apr 24
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 89 Our future, if the Woke Marxists prevail, may well be to be made into “digital cattle.” What does that mean? It means that we will be led into a state of dependency, perhaps using a Universal Basic Income, and enter into a remade (distributist) economy based on social credit, which is to say compliance with the state’s agendas for us. To make this system work, both practically and in terms of control mechanisms takes incredible amounts of data. Like cattle who earn their feed by being raised for meat, we will earn our “basic income”
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 89 Our future, if the Woke Marxists prevail, may well be to be made into “digital cattle.” What does that mean? It means that we will be led into a state of dependency, perhaps using a Universal Basic Income, and enter into a remade (distributist) economy based on social credit, which is to say compliance with
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 18 Apr 24
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 88 Compliance can be extracted by tyrants from a population through a straightforward method of creating enmity between segments of the population. First, the population is split into those who comply with the tyrant’s programs and policies and those who do not comply. If there are enough among the compliant, a demonization campaign we should call “hatecraft” is employed to pressure those dragging their feet to comply and to demonize those who refuse compliance. Perhaps no one in history was more skilled at these techniques, the politics of compliance, than Mao Zedong in CCP-controlled China. In this
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 88 Compliance can be extracted by tyrants from a population through a straightforward method of creating enmity between segments of the population. First, the population is split into those who comply with the tyrant’s programs and policies and those who do not comply. If there are enough among the compliant, a demonization campaign we should call
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 4 Apr 24
The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 138 George Soros has a theory of change, and his goal is to make and move history. That theory of change is easy to understand if we take the time. It is also explicitly dialectical and alchemical. For Soros, society moves “historically” during times of chaos when people are searching for guideposts for what the future will bring, and it proceeds through change by “fertile fallacies,” which are the seeds of what has elsewhere been called mass-formation psychosis. That is, feedback loops based on consequential errors change history. If you want to change
The New Discourses Podcast with James Lindsay, Episode 138 George Soros has a theory of change, and his goal is to make and move history. That theory of change is easy to understand if we take the time. It is also explicitly dialectical and alchemical. For Soros, society moves “historically” during times of chaos when people are searching for guideposts
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 7 Mar 24
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 84 “Communism marries a truth to a lie.” -Julie Behling, author of Beneath Sheep’s Clothingand director of a forthcoming documentary by the same title. One of the most basic truths about how Marxism works is that it marries a truth to a lie. Another way that has been put is that “every Woke term conceals an agenda.” In order to combat Woke Marxism, then, it is crucial that we learn to pull apart the truth and the lie and to expose the manipulation involved. In this episode of New Discourses Bullets, host James Lindsay takes you through the principle and
New Discourses Bullets, Ep. 84 “Communism marries a truth to a lie.” -Julie Behling, author of Beneath Sheep’s Clothingand director of a forthcoming documentary by the same title. One of the most basic truths about how Marxism works is that it marries a truth to a lie. Another way that has been put is that “every Woke term conceals an agenda.” In order to
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 4 Mar 24
“Not to have a correct political orientation is like not having a soul.” -Mao Zedong Mao Zedong took over China with a strategy that will sadly feel unsettlingly familiar to us. Because he was able to mobilize hundreds of millions of people to comply, often enthusiastically, with his catastrophic programs, an adequate name for that strategy would be the politics of compliance. Understanding the basic premises and mechanisms of the politics of compliance is necessary for us today because these same methods are being used maliciously on us, thus require resisting, and because familiarity with these tactics at least partially
“Not to have a correct political orientation is like not having a soul.” -Mao Zedong Mao Zedong took over China with a strategy that will sadly feel unsettlingly familiar to us. Because he was able to mobilize hundreds of millions of people to comply, often enthusiastically, with his catastrophic programs, an adequate name for that strategy would be the politics
By: The Posts Author | Posted on: 27 Feb 24
People who have escaped cults all tell a similar story. That story starts with a desire to belong, coupled with a desire for purpose. Strong familial and social bonds are generally preferable to shaky relationships, isolation, and the feeling of being an outcast. Likewise, feeling like one’s life lacks any meaning or purpose is a recipe for anxiety, depression, or even madness. If you talk to people who have escaped cults, they all tell you that they didn’t set out to join a cult—the cult set out to prey on them, offering to fill the voids that we must all
People who have escaped cults all tell a similar story. That story starts with a desire to belong, coupled with a desire for purpose. Strong familial and social bonds are generally preferable to shaky relationships, isolation, and the feeling of being an outcast. Likewise, feeling like one’s life lacks any meaning or purpose is a recipe for anxiety, depression, or
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