Boelter: Fruits of Jesus Camp

[Moksha]

‘The degradation of Mike Lee’: One GOP Senator’s shameful online posts about the Minnesota shooting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZXAcFxxeRA

[Gadianton]

Hmmm. My impression of MAGA is that it brings together a constellation of different kinds of awfulness. There are those sociopathic greedy people who are happy to make money at the expense of others by any means they can. There are also the white nationalists. Then there are the religious extremists who want to remake America into a theocratic state that looks like Leave It To Beaver on the surface but is more like the clerical regime in Iran. Then there are the conspiracy theorists and holistic medicine people, which includes the insane mommies who want everything natural for their kids. It is this coalition of greed, fraud, hatred, spiritual lunacy, and authoritarianism that can accommodate many different people who are into one or more of those obsessions to the point of no longer caring how repugnant they appear to others--these are the MAGA people. I see Vance Luther Boelter's bubble as overlapping with several of these obsessions. To my understanding, Boelter is totally MAGA.

Sober thoughts. You may be right.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hmmm. My impression of MAGA is that it brings together a constellation of different kinds of awfulness. There are those sociopathic greedy people who are happy to make money at the expense of others by any means they can. There are also the white nationalists. Then there are the religious extremists who want to remake America into a theocratic state that looks like Leave It To Beaver on the surface but is more like the clerical regime in Iran. Then there are the conspiracy theorists and holistic medicine people, which includes the insane mommies who want everything natural for their kids. It is this coalition of greed, fraud, hatred, spiritual lunacy, and authoritarianism that can accommodate many different people who are into one or more of those obsessions to the point of no longer caring how repugnant they appear to others--these are the MAGA people. I see Vance Luther Boelter's bubble as overlapping with several of these obsessions. To my understanding, Boelter is totally MAGA.

My wife and I like to remind each other that us humans have prehistoric brains that are living in a technocratic world. This is not good, for obvious reasons. I’ve come to realize that our shared modern reality is essentially ‘informational’. And this information is actively pathogenic, a constant memetic warfare of information being waged against our brain’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

The thing that shapes our decisions, our sense of self, and our societies is driven by an abstract, weaponized, and a meme-ecosystem that has been constructed by those who want us to behave in a certain manner. For example:

1. A political lie enters our minds through our eyes and ears. The lie implants itself into our mind, and then spreads by getting us, the hosts, to repeat it. The information that ‘biohacked’ your brain now biohacks other hosts. It’s a mind virus that causes real-world harm through degraded decision-making because your brain has been hijacked by an information virus. It’s almost impossible to avoid this because media is so ubiquitous.
2. ⁠Advertising hijacks our biological drive for status, security, and mating. It compels us to expend resources (time and money) to satisfy this desire that arises from the information being implanted in our minds. You cannot avoid advertising.
3. Propaganda. Think about what it did to half our country with regard to a vaccine. It caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. It’s so effective people like ObviousNazi18 is still obsessed and indignant about his programming.

We’re biological organisms fighting a war against pathogenic memes that have infected the cognitive functioning of the species. Our brains evolved to conserve energy, not to expend huge amounts of it analyzing every bit of BS that comes our way. I believe we created an informational environment that is fundamentally incompatible with our own cognitive hardware, and we unleashed a plague of mind-viruses that we lack the immune system to fight.

People are tired and angry all the time because their brains are being subjected to an unrelenting torrent of manipulation, so when you get the Ultimate Trash Panda who pulls from the fascism playbook, making things simple again, well, what you said about authoritarianism is true. People can’t take this technocratic world anymore. They want the 50’s again, because life was simpler.

- Doc

[Kishkumen]

My wife and I like to remind each other that us humans have prehistoric brains that are living in a technocratic world. This is not good, for obvious reasons. I’ve come to realize that our shared modern reality is essentially ‘informational’. And this information is actively pathogenic, a constant memetic warfare of information being waged against our brain’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

The thing that shapes our decisions, our sense of self, and our societies is driven by an abstract, weaponized, and a meme-ecosystem that has been constructed by those who want us to behave in a certain manner. For example:

1. A political lie enters our minds through our eyes and ears. The lie implants itself into our mind, and then spreads by getting us, the hosts, to repeat it. The information that ‘biohacked’ your brain now biohacks other hosts. It’s a mind virus that causes real-world harm through degraded decision-making because your brain has been hijacked by an information virus. It’s almost impossible to avoid this because media is so ubiquitous.
2. ⁠Advertising hijacks our biological drive for status, security, and mating. It compels us to expend resources (time and money) to satisfy this desire that arises from the information being implanted in our minds. You cannot avoid advertising.
3. Propaganda. Think about what it did to half our country with regard to a vaccine. It caused hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. It’s so effective people like ObviousNazi18 is still obsessed and indignant about his programming.

We’re biological organisms fighting a war against pathogenic memes that have infected the cognitive functioning of the species. Our brains evolved to conserve energy, not to expend huge amounts of it analyzing every bit of BS that comes our way. I believe we created an informational environment that is fundamentally incompatible with our own cognitive hardware, and we unleashed a plague of mind-viruses that we lack the immune system to fight.

People are tired and angry all the time because their brains are being subjected to an unrelenting torrent of manipulation, so when you get the Ultimate Trash Panda who pulls from the fascism playbook, making things simple again, well, what you said about authoritarianism is true. People can’t take this technocratic world anymore. They want the 50’s again, because life was simpler.

- Doc

Great post, Doc! I agree. Thank you for insights I will be reflecting on for a while. It is difficult to discipline one’s self not to be carried away by the mind viruses, but I keep trying. Going to a discussion board where people will readily disagree with me helps.

[Moksha]

Deseret News condemns Lee’s posts about the Minnesota shooting.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/1 ... e-00412683