Charisma on Command: An Odd Content Farm
Added 2024-10-18 18:22:31 +0000 UTCbonus vid!!
Comments
So if I tell Joel I'm leaving and then say some silly words then he will respond?
Cillian Deisner
2024-11-23 12:56:36 +0000 UTCWish you still*** made longer videos :(
Starkey Johnston
2024-11-01 19:14:48 +0000 UTCSorry for the delay btw, had a real brain foggy day yesterday
MoltenPanda
2024-10-22 19:01:09 +0000 UTCI am paraphrasing here slightly but your comment included "I have trouble accepting [threatening to withhold your vote] can be the right thing to do, particularly in front of a large audience." I have trouble reading that as not chiding him for telling people not to vote. I would agree with you though that saying people should vote is not tantamount to genocide denial or endorsement - that is not a reasonable conclusion in my estimation. Aid increases are definitely materially important, as I said in my comment. However I want to make a couple of points about that. First of all, the amount of aid the democrats are willing to actually force Israel to let into the country is so small as to be nearly completely symbolic. Israel let in 50 trucks total as a result of US demands, which is 1/10 of the DAILY aid that was entering Gaza BEFORE Oct 7. Again, it isn't nothing but it is certainly not so large an amount as to actually constitute a meaningful difference in US policy on Gaza, in my opinion. Secondly, even if this was an actually useful amount of aid this is exactly the type of reformist, "lesser of two evils" feigning of good faith that the fascist collaborationist parties have always used to facilitate the continued dominance of capital. Concessions which do nothing to change the power structures responsible for the atrocities and exploitation of capital, but which temporarily provide slight relief to the material conditions of their victims. The same could be seen in pre-fascist Germany, Austria, and Italy, the same could be seen with the rise of anti-worker and especially anti-communist action in the US following the reforms of the new deal, and again under reaganomics following the social unrest of the 70s. This is a fundamental part of the system of fascism, to divert the working masses from pushing for true social upheaval and in the time before the next crisis to allow finance capital to build power to crush any future resistances. This pattern is well evidenced in Dutt's book and the failures of reformism are well known but I would specifically recommend here Rosa Luxemburg's Social Reform or Revolution. Sorry to keep bringing up theory I'm not trying to give you reading assignments, but y'know theory is good and evidences these points a lot better than I could in a patreon comment. In regards to your third point I really think you are conceding too much to a liberal, great-man theory of history. Presidents certainly have a great deal of influence, but ultimately any changes in social conditions is dictated by class forces and not by the personal beliefs or actions of any politician. FDR didn't put the new deal into practice because he genuinely cared about the plight of the workers, he did it because of riots, because of capitalist fear of a USSR style proletarian revolution, because of literally exactly the kind of non-electoral political action that is demanded now. Can I say that Hoover or whoever else was president would have made the exact same reforms in his position? No I can't. However I would say that it is incredibly likely given historical evidence that similar changes would have been made to appease and quell the revolutionary potential of the working class. The same can be said of any great social change - the civil rights act, the new deal, none of it was brought about as a result of the particular views or rhetoric differences between presidents but as a result of disruption of capitalist production and state power by radicals working outside of the electoral system. This is not to say that electoral politics is completely useless - as Luxemburg argues, reforms (besides being good in and of themselves in simply making the workers' lives better) can for many reasons mean greater ability for the workers to organize. However, can we really say that the "reforms" the democratic party pretends to want for Gazans will increase their ability to take revolutionary action in the future? Beyond that, the urgency of the need for change in Gaza I think makes that perspective kind of insulting - "yes we're going to let the genocide continue, but these fifty trucks of aid may help you organize against the next one." I think it is more likely that the actions of the democratic party will once again involve tightening the grip of Israel and of capital over the people of Gaza and the wider region, as it always has before.
MoltenPanda
2024-10-22 18:57:59 +0000 UTCSo I guess I have three responses here. First, my comment to Bad Empanada wasn't chiding him for telling people not to vote, it was my response to someone claiming that saying people should vote is "genocide denial or endorsement." I say in my responses to him that I don't begrudge those who choose to withhold their vote, and I don't. It seems like you at least agree with me on my actual point, there. Second, aid increases are of course materially important, as you say, so if you feel there's reasonable evidence for that outcome, I'd think it's all the evidence I'd need. Third, I think it's easy to conclude that voting "has never effected change on the level we'd like to see" and it is true. But of course, presidents have been part of large changes in this country. I don't think we can say nothing has improved because better presidents were voted in over worse ones. Would we have social security without FDR or abolition without Lincoln or the civil rights act without Kennedy/LBJ? Who's to say, I guess. I don't think we have great evidence in this case that one president over another will solve the problem, but the broad point, that voting is has been very important, seems like a good thing to point out, here.
Big Joel
2024-10-21 05:24:31 +0000 UTCBy material meaningful difference I mean things like halting military funding and other foreign aid to israel, placing a weapons embargo on them, halting operations against groups fighting for Palestine such as the houthis and hezbollah, etc. Things that will end US participation in and by extension Israel's ability to perpetrate genocide. Support of the type given by democratic congresspeople does not mean fewer residences destroyed or massacres perpetrated, its purely symbolic. The most radical change actually supported by anyone with power is a miniscule increase in aid. That is by no means unimportant, but it's not in any way an actual step towards ending the genocide. It is a pure "vote for the democrats because harm reduction, lesser of two evils" position, which as I've said I do not find convincing from a historical perspective of the way fascism functions. I am not saying that you should tell people not to vote. I haven't said that anywhere. You're telling other people that they shouldn't tell people that. I have literally nothing against you advocating for voting for Harris, I think that's fine. You know, I'm not the one devaluing either position here, you are advocating against the position of not voting and I'm saying actually both sides of this debate are valid. And I'm saying that it's weird for you to hide that your problem with not voting for Harris behind a layer of "It's fine not to vote, just don't tell people not to vote." Like I said that's just another way of saying you want not voting to be a purely symbolic, non-disruptive act of protest In terms of material evidence for the efficacy of not voting, I don't have any. This isn't a problem for several reasons. First of all, I'm not here to advocate for not voting; there are good reasons to vote and there are good reasons not to vote. I'm not going to hold it against any of my trans friends if they feel they have to vote for the democratic party in fear of their lives. Likewise, as an antizionist Jew I will not be voting and I do not expect that any of my friends will hold that against me. Secondly, I would say that withholding votes is a step towards a decoupling of the political power of the people and the electoral state, which has a lot of historical evidence of being the main process through which good things happen. Now you can debate whether a vote boycott qualifies as a step away from acceptance of bourgeois state power, that's a discussion I'd be interested to have, but that's not the kind of analysis you have been presenting. Third, while it could be true that we don't have evidence of vote boycotts leading to change (I genuinely don't know one way or the other) we have a very, very long list of evidence of voting for the democrats not leading to change. Electoral politics has never been and, if you accept marx, lenin, dutt, parenti, etc. views on the state, could never be, the means by which changes on this scale or of this urgency are affected. This is essentially the same problem with reactionaries who ask "well what evidence is there of a successful communist state" as if that is a justification to stop fighting for the end of capitalism.
MoltenPanda
2024-10-21 04:19:33 +0000 UTCI don't know what we mean by "material meaningful difference." currently, the only people in government who have any interest in helping Gazans at all are the democrats. If elected, there is a zero percent chance that republicans would do anything to help the people of Gaza, and I think that is less the case among democrats. The statistics on relative support are pretty clear, and I find them persuasive. If the only people who want to make things better are in one party, I'm inclined to vote for them. Now, does that mean that the democrats will certainly be better? That they will help Palestinians more? That many of them are not ardent and committed zionists? No, but I have to imagine anyone would be better than Trump or Biden is. Going back to your comment here, you write, " If you're telling people not to advocate against voting for her, then you're essentially saying that you don't want that position to be widespread, don't want it to be effective or disruptive at all. In essence, you want it to be symbolic and not material." No, I don't think I ought to advise people to withhold their votes. I think it's a serious enough election, for many reasons, that I should just be honest about who I think the better candidate is and let people decide what they want to do. I guess I'd ask, what "materialist evidence" do you have for the efficacy left wing people in the US telling others to withhold their votes. Has that historically been the main process through which good things happen in our society? How many vote boycotting movements do we have in mind here
Big Joel
2024-10-21 03:33:05 +0000 UTCI don't see that there is a meaningful material difference between democrats and republicans on this issue. If there is historical evidence of me being wrong there, then I'll gladly accept that material analysis. Though again I'd still doubt the efficacy of voting for the fascist collaborationist party over the fascists, at least from my ML perspective and that of Dutt. You talk about congresspeople and how their views influence policy, but ultimately US foreign policy is not decided by the personal views of congresspeople. Or, to the extent that it is, it is vastly dominated by the role of congress as a tool of state machinery to facilitate and fund US imperialism. The democratic party isn't just full of rabid zionists, it could never not be dominated by rabid zionists because the interests of US capital align and are deeply invested in the zionist project. Just to make a comment on the state of the party right now, there are what maybe two congresspeople willing to even toe the line of saying something that could be misconstrued as anti-israel compared to how many rabid zionists? Rashida Tlaib said "from the river to the sea" and 22 democratic congresspeople voted to censure her. More to the point of my original comment though, is this not just tacit advocacy for voting for Harris? If you're telling people not to advocate against voting for her, then you're essentially saying that you don't want that position to be widespread, don't want it to be effective or disruptive at all. In essence, you want it to be symbolic and not material. I don't like that, kind of simple as that. I also don't like the way that from my perspective you're obfuscating that tacit advocacy with this level of removal - you know "vote or don't do what you think is right" but at the same time "advocating against voting is wrong." I don't think you're doing that intentionally to be clear, I just think it's an inevitable result of my problems with your position.
MoltenPanda
2024-10-21 02:51:49 +0000 UTCHmm I'm not really sure what qualifies as meaningful material difference, here. My thought is that Kamala Harris has a higher chance of going through with the Biden administration's demands on Israel than Trump is and that Trump is more beholden to a more zionist population and more zionist legislators than Harris is. These are just suspicions. Are the positions of democrats and republicans in congress, and how they might reflect on policy, material?
Big Joel
2024-10-21 01:46:06 +0000 UTCNot gone yet, apparently I maintain access until the month is up. I also am not against people voting for the democrats, i just disagree with your critique of advocacy for not voting for them. I see your analysis as antimaterialist because it's based on which candidate gives Israel more vocal support for its genocide, rather than the material reality each candidate presents for the on the ground circumstances in the middle east. Harris has given no indication that she will support anything other than full military support to Israel under any and all circumstances and i don't think trump's rhetoric on its own is enough to believe that he will go beyond the level of absolute willingness to commit genocide already shown by the democrats. Are right wing presidents historically more supportive of Israel in terms of actual military aid and operations in Palestine? And even if so, does voting for the lesser of two fascists do anything to materially slow the progress of fascism? My position, and the one reflected in the book I recommended, is that it does not. Again that is not to say that anyone voting for the democrats shouldn't do so; I don't particularly think that withholding votes will do anything to stop the democrats either - not without some massive exodus to an actual workers party which clearly is not a real option in this election. And there are undeniably very real, material differences in domestic policy between the Dems and GOP. I just think that in terms of foreign policy generally and in terms of Palestine specifically there is not sufficient evidence of a material difference, and if there is it at least was certainly not present in the comment you made
MoltenPanda
2024-10-20 23:24:13 +0000 UTCI imagine you're already gone (which is fine, I'm not owed your support.) But to anyone reading this, my position on voting is very simple: People should use whatever power they have in society to impact its politics. It's my opinion that Trump could only be worse for the people of Gaza, and so I think it's appropriate to vote against him. I'd just say, vote with your conscience. If you'd prefer one of the two candidates, it's usually a good idea to vote for that one. I don't personally see this as "anti materialist" but honestly, I don't really know what that means in this context. Are materialists forced to accept the position that all presidential candidates are the same? I don't think so, but who knows, maybe I'm wrong.
Big Joel
2024-10-20 19:45:05 +0000 UTCI know this is kind of a "I'm leaving this Facebook group"-ass comment, and I'm not looking for a response I just want to communicate something to bigjoel. I am unsubscribing from your Patreon as a result of a comment I saw of yours from a few weeks ago about the rightness of advocating against voting for the democrats while they are participating in genocide and seem to plan to continue. I found your analysis very antimaterialist and symbolic and ultimately it just gave me ick. I hope you've come around on this issue since then or would be open to looking into it further. I recently read RP Dutt's "Fascism and Social Revolution" which I loved and includes analysis I think is relevant to this discussion, the whole "lesser of two evils" thing. Love your vids, btw.
MoltenPanda
2024-10-20 11:05:15 +0000 UTCCharisma king referring to Krishnan Guru-Murthy as just “the guy” is hilarious. Even I know who that is on the complete other side of the world
Nihilore
2024-10-19 12:20:03 +0000 UTCI definitely used to see that hat too lmao
Nihilore
2024-10-19 12:16:25 +0000 UTCWhen I was mingling with the alt-right as a teen, after being swindled by the atheist youtubers into being an anti-feminist, Charisma on Command was one of the channels I watched. He would make these detailed explainers about how cool and good Peterson was, and I'd eat them up because JP looked like such an intellectual. All this to say, I don't like this guy. He's not just happy to feed off the alt-right, he actively participates in the construction of the manosphere and the idolatry of the people within. Anyway cool vid joel as always
A Parent Lee (long lost brother of Stan Lee, RIP)
2024-10-19 08:57:03 +0000 UTCEveryone knows that the best way to spot a narcissist is by holding up a mirror in front of everyone you meet. Narcissists don't have a reflection, so the mirror makes it really easy to tell. When you spot one, it is important to remember that while they are stronger, faster, and can live forever, they have weaknesses. They need to stay out of direct sunlight. They are also unable to enter someone's home without an invitation. To be fair, this information only applies if the narcissist in question happens to be a vampire, but I don't think it's any less helpful than the CoC video.
Skye Keating
2024-10-18 20:58:46 +0000 UTCthought for years your pfp had a massively wide-brimmed hat. i'm shocked and appalled that it's just a torn piece of paper. you've destroyed my trust
a
2024-10-18 20:46:56 +0000 UTComg ive been seeing these videos all over my recommended after i watched the one with RDJ out of curiosity. i have a bachelor's and master's degree in psychology and couldn't stop laughing the entire video. literally saying the most obvious thing in the world. as someone with actual expertise in psychology it's so frustrating to see people pretend like they know what they're talking about when it's so obvious to me that they know nothing
Sajl Salim
2024-10-18 19:48:34 +0000 UTCThe charisma king sets off my fight or flight to be honest. I can almost picture him saying a partner calling him out on bad behavior is being passive aggressive or narcissistic. I don't like it, he should command that charisma away from women imo. Sorry to this man I guess lol
Hazelhaunt
2024-10-18 19:31:15 +0000 UTCJust a thought on their Elizabeth Holmes video - the whole pitch of Holmes's company was that it was a new technology innovation to improve blood testing effectiveness. No layman could intuitively discount it, and that's part of why she was effective at getting funding! And Theranos came at perhaps a peak of tech progress optimism, when anything felt possible. Holmes approached the pitch of the company like that of software startups (where if they have the idea and manpower they can surely just build it out), and *may have* been a true believer that the product could be made if she just found enough time and money. All to say, cases like these almost always have a lot of moving pieces, complexity and ambiguity / competing stories, which YouTube channels like the charisma kings almost invariably fail to capture even a fraction of. I guess it's inevitable that by reducing social interactions into just a guidebook of How To Be A Gigachad, they'll also oversimplify actual history. But it's a really unfortunate thing IMO because it promotes a fairy-tale-like understanding of reality without capacity for nuance or murky answers.
Downpour
2024-10-18 19:28:27 +0000 UTC#thankyoubigJoel really sick how RDJ owned the libs there in that one. Really got em but good huh?
Alex Weber
2024-10-18 19:14:58 +0000 UTCI remember stumbling on this channel years back and seeing red flags by how much they liked to use right-wing reactionaries as examples of Charismatic behavior to emulate. Some of the earlier ones I remember had videos centered around Trump and Jordan Peterson. I started to get the sense that it was about sanewashing strange behavior from conservative reactionaries. Notable here too that the video about Narcissists doesn't seem to mention Donald Trump.
Xenoglossicist
2024-10-18 18:57:31 +0000 UTCYay!
Noah Klein
2024-10-18 18:37:15 +0000 UTC
