I know the old forum had a thread devoted to this group, but as far as I could tell it was mainly just making fun using ad hominem attacks and straw men arguments.

I subscribe to the podcasts of many of the members of the IDW, including Peterson, Harris, Rubin and Rogan. Although I don't listen to every podcast, I listen to some, and occasionally I hear interesting things I wouldn't mind delving into further if there is interest. If there isn't interest that is fine too.

FWIW, I don't mind informed critique of individual members, and wouldn't mind having an open discussion. However, if you haven't actually listened to what a IDW member said, and all you did was read a Vox or NYT article on them, I would suggest you take the time to actually listen to them before forming an opinion, as I find pretty much everything that comes out of liberal MSM on this topic is just ad hominem attacks and straw men arguments.

Anyways, one member that doesn't get as much press as the others, probably because he doesn't have his own podcast or promote himself much, but gets interviewed by Rogan a lot and has a lot of interesting stuff to say is Eric Weinstein. Weinstein is a mathematician by trade and does some sort of economic research for Thiel Capital.

Anyways one thing that Eric Weinstein talks about a lot is how our current capitalistic structure is basically a House of Cards waiting to fall over. Summarizing (and hopefully getting things mostly correct, I am not an economist myself), he says that during the 50s and 60s conditions were ideal for exponential economic growth pretty much across the board and most of our infrastructures created during that time needed growth to continue as such (he uses the term Embedded Growth Obligation/EGO) to describe this phenomenon.

However, once this tremendous growth slowed in the 70s (as it must eventually) the entire capitalist system has been slowly sinking, and a lot of measures taken by the Federal Reserve, among other entities, basically function as shuffling deck chairs on the titanic.

A couple intractable problems he notes include:

-Loss of jobs due to automation, especially blue collar repetitive tasks
-EGO that just doesn't work anymore. Examples he gives include how law firms and science labs work. He says both of these structures work on the premise that a professor/partner will have lots of subordinates (PhD students/lawyers) working under him under the expectation a certain % of them will move on and become professors/partners themselves. But he says we don't have the growth necessary to sustain this system, which will increasingly be a problem moving forward.

Anyways, the basic premise is that capitalism worked really well in a specific time and place, and maybe it just doesn't work anymore, and the people telling you everything is still fine are deluded and/or lying, and we need to seriously be considering about moving onto something else.

If you are interested in getting exposure to his arguments here are a couple links.

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26756

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NxV...Q&index=2&t=0s

-Ironically, I think this would be a topic that TS could potentially give some good insight into, but I understand that moment has passed.

Much of the postwar growth can be attributed to an explosion in consumer demand, especially in auto and housing. That in turn was made possible by an unprecedented shift downward in the share of wealth. Unions and wages peaked.

I read the link at edge.org. I found the writing scattered. Maybe I'm not understanding something basic, or maybe the author skitters from thought to loosely related thought with no central theme.

Some people sound interesting at the sentence level, but do not remain coherent at the paragraph or page level. They make fast paced observations, but do not really explain anything. If this guy's writing is like that, I'd be afraid to try and follow his verbal patter.

I would be interested in dipping my toes in this stuff a little bit (I read the NYT Magazine article from a few months ago, but most of my knowledge is second hand) but I have somewhat limited time. If you had to cultivate a list of the 50 most essential podcast episodes or youtube videos (preferably an hour or less) what would they be?

Also would be cool if to hear what some of your personal experiences are in terms of dark web exposure and development of political identity. What brought you to this material?

This could definitely be some sort of trap given your posting history here, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and we’ll see where this goes.

Anyways, I became introduced to the IDW through Rogan podcasts, and all the IDW people go on his podcast regularly, including the ones that have their own podcasts, or in Shapiros case his own conservative media empire.

So I think the best way to get exposed to them is through Rogan podcasts, probably by starting at the first one they did and going from there. My favorites are probably Eric and Brett Weinstein (brothers), Sam Harris and Gad Saad.

Anyways, as far as my beliefs, I am not particularly partisan politically at all. For good or bad, I am a pretty open person and willing to talk or listen to ideas with anyone I find interesting. I think if you are an open person, listening to the IDW can be very interesting and rewarding.

However, if you are a closed/tribal person with high disgust towards ideas that don’t fit your tribes orthodoxy you will most likely not be able to stand the IDW and it will repulse you.

Frankly, if you philosophically liked the way the previous 2+2 politics regime operated, you probably won’t like Rogan or any of the IDW people he interviews. This isn’t necessarily good or bad, it just is.

I found his ideas interesting from a 40,000 foot view. I don’t have the economic acumen, or frankly the desire, to get into the weeds of his arguments and unpack them. If you did and found them wanting, that is fine, I won’t dispute you.

I like Sam Harris but just for his meditation stuff. His book Waking Up changed my life. I have read Free Will and enjoyed it as well. He seems to think though that his opinions on Islam and Trump are far more interesting and important than they actually are.

I used to follow Eric Weinstein on twitter but found him to be incredibly disingenuous. His "I'm really a liberal" schtick so laughable.

Off the top of my head, I would suggest the Rogan podcasts with Kevin Hart and Ben Shapiro. Harts podcast was unexpectedly inspirational because the guy has freaky discipline and a powerhouse work ethic. Shapiro comes across much less douchy than expected in a long format discussion. There was another one, i think the husband of the spanx lady, who invited a green beret dude to live with him and train him to be tougher that had some entertaining, crazy stories.

I haven’t looked into it but I sorta agree with what he’s saying in the edge article. Sorta. I agree that capitalism is somewhat contingent and transitory. But I don’t agree that we need to intentionally get rid of it to get rid of it simply because at the end of the day I think capitalism will consume itself. When we add the exponential productivity growth technology provides into the capitalism equation, we eventually hit equilibrium where everything produced by capital goods becomes nearly worthless including the capital goods themselves. Another term for “nearly worthless” is “nearly free.” It’s hard to describe that end state of technology infused capitalism where everything is free with traditional economics because economics is predicated on scarcity. So we’re left with ever improving living conditions and if anything a socialist distributive system that someone like Marx couldn’t even fathom.

Yeah. That makes sense. Although I have a feeling those who own the resources now, will invariably create corrupt systems that allow the status quo to continue as long as possible.

He is probably using a different definition of liberal than you, but I agree he probably isn't a liberal in most regards as the word is commonly used in 2019. The fact he works for Peter Thiel is probably a pretty big red flag there.

Nevertheless, I find him interesting on a large number of topics. He recently did a 4 hour podcast with Rogan that was interesting IMO, with them just shooting the **** for a lot of it.

I wish Weinstein had decided to call it something else, because every time I hear "Intellectual Dark Web" I think of a person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask spouting off pseudo-intellectualism. Its kind of click baity...

Lots of very interesting individuals though. I used to listen to Joe Rogan a lot more, but he has the same hangups as Adam Carolla where everything starts to run together. I think Jordan Peterson has some interesting ideas, but I doubt there is anything he loves more in this world than the sound of his own voice. I've been meaning to catch more Sam Harris stuff, but just haven't found the time.

I think they attract a lot of disenfranchised males who feel like they haven't been given a fair lick and unfortunately, there are few things the world hate more than disenfranchised males who want the world to know how unfair they have it. It just doesn't lend a lot of credibility to the "group" (Is it an official group? Or just a term that Weinstein coined to garner attention)


I haven't read any other Weinstein article besides the one linked, but if he typically writes like this, then he would greatly benefit from writing more in the style that he speaks. He is a very deliberate speaker from what I've seen, and easy to understand. The edge article is a mess.

No doubt. But imposing an aggressive social distribution schema that stunts productivity growth rather than letting it evolve organically, will prolong the trip as well.

Intellectual dark web is a really cringey name. I like Harris and what I've seen of Weinstein, not sure Rogan should be part of any group calling themselves "intellectual" but I like him too. Peterson seemed dumb the times I saw him on the Rogan and Harris podcasts so never bothered with him after that, though YouTube seems to think I'm a big fan despite never clicking his videos.

As far as I can tell, the IDW is mostly a marketing gimmick for people who have been red-pilled into accepting mostly boring centrist and mainstream beliefs. The schtick is to position themselves as cool rebels and spark publicity by painting apocalyptic caricatures of their opponents which leftwing people are happy to defend for similar reasons.

What do they have to say? Rogan and Rubin are basically just interviewers. Sam Harris is an interviewer who occasionally writes best-selling pop philosophy books/articles and promotes mindfulness training. Peterson is a real academic at least, but his prominence as a thinker seems to be mostly as a self-help writer who tells young men they need to become more self-disciplined and find purpose. I agree, but this isn't exactly setting the world on fire. Ben Shapiro is a conservative talk-radio host with more or less standard conservative views. I've heard a couple of Eric Weinstein talks, I don't know, they were pretty disorganized, maybe he has some ideas but they haven't been put into a coherent enough form to make a difference.

What in their ideas do you think is important or distinctive?

At the end of the day, the main value is entertainment. I find it very entertaining and stimulating to listen to long form interviews with interesting people for hours with (relatively) minimal censorship and editing.

I also think there is value in getting exposed to information not constrained by the traditional MSM apparatus, but that is more of a philosophical argument and not as easy to quantify.

The kinds of conversations/interviews Joe Rogan and Sam Harris have are very different than what you get from watching Tucker, Maddow or Colbert; or reading the NYT.

If you have had some exposure to this medium, and don't find it particularly entertaining or valuable, that is fine. To each their own. I just ask you actually listen yourself with as open a mind as possible, before passing any strong judgement.

A lot of people have very strong judgmental opinions based solely off second hand information from uninformed and/or dishonest actors, which I think isn't a very good thing.

Rogan on mma, psychedelics, or comedy is great. Rogan on anything else is AIDS.

Peterson would argue he is amazed at just how much and how fast he is setting the world on fire, because our current modern society is so devoid of self-discipline and purpose. But that is probably getting more in the weeds than either of us want to.

I personally have never been to a Peterson self-help seminar (and probably never will), and don't even find his podcasts focused on this topic to be particularly interesting. I haven't yet, but definitely would be interested in going to a Harris seminar at some point if it was convenient and he was interviewing someone I thought would be interesting. I wouldn't travel cross country to do so though. To each their own.

This has more to do with the medium than the people listed. There are lots of long-form interview podcasts and YT channels with interesting people. Harris, Rubin are not unusually varied in the breadth of ideology of their guests (Rogan does gets a wider range), nor are they unusually philosophical or lacking in censorship. The constraints on Tucker, Maddow, and Colbert have to do with them by hosting a late night TV show - you're not comparing apples to apples here. If you are looking to late night TV for intellectual content, you're doing it wrong.

I should say, I don't have any problem if you want to listen to them. I personally don't care for Rubin's smarmy interview style and the signal to noise is too low with Rogan, but Harris can be interesting to listen to. I just don't see them as an intellectual movement. Books are better for actual intellectual content. Go read a book imo.

So you're saying that Peterson also doesn't think he is saying anything unusual?

That's actually the exact endgame Marx had in mind and it even predates Marx. It's one of the big parts he adopted from the Utopian Socialists.

On that note, welcome comrades.

Well, he might argue it shouldn't be unusual, if we still held true to our Judeo-Christian values of individualism and self-sacrifice; but it is unusual because we have lost our way to the hedonistic nihilism of social Marxism.

Edit: I am projecting. I don't know exactly what he would say, but I have heard a podcast or two so I am probably not too off the deep end.

Can you expound on this?