59 Comments
User's avatar
efij's avatar

wheres my gam this is not fair dis like!

Expand full comment
JBRChiRho's avatar

The crowd became angry very quickly. If they had panicked more may have been more injured.

Trump changed the mood quickly

Expand full comment
Joshua's avatar

This guy Epictetus seems alright.

Expand full comment
Cube Cubis's avatar

I Vox Day, therefore I am.

Expand full comment
S.'s avatar

Besides the Bible and Meditations, my favorite book is 'Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot' by James Stockdale, the retired admiral famous for running as Ross Perot's VP candidate. It's a series of his essays and college graduation speeches detailing how his love of reading Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius helped him survive torture and imprisonment by the North Vietnamese. Great stuff.

Expand full comment
420MedicineMan's avatar

Anger is a huge tell, it's also off putting.

So many woman are angry nowadays.

Angry people also tend to have a slave mindset. Makes sense why they're angry, slave like obedience to the rules, that enslave them.

Expand full comment
Cedric's avatar

Anger without direction is usually a sign of frustration and impotence. Guys start swinging, when they've got no other option to get ahead.

Expand full comment
Easy Eddie's avatar

"He also describes the essential problem with the Gamma obsession with becoming a subject-matter expert.". This perfectly fits in where a reader here said that gammas to paraphrase think that they can get things in life through information content alone and so they end up being ineffective.

Expand full comment
Balkan Yankee's avatar

Speaking of things Lupine, I am half way through Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (2008). It's an English translation of a literary-prize-winning work by a Chinese author who spent his student years among Mongolian nomads in Inner Mongolia in the 1960s.

It's a rich work and a compelling multi-layered story. What I love about it are the revelations concerning how deeply wolves affected Mongol culture, include their war ways. Cannot recommend this book highly enough. It also pairs well with Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford (2004).

Expand full comment
Nicholas A Stebbens's avatar

I've long wondered about the claim of Jesus being 'the alpha and the omega and all things in between' given what he said about purification and 'lukewarmness' to put it simply.

Expand full comment
taignobias's avatar

It has the same fundamental meaning as I AM THAT I AM.

There is no before or after Jesus, and there is no higher authority to which one can appeal. He has ruled His creation since He made it, and He will reign forever and ever. The passage in Revelation 22 brings an end to the Revelation of how this world will end, where He stands.

Expand full comment
GAHCindy's avatar

Jesus was not talking about the SSH.

Expand full comment
Thermal Neutron's avatar

Translated Epictetus quote: "Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power."

Modern SSH translation: "it's none of your business, now STFU."

Another Epictetus stoic quote: "We suffer not from the events in our lives but from our judgement about them."

Modern SSH translation:"Gammas are their own worst enemy, but they'll never admit it."

Expand full comment
Balkan Yankee's avatar

The only thing we can control is our character. I think that's what Epictetus was getting at in the first quote.

Expand full comment
LR's avatar

Those saying “ACTUALLY wolf packs don’t operate like that” reek of gamma behaviour and are either being intentionally obtuse or have poor reading comprehension. The point of that analogy is not to say anything about wolf packs, but to say something about human behaviour. As with any other analogy.

Her eyes were as blue as the sky. “ACTUALLY it’s sunset right now so the sky is orange.”

Besides, wolves do operate in a hierarchy, which is why we were able to successfully domesticate them, even if it’s not precisely as described by the “alpha wolf” concept.

Expand full comment
SirHamster's avatar

Add Not All Wolves Are Like That (NAWALT) to the fallacy list.

Expand full comment
Nancy Micholson's avatar

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

Epictetus

Expand full comment
Vlajdermen's avatar

Endlessly based

Expand full comment
AML's avatar

I've read Meditations, which is a truly remarkable book, if for no other reason that it was written by the Emperor and not intended to ever be published. However, I'm ashamed to admit that I've never heard of Epictetus and now have yet another book to read.

Expand full comment
S.'s avatar

Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot, by James Stockdale is a great introduction to Epictetus. I've mentioned it elsewhere here; essays and speeches about Stockdale's time as a POW of the North Vietnamese and how Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius helped him survive.

Expand full comment
taignobias's avatar

You're still up on me, who owns collected works of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius but has failed to read them. I'd be more ashamed of that if I wasn't also behind on my Scripture reading.

Expand full comment
sasquatch Tendies Conesure's avatar

Can you do a comparison of the part where you highlight his delta mindset, among other stoics that are of a different ssh mindset? Or other assertions from several mindsets?

Expand full comment
Sledge With An Edge's avatar

Describing human behavior is nothing new, clearly. Even classification of types of men based on their behavior is not new. Why so many insist on having issues with the SSH is beyond me.

Expand full comment
Son of Winter's avatar

Because the regime wants us to be powerless. But there is power in naming a thing.

There are whole industries dedicated to trying to take away the ordinary man's ability to give names to things

Expand full comment
S.'s avatar

Because Vox makes all the right people angry. Really angry. It's as much about him as it is the SSH. The system keeps percolating through the culture because of its obvious utility once applied, but a large number of the people don't mention his name: they either don't want to be associated with his name or haven't been told the origin of it, due to his name being removed. Vox has a very high accuracy percentage on pattern recognition and the predictions that result, and that really pisses people off, especially people who worship the lies of this world and not the truth.

Expand full comment
GAHCindy's avatar

Because Vox just keeps winning, and they can't stand it?

Expand full comment
joehannes's avatar

Many people are indoctrinated into several forms of Individualism, ignoring basic facts that manifest naturally in the societal structures they live in. They think that everyone is a unique being that cannot be classified in such a simple manner. "Every man is much too special to be put in just one of seven boxes, don't you know?!"

It's why Astrology has always been such a popular "classification concept". You can always think up some nonsense using a Pluto-Venus-Sextile in Leo in combination with the Sagittarius-Ascendant that also contains a 1°-Sun-Mercury-Conjunction which makes you so very special, extremely intelligent, and so super-exciting to be around! Counter that with "You're a Gamma, STFU!" and you've got your explanation.

Expand full comment
JW's avatar

The root issue many have with the SSH is that it threatens their illusions about themselves.

Expand full comment
Balkan Yankee's avatar

Radical self-acceptance is difficult, but it's the only way to fly.

Expand full comment
CL's avatar

The concept of the SSH that's been most elusive is that it is both observable patterns of behavior and intrinsic mindsets which can only be inferred. Originally, I considered, like most I suppose, that this was a guideline to shape behavior. In practice, it's more of a heuristic to interpret human motivation. What's made this difficult to understand is that most people have experienced how behavior can influence mindset, but I think SSH clarifies that internal personality is somewhat fixed and discipline will mostly reveal it. I can go to the beach regularly and modify my pigment to an extent, but I will not tan until I look like Halle Berry and staying inside religiously won't give me Nicole Kidman's porcelain skin. As such one can modify behavior to attain a societal standard and perhaps gain some new privileges by changing what you think but you cannot fundamentally alter how you think.

Expand full comment
LR's avatar

Oddly enough, there is one category that many who dismiss the SSH out of hand would agree cannot be changed, despite psychiatrist’s best efforts in the first half of the 20th century: the Lambda.

While a gay man can decide to ignore his internal preference and marry a woman, such arrangements are often rather obvious to everyone except the woman in that relationship.

In the same way, a Delta might be able to step into the Alpha role and successfully lead a group of people, but he won’t attract many women doing it.

Where the SSH reveals itself most is in the sexual part. It’s primal and thus harder to hide.

Expand full comment
Iggy's avatar

"it's more of a heuristic to interpret human motivation"

Careful, that's close to asking "Why do they do that?"

SSH is most useful as a heuristic to predict future behavior, not past motivation.

Expand full comment
SirHamster's avatar

Each rank has expressed motivations and interests, repeatedly declared in actions and words.

Identifying the rank will give strong clues on that man's interests and how to cooperate.

"Leave me alone"

"Praise me"

"Follow the rules"

"Show me respect"

Expand full comment
CL's avatar

Would you be more amenable to the word "impetus" in lieu of motivation? It did not intend to add a time perspective to the applied use.

Expand full comment
Jimmy_w's avatar

Leopard and spots!

Expand full comment