To go from gamma to wizard is there usually a multiplier involved such as money, muscles, fame, etc that provides some cover for the gamma as they transition to wizard?
I realize I am trying to break a cycle. The boomer generation was the first to have the single career girl life. It was a lie they could never live up to. After becoming mothers the lie had already become ingrained, zoomers I know who are parents are continuing it, too.
1. If you are a mother at home with children you must pretend you have eight hours of free time everyday because everyone else with kids does a job effortlessly. Therefore you must volunteer and serve on committees for every community and home school group around all while running around to endless activities and doing hobbies to give yourself something to do.
2. Help everyone by policing and getting into their face when you know better wether this is about having a lot of kids and getting married young home birth or why girls who want to be moms need that college degree they spend so much time and money on. Stress yourself out to help these many, many unfortunates.
3. When you fail to live up to the girl boss mom any better than you lived up to the girl boss single complain and berate yourself loudly around your kids and husband. And be a very helpless blaming victim of the sucky mom life especially when your diet isn’t working because your husband keeps eating so many unhealthy things. Have no clue why you have no friends and such disrespectful kids because you care about them so much you have to do lots of somethings and getting out for yourself with the kids outta your hair.
I have spent a decent sum supporting the great works Castalia has been producing - slowly - for several years. This is the first time I've been able to overcome the cheapness that is deep in my bones and spring for a $250 edition.
Now that the bindery is complete and volume and production times are about to improve greatly; Owen should consider working out a deal with Vox to publish more works (just books he likes, not necessary a new book he writes every 3 months) for a Castalia version of the 'Feed the Bear' subscription on Unauthorized.
Anyone whose been around this community for any length of time knows that these fine leather books are a form of currency. While I wouldn't feel right about asking for charity from this group, I have on more than one occasion, sold my books to pay expenses when my budget was tight.
That’s a sneakily outstanding binding. The more you look at it, the better it is. There’s a mash-up of styles going on that cohere into - sounds oxymoronic, but modern classic. Part Victorian, part Art Deco era, part contemporary. Just killer.
"His behavioral pattern is natural to him, his dishonesty is reflexive" When Vox states this it is absolutely true - I am tempted to lie for no reason as a reflex when caught off guard, even when there is no wrong doing. It is hard to explain this conduct to others but it is absolutely there. The lying can be controlled with practice, but like an addict, the temptation never quite goes away. It's frustrating. I've dealt with it by apologizing for a lie when it slips out and correcting the information immediately - you feel like crap though because it is humiliating. Religion has given me a tighter reign on the right and wrong of things, which helps. Vox's insights are beneficial because they shed light on patterns themselves, and thus the ability to recognize them - in others and in yourself.
This has to be the very best and insightful expounding of these two gamma behavioral character/personality traits I've ever read. Thank you, Vox for this educational clarification.
I work in litigation and use a lot of word spells in our arguments. Is there a fundamental distinction between the wizards like alinsky who set their own path versus someone like me who does it as a professional craft? I was going to argue intent, but we both believe what we are doing so it is no distinction.
Is there a difference in the mercenary angle, like the difference between a soldier killing as task versus a megalomaniac killing for his own power? Even there it breaks down when you include advertising wizards like Edward Bernays.
I was voir dire'd in a trial-jury pool regarding a particularly cold, heartless, unnecessary murder. A lawyer myself with an extensive background in linguistics and logic, I was able to discern the unbounded manipulative language and skewed frame and prediction patterns of the two defense attorneys. They had the air of reasonable guys just doing business, but were almost intuitively-accomplished serpents.
I don't think they consciously grasped what dark currents they were treading. If in doubt please search your conscience, with honest help if possible.
Most of what I do is actually countering those types. Mindfulness is the strongest counter — just tell the jury what the lawyers are doing, remind them of their oath, and ask them to follow the law instead of inflamed emotion. On the other hand, I’ll lean on known biases. I will have a plaintiff anchor the jury as high as possible in void dire and opening, but I won’t support an attempt to inflate the damages more than what can actually be supported. I will use the last word bias to our advantage, and give our guy the counter if we don’t have the last word. I expect the other side to be good at their craft and disable it when they don’t have the last word.
Yes. There's a distinction between wizards and Alinsky-wizards. The term wizard here is used in a context connoting deceit, but wizards are widely recognized as good, whether Merlin or Gandalf.
Being great at language is what constitutes a wizard, and that's all. It doesn't imply evil outside of Owen's book.
So, if you're crafting convincing arguments for an innocent client, you're not being a 'wizard' in the sense used here, but you are being a wizard in the more commonly understood sense.
That's rather like the witches who insist that they only practice white magic. What you're doing is going to corrode both your soul and your sense of the truth, especially since you know that you will refrain from doing things that you know to be true or right because, as an officer of the court, you have to play ball with the system.
As for the mercenary angle, I would simply point out that both mercenaries and murderers are shot out of hand in wartime without any rights to being a prisoner of war. Would you not hold a paid assassin responsible for his actions because he was getting paid for them?
I don’t refrain from doing the right and true. I won’t work to take money that isn’t owed, but I will make sure that our system is adversarial and that my client has the best case the truth affords him.
As long as our system doesn’t execute wizards like witches, someone has to deal with them in court. As for my soul and truth, I will trust in Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and grace.
My Gamma ex-stepfather dabbled in wizardry after he and my mother divorced. He tried telling me that despite his actions that destroyed the marriage, my mother was apparently just as much of a narcissist as he was, which somehow justified his initial narcissistic behavior. Posturing and moral superiority in action: “I may have my flaws, but I’m not nearly as bad as that person over there I don’t like! They’re actually the bad guy here, not me. No, I have no evidence to back up my claims… just trust me on this one, they’re way worse than I am…”
Now, he conveniently left out the fact that he cheated on my mother with prostitutes. His lies were incredibly easy to see through, but were arranged in the same format nonetheless.
I don’t normally laugh at YouTube shorts, but this one got me. I had this exact same kid at my childhood playground and whatever attack or spell we all threw at him he would respond with, “No, I dodged it!”
"Essentially, a wizard is a Gamma who is able to convince others of what used to be his own delusions."
There's a thought. The gamma I know seems to have it as a life mission to convince everyone that he Knows Best, and also that everyone who doesn't agree with him is essentially human garbage. Of course, he doesn't broadcast this opinion openly and to the faces of the people he despises, he just works to undermine them behind their backs. I wouldn't classify him as a wizard, since plenty of people see through him, but he certainly tries.
there exists a possibility, for low status man to "graduate" their rank. Omega and gamma to delta and delta to bravo. On the same not can a higher status rank "degrade" into a lower one. For example Alpha or bravo to gamma, delta to omega?
I would be the poster boy for “upgrading” from Omega to something else, if that were possible. One of the key insights of the SSH is that it’s not.
I make a lot of money, I’ve been happily married for a long time, my kids are flourishing, and I’m a well-known semi-public figure in my field. I’m objectively more accomplished than most Alphas. VD and the SSH majorly improved my life by helping to resolve my confusion about why I continued to struggle with certain things: I’m not an Alpha (or Sigma,) and I won’t ever be, and that’s fine. It is a category error to expect Alpha mannerisms, flaws, strengths, etc. That’s not my nature.
I’ve been enormously blessed as it is. The only reason for me to want to be “more” is pride. SSH helped me to realize this and I’m much happier (and spiritually healthier) now that I’m not straining for the useless and damaging.
But you won't be able to reverse engineer a higher rank by learning about the behavioral patterns of the SSH for the same reason that you can not cure a repression by explaining it.
Only situationally and temporarily. You always bounce back to your core patterns after a serious life crisis, or serious emotional turmoil.
Rollo Tomassi, an Alpha, was a self-described Omega after a BPD woman wrecked his life and took him through an emotional wringer. Look where he is now.
I knew a former football team captain, Alpha as it gets. Then he developed some kind of heart disease where he must avoid feeling strong emotions for fear of his life.
I watched in real time this man re-train his own behaviour into that of a bravo / delta. He is now very supportive of younger alphas, but his own alpha behaviour has been suppressed forever. Even if there is an Alpha core, he physically cannot bounce back.
On a somewhat related note we have seem alpha Trump melting into a gamma on Twitter, although it's evidently not really Trump there.
OK, that's a very interesting as well as somewhat tragic edge case. The working hypothesis for non-outlier cases could thusly be stated: "Barring non-recoverable physical illness, men will over time always default to their core behavioural patterns."
This would also align with the concept of hedonic adaptation -- return to baseline levels of life satisfaction after both very positive as well as very negative life events.
Not to be confused with a fixed vs. growth mindset, however. The belief that "I have core behavioural patterns that are consistent, on average, over the span of my lifetime" does not imply "I have a fixed ceiling on what I can accomplish, learn, or master."
Those are two very distinct belief systems. One is acceptance of what one cannot change, and making the most of what one can; the other is both false and limiting.
I agree with Coffee Guy, and add that you should imagine a low alpha to be the former High School Quarterback that got injured in a big game, started his own business, but the business failed for some reason. He got prescribed opioids when his injury got aggravated, and after the doctor cut him off he got addicted to fentanyl. He now lives in a trailer and is on his third wife, and is just getting by.
However, despite all of that, he had a ton of friends in the Trailer park who respect him, and that Third wife he has might be a drug addict covered in tattoos , but she’s 10 years younger than him and hot. He’s a loser by a ton of metrics, but he’s still an Alpha, not a Gamma.
No one can ever truly “graduate” from their core behavioral pattern. It’s a core pattern that was cemented into the man’s psyche from a very young age. Of course, it is possible for low-status men to learn high-status traits and exercise willpower to occasionally use them, as can high-status men backslide into low-status behavior every now and then, but eventually all men will revert back to their core behavior pattern, especially when under stress.
To go from gamma to wizard is there usually a multiplier involved such as money, muscles, fame, etc that provides some cover for the gamma as they transition to wizard?
I realize I am trying to break a cycle. The boomer generation was the first to have the single career girl life. It was a lie they could never live up to. After becoming mothers the lie had already become ingrained, zoomers I know who are parents are continuing it, too.
1. If you are a mother at home with children you must pretend you have eight hours of free time everyday because everyone else with kids does a job effortlessly. Therefore you must volunteer and serve on committees for every community and home school group around all while running around to endless activities and doing hobbies to give yourself something to do.
2. Help everyone by policing and getting into their face when you know better wether this is about having a lot of kids and getting married young home birth or why girls who want to be moms need that college degree they spend so much time and money on. Stress yourself out to help these many, many unfortunates.
3. When you fail to live up to the girl boss mom any better than you lived up to the girl boss single complain and berate yourself loudly around your kids and husband. And be a very helpless blaming victim of the sucky mom life especially when your diet isn’t working because your husband keeps eating so many unhealthy things. Have no clue why you have no friends and such disrespectful kids because you care about them so much you have to do lots of somethings and getting out for yourself with the kids outta your hair.
It’s the cycle of I am not enough.
I have spent a decent sum supporting the great works Castalia has been producing - slowly - for several years. This is the first time I've been able to overcome the cheapness that is deep in my bones and spring for a $250 edition.
Now that the bindery is complete and volume and production times are about to improve greatly; Owen should consider working out a deal with Vox to publish more works (just books he likes, not necessary a new book he writes every 3 months) for a Castalia version of the 'Feed the Bear' subscription on Unauthorized.
Anyone whose been around this community for any length of time knows that these fine leather books are a form of currency. While I wouldn't feel right about asking for charity from this group, I have on more than one occasion, sold my books to pay expenses when my budget was tight.
That’s a sneakily outstanding binding. The more you look at it, the better it is. There’s a mash-up of styles going on that cohere into - sounds oxymoronic, but modern classic. Part Victorian, part Art Deco era, part contemporary. Just killer.
"His behavioral pattern is natural to him, his dishonesty is reflexive" When Vox states this it is absolutely true - I am tempted to lie for no reason as a reflex when caught off guard, even when there is no wrong doing. It is hard to explain this conduct to others but it is absolutely there. The lying can be controlled with practice, but like an addict, the temptation never quite goes away. It's frustrating. I've dealt with it by apologizing for a lie when it slips out and correcting the information immediately - you feel like crap though because it is humiliating. Religion has given me a tighter reign on the right and wrong of things, which helps. Vox's insights are beneficial because they shed light on patterns themselves, and thus the ability to recognize them - in others and in yourself.
This has to be the very best and insightful expounding of these two gamma behavioral character/personality traits I've ever read. Thank you, Vox for this educational clarification.
Best advice dealing with wizards, gammas and manipulation stop giving them attention. Drives them mad which is fun as well
I work in litigation and use a lot of word spells in our arguments. Is there a fundamental distinction between the wizards like alinsky who set their own path versus someone like me who does it as a professional craft? I was going to argue intent, but we both believe what we are doing so it is no distinction.
Is there a difference in the mercenary angle, like the difference between a soldier killing as task versus a megalomaniac killing for his own power? Even there it breaks down when you include advertising wizards like Edward Bernays.
I was voir dire'd in a trial-jury pool regarding a particularly cold, heartless, unnecessary murder. A lawyer myself with an extensive background in linguistics and logic, I was able to discern the unbounded manipulative language and skewed frame and prediction patterns of the two defense attorneys. They had the air of reasonable guys just doing business, but were almost intuitively-accomplished serpents.
I don't think they consciously grasped what dark currents they were treading. If in doubt please search your conscience, with honest help if possible.
Most of what I do is actually countering those types. Mindfulness is the strongest counter — just tell the jury what the lawyers are doing, remind them of their oath, and ask them to follow the law instead of inflamed emotion. On the other hand, I’ll lean on known biases. I will have a plaintiff anchor the jury as high as possible in void dire and opening, but I won’t support an attempt to inflate the damages more than what can actually be supported. I will use the last word bias to our advantage, and give our guy the counter if we don’t have the last word. I expect the other side to be good at their craft and disable it when they don’t have the last word.
Yes. There's a distinction between wizards and Alinsky-wizards. The term wizard here is used in a context connoting deceit, but wizards are widely recognized as good, whether Merlin or Gandalf.
Being great at language is what constitutes a wizard, and that's all. It doesn't imply evil outside of Owen's book.
So, if you're crafting convincing arguments for an innocent client, you're not being a 'wizard' in the sense used here, but you are being a wizard in the more commonly understood sense.
I am in civil law, so thankfully I don’t have to deal with the criminal side.
That's rather like the witches who insist that they only practice white magic. What you're doing is going to corrode both your soul and your sense of the truth, especially since you know that you will refrain from doing things that you know to be true or right because, as an officer of the court, you have to play ball with the system.
As for the mercenary angle, I would simply point out that both mercenaries and murderers are shot out of hand in wartime without any rights to being a prisoner of war. Would you not hold a paid assassin responsible for his actions because he was getting paid for them?
Shades of Grosse Pointe Blank...
"It's not personal. It's just business."
Dumb movie villains believe that. Why should anyone else?
I don’t refrain from doing the right and true. I won’t work to take money that isn’t owed, but I will make sure that our system is adversarial and that my client has the best case the truth affords him.
As long as our system doesn’t execute wizards like witches, someone has to deal with them in court. As for my soul and truth, I will trust in Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and grace.
This blog is dangerous for the wizards who oversee wage slaves…
The "I was only following orders" excuse didn't work at Nuremburg, you know.
Because they lost. Where was Sherman’s trial?
My Gamma ex-stepfather dabbled in wizardry after he and my mother divorced. He tried telling me that despite his actions that destroyed the marriage, my mother was apparently just as much of a narcissist as he was, which somehow justified his initial narcissistic behavior. Posturing and moral superiority in action: “I may have my flaws, but I’m not nearly as bad as that person over there I don’t like! They’re actually the bad guy here, not me. No, I have no evidence to back up my claims… just trust me on this one, they’re way worse than I am…”
Now, he conveniently left out the fact that he cheated on my mother with prostitutes. His lies were incredibly easy to see through, but were arranged in the same format nonetheless.
Those secret wizard-kings. Cute as kids...
https://youtube.com/shorts/6PDmIoO7JKY?si=ci63YigIc81Jy-2f
Invisibul crown…visibul clown LOL
"It's a invinsubl crown so, so you can't see it"
Legend says he never took that crown off either. They really do start young.
I don’t normally laugh at YouTube shorts, but this one got me. I had this exact same kid at my childhood playground and whatever attack or spell we all threw at him he would respond with, “No, I dodged it!”
Reminds me of a review of Space Fleet Academy where the "reviewer" hadn't even read it.
"the most recently banned Gamma. He wasn’t the first, he won’t be the last"
May we endure all wizard spells, be they in their larvae state or in their fully mutant lepidoptera.
Thanks to both Vox and Owen for making the education available.
"Essentially, a wizard is a Gamma who is able to convince others of what used to be his own delusions."
There's a thought. The gamma I know seems to have it as a life mission to convince everyone that he Knows Best, and also that everyone who doesn't agree with him is essentially human garbage. Of course, he doesn't broadcast this opinion openly and to the faces of the people he despises, he just works to undermine them behind their backs. I wouldn't classify him as a wizard, since plenty of people see through him, but he certainly tries.
“plenty of people see through him, but he certainly tries”
They do, but he doesn’t see through him.
When he does, too, he finally gets the choice: seek redemption, or embrace wickedness.
there exists a possibility, for low status man to "graduate" their rank. Omega and gamma to delta and delta to bravo. On the same not can a higher status rank "degrade" into a lower one. For example Alpha or bravo to gamma, delta to omega?
I would be the poster boy for “upgrading” from Omega to something else, if that were possible. One of the key insights of the SSH is that it’s not.
I make a lot of money, I’ve been happily married for a long time, my kids are flourishing, and I’m a well-known semi-public figure in my field. I’m objectively more accomplished than most Alphas. VD and the SSH majorly improved my life by helping to resolve my confusion about why I continued to struggle with certain things: I’m not an Alpha (or Sigma,) and I won’t ever be, and that’s fine. It is a category error to expect Alpha mannerisms, flaws, strengths, etc. That’s not my nature.
I’ve been enormously blessed as it is. The only reason for me to want to be “more” is pride. SSH helped me to realize this and I’m much happier (and spiritually healthier) now that I’m not straining for the useless and damaging.
Yes.
But you won't be able to reverse engineer a higher rank by learning about the behavioral patterns of the SSH for the same reason that you can not cure a repression by explaining it.
No. It's just situational. Your core pattern will not change.
Degrading is much easier. Some kind of horrible trauma, disease or loss of limbs, etc can bring an alpha down all the way to omega.
Only situationally and temporarily. You always bounce back to your core patterns after a serious life crisis, or serious emotional turmoil.
Rollo Tomassi, an Alpha, was a self-described Omega after a BPD woman wrecked his life and took him through an emotional wringer. Look where he is now.
I knew a former football team captain, Alpha as it gets. Then he developed some kind of heart disease where he must avoid feeling strong emotions for fear of his life.
I watched in real time this man re-train his own behaviour into that of a bravo / delta. He is now very supportive of younger alphas, but his own alpha behaviour has been suppressed forever. Even if there is an Alpha core, he physically cannot bounce back.
On a somewhat related note we have seem alpha Trump melting into a gamma on Twitter, although it's evidently not really Trump there.
OK, that's a very interesting as well as somewhat tragic edge case. The working hypothesis for non-outlier cases could thusly be stated: "Barring non-recoverable physical illness, men will over time always default to their core behavioural patterns."
This would also align with the concept of hedonic adaptation -- return to baseline levels of life satisfaction after both very positive as well as very negative life events.
Not to be confused with a fixed vs. growth mindset, however. The belief that "I have core behavioural patterns that are consistent, on average, over the span of my lifetime" does not imply "I have a fixed ceiling on what I can accomplish, learn, or master."
Those are two very distinct belief systems. One is acceptance of what one cannot change, and making the most of what one can; the other is both false and limiting.
I agree with Coffee Guy, and add that you should imagine a low alpha to be the former High School Quarterback that got injured in a big game, started his own business, but the business failed for some reason. He got prescribed opioids when his injury got aggravated, and after the doctor cut him off he got addicted to fentanyl. He now lives in a trailer and is on his third wife, and is just getting by.
However, despite all of that, he had a ton of friends in the Trailer park who respect him, and that Third wife he has might be a drug addict covered in tattoos , but she’s 10 years younger than him and hot. He’s a loser by a ton of metrics, but he’s still an Alpha, not a Gamma.
Extremely well put!
makes ton of sense, thanks
No one can ever truly “graduate” from their core behavioral pattern. It’s a core pattern that was cemented into the man’s psyche from a very young age. Of course, it is possible for low-status men to learn high-status traits and exercise willpower to occasionally use them, as can high-status men backslide into low-status behavior every now and then, but eventually all men will revert back to their core behavior pattern, especially when under stress.