• moistclump@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    But we don’t want to be like Ben. We want to have morals and ethics and be respectful and respected.

    • glockenspiel@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Ben is a nepo baby. Born to rich and connected parents which guaranteed his success. Same with his sister.

      The really important combo for right wingers is to be rich enough to guarantee success yet dumb and hate filled enough to speak their language.

  • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Morons like Ben Shapiro have no problem being confident, as hang ups and trepidation tend to be traits that come with intellect. Hard to second guess yourself if there’s nothing going on upstairs.

    Smart people tend to get in their own way, and are prone to depression and suicide. This really isn’t a time you want to be living in as someone with above average intelligence, unless you’re a high functioning sociopath, then you can run the table, as intellect + no regard/empathy for how your actions may harm others is a potent combo in this dystopia.

    Most people don’t even need intellect to “succeed” in western culture, just a severe empathy deficit, which is easier to cultivate the less cerebral you are. “Just don’t think about it” is an idiot’s comfort zone.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Ben Shapiro and the like may have awful backwards views but I don’t believe for a second that they’re stupid. They know a lot of what they’re saying is bullshit but it doesn’t matter because the checks keep rolling in.

      Are they geniuses? Absolutely not. But they’re not morons like the slackjaws they preach to.

      • idunnololz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think that if you repeat something enough though, you will start to believe it even if were “reasonable” before. I mean it’s impossible to know what these people are really like but I honestly don’t believe they are “reasonable” anymore. They might have been reasonable before at some point in their lives, but I think fame can really fuck people up.

        • glimse@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I unfortunately know a lot about Ben Shapiro and have heard HOURS of his show due to a coworker a few years ago. He’s a failed screenwriter who saw a niche he could fill in right wing media targeting the youth.

          He’s genuinely conservative and does believe a lot of what he says but when you’ve been doing it for as long as he has, hyperbole catches up to you. You have to raise the stakes. That last thing was bad but this thing is VERY bad!

          You also can’t keep complaining about the same thing if you want people to keep tuning in…so you find smaller and smaller things to rage about. That’s where we’ve been with Shapiro for the past several years.

          But what I’m really trying to get at is that it’s a cop out in his favor to call him stupid. Stupid people can claim ignoranc and get an eye roll. Call him evil, a provocateur, a greedy bastard profiting off misinformation, whatever…because it’s the actions he willfully takes that are the issue, not his level of intelligence.

          • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I’ve said for years that offhandly claiming someone is stupid trivializes the damage certain people can do.

            It is easy to call someone stupid and write them off, because they’re stupid. It comes with the unspoken rule that you think they’re stupid and not worth thinking about.

            Which is exactly what someone like Shapiro wants. The less you think it’s important to counter his claims, the more damage he does. You can apply this to most conservatives.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Basically what happened to Andrew “Dice” Clay. He was just a comedian and the “Diceman” was just a character hey played on stage on occasion. But people kept demanding he play the “Diceman” so that became his act all the time. And since he got positive reactions to that act eventually he just became that person all the time.

    • BigNote@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      ‘The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.’

      -Bertrand Russell

      It’s Russell’s corollary to the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

  • Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Isn’t he the middle aged man who burnt the hair of a doll because he didn’t like my movie for being too woke or something?

    • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The dude spent 45 minutes ranting about the Barbie movie.

      It’s disturbingly obsessive. It’s unhinged.

      • Margot Robbie@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        You kinda have to be a grown-up to get the movie (it’s not that deep though), so of course an overgrown man-child like Ben Shapiro wouldn’t get it.

        • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think it had numerous multifaceted points to make and made them from all sides.

          It was female empowerment first and foremost, sure, but there were also strong messages about motherhood, manhood independent from women, finding purpose outside a hierarchy, and corporate bandwagoning for profit (which in itself is probably just a way for Mattel to seem like they’re aware of their own faults).

          It was a good movie and the only people who would be offended by anything in it are man-children who can’t handle being told they’re not so special.

          (I am a white man FWIW, and thoroughly enjoyed the movie)

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m starting to wonder if imposter syndrome and self-awareness go hand in hand. Or if maybe imposter syndrome is self-awareness gone wrong, or dialed up too high. Because it seems like you will never see imposter syndrome in people like Ben Shapiro who are absolutely convinced of their own superiority or intelligence. Narcissists are probably immune to imposter syndrome.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Damn, that’s actually a pretty good take 🤔

      It would make sense that heightened self awareness be correlated to imposter syndrome.

    • Urbanfox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Someone once asked if I thought I was even good enough to have imposter syndrome and my brain imploded that day.

      • Note: I’ve passed every class with distinction and won awards, but maybe I’m only good at classwork and nothing else
  • BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    It’s really a matter of confidence. Whether or not Shapiro believes in what he says is irrelevant. He knows how to speak and will defend his points.

    • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      he has no shame and questionable at best morals and ethics, it’s easier to be successful and make money when you have those traits.

    • Techmaster@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      And he uses the gish gallop technique effectively. If you spew bullshit quickly enough, people won’t be able to correct what you say.

      • Magnergy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I would love to see a debate forum that cut each person’s mic after a single point. But I doubt any of the people I want to see in such a forum would ever risk participating.

    • chemicalprophet@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I have those qualities but empathy and concern for right get in the way. Oh, and I don’t lie.

      Edit: spelling

    • BigNote@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It’s not irrelevant at all. To the contrary it speaks directly to his moral character.

  • HorseWithNoName@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I am constantly having a similar thought. I’m a student and not a single thing I do is good enough. I’ve gotten honors and awards every semester, I get good grades, but not without professors tearing apart my papers with petty criticisms, not infrequently contradicting their own instructions. And then I think about what George Carlin said, or a paraphrase of it, “think about the stupidest person you know. Most people are even more stupid than that” or some such, and I’m just like ??

    Intelligence is becoming a fucking rarity in the US, but because of that it’s almost becoming a form of deviance that everyone is afraid of, questions, or dislikes. Or all of those.

    • Coldus12@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      I think its something like “think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of people are even more stupid than that”.

      • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        The brilliance of that joke is that everyone, no matter who you tell it to, everyone always laughs.

        Nobody wants to think they’re on the stupid side.

  • downpunxx@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    And yet, you keep mentioning the guy, thereby expanding his brand footprint (which are these charlatans only goal)

    • Fibby@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I actively try to avoid him and youtube still throws his or his long-haired doppelganger’s videos in my feed. Its not this shitpost that’s spreading his name around.

      • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Idk man, I’ve never seen him or anyone else like him suggested in my feed.

        • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          are you a single male?

          I have had to press don’t recommend this channel on hundreds of channels for youtube shorts to stop being full of Ben Shapiro/Peterson/Tate/Joe Rogan shit

          • lobut@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            I’ve had to actively block them and they still pop up under JoeRoganClips or something. It’s quite annoying.

          • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I am.
            None of those people have ever shown up on my feed. I don’t watch anything by them or anything like them, so it doesn’t recommend any of that crap to me 🤷‍♂️

              • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                That’s didn’t make any sense.
                Why am I being attacked for not seeing videos of those people? Lol you guys are mental.

                • MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  Nobody is attacking you. Your experience is highly atypical because YouTube shovels this crap at almost everybody, right now I’m opening up YouTube in a clean browser incognito and I see it already.

        • SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Spreads it around so people recognize the name and laugh at his takes instead of hearing some of his good advice and think that all his advice is good.

          It’s a good thing.