Obsessive Hermit

A 28-year-old hermit who spends far too much time thinking about psychology, philosophy, art, religion and politics. Coptic Orthodox. Makoto Shishio cosplayer.

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

I strongly suspect that Xitter has shadow-banned me, which is fine since I'm trying to move on over to Substack anyway. Link to my profile: https://t.co/eSqnZWzOHS

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

@Jasmine1Nobody I honestly can't tell if you're joking with that last part or not. But if you're serious, I offer my sympathies.
But yeah, strategic ambiguity is perhaps the most insidious weapon that someone can utilize. The best way to counter such people is to "put them on the spot."

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

Bang on the money. Gary Kasparov talks about this as well - modern propaganda doesn’t seek to inform or persuade, but rather: to overwhelm and confuse.

The goal of modern propaganda is to exhaust your critical thinking - i.e., to wear you down - so that you no longer have the energy to refute said propaganda, much less make stronger arguments with evidence and logic.

And when people are too mentally exhausted to figure things out rationally, two things happen:

1) The propagandist “wins the debate" BY DEFAULT, because they essentially “got the last word in.”

2) People are more vulnerable to manipulation when they are too mentally exhausted to actually refute fallacious arguments.

Today’s propagandists don’t try to “win” by supporting their own arguments. Instead, they seek to undermine and invalidate ALL OTHER arguments so that ONLY THEIRS is left standing, no matter how weak or unsubstantiated it is.

In other words: modern propagandists don't try to make themselves look credible. Instead, they try to make everyone else look even less credible than they are, by comparison.

This is a form of gaslighting that is extremely common in domestic abuse cases—the abuser seeks to overwhelm/confuse/exhaust their partner so that the latter gives up thinking for themselves. Thus, they are left psychologically insecure and are less likely to leave their abuser, whom they now view as their only source of guidance and stability.

If you want a fictional demonstration of this, see the following clip from South Park. It’s played for laughs, but it still manages to be an extremely true-to-life depiction of how this tactic works: https://t.co/7rIEfFUvss

Michael Shermer calls this the “Just Asking Questions” fallacy (or “JAQing off,” for short LOL). By overcomplicating the topic and cultivating an extreme level of doubt/skepticism, the propagandist makes themselves look like the only honest source of information left in the world. This then ensures that their followers/supporters become more dependent on them. It also makes their followers more tribalistic and cult-like, because their entire worldview now revolves around the propagandist—the latter has become the former’s only source of “truth” and stability.

This is tactic is employed constantly by pseudoscience YouTube channels with clickbait thumbnails such as those produced by Jimmy Dore. Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson are the MASTERS of this tactic (the latter explicitly states that his strategy is "to flood the zone with shit").

Confusing your audience and distorting language is far more sinister than simply telling falsehoods, because a person who is too confused to understand and assess anything is simultaneously more prone to viewing themselves as "a rational, free-thinker who doesn't believe what they are told."

Poetry operates in the exact same way—poetry is defined by its use of distorted language, which thereby confuses the audience and makes them more vulnerable to emotional manipulation (also known as "pathos"). It’s a common belief in literary circles that "incomprehensible" = "genius," and this form of gaslighting is precisely why that mindset even exists in the first place.

This is also why the French postmodern theorists like Foucault, Derrida and Baudrillard became so popular in English studies departments (and why Judith Butler even has a career)—their deliberately vague/poetic and obscurantist language creates the illusion that they are geniuses who are "too smart/informed for most laypeople to understand."

And because no one fully understands what they are saying, that also means that nobody is refuting their arguments. And the fact that nobody is refuting their arguments creates the illusion that they are never wrong.

You can’t refute an argument that is unclear of confusing, because the arguer always has an escape hatch - that same vagueness allows them to constantly twist, re-define and contort their arguments whenever they are challenged. This means that they can escape scrutiny by always being "ahead of the curve"

Basically, the sick relationship between the social sciences and postmodern pseudo-philosophy is the equivalent of a naive, unsuspecting housewife blindly praising and submitting to her toxic, gaslighting husband.

[Coach Noah Revoy | Arms Dealer For The Soul 🏴‍☠️ @NoahRevoy]

@ArtemisConsort Most of the time, when people describe something as complex, they are using complexity to smuggle in lies. If they explained how simple most things in life are, it would greatly reduce their ability to manipulate others.

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

@JonHaidt @curtdoolittle @NoahRevoy

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

1 in 4 boys lacks an adult male mentor. We can fix that. For the first time ever, two federal bills explicitly aim to get more men into teaching and community service: the Educators for America Act and Building Community in America Act. Historic and bipartisan. Real-world purpose is the antidote to a screen-based life. Well done @SenMarkKelly @SenJohnCurtis

https://t.co/qMkSgJ9gcu

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

We talk a lot about getting boys off their screens; we also need to build better real-world alternatives. As
@RichardVReeves puts it: "The best antidote to a bad man online is a good man in the flesh, in the lives of our boys..."
https://t.co/2z4tOk5yyk

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

@NoahRevoy Negative utilitarianism is suicidal philosophy. Being unable to tolerate suffering/discomfort is a negative motivator against persistence rather than a positive motivator towards it.
I know this because I used to be an antinatalist, but then I grew up.

[Free Expression @WSJFreeEx]

Even if the original purpose of sports has been forgotten, there is still a sense that athletes are playacting at hunting and warfare. And there has never been a society in which women make up the majority of hunters and warriors, writes @Louise_m_perry
https://t.co/Cn8BP6m8v2

[Rebecca V. Proud American 🇺🇸 @AntiCommieBecca]

@LizzyStarrrdust The problem is a growing number of men don’t wanna do anything masculine.

You’d be surprised the number of men who get REALLY angry when I say men should do more physical things. They’re adopting the bizarre view of some feminists who think biology is “oppressive”. 🤦‍♀️

[Freya India @freyaindiaa]

A generation who grew up watching online p*rn are somehow expected to file that away, to fall in love in the real world, to be tender and gentle and loyal, to know how.

We pretend it has always been this way, because it is too painful to accept that it hasn’t.

[Creative Deduction @CreativeDeduct]

Does being left wing cause bad mental health? The data suggests it does. But why?

In his book "The Coddling of the American Mind," social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that modern progressive subcultures have adopted a way of thinking that mimics the cognitive patterns that cause depression and anxiety. He argues that progressive institutions (universities) teaches 3 great falsehoods:

"What doesn't kill you makes you weaker."

"Always trust your feelings."

"Life is a battle between good people and evil people."

Students are taught that they are fragile, that their feelings are the truth, and that people who do not agree with them are malicious. Fragile souls in a world full of evil people, where your negative emotions reflect objective threats. It's not surprising that their mental health suffers.

Our progressive institution are not only indoctrinating susceptible young minds with leftwing ideology, they are destroying their mental health in the process.

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

The irony is that many self-described communists in the West are trying to revive ideas that actual communist countries have spent decades quietly abandoning.

It's easy to romanticize communism when your understanding of it comes from university seminars and internet memes rather than food shortages, political repression, labor camps, and economic collapse.

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

I know this is 3 years old, but I just happened to revisit this post and I felt it was worth adding another point:

If something "almost becomes valueless when spoiled," then it was probably NEVER going to appeal to me in the first place. I'm the type of person who does not care much about spoilers, for 2 reasons:

1) One of the main reasons people get upset about spoilers is because it means that you can never go into the story "un-spoiled" - you've missed an opportunity which will never come again. I, however, have conditioned myself to not dwell on such missed opportunities, because it's anathema to happiness. If you are constantly worrying/freaking out over all the opportunities you've missed, you're destined for a life of misery and regret. Thus, I've trained myself to overcome it.

2) I think "surprise" is a completely worthless, cheap and fleeting emotion. Catching people off-guard is INCREDIBLY easy (e.g., I could say a racial slur if I wanted to, and yeah, it would be "surprising," but it sure as hell wouldn't make me a good storyteller).

For me, "surprise" is supplemental at best - I care much more about what REMAINS after the shock has worn off. In other words: I care about SUBSTANCE, and I am completely desensitized to spectacle (hence why I found the fight with Sephiroth in FF7R boring).

This is also why I have no problem with spoilers: spoiling stories for myself is one of the ways by which I can distinguish between: an artist who has SOMETHING OF SUBSTANCE TO SAY, vs. an attention-seeking hack whose only trick is spectacle/shock value (i.e., "Betcha didn't see that coming! Boy, my genius knows no bounds!").

There is nothing that gives me more schadenfreude than spoiling a twist for myself while also imagining some talentless hack artist crying: "But you're watching it wrong!"

[Schrodingersbabyseal @Schrodingersba4]

@jonah_da_mann This is fair. To be honest it was sort of a lightning in a bottle situation. It’s something that almost becomes valueless when spoiled. I had the luxury of hitting ending E before most.
The way I rate it:
Automata routes a-d 7/10
Automata route a-e 9.5/10

[Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 @JeremiahDJohns]

American society has become terrified of hurting or excluding anyone, for any reason, ever, far past the point of ridiculousness.

But there is a way forward - ignoring the complainers and taking positive-sum trades, even if they harm some groups.

[Jen Koenig @JenPrimalCoach]

Women are more prone to this but as a woman with kids I’ve never ever treated adults this way because I am one. Toddler women were put into positions of power and now this is equated with all womanhood. Same as feminist children adults saying all men are toxic. Don’t fall into the same trap you’re exposing.

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

Saying communists have the economic literacy of a dog or a toddler is unfair to dogs and toddlers.

Dogs and toddlers don't understand economics, but they can learn from experience. Touch the hot stove enough times and eventually the lesson sticks.

Communists watch the same policies produce shortages, stagnation, dependency, and failure over and over, then immediately demand a larger dose of the same thing. Their problem isn't ignorance. It's the refusal to learn from reality.

They see the same ideas fail for the hundredth time and conclude the problem was that they weren't tried hard enough the first ninety-nine.

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

"Confining Insiders, Raping Outsiders": Upsetting but informative essay by @_alice_evans on the historical ubiquity of sexual violence against enemy and outsider women (she doesn't dwell on the Darwinian explanation, though it's obvious enough), and how modern societies have reduced it: "While the entire world was incredibly violent, Europe and North America ultimately diverged. Thanks to more professional policing, effective criminal justice, advanced technology and feminist activism, they ultimately became more peaceful, safer, and constrained male violence." https://t.co/dBGJjm7MaK

[EZ @EZ_R009]

It will probably be some multiverse/lifestream romp with Zack/Aerith or compilation slop.

Regardless, the narrative has been butchered so much its all just gratuitous fanservice at the cost of storytelling.

Its like there is a unhealthy sense of pride with the devs, or a resentment towards Sakaguchi. "No the compilation was good, watch I'll show you" which is why they included so much non OG content in the game. In their minds, they actually think they're telling a good story. But it only appeals to a very small sliver of whats left of their audience now.

Can you imagine if they remade FF7 assuming all compilation slop was "alternate universe" and not part of FF7? Then if they wanted to go crazy later, they could make FF7-2 without the terrible storytelling found in the compilation.

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

When people lambast and criticize a work for "subverting expectations," what they really mean is:

"The artist is an attention whore who cares more about showing off his *genius* than he does about the audience's immersion."

It's [another] reason why I dislike the FF7R trilogy.

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

"Nailing it" seems unlikely at this point, but that's irrelevant to my thoughts on this matter.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a rather bold statement:

I sincerely think that the FF7 Retrilogy is antithetical to what "great art" should be.

And to understand why I think this, I need to provide context.

The SciFi author Devon Eriksen - of whom I'm not even a fan - he's too right-wing for my tastes -more or less summed it up in a Substack post (the post was written in response to that disgusting mock-up of The Last Supper crossed with Greco-Roman libertinism at the 2024 Olympics):

---

"There are two kinds of artistic creativity. Both are based on egotism, but one is healthy, and the other is destructive.

The healthy version is self-respect, a sense of one's own proper dignity or value, as earned through merit, virtue, and accomplishment.

The second is based on the sick version of egotism: narcissism. It is the ego that demands to be the center of attention, regardless of what others actually wish to see or would like to pay attention to. It is the revenge of the self-absorbed child, not on the mother whom he thinks ignored him, but on the entire universe for not revolving solely around him.

Great art is not about "self-expression." Yes, it comes from the self [and] is shaped by the self, ... but the ideas which it expresses are shared and universal. This is why it speaks to others, not just the artist.

When we look upon a fine sculpture, we see only David; not Michelangelo.

When we read a great story, we do not see Tolkien; we [are not continually reminded] that Frodo and Sam aren't real.

We can say Van Gogh painted one white iris because he was lonely and isolated within a crowd, but if we do say that, [it's] because we know what it's like to be lonely, too.

Great art makes the artist invisible. He does not stand between the audience and their enjoyment of the work. He waits backstage until the art is done [being observed by the audience]. And if he receives applause, he can be satisfied with himself for a job well done.

But, it is for precisely this reason that great art cannot emerge from narcissism.

The narcissist cannot bear to be upstaged by anything - not even the work of his own hands; the child of his own brain.

The narcissist creates art not to please others, but to force others to pay attention to him. He must stamp his personality on every corner of the work, make it his and his alone, and remind the audience, at every moment, in every place to which they might direct their gaze, that this work is about him, and that he is what truly matters.

Such art is not ugly by accident. ... It is ugly because its message is not: "Look at this," but instead: "Look at me."

Narcissistic art flows from the belief that the purpose of art is self-expression. The narcissist simply creates something that flows from who he is, out of this desperate desire to be beheld, understood, and admired by the world. Since the purpose of his art is to show off, there's no right or wrong way to do it [and] no external standard he can be held to. He can do anything. ... He can splatter paint on a canvas at random. He can tape a banana to the wall, etc.

[In contrast], art which flows from self-respect - from the knowledge that respect exists and is possible to earn - holds itself, and the artist, to an external standard. Self-expression is present in this art, too, but [only as] a side effect of a greater purpose: to have a positive effect upon the audience."

---

This is the context for my thoughts on the FF7 Retrilogy.

As I explained in my FF7R critique video: "suspension of disbelief" (verisimilitude) is when you know consciously that a story is fake, but it feels real because the author has done everything they can to hide the fact that it is fake; to occlude their presence; to make the fictional world and its characters seem like living, breathing entities who exist independent of the artist and the medium through which they are being conveyed.

In short: storytelling is all about illusion. The storyteller's job is help the audience ignore the fact that the events aren't real and instead promote the illusion that said events are real.

The FF7 Retrilogy, meanwhile, does the exact opposite. It all but explicitly says:

"It is OK to shatter that illusion - i.e., to break the audience's immersion - so long as the artist gets to feel clever about themselves."

This is why the phrase: "subverting expectations" has such a negative connotation in internet discourse. When people lambast and criticize a work for "subverting expectations," what they really mean is:

"The artist is an attention whore who cares more about showing off his *genius* than he does about the audience's immersion."

This is a major reason why I dislike the FF7 Retrilogy. I think its approach to storytelling is inherently narcissistic, and I think narcissism is incompatible with great art.

To be clear: I don't know if this was intentional on the developers' part or not. It's possible that this was a complete accident. And it's extremely unlikely that my personal impression of the Retrilogy was in any way intended by the developers.

However, regardless of what their intention was, the effect is the same. The FF7 Retrilogy - whether it was intented or not - reeks of the developers (unconsciously) thinking:

"Sure, we could have retold a beloved and immersive story about characters overcoming their personal challenges in order to save their world...

...but we would rather the spotlight be on us, instead. We want the audience to be thinking about how *smart* we are, rather than feeling invested in the characters and world."

This is why I hate the concept of "subversive adaptations." I find it appalling to take an existing story that was highly immersive (and beloved for that exact reason) and then break the fans' immersion just promote the artist's own self-importance.

[Alice Evans @_alice_evans]

Gender histories so often stress women's "agency", but in my latest essay I highlight a darker truth.

Much of human history has been militarised male coalitions confining their own women while raping outsiders.

Girls are only safe when the state protects them from violent offenders

[Obsessive Hermit @obsessivehermit]

This is because the human brain uses familiarity as a proxy for fact - i.e., "If everyone I know is saying the same thing, then it's probably true."

[Rolf Degen @DegenRolf]

People underestimate how much repetition can make even implausible statements appear more credible, particularly to themselves.
People judge statements they have been already exposed to as more true than statements they have never encountered before. This “truth effect” is a robust phenomenon that may contribute to endorsing claims, whether correct or not. In particular, repeated exposure can increase beliefs in “fake news”  and other forms of misinformation.
To the best of our knowledge, the present experiments are the first to investigate whether (and to what extent) people see their own truth judgments as vulnerable to the effect of repetition. We examined whether people predict others’ truth judgments to be more biased by repetition than their own: a bias blind spot for the truth effect. [The bias blind spot is the cognitive bias where people easily recognize flaws and biases in others' thinking while remaining completely unaware of their own.]
Across three preregistered experiments, we found evidence of a bias blind spot in judging the influence of repetition on truth judgments. Overall, participants predicted a stronger effect of repetition on truth judgments for others than for themselves. This was true for both plausible and highly implausible statements.
Moreover, comparing predictions with actual performance paradigm revealed that participants underestimated the influence of repetition on truth judgments, and did so to a larger extent for themselves than for others.
The present findings extend truth effect research as they (1) further establish the contribution of beliefs about the effect of repetition on truth, (2) indicate that people underestimate the impact of repetition on their own judgments of truth and (3) may pave the way for interventions aimed at reducing the truth effect.