The Vile Neutrals Have Overplayed Their Hand

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone discuss the pitfalls of online neutrality and the importance of taking a clear stance. They critique centrist influencers who refrain from aligning with any political side and explain why this can be intellectually and morally weak. The conversation delves into examples like Short Fat Otaku, Asma Gold, and political figures such as Trump and Bernie Sanders. They argue that supporting or opposing a figure should be based on actions rather than inherent traits, and emphasize the ethical imperative to reveal biases and support movements actively. The discussion touches on the ideological investment in political figures akin to financial investments and the inherent responsibility that comes with it. They also highlight the differences between honest loyalty and manipulative neutrality, urging viewers to stand up for their values publicly, even if it invites criticism. Finally, the episode concludes with personal insights on family dynamics and the learning curve in understanding loyalty and criticism.

[00:00:00]

Speaker 8: What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I want to talk today about being a stan. Specifically, I want to talk about a type of online influencer which honestly disgusts me. And it has been brought up by the number of people who are sad about how quote unquote Republican or conservative we are.

Okay. to be this other type of influencer, which I hate, and I want to talk about intellectual reasons why I hate them, and why it's so dangerous to become this type of influencer. Alright, let's do it. Who is always like, everyone's bad. They are skeptical about everything. They They refuse to have a team.

Speaker 8: I hate these filthy Neutrals, Kif. With enemies you know where they stand, but with Neutrals, who knows?

It sickens me.

Malcolm Collins: They refuse to holistically support anyone. [00:01:00] They refuse to stand for anything. And, it, it bothers me. A lot. One that, one that this is expected of me, and two that people sort of fall for the shtick. I, I'd say probably the worst offender of the YouTubers who I actually watch to any extent of this is Short Fat Otaku.

Where he constantly refuses to, even though a lot of his positions align with conservative politics, identify with Trump, Trumpism, conservatism. And I'd also say, actually, to an extent, Asma Gold used to be like this, where he constantly played the role of the centrist. And I think increasingly he is dropping that role.

And unabashedly saying, Oh, I really like this. I really like this. you know, like I can't, I'll be excited to really dig into the Trump administration when they make mistakes. Like right now I like what they're doing, but I'll really dig into them when they make mistakes.

And I think that there is this. I don't [00:02:00] want to call it perverse because I get

Simone Collins: it. No, I think it is somewhat perverse, or at the very, the very least, it's a sign of insecurity because they're afraid of being subject to scrutiny if the person that they think did something good ends up making a mistake.

I also think it's a sign of intellectual weakness because it's a suggestion that's saying like, Oh, I think this person did something cool means that you suddenly endorse 100 percent of what they do and that is obviously not true. If you don't control someone, you don't, you

Malcolm Collins: don't control what they do. A hundred percent.

And what I picked up from what you said here is you need to be able to Invest in movements and people and investing in movements and people means taking responsibility when those movements and people make mistakes

Simone Collins: or

Malcolm Collins: you are never going to have your movement be successful. So let me explain what I mean by this.

If I, for [00:03:00] example, say I like that Trump did X and I like that Trump did Y like during the campaign trail, but I am unwilling to say. I endorse Trump as a candidate. I support Trump as a candidate. When you, when you say I endorse him or I support him or when you take that position in a way, it's like telling people to invest in a stock because you don't know how that stock is going to do in a future you are using your best judgment based on the information you have, you know, collected your intelligence, what you have seen your ability to judge people to try to predict how that political stock is going to do in the future.

And an individual can say, why is it valuable? Like why, why should anybody be making these kinds of judgments? It is because

you will large extent. That's part of the reason people are watching you. They are watching you to report on the facts that you have access to, but then to two other things, very critically. One. Reveal your biases. [00:04:00] If you don't reveal your biases, and this is one of the other things that I really hate about people when they do this is they are pretending that they are unbiased and in so doing, they are manipulating their audience.

Our audience knows you and I are biased. And when they get information about us, about Democrats or Republicans, that information is biased. It's not us pretending, like, if Republicans did something bad, we would dig into them as harshly as we dig into Democrats. We wouldn't. For example, Asmy Gold, famous centrist, he wouldn't either.

Anyone who's seriously watching knows, he would not dig into Republicans, Asmy. Take it he would for Democrats, but if you present yourself and he doesn't present himself this way as much anymore But if you present yourself as somebody who's going to do that on both sides you are misleading your audience, but then more than that it's my job to as somebody who is In part like our audience [00:05:00] relies on this with our biases or everything like that to Spend more time than they've spent Investigating political players, investigating political parties as those parties are changing.

Cause that's what we talk about all the time on this. And if I'm going to do all of that, I need to, when I tell you, and I do need to tell you, like as somebody who's investigated all of this and as somebody who spent a lot of time thinking about this, I think this party is a safe bet. If you have this value system, I need to take responsibility in the same way I would if I tell somebody to make an investment or sell an investment.

And I'm not always going to be right. But anyway, I want to hear more thoughts from you. So you're, you're, you're a genius.

Simone Collins: One thing that I've noticed is it's, it's an active, like you were saying, active manipulation when people choose to not make their stanzas clear, because it is a known human bias to assume that if you like someone in general [00:06:00] and think they're cool, that they're going to hold the same ideological points as you do.

Unless you suddenly hear them say otherwise. So, a lot of people, I've seen comments on our channel before, from people who are shocked, SHOCKED, that we hold certain views. Because, they just assumed that because, on some other videos, on unrelated topics, where they liked our takes, and they thought we were In general, same reason.

Is it more that they think

Malcolm Collins: that we're more conservative or more progressive?

Simone Collins: It's both. Yeah. It's a mixture of the, it's a mixture of the two. And so what people who choose to withhold their opinions on these issues are doing is allowing people to just assume that there's agreement when there may not be.

Yeah. So one, I think that's manipula