Oh lawd, this guy again, LMAO. That convo with him and Distributist was something else...

Wokal is the best argument against what he believes

Wokal: Lets take a trip back to 2007 logitech cameras bros

Benjamin, you are the best at interviewing. The best. Thanks, dude

i'm canadian. quebecois is an ethno-linguistic, cultural, and historical national identity. the quebecois are a "people." if you are a canadian familiar with quebecois media you ""notice"" certain common phenotypic features. a lotta dudes look like gerard depardieu for example (he's from a region of france that migrated to quebec; most quebecois trace back to only a few regions in central and north western france). quebecois people have been breeding together for over 400 years. that's 20 generations by a conservative standard. whether or not that constitutes ethnogenesis is somewhat arbitrary an objection people have to liberal approaches to demographic anxieties is that liberals are insensitive to our shared lineages, it's just a massive blind spot that wokal happens to have. the liberal solution always involves giving up on our shared lineages. always. in the same way that wokeism operates by delegitimizing its opponents, rather than by attacking the merits of their arguments, liberalism similarly operates by delegitimizing both race and ethnicity (liberalism sees biological loyalties as a threat to credal loyalties) the quebecois bargained for political guarantees to protect their way of life in part because they understand themselves as a people and it is through this that they have been able to mobilize and to openly discuss the threats posed by immigration & muticulturalism to their inherited way of life. their shared way of life was legitimized by their common peoplehood and this enabled forms of political mobilization, law and policymaking that are currently taboo across the englishspeaking world. you also see this difference between french canada and english canada. it is telling that liberals dismiss ethnicity in the same breath as they dismiss race, despite the former being a much richer concept that has a lot of potential political utility, as the quebecois case study illustrates. liberals are very dogmatic on the issue of lineage, no matter whether it takes a vulgar racial form or a sophisticated historical ethnocultural or ethnoreligious form. denying lineal politics is a matter of faith for the liberal, just as affirming identity politics is a matter of faith to the woke.

So to sum up Benjamin: Look I want to believe but the dissident right people I talk to have some pretty solid points. Wokal: Oh Searle said something about that let me spend the stream looking that up instead of giving a coherent conterpoint.

Gave up on the interview but returned for the comments 🏆

Is Wokal going through an identity…or financial crisis of some type? Did the repo his furniture or did he shed his belongings and free himself from materialism?

Wokal chose the wrong time to do LSD.

Wokal seems drunk. I am too, but I’m not on a podcast.

I'm always rooting for Wokal to articulate a cogent path forward, but I haven't seen it yet.

Wokal looks like he's about to pretentiously recite some Walt Whitman at any moment. Get up off the floor, lose the bandana, lose the shades. "Peace", "dude".

just a note: the "frogs in water" much like "lemmings off a cliff" analogies have been shown over time to be completely farcical: the lemmings never followed their leader off a cliff, the film maker simply thought it would make a better story to usher them off and present that reality... and the frogs didn't stay in the pot: Friedrich Goltz showed in 1869 that "only a frog that has had its brain destroyed failed to escape from water being heated gradually. An intact frog bailed out as the water got hotter."

Ben: Your camera is screwed Wokal: No, it's correct, I cannot be wrong.

I remember having a root canal a decade and a half back where, under anesthetic I developed a brilliant solution for social harmony. I imagine this is what it's like in Wokal's mind. Of course when I came out of the anesthetic haze it was all gauzy nothingness devoid of useful content.

Wokal , cut the word salad !

As much as I might appreciate the content I couldn't listen to more than 2 minutes of this episode.

Thought I would check in late afternoon, to find Wokal sitting on the floor. The Kitty is here for it 🐈

I'm not sure I totally buy Wokal's idea that one's identity places _no_ constraints on the knowledge they can acquire. I think this makes perfect sense in theory, but I've actually run this experiment myself many times and it just doesn't play out in practice. For example, some people view themselves as "knowledge collectors" (for lack of a better phrase) far more than others. When I meet such people and try to convey things I find interesting about my field to them, even if they're completely unfamiliar with it, they are still significantly more receptive to what I say, and the difference is clear as day. I can tell that they're actually listening and trying to retain it, whereas someone who doesn't view themselves as a learner often doesn't even try. They do an okay job of _appearing_ like they're listening, but it soon becomes clear that they're just placating me. And this isn't even a matter of intelligence; they just don't seem to view it as their role to actively pick up what I'm putting down, so they go through this motion of "Oh, that's interesting..." and that's the end of it. And one could argue that I'm talking more about personality than identity, but it's not obvious to me that those are independent of each other.

There is a line between citing sources to back up arguments and tossing out sentences and quotes without your own arguments and thoughts to connect them to a through line. Wokal passed that line about 3 states ago and hasn’t looked back.

Re: 25 min mark and identity. Wokal is saying identity is metaphysical. It is not a property but the thing to which properties attach. Much like 'The house that Jack built'. None of the descriptors in the poem refer to the physical properties of the house, yet in aggregate we get a recursive relevance realization of the house (a la Vervaeke).

Liberalism absolutely holds equality as a core value, and whether you like it or not, that leads to the conclusions of people being replaceable cogs in a machine, capable and suitable for any position in any society. Liberalism taken seriously as it was conceived views any failure of people or groups to achieve the same results as other people or groups as the evidence of failure by the society, and if you accept the true premise that successful and powerful people have an outsized influence on the society they inhabit, the failures can use liberalism to blame their lot on the successful. Whether this blame is well placed or misplaced is a totally separate issue, but the argument is ripe for abuse by unscrupulous people who envy the possessions and achievements of others.

"I identify as something..." is the worst subjective thing someone can say, it must be abolished. You aren't something simply by identifying as such, otherwise you could be anything and everything and therefore nothing because everything would lose all meaning. Imo, you are something based on what you do, where you're from, what you're made of, what you like, what you dislike, the character with which all your decisions emanate from, that inevitably change with age blah blah blah. People who say these kinds of things want to be able to label and compartmentalize you as something in order to fit you in their excessively over-psycho-analytical shelf, as if there is one word that can describe your entire life. If this was resolved in the discussion I apologize, your guests' meandering walkabout fatigued me lol.

only need 2 to have a Church meeting

Wokal will become mystic in 2 years. The hamster wheel of concept exploration and their endless fractal nature will one day merge with his religious view and stop his mind

The more I hear from Wokal the more cringe he becomes. He’s going to go insane if he doesn’t start facing reality.

1:25:29 I love Benjamin's reactions.

"Everything is fragmenting." Yes, yes, it is, but I guess this is the best video quality that we can expect considering the fact that he seems to be transmitting this video from the 60s.

So much of Wokal around the 20 min mark is “because not total, not general”. It’s an intentional blurring of “averages” and “individuals”

Dropping in to leave a like, and I'll be back tonight to watch this, because right now I'm at work 😭

Bring Dave the Distributist back on. Wokal has nothing to say. Which you wouldn't guess since he talks so much.

This gentleman is correct in my opinion because the substance is missing in the discussions everywhere. Or the substance is misrepresented totally and never fleshed out to what really is in almost every conversation in my world. But there are those who do that substantive work and they have a firm ontology ontology. Recently, something called basic formal ontology has made a huge impact even in the international standards (ISO) organization and in philosophy. Thank you for your discussion

Had a David Foster Wallace flashback there for a sec. Looking forward to that chat and just in time for dinner.

Hey! Earlier today I watched wokels interview with Tammy

Wow pretty much turned out to be Benjamin's own, most epic series of explications that I've heard in a while. Also Wokal reading and doing gymnastics elicits lolz. I've been hearing ppl like Alfonso Arias, and Michael Levin, on channels like Curt Jaimungal's Theories of Everything, explain how at the cutting edge of biology, we're starting to get a better sense of just how important genes actually are compared to cell regulation, and it seems that we're beginning to better clarify and quantify the relative importance of phenotype compared to genotype. Levin is the leading expert in bioelectricity, which is essential for activating or deactivating genes (everyone has lots of different genes, and which ones are activated is what's especially important). It seems bioelectricity involves environmental circumstances, plus influences epigenetics, and perhaps largely shapes phenotype. Our current metrics are imperfect, of the kind that Ed Dutton notably expounds. However, it's unlikely that these will be completely negated, and more likely that they'll be better understood and updated in the relatively near future, with advancements in biology. There may be a certain type of environment and set of circumstances, in which phenotype essentially overrides genotype with desirable results, but our trait measurements are still pretty reliable, nevertheless to figure out how to override predispositions would be amazing, has implications also for IQ.

People need to come to an understanding that they can disagree with people of any race, and that they care a lot more about what other people believe and what they do than about their skin-color, which is at the absolute most a proxy for those things, and a fairly unreliable one. WIth that understanding, people identified as being of different races could live together in harmony, but not independent of beliefs or actions, because those things are at the heart of the matter. Anyone who would seriously argue, as Jared Taylor did with Sargon that one time, that conflicts are never started on ideological grounds and only ever on racial grounds, can't even explain why people of their own race disagree. The reason is that it is stupid. An heuristic error. People are entitled to making mistakes, but people who care about them will feel obligated to making sure they know, and also to making sure those mistakes don't get too serious consequences. The left's role in this is presenting a caricature of an analysis that says society works on a racial basis. They therefore promote policies that ensure this is the case, in the opposite direction. When the right decides to agree with their analysis and therefore promote policies that ensure this is the case, except in the direction the caricature from the left said it worked, they legitimize the caricature, thereby giving credibility to the mad people on the left. I'm pretty sure this is a mistake. Alternative: Promote policies that solve for problems (like treating people who have cancer for cancer instead of treating them for racism), and reject the caricatures from the left. Just say "no" to their caricatures (this won't always be easy, so 'just' might be making it sound too easy) and focus on actual problems. Apropos liberalism and gen X, it seems there was a coup within the democratic party of the USA (which inspired a change of direction in most major liberal parties in the western world) ca. 1975, where an alliance of young politicians associated with the student revolts of the 60s (who disliked liberal leaders who thought the Vietnam War was necessary) and powerful banks (who didn't like having limitations put on them by liberalism) removed the old liberal guard from power, replacing their liberalism with liberalism without a key principle: That efforts should be made to prevent *anyone* from getting too much power. The result was an adoption of neo-liberalism, embraced by leninists (to "accelerate the contradictions" and by fascists who thought it would give their state powerful allies in enforcing their ethical vision on the world (the heart of fascism: The desire for an all-encompassing ethical state), as well as by people with a poor political education, with insufficient appreciation for what it means that humans are fallible. This alliance replaced liberalism while keeping its name, and it is this alliance that has failed. Liberalism's failing was being surprised by the alliance, and not calling it out enough. Before that, well, communists have been infiltrating and trying to twist education to their purposes since at the very least 1910, with no small success (best example is John Dewey's disciples, who allegedly were *all* educators by 1960). The education these people recommended and trained teachers to provide was not designed to succeed, but designed to gradually fail. Dewey thought literacy should be done away with (for encouraging individuality) and deliberately promoted ways to teach it that were known at the time (and which are still known) to not work. Imagine learning english as though it was written with chinese symbols. That's basically what he recommended, now known as "whole words". Little of this is mentioned in teacher-college training, so many are not aware of this intent (a "disciple of Dewey" doesn't necessarily know), but have adopted parts of the program made with this intent because that's what they got recommended to them by people they trusted. This was a long, *long* attempt at subverting western societies and liberal political systems, which successfully usurped the liberal name in 1975, and which does not deserve it in the least. Given this context, I don't think it is fair to call it a gen X failure. Do you?

Wokal raises Haywood's definition of liberalism, (emancipation) but never mentions him. Why do Wokal 's sphere of guys all refuse to talk to him?

We. Need. Dave. The. Distributist.

OMG it only started seven minutes ago, I didn't miss rien !

is Wokal Distance high or drunk here?

Omg. This was hilarious.

Something constantly left out of these discussions is that your "identity" is not really determined by what you choose to do/say or what ethnicity you are but instead by how other people perceive and react to those things about you. The reason you can't remove racial identitarianism is because, to Wokal's point about being unable to lose the identity of "jewish," other people are putting you in that category, even when skin color is left out people still find identifiable features. The idea that you can just choose to identify as something else is a misunderstanding of how this works.

Wokal's such a character, this could be an episode of The Office. (Am currently watching The Office)

Wokal needs to team up with Ian Crossland for a podcast. I need the comedy..

1:47:00 the blurriness and low frame rate here is the perfect visual metaphor :D Did Wokal do this on purpose?

Jordan Peterson on edibles. 🤔

Well. Im feeling this is the last well hear from the kind wokal. Godspeed.

At 43 mins he was approaching an issue that pertains to Canada and immigration. But he can't out right and say it, he has to do that liberal thing and mask everything he says.

Good discussion. Have watched most of your Wokal discussions. For me, im curious if there is a practical set of actions which get us closer to a harmonious and productive society. 😎👍🙏

If you dont understand what Wokal is advocating for, see Christopher Rufo.

Wokal is getting less interesting every interview

1:22:01 Does ironic apathy become earnestness?

Are you kidding he looks like hes in a hostage video from the 80s

A bit off topic, but thanks to NinjaKitty for explaining how to get rid of the accursed heart icon from the chat window 13:30 I recommend switching the chat chat on for watching this one.

Pixel Distance

I've seen so many brilliant woke fighters trip over the dissident right. Come on, do you really have no better proposal?

Beards ahoy !! WD best quote "we have to build cathedrals"

Wokal, and let's not forget James!

I really like Wokal, he has raw chaotic energy bound with an ability to read horribly boring academic texts and truely understand them.

I am Tyler Durden

I think you are both missing something. Interest groups based off immutable characteristics are bad. An interest group aka collective, of volleyball players is not bad.

Bro get a fuckin pop filter lol

Scalia was nominated for the Italian American vote? I'm sorry. That's just ridiculous.

Saying, my color happens to be white and I happen to be male, vs I AM A WHITE MALE (and that means I like x,y,z), is different. So you can still have it on a form.

I don't think you can undo the problem of racial/ethnic identity politics by fighting it with another similar nature of identity. I forget if you've talked to GregThomas, Carlos Hoyt or Sheena Mason on moving into a raceless paradigm. Can still keep ethnicity and culture, but better to organize people along nonracial or nonethnic interests such as economic/class issues, needs of parents and families, etc.

I like Wokal a lot, but he did his perspective a disservice. The biggest mistake that I see with the "critiques of Liberalism" is that they all fail to distinguish between ethics and politics. Liberalism is a political concept and does not directly concern itself with human behavior-it's merely looking at governmental systems. All of the underlying issues you bring up, Benjamin (which are genuine issues I agree with), are a result of the people and not the political system. Liberalism as a political system is built atop Christian metaphysics and ethics. The reason stuff like Feminism and the Civil Rights Movement were successful is because American Protestants were guilt tripped by their own moral principles. Charity is a core virtue in Christianity, and Christians are called to tend to the weak, the poor, and the dispossessed-they are called to imitate Christ through voluntary self-sacrifice. So when you have a group of people come along and say, "You guys have given us a raw deal and are treating us like second-class citizens and we demand that it change", anyone who thinks of himself as Christian is likely to take that at face value and try to fix it. Repeat ad nauseam for over a century. That's not a problem of Liberalism, it's a problem of Christians not being good at saying no and getting taken to the cleaners for it. Now to be clear, Liberalism-and more specifically, representative government-probably only works within a culture predicated upon self-sacrifice (whether that means explicitly Christian, I'm not sure). I think that's why it seems to work well in East Asian countries like Japan, but seems to fail in the Middle East and Africa. It's also why I think our political system is failing today: we're considerably more self-interested as a culture than we used to be. So you're absolutely spot-on in believing we can have a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country because Christianity is the primary religion in many countries across the globe. I don't believe, however, that you can have a "multi-cultural" society because culture is what unifies people. Canada has been on the precipice of divorce between the English and French aspects at least twice in the last 50 years and it seems to be a result of distinct cultures that haven't been integrated into a higher order "Canadian" culture. Conversely, America used to have an overarching culture that all people who immigrated here could integrate into. That said, the integration comes at a price, which is abandoning the culture of where you're leaving (look at how often grandchildren of immigrants only speak English). We don't seem to have the desire to officially define what it means to be "American"-we don't even have the backbone to declare an official language. That's what we need to focus on fixing first; any political changes will follow after we improve ourselves and our culture. TL;DR most issues are religious, not political.

In the future you are a brain in a jar. Work, family and friends is Stone Age.

What is up with Wokal? He seemed way more with it in the first interview.

Wokal gazed too long into the abyss.

All being Christian is accepting Jesus. Not down stream of a study of Christianity. So …. Nope.

Wokal has extremely untrustworthy physiognomy.

We should strive to be individuals who happen to be white/black/straight/gay/etc. It is not wrong to realize others group us by those characteristics and that this can be a threat, but the core instinct of the woke, to side with people oppressed on such grounds, is correct. Their formulation of the oppressor however is wrong (e.g., white people). The entity that defends people when they are attacked for being white could and should in principle be the same entity that defends people when they are attacked for being black. The identity of that entity should be formed around that principle, whatever that is called - individualism, profundity (as opposed to superficiality), something like that. We don't need to unite as white people to fight the "colored" oppressors, we need to unite as profoundists who fight the superficialists.

Mike's slipping.

I don't care what the dissident peer pressurers think, Wokal is still based.

Pvk wokal so good. Network and background

michael, scalia was not bolstered by some mythical italian american vote - you are a canadian jewish individual, please stop talking about my country.

10 minutes in I'm losing interest.

Nope sorry.