Meta Politics

The Republican Party has learned how to pass state laws in the past few months. This time, it's not only on taxes and deregulation, but also social positions on education, sports, and abortion. What does this mean for future elections? For internal media and political power? How will narratives adapt?

Cactus returns to writing and podcasting with his thoughts on Afghanistan, Iraq, 2008, and COVID - and how they play into the narrative of an era. Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Callin: @cactusRead bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

There are two ways to come to a conclusion: through evidence and through social trust. The former is slow and the latter is easily abused. In what ways are social proofs responsible for the problems that we face? And is blockchain a true solution? Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Over time, even in circles dedicated to nuance and compromise, one absolute seems to rise: the distrust in institutions. The self-reinforcing mechanism that binds other political groups also binds these new ones; with the uniting goal heading ever closer to a universal cynicism. This is the most dangerous force facing outsider movements.Most of you don't need to hear this, but there have been overzealous, bad-faith critiques on some of the individuals or groups critiqued in this episode. I sign on to none of the critiques other than my own.Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

In the past few decades, ideologies have become increasingly centered around oversimplified metrics. What does this mean for the world and the show? Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Cactus dispels past ideals of liberalism that cannot stand in the current information environment. Familiar topics arise, such as exponential network effects, insularization, the hierarchy of power-centralization and optimism. Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

A very important episode. Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Why do partisans believe their representatives hold starkly different views? Is superficial media playing a role? Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Enron created shell corporations to hide a ponzi scheme. Media companies are doing the same with their trust and attention. Cactus debunks these tactics, and the actual racist conspiracy theory about the lab leak hypothesis, in this week's episode.Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Liz Cheney's ouster shows the extent of insular activism in the Republican party - it isn't a Democratic Party - exclusive phenomenon. But it's much harder to remove this incentive from a party than a company, as the former requires activism to exist and gain influence. Across history, political parties have stabilized and kept these insular, cult-like factions out. How have they done it? Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Israel-Palestine is a conflict that has hungered to turn hot for decades. However, foreign influence leads to the PR and lobbying war becoming even more important than the military one. In an increasingly common occurrence, differing sides see different realities and information is more about the social network and the actual facts. Superficial centrism only adds to the problem, and true pragmatism seeks to fight back.

A cancer cell performs it's function, with one core exception: it doesn't know when to stop. Insular activism replicates this chaos, creating the confluence of uncontrolled radicalization, self-destructive incentives, and institutional sclerosis. Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Cactus brings a positive update as political strategies evolve to combat disingenuous caricatures. As it turns out, preconditioning and prediction are useful tools for dealing with a static strategy of smears. Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Almost a year ago, I made a prediction that the moderate policies and ideas of the Black Lives Matter movement, such as de-escalation training, body cameras, community policing and drug decriminalization, would become dominant despite extremist attempts to misdirect the movement. This, in large part, came true in public opinion, but not in institutions. Why is that? One answer is reinforcement distance, the time it takes to receive feedback on the actual value of an idea, which has created an increasing gap between branding and reality.Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

This week's episode is a collection of small gems that I couldn't fit into any other episode. Plus, at the end, an apology/correction. All of these points are related to polarization in some degree or another and help to better understand the incentive games leading to polarization. Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

This is a combined reading of Balaji's "How to Start a New Country" (1729.com/how-to-start-a-new-country/), with some commentary, and my response essay, "Towards An Anti-Adversarial Cloud State" (available at cactus.substack.com). In it I describe the game-theoretic principles at play in building a country over an online community. It is not as thoroughly rigourous as my typical content, but hopefully, is an interesting piece of your day.My essay is at 23:31.

Polarization has dramatically increased in recent decades. Selection mechanisms - the incentives and mechanisms in which information is noticed - are one culprit, that bring to the top the long tail of irrationality in the form of personal stories. At the same time, the decline of localized groups, a naturally occurring parallelization, has stripped communities of their immune response.Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

Wow, that's a long title.Cactus finds himself in a perfect storm of long tails and uses it to document how extreme, emotionally compelling and viral cases - the long tail of irrationality - undermine legal and financial systems, and how discretion and inconsistency are necessary to avoid collapse.Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.Fun fact: This used to be literally the longest written draft before I split up the episode into two. Check in next week for possibly an even longer title...

Authoritarian regimes tend to be the breeding ground for those who understand the value of liberty. Those core values can only hold if their protectors understand the incentive games at play. Otherwise, corruption, "cancel culture", deception and emotional manipulation will leave those values tattered.Follow Cactus on twitter: https://twitter.com/meta_pol.Join us on clubhouse @metapol.Read bonus on substack: cactus.substack.com.

What is journalism? How do we go forward when journalism is self-terminating in a country? How about if that country is supposed to be the world's leading democracy?Benjamin Boyce is the host of the Boyce of Reason podcast. You can find his channel on any podcast site, or on youtube: https://youtu.be/kJTzUQOld0Q.

The digital age is not just about a change in behaviour. It marks the divergence of rhetoric from solutions and one generation's analogy set from reality,

NFT scammers rely on lack of knowledge of buzzwords. Soon, they run out of gullibles as people understand the scam. But is there a way to avoid this end of growth? Has it been put into practice in politics?

Historical narratives are increasingly misused in politics. Moreover, the attempt to manipulate historical allegories has shifted from being a conflict-zone phenomenon to the United States and the West as a whole. All of this is based on a fundamental flaw: that history is a straight line. How to avoid this fallacy and rebuild a unified morality are explored in this episode.

The recently passed Rush Limbaugh, partisan right radio host, symbolized a fork in the road for Republican media strategy. This has fractured the right, with some such as Ben Shapiro claiming that Limbaugh disrupted a media monopoly, while others such as Ross Douthat finding that he created a "dream palace" driving an insular right-wing. As always, there are many layers deeper, including an asymmetric chicken game between the left and the right when engaging in corruption. Finally, we follow the psychology, looking at the symbiotic nature of left and right, as well as how geographic polarization and network effects have overturned this balance.Subscribe to the newsletter at https://cactus.substack.com/.Give us a review at https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/meta-politics/id1522581825.Contact us at metapoliticspodcast@gmail.com.

Cactus provides the field guide for investigating pathologens and observing them in daily life. Surprisingly applicable to business, communications and socialization.Subscribe free on substack: cactus.substack.com.Leave a five-star review on apple podcasts to ask a question.

Cactus surveys how media has changed since MetaPol started, unveils the adventure for both longtime and new listeners, makes a case for agency and begins to build the new beacon chain.

Gina Carano, former MMA fighter and "Mandalorian" actress, is fired for comparing polarization to Nazi persecution, then hired by conservative media company Daily Wire. Cactus rebuts a common "rational" trope, explains embedded assumptions and gives a prediction on the erratic, irrational motivations of polarized sub-communities.

This is the greatest reason to be an optimist in 2021. A first in a series of short, useful episodes.

Extending the decoherence model, we uncover the perpetuation loop of hypocrisy and anti-ideological contradictions.

The exponential function is presently the most dangerous phenomenon on earth. A virus has shut down societies. Network effects overpowered entrenched wall street investors. Conspiracy theories dominate American politics.While some have the evidence to understand each of these events, almost none have dealt with them effectively. The answer is a fundamental human flaw that must be broken out of.

Cactus gives a network effect update to two data-backed political ideas: the sun and moon/dominant party theory of politics, as well as Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations, a set of values that drive ideological belief. In it he explains the irrational contradictions of the modern left and right, the desperation for power in every sector and the danger posed to the apolitical.

Cactus outlines what some evidence shows is the most likely way out of this mess.

An attack on the U.S. capitol building might have shook some sense into the general public, but not the media. Conspiracies become even more mainstream in response. A guide to how to take things seriously and fix our collective woes.

Violence and insurrection in the U.S. Capitol. Longtime listeners already know why. We are playing with the full stack. Democracy will survive this time, but not forever. Now is the time to take action. Now is the time to tell your friends, family and loved ones the stakes. Now is the time to end the cult factory.

Media and advertising actively reduce our ability to distinguish fact from fiction. Political campaigns capitalize on this to drive polarization and party identification. But is there a way out? Cactus thinks so. This is an excellent episode to apply to your everyday life.

Cactus covers the Coronavirus vaccines, Brexit, India farming protests and American media corruption. In this episode, he offers elaboration on public trust and demographic targeting in public health, blind spots of democracy, best interest calculations, psychological risk assessment, and media self-sabotage.

Ahead of the first Metapolitics Interview, Cactus gives a brief overview of his interview procedure.

The Meta Politics interview series beings with Bradley Marshall from Defending the West Podcast, an insightful commentator on the esoteric features of various American cultures.

Libertarians and centrists fear "The Great Reset" - a grand exercise of national fiscal control. Conspiracy theorists have jumped on the train. As always, the media-political sphere is distracting us all from the more threatening problem: The Great Overload, in which the slow distancing of reality and expectation leads to economic and social chaos.

Cactus solidifies the information presented in earlier episodes to connect the polarization of American culture to the dysfunctional media environment. He extends this analysis to social media and highlights a self-reinforcing cycle in social media. Also covered is the graph-theoretic characteristics of cults, conspiracy theories and social media.

The dust has settled in the 2020 US election. What's important isn't the winner, but the direction in which politics will go now. Cactus breaks down what predictions got right or wrong, and lays out several hypotheses for the direction of the democratic and republican parties. Plus, further analysis on the impact social media has had on accelerating empty rhetoric, as well as the strange refusal to scientifically look at immigration, climate and technology.

Peace, safety, hope, prosperity and good governance are the core goals of most people around the world. So why have they fallen on the wayside around the world?An answer is available far away on the geopolitical stage. Tensions between France and the Muslim world are at an all time high, over ideas that fundamentally domestic, but strike at the philosophical insecurities of a broad collection of nations.The long mental health section ended up being edited out due to some claims that I would like to wait for further evidence and review to support. However, the broader cultural question stands and I am sure you will all find the information you need in order to come to a solid, independent conclusion. It may be revised, re-recorded and published in a future episode.

Cactus gives the case that facebook's New York Post treatment should be applied to ALL news stories. A long dissertation on social media policy follows. Also, learn about what you can do yourself to reduce the spread of disinformation and the impact it has on you. Finally, we talk about the Polievre principle on social media.

The most important Meta Politics episode to date. We talk about how active measures conspiracies have infected the highest levels of American politics, combating disinformation and how to get ahead of the narrative.

The Vice Presidential debate shows what will follow Trump. Pence carries the torch for false talking points while Harris carries the torch for blatant dishonesty. Learn a bit more about what to watch for when analyzing media.

MetaPol is back. Find out why we've been gone and what's next. Plus, a breakdown of the societal breakdown in the United States and how it's peaking in the past month.

A violent explosion following corruption, government dereliction and economic collapse in Lebanon - a perfect metaphor for what happens when you focus on the politics of division instead of pursuing a functioning administration. We look at how the USA is making those nascent mistakes and what this effect could mean for the developed world at large.Follow MetaPol:TwitterInstagram

Cactus gives his thoughts on the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee, corruption in California, political dynasties, effective election attacks and the future of American politics.Follow MetaPol:TwitterInstagram

Many stories of the past week involve the breakdown of the relationship between citizen and institutions. These include the ongoing WE charity scandal in Canada, the handling of public health by Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the Center of Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, and assorted stories of election interference. Cactus highlights the long-term ramifications and goals of democratic forces at play, as well as the role of each individual in these systems.Follow MetaPol:TwitterInstagram

Why do politics often feel like fighting a war instead of solving shared problems? The answer is wedge issues: a not-so-elaborate scheme to distract voters from the issues that significantly impact them and calcify the public, herding them into ideological corners until nothing matters but party loyalty. The incentives of political parties are laid bare in the sharpest episode yet.Follow MetaPol:TwitterInstagram

Cactus tries his hand at news aggregation and analysis with the top stories of this week around the globe, featuring COVID-19 vaccines, EU recovery deal, Portland, USA conflict, China sanctions and WE Charity scandal.Follow MetaPol:TwitterInstagram