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This lecture examines the impact of echo chambers on mental health, highlighting how self-imposed isolation from opposing viewpoints leads to cognitive fragility. The speaker emphasizes the importance of engaging with diverse ideas to maintain mental agility, drawing parallels between physical fitness and cognitive resilience. The discussion warns that avoiding dissenting opinions can impair individuals’ ability to process complex realities, resulting in societal divisions and increased psychological strain. Ultimately, the lecture advocates for intellectual openness and the necessity of challenging one’s beliefs to foster mental resilience and social cohesion.

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Transcript
00:00So you've probably seen all these crazy leftists who are gone crazy and hysterical and all
00:09of that, and I view this maybe in a slightly different way than you might, and I'll share
00:16my thoughts with you and see what you think.
00:19So to me, what is happening is people have a kill-free speech of their own minds in their
00:28own lives, and what they've done is they've said, I'm only going to consume one viewpoint.
00:37That's their life.
00:38I'm only going to consume one viewpoint.
00:42And because of that, they banish anyone in their life who disagrees with them.
00:48And I don't just mean in their personal life, but in their online life.
00:53They rush to get people banned from Reddit and other places, and they turn their entire
01:02input system into an echo chamber.
01:06Now those of us who don't have mainstream views, there's no possibility we can live
01:13in an echo chamber, because we're just disagreed with by so many people in so many ways.
01:19So we don't have that option.
01:22There was no way I could avoid leftism as a whole growing up.
01:29So what happens is they banish from everywhere in their minds and in their environment anything
01:38that contradicts their well-being.
01:41Now banning people, I mean, I'm not talking about banning evildoers, yes, that's what
01:46they did there, but people who just disagree with you.
01:50So if you de-platform people in your life, in your mind, if you only go to and support
01:57those conversations that echo your pre-existing prejudices, then without a word of hyperbole,
02:05you're setting yourself up for mental illness.
02:11We are designed to get and process and analyze information that goes against our beliefs.
02:21The mind is a muscle.
02:23And if you don't exercise, then you are damaging yourself, right?
02:30I mean, if you don't work out, if you don't, like, your heart is weak, your bones get brittle
02:36or soft, your muscles atrophy, and so on.
02:41And the reason why it's important to expose yourself to contrary viewpoints is so that
02:47you can strengthen your own beliefs and hopefully get to the truth, right?
02:52So you know, the people who are all saying, you know, there are tens of millions of missing
02:57votes in the election.
02:58Well, I mean, there's still a bunch still to be counted, 8 million or so, at least as
03:02a day or two ago was still to be counted from California.
03:06So if you don't expose yourself to counter-arguments, I mean, when I was looking into the IQ stuff,
03:14I read all of the counter-arguments, guns, gems, and steel, everything, because I wanted
03:19to make sure.
03:20And that's why I talked to all the experts and so on, right?
03:23So if you don't expose yourself to counter-information, then you are not exercising your mind, right?
03:32And so your mind gets sucked, and your mind gets weak.
03:37And then when contradictory information becomes inescapable, right, such as everyone you know
03:46is pro-leftist, but then non-leftists win the popular vote, then that is like if you
03:55haven't got off the couch for the last five years, and suddenly you need to run a race,
04:04right?
04:05Well, then you have muscle cramps, right?
04:09You hurt yourself, you fall down because you've been on the couch, not exercising your mind
04:15for the last five years or 10 years or wherever.
04:19And then when you need to use your mind, you don't have any muscles to do so, because you
04:24haven't strengthened your mind by exposing yourself to contradictory opinions or beliefs
04:30or perspectives or whatever.
04:32So then what happens is suddenly you are asked to do something strenuous.
04:38In other words, you haven't inoculated yourself against mental illness by repeatedly exposing
04:43yourself to contradictory ideas or ideas that contradict you.
04:48So then what happens is those ideas break through your delusion, and then you have to
04:55run a race, and you can't.
04:58You trip, you fall, you stagger, you roll, you get cramps, your muscles hurt, and you
05:05pull things, and it's just terrible, right?
05:07And so what we're seeing, and obviously I don't agree with taking deep pleasure in it,
05:14but what we're seeing online with these sort of meltdowns is people who are trying to use
05:21muscles that they have voluntarily let atrophy for many, many years.
05:27They've only engaged with people who reinforce their own prejudices, and so they believe
05:34that things are true, and they're having breakdowns because what they believe to be true has turned
05:41out to be false.
05:43And therefore they feel that their brains are breaking in the same way that if you haven't
05:49got off the couch for a couple of years, and then you have to try to sprint up 20 flights
05:54of stairs, you're going to feel like you're dying, right?
05:59You're going to feel like you're dying.
06:02So that's what's happening, it's in real shape.
06:05Now the reason why, I mean, it's people in genuine and deep pain, and that's very tough
06:12to see, I'm not saying that it's not tough to see, but it is self-inflicted, right?
06:20It is self-inflicted.
06:21People have chosen to avoid engaging with opposite arguments, right?
06:27They have chosen to live in an echo chamber.
06:31And because they've chosen to live in an echo chamber, their brains have atrophied.
06:36I mean, repeated exposure to things that only confirm your own biases is bad for the
06:41brain.
06:43The brain is meant to process challenging information in the same way that our muscles
06:48are designed to work against gravity and things like that, right?
06:52So they have voluntarily chosen to avoid disturbing their prejudices with any contradictory information.
07:03And because of that, their brains have atrophied.
07:08And I don't even know, like, I mean, I don't know the scans or whatever, but I would assume
07:12that people who don't challenge their own beliefs or prejudices end up, maybe you could
07:18find this on a scan, maybe it's been done somewhere, but in my view, I don't have any
07:21proof of this, and maybe there is proof out there, but I don't have any proof, but in
07:25my view, they have voluntarily decided to avoid mental exercise.
07:31Mental exercise is pretty important.
07:33You know, whether it's a board game or crosswords or Sudoku or, you know, it's pretty important
07:38to keep the old brain humming along.
07:42So they have chosen to not do any exercise.
07:47And then you can, I mean, you can stay in a bubble as long as you're not in politics.
07:54But in politics, of course, the bubble that you're in gets repudiated because there are
07:59elections, which is a consensus on the majority view.
08:04So people have voluntarily decided to avoid exercising their brains.
08:11Reality has crept through, and now they are panicking and freaking out and feeling like
08:15they're dying in the same way that if you don't exercise, and then for some reason,
08:20you have to sprint up 20 flights of stairs, you feel like you're dying.
08:24You feel like it's a panic attack.
08:25You feel like horrible things are being done to you, and so on.
08:30I mean, I guess there was a time in my life when I was really, really doing my entrepreneurial
08:36work, and I just didn't really exercise that much.
08:41It was about a year, maybe a year and a half.
08:43And then when I got back into exercising, it was tough there.
08:47It was really, really tough and unpleasant.
08:49So that's what's going on.
08:51People are panicking because they need to exercise muscles that they have voluntarily
08:57let atrophy by not exposing themselves to contradictory information, and maybe this
09:04will help.
09:05But for some of them, they won't recover.
09:09I don't know whether there is a choice or not in this area.
09:13Muscles, you know, you can do a lot to get muscles in life as a whole, but for a lot
09:21of them, this exposure to contradictory information will be so unpleasant that they will never
09:29seek that contradictory information out again.
09:31In other words, they will find exposure to beliefs that go against their laziness.
09:37They will find exposure to that so unpleasant, so difficult and unpleasant that they will
09:45simply retreat from all opposing viewpoints and create a bubble.
09:50And this is what the sex strike is all about, right?
09:53It's just, I went out into reality, I find it extremely unpleasant, they would say, right?
10:01And so I'm going to retreat into confirmation bias.
10:04A lot of people will do that, right?
10:07If you've been not exercising for 10 years, you have to run up 20 flights of stairs, it
10:12might be so unpleasant, you think you're going to die, you pull muscles, you hurt yourself,
10:15you can't walk, and then you're like, well, that's it, I'm never exercising again, right?
10:20As opposed to some people will say, well, gee, I really let myself go, I've got to get
10:24out there and move and get more robust so that I don't have this unpleasantness again.
10:29They'll just say, well, that's it, no more exercise.
10:31And they will retreat into a confirmation bias.
10:35They will retreat into confirming bias, confirming bubbles, echo chambers, and they won't recover.
10:41They won't get saner, they won't get healthier, they will simply atrophy to the point of madness.
10:48And so yeah, be aware and be alert and really make sure that you don't spend much time around
10:55these people because insanity spreads, but madness is truly contagious.