— Member-guided assistance and accountability

I view this blog and its ancillary things as a place of deprogramming.

Above all else.

… Do you know why I generally eschew using the “Red-Pill” metaphor?

The red pill and blue pill represent a choice between the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth by taking the red pill or remaining in the contented experience of ordinary reality with the blue pill. The terms originate from the 1999 film The Matrix.

… Because, it’s limited. And while everything is limited—that’s the nature of reality—many limitations are contrived by humans and some, like the red pill, offer only the attainment of an enhanced experience of seeing blue-pill “reality” for what it “really” is. But you still think like you’re supposed to, just a bit more nuanced and edgy!

In other words, the red pill might just be the greatest limited hangout of all time. A “limited hangout” is where seemingly tell-all information is released to give people the impression and feeling that they’ve seen the light; and that where once they were lost, now they’ve been found.

Religions employ this trick as well.

The overused concept of enlightenment is just such a thing.

To put it another way, you have this all-encompassing blue pill—which is the overall, meta-illusion of reality and the certainty it provides to the programmed and indoctrinated. For the health of the blue-pill system (where people follow some authority…instead of none whatsoever), you have an unlimited system of red pills inside the meta pill, which is the big blue pill.

This was illustrated in the 3rd film in The Matrix franchise, Revolutions, which everyone seems to forget. This is where, if you recall from 20 years ago, now, it was ultimately revealed that the matrix itself—where humans are all plugged in to use as power-generation for the AI machines, living in a Pollyanna simulation—could be “perfect,” in the sense of placating and pacifying all the humans, but it needs “dissent” to thrive.

To expound on this, I asked another AI, ChatGPT-4, to lay it out. (I maintain my subscription with OpenAI, even though I have GPT-4 embedded here, so that I can use their plugins, including “Metaphor” and also, so I can link to the discussion to prove it was real.)

See how suggesting autophagy as an analogy had it off and running? That’s skillful use of the tool, and it’s important you learn to use it competently, and eventually, masterfully.

… So my point here is that while red pill ideology is fine (there are dozens of them) and somewhat of a step forward—since some measure of enhanced knowledge is better than none at all—it still leaves me unsatisfied, and at worst, it actually supports meta-blue-pill.

Observe These Red Pills:

• Religion distinguished itself primarily by a handful of sins, each religion having a bit different set of them than other religions so that the importance and antagonism is not what’s common (belief in a super-being) but what you can’t do
• Vegan: you can’t eat any animal products
• Vegetarian: you can’t eat living-animal products
• Paleo: you can’t eat grains and seed oils, or artificial things
• Low-carb: just like the name says
• Ketogenic: can’t eat a lot of chocolate cake protein
• Low-fat: just like the name says
• America and its constitution: can’t do communism
• Western Europe: can’t do America
• Western civilization: can’t do primitive
• BLM/Antifa/Woke: can’t do civilized
• Conspiracy theories: can’t see they’re just another red pill

Now, there’s a lot of common things everyone strives toward: like spiritual, mental, and physical health and well-being.

What do they focus on, instead?

Red pills.

What remains healthy?

The system[s].

Red pills are the health of the blue pill.

You want a good example of stomping out red pills and not letting them flourish for the health of the blue-pill system?

… Back when this was primarily a Paleo blog and was getting about 200K visits per month, comment threads below posts would often number in the dozens and sometimes, the in hundreds.

That waned significantly when I moved away from primarily Paleo blogging some years ago. But here’s what I learned when I switched over to a membership site in early 2021: paying members aren’t your active commenters.

It makes sense when you think about it.

Folks who are active in comment threads are contributing to the overall content creation, since when you have a very long comment thread—especially here, and not on an Access Hollywood post or most of the banal shit on Fuckface—it often overtakes and overshadows the post itself in value.

So the pernicious effect or unintended consequence of becoming a paid site to make a financial living, spending many hours daily maintaining it, is that the active-commenter brigade goes away. Oh, you can fake it, and I did for the first year. 600 of the 800 members were “free level,” which is a meaningless, no level at all.

Many Substackers haven’t learned this yet: free content gets a paid site absolutely nowhere in terms of earning a living. Of course, many personalities there have goals far beyond earning a living in terms of overall influence and moving society.

Meh; it’s still going to be all Blue Pill…

So, my aim is to go beyond red pill and beyond just the passive posts I write and e-books I publish, with many in the works.

That’s the newest iteration of the Member Resources Menu, where everything important can always be accessed, the newest being the Group. I initially limited it to the 30 or so Life Sentence members to work out kinks, but had a slept-on-it rethinking, and so now it’s open to all membership levels.

The group description is pretty characteristic of me:

Absolutely no damn bullshit, ever.

Please don’t create any new topics. Post within the existing topics, which is most appropriate for what you care to say; or, for wildcard whatever, use the Campfire topic.

Post about anything and everything you like.

Say whatever the hell you wish.

But there’s something else too. It’s inspired. Some years back, Alexander J.A. Cortes formed a private group, and while its focus is different than mine (it’s limited to men-only, for one), the essential spirit is very similar.

I just love it, and I’ve read it a bunch of times.

It really comes down to this:

I haven’t got time for your bullshit. I don’t care, and nobody else who even matters cares either. Fuck off. You’re dismissed.

That’s all. Now I have to figure out how to get members to start using it, being the non-active-commenter types they are.