Brendon Marotta

Internet Ethnography with Owen Cyclops

October 12, 2021 By Brendon Marotta

Mystic Christian illustrator Owen Cyclops joins me to discuss internet ethnography and examine online culture. This is our longest episode yet, and also our deepest.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

[02:30] What internet ethnography means
[07:04] How the culture of the internet became a real life
[16:10] The internet’s social implications
[32:04] Why institutions are losing people’s trust
[37:15] Creating a story on social media
[48:00] Consuming social media information
[52:55] How the internet flattens power and social status
[57:32] Origin of the internet memes
[01:00:10] Lack of positive repercussions on the internet
[01:01:49] Online anonymous honesty
[01:05:50] How the previous internet felt more private
[01:07:24] Taking responsibility on social media posts
[01:10:37] The superiority of the internet forums
[01:14:51] Catering for the internet audience
[01:17:22] Threading on forums
[01:25:45] The need for niche spaces on social media
[01:28:11] Meeting with someone online
[01:30:10] Social Media and vlogging
[01:40:20] Using pseudo accounts vs real identity online
[01:44:00] Separating your real life from online life
[01:47:07] Why do people go insane online
[01:54:18] Keeping a balance between your image and what you post online
[01:59:13] Coming back to center and becoming yourself again
[02:04:11] Creating character social media accounts
[02:15:50] Why do people make up posts on the internet
[02:17:52] Pranking vs. Scam
[02:20:20] Distinguishing between what’s real and what’s fake online
[02:28:10] Social media moderation
[02:53:05] Simulacra and Simulation
[03:03:55] Standard definition of Postmodernism
[03:09:00] Metanarratives of the future
[03:13:45] Accepting that we’re living in different realities
[03:19:05] Constructing narratives through fiction
[03:25:56] Being aware of one’s metanarrative about you
[03:28:17] Challenging people’s metanarratives about others
[03:33:49] Academics and science metanarratives
[03:37:40] How humans are wired to view life
[03:48:58] Connect with Owen Cyclops

Resources

Owen Cyclop’s Website
Owen Cyclops on Twitter / Instagram
The Intactivist Guidebook by Brendon Marotta
The Art Of Getting Over by Stephen Powers
Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures by Mark Fisher
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China by Robert Jay Lifton
Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard

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Stephanie Seneff on America’s Glyphosate Addiction

October 5, 2021 By Brendon Marotta

Stephanie Seneff shares how the common weedkiller glyphosate might be causing long-term serious health problems for Americans.

Topics Discussed In This Episode

[00:58] What is glyphosate and why is it a big deal?
[04:10] Why the amount of glyphosate use in plants has been increased
[07:15] How bad is glyphosate to our health?
[12:50] Glyphosate and autism
[17:00] Is there a way to measure glyphosate effects on the body?
[21:29] Is glyphosate legal in other countries?
[25:15] How consumers can push for change
[26:22] Why are the food industries still using chemicals in food production
[34:40] Why Sulphur is an important nutrient to the body
[36:13] Symptoms of autistic mice
[37:19] Are companies going to continue using glyphosate?
[41:22] How can Americans opt-out of environmental glyphosate
[44:45] Mislabeling in the chemical industry
[46:19] What is the food industry trying to avoid by using glyphosate?
[49:10] The US hitting rock bottom
[51:59] Stephanie’s final words

Resources

Stephanie Seneff’s Website
Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate is Destroying Our Health and the Environment by Stephanie Seneff

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Social Media Activism with the r/Intactivism Reddit Moderator

August 31, 2021 By Brendon Marotta

The moderator of r/Intactivism on Reddit joins us for an in-depth discussion of social media activism.

We talk about the incentives different social media platforms create and how their design changes the psychology of their users. We also talk about how to use internet memes to create laughter, change minds and build online communication.

Topics Discussed In This Episode

[01:18] Breaking down the Reddit social media platform
[02:17] About the r/Intactivism subreddit
[06:29] How r/Intactivism community is different from other intactivism groups on other social media platforms
[09:53] The incentives on Reddit and how it has enabled thoughtful discussions
[13:46] How to educate the population on Intactivism
[15:54] The history of human rights
[19:20] The problem with Twitter as a medium for long-form discussions
[21:21] Deciding on where to spend your time on different Reddit communities
[23:01] The generation of a meme and its advantages
[28:58] Responses from the r/IntactivismMemes subreddit
[29:30] Are there meme formats for Intactivism?
[32:01] The role of memes in the discussion
[39:29] Entertaining and putting on a show in the subreddit
[42:16] Understanding the audience and how to reach them
[42:50] What styles of humor does well on Reddit
[47:55] Incentives for people doing activism and how to get people to change social media platforms
[54:06] Memes and trolling on social media
[01:05:10] Final thoughts

Resources

r/Intactivism
r/IntactivistMemes
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Reasons To Circumcise by Hugh Dickman

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Jay Mjinga on African Circumcision and Kenyan Politics

August 24, 2021 By Brendon Marotta

Jay Mjinga is a Kenyan journalist working to end African circumcision. In this episode, we talk about how Western circumcision campaigns intersect with tribal conflict in Kenya.

Jay shares how myths and misinformation about circumcision are worsening HIV, used to support systemic racism, and contributing to forced circumcision hate crimes. If you want to understand the issue of circumcision in Africa, this is a must-listen episode.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

[1:32] – How circumcision is viewed in Kenya
[2:38] – How circumcision campaigns are being carried out in Africa
[3:41] – Jay’s personal circumcision story
[6:20] – How circumcision campaigns lead to unsafe sex
[7:19] – How Jay began to question circumcision
[8:24] – Circumcision in Kenyan elections
[9:49] – Forced circumcisions in Kenyan streets
[11:18] – Pro-circumcision propaganda in Kenya
[12:35] – Government backlash to Jay’s activism
[14:19] – How FGM is treated differently in Kenya
[17:17] – Women’s attitudes towards circumcision
[18:15] – Sex before and after circumcision
[19:54] – How Africans are enticed to get circumcised
[23:26] – How tribal circumcision is performed
[26:29] – Getting arrested for “anti-government propaganda” against circumcision
[32:41] – Are government lies spreading HIV and AIDs?
[33:30] – How COVID impacted Kenya
[34:50] – The problem with Africans copying the West
[37:45] – The relationship between American programs and local Kenyans
[40:29] – Conflict between China and America for control of Africa
[41:05] – How Americans can help end circumcision in Africa
[46:39] – Plans for an anti-circumcision resource center
[51:32] – The challenge of fundraising in Africa and Nigerian scam emails
[56:26] – How Brendon perceives the circumcision issue in America
[1:00:05] – How transgender people might change the issue of genital cutting
[1:02:14] – Shame and talking about circumcision
[1:04:46] – How circumcision propaganda get distorted in Africa
[1:08:09] – How tribal conflict intersects with circumcision and Kenyan politics
[1:11:04] – Brendon has a light bulb moment about Kenya politics
[1:15:04] – The seriousness of Kenya elections
[1:17:08] – Forced circumcisions as hate crimes
[1:19:55] – Generational change and inter-tribal marriage
[1:23:22] – How circumcision propaganda attacks poorer tribes and interracial marriage
[1:29:30] – How America looks at Africa, and the 42 tribes of Kenya
[1:33:26] – How money and power works in Kenyan politics
[1:41:24] – “Most ideologies end up in the forest”
[1:45:12] – How Americans can build trust in Africa

Resources:

Stop the Cut on Facebook

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Decentralized Social Credit Scores

August 17, 2021 By Brendon Marotta

Imagine there was a plugin you could install on your social media that would display your IQ (intelligence quotient). To use this plugin, you had to take an IQ test. You could then filter based on IQ score among other users who had the plugin. For example, you could only receive messages from above 130 IQ followers, allow only above 100 IQ to read certain posts, or below 80 IQ to see a certain advertisement, etc.

I came up with this idea after seeing a Twitter post from someone wishing they could avoid interacting with stupid people on social media. There would obviously be a lot of challenges with implementing it. People might try to game the IQ test. You’d have to get popular adoption. Really stupid people might not even know how to install the plugin right, or just avoid outing themselves as dumb by using it. Yet, it could solve a common desire among internet users.

I took it further. What if you could filter customer services requests by IQ? Someone with a +130 IQ is probably calling with different questions than an 80 IQ person? What if you had the data on how different IQ levels behave differently in different systems? What if you could offer different versions of the same product for different intelligences? What if you could test for different types of IQ (spatial, emotional, linguistic, etc.) and filter even further?

Then I realized: I’d invented a social credit score system.

Social Credit Scores

A social credit score is a score assigned to a person that gives them certain rewards or punishments based on their behavior.

Social credit scores usually filter for the interests of the state. In China, your social credit score is tied to what the Chinese Communist Party considers pro-social behavior. Some are innocuous. For example, making a reservation at a hotel and not showing up lowers your score. Donating to charity raises it. Others are political. For example, buying anime, which is considered a degenerate Japanese (foreign) product lowers your score. Serving the Chinese Communist party raises it.

Social credit scores usually serve the interests of those who create them. If a state creates a social credit score, it can use it as a soft mechanism of control. You might not be forced to obey, but your life will be harder if you don’t. Some in the United States have proposed a harsher version of the social credit score system through vaccine passports, which would deny Americans the ability to travel in their own country unless they were up to date on all mandated vaccines.

Social credit scores also create odd feedback loops. I once heard a story of someone in China who offered to give their friend a lift. Their friend declined a car ride, because walking regularly raised their social credit score. Accepting a car ride from a friend would have been pro-social, but it would not have been recognized as such by the social credit system. By walking, this person was gaming that system and building their social credit score. They were choosing what the system recognized as pro-social over what was actually pro-social due to the incentives of the credit score system.

Social credit mirrors a system that has always existed in human culture: reputation. Usually, your reputation comes through your social circle. You will hear from others that someone has a “bad reputation” or “good reputation.” Because reputation is not tied to data, it’s very easy to develop a “bad reputation” merely because an enemy or ex spreads a negative rumor, and possible to develop a “good reputation” simply by being a very smooth con man.

Both systems can be gamed, they are just manipulated differently. Reputation is gamed by manipulating people’s perception. Social credit systems are gamed by exploiting what data the system values. One system is explioted through narcissistic sociopathy, and the other through autistic gamesmanship.

Hegemonic Social Credit Scores

Most people oppose social credit scores because they don’t want the well-being of their life determined by their obedience to a state, corporate system, or medical tyranny. I support this view.

However, the same people frequently who oppose social credit scores frequently use reputation to judge who they associate with. Some even use forms of reputation based in political labels. What if we could translate the informal and unquantified system of reputation people already use to evaluate their relationships into data like a social credit score?

The challenge with social credit scores is that different subcultures want different social behavior. For example, a “Christian Social Credit Score” would probably be lowered by sex outside of marriage. A “Sex-Positive Social Credit Score” might be raised by attending a course on polyamory. Both of these subcultures would frown on the relationship the other has to sex.

We do not have a one-size-fits-all relationship to reputation. Why would we have a one-size-fits-all relationship to social credit scores? Part of the challenge of social credits scores is right now they are only used by those who seek hegemonic control over social norms. There is a lot of power to be had if your subculture’s social credit system becomes the dominant society’s social credit system.

In a sense, we already have this hegemonic control in the informal system of reputation. There are certain topics you could write about or words you could say that would get you “canceled” by companies, social media platforms, and dominant institutions. Many of these are the same across social powers.

Yet, opposing “cancel culture” is a misnomer. We all have some standard for which we would remove people from our life or “cancel” them if they violated. What people really mean when they say those who oppose “cancel culture” is that they don’t want a hegemonic culture whose values they don’t share to rule over them.

Most would happily “cancel” certain people from their own culture for violations of their cultural norms. However, they don’t run dominant social institutions and would prefer those institutions to remain culturally neutral, or at least be willing to do business with people of any culture.

Decentralizing Social Credit Scores

The solution here is not to ban social credit scores but decentralize them.

What if instead of one social credit score run by the ruling party, major corporations, or the medical system, you had many different scores used by different subcultures and systems.

Imagine if you had a holistic health credit score or HHC score. This score was raised not by taking vaccines, but by exercising, eating organic vegetables, and daily meditation. Raising your HHC score meant that you got a discount on certain health services since it was assumed you were a healthier person and would not cost the healthcare system the same amount as an obese junk-food couch potato.

There might also be “healthy people only” events that you could only get into with a high HHC score. Some were even singles events or family events because healthy people want to interact with other healthy people, date other healthy people, and have their kids raised in a subculture that normalizes a healthy lifestyle.

Would you want an HHC score? Would gamifying health this way with real social rewards cause you to act healthier? Would be more likely to attend an event knowing everyone there lived healthy, even if it was just

This has the problems that other social credit systems have. Valuing the wrong data could lead to people gaming the system rather than actually being healthy. For example, a system that wasn’t too smart might log it as exercise if you turn on the treadmill for an hour without stepping on it.

There might also be debates over what constitutes health. Does meditation belong on the HHC, or is it just diet exercise? Is an hour of yoga worth the same on your score as an hour of heavy weightlifting, or is one worth more?

You could solve these problems with multiple scores or even forking the system. For example, vegans might create an HHC fork that decreases your score if you eat animal products. Paleo and carnivore people might create a fork that increases your score if you eat meat. If there were multiple social credit systems, this would not be a problem, since some might attend events only available to a high vegan score and others a high carnivore score.

Codifying Social Credit Scores

There are as many ways to implement a social credit score as there are subcultures. Every subculture or set of values could have its own score with its own set of rewards and punishments within that subculture or organization.

Imagine a political party where the activism you did raise your party credit score. Imagine a company where the number of shares of that company you owned was determined by a gamified tracking of the work you did for the company. You could even have encrypted scores which are only visible when two members of a subculture are near and chose to reveal themselves to another for a modern version of secret societies.

Designing this would take a lot of thought because you’d be codifying people’s values. You’d have to figure out what your subculture actually values, and how that value is signified. You’d have to test it to make sure what you’re rewarding is actually creating the culture you want.

Right now, social credit scores are used as a system of control. This method uses them as a system of association. With multiple credit scores, you could choose who you associate with, what you value, and find your people.

Yes, social credit scores run the risk of centralization. If all of society adopts one set of values, maintaining your own might be difficult. Yet, hasn’t this always been the challenge for subcultures and emergent ideas? Yes, this is a bit of a crazy idea, there are many ways it could be abused, and it’d take a lot of work to make right. However, there is a way this tool could be used for good.

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Megan Russell on Setting Your Children Up for Financial Success

August 3, 2021 By Brendon Marotta

Megan Russell, COO of Marotta Wealth Management (and my sister) discusses how your parenting can influence your child’s future relationship to money.

Megan shares experiences from her own parenting as we discuss our own beliefs surrounding money, how we can set ourselves up for financial success, and empowering our children to have healthy financial futures.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

[1:19] How early you start setting up your children for financial success
[2:52] Habits you can create with money that your children can emulate
[6:45] How to give children the opportunity to make their own choices about money
[9:38] How to help your children navigate through the challenging aspects of money
[14:27] Handling your child’s questions about making money
[21:50] How to guide your kids to find a career they’re interested in
[23:29] How to support your kids in careers you may not understand
[26:28] How to foster entrepreneurial skills in your child
[30:00] Criticisms of the Millennial generation
[31:20] How to handle changes in beliefs around money
[34:21] What you can do to give your kids a good start with money
[37:26] Easy things you can do to understand personal finance
[39:17] How crypto-currencies can be a part of your savings plan
[41:20] Where to put your money to save for your kids
[44:08] How to support your children financially without spoiling them
[49:20] Identifying and reframing your beliefs about money
[56:09] How to not use money as a punishment

Resources:

Megan’s Bio
Marotta Wealth Management
Megan’s articles on personal finance and wealth management
Marotta Wealth management videos, tutorials, and talks on Youtube
Seven Lessons School Teacher by John Taylor Gatto
Morningstar Study

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Kerry McDonald on Unschooling and Homeschooling’s Massive Growth

July 20, 2021 By Brendon Marotta

Kerry McDonald talks about the massive growth of homeschooling and unschooling after the Covid-19 pandemic, and how you can start unschooling with your children.

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education, author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom, and an adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

[2:00] What is unschooling
[4:30] What does unschooling and schooling look like in comparison to government schooling and how it’s trying to be different
[6:10] How Covid-19 has changed homeschooling and unschooling
[11:03] How children learn and how parents can support and facilitate that learning
[13:27] What misconceptions people who were brought up in the system have on homeschooling
[18:03] How homeschooling has expanded in the past year
[19:21] Kerry’s experience and journey to homeschooling
[25:57] The first steps to exploring your child’s education in homeschooling
[29:45] The process of finding the best option for your child
[35:14] How to incorporate non-academic activities into your schooling
[39:07] How to spark your child’s interests
[40:20] Stereotypes of homeschooling
[42:44] The difference in outcome between homeschooling and public education
[45:56] Navigating college and how to prepare your child for an unknown future

Resources:

Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom by Kerry McDonald
Kerry McDonald Bio

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Ari Hershkowitz on Hasidic Jewish Change

July 6, 2021 By Brendon Marotta

Ari Hershkowitz talks about his journey and experiences in the Hasidic Jewish community explored in the Netflix documentary One of Us (2017).

We discuss Ari’s healing journey, return to the Hasidic community, and how the Jewish community is changing.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

[1:00] What a Hasidic Jewish Community looks like
[2:21] Ari’s current stance in his community
[4:47] Journey to change within the Hasidic community and the specific changes being made
[6:26] The cause of these changes
[7:31] Fears and control of information flow
[8:27] Why New York is the home for a Hasidic Jewish community
[10:00] Ari’s Journey to questioning and leaving his community
[14:51] Ari’s involvement with the documentary crew and experience with film One of Us
[16:34] Ari’s experiences post leaving the community
[18:51] School and education within the Hasidic Jewish community
[19:6] Best and worst of leaving
[21:09] Ari’s discoveries of other religions and experiences post leaving the community
[23:40] Ari’s return back to living with the community
[25:27] Ari’s hopeful changes for the community
[28:02] Ari’s journey to self-recovery and healing
[29:44] Sexual abuse and how it’s handled in the community
[32:44] Footsteps and mental health organizations in the documentary “One of Us” and how to get involved
[34:09] How the Hasidic Jewish community see other Jewish communities and perceive criticism from the outside
[39:00] Criticism of circumcision and anti-semitism
[41:44] Generational trauma and finding ways to have an understanding between outsiders and people within the community
[45:11] Jewish Identity defined
[47:51] Where Ari is today and his next steps moving forward
[48:55] Community and reaction to the Netflix Documentary

Resources:

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