I'm skeptical of this style of writing. If I'd have the power/were a mod... I would remove it even if it doesn't break any rules.

Allegedly, all of the author's friends are dead, and this is a widespread problem. This happenes everywhere, society is at fault. - What we hear is baseless (there are no links provided). It's pretty far from my experience as a human (however, I am not US based).

The tone of the text is very low on specifics, and it's spoken at a 3rd person always talking about others, about how society behaves, about what others do and how others feel. - This style is usually a projection of someone's thoughts. In my experience I've had lots to learn by talking about my own values and how they developed over time. Also hearing others talk about their own experience directly proved valuable. All I'm seeing in this text is "I judge X, I judge Y". That scares me.

These are 2 of the red flags I have to detect problematic philosophical wiring. Is it specific? Is it personal/direct experience? Negative answers suggest I should avoid this piece.

[EDIT] I did not get to the end of the piece and thus I do not argue about content here. Red flags triggered for me in 5-6 distinct paragraphs. Enough for me to decide I should avoid the rest (and that I should write this comment).

For those unaware: Palladium is a far-right magazine bankrolled by Peter Thiel. This is written by one of its two co-founders, the one who hasn’t yet been publicly outed as a white nationalist[1].

[1]: https://splinternews.com/leaked-emails-show-how-white-nation...

I grew up in fairly similar circumstances to the author, and only one of my childhood friends has died, from a motorcycle accident. I think that the author's experience is pretty uncommon.

Another excellent example on this front is Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, by any sort of fundamental interpretation of religion, would have been a heretic, or worse, in a time when religion was still a fundamental component of society. He espoused Christianity, but rejected the virgin birth, resurrection, and various other miracles in the Bible. He actually even composed his own 'bible' by [literally] cutting and pasting sections of the bible (across multiple languages no less) into a new book - the 'Jefferson Bible.' [1] And he made no secret of his views. Discovering this increased my respect for him by orders of magnitude.

If we all abided values only because those values made sense to us, then I think the world would not only be a much more interesting place, but also probably a much better one. It's so weird to see so many people simply claim to believe things that they probably don't, simply because it's socially expected or convenient to claim to believe them. We're only here for ~80 years, spending this time deceiving others, or even worse - yourself, just doesn't make any sense.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

There's new hope for addicts https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/05/425246/psychedelic-inspire...

I don't follow how society's not a reliable source of values, which I agree in principle, but Abraham (that we only know of thanks to spotty written records post-fact) is.

I had pizza with the author once.

This makes sense:

>Well-grounded values, which is to say values that actually serve and accelerate life rather than deplete it, come from only one source: hard engagement with reality, where you can form an experience-building feedback loop of trial, error, and vitality.

and this:

>Our most important low-hanging fruit is to recognize the problem: most of the values we learn from the institutions around us are fake and exploitative. They do not represent our real interests.

And this:

>In contrast to these false values, what we can do is recognize and orient ourselves more rigorously to Abraham’s hard natural values. Are you winning at a biological level? Are you getting more territory at a more sovereign level of control? Are you living rigorously in contact with natural law? Are you working on something that will achieve eternal fame? Are your enemies being cursed and your friends blessed? Does your winning at these things serve any great and higher plan of blessing for all creation and all peoples?

>These are not the root of all value. But absent some kind of reliable revelation as to the deeper wishes of the higher powers, as Abraham had when he almost sacrificed Isaac, anything that doesn’t credibly offer you help towards these values is not your friend.

That last part (a bit uncomfortably!) reminds me of the more cult-y parts of the startup ecosystem.

And this upper middle class is some sort of paragon of sobriety? Half of Americans are on psycho drugs.

Look at Peterson, he is very intelligent and educated, yet in real life he was drug addict, who almost died from overdose.