Game B(ullshit)?

Why Systems Change Without Social Justice Will Never Work

Brent Cooper
The Abs-Tract Organization
42 min readMay 31, 2020

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Introduction

“Game B” colloquially refers to a novel discourse and sense-making community framing a needed shift from default human history (“Game A”) to a new mode of behavior and social organization that does not reproduce any of the generator functions of existential risk (from over-consumption to nuclear bombs, etc.) of our past and current system; so we can make a collective move ‘from A to B’, so to speak. I’m for it, in principle. But Game B is a predecessor of the “Intellectual Dark Web” (IDW), which I opposed, and has some of the same people involved, operating today as a sort of distributed spin-off community that continues to grow while masking its own controversy. If you don’t conform with their strict protocols and right-wing and centrist leaning groupthink, you are ‘not Game B’, according to them, even though Jim Rutt insists there is no official canon and you can do your own version of Game B.

The term ‘Game B’ (contra Game A) sounds like it suggests a clean bifurcation or fork, reminiscent of many other paradigm shift theories or historical transitions, such as moving from modernism/postmodernism to metamodernism. Though these terms are purposely over-simplified for effect, to help categorically separate wheat from chaff, it is not meant to realistically imply a clean changeover — this is messy business — but it nonetheless creates that illusion and cognitive trap.

This trap creates a reductionist cycle, where anything they don’t like becomes “Game A”, and in turn any legit criticism becomes labelled as “rejecting things that you don’t like”. The shorthand ends up bungling the project it is trying to clarify, much like Integral’s colour schemes, it becomes reified in dead metaphors. Thus far, Game B has shown little genuine interest, and even less literacy, in the growing discourse of metamodernism, which I have also critiqued from within for its whiteness problem. Jim has has Hanzi on his podcast (twice now), but these are relatively superficial encounters. It will be a long process of much more study and interaction. Perhaps never the twain shall meet. To the extent they have similar aims, Game B appears to be somewhat on the right track, positioning itself as post-capitalist:

What follows in this article is a constructive critique directed at some of the leaders and the reactionary parts of the constituency of Game B, and their wilfully uninformed allergy to sociology, socialism, and social justice, which are in fact necessary parts of their own agenda and goals. I’m going to be using the term ‘reactionary’ a lot throughout, so it warrants definition: “(a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform”, and is often traditionalist, harkening to the past, but not always.

It’s not obvious why anyone would be be proud of opposing progress, especially when sustainable progress is what Game B is ostensibly about, but that’s why we’re here. Conversely, they also reflect aspects of accelerationism (a term which Jordan Hall has even related too, while admitting he didn’t really know what it means). This makes for a very negligent and explosive cocktail. As a consequent of these deep flaws, Game B’s policies and followers have racist undertones.

With all that in mind, this is not to disparage many of the good well-intentioned people involved or attracted to the meme and the community for the right reasons. You are safe. You are not called out anywhere here. I myself still participate in some Game B activities and converse with some of its practitioners, though not the main group, where some of my allies and bad faith enemies remain. It is currently in upheaval for exactly the reasons I outline in this article. I implore them to stand together with me now, to help reform the group. I have been sacrificed on the altar of egos, but it is not too late to be resurrected. While entertaining Game B in good faith, this article is not to take you on a tour of its resources, which you can do from the wiki, but rather to diagnose its denial and sickness so it can be treated. I’m here to tell you what Game B is from the outside, and as someone who has been inside some of its hidden rooms.

Sections:
- Diagnosing the Deep Code
- In the Hall of the Mountain King
- Game B(ernie)?
- The Crisis of (Bad) Faith
- David Full(er) of Himself
- Conclusion

Diagnosing the Deep Code

My goal is to expose the pathologies and dogmas that underpin and undermine the noble intentions of the Game B movement, to encourage people to be more critical and reflexive, by their own logic (like Rule Omega) and beyond. It is tiring to see so many people adopt the hashtag #GameB in such uncritical and naive ways, in keeping with the brand that I am criticizing. And some of its problems may be difficult to remove, like inoperable tumours. This is why I argue that if the movement can’t be reformed by its own standards (like the IDW failed to do), it should be abandoned for the relatively exclusive and malformed thought experiment that it is. It has many great aspects and insights, which can and should be pirated towards more just and humane ends, just as they have done in the first place by co-opting whatever they see that benefits them.

There are certainly healthier places to pursue such work, and more broad causes to join. To be sure, it is not my place to solve GameB’s problems, it is theirs, and they do not want my advice, that is clear. Nevertheless, for my voluntary efforts, I hope that this mostly white, male, and libertarian community would be thanking me and others who challenge them, but some backlash is to be expected because we have already seen it, and I am still prepared to face more and call their bluff.

To be sure, it is not my place to solve GameB’s problems, it is theirs, and they do not want my advice, that is clear.

If there is any merit in the term, I am already very Game B, working on the paradigm shift, systems change, advocating cosmopolitanism socialism, and operating outside the Game A economy, living a low impact lifestyle, and refusing contracts when they don’t meet my moral standards. Meanwhile people like Jim Rutt are still dependent on Game A, and can make no realistic claim otherwise. He admitted to me that the Sante Fe Institute, which he chaired, is hamstrung by its funders and he made no efforts to influence it in a more sociological direction under his leadership, though I reckon it is doing better without him. Jim even bet on the primaries of the US election, and regularly taunted others to take him on (after all, its just a game, right? And it’s just about beating Trump, not about deeper systemic change, right? Right!?).

The (non-)leaders and their quirks aside, it is clear from what sort of posts gain traction in the facebook group that they will dismiss contributions that are aligned with their goals if they have a tinge of social consciousness, like my work on the “Emergentsia” (which tried to build a broader coalition with some of them) and more recently the book Smart Cities and Artificial Intelligence, and my article Mapping Metamodernism for Collective Intelligence (which was posted in Gameb). I suppose this is better than having them co-opt it.

Trigger-horny pro-militarist posts like the one below, from Ernesto, are consistently more supported, and he’s another person whose gone to great lengths to oppose and disparage me on many occasions. He also wrote an article that is thinly veiled Tesla-inspired American exceptionalism and claimed (wrongly) that it was pro- social justice. Though he does acknowledge universal healthcare and education (otherwise known as socialism), he ignores the US role in wrecking the Latin American countries he claims to want to help.

Ernesto’s “Violence” inquiry is an example of the type of aggressive reactionaries Game B attracts and encourages. Protect against who? The boogeyman? Climate change is the existential threat coming that we need demilitarized global resilience for, not fighter jets. Furthermore, Ernesto is content to claim there is no racism in the United States, because he himself is a successful ethnic minority. If Game B is anything, it must be anti-war. This is so basic. But Jonell Homer couldn’t grok this point either, citing her military ties. What’s worse is that the jet pictured in Ernesto’s post (the F-35) is a catastrophic failure and an argument against the military-industrial complex (see Inside America’s Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar Fighter-Jet Program). But remember, this is not the real Game B, they would say, this is just a product of the free-for-all social experiment on Facebook, where they relish in the controlled chaos of it. Right.

One of the original aspirations of Game B is “anti-rivalry”, which this post rejects and embraces violent survivalist fantasies instead. But there is a consistently a low bar and ceiling for discourse; that’s why these posts are popular and others to do with actual socio-political concerns are banned or strawmanned and demonized. Anti-intellectualism is rampant which, again, is typified by the same IDW type attitude that is anti-political, anti-sociological, right-wing identity politics. In its place, is pseudo-intellectual techno-optimism about saving civilization (Western, of course).

Behind it all, the group of thought leaders in question includes the likes of Bret and Eric Weinstein of IDW fame, Jordan Hall, Daniel Schmachtenberger, and Jim Rutt, who claim coinage of the term “Game B”, as their social experiment going on 10 years to categorize everything pathological about the current system as “Game A”, particularly in what they call “Game A Malware”. Especially under the leadership of the latter three people, this group is effectively IDW-lite, both a precursor and spin-off subgroup that admires the former and couches their anti-leftism in complexity terms. This is the easy path, but the wrong one, I argue, because they are accidentally smuggling back in Game A Malware in bulk. And from their lofty perspectives, I appear to be just a random tiny pissant, not someone with specialized education, meaningful contributions, or deserving of good faith dialogue and respect, and thus I’ve been (mis)treated consistently by almost all of them.

As this builds on past work, this article will not really be comprehensible to my haters if they have still not yet processed the two critiques (debunks really) of the IDW as a whole, here (2018) and here (2020), whether my meta-analysis version or some equivalent, which are entirely good faith, and with better alternatives offered. In a big way, Michael Brooks’ main critiques of the IDW can apply to Game B as well, particularly that they do not historicize. An actual knowledge of history and our place within it is often supplanted by enthusiasm for conversations and diagrams that simulate thinking, and do not even attempt to be the “critical” kind of thought.

That is the background context of this higher level critique, and prerequisite for real Game B reforms. The IDW publicly claims they are open to critique, but never receive it in good faith — they couldn’t even critique each other in good faith, not that they tried very hard — while they continue to abuse everyone on the left of them and disparage anything to do with ‘social justice’. This is not just about my work per se, but about the general public discourse around these issues.

In maximal fairness, the meme of Game B is just valid enough for them to carry out a somewhat sincere discourse on systems change, while on the other hand just vague enough for them to dodge serious critiques and avoid all the contradictions and pathologies in their ideas and communities. This makes the thankless task I have taken up even more difficult than critiquing the IDW, but the fact they deny those critiques too helps make my case. They majority of them have no desire to set themselves apart from the IDW.

Off the top, here’s one clear red flag carried over from the former, but made more formal: as a hard rule in their facebook group they ban any discussion or invocation of politics, postmodernism, social justice, sociology, and race/racism. When I did try to introduce any of them, the people who shit on these concepts have never read a book on it, taken a class, or even really experienced systemic oppression, and yet are amplified as some sort of gospel truth speakers. Rutt himself admits ignorance in sociology, and couldn’t tell you what postmodernism is to save his life, but will gleefully tell you how much he hates it.

Consider how the ban on racism theories and discourse will contribute to ignorance around what is currently unfolding in the US because of the murder of George Floyd by a racist cop (not just one bad apple, but part of a system that is racist).

I cannot stress enough how important basic literacy and consistent definition of these concepts is for the success of Game B, and of course for metamodernism too, which incorporates most of it already. It is fundamental to good faith sense-making and avoiding Game A pathologies. First and foremost, all of these different sense-making communities should be educational in nature, which means creating the space for learning, and having a truly open and curious attitude, with respect for quality academic source material.

The mods and figureheads suppress these discourses because its more convenient to avoid conflicts that reactionaries bring to the table. Moreover, the moderators (including Hall, Rutt, and several unqualified Karens) act like authoritarians who gaslight, concern troll, scapegoat, and expel critics, while embracing reactionaries for the sake of diversity and pluralism, ironically. Many active members and leaders completely strawman crucial concepts, employing diluted right-wing perversions of basic sociological toolboxes like Marxism.

All of these are indisputable facts, but are already met with ferocious denial. Humanitarian systems designer Vinay Gupta was ejected back in January, and has spoken out about it. The white people who pushed back the hardest made it about tone-policing rather than the substance of argument, and are also the ones most vocally anti-social justice and admittedly entirely disinterested in race (a very privileged position to have). Naturally, rather than entertain Gupta’s valid critique, they ostracized him.

The Game B group has continued to grow in numbers despite this attempted intervention and several others. The group successfully quashes, deletes, blocks this type of critique, and new adherents are none-the-wiser. February, which was coincidentally Black History month, involved some of the biggest blow-ups over race and resulted in me getting unceremoniously kicked out for calling out actual racists. The way they papered over that event was as impressive as it was grotesque and racist, and many people continue to talk about ‘GameB’ completely unproblematically. Nothing good comes from denial and repression. My ban was related to a comment thread on my own post of my article on Black Metamodernism, in which I was first muted on for 3 days by Jordan Hall, who refused to talk to me and instead made a fool of himself trying to intervene in the most pedantic way possible, while racist trolls attacked me and strawmanned the work being presented.

In an attempt to ostensibly integrate race discourse, and most definitely to also try to sanitize his own image and suppress critique, Jim Rutt formed a Game B ‘race working group’ on facebook. Initially I was excluded from it until Germane Marvel lobbied for my participation. Despite our best efforts, this group failed for obvious reasons — Rutt maintained an authoritarian and anti-sociological posture, outright banning terms from Critical Race Theory (really just social theory in general) and equating it with the language of White Supremacy in the same breath, as if they are two sides of the same coin:

Jim’s writing, from an early version of the “Meta Race Guidelines”

Any critical contributions that I tried to make were vetoed by Jim in a callous and ignorant fashion, as if to behave like a pudgy sugar-addicted snot-nosed brat yelling at his parents, demanding how to be educated, and more importantly, how to be fed the garbage that he wants. When he’s not being overtly aggressive, he’s passive aggressive, dismissive of valid points. I never really understood or agreed with his (a controlling affluent crotchety white man) forming a document of guidelines for how to talk about race, especially when he blocks the most trustworthy sources for that information; race scholarship and black people. From what I saw in the way he was treating Germane Marvel (as co-mod in the group), it seemed like using him— but Germane can speak for himself on this. To be sure, in Jim’s comments below, he is writing off as “opinion” the factual fields of scholarship that are described as African-American Studies and Whiteness Studies, respectively. Following on the initial document above, the comments where Jim is objecting to me, are to things that I tried to add, in order to correct his censorship model:

Paranoia also reins supreme in the GameB group, as one of the “moderators” — Thomas Choate (who also refused to engage me directly when I friend requested) — assumed, with no evidence whatsoever, that Joe Corbett was a fake account that I was behind. This is not only idiotic, but an insult to both me and Joe, clearly each ourselves and good faith actors. Jubilee corrected him (with equally bad logic though), and agreed to removing the post. The post in question was of course my parody video of Jim, which contained at least sufficient information for good faith discussion to emerge, and which is backed up in this article, though not every point is. Instead what happened in the comments once again reveals the true colours of many of the group members, who disparaged me and refused to discuss the actual race issues of Game B. It resulted in this horrible sense-making, in which Thomas also has it backwards that I’ve been giving many chances, as I continue to give Game B chances:

Game B claims to be apolitical or post-political as a group, but the group is mostly reactionary, libertarian, and anarchist — all politicized positions. As individuals many hold highly misinformed and charged views, on which debate is prohibited, because some of the mods hold those same views and lack basic conceptual literacy (even at the wikipedia level). Meanwhile, on his personal page Jim Rutt would often rage against Bernie as a “state socialist” despite this being absolutely false, and despite supporting him in 2016. Jim Rutt also proudly voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 primary, despite Biden’s obvious establishment loyalties, villainous policy track record, and a clear Game A type platform (Biden: “Nothing will fundamentally change”). I tried to educate Rutt on the fact that the United States is actually the extreme opposite of what he fears with socialism— state capitalism — and is far more dangerous, but denial is a powerful drug. So, along with Vinay Gupta, I take this very seriously:

Having said all that, it is important to keep giving Game B and its practitioners the benefit of the doubt and grant that their systemic racism may be accidental and incidental. This is the only way they can reform. Even still, they have trouble acknowledging there is even a problem, let alone a set of problems (problems which metamodernism does not have). They will never accept the charge of racism even though some of the members are explicitly racist, and they will continue to demonize anyone who critiques them, and be incredibly arrogant and petulant about it — this is the pinnacle of white fragility, a term Jim hates and wants to ban, of course. All I ever did was get angry at the reactionaries who were attacking me — had I been black and doing that, I probably would be murdered by cops. Their denial is not a response to critique, to the consolidation of evidence, to the requests from people of colour to be heard. Their denial is a refusal to play by their own rules, to up-regulate other signals that deserve it, to purge Game A Malware, and it is precisely because the critique is true that they don’t know how to reform.

Their denial is a refusal to play by their own rules, to up-regulate other signals that deserve it, to purge Game A Malware, and it is precisely because the critique is true that they don’t know how to reform.

In the Hall of the Mountain King

“It might very well be the case that 2018 will be known as the “Year of Jordan Peterson”. — Jordan Hall, On Sovereignty

Jordan Hall’s 2018 article On Sovereignty opens with the above cringe-worthy gem. The article is not just about Peterson per se, but individual autonomy and personal responsibility — the kind Peterson famously prescribes via cleaning one’s room — that Hall calls ‘sovereignty’. The word of which of course is derived from meaning supreme ruler, especially in the sense of a monarch or King, but that Hall explicitly co-opts to mean what he wants. After priming the reader with his egotistical authority — “I’m going to take the bold path and challenge you to really think” — Hall qualifies that he’s not referring to the sovereignty of nation-states or rugged individualism, but rather is appropriating the word to mean this;

“Sovereignty is the capacity to take responsibility. It is the ability to be present to the world and to respond to the world — rather than to be overwhelmed or merely reactive. Sovereignty is to be a conscious agent.” — Jordan Hall, On Sovereignty

Let’s see how Hall measures up to his own sovereignty, which I contend he weaponizes against critics and aspirants alike in a cult-like fashion (as he certainly has to me and others). In the comment exchange below, Hall becomes overwhelmed and reactive, exactly what he advises against, when confronted by Daniel Pinchbeck, an established thinker in his own right:

Granted, Pinchbeck’s criticism is just rejecting Hall’s premises (rightly so), but look at the response. “Be careful.” The first words, a warning shot, an admonition, as if to say ‘how dare you criticize me!?’ and ‘there will be consequences’. The second words are a projection and accusation of “not ‘thinking’”, adorned by empty signifiers like ‘a space’. This assumes of course that Pinchbeck has given this no thought already, and that Jordan Hall’s ‘thinking’ has led himself to correct conclusions only; that Peterson is some infallible intellectual that deserves a puff piece, totally ignorant of the many criticisms available at the time. The third sentence — “I’m not certain why” — reveals Hall’s at once genuine stupefaction and feigned astonishment, the poor guy, perplexed why anyone would question him, and that they might even be right. The fourth and final statement seems like an invitation “of collaboration”, but how could it possibly be given Hall’s strict terms of having to like the anti-sociological laughing stock that is Jordan Peterson in order to collaborate?

At this point I’ve heard countless similar stories from people interacting with Hall, but I have enough of my own direct experience as well. I also tried to confront the inanity of Hall’s piece, and commented with my substantive critique of Peterson I’d authored six months earlier, which of course came well after I’d written a piece exploring the many positive aspects of Peterson’s ‘abstraction’. Looking back, my comment to Hall was direct but not rude by any stretch, but nevertheless prompted an equal reply laced with his particular brand of arrogance, followed by a block:

Narcissists like Hall and Peterson are the type to demand that you first clean your own room, then shine their shoes, scratch their back, and even (figuratively) suck their dick before critiquing or debunking them, but then it is still not welcome. They will also go a step further, and call their critics narcissists seeking attention, ironically; the ultimate dodge. Even Peterson’s close colleagues are denied the good faith required for critique to land. At the end of the day, it is all a massive gaslighting regime, a SHAM, as most self-help quackery is, and only works for a little while, and only on ‘normies’ who are most certainly Game A, if it works at all.

Instead of engagement from Hall, I was summarily blocked (his preferred solution to whatever gives him cognitive dissonance). A month later, I followed up my own research with a 3rd long-form article critique, bringing Peterson’s ridiculous reactionary arc to a close, also noting how the culture war was two sides speaking past each other. This of course would not be the end… and I would include Peterson in other critiques, but as far as I was concerned, I and others had laid bare how Peterson both had some value but was absolutely a net negative public-intellectual as an anti-left reactionary. After tracking 250+ sources which covered the whole range of critiques and defences, they kept coming on a daily basis and I lost count and interest, but the Left continued to own Peterson consistently, for anyone who paid attention.

It is my contention that Jordan Hall not only has sense-making problem, he is a sense-making problem. The fact some of his close friends can’t point it out to him, or influence him for the better, is part of the problem (or the meta-problem, as it were). Why do many people trust and admire Hall so much? Because he talks a good game, and talking is the currency of these communities. Building on professional success as a techbro entrepreneur, Hall has enjoyed enormous popularity for his social-systems commentary and oodles of OODA-loopy ruminations, but his foundations are fundamentally flawed.

I believe Hall has a genuine interest in this stuff, but does not have any type of moral compass when it comes to recognizing bad sense-making. Rather than this just being a few minor mistakes or anomalies, his entire oeuvre is tainted by his dogma and douchiness. His so-called “deep code” analysis is adapted from some awful sources in the first place — like Jordan Peterson, or from r/TheDonald — while downsampling the more refined points from his friends Daniel Schmachtenberger and Jamie Wheal. The devil is in the details.

In Situational Assessment 2017, “Trump Edition”, Hall lays out his view from nowhere, which is actually from Trumpland, though he claims to be re-appropriating the theory for nobler ends. Hall cites and links the Reddit user (u/notjaffo) who came up with the ‘Blue Church/ Red Religion’ metaphors, but Hall fails to mention that it was posted in r/The_Donald, the Reddit home of the racist reactionary right that claims credit for meme-ing Trump into power.

The title of notjaffo’s post — Why Hollywood is really freaking out over Trump — is also suggestive of the slant that Hall neglects, and his obsession with Qanon. Debunking the original poster would be very easy, but Hall does not do it, instead opting to steelman the theory. Hall writes, “while I can nitpick at some of his analysis, broadly speaking I agree” (emphasis added). Hall does not proceed to nitpick a single thing from the source that he is grafting his nootropic imagination on to. At the end of notjaffo’s rant on Reddit, the closing remarks read:

“My theory? I think the welfare state took over a lot of things that used to keep churches and families together. But that subject is another 1200 words.” — u/notjaffo, Why Hollywood is really freaking out over Trump

Wow, what a masterpiece of shit. Yes, of course, the welfare state is the cause of all America’s evils (don’t forget the SJWs)! The welfare state. Those pesky welfare queens. How could I have been so stupid? All the segregated churches and nuclear families functioned perfectly well in the old days too… right? Wrong. There’s that anti-intellectual nostalgia for a better past the never existed again, common to conservative culture and neofascism especially. Technically, rather than the welfare state being the problem, the US does not even really have one; it is a failed state by many metrics, one of the last countries in the world to adopt a universal public healthcare system, and still holding out.

The New Deal-type social support and guarantees of the past — which coincidentally were more for white people at the time — have been incrementally and systematically gutted by 50 years of neoliberalism, enacted by Republicans with the help of Democrats over decades of increasing socio-economic polarization. Trump is deepening this crisis to further extremes by enriching the rich and obstructing any reforms.

Point being, the whole Blue Church/ Red Religion theory is little more than the biased ramblings of a random reactionary. This also explains why so many of the IDW and GameB’s adherents either come from, or are at least partial, to this reactionary wave. Notjaffo’s original post includes a callback to 9/11 and an endorsement of Bush’s cowboy diplomacy, which I’m sure Hall would condemn (I hope), but still... Notjaffo describes Trump’s victory as the birth of a new Red Religion, “a new faith based on cultural identity and outright rejection of the Blue Faith.” That’s a very rich dogwhistle if I’ve ever seen one, full of extremely simplistic overtures, but a perfect fit for Hall’s pseudo-intellectual prowess and plausible deniability. What is this “cultural identity” notjaffo refers to that Trumpism inspires? Couldn’t be white nationalism, could it?

“UPDATE: I think the country would be a better place if Christians were still the dominant force in our culture…” — u/notjaffo, Why Hollywood is really freaking out over Trump

Notjaffo’s wish is already partially true. Vice President Mike Pence is a Christian fundamentalist, with dangerous policies as a direct result. On the other hand, Cornell West is a radically progressive Christian philosopher and one of Bernie Sanders biggest surrogates. To say that Christianity is suppressed either way, and express a desire for overt Christian rule, is insane, as there is a battle for the soul of America against the crypto-fascist versions of it. And notjaffo is clearly sided with the Trumpian version.

Whatever Hall’s intent was, in effect he co-opted and signal boosted a theory of a Trump supporter, that there is such a thing as a “blue church” and a “red religion”, and that this is sufficient political or historical analysis. It’s not. The entire “sense-making web” gobbled up this pseudo-theory via Hall’s appropriation and endless self-promotion. It is not hard to show systematically why the theory is false and Jordan Hall is a mark (a person who is easily deceived or taken advantage) for reactionary bullshit. Actual historical analysis requires way more nuance and sources, but it shouldn’t surprise us given the ahistorical nature of the IDW. More, from notjaffo;

“Trump needs every angry shitlord who voted in 2016 and he needs every fence-sitting normie who held his nose to pull the lever.

It’s not enough to cut deals and talk like a winner, Trump has to WIN. Real policy, real victories, real bricks in physical structures, illegal immigrants deported, fundamental changes passed over the objection of screeching Democrats, points on the board or there won’t be enough Republicans to match the blue tide.” — u/notjaffo, in r/TheNewRight

The OP in question is religiously devoted toward the clown fascist in Chief, and this was his 2017 moment to own the libs. Coincidentally, it was also Jordan Hall’s 2017 moment to build his own sandcastle on top of it. 90% of my run-ins with Jordan Hall have been very negative experiences for me personally, professionally, and emotionally, and I’m sure he has similar feelings about me. Who’s perspective is (more) valid? I’m willing to stand up to him, and he’s not willing to face me, which belies the real difference between us.

From years I have warned of the adjacency with the IDW, not realizing how baked into the cake it already was, and they have rebuffed all critiques, while doubling down. As described above, Jordan Hall is an avowed enthusiast of Jordan Peterson, a figure loathed and vigorously debunked by the left in hundreds of articles, video critiques, and several major books. Hall is also friends with the Weinstein brothers. Hall’s friend Schmachtenberger is a lot smarter and more innocuous. I’ve written about him positively in Emergentsia #2. Nevertheless, Schmachtenberger will put his own ego and friends above his actual goals of Game B and collective sensemaking as well. Schmachtenberger follows the Propertarian Institute and is currently taking advice from many of them during the protests against systemic-racism, including Brandon Hayes, a known meta-right troll, who has me blocked. This is what Vinay Gupta said about Schmachtenberger around the peak of tensions for him:

I offered to help mediate, which I was in a position to do, and was ignored by Schmachtenberger, but not by Gupta. My own interactions with Schmachtenberger have been mixed. He confided in me that he is still radical at heart, but that his energy is better spent elsewhere. What I take from that is that they value presentation and optics more than standing for anything or doing the right thing, which I disagree with. I asked him to support Bernie, and he said he favours him, but has never made any public announcements in that direction, nor intervened on his anti-Bernie colleagues like Hall, Rutt, and Fuller. All four of them should grab a bowl of popcorn and watch the Vice documentary Bernie Blackout, and have a sense-making roundtable on media and the role they themselves played in helping suppress the progressive movement and particular voices.

Instead of reading the critiques I was offering, and actual serious political analysts I tried to connect him with, Schmachtenberger went on Eric Weinstein’s podcast and showered him with praise. The extent to which they are all bound by friendships and civility, and advocate purely independent sovereignty, despite arguing for collective sensemaking, is their weakest point, not their strongest. They all fail to have any consensus or convictions about the things that truly matter. And when things get a little too hot, even the stoic Schmachtenberger can lose his sovereignty too, and will lecture, tone-police, gaslight, and threaten to block instead of actually just reading a well crafted critique.

I spend a lot of time in high abstraction, like they do, but the difference with my project is it is always about returning to the concrete, grounded in social issues and sociological analysis, actual understanding of social movements and change, whereas theirs seems only anchored in the abstractions of existential risk and long term species survival. And this itself is built on top of their own personal striving for enlightenment, in their own career trajectories, in the traffic it generates for their facebook groups and pill revenue, and is not apparent in any type of solidarity with others concretely. Whereas they focus on embodiment, I am concerned about the social body, the ability of everyone to have the sovereignty they claim to fight for. While Schmachtenberger is now expressing his rage at police brutality and oppression of black people, he refused to participate in the movements to address these things; a journey some of us have been on for 5 years with Bernie Sanders and others.

Game B(ernie)?

For me the parallels between Game B’s aspirations and Bernie’s peoples movement were always strikingly obvious. Bernie marched with Martin Luther King and has devoted his life to honest anti-establishment politics. All the other candidates were flawed and compromised in equally obvious ways. Bernie is by no means perfect, and made many missteps in his own campaign, both times… but his platform is unequivocally the best available, and is pre-figurative of the paradigm shift we are all striving for. Though he is no longer running for president, and has endorsed Biden, which makes supporters like me cringe, the mission is still the same, to fight for the baseline progressive platform and beyond. For me it was a no brainer, not a debate topic. I’m disappointed, but Bernie is still a high-profile politician with immense leadership capacity and moral integrity, and so this still matters.

Bret Weinstein had drawn a line in the sand and declared his opposition to the Sanders movement many times over. This misleading tweet is contextualized by a subsequent one that implies Bernie would be unfairly imposing on white people in order to restore some sense of human decency and economic balance. It seems Weinstein still feels too burned by disgruntled students to give a shit anymore. Furthermore, Weinstein’s absurd reading of the progressive movement is premised by the cute assertion of his own special status (ie. “I am one of few…”). It is unfortunate for Weinstein that because of his Evergreen experiences, which he’s chosen to process in the most solipsistic way possible, he’s entirely bought into the right-wing appropriation of the term “social justice” to evacuate all meaning and merit from it. Thus, “anti-racist” Bret Weinstein’s actions are inconsistent with his stated values.

The best some of these centrist and right-wing naysayers can claim is that Bernie does not go far enough for the necessary change, and this is not an insight at all to the Left that has been helping drive the Sanders movement the entire time. We already know this way better than they ever will. As Matt Christman articulates:

“It isn’t Bernie or bust, it is Bernie or we are fucked… foreclosed like our last off-ramp from fucking apocalypse…. Look at that, it’s in there, the thing you wanted in there is in there because he’s actually thought, he actually asked the people behind them who have done all the thinking in the wilderness for all these years while they’ve (the ruling class) been stripped mining the world through neoliberalism… This is the moment. This is the movement…

It’s gonna be us that’s gonna make it happen, or not. It’s not gonna be up to him and I think a lot of this comes down to people having that expectation of, ‘well I’m gonna keep them honest’. It’s like, what does that mean, you’re gonna vote for them, and then you’re gonna do what people did under Obama, which was what Obama wanted them to do, which is go home and watch the show. Well you’re not gonna be able to do that if Bernie gets in there. That’s when it starts… This is the chance we have, and if it’s gonna happen it’s gonna be whether or not we put our fucking shoulders into it when the time comes…” — Matt Christman, @24:40, livestream

This is the point. The Leftist analysis (left of Bernie) is correct, and the most sobering. The strawman from the Center and Right was always the opposite; that Bernie is a pipe-dream or an evil communist, and the Left who believes in him think it will be sunshine and rainbows once he’s in. Ironically, this is their grounds for obstructing him, while proposing no alternative besides Trump and a line-up of neoliberals. We know better, and are committed to making real change happen regardless. Without Bernie the prospects for that are very dim. That is the real irony, because Game B should have been able to recognize that Game B(ernie) is the means to their ends. Instead they collectively seem to keep playing Game B(ullshit).

The discourse has literally been dumbed down, not enlightened up, on account of that old boys club called the IDW, even though Bret/Eric are deeply sympathetic and aligned with the leftist cause in selective statements. Game B has to be 100% opposed to war (and its generators), which includes its war-like anti-politics and internecine spats, no if ands or buts, and the new Left embodies those positive principles that consciousness culture (McMindfulness) pays lip service to. I tried to tolerate my Game B allies and radicalize my metamodern comrades, but all the hifalutin philosophizing holds but a candle to the grounded action and real-time articulation within social movements. The truth is though, that on some level, they all need certain aspects of each other in order to work. We need to work together.

Contrary to the Bernie Bro myth, there is more solidarity, love, humour, and intelligence in our movement than all the others combined, and it puts Game B’s bickering and both-sides equivocating to shame. But it lacked a paradigm to frame and structure its success. If only Game B, metamodernism, and other holdouts would join us. Across the new Left, there’s thousands of hours of good content and articles that I feel many people in IDW/ Game B circles have missed out on in past years due their own ideology, aided by YouTube’s algorithms and the high level of noise and ideological conflict across media. Bernie is out, but we are not. We’re all in this together, to the glitter end of fully automated luxury gay space communism, and it’s time for Game B to practice some dynamic subordination (wilful deference) to the real progressive cause and the #BlackLivesMatter rebellion sweeping the US right now.

The Crisis of (Bad) Faith

Vinay Gupta stresses the point that because they have banned us and/or deleted the relevant threads to cover their tracks, our means of making the case against them are made more difficult. Even for what is left up, digging through facebook history can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but I’ve done my best. The trust Game B has engendered in their community is maintained by this facade; by taking decisive action in the moment, assuming that it is legitimate, and maintaining the lie so it becomes true in everyone’s mind. This is the ultimate bad faith on their part — buttressed by an over-confidence that is unwarranted and undeserved. What makes it worse is that they accuse us of bad faith or trolling, and things like improper tone. I hope to have already established all their hypocrisy in the previous sections.

At any rate, tracking all the evidence of the pathologies of the group becomes an endless game of whack-a-mole; not least from the sheer reactionary behaviour and beliefs of many mods and members. The defiant ignorance around sociology in general could not be more profound. They pass off entire fields of study as “just your worldview”. This dismissive attitude is in fact the extremes of postmodern relativism and nihilism that they claim to reject. These are mostly people who think you can scaffold up hyper-individualized and fetishized psycho-technologies to change the world, which is extremely dangerous in the void of fake social consciousness they swim in. The founders, thought leaders, and moderators all eschew actual leadership roles for exactly these reasons, so they can deny any culpability in the chaos. It shows that they truly don’t know what they’re doing, and yet Hall continues to parade his opinion in his highly curated ‘Situational Assessments’ as if he is clear-headed.

When I wrote the Emergentsia articles I avoided the low-hanging fruit of the “Neurohacker Collective”, the business brand that unites many of them, where they sell very expensive nootropic products. In my articles, I wanted to make a joke that they were “brain pills” salesmen, in order to make the more favourable point that they are potentially much more than that, but Rowson vetoed it still. I wanted to make the more nuanced interjection that real wisdom does not come from a pill or even innate brain power, but from critical thinking and skin in the game (even if its voluntary). In this way, I have outsmarted these guys, and with one arm tied behind my back the whole time.

In retrospect, perhaps they are not to be much more than performance junkies who geek out on complexity (it is pretty sexy, isn’t it…). At best, they sell a legit supplement that gives them a cognitive edge and financial support from people who can afford it. This buttresses all their work with an air of elitism, where only those who follow their lead can participate in collective sensemaking. At worst, their entire project is a sales funnel for their neuro-centric worldview and vain careers in systems change without social justice. The jury is still out.

David Full(er) of Himself

It is difficult for me to not have an emotionally charged reaction to David, and likewise for him with me. He is an ideologue who has directly bullied me online every single time I have made efforts to respectfully critique what he is doing. If he tries to tell you otherwise, he is lying. What’s worse is that he’s been protected by many people in the Emerge community who happen to agree with me but won’t speak out, while many others have been turned against me. David himself refused to talk to not only me but Hanzi Frienacht for years, until the latter reached out warmly to propose fostering peaceful relations. All this drama is extremely petty and reinforces the meta-crisis, but nobody wanted to hear that truth, and now it is spilling onto the streets and fracturing the meaning crisis further, more or less how I have forewarned.

Rebel Wisdom produces some great and valuable content. I have always maintained that amidst my cogent critiques. So it is almost by accident that they do so well, considering that one of the worst hypocrites in the entire sensemaking community is Fuller himself. It is easy to ‘fail upward’, as Fuller has, when you interview some very bright people and as well as some popular reactionaries and just sit there like an uncritical sponge. I also know how hard filmmaking can be because I’ve done it myself, but Fuller has all the toys and teams to keep his project running, while I do not.

Because I respect serious journalists very much, I’m obliged to point out that Fuller has become little more than a glorified content curator who attacks and then censors aggressively (to this day I have never blocked any of these people), which is the first thing you should know about him. People who are for free speech (like the IDW brags about) should do better to actually listen to it in others, taking power into account. If Fuller was worth his salt as a journalist, he’d be uncovering the racism in Game B, not actively participating in the cover-up.

It doesn’t matter how many perspectives one takes in, if they exclude the most correct ones.

While Fuller has a large following, he does put off some in the Emerge community besides me, but they lack the courage to stand up to him or critique him, just as he lacks the courage to take criticism. Moreover, many just want to avoid conflict and hurt feelings altogether, whereas I do not have that problem. As a result, Fuller smears me any opportunity he gets. We get stuff like this, behind my back (in the Gameb facebook group), where I cannot defend myself:

Interesting. I didn’t know Fuller was anticipating my every move, like the Rap Battle with Jim. I must up my game even more. Of course I welcome actual critique, when it is genuine with reasons and evidence to back it up. I have encouraged countless haters to point out mistakes directly in my work, and they never do it, while they simultaneously expend enormous energy breathing fire at me. I have gently critiqued Fuller many times in passing in my critiques of Integral and the Intellectual Dark Web, two things he endorses enthusiastically while mountains of debunks exist, but he has never issued a serious correction or critique of me (or of Jordan Peterson for that matter) because he doesn’t have one. Granted, I am nobody in his book, even though I’ve worked closely with many of his Emerge colleagues. Fuller has never, not once, engaged me in good faith (he did fake it pretty convincingly once though), which is supremely ironic for someone who boasts about things like good faith dialogue, shadow work, and the vagus nerve.

To be sure, David Fuller has never once read through a single one of my articles either. I know this with great confidence, not just because he has never quoted me or commented on any of them, but because he literally has whined about them being too long and dense. He can’t critique anything, and all he has ever done is speak down and fling insults at me. Fuller’s just not shrewd or interested enough to learn, quite frankly, but it’s because of his bias, not a matter of raw intelligence.

Thus, while Fuller attacks me whenever I appear, he is entirely unfamiliar with my work—while I am overly familiar with his — but he loves to make claims he will never be able to back up, such as (above) that I am “unhinged”, “predictable”, “dull”. There’s much worse things which he’s erased and I was never in a habit of taking screenshots; things like “sub-Chomsky” (whatever that means), which he once said on Facebook, when I challenged his ignorance on both the Israel-Palestine conflict and the UK election in December 2019. I wonder if he thinks any of this article is predictable and dull — probably! I encourage anyone to ask him what my work is actually about, and to brace yourself for the incoherent bile that comes out his mouth. In my view, there is not a shred of redeemable leftism or genuine compassion left in Mr. Fuller, or things would have changed a lot sooner, but I would be delighted to be proven wrong here. After all, metanoia is coming for everyone.

The entire Emerge community should be going after David for stuff like this, but instead he often gets more support, as it seems most of them are too entangled in it to see or care. As I write this, David Fuller’s Rebel Wisdom Festival is happening this weekend, with many intelligent participants. It is not that there isn’t critical voices involved, there are — like Douglas Rushkoff, Jamie Wheal, John Vervaeke, and Erik Davis. It is that they go along with the show a little too much. The “Festival” includes workshops on things like yoga and breathwork, amidst other self-congratulatory claims to sense-making. What they should be doing is ‘I can’t breath’ workshops, to understand what people like George Floyd and countless other black people suffer at the hands of police and white moderates. I would be happy to use David as a dummy and kneel on his neck to demonstrate what’s it like. It would be a great teaching moment for the entire community.

What they should be doing is “I can’t breath” workshops, to understand what people like George Floyd and countless other black people suffer at the hands of police and white moderates.

While there is a few black speakers, it is a predominantly white line-up, speaking predominantly white discourse; par for the course for all IDW, GameB, Integral, and Rebel Wisdom activity. They would do well to learn what “white ignorance” (Charles W. Mills) means, and the value of “anti-professionalism” (Stanley Fish), which I bring to the table, among countless other such insights they are blind to. For years now, David has been leading the charge of anti-social justice through Rebel Wisdom, following the IDW brand, not having a clue what it actually means and the damage it does, and I have been one of the few to speak out against it. In these times of revolt, it is more important than ever to challenge him, and challenge yourselves and each other, to stop poisoning the well with fake wisdom, and the abuse and silencing of critics.

All these years Rebel Wisdom has thrown cynical hate and shade on Greta Thunberg, Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, and other left figures on a regular basis, while embracing reactionaries like Douglas Murray, James Lindsay, and (first and foremost) Jordan Peterson, who when you get past the superficial merit of their complaints, are utterly empty and bitter souls. All of their ideas are straight out of right-wing talking points, regardless of where Fuller might see himself on the political spectrum. One thing is clear, from where I stand, he appears very far centre-Right and am I very radically (the good kind) Left. That doesn’t mean we can’t dialogue, but its always him who blocks it. This is what Fuller had to say about my Rap Battle video mocking the ridiculous authoritarianism and anti-anti-racism of Jim Rutt:

This claim of bad faith and not being fun, which got 12 likes, is super ironic considering Fuller and his partner Alexander Beiner produced a video depicting Hanzi Freinacht as Hitler… Do Hitler comparisons sound like good faith or fun to you? It is a totally bizarre right-wing projection, which, to be sure, does express some valid observations but in exactly the same way Hanzi is already self-effacing, so its moot. And it certainly did not come from a place of good faith, and Hanzi himself never actually lost his cool, so the joke falls flat. And it actually has exactly the similar kind of (self-)mockery that I used in my videos, but theirs comes from a place of feeling threatened, not actually having any constructive criticism. It is all the more ironic considering Hanzi and myself played key roles in driving out the actual neo-Nazis that tried to infiltrate and co-opt the group and terms. These include some of the same people who are active in IDW and Integral groups, and went on to infiltrate places like Erpy’s Saloon, whatever the hell that was, and to some extent Game B.

Fuller likes to gaslight people too, which is never a good idea, especially with someone who has been public about mental illness struggles (which I also placed in a proper sociological context which one couldn’t understand from a Petersonian view). Fuller has mocked me numerous times for being sick, and insisted that I “get help” and do “shadow work”, despite the fact that I’ve been read by his prized guest Schmachtenberger, and hired by Jonathan Rowson and Tomas Bjorkman. Back when we used to trade blows, Fuller’s chief insults would be things like ‘your articles are too long, nobody reads them’/ ‘you don’t have enough twitter followers to matter’/ ‘you’re just an egomaniac seeking attention’. This is your king folks, a sour poor excuse for a man, who angrily refused to be corrected from day one. To me, these are just Fuller’s way of expressing ‘I don’t understand you and find you threatening to my fragile identity’, but that is scarcely more fair than his claims. But the fact is that I have always made valid critiques and he hasn’t, and now the reckoning has arrived.

So, it is very clearly the right thing to do to call his bluff and stand up to him, because he will just continue to hide and launch meaningless insults, and others will make excuses for him. In my view, David has many bad habits that go against his brand of being a rebel, wise, sovereign, and a good clear sensemaker. So you can understand why I am offended and on a bad day take a harsh position of him being little more than an insecure anti-intellectual reactionary hack, and a coward to boot. I have tolerated a lot of abuse and not gone after him fully, but the moratorium is now lifted. If he wants to evolve, he has to grow up. David Fuller has had many privileges, not least of being in Hanzi Freinacht’s mailing list in the early days, where he refused to participate or engage anybody sincerely. When the time was ripe, he broke away to pursue a career in being Jordan Peterson’s chief fan boy, sycophant, and whitewasher, which has been very lucrative for him, including $500/mo support from an Integral Trump supporter — an oxymoron if there ever was one.

I close with Fuller because he’s been a very central node in much of this, enabling all the connections between the IDW, GameB, Integral, ‘sense-making’, and consciousness culture scenes, and the general anti-politics that pervades much of it — as well as him directly helping make sure I got kicked out of GameB in February. These intersecting communities have gone absolutely nowhere in terms of helping to avert the neo-fascist path the world has been sliding down. On the contrary, all of them have focused on personal development while eschewing basic historical and sociological literacy in favour of hyper-rationalism and hyper-individualism, which has been weaponized by the Right in power. Fuller’s ‘investigations’ in to what he finds interesting may well be sincere from his perspective, but I find it hard to believe

All these grand achievements despite being the dimmest star too (much like Rubin performed the same function). I hate to say it, really, but Dave Fuller is like a Dave Rubin of the UK, albeit marginally brighter and more centrist. Like many people, he’s been vulnerable to the gravity pulling everything to the right, against reason. To his credit, Fuller himself sat down with Rubin and attempted to be critical, so they are far from being identical rubes. And for this I commend his intentions, but I still wish he had consulted me or anyone critical, as he did once request my advice after the fact of interviewing James Lindsay, a notable sword-wielding unconsciously-racist hack (trained in math, not social sciences in any way), which was also a lost opportunity to do right. It would have saved all of us a lot of trouble. Fuller will never take my advice though. He, like many others, including even the mild-mannered Jonathan Rowson, wants to slog through life and work slowly, trying to figure everything out themselves, riding some fanatical (Fuller) or moderate (Rowson) edge, rather than actually connecting to a real collective intelligence.

Conclusion

They will hate me. They will gaslight me. They will block me. They will armchair psycho-analyze me. And I will fight harder for truth and justice. Don’t be like “them”, like pretentious Game B’rs. This is the time to become radicalized, or at least to awaken to what is happening in the world. It’s never been easier. This is the time to choose what side of history you want to be on.

People who hold out are going to look increasingly antiquated and regressive. They are going to feel increasingly alienated and embarrassed by the tides of justice. There will be great pain all around, and much of it has already flowed through me, so I am ready to help lead the directionless. The reckoning is upon us. This is the time to change, to grow up, to stop being so blind to historical and current oppression and injustice, and the systemic nature of it, and to stop replicating it in petty strawmanning and personal attacks. There is no systems change without understanding social systems. And there is no understanding social systems without social justice.

I have seen plenty of direct evidence for Game B’s racism and anti-social justice, and shared some of it above. Jim Rutt and Jordan Hall’s ignorance of these issues is proportional to the effect of racism manifesting, and fostering crypto-racist actors in the community who hide their bias, perhaps even from themselves. Go look at Jim Rutt’s Twitter feed from the past week of late May. Does it prove he is racist? Of course not, though the odd tweet certainly proves insensitivity and bias.At the time of writing, what Jim’s Twitter does reveal is absolutely nothing about the protests, nothing in solidarity with murdered black people, nothing related to social justice, etc. It shows where his priorities are, white guests on his podcast, and what he chooses to ignore.

Beyond that, I have made the case in this article that in “Game B” (like the IDW before it), racists have been defended, race and sociological theories have been prohibited, people of colour have been made to feel unwelcome and disempowered, and critics like me, Vinay Gupta, and others have been demonized and ostracized, all while many other people have sat on the sidelines and let it happen, and reactionaries have been protected and encouraged. You’d think they’d want to fix this. Now go look at my Twitter feed during this hell week and beyond, for something different. Let me know what you find.

Epilogue

While I may not win over the haters, it is not like I don’t ever succeed. Back in February before I was kicked out I had a great convo with Nick Redmark, and asked him to share his feedback, which he commented on the thread. To be sure, the context of this quote is not directly related to the current debacle, but it gave Nick and I and chance to understand each other better, and I shared my concerns about the GameB group with him. This is what happens when people talk to me, in contrast with the ignorant haters who block and scorn:

“I’d like to report back and say I had a great convo with Brent. I’ve been exposed to some cognitive dissonance and that’s a good thing. I realized I have some deep seated resistance towards politics, and that I don’t know where that comes from exactly. My bias is towards the elegance of self organizing systems (with boundary conditions), but that’s no good excuse to not engage in a whole category of human activity (especially if you don’t know why you are avoiding it). I also realized that if we want coherence we need to integrate the poles that are forming in our culture (not in the lets-all-merge-and-agree sense, but in the lets-differentiate-and-integrate sense), and Brent can be a good bridge to well-informed left leaning thinking and to a sociological (rather than psychological) view of the world. So we now have homework to do: I’m going to watch a few of his fave videos (Michael Brooks et al), and he’s going to watch a few of my fave videos (the Hall-Vervaeke-Sengstock-Mastropietro tetralogues).” — Nick Redmark

Now let’s have some fun:

Update circa October 2020: Despite our differences, Jim is one of the few people who I’ve critiqued that had the integrity and resilience to interview with me in good faith towards healing the divide — though I was prohibited from raising this specific critique. Regardless, can’t say as much about the rest. See here: https://jimruttshow.blubrry.net/brent-cooper/

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Brent Cooper
The Abs-Tract Organization

Political sociologist by training, mystic by nature, rebel by choice. Executive Director of The Abs-Tract Organization. #pointbeing #abstract