A whole bunch of right wing influencers received millions of dollars from Russia in return for promoting pro-Russian talking points, which is hilarious to me since their whole narrative is like, I don't believe anything. I'm skeptical. I'm discerning except when it comes to obvious Russian propaganda. Here's another way to think about it. And I did some Intel in the Army. I'm not, like heavily Intel trained, but I did have a decent amount of exposure to it and worked in
like the Intel Group or whatever. But the thing about this here are probably two unrelated phenomenon. One, we know for absolute certain that Russia is trying to use its significant propaganda capabilities to influence the right wing in the United States to be pro-Russian into Ukraine, that we know for absolute certain. Like that's not even debatable. They are really good at this, and they are spending at least tens of millions of dollars, probably hundreds of millions of dollars,
probably not billions. So I'm guessing tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars they are spending on doing this. And they're really good at it because it's essentially like the evolution of the KGB. Second point, which is probably unrelated. The right wing in the United States is now completely, almost completely pro-Russian Anti-ukraine. And some people reached out to me and they're like, that's not true. That's not true. I should have went and found some data and linked
to it. I read the data all the time. I read the data all the time in polling, where it's like, how much of the Republican Party, when polled, are actually pro-Putin? The numbers are ridiculous. I'm sorry, I don't have the link here. I should have put it in there, but it's it's pretty easy to Google and you'll find it yourself. It's actually better if you find it yourself than if I feed you the link. Just Google that. Look for your look for the stats, the polling. It's ridiculous. And
a brief political aside. So this is an example of a little breakout piece. So I already know I'm going to get hate mail about the point above, because I'm a crazy liberal and I post a lot of other stuff that's like anti-left far left and their idiocracy or idiocy. And I get tons of comments about being way too right from the left because I attack the left and whatever, and I just now attack the right, and they're going
to be like, oh, you're too left wing. So I ask you to consider another possibility, which is I'm actively considering each position from first principles, not perfect. I could be wrong, but I put a lot of effort into having my own opinions that are not part of a tribe of pre-approved options. So perhaps the best way to sum me up right now is that I'm liberal in my goals, and somewhat conservative in my approach for how
to achieve them. So meaning, I want a planet full of lots of different colors and ethnicities of people all thriving together. A secular society that encourages any religion but doesn't allow any of them to infringe on government or the ideals listed here. Gender identity, private sexual behavior between
consenting adults, all personal choices and nobody's business. Basically, the freedom for everyone to strive to be the best versions of themselves that they can be, and a society that sees that as simultaneously a matter of personal responsibility, but also helps people along that path. So free speech, the ability to offend people with difficult ideas and have those debates and be controversial and be offensive, right. The concept
of meritocracy, the emphasis on personal responsibility. Okay. And those are kind of like currently those are considered like right wing. Right. But also the acknowledgement that some people in groups need help getting to this point where their personal responsibility can actually take root and help them thrive, and that it is society's responsibility to give that to them. And that's where it's liberal. So in other words, if everyone had
the same opportunity, I'd be fiercely all about meritocracy. But not everyone has the same opportunity. And that's the role of society and charity and kindness to help them get to the place where their hard work can actually benefit them. So the problem right now, in my mind, is that the far right and the far left are in opposition to that model I just laid out. The far right, because they actually want the wrong things, and the far left because they are so confused about how the world
works that they're causing more harm than good. So anyway, that's a short version of where I currently stand. And if you ever get confused about, like, if I'm crazy right or crazy left? Just go read that. And here's
a really important point. I also consider you to make your own North Star paragraph or set of bullet points like I just did, and have that be your thing and then realize that this, this, the left narrative or the right narrative or centrist narrative with all these different narratives, they don't really matter. What matters is what is your North Star look like? Like I just laid out. And then what you'll find is, like all these different narratives
and tribes and everything they might have. Venn diagram overlaps with some part of your thing, but they shouldn't be your thing. If you have a perfect Venn diagram, overlap with the extreme right or the extreme left, you don't have your own opinions. You are using someone else's opinions and that's a problem. So North Star plus First principles is far better than picking a tribe and endorsing everything they say.