Idea for a Substack & the Applicability of Delusion Bubbles

Frederic Edwin Church, El Rio de Luz (The River of Light), 1877, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Substack seems like a place for more straightforward things than the blog, but bigger than an SG post. There needs to be more of a point though. There is a lot of Band content online, and nowhere even a hint of a claim or posture of thought leadership. The blog is where we share the kind of reasoning and cultural heritage the House of Lies conceals. SG is an extension of the same agenda - a place for short blasts of culture and passing thoughts. Both are personally motived efforts to use knowledge and skills to counter deception and darkness in what small way is possible. The impetus came from a long-ago Vox Day response to a random “what can I do?” question. The advice was remarkably simple, as most insights tend to be after the fact. Just do something. Figure out something feasible that would be positive in some way and start doing that. It follows that if one is blessed with the ability to see through the toxic fog spewing from the House of Lies, then they ought to put it out there. Sure, it’s complex. It’s why someone has to do it.

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded” (Luke 12:48).

Antonio Joli, Samson Destroys the Temple, 19th century, oil on canvas, Civic Museum of Modena

But none of this is about “recognition” or an agenda. It was made explicit from the start of the Band – and consistently demonstrated since – that it disdains popularity. Nor is there any ideology or position beyond [pay attention to reality, think logically, and be aware of the vast heritage we sit on]. It’s turned out that enough people find these worth reading that there’s no stopping in the foreseeable future. And it’s very rewarding for one disinterested in popularity to see ideas and framings turn up in more accessible forms in much bigger venues. But there’s no call for another platform between multi-media longform and 244 characters. “John’s Pearls” seems like self-indulgence, which is why introducing blog posts is all that’s happened here.

Echo and Narcissus, late 1st century AD, fresco from the House of the Ephebes, Pompeii, photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

If serious about finding a point to anything, start by following causality. The reason this sub exists is because it came with the subscription to Sigma Game. And that came from a strong personal interest in the SSH. Strong enough that we use it regularly irl, blogged about it multiple times, and openly called for the in-progress book. Sigma Game was set up to accompany the writing and release of the book, so it was an obvious lure. Why not use this as a place for SSH and related thought? Personal reflections too, with essential details changed, but not the patterns. At least see if it’s helpful anyhow. If not, something else will come up. And there’s always blog posts.

So why the interest in the SSH? Big picture, its applicability is highly unusual. The basic profiles are so comprehensive and on point that it’s almost an argument for simulation theory. Five basic male categories that everyone falls into seems unreal until seen. And yes, borderline cases abound. High Bravos with leadership ability. Gammas with Delta tendencies. Deltas with Gamma tendencies. Or Bravo tendencies. A relatively unusually deferential Alpha… But in each case, there is a primary profile – the rest is personality difference. And borderline cases no more undermine the pattern than “Northwest” denies the conceptual utility of cardinal directions.

Matthaeus Seutter. Tabula anemographica seu pyxis nautica vulgo compass charte, Augsburg, 1740, hand-colored engraving, Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center

One danger with examples or illustrations is something we called “representational conditioning” in the last Band post. It’s less complicated than it sounds. It comes from having to use some kind of representation you can see – either literally like a text or picture, or in the imagination – to communicate an intangible concept. Something that can’t be “seen” because it’s abstract. It’s mainly a problem with complex or arcane things. Everyday abstracts like “beauty” or “envy” are seen countless times, and the repetition forms general picture by unconscious induction. More esoteric intangibles aren’t encountered thousands of times. Sometimes they take effort to get. This all leads to a tendency to think of the concept as limited to the illustration or example used to communicate it.

For example, Fortitude isn’t really a lion, or an oak. They’re supposed to give an impression.

Raphael, Fortitude from The Cardinal and Theological Virtues, fresco, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican Museums

And one profile example isn’t the whole profile. There are consistencies that define the pattern’s coherence. Gamma meltdowns are eerie for the sameness. But there are a lot of different personalities and social contexts to fit into very few boxes. Each one is a set of tendencies, traits, and/or reflex instincts that plays out over endless human variety. There’s some room in each. A mild Gamma and a king Gamma both fit the same profile, but they’re very different to be around. Don’t be conditioned by the representation – the example or illustration – that conveys the concept to you. Think of what it says about more universal behaviors.

Personal appeal of the SSH will wait. Finish with the applicability. If universal social matrix weren’t enough, it also scales up to collective behavior. Not as comprehensively, but the integrated patterns hold circumstantial heuristic value. At the very least, the operant structure of the gamma delusion bubble maps onto the House of Lies that “Western culture” has become. Especially in the terminal Clown World stage we’re currently all enjoying. It’s not surprising when everything is fake and projected if not completely inverted.

The jump is going from personal traits to collective ones.

Note that this isn’t a claim that the entire SSH projects collectively. A heuristic has to be comprehensive – the success of the SSH is that it sufficiently catches everyone. We suspect that there is a consistent hierarchical pattern among groupings, but don’t know if they are the same. But the Gamma is unique in ways not specific to one taxonomy. Of all the profiles, it’s the one predicated on fundamental dishonesty. Anyone can tell lies, but only Gammas is defined by them categorically. Sigma and Omega are the opposite pole outliers, but they’re outliers because they’re basically honest. Lack of stable place in the hierarchy is the result. Everyone is what they do, and what Gammas do is lie. And the honest/dishonest social binary applies to group identities as well. What’s interesting is that the commitment to dishonesty bears the same fruits in both cases. The common denominator is [existence based on lies and delusion] instead of responding objectively to reality. The desire to be appear as something other than what is. And both cases, there are two main components to the delusion bubble– the inner fake reality or self-delusion and the outer projected delusion.

Jean Lecomte du Nouÿ, A Eunuch's Dream, 1874, oil on panel, Cleveland Museum of Art

The inner fake reality is an imaginary pseudo-narrative. “Pseudo” because it isn’t a coherent causal flow like a real narrative. It’s a collection of individual vignettes that seem to form a story in the imagination. But don’t tie together or follow logically the way a real story does. Or how real life does. In real life, natural cause and effect processes handle the cohesion. The story flows because it’s what happened. In a good narrative, the author’s plot connects things up.

True narratives try to get as close to what really happened as possible. In personal life, that’s basic honesty. On a big picture level, knowledge fields are supposed to be a true an account of what happened or is happening as possible. Civilization depends on consistent knowledge preservation. New information needs to be accounted for, but that’s simply growth in understanding over time. The aims of being as truthful as possible and remembering past failure don’t change. It’s what was supposed to be defense against liars.

Francisco Goya, Truth, Time and History, before 1828, oil on canvas, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

In Clown World, essentially every pillar of a healthy society is inverted. And yet the old terminology remains. It’s what gives the various Orwellian Newspeak memes what flicker of punch that still lingers. This makes the whole socio-culture a massive “delusion bubble”. Where everything is fake and fronting – government that doesn’t prioritize national interests, media manufactures deception, education attacks material reality, justice serves elite interests, etc. And “success” as navigating social towers built on foundations of lies.

The inner world is made up of lies told to themselves – individually or collectively. Probably not fully believed, but essential. They reassure the liar that the delusion is – if not true – effective enough that it might as well be true. The idea being to reap social reward without social appeal or effort. The problem is that the unreality makes them incoherent. Gamma delusions can’t happen because if they could, the fantasist wouldn’t be a gamma. But each individual fabrication or distortion adds on, giving the impression of real life experience building up. On a personal level, these fake bits are just fantasy and projection. On a sociological level, they’re entire institutions, media, work conditions, etc. Total institutional capture plays the role of the gamma imagination.

It’s easier to show than tell. Reality or coherent narratives are causal sequences of events or things. The delusion bubble is made of disconnected phantasms that give the false surface impression of coherence.

This leaves no ability to handle natural organic contexts, with their causal consequences and objectively true social realities like the SSH. Watching gammas melt down again and again makes it obvious that exposure of the truth is intolerable to them. All the underlying toxins – psychological or sociological depending – are laid bare. And defensive flailing is the result. This is now visible on the Clown scale as well. Hollow bluster, posturing, sabotage, threats, savaging the helpless, naked hypocrisy, etc. are all slamming into enemies with superior production, military, and demographic capacities. And the Russian army and looming financial collapse play the role logic on the comments page.

The outer shell or projected delusion is weirdly static, probably because the inner delusion isn’t coherent as a narrative. It’s that self-parodic fronting they all do as an “opening” - as if a still from the delusion image bank will establish the identity going forward. Put aside the obviousness for the deeper error. Postures are static and reality is unveiled in time. Learning being cumulative and all. True profiles are no different. We’ve all had first impressions prove inaccurate. SSH profile is sketched out cumulatively through interactions. But the gamma has no real organic personality to reveal. It’s obvious to the healthy that you show who you are by who you are. But there is no credible “who you are” in the delusion bubble. Other than sorry fraud. No grasp that external perception is the product of real social behavior. And no awareness or ability to try and simulate it.

This manifests as word magic and hollow symbolic gestures on the collective front. Ukraine is a great example. All the wunderwaffen, bold proclamations, sanctions, threats, and propaganda have proven useless against the coherent realities of grinding Russian strategic attrition, production supremacy, and economics. No grasp that external perception is the product of real behavior. And no awareness or ability to try and simulate it. Just increasing vicious derangement as the fake pseudo-narrative is revealed.

That’s enough. The utility of the SSH alone makes it worth attention. As a key for interpersonal relations and a way to approach other contexts. Some more personal reflections next.

Follower of Rembrandt, A Man Reading at a Table in a Lofty Room, 1606 - 1669, about 1628-30, oil on oak