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This is an expanded episode of an essay i’ve recently written about how we need to radically rethink our idea of a centrist…one that needs to meet a completely new criteria…the center needs to hold the positions that a majority of Americans support. Radical idea I know. And currently, what is considered…“the center” does not meet this simple criteria. The current ideas of the “center” are radical brain rotted freaks. They are not serious people and should be treated as such. Our current center believes profit is the ultimate ego ideal to strive for…they wish to strip your humanity from every purchase you make. The irrational centrist holds profit as their first principle…in both the economic sense and the moral sense. We see this in the “not really political” influencers who define success through preselected goals: more cars, more crypto rug pulls, and a narcissistic drive to be seen “winning”. This is the “self-optimized narcissist” in action, a figure obsessed with an unachievable ego ideal. As Todd McGowan notes, the foundation of the capitalist structure is the promise of the future. We buy commodities to discover satisfaction, accumulate capital to “one day” have enough, and speed up distribution for future profit. This manufactured hope is sold back to us as progress, yet it is built on the false premise that satisfaction is always just one purchase away. Does it currently feel like the better tomorrow is coming? Our modern governance has transitioned from democratic deliberation to technocratic management. Digital platforms have eaten away at our minds, leaving behind conceptual ghosts and transactions. Our smartphones are no longer tools…they shape how we think and what we desire. We have entered a stage of "manufactured narcissism," where our public and private selves become indistinguishable as we perform roles scripted by the machine of fame and profit. Your average normie influencer does ad reads for another dog water company and we don’t even blink an eye. If they want to be influencers, we should be holding their feet directly in the fire when they are lazy profit hungry fools. Why do they get a pass? The current center facilitates a narcissistic fantasy where we no longer view ourselves as distinct from the objects we consume… instead, we are pushed into a capitalistic based fragmentation where our own consumption becomes a rotted form of self-reification. This creates a smokescreen that prevents us from understanding what we truly desire or what a healthy politics looks like. The current “Enlightened Centrist” (EC) is often just someone who is mentally tired and lazy (CC Lex Fridman as the perfrect example of sounding lazy and thinking lazy). They are tired of ideological purity tests, so they adopt “centrism” as a brand to mask their complicity. They preach a “pathological optimism” that masks the smell of a decaying status quo. A true centrist position must be an ideological inversion based on material reality. Consider the data: * Bipartisan Support: 67% of Americans support a Billionaire income tax, and over 60% support a wealth tax. * Healthcare Priority: 72% of voters support “radical” measures to lower healthcare costs and reduce the role of insurance middlemen. * Red State Realism: In 2024, deep-red states like Missouri and Alaska voted to raise the minimum wage and mandate paid sick leave. These voters aren’t “radical extremists”…they are working people who recognize that the status quo is irrational. Their “mistrust” is not a “doomer” mindset—it is a rational observation of a system where working full-time no longer guarantees stable housing or family milestones. The average American is grounded in reality. The elites? Are radical brain rotted fools that should be treated as such. And the irrational center tells us that universal healthcare and living wages are expensive fantasies. Meanwhile, “techno-utopians” like Sam Altman sell a delusional vision of an AI-driven future of abundance to obscure the current material rot of energy depletion and rising costs. They are promising you a better tomorrow while stealing everything from you today. How do we treat frauds? Do we give them another bail out? Or should we be operating more rationally? I think we should be prosecuting them for their lack of competence and fraudulent lies. It’s that simple. The true center must step back into the “grey zone” of reality. It refuses to lie to itself about what the system is. It recognizes that “hope” has become a consumer product designed to distract us from the harsh truth of our material predicament. We must stop allowing media influencers to act as highly paid PR firms for power. A rational middle ground should operate with principles of moderation and compromise, but it must reject the binary of left and right, which serves as a controlled opposition designed to simulate choice without threatening power. The path forward is grounded in an awareness of our collective experience. By focusing on the expressed material needs of the vast majority, we can transition from objects of the "celebrity machine" to subjects who influence our own reality. This is the grounded, rational, and true hope for the future. One that the center MUST hold. Stay curious. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

In his recent interview with Piers Morgan, Nick Fuentes admitted to being a “27-year-old virgin,” doubled down on his praise for Hitler, and called for the end of women’s voting rights. But is this just trolling, or something more calculated? anyway i try to deconstruct this one. understand what has brought us to a guy like Nick Fuentes having cultural influence. so yeah...trying to see if i want to do a more developed take on this topic.... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

theory based analysis of the new Epstein documents and his connection with Trump. Deeper dives on the story: Secular Talk Drop Site News This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

We’re living in a time when politics has become pornographic…pure stimulus, pure confirmation bias, pure ideology. The postmodern conservative doesn’t seek truth; they seek arousal through outrage. Their politics perform themselves before they think themselves, cycling through prepackaged narratives that gratify resentment the way pornography gratifies fantasy or narrative…mechanically, repetitively, without reflection. The Charlie Kirk incident made this visible…the narrative was already written before the facts even emerged. The algorithmic priests of the right sermonized their version of reality…identity reaffirmed, outrage consumed, truth irrelevant. What defines postmodern conservatism? It isn’t coherence but performance…it’s fragmented pastiche identities held together by resentment and disavowal. They know it’s false but act as if it’s true. Their victimhood is the last refuge of meaning in a world hollowed out by capitalism and digital simulation. When truth becomes unbearable, narrative becomes narcotic. Postmodern conservatism is that addiction…the refusal to wake up from the simulated narrative they’ve been fed with algorithms. Stay curious. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

I wrote an essay recently on this…but i realized there’s more to say. Anyway…i try to go deeper in connecting this idea of desire machines, status quo propaganda, and forms of radicalization. And Twitter happens to be a great case study. Stay curious. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

I listened to his Turning Point speech…and I have some thoughts. So…talking about Tucker Carlson and President Trump. I think Tucker is going to be the follow up guy to Trump. To put it simply. Also…Tucker is better at playing politics… Anway…in this one I talk about how they both weaponize aesthetics and catharsis in order to replace real potential political solutions (I’m speaking into the void on this one). They don’t want to solve systemic problems…their politics run on spectacle, not substance. All i’m saying…think about what really gets the “elites” scared? It’s always someone who represents real change. Who often represents real change? Someone that is backed by the average voter AND has proposed solutions for systemic change. Stay curious. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been doing a long term project that has Peter Thiel in my view. I saw that he did an interview. He said… Douthat: It seems very clear to me that a number of people deeply involved in artificial intelligence see it as a mechanism for transhumanism…for transcendence of our mortal flesh…and either some kind of creation of a successor species or some kind of merger of mind and machine. Do you think that’s all irrelevant fantasy? Or do you think it’s just hype? Do you think people are raising money by pretending that we’re going to build a machine god? Is it hype? Is it delusion? Is it something you worry about? Thiel: Um, yeah. Douthat: I think you would prefer the human race to endure, right? Thiel: Uhhhhh…(followed by an uncomfortable silence). Douthat: You’re hesitating. Thiel: Well, I don’t know. I would—I would… Douthat: This is a long hesitation! Thiel: There’s so many questions implicit in this. Douthat: Should the human race survive? Thiel: Yes. Douthat: OK. Thiel: But I also would like us to radically solve these problems. Which problems Peter boy? Huamnity itself? Do you see humanity itself as a problem? Anyway here are some snippets from this episode… And here’s what I want you to sit with in this episode: how often, in our current moment…in the way our institutions behave, the way Silicon Valley corporations talk, the way billionaires posture and position themselves, there’s this underlying assumption that their vision of the future is not just likely, but right. It's inevitable. It's correct. That it’s supposed to happen. That the world is naturally bending toward their plans, their desires, their aesthetic, their software. It's all naturalllllllllll. (We are told) But look closer…that “inevitability” they preach—it’s not a prediction. It’s a claim. A flex. A power move disguised as foresight. They speak as if the future were already written, when what they’re really saying is: "we should be the ones who get to write the future. I can't have you normies realize it because you'll mess it all up. But shusssssshhhhhhh let me cosplay my insecurities in the form of me being your daddy overlord." Thiel is the example of my new category…the bishop. The one who hides behind the scenes, mostly, not always, hence he did an interview and look everyone thinks he's a psycho, so he's not being a very good bishop. But he's a bishop. It's the guy that guides a bunch of priest to say and do all sorts of really dumb things. That’s the mindset. That’s Peter Thiel. Watch his interviews, read his essays, and it’s there—not even hidden. This quiet but constant esoteric entitlement. He thinks he's God. As if he is participating in some divine order. As if his role is not to serve the world, or even influence it, but to shape it in his image. And I find that deeply concerning—not just ideologically, but spiritually, and…you know…societally. Also, i find it concerning for everything involved in space and time. Super low stakes. ** Because this isn’t about innovation. This isn’t about progress. Thiel is not here to tweak the code of liberal capitalism…he is here to run the final update. His vision is theological in scale and totalitarian in ambition. He doesn’t want to improve the system. He wants to end it…to replace history with a willed narrative, and to replace us with what he thinks should come after us. He calls it perfection. I call it a billionaire tantrum after a psychotic break that had a touch of schizophrenic paranoia. It’s not conservatism. It’s not libertarianism. It’s not even transhumanism in the sci-fi sense. It’s the quiet, deliberate engineering of a post-political, post-human, algorithmic future. Stay curious. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

Trump’s ICE raids and National Guard deployment in California expose the real machinery of power—distraction, narrative control, and the manufactured image...it's a spectacle. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

So this started with a Substack note that semi-blew up, and it pushed me to expand on something I’ve been thinking about for a while: rebellion, aesthetics, and how edginess functions as a kind of political currency (or all of those combined do). I talk about Red Scare. But this isn’t just about them. It’s about the death of irony, the collapse of aesthetics into ideology, and what happens when leftist politics forget how to maintain an edge in favor of an oversimplified and marginalizing ethic. I talk jouissance (Lacan and stuff), performative rebellion, reactionary grifting, and the slow shift of “edgy” from leftist cultural critique to right-wing nihilism. I touch on why moral posturing turned the liberal left into the new status quo—and why Dasha and Anna’s (Red Scare ladies) vibe shift might be the most revealing political litmus test for our current cultural and political moment. This episode is about how rebellion gets hollowed out, how irony can curdle into belief, and how our politics are increasingly built not from principles, but from vibes. Are you ruled by reason…or by desire, rage, and the need for transgression? Is that really a base for a moral framework? Anyway…i’ll have more stuff around this idea. I need to further develop how nihilism is at the heart of the rot…. Stay curious. Article that I referenced in the episode: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com The jumping off point for this episode: Society, at its core, thrives on a delicate balance between conformity and controlled deviation. The deviation is the accepted level of neurosis where society will not call you psychotic. It requires people to give themselves to authority at some level to function—to accept its norms, rules, and boundaries, even as…

I listened to Sam Harris’s episode “The Reckoning”…. I have som thoughts… Here’s the key point I want to illustrate in this episode (which ties into our current political and cultural chaos): We need to understand how the internet has become a wasteland of endless information. Finding anything resembling “real” or stable truth online is nearly impossible, and I believe most people feel this deeply. So, what do we do? We focus on paying our bills, but when we want to make sense of the world, we turn to simplified narratives—ones that tap into primal instincts like fear, anger, and loyalty to our “in-groups.” The right has positioned itself as rebellious or populist, and they’ve quickly grasped that young men, in particular, have moved on from millennial political framing. Zoomers, raised on the internet, perceive the world through an online lens. So, when Biden talks about bringing back manufacturing jobs, it barely resonates. They want to be content creators, not factory workers. The content that sells right now is fueled by right-wing talking points. Elon Musk clearly recognized this when he reshaped Twitter. This generation doesn’t trust corporations, the media, the “American Dream,” or even their parents. Instead, they put their faith in individuals—the influencers who tell them they don’t need a 9-to-5 job, that they can succeed as content creators or finance bros. They’ve watched their parents struggle. They’ve seen millennials hyper-aware of corporate exploitation, with little to show for it—unable to afford homes, rent, or even the basics to start a family. Zoomers’ response has been to conform collectively while rebelling individually. In this climate, you try to secure your piece of the pie—and right now, conforming to the right’s cultural framing is the way to do that as an individual. The challenge? I want to find a way to convince people to resist that pull. Anyway… I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts about the current political and cultural chaos—especially how we reached the point of a second Trump term. This isn’t just another “here’s what’s wrong with everything” rant filled with low-hanging fruit talking points. Those have been exhausted. They feel performative and predictable. The left is due for a reckoning. This reckoning won’t come from recycled takes or comforting narratives that avoid the hard truths. It will require confronting uncomfortable realities. No, the solution isn’t a “progressive Joe Rogan.”No, Kamala Harris’s loss isn’t solely about racism, sexism, or even “wokeness.”It’s far more complex than that. Our media ecosystem and the internet aren’t just bystanders—they’re actively driving cultural and political shifts we’ve yet to fully comprehend. When Trump shouts out figures like Adin Ross and the Nelk Boys, while Dana White gives a speech during his celebration, it’s a sign that the landscape of influence has fundamentally changed. The left can’t dismiss these cultural signals. They need to learn from them, even if it means reshaping their framing of the world. Sam Harris is a perfect case study here. He’s emblematic of a liberal media cohort—figures like Ethan Klein and Bari Weiss—who want to critique the system without meaningfully challenging it. They represent a centrist liberalism that’s long dominated the Democratic Party, embodied by Clinton, Obama, Biden, and Kamala Harris. This faction has often operated at the expense of the voter base it claims to represent. Instead of empowering diverse, authentic voices that demand systemic change, liberal institutions often prefer controlled minorities—those who fit within a safe, curated narrative. In contrast, Republicans are embracing chaos. They’re opening doors to a new generation of wildcards, loyalists, and provocateurs. While this is risky and often reckless, it creates a sense of genuine expression and raw connection that resonates with many. This is where I use Sam Harris’s critiques of “wokeness.” Yes, wokeness has an optics problem. But Harris, like many liberal pundits, hyperfixates on it as if dismantling it will solve the broader systemic issues. It won’t. Woke discourse is just one piece of a much larger, reformulating puzzle. Kamala Harris is a microcosm of this problem. Her failure wasn’t just about “wokeness”—it was her inability to connect meaningfully with any voter base. In trying to please everyone, she pleased no one. Meanwhile, the media continues to thrive on spectacle, feeding tribalism and controversy. Figures like Trump, Carlson, and Musk dominate this space because they play to primal, simple narratives: us vs. them. The left’s challenge isn’t just to counter this messaging—it’s to resist becoming a watered-down imitation of the right. Instead, they must forge a new way forward, one that genuinely connects with people’s discontent and offers something more substantive than the performative politics we’ve grown used to. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I dive into the intersection of politics and identity, exploring how the election—and the discourse around it—has morphed into a hyper-stylized spectacle. I felt the need to talk about the election in my way….I’ve got to stay on brand, right!? Anyway our increasingly online world has transformed political engagement into a product, something we consume for entertainment rather than something that prompts genuine reflection or change. We essentially perform our discontent instead of seeking out a genuine understanding of the origins of said discontent. Think about it: are we really engaging with the issues, or just performing our political identities for an audience? We seek validation for the identity we formulate online! Both as consumers and creators. To explore this, I use Jubilee as a backdrop, which has turned political debate into binge-worthy content, casting ideological labels into meme-ready roles in series like Middle Ground (insane ‘vs’ series…. “fit vs fat” is an example of their debates) and Surrounded (1 vs 25 debates). These "debates" aren’t about meaningful exchange; they’re about creating viral moments, reinforcing stereotypes, and packaging political identity as a consumable commodity. These staged personas reflect the performative nature of modern politics. They’re not there to inform—they’re there to entertain, to affirm, and to let viewers project their own identities onto prefabricated political tropes, symbols, and trends. But it’s not just Jubilee. Think about figures like Joe Rogan, who recently stirred the pot by endorsing Trump. Platforms and influencers with massive reach have financial incentives to feed us predictable, memeable political “analysis,” and we consume it without digging deeper. Our political discourse has been flattened into a series of catchphrases and predictable debates, designed to feed our sense of self/identity rather than challenge it. So, what does it mean when our politics is sold back to us as entertainment? This isn’t just disillusioning—it’s profoundly isolating. As we scroll through clips, drawn into ideological caricatures and clickbait conflicts, we sense a disconnect between the theater of politics and the real issues shaping our lives. But instead of prompting action, this disconnect leaves us in a loop of passive consumption, feeding a politics of narcissism and spectacle. So….our personal distress, our longing for validation, and even our political identities have become the products we buy and sell—leaving us, the “voters,” as spectators in a political drama that may not care whether we truly understand or engage with issues that truly effect us everyday. The fragmented political arena is a closed loop; a loop with no escape and no imagined future, only a loop of predictable reactions. Now, dance liberal! How can we move the spectacle into something more impactful? How can we find a political project that actually has an idea for the future? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Unformulated. A subsection of my audio/visual content…where I can ramble through what I’m researching, poke at uncomfortable ideas, and maybe even say something worthwhile. This will be my chaotic sandbox. It’s my experiment in real-time thinking, a space where I can let my mind wander without obsessing over making every idea neat and polished. We will destroy the neat package that is the easily digestible content! (Also this is still well researched content….it’s just not condensed down and will vary more in topics and style…it’s experimental.) It’s an act of rebellion against the algorithms. Anyway, I’ve been fixating on some cultural and societal frustrations lately, especially how the theory space feels like an intellectual time capsule—more obsessed with dissecting the past than figuring out what it means for our uncertain future. Don’t get me wrong, I love history and all that, I love theory, but sometimes it feels like we’re stuck playing curators in an intellectual museum instead of building anything new. We need more people willing to take risks with their ideas, even if it means sounding a little unhinged. Cultural analysis should go beyond history…it should be willing to predict. We need to be more willing to fail and be wrong. I talk about why so much of modern culture—think figures like Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro—peddle simplified versions of complex ideas, treating history like a myth to prop up their narratives. But it’s not just them. Everyone’s craving predictability—something the algorithms love to reinforce. That desire to fit into neat categories? It’s killing our ability to imagine new futures. We end up trapped in these tidy, marketable versions of ourselves, all the while ignoring the deeper questions about how power shapes our desires and keeps us in a state of discontent and problematic status quo. This is my space to push back against all that. I’ll throw out my clusterfucked and more ‘lateral’ thoughts here and only upload when I think there’s some value in my word-vomit. Thank you for your attention. I need your attention—seriously, it keeps me sane. But I also need you to challenge me, to love and hate what I say. Okay, now I’m gonna attempt to break some museums or something. I’ll have the video version on my YT channel I made for Unformulated…it should be up a few hours after your receive this in case you’d rather stare into my eyes and look at my face while consuming my words. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been working on an essay that uses the recent Jay Shetty controversy as a lens to explore deeper themes around individuality and how capitalism shapes our sense of self. The controversy isn’t surprising in a system designed to commodify every aspect of our lives. I argue that the more individualized we become, the more society pushes us to deconstruct ourselves in pursuit of consumption. This cycle creates a fragmented sense of identity, marketed as self-exploration and empowerment, but ultimately designed to sell us more. More, more, more….hoooooray! Self-help has evolved into a massive industry driven by figures like Jordan Peterson, Tony Robbins, and Jay Shetty (to name a few of the endless names I could have named), capitalizing on our desire to "fix" ourselves. But what if this endless focus on the individual is distracting us from the collective issues we face? Deleuze and Guattari's idea of capitalism as schizophrenic—constantly reshaping our desires to fit market demands—plays a key role here. As we consume to define ourselves, we become more atomized and isolated, convinced that self-consumption is the path to maintaining our identity. I also touch on how hyper-individualization connects to media distrust in the digital age. As we build personalized realities through fragmented information, we lose a shared sense of truth, deepening social divisions. Ultimately, I hope to explore how this obsession with self-identity not only drives consumerism but keeps us from addressing the broader systemic forces that benefit from our division. Stay tuned for more on this topic as I made this episode because my other essay was getting off track around a related topic. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe

In this one I dive deep into the peculiar tension that Gen Z and younger millennials are feeling around today's cultural and political landscape. But it’s not just about politics or the rise of certain obvious and overdone characters like….Trump. It’s about something more pervasive, something beyond current discourse. Imagine being caught in a strange subliminal space…where meaning, once anchored by grand narratives, is evaporating faster than we can grasp. I’m not making a value judgement on this idea either…maybe those grand narratives need to fall in on themselves. I’m into it. But what happens when the rebellions of past generations—once fueled by dreams of change—become nothing more than empty aesthetics? Hippie culture, cyberpunk, punk rock: all absorbed by the very systems they sought to dismantle, now sold as commodities. Any symbol of rebellion that ends up as a Halloween costume? You’ve lost it. It’s dead. A ghost of what it once was. Time to move on. It’s been hollowed out by the center. Are we losing sleep over political collapse? Should we? Instead, we’re struggling with the suffocating sense of stagnation. Whether it’s politics, where new faces are just sequels of the old…our current culture, where the freshest ideas feel like polished-up retreads. We’re stuck in a loop…Marvel superheroes, Disney remakes, even Barbie got a reboot. It’s reboots all the way down! So, the big question here: Are we trapped in a rebooted reality? Is everything—from the content we consume to our political choices—just a remix of what’s come before? And more crucially, is there a way out of this loop, or are we doomed to keep recycling the same stale narratives forever? I’m trying to explore this disorienting moment in time, where the future feels like a nostalgic rerun but the nostalgic feeling is overstaying its welcome. Anyway….thanks for listening and I’ll be doing a branch off of this as a Part 2. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendenslabyrinth.substack.com/subscribe