Warfare, Rhetoric, and Politeness： Tools of the Civilized Man
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Words per Minute
147.6476
Summary
The highest form of achievement in battle is to win the war without having to wage a battle in the first place. This is why the civilized man uses organized warfare to achieve his aims, preferably without wasting a single bullet.
Transcript
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do not thwart the enemy retreating home if you surround the enemy leave an outlet do not press
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an enemy that is cornered these are the principles of warfare organized war rhetoric politeness
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these are the tools of the civilized man so it behooves us to ask the question what is organized
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warfare what is war exactly it is not mere violence violence at the domain of the barbarian
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is to assuage the ego to demonstrate personal greatness at the expense of the civilization
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barbarians engage in violence civilized men engage in warfare
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warfare is the coercion of others using violence again let's go back to tsunzi the highest form of
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achievement in battle is to win the war without having to wage a battle in the first place
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this is why you leave your enemy an outlet you don't seek to destroy the enemy you don't seek
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to assuage your petty ego concerns by proving that you are the biggest one around you go out there
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with a goal and you accomplish that goal using violence as part of the tool set this is why
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you leave them an out you leave them an open a place that they can route to
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an easier way to understand this you know we could go into a huge big thing about routing the enemy
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etc an easier way to understand this is the use of landmines now most people when they think of landmines
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they think of you know buried landmines surprising the infantry etc that is not the primary
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use of landmines they certainly have a role in establishing a defensive position but the primary
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use of landmines in warfare is to funnel the enemy into a particular place what you are trying to do
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in any battle is control the enemy control them and make them march to your tomb so what you do is you
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put you put a field of landmines here and you put a field of landmines over there and so the enemy you
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offer them one vulnerable location where they don't have to worry about the landmines and the enemy will
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be funneled into that location which is exactly where you know they're going to go so that's where
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you put up your machine guns you always want to leave your opponent and out a slaughter a barbarian
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slaughter is going to be needlessly costly on both sides and ultimately it will be a pure victory
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you'll win but at what price no no the civilized man uses organized warfare to achieve his aims
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now let's say you're arguing with somebody and you're trying to convince them
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now when we argue with with feminists and socialists and other such mentally ill damaged
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personalities we're not trying to convince them of anything there's no point in trying to convince them
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they don't work on a logical level with those people all you can do is ridicule them
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you can redefine that you can look at their positions are incoherent you can look really closely
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define their position and show a thousand ways it loops back on itself and cancels itself out
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that it's nothing but a big divide by zero error they will continue to repeat this exact same argument
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but let's forget the sociopaths and the narcissists and the broken people and what about when you're
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arguing with somebody that actually is intelligent but has an incorrect belief how do you sway their
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opinion if you use the same tactic that you use to ridicule the feminists if you take their position
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and you completely define their position and make them look like a fool for holding that position
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you're not giving them an egressive retreat there's no way for them to salvage their ego
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now perhaps this person is incredibly noble and they will accept your argument despite the blow to their ego
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but for the vast majority of people it is such an insult you are calling them such a moron for
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believing in what they believe that they're going to double down on the belief put simply one of the
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best rhetorical devices you can use to convince a person is say you know what i agree with you but
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even if you don't agree with them there's there's some sort of common ground you can establish with
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that person and if you start that out you start out saying listen we have this common ground you're
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not a complete idiot you're just mistaken about this one thing and you leave them that outlet and then
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you present your argument you have your debate with them and you leave it hanging you don't press the
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attack you let them retreat that person will then go back to their go back to their home they
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will think about it they will process the new information you provided them and they're able
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to process it because it's not directly attacking their ego because you said that i agree with you
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but and so they process it and then a month later two months later three months later you will hear your
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argument coming out of their mouth sometimes they won't even remember that it's your argument other
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times they will and then they'll treat you like their best friend because your enemy you didn't
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destroy them again and this this is in uh machiavelli don't destroy your enemy your enemy can become your
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best friend if you leave them a means of escape if you let them survive they wind up being grateful
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whether we're talking about warfare or talking about rhetorical argument it's when you destroy
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somebody that they become resentful even if they admit that you're right chances are they're going
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to be vengeful towards you and this is where we get to politeness so again the barbarian he goes to war
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to feel like a big man and just kill a bunch of people the barbarian gets into screaming matches
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just because he wants to be the one to win the argument rather than convince anybody of a particular
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belief and the barbarian doesn't know what politeness is he knows how to dominate and he knows how to
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politeness is the tool of the civilized man for other civilized men
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and there is a conflict of interest this is where politeness comes up
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probably the easiest one to imagine here is if you're trying to pick up a girl at the bar
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if you're approaching a woman now women like being approached but they want to be approached by a
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particular guy and you might not be the guy that they want approaching them and so civility politeness
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would be the woman letting you down gently in other words she's allowing you a means of escape from
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the whole thing that she is allowing you to pretend that you were just gently flirting you weren't really
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interested that your feelings aren't hurt that you didn't lose status by being shot down and it's this
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preservation of the ego this means of escape that allows us to be in a civil society together
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alternatively if and this is becoming increasingly prevalent throughout manosphere talks about it a lot
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alternatively if she shuts you down and then ridicules you and laughs at you you feel like an idiot and
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it you've just had your ego damaged and at that point there's no longer language there's only violence you're back to the brute barbarian
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and the same thing goes for the guy the guy approaching the woman
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needs to let her have an out rather than press his attack constantly if she's not interested a decent guy will
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politely back off politely allow her to reject her and without
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being overwhelming and see that way we maintain the ego we maintain our status within society
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without having to revert to violence i saw a terrible example of this during the calgary stampede
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where a drunk guy was getting kicked out of the bar because his girlfriend was complaining about him
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i didn't know the whole backstory but there are these two wannabe alpha males at the bar telling him
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no you can't come back in here buddy you're creeping her out you're doing xyz and they were just
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destroying this guy's ego and so you got this guy and he is raging right now because his woman is inside
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the bar with a bunch of strange men this goes right back to the hind brain this goes back to paleolithic
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times and on top of that they're calling him every word in the book and challenging him essentially
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challenging him to stand up to them and on top of that he is hammered out of his skull
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he's dressed up in a cowboy costume so he probably feels a little bit ridiculous especially now that
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he's being emasculated in front of strangers and i could just see in this guy's face the struggle
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between the higher brain saying this fight isn't worth it and the the lower brain saying murder these
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sons of bitches that's how you get knife fights happening a real bouncer does not destroy the ego
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of the person being bounced he does not destroy the enemy he allows them to retreat with dignity
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he says to them listen you've both had a lot she's going to be okay in here you know you should probably
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go home and give her a call the next day and you guys can sort it out then when you're both sober
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suddenly ego assuaged no need for violence except we are in a civilization fast losing that civility
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and we're all reverting back to the grunts of group barbarians
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the reason i bring all of this up is because politeness is so poorly understood nowadays
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it's become the kowtowing people mistake standing up for something as being impolite they mistake
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assertiveness as being impolite when real politeness only happens during a conflict
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it's like virtue you can only have virtue by resisting a seductive temptation you don't have
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virtue by being an asthate same thing with politeness if there's no conflict there's no politeness but
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when there is conflict politeness is how the civilized man deals with it greenie up folks