AcidicBasicGlitch

I actually just started part 1 today and haven't made it to part 2 yet, but it is definitely worth listening to. (The entire podcast is worth checking out actually. The J.D. Vance episode especially).

I knew Musk didn't have the best childhood, but after listening to this, I honestly cannot help feeling empathy for his childhood self.

To clarify, that is in no way an excuse for anything he's done as an adult. It's an explanation for why he's the way he is, not excuse. When you have cPTSD, you get this weird ability to recognize the effects of trauma in other people.

Experiencing trauma is in no way the fault of the victim, but the cycle of violence and trauma will repeat over and over through generations until someone decides it will end with them, and seeks help. Elon Musk instead recently bragged that his tombstone will read "Never went to therapy."

There is no way Elon Musk could have survived the childhood he did without developing cPTSD. It's also clear from the statements of his former partners and himself about having a high tolerance for pain and chaos. Those aren't quirky Elon traits. Those are signs of trauma related dissociation that emerge as coping skills following repeated traumatic experiences.

I don't say that to mock him for his trauma. I say that because those are also traits I recognize in myself and others with cPTSD. It's a sign you survived something you shouldn't have had to go through, and while it may help you thrive in chaos, it's not fair to put others through trauma because it feels comfortable and familiar to you. Repeatedly seeking out chaos and finding ways to reenact your trauma either consciously or subconsciously, is again, not a quirky Elon specific trait. It is a shared trait of many trauma survivors, and one of easiest ways the cycle of abuse gets passed on to others, especially from someone in a position of power.

Imagine waking up each morning, wondering if today’s the day you’ll be denounced by a neighbor, hauled off for “re-education,” or simply vanish without a trace. It’s a paralyzing anxiety that gnaws at the soul, leaving its victims desperate for any sense of security. And it’s in this desperation that the totalitarian regime finds its foothold.

The psychological terror inflicted by these systems is both a means and an end. It keeps the population docile and compliant, but it also serves a deeper purpose. In a world of constant threat, people crave certainty like a drowning man gasps for air. And who better to provide that certainty than the all-knowing, all-powerful state?

Totalitarian regimes offer a seductive promise: surrender your freedom, your individuality, your very thoughts to us, and we’ll keep you safe. We’ll tell you what to think, how to act, who to love and who to hate. No more difficult decisions, no more moral quandaries. Just blissful, mindless obedience.

Eventually, people internalize external repression. This becomes internalized oppression. Internalized oppression is when marginalized individuals or groups take on the view of the oppressor, or in this case, the regime, and their behavior leads to further oppression (Prilleltensky & Gonick, 1996). Internalized oppression is how a dictatorship maintains its power most effectively. The subjugation of one group over another is associated with mass trauma (Heberle, Obus, & Gray, 2020).

Internalized oppression is when individuals come to believe their own inferiority and inability to bring about change in a system. Once an individual or a collective internalizes oppression, they come to believe the message an oppressor has been predicating. For example, in the Dominican Republic's dictatorship, individuals were urged to obey idiosyncratic rules such as carrying a voting card for fixed elections, paving the roads as community service, and doing military exercises regardless of age. Defying any of these laws resulted in consequences such as jail time and other harsh or lethal punishments. Individuals who internalized the oppression not only accepted and obeyed these rules but also encouraged others to do the same. In doing so, they supported the dictator even if they did not necessarily agree with his tyranny.

I've been looking for a place to discuss political psychology for a long time.

It's a topic I've been interested in since taking a special topics course in high school that covered crimes against humanity. One of my favorite teachers taught the course, and even though it's been almost 2 decades since I took his class, as an adult, I've realized that he taught more than just historical facts and dates.He taught us how to think critically, how to spot disinformation, and how to recognize the same tactics that have been used throughout history to exert control over narratives and large populations of people.

Sadly, it's become quite a useful skill to have. It's not an intuitive skill for most people, and certainly not one I would have had if it hadn't been for him. It's usually a skill you only learn through either education or the experience of living through it. I consider myself lucky to be in the former category, but the older I get the more I find myself recognizing things that let me know society is not headed in a promising direction.

So, I hope I can share some interesting topics and maybe help more people recognize the patterns of human behavior that seem to loop endlessly throughout history.

I think it might be best to start on a note that examines the shared psychological scar that typically follows surviving repeated trauma in both survivors of authoritarian regimes and domestic abuse. For that, there's no better place to start than the work of Judith Herman.

The main post is a link to a PDF of Herman's 1992 work distinguishing between PTSD following a single traumatic event and complex PTSD following exposure to repeated traumatic events.

I do have face unlock option but it's showing in settings it's never been set up. No app permissions I wasn't aware of except android system intelligence. I tried to switch it to always ask permission but it just disappeared

Yeah I went ahead and just deleted it, but I'm very confused why it's showing any app associated with that email. It was literally just a throwaway email I used once so I wouldn't have to use my main account.

When I tried to log in to Google play using that email it said I needed to accept the terms and conditions bc I'd never logged in before.

What's weird is that's a throwaway email address I made to sign up for something but never used otherwise. Like I had never actually logged into the playstore with that address

No, I used my lock code

Lock her up! 🔒🤷‍♀️⬆️

If you don't want to click the links to the blog post with references explaining all of this

Here is the archived SPN page from 2015 discussing the history: https://web.archive.org/web/20150626172710/http://www.spn.org/about/

Here is a 2011 article discussing the "freedom centers": https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/state-policy-network-union-bargaining/

Here are the SPN affiliate pages for the Alabama and Louisiana think tanks pushing the state level DOGE policy and the SPN affiliate page for the Heritage Foundation:

Louisiana https://spn.org/organization/pelican-institute-for-public-policy/

Alabama https://spn.org/organization/alabama-policy-institute/

Heritage Foundation https://spn.org/organization/heritage-foundation/

But... But... If the crew sell their stocks how will the captain be able to jump off the sinking ship and leave them to drown?

I think one thing we're all going to have to remember, is that living in unprecedented times means we're going to have to start holding ourselves to unprecedented standards. We should all be very angry and demanding better as a society, but it's important to give ourselves grace as individuals, remember it's up to us to try and avoid the things that make us unhappy as much as we can, and be proud of ourselves when we do manage to find glimmers of happiness while living in a dystopian society.

I say that to remind myself as much as to give advice to anyone else. I remember dreading 30 as it approached, and feeling like I was nowhere near where I was supposed to be. It felt like I had done everything I was supposed to do, but just never saw the payout for doing it. I had gotten a college degree, then a graduate degree. This allowed me to get a 9-5 job that I dreaded going to everyday. I was under a mountain of college loan debt. I barely made enough to cover my rent, let alone ever consider buying a house. I felt like I was going nowhere fast, and when I looked at social media, it felt like I was way behind all of my peers.

That was also around the time I decided that if I couldn't obtain the material things that were supposed to make me feel happy and successful, I would focus on maximizing the activities and relationships that made me happy while slowly (and sometimes painfully) cutting out the things that only made me more miserable.

Flashforward a decade as I begin to approach 40, and I wish I could tell you that the material things eventually all worked themselves out, but pretty sure you already know they didn't.

Financially I'm in basically the same situation I was then, except now I have a child to take care of, so obviously that means less money. Even with cost of living and merit based raises over the years, with inflation and an even worse housing market, it just never seemed to work out to making much of a difference. I'm still buried under the mountain of student debt and barely make rent each month. I also found out this past week that I'm losing my job soon, and as a federally funded researcher, the prospects of me finding one to replace it aren't great to say the least.

However, even though the stakes are more dire than ever, and hard times are only forecast to get harder, I don't feel quite as pessimistic as I did when I was approaching 30. I actually feel a bit of comradery with the majority of Americans, because I think most of us are in a pretty similar boat. As far as my personal relationships and family, I'm happier than I've ever been.

Maybe it's just a part of mellowing out with age, but I feel it's also in part due to being very happy with my personal relationships, and the people that are in my life now vs a decade ago. I've gotten involved in community work in my free time, and as of 2025 I feel a drive to embrace that kind of work more than ever. In a lot of ways starting from scratch at almost 40 is scary, but in some ways it's actually somewhat of a relief. The last of a mirage that was keeping me in my stable career has been destroyed, and it would feel a bit more delusional for me to jump ship to a similar job knowing it will eventually just meet the same fate.

Again, I want to stress I don't say this as a way to get people to be docile and just accept what's happening, but to channel your anger and frustration into something that gives you a sense of accomplishment. If anyone in your life is making you think that being unhappy with the current situation is strictly a you problem, and not a reflection of reality, that's a good sign you should probably lessen your ties to them for now. If they want to do some self reflection and try to come back later, that's always an option.

Finding others in your community that feel the same way, and working together locally to keep people informed and prepared for policy changes before they happen, is one of the easiest ways you can improve your immediate surroundings and feel some power in a situation where we're all pretty powerless.

Most of the senators and representatives we've elected to look out for our interests are failing hard. It's important to keep in mind that everything happening at a federal level is going to start happening at state levels. In many red states it has already begun. DOGE inspired taskforces are popping up all over the country. I've been keeping a list of them, but even since my most recent update a few weeks ago, more have been announced.

Here is the list so far if anyone is interested: https://pimento-mori.ghost.io/state-level-doge-inspired-task-forces-pop-up-across-u-s-promoted-by-republican-governors-love-of-small-government/

Regardless of where they're located, all of these DOGE task forces have a common goal. Make up a dollar amount to show how much they're saving tax payers, find excuses to cut money for social programs (and in some cases even cuts to government safety programs that help prepare for natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes) in order to make that dollars saves number a reality. Citizens suffer, their lives are made worse, and governors and their wealthy friends become even wealthier, all in the name of trimming wasteful spending and getting rid of bureaucracy.

It's easy to get stuck in a mindset where you let the reality of yesterday influence the way you view your present, but it's a mental trap. I haven't used any form of social media that isn't anonymous in almost a decade. No Facebook or Instagram. I don't scroll by pictures of a lifestyle that never even came close to matching my reality. I think it's no coincidence that I no longer feel left out among my peers, when I'm not acknowledging false public images people attempt to shape for themselves online. Instead, I feel more connected to a bigger chunk of America than ever before, and it's helped me to realize how much we all have in common regardless of political identity.