KIWI
Game ruined my life
or at least it's ruined the only relationship that ever meant anything to me
Just to be clear, how do you use the word 'game'?
The dating game, but how it's described by pick up artists online
ROOSH V (pick up artist) 
Today I'm going to give you a travel tip that will save you thousands of man hours
and increase your notch count by at least fifty
Deran: SPITTING LA CROIX
Fifty notchest!?
(I'll) take it up one hundred and twenty-four notches!
KIWI
They teach 'game'
Therapist: Pick up artists?
DERAN
What is up my dudes?!
it's ya boi Daren
and today we're going to talk about
the game
that's right
THE GAME
what game? gettin them girls, gettin laid
slayin' that mad puss
Yeah, at first I thought they were all just alt-right assholes like Roosh or whoever
DAREN
It's effeminizing to let the woman take control
YOU are dominant
YOU are the alpha
You gotta be on that
YEAH!
KIWI
But then I came across advice from a fellow lefty
ASHLEIGH (therapist)
Like a leftist you mean, a comrade?
Yeah, Hasan Piker
Oooh the youngest of The Young Turks
right
Well, I can see it. He's a bit of a brocialist at times.
What did he do this time?
Hasan: Ok ok ok, alright, let's do it
Operate on SCARCITY DYNAMICS
this is going to be something that triggers a lot of folks
but you can't seem too available
if you're unobtainable human beings automatically assume that you are more valuable
don't look too overzealous, don't seem too available
and actually get busy!
and you get busy by talking to as many girls as possible
and you're not hyper-focusing on one girl
SO the fuckboi mode that I engaged here
is that you can have your 'read receipts' on
now this is a fucking big secret ok
this is a big bad secret
this is something that you can do
to show people that you were 'too busy' "oh shit I couldn't get back to you in time"
"I'm so sorry"
and it is manipulative and I totally understand but it goes off of exactly what I was just talking about
as far as scarcity
and as far as like increasing your value to actually get to a point that is your actual value.
THERAPIST
You know why that works, right?
because you're messaging so many more people it makes you ok with failure
and so that makes you more confident?
HASAN
If the stakes are low because you're talking to multiple people, then it doesn't matter
you're not afraid of fucking up, so you're probably going to come across more confident.
THERAPIST
Well sure, that could help, but I mean the scarcity aspect.
HASAN
The way we analyze value in other human beings is off of scarcity.
If you're too available the other person, regardless of your social status, will start thinking that they are higher
on the totem poll, or that they're valued at a higher position than you are
Whether it be because of their physical characteristics, or your physical characteristics,  or even
even your social status ... or it could be anything! It could be your personality
KIWI
That's definitely true.
THERAPIST
Weeellll it definitely works.
Let's set aside for the time being the ways thinking of other people in these economic terms  can be de-humanizing
We'll return to that later.
As a professional leftist sex therapist, I'm here to tell you the reason it works isn't because of free market economics
or supply and demand in a dating market.
Yeah?
It works because it's a way of making other people think you have your own interesting life filled with priorities and passions.
Jacque Lacan says "Desire is desire of the Other"
And he means that we are intrigued when we see people are really interested in things.
We love to see people who love life for reasons.
KIWI
Like my ex. I loved that she was so into the theater. She was an actress you know.
but she was also an activist. That's how I got into leftism in the first place.
THERAPIST 
Let me guess. After you started dating your life started revolving all around everything she did.
Yeah, she thought I needed to get my own life. it was one of the big stressors in our relationship.
Here are The Center for Game Recovery, we get a lot of these reports.
People who have their lives together get creeped out by interested parties whose only interest is getting laid or getting an S.O [significant other]
Pick up artist: If you can do what I'm doing here, you're going to get laid like a fucking rock star.
KIWI
"People who have their lives together" sounds a little judgmental, right?
and how would you know if someone really had it all together anyway?
Well, they're more or less independent. Maybe lonely sometimes like anyone else.
But generally speaking their lives are not severely lacking.
They look for other people who similarly have it together.
So when they become the center to YOUR life it's unnerving.
They might even feel tricked.
It kind of undermines your very ability to establish a genuine intimate connection.
Yeah... here interests all became my interests.
but are you saying we should all get hobbies before we date?
Not hobbies. Passions!
You think people have to find a passion to find love or get laid?
I'm saying that when you are passionate for life and you have your own interests
the tactics pick up artists are telling you to practice are already there naturally.
Except instead of ignoring texts to dupe potential mates into thinking you're busier than you are
you will just literally be too busy to live on social media or text all the time.
Does it really matter what kind of passion? Can it be anything?
Technically it could be but there are different ways of achieving in life...
achievement definitely builds confidence, so you'll want to succeed in some domain.
But not all domains are created equal.
We will call these domains you can achieve within "Achievement Hierarchies"
Some make you more interesting than others, some make you useful to various causes,
and some make you a real piece of shit.
CREEPY INTERNET DUDE
If you look too good and you've got it going on, women are motherfucking hating c-words.
Why is it that girls will date a guy that has half my wallet, half my dick, half my car, half my bank,
half my personality, half my looks, half my wardrobe, and half my sexual prowess...
Pick up artists seem to only care about one achievement hierarchy, and that's getting laid as much as possible.
Classic example of going for quantity instead of quality?
Exactly.
So if not all achievement hierarchies are created equal, how do you qualify them?
Let's watch a little video by THEORY PLEEB
*Pushes play*
A small boy's voice from somewhere yelling "get out of my room" (???)
*Atmospheric synthwave beats
*Synth-heavy music plays loudly
Hey everybody! Today I'd like to talk about Alain Badiou's The True Life.
Alain Badiou is a currently living French philosopher
who hails from the time of Jacque Derrida, Michel Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari,
and Jean Baudrillard
Rick Roderick in his friendly southern drawl: 
Baudrillard is perhaps the most important theorist
that can be characterized as POSTMODERN
Not to mention of course Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Sorry about my pronunciation, it's all French to me.
*cymbal crash
In The True Life, Alain Badiou talks about the three kinds of  possibilities that are traditionally set out for boys
and to an increasingly degree, especially over the last century, women as well.
Now, the three traditional pathways set out are what I'm going to be calling here
the Careerist, the Deadbeat, and the Martyr.
The Careerist is the doctor, the lawyer, the person who has to work 50 to 60 to 70 hours a week
in order to climb the corporate ladder of success.
CAREERIST
Losing isn't an option.
You need this.
The Deadbeat is the partier, the one who decides "You know, that whole system is just selling yourself out
and there's really nothing more important than living in the moment and having fun now."
The Martyr on the other hand says there is no meaning in the ladder-climbing competitive rat-race
selling your soul kind of corporate world, because that's all ultimately a nihilistic kind of pursuit.
The Martyr then also says the same thing about the Deadbeat. It says you know this living instantaneously
living in immediate gratification, abusing substances, and just living to have fun
is also not very fulfilling in the long-term. It's only really able to give you joy in the short-term.
ROOSH V (ex- pick up artist, apparently)
It was just about scoring casual sex.
I did this for about fifteen years until I hit a dead end and said
"Hey, this hedonistic road is not giving me much in the form of meaning
The Martyr says I'm going to sacrifice my living existence here and now
My ability to be considered intelligible, or someone that anyone would even want to hang out with even
in either of those other two paradigms, and instead they say
"I'm going to give everything to some tradition that I think is worth keeping alive."
*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Hello!
The Martyr is literally sacrificing their enjoyment now in either the long-term or the short-term
with either the ladder-climber/achiever/careerist lifestyle
CAREERIST
You're an achiever. You're the top lobster alright
or with the Deadbeat/party lifestyle
and they [the Martyr] instead say "No. Raise a family, you know, fight for my dying culture,
my traditions, my values."
MARTYR
Golly! I mean like, what ever happened to just "Merry Christmas!"?
There are negative aspects for all three of these that, especially if pursued to their extreme, result in
terrible harm to everybody who is involved.
So with the Careerist, obviously, if you're selling your 'soul' you're selling yourself short.
You're not able to really build your personal talents that aren't commofiable
you're not really able to build a lot of relationships,
you're not really able to build community, or participate in the production and sharing of culture
*CAREERIST scoffs
Hobbies!?
*Sad fake laugh
N-n-no, hobbies?
Hobbies are for people who have weekends.
Hobbies are for poor people.
I want to spend my weekends grinding for this company.
Grinding right underneath you, sir.
The Deadbeat, on the other hand, taking to its extreme, ends up running into
all kinds of grief. Because when you're only looking out for yourself and your own limited self interest
and you only get together with other people who care about the Life of Distraction
What ultimately results is hurting a lot of people
either unintentionally, or just because you turned off your 'Giving a fuck switch'
JESSE PINKMAN from Breaking Bad
I mean, you need me gone.
Cuz your dickhead brother-in-law is never going to let up.
Just say so!
Just ask me for a favor.
It's either this, or you'll kill me the same way you killed Mike.
THEORYPLEEB
In either of the cases with the Careerist or the Deadbeat
you are propping up a system of expropriation and exploitation
that is devastating the planet and communities and cultures across the globe.
Arguably, in the Careerist's case, you're doing it a lot more actively
CAREERIST
With all due respect sir,
Fuck the ocean!
What do we need the ocean for?
What are we trying to do, save Spongebob fucking Squarepants?
THEORYPLEEB
Whereas in the Deadbeat's case you're doing it a lot more passively
in fact, a lot of Deadbeats maybe say "Fuck the capitalists
"Fuck the politicians! I'm not on board with any of that."
But at the same time
how would they enjoy in the moment, now, without the bubble of privileges created by
by the people who are selling themselves entirely to this system of capitalist and state violence.
Finally the Martyr, the traditionalist, taken to its extreme
obviously what comes to mind is the fundamentalist terrorism of religion gone full-bore.
MARTYR
Gosh! No one wants a guy like me anymore.
What is this upside-down world that we're living in?
People who say "I will give everything to bring this country back to what it used to be."
Or, "I will give everything to destroy this religion or that religion, so that my religion, the one that's RIGHT, can win!
MARTYR
I blame the coffee companies.
It's Big Caffeine.
Cold brews. Drinking poison straight to the brain! Turning them gay!
None of these three lifestyles is able to deal with the impending existential crises that we currently face.
Whether it's rising automation and career displacement,
Resource scarcity and rising climate change
Or the fact that these two things are going to going to cause massive force migrations
for people who are probably not going to be very welcomed by other countries that are buying into
these older ways of thinking
of us vs. you, of nationalism, of borders, of walls.
None of these three options is going to cut it for Badiou.
KIWI
Aren't these false choices though?
You don't have to choose one or the other, you could do all three or even just two of these lifestyles.
ASHLEIGH
You mean like still build a career while partying and going to church on the weekend?
Exactly!
Well, Alain Badiou doesn't consider this option
which we will call the Milquetoast Suburbanite Synthesis
He probably doesn't consider it because  it's what [baby]boombers have already proved
to be a soul-sucking and worthless way of perpetuating the system.
Work all week, party on the weekend, go to church
Rinse and repeat.
LARRY from the Amazing World of Gumball
Look at me! I've got it all figured out.
I get up, I shower, I come to work, I work all day, I go home, I go to sleep!
I get up, I shower, I come to work, I work all day, I go home, I go to sleep!
I get up, I shower, I come to 
[*record scratches to a stop]
I get up, I shower, I come to work, I work all day, I come home, I go to sleep!
I get up, I shower, I come to work, I work all day, I come home, I go to sleep!
I get up, I shower, I come to work, I work all day, I come home, I go to sleep!
I get up, I shower, I come to work, I work all day, I come home, I go to sleep!
I get up, I shower, I come to work, I work all day, I come home, I go to sleep!
GUMBALL
Uhhh, seems to work for him
but I feel like there might be a little more to life than that.
KIWI
Ok, fair enough.
It's a pretty boring life.
Exactly. Where any one of those three modes of life results in causing a lot of harm if
pursued to its extreme they result in hopeless boredom if juggled in a mediocre centrism.
So what's the alternative?
*Pushes play on the video
THEORYPLEEB
For Alain Badiou, there is a fourth option
What he calls an 'Egalitarian Symbolization'
an entire new way of being-in-the-world that
currently does not exist, and never really has existed, that cannot come true
without a multi-generational struggle over the course of the next fifty to a hundred years
of people sacrificing their entire lives to build something new
to build new systems
to build new institutions
to build new languages
new ways of thinking about and treating one another and the planet
We're talking about entire new ways of orchestrating economic relations
so that we aren't any longer expropriating the planet's resources beyond what can be rejuvenated
much less exploiting the labor those we do not consider full human beings
with full rights.
We're talking about the abolition of slavery
on a planetary scale
we're talking about the reversing of climate change
No! The fourth option is far, far from
the Milquetoast Suburbanite Synthesis
KIWI
Wait, did this THEORYPLEEB person
just use the terminology you literally just coined?
Yeah, that was weird...
I don't remember that part being in this video.
THEORYPLEEB
Hey, I'm right here
I can literally hear everything you're saying
right now
What the...
Yeah, so anyway!
The alternative to the Milquetoast Suburbanite Synthesis
is what I'm just going to call, for right now, The Radical Synthesis.
It's a lifestyle of giving everything you have over to a cause
while at the same time taking care of yourself
still having enjoying the simple things
while at the same time caring about economic, ecological, and social justice.
So you see that we're taking the strong aspects from each of these
We take sacrificing your life to a cause
but it's not one in the past, it's one in the future that is worth fighting for
Literally fighting for the survival of the planet itself.
You still get to have fun!
We're not going to be overly moralistic, simpering
sad sour-faced martyrs
No! 
*La Croix can opens
We are going to have fun and enjoy the richness of life
and at the same time
value ethical discourse and take part in the struggle for justice
We can do this!
We can have both!
We get to have our cake and eat it too
And we still get be careerists in a certain sense
because we still have to develop skill sets necessary for creating the kinds of change that we're talking about.
This radical take
is one that renounces the dichotomy between
Revolution and reform
on the one hand
and global and local on the other
We are renouncing the divisions between
individual and collective
We do not  need these dichotomies because at the end of the day
We have to take on revolutionary reform, and reformational revolutioin.
We have to infiltrate normie organizations
and develop the skill sets and languages for understanding what they're doing
and make ourselves indispensable to what they're doing,
at the exact same time that we maintain a level of distance
and another foot in the more radical world where we're working with organizations such as
DSA, PSL, Antifa
Olly from Philosophy Tube
The first thing to internalize is that antifa is not a group of people...
you can't join it, or be a member of it,
there is no official uniform. Not everybody who masks up at a protest is necessarily antifascist
and not all antifascists wear masks
Antifascism is practical, ethical, political theory.
It's less a thing you are, and more a thing you can do.
If you want to.
And what you do is oppose fascism by any means necessary.
THEORYPLEEB
...and so many other [organizations/movements] that are arising
currently existing
or that maybe you need to start yourself.
This is only the beginning.
And nothing rides or dies on any one organization
or so-called movement
Alain Badiou is not calling this "leftism"
it's called The New Symbolization
The New Symbolization does not belong to any one organization
it is instead a movement
that we will be writing about hundreds of years from now.
And it will not be something that is fully figured out until way after the fact.
Basically, I don't really imagine
and I don't think Alain Badiou is arguing
that we'll ever live in a utopia
And that things will ever be A-OK
There will always be
asymmetries
there will always be various kinds of rank and order
and we'll always have to fight various fascisms
various fascisms
Whether the ones that come from totalitarian dictators rising up
or from within ourselves.
And we will always have to be vigilant for racism, and gender and sexual orientation discrimination
and xenophobia
These are things that are going to be a constant struggle
But that's exactly what justice is
Justice is a constant struggle.
And it's not something that any one existing movement, or any one existing thinker
whether they're on YouTube or in a book
has all the answers to
Because there is no party platform a
I can participate in parties
I can participate in parties that have dogmatic platforms
And I can become indispensable to their cause
I can even help them and see them as actual comrades
but at the end of the day we all have to maintain a little bit of critical distance
and say 'you know, other people might be true believers, but we don't have all the answers just yet.'
and we never will.
Because as long as we live we'll be in the messy, complicated shit of life
Aaand
The whole thing about GAME,
and with making yourself attractive is just to say
the three lifestyles: Careerists, Deadbeat, and the Martyr
Every one of these opens up a domain within which you can achieve
but if taken to an extreme causes a lot of harm
MARTYR
*Yelling: Mormon Heaven Baby!"
And if watered down and mixed too much results in a boring, kind of depressing life
The New Symbolization is about taking whatever privileges you have
and putting them to work for those who don't have them.
It's taking on the torch of
Ecological, economic, and social justice
All three.
Not just one, or the other, because all of these must be maintained
You can have an emphasis on one or the other, and that's ok, but just keep in mind
that they're all entwined and and they all rely on one another
and that without one you can't have the others
I've already talked about infiltrating organizations and making yourself indispensable to normies
–who you might be able to radicalize
but if you don't really know what skill sets you really want to invest in developing just yet
and you don't exactly know of any organizations nearby that you really want to get involved with
then the advice I've heard
is to take advantage of the existing system
to get enrolled in a university (or tech school) that will take you
and take the classes that are most interesting
and learn what skills you want to develop
and do it all with this broader New Symbolization Project Idea in mind
At the university you'll be able to take advantage of resources to bring
Leftist speakers. Whether they're prominent YouTubers, or leftist academics, or activists
to your campus to speak, to help rally, to organize
and  you'll be able to develop indispensable skills through organizing
learning how to code, how to write a compelling grant request
there are so many ways that you can make yourself absolutely irreplaceable
to the movement itself
But first take on the training!
Find some mentors you can look up to, and train under, but don't get too swept away with their egos
don't get to swept away with their projects
Keep in mind that they are fallible humans as well
and watch for that
and be compassionate
but be critical and remain vigilant on your pathway towards building this New Symbolization
And if that means taking on a lot of debt
Don't worry!
We WILL overthrow the organizations
the systems, and the institutions
that are currently orchestrating the power imbalances on this planet
and that includes taking down the debt monsters
*Scratches to a stop
THERAPIST
Ok, I'm not sure I'm going to endorse everything
they are saying... but you get the basic point, right?
KIWI
Yeah... so like,
get involved in your community
and learn skills to become invaluable to organizations fighting for justice
and your time will just become more valuable and people will like you more
Exactly
By developing skills useful to radical organizations
practicing vulnerability, weeding out toxic masculinity (REGARDLESS of gender)
and becoming a reliable and honest person
you will develop confidence, be in high demand
and you won't have to fake being too busy or wanted to respond to every text you get
you'll just literally be busy and obsessed with really interesting theory and praxis
It makes sense
I mean, if you don't take this path the result will suck  even if you do get laid
or find a meaningful relationship
Brecause this this world is built to suck away every ounce of extra time, energy, and attention
all siphoned away into the privatized wealth of people who don't care about you
or the planet this system is destroying
Exactly.
We don't have a whole lot of other options right now
It's either try to ignore all the problems and participate in perpetuating them
or do our best to build alternatives
Speaking of ignoring problems
I said we could come back to the ways thinking of other people in these economic terms
can be de-humanizing
Let's let Chrisi from Chrisiousity get the last word on this one.
Thanks Ashleigh!
Hi everyone!
Ok, so, humans are not commodities.
Let’s start and finish with that.
This is a fundamentally broken way of looking at people and relationships.
There’s a lot of talk from Hasan about how we evaluate human worth through scarcity and how this is human nature.
Maybe there is a point there. In the same way that capitalists exploiting their workers have a point.
I’m sure it feels good to be rich, I mean I guess there are at least some perks.
And if you have to exploit people and their labor in order to get those perks, that is the way of the world right now.
And it also feels good, I imagine, to put your penis in a woman you find pretty, even if you had to mess with her head a little bit
exploit some of her insecurities
Well, if that's what you had to do to convince her to let you do that, that's also a choice you can make
and yeah the argument for doing both of those things is pretty much the same
its human nature to exploit other humans. What are you going to do?
It’s not a new argument. And no one could exactly prove it right, but you can't exactly prove it wrong either.
But it sucks, and because its based in exploitation, lack of respect for people- their dignity and agency, it’s just never going to work.
You can’t build anything on this kind of foundation.
And this pretense that it's all being rational and making a rational decision is pretty bullshit too.
A lot of it is about being cowardly. It's about not wanting to grow as a person, or put your actual needs or personhood out there in a way that makes you vulnerable.
Relationships are hard and painful. Growth is painful. And rejection, even the idea of rejection is pretty shitty.
And nobody likes it, so it's easy to want to defend yourself using some sort of shield between you and the world
I get that. Everybody gets that.
We're all scared of being hurt.
On the other hand, using these tactics, you'll never get to know if there's a person or persons out there who would actually like you for you
They won't get to know you, and you’ll never get to know them, either- not really, because you keep using these techniques to keep people at arm’s length.
Let me suggest another option you could choose
Just call this game out as the bullshit it is
Trust in your value and in theirs
Because human value is more than scarcity
It's also in creativity, integrity, the ability to love and grow
and even dedication to fighting for a better world
So, and I say this with love
Go read Emma Goldman
And stop being such a dick.
*Friendly 
Byyyyeee
Well, anyway, looks like our hour is up unfortunately
aaand you don't have to ever come back
One, because you're great,
You're perfect
Two, because this business doesn't exist
It's just a narrative vehicle for the video
Honestly, I think this is bringing me back to the left
Well then, my job here is done.
These closed captions, and the video itself, required a ton of effort.
Ecourage work like this by making a one time donation or pledging on THEORYPLEEB's Patreon
And by liking, commenting, and subcribing!
MORMON MISSIONARY
My name is Elder Price, and I would like to share with you the most amazing book!
Thank you!
CAREERIST
*Pinocchio voice
I'm a real boy!
