Ep. 66 – Are You an NPC?

A libertarian that won't get off his talking points. You know, non-aggression principle, NAP, NAP, NAP and agorists that won't get off of their talking points. Alternate economy, alternate economy. Crypto guy that will not get off of his talking points with “NFTs are gonna solve everything”. “HODL. It’s coming back to 150K!”. Those are all NPC things, right? It's a response. The answer is always this, this, and this. There is no objective thinking.

Welcome to Thriving the Future podcast where we're finding positive solutions to thrive in the tough times ahead.

Maybe you've seen the Elon quote: “If you don't think there's at least a tiny chance you're an NPC...you're an NPC”.

Everybody's calling each other NPCs. In this episode, Perpend is back. We talk about simulation theory. We talk about this persistence with calling everybody NPCs, and what the impact it has on your mindset. Listen and see if you agree.

Scott:

So last week we talked about NPCs and how people see themselves as the hero in the video game and everyone else is an NPC. It's kind of a playoff of Simulation Theory where the whole world is a simulation and I'm the only real component. Today we wanted to talk about what an NPC is and how you know that you are being one.

I sent you that Elon quote or tweet .

“If you don't think there's at least a tiny chance you're an NPC...you're an NPC”. Which is one of those statements that gets accused of being meta.

Perpend:

Or an NPC doesn't know. It's an NPC. So, so let's kind of cover what an NPC is. An NPC in video gaming. And that is a non-player playable character. It is a character that is programmed, knows a few different things and never leaves its routine, but it's there to give you the key that opens the box. It's there to for you to sell items to, so you have in-game money. It is there to facilitate the journey of the game without somebody having to play the boring part of the game. Right?

Scott:

Byy thinking everybody else is an NPC and you are the game hero, then that dehumanizes everyone else, but it also makes them a part of your illumination?

Perpend:

Yeah. It is: if I gain the right amount of knowledge, the right amount of experience points, then I get to transcend humanity. .

Scott:

Yeah. That's very Transhumanist.

Perpend:

Well, Transhumanism is Gnosticism. “We will find a way to evolve to the next level of being. We will leave our body behind and become the energy entity that floats around space.” If you're on Star Trek, if you're in our current paradigm, you're going to have your brain and consciousness uploaded to the computer and live on the internet. And you won't have to die. Which is kind of opposite of reality in a lot of ways, because you are not a soul that has a body, your body and soul, and they're all denying that to some extent, or that it's knowledge that gets you to the next level.

Knowledge by itself does not get you anywhere. You can know all the stuff in the encyclopedia, but that doesn't change your character. So accusing people of being an NPC has become really popular with a lot of the meme culture, and a way of dismissing the opposite side, right? It's like “Orange man, good; Orange man, bad”. Right? But we've all seen those memes. Saying that they are an NPC is because it's just a rote response regardless of the input. It's an inability to think objectively about the thing. It's the inability to listen and have a real conversation.

And in a lot of ways, all of us are an NPC in one way or another on some topic, or just because it's convenience.

That was one of the articles I read, I don't know how long ago it, was a while back. The NPCs are really something to be admired because they are being very efficient with their life because they're not expending any energy, time, or dialogue on anything that doesn't matter to them.

Scott:

Hmm. That's twisted.

Perpend:

Even the NPC in the game is doing that. The NPC in the game is here to give you the key if you say the right password or you do the right thing. So it will not do anything outside that. It’s actually being the most efficient and therefore it is just preserving energy and being a good citizen.

Scott:

That's twisted.

Perpend:

Maybe, but there are people that believe that too.

I think what Elon's really commenting on is how close-minded people are that they're not going to entertain that they're an NPC, then they're not really even self-examining or listening to themselves. Mm-hmm. , because we all do it. We all do it to fit in. Fitting in is what an NPC does in outside of a game, right? Inside reality and human interactions, it is a fitting in phenomenon. I will go get Nike's because all my friends have Nike's, and if I don't have Nike's, I'm going to be made fun of. Hmm. It's an NPC action. I'm doing what other people value and consider important over forming my own idea or impression or anything because it allows me to fit in. It gives me my social cohesion and my unity. Right? So, so if we want to tie in point, right?

Mm-hmm. , an NPC is, is following along and fitting in. Mm-hmm. , what Elon is talking about is how people are a completely oblivious to how the algorithms of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the internet, search engines and advertisers and all that, is causing you to do things without knowing you're doing them. Cian talked about this in his attention economy series. I think it was the second video, maybe in the first one, right? Where he talked about, we've all been sitting there and we have some conversation with our friends over lunch or whatever, and then we see an advertisement for what we talked about. Well, the phone wasn't listening to you. The phone knew where you were going to be because he knows everything that it's been feeding you. It knew the conversation you were going to have. It knew that that was the time to then send you the ad.

It knew the conversation you were going to have, even if you were it, it didn't really know it, but it knew that this is the line of thought you were going to be having because it fed this to you in a subconscious hypnotic way. It fed this to you, it fed this to you, it fed did this to you. All of your friends online are going to this converging point that it's been pointing everybody. Mm-hmm. , they are all on this NPC trap with their thoughts and their impressions and their likes and the information and memes and all that, that they are being fed and responding to means that they're going to end up at this conclusion. And when they end up at that conclusion, they are going to want to buy a Burkey water filter because the world is ending or they're going to want to buy this purple and pink purse because that's what's now fashionable.

Right? All that stuff converging. The algorithm is seeing all that and then providing what you want and selling somebody the opportunity to sell you those things at that time. You don't think the phone's listening to you necessarily. The phone's not listening to you. The NSA may be using the phone to listen to you. But Facebook isn't. Facebook doesn't have to; their algorithm knows where you're going to be before you even get there. It tracks everything you do. It's tracking everything you do. It's tracking everything your friends do, so it knows that this friend over here who you eventually buy everything they buy just bought this pink and purple purse, or just bought this Berkey water filter and they're going to tweet it and then you're going to end up talking to other friends about it. Because 10 of your friends saw that.

Scott:

If you are scrolling and you see a Berkey water filter ad. Or your friend posting on it and you hesitated, they've noted that. You hesitated over it. That's why, and you can literally see this in the Instagram app, that if you hesitate over something, you will see another video or another ad like that shortly thereafter.

Perpend:

Until you get to the 10th or the 20th time and then you say, oh, I see this all the time. It must be a good, right. This is Rene Girard, the word is mimetic. Basically, what it is, is it's your desire is based on somebody else putting value on it. That isn't your desire. His theory is that there are models or role models or influencers who are able to imbue an object or a thing with value. By their having it, they're wanting it and their desire for it. And that creates a desire for you because man is a creature who does not know what to desire and he turns to others in order to make up his mind.

We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires. And this ends up going into his whole thing on natural rivalry and scapegoats. Scapegoat is the person we've all agreed has caused a problem or is a problem so that we can relieve our current situation and we can collectively go after them. But that is set-based on them not having the same desires as us. Going after them in an aggressive way. Scapegoat. Or you make them the outcast. But if we perceive that we have the same desires as them, then we want what they want. We want what they have. What Renee Girard says is the fact that we are following this role model who imbued this object with value. We then desire the value, then our desires group us in together.

And then we automatically look for people that do not have the same desires to rid them out of the world as a scapegoat, because we can't let them into the system because they don't value what we value; then we can't work with them. They're already an outcast, but that allows us to go after them. And then our new object is to combine together and go after them. This is what NPCs are doing. They are displaying this behavior. An influencer buys a Porsche. Everybody now wants a Porsche. Not everybody can get a Porsche. You have conflicts, you have that. But that's what everybody wants. That becomes the thing to desire. And everybody's like, well what kind of car you get? I'm getting a Porsche. I want to get a Porsche. Can't afford a Porsche, so I'm going to go buy a Volkswagen. Because the Volkswagen is the poor man's Porsche . All those things. Right. The air-cooled engine, the whole, right now that is the being an NPC, you are just repeating the desires and the value hierarchy, hierarchy of your group. What you give your attention to is what becomes that model that you follow. This is what Cyprian is getting at with the Attention Economy. So to not be an NPC or to see when you are being an NPC, you have to know what it is you're desiring and where that desire originates from.

Scott:

So how do you do that? So how do you, should you be self-analyzing yourself to determine what your true motives or your true desires are? How do you do that without becoming neurotic?

Perpend:

Well, I don't think you can do that without becoming neurotic. I mean, we've all left a party and gone, why did I say that? Oh yeah. You don't really think that that, but I said that just to shut them up. But that was fed by the people you're following, by the people you're reading and by the input you're taking in controlling the inputs in controls your attention, where your attention is, that's where you're going to end up with your NPC behavior because, so you get back to the, using Twitter rather than letting Twitter use you. When you're pursuing Twitter as a form of entertainment or a way to numb from your hard day from work, you are not really consuming information. You are just filling your mind full of inputs and ideas from other people.

Everyone's now having the conversation. But we had this and this conversation started a while back. Then you either get in or you get out. And when you find yourself on those edges or starting to yell at somebody for no reason, you go, “wait, what am I doing?” That's where you get that realization. It's not in the constant self-analysis of, “Ooh, this person tweeted about spending the night watching the sunset”. I wonder what NPC behavior that's going to cause for me tomorrow.

That'll cause you to be schizophrenic. You're going to spin way out of control. The major way to stop just doing this is to have a grounded set of principles and Truth and live by them. And you need to find those points and keep those, and watch your inputs.

The other positive solution is to acknowledge you're going to serve something. Are you going to do it blindly? And then the other thing is to listen. Because the one thing in NPC can't do is really listen to people. They don't listen and respond to what they said. They listen and respond with what will get them: the heart, the tweet, the Like.

They can’t get off their Talking points. Or a perfect example is a politician. He won't get off of his talking points. He's an NPC.

A libertarian won't get off his talking points. You know, non-aggression principle, non-aggression principle, the NAP. And the agorist that won't get off of their talking points. Alternate economy, alternate economy.

Crypto guy that will not get off of his talking points with NFTs are going to solve everything. NFTs are going to fund everything. NFTs, NFTs, NFTs. And you go, HODL, HODL, HODL.

Scott:

HODL because its coming back up. It's going to be 150 K. Right?

Perpend:

Those are all NPC things. It's a response. The answer is always this, this, this. There is no objective thinking about, well, we have homeless people. Do they want to not be homeless? Because there's some that don't want to be homeless and there's some that want to be homeless. . You can help somebody that doesn't want to be homeless anymore, become not homeless. You can help the person that wants to continue to be homeless to have a better existence as a homeless person.

But if you try and get them into a house and a job and all that, it is not going to work to the question of “are you listening to what it is that they are saying? Or are you coming with your solution to cause it to happen?” This is John Heers “Backhoe” analogy. I don't remember what episode of Why Are We Talking About Rabbits (podcast). Americans are “backhoes”. They go dig holes. It's solution, solution, solution.

Scott:

So, but you said something interesting. While we were driving over here, we drove past a homeless camp where they're spilling over into the woods and you made an observation that was very interesting, the observation that it's become more and more acceptable to have homeless people around and it's somebody else's problem. You can fall into the right or the left on that, right?

Perpend

You can fall into “the government needs to fix that”. Or you can fall into “it's somebody else's problem”. You can fall into, “oh look, let’s honor the victim”. But most people don't think twice about it. Well, they do honor the victim. “I've not called the police on them”. . Where's the middle on that issue? The middle on that issue is to say, “okay, it's not really, it's in my sphere of concern.”

The current moment I'm in a car driving past, it's not in my sphere of control. I can't control whether there are homeless people. But when I do meet a homeless person or run into them or pass them on the street, I can choose to see them as a human and I can engage them as a human being. That's where you engage them as a creation of God.

People argue whether you should give money to the homeless or not. “Oh, well, they'll just spend it on this.”

Who did we hear not too long ago said, “why is that your problem?” You know, you're given an out, you are giving them money and they go buy a bottle of wine or a bottle of alcohol.

Do you have a hard to drink after a hard day? . There are people that do go have a drink. You know, they have a whiskey, they have a scotch. They have a, whatever it is, right? They have a couple beers. You could tell me that that homeless person hadn't had a hard day. Interesting point of view. I mean, you buy your friend a beer if he's had a hard day and talk to him. What's wrong with giving him money and then allowing him to choose where he's going to spend the money? It's a different worldview. It's a different function. It is an accepting that it's not your job to control other people. A very un-American thing to do. The American thing to do is to control other people, is to actually control their actions, to tell them their solution.

Scott:

Mm-hmm. To implement their solution for them. Let's take that to the next level. You know how many people, when you're start going into the suffering part now, your friend is having a hard time. He's telling you his problems. 90% of the people that are listening to the friend’s problems are going to be wanting to solve it, are going to give him solutions. They are already thinking of something while they're listening to him and they're not necessarily listening. They're not listening, and they're already avoiding suffering. “You would not be suffering if you just pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Just add another side hustle, add another side hustle.”