The Black Sheep

The most courageous actions of integrity are almost always the most unpopular. Until the status quo becomes showing courage and integrity, the status quo will be challenged by them.

@IntegrallyLLC @AndrewMayne 🖤

💡Will the disruption AI creates lead to a better future? Use Integrally to practice making strong arguments and debating on an anonymous platform that rewards high-integrity dialogue: bit.ly/FF2025AM 🎥Full interview: wetheblacksheep.com/p/this-artist-…

🔎 Banning AI = banning prosperity? Author and @OpenAI prompt engineer @AndrewMayne spoke with @SalomeSibonex about whether AI will do irreparable harm to job security, society, and the arts. He points to the difference between Hong Kong and India:

@Derridazs @SalomeSibonex Yep! Society if it was the norm to criticize your own "side."

@wtblacksheep @SalomeSibonex It always confuses my friends when they're reminded I still mostly vote D "why? You're always calling them out" Well dude, I call them out because all you guys do is all call out Rs, regardless of truth

This is the opposite of what makes someone a black sheep. Most people treat beliefs like social signaling/climbing tools; truth is a minor factor. Black sheep are the rare weirdos who care most about what's actually true. This often makes them an enemy of the majority.

🔗 The black sheep pattern and some of the people who embody it: wetheblacksheep.com/p/individuals-…

Individualism: 1) The belief in treating all people as the individuals they are, not as interchangeable representatives of a collective. 2) The foundation for inalienable individual rights vs “collective rights" given on the basis of group identity.

Carl Jung was not playing around when he wrote: “No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown allies will come and seek you.”

My heart and mind will always be with the weird hyper-rational thinkers whose curiosity makes the herd uncomfortable. So much good in this world comes from the hated weirdos who can’t stop asking questions and chasing the magic of insight.

The question is what those tribes are organized around and how. Race, religion, or dogmatism spread by force? Or values, principles, and shared ways of living spread organically because they're demonstrably effective?

More pundits and "public intellectuals" are letting their disagreements devolve into insults and emotional outbursts in place of reason and dialogue. It's incompatible with today's reality, where every idea is up for debate, whether we like it or not: wetheblacksheep.com/p/is-freaking-…

We don't need to gatekeep what disagreements are worth engaging rationally. We need to change how we see disagreement. The ideas you dislike won't disappear just because you dislike them:

@SalomeSibonex 🖤

Bret is one of the few people I’ve met in the political commentary world who’s remained grounded in far deeper values than tribe, careerism, or popularity. Unlike the people I’ve watched turn on their principles or on their own friends, insulting them or even wishing harm on people for understandable differences, Bret has always acted in the disciplined pursuit of truth, free inquiry, and dialogue. My respect for Bret isn’t primarily built off our shared beliefs, as we have many different views. My respect for him comes from our shared values—the fact that he’s one of the few people who really believes in talking out our differences and using reason to find what’s true together. My hope has taken hit after hit from watching people who claimed they once held these values now resort to tribalism, censorship, social ostracism, and pure hatred. And then I watch Bret face all of that x10 with curiosity, temperance, and dedication to truth-seeking above all. If more of us could manage our disagreements the way Bret does, we’d be a vastly more civilized society. Thank you Bret.

His name is Ignaz Semmelweis and he's one of the best examples of the black sheep pattern: People early to discover truth or a solution aren't primarily fighting ignorance. They're fighting a herd mentality that viciously hates any threat to the status quo—including the truth.

For more on this crowd’s unbelievable hypocrisy: open.substack.com/pub/wetheblack…

When you get past the fear of being wrong, the world opens up to you. Instead of being enslaved to your beliefs, you're free to question yourself, have good disagreements with anyone, and when need be, change. But first you need to get bored: wetheblacksheep.com/p/is-freaking-…

“We stand at a crossroads between a future that embraces the reality we’ve released from Pandora’s box and one that tries forcing it back in through violence and political tyranny.” —@SalomeSibonex 🔗 wetheblacksheep.com/p/is-freaking-…