Happy Friday!
As someone who used to listen to his podcasts and actually enjoyed them I got to say.
I never agreed with everything he said, but I enjoyed how he presented the ideas and talked about them (he was a lecturer after all)
But then he went off the deep end, imo it happened to Chappell too. I’m guessing it’s because he got so much criticism from a very loud minority that he basically doubled down on the opposite as much as he could.
At that time, I stopped enjoying his stuff, why? Cause it was less about, let’s talk about this topic and explore a unique (and very possibly wrong) perspective; to more like, they are all against me and the world is insane and only people who agree with me are sane.
I don’t think it’s out of malice, I think it’s because of polarization but imo if he was smart enough he would know better.
There are many lecturers, profs out there talking expressively about various topics that they’re actually qualified in.
I think a better explanation might be that he’s always had core beliefs that lead him towards these conclusions, but didn’t have the freedom to express them when he didn’t have the clout to balance the backlash. Recall his fame started with his profound opposition to respecting alternative pronouns. I’ve heard him say disproven stuff that dovetails with his worldview in his psychology class with utmost confidence, prior to him getting on anyone’s radar. If he went the deep end as a result of the criticism, that wouldn’t explain his earlier problematic positions.
