10:30 - Mald joins
11:15 - Mald says "It's been rough" Then talks about the ferret deaths and Ghost, who recently died.
15:00 - Mald gets into the WoW roaching. Dr. K asks Mald to turn up is volume and Mald says he's maxed out on everything and even redlining, which is funny as Dr. K casually talking is notably louder than Mald who is almost eating the microphone.
17:00 - Mald is disingenuous about the situation and points out "There's people in chat being banned for [the WoW memes] right now."
18:40 - Mald says they've banned 50,000 people on Twitch for the WoW jokes and accusing him of being a pedo due to the old Second Life girl he visited years ago.
19:50 - Mald says you can't ignore things on the internet anymore and it goes away. Says if you fight it people think it means it's true and if you ignore it then you're hiding something.
20:40 - Claims people have tried to get him killed over this and received thousands of death threats.
23:30 - Dr. K wants clarification on the WoW roaching that resulted in the drama because he feels like the reaction is disproportionate to what Mald described earlier.
25:00 - Dr. K reiterates that it seems like there's something missing from Mald's explanation of events but emphasizes that he doesn't think some of the behavior against Mald is warranted.
26:35 - Dr. K says it sounds like Mald struck a nerve that really pissed people off and that it doesn't sound like the wipe itself is "the nerve that was struck.
Mald says it's because he was smug and that he shouldn't have made the smug comment but the response and crazy allegations against him don't make sense.
27:40 - Dr. K asks if Mald was smug live and if there was an aftermath eg spillover to Twitter.
28:10 - Dr. K asks what people were initially upset about.
Mald says they were mad that he was being smug and then the others in the guild took out of context clips to make Mald look bad to push a narrative and milk the situation for content. Then goes on to blame them for this spiral and talks about how their behavior of "cannibalizing other creators" is not sustainable and goes on about how he tried to be a good boy and supportive of the other streamers in the guild.
30:00 - Dr. K doesn't bite and says he's getting some "missing missing qualities." Funny bit here where Dr. K asks if Mald has heard the phrase before and Mald immediately replies "Yeah" then Dr. K asks if he knows what that means, "No."
As Dr. K begins to identify the qualities he's talking about, Mald interrupts and says he thinks it's because all of the events are so disconnected.
31:10 - Mald says one of the things that exacerbated things was that he said he began receiving death threats from other players and that he would report those people and "go after them" and people clipped that out of context saying he was going to go after other streamers.
Then he admits he reported some streamers for saying on stream that they were going to go to harass Mald's community and that this was "2 or 3 people."
Mald then says things on LSF are out of context and people will likely clip the Dr. K stream out of context to attack Mald.
32:40 - Dr. K says this is making sense for him on "two major levels" but he wants to pick his words carefully to avoid adding fuel to the fire and asks for more context.
33:15 - Mald resumes saying anytime anything happens with Onlyfangs, then he (Mald) gets blamed for it and cites the Blizzard DDoS which got some guild streamers killed and that Asmongold joked about Mald having been behind it.
34:30 - Mald says he's banning people constantly right now, as in mid-stream.
Dr. K asks what he's banning people for right now and Mald says it's for saying "roach" and "mana gem" and laments "It's been 100 days..."
35:00 - Dr. K asks how Mald understands that people keep showing up and he understands it happens frequently and that they should try to understand it.
Mald says, "I think it's become a popular thing. I think that's really what it is. It's become kind of like a signpost on the internet, like 'Hey stop by do this thing, cause it's funny.'... Some of them are chat hoppers from another community, from creators that don't like me from that event and have created negative content about me. So they're doing that and come over from that community and think that's part of it... Some people describe it as parasocial within the community but, to be real with you, I think it's just people that want to be a part of something. If that something is just hitting me then whatever."
36:45 - Dr. K asks if "this" is what they should talk about today and tells Mald that the thing he's concerned about is that he will challenge Mald in certain ways and is worried about it being taken out of context to be used as ammo against Mald.
Dr. K, "So we have to make a decision... I think there is a way that if we have this conversation it can actually decompress a lot of the emotional energy that's on the internet."
Mald says he's ok with talking about it because it doesn't change anything at this point.
38:20 - Mald mentions he sent a tweet to Khronos lol to send it to Dr. K. Khronos doesn't reply and Mald then asks his other mods if Khronos is around.
Mald is too busy on a stream with another streamer to send a DM to the guy he's talking to and doesn't even know if his paid janny is online.
40:35 - Dr. K says to let Mald know if it ever becomes too much while looking through one of Mald's old tweets about his narrative on the roaching.
-------------
44:00 - Dr. K says he thinks most people on the internet can agree that whatever happened in a hardcore raid doesn't warrant a death threat and that even if people think Mald is an asshole, the amount of psychological punishment that Mald has been subjected to is sufficient. Dr. K then stresses that people keep this in mind going forward especially with regard to clipping and that the hate is genuinely hurtful and Mald may not genuinely understand why the hate is still going on.
Mald says he understands the initial hate but not why thousands of people are still going on 100 days later. As Dr. K works on his stream setup, Mald says he's currently being dogpiled right now.
47:30 - Dr. K begins writing on his iPad and also says his primary goal is to help Mald understand the gap between what happened to Mald and the response Mald received.
52:40 - Dr. K, "You've tapped into something that people really don't like."
54:40 - Mald says he thinks the haters treat it like wrestling and that it isn't real.
55:20 - Mald explains that some of the frustration is he's not at the wheel and has no control of things.
56:00 - Dr. K asks if Mald knows or has heard of people who get accused of things who say they didn't do that thing but others insist they did do that thing.
Mald: "Yeah it's called every day that ends in 'y' on the internet."
Dr. K: "What about things that are not on the internet?"
Mald: "I don't know, that seems like a pretty normal thing for humans."
Dr. K: "Yeah, so has there ever been someone in your life that you felt had done something and you were really confident that they had done something and they were like, 'That's not really how that happened?'
Mald: "I was confident- Like I've felt that before in my life, yeah. Then I either want proof or not proof. If I don't have enough proof then I'm not gonna- What am I gonna be mad about at that point? I guess is the basic way that I feel about that... If I have an accusation about somebody then I'm gonna be like 'Hey this is how I feel about this.' and then they go, 'Hey here is evidence to the contrary.' and then we talk it out. I think when I was younger I was a lot worst at that, obviously. That's something I think you learn over time is how to conflict... resolve? In a way that is sane, if that makes sense.
Dr. K: "Ok. Yeah so.. 'Is sane.'
Mald: "When I say 'Is sane' I mean more like, conflict resolve based on things that are provable or not provable, not just gut feelings."
Dr. K: "Right, I'm with you. And how does that work out?"
Mald: "Well, When I'm talking to people who are older it's fine."
"I find that for me that there's very few people that can have conversations like that. There are still ones that will but I find like usually people past their mid-20s is when they start to be able to do conflict resolution better. And want more of a 'trust but verify' kind of approach which is like, 'I trust that you're telling the truth from your perspective but I need to verify your claim before I get mad."
Dr K then wants to tunnel down on this and goes back over it, saying what Mald meant with his words. How Mald is effectively saying people who he doesn't like talking to are immature.
59:40 - Dr. K asks Mald what he thinks are the most rational reasons for people being upset with him regarding the OnlyFangs roach drama.
Mald says it's because he was smug and people saw clips out of context that made him look like a big villain and no one was willing to talk to him.
Dr. K asks how he knows they formed their opinions based on those clips.
Mald says it's because "they" repeat verbatim what is from the LSF clips on Reddit and that it's copied and pasted. Someone in chat even asks, "Could you have done more in your retreat" and Mald reacts to it live.
For posterity, this is a blatant lie.
1:02:00 - Dr. K says he thinks he's noticed some blind spots Mald has and narratives he's constructed. As Dr. K is saying this, Mald interrupts...
Mald: "It's because I'm nervous about talking about it to be clear. Like it's a defense mechanism entirely because of the fact that this has been going on for so long, it involves all of my staff, it involves my family, it involves my general well being, it involves my physical security at events, it involves all of that stuff and it makes me nervous to talk about it so it's hard to articulate at a time like that without... I don't know, it's just hard to articulate."
Dr. K: "Ok so that begs two questions. One important one, which is are you sure we should be talking about."
Mald: "Well I mean it's already too late."
Dr. K: "No it's not. It's not too late, we can stop right this second."
Mald: "I would rather talk about that and the reason why is because I find- and this is a very serious part. I find that if you don't talk about this, it's not going to help other people. Like I get it, I'm going through it right now, but this is something I think needs to be talked about because the amount of hate and abuse that's going on from this isn't just going to happen to me."
Dr. K: "Ok. I agree, I think that you are pretty unlucky here but I think that you are the unlucky person who has tapped into something very fundamental in human psychology that has like triggered the shit out of people."
Mald: "Likely yeah."
1:05:00 - Dr. K says Mald provides a logical reason that is "compassion inducing" and says what Mald said isn't challengeable. Dr. K asks how the fear for Mald's physical wellbeing is challengeable and Mald says, "It's not."
Dr. K: "I think what you are doing is something that is- I don't know what word to use, has a negative valence to it. You're doing something that's bad and the way that you respond to it makes it unchallengeable."
Mald: "What about that is negative?"
Dr. K: "Excellent question! So now we get to something really interesting about human psychology. So if I'm pissed at you and you take away my reason to be pissed at you, what do I do?"
Mald: "You get pissed, more pissed."
Dr. K: "So how-"
Mald: "So you're saying that basically it's created a bunch of anger. And then by having a situation and talking about it and showing like 'Hey this is what's going on.' it's created a scenario where people are more angry because they don't have a vent and way of getting it out."
Dr. K: "There is something that you're deflecting that then triggers people to like... because they're not getting what they want from you. Does that make sense?"
Mald: "Yes"
Dr. K: "So now the question kind of becomes, like I don't know if this sort of make senses but I think when I hear your story, what I hear is- and this is what is so tricky about it. Everything you've said is logical because you've kind of based things on proof, right? But I'm noticing that like, the way you accept responsibility is like 1% of what your narrative is. So you say that you were smug, right?"
Mald: "Yeah I was super smug about it."
Dr. K: "And I think that that feels like a tiny, tiny, tiny part of your narrative."
Mald: "I think that's only a tiny part of the narrative because it's the flashpoint. It's the moment that started it. So it's hard to make that larger in the story."
Dr. K: "I think it sounds to me like- Now I'm going to say something that's like... I don't know what better word to say. I think it's not the flashpoint, I think it's the fuel."
Mald: "Ok... so you think that was the catalyst for something else."
Dr. K: "I think you've- This sounds judgmental but I think the way you responded in that moment... So you said early, early, early on you made some kind of like joke, right? Where someone said 'Run' and then you said, 'I don't want to piss them off so I'm going to make a joke instead of saying Bro I ran because you told me to run.' So I think there's little things that you're doing that- So if I made the call to run and then you ran and then I was like 'Bro why are you running' and then you say, 'You made the call to run.' How is that- Why would you not say that? Right, like the reason I'm doing this is because I was listening to you.
Mald: "Legitimately, that's the one thing- and I've talked about this before, is if I would have just turned around and been like, 'You told us to.' If I would have just said that then I feel like this whole thing would not have been like this."
Dr. K: "I agree. So I feel like the interesting thing here is I suspect that there are a dozen other things like that. So just the way that your narrative sounds to me, and let me know if this is rubbing you the wrong way or like you think I'm an asshole-"
Mald: "No. I don't think you're an asshole."
Dr. K: "Please let me know. But I think something about this story has something I would call the missing missing reasons."
Mald: "I think for me it's whatever it is is a blind spot. Because for me I'm just like, 'This was me being smug and it exploded out of control.' And for me on this side it just feels like a lot of content creators leaped onto it because it got popular to talk about, it became kind of like an 'it' issue and it just kind of went nuts."
Dr. K: "I want you to just pay attention to that for a second because you're doing it again. Why did this blow up?"
Mald: "Because... I was... smug? I don't understand what you're trying to say."
Dr. K: "No. Why did it amplify? Who is to blame for the amplification?"
Mald: "The amplification I can generally say is Reddit and other content creators. Like I feel very steadfast in that opinion on that. I don't think it would have reached the audience that it did or become as large as it was on the internet without that. You're talking over a hundred thousand viewers worth of people."
Dr. K: "Yeah! So that I think is 100% true and... is indicative of what the problem is. Right? Because what happens- What I'm noticing that you're doing, every step of the way is like, you made one tiny mistake but the way that you are reacting... I don't think a fire can get this big without a content creator's interaction. And the way that you are responding to each of these situation is only fanning the flames."
Mald is visibly confused.
Dr. K: "You're saying this right, like, you've 'tried everything.'"
Mald: "Yeah I've tried doing nothing."
Dr. K: "You've tried doing nothing, you've tried doing everything and nothing seems to be working. I know it seems like nothing is working but if you are consistently getting the same result and you are altering certain variables... In that equation what that implies is that there is one variable that is not being altered."
Mald: "Yeah and that's why I look to the outside source."
Dr. K: Shaking his head, "The outside source is relatively consistent because people go through drama all the time. Maybe this is a leopards ate my face moment, maybe this is a moment where I can say this now and a month from now when I'm in your position I'm going to be like 'Holy shit was I wrong.' Right? Like maybe... maybe this is not the way. But your whole point is that the amount of hatred that you're receiving is disproportionate not only to what you did but is even outside of the norm of what other content creators experience."
Mald: "Yes."
Dr. K: "Like I've been through shit. I've had people get on my case and stuff like that and then stuff usually calms down. Right?"
Mald: "Yeah-"
Dr. K: "Most of us [content creators] we all get these kinds of problems where people are really mean to us. No snowflake thinks it's responsible for the avalanche. But what I see is a guy that- Everyone thinks they're snowflakes and you're getting swamped by an avalanche. They don't understand that. I think that people on the internet don't know how to understand it until you're on the receiving end of hate from thousands upon tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands and people who are just piling on once the bully starts kicking you when you're down and the internet is like a thousand other people who are going to get in a lick because it feels good."
Mald: "Yeah."
Dr. K: "And I think that you're doing something that is absolutely hitting a trigger point and I suspect what you're getting into, just the way that you describe things is very much like, 'I did this tiny thing and then all of this stuff is happening to me that I don't have any influence over. And objectively these people are wrong. Objectively I am correct.' And when someone does that and says, 'I am objectively right and you are objectively wrong, this is not what happened. This is what really happened and by the way all of this shit is happening to me now.' It's like a very... you kinda get what I'm saying? I'm trying very hard not to say certain words."
Mald: "I don't see it that way, though."
Dr. K: "I know you don't."
Mald: "I don't see it as an objective this objective that. I see it as- it's more of a deep emotional response from people who don't care about me or they don't care about resolving the situation. They want it to continue in some way... and like I get it but I don't want to be a part of your story. Hahaha"
Dr. K: "Right. So I think that's what's fueling the flames. You don't see it that way."
Mald: "Yeah... okay... I don't know how that would... Why would you care for so long?"
Dr. K: "We'll get to that in a second. I think that this is another thing, you're thinking of it a lot... Okay so we're going to talk about something called mentalization ok? So when you imagine what is going on in someone else's head, I don't think you are doing a- Nothing you're saying is incorrect but I think everything you're saying is incomplete. So you're saying there's a parasocial aspect, like you're completely right, you're right about everything you're saying, I just think the main mistake, if you can call it that... The cognitive process that is really getting you in trouble is incompleteness."
Mald: "I don't understand..."
Dr. K: "I know. I know- I'm like 99% confident that this is going to be very hard and I think this is why you're in this situaton."
1:16:00 - Mald begins defending himself preemptively and Dr. K gets in front of it and boosts his ego.
1:17:45 -
Dr. K: "I think you project exceptionalism."
1:18:00 -
Dr. K: "I think that there's something about the way that you construct narratives. There's something about the way that you are objective but other people are subjective. How do you know that you're not the subjective one and they're not the objective ones?"
Mald: "I absolutely am subjective. I don't think that that's the case at all, there's no way that everything I say is objective. There's no way, that's abusrd." (Funny way to answer that)
Dr. K: "And if we go back and listen to the conversation we've had from now... Would we be able to predict that that's the way that you feel about yourself based on how you've been talking?"
Mald: "I don't know."
Dr. K: "I think the answer is going to be 'No.' Right? So when I ask you, 'Why do they feel this way. How do you know that they're wrong?', you say, 'Well objectively you rely on proof.' and if you're dealing with people who are mature enough then they understand that but if they're people that are younger than you then that means that they don't- these young kids nowadays are not proof oriented. There's parasocial-"
Mald: "Yeah!"
Then Mald tries to get ahead of Dr. K and say it's a defense mechanism 100%.
1:22:10 - Mald: "I don't think I'm better than other people, I do think that- It's funny because you key in on that.. there's a lot of people who brought that up. It's like, I never said that I was. You'll see there's a number of people in [chat] that are in there getting like banned for this shit right now. They come in there like, 'Did you know that he worked for Blizzard for 7 years???' Like yeah, that was my career and I'm proud of that. So of course I'm going to talk about that because it gives context to talk about other things around the games industry, which is what we do on the stream.
So I think sometimes the things that I talk about in regards to those types of things is misconstrued as arrogance or boasting, when in reality I'm just trying to give context."
Dr. K: "So that is the problem right there! So I want you to listen to this phrase, 'This gets misconstrued as arrogance but in reality it's this...' That is the most arrogant statement on the planet bro, like tell me I'm wrong."
Mald: Dumbfounded, "Ok... I don't see it that way but alright."
Dr. K then breaks it down further but doesn't get through to Mald.
1:27:00 -
Dr. K: "If we say that someone is insane, we're not saying that they are subjectively insane, we're saying that they're objectively-... Those words are about an objective dimension."
1:28:50 -
Dr. K: "This sounds arrogant but I'm going to say it. So it's clear to me you have blind splots about this. Because something about the way you are navigating, you have a rubric for how you interact with people and something about that rubric is fucking triggering people."
Mald: scoffs
Dr. K: "So how did you feel when I said that?"
Mald: "I thought it was funny because like, it's like.. I guess for me it's a... kind of a dumbing down of the scenario. Of like, yeah it's just triggering people but... it's so much more than that but yeah."
1:31:00 - Mald talks about some people are not interested in a resolution but then goes on to demonstrate arrogance all over again with zero self awareness.
Mald: "When they can't get me, it makes them angrier. When they can't hurt me, it makes them angrier. When they can't do anything about it, when they can't shut down the stream, it makes them angrier. We get tons of people that will come in and say things like 'People still watch this guy?' and it's like, yeah... we still have a massive community."
1:36:00 - Dr. K says there's something about Mald's smugness and how he perceives himself as ordinary but acts "anything but." Mald locks up on this and Dr. K begins saying that Mald is exceptional and is not ordinary.
1:38:00 - Dr. K begins to say that no one can be perfectly objective as that isn't how our minds work but it's something Mald focuses on which is a mistake. Mald interjects...
Mald: "I do think there is an objective reality. And I do think that there is something in value in striving for in many situations, because something I don't like is 'perception is reality' and I know that perception is reality for the grand majority of situations. It has nothing to do with the objective reality of what is truth of the situation, what actually has occurred or anything like that. It's 'how do I feel' about what has occurred... And that's something I've always felt, and that's kind of like a big thing for me."
Dr. K: "Great! I love it. I'd love to talk about that with you, maybe today..."
1:40:00 - Dr. K tells Mald that his defensive reflex is counter productive and he should listen more than talk instead of jumping to defend himself constantly.
1:42:00 - Dr. K brings up narcissism and Mald struggles to understand his example.
1:46:00 - Mald continues not understanding, saying he's always had problems with trying to be direct but people think he's being evasive. I don't think he recognizes how those are total opposites and if it's been an issue his whole life then he's the common denominator, not everyone else. He's being evasive, not direct when he says this.
1:50:30 - Dr. K talks about how the internet likes dogpiling and Mald is guilty of this as well.
1:50:50 -
Dr. K: "...you will dumb down your flaws to one word but you will extrapolate and hypothesize other people's flaws to the n-th degree."
Mald: "I don't think that is a fair assessment, personally."
Dr. K: "Ok."
Mald: "I don't feel that's a fair asessment because I don't feel like I do that to people? When I'm talking about, 'Hey these are all the things that came after this' that's because this has gone- the moment was like a day. The attacks have been a hundred days. There's so much more content to talk about in terms of how much negativity there is."
Dr. K: "I rescind my statement... so I accept that there is.. ok so here's how I would modify it. So I think you're right, I take that back. And I think the perception from my end is still the same. Right? So we heard a long story from you, even if it's congruent with reality, one word of what you did wrong, 'Smug', and then 99 words of what other people did wrong. Even if it's correct! I'll agree that it's correct. My point is that when a human being shows up and says, 'I did one tiny thing wrong and everyone else did 99 things wrong,' the reception that they're going to receive is not going to be pleasant.
Mald: ... ... "The thing is I don't know if that's always the case."
Mald then goes on to say he's giving context when he does that and he doesn't always do that, either.
1:57:00 - Dr. K says that the more people are attacked, the more they subconsciously defend.
Dr. K: "When we are attacked someone, and this is true of all streamers because we get attacked a lot. Our narcissistic defense must compensate, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I'm not calling you a raging narcissist, please no one take that away."
Mald: "Oh they will."
Dr. K: "I know they will and that's why I'm going to call attention to it."
1:59:00 - Dr. K says that the way Mald talks comes across as very much, "I'm objective; other people are subjective."
Dr. K: "I think it's very prevalent in the way that you talk. The really tricky thing there, and I have to acknowledge this, is that it's not clear whether that is actually what's in your head or that is just the way that it comes across because it absolutely comes across that way. So when I said you owned up to this one thing and then you talked about all this other bad stuff that happened to you and you're like, 'Objectively, I disagree. I did this one thing..." and you have like fifty thousand people... and I was like, 'Okay you know what? You're right." But! Even though you're right, what people are going to hear, their limbic circuits of the brain, are going to hear, 'Yeah I was smug and all this shit happened to me and it's not my fault.' That's what people are going to hear and when people hear that-"
Mald: "Dude... dude that's weird for me.... Legitimately. Cuz like, from my perspective, I'm like, 'Hey I screwed this up, here's how this went down, here's my perspective on it.' and then the response is, 'You didn't take any accountability, you're a piece of shit, why won't you just say it?' And I'm like 'What?? That doesn't make sense to me.' Like for me that's such a disconnect in those two conversations."
2:02:00 - After Dr. K says it is best to understand why people are upset (more or less) before getting defensive, which is difficult to do, Mald lies and says people just wanted to attack him, completely missing Dr. K's point.
Dr. K: "So... I think that there's two things that I hear there. One is once again, this pattern of 'The more I do something right, the more wrong someone appears to be.' Right? So I tried to listen to them, they became unhinged, they became more unbending. So that can absolutely be the case, but do you see how this is another scenario where you behaved correctly and someone else behaved incorrectly?"
Mald: "I feel like that is an incorrect response because the first thing that will be brought up is they always say, 'You didn't accept any blame.' and I go, 'Here's this post where I said-'
Dr. K: "No no no... what did you hear me say?"
Mald: Thinks about it. "Maybe I misunderstood."
Dr. K: "Yeah. Your statement was, 'I tried to listen to people and they became more unhinged.'"
Mald: "Yeah, I would say that. I think the people that are still-"
Dr. K: "Don't worry about the people! Code... Look at the grammar of that sentence. 'I did something right. They did something wrong.'"
Mald cannot compute. Dr. K tells him to try to process it and stop reading chat.
2:07:30 -
Dr. K: "There's a certain kind of accountability that people are looking from you that you're not givin them."
Mald: Wide eyed and confused, "What is it?"
2:16:00 -
Dr. K: "Let's assume for a moment that you are a narcissist."
Mald: Chuckling, "That's gonna get clipped."
...
...
Dr. K: "If I listen to you... Are you someone who is objective, who has done like all the, like is your representation thorough and objective? Or... is this the construction of a narcissistic mind that's just defending itself and things like that?"
Mald: "The problem that leads into is that goes down to, 'Are you willing to have a conversation with me or do you just want to believe the narrative that you already want to believe?'"
Dr. K: "Agree 100%. That's why you're fucked bro, because the internet- like 90% of the internet is not interested in having conversations..."
...
...
Dr. K: "I do think there's a lot of weird stuff going on with you, too. But like that's parasocial and stuff like that-"
Mald: "The thing though, legitimately dude, is we've built up a community of specifically people that have conversations about things. That's why, after all of this, we're still sitting at like 6 to 10 thousand people on a daily basis. That doesn't happen in a situation that is- like I meticulously made sure that we had a community where we could talk aboust stuff on a logical basis and try to work things out outside of that, and I've bene pushing that on this channel for 8 years. And I don't think I'd have a community if I built one that was based on instant emotional reaction because they'd be like, 'Ahh he's a piece of shit..."
2:18:50 -
Dr. K: "Assume for a moment that you're a narcissist and think about, 'If I'm narcissistic, what would I be missing?'
...
So I recently had an interpersonal conflict where I felt hurt by someone I'm close to, okay? And as I was thinking through all the things that this person has done wrong to me, I stopped for a second and I was like, 'Am I just being a little bitch? Am I- Like is this genuine? Is this fair?' What are all of the counter examples... am I just glossing over all of the stuff that they do right; am I ignoring all of the stuff that I do wrong? Am I ignoring- When this person lets me down, what is my contribution to this system in which I am disappointed?"
Mald: "Okay, that seems normal to me though, that reaction."
Dr. K: "Okay good. Yeah. So I think a lot of times when we feel hurt, we're not- we don't do that."
Mald: "No, that's the first-... Yeah."
Dr. K: "Okay cool! I think that's great, I mean if you're already doing that that's awesome. Then I think the main thing then that I would encourage you to really think about is the disconnect and 'What is the variable in there?' And what I would strongly encourage that you do is, that variable is going to be divided into two portions. One is the amplification, the disconnect, the question mark of this situation... Do you understand what I'm saying or not really?"
Mald: "Yeah. I mean.... I'm kind of understanding but I think... ... It's hard for me to understand how I'm supposed to respond to that if the requirement for the response is, 'You need to make it incomplete and dumb it down and handwave it.' because that makes me feel like I'm just lying to people."
Dr. K: "No no no. I think your response to when I said, 'What do you think about that?' your response to that kind of won me over. I don't think you should do that. So now what we're talking about is for anyone in a situation where I behave in a certain way, the world responds to me in this way (big gap) and there's a gap between these two things. This is the scenario that I'm talking about. So in that scenario, what's the question mark? What's the amplifier?
So there are certain things that we can attribute to things outside of you. So people have parasocial relationships, people are projecting, people don't like me, whatever. Like, people are upset they... whatever. There's all the stuff that they do and then there's all the stuff that you do. And this is where I think it's hard but I think a really good example of what came out of today, which hopefully feels okay to you, is 'When I'm direct, other people feel I'm evasive.' Those are the kinds of nuggets that I have seen transform lives and literally save marriages."
Mald: "It's just funny, because I've had effectively the same conversation with my moderation team. Was like... I used the same terminology as like, 'That feels like idiocracy', 'I don't feel like dumbing down my language' and just being dishonest about it to handwave it and make sense. I feel greasy doing that. I don't know how else to describe that."
Dr. K: "Are you hearing me talking about dumbing things down at this point?"
Mald: "When I say dumbing things down mean like, the idea of like, 'Oh my bad bro." and just kind of leave it like that... That doesn't make sense..."
Dr. K: "What are you hearing me say to you right now?"
Mald: "Of .. a way to resolve the language of... You know I feel like I'm being objective, they feel like I'm being evasive. To me it comes across as I'm overexplaining. I'm giving too much context. I'm making this scenario of myself as a player within that rather than 'This is what I did and that's it.' and we walk away."
Dr. K explains that Mald needs to get off of the dumbing things down idea and be authentic and understand how he's perceived. "There's literally something about the way that you talk where... there's a theme of what feels like a lack of accountability from a listener's perspective." Mald shakes his head, unable to comprehend this. "That doesn't give me a lot of tools, right...?"
2:26:30 -
Dr. K: "You ready for the mindfuck?"
Mald: "Sure."
Dr. K: "You said that what you put out, people will try to find the chink in the armor, right?"
Mald: "They're going to do it anyway but yeah."
Dr. K: "No. They're not going to do it anyway, the way that you put things out makes them want to find the chink in your armor."
Mald: "That doesn't make sense."
Dr. K: "I know."
Mald: "... That sounds, to me, sounds obsessive. It's... I need- There's a necessity to find a problem when there isn't one."
Dr. K: "No. I think you're missing the point. The way that you communicate information, the way that you speak, makes people want to find the chink in the armor."
Mald: Slight confused expression
Dr. K: "Yeah... I know. It's hard man, it's wild, it's crazy. I'm with you. Right? So I'm with you. So there's something that you're doing that from a logical perspective makes perfect sense. The emotional energy of your words- and I'm not right about this, I could be wrong, but I really suspect that this is where the money is. Where something about the way that you present yourself, which by the way went away when you got pissed off about when I was like, 'What do you think about just doing a mea culpa?' and you're like, 'FUCK THAT!' I was in your corner- (Mald interrupts) But but... here's the thing- (Mald interrupts)
Mald: "So what you need is you need more of an emotional interaction?"
Dr. K: "Because why do I want to poke you in the armor? Because of your logic? No! Because of your emotions. That reflex, this is what you gotta understand Thor, that reflex comes from the emotional energy that you're sending and the emotional energy that they're receiving. Now this gets more complicated because you are right that this is an unsolvable problem. Because there's only so much that you can do in this situation, that at the end of the day there are going to be people on the internet that are just there to meme, that are just there to make your life worse, that have little lives where they feel frustrated and then they look at a punching bag and they say, 'Hey, I'm going to punch this person- I'm going to knock this person down a peg.' And the tragedy there is that they don't truly have little lives, they truly have far greater lives than they- the potential of far greater lives if they stopped spending all of their cognitive emotional energy trying to knock some random fucking guy on the internet down a peg."
Mald: "That's kind of the full crux of the thesis of all the things I try to do on the internet. That's why I do all- That aspiration that you put there, that's why I do the stuff that I'm doing. That's why I genuinely run game jams and all that shit. It's because this shit is a waste of fucking time, it is the same reason that I have a short up it's like 'Stop looking at shorts, go the fuck outside.' and I know that that sounds... like self inflationary, like self aggrandizing, but dude the internet is a fucking mistake for a lot of people."
Dr. K: "Now we get to it! You said, 'I know it sounds that way,' it doesn't sound that way."
Mald: "I think it does. When I say it sounds that way, it sounds that way to me."
Dr. K: "But it doesn't sound that way to me."
Mald: "That's ridiculous to me. I don't know what the fuck to do with that."
Dr. K: "Yes, I know it's ridiculous. I know it's hard. So here's the point: The words, if I were to write them down and we said, 'Hey is this person arrogant?' 'Maybe,' would be the answer that you would get. The emotional energy that you add to that doesn't make it come across as arrogant at all, it makes it come acr- (stopping himself) For me. I get inspired by that, I believe that, that sounds believable to me-
Mald: "The perception disconnect is when I talk about a situation while removing the emotion from it, when to me that sounds like the most logical way to communicate. And the most not- the most objective way to communicate which seems like it would be the best way for people to understand the scenario fully. And that's the most disconnected for other people because they- it makes them feel like I'm being evasive."
Dr. K: "I think that that is one step in the right direction for you... And that's because human beings are not logical communicators. We are emotional communicators. Right? So I think that the energy that you add to the equation, like, matters a lot. And what you're trying to remove- It sort of makes sense right? Because you have a strategy, you're like- you've got a particular strategic approach and that's what got you to where you are. And I know you've tried a lot but this like fundamental thing, I don't think... I don't think THIS has changed over the whole course of this. And I think the really hard thing is I don't know that it needs to change because I think that part of what makes you who are you, part of what makes you valuable, part of what attracts the community- because there are a lot of people out there who think like you. Who are tired of emotional communication. Who have people in their lives where you're like, 'Look this is the reality of the situation....'" (Cut as it's a long example. 2:32:00 for reference"
2:38:00 - Dr. K begins to wrap it up with Mald and Mald shows he hasn't understood any of Dr. K's major points. Dr. K tries to summarize it once more and Mald dismisses it as "comfortable" and "easier to process" and that he feels it's manipulative. "I could do that, but that's not how I am." "I hate that, I really hate that."
2:45:00 - Mald talks about Keemstar, saying Keem has a tough job and he doesn't envy it.
2:48:00 - Dr. K and Mald are talking about slop content. Dr. K admits he's kind of jealous how well slop performs and Mald agrees. Dr. K proceeds to unwittingly(?) describe Mald as slop.
Dr. K: "So there are people and it's interesting right? So like, game recognizes game and one of the interesting things about being someone who is arguably knowledgeable in a couple of fields is, I see how easy it is to be successful when you actually don't know what you're talking. So like in the wellness, medicine, self help space, there are a lot of people who will talk about science and... but there's a big difference between a scientific paper and the implementation of like a clinical intervention. And so a big thing that I see a lot, especially in the wellness space, is people will talk about dopamine detoxes and stuff like that... There's actually no data behind any of that stuff. They're like, 'I did a dopamine detox for ten days and here's how it changed my life.'"
Mald: "That makes a good story."
- Dr. K talks about accusations towards his channel about being "money oriented" which develops into Mald talking about business in general and non-profits.
2:56:30: - Mald mentions his favorite "left hand/right hand" remark as to why he doesn't do a non-profit.
"With the rescue I intentionally did not make it a charity. Like, I was like, 'I'm not doing that.' Because the first thing, and I talked to people, I was like, 'Hey we're thinking about starting a rescue.' First thing that showed up in chat is, 'Oh you're just going to try and take a tax break.' And I was like, 'That's valid. I'm going to look into this more.' And I was like, I don't want to take money from my left hand and put it in my right hand and be like, 'I'm not paying taxes on that.' Like, that's fucking weird, right? Because it's still technically all, it's all the same thing, we're all just meeting the same objective. So I just made it part of the business and now I can just pay employees and do the whole thing, and like, yeah ferret rescue makes money, it does. The ad revenue off of that allows me to hire people to run a rescue and pay for their medical and pay for their food and that's not small."
I can't find anything that says non-profits can't benefit from ad revenue and I doubt this was a sincere factor.
2:59:00 - Dr. K wraps it up and Mald says this all made sense to him then gets preachy and smug.
3:01:30 - Dr. K is on his own with chat.
3:04:00 - Dr. K acknowledges some of the viewers' disappointment with a lack of a climax and says that wasn't the point of the stream. He says he doesn't think the climax he wants is possible and that if he pushed for it, it wouldn't be helpful for anybody.
3:08:00 - "So what I heard in Thor's story today was 'missing missing reasons.' 'I was smug and then all of this stuff happened,' there's a disconnect there. And this happens to all of us, right? When someone does something mean to us, we say, 'Oh my god! This came out of nowhere. I can't believe they did this. This is unfair!' We say this stuff all the time, like we see it all the time. 'I was banned unfairly from the subreddit! I was banned from the Discord! This is unfair!' Happens all the time. 'I got banned from chat.' And so like, in your life, this is the important thing, right? So like why do we have these conversations? It's like- Who knows what really happened? I don't know, I don't know what's appropriate, I don't know what's inappropriate. I think death threats are too much. I really, really, really doubt that Thor has done anything to warrant the amount of psychological suffering that he's gone through. And a lot of the reason that people don't realize, when you're one person posting in chat, once again the snowflake doesn't feel responsible for the avalanche. ..."
3:10:10 - "I think there's disconnects. I think some of this stuff- Kinda like- We got to a couple of them, right? One is like, 'I'm trying to be logical but it's not working in the right way.' And if you experience that, then I think you need to reevaluate- and this is why it's so hard because it feels so counterintuitive. 'I'm being direct. I don't want to be emotionally manipulative. I think I am doing the right thing.' Now when you think you are doing the right thing and other people think you are doing the wrong thing, that is when you'll see this kind of escalation. And so, the key thing that's missing is... the key thing that we're missing here is feedback. And it sounds like Thor did his best there too. Where you like have to like talk to people but the problem is like when you're dealing with trolls on the internet, talking to them doesn't work. So it's kind of like, in a regular human society, we have one option to resolve things like this, which is communicating directly with the person who ha a problem with us. Now we have a real problem because that is not an option in today's world, it becomes way harder to do. Because people are just gonna show up, they just want you to be wrong, they don't care. The last thing they wanna do is show up and they be wrong. When you try to communicate with one of your haters... What is the likelihood that even if they're wrong, that they're going to apologize to you? Very low. When yall deal with people who are mad at you, how often do they apologize? Interestingly enough, the more wrong they are, the more you point it out to them, the more their psychological defense mechanisms get triggered and the more they dig their heels in. How is this guy supposed to win?"
