Michael Malice’s ‘White Pill’ Comes With a Dark—and Personal—Vision of History
“For this [book], I think I was targeting Americans in their innocence,” Malice told Timcast in an interview. “Those who have some idea of what the evils of government are like don’t have a good understanding of what that entails, day to day, minute to minute. I also wanted to express to people, with receipts, why I am so hopeful for the future of this country.”
For those unfamiliar, there are essentially three “pills” available to those who are “blue-pilled,” a term which Malice applies to people who “have been trained to believe that anything that contradicts the corporate press’ narrative is thereby a conspiracy theory.”
The red pill offers an alternative to this malignant state of mind; an opportunity to wake up to the reality of the Matrix rather than roll over and go back to sleep.
“[It’s] the concept that what is presented as truth by the corporate press is in fact a carefully constructed narrative designed to keep some very unpleasant people in power,” Malice explained to author Douglas Murray on an Oct. 28, 2020 episode of the “YOUR WELCOME” podcast. “And that they do this not hypocritically, accidentally, [they do it] intentionally and by design.”
Malice cautions people to “take one red pill, not the whole bottle” lest one overdoses to the point where they become “black-pilled” and “abandon all hope.” The person who takes the black pill subscribes to the belief that “there’s no way the West can be saved given these current trajectories,” Malice told Murray.
But there is an antidote: the white pill, which Malice said offers hope that “the good guys will win, and even if we don’t win we sure better go down fighting. And the concept that the villains, who are our contemporaries, are impossible to defeat is an absurdity.”.." from the article: Michael Malice’s ‘White Pill’ Comes With a Dark—and Personal—Vision of History
"Michael Malice is the author of Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il and The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics, and organizer of The Anarchist Handbook. He is also the subject of the graphic novel Ego & Hubris, written by the late Harvey Pekar of American Splendor fame. He is the host of “YOUR WELCOME” with Michael Malice. Malice has co-authored books with several prominent personalities, including Made in America (the New York Times best selling autobiography of UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes), Concierge Confidential (one of NPR’s top 5 celebrity books of the year) and Black Man, White House (comedian D. L. Hughley’s satirical look at the Obama years, also a New York Times best seller). He is also the founding editor of “Overheard in New York.”.." from his website: michaelmalice.com
Michael Malice's new book: The White Pill | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips
Video from Lex Fridman
Below is the complete Podcast, I would encourage you to watch, it is 3 hours long.
Michael Malice: Christmas Special | Lex Fridman Podcast
Video from Lex Fridman
"OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 1:06 - Santa and the White Pill 4:00 - Marxism and Anarchism 19:18 - The case for socialism 23:28 - Human nature and ideology 31:50 - Cynicism 47:35 - Twitter 52:16 - October Revolution 55:26 - Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin 59:51 - Communism 1:23:38 - Suppression of speech 1:45:34 - Twitter Files 1:52:37 - Self-publishing 2:05:57 - Kulaks and starvation 2:43:12 - The Great Terror 2:51:30 - Lavrentiy Beria 2:57:55 - Joseph Stalin 3:06:30 - Iron Curtain 3:18:59 - Ideologies vs leaders 3:22:51 - Emma Goldman 3:27:11 - White pill moments 3:38:34 - Hope for the future' from video introduction
The Extremist Medicine Cabinet: A Guide to Online “Pills”
“Pills” feature prominently in the online chat rooms and forums dedicated to right-wing extremism. These are not actual pharmaceuticals; instead, each “pill” sends a message about a person’s level of dedication to an extremist ideology or cause. Are they just beginning to learn about an ideology, or have they progressed further to embrace a nihilistic, potentially violent mindset?
While online posts about “pills” can help outside audiences gauge individuals’ states of mind, they are primarily used as a shorthand within extremist groups’ internal conversations.
This shorthand is critically important, as today’s extremist movements largely operate online. From the incel movement to the alt right, many subcultures are born online, and members use the internet as their primary method of contact and radicalization. This means group “belonging” is demarcated by language and nomenclature rather than the uniforms and marches that defined earlier extremist groups. Earlier groups – and most subcultures in general -- maintained their own language to establish and solidify a sense of group belonging, but for some of these more recently established groups, coded language is vital. It’s used for everything from explaining how far one might be willing to go in the name of an extremist cause to weeding out interlopers and spies.
For the novice forum browser and researcher, these linguistic codes can be baffling to navigate, and for good reason: much of it is designed to confuse the uninitiated. Not only are the references often utterly opaque, they can also be wildly offensive, counter-intuitive and/or essentially meaningless.
This primer is meant to explain the fringe internet’s conspiratorial obsession with “pills,” widely used as a shorthand to identify one’s progress through radicalization, or to put it another way: a handy guide to how committed you are to a particular extremist ideology.
Most “pill” references harken back to the Red Pill, featured in the 1999 blockbuster movie “The Matrix,” in which Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, is offered a chance to see the world the way it really is.
Like many who find themselves drawn to fringe political ideas, Neo “feels something he can’t explain…that there’s something wrong with the world.” He is offered a choice: swallow the blue pill and remain in the world he knows, oblivious to the real truth, or take the red pill and finally see the *real* world.
What follows is a guide to the vast and confusing dispensary of virtual “pills” frequently referenced in extremist forums, chats and messages.
Note: Many of these pills have different meanings within different groups. It should also be noted that the term “redpilled” (it can be a noun, a verb and an adjective) can be completely innocuous. For the purposes of this explainer, we are examining the terminology primarily in its extremist context.
The Red Pill
The red pill is the most basic of pills, and it can refer to almost any kind of political awakening (and does not necessarily indicate a move towards extremism).
In posts about American political parties, the red pill generally refers to the GOP, while the blue pill is aligned with the Democratic Party.
For many, the red pill is just the first step in a longer journey. Being “redpilled” means shifting away from one set of beliefs to another set of (antithetical) beliefs. This can be as basic as a Democrat becoming a Republican, or as radical as someone coming to believe that Jews control the world or that feminism is destroying the West.." from the article: The Extremist Medicine Cabinet: A Guide to Online “Pills”
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