Comment by ganzuul
1 year ago
In the Matrix movie Neo took the blue pill or the red pill. Taking the red pill meant Neo woke up and saw the Matrix for what it was. IRL being "redpilled" then started to mean you constructed a new world model which was critical of power structures, which then turned into both misogyny and misandry and pretty soon people realized this world model they created had made them mentally ill. Then the realization that they had constructed a new Matrix, worse than the old, became the 'black pill'. IMO it's different from nihilism because of the self-awareness and inability to stop it from happening.
I usually think of "red pill" as "You learn some piece of information, the implications of which lead to your perception of the world expanding in a large and meaningful way that belies your earlier perception of the world and forces a reassessment of prior experiences".
I think of "black pill" as a GMO'd red pill designed to nudge the "learner" into a position of learned-helplessness.
Take a common aphorism around here: "99% of startups fail, so you shouldn't bother trying". The red pill is "failure is the most common modality for new ventures", but the attached advice makes it a black pill.
In a meta way, the linking of the term "red pill" to misogyny/misandry turned the red pill concept itself into a black pill (why bother seeking "red pills" if the "community" most identified with them is so disturbing?).