Reddit reviews Becoming a Barbarian

This post is contradictory, or at least a bit inaccurate. Potentially harmful, too (to a total newbie).

What is the definition of a nice guy?

• There's certainly the whiny little bitch who uses "niceness" as a way of manipulating other people into his fairy tales (as opposed to growing a pair of balls and taking what they want and/or saying it upfront, as it is). Once rejected, they throw emotional tantrums as the little kiddies they are. I would know, as I used to be (and still am, to an extent) this kind of a guy.
  
  
• There may be a more mature version of a nice guy - one who got burned in the past. They may recognize that altruism is the most beneficial strategy for humans as a whole; and yet, they know human nature - so they save altruism for those who are worthy. Either that, or they remain giving without an expectation of reciprocity, retaining their inner peace (but that is not a nice guy - that is a saint).
  
  Nice guys don't get nice things. Nice guys get shit on. What you are demonstrating is a change of attitude (seriously, good for you, as attitude is everything).
  
  I may not be expressing myself clearly here. That is because the subject is complex, and there are multiple layers of meaning to it. For example, on some level, you are a killer (unless you believe that meat grows on the shelves of supermarkets), and aggression is a means of self-preservation. The self-consuming rage of the frustrated nice guy may have something to do with rejecting these primal layers of his nature.
  
  Women's sexual preference has evolutionary subtext to it. This is because in pre-civilization days, nice guys didn't finish last. They finished dead in a ditch. Mating in today's world has, however, turned into charade - gym bros passing as highly fit males, no tigers to thin the herd of weaklings, etc.
  
  Then there's the civilization layer. Cooperation really is the best strategy there... but this goes against the evolutionary hard-wiring of humans. Many just "can't help it". Civilizations crumble as selfish behaviors infiltrate various institutions of the state. Modern man is thus essentially fucked.
  
  Recently, a book caught my attention. I liked the illustration on the cover, and the title (Becoming a Barbarian). I'm yet to order and read this book; and yet, I bet this book delves into this kind of a topic.

Speaking of redpill reading, I feel the need to shout out Jack Donovan here. Two of his books, "The Way of Men" and "Becoming a Barbarian" have been absolutely revolutionary for me. These are dangerous books, full of dangerous ideas. The former one, in particular, is an excellent primer in masculine virtue. I bet I've given half a dozen copies away. Read them, learn them, commit them to memory. Also recommended: "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius and "Letters from a Stoic" by the one and only Seneca.

I say this as a fan of Evola and someone who embraces the idea that we are in the Kali Yuga: people have been complaining about the decline of their civilization forever, stop being so melodramatic about it. I get it, there is clown world shit happening that makes all of us see red, but that is no excuse to just give up. Stop waiting for some mythic event like the return of Christ, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, or whatever deus ex machina story people have been talking about since the beginning of time. Start your own damn thing.

​

Many modern oligarchs did not expect to be as successful as they ended up.

• Erik Prince of Blackwater (per Jeremy Scahill) - "Erk Prince might now see his empire as the fifth branch of the USA military, but his designs for Blackwater started off much more modestly."
  
• Elon Musk thought that Tesla would fail.
  
• In 2015 who expected Trump to end up as president?
  
  ​
  
  I also see a lot of complaining in here about the overwhelming amount of simps in the world. Simps aren't a problem, simps are an opportunity. Modern capitalism basically turned most of those bluepillers into serfs. Why shouldn't they be your serfs? Why should Jeff Bezos get serfs and not you?
  
  ​
  
  There are an incredible amount of people (99%?) who have completely given up thinking, which translates into an incredible amount of opportunity. Men have survived and even thrived despite incredible suffering throughout history. While we have dire problems to face, our ancestors went through shit like seeing 30-60% of their continent die.
  
  ​
  
  Fuck clown world. Build your own fiefdom. Most people are serfs and you don't need that many people to make a significant change in your own small corner of the world. Find a few people who are completely intolerant of clown world and start digging.
  
  ​
  
  From The Lessons of History:
  
  ​
  
  "So we cannot be sure that the moral laxity of our times is a herald of decay rather than a painful or delightful transition between a moral code that has lost its agricultural basis and another that our industrial civilization has yet to forge into social order and normality. Meanwhile history assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely. For 250 years after moral weakening began in Greece with the Sophists, Hellenic civilization continued to produce masterpieces of literature and art. Roman morals began to “decay” soon after the conquered Greeks passed into Italy (146 B.C.), but Rome continued to have great statesmen, philosophers, poets, and artists until the death of Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 180). Politically Rome was at nadir when Caesar came (60 B.C.); yet it did not quite succumb to the barbarians till A.D. 465. May we take as long to fall as did Imperial Rome!"
  
  ​
  
  Nassim Taleb: The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority
  
  ​
  
  "It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences."
  
  ​
  
  Jack Donovan - Becoming a Barbarian
  
  ​
  
  "There’s an old Greek proverb that says, “society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” If you don’t like what’s happening around you, what’s happening to culture, what’s happening to men and women, what people are becoming — get out there and start digging. Plant the seed of something new. Of something better. Plant the seed of something you really want — not just whatever you think you can have. Show others that there’s a different way to live. Spend the rest of your life tending a root that may one day grow into a tree of liberty."

Sounds like you'd enjoy reading some Jack Donovan.

https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Barbarian-Jack-Donovan/dp/0985452358/