Steven Bonnell aka Destiny

Steven Bonnell aka Destiny is probably the most interesting online political commentator who broke into the mainstream in the last couple of years. I stumbled into him in 2021, in the dark days of lockdowns, when he was still relatively little known outside the circle of fervent Youtubers. On that occasion, he debated Richard Wolff, a well-known Marxist professor of economy on the topic of socialism vs capitalism and I think he won the encounter decisively. Bonnell was composed, well-informed, asked the right questions, and above all, was generally curious about what the other side had to say. Even Wolff's fans admitted that the prof didn't come out too well and I quickly became hooked onto Destiny's channel. I find that he is rather unique in origin story, style, and skills in a realm filled with hundreds of online pundits, and one of the best things that this cesspool space has produced in years.

Unlike most established political gurus, Bonnell has no academic background (not even a college degree) and no experience in journalism, or writing, or business and is not affiliated with any political party or ideology. In a field completely dominated by high-pedigree individuals, he is as blue-collar as it gets. A college drop-out who worked in a casino and a carpet laundry before taking up professional gaming as a full-time occupation under the name "Destiny". Soon, he started to engage in debates on various topics while simultaneously playing video games on the screen. That was in the early 2010s. Gamergate triggered the emergence of a large number of streamer-commentators among whom Destiny stood out as a left-leaning (in the American sense) personality in a crowd that largely stretches from conservatives to the far-right, but he really started to gain recognition in tandem with the rising of Trump.

The video-gaming part has been dropped by now, but Destiny is as present as ever, with his 24/7 14-hours daily online presence making Lex Friedman look like a slouch. He debates anyone and everyone on current issues and general topics in politics and economy (and sometimes in philosophy and science) from Nick Fuentes-like neo-nazis to die-hard communists, radical feminists and Andrew Tate fanboys, Hamas-sympathizers and Zionists, social justice warriors and election deniers, anti-vaxxers, radical libertarians, and anyone in- or wildly outside the Overton-window. 

Regarding his own views, he began as a "pull up yourself by your own bootstraps"-type conservative and over the years evolved into what he describes as a social democrat. I'd rather call him a centrist, but in the States, the political categories don't exactly mean the same as in Europe (as almost all Americans misuse the words "liberal" and "socialist"). In a nutshell, he is a social liberal and an economic centrist. To draw the general contours: he believes in liberal values (rule of law, democratic institutions, individual freedom) and in free markets buttressed by a welfare state. He is absolutely pro-Ukraine, pro-vaccine, strongly pro-Israel, strongly pro-Biden (and anti-Trump), left-of-center on trans issues, and regards the US as an altogether positive geopolitical force.

He is also unideological in a refreshing way, who tries to build his argument on empirical data instead of on some moral basis. As he once put it, if the evidence showed that central planning is superior to free markets, he would be open to be convinced by it, as opposed to most rightwing commentators for whom it's not so much a question of economics, but of identity. 

His atypical background aside, his views - which are fairly aligned with the mainstream - wouldn't make him stand out from the crowd. His uniqueness lies in his personality, skills, and content-incontinence. But most of all, his personality. He has one skill few people possess in sufficient amount and which is indispensable if one wants to stay in this business long. His skin is not so much thick as literally impenetrable. Destiny is impossible to be triggered by personal insults or condescension. In one on-premise debate, the right-wing degenerate Milo Yiannopoulos tried to crawl under his skin by telling the audience how Destiny parades his wife around as the town-whore (until his recent divorce, Destiny lived in an open relationship), then went a step further and made remarks on his 9-year old son. All this in the context of arguing for 12th-century Christian values. Destiny simply ignored him then offhandedly shot back with a joke Milo did not get. He came across as the piece of shit he is, and that was the end of his desired career comeback effort.

The source of this resilience is the result of both nature and nurture. At the core is something Destiny must have been born with instead of having learned because in an interview with Alex O'Connor (formerly known as Cosmic Skeptic), he admitted that he sometimes doesn't understand the emotional state of others. As a side note, he also doesn't think animals are anything more than consciousness-less biological machines, and repeated attempts from Alex failed to disabuse him of this disturbing view. The nurture part comes from growing up in the gamer culture where depraved talk (in his words) is the norm and people think it's funny because it's so bad and not taken seriously at the same time. Anyone who stays long there will grow insensitive to the most graphic death threats and obscene verbal abuses that are thrown around all the time. In the world of normal human beings, Destiny is just impossible to rattle. It doesn't mean that he is some Spock-like character who is immune to emotions. He loses his temper quite often and tells his opinion in a very vulgar manner if he runs out of patience with what he perceives as stupidity. 

Another thing he must have been born with is the obsession with which he dives into any topic that piqued his interest. When learning about a new thing - let's say the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict he started studying after Oct 7 - he famously starts from Wikipedia (which was mocked recently by Joe Rogan, which is funny, regarding how much time Rogan spends spreading misinformation about things he knows little about), then follows the links all the way to reading history books and UN resolutions if needed. A good observation he often makes is that if you actually read full articles instead of just their headlines, regardless of the source (let it be Fox News or CNN), you will be better informed than 90% of the people. Taking it a step further, Destiny often demonstrates the surprising fact that if you start from the level of a layman but completely dedicate yourself to studying a political/historical topic for a couple of months and you know how to discern the most important facts from the details, your judgment on major points can be as well-informed as the judgment of any expert of the topic.

On top of his natural abilities, Destiny has 10+ years behind him as an online debater. He is just superb at what he does. He has a very quick wit, can think on his feet, and adapt to his opponent's style on the fly. He knows how to let buffoons like Milo undermine themselves while appearing professional and polite, can be extremely confrontative and engage in a shouting match if needed, but can also shine in a good-faith argument with very smart but ideologically blinkered opponents. But to be frank, he is the best when he loses his patience: he still doesn't respond to ad hominems in kind, but instead dials up the speech speed and launches barrages of perfectly reasonable arguments laden with expletives (a must-watch). 

He knows his limits as well and how much skills can matter over logical arguments. Once he said that the smartest flat-earther in the world would probably wipe the floor with him in a debate.

The quality is matched by the quantity. His output is inhuman. Despite having become a millionaire, he still spends 14 hours a day online, jumping from one debate to another, with no signs of exhaustion. When not, he goes to campuses to debate libertarians and trans-activists, and Trump rallies to interview those who turn up there. And still in a T-shirt, hoody, or tracksuit like a 20-year-old Gamer. It's an unusual way to spend your life. 

Even with all those attributes working in his favor, as recently as a year ago, I was sure that he would never break into the mainstream. The people he is associated with contain Marxist hardliners, white supremacists, Andrew Tate-worshipping misogynists, and some of the lowest scum the space can produce. If you'd like to venture into the dark underbelly of American political forums in any direction, you'll hardly find a better guide than Destiny. You can also be genuinely surprised by the difference in human quality between individuals even there. If I was forced to have a chat with a Nazi, I would choose Richard Spencer over Nick Fuentes without hesitation. 

The content is dicey, but the style isn't helpful either, to put it mildly. As mentioned above, Destiny comes from the gamer culture. Old habits linger on, and he can still be extremely vulgar, either on purpose or just for fun. Once he was discussing the concept of marginal utility in an online conversation and said something like "$10,000 could be a life-changing for someone in the bottom 10 percentile, but I would probably spend it in a couple of days just by fucking your mother a thousand times." There are thousands of hours of videos of him to cut out 10 seconds from to make him look like anything from a serial killer to a pedophile. In 2022, he got banned from Twitch for "hateful conduct". 

Nevertheless, on his eternal C-league status, I am happy to have been proven wrong. In the past year, he has appeared on debate panels, was invited to give speeches at universities, appeared on Lex Friedman's podcast, then on Within Reason with Alex O'Connor, and finally, on Piers Morgan. He sat across the table with Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, Norman Finkelstein, Jordan Peterson from the "real world", and basically debated everyone in the Youtube sphere. He worked his way up from the sewers and made his entry to the top tier. Until he gets bored with it, I think he is there to stay.

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Zen and Stoicism

Imagine two persons equal in most aspects with one relevant difference. One of them follows Zen teachings, the other is a Stoic. A casual observer of their daily lives would find it hard to guess which is which. In personal relations, both are generous and compassionate. They both take hardships in life with equanimity and rarely give in to rage or anxiety. They notice and appreciate everyday joys but are unperturbed if circumstances stand between them. For those with eyes for this kind of things, they both carry an aura of detachment. And, among other unlisted similarities, they both tend to regularly spend some time of the day with quiet contemplation.

Zen and Stoicism are indeed strikingly similar, especially considering that they emerged independently of each other in very different cultures. One is from a land where spirituality permeated every aspect of life, the other is the product of a society that laid the foundations of the modern rational worldview. I make an attempt below to examine the likeness between the two, then the differences. Considering the many different schools of Zen especially, the observations below will be crude simplifications, but hopefully not far off their marks.

To start with the greatest common denominator, both traditions share the view that real and enduring happiness (or at least peace of mind) is to be found inside one's own mind irrespective of external circumstances. One can be poor or sick or in a prison cell and be free and at peace with oneself at the same time. Their shared psychological observation, thousands of years ahead of their time, is that our perception of reality is the source of our discontentment.

Both advise enjoying what life offers without becoming dependent on them. To be present in the moment and to see everything, possessions, loved ones, and life itself as impermanent that can be and eventually will be taken away. 

They are both indifferent about deities and the afterlife. This is barely worth mentioning today but was remarkable in their times of origin. Buddhism was born in India with its countless gods, and Stoicism emerged in a similarly polytheistic society. The norms in both societies demanded the veneration of gods, spirits, and alike, therefore in the eyes of Zen Buddhists and Stoics who lived thousands of years ago, supernatural entities and the afterlife were a given. They were also unimportant. Both traditions teach the importance of the here and now, and that one's redemption lies not in the hand of gods, but is to be discovered inside. It's safe to assume that indifference instead of hostility to existing religious beliefs was in both cases more of a rational survival strategy than a principled choice in times and places where open atheism could make one ostracized or executed. 

The Buddhists and Stoics were anyway much more interested in practice than theory. They share an emphasis on regular exercises, both mental and in interaction with others.

Finally, they both have the concept of the ideal they aspire to be. What is the Enlightened One for Buddhists, is the Sage for Stoics.

And now come the differences.

Among which, the most significant is the one in aspirations. The purpose of Stoicism is to live a good life, which according to the Stoics, is a virtuous life. The purpose of Zen is to see through the illusion and see the truth, reality as it is. The Zen concept of the world as an illusion is alien to the down-to-earth Stoics.

Instead of breaking free of it, the Stoics encouraged full engagement with the world. They recognized that humans are social animals and strongly advocated, like good Greeks, active participation in the life of the community. In Asian cultures from the Indian to the Japanese, the Enlightened one is expected to transcend the constraints of society.

The roads to perfection might be through continuous practice in both schools, but the concepts of practice itself differ. The Stoics preached continuous self-improvement in the modern sense. Day by day, you hone your skills, mend your imperfections, and slowly and steadily become a better and better version of yourself. Zen is much more ambiguous about gradual improvement. Some schools advocate for it, but some teach that Enlightenment just happens (or not), doesn't matter how long you have been practicing. Practice is simply maintaining a state of being open to possible Enlightenment there and then, and the gains don't accumulate. That being said, I think Western (or Secular) Buddhism is much closer to the Stoic way. 

The practices themselves are quite different. The center of Stoicism is to see obstacles in life (physical hardships, personal slights, social stepbacks) as tests of character and opportunities for improvement. The Stoics actively seek out difficulties (not shying away from hard conversations, abstaining from culinary pleasures, stepping out of their comfort zone) to perfect themselves. The Stoic meditator reviews his actions at the end of the day to identify what can be done better next time. The essence of Zen practice, mediation is wholly missing from the Stoic world. In Zen meditation (nowadays known mostly as mindfulness meditation), one doesn't engage in an active thinking process. On the contrary, one tries to calm his mind and dispassionately observe thoughts rising and passing in the mind. And while doing this one realizes that the self, as the coherent unchanging essence of being, is just an illusion.

The psychological insights Zen and Stoicism impart are profound and very modern, but the overlap is little. The core insight of Stoicism is that humans are affected by the events in the world not directly, but through their own interpretation of them, and the only real control one has in life is that over his own mind. Zen's main discovery is that most of the time we are the slaves of our minds and not the other way around. Thoughts and emotions come and go uncontrollably as they please, but one can learn to be aware of this process and break free of it.

To sum it up, practicing Zen or Stoicism produces very similar characters but through different exercises that are built on very different worldviews.

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What is Stoicism?

The word "philosopher" means the lover of wisdom. Like many of the intellectual fundamentals of the modern world, the concept of philosophy came from ancient Greece, although its meaning changed over time. For the Greeks, the main purpose of philosophy was to help its students to live better. Philosophers were interested in every aspect of the universe - and before the era of modern science, almost every avenue of seeking knowledge fell under the umbrella of philosophy - but more than anything, they were expected to offer wisdom on how to live your life  - something that their modern peers are explicitly advised against.

One of the most popular philosophical schools of the ancient world was the Stoics. Their teachings haven't really been in vogue in the last couple of millennia, but at least they found their way into the common consciousness as an adjective. In popular imagination, a stoic is someone who takes the travails of life in stride, a stone statue of a human who endures pain and suffering with equanimity. Most of us have met stoic characters predominantly on the silver screen. The oriental monk, the native Indian warrior, the lone cowboy (or its more recent manifestation, the hard-boiled private detective) firing bullets and one-liners with equal skill. The picture these characters convey - that of a silent, strong, solitary figure, emotionally reserved to the extreme -  is not entirely misleading, but incomplete.

I got interested in Stoicism a couple of years ago when I stumbled into a book about it. Since then, the number of Stoicism-related podcasts, articles, and book recommendations I've come across seems to be growing slowly but steadily. In the time of custom-tailored newsfeeds and recommendation algorithms, it's hard to see if this really is a general trend in the outside world or simply my information bubble is getting tighter. But I could readily find some reasons why it would be a genuine phenomenon. In a constantly accelerating and ever less religious world many look for some practical guidance in life especially if it has the veneer of ancient wisdom.

And the Stoics are certainly ancient, and as practical as it gets as far as philosophy goes. Its founders had some theories and assumptions of and about the world as a whole, but these came secondary to the central question of their philosophy:

How to live a good life

The Stoic answer was to live a virtuous life. They defined the four cardinal virtues as Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, and Justice. Each of these covers a number of related traits, but they can be summarized as follows. 

Justice is having a moral compass. Temperance is the ability to restrain oneself and avoid excesses. Wisdom is the capacity to find the right way of dealing with life situations. And Courage, encompassing both moral and physical courage, is the strength to stand up for what is right even in the face of personal danger. 

The Stoics maintained that life visits hardships and difficulties on every one of us, and pursuing these virtues is the only thing that can help one overcome the challenges and find real and enduring happiness. Furthermore, being virtuous is both necessary and sufficient for that. Fortune, health, success, or the opposite of all these are not irrelevant but they are of secondary importance.

So far these are not earth-shattering revelations and they are not supported by evidence in a very obvious way. Everyone knows that life can be hard and courage and wisdom and the rest are important after all, and we all know people, personally or from history books, who have these traits to some degree and yet are or were unhappy. 

What made the Stoics tick and what makes them interesting is not so much their concept of virtues, but a handful of practical ideas directly applicable to life.

Recognize what is and is not under your control 

The first and most important insight of Stoic philosophy is that there are only a few things under your control in this world, and you are responsible for those and you have to accept the rest as they come. If your house burnt down, it will do you little good crying over it endlessly. Making it not happen is not in your power. What is in your power is to interpret the situation and choose your reaction to it.

Shrugging off the destruction of one's home is probably a step too far in an elevator pitch, so let's take a more mundane example. Imagine someone treating you impolitely in the supermarket. Such an event can trigger very different reactions in different people. Some would just be annoyed briefly and forget about it in a minute. Some would find it funny. Some would be enraged. Some would feel so disrespected that it would gnaw at their insecurity for the rest of the day. The Stoic insight in this situation is that the incident already happened and there is nothing you can do about that. Nothing. But you can decide how you choose to react to it. If you are working yourself up over it again and again, and ruin your day, that is your own damn fault. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, you could use the opportunity for self-improvement. To practice how to find humor or to understand yourself better in such situations. Or how to prevent them. Or how to handle them better. In short, life constantly throws stuff at you, and it's up to you to make the best of them. This is how it is.

“Man is disturbed not by things, but by the views he takes of them.” — Epictetus

The idea that the events happening to you don't directly influence you, but are filtered through personal interpretation, is a very modern one (it arguably forms the basis of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). It also has interesting implications.

Dettachment

One of the most fundamental and radical of those implications is the realization that you can at will disengage from your current predicament. You can be happy or find tranquility even if you are poor, sick, or down on your luck. If at this point it's tempting to tell the ancient Stoics that "it's easy to say that", then keep in mind that they lived in an era when the average lifespan didn't extend beyond 30 years, and more people died of plague, war, or famine than of old age. One of the most famous of ancient Stoics, Epictetus, was a cripple and a slave. (Two thousand years ago, either of those would have been enough to ruin your day, and all your days).

The Stoics encouraged detachment not only from your life circumstances but from possessions as well, both personal and material. This point is worth elaborating on because it is easy to interpret the wrong way and therefore it is the source of the most common misunderstanding about being a stoic.

The Stoics didn't say you should not enjoy or value what the world can offer. The emotionally impoverished stoic is a misconception. They were not necessarily ascetics who despised physical pleasures. They acknowledged that being healthy is better than being sick. Beings wealthy is preferable to being poor. Having friends is better than being lonely. As the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius, arguably the most famous of all ancient Stoics, put it, if you have to live in a palace, you might as well live well in a palace. You should enjoy good food, health, the company of friends. But you also should avoid becoming dependent on them. All your loved ones will die eventually. One day, at the latest on your last, you will lose everything you have. If you base your happiness on your possessions and personal circumstances, they can be taken away at any moment.

When you kiss your children good night, remind yourself that they can be dead tomorrow. Goulish as it sounds, the Stoics didn't advise it to indulge their morbid fascinations but to remind themselves of the importance of counting your blessings. Don't take your loved ones for granted and think you have all the time in the world to enjoy their presence.

Speaking of misconceptions, let's address another one. The Stoics are sometimes thought to be loners (see gunslingers and private dicks). This is not true. The Stoics recognized that man is a social animal and like good Greek citizens, they actually advocated for engagement in public life.  

Treating life as a training ground

Recognizing that your views and reactions are the only things you are really in control of is the main stoic idea. Treating your life as a training practice is the next best one. A real stoic looks at obstacles in life as challenges. Let's see what fate or the gods can throw at us. The increasing difficulties are like leveling up in a computer game. Your boss told you that you have only one day to prepare the presentation instead of a week? Let's see how much you can do in that time span. You are visiting a country and lost your passport on the day you should be flying home? That's level 2. You had eye surgery and have to live as a blind man for two weeks? At least level 3! A challenge worthy of a seasoned player. The reward is always the satisfaction you get from your accomplishment. 

Practice and self-improvement

As the previous section implies, the Stoics were also believers in another very modern notion, continuous self-improvement. They devised a number of daily practices to hone their skills for the game called Life. The fundamental ones are journaling, the end-of-day review, and the so called negative visualization.

The last one is the practice you should start your day with. Imagine the ways things go awry in the day ahead of you and mentally prepare for them. As Navy SEALS have plan A, B, and C for every mission, so should you be prepared for the most likely things to go wrong.

You should keep a journal. It is a true and trusted practice to help consolidate your thoughts and give the opportunity to see the path you've been travelling.

The evening meditation is what you should do the last time before going to bed. This is the time to reflect on the day. What went well, what went badly, what should have been done differently. Once I listened to a podcaster who rated his performance every day: wage negiotiation went reasonably well, 7/10; handling the stress of the traffic not so much, 3/10; explaining the kid why homework is important could have gone better, 4/10. You get the idea. Honestly admitting the mistakes enables you to avoid them next time, and high scores boost your confidence. 

The Appeal

The appeal of Stoicism is multifold. 

Its daily practice of journaling and of mediations to start and end the day with hammer its message home, well, every day. To be a stoic is to live like a stoic, and the presence or absence of discipline to observe the routine tells you undisputably if you are on the right track or not.

Said routine also provides a framework for life engendering a sense of stability that humans appreciate. It also creates constant opportunities for the practitioner to see her progress, which can create a virtuous cycle.

The Stoic approach of explicitly confronting difficulties and treating them as challenges combined with the clear separation between the things in and outside of our control removes a great deal of anxiety from life. Most of our anxieties come from worrying about other people's opinions, the threat of bad things happening to us, and the perceived lack of control over our own life. Stoicism addresses these problems head-on.

For some reason, the example of this I like most is that of Bryan Cranston, the lead actor in Breaking Bad. His advice to fellow actors was that you should not waste your thoughts on whether you get the role or not. Go to the audition, do the best you can, and drive satisfaction from your performance. If you gave your best, then you did all that was in your power. From that point, the decision is taken out of your hands anyway.

Summary

To summarize the most important points, Stoicism is a life philosophy that is light on theory and heavy on practice. Its concept of virtues may sound a bit anachronistic and high-brow for a modern reader, but its practical tools are as fresh as they get. A Stoic accepts whatever is out of his control without complaint, but takes full responsibility for his reactions to them. For him or her, every event in life is a subject for personal interpretation and an opportunity for self-improvement, every obstacle is a challenge to be conquered. The fleeting nature of life and all things material makes the good things even more precious. Therefore, they are to be enjoyed but not to be dependent on.

Is it just Zen for Westerners?

If the description of an ideal Stoic reminds someone of a Zen Buddhist monk, it's not a coincidence. The two philosophies overlap substantially. The hands-on, no-nonsense approach to life, the constant reminders of the impermanence of things, and the aspiration for tranquility and equanimity in a chaotic world characterize both schools to a roughly equal degree. The next post will explore how these two compare to each other in detail.

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