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Destiny: The Edge of Debate (Patreon)

Published:
2024-04-19 17:28:24
Edited:
2024-04-19 17:29:09
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

  • Destiny Episode.m4a

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Content

In this episode, Matt and Chris dive deep into the world of online streamers, focusing on the pioneering and controversial figure Steven Bonell II, better known as Destiny (AKA Mr Borelli). As seasoned explorers of sense-making jungles, Petersonian crystalline structures, and mind-bending labyrinths in Weinstein World, they thought they were prepared for anything. However, the drama-infused degeneracy of the streamer swamps proves to offer some new challenges.

Having previously dipped their toes in these waters by riding with Hasan on his joyous Houthi pirate ship (ignoring the screams of the imprisoned crew below decks), Matt and Chris now strip down to their decoding essentials and plunge head-first into streamer drama-infested waters as they search for the fabled true Destiny.

Destiny is a popular live streamer and well-known debater with a long and colourful online history. He is also known for regularly generating controversy. With a literal mountain of content to sift through, there was no way to cover it all. Instead, Matt and Chris apply their usual decoding methods to sample a selection of Destiny's content, seeking to identify any underlying connective tissue and determine if he fits the secular guru mould.

In so doing, they cover a wide range of topics, including:

Destiny's background and rise to prominence in the streaming world

How much of his brain precisely is devoted to wrangling conservatives?

What's it like to live with almost no private/public boundaries?

What are the ethics of debating neo-Nazis?

The nature of the Destiny's online community

Whether murder is a justified response to DDOS attacks?

Whether they succeed or fail in their decoding will be for the listeners to judge, but one thing is certain: if this is your first exposure to the streaming world, you are in for a bit of a ride.

Links

The Institute of Art and Ideas: Destiny and the new world of Internet politics | Steven Bonnell full interview

End of the Leftist Arc? - Destiny Addresses the Recent Drama

Iced Coffee Hour: Destiny on Debating Ben Shapiro, Toxic Wokeism and Getting Divorced

Helpful Reddit thread with a bunch of relevant videos and summaries

Documentary on Destiny Lore by Dingo: The Steven "Destiny" Bonnell II Iceberg

Destiny's Positions page on his dedicated Wiki

Destiny's Manifestos

MrGirl's anti-Destiny 'Report'

P.S. This is an advance release for Patreons, so if you detect any audio/technical issues, please let us know.

Files

Comments

Christopher McLaughlin

“We shouldn’t want the war to stop?” That was the question Destiny’s fan asked him, to which he responded with the colorful language about “a pedophile jerking off to dying Palestinians”. Excellent debate tactic bro.

Paul Bowman

Too much to say, as usual. Got to start with the line about people spunking on the carpet over dead Palestinian kids though. Mainly because behind the deliberately shocking crude sexual imagery there was something that wasn't picked up. The perversion was masking an inversion, to coin a phrase. It's Destiny who is defending the IDF slaughter of those children - and his opponents on that are not turned on by the dead kids, they're horrified by them. That's the point. So Destiny is projecting here and to me the use of "outburst/abuse mode" reveals that he feels unease (in more normal people I might even say guilt) on this position. More generally, I definitely agree that Hasan is not remotely in the same league as Destiny. Destiny has correctly identified his key skill and role as a rhetorician, as you say. And he is a master of his craft. That ability to speak that rapidly, while still being clear enough to be understood and simultaneously think that fast, in real time, is a hell of a skill and Chris is right that most people vastly overestimate their ability to come anywhere close to that. Where I do think Chris gets it wrong is seeing a reflection of his own character in Destiny. To my ear Destiny comes across as a chilling sociopath, unencumbered by anything resembling a conscience. Whereas Chris appears to me to be a fairly normal empathic person with regular Irish (ex-)Catholic conscience. Seems like a case of projecting the qualities you admire onto a person and not seeing all the other less admirable qualities in the reflection. Finally, I think there's a danger of falling into a false binary of fake persona vs authentic character, as being the only two options. Not that fake personas don't exist and are often patently visible in the guru-sphere (e.g. Huberman). But just because Destiny is not using a fake persona, doesn't mean that his "controlled affect mode" (which, although he calibrates to match different audiences, he does use pretty consistently across the board) is his authentic character - because that would mean that his "outburst/abuse mode" is somehow less revealing of his personality, and I don't think that's a defensible assumption. Like I say, he leaves a strong impression on me of being a sociopath, and it's not clear how our assumptions of "authenticity" or "sincerity" being somehow virtuous really applies to sociopaths. Not that sociopaths are not human, but I think they can challenge some of our heuristics around personality. (Great article in the Guardian recently about sociopaths as regular humans, but different... https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/apr/08/patric-gagne-sociopath-fighting-urges)

Paul Bowman

Sorry, one more thing... I think the reason he doesn't do the whole self-aggrandising thing and absurd over-inflation of self importance, is because he doesn't have that wounded narcissistic character. I still think he comes across as having a superiority complex, but one actually grounded in (rational) self-confidence rather than insecurity. Which makes him look a lot more "normal" than most of the gurus who are compensating drastically for wounded narcissism (I think Destiny will score relatively lower on the grievance-mongering compared to a Weinstein, for eg)

Erin

Matt's not actually a boomer is he? (60+ years old?) If so, drop the skincare routine😅😅 But anyway, funny getting an older person's perspective on this and I totally agree about the love island comparison, when I watch Destiny on YouTube, it's similar to how I watch reality (which I enjoy)

Linda Sears

Hard to even know where to start. Some not so well put together thoughts-Streaming culture requires personality types who are highly confident and seem to not care about creating or maintaining healthy boundaries. The power dynamic between streamer and followers is inherently unequal because the follower has little opportunity to clarify their position before being booted out. I better understand why so many of my students are afraid to interact with each other in person and/or struggle with their mental health because this is a big part of the world they live in. Having strong empathetic emotions/being overly sensitive or prone to feelings of guilt or shame is a deficit in this culture, which is why someone like Destiny can become so popular because he does not appear to have those traits. I can relate to Matt’s mum.

Lee Kebum

One of the few episodes that I could not finish. I didn't like how forthcoming the hosts were to Destiny, and how quick they were to excuse behaviour as "just streamer culture". I felt as I was being groomed into liking this streamer that I really viscerally dislike. His awful comments about genocide or labeling chat members as retards left and right are deserving of criticism, and the fact that that criticism for once was left out was strange to me.

john statham

I sometimes write reviews of these episodes and I tempted to venture forth on this one. Highlights so far:

john statham

A female streamer on destiny; 'he's got a really weird dick.' His response: 'Apparently you've steamed your pussy.'

john statham

Matt: 'What's Cornhub, Chris?' That's easily Top 3 in the Mattrix hall of fame.

john statham

Matt: 'He won't get Jordan Peterson to discuss how good he is at giving head.'

john statham

Scientific knowledge update alert. Destiny apparently has 'Phimosis', which is a condition where the foreskin will not peel back when the penis is erect. Every day, one learneth new info.

Mike Nelson

This episode was the first and last time I will ever hear this person. There is nothing deep about him: He's an edgelord a**hole.

Monica B.

What a roller coaster of an episode! Appreciated it. It didn't make me a Destiny fan (far from it...I was trying to think about if I were recorded in convos and online 24-7 I'd probably have some bad takes out there, too, but not like...I dunno, sharing nudes of exes, or, oh, calling for genocide), but I learned a lot, as always. Plus I actually liked hearing how he (re)considers his own takes, and I appreciate people who say yes, we can change our minds. Stereotyping a bit here, I realize, but if someone said they were a fan/regular listener of his I'd feel like we could have interesting convos (as opposed to meeting an uber fan of, say, Piker, Peterson, or truly even Rogan, all of which would make me lean towards meh and/or byeeee).

Mbot

Good episode overall and as reasonably correct as can be expected without becoming Destiny lore masters. There were a few mischaracterisations - like the self-defence against ddos-kid, the whole Lav context and the Daisy child support comment. But overall the characterisation of Steven is fair, accurate, even generous in some cases. Unfortunately however so many deranged comments here from people trying to validate their preconceptions and engaging in exactly the misrepresentation and misunderstanding that Destiny usually rails against.

David Noble

Where you guys find Destiny's candour refreshing, I find it sliiiiightly sociopathic.

Kyle Dun

Haven't finished yet. But imagine if Destiny's uses his right to reply. He's going to scream at you both.

Chomagerider

I've got 45 minutes to go still. This is the very first episode of DtG I'm considering to not finish. Not because it's not a well-done episode. Far from it. Much respect for sifting through so much shit to put this together. I just find myself utterly bored by this dude. This whole streaming thing is not interesting at all to me... Makes me realize, I kinda like the pseudo profound nonsense of the "real" gurus. At least something to laugh about... Guess I'm just old... So old that when I hear "young Turks", my brain omits "young" and immediately thinks of Reno, Tseng and Rude. Let's see if anyone gets this reference.

Mike Nelson

Been a listener since episode one, and this is the first episode I struggled to finish and the first one where I think I legit came out of it hating the subject under review. Perhaps as American stuck in Trump's world every day for ten years, I have no tolerance left for sociopath blowhards regardless of their politics. This is the first "guru" where it felt to me more like an apologia for the subject's sociopathic behavior because you agreed on their centrist politics. The sociopathy, misogyny, racism, doxing, baiting his followers to attack others, and free use of the r-word shouldn't be excused because you like his political world view. First episode where I really came away completely disappointed.

Smudge

Warning! Turn your Sam Harris settings off when Destiny is the subject…. Micro Machine Man flashbacks have set in. .

rick yifrach

Been a Patreon for a while now and I think that this was one of my favorite episodes of DTG. The Sam Harris haters will come here to cry, but regardless, this was a well done and very enntertaining episode.

RipleyV

I've been listening to/watching Destiny for nearly 8 years now, and been a semi-regular listener of DtG for a couple years, and I've been hoping this episode would happen since I first discovered you guys. And I wasn't disappointed. I thought this was a very accurate summation of Destiny's good and bad points, especially considering how deep the lore is to his career and how much insane tens of hours of context there is to many of his drama arcs. I think one of the reasons some "normie" listeners of the pod are just completely dumbfounded as to how Destiny has any appeal to an audience is a missing cultural context. You both touched on it briefly, and that's Destiny's beginnings within the hardcore/competitive gaming world. In 2016 when Destiny first started political debating, the terminally online world of gamers and youtubers was so insanely right wing, where misogynistic and ethno-nationalist ideas were normalised, with almost zero progressive voices, and those few there were (like Feminist Frequency) would quickly be bullied en masse out of online spaces. Into this context came Destiny, who would go into these 6 hour debate deathmatches where if you didn't insult back as hard as you got you immediately looked weak to the mostly right wing audience, where there was basically no other progressive voice because of this, 1v8ing people like Fuentes et al and coming out on top. It was such an incredible breath of fresh air for left wing gamers like myself who felt isolated within the online world. He's far from perfect, and while there are many things I think he gets right, he also does and says a lot of things I disagree with, sometimes even hate. So none of this is to excuse his bad takes, or sometimes slightly sociopathic behaviour towards others. But when he says he nearly single handedly (probably excepting ContraPoints) forced open a space for progressives in the streaming/gaming/youtube world, I don't think it's self aggrandizement. And this context, in addition to his authenticity, as you guys discussed, is important I think to explaining why somebody so abbrasive to "normies" commands such a loyal and active fanbase.

Tobbe lobben

Also saying retard is very often frowned upon and another very famous player from the time when destiny came up in StarCraft 2, famous player Idra got kicked out in time for using less colour language than destiny. I still watch streams everyday and very few uses language or is as hostile and vulgar as destiny. I have no idea why anyone would want to listen to that kind of shit everyday.

Dominic Horner

Loved this deep dive guys, one of the best episodes imo. What about a decoding on Vaush? Lollicon/horse porn aside, I think he would be an interesting subject for the streamer season.

Trees

Excellent sourcing of content. I spent the episode vacillating between feeling sympatico (or even administration) and then disgust. The disgust coming not so much from the carnal details as the pettiness of the drama. As a blue-city, red-state resident, I connect with both his frustration at the throat clearing required to talk to conservatives and the damage the far left does to mainstream Dems' electoral appeal.

Cooper21

I've been a casual fan of Destiny for years and I think you guys did a really great job breaking down some of his appeal and flaws. I was really impressed with the number of clips you guys managed to sift through while giving good context for each one. I honestly could not agree more with your criticisms around the drama content he takes part in, I typically try to avoid that side of his content as much as possible lol

Jovan Popov

I wish the podcast hosts the best of luck as I think their mission is one of great importance, I hope that they maintain their aspirations in decoding the "rhetorical tactics used to make a case in the absence of substance." They are intelligent and have the best intentions, I encourage anyone reading this to subscribe, but, unfortunately, it is not for me. Best of luck.

Jesse Rimler

I work a day-job, barely make rent, and in my very limited spare time I work on my own projects, which inch along at a snail’s pace. Two of my favorite podcasts are Decoding the Gurus and Sean Carroll’s Mindscape — in both cases the hosts are academics who somehow manage to produce a large body of podcast content, go on other podcasts, write books/papers for more popular audiences, cook, ski... In Chris’ case, he listens to hundreds of hours of this sociopathic streamer in prep. My conclusion: either being an academic is a pretty light workload, or I am extremely lazy.

Kelley

“If Jordan Peterson was on stream talking about his ability to give head”. Thanks Chris, my day is ruined.

Daniel

He seems abusive and bullying--to audience members and to romantic partners. I'm not surprised he's divorced. Regarding his openly contemplating murdering the DDoS kid: It could be rational if the idea was to scare the kid into stopping. The kid might think, "Uh oh, he's seriously considering killing me." I think though that Destiny probably just enjoyed arguing a taboo position.

SHOUNAK SARKAR

Hey guys, good decoding. You really went in-depth with Destiny, appreciate the time invested in doing research and compiling all the clips together from various episodes / streams. With regards to Destiny himself, man, I was aware that the guy was a degenerate but the decoding revealed a deeper and darker level of degeneracy than what I was expecting. What the hell is going on with these hyper-online weirdos of the streaming world like Destiny, Vaush and Hasan? Are they all like this? Surely there must be a few exceptions. Destiny is one of those characters, where even though he is politically pretty close to me, I would still not associate with him or listen to his content. The guy is such a douchebag. A smug, arrogant, vulgar and sexually degenerate man child who is completely insufferable! And even more trashy than Love Island lolz (if such a thing is possible).

SHOUNAK SARKAR

2/ Also another counterpoint guys; you both agreed and sympathised with Destiny’s characterisation of overbearing progressives and him breaking the lefty stereotypes & showcasing a “sane left wing” person to the hyper online right. This description is quite self-serving; because in many ways Destiny actually embodies the worst excesses of the hyper-progressive left. The lack of sexual mores, the vulgar degeneracy, the embrace of polyamory, broken familial relationships, gay escapades with men (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=__cgZzi_cEQ) and lack of religiosity for example! This would have been good to point out. There are way better examples of saner & more moderate lefties out there.

Nancy Carrozza CaraDonna

Ugh, I just removed my original comment. After listening to the whole podcast, I finally disagree wholeheartedly with the Decoders!! Way, way too tolerant on this one!

Heron

Dgger here, I think you guys did a great and honest job trying to break down the massive character that Destiny is. Sorry that anti fans will probably flood these comments for a bit

Tom Allison

This subculture that you are currently covering is initially fascinating -- but seems very distorted by the dynamics of the medium in which it is in enacted. Ultimately, it seems to skew weird, edging toward unsavory. Do we have any idea/hints as to how substantial/potentially impactful the discourse that takes place on these platforms is, in the end?

Jesse Rimler

Gonna eat some crow here. I shouldn’t post before listening to the whole episode! Like Matt, I find the streamer world unpleasant, and Destiny’s particular motormouth edge-lord energy almost unbearable. That said, when you contrast him others of his ilk, he does seem much more serious and, particularly heartening, more curious. My denigrating his reading habits was unfair; this corner of the internet just gives me a skin rash.

Daz

Chris and Matt — as a long-time fan of both Destiny and DtG, this felt like two worlds colliding in a very good way. So maybe I'm biased, but I still don't take it lightly to say I think this is your magnum opus. It's what the podcast has been building to this whole time.

Matt Dear

Oof, wog is definitely a slur against black people here in the UK. It is thought to be derived from golliwog. In 1976 Eric Clapton famously once yelled 'Throw the wogs out. Keep Britain white', in the middle of a concert he was performing. Though admittedly he potentially meant all foreigners, rather than a specific group, it wasn't very coherent. Funny how things have such different impact across cultures. But I would definitely caution against using that word anywhere near the UK.

scottymfg

The rant at 33:40 was music to my ears

Lilydale

Matt’s comparison of Destiny’s obscene rants with Martin Luther’s obscene rants is fascinating. My abhorrence of any kind of rude, language almost led me to not listen to this, but I’m so glad I did. Destiny certainly is a curious combination of things…..

Tree

Finally a shout out, after like 2 years. I feel blessed as it was sooner than most and I didnt have to hassle Chris.

Ryan Goss

As someone who had only seen a few clips of Destiny before this, I agree with a lot of the comments here in that I thought you were way too charitable in analyzing his content - the dude is a terminally online sociopath. Right from the get go it was obvious Chris just likes Destiny's style, so I wasn't surprised when he said he sees Destiny as similar to himself. I won't repeat much of what was already said in these comments, but I hope Destiny isn't someone DtG continues to "check in on" in the same way as JP, Weinsteins, etc. (Though it seems a "right to reply" is inevitable). All that said, I enjoyed the episode regardless!

STEPHEN CARLTON

well....that was weird......I almost gave up, until the rant at around 33 .00 which was epic. Then I listened to the whole thing. Still not sure what to make of it, but it was a great decoding.

Sanya Obeysch

Finally got around to listening to this, and its really not worth much, but I too am somewhat surprised by how charitable I thought you guys were. I can't help but feel like that he is 'openly' kind of a scumbag rather than obfuscating it did a lot to placate a more critical read of him. Personally, I'm more dubious of those who unabashedly behave badly than those who claim to see themselves as "the good guy" as I see the former as more manipulative than the latter, but that's just me.

Bran

Destiny reacts on his stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntk_6PsItWk Enjoying your podcast Matt and Chris! Would be interested in a decoding of Jack Kornfield and/or some of the Western Buddhist types that make a LOT of money selling courses and teacher training programmes.

David Moore

This is where I duck out. I've enjoyed a lot of your content and will probably listen from time to time, but you keep avoiding any serious approach to when the people you cover explicitly endorse ethnic cleansing or outright genocide in Palestine. I know it's not your area of expertise and I'm not looking to you for trenchant political insight, but I wish you would hold yourself to the same standards as when you cover gurus who support lab-leak or anti-vaxx positions. Bring on experts who can discuss coherently and direct your audience to the relevant information. Sam Harris supports ethnic cleansing and engages in some holocaust denial and you simply leave it as an exercise to the reader to know why he's wrong. Destiny explicitly calls for genocide and engages in wild conspiracism about how Palestinians are faking the massacres and it gets basically a "boys will be boys" aside. You don't take that approach when gurus praise Putin and cover up his crimes, yet Israel is out there openly conducting war crimes that would make Putin or Assad blush. But because Israel has the backing of NATO and the "rules based order," the sheer magnitude of slaughtered children is treated by you as an unfortunate faux pas. To cite one recurring example, Chris finds that argument that the Israeli military would not order the murder of Palestinian civilians because it would make them look bad to be very convincing. Please read a book on how the holocaust was carried out, and in particular note how many people were massacred without direct orders from the Nazi leadership. A favorite canard of holocaust deniers is to point out that there aren't even written orders from Nazi leadership for the creation of extermination camps, or they point to the regular conflicts between the Wehrmacht and the local Einsatzgruppen to claim that it was only a few wild extremists instead of the overall Nazi war machine that carried out the slaughter. When the Israeli prime minister calls for the slaughter of every man, woman, child, and beast of burden in Gaza, when the Defense minister calls for preventing food, water, and electricity from reaching the "human animals" in Gaza. They are creating the conditions for the mass graves we're witnessing today. In short, get some moral courage and at least take a clear stance against incitement to genocide. Even if you don't think Israel is currently committing genocide, the statements of Harris and Destiny are horrifying and worth 'decoding.'

Lillie

Thank you for my special shoutout Chris! It was worth the wait🥰

The Jerg

It's always amazing to see who is stuck in their epistemic bubbles and just can't be bothered to actually notice what's happening due to the rhetoric that's infected them. And when I say amazing, I mean heart breaking.