One of the most important aspects of negative feedback, if you’re willing to listen to it, or compelled to listen, is to force you to think about your own premises and arguments. Maybe you’re right and the critic is wrong…but in figuring out why the critic is wrong, you’ll understand your own POV better, too. You might decide that he’s wrong and you’re wrong too, or you might refine your own arguments, improve them.

At the very least, it forces you to ask yourself why you want what you want.

Kate on March 17, 2026 at 8:55 am said:
“This would be another angle on the “no external limits” argument for Tucker and these others. Listening only to oneself can cause some very distorted echoes.”

HC68 on March 17, 2026 at 1:36 pm said:
Great overall comment, especially:
“You don’t want to avoid feedback. That’s another road to crazy town or worse.
… The real problem is that the kind of feedback that is most useful to us, that we benefit more from, that we need more, is precisely the kind we least like. Negative feedback.
… There are certainly times when it’s right to ignore it. But in general you have to have it, you need it.
But it’s unpleasant. It’s no fun. It’s a buzzkill. The only reason to value it is that ignoring it overall is a good way to ruin your life and other people’s lives too.”

It turns out Chuck’s link about the nature of consciousness, and Kate’s and HC68’s comments reminded me of the adage from Dr. David Brin, which is abbreviated CITOKATE, or “Criticism is the only known antidote to error”. Brin applies this to legal, scientific, and related evidence based analyses, as a means to step outside of any individual’s idiosyncrasies to obtain a wider “consensus” view. But he realizes a consensus may also be in error and can still justify further criticism.

Megyn has really lost the plot, if she reacts this way to Levin, the last time she went on this wave, was when she sought the NBC big time, which turned out to be a poison chalice, and then some years later she gained some respect with her podcast, then madness has set in,

the prequels, (which were Lucas’s outreach to his kids) aren’t as bad as the sequels, ‘teh horror’ but unbounded by Kasden or others, he had a very simplistic world view, Nixon (Empire) bad, Vietcong (Good) the Andor series tried to exact nuance from that, (the series was Oscar quality, compared to the drek, that was awarded on Sunday)*
*some of the commentary from the writers suggest they are similatly simple minded about current events,

Joe Kent, from his previous statements, held a strong anti interventionist viewpoint, but anyclear eyed viewer, knows that Iran poses a major threat, not merely in the region,

a cynic might say the new wife heather hauser, has strong leftwing sympathies as her one byline with Max Blumenthal suggests, but he is ultimately hia own person,

Agree Candice was never deep. She had potential, as an attractive young black woman who was skilled verbally and fearless. She could have increased her depth with age, but went a different direction.

The guest casually said something like needing a new addiction or something like it. And Tucker replied with enthusiasm for his own nicotine addiction!

I was amazed. And I wondered if this would bite back at him later.

And not nicotine via chew or smoke. But via nicotine patches. He and hiscwife swear by it, he said.

As he enthused, I felt a grandiosity coming out from him, like some Gnostic Belief system.

Clearly, a hubristic vice, it seemed to me. Anyone know nic fit addiction? Because I sure don’t.

But the others that I mentioned – I knew of them, and now hear all about the craziness manifested. I wonder if Neo has a point, that so many bloggers/commentariat are a bit isolated. And that others – the more prominent ones, especially – have their feedback loops interdicted by people around them. Perhaps it is that those of us who do have a healthy real-life support system, and a wide circle of friends with differing opinions have escaped the deadly feedback loop. Something to wonder about, anyway.

We don’t need no steenkin’ OODA loop…

Tucker: Liked him a lot because he was smart and well-informed and not afraid to take controversial stances—all while staying in touch with his playful side. Now, he’s possessed by SOMETHING. Probably the ego unbound, as Neo has speculated. But also, possibly demons.

RigelDog

In retrospect, Tucker looks a lot like an overall opportunist. He started out with the persona of a bow-tied Libertarian. Then he morphed into Tucker On Fox, now he’s Tucker the Warner Against the Israeli Threat. I doubt he fully believes a lot of what he’s saying (at any stage), but it gets him that sweet, sweet positive feedback and clicks and profits.

Which is not to deny the smartness. He is smart. In some ways that makes it worse.

Megyn: really shocked. As a fellow attorney, she always impressed me with her ability to spot issues, drill down, and ask the perfect cross-examination questions when interviewing. She now seems to be obsessed with her ego and thus any suggestion that she has been personally insulted.

— RigelDog

Yeah, she can do that. But like Tucker, she has a history of morphing as the current Big Thing changes, too. She’s definitely smart, but she’s a shapeshifter.

Which isn’t unusual. Almost all public celebrities, including newspeople and pundits, project a persona that we interact with, which may or may not reflect the values of the real person. We should always keep that in mind when analyzing these people.

There’s also a ‘death spiral’ effect that can set in when a public figure gets famous and popular by being edgy and ‘out there’ and contrarian. It alienates others, and then once that happens, if you then lose the fans of ‘edgy contrarianism’, you’re left with nothing.

So you MUST hold onto your new audience, because you’ve alienated your old one.

I suspect Tucker is in that trap now, whether he knows it or not.

The listening to one’s own fame issue as a cause of deep-ending had never occurred to me. I’ll have to think about it.
It requires or required a lack of corrective feedback. Unless you figure out some way to avoid all INCOMING in this social media age, how can you avoid feedback?

— Richard Aubrey

You don’t want to avoid feedback. That’s another road to crazytown or worse.

The problem is what kind of feedback, and from where.

The fundamental problem goes way beyond the Internet and broadcasting, it’s just amplified and sped up there. The real problem is that the kind of feedback that is most useful to us, that we benefit more from, that we need more, is precisely the kind we least like. Negative feedback.

Positive feedback certainly has a place and is necessary, but negative feedback is more important. Negative feedback (from parents, spouses, offspring, kin, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, fellow employees, bosses, the law, strangers, God above all else) is what keeps us on track, keeps us from plowing into the wall or into a morass.

Which is not to say that all negative feedback is justified or beneficial. There are certainly times when it’s right to ignore it. But in general you have to have it, you need it.

But it’s unpleasant. It’s no fun. It’s a buzzkill. The only reason to value it is that ignoring it overall is a good way to ruin your life and other people’s lives too.

But fame, wealth, success, tempt one to do just that. ‘Yes men’ are more pleasant company than honest critics, no matter how much we insist otherwise. Successful people often become that way by ignoring some specific negative feedback and succeeding at it, and that tempts you to think you can do it forever and in all cases.

(Which is a lot of why so many successful entrepreneurs build a profitable company, and then have to be forced out to keep them from wrecking it. The risk-taker personality often doesn’t translate well when it’s time for the company to turn into a boring normal outfit.

People who succeed and more or less stay successful are usually the ones who don’t ignore negative feedback, but are good at discerning valuable warnings from simple negativity.)

Positive feedback feels awesome, and it has a legit place. But you’re far better off with too much negative than too much positive. Too much positive feeds the ego, swells false self-confidence, closes off your perceptions of possibility and danger.
Positive feedback, in excess, causes you to put the accelerator peddle down and just keep accelerating…until you hit that sharp turn.

One of the things that went wrong with the Star Wars prequels was precisely that during the filming of the first trilogy, people could push back on George Lucas when he was wrong. He got valuable negative feedback from his wife, from the actors, etc. When he filmed the prequels he was GEORGE LUCAS, Genius, and negative feedback had a harder time getting through.

Negative feedback doesn’t always flow, of course. Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson may at times have been reigned in by FOXNews, but FOXNews is also a branch of the Establishment. Remember that first big GOP debate in 2016: Kelly opened her question to Trump with the ‘War On Women’, a big Dem talking point. That wasn’t just her, it was also FOX, the Murdochs oppose Trump’s immigration policy. Afterward, they had a rigged focus group of ‘Trump supporters’ ready to announce that he had lost their support in the debate with his answers, and Charles Krauthammer was there to point out Trump’s failure.

Of course, a week later Trump had pulled further ahead in the real world. FOX tried to take Trump out that night and failed. (At heart, I suspect the FOX ruling powers wanted Jeb or Rubio, and failing them, Hillary.)

With a comment from Wretchard:

“SUCH ERRORS DO NOT HAPPEN ORGANICALLY:”—
https://instapundit.com/783134/
– – – – –
Related (compare and contrast)…

“The US-Israeli strategy against Iran is working. Here is why.”—
https://instapundit.com/783255/

“’Pressure from Israel:’ US counter-terror center chief resigns over Iran war;
“Joe Kent, the Director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation today in protest against the war with Iran, which he blamed on Israel and pro-Israel lobbyists in the US.”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/424103

+ Bonus:

“IDF INTEL: We destroyed Iran’s base for attacking satellites to keep space supremacy.”—
https://instapundit.com/783062/