Also take a side trap on their link to wedge issues if you have an extra couple minutes.
For the most part the higher level gematria users remain politically neutral. Naturally, since grifting has been a major part of the program this makes a lot of sense. You don’t want to antagonize roughly half of your target audience. But what they do use is make the hot topic wedge issues a primary talking point. Nonstop.
Personally as a pro cooperation type of guy I hate wedge issues and how they are handled. Instead of open debate about topics that are genuinely arguable from both sides having some good points inevitably it turns into an all out nothing package deal. Maybe the losing side gets thrown a few bones and table scraps. In general there is gridlock where the losers seek to regain control becoming more important for the control than the underlying ideas behind their “culture”.
A hugely oversimplified example, the liberals want to help the poor with social programs geared towards giving them money. The conservatives believe in capitalism and earning money. So the conservatives would prefer less government oversight and cutting free lunch programs for school kids, the liberals would prefer writing off student loan debt and funding aid overseas. There’s always a valid negative to these sides. Better educated children happy with school should be a plus, money sent to malnourished children in another continent could be used at home. And through massive propaganda campaigns in the never ending cycle of having control and trying to maintain it versus losing control and trying to get it back a lot of resources that could be better spent on both sides of the culture war get wasted.
Somebody super crazy gung ho one side or the other is a perfect candidate for political grifting, where the campaign fundraising is the goal instead of the means to get policies put in place. After a gematria newbie gets a taste of the success of easily manufacturing numbers to support something less life altering, like a sports championship, it’s only natural that left to their own cognitive biases they will wander to other aspects of their lives. And since the gematria topics based on ness headlines are supercharged wedge issue items they get a heavy dose of “pick one side or the other” with a heaping helping of “everything is evil, don’t worry about the other side’s talking points because I have flimsy evidence that shows that I’m right all the time.”
Your semi regular reminder that based on gematria, everyone alive now, lived in the past and will live in the future is evil. Or good. But finding evil is a lot more fun so let’s roll with that.
Everybody is paying a hidden cost for the culture war, the cost of wasted resources. Once the line has been cast and the fish first bite there’s a rush for the grifting economy to suck as much out of the mark while the sun is still shining on the row boat. Whether the fish on the line is a teen without enough to have the life experiences to recognize that something that sounds too good to be true is too good to be true. Whether the fish is an elderly person with declining mental faculties who has voted for a single party their entire life. Whether the the fish is genuinely mentally disturbed. These are the kinds of people that are beset with enormous psychological pressure that to be a good person it’s not just good enough to be a good person, but evil needs to be found and eradicated to be a good person. So give me some $$ on some sports picks to fund defeating evil.
Along the way, arbitrary scapegoats are created. All scapegoats are not created equal. Some rise to the top by being at least somewhat of a celebrity. Some are completely uncalled for. Did we really need a bitter and hate filled gematria grifter claiming Gabby Petito was the Antichrist (or at least there was some sort of “ritual sacrifice” involved)? No. Do we really need free speech allowing these comments? No, but it’s historically something that’s always happened. So we live with it, although now thanks to the Internet there’s an historical record of how picking an arbitrary scapegoat works for grifting short term. Getting people fired up about wedge issues in the current news has worked wonders for a long time. Now thanks to the Internet and Antisocial Media that people use for news instead of real news both sides of the culture war are losing resources that could better be spent on cooperating.
Paradoxically free speech in its current form is ruining your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Good luck figuring out how to fund stopping climate change. Good luck figuring out how to golf in 110 degree daily temperatures. Good luck trying to fund your allies during the next war a dictator starts. Good luck not just funding the free school lunch program, but actually finding the food for the program.
A good start is to take a step back at least every once in awhile to be a good person instead of the myth of funding politics to eradicate the other evil people. Misinformation researchers have a phrase for this.
Go touch some grass.
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