Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Know Your Grifter Marketing - Ambiguity Fallacies

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Ambiguity-Fallacy

Paradoxically, the gematria grifter has no problem reverse engineering an event turning it into numbers, yet the struggle to ever be presented with a number and reverse engineer that into events.  Of course, saying this requires misusing what a paradox actually is as well as calling the second half a mere struggle - it’s not a mere struggle, it’s completely impossible.  Nothing in the conspiracy grifting world embodies ambiguity as much as gematria.

The in fighting in the gematria world is hot and heavy right now.  If presented with a cult leader proposition that a certain number means something or individual self generated so called research, inevitably the gematria aficionado arrives at some alternate meaning.  Usually something personal.  The football decode of the number 70 means Dolphins today?  But what about how I found several 70s for the Saints, and this is their bye week?  Am I supposed to wait until the next game, or the playoffs, or next season?  When the hell do I get to use my Saints 70s?

There is a unifying factor in the ambiguity, and this is paradoxical in the true meaning of paradox.  I’m famous for my snark that calling themselves a community is some bad kind of joke.  The current state of fighting among themselves is proof enough of this.  But being presented with statistically insignificant, tiny, ambiguous numbers every day.  That’s one thing they all have in common.

Decisions on what these numbers mean are short term.  Who has the presentation that resonates the most with me today?  Who gave me a pat on the back and proclaimed my work to have great value?  Who told me I’m a worthless shill or federal agent?  Did I just see something more extraordinary than normal, perhaps an old friend I haven’t seen since high school a decade ago, and I did gematria that matches the number(s) I’m currently focused on?

The grifting with longer staying power tries to merge current ambiguity with a longer term theme.  The obvious example is Hubbard insisting that it’s the Jesuits rigging sports for…er…rituals.  A daily decode an outsider unfamiliar with gematria won’t see much point without reinforcement through repetition.  Negative 48 couldn’t just mention JFK Jr. once or a couple times and have that become the go to core of his schtick.

But longer term ambiguity has a downside.  The cognitive dissonance from that ambiguity.  It’s much easier to believe that there’s something else weird going on than the clique I’m currently see failing.  Sports picks not working out?  Maybe it’s cryptocurrency is what gematria is all about.  Crypto not working out?  Maybe the Antichrist is here and I should be looking into that.  Spiritual gematria talking about the color of clothing somebodies wearing, and that cult leader rationalizes wearing that same color himself?  Hmm that’s just plain silly.  Maybe I’ve got the wrong Antichrist and I should trust my own research and suggest someone else?  Etc….

The bulk of internet grifting has an unambiguous, tangible connection.  You buy the magic healing crystals, your pain goes away.  (Spoiler alert, they don’t work.)  You buy my crypto book today, you make money after learning my secrets. (Spoiler alert, no.)  Vaccines will kill me if I don’t protect myself by antagonizing those that wear face masks.  (Spoiler alert, not true and uncool.  You just haven’t gotten to the point where the fundraiser has been presented, yet.)  What does the gematria groupie get?  Competing demands for time, attention, and donations from individual clique heads with their different ideas on exactly how gematria should be used and why their thoughts are the right thoughts.  And their own personal beliefs on these thoughts.

And then what do their personal beliefs lead them to?  Confirmation bias.  The last bastion of making decisions on things you shouldn’t be wasting time thinking about.  There are gematria users that have stuck it out for quite awhile that still don’t get it how their research isn’t yielding any results, and never has lead to any real results.  In the meantime, any content they produce still increases the chance for engagement to the unsuspecting.  That content always has the lure of other not gematria grifting being added to their warehouse of bad ideas.  Crank magnetism grifting knowing where their is a collection of confirmation bias based personalities that could really use a good set of magic healing crystals.

No comments:

Post a Comment