https://www.youtube.com/live/RIeGB1T7ZrU?si=6mFlt9f-5-NEWaM1 - Source material, a debate panel on the usefulness of gematria
https://youtu.be/Iv4_HSRvg_8?si=Mje6uuVN8J-FwucD - Sports Gematria’s edited highlights
Just in case you need the full source material, the top link is a 9 hour 45 minute marathon debate session of almost entirely Zach debunking himself amidst unfriendly fire from critics. The second link is Sports Gematria’s edited outtakes along with March Madness failures.
If you had the ability to rewind to 10 years ago, such a debate had no chance of existing. Zach, either a natural bullshitter or well practiced in delivering logical fallacies and shady debate tactics (more likely a combination of both), gathered an audience who just couldn’t get enough of Alex Jones style content. Anybody who was willing to challenge him was woefully unprepared to meet him head on. Now, things are different. You can even approach the videos with a mindset of conspiracy theory truth being a vital part of society and being loaded with lots of good ideas and still gather some important lessons. Mostly, that someone with a blatantly obvious desire for your money is not working in your best interests.
The old format, stolen from Alex Jones, worked something like this. Spend a couple of years of prep time gathering a modest audience, becoming a “gematria influencer”. Get a significant number of people invested in the middle level of the cult pyramid. Convince them to put out blogs and videos of their own. Give them a little bit of attention and Attaboy!TMs so they get something they've been missing from their lives. The rare chance to be called right even though their lifestyle has turned them into a person who is constantly wrong. But, a person who is constantly wrong BUT EXTREMELY LOUD ABOUT IT. The kind of person sane people pray does not show up at the bar they frequent that insist on debating you about what was said on Fox News the previous night and doesn’t mind something mind numbingly stupid like gematria decodes as added fuel to their pseudo intellectual brainwashed persona. Then keep them fired up enough to have all roads lead back to Zach’s fundraisers. Let social media algorithms lack of integrity allow the game show fans to find gematria content while enjoying a Wheel of Fortune. Let bad news junkies doom scroll into the disasters in the headlines yesterday and stumble on gematria. Let the Cubs fans find the endless and daily sports decodes.
And when you’re constantly wrong about everything, you are a prime cognitively biased target to fall for the sports betting scam. And part of the internet gambling epidemic that is reaching epic proportions.
If you have enough critical thinking skills you may get sidetracked and realize that some of this commentary will reflect badly on the way Trump and Musk are operating the U.S. government. Like, bullying entire countries with a cockamamie tariff plan and threats of invasion. Filling the mid level with lackeys of monstrous incompetence and corruption and pissing off everyone else to the point that they have little recourse but to push back. Sorry about that, but I did try to warn you years ago. I will try to keep focused on the Hubbard version of the con for the duration of this post.
So years ago, with a significant keyboard warrior army of people with a high tendency to be wrong about stuff there’s a pool of folks that desperately want to believe they can supplement their income by making winning sports bets. And some those folks are more than willing to defend their cult leader to the end. A ready made pool of the kind of person who would make a screen name like AlexJonesIsRight. The number of those has been steadily dwindling. What the Zach’s of the world hadn’t counted on is sustained pressure armed with actual facts. Pressure and push back on a daily basis.
If you read some of the comments to the videos you can get the gist of the core argument by Zach critics. You might disguise it by occasionally claiming you don’t make predictions. You lie like crazy about your track record just like every video creator selling sports predictions. But at the center of your entire business is the simple fact that you are claiming that gematria can make accurate predictions about sports game outcomes. And yet, you have made so few actual predictions over a decade plus it’s comical that you think nobody has noticed that you are waiting until the game is over and saying, “Look, here’s how they did it!” Relying on a tool that can always fill in the blanks to support a bogus narrative. Almost 10 hours of relentless pressure to produce a single recorded for posterity ahead of time prediction that simply didn’t happen. Because it CAN’T happen. Gematria is and always will be a tool to be an after the party is over recap of what was.
So point #1. He won’t make predictions ahead of time because he can’t.
Point #2. He really doesn’t do well in an atmosphere that he’s not in total control of. People were drawn to Zach and Alex because they adored how mouthy and insulting they were. Weak competition left them as the lone man standing in the cage after the dust settled. The alpha male wannabes in the audience get to cheer mightily on how their champion got to bully his way into another self proclaimed victory. Sandy Hook parents be damned, my wallet is far more important than your ability to walk down the street without being harassed. Being interrupted to be reminded that he’s still not made the requested prediction on a livestream really doesn’t sit well with him.
Point#3. Coinciding with point #2. Where are the friends and allies coming to his defense? The debate format queues up call ins. The rabid defenders are almost nowhere to be seen. When confronted by Andrew’s sharp and pointed criticism they know that they are in for a fight instead of just someone who’s going to roll over and crumple at the first, “But SOCIETY OF JESUS = 56!!” reference. Norm Pattis had to go up against a real lawyer in Mark Bankston. Zach doesn’t always get to go up against a weak argument like “The Earth is flat” as some kind of proof that this means gematria is wrong.
My IRL style is more aligned with ignoring the loud mouth at the other end of the bar instead of direct conflict. But direct confrontation from the right person of people does have its place. Finding someone who can at least communicate facts in a proper and respectful manner most of the time goes a long way. Getting fired up and passionate in tandem with being respectful when that’s called for is a skill I can admire that I don’t have. And for those who claim to be patriots that really aren’t I sign off with this from John Adams. An angry true patriot that knew when to cooperate and who to cooperate with.
I find this highly appropriate in these troubled times as there are a couple things you need to realize about this beyond taking it at face value without context. It may have been borrowed instead of created by Adams. And this was actually in defense of British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. Reminding us that actual truth is actual truth and not just what makes you feel good.
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