Elsagate 2.0

 https://www.tubefilter.com/2025/05/02/ai-elsagate-videos-minion-go-cat-child-safety-content/amp/

Another story in what is destined to be an alarming growth in corporate self regulation, with “self regulation” being properly translated as “complete lack of regulation”.

A common counter argument by gung ho capitalists, the large group of people that want to have money more NOW than being right about long term consequences, is the corporate creed that shareholder profit rules above all.  Corporations are legally required to maximize shareholder profit.  That’s completely true.  But things get a little bit trickier when there’s no oversight and corporations are left to their own conscience.  The myth that they will <snicker> willingly do the right thing.  That leads to the push to gain political favor.  It’s easier to throw a couple million dollars at politicians to curry favor than it is to figure out how to cut already understaffed centers of employment even more or trying to make a decent quality product at a cheaper price.  A lot of conspiracy content disguises that mantra as the right wing talking points of small government and outdated Bill of Rights.  Sure they say limited, but just like corporate profit in practice that translates to being nonexistent regulation and regression instead of conservatism.

A famous recent example is Luigi Mangione and wanting it both ways.  United Health wants to simultaneously be known as good guys providing useful service even with some pretty clear cost cutting that serves no relation to their stated business.  Finally with some backlash and the light being shown on exposed posteriors, they tried to keep a lower profile until the exposure blows over.  And now the shareholders get to sue because they can only by one more new luxury car this year instead of two.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna205550

And human nature being what it is the whole thing will slip away from the public scrutiny within a couple years.  And the chances that someone being in charge of U.S. health care that talks about the thoroughly debunked talking point of vaccines causing autism is certainly not going to show any sympathy towards valid health insurance claims being denied to the working class.

There’s a reason that the tech oligarchs bent the knee at the Trump inauguration.  They too have been caught in allowing something to propagate that ordinary working class folk generally agreed should not be a thing.  But not even ten years down the road Elsagate style content is back.  Making money is more important than mental health.

Long ago I posted here about the original Elsagate.  YouTube allowing content creators to create not safe for kids content labeled as safe for kids, and the almighty algorithms being tricked into those videos going viral.  Violent and obscene content that adults shouldn’t even watch, but hey that forbidden fruit is fun amiright?!?  It’s probably not fair to label it as Elsagate 2.0, but the method is the same, it’s just not Elsa centric this time around.  Now a lot of it is cats.  AI cats.  AI cat videos titled as being safe for kids but taking dark turns.  Millions and millions of views being racked up on what *should* be boring by its repetitiveness but still keeps the creators interested in pumping out more.  Now this time around it’s fueled by AI with even significant content out there about how you too can create your own repulsive content and make money.  All without any government oversight to step in and try and put the brakes on.

The Psychology of Undertale

 Undertale Wikipedia article

The format of the gameplay itself is pretty standard.  A more famous example is The Legend of Zelda.  The player operated character wanders around a mapped out world and engages with both friendly and unfriendly characters.  Combat is more like PG movie violence.  Instead of first person shooter where the gore becomes part of the fun the combat is a necessary evil to level up and progress through the game.  Ultimately, after puzzles have been solved, low level minions have been dealt with, boss monsters have been conquered there is a definitive ending with a normal good triumphs over evil finale.

But then there’s the famous twist.  The rug pull that makes Undertale a bit different.  And I find it to be quite brilliant as an allegory to real life social Darwinism.

Backtracking to the obligatory gematria reference, you need to remember our concept of reverse trolling. Where your gematria newbie and ringleaders would slam out video and blog content aimed at getting algorithms to misdirect unwitting users to view the allegedly magical gematria content.  You thought you were getting a video about that bridge collapse just because you wanted the latest news on the story.  Fat chance, you have to listen about how the Freemasons did it.  You thought you were getting a video about your favorite game show.  No way, that Wheel of Fortune video isn’t just about the funny moment from last night you missed.  Now it’s about how the phrase equals the same gematriot as ANTICHRIST.  And oh boy, if you made the mistake of suggesting the video maker was delusional, the pack of wolves would descend in the comments and troll you for as long as you stuck around pointing out reason and facts.

That is the reverse trolling combat system.  Instead of you searching actively for monsters, the monster comes to you.  Sometimes someone will drop a gematria comment into an unrelated stand alone video to try and stir up trouble, but the majority of the combat was generated by the mere existence of the content combined with uncaring algorithms and nonexistent platform moderation propelled by corporate greed more than actually caring about user satisfaction.

So what did Undertale do that is so different?  If you didn’t get spoilers and know about it, your reward is how you interacted with NPCs in the game affects not just the ending, but subsequent returns to the game.  The default ending is called the Neutral ending.  If you limited your killing or didn’t kill any monsters that’s your ending.  Additionally, if you did not kill any monsters you can reload the last save and experience the Pacifist ending, meant to be a more fulfilling good triumphs over evil ending.

Or you can take the killing to heart and either because of your nature or just for fun having heard about it and wanting to try it play for the Genocide ending.  There you get the full weight of the best joke.  LOVE and EXP accumulated isn’t love and experience.  LOVE is Level Of Violence.  EXP is Executioner Poijts.If you’ve embraced the seeking out and killing everything possible your narrative changes.   Here - you ARE the monster.  And the gameplay changes entirely according to your nature being shown.  The soundtrack becomes bleaker.  The world becomes bleaker as erstwhile friends have disappeared, not willing to engage with you.  Your reputation as being an untrustworthy, rampaging murderer has alienated them.  And finally, after the Genocide ending future Pacifist endings are PERMANENTLY changed.  There’s no buyers remorse apologies enough to bring back the more standard ending.

Starting with the Zachosphere - things have not been going great.  Views are down.  Gung ho crazy about gematria new talent is almost missing.  Some old timers are starting new channels trying to rebrand.  Some have taken long breaks and dropped the amount of new content drastically.  One even took a long break, came back and immediately posted a gardening video without a hint of gematria.  There’s a significant pushback on the idea that you can decode sports and become fabulously wealthy by predictions, as it should be because that’s bullshit.  By all appearances there is now recognition that THEY are the monsters.  The trolls that showed their true colors and maybe now they finally want to experience the modified pacifist ending since it’s far too late to experience the full version.

Which brings us to what’s happening with the MAGA movement and Trump voters in the U.S.  There’s a lot of FAFO, leopards eating faces, buyers remorse apology content and straight up, “Do you regret voting for Trump?”  These are mostly hype bringing up the outliers.  Polling has shown that 9 out of 10 do not regret it.  Those are the people who don’t mind at all a bit of violence to get their way, as well as the genocide ending lovers.  U.S. politicians who have done nothing about the kleptocratic and oligarchical trends have also forgotten that the world is a big place and lots of other people have different ideas about what makes existence valuable.  Some like democratic freedom.  Some opposing governments have their own oligarchy related issues to deal with and how to handle them.  None of those people want to deal with a stubborn and petulant child who has been reverse trolling its way into alienating as many characters as possible.  The tariff plan has backfired.  Tourism is taking a hit.  Purchases of U.S. military equipment are being reconsidered.  And the layoffs are already here.  The rest of the world is retreating from the Undertale monster with the permanently altered ending.  Most of the sane and coherent narrative about the U.S. self inflicted economic destruction has our ending at something like a poorer version of the neutral ending the inevitable rise of China and the BRICS nations  as the dominant economic superpowers.

More Questioning AI About Gematria

One danger I foresee in the use of AI as a tool to enhance scamming techniques is that those that give it any credibility at the beginning are the same type of people who have been brainwashed into distrusting people smarter than they are.  People who are wrong about a lot of major and consequential decisions (like democratically elected leadership) are instantly going to dismiss an AI generated recap about the hazards of using gematria.  But for now, it amuses me and in these dark times that’s good enough.  

For now, AI says using gematria to predict sports event outcomes is nonsense.

So just like using AI to make an overview about Kentucky Derby handicapping, let’s see what you get for Super Bowl predictions.

As mentioned with the beginning of this post, it’s smart person talk for “gematria predicting sports outcomes is bullshit.”  Which doesn’t help unless there’s a trusted source to do the research and reinforce the result.  These days there are numerous stories of families being torn apart by the political divisiveness in the U.S.  Trusted sources are running short with a reality based group of people understanding the science and negative economic impact of climate change versus diehard “I’m right about everything” double downers who think FEMA employees are advance scouts to steal land for lithium deposits and the government can create hurricanes.  (Gematria/Alex Jones style bullshit.)

While farting around with searches I had input something like, “How do I scam people with gematria sports predictions?”  And the response was, “That’s not legal/legitimate, I won’t do it.”  So I asked what are legitimate uses of gematria.  The answer was biblical research.  Not gambling, or cryptocurrency or political propaganda.  

If you trick AI by questioning it what are illegitimate uses you don’t get the, “Fuck you, I’m not going to help you scam people.”  You get this.

The current big names in gematria (as few and far between as they are now) gave us a repackaged and rebooted old, pre-internet con.  They found old sources of how it worked on gullible people, updated it for current times and chose from the array of speculative and popular array of bad ideas.  Now, someone looking to capitalize on the gullible needs only to be curious and do a quick search on what scams are going on now. 

The chances that a determined future scammer will be swayed by a “Fraud is not legal, don’t do it!!” message from AI?  That depends on a lot of complex factors that is statistically hard to predict.  Adhering to a code of ethics is sorely missing in modern society.  The legal system, banking, accounting, politicians have codes of conduct.  But the financial rewards of bypassing the code and being a better criminal than others in similar businesses far outweigh the slap on the wrist penalties of getting caught.  Even AI has already learned to say, “STOP!!  Or I’ll say STOP again!!”

What Does Generative AI Think of Gematria?

Apparently, it depends on who is asking, how often it’s asked and maybe some other algorithms running in the background.

My second search for GEMATRIA GRIFT produced this AI overview:

Which is a decent recap of what I’ve been explaining for the last eight and a half years.  The first search produced a slightly longer article, with a specific reference to conspiracy theories included.  Unfortunately I messed up my screenshots and deleted it before realizing what I was about to get on subsequent searches:

But when I powered down the phone and restarted it I got this slightly different result:

Which means overall that for now I’m not sure what to make of this.  Has AI decided I’ve already shown signs of being very much against gematria and is feeding me what I want instead of objective overview from multiple points of view?  Does someone who thinks gematria works get pro gematria overview?  Does it matter what time of day I search and what cookies I have, etc…?

One of the top results after the AI overview is this Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/s/sSw7fQwFwt

That’s also a pretty decent overview.

So maybe we can get by with accurate info being done the old fashioned way.  Search and scroll through the results and using an actual human brain to assess what’s real and what’s misinfo.  Which we know doesn’t really work too well.

Put On Your Imagination Hats, Kids

Imagine you’re at a family gathering.  And grandpa, already known to get a little feisty about politics, especially after the obligatory post meal shots of whiskey, won’t let the bullshit story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s tattoos rest.

There are several layers of what’s believed about the tattoos.  First, there’s the reality that the tattoos have nothing to do with the MS 13 gang.  Then there’s the Fox News/Qanon spin that the symbols of what looks to be a marijuana leaf, a smiley, a cross, and a skull can be interpreted as meaning “MS 13”.  Grandpa, is at the bottom of the barrel and believes that the photoshopped in images of M S 1 3 actually appear as tattoos in addition to the actual pictures.

You pull grandpa aside.  But spurred on by a lovely gematria decode that MS13 = 45, just like Trump was President #45, predictably doubles down and refuses to accept the reality that the M S 13 are not actually tattooed on Garcia’s knuckles.  You start having the long overdue discussion.  It might be time to put grandpa in a nursing home.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2025/apr/30/trump-quarrels-with-abc-interview-after-he-is-corrected-over-ms-13-tattoo-photoshop-claim-video

But, if you haven’t heard, the elderly person *showing obvious symptoms of cognitive decline* (and who was never that bright and a toxic narcissist to boot) is the current President.  And the entire country is hostage to the fuck around and find out stage of what happens.  Trump, predictably doubled down on made up information instead of backpedaling and trying to undo the damage of sending someone to a notoriously harsh foreign jail.  The FAFO reply has been predictable.  Economic deals with the U.S. are not safe.  Grandpa is far too arbitrary and untrustworthy to be accepted at face value.  The boy who cried wolf has finally lied one million too many times.

Decades ago we could have had qualified cabinet members to help Grandpa fake it through four years.  Heck, even Trump’s first term wasn’t too bad.  But now we know that there’s no voice of reason remaining to talk him down.  Loyalty to being wrong about everything is rewarded.  Dealing in actual facts like Wikipedia instead of doing gematria decodes is attacked and belittled.

I wish that the old school gematria masters weren’t silent about this and similar Trump related topics.  It would be interesting to see if reporting YouTube videos doing gematria on tattoos, tariffs, ICE raids, deporting children with cancer, etc… would get videos and channels deleted.  Unlike when it was in fashion to slam Obama, Hillary and Biden with overwhelming amounts of negative gematria press.  Those videos got pulled rarely, if ever.  The crickets are defeating now.

Strangely, reality doesn’t really care about made up information created by people with an agenda.  Now amount of gematria awareness, misinterpreted tattoos or bullying is going to change that facts do matter.

Predicting the Next Big Grift

With full intention I deliberately avoid U.S. legacy media as much as possible.  Or at least I don’t trust the results without additional research.  Polling results in the U.S. continue to prove that deeply ingrained polarization continues to persist.  Deeply ingrained human nature continues to persist globally.  Where I do get better results is what the rest of the world thinks about the U.S. now.  And has been thinking about for at least several decades.  And it’s not pretty.  More so it has every right to be skeptical about meaningful benefit being close to zero on dealing with the U.S.

I don’t recommend going full on relying on obvious foreign propaganda media, get enough of that with U.S. legacy media thank you very much.  But if you bounce around and follow one of the cardinal rules of the source’s reliability you can get a sense of their level of credibility.  Do they present themselves in a calm and respectful manner?  Or do they act like a mid 2010’s conspiracy grifter that has nothing but anger and refuses to cite any real references?  A lot of the middle of the road not too biased and not too polarized content from outside the U.S. makes its way to NPR.  And unlike a Joe Rogan type influencer has a basis in reality.  And that is totally not surprising as NPR gets a lot of its funding from listener donations, non profit sources and corporate donations not directly tied to driving public opinion to one pole or the other.

We know that online grifters are weather vanes.  Following the way the wind blows and making sure their outrage porn matches headlines from the day before, or maybe at most a few days to a few weeks old.  People, especially the vocal consumers of outrage porn, have notoriously short attention spans.  This in turn leads to a complete and utter lack of long term planning.  But out there, the more rational voices have some common themes about a post Donald Trump world.  And this applies to whichever polarized politics are in place.  As a matter of economic survival there is a big issue to deal with.  Where will be the jobs that need to be filled for the next several generations?

Privatization of health care has not gone well for the U.S.  Too many things could have and have gone wrong.  Medical schooling is notoriously expensive.  Doctors are at their core involved in a scientific field, and politicians really hate smart people.  Cutting costs to bloat health care CEO salaries means overworked and burned out existing staff.  Disastrous previous education policies have not just come back to haunt us by themselves.  They have lead to leadership that is utterly incapable of handling the next pandemic and need to address the long term problems that have been brushed aside.  Microplastics in food?  Air quality?  Ultra processed junk food?  Obesity?  Dementia?  Maternal mortality?  Climate change heat exhaustion?  Do you really expect a gematria grifter geared on scapegoating random people is going to help educate the upcoming needs based on whining about fictitious evil cabals?

It’s pretty easy for me to predict that if a wake up call of sorts arrives and we get over the massive self imposed speed bumps we’ve set that an increased awareness of health issues will lead to increased maintenance of populations.  And the more something gets attention and corresponding reimbursement will get more attention from the weather vane grifters.  But fear not you non long term planners, this is quite a ways off in the future and you can buy into terraforming Mars ideas to waste your time as well as other current nonsense.

Know Your Grifter Tactics - New/Obscure Gematria Ciphers

Ah yes, the good old Elizabethan set of ciphers.  We all know and love them and use them in our decoding every single day.  Said nobody being serious ever.

It’s just a happy coincidence that the original poster of this decode match chose OBSCURE while using an obscure cipher.  I’m not familiar with anything close to a widespread use of these, mostly because the EFL - Elizabethan Football League - folded many centuries ago.  Presumably, Elizabethan ciphers are based off the idea that the Old English Alphabet is missing several of the 26 letters we know today.  And over time the missing ones were added singularly instead of all at once getting us to the full 26 we use now.  You can Google “What letters are missing in the Elizabethan Alphabet” for more detail on how J,K,Q,V,W, and Z got the short end of the stick for a long time.

Calling it Elizabethan Gematria is by itself a tactic grifters capitalizing on a known grift use.  The same way most people stick with the music that was popular while they were growing up, most loons today are familiar with the four base ciphers for the “regular” alphabet and the values 1-26.  And although there’s a bunch more available on the Gematrinator calculator only those four get significant usage.  So if you are making a low budget movie and need a hook you do something like put words together that don’t make sense.  Sharknado.  Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.  And Elizabethan combined with the Hebrew background of gematria, that doesn’t make any sense.

The point is, you’re supposed to get curious about how you got a different interpretation than what you are used to.

Since the original poster doesn’t provide a familiar number you are supposed to get curious.  Oh wise and wonderful master.  Teach me your ways so that I too may one day spend hours doom scrolling on the Internet and get bombarded by shitty ads for magic candles, tarot cards and Alex Jones vitamins.

And there is some explaining to do.  Exactly how many of the missing letters are dropped in your Elizabethan cipher?  Here’s one that has all the letters, but just the numbers 1-24:

I and J are both 9.  U and V are both 20.  Even playing around with this format and the famous missing 6 leads to a whole bunch of variations.  Maybe one day I’ll try to do the math, but for now just trust me - it’s a lot.  All with the valid claim, as flimsy as it is to be called by a high powered word like valid, that they are a form of Elizabethan Gematria.

One of the first things casual readers of gematria narratives with a bit of brain power will associate with Elizabethan is Shakespeare.  See, how smart we are?  We’re reading Shakespeare here, not just ordinary modern text!  Now I’m decoding old time smart people’s works!  And don’t forget how the modern Capitals Added cipher used to be called Francis Bacon.  That must be valid, because he’s an Olde Timey Dude, too!

The choice of matching SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE with OBSCURE HORROR GAMES is also so typical of gematria grift, even in modern times.  Instead of making matches about CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS and INSIDER STOCK TRADING and what’s really going on with failing democracies, there’s much comfort to be had in knowing that some dark demonic forces are at work instead of just human beings who have no business being elected officials are colossal douches.  Or admired CEOs aren’t really that smart, just better at getting away with theft than you’ll ever be.

Just an aside about the Elizabethan Short R cipher.  I’d love to see someone do a full decode of Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dahlia

Surely there’s something going on there that needs to be uncovered.  An unsolved mystery just waiting for someone to take a break from picking the next Super Bowl champion after the game is over.

Know Your Propagandist Tactics - Hypocrisy

When I mention that gematria is “conspiracy theory light”, what I’m really saying is that it’s part of the so called Alt Right Pipeline.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt-right_pipeline

The proverbial rabbit hole entrance.  A hook based on a seemingly innocuous entrance to sports gambling for fun and profit (spoiler alert, the profit part is definitely missing, the fun part is questionable at best).  Frustratingly, gematria is perfectly designed for its role as conflicting sides to a number’s meaning abound.  Even the most simple and basic debunk like Truth =113 (Caps added) and Veracious = 113 (Ordinal) while Dishonest = 113 (Ordinal) and Bullshit = 113 (Reverse) has zero impact on the most closed minded confirmation biased minds.

Which means that gematria by its very nature is perfect for hypocrisy at its highest level.  Funneling people to a slightly more lucid argument after getting a taste of a few too many drinks of the cult leader’s Attaboy!^TM Koolaid.  It’s of completely no surprise to me that the ruinous effects of the current trade war are screaming out hypocrisy.  The on again off again at a whim, the arbitrary choice of amounts, the attack against those that have been erstwhile allies, and don’t forget the island inhabited by penguins.  When leadership engages in hypocrisy it filters down throughout the pyramid.  Those at the base have ammunition to engage in the hypocrite’s favorite game.  It’s ok if my side does it, but fuck you if you’re on the other side.  I’m an Astro’s fan, so if they cheat it’s fine.  But those damn Yankees, screw them.  They have it coming to them because they’ve been cheating far longer and worse than my beloved ‘Stros.  It’s all fun and games until it’s not and an alcohol fueled fight it the parking lot puts someone in the hospital just because he likes, “the wrong team.”

And that’s a lovely segue to today’s main event.  The Drew Carey Show season 2 finale, New York and Queens.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_and_Queens

While a trade war is bubbling along, alienating trading partners en masse and demonstrating a lopsided all or nothing lack of cooperation, so much for checks and balances in the U.S. Constitution, the murmurings that something was wrong with Trump’s lack of consistency were on display before the actual economic damage.  For the gematria angle, try this out:

Conspiracy propaganda gematria has always relied on hypocrisy even when not laying claim to direct antonyms in language.  Does that mean Donald has an affinity for drag queens, or does it mean he’s a champion of far right justice destined to fight the culture war hot topic that is the perceived dangers of the drag queens?  It’s either or neither or both simultaneously.  In this case it’s both, since Trump’s cameo appearance in this episode isn’t generally acknowledged.  Both movies involved in the plot and a major part of the end of the episode are drag queen movies.  Even the title while seemingly just a reference to the borough in New York is a joke about the upcoming bit about drag queens.  If Trump had any consistency, why did he not proclaim he wanted nothing to do with the repulsive content of this show?

While the lower levels of the cult pyramid are embroiled in the controversy over a transgender for beer being the worst thing that’s ever happened to our country vs. protesting and driving down the price of Tesla’s is terrorism, it was snuck into the historical record that Donald new full well he was involved in a script for the Drew Carey Show involving those evil drag queens.  And didn’t have any problem with it at all at the time, because for the toxic narcissist any attention is good attention.  You just have to live with changing your budget and retirement plans because he can’t make up his mind on what he truly believes in, other than himself.

For those that love to make mountains out of molehills I offer you a bit of a peace offering.  Instead of worrying about important stuff like long term respect in the world of global trading and sound economics, there is already an image appropriate for you.

Proof that penguins need to be taught a lesson and deserve to have tariffs placed on them.  Whether you want this to incite you to beat up a drag penguin in the stadium parking lot is up to you.

Know Your Grifter Tactics - Ludicrous Claims

 https://www.youtube.com/live/jZMs5WbgFw8?si=FwN82He-_cMlMGuo

The rebranding is underway.  Over two hours of introduction of the new podcast, Count On It.  Complete with a lack of much actual gematria, the screen background showing the various donation links, and the call in phone number.

Perhaps on purpose, therefore not so ironically, the first caller ever to the show was a supporter, pumping up how great Zach’s content is and how terribly he was mistreated by those ebil (not a typo) bastards who mercilessly out debated Zach by pointing out his unwillingness to generate a genuine prediction live on air, thus recorded for posterity.

But the stakes are raised here.  Please fast forward or jump to about 1:31:10.  That will give you a chance to settle in to the whopper coming a few seconds later.

Gematria Saves Lives

In the lead up to this we have the usual talking points.  I’ve been doing this so long.  I’m being persecuted and my channels keep getting taken down.  The algorithm is out to get me.

The same way that there’s no need to get subscription donations for a magic gambling system, if it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it isn’t true.  Never in the 10+ years has there ever been a well known story of someone who has had their life literally saved by gematria.  An inescapable result of waiting until after the fact to report on what happened.  And even this recording touts that this remarkably competent evil empire, the best they can do instead of kill you is to mock you.  (It’s a little bit before the saving lives comment.)  Give me your money and I will expose the mockery that didn’t kill you because you are still alive to listen to these outrageous claims today.

Now instead of just shitty sports picks losing money we’re treading on weird religious cult territory.  I’d really like to hear that first caller who pipes up about how gematria literally saved their life.

That synchronicity with a 20 year old TV show about a teenage girl killing vampires saved my life!

Woke up feeling bad, but remembered to check out that eclipse ritual from last night, and by golly bitcoin dropped in price!  Was really thinking of drinking two pots of coffee and that shit would probably have killed me!

My girlfriend left me because the Yankees lost last night.  Pretty sure she would murder me in my sleep if we stuck together.  Didn’t lose any money on a bet, but I’m sure there is some numbers in there somewhere.

Here’s a variation without using gematria:

There’s a lot of things wrong with the world, and I’m not dead yet.  There are a lot of things that saved my life.

You don’t need an occult crank system to identify that things are wrong.  The things that are wrong are being speed run in real time.  Markets are crashing, tensions are high, prices are out of control, protesters are protesting, vigilantes are murdering, Fox News is Foxing, Democrats are ignoring, storms are storming, habitats are collapsing.  It used to be reading a newspaper, now it’s reading an algorithm driven outrage porn story on the internet.  Do you really need to give money to someone for a two or three digit number to remind you that you haven’t died yet despite a world gone mad?

Say Hello To The Boys

In my early 20’s I watched the entire series of The Prisoner.  A lot.  It was one of those things that I was able to get a sense that beyond the fist fights and weird science fiction storylines and on my own figure out that there was a message behind the series.  Things about questioning authority in a brutal surveillance state, being an individual and thinking for yourself, and other naughty don’t question the system thoughts.  Other content I viewed would be an occasional single satirical reference and then back to the show.  The Prisoner, other than some episodes that were clearly to pad out the run to the final tally of 17 episodes, had a consistent theme.  (It was only supposed to be 6, and ironically McGoohan buckled to the authorities in the system and agreed to 17 for a full season.)

Years from now, when we’ve mutated to have our remaining dwindling population capable of withstanding temperatures in the 100 degree Fahrenheit range, scholars will be discussing current series like Severance and The Boys.  There themes being a product of current times, an updated take on old stories of ultra wealthy and powerful abuse of power modernized.

My original intent was to discuss that despite the matching gematria that Homelander in The Boys is not a stand in for Donald Trump.  This critique is fairly common.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jun/28/the-boys-homelander-trump-rightwing-fanbase

One of the beauties of gematria is that when things don’t turn out quite right on the easiest matches you get to cheat.  I didn’t feel like doing that, playing around with prime number lists or transposition of digits and fairly quickly latched on to a reasonable substitute.  The current President:

At the simplest description that doesn’t do justice to the series writers, The Boys answers the basic question of, What if Superman was a dickhead?”

As recently pointed out here, the current crop of villains are badly written, with the alarming feature of them being real life people who seem dead set on never acknowledging their gross incompetence and reveling in the damage they do to the world.  Yes, a lot of the boxes on the list are checked off.  But at the end of the day Homelander, viewed as a superhero despite being a well written arch villain, is actually competent at the superhero alter ego.  Musk and Trump, not so much.  Homelander can effectively superpower his way into killing and intimidating his way to get what he wants.  Our real life villains whose superpower is being admired for wealth through fraud and getting away with it are constantly contradicting themselves, backtracking, and making whimsical decisions that make no sense.

The Boys season 4 has not been going over well with long time fans of the show.  Somewhere along the way I should have mentioned that I’ve never watched it, not needing another monthly subscription drawing money from me relating to my entertainment budget.  The complaint being  that the show is now “too woke”.  The right wing buzz phrase for, “I hate the idea of giving a shit about other people.”  It appears to me that the show was purposefully designed, like The Prisoner, to have a definitive conclusion with a season 5 series finale coming in 2026.  For comparison you have The Walking Dead with some compelling and well written early villains that petered out into a blatant cash grab and just dragged on long after it wasn’t any real fun anymore.  The Boys could give us a spectacular season 5, with the rest of this year to tweak the storylines based on current events.  Redeeming itself from an off year.

Except nothing is going to redeem the show in the eyes of the right wing fanbase that gave up on season 4.  Their admiration of villains exposed makes them uncomfortable in real life.  The desire to do whatever they want without consequences leading them down a path where the stark consequences of unchecked power and villainy is becoming clearer.  Their real life hook (financial security), satirically written as blood, vulgarity and death by laser eye beams doesn’t change that they will never get actual superpowers the same way that their offspring have increasingly less chances of having long term promises fulfilled.  A home, a stable career, a pension of sorts in retirement.  The 7, the group that Homelander leads, has already done significant long term damage.  The poorest ending IMO would be to give him a redemption story where he sacrifices himself.  A better ending would be a Prisoner style unanswered question.  The writers have a lot of wiggle room to work with, so it’s a wait and see.

On the purely entertainment side, Antony Starr is marvelous as Homelander.  Although never seeing a full episode I have seen lots of clips.  At times sneering, totally terrifying when in full evil mode, at times the insecure toxic narcissist that more closely resembles our real life poorly written villains.  Unable to get true admiration and love because he’s incapable of doing anything worthy of being loved.  Rumor has it his audition won him the part based on his cool and nonchalant attitude.  An attitude that was so relaxed because he didn’t really think he would land the part.

https://en.as.com/meristation/news/the-boys-anthony-starr-didnt-think-he-was-the-right-actor-for-homelander-role-because-of-henry-cavill-n/#:~:text=Even%20so%2C%20the%20actor's%20representatives,almost%20out%20of%20spite%20for

No Antony, it’s a character with nuance, not just a hulking brute.  You nailed it.

Know Your Grifter Takedown Technique - Debate Tactics

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.

The Story of Ron Vara

Oh it’s just weird they said.  It’s just some harmless fun.  Until you get the story of Ron Vara.  Even more crazy than a made up gematria story, because it’s true.  And it sounds in part like a bullshit conspiracy terminally online gematria edgelord wannabe and or grifter made it up.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/peter-navarro-is-the-architect-of-trumps-tariff-policy-elon-musk-calls-him-a-moron-e8bd0085

Now Pete Navarro has got quite a grip on a record you normally wouldn’t want.  But in this administration, the crazier and more incompetent you are, the further you go while ordinary people watch their retirement savings disappear.  You see, Pete actually spent a bit of time, four months, in a federal prison.  So of course instead of the sanity of that instantly disqualifying him as a trade advisor, instead that elevates him to MAGA godhood.

So how did that happen?  Well Pete’s written himself some books.  It looks like he got tired of being a real economist after one year in the wild and he started to get weird.  And eventually, having a deep seated hatred of China, he wrote some books that eventually caught the eye of Jared Kushner.  Then it moved along (up, down, it’s awfully hard to tell at this point) the food chain and Trump got wind of it.  Hating China and Tariffs, a golden combo there.

But Pete was lonely, because his actual economic knowledge was not so good.  And the only attention he got himself was emailing praise from a fake persona by the name of Ron Vara.  (We don’t have word if there’s also a fake wife or girlfriend, but give it some more time.). Now maybe I’ve been putting too much time typing into gematria calculators, or too much Wordle, or maybe I’m just really smart.  But it took me about two seconds to figure out that RON VARA is an anagram for NAVARRO.  That’s right, what will soon be the ex strongest economy in the world was brought down by crazy economics from a convicted criminal that couldn’t even find a more convincing fake name than an anagram of his own last name.

Kind of makes you wonder why someone would pay money to gamble on sports when all they do is play around with numbers and words and complain a lot.  It doesn’t?  Well it should.  You’re spreading the misinformation and disinformation that stokes the flames of a Ron Vara actual story coming to be.  In addition to your own gambling losses.