Updating Civilization 2

 A long time ago, before enshittification worked its claws into every fiber of society, there was a sort of golden age of computer games.  A period of time when you could purchase a stand alone game that wasn’t just existing to funnel you into an endless cycle of upgrades and newer versions.  Upgrades that increasingly had a form of intellectual property shrinkflation.  Dubious benefits versus additional costs.  In that time, Civilization 2 became my favorite. 

 A balance of playability and realism was achieved.  Some stuff from the beginning was just wrong.  For example, a battleship crewed by veterans could be destroyed by a fortified troop of musketeers in a walled city.  Playability-wise that makes sense.  Too easy = boredom and there should be a risk or the reward is hollow.  I suppose the thought process in that example is much like the actual straight of Hormuz situation now.  Just shelling from long range isn’t enough to capture a city.  In the absence of a coordinated force of battleship delivered shells and marines landing and doing the boots on the ground work, they had to do something with just battleship versus just musketeer combat.

A cute touch is that towards the end climate change and pollution is a real issue to be dealt with.  Unchecked, too much pollution would end your dreams of being master of the planet.  But without explanation, dedicating some capital from your global economy made that a nuisance more than an actual threat.  So I would argue that without magical knowledge of what things look like today an upgraded version could theoretically be made.  One that addresses the diplomatic and truly global effort necessary.  Because as is, at the endgame where climate change is being a pest it’s just one human player and any AI positions left are sort of a joke in comparison.  Now let’s look at some other problems with Civ 2 and how they could be updated these many years later.

The King Richard’s Crusade wonder

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_wonders_in_Civ2

The game is effect an increase in production for engaging in a holy war.  That sounds an awful lot like slavery over a notoriously unstable region of the real world.  Perhaps s a different theme could be chosen, or how about this.  The cost to receive the increased production in that single city is an extra garrison to keep the slaves in line.  One extra military unit of the era’s main type must be in the city or it revolts.

Sun Tzu's War Academy

Veteran troops are better than green newbies.  Got it.  But that means a social cost that should be addressed.  Low morale, PTSD for the society’s forgotten Rambos, stiffing vets out of health care and pensions as is the tradition.  I’m not going to throw a number out for my solution since I can’t play test it.  Troops start as veterans, then after a period of some time reduce to non veteran status unless a monetary upkeep is put in to the system.

Adam Smith's Trading Company

 The game is a product of the era of capitalism is the only way to allocate resources, and it shows.  The “never becomes obsolete” aspect is complete and utter nonsense.  My solution -a timer.  A set number of turns after building the wonder and costs to eliminate pollution increase dramatically.  It takes more time, more of your Cub’s treasury to clean up.  As with real world capitalism clean up in game is more or less magic.  My fix has you pay for the inevitable creation of oligarchs hoarding resources in our bastardized version of Adam Smith’s ideas.

Statue of Liberty and Women's Suffrage

 Ouch.  The U.S. doesn’t take the concepts behind them seriously enough.  Best to just get rid of them until people start treating marginalized groups with more respect.

And let’s leave the rest of the wonders alone, but add Artificial Intelligence.  And adding AI gives a reasonable tech increase but has so many expensive problems that it’s to be avoided instead of built.  That approach takes the stance that the solution to the Fermi paradox is that advanced civilizations give up on wasteful spending on pipe dreams.

Fundamentalism and Extremism

 https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Fundamentalism_(government)_(Civ2)

Double Ouch

That does seem a bit racist and judgmental to instantly dive to the Middle Eastern vibe.  The fix is easy.  A graphic of an overweight AR toting slob with a red MAGA hat….as an option, not a forced choice.

Leaders

 I’m not against the idea of Stalin being the choice for a Russian Civilization leader like in the first game.  Civ 2 lets you pick from a wider set of options.  However, when put side by side with the absence of Hitler as a choice for a German.  The computer opponents per manuals and the internet are based on some set tendencies.  Well I’m calling bullshit on the whole leader concept.  You should be able to adapt and change as new information and eras arrive.  The idea that Abraham Lincoln took you from the Bronze Age to launching a fusion powered craft is fine for playability.  But I want the chance for Shaka to see the era of his ways and accept my regime change ideas after I threaten to nuke him.  AND see that maybe backfire when he immediately forges an alliance with the Celt’s who also have nukes.  Actually , at high enough levels the AI leaders seem to be all pretty much assholes.

Railroads

Sorry railroad fans, in Civ 2 railroads are way overpowered and the one thing for the mechanics of the game I’d change first.  You can literally build railroads in every land terrain square and move across an entire continent sized piece of territory instantly.  There’s no such thing as policing borders being an issue, and with no downside it’s beneficial to max out railroads.  There’s an economic boost to doing it.  The fix - instead of being free forever after construction you must pay for ongoing maintenance.

I could add some more.  The temptation to offer a snarky gematria based conspiracy wonder is high.  But we’ve all suffered enough with that.

The Frozen Eggs Debate

I hate being a conservative these days.  It’s so hard for me to understand sarcasm and satire.  Maybe I shouldn’t talk about this until I get a better grasp of that.

I just watched clips on Fox News of the Eggs Jubilee debate.  A nonexistent but very real sounding parody of the Jubilee debate format where a claimant makes a proposal and then is surrounded by a group of opposing view holders.  The clip was totally not cherry picked and edited to make it as embarrassing for the lefties as possible.

The Claim:  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a poopyhead.

First Debater:  You care to present a single specific point about what makes AOC that?

Claimant:  Because she is.  Checkmate!

And the debate ended.

So I have an ex-friend, let’s call him Leon to secure his true identity.  I’m sure he’d appreciate that since he used to be one of the guys, and now he’s having some naughty thoughts about doing actual research.  And asking to discuss meaningful DEI bullshit topics like bodily autonomy and stuff.  And since his wife is named Noel and that’s Leon spelled backwards nobody will know I’m talking about him.  Noel is the problem.  She has been giving him bad ideas.  So he asked me what I thought of the debate and asked me, “So what would you pick as a single specific point?”

Dammit, Leon you chucklehead.  The softball of all softball of all questions to ask.  The right wing media ecosystem just told me what to say about this.  It’s the big thing to talk about, until the next big thing I’m told what to whine about comes in.  AOC wants to freeze her eggs.  Some lame bullshit about bodily autonomy blah, blah, blah, uncovered by insurance, blah, blah blah, and missing out on the child bearing years and regrets and blah, blah, blah, equality between sexes and blah, blah, blah.  Totally missing that the Eggs Jubilee content has already proven she’s a poopyhead.

Then Leon told me I was being close minded and a MAGA cultist who couldn’t think for himself.  I. Have. Never. Been. So. Angry.

So I laid into Leon armed with all the confidence that one only finds in what Noel calls the multibillion dollar online grift economy.  Like, what the fuck does that even mean?  So here’s what I told him.

It’s the economy stupid.  What’s the most important part of the economy?  Stocks.  Like chicken stock.  That you make soup with.  And what’s the best part of a good chicken noodle soup?  It’s when you cut up pieces of hard boiled egg for the soup.  And what’s the best measure of inflation?  THE PRICE OF EGGS.  Sure the price of oil is part of that, as oil prices rise egg prices rise.  Duh!

Buy low, sell high.  I’ve been trading in cryptoeggs for the past couple of years.  Nothing too big.  Don’t want to lose the house the next time some lefty president comes in with their dumb ideas.  That got me thinking.  Why not invest in egg eggs.  Like the actual thing you could eat.  And I did something nobody I know did.  I bought them when the price was high.  A symbolic purchase in honor of the greatest world leader ever, DJT.  Those aren’t dumb ideas that are bad ideas, they are never before seen displays of genius.  And when the egg tariffs work their way through the system (SOON!!) I’ll be sitting on a goldmine.

Because, I’m freezing my eggs.  The generator to provide electricity for the egg freezer was bought from INFOWARS (back when it was good).  You can tell it’s high quality since it was $59,999.  No cheap ass commie  generator for me!  I’ve made arrangements for purchasing liquid nitrogen as a backup during times when the genny might go down.  Way more inexpensive and practical than you think.  And the nitrogen was made in Texas.

In about 20 years, when prices finally calm down, I’ll have something that retains value better than a house, better than gold, better than cryptoeggs.  I’ll have a fucking ton of genuine ex-frozen eggs that can be exchanged for real goods and services.  More valuable now than ever as 20 years from now when people are just figuring out how ironic it is that AOC freezing her eggs is exactly what poopyhead would do.

The security issue was a tough nut for a while, but finally solvable by finding someone who is willing to guard them for the promise of a couple really valuable eggs a year starting twenty years from now.

And get this.  Leon said,

“Are you sure you aren’t just triggered because she’s a bright young woman who shows signs actually fighting for a future worth living in?”

Leon, I don’t even know you anymore.  Lucky for you things seem to be going great with Noel.  Have some fun now, because she’s a poopyhead, too.  She will turn on you one day.  Her and her bad ideas about the cost of raising a family.  The cost that won’t be subsidized by stockpile of frozen eggs.

Know Your Grifter Tactics -The Unreliable Narrator, Part 2

Dr. John Gartner in YouTube

I remember the first time I saw The Sixth Sense, famous for its twist ending.  Perhaps I could have slowed down and figured it out before the reveal, but I was pleasantly surprised.  I was fully armed with advance knowledge there was I major twist, but I didn’t see it coming.  A good movie lets you escape and get lost in the story unfolding in front of you.  I had forgotten to even try to figure out what the surprise would be.

Bruce Willis’s character is a classic fictional unreliable narrator.  If he knew he was a ghost at the start his interactions with other ghosts and a tiny human that can see those ghosts would be different.  But there is a sort of bias wall between reality and his perceptions, his framing is skewed by that bias.

I am not a trained psychologist or psychiatrist.  Not that formal education or training would do me any good career wise.  There’s still a lot of anti-science and anti-intellectual sentiment floating around.  You gotta give the dwindling number of cult members something to do.  Not all of them get to deport decent people who just happen to have the (allegedly) wrong skin color.  So hey, Fauci is in the news again.  Let’s reinstate the bullshit false accusations that came about when he was scapegoated the first time around.

For myself, real life unreliable narrators are easy to spot.  Even without formal training it just comes naturally.  This is because there’s nothing wrong with my pattern recognition skills, and a science degree.  I also figured out the science degree wasn’t going to work out for employment.  Going into massive debt to get a masters degree - that wasn’t a grave I wanted to dig into.  But it did help a lot structuring my thoughts and solidifying the critical thinking abilities learned in high school.  Ah yes, those glorious days of high school where I first discovered that people have patterns, too.  I didn’t hang out with the cliques that would be most likely to be found at the type of rally Charlie Kirk would be hosting.  I learned to avoid them.  Which being in a fairly large school meant spending a lot of time by myself.  A classic Generation Jones nerd world of books and movies that I could absorb at my own pace without being assaulted by people in various stages of narcissism.

Yes, it’s another one of those posts.  Because at this point the actual objective facts are undeniable.  Not only is Trump objectively an unreliable narrator due to his lifelong narcissistic personality disorder, his dementia addled brain is mush.  “The Donald Trump you see today is the best you’ll see because it only just gets worse.”

I would gladly trade some peace and stability to replace the flex of seeing something of the kind of world that exists today.  The NPD affected brain by definition is heavily biased.  The NPD affected brain is an unreliable narrator to the body it operates.  The dementia affected brain by definition is a supercharged unreliable narrator.  Nothing is more important than the self.  Every narration is skewed.  Unreliably skewed.  Every story is now purposefully guided towards the skewed alternate reality or a jumbled mess as the various parts of the brain that govern impulse control and memory fade into pudding.  As Gartner and others mention on the various news shows and social media postings, it’s not cool to diagnose without interviewing by a trained professional.  But we’ve seen the trajectory over a decade.  The constant need for attention and providing material for the loyal subjects to get a short term attention boost is a great form of relevant and damning material.

Over not just the decade of active Trumpism and but decades leading up to that, narcissists without NPD have been “trained” to ignore the personality cult leader’s worst displays.  Like Fauci being unfairly scapegoated, Biden, Obama, Comey, Jack Smith, oh….its much shorter to say anyone that ever has disagreed with you is bad.  The multi billion dollar online grifting community latched on, amplified and the lingering seeds of doubt, although wilting now, the plants grew and the rot spread long enough to influence elections over millions of impressionable minds.  It’s absolutely no big surprise that Congressional ability to check and balance, to stop the madness, wasn’t going to happen.  The narcissists in control of those wheels in the machine didn’t do much about the 2008 financial crisis or January 6th.  Or a concerned response to climate change issues.Why should we expect different now.

Gartner has explained across his presentations that Trump is a good candidate to throw a hissy fit and launch some nukes.  I’m a bit more hopeful than that, but it is something to think about.  Yet, this is because my favorite scenario is more like some other nut job responds to his outrageous demands and pulls a big FU in retaliation.  And at least we’d never know who was wrong because everyone at that point is an unreliable narrator.  Some form of monetary reward is part of the online grifter’s speech, and even they aren’t dumb enough to think hustling you for Patreon subscriptions is going to help, right?

Know Your Grifter Tactics - The Unreliable Narrator, Part 1

 *Spoiler alert for The Odyssey and Project Hail Mary*

Back in the old days there was a quaint little practice known as reading.  This archaic mode of information sharing required a reader with enough resources to acquire printed material as well as a fundamental knowledge of how to translate the mysterious scrawling into something that wasn’t complete and incomprehensible gibberish.  For example, you may use this so called reading skill to read a restaurant menu and order the fish that you like instead of a spinach omelette you do not like.  Or you read the instruction manual instead of just trying to assemble your kid’s Christmas bicycle unaided.  Because you’ve got your pride.  You don’t need no damn instructions.  And if you really want to show off your reading skill, you can read gematria decodes because you can tell these are reliable.  The narrators tell you so.  Quite frequently.  Annoyingly and insanely frequently.  Almost like they need to say it instead of just being an actual reliable source needs to be, projected, instead of relying on actually being reliable.

Because this tedious reading thing doesn’t just require an education to read and some form of payment in a late stage capitalist nightmare.  There needs to be a writer.  And that’s a mixed bag.  Some writers are better than others, whether it be for entertainment to distract others from how they are struggling to pay the rent bill, or they’re targeting people who wouldn’t recognize propaganda if it bit them on the ass.  The marketing for sports/conspiracy gematria has always played to it being a somewhat fun method of acquiring secret and forbidden knowledge that just happens to coincide with bigotry and undreamt of wealth.  Every single one of these narrators is unreliable.  The profit motive is there.  The willingness to contradict just for the spur of the moment influencer economy points is there.  The sociopathic lack of giving a shit about others is there.  The doubling down on the craziness is there.  The constant drive and search for new cult members, braggadocio, confluence with other bad ideas, etc….  It just never ended.

Sometimes effective entertainment writing will deliberately use an unreliable narrator as a driving plot point.  And sometimes this can become an effective method of injecting societal concerns into the entertainment.  And as these get adapted into films the burden of slogging your way through hundreds of pages is removed.  You just might be forced to put up with an angle you don’t agree with when 100% objectivity is virtually impossible.  

The narrators of Fight Club, American Psycho, and Shutter Island are unreliable since they’re crazy.  Golden Caufirld in Catcher in the Rye is heavily biased.  Children are naive and innocent.  The unreliable narrator is officially a trope, a trope that exists because in real life the unreliable narrator exists in its many different forms.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

(Throwing that in because a red flag for spotting an unreliable narrator is insistence that they are the ultimate source of all knowledge without providing references.)

My two favorite movies this year are Project Hail Mary and The Odyssey.  And both have unreliable narrators.  In PHM the protagonist suffers from a (deliberate) drug induced amnesia who slowly requires his lost memories over the course of the story.  The part about man made climate change is more clear in the book.  The clock is ticking to save the Earth.  And fortunately man made climate change bought us some extra time.  The alien microbe is absorbing the Sun’s energy and a super long trip to another star system holds the cure.  The creative choice allows our hero to work hard as tension builds instead of not having much of a movie and magically knowing the answer within 10 minutes of film time.  Throw in an alien that sociopaths and xenophobes can’t appreciate that makes grown adults with real feelings cry.

But I find even more interesting is The Odyssey.  Not more entertaining, but thought provoking.  The mere fact that this is the topic Nolan chose, I find fascinating.  The same way the Vietnam War sparked movies of war veterans trying to re-assimilate back into society (Rambo).  The source material has been part of philosophical discussion for THOUSANDS of years.  And not only is Odysseus an unreliable narrator, the question of his reliability is part of that philosophical discussion.  Translation and interpretation are an integral  part of the lore.  Not just the plot but the subsequent arguments.  Here’s some other content I’ve absorbed from YouTube:

https://youtu.be/u0Y8tFcpWnI?is=9jerJZiBRU2IfjQZ

(Phil0bot philosophy channel)

https://youtu.be/u0Y8tFcpWnI?is=9jerJZiBRU2IfjQZ

(MadMorph Movie Club channel)

These are smart people with worthy opinions.  Reliable narrators.

Previously, my experience with The Odyssey was 

1). High school English - the finale with Odysseus returning home and killing Penelope’s suitors.

2)  Bits and pieces of chapters stolen and thrown into other works.  Usually the Sirens.

3.  Xena Warrior Princess did the whirlpool story and devoted an entire separate episode in the second season titled, Ulysses.  And now we know Homer was full of shit and Ulysses fell in love with Xena.

These things, while fun like PHM and didn’t prepare me for the unreliable narrator.  So wrapping up Part 1 of the blogging.  My three takeaways in my highly personalized and opinionated recap of the Odyssey.

1)  The in movie referencing to the Sea Peoples was frequent.  I can’t help but relate that to current day big issues like the war with Iran and resource depletion.

2)  It’s complicated.  Odysseus is a complicated man.  It’s not black and white.  It does appear that like a conspiracy theorist all the good and cool stuff he accomplished because he’s study and cool.  All the bad stuff, the Gods are out to get him.  The convenient scapegoat.  

3)  With intent I do not waste my time on Twixter anymore.  But I have heard that there’s pointless argument about culture war topics instead of substantial issues.  Like the casting of Page and a black woman for Helen of Troy.  These are the talking points of the grifter.  The talking points of someone unwilling to focus on meaningful content.  The talking points of an unreliable narrator that will not talk about unreliable narrators because it hits too close to home and can’t express a complicated issue without resorting to a two or three digit number in a gematria decode.

Cyclogematriasis

Although not at the levels found in 2016, the Center for Critical Thinking has identified a rise in cases of cyclogematriasis.  Known symptoms of cyclogematriasis include:

Frequent and sometimes explosive cases of verbal and written diarrhea.

Focus on “meme” numbers like Pi, 666, and 88.

Increased cyber bullying and scapegoating.

A sharp decrease in the desire to treat others with dignity and respect.

Sharp weight loss and fatigue due to late night decoding and doom scrolling instead of sleeping.

An early victim of the current outbreak who only gave our reporter the name Superedgelord227 said this from his hospital bed:

“I was decoding the Titan submersible implosion.  That made me think of the Titanic.  That made me think of icebergs.  That made me think of iceberg lettuce.  That made me think of how you don’t see lettuce much in the Planet of the Apes movies.  That made me think of Charlton Heston’s character Taylor, that made me think of Taylor Farms of Mexico, that made me think Mexico in the 2026 World Cup, that made me think of how you’re not supposed to drink the water in Mexico.…” And we finally interrupted him since we got the point.

The best course of action to combat cyclogematriasis is preventative measure.  No decoding at all is best, but if you must remain focused on happy thoughts like the love of Jesus and the Golden Rule.  If you can’t help but talk about political, economic, and social issues be prepared to talk about housing prices, finite resources and the difference between projection and reality.  If you find yourself thinking that Obama is the Antichrist or an urge to gamble call the help line at the Center for Critical Thinking immediately. Do not drive a car, operate heavy machinery or watch Fox News until cleared by a trained CCT expert.

The Imaginary Banker App

 Why settle for an imaginary friend when you can have so much more with an imaginary banker?

~ Herman Smith, Lorimor Iowa, April 1981

Hi there.  Bradley Smith here.  And I’m the founder and CEO of the greatest thing that ever happened to everyone - The Imaginary Banker App found at our website https://imaginarybanker.com.  This testimonial serves as verification that everything that follows is truthful and although it sounds too good to be true, believe me this app works wonders.

It all began with my Dad, Herman, and my Mom, Dolores back in April 1981.  My second loose tooth.  In retrospect the first loose tooth was pretty uneventful.  The second was life altering.  Mom was nervous about her side hustle as the Tooth Fairy that night, because as with the first loss of a baby tooth, Brad liked to sleep with a hand tucked underneath the pillow.  And sure enough, replacing that shiny quarter for the rough piece of calcium that night was problematic.  Yours truly awoke, catching Mom in the act and pretended to not have been fully awakened.  The small amount of sleep that followed for me that night was interspersed with the big question.

If Mom’s the Tooth Fairy, then what else are my parents and other people?  The Easter Bunny?  Santa Claus?  Jesus?  And what about that Oscar Wurther from this “bank” thing that had my parents so worried all the time?  Oscar used what I told were scary words I wasn’t to press about.  Words like mortgage, foreclosure, bankruptcy.  Surely since Oscar dealt with money he had some connection to this Tooth Fairy fable.

Dad was a kindly, moral soul and the wisest person this totally unbiased person ever knew.  Although Mom thought it was a bit too early for “the talk” Dad found a way to have it.  Gently easing me into the true nature of life by telling me about the Imaginary Banker.  And as I grew older with each passing day I found myself yearning for what other little tidbits of knowledge he would spoon-feed me.  Being perpetually in debt is scary, but when you embrace the Imaginary Banker it gets easier.  Much easier.

I was hooked on the first story.  I remember it like it happened just yesterday.  Proper care of teeth is important.  The Tooth Fairy stories are for gullible children.  I was now officially growing in to manhood.  I was hearing about the real driving forces behind proper dental care. 

Toothpaste doesn’t work correctly unless you had to borrow money to purchase it.  There was an embargo in the 1970’s when the top toothpaste exporting countries in the Middle Teeths were trying to leverage their stranglehold on the supply.  Through a process called dentatative easing, the U.S. government released millions of barrels of toothpaste from the strategic reserves.  Holding prices steady until a more favorable regime could be forcibly installed in the Middle Teeths.  The quarter Nom was giving me.  That was a refund.  Dad had used the Imaginary Banker to pay for more effective borrowed money toothpaste.  And like millions of other kids in the early 80’s that quarter was due to us in real money.  An actual solid piece of metal that was totally not representative of imaginary funding principles.

——————————————————————-

I used the Imaginary Banker frequently throughout the years.  My fried potatoes were more nutritious with borrowed imaginary money.  My shoes fit better and the sores from them being too tight weren’t as bad as they would have been because of Imaginary Banker money.  I was left fielder in Little League Baseball because imaginary borrowed money got me the best second hand glove money could buy.

And of course there’s my dear Betsy Koosman, my childhood sweetheart, first crush and now my wife.  Betsy actually chased after me.  My self confidence was at the top.  Funded by imaginary money and unlimited hopeful aspirations I was the perfect tutor for someone like Betsy.  Her parents never told her about the Imaginary Banker and I was more than happy to fill the gaps.  At first it was just mutual physical attraction.  Betsy’s natural auburn curls highlighted her flawless complexion.  My Little League career as the best left fielder Lorimor ever had accented my rugged good looks.  Our first kiss was under the bleachers after we won the county championship.  We lost our virginity together in 1995, protected by imaginary contraception funded by the Imaginary Banker’s contacts in the Imaginary Pharmaceutical Industry.

And our daughter, my cherished Noel, was born 282 days later with a glorious wedding a month before that.  Herman Smith repeated the quote at the top.  “Son, I’ve got the cost of the wedding covered.  You don’t need an Imaginary Friend when you have an Imaginary Banker.”  I cried tears of joy and terror for weeks.

——————————————————————-

The last decade has been tough on everyone.  Betsy, my Mom, Noel, my closest friends.  We’re all doing great.  (Dad passed away due to complications when Covid hit.  I’d like to think he’d be his old jovial self.). And I realized as the world bitches, pisses and moans around us is that we have a mental state that keeps us happy.  The never ending confidence that Imaginary Money supplied by the Imaginary Banker would get us through anything.

And doesn’t the rest of the worked need to share in that joy?

So that’s when I can up with the Imaginary Banker App.  And everything has gone off about as perfectly as could be hoped for.

The app is powered by AI.  Artificial Imagination.  Nobody can copyright imagination, so while it was training on data all across the internet there was no chance of a lawsuit ending our dreams.  Once we found all the gematria decodes from the most active years, the app became more or less self aware.  No solid math or language skills.  No copyright protection for the concept of gematria.  Just unbridled and unlimited imagination fueled by completely arbitrary discourse on the most arbitrary of subjective viewpoints.  And that was combined with unfettered access to unlimited imaginary funding - a gambling win rate of 50% is the ideal number for an imaginary banking system.

The IPO, Imaginary Price Offering, was a huge success.  Trillions of imaginary dollars flowed in and we can pretty much undertake whatever imaginary projects we want.  Some of the plans include EVs that you can imagine don’t blow up and imagine don’t drive into pedestrians when in self drive mode.  Imaginary trips to imagine terraforming Mars.  Imaginary Data Centers that only use imaginary electricity and cooled by only imaginary water.  And we’re especially proud of how much our imaginary reduction of imaginary CO2 in the imaginary atmosphere is advancing.

——————————————————————-

Let’s wrap up with some features already built in to the Imaginary Banker app.

- The cybersecurity system named after my daughter, Noel.  (She giggles like a schoolgirl hearing about how famous she is, now.)  The suite is loaded with imaginary strong password generation, imaginary two factor authentication, and physical security including but not limited to imaginary security cameras.  This is solid protection for any imaginary cyber threat.

- The best imaginary search engine.  The top results will find the information based off the word hoax IMMEDIATELY.

- Imaginary prediction markets.  Just like gematria you can imagine you’ll get rich quick.

- Access to the best imaginary 401k and pension funds available by the world’s top imaginary investment brokers.

- An imaginary coupon for unlimited imaginary coffee.

——————————————————————

Imagine your way to a better life today.  Herman Smith never said that, but I’d like to think that it’s the kind of thing my Dad would have said.  But he’s in a better place now, an imaginary place where the imaginary bankers are his real friends instead of just his imaginary friends.  A happier place where imaginary politicians no longer clamor for his imaginary donations.  Won’t you sign up for the Imaginary Banker App today and make him proud?

Chuds In Horror Movies

I do have to kind of chuckle with how my life has come full circle.  I learned a lot about life from books and movies, especially other people’s reactions to the same material I absorbed independently.  And I’m old enough to have rented and watched the original C.H.U.D. movie, not having to suffer through someone explaining to me that in that movie a CHUD is a Cannabilistic Humanoid Underground Dweller.

And not an insufferable prick like it means in today’s lingo.

Books and movies are a sort of safe zone for self exploration.  A good writer will guide you to an intended view without spoiling it and making it too obvious.  At least not too early.  A complex villain with some nuance is far more interesting than an underground dweller that by name we know solely exists to eat human flesh.  And psychological horror has really hit its stride here in the 2020s.

In Cabin In The Woods, Drew Goddard not only has the standard horror movie characters, they are an integral part of a complex ritual to appease the Lovecraftian elder gods and return them to slumber until the next timeline the ritual needs to be performed.  You’ve got your stoned out fool, the jock, the brainy nerd, the ditzy hot girl.  And the final girl who is the pure virgin.  In old horror slasher, the tropes were pretty simple.  Establish that the jock is a self centered prick and prime the audience pump for his upcoming death.  He’s an asshole.  It’s not just OK to want him to be a victim.  It’s often a goal to get the audience hopes up that his death should be excessively gory, painful, and humiliating.

The Cabin in the Woods jock does fit in the in movie narrative of the ritual sacrifice jock.  And being Chris Hemsworth aside, you do get some character development that shows a good side.  His sole existence isn’t stuffing nerds in the school gym locker and pinching cheerleaders butts.  He reads philosophy and is willing to make sacrifices.  There’s nuance and complexity that gives you hope that is dashed when he meets his end.  The final girl along with the rest of the planet doesn’t exactly succeed.  Score another writing win for Goddard and a reason it’s no surprise that the Project Hail Mary script was so solid.

Now, an exceptionally annoying aspect of modern intent discourse is the walking on eggshells being forced down your throat.  This, like patriotism has been projected upon us by those who require the good guy and bad guy to be obvious.  I said Superman is a bad movie because the Lex Luthor chud supreme character is a badly written character.  I said it first, therefore I must be right.  And since I only talk with my friends about chuds being misunderstood I have no desire to actually think about things for myself.  And in the meantime I’m fine with thinking true patriotism is neo-nazis disrupting pride parades and drag queen book readings.  (Etc…)  What they’re really messaging - oh shit, I might be a chud.  And this movie threatens my feewings and since Fox News told me to hate it, that’s so much simpler to just ape out a movie is bad.  Often even sight unseen.

That’s far too much background for the movie of the day to discuss.  Obsession has proven to have remarkable staying power and does not have the oversimplified Character A good, character B bad plot boredom.  In Obsession a lonely young man has a crush on a girl most consider way out of his league.  Nikki has friend zoned him and he wants more.  Given the opportunity to make a wish that changes her into becoming obsessed with him he unleashes a curse.  She’s no longer just the pretty girl he was obsessed with.  She’s a chaotic force of destruction that ends up making his life miserable in a matter of about an hour of the movie’s run time.  The goods are delivered for required horror movie mayhem, but there’s a central question about the morality of the main character Bear.  Is he a good man that got carried away or is he a disgusting chud?

Both characters are obsessed with each other, hence the movie title.  One is willfully obsessed based on presumed nature and socialization.  The other is forced into it, and I’m even going to admit to use some loaded language here - what appears to be some sort of supernatural rape.  My own bias aside and having flagged which team I’m on, if you watched the movie , what message did you get?

Team Bear is a chud - glad he got what was coming to him.

Team Curse is the villain.  Making supernatural wishes never goes well and everyone’s a victim.

Team let me watch the movie again when it comes to streaming and talk to my friends and see what they think about it subjectively.  Which could end up being messy if someone gets insistent that they are 100% right.  Claiming objectivity over something that needs to be examined more closely than people may want to.

I’d like to be on Team watch it again except I already have in a way.  You can search YouTube for reaction videos.  Something like “Obsession Explained”.  I’ve already seen some commentary indicating the video author encourages you to leave a comment with what you think about the movie and why.  I find myself pretty solidly still in the Bear is a chud camp.  That’s the message I got when I first watched it.  I didn’t see anything else that changed my mind.  But I sat my ass down and actually put effort into thinking about other people’s perspectives.

And that’s probably why it’s a good movie.  You can think about it beyond a knee jerk reaction.  One answer is not necessarily right or wrong.  And if you don’t try to force your opinion on me as fact, I don’t really care what you think in regards to changing my mind.  I in turn can respect your opinion.

It’s a movie, and not a culture war life and death struggle in reality.  Conspiracy gematria narratives a decade ago absolutely were a culture war reality life and death struggle.  The screenwriters were terrible.  Everything was doom and gloom end of the world unless you pay me gibberish.  And people fell for it.  They didn’t want to be challenged.  They wanted to hear that Freemasons were ruining their lives by occult ritual because they could at least have someone lower on the social ladder to complain about.  You can’t get much lower than a fictional scapegoat to blame your problems on.  These people didn’t want a solution.  They didn’t want to listen about how housing prices and unaffordable health care were ruining lives.  They just wanted to not be the victim of the chud.  And nothing said I’m not a chud like kicking the school nerd before stuffing him in the locker and BEING the chud.  And they found their obsession.  A magical gambling solution to the financial woes.  Gambling on sports AND being an intellectual badass.  Now that Nikki has woken up from her cursed hell, she has to deal with the aftermath of the world you left behind.

Option #4 - Team shitty gematria narratives never solved anything.  

Schtormenfreude

Weather Channel After Storm reporting

Kind of an odd sort of poetic justice that severe thunderstorms helped ruin the 250th birthday of a country grappling with one of the worst world leaders in history sham his way through running that country?

I’ve put in a conscious effort over the more recent decade to not gloat about bad decisions leading to death and destruction brought on by climate change.  Even in 2026 it’s still more common to listen to people around me downplaying something as unnatural as the July 2026 severe thunderstorms and heat sweeping across the 250th birthday celebrations.  It’s really uncool to openly mock those who have believed that insane weather patterns are “not that bad” or even those clinging to the outdated “climate change is a hoax” ideas.  Especially when there’s been actual death, costly financial results, and enormous inconvenience to the about half a million people without power.

In real life, I don’t gloat.  My existence as someone with high immunity to gaslighting and not buying into confirmation bias based misinformation is punishment.  Being an asshole on the internet, that’s an entirely different story.  And I’d like to think I wouldn’t be blogging this now if it weren’t for this nugget of bullshit conspiracy nonsense I heard a couple of days ago:

There’s a bit more AI gave me about how it was meteorologists saying it was natural summer heat domes.  I dismiss that since my initial search DID bring up that it was climate change related, but a simple rephrasing allowed it to alter the results to a more friendly “this happens all the time” theme.  That immunity to gaslighting thing.  It IS hotter all the time.  It IS windier all the time.  My personal experience adds to scientific reality based on actual experts.  And if the best you have is a ridiculous and fictional weather warfare narrative that magically only affects Republicans and/or the overheated Pacific Ocean super El Niño is now “natural”?  Fuck off.

No, I’m not gloating about the death and destruction.  Or even the ruined Independence Day celebration in D.C.  That was already dead.  Nobody around my area was in a celebratory mood.  Too hot.  Too many weirdos clinging to being a cult member instead of admitting Trump is a failure.  Not enough money for proper celebrations even if the mood would have been better.  But I’ve got a personal experience and receipts to prove I was prepared for the worst.  Call it one of my greatest hits regarding my predictive capabilities.  Prediction based on critical thinking skills and certainly not a gematria decode or any insanity about anthropomorphic climate change being a hoax.

I had my tree trimmed in late June.  A little more than a week before the storms which put where I live right at ground zero for some of the worst of it.

Part of my bitterness about not feeling comfortable adopting a pet is things like the tree.  I’ve been here long enough and it’s been trimmed several times before.  It’s always real expensive, and a huge pain in the ass to get multiple bids to make sure I’m getting a competitive price.  I’ve considered having it chopped down, but maybe the tree trimmers are right.  There is a lot of shade I’d lose.  And trying to live with leaving the thermostat at higher temperatures than I previously lived with, maybe it’s for the best it stays.

The tree is perpetually overgrown.  It was overgrown when I bought the house.  It’s no fun.  I can’t take it for a walk, or teach it tricks.  All our conversations have been completely one sided.  When the flyer was slipped in my door, an advertisement for tree trimming services in our area, I thought about how I’d been putting it off for too long.  Maybe I really need to bite the bullet here and get it done.

And what elevates this to near impossible prediction status is the way I talked about the tree prior to the actual trimming.  My favorite phrase was:

“It’s an accident waiting to happen.”

This is a prime example of why my mere presence is annoying.  The OhNoMyInVeStMeNtS! crowd is busy filing insurance claims and not having their favorite breakfast nook open for business even days later.  All the many, many leaves strewn across the back yard are from other trees.  There are two modest branches in my back yard that need to be disposed of.  One of them isn’t even from my tree.

The entire crew that did the job was Hispanic.  <GASP!>

Well, we will never know how bad it could have been.  Accident waiting to happen was avoided by doing something common sense and the occasional elimination of my tendency to procrastinate.  In theory, my stupid tree could have wind grabbing on to least branches and be the tree that ruined the power lines for my entire neighborhood.  My power was out for about two minutes.

Yeah!  No ruined food in the freezer!  No struggles to sleep in a hot, stagnant oven called a home!  No emergency hotel room stay!  No angry neighbors because my tree fell on their roof!  It’s lovely when you get to take credit for things that might not ever have happened.  I should probably take up a new hobby like…conspiracy theories?

Conspiracy Gematria Is a Shitty LLM

That may seem to be an irrelevant statement these days considering the overall lack of irrelevance that conspiracy gematria has to the world at this time.  But it’s more about AI and LLMs at this point.  And although there’s a decent amount of content addressing the problems with generative AI, “good” information is available if your research techniques are up to the challenge, I thought it would be fun to <corporate speak font>circle back</corporate speak font> to the mid 2010’s gematria explosion.  You know that time, when Alex Jones style bullshit was all the rage.

If you didn’t already know, AI chatbots are not some avatar of omniscience that scours the internet and compiles the sum of all human knowledge to form the correct answer.  It’s merely a text prediction device based on what’s out there.

Wow it’s really raining hard.  You could say it’s raining cats and _____.  Where even autocomplete suggests you might be looking for the word dogs.  The Supergirl movie is _____.  Really good?  Too woke?  Mediocre?  Total trash?  That’s a lot trickier, and depending on which echo chamber, if any, you spend most of your time at may affect the outcome of the prediction.  Not because the LLM is bad, per se.  But because like a bad lawyer trying to get away with leading the witness you can subtly alter the wording of your question to trick the LLM into giving the answer you *want* to hear.  Innocent enough if you’ve already decided completely subjectively that you love or hate the Supergirl movie.  Not so fun for society at large if you think that the global problems with climate change we’re experiencing now aren’t a problem.  Or if you didn’t understand how vaccines worked back in 2020.

Tech companies, are a business.  And operating as a business requires profit and growth above and beyond everything else, apparently including oxygen and clean drinking water.  There’s an arbitrary dividing line between reputable companies with employee integrity and fascist operations that require exploitation to the maximum while the narcissist in chief rakes in millions with little addition to the operation of keeping large numbers of people content.  Naturally, far right wing messaging has the appeal to the “wealth defense industry”.  That’s a euphemism I heard recently for white collar crime.  Once someone learns the math of starting with 10 million dollars earning a safe couple percent interest versus starting with $1 at a safe couple of percent interest there’s no turning back for some.  Far right messaging wields the political power to get votes from the clueless while simultaneously making the wealthy boomer get excited about nothing else other than the performance of the stock portfolio.  A recipe for making employment for survival of the working class a tedious and eternal conflict of balancing basic necessities and pretending to care about the most boastful and arrogant narcissistic, sociopathic bosses, which makes a career more of a position in a global Ponzi scheme.

Cults, propaganda, scams.  The bastion of confirmation bias based misinformation.  Nothing says you don’t care about facts like falling for any of these traps.  Now that we’re officially in a global society where people would have money than be right, isn’t it nice to know that at least before AI started predicting what we wanted to hear that at least we got to do some really cool gematria decodes, first?

The education system dried up.  After a period of let’s pretend a degree means stability and home ownership, too many people got exposed to other peoples perspectives.  They started getting naught thoughts about equality, dignity, basic human rights, and morality.  You can’t have that in the Ponzi scheme.  But if smartphones are cheap enough and the right propaganda is targeted at the vulnerable, you don’t need an education and critical thinking.  You can have Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to supplement your Fox News.  A device with easy access to stay in line with what the cool people are saying about bad ideas regarding long term sustainability.  Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance conspiracy gematria would have stayed a simple sports gambling grift.  But I doubt it.  The stories always gave away that they were edging ever further towards the violent, racist, and misogynist content.  Social media didn’t care.  Just like Coca Cola trots out a message occasionally about caring about pollution the higher ups would occasionally do some social media damage control.  See, we banned this account!  We do care about the children!  See, they created two new accounts the next day!  We care about free speech!  See, we care about massive amounts of training data for our upcoming LLMs!  Let’s watch the conspiracy theorists outstupid each other in the goal to be an influencer level voice on the pyramid scheme!

And gematria was perfect.  Absolutely perfect for that.  As soon as a two or three digit number was mentioned you knew EXACTLY what was coming up.  113 meant lying.  56 meant Jesuits ruining the world.  227 and 314 meant Pi and therefore real math was backing up the other story and other numbers being told.  More than a full generation of people starved for actual education found a voice.  A voice that was cemented into leadership with the narcissistic attitude of “Fuck you, got mine” with the fascist, “Well, at least I’m not a woman, immigrant, nonbinary, or the wrong religion” more ordinary level of income folk.  And boy did it show that it was working on the voter suppression front.  If you dared to mention that Fauci got a raw deal trying to work through Covid while being stymied at every turn by incompetent executive power.  Nothing beats cover for incompetence and corruption like a good scapegoat.

Smart people make good scapegoats, too.  Because mocking people with tiny, statistically insignificant numbers is really not very bright the family dynamic has been…interesting for the past decade.  People that instantly recognized that “47” doesn’t make much sense without context have to deal with family members, co-workers and fellow shoppers who have been given an excuse to open up about how smart they are when the reality is they have fallen for the cultish Attaboy!^TM.   A one way street to political donations, gambling while others have the insider information you don’t, eternal justification of people hypocritically contradicting themselves openly.

Later today, in a better alternate universe, I would be at a barbecue, laughing and having a good time.  I’d come home, take my dog for a walk and watch a movie for pure escapist entertainment.  But noooooooo.  I’m the bad guy because I’d rather not have to deal with 100 degree, global recession react to the fires that have been lit raging around me.  And the gematria crowd that was on cloud nine a decade ago.  They join me in my discontent.  The consolidation at the top of the food chain abandoned them long ago.  And we can all not go to a protest on America’s 250th birthday because it’s going to be way hotter than a hoax dictates it should be.

Project Eucastrophe

So what exactly is a eucastrophe?  Well, it’s not a deus ex machina.  At least in my book.  My book has a lot of cross references of things I learned from books, movies, television and failed attempts to gaslight me.  By definition, eucastrophe is a plot device that saves the protagonist from an unhappy fate.  While deus ex machina evokes thoughts about lazy and stupid writing, eucastrophe is a rewarding and satisfying happy ending.  Since the term eucastrophe is attributed to the great Tolkien, let’s give an example for Middle Earth.

And just as things looked darkest for the ring bearer, Sauron had a pulmonary embolism and died.  The End.

I “get” grim.  And cynical.  And nihilistic.  I get them as concepts.  I emphasize with some of the thoughts and lifestyles of those that espouse them and merely talk about them.  Approve of them, no I don’t.  I do not engage in an excessive amount of time directly engaging with people about my philosophical thoughts.  My mere presence is usually enough for me to give off the vibe of what I’m all about, and for me clamming up and not engaging with assholes works just fine.  

And every once in a while, something gets added to my list of things right wing extremists don’t like.  Like they’ve been trained to hate mutts, Wikipedia, anything science related and Joe Biden.  And speaking of science, that brings up the star of today’s show.

Project Hail Mary

My gosh I adore this film.  Previously over approximately 45 years of movie theater trips, I’d only seen two movies more than once in the theater.  That record was shattered by seeing Project Hail Mary four times in five weeks.  Add on some reaction videos on YouTube and some shorts, I have all the best parts locked away in my palace of happy reference points.

A breath of fresh air amidst a sea of cynical cinema.  Perfect?  Hardly.  But while watching it, especially the first time, I simply did not care.  And now weeks later removed from the first viewing, I still reflect on a more personalized take.  I really can’t picture a die hard MAGA cult member appreciating it.  While I admit that I’ve felt more compassion for a fictional alien rock, a heart warming story involving the slightest empathy - loved by MAGA?  Toxic narcissists have a new target to replace hatred of old Jimmy Stewart movies.  Pretty much the only thing they have to latch on to is it’s an Amazon product and Jeff Bezos is and always will be a narcissistic asshole.  So there’s that for them.

There’s lots of movies from the past half year that have not been ashamed to put in at least pieces of anti rich asshole messaging.  Superman 2025, The Running Man remake, They Will Kill You, Ready or Not 2.  Unlike the in your face commentary in Superman, PHM is subtle.  What happens when desperation forces a, well, Hail Mary attempt?  Now the under-appreciated and misfit scientist is the hero.  Good thing he wasn’t antagonized along the way or he might not be so ready.  Oops.

I think of teenagers watching this and absorbing the eucastrophic message.  Probably on the smarter side, there is lots of sciency stuff.  And yes, it is a fact that as a demographic smarter people tend to be more liberal and anti Trump.  So it’s not just my right, it is now my duty to wear my custom made PHM themed shirt and bring it up as much as possible.  A timely movie displaying a massive tonal shift from the doom and gloom cynical content overwhelming us for over a decade.  It’s OK to be smart again.  It’s cool to have empathy again.

We’re allowed to be human again.

Where Are the 1776 Gematria Stories? - Part 2

 

https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/the-top-10-reasons-donald-trump-s-1776-billion-weaponization-slush-fund-and-super-pardon-for-his-family-and-businesses-are-unconstitutional-illegal-and-a-fraud-on-the-court

Can you imagine that my attitude towards the often reported as, “nearly 1.8 billion dollar slush fund” is one of not being a fan?  It’s not just the reasons that Raskin lists in that article.  The mere choice of the amount, that’s a gematria-style dog whistle.  A familiar number so that self styled “patriots” who are actually criminals have something to latch on to.  The 250th birthday of the United States should be cause for celebration, not mired in constant economic bad news, broken alliances cause by deserved lack of trust in the U.S., massive protests, and constant embarrassments.

And somehow, me wanting alleged adults to talk about housing prices and crypto scams and AI bubbles and out of control gambling…I’m the bad person.  There are some words that I’m trying to remember that I wonder if I’ve said here before.  Oh yeah, I remember.  Fuck You.

Life would be so much simpler for me if something like Ground News existed 10 years ago and was given serious attention.  It’s extremely frustrating to see what was going on in the world of one Alex Jones.  Make up stupid stuff, get paid for it.

1776 is actually an awesome gematria talking point.  Like I said, for fake patriots it’s a great number.  It just jumps out and grabs the attention.  Hot dogs, apple pie, 1776, big ass pick up truck you can’t afford the insurance on.  ‘Murica.

Normally 1776 is way outside the useful range of numbers for a believable gematria decode.  But it has three distinct advantages that help shave it down to manageable size and tickle the happy chemicals in the brain.  First, there’s the super convenient fact that when divided by two you get 888.  That number has some history within conspiracy gematria. Any triple digit number has a history within conspiracy gematria.  666, 111, 777, 888.  That’s positive reinforcement to the unaware.  Look at how cool this number is - three of the same digit!!!!  Second, there’s this Sumerian cipher cheat code.  It’s really just 148x6 which from a math point means that any value of 148 is instantly elevated in status to 888.  And finally, 148 absolutely is in the useful range for a short phrase.

Combine that with how Donald J. Trump just happens to equal 148, joy of joys.  Instant decode starter material.  Once you’ve established short phrases and some long words equal 148, time to start the bullshit.  Stay consistent with your theme.  Frame it is a positive, add RIGHTEOUS GOD=148/888 to Donald and DONALD J TRUMP RIGHTEOUS GOD = 1776.  It’s magic!  Or do what I did, find how CRIMINAL PAYOFF=148/888 and DONALD J. TRUMP CRIMINAL PAYOFF sure sounds like a fitting decode for the 1776 payoff that an insurrectionist would just love to be part of.  You can fart around on your own, or even use the Gematrix website for some easy 148/888s.

As with the top linked (and slanted) article above, there’s no legal or rational reason for the amount.  There’s no calculation to justify why that’s the correct amount for the fund.  It’s all vibes and emotion designed to capitalize on knee jerk confirmation bias lack of critical thinking.

However, beware the effect of Ground News and content creators savvy on fake debaters like Zach and Charlie Kirk.  The new wave of young intellectuals fighting back with logic, reason, and dealing with people that really aren’t able to do anything but dig their own grave further.  Here’s Dean Withers showing the double standard of how liberal with a gun = bad, but Kyle Rittenhouse with a gun is just fine because he’s on my team:

 https://youtu.be/04t7LZthGoc?si=QkZWCpkAFnAH44kl

Adam Mockler is another good, consistent critic that’s not afraid to take on Fox News pundits who relied on emotion above reason for years.

What’s left of the old school gematria crowd.  Well, they pretty much stick to sports and gambling.  Too afraid to take on someone who can effectively fight back and unwilling to slant to one side or the other now that there’s massive backlash to the MAGA material.  I’ve checked regularly on YouTube since the 1776 criminal payoff fund was established.  And changing the search filter to “gematria 1776” for the last month - pretty much nothing.   The projection is still heavy in the air.  The weather vanes are projecting aloofness and distance for damage control, too scared to even try to make material that might funnel views to Kalshi or Polymarket insider information scamming.  Which is an entirely different story that I might get around to some day, but probably not.

Where Are the 1776 Gematria Stories? - Part 1

Don’t panic.  The actual 1776 gematria I’m doing will be in Part 2.  Today’s lesson is starting off with the latest Nightshift (Kurzgesagt) video.

Dihya, the Sorceress

And if you prefer to read, here’s the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahina

And you could <gasp!> do both.  Go crazy.

And we’re off to the races already with framing.  The video does spend its run time calling her Dihya.  And it does mention the totally bad ass nickname, the Sorceress, several times.  But the Wikipedia article calls her Kahina and throws in a side reference, also known as Dihya.  Pay attention to that.

Within a minute of the video we get the table set for the rest of the movie.  War, death, powerful authority figures.  All the cool stuff missing from the Dihya, Sorceress Queen spinoff of Xena we never got but fully deserved.

The next two minutes.  Uh oh.  The Roman Empire, independent tribes, Islam, Christianity..  This might be headed towards something that might upset my feewings.  I don’t want that.  But for a well educated and open minded guy, my curiosity is piqued.  I’ve never heard of this person.  And I’ve enjoyed other content from this channel.  I’ll trust it for now.  They always inspire me not just with the content of the story, but the effort they put in to the manner that they present the story.  I’ll give it a go for at least a couple more minutes.

Now the River of Sufferings.  That’s the good stuff.  I could have done without that part about the army size - 40,000 or maybe not.  Maybe just exaggerated by fake news historians.  But it’s narrated with graphic descriptions of people getting shot by arrows and armies charging in to battle.  Peter Jackson movie?  Sign me up.  I certainly don’t hate this story of this woman I’ve never heard of.

Oh no!  YouTube ads!  I got Audible and Pods storage.  Get back to the video.  I hate ads.  And right after that, whether the YouTube needs advertisers to make money ad break came just before it - the main point here.  The channel specific advertisement at the eight and a half minute mark.  Ground News.  Again.  My feed is loaded with content creators that have partnered with Ground News.  It’s an endorsement not unlike Michael Jordan promoting sneakers.  If you want to play basketball like me, you need good shoes like these.  If you want to fully appreciate history and news, here’s something you should also be considering.

The story you are hearing is absolutely affected by who told it or who is telling it now.  Actual events absolutely are clouded with spin, framing, deliberately missing context, and even outright lies.  And now Nightshift has brilliantly worked in a cartoon owl taking a short break to not just teach the story of Dihya, they are also reinforcing the dangers of consuming news and history algorithmically changed by catering to confirmation bias.

And now back in with the concluding parts of the story.  I definitely didn’t see that coming.  Just before eleven minutes, Dihya has to return to fighting her old enemy she previously drove away.  And going all scorched earth might not have been the greatest idea.  I’ve said this so many times.  We’ve seen this movie once before.  While survival or plunder might start off getting people motivated and engaged, when the shit hits the fan and people can’t eat or drink water you get a whole new level of crazy that you aren’t prepared for.

And immediately after this, the payoff of reporting.  Ground News didn’t step in with a Tardis to accurately report who did what to whom and when.  Would be conquerors spin to make the enemy look bad.  Actual mistakes are exaggerated and emphasized.  And history remembers Dihya very differently depending on who is doing the talking, what their background is, what their motivation is,

And absolutely 100% not some allegedly secret code that is only used to report on current events after the fact.

Modern day gematria used for conspiracy theories, the motivation is clear. They want to take advantage of your lack of real education.  They want to take advantage of your confirmation bias to get at your wallet.  Their stories have massively dropped in volume.  If there was any real meaning to the system, there would be tons of 1776 stories exploding on national news, whether it’s a full propaganda source or a neutral site.