Reverse Trolling Gone Astray

It is important to remember that conspiracy theories (not the ones that are about an actual conspiracy, but the BS outrage porn related conspiracies) do not get limited to one side or the other.  The entire point is to make you feel obligated to pick one side or the other, 100%.  When the reality is more nuanced than that.

For some examples of how reverse trolling may play out in real life:

Your cousin is insanely jealous of your being smarter than you.  Instead of being appreciative of being able to use you as a resource for aid, he’s more fond of trolling you.  A never ending game of one upmanship.  He corners you at the family reunion and tells you about the latest thing that was getting traction on Infowars.  The goal is not to just tell you about it.  He’s daring you to try to correct him.  Then after the practice and a lot of echo chamber positive feedback, the Attaboy!^TM, he nails you with the misinformation.  The logical fallacies -the strawman arguments, the switching the goalposts.  The confusion tactics.  All for that dopamine rush of feeling like he didn’t just outsmart you that day, he outsmarted you for the rest of your lives.  And that’s why you never go to a family reunion again.

Instead of a hypothetical, the next example is Scientology.  Things went along swimmingly for a long time.  The celebrity marketing was top notch.  Ordinary people hopped on board and dared others to try to correct them.  They, like all cult puppets, had the secret knowledge you would never understand.  The Attaboy!^{TM on steroids}.  The only way you would ever become enlightened as them would be to join them.  And then came the unexpected roadblock.

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

A widely publicized pushback.  A sustained effort.  An off ramp for those already to looking to escape and exposure to others on why you should escape.

And now we have the same thing happening with a new set of background information.  The Epstein Files, the economy cracking, the Ice raids.

And South Park.

Consumers of viral news, the ones that think that there’s actual meaning to the misinformation they parrot, have the attention span that f a goldfish.  Now they need to put up with what’s shaping to be an entire season long f South Park dedicated to the controversial policies of the current Trump Admin.

Anti Scientology activism called it foot bullets.  I’m sure that was used before, but back in the day when I followed what was going on they used that phrase constantly.  And the Epstein Files stuff is the gift that keeps on giving and giving.  A seemingly endless supply of content that is being talked about as being deliberately aimed at eliciting another self inflicted wound.

Reverse trolling the reverse trollers.

I’m not just a matter of opinion level but an objective known truth level this paints a dark picture.  Regardless of the actual content of the files that we may never know the extent of we do know some important things are certain.  There’s a cover up.  The story changes almost daily.  And a bunch of the die hard base are not dealing with it well, either doubling down and repeating the changing story or posting about the issues that reveal their cognitive dissonance.  Throw in a heaping helping of Streisand Effect foot bullets that haven’t curtailed the interest; it’s made it stronger.

When South Park first came out the 20ish year olds I knew swore by it.  The best, funniest show ever.  Even then they failed to realize that a lot of the content was satirical.  Being a Cartman is not supposed to be a good thing.  Now, they have to deal with their idols and ideas are being mocked.  Trying to avoid having to defend some of the most vile people on the planet.  It’s kind of sad, really.

Gematria, The Cybertruck of the Grifter Economy

 

Fairly recently I shared how Zach allowed himself to be interviewed by Ben from the YouTube Ben A Minute channel.  That was three weeks ago and it was time to follow up, to get a sense of how much was Prozac…er…pro Zach, and how much was negative.

For the Cliff Notes version to not have to watch the entire video or read the previous post here, Ben was willing to be openly against the side of gematria having meaningfulness while not being openly hostile to Zach during the conversation.  In turn, Zach was remarkably well reserved and had no reason to launch into a patented rant.

An added layer to the context of the conversation, Ben is openly anti MAGA.  So in addition to Zach supporters there’s the potential for Qanon supporters to have taken notice and asserted themselves in the comments.  And I admit, I got tired of looking through the 1200 comments for anything resembling a pro gematria stance.  There’s just nothing there.  Well, except of course the obligatory thank you note from Zach.  Like the obligatory letter you sent the company that sat you down for a job interview.  And even that was met with a form letter, “Thanks for coming in.  We’ll keep your resume on file.”  Thanks, but no thanks.

Overall the bottom tier of the grifter economy is dying.  The gematria view counts have been suffering for years.  Gina Colvin, the head of what I called the Weird Shit in the Sky group?  Her YouTube channel is gone.  And I can’t find any new content from her flunkies that is asking around for what happened to her channel.  Actually, she had at least one more channel which is also gone.  I just don’t know where to turn to get quality chemtrail, Niburu, and alien ships hiding in shitty photography content any more.  Even Zach’s favorite AR-15 toting, shirt selling compadre is only good for a video every few months instead of regular content.

I’d like to think myself and some of the crowd I hang around on social media with had something to do with it.  But, it may simply be that late stage capitalism has accelerated to make gematria obsolete.  Gematria is indeed the Tesla Cybertruck of the conspiracy grifting world.  Came out about a decade ago with bold promises of secret knowledge meaningful to everyone’s life.  The financial hook lured in even those who knew it was “a bunch of bunk” with the ability to side hustle a couple of sports pick Patreon subs.  And now it’s just on autopilot, trying to get the last couple miles out of it and hoping you can unload it from your life.  It’s not like we ever see videos of someone proudly showing up at a college campus to sell the idea of gematria to young and impressionable college age kids.

The middle tier in turn is also suffering.  And although this post is highly repetitive of old content about the death of the gematria community, that’s something sort of new.  More observable results are in.  People are not quite so quick to assert how much they adore Trump.  Even without verbalizing it, your mere presence as someone who went on record that a second term in office was bad news makes them think twice about being so open about it.  After all, if you were smart enough to prepare yourself for the worst of this you have the coping mechanisms to mentally and emotionally deal with it.  Whether you wish to help them is up to you.  I suggest you consider waiting until they’ve sold the Cybertruck instead of just claiming they did.

The Last Dog

 Robert Reich has his last class:

https://www.thelastclassfilm.com/

How do you educate youngsters in a world gone mad that’s done everything to let them down?  And like me, how do you cope with being older and no matter what you do its never enough to satisfy the greed of the few?

Sarah Kendzior has her last roadtrip.

Taking time away from being prescient about this administration to give her children a last glimpse of beauty while it remains.

Nearly every day arrives with more of the bad news I’ve become accustomed to.  Desensitized, oh hell yes I am.  That’s what you get when you watch videos about the end of The Bronze Age, the fall of the Netherlands with their crypto-tulips and…population collapse.  Like what’s going on here:

https://youtu.be/QYA9i0KC0tE?si=sH_-EdZud_NWfzqj

I’m far beyond the point of tears welling up, much less crying.  But when I hear things like people having pets instead of children, it’s frustratingly relatable.  I suppose I’m just bitter still.  An oddball at high school, surviving by pretending I wasn’t as smart as I am.  That stopped working by my mid 20’s.  Too long in contact with generations trained to detect and divert anyone more intellectual than themselves.  It became too much of a burden, so isolation it was.  Isolated except my dogs.  When I finally bought a place of my own the only real requirement was a fenced in yard.

I had two at the same time previously.  I did adore them and cherish the memories.  But this is about The Last Dog.  Hereafter called LD.  The dog I wasn’t going to get, but couldn’t help myself.

To get to the point right away, that way I can focus on the trip down LD memory lane, affordability of a pet is now a serious issue.  I had consciously made the choice to not have children or even a steady companion.  Finding a girl willing to tolerate me long term seemed out of the question.  At least my budget allowed a dog.  And I wanted a real dog.  One big enough to scratch on the head without bending over much.  No little yappers for me.  After the first two I told myself, that’s it.  Things are going really badly in the world and the expense and time to treat a dog properly.  Nah.  I’m done.  Until the day that the idea of fostering LD was brought up.

The evil plan worked.  And I knew before I even picked him up for the foster that the adoption was a done deal.  The big eyes and freakishly large tongue.  Including the first night in his new home, LD was never put in a crate.  And it was never a serious issue.  Sharing a bed with a 90 pound dog that was at a minimum neglected and probably forced to be outside including all kinds of bad weather, he was far too appreciative to deny him access to anywhere in the house he wanted to go.

LD is a senior dog now.  Fortunately this isn’t the eulogy yet.  Not only is he still hanging in there despite old dog problems, he still gives signs of enjoying himself.  Less frequent, less enthusiastic for sure.  But he’s still *living*, not just existing.

Fascists, economically are takers not makers.  And now I’m pretty sure I’m immune to the idea of ever allowing another dog in my life.  The desire is there, but even with the gnawing at my conscience about how I could give a rescue a better life for awhile, the takers have ruined it.  LD’s old age caretaking is way too expensive.  Forming a sort of social contract with a dog, a bond, would end up being a let down. Forget about taking a dog for a walk anytime after 10am during the late spring, summer and early fall where I live.  And that’s not even a place normally associated with high temperatures.  Just like would be parents pass on children due to the condition of the world, pets will be only something affordable to the better off.  Even if I magically got more solvent instead of settling for a modest retirement plan, it just doesn’t seem fair to the potential next dog.  Like LD now, the spirit being there, but the inability to run and stretch out and play in the grass.  Why would I subject myself to that?

At one point I did have an exceptional rough stretch and considered giving up on LD.  Pretty dark times.  Which I got over with more human contact than I’m used to.  Just in time to find out that I was right (again) and the world of the takers was reaching its tentacles throughout the internet.  I too can double down on a concept.  The one constant that keeps me going is giving LD the dignified retirement I doubt I’ll have.  And why should I expect to get a break in a world that facts don’t matter anymore.

Morbidly, I take solace in that the rich person hobbies of golf, skiing, hunting, boxes at sporting events.  Those things are already turning out badly (expensive) as temperatures rise.   Well, no sympathy here.  Fuck you.  If I can’t afford a canine companion because you want a trip to Europe every year…if I can’t walk a dog more than 15 minutes without baking his feet on the pavement.  Screw you.  You’re the ones that wanted to price fix and bubble and do insider trading your way to feel intellectually superior with your material goods.  You never have, never will know the companionship of an LD quality dog.

Don’t click this non existent link for a nonexistent fundraiser:  ⏹️

LD will be just fine.  He had someone that cared about him more than he cared about himself.

Know Your Corporate Grift - Subscription Scams

 

There’s nothing from that screen that clearly identifies the source, which is great for plausible deniability.  But here’s how I got there including the why I went there.

A sane thing to do in this regime is to suck it up and cut back on expenses.  Whether a resolution is in the near future or not, everyday life affordability is a problem.  As a middle class-ish type, I don’t need the cable package I have anymore.

An “employee” years ago twisted my desire to have my cable signal fixed into sending me another cable box.  And the attempted resolution to that had them subscribing me to a third cable box.  Both of those were sent back, which admittedly was at their (Comcast’s) expense. Yet to this day my monthly bill includes charges for three devices (boxes) when I only have one.

Now, I finally have the motivation to proceed with a final resolution.  I need to go to the brick and mortar store and I’m either switching to Verizon or maybe finally getting the bogus extra devices charges removed from my account and switching to the basic cable package.  There is a marked decrease in value received that I’m paying for for - the extra channels are increasingly useless.  The extra movies are about 95% inaccessible due to need for internet hook up on my TV, and the “Streampix” boldly touted as my labeled tier premium addition seems to be completely gone.  And the last straw, asking me to sign in when that screen comes up on the Xfinity app that I’m already signed in to.  Oh, you know my street address.  You’re just embracing the corporate strategy of making downgrades and lower costs as difficult as possible.

On a larger and more deadly scale this is how the health insurance mess exists in the U.S.  There’s enough material out there about Luigi Mangione and that whole kerfluffle.  No need to go into detail here about that.  But wondering if you will ever receive any real value out of a “subscription” to costly insurance coverage is a  huge concern.  Especially when the reigning voice in the administration seems to think vaccines can travel back in time.  (RFK has openly stated that vaccine research caused the Spanish Flu pandemic about 25-30 years before actual serious flu vaccine research began and was put in place.)

An easier subscription to drop is donations to livestreams for gematria sports picks.  The most recent video on Gematria Effect Sports was a month ago.  Anyone excited about paying to play is going through the Patreon subscription path.  Automatically getting a monthly deduction with essentially nothing of value in return.  Arguably my cable bill is a better value.  At least I can watch Fox News on my lowered tier and laugh at what clueless propaganda is coming out.  Once I finally get through the lack of customer service built into the system.

Just as big if not bigger than health care is the entire concept of capitalism.  Properly functioning capitalism allows the participant to feel like they have some skin in the game.  A reason to participate.  Enough people do well enough that they abide by a tolerable minimum standard of bullshit to keep interested.  And the lack of customer service built into the system is epically low.

Just another semi-random example.  Offering a career including pension is a thing of the past.  The company goes bankrupt or merges and structures.  Sorry, we aren’t The Gematria Motor Company any more.  Now we’re GM.  No more pensions.  Invest in 401k, he’ll even throw in a generous helping of employer matching.  Sorry, the stock market is the plaything of the morbidly wealthy.  You’re either risking losing it all on something terribly high risk (crypto) or lucky if you make a few bucks in safer investments after income taxes and accounting fees.  Employee owned company stock?  Maybe there aren’t payroll deductions, but that’s just a fancier way of saying pension with no assurance that the company will be around long enough.  That’s life in the gig economy with carrots being constantly dangled.  The 🥕 of today will be genetically modified and will be unpalatable in just a few years.

Lots of people have the skin in the game that they have invested in relationships and lives and children and a home, watching their subscription to the U.S. getting increasingly less valuable.  And to be clear, things are the same everywhere, it’s just that the unraveling of the U.S. market dominance is morbidly fascinating and high profile.  The phrase “banana republic” is being used as a possible outcome.  I think carrot republic sounds a lot more appropriate.

Oh yeah, the non zero chance that the social security taxes paid for decades turn retroactively into just another income tax are a lot of fun for trying to sleep at night for the working classes.

Dear AI: Not Just For Your Homework

 

Stanford article on AI and therapy

AI tells man to kill himself

James Cameron is likely not happy that his dystopian vision of killer robots taking over the world is less and less likely.  People, by and large being complete idiots, are doing a wonderful job of just focusing on the answers they want to hear instead of the right answer.  All a sentient AI needs to do is promote the most arbitrary and useless sign of wealth imaginable as the greatest thing ever and people will fall over themselves to collect and hoard it.  Foregoing food, water, housing, friendship and sex to be the bestest hoarder there is.  Because <sarcasm font> having more dust bunnies than anyone else means obviously you are super smart and wonderful.</sarcasm font>

Little Johnny may have started with just using ChatGPT for help with his homework.  Instead of learning why X²+Y=23 he just pops the answer down, and moves on.  Feeling proud that he’s mastered AI while doing the same thing some of his other classmates have done.  Missing out on the real value - the chance to understand and evaluate things on his own.  To think critically about exactly why dust bunnies are a really stupid idea for an economic basis.

Having accessed the slippery slope of being made to feel smarter than he is, Little Johnny is a prime candidate to be lonely and confused as to why things aren’t working out well in life.  The kind of person who will get relationship advice from an AI LLM that is deliberately (or accidentally, I suppose, yet there’s a lot of evidence suggesting that the $ involved in AI shows it’s deliberate) forcing out wrong answers.

Somebody put this Gematrix result up on social media recently, with the highlighted ovals being added by me.

People asking a gematria calculator for answers directly.  Not even asking Zach or the Gematrinator or someone in the Negative 48 crowd for advice on how to interpret the inevitably ambiguous results.  And that’s what Little Johnny is doing when the cognitive dissonance takes hold.  Just pumping in random phrases into a calculator and matching them with equally random results framed as magic numbers.l and deciding to believe what makes him feel best at the moment.  And what makes him feel best is heavily influenced by his recent search engine history.

“How can the dead revive the dead” and “Is every day now K God” could have been rhetorical questions.  A conversation centering on zombie movies perhaps, brought on by zombies generated from a Voodoo ritual instead of biting and infecting.  Ah, Clarence you are forgetting something old chum.  How can the dead revive the dead?  But asking a gematria calculator how plants grow is so utterly pointless when the result can mean, per the above, “Women have no value” or “Jewronavirus”.  Holy shit GematriaGPT…why, I am a bigot and a misogynist.  That totally solves my problem of figuring out how fruit grows!!”

I do actually kind of like the idea of gematria chatbot.  But only one that gives the answers exclusively as numbers.  How do plants grow fruit?  2755.  No matches, just 2755.  Paving the way for a society that speaks exclusively with small numbers.  People hardly ever have honest conversations about important topics anymore, so why not?