domain:alexberenson.substack.com
No_one
31m ago
The memes continue to deliver.
I don't think it's going to contaminate the dataset so thoroughly, but seeing as 2-3 million relatively tech savvy Americans loathe liberals and probably 50,000 of them have a twisted sense of humor, the odds of Stancil getting visited by a Teslabot when these start selling is .. very, very high.
Tiber727
3m ago
That's what makes this 180 so conspicuous. It makes no sense: if you know you're compromised, you wouldn't have campaigned on lifting the veil, if you know you're not, what could possibly convince you to hesitate at the last second?
Not that I take any position on Epstein or Trump's relationship to him, but as far as Trump's campaign actions go, Trump will say anything and then abandon it. Whatever happened with Obama's birth certificate? Does anyone care? Was Hillary ever locked up?
No_one
48m ago
Dasein has a an interesting take regarding the UAP theater
And one more thought. There has been more rigorous, well-funded scientific investigation of xenobiology than of secret societies, conspiracies and psyops. This asymmetry is interesting. We have learned an awful lot about life and why it'd be hard for life to emerge outside Earth, and nothing in favor of such life. We have seen quite credible examples of conspiracies, and nothing to suggest that better-ran ones are impossible. However, the former remains viable, while interest in the latter has positively plummeted among the educated classes in the last 100+ years. «What if intelligent life beyond Earth, like silicon-based or something, dude, and flying saucers, imagine how it could work» is a respectable enough train of thought: why not indeed, and what's the harm anyway, it's deserving of patronage of eccentric billionaires, academic grants and place in peer-reviewed journals. «What if a well-organized cabal of malicious people manipulates public opinion without legible authority» is a sinful evil idea a libel this idea killed millions shut up stop it or we will erase you from polite society. (Like many taboos (e.g not threatening to throw another party's candidate into jail), it's being violated nowadays, to an extent; the ayy guys say the government lies. The government is not the Cabal, of course; it is known that the government keeps some things secret. But I suppose this does blur the line). Most importantly, though, we do not have a serious theory of conspiracy.
(snip, see the rest at the link)
That said. If there's a single parsimonious theory of a motive for this psyop that I can seriously propose… It's not my «overcapacity» thesis but rather the opposite. I mean the discrediting of the authority of the USG and army and American intelligence apparatus, through this very Bayesian logic, as @Hoffmeister25 demonstrates. The USG is the supreme secular power of the world, – and it's being reduced to some provincial slapstick comedy, instead of carrying itself with the dignity of the sovereign. It does not command respect, mostly just grudging support, on account of the vileness of its competitors. Give this 10 more years. 10 more years of AI shit torrent, 10 more years of long Covid and demented gerontocrats, 10 more years of Trump and Biden dog-faced-pony-soldier show and lurid, Jerry Springer tier gibberish in Congress. If at some point, say, CIA manages to report something truly ludicrous for Americans, physically plausible but shocking – who knows, maybe Mossad quietly installing backdoors into Deepmind and Anthropic AGI superclusters? – it will just be met with shrugs and condescending scowls. Whoever runs this, wants the legitimate authority of the US to end up in the position of the boy who cried wolf, and then collapse without popular support.
Just an idle thought.
lagrangian
55m ago
For anyone else wondering, this is not about a new assassination attempt. This is about last year's, which was one year ago today (where his ear got clipped).
I agree that often duty based ethics is framed in terms of mutual duty. But @Clementine is still correct with the assertion that duty without reciprocity is virtue, not exploitation. You may not be required to discharge your duty towards someone who doesn't discharge theirs to you, but it's still praiseworthy to do so. For example, Judaism and Christianity both depict how God continuously acts benevolent towards humanity despite them not deserving it. This isn't framed as "God is a sucker", but rather as God being the exemplar of virtue whom we should strive to imitate. Not all religions frame things that way, of course, but when you have some 3000 years of one religious tradition which does, it seems fair to call that just as established as the reciprocal duty that you outlined.
edit: forgot to mention that your explanation of Christianity is very much not how it works, and is in fact a heresy! Salvation is explicitly not something that God owes us because we upheld his law, but rather is a freely given gift. Thus our only choice is to say "yes, I accept" (out of which comes trying to uphold God's laws, again not out of obligation but out of love for him), or to reject his gift (because we would rather do our own thing). Salvation as a gift rather than earned by our conduct is a core tenet of Christianity.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
25m ago
I talk about other subjects too like white nationalism and conservatism coding as low class.
shoeonfoot
58m ago
I'm also currently banned from both places.
With respect, this means you should understand why you're being modded in this place. I want to, gently, repeat my request that you drop the sardonicism, snark, and drive-by insults because I think this place would be worse off without someone like you. Also, I am much closer to your side than the other side, so I'd hate you see you banned.
Don't get too caught up on coffee_enjoyer; he's a unique breed. He's like a BAPist – prone to philosophical musings – but with a relatively benign dose of anti-Semitism thrown in.
erwgv3g34
59m ago
This is why the best ranking method is a simple thumb up/down (or upvote/downvote, or like/dislike). Then you report the ratio, which runs the whole gamut from 1% to 99%. YouTube used to do this before they decided that dislikes were problematic. FIMFiction still uses it.
(Admittedly, this system does have the issue of only working in aggregate; there is no way for a single reviewer to distinguish between something that is barely worth watching and the greatest story ever told.)
This is not how evaluating coincidences should work.
https://www.econlib.org/just-a-coincidence
What are the chances that out of 8 billion plus people in the world, it's you and me right now debating this? Astronomical really.
Someone with a massive public profile doing shady shit would have -10000% probability to put their last name as their Reddit handle where they were a power user and top mod.
It's far more plausible it's just a coincidence, unless there is strong evidence to even consider this hypothesis at all. (There isn't, which is why your merely privileging the hypothesis.)
See also: https://coagulopath.com/ghislaine-maxwell-does-not-have-a-secret-reddit-account/
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