#conspiracy theorism

[lygise]

currently reading Making Monsters by Richard Ofshe. it's a semi-comprehensive history of the recovered memory movement, it's history, it's faults, the development of satanic ritual abuse claims, and he touches on the movements relationship with conspiratorial thinking. i disagree with his belief that MPD is fictional but i understand that during his time the body of evidence for MPD was produced by hypnotherapists with a tenuous relationship to facts...the recovered memory movement has done caused so much damage to research on dissociative disorders.

i think Ofshe misses out on big players in the scene like Fritz Springmeier, and he seems unaware of the relationship between SRA and claims made in Edith Starr Miller's Occult Theocracy. on the whole Making Monsters is worth reading.

[postsforposting]

fascinating that people who claim to be serious leftists, "allies", for social justice, still insult people when talking to anyone who isn't exactly like them. especially the use of "stupid" and "idiot" or anything else implying people are mentally crippled, and that it's obviously a thing they get to shame and make fun of.

the problem with "educate yourself" is that you won't listen when you're told you're wrong. just like, you know, bigots and conspiracy theorists. you "did the research", "did the work", yeah? of course you can't be wrong, it's the world that's wrong! just like antivaxxers and fake moon landing people say.

except antivaxxers see the damage they cause when their kids get crippled for life or die. there's literally nothing you can show an "ally" like that to change their mind, because they actually think being mean is a good thing, is helping. you know, like antivaxxers denying their kids basic medical care, like abusers claiming they're making their kids better people. they're helping! it's not poor behaviour! YOU DESERVE IT.

funny how these people call it bigotry when they're treated to their own "education". it's fine when you do it, but not when it's done to you? fucking feudalist behavior.

[calling-abraxas]

Alien Culture and Contemporary Paranoia

I wonder if you remember the late-’90s pop culture craze around aliens and UFOs. Movies, TV shows, and video games often referred to them. T-shirts, stickers, coffee mugs—bearing levitating discs and/or little green guys with huge black, often upside-down teardrop-shaped eyes—sold by the millions (one supposes). They often entailed foil and/or holograms. In magazine stands at grocery stores,…

[anticonspiracist]

Do you think that there is some mental health issue related to long term belief in conspiracy theories? I understand ct’s being used as a coping mechanism or form of escapism but the constant unbridled belief after years is almost unsettling. I was reading a larries post about how babygate would likely end in 2023 and make way for a fresh start in 2024 and it was so similar to posts i’ve seen since this started in like 2015. It’s hard for me to imagine being proven wrong at every turn and still believing so whole heartedly. I don’t mean this to diagnose anyone either I just wondered what your thoughts were on long-term conspiracy theory belief on the way your mind works/views the world.

I think that it's less that long term belief in conspiracy theories causes a mental health issue of some kind and more that it can be a symptom of a mental health issue. Not always a symptom, but in some cases.

Conspiracy beliefs are a coping mechanism. Coping mechanism for what, exactly? That depends upon the person. There is some evidence to suggest that those with higher levels of dispositional anxiety are more likely to engage in conspiracism than those with lower levels. This doesn't cut against what we would see as "common sense" -- those experiencing more baseline anxiety will need to find ways to mitigate that anxiety, and conspiracism is highly accessible now and answers all the questions that can't be answered in any other way.

I saw a post yesterday or the day before that addresses what you've seen regarding the similarities between 2015 and today --

Anon: Ok.. so.. I’m a 2023 larrie but very strong one, no one or nothing can prove me to believe otherwise.. Anyway, I’m just wondering is this gayos normal in this fandom? I feel like something’s cooking big time.. but I haven’t been here long enough to know if this is normal? I mean both of them are single at the same time and all this other stuff going on. My question is if this is just a normal spring in Larryverse that or is it something “else”?

Larrie response: I’m pretty confident to say probably all of us experienced the feeling something big was about to happen just around the corner when we first joined the fandom, it doesn’t matter when. And I get many messages from new fans having that feeling for years now… so, I don’t think this is a build up for something, I think things just changed. [source/archive]

So I think it's less that we're seeing massive numbers of people continuing in conspiracy beliefs and more that there's a rotating cast who are unwittingly repeating the same mistakes as those who came before them. And this isn't because they're right, obviously, but instead because the structure of a conspiracy is the same regardless of the details. This is what makes the believers so predictable in their behavior.

Now, those who are long-time believers in a conspiracy theory? I'd wager that for the vast majority of them there is something underlying that belief that makes the belief preferable to reality, and the inability to accept that reality (what it says about the world, what it says about them) can damage their mental health. The longer you're in, the more it takes to unwind from it.

[athymelyreply]

It’s ironic that the screenshotted blog’s url is “nottobeadickoranything” because they are in fact very acutely being a dick. (and an asshole and probably a raging antisemite too)

Fuck it, I’m saying this one on main, name and all.

[Image ID: screenshot of a post in tumblr dark mode by user nottobeadickoranything, reading “Hey um, everyone,,,uhh do you think the Drake-Kendrick beef started to draw attention away from Israel doing a trail of tears in Rafah,,,,mayb??”

Under the post are the tags ‘kendrick lamar,’ ‘drake,’ and ‘free palestine.’

End ID]

We’re not doing this. We are not fucking giving space for this conspiratorial bullshit that mirrors white supremacist rhetoric about Jewish people using Black people and/or some cabal Illuminati nonsense.

Was the #beef manufactured at all? I don’t think so, but I don’t know.

Would an entire other government call up a pair of Black rappers and have them bringing up predator allegations years in the making only to start attacking once it all died down?

Use your brains! Help Palestinians escape if you can! Donate to the PCRF!

But this racist, antisemitic shit with no proof? We’re not fucking doing that.

[leviathan-supersystem]

person who does the whole "taylor swift is gay" conspiracy theorism song analysis thing, but for lil nas x. like doing lyrics analysis for montero and being like "there are subtle clues if you read between the lines.... that lil nas x may not be entirely straight..."

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Antizionists are like evangelical christian young earth creationists because they ignore overwhelming evidence in favor of their ideology. For creationists, it's an entire planet's worth of evidence of evolution. For antizionists, it's archaeological, written and legend (couldn't think of a better term) evidence that the Jewish people originated in that one corner of the world.

Dear (atheist?) anon,

I think this is just you noticing that creationists and gentile antizionists are both conspiracy theorists. The historical revisionism came free with the conspiracy theorism

yours

Cecil

[cosmikazie]

i suppose while im going through my infinity train phase again i should give you all some cool good reasons to watch it

it handles real life issues like being a child of divorce and growing apart with age

it has queer rep (albeit non-explicit)

there is a character who serves as a trans allegory

it handles the dangers of cult ideology and conspiracy theorism

it brings up interesting ways of handling morality

it has some cool mystery

it has maybe one of the coolest basic concepts for a show, which is a train that is INFINITELY LONG, and each car contains a different pocket reality

it's. just so fucking good

so if you can, fucking WATCH THIS SHOW. it's so glorious and you're gonna fall in love with it

[enhanced-operatives-division]

Finally got around to making an IEYTD oc ^^

His name is Brandy Miller, he's a conspiracy theorist and has managed to work out what's going on between the Agency & Zoraxis

(Close-ups and transcripts for my terrible handwriting below the cut)

Brandy Miller

Conspiracy Theorist & Accounts Manager

- Unaffiliated with Zoraxis or the Agency, however, he knows practically everything about them.

- Friends with a double agent for Zoraxis & the Agency (Friend's OC) who tips him off in certain things to aid his theories since he can connect the dots better than them.

- Both the Agency & Zoraxis keep tabs on Miller as they think he works for the opposing side.

- SOMEHOW managed to tune into the Agency's Radio channel & creates transcripts of every broadcast.

- Also does the same with Zoraxis Presents.

- Was forcefully switched to decaf because of heart palpitations. He's not happy about it.

Uhhh bonus info - he wears 3d glasses but doesn't actually need normal glasses & he's also probably about 41 or so. Idk he's my loser boy who started as a concept and I got attached. He's probably American because of the whole Conspiracy Theorist thing in the 60s and he's kinna a play on that.

I also kinna headcanon him with autism kind of. To me his conspiracy theorism started because he got super into James Bond movies and ended up down a rabbit hole until he started uncovering the Zoraxis & Agency stuff. Then his special interest shifted to knowing absolutely EVERYTHING he could about it

[originalleftist]

PSY-OP ALERT:

Sorry for how long this ended up being, but there's a lot to cover. My sincere gratitude to anyone who actually reads through it.

We have seen again and again how easily supposed progressives, even those considered long-time allies, can quickly fall into believing and acting on fascist psy-ops.

There's no sure way to know that someone is a trustworthy ally. One might say that there is no such thing, since everyone has faults and blind spots and prejudices and is hypocritical to one extent or another.

But here are a few common ways in which so-called Leftists, progressives, feminists, etc get duped into supporting fascist agendas. It's both a litmus test of sorts, red flags that someone may not be as reliable an ally as you think, and also a good shortlist of major narratives the Right uses to try to infiltrate and co-opt progressive communities and divide their opposition, which you should be on the lookout for.

1. Ukraine/Russia. If someone is defending Putin or vilifying Ukraine, they are likely being influenced by Kremlinist-fascist propaganda designed to sway Leftists under the guise of being "anti-imperialism" or "anti-war". This is a larger subset of how opposition to wars and imperialism has been used for decades to draw Left-wingers into supporting conspiracy theorism and hypocritically aligning with dictatorial, even fascist regimes that are seen as opposing "the West".

Note: a specific subset of this, which I've found even people who otherwise don't necessarily fall for it sometimes do, is Assange apologism. Julian Assange is not simply a journalist who was persecuted by the government for exposing its secrets. He is closely-aligned with the Kremlin and its propaganda, and leaked information selectively to hurt Clinton/Democrats help Trump during the 2016 election.

2. Covid. Anti-vax conspiracy theorism used to be a position more associated with the Left, though it has been largely coopted by the fascist Right, thanks to Trump. A lot of this was built on opposition to capitalism/big corporations/"Big Pharma" and probably also environmentalist concerns about toxins in our environment, which appeals to Left-wing sensibilities.

There's also a heavy dose of ableism, particularly fear-mongering about/misrepresenting autism, which is another prejudice that has appeal across the political spectrum. Even if one accepted the (widely-debunked) claims linking vaccines to autism, that means that the central premise of the anti-vax agenda, when you strip it down to its core, can be summarized as "Your child is better off dead of a deadly disease than alive and autistic."

We might also have a word here about support for DNRs*/"assisted dying"/euthanasia and making "assisted dying" more accessible to disabled people, typically framed as letting them "die with dignity" without actually providing them the support that would let them LIVE with dignity (see Canada's MAID controversies). Though I am pleased to see pushback from Left-leaning parties on this recently.

*I should note here that I do not oppose DNRs in principle, nor the right of any patient (assuming they have the ability to do so, and if not that's what living wills are for) to refuse medical care. I DO have a problem when people are mislead or pressured to choose them, or even have them issued without their knowledge/consent (as in the widely-reported case of people with disabilities being given DNR orders in the UK).

3. Trans Rights. Many a proclaimed feminist has shown their true colours once the subject of trans rights came up. Falsely attacking trans people as male predators or fake women does not protect women- trans people are actually one of the most likely groups to be subjected to sexual violence, and if one wants to prey on women, there are far easier and less-stigmatized ways to do so in our society. Transphobia also ultimately serves to oppress cis women, as women who do not perfectly fit white patriarchal standards are investigated and accused of being trans (as seen with anti-drag laws potentially criminalizing non-traditional dress choices, and the attacks on cis female athletes of colour, particularly at the 2024 Olympics).

4. Israel/Palestine. Many so-called Leftists have embraced conspiratorial and even outright genocidal Anti-semitism masquerading as opposing "colonialism" and genocide. This narrative seems to rest on two primary lies- the claim that Jews are not indigenous to the Levant, and therefore colonizers (this is contradicted by overwhelming historical, archaeological, cultural, and genetic evidence), and the usual group-think/collective guilt and "us vs them" mentality (the belief that all Israelis/Jews are collectively guilty for the crimes of the Netanyahu government, and the belief that the rights of Palestinians and Jews cannot coexist, but one must come at the expense of the other).

5. Johnny Depp. Many so-called "feminists" quickly embraced or at least turned a blind eye toward misogynist abuse and conspiracy theories from incels/"Mens' Rights Activists" against a queer activist and DV survivor, out of fandom for Johnny Depp (who also has close ties to both the Kremlin and Saudi governments). Presenting Depp as "the real victim", and Heard as a fake victim undermining "real victims", and as a privileged elite using "white woman tears" to gain sympathy, were other ways in which the Right played on Leftists' sympathies and rhetoric to co-opt them in this case. Amber Heard hate/Johnny Depp fandom is a clear indication that a "progressive" or "feminist" can be swayed to abandon their convictions by celebrity/fandom, and/or lacks understanding of Intersectionality (ie how someone could be relatively privileged in certain ways but still disadvantaged in others, particularly against someone like Depp).

6. Immigration. Many supposed Leftists have proven susceptible to narratives accusing immigrants/foreigners of "stealing" jobs from the working class, while the reality is that immigration also creates jobs (more people means more demand for goods and services), automation is a threat to jobs that has nothing to do with immigration, and immigrants often do jobs most Americans don't want to (which is actually exploitation-in typical DARVO fashion, immigrants are vilified for their own exploitation). Anti-immigrant rhetoric is a divide and conquer tactic used by oligarchs to keep the working class fighting each other, instead of focusing on who's really exploiting them.

7. Housing. Attacks on the Unhoused are one of the most acceptable forms of bigotry in our society on both Left and Right. Often this boils down to simple selfishness- whatever a person's abstract political views, they don't want to see "homeless" or "poor" people around, falsely equate them with criminality/drugs, and are worried about the effect of encampments or even the construction of low-income housing on their property values.

These are all ways in which the Right commonly infiltrates and co-opts Leftwing circles, and pits its opponents against each other (divide and conquer). Of course, there are other issues, other examples. This is not a definitive list. So its important to learn to recognize patterns, so you can spot psy-ops/divide and conquer tactics in other forms/on other issues.

One frequent pattern in these narratives is of course collective guilt/guilt by association: Ukraine is bad because it is aligned with the West, Russia is good because it's against the West. Heard is bad because she's a (relatively) rich famous white woman (somehow Depp isn't, as a rich white man). Israel/Jews are evil because of the crimes of the Israeli government, Hamas is good because they're against Israel. Related to this is the use of DARVO tactics to allow oppressors to falsely claim status as victims, further muddying the waters (and a hard argument to counter, because anyone guilty of it can immediately accuse anyone who points it out of doing the same thing). Assange, an oppressive of the Kremlin, is painted as just a heroic journalist persecuted for exposing the truth. Depp, an extremely wealthy, famous man with a long history of racism, misogyny, violent criminality, and ties to the Mob and dictatorial regimes, is the helpless victim of his ex-wife/a feminist conspiracy. Upper/upper-middle class home owners are the real victims because poor people exist in their communities. White workers are the real victims, not immigrants exploited as cheap labour who don't dare complain if their rights are violated because they might be deported.

A third common trick is to simultaneously paint the target group as a deadly, even existential threat, and as pathetic and weak. This seeming contradiction is a hallmark of fascist propaganda specifically (Umberto Eco listed it on his list of 14 traits of fascism). For example, unhoused people are all lazy pathetic drug users, but also criminals destroying our neighbourhoods. Amber Heard is both a talentless, obviously lying gold digger, but also powerful and competent enough to terrorize her husband (in his home, surrounded by private security on his payroll) for years and mastermind a vast international conspiracy spanning a decade to frame him. Ukraine is not even a real country, but also a huge threat to Russia's security justifying its invasion (propagandists often sidestep this absurdity by simply treating Ukraine as an extension of the US/NATO- this allows them to simultaneously portray Russia's genocidal war as the underdog defending itself against "Western imperialism", and to reinforce their genocidal narrative that Ukraine is not a real nation).

Learn the tricks. Call them out when you see them. And if someone else says you're falling for them, don't get defensive and immediately double-down- listen and consider whether you are, in fact, being misled.

[zot3-flopped]

Louis' family is having a very normal get together because Louis is on a break right now and cultists are losing their minds. I'm so glad my brain is normal. Conspiracy theorism has been proven to alter the way you think, and it takes a real effort to unlearn and rewire your neural pathways.

Yes - I wonder how many Larries get lured into other conspiracy theories like false flags or weather QAnon? Most of them seem to be Gaylors as well.

[alarrytale]

I suggest talking to someone outside you and your fandom to understand why people call you conspiracy theorists. Cause tell me why I, a bi trans person person, have been told I don’t understand queerness because I don’t see the supposed queer signaling H&L do a lot of the time. Tbc I’m not strictly an anti or a Larry, I’m willing to accept H&L are or have been in a relationship together, I just don’t necessarily buy into stuff like only communicating through blue greening or shirts. These are conspiracies by definition. It reminds me a lot of the Paul Is Dead beatles theory were people tried to find clues through song lyrics and album covers. Pop culture conspiracy theorism is incredibly common.

You're not a conspiracy theorist for speculating that a celebrity might not be straight. You're a conspiracy theorist for thinking that a corporation is forcing a man to pretend to be a father and every image and video of Louis and Freddie is photoshopped or a deepfake.

Hello, anons!

I think you need to work on your reading comprehension again, because we were talking about why fans in other fandoms are using the term "conspiracy theorist" within their fandom about people who believe the one they stan is queer. The anon were surprised about the widespread use of the term and though it was contained to this fandom. We're not talking about this fandom or larries. It's well established that us larries are conspiracy theorists and why. Nobody is refuting that Larry Stylinson and babygate are conspiracy theories. Babygate is named after Watergate and conspiracies often ends in -gate. We larries created it and own it.

I also think we need to differentiate between celebrities who are in glass closets, don't comment on their sexuality or show any straight behaviour or push any narrative in the press vs. celebrities who have stated multiple times they're straight, sign bearding contracts or enters fake relationship and their label/agency make deals with the media to push a certain narrative, that's not true, to make said celebrity look straight. That's a conspiracy right there. Fans are being mislead and gaslighted by the celebrity, the label/agency the celebrity is signing the bearding contracts, and make deals and bargains with the media. Three powerful entities come together to sell a narrative that's not true to cover up the truth. That's a conspiracy right there.

So if Shawn Me*des says he's straight multiple times, enters relationships with female and show he's straight by doing pda, and the media writes about how Shawn is getting engaged to a woman or has a profile on Raya to find a new gf, while some fans believe this is all fake and made up to hide his sexuality and real relationship, said fans can be called conspiracy theorists.

If a conspiracy is in danger of being revealed, the conspirators might double down or try to illegitimise the conspiracy theorist by gaslighting further or ridicule them.

The Kategate conspiracy theorists said that Kate photoshopped the pic she posted to ig, and lo and behold she admitted it was photoshopped. You don’t need to believe everything everyone else believes in order to see that someone is hiding something and conspiring to cover it up. You don’t need to believe that H and L speaks through their t-shirts in order to believe that larry is real. You also don't need to believe that F is photoshopped in order to believe that L is gay and in a relationship with H, and not a father. You'll never agree with everyone about everything. You only need to believe that H and L are in a relationship to be a larrie and thus a conspiracy theorist, and you only need to believe that Louis is not F's biological father to believe babygate is real, and thus be a conspiracy theorist.

Just like Nixon was willing to go far to sabotage and cover up his DNC break in to win an election, huge music coorporations are willing to go far to cover up their golden goose's sexuality and real relationship in order to keep their fans and making money. In general, people in power are willing to cover up a lot in order to gain advantage and continue to win and thrive.

[thosearentcrimes]

Foucault's Pendulum is a novel by Umberto Eco, most famous for his excellent novel The Name of the Rose and for his essay Ur-Fascism. I liked it, though I would certainly recommend The Name of the Rose (and possibly The Prague Cemetery, though that one's more a matter of what you're interested in) over it.

I do not think I am spoiling anything when I say that the novel is an exploration of the natural observation a rational person immediately makes when encountering occultist or conspiracy theorist thought. "I could come up with a much more convincing theory than that." These people have extremely low epistemic standards, tend to be basically ignorant about history, and have no sense of chronology. Consequently, it seems trivial to identify spurious connections the way they do and weave them consciously according to the obvious narrative structures that support their beliefs. Now, I don't believe actually doing this is quite as easy as it looks, but it's a tempting notion. I've got one on the back burner revolving around the Ford Motor Company Sociology Department.

The novel makes other observations about occultist/conspiracy theorist thought. The tendency to interpret anachronism as prophecy, the intellectuals who believe under a pose of neutrality, the economics of it, how strange it seems that so many leading men of the Enlightenment were into it, the curious politics and anti-politics of conspiracy theorism. Some of these are handled through digressions, some are integrated into the plot, both are inoffensive to the structure.

The novel is well-executed, though Eco does love to get fancy with it. How willing you are to indulge his references, quotations, layers of narrative and nonlinear timeline will significantly determine whether you enjoy the book, but I don't think the book is really as difficult as I've seen critics suggest. You just need to decide that in-jokes and references you didn't get probably weren't that important, and the details of the plot don't really matter. I've also seen the book described as postmodern. A tempting designation given that Umberto Eco was very literally a postmodernist, but quite frankly by the standards people apply to justify the "postmodern" label you could probably make that case for the Epic of Gilgamesh as well so I don't think that's very meaningful.

[anticonspiracist]

Okay so one of the reasons you say conspiracy theorism is bad it's because it's anti Semitic. Now i don't have cultural experience of anti semitism (I'm from India) but of course have historical reference... I don't get it.

You've said that believing a small group of powerful people are controlling things is anti Semitic because that's what people believed about the Jews that then led to the holocaust but that seems like a bit of a massive stretch to me.

So, why is conspiracism so bad?

Just because you think it's "a bit of a massive stretch" doesn't mean it's not real and harmful. So to answer your last question, once again, all conspiracy theories that require a shadowy group to be "pulling the strings" are antisemitic.

I wonder if you do, indeed, have historical reference? What's your historical reference for antisemitism? The Holocaust? What else? Do you know about the antisemitism part of nearly every political party platform in Europe in the late 1800s? Do you know about the periodic pogroms that were instituted against Jews whenever an "other" was necessary for someone to solidify their power? Do you know about the Spanish Inquisition, or do you just joke about how no one expects it? I got an ask similar to this when shit-larries-say was still up, from a Spaniard who claimed that there wasn't antisemitism in their country. Ah, yes, because for a few hundred years their country tried its very best to murder every Jew. That's the Spanish Inquisition. And when they couldn't find the Jew that they'd put on trial in absentia, they burned them in effigy.

Do you know about the bubonic plague outbreak in Europe in the mid-14th century, and how some places blamed Jews and said they poisoned the wells so they just ... murdered them?

Do you ... know what led to the Holocaust? Do you know that it wasn't just the industrial murder of Jews (and Roma, and Poles, and and and)? Do you know that it was stripping them of their citizenship, making their marriages to non-Jews illegal, offering them the opportunity to immigrate to Palestine but they had to leave all of their belongings behind and, because Hitler was so reasonable, they would get a tiny portion of it back? And WHY? WHY the Jews? This is the question my students always ask because until they get to me they haven't had a teacher who knows the answer because it isn't taught. Why the Jews? Because people need someone to blame. They need a scapegoat. And in the Christian world, Jews are "other." They don't believe the same things. They have a different world view. They hang onto traditions that Christians don't understand. So when something bad happens that can't be explained, they just ... blame the people they can't explain. "THEY did it!" They make up stories to justify their harsh (and murderous, usually) treatment of these others. To make themselves feel better about the bad thing happening, they fashion Jews into evil beings who are always doing evil things and trying to hurt the non-Jews. And it works! It works because of people like you, thinking that's it's a "stretch" to associate antisemitic thoughts and actions with antisemitism.

So no, it's not "a bit of a massive stretch" to see continued belief in some shadowy group behind the scenes "pulling the strings" to enact sinister plans and say "hey hold on, that's antisemitic."

But maybe you're a kid, not a full-grown adult with the internet who should therefore know better, so if that's the case, I'm sorry for being harsh. Below is a 15-minute video I made explaining how antisemitism is inherent to conspiracy theorism, and then a 2-hour podcast episode I recorded with aimmyarrowshigh, a Jewish fandom friend (whom I'm not tagging because she doesn't need to see this bullshit). So, you know, educate yourself.

P.S. Your country has had Jews living in it for a very very very very very long time (thousands of years). Jews have faced antisemitism in India. Have you bothered to learn about it?

[fruitchouli]

i feel like conspiracy theorism is straight culture .. the straight girls love theories and mysteries

[leviathan-supersystem]

I want to thank you for posting about how insane the effective altruism community is and how Thielian it is like 6 years ago (maybe even further back). I've been on tumblr only sparsely since then but when i heard about how the ftx billionaires were part of this thing i thought of your posts and how right they turned out to be. I bet a lot of people remember this. So much seems to have metastasized about the things you were warning about (what feels like) very early on. Thank you for braving some deeply annoying reactionary interlocutors back then and being a voice of reason

thank you, it means a lot that you say that, i do consider my investigation into lesswrong and related to be some of the best work i've ever done, and i do think that if i hadn't been there sounding the alarm on that, a lot more people on tumblr could have gotten roped into that whole scam. like i really can imagine that whole thing getting a lot uglier if i hadn't warned people.

and like when that whole saga first started, i had no idea things were going to get so wildly out of control, like the way that it all started was that me and my mutuals were getting harassed by a bunch of people with "rationalist" in their bio, and i was like "okay who the hell are these people and where are they coming from" and i honestly didn't expect there to be anything substantial. i thought the answer would just be "they came from reddit" and that's it. so i was completely blindsided when i started digging and found out all this absolutely buck-wild shit about AI cults and Thiel funding. needless to say i found a lot more dirt on them than i was anticipating.

i'm about to go into tinfoil hat territory for a minute here, but i surmise that there is a particular psy-op strategy that involves the creation of two ostensibly opposed ideological factions which in truth serve the same broader ideological goals, positioning the "conflict" between them in such a way that people are compelled to take sides, and then leading the people on either side of that "conflict" into basically the same ideological trap. so for example, in the 80's there were a bunch of televised debates between christian figures and the church of satan, and it was this whole big broader culture war thing, presented in such a way that people would be compelled to take one side or the other, but in the end both sides of that debate were pushing a right-wing ideology which was identical on the most important points (anti-egalitarian/anti-socialist/anti-democratic. i'll be getting more into detail on that in an answer to another ask, i'm cleaning out my inbox right now).

similarly, with the recent upsurge in christian populist conspiracy theorism on tumblr these days, i can't help but imagine how much worse the scenario would be if the lesswrongers had succeeded in really taking root on tumblr and harassing the communists off the site, as they were clearly trying to. like i can imagine instead of the debate on tumblr being between "bill gates is bad because he's an evil wizard trying to give us the mark of the beast" vs. "no, bill gates is bad because he exploits his workers, poisons the earth, and is hoarding land and resources, etc" we had a scenario where the lesswrongers had supplanted the communists and the debate was between "bill gates is bad because he's an evil wizard trying to give us the mark of the beast" vs. "no, bill gates is good :)." honestly too horrible to contemplate.