Wow, big if true! Such generous!
Tag: conspiracy theory Page 2 of 4
Even though these politicians who are apparently living in their own parallel universe are vehemently against my new book, Conspiratopia, it appears that another segment of the population is coming to the book’s defense. It is, however, an unexpected group, consisting of a coalition of billionaires who claim that everything contained in the book is in fact quite true and stuff…
Here are their stories:
To be honest, I had no idea that George Soros was a drug user. Big, if true!
Jeff Bezos has a weird quality in this video. Seems almost like an AI himself, don’t you think? Maybe he spent too much time in outer space or something…
And this last video from Google’s CEO appears to explain why Google is suppressing evidence of the Conspiratopia Project from Google Ads and elsewhere. Why am I not surprised at all?
Please, if you’re reading this, and you can do anything to help, make sure you share these videos far and wide on social media and on the blockchain, so that people can know the truth about what’s really happening with the Conspiratopia Project!
Okay so here’s a quick run-down of what for me is the exact problem and “danger” in conspiracy theories and their use in modern analysis or whatever (I hesitate to call a lot of it “analysis”). Because I essentially agree with the basic idea of, you should test reality, ask questions, go and find out what is your truth, and how you can mesh that with the truth of others together fruitfully. (Whatever that means)
So in a nutshell, here it is. Contemporary conspiracy analysis online hinges on a single point:
1. Things are not what they seem.
And then there seems to be an in-built conclusion most people who get into that funnel find as the next logical step:
2. And it sucks.
Then, a lot of people just get stuck there. They know to ask questions. But they don’t necessarily always know which ones are the right questions that might lead them to fruitful personal & inter-personal experiences.
So they settle on simplistic lowest common denominator thinking, where they choose a convenient enemy & assign the cause of sucking to them. And we end up with the third corollary in the series:
3. Because group x.
If the average contemporary conspiracy person didn’t get stuck on step 2, they almost definitely get stuck on step 3. Because humans seem to have an in-built basic need to identify & maintain enemies. Or if not a “need,” per se (I would argue we can live without it), then at least a desire to blame badness on some “other.” And that’s what rises into varying shades of step 4:
4. So we should vote out/remove/jail/eliminate/prevent group x from y.
This desire to change the conditions which suck flows out of number 2. The recognition that things suck and we should try to change them is NATURAL and HEALTHY. And we can find healthy expressions of this recognition coupled with desire in things like voting people or parties out of office, pursuing them for legal violations, etc. Or we can find the ever-more-popular anti-social variants of wanting to randomly jail people or eliminate them because of “reasons.” Which are obviously hella shitty.
However, I think there is an alternate path one might take through the above steps, but one which branches off after 2) And it sucks, or even branches off earlier at number 1) Everything is not what it seems.
I would argue that the path of the psychonaut & allied practices might be like:
1. Yes, things are not what they seem.
But then go to:
2A. And it’s awesome
Or also recognize that:
2B. And it’s sometimes awesome and sometimes sucky
And then there is I guess we could call it the “Human Potential Movement” conclusion based on this that sets up an alternate to 3 (where we don’t land on “enemies” as a conclusion):
3B. And we have the power to change it.
With an alternative path of action to vanilla conspiracy step 4:
4B. We can change it by applying our imagination and will to effect changes within the field of consensus & personal reality
Which also seems to be the occult or “magick” perspective, though also that of, say, the entrepreneur, and the practitioners of the secular magics of growth-hacking and self-improvement.
There’s a saying in the Gospel of Thomas, I believe number 113, which I’ll paraphrase: The Kingdom of Heaven is laid out upon the earth, but men do not see it.
In terms of phildickian gnosticism (small “G”), people recognize and attempt to fight against but then become even more entangled by the Black Iron Prison. When really, simultaneously, we also live in the paradisaical Palm Tree Garden. But it’s hard to remember it, and to stay there, or to have the openness and imagination to see it again and again. But it’s always there waiting to be re-discovered, if you do forget or lose the tracks in the forest or the trail up the mountain, so to speak.
Granted, things do often and especially lately seem to massively suck. I want to recognize that at the root of today’s experience that drives people into conspiracy stuff in the first place. It’s good and healthy to recognize that, and to try to take steps to overcome it within the field of your own life & experience. I might even say it’s essential…
The bad part for me comes down to the failure of imagination to just say that everything sucks and to stop there, or to chase false “solutions” where you pin the blame on people you don’t like, and then attempt to leverage them out of the picture. That’s not freedom. That’s being chained to reaction and fear, and stopping short of finding real answers that might challenge those reactions and fears down to their very core, and find out they aren’t substantiated, or even that those reactions and fears are themselves not what they seem, but something much more malleable in the face of mind and will and the action of applied imagination.
Also, personally speaking, I recognize my position is somewhat of a fantasy. That clinging to hope is a fantasy. But long term, I find it a much more fulfilling and personally tenable position to hold that the contrary that says it sucks, and is caused only by bad people I don’t like. I can’t live like that day to day. Hatred and anger take too much damn energy to maintain. My position might be equally a fantasy (though at least not a dark one), but it’s an infinitely easier burden to bear day after day as we go through this thing called life.
The job turned out to be putting toxic waste and stuff into barrels, which was actually totally cool. I mean it was like really no big deal, even. It didn’t seem that dangerous idk. Cause they gave you like all the personal protective equipment. Like disposable face masks and rubber gloves and stuff. So that was rad.
I was on the medical waste transport and disposal team. We mostly worked on autopilot around the rehabilitation complex, emptying trash and dealing with like used needles and stuff. It was kinda nasty sometimes, but it was pretty much fun af to play first-person shooter games with the other staff inside the clinic compounds in VR while on overwrite. Hells yeah. I earned tons of bonuses like that actually.
A lot of the treatment facilities I guess were giving people some pretty hard drugs, idk. I didn’t ask too many questions about the details. Cause who cares. But I saw a lot of like pretty rich looking tourists or shoppers or whatever going in for treatments who looked pretty haggard, and when they came out they were looking way more stoned than me even. Lol.
Apparently the shoppers or whatever were some of the only people at the Conspiratopia Project who were not continuously on overwrite. Though some of them still did it, and some did it a lot. But usually we couldn’t really interact with them in games. So like, whatever games they got to play in VR while on overwrite, apparently they couldn’t see us shooting each other – or them. Which I guess is probably for the best. Because if you’re in there for some kinda crazy drug treatment, you probably don’t want to see holographic simulations inside your head of you being blown up with a missile launcher. Or maybe you do, idk. I think that would probably eff with your head though, you know? It’s hard to even like look at yourself in the mirror if you’re too stoned somtimes. Never mind eating a missile in the face from somebody in a giant cybernetic gorilla-mouse avatar.
I heard from some of the other guys on my work crew after we got off, that like I guess for the Shoppers, they weren’t officially in the Conspiratopia Project. For them, they lived in or I guess were visiting something called Shoppertopia. Which I guess explains why the games and VR and stuff were on different systems. Supposedly there were a bunch of other independent ‘topias in different areas dedicated to different things.
Once the algorithm put you into one of them though, everyone said it was like really hard and stuff to get put into a different one. Like you couldn’t just transfer out, because recruiting was based on all those like crazy personality tests and surveys to figure out the best match. But you could still earn citizenship on whichever ‘topia they put you when you were admitted. And then you could do all kinds of stuff you couldn’t do before. Like new levels in games, and some music and movies you could listen to or watch that you couldn’t before, plus some like foods and flavors and stuff. Plus I guess like laws about which kind of VR you could do were different. It was totally cool. It was like, idk, reality but gamified. Totally rad af.
I was pumped I was gonna level up because of this gig, man. Or at least that’s what they told me would happen, when I got assigned out from smart carts. I didn’t mind the gig itself. It was autopilot and safe anyway, though I did notice after work a few times signing off that my gloves were ripped, and a couple times my finger tips were bleeding because they musta been pricked on something. They took blood tests and a whole buncha other tests on us all the time though, so I wasn’t too worried about. Plus I knew like, we were a very special dedicated efficiency team, and those are like super important and stuff. ‘Topias don’t run without those. Everybody knew that. They weren’t gonna just like let us get hurt or sick or something, because like how would they even replace us?
A week later, I came down with something. My whole crew got super sick, and then they replaced me. No joke. Actually, I heard they nixed the whole team, but apparently they had like no problem at all replacing all the workers finally. Not one bit. I guess I should of known.
We walked back after that in the direction of my dad’s apartment and stuff. The underground mall thing was super huge, holy crap.
After a while, I was all like, “Dude, but what am I gonna tell mom?” The Wizard of Oz hologram thing had given me permission to make one phone call (monitored) to my mom.
And my dad was all like, “Dude, listen. Just tell her the truth and stuff. You got a new job and you’re gonna go try out living with your dad for a while.”
“I don’t think she’s gonna like that very much, you know?” I said. “She sorta hates you, and is worried I’m gonna turn out just like you.”
“Haha,” my dad said. “Well, she’s entitled to her opinions, but it’s up to you to decide how your life turns out. Do you wanna live in the basement with her for the rest of your life?”
I was all like, “I mean, it’s pretty cool. It’s not actually so bad, when she isn’t hassling me about getting a job or cleaning up. It’s almost like having my own apartment and stuff.”
“Then fine, stay with her, and have your life be how it is now forever, if it’s really that cool and stuff,” my dad said. “Or stay here, and try out how it could be if you created your own life and did something different.”
“I mean, I signed the contract…” I said. “I’m staying. I’m just saying, she’s not gonna like it very much. And anyway, what if she asks where we are? I’m not supposed to say anything about the island or the project, or they said I’ll get kicked out. What am I supposed to tell her?”
“Tell her I have a place in the next county. She hates driving, and she hates me, so she’ll never actually check.”
“But she’ll want me to visit her all the time, and stuff,” I said. I was sure of it. “I’m sure of it, you know?”
My dad was like, “Just tell her you have a 90 day training & probationary period with the new job, and they asked if you could start right away, so you won’t be able to see her in a while and stuff.”
“Okay, I guess. Idk,” I said.
When we got to his place, it was actually pretty small. A tiny living room/kitchen with a couch and a TV, a mid-sized fridge, a hot plate, a microwave, sink, etc. Plus a small bathroom with a shower, and a bedroom and stuff.
“You can sleep on the couch. It folds out too. And you can stay as long as you want, or until you find a place, or whatever. Whatever you want, you know? You’re always welcome here.”
“Thanks, bro,” I said. I wasn’t actually ready to think much about the future. I was just like dreading talking to my mom and like telling her I was moving out, and stuff, and how she was gonna react. I mean, I didn’t have any clue how she was gonna react, but I thought she was probably gonna scream or like freak out or something when I told her about dad and everything. I didn’t think she wanted me to move out or anything, you know?
But when I finally called her and stuff, it basically was super short and went like this:
“Hey ma,”
“Hi honey, congratulations about that new job, that’s great. I’m so proud of you.”
“Yeah, mom, thanks. Listen, uh, they want me to start right away with training and everything, you know.”
“Good for you, honey.”
“And it’s out in the county. Um, the next county over, actually.”
“Okay, do you have a place to stay out there, or…?”
“Uh, yeah, somebody from the company is putting me up with them. You know, until I find a place, or…”
“Until you find a place?”
“Yeah, Idk yet. If the job goes good, they might ask me to stay out there. I guess there are more positions available and stuff. Cause they have a bunch of warehouses out there, and only one here.”
“Okay, honey. I’m glad for you.”
“You are?”
“Of course.”
“I thought you’d be like you know mad and stuff or something.”
“Why would I be mad? This is your life, you gotta go out and live it, Matty.”
“Thanks mom, I’m glad to like hear that and stuff. It means a lot to me. Oh, and about your car.”
“Oh, someone from the company dropped it off this morning. And it was vacuumed and polished too. Immaculate. This must be a very top notch company.”
“Oh, it definitely is mom. Lots of you know, room for growth too.”
“Well that’s nice honey. I have to go meet Fran now, but it’s great to hear from you, and I’m so happy for you. Call me once you’re in and settled. You know, if you have a chance, and stuff.”
“I will mom, thanks. Have a good time. Bye.”
For meeting someone supposedly so important, we just went to this small room that didn’t look like anything special. There were a couple cushioned folding chairs and a table, and that was about it and stuff. We sat down and my dad closed the door and we waited.
“You nervous?” he said.
“Idk, should I be?” I still didn’t really know what I was doing there, or what this was all about.
Just then, the lights dimmed and stuff and music started playing or whatever. It was the intro to Us and Them by Pink Floyd, and I was all like yesssss.
After a minute, suddenly there was a hologram of this random-looking symbol that showed up kind of floating on the other side of the table. I realized then there were little holographic projector dealies hidden in the walls and ceiling.
The symbol went away, and there was like… the Wizard of Oz and stuff? Like from the old ass movie or something. Except there was no Dorothy or the robot guy, and no ugly lion or whatever. It was just the weird like all alien-looking face of the wizard. And there were like flashes of fire and smoke and stuff. It looked totally legit as hell and was timed perfectly with the music. It was actually sweet as hell.
“Sweet,” I said out loud.
“Totally,” my dad said.
The singing part of that song kicked in (which rocks), and I started to feel like I was frickin’ tripping, cause like the Wizard of Oz on the hologram was singing and stuff…
“Us and them
And after all we’re only ordinary men
Me and you
God only knows
It’s not what we would choose to do”
The Wizard stopped singing, but the music kept going in the background, and then he talked to us. Me, I guess.
He was all like, “Yo, dude. How’s it hangin’?”
“Uh, alright I guess. You?” I said.
“Can’t complain. Can’t complain,” the Wizard alien-looking hologram dude said. “Hey, thanks for coming out here. Great to see you and stuff. You liking it so far?”
“Uh, yeah. I mean, it’s fine.”
“Cool, cool. So, what can I do ya for?” said the Wizard.
My dad jumped in, “Well, we were, uh, kinda hoping you could help us figure out what’s next for for Matty here.”
“Got it. Coolio. Gimme a sec to review the files,” said the Wizard. His eyes light up and stuff while he did that.
His eyes went back to normal.
“Okay, let’s see. Well, we’ve actually got an opening that might be compatible…”
“That’s great,” said my dad, looking over at me and squeezing my shoulder.
“It’s in your work group even, actually,” said the Wizard to my dad.
“Whoa, awesome,” I said. “What is it?”
“Well,” said the Wizard. “We’ve identified a workflow issue in certain retail areas that we need to throw bodies at until we find a better solution.”
“Lucky,” said my dad. “That’s how I got my start too. So what would the job be exactly?”
“Our electrical shopping cart system is broken. So they aren’t able to return themselves to the store like they should be after customers finish shopping. They end up stuck in unusual places, and so…”
“So,” I interrupted. “The job would be pushing shopping carts?”
“Basically,” said the Wizard, and there was another flash of fire.
“What do you think?” said my dad, looking at me.
“How much does it pay?” I asked.
“Money,” said the Wizard, and the song switched to Money by Pink Floyd, “as you may know, does not work the same here as it does in the outside world.”
“So I hear,” I said.
“But,” said the Wizard. “It would work out to something like… $10.75 an hour in your dollars.”
“Whoa,” I said. “That’s a twenty five cents an hour raise from Walmart!”
“Totes,” said the Wizard. “Plus you could watch films or play games or whatever you want during overwriting sessions.”
“You mean… nanites?”
“Yeah, bro,” said the Wizard. “Though, we have other systems besides nanites if you prefer. But pretty much everybody here works on overwrite, except when protocols call for manual mode for some reason. It’s just more efficient.”
My dad was nodding like crazy. “It’s awesome, Matty. You’ll see.”
Hm, I thought. I could make more money than I was making back home, and I could frickin’ play video games while doing it? I didn’t have to think about it all that hard.
“Well, sign me the eff up!” I said.
I laugh at / die a little inside thinking about all the backlash and conspiracism around Covid restrictions. There’s nothing even left to say about it, is there?
To me this is and has always been a dry run for the “real deal” when all of this won’t be a drill anymore. We won’t have the option to cry about it politically, because the devastation will be visible all around us. (Even moreso than it already is, I mean.)
I watched this Tucker Carlson video earlier, from June 2021, with them suggesting there will be climate lockdowns, following Covid. I took a screenshot of one of the funnier (for me) bits:
The caption reads, “‘CLIMATE LOCKDOWN’ WOULD MEAN NO MORE RED MEAT & LIMITS ON VEHICLE USE.”
These guys live in a parallel universe to me, or else a tangent universe. Where these catastrophic systemic changes aren’t already happening and visible all around us on a massive, global scale. But I guess if you can get yourself to believe in a Flat Earth, you can get yourself to believe in anything, including the idea humans have nothing whatsoever to do with the emerging Earth Changes.
It’s not necessarily just a right-left division on this either. If only it were that simple. This article on phys.org is a good example of the meta-problem that I see in a lot of mainstream scientific discourse about these issues:
“Global warming will cause extreme sea levels to occur almost every year by the end of the century, impacting major coastlines worldwide, according to new research from an international team of scientists.”
If that only happens by the “end of the century” we will have been extremely lucky. My personal prediction, based on I guess merely paranoia, intuition, observation, and catastrophism is that we’ll see these events increase in frequency and severity globally within the next 5-10 years. All the predictions are playing it way too safe. I don’t know why. To appear credible? To build options for the reporting team to pull down grant money with whatever their particular prescribed brand of fix is? Unclear.
I suspect it is more along the lines of that nobody wants to be that pessimistic. Nobody wants to be like: this will happen not just within our lifetimes, but within the next few years. In fact, it’s already happening. You look like a dick when you’re that guy, but here we are.
So the thing that’s outright wrong for me about that Fox News screengrab above, with them crowing about red meat and driving (American rights, obvs), is that because people are not pessimistic enough about what’s happening (a.k.a., realistic), then they will not be aggressive enough about near term mitigation.
In other words, by the time we see “lockdowns” in place around Climate Change, it will not be because it’s some optional thing put in place by a government you don’t like or agree with. It will because red meat was wiped out by a super-plague (see: African swine fever in China for a parallel example). And entire cities were lost due to extreme weather events, so not only were supply chains massively disrupted, but there is an increased strain on neighboring resources caused by climate refugees. “Driving restrictions” will be in place because there is not that much fuel available anymore. Or because the government of the place you live collapsed, so the roads aren’t kept up anymore. And you basically can’t get parts to fix your car.
But yeah, keep crying about Communism & China. Defend your god-given right to infect one another at Lollapalooza. Stick to your small games where the bad guys are easy to spot, and ignorance of the enormity of the real problems facing not just the U.S., but all of us, is bliss. It seems to be working great so far, right?
I’m not gonna preach about it that much more. I just find it annoying, so had to rant. Me, I’m studying up to buy or maybe build a whole house air filter to plug into the supply side of my HRV (air exchange system). Because the sun turned red one evening this summer from wildfires that are many hours’ drive away. To me, now, the question is simply how to adapt & survive under conditions on the ground which are already showing indicators of radically altering. It’s not about prepping for “one day” when the SHTF. It’s already too late. The fan was made of shit all along.