Betting on a Spectacle
Chaos Agents, Part 15
"The house doesn't beat the player. It just gives him the opportunity to beat himself." -Nick Dandalos
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I must have a compulsion for telling the sorts of truths that result in a dozen hate filled rants in my inbox—some declaring me to be a servant of Bill Gates or the Dark Lord Satan, along with a notice of a terminated subscription. I'll take that burden over a gambling compulsion any day of the week.
Steve's messaging is clever: "These spectacles I perform win the battle!"
Bullpfizer. People having friends get hospitalized for myocarditis or who drop dead for no apparent reason is winning the battle.
Steve's substack has evolved gradually to where a million people go to get their COVID news fix quickest, and to be entertained without having to think too much. It's not like he's going to tell them the difficult tale about how he funded the Boulware trials (Boulware et al, 2020; Skipper et al, 2020) that sank hydroxychloroquine, opening the pathway to the "clot shots"—or crow loudly for its retraction based on an immense pile of good reasons why they're total nonsense (here, here, here, here, here, and especially here).
Hearing the nurses outside of the confines of hospitals or the mainstream media is winning the battle.
Good data is winning the battle. Those who get it become the new experts in the newly forming pools of proxy trust.
Hearing from people injured by the vaccines is winning the battle.
People seeing what has happened all over the planet is winning the battle.
Discussions of risk and reality are winning the battle.
People finding out that the vaccine manufacturers have no liability risk (outside of a probably-lengthy lawsuit that the government could squelch at any moment) is winning the battle.
A handful of the best lawsuits are winning the battle.
Having firm summaries of the shenanigans behind the vaccine research and program is winning the battle.
We do not need arranged spectacles to win the battle. And how we win is at least as important as whether we win. Winning a battle for the wrong leaders is losing.
Steve has never set his pollsters to performing my Impact Analysis challenge of Died Suddenly. Or maybe they have, but just didn't release it.
To the extent that the tide is turning, I very much doubt that the spectacles are needed. And the calm, cool-headed leaders—who are noteworthy for their ability to lead people—are convinced by reason first.
Setting the Table
"I know you know this feeling. You know this feeling very well. I mean, you got your table all set up, your fork, your knife, your A1 sauce…All you need is the stake." -Worm, Rounders
Sometime, just prior to the New Year, Steve called me about a half million dollar bet over the vaccines. He told me that he'd just gotten off the phone with Dr. John Campbell, who was to be one of the judges. He said that John was leaning Steve's way, and that the wager was nearly in the bag.
Wait, what?
Steve told me that the bet was almost "in the bag". So far as I could tell, the debate was still some time away, and not yet firmed up for announcement. Steve was apparently quite busy on the phone with the judges whom any audience would want to presume to be impartial.
I don't know how you interpret that, but I interpret that as Steve working to fix a bet—or at least not make the bet until he had studied (and worked over emotionally—Steve is an energetically forceful personality) the human element of the decision mechanism prior to formalizing the terms. I found the notion of such an arranged spectacle to be well outside my ethical limits, and that was one of my law straws with Steve (though several came in a short period). I think that Steve's phone call was meant to rein me back in with the seduction of being an insider.
(Understand that I don't dismiss the possibility that both sides of this bet are part of a plan to steer people to change their minds, but I still believe that this is unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.)
Is "Spectacle vs. Truth" a Strategic or Moral Matter?
"A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love." -Friedrich Nietzsche
Both, for certain. But anyone considering the choice "Truth or Spectacle?" is setting themselves up for the heaven and hell of competing values.
"Do I want to win, or do I want to choose a future under a solid moral framework?"
It's a false dichotomy, but a seductive one.
But as usual, I'll field a handful of angry and aggressive emails telling me that I'm ruining it. We cannot tolerate "infighting" and we must be "united", so long as these are defined by a small circle of leaders steering millions of people while controlling a set message as to what they should think, and when they should think it.
I doubt very much that I'm ruining anything that would be a good idea for those people. Why? Because the data is the data. The reality is the reality. Each one of us who can speak with a neighbor as a friend, and who can guide them to the most quality information, can help a mind find the opportunity to change itself. Broad, decentralized action by caring people heals.
We do not need a spectacle to heal. Spectacles are for war.
Spectacles do pool attention in one place, and as more and more people switch sides, they'll see the Kirsch banner held above a crowd chanting, "Down with COVID Vaxx!" And if you quiz most of them, they probably won't be able to separate the misinformation and spectacle from the truth, even though the truth was all that was needed to pull them across the line of vaccine partisanship.
The spectacle merely serves to define the mass formation. Around Steve.
Mattias Desmet warned about exactly this effect in his book.
Addendum: Others have pointed out Steve’s cagey behavior over debate terms.
""Do I want to win, or do I want to choose a future under a solid moral framework?"
"It's a false dichotomy, but a seductive one"
Fucking A Bro! The idea that these cretins can be so certain we'll lose if we just abandon our principles is so... tiresome. They don't know the future any better than we do, they just seek to justify their own moral bankruptcy. A bunch of damned Boromirs.
People can consciously or unconsciously be controlled opposition. CJ Hopkins' latest article is a great exposition of how the system works and how these distractors operate. So keep it up Mathew! Anyone who says it is wrong to call anyone to question, just because that person professes to be part of a movement, is either purposely nefarious or fails to understand that unity of a movement comes through internal, as well as external struggle. Both are equally important. Without internal struggle the movement will fail. I witnessed this during the Vietnam era. Misleaders and sellouts were constantly screaming "Stop the Infighting!"