So, as of 21 July, it seems that on July 13 2024, at a Butler, Pennsylvania Trump rally, a 20-year-old called Thomas Matthew Crooks got on a roof with his father’s AR-15 and took a shot at Trump, half-missed (clipped his ear), wounded two and killed one of the audience, and was then killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
I liked your post, and it demonstrates good sense, but I veer away from your mark here. I could fairly be lumped into the camp of swivel-eyed omni-skeptics I think; though I might dislike or disdain much of my company, I can't help but feel that they're edging in the right direction. I am agnostic of and largely uninterested in conspiracy interpretations of topical events, but I believe that the deepest "alternative" readings genuinely bear out a very surreal reality. I very much agree that even at the outer fringes/uppermost echelons all must yet be qualified and little be simple, but I think also that it is necessary to comprehend an actual, operative plane of power which is practically inscrutable to the normal mind. It may be that there is little "practical" usefulness to such a conviction, at least not directly; but I do believe that there is something necessary in the challenge, perhaps necessary more for the proving of the soul. It seems akin to the "flatlanders" idea- two dimensional stick men trying to reach a conception of depth beyond all of their native powers of thought, but which is the only way that many quite real occurrences in their world can even be framed, except in superstition or ignorant rationalising. I am fool enough even to believe that the schemas of "power proper" are actually penetrable, though I think that such perception cannot ultimately be distilled from any amount of clever research, and probably cannot be publicly conveyed because the definitive factors of discovery will arrive by inspiration and therefore be indefensible through argument. We're like all those enthusiasts in the twenties gazing at the model of the "hypercube". We may come out with all sorts of facetious or pretentious or simply wrong things about the hypercube, but the principle is sound and warrants study, and a million failures don't prove the effort hopeless- the game is worth the candle.
I tend to view things from a supernatural perspective, "as above, so below" - that our earthly affairs reflect grander struggles; I'm just averse to the "everything is staged, it's all CGI" kneejerk reaction, it seems trite & grug-brained to me.
There's definitely a grug-brained read, but I think there's also a kind of savant read that say's "it's all staged"; a literate and poetic read, though often no less literal for that . It's the difference in poise I suppose, and in fairness it is incredibly rare to see a handsome poise in grappling these and other "weird" subjects. Have you ever read the graphic novel "The Invisibles" by grant Morrison? I can't say that I truly rate it- nor do I really think much of graphic novels generally, but it gets close to my meaning; to hold this fantastical mystic/conspiracy paradigm as a worldview without either embarrassment over any eccentricity or conceit on any particular; to hold it as real (and even more realistic) even as the details all quickly resolve into fable and error. For all that there are alot of dullards and bores who've bought the t-shirt, there is something here that feels like a challenge not to forget or forsake what we have been convinced of at the bottom of the rabbit hole. It feels like any day you could turn the corner and see the plainest living proof of the most wild and motley theory you ever heard, and the world spirit is not above enjoying a really puerile "told you so!"
Upon reflection, I find the idea that everything is staged for magical purposes more relatable than that e.g. the Trump shooting was staged to get him an extra 0.1% approval. At least the magical worldview is inherently weird, so one can entertain it more as a thought experiment than as anything subject to proof.
For my money, I wouldn't put it that it was staged for magical purposes- I am not even actually arguing that it was staged per se- but rather that these events are determined (circumscribed?) by arbiters who operate at a level beyond any commonplace comprehension; a level at which magic so-called is also operative, but only as another factor in the highest machinations of mundane power. I don't think this passes the threshold into abstract or spiritual reality, only familiar human power at a higher point of the spectrum, which only seems like a categorical break from normal reality because it perches above the practical limits of our investigation. Not omnipotent, ineffable or final, but hidden beyond the tide high-tide line of common perception, the knowledge of which threshold itself being the prime advantage of the conspiracy, whatever its makeup.
If it is so, it may as well be inscrutable & mystical to people like me; probably the inner circles who can apprehend & appreciate the true currents are very small.
I don't think I've conveyed my argument very well. I'm not saying that I have a privileged insight; I agree that it must be a very few who can actually apprehend the factual case. To us it is left to discern reality by vignette, largely by negative proofs (in observable falsities and inconsistencies) and in intuitions trained by efforts of investigation. I'll try to put my contention more succinctly: there must be a stratum of power which is beyond commonly recognised political boundaries, and which by its position must be both smaller and more capable than any visible elite. It must keep as its preserve the most developed versions of the arts we think of as psychology, technology and statecraft, including arts which strike us at a distance as magical, but which are only the continued, unretarted trajectory of science as seen perhaps a hundred years ago (likely more). The absolutism of their power can only be speculated upon, but evidence suggests that they are at least potent enough to effectually drive and constrain events for practically any given purpose. The evidence also suggests that their interests are private and alien, not really aligning with any expressed political philosophy; therefore they are willing to invest or withdraw support for any lower faction or cause as a financial power might manipulate a market up or down. Therefore they have near total valency over modern historical affairs, but neither total investment nor total involvement. It is therefore faulty to assume that every happening is fake or manipulated, but wise to assume that almost any happening may be, and the likelihood of such obviously increases with the relative importance of the event or circumstance.
For my part I know that my head is clogged with half-remembered partial (but solid) evidences for this state of affairs trawled from a million conspiracy theories, and if we had a decade and very prosaic minds we could probably flesh out a practically unopposible quantitative case, yet we still couldn't hope to get from it more than reaffirmed confidence in the basic, vague, premise. Realising this some while ago I have been less feverish in diving for "evidences", but I believe that I have become more acute in my more subjective impressions. For example, I have no explicit reason in my mind to distrust Tucker Carlson, and I have been sorely temped to make some kind of endorsement of him even just to myself, but I cannot ignore what I hear in his laugh and demeanor, and some sense anchored to my broader understanding keeps insisting that he is deception. Though, as I said, I have no particular reason to be skeptical about the shooting or argument over it, I confess that I felt the same sense when watching Trump's RNC speech. I cannot ignore the sensation that something is terribly awry there, whatever the political circumstance of the day. Perhaps I can contend on nothing more than that this inkling has proved valuable to me many times, and if not infallible has reliably wrenched me out of many traps and follies which devour many alternative thinkers.
I appreciate that this idea can be seen as vain guff. If we can't really discern the higher (not even highest) tranche of reality, what is the point in keeping its reality actively in mind? At this stage my only answer can be that it proves the nature of those actors/agencies under it who are demonstrably under its purview; not even that they are evil or wholly dominated, but that they are weak and limnable, and therefore cannot be trusted even pragmatically. Solidity, truth, will be found and developed either in near silent secrecy, or will explode upon the world in marvels or more probably tragedy; such may have been the case in Germany.
Well, that wasn't very succinct, but as brief as I could manage! Maybe I'll work up a proper post on this, but I don't just want to rehash the "Herbertism" idea I wrote about.
This is hands-down the best take-down I’ve ever read of people like me: the ‘those who think it’s all a psy-op, Deep Fake, crisis actor, holograms, Hollywood, staged, Trump wasn’t even there, there is no Trump, etc.’ contingent. The humour and insight is beyond brilliant- love the ’shit-tier shoe-pervert security detail’ - but I will return to it tomorrow when I am less tired than I am right now.
Yeah, but... What undoes this is that no one can fire an AR15 at 150 yards (or even 100) and expect to hit the target - and definitely not as close as nicking his ear (which anyway stretches credulity). An AR15 is basically a 0.22 rifle, which is what we used to shoot at my prep school. Our targets were 25 yards away. I won the shooting prize one year - the prize for which was a lifetime invitation to Bisley - but when I got to my next school the targets being 50 yards away (and using 303s this time) was a helluva step up. I don't think there's a chance I could hit even a watermelon sized head at 150 yards.
So, while I appreciate Denzel's effort to wean us off conspiracy and bring us back to the land of the rational, examining the most salient element of the official narrative takes us directly to Conspiracy Land (and worse because the next step is another shooter). Owning an AR15 is not a sign of being a gun nut (quite the opposite in fact, it's purchase is a sign that you don't think you can handle anything more powerful) and if neither the gun nor the shooter can do 150 yards where does that lead you? It leaves them peddling a nonsensical narrative, which is the same as it ever was.
I would quite liked to have been brought back to Earth but in this example the only explanations remaining come from the conspiracy bin.
OK. Except that he IS an actor and always has been. And it's what JFK did, and it worked then. See the Reality Check YT channel for a detailed analysis of the footage from a filmmaker's perspective. I don't usually trust him but he's right on this one. This is re. JFK rather than Trump - though he'll no doubt get around to covering this event soon enough.
I have never thought of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" as being an especially profound piece of thinking (I think we've all thought the same thing in one form or another - we know we exist!) but I fear you have not understood what that description is all about. This is examining the limits of our knowledge; what we can know to be true. The description contains the *implications* of concluding that the only thing we can know is that we exist. If we were to act only on what we knew for certain then these are the changes that would be required if our behaviour were to be aligned with our knowledge. Yes, you do have to get rid of the body, as even the more modern view of the earth as a simulation environment does. Yes, we can think it's there because we touch it and it feels things, but there is no way to distinguish those sensations from nerve data that is directly injected and comes from perhaps a huge computer. Descartes isn't wandering around with an insane world view so much as doing his job as a philosopher and explaining the ramifications of having no knowledge whatsoever beyond knowing that we are a consciousness. Nor was he alone in this, with people like the Sceptics taking this much more into their everyday lives. They didn't like entering buildings because it made a statement that they knew the roof wasn't going to collapse on them.
I liked your post, and it demonstrates good sense, but I veer away from your mark here. I could fairly be lumped into the camp of swivel-eyed omni-skeptics I think; though I might dislike or disdain much of my company, I can't help but feel that they're edging in the right direction. I am agnostic of and largely uninterested in conspiracy interpretations of topical events, but I believe that the deepest "alternative" readings genuinely bear out a very surreal reality. I very much agree that even at the outer fringes/uppermost echelons all must yet be qualified and little be simple, but I think also that it is necessary to comprehend an actual, operative plane of power which is practically inscrutable to the normal mind. It may be that there is little "practical" usefulness to such a conviction, at least not directly; but I do believe that there is something necessary in the challenge, perhaps necessary more for the proving of the soul. It seems akin to the "flatlanders" idea- two dimensional stick men trying to reach a conception of depth beyond all of their native powers of thought, but which is the only way that many quite real occurrences in their world can even be framed, except in superstition or ignorant rationalising. I am fool enough even to believe that the schemas of "power proper" are actually penetrable, though I think that such perception cannot ultimately be distilled from any amount of clever research, and probably cannot be publicly conveyed because the definitive factors of discovery will arrive by inspiration and therefore be indefensible through argument. We're like all those enthusiasts in the twenties gazing at the model of the "hypercube". We may come out with all sorts of facetious or pretentious or simply wrong things about the hypercube, but the principle is sound and warrants study, and a million failures don't prove the effort hopeless- the game is worth the candle.
I tend to view things from a supernatural perspective, "as above, so below" - that our earthly affairs reflect grander struggles; I'm just averse to the "everything is staged, it's all CGI" kneejerk reaction, it seems trite & grug-brained to me.
There's definitely a grug-brained read, but I think there's also a kind of savant read that say's "it's all staged"; a literate and poetic read, though often no less literal for that . It's the difference in poise I suppose, and in fairness it is incredibly rare to see a handsome poise in grappling these and other "weird" subjects. Have you ever read the graphic novel "The Invisibles" by grant Morrison? I can't say that I truly rate it- nor do I really think much of graphic novels generally, but it gets close to my meaning; to hold this fantastical mystic/conspiracy paradigm as a worldview without either embarrassment over any eccentricity or conceit on any particular; to hold it as real (and even more realistic) even as the details all quickly resolve into fable and error. For all that there are alot of dullards and bores who've bought the t-shirt, there is something here that feels like a challenge not to forget or forsake what we have been convinced of at the bottom of the rabbit hole. It feels like any day you could turn the corner and see the plainest living proof of the most wild and motley theory you ever heard, and the world spirit is not above enjoying a really puerile "told you so!"
Upon reflection, I find the idea that everything is staged for magical purposes more relatable than that e.g. the Trump shooting was staged to get him an extra 0.1% approval. At least the magical worldview is inherently weird, so one can entertain it more as a thought experiment than as anything subject to proof.
For my money, I wouldn't put it that it was staged for magical purposes- I am not even actually arguing that it was staged per se- but rather that these events are determined (circumscribed?) by arbiters who operate at a level beyond any commonplace comprehension; a level at which magic so-called is also operative, but only as another factor in the highest machinations of mundane power. I don't think this passes the threshold into abstract or spiritual reality, only familiar human power at a higher point of the spectrum, which only seems like a categorical break from normal reality because it perches above the practical limits of our investigation. Not omnipotent, ineffable or final, but hidden beyond the tide high-tide line of common perception, the knowledge of which threshold itself being the prime advantage of the conspiracy, whatever its makeup.
If it is so, it may as well be inscrutable & mystical to people like me; probably the inner circles who can apprehend & appreciate the true currents are very small.
I don't think I've conveyed my argument very well. I'm not saying that I have a privileged insight; I agree that it must be a very few who can actually apprehend the factual case. To us it is left to discern reality by vignette, largely by negative proofs (in observable falsities and inconsistencies) and in intuitions trained by efforts of investigation. I'll try to put my contention more succinctly: there must be a stratum of power which is beyond commonly recognised political boundaries, and which by its position must be both smaller and more capable than any visible elite. It must keep as its preserve the most developed versions of the arts we think of as psychology, technology and statecraft, including arts which strike us at a distance as magical, but which are only the continued, unretarted trajectory of science as seen perhaps a hundred years ago (likely more). The absolutism of their power can only be speculated upon, but evidence suggests that they are at least potent enough to effectually drive and constrain events for practically any given purpose. The evidence also suggests that their interests are private and alien, not really aligning with any expressed political philosophy; therefore they are willing to invest or withdraw support for any lower faction or cause as a financial power might manipulate a market up or down. Therefore they have near total valency over modern historical affairs, but neither total investment nor total involvement. It is therefore faulty to assume that every happening is fake or manipulated, but wise to assume that almost any happening may be, and the likelihood of such obviously increases with the relative importance of the event or circumstance.
For my part I know that my head is clogged with half-remembered partial (but solid) evidences for this state of affairs trawled from a million conspiracy theories, and if we had a decade and very prosaic minds we could probably flesh out a practically unopposible quantitative case, yet we still couldn't hope to get from it more than reaffirmed confidence in the basic, vague, premise. Realising this some while ago I have been less feverish in diving for "evidences", but I believe that I have become more acute in my more subjective impressions. For example, I have no explicit reason in my mind to distrust Tucker Carlson, and I have been sorely temped to make some kind of endorsement of him even just to myself, but I cannot ignore what I hear in his laugh and demeanor, and some sense anchored to my broader understanding keeps insisting that he is deception. Though, as I said, I have no particular reason to be skeptical about the shooting or argument over it, I confess that I felt the same sense when watching Trump's RNC speech. I cannot ignore the sensation that something is terribly awry there, whatever the political circumstance of the day. Perhaps I can contend on nothing more than that this inkling has proved valuable to me many times, and if not infallible has reliably wrenched me out of many traps and follies which devour many alternative thinkers.
I appreciate that this idea can be seen as vain guff. If we can't really discern the higher (not even highest) tranche of reality, what is the point in keeping its reality actively in mind? At this stage my only answer can be that it proves the nature of those actors/agencies under it who are demonstrably under its purview; not even that they are evil or wholly dominated, but that they are weak and limnable, and therefore cannot be trusted even pragmatically. Solidity, truth, will be found and developed either in near silent secrecy, or will explode upon the world in marvels or more probably tragedy; such may have been the case in Germany.
Well, that wasn't very succinct, but as brief as I could manage! Maybe I'll work up a proper post on this, but I don't just want to rehash the "Herbertism" idea I wrote about.
I haven't read any Grant Morrison. Thus far, all the "it's all staged" takes have struck me as dumb beyond belief.
This is hands-down the best take-down I’ve ever read of people like me: the ‘those who think it’s all a psy-op, Deep Fake, crisis actor, holograms, Hollywood, staged, Trump wasn’t even there, there is no Trump, etc.’ contingent. The humour and insight is beyond brilliant- love the ’shit-tier shoe-pervert security detail’ - but I will return to it tomorrow when I am less tired than I am right now.
ok, I put it on my substack - it was too much for a comment thread. but again, well done, I loved this article
Yeah, but... What undoes this is that no one can fire an AR15 at 150 yards (or even 100) and expect to hit the target - and definitely not as close as nicking his ear (which anyway stretches credulity). An AR15 is basically a 0.22 rifle, which is what we used to shoot at my prep school. Our targets were 25 yards away. I won the shooting prize one year - the prize for which was a lifetime invitation to Bisley - but when I got to my next school the targets being 50 yards away (and using 303s this time) was a helluva step up. I don't think there's a chance I could hit even a watermelon sized head at 150 yards.
So, while I appreciate Denzel's effort to wean us off conspiracy and bring us back to the land of the rational, examining the most salient element of the official narrative takes us directly to Conspiracy Land (and worse because the next step is another shooter). Owning an AR15 is not a sign of being a gun nut (quite the opposite in fact, it's purchase is a sign that you don't think you can handle anything more powerful) and if neither the gun nor the shooter can do 150 yards where does that lead you? It leaves them peddling a nonsensical narrative, which is the same as it ever was.
I would quite liked to have been brought back to Earth but in this example the only explanations remaining come from the conspiracy bin.
My objection is to the “it’s all staged” narrative; that is, I don’t think it was a CGI deep fake or that Trump slapped a blood squib on his own ear.
OK. Except that he IS an actor and always has been. And it's what JFK did, and it worked then. See the Reality Check YT channel for a detailed analysis of the footage from a filmmaker's perspective. I don't usually trust him but he's right on this one. This is re. JFK rather than Trump - though he'll no doubt get around to covering this event soon enough.
I have never thought of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" as being an especially profound piece of thinking (I think we've all thought the same thing in one form or another - we know we exist!) but I fear you have not understood what that description is all about. This is examining the limits of our knowledge; what we can know to be true. The description contains the *implications* of concluding that the only thing we can know is that we exist. If we were to act only on what we knew for certain then these are the changes that would be required if our behaviour were to be aligned with our knowledge. Yes, you do have to get rid of the body, as even the more modern view of the earth as a simulation environment does. Yes, we can think it's there because we touch it and it feels things, but there is no way to distinguish those sensations from nerve data that is directly injected and comes from perhaps a huge computer. Descartes isn't wandering around with an insane world view so much as doing his job as a philosopher and explaining the ramifications of having no knowledge whatsoever beyond knowing that we are a consciousness. Nor was he alone in this, with people like the Sceptics taking this much more into their everyday lives. They didn't like entering buildings because it made a statement that they knew the roof wasn't going to collapse on them.
Yes, I know. I was taking the demon metaphor and using it in a different context, for rhetorical effect.