7 Signs of Controlled Opposition

Postcards from the Edge of Reason lists seven signs that your saviour du jour is just another gatekeeper:

  1. Inexplicable popularity with conservatives.

The first time you heard about Big Conservative Thing was probably someone in media telling you how popular it has already become. No one can explain how, and most likely nobody you know could say they knew anything about it when it was small. Their rise is described as miraculous, or a movement, but the growth was very sudden.

  1. Fleecing massive amounts of money off of conservatives.

Gee. With all those resources in one pool, we’ll surely see some positive change, right? Right? Don’t hold your breath, mate. But do expect someone to extol the virtues of “taking stands” and “making statements” and other ways of paying them to tweet things about other famous people.

  1. Alleviates the pressure of the current situation by saying, “Something is being done.”

Somewhere, out there. You may have had a bee in your bonnet about some issue, and Controlled Opposition may have even gotten you riled up about it, ready to kick names and all that. Even just listening to someone talk about it was cathartic.

  1. Offers their entertainment value as part of some vague solution.

This is closely tied in with the last two. One way or another, it always comes back to them leading the way forward. They assure you that you’re all part of something big together.

  1. Leaves the true power of action entirely within the System.

The closest they ever come to offering a solution is to reinforce processes inside the System, or to leave solutions entirely in the hands of System officials.

  1. Portrays the managers of the system as incompetent, weak, cowardly, clumsy, or even greedy, but never evil and complicit.

This deflects true responsibility from those in power. Worse, it appeals to our natural inclination to say this about leaders we disagree with. But this is all part of the show that starts with politicians saying one thing and doing something else with entirely different results.

  1. Irregular ties to suspicious folk.

How many CIA agents do you know? How many criminals? How many billionaires? You may know zero, or a handful. But you probably don’t know many, and you probably haven’t received large sums of money from them, or acted as godfather to their kids.

The most reliable sign is the first one, the way that they suddenly pop up out of nowhere and their “incredible rise” is celebrated by the media and accepted unquestioningly by the average conservative. And here are a few additional signs:

  • This isn’t their first rodeo. Look into the background of all these manufactured characters and you’ll inevitably discover a previous attempt at becoming a star, from Ben Shapiro’s playing violin on TV as a “child prodigy” to the “modeling” of various female gatekeepers.
  • They publish books even though they’re obviously not writers. I’ve written and published more books than most of these “bestselling authors” combined, and I’m not even particularly prolific. The one “popular book” is there to justify their marketing as a relevant intellectual figure.
  • They’re poorly read and are usually known to have one major influence, who is the only intellectual figure they ever reference because it’s the only one they can reference. How much Jung do you think Jordan Peterson actually read when he didn’t even bother reading the Bible once?
  • They’re connected to other manufactured creatures. See: Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate.
  • They travel a lot. Most genuinely successful people don’t travel that much because their success permits them to live comfortable lives in the manner they prefer. If you’re in LA on Saturday, DC on Sunday, and Budapest on Monday, you’re not successful, you’re an actor working a PR job.

It’s not an accident that these signs tend to point to The Sound of Freedom being a gatekeeper operation. That doesn’t make it a bad thing, per se, especially given the comparisons and context. But it does point to the improbability that enthusiastically anointing those involved with the film as conservative leaders will end well.

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Fear of a BIC Planet

The lead SJW at IDW – which is struggling to survive, by the way – is terrified of intrepid Bounding Into Comics reporter Jon Del Arroz:

I just got out of the IDW Star Trek Comics panel and you’ll never believe what happened when I got in there. Heather Antos, the editor of the Star Trek line at IDW, went and talked to employees at IDW. They had people flank me in my seat and actually sit next to me, very uncomfortably. They were looking at my laptop, looking at what I was writing, and it was obvious that they were trying to intimidate me at that point. They rushed the panel, they did the whole thing, they did not take any questions whatsoever, and people sat next to me forcing me to stay in inside in an interior seat while Antos ran out of the panel at the end.

Then they had security outside standing there with guns, obviously they called security on me for being a journalist here and doing my job for bounding into Comics, just trying to talk about Comics. I don’t know what these people are afraid of, I don’t know why people within the comic industry act like this, but this is what they’re doing.

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It is amusing to think what they would do if Arkhaven showed up there in force one day. Not that we would ever bother to do so, but it’s an entertaining thought. Speaking of Arkhaven, Arktoons just blew past 13 million views so easily that no one even noticed. This, my friends, is progress, the sort of slow and steady progress that wins in the end.

In other comics news, CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON has been ordered for all the backers and will be going out to the shipping centers next week. The 308-page omnibus collects all 12 issues written by The Legend. If you’re a backer whose address has changed in the last three years, be sure to email castaliashipping AT gmail DOT com and let us know. Non-backers resident in the USA can now purchase either the hardcover or the paperback at Arkhaven.

Challenge: Define Intelligence

Note that this comment at AC’s place was not aimed at me, but I chose to take up the gauntlet out of interest in the subject.

For all your internet “brilliance”, you appear to conflate two things: intelligence and IQ.

Intelligence is not IQ; IQ is not intelligence. They are only occasionally and coincidentally correlated.

IQ is a ridiculously flawed measure of intelligence. It’s a measure that persuades low-brow, one-dimensional Mensas to think themselves smarter than they really are.

Disagree? Please persuade me to abandon my “maddening denial of reality” with respect to IQ by demonstrating that you “know enough to engage about it” and proving succinctly that IQ is sufficiently correlated to intelligence to “matter”.

A good first step: define intelligence.

Since you are as brilliant as you claim, you should have no difficulty making your case without:
– question begging (assuming the conclusion)
– post hoc ergo propter hoc
– appealing to authority

After the proof that I am certain is forthcoming, I shall have no problem accepting my inferior station with respect to my betters. Thanks!

Intelligence is the capacity to reach a correct conclusion on the basis of the information provided. The less information required to reach a correct conclusion, the higher the level of intelligence. This is why we describe minds like Newton or Galileo as high intelligences, because they proved their ability to reach correct conclusions on the basis of the same limited information provided to their intellectual inferiors. Whereas low intelligences are observably unable to reach correct conclusions even when all of the information required to do so is comprehensively provided to them.

While IQ is an imperfect quantified proxy of that capacity, it nevertheless corresponds strongly enough with it to serve as a useful measure to compare the intelligence of individuals. However, intelligence is not the only component of intellectual achievement, as wisdom and experience/information/education also play a role.

The artillery metaphor I coined to illustrate the concept is that intelligence is the diameter of the gun barrel bore, information is the ammunition, and wisdom is the targeting accuracy.

I await the various critiques with interest.

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Science is Observably Unreliable

Despite the best efforts of midwits like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris to square the circle by declaring science a method of determining truth, science is not only philosophically incapable of being a truth-metric, science is practically and observably unreliable, as evidenced by the untrustworthiness of even its highest practitioners in academia:

Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne will resign effective Aug. 31, according to communications released by the University Wednesday morning. He will also retract or issue lengthy corrections to five widely cited papers for which he was principal author after a Stanford-sponsored investigation found “manipulation of research data.”

According to Jerry Yang, chair of the Stanford Board of Trustees, Tessier-Lavigne will step down “in light of the report and its impact on his ability to lead Stanford.” Former Dean of Humanities Richard Saller will serve as interim president. In a separate statement, Tessier-Lavigne defended his reputation but acknowledged that issues with his research, first raised in a Daily investigation last autumn, meant that Stanford requires a president “whose leadership is not hampered by such discussions.”

“At various times when concerns with Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s papers emerged—in 2001, the early 2010s, 2015-2016, and March 2021—Dr. Tessier-Lavigne failed to decisively and forthrightly correct mistakes in the scientific record,” Stanford’s report said, identifying a number of apparent manipulations in Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscientific research.

The report concluded that the fudging of results under Tessier-Lavigne’s purview “spanned labs at three separate institutions.”

We’re not talking about a minor scientist here. We’re talking about the corruption of the top scientist at the third-best university in the world. This is absolute and conclusive proof of the intrinsic unreliability of science and shows that the reproducibility crisis affects science at every level.

UPDATE: Those who still subscribe to the myth of scientific self-correction should note that even the investigations of scientific corruption are themselves liable to corruption.

The investigation took eight months, with one member stepping off after The Daily revealed that he maintained an $18 million investment in a biotech company Tessier-Lavigne cofounded.

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Wednesday Arktoons

ALT★HERO Episode 81: Amphibious Assault

STONETOSS Episode 207: Director’s Cut

FLIP CITY CIRCUS Episode 13: If Music Legends Sold Out

上嫁小鼠 Episode 13: 我的标准

REBEL DEAD REVENGE Episode 71: Comin’ Up The Pike

THE GOLDEN AGE Episode 8: The Impossible Thought

RIOT TOWN, USA Episode 29: Changing Suits

THE WISE OF HEART Episode 30: An Empathetic Nudge

THE RUNAWAY PRINCESS Episode 4: A Plan Afoot

FAIRY DOOR Episode 32: The Monks

THE TUNNELS OF WOE Episode 5: Chapter 2: A Veni Man’s Gambit

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 268: Beat the Crowd

THE LOST ERA TRANSCRIPTS Episode 6: Story Two: The Dark Ages

Long Covid is Long Vaxx

Science finally admits what has been entirely obvious from the start. So-called “Long COVID” is nothing more than a long-term adverse effect of the COVID vaxxes.

Mainstream publications and regulatory agencies have buckled to public pressure to admit the COVID-19 vaccine can cause injuries such as myocarditis and pericarditis—but until recently, they’ve published little or nothing about the substantial number of people suffering from autoimmune disease after vaccination.
However, on July 3, the journal Science published an article confirming that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to autoimmune disorders, such as small fiber neuropathy and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

After Long Silence on ‘Long Vax,’ Science Magazine Links Autoimmune Disorders to COVID Shots, 19 July 2023

The fact that the unvaxxed who had Covid don’t suffer from “Long Covid” should have been sufficient evidence to reach the logical conclusion. But modern science is not only less accurate than a coin flip, it’s wilfully retarded.

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Better Stick with Cash

Banks are now closing the accounts of people whose “publicly-stated views are at odds with their positions as inclusive organisations” and using spurious excuses to do so.

The 40-page file shows that the bank cited his retweet of a Ricky Gervais joke and his friendship with Novak Djokovic to raise concerns he was ‘xenophobic and racist’.

The extraordinary documents obtained by the former Ukip leader and handed to MailOnline revealed the 331-year-old bank decided to ‘exit’ him after making reference to his friendship with former Wimbledon champion Djokovic.

The tennis player, who lost in the men’s singles final in SW19 on Sunday, made headlines over his decision not to have the Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic.

The dossier also shows the bank’s discussions considered 13 tweets, including a retweet by Mr Farage of a video of a Ricky Gervais sketch posted by Laurence Fox satirising the transgender movement. In the scene Gervais made a joke about ‘old-fashioned women – the ones with wombs’.

Mr Farage had retweeted the clip in May last year with the phrase ‘this is brilliant’ – but the document described it as a ‘transphobic comedy sketch’.

The officials noted that closing his accounts could not be justified on the basis of his wealth as his ‘economic contribution’ was ‘sufficient to retain on a commercial basis’.

But the minutes state: ‘The Committee did not think continuing to bank NF was compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation.’

This is why all of the liberal “civil rights” and “freedom of speech” has been nonsense all along. As some of the earliest supporters of these fraudulent concepts admitted nearly 100 years ago, they only exist in order to permit those whose evil beliefs had been repressed to take power and begin repressing traditional views, nationalist beliefs, and the Christian faith.

And it is why every effort to create “central bank digital currency” should be opposed, and why you should stop using credit cards and debit cards for every little purchase, because the more you utilize the control system, the easier it is for the control freaks to force everyone else to do so.

Start small. Use cash at the supermarket and the gas station. Delete the financial apps from your smartphone. Wait patiently in the lines instead of using self-checkout. Don’t make it easy for them.

Because if you don’t, you’ll soon find yourself being ejected from the system anyhow, just like Niles Farage and other individuals deemed undesirable by those in control of the banking system due to a joke on social media or something similarly trivial.

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Red Flags Waving

This is when a young man really needs to not merely walk away, but run for his life:

HELP I NEED ADVICE. My fiance and I are having lots of issues right now, we can’t stop fighting and I don’t know what to do. I quit my job because wedding planning was taking up so much time, and my fiance is refusing to get a second job. He doesn’t understand that I don’t have time to get ready for work, drive to work, be somewhere else all day, and drive home. I need to be HOME to plan this wedding. I’m trying to find a job from home but it is difficult. I asked him to get a second job and he won’t. It really pisses me off because we are spending $80,000 on this wedding and he keeps saying that we should spend less. UH, HELLO, NO. This is MY WEDDING I have been dreaming of since I was little and I REFUSE to have anything but my dream wedding. How can I convince him to work a second job to pay for this? What happened to “happy wife, happy life”???????????

And if he is foolish enough to fail to heed the giant flashing red lights, he really shouldn’t affect too much surprise when she eventually leaves him because she isn’t happy or because he isn’t maintaining her in the style to which she would like to become accustomed.

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The War Comes to the USA

It is very unlikely that the six explosions that destroyed a Dow Chemical plant in Louisiana were simply an industrial accident:

A fire at a Louisiana chemical plant triggered explosions that shook homes several miles away and sent flames and smoke billowing into the air, prompting emergency officials to urge a few hundred nearby residents to shelter indoors for several hours and to turn off their air conditioners.

Flames erupted late Friday at Dow Chemical’s plant on the Mississippi River near Plaquemine, south of Baton Rouge. Iberville Parish officials told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate that the fire started in an area of the plant that handles ethylene oxide, a flammable and toxic chemical.

The sheriff told WBRZ-TV that six explosions were detected at the plant around 9:30 p.m. Friday. Tall flames could be seen rising from the site, with thick smoke overhead. Residents felt their homes shake in Baton Rouge, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) away, WAFB-TV reported.

Ethylene oxide is a primary component of thermobaric munitions, which includes the AGM-114 Hellfire missile, the BLU-118/B thermobaric bomb, the XM1060 40mm thermobaric grenade, and the SMAW-NE antitank missile. While it’s possible that the timing of the plant’s destruction was coincidental, the fact that it took place as NATO is desperately attempting to ramp up munitions production to replace its depleted stocks tends to suggest that covert enemy ops were responsible.

As unpleasant as it may be to contemplate the possibility, the USA is now almost certainly finding itself on the business end of the special operations spear that it has so heavily utilized around the world for the last 40 years. While one assumes the Russians are the most likely culprits, the Chinese have been preparing for direct conflict with the US military for more than 20 years and it is certainly in their interest to ensure that US munitions supplies remain scarce.

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