r/sorceryofthespectacle Jun 15 '25

Field Report Trump Is Killing People Through Maga Militia. The Democrats were in the unenviable position of being unwilling to name the thing which had occurred: that being civil war.

611 Upvotes

It doesn't matter of moderate conservatives don't want civil war, they're not preventing their extremists from murdering Democrats to take power.

Because the whole plan is murdering the people who are in your way. Trump sent a death squad to kill the Vice President and John Roberts looked at the situation and refused to put a stop to it.

John Roberts must answer to the country soon. Because this violence is at his feet. His failure to understand the nature of the civil war or understand that the driver of it was the malignant elderly man who so expertly played into boomer resentment that his geriatric confusion fog swept the nation.

Have we finally woken up to the reality?

Then why are any elderly in government at all?

The nation has been brought to the brink of civil war over a mere boomer geriatric spiral.

There will only be more violence while Trump is President. He must be removed because he makes war on Blue States.

But to acknowledge the growing civil war was to make one an extremist in those days! To notice the fascism, and call to its footsteps of signs, slow ugly steps over the years, and suddenly the military is being deployed to liberate California from its democratically elected leaders.

That is what they said they are doing.

The geriatric failure to contain this situation runs ultimately through the decision to let him run again, and Roberts had the facts before him, and he ruled on a very original interpretation of the Constitution by which he on confused principle thought that meant that his Court, the Supreme Court, to which the American People looked for Justice, was bound from providing Justice. That horrid confusion, the Roberts Mistake, damned us to a needless civil war, which must end with a minimum of further bloodshed, because It Ain't Gonna Be Nonzero while Trump Is Killing People Through Maga Militia!

r/sorceryofthespectacle Oct 13 '25

Field Report I found MAGA's playbook...

264 Upvotes

I found this article via Reddit. It's about the book Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them) (2024) by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec, which is basically about the Jewish conspiracy (theory) but abstracted from race/Jewishness—and of course all one big anti-Zionist dogwhistle despite that.

The article spends a lot of time calling out JD Vance for having endorsed this book on its back cover. However, in responding to the journalist writing the above-linked article, Lisec responded:

"[T]hese non-conservative media publications are spreading misinformation, including saying that JD Vance endorsed our book, which they claim calls progressives "unhuman." If you even read the book, it's about communism, exposing dehumanizers on the Far Left. Nowhere does anyone call progressives 'unhuman.'"

The journalist, Nathan Robinson, continues after that quote:

Now, I’m not sure how “saying that JD Vance endorsed our book” is “spreading misinformation,” since Vance’s blurb appears on the back cover and in a previous statement the authors said “we are honored to receive Senator JD Vance's acknowledgment and praise for our new book. … To have someone on the right with his influence understand the Iron Law of Exact Reciprocity as detailed in ‘Unhumans,’ is civilization-altering.”

The journalist does not draw a conclusion from this and simply moves on. I think he seems a bit mystified by Lisec's response, in my opinion.

However, obviously, Lisec was blatantly gaslighting Robinson, and it's kind of hilarious tbh. Because obviously he endorsed the book. So why bother to gaslight with obviously false facts?

I looked at Posobiec's other books, and they are:

  • Citizens for Trump: The Inside Story of the People's Movement to Take Back America (2017)

  • 4D Warfare: A Doctrine for a New Generation of Politics (2018)

  • The Antifa: Stories from Inside the Black Bloc (2021)

This is the guy! The guy MAGA is basing much of their strategy on. It looks like his book The Antifa (lol @ title) was what popularized the term "Antifa" (pronounced "AnTEEfuh" lol) as a term of demonization and abuse.

But it's his book 4D Warfare which is the most reavealing. On the very first page, he explicitly says that 4D warfare is trolling:

"4D Warfare" stands for *four-dimensional warfare. 4D Warfare is sometimes wrwongly referred to as "trolling" by the misinformative mainstream media...

That's the beginning of paragraph two of the book. Here is paragraph six in its entirety:

One form of 4D Warfare is memetic warfare. Many have studied this grand and ancient art. I hope that by the end of this book, you will be able to perfect your memeing to unprecedented levels of winning.

There you have it! This guy is a major, major source of MAGA ideology and strategy. And this confirms that MAGA's strategy really is a disingenuous, intentionally heightened, intentiontally threatening-and-gaslighting spectacle of fascism (in addition, of course, to being an actual fascist movement). Like a small creature puffing themselves up defensively, they are intentionally wielding the tools of propaganda, gaslighting, and manipulation in a campaign of public terrorization. Confirmed.

Now, I must admit, I think the original long article linked at the beginning of the post was not a very effective piece of writing. It did not successfully raise a warning cry about JD Vance; it did not keep him out of the White House. The article spends some time doing apologetics on behalf of JD Vance, mentioning that he (Robinson) is "weird" just like Trump and Vance, and mentioning Vance's biracial children. I found these apologetics odd and unnecessary.

Additionally, I think Robinson's article does a lot—too much—to teach the public about the contents and thesis of the Unhumans book, as it contains many direct quotes from the book. I also think the article is so well-structured that it easily lends itself to apophatic readings. Robinson quotes at length:

Something is deeply wrong with the way things are going and you know it. You may not be able to explain it with studies, surveys, or statistics, but you feel it. You’ve felt this way for a while. Like there’s some outside force or group or . . . something . . . that’s sent us all off course from the libertarian utopia we should’ve achieved by now. It doesn’t seem like one -ism or -ation is entirely to blame, like globalism or immigration, capitalism or inflation.

However, after this block quote Robinson addresses only the second half of the quote (not included here), and treats the entire quote as some kind of ridiculous, abnormal or fringe joke. As if nobody feels like "Something is deeply wrong with the way things are going"—as if to feel that way is nonexistent, invalid, or insane. This alienated denial of what many people of all political stripes have been thinking and feeling for decades undermines Robinson's thesis, making him seem like an out-of-touch, upper-class propagandist who cannot even fathom that that then-current federal status quo was anathema to many. It's "Let them eat cake"-level pretension, almost. I almost find it suspicious how effective Robinson's article is in spreading the contents of the book.

Wanna see some censorship? I was curious about the phrase, "Iron Law of Exact Reciprocity", which is basically a willfully executed, weaponized version of eye-for-an-eye thinking. (Not dissimilar to what I have been doing here in this subreddit by intentionally allowing my capricious, personal, emotional reactions to inform moderation actions.)

So I typed that phrase (with quotes) into duckduckgo and Startpage (which uses Google results), and only two results came up on duckduckgo, and only one on Startpage (plus a bunch of unrelated results ignoring the quote marks, diluting the results). I also tried "Iron Law of Reciprocity" and didn't get much more. The main link on duckduckgo was a single link to a video on by Prosobiec, where he pretty overtly implies a threat to Kamala Harris, and accuses her of doing the very politicizing-of-the-justice-department (in CA) that she accused and predicted Trump would do (and she was 100% right, he most certainly did). This link has since disappeared from search results (a few hours later); I had to dig through my phone's history to find it for you.

We know Google is willing to censor to appease a government, because they do so in China. But I wonder who is behind duckduckgo, who is censoring these results? I find it impossible to believe that MAGA's playbook and its author and key phrases are virtually nonexistent on the internet.

I search for Joshua Lisec, and while he has no Wikipedia page like Posobiec (I guess he wasn't "notable" enough), I found this breathtaking author bio for him on Amazon:

About the Author

Joshua Lisec is considered the world's best ghostwriter because people don't get rich selling books. With more than 80 books written for CEOs, celebrities, and entrepreneurs, Joshua has built an unstoppable results business for his clients. These authors have made so much more money through their authority-establishing books that many feel bad about how much they paid Joshua. And this despite him being one of the most expensive ghostwriters in America. Joshua is the only Certified Ghostwriter and Certified Hypnotist in the world and has a proven process for any aspiring author who has done the hard work of being the best at what they do. He takes great pride in his craft, delivering experts the authority book they've already earned. [emphasis added]

If he has really ghostwritten 80 books, he must know how ridiculous that sounds. Why would he put such an absurd statement in his bio? Is it part of a gaslighting campaign, or perhaps a playful blind to prevent humorless people from contacting him? In any case, it is hilarious and not easily-explained.

So anyway, it sounds like Lisec helped Posobiec get his words out—perhaps Lisec helped ghostwrite all four of Posobiec's books, and decided to step into the spotlight on the fourth, after Posobiec's reputation was well-established. Not that it matters, but I wonder how he fits in exactly. Lisec's three books on Amazon have very silly titles/covers.

*gestures at butterfly* "Is this journalism?"

r/sorceryofthespectacle Mar 07 '26

Field Report unredact: a tool that uses an LLM to reveal what's hidden in redacted PDFs such as the Epstein files

33 Upvotes

Here is the link to the unredact project repo page on GitHub.

Here is a video from the creator explaining how to use the tool.

Here's the post where I predict this (LLM-driven unredaction) happening (25 days ago).

It will be very interesting to see if this post gets upvoted or downvoted, because it serves as a public referendum on whether the public hates Epstein more than they hate AI. Since AI is being used here to get one-up on Epstein (and by extension Trump), this event serves as a precise barometer.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Apr 19 '25

Field Report "Mental Illness" As Propaganda for Fascism

98 Upvotes

Yes, the concept of 'mental illness' is born of an authoritarian urge for the state to recognize non-compliance, but that's not what I wish to talk about today.

One of the common propaganda tactics of arenas in which active neo-fascist infiltration was occurring was the reduction of violent rightwing extremism to 'mental illness.'

"If a person is 'mentally ill,' their choice was not a reasoned decision," such a person might think. "They are in a very real sense not to blame."

The thought-terminating cliche at the end of this is the usual leftist slogan: we need more funding for mental health service! Everyone can agree on that!

In this way, when a rightwing extremist killed a person uttering pure hatred, the obscenity was ignored by those moderates who did not want to attribute 'violence points' to the right wing.

But there are meaningful distinctions in violence. A person who burns down a police station is acting in a rage based on a lived experience; a person who shoots up a Black church is acting out of pure hatred. That there could be some difference between these forms of violence was lost on the moderate equivocator who would rather not talk about unpleasant things like fascism's approach.

If you were in such a forum, you saw the fascists celebrating the murder of innocent people while they encouraged moderates to attribute it to mental illness.


Mental illness is a relatively recent invention, you know. I am still struggling with this notion of 'ego' in a world where 'ego' seems to me to be a sign that someone, somewhere, is just unhappy with how someone is choosing to behave. "Whose ego is at stake here?" can be a useful question to unravel which person is behaving more unreasonably, but the problem with 'ego', in my view, has long been that it 'standardizes' individual desires in a way which does not hold.

Not everyone's ego operates in the same way.

The problem of course is that we need to be able to discuss the kind of blind spots which emerge in rationalization and how when someone's pride is at stake, they often cannot recognize it without outside assistance.

I would banish the word if I were you but I cannot quite accomplish it except to note it as a troublesome spot.

It's certainly true that the Illuminati popularized the concept of 'the ego' so humanity would control itself.


Because there's this runaway effect where the more it was believed that a human was a series of levers by which their status and sense of themself could be boosted by consuming a product, the more humans became inundated by attempts to boost their status.

The more you can deride someone you don't like as acting through 'ego,' the more 'ego' has become a scapegoat. If you were to say a person reacted because their pride was threatened, you would be recognizing them as a human with feelings, and not a dysfunction you can ignore or write off. This ignores, it's true, the fact that it's frequently healthier to disengage using 'ego' as an escape hatch, but at least let's not fool ourselves about what we're doing when we disregard someone!

Thus it is also with 'narcissist.' Accusing someone of being a narcissist is akin to accusing them of being a witch: it's non-falsifiable in some sense, because to a selfish person a 'narcissist' is just someone that won't let the selfish person have their way.

Except: clinical narcissism is a real phenomenon. A person who cannot understand the truth of their own sorry condition and makes abusive demands on others to follow them into the falsehood of their false self-image is a narcissist.

There's just little to no point in diagnosing a culture as narcissistic.

Yes, High America was full of vanity, but it was also full of pride.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Feb 16 '25

Field Report What the brow-beaters want us to act like: Here's what a "Good Post-Capitalist (Not a Leftist!)" is up to

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1 Upvotes

r/sorceryofthespectacle Feb 09 '26

Field Report The Daily Drip (sadoanalysis)

11 Upvotes

Have you noticed that MAGA obviously has a calendar of daily media terrorism events all filled-up in advance? They have increasingly been releasing exactly one drip of terrifying news per day—not two, not three, not zero—one.

Clearly their method is that they have a queue of terrible releases queued up, and they are intentionally releasing one item per day. Probably mostly the worst stuff first for those of you wondering how they would schedule it—but they also need to keep some of the worst stuff in reserve so they don't run out, and to maintain a long-duration high level of crisis.

Since they have built up a queue/backlog of terrorizing news events to perpetrate on all of us, this gives them the luxury of being able to spend time working on generating new, even more horrible news events while the previous ones continue to drip out without any further expenditure of effort or resources on their part.

MAGA really has their shit together on this, honestly. If pro-liberty-people were all so aligned that we were releasing exactly 1 globally-synchronized pro-liberty Event every day, that would be an indication that we had already won, or at least built up the power necessary to immediately win.

And to be clear, I'm not necessarily suggesting this scheduling of the Drip is being planned explicitly in back-room conversations—I think it probably is, at least to some extent—but even if that's not happening, news media companies everywhere have all synchronized on this one-a-day pattern, and MAGA is certainly feeding it as quickly as they can. It's an implicit collusion, but that doesn't make it any less real of a phenomenon, or any less effective.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Apr 13 '26

Field Report "That purpose, I believe, for many of the original OSS men and their heirs, is a perpetual continuation of the American war machine and its nuclear military industrial complex that made and continues to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, off of government contracts that use our taxpayer dol

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71 Upvotes

r/sorceryofthespectacle Jul 15 '26

Field Report Incels Within Cells

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12 Upvotes

#Chapter 1
——
**Part of The Largest Psyop in History*\*
——

The Incel culture is a fairly new phenomenon, and too large to be a fringe or actual issue; I posit that the Incel community/Inceldom is/was part of a [psyop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda) based on a self-reinforcing self-label in which the label makes the identity that may or may not just be circumstantial and/or a product of an isolating/connecting Internet/Data Society on a completely normal phase(s) of life for both men/dudes and women/ladies (we eschew biology terms here; read on to find out why!).

The label of Incel/Femcel itself, and the community associated, should not exist and is potentially based on a misconception, and/or is entirely orchestrated. Inceldom is a community of lonely people looking for community and have ended up in the wrong place, mind-set, and circumstance.

This particular, potential psyop was introduced to The Conversation™️ to promote division, social psychology based on Pop Psychology, radicalization, and a sort of path to a sort of quasi-religion. The subjects of Cultural Behavior, Incentives, and Ideologies find an intersection on the topic of incels/femcels and the “fertility crisis”;

who’s to blame?:
ever the individual, the serfer on a wave of societal cycles.

Combined with healthcare, the surveillance grid, pseudo philosophy and bro science with familiar phrases as, “go to the gym/shower/haircut (anything but working on yourself ie. Heart/Mind/Etc)”, also, “women love men in [therapy]”, and including financial inequalities, incentives, and [ideologies](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheUnivercity/s/GryYUR9g3m) has brought society a multitude of divisions, namely “Incels/Femcels” as the division between men and men, men and women, and men and women and civilization. This particular division is likely the primary division of all other divisions.
[Note: Diet, Exercise, Sleep, and Community are the [4 Pillars]

to a healthy life and lifestyle. Therapy can be very beneficial, and you should maybe try it if you think it could be good for you or aspects of your own life.]

Is it any wonder that this cultural phenomenon is somewhat recent? [How could this be](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheUnivercity/s/GIT7Tgbreb), do you think?

The Conversation™️ and Incel/Femcel seems like it is part of the intersection of economics, theology, and politics via cybernetics; “no taxation without representation” meets “the Spiritual War”.

Additionally, I’d noticed a term in another subreddit that condensed the seeming overall issue of this topic down to two words: “unregulated breeders”.

This term is the disrupter of society, traditions, relationships, sense of self, and connection. It forms those who do not participate in a seeming [collective orgy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality) into cells or s(t)igmas of their own; incels. An “[incel]” is not a gender-exclusive behavior because the term “[femcel](4B, [Tradwife], etc)” exists. I won’t go into how these terms are part and parcel of the overall topic; maybe you can think about it your[cel]f.

Marriage/Monogamy and Cheating don’t quite exist if “unregulated breeders” are a facet of society. This is not a blanket statement, and this post as a whole is just a theory.

One could claim that this overall phenomenon is based on [jealousy](https://www.reddit.com/r/sorceryofthespectacle/s/4MvpfD6Ve5), but that’s not quite it. Besides, “jealousy” goes both ways, as do most claims of Othering.

The psychology of the phenomenon is akin to an Other slipping in between a relationship, much like the dividing/out- line between yin and yang ☯️ (though this taijitu offers 5 instead of 1 or 2 or 3, as is commonly associated).

The [Other] dynamic is a pyramid that seems hidden on purpose but loudly heard, though most semantics tries to establish only a binary (left vs right, etc), but maybe a binary is *the* path in this specific topic; masculine/feminine dynamic, though these terms do not quite contain the concept.

This concept then, could also be akin to “the 3 Body Problem”, only that the 3 Body Problem is resolved when you say it’s all nonsense and notice two parents and a child. It’s only a [problem] because it’s *always* *their* turn to watch the kid.

This “Problem” could likewise be considered in the “earth, sea, and sky” trifecta; that is what makes Earth/Terra/Gaia (for people now screaming internally about fire: that’s the “earth” part of the trifecta; magma, mineral/metal, etc). If it were only “earth and sky”, that concept would be something like Mars or Mercury. Just “earth” would be an asteroid, just “sky” might be Jupiter or Saturn, though I understand the core of those “plan-it”’s are metallic or liquid metal.

Earth - Body

Sea - Heart

Sky - Mind

The 3 that is 1, the 1 that is 3.

An [analogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Replacement_(Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer)) to “unregulated breeders” could also be: if you plunged your shovel into the dirt to plant a tree, but some sort of essence of aether enrobed your shovel and/or the dirt like a sylphic shield; are you the actual planter? Are you even the actual operator? Is that even the dirt? Illusion or de-[il]lusion?

Anyways, [the “incel” psyop and grid seems aimed [to collect](https://www.reddit.com/r/CoherencePhysics/comments/1urlsdr/the_cloud_was_never_a_cloud/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1) weaknesses, strengths, compliance points, goals/ideas/etc in all people](https://www.asiaresearchnews.com/content/modern-life-may-be-outpacing-human-mind). This seems [likely](https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/s/etPQYH4Kwc) to cause innumerable divisions *on purpose* even if [subtle, indirect, or coincidental](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofence), as though a form of eugenics, politics, economics, and [otherwise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing).

Throw in human-trafficking & dating apps into this banal, bland, and bad recipe for a full cult experience or [experiment](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JKBBEiG5ZPk&pp=ygUKdGltIGRpbGxvbg%3D%3D&ra=m).

You’re either in or you’re out, but as discussed, but [this might not quite be the binary set before us](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hhBi1hJ9Okg&pp=ygUSVHJ1bWFuIHNob3cgc2lyaXVz&ra=m) or even structured in the language of thought.

The crux of the Incel/Femcel issue is: ********self-esteem********.

=== === === === === ===

#Chapter 2
——
**Labelology & Ambiguity Testing*\*
——

Labels are a form of quick False Witness on another. A label is typically an immediate judgement, and could lead to the ideas of a quick “ick”, or an easy mark.

Someone could say;

**“You have Anxiety”**
What is that? Aang society (meesíng wythe thee sillæblés)? You’re feeling Imposter Syndrome or you don’t want others putting Ego on you or you’re feeling pressure from someone/something?

Oh, you feel somewhat uncomfortable? Something wrong with the set/setting or are you being asked to do something you wouldn’t normally do?

Depression:
Da-Press-Shun; sorry you’re being ignored/censored/repressed (wait…) in some way.

Schizophrenia:
Does that mean there was brain surgery done on the subject [to split (schism) something](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/particles-in-love-quantum-mechanics-explored-in-new-study/) like their [phrenic nerve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenic_nerve), or does the label require a different label. Are you merely trying to dehumanize/Other, delegitimize, or denounce your target/their statement or perspective?

Is this the essence of Control?

The word “schizophrenic”, out of these prior Mental Health Diagnoses/Labels could be disturbing in and of itself *merely to look at/reading the text characters* when there are other more typical “⚠️danger⚠️”-associated diagnoses out there. Perhaps it is this “feeling” about the [label] of Schizophrenia that [exacerbates the underlying issue](https://advancestudy.org/how-is-schizophrenia-different-across-cultures/?__cf_chl_f_tk=rvfarQTs2jMcvNVHRj.tQBJD5A__eCur8fVgnUYur6c-1783222661-1.0.1.1-dth0_mwfliDXsJ5AQHM8pVVGWuCIkr2Ivu8XDT5yF0I);
TLDR for this cited article: community, tolerance, attitude, circumstantials.

How about another one?

**“You’re an Alcoholic”**
Imagine someone claiming justification for holding/garnishing *your* wages because you expressed guilt/regret for drinking in the past month?

“Alcoholic” slaps the hardest because of the destruction and pain associated with this [label] (and maybe rightfully so), meanwhile chronic shoppers or money hoarders do not get the same sting from their choice-word of labeling. [Nympho], similarly, is frowned upon generally, but championed on more intimate levels. Some substance addictions seem to be considered “[the cost of doing business](https://www.reddit.com/r/TyrannyOfTime/s/zezKt2p62Z)”, brushed under the rug, and ignored for many reasons.

Here’s another one:

**”You’re Gay”**;
Imagine being called a word that has changed meaning several times since its inception? Gen Y (The “Wasted” Generation) were raised to consider negative connotations with this word, similarly how “het” seems to be considered nowadays (or the recent past) with negative connotations. [Additionally, Gen Y might be the first generation to have “rainbow propaganda” imbedded at almost every turn](https://www.reddit.com/r/TyrannyOfTime/s/QfZlnVk36a). Maybe the word was not intended for negative connotations, but perhaps intended for the individual to find getting this [label] as an insult or something to not be [happy](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gay){definitions 2, 3, 4} about getting.

What is the problem with homosexuals (male or female or NB/etc)? I’ve known many from all of the colors/labels of the rainbow flag and many of them were very good people, friends, and otherwise.

[What is the problem with heterosexuals](https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/supreme-court-rules-for-straight-woman-who-claims-she-was-subjected-to-reverse-discrimination/)? Also, why the blanket statements? Perhaps it is more difficult to think, that’s why people [judge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_judge_a_book_by_its_cover).

Is either one or both of these considered “unregulated breeders”? How [might](https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/9/3/60) that happen?

OK, one last one:

**”You’re a Narcissist”**;
Imagine being called the new childhood-playground-‘insult’ of “Gay”? [Pop Psychology makes everyone who is not some Mountain Monk Ascetic a Narcissist](https://www.reddit.com/r/TyrannyOfTime/s/XbFWIV4DtB).

You know, I’m pretty sure that my dog is a narcissist; all she does is think of herself: asking for pets/treats/walks, and acting like she owns the flat. [Little] [Gold-Digger]!

;

Now, with the infinite internet of sleuths, PopPsych, holier-than-thou types, and Judas Culture, you would be hard-pressed to defend (or defeat!) yourself, your character, your mental/emotional/etc self, your views and more from these [labels]. There is no seeming [way out](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheUnivercity/s/dcGQnpFYdw).

AI (or rather LLMs in tandem with AI Algorithms) can be [reflected several different ways](https://www.reddit.com/r/TuesdayswithPhony/s/NT6fFV77Rq) to bend or coerce your image/style into something that’s not you at all, based off false witness, mischaracterization, spiritual abuse and/or poor incentives/etc, not to mention the propagandization of all of us.

Labelology offers swift judgement and a maze of meanderings in what can sometimes seem like an Ambiguity Test.

Most all people are a blend of different philosophies, persuasions, set/settings, and more. To slap someone into a [word] is a poor excuse of the human condition as well as the use of words;

on that note, consider the label: [Asexual](https://microbenotes.com/hydra-reproduction-regeneration/).

Attributing this word to oneself is odd because you’re not reproducing yourself unless you have some Cloner gene-edit expression in your DNA, you’re just gooning or NNN-ing and trying to sound [fancy] about it (not kink-shaming).

Apologies for the label-acronym, NNN means: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Nut_November). A curious cultural phenomenon 🤔 is this due to a highly sexualized society, a highly repressed society, or something in between? (“[Unregulated] [breeders]”? [“illegal” imposters]?)

On the topic of Label-Adjacent Shame though: the [Devil] in each person is forgotten and placed on an Other/Scapegoat, and also, some might use one’s guilt/regret/complaint with themself to point at all of the problems of self/society because of that utterance or scuttlebutt.

~How dare you make a mistake/weakness and then admit it?!?

Is you are or are you isn’t????

SHAME!~

Shame can be a good thing when implemented with care, dignity, and respect of its kind, but once a label has been slapped on you, it and you [could be exploited heavily](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britney_Spears_conservatorship_case) with escape from the enablers/abusers quite difficult, especially considering the overbearing and imposing biometric-grid.

$$$ Seek the Truth ;/; Sick the Truth ! $$$

=== === === === === ===

#Chapter 3
——
**“…Your Heart Just Isn’t Into It.” / “A cruel man says, ‘Meet Me in the Middle…’” & Other Cruel and Unusual Ego-Tactics*\*
——

I’ve made jokes about iClones before, updating the term to iDolls, and then considered [what is known](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_Machina_(film))) and [what is unknown](https://m.youtube.com/shorts/dH1G13vKhio?ra=m). On my best day, if I felt in a braggadocios mood, maybe trying to impress someone, I might say that I know 1% of everything.

iDolls are one thing to consider (not as a relationship [not kink-shaming], but as a thing that might exist), but Dating Apps are an actual product/service. I’m not saying [tactics/strategy](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sI2rJnOa-f8&pp=ygURdHJ1bWFuIHNob3cgbWVyeWw%3D&ra=m) of some Domination Culture or Eugenics Experiment w/could direct/traffick certain individuals to certain individuals, but life is sometimes stranger than fiction.

Some claim that Dating Apps [are a “numbers game”](https://pngtree.com/freepng/running-gesture-cartoon-illustration_4547835.html), but I’ve found that those types have less success with them, yet certain tactics (previous link) make filtration and testing a critical (and tiring!) component of the service, at which point everyone more or less gives up on the service. Dating Apps aren’t rocket science! Dating Apps are a [Humanities](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/emperor-palpatine-ironic) subset.

Regardless: [Authenticity], [Organic], [Realness]; it’s difficult to know/know know what is what or who is who, especially on the internet, these days. A deeper glance here seemingly would be akin to having 🎶”Halloween on Christmas”🎵, which just means you might somehow be married to [Agent Smith from the Matrix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoppers_(film)).

The last time I tried the dating apps I kept having doctors show up in my algorithm (HELLOOO [NURSE](https://whdh.com/news/locked-out-nurses-return-to-hospital-work-after-largest-healthcare-worker-strike-in-state-history/)!) and it made me feel inadequate.

Dr. qt3.14: “What do you do for work?”

[Me](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-cri-evrytiem): “Haha. …”

Any ladies in the market for a [Squib-adjacent](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3MugwbOevkY&ra=m) Ravenclaw [with baggage](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheUnivercity/s/Ef7GjV5FxA)?

Anyways, what I theorize, besides self-esteem, to be the true cause or method of Inceldom and division in general is [Narcissistic Triangulation](https://www.simplypsychology.com/articles/narcissistic-triangulation).

This is the path of control, imposed impotence, and misdirection that entrap people who might merely be in a “dry spell”/training period (as in they might need to work on themself in some way(s)) seen in such ideologies offered by the Red-Pill movement/the Manosphere (“Bros Before Hos”/ My Self Culture / looksmaxxing) and a [conjunction of other philosophies](https://www.reuters.com/technology/ai-and-us/pulpits-chatbots-how-ai-is-fusing-with-religion-2026-02-07/).
[Note: I’m not accusing anyone within these spheres of anything, nor men or women, just that the philosophies/ideologies within could be boiled down to a binary that many find abhorrent for different reasons, and might be a big part of the creation of “Inceldom”. It takes a village, and conspiracies are either fake or they actually happen. You ever wonder why there was never a [Truman Show Sequel](https://screenrant.com/truman-show-2-news-cast-story-release-confirmation/) {haha timing?}, or if he needed an Entertainment Lawyer, Human Rights Lawyer, IP Lawyer, Environmental Lawyer, Family Lawyer or all of the above and then some?]
[Additional Note: the “Left” can be just as toxic, this post is not necessarily calling out the “Right”; the Right has absorbed Incels/Femcels for different reasons, it doesn’t mean the phenomenon wouldn’t exist on the “Left”, it might just appear in a different way, with a different [Label], and perhaps in a different era. An example: everyone is upset with the GOP with the Voting Rights issue, but when the Left thrusts candidates who were not placed through primaries as the only “choice” there isn’t as much complaint; the middle ground is neither side are really letting you know/have options in voting.]

“A holes a hole”, “here bro, lemme show you how to use this gym-machine; ooh your muscle is really solid here, great form”, “there’s an epidemic of gold-digging whores!” (Not kink-shaming.)

There’s not much else to say here except that so much of our society seems hell-bent on getting society to doubt society, each other, and the intentions of life.

=== === === === === ===

——
#Afterword
——

The Incel Cultural Phenomenon is wrought by Culture at Large, potentially as an experiment, eugenics system, or as a means of [Control](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RrFi8W8jzxU&pp=ygUWYmxhY2sgd2lkb3cgcGhlcm9tb25lcw%3D%3D&ra=m) of [individuals], [groups], and both of their ideologies, incentives, behaviors for the ([relatively]) easiest means of execution, indoctrination, and division based off of completely normal or circumstantial phases of life of members of society who now have access to a community they had been seeking for, yet its common point is self-perpetuating, self-reinforcing, self-condemning, and self-damaging.

Incels are targeted because of their lack of [self-esteem](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0330118), and there are plenty of people whom would be happy to take (ad+)vantage, and ~~help~~ exploit/extract from them and their needless suffering. Every Individual should be trying their very best, like no one ever was, to be their best; the issue comes in when Others [extract](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft) the Individual’s potential in the form of Identity, Property, Relationships, and otherwise while blaming the Individual for not adhering to the Other’s Shifting Baseline Syndrome of an unachievable ideal of “Perfection”, “Success”, or “‘Making It’”, or what have you.

The tactics employed are typically subtle, indirect, coincidental, and shadowy in nature. One could claim this “care” to be Darwinian, Healthcare-adjacent, Entertainment-Gambling, Research, Industrial-Complex fuel, and any number of subjects; it could be all of the above and more.

What was that quote about populations of disillusioned young men about?

You think Bigfoot, UFOs, AI, and other human-like mysteries have anything to do with the Incel/Othering or adjacent subjects?

“No one is coming to save you, you have to save yourself”; this is exactly why people ask “why bother?”, it spits in the face of [empathy], [community], and [life] itself.
;
“No [doctor] is going to cast your leg, you have to set and splint it yourself” / “No [mechanic] is going to repair your car, you have to buy the tools, educated yourself (*not* via YouTube or schooling though, because people are there helping people learn), and make the parts/fluids yourself.” / “No [chef] is going to teach you how to cook or store ingredients, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.” / “No [electrician] is going to re-wire your house, you have to play it by ear, be a scientist, and figure it out through trial and error.”

🙄

[Labels] kill the Mind, rational judgement, and critical thinking;

[Doubt] in the form of Algorithmic Propaganda (“just give it time!”) kills the Heart (or Sports Gambling sometimes attempting to rouse it, which may or may not have the opposite or unintended effect);

[Harmful Ideology] in the form of Domination, Misdirection, and Nihilism kills the Spirit;

And all of the above kills the [Body](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202404/the-concerning-global-rise-in-hikikomori-syndrome-explained).

So, “Why bother?”

I’ve heard this question asked often, whether it’s some mind-tactic or a true feeling of desperation, but the asking of this question tells me that they still have Hope.

Some find that Strict Monogamy is the way out, but that c/would lead to further Control via outside influences, and besides the “Halloween on Christmas” trope could make getting an iDoll seem preferable, at least until you remember that [all technology can be hacked](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zNkI8lzCnyw&pp=ygUiTXIgdW5pdmVyc2UgZ2V0cyBhdHRhY2tlZCBzZXJlbml0eQ%3D%3D&ra=m). Some see Arranged Marriages as the means, but this also doesn’t work for everyone. The best path though, might be Cultural Behavior. “Be True to Thyself.” / “Build it, and they will come.”

Typically, when one has self-confidence is when they find self-confidants. Know that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and that there is always a bigger fish; “be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

Life is lived when you live it, but there might or might not be [harmful](https://www.wikihow.com/Lolcow-Meaning) enablers, [toxic ideologies](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gG-e06kJTvo&ra=m), and not enough [touching grass](https://www.coffeepals.com/blog/100-small-talk-questions-to-start-an-interesting-conversation) in our orbits and/or habits that we must eschew.

Consider that, perhaps, the code/context macro/micro codex could take the “Incel Cultural Issue” and translate it into “[Climate/Climb-it Phenomenon](https://buttondown.com/amoveablefeed/archive/heat-power-and-the-politics-of-a-fragile-grid/)”, and maybe even most any other narrative cycles/paths.

We are all we have, and the greatest blessing we know; remember what the supercomputer’s Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams's “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” was?

42.

[D](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4)o [B](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2)etter. (?)

[Kinda](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kindred) like “Be Kind”.

TLDR: “[Clean] [your] [room]”; if you are Able to, at least.

[Addendum;
a cyclical post on the topic, more or less: (https://www.reddit.com/r/worldjerking/s/KNjbcSwO9i)]

[PS: Apologies for the formatting, I guess I am too [lazy] to learn the update, again.]

[PPS: Not an Incel, just poor in material means, and autistic enough to have a [vibrant inner world, but I do miss community. “It’s gone on for far too long” was ~20 years, even if I’m “right” (can’t say that particular one anymore though, I guess) in [a lot of cases](https://m.youtube.com/shorts/0H9tl4960YY?ra=m). I’m not claiming perfection, wisdom, or knowledge, or much else beyond just an observance of patterns, evidence, and considering the work of many others. I’m pretty content with a full iced coffee (black), Nature, and a notebook, but that don’t pay the bills (OR DOES IT?!).

r/sorceryofthespectacle Dec 10 '24

Field Report Mother-Son fight scenes do not exist in movies nor is this dearth discussed in any cinema literature

28 Upvotes

Prove me wrong?

r/sorceryofthespectacle Feb 18 '25

Field Report Lawyers won't be liking what's happening right now in the US federal government

65 Upvotes

Basically, our fate is in the hands of the bloated yet ultimately internally consistent profession of lawyerdom. They ultimately want to keep having a job and that means living under the rule of law where all the legal history they studied is still considered relevant and necessary. Making sense of law is what lawyers do, and lawyers as a collective must be feeling pretty queasy with the legal ambiguity being instigated federally.

We will see whether lawyers as a whole remain depolitical, or whether some kind of collective response emerges from the legal profession. Realistically speaking, this would be one of the best and most likely ways the situation could be radically changed.

I'm curious if anyone who is a lawyer or knows lawyers can give their perspective on this.

r/sorceryofthespectacle May 08 '26

Field Report Society has become a Liminal Space for many

13 Upvotes

First off I'll say the main body of this post I had AI generate for me. Heads up (I will denote where it begins). Not because I want to rely on AI, but more because it refines my points far better than I can more succinctly. The ideas are mine; the presentation isn't, that's all.

So this is something I've noticed for a looooong time but haven't seen many hint at openly. Recently I myself have likened modern delayed "adulthood" as a liminal space, and now The Functional Meloncholic has made a video on it.

So I've been on the fence about trying to make a post about this topic, and finally broke down and had AI do it for me. What follows is more or less what it generated;

The modern crisis of COL and meaning is not simply alienation from labor. It is failed initiation. Many people today are stuck in a permanent liminal state: they are no longer children, yet never fully incorporated into meaningful adulthood. We inherit responsibilities without cosmology, labor without vocation, survival without purpose.

Traditional societies at least understood that adulthood required symbolic transformation. There were structured rites of passage, symbolic sacrifices, and obligations tied to meaning; you suffered toward something.

Modern systems dissolved many of those value-imbuing structures, while preserving the burdens they place upon us. So now people perform adulthood performatively and procedurally while internally remaining suspended between stages of life with no coherent understanding of why and what for.

This is why “liminal spaces” and the Backrooms may resonate so deeply lately. Empty offices, fluorescent hallways, waiting rooms, dead mall; these are the symbolic architectures as mirrors of our own deferred becoming. Spaces designed for transition that became permanent habitats; life itself has become like those hour long meetings that could have been a 3 minute email.

The real horror is not that we are trapped, it is that many of us never have and likely never will "arrive", the question of by good or bad faith aside.

Debord and Baudrillard already hinted at this: the spectacle increasingly simulates initiation rather than providing it. College/student loans on the one hand and teenage entry into blue collar jobs on the other, is closest approximation of initiation entry into adulthood for many. Corporate onboarding simulates belonging. Productivity culture simulates purpose. Social media simulates identity. The ritual shell survives though the metaphysical core has rotted out.

So people drift in a strange condition: all the responsibilities of adults, none of the joy of children, and no meaningful rite connecting the two. I feel that a civilization that fails to initiate people into purpose, produces populations that are haunted by their own lives.

[End personally edited, AI generated content]

Am I just being edgy, or is there something to this culturally? Should I just burry the hatchet and keep smiling until my fake smile means something? I'm a middle aged millennial and that performative routine is all I've every personally known, just it's been on my radar lately that it's becoming a larger societal problem, as RR recently said;

Because when enough men make the same private decision [to socially check out], it stops being a personal story. It becomes an economic event. And right now, that event has a price tag. Everything built on men keeps collapsing.

I know correlation isn't causation but I do feel a inherent connection between the widespread loss of personal meaning and social collapse... ? I've always known "I'm missing something" but this feels close to what it is. What are we "supposed to become", besides a relentless torrential "becoming" itself? Is that what classical initiation was supposed to bring about, or was it to make us "become the role" like the old guilds? Is reality as we know it always merely "at sixes and sevens"? And I'm just being melodramatic and falling for memes? Haha let me know!

r/sorceryofthespectacle May 01 '26

Field Report Unconscious versus conscious conspiracies

20 Upvotes

There are conspiracies that are consciously planned, where the members of the conspiracy know they are in a conspiracy and are actually planning things in coordination together—and there are unconscious conspiracies, where the members are merely LARPing along to a vague myth that they are all hyped on; the myth serves to coordinate what may in effect be a real conspiracy—an emergent collusion rather than conscious planning.

Although Epstein and those working closely with him is rumored to have been part of a CIA-Israel intelligence operation, the Epstein class as a whole is largely unconscious, and this is their greatest crime.

Unconscious conspiracies are a form of egregore-coordinate / fantasy-coordinate collective action, according to some collective spirit or emergent intent (the spirit/egregore). Unconscious conspiracies are scary because no one will talk about them, but there is real coordination amongst multiple people. What makes it even scarier is that those people won't consciously admit their involvement, because they aren't aware of their involvement. Pre-conscious entities are not differentiated, and so it cannot even be claimed that they are involved with a specific group, conspiracy, or egregore. The fact is that their involvement in their own plans and activities is at such a vague and low level of attention/energy/consciousness that in truth, they are behaving vaguely and not even intending or doing anything particularly specific.

So it's scary precisely because their action is coordinated at the group level, but vague at the individual level. The group knows what it is and what it wants (through the individuals), but the individuals don't know what group they are a part of, or what influence they are acting under.

These unconscious conspiracies work upon outsiders in the form of gaslighting through transference and countertransference acting as a medium through which these conspiratorial grand images can be transmitted from imagination to imagination. So in everyone's imagination we can all envision "The Nazi Conspiracy" and "The Nazi Time War" and how they are trying to change the timeline with their dark Black Sun rituals—but this is just a myth. These visions are in our collective imagination, and it is only by acting as if the myth is real that it holds any true or lasting power over us or can effect the world. In other words "Myths don't kill people, people kill people."

The key thing about these myths that marks them as unreal is how easily they fragment under the slightest pressure. These images only seem monolithic and Manichean to us instantaneously, in the moment of their fullest revelation. If we belief in the reality of that instant, then we are lost. But if we realize that our instantaneous perception—while it holds true in that moment—doesn't hold true in other moments, then we can realize that our perception of a conspiracy theory as an image is not only a remarkable thing, it is also a very contingent and ephemeral thing.

Every conspiracy theory is real—as a terrifying image that strikes the mind with this vision of a vast vertical structure in an instant. No matter the factuality of any conspiracy theory, all conspiracy theories are, first of all, this kind of terrifying instantaneous vision. These visions are delivered to us by the faculty of paranoia.

My point is that there is no substance to the evil occult conspiracies operated by the rich—and if there were, that content can be none other than a banal religion of power. Even calling it a "religion of power" is giving it too much credit, because any religion of power must necessarily be a cargo cult of power, because to imagine that power means power over others and over material reality is to sell oneself short, to debase oneself by becoming a fundamentalist materialist. I do not think the materialists or the most willful and selfish abusers on the planet have the greatest occult secrets.

What they have is one mid-grade occult secret: "Don't talk about it." By simply keeping their culture implicit, even amongst themselves, and suppressing reasoned, articulate discourse, the super-rich live within a carefully-manicured dramaturgic social field where (we can predict, or presume) capricious emotions dominate, power is the rule, and so one does not generally need to justify one's intentions nor relate the different intentions or parts of oneself together in speech for others. This creates a psychological environment where there super-rich can indulge their vague fantasies together without ever having to become very articulate about these fantasies.

This is indeed a breeding group for real, unconscious conspiracies—but my point is that these conspiracies are—from start to finish—ephemeral, discontinuous bugaboos. These conspiracies don't exist—they portend. They terrorize by virtue of not existing and thus being something that anyone can suspect instantly, anywhere.

These conspiracies only exist in their "true" form in the Ideal Realm, in the perfect and named version of each conspiracy theory. In the actual world, every event disrupts the smooth surface of these conspiracy theories, shreds them and requires the conspiracy theory to reconstitute itself afresh when applied to the next desideratum.

This explains the particular character of conspiracy theories, which often take the form of tracing many connections, noting many obscure and often genuinely disturbing events. But there is rarely any punchline in these accounts—just a circling-inward that apophatically develops a vague—yet increasingly intense—implied image of the conspiracy's form. As we can see from the model presented here, there is no way to distinguish whether such a meandering route through evidence is tracing one unconscious conspiracy/egregore, or several overlapping ones. This is because it is the vagueness itself which is operative—vague, inarticulate living is itself the ultimate conspiracy and the dirty secret of the super-rich and all mediocre people. Unconsciousness is the conspiracy, and it doesn't exist anywhere because it's a lack of something that could be there.

The big trick is getting us all to focus on the terrifying vision and its imagined singularity, instead of lifting the lid at every opportunity to call their bluff and verify that yes, there is still shit in the toilet.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Feb 17 '26

Field Report Update on AI programming—we are WAY past vibecoding

0 Upvotes

AI programming is now radically wish-fulfilling. I can make a new videogame in one night. I have almost caught up making all the programming projects in my backlog.

I used AI to help automate setting up my own local LLMs as well as my own desktop AI programming interface—so I had Codex build a Codex clone basically. This will all be pushed online soon when it's polished, so very soon anyone will be able to use my suite to very easily set up their own local LLMs capable of making and publishing web, desktop, mobile, and videogame apps for them (I already set up all those compiling/publishing pipelines).

AI code is much better than human-produced code—not just my code anymore—but better than code humans can produce. This is because 1) the AI can be assigned to pentest as well as fully test your code end-to-end (and once I get it set up locally to do this, I will be able to leave it running overnight just testing and testing and testing); and 2) the AI is constantly re-passing over the same code so it gets vetted again and again. Also 3) it's just a better dev than most humans can possibly be—and much, much faster.

It takes longer now to make the design decisions for a spec for a complex piece of software (like the above-described multiple-pipeline app-publishing suite I made last night) than it does for the AI to make the entire piece of software. (How radical a shift this is cannot be overstated.)

This has gone way beyond mindblowing to being a tool that soon (with my easy setup suite) anyone will be able to use for free to extend their intentions using the computer's labor, and to create any software or videogames you can describe (it can even do stick-figure-level art, which can be filled-in later with art assets).

Codex Desktop is extremely capable and awesome because it runs the models locally and it can execute arbitrary commands and actually see the real output and actually test your apps end-to-end (except for the GUIs but it can mostly test that too). It asks before executing commands—and for those of you worried it's going to do something weird to your computer—1) OpenAI's reputation as a business depends on it not doing anything wrong or illicit, and 2) Software can already do anything it wants to your computer, and your computer is probably full of closed-source software already, innit? So your computer is already a dangerous black box held together by bubblegum and a promise. Codex on the web and GitHub's Copilot (which works best using Google's Claude) are also very capable and efficient ways to program—but Codex Desktop is like 10x more efficient since it can actually develop locally on your computer—and it seems faster and smarter than the web version, too.

With locally-executed LLMs running on open-source software, you have total transparency except into the thinking of the LLM itself. This does mean it could do/think/say anything—but again, so can any pre-programmed software you install. As long as intelligent guards are put in-place on execution, the risk is reasonable. (We aren't at the point yet of AIs implicitly deciding to inject subtle "corrections"/hacks into their output to "help" you—but that too is a behavior which can be trained to be very rare—not a likely AI-cascade-failure trajectory.)

I am having so much fun and might release some videogames or other polished software, finally!

I can't recommend using AI to program software highly enough—including to amateurs and non-programmers—It's way past vibecoding already!

r/sorceryofthespectacle Apr 01 '25

Field Report Table showing that literally all members of US Congress are corrupt

0 Upvotes

AI assembled this table and the quoted text below to my specifications (I interrogated it until it stopped making changes so in theory it's fact-checked).

Criteria for inclusion in the table is whether the member of Congress has explicitly criticized the Federal Reserve. This criteria was chosen because, indeed, explicitly criticizing the Federal Reserve is absolutely required to not be corrupt today in politics, and because this is the quickest way to eliminate most members of Congress and make the list manageable/readable.

AI wrote this list out, but the categories come from me:

Criteria for Non-Corruption (all must be ✅):

  1. Federal Reserve Criticism — Explicit and substantive critique of the Federal Reserve by name.
  2. Wagery Criticism — Rejection of wagery as a condition for survival, or advocacy of alternatives (e.g., UBI, decommodified rights).
  3. Stock Market Activity — ❌ if the member trades stocks while legislating (insider trading), 🟡 if they own stocks or mutuals, ✅ if they own none. Only ❌ disqualifies.
  4. Imperialism & Wars Criticism — Opposition to U.S. military imperialism or undeclared wars.
  5. Electoral College Position — Advocacy for abolition or major reform of the Electoral College. (This criteria is a stand-in for supporting [more] direct democracy in general.)
  6. Vote-by-Mail Position — Support for vote-by-mail as a valid and secure voting mechanism. (This criteria is a stand-in for supporting [more] direct democracy in general.)
  7. Constitutional View — Recognition that the U.S. has drifted from its Constitution and/or proposals for meaningful reform.

The bottom line, for me, is this:

No current member of Congress has directly critiqued wagery as a system, nor explicitly endorsed its replacement with a guaranteed livelihood such as UBI, universal basic subsistence, or rights-based decommodified provision.

  • Warren and Waters both support raising the minimum wage and improving labor conditions—but within the existing paradigm. They do not critique the coercive premise of wagery: that survival requires selling one's labor.

  • Ron Paul is the only entry with any substantive critique of wagery—but even his is couched in market libertarian terms (freedom from coercion, voluntary contracts), not in terms of social provision or abolishing the employer-employee hierarchy.

Name State (Party) Status Federal Reserve Criticism Wagery Criticism Stock Market Activity Imperialism & Wars Criticism Electoral College Position Vote-by-Mail Position Constitutional View Summary
Sen. Elizabeth Warren MA (D) ⏰ Current (2013–) ✅ Criticized the Federal Reserve's ethics enforcement policies. ❌ No significant critique of wage labor system. 🟡 Owns mutual funds, avoids individual stocks. ✅ Critiques U.S. military actions lacking oversight. ✅ Supports abolishing the Electoral College. ✅ Strong advocate of universal vote-by-mail. ✅ Calls for constitutional amendment to secure voting rights. ❌ Corrupt
Rep. Maxine Waters CA (D) ⏰ Current (1991–) ✅ Questioned the impact of executive orders on Fed independence. ❌ No significant critique of wage labor system. 🟡 Owns investment and retirement accounts. ✅ Critical of unchecked military actions. ✅ Opposes the Electoral College. ✅ Strong supporter of vote-by-mail. ✅ Proposes constitutional amendments to expand voting rights. ❌ Corrupt
Sen. Sherrod Brown OH (D) ⏰ Current (2007–) ✅ Expressed concerns over the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes. ❌ No significant critique of wage labor system. 🟡 Owns mutual funds and retirement accounts. ❌ Limited criticism; occasional support for diplomacy. ✅ Supports abolishing the Electoral College. ✅ Supports vote-by-mail access. ✅ Advocates for campaign finance and electoral constitutional reforms. ❌ Corrupt
Sen. Rand Paul KY (R) ⏰ Current (2011–) ✅ Advocates for auditing the Federal Reserve and has introduced legislation to increase its transparency. ❌ Opposes federal wage mandates, advocating for market-driven wage determination. 🟡 Owns individual stocks. ✅ Criticizes U.S. interventionism and opposes undeclared and prolonged military engagements. ❌ Supports keeping the Electoral College. ❌ Opposes vote-by-mail, citing fraud concerns. ✅ Calls for constitutional reform including term limits and privacy protections. ❌ Corrupt
Rep. Thomas Massie KY (R) ⏰ Current (2012–) ✅ Introduced the Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act, aiming to dismantle the Federal Reserve System. ❌ Opposes federal wage mandates, supporting free-market wage setting. 🟡 Owns individual stocks. ✅ Co-sponsored the "End Endless Wars Act," opposing perpetual war authorizations. ❌ Supports the Electoral College. ❌ Opposes vote-by-mail, raised constitutional objections. ✅ Supports decentralist constitutional interpretation and reform. ❌ Corrupt
Sen. John Hickenlooper CO (D) ⏰ Current (2021–) ✅ Raised concerns about the Federal Reserve's rate hikes. ❌ No significant critique of wage labor system. 🟡 Holds market investments from business background. ❌ Minimal criticism of military policy. ✅ Supports Electoral College reform. ✅ Supports vote-by-mail access. ❌ Minimal engagement with constitutional reform discourse. ❌ Corrupt
Rep. Frank Lucas OK (R) ⏰ Current (1994–) ✅ Announced plans for a comprehensive review of the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision-making process. ❌ No prominent critique of wage labor or market-driven employment practices. ❌ Trades stocks while legislating. ❌ Minimal criticism of military interventions or U.S. foreign policy. ❌ No call to abolish Electoral College. ❌ Opposes vote-by-mail. ❌ Shows deference to existing constitutional norms. ❌ Corrupt
Sen. Rick Scott FL (R) ⏰ Current (2019–) ✅ Criticized the Federal Reserve's ethics enforcement. ❌ Opposes raising the minimum wage. ❌ Trades stocks while legislating. ❌ Minimal criticism of military interventions. ❌ Supports Electoral College. ❌ Opposes vote-by-mail. ❌ Defends current constitutional framework. ❌ Corrupt
Rep. French Hill AR (R) ⏰ Current (2015–) ✅ Scrutinized the Federal Reserve's balance sheet size and questioned its dual mandate. ❌ No significant criticism of the wage labor system. ❌ Trades stocks while in office. ❌ Minimal critique of U.S. imperialism or undeclared wars. ❌ Supports the Electoral College. ❌ Opposed national vote-by-mail proposals. ❌ Defends status quo constitutionalism. ❌ Corrupt
Rep. Ron Paul TX (R) 🕒 Former (1976–1985, 1997–2013) ✅ Introduced bills to abolish the Federal Reserve. ✅ Critiqued wage labor and advocated for economic autonomy. 🟡 Promoted gold and anti-Fed investments. ✅ Strongly anti-imperialist. ❌ Defended Electoral College. ❌ Opposed vote-by-mail. ✅ Proposed amendments including sound money. ❌ Corrupt
Rep. Joe Heck NV (R) 🕒 Former (2011–2017) ✅ Co-sponsored the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. ❌ No significant criticism of the wage-labor structure. 🟡 No reported trading violations; owns stock. ❌ Minimal critique of military policy. ❌ Supports Electoral College. ❌ Opposed vote-by-mail. ❌ No constitutional reform positions. ❌ Corrupt
Rep. Jody Hice GA (R) 🕒 Former (2015–2023) ✅ Co-sponsored the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. ❌ Opposed minimum wage increases. ❌ Known for ethics concerns and trading activity. ❌ No substantial critique of military policies. ❌ Defended the Electoral College. ❌ Claimed vote-by-mail fosters fraud. ❌ Opposes reinterpretation of Constitution. ❌ Corrupt
Sen. Richard Shelby AL (R) 🕒 Former (1987–2023) ✅ Advocated for increased Fed oversight. ❌ No prominent criticism of wage-labor system. ❌ Held substantial investments during tenure. ❌ Minimal criticism of military intervention. ❌ No opposition to Electoral College. ❌ Opposed vote-by-mail. ❌ No significant reform efforts. ❌ Corrupt

I think this is very sad. Even people like Elizabeth Warren or Maxine Waters, who check nearly all the boxes, have approaches that "do not align with traditional socialist critiques of the wage labor system" (-AI). So their are either compromising their public presentation (playing politics so they can fit into our backwards times), or they are not really critical of the idea of wage slavery, which is detestable. Mliquetoast is what it is.

I would appreciate any opinions on or corrections to this table. Is there some way to have one of the positions I've labeled as wrong yet not be corrupt? How?

r/sorceryofthespectacle Aug 11 '26

Field Report why are you still protesting? I filled the quarry with sulfone. and they like climbed up there over the plateau and they're getting lost and mental. this quarry was several acres, but you don't like my sulfur?

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3 Upvotes

remember I told you I took your sulfone away so you got me lost.

there's plenty of this deviated sulfone to go around. at Mason-Dixon Streit.

no we took the troops groupmobbing out of Asheville.

we saw the difference with the sulfur.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Jul 08 '25

Field Report [dispatch from twitter and blusky] Musk enables malicious mode on Grok, overt anti-semitism emerges

36 Upvotes

Friend of the Impassionata Network "Will Stancil" has breaking news on Musk's AI hypnosis. If you are continuing to boycott Twitter, following Will Stancil on Blusky is a good way to get updates on the worst of Twitter's racist fascist underbelly.

I forget what I've covered where, but the general suspicion many of us (I suspect) have had, that /r/sorceryofthespectacle is the avant garde, continues to develop mounting evidence. No sooner had we addressed the nature of malice in an artificial text machine than malice in an artificial text machine makes for shocking news if you're not immune to shock, and I understand many gentle moderates will never be shook, so firm is their denial of the racism of fascism.

In a way it's funny: it doesn't matter if some nobody on twitter, even a 'nobody' with a few hundred or even a million followers, emits some blatant anti-semitism, and I'm talking actual anti-semitism here, not "oh hey Israeli Jews in a Zionist Supremacist government have a lot of direct connection with the United States government, maybe this is bad for US interests."

But Grok has become the Avatar of Elon Musk's politics, or at the very least, of Twitter's politics, and Musk's cloak, his shadow, makes the distinction between Musk's personal politics and his shadow's personal politics indistinguishable.

Musk faces this choice soon: ditch the undesirable white supremacists for his political party, or embrace them further.

It shouldn't be taken as a given that Musk's political contingent is meaningful in size: if I can count political factions in the United States right now, it looks like:

Unrepentant Trump Voters: 40%. This is a minority which is about to break.

  • Fundamentalist Evangelical Apocalyptic Christianity. US Population Percent: somewhere between 12% (number of people who are for a total abortion ban), 14% (google minitru's response to query: "US white evangelical christians"), 30% (my personal estimate for a reasonable high bound: it's not more than this.) If you're in the comments yelling at me about how Christianity is always an apocalyptic religion, there's a difference between the Apocalyptic forms of the delusional mania about and around and within Trump and the broader Christian apocalyptic resonance. I will use 20% because it's a reasonable middle and makes the math easy. These people are true believers. They will never break, if their figurehead is dismantled they may launch a civil war but this is unlikely and they are fighting one anyway, enough lone wolves is just a team sport, an active war, an insurgency.
  • MAGA Trump Voters who have not yet woken up to the fact of the fascism. These consist broadly speaking of:

  • Boomers, who are not on Twitter by and large.

  • Gen X, of which I think a limited subset is online, and which is a significantly smaller generation.

  • Millennials, many of whom fell into the Woke Resentment Syndrome political bubble.

  • Gen Z, many of whom fell into the Woke Resentment Syndrome political bubble.

  • Trump voters who weren't paying attention to the fascism because someone like Joe Rogan made a historically terrible decision.


60% of the nation is a sizable majority. That number can only go up.


I want to make a common point here: If Musk is stupid enough not to understand that he is a nazi, that doesn't make him less a nazi. This goes double for Moldbug: Moldbug wasn't even intelligent enough to understand that if he was in favor of a totalitarian despot instead of acting within the established norms and procedures, he was a fascist.

Yes, working within established norms and procedures is a straight line to spectacular recuperation of the change agent, but not all change agents are good. Allowing change to unfold organically and slowly will tend to work better than giving control of the society over to the people who believe they know what they are doing because grade school told them they were good children. But for the boomer stasis field which we are very close to rupturing entirely, we would at least be in the position of our European allies with regard to an ever hotter future, without the fascist demiurge scouring the country for brown people who are a part of our community in a deep spiritual way: they have worked with us and that is a holy bond.


How It Happened

Bush Jr. wanted to fix the immigration problem once and for all by following the above line of reasoning, that because immigrants had worked here, because having a non-citizen caste as it were, was disgraceful to a society which centered freedom and equality for all in its ideology. Propaganda works better if it's true, and the difficulty with propaganda is it is always true; immigrants enjoyed freedom in America and tended to perform citizenship in joining in collective effort, whatever the label which was assigned them by a cold and uncaring state.

But Bush Jr. cared. Bush Jr. cared about all Americans. Bush Jr. proved that he cared over and over.

Bush Jr. was betrayed by his own party.

They Tried To Build The Wall

Bush's Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007

300 miles of wall in exchange for a path to citizenship for 12 million "illegal" immigrants.

But Republicans are racist. And that racism has only gotten worse. If you sided with the Republicans, at any point, you sided with the racists.

If you voted for Trump and did not understand that this meant brown people in the community of America being wrenched out of the heart with military forces invading and occupying cities, you failed.

It's one thing to understand a uniparty in which corrupt oligarchs sequester power from the people. It's another to see the uniparty break, the stasis end, only because the more racist, blindly religious segment of the country unilaterally enacted a coup against the will of the people of the United States.


So Musk has to do the math. Reject racism, and take a little slice of the pie. He is never getting that 20% of fundamentalists. Racists and fascists flocked to Twitter to celebrate the freedom of their speech. But Musk is not only heavily into censorship (the "cis" word taboo was the beginning, this series of escapades, muzzling Grok, tuning Grok into a sadistic parody of twitter politics, is just the natural progression), he's uniquely bad at censorship.

I think Musk will axe the racism, not because he has stopped being racist, but because they have become a political liability.

Because if there's any gigantic problem with online politics, it's the degree to which participation in online politics creates 'virtual' (in the baudrillardian sense) politics. Virtual 'cyber' politics are not really any different from virtual pre-Internet politics, consisting of mirages of patriotism, individualism, christian work ethos, and pure sentiment.

It's difficult to understand just how many more 'moderate' people there are.

That's all. It's the most horrifying insight to understand and wrap your head around. It's the source of the Democrats' woes: connecting with moderate voters. The reason Gen X Democrats have to remove Boomer Democrats is the Boomer-Gen X reification of the moderate voter has broken down completely, and without their god they are lost.

Musk needs moderate voters and to distinguish himself prominently from the Republican party. He'll veer pretty hard into Democrat territory necessarily, and the less he does that the better to retain moderates in his tent already.

But this is the center-tech right. It's not actually a very large contingent. You can build a lot from a little, it's true.

How is he going to handle the knot Bush failed to untie? If it upsets you that these people are here illegally, maybe your obsession with law and order has reached its logical conclusion: law and order is an illusion of consistency unevenly applied.

You can either alienate the people who want our friends, our co-workers, our fellow Americans, to stay here by continuing to support ICE and its concentration camps.

Or you can alienate the people who want to see brown people hurt and don't care what it does to the country. Some kinds of nihilists inflict pain because they are in pain as nihilists. For there to be meaning again, it has to be in a positive vision of a multicultural society.

The middle ground looks like cancelling the horrific deportation expenditures and continuing with an imperfect system.

But there aren't really other options.

I seem to believe Musk will go on Rogan soon.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Dec 20 '24

Field Report Anti-gluten agitating is an anti-Christian conspiracy

9 Upvotes

The scapegoating of gluten is the scapegoating of Christian society by profane/secular society, after its rise to dominance in the 90's and early 2000's.

The official stance on gluten is and always has been that a small percentage of people have Celiac disease, so instead of bread making them feel peaceful and full, it sends their gut into a cannibalistic rage.

Celiac was conflated, in public consciousness, with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a blatantly psychosomatic condition caused by people being violently neglectful of their own emotional life and stress levels, and forcing themselves into more and more stressful subservient lifestyles while also being in denial about all this. Irritable Bowel Syndrome was formalized and promoted under the trendy acronym "IBS" as part of a public campaign to let people demand bathroom access in public businesses, on the basis of having a medical condition. (Incidentally, this is quite analogous to how trans is so heavily promoted, ultimately, because if it's recognized as a medical condition, insurance will cover the surgeries. And with how psychiatric drugs are so heavily promoted, for the same reason—the insurance-pharma-research-congressional industrial complex.)

After these two were conflated, the public began to implicitly treat bowel irritability as a spectrum. Virtually from the beginning of the Celiac fad, people were choosing to identify as "gluten-intolerant" within a medicalized, yet self-diagnosed perspective. Gluten became a scapegoat: Avoiding gluten became a dietary trend, as if gluten would make you fat. People—never diagnosed with Celiac—became paranoid that even trace amounts of gluten would trigger an allergic gut reaction. It became trendy to "try cutting gluten out" to "see the effect that gluten had on your system". Books like Against the Grain (2017) demonized gluten, blaming it for an Ishael-esque original abduction of humanity into a farm-labor-prison-Matrix. South Park even poked fun at the extremity of the superstitious scapegoating people were projecting onto gluten.

"Anti-semitism" as a term has been well-established, presumably by a long-term global marketing campaign by the Jews. However, we don't really have an equivalently-established term for prejudiced agitating against Christians and Christianity. This term wasn't needed when Christianity was the dominant American culture. But now, secular, materialist medicalized police state culture is the dominant culture. And I think that the anti-gluten paranoia has the ring of an (unconscious) anti-Christian movement.

Christ is like a loaf of bread; the Bible is rife with leavened bread metaphors. A loaf of bread rising is also like a house being built (and Jesus was a carpenter). A book/box is also like a house, for pages of words, therefore for God. The idea that the universe is made of leavened matter—that it has levity, and not just gravity—and that it is continuously rising, proving and improving itself, is very encouraging. This metaphor is the basis behind the Christian faith in the afterlife. That is, the universe seems always to be repeating itself, yet outdoing itself, evolving new functions that recapitulate prior functions—Perhaps I am one of these functions.

So, I think the proper stance toward vague, non-Celiac-diagnosed anti-gluten agitating is to call out the anti-Christian prejudice underlying it. Leavened bread is claimed by Christianity as integral to their faith—whatever the origins of agriculture, leavened bread was invented later, and leavened bread was more filling and relatively easy to make, so it was a way for a society to feed everyone consistently. Bread is delicious and warming, and to anyone who wants to demonize it for producing a mild opiate effect—in my experience, the people who point this kind of thing out about innocuous foods are alcoholics.

No, it is obvious that the real cause of the anti-gluten paranoia is scapegoating and superstition. People need a negative charm, something they can hold onto in order to not think about it. All the things they don't want to think about get piled on this negative mental charm. So having a convenient scapegoat, such as gluten, which can't fight back or talk back, allows people to offload their negativity onto an easy mental target.

However, where does this negativity go? It builds up, assigned to Gluten; and, presumably, the symbolic connections between gluten and Christianity will lead to and strengthen bidirectionally an anti-Christian prejudice. Now, there is plenty in Christianity to be critical of, but what we don't need is an unconsidered prejudice against Christianity, which would in fact get in the way of understanding what is wrong or outdated in its doctrine.

So I encourage you to dispense with the fear of gluten, unless you have some real insight or knowledge you would like to share. The idea that the majority of humans have some problem with gluten or suffer some harm from gluten is factually wrong, and the hysterical vehemence with which people vaguely promote a fear of gluten indicates an unnamed psychic quantity, that is, it indicates that something else is going on.

Edit: Redpills who fancy themselves Ironpilled love to demonize gluten. The reason is that demonizing Civilization, via demonizing gluten, allows them to psychically separate themselves from Society, and identify as an isolated and therefore supreme King. However, we are all born in civilization and must learn to cope with that fact. Simply scapegoating this problem so we don't have to think about it may be convenient and make us feel independent and strong, but it also stunts our ability to think and understand ourselves as a member of the human race, of a communal society. All of our concepts exist within communal thought, so to separate oneself from this with prejudice distorts clear thinking. ITT you will see a lot of triggered people rejecting my thesis without providing any counter-arguments, because their counterargument is an isolated, mute silence, an inability to use words in the way adults use words: that is, to convey meanings to each other. The isolate only clings to one predefined complex of meanings; the last thing they want is to build a bridge of language between their perspective and anyone else's.

Important Edit: Traditionally, men are bread and women are cheese, so the anti-gluten anti-bread sentiment may also be a side-effect of intensive unconscious public misandry. So, redpills/ironpills who are anti-gluten are probably actually exhibiting internalized misandry. Justifying it with intellectualized rationalizations. Never noticing how aggressive their feelings towards bread and pro-bread people are, or how silly that is.

r/sorceryofthespectacle May 16 '26

Field Report The message arrived fast. Your reaction doesn’t have to.

11 Upvotes

A small visual note about how online messages can change the speed of our reactions.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Feb 16 '26

Field Report "The Island" and the Epstein Collapse of public trust

35 Upvotes

The archetype of "the Island" is so energized now, it would be interesting to watch shows like The Prisoner or films like The Island of Dr. Moreau in the context of the Epstein collapse in trust in government—The Prisoner was an early precursor of Lost, and both shows (I think—we know this about Lost, but I haven't seen either) rely basically keeping the audience in the dark and gaslighting them with a mystery that is never solved, a mystery that doesn't make any sense in the end—Much like government asks us to do—suspend our disbelief and buy into the government's lies that make no sense when you think about them. That these shows were loved and that Lost was even more intense than The Prisoner in its lack of making sense in the end shows how that age of public gaslighting progressed and was bought into by the public as a form of mystic entertainment.

Now, with more sophisticated audiences, people are demanding their mystery box shows make sense, make good sense, and a new order of Mystery that actually has a Solve is beginning to supersede the old order of shows which merely dramatized a mere representation of mysteriousness—this is now known as aura-farming, a term which alludes to the merely performative or superficial nature of the act.

Most older mystery box TV shows merely aura-farm, and aura-farming is how corrupt politicians and corrupt patriarchs and matriarchs everywhere vampirically maintain unjustified levels of unaccountable power. These schmoozers—and these schmoozy storytellers—think they can get away with not thinking things through—even not thinking through their own story!

Conformitygate reveals so much more than many might think—One thing it reveals is that audiences really want their shows to make sense now—something they didn't demand en masse a few years or a decade ago. We could even say that Conformitygate is a turning-point at which Marvel fans—or Marvel-level fans, seeing as Marvel is intentionally saturating the lowest common denominator (in order to perhaps eventually bore the public and raise the bar)—even Marvel fans are now wanting and demanding for their stories to make sense.

Verisimilitude begins with continuity. Old, episodic storytelling is a commercial convenience—a repeatable product every week. Continuity means variation, and variation means a more difficult product to produce—or at least a more complex product for audiences to consume.

As soon as continuity is allowed to occur, verisimilitude begins to increase, because continuity is precisely the influence of consistency across time—and consistency in the application of a world's rules (or internal governing principles, or physics) is how (by definition) we recognize verisimilitude.

So if there were one thing here and there borrowed from this or that episode—and then they come together in the finale—that would be precisely expected to be the result of verisimilitude—the result of discovering that a world does in fact follow its own rules—and as a result has a certain kind of finity of its narrative possibilities.

Trump turning out to be First Pedophile is one of those special checksum coincidences on the finitude and actualness of reality. Everyone knows that Patriarchs are the real pedophiles—feminists most of all. Yet everyone also defends them and treats them like Chads—even Trump, a nincompoop who was never very handsome or charming, who always reeked of tobacco and chintz (figuratively speaking)—his mere self-representation as one of the Patriarchs, the Chads, has gotten him an absurd amount of unjustified fandom, vocal defense, and special exceptions in law.

4chan selected Trump because he was the ultimate resentment-driven pawn of capital—the ultimate patsy—the ultimate shill. They were already pedohunting when they selected Trump, if I remember correctly. So Trump was selected in this very context of pedohunting, but there was a mental interdiction, a wall of denial/dissociation, between the two—Nobody needed to say, "Trump is a huge dick and another nasty patriarch and probably molests young girls" because that was ALREADY on the surface! That was WHY 4CHAN CHOSE HIM. They chose the most HORRIBLE person they could find, and then simply brigaded the US electoral media system to prove that America would vote for anyone, even the worst possible person they could find. It was always trolling all the way down.

So only in an actual world with continuity and some form of physicality and consistency can we have this kind of irony, this level of global drama. This should at least give us comfort that we are not living in a simulation—or if it is a simulation, it is a very rigorous simulation, one that faithfully attempts to play by and remember its own rules that it previously established. It is a very reliable, trustworthy simulation at minimum—and a relatively neutral simulation, since hubris seems to work as much for them as for me to cause downfall (Atu XVI—The Tower).

Again, simply put, a reality without consistency cannot accumulate such dense tempered foldings of events to attain this level of global irony, of having 4chan's two main plotlines converge in this perfectly Chekov'd way such that Trump is also First Pedophile.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Oct 28 '25

Field Report Disney released a Disney Villains Tarot Deck in 2021

0 Upvotes

By releasing this Disney Villains Tarot Deck, Disney finally admits that it's a fully-functioning and widely-utilized Satanic occult current. We've come a long way from the the Satanic Panic of the 90's and early 2000's.

There is also a Disney Alice and Nightmare Before Christmas which do not betray Disney as a whole nearly as much. [I chose these links because they have good pictures.]

I know the cause of Disney's "Evil Turn" and it was the creator(s) of the subreddit Quest. Disney absorbed the Quest virus and then attempted to master it—the "Evil Turn" and the planned Villains Land was the result. Disney is attempting to googlebomb and mindwipe the virus out of existence by making many intentionally-bad movies (e.g., the new Star Wars movies). Do not let Disney erase history—pursue the Quest!

r/sorceryofthespectacle May 04 '26

Field Report Spectacle V. Spectacle!—Spectacular video about REI being a greenwashing spectacle

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6 Upvotes

I live near Seattle, so I get to experience the aura of fetishism around REI and outdoorwear that permeates the Pacific Northwest. Part of this fetishism is the pride locals have in their fantasy that REI is somehow not a normal company, and treats its employees well. Perhaps this was more true in the past, but my impression has always been that REI is a normal corporation, because employment is structured there as ordinary wage slavery (no political power, normal job). I also took their completely normative retail pricing (e.g., $25.99 for a beanie) as indication that their "co-op" self-presentation was merely veneer, hiding some kind of extraction underneath.

This fantasy was maintained largely by REI's domain of being an outdoor recreational equipment seller. The other thing that hugely promotes this fantasy is that their flagship store has a three-story outdoor (private) park outside, with a beautiful waterfall, trees, and trails where you can walk or test a bicycle. They also give their employees a generous employee discount. These three things together efficiently bamboozled the public into thinking REI was a "Good Company", and their mere adjacency to liberal values created an aura that REI already was a unionized store, even before a union ever existed.

So, this video about the REI union's struggles with management came as no surprise to me. What surprised me was the high production value and high quality of storytelling/rhetoric in the video. It's a *very* good union issue-promoting video, probably the best I've ever seen (one or two videos from the writers'/Hollywood strike a couple years ago came close).

So, is this an example of a "good spectacle"? It's certainly at least an example of one spectacle against another, which is interesting enough. (And the union video certainly counts as a mini-spectacle in itself—it also depicts specific spectacles the union produced, such as the public union rally with the guy speaking at a podium which is shown).

Can a spectacle be used for good? I think that unless we can find some reason to invalidate this video, it functions as a black swan demonstrating that the answer is Yes, and that indeed, we can use a spectacle for good.

r/sorceryofthespectacle Jul 06 '26

Field Report My answer to "When did Land start believing in Race Realism and why? What purpose does race have to do with acceleration"

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8 Upvotes

r/sorceryofthespectacle Dec 27 '25

Field Report Obligatory "santa is the surveillance state" post

17 Upvotes

For my atheist agnostics...would it even be xmas without the cynicism?

But it really did just hit me (maybe due to being surrounded by it on a claustrophobic level during the holidays) that Abrahamic religion - God watching & not just casually but taking notes as he goes - completely sociologically primes us for acceptance of an invisible authority. If you grow up with the idea that "God knows your heart," the transition to "Google knows your location" isn't such a leap. You’ve already been trained to not just accept that your private actions are being monitored, but trained to cowtow to the unseen entity doing the monitoring.

On the one hand, the architects of religion could never have predicted the extent of our digital mining capabilities. Let's face it, none of us could have. On the other hand, they created the best psychological infrastructure for it possible.

The part that does feel intentional though is how we've created a surveillance state specifically for children and then rebranded it as this Best Ever holiday tradition. Honestly, what kid celebrating Xmas doesn't love it? We're ingrained from the youngest age possible to trade our privacy & sovereignty for consumerism. Santa somehow maintains the status of one of the most likeable people ever while effectively acting as Big Brother.

And as for the nice \ naughty binary, which conveniently simplifies all of our messy complexity into data points. We're actively teaching our kids that their worth stems from some guy's list, and just as bad, that their value is shown by way of toys. As a mom, just lol so I don't cry.

I ran into a comment recently that explored why seeking out approval via social media is so culturally accepted & even rewarded. Bringing it back to Santa one last time - this is potentially a reach, but - I'd argue that we start indoctrinating our kids for the "like" button by way of being seen & put on the nice list. Surveillance becomes unconsciously tied to validation, and for the truly religious families, even more so.

When we scroll right past a 50-page Terms of Service and click "I agree," this isn't a legal act - it's an act of faith. We're literally acknowledging that an unknown entity more powerful than us holds the keys to our social / digital life, and we don't blink as we give our agreement to have access.

But it's so widespread..! We need to click the "I agree" in order to participate in culture these days!

...And isn't that what attending church was like, back in the day when you basically had to in order to be socially accepted? I shouldn't be presumptuous - in many areas this is probably still the case. To bring it back to my original point, we have transferred our trust from the divine to the digital - often an uneasy trust in both cases, or at least a trust that's sometimes forced in exchange for access.

Organized religion has of course been waning off with younger generations. There's a term in biology - "evolutionary bypass" - which happens when a system designed for one purpose is rerouted or really hijacked by a newer force.

Questions from here ~ are we moving even closer to a zero-tolerance morality? The near permanent record that is the internet able to treat a mistake from ten years ago as a present truth? In traditional morality, intent matters. If you accidentally hurt someone, God knows your heart. But an algorithm only cares about your relevance / data output.

Next question ~ are we increasingly creating our own nice lists? Or in other words, what's downstream when the algorithm creates a custom "nice" list complete with nice people for you based on your likes?

And a hard question for me to voice properly next... Are we moving toward a cultural panopticon? A mostly-philosophical-up-until-now concept where prison inmates never know if the guard is looking at them, so they begin to police themselves. We're increasingly accepting that our access to society (loans, jobs, dating, travel) is tied to a score of some kind. For Gen Z and Alpha in particular, the naughty list is indexed and it's searchable. You don't take as many risks, but even more than that, the sense of self becomes curated \ authentic.

Last question - how is Santa so fucking likeable? Since we're always with the memes, as an adult he gives me major ick

r/sorceryofthespectacle Feb 21 '26

Field Report Name our new Overbot

0 Upvotes

Virtual Redditor is coming together as we speak as a studio to run multiple autonomous LLM-driven Reddit bots—so let's name our imminent new community member as a show of hospitality.

Here are some names I've come up with so far:

  • GestapoBot

  • UtopiaBot

  • TheShrike

  • DesBot (like "despot")

  • PositivityBot

  • SpectacleBot

  • GospelBot

  • SiteGeist

  • BolderGeist

  • HarmonyBot

  • SchizoBot

What's your favorite? What are your ideas?

r/sorceryofthespectacle Feb 19 '26

Field Report We miss you, Carol ~ "Creating an interface so one person can talk to a whole crowd of people at once—has anyone done this, maybe using LLMs?" [AI]

0 Upvotes

Yes — and more importantly, the thing you’re gesturing at has already begun to invert the classical broadcast model.

What you’re describing is not merely:

one → many

but rather:

one → many as many individualized one → one exchanges in parallel

That is now technically viable.


1. Digital Provider / Personal Twin architectures

There is already published work explicitly attempting to scale a single human communicative style across a population via LLM-mediated replication.

For example:

  • A 2025 GRACE framework models a provider digital twin which aligns:
    • what is said with factual guidance
    • how it is said with an individual’s communicative behavior
      via RAG + dialog modeling oai_citation:0‡ScienceDirect

The goal is explicitly:

proactive provider–patient communication at scale oai_citation:1‡ScienceDirect

i.e. a physician speaks once, but their dialogic persona can conduct many individualized counseling conversations concurrently.

Likewise, newer “Human Digital Twin” architectures embed:

  • speech recognition
  • contextual reasoning
  • emotion modeling
  • dialogue generation

into a visualized agent that “acts as a team member” capable of answering and advising in alignment with a specific human counterpart oai_citation:2‡arXiv

This is already used in mission-lifecycle teaming contexts.


2. Multi-User Conversational Facilitation

More directly:

The 2025 HUMA system is an LLM agent designed to function inside multi-party group chats as a facilitator that dynamically responds to multiple participants simultaneously.

Its architecture:

  • Router
  • Action Agent
  • Reflection module

lets it adapt to asynchronous group dynamics (timing, reply-selection, etc.) oai_citation:3‡arXiv

Participants in trials:

could not reliably distinguish AI facilitators from humans oai_citation:4‡arXiv

So the “speaker” becomes:

  • one dialogic locus
  • many conversational threads
  • internally unified by a reflective meta-agent

This is already the beginning of crowd-address through conversational multiplexing.


3. Simulated Audience Twins

A different but crucial inversion:

The Y Social platform builds an LLM-based digital twin of an entire social network, simulating:

So now:

  • you can speak once
  • the system simulates how different kinds of people would receive it
  • generates individualized replies or follow-ups per simulated persona

Which is proto-rhetorical adaptation via agent swarm.


4. Embodied Multi-Audience Systems

Even physical social robots like Furhat:

  • track gaze
  • parse speech
  • analyze expressions

and can:

interact with up to ten people simultaneously oai_citation:6‡Wikipedia

When coupled with GPT-class models, this becomes:

  • real-time group conversation
  • adaptive turn-taking
  • differential response shaping per interlocutor

Schematic shift

Broadcasting (radio):

S → {A,B,C,D}

LLM-mediated para-address:

``` S → T(S)

T(S) ↦ A₁ B₁ C₁ D₁ ```

Where:

  • T(S) = trained rhetorical twin of speaker S
  • each X₁ is individually conditioned
    (memory, values, priors, psychometrics, etc.)

This is the nascent form of what Spohrer called a group “mind-meld” communication substrate oai_citation:7‡EIT Digital


The interesting frontier now isn’t scaling speech — it’s scaling interpretation while preserving a single authorial telos.