On grounding mechanisms
Avoid untethered schizophrenia.
This is a post which investigates how people process information, whether it is by their intuition, their reliance on official expertise or otherwise. It argues that that no one can decide what you should believe for you, that you must rely on your own judgment and expertise - but if you don’t have a feedback mechanism to provide more objective feedback to your approach then it is very easy to become divorced from reality.
In 2008 highly influential arch-liberal Cass Sunstein articulated a strategy called cognitive infiltration in an article titled “Conspiracy Theories” for the Journal of Political Philosophy. In it he made a radical proposal: “Our main policy claim here is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories.” He defined “cognitive infiltration” as a program “whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups.” See here and here if you want the details on this. Globohomo picked it up and ran with it, and its effects can be seen everywhere today. Cognitive infiltration on social media is heavily boosted via paid agents, “influencers” and bots who push arguments about, for example, the glass dome and the firmament (flat earth arguments) to distract people and lead them into harmless political dead ends.
I think of this cognitive infiltration strategy when I look at the online reaction to the attempted Trump assassination. There were all sorts of theories immediately thrown out: it was a psychological operation and Trump used a squib on his ear or the shooter aimed for his ear; schizophrenic Andrew Anglin has been quasi-pushing this one. Or no one was actually shot. Trump did it to boost his popularity. The FBI/CIA would never use an incompetent to try to assassinate Trump and they never miss their targets when they try to kill them. The deep state wants Trump to win so that he starts World War 3 and whites will join to eagerly fight.
My response was that these lines of argument were untenable for a variety of reasons: the bullets were real given the wounded/dead behind Trump and which missed killing Trump by a fraction of an inch, Trump is too incompetent to employ an expert level assassin for such an attempt even if he wanted to, if one asks cui bono? (who benefits from such an attempt) Trump didn’t need a popularity boost given he was leading Biden by multiple points, among other reasons. Here’s how close the shooter came to killing him:
J. Daniel Sawyer does an excellent detailed forensic deep dive based upon the released video evidence if you really want to get into the weeds of how close this was.
Regarding that iconic photo that was taken (“ohmigod it’s a false flag it looks just like Iwo Jima”), you can see how that photo was taken in this video here.
Michael Dansbury correctly mocks the psyop crowd by summarizing their position on what would have to be Trump’s mentality to institute a false flag here:
“I am four months away from an election in which I am already doing pretty well and even my enemies have to agree that I am a serious challenger. My opponent is clearly infirm and his party are now bitterly divided as to whether he should even stand. I will however ask a gunman to shoot at my head with the infinitesimal chance of hitting my ear, kill an innocent bystander and then in turn have him assassinated. This will lead to a theoretical number of people to vote for me four months from now.”
Librarian of Celaeno, who I have been clashing with more regularly because of our differing perception styles and core values, but hopefully in a constructive and respectful way because I enjoy it - I prefer reasoned criticism than having yes-men because grappling with the pushback is what ultimately strengthens one’s own arguments - and he articulated his disagreement as follows:
Working backwards from cui bono gets you exactly the kind of reasoning you’re talking about here, because you’re assuming an entire chain of actions from an endpoint that could have been radically different under slightly modified conditions.
Donald Trump got shot at- it must have been the Deep State; they serve to benefit, and everyone know they lie.
Donald Trump got shot at- it must have been Trump; he will now get a boost in popularity, and everyone knows he lies.
Donald Trump gets shot- the media was in on it; they all refused to call it an assassination, and everyone knows they lie. They’re working with the deep state.
Donald Trump gets shot- the media is now reporting it as an assassination attempt; they are working with Trump because he’s click worthy.
All of these scenarios are spun from pre-existing assumptions and the facts are shoved in in ways that rationalize them. Letting the evidence lead the way means taking a step back and asking hard questions not only about what happened, but about what I believe.
I agree with the part in bold - except what evidence and facts is Librarian waiting for exactly? The videos have been released and the location of the shooter’s position was known very quickly. Some clarifying information was known later, yes, like the shooter being on the roof for over twenty minutes before he took his shot (!). Perhaps Librarian has made up his mind now, I’m not sure. Perhaps he wants to wait for a corrupt and whitewashing FBI to release official finding who knows when? What qualifies as “letting the evidence leading the way”? I argued instead that one should place emphasis on contemporaneous evidence - video and witness statements primarily - before they get scrubbed from the internet, which has happened regularly over the years to bolster establishment narratives.
I also agree with Librarian that one needs to know and understand one’s own biases and assumptions. One can take ANY piece of evidence, no matter how clear-cut, and people will not agree on it. I went into this on a prior post where a liberal friend (at the time) and I viewed an extremely clear-cut video and walked away with entirely different interpretations of what we watched; this event shook me and I re-evaluated how perception works after this event. And even if one is correct on a particular level of analysis, that doesn’t mean one is correct on other levels of analysis; we are all finite, limited beings and our perceptions are flawed and limited, so it is always good to retain a degree of radical skepticism and doubt even over one’s own opinions.
Christopher Cook had a great post about understanding one’s own biases, where he wrote (quoting at length):
In another sense, however, I am just like everyone else, insofar as my personal predispositions cause me to suspect some things more than others. So let’s look at those predispositions.
First, I do not trust the state. Government is a criminal racket. Even the best-designed systems inevitably devolve into criminal rackets. So I don’t trust much that is said or done by any agent or agency of any government.
Second, I do not trust the state no matter whose hands it is in, but when it comes to the left-right paradigm, I trust the left far, far less.
Leftism is the worst mass ideology ever to ooze forth from the twisted mind of man. It is devious, dangerous, and deadly. Every single time it reaches its fullest bloom, it produces nothing but failure, oppression, and rivers of blood.
Leftists managed to slaughter and starve 150 million people in a single century, and to oppress many millions more in soul-crushing totalitarian mega-states. Leftism really is a “boot stamping on a human face forever.” Denial of that is denial of history.
Of course, non-leftist states have perpetrated their own slaughters—from ancient conquerors to modern colonialism to every other form of barbarism. I oppose them all. But right here, right now, for the last hundred-plus years, leftism is far and away the biggest threat.
The right, properly defined, refers to Anglophone-style conservatives, (non-left) libertarians, and (non-left) anarchists. All of these ideologies share a core classical-liberal provenance in common. As such, they are not generally seeking power for its own sake. They have few objectives. Mostly, they just want to be left alone.
Yes, I know that conservatives have more of a busybody streak than their libertarian cousins. But none of that comes anywhere close to the “Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state” ethos to which every leftist is constantly straining (whether they recognize it consciously or not).
Third, I have very little normalcy bias. I do not assume that things will remain as they are. I do assume that it is only a matter of time before really big, messed-up things happen. (This attitude actually served me well during covid. Yes, the situation was upsetting and even carried some psychological impact, but the lack of surprise made it easier for me to bear.) Thus, I have no difficulty imagining that any one particular event might be the spark of something big.
Fourth, I am not a “conspiracy theorist,” but I am also not not a conspiracy theorist. I am willing to entertain just about any possibility. I am not tyrannized or constrained by Ocham’s Razor or Hanlon’s Razor (I definitely do not believe that either of those is always correct).
Fifth, I am also about as far from mass-formation as you can get. I am generally anti-authority, and I am far less likely to trust mass narratives than most people.
And finally, I am more comfortable than most with the fact that there are a lot of things for which there is no dispositive answer. I am willing to look at a question and consider a range of possible answers without actually setting on one.
For better or worse, that is who I am. And so all of that contributes to any theories I might be more predisposed to consider.
I share many of these same biases; I am naturally anti-groupthink, distrust the motivations of the left, have little normalcy bias and disbelieve official propaganda. But as I’ve written about extensively on this Substack, I also believe that this world is controlled by a small number of central bank owning familieswho have very specific and very nefarious long-term goals, that they are parasitizing off the masses whose core values are Christian-derived egalitarianism which allowed this financial system to come into place, and that behind this system is the possibility of an extremely malevolent Demiurge whose goal is to prevent the God-souls within each of us from achieving gnosis and ascending beyond the petty flawed materialism of this world. These are my biases, and I will assess new events through this prism unless my prism later updates, which it may.
As attractive as it is to try to adopt simple black-and-white rules for the world about whether something is always or never a psyop or false flag, it doesn’t work that way. As the wonderful and erudite L.P. Koch states,
It amazes me how many on the “real left”, who otherwise see clearly that our democracy is a joke and that we’re ruled by war-profiteering oligarchs, still can’t get out of the “Trump is an evil fascist” talking point, incapable of looking any further, even of just trying on a different angle for a change.
Equally startling is the “everything is a psyop” gang, who live in a world (or rather up their arse) in which all is “staged” and scripted: the mirror-image of leftist subjectivism & schizo-level relativism where nothing really exists except what’s floating in their own heads (the unappetizing float-in-itself).
There are many ways to make people believe 2+2=5.
In other words, while it may be attractive for some to assume either everything or nothing is a psyop, that’s clearly wrong, and one must use one’s discernment and judgment when approaching any particular issue. Oh no, use one’s own discernment and judgment, how scary! And at the same time retain flexibility to avoid dogma and consciously acknowledge that one may be wrong, that there are multiple levels of truth and we are finite, limited and subjective - oh no, radical uncertainty!
This brings me back to an old favorite quote of mine by Maurice Samuel in his otherwise insane You Gentiles about how one cannot ultimately rely on anyone’s analysis or judgment other than yourself. Certainly don’t rely on mine:
There is no test or guarantee of a man's wisdom or his reliability beyond what he says about life itself. Life is the touchstone: books must be read and understood in order that we may compare our experience in life with the sincere report of the experience of others. But such a one, who has read all the books extant on history and art, is of no consequence unless they are an indirect commentary on what he feels around him.
Hence, if I have drawn chiefly on experience and contemplation and little on books - which others will discovery without my admission - this does not affect my competency, which must be judged by standards infinitely more difficult of application. Life is not so simple that you can test a man's nearness to truth by giving him a college examination.
Such examinations are mere games - they have no relation to reality. You may desire some such easy standard by which you can judge whether or not a man is reliable: Does he know much history? Much biology? Much psychology? If not, he is not worth listening to. But it is part of the frivolity of our outlook to reduce life to a set of rules, and thus save ourselves the agony of constant references to first principles. No: standardized knowledge is no guarantee of truth. Put down a simple question - a living question, like this: "Should A. have killed B.?" Ask it of ten fools: five will say "Yes", five will say "No." Ask it of ten intelligent men: five will say "Yes," five will say "No." Ask it of ten scholars: five will say "Yes," five will say "No." The fools will have no reasons for their decisions: the intelligent men will have a few reasons for and as many against; the scholars will have more reasons for and against. But where does the truth lie?
What, then, should be the criterion of a man's reliability?
There is none. You cannot evade your responsibility thus by entrusting your salvation into the hands of a priest-specialist. A simpleton may bring you salvation and a great philosopher may confound you.
And so to life, as I have seen it working in others and felt it within myself, I refer the truth of what I say. And to books I refer only in so far as they are manifestations of life.
And this leads us into the question: if one is aware of their biases and outlook, exactly how should one assess new information?
Grounding mechanisms
It is important for one to have a grounding mechanism by which one analyzes new information. A grounding mechanism is a way to take in outside feedback and check it against one’s existing beliefs to see if the beliefs are correct or need updating. There are at least two grounding mechanisms, although there are likely others:
the traditional scientific method where independent third parties can try to repeat experiments to judge the veracity of the theory (the scientific method has been corrupted in the modern era, unfortunately, via a focus on “scientific consensus” and perverse funding incentives which corrupt experiment results), and
a focus on recursive prediction, i.e. if one’s worldview predicts certain things in the future and if those things don’t come to pass, then that means that one’s worldview is wrong to a certain extent and should be updated.
A weaker grounding mechanism is to ask cui bono? - who benefits from an action? It is weaker because one can often craft arguments for multiple sides about who benefits, as we see with Librarian’s pushback above.
If you do not have a grounding mechanism for which you can recursively update your beliefs, then you may easily get sucked into and believing unprovable, unfalsifiable theories that will lead you in wrong directions. For example, I generally stay away from ideas like UFOs because there is no way to verify whether the theories being promoted are correct or not.
There is no authority or expert coming to save you on this, not me, not anyone else: you need your own grounding mechanism.
This is also why I knew very quickly that the Q movement was a psyop based on the Soviet’s Operation Trust. Q promised results (with always moving targets) based on innuendo and never explained the logic behind his arguments or predictions. An irreparable red flag. It’s also why Simplicius’s followers are hopeless; he’s been promising Total Russian Victory for 2.5 years now with nothing to show for it yet retains a mass following. Endless hopium is always popular.
One could always just discard a focus on ascertaining truth entirely - no grounding mechanism needed - and go off Carl Schmitt’s friend/enemy distinction. In other words, one could look at the Trump assassination attempt from a dissident perspective and simply argue that the anti-white, pro-globalist FBI and CIA must be behind it because they are middle America’s enemies; therefore doing whatever one can to smear those enemies can only be good. There’s an impulse and an attraction to that, but ultimately that approach is wrong because the right and the left have fundamentally different propagation strategies, and one cannot use the other’s strategies and be effective. The right’s fundamental impulse is one of law and order, transparency and strong and immediate justice; to fall into the left’s impulse of oligarchy, deceit, lies and drawn-out chaos is not an effective strategy, in my opinion.
One may note that this analysis is not meant for the masses who are incapable of independent analysis. It is meant for ideological dissidents who are trying to escape from the propaganda that has been force-fed to them all their lives, or perhaps even only a subset of them. Most people (NPCs/hylics) are meant to be led by a strong ruler and without it they can go insane. What we’re seeing from the masses is that they’re losing their trust in the media which has been their de-facto strong ruler and they don’t know what do. A grounding mechanism cannot help them because they cannot think for themselves. If you walk these people through a step-by-step reasoning process they will follow along, maybe nod their head in understanding, then promptly forget everything you told them. This is because it is ultimately about a thought process and not one specific line of argument. I still empathize with the masses, though.
Putting it together
Based on the overwhelming evidence this was simply an extremely close assassination attempt, not a false flag or psyop. It missed by the width of a hair. It is debatable whether the attempted assassin was MK-Ultra groomed by globohomo and then given access to the rooftop, or whether the attempted assassin was simply a mentally ill shitlib who was spurred to action by globohomo’s incessant “Trump = Hitler” propaganda. Multiple nationalist politicians worldwide have recently been murdered (Shinzo Abe), attempted murdered (Bolsonaro), imprisoned (Khan in Pakistan), or face imprisonment (Matteo Salvini) even though globalist politicians have not faced any real serious attempts against their lives and which is another curious data point. It is an open question whether the Secret Service is simply incompetent now due to DEI or whether this opening for the attack was planned in advance, although the evidence points toward the latter. There’s plenty to debate over which will likely never be resolved - especially by the corrupt FBI’s investigation. But the attack did happen and it wasn’t a false flag nor a psyop to boost Trump’s popularity; they wanted him dead.
Lastly, please don’t take this post as a ringing Trump endorsement. I’ve made my feelings about the man known as he is a very flawed individual and no politician is coming to save you. Even if he was a Superman, there are certain structure issues that no one, Trump or anyone else, will be able to fix even if he wins the upcoming election (assuming the election happens): a $32 trillion national debt with a $2 trillion a year deficit, 30% of U.S. tax receipts going toward debt interest payments alone, and 20 million illegal Democrat voters let into the country in just the past 4 years.
In a sense this is all meaningless kayfabe to titilate the public as the country continues to fall off the cliff.
Good entertainment, though. Very exciting.
Thanks for reading.
Note that the term psyop is an imprecise one and I don’t like it because it contains two quite different meanings within it: (1) military operations usually aimed at influencing the enemy's state of mind through noncombative means, (2) government use of a person or phenomenon to influence a population's opinions and attitudes
Most people do not have internal dialogues according to a 2007 University of Nevada Department of Psychology study on college students. Per the study, regarding the frequency of common phenomena of inner experience (inner speech, inner seeing (aka images), unsymbolized thinking, feeling, and sensory awareness), only between 22% to 34% of the individuals studied had frequent internal dialogues:
If this study is accurate, most people may simply be meat robots, lacking thoughts inside their heads, and they react to stimuli as they experience it.
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