Update and scripts

Hi, everyone. The plan to make more videos like I did in the old days is turning out to be a huge success. I managed to get all four planned videos finished in July, and I am on the right track to do that again in August. You can expect more of that coming soon, and $10+ patrons can expect a new poll in the coming weeks.

SUPERNATURAL BLAME GAME

On June 5, 2015, a brief but powerful earthquake occurred in Sabah, Malaysia. For approximately 30 seconds, this 6.0 magnitude earthquake caused eighteen fatalities, all of which occurred on Mount Kinabalu. The epicenter was not the mountain itself, but the quake caused landslides that resulted in these tragedies. The cause of the earthquake was the result of movement along a fault. Although Sabah is not at a plate boundary, the coastal section of Sabah is moving towards the north-west, and that can cause these events.

Not everyone accepted the rational explanation. In the month prior to the earthquake, a few tourists posed without their clothes on for a photograph on Mount Kinabalu. Oops! This was disrespectful to local customs, and some native to the area believed that “aki” or “mountain protector” spirits caused the earthquake in the following month as revenge. If one does not believe in the supernatural or the aki specifically, this spirit explanation is easily ignored. Any accusation without evidence can be dismissed as quickly as it is offered. But even if one were to believe in the supernatural aki, there are holes in this explanation even among believers. Tourists are often disrespectful of local customs, making this occurrence nothing all that out of the ordinary, and the offending tourists were not harmed by the earthquake allegedly caused by these vengeful spirits. Also, why would the aki wait until June to react to this?

Blaming the earthquake on vengeful mountain spirits is the supernatural blame game, a process by which unrelated events are correlated and connected through pre-existing beliefs about a divine or metaphysical conflict between good and evil. It is the superficial assignment of morality to unrelated events. On the subject of the earthquake, anthropologist Dr. Paul Porodong said “It's endorsed by the Native Court. Angering spirits is taken very seriously as part of the justice system. The basis of local belief is moral.”

Let's be clear. If the tourist incident never occurred, the earthquake would still have occurred, and it would still have been blamed on other misdeeds instead of its natural explanation. The order of operation in the supernatural blame game is not Offending Act leading to Negative Circumstances. The order of operation is Negative Circumstances leading to Searching for an Offending Act. There will always be some offending act within a few weeks or months or even years of the negative circumstances to discover after the fact and connect to the negative circumstances – without evidence.

Any reasonable person should reject an accusation without evidence, but if you are a westerner listening to this, you might also incorrectly elevate your own local supernatural beliefs or personal supernatural beliefs above the so-called “backwards” beliefs of the Malaysian natives. That would be an unfair comparison because assigning supernatural explanations for natural phenomena is prevalent in so-called “western civilization” as well, particularly as it pertains to punishment for sins, dark spirits and entities, and a dualistic good-and-evil conflict that allegedly plays out in our everyday lives. In the United States, the primary mover of this darkness, this punishment, this evil is the Devil. Satan. The Prince of Darkness. Old...goat-face? [“I have so many names.”]

Where did this all come from, and why is it still an unquestioned belief for so many people? [I. Ancient History] [“By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. … But I don't see any tigers around here, do you?” “Lisa, I want to buy your rock.”]

The origin of supernatural belief is a contentious topic and not only because any other answer besides “The supernatural is real.” is unsatisfying to those who believe in it. Many theories are related to how early humans interacted with the world.

As explained by Kelly James Clark, a senior research fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University in Michigan“On the plains of the Serengeti, it would be better to not sit around and reflect. People who took their time got selected out … You might think that raindrops aren't agents. They can't act of their own accord. They just fall. And clouds just form; they're not things that can act. But what human beings have done is to think that clouds are agents. They think [clouds] can act. … The roaring threat of a thunderstorm or the devastation of a flood is widely seen across cultures as the product of a dangerous personal agent in the sky or river, respectively.” Sound familiar?

Evolutionary biologists are not in full agreement, though. Some suggest that although belief in the supernatural has persisted, it is not necessarily the result of adaptation to survive. According to psychologist Jesse Bering, this may simply be a spandrel, as he put it “...biological feature that is passed down part and parcel with another trait and is not on its own a product of natural selection. ... an accidental by-product of human cognitive evolution, a functionless leftover of the capacity to reason about other human minds in the everyday social world …” Bering suggests that this particular spandrel is also an exaptation, or a spandrel that proved useful.

Sociologists and anthropologists might argue that this explanation is too easy and rests the entirety of the human condition on ancient instincts and not on culture. Supernaturalism was undoubtedly “useful” but not necessarily beneficial overall. It was useful for early leaders to claim themselves divinely ordained, which structured society around them in strict, top-down hierarchies. “I am the King, and only I can defeat the evil spirits that ruin our crops and take our children in the night.” Supernaturalism was almost certainly helpful in maintaining rigid social structures, not to mention rigid economic structures.

I do not claim to have all the answers here, but when it comes to the Devil, we have a lot more information. We have history, not just pre-history. We need to understand how phenomenally distinct our modern conception of right and wrong is from ancient conceptions of right and wrong. Ancient Israelite Religion predates what we would now commonly call Judaism, but the connection of sin is strong, particularly as it relates to moral impurity and ritual impurity. Moral impurity and ritual impurity are two distinct but related categories of defilement in Ancient Israelite Religion.

According to Jonathan Klawans, author of Sin in Ancient Judaism, “Ritual impurity results from direct or indirect contact with any of a number of natural sources including childbirth (Lev. 12:1-8), scale disease (Lev. 13:1-14:32), genital discharges (Lev. 15:1-33), the carcasses of certain impure animals (Lev. 11:1-47), and human corpses (Num. 19:10-22). Ritual impurity also comes about as a by-product of certain purificatory procedures (e.g., Lev. 16:28; Num. 19:8).… The sources of ritual impurity are generally natural and more or less unavoidable. That the sources of ritual impurity are natural is quite clear. Birth, death, sex, disease, and discharge are all part of normal life. … Israelites are obliged to remain

aware of their ritual status at all times, lest they accidentally come into contact with the sacred while in a state of ritual impurity.”

Ritual impurity is not a sin in and of itself but can lead to sin by refusing to purify after this impurity, or by coming into contact with holy objects, holy foods or holy grounds while impure. Ritual impurity is a temporary offense, a supernatural diseased state that must be washed clean, sometimes by natural means but often by supernatural purification rituals.

Moral impurity occurs through avoidable acts rather than unavoidable acts. These sins include idolatry, blasphemy or anything that contradicts rules against idolatry or blasphemy – a circular, closed system of absolutism with no entry or exit point. Violence is also condemned, as are some sexual acts, but the particulars of which sexual acts are a matter of scholarly debate. Unlike ritual impurity, moral impurity is not contagious to other Israelites but still shame Israel altogether. The prescription for some morally impure people is banishment from their land lest the moral impurity stain that land through some supernatural and, of course, invisible harm.

As explained by John Barton in the book Ethics in Ancient Israel, “It is open to a historian of ethics to say that ideas of abomination, impurity, or defilement are not part of ethics at all, but are at best pre-moral.”

This is all hocus pocus, sorry, but you will notice that this hocus pocus is quite different from what you might expect when you think of supernatural evils and the Devil, especially if your conception of the Devil is based in Christianity. No battle between an all-mighty God and a scheming red man from Hell. Instead, a lot of ritual and moral impurity. That is because the origins of Satan in Judaism are not what you may think. In Judaism, Satan is not Satan. He is a character in a parable and is otherwise a non-entity in Judaism. I've touched upon some of this in a previous video, but a more thorough examination feels necessary. I have so much more to say about Satan, apparently, so apologies for any repetition.

The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, including the Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvin. Christians know the Tanakh as the Old Testament of their Holy Bible. The division of these books contained within are not necessarily in the precise chronological order in which scholars believed them to be written. In fact, Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order ofthe books in Ketuvim. Nevertheless, contextual and historical clues suggest there is a strong possibility that the first written record of what would eventually be considered “the Devil” is found in the Book of Job. This is disputed because of references to excilic and post-excilic periods in Job, but let's not spend too much time on Biblical chronology. It's a nightmare. Anyway, “the Devil” is not the Devil, and he is not called that.The Hebrew Bible does not name him Satan but rather, ha-satan.

“Ha” is the definite article “the” and “satan” closely translates to “accuser,” or “adversary,” or in case of the  context of the story of Job, “prosecutor.” Satan is nota proper name but a title.

As explained by Elaine Pagels, author of The Origin of Satan, “In biblical sources the Hebrew term the satan describes an adversarial role. It is not the name of a particular character. Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century B.C.E. occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root s-t-n means “one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary.” (The Greek term diabolos, later translated “devil,” literally means “one who throws something across one’s path.”)

The Satan's presence in a story could help account for unexpected obstacles or reversals of fortune. Hebrew storytellers often attribute misfortunes to human sin. Some, however, also invoke this supernatural character, the satan, who, by God's own order or permission, blocks or opposes human plans and desires. But this messenger is not necessarily malevolent. … Thus the satan may simply have been sent by the Lord to protect a person from worse harm.”

In the Book of Job, God meets with his heavenly court – beings who assist God in one way or another. In Job, God sees the prosecutor and is like “Hey, where you been?” and the prosecutor says “You know, traveling. Kickin' it.” God, totally unprompted, says “Hey, have you heard about Job? He is so good and faithful. Love that guy. Love that Job. Can't get enough of him.” and the prosecutor is like “Nah, I bet he's only faithful to you because his life is so good. Take that away, and he will lose faith.” So, God and his prosecutor basically make a deal to mess with Job and take away everything important to him just to see what would happen.

Long story short, Job asks God why this happened, and God is like “Oh, did youmake the oceans and mountains, or was that me?” See, the Book of Job is just a theodicy, an attempt to determine why bad things happen to good people if God is both all-good and all-powerful. It's also a parable. The writing in the Bible are not just one thing. They are full of history, and etiological myths, and rules, and parables. The books were written by dozens of people over the course of centuries and shoved into one easy-to-carry text after endless, millennia-spanning debate on what counts as canon. The Book of Job is not meant to be history. It's a parable to teach the Israelites about their lots in life. In other words, ha-Satan, the character in the story, was invented as a plot device for the inciting action. He was never supposed to be real. He was never supposed to be canon.

Later Biblical writers knew this. That's why he only appears sparingly afterward and never as a historical figure. The first six chapters of the Book of Zechariah are a series of visions, all of which are regarded as a combined symbolic history of Israel and vision of a better future. The prosecutor accuser appears only briefly to be rebuked by God – in a dream. In the Hebrew Bible, the only time the proper name “Satan” is mentioned is in First Chronicles. However, this was not meant to be that Satan. He's just a human adversary. Remember? Because that's what the word means?The story in First Chronicles about an adversary angry with Israel is a retelling of the same story earlier in the Hebrew Bible – Second Samuel – in which God himself was angry with Israel instead, suggesting the author of First Chronicles either wrote it either to absolve God, to elaborate on God choosing his prosecutor to take action, or to recast whoever was angry with Israel as a nameless adversary or named adversary.

Every reference to “the Devil” in the Hebrew Bible either is not about a Devil or has a big asterisk next to it. And none of the references to an adversary or prosecutor are recalling some demonic force that opposes God.

Satan most famously appears as a character in the New Testament in the temptation of Jesus Christ in the desert. Satan tempts Jesus to transform stones into bread, to throw himself to the ground and rely on divine power to rescue him, and finally, with the power to rule over kingdoms of the world. There are reasons to conclude that the story of the temptation in the desert confirms Satan as the servant of God, much as “the satan” was in the Tanakh. In the third temptation, Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world. Jesus does not accept this offer but also does not contradict Satan's ability to do this or his ownership of these kingdoms. God has not granted “the Devil” dominion over the world, which suggests that the offer was from God himself and that God's prosecutor was just doing what he always does: God's will. Also, again, the temptation in the desert is that it was meant as a lesson and not to be taken literally. The temptation has three offers, each escalating from the former, and each a lesson for the early Christians. The magic narrative number three should be a dead giveaway here. Plus, you know, if Jesus was alone in the desert, whowas transcribing what happened? This is just a Jesus story, not Jesus history. Ha-Satan sure does pop up a lot when the story is just a parable. Almost like that means something!

And don't get me started on the Book of Revelation. We'll be here all day, but the long and short of it is that it's a letter to seven early churches using fanciful language to give them instructions on what to do and how to behave. In the letter, the Devil is just the Roman Empire.

When Christians re-translated the Hebrew Bible as their Old Testament, the Hebrew word “satan” – adversary, accuser, or prosecutor – was capitalized and made Satan, even if it wasn't God's servant. Any satan, meaning any accuser. For example, Psalms 109 Verses 6 and 7 in the Hebrew Bible is “Appoint a wicked man over him; may an accuser stand at his right side; may he be tried and convicted; may he be judged and found guilty” but in the Christian Bible, it reads “...and let Satan stand at his right side.” This Psalm has nothing to do with the Devil or probably not even the satan. In the Hebrew Bible, it's translated as “an accuser,” not the accuser. For lack of a better word, Christians “retconned” the Hebrew Bible to have references to the Devil, thereby better conforming to Christianity. For example, the serpent in Genesis is only retroactively believed to be the Devil himself.

Remember, ancient Israelite religion conceived of sin as a human failing, unavoidable and avoidable impurities. An adversary in their writings existed to make a point. In early Christianity, this was apparently unacceptable. There had to be a more cosmic and dramatic conflict between good and evil. Humanity had been saved by Jesus Christ, and a savior needs something or someone to defeat. If Jesus was the savior of humanity, then the Jewish conception of sin as human-made would have made Jesus' foe humanity itself. This contradiction could not be allowed. Christians invented the Devil – Satan – to resolve this contradiction. Not to mention spice up the New Testament with some hellfire and brimstone. It can't be us. It can't be natural. It must be the work of dark forces. This is the supernatural blame game, and it has been going for a long time.

[II. The Devil Made Me Do It!] By the middle ages, the depiction of Satan had reached the image we have of him today: red, horned, sometimes with goat hooves. This was the invention of artists, drawing upon other mythological characters, but it was not always so. A sixth-century mosaic from Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy, shows the Last Judgment, and the satanic figure appears as a blue angel.

Satan's now common horns and hooves may have been derived from Pan, a figure in Greek mythology. The church rejected worship of “pagan” deities, which may explain why Satan was being this blasphemous image. In the Middle Ages, depictions of this diminutive goat-devil accompanied plays in which Satan was a nuisance and comic foil, but as the church began to consider Satan a greater threat, the Devil was given greater and more terrifying visuals, culminating in works like Dante's 14thcentury Divine Comedy. Modern popular culture has settled on this image of Satan. When Satan is depicted comically, he appears closer to the Middle Age goat-man. If he is depicted as a serious threat, he retains the horns and red skin but is larger, more muscular and more horrifying. In order to blame Satan for our sins, he needed to be more threatening than a blue angel.

If “the satan” ever existed, he did not look like this. If by “divine council,” the Bible is referring to the satan as an angel, he was a cherubim, malakim, seraphim, or ophanim. A cherubim (or “cherub”) has four faces: a lion, an ox, an eagle and a human. Cherubs stand watch over the Garden of Eden to ensure humans can no longer enter it. A malakim appears only as a human. Malakim are messenger angels, such as the one who visited the Virgin Mary. A seraphim is made of wings and flames. An Ophanim is made of gold wheels and eyes. The satan is never described physically, but there is no reason whatsoever to assume he looked like this. Artists who began depicting him like this did not claim to have visions from God. This is merely artistic license. The satan could look like anything, but Satanhad to look like a monster.

By the 15thcentury, the Catholic Church considered Satan to be responsible for witchcraft. In colonial America, this spread like wildfire, culminating in the infamous Salem Witch Trials. 20 people died as a result of accusations made by  Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, among others. This tragedy was not simply the result of mere ignorance but the inevitable consequence of assigning supernaturalism to common events, carried out by those predisposed to these beliefs.

According to Frances Hill, author of A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials, “Those predisposed to hysteria are highly suggestible. It can reasonably be said that hysterical symptoms are catching. … During the few weeks after their fits started, sometime in January, Abigail's and Betty's condition grew worse. The doctors called to the house could do nothing. … The neighbors seized on the notion that the girls were bewitched, and one of them encouraged Tituba and John Indian to bake a 'witch cake' containing Betty's and Abigail's urine. The plan was to feed this to the dog to see if it too would act strangely, thus confirming the witchery. Whether the Parrises' unfortunate pet was actually induced to eat this concoction and, if so, how it reacted has not come down to us through the centuries. But the pastor believed it was the 'diabolical' cakebaking, in itself evil since it used the devil's own means to reveal the devil's presence, that worsened his niece's and daughter's condition. By this means, he said, 'the Devil hath been raised amongst us.'”

Now, you might be thinking “That was then, this is now.” But this never really ended. We never really stopped playing the supernatural blame game, especially with regards to Satan. In 1971, Beatrice Sparks released a book called Go Ask Alice, which purported to be the real diary of an anonymous young woman that was merely edited by Sparks. Her fraud was eventually uncovered but not before she released another hoax diary called Jay's Journalin 1979. In this story, Jay gets involved in Satanism, eventually haunted by a demon. The authenticity of the story has long been questioned.

In the recent book Unmask Alice, Rick Emerson writes “...Sparks pilfered the news for inspiration. In early 1978, as Sparks worked on Jay’s Journal, California police had arrested schizophrenic serial killer Richard Chase, who, the papers reported, had once been detained for roaming Lake Tahoe, lugging a bucket of cow’s blood. Around the same time, fringe conspiracists had latched onto 'cattle mutilation,' the widespread killing and/or maiming of livestock by (take your pick): extraterrestrials, government agents, the Chupacabra … Sparks neatly merged the two stories, creating a new and repugnant explanation. The cattle, confessed 'Jay' in his posthumous diary, had been savaged by teenage Satanists.”

Thus began the Satanic Panic of the 1980's. Burned records, terrified parents, Halloween under suspicion. It didn't matter that we had already gone through this before, and it didn't matter that mass communication could have been used to better inform the public that there was nothing to fear. “That was then, this is now.” does not matter if we're still operating under the same rules of the same game. Plus, the modern mass media is not going to work in the public interest. It's going to work in its own interest. Furthermore, the encroaching threat of Satanists was harder to put down than something like, you know, the Chupacabra, because the Chupacabra is not real – as far as we know – but some people areSatanists. They exist! Whether or not Satan himself exists is between you and your God, but people who genuinely call themselves “Satanists” are real. It's just that Satanists generally are not what people think they are.

Satanism is actually a variety of only loosely-connected religions based around Satan. For example, The Church of Satan, which is a fairly new religion that started in 1966, practices LaVeyan Satanism. LaVeyan Satanists do not actually worship or believe in the Devil. Satan is more of a symbolic figure, a defiant character. The Satanic Temple is something different, something more modern and progressive, but it still does notprofess a belief in the existence of Satan or the worship of Satan. Neither of the big branches of Satanism in the United States actually worship the Devil. He's more of a metaphor. Now, there are theistic Satanists, those who believe in and worship Satan – the Devil himself – but they don't have a particularly large following. As fringe as Satanism already is, theistic Satanism is like the fringe of the fringe. It barely exists – at least not enough to be some threat to Midwestern housewives and suburban dads terrified of Halloween candy.

In the 21stcentury, we still haven't shaken loose of this blame game. QAnon is deeply connected to fears about Devil worshipers – in this case, Devil cults made up of politicians and Hollywood actors. It has never truly gone away, and unfortunately, I don't have a solution. I don't know how to convince the whole world, all at once, that Satan is not real, and even if he were, he's not controlling the mind of Tom Hanks. All we can do is be a counter-balance to this hysteria, debunk what we can, and hope for some sanity around the corner. [sighs] Happy Halloween.

PELOSI CONSPIRACY THEORY DEBUNKED

On October 28, 2022, at approximately 2 AM, a 42 year-old man named David DePape illegally entered the home of Paul and Nancy Pelosi. DePape broke through panel-glass doors at the rear entrance of the house. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of the United States House of Representatives, was not home and was in Washington DC at the time. DePape found her husband upstairs in a third story bedroom. DePape woke Paul Pelosi, demanding to see the Speaker of the House. “Where's Nancy?” he reportedly asked. Mr. Pelosi stated that she was not home, and upon hearing this, DePape claimed he would wait. Mr. Pelosi convinced Mr. DePape to allow him to use the bathroom. In the bathroom, he secretly made a call to the police at 2:23 AM. When the arrived eight minutes later and knocked at the door, Mr. Pelosi rushed to front door. Mr. DePape pursued him, and upon opening the door, the police discovered both men struggling with a hammer. Mr. DePape bludgeoning him severely, prompting the police to tackle the intruder.

DePape has since been charged with several felonies by the San Francisco District Attorney's Office: assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, burglary, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder, and threatening the family of a public official. On the federal level, he has been charged with kidnapping and assault of the family of a federal official. In addition, ICE has filed an immigration detainer on DePape. The Canadian-born perpetrator originally came to the United States with the proper paperwork, but his visa long ago expired. He plead not guilty and has been denied bail. Paul Pelosi suffered severe injuries, including damage to his skull. He received medical attention and had successful surgery.

The incident could have been much worse. According to DePape himself, he was not there simply to assassinate Nancy Pelosi. This was part of a larger scheme to kidnap members of the Democratic Party. Officials have confirmed a list of names but have the specifics of that list are presently not public knowledge. DePape planned to first kidnap Nancy Pelosi, interrogate her, break her kneecaps, strap her to a wheelchair and present her to Congress as a warning. By all accounts, DePape had been suffering from a combination of mental illness and drug abuse. DePape credits the 2014 online harassment campaign “Gamergate” with his shift to right-wing politics. Since then, he was duped into believing stranger and stranger conspiracy theories, such as QAnon. This has been confirmed by his numerous online posts that can easily be verified and time-stamped. His views are antisemitic, homophobic, Islamophobic, sexist and racist. He promotes the 2020 election conspiracy theory, he is a holocaust denier, an anti-vaxer, and he absolutely loves Jordan Peterson. He is everything wrong with the United States and the world today, wrapped into one completely mediocre man.

As detestable as he is, I also find him pitiable. He is poor, has been living in a garage for years, with no real access to mental health services, inundated by far-right grifters and conspiracists making a living off the ignorance and suffering of others. David DePape is both perpetrator and victim in a cycle of disinformation. A snake that eats itself – forever. He will probably be convicted of many, if not all, of his charges and spend an enormous amount of the remainder of his life in our broken carceral system.

In short, that is what happened on October 28. Every detail has been confirmed and endlessly fact-checked over the past two weeks. However, if you travel is far-right circles or spend any time stumbling through inane social media hashtags, you may have heard a completely different and completely false account of what happened. Conspiracy theorist David DePape, on some level, must be greatly pleased that a conspiracy theory about his own actions has developed. Even though he was there and knows this conspiracy theory is not true, it must bring him some small amount of joy that his community of liars has crafted quite a whopper about himself and his crimes. According to various liars and grifters, DePape did not break into the Pelosi home. Instead, was there having sex with Paul Pelosi and that DePape's kidnapping and attempted murder was actually a simple lovers' spat, or perhaps an argument about payment, because one version of this conspiracy theory also labels DePape a paid sex worker. This conspiracy theory blew up on Twitter, for reasons I will explain. It also spread on facebook, or Twitter for the Elderly, and bits and pieces of it even landed on cable news.

Conspiracy theories generally have, well, not necessarily a kernel of truth but a kernel of half-truth – some detail that suspicious enough to draw attention to it and craft an entire narrative around this one detail. Even if the detail can be easily explained, by the time the explanation has been made, the false narrative has propagated itself, and the reasonable explanation is labeled a cover-up. This makes fact-checking and debunking a conspiracy theory mostly useful for convincing people who are not yet in too deep. The Pelosi conspiracy theory is different because there is no kernel at all. Nearly every detail that supports this conspiracy theory is alsoa fabrication. The theory does not simply contain a bunch of easily explainable but superficially suspicious details. It doesn't really contain anything.

In their book, A Lot of People Are Saying,Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead describe this new conspiracism as “conspiracy without the theory.” Nevertheless, every theory starts somewhere, and due to the simplicity of tracking patterns and trends on the internet, we can actually see where it started and how it grew – minute by minute. Even if we can't convince many conspiracy theorists that their theories are wrong, we need to understand why they cannot be convinced otherwise and how these conspiracies happen in the first place.

A “false flag operation” is an act that disguises the perpetrator of a crime or incident and blames a separate or unrelated party. A simpler term would be “frame-job” or “set-up” but “false flag” carries a connotation of being conducted by the state in service of a political cause. A conspiracy theory in which there is an accusation of a false flag operation is commonly developed immediately an incident or catastrophe that could theoretically advance a political cause. For example, following a school shooting, the conspiracy theorist right-wing might label the tragedy a false flag, an intricate hoax designed to advance new laws related to firearms.

False flag operations do exist and historically have been conducted by the state as a pretext for war, but elaborate false flags are rare compared to the amount of incidents that are incorrectly labeled false flags by conspiracy theorists, and compared to the amount of incidents that are common, everyday, legitimate crimes. False flags happen, but labeling something a false flag without evidence is foolhardy. Nobody should simply jump to such a conclusion. The consequences to mislabeling an incident a false flag are dire, both for whoever is making the accusation and those who have been incorrectly accused of participating in this invented false flag.

If an incident occurs, and many people immediately label the incident a false flag, they are almost certainly doing so without real evidence. No investigation has occurred, no evidence has been compiled. Those who mislabel the incident a false flag are doing so because it benefits themselves to do so. It benefits their own political causes, political ideology, or political party. If an incident occurs that makes their politics and values look bad because it was carried out in the name of their politics and values, these conspiracy theorists will find comfort in dismissing the incident altogether. Rather than come to grips with a challenge to their politics and values, it is far easier for them to essentially lie to themselves, stating in unearned confidence “This never happened.”

When David DePape was arrested, accusations of a false flag were immediate. These accusations came almost exclusively from those who are politically opposed to the Pelosis. Right-wing violence and right-wing terrorism occurs in far greater numbers than left-wing violence and left-wing terrorism. Study after study shows this, whether the data comes from state sources or independent sources. But if someone identifies with the right wing, this fact is preposterous and must dismissed outright. It can, and has, been dismissed with nothing more than “Fake News! Fake News!” but conspiracy theorists love using a tiny kernel of half-truth, or failing that, some fake news of their own.

On the morning of the October 28th, a local Fox affiliate KTVU posted an article on the incident. The article erroneously claimed that either both men were in their underwear or that only DePape was in his underwear. It is unclear why the “investigative reporter” from KTVU wrote this, but it has since been corrected within the very same article. Nobody else reported this. Pelosi was wearing a pajama shirt and boxer shorts – because he was sleeping at 2 AM when this was happening. DePape was wearing ordinary clothes. Everyone sees a headline, and everyone ignores a correction, especially on social media where the headline is King, and the words within the article may as well not exist.

The same morning, a right-wing fake news media outlet called the Santa Monica Observer wrote a story claiming that Paul Pelosi and David DePape were actually engaged in a gay tryst. The Santa Monica Observer is a notorious media outlet that traffics in fabricated stories, such as Donald Trump appointing Kanye West to a high position in the Department of Interior, Bill Gates creating a polio epidemic, and that the cure for COVID-19 is sunlight.

The Santa Monica Observer is a tabloid, and this tabloid story probably would have gone largely unnoticed if it had not been amplified by Elon Musk. The day prior to the attack, Musk finalized his purchase of Twitter, and less than 24 hours later, he used his new acquisition to spread this conspiracy theory. He did it in the strangest way, too, replying to Hillary Clinton and linking to the fake news article. Coincidentally, the Santa Monica Observer once claimed that Hillary Clinton actually died on 9/11. The Observer also claimed that the woman debating Donald Trump was a secret body-double and not the real Hillary Clinton. Musk eventually either deleted his tweet, or someone else deleted it for him, but not before it received about 100,000 Likes and was no doubt seen by millions more.

Even days later, right-wing hacks and conspiracy theorists spread this nonsense all over social media. Tim Pool infamously cast doubt on the real story even days later, spreading this mindless skepticism to over a million followers. Perhaps Mr. Pool was feeling defensive because DePape was confirmed to be a fan of his. Men like Pool don't need to say “I believe Paul Pelosi and David DePape were gay lovers.” to communicate this to his audience. The false narrative already exists. All he needs to do to appease the conspiracy theorists is say that he still has concerns and that he's just asking questions. Because the conspiracy theorists know what he's talking about, which is what he wants, but by phrasing it just right, he allows himself the false appearance of objectivity, of simply looking for facts – but he facts were known within hours of the incident.

Steven Crowder went even further, explicitly reciting the more salacious parts of the fake story. Every right-wing figure wanted a piece of this, from fascist propagandists like Matt Walsh to elected officials like Senator Ted Cruz.

First, conspiracists claim that the events of the break-in do not align with the official story. They claim that the broken glass looks like it was broken from the inside instead of outside, but experts do not agree with this assessment. Glass shatters everywhere, especially when struck with a blunt object as opposed to, say, a brick or rock thrown into it. Break a pane of glass by cracking it with a hammer. Some of it will fall opposite yourself, and some will fall closer to yourself.

Next, conspiracists claim that if there is nothing to hide, why not release the security cameras to law enforcement? But the security footage has already been seen by law enforcement. Although the incident occurred in California, United States Capitol Police have access to the footage. USCP has access to over 1,800 cameras connected to federal employees like Representatives and Senators. The USCP did not monitor the incident in real time because Nancy Pelosi was not home at the time, but they were able to review the footage and confirm the events. Conspiracists saying “Release the footage to the police!” are just, you know, making that up. The police, specifically the USCP, already had the footage. Nothing else needed to be release. The police had it automatically.

Next, conspiracists claim that if there is nothing to hide, the police should release the body cam footage. This was Tim Pool's contention. Generally, the police only release body cam footage only certain circumstances. Body cam footage is released if there is a suspicion of police misconduct, and the victim of that misconduct goes through the courts or other proper channels to force the police to make the footage available. There is no accusation of police misconduct in this incident. Thus, there is no movement among the perpetrator of the crime or the victim of the crime to demand its release. This is normal. The body cam footage is not going to prove or disprove a relationship between Pelosi and DePape because nobody, not even the conspiracy theorists, are claiming that police witnessed the two men having sex in the doorway where the assault occurred. Demanding the release of the body cam footage is a ruse to give the appearance of a cover-up where none exists.

Imagine how cold-hearted and disgusting someone would have to be to act, like “Oh, you were beaten half to death with a hammer by a home intruder who wanted to kidnap your wife and break her kneecaps? Show me police video of you getting beaten half to death, and then I'll believe it! Pics or it didn't happen!” Jesus. Christ. The police are not being pressured by anyone with any authority to release graphic footage of DePape beating Pelosi in the head with a hammer – because Tim Pool is not an authority and neither is any other conspiracy theorist propagating this nonsense.

Next, conspiracists claim that the 911 call proved that Paul Pelosi knew David DePape prior to the incident and that Mr. Pelosi referred to Mr. DePape as a “friend.” However, this is a distortion. Documents transcribing the call actually show the opposite. When Mr. Pelosi was on the phone, he tried to be careful about what he said because DePape was within earshot. That is why Mr. Pelosi waffled back and forth about whether or not he needed police assistance. More importantly, Mr. Pelosi did not call DePape his friend. It was actually DePape who called out, trying to intervene with the call, falsely claiming that he was a friend of the Pelosi family. Conspiracy theorists got it backwards.

Next, conspiracists claim that the hammer belonged to the Pelosis and not DePape, but that has been proven false. DePape needed the hammer to break the glass and enter the home. That's why he chose that as his weapon. DePape himself has admitted this, and once again, the USCP has a video recording of that part of the incident.

Next, conspiracists claim that all the evidence of David DePape being a right-wing wacko has been manufactured. Conspiracists desperately want to believe that every blog entry, social media post, and every other piece of evidence was invented – in a matter of minutes – between the time that the story broke and the time that his social media was uncovered. People who think that do not know much about the internet. A fake image is easy to post, but a years-long digital footprint is more challenging. The internet has time stamps, and a Wayback Machine, and many other methods in which to confirm the time that someone wrote something. David DePape's internet history is well-documented.

Another way David DePape's politics are dismissed by conspiracists is by showing an image of DePape's residence. DePape spent much of the past several years without a permanent or steady home. These are not his decorations or flags. These are the decorations and flags of the individual who owns the home. At the time of DePape's arrest, he was renting a garage as a makeshift home. The politics of your landlordare not necessarily your politics. I think that should go without saying, but apparently, it needed to be said.

So, how would David DePape being more left-wing than right-wing confirm him as a gay sex worker? It would not – at least not directly. Trying to create a different political identity for DePape does not actually assist in the conspiracy theory about him being a gay sex worker, but it does cast doubt on the official story just enough to fool people into thinking “Well, there must be some other explanation!” and since the only other explanation in their minds is GAY SEX WORKER, they will default to that instead.

DePape previously had different politics, but he started sliding to the right in 2014, by his own admission. He was very concerned about ethics in game journalism. He confessed to his politics and his motives during his interrogation. We don't even need his social media to confirm this.

Next, conspiracists claim that Paul Pelosi was in his underwear during the struggle with the hammer, and this, somehow, is confirmation to them that he and David DePape were having sex prior to the police arriving.

First, as I already said, the entire underwear allegation was false. It was incorrectly reported by a local media outlet, retracted and corrected. It absolutely did not happen. Second, even if it were true, what the hell are you even talking about? Why does someone being in their underwear make you think of “gay sex”? The incident occurred around 2 AM – you know, when people are sleeping? Paul Pelosi was woken up by the intruder. Remember? People generally sleep in their underwear, in the nude, in loose-fitting pajamas, or in some other state of undress. What do you sleep in? A tuxedo?

The Paul Pelosi conspiracy theory is a conspiracy without a theory. There isn't even a kernel of half-truth to it. So, how did it spread so quickly, even with trusted media watch-dogs debunking it the same day? The conspiracy theory surrounding this event, meaning the false narrative, was simply easier to propagate because of what Elon Musk said on Twitter and because the social media app was in chaos following his purchase less than 24 hours prior to the attack. This conspiracy theory spinning out of control was assisted through the usual means but also extremely bad timing. A major incident of politically-motivated violence will always create conspiracy theories, but debunking this conspiracy theory was made more challenging by these circumstances.

David DePape committed his crimes because of David DePape's own twisted reasons. Elon Musk did not assist David DePape, but he did help spread a false narrative about David DePape. Though his tweet was deleted, Musk never offered an apology or correction. Because of this, his cult-like followers saw this deletion as “censorship” of “the truth” rather than what it was. Misinformation being removed. It's still better that his tweet was deleted than not deleted. Because people who are not sycophantic Musk devotees would then never see it, but people who are sycophantic Musk devotees continued to share the image around among themselves. All it would have taken is Musk telling his followers “I was wrong about this one. Sorry about that.” He could not bring himself to do this. Neither could Ted Cruz, Matt Walsh, Steven Crowder, Tim Pool and everyone else who saw a non-troversy and wanted to profit from it.

Frankly, even without Elon Musk, the conspiracy theory still may have spread, just not quite as far and wide. And that's because of good old fashioned confirmation bias. If you hate Nancy Pelosi, you might find the notion of sympathizing with her so objectionable that the first alternative story to come your way might be more appealing.

I'll be blunt. I don't like Nancy Pelosi either, and anyone who has followed my work for long enough is probably not too surprised by that. I'm just, you know, not willing to believe a bunch of bull****. I want to know the facts. I want to believe the facts, and it's becoming harder to just get the facts out there.

CONTENT CREATOR

“What is the worst part about being a YouTuber?” For some, it's the grind itself, the self-imposed deadlines, the mandate to crank out enough content to pay rent. It might be easier for some YouTubers who have a staff, but I research, write, record and edit everything myself. So, it's like a one-person assembly line. For others, it's the fact that we are essentially making art or at least some creative endeavor but are forced to call it content. YouTube even changed the videos tab to say “content” recently. “Content” could be anything, a bunch of bananas in a barrel is the contents of the barrel. I'm not making bananas, I'm making video essays about politics and sometimes Star Trek.

For others, the worst part about being a YouTuber is the loss privacy. Our job is on the internet, and while the internet can maintain some anonymity if used correctly, it doesn't actually allow for true privacy. For YouTubers, it's worse, but we are forced to use social media platforms – often a lot of social media platforms – to promote our work. The YouTube space is highly competitive, and if you're not on Twitter and Instagram and all that, it's hard to compete with people who are. The YouTube algorithm will only recommend so much, and shoehorning ourselves into the conversation with social media is one of the only ways to do it.

That creates an uncomfortable atmosphere because when we ask for a little bit of privacy, a little bit of humanity, people will reply “Well, then you shouldn't be a YouTuber, and you shouldn't use Twitter!” – not realizing that social media is necessity. That's not a particularly good argument either. Performing a career in a public space should not be the green light to rob someone of their humanity. Do I become less human because I'm on YouTube? What is the threshold for seeing me as someone who “deserves” to be treated however the public decides to treat me?

For example, if a “content creator” blocks someone on their social media, either individually or through some browser extension that mass blocks dozens of people at once, someone who can no longer access that creator's account, upon discovering this, might make a post or tweet about it, desperately trying to illicit sympathy from their twelve followers. To the hypothetical someone, this is something to happening to them – but it isn't. It's something happening to the person who created the boundary, the block.

To paraphrase something I said on social media once, if someone has grown up with social media so much that it feels as ubiquitous as the electric company, their brain tells them that not having access to a stranger's account is discrimination – a very personal “denial of service” -- instead of what it actually is: the stranger's right to privacy. If I come home from a long day of pouring bananas into barrels, lock the door, relax on the sofa, and a random man passes by the door, tries to open it, and shouts at me that not letting them inside is an assault, that would be absolutely bonkers – bananas, even. Everyone else in the world besides the random man would uniformly recognize that this is nonsense.

But some people don't see a stranger's personal social media account astheir personal social media account. They see a personal social media accountthe way one would think of a public utility or a popular store. If they are blocked, they picture a store with a discriminatory sign saying “No [You or Your People] Allowed” in the window.Only, it's not. A personal social media account is not owned by the public, but even if it were, almost nobody is blocked for discriminatory reasons. Not having access to someone else's life is not an assault, nor is it discrimination. It's simply the right to privacy, something we all have. Someone else does not have the right (nor should they have the ability) to cross someone else's clearly-defined boundaries. Pretending that these completely ordinary boundaries are infringing on a non-existent right to bypass someone else's privacy is, I don't know, a little weird.

If someone finds themselves blocked by someone with whom they have never interacted, that might seem strange or suspicious to the blocked, but it is the most normal thing in the world. In specific terms, it might mean that the owner of the account has employed a browser extension that blocks anyone who is following a particular account. If you follow a controversial account, you take your chances. Nobody made you follow that account. Another common reason is employing an extension or website that blocks anyone who clicked “Like” in a particular tweet. For example, if someone tweets something racist, and it has a thousand likes, presumably from racists, and you are one of those thousand racists, that mightbe why you find yourself no longer being able to access the personal social media account of someone who is (hopefully) not racist. In real world, non-digital terms, it only means that you can't open a stranger's front door, and inventing a scenario in your mind in which this is more pointed and discriminatory usually does not gel with reality.

If the person finds themselves without access to the account but does not know why, they might default to some  dramatic explanation, but the truth is, almost everyone who has ever been blocked was blocked for a boring, mundane reason. If you find yourself not able to access a stranger's account, the explanation is almost never interesting enough to complain about it in public.

Even if you believe you have been unfairly blocked or misjudged, I have news for you: someone can be accidentally blocked but nobody can be unfairly blocked, because you don't get to decide the terms in which you can break through a complete stranger's front door. The person insidedoes. It's never unfair, because the terms of fairness are dictated by the person who gets to lock the door. It's not your home, and it's not your social media account. It's not impossible that you are not being let inside because of who you are or some quality about yourself, but assuming the worst and viewing this lack of access through the least charitable lens possible is usually without merit.

For the love of God, please stop viewing everything someone says or does through the least charitable lens. This is how we lost Lindsay Ellis on YouTube and Twitter. The thing that you think is about you is not about you, including this video.

Think of it this way. Being blocked is not something happening to the person being blocked. It's something happening within the account of the person doing the blocking. On facebook, a personal social media account is set up from the beginning with boundaries – who can and cannot access it. On Twitter, a personal social media account is set up the opposite way, in which the default setting is everyone having access, forcing the owner of the account to create boundaries step-by-step over the course of its existence. It's exhausting. Nevertheless, the end result is similar, but only the latter is viewed as an assault.

In short, coming home and locking the door is not de-humanizing to everyone outside the door. Trying to break down the door or telling the person they are not allowed to keep them out isde-humanizing.

Content creators have to employ this more often than other social media users. I'll explain. Actual celebrities, the Chris Evanses of the world, get a lot of, let's say, intense peoplereplying to them all the time, but Avengers don't really use their social media accounts very often and have people to do that for them. They don't need to figuratively lock the door very much, if at all. People who use their personal social media accounts to make simple tweets and posts don't block a great number of people either – but for the opposite reason. Nobody knows who they are. Content creators are in a strange position in which they need to be very onlinebecause it's part of their career, and they get a lot of intense peoplereplying to them because that is, unfortunately, a byproductof their career.

Content creators exist in whatever the opposite of the goldilocks zone is. In this zone, there is this enormous amount of intense people who believe they musthave access to this content creator's account, and the content creator in question will probably end up reading this demand because content creators are not Chris Evans. Curating access to their accounts becomes necessary for their own mental health. Even though this intense person's demand is obviously unreasonable, social media platforms are so massive that this intense person is bound to find some people who agree with them through the sheer number of users alone.

If there is one thing an intense “fan” of a content creator hates, it's discovering that, for whatever reason, they do not have access to that creator's personal social media account, and if there is one thing that an intense fan loves, it's complaining about it as if they have been assaulted, tagging the creator's username so that even if they cannot reach that account anymore, anyone replying will “accidentally” alert that account to their now public displeasure. The block was private, the content creator almost certainly did not reference it in public – and it is only nowpublic because of the intense fan – not anyone else. Nobody was injured, and it was not done in public, but the blocked person is now claiming public injury. If the intense fan is particularly displeased, they will create a sock puppet account to evade the block and complain more directly. Imagine getting a restraining order in the mail and then deciding that it's perfectly acceptable to covertly violate it – because how daresomeone ask you to leave them alone. “This is their faultfor drawing personal boundaries!”

I have anecdotally noticed this a bit more among younger people who were socialized with this now ubiquitous technology, but this anecdotal experience has about as much weight as a non-scientific poll. It's probably everywhere and common among everyone, in varying degrees. As an experiment, I am going to turn off the comments on this video by default. It's something I have only done a few times before within over 450 episodes of Renegade Cut. If people complain about this lack of access to a complete stranger, they will prove themselves fascinating examples of this very behavior. The other reason I'm turning the comments off is because I cannot stomach yet another person sarcastically saying “Oh boo-hoo, I have real problems, you don't!” every time I have the audacity to show vulnerability in public. You don't know anything about my life just because you have seen some tweets.

So, why am I even talking about this? Who cares? Well, here's the twist. This video isn't really about blocking. Because, yes, who cares? It's about what I said in the beginning: feeling de-humanized due to a lack of privacy. Not respecting the simple boundaries and right to privacy of an individual feels de-humanizing. Assuming the worst of someone because you can't access their social media account for completely mundane reasons is really entitled, and that entitlement to a stranger's life in also de-humanizing because the implication is that this stranger has no agency in who can and cannot be part of their life. That's really ****ed up, sorry. This is only one example.

I'm finding social media in general to be a de-humanizing experience. I wish I could operate my career without it, but these spider-webs have been spun to connect with various platforms to the point that it becomes mandatory to have these connected accounts if one hopes to have a career on just one– in my case, YouTube. I'm no longer 100 percent sure I want to do this indefinitely, and I'll make some decisions about my online presence in the new year. For now, Happy Thanksgiving, and stay tuned for a more normal video in a week or two.