[MagicWishMonkey]

> Immerse yourself in news of Russian plots to counterfeit presidential children’s laptops, viruses spawned in Wuhan market stalls, vast secret legions of domestic terrorists flashing one another the OK sign in shadowy parking lots behind Bass Pro Shops experiencing “temporary” inflation, and patriotic tech conglomerates purging the commons of untruths.

Pretty standard alt-right nutjob. Substack is swarming with them.

[mistermann]

There is no "was totally real" in there.

That people so often stretch the truth in these matters (while complaining about people who are clearly writing provocatively, and thus have no shortage of genuine weak points) is interesting.

[sellyme]

Here's the quote with a tiny bit more context:

> Go read more bullshit. Immerse yourself in news of Russian plots [...]

Seems pretty clear-cut to me. The original comment did muddy the waters a bit by taking the inverse of that statement, but the author isn't being ambiguous on their beliefs in that regard.

[mistermann]

> Here's the quote with a tiny bit more context:

How about a lot more context:

> One option, more popular each day, is to retreat to the anti-bullshit universe of alternative media sources. These are the podcasts, videos, Twitter threads, newsletters, and Facebook pages that regularly vanish from circulation for violating “community standards” and other ineffable codes of conduct, oft-times after failing “fact-checks” by the friendly people at Good Thoughtkeeping. Some of these rebel outfits are engrossing, some dull and churchy, many quite bizarre, and some, despite small staffs and tiny budgets, remarkably good and getting better. Some are Substack pages owned by writers who severed ties with established publications, drawing charges of being Russian agents, crypto-anarchists, or free-speech “absolutists.” I won’t bother to give a list. Readers who hunt and choose among such sources have their own lists, which they fiercely curate, loudly pushing their favorites on the world while accusing those they disagree with of being “controlled opposition” and running cons. It resembles the old punk-rock scene, but after it was discovered, not early on. Some of the upstart outlets earn serious money, garnering higher ratings and more page-views than the regime-approved brands Apple features on the News screen of my iPhone. (A screen I’ve disabled and don’t miss.) This wilderness of “contrarianism” – a designation easily earned these days; you merely have to mention Orwell or reside in Florida -- requires a measure of vigilance and effort from those who seek the truth there. As opposed to those who go there to relax, because they prefer alt-bullshit to mainstream bullshit. They can just kick their shoes off and wade in.

Does your mind detect any ~disrespect for alt-bullshit in here? For example, what meaning do you think is intended by "They can just kick their shoes off and wade in"?

> Seems pretty clear-cut to me.

That's the thing though: things are not always as they seem (I assume you've seen magic shows & optical illusions, or read to some degree on neuroscience, the numerous forms of psychological bias, etc)?

> The original comment did muddy the waters a bit by taking the inverse of that statement, but the author isn't being ambiguous on their beliefs in that regard.

Here are you referring to shared reality, or your/the author's/my individual highly customized model of reality? It's an important distinction, but one that is rarely made.

[unbroken]

You think there are "vast secret legions of domestic terrorists flashing one another the OK sign in shadowy parking lots behind Bass Pro Shops experiencing “temporary” inflation"?

> alt-right Yeah. I think the woke are done. No one actually likes or agrees with them, it's all just preference falsification.

[sellyme]

I don't think anyone is under the delusion that domestic terrorists in the US are being secretive any more. That ship somewhat sails after an attempted insurrection.

[Chris2048]

domestic terrorists, attempting insurrection, without a single fatality on the capitol side?

so, where was the violence?

[MagicWishMonkey]

One of the cops died of injuries sustained on site, lets stop pretending this wasn't a violent confrontation. There were plenty of serious injuries.

Does this look like a peaceful protest, to you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=XajBh9oTdqI&feat...

[Chris2048]

let's not move the goalposts, we aren't arguing whether this was a "peaceful protest", we are arguing whether it was an insurrection aka a violent attempted takeover. If all it takes to overthrow the capital is the same level of violence as a civil riot, I'd say there's something wrong.

> One of the cops died of injuries sustained on site

No sources for this, so I'll assume you're referring to Officer Brian D. Sicknick. So, this might not be true: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-c...

There's a section on this in Wikipedia too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Sicknick#Subseq...

> On April 19, 2021, the office of the chief medical examiner of the District of Columbia, Francisco J. Diaz, reported that the manner of death was natural and the cause of death was "acute brainstem and cerebellar infarcts due to acute basilar artery thrombosis" (two strokes at the base of the brain stem caused by an artery clot).

[ryandrake]

> If all it takes to overthrow the capital is the same level of violence as a civil riot, I'd say there's something wrong.

You are trying to use body count to measure the seriousness of an attempt to take over the government? It’s starting to look like the Taliban took over Kabul with less violence than what happened in the US Capitol.

[MagicWishMonkey]

Linking to Greenwald really isn't helping your case...