Substack's Pseudointellectual Problem

As I sit on my sofa in my boxers, pontificating over why the great citizens of this wonderful country of the universe we call Earth use such pompous and overly complicated language to describe even the most simple of things, I wonder where it all went so wrong.

Heavenly dearest love of mine, twither whom I am the most devout that hath ever cast breaths of both oxygen and carbon dioxide betwixt my privileged cake hole botox-filled flotation devices, would you be so kind as my most loyal devotee in both life and posthumously after my most noble demise, most graciously engage Newton's third law of motion to position the delicate china sodium chloride containment cylinder from over yonder to most nearest my flesh-covered metatarsal laden phalanges, so that I can add to what is most assuredly a meal that is perfection incarnate, seared and assembled ever-so generously by mine truly?

...

For fucks sake, Jimbo, just say 'pass the salt,’ you bloody bellend.

A conversation between ‘Jimbo’ and his partner with infinite patience.

There is, I believe, a method to this madness, this type of confusing mess of gobbledygook. Her name is manipulation, and she goes by the name-wait, damn it, writing that kooky nonsense before temporarily cooked my brain circuitry. Well, it's partly manipulation and part—a wealth of other psychological reasons. I've covered this type of thing in another post (remind me to transcribe it to text, would ya? Thanks a bunch!), so I won't go into it all over again here. Let's keep the focus on the grifters, the charlatans, the hoodwankers, the sovereign state of silly sausages—okay, you get the idea. The people who immorally profit off the weaknesses of others. I am not saying the victims of this charlatry are weak, far from it. The morally bankrupt bobble heads who commit this utter garbage to text know what they're doing, and they will protect this psychological bubble with steadfast abandon—steadfast abandon? Still clearing out those kooky cobwebs. Gay abandon—much better.

Substack is what some may call a melting pot of immoral and conniving grifters. Most people are fantastic, I'm trying to make a point, gimme a break. The worst part? They're not even funny. If you're going to grift off the most inane content imaginable, the least you could do is throw people like me a bone—us poor suckers who are involuntarily subjected to your text-coated dribble. My eyes are textually assaulted on a daily basis—you owe me riled support for the next 18 years. Don't worry, it doesn't actually get me riled up, but it's the only way the joke would work—I'm sure you understand. Even more worst than the worst part is the complete and utter lack of debate, comradery. Seemingly any engagement on my part is met with disdain, hostility, projection, deflection—you know, all those common tactics used by manipulative geezers and ganders.

I received my very first block the other day, at least I think it was my first.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you why “MAGAtards” is a polarising sentiment. It's funny how delusional some people have become. I will analyse this later in the article. Was it always this bad? I have never understood how some people seemingly have the mental “fortitude” to not only convince themselves of such illogical things, but to also have the persistence to go on to spread this crap on to others.

These absolute retards.

These pseudointellectuals.

And they most certainly are pseudointellectuals, of the highest order.

And cowards.

If you're unable to confront an idea on its face, without engaging in manipulative and deceptive tactics. Intellectually, you're a coward. I'm sure this cowardice translates to many other aspects of their life.

It's weird to think about, but this is how my brain works, so hear me out. These types of people, the ones who “made it,” the ones who beat out all the other sperm in the race for sentience—these who were the crème de la crème, the cream of the crop. The fastest, the most determined, the most willing to succeed, grew up to be nothing more than manipulative little arseholes. It's a little bit pathetic and you would almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

It's a fantastic argument for nature versus nurture, though I'll freely admit to not knowing enough on the topic to speak with any authority. At the same time we should realise that when you're in the ballsack of life, it's all relative. So our little friend here and people like him may have gene expressions that translate to manipulative tendencies and maybe it wouldn't have made a vas deferens which one managed to make their way through their mother's fallopian subway.

I just wish they could actually debate. It becomes tiresome and boring dealing with them. It's almost as if the moment this little turd of a sperm managed to stumble all the way from his mother's esophagus down to her ovaries and push past all the women and children sperm, falling inside an egg—he was immediately bestowed with, “The Grown Human's Guide to Manipulation: Throat Pathways Edition.”

So this grift then, what's it all about?

I have become a lot more cognisant of manipulation in the last couple of years. With this I have been noticing a lot more the ever-increasing number of people who actively avoid any real form of debate. Not even anything approaching reasonable discussion. Instead choosing to travel down the well-beaten path of “gotcha,” having the last word and, as mentioned, manipulating conversations so they appear to be right.

This is the central theme of this article.

Akshually, History

A debate is basically an argument with rules. You pit two people against each other—a topic is chosen and one person is for and the other is against the issue in question. Debates date back to before Socrates was doing Plato's dishes to help pay for rap battle lessons in the Parthenon. In those days you didn't spit sick bars, you had to strigil your way through straight columns. Back then you couldn't manipulate your way through debates for wigs nor honey. There was integrity, honour. I'm sure there were some measly bastards—though I'm sure the structure of monetary incentive via crowdfunding was a far cry from what it is today.

Social Media Be Damned

Technological advancements are great. They allow us to do things that people from the distant past couldn't comprehend. Innovation can lead to many broken eggs along the way as well as breaking eggs we don't even know exist yet. Along with this process it becomes necessary for people to innovate themselves in order to not be left behind. As the Internet has advanced, "matured", become more popular and has had people growing up knowing nothing of a world without it, it's clear to me that it sucks overall worse than most any other time. Yes, it's faster and more stable—woopdeedoo, those improvements were inevitable. Basic quality of life updates, improving the infrastructure, blah blah. What about the net negatives that have come out of it? Things that a few people foretold and are still talking about. The thinkers, the people who care about the human race and where we're heading deep into the future.

People like Neil Postman.

Neil’s argument was that television turned public discourse and more serious topics into entertainment. Although his focus was on television, the same principles can be applied to the Internet. Sensationalism and entertainment are taking precedence over debates and discussion with any substance, thoughtfulness is going out the window. Complex ideas are continuously being distilled into such simple, fractured musings they are losing all that made them what they were, they’re losing all the essence of what their creators intended.

We humans are easily influenced at times and can be very susceptible to suggestion and psychological manipulation. The rate of change that followed the Internet's meteoric rise in popularity also gave rise to the massive acceleration of, as well as the distance of information transfer. I remember having pen pals growing up. When I was in primary school (elementary) we would be given, or we chose pen pals with whom we would correspond for what seemed like a short while, from memory. These letters that we would send took so long to get to where they were going. I think our town had a "sister city" in Japan. We would have to then wait for them to write theirs and send it. The whole process took forever. Once people started using email, these types of correspondence, that previously took days or weeks now took a fraction of a second.

It doesn't take us humans long to get used to things, we get comfortable real quick. Imagine if tomorrow there was some catastrophic event that instantly wiped out the Internet, globally. The world would devolve into chaos. Though realistically I think this would last for a lot shorter time than some doomsday people would likely try and convince you. Our attention spans would drastically increase, perhaps settling at more “normal” levels and I think infighting and overall small-scale conflicts would subside. People would be free from the constant barrage of international problems and could focus more on what's going on in their own backyard. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your stance), we live in this reality where the Internet exists in its current form. Byproducts of this internet-enabled reality include, but are not limited to: short attention spans, increased baseless anger and vitriol, reduced social skills, increased levels of narcissism as well as, “I'm right and you're wrong and I'm going to make sure I serve to you a completely out-of-context 'gotcha' or ‘zinger' that appears witty to my bubbled audience in order to try and shame you into being quiet instead of engaging you in a reasonable debate”....syndrome. Try saying that five times fast.

Undatable Undebateables in the Wild

When you first come across one of these undebateables in the wild, it can be confronting. You are essentially being gaslit in near-real-time, depending on how long they take to respond. This can be pretty damn quick, especially if they think there's even a small chance you'll expose them. In particular this rule of thumb applies to smaller accounts. Smaller accounts are much more exposed than much larger accounts. Larger accounts have a well-established and bubbled audience so one comment on their post or thread will be drowned out with relative ease. Smaller accounts on the other hand have to be much more diligent with block and mute functions. This is used to preserve their narrative in the beginning and solidify their echo-bubble in order to grow their following.

Being gaslit over a medium such as text is generally always preferable. With text there's a trail, there's evidence, there is least some semblance of non-repudiation. Though depending on the layout and setup of the platform in question there may be some limitations for which transparency may suffer.

Our Grifter of the Evening

Let me introduce a lovely fellow by ­the name of Sotiris Rex. He’s what I would call a grifter. A professional (?) gaslighter. Maybe professional isn't entirely accurate because he’s certainly not very good at it. Later on we'll meet Substack's gaslighting boss. Maybe in another article. For now we have to fight our way through the low level “employees,” just like any good side-scrolling beat-'em-up. I'm not implying there's any connection between these two people—I don't care if there is or not. All I care about is calling out two bullshit artists of the highest order.

Before we dive into that I want to reiterate how little people are willing to debate or even discuss anything online. It's as though almost everyone online has caught some narcissism bug and they all have a bad case of main character syndrome. They're all running around screaming about this or that with the main purpose of having the biggest spotlight cast upon them. Apparently being polarising any way you can—whether through lying or manipulation is some shortcut to this “success.”

Personal Attacks and Manipulative Tactics Are Their Bread and Butter

One manipulation tactic that seems to be making the rounds is what I like to call the false Ad Hominem. What we should all realise is that not every “personal attack” (which is very subjective to begin with) is an Ad Hominem attack. I can insult you while I pick apart, or deconstruct your argument. They are not mutually exclusive.

Check out the following infographic for a clearer understanding:

A diagram explaining the difference between Ad Hominem and non-Ad Hominem arguments. The first statement shows a non-Ad Hominem argument by presenting evidence for why an argument is weak. The second statement exemplifies an Ad Hominem argument by attacking the person's character as the reason for the argument's weakness.

Another sneaky tactic I've seen used is what I like to call, “Reverse Ad Hominem.” This involves a mixture of Strawman Fallacy and traditional Ad Hominem. Below is an example situation of it being used in practice. Say we have two people having a 'discussion', Person and Reverse Ad Hominem Practitioner, RAHP for short. The conversation might go a little something like this:

Person:

I don't think your approach to solving this problem is effective because there isn't sufficient data to support it.

RAHP:

Oh, so you're calling me an idiot now because I don't have data?

In this scenario, Person did not call RAHP an idiot, and it would be a stretch of the imagination to even imply this meaning. If you're engaged with someone who uses tactics such as these, you may understand how fruitless it can be.

Defense!

If you come across people like this online or in the real world, know you are on shaky ground to begin with. Though there are some things you can try. First and foremost, don't panic. Remain calm and composed. As much as you can muster, given the circumstances, try and keep an open mind and remain receptive. This will help keep the conversation constructive and on point.

Be willing to let go of the conversation!

­Don’t get so invested in the conversation and being “right” that you lose track of the bigger picture.

Become one with a laser, or something. Stay focused on the topic at hand—remember, the whole point of these types of tactics is to throw you off guard, shift the topic to something else, or the blame to you. Simply reiterate your original point, focusing on the substance, the meat (this is vegetarian agnostic).

Be as clear as possible with your language. For example, you might reply to our earlier conversation with,

My comment is on the data, not a reflection on your abilities.

Misunderstandings do actually happen! Going back to our earlier point about keeping an open mind. There are times when people have a lapse in judgement or their mind is elsewhere. In these cases it can be good to give a bit of leeway. If you believe it truly was a misunderstanding, you can reply like this,

I'm sorry if it came across that way-my intention was to highlight the importance of data, not to insult you.

However, if you know this person well enough and this has happened multiple times and you're beginning to see a pattern, skip this and follow the other advice.

Onto our first hero of the story. Mr. Rex. Take a quick gander at the following delightful exchange. Let's break it down into itty bitty pieces.

Substack post by Sotiris Rex stating, "We need more Assanges, fewer MAGAtards," highlighting the divisive nature of the language used in the post.

A diagram illustrating a vertical pole, described as representing both a literal and figurative central point between two opposing attributes.

Now you'll notice that I've highlighted “Assanges” in green and “MAGAtards” in red. When we read the sentence as a whole, we're able to get a sense of which “attribute”, (ie. people-butes) is positive and which is negative. We can think of “MAGAtards” as the defining attribute, because without it the sentence would be more closely aligned with a neutral sentiment on the face of it. "Assanges", or Assange by itself is not a polarising or inflammatory statement or remark. It's a person's name. A relatively famous person—but assigning a positive sentiment to the name Assange alone would require you to dig out your own feelings, opinions and biases regarding the whole situation. On the face of it, isolating "Assanges" does not influence the polarity of the rest of the sentence at-large. It's only when the polarising agent is introduced whereby the motives of our unstrung hero begin to emerge. “MAGAtards”. The combination of the Donald Trump Republican acronym, which stands for, “Make America Great Again”, and “tards”, a shorthand way of writing “retards”, a derogatory term for people with intellectual disabilities, such as Down's syndrome. The humorous nature of this word is hotly debated, though I find it can be amusing in select circumstances, that's not what we're here to discuss. If we were to break down “MAGAtards” to its core constituents, we get “MAGA” and “tards.” Much like with “Assanges,” “MAGA” could be considered neutral as we would not know, objectively speaking, if it were being used positively, or in a derogatory sense. On the other hand, “tards” is a derogatory term, regardless. This shortened version can't easily be confused with or connected to the older usage of the word, “retard,” as is imaged as an example below.

A diagram explaining how to adjust ignition timing in a car. Turning the gauge counterclockwise retards the timing, while turning it clockwise advances the timing.

After breaking the key attributes of the sentence to their most basic elements, we discover that it is in fact “tards,” in combination with “MAGA” guiding the overall bias of the whole sentence.

These terms not only guide the overall bias, it actually changes how we perceive, “Assange.” It goes from an objectively neutral term / name, to positive, according to our unstrung hero's intent.

Hence, it is a polarising statement.

Enter more context:

Substack exchange where Sotiris Rex posts, "We need more Assanges, fewer MAGAtards," prompting Braeden to question the use of polarizing rhetoric. Sotiris Rex responds defensively, claiming to be non-polarising and includes an image depicting extreme political stances.

I’m anything but polarizing, unlike you.

Anything but polarising.

A tea kettle?

Banana?

Turd?

It’s a nice deflection to be sure. It’s a nice attempt at a deflection. It was too obvious, next time try and include a little more subtlety.

Redirecting the focus to me as being the actual polarising person—absolute genius.

Unfortunately Mr. Rex’s dissertation into my polarisation falls flat for a number of reasons.

Firstly, his response was so defensive, when I read it I almost felt like I was having a text exchange with a child. “Unlike you,” the Ad Hominem anthem for a generation. Beautiful. Lest we not forget, there was no evidence. He slips through my ‘jab’ like a professional boxer—completely dismissing any criticism, like water off a duck’s back. Do ducks have a backbone?

A meme depicting extreme political reactions. One character calmly states "TRUMP IS NOT YOUR SAVIOR" and "TRUMP IS NOT LITERALLY HITLER," while other characters respond with "COMMIE!" and "FASCIST!" respectively, highlighting polarized and reactionary discourse.

Sending this image was the coup de grâce, this one absolutely obliterated me.

A Substack discussion where Sotiris Rex claims not to be polarising and shares a meme contrasting calm statements about Trump with extreme reactions. Braeden asks for clarification on what was polarizing about their question, to which Sotiris Rex responds by questioning if Braeden explained how the original post was polarising.

After asking for clarification on his stance, I was met with yet another world class deflection. It’s understandable when you’re trying to grift off of polarisation, it’s difficult to find the time to do much other than deflect. A circular argument was initiated at this point.

I responded to his last message with a humorous lyrical adaptation of, “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” at which point I realised I was blocked.

Mr. Rex, if you can send me those lyrics I’d be eternally grateful as I can’t remember the last part and I didn’t write it down anywhere else.

Song Lyrics

Come with me

Let's grift

Let's grift the night away

Manipulate is how I sway

About their feelings

I am grey

Earning money

Is how I pay

Karma's past due

Here it comes

Let's go this way

Far far away

My morals fly

Retard's my word

Too dumb to ask why

I think strawman

Ad Hominem

Are brands of white on rye

Riding the wave

Of grief and guilt

Sure feeling high

Hope my stilts

Don't tilt or wilt

Especially stomping through

Metaphorically soupy stew

Of blood

That I've spilt

No use crying

Nevermind

That's for milk

I'm not the kind

Or ilk

To cry over such bilk

It sure is

Funny

How I'm able

To hold

So much

Contradictory

My mind

Doesn't fold

Socrates

Ain't got a damn thing on me

That's how I feel about me

Me, me, me

That's the movie reel

Playing all up

In my delusional

Mind

I don't mind

Of course I don't mind

I'm perfect

Delusionally perfect

Get wrecked haters

Is my affirmation

My morning routine

It has to be

Otherwise

My mind

Breaks

Out of quarantine