What's Happening? It? (TRIGGERS UPON TRIGGERS)

[Project Willow]

The problem with code, symbols, and euphemisms is that they are easily denied by guilty parties . . . and they are easily mistaken by over-eager investigators.

Agree. "It" happens when there are also victims and witnesses coming forward together with tangible evidence.

[guruilla]

I agree with this assessment. Pizzagate makes a good story, and at first blush the evidence looks quite incriminating. But the lack of context means that it could all be harmless: a bunch of people with a really sick sense of humor and/or strange taste in art, but nothing more than that. Or it could be a major pedophilia ring protected by the powerful in Washington. Really hard to say.

What exactly could be harmless here?

A bunch of people (including high-power-players connected to presidential candidate) pretending to be child rapists & murders and making jokes about it ~ is that what's harmless?

Or is it a 4chan-based "psyop" to fabricate evidence and spread it across the Net and fool sincere researchers & investigators into chasing after chimera and phantoms rather than uncovering actual crimes? Is that the thing that's harmless here?

IF the countless tweets, emails, photos, videos clips, music videos, poster art, innuendos, and all the rest are accurate, then something horrendous is occurring at Comet Pizza. That is surely beyond all reasonable doubt by now.

Admittedly, that's a big if, since most of us here are doing all our research by clicking a mouse and it's easy to get dissociated and sucked into any fantasy narratives that may be being created, via fabricated clues, to lure us into. I'm trusting there are enough sincere researchers, at 4chan, here, and on the Net in general, that one of them would have found a fake clue by now and cried rat. So far, no one has (in my hearing range). Barring that, I haven't heard a single reasonable argument for saying that this could all be "harmless," besides the old mantra of "not enough evidence" or "too circumstantial, it wouldn't hold up in court" (Levenda's magick trick for turning a search for the truth into another "witch hunt ~ arguments I'm sick & tired of, frankly).

Then there's "arguments" like this:

I haven't seen any of those but I will say that a) if I had a kill room, I wouldn't joke about it on Instagram, and b) I and my friends have called many a basement a kill room. My partner is involved in real estate and just called a basement which contained an inexplicable pit a "kill room."

Well now, if I were a child-murdering psychopath, I would probably kill myself in a day. So apparently I'm not such a great judge when it comes to guessing how child-murdering psychopaths behave. I can't speak for Luther, but I am guessing he would agree, which means he is projecting his own psychology into the mind of alleged child-murderers, and then extrapolating from that what he thinks they'd do or not do if they were him. This makes these sorts of arguments 100% worthless. Yet I hear them all the time. Funny that.

It also transposes these alleged perpetrators to Luther's world, a world in which (I presume), you know, raping and murdering children is kind of frowned on as behavior. As opposed to a social set in which everyone is doing it because it is the done thing; so yeah, in that world, it's something to joke about, hang art on your wall about, send risky-edgy tweets to your buddies about, and so on. Best of all because, Hell, who would do that if they were really involved in that sort of stuff?! Right?

Riiigght.

[slomo]

I agree with this assessment. Pizzagate makes a good story, and at first blush the evidence looks quite incriminating. But the lack of context means that it could all be harmless: a bunch of people with a really sick sense of humor and/or strange taste in art, but nothing more than that. Or it could be a major pedophilia ring protected by the powerful in Washington. Really hard to say.

What exactly could be harmless here?

A bunch of people (including high-power-players connected to presidential candidate) pretending to be child rapists & murders and making jokes about it ~ is that what's harmless?

Or is it a 4chan-based "psyop" to fabricate evidence and spread it across the Net and fool sincere researchers & investigators into chasing after chimera and phantoms rather than uncovering actual crimes? Is that the thing that's harmless here?

IF the countless tweets, emails, photos, videos clips, music videos, poster art, innuendos, and all the rest are accurate, then something horrendous is occurring at Comet Pizza. That is surely beyond all reasonable doubt by now.

Admittedly, that's a big if, since most of us here are doing all our research by clicking a mouse and it's easy to get dissociated and sucked into any fantasy narratives that may be being created, via fabricated clues, to lure us into. I'm trusting there are enough sincere researchers, at 4chan, here, and on the Net in general, that one of them would have found a fake clue by now and cried rat. So far, no one has (in my hearing range). Barring that, I haven't heard a single reasonable argument for saying that this could all be "harmless," besides the old mantra of "not enough evidence" or "too circumstantial, it wouldn't hold up in court" (Levenda's magick trick for turning a search for the truth into another "witch hunt ~ arguments I'm sick & tired of, frankly).

Then there's "arguments" like this:

I haven't seen any of those but I will say that a) if I had a kill room, I wouldn't joke about it on Instagram, and b) I and my friends have called many a basement a kill room. My partner is involved in real estate and just called a basement which contained an inexplicable pit a "kill room."

Well now, if I were a child-murdering psychopath, I would probably kill myself in a day. So apparently I'm not such a great judge when it comes to guessing how child-murdering psychopaths behave. I can't speak for Luther, but I am guessing he would agree, which means he is projecting his own psychology into the mind of alleged child-murderers, and then extrapolating from that what he thinks they'd do or not do if they were him. This makes these sorts of arguments 100% worthless. Yet I hear them all the time. Funny that.

It also transposes these alleged perpetrators to Luther's world, a world in which (I presume), you know, raping and murdering children is kind of frowned on as behavior. As opposed to a social set in which everyone is doing it because it is the done thing; so yeah, in that world, it's something to joke about, hang art on your wall about, send risky-edgy tweets to your buddies about, and so on. Best of all because, Hell, who would do that if they were really involved in that sort of stuff?! Right?

Riiigght.

I think we need to be careful not to get sucked into our own negative fantasies. I'm not saying that's what this necessarily is, I'm just saying care is needed because we don't have the full context. I'm as horrified as you, but I want to be careful the horror is really warranted in reality.

I think one really fruitful way in is the question I asked after the material you quoted:

My one question: why is restaurant owner and arts patron James Alefantis ("J'aime les enfants") the 49th most powerful person in DC?

Doesn't it seem strange that someone so young, and so seemingly inconsequential, is considered among DC powerbrokers? How did that come about?

[identity]

^
guru, really, is assaulting our senses with that kind of porn necessary?

[Novem5er]

I almost don't know how to comment on this whole topic. Maybe that's part of why Fourthbase is wondering why the board is all over it.

I think we all agree that "it" IS a problem out there. Some people here have some very terrible things that they've personally gone through, and I would say 90% of the time that justice is not served. I'm almost humbled at the enormity of how terrible this topic is for victims.

At the same time as it is terrifying and horrible, I also feel that accusations of pedo has become sort of a new witch hunt. Every generation seems to have some target group that one side slanders and labels the other side with. It was the slander of Communism for a long time, and then it was homosexuality. Now it seems like the pedo thing is taking that same cultural/political slander to an extreme level. Most of us here would say that even being a Communist or a homosexual is perfectly fine.

NOBODY accepts pedophilia as normal or okay. It's the ultimate slander. People can be accused of theft, adultery, and even murder, and it slides off them without hardly a comment. But pedophilia? There's nothing worse. It's the nuclear bomb of character assassination.

But it's also so REAL that it can't be ignored. It must be investigated. It must be stopped. The guilty must be brought to justice. Yet, as Project Willow commented above, that is hard to do even with witnesses and tangible evidence.

Maybe that's why I'm hesitant to point a finger with this pizzagate thing. There are real monsters out there, and I'm just hesitant to waste that truth and dilute it by slinging it around.

[Burnt Hill]

"My one question: why is restaurant owner and arts patron James Alefantis ("J'aime les enfants") the 49th most powerful person in DC?"

I like your angle here, but my first guess is - for GQ to sell more magazines to its targeted audience?

[Burnt Hill]

But it's also so REAL that it can't be ignored. It must be investigated. It must be stopped. The guilty must be brought to justice. Yet, as Project Willow commented above, that is hard to do even with witnesses and tangible evidence.

It is impossible to do without victims and witnesses.

[slomo]

"My one question: why is restaurant owner and arts patron James Alefantis ("J'aime les enfants") the 49th most powerful person in DC?"

I like your angle here, but my first guess is - for GQ to sell more magazines to its targeted audience?

Fair enough, he seems easy on the eyes.

[Novem5er]

But it's also so REAL that it can't be ignored. It must be investigated. It must be stopped. The guilty must be brought to justice. Yet, as Project Willow commented above, that is hard to do even with witnesses and tangible evidence.

It is impossible to do without victims and witnesses.

I agree. Even when there victims and witnesses, prosecution is often not successful (or even attempted), and without victims or witnesses it is impossible. I think I was making this case in the CERN thread months ago (remember that?). Without a victim of sacrifice, the Swiss police wouldn't have much to base an investigation on. They could view the tape, then go on-site to look for physical evidence and make interviews, but if nothing leads to an actual victim (i.e. blood traces, missing persons, witness testimony, etc), then the case gets dropped.

Of course, we are talking about legal procedure, now, and as Guruilla (on edit) said above, that can lead to a defeatist attitude for internet researchers because it is unlikely that we will ever have access to physical evidence. So do we abandon the chase?

No, I don't think we abandon the chase. I'm just a cautious person and I'm hesitant to add fake fuel to a very real fire. It's almost a reverse Sandy Hook, where the lives of real victims were diminished by people claiming they never existed. If we create victims that never really existed, I feel it diminishes the victims that are real. If we create false criminals, then it also creates false victims.

RE: the Cosmic Ping Pong itself... I've viewed the images and comments and tweets several times, and while it's not my kind of humor or culture, I don't find it unusual. Maybe this culture of creepiness has gone too far . . . has gone mainstream. . . but I know too many people that are comfortable with black humor, even involving children. It's immature and it's hurtful to others, but it's not an automatic sign of great evil. I've worked with a lot of teenagers, and it's the kind of humor that they pass around on Facebook or in class. They portray a casualness with the shocking; and I think it's that juxtaposition that is the root of the "joke".

[Burnt Hill]

A reverse Sandy Hook...
That's interesting.
Also a kind of warning for "internet researchers" on this case.
It almost qualifies as an oxymoron.
And a reminder of the fine work they did after the Boston Marathon bombing too.

[FourthBase]

A reverse Sandy Hook...
That's interesting.
Also a kind of warning for "internet researchers" on this case.
It almost qualifies as an oxymoron.
And a reminder of the fine work they did after the Boston Marathon bombing too.

Actually, in the last week, the Bayesian score I give for Plausibility re: the most outlandish Sandy Hook and Marathon theories has gone from 0.01% to something like a full 1%, and you all know how I have felt about hoaxers. This network of Pizzagate ghouls extends far beyond just DC. Literally almost anything is worth re-thinking, to me.

[Burnt Hill]

A reverse Sandy Hook...
That's interesting.
Also a kind of warning for "internet researchers" on this case.
It almost qualifies as an oxymoron.
And a reminder of the fine work they did after the Boston Marathon bombing too.

Actually, in the last week, the Bayesian score I give for Plausibility re: the most outlandish Sandy Hook and Marathon theories has gone from 0.01% to something like a full 1%, and you all know how I have felt about hoaxers. This network of Pizzagate ghouls extends far beyond just DC. Literally almost anything is worth re-thinking, to me.

Lower percentages, but - - I can get on with that.

[tapitsbo]

I almost don't know how to comment on this whole topic. Maybe that's part of why Fourthbase is wondering why the board is all over it.

I think we all agree that "it" IS a problem out there. Some people here have some very terrible things that they've personally gone through, and I would say 90% of the time that justice is not served. I'm almost humbled at the enormity of how terrible this topic is for victims.

At the same time as it is terrifying and horrible, I also feel that accusations of pedo has become sort of a new witch hunt. Every generation seems to have some target group that one side slanders and labels the other side with. It was the slander of Communism for a long time, and then it was homosexuality. Now it seems like the pedo thing is taking that same cultural/political slander to an extreme level. Most of us here would say that even being a Communist or a homosexual is perfectly fine.

NOBODY accepts pedophilia as normal or okay. It's the ultimate slander. People can be accused of theft, adultery, and even murder, and it slides off them without hardly a comment. But pedophilia? There's nothing worse. It's the nuclear bomb of character assassination.

But it's also so REAL that it can't be ignored. It must be investigated. It must be stopped. The guilty must be brought to justice. Yet, as Project Willow commented above, that is hard to do even with witnesses and tangible evidence.

Maybe that's why I'm hesitant to point a finger with this pizzagate thing. There are real monsters out there, and I'm just hesitant to waste that truth and dilute it by slinging it around.

"Witch hunt" would be more accurate if we were at the stage where people, perhaps innocent people, were getting in trouble like the witches of yore are said to have

there is no hype or investigation about this... just some marginal rumblings on the net which have led to posts and evidence being taken down and gaslighting/threats by "Washington City Paper" as you would expect. The witch hunt is against the people investigating! Investigating this is being tagged as an "alt-right" activity although that is totally irrelevant to the case... a harbinger of future cover-ups once any positions that meaningfully distinguished the controlled opposition"alt-right" from the newly openly authoritarian, oligarch-controlled mainstream have been criminalized

guruilla's post isn't porn or negative fantasy to my eyes - he's simply summing up the different the different reactions and how they appear on the surface!

Interesting how you think there's something to this MayDay - one poster here even suggested the controversy is simply a knee-jerk reaction by pervy proles who don't Get Art

My interest personally in this is not so much in the perps - I do understand it's totally unsafe for me to keep pursuing that, whoever they are exactly. Now I'm just fascinated by the reactions and cultural context! Many seem to see this disgusting episode as a cute joke because of the "hipster" vibe and links to the "good guys" who lost the election

No matter how much you hate Trump fans or whoever you see as being somehow relevant here I hope you can also see that the pizzagate people are extremely creepy and not your friends even if there are pro-Trump people pointing to them

[Jerky]

After having waded through this pizzagate swamp, back and forth, up and down (and goddamn is there a lot of shit to siphon through), I think that I have come to the same conclusion that any sober, uninvested, reasonably intelligent and historically aware individual would have to come to: that there is nothing to it. Literally nothing, beyond sinister innuendo, insane circular logic, vague accusations based on not-so-remarkable coincidences, absolutely hysterical context-shattering ("OMG it's a CHANGELING!!!") and not a little good old classic homophobia and anti-semitism.

But please, by all means, keep stroking your conspira-boner. It's all meaningless anyway, right? I mean, just because a clown fascist just became the beneficiary of a rigged, stolen election, AGAIN. It's not like there are bigger things to worry about, like whether pizza means pedophilia. And who better to pull these secret codes out of thin air than the alt.right - the movement of “kek”, Harambe, “Pepe”, “Remove Kebab” and countless other examples of meme warfare mostly involving the willfully opaque re-purposing of pre-existing media into semi-coherent non sequiturs, weaponized hate that skitters around the edges of plausible deniability, which gets vectored into an unsuspecting culture by a self-declared “woke”, “red-pilled” atavistic vanguard, many of whom often aren’t even fully in on the joke, despite having willingly allowed themselves to be reprogrammed via a dictionary’s worth of hyper-obscure jargon with a signal-to-noise ratio approaching1:1?

The idea of these “people” reading the emails involved in this kerfuffle and thinking to themselves “By God, I’ve stumbled across some kind of CODE!” might just be the most perfect example of psychological projection that I've ever come across in nearly 2 decades of observing this crap.

Jerky

[tapitsbo]

The idea of the emails being code is perhaps chaff and irrelevant to the very distinct and much more incriminating evidence from other sources. At this point this is starting to seem like a uniquely resonant litmus test