An Ounce Of Prevention Is Worth A Pound Of Cure

The Convergence Chapter 2

“The easiest and most effective way to stop fascists is to stop fucking being one.”

-The Ignorant Ninja

This is Chapter 1, Part 1 of a 2 part exposé.

If you’d like to see what happened in Chapter One, click here.

If you’d like to see Chapter Three, click here.

For the record I consider the act of public shaming to be distasteful. It's not a behaviour that should be encouraged or celebrated. However there are times when individuals act in such a way that one finds a lack of alternatives. For better or worse, shame has been such an extremely strong motivating force that it can get people to do just about anything from binding their feet into disfigurement to dying in pointless suicide missions. Sometimes one of those things is self improvement. Such times can also be educational for others. It should always be done with some restraint though even for the best of reasons.

I’m also aware this article is rather long. I’d rather have it more compact, and perhaps might make a cliffnotes version later, but if I’m going to republish intrapersonal drama then it’s important to provide the context that lead to that point, something always sorely lacking from social media. I’ve included as far as I know, everything up to the point where I started recording, including anything that’s unflattering for myself that I could have hidden or downplayed.

So to break from my prefered tactics, let me introduce to you an individual. This is how I met the confused leftist activist named Nikolai Allan.

Several months ago an account I was slightly familiar with made a post about censorship. I believe the point he was making was simply how he couldn't use racial slurs, and I believe he said the n-word in his post. Taking the opportunity to elevate the conversation to something a little more substantial, I started getting into one of my own personal crusades: The inconsistent rules around social media platforms when it comes to free speech.

You see, about a year ago I found out something interesting on Facebook. I was paying attention to several different groups at the same time and noticed some very strange irregularities. One group was focused on Kemet identity, which is based around black Africans reclaiming ownership of Egyptian culture. It would constantly get brigaded by racist trolls who would post racist memes, use racist slogans, and just straight up call for the extermination of blacks. Every time a post passed my feed, I could guarantee seeing them in the comment section without exception. Likewise Native American groups would constantly be swarmed with claims that they were barbarians and we did them a favour wiping them out. Then one day, I used a terrible phrase. I said "Americans are dumb."

Within a few seconds I received a warning. Facebook felt that my words represented 'hate speech' since it was against someone on the no-no-list, i.e. nationality. You couldn't make fun of someone based on the country they were born in.

So to avoid trouble I deleted my comment but posted a screenshot instead. I got a second warning. Apparently Facebooks AI is advanced enough that it could tell I screenshotted the no-no-words. So I deleted that and tried to rephrase. It turns out there's only one thing I could get away with saying, which was that Americans were the opposite of intelligent. Every other workaround failed. A very bulletproof system.

Then I started to think about those groups with the racists. How none of those comments were ever deleted. For some strange reason Facebooks AI didn't seem to catch blatantly racist and hateful comments about blacks and natives, but did for... Americans? That surely can't be right.

So I experimented. I played with the phrases you could use and which you couldn't. Amazingly, you could get away with saying an extremely wide selection of objectively horrible things about lots of different people, but you couldn't say them about a very small list of other people.

This was also around the same time as a current event going on. You might recall an NFL player named Harrison Butker giving a speech at a Christian college and people absolutely freaking out over the things he said. His 'faux pas' if you want to call it that, was basically diminishing the career achievements of the graduating women in favour of pushing a motherhood narrative, to put it as objectively and unbiasedly as possible.

At the exact same time I was aware of one journalist by the name of Graeme Wood who wrote an opinion piece for the Atlantic in which he expressly tried to smooth over the killing of innocent children by reminding us that technically for a military to kill children is perfectly legal.

In response to the Butker controversy, every major news organization spent considerable time covering every aspect. Multiple petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures each, all of which were destined to fail, were written trying to get Butker kicked off the team. People were screaming online for over 3 weeks straight.

The Wood's story about child killing was quietly removed from publication. I spent a considerable amount of my own personal time trying to spread the story around before it got stale. No one gave a shit. Graeme Wood is still happily employed at the Atlantic Newspaper writing pro-war articles and if he’s been saying too many of those things you’re not supposed to say out loud about the war, the Atlantic has continued to quietly remove them on his behalf thanks to his mostly left wing audience unwittingly providing cover for him during a difficult time.

So that was the context of our discussion; the idea that big tech oligarchs could manipulate information through censorship so people spent all their time freaking out over red herrings while far more sinister events are hidden from view, all to the benefit of the ruling class who are currently hiding an extremely large list of war crimes for their friends while children died.

Now as this was a casual conversation between 2 people who were being respectful to each other and mostly in agreement, the conversation was rather loose but quite productive. And to save us from this productive conversation about corporate fascism, who shows up in their white, white, oh so white shining armour? Someone neither of us had ever head of calling themselves Clementine Woollysocks.

Woollysocks comes in demanding to know what we were talking about, and of course since the topic was so important to Woollysocks, they of course took the time to ask respectful questions, read what had already been said so they weren't repeating things, and really brought the conversation to the next level by introducing expertise on fascism we'd never heard before.

Just kidding. He asked stupid questions that were obviously not about understanding the conversation and when we tried to explain, he refused to listen and started acting like a complete asshole. When I tried to explain to him that it's not just edgy teenagers being shadowbanned on Facebook, but actual journalists in Palestine trying to cover atrocities, Wooly decided that because I mentioned 2 things existing at the same time, I was equating myself with Palestinian journalists. For several hours afterwards, much more time than I or anyone else ever should have given him, I painstakingly went through as much of the dichotomy as possible while Wooly did his whole 'thing' pretending to ask for clarification and then not listening so he could find an opportunity to be as insulting as possible.

See the main problem was that Wooly considers himself to be a fascism fighting social justice warrior. However, Wooly's entire point is the "Private companies can do what they want." argument. While I would not be surprised to find out that Wooly has never been on Reddit, anyone who has should be very familiar with the catch phrases he started spewing. Once upon a time, Reddit was a free speech platform. When the owners wanted to take the company public, they chose to try to attract more advertising, and in order to do that they needed to 'Disneyfy' the place. Suddenly these Elon-Bro's started showing up everywhere. They had all these half correct arguments they'd keep repeating everywhere, and it suckered a lot of Redditors. They loved having punchy comebacks for why corporate censorship is actually good, and corporate censorship isn't really censorship, and oh are we going to mix up free speech and the first amendment to our advantage hoping people don't know the difference? Yes we are. So the Redditors started repeating the same phrases over and over again, and whenever someone came along with a well thought out comprehensive response of why you don't do that, they'd just drown them out with repetition.

So of course by listening to people like Woolly, Reddit became the bastion of open discourse on the internet and turned into an excellent tool to share valid information so its users didn't become uninformed idiots.

Just kidding.

So here's this confused leftist activist derailing a conversation we were having about people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg being fascists using the very arguments that were specifically crafted for Elon and Zuck to take over the internet with. At this point I actually have a major suspicion that this 'Woollysocks' is actually an extremely skilled alt-right troll. He's just way too good at fucking everything up. He says way too many things that are boilerplate neo-liberal corpo-fascist talking points. If I was Elon Musk, I would send dudes like Woolly here out in all directions like an army.

So after several hours of arguing with someone who clearly thinks everyone else in the world needs to follow some ultra strict orthodox form of communication while he gets to say and do anything he wants, I give up and mute him. Now anyone who really knows me knows how much of a pain in the ass someone has to be before I mute them. I will gladly show off my mute list. It's not long. I don't have a block list because I don't block. So other than having a new entry for 'stupidest person I've ran into yet.' which I'm always updating, since Wooly didn't learn anything, share any information, or make himself useful in any way, shape or form, I forgot he existed.

An aside I’d like to make is one of the major crux’s of this discussion that we never even came close to getting to since Woolly couldn’t stop acting like a jackass, is that there’s this kind of disinformation campaign around one aspect of censorship which relates to free speech: Elon fanboys and Reddit neckbeards have this neoliberal myth that since the First Amendment is about free speech, and the First Amendment only applies to the government, then the concept of free speech itself only exists in relation to the government. If say, Scientologists kidnapped your mom and told you not to, say, give a political speech, that wouldn’t be a free speech issue since it’s not the government threatening you. That even while your mom is bound and gagged, her freedom of speech is fine. She’s not being censored. Well the thing is, even if it were true, which it isn’t, something being done by a private individual or group instead of a government doesn’t make that thing better. Just ask Bruno Tesch about how when he invented Zyklon B and sold the chemical to the Nazis, it didn’t count because the chemical company was a private business. Oh wait you can’t because they hung him for selling the chemicals. The chemicals he was at the time legally allowed to sell since it was the German government giving him legal permission to sell it to use on perfectly legal war prisoners who need to be perfectly legally exterminated. See where I’m going with this?

There’s been a modern push in the last several decades where corporations have managed to slip themselves out of the historical definition of fascism. In reality private corporations have always been extremely useful for fascist governments. That makes them corpo-fascists. They are both corporations who are fascist. There is no contradiction.

Fast forward to November 5th, 2024. It's the day of the US election. The very day Trump was shot in the ear I had published an article about my prediction. My prediction was basically that Trump was almost certainly going to win and one of the most important factors was the behaviour of stupid preformative leftists who spent 4 years making everyone hate their guts. Make note of the irony of this statement later.

So as I'm scrolling along, somewhat confident of how the day is going to play out, I see this post. It's this really stupid looking white dude bragging that he spent his day running around screaming 'cunt' at Trump voters. So I leave a snarky little comment about "That's going to work out great for you. Let me know how it goes."

Some time passes and I get a response from the idiot. It's some incoherent rambling calling me racist; exactly what I expected. To be able to differentiate between "I am a racist who loves Trump and I am criticizing you!" and "You should stop doing stupid shit." is the kind of high powered concept only available to the most intellectually gifted of us. So naturally I start mocking him. I can't recall the exact order but while this person is freaking out that I'm a racist, he starts going off about me blocking people. So I ask him where he got the idea that someone from a multicultural family is racist from since I didn't do or say anything racist, and why he's going off about blocking to someone who never blocks anyone? Suddenly he's going off about something a few months ago. I'm like "Dude... I don't know you. We've never met."

The next message has screenshots. He's like "How stupid are you that you don't remember something that just happened a few months ago?" I look at the screenshots. There I am with my old profile picture, not comparing myself to Palestinian journalists, arguing with one of the biggest idiots I've ever met. Turns out it's our old friend Woollysocks! By total coincidence I just happened to point out the dumbest comment I saw that day, and it just happened to be one of the dumbest people I've ever met. I know, what are the odds?

In the 4 or whatever months that had passed, Woollysocks changed his username and profile picture, and yet was for some reason was still surprised that I didn't recognize him despite the fact that ones username and profile picture are literally the only things people have to ID you with. He was also having trouble telling the difference between what a block is and a mute, so I took the time to teach Woolly about the differences between the letters M and B. Wooly then quietly edited his comment and changed 'block' to 'mute' hoping I wouldn't notice.

So Woolly is still super mad I compared myself to Palestinian journalists in the narrative he's created. I've long since stopped trying to explain anything to him since he's proven he never had any interest in listening in the first place so I'm just prodding him. So I ask him what's so racist about Palestinian journalists?

Turns out what Wooly was really mad about was when I said the n-word. Except... I didn't say the n-word. That was a completely different person. Someone Woolly completely avoided engaging with while he spent hours yelling at me. Turns out Woolly isn't so good at telling the difference between 2 completely different people. If 2 people are standing next to each other and dude 1 does something Woolly doesn’t like, Woolly will spend hours yelling at dude 2 about what an awful person he is for the thing dude 1 did but doesn’t say a thing to dude 1. This becomes a theme.

So now I watch as Woolly takes that new information in and starts constructing a brand new narrative where I'm literally the devil himself because of this horrible comparison I've made. Did Woolly screw up, interject himself into a conversation he didn't take the time to understand, made several stupid assumptions at the same time and refused to do anything to correct them, then painfully realized he didn't really have a point and just kept doubling down because he's literally psychologically incapable of self-reflection to a pathological degree? No, Woolly spent several hours arguing with someone for bringing up Palestinian journalists in a way that wasn't respectful enough for him for some reason because Woollysocks is just that passionate about the dangers that come from not adhering to a strict agenda of appropriate discussion topics.

He was still going off about how I unmuted him in the first place but interestingly, I never did. Substack maybe glitched out or something I dunno. So long story short I muted him again.

Now fast forward to Remembrance Day. I made a post in which I expressed my own personal beliefs: "I'm not pro military. I'm pro soldier. If you want to respect the troops, help make sure they come home alive to a family they can afford to feed instead of dying in a stupid conflict."

So now of course who shows up claiming to be a soldier and demanding my respect? Well our good old friend Woollysocks. Now despite the fact that this individual is claiming to be a soldier despite having absolutely no indication that he has a single shred of discipline or knowledge, I'm not about to spend Remembrance Day arguing about stolen valour. Who knows, maybe Woollysocks is actually a real incompetent soldier. Maybe wherever Woollysocks comes from, it's customary for soldiers to barge in to peoples lives and demand they suck their dick. I do recall hearing stories of soldiers doing that a lot. So when Wooly demanded that I salute him, to thank him for the great work he's done for the military, despite the fact that he can't... tell the difference between targets... plan ahead... follow simple instructions... remember anything accurately... tell the truth to an authority figure... I christened Wooly with the title "Officer Doofy." and muted him again.

All of that is simply the background information necessary to truly enjoy the upcoming irony.

Now we come to present day. A good friend posted a note about her take on the Elon Musk Nazi salute 'scandal'. It was fairly accurate but I decided to add what I knew of the Pepe troll crowd since 'ironically' 😉 pretending to be Nazis is a major aspect of that culture. And once again... who shows up? Officer Doofy is on the case again! And what's the pearl of wisdom he's sharing with us now? Oh he's trying to make me feel bad for... taking time to think about something before stating my opinion. What a shock that Officer Doofy thinks that thinking is a character flaw. It all starts coming into place at this point.

So at this point Doofy is openly admitting to deciding to deliberately harass me for several months, so I decide that it's time to whip out the ol' tool box. Now is when I start screen-shotting for evidence, constructing my morality traps and getting dummy here primed to reveal that every word he's spoken this entire time is completely laced with hypocrisy and deception. That I'm presented with a unique opportunity as the perfect pawn stands in front of me, unwittingly ready to prove my grand hypothesis.

There's this trope called Xanatos Gambit. The premise of the idea is that hypothetically, one can become such a skilled strategist that they can control a scenario where no matter the outcome, it plays into the strategy resulting in a win. I've been wanting to watch it play out in real life, and now I have my chance. Now to understand the full context of the next part you will have to have read my article for the Hegel Manouver (coming soon). Doofy has been presented with an obstacle. I am basically challenging him to a duel against the ifunnies (An informal network of alt-right neo-Nazi trolls). If Doofy runs away then he forfeits all credibility to being an antifascist. Doofy can spend 5 months harassing a random dude because he talked about Palestinian journalists without his express permission? Sure. Spend 5 minutes putting your money where your mouth is against a real example of what he claims to fight? No? Wow... that's... extremely advantageous... for the fascists. Huh. If Doofy does accept my challenge and actually tries to back up everything he said, he will either win or lose. If he loses, obviously I win. I fought the ifunny brigade and I won. If little old me, the most delicate person Doofy has ever met as he has explained many times, can fight fascists 12 at a time with one hand tied behind his back, and Doofy the great fascist hunter loses... then Doofy isn't really a great fascist hunter is he? He's a poser. And if he wins? Oh my god. Oh my god would it be so cool for someone who wants the fascists ran out of town to actually manage to trick one single antifascist into actually fighting one single solitary real Nazi? Oo-De-Lally!

As this article has already become too long for one post, this is where part 2 ends. Feel free to continue on to part 3 where I narrate the resulting events of the Convergence, complete with screenshots.

"Hell is truth seen too late." Thomas Hobbes