Linh Dinh’s Crippled Epistemology

Cass Sunstein, the world’s leading anti-conspiracy-theory conspirator, has famously suggested that (9/11) conspiracy theories are so dangerous that some day it may be necessary to make them illegal. In the meantime, Sunstein adds, the government should “cognitively infiltrate” conspiracy movements and spread “beneficial cognitive diversity” in order to “disable the purveyors” of conspiracy theories.

In another memorable phrase, Sunstein says conspiracy believers are victims of “crippled epistemology.” Ostensibly this explains why “cognitive diversity” would be good for them. If we can force them to consume NPR and The New York Times and The Washington Post and The Economist, rather than watching nothing but Alex Jones, maybe they will become nice mainstream liberals like us.

But that is not what Sunstein really means. Like all Straussian neocons, Sunstein is speaking out of two sides of his mouth—one side for the inattentive unsophisticated masses, and the other for neocon insiders. The latter know the horrible, unspeakable truth: 9/11 really was a false flag, it was necessary for the future of Israel, its coverup is even more necessary, and that’s why (truthful) conspiracy theories are so dangerous.

So inflicting “beneficial cognitive diversity” on conspiracists doesn’t mean convincing them to supplement

Alex Jones with NPR. It means programming social media algorithms to spread lots of bizarre, untrue, normal-person-alienating conspiracy theories to crowd out the true ones. The best example is the sudden proliferation, in the wake of Sunstein’s book, of slick, high-production-values flat-Earth videos that were spammed at everybody on social media with any interest in 9/11 truth.

So what did Sunstein really mean, then, by raising the issue of “crippled epistemology”? First, he was overtly saying that most people in conspiracy movements (like the rest of the non-neocon-elite population) are pretty lame in their epistemology. But rather than trying to help them become better epistemologists, what Sunstein is covertly suggesting to his fellow neocon insiders is that this weakness should be exploited—that is, that their already crippled epistemology should be crippled even more, to the point that the “purveyors of conspiracy theories” become completely “disabled.” In other words, as the poor rubes hobble along on their epistemological bruised achilles heels, we neocons should target those heels with a shower of poisoned arrows: Flat earth! No viruses! Blame Jews for everything, not just what they actually do!

Linh Dinh doesn’t like The Economist’s “30 million excess deaths” estimate cited by Ron Unz in our recent interview

Which brings us to my friend Linh Dinh, who just wrote “shame on Muslim Kevin Barrett” for approving of “Jewish Ron Unz” and his supposed endorsement of The Economist and its positions on COVID, Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, Madonna, Diddy, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, gangsta rap in general and drill rap in particular, and transgender breastfeeding. My first reaction, of course, was to plead not guilty. I didn’t even know what drill rap was, Linh, until you accused me and Ron and The Economist of promoting it! I have never, ever deliberately listened to Madonna, Diddy, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, or Miley Cyrus. And I can promise you that I have never even dreamed of transgender breastfeeding! (Or if I did, I must have repressed the memory deep into my unconscious mind, to await discovery by my Jewish psychoanalyst—another category I will never, ever have anything to do with.)

I do plead guilty to being Muslim. I took shahada 30 years ago, pray five times a day, attend Friday services here in Saidia, Morocco, and eat couscous religiously afterward. Ron Unz, however, is neither religiously nor tribally Jewish, and his favorite restaurant is Chinese, so I doubt he qualifies as a fellow Semite. Next time I’m in Palo Alto I’ll have to wave a bagel under his nose and see if he involuntarily snaps at it. (And though Ron had a Jewish mother and would theoretically be accepted as a kosher invader of Occupied Palestine, I think the odds of an Unz aliyah are rather slim.)

What’s obvious, when you think about what Linh doesn’t like about me and Ron Unz and The Economist, is that Linh is lumping together a whole lot of unrelated or loosely-related things he doesn’t like. Sort of like my wife does when she’s mad at me.

Lumping together a string of loosely-related but colorful and evocative images is what poets and myth-makers (and aggrieved women) do. And while Linh is and will undoubtedly remain a guy—far be it from me to accuse him of transgender breastfeeding or anything like that—he’s also a first class poet and photographer whose stock-in-trade is stringing together expressive, emotionally or viscerally impactful words and images. That’s what he’s good at. It’s his peculiar genius.

But epistemologically, Linh’s attack on me, Ron Unz, and The Economist is pretty lame. Epistemology addresses the question, “How do we know what we know?” In ordinary practical life, much of what we know consists of what we hear from people we trust. If we catch them lying outrageously to us, we may react by disbelieving everything they say, perhaps even assuming that everything they say is the polar opposite of the truth.

Though such a broad-brush heuristic might work reasonably well in ordinary life, or even with the pronouncements of the Israeli government, when it comes to mistrusting mainstream media, we need more nuanced approach. To the extent that MSM are the voice of the powerful, they tell the truth when it suits their interests, lie when it suits their interests (and can get away with it), and distort, spin, and selectively filter information to suit their interests. As in the case of Wikipedia, much of the quantitative, factual information in MSM is at least roughly accurate. It’s the narrative framing, and what’s emphasized versus what’s omitted, that makes MSM so grossly untrustworthy.

The same is true, by the way, of the medical and scientific establishments. It’s usually in their interest, and the interest of their superiors, to gather and report data reasonably accurately. (How could the king rule the realm without accurate measurements of what’s going on?) It’s often the studies that are not done, like large and well-designed vaxxed-vs.-unvaxxed studies, that are the biggest indicators of scientific fraud.

So when The Economist estimates that COVID has led to 30 million excess deaths—some from the disease, and some from direct and indirect effects of containment measures—should we agree as Ron Unz does, or strongly disagree alongside Linh Dinh? Uncrippled epistemologists need to evaluate the data behind the estimates. (What is your estimate, Linh, and where can we find data supporting it?)

Let’s imagine that Linh thinks the correct number is actually 50 million excess deaths, and that 49 million of them were caused by vaccines, lockdowns, and masks, and a mere one million by the disease itself. He is angry that Ron and The Economist are underestimating the number and misattributing the causes. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that Linh is right. Does that mean that Ron Unz agrees with The Economist’s overall analysis of COVID, as well as everything the magazine says about popular culture? Or that I agree with Ron or The Economist about excess deaths, COVID in general, or transgender breastfeeding?

Rather than ranting about irrelevant religious affiliations and pop culture decadence, Linh should have focused on the issue at hand: He disagrees with Ron Unz and The Economist about COVID and excess deaths. Then he should have directed his readers to better sources.

But Ron Unz’s article, and our interview, wasn’t primarily about the excess deaths and how many were caused by which aspect of COVID and/or the various responses. The issue at hand is the case that COVID emerged from a deliberate US bio-attack on China and Iran.

Perhaps Linh disagrees. He may think that COVID hardly killed anyone, while the vaccine has caused most or all of the excess deaths. Therefore COVID could not have been a bioweapon. Only the vaccine is the bioweapon. Linh seems to think the “Jewjab” is an ethnic-specific bioweapon designed to kill non-Jews, leaving Jews to inherit the Earth.

But is there any evidence for that? I’m pretty sure that Israeli, American, and European Jews are near the top of the list of the most-RNA-jabbed people on on the planet.

Linh thinks the anti-ZioAmericanEmpire countries aren’t jabbed:  “As for Jewjabs they’re not available in Russia with distribution in Iran very limited. In China only Germans can be Jewjabbed!” A quick Google search tells us that in reality, 89.5% of Chinese and 55.1% of Russians are fully vaxxed, and that 73.63% of Iranians have had at least one dose.*

I travel to Iran often and have contacts in anti-ZioAmericanEmpire circles. Everyone there knows that their leadership, and later their country as a whole, suffered badly from the US-manufactured-and-unleashed COVID bioweapon. Iran suffered a serious wave of deaths and hospitalizations attributed to the bioengineered virus. Those people, as well as the Russians and Russian-sympathizers I hang out with, do not have a high opinion of Americans who think there was no COVID problem and that the vaccine is the bioweapon. And of course the authorities in Russia, China, and Iran have all done their best to vaccinate their populations, with the military, elites, and productive, educated people—those they can least afford to lose—first in line…just as in the West, Jews have been first in line for the jabs.**

So I think Linh’s position, to the extent I understand it, doesn’t line up well with the facts as those of us in the reality-based community experience them. Linh’s notion of Jewjabs is alliterative, poetic, and catchy, but it is also a bit flat-Earthish in its power to make red-pilled dissidents sound crazy to the newbies (our most important audience). Indeed, Jewjabs is such a flashy but epistemologically empty “anti-Semitic trope” that Cass Sunstein might consider it a shining example of the kind of “beneficial cognitive diversity” he wants the government to help spread among “conspiracy theorists.”

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*Westerners including Western Jews have been overwhelmingly vaccinated with mRNA, while Russians, Chinese, and Iranians have used non-mRNA vaccines. So which is the Jewjab, Linh, and how is it supposed to work?

**Note that I am not approving of the jabs or claiming they are safe or effective. I never got one, am very glad I didn’t, and consider them unsafe and ineffective. If it weren’t for all the crippled epistemology going around, the people who designed both the virus and the failed mRNA “antidote” and unleashed them via their bio-attack on China and Iran would likely end up on trial in The Hague.