I think what most disgusts me with this, beyond even the impact of it, is the sheer effeminacy of it all. The desperate attempt by the state to maintain a faux sense of consensus amongst the populace while literally every aspect of the country, from its economics to its demographics, burns down around us. All of these sly, fox-like mechanisms of control in our country, that increasingly resembles China without the prosperity, homogeneity, safety or honesty, strike me as exceptionally feminine: focussed on indirect manipulation of perception rather than open use of compulsion.
The problem our state will face is that this isn't the 90s. You can have this sort of sly manipulation-based control when things are basically sort of OK, and the problems lurking under the surface or in some colonised northern town are downers that the average member of the public would, in truth, rather not focus on. You can't have this sort of narrative-based control when you hit economic collapse, or when the violence on the streets becomes unavoidable, or when the average person is forced to confront the destruction of their way of life on a daily basis.
Of course, the state may then attempt to pivot to hard control, to a more masculinised version of this regime, but will it even be able to? It has spent the past 80 years repeatedly attacking every aspect of masculinity - from the role of the father to masculine virtues, like patriotism, to self-defence - for a reason: the fundamental legitimising principle of the post-war state is the refutation of the old, male, white, muscular Christianity that it replaced. Can you pivot to hard control and still maintain that legitimising principle? I doubt it. I can't imagine a 5 foot 2 female Indian police officer quite managing to club the populace into compliance. I guess time will tell.
Whether it's astroturfed Netflix shows for the regime to "react to," or the increasing risk of telling the truth.
Everything is geared towards pushing lies so blatant and nefarious that it seems the only job of the establishment is to keep the indigenous folk beaten down and silent.
This was never been about protecting kids. It’s about sealing the exits. Gab and Kiwi Farms are just the warm-up acts, soft targets to calibrate the muzzle, making sure it fits the little dog, before being expanded for the Pitbull. If Substack or Twitter get hit next, that’s when we’ll know the gloves are off.
Orwell showed us a picture of the future being “a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” But Huxley nailed the method: “a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
And here we are. The future didn’t arrive with jackboots. It came with Ofcom logos, child-safe stickers, and mandatory risk assessments. Tyranny’s gone corporate, and it apologises for any inconvenience caused.
If they hit Substack and I went back to having my own little blog, I'd then get hit with the regulations unless I switched the comments off. This is coming for Sargon and the Lotus Eaters, lads.
Aye mate, I reckon comments may be a thing of the past soon, thus preventing engagement, community, organising and increasing alienation, perhaps in preparation for life in a pod.
I get suspended for 24 hours just about every week lately on YouTube. Sometimes for things that aren't offensive at all but include a word that triggers the algorithm. Maybe they won't have to remove comments, people will just get bored of being unable to say anything meaningfull. 🤔 They closed pubs, they will close online dialogue.
No because terms such as ''hate'' or ''harm'' are subjective. In other words, the onus is on me not to offend somebody. It is nebulous and elastic so the government can decide on whatever they like.
Notice that Humzas "hate speech Bill" hasn't really been used ... yet. Don't you think this law also will be kept vague and only used when someone becomes problematic to them? But, when it is used they'll comb through years of content and thoroughly destroy a person with multiple charges? It's only a theory but I think they're putting the traps in place to use when real civil unrest occurs to remove any "ringleaders"?
The difference comes down to regime legitimacy. Depressing as it is, somebody being lifted in Normie-land doesn't make as much of a splash as somebody like Sargon of Akkad.
I don't know that Humza's hate laws are not being used really because those being hounded don't have platforms. They're statistics. The online harms bill will target public facing people and platforms.
I mean, I hope it becomes a dead-duck, but as I say, it is live now.
You've been through the mill; de-monetised, shadow-banned and all the rest, I remember. I reckon you can predict where this is going better than any of us. Me, I know very little but I do know this isn't for the good of the people.
In the last 6months I’ve completely stopped commenting online (YouTube and on here - twitter is deleted) -
The Yookay state has completely strangled the voices of the British people - we know that these laws are designed to punish us (- jailed - job lost - can’t pay bills - life ruined -) if we dare to criticise the policies that they are forcing on us and that none of us want.
I really hope that you are able to continue your work here on Substack. I subscribe to several very high profile writers and I can honestly say that over the past few years you have become and remain my favorite, regardless of the genre. Long form interviews with you are always a treat. I enjoy your more personal and whimsical pieces which have become rarer and rarer because of the truly dangerous political situation, particularly in England, but whatever you write the style and content are sure to be worthwhile and thought provoking.
People can't really expect to go though life without being offended, if they really believe this - they should go off into the wilderness and become a hermit.
Well my hamster (Mr Nibbles esq) IS a keen cyclist and a rampant online hate-monger so I'm battening down the hatches thoroughly expecting a team of big bastard coppers in riot gear to be kicking his cage door off the hinges and having a big struggle with him. I can imagine there will be exercise wheels and sunflower seeds flying all over the place and THERE WILL BE BLOOD mark my words! He's a reet aggro beedy-eyed little shitbag and he won't be going quietly.
We know where this is going though don't we, the law will be used selectively to silence certain people, the online sites though, to avoid fines, will block anything even slightly "spicey". I wonder though, with the prison population already very high where are they going to put people guilty of "writing naughty things online"?
To me it seems that the switch to using bona fide censorship is part of a greater move away from soft power to hard power. It remains to be seen whether the powers that be will be able to use such hard power effectively. I have strong doubts about that.
In any case, I feel that of all people you, Mr. Morgoth, have the ability to convey everything you want to say, censorship or no censorship (I realize that the main problem here is one of burdensome bureaucratic compliance). Karl Kraus once quipped that anything that the censor understands deserves to be verboten (Of course, I would not go quite as far as Mr. Kraus). And then there is Leo Strauss´s instruction manual on esoteric writing (Persecution and the Art of Writing), which I think is always worth a read. Mr. Morgoth: Please keep on writing.
We shall see. I actually have a feeling Substack is a problem for them because lots of establishment people use it, it has status that Telegram or Gab doesn't.
I just had to think of your masterpiece on when the color yellow was forbidden. One of the most powerful and accurate critiques of certain events at that time and _in_ that time, and yet I do not see how even the strictest censorship regime conceivable in the West could get a handle on its contents (Of course, they can always ban the man rather than the content).
How some people believe Westminster is still an adhererent of Liberal ideology is beyond me. That said, as you mentioned in your article, they are very careful in how they couch their authoritarianism and devotion to controlled speech instead of free speech. The controlling hand is always gloved in other, nicer sounding, issues like kids, "harm" and safety, so it's not too surprising some people can be fooled.
Even though we can see what they're actually doing here, I still struggle to figure out why. Why are they doing this? What's the ideal world they're trying to bring about? Does any of this even have a point?
I think it's just De Jouvenel's blob of power increasing its mass for the sake of it. More power, more centralization, more control. Yet it already seems dated, from a pre-Trump 2.0 era.
This was always on the cards. In fact this is like the two-tier sentencing guidelines. Courts have been doing it already for ages. Big Social Media has been behaving as if the Online Safety Act were law for several years now anyway, while swearing hand-on-heart that they were not. It's as if somebody had a word in their ear and told them to hang in there because it would all be in black and white soon. I'm sure we'll find a way round this though. The alt-techies are the best in the world.
Hoping our UK commentariat, from Sargon & his merry band to humble posters such as yourself don't feel the boot on your neck (more than you already do).
When visiting the White House, Starmer was warned by Vance that the US didn't want it's tech companies affected by Britain's censorship laws and Starmer seemed to concede that this wouldn't happen. Whether that has been built into the system already or requires a public humiliation for Starmer when the US is forced to step-in, remains to be seen.
This ideology cannot survive having to apply hard power. Every site should not comply and be blocked from the UK so we can have generations used to using VPN to see the N word. More, always more. Liberalism festers in soft climates, let’s turn up the heat.
We'd do well to read up on private membership associations, and consider how they might apply to the digital world. In short, a PMA is a 'club', where the rules are agreed upon by members, "man-to-man" so to speak. Since they're not part of the public realm, they are not under the same laws as publicly traded organisations.
I'm already part of a private social media platform called The Beartaria Times App, and it's awesome. The community there is unparalleled online. Since it's private and the owners take no outside funding, it's supported by membership fees. It's heavily censored, by the way, but by like-minded men who want it clean for the women and children. People you can talk to, who aren't affected by the machinations of policy makers.
If the worst really does come to the worst in terms of our ability to oppose Hell, here in the yookay, I can hope a good tranche of us will be driven to a new level of independence, to build. The Beartaria Times was built in the COVID era, by the way.
It amazes me how step by step, the West emulates Chinese model more and more. They just can't help themselves. It it too easy to crush the opposition. In addition, the opposition to the government is not raising even the slighted dinn of dissent here. To me, it clearly indicates the uniparty is as strong here as it is in China. Get ready for social credit. It will be coming soon.
I think what most disgusts me with this, beyond even the impact of it, is the sheer effeminacy of it all. The desperate attempt by the state to maintain a faux sense of consensus amongst the populace while literally every aspect of the country, from its economics to its demographics, burns down around us. All of these sly, fox-like mechanisms of control in our country, that increasingly resembles China without the prosperity, homogeneity, safety or honesty, strike me as exceptionally feminine: focussed on indirect manipulation of perception rather than open use of compulsion.
The problem our state will face is that this isn't the 90s. You can have this sort of sly manipulation-based control when things are basically sort of OK, and the problems lurking under the surface or in some colonised northern town are downers that the average member of the public would, in truth, rather not focus on. You can't have this sort of narrative-based control when you hit economic collapse, or when the violence on the streets becomes unavoidable, or when the average person is forced to confront the destruction of their way of life on a daily basis.
Of course, the state may then attempt to pivot to hard control, to a more masculinised version of this regime, but will it even be able to? It has spent the past 80 years repeatedly attacking every aspect of masculinity - from the role of the father to masculine virtues, like patriotism, to self-defence - for a reason: the fundamental legitimising principle of the post-war state is the refutation of the old, male, white, muscular Christianity that it replaced. Can you pivot to hard control and still maintain that legitimising principle? I doubt it. I can't imagine a 5 foot 2 female Indian police officer quite managing to club the populace into compliance. I guess time will tell.
Whether it's astroturfed Netflix shows for the regime to "react to," or the increasing risk of telling the truth.
Everything is geared towards pushing lies so blatant and nefarious that it seems the only job of the establishment is to keep the indigenous folk beaten down and silent.
Yeah, it's difficult to see that Adolescence show as anything but padding for the Online Safety Act.
This was never been about protecting kids. It’s about sealing the exits. Gab and Kiwi Farms are just the warm-up acts, soft targets to calibrate the muzzle, making sure it fits the little dog, before being expanded for the Pitbull. If Substack or Twitter get hit next, that’s when we’ll know the gloves are off.
Orwell showed us a picture of the future being “a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” But Huxley nailed the method: “a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
And here we are. The future didn’t arrive with jackboots. It came with Ofcom logos, child-safe stickers, and mandatory risk assessments. Tyranny’s gone corporate, and it apologises for any inconvenience caused.
If they hit Substack and I went back to having my own little blog, I'd then get hit with the regulations unless I switched the comments off. This is coming for Sargon and the Lotus Eaters, lads.
Aye mate, I reckon comments may be a thing of the past soon, thus preventing engagement, community, organising and increasing alienation, perhaps in preparation for life in a pod.
I get suspended for 24 hours just about every week lately on YouTube. Sometimes for things that aren't offensive at all but include a word that triggers the algorithm. Maybe they won't have to remove comments, people will just get bored of being unable to say anything meaningfull. 🤔 They closed pubs, they will close online dialogue.
No because terms such as ''hate'' or ''harm'' are subjective. In other words, the onus is on me not to offend somebody. It is nebulous and elastic so the government can decide on whatever they like.
Notice that Humzas "hate speech Bill" hasn't really been used ... yet. Don't you think this law also will be kept vague and only used when someone becomes problematic to them? But, when it is used they'll comb through years of content and thoroughly destroy a person with multiple charges? It's only a theory but I think they're putting the traps in place to use when real civil unrest occurs to remove any "ringleaders"?
The difference comes down to regime legitimacy. Depressing as it is, somebody being lifted in Normie-land doesn't make as much of a splash as somebody like Sargon of Akkad.
I don't know that Humza's hate laws are not being used really because those being hounded don't have platforms. They're statistics. The online harms bill will target public facing people and platforms.
I mean, I hope it becomes a dead-duck, but as I say, it is live now.
You've been through the mill; de-monetised, shadow-banned and all the rest, I remember. I reckon you can predict where this is going better than any of us. Me, I know very little but I do know this isn't for the good of the people.
In the last 6months I’ve completely stopped commenting online (YouTube and on here - twitter is deleted) -
The Yookay state has completely strangled the voices of the British people - we know that these laws are designed to punish us (- jailed - job lost - can’t pay bills - life ruined -) if we dare to criticise the policies that they are forcing on us and that none of us want.
I’ll say no more as I like my liberty.
I really hope that you are able to continue your work here on Substack. I subscribe to several very high profile writers and I can honestly say that over the past few years you have become and remain my favorite, regardless of the genre. Long form interviews with you are always a treat. I enjoy your more personal and whimsical pieces which have become rarer and rarer because of the truly dangerous political situation, particularly in England, but whatever you write the style and content are sure to be worthwhile and thought provoking.
People can't really expect to go though life without being offended, if they really believe this - they should go off into the wilderness and become a hermit.
I find your comment to be highly offensive.
I've never had that said to me before 😉
Well my hamster (Mr Nibbles esq) IS a keen cyclist and a rampant online hate-monger so I'm battening down the hatches thoroughly expecting a team of big bastard coppers in riot gear to be kicking his cage door off the hinges and having a big struggle with him. I can imagine there will be exercise wheels and sunflower seeds flying all over the place and THERE WILL BE BLOOD mark my words! He's a reet aggro beedy-eyed little shitbag and he won't be going quietly.
We know where this is going though don't we, the law will be used selectively to silence certain people, the online sites though, to avoid fines, will block anything even slightly "spicey". I wonder though, with the prison population already very high where are they going to put people guilty of "writing naughty things online"?
To me it seems that the switch to using bona fide censorship is part of a greater move away from soft power to hard power. It remains to be seen whether the powers that be will be able to use such hard power effectively. I have strong doubts about that.
In any case, I feel that of all people you, Mr. Morgoth, have the ability to convey everything you want to say, censorship or no censorship (I realize that the main problem here is one of burdensome bureaucratic compliance). Karl Kraus once quipped that anything that the censor understands deserves to be verboten (Of course, I would not go quite as far as Mr. Kraus). And then there is Leo Strauss´s instruction manual on esoteric writing (Persecution and the Art of Writing), which I think is always worth a read. Mr. Morgoth: Please keep on writing.
We shall see. I actually have a feeling Substack is a problem for them because lots of establishment people use it, it has status that Telegram or Gab doesn't.
But....we shall see.
I just had to think of your masterpiece on when the color yellow was forbidden. One of the most powerful and accurate critiques of certain events at that time and _in_ that time, and yet I do not see how even the strictest censorship regime conceivable in the West could get a handle on its contents (Of course, they can always ban the man rather than the content).
How some people believe Westminster is still an adhererent of Liberal ideology is beyond me. That said, as you mentioned in your article, they are very careful in how they couch their authoritarianism and devotion to controlled speech instead of free speech. The controlling hand is always gloved in other, nicer sounding, issues like kids, "harm" and safety, so it's not too surprising some people can be fooled.
Even though we can see what they're actually doing here, I still struggle to figure out why. Why are they doing this? What's the ideal world they're trying to bring about? Does any of this even have a point?
I think it's just De Jouvenel's blob of power increasing its mass for the sake of it. More power, more centralization, more control. Yet it already seems dated, from a pre-Trump 2.0 era.
This was always on the cards. In fact this is like the two-tier sentencing guidelines. Courts have been doing it already for ages. Big Social Media has been behaving as if the Online Safety Act were law for several years now anyway, while swearing hand-on-heart that they were not. It's as if somebody had a word in their ear and told them to hang in there because it would all be in black and white soon. I'm sure we'll find a way round this though. The alt-techies are the best in the world.
Look on the bright side, I'm sure they will be going after the kiddy fiddlers on Grindr.
To give them a medal
Hoping our UK commentariat, from Sargon & his merry band to humble posters such as yourself don't feel the boot on your neck (more than you already do).
When visiting the White House, Starmer was warned by Vance that the US didn't want it's tech companies affected by Britain's censorship laws and Starmer seemed to concede that this wouldn't happen. Whether that has been built into the system already or requires a public humiliation for Starmer when the US is forced to step-in, remains to be seen.
This ideology cannot survive having to apply hard power. Every site should not comply and be blocked from the UK so we can have generations used to using VPN to see the N word. More, always more. Liberalism festers in soft climates, let’s turn up the heat.
We'd do well to read up on private membership associations, and consider how they might apply to the digital world. In short, a PMA is a 'club', where the rules are agreed upon by members, "man-to-man" so to speak. Since they're not part of the public realm, they are not under the same laws as publicly traded organisations.
I'm already part of a private social media platform called The Beartaria Times App, and it's awesome. The community there is unparalleled online. Since it's private and the owners take no outside funding, it's supported by membership fees. It's heavily censored, by the way, but by like-minded men who want it clean for the women and children. People you can talk to, who aren't affected by the machinations of policy makers.
If the worst really does come to the worst in terms of our ability to oppose Hell, here in the yookay, I can hope a good tranche of us will be driven to a new level of independence, to build. The Beartaria Times was built in the COVID era, by the way.
Hard times make strong men, lads.
It amazes me how step by step, the West emulates Chinese model more and more. They just can't help themselves. It it too easy to crush the opposition. In addition, the opposition to the government is not raising even the slighted dinn of dissent here. To me, it clearly indicates the uniparty is as strong here as it is in China. Get ready for social credit. It will be coming soon.