Monstrous Doubles & Weaponized Humans
The Big Candace Owens Soap Opera 2
[I have stayed out of this one, except for a ridiculously long footnote which only paying subbers can read; I hope to have more to say next week. ~ J]
It’s been a tough week. On Wednesday, Jasun posted an account of being caught in an undertow at the Playa de los Muertes in Oaxaca: “The current was drawing me out to sea.”
Being caught in a Girardian “monstrous” doubling is like that. It is a deep movement. Sociological. Biological. Instinctive. Pre-sentient. Ancient.
Why is yawning contagious? It was how our paleolithic nomadic ancestors could all agree that it was time to stop and rest for a while. It’s like that. Our sophisticated, properly socialized modern selves are just as susceptible as our ancestors were—with the possible exception of Christians, but I’ll get back to that.
The Candace Owens’ Charlie Kirk investigation is like that, too. Infectious. Insidious. Overwhelming. I’m tempted to use the word sinister.
Critics of Candace Owens say she is exploiting the tragedy for grift, that she is running a smear campaign, that she has lobbed false accusations at Charlie Kirk, his wife, his organization and the Conservative youth movement he launched. By inserting herself into a murder investigation, she is undermining the justice system.
And that, by blaming the Tiny Hat People, she is contributing to anti-Semitic hate.
Quite a few people attribute her behavior to basic malignant jealousy, romantic obsession and/or narcissism. A smaller number, to demon-possession—that’s becoming a popular option for making sense of the world in these troubled times, and there may be something to it. Not going to dismiss the possibility, though I prefer the more neutral identifier—entity.
But, perhaps it is only this—a m%ther-fuukn-sh&t-tonne of moola?:
I imagine that that amount of money has it’s own irresistible undertow?
Money will make you crazy, alright.
Oh, well, Ms. O. What of my brother?1
Today we exchanged brief emails. He’s writing, working on a response to my last post. His previous two are in my inbox. They have not persuaded me. They present rather unpleasant characterizations of me i.e., I’m a covidiot.
Oh brother! I can’t wait to see how you explain away the text message where Robinson told Twiggs that he left the rifle wrapped in a towel in a woods. And no, that information was not yet public when Robinson sent the text.
In the olden days, people were stuck in their little tribal packs or villages. Niggling disagreements between siblings could intensify into open hostility. Like a cart crash, passersby are drawn to look. “Doubling” (see pt 1) among onlookers is infectious as well. The presence of the doubles becomes intolerable. At the first bloody nose, a chain reaction of reciprocal violence could sweep through the community and really mess things up.
This is exactly what Girard proposed happened repeatedly in our prehistoric attempts (and failures) to coexist peacefully in small communities. Generational blood feuds of reciprocal violence have been known to carry on for decades. It went on for millennia.
Rule of law and police enforcement is a relatively recent innovation in the West. It only began to be formalised and universally adopted in the 18th and 19th centuries. How were the outbreaks of mimetic violence halted back then? According to Girard, it was via the collective fixation on a scapegoat, in the shape of a human.
We are a long way from there. And not far at all. Christianity made us aware of the innocence of the scapegoat. The instinctive sacrificial violence of the mob has been replaced by The Law—the ponderous edifice of street patrollers, investigators, prosecutors, defenders, judges, witnesses, jurors and jailors that are all bound to strict rules and roles within a structure that has particularised offenses and ascertains just punishments. The court has more rituals than the church. With all its flaws and lapses, it has been our reliable bulwark against outbreaks of mimetic violence. It’s role above all is to demonstrate convincingly that the guilty are proven to be guilty.
Peace requires collective agreement.
But Girard warned of the dangers of too much agreement—mass democratization, broadcast media and the spread of an undifferentiated monoculture is an existential danger. Hierarchy, customs, borders. Distinctions between people-groups check the spread of mimetic violence. Those most susceptible to the contagion are those close to us, who share our language and culture.
Currently, the mass-manufactured consensus is fracturing.
People can’t even agree about the most basic facts of biological sex. Standpoint epistemology has undermined our collective agreement on what constitutes evidence.
Murders are investigated and prosecuted on social media by entertainers. Podcasters broadcast fantastic stories to their novelty-addicted, parasocially-bonded followers. Algorithms select for the sensational. Evidence is reduced to conjecture and supposition, limited to internet sources. “Retired” Intelligence professionals share Top-Secret info to the welcoming gasps of cosseted wine moms.
Or do they? Have we all gone mad? Certainly. But is it organic? Or is it warfare?
It’s obvious that these sorts of mimetic crises happen organically; but it is also increasingly evident that social engineering overlords have figured out how to manufacture such crises, en masse.
Theil’s Surveillance Orbs
Peter Thiel, who to my eye, has always looked entity-ridden, was a student of Girard’s and a great admirer.
After adventures with Paypal (with Elon Musk and Pierre Omidyar) and Seasteading (which was about founding autonomous micro nations like Sealand), Thiel co-founded the premier data-mining and surveillance platform used by intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and corporations, Palantir Technologies—named after Tolkien’s palantíri, the surveillance orbs used by Sauron through which he corrupted Saruman and Denethor.
(More on PT’s shadow-motions in this series: )
Peter Thiel’s Goon Squad: Designer Fascism Comes to TownJasun Horsley·August 28, 2024
(This piece has expanded so much I have had to split it in two just to get it in an email. Part Two next week. Audio version at end of piece for paid subscribers)
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is Palantir’s largest client—and perhaps oldest? 2008—and the Pentagon just on-boarded Palantir AI as a core military system in March 2026.
Long-time Thiel associate, Jeff Giesea is a highly sophisticated political operative and social engineer who possibly runs the operational arm of Thiel’s organisation.
He coined the term memetic warfare, translated 4chan tactics into real-world political influence, and wrote the foundational policy paper on memetic warfare: “It’s Time to Embrace Memetic Warfare, 2015,” through NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence.
Giesea’s advice to NATO strategists is to think of memetic warfare as a “narrative or cognitive conflict—the battle for hearts and minds that increasingly takes place online.”
“Global Non-linear Memetic Warfare Is Here—Practical Recommendations for NATO Members,” by Jeff Giesea, presented in 2017:
we are entering an era of global, non-linear, memetic warfare. Much of the talk during the conference today has focused on state-on-state information war. I believe the situation is more complex. Second, I’d like to offer a few practical recommendations for NATO member countries. My main message is to be more proactive. I don’t believe we can afford to sit on the sidelines, so forgive me for being a bit of a provocateur on this topic.
Memetic warfare can be a confusing concept, so let me define it: Memetic warfare is competition over narrative, ideas, and social control in the social-media battlefield. One might think of it as a subset of information operations or psychological warfare tailored to social media. (emphasis added).
These tactics are not theoretical. In 2011, a hack of HBGary Federal exposed a proposal by “Team Themis” (a consortium including Palantir, Berico Technologies, and HBGary) to deploy memetic warfare and sabotage tactics against Julian Assange, Wikileaks and supporters, including Birgitta Jónsdóttir who was a Wikileaks volunteer and, at that time, a sitting member of the Icelandic Parliament
What were Team Themis proposing to do to Jónsdóttir?
- Map her social networks to identify her friends and supporters.
- Develop strategies to discredit her and make her toxic to her allies
- Harass her
- Hit her with lawfare.
“She did it! Bwah hahaha hahah haha!”