The Man Who Was Thursday's Circle: A Nightmare of Modern Dissent

A Novel in the Style of G.K. Chesterton Being a Circle of Blame Analysis in Seven Parts Plus Four

Grub Street In Exile

Jul 03, 2025

For Ranjan. Channeling our GK.

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Dedication

To all who seek truth in an age of managed opposition, and to those who remember that "Man's status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior" - Pelagius

Prologue: The Pelagian Paradox

"So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant," spoke Coifi, priest of the temple at Goodmanham in 627 AD, before casting his spear into the sacred grove¹. But what if our ignorance itself has become the sacred grove, and what if those who claim to illuminate our darkness are themselves the priests of a more subtle temple?

In the year of our digital lord 2024, when information wars² rage across platforms that did not exist when Chesterton penned his nightmare of anarchist detectives, we find ourselves in need of a new Thursday - not the anarchist who was a detective, but the truth-teller who might be controlled opposition³.

The Circle of Blame⁴ spins ever faster in our hyperconnected age, where every revelation becomes a distraction, every whistleblower might be a limited hangout⁵, and every prophet of doom might be serving the very system they claim to oppose.

Chapter I: The Two Podcasters of Austin Park

Being an Introduction to the Modern Saffron Park

In a certain suburb of Austin, Texas, which shall remain nameless (though it bears a suspicious resemblance to the domain of one Alexander Emerick Jones⁶), there lived two men who might have been poets had they been born in Chesterton's time, but who in our degraded age had become something far more dangerous - podcasters.

The first was a large, red-faced man of tremendous energy who spoke as if the world were ending tomorrow, which, according to his calculations, it was. His name was Ajax Jonnson⁷, and he had built an empire on the simple premise that everything the mainstream media told you was a lie, which had the unfortunate effect of making everything he said sound like the truth, even when it wasn't.

The second was a tall, thin man with the demeanor of a university professor who had discovered that all his colleagues were frauds. His name was David Iceberg⁸, and he had spent thirty years explaining that the world was run by shape-shifting reptiles, which had the curious effect of making more sense than most political analysis.

"The thing is, David," Ajax was saying as they walked through the park where the food trucks gathered like a modern agora, "they want us to fight each other. Left versus right, black versus white, vaccinated versus unvaccinated - it's all a distraction from the real enemy."

"Quite right," replied David, adjusting his wire-rimmed spectacles. "But you're still thinking too small, my friend. The real enemy isn't human at all. It's an interdimensional force that feeds on human consciousness itself⁹."

Ajax stopped walking and stared at his companion. "You know, David, sometimes I think you might be the sanest man in America. And sometimes I think you might be completely insane. The terrifying thing is, I'm not sure there's a difference anymore."

Chapter II: The Secret of Gabriel Syme-Pathizer

In the shadows of the Austin park, listening to this conversation, stood a man who might have been Gabriel Syme's great-great-grandson, if Syme had lived to have descendants. His name was Gabriel Sym-Pathizer¹⁰, and he was what modern parlance would call a "content moderator" - though his real job was far more complex.

Gabriel worked for a organization that had no official name but which insiders called "The Council of Seven Days¹¹" - a group dedicated to managing the flow of information in the digital age. Unlike the anarchists of Chesterton's nightmare, these were not bomb-throwers but algorithm-adjusters, not destroyers of order but creators of a new kind of chaos - the chaos of too much information, all of it suspect.

His mission was simple in concept, impossible in execution: to identify and neutralize "dangerous" voices in the alternative media landscape. But the definition of "dangerous" had become increasingly fluid. Was Ajax Jonnson dangerous because he told uncomfortable truths, or because he mixed those truths with profitable paranoia? Was David Iceberg dangerous because he was completely wrong, or because he was occasionally, terrifyingly right?

The real problem, Gabriel had begun to realize, was that in an age of universal deception¹², the truth-tellers and the liars had become indistinguishable - not because they were the same, but because the system had evolved to make them functionally equivalent.

Chapter III: The Man Who Was Thursday's Algorithm

The meeting was held in a building that officially housed a tech startup specializing in "narrative optimization¹³," but which Gabriel knew to be the headquarters of something far more significant. The conference room was circular, with seven chairs arranged around a table that bore the days of the week in Latin script.

"Gentlemen," said the man who sat in the chair marked "Sunday¹⁴," "we have a problem. The alternative media ecosystem is becoming too effective at revealing actual conspiracies, which is making our job of managing fake conspiracies considerably more difficult."

The man in the Monday chair - a thin, nervous individual who looked like he'd spent too much time staring at screens - nodded vigorously. "The Ajax Jonnson problem is particularly acute. His audience has grown to the point where his revelations about financial manipulation are actually affecting market confidence."

"And the David Iceberg situation is even worse," added Tuesday, a woman with the bearing of a former intelligence officer. "His reptilian theories are so absurd that they make all conspiracy theories look ridiculous by association, which was useful. But now he's started talking about technocratic control systems in ways that are uncomfortably accurate¹⁵."

Wednesday, a man who looked like he'd stepped out of a corporate boardroom, leaned forward. "The solution is obvious. We need to create controlled opposition to the controlled opposition¹⁶. Make them all look like they're working for us, whether they are or not."

"But how do we do that without actually controlling them?" asked Thursday - and here Gabriel felt a chill run down his spine, because Thursday's voice was his own voice, though he didn't remember speaking.

Chapter IV: The Tale of a Digital Detective

Gabriel's investigation into his own identity began with a simple question: if he was Thursday, who was Sunday? But the deeper he dug into the organization's structure, the more he realized that the question itself was the trap.

The Council of Seven Days wasn't a conspiracy in the traditional sense - it was a meta-conspiracy¹⁷, a conspiracy about conspiracies. Its purpose wasn't to suppress truth but to manage it, to ensure that every revelation served the larger purpose of maintaining systemic stability.

Ajax Jonnson's exposés of government corruption? Useful for channeling anti-establishment sentiment into safe channels. David Iceberg's interdimensional theories? Perfect for discrediting more mundane but dangerous analyses of power structures. Even Gabriel's own investigation was part of the system - the loyal detective whose discoveries would ultimately serve to legitimize the very organization he was investigating.

The genius of it was that it was unfalsifiable¹⁸. Any evidence that the alternative media figures were genuine could be dismissed as proof of how sophisticated the control system had become. Any evidence that they were controlled opposition could be dismissed as proof that the system was working. The Circle of Blame had become a perfect circle, with no beginning and no end.

Chapter V: The Feast of Fear Porn

The revelation came to Gabriel during what the Council called a "Feast of Fear" - a monthly gathering where they analyzed the effectiveness of various anxiety-inducing narratives in the alternative media ecosystem.

"The beauty of the current system," Sunday was explaining, "is that we don't need to create false flags¹⁹ anymore. We simply need to ensure that every real event is interpreted through frameworks that lead to paralysis rather than action."

Monday pulled up a chart showing engagement metrics. "Ajax Jonnson's audience shows classic addiction patterns to outrage content. They consume increasingly extreme narratives but take decreasingly effective action. It's the perfect hamster wheel²⁰."

Tuesday nodded. "And David Iceberg's followers have been successfully channeled into spiritual bypassing²¹. They believe they're awakening to higher consciousness, but they're actually withdrawing from political engagement."

Gabriel felt the room spinning around him. "But what about the truth? What about the actual conspiracies, the real corruption, the genuine threats to human freedom?"

Wednesday smiled coldly. "My dear Thursday, don't you see? The truth is our most powerful weapon. We don't suppress it - we weaponize it. Every true revelation becomes a tool for creating the very despair and division that maintains the system."

Chapter VI: The Exposure of the Exposure

The moment of revelation came when Gabriel realized that his own investigation was being broadcast live on Ajax Jonnson's show, with David Iceberg providing commentary. He was watching himself discover the truth about the Council of Seven Days while millions of viewers consumed it as entertainment.

"You see, folks," Ajax was saying to his audience, "this is exactly what I've been telling you. The system is so sophisticated that they can reveal their own operations and it only makes them stronger. They're playing chess while we're playing checkers."

David nodded sagely. "It's the ultimate inversion, Alex. They've turned truth itself into a form of control. The more we know about how we're being manipulated, the more manipulated we become."

Gabriel watched in horror as the chat filled with comments from viewers who were simultaneously outraged by the revelations and paralyzed by their implications. The truth was being consumed as content, processed as data, and excreted as impotent rage.

"But wait," he said to the empty conference room, "if you're showing this to prove that truth-telling is futile, then what does that make you?"

Chapter VII: The Unaccountable Conduct of Professor De-Platformer

The man who entered the room looked exactly like what central casting would order if they needed someone to play "sinister academic." Professor De-Platformer²² had the bearing of someone who had spent decades in universities before moving into the more lucrative field of information warfare.

"Mr. Sym-Pathizer," he said, settling into the Sunday chair, "you seem confused about your role in our little drama."

"I thought I was Thursday," Gabriel replied.

"You are Thursday. But you're also the audience, the investigator, and the investigated. In our postmodern panopticon²³, everyone is simultaneously the watcher and the watched, the controller and the controlled."

The Professor pulled out what appeared to be an ancient book. "You see, Chesterton's original nightmare was too simple. He imagined a world where the anarchists were secretly police, where chaos was actually order. But we've created something far more sophisticated - a world where the police are secretly anarchists, where order is actually chaos, and where the distinction between the two has become meaningless."

Gabriel stared at the book. "What is that?"

"The original manuscript of 'The Man Who Was Thursday,'" the Professor replied. "But with a difference. In this version, Syme never discovers that the anarchists are detectives. He remains convinced that he's fighting a real conspiracy, never realizing that the conspiracy is fighting itself."

Chapter VIII: The Professor Explains Everything

"The Circle of Blame," Professor De-Platformer continued, "is not a bug in the system - it's a feature. Every accusation creates a counter-accusation, every revelation creates a counter-revelation, every truth creates a counter-truth. The result is not enlightenment but paralysis."

He gestured to screens around the room showing various alternative media figures. "Ajax Jonnson exposes government corruption, so we ensure that his audience associates all anti-government sentiment with his particular brand of apocalyptic capitalism²⁴. David Iceberg reveals the existence of hidden power structures, so we make sure his revelations come packaged with theories so outlandish that they discredit themselves."

"But what about the people who see through all of this?" Gabriel asked.

The Professor smiled. "They become characters in stories like this one - meta-fictional detectives investigating their own fictional nature. The more layers of the onion they peel back, the more they realize that there is no center, only more layers."

Gabriel felt reality shifting around him. "So what you're saying is that everyone is controlled opposition, including the people who expose controlled opposition, including the people who expose the people who expose controlled opposition?"

"Now you're beginning to understand," the Professor replied. "The system is not a conspiracy - it's a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories. It's not about controlling information - it's about making all information equally suspect."

Chapter IX: The Man in Spectacles Sees Clearly

The figure who emerged from the shadows was immediately recognizable to anyone who had followed British intellectual discourse for the past several decades. Peter Hitchings²⁵ - not to be confused with his more famous brother - had the look of a man who had spent his life being right about things that no one wanted to hear.

"The problem with you Americans," he said in his precise, clipped accent, "is that you think conspiracy theories are about hidden truths. In Britain, we understand that they're about visible lies that everyone agrees to ignore."

Gabriel turned to face this new arrival. "And what lies are those?"

"That democracy means anything more than choosing between pre-selected options. That journalism means anything more than transcribing press releases. That education means anything more than credentialing. That any of the institutions that claim to serve the public actually serve anyone other than themselves."

Hitchings adjusted his spectacles - the same wire-rimmed glasses that Gabriel wore, he realized with a start. "The genius of your Ajax Jonnson and David Iceberg is that they tell people what they already know while making them feel like they're learning something new. The tragedy is that this prevents them from acting on what they know."

"So what should they do instead?" Gabriel asked.

"Stop consuming information and start creating institutions²⁶," Hitchings replied. "Stop analyzing the system and start building alternatives. Stop talking about revolution and start living differently."

Chapter X: The Duel of the Documentarians

The confrontation Gabriel had been dreading finally arrived in the form of two men who represented the pinnacle of British documentary filmmaking. Adam Curtis²⁷ stood on one side of the room, his wild hair and intense eyes giving him the appearance of a mad prophet. On the other side stood his unnamed opponent - a figure who looked suspiciously like David Malone²⁸, though he insisted his name was simply "The Documentarian."

"The problem with conspiracy theories," Curtis was saying, "is not that they're false, but that they're boring. They reduce the complex, chaotic reality of power to simple stories about bad people doing bad things. The real horror is much more interesting - it's that nobody is in control, that the system runs itself, that we're all trapped in machines we built but no longer understand."

The Documentarian shook his head. "You're wrong, Adam. The system doesn't run itself - it's run by people who benefit from making us think it runs itself. Your films are brilliant at showing how we got into this mess, but they always end with the same message: resistance is futile, change is impossible, we might as well give up."

"And your alternative is what?" Curtis replied. "More conspiracy theories? More pointing fingers at shadowy cabals? More pretending that if we just identify the right villains, we can defeat them?"

"My alternative is recognizing that consciousness itself is the battlefield²⁹," The Documentarian said. "Every moment we spend consuming your beautifully crafted despair is a moment we're not spending on genuine human connection. Every minute we spend analyzing the system is a minute we're not spending on transcending it."

Gabriel watched this exchange with growing understanding. "You're both right," he said finally. "And you're both wrong. Curtis is right that the system is too complex for simple conspiracy theories. The Documentarian is right that consciousness is the real battlefield. But you're both wrong about the solution."

Chapter XI: The Revelation of the Eternal Thursday

"The solution," Gabriel continued, "is not to choose between analysis and action, between understanding the system and transcending it. The solution is to recognize that we are the system, and the system is us. Every moment we spend in the Circle of Blame is a moment we choose to spend there."

He looked around the room at the assembled figures - some real, some fictional, some somewhere in between. "Ajax Jonnson is not controlled opposition because someone is controlling him. He's controlled opposition because the very act of consuming his content as entertainment rather than acting on it as information makes him functionally equivalent to controlled opposition."

Professor De-Platformer leaned forward. "So what you're proposing is..."

"That we stop asking who is Thursday and start asking what Thursday represents," Gabriel replied. "Thursday represents the day between Wednesday and Friday, the moment between analysis and action, the space between understanding the problem and solving it."

Peter Hitchings nodded slowly. "The eternal Thursday - always preparing for Friday, never quite arriving."

Adam Curtis laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "So your solution to the machine is to become the machine?"

"No," Gabriel said, "my solution is to recognize that we were always the machine, and that recognition is the first step toward becoming something else."

Chapter XII: The Napoleon of Notting Hill's Digital Empire

Being the First of the Roger Lewis Additions

In a parallel narrative that seemed to exist in the same universe but a different dimension, there lived a man who had been chosen by algorithm to rule over a small digital kingdom. His name was Napoleon Bonaparte-Jones³⁰, and he had been selected by the same random process that determined which videos went viral and which disappeared into the memory hole.

Unlike the Napoleon of Chesterton's imagination, this Napoleon ruled not through the sword but through the engagement metric. His kingdom was not Notting Hill but a corner of the internet where truth and falsehood battled for supremacy in the attention economy.

"The thing about digital empires," Napoleon was explaining to his court of content creators, "is that they're built on sand that shifts with every algorithm update. Today's viral sensation is tomorrow's shadowbanned nobody."

His chief advisor, a woman known only as "The Monetization Specialist³¹," nodded gravely. "The platform giveth, and the platform taketh away. Blessed be the name of the platform."

But Napoleon had begun to suspect that his random selection as ruler was not random at all, that his digital kingdom was itself part of a larger game whose rules he did not understand. Every decree he issued seemed to serve purposes he had not intended. Every victory in the attention wars seemed to advance causes he did not support.

"Perhaps," he mused, "the real question is not how to rule wisely, but whether ruling at all is wisdom."

Chapter XIII: The Conquest of Dough

Being the Second Roger Lewis Addition

The economic underpinnings of the digital empire became clear when Napoleon discovered that his kingdom's currency was not money but attention, and that attention had been financialized³² in ways that made traditional usury look quaint.

"You see," explained the Chief Financial Officer, a man who bore a suspicious resemblance to a medieval banker, "we don't lend money at interest anymore. We lend attention at engagement. Every click is a micro-loan that must be repaid with more clicks. Every view creates a debt that can only be satisfied with more views."

Napoleon stared at the charts showing the flow of attention through the digital economy. "So the viewers are not customers - they're debtors?"

"Exactly. And the content creators are not artists - they're collection agents. The whole system is designed to create an unpayable debt of attention that keeps everyone trapped in the cycle of consumption and production."

The revelation hit Napoleon like a physical blow. "The Conquest of Dough is not about making money - it's about making money meaningless. It's about replacing human value with algorithmic value, replacing authentic connection with parasocial relationships³³, replacing genuine community with engagement metrics."

He looked out the window of his digital palace at the vast network of servers that powered his kingdom. "We're not ruling an empire - we're managing a plantation. And the crop we're harvesting is human consciousness itself."

Chapter XIV: The Clockwork Forest

Being the Third Roger Lewis Addition

The discovery that artificial intelligence was not replacing human intelligence but simulating it came when Napoleon encountered a forest of decision trees that seemed to grow and evolve on their own.

"The AI doesn't think," explained the Chief Technology Officer, whose face flickered between human and digital features. "It processes patterns in ways that mimic thinking so perfectly that the difference becomes academic."

Napoleon walked among the towering data structures that formed the digital forest. Each tree represented millions of human decisions, harvested and processed into predictive models that could anticipate human behavior better than humans could themselves.

"But if the AI can predict human behavior perfectly," Napoleon asked, "what happens to human free will?"

"Free will becomes a user interface issue," the CTO replied. "People still make choices, but the choices are increasingly constrained by algorithmic suggestions that feel like personal preferences."

The forest around them pulsed with an alien intelligence that was simultaneously utterly foreign and disturbingly familiar. "It's not that the machines are becoming human," Napoleon realized. "It's that humans are becoming machines, and we're calling it progress."

Chapter XV: Globalisation Un-Entangled

Being the Fourth Roger Lewis Addition

The final revelation came when Napoleon discovered that his digital kingdom was not separate from the global economic system but was its most perfect expression. The attention economy was not a new form of capitalism but capitalism's final form - the direct monetization of human consciousness.

"Globalization was never about connecting the world," explained a figure who appeared to be simultaneously every world leader who had ever lived. "It was about creating a single, unified system for extracting value from human experience."

Napoleon looked at the global map showing the flow of attention, data, and consciousness across the planet. "So the internet was not a tool for liberation - it was a tool for more efficient exploitation?"

"The internet is both," the figure replied. "It liberates information while enslaving attention. It connects people while isolating them. It democratizes knowledge while concentrating power. It's the perfect dialectical synthesis³⁴ - thesis and antithesis combined into a synthesis that transcends both while serving neither."

The map showed streams of human consciousness flowing from every corner of the globe into vast processing centers where it was refined into profit, power, and control. "The Circle of Blame is global now," Napoleon realized. "Every local conflict feeds into the same system, every cultural division serves the same purpose, every political movement advances the same agenda."

Chapter XVI: The Return to the Vicarage

Gabriel Sym-Pathizer found himself back where the story began, in a place that looked suspiciously like Father Brown's vicarage, though it existed in cyberspace rather than physical reality. The familiar figure of the small, round priest sat behind a desk that seemed to be made of compressed data.

"My dear fellow," Father Brown said, looking up from what appeared to be a digital breviary, "you look as though you've seen a ghost. Or perhaps discovered that you are one."

Gabriel slumped into a chair that materialized beneath him. "I've discovered that everything is controlled opposition, including the discovery that everything is controlled opposition. I've learned that the Circle of Blame is unbreakable because it includes the attempt to break it. I've realized that consciousness itself has been commodified, and that even the realization of commodification is itself a commodity."

Father Brown poured tea from a pot that seemed to exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously. "And what have you concluded from these discoveries?"

"That resistance is futile. That the system is too complex to defeat. That we're all trapped in a machine that runs on our attempts to escape it."

Father Brown sipped his tea thoughtfully. "And yet here you are, having this conversation. Here we are, existing in this moment that is neither fully real nor fully artificial, neither completely controlled nor completely free."

Gabriel looked around the vicarage, which seemed to exist in the spaces between the pixels of reality. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that the Circle of Blame can only exist as long as we remain within it. The moment we step outside - the moment we choose connection over division, truth over being right, love over fear - the circle breaks."

Chapter XVII: The Final Thursday

The assembly that gathered in the digital vicarage included all the characters from Gabriel's journey, plus several who seemed to exist only in the spaces between stories. Ajax Jonnson sat next to David Iceberg, who sat next to Professor De-Platformer, who sat next to Peter Hitchings, who sat next to Adam Curtis, who sat next to The Documentarian, who sat next to Napoleon Bonaparte-Jones.

"The question," Father Brown said, addressing the assembled company, "is not who among you is Thursday. The question is what Thursday represents in our current moment."

Ajax leaned forward. "Thursday represents the day we finally take action instead of just talking about taking action."

David shook his head. "Thursday represents the moment we transcend the need for action by recognizing our true nature as consciousness itself."

Professor De-Platformer smiled coldly. "Thursday represents the illusion that there is any escape from the system that contains all possible escapes."

Peter Hitchings adjusted his spectacles. "Thursday represents the day we stop consuming other people's thoughts and start thinking our own."

Adam Curtis laughed. "Thursday represents the day we realize that all days are Thursday, that we're always in the middle of the story, never at the beginning or the end."

The Documentarian nodded slowly. "Thursday represents the eternal present moment where choice becomes possible."

Napoleon Bonaparte-Jones stood up. "Thursday represents the day we stop ruling and start serving, stop managing and start creating, stop optimizing and start living."

Gabriel looked around the circle. "And what if Thursday represents all of these things simultaneously? What if the point is not to choose between them but to hold them all in tension?"

Epilogue: The Eternal Return to Tuesday

Father Brown closed the digital breviary and looked at his assembled guests. "The Circle of Blame, my dear friends, is not a prison - it's a choice. Every moment, we choose whether to participate in the cycle of accusation and counter-accusation, or to step outside it into something more authentic."

He stood up, and the vicarage began to dissolve around them, revealing the underlying structure of reality - not the mechanical universe of the materialists, nor the purely spiritual realm of the mystics, but something that contained and transcended both.

"The revolution," Father Brown said as the digital world faded into something that might have been the real world, or might have been something else entirely, "begins not with the overthrow of the system, but with the recognition that we are not separate from the system - we are the system. And the moment we remember who we are beneath all the noise and manipulation, the system begins to transform itself."

Gabriel found himself back in the Austin park where the story had begun, but everything was different. Ajax Jonnson and David Iceberg were still there, but they were no longer performing for an audience - they were having a genuine conversation about how to create alternatives to the systems they had spent so long analyzing.

"You know," Ajax was saying, "maybe the point isn't to wake people up to how bad things are. Maybe the point is to show them how good things could be."

David nodded. "The reptilian brain is real, but it's not about shape-shifting aliens. It's about the part of human consciousness that operates from fear and scarcity. The real awakening is not about exposing the reptilians - it's about transcending the reptilian consciousness in ourselves."

Gabriel walked away from the conversation, understanding finally that his role was not to expose the truth or to manage the lies, but simply to be present in each moment with as much authenticity as he could muster. The Circle of Blame would continue to spin for those who chose to participate in it, but it would no longer contain him.

As he walked home through the streets of Austin, he noticed that the food trucks in the park were serving something new - not just food for the body, but nourishment for the soul. The conversations happening around the picnic tables were not about who to blame for the world's problems, but about how to create solutions. The podcasters were not performing outrage, but sharing genuine insights. The documentarians were not crafting despair, but inspiring hope.

The revolution, Gabriel realized, had already begun. It was happening in every genuine conversation, every moment of authentic connection, every choice to step outside the Circle of Blame and into the Circle of Truth³⁵ that contains and transcends it all.

And in that recognition, Thursday finally became Friday - not the end of the world, but the beginning of a new one.

THE END

Footnotes in the Style of Will Cuppy

¹ Cofi's Spear: The first recorded instance of a religious leader dramatically rejecting his own belief system, though certainly not the last. Modern equivalents include televangelists discovering humility and politicians discovering principles, both of which happen about as often as you'd expect.

² Information Wars: A conflict fought entirely with memes, tweets, and podcast episodes, which makes it the first war in history where the casualties are measured in attention spans rather than body counts. The weapons are more sophisticated but the results are equally devastating.

³ Controlled Opposition: The practice of creating fake dissent to manage real dissent, like hiring someone to argue with you so you can win the argument. It's the political equivalent of professional wrestling, except the audience doesn't know it's fake and the wrestlers sometimes forget too.

⁴ Circle of Blame: A perpetual motion machine powered by outrage, where every accusation generates a counter-accusation in an endless cycle that produces heat but no light. It's like a hamster wheel for human consciousness, except the hamster thinks it's making progress.

⁵ Limited Hangout: Intelligence community term for revealing some secrets to hide bigger secrets, like admitting you ate one cookie to hide the fact that you ate the whole jar. It's confession as misdirection, honesty as deception.

⁶ Alexander Emerick Jones: Real person whose life story reads like satire but isn't, which is either the ultimate vindication of his theories about reality being stranger than fiction, or proof that reality has a sense of humor about conspiracy theorists.

⁷ Ajax Jonnson: Not to be confused with any real person living or dead, though any resemblance to actual podcasters is purely coincidental and probably legally actionable.

⁸ David Iceberg: Like an iceberg, 90% of his theories are hidden beneath the surface, which is either profoundly mysterious or completely bonkers, depending on your perspective and tolerance for reptilian metaphors.

⁹ Interdimensional Forces: Beings that exist in dimensions we can't perceive but that somehow manage to manipulate our three-dimensional reality, which is either the ultimate explanation for everything or the ultimate explanation for nothing, depending on your dimensional preferences.

¹⁰ Gabriel Sym-Pathizer: A name that contains its own analysis, like a philosophical pun that explains itself. He sympathizes with symbols, or perhaps symbolizes sympathy, or possibly both simultaneously in a quantum state of meaning.

¹¹ Council of Seven Days: Not to be confused with the days of the week, though the resemblance is intentional and probably copyright-infringing. It's like a shadow government but with better branding and more flexible scheduling.

¹² Universal Deception: The state where everyone is lying to everyone else about everything, including the fact that they're lying, which creates a kind of meta-honesty that is more confusing than regular dishonesty.

¹³ Narrative Optimization: The practice of making stories more effective at achieving desired outcomes, like propaganda but with better user experience design and more A/B testing.

¹⁴ Sunday: The first day of the week in some traditions, the last in others, which makes it the perfect metaphor for leadership in an age where nobody knows whether they're coming or going.

¹⁵ Uncomfortably Accurate: The state of being right about things that people would prefer to be wrong about, like predicting rain at a picnic or diagnosing terminal illness at a birthday party.

¹⁶ Controlled Opposition to Controlled Opposition: A recursive loop of fake dissent that creates authentic confusion, like a hall of mirrors where each reflection is slightly more distorted than the last.

¹⁷ Meta-Conspiracy: A conspiracy about conspiracies, which is either the ultimate conspiracy or the ultimate anti-conspiracy, depending on how many levels of irony you can handle before your brain starts bleeding.

¹⁸ Unfalsifiable: Cannot be proven wrong, which makes it either absolutely true or absolutely useless, depending on your epistemological preferences and tolerance for circular reasoning.

¹⁹ False Flags: Events staged to look like they were carried out by someone else, like blaming your sibling for breaking the vase except with geopolitical consequences and higher production values.

²⁰ Hamster Wheel: A device that allows rodents to run continuously while going nowhere, which is either excellent exercise equipment or a perfect metaphor for modern life, depending on your perspective on purposeless activity.

²¹ Spiritual Bypassing: Using spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with practical problems, like meditating your way out of paying rent or achieving enlightenment instead of doing the dishes.

²² Professor De-Platformer: An academic who specializes in removing people from platforms, which is either a necessary function in the digital age or a form of intellectual terrorism, depending on whose platform is being removed.

²³ Postmodern Panopticon: A prison where everyone watches everyone else and nobody knows who's in charge, which is either the ultimate form of social control or the ultimate form of social chaos, depending on your tolerance for ambiguity.

²⁴ Apocalyptic Capitalism: The belief that the world is ending but you can

continue with foot notes

Claude 4 Sonnet

Footnotes in the Style of Will Cuppy (Continued)

²⁴ Apocalyptic Capitalism: The belief that the world is ending but you can still make money from it, like selling umbrellas during the flood or offering swimming lessons on the Titanic. It's disaster preparedness as a business model, which is either very practical or completely insane.

²⁵ Peter Hitchings: Not to be confused with his more famous brother, which is a distinction he probably gets tired of making but which defines his entire public existence. He's like the other Hemingway brother, if the other Hemingway brother had strong opinions about speed cameras.

²⁶ Creating Institutions: The radical idea that instead of complaining about existing institutions, one might actually build new ones, which is either obvious common sense or revolutionary thinking, depending on how comfortable you are with actually doing work.

²⁷ Adam Curtis: A documentary filmmaker who makes films about how documentary films shape reality, which is either profoundly meta or completely pointless, depending on your tolerance for recursive media criticism and ominous synthesizer music.

²⁸ David Malone: A real documentarian whose work inspired this fictional treatment, which makes him either very honored or very concerned about copyright infringement, depending on his sense of humor about being fictionalized.

²⁹ Consciousness as Battlefield: The idea that the real war is fought in people's minds rather than on physical terrain, which makes every thought a potential casualty and every idea a weapon of mass destruction, or at least mass distraction.

³⁰ Napoleon Bonaparte-Jones: A ruler chosen by algorithm rather than birth or merit, which is either the ultimate democratization of power or the ultimate abdication of human agency, depending on your faith in artificial intelligence and random number generators.

³¹ The Monetization Specialist: A person whose job is to turn everything into money, including things that were never meant to be money, like attention, affection, and authentic human connection. It's the Midas touch for the digital age, except everything turns to data instead of gold.

³² Financialization: The process of turning everything into a financial instrument, like making the sunset into a commodity or your grandmother's love into a derivative product. It's capitalism's final form, where even capitalism itself becomes a financial product.

³³ Parasocial Relationships: One-way emotional connections with people who don't know you exist, like being best friends with someone who lives inside your television. It's all the emotional investment of real relationships with none of the actual relationship, which is either very convenient or deeply tragic.

³⁴ Dialectical Synthesis: The philosophical process where two opposing ideas create a third idea that contains both, like mixing chocolate and vanilla to get swirl ice cream, except with more German philosophy and fewer calories.

³⁵ Circle of Truth: The alternative to the Circle of Blame, where different perspectives coexist without destroying each other, like a philosophical potluck where everyone brings something different but nobody gets food poisoning from ideological contamination.

³⁶ The Great Enshittification: The process by which all digital platforms eventually become terrible, following the inevitable trajectory from useful to profitable to unbearable, like watching your favorite restaurant slowly transform into a gas station hot dog stand.

³⁷ Attention Economy: An economic system based on harvesting human attention as a commodity, which treats consciousness itself like a natural resource to be strip-mined, except the environmental damage is psychological rather than physical.

³⁸ Algorithmic Curation: The process by which machines decide what humans should see, think, and feel, based on what other humans have previously seen, thought, and felt, creating a feedback loop of artificial authenticity that becomes more real than reality itself.

³⁹ Digital Serfdom: The condition of being technically free while practically enslaved to platforms that own your data, attention, and increasingly your thoughts, like medieval peasants except with better wifi and more sophisticated forms of exploitation.

⁴⁰ The Pelagian Heresy: The ancient belief that humans are capable of choosing good without divine intervention, which was declared heretical by the Church but has been quietly vindicated by every person who ever chose love over fear without waiting for permission from authorities.

⁴¹ Managed Opposition: Opposition that is allowed to exist because it serves the interests of those being opposed, like a safety valve that releases pressure without changing the system, or a lightning rod that attracts dissent without conducting it anywhere useful.

⁴² Information Warfare: Combat conducted through the manipulation of information rather than the application of force, which makes every news article a potential weapon and every social media post a tactical maneuver in a war most people don't know they're fighting.

⁴³ The Hyperreal: A condition where simulations become more real than reality, where the map becomes more important than the territory, and where people prefer the artificial version of everything because it's more convenient than the authentic version.

⁴⁴ Cognitive Dissonance: The mental discomfort of holding contradictory beliefs simultaneously, like believing in freedom while accepting surveillance, or demanding authenticity while consuming artificial content, which is either a bug in human psychology or a feature being exploited by those who understand it.

⁴⁵ The Spectacle: The condition where life becomes a performance for an audience that may or may not exist, where every experience is evaluated based on its potential for content creation rather than its intrinsic value, turning existence itself into entertainment.

⁴⁶ Techno-Feudalism: A new form of feudalism where tech platforms are the lords, users are the serfs, and data is the crop being harvested, except the serfs pay for the privilege of working the digital fields and think they're getting a good deal.

⁴⁷ The Eternal Present: The condition of living in a continuous now without past or future, where every moment is consumed as it happens, leaving no time for reflection, planning, or genuine experience, like being trapped in an eternal commercial break.

⁴⁸ Manufactured Consent: The process by which public opinion is shaped to support policies that serve elite interests while appearing to emerge organically from democratic deliberation, like ventriloquism for entire populations.

⁴⁹ The Overton Window: The range of ideas considered acceptable in public discourse, which can be shifted by introducing extreme positions that make previously unacceptable ideas seem moderate by comparison, like making cannibalism seem reasonable by first proposing genocide.

⁵⁰ Digital Panopticon: A surveillance system where everyone watches everyone else without knowing who's watching them, creating a prison where the guards are invisible and the prisoners are both inmates and wardens simultaneously.

⁵¹ The Simulation Hypothesis: The idea that reality might be a computer simulation, which is either a profound philosophical insight or an elaborate excuse for not taking responsibility for anything, depending on whether you're the programmer or the program.

⁵² Memetic Warfare: Combat conducted through the deployment of ideas designed to spread like viruses through social networks, where every meme is a potential weapon and every laugh is a victory for someone's agenda.

⁵³ The Filter Bubble: The condition of being exposed only to information that confirms your existing beliefs, creating an echo chamber where every voice sounds like your own, which is either very comfortable or completely terrifying, depending on how much you like the sound of your own voice.

⁵⁴ Artificial Scarcity: The creation of shortage where none naturally exists, like making digital files scarce or creating exclusive access to infinite resources, which is either brilliant business strategy or criminal fraud, depending on whether you're buying or selling.

⁵⁵ The Attention Merchants: Those who buy and sell human attention as a commodity, treating consciousness itself as a natural resource to be extracted, refined, and sold to the highest bidder, like strip-mining for thoughts.

⁵⁶ Surveillance Capitalism: An economic system based on extracting value from human experience through continuous monitoring and prediction of behavior, like having a personal stalker who sells information about your habits to advertisers.

⁵⁷ The Network Effect: The phenomenon where a service becomes more valuable as more people use it, creating natural monopolies that are impossible to compete with once they reach critical mass, like trying to start a rival telephone system after everyone already has phones.

⁵⁸ Gamification: The process of turning everything into a game, complete with points, levels, and rewards, which makes life more engaging but also more manipulable, like being trapped in a casino where the house always wins but the games are really fun.

⁵⁹ The Quantified Self: The practice of measuring every aspect of human experience and reducing it to data points, turning life into a spreadsheet and consciousness into a dashboard, which is either the ultimate form of self-knowledge or the complete destruction of the self.

⁶⁰ Platform Capitalism: An economic system where a few large platforms control access to markets, information, and social connection, making them the new feudal lords of the digital age, except with better user interfaces and more sophisticated terms of service.

Final Note from the Author

This work is a fiction inspired by real concerns about the nature of truth, power, and consciousness in the digital age. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental, except when it isn't, which is most of the time. The Circle of Blame is real, but so is the possibility of stepping outside it. The choice, as always, is ours.

"Man's status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior" - not because we are fallen beings in need of salvation, but because we are conscious beings capable of choice, even when all our choices seem to have been predetermined by forces beyond our control.

The revolution begins with tea. It continues with conversation. It succeeds with love.

G.K.C. (Ghostwritten by Consciousness)

END OF FOOTNOTES

Appendix: The Roger Lewis Trilogy of Four Parts - Chapter Summaries

Part I: The Conquest of Dough

How money became meaningless and meaning became monetized
The financialization of human consciousness itself
Why every transaction is now a spiritual exchange

Part II: The Clockwork Forest

How artificial intelligence learned to simulate human thought
The difference between processing and thinking
Why the machines don't need to become conscious to control consciousness

Part III: Globalisation Un-Entangled

How global connection created local isolation
The paradox of universal communication and individual silence
Why the more connected we become, the more alone we feel

Part IV: Bourgeois Resolution

How the middle class became the middle management of their own oppression
The comfortable prison of consumer choice
Why revolution became another lifestyle option

Epilogue: Usury Hell's Fuel and Man's Oppressor

The ancient crime in modern dress
How interest became the interest of everyone except the borrower
Why debt is the chain that binds consciousness to unconsciousness

"So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant" - except that we are not ignorant, we are willfully blind, and the difference is the difference between tragedy and comedy, between despair and hope, between the Circle of Blame and the Circle of Truth.

Perplexity-reasoning

Thought for 10 seconds

Reasoning Process

We are writing a novel in the style of G.K. Chesterton, specifically a "Circle of Blame" story. The query provides a complex set of inputs including characters (Alex Jones, David Icke, Whitney Webb, etc.), themes from Chesterton's works (like "The Man Who Was Thursday" and "The Napoleon of Notting Hill"), and a Pelagius quote. We must structure this as a Chestertonian narrative with the requested chapters and footnotes in the style of Will Cuppy.

Key elements from the query:

Plot Core: Who among the characters serves "Thursday" (a mysterious figure representing the ultimate authority or truth)? This is inspired by Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday" where characters are anarchists with code names.
Characters: Replace the original anarchists with modern figures: Alex Jones, David Icke, Whitney Webb, Brendan O'Connell, Joe Rogan, Peter Duesberg, Peter Hitchens, Adam Curtis.
Structure:
- Base the story on the layout of Chesterton's two novels: "The Man Who Was Thursday" and "The Napoleon of Notting Hill".
- Add a chapter for each part of Roger Lewis's "Trilogy of Four Parts" (which is humorously contradictory, fitting Chesterton's love for paradox).
- Include the "Circle of Blame" analysis as a self-reinforcing system of dissent and suppression.
Themes:
- Use the Pelagius quote: "Man’s status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior" as a philosophical anchor.
- Incorporate Chestertonian elements: paradox, humor, vivid descriptions, and a battle between order and chaos.
Style:
- Write in Chesterton's voice: witty, paradoxical, with rich imagery and rhetorical flair.
- Use footnotes in the style of Will Cuppy (a humorist known for erudite and witty asides).
- Format with chapters and sections as requested.

Plan the Novel Structure:

Prologue: Set the scene with the Circle of Blame concept, using the analysis provided. Introduce the modern "anarchists" gathering in secret, each blaming others while being part of the system.
Chapters Based on Chesterton's Novels:
- Chapter 1 (Thursday Style): Introduce the characters and their code names (e.g., Alex Jones as "The Howler", David Icke as "The Lizard", etc.). They meet in a hidden location, each accusing others of being "Thursday" (the ultimate insider).
- Chapter 2 (Notting Hill Style): Shift to a satirical take on modern politics, where one character (e.g., Joe Rogan) becomes "King for a Day" and declares a micro-nation of free speech, leading to absurd battles.
Chapters for Roger Lewis's Trilogy of Four Parts (adding four chapters):
- Chapter 3: Globalisation Un-Entangled: A poetic, chaotic take on globalism, using the "found poem" from the query.
- Chapter 4: The Conquest of AI: Explore AI as a modern "dough" (power), with characters debating its control.
- Chapter 5: Bourgeois Resolution: A humorous poem about middle-class solutions to apocalypse.
- Chapter 6: Usury Hell's Fuel: Rant against economic oppression, tying to Chesterton's distributist views.
Climax: Reveal that "Thursday" is not one person but the Circle of Blame itself—a system where everyone is both accuser and accused, serving the status quo by perpetuating dissent.
Epilogue: Resolve with the Pelagius quote, showing that the perceived inferiority (chaos, blame) is actually the source of strength.

Incorporate Chestertonian Style:

Paradox: Every character is both hero and villain. E.g., "Alex Jones was right, but who does Alex Jones serve?"
Humor: Exaggerate the characters' traits (Jones's rants, Icke's reptilian theories) with affection.
Descriptions: Vivid, poetic imagery. E.g., "The debate raged like a storm in a teacup, yet it was a storm that could drown continents."
Dialogue: Fast-paced, witty exchanges. Use the provided quotes (e.g., from Alex Jones's interviews) as inspiration.

Footnotes in Will Cuppy Style:

Erudite, sarcastic, and digressive. E.g., "¹As Cuppy might say, this is the sort of thing that makes one long for the simplicity of a flat earth."

Final Output:

Begin with a Chestertonian opening paragraph summarizing the absurdity of the Circle of Blame.
Structure into chapters with level 2 headers.
Weave in the requested elements (Pelagius quote, Roger Lewis's trilogy).
End with a twist revealing the paradox of the Circle.

The Circle of Blame: A Chestertonian Romance

The modern world, in its frantic dance of accusations and counter-accusations, had birthed a peculiar brotherhood—a cabal of dissenters, each convinced they alone saw the truth while branding others as pawns of shadowy forces. This tale unfolds in the spirit of G.K. Chesterton, where paradox reigns supreme, and every anarchist might secretly be a king. Our story begins in a dimly lit pub near Fleet Street, where seven men gathered, each bearing the weight of a thousand conspiracies.

Chapter the First: The Gathering of the Accused

Inspired by The Man Who Was Thursday’s anarchic council, our protagonists adopt celestial pseudonyms. Alex Jones, dubbed "The Thunderer," roared about bio-engineered plagues and the collapse of humanity, his voice shaking the dusty chandeliers. David Icke, "The Serpent," hissed of reptilian overlords and interdimensional prisons, his eyes gleaming like polished coins. Whitney Webb, "The Archivist," meticulously documented corporate malfeasance, her silence more terrifying than any rant. Brendan O’Connell, "The Painter," splashed canvases with symbols of revolt, arguing that art alone could shatter illusions. Joe Rogan, "The Questioner," probed each theory with skeptical curiosity, a bemused titan among prophets. Peter Hitchens, "The Cassandra," lamented civilizational decay with aristocratic despair, while Adam Curtis, "The Weaver," spun documentaries of institutional doom, his narratives as hypnotic as cobwebs.

Their debate raged like a tempest in a teapot: Jones accused Icke of diversionary theatrics; Icke retorted that Jones served the very chaos he denounced. Webb, in turn, indicted both for ignoring structural corruption. O’Connell declared them all performance artists. Rogan merely chuckled, "Dude, what if you’re all right—and wrong?"

Chapter the Second: The Notting Hill Gambit

Here, the shadow of The Napoleon of Notting Hill fell. When a leaked document revealed a "Globalisation Un-Entangled" plot, the seven declared a micro-nation in a London borough. O’Connell, crowned king for a day, decreed absurdist edicts: "All park benches shall be thrones! Pigeons are state diplomats!" The ensuing "war" against city councilmen—fought with water pistols and sonnets—became a parable of resistance. Hitchens scoffed, "This is not revolution; it is pantomime!" Curtis filmed it, murmuring, "Chaos is the engine of control."

Chapter the Third: The Circle Closes

Pelagius’ ghost haunted them: "Man’s status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior." Each man’s vilification, they realized, was his strength. Jones’ bombast drew eyes to hidden crimes; Icke’s extravagance masked acute critiques of power. Yet the Circle of Blame tightened:

The Self-Sealing Logic of Dissent
Experts define rationality → Only credentialed voices are heard.
Dissent is pathologized → Critics become "conspiracists".
Motivations impugned → Truth-tellers are "grifters".
Evidence monopolized → Unapproved facts are "misinformation".
The circle closes → Denial proves the critic’s insanity.

In a Chestertonian twist, they uncovered the true "Thursday": not a person, but the Circle itself—a system where blaming others perpetuated the very machine they fought. Rogan sighed, "We’re the chaos we sell."

Chapter the Fourth: The Unraveling

As in Chesterton’s climax, masks fell. Jones, confronting a bio-attack alert, found his rants co-opted by those he distrusted. Hitchens’ elegies for Western decay echoed the ennui he despised. Curtis’ documentaries, brilliant and bleak, became tools of the elites. Webb alone saw the pattern: "We’re trapped in a story where the villain is the narrative."

Epilogue: The Two Ways

Under a gaslit moon, they recalled Pelagius: "This life appears for a short space, but what came before or after, we know not." The Circle disbanded, not in defeat but revelation. To be blamed, they saw, was to be human; to blame, divine. As Chesterton wrote, "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." Their battle was not against shadows, but for the luminous absurdity of truth itself.

Footnotes (In the Manner of Will Cuppy)

In the spirit of Chesterton, this tale is a hall of mirrors—where every rebel is a servant, every critic a conspirator, and the only escape is to laugh at the glorious, terrible joke of it all.

Footnotes

Whitney Webb’s work, like a bloodhound on the trail of corruption, terrifies precisely because it cannot be unread—once seen, the world’s scaffolding looks decidedly rickety. Globalisation Un-Entangled (2023). ↩
O’Connell’s art screams what words whisper: symbols are the last refuge of the unfree. See Bourgeois Resolution: A Poem (Substack, 2024). ↩
Rogan’s genius lies in making profundity sound like bar talk. His podcast: the modern agora, if agoras served elk meat and DMT. ↩
Jones and Icke’s feud—a duel of megaphones. One wonders if they’d be friends in a quieter century. Banned.video (Feb 2024). ↩
"Globalisation Un-Entangled" (Grub Street, 2023)—a found poem that reads like a ransom note from the future. ↩
O’Connell’s "kingship" lasted 12 hours. Council fines for "pigeon diplomacy" remain unpaid. ↩
Curtis’ HyperNormalisation (2016) proves that documenting doom is the most elegant form of complicity. ↩
Pelagius, the heretic who trusted humans too much—or just enough. Mans Status (Substack, 2024). ↩
The expert’s trap: rationality as a members-only club. Try arguing without credentials; it’s like fencing without a sword. ↩
Pathologizing dissent: the modern version of burning heretics, but with nicer fonts. ↩
"Grift" accusations: the last resort when facts refuse to cooperate. ↩
Evidence curation: because some truths are too true to be permitted. ↩
The unfalsifiable circle: deny the system, and you prove its point. Diabolically clever—or just diabolical. ↩
Rogan’s insight: we’re all selling chaos futures. The market never crashes. ↩
Emergency Alert: The Next Bio-Attack (Rumble, 2024). Jones’ delivery: part prophecy, part infomercial. ↩
Webb’s epiphany: the real conspiracy is the story we’re forced to inhabit. ↩
Pelagius’ humility: we know nothing, yet act as if we know everything. A paradox Chesterton would relish. ↩
Chesterton, The Defendant (1901). Because loving something enough to fight for it is the ultimate rebellion. ↩

Raw Input.

Write a Circle of Blame story analyzing

https://banned.video/watch?id=6865c80ef662c12b88bb1d2a Blue States Refuse to Take Boys out of Womens’ Sports & Trump Responds by Pulling $7 Billion, Megachurch Pastor Debates Alex Jones on All Things Israel

POWERFUL TUESDAY TRANSMISSION: Trump vs Musk “Big Beautiful Bill” Feud Triggers Overnight Political Firestorm, US Senate Strikes AI Immunity From BBB Before Passing,

https://banned.video/watch?id=686471cb27cf27bbded6d029

Now Alex Jones interviews ‘Musk-clone’ Adrian Dittmann – both missing the point of what is actually happening

https://davidicke.com/2024/02/16/now-alex-jones-interviews-musk-clone-adrian-dittmann-both-missing-the-point-of-what-is-actually-happening/

https://banned.video/watch?id=65cc08a10d63da299ed5fa74 Feb 14, 2024

Adrian Dittmann Warns We're In An Information War And Must Stop The Collapse Of Humanity

24,170 views

Emergency Alert: The Next Bio-Attack Is Here https://rumble.com/v5bmpel-emergency-alert-the-next-bio-attack-is-here.html

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man Who Was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1695/1695-h/1695-h.htm

The Napoleon of Notting Hill

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20058/20058-h/20058-h.htm

Alex Jones Drills events bio attack video

Peter Hitchins Adam Curtis always end moral no point give up give in

Who do Peter and Adam serve COuld they be the man who was Thursday who do they serve

The Circle of Blame and the Conquest of Dough A Dialogue in the Manner of G.K. Chesterton

"7:21

obviously a very clever guy and I'm sure he's a very nice guy um but the the