Debunking the Self Radicalization Myth Will Save Countless People

What I am calling the self radicalization myth, is the lie that has been perpetuated in American society, and the world writ large, that people – particularly so-called lone wolf terrorists – radicalize themselves online. This is one of the most pernicious and dangerous misconceptions facing the crisis of our youth, as well as governmental policy-making, international affairs, and the financial markets. Everything is intertwined here, but the fundamental thing is that people do not radicalize themselves. Almost exclusively, are people lured into online groups to become radicals for specific causes, who profiteer from the pain and suffering it causes.

The importance of debunking the self radicalization myth cannot be overstated.

To understand how this persists, you need to know where it all began.

Was “ASH” The First Online Psychological Operation?

Long before the dawn of social media, and prior to AOL even being in 25,000,000+ homes, there was an elite group of people who were pioneering the internet in universities and government departments. The phrase “use the net” meaning to be on the internet, actually comes from a now-ancient protocol and distribution methodology that was dubbed “usenet.”

Usenet was a sort of decentralized series of newsgroups, which functioned similarly to modern message board sites like 4chan or Reddit.

The original usenet groups had major categories.

Then, “alt” newsgroups were introduced.

This allowed anybody with terminal access to usenet, create a newsgroup, and begin discussion among the users on the platform.

Infamously, all alt groups were made illegal, in one of the first acts of censorship on the internet, after CSAM was found to be distributed under some of the groups. This caused more regulation, as usenet became carried by ISP’s instead of simply the university and government. It explains how early days people would get caught with illicit content on their devices, prior to more sophisticated cybersecurity methods. It (usenet) was fairly anonymous, though, and carried with it some very odd stories.

Perhaps the most notorious of all the newsgroups of this era, and something that laid the groundwork for the self radicalization myth, was “alt.suicide.holiday,” a group which is unparalleled in infamy on the internet. Unparalleled because the founder(s) have never even been speculated. Nobody in the history of the internet has asked “who created this group, and why did they really do it?”

Whoever has been keeping this secret, has done so for nearly 40 years.

What Was ASH and Why Was It Shut Down?

All of the alt groups were shut down, as a result of public pressure from the cases of both child pornography, as well as ASH – leading to real suicides.

ASH was established for the purpose of convincing people to end their lives. It was sardonic, dark, disgusting, and criminal.

The people who started it did so for no known reason, however I speculate that they were fraudulent professionals with university connections somewhere in the Northeast like Princeton, Penn, or somewhere in that region.

Though alt newsgroups were established with no moderators, this regulation was necessary in order to protect people.

How Could This Have Happened In the Early 90’s?

It is hard today, to imagine what it must have been like to be one of the first people on the internet in 1990, for example, especially with usenet. A list of newsgroups would be published, and chronological order of semi-anonymous discussion (not unlike 4chan) would ensue on long threads of various topics. But by the time you saw this, and eventually websites with HTML, it may have appeared to some as if the content was naturally occurring. I know that sounds crazy now when we all assume everything is made by bots, however, back in those days it was like magic. Or aliens.

So, the construct and algorithm (logic, instructions) encoded in ASH were very hard to discern. It was clearly difficult for many emotionally and psychologically disturbed people to escape it. There is also no telling about how deep this went, who was responsible for it, and why nothing has been done about it after alt groups were shut down. These days, too, there are many groups which could be considered to do the same thing: radicalize people into suicidal or otherwise self-destructive behaviors.

There are also ways that vulnerable people are recruited from more public websites or social media, and then dragged down into more & more secretive internet and real world places. ASH was, however, the first online psychological operation, which tricked many people into dangerous and deadly positions. It created the culture of sainthood surrounding martyrdom in nihilism, which was copied in future groups and Columbine type ideology. Long before jihadist radicalization happened online there was an experiment called ASH which may be the backbone of nearly every modern day digital cult.

Stochastic Terrorism By Despair

Stochastic means “randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.” It is unpopular to believe that there is nothing we can do about senseless violence like church or school shootings. There are things we can do, like identifying the fundamentals of ASH and other radicalization programs. But they are in many ways stochastic events. That is partially why these kinds of mass shootings are so terrorizing. They are random. Seemingly disconnected from everything.

But there are patterns, and tropes, of these kinds of events.

They involve driving a person who is already vulnerable, into a total and complete lack of hope. Despair is the point. That is the ideology. It drives meaninglessness and emptiness in people, like many cults do. The difference here, is the fact that the leadership is obscured to the point that people view these ideologies as kind of self sustaining. They are not, though.

Terror is an act. It is intentional.

It does not happen by accident.

The people behind ASH, jihadist recruitment, incels, and all these other kinds of modern online cults all do what they do for a reason. Money, generally. Power as well. But there are incentives which lead from horrible acts of violence back to the pocketbooks and bank accounts of people who lead what otherwise looks like a very normal life.

Time Release Cults: “Pilled” and Pills

You have probably heard the phrases “red pilled,” “black pilled,” “white pilled,” or “blue pilled,” “clown pilled,” “doom pilled,” and all kinds of other pilled euphemisms which originated in The Matrix, with Neo’s choice of staying asleep or becoming awake. The red pill, was adopted by Republicans to mean that they are “awake.” A truly ironic twist, in that the GOP and “MAGA” (another ASH type cult) claim to hate “woke,” even though their entire ideological origin story is rooted in being awoken.

These other pilled euphemisms have more deeply cult-like ideological frameworks that many people become students of whether they claim to follow these groups or not. What I mean is, if you listen to podcasters, broadcasters, and journalists and experts on these online groups, they know a lot of the lore. They can articulate the points as well as anybody. It’s as if they are (former) members themselves.

That is the danger of these online cults like ASH, and why it’s important to understand the history of these things. They are older than you know.

These cults all reference pills in their ideology.

America is also majorly addicted to pharmaceuticals. What is hard to understand though, is that ideology itself, can be just as harmful or even more dangerous than drugs themselves. Mixing those things – ideology and actual drugs – is a surefire way to push somebody over the edge from fantasizing into actualizing.

This is a process that has been mastered, and was pioneered on ASH.

The Self Radicalization Myth Is A Liability Shield

It is politically convenient for people to assume that mass killers are radicalizing themselves. That means there is nothing left to investigate, and normal or cheap answers can pacify people for long enough to wait until the next one. If there were actually radicalizers online who could be caught and convicted – that would mean politicians and law enforcement are to blame for not stopping it and shutting it down. Parents of the children can also be not held liable, and it lets them off the hook in attempting to understand where it all went wrong. Tech companies who host and protect predators will also not face justice if people are blamed for radicalizing themselves. But that does not make sense. Ideology is self-perpetuating.

The truth is that there are people out there with old methodology for radicalizing and brainwashing people online. This was copycatted, exported, and learned from by jihadists, as well as other foreign and domestic terror groups. People may stumble upon some of this content, but without coaxing, coercion, and active moderation, it is impossible to have such a concerted effort that perpetuates the same kind of terror.

I understand that parents of victims, and perpetrators, may not want to confront this.

Politicians definitely will not, and the technology companies which make this possible have been profiting from it for decades since ASH was shut down.

They will continue to get away with it so long as you keep your eyes closed and your mind off. So open those eyes, and allow this in.

Because the self radicalization myth is just that.

Don’t believe it.