85 Comments

You are the 180-degree opposite and inverse of the CCP -- individual freedom vs maxed-out Big Govt collectivism and obedience -- they are trying to know their enemy better by reading the works of their enemy's thought leaders. It's a left-handed compliment!

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Thank you, David—I really appreciate that!

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I agree!

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🙏🏻

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Well...that kind of thing is something to note. I don't know how the algorithms are becoming more sensitive or aware, but they are.

I was reading through some comments a few days ago and liked a comment that was about a very particular subject. Within an hour or so, an article I hadn't solicited from a site I'd never been, was delivered in my email inbox on this very same specific subject.

It is worth paying attention to. Obviously some effort is being invested in ramping up the subtlety of the algorithms.

And, of course, all of us on here and elsewhere are contributing to it.

Thanks for your article. God Bless.

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Yikes. Yeah, it's a freaky world.

And yes, we are contributing. But I am working to limit those contributions. Getting off of other social media. Switching to Proton for email and other services (and away from, say, iCloud). Using a privacy phone. Closing down as many accounts as possible. I am going gradually but surely in that direction. At least we can reduce our footprint.

But also, we still do need to communicate with each other. Without the internet, they would already have won. Spreading the word is essential.

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Being security minded and working toward greater privacy is so important. I had my desktop computer hacked by a very sophisticated attack a couple of days ago. They managed to get into my Exodus desktop wallet and empty out a substantial amount of two crypto currencies I had carelessly stored there. My bit coin and lite coin were secured by the Trezor hardware wallet and were not affected. They deleted dependency files and made the computer unbootable even in recovery mode which I at first thought was just a glitch or crash. By the time I got around to trying to log in to my Exodus wallet on my laptop I discovered they had cleaned it out except for a few dollars in LTC that they missed somehow. I don't blame the thief or thieves, they do what they do and must answer to the inevitable consequence of their actions, I was careless and did not follow the advice I have given to others not to put more than a couple of hundred dollars on a computer, tablet or smartphone unless secured by a hardware wallet like Trezor or Ledger. I had these on Exodus because they have a beautiful interface and Trezor did not support these two cryptos which have great potential. I was too lazy to get another hardware wallet that would support them and paid a heavy price. I relied upon the fact that Linux is relatively resistant to keystroke loggers and malware, but of course that is changing as many crypto users have gone to that OS and obviously some skilled hackers have learned how to manipulate it.

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Oh man, that's a bummer.

I will try to learn from your hard experiences!

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That's what it's about. Another learning experience, mistakes and their consequences are our teachers. Always good to keep take full responsibility for every experience and do some inner work to find your blind spots and take a look at how and why you made yourself vulnerable to something that was not the outcome you wanted. Life just gets better and better as you do that.

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🔥🔥🔥

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My thoughts are they are accessing everything we keystroke so I don't worry about it. There is much more at play than Ai or algorithms or the people behind them understand or can fathom.

I also am grateful we can use the internet to communicate and spreading the words of truth we find is essential. Even if we find out more and the understanding of what is true changes.

What's funny is...I appreciated the information the bot or algorithm sent me. It helps me in regards to short cutting some research I would have done anyway. Or forgotten to do and then wished I had later when I remembered. ha...

I don't take the information the algorithm sent as all I need to know. It may be to throw me off the path I really need to find, but that's okay, too. I'll find out. Hopefully.

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I hear you.

I think there are ways to reduce one's footprint and make it harder for the Roving Eye of Sauron to peer into EVERYTHING we do. Not perfect, but better.

But yeah—we MUST use the internet to spread the word to each other, so whatever price we must pay to do that is worth it!

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And bless you too :-)

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No coincidences.

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Right on :-)

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I know it sounds overly simplistic, but the question to ask yourself is, "Am I doing anything wrong?"

You're not, so don't worry about it.

Sure there are spooks all over. Back in 2012, I had a UFO meetup group that was "infiltrated" by an old, disabled government spook checking to see what we knew, how subversive we were, and were we planning anything illegal or damaging. No, no and no, and he was pretty cranky he was there and he was wasting his time. Couldn't have been more out of place.

Nowadays, they just rely on algorithms and me being ignored as fait accompli.

But pretty certain I have a dossier, and you do too.

Oh, well.

The end is near and won't be by our hands. You can't control fate.

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Wise words (and funny story about the spook).

I am not too worried about it—it really is just a strange curiosity, since it’s Hong Kong!

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2nd Smartest Guy in the World is clandestine services or AI. These types of establishment agents scorn facts that counter their false narrative.

I was blocked for posting links to Dr. James Thorpe who was blacklisted for speaking against the DEVIL'S CLOT SHOT (TM). Dr. Thorpe has 45 years of boots-on-the ground battlefield experience as an OBGYN.

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Ideas are the future. Contrarian ideas are the most dangerous to established power structures. Keep up the good work.

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I will wield the sword of ideas until my arm fails. Thanks, Ed.

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Could be random bogus nonsense ... Could mean you are over target. I think that most authors who write about issues concerning personal freedom tend to limit their scope to their country of origin -- often the USA. (I know that I am guilty of making that mistake!) You, on the other hand, are quite clear that your aim with The Distributed Nation is to empower ALL people, worldwide, to achieve personal freedom.

CCP is probably none too keen on that. As someone else pointed out, though, what a left-handed compliment!

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You make an excellent point. (Odd that I didn't think of it myself, actually.) I am talking about setting the whole human race free. I have been thinking about how the Davos-types might feel about that, but it probably doesn't sit well with the Chicoms either.

Oh well—sucks to be them.

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Oh really? I had no idea that authors get my email address on Substack. Good to know. So, if anyone or any organization wanted to unmask someone using a "pen name" (such as myself), they could just set up a honey pot publication and presto, anonymity denied!

The only reason that I stopped using my full name on Substack is because liberal lunatics will do dumb shit like take the posts of someone they don't like to the person's employer, etc.

I mean, the US government has zero problem identifying me instantaneously. I always knew that. I'm just trying to avoid my opinions getting tagged to me and my employer or I get fired. Simple as that.

This is why I vaporize my online accounts routinely. I'm more than happy to tell anyone that I trust my full name. It's not a big deal. I just can't be blatant about anti-establishment opinions and have that easily be tied to my employer because they are 100% in support of the establishment and their policies by the nature of the work they do.

Seems that I will have to advance the schedule of vaporization here just a bit. Was coming anyway. I'll probably be back with a burner email or something. We'll see.

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Yep, we have a list of the emails. And I totally get your situation.

What about a Proton email with a gobbledygook name? Proton has amazing tools for privacy, security, and anonymity.

One you have that email address, just change your subs to that in settings and you're all set.

I am in the midst of slowly moving to that myself.

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Yeah I have Proton; paid in fact. I had been keeping more verbose sources of email on GMail… LOL… as you can see! 😆

I do have a couple existing aliases on Proton. But yeah, I would need to create a “obfuscated” alias to avoid such linkage.

But now, 💯% for sure, I gotta vaporize Xingyi on Substack. Shame really but oh well.

Thanks for the heads up!

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I don't look at anyone's email addresses unless i have to, which is almost never. But yep, they're there.

I am sure you can harden your next alias using Proton's tools.

But I will miss this alias. I hope you will come back after you reincarnate! (You can always message me. I have no idea who you or your employers are :-)

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See, I trust my instincts which is why I trust people like you! If/when I come back in my "next lifetime" 😆, I will rejoin your paid subs and maybe drop a hint! I have really enjoyed your articles and the message.

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Thank you. I have enjoyed our conversations, and I am looking forward to your return!

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Ahh fuck the CCP lol.

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LOL yeah.

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They want freedom?

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Oh yes, there is a big underground freedom movement in Hong Kong. Or at least there was, last I knew. It may have since been crushed.

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Thank You for providing that search option! Not sure if I had heard of it before or not.

Very weird that organized costumed bullies from anywhere are showing an interest... The moneyed psychopaths do like to stick Their noses into things, eh?

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Specifically the fact that they are from Hong Kong seems odd. Just seems like so little connection between them and anything I write.

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Hong Kong is a C i @ enclave by the way

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Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It’s like watching the Red Sox play the Astros—can’t they both lose?

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I'd take this as a medal like the heroes of the resistance

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Right on!

:-)

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Control freaks gotta control after all. So anyone garnishing attention to opposed that automatically becomes the enemy of control freaks.

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Yup. I just didn't expect the Chinese to be first!

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Or maybe not. Maybe the fact that you're against the superstition of authority and mass gaining popularity spooks them lol

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Agreed!!! Very weird, indeed!

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Thank you for writing about this. It happened to me last night.

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Same email address?

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Yes exactly the same. Worryingly I live in Hong Kong but I’m not breaking any laws here. I tried to attach the screenshot here but can’t. Mine wasn’t a referral - it came from the Substack App. I deleted it right away.

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Yikes—yeah, that is more troubling to get such a sub while also living in HK.

Maybe they're just casting a really wide net, though, and they've just recently decided to focus on Substack ??

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I write steamy romance so with porn streaming services being a thing in Hong Kong as much as anywhere else I won’t worry. I thought maybe someone maliciously entered the email address into my subscription application on Substack, so I intend to verify all in the future. If it was the police, I shouldn’t think they would use such an easily traceable email address.

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Makes sense. Hopefully the police aren't running their own porn business and see you as competition! (Probably not, LOL)

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😂😂😂

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Interesting. I’d contact them just to see how they react.

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Neh. I'm not hiding, but I'm also not going to seek out commies with guns and poke them in the eye.

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Thx, I downloaded the Swiss cow & put her in my search engine folder. Good, but in spite of it's many large faults I suspect I'll still be using DD Go fairly often. Running dual searches on rather obscure things, DD found what I wanted when the cow didn't.

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Interesting. But if that is the calculus, then I think I might even use Google, which is biased but has even more results than DDG.

I think the bottom line for now, though, is that I might be using a combo. For example, Swisscows seems to have indexed Substack VERY well. Better than any other, and better than Substack’s internal search (which is actually tragically inadequate, at the moment).

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Send the Hong Kong pigs my way. I'll keep 'em entertained 🤣🐷

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You can always contact them and see if they want to sub you! 😆

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We all have been under some kind of interest at least once in our life, in a way or another, especially using socials from this or that intelligence, it means you are a critical thinker they do fear and want to control through this "innocent" act of threat. Stay strong and don't let them psychologically upset you. Well done to exposed them!

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Thank you, Loto. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing.

And you keep up the fight and the faith too?

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It’s a good thing you are stridently anti-communist .. so is the CCP.

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You mean because they’re no longer devoted to strict Marxian economics?

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Yes in a way. I understand Marxist/communist philosophy to include the abolition of private property and an eventual ‘falling away’ of the state and neither of these are demonstrated in China. It could be said that the Chinese economic/political system is the very definition of Fascism .. as imagined by Mussolini.

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Quite right. But all fascism is/was is a pragmatic adjustment of socialism in the face of certain realities. The government assumes management of the means of production rather than outright ownership. Strasser and the rest of the early Nazis made this adjustment, as did Mussolini and his cadre. So did Woodrow Wilson and FDR, with a few extra tweaks to make it palatable to Americans. Indeed, the incestuous relationship between corporations and government that exists in all modern developed economies makes them all some flavor of third-way/fascist-corporatist. Ownership of/management of/predation upon the means of production…it’s all just degrees of the same thing.

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