ChanceHappening

joined 3 months ago
[–] ChanceHappening@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

If believing that helps you justify to yourself the irrational rage that you've been loudly directing at me starting from the moment I explained white South Africans are settlers all those years ago, have at it.

But honestly it's not healthy how much energy you put into this supervillain shtick. At some point you need to face your demons. Hating me doesn't stop you from hating yourself.

You couldn't even bring yourself to quote the word "settler" in your response.

[–] ChanceHappening@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

That person has been attacking me like that for 5 or 6 years because I used the word "settlers" while talking about white South Africans on raddle. It's odd but ultimately harmless.

 

I want to talk to you about Theo Slade, also known as Theodopodopodus, Ishkah, WildVirtue, NihilistDelight, ZonkerStout, and dozens of other monickers. He’s the person behind the Ted K Archive, thelul.org, StealThisWiki, the ActivistJournies Wordpress, the Ishkah Youtube channel, the Ishkah podcast and a giant assortment of anarchist subreddits which he has steadily seized control of over the years for reasons that this expose will make clear.

In his essays, he admits he has been infiltrating anarchist events and platforms, including going to Earth First! gatherings for years in order to “deprogram” anarchists from having “dogmatic beliefs”. For example, he claims anarchists he worked to “save” were “promoting the Cambodian genocide”, which is a ridiculous fantasy of his own concoction, but nonetheless allows him to claim a moral high ground, pretending he’s working to rid the world of imaginary genocidal anarchist tyrants who, he insists, want to create Pol Pot-style communist dictatorships to commit mass-murder.

He gains control of subreddits of philosophies he abhors, such as r/anticiv, r/EgoistCommunism and r/AnarchistNihilism in order to continue this malicious agenda, pushing his largely fallacious critiques of these philosophies and censoring topics and literature that would risk promoting them. In his many essays, he describes openly how he “trolls” anarchists by occupying our spaces, seeding them with his liberal ideology, which he explains corrects our “delusions”. He calls this self-admitted trolling a “long running joke” that he plays on us.

To be clear: He doesn’t admit openly to being a liberal. He identifies as a “big tent libertarian socialist with the expertise to build democratic institutions”, but make no mistake — every ideological position he holds completely conflicts with anarchy and aligns with the establishment.

He also squats the subreddits for Hindu anarchism, Islamic anarchism and indigenous anarchism, despite having no affiliation with those identities as a white British man. He uses his "NihilistDelight" Reddit account to spread anti-nihilist rhetoric across the several nihilist subreddits he controls, further illustrating his disingenuous entryism.

His often-repeated goal is to rid the world of “extremist” or “purist” anarchists, and his methods for achieving this include stalking them, gathering troves of data on them, surreptitiously logging their conversations and finding exploits in their websites to compile yet more data on them and their activities, which he publishes to his various websites. He then links to his creepy adventures in spycraft on anarchist platforms in order to gloat and mock us. This is quite obviously the behavior of an informant, or snitch, even if he only does it for his own amusement, which is highly unlikely given his eagerness to “expose” people he repeatedly calls “criminals”, “Satanist death cultists” and “terrorists” but who are almost always simply insurrectionist, post-left, green, egoist, indigenous, mutualist and nihilist anarchists who are guilty of nothing more than holding philosophical views he disagrees with.

His infamous one-man war against theanarchistlibrary.org and its librarians should tell you all you need to know about his unscrupulous character. He spent years logging the correspondences and activities of the librarians and then published it all on his own library, and then berated the librarians when they asked him to remove their private messages and to respect their privacy. He's been banned from their chat room countless times for his unremitting harassment and demands that they censor essays he doesn't approve of and give more space to his own sophistic essays.

He often claims to be an anarchist when he’s busy gnawing away at our defences, trying to convince us to buy what he’s selling, but in his essays he can’t help boasting about his actual inclinations. He says he sees anarchy as part of a “big tent socialism” to advocate for “workplace democracy”, but this milquetoast interpretation of anarchy is only a front for him to spread his retrogressive, establishment ideology and harass anarchists of all stripes, from hard-working mutualist librarians to elderly green anarchist writers and anyone in-between who won’t fall in line with his program to “deradicalize” anarchy.

The latest subreddit he’s added to his immense collection is r/raddle — a subreddit I made to promote the raddle.me forum I founded, before he petitioned the reddit admins to hand control of it over to him. He has refused to return it, and already it’s being used, with his jubilant approval, by a dangerous stalker to smear and harass one of the anarchists who worked on the Raddle project before being forced to leave due to said stalker.

His mission statement for the Ted K. Archive is to analyze “mentally ill” and “neurodiverse” people, including “environmentalists, anarchists, terrorists and criminals” and present them with literature he claims will act as “mental health support” and have a “deprogramming effect” on them. Yes, really.

He uses the Ted Kaczynski name for his library because he believes it gives his project some sort of pedigree, but also allows him to basely conflate anarchism with Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. Of course, Kaczynski was ardently against anarchism and vocally advocated for an authoritarian government, but facts have never stopped Slade from pursuing his agenda.

In his essays, he repeatedly conflates multiple forms of anarchy with authoritarian constructs that have no relation to anarchy in order to attack the philosophy and present it as terroristic and criminal and the domain of “mentally ill” miscreants and “Satanists”. By depicting anarchy as a menace to society, he attempts to present himself as someone who can rescue the world from the dangerously insane anarchist criminals who “take pleasure in terrorizing people”.

He employs the same methods in the vegan spaces he occupies, cautioning that vegans risk becoming neo-Nazis if they develop violent tendencies. He works at “deprogramming vegans who glorify violence” and criticizes animal rights activists who would “take the risk to slash slaughterhouse truck tires” as he “could never condone risking injury to people”.

He says vegans “work up to taking unethical violent acts” by blocking fox hunts, which he says causes them to “gain the confidence to get into stand-offs with fox hunters”. He explains how sabotaging fox hunts is comparable with anti-fascist activists “blocking fascists marching through immigrant neighbourhoods”, asserting that both these confrontational actions lead activists down the path to fascism — his essays repeatedly strive to equate direct action and even non-violent resistance with fascism. He tells animal rights activists that instead of taking direct action against animal suffering, “you could have worked to become president and outlawed it with one signature.” This statement encapsulates his liberal ideological position perfectly.

When he convinced renowned anarchist author John Zerzan to sit down for an interview, Slade proceeded to mis-quote Zerzan in the transcript in order to tarnish his ideas. When it was pointed out that Zerzan actually said the direct opposite of what Slade had transcribed, Slade doubled down, insisting Zerzan must have misspoke and he was simply correcting the transcript to say what Zerzan must have intended to say. After much protest, Slade quietly corrected the transcript. This wilful misrepresentation, going as far as re-writing an interview transcript with an anarchist who has made his positions clear for decades, is the perfect example of Slade’s duplicity.

The notion that we’re mentally unfit to participate in society and need to be saved from our disgusting criminal ways by the great Theo Slade, is astonishingly patronizing. His attempts to “deradicalize extremists” by attracting anarchists to his various coercive projects and then persuading us to read supposedly pacifying literature that promotes passive resistance and working within the system to affect change through “democratic means” perfectly encapsulates his conservative (and highly ableist) ideas.

In his magnum opus, Slade talks about “disrupting the purist anarchist pipeline”, which he says leads to “more and more fringe ideologies”. In this essay, he talks about anarchy as a pipeline to far-right ideology, slavery and white supremacy. He equates anarchy with a thirst for blood, a “violent hatred for all things unnatural”. In another piece, he calls the egalitarian freedom anarchists pursue a “deluded” notion. He then accuses anarchists of wanting to “take away modern people’s positive liberties”, before insisting that anarchists want to “bomb society back to the stone age”. His irrational fear of anarchists is really something to behold, and he's often able to disguise it as a "critique" of "fake" or "extreme" or "violent" anarchists when he addresses an audience that isn't familiar with his history of unprovoked attacks on anarchists of all stripes.

It's always disheartening for me to watch anarchists ready to believe he's only after the “bad” anarchists and would never inflict damage on them when he uses emotive phrases like “conspiracy nuts”, “terrorists”, “deranged lunatics“ and “criminals” to describe many of the good people he targets.

Further down in the Purist Anarchist Pipeline essay, he claims to support a “libertarian socialist revolution” while opposing “a vulgar anarchist insurrection”, which he illustrates with a crude diagram showing his opposition to violence towards police officers, the movie Mad Max, people who wish to live in “small communities” (??) and people “terrorizing symbols of technological progress”, by which I assume he means Apple Stores, banks, Amazon warehouses and Tesla dealerships.

These can only be seen as the ravings of a frightened conservative who is willing to pour years of his life into “reprogramming” anarchists so we stop resisting the cruel systems of authority that surround us and instead work to preserve the status quo that obviously serves him so well.

He then proceeds to attack the brilliant anarchist essay “bolo’bolo” for being opposed to “humanist, liberal and democratic laws and the state that enforces them”. Yes, this supposed “libertarian socialist” won’t tolerate anyone writing against states imposing their rule of law. He insists an anti-state philosophy would “terrorize whole regions or continents, as the Huns or Vikings did. Freedom and adventure, generalized terrorism, the law of the club, raids, tribal wars, vendettas, plundering — everything goes.”

These statements are honestly indistinguishable from a Fox News commenter trying to spread panic about Antifa, but here we are. He goes on to tarnish the anarchist proposal for Temporary Autonomous Zones, claiming they enable “fascist creep” by rejecting “humanism, the Enlightenment tradition, and democracy”. He decries the “racist position of Stirnerism” (egoism) and condemns the “nihilist and insurrectionary theories” of post-left anarchism, then in a further attempt to associate anarchy with fascism, quotes Bonnano saying “Hurry comrade, shoot the policeman, the judge, the boss”, insinuating this is the definition of fascism.

He then condemns an Italian anarchist group for calling for “fires against capital everywhere”. Finally, he chides an anarchist he says attacked a nuclear CEO, saying the anarchist was “spreading fear” and sabotaging that corporation’s ambitions, before defending that industry. These ideological statements couldn’t be clearer — he’s so disgusted by the idea of violence against the system because he is the system. Part and parcel. This is not someone who only hates “lifestylists” or “individualists” or people he deems “anti-democratic”. This is a man who abhors anarchism in all its guises and has seemingly dedicated his life to eradicating it.

It’s quite an accomplishment that this person has taken control of 200 (!) subreddits, that he operates multiple online libraries that purport to be set up for anarchists by anarchists, but instead strive to debunk anarchy and promote his demonstrably conservative views.

He is a devious little man who has spent untold hours harassing anarchist librarians and publishers, which includes compiling and releasing troves of their private correspondences against their will. He’s a proud informant who takes pleasure in violating the privacy of dedicated volunteers and publicizing these logs for all to see, obviously including law enforcement.

He’s a coercive manipulative creep who works tirelessly to destroy the security culture of anarchists around the world. He's an entryist who possesses such an ego that he can’t even bring himself to deny his intentions and gleefully describes how he bamboozles people into consuming his propaganda in an attempt to "rescue them" from dangerous radical thought. He sees anarchists as mentally ill criminals and terrorists in need of de-radicalization. He perceives the state and its laws as the only obstacle separating Western civilization from barbarism. He defends the police and CEOs, he co-opts marginalized identities to colonize their spaces, he sabotages and hijacks anarchist projects and claims ownership over other people's hard work.

There’s no reason to ever entertain his games, contribute to his projects or enable his attacks on anarchy. He is, in every sense, a snake in the grass. Don’t fall for it. Don't let him lie to you and convince you his long list of projects are meant to promote anarchy or any kind of subversive, radical thought. Don't let him use our spaces to concoct his nasty campaigns against good people. He is not an anarchist in any way, shape or form.

Follows is a list of some of the subreddits he controls with his many reddit accounts (WildVirtue, IshkahYT, ZonkerStout, etc) so you know I’m not exaggerating.

• r/OrderOfTheGoodDeath
• r/DebateSocialism
• r/andykaufman
• r/LeftAnarchism
• r/AskAMortician
• r/Vegans
• r/classwar
• r/AnimalRightsActivism
• r/SolarPunkAnarchism
• r/DebateAMeatEater
• r/AileenWuornos
• r/CringyAntiVegans
• r/IndigenousAnarchism
• r/EarthFirstNetwork
• r/IntelexualMedia
• r/Reducetarianism
• r/veganPhilosophy
• r/Yippie
• r/LibraryInfoExchange
• r/DudeistPhilosophy
• r/Platformist_Anarchism
• r/abasleciel
• r/ExExVegan
• r/Makhnovism
• r/AntiCiv
• r/AngelaDavis
• r/IndependenceAnarchism
• r/MinimalistAnarchism
• r/LeftRothbardianism
• r/PhilosophicalAnarchy
• r/ContemporaryAnarchism
• r/PragmaticVeganism
• r/AnarchistLibrary
• r/Classical_Anarchism
• r/PopCultureDetective
• r/VeganvsMeatEater
• r/SaintAndrewism
• r/AntiColonialAnarchism
• r/AnarchistLibraries
• r/WorkersInternational
• r/AnarchismPlusNihilism
• r/Raddle
• r/TaraMooknee
• r/AbsurdistAnarchism
• r/CommunalistLibrary
• r/AnarchoIndependentism
• r/AntiReligiousAnarchy
• r/VeganPurists
• r/VeganAdvocacy
• r/Bookchin
• r/RadicalLibraries
• r/HinduAnarchism
• r/IslamicAnarchism
• r/AntiVegans
• r/RadicalAnthropology
• r/AfterDeathLegalReform
• r/IAF
• r/AtheisticAnarchism
• r/BreadBooks
• r/AnarchistFederation
• r/InsaneVegans
• r/ShitCarnistsSay
• r/ZoeBaker
• r/TheGrayzone
• r/EiselMazard
• r/VegansofFreegle
• r/excarnists
• r/ExAntiVegan
• r/ExCarnist
• r/ToastTube
• r/UKFreegans
• r/Bordigism
• r/CaptainHotknives
• r/Ishkah
• r/HousingCooperatives
• r/LateStageCivilization
• r/ShaunVids
• r/AntiCivilization
• r/Appropedia
• r/BoycottMeat
• r/BreadBook
• r/CommunalistAnarchism
• r/DialecticalNaturalism
• r/HobbyPublishing
• r/IndustrialAnarchism
• r/KenLoach
• r/LeftistVeganism
• r/Mexie
• r/NeoLuddism
• r/StealThisBook
• r/TheFinalStrawRadio
• r/VeganGateKeepers
• r/AnarhijaLibrary
• r/MarxistAnarchism
• r/Municipalism
• r/PuristAnarchists
• r/Reducetarian
• r/TheBlackInternational
• r/TolstoyanAnarchism
• r/AndreGorz
• r/AntiVeganOutreach
• r/AskYourselfCommunity
• r/BoycottAnimalProducts
• r/CringyAntiVegan
• r/CringyVegan
• r/CringyVegans
• r/DebateAVoter
• r/DebateCivilization
• r/DigitalFreecycle
• r/DigitalFreegle
• r/DigitalRequests
• r/EcoExtremism
• r/EcoExtremists
• r/ExExVegans
• r/Extinctionist
• r/FileExchange
• r/ForHarriet
• r/HistoricalMaterialist
• r/HumanExtinctionists
• r/InformationExchange
• r/InformationHighway
• r/InsaneAntiVegans
• r/InsaneVegan
• r/InternationalCongress
• r/IntFedAnarchistes
• r/LoompanicsUnlimited
• r/MarxistArchive
• r/MaterialistDialectic
• r/PlantBasedNews
• r/PossibilistAnarchism
• r/PragmaticAnarchism
• r/PsychoanalyticAnarchy
• r/RightWingAnarchism
• r/TheLUL
• r/Touchpaper
• r/UltimoReducto
• r/Veganarchist
• r/VegansVsMeatEaters
• r/VoteLesserEvil
• r/AgainstCollapse
• r/AnarchistPossibilism
• r/AnarchyInternational
• r/AnimalRightsDoneBadly
• r/AntiTheisticAnarchism
• r/AntiVeganExtremism
• r/BigTentAnarchism
• r/BigTentVeganism
• r/BlackRoseAnarchistFed
• r/Cantonalism
• r/CarnivoreOutreach
• r/CommunityDirectory
• r/CringeyAntiVegans
• r/CringeyVegan
• r/CringyAntiAbortionist
• r/CringyAntiFeminists
• r/CringyAntiSemites
• r/CringyAntiSJWs
• r/CringyClimateDeniers
• r/CringyNeoNazis
• r/DavidKaczynski
• r/exprim
• r/FedAnarchicaItaliana
• r/FedAnarquistaIberica
• r/FederationAnarchiste
• r/ImpossibilistAnarchy
• r/LifeoftheMind
• r/NeoLudditeHub
• r/PhilosophicalVegan
• r/PoliticalPossibilism
• r/Possibilism
• r/raddledotme
• r/SubRosasLibrary
• r/TextDebate
• r/TravellerRights
• r/TravellerSolidarity
• r/Veganism101
• r/VeganTube
• r/Wildist
• r/ZelfromAshdod
• r/OpenDistro
• r/TheLudditeClub
• r/TheModernMortician
• r/UnconventionalLives
• r/anarchistlib
• r/DoctorAvi
• r/IntersectionalVegans
• r/NihilismNow
• r/VeganGainsCommunity
• r/ARplusIO
• r/EgoistCommunism
• r/FolkPsychology
• r/FriendCollectors
• r/LeftMarketAnarchism
• r/LostInModernity
• r/MictheVegan
• r/UnnaturalVegan
• r/AmuseWiki
• r/anarchistnihilism
• r/DeepConnections
• r/DeepExperiences
• r/ExperienceCollectors
• r/ImmyLucas
• r/intentionalfriendship
• r/VeganYouTube

Sources:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221105015650/https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/theo-slade-disrupting-the-purist-anarchist-pipeline

https://anarchistnews.org/content/thoughts-discussion-between-left-anarchist-and-bio-primitivist

https://raddle.me/f/lobby/177748/the-ted-k-archive

https://web.archive.org/web/20230325163248/https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/a-text-dump-on-jay

https://web.archive.org/web/20240209032709/https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/theo-slade-responding-to-claims-i-ve-been-attempting-anarchist-and-or-anticiv-entryism

https://web.archive.org/web/20231115003438/https://raddle.me/f/anticiv/138355/a-friendly-reminder-not-to-get-lost-down-the-eco-purist

https://web.archive.org/web/20220812194744/https://shows.acast.com/ishkah/episodes/the-bizarre-case-of-vegan-neo-nzis-deprogramming-vegans-who-

https://raddle.me/f/Anarchy/197192/-

https://raddle.me/f/Anarchy/210263/theo-slade-a-snake-in-the-grass/comment/433044

https://web.archive.org/web/20230616060722/https://old.reddit.com/r/veganarchism/comments/i5dxdf/the_bizarre_case_study_of_vegan_neonazis_why_we/

I've never been a primitivist. Stop planting doubt and suspicion with your highly idiosyncratic approach to anarchism on this fringe forum. k thx.

[–] ChanceHappening@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I linked to the blog version because the original version - posted on raddle - blocks several countries including the UK due to the online safety act. I didn't ask anyone for money, it's just a useful way to host a text that isn't in-depth enough to put on the anarchist library.

[–] ChanceHappening@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

i edited the link for you

[–] ChanceHappening@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Instead of engaging with the points presented, it's far easier to dismiss the points by claiming a superior understanding of the subject being critiqued, all while neglecting to articulate this supposed superior grasp of almighty Marxist science. Brilliant. Kill your idols, comrade.

[–] ChanceHappening@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

They don't know who I am, they're just rejecting an author using a pseudonym and not their real name because they're not an anarchist and don't understand security culture.

I'm undecided if I want to keep using it, but it did save me a lot of time. The thing I always struggle with is I rewrite each sentence dozens of times until it feels right because of my OCD. Using that tool, I only had to rewrite the sentences 2-3 times and managed to finish the essay in a day when it usually takes me a full week at least.

[–] ChanceHappening@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

You can easily go through my 8+ years of essays that i never used that tool on and see my writing style is consistent. Regardless, I don't owe you anything, you're not my boss. I can use a thesaurus or sentence structure formatters if I want.

[–] ChanceHappening@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

It's not ai written. I used duck.ai to suggest ways to improve the flow of a few paragraphs after I wrote them and then rewrote the paragraphs myself further based on the suggestions. I liked the word tapestry so I kept it, but I guess using it 3 times is too much, you're right.

The long dashes were all me. It's just proper grammar.

Can't say I've ever met an anarchist who rejects mutual aid, tell me more?

 

[Spoilers mainly pertaining to the framing device, not the underlying plot]

spoilerThis episode asks a lot of important questions about the nature of Starfleet and its long-critiqued dance with settler colonialism, but instead of answering any of them, the documentary suddenly does a disjointed U-turn and tells us Starfleet is good because the crew have fun together and the captain plays the guitar and cooks them up a slab of meat (did the writers forget Spock doesn't eat meat?). No need to dig deeper or continue to question why seemingly everything the crew does is classified top secret in a supposedly open and egalitarian society.

The documentarian is clearly horrible at his job since his documentary has nothing insightful to say and his journalistic integrity immediately collapses when his crush questions his loyalty to Starfleet's mission and casts him out.

Seriously, how did he go from making an edgy expose to making mushy Starfleet propaganda in the last 2 minutes of his film? Simply because Uhura accused him of being angry at Starfleet? So, an expose of Starfleet's flagship and its mission ended up being a dull rebuke of the insecurities of the person behind the camera, who upon being confronted about his insecurities, immediately tanks his project and turns it into a maudlin video greeting card?

Even if we accept that paper-thin premise, why wouldn't he go back and cut the whole documentary to be uniformly craven propaganda instead of merely the last couple minutes? Was the documentary airing live..?

Really feels like 10-15 minutes of the episode is missing, the part that would have made the ending feel earned or at least justify the premise of the episode and its season-long build up.

I think the most discomforting thing of all is that the writers of this episode, much like the episode's central character, are really putting out blatant propaganda themselves, telling us not to question authority, to fall in line with the military hierarchy and gush over our fearless military leaders because they know what's best for society. To hell with journalistic integrity, with transparency and all the other uncomfortable obstacles to the Starfleet charter.

By presenting the documentarian character as an untrustworthy fool for daring to question the mission of this expansionist Galaxy-wide military/government, the writers betray every science fiction author in history who has used the medium as a tool for biting, daring social commentary.

It's almost like the writers read all the critiques over the decades from anti-authoritarians about Starfleet and decided to officially declare "Yes! Star Trek is imperialist propaganda, deal with it. Oh, and have some steak, you Vulcan hippie."

I understand it's hard for American TV writers in the imperial core to grapple with American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, missionaryism and the underlying violent imperialism and cultural displacement it all comes with, but why ask the question if you're not prepared to actually examine the issue in even the most cursory way? If you're going to pathetically conclude imperial expansionism is the bee's knees, and only a fool would dissent against the altruistic space cops and their mission to spread their system of government across the cosmos?

Is this really a message a science fiction writer needs to deliver? Like we can't get it from every other CBS show from NCIS to FBI?

Easily the worst episode of the series, and the weirdly short run-time indicates they knew it in the editing room and there was just no way to make it work. Truly a shame this is what passes for social commentary in 2025.

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