The Drunken Skeptic

13/08/2026

Joe Felz was an online creator involved in digitising rare religious texts and promoting off-grid energy projects. His death was later reported by the Paulding County coroner as su***de by hanging. Claims that he was murdered by the infamous “them” or by “powerful people” to suppress biblical documents or “free-energy” technology are unsupported by credible evidence and amount to an appeal to conspiracy.

The existence of scans or solar-design tools (assuming they exist as described) would not, by itself, prove that Felz possessed forbidden technology or that anyone wanted him dead. At present, the post provides no reliable evidence connecting his work to his death.
Felz is also not the only person to become the subject of this type of conspiracy theory.

Similar claims have been made about alleged antigravity researchers and some ufologists. Whenever someone associated with an unconventional field dies, certain commentators insist that su***de or natural causes cannot be considered. Instead, they immediately invoke a shadow government or some other clandestine (and sometimes allegedly satanic) organisation as the supposed murderer.
Then they wonder why people think their brains aren’t properly earthed.

11/08/2026

Old but gold from Shen Comix (aka Owl Turd). See the link for more on cherrypicking. Or don't. I'm just a schmuck with a keyboard, not your professor. You do you.

https://sgtscholar.wordpress.com/2026/06/24/cherry-picking/

[Sgt Scholar Actual]

04/08/2026

Yes, this is literally how easy it is to fool people.

27/07/2026

A lot of the examples in this post are real scandals, but the leap from “some conspiracies were proven true” to “therefore institutions usually lie and the public shouldn’t trust them” is not logically sound. That’s a classic case of mixing true historical abuses with an overgeneralized conclusion.

So let's look at what's actually true here:

MK-Ultra was, in fact, a real CIA program involving secret human experimentation, including drug testing and behavioral research, and it was brought to public attention by congressional and presidential investigations in the 1970s. Tuskegee was a real, unethical public health study in which Black men with syphilis were denied treatment, and President Clinton later issued a formal apology for it. COINTELPRO, Iran-Contra, Operation Paperclip, the Snowden NSA revelations, the leaded-gasoline story, and the to***co industry cover-up all have strong documentary support too.

And that's just it. We have actual, thorough documented evidence of these clandestine unethical practices and the consequences for those involved were quite severe.

Now let's have a look at what this context creator got wrong, or over stated:

Several entries in the supporting text to the graphic (I cannot fit it all into the screen grab) are presented in a way that blurs important distinctions. For example, “Operation Mockingbird” is often repeated online as if it were a neat, fully mapped operation, but the evidence is murkier than the post suggests; there were confirmed CIA relationships with journalists and media influence efforts, but the meme version of the story often goes far beyond what the historical record cleanly supports.

The same goes for the Gulf of Tonkin: there was deception and distortion around the incident, but calling it a simple “fabricated military event” is too tidy for a messy intelligence and wartime decision-making episode.

The biggest issue with this post is the argument itself. “Some institutions lied in the past” does not prove “institutions are lying now, so trust none of them.” That’s a false generalization. A critical thinking person would realise that when a claim is backed by documents, hearings, court records, or archival evidence, they should accept it as real; when it isn’t, they shouldn't inflate it just because other scandals happened.

For example: The us military used cloud seeding during the Vietnam war to attempt to disrupt enemy movements or supply lines by trying to stimulate rainfall or even storms in the areas. That doesn't mean the white trails behind commercial aircraft today is a government attempt at geoengineering or poisoning the people. The conspiracy theorist is simply jumping to speculative conclusions by joining imaginary dots.

History shows that governments and corporations have sometimes lied, covered up harm, and abused power. That’s exactly why we should demand evidence, inspect primary sources, and separate documented scandals from exaggerated or unsupported claims. Real wrongdoing strengthens the case for skepticism, but it doesn’t make every conspiracy claim true.

21/07/2026

10/07/2026

Fiction and reality put very different problems in front of us.

Movies need a clear conflict and closure. A visible enemy (the Capitol, the Empire) gives a simple, emotional story arc: oppression → resistance → victory. That satisfies narrative needs.

Real life is complex: power is distributed, incentives are tangled, and problems lack neat endings.

We’re wired to prefer stories with identifiable villains. Blame is simple; action feels meaningful. Defeating a person is tangible.

Systems are abstract and slow-moving. Changing them requires collective, sustained effort, less dramatic and less immediately gratifying.

Fiction makes systems legible: you see checkpoints, decrees, uniforms, and a single leader. That clarity invites action.
Many real-world systems operate through diffuse rules, bureaucratic procedures, and norms that are invisible day-to-day. It’s harder to see where to push.

Audience members aren’t risking their lives or livelihoods by cheering for rebels in a film. Neither do the actors. Real-life resistance carries real costs: arrest, job loss, social ostracism. People weigh those risks before acting.

Stories often attribute systemic harms to a few bad people to make themes clear. In reality, harms arise from incentives, institutions, and shared choices. Removing one leader rarely fixes the underlying system.

Story victory often means killing or toppling a villain, satisfying but superficial. Lasting reform requires changing laws, incentives, power structures, and social norms, slow and hard.

Not to mention that most of the time when a conspiracy theorist is calling for resistance to a system of oppression it's usually a system they've made up. Like those in movies like Equilibrium or the ones mentioned in the meme below. In reality oppressive systems are way more complex and nuanced and rarely manifests in the way they are depicted in movies or portrayed in conspiracy narratives.

One thing conspiracy theorists always seems to confuse is, we don't live in a movie. This is not the matrix. We are not being harvested for energy while the world we live in is a hologram projected onto our minds. This is reality and the boogeyman they often claim is real is, most often than not, purely in their heads.

Now this isn't to say that oppressive, totalitarian and fascist regimes doesn't or cannot exist. History shows clearly that they can and does. But that doesn't mean ones such as referenced in the meme does. In this case the "call to arms" for resistance is one purely to drum up support for their page and the delusional conspiracies they promote. None times out of ten they cannot even define what it is people are supposed to be resisting and they leave their claims so open to interpretation that when you ask a follower what it is we're supposed to be resisting, you get a different answer every time.

08/07/2026

Shout out to the latest patrons at the bar! Excited to have you onboard! Adrien Michelsen, Abraham Alahmad, Midge Walker, Rocky Rex, Jim Smith, Danielle Robinson, Danielle Blanchard Sumich, Eddie Dean Rice, Steve Ghikadis, Stephanie Laidlaw

07/07/2026

Thanks for being a top engager and making it onto my weekly engagement list! 🎉 Midge Walker, Guida Figueiredo