The Modern Witch-hunt Industrial Complex
How Social Media Built the Demon Haunted World
Imagine, if you will, a young woman walking along an urban street. A strange man, possibly unknown to her, declares her to be a practitioner of heretical mystic arts. She is seized by authorities, locked in chains, and violently tortured. Out of desperation, she “confesses” to the crime of “witchcraft,” and is burned at the stake in the town square. Her property is seized and split evenly between the local government and the church. She was afforded no opportunity to defend herself against such outlandish accusations, and her life destroyed by sadistic men with outlandish fantasies of a world dominated by magical forces.
This is no dystopian fantasy, but a very real phenomenon that terrorized the women of medieval Europe. It was also a massively profitable industry. As astronomer Carl Sagan writes in his seminal work The Demon-Haunted World:
“The Malleus in hand, the Pope’s encouragement guaranteed, Inquisitors began springing up all over Europe. It quickly became an expense account scam. All costs of investigation, trial and execution were borne by the accused or her relatives, down to per diem for the private detectives hired to spy on her, wine for her guards, banquets for her judges, the travel expenses of a messenger sent to fetch a more experienced torturer from another city, and the faggots, tar and hangman’s rope. Then there was a bonus to the members of the tribunal for each witch burned. The convicted witch’s remaining property, if any, was divided between Church and State. As this legally and morally sanctioned mass murder and theft became institutionalized, as a vast bureaucracy arose to serve it, attention was turned from poor hags and crones to the middle class and well-to-do of both sexes.”
Of course, there’s one small problem: curses, witches, and magic aren’t real. This was the collective delusion of sadistic men who had a direct financial incentive to demonize and abuse the women of their community. It’s hard to assess just how many women had their lives destroyed as a result, numbering in the hundreds of thousands across medieval Europe, and infamously the Salem Witch Trials here in America. In more modern times, the domestic terror campaigns against supposed “leftists,” trans people, or “illegals” have been little more than irrational, sadistic witch-hunts. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Substack, and YouTube have gleefully enabled and rewarded such “inquisitions” with financial incentives.
An “Inquisition” also emerged from the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just like all others before, it brought nothing but disgrace to all who took up the mantle.
A Half-Century De-evolution
The past five years has revealed just how citizens in a supposed democracy that believes in the free exchange of ideas, will so easily discard all capacity for rational thought and critical analysis. People who have lost all touch with reality, and clinging to absurd fictions, lash out with anger and abuse as self-appointed “Inquisitors.” The Internet’s potential to liberate the flow of information has, with social media platforms that gamify discourse, instead become a dangerous influence driving people to reject modern science and medicine.
The most obnoxious and inflammatory are deemed correct, and their constant failings are never considered to be a dent to their supposed credibility - especially at leading journalism outlets such as The New York Times or The Atlantic.
This serves as a form of political control, as the wealthy who have bankrolled anti-science propaganda for the past five years know all too well. If a leader can control their citizens’ perception of reality, to the point that their followers feel driven to commit outrageous acts of cruelty and even violence, then they wield an incredible amount of power. Consider the rather absurd beliefs that you are required to hold as a follower of the modern Republican party:
COVID-19 is a harmless flu, while the vaccines killed and injured millions
N95 respirators and other non-pharmaceutical interventions are entirely ineffective and fraudulent, with PPE manufacturers around the globe engaged in a massive conspiracy
Ivermectin, an anti-parasitical drug, and Hydroxychloroquine, a drug for Lupus, are effective treatments for the viral infection of SARS-CoV-2
The mass purging of American scientists is something worth celebrating
Doctors and scientists are inherently untrustworthy, while scam artists, snake oil salesmen, and abusive harassers are morally upstanding paragons of society
This barely scratches the surface of the prison that traps and corrupts so many minds, driven by emotional manipulators and social media sensationalism. It’s truly pitiful, especially when compared the reality that is the rather impressive track record of modern medicine. As Carl Sagan writes further:
“Diseases that once tragically carried off countless infants and children have been progressively mitigated and cured by science through the discovery of the microbial world, via the insight that physicians and midwives should wash their hands and sterilize their instruments, through nutrition, public health and sanitation measures, antibiotics, drugs, vaccines, the uncovering of the molecular structure of DNA, molecular biology, and now gene therapy. In the developed world at least, parents today have an enormously better chance of seeing their children live to adulthood than did the heir to the throne of one of the most powerful nations on Earth in the late seventeenth century. Smallpox has been wiped out worldwide. The area of our planet infested with malaria carrying mosquitoes has dramatically shrunk.”
Meanwhile, anti-vaccine crusaders and their war on science have produced...well, uhm...let’s see here...a great deal of Youtube videos and social media posts, with nothing to show for it except a mountain of needless and preventable death and suffering caused by their deceptions as once-defeated diseases like measles make a major comeback. When confronted with the facts, they respond with childish insults. Perhaps this comes from a place of jealousy, knowing full well that they’ll never be able to make similar positive contributions to humanity in their own lifetimes.
The Faces of the Anti-Science Inquisition
“Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.” -Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World
We have already lost countless lives to this modern war on science. This new generation of self-appointed witch hunters are, in their narcissistic ignorance, committing an act as undignified and disgraceful as your common subway masturbator. When our culture, economics, and politics rewards such disgraceful misconduct with wealth and power, instead of condemning and punishing it, then it’s a sign that we have become a truly diseased nation facing rapid decline.
As an economist who struggles with basic arithmetic, whose proudest achievement is writing a useless online petition on behalf of a deadly and disabling virus, Jay Bhattacharya was rewarded with the role of National Institutes of Health Director for his dedication to demonizing scientists & doctors while lending the credibility of the Stanford University name to obscene conspiracy theories. Jay has elected to neglect his sworn duties to the American taxpayer to instead run to the safe spaces of neo-Nazi podcasts and anti-vaccine conventions.
A weak-minded, emotionally stunted coward unable to make real-world contributions is forced to retreat to echo chambers with like-minded, adoring fans at the upcoming “Together” convention in London, England on Sunday the 16th of November. John Bye from the UK breaks down the speakers on Twitter. Unless I’m mistaken, we originally fought a war to become a nation independent of the British Empire - and Plague Island has not been accepted as the 51st State. Considering the flight time required to cross the Atlantic Ocean, this also means that Jay will not be showing up to work at the NIH campus the following Monday - neglecting his sworn duties to the American taxpayer.
Also attending Jay’s beloved “Together” conference is literal neo-Nazis and fellow anti-vaccine grifters, including Clare Craig, a social media quack who in 2021 as revealed by the HART Leaks, conspired to spread obscene, dangerous myths about the COVID-19 vaccines, which inevitably led to many preventable deaths. Clare wrote:
“I think we need to seed the thought that vaccines cause COVID”
Even after his claims of being “censored” as part of a government conspiracy were laughed out of a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court, Jay Bhattacharya is gleefully attending hate rallies alongside someone who actively conspired to spread dangerous lies to the public behind closed doors. That is who the Director of the National Institutes of Health would rather associate with in a public forum over the actual scientists and doctors he is supposed to be supporting.
Jay Bhattacharya is emblematic of the countless self-appointed witch-hunters of the COVID-19 “inquisition,” who, knowing nothing about real-world science and medicine, incited hatred, abuse, and real-world violence for their own gleeful, masturbatory benefit. Here at the Pandemic Accountability Index for the past three years, we have been profiling these fraudulent “Inquisitors” and exposing how they constantly prioritize lashing out over getting basic facts right. It’s truly concerning that the management of social media firms proudly celebrate financially rewarding the same mentality that terrorized innocent women over half a century ago, under the guise of upholding “free speech.”
In reality, the abuse and violence these platforms enable has only censored actual doctors, scientists, and public health experts who now fear being targeted next.
Closing Thoughts
It’s shameful that we as a species, uniquely blessed with cognizance, seem to insist upon refusing to learn from the mistakes of our ancestors. Throwing away all the blessings of scientific innovation, modern medicine, and the achievements of public health in a perpetual temper-tantrum many are calling “The Century of American Humiliation.” Babies and children having their health and futures thrown away in service of perverse, narcisscistic old men with nothing to contribute except irrational blathering and vile outbursts.
What’s truly frightening is that, even as future generations continue to have access to a digital Library of Alexandria, it will essentially be shrouded and hidden from their eyes in a rage-filled mist. This formless prison bombards them with unyielding temptations to drown themselves in their worst impulses, abandoning their capacity for rational thought and critical analysis, much less a sense of curiosity for the majesty of our natural world. Willfully crawling on your hands and knees in service of immature, childish brats who get off on inflicting suffering on others.
In the science fiction universe Warhammer 40,000, the Inquisition is granted the privilege to carry out Exterminatus, the obliteration of an entire world deemed guilty of the crime of heresy. Ironically enough, if we are to ever rebuild America and move past these sorts of pathetic, self-destructive temper tantrums, we may need to consider carrying out our own “Exterminatus” against the fantasy realm of these self-appointed domestic terrorists and their entire industry of weaponized dishonesty.
