A Response to Ron Unz

Funny how Miles has the time to write a 13 page response to Unz, who just dismisses him, but when I take him seriously and produce a full critique of his work I'm a time wasting agent. He will respond to criticism if he thinks he can take it down easily, or if it will afford him a larger audience, but legitimate criticism that doesn't allow him to bolster his internal narrative is filtered out. This is a common trend I have observed with narcissists - they will only respond to weak criticism and ignore any criticism that may require self-reflection. At this point my conclusion vis-a-vis Miles is that he's not an agent or a committee, he's a highly intelligent fragile narcissist with schizotypal personality, who spents the great majority of his energy spinning out an elaboration of his internal fantasy world. Because he's intelligent and well read, with some good instincts, he is able to highlight some important and neglected issues and talk about a range of topics. Because he's intelligent and schizotypal, he can come up with a great many novel hypotheses. Because he writes quickly and does basically no due diligence in his research, he can pump out paper after paper. But he's not fundamentally searching for truth, and his incredible fragility prevents him from incorporating any feedback from reality that could induce him to course correct. Every disconfirmation of his ideas, whether from a reader or from reality, will be rationalized in some way, probably with reference to either Muses/Destiny/Nature or malevolent agents out to get him. He somtimes offers glimpses into the world he has constructed for himself:

"Someone on Cuttingthroughthefog suggested this coronahoax was a message from the Cabal to me, showing me the power they have to move the masses around at will. But unfortunately I got just the opposite message, as you see. This event confirmed to me my own power, not theirs. In just the last month I have come to understand who I am, even more than before, which is very bad news for them. I won't tell you exactly what I know or how I know it, but while many think things are flying out of control, I can tell you just the opposite is true. On a spiritual level, things on this planet are finally firming up after decades or centuries of flab. Things are happening, and you should be glad of it." (https://mileswmathis.com/test.pdf)

This is why he can always talk about revolution being right around the corner. Because in his fantasy world, it is.

 @ kieran, Schizotypal?? I can't believe that you would even stoop to this level.   Unz pretty much blew his cover and Miles was simply pointing it out.

thadjones I am on the fence between you and kieran , not sure how we can tell the two things apart.

The DM article does line up with the fund rising and the blow up. The blow up looked narcissistic to me but you make a good case.

I am not sure about the logic of connections, could you explain that a bit further?

I hadn't noticed Miles was back on the Have, that is a massive red flag - but still for either narcissi or spoofery. My biggest spook marker is the deliberate backwashing of himself, but that could still just be good old narcissism.
Not sure if traffic died, it didn't seem to dampen the Haven though his credibility took a knock - though that is the nature of cults. To quote the Sage of Somewhere “They are used to fights going in only one direction, so they have been very surprised, nay shocked, that anyone would turn around and charge them. Never happened before, as far as I can tell.”.

As for his level of truth, yes, he is right on a lot though he knows he is unquotable. Being right without credibility makes it a mind stir and makes the believer looks loons. Maybe that is as far as he wants to go. Maybe kieran is entirely right. So, where there is a good and useful hypothesis that is possible to verify then that seems worthwhile and, may I saddest, here is a good place to post such proofs, falsifications or queries.  

ska

"Stoop to this level"? I am trying to offer a model that explains Miles as a phenomenon without employing the hypothesis that he is an agent. I don't care if it makes people uncomfortable, and his response to Unz is irrelevant to the larger point that I am making. Here is the definition of schizotypal personality disorder:

"a personality disorder characterized by thought disorder, paranoia, a characteristic form of social anxiety, derealization, transient psychosis, and unconventional beliefs. People with this disorder feel pronounced discomfort in forming and maintaining social connections with other people, primarily due to the belief that other people harbor negative thoughts and views about them. Peculiar speech mannerisms and socially unexpected modes of dress are also characteristic. Schizotypal people may react oddly in conversations, not respond, or talk to themselves. They frequently interpret situations as being strange or having unusual meanings for them; paranormal and superstitious beliefs are common."

It's not an exact fit but it's pretty close. Extreme creativity has often been associated with mental illness of various kinds, and unless Miles' character is just a persona, he clearly has some personality disorder. Robert Sapolsky's theory is that schizotypal personalities would have been shamans in primitive societies (e.g. those that perceive agency in and receive messages from Nature, the Divine, etc.)

I don't rule out the possibility that he's just an agent, or a front for a committee, but to me those theories seem less parsimonious than my previous explanation. I'm sure he has some skeletons in his closet, though, and those probably impact the fantasy world he has constructed for himself. He has a quote in some paper along the lines of "I have always been good at living in my own world", but I can't find it.

Patterns emerge, yes. And if we take the writings as being the product of Miles' unique psychology, knowledge base, research motivations, etc. (as opposed to some committee's agenda) then we can infer what Miles' psychology is. Miles has said that he is too optimistic:

"Despite the fact that many probably think I am cynic or a pessimist, just the opposite is true. As you can see from my track record, I have always been far too optimistic, trying to read every sign in a good light. I try to insert a ray of hope into even the darkest places, which a psychologist could read as either a sign of health or as a sign of desperation. Since I know myself better than any psychologist could, I will tell you it is probably a bit of both." (https://mileswmathis.com/launder.pdf)

I am trying to fit a psychological profile to his writings that is as parsimonious and accurate as possible. If it is a committee behind his writings then they have an incredible knack for creating a detailed psychological profile, both in terms of what he says directly, and in what he says indirectly or leaves out. 

What do I hope for now? I just want to know the truth, both behind Miles himself, since I don't think he's being fully honest (with himself, even), and behind how the world works. It would be nice if people would apply the suggestions that I made in order to actually figure out which of his claims are the best supported by evidence. I use my writing both to think through ideas, and also as resources I can later use to justify my reasoning when people disagree with me (or vice-versa). That is, I am most motivated to write when I think people are wrong and I want to make a strong case for it. Most of my writing is adversarial in some respect, and I enjoy arguing with people. At the same time I think this kind of adversarial environment (that characterized most intellectual pursuits throughout history) is a requirement for truthseeking. I am disappointed that Miles does not earnestly engage in this. He will rail against the mainstream, and defend his work against controlled opposition (which I already thought Unz was before all this), but he will completely ignore honest criticism, even if it comes from someone like Gerry. 

Do I think Miles will correct himself? Not at all. He is too fragile to take constructive feedback. Do I want revenge? I wouldn't say so. I admit that I am annoyed that Miles ignored my critique, and disgusted that I was censored on MH by Swathy, who I consider a unctuous sycophant. Often I argue not to convince my interlocutor but to demonstrate to the audience that my position is more reasonable, so censoring me appears to me as the epitome of intellectual dishonesty. Mostly I believe that my trust was betrayed by Miles and I'm trying to understand where exactly I went wrong. I held this position, as written by Josh on the Links sidebar on CTTF: "I don't agree with everything they write, but when I think they're wrong, I attribute it to an honest mistake rather than a deliberate attempt to deceive." I'm saying neither that Miles is making a deliberate attempt to deceive, nor that he is making honest mistakes. I think both of those may be category errors. Rather I am saying that he is simply elaborating a fantasy world as a coping mechanism for his failure in life where any overlap with reality is basically coincidental. ("Every event is fake, every past intellectual is a fraud, and I am the most important genius who has ever lived because I am the only one who has figured it out, and solved hundreds of open problems in math and physics.") There happens to be a lot of fakery in the world, so the overlap is not zero, but the point still stands. Because I found his work shortly after realizing that 9/11 was an inside job and the Holocaust was fake, I was prepared to accept a lot of out-there ideas. Because I was just finishing up university I was largely ignorant of topics outside my field of study, and not properly able to identify the areas where Miles was going wrong because I lacked the background knowledge. I found his work inspiring and I looked up to him in certain ways. I considered, at that time, whether he might be controlled opposition himself, but I didn't have the confidence in myself or my world model to know what to do if that were the case, so I would say I was somewhat blocked from pursuing that line of thought, both psychologically and because of a lack of knowledge.

Like I said in my paper, I have had doubts about Miles' world model and intellectual rigour for some time, but actually writing the paper forced me to propagate the implications of my doubts to all the relevant aspects of my own world model. It also tacitly 'gave me permission' to elaborate on the kinds of thoughts I am communicating right now. Consequently I have to dramatically lower my confidence in all of Miles' conclusions that I have not had the time to verify for myself. In his physics, I think there is a strong chance that all of his math is nonsense but that some of his mechanistic theories may have merit - one of his few falsifiable hypotheses is his solar cycle prediction so that is where I would start if I were going to assess his physics work. One of the papers I plan on writing is on the question of nuclear bombs, since that fraud justifies a lot of other hypotheses that would otherwise be very low probability. It has been covered by a number of authors but with varying focuses and levels of rigour that don't, in my opinion, get to the heart of the issue in the way I would like.

kieran
_@kieran Thanks for the elaborate and calm reply.
First I will admit that a few English words there are new to me. But I don't have time to look them up now.

Most of what you replied sounds very reasonable to me.

I do miss one view of Miles here, that I again cannot really find in your description. That is my view of him as having made a choice. A choice of doing this fight till the end. And making the punches land as hard as they can in a most contagious way. With contagious I mean how it transfers to the average reader. How it gets these readers to take action, contrary to just contemplating things and being satisfied knowing. I figure if that is an important part of it, Miles needs to write accordingly.
Miles wrote somewhere about knowing certain things, but writing them down would be counterproductive. He would rather just talk about it in person while taking a stroll in the woods. (Maybe I can find that bit again, later.)

I have utmost respect for Gerry's work, but I do think that his writings leave one with the feeling of de-motivation, because the human-situation appears to be the eternal way of the world. That everything is in vain. "So why bother."
Now I am relatively fine getting to know some truth (for as long as it may hold), crappy as it may be. But for the average audience they would say: Why are you telling me this, when there is no recommendation nor hope at the end of the article?

Another thing that keeps me a bit hesitant, is my experience in online forums in general, about some body of work. Where the original author of the body of work is eventually vilified by the remaining posters. And the reason is very typical, basically the people dislike it, that the author is not supplying them more of what they liked most. But I can't help thinking: At least that author supplied good stuff, while the people arguing can merely describe good stuff, and failing even at that. (I am not pointing a finger at you)

Looking forward to your thoughts and investigation around the 'nuclear bomb' program. Suppose I am decided on that bomb topic, but more evidence is always welcome. I do still have remaining questions around the supposed power generating part. Things like nuclear marine propulsion, and what is going on there.