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Reposted by The FUD Letter

Bennett Tomlin @bft.wtf · 14/05/2026

Even the work of education and consciousness-raising has been replaced with a sensationalist mania that sustains itself on convincing everyone that victory is mere moments away. The real is substituted for the signs of the real and thus deters the real process of understanding.

"It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via its operational double, a programmatic, metastable, perfectly descriptive machine that offers all the signs of the real and short-circuits all its vicissitudes."
Even the work of education and
consciousness-raising has been replaced with a sensationalist mania that sustains
itself on convincing everyone that victory is mere moments away. The real is substituted for the signs of the real and thus deters the real process of understanding.

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

Bennett Tomlin @bft.wtf · 14/05/2026

it makes sense to care deeply about how things are going to affect the next election. The autocrat was elected twice; there are a huge number of voters who supported the autocrat and wanted the autocrat to win; there is a large pro-autocracy contingent in the US

Much of the "discourse" (separate from the actual coverage) especially fails at this!
Pundits and panelists make their living by returning to the ultimate arbiter in the United States, the upcoming elections, and so we end up with endless horse-race coverage.
But, in some sense, it makes sense to care deeply about how things are going to affect the next election. The autocrat was elected twice; there are a huge number of voters who supported the autocrat and wanted the autocrat to win; there is a large pro-autocracy contingent in the US, and that makes every election supremely important.
There is an audience for horse race
coverage; people want to know who will win and to project their hopes or resentments onto what that implies.

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

Bennett Tomlin @bft.wtf · 14/05/2026

“The problem with the media is that things are covered, but no matter the significance of the news, there are a certain number of column inches, a certain number of cable news segments, and a certain number of breathless BREAKING short-form videos you need to post to your audience.”

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

The FUD Letter @thefudletter.com · 12/05/2026

I do not believe in the Stochastic Revolution. There will not be a Warehouse Revolution. thefudletter.com/i-do-not-bel...

thefudletter.com

I do not believe in Stochastic Revolution

The FUD Letter: Facts Under Dispute

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

Bennett Tomlin @bft.wtf · 13/05/2026

each time people look into their camera and suggest in excited tones and bombastic speech that each new BREAKING fire, each fire that is JUST IN… prove the people are waking up; if they believe in the stochastic revolution, then they believe that they are doing an important job

Stochastic Revolution
I use the term Stochastic Revolution to draw an analogy with Stochastic Terrorism.
Stochastic terrorism originally was used to describe the process of figuring out the probability of terrorist attacks.
However, that is probably not how you have heard it used. Over the last decade and a half, it has come to describe how speakers can effectively increase the likelihood of lone-wolf terrorist attacks.
One of the people most commonly accused of stochastic terrorism is Chaya Raichik, who runs the 'Libs of TikTok' social media
accounts. She had a tendency to attack certain hospitals for the medical care they provided to transgender individuals. Many of these hospitals would later report bomb threats, most prominently Boston Children's Hospital.

In that case, Catherine Leavy called in a bomb threat, and she eventually pleaded guilty to making a false bomb threat as well as a related charge.
Leavy ended up meeting with representatives of Boston Children's, who eventually filed a victim statement in her sentencing. The hospital argued that Leavy should not go to prison; they pointed to her sincere remorse, her cognitive impairment, and the fact that she "was manipulated by the instigators' online disinformation campaign."
The hospital claimed that "the real culpable individuals in this case are the tour
instigators who have orchestrated this disinformation campaign unabated for the past two years."

This type of thing is generally what people mean when they use stochastic terrorism nowadays; they're describing how our ability to influence millions of people at one time means that this type of targeted speech can create the conditions that will lead to the violence and terror acts.
So a stochastic revolution would be a revolution in which people using these tools of mass communication end up creating an informational environment that will, in aggregate, move enough people to the necessary acts required for a revolution.

In the same sense that Raichik does not personally send violent threats, these stochastic revolutionaries do not need to personally partake in violent acts; they do not need to take the risk of personally firebombing a warehouse. Their role is instead to create the ideal environment.
Thus, each time people look into their camera and suggest in excited tones and bombastic speech that each new BREAKING fire, each fire that is JUST IN, every fire that is CONFIRMED prove the people are waking up; if they believe in the stochastic revolution, then they believe that they are doing an important job. They are leaders in making this idealized change possible, in creating this new world, and in bringing about this wondrous change.

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

Matt Darling @besttrousers.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

"There is not evidence of a spate of warehouse fires. There is no Warehouse Revolution. The United States is a massive and economically productive nation; it has warehouses and corporate buildings aplenty...we average nearly 3 warehouse fires per day in the United States."

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

Bennett Tomlin @bft.wtf · 13/05/2026

I wrote an essay about the warehouse fire and the way some content creators reacted

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The FUD Letter @thefudletter.com · 12/05/2026

I do not believe in the Stochastic Revolution. There will not be a Warehouse Revolution. thefudletter.com/i-do-not-bel...

thefudletter.com

I do not believe in Stochastic Revolution

The FUD Letter: Facts Under Dispute

083

Reposted by The FUD Letter

Bennett Tomlin @bft.wtf · 28/02/2025

He got off.

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

The FUD Letter @thefudletter.com · 26/11/2024

Is it a bribe? An investment? A payment? Are these distinctions going to rapidly lose distinction over the next several years? Justin Sun, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur targeted by the SEC, bought most of a Trump-endorsed cryptocurrency thefudletter.com/is-it-a-brib...

thefudletter.com

Is it a bribe: Justin Sun?

In the first issue of what is going to end up needing to be a new series here: Is it a bribe? we take a look at one of my favorite cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, Justin Sun. Sun is a plagiarist runni...

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

Philip Stafford @staffordphilip.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Great name for a series. "In the first issue of what is going to end up needing to be a new series here: Is it a bribe?"

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Reposted by The FUD Letter

Bennett Tomlin @bft.wtf · 27/11/2024

There’s a new way to bribe Trump and maybe it’s legal

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The FUD Letter @thefudletter.com · 26/11/2024

thefudletter.com

Is it a bribe: Justin Sun?

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The FUD Letter @thefudletter.com · 22/11/2024

Donald Trump's failure to advance Matt Gaetz suggests divisions in the GOP that can be exploited thefudletter.com/was-i-wrong-...

thefudletter.com

Was I wrong about Matt Gaetz?

Matt Gaetz withdrawal makes me believe the GOP may be weak.

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The FUD Letter @thefudletter.com · 18/11/2024

Donald Trump picked Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, not because he is good, but because he is bad. This nomination will allow him to identify GOP Senators who are willing to break from his nonsense, and he will target them for humiliation if they break from him. thefudletter.com/the-gaetz-ga...

thefudletter.com

The Gaetz Gambit

Donald Trump nominated Matt Gaetz because he is bad.

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