Dear Armchair Critic,

Supporter of Israel? Who on this net has made any mention of Israel or its support besides you? I do not support Israel. I am for separation of religion and state and am for democracy. I think democracy necessitates religion or the lack of it being no business of government so I do not support Israel. I do not support Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist nations. A person's beliefs are no business of a democratic government. However, I also object to the paranoid fantasies that Jews are responsible for the ills of the world. Some Jews as your references mention share those sick fantasies and conspiracy theories.

It is one of those sick fantasies that Jews pushed the US into WW1. They did not have the power to do it.

Whatever your fantasy is you will find something on the web supporting it.

Hi AC,
You're probably already aware of this, but just in case, I'll mention it anyway.

Look up "search engine optimisation" and check out the ways in which various different sites use techniques to try to "optimise" your searching experience on the web, by giving you the information that they think you want. They do this by examining your search and browsing history and applying algorithms that interact with the google and other search engine algorithms to serve you up ads and links and related pages that reflect the stuff you've been looking at previously. Some of them are extremely clever, and you might find things that at first blush aren't obviously linked, but inevitably are.

I never get links to conspiracy sites on my feeds, although, it is likely that now I have posted this there will be a few such links teed up as I browse this morning.

Do yourself a favour and for a month deliberately avoid any such sites and any such references on OLO or elsewhere. You'll find your web experience is much less cluttered.

Hi David f,

I wasn't the first one to mention Germany or the Jews; not that it's a crime.
I responded to CHERFULS short history lesson in good faith with information I'd come across in the past; and I even made a note prior to doing so that 'some of the websites and videos I watch are of a questionable nature'.

You and Toni Lavis we're the ones that challenged me and jumped aboard the 'hate' train with your accusations.
Go back and read the comments again if you don't believe me.

Toni's pretty much been angling to attack me any chance she gets since I joined the forum (and dared to question some aspects of the holocaust), and I expect she's more peeved than usual and looking to stir me up since I one-upped her last week, which was why she was being argumentative.
I'd apologise to her about the low-blow with the "I am Australian" thing if I though she was the type of person who would also apologise when she's also been unreasonable; but she isn't, and so I won't.
(My point there was that if she was the same as the person spoken about in the song, she wouldn't likely be attacking me on the issues she was... )

The point I was making to all the pro-Israel people that would attack me and call me names is that IF I really was a Jew hater, (and given all the stuff I have looked at and am aware of) I'd have no problems at all writing an almost endless stream of articles criticising Israel and it's hypocrisy if I chose to.

Just because I question things does not automatically make me a Jew hater in or of itself.

You challenged me to produce more info so I did.
As to the truth of some of the info I share; who knows?
But I'm not sure anyone else can say for sure that they know different.

Hey Jayb,
Awesome story about the WW2 Japanese soldiers landing in Australia.
Sounds like the kind of thing they could make into a movie, that I would enjoy.

Hey Craig Minns,
I honestly couldn't tell you how I come across some of the stuff I have.
The conspiracy type stuff, I mostly came across years ago, long before I ever joined OLO.

Sometimes you can look something up on Wikipedia and hours later you've clicked links to all these different related topics; you've got dozens of tabs open and you don't know how you get from one topic to another.
It used to happen regularly, not so much lately.
I mainly just listen to 'what really happened' radio show and the 'X22 report' on youtube these days, and I have more of an interest in geopolitical news.
I do browse the normal news, and check Alex Jones out occasionally and a few other subscribed youtube channels as well.

Youtube is mainly the culprit for strange 'recommended videos'.
I've seen almost everything from crop circles and cattle mutilations to the Michigan Dogman; and everything in between.
I don't specifically go hunting for the conspiratorial genre type stuff anymore, it's more 'been there, done that'.
I sometimes only remember certain tidbits of info when someone else brings up the topic.

Dear Armchair Critic,

You wrote: "The point I was making to all the pro-Israel people that would attack me and call me names is that IF I really was a Jew hater, (and given all the stuff I have looked at and am aware of) I'd have no problems at all writing an almost endless stream of articles criticising Israel and it's hypocrisy if I chose to."

You have been attacked. However, as far as I know none of the people who have attacked you are pro-Israel. You have been attacked for your uncritical acceptance of conspiratorial websites. You have been attacked for your equation of Jews with Israel. Israel is a country with mainly Jews. Some Jews support Israel. Others don't. You apparently are not a critical thinker.

The net is big. One conspiracy feeds on another conspiracy. You can find an endless stream of articles supporting just about anything. A little critical thinking is better than an endless stream of articles supporting each other.

Hi AC,
You'd be surprised how well some of the algorithms steer you around and where they gather information.

Those who are peddling clickbait are also getting better all the time at creating it. There is a whole science around placement on the screen, colours, sizes, flashing rates; the list of permutations is endless. In addition to cookies there are things like active pixels that take note of when you've lingered on a particular part of the screen for a certain amount of time, whether you come back to something after moving away, and so on. The web page is an enormously useful data gathering tool.

All of it is informed by behavioural science in the service of behavioural advertising. At its best it's incredibly clever and useful. At its worst it's a terrible weapon of mass distraction.