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Have any of you guys checked in on our old pal Will Schryver lately? The failed LDS apologist who lost his mind and became a Putin apologist? I know he has a social media presence. Last time I checked he wasn't very active. I wonder what he is up to? Still shilling for Russia? Boy, that takes me back. I remember his "game-changing" arguments about the GAEL and the Book of Abraham. How did they change the game again? Can't quite put my finger on it. I suppose it could be the case that the game wasn't changed at all. I remember when he and I had a friendly exchange regarding his plans to submit his research to Oxford University Press. At the time, I genuinely encouraged him to do it. I don't know that I ever saw his research published. If you have, please do me a favor and send me a link to the journal or publisher where I can find his argument in full.

But, gotta say, guy sadly lost it. Not very sympathetic to shill for a murderous authoritarian leader, but it is important to remember that Will, too, is a human being. Perhaps Veritas has checked in on Will? He has probably lost interest in Will, which would be understandable.

In any case, if any of you have any updates on Will Schryver and his current political writings, let me know.

I guess Will's last post on "imetatronink" (nothing pretentious about that!) was this past August. It's a fantasy map that is intended to represent the reach of US imperialism in the Black Sea region? He does have an essay in which he gloats about the dissipation of American empire under the incompetent blustering of Donald J. Trump. You can read the essay on substack:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-169510581

The Russian military industrial complex is now vastly outproducing the entire deindustrialized western powers.

Yeah, and what quality stuff they pump out! All those WWII-style shells. All the human bodies kidnapped off the streets and emptied out of the prisons to throw at Ukraine.

Chinese productive capacity is an order of magnitude more potent. Even the Iranians and the North Koreans can crank out implements of war faster than the Americans and their vassals combined.

So what will the ever-weakening bully do in the face of these challenges?

In my estimation, the notion of taking on the Russians or Chinese remains utterly out of the question, even for the blithering fools at the Pentagon. So, that means Iran remains the only credible option for a bully that feels the existential need to bloody someone.

And, if it comes to that, I am increasingly convinced the Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans will act to reinforce the Iranians as needed to exact a punishing toll on the teetering American titan.

You can practically smell the treacly vapors of self-satisfied gloating wafting off his brow as he pounds away at the keyboard with fiendish glee.

I genuinely liked Will (could probably classify my feelings towards him as brotherly love -- still love the guy, as my heart rarely relinquishes real estate once it's been deeded over to someone). It hurt as his personality seemed to shift, and he became increasingly caustic, and his growingly persistent misogyny (his disparaging remarks about Emma Smith and the language he used was disheartening, and seemed to come out of nowhere, then there was the rank escalation towards Dr. Jack [I think she's done with her PhD]). The Russophilia of the past years really seems odd to me, and is difficult to understand.

Or perhaps I just wasn't as attune to things as I'd like to think, and nothing shifted, and he was always that way? Maybe it was my personality that shifted??? Whatever happened there, I'm sorry it did, and I'm nostalgic for our olden day board and private message interactions.

I do hope he is doing well in his personal/private life, and finds the peace of heart and mind that currently seems illusive. Some rabbit holes are hard to climb out of, especially when we can't seem to stop digging them ourselves, and our noggins always need something to occupy them.

Doctor Steuss wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 18, 2025 5:27 pm

I genuinely liked Will (could probably classify my feelings towards him as brotherly love -- still love the guy, as my heart rarely relinquishes real estate once it's been deeded over to someone). It hurt as his personality seemed to shift, and he became increasingly caustic, and his growingly persistent misogyny (his disparaging remarks about Emma Smith and the language he used was disheartening, and seemed to come out of nowhere, then there was the rank escalation towards Dr. Jack [I think she's done with her PhD]). The Russophilia of the past years really seems odd to me, and is difficult to understand.

Or perhaps I just wasn't as attune to things as I'd like to think, and nothing shifted, and he was always that way? Maybe it was my personality that shifted??? Whatever happened there, I'm sorry it did, and I'm nostalgic for our olden day board and private message interactions.

I do hope he is doing well in his personal/private life, and finds the peace of heart and mind that currently seems illusive. Some rabbit holes are hard to climb out of, especially when we can't seem to stop digging them ourselves, and our noggins always need something to occupy them.

Hey, people are complicated. I have no doubt he was always a misogynist. I don't think this was a new development. I also think that Mormonism attracts some people with contrarian personalities. The kind of folk who believe odd things out of a strange kind of ego-need. They think that having an offbeat take makes them seem more insightful than the average person. Will worked really, really hard at crafting his posts, and I liked that about him. He did so at a time when you couldn't just throw something in AI to smooth out the rough edges or make you sound smarter. Like Mayan Elephant, he would contact me behind the scenes to let down his guard and be genuine for a moment. That is what I miss. I don't miss the other stuff.

I suppose our new breed of contrarian trolls from the MAGAverse seem a little stale by comparison. There isn't the same commitment, creativity, and attempt at a unique perspective of some kind. MAGA has a script for us, and we are seeing it relentlessly. Apologetics for authoritarianism are boring, and these new guys have it in spades. The only one of them that I genuinely like is Ceeboo, although Hound can be amusing at times. Hound's PM to me yesterday was one thing that brought the memories back.