[ExI] Russians bots at work again?

[Keith Henson]

<spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> Can we prove any of those stories were true?

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/22/533941689/pizzagate-gunman-sentenced-to-4-years-in-prison

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/comet-pizza-gunman-to-appear-at-plea-deal-hearing-friday-morning/2017/03/23/e12c91ba-0986-11e7-b77c-0047d15a24e0_story.html

Depends.  Do you consider NPR and The Washington Post to be reliable sources?

Incidentally, all this took was "pizza assault rifle basement" as
search terms in Google News.

> If a guy stormed a Pizza house, can we determine if the Clinton/Gates conspiracy had anything to do with it?

This was long before Gates was added.  But yes

"The unfounded "Pizzagate" Internet rumor at the center of this case
accused the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria of being the home of a Satanic
child sex abuse ring involving top Democrats such as Hillary Clinton.
"Speculation and fabrications tied to the bizarre conspiracy theory
have been relentlessly circulated by politically motivated fringe
sites," as The Two-Way has reported.

"Welch heard about the conspiracy theory last December and spent three
days reading about it and watching videos, according to a statement
that was part of his plea agreement. He then decided to go investigate
the matter himself.

"The defendant then took it upon himself to act in what he believed
would be a violent confrontation at the restaurant," the statement
reads. Welch unsuccessfully attempted to try to persuade friends to
join him. He said he believed it would involve "sacraficing [sic] the
lives of a few for the lives of many," according to court documents."

> If not, why do we bother repeating the conspiracy theory?  What if the guy was just nuts?

Fortunately, nobody was killed this time.  But some people are
vulnerable to memes of this class.  Timothy McVeigh for example.

Both were memeoids, that is people who have been taken over by a meme
to the extent that their own survival becomes inconsequential.
Examples include kamikazes, suicide bombers, and cult members who
commit mass suicide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics#Terminology

Keith