Honestly, Billy Coull could be any combination of those things, or none at all. One thing we can say for sure? The man's past is so checkered now that you could lay him out on a table and play a half dozen games of that all at once. He's about as trustworthy as a leech who says it just wants a little smooch, it's totally not after your blood, guys. Good intentioned or not, and I lean heavily toward not, he's both an example of a man not to give your money to, of what happens when your schemes run away from you, and of the dangers presented by the easy and unscrupulous use of automated media generation services.
I've been pushing against things like this since so-called "AI art" first popped up on people's radars. People like Coull, particularly those more competent in this dishonest game than him, are the proof that I was right to listen to my instincts.
You were right, and it's only going to get worse, but that's the main subject of the last of this trilogy of entries.
It's hard not to see Coull as an out-and-out shyster, but at the same time I can see the possibility - a very thin one, but extant - where he did engage with these activities thinking that they would be either easier to do than they really were, didn't mind bending the truth to give his organizations a leg up, and, if his history with the University of Sedona and "Theocentric Psychology" suggests, maybe he just leaned way, WAY too hard into the manifestation idea and figured it would all just materialize for him. Which is, like, the complete opposite of "manifestation" as I understand it, but there's so many interpretations of it that it's hard to say there's a solidly defined right way to interpret it.
I was thinking of our general problem as modern people with the real vs the unreal - Computing power, marketing, social media, and now AI all enable us to build a illusory world; when we attempt to translate that illusion into reality we get Willie's Chocolatey Experience, which was a few crappy prop pieces scattered about a room.
But if that guy also had a quasi-religious thought system helping him deceive himself... wow, that could be potent.
The whole time reading this great piece I was thinking "He got caught, but how often do they get away with it?"
How many sociopaths just like Willy Wanker put out BS about being government funded, leading food banks, non-profits, marketing consulting firms, whatever, and some semi-sentient bureaucrat falls for it and ok's the funds? How many millionaires, heck billionaires, are in the world who are just this guy but with +10 IQ points?
Honestly I get the feeling the USA is mostly run by these guys now.
Honestly, giving most of those people plus ten IQ points on Coull is being too generous. I think they're all the same base level of miserably stupid, or, at best, woefully misguided. Like I said, I think that Coull started with good intentions but got in way over his head. I think that a lot of people who run the US, which I would agree are very much in the same vein, many of them had good intentions as some point or another. But, you know what they say about Hell and good intentions...
Speaking of the death of the Internet, I am fairly sure the reason for the drop-off is that Chrome (at least on Android) has begun to glitch something fierce with Substack.
Assuming the motivation is political for now: "first they came for the Nazis" is a remarkably similar sentiment to "first they came for the Communists," when it comes to it.
Actually, I noticed the same thing on my laptop using Chrome on Substack. It just outright does not work, which spurred me to finally jump to Firefox (which I should have done to begin with). In theme with the article, I'm not sure it's malice on behalf of a third party or just sheer incompetence (this site still has a concerning amount of kinks that need to be ironed out), but I certainly wouldn't discredit the idea, either. This place is still very much in the crosshairs of bad actors.
My girl Clio still has shooters. You best lay off her, or else you and Poly (who, I must note, is very sparing with that eloquence of hers) will look bad in ~50 years' time when we write a book about you
Come on, bro. You got beef, let's hear it. Go ahead. Write your book. No one's gonna read it. Me and Poly are gonna drop the hottest diss track on your clown asses y'all ever heard. Number one of Spotify. Just you wait.
"Coull’s output is varied. He cites Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code fame as his favorite author, and even recommends his books on his author’s page. The other one - the book that changed his life - is one of his own. How humble."
Hahahaha! Every sentence in that paragraph is a joke. Bravo, sir.
Hey, there's a reason that this country experienced it's zenith in terms of industriousness when pretty much everyone was chainsmoking from age 12 to the day they died. Not saying it's good, because obviously the health impacts are tangible (and I certainly don't recommend taking up a smoking habit), it's just that the overlap between those two things are not coincidental.
Anyways, they sell Zyn in 3mg and 6mg strength, and absolutely do not, under any circumstances, start with the 6mg. It doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me - it's too much. So, I'd recommend if you want to try it, get the 3mg, and when it comes to avoiding getting hooked on it, in my opinion, just only take it when you're working. No other time. If you need a boost when you're working, take it then, but don't even look at it otherwise. In my experience with any kind of addictive substance, it only begins a problem when you condition yourself to consume it anywhere at any time. If you keep boundaries about where or when or what you're doing when you take it, you're conditioning yourself to only take it when certain conditions are met, if that makes sense. So, if you do that, and use it sparingly, only when you're working, you should be fine.
I'd also recommend that you start with the flavorless variety, or at least the light gray ones that are called "Chill" because they've only got the barest hint of inoffensive mint flavoring to them, just to make it easier to handle (I have a friend who likes the cinnamon ones and I just don't know how he does it). Also, if you do it, and you start feeling sick or light-headed or a little weird, that's perfectly normal with any nicotine product when you first start, so just take it out and don't touch another one for a while. It's something you do kind of have to build up a tolerance for, but, believe me, you'll really feel it at first.
"His partner [...] fucking left him over this (if you believe his story, which, I mean… who knows)"
I don't believe his story. I would need to see her in person, along with some documentation. That will never happen, and it's not important enough to pursue. Much simpler to place Coull in the Lying Bastard category and move on with my life.
There's a reason I continually return to them; brony lore is steeped in some of the most insane shit you're likely to ever see on the internet. One day I want to do a full deep-dive into Las Pegasus because it's the greatest convention trashfire that no one's ever heard of and information is scarce outside of a few first-hand accounts. Apparently Tara Strong, the voice actress for the primary pony Twilight Sparkle, is deathly allergic to eggplant and, despite letting the staff responsible for guest management know this, somehow it ended up in the food they brought her and she had a severe reaction (I just checked, she confirmed this on her Twitter). Given the entire thing was a grab-and-go grift, some conspiratorial minded people think it was done on purpose by the organizers to create a distraction in which they could get out of the venue unnoticed or have a convenient excuse to leave. I mean, the headlining guest going into anaphylactic shock right before one of the main billed events for the convention obviously caused a lot of chaos. The whole thing is wild.
Exactly what I thought. How the fuck do you just "accidentally" order something with eggplant? My sister is severely allergic to tree nuts and they've turned up in dishes where you would never expect them to without warning, so, I mean, I get that it happens, but eggplants are not tree nuts, either. Point is, the guys who ran that convention actually had a record of running other new agey pyramid scheme-type scams so the odds of that one being an unhappy coincidence are pretty much nil.
Intentional shyster? Good-hearted moron? Deluded fool? Petty tech thief?
Honestly, Billy Coull could be any combination of those things, or none at all. One thing we can say for sure? The man's past is so checkered now that you could lay him out on a table and play a half dozen games of that all at once. He's about as trustworthy as a leech who says it just wants a little smooch, it's totally not after your blood, guys. Good intentioned or not, and I lean heavily toward not, he's both an example of a man not to give your money to, of what happens when your schemes run away from you, and of the dangers presented by the easy and unscrupulous use of automated media generation services.
I've been pushing against things like this since so-called "AI art" first popped up on people's radars. People like Coull, particularly those more competent in this dishonest game than him, are the proof that I was right to listen to my instincts.
You were right, and it's only going to get worse, but that's the main subject of the last of this trilogy of entries.
It's hard not to see Coull as an out-and-out shyster, but at the same time I can see the possibility - a very thin one, but extant - where he did engage with these activities thinking that they would be either easier to do than they really were, didn't mind bending the truth to give his organizations a leg up, and, if his history with the University of Sedona and "Theocentric Psychology" suggests, maybe he just leaned way, WAY too hard into the manifestation idea and figured it would all just materialize for him. Which is, like, the complete opposite of "manifestation" as I understand it, but there's so many interpretations of it that it's hard to say there's a solidly defined right way to interpret it.
I was thinking of our general problem as modern people with the real vs the unreal - Computing power, marketing, social media, and now AI all enable us to build a illusory world; when we attempt to translate that illusion into reality we get Willie's Chocolatey Experience, which was a few crappy prop pieces scattered about a room.
But if that guy also had a quasi-religious thought system helping him deceive himself... wow, that could be potent.
Really looking forward to part three.
The whole time reading this great piece I was thinking "He got caught, but how often do they get away with it?"
How many sociopaths just like Willy Wanker put out BS about being government funded, leading food banks, non-profits, marketing consulting firms, whatever, and some semi-sentient bureaucrat falls for it and ok's the funds? How many millionaires, heck billionaires, are in the world who are just this guy but with +10 IQ points?
Honestly I get the feeling the USA is mostly run by these guys now.
Honestly, giving most of those people plus ten IQ points on Coull is being too generous. I think they're all the same base level of miserably stupid, or, at best, woefully misguided. Like I said, I think that Coull started with good intentions but got in way over his head. I think that a lot of people who run the US, which I would agree are very much in the same vein, many of them had good intentions as some point or another. But, you know what they say about Hell and good intentions...
Speaking of the death of the Internet, I am fairly sure the reason for the drop-off is that Chrome (at least on Android) has begun to glitch something fierce with Substack.
Assuming the motivation is political for now: "first they came for the Nazis" is a remarkably similar sentiment to "first they came for the Communists," when it comes to it.
Actually, I noticed the same thing on my laptop using Chrome on Substack. It just outright does not work, which spurred me to finally jump to Firefox (which I should have done to begin with). In theme with the article, I'm not sure it's malice on behalf of a third party or just sheer incompetence (this site still has a concerning amount of kinks that need to be ironed out), but I certainly wouldn't discredit the idea, either. This place is still very much in the crosshairs of bad actors.
My girl Clio still has shooters. You best lay off her, or else you and Poly (who, I must note, is very sparing with that eloquence of hers) will look bad in ~50 years' time when we write a book about you
Come on, bro. You got beef, let's hear it. Go ahead. Write your book. No one's gonna read it. Me and Poly are gonna drop the hottest diss track on your clown asses y'all ever heard. Number one of Spotify. Just you wait.
"Coull’s output is varied. He cites Dan Brown of The Da Vinci Code fame as his favorite author, and even recommends his books on his author’s page. The other one - the book that changed his life - is one of his own. How humble."
Hahahaha! Every sentence in that paragraph is a joke. Bravo, sir.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed. I also really appreciate the support, more than you know.
I never once believed that bit about nicotine clarifying the mind, but now I'm curious. How do I take Zyn in a dose that won't get me addicted?
Hey, there's a reason that this country experienced it's zenith in terms of industriousness when pretty much everyone was chainsmoking from age 12 to the day they died. Not saying it's good, because obviously the health impacts are tangible (and I certainly don't recommend taking up a smoking habit), it's just that the overlap between those two things are not coincidental.
Anyways, they sell Zyn in 3mg and 6mg strength, and absolutely do not, under any circumstances, start with the 6mg. It doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me - it's too much. So, I'd recommend if you want to try it, get the 3mg, and when it comes to avoiding getting hooked on it, in my opinion, just only take it when you're working. No other time. If you need a boost when you're working, take it then, but don't even look at it otherwise. In my experience with any kind of addictive substance, it only begins a problem when you condition yourself to consume it anywhere at any time. If you keep boundaries about where or when or what you're doing when you take it, you're conditioning yourself to only take it when certain conditions are met, if that makes sense. So, if you do that, and use it sparingly, only when you're working, you should be fine.
I'd also recommend that you start with the flavorless variety, or at least the light gray ones that are called "Chill" because they've only got the barest hint of inoffensive mint flavoring to them, just to make it easier to handle (I have a friend who likes the cinnamon ones and I just don't know how he does it). Also, if you do it, and you start feeling sick or light-headed or a little weird, that's perfectly normal with any nicotine product when you first start, so just take it out and don't touch another one for a while. It's something you do kind of have to build up a tolerance for, but, believe me, you'll really feel it at first.
Yikes. The whole thing is crazy. And I did not know AI was capable of all that. Thanks for making this very interesting and always funny!
"His partner [...] fucking left him over this (if you believe his story, which, I mean… who knows)"
I don't believe his story. I would need to see her in person, along with some documentation. That will never happen, and it's not important enough to pursue. Much simpler to place Coull in the Lying Bastard category and move on with my life.
> I mean, at DashCon, the lead voice actress for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic wasn’t almost killed due to staff negligence.
Oh? Perhaps I shouldn't have 'completely' ignored brony culture.
There's a reason I continually return to them; brony lore is steeped in some of the most insane shit you're likely to ever see on the internet. One day I want to do a full deep-dive into Las Pegasus because it's the greatest convention trashfire that no one's ever heard of and information is scarce outside of a few first-hand accounts. Apparently Tara Strong, the voice actress for the primary pony Twilight Sparkle, is deathly allergic to eggplant and, despite letting the staff responsible for guest management know this, somehow it ended up in the food they brought her and she had a severe reaction (I just checked, she confirmed this on her Twitter). Given the entire thing was a grab-and-go grift, some conspiratorial minded people think it was done on purpose by the organizers to create a distraction in which they could get out of the venue unnoticed or have a convenient excuse to leave. I mean, the headlining guest going into anaphylactic shock right before one of the main billed events for the convention obviously caused a lot of chaos. The whole thing is wild.
And it's not like eggplant is exactly a prolific ingredient. You're allergic to eggplant? Oh here's an Eggplant Casserole... Oops! She dead.
Exactly what I thought. How the fuck do you just "accidentally" order something with eggplant? My sister is severely allergic to tree nuts and they've turned up in dishes where you would never expect them to without warning, so, I mean, I get that it happens, but eggplants are not tree nuts, either. Point is, the guys who ran that convention actually had a record of running other new agey pyramid scheme-type scams so the odds of that one being an unhappy coincidence are pretty much nil.
I’m gonna like for the title