One morning Alefantis sits behind his laptop, coffee in hand. Notices views are up on his instagram account. Gets strange messages with links to websites that accuse him of running cover for pedophilia rings. He clicks through and sees sensitive pictures posted by angry people. It’s all over the place. Adrenaline kicks in. Calls with Podesta. He already knows. Sense of panic sets in. Heated phone calls follow. A scramble. Delete sensitive information on the internet. Empty out basements. Consider filling up tunnels with concrete. Shut down regular trafficking activity for the moment.

Next step, reputation. Change logos, neutralise coded language. Activate media defence shield, inform journalists that right-wing conspiracy nuts are targeting friendly small-business owner. Give a failed actor money and a gun to shoot up the place, report as ‘psychotic conspiracist assaults pizza place.’

Evaluate for weaknesses. What are the loose ends? There is this one woman in Haiti who is quite persistently snooping around. No time for mr nice guys, can’t take the risk. Make it look like a suicide.

Some smart people have come out as believers of pizzagate, some smart people have come out as skeptical of pizzagate. Lion of the blogosphere gives a good rundown of the case against pizzagate in #Pizzagate nonsense. He makes his case in 3 arguments. Below my case for the opposition.

1. If something sounds too good to be true, then it’s not true
The perfect way in which this provides moral superiority for the alt-right is reason for skepticism. No better way to fight your enemies than by branding them as satanic child molesters. But as Lion says, 99% is not 100%, and as Jayman says, something that sounds too good to be true occasionally is true.

2. Unlikelihood of so many people being into the same weird stuff
I’d argue that leftism evolutionary selects for these kinds of people working together. The US has a lot of power concentrated in Washington DC, so plenty room for leftist conspiracies. The most effective conspiracies are those that have the tightest loyalty. Child molestation blackmail creates a lot of loyalty. As a comparison one may look at a furry convention and say: how unlikely is it that all these people are into the same weird stuff? A: because that is the place they are attracted to and that is the place that actually rewards them for their fetishes.

(Phrased differently: #NRx theoretically finds plenty of reason for demonic power hungry priests to band together. )

3. They have high IQs and wouldn’t be so open about it
… Is what a rational, upstanding citizen would reason. I would argue the exact opposite. I’ve encountered one hardcore high-IQ child molester in my personal life (I was targeted but not victimised). He was more open about his love for children than you might expect. Sociopathic child molesters with high IQ are dangerous. I’d argue that they are open about it precisely because they have high IQs . They structure their entire life around living respectable lives by day and having pretty children in their bedroom by night. But they need ways to communicate their true purposes, be it with fellow pedos or with children. Basically you need a way to legitimise your interaction with children, so by necessity sociopathic pedophiles hide in plain sight. It is their ‘game’. Similarly to how Heartiste writes about gaming hot chicks, pedophiles employ game to seduce children. By openly showing the world they like children and children like them they legitimise their frame. ‘It is normal for me to kiss little children and play silly games with them’ is what they say.

I’ll add a fourth argument by Scott Adams: there is no actual evidence, just confirmation bias. It’s sort of similar to Lion’s argument #1, but it’s worth addressing. I’d say it is not really the absence of evidence but the absence of a smoking gun. There is a ton of circumstantial evidence which, granted, makes conspiracy theorists go into a frenzy, but it also raises an eyebrow of normal people. Scott gives pizzagate a 20-in-1 chance of being true, which I must say are actually great odds coming from him. Still though, what exactly is pizzagate for Scott? Does it include the demonic worship part? The child trafficking part? The child sacrificial part? The pedophilia network? The Haiti kidnappings? The tunnels? The Podesta Portugal police sketch part? The involvement of Biden? The involvement of president Obama? I dunno what parts are true and what parts meme. Personally I’d give pizzagate a 50% chance of just generally being true. Which still leaves 50% chance not true.

In conclusion, the story so far is just a bunch of random suspicions. Until someone shows up with a smoking gun we’ll never really know what’s going on. Just another conspiracy theory.