Consept

So recently I've got into a couple of debates about whether Michael Jackson abused kids or not. My position is that although I was a fan of his especially when i was a kid and still like his music, there is enough smoke to say that its very possible he abused children. I'm probably at 60-70%. My issue is that many people including those I debated would say they're 100% sure he didn't do anything. I'll lay out why I think its possible and why they're so sure below, but what scares me is how people can be so sure about someone they never met but feel love and admiration for to the point where they would dismiss all evidence against this person. To be clear its very possible he didn't do anything at all but the point the only people that know for sure are him, the kids and whoever saw them or whoever he told. This to me is a microcosm of how damaging behaviour can be accepted in society and can lead to generations of abuse, whether its on a small familial scale or a wide ranging dictator, cult leader scale. For me personally this is really to get everything out of my head lol as sometimes its good to lay things out to see gaps in your own thinking. I'm not going to go into crazy detail about all the allegations and the cases but I'm going to give what i would consider the strongest points of evidence for him abusing kids and then counter arguments i've heard to the claims, i will steelman where possible The fact that he admitted to sleeping in bed with many children including the ones that accused him of abuse. It was reported in the first accusation by Jordan Chandler that he would sleep in the same bed with him for up to 30 days in a row without the parents being present. This was a pattern that all his accusers have highlighted. Meaning there was access but not a complete smoking gun, very unusual behaviour though. Counter - He himself said that it was just a kind and loving thing to do and theres nothing wrong with it. His supporters say most of the time the kids slept in his bed and he slept on the floor, this was something he did with family members, adults, girls and boys and was an innocent thing. Jordan Chandler in his testimony to law enforcement, described michael jacksons genitals, including specific markings and discoloration. This was matched to pictures that the police took of him when they raided his property and the description was accurate. Jackson later paid off Chandler for $23 million to drop the case and sign an nda. The police still wanted to prosecute but the case collapsed because chandler refused to be a witness. Counter - Essentially they call Chandler a liar who was put up to it by his dad he was trying to get money and potentially a screen writing career out of Jackson. There doesnt seem to be a direct argument against how he knew the description but there some doubt about him not knowing if Jackson was circumcised or not. In the case that went to trial, the boy Gavin, said to law enforcement that there was a suitcase in Jacksons room that contained porn, including a couple books with young boys in the nude. When police raided his room they found the suitcase that had porn in it and it had 3 books that featured numerous images of young boys partially or fully nude, these books although legal, were apparently produced by 2 convicted pedophiles and have been recommended on NAMBLA which is a boy love group. Counter - Theres nothing wrong with owning porn and the books of the young boys are legal to own. There is an inscription in one by Jackson himself which talks about the joys of being a young child, his defence used this inscription in the trial to make the claim that there was nothing sexual about him looking at these books. Gavin could have found them in Jacksons room without necessarily been shown them by Jackson, that would explain how he knew where they were and the contents, (counter counter, they were reported to have been locked away). Jackson never really showed much sexual interest to women or even men. Lisa Marie his wife for 18 months, claimed that he was a virgin when they were together and he lost his virginity at 35 with her. There are several girls that claimed they had a relationship with him but none confirmed any sexual activity. Of course this doesnt automatically mean you like kids but it adds context. Counter - He was shy and childlike and not really interested in sex He has been accused multiple times by young boys and their families and has paid off a few of them, I believe there around 10 direct accusations. Counter - All of them are trying to get money or fame from Jackson and have taken advantage of his nature. Parents of the children are liars and ruthless. Now keep in mind, in theory hes there isnt enough to prosecute him and there isnt a smoking gun, however a lot of the behaviour and things that have happened are highly suspicious. My point, in the debates is that, if you heard of this behaviour from anyone else, you'd more than likely think something is going on, but in this situation you claim near 100% certainty that nothing is going on. Also 2 things can be true, the parents can be trying to get mone but he could also have abused the kids. The overall point i hear from supporters is that he didnt really have a childhood so he himself is child like which is why his behaviour seems odd. A more extreme take is that he pissed off jewish people so they have slaughtered him in the press and defamed his name. I sincerely hope he didnt do anything but it scares me how willing people are to just believe that he didnt despite all the smoke. I think cases like this are really about sitting in uncertainty to a degree unless undeniable evidence appears. I think for believers its hard and there is a tendency in our mind, to search for certainty. Whats scary though is that by dismissing all the potential victims in cases like this, you are essentially letting abuse happen. You can see how this plays out in families and even in politics as we're seeing with Trump in real time. Curious to get peoples thoughts, i know this is a bit of a controversial subject

It was ok, it does highlight a few things and gives as unbiased a take as you can. MJ fans are saying it was biased against him but I thought they did a good job of just showing what happened. Theres a bbc doc that goes a bit more in depth that ud recommend, think its called Michael Jackson: an american tragedy Yes but how far does that go? To me if all this stuff came out, even if it was a family member, id be highly suspicious. The waving away of fans of crazy behaviour to me is quite shocking

Tickets for events. It was when buying tickets online for events like club mights wasnt really done that much, so I wanted to provide a solution for small promoters

I've been meaning to do a post on this for a while, I notice a lot of the times on the forum people are in that searching phase of looking for purpose, relationships etc. So I thought I'd write my story on how I found purpose in a really random but kind of replicable way. Brief history, work wise I always wanted to work for myself, when I was in my 20s and younger I just wanted to make money but on my own terms, I didnt want to work for anyone and if i did it would be temporary to fund my own thing. Part of this mindset was ambition but another part was also anxiety and OCD which i suffered with since I was around 6 years old. Outwardly i had this ambitious persona, risking not working a corporate style job even though I had a degree, but inwardly there was definitely some form of avoidance as I found it hard to be around people with the intrusive thoughts and anxiety i was experiencing. So after uni I looked for some kind of work with the idea of it funding one of my business ideas. At the time I wanted to create an events company, I did a couple of events at uni but then had a really bad experience and lost money on a big swing comedy event show. Seeing the event industry at the time i decided to pivot to do a ticketing website. Whilst i was building that i looked for a job to the bills, I had to move out as my family moved abroad so I was the only one left in the UK. I looked at sales jobs, a lot of them wanted to see if i was blood thirsty for money, and i guess i just didnt give off that vibe, no jobs were forthcoming so I ended up just getting a part time job at a supermarket. Mind numbing doesnt begin to cover it, the most boring thing ive ever done, i havent watched paint dry but it wasnt far off i imagine that would be like. One thing that was good was more interactions with people working on the checkout. Thinking about it, it probably helped my anxiety a little, I am somewhat charismatic so people did like me, especially when i started to feel more comfortable. People would often say to me, "youre too intelligent to work there", which i would kind of take as a compliment but then also it made me question am i wasting my time, how long am i gonna be here for?. On the business side things were looking good, i got funded by the princes trust, which is a charity that helps young people starting their own businesses by giving loans. They gave me £2.5k, which at the time to me was incredible, I built my ticketing website and I was off. Of course it didnt make money straight away and was a tough business to do and start from scratch all by myself. Some months I would make £1k or so but it wasnt really life changing money. I needed big events and just couldnt get it off the ground. Then I applied for a grant from the BBC, this is a story in of itself, it could have been a reality show if they filmed it. But to cut it short they gave me £10k to invest in my business. It felt like i just won the lottery! Obviously i didnt really have a plan for it and I wasnt over confident in my business but i still won! With the money I decided to start another business with another guy who had won the prize. This time it was a music download and streaming site for UK music. Unfortunately the guy dropped out which left me with the option of either dropping the idea completely or doing it myself and taking all of the risk. I liked the idea too much to drop out, so fuck it, lets go! I used the prize money to get it going, I really loved this site and what i built. I managed to get 100,000 subscribers. The issue was there wasnt a clear way to monetise and because of the space needed as we hosted the music content, the bigger it got the more expensive it became to run. This could've been pretty big, I just didnt have the infrastructure to maintain it unfortunately. A lot of my endeavours were hindered by me thinking way to big without much experience and also my reluctance to have a team. Eventually I had enough I just needed something that was gonna work and actually bring in real money. I searched online and came across selling on ebay, I did this strategy and things started to click, i was making consistent money. So I shutdown the ticket website and reduced the workload of the mixtape one so it didnt grow but was manageable and just focused on this. I had a nice run, imported stuff from china and had a few different lines I would sell. I was still working at the supermarket a couple days a week. One day i dressed up in the uniform to go to work but on the way i had to drop off some ebay parcels. While waiting in the queue I thought to myself, 'fuck going to work' and literally never went in again, just went home got changed and buried my uniform somewhere. After ebay i moved onto amazon, this is when things went crazy, I was making 1000s a month pretty much straight away, it was like finding a gold mine! Did this for a few years but got carried away so things werent planned i was just wheeling and dealing, which is cool, but not great long term. In the meantime i fell into doing charity work as my friend was a manager at a local youth charity. This I really loved, the feeling of focusing on others instead of myself was amazing. I actually made a difference in peoples lives, which no amount of money could replicate. Truth is, I was getting bored with doing my own business, even though amazon was making money I felt like something was missing, somewhere along the way i realised, however much money i make, im still gonna be the same, so if im not happy now i never will be, ill just be in a nicer house. Anyway covid hit, which was a massive boom for me, not only that but the government was basically handing out free money. I managed to win auctions from high street retailers getting rid of stock, in 1 month i turned over £60k, it was incredible and of course i thought it would last forever so i upgraded, took out loans, got a storage facility, bought lots of stock. Which all worked amazingly, until it didnt. Sales slowed down, I'd blown loads of money on self-development stuff, a new car, investments etc. Plus i still had loans which id taken out on the basis of the turnover i thought id be making. Truth is i just didnt love it anymore, i felt empty, Id stopped working for the youth charity a couple years before the pandemic. Then bills started piling up, i noticed my finances were just unbalanced, i hadnt really thought about money for a while but now it felt like things were crumbling. I remember i said to my sister, I need a job but I want one that i can do from home or is flexible, is something around mental health where i can help people with my experience and is paid not volunteer work. I had no idea what the job would be or where to even look but i was open to anything. One day I was watching a talk show on tv, there was a young black guy talking about OCD and what he'd been through. This really struck me as id never really heard anyone talk about what id been through in this way, especially not a black guy like me. At this point I was 37 or so years old, it felt like time was running out, so i definitely had an urgency about me. I decided to DM the guy, it wasnt a big show and he wasnt a well known person, maybe he'd reply. And of course he did, in fact he said he received a lot of DMs but none from black guys, which is why he replied, he also suggested we meet up, I agreed. When we met he was cool, but i could see we were quite different, he wanted to be a celebrity and was going down that road, which is fine but didnt resonate much with me. However he forwarded me on to an OCD charity as they were looking for panel members to address why ethnic minorities dont seek help at a higher rate when they have OCD. This was music to my ears, it was paid but only 2 hours a month, but still it was a start. I had a great experience with them, i spoke at their conference and got to know the staff a bit better. Then they had a job opportunity come up. I didnt know but they advertise jobs internally first, as i was part of the network I could apply before it was advertised to the public. The job was helpline co-ordinator, so I would look after volunteers on their helpline but also mainly take calls and write emails to those suffering with OCD. I applied and because I'd gotten on with the staff and they liked me, they offered me the job! It wasnt well paying and was only part time, but I could work from home, it was flexible and it was something i cared about, hit all the criteria. This job was eye-opening, i knew what id been through with OCD but to hear almost daily what other people had been through was crazy. It was a really tough job but rewarding and i was actually helping people on the front lines. I did this for a year and a bit, i wouldve continued but the contract was finished and they decided to restructure and put more resources into fundraising. I was worried at first because i thought this was it, I had to get out there and do whatever job i could find. But the created a new fundraising job. Reading the description it actually aligned with me more, it was essentially a marketing job, I'd do campaigns and do a lot of structural work on increasing the income of the charity. It was a senior position and technically i didnt have direct experience in this field but I thought, lets do this. I applied and the interview was way togher than i thought it would be, i thought cos they already knew me theyd basically hand it to me but it wasnt like that at all. But still it worked out and they offered me the job! So a bit more money, much more responsibility and helping in a way that makes more sense in terms of my skillset. So far I've been at the job around 6 months and its a lot of learning but still great and i think ive made a lot of impact. Its also inspired me to look at starting an agency that helps other charities make money. This current job is only part time as well so i do need something else. Looking around i found out the old youth charity i worked with previously are looking for a fundraiser, of course I applied and theres an interview setup for a couple weeks time, so hopefully if all goes well theyll be my first clients. It's amazing how everything just went full circle. So that basically takes me to today and a lot of my life got delayed, mainly because of OCD and anxiety but I think what i learnt and what i can share as a lesson, is that you can make things happen but you have to put yourself in places where it might happen. Its not guarenteed but you're always going to have a better chance if you throw yourself out there and just put yourself in the right environments, no matter what it is you want. Im not really into woo woo manifestation, but I think theres something to be said for really having your focus and taking action on what you want, you sometimes need to burn the bridges because if i wasnt in financial constraints, I wouldnt have pushed myself to do this. If I'd kept selling on amazon i couldve lived my whole life very comfortably and never ventured out and I wouldve never felt this purpose that i have now. Sometimes we're over focused on just being as comfortable as possible, but growth always lies in being uncomfortable. I'm still pretty broke, i dont know how im gonna pay my upcoming storage rent but I have a purpose and a plan and I'll make it work. Thanks for reading

I think Frances squad is crazy strong but thats obvious Aside from them id tip portugal or Brazil and as an outsider that I think might get far Colombia

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Its funny there are a few videos questioning him but there are way more saying hes innocent especially o reels and im guessing tiktok (im not on there) There are some wild theories, one is the Jews set him up because he spoke up for palestine. People also saying he protected children from abuse by Epstein, thats like a lion saving you from a bear 😂 But its mad the mental gymnastics, occoms razor definitely applies here

This is my main point overall, the grace people give him is actually insane. A lot of people in the uk talk about how could Jimmy Saville get away with what he did, this is how, people enabling it and not wanting to see what could be true. Another thing that struck me is MJ does definitely lie about things, he maybe deluded and not consciously do it I dont know. Hes claimed hes only ever had 1 nose job to help him breathe, I mean we dont have to do much research to refute that. He also claims hos kids are biologically his, despite the fact they are basically white and when you look at nieces and nephews who had a white parent, they are undeniably mixed with brown skin. Yet his fans comments about his kids are things like 'hes got Michael's smile' or 'she looks like her grandma'. Its like a massive psychosis. But what it tells you is even on these things MJ would lie and his fans would go along with it, the delusion extending to the potential abuse isn't that much of a stretch.

@Hojo (still cant get rid) New 60 mins Aus doc on MJ allegedly abusing a whole family

Also btw the money angle goes both ways, his estate has millions on MJ not being guilty, there is a whole industry behind it, many jobs etc. From the films, theatre shows, streams, record sales etc. There is money to made discrediting him as well but i think it pales in comparison

Sheriff who raided neverland. Notice the comments automatically dismissing her

This is definitely true although i think in the case of MJ its not just the music, there is a parasocial love for him as a person, they almost see him as pure innocence and a model for how everyone should be. Any questioning of that is a questioning of innocence and goodness itself, which is ironic considering that if he has done committed these crimes, he wouldve actually destroyed the innocence of these kids. But also this isnt really unique to MJ, its basically what happens when you elevate someone to an almost god like level, which MJ definitely played into with how he was presented. All these people can do no wrong to their followers Trump, Manson etc. Even now people are excusing Russell Brand for sleeping with a 16 year old when he was 30. Its funny because one of the 10 commandments specifically says dont make false idols of me, you can see the wisdom in that and the damage that can be done with false idols. Man is to flawed to have that much reverence and power.

@Hojo (cant get this tag off) @Monster Energy i think its quite telling in that video how he puts the blame on the kid, hes like 'the kids want to stay with me, what could i do?'. Any normal adult would know that there has to be boundaries, imagine on a school trip, a 10 year old kid said to their teacher 'i want to sleep in the bed with you' and the school teacher was like 'what could I do, they wanted to do it'. That would not fly anywhere. Separately I found this video really interesting from his ex-publicist who doesnt seem to have anything to gain financially from telling his story -

@Hojo looking into it briefly gandhis behaviour was very problematic even at the time, apparently a lot of staff quit in protest and people thought that he'd gone crazy. People probably felt similar to how they felt with mj. Specifically it cant be 0% or 100% from our perspective because theres no silver bullet, theres a lot of smoke. If there was a video or some indisputable proof then you could be 100%. Its harder to be 0% because something else could always come out and theres enough things that are murky. Its not really black or white pun intended.

Interesting, theres definitely a narrative where he could be innocent. The issue is the parents of the initial accusers are not credible at all, he has very weird and eccentric behaviours. Were they taking advantage of a rich eccentric guy, was he taking advantage of them? This is why so many rape cases are hard to prove, it does come down to one narrative vs the other

Well i mean he wasnt completely crazy, he obviously knew how it would be seen and that its illegal. It would be more along the lines of him telling the boys that people wont understand our love and that they shouldnt tell anyone, which is what pedophiles would say. Its kinda if you were gay and your family was homophobic and they would disown you if they found out, you're not going to come and say youre gay. Testimony from his case. The flight stuff is in this news report - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jackos-wine-only-in-soda-cans/ Found the passenger profile - https://www.reddit.com/r/interesting/comments/1hbcgan/a_passenger_profile_on_michael_jackson_the_king/

Yeah all the accusers say that he gave them porn and wine, plus some of his staff has have corroborated it. He called it Jesus Juice apparently and used to give to them in soda cans. Theres also records from a chartered flight that he took where there was a request for wine served in diet coke cans. Gavin, one of the accusers knew exactly where his porn stash was in a suitcase in mjs room, which was raided and matched what he said

This is the thing, pedophiles feel romantic love for children, they dont think theyre harming them. There are some people that abuse children because of domination or cruelty but thats a different mentality. A true pedophile would feel romantic and sexual love the same way you might for someone you love of the opposite or same sex. MJ if we take the perspective that he was a pedophile, would admit it because he sees nothing wrong with it and doesnt want to lie about his love for whichever kid he was talking about. Also if you look at the patterns, he would have a 'favourite kid' for a certain amount of time, then that kid would get replaced when they got a bit older for a younger one. This seems very distinct from just playing around with kids that might visit the neverland ranch. The treatment for pedophiles is to make them realise that they cant have a 2 way relationship with a young person and that that young person can not consent or love them in the way they think they can. So if you happen to have been one of the most famous people in the world and a pedophile and can have access to young kids it would be extremely likely they you may abuse them because you can. As @Leo Gura says and I've pointed out in the op he didnt seem to have any meaningful relationships with adult women or men, his brothers and sisters definitely did despite them all being jehovahs witnesses. So the options are either asexual or pedophile, its not impossible that hes asexual i guess but i think with all the other information its unlikely

I dont agree with vilifying pedophiles, but obviously they need either to be isolated from kids if theres a risk of abuse and/or need psychological help. A lot of them have been subject to abuse themselves, which creates a cycle. We can say yeah in a perfect society no one would want to abuse or attack someone else but we have to deal with the reality of what life is now. Protecting children by having safeguards with adults that arent related to them is not vilifying pedophiles. The fact is they do exist, its like saying we should have no security at banks because we don't want to demonise thieves. Its very possible to try and improve the level of consciousness of a society whilst also protecting the most vulnerable.

I think its about risk management and safety not about our 'minds' and society itself is aware of this danger which is why it protects against it. Objectively, in society, we acknowledge that we cant have random adults around young people this is why even to work with kids there has to be a dbs check and safeguarding procedures in place to protect the kids. It doesnt mean that if a random adult is around a kid they'll definitely abuse or manipulate them but it heightens the risk as there is opportunity. This is also why so much abuse comes from the home because the adults in the family, in theory dont have to undergo any checks, whereas in professional environments there are more guard rails. So in the case of MJ, having kids stay in an adult males room without parents and behind a locked door is something that is incredibly risky from a child protection point of view. It doesnt mean something definitely happened but its not something that should really be allowed to happen because of the risks involved.

This is what i thought was quite deluded in that he felt free to say it and the very least wasnt even aware of how it might look and the fans have gone along with that. In no world is that normal behaviour even if he did nothing wrong. Ive worked in youth services before and that would honestly be a safeguarding nightmare if someone around kids had them alone in a room, you cant even give them a ride in your car by yourself. Im not so much gonna debate in terms of did he do it or not but I appreciate you saying the more honest position is I dont know. What I would say is this narrative about the epstein files, as far as I know isn't true, but its interesting how these theories are propagated as a way to make mj look better. Im not saying youre doing that on purpose but when I looked into it there is nothing in the files like that. Where I would also push is that in all the reports from the boys they said that mj said to them this is how people show love. Probably he truly believed that (if its true), the boys all say they wanted to make him happy, so I dont think it was ever a case of aggressively abusing them. But I do agree that we cant be 100% i just think we tend to give celebrities a hell of a lot of leniency, if this was your neighbour and you heard the same things I dont think youd be as understanding esp if you had kids

A massive flaw with the manosphere is that the most popular figures dont actually teach how to become valuable men, they teach how to mimic the perceived, material attributes of a valuable man. Meaning they teach you how to change on the surface rather than internally which is the true value. On the flip side, these women spaces you mentioned do the same thing, they mimic the behaviours of a 'high value' woman ie being hard to get. So essentially it becomes an arms race to see who can pretend the best and get what they want from the other side, sex or resources. Of course this can work on others playing the game or those that dont value themselves or aren't aware of the game. Both sides are essentially trying to trick an actually valuable person preferably, to give them what they want. So a unicorn would be someone of high value who's ignorant to the game. This has been working in capitalism for years, you lower people's worth through perceived lack and then offer a material solution that costs money. 'Youre not happy because youre not beautiful, buy these products', 'youre not happy because your status is low, buy this car'. Its a golden formula, influencers have jumped on it because theres so many people lacking internally. This is the golden age for easy solutions to deep problems, hell, Trump is in power because of this. Back to dating though, do you think actual valuable, authentic people have to pretend? It doesnt mean they get every person they want but they value themselves enough to be highly selective for the right person. Theres no playing hard to get, its just is this person right or wrong for me. If you value yourself then automatically there is no desperation because you dont need someone to fulfil you, that lack of desperation is in of itself attractive

The four things you stated definitely yes do them esp working out and fashion, but all will make you feel more confident and make you look better. The key is dont obsess over them just make them part of your routine. When you start getting into black pill territory focusing on mandible tilts and whatever else, this is basically body dysmorhpia. Also the roi is not even worth it, women dont care past a certain point, in fact it would in most cases be off putting that you care so much

If we just look on a practical, micro level ie your day to day relationships, treating people as disposable doesnt really work long term unless you're able to have a never ending turnover of people to exploit. In reality your reputation will determine a lot of success in business and relationships, once it gets around in either domain that you've screwed someone over youve burnt yourself for that network of people. Lets say you cheat someone in business, that person will never work with you and theyll also tell whoever is in that industry that they know that youre not good to work with, if you then do this to a few people you could be screwed for a whole industry. The flip of that is if you over deliver and give someone a great a experience of working with you, theyll also tell people which will then get you more business. So in theory it is bad business, not even on a moral standpoint but just on a pragmatic standpoint, to screw people over. Yes you can do it for a while and do well but it soon will mess you up. There are lots of stories of con artists making loads of money and then spectacularly getting caught or failing. It does also happen on a global scale it just takes a lot longer.

OK but i would counter this by saying in your life you would've gone through different stages, from child to adult your worldview has expanded and evolved and that is just in one human, this is also the case on the macro level as well. So really think about your own lived experience, I know with mine initially i only cared about myself and then family, society and so on. We can also track how society has developed, 500 years ago my country the UK looked very different, it was run by kings basically authoritarian rule which would be classed as red and they would kill anyone who disagreed with them. Now we have a more democratic setup which would be orange/green in sprial dynamics terms, that evolution is very clear to see. So in that sense i dont how at least some tracking of this evolution wouldnt make sense you dont have to use the spiral dynamics model but evidently theres been some change. I do agree that if you took a human born 500 years ago and have him grow up in our time he would of course adapt to our time.