John Rubino is a former Wall Street financial analyst and author or co-author of five books, including The Money Bubble: What to Do Before It Pops and Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green-Tech Boom. He founded the popular financial website DollarCollapse.com in 2004, sold it in 2022, and now publishes John Rubino’s Substack newsletter.
About a year ago, a political scientist predicted civil war in the UK. Here’s the intro of a post I published at the time:
I just watched a disturbingly plausible video about the rising odds of a UK civil war.
The source is David Betz, a professor of “war in the modern world” at King’s College, London. He recently published an article titled Civil War Comes to the Westin Military Strategy Magazine, in which he claimed that multiculturalism and mass immigration are feeding factionalism and polarization in the UK, leading to outcomes that range from a Latin American-style “dirty war” all the way out to full-on civil war.
Professor Betz’ ideas generated some press and (probably) contributed to the UK government’s increased censorship of pretty much every contrary opinion, online and off.
And then the morons running Britain made an epic mistake. They created a video game designed to instill correct (that is, pro-immigration) attitudes in players. This did not go as planned:
(Fandom Pulse) – The UK government’s attempt to combat right-wing extremism through a video game has spectacularly backfired, with players identifying with the character meant to serve as a cautionary tale. Pathways: Navigating the Internet and Extremism, developed by Hull City Council and Shout Out UK, has been pulled offline after its purple-haired antagonist Amelia became a viral meme celebrating British nationalism.
The game was designed as an educational tool for students, warning them about the dangers of online radicalization. Players choose between two characters named Charlie (male or female) who start university and want to make friends. Early in the story, they meet Amelia, a goth classmate involved in political activism linked to right-wing movements.
According to the Hungarian Conservative, if players select the “wrong” answers by joining Amelia at a protest against mass migration and in favor of traditional values, the game ends with a “Prevent referral,” a reference to the UK’s counter-terrorism program. Media reports indicate the game ends with this referral regardless of player choices, with the character then “cleansed” of their views through counselors and workshops before becoming popular and successful again.
The message was clear: if you believe in preserving national culture, protecting borders, or questioning mass migration, you’re the villain who needs re-education.
But the developers made a critical error. They designed Amelia as a goth girl with purple hair – an archetype wildly popular in internet meme culture. Rather than viewing her as a dangerous extremist, right-wing social media immediately embraced her as an ironic hero and mascot for resisting progressive ideology.
Twitter user IronTiger44 captured the sentiment: “Adding my contribution to #Amelia. There’s nothing wrong with loving your country. That the UK tried to use a terrible video game to shame its own people for patriotism and concerns over unfettered immigration is absolutely insane. England and its people are pretty based. It’s a shame they have been taken over by a bunch of useless pinko communists. I hope and pray their next election gives rise to saner minds.”
Nightmare for Censors
Meme-makers have pounced on Amelia, using AI to flesh out a character that, for would-be censors, is an absolute nightmare. For example:
Amelia is viral now, which means she’s potentially infinite. And as long as X and a few other platforms are beyond the reach of UK censors, she and the the memes she spawns are free to say the things that human brits can’t. Are we witnessing the first AI-driven revolution?
STAY INFORMED! Receive our Weekly Recap of thought provoking articles, podcasts, and radio
delivered to your inbox for FREE! Sign up here for the HoweStreet.com Weekly Recap.
