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10 of the Most Promising Herbal Medicine Findings of the Past Few Years

By JM Talboo WelcomeToHealth.blogspot.com

Herbal medicine has a complicated reputation.

Some people treat every herb as a miracle cure. Others seem to assume that if something comes from a plant, it couldn't possibly have meaningful medical effects.

Neither position really makes sense.

Plants have given modern medicine some of its most important drugs. At the same time, plenty of popular herbal claims have failed when tested properly.

So rather than asking whether “herbal medicine works,” a much better question is:

Which herbs are actually producing interesting results in modern research?

I took a look at some of the recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and there are several that I think deserve attention.

This isn't a list of proven cures. Think of it as a list of promising areas where the research is interesting enough that scientists should keep looking.

1. Curcumin — One of the Biggest Research Stories

Curcumin is one of the principal compounds found in turmeric, and it has become one of the most extensively studied plant-derived compounds in modern nutritional research.

A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis examined 103 randomized controlled trials involving 7,216 participants and 42 different health outcomes.

The researchers found statistically significant effects for more than half of the outcomes examined, including several measures involving blood glucose, inflammation, oxidative stress and some cardiovascular/metabolic markers.

But there is an important catch.

The certainty of evidence varied considerably between outcomes, and the researchers emphasized the need for larger, better-designed and longer-term trials.

A 2025 umbrella review reached a similarly interesting but cautious conclusion: curcumin appears to have potential across a surprisingly wide range of conditions, but the overall methodological quality of existing meta-analyses leaves plenty of room for improvement.

Why it's interesting: Few herbal compounds have accumulated this much human research.

What we still don't know: Exactly which conditions benefit, what preparations and doses work best, and how much of the apparent effect is clinically meaningful.

---

2. Ashwagandha — Stress and Anxiety

Ashwagandha has become one of the most popular herbal supplements in the world, particularly for stress and anxiety.

And unlike some trendy supplements, there is now a growing body of randomized-trial evidence behind it.

A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis examined nine randomized controlled trials involving 558 people. The researchers found significant improvements in measures including perceived stress, anxiety and cortisol compared with placebo.

Even more recently, a 2026 systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis included 22 studies and again reported improvements in stress, anxiety and depression symptoms.

The authors nevertheless emphasized substantial variation between studies and the need for better trials before firm clinical recommendations can be made.

Why it's interesting: This is one of the clearer examples of a traditional botanical being investigated for a modern psychological problem.

The caution: “May reduce symptoms of stress” is very different from “treats anxiety disorders.” And long-term safety still needs more study.

---

3. Berberine — The “Natural Metabolic Drug” Question

Berberine is a compound found in several plants, including barberry and goldenseal.

It has attracted enormous attention because its effects on glucose and lipid metabolism sometimes look surprisingly drug-like.

A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis examined 50 randomized controlled trials involving 4,150 participants.

Berberine alone was associated with reductions in fasting blood glucose, post-meal glucose, LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol and triglycerides. When combined with glucose-lowering drugs, some measures—including HbA1c—also improved.

Another umbrella meta-analysis of randomized-trial reviews found improvements in fasting glucose, HbA1c, insulin resistance and several inflammatory markers.

That's intriguing.

But it also raises an important question:

If an herbal compound has measurable pharmacological effects, should we really think of it as fundamentally different from a pharmaceutical simply because the molecule originated in a plant?

That's a much more interesting question than “natural versus artificial.”

---

4. Saffron — A Surprisingly Interesting Mental-Health Candidate

Saffron is best known as an expensive culinary spice.

But researchers have increasingly investigated it for mood and anxiety symptoms.

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis examined 34 randomized controlled trials involving 1,769 adults.

The researchers found significant reductions in scores on some depression and anxiety measures, although not all clinician-rated measures showed significant effects.

The overall certainty of evidence was rated as moderate.

That makes saffron particularly interesting.

It doesn't mean saffron has been proven to replace antidepressant treatment.

It means that a very old culinary and medicinal plant is producing enough consistent clinical signals to justify considerably more research.

Sometimes the most interesting discoveries aren't new substances at all.

They're old substances being tested with new methods.

---

5. Aged Garlic — More Than Just a Folk Remedy

Garlic has been used medicinally for thousands of years.

Modern research is increasingly interested in whether particular preparations of garlic—especially aged garlic extracts—can affect cardiovascular risk factors.

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis included 19 clinical trials.

Aged garlic supplementation was associated with reductions in systolic blood pressure and LDL cholesterol, although the effects were relatively modest and not every cardiovascular marker changed.

Another 2025 meta-analysis of garlic extracts found larger average reductions in blood pressure, although differences between preparations and studies make the results something to interpret cautiously.

This is an important point about herbal medicine:

“Garlic” isn't necessarily one medicine.

Fresh garlic, aged garlic extract, garlic powder and concentrated supplements can have very different chemical profiles.

The plant isn't the whole story.

The preparation matters.

---

6. Psyllium — The Humble Plant Fiber Getting Serious Attention

Psyllium isn't exotic.

It's basically a fiber.

And that may be precisely why it deserves attention.

A 2025 systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis examined 41 randomized controlled trials involving 2,049 participants.

Psyllium supplementation significantly reduced LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol, while effects on triglycerides and HDL were not statistically significant.

This is a good reminder that “herbal medicine” doesn't necessarily have to mean mysterious extracts or ancient secrets.

Sometimes the useful part of a plant is something remarkably simple.

In this case:

fiber.

---

7. Green Tea — Small Effects That Keep Showing Up

Green tea is another fascinating example because it has been studied so extensively.

Recent reviews have found signals involving several cardiovascular and metabolic markers.

One 2025 meta-analysis of randomized trials found modest reductions in systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Another recent review involving people with metabolic syndrome found that the overall effects were less convincing than some subgroup analyses suggested—an excellent example of why headlines can be misleading.

Other recent research has reported changes in oxidative-stress measures following green-tea supplementation, while effects on several inflammatory markers were less consistent.

This is actually one of my favorite kinds of research.

Not:

“Green tea cures everything!”

But:

“Here are several small biological effects. Now let's figure out which ones matter clinically.”

---

8. Ginger — Traditional Remedy Meets Modern Meta-Analysis

Ginger has an enormous history in traditional medicine, particularly for digestive problems and nausea.

Recent research continues to investigate its anti-inflammatory and other pharmacological effects.

A 2025 review examining existing meta-analyses reported associations between ginger supplementation and reductions in several inflammatory markers, including CRP and TNF-alpha. It also reviewed evidence concerning type 2 diabetes and pregnancy-associated nausea and vomiting.

There is a fascinating lesson here, however.

Not every proposed use of ginger holds up equally well.

For example, evidence for ginger as a treatment for knee osteoarthritis has historically been inconsistent, with systematic reviews noting limitations in study quality.

That's exactly how good science is supposed to work.

An herb doesn't get one giant label saying “works” or “doesn't work.”

Different conditions can produce different answers.

---

9. Cranberry — Prevention Rather Than Treatment

Cranberry is another traditional remedy where the evidence has become surprisingly specific.

Recent reviews suggest cranberry products may reduce the risk of recurrent urinary tract infections in some women who have previously experienced UTIs.

A 2023 Cochrane review found an overall reduction in recurrent symptomatic UTIs, although the evidence has not been perfectly consistent across populations.

Importantly, cranberry is not considered a treatment for an existing UTI.

That distinction is important.

A supplement can potentially have a preventive effect without being an effective treatment once a disease is established.

Again, nuance beats hype.

---

10. Peppermint Oil — One of the More Interesting Gut Findings

Peppermint oil has a long history of use for digestive complaints, and there is now meaningful clinical research on its use in irritable bowel syndrome.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 10 randomized controlled trials involving 1,030 patients found peppermint oil was more effective than placebo for overall IBS symptoms and abdominal pain.

But there was a catch: adverse events were more common, and the researchers rated the overall quality of the evidence as very low.

That makes peppermint oil a perfect example of what I mean by “promising.”

There is a signal.

There are randomized trials.

There is a plausible biological mechanism.

But we aren't finished.

---

What Do These Ten Herbs Have in Common?

Something important becomes obvious when you look at these studies together.

The interesting question isn't:

“Are herbs better than medicine?”

That's the wrong comparison.

Many herbs are medicines.

Some contain compounds that interact with enzymes, receptors, inflammatory pathways, hormones, blood vessels or the nervous system.

The real question is:

Which plant compounds produce reproducible, clinically meaningful effects, at what doses, in which people, and with what risks?

That's a much more scientific question.

And it's one that modern research is increasingly capable of answering.

---

The Part Nobody Likes to Talk About

There's another side to herbal medicine that shouldn't be ignored.

Natural does not automatically mean safe.

The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health notes that herbal products can interact with medications, and that supplements can differ substantially from the products used in research studies. Some supplements have also been found to contain undeclared ingredients or contaminants.

St. John's wort is a classic example: it can interact with numerous medications and can make some drugs less effective.

So the lesson isn't:

“Take herbs because they're natural.”

Nor is it:

“Don't take herbs because they're unregulated.”

The better lesson is:

Know what you're taking.

Know the plant.

Know the preparation.

Know the dose.

Know what the research actually studied.

And know whether it interacts with anything else you're taking.

---

The Bigger Story

What I find most encouraging is that we may finally be moving beyond the old argument between “natural medicine” and “modern medicine.”

The human body doesn't care whether a molecule came from a laboratory or a leaf.

If a molecule interacts with the body in a useful way, it can be useful.

If it doesn't, it doesn't matter how ancient the tradition is.

That gives us an exciting middle ground.

Traditional medicine gives researchers thousands of years of observations and candidate plants.

Modern science gives us randomized trials, chemistry, pharmacology, molecular biology and increasingly sophisticated ways of figuring out what these plants actually do.

Put the two together and something interesting can happen.

Ancient knowledge can generate modern hypotheses.

And modern science can determine which of those hypotheses survive.

That's where I think herbal medicine is becoming genuinely exciting.

Not because every old remedy is secretly a miracle.

But because some of them might contain real medicine that we are only beginning to understand.

And if the next few years produce another ten surprises like these, the boundary between “alternative medicine” and “medicine” may become considerably harder to draw.

---

A final note

This is a research roundup, not a recommendation to treat a medical condition with supplements. Evidence varies substantially between herbs, preparations and conditions, and supplements can interact with medications. If you're considering an herbal product for a medical problem—or you're taking prescription medication—it's worth discussing it with a qualified health professional.

Further Reading

• NIH/NCCIH — Dietary and Herbal Supplements
• NCCIH — Safe Use of Complementary Health Products and Practices
• PubMed — Curcumin systematic review and meta-analysis (2024)
• PubMed — Ashwagandha systematic review and meta-analysis (2024)
• PubMed — Berberine systematic review and meta-analysis (2024)
• PubMed — Saffron systematic review and meta-analysis
• PubMed — Aged garlic systematic review and meta-analysis (2025)
• PubMed — Psyllium systematic review and meta-analysis (2025)
• PubMed — Green tea research
• PubMed — Ginger review (2025)
• NCCIH — Cranberry research overview
• PubMed — Peppermint oil and IBS meta-analysis

The Number That’s Supposed to Tell You How Smart You Are

By JM Talboo DebunkerBusters.blogspot.com

There is a number that can follow a person for years.

It can appear on a psychological report, a school record, a conversation between parents, a social-media post, or a website where somebody takes a test for fun.

IQ.

We're told that the number represents intelligence.

But what exactly does that mean?

What does a score of 75 represent?

What does 100 represent?

What does 130 represent?

And perhaps the more important question:

What doesn't it represent?

I'm not writing this article because I think IQ tests are a scam. I'm not writing it because I took an IQ test once and didn't like my score. And I'm not writing it because I think everyone secretly has a genius-level IQ.

I'm genuinely interested in the question.

Because the more I look into IQ testing, the more complicated the word intelligence becomes.

And that's where this gets interesting.

---

Let's Give IQ Tests Their Due

Before criticizing IQ tests, we should acknowledge something important:

They aren't measuring nothing.

Modern intelligence testing has a substantial research history behind it. Cognitive ability tests can measure things such as reasoning, working memory, processing speed, verbal abilities, and visual or spatial problem solving. Different tests emphasize different abilities.

And a general factor often called g emerges from correlations among many cognitive tasks.

That isn't imaginary.

IQ and related measures also have real predictive relationships with things such as educational performance, training outcomes, and aspects of occupational performance.

So the easy argument—

“IQ tests are meaningless.”

—isn't good enough.

If a measurement consistently captures something and that something predicts certain outcomes, there is probably something real being measured.

The question is whether we have gradually taken that legitimate observation and attached a much bigger meaning to it.

Because measuring something real isn't the same thing as measuring everything important.

---

Even Binet Warned Us

This is where the history of IQ testing gets fascinating.

Alfred Binet, one of the pioneers of intelligence testing, wasn't simply trying to create a number that would permanently classify human beings.

His original work was connected to identifying children who needed additional educational assistance.

And Binet himself warned against treating his scale as though it were a literal, exhaustive measurement of intelligence.

He wrote:

“This scale properly speaking does not permit the measure of the intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable…”

That's a remarkable statement coming from one of the people responsible for creating the foundation of modern intelligence testing.

Binet also described intelligence as an extraordinarily broad concept involving things such as judgment, practical sense, initiative, and adaptation.

He didn't believe a child's test result should become a permanent sentence about what that child could become.

In other words, one of the pioneers of intelligence testing understood something we sometimes forget:

A test is a test.

It isn't automatically the thing itself.

---

Neil deGrasse Tyson's Question

Neil deGrasse Tyson has made a similar criticism in modern times.

His argument isn't necessarily that cognitive tests measure nothing. His criticism is much more interesting than that.

The basic point is that humans developed tests involving particular kinds of cognitive tasks and then attached the enormous word “intelligence” to the resulting measurement.

Once we call something an intelligence test, people naturally begin treating the score as though it tells them how intelligent a person is.

But perhaps the more scientifically precise question would be:

What abilities does this particular test measure, under these particular conditions?

That's a much less glamorous question.

But it might be a much better one.

---

The Math Problem

One of the interesting arguments surrounding IQ tests concerns mathematics.

Some people argue that mathematical reasoning belongs in an intelligence test because mathematics requires sophisticated reasoning.

Others argue that extensive mathematical education and experience can give somebody an advantage that has little to do with their underlying general cognitive ability.

Both arguments contain something worth considering.

And this gets personal for me—not because my own IQ score proves anything, but because my own educational history makes me think about the problem differently.

I've never particularly loved mathematics. I had a complicated educational history, including substantial time away from a conventional classroom. I also discovered that I could be very motivated to learn things I actually cared about while having a completely different attitude toward subjects that didn't interest me.

So if two people walk into the same test with completely different educational histories, interests, practice, motivation, and experiences, what exactly are we comparing?

General cognitive ability?

Knowledge?

Training?

Test-taking strategy?

Motivation?

Or some combination of all of them?

Probably some combination.

That doesn't make the test useless.

But it makes the number harder to interpret than the number itself suggests.

---

And There Are IQ Tests That Aren't Just Math Problems

It's also important not to build a straw man.

Modern intelligence testing isn't simply a collection of arithmetic questions.

There are nonverbal assessments, including tests based heavily on visual and abstract reasoning. Raven's matrices, for example, ask people to identify patterns and relationships in visual information.

That's important because it demonstrates that intelligence testing has evolved considerably.

The criticism can't simply be:

“IQ is just how good you are at school math.”

It isn't.

The better question is:

How broad is the collection of abilities being sampled, and how justified are we in calling the resulting construct “intelligence”?

That's a much harder question.

---

The Number Can Be Real Without Being the Whole Person

Consider other numbers.

A bank account contains a number.

That number tells you how much money is in the account.

Website traffic contains a number.

That number tells you how many visits occurred.

A person's height is a number.

Their weight is a number.

Their age is a number.

Their marathon time is a number.

Their IQ is a number.

Numbers are incredibly useful because they simplify reality.

But simplification can become dangerous when we forget what was simplified away.

A bank balance doesn't tell you whether somebody is happy.

Website traffic doesn't tell you whether somebody's work is meaningful.

A marathon time doesn't tell you whether somebody is a good parent.

And an IQ score doesn't tell you everything about what a person can do.

Every statistic needs a question attached to it.

What question is the statistic answering?

---

What Is “Success”?

This becomes especially important when somebody says that IQ predicts “success in life.”

What is success?

Money?

Fame?

Career advancement?

Academic achievement?

Longevity?

Happiness?

Relationships?

Freedom?

Purpose?

Helping other people?

Spiritual development?

A person can be extraordinarily successful according to one definition and unsuccessful according to another.

Even longevity is a statistic.

I've joked before that when looking at somebody with enormous amounts of money, one thought that sometimes crosses my mind is:

You're not going to have that money forever.

Maybe I will live longer.

Then I've technically “won” the longevity metric.

But what did I actually win?

That's the problem.

Numbers are only meaningful relative to what we're trying to measure.

---

What About Spiritual Enlightenment?

Here's another example that makes the problem even stranger.

How would you measure spiritual enlightenment?

Years spent meditating?

Hours of meditation?

Self-reported happiness?

Compassion?

Ability to remain calm under suffering?

Reduction in ego?

Brain activity?

Changes in neural structure?

Researchers can measure some of those things.

Brain-imaging research involving experienced meditators has found differences associated with meditation practice and altered states of consciousness.

But even if we can find a reproducible neurological signature associated with a particular experience, that doesn't automatically prove somebody's interpretation of that experience.

At the same time, calling an experience “subjective” doesn't mean that nothing objective is happening.

If a person consistently reports a particular mental state and that state is accompanied by measurable physiological or neurological changes, then something is happening in the organism.

The remaining question is:

What exactly is happening, and what does it mean?

That's a scientific question.

And it illustrates a larger principle:

Measurement and definition aren't the same thing.

---

Fast Thinking Isn't the Same as Deep Thinking

Another criticism of IQ tests is that they reward speed.

There is some truth to the idea that many cognitive tests place time pressure on performance.

But speed itself can be a legitimate cognitive ability.

Rapid pattern recognition can be extremely useful.

So can slow, deliberate reasoning.

Consider writing a song.

I can sometimes generate rhymes very quickly. Years of practice have made certain rhyme structures, word combinations, multisyllabic patterns, and associations almost automatic.

But generating something quickly doesn't necessarily mean I've finished thinking about it.

Sometimes the first line is perfect.

Sometimes it's garbage.

The important part comes afterward:

Does it actually say something?

Can I examine it?

Can I find the deeper connection?

Can I improve it?

Can I recognize when a clever rhyme is just a clever rhyme?

Fast generation and deep evaluation are different processes.

And that's an important distinction when thinking about intelligence.

A person can become incredibly fast at something through practice.

That doesn't necessarily mean they are “thinking faster” in some universal sense.

And somebody who takes longer to arrive at an answer isn't necessarily thinking more deeply.

---

Knowledge Is a Double-Edged Sword

There's another paradox I've experienced myself.

If you know a subject extremely well, you can have an enormous advantage in a debate.

You know the history.

You know the terminology.

You know the counterarguments.

You know where the other person's argument is vulnerable.

You can probably make a much stronger case than somebody encountering the subject for the first time.

But winning the argument doesn't prove you're right.

It might simply mean you know more about arguing that position.

And expertise has another strange property.

Sometimes knowing a field extremely well makes you better at solving its problems.

But sometimes someone unfamiliar with the assumptions of the field can look at the problem and ask a question everyone else stopped asking years ago.

That doesn't mean outsiders are smarter than experts.

It means expertise and fresh perspective are different advantages.

A good critic can therefore be extremely valuable.

Someone who challenges your assumptions forces you to determine whether your argument survives outside your own head.

That's true in science.

It's true in mathematics.

It's true in journalism.

And it's certainly true when investigating controversial claims.

---

Evidence Can Be Right While the Conclusion Is Wrong

This is where another important distinction appears.

Imagine a researcher performs an experiment and finds a genuinely unusual chemical property in a material.

The observation can be real.

The experiment can be real.

The measurements can be real.

And yet the final explanation can still be wrong.

You can correctly establish:

“Something unusual is happening.”

without having established:

“I know exactly why it is happening.”

That's an incredibly important distinction.

A conspiracy hypothesis can contain genuine scientific questions.

It can contain legitimate physical evidence.

It can contain documents that really exist.

It can contain measurements that really happened.

And still arrive at an incorrect conclusion.

The reverse is also possible.

A claim can be dismissed because somebody calls it a “conspiracy theory,” even though individual propositions within it deserve investigation.

The label doesn't settle the question.

Evidence does.

Calling something a conspiracy theory doesn't make it false.

Calling something a scientific theory doesn't make it automatically true.

The same principle applies to IQ.

Calling something an intelligence test doesn't automatically make its score the complete measurement of human intelligence.

---

What About Street Smarts?

Here's where I think the IQ conversation gets particularly interesting.

Most people have heard the terms:

book smart

and

street smart.

We don't have a single universally recognized number that tells us how much street smarts somebody possesses.

But does that mean the ability doesn't exist?

Consider a simple real-world situation.

Someone can have excellent academic abilities and understand complicated material from a textbook while being surprisingly poor at judging what will actually happen when dealing with a physical situation in the real world.

Someone else might have less academic achievement but years of practical experience dealing with tools, machinery, people, hazards, unpredictable environments, and changing circumstances.

Those are different kinds of knowledge and ability.

That doesn't prove one person is globally smarter than the other.

But it does demonstrate that competence is multidimensional.

And perhaps that's the more interesting question.

When someone successfully handles an unfamiliar real-world problem, what exactly are we watching?

Pattern recognition?

Experience?

Risk assessment?

Improvisation?

Practical knowledge?

Working memory?

Planning?

Judgment?

Adaptability?

Maybe all of them.

---

What Would Kaku's IQ Test Look Like?

Physicist Michio Kaku has raised a related idea: perhaps an interesting test of intelligence would involve putting people into unfamiliar situations and asking them to generate realistic possible scenarios.

Imagine being stranded somewhere unfamiliar.

Imagine a major system suddenly stops working.

Imagine having limited resources.

What do you do first?

What could go wrong?

What are the realistic possibilities?

What happens three steps after your first decision?

That's a very different kind of cognitive challenge.

And it raises an uncomfortable question:

If intelligence is supposed to tell us how capable someone is, why don't we routinely test people on their ability to handle unfamiliar real-world problems?

Perhaps because those abilities are much harder to standardize.

And that's exactly why standardized tests are attractive.

They give us numbers.

---

But Standardization Is Both the Strength and the Limitation

A standardized test has enormous advantages.

Everyone receives similar tasks.

Everyone can be compared.

Results can be analyzed statistically.

Researchers can study reliability and prediction.

That's incredibly useful.

But standardization also means deciding beforehand which abilities count and which abilities don't.

The moment we construct a test, we create a particular window through which we look at the human mind.

The window can be scientifically useful.

But it remains a window.

---

What Happens When We Label Children?

This is where the issue stops being merely philosophical.

Imagine a child being told—or having their parents told—that their IQ is 75.

That number can sound devastating.

Now imagine discovering that the child has dyslexia and was struggling to read the questions.

A parent asks:

“Who read the questions to him?”

Suddenly the interpretation changes.

The point isn't that the child necessarily has a high IQ.

The point is that before interpreting a score, we have to understand what happened during the measurement.

Was the child able to understand the instructions?

Were there language barriers?

Was attention impaired?

Was the person exhausted?

Was there anxiety?

Was there unfamiliarity with the testing environment?

Was the person motivated?

Were there educational disadvantages?

Were there sensory, developmental, or learning factors that affected particular tasks?

Clinical psychologists can take many of these factors into account when interpreting cognitive testing.

But a number printed on a page can easily escape its original context.

And once it does, it can become a label.

---

The Danger of Turning a Snapshot Into an Identity

Suppose somebody measures your temperature once.

You get 101 degrees.

That tells you something useful.

But it doesn't mean:

“You are a 101-degree person.”

An IQ score is obviously different from temperature, but the analogy demonstrates the danger of confusing a measurement with an identity.

A score describes performance on a particular measurement.

It doesn't automatically tell us:

• how curious somebody is
• how creative they are
• how courageous they are
• how compassionate they are
• how persistent they are
• how practical they are
• how adaptable they are
• how much they know
• how much they are willing to learn
• how wisely they use what they know
• or what they might become

Some of those things may be related to cognitive ability.

Some may interact with it.

Some may be largely independent.

But they aren't all contained in a single number.

---

Education Changes the Question

There's another fascinating piece of evidence here.

Research has found that additional education is associated with improvements in performance on intelligence tests, with evidence suggesting that education itself can have causal effects on measured cognitive ability.

That doesn't mean one extra year of school magically adds a fixed number of IQ points to every person.

It means something much more interesting may be happening:

The environment can change cognitive performance.

Nutrition matters.

Development matters.

Education matters.

Experience matters.

Practice matters.

Sleep matters.

Motivation matters.

Genes matter.

And the brain itself changes with experience.

So if all of these factors interact with cognitive performance, what exactly does an IQ score represent?

Perhaps it represents something like:

How this person performed on this standardized sample of cognitive tasks at this point in their development, under these conditions.

That's a much more modest statement than:

This number tells us how intelligent this person is.

And maybe the modest statement is closer to the scientific truth.

---

What About Genetics?

Genetics clearly matters to cognitive ability.

But “heritable” doesn't mean “unchangeable.”

Human intelligence is influenced by enormous numbers of genetic factors, each generally contributing very small effects, interacting with environmental circumstances.

That's true of many human traits.

A genetic contribution doesn't mean that environment is irrelevant.

And environmental influence doesn't mean genetics is irrelevant.

The real picture is much more complicated:

genes → development → nutrition → education → experience → practice → environment → brain changes → performance

And eventually:

performance → test score.

Look at that chain.

How many things happened before the number appeared on the page?

---

Maybe the Real Question Is What Happens After the Test

Suppose two people receive IQ scores of 115 and 135.

What can we legitimately conclude?

We can say the testing data indicate a difference in performance on the measured cognitive abilities.

Depending on the test and circumstances, that difference may have meaningful predictive value.

But can we conclude that the person with 135 will make better decisions?

Will they be happier?

Will they be wealthier?

Will they be more creative?

Will they be kinder?

Will they be better at surviving a crisis?

Will they be better at understanding people?

Will they be wiser?

Will they be more spiritually developed?

Will they be more successful?

Not necessarily.

Some of those outcomes may correlate with cognitive ability.

Some may not.

And that's the entire point.

Correlation is not identity.

---

Here's an Experiment I'd Like to See

There's another question that interests me.

What happens when you dramatically change the incentive structure around education?

Imagine a voluntary research study.

First, establish baseline cognitive measurements.

Then randomly assign students to different incentive structures.

One group receives the normal educational incentives.

Another group receives substantial, guaranteed financial rewards for academic performance.

The exact amounts aren't the point here.

The point is the manipulation.

Would the relationship between baseline cognitive ability and academic achievement change?

Would students who previously performed below their measured ability suddenly perform dramatically better?

Would high-performing students improve too?

Would everybody improve?

Would grades improve without corresponding improvements on novel cognitive tasks?

That last question would be especially important.

Because there is a huge difference between:

getting better at school

and

becoming better at learning

and

becoming better at solving unfamiliar problems.

If money dramatically improves grades but not performance on novel problems, perhaps we learned something about motivation and academic performance rather than intelligence itself.

That's exactly the kind of experiment worth doing.

Not because we already know the answer.

Because we don't.

---

So, Are IQ Tests Good or Bad?

Maybe that's the wrong question.

A hammer is good at driving nails.

It is terrible at measuring the temperature of a room.

That doesn't make the hammer a scam.

It means we have to understand what the instrument is designed to do.

IQ tests may be excellent tools for measuring certain cognitive abilities.

They may provide useful information about learning and performance.

They may have meaningful predictive power.

They may help clinicians identify particular cognitive patterns.

All of that can be true.

And it can simultaneously be true that:

an IQ score is not a complete measurement of human intelligence.

Those statements aren't contradictory.

---

The Bigger Lesson

This is ultimately why I find the IQ debate so interesting.

It's not really about whether a number is “real.”

It's about what we do with the number.

A measurement can be scientifically useful and socially misused.

A statistic can be accurate and still be interpreted incorrectly.

A test can measure something important without measuring everything important.

A person can have enormous knowledge and still be wrong.

A person can lack formal education and still possess extraordinary practical ability.

A person can win a debate without having the truth.

A critic can expose weaknesses in an argument without having the correct alternative explanation.

A scientific theory can be wrong.

A conspiracy theory can be wrong.

A conspiracy theory can also contain a true observation.

And an intelligence test can measure real cognitive ability without being the complete definition of intelligence.

Maybe the question we should have been asking all along isn't:

“How intelligent are you?”

Maybe it is:

“What does this particular measurement tell us about you—and what doesn't it tell us?”

Because there is a profound difference between measuring a person...

and reducing a person to a measurement.

And especially when we're talking about children, that difference matters.

The number should be information.

It should never become a prophecy.

Suppressing the Victims of Covid: Why Won't Canadian Media Talk About the Allison Inquiry? (Viva Frei)

SPOOKYWEATHER(2)

SELECT NEWS AND SPECIAL INTEREST STORIES FROM THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA (Video Hub). COVERING THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES APPEARING IN OUR TWILIGHT ZONE WORLD

Monday, September 14, 2026

Suppressing the Victims of Covid: Why Won't Canadian Media Talk About the Allison Inquiry? (Viva Frei)

Mainstream media in Canada refuses to attend these hearings. There's an establishment blackout on the truth. 

Ordinary people were tricked and coerced into taking the experimental Covid shots and many ended up with injuries or died. The authorities don't want to know about what they did. How ordinary people have been treated is a disgrace. 

[Posted at the SpookyWeather2 blog, September 14, 2026.]

An Open Letter to Lil Durk’s Defense Team, the Courtroom, and the Public

Dear Mr. Findling, the Defense Team, and Anyone Following the Lil Durk Case:

My name is JM Talboo, also known online as Bishop Neo Winston Smith at TikTok @Crashout.Royalty. I am an independent researcher and writer, and I recently published a long-form article examining the Durk Banks case, the evidence presented publicly surrounding the trial, the use of rap lyrics and other artistic material as evidence, and the broader media narrative that has developed around Mr. Banks, King Von, OTF, and the case.

I am writing this open letter because, after spending a considerable amount of time reviewing the available material, I believe I have assembled a collection of information and sources that may be worth the defense team's consideration—and worth the public's examination as well.

I want to be very clear about what I am—and am not—claiming.

I am not an attorney. I am not attempting to second-guess the defense strategy. I am not suggesting that my interpretations should be treated as established fact.

My purpose is simply to put potentially relevant information in front of people who are in a position to evaluate it properly.

Evidence vs. Interpretation

The central concern underlying my research is the distinction between evidence and interpretation.

There is a substantial amount of material surrounding this case that consists of music lyrics, social-media posts, internet commentary, Reddit discussions, documentary-style videos, and people attempting to connect events after the fact.

Some of those connections may ultimately prove meaningful. Others may not.

But I believe there is a serious danger when interpretation begins to substitute for independently verified evidence.

That concern became particularly important to me when examining the broader body of work produced by Trap Lore Ross and others who have attempted to reconstruct criminal histories and motives from rap lyrics, music videos, social-media material, rumors, and other publicly available information.

I have examined the controversy surrounding his treatment of King Von and Lil Durk, his methodology, his discussion of ongoing criminal cases, and the criticisms made by other journalists, researchers, artists, and commentators.

Some of those criticisms are substantive enough that I believe they deserve to be evaluated independently rather than dismissed as simply internet drama.

Rap Lyrics as Evidence

The larger question of rap lyrics as evidence is not merely an abstract First Amendment issue.

It raises fundamental evidentiary questions about context, artistic expression, authorship, fictionalization, genre conventions, temporal relationships, and whether a lyric actually provides independent evidence of an alleged act—or merely appears incriminating when removed from its artistic context.

A violent lyric can certainly be evidence of something.

But what it is evidence of is the crucial question.

Is it evidence of an actual event? A fictional narrative? A character? An exaggeration? A metaphor? A description of the environment surrounding the artist? A reflection of things the artist has witnessed? Or simply an artistic performance?

Those questions cannot necessarily be answered by looking at the words alone.

I understand that Mr. Findling and the defense team are already deeply familiar with these issues. In fact, I was particularly interested in Mr. Findling's public comments regarding the use of lyrics in criminal prosecutions.

His position that prosecutors and law enforcement can improperly interpret the commercial nature and conventions of rap music as evidence of a propensity toward violence is one of the reasons I thought this research might be worth bringing to his attention.

The Broader Case

My research also examines the broader circumstances surrounding the case, including OTF-related evidence, witnesses and cooperating individuals, music, public statements, and the larger “crates of guns” story that has become part of the surrounding discussion.

I am not presenting every allegation contained in those materials as established fact.

Rather, I have attempted to identify the claims, distinguish them from documented evidence, and leave the ultimate evaluation to the reader.

There is a documentary on the broader “crates of guns” story in the works, but anyone interested in investigating that subject right now can simply go to YouTube and search:

crates of guns

There is a rabbit hole there for anyone willing to do the research themselves.

Why This Matters to Me Personally

There is also a personal reason I became interested in the issue of rap lyrics as evidence.

I make a substantial amount of music myself, and some of that music is posted on my TikTok channel, @Crashout.Royalty.

I have created a number of songs in my own artistic voice that may provide an interesting firsthand example of how violent or incriminating-sounding language can function within rap as artistic expression rather than as a literal confession.

I have also created a substantial amount of music using Lil Durk's voice, in an attempt to speak for “The Voice,” who has now found himself voiceless.

That is not intended as a legal argument.

It is an artistic one.

And perhaps that is precisely why I think the distinction between artistic expression and literal evidence deserves such careful consideration.

The Public Should Examine the Sources

I am not asking anyone to simply believe me.

Quite the opposite.

I encourage people to examine the underlying sources themselves.

The article contains additional research materials, videos, articles, and other sources that allow readers to investigate the questions independently.

Mind Treasury: Beyond “Durk Is Cooked”: Lil Durk, King Von, Trap Lore Ross, Rap Lyrics, the Trial, and the Bigger Story Behind the Evidence

https://mindtreasury.blogspot.com/2026/09/beyond-durk-is-cooked-lil-durk-king-von.html

The article is not intended to declare Lil Durk innocent or guilty.

It is intended to ask what the available evidence actually demonstrates, what is interpretation, what is speculation, and where those categories may have become blurred.

That distinction matters regardless of what conclusion someone ultimately reaches.

A Message to the Defense

To Mr. Findling and the defense team:

I am not asking you to accept my conclusions.

If anything, I would prefer that the defense independently investigate the underlying sources and determine whether anything in them is useful, inaccurate, incomplete, or irrelevant.

My hope is simply that potentially useful information does not get overlooked because it originated outside conventional legal or journalistic channels.

If any portion of this research appears potentially relevant to the defense, I would be happy to identify the underlying sources and chronology behind particular sections.

The legal system has mechanisms for determining what evidence means.

The internet does not.

And in an era when millions of people can watch a documentary, read a Reddit thread, hear a rap lyric, and immediately construct an entire theory of a person's guilt, I believe it is more important than ever to ask a simple question:

What do we actually know—and how do we know it?

That is the question I am attempting to explore.

Respectfully,

JM Talboo
AKA Bishop Neo Winston Smith
TikTok: @Crashout.Royalty
Independent Researcher / Writer
Mind Treasury

King Von, Trap Lore Ross, Drill Rap, and the Consequences of Connecting the Dots

By JM Talboo 

There is a tendency in discussions about King Von, Lil Durk, drill rap and the violence surrounding Chicago to reduce an extraordinarily complicated story to a handful of simple characters: the killer, the gang member, the victim, the rapper, the monster.

I don't think reality is that simple.

That doesn't mean I think King Von was a good guy. I don't think that question can honestly be answered in black and white. He was associated with terrible violence, and there are serious allegations surrounding his life. But there are also accounts of him helping people, giving money to people from his old neighborhood, supporting charitable efforts, putting money on the books of incarcerated people and showing compassion toward people who were vulnerable.

A person can do terrible things and still possess genuine compassion.

That isn't an excuse.

It's an observation about human beings.

And I think that distinction gets lost when people try to turn complicated human beings into fictional archetypes.

Was King Von Really a Serial Killer?

This is where Trap Lore Ross's characterization of King Von deserves serious scrutiny.

Ross's documentary King Von: Rap's First Serial Killer argued that Von could be classified as a serial killer. The documentary connected Von to numerous killings and attempted to demonstrate that his behavior satisfied characteristics Ross associated with serial killers. The original documentary ran for roughly four hours and connected Von to ten murders, many of which were disputed or speculative.

But there is an important distinction that gets lost in the sensationalism.

Someone can be responsible for multiple murders without that automatically answering the separate question of whether “serial killer” is the appropriate classification.

That is the central issue.

Point & Shoot's King Von Was Not A Serial Killer directly challenges Ross's argument, including his use of an FBI description of serial killing.

Another video supplied for this article, Is King Von a Serial Killer? (You're probably wrong), approaches the same question from a similarly skeptical direction.

And there is an important conceptual reason to have this debate.

Gang-related killings can involve retaliation, territorial disputes, revenge, loyalty, perceived obligations and ongoing conflicts between groups.

Those motives can be horrific.

They can produce multiple murders.

They can destroy families.

But they are not automatically identical to the psychological phenomenon people ordinarily mean when they hear “serial killer.”

That distinction matters.

The Get Back Gang

One detail that I think gets overlooked is the name itself.

Get Back Gang.

That name strongly suggests retaliation.

Again, retaliation doesn't excuse murder.

But it tells us something about the environment and the alleged motivation being discussed.

If someone kills somebody because they believe that person killed one of their friends, that is still a killing. It can still be murder. It can still devastate families and communities.

But the motive is fundamentally relevant to understanding what happened.

A person participating in a cycle of gang retaliation isn't necessarily operating according to the same motivations as someone randomly selecting victims because the act of killing itself provides psychological gratification.

The difference is important enough that I don't think it should be waved away simply because somebody has accumulated multiple alleged killings.

The Problem With Treating Lyrics as Confessions

This brings us to another enormous problem.

What do we do with rap lyrics?

King Von's most famous songs are a useful example.

“Crazy Story,” including its sequels, is storytelling.

“Took Her to the O” is storytelling.

The events depicted in those songs don't literally correspond to what happened in the real world.

That doesn't mean Von never incorporated real experiences into his music. Obviously he did.

But a song isn't a sworn deposition.

Rap has always mixed autobiography, exaggeration, fictional storytelling, persona and reality.

That's part of the art form.

The strange assumption that a rapper must literally be everything he describes is a standard we don't generally apply to other forms of entertainment.

Nobody watches Goodfellas and assumes Martin Scorsese committed organized crime.

Nobody reads a crime novel and demands proof that the author committed the murders.

Nobody assumes an actor playing a murderer is secretly a murderer.

Yet rappers are routinely treated as though fiction ceases to exist the moment the medium is hip-hop.

That doesn't mean lyrics can never be evidence.

They can.

If a lyric contains information that is independently corroborated by material evidence, witnesses, communications or other reliable evidence, it may become relevant.

But the lyric itself shouldn't automatically be treated as proof of the underlying event.

That distinction becomes especially important when the entire argument is built around proving that an artist's artistic persona demonstrates a particular psychological condition.

The Methodology Cuts Both Ways

This is one of the more interesting arguments raised in the Drill Time TV material supplied for this article.

Ross has repeatedly used rappers' lyrics as evidence of real-world criminal conduct.

But what happens if that methodology is applied consistently?

If a rapper says in a song that he sells heroin and cocaine, do we simply assume he sells heroin and cocaine?

Of course not.

He could be lying.

He could be exaggerating.

He could be playing a character.

He could be telling a story.

He could be incorporating something he witnessed into a fictional narrative.

That doesn't mean every rapper is innocent of everything they describe.

It means the methodology has to work both ways.

And that's why the hypothetical is useful:

What if Trap Lore Ross had become a successful rapper instead of a YouTuber?

Imagine someone taking his lyrics, treating them as literal autobiographical evidence, building a documentary around them and announcing that Ross was therefore a drug dealer or criminal.

Would that prove it?

Obviously not.

And that doesn't mean Ross should be arrested.

I assume he would simply say that his lyrics were lyrics.

That's the point.

The same standard should apply to everybody.

A Serial Killer With a King Von Tattoo?

There is another contradiction raised by the criticism of Ross that I find difficult to ignore.

Ross has described himself as a fan of King Von.

He has also argued that Von was a serial killer.

And he has a King Von tattoo.

That combination understandably strikes some people as strange.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with appreciating an artist whose behavior you condemn. People listen to music made by deeply flawed people all the time.

But Ross's argument goes considerably further than saying Von was a flawed person who committed terrible acts.

He is arguing for a particular psychological classification.

If I genuinely believed someone was a sadistic serial killer in the conventional sense, I don't think I would describe myself as a fan of that person and wear their face as a tattoo.

That contradiction is worth discussing.

It doesn't prove Ross has an agenda.

It doesn't prove he's lying.

But it raises a legitimate question about exactly what he means when he says he is a fan.

Did Ross Change?

This is where the Why I HATE Trap Lore Ross video becomes useful for a different reason.

The video doesn't merely attack Ross's conclusions about King Von.

It examines the apparent evolution of his content.

The creator points to Ross's earlier work about artists such as Frank Ocean, 50 Cent, Lil Yachty, Drake, Jay-Z and Soulja Boy, describing it as lighter, music-focused material. The argument is that Ross later moved increasingly toward gang violence, murder and death. The video specifically points to the enormous popularity of Ross's gang-related content and asks whether the true-crime boom created an incentive to pursue that material.

That's an interesting question.

It isn't proof of motive.

We cannot look at a change in someone's content and conclusively announce why they made that change.

But timing matters.

If a creator discovers that a particular genre of content generates vastly more attention, it is reasonable to ask whether the economics of the platform influenced the direction of the channel.

And the timing of Ross's King Von documentary is particularly interesting because true crime was already an enormous entertainment category.

The combination was almost tailor-made for the algorithm:

a hugely popular rapper + murder + gang violence + true crime + a sensational psychological label.

That doesn't prove the thesis was manufactured.

But it certainly helps explain why the thesis was commercially powerful.

And There Is a Broader Ecosystem of Criticism

This is also why I don't want to present this article as though there is only one person on the internet who disagrees with Ross.

There are multiple criticisms coming from different directions.

Point & Shoot directly challenges the serial-killer argument.

The other King Von analysis examines the classification itself.

Drill Time TV attacks the methodology of treating lyrics as evidence.

The Why I HATE Trap Lore Ross video examines the evolution of Ross's content and the role of sensationalism.

These aren't identical arguments.

That's important.

Some may be stronger than others.

Some contain rhetoric I wouldn't use myself.

But collectively they demonstrate that Ross's characterization of King Von is not some uncontested fact that everyone simply accepts.

And that matters because controversial claims should be examined, not merely repeated.

King Von Was More Complicated Than a Monster

I want to be equally careful here not to swing from one caricature to another.

I'm not arguing that King Von was secretly a saint.

I don't believe that.

There are accounts of violence and allegations against him that are extremely serious.

But there are also accounts that complicate the picture.

A peace activist who worked with him reportedly described him as having a good heart and said the person she saw wasn't the same person presented through his music.

There are accounts of charitable activity.

There are stories of him giving substantial amounts of money to people he grew up with.

There are accounts that he put money on the books of incarcerated people.

There is the story associated with his “Grandson” nickname involving his treatment of an incarcerated man in a wheelchair.

And there is something else that caught my attention in Ross's own documentary.

Ross reportedly presents evidence suggesting that Von was responsible for another death beyond the number represented by the skulls in Von's tattoo.

But Von apparently did not include that death among the killings he celebrated or claimed.

The reason matters: it was allegedly accidental.

If that's accurate, it complicates the idea that Von was simply collecting bodies as trophies.

An accidental death can still be horrific.

But feeling differently about an unintended death than an intentional killing tells us something about psychology.

A person who is indifferent to killing and a person who feels remorse over an accidental death are not necessarily exhibiting the same psychological profile.

Again, none of this excuses anything.

It is simply another reason not to flatten the person into one sensational label.

Environment Matters

This is where my earlier work on drill rap becomes relevant.

I've argued before that drill rap should be understood partly as a reflection of the environment that produced it.

That doesn't mean music has no influence.

Of course it can.

There are people who hear violent music and want to imitate it.

But they're a minority.

Most people can listen to aggressive music without becoming violent.

I can listen to extremely aggressive drill music while working out and hear nothing more complicated than energy, aggression and fast beats.

I don't have to become what I'm hearing.

The distinction is between influence and inevitability.

A culture can influence people without determining their behavior.

A violent environment can increase the likelihood of violence without making violence inevitable.

And a person can be profoundly shaped by their surroundings while remaining responsible for what they ultimately choose to do.

That's the argument behind my earlier piece:

“The Impact of Drill Rap on Society: A Reflection of Systemic Failures.”

The bigger question isn't simply:

Why are these rappers violent?

It's:

What kind of environment produces a generation of young people for whom retaliation can become a rational response to violence?

That question requires looking beyond the rappers.

It means looking at poverty, segregation, firearms, failed institutions, trauma, gang structures, family circumstances and the availability—or absence—of legitimate alternatives.

And it means looking at things such as the reported crates of guns that have become part of the broader discussion.

I haven't yet organized that material into a comprehensive investigation.

I don't want to pretend I have.

But I think people should investigate it for themselves.

Go to YouTube and type:

crates of guns

Follow the material.

Check the dates.

Check the locations.

Look for competing explanations.

I am not saying that a YouTube search proves some grand conspiracy.

It doesn't.

I'm saying it is a rabbit hole worth investigating if we're going to seriously discuss the environment in which this violence developed.

I'll organize that material more thoroughly myself later.

The Retaliation Cycle

The name Get Back Gang is relevant because retaliation appears repeatedly throughout this story.

And retaliation doesn't begin with King Von.

It doesn't end with him either.

The violence surrounding these people exists within a cycle.

Someone loses a friend.

Someone seeks revenge.

Someone else loses a friend.

Another person seeks revenge.

And eventually the consequences reach people who weren't even present at the beginning.

That is how a cycle becomes self-sustaining.

This is also why I think it's important to distinguish explanation from excuse.

Understanding why somebody did something doesn't mean saying they were justified.

If someone murders a rival because that rival killed their friend, I can understand the motive without approving of the murder.

If somebody grows up surrounded by violence, I can understand how that environment affected them without saying they had no choice.

The two things can coexist.

The Night Everything Changed

That principle is particularly important when looking at King Von's death.

Von chose to approach Quando Rondo.

A physical confrontation followed.

Lil Tim fired.

I personally consider the shooting murder.

That is my moral assessment, not a statement about what a court ultimately determined.

Lil Tim was originally charged, but the case was dismissed without a trial. He was not acquitted.

Whatever one thinks about the legal case, I personally find the use of lethal force in response to a fistfight extraordinarily excessive.

And here's the part that I think deserves more attention:

Every person involved had a choice.

Von could have chosen not to have the confrontation.

Lil Tim could have chosen not to fire.

Either choice could have changed the future.

If Von doesn't die that night, Lul Pab may still be alive.

Lil Durk may never have ended up facing the circumstances he faces today.

Durk's music might have developed differently.

Von might have eventually left the streets.

Maybe he would have followed Durk toward something more positive.

Maybe none of that would have happened.

We can't know.

But that's precisely the tragedy.

Those possible futures disappeared.

What Happened to Lil Durk's Music?

This is another area where I think the counterfactual deserves consideration.

Durk had always made drill and street-oriented music. It would be inaccurate to portray him as simply a singer before Von's death.

But there is nevertheless a noticeable contrast between different periods of his career.

After Von's death, the retaliatory and angry material became much more prominent.

And later, Durk produced music such as “All My Life,” which represents a dramatically different direction: aspiration, reflection and a desire to escape the cycle.

I can't prove that Von's death caused every subsequent change in Durk's music.

Nor can I know what Durk would have done if Von had lived.

But it is reasonable to consider the possibility.

Perhaps Durk eventually would have gone in that direction anyway.

Perhaps Von would have followed him.

Perhaps both would have.

Perhaps neither would have.

The point isn't to pretend we know the alternate history.

The point is that the alternate history existed.

Then one night, it didn't.

One Choice Can Change Dozens of Lives

This is what I think gets lost when we reduce violent crime to questions of whether individual people are simply “bad.”

People talk about environment and personal responsibility as though they're mutually exclusive.

They're not.

Environment can influence the choices people see as available.

It can normalize retaliation.

It can establish expectations.

It can create cycles.

But individuals still make decisions within those environments.

And those decisions affect everyone downstream.

One person makes a choice.

Someone else responds.

A third person retaliates.

Someone else loses a friend.

Another person decides that friend must be avenged.

Eventually someone who wasn't even present at the original conflict ends up dead or imprisoned.

That is the chain.

And it doesn't excuse anyone.

It demonstrates why individual responsibility and systemic analysis have to exist simultaneously.

Art or Evidence?

This is the larger argument behind my earlier article, “Art or Evidence? The Complex Case of Lil Durk and the Fight to Protect Artistic Freedom.”

The question isn't whether lyrics can ever be evidence.

They can.

The question is whether we are going to treat artistic expression differently depending on who made it.

If a novelist writes about murder, we don't assume the novelist is a murderer.

If a filmmaker creates a gangster movie, we don't assume the filmmaker is a gangster.

If a rapper writes a violent story, we shouldn't automatically assume the story is an admission.

And yet rappers increasingly find their lyrics examined in court as though every line were a confession.

That's particularly troubling when the lyrics are being interpreted without sufficient context.

A lyric that describes a real event can be significant.

A lyric that independently predicts or corroborates an event can be significant.

But a lyric that merely resembles an allegation is not automatically proof of the allegation.

Art can contain evidence. Art is not automatically evidence.

That distinction should be obvious.

The Bigger Picture

This brings me to the part of the story that interests me most.

Individual facts are constantly reported.

King Von was killed.

Durk was angry.

Retaliation was discussed.

Lul Pab was killed.

People were arrested.

Lyrics were introduced.

Guns appeared.

Gang conflicts continued.

Videos were released.

But the dots are rarely connected.

The news reports the individual events.

Then another news story reports the next event.

Then another.

The audience is left to decide whether the events form a larger pattern.

I think “connecting the dots” has become unfairly associated with the stereotype of the conspiracy theorist standing in front of a wall covered in red string.

But connecting evidence is also what investigators do.

The fact that some people connect dots that aren't actually connected doesn't mean nobody should connect dots.

The correct response isn't:

Never connect dots.

It's:

Make sure the dots actually connect.

That's the standard I try to apply to my own work.

If a connection doesn't hold up, throw it away.

If new evidence contradicts a theory, change the theory.

If something remains unresolved, say that it remains unresolved.

And if apparently unrelated pieces of evidence begin converging on the same larger explanation, don't pretend the convergence doesn't exist simply because the conclusion is uncomfortable.

And Then There Are the Guns

This is why I think the crates-of-guns issue deserves attention even though I haven't yet put all of that research together.

It doesn't prove that any individual person committed a particular crime.

It doesn't excuse anybody.

And finding a crate of guns doesn't force somebody to shoot anybody.

If I found a crate of guns, I wouldn't suddenly be compelled to go kill people.

That's personal responsibility.

But circumstances still matter.

Access to weapons matters.

The availability of weapons matters.

The environment in which people are growing up matters.

The larger supply chain matters.

And systemic failures matter.

If we want to understand why violence occurs, we can't simply look at the final trigger pull and declare the rest of the environment irrelevant.

The individual decision remains the individual's responsibility.

But the larger circumstances deserve investigation.

What Are We Actually Trying to Prove?

This is ultimately the question I think should guide the entire discussion.

Are we trying to prove that King Von was a good person?

No.

Are we trying to prove that he never committed violence?

No.

Are we trying to excuse gang violence?

Absolutely not.

Are we trying to prove that every criticism of Trap Lore Ross is correct?

No.

We're trying to determine what the evidence actually establishes.

That's different.

Maybe some of Ross's allegations are correct.

Maybe some aren't.

Maybe some of the murders he associated with Von will eventually be established beyond reasonable doubt.

Maybe some never will.

Maybe some of Von's lyrics were autobiographical.

Maybe others were fictional.

Maybe they were mixtures of both.

That's why evidence matters.

And that's why sensational labels can be dangerous.

Once somebody is called a “serial killer,” the label begins doing the argumentative work for the evidence.

Instead of asking:

What happened?

People start asking:

What kind of monster does this?

Those aren't the same question.

Conclusion: People Are More Complicated Than Their Worst Moments

I don't think King Von was simply a good guy.

I don't think he was simply a monster.

I don't think every violent lyric was a confession.

I don't think every allegation should be dismissed.

I don't think Trap Lore Ross is automatically wrong because he criticized Von.

And I don't think every person criticizing Ross is automatically right.

What I think is that the story deserves more nuance than the sensational labels usually provide.

King Von's life existed at the intersection of individual choice and systemic failure.

His music existed at the intersection of autobiography and fiction.

His alleged violence existed within a culture of retaliation.

His death became part of another retaliatory cycle.

That cycle eventually reached Lil Durk and Lul Pab.

And the consequences continue.

The tragedy is that none of it was necessarily inevitable.

People had choices.

Von had choices.

Lil Tim had choices.

Durk had choices.

Everyone caught up in the cycle had choices.

But choices don't happen in a vacuum.

The environment influences the choices people make.

The choices influence what happens next.

And sometimes one choice changes the lives of dozens of people who never even had a seat at the table when the original decision was made.

That's what I think gets lost when we reduce this entire story to a four-hour documentary, a sensational title, or a single word like “serial killer.”

The real story is much harder.

It's about violence, retaliation, art, environment, systemic failure, personal responsibility, incentives, evidence and the enormous consequences of seemingly small decisions.

And if we actually want to prevent the next tragedy, that's the story we need to understand.

Sources

YouTube Videos

1. King Von Was Not A Serial Killer
   https://youtu.be/ShxGU3MIxcY?is=5WdZ-Sc7C3lw70GB

2. Is King Von a Serial Killer? (You’re probably wrong)
   https://youtu.be/aWsGaJRt0Ac?is=f47OkJ0mNziaKdXT

3. Why I HATE Trap Lore Ross
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY9xWmsPcGo

4. Trap Ross Is Scared To Death After Getting Exposed By The FED⁹S...
   https://youtu.be/8_uhPwZDf4U?is=TMYpY8PrzA0ZLMfb

Related Articles

5. Debunking the Debunkers: Debunking Trap Lore Ross regarding rapper King Von being a serial killer and Lil Durk being guilty of homicide without a trial...
   http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2024/12/debunking-trap-lore-ross-contention.html

6. Debunking the Debunkers: Art or Evidence? The Complex Case of Lil Durk and the Fight to Protect Artistic Freedom
   https://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2024/12/art-or-evidence-complex-case-of-lil.html

7. Mind Treasury: Sermon: Redemption, Environment, and the Power of Choice
   https://mindtreasury.blogspot.com/2024/09/sermon-redemption-environment-and-power.html

8. Mind Treasury: The Impact of Drill Rap on Society: A Reflection of Systemic Failures
   https://mindtreasury.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-impact-of-drill-rap-on-society.html

9. Debunking the Debunkers: BEYOND “LIL DURK IS COOKED”: WHAT ARE WE ACTUALLY ASKING THE EVIDENCE TO PROVE?
   https://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2026/08/beyond-lil-durk-is-cooked-what-are-we.html

10. Mind Treasury: Rats to Ritches
    https://mindtreasury.blogspot.com/2026/08/rats-to-ritches.html?m=1

The VHS Universe: What If Reality Is Already Recorded, but We Still Get to Choose?

By JM Talboo 

I've been thinking about a strange possibility.

What if reality is more like a collection of recordings than a single movie?

Not necessarily a literal VHS tape.

I'm using the VHS analogy because it's something almost everybody understands.

Imagine that your entire life is recorded on a tape.

The tape contains everything that happened.

Every conversation.

Every decision.

Every mistake.

Every relationship.

Every fork in the road.

Everything.

Now imagine that you could rewind the tape.

You could watch the same life again.

But this time, you could choose differently.

That immediately creates a fascinating problem.

If the original recording already exists, does that mean your choices weren't real?

Or could both things somehow be true?

Could the events already exist from some larger perspective while the person experiencing them still genuinely experiences choice?

I think that's where things get much more interesting than the simple argument over whether the universe is deterministic.

The Universe Doesn't Necessarily Have to Be a Straight Line

We tend to imagine time as a line.

Yesterday leads to today.

Today leads to tomorrow.

One thing happens, then another thing happens, then another.

But that's not the only way philosophers have modeled time.

There is an actual philosophical concept called branching time.

In branching-time models, histories can share a common past and then diverge into different possible futures. A useful way to visualize it is as a tree: the trunk represents the shared history, while the branches represent different possible developments. This isn't a claim that physicists have demonstrated that our universe literally works this way. It is a formal philosophical framework for thinking about alternative possible futures.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Branching Time:

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2026/entries/branching-time/

That's remarkably close to the metaphor I've been using.

Imagine that reality isn't a single line.

Imagine it's spaghetti.

There are countless strands.

Some strands remain close together.

Some separate dramatically.

Some might eventually reconnect.

Some might represent possibilities that were never actually experienced.

And perhaps, from the perspective of the person standing inside one strand, it feels exactly like ordinary life.

You make a decision.

You don't know what would have happened if you'd made the other choice.

You move forward.

That's your reality.

But perhaps the other possibilities aren't meaningless.

Perhaps they're simply other branches.

The Flash and the Spaghetti Universe

One of the funniest places I've seen a similar concept presented is in the 2023 movie The Flash.

Michael Keaton's Batman attempts to explain the strange consequences of Barry Allen's manipulation of time by comparing the universe to spaghetti.

The basic visual idea is that history isn't necessarily a neat straight line. Events can become tangled, displaced and connected in strange ways.

It's fiction, obviously.

But fiction is useful for this kind of discussion because it gives us visual metaphors for ideas that are otherwise extremely difficult to communicate.

The Flash's spaghetti analogy isn't scientific evidence for branching universes.

It's an illustration.

And that's exactly how I want to use it.

The question isn't:

“Did Batman prove that the universe is spaghetti?”

Obviously not.

The question is:

“Is spaghetti a useful metaphor for a universe in which time, causality and possibility aren't as simple as we normally imagine?”

I think it is.

The VHS Version

Now take the spaghetti and combine it with the VHS.

Imagine that every completed branch is a recording.

You are currently watching one.

You experience it sequentially because that's how consciousness operates from your particular perspective.

But somewhere outside that perspective, the entire recording exists.

Now imagine there are other tapes.

Tape A:

You took the job.

Tape B:

You didn't take the job.

Tape C:

You took it and met someone who changed your life.

Tape D:

You rejected the opportunity.

Tape E:

You took an entirely different path and never met that person at all.

From inside Tape A, you don't experience Tapes B, C, D and E.

You experience choice.

That's important.

The existence of a recording doesn't necessarily tell us anything about what it felt like to make the decision while the recording was being created.

If you watched the finished tape, you could say:

“Of course he was going to make that decision.”

But the person experiencing that moment didn't have the luxury of knowing the ending.

He had to decide.

That distinction is the heart of the thought experiment.

The Strange Possibility: A Fixed Sequence Can Still Contain Real Choices

This is where the whole thing gets weird.

Suppose an observer outside time could see your entire life at once.

From that perspective, your choices might appear completely determined.

But from inside your life, you still deliberate.

You consider possibilities.

You feel uncertainty.

You choose.

You experience consequences.

You learn.

Those two perspectives don't necessarily have to contradict each other.

This is one reason philosophical discussions of time and free will become so complicated.

Eternalism, for example, is the view that past, present and future events exist in some sense, rather than only the present existing. Presentism takes the opposite position, holding that only the present exists. These are philosophical positions about the ontology of time, not established experimental discoveries about which model is correct.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Time:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Presentism:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/presentism/

And branching-time philosophy adds another possibility: instead of there being one already-determined future, there could be multiple possible histories branching from a shared past.

So we don't necessarily have only two choices:

Everything is predetermined.

or

Nothing is predetermined.

There may be much stranger possibilities in between.

Terminator 2: No Fate

This is where Terminator 2: Judgment Day gives us one side of the argument.

The movie famously presents the idea that the future isn't simply fixed and that people can make different choices.

That's a powerful idea.

If Sarah Connor can change the future, then the future isn't necessarily a single VHS tape that has already been recorded.

Maybe it's a blank tape.

Maybe we're recording it as we go.

Maybe our choices actually create the future.

That's one possibility.

But then Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines comes along and essentially asks:

What if some things are harder to change than you thought?

The movie's central reversal is that Judgment Day wasn't prevented; it was postponed. The Terminator tells John Connor that Judgment Day is inevitable, and the ending explicitly leaves John confronting the possibility that the future may have been written after all.

Terminator 2:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/quotes?item=qt0416784

Terminator 3:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181852/quotes?item=qt0315919

That creates a fascinating philosophical tension.

Maybe Terminator 2 is saying:

Your choices matter.

And Terminator 3 is saying:

Yes—but perhaps your choices occur inside a larger structure that you don't completely control.

Those aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Maybe you can choose the route without choosing the destination.

Maybe you can choose the destination but not the circumstances.

Maybe there are certain events that are effectively fixed while everything surrounding them remains flexible.

Or maybe there are multiple timelines in which different choices are made, while each individual timeline remains internally consistent.

Thanos: “I Am Inevitable”

Marvel gives us another version.

Thanos doesn't simply say that he wants something.

He declares inevitability.

“I am inevitable.”

The interesting thing isn't whether Thanos is actually correct.

He's not.

The interesting thing is the concept.

A character can experience himself as making choices while simultaneously believing that the outcome is inevitable.

That is exactly the philosophical problem we're playing with here.

What if inevitability exists at one level while choice exists at another?

Groundhog Day: The Replay

Then there's Groundhog Day.

This one may actually be the most useful metaphor of all.

Phil Connors wakes up every morning to the same day.

He remembers.

Everyone else doesn't.

The same events keep happening, but Phil's knowledge changes.

And because his knowledge changes, his choices change.

Eventually, the repetition transforms him.

That's a very different concept from simply saying:

“The universe is deterministic.”

Phil isn't merely watching a recording.

He's learning from it.

He's experimenting.

He's discovering what happens when he changes something.

And eventually, he becomes a different person.

The movie establishes the repeating structure through Phil repeatedly waking on February 2 to the same morning broadcast and Sonny & Cher's “I Got You Babe.”

Groundhog Day screenplay:

https://imsdb.com/scripts/Groundhog-Day.html

Imagine applying that concept to an entire lifetime.

What if consciousness could live a life again?

What if it could remember the first run?

What if it could try again?

What if every version of the life remained real from its own perspective?

Suddenly, “What if I had made a different choice?” becomes a much bigger question.

Maybe you don't have to wonder.

Maybe you could actually find out.

Choose Your Own Adventure

When I was younger, Choose Your Own Adventure books gave us a primitive version of this concept.

You read a few pages.

Then the book tells you to make a choice.

Go to page 42.

Or go to page 87.

You pick one.

That becomes your story.

But page 87 didn't cease to exist simply because you picked page 42.

The alternative remained there.

You just didn't experience it.

Now imagine that the universe worked something like that.

You reach a fork.

You choose.

Your experience continues down one path.

But another possibility exists.

Maybe it exists only as a mathematical possibility.

Maybe it exists as an unrealized counterfactual.

Maybe it exists in another universe.

Maybe it exists in some deeper metaphysical structure.

Maybe it doesn't exist at all.

We don't know.

But the metaphor gives us a way to think about the distinction between what happens and what could have happened.

The Matrix: What Is the Player?

Then we get to The Matrix.

The Matrix adds another layer to the thought experiment.

What if the person you think you are isn't the entirety of what you are?

Neo initially believes he is an ordinary human being living an ordinary life.

Then he discovers that his apparent reality is an artificial environment.

The important revelation isn't simply:

“This world isn't real.”

It's:

“I am more than I thought I was.”

That distinction is central to the spiritual version of this thought experiment.

Maybe the body is the avatar.

Maybe consciousness is the player.

Maybe ordinary reality is the environment.

Maybe death is logging out.

Maybe reincarnation is logging back in.

Maybe none of those things are true.

But once you allow the possibility, an entirely different set of questions becomes available.

The Matrix isn't evidence that we live in a simulation.

It's a modern myth about awakening.

And that's why it connects so naturally with ancient traditions that also talk about ignorance, illusion, awakening, the true nature of the self, and liberation.

An annotated exploration of those connections I reposted:

https://debunkingdeath.blogspot.com/2015/10/gnosticism-and-buddhism-in-matrix.html

The Spiritual Version

Now let's take the thought experiment one step further.

Suppose consciousness is fundamental.

Suppose the individual consciousness is somehow an expression of a greater consciousness.

Call it the One.

Call it God.

Call it Buddha-nature.

Call it universal consciousness.

Call it whatever you want.

The name isn't the important part.

The important question is:

Why would the One experience limitation?

If unlimited consciousness already knows everything, what would it be like to experience not knowing?

If it has no limitations, what would it be like to experience limitation?

If it is eternal, what would it be like to experience a finite life?

If it knows every possible outcome, what would it be like to experience uncertainty?

Maybe that's the point.

Maybe limitation isn't a defect in the system.

Maybe limitation is the experience.

You can't experience surprise if you already know everything.

You can't experience discovery if you remember the answer.

You can't experience courage if you already know you are completely safe.

You can't experience forgiveness if nobody can hurt you.

You can't experience growth if nothing challenges you.

You can't experience choosing if you already remember every consequence.

And that brings us back to the VHS.

Maybe the Amnesia Is the Feature

What if forgetting isn't the bug?

What if it's the feature?

Imagine being an unlimited consciousness that voluntarily enters a limited perspective.

You forget the larger reality.

You forget the other lives.

You forget the ending.

You forget that the whole thing may already exist from another perspective.

And then you live.

You fall in love.

You lose people.

You make mistakes.

You make choices.

You wonder what the hell you're doing here.

You search for answers.

You find pieces.

You lose them again.

And eventually, perhaps, you remember.

That would make awakening something very different from merely escaping.

It would be remembering while still inside the experience.

The Non-Spiritual Version

Now strip all the spirituality away.

We don't need God.

We don't need reincarnation.

We don't need a soul.

We don't even need a simulation.

The thought experiment still works.

Computer science routinely uses branching structures to model possible future states.

Artificial intelligence systems explore possible actions.

Video games maintain states and allow different choices to produce different outcomes.

A simulation can contain a fixed set of rules while still allowing unpredictable outcomes from the perspective of the individual player.

And philosophy has spent centuries asking whether determinism is compatible with meaningful human agency.

So even if the entire spiritual framework turns out to be wrong, the underlying question remains legitimate:

Can a system be governed by rules without every meaningful description of choice becoming meaningless?

I think that's a much more interesting question than simply shouting “free will” or “determinism” at each other.

The Book of Life

Now here's where I take the VHS metaphor somewhere more speculative.

Suppose there really is some kind of ultimate record.

Call it the Book of Life.

Not necessarily a literal book.

Not necessarily a heavenly database.

Just a metaphor for the totality of what has happened.

Once an event has happened, it is part of history.

It's written.

You can't make yesterday unhappen.

But perhaps you could simulate it.

You could reconstruct it.

You could explore what would have happened if a different choice had been made.

And here's the really strange possibility:

Perhaps a simulation of an already-completed life could contain choices that were never part of the original life.

In other words:

The original event happened.

That history is fixed.

But you can create a model of it.

Then you can change the variables.

You can ask:

“What if?”

What if I had gone left?

What if I had stayed?

What if I had met that person earlier?

What if I had taken the other job?

What if I had made the decision differently?

The original history doesn't change.

But the simulation can explore alternatives.

That gives us a playground that potentially sits on top of almost every other possibility we've discussed.

The Simulation of the Simulation

This is where my VHS analogy gets really strange.

Imagine reality itself is some kind of simulation.

Then imagine that consciousness inside that simulation eventually develops the ability to simulate its own history.

Now you have:

Reality.

Then:

A simulation of reality.

Then:

A simulation of events that have already occurred inside that simulation.

And perhaps:

A simulation of alternative outcomes from those already-recorded events.

It's simulations all the way down.

At that point, the question “Which one is real?” becomes less useful.

The better question might be:

Which level am I currently experiencing?

And perhaps consciousness can move between levels.

Again, that's speculation.

But it's a fascinating thought experiment.

What About the Future?

The future makes everything harder.

A completed past can obviously be recorded.

A future event hasn't happened yet, at least from our ordinary perspective.

So perhaps you can replay the past perfectly but only simulate possible futures.

That would create an interesting distinction:

The past can be replayed.

The future can be projected.

And maybe that's why the future feels fundamentally different from the past.

Or perhaps the distinction is only a feature of our perspective.

If eternalism were correct, then the philosophical picture would be radically different because future events could be regarded as existing in some sense along with past and present events.

If branching time were correct, there could instead be multiple possible futures.

If presentism were correct, only the current moment would exist.

These are not settled questions.

They're competing ways of thinking about time.

And that's precisely why I find them useful as philosophical tools.

Maybe All of These Are True at Different Levels

Here's the possibility I keep coming back to.

Maybe the universe isn't one simple thing.

Maybe several descriptions can be simultaneously valid depending on the level you're talking about.

From inside the experience:

I choose.

From the perspective of the completed timeline:

I made that choice.

From the perspective of a branching structure:

Other choices were possible.

From the perspective of a simulation:

Those possibilities can be modeled.

From the perspective of an eternal record:

The entire sequence exists.

From the perspective of consciousness:

I am experiencing one particular path.

And from a spiritual perspective:

Perhaps I am something larger than the character experiencing the path.

That isn't a proof of any of these propositions.

It's a framework for asking better questions.

So Which VHS Are We Watching?

Maybe there is only one.

Maybe there are infinitely many.

Maybe every possible decision creates another branch.

Maybe only one branch actually exists and the others are merely possibilities.

Maybe the universe is deterministic but consciousness experiences the determination as choice.

Maybe free will operates at a deeper level than ordinary physical causation.

Maybe time itself isn't fundamental.

Maybe consciousness is.

Maybe none of that is true.

I don't know.

But I don't think we have to choose between intellectual curiosity and spiritual intuition.

We can use both.

That's what I mean when I talk about theology, comparative religion, philosophy, science and fiction as tools in a toolbox.

I'm not claiming that The Flash secretly proves a metaphysical theory.

I'm not claiming that The Matrix proves we're living in a computer.

I'm not claiming Groundhog Day proves reincarnation.

I'm saying that human beings have been using stories to imagine these possibilities for a very long time.

And sometimes fiction gives us a picture that allows us to ask a question that mathematics or theology alone makes difficult to visualize.

Maybe reality is a line.

Maybe it's a tree.

Maybe it's spaghetti.

Maybe it's a VHS tape.

Maybe it's all of those metaphors at once.

And maybe the strangest possibility isn't that we're trapped inside the recording.

Maybe it's that we chose the recording, forgot that we chose it, and are now watching ourselves make the choices for the first time.

And if that's true?

Then perhaps the most important thing isn't figuring out which VHS we're on.

Perhaps it's making this one worth watching.

Further Reading and Sources

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — “Branching Time”:

https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2026/entries/branching-time/

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — “Time”:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — “Presentism”:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/presentism/

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — “Temporal Logic”:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-temporal/

The Flash (2023), Warner Bros. Pictures / DC Studios.

The Matrix (1999), Warner Bros. Pictures.

Groundhog Day (1993), Columbia Pictures.

Groundhog Day screenplay:

https://imsdb.com/scripts/Groundhog-Day.html

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991):

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/quotes?item=qt0416784

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003):

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181852/quotes?item=qt0315919

Debunking Death — “Gnosticism and Buddhism in The Matrix — Annotated Edition”:

https://debunkingdeath.blogspot.com/2015/10/gnosticism-and-buddhism-in-matrix.html