Fiction: George and the Philanthropath – Part I. THE TEMPTATION (The Sins are Offered)

A morality play in 12 Acts: In which a well-meaning man, seeking freedom, forges his own chains.

Substack writer Margaret Anna Alice coined a useful word for this era of Public-Private-Philanthropic Partnerships: philanthropath—the Gates-type figure who launders cold commercial greed into a façade of altruistic compassion, with plenty of PR help. These actors do not only target the propagandised “sheeple”; they can also exploit people in the “Freedom Movement,” where once a stranger is seen as “on the same page,” ethical scrutiny and due diligence are easily dropped. Trust becomes shorthand for being “awake” to tyranny—sometimes fatally so.

This six-part fictional story, created by the above authors with some structural help from AI and drawing on lived experience, observation and imagination, pushes the philanthropath concept to its limits. Margaret Anna Alice has written about the shame of being scammed and turning the tables on her perpetrator; whether the story’s protagonist manages the same reversal remains open. The narrative ends with branching choices for readers and serves as a warning: in an age of deceit and confusion, how does one stay safe without sliding into paranoia.

Image by AI artist Kathryn Pick

ACT 1: The Knock of Despair

“In which our hero finds himself at the bottom of a pit and wonders how he came to be there.”

The morning started with a knock on the door. I had been expecting it for weeks since the judge’s gavel handed down my financial death sentence and execution day had finally arrived. The wheels of justice grind slow when it suits them, a guillotine in a slow-motion film, dropping with an inexorable certainty towards the neck of the hapless victim. My life, my work, my very identity—all of it was deemed a luxury, a “non-exempt asset” to be liquidated for the benefit of my creditors. The final blow was not a blade, but that knock.

Claire left a couple of months ago, she’d had enough. The split happened a few days after the appeal went against me, she wanted her share of the house which meant my share of the house was now up for grabs. I guess we could have kept the house and most of the furniture—if we’d stayed together—but, to be fair, she had lost faith in me, and I guess that made two of us. So, her lawyer (universe, please protect me from lawyers) worked out a fast deal that saw the house being sold in a hurry and the proceeds split between us. So, she gets her half, and my half vanishes in a puff of lawfare.

The low value furniture and family personal effects have already gone to her new place. And so, I stood and numbly watched them take the final “non-exempt” items: my high-end computer (a “tool of trade” over the exemption value), my prized guitar collection, a couple of paintings they think might be worth something. My own personal things sit in boxes in the attic of a friend’s garage—a small collection of framed degree certificates, photo albums, some spare clothes for the winter, and a few books I saved from the rubbish skip. What do I feel? Can’t really say, it is still sinking in after the busy, busy and stress of the court cases, marriage split up, house sale, the bankruptcy, and now effectively homelessness.

Settlement on the house is tomorrow, and I’ve got to move to an Airbnb rented shed in someone’s backyard. I look around the familiar room; stripped of my wife, my children, and the effects of a lifetime, it stands as a hollow shell, echoing only with the ghosts of a successful life I had built over 30 years and was forced to surrender. Nothing left but a car and a suitcase.

Walking in a shocked daze around the empty house, I wind up in my old office where my computer used to sit on the work desk strewn with gadgets and papers. So many memories of the heady times when we thought we had the world by the balls, social media stats going through the roof with daily hits totalling tens of thousands and over half a million followers. A sticker on the window is still there just above where the desk used to sit. The sticker says “Freedom: the government can’t give it; you have to take it.” Have I been sentenced to a life of poverty and loneliness, or delivered a new form of freedom? I realise I’m not sure what the answer to that question is. So, many paths lead from this room. I sink to the floor to just sit, to wonder how my life got to this point and consider my options.

For a smart guy, it comes as a surprise to know you have been played without mercy. That there exists so much malevolence in the world. That for speaking out and taking a stand they will take you down and remove everything you love and take pride in. I once believed in “live and let live,” that institutions like lawyers and the courts were there to protect you, and the universe will be on your side if you just try to be fair to others and do your part to make it a better place. We spend so much of our lives trusting in this fairy tale version of the world. When reality hits, it strikes your very soul and leaves you drifting in numbness. For me, that reality had a name—Corvina Manners.

It all started with a knock... but a different kind.

ACT 2: The Angel of Light

“In which a benevolent hand is offered, and our hero, in his gratitude, fails to see the hook within it.”

It began in early 2021 when I started a blog after our eldest child, James, died aged 16 shortly after taking the COVID vaccine shot. He was a bright active child who loved football and was doing really well at school. To say Claire and I were devastated when he dropped dead during a match would be to understate the depth of our grief by several orders of magnitude. Getting him vaccinated was Claire’s idea—she was a nurse with a staunch faith in the medical system—I guess we never recovered as a couple after that.

Starting the weblog was my way of coping, of expressing the anger and anguish I felt in a way that I hoped could help others to avoid this sort of tragedy. I wrote about the fraudulent “science” behind the COVID measures: masks, social distancing and the way the new mRNA vaccines where fast-tracked through the approval system under studies designed to show success.

As more and more people got on board, the weblog began to grow. I was having to respond to dozens of similarly affected people, all grieving and looking for support when their doctors were gaslighting them and friends and family accusing them of being conspiracy theorists or saying the benefits out weighted the risks. All very well when it isn’t your family member afflicted by clots or strokes or myocarditis at age 20. I realised that the weblog needed an upgrade and a hosting service to cope. So, I put out a message to the online community for donations and reluctantly set up a subscription membership for access to full articles and discussions.

The problem was I was out of a full time job due to COVID layoffs and Claire’s nursing job was just holding us above water, what with the mortgage, school fees and living expenses. Running the weblog had become a full-time occupation, while I was running kids to school and making meals around Claire’s crazy shift hours. The funeral expenses set us back in a big way and that just added to the strain.

Into all of this, I get a direct message on the weblog from some woman named Corvina, who said she wanted to help. We set up a Zoom meeting to talk. I was blown away when she offered to set up the weblog on her own hosting services and $10k to help sort out the transfer and development to get the security and capacity issues up to scratch. She offered another $5k to help sort out our car, which had developed a frustrating sensor problem that had been plaguing us for months (modern cars, huh?) and seen the car repeatedly in the dealer’s being serviced for obscure faults that always turned out to be anything other than what the computer said they were.

Of course, I was delighted that someone in our weblog community thought enough of my work to help out in such a generous way. The vote of confidence and support lifted my spirits, and I felt 100% validated in the work I’d been doing. Claire was visibly relieved that some of the financial load was being taken off her shoulders and we celebrated with a wine over dinner. Clinking glasses, it seemed our luck had changed for the better.

I said, “it’s only a loan and I’d pay her back as soon as the weblog was making money,” but she was insistent on making it a “donation to the cause.”

That was her first lie.

How would you have responded to Corvina’s first offer? Share your thoughts in the comments. The seduction continues in Part II.