My Encounters with Gilles Primeau

The Timeline

I don’t know whether this whole thing has turned out hilarious, creepy, or flattering, but I’ve decided to document this just in case the behavior turns creepier.

On July 11th, @PrimeauGilles extended this open invitation to discuss the video Starship Debunked, Episode 1 by Common Sense Skeptic. I took up the challenge.

I posted 17 separate points in relation to that video, and Gilles initially engaged in a rational, mature, good-faith discussion with me as can be seen in the following exchanges: (This is messy sometimes, due to back-and-forth interspersed in my inconsistent thread continuations, but I’ll do my best to post everything)

Gilles said he had to sign off for the night, but there were a few off-topic tweets as well.

While he was away, I finished up the video with another dozen or so criticisms I had, and they sat waiting. After this exchange, I was excited. I hadn’t yet found anybody who was willing and able to defend CSS’ videos, and here was somebody with the knowledge and credentials to do so, and our exchanges were respectful and pleasant.

However, that would change the next time Gilles got back to me. His tone changed, he became demanding, and he stopped responding to me on a point-by-point basis. All those other points I typed out, as Gilles requested, were ignored.

I responded, wondering where this change came from and why Gilles doesn’t request such calculations from CSS:

He responded very strangely. I never said or implied he wouldn’t be able to do such calculations, and this is where things completely went off the rails. He called me a cultist, and said I was neither intellectually honest nor capable. I pointed out that I hadn’t questioned his capabilities:

Refer to the first tweet that started this all. It was about Episode 1. Gilles decided to change the game, lying that he had that condition all along. He also incorrectly said that I wasn’t responding to my “statements to Massimo”, even though he never specified which statements those were.

Anyway, to show good-faith, I did as Gilles asked. I calculated the delta-v of a Starship in LEO, and showed the delta-v required for a hyperbolic transfer to Mars as short as 80 days.

Gilles replied to neither tweet.

I once again asked for clarification on whatever it is Gilles was claiming I hadn’t addressed, and was ignored.

At this point, I felt like the conversation was over. Gilles wasn’t responding to anything I had posted the previous day, or even what I posted in response to his new demands.

I left the conversation and tweeted about my disappointment in how it turned out, without specifically calling Gilles out by name. I thought it was over, but apparently not. Gilles was apparently monitoring all of my tweets, and interjected himeslf in the new thread, calling me a coward for not @-ing him.

While doing so, he claimed he never insulted me, and would concede if I pointed it out. He also said I dodged his technical points about Episode 7, even though I’ve already shown we were only ever discussing Episode 1, and didn’t even finish that. So, I responded. On the matter of insulting me, Gilles did not concede that I was right. The tweet was never responded to:

I also responded to his accusation that I was dodging points:

I offered to continue our discussion of Episode 1. Gilles left it open as a possibility. I again posted my objection to him abandoning the original discussion, and explained why I was disappointed. Gilles didn’t respond to this either:

I didn’t hear from him for more than a week, until I saw him talking about Starship and New Glenn:

He was far more combative than our first exchange, but I was interested in his opinion. There were a few threads simultaneously:

So it turned out Gilles and I just disagreed on what rockets should be compared to each other, and why. Not a big deal, I can handle disagreeing with someone. Gilles then brought up Episode 7 again, which is apparently about nuking Mars, and said we might get back to Episode 1 soon. I was hopeful that we could continue the initial conversation:

In the intervening time, I tried to get Gilles’ opinion about a conspiracy theory that Common Sense Skeptic peddles, but couldn’t get a concrete answer out of him, even though the facts are cut and dry.

A week or so later, Gilles interjected himself into a ‘discussion’ I was trying to have with someone else.

I don’t let people gish gallop me and continually move the goalposts, so I said I would discuss it with him after we finished episode 1. Strange how he went from “next week maybe?” to this.

Since “next week” had turned into nearly a month, I wasn’t surpised. I gave a few tweets pointing out how bizarre it is to call me so interested in defending Musk at all costs, when I had posted explicit criticisms of Musk, but those naturally went ignored. The only thing that was responded to was my accusation that Gilles had lied. I again posted where he had insulted me, said he would own up to it, and didn’t. That’s a lie in my book, and strangely enough, Gilles again ignored me pointing out his insults.

Another Twitter user had recently asked me if Gilles and I had ever continued our discussion on Episode 1. I replied to them, and tagged Gilles, since he called me a coward for talking about him “behind his back” the last time. He responded with this:

I’ll admit, at this point I was just done with him. His behavior had turned so petty, it honestly made me laugh:

I got tired of documenting all of this and wasn’t going to publish, but Gilles has directly replied to my tweets half a dozen times since he blocked me(so weird), not to mention the dozens of times he’s talked about me… and he keeps insisting “the timelines will show the truth”, so I’m going to go ahead and publish the truth for him.

Congratulations, Gilles. Solid proof, with timestamps, so the whole world can see how much of a liar you are, and how childish you are in continuing to try and win conversations with someone who you have blocked. And Gilles talks about obsession, lol.

Bonus Tweet: Gilles has allies I wouldn’t even suspect, and he’s coming for me, legally, outside of Twitter. Somehow.