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Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLV–Planetary Boundaries, Narrative Management, and Technology

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLV

October 23, 2023

Mexico (1988). Photo by author.

Planetary Boundaries, Narrative Management, and Technology

As I continue to work on Part 4 of my multipart Contemplation regarding energy blindness (see: Part 1 Medium, Part 2 Medium, Part 3 Blog Medium), I offer a handful of recent comments I shared on a variety of posts I’ve been reading:


One posted to a Degrowth Group I am a member of:

AP: It is the carbon risk that is existential. All the others are nice to have after you have reduced the carbon risk. Don’t allow this sort of propaganda to divert or dilute the required focus.

CS: obviously emissions are a significant threat but when we focus on climate change as the most significant we end up, as the majority currently do, looking to technology for solutions. Ecological overshoot is the master predicament. This means degrowth in energy and material consumption (less technology) and population reduction should be the key ways forward.

I highly recommend this talk by Bill Rees of Ecological Footprint fame. Cheers

https://youtu.be/QhhI9TF8K2k?feature=shared

MK: William R. Catton…

SE: Economic and then the following fertilizer/ pumped water/ food availability collapse as energy and materials slip away will tend to hurt us first. Many countries are already in the early stages of collapse. Lebanon, Argentina, Pakistan, etc.

Me: There are a number of planetary boundaries that have been broached because of our ecological overshoot. They all pose an existential risk and a number have been identified as being worse off than carbon emissions…the focus needs to be on all of them.


There’s this one on an oilprice.com article posted in the Peak Oil Facebook Group I am a member of:

Me: I have to wonder about the ‘accuracy’ of the article and its ‘conclusions’ (well, actually, prognostications as it’s about possibilities, not actualities). Bloomberg and Reuters, the two mainstream media outlets cited, are both extremely Western-biased. And we know the West would love to see cracks in the BRICS growing alliance so why not float the ‘news’ that such divisions are appearing based, naturally, on unnamed/anonymous sources. If we have learned anything from the recent decades of mainstream media reporting, it is that it has become little more than a propaganda arm for our ruling elite…


And this one in the same group:

Me: Just as fracking was, the profit-makers/-takers have spun several narratives to entice investments — both capital and retail. Believers have, once again, trusted the untrustworthy and fallen for the con failing to understand that our energy-intensive living has never been sustainable on a finite planet regardless of our ingenuity and technological prowess. All we’re doing by chasing the unicorn of ‘renewables’ is expediting our journey over the energy cliff while contributing evermore to our ecological overshoot. Sad on so many levels.

LM: totally agree with that. The question is…what’s next

Me: Economic collapse. Rise of authoritarian/totalitarian government. War. Increasingly degraded ecological systems. Destitution for more and more people. See these: https://stevebull-4168.medium.com/todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-lix-800413db180a; and, https://stevebull-4168.medium.com/todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-lxxxv-ffe437ffd811.


My question posted in this group:

Wonder how long it will take for the discussions about Peak Oil to go fully mainstream once the Strait of Hormuz is closed off???

Comments:

SH: I expect the many manifestations of natural limits will likely end up being used as vehicles for scapegoating, to promote non-sequitur ideological agendas, and with examples of Overshoot being seen as isolated phenomenon, rather than part of a broader problem. People are already seeing global climate that way, so it stands to reason that Peak Oil will just give them one more thing regarding which they can petition governments and big corporations to solve for them. I have yet to encounter a climate activist who has seriously considered what people can do to address the problem by way of changing personal behaviors, as opposed to technological fixes and policy changes offering a “plug and play” solution. The notion of a wicked problem in which mitigation might involve a paradigm shift in collective behaviors and expectations is not on anyone’s radar.

Me: Yes, I agree that all sorts of narratives will be constructed — especially by the ruling elite and associated profit-makers/-takers — to leverage our energy fall/descent in advantageous ways to their goals. They will certainly be a lot of ‘othering’ going forward as our ‘leadership’ attempts to deflect blame/responsibility/focus on them and their wayward ways.

LM: predicament

DI: We blame the symptoms not the disease.

Me: True enough. A lot will be blamed on those ‘undemocratic/despotic’ regimes that are keeping us from their hydrocarbons…you know, because they ‘hate our freedom’.

SMK: It will never go mainstream. Anything but it will be blamed for conserving of remaining reserves: climate change [sic], unfolding warfare in Middle East, Biden falling down some steps, Swift and Kelce, whatever…NEVER peak oil.

Me: Perhaps. There are and have been a growing number attempting to raise the concept and implications of Peak Oil but as will likely continue to be the case the ‘influential’ narrative managers of society (those that work on behalf of the world’s elite and can shout through our politicians and mainstream media outlets) will continue to weave their competing stories, especially those flaunting human ingenuity and technological ‘solutions to our dilemma. That is, until the truth of PO and the insanity of chasing infinite growth on a finite planet are eventually so obvious that they can no longer be pushed to the margins and the saner voices of warning begin to turn more and more heads; not all, probably not even a lot, but I wager to guess at least increasing numbers.

I don’t believe our ruling elite will ever admit to PO and the inadvisability of chasing the perpetual growth chalice or turn towards degrowing our existence for that would mean removing the gravy train that provides their revenue streams and thus positions of power/influence and prestige. No, they will likely insist on the path of exacerbating our Overshoot while getting their propagandists to double/triple down on the tales of a technologically-based transition to a ‘clean/green’ utopia.

I think we can see part of the narrative plan going forward is to highlight the concept of Peak Demand as opposed to Peak Supply. Demand for hydrocarbons has peaked because everyone is already transitioning to the ‘Electrification of Everything Plan’ with their electric vehicle purchases and investments in non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies…only the reality indicates that this tale is nonsense and hydrocarbon extraction and use is increasing along with these technologies resulting in an exacerbation of our overshoot predicament.

Throw our currently increasing morass of geopolitical gamesmanship on top of an already deadly dead-end trajectory and that jump off the Seneca Cliff of energy decline seems further and further in the rear-view mirror — along with all the ecological systems destruction we can’t help but compound in our desire to control our destiny.

But, yeah, let’s all go see the Taylor Swift movie to deny the death of our world just a bit longer and sing along, holding hands as gravity takes hold. Such is the way of these story-telling apes who will do and believe almost any and everything to avoid/deny reality and the anxiety-provoking thoughts it raises.

Some Call It Conspiracy Theory – Part 1

Some Call It Conspiracy Theory – Part 1

There are certain assumptions that are applied to anyone labelled a “conspiracy theorist”—and all of them are fallacies. Indeed, the term “conspiracy theory” is nothing more than a propaganda construct designed to silence debate and censor opinion on a range of subjects. Most particularly, it is used as a pejorative to marginalise and discredit whoever challenges the pronouncements and edicts of the State and of the Establishment—that is, the public and private entities that control the State and that profit from the State.

Those of us who have legitimate criticisms of government and its institutions and representatives, who are therefore labelled “conspiracy theorists,” face a dilemma. We can embrace the term and attempt to redefine it or we can reject it outright. Either way, it is evident that the people who weaponise the “conspiracy theory” label will continue to use it as long as it serves their propaganda purposes.

One of the most insidious aspects of the “conspiracy theory” fabrication is that the falsehoods associated with the term have been successfully seeded into the public’s consciousness. Often, propagandists need do no more than slap this label on the targeted opinion and the audience will immediately dismiss that viewpoint as a “lunatic conspiracy theory.” Sadly, this knee-jerk reaction is usually made absent any consideration or even familiarity with the evidence presented by that so-called “lunatic conspiracy theorist.”

This was the reason why “conspiracy theorist” label was created. The State and its propagandists do not want the public to even be aware of inconvenient evidence, let alone to examine it. The challenging evidence is buried under the “wild conspiracy theory” label, thereby signalling to the unsuspecting public that they should automatically reject all of the offered facts and evidence.

There are a number of components that collectively form the conspiracy theory canard. Let’s break them down.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh IX–Hear, Speak, See No Evil: Sociopolitical Collapse

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh IX

Chichen Itza, Mexico (1986) photo by author

Hear, Speak, See No Evil: Sociopolitical Collapse

Once more a comment posted in the Tyee in response to ongoing ‘debate’ with others in regard to the 2020 U.S. presidential election and some of the accusations of irregularities surrounding the process. While not obviously related to ‘collapse’ I will add some context to draw it into my ongoing thesis afterwards.

For the sake of argument, let’s say some of these [a list of supposed election irregularities] are fabricated and/or misinterpretation of events (which is what the video of the polling clerk filling out ballots is being explained away as — they were filling out ‘damaged’ ballots). That does not mean they all are and should just be summarily dismissed. They merit further scrutiny and investigation. Conspiracies (that is, an agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act) are common in politics (in fact, perhaps far too common).

A few thoughts to share for those that believe otherwise.

The fact that the sources are not mainstream should not lead to their immediate dismissal as many suggest. All one has to do is look at how many mainstream sources are deliberately suppressing the whole Julian Assange debacle or the Hunter Biden laptop evidence that suggests pay-to-play shenanigans involving his father. Or Glenn Greenwald deciding to resign from the media company he founded because fellow editors refused to publish an article unless he removed all criticism of Joe Biden. These examples (and there are many, many more — a pertinent one is how many mainstream media accepted the Bush administration’s declaration that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and then basically ran PR for the government’s invasion) should show that mainstream media is quite biased and often does not perform due diligence in its reporting, suppresses stories, or primarily runs opinion-editorials and passes them off as investigative journalism, especially if one is questioning the dominant narratives that they tend to support quite adamantly. It is often, unfortunately, only those outside of the mainstream that question the stories told by the-powers-that-be and challenge them.

And the supposed importance of elections and sanctity of voting are two of those narratives (the ones that this article goes to great lengths to further). And these are very, very important social narratives for several reasons. First, the political class overseeing society need legitimization. They need the citizens to believe with all their hearts and minds that the ruling class has a ‘right’ to be making the decisions they are making and enacting the policies they are enacting with the support and blessings of the people. Without this legitimization they would not only run into significant difficulty with social ‘order’, they would lose control of the wealth-generating systems that supply their revenue streams (their primary motivation). This right to govern supposedly derives from the choices made via the ballot box; we quite often hear leaders claim they have a mandate from the people to justify (rationalise?) their actions.

Second, people want to believe they actually have agency in the way their society is managed. Believing you have agency in your life is a fundamental need. So, people want to believe they can significantly impact the political process by voting. And we are socialised almost from birth to believe this story. Our public schools initiate us into the dominant narrative, teaching children the importance of our political system and how we need to support it. We are told it is a civic duty to vote. That if you don’t vote, you can’t complain. That major wars have been fought to protect our freedoms and the right to vote. People do not want to confront the possibility that it is all just theatre; that it is a story to keep us mollified, well behaved, and compliant; that the real power may lay well beyond their reach or influence (or as George Carlin opined: it’s a big club and you ain’t in it). The people do not want to face the idea that their leaders do not have the interests of the masses as their primary motivation; that would just create far too much cognitive dissonance.

For these two reasons alone the majority of people and certainly almost all the ruling class (and this includes academics, media, politicians, corporations) will refuse to see or acknowledge the flaws when exposed. Evidence is memory-holed. Whistleblowers are vilified (or worse). The believers and those benefiting from the dominant storyline will fight tooth and nail to defend the system. The narrative must be protected. Just read up on the various inquisitions of the Catholic Church to see how narratives that support the powerful are protected.

PS
I truly do want to thank those who challenge my thinking in a constructive manner. It forces me to rethink and reflect on my own biases and blindspots. For those who fall back on the ad hominem fallacy of attacking me or calling me names, please grow up.

One of the arguments made by Dmitry Orlov in his book The Five Stages of Collapse is that there exist a number of tipping points as it were that indicate a complex society is on the verge of collapse. He states these “Serve as mental milestones…[and each breaches] a specific level of trust or faith in the status quo. Although each stage causes physical, observable changes in the environment, these can be gradual, while the mental flip is generally quite swift.”

His five stages are:

  1. Financial collapse where faith in risk assessment and financial guarantees is lost.
  2. Commercial collapse that witnesses a breakdown in trade and widespread shortages of necessities.
  3. Political collapse through a loss of political class relevance and legitimacy.
  4. Social collapse in which social institutions that could provide resources fail.
  5. Cultural collapse that is exhibited by the disbanding of families into individuals competing for scarce resources.

As I suggest in a review and commentary on his book: “all that is needed for political collapse is for more citizens to come to the realization that the status quo is no longer working for the benefit of all but for the benefit of the elite. When the masses finally come to better understand the corruption and malfeasance that percolates throughout the political world, collapse of the political class will occur.”

This is perhaps what we are witnessing with greater frequency in the U.S. and elsewhere, suggesting sociopolitical collapse may not be too far off in the future. And with sociopolitical collapse comes some pretty serious knock-on effects that will upset the complex systems we all rely upon, especially long-distance supply chains and social ‘order’.

As I have argued in other places, when it comes to politics we seem to be chickens arguing over which fox will guard us while the henhouse is burning down in the background.

US Special Operations Command Will Deploy Argus AI Program to Scour Social Media for Disinformation, Misinformation and Malinformation, National Security Authority to Protect U.S. Internet from “Pain Points”

Annnd… Here we go.  If you have not read the background {Go Deep}, you will not have the appropriate context to absorb the latest revelation about how the Dept of Defense will now conduct online monitoring operations, using enhanced AI to protect the U.S. internet from “disinformation” under the auspices of national security.

Gee, who would have predicted that U.S. internet operations would suddenly have a totally new set of enhanced AI guardians at the gateways? ????

Read Carefully – Eyes Wide Open:

The US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) has contracted New York-based Accrete AI to deploy software that detects “real time” disinformation threats on social media.

The company’s Argus anomaly detection AI software analyzes social media data, accurately capturing “emerging narratives” and generating intelligence reports for military forces to speedily neutralize disinformation threats.

“Synthetic media, including AI-generated viral narratives, deep fakes, and other harmful social media-based applications of AI, pose a serious threat to US national security and civil society,” Accrete founder and CEO Prashant Bhuyan said.

“Social media is widely recognized as an unregulated environment where adversaries routinely exploit reasoning vulnerabilities and manipulate behavior through the intentional spread of disinformation.

“USSOCOM is at the tip of the spear in recognizing the critical need to identify and analytically predict social media narratives at an embryonic stage before those narratives evolve and gain traction. Accrete is proud to support USSOCOM’s mission.”

But wait… It gets worse!

 

[PRIVATE SECTOR VERSION] – The company also revealed that it will launch an enterprise version of Argus Social for disinformation detection later this year.

The AI software will provide protection for “urgent customer pain points” against AI-generated synthetic media, such as viral disinformation and deep fakes.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Time The US Banned Criticism of War

https://youtu.be/Y6oSn1Pqc6E

 

Brazil Censorship Regime: Popular Podcaster Monark Criminally Investigated and Fined $75,000 For Online Speech

One of Brazil’s most popular podcasters, Monark (real name Bruno Monteiro Aiub), is under criminal investigation and has received a fine equivalent to $75,000 for his online conduct.

Critics of the authority’s behavior here – like Brazil-based investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald – see this as a way to completely science the online personality known as the country’s version of Joe Rogan.

And do this without any due process, as well.

Reports in the Brazilian press say that the decision to fine Monark, whom they refer to as a digital influencer, came from Federal Supreme Court’s Minister Alexandre de Moraes.

Moraes is no stranger to taking an active part in controversial policies and decisions slammed for suppressing free speech on the internet.

In fact, he now has a fairly long history of involvement in this, dating back to the campaign to oust Brazil’s previous president.

In line with this reputation, Moraes’ decision was explained as the podcaster’s failure to comply with a court order, and in addition to the fine, includes blocking his bank account, suspending any new social media accounts, and demonetizing his channels.

In other words, a pretty thorough deplatforming and canceling, and Monark said he also lost his Rumble contract over the incident. And the reason: Moraes says he’s fighting “disinformation” allegedly spread by Monark, as well as his tactic of trying to get his voice heard by creating a new account, once an old one gets banned.

Monark’s defenders, including his lawyer, say that the “crime” he committed is that of having an opinion that is not liked by the government, and that accusations of “instigation of anti-democratic acts” are not true.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Notes on Stormtrooper Syndrome

Notes on Stormtrooper Syndrome

For some time now I’ve been looking for a way to talk about one of the most common bad habits of thought in the modern industrial world.  Habits like this are far more important that a casual glance might suggest.  Plenty of pragmatic factors are piling up crises for our civilization just now, but many of those could be solved—or at least faced in a more constructive way—if our government and business elites could think clearly about them. It’s the fact that they don’t seem to be able to do this that makes the crisis of our time so overwhelming.

It’s really quite remarkable, when you think of it. These days, if a government bureaucracy or one of those dreary panels of multibillionaires get together to try to solve some problem, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll either do nothing or make the problem worse. It’s not that the people in question aren’t educated—they have the best education you can get in a modern Western society. It’s not that they lack  resources—for example, the money and energy that go into those climate conferences each year, put to some productive use, could have contributed considerably to mitigating the effects of climate change. No, the problem is that the people in question are stuck in habits of thought that make it impossible for them to do anything useful in a crisis.

I know that this is a controversial claim these days. Quite a few people have become convinced that our government and corporate elites can’t possibly be as stupid as they seem.  No, it’s got to be a sinister conspiracy! It’s easy to understand why that sort of thinking has become popular…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Desperation Creeps In

Desperation Creeps In

“There is only one way to explain this shambles: Every one of these crises traces back to the Democratic Party’s obsession with taking and holding power more or less indefinitely to suit its hubristic, end-of-history “narrative” of righteous liberal triumph.” — Patrick Lawrence

That silence you hear these dog days of a wilting empire is the calm before the storm and everybody knows it. “Joe Biden’s” final desperate ploy against the menace of Donald Trump looks about on par with the Ukraine spring offensive, hardly even worth a “hey, nice try.”

So, the best they could do was to charge Mr. Trump with objecting vocally to an election that looked as rotten as Hunter’s uncapped teeth? We all saw what happened overnight November 3 and 4, 2020: what the numbers looked like in the swing precincts at midnight and the magic mathematics that swapped tens of thousands of votes over from the Trump column to the Biden column (say, whu?) … the shutdown of the Fulton County State Farm Arena due to a supposedly leaking toilet and the ensuing monkey business with rolly-bags full of ballots under the tables captured by the closed-circuit cameras… the miraculous wee-hour harvest of ballots in Milwaukee… US Postal Service truck full of completed ballots out of Bethpage, Long Island, that turned up in Philadelphia… Mark Zuckerberg’s $419-million-dollar operation using two front orgs, the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) to staff precinct election boards with party shills and buy votes… the thumb drives and modems in the vote-counting machines….

Special Counsel Jack Smith may find it difficult to prove that expressing an opinion about all that is some kind of crime. Meanwhile, he’s turned Mr. Trump into the poster boy for the many other aggrieved victims of a government weaponized against its own people…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

‘Once You Start Censoring, You’re on Your Way to Dystopia and Totalitarianism,’ RFK Jr. Tells House Committee

‘Once You Start Censoring, You’re on Your Way to Dystopia and Totalitarianism,’ RFK Jr. Tells House Committee

In a hearing marred by contentious interruptions and attempts by House Democrats to remove him as a witness, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense testified before a U.S. House hearing organized by the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

In a hearing marred by contentious interruptions and attempts by House Democrats to remove him as a witness, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CHD chairman on leave from Children’s Health Defense (CHD) testified before a U.S. House hearing organized by Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

The subcommittee, operating within the House Judiciary Committee, said today’s hearing was intended to “examine the federal government’s role in censoring Americans,” “Big Tech’s collusion with out-of-control government agencies to silence speech” and the ongoing Missouri v. Biden lawsuit alleging government censorship.

Other witnesses who testified today included D. John Sauer, special assistant attorney general for Louisiana, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the Missouri v. Biden case, Breitbart journalist Emma-Jo Morris, who in 2020 first revealed the now-infamous “Hunter Biden laptop story,” and Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Government censorship and alleged First Amendment violations on the part of the federal government featured prominently in today’s hearing. “We need to be able to talk,” Kennedy told the committee. “And, the First Amendment was not written for easy speech. It was written for the speech that nobody likes you for.”

Morris testified about the threats to a free press, saying:

“What this relationship between the U.S,government officials and American corporations represent is, is an unprecedented push to undermine the First Amendment, the right to think, write, read, say whatever we want, and how we respond will determine whether we see a free press as inalienable or as optional.”

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Creating a World of Distrust

Creating a World of Distrust

I remember a time when people were left to their own devices when determining what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

Remember “Bat Boy?” A strange Weekly World News (sister tabloid to the National Enquirer) creation set to terrorize and dismay. Did anyone really believe this? I doubt if many did. Some did, I’m sure, but what can ‘ya do?

I remember wondering about it. I was still young and impressionable (actually, I still wonder about it, I guess I am old and impressionable now). The operative word here is “wonder.” No government agency told me I was not allowed to wonder if something was “true” or not. I figured that out on my own. Why is this good?

Well, for one thing, you would have to be a nutcase to allow the government, or any authoritative power, to tell you what you were allowed to wonder about. Secondly, wondering is healthy. It hones your senses; you figure stuff out on your own. There is nothing more powerful than having to figure something out on your own. It takes something called “thinking”—which seems to be in low supply these days.

I just saw a meme with two heads speaking to one another. One head is visibly angry and is saying something like, “look at this!!!” holding up a cell phone. The other head says, “oh yeah, let me tell you what I think of that.” The angry head says, “shut up idiot!! You are not an expert!!” There’s more to it than that, but that’s enough to make my point.

Expert? Since when do you have to be an expert to have an opinion?

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Fact-Check Racket Finally Unravels

The Fact-Check Racket Finally Unravels

Before the COVID lockdowns, social media companies had started contracting with new third-parties organizations called fact-checkers to assist in “content creation.” Getting a pass meant the post or story was amplified but getting dinged for inaccuracy meant that the post would be throttled or deleted.

For a while we believed it but certain revelations changed that. We came to realize that the posts labeled false were typically contrary to regime narratives. And a close look at the supposed refutation revealed that many points were very much in dispute. The companies developed a talent for seeming to reveal something false that was actually still debatable and interesting to consider. In most cases, what was declared false was still under consideration.

As time went on, the attempts to censor became more brazen and obvious. Then the Twitter files and other FOIAs generated proof of what many suspected all along. These entities were funded either directly or indirectly by government or by other dark-money sources as quid pro quos for other relationships they had cultivated with interested parties.

In other words, they were not some independent, science-based entities at all but rather hit squads with a hard political agenda. What was actually happening here was a form of censorship laundering. Government wants to censor but cannot so it turns to the social-media company to do the dirty work. To make this hand-in-glove racket less obvious, the companies would outsource to a fact-checking organization, making the lines of control even more blurry.

Sometime within the last several months, the whole racket seems to have unraveled. I rarely see the fact-checks cited at all. Or maybe they are cited ironically: what is declared false came to be seen as a badge of honor, a confirmation of core truth. That might seem crazy but these are the times in which we live. Nothing is as it seems.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

UN Secretary-General Proposes ‘Global Digital Compact’ to Push Laws Against Online ‘Hate’

UN Secretary-General Proposes ‘Global Digital Compact’ to Push Laws Against Online ‘Hate’

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, proposed a “Global Digital Compact,” (GDC) to push sweeping international laws against “hate and lies” online.

“The proliferation of hate & lies in the digital space is causing grave global harm. This clear & present global threat demands clear and coordinated global action. We don’t have a moment to lose,” he wrote in a tweet announcing the compact.

The UN policy brief, which was released on June 12, called for handing control of the internet to international bodies, as part of the UN’s 2030 Agenda.

Guterres also referred to another UN brief, “Information and Integrity on Digital Platforms” (IIDP), which he said will be used as a guide to coordinate global efforts against “hate.”

The IIDP warned about what it calls, the “darker side of the digital ecosystem,” which could enable “the rapid spread of lies and hate, causing real harm on a global scale.”

Guterres said that the internet is being misused to deny science and spread disinformation and hate to billions of people, in a veiled reference to vaccine skeptics and growing populist movements.

“The proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space is causing grave global harm. This clear and present global threat demands clear and coordinated global action. We don’t have a moment to lose,” he declared in his call for global censorship.

UN Calls for Nations to Suppress Online Disinformation

The GDC is focused on eliminating the “divide across regions, gender, income, language, and age groups” regarding internet access and decries the fact that “some 89 percent of people in Europe are online, but only 21 percent of women in low-income countries use the internet.”

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Censorship-Industrial Complex: Top 50 Organizations To Know

The Censorship-Industrial Complex: Top 50 Organizations To Know

[Update: How do we know Matt and crew are over the target? Facebook won’t allow this post…]

Introduction by Matt Taibbi

On January 17, 1960, outgoing President and former Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower gave one of the most consequential speeches in American history. Eisenhower for eight years had been a popular president, whose appeal drew upon a reputation as a person of great personal fortitude, who’d guided the United States to victory in an existential fight for survival in World War II. Nonetheless, as he prepared to vacate the Oval Office for handsome young John F. Kennedy, he warned the country it was now at the mercy of a power eve he could not overcome.

Until World War II, America had no permanent arms manufacturing industry. Now it did, and this new sector, Eisenhower said, was building up around itself a cultural, financial, and political support system accruing enormous power. This “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience,” he said, adding:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. 

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes… Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. 

This was the direst of warnings, but the address has tended in the popular press to be ignored. After sixty-plus years, most of America – including most of the American left, which traditionally focused the most on this issue – has lost its fear that our arms industry might conquer democracy from within.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

How New Zealand Dealt with “Disinformation”

disinformation

How New Zealand Dealt with “Disinformation”

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is spectacular, with Orcs, Elves and breathtaking scenery filmed on location in New Zealand. The special effects were good too – the eye of Sauron looked very realistic – perhaps it is.

We have come across a minimally redacted 28-page draft of a Kiwi Government document entitled “Communications approach to managing disinformation, online harms and scams” dated 10 Dec 2021 (Available here).

The document’s aim appears to be coordinating countering disinformation seeking to harm “by threatening public safety, fracturing community cohesion and reduced trust in democracy.” All well and good then; it’s a bit like saying, do not open fire on the Red Cross.

Except that the object is “disinformation” relating to the Kiwi government’s response to the Covid pandemic. The definition of disinformation in the document is on page 5:

We will not summarise the complex and superficial content of the document other than to note that this is precisely the attempt at normalising the message of the pandemic that we have reported. The government has put out a message, and its credibility must be defended at all costs, with tech media partners, academics, the community and, of course, the armies of Sauron.

One consideration is that the Covid narrative in Middle Earth (as elsewhere) is based on the misuse and misinterpretation of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the death of clinical medicine, as we have made clear.

Cases may not have been active cases, hospitalisations may not be due to SARS-CoV-2, and deaths may be due to various causes related or unrelated to SARS-CoV-2. We will never know for sure. Why? Because the PCR cycle threshold for testing PCR “positive” in Middle Earth was 40 to 45, ensuring that most tested people would test positive even in the total absence of contamination (a very tall order).

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People Don’t Understand How Unfree We Already Are

People Don’t Understand How Unfree We Already Are

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The biggest and most widespread blind spot among those who oppose totalitarian control by the powerful is the assumption that it has not already been achieved.

We’ve been so busy watching out for the next overtly totalitarian dictatorship that wants to put the jackboot on our necks we never noticed the covert totalitarians sliding the shackles around our minds.

Everyone thinks about the abusers who beat their spouses, but not the abusers who dominate their spouses’ minds with psychological manipulation.

Everyone thinks about psychopathic killers prowling the streets, but not the psychopathic killers who rule our world via mass-scale manipulation.

Conspiracy analysts warn that the government is trying to give everyone a social credit score to force us all to comply with the agendas of the powerful, in nations where mass-scale narrative management through the media and online algorithms already manipulates everyone into complying with the agendas of the powerful.

People assume that they aren’t already behaving exactly how the powerful want them to behave within a civilization whose political, monetary and economic systems are already completely under the control of the powerful.

People think they are free just because they can go and buy whatever they want in an economy rigged for the powerful using money rigged for the powerful, because they can say whatever they want on internet platforms whose algorithms are manipulated by the powerful, because they can vote for a politician who only got on the ballot by being owned by the powerful.

People think they are free because the system let them elect a “populist” like Donald Trump, even after that “populist” spent four years doing nothing but advancing the interests of the powerful.

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Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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