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All Along the Watchtower
All Along the Watchtower ‘There must be some way out of here’Said the joker to the thief‘There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no reliefBusinessmen, they drink my winePlowmen dig my earthNone of them along the line know what any of it is worth’ ‘No reason to get excited’, the thief he kindly spoke‘ There […]
The Psychology of Systemic Consensus
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SYSTEMIC CONSENSUS We are all too familiar with established views rejecting change. It has nothing to do with the facts. Officialdom’s mind is often firmly closed to all reason on the big issues. To appreciate why we must understand the crowd psychology behind the systemic consensus. It is the distant engine that […]
The News Just Ain’t The News No More
The News Just Ain’t The News No More M. C. Escher The Tower of Babel 1928 Two thirds of Americans get at least some of their news on social media. Google and Facebook receive well over 70% of US digital advertising revenues. The average daily time spent on social media is 2 hours. Just a […]
The Degrading Facts of a Fake Money Hole in the Head
The Degrading Facts of a Fake Money Hole in the Head Squishy Fact Finding Mission Today we begin with the facts. But not just the facts; the facts of the facts. We want to better understand just what it is that is provoking today’s ludicrous world. To clarify, we are not after the cold hard […]
American Totalitarianism and the Culture of Fake News
American Totalitarianism and the Culture of Fake News American citizens have a problem telling the difference between facts and opinion. That’s the finding of a recent survey carried out by the respected Pew organization. It was found that only a quarter of the people polled were able to correctly distinguish between a factual statement and […]
From Bernays to Trump, Hooked on Misery
From Bernays to Trump, Hooked on Misery The father of modern public relations and spin, Edward Bernays was a cold, cynical manipulator of mass perception. He knew that by shaping people’s desires in a certain way, governments and corporations could sell just about any notion to the masses and manipulate them at will. Whether it […]
Living With Truth Decay
Living With Truth Decay “Once a policy has been adopted and implemented, all subsequent activity becomes an effort to justify it” — Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (1984. p. 245). In the 20th-century but still fun party game called Telephone, people sit in a circle and someone whispers a phrase […]
Chilling Effect’ of Mass Surveillance Is Silencing Dissent Online, Study Says
Chilling Effect’ of Mass Surveillance Is Silencing Dissent Online, Study Says Thanks largely to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, most Americans now realize that the intelligence community monitors and archives all sorts of online behaviors of both foreign nationals and US citizens. But did you know that the very fact that you know this […]
Peabody Energy to White House: Greenhouse Gas a ‘Non-Existent Harm’
Peabody Energy to White House: Greenhouse Gas a ‘Non-Existent Harm’ In an official submission to the White House earlier this year, U.S. coal giant Peabody Energy claims that greenhouse gas is a “non-existent harm” and a “benign gas that is essential to all life.” The March 2015 submission from Peabody further claims that “while the benefits of carbon […]
Civil Disobedience Isn’t Helping Your Cause
Civil Disobedience Isn’t Helping Your Cause Last week, activists protesting the climate summit blocked off a street near where I live. Not a big inconvenience for me since my schedule for the day only included binge watching Shark Week, but it was met with a fair amount of negativity from those I share a building […]
Right or Wrong – The Dark Side of Human Nature
Right or Wrong – The Dark Side of Human Nature I greatly appreciate the confidence saying I am never wrong. But on an individual level,NOBODY can possibly be right all the time. This is why I try to emphasize that the numbers are the numbers and that all we can do is watch how everything unfolds. […]
