We Live in an Era of Mass Delusion
We've discussed this, we've read about it, we've been warned; but, boy...does this hit home.
“If one can isolate the mass, allow no free thinking, no free exchange, no outside corrective, and can hypnotize the group daily with noises, with press and radio and television, with fear and pseudo-enthusiasms, any delusion can be instilled. People will begin to accept the most primitive and inappropriate acts.”
"The only way we can give man the strength to withstand mental infection is through giving him the utmost freedom in the exchange of ideas."
Lately it seems, I owe my sanity to all of you at the Gulch...Thank you
“If one can isolate the mass, allow no free thinking, no free exchange, no outside corrective, and can hypnotize the group daily with noises, with press and radio and television, with fear and pseudo-enthusiasms, any delusion can be instilled. People will begin to accept the most primitive and inappropriate acts.”
"The only way we can give man the strength to withstand mental infection is through giving him the utmost freedom in the exchange of ideas."
Lately it seems, I owe my sanity to all of you at the Gulch...Thank you
I'll keep saying it. "Those who can make you believe fallacies can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
Yes...we are right on the cusp of that now...
So I bought his book DANGEROUS and started reading it. I find that he is not some sort of idiot kook, but is a real free thinker, loves Ayn Rand, and speaks his mind at the time (albeit a bit graphically and subject to being distilled into sound bites by the media). I would go see him speak if he did so locally, or watch it on TV (probably safer in this land of liberals). He doesnt pretend to be perfect, and he is right out there when it comes to speaking his mind, but I do detect a substantial glimmer of rationality in his thinking. For sure, I would rather have him as a neighbor than a hillary supporter...
So Marxism correctly understands physical reality and consciousness are related and further understands existence has primacy over consciousness. But can it also extend to claim that control over physical reality enables more extensive control over consciousness? That depends on whether it does or does not believe in non-initiation-of-the-use-of-physical-force. An explanation follows:
What Leftism fails to recognize is the axiomaticity of consciousness. While it succeeds in some degree of control, i.e. control over media, industries, healthcare, banking, etc., the Left does not understand that human beings with the power of consciousness, introspection, and independence also have the power to come to opposite conclusions. That is, it does not see alternatives to its own dogma and, as such, is stagnant. The danger of the Left is its refusal to acknowledge Stalinism and thought policing as an essential product of Marxism. Instead, it sees its own authoritarianism as contingent on the eschewing of capitalism. This is why vocal opposition to Marxism and Leftism is critical. The Marxist Left simply cannot extend the claim that control over physical reality enables control over consciousness while there is any understanding that man cannot initiate the use of physical force against others.
The principle of not initiating the use of physical force really is the pillar of our society. It is also what distinguishes garden-variety Socialists from hardcore Communists, the latter of whom believe in violent revolution. Thus, the affirmation and optimism really relies on the fact that even certain brands of communism believe in non-violent socialist revolution. The Marxists do not understand that non-violence undercuts the essential method of Leftist propaganda and thought-control.
One that has a strong connection to the mind can not be controlled. One might be fooled temporarily but conscious introspection will always win out.
They can only influence and control those that have a weak connection to the mind or none at all...after 100 years of "information noise" there are many, maybe even 50% that have no connection to the mind. Just brains in a body reflecting the image of those in control.
This seems like a common foible. When people come to opposite conclusion, it's hard to dig in and find if they are starting from different axioms, using different facts, making a logical error, or some combination of them.
"refusal to acknowledge Stalinism and thought policing as an essential product of Marxism."
Right. Don't most Marxists say Stalin just implemented it wrong?
"it sees its own authoritarianism as contingent on the eschewing of capitalism. "
If the people in question are Marxist, then isn't eschewing capitalism automatic, regardless of its relationship to authoritarianism?
"The principle of not initiating force] is also what distinguishes garden-variety Socialists from hardcore Communists, the latter of whom believe in violent revolution."
Don't both socialists and communists agree with initiating force if the cause (according to them) is just?
"The Marxists do not understand that non-violence undercuts the essential method of Leftist propaganda and thought-control."
You're saying some, not all, Marxists believe in non-violence, and they do not realize Marxism and non-violence don't go together, so they are not very successful? I guess that's a good thing. I assumed when people say they want non-violent Marxism they're lying or defining violence extremely loosely.
B. Yes.
C. The Manifesto mentions "seizing" the means of production.
D. Perhaps you are correct.
E. A good thing. Most of them don't understand what their philosophy requires of someone else. Unfortunately, nor do they care.
I have sat through multiple days of meeting where the Delphi Technique was applied. They tell any ideprndent thinker that "no one else feels the way you do about this." Hogwash! They screen people and assign morons to be handlers and they separate those who do think independently. You have to know it going in, and be prepared to disarm it.
The other day my husband and I were in a waiting room where the TV was set to CBS. We watched the audience cheer and stand up jumping as the daytime female host made her pint. We looked at each other and agreed, it was liek the Roman circus,anything to deep people from actually thinking.
Along tose lines, what is the FBI up to. I knew they had been lonlien with the Colunbine shooters prior to that tragedy, playing mind games under assumed identities. Now, document released yesterday indicate the FBI met with the Sandy Hook shooter the day before that incincident, saying as they left to his mom they wanted him to work for them one day. Really, and just what went on there? Of course that does not fit the agenda of the fake news media to pursue that one, they are in the tank for gun control
She was a victim of the system from the beginning of her life. She was rescued by an FBI agent and they both testified in Congress.
I don't think Congress did anything about it and I also think it still goes on today. The most recent...Vegas shooter comes to mind.
I was going to suggest, again, get a copy of "The True Believer," 1951, Eric Hoffer. But, if you are not familiar with the work, spend some time here
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eric_Ho...
Lots of answers to the questions posed in the article.
It's disconcerting to realize that businessmen, generals, soldiers, men of action are less corrupted by power than intellectuals... You take a conventional man of action, and he's satisfied if you obey. But not the intellectual. He doesn't want you just to obey. He wants you to get down on your knees and praise the one who makes you love what you hate and hate what you love. In other words, whenever the intellectuals are in power, there's soul-raping going on.
Eric Hoffer will be on the book list.
Now, if one "Stirs" all that information around in the glass...Wala! you have integration and that's where the "Smarts" comes from.
So, as one might deduce, Academics and political intellectuals have not a spoon between them.
But to your point...mass delusion goes waaaaaay back, in the way back machine, to the Tower of Babylon...not to mention, going even further back...Oh about 200K years, with the fallen idiots.
The deluded power hungry leaders who will sacrifice lives for a spring rain shower(Mayan) or sacrifice the individual in deep state weapons bazaars.
Now with instant news via the net and billions of connected human receptors a well planned collectivist mind manipulation is under way.
The mainstream media , the education system,
the entertainment industry all push the altruism
that Ayn Rand warned of. Truth is the enemy of socialists and an early casualty. Free speech is under attack in this Uncivil war.
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/p...
Solntsev also examined the problem of "information noise," which creates a dense shield between a person and external reality. This noise may manifest itself in the form of signals, messages, images, or other items of information. The main target of this noise would be the consciousness of a person or a group of people. Behavior modification could be one objective of information noise; another could be to upset an individual's mental capacity to such an extent as to prevent reaction to any stimulus. Solntsev concludes that all levels of a person's psyche (subconscious, conscious, and "superconscious") are potential targets for destabilization.
According to Solntsev, one computer virus capable of affecting a person's psyche is Russian Virus 666. It manifests itself in every 25th frame of a visual display, where it produces a combination of colors that allegedly put computer operators into a trance. The subconscious perception of the new pattern eventually results in arrhythmia of the heart. Other Russian computer specialists, not just Solntsev, talk openly about this "25th frame effect" and its ability to subtly manage a computer user's perceptions. The purpose of this technique is to inject a thought into the viewer's subconscious. It may remind some of the subliminal advertising controversy in the United States in the late 1950s.
Nice metaphoric summary Dob.
But Harken, Awareness is a key factor...suspicion is strong in the surviving ones.
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/p...
Like all the vulgar tweets that celebrities think are acceptable?
Like the vulgar language being used in Star Trek Discovery as if it is humor?
I'm absolutely sure I missed a bunch more!
It's like they are completely ignoring the ACTUAL problem, which is people who are illegally obtaining these drugs and using them without actual need.
This is only going to make it harder for people who have a legitimate need. Note: it's now time to hoard.
I've noticed that just in the past couple of weeks, the flat statement - as though it were actual fact - that there is an opioid crisis caused by legitimate prescriptions has become a FREQUENT flat-out statement on my local NPR station. It's like they are wanting to brainwash us....oh wait....
Then the "now addicted" are converted to illegal drug users to get their fix.
As a Migraine Sufferer, I know how debilitating pain can be. And for $2 to fix it...
Plus, the pain is worse, after treating it, and then stopping.
Now, I took codeine in 1990s and it worked so well, it scared me to never take it again!
So, some amount is this.
But I think this reflects a different reality. A sickness in people whereby they are just "Sick and Tired", and I believe many of the deaths are suicides of sorts.
Honestly, review their last 3-5 years. Mostly middle aged men. Australia has that as their fastest growing suicide groups.
Drugs are hard to want when life is good. But they cover up a lot of problems when life is not!
Or leave it alone. Get out of the Business in its entirety. No FDA, no nothing. Let people do what they want. FDA drugs still cause more deaths every year!
But the long term effects of a drugged up populace are devastating.
The real problem here is the law requiring a doctor's approval for drugs. Obeying your doctor's advice should be voluntary. They work for you, you don't have any duty to obey them.
But if you don't think Doctors are being marketed to... Hang out in your doctors office for an entire day. I have friends who used to be Drug Reps. I have also had to wait 4+hrs in a waiting room to be squeezed in... I Can tell you first hand that there are a LOT of people marketing to the doctors. Taking them to dinner, and encouraging them to prescribe certain drugs, and "share" with them the benefits of opiods, and other drugs while glossing over (or not mentioning) the side-effects.
BTW, one of the reasons I DESPISE a mandate for health insurance is simply because I would NEVER FOLLOW a doctors advice for MANY ailments. While they are great for Dx (description), I do not trust the Rx (prescription) because of the money and dishonesty...
For example, when they say: 50% reduction in heart attacks, and only 10% risk of diabetes. In a 2,000 person study, that is 100 more people getting diabetes, and only a reduction of 1 or 2 people in getting a heart attack. Why, exactly, in a HEAVILY CONTROLLED world are they allowed to report the numbers in such a misleading way? (because they bought the law writers).
The MOST important #s to me: How many people benefit PER 100 (0.1% in the above example) for those taking the medicine. So, you find out, you are 100 times more likely to have a nasty side-effect, than to feel the positive effect of a drug. Seems like THAT would drive our decisions better. And yet it is basically WITHHELD.
They also ignore the extent to which prohibition contributes to the problem. People adopted more potent (volumetrically) opiods to avoid law enforcement. This causes more ODs and more addiction. They do not compare the current level of "crisis" with how it would be if gov't got out of it altogether and let people treated it as a medical, personal, spiritual problem. It's hard to say, but I suspect if gov't stopped all the policing, imprisonment, foreign interdiction, education/propaganda, and so on, the problem would be no worse, maybe even better. If my suspicion is right, we're spending all this money and giving up rights for nothing.
Prohibition of any drugs started with the prohibition of alcohol. But only alcohol prohibition was rescinded, despite it being equally dangerous as other drugs. The "war" on drugs started around 1970, and it goes about as well as any "war" on your own citizens goes. I think it's equal to anti-gun laws in destroying freedom in subtle ways. It's not that people would have used guns or drugs to fight tyranny, but prohibition promotes the idea of citizens as children. It promotes the question "why does anyone need [a dangerous thing]?" "Explain why it should be legal?" instead of "explain why gov't should try to control people who are into it."
I heard a news story the other day about an EPA regulation the Obama administration enacted on the last day of his presidency. I voted for President Obama and supported more environmental protection, so I was ready to support it. It was a law banning a solvent sold in hardware stores with a label warning users you need to use it in a ventilated space. It is safe if used as directed, but the EPA person being interviewed said anything a consumer can have should be absolutely safe. Damn. I couldn't disagree more. I think that attitude is related to gun control and drug prohibition.
However, it is also an error within the original article cited that times of mass delusion lead to totalitarianism. It is hard to show any cause and effect, especially because the primary popular work in the field Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay cited examples from times of intellectual freedom. The iconic Tulip Craze occurred during the Northern Renaissance. I have a similar book, Humbugs of New York: being a Remonstrance against Popular Delusions by David Meredith Reese, M.D., 1838. (My copy is a reprint.) The good doctor exposed animal magnetism, phrenology, and homeopathia, as well as "ultra-temperance", "ultra-abolitionism*, "ultra-protestantism" and "ultra-sectarianism." And I point out that all of that took place at time that we would consider a golden age in our republic.
Millenarianism is a delusion shared by left and right.
Reminds me of my very first lesson in the media. It came from my high school head football coach, many decades ago, who instructed us to never, ever talk to the media. Seemed radical back then. I've stuck to it ever since and have seen many examples of people really harmed by faulty reporting.
I really don't think that the left knows what they are doing...they seem to be the one's in a trance...
I wonder what the "left" and "right" really are. I'd like to think that most people who do not get paid to write about or talk about specific things just want the truth.
Among people writing about test equipment, people are in the Tektronix or Rohde & Schwarz camps, but users just want a way to get visual representation of changing electrical signals. They win when the equipment helps them solve their problems, not when a particular vendor wins.
I have done paid writing for test equipment, so I don't enjoy talking about it as an avocation as much. I have never done paid writing or anything for gov't, so I just want gov't to work--- actually to do very little but do it efficiently. It seems like people who do paid writing about gov't forget that their readers want a good outcome and do not care if the people paying the writer win or lose.
The extreme left has always represented Max Entropy in various forms...including fascism, progressivism and even white supremacisism.
Whereas the the extreme right has always represented 0 entropy or No government control at all...max freedom.
The Country, the Federal Republic, was designed to be slightly right of center...just enough entropy to keep things running smoothly.
As for what they say and what they actually represent,.,. is really up for grabs today; so really, we are left with the question: What do They believe they mean and are they being factually honest.
Just as you point out, the confusion comes in as described in your last paragraph with the all important question.
I 'try' to right about the truths of what is happening on many scales from a verifiable historical sense.
Left to me was always about unions and max government control and the Right was about less government control and more autonomy for the individual but over the past 100 years since the progressive era the lines between them has gotten blurred.
That lack of a stark division was the intention of the left from inception...it's a shame the masses didn't listen to those, like Rand, that tried to warn us.
Yes. In my lifetime I see no major force for this, unfortunately. It seems like we accept gov't control as a fact of life.
Government control has grown because we never had a consensus in the population to limit it as the constitution was designed to do; so now we suffer the consequences of the inaction of each subsequent generation.
In Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 NYC is five floors under water, but civilization as we know and love it continues from the 6th floor on up...
But it's hard to believe a conservative would except the warming nonsense without relying upon his own observations, maybe he's under the delusional spell.
I asked a warming carbon counter the other day what happens to green plant life in the winter or extended colder climates and he rightfully said, it goes dormant. I said correct, so what do you suppose happens to all that carbon that is usually used by those plants during the day time....and he looked at me strangely...then sheepishly replied...Oh yea, never thought of that.
He is the only one so far that got it first try. Then I told him to look up Grand Solar Minimums and the Maunder Minimum.
We will see where he lands.
What i do believe in is trying to find more environment-friendly ways of doing things like industry, regardless of climate change. I was in the Hong Kong area one day when the smog was rather bad (wind came blowing from the mainland). I know that that can't be good for your health, especially areas that are worse off like Beijing and a lot of cities in India
But the key factor here is that environment has no effect upon climate cycles, the upper atmosphere nor short term weather.
what happens in the troposphere generally stays in the troposphere.
Putting all or most of the temperature reporting stations in the hottest spots in the cities only proves that cities are a problem but when it's all averaged out, we have had no effect upon earth other than polluting the water and the troposphere.
Polluting the water is directly related to bureaucratic environ[mental]ism using fluoride, too much chlorine and other chemicals that kill the good stuff in the water and doing nothing to the really bad stuff.
See: http://suspicious0bservers.org and ADAPT2030-youtube for a more accurate/honest view of what's goin on.
Hearing that tap water in the United States has fluorine/chlorine fazes me. I found it strange to taste water with chlorine in Disneyland Hong Kong a couple of months ago, it just didn't feel right to me
I like that you treat the excess calcium in the water. It ages us, causes blockages and other harms to the body. Mankind was not meant to consume "ROCK". We get our calcium from plants.
It seems like this idea is so popular it's become a cliche. In the show 30 Rock, someone asks the protagonists what politics she follows. She says "fiscally liberal, socially conservative," in an extremely perfunctory way that suggests it was such a trite platitude that she didn't even notice she had said it backwards.
It I'm right and this cliche goes beyond my little bubble, I wonder why we don't see any mainstream candidates offering fiscal conservatism. My guess is that we only want it in the way we want to eat right, exercise, and always get enough time to for sleep and recreation. We want to balance the budget but cutting waste, without touching social security, military, medical assistance, scientific research, grants that benefit us, or raising taxes.
But the fact that it's a cliche gives me some hope.
Just think of the "name calling" or the ideological consequences as an acronym...it saves paper and trees...laughing hysterically.
It's possible that they're just words I don't know. There must be a website that decodes phrases like this: delusional totalitarian intelligentsia, otherkin hate, suffragettes (in modern times), ace erasure. I think I'm getting old; I prefer the old-school words. Whenever I hear about "social justice warriors" I imagine the sweet old ladies on the church social justice committee turning warlike. When I read "totalitarian intelligentsia", I thought of the Soviet Union. "Ace erasure" is my joking catchall for things that are annoying. I know what it really means, but I don't really get why it's a word.
If your having a tough time with social justice warriors, I'd suggest viewing episode 7 of the Orvill on Fox TV...you can see the episodes on the internet...I kind of binged on them yesterday. Not sure I like the series, kind of dumb at times and not funny but that episode would give you a proper picture of SJW's in action.
I watched the first episode, and I've been meaning to watch the rest.
They should come up with another name for those. Those old ladies at church took it first. But they're not warriors. Maybe they're "social justice stewards" or something, and I'm a social justice "supporter" if I make my pledge contributions and send my kids to RE to learn about social justice.
SJW's are the one's that fear Free Speech, reasoned fact based observations and accountability for their own actions and enforced thought policing upon others.. They are, no matter how good SJW sounds...the results of delusion and information noise.
I'd sooner, one be judged by the content of one's character and yes, be judged fairly; not to mention, Judged fairly in a court of law by a jury of one's peers.