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Human Brain Conditioner: Human Nature is a Top Secret Affair
Over the past several weeks, I have focused on the quasi “post-mortem dump” of the so-called media‘s election coverage in the United States. I no longer usually pay much attention to the junk that has increasingly become known as “mainstream media” — I prefer to focus more on the distinction between “rational media and “irrational media” (see e.g. “Rational Media” [ https://phlat.design.blog/2024/01/14/rational-media ] ).
Just a few day ago, I wrote a longish essay that spans media trends over the past half millennium (since about the time of Gutenberg’s printing press — see “Taking words out of context and thereby thinking outside of the box” [ https://contextual.news.blog/2024/12/05/taking-words-out-of-context-and-thereby-thinking-outside-of-the-box ] ). In my long and winding blathering I also touched upon a concept which became quite popular during the Enlightenment: “Natural Law”.
In the past few days of reflecting upon those reflections, I am now struck (yet again, since I have noted this before [at least privately] ) by an oversight in both natural sciences and social sciences over the past few centuries (i.e. since the Enlightenment): there is no longer widespread publishing and communication about scientific discoveries.
Increasingly, scientists do their scientific work (and thereby produce “science“) behind closed doors. Whether in a lab in Wuhan, China or in a video studio in New York, Hollywood, Austin or indeed anywhere in America there are people studying anything and everything from the most itty bitty microscopic tidbit to a full-blown celebrity impression, and especially inside of cyberspace headquarters, top-notch geeks sit around conference tables and study what kinds of impact each and every pixel on their platforms will have on each and every message blurted out through each and every application, advertisement and whatnot more.
All of this manipulation and manipulative propaganda scheming is (of course) TOP SECRET. The algorithms are TOP SECRET. The money is TOP SECRET. The deals are TOP SECRET. Pretty much everything is TOP SECRET.
One thing, that is NOT a secret is a very well-known fact on Wall Street: this is a very big deal, and this is very BIG BUSINESS. Billions of suckers are being duped every day, and they are even standing in line waiting to pay an entrance fee to the REALLY BIG SHOW.
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Dispatch from the Other Side
Now that we’re in full-on Christmas season, I’m beginning to take stock of all the so-called “news” I’ve been avoiding over the past several weeks.
The last thing I remember being aware of was the fact that when the election in the United States was decided, the German coalition government fell apart immediately — it was in fact the very same day. I found that very curious.
Since then, it seems to me like a large quantity of hot air has been expressed.
Source: https://www.rollingstone.de/nirvana-nevermind-baby-wird-zum-prozesshansel-2401073 It also appears as if a large portion of the propaganda industry may be a little lost — but only in America. Locally, it appears that Germany has now caught on to smear campaign tactics (maybe just about half a century after they were introduced) and are pressing forward full speed ahead in an effort to Blitzkrieg the centrist myth into the minds of so-called mainstream media consumers, and thereby to prevent so-called extremists and radicals from exercising free speech and similar dubious tactics. Here, mainstream remains everything but sidelined.
The general tenor is that whereas the USA has now completely lost the plot, good old-fashioned mainstream propaganda should be able to guarantee more of the same regardless of real-world nuisances such as widespread crumbling output from almost every other industry.
Nonetheless, there is a spectre haunting Europe — the spectre of recession (if not even outright depression). Let’s wait and see if they can make an awful lot of hot air in Berlin.
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Interesting Things
What interests you? This is a question I have by mulling over (with one of my best friends) during our annual November retreat. And just today, we also introduced the notion of (grammatical) subjects and objects of attention into the mix of ideas.
He is fully aware of what has been not only fully but also increasingly the focus of my attention over the past several decades, namely so-called natural language. I recall how just about a year ago I was chatting in a bar with some new acquaintances coming from academic circles … particularly how I drew attention to natural language by contrasting it with the newfangled notion of artificial languages.
But I digress … .
Source; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_shoe Today many people find things like IG or YT or whatever platform interesting — and I wonder what these people find interesting about these things. If I was to be informed of some natural disaster, or a similarly significant “world event”, would I care whether such information arrived via IG or YT or whatever else (maybe “X”)? I have long held while “content is king”, context is queen (and that she wears the pants) … yet what is the contextual information provided by the beloved platforms which the herds and masses of men (and women) flock to in order to check out “what’s going on?” [1]
In my humble opinion, the only thing these so-called platforms bring to the contextual equations is rules and regulations about things that are allowed to happen on the platform (or not). In this vein, the corresponding platform audiences self-select into buckets and categories of attention limits — in other words: mostly self-imposed attention limits. Some people might even go so far as to say these various platforms are selected in acts of self-censorship.
[1] For more about various implications of context, see also “Contextual Meanings” [ https://contextual.news.blog ]
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Be There or Be Square?
I am currently travelling, so being somewhere somewhat escapes me.
I am currently also quite focused on interpersonal matters, so phrases like “be there or be square” are currently particularly intriguing.
If you don’t wish to offend someone by saying that they are boring or uncool, it would be best to avoid this phrase and to use an alternative phrase instead, such as ‘I hope you can make it’.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/be-there-or-be-square
I have very little (or nothing) to conclude here — apart from (perhaps) that I feel as though this sort of threat is often woven into the fabric of communications in a competitive atmosphere.
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Mediation Between Rational Media and Real World Advertising Interests
A little over a week ago, I posted a review of a blog post which mentioned using Google to search for typing.com [1] and of course I was amused that someone (and indeed people in general) still feel an urge to continue using irrational media. [2]
Curious nonetheless, I went to check out typing.com — and was amazed to find what seems to be a very highly organized and professional website, plus a portfolio of other websites, all highly focused within the broad field of education (e.g. teaching.com and reading.com).
This very impressive offering includes an “About Us” page with a link to a manifesto that is also nothing short of phenomenal. All in all, I guess you could say I’m blown away.
And yet there’s also a catch. What seems to be pure success is also mired with spyware. A quick glance at the source code of typing.com revealed tracking by Google Analytics.
While I understand the short-term motivation to sell users down the river to this marketing and advertising behemoth, I always feel it is such a pity to disrespect your own target audience this way. Which parent would say to their own child that it’s perfectly OK to accept candy from strangers? This case is actually even more extreme, as Google has never been particularly secretive about their information gathering schemes. [3]
And of course this Silicon Valley giant is such a fat cat that most companies see a clear path to Eldorado via Mountain View.
I agree that it takes a lot of guts to say something like “I don’t believe in Beatles” (see “Case Study in the Contrast Between Rational vs. Irrational Media: “I Don’t Believe in Beatles”“) and today it (oddly?) seems to be as ordinary as apple pie to believe in the Pope (see “If Google is the Pope of the Internet, Then Who Are You & I?“).
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_pie #[1] See “One day I just decided that I wanted to get better at typing so after a quick google search I found Typing.com” [ https://wants.blog/2024/11/01/one-day-i-just-decided-that-i-wanted-to-get-better-at-typing-so-after-a-quick-google-search-i-found-typing-com ]
[2] See “Rational Media” [ https://phlat.design.blog/2024/01/14/rational-media ]
[3] Then again, see also “The BIC Browser is Watching You“
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After More than 2 Decades of Blogging, When Will We Ever Be Able to Clearly Define What is a Blog?
I am quite certain that most people feel quite differently than I do about what the term “Blog” refers to. Personally, I feel I stick rather closely to the original understanding that it’s shorthand for “weblog” (see also “Captain’s Log“). In my humble opinion, a blog is the result of using software to create a list of entries that are (at least) chronologically ordered (and may also be organized in other ways).
Yet for most people, I think “blog” means primarily something created be an individual. Thus, I disagree with most people insofar as I view things like twitter.com as a blog for billions of users (both people and robots 😉 ), yet most people don’t.
This is why most people seem to view most (if not all) blogs as ridiculous and insignificant. Just the other day I did a somewhat “deep dive” into this queer prejudice here: “The Innumerable Empty Spaces that Separate Big Things from Small Things” [ https://phlat.design.blog/2024/11/02/the-innumerable-empty-spaces-that-separate-big-things-from-small-things ].
Most people are more or less completely lost online — they have little or no publicacy skills whatsoever (see also “What is Publicacy + Why does it Matter?“). Since they have little or no knowledge about the vast amounts of personal information they voluntarily share with marketing companies and spy organizations (see “The BIC Browser is Watching You“), they are oblivious to the propaganda they consume on a daily basis as if it were something like scientific knowledge. I am beginning to think that nothing short of a holocaust will ever motivate a sizable portion of the population to wake up.
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Crickets …
I have to admit that I am a little disappointed with the complete lack of any response from Mrs, Müller (see “Technology + Culture + Ethics + Education in Deutschland (Interview with Silke Müller)” [ https://europe.politics.blog/2024/10/20/technology-culture-ethics-education-in-deutschland-interview-with-silke-muller ] ).
After the event which we both attended, she and I had a chance to talk briefly before she was whisked away to somewhere else. I asked about how I could reach her, she mentioned her website and then I followed up the very same day … which is now almost 2 months ago.
Apart from an auto-reply email I received from some robotic machine, I have heard nothing … but crickets (in my mind, I guess 😉 ) ….
“Staying safe in cricket swarms” [ https://elkodaily.com/news/local/ndot-helps-with-safety-when-mormon-crickets-swarm-roadways/article_80b7a1ac-1708-11ef-b260-dbd1d64fe25a.html ] I have addressed many different facets of this problem over the years (e.g. “How to Explain Ignorance” [ https://socio.business.blog/2023/09/10/how-to-explain-ignorance ] ). I was chatting with a friend shortly after the event and I joked how the professor I mentioned last week will probably instruct the people attending the seminar about using Google for “research”. 😛 My friend has since come back with some comments about narcissism and how some people are very much focused on advancing themselves (or their own “careers”) with little or hardly any thought of the world around them.
I myself have often alluded to the metaphor of the French Revolution as a depiction of how “out of touch” some people can be about their own impending doom. Today, I have an eerie notion about how there seems to be a parallel to the completely meaningless murmur of crickets becoming louder and louder day by day.
It seems quite quick, simple and easy to simply shrug and “shake it off” — doesn’t it?
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Is Fake News a Dilemma (or maybe an Industry)?
I’m a little late with this week’s post — but I do have an excuse! 😀
I had to prepare some other texts, which I will refer to below.
The question in the title is inspired by recent remarks made by Silke Müller — see “Technology + Culture + Ethics + Education in Deutschland (Interview with Silke Müller)” [ https://europe.politics.blog/2024/10/20/technology-culture-ethics-education-in-deutschland-interview-with-silke-muller ].
Silke Müller (HomBuch 2024) She and I both attended an event in which she presented her latest book and I (and others) were invited to ask questions. I have transcribed my question and her answers … albeit in German (see “Technologie + Kultur + Ethik + Erziehung in Deutschland (Interview mit Silke Müller) — Aufruf zur Transkription” [ https://europa.politics.blog/2024/10/20/technologie-kultur-ethik-erziehung-in-deutschland-interview-mit-silke-muller-aufruf-zur-transkription ] ). I may try to translate them sometime, but I did not have enough time to do that yet.
At the event, a professor from a university “artificial intelligence” department offered support for a week-long training seminar having to do with issues I raised (and which Mrs. Müller replied to, mentioning that schools and teachers are presently not well prepared to help students learn the required skills). Yet I wonder: if a university department which receives money from an advertising agency, is that a good place to learn something (such as “critical thinking skills”) about how students ought to interpret so-called “information” from the advertising industry?
In Germany and America, there is much talk about how Putin (or some “Russian propaganda” machine) creates “fake news”. I find it odd that there is so little being said about how some of the largest corporations on the entire planet create “fake news” — insofar as advertising is not only their first and foremost business model but in some cases also upwards of 99% of their income — they actually make money by making fake news 24/7/365!
Perhaps what Mrs. Müller refers to as a “dilemma” has more to do with calling Russians bad versus calling Americans good?
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The Smartest Person in the Room
I think I have (so far) never yet felt like the smartest person in the room. There seems to be a somewhat common saying (though I think I’ve more often seen it printed than actually said) that goes along the lines of:
If you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room.
common saying (no known particular historical source)If I think of some of the smartest persons I recall from stories about their existence, many or even most of them were outcasts from the worlds they lived in. [1]
One thing about such sayings which seem to get repeated time after time is that over the decades and perhaps even the centuries during which they get repeated the individual words gradually change their meanings, the concepts become ever more distant from the contexts in which they were conceptualized, and so on.
I believe this is also the case here. “Room” used to be a much more significant concept than it is today. Time and space are becoming ever more fictional constructs we use to orient ourselves in the world, but which also seem quite unfounded. I recall reading a text decades ago in which the author succeeded in “blowing me away” with the suggestion that “localisation” was becoming ever more important, yet that it was also becoming ever less meaningful in its geographical sense.
Likewise, whenever there is talk about breaking up some corporate structure, I wonder whether the people engaged in that decision-making process are at all aware of the insignificance of legal documents when the real deal is about things like propaganda, influence, etc. Yet I digress….
Whether being the smartest person means that you are in the right room or the wrong room, whether being the smartest person is a good thing or a bad thing — it all depends on what that smartest person wants to achieve.
If the smartest person wants to learn something new, then being the smartest person (or even just feeling that way) might be a problem.
On the other hand, if the smartest person wants to produce wisdom rather than to behave as a consumer of wisdom, knowledge, insight, whatever … then that may very well be a useful situation for all persons concerned (provided the other persons are likewise interested in learning something about the topic the smartest person apparently knows the most about).
So what does this have to do with ordinary people living ordinary lives in the ordinary world?
Well, I think most people are always (more or less) curious to learn something new. Indeed, the world we live in is built out of many socially constructed markers that are used extensively throughout our everyday lives. These constructs organize a lot of information. Let me give you some examples. First, ever since time immemorial, pulpits have been used by preachers. Every day, people working in a wide variety of fields employ uniforms to signify their level of authority. Likewise, innumerable types of documents and symbols are used day in and day out ranging from a courtroom gavel all the way down to the registered trademark printed on the wrapper of many things a person might pop into their mouth on a daily basis.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shure_55SH One of the newest and most prominent symbols in widespread use today is the microphone. In recent decades, high ranking people would often appear in front of many microphones. And even today, very large and obviously significant microphones are very openly and visibly on display in front of people to make those people appear to be the smartest person in the room.
[1] First and foremost Socrates, yet also innumerable others, e.g. Galileo, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jimi Hendrix, …. I notice that these persons’ use of language plays a very significant role in my evaluation — consider, for example, Jimi Hendrix’s very well-known quip “Are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced?”, which (in my humble opinion) focuses on a very modern notion of “experience”.
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Is Reliability a Matter of Communal Religious Belief?
I think perhaps reliability is actually a matter of a communally shared belief. Community members may actually consider something to be reliable because other members of the community believe in (more or less) the same thing. [1]
This past week a few things appeared on my radar which reminded me of how central the notion of reliability is to much of human behavior. There are probably far too many instances of how what we consider to be reliable information affects our behavior in various nuanced ways … this may very well be such an intricate matter that it cannot be measured reliably outside of strictly controlled laboratory conditions.
Two events in particular intrigued me — probably mostly due to how much the corresponding milieus are major influences on my everyday life.
Firstly, I heard an interview on the radio with a representative from Wikimedia / Wikipedia (or whatever person was invited to speak on the radio station). The person mentioned that Wikipedia requires (at least) two reliable sources for any information allowed. It was not actually specified what qualifies as an “information unit” — i.e., whether every single sentence counts as a separate information unit, or whether this applies only to every single wikipedia page. Yet this was not the first thing I thought of when I heard these remarks (which were presumably made to pitch the show in an anti-radical way how much the wikipedia project cements the “establishment” media landscape).
What I thought of first of all is the reason why wikipedia.org pages rank so prominently on Google’s so-called “search” engine. For many years now my answer to this question has been a sort of vague impression, along the lines of “maybe wikipedia.org is awarded a reliability bonus because Google wants to guarantee that at least one result could be considered reliable“. Yet when this person so vehemently underscored the degree to which wikipedia.org only allows observations made via establishment media sources, a light bulb turned on in my head: the reason why Google supports Wikipedia is that the conditions required by Wikipedia’s management positively affect Google’s “bottom line”.
Wikipedia is brought to you by Google [2] The documentation describing how wikipedia.org is regulated is quite vast — and ironically, its own rules would prohibit me from citing Wikipedia pages as sources of reliable information about Wikipedia. For example, the page about “independent sources” presents the following overview [2]:
In the case of a Wikipedia article about a website, for example, independent sources would include an article in a newspaper which describes the site, but a reference to the site itself would lack independence (and would instead be considered a primary source). [ … ] These simple examples need to be interpreted with all the facts and circumstances in mind. For example, a newspaper that depends on advertising revenue might not be truly independent in their coverage of the local businesses that advertise in the paper. As well, a newspaper owned by person X might not be truly independent in its coverage of person X and their business activities. [2] All in all, my conclusion is that Google and Wikipedia are collaborateurs par excellence. Not only attention but also cold hard cash flows like milk and honey between these two organizations. In contrast, you and I (see “If Google is the Pope of the Internet, Then Who Are You & I?“) are left to eating the dogs, eating the cats, eating whatever scraps we can manage to get our grubby little fingers on with the mere click of a mouse (see also “When the Hitler-Youth Woke Up, They Found They Were Not Only Being Mesmerized, But They Were Also Being Starved to Death“)
The other event which appeared on my screen is much less clear to me — except in one regard: apparently, WordPress has lately become embroiled in a battle over its trademark(s). My only takeaway from this so far is that it is yet another case to document how “irrational media” are not reliable (see “Rational Media” [ https://phlat.design.blog/2024/01/14/rational-media ] ).
[1] For more about delineation of separate communities, see also “Propaganda Information Technology vs. Indigena Information Technology — the Basic Idea” [ https://indigenous.news.blog/2022/05/07/propaganda-information-technology-vs-indigena-information-technology-the-basic-idea ]
[2] source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Independent_sources
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