Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
THE GOOD WAR?
Well, another thing I would have hoped to avoid seeing in my lifetime: A popular war. More exactly, a wildly popular war. The last time this really took off on a national scale was during World War Two. At least from my understanding of history, that was before my time. So it’s not surprising that the current war is being compared to that one. Saw a guy online ranting that Putin was now the equivalent of Hitler and had destroyed Russia’s world standing for generations. Words can’t describe how ridiculous that is. And the mainstream media is almost pure war porn and war mongering now. With Zellensky and Biden stridently calling for endless war.
Aside from the mind numbing hypocrisy of the US accusing Russia of aggression, possibly the greatest case of the pot calling the kettle black in history, Zellensky refuses to even talk to Russia, and he’s even claiming they will get “all” of Ukraine back including Crimea. As I have pointed out before (one will never see this mentioned in the western news) Crimea was only part of Ukraine through historical accident, it was administratively added to Ukraine in the 1950s when both were part of the Soviet Union, but the people there are Russian and never wanted to be a part of an independent Ukraine. Basically Zellensky is claiming he’s justified in conquering a land full of Russians that doesn’t want to be part of Ukraine.
Yet Americans are convinced Zellensky and Ukraine are fighting for their freedom from Russia, and it’s a noble cause that must be pursued at all cost. And the cost is western gas and food prices going through the roof, and the Dems getting hammered in the fall elections. No, there’s nothing noble, the Russo-Ukrainian War is just another American manufactured war. it’s the war the Deep State (or the Blob or the Atlantic Empire, or whatever you want to call the nexus of power in the western world, Washington, the New Rome) wants and worked hard to get.
The big picture. World War Two was enormously profitable, historically profitable, for the American fossil fuel industry, arms industry, and the Pentagon. I mean these guys usually profit in modern war, but this time it was all profit, the American homeland was unbothered by World War Two. So after the war, they and Washington were already in bed together, so the cozy arrangement continued. Endless war, the Cold War, endless profits. The military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about. And now, I guess it’s a habit? A strategy like what bees and ants do? America chooses its enemies, and works hard to keep them enemies.
Russia tried to join the west, the USA wouldn’t let them. Global Reform and How the US Hurts Itself. Most Americans though have bought the complete twaddle that certain regimes are “evil”
and that treating them with anything but complete hostility is appeasement; can’t have that, it will unleash a new Hitler upon the world. Neither Saddam nor Putin had a whole lot in common with Hitler, and the Russo-Ukrainian War isn’t Hitler invading Poland. In fact as far as I can tell under the blizzard of propaganda is that both sides are being relatively restrained and trying to only hit military targets.
Neither side gains anything by trying to destroy key infrastructure or cause mass casualty attacks. Russia’s goals are limited and not served by deliberately targeting infrastructure or civilians. Neither are Ukraine’s, destroying the Russian bridge to Crimea or otherwise causing mass harm to Russia runs the very real risk the Russians would escalate in kind. Russia has lots of nuclear weapons, an escalation Ukraine can’t match.
Another huge personal conundrum … there’s really no way to know what’s actually going on in this war. This article for example: Day 150 of the Russo-Ukrainian War. If it’s even half true, the war has gone very badly for Ukraine. Yet the west is mostly claiming that the plucky Ukrainians are inflicting terrible casualties on Russia. Then there’s this: The War ‘Diplomat’: How Borrell and the West Lost the ‘Global Battle of Narratives’ Yes, only America’s allies have bought into the NATO crusade against Russia. Claiming this is “losing the global battle of narratives” strikes me as odd at best, deluded at worst. The point here is that if Russia is actually winning the war, and it’s not an unreasonable conjecture, while NATO and Ukraine think they’re winning … this war could last a long time.
And since we’re talking about a proxy war between the US and one of its two great global designated enemies, serious business. Another such war is still going on after 72 years. That would be the Korean War, still technically just a cease fire. The US has never agreed to negotiate the end of the war, so the war still sits stalemated with both sides armed to the teeth staring at each other across the DMZ. Forever war, forever arms sales, forever Pentagon spending. The only losers are everyone else.
Sometimes I wish I was as sure of my world view as almost everyone else is. It quickly passes. I am sure that war is a bad thing all around. There’s no such thing as a good war.
Copyright © 2022 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Self explanatory, attribution in image, found on Facebook. Believed to be legal use under US copyright law, claimed as Fair Use in any event.)
“AS FOR SELF-DECEIT, MOST PEOPLE FIND IT AS ESSENTIAL FOR SURVIVAL AS AIR.”
My computer blew up recently. That’s not really why I haven’t posted though. Long story short, over the past year there’s been a sea change in how I view the world. The title above (from “Forever Odd” by Dean Koontz) sums it up. I think this change of perspective is a good thing, something I already knew on many levels. In some ways it’s something that has perplexed me all my life. For good or for ill, my parents instilled in me a strong aversion to lying from an early age. I mean, the logic seemed impeccable to me, in order to get along with each other shouldn’t the truth be the foundation? So I innocently went through my childhood believing what was told to me. And in retrospect some kids (and grown ups) told me some real whoppers.
And of course it was not unusual for me to be accused of lying when in fact I was telling the truth. Still, I felt these were the exceptions, not the rule. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I really understood that many adults lied routinely. And even then, the scope of the problem eluded me for decades. I knew people lied, I knew self deception was real, but I still routinely expected most people to tell the truth most of the time. I had a reasonably good opinion of humanity.
This is no longer the case. I now think most people’s lives are a snake’s nest of lies, and most people aren’t even really cognizant of them. It all started to fall apart when I moved to Iowa in 2016. I quickly discovered that my old friend of 40 years was a liar, cheater, and thief. As I said to her brother at the time, “she must use a spreadsheet to keep track of all her lies.” And upon review I’ve realized that a lot of people I’ve known for a long time are, shall we say, remarkably dishonest. What does this all mean? It means I need to be ever more careful to be honest with myself, and to pick my friends more carefully. Easier said than done, but I’m trying.
In addition to my personal life, does this have any global lessons? Or global perspectives? I think it does. While engaging in my world view revision, I came across this: In-Group Cognitive Bias – NeuroLogica Blog. In a nutshell, people are very tribal by nature, and very prone to believing nonsense about people who aren’t in the tribe. And since self-deception is so innate in humans, it makes it much easier for “leaders” to get their tribal members to swallow nonsense. So in essence this new world view has made it clearer to me why so many people are easily propagandized by religion or politics. My today’s theory at least. I find this incredibly depressing.
And this is why my blog has limited appeal. I’m consciously trying to avoid any in-group bias, so my appeal is limited to say the least. Almost everyone belongs to an in-group of some sort, and most are quite fervent in their beliefs. Oddly enough, a huge part of these beliefs is believing the other groups are deluded. True enough, that’s the best sort of lie, a lie that’s true … but leaves something big out. The fact that they too are deluded. In different ways and different formds, and some delusions are obviously far more dangerous than others. But the difference is in intensity, not in kind. And even that distinction can be meaningless if the result is horror.
For example: Democrats Love Saying That AR-15s Should Only Be Used On Foreigners. The title pretty much sums it up, Dems love to decry the horrors inflicted on America by assault rifle wielding Americans, but think it’s perfectly reasonable that they be used in other countries. George Takei (whose opinion I formerly respected) sums up this craziness exactly: “Crazy thought, but those 20 million AR-15s now in this country could sure arm a lot of Ukrainians.” Mr Takei, what’s going on in Ukraine is a nightmare, adding more weapons is going to just make it worse. American AR-15 owners need have no worries, the US is sending plenty of other weapons to Ukraine and doing its best to avoid even the possibility of a diplomatic solution.
So what’s to do? I will continue to post articles that I think are interesting or illuminating. This is a favorite recent one, the Chilean Navy UFO. (image above.) This picture was taken by an infrared camera on a Chilean Navy helicopter in 2014. Ten minutes of seemingly inexplicable footage was taken. They turned it over to the Chilean government’s CEFAA Committee (Committee for Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena,) yes, Chile too has a government bureau charged with investigating UFO reports. The CEFAA studied the video for two years, and concluded they had no idea what it was. Then they released it to the public with this statement:
“The great majority of committee members agreed to call the subject in question a UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon) due to the number of highly researched reasons that it was unanimously agreed could not explain it.”
So that settles it, right, a rock solid film of an inexplicable flying object! UFOs are real! Wait, wouldn’t this then be world news? Wouldn’t everyone have heard of it? Not quite. Literally within days of releasing the video it had been positively identified by internet sleuths … as an airliner. In fact exactly what airliner and airline flight it was was determined. Read the whole story here: The Chilean Navy UFO.
Kinda sums up the whole UFO mythology. People that believe in such simply can’t or won’t look for actual solutions and convince themselves there is a mystery where there is none. Governments might as well set up agencies to investigate fairy sightings. UFOs are just a modern version of ghosts or fairies. As I have said before “The Middle Ages never ended, we just have cooler stuff.”
Oh well, more links in the next post. Which will hopefully be in days instead of weeks. Have a great weekend everyone.
Copyright © 2022 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Copyright unknown, probably Credit: CEFAA. Claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. Arguably an historically important image, and there is no other such image available to illustrate this sighting.)
COVIDIOCY RAGES ON
Covid rages on. I was feeling maybe it was odd to post yet again about Covid, then I realized that’s BS thinking. The Covid pandemic the worst mass death event of my life, the third or fourth worst mass death event in US history, killing more than a thousand people a day still. World War Two only killed about 200 people a day, Vietnam only about 10 per day, and those were top daily news for the duration. That a huge number of Americans and their chosen media/political spokespeople want to pretend Covid is no big deal or it’s almost over is their fantasy, no need to let it infect my thinking.
Officially the US death toll is approaching seven hundred thousand. That’s nearly one American in every five hundred dead. Most of us have lost a friend or loved one to Covid. Unofficially, and in reality, the death toll is around one million dead. That’s because a lot of Covid deaths go unreported, and more importantly, the strain on a health care system overwhelmed with Covid patients means people die because they couldn’t get treatment, this fellow being a good example: Veteran Dies Of Treatable Issue Because ICU Beds Are Filled With COVID Cases. One million dead Americans. How can that not be the top of the news while the pandemic is still raging? Beats me, I chalk it up to a normal human impulse to pretend everything is fine, especially when urged on by their political and religious leaders to think everything is fine.
In many ways it comes down to people not wanting to listen to the experiences of others. This is a fine take on it, including the terrible price paid by so many public Covid and vaccine deniers (Spoiler, they died of Covid:) Leonard Pitts Jr.: The wisdom of experience is a priceless gift … that many spurn. Or as a young friend once put it: “Never give advice. Fools won’t heed it and the wise don’t need it.” She was paraphrasing Ben Franklin, a wise man if there ever was one. A couple other cases just for fun: Texas GOP Official Mocked COVID Five Days Before He Died of Virus and QAnon conspiracist dies from COVID-19 he called a hoax to the very end.
On the plus side, Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers are dropping like flies. At this point I have zero sympathy for people who die of Covid because they refused to get vaccinated or otherwise take precautions against Covid. Covid is getting more dangerous: New strain in deadly delta variant surfaces after 53,000-person festival: report. Sadly a lot of people who were taking precautions are dying now, have since the beginning, since the anti-vaxxers and their ilk make the situation worse for everyone, especially when in positions of power: Florida police departments rocked by 29 COVID deaths as DeSantis bungles pandemic response. Basically as Covid mutates into more dangerous forms America’s Anti-Vaxxers Are Getting More Dangerous.
And frankly some people are getting tired of it: It’s time to listen to the ‘adults’ and ignore those who refuse the COVID vaccines: national security expert. I’m certainly tired of it. Mandatory measures to protect public health are perfectly reasonable. It’s kinda the whole effing point of civilization. The rest of the world is getting tired of it too: Covid: EU recommends new travel restrictions for US as cases rise. Sadly while many US states are doing everything they can to fight Covid, some aren’t, and Covid deaths will continue. One has to wonder where we’d be if concerted national efforts to fight Covid had been launched from the get go, at the very least a lot fewer Americans would be dead.
It’s just weird living in a country where rampant stupidity is the norm in some quarters: Shane Vaughn Claims COVID-19 Vaccines Don’t Work Because The US Is Under God’s Judgment. First of all, the vaccines work just fine. The vast majority of people catching Covid in the USA now were unvaccinated. Secondly, what is it with Evangelicals and their obsession with what consenting adults do with their genitals? Frankly it’s a perverted obsession, especially the idea that some sort of “supreme being” is also concerned about it. One would think any sort of loving God would be concerned about murder, rape, and children being molested; not gay people having sex.
Speaking of imagining a God concerned about weird things: ‘Get a Brain’: Hank Kunneman Warns of Dire Consequences if Trump Is Not Reinstated. Um, not even sure where to start. Trump, the most unpopular president in modern times, lost his reelection bid. Not debatable, but that doesn’t stop Trump and his supporters continuing his “the election was stolen” lie. I think that’s one of the things I most hate about Trump, he’s completely normalized politicians lying through their teeth. Like this whopper: Lindsey Graham: ‘Whose decision was it to pull all of the troops out… I just don’t know’. Of course he knows, it was Trump that signed the deal with the Taliban to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan.
The theory that I died in my fall two and a half years ago and the ever increasing ignorance, stupidity, lies, death, and confusion since is just some sort of Donny Darko madness in my dying brain seems more credible all the time. What can I say, dark depressing times both in the nation at large and what’s left of my personal life. Fun times. Have a great week and stay safe everyone, especially those in Louisiana.
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. Credit: This Is Fine creator explains the timelessness of his meme.)
WHAT DO AIS AND DATING SITE SCAMS HAVE IN COMMON? PLUS JUNE 22ND
So I’ve been checking out some dating sites lately. They’ve come a long way since I last looked. And I’ve been there the whole time, I did computer dating in the late 1970s. And that was one computer nerd who wrote a program and advertised it locally, in Davis, USA. Worked for me, it hooked up my housemate to a girl I dated for years, was friends with for decades. Now, it’s much more sophisticated. And the scammers are as well. Well, scammers and sex workers. Neither of which I have a problem with. Hey, poor people in the second and third world want to scam gullible Americans out of their money, go for it. And sex workers can’t advertise openly and safely because this is Kristian Amerika, so they have to do so subtly on dating and rental sites. I digress.
So seeing as I have no interest in sending money to scammers or seeking the services of sex workers, I need to figure out how to filter out same. The sex workers are pretty easy, if their pics involve T&A shots with a sparse profile looking for hookups: sex worker. The scammers, boy, they have gotten a lot more sophisticated. The best ones have very real looking profiles. And when messaged, the responses can be well written as well. They tend to have a cut and paste look though, IE neat message, but only superficially at best a response to my prior message. And when I suspect a scammer, I ask a very specific question. Or better yet, say something completely nonsensical. Jeez, sent a nonsense response to one, got an obvious cut and paste message to the effect of “Wow, thanks for sharing that information with me.” Busted.
So, I realized I am essentially running a variant of the Turing Test on possible scammers. The Turing Test is basically the idea of interfacing with a subject via text exchange and determining if it is a human or a computer. Brilliant concept really, because it doesn’t concern itself with whether a computer can become conscious and self aware, it limits the question to, can a software program fake human responses enough to fool humans?
And we’re real close folks. We are close to the point where it’s going to be hard to tell if we are interacting with a person or software. Phone a business, will one be talking to software or a person? And think about this. How many professions are essentially ‘talking to people?’ The ones that can run remotely, a Zoom image or whatever works as well. The image of a person on a video feed is just pixels on a screen, all manipulable by software. AIs are going to put a lot of people out of work, every telemarketer on the planet for starters.
As for pixels on a screen, that’s what movies and TV series are, right? So why couldn’t an AI create movies? It’s just a more sophisticated chess calculator. Or series. There have to be an infinite number of possible ‘Simpsons’ episodes, right? So why couldn’t software write new ones? Think of it, every TV show or movie the gentle reader ever liked available with countless computer generated sequels/episodes. Young Sean Connery could star in thousands of James Bond films. Peeps will be able to buy software that will create movies or series to order.
Will this happen soon? IDK, technology was running ahead of application during the US Civil War, the gap has increased since then. Is there as yet some human component to creativity that AIs won’t be able to surpass? Maybe. One thing we can say for sure about the future, no one has ever accurately predicted it.
The past though, we can see how predictions went wrong. June 22nd 1941, eighty years ago today, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa, the greatest invasion in history. Tens of millions would die as a result. Exactly three years later, June 22nd 1944, the Soviet Union launched Operation Bagration. AKA “The Destruction of Army Group Center.” Germany’s Army Group Center. The greatest defeat ever suffered by Germany, and the fifth bloodiest campaign in European history. No one predicted that, most thought that Germany would easily conquer Western Russia, and who knows what would happen then. A crushing German defeat with Soviet Armies steamrolling to Berlin three years later, couldn’t happen.
Could an AI have written that plot? Maybe. Did an AI write that plot? Could we be living in a 23rd century computer game program on some kid’s Qpad? Am I a software routine writing a blog that will only be read by other aps? And do we evolve as a result? Hell if I know, but I’m going to explore the idea more.
So, yes. My blogging has been limited because of … personal … issues. I think I’m going to write about speculative weirdness to see if I can break through my writer’s block. Stay safe and sanish everyone. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Two destroyed German tanks during Operation Bagration, including dead German crew members. There are still people alive who remember the horrors of Germany’s invasion of Russia. I can’t imagine what they lived through. Credit: Unknown, public domain image under all known copyright law.)
TEN WAYS WE’RE EFFED
I’ve had a hard time blogging recently. Writer’s block. Stress in my personal life is one reason. Not helping. That’s just the background noise though. No, the real reason is more general. I’m extremely pessimistic about the state of the world, and the state of the USA in particular. In many senses I’ve always been a doomsday prophet, but the 21st century has moved into a whole new universe compared to my worrying about nuclear war in my younger days. So how do I write about this? Ten reasons I’m pessimistic about now. Who knows, hopefully this will be cathartic:
- The rich keep getting richer and more powerful. The upward transfer of wealth in America and the world accelerated under Covid. In other words, price gouging is at the heart of the global economic system. What are people going to do when the last dollar in America is in some rich person’s or corporation’s offshore account?
- The Cold War continues. The Cold War was stupid proganda to justify endless American war making and war spending from the beginning. The new Cold War is even crazier. China isn’t trying to take over the world, Russia isn’t trying to destroy the west.
- The War on Terror was a colossal fail. By every metric the War on Terror has massively increased global terrorism. War is the least effective way to fight terrorism. And yet here we are, bombs away, with nary a hint of protest.
- We forgot the lessons of Vietnam. This is a codicil to number 3: Opinion | The Pentagon Papers’ Lessons Went Unlearned – The New York …
- Science denial is rampant. This is bizarre. When I was a kid and young person most people understood that science and reason were the shiznit. Now actual supposed adults in positions of power embrace voodoo nonsense … and they get more popular. Go figure.
- The Christian right wants to seize power. A third of the country wants America to be forced to live under their Old Testament take on reality.
- The GOP’s massive ongoing voter suppression, protest suppression, history suppression, and rights suppression campaign (abortion and LGTB rights.) The actual cancel culture.
- No independent media. When I was young the mainstream media was independent, even if they did try to influence politics. Not anymore.
- Climate change. It’s real, humans are causing it, efforts to mitigate it are still “too little, too late.” Fossil fuels are the most profitable extractive industry ever, but the costs are wrecking our world.
- AI, homemade doomsday devices, etc. In my lifetime (knock on wood) there are any number of potential technological advances that could lead to doomsday. It’s my answer to the Fermi Paradox, our form of life is ultimately self destructive, an evolutionary dead end.
And I’m sure I missed a few. The continued glorification of the Confederacy and white washing of American history. UFOs. Nearly half of Americans believe dinosaurs still exist. Yeah, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we are about to slide into some Golden Age. Snort. Biden will be the Pertinax of our time more likely. (Pertinax was a sane senator who became Caesar after the death of a crazy Caesar. His reign only lasted three months before the corrupt praetorian guard murdered him.)
On the plus side, a lady I like called me “Sweetie” today. Objectively there is no future relationship, but it made this lonely old guy feel good. Have a great week everyone. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Found somewhere, possibly Public Domain, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
MEMORIAL DAY
Memorial Day 2021. This is the day where Americans honor those who died fighting in America’s wars. Well, that’s the theory at least. Unfortunately the way many people are honoring our dead strikes me as the exact opposite of honor. The day has been turned into a propaganda fest in support of America’s endless wars. The US has been at war 222 out of 239 years. More than 92% of its existence. And even that’s an undercount, there really was no peace during the 19th century because of ongoing efforts by individuals and state militias to exterminate the natives. And virtually none of the wars were just wars in any way, shape, or form. That has been especially true in the post World War Two era.
And yet all over Facebook, and all over the country presumably, people are posting and talking about fallen heroes who died “defending our freedom.” This is obscene. Every war since 1945 has been about defending America’s global empire and its corporate interests. Every American who died in these wars was a life wasted in service of the empire. And the memory of those whose lives were tossed away on the altar of corporate and political greed has been turned into a celebration of death and empire.
I grieve for those lost in our wars. I will honor their loss by continuing to speak for peace. The greatest thing an American can do to honor the fallen is stop supporting further war. Stop sending our youth abroad to die and be maimed in the service of corporate greed. The US is the most powerful empire the world has ever seen, there are no threats to our freedom. Outside the US at least, certain parties are working hard to destroy our freedom from within.
But that’s tomorrow’s blog. I hope all have or had a good Memorial Day. God rest the souls of those who died in America’s uniform, grant peace to their friends and family. #getvaccienatedcovid19 #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: From Facebook, attribution in image, used without permission, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law.)
DEREK CHAUVIN GUILTY, EVERYONE IS A CONSPIRACY THEORIST, AND OTHER NEWS
A jury has found Derek Chauvin guilty on all three counts of murdering George Floyd. It’s certainly good news in the sense that civil unrest would have ensued had he been found guilty. However, that aside, I do believe justice has been served. From what I have read, all modern policing theory says that the neck is not an appropriate restraint target. While various neck holds are very effective at restraining people, they are also inordinately dangerous. The police are supposed to protect the public, not put them in danger, And in this case, kill them.
I think police reform is needed in the US. That’s what people mean when they say “defund the police.” Part of the reform is not using police for everything. Someone is acting out because of a mental health crisis, send a mental health crisis team, not the police. And police in schools, give me a break. And qualified immunity has to end, if a cop kills someone in any situation that isn’t clearly self defense, there should be a trial. Cops are supposed to take risks to protect the public, not kill people because the police felt threatened or the suspect wasn’t complying. Other developed countries manage to police themselves without police killing people at anything like the rate at which American police kill people, especially POC.
Convince me otherwise. It will require logic backed by science, but I can change my mind if presented with a reasonable argument. A quality I’m not sure many people share. I’ve had trouble blogging recently because I realized that almost everyone is a conspiracy theorist. By that they hold all sorts of social beliefs that they aren’t willing to admit might be wrong. And they will use confirmation bias and motivated reason to defend those beliefs if challenged, sometimes brilliantly. The person who believes their invisible superfriend rules the world is really no different than the person who thinks the Rothschilds rule the world. Thinking there was some secret conspiracy to blow up the Twin Towers is no different that thinking a hurricane was sent by God.
And no matter what one believes, there are web sites happy to provide endless false arguments, motivated reasoning, and cherry picking in support of the same. Doubt that? Challenge someone’s belief that GMOs or glyphosate are dangerous, that Trump is a Russian asset, or that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. A world of motivated reasoning. No wonder the aliens fly right by.
Speaking of flying, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made the first powered flight on another planet. It’s basically a drone. Pretty impressive considering the atmosphere of Mars is about 1% the atmosphere on Earth. Jesus, if I make it a few more decades, humans might return to the Moon and make it to Mars. Well, even if I don’t make it, hopefully humans will pull it off. I just hope I’m around to see.
So much stuff on America and its empire, not sure where to start. Try this: America’s Intel Vampires Can’t See Themselves in the Mirror: DNI’s Hypocritical and Self-Awareness-Absent Annual Threat Assessment – Antiwar.com Original. America, a nation ruled by fear. The richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known defines itself by fantasy threats both domestic and international. While its rich get ever richer and its working class gets an ever smaller slice of the pie. Go figure.
Stay safe everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis, completed in 1661 by Rembrandt. It depicts a Batavian oath to Gaius Julius Civilis, the head of the Batavian rebellion against the Romans in 69 AD. Public Domain under US copyright law.)
FOUR GREAT HISTORICAL LIES
I’ve been hampered in writing about current events lately because it’s really been seeping in that almost everyone is propagandised. By that I mean that most people largely hold a worldview that is actively promoted by special interests. It’s what I mean when I say all religions and ideologies are the same. It’s what Colonel Kurtz meant when he said “Everyone is loyal to the nightmare of their choice.” It’s not a new phenomena, it’s been around since organized religion and hereditary class structure for sure. In the last century though, as the sciences of advertising and propaganda took off, it’s grown far more pervasive and multi-dimensional: Enormous numbers of people believing things that just aren’t true.
It doesn’t make them bad people, in fact it says nothing about them as individuals at all. People are people, most of us are pretty decent under normal circumstances. It doesn’t make them “sheep” either, I hate that terminology/mindset the same way I hate the “friend zone” concept. It does however mean they will actively go to great lengths to defend their world view. Motivated reasoning and such kicks in here, people use the fine brains evolution/God gave them to believe they are right and others are wrong. My lie is comforting, it makes sense of the world, it provides me with tons of social support and reinforcement. I’m on the winning team!
The problem, and it’s a huge problem, is that belief in nonsense may allow one to commit atrocities. Bad things can happen from widely believed lies. Here are four great historical examples. And they are great, each and every one of these is brilliant propaganda. A lie the targeted audience wanted to believe! A lie that touches all the sweet spots. In very considered order, here are four of “The Greatest Lies in History:”
- “The Stab in the Back Myth.” This was the idea that arose after World War One that the Central Powers, Germany especially, lost the war not because it was a stupid war where the Allies had numerous advantages, but because a cabal of socialists, communists, and especially Jews conspired to cripple their war effort. Like all great lies, there’s zero evidence to support it, and it doesn’t pass the laugh test logically; but it explains the loss of the glorious war and blames people many Germans already had been taught to hate. Illustrated in a 1919 postcard above.
- “The Arab Nations Told the Palestinians to Flee!” lie. After Israel’s 1948 war of independence during which 700,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed (IE chased out at gunpoint) from what is now Israel, Israel claimed that the Arab governments told the Palestinians to flee! Perfect! So of course they are the Arab governments’ problem, and Israel promptly passed laws prohibiting them from returning to their homes in Israel. Even Israeli historians now admit this was pure propaganda, Arab governments never did anything of the kind.
- “Stop the Steal.” Yerp, brilliant. Trump supporters want to believe Trump was the greatest president ever, they want to believe that Democrats/socialists/communists/libtards are plotting against them, the true Americans. The fact that there is zero evidence for this lie, and logical reasons why it’s BS, no matter. Characteristics that all four great lies share, that so many people believe(d) them is why I am fond of saying “We’re not really an intelligent species.”
- “Russiagate.” This is the one where so many of my friends and readers are going to balk. Sorry, not sorry. Did Putin try to influence the 2016 election? Possibly, though so far no evidence has been provided in support of same. And Russiagate has now grown into an incredibly elaborate theory where Trump was a “Russian asset/Putin’s Puppet” all along. Brilliant. Dems don’t need to look to their own party’s failings that led to Trump’s election, and now they are fully supportive of Washington’s imperial war forever policy!
The beauty of great propaganda illustrated. No one is immune. I certainly believed in some stupid myths when I was younger. “If blacks would just comply with law enforcement and there would be no problems” is the ugliest that comes to mind now. I’m sure there are others. Life, a constant struggle to identify and remove beliefs other people have instilled in oneself. Most people never even understand that. A freaking shame that so much human society seeks to indoctrinate, not enlighten.
Speaking of blacks and police, tomorrow’s blog. Just trying to sort out the fact from fiction in the Daunte Wright shooting. God rest his soul in any event, no one deserves to die in a traffic stop. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Austrian postcard from 1919, author unknown, Public Domain in this Universe.)
THE EVANGELICAL RIGHT AND THE GOP, THE REAL CANCEL CULTURE
So much in the news about the left’s so called “cancel culture.” Much hue and cry about it from the right. What, exactly, is the left cancelling? I’m not exactly sure, the examples in the news are generally trivial, misrepresented, or both. A few old books that no one reads anymore are pulled from publication? A few people who have said horrible things have lost their jobs? I guess some speakers have been discouraged from speaking at some colleges? How, exactly, is this impacting the lives of people on the right? As far as I can see, other than being outraged by what Fox news and others tell them, it doesn’t seem to affect the average American in any way. It’s like the so-called “war on Christmas,” there’s no there, there. Americans remain completely free to celebrate Christmas any way they like.
On the other hand, there are things the religious right is working assiduously to cancel. They want to cancel about a million marriages for starters. They want to wreak havoc in a million households, imagine being married, and the government simply outlawing your marriage. To say that would impact people’s lives negatively is an understatement. I don’t see anyone on the left calling for conservatives marriages to be annulled, let alone actively pursuing that goal in the courts.
The evangelical right not only wants to cancel women’s access to health care, they are doing a good job of it. And doing a good job of it by closing down Planned Parenthoods’, appealing to the Supreme Court: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. 682 (2014,) and fighting against birth control and sex education. Yes, they want to cancel the very things that prevent abortions, so this isn’t about saving babies, it’s about cancelling lifestyles they don’t approve of. Hell, rafts of bills designed to prevent women from accessing health care, sex education, and birth control are passed by the GOP regularly.
And of course they want to cancel transgender people. They did manage to cancel them in the military, though Biden has reversed that. They have done everything they can to prevent them accessing health care, participating in society, etc. The fact that transgendered people have always existed and always will exist because human’s biological gender/sexuality exists over a broad spectrum doesn’t matter to the evangelical right. Male/female dichotomy, heteronormality all the way for them.
Hell, not just women having their access to health care cancelled. The evangelical right wants to give health care providers the right to refuse to treat people because they don’t want to treat certain people whose lifestyles/identities they don’t approve of. Imagine telling firemen they could refuse to fight a fire if they didn’t like something about the owners/occupants of a building. Again, no one on the left has proposed anything like this, let alone made it central to their political philosophy.
Speaking of political, they also want to cancel people’s right to vote. The GOP has been passing “New Jim Crow” laws for decades now, bills designed to make it harder for poor and black people to vote. Or democracy itself in the case of rampant GOP gerrymandering. And lately it’s getting worse, a law has been proposed in Arizona to allow the legislature to simply overturn the people’s vote for president! All in the name of fighting non-existent widespread voter fraud. And if there was widespread voter fraud, making it harder for people to vote isn’t fighting it, it’s making it harder for people to vote. There is no logical connection here.
Still, America is a country where huge numbers of people accept that killing 200,000 old men, women, and children “saved lives.” No one has ever explained to me how that works without the use of magical thinking. Moving right along, some on the right have followed this type of thinking to its “logical” conclusion, and simply want to cancel Americans who disagree with them. Yes, they are making the case that Biden voters “aren’t real Americans.” New Claremont essay reveals how Republicans are rejecting America:
“Most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term,”Glenn Ellmers, the essay’s author, writes. “They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people. It is not obvious what we should call these citizen-aliens, these non-American Americans; but they are something else.”
So many things sick and wrong with that sort of thinking, I don’t know where to start. Crazy times. Have a safe Easter Weekend everyone, celebrate it (or not,) as you want. It’s still a free country. Sort of. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: A forest in Indonesia cancelled by a volcano, public domain image from Wikipedia. I hope it doesn’t come to that in America, literally or metaphorically.)
BOOM!
Shortly after I got up this morning I hear a loud bang. My housemate calls out, “Are you OK?’ The bang wasn’t upstairs, I was fine. Thought about it, went down to investigate, halfway down the stairs I hear my housemate on the phone to 911, there was an explosion next door, he can see flames and black smoke. I’m like “Oh sheet.” I get dressed real fast, grab my fire extinguisher, run next door. A trash can had caught fire and exploded, raging fire in the wind, side of house was already nicely burning. The neighbor and a passer by were trying to fight it, but all they had was a rake and a hose that wasn’t long enough and had little pressure. The fire was winning. I waded in with my fire extinguisher and got it under control until the pros arrived.
In my life I’ve now saved two cars and a house because I keep fire extinguishers handy. I was a Boy Scout and a Marine, be prepared and if there’s an emergency, run towards it. The moral of the story though, every kitchen should have a fire extinguisher prominently located and everyone in the house should know how to use it. Minutes count when fighting fires. I think I read it’s typically less than ten minutes between a house fire’s ignition and it spreading to the entire house. Maybe I didn’t save their house, but I certainly prevented much worse damage. And it was windy as hell, extreme fire danger weather, it might well have spread to other houses before the fire department arrived.
And boy, well, my adrenaline gland works just fine. Near twelve hours later and I’m still wired. I may not sleep for a week. OK, that’s an exaggeration, I hope, but the experience really had a huge effect on me. My sense of time was especially affected. Hard to explain. It feels like it just happened, but it was 12 hours ago? Right after it happened I decided to cook myself a nice breakfast. It only seemed like it took a few minutes, but I was surprised to see it was over thirty minutes on the clock. I did wonder why my hash browns were cooking so fast. Had a few similar experiences in my time, “the world turns to ice” is one way I’ve described it.
So how did this happen? How did a trash can spontaneously explode? The neighbor says she put a candle in the trash, and apparently it wasn’t fully extinguished. Might have been last night even, not sure. She was pretty upset. The trash can was obliterated, nothing left but little puddles of burning molten plastic. The firemen said a plastic bottle exploding is what caused the explosion, or two explosions according to my housemate. Makes me realize modern isn’t always better. Up through the 70s trash cans were made of metal, and if the trash caught fire, the fire was contained. Not anymore, plastic trash cans are potential little napalm bombs.
On the plus side (aside from being a neighborhood hero) it kinda reset my mental state too. I won’t say my broken heart is mended, but certainly put some distance between me and it. Did that make any sense? I was going to write about my upcoming Moon trip today, but this seemed more timely. So tomorrow’s blog, help Doug get to the Moon! Yes, I’m serious, and it’s for a good cause. Stay safe everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula #dearMoonCrew
Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.
(Image: Scene outside my home this morning. Copyright © 2021 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.)
Doug's Darkworld 