Read everyone, especially those you find clearing up mistakes and lies, even more especially when they’re cleaning up their own. Trust these cleaning up kinda folk more than the story tellers they are correcting, then do it again. Find someone with a better (as in more plausible) narrative than your recent newest story telling hero. Keep going. Good luck. Just as all models are wrong while some are useful, all story tellers are wrong, some just must less so.

Thanks for the heads up….prick

https://medium.com/@The_Guardian

…heavily funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation….waters down the argument somewhat?

…latter year’s rap battles then. And why not? Makes sense now you’ve mentioned it.

Devoid of sources (sorry about that), the direction I see as favourite right now is ‘out of this hell’, irrelevant of the route taken or of which world’s hell this planet may or may not be…this entire scenario comes together to form the saddest, most ugly ‘smack in the face’ moment of truth that I’ve ever encountered.

This is coming the world over if people don’t rise up and stop it. In response to a lawsuit, the University of California has revised a flu vaccine mandate, but is now planning court-like hearings to assess eligibility for religious exemptions.
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https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/uc-breaking-news-university-of-california-makes-tactical-retreat-revises-executive-order/
Oct 1, 2020
Breaking News: University of California Makes Tactical Retreat, Revises Executive Order
By Richard Jaffe, Esq.

As you may know, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and I (with the able assistance of . . .) filed an injunction lawsuit to stop the University of California’s (UC) executive order requiring all students, faculty and other employees to get the flu shot by Nov. 1 or face not being able to work or register for class. We filed on Aug. 27, the executive order having been published on Aug. 7.

The UC filed its response to our motion . . . [and] . . . issued a new executive order revising the mandate. . . . [Now] the UC is setting up in effect religious inquisition courts, but with no published court procedures.

Cognitive dissonance is a Psychological stress experienced by an individual who hears and/or holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time.

There are a number of PR Pros, Psychologists, Professors of media, and others whom claim that cognitive dissonance is one of the most effect forms of propaganda.

The “Father of Spin”, Edward Bernays (Nephew of Sigmund Freud and Author of the 1928 book Propaganda) wrote that:
“To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choice
narrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention through propaganda of all kinds.
There is consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the
interest of some policy or commodity or idea.”

Humans have a seeming instinct to try to make sense of a naturally disorderly and chaotic world.

It may seem contradictory, but that confusion (“…we are more confused than ever…”) helps lead to false confidence, often via confirmation bias, inducing greater reliance on our held beliefs, biases and prejudices.

Critical thinking is a difficult and sometimes painful process, for many.
Facing often challenging and contradictory narratives about the fundamental nature of the world and ourselves, analyzing and evaluating them, requires work: practice, time and effort.
Skills that many people either lack, have little time for, or get easily frustrated by.

Thus the Propagandist can often more easily sway opinions, judgements and actions, even instill greater loyalties (for example, there was much frustration and waning support for the two-party system in the U.S. leading to 2016, yet largely contradictory messages offered by two largely disliked candidates provided for greater party loyalties. In another example, despite greater wealth concentration amongst a few, and knowledge that that concentration of wealth is creating struggles and anxiety, via greater scarcity, the billionaire class is promulgating massive propaganda portraying themselves as “Philanthropists”, instilling a greater sense of belief in the “capitalist” system that is creating much of that scarcity and anxiety).

“when…the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences.”
-Edward Bernays-Propaganda-

Thus more confusion equals greater reliance on “traditional” beliefs, bias, prejudice, and such.

I personally find more information, even/especially when contradictory, a good thing, but truth is many can’t handle it.

Charles Darwin wrote that “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”.
This observation serves as the basis of the Dunning Kruger effect.
I.e. – Those with lesser true knowledge of a topic or subject tend to overstate their confidence in that topic or subject.
This is often accomplished by information overload (and thus rejection of “new” information, via the “Backfire Effect”).

Conflicting data is ignored, choices narrowed, in attempt to make sense.

Thus the reason higher-order cognitive skills should be emphasized and taught more….rather than the teaching of mere systematic tasks, and the reliance of the regurgitation of “facts”.

Ignorance begets greater ignorance.
The more people are told simply how and what to think, the less they develop the skills to more deeply and thoroughly analyze varied sets of data to come to more logical conclusions.

More people need to read more obscure, conflicting, and “eccentric” information.

It should be noted that I posted the above because I think “industrial intellectualism” is a useful concept and well worth developing; though I’m not quite sure I know where I’m going with it. The term “technocratic intellectualism” may be more relevant to current events; and I would distinguish it from merely scholarly intellectualism which doesn’t seek to impose itself on society.

In general, I am far more concerned about the “means of thought” than the “means of production”, and the principal objective of technocratic intellectualism is to control the means of thought. The desire to control the means of thought goes back to the dawn of civilisation and can be found in all societies and cultures; Bolshevism is merely a relatively recent example.
—

See also:
Emerson on “Communities of Opinion”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/05/14/a-faith-based-community/#comment-172023
William James on “Corporate and Dogmatic Dominion”
https://off-guardian.org/2020/09/03/lets-not-fall-into-the-empires-trap/#comment-233951