Thoughts: I was once a lefty antiwar sixties-seventies Democrat. I am 73. I have now decided that the problem is more the Democratic party than the Republican party. Why? Because the Republicans loathe government, and the Democrats celebrate it. BUT and this is the key, the Democrats like government, however they never or very rarely use government for anything but watered down, fooled you, snookered you, bamboozled you.... Good. Instead, they champion government for bad things, like Hilary, and Bill, and Obummer, and War, and blowing up pipelines and all the policies championed by their renewed, recycling member, and former member, Neocons. People like, David Frum etc, and Madeleine Albright... Warmonger women like Hillary and Victoria.
Yep, the liberals and "the left"(who I am way to the left of) prefer doing little good and lots of bad with the government they champion. It should be the other way round. From my seat, an Anti-War sixties Democrat should never support today's Democratic party.... The Democratic party went FIRE sector, Warmonger, bring on censorship of the Deplorables, and anyone else we dislike or don't trust, a long time ago.
I view Biden as unfortunate, never worthwhile, rarely honest, and now a potted plant! And the president who will go down in history as doing more damage to the Nation than any other since, at least, WW2 and perhaps since Reconstruction. He is the conductor of the Fall Apart Symphony.
You assayed my sentiments exactly. Can't disagree with a single word. I used to be a yellow dog Democrat (if the Dem candidate on the ballot was a dead yellow dog laying in the middle of the road I would cast my vote for it). Now I wouldn't waste my spit on them. Never thought I'd see the U.S. turn into this, but I should have. The right has a huge star in their crown for screaming about big, centralized government, which I can't believe I am saying. Government is necessary to do massive, useful jobs that benefit the greatest number of people, and to regulate powerful private actors. The hell with it otherwise.
What about the corporate world? Why would you discount their involvement and their power? It is true they need the government for its armies. But if they could raise their own armies, they might well go rogue. An example is the British East India Company.
Didn't discount them. It wasn't the subject of my post. My views are in the posts on my personal substack, and also in my Facebook group- Celebrate Facebook Freedom
Long ago, around 1980, a man named Francis Schaeffer defined a cabal (without naming it as such) consisting of the education systems, "news" systems, and entertainment systems where the members lived below a "line of despair." Their beliefs caused them to see their fellow humans as things. The Censorship-Industrial Complex adds to Schaeffer's cabal the federal bureaucracy, the military, the federal police and the political parties. He implied at the the time, this shared dehumanizing worldview would expand and it appears he was right.
So why, if the censorship industrial-Complex attempt to prevent destabilization, are destabilizing elements such as BLM and Antifa targeted?
Why are the attempts to destroy law and order by Soros funded defund the police and revolving door criminal policies instituted by certain Attorney Generals not targeted due to their destabilizing activities?
I do not dispute that this complex is real, but is it only on the macro scale? Or is it guided destabilization?
Where did you get the idea that the CIC is there to stabilize anything? If a small group wishes to assert power and influence over a large group, how is this best achieved?
Matt, you need to clear up your argument. Are you arguing that lies and misinformation are protected speech?
All human societies have made lies punishable as trust is central to society and community. Controlling lies is not censorship. Also, misinformation is not protected as news and science outlets, including those you worked for, control misinformation by fact checking, retractions and clarifications and by forcing people to use their real names, which are known for even anonymous sources. Misinformation is as bad as lies and should be refuted with objective fact, which is necessary for a functional democracy.
Extrapolation from the Shellenberger quote from the article:
Combines established methods of psychological manipulation… with highly sophisticated tools from computer science, including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing.
Matt has a very good sense of history, which is essential in understanding our current situation. Bringing Ike's MIC forward to greet today's "CIC" is astute and appropriate.
Yet, as a died-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist, I propose that an even broader appreciation for history may be required.
In 1947 several events occurred in America that were reported on, then immediately covered up (suppressed) by what appears to have been military intelligence personnel. Why was it felt necessary to suppress that information and provide a cover story for the most flagrant event (the crash of a UFO in the New Mexico desert)???
There soon followed the MK-Ultra program from the CIA. At the same time, roughly, a writer named Hubbard was working out methods for undoing the hypnotic-based procedures being developed by the CIA and their psychiatrists. And so Hubbard became a target for defamation (and even worse, I believe). That program, for the most part, worked.
Kennedy was put down by a conspiracy in 1963 for reasons that have yet to be determined. He did express publicly, though, anger at the CIA. There followed the assassination of his brother and other important voices. And that's just in the U.S.
Meanwhile, a few large companies were gradually taking over the entertainment business and then the news business. Next, the internet. The old MIC companies; Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, etc., faded into the background while large consumer-facing organizations expanded.
And none of the above-mentioned suppressed information was ever released to the general public. For someone like me, an awareness that a secret plan is in place - wedded to Corporate where secrets can actually be kept - and is moving forward, has been obvious since I first became appraised of this information (the early 1980s). If you really want to figure this out, you have a lot of catching up to do. Meanwhile, exposure of deceptive practices is valuable and will help the cause. But that alone will not solve the problem. These secrets are being kept secret for a reason. It is not a small reason.
I wonder if Stanford, NYT, Harvard are listening in? Do they follow these renegade reporters? Are they embarrassed? Do they care, care to be right or are they just pursuing a goal, presumably raw power.
We, you, presumably think Matt and Michael Shellenberger are right. Does Stanford think there is truth here? Are any of them saying “hey man, we’re on the wrong side of this and we’re doing significant reputational harm to ourselves?”
Is it possible? Can anything work in this world? Are we lost?
J Matson H, speaks for me. Aged 59, Canadian, I couldn’t contemplate supporting republicans in the past, but now it is the democrats that are the problem. The left has sold out.
Really? Which party has actually worked at nullifying rights? That's right, the GOP in their unconstitutional Dobbs decision they have nullified a woman's right to control her own life throwing the life of women to the states. They have censored via libraries and schools by controlling what books can be on library shelves and what subjects can be taught in schools. The right has sold out.
What the left has done is attempted to control lies and misinformation in a more ham-handed way than required. Understand that news and science outlets control speech by requiring real names in submissions, even anonymous sources are known, just not displayed, and they fact check. Matt needs to clear this up, controlling lies and misinformation is NOT censorship, there is no right to lie, never has been.
"So what's wrong with surveillance of Twitter for bad actors?" Rising to the top for me is exactly the "industry" aspect that Schellenberger may have first coined. Do you grasp the brinksman-like technocracy that creates its own Artificially Intelligent Virus? Entrants to the industry who missed its creation and evolution know no better than to think it's real and that they have a niche career (hobby or professional).
Thoughts: I was once a lefty antiwar sixties-seventies Democrat. I am 73. I have now decided that the problem is more the Democratic party than the Republican party. Why? Because the Republicans loathe government, and the Democrats celebrate it. BUT and this is the key, the Democrats like government, however they never or very rarely use government for anything but watered down, fooled you, snookered you, bamboozled you.... Good. Instead, they champion government for bad things, like Hilary, and Bill, and Obummer, and War, and blowing up pipelines and all the policies championed by their renewed, recycling member, and former member, Neocons. People like, David Frum etc, and Madeleine Albright... Warmonger women like Hillary and Victoria.
Yep, the liberals and "the left"(who I am way to the left of) prefer doing little good and lots of bad with the government they champion. It should be the other way round. From my seat, an Anti-War sixties Democrat should never support today's Democratic party.... The Democratic party went FIRE sector, Warmonger, bring on censorship of the Deplorables, and anyone else we dislike or don't trust, a long time ago.
I view Biden as unfortunate, never worthwhile, rarely honest, and now a potted plant! And the president who will go down in history as doing more damage to the Nation than any other since, at least, WW2 and perhaps since Reconstruction. He is the conductor of the Fall Apart Symphony.
You assayed my sentiments exactly. Can't disagree with a single word. I used to be a yellow dog Democrat (if the Dem candidate on the ballot was a dead yellow dog laying in the middle of the road I would cast my vote for it). Now I wouldn't waste my spit on them. Never thought I'd see the U.S. turn into this, but I should have. The right has a huge star in their crown for screaming about big, centralized government, which I can't believe I am saying. Government is necessary to do massive, useful jobs that benefit the greatest number of people, and to regulate powerful private actors. The hell with it otherwise.
Government is the greatest threat now. Think of the patriot act: the government is more dangerous than Islamic terrorists.
What about the corporate world? Why would you discount their involvement and their power? It is true they need the government for its armies. But if they could raise their own armies, they might well go rogue. An example is the British East India Company.
Didn't discount them. It wasn't the subject of my post. My views are in the posts on my personal substack, and also in my Facebook group- Celebrate Facebook Freedom
I always said that American health insurance companies put more fear into the hearts of citizens the Al Qaeda ever could.
Long ago, around 1980, a man named Francis Schaeffer defined a cabal (without naming it as such) consisting of the education systems, "news" systems, and entertainment systems where the members lived below a "line of despair." Their beliefs caused them to see their fellow humans as things. The Censorship-Industrial Complex adds to Schaeffer's cabal the federal bureaucracy, the military, the federal police and the political parties. He implied at the the time, this shared dehumanizing worldview would expand and it appears he was right.
I so appreciate the option to LISTEN to your articles -- so convenient -- thx!
what to do about it?
This is THE Big Question.
This is THE Big Question.
A Trump vote gives a finger to the deep state, aka The Censorship Industrial Complex.
Make it a vote for a third party candidate that is progressive? Why Trump?
So why, if the censorship industrial-Complex attempt to prevent destabilization, are destabilizing elements such as BLM and Antifa targeted?
Why are the attempts to destroy law and order by Soros funded defund the police and revolving door criminal policies instituted by certain Attorney Generals not targeted due to their destabilizing activities?
I do not dispute that this complex is real, but is it only on the macro scale? Or is it guided destabilization?
Where did you get the idea that the CIC is there to stabilize anything? If a small group wishes to assert power and influence over a large group, how is this best achieved?
Are you saying there are double standards!
Matt, you need to clear up your argument. Are you arguing that lies and misinformation are protected speech?
All human societies have made lies punishable as trust is central to society and community. Controlling lies is not censorship. Also, misinformation is not protected as news and science outlets, including those you worked for, control misinformation by fact checking, retractions and clarifications and by forcing people to use their real names, which are known for even anonymous sources. Misinformation is as bad as lies and should be refuted with objective fact, which is necessary for a functional democracy.
Extrapolation from the Shellenberger quote from the article:
Combines established methods of psychological manipulation… with highly sophisticated tools from computer science, including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing.
Matt has a very good sense of history, which is essential in understanding our current situation. Bringing Ike's MIC forward to greet today's "CIC" is astute and appropriate.
Yet, as a died-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist, I propose that an even broader appreciation for history may be required.
In 1947 several events occurred in America that were reported on, then immediately covered up (suppressed) by what appears to have been military intelligence personnel. Why was it felt necessary to suppress that information and provide a cover story for the most flagrant event (the crash of a UFO in the New Mexico desert)???
There soon followed the MK-Ultra program from the CIA. At the same time, roughly, a writer named Hubbard was working out methods for undoing the hypnotic-based procedures being developed by the CIA and their psychiatrists. And so Hubbard became a target for defamation (and even worse, I believe). That program, for the most part, worked.
Kennedy was put down by a conspiracy in 1963 for reasons that have yet to be determined. He did express publicly, though, anger at the CIA. There followed the assassination of his brother and other important voices. And that's just in the U.S.
Meanwhile, a few large companies were gradually taking over the entertainment business and then the news business. Next, the internet. The old MIC companies; Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, etc., faded into the background while large consumer-facing organizations expanded.
And none of the above-mentioned suppressed information was ever released to the general public. For someone like me, an awareness that a secret plan is in place - wedded to Corporate where secrets can actually be kept - and is moving forward, has been obvious since I first became appraised of this information (the early 1980s). If you really want to figure this out, you have a lot of catching up to do. Meanwhile, exposure of deceptive practices is valuable and will help the cause. But that alone will not solve the problem. These secrets are being kept secret for a reason. It is not a small reason.
I wonder if Stanford, NYT, Harvard are listening in? Do they follow these renegade reporters? Are they embarrassed? Do they care, care to be right or are they just pursuing a goal, presumably raw power.
We, you, presumably think Matt and Michael Shellenberger are right. Does Stanford think there is truth here? Are any of them saying “hey man, we’re on the wrong side of this and we’re doing significant reputational harm to ourselves?”
Is it possible? Can anything work in this world? Are we lost?
J Matson H, speaks for me. Aged 59, Canadian, I couldn’t contemplate supporting republicans in the past, but now it is the democrats that are the problem. The left has sold out.
Really? Which party has actually worked at nullifying rights? That's right, the GOP in their unconstitutional Dobbs decision they have nullified a woman's right to control her own life throwing the life of women to the states. They have censored via libraries and schools by controlling what books can be on library shelves and what subjects can be taught in schools. The right has sold out.
What the left has done is attempted to control lies and misinformation in a more ham-handed way than required. Understand that news and science outlets control speech by requiring real names in submissions, even anonymous sources are known, just not displayed, and they fact check. Matt needs to clear this up, controlling lies and misinformation is NOT censorship, there is no right to lie, never has been.
"So what's wrong with surveillance of Twitter for bad actors?" Rising to the top for me is exactly the "industry" aspect that Schellenberger may have first coined. Do you grasp the brinksman-like technocracy that creates its own Artificially Intelligent Virus? Entrants to the industry who missed its creation and evolution know no better than to think it's real and that they have a niche career (hobby or professional).
Respectfully again, Jared, I believe you are mispronouncing Matt Orfalea.
Matt says, "Call me ORF." It's ORF-a-luh. Thank you, sir.