academic freedom agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Censorship Culture Free Speech Freedom Geo-strategic issues Governance & control vs anarchy Intellectual freedom Lessons of History Media Media Manipulation, Agit-Prop &/or Lawfare Politics/policy and origins issues UD Newswatch highlights

Breaking: Twitter accepts Musk’s Share offer buyout plan

Breitbart, as I just saw: After a two-week battle against opposition from the platform’s board members, self-declared free speech absolutist Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and currently the richest man in the world, has succeeded in his bid to buy Twitter. In a press release, the Twitter board announced that they had Read More…

agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Atheism Defending our Civilization Evolutionary materialism's amorality Free Speech Freedom Geo-strategic issues Governance & control vs anarchy Lessons of History

China’s surveillance and control move, targeting esp. Christians

We see in current news: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has activated measures to drastically restrict the availability of Christian content on the internet, Open Doors reported this week. Last December, China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) announced its upcoming “Measures for the Administration of Internet Religious Information Services,” a series of regulations designed Read More…

academic freedom agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Defending our Civilization Economics and policy issues Ethics Free Speech Governance & control vs anarchy Lessons of History Racism

A Sandia National Labs Whistleblower on Culture form Marxism imposition by HR Department

Yes, it’s real: And if this is being “mainstreamed” at Sandia National Labs, it’s going to be all but pervasive in Government and in the sort of corporations that typically get government contracts. Across today, DV, I intend to put up screen shots from his presentation, as points to ponder. As a start, clip 1: Read More…

academic freedom agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Defending our Civilization Free Speech Freedom Lessons of History

How can we handle issues and make big decisions (such as on ID, response to pandemics, ethics & epistemology etc) in a deeply polarised age?

Seminal Christian thinker, Francis Schaeffer, often said that “ideas have consequences.” The issue of course, is that good/bad ideas have similarly good/bad consequences. So, we face a familiar dilemma, especially when a culture or community or civilisation is on a dangerous path: This helps us to focus the issue: we are looking at alternatives in Read More…

agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Free Speech Freedom governance

Food for thought on digital media manipulation and potential impacts (think about, on how ID, theism, the gospel and gospel ethics, etc. are often perceived)

While we of UD have but little interest as a blog in 2020 US election campaign tactics etc and endorse no candidate, the research by Dr. Robert Epstein on How Big Tech’s Algorithms Can Impact Opinions and Votes speaks far more broadly. We have cause to be concerned (and no, it’s not just Wikipedia’s notorious Read More…

academic freedom agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Culture Ethics Free Speech Geo-strategic issues Governance & control vs anarchy Intellectual freedom Lessons of History Media Manipulation, Agit-Prop &/or Lawfare UD Newswatch highlights

What are the implications of Julian Assange’s arrest in London?

Yesterday, a prematurely aged-looking Assange (he is 47) — a founder of Wikileaks and Australian — was arrested by UK Police after the Ecuadorean Embassy he has sought asylum in since 2012 withdrew its protection. The arrest raises questions on dissidents, privacy, protection of legitimate secrets, the public’s right to know more than officials, power Read More…

agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Atheism Darwinist rhetorical tactics Ethics Free Speech Freedom Logic and First Principles of right reason

The problem of anti-conscience, anti-theistic prejudice driving opinion, views and policy

In a current thread on the morality or otherwise on the Pagan practice of infanticide, frequent, objecting commenter BB gives us a summary of a common prejudice of our time: BB, 69: ” The fact that we no longer blindly accept discrimination based on the justification of freedom of conscience or freedom of religion is Read More…

agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Free Speech Media Manipulation, Agit-Prop &/or Lawfare

Agit Prop media/troll ambush at the 2019 46th March for Life — lessons on well-poisoning for us all

Yesterday, I noticed how across 24 hours, a smear operation targetting students who participated in the 46th MfL played out. I commented in the MfL thread and think it is worth headlining with added media features: Let me embed some clips from Social Media, by fairly prominent personalities, these are HT Gateway Pundit, and give Read More…

academic freedom Culture Education Free Speech Human evolution Mathematics Natural selection Peer review Popular culture Probability Science, Mathematics, Philosophy and (Natural) Theology Society

Silenced! Selectivity too close to truth?

Should science pursue truth regardless of consequences? Or must we succumb to political correctness? Must selectivity of females always equal males? Consider: Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole – by Theodore P. Hill “In the highly controversial area of human intelligence, the ‘Greater Male Variability Hypothesis’ (GMVH) asserts that there are Read More…

academic freedom agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Darwinist rhetorical tactics Free Speech Freedom Geo-strategic issues Governance & control vs anarchy Intelligent Design Media Politics/policy and origins issues

ID vs the shadow-censoring (“shadow-banning”) digital empires, 2

ID is a proposition that, first, it is reasonable to inquire scientifically as to whether certain features of the world of life and/or the physical cosmos can or do show observable signs of design. To which, the answer has long since been given, e.g. by the well known OoL researcher Orgel in a significant 1973 Read More…

agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Correcting trollish fallacies Darwinist rhetorical tactics Food for thought Free Speech Freedom General interest Geo-strategic issues Governance & control vs anarchy Intellectual freedom Media Manipulation, Agit-Prop &/or Lawfare UD Newswatch highlights

The ID issue vs Digital Empire/Cartel concerns: information utilities/ “superhighway” vs shadow-censoring, de-platforming information gatekeepers

The ID issue has long been a focal point for intense, often deeply polarised debate on our origins and world roots as informed by science. Science, being a major source of knowledge and understanding about our world, which also energises technological innovation and economic growth. Science is often treated as though it is the grounds Read More…

Food for thought Free Speech General interest Media Media Manipulation, Agit-Prop &/or Lawfare Of General Interest UD's Sci-Tech watch

Uncommon Descent ranked well within the top 1% of web sites

A few days ago, frequent commenter Dionisio noted: >>http://www.ranking.com/ Web Rank Biblegateway.com 168 MIT.edu 7,280 HARVARD.edu 7,246 Nature.com 7,449 Desiringgod.org 10,105 Answersingenesis.org 11,865 Gty.org 15,018 Icr.org 19,037 Religionnews.com 22,188 Rzim.org 35,858 Samaritanspurse.org 40,274 Truthforlife.org 49,862 Royalsociety.org 53,686 Evolutionnews.org 58,755 Jamesmacdonald.com 60,164 Reasons.org 65,259 Uncommondescent.com 80,763 Pandasthumb.org 106,377 Kodugamelab.com 668,032>> I took a look, especially at Read More…

agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games Darwinist rhetorical tactics Free Speech governance Media Media Manipulation, Agit-Prop &/or Lawfare Of General Interest Politics/policy and origins issues Selective Hyperskepticism warrant, knowledge, science and belief You're a Nazi/fascist/racist/fundy/creationist etc

The agit prop, spreading lie/slander well-poisoning game

Just now, I responded to a point JM made in the current James Tour thread. I think the comment chain is worth headlining: KF, 14: >> why debate someone when instead: [a] you can ignore, marginalise and rob of publicity? [b] you can caricature, smear, slander and poison the well? [c] you dominate institutions and Read More…

Atheism Back to Basics of ID Darwinist rhetorical tactics Food for thought Free Speech Intellectual freedom List of Materialist Dodges Media Manipulation, Agit-Prop &/or Lawfare Peer review Science, worldview issues/foundations and society Selective Hyperskepticism

BTB & FFT: Is it true that “ID has no . . . recognised scientists, predictive qualities, experiments, peer reviewed publications, evidence, or credibility scientifically”?

H’mm, pretty devastating — if true. But, is it true? I doubt it. Let us start with this response to a certain objector who keeps providing lists of typical objector talking points (and who evidently wishes to be able to do so on UD’s nickel, without effective response). Not on our watch, gentilhombre: >>13 kairosfocus May 30, Read More…