Category: governance
Can Wikipedia be fixed? (And, should we care? [Is it time to walk away and lock it out like a virus?])
By 2012, the longstanding Encyclopedia Britannica had published its last print edition. Microsoft’s Encarta has long since bitten the dust, and so has Collier’s notable effort. Wikipedia, like it or lump it — mostly the latter — seems to have taken over that go-to first source slot. Indeed, for a great many subjects a Wikipedia […]
The problem of using “methodological” naturalism to define science
One of the problems that keeps on cropping up here at UD and elsewhere is as captioned. Accordingly, I just noted to JDK et al in the “complaining” thread as follows: ___________ KF, 66: >>I should note on the subtly toxic principle that has been injected in such a way as to seem reasonable (especially […]
It is time for ID to provide real leadership in rethinking origins across the board
The opportunity is open and it is time to seize the day. So, I think a comment in a discussion with GP and Dionisio should be headlined: >>My observation is those who are closed minded, indoctrinated and hostile will simply flare up in anger at anything that threatens their favoured evolutionary materialistic scientism or their […]
Sci-Tech: Meltdown patches patched as a first wave of lawsuits hits Intel over Meltdown and Spectre [u/d, AMD sued over Spectre too]
| January 23, 2018 | Posted by kairosfocus under Computing, AI, Cybernetics and Mechatronics, General interest, Geo-strategic issues, governance, UD's Sci-Tech watch |
The Meltdown-Spectre processor architectural flaw crisis we have been monitoring has deepened as Intel has to patch its initial patch: . . . and as a first wave of the inevitable lawsuits hits. Here, we clip one in San Francisco: NB: Comment 3 below links and clips documentation AMD has been sued over its […]
Tabby’s Star, 3: the business of dealing with Black Swans
In the Tabby’s Star”extraordinary claims” follow-up thread, one of the usual objector personas tried to pounce on the corrective: To do so, he tried to counter-pose the concept of Bayesian analysis, then professes to find that a discussion of the difference between risk and radical uncertainty is little more than meaningless verbiage. This is, however, […]
FYI-FTR: JS, “sock[puppet]” troll persona — the unmasking (by Ab at a notorious objector site)
Over the past several days, JS has been self-unmasked as a troll at a notorious anti-UD forum site. As a public service, to demonstrate the tactics and mentality we are up against, I now headline an exchange with a likely second “sock[puppet]” that popped up to try to project accusations: MK, 139: >>I have gone […]
Basic Logic: are we behind where we were 2,000 years ago?
Three days ago, I put up a couple of comments that I think are worth headlining on what was a commonplace, common-sense understanding of Logic 101, all of 2,000 years ago. First, a tie-in from core distinct identity to the principle of induction: >>I feel inclined to start with this . . . to illustrate […]
The futility of relativism, subjectivism and emotivism as ethical stances
The exchanges over ethics have continued to brew up in UD’s comment threads. Accordingly, it is appropriate to note an excerpt from a chapter summary for what seems to be a very level-headed — and so quite unfashionable — textbook: >>Excerpted chapter summary, on Subjectivism, Relativism, and Emotivism, in Doing Ethics 3rd Edn, by Lewis […]
Is Technology a new religion? (And if so, what is happening at Temple Google?)
AFP tells us regarding the current Consumer Electronics Show (CES): >>Tech is the new religion, offering hope of salvation in a troubled world as industry leaders converge in Las Vegas this week. Technology will not just help us communicate better and give us bolder and brighter screens. It is promising to end urban congestion, treat […]
On subjectivity vs objectivity of moral principles and the importance of self-evidently true moral principles
For quite some days now, a brawling debate has raged across several UD threads on moral principles, truth and self-evidence. It is worth the while to again headline some of the exchange for record. First, an exchange or two on fairness and subjectivity vs objectivity. And yes, this is a second-order clipping — a lot […]
The core of Christian ethics (for those inclined to put God in the dock)
There is such a strong tendency to project all sorts of accusations against Christian ethics that I believe it is necessary to put the indisputable core of the Christian ethical tradition on the table, to clear the air. And so, Matt 5 – 7, ESV: >>The Sermon on the Mount 5 Seeing the crowds, he [Jesus] […]
HGP responds to “society consensus morality,” i.e. cultural relativism
Over the years, I have noticed a tendency at UD and elsewhere to ignore and bury quite significant and substantial comments when discussion threads reflect interactions with those more concerned to make points rather than to have serious dialogue. Ironically, serious dialogue is what is necessary if a genuine consensus is ever to be built. […]
An Unhappy New Year for computers and smart devices: the Meltdown & Spectre flaws in Intel, AMD and ARM processors
| January 4, 2018 | Posted by kairosfocus under Computing, AI, Cybernetics and Mechatronics, General interest, governance, UD's Sci-Tech watch |
On Wednesday, January 3rd, there has been an announcement of two security flaws that affect Intel, AMD and ARM micro-chips, thus potentially affecting PC’s, telephones and a great many appliances alike. As a Yahoo News article reports: “Phones, PCs, everything are going to have some impact, but it’ll vary from product to product,” Intel CEO […]
WJM vs Popper and his supporters on error and progress
WJM often provides quite refreshing insights. Here, in the challenge of criticism thread, he responds to CR (and to Origenes), and in so doing, addresses Popper: WJM, 8: >> Popper’s answer is: We can hope to detect and eliminate error if we set up traditions of criticism—substantive criticism, directed at the content of ideas, not […]
CR’s fallibilism vs the issue of sufficiently reliable rationality
| January 4, 2018 | Posted by kairosfocus under agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games, Atheism, Darwinist rhetorical tactics, Food for thought, governance, Logic and First Principles of right reason |
UD serves as a forum in which many issues are debated and as a result form time to time, there are things that it is helpful to draw to wider attention by headling. Here, something from the objectivity and morality thread, as food for thought : KF, 302: >>CR: Every proposition is fallible because there […]
The problem of virtue-signalling social permission to target and bully scapegoated groups
This is where we now are as a civilisation: >>A Salvation Army bell ringer in California had been beaten in front of a Walmart because he wanted to spread joy this holiday season. Rev. Jamie Wolfe Sr., the man ringing the bell, told CBS Sacramento that he says “Merry Christmas” to everyone who passes by […]
Sci-Tech: Apple walks off the edge of the cliff — who’s next?
| December 23, 2017 | Posted by kairosfocus under agit-prop, opinion manipulation and well-poisoning games, Darwinist rhetorical tactics, governance, Media Manipulation, Agit-Prop &/or Lawfare, UD's Sci-Tech watch |
One of the underlying themes of UD is that we need to be aware of how big, powerful institutions and organisations can go wrong. A typical rhetorical response to that, is to dismiss such concerns as mere ill-founded, empty conspiracist theorising. So, it is appropriate to point out a striking case that shows how easily […]
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 […]
Tucker Carlson challenges Planned Parenthood
. . . on just what it is that we are killing in the womb: >>“Why are you giving me robotic responses? I’m asking you a human question, and I hope you’ll favor me with a human answer?” That was Tucker Carlson on his primetime Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” interviewing Planned Parenthood Executive […]
The problem of agit prop street theatre (U/D: UC Berkeley riot footage)
. . . and similar manipulative spin and mob-ocracy games masquerading as truth, news, knowledge/education, etc now clearly needs to be confronted — if we are to think straight and act soundly in good time to avoid going over the cliff as a civilisation: The Parable of Plato’s Cave (and the linked idea of the […]
. . . has much to teach us in a media-dominated age where manipulators keep trying to push/pull our window of acceptability through deceit, poison, accusation, polarising and more.
Especially if we ask ourselves: how does the shadow show come to be, and how is a community so manipulated that it loses contact with objective reality?
Acts 27 gives us a picture in miniature (once we realise that it was common knowledge that some seasons were dangerous for sailing in the Mediterranean basin of 2,000 years ago, but that many people can be induced to go along with those they look up to for leadership, power and expertise):
Shipwreck at Malta, c. AD 59
>>Ac 27:4 . . . putting out to sea from there [= Sidon] we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us. 5 And when we had sailed across the open sea along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia. 6 There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy and put us on board. 7 We sailed slowly for a number of days and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus, and as the wind did not allow us to go farther, we sailed under the lee of Crete off Salmone. 8 Coasting along it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city of Lasea.
9 Since much time had passed, and the voyage was now dangerous because even the Fast[a] was already over, Paul advised them, 10 saying, “Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” 11 But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said. 12 And because the harbor was not suitable to spend the winter in, the majority decided to put out to sea from there, on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, facing both southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there.
The Storm at Sea
13 Now when the south wind blew gently, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along Crete, close to the shore. 14 But soon a tempestuous wind, called the northeaster, struck down from the land. 15 And when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along. 16 Running under the lee of a small island called Cauda,[b] we managed with difficulty to secure the ship’s boat. 17 After hoisting it up, they used supports to undergird [= frap] the ship. Then, fearing that they would run aground on the Syrtis, they lowered the gear,[c] and thus they were driven along. 18 Since we were violently storm-tossed, they began the next day to jettison the cargo. 19 And on the third day they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. 20 When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned.
21 Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. 22 Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. 23 For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, 24 and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ 25 So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. 26 But we must run aground on some island.”>>
Here, Mr Moneybags and his bought- and- paid- for technico manipulated the passengers and the Centurion into going along with a foolhardy voyage. That Jeremiah over there in chains with scars from three previous shipwrecks? Just ignore that half-mad idiot rejected by his own people. We are the experts and our consensus is, we can do it . . . it will only take an afternoon’s sail on a comfortable reach to go forty miles to a safe and commodious harbour. Of course, the predictable result of turning democracy into a manipulated de-mockracy, was shipwreck.
And, on many, many dimensions, that is exactly what we face today.
(BTW, I think we would all profit from reading and viewing this Melanie Philips article and video interview here.)
Our challenge is to de-spin the dominant agenda and its seven mountains/ commanding heights citadels, to come to a critical mass of prudence towards a sounder more sustainable alternative:
Oh yes, I doubt that it is a mere accident that the Limousine torched on Trump’s Inauguration day
. . . was rented for Wallnau, and that the bought and paid for “Anarchists” — a dead political movement if ever there was one — claimed to be “We the People.”
Vid:
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Where, it is worth the while to pause and unpack the old Soviet/Bolshevik term, agit prop.
Namely, it strictly/narrowly . . . per current dictionary definitions . . . speaks to twisting the theatre, arts, literature and the like into propaganda. However, on both the history and the inherent dynamics as work it readily extends to the mob-ocracy game, in which the streets and news media or institutions of intellectual leadership and education — notice the appeals to “consensus” on matters of controversy or where something is patently wrong with the dominant and too often domineering schools of thought . . . — are turned into a grand theatre projecting shadow shows confused for reality.
Often, such shadow shows are sponsored by governments, sometimes by powerful factions. And of course, such theatre too often becomes bloody, creating a horrific escalating spiral of chaos, confusion, retaliation and polarisation.
U/D, Feb 2 — it looks like live events are demonstrating my point:
Here is a girl being struck and pepper-sprayed at UC Berkeley for the thought crime of objecting to the riots:
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(Ask yourself, what if she has a medical condition such as grand mal epilepsy or asthma or the like that could be triggered, sometimes with severe consequences? Do these rioters think or care about what fires they could be playing with?)
Likewise, people are being chased and struck to the ground by blackshirts (pardon language that pops up):
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Here is some media coverage, in this case backgrounders leading up to a telephone interview with the proposed speaker whose speech event was shut down by the riot:
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(Full phone interview here.)
U/D Feb 4: Interview with a woman targetted, pushed up against a railing and assaulted at UC Berkeley:
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(I further understand her husband was beaten unconscious [which more or less implies concussion injuries] with several of his ribs being broken.)
U/D Feb 6th: The friend “pepper” sprayed during an interview also speaks out about the attack, indicating that it was the identification as My/Trump supporters that triggered the first and second attacks:
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(And in case you think pepper spraying is minor, consider the implicit threat as something much more destructive up to a poison gas could easily have been used. BTW, why didn’t someone realise, assault with a potentially deadly weapon and tackle this suspect/perpetrator to the ground? ANS: People are not trained for that and by the time you observe, orient, decide and begin to react [cf. on John Boyd’s OODA Loop, here] it is over for good or ill; that is why trained security should have been right there, preferably law enforcement. It is also why a clear entry area protected by barriers with adequate separation should have been in place . . . another point of negligence by the authorities. Likewise consider how dazzling was used to initiate the second attack, which ended in mayhem: disorientation that could easily have prepared for anything from kidnapping to stabbing or shooting. If the pepper spray woman can be caught and interrogated, this would be important as she — it is likely to have been one individual — initiated the attack sequence. Given the hostile nature of the interview, perhaps it would be useful to interrogate the interviewer as possibly being complicit given what happened and what could all too easily have happened. Then, compare this sort of coverage with how the major media have treated the events at UCB last Wednesday evening, to see how street agitation and bully-boy tactics then feed into the theatre of narrative propaganda, spin tactics, gaslighting and outright brainwashing. Something truly ugly is going on.)
U/D Feb 5th: Meanwhile, we have a picture of police in riot gear inside the student union while riot-induced chaos was going on outside:
The poster of this very tellingly asks:
>>I was at UC Berkeley last night. Here is a pic I got after the speech cancellation of nearly 100 SWAT and campus police sitting inside the student union building doing NOTHING while people were getting beaten outside. WHO told them to stand down?>>
Further U/D Feb 5, pm: Notice — HT Zero Hedge, Feb 2nd — how the street theatre then gets projected by the media houses (CNN as an example, but take note of ZH’s own perspectives, too . . . ) to suit their particular agendas and narratives:
Under certain circumstances, agit prop becomes not just rioting but rebellion and guerrilla war — these days, 4th generation war [think of how the Palestinian Arab uprisings and declaratively genocidal terrorism campaigns have come to be viewed as “liberation” struggles by many across the world . . . ] — or even radical revolution.
I again point to the de-spinning framework I developed a decade ago:
U/D Feb 10 (HT BA77), Sharyl Attkisson in a TEDx talk on Astroturfing and media manipulation gives a useful, from the horse’s mouth view on the media spin game:
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Let us wake up to what is in front of us regarding not just design debates but ever so many issues and agendas across our civilisation. Plato’s grim warning from nearly 2360 years ago, is again all too apt:
>>
Ath [in The Laws, Bk X 2,350+ ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical “material” elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ –> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . .
[Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-
[ –> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by “winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . ” cf a video on Plato’s parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,
[ –> Evolutionary materialism — having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT — leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for “OUGHT” is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in “spin”) . . . ]
and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ –> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality “naturally” leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ –> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, “naturally” tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush — as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [–> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].
>>
To be forewarned is — if we are wise — to be forearmed. END
