What it says on the tin; a perspective for the silenced majority.
Keep in mind that until the last 30 years and the rapid replacement of the old world order by newspeak and spin - especially by Tony Blair in the UK, Bill Clinton in the USA, and the EU commission - fairy stories were introduced by the phrase "once upon a time", now they are introduced by "according to experts".
We are sleep-walking into another unimaginable "end of times" disaster. There is a full scale 1984 cellphone dystopia in 2022!
The unchallenged spread of Bluetooth monitoring in applications like health tracking and integrated transport is promoted by BBC Click (Genoa example) as some sort of wonderfully aspirational future.
But what happens when the phone - now the indispensable fulcrum for any lifestyle - does not work? For any reason, and boy there are plenty of reasons. Including some less obvious reasons such as a solar flare (nature's own EMP) that destroys sensitive electronic equipment in space, and on the earth's surface.
In fact, that phones appear to work as well as they do when you consider the chain of consequences and complexity involved, is nothing short of a miracle.
We have created a society with a single point of failure and the means of absolute remote control coupled to a complete invasion of privacy would impress the most brutal communist dictatorship. If you think the quietly accumulated energy dependency on Russia has leapt out of the shadows and bitten us on the arse, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Phone networks are notoriously awful to deal with when there is a problem - when everything is working. Any battle with the online and call centre interface to your account is going to leave you drained and suffering from palpitations at the very least. Your phone will have accumulated many applications including identification and financial that can take a long time to arrange and configure in perfect circumstances. And even if you think you have some form of backup available, it is only at the behest of many factors far beyond your control and ability to influence.
Incredibly, the replacement of cash by all forms of electronic money is assumed to be a good thing, without any mention of the dystopian downsides. Good for who? Not you...
Have we all been taken in and gone mad, and been swept along? Emphatically yes!
Who (apart from Donald Trump!) was watching the ease with which an almost entirely unquestioned hypothesis had become the basis of a 1984-like imposition of attitudes and controls on all society, that led directly to Russia's overnight control of the World economy.
And now we are told to expect the very real possibility that electricity shortage will lead to brownouts and power cuts.
At least in this country is it still just possible to exist without a cell phone, but not for much longer.
Is there anyone in government that has a clue? The pace of technology development is so far in advance of the ability of any legislative process to keep up, that most politicians gave up some time ago, and struck backroom deals with the new power brokers. Is the best we can now hope for a benevolent dictatorship, as the Great Reset, designed and delivered by Klaus Schwab and the Marxist WEF becomes ever more inevitable?
But it’s far too late to break free from the tyranny of the cellphone. We’ve gone too far down on our path towards self-destruction. And we knew very well what we were doing. And we still keep doing it because it is so perversely enjoyable. Addiction doesn't begin to describe the state of the relationship between smartphone and humanity.
We want to be the slaves of the cellphone because we can watch TikTok and YouTube on it. And we can dump and share our thoughts in posts like this one, to titillate our egos and amuse our ever shortening attention span, enjoying our journey to hell while clutching our iPhones in our dying hands, trying to protect till the last moment their LCD screens from scratching... and desperately trying to find the last working USB port for just one more charge.
No doubt, the first and last nukes of WW3 shall be launched by typing a code on someone’s cellphone. And following that, a direction to the nearest fall-out shelter will automatically pop up on the screen as your location, accurate to the nearest 5m, is dutifully fed back to a data silo somewhere in Russia, Israel, and China. The luckiest of us will no longer see it.
All hail Klaus Schwab and the WEF...
But is there a tiny ray of hope emerging? An anti smartphone revolution appears to be gathering pace, as phone slaves rebel against the tyranny of the smartphone and embrace a simpler lifestyle.
https://youtu.be/02mIRnPJm6g
Another video describing the worst cell phone mistakes in history from the same source, makes very entertaining viewing...
WORK
IN PROGRESS - this will be continuously
updated and links added . When I am happy I have reached basecamp, I
will declare version 1.0. I
will be using external links in the way Tim Berners Lee intended at the
start of the web, but that has now become much
less popular with site creators who want to cling jealously to their
visitors, and not risk sending them away down a "competitive" rabbit
hole.
I'm not sure what was more excruciating about the BBC coverage of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony - the contrived storyline - or the enthusiasm of the BBC commentary to explain the obtuse and embarrassing symbolism.
It was bigoted, racist, presumptive, intolerant. It was a carefully assembled barrage of biased propaganda. An insulting celebration of discrimination, delusion, and dysfunction. But an appropriate swansong for Nadine Dorries' time as Culture Secretary at DCMS and her boss - who has tolerated and protected rampant incompetence and the steady erosion of British culture at the hands of the liberal elite "blob" that drives the BBC and other mainstream media, Whitehall and Westminster.
How many times have we been told that there are more medals for women's events than men this time? I don't think we have heard anyone explain which events these represent. Did the organizing committee sneak in flower arranging and embroidery? OK, OK ... I can hear the howls of indignation! Unlike the BBC, I am eager to make fun of this ludicrous carnival of the absurd ... and read the room.
Of course, no representatives of any country - mostly elected democracies - were given an opportunity to explain why they choose to support their traditional family and religious values.
And what's to stop the winner of an event declaring a sudden gender change as they step up to the podium, in diverse, inclusive, liberated and enlightened Birmingham?
The fact that shooting sports were dropped from these games was not mentioned, although of course Birmingham was the centre of British arms manufacturer for centuries and the BSA company is an acronym of Birmingham Small Arms.
The takeover of British culture by unelected liberal elites that have comprehensively taken control of the BBC, C4, advertising, marketing and the Arts and education establishments to brainwash generations of kids and replace all critical functions with programmed submission to the "narrative|", is complete.
The BBC's determination to promote and perpetuate the fear of fossil-based climate change featured during the process, the fact it remains a disputed hypothesis was of course not mentioned; a folly that has handed control of the global economy to despot dictators that control essential fossil energy.
And there is now no one left that is willing and able to step back and question just what dangerous nonsense that the BBC is eager to propagate. Nadine Dorries has been an inept disaster in charge at DCMS.
Adding financial injury to cultural insult, these games are allocated £800m of public money - that's around £80 million a day.
The failure of Boris to arrange a government that could get any sort of grip on this corrosive process, means he has allowed the cabal of vociferous minorities to take charge of the UK through a process of subversion carried out in plain sight.
The net result is we are now engaged in an energy crisis that affects absolutely every aspect of life, and that can only be resolved by equipping the Ukraine army to defeat Russia and pray that Putin is replaced by a more reasonable leader that might allow Europe to survive the coming winter, before he nukes us.
The very ultimate irony appears to be that a significant proportion of the people would prefer the dilettante who has presided over this shocking state of affairs for the last few years should remain as leader, since the alternatives are looking so unimpressive.
You could not make it up.
You don't have to watch, but it's a good way to recharge your outrage and indignation at the way the "blob" and BBC in particular has taken charge of the social agenda, and driven us all off a cliff into the abyss of mediocrity. There must surely soon be a big effort to create an alternative political party in this country now that the "common sense conservative silent majority" has no representation.
Updates July 30th 2022 V010 WORK IN PROGRESS - Please submit edits and suggestions at any time
This is NOT a Russian bot or propganda post, but an effort to wind back this misinformation and presumpotion and balance the reporting of Putin's psychotic folly in Ukraine ... and the reality of Zelensky's brilliant PR and imagery. Nothing is ever quite what it seems.
This analysis is from "our own correspondant" - a Czech expat with extensive connections with
and experience of "cold war" Europe. Everything is based on verifiable
facts; some dots are joined with extrapolation triggered by numerous
flashing red controls of inbuilt BS detectors, finely tuned by years of
practical experience living under a wide range of political regimes.
There is uneasiness about the situation in Ukraine - it has never seemed quite as clear cut as many wanted to make it seem - which was based on the demonisation of Putin and Russia and barely questioned beatification of Zelensky & Co. So then...
Zelensky was elected based on his promise of: 1 fixing up the Ukrainian economy by getting rid of corruption; 2 sorting out the disputes with Russians; 3 popularity as a TV comedian and a star of a show where he plays a good guy, a brave reformist president.
Rivers | Copyright 2022 Cagle Cartoons
His
approval rating when elected was over 70%. This soon dropped to over
20% as disillusion set in, when it became obvious that none of the
promises were kept. The nation started to realize that instead of one
corrupt oligarch, it now had an inept corrupt would-be oligarch in
place, especially when Zelensky’s name appeared in the Pandora Papers.
It became public knowledge that Zelensky owns (via offshore trusts)
three significant luxury properties in London, which he absolutely would
not be able to afford given his income as a comedian and a president.
But
the clock was ticking for Zelensky. The opposition party was starting
to give him a hard time. From the other side, the hardline nationalists
did not take him seriously when he travelled to Mariupol to try to
persuade them to stop shelling Donbas. In fact, they laughed at him as
being “gay”, referring to some of his earlier comedic shows where he was
dressed up in leather garb and high-heel shoes.
At the same time, the
Russians grew increasingly upset about Ukraine not adhering to the Minsk
Accords, a set of agreements brokered by France and Germany, designed
to sort out the unrest between the ethnic Russian minority in the east
and south and ethnic Ukrainians in the west and north. He might in fact
have earnestly tried to ease the tensions, but the nationalist leaders
consisted mostly of hardcore football fans with swastikas tattooed on
their arms who had no time for a Jewish boy in high heels.
As if
this was not enough, he had the CIA on his hands, those nice lads who
organized the Orange Revolution in 2014 when a democratically elected
government (but, sadly, pro-Russian) was deposed with a little help from
snipers provocateurs from nationalist militias. The president of Ukraine at that time was Viktor Yanukovich, who was a successor to Victor Yushchenko, famous for having had an attempt at his life by poisoning with the same chemical that was used in Agent Orange.
Interesting, he was also a governor of the Donbass region. He was
replaced by an oligarch by the name of Poroshenko (Zelensky’s
predecessor) who was in bed with the nationalists. One of his noble
deeds was to proclaim a guy by the name of Stefan Bandera a national
hero of Ukraine. Bandera was leader of a terrorist organization who
fought on the German side in WW2 and even after the war terrorized the
local population of Poland, eastern Czechoslovakia and the western parts
of the Soviet Union, killing about 50,000 civilians for no other
purpose but to cause civil unrest in order to destabilize the postwar
order. BTW, my late father, who was drafted to the Czechoslovak military
in the early 50s told me some stories from the times they were sweeping
the forests in search for the Banderilleros. They were renown for their
cruelty. But I digress…
CIA continued operations in Ukraine
after the coup, training the nationalists under various banners, most
famously the Azov Batallion, whose insignia contain unmistakable German
Nazi symbols (which, btw, were removed only recently, approx 3 weeks
ago).
The existing bio labs from the Soviet era have been repurposed
for military purpose of NATO. Under CIA oversight, NATO became openly
involved in supplying the Ukrainian army with weapons and training, with
an openly stated aim of eastward expansion.
The so-called Azov
Batallion is the largest of nationalist militias and used to operate
independently, although openly armed and trained in the west, most famously by Canada, where Ukrainian operatives with Nazi symbols of the Azov Batallion on their camo uniforms have been photographed alongside
regular Canadian special forces. It was absorbed into a regular
Ukrainian army prior to Russian invasion. Interestingly, there was a
“retired” Canadian general who was amongst the captured fighters from
the Azov steel factory in Mariupol. He is now in jail in Russia,
probably awaiting a Putin’s show trial after his victory.
Azov made little effort to play nice ... a video from 2018 that cannot be embedded:- https://youtu.be/meWM4lChqy4
And the youth camps...
Against
this backdrop, Zelensky started to feel rather cornered. With Nazis at
his throat at home, Russians getting increasingly frantic (over 15,000
Donbass Russians killed by Azov Batallion’s shelling) and CIA’s
arm-twisting, he was facing a growing unrest by his own population, the
very people who voted him in.
But Ukraine still had some good
assets: plenty of gas, some oil, solid industrial base from Soviet times
(including a factory making the world’s largest transport aircraft -
originally designed to transport the Soviet space shuttle, a project
abruptly discontinued after the collapse of the Soviet Union), and of
course enormous, sprawling, fertile fields capable of feeding the world
with quality grain.
A perfect base for prosperity of the largest
country in Europe, populated by mere 40 mil people. But, sadly, also a
perfect base for high-flying international scoundrels. In the absence
of solid governance, made possible by the population’s zero historical
experience with democracy and lack of quality leaders, the country has
become a haven for all that is wrong and evil of contemporary western
elite. The news that all the country riches are up to grabs have spread
like a wildfire.
The vultures started circling in, high-flying
thieves taking working holidays in Kiev, departing with lucrative
“deals” involving selling favours. Sex tourists taking advantage of
impoverished, unhappy population and beautiful Slavic girls. For
example, Hunter Biden who had no prior experience in running companies,
nor any education in the energy field, nor any knowledge or association
with Ukraine, was appointed a director of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian
gas producing company, with a salary of $1mil a year. The sole reason
was the fact that his father was then vice-president in the Obama
administration. The reason for his employment was obviously in order for
this company to have access to the US policy making. It is difficult to
determine what kind of effect this access could have been and how it
might have affected US energy self-sufficiency - that’s beside the main
point.
In addition to becoming an Eldorado for white-collar
shady deals, Ukraine has also become Europe’s largest black market for
weapons, many of which ending up in the world’s hotspots and arming
terrorists everywhere with modern weapons courtesy old Soviet stockpiles
in combination with modern NATO armaments.
The pressure on Zelensky was enormous.
With
time running out before being deposed and possibly tried for
corruption, Zelensky had to act to save himself. As an interim measure,
he had the leader of the opposition party arrested, and the last
independent media closed down, including two television stations.
This
did not stop the widening divisions in the nation, exacerbated by a law
discriminating against the use of Russian language, the vast majority
language of Donbass and Crimea, and spoken by 30% of Ukrainians,
including Zelensky himself. The law was enacted by parliament still
controlled by adherents of Zelensky’s predecessor, Poroshenko. Zelensky
was against this, but did not have enough power to overturn it. (He’d
probably get killed if he tried, anyway; the Ukrainian neo-Nazis don’t
muck around.)
Zalensky found himself alone, cornered, likely to
be either deposed by force or in the next election. If that happened, he
would be facing jail, and he could kiss goodbye his luxury real estate
in London and all the trappings of high-class living, including shopping
at Harrods, having suits made at Saville Row and rubbing shoulders with
the rich and famous. He knew he was about to lose all that if he did
not act soon.
Meanwhile, the prime minister of the United
Kingdom, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has been having different
kinds of problems, a result of numerous personal scandals and
substandard governance, alienating him from the UK population, worn out
by the covid epidemics and its aftermath. He, too, was looking for a
miracle solution to save his political career and moral standing as a
person. That would be unacceptable for Boris and any other
self-respecting narcissist. Having written a book about the life of
Winston Churchill, Boris dreamt about being just like his personal hero:
the celebrated saviour of the free world! But instead, he was facing
ignominy. Time was running out and the Partygate affair brought this to
light.
So what did he do? What did *they* do? I am sure you know where this is heading.
The ultimate mutual admiration society
Marking each other's homework?
There
could hardly have been a better example of alignment of personal
interests than that of Volodomyr Zelensky and Boris Johnson. How exactly
they managed to find each other is unclear; but when they did, they
moved fast and solved all their problems in one major sweep. A plan so
daring, yet so simple and so unassailable. And while it involved playing
with fire, it was actually safer than doing nothing, provided it was
carefully managed.
So here was the plan:
1 Zelensky’s role
(after all, he was a skilled and experienced actor famous for his
impersonation of a heroic president) was to provide a war that would
provide sufficient distraction from domestic problems, for both
partners.
2 Johnson’s role was to provide quality PR and
material support for the operation, as well as British passports for
Zelensky and his family so he could go to London to enjoy the lifestyle
of a war hero and champion of democracy, Churchill style.
The war
was triggered by pushing the Russians over a tolerance limit. They were
almost there by a fine margin, watching the domestic situation in
Ukraine evolving beyond control. Zelensky knew exactly where the red
line was. He started to grow a beard in preparation, amassed a large
army at Donbass border and spoke loudly about the need of Ukraine
joining NATO, including placement of nuclear weapons in Ukraine
territory, a sacred right of an independent country.
This was a
major red flag for the Russians. Remember what Kennedy did when the
Russians wanted to place missiles in Cuba. Would the US tolerate their
adversary having nukes in Mexico?
Predictably, Russians invaded
Ukraine. Overnight, Zelensky changed into sexy camouflage outfit and
showed the world his new persona of a heroic wartime president, his best
lifetime role, this time on the world stage.
Having gullible
western politicians, the useful idiots du jour, giving him standing
ovations in all western parliaments must have been an exhilarating
experience by for Zelensky. But how about the pesky opposition at home?
The opposition party, the second largest in parliament, demanded
negotiations with the Russians. This, by the way, was the same party
that demanded that the Minsk peace accords that Ukraine signed under the
patronage of the Germans and the French be honoured - obviously this
must have been a treasonous act by Ukrainian standards.) The leader of
the party was already arrested, now the party itself was banned and all
their assets confiscated.
(Interestingly, in her recent speech,
Ursula van Leyen waxed lyrical about the Ukrainian heroic fight for
democracy and the need to support it. That really should come as no
surprise, given that Ursula herself was not democratically elected by
the people of EU. Obviously, that’s not how democracy is supposed to
work).
The plan worked perfectly. There is no chance of an enquiry to
Zelensky’s financial affairs. His popularity at home is surging. They
might yet erect some statues for him and name some streets or towns
after him.
Johnson has survived his Partygate scandal and shaped
himself into a Churchill-style wartime prime minister, saviour of the
free world. (Somewhat less persuasively than Zelensky, but not a bad act
for a budding actor.) And never mind that the free world was never
really threatened. The gullible population of the UK and EU, looking for
an outlet for their pent-up anger for Covid and economic mismanagement,
got their whipping boy: Putin and the Russkies. And immediately started
to experience the uplifting warm glow of belonging to the masses,
suddenly re-united by a shared hatred. This will be especially useful to
prevent or deflect social unrest in winter when the energy crisis
properly kicks in.
Meanwhile, Putin was paying attention, and has managed to manipulate the sanction-spanking, to wage economic war on Europe
and the whole world. The West's own goal? As a result, the price of energy has skyrocketed
and Russian exporters are facing a windfall in revenue. He had cut off
Russia from western banking system, so that the west is now facing
unprecedented inflation while the rouble is surging to an all-time high,
backed by gold holdings that he has so patiently amassed over the years
and that he now can’t export even if he wanted to, because of recent
western ban on gold imports from Russia. The sanctions must be really
hard on Russia, considering that Argentina and Iran now want to join
Russia, China and India dominated BRICS, and India is laughing all the
way to the bank, basking in the warm glow of burning cheap Russian oil
and gas, as well as reselling it to the stupid EU at a great margin.
And meanwhile, Ukrainians (and Russians) are being killed in a useless, unnecessary war, and the country is being destroyed. The
country shall be eventually rebuilt, with much fanfare, with your
taxes. Numerous monuments and memorials shall be built to the many
thousands of people who had to die to save the careers of two politicians with hugely questionable motives and morality.
PS and oh, I forgot to mention the windfall profits of the mostly US defence
industry, which had been looking for a good war to fix up their
dwindling profits, a hangover of Trump’s irritating peace-making era. With half of
the US congress owning stocks in defence companies, waging a nice proxy
war in a distant land, is a win-win situation.
So where does this go from here..?
None of this excuses Putin's army's crude beligerence and cold war mentality that betrays a lack of training and skill as much as murderous intent. The low quality of leadership that clearly misled Putin into thinking it would all be over by tea time with an innings and days to spare is one of the key reasons it all got out of hand.
But the stupidity of everyone that piled in without doing even the most basic background checks will become legendary in history books. In the early days when Zelensky paraded a thunderflash "attack" on a nuclear plant as an artillery bombardment and thereby an urgent reason for NATO's immediate involvement, the Pentagon (watching from satellites) discreetly warned us not to beleive everything we were being told in the fog of war.
Given the stakes and the enormity of the propaganda efforts, we are now struggling to believe anything anyone says. At times, the whole affair seems awkwardly like a mafia turf war... is anyone going to make an offer that can't be refused?
As of July 8th, the immediate consequences of the departure of Boris Johnson as PM are not apparent. But Germany is having an outbreak of pragmatism as various green taboos are being revisited. The attacks on ammunition and fual dumps on Russian border territiory are intensifying and very accurate - and with Boris gone, as Zelensky's most vocal and determiend supporter, the way is clearing for a compromise that
ends up with Russian oil and gas again keeping the EU economy afloat. Maybe Macron will resume his cosy phone chats with Putin?
July 30th and Sky News update
Sky News host Cory Bernardi says “everything we are told” about the Russia-Ukraine conflict should be taken “with a huge dose of salt”. Bernardi sticks his neck out and risks trial by media and various forms of "cancellation" (- as do I!)
But the West has been compromised by its own foolish reliance on Russian energy, and there is no rapid way out of the economic crisis other than giving Ukraine the weapons and suppoort to defeat Russia an humiliate Putin out of office = and pray that we don't get nuked - and that Putin's successor has pleanty of property and financial interests in London, and the blast zone.
The UK government has been struggling with this concept for some time now, and continues to struggle with the original draft bill being parked amidst the shambles and aftermath of partygate.
The support for responisible freedom of speech and expression of opinion ought to be a fundamental objective and function of this awkwardly conceived and evolved legislation.
The definition of responsible is one of several crucial keys The right to offend and be offended is necessary and fundamental. The range of language that people consider to be normal, necessary and acceptable is almost infinite. Suggesting to an infuriated individual that their choice of profanity is a reflection of impaired intellectual capability and a limited ability to express themselves within in the constraints of the mores of the the relevant conventions of polite society, is likely to result in a punch in the face in the real world, and an explosion of further profanity online.
The question of the measurement of the scale of the degree of offence ranges from delicate woke snowflake, to hardened unshockable adult; and crashes into the variations of the many ways that different societies invoke and involve traditions that maybe be thousands of years deep in their complexity and nuance.
Even the very fundamental protection of children by shielding them from exploitation by those who are not guided by the child's best interests, is complicated by the suggestion that kids are part of the enlightened new world of "fluid gender politics" that appears to be the ultimate expression of the "free love" revolution from the 60s, that was the ultimate antithesis of a Victorian morality that once covered up piano legs for reasons of modesty.
Many will regard this a perversion traditional adult responsibility to shield children from those areas of exploitative social interaction that are accessed through the traditional rites of passage.
Identifying behaviour that is offensive, lewd, gratuitous requires an understanding of continuously viable context. It is not simple in an industry controlled by sociopath asperger-limited geeks, that is desperate to reduce all interaction to rule-based procedures to remove the costly and potentially inconsistent human element.
But how to evaluate such a nearly impossibly ambitious scheme? Devising the full panaply of test cases and scenarios is a life's work covering experience of the entire human condition as it is manifested in hundreds of societies, each evolved with its own set of moral (religious) references and datums derived from thousands of years of experience and adjustment. Phew ...
Yes, it is impossible. The history of online has been defined by "special interest groups" (sigs) that exploited the opportunity to find others of a similar outlook and disposition to share and exchange experiences.
And that is as innocent and as deeply controversial as it sounds. Humanity has been fascinated by and absorbed by all aspects of sexuality since the dawn of civilization, has a trip around the museums of any ancient society will reveal.
The issue is where robust and healthy interests become "pervy" and uncomfortable, and here, the age difference between the participants has generally been regarded as a key factor, with the age of consent being the traditional low tide mark.
Protection of the innocent from exploitation is an essential function of any civilized society ... without exception? Definitions of innocent? How does this vary with context?
A recent innovation is the world of online gaming, which has introduced a range of risks that were previously unimagined. It is in the nature of gaming and entertainment that the discovery of these risks may well be deeply buried within complex gameplay, adding considerably to the challenges of any attempted regulation.
Anyone who has been active online for any length of time will have experienced the unnerving moment when they realise that Google knows as much about them as a mother does. The result of those innocent browser cookies continuously gathering personal information and then becoming part of an ever-expanding profile, is impossible to eradicate or even control to any meaningful extent.
The only practical way through the process of tidying up online behaviour and interaction is to start simple and obvious. Securely identify all participants involved! Which then creates its own set of problems, including the opportunity for the biggest problem of them all: the infinite memory of the internet. Anything recorded online from the earliest age will be attached to the identity and follow the "perpetrator" from logon to logoff.
The option for users to exclude interaction with any other user they want to "ban" is a basic protection against stalking and general unpleasantness, for want of a better description of hateful and/or bullying behaviour.
Attempts to regulate the unintended consequences of the exploitation of online identify with legislation, such as GDPR have had mixed success. They have largely tended to suggest and then prove that the only safe way of dealing with personal data manipulation online, is to completely detach it from all possible identification traceable to the individual owner. Various methods of proxy identification have been proposed but new acceptable global standards have yet to emerge.
There is no safe compromise. Otherwise, it will be exploited by whoever is able to gather and process it - be it state spying institutions - lawful or clandestine - or commercial marketing companies looking to sell potential customers to advertisers - who want to sell anything from consumer goods to political objectives via the internet's spectrum of "personal services", that were defined by those original special interest groups back at the dawn of online.
WORK IN PROGRESS updated 0v2 July 22nd 2022 - this will be continuously updated and links added . When I am happy I have reached basecamp, I will declare version 1.0 Until then it may remain a "bit random"... I will be using external links in the way Tim Berners Lee intended at the start of the web, but that has now become much less popular with site creators who want to cling jealously to their visitors, and do not risk sending them away down a "competitive" rabbit hole.
The WEF and its coteries of oligarchs and alumni like Trudeau and Macron (improbable political nonentities who have been mysteriously plucked from well-earned obscurity and carefully placed into positions of undeserved political influence in governments around the world) warns us to prepare for a great reset, where everything changes. The famous 2016 advice from Danish MP Ida Auken - a WEF advocate was... "Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better..." (here's a deleted WEF tweet)
As it happens, the world is again in a right old pickle in June 2022.
Over the years, there have been some spectacular conspiracy theories. Starting with the idea that an all-powerful being that we could not see or hear directly was in charge of everything, and calling all the shots though a delegated form of authority called a "church". And since that time, the effort placed in accumulating the resources and general wherewithal to maintain the myth has been the justification for acts of untold violence, ranging from individual torture to invasion and warfare.
And then there was David Icke...
David Icke is a fascinating character who was a TV sports report who then became infamous in the 90s for some pretty far-out conspiracy theories involving lizard people and the illuminati. It is generally accepted by Icke that he was off with the fairies for a while; although many others have been catching up with his moderating ideas recently.
His recent work has been less extreme, but he is still regarded with suspicion - this 24 year old piece is unnervingly prescient and is getting him noticed again. He now has a very successful following (I hesitate to use the word "disciples")
Inconvenient truths from 1998?
It might explain why "some people" would prefer he was not heard or seen.
His recent work on midazolam raises questions that genuinely require that Icke is heard and either declared insane - or recognized as a serious journalist. There isn't a lot of ground between.
Keep an open mind.
Now here's another messianic performance from Russel Brand - who covers much the same territory of pervasive surveillance abuse by government and big tech; but with a rather different manner of delivery. Brand points out that conspiracy theories tend to mutate and re-emerge to prove that fact-checkers have manipulated information, leading to the cancellation of users who were intent on the pursuit of inconvenient truth.
The venerable and sober Spectator is onto the surveillance and social credit. The video intro is a full fat Speccie feature in its own right....
"China's social credit system is notorious. This Black Mirror-esque network supposedly gives citizens a score, based on an opaque algorithm that feeds on data from each person's digital and physical lives. With one billion Chinese accessing the Internet and the growing prevalence of facial recognition, it means that their every move can be monitored – from whether they cross the road dangerously, to whether they play too many video games and buy too much junk food. Those with low scores have lower socio-economic status, and may not be able to board planes and trains, or send their children to school. It's all part of a Chinese Communist Party directive to further control and mould its citizens..."
The Great Agricultural reset and other things...
And now this... from the unstoppable Russell Brand - Renowned environmental activist and author, Vandana Shiva, joined me at our first ever live community event in Hay-On-Wye. We spoke about how the mainstream media have framed the Dutch Farmer protests, the hidden land grab agenda and how data is not the highest evidence for living, a good healthy body is!
Many of the dots are joined up. And Vandana awkwardly remind the brits that they invented modern globalisation with Queen Vic and the Empire.
The current fixation/religion and general preoccupation with "climate
action" reminds us of certain movements of the past, some of which are
forgotten by now, and some relating to specialist fields of endeavour, the
details of which are not usually visible to the public, but well known to those
who make their living by working in those fields.
They all have something in common; a pernicious phenomenon
of contemporary society that is known as "rent seeking". As scams go, the idea is breathtakingly simple: Invent a problem, then charge for
solving it; and, wherever possible, make the solution mandatory.
The price of
the solution needs to be as high as possible, but not so high as to cause a
premature death of your host organism, the golden goose you have captured. To maximize your income, underpin it with some newly created government regulation
and legislation that will force your unsuspecting victims to co-operate under
threat of violence (penalties, loss of income or even prison). In other words,
harness the regulatory and coercive power of the government to sanction and
support your parasitic existence.
Here are two examples. The first relates to a specialized
field, the second to a well-known world-wide scam that took place over 20 years
ago and sucked between $300 to $500 billion out of productive members of
society towards parasitic rent-seekers, either directly or via useless
government programs.
The first is the true story of an equipment
manufacturer. A few years in production, after making one successful product
after another, one particular VIP customer requested a “quality control
certificate”. This was many years ago, and they were stumped by this never-heard-before request. The customer
explained that they needed the supplier to comply with the new ISO 9000 quality
standard - otherwise they would not get the order. Obviously, the manufacturer
had their own in-house quality standards, and the products were demonstrably
very reliable - but in order to satisfy this customer (with many others to
follow), they had to hire a subcontractor who created stacks of ISO-prescribed
paperwork and pay him $5,000 for that effort. They then faxed the certificate
(signed by the ISO-9000 certified "consultant") to that VIP customer,
and subsequently got the order.
The manufacturer did not have to change anything in their
procedures, all they had to do is pay off the new rent-seeking parasite - who
would then come knocking every year asking for the same amount, because, of
course, the quality certification needs
to be "audited" regularly, which includes some additional paperwork
and a new, pretty, frameable certificate, obviously with an expiry date.
Nowadays, getting an order from the government (of any
country) or a large corporation is unthinkable without an ISO certificate. But
of course, like with everything else, standards need to be improving, so ISO
9000 was followed by ISO 9001, then ISO 9002, ISO 14001, ISO 27001, etc., etc.
All at additional costs for more paperwork and pretty certificates, of course.
But surely this must be good for all of us, because this makes our
products better, so everyone benefits? No, they did not change anything, the
quality remained. Unfortunately, this was not the case of some of their
suppliers. There were several notable cases where the quality of supplied parts
decreased dramatically after the company proudly displayed an ISO certification
logo in their advertising materials.
Why so? The manufacturer came to the conclusion that by having an
official certificate, “organic QA” actually
slackens, because the management forgets that product quality rests primarily
with the people and ethos, not with quality management manuals and certificates, that tend to
collect dust on the shelves, forgotten and almost never read, except during the
yearly visit by a "quality certification auditor" who adds a few more
pages, wastes a couple of days of management's time, and, importantly issues
yet another $5,000 bill.
This actually made the manufacturer select suppliers on the
basis of NOT having a quality certification, because they assumed that they would
actually stand behind their product quality, rather than hide behind an ISO
logo with two little laurels in it (really).
The lucrative business of quality certification is now
common and pervasive, and winding the clock back is now impossible. The
manufacturer has been trapped into paying the annual audit ransom, and is still
forced to regularly upgrade certifications. Meanwhile, the number of ISO
certification "consultants" has mushroomed everywhere in the world, supporting
a new, large, non-productive class of bureaucracy - professional rent-seekers
carrying impressive business cards.
Now onto the second example: The millennium bug, aka Y2K. At
that time, an 8-bit microcomputer used to have a 64 Kbyte memory, which was not
a lot, was expensive, and therefore the code had to be often optimized and squeezed
to fit in the available space. Sometimes programs were too long and had to be
shortened by using clever algorithms, and by reducing memory usage to the bare
minimum. Such as representing a year by the last two digits only. In 1980s
programmers seldom anticipated that anyone would be using their software twenty
years later, so this was not considered a problem.
Then a few years before 2000, someone realized that the next
year after 1999 (coded as 99 in some instances)
would become 00. Programs that have not taken this into consideration might malfunction
by incorrectly interpreting the year. This started an enormous panic in fear
that the world's computer infrastructure would collapse, causing wide-spread
disasters resulting in death and famine.
Governments "invested" millions of dollars to fix
this bug. Legislation was put in place requiring any government purchase to be
accompanied by a "Y2K certificate", requiring the seller to declare
"Y2K compatibility", often for products that contained no
electronics. In total, it is estimated
that $300-$500 billion dollars were spent on measures related to the Y2K bug,
mostly in developed countries. Some
countries, such as Russia, chose not to do anything, assessing the potential
severity of the problem to be manageable as it occurred.
All of a sudden, fly-by-night rent-seekers emerged and
descended on the gullible public, selling Y2K auditing and certification services,
as well as Y2K fixing application for PC software.
Many experienced developers did not think that the potential
problems were worth the disruption of anticipation. Sure, the potentially
serious problems should be evaluated – such as the firmware of nuclear plants and
automatic pilots, but that would be about it. Even then, there was little
evidence this would have led to a catastrophic failure if left unchecked. There
are many more opportunities for serious bugs in an average software application
than incorrectly remembering a year in a date.
In the middle of 1999, the atmosphere was frantic. Hysteria
set in and US sales of survival shelters boomed. Everyone was getting calls trying to create panic and offering us Y2K related services. One of the victims of the pestering
played a game with one of the callers: "Hah hah, buddy, isn't this funny,
we also happen to sell Y2K software. How is it going on your side? We really
need to hurry because the end of the year is here and then the fun is over.
Right now everyone thinks this is all for real!" the reply was "Hah
hah, you're right. We're doing very well here, raking it in, people are so gullible,
it's great biz. I wish this could go on
forever."
Finally, the second millennium had come and gone and the phone calls
stopped. Almost nothing happened. It must have been because of all those emergency
measures. There were no disasters reported in Russia either. I guess it must
have been because they were so technologically backward. Surely it could not
have been because everyone was fooled..?
So what would the rent-seeking parasites come up with next? Who could have been daring and smart enough to foresee their
next brilliant scam? A gift from heaven
that keeps giving. A Y2K bug that never expires!
Something that could never be conclusively proved.
Something based on ambiguous "evidence" - like all the most convincing propaganda; but with
endless scope for speculation, fear, uncertainty and doubt. Don't anyone dare say climate change...
"We saved the world by reducing CO2 in the atmosphere from 0.00414% to 0.00413% because without our hard work the world average temperatures would increase by 2 degrees, icebergs would melt and all polar bears would die in the raising seas that would flood 90% of the planet." And of course it would be next to impossible to prove them wrong.
