INTRO AND VOCAB #2

MAIN PAGE PRINCIPALE : WWW.WWCOVIDGM.ORG

Le pire imbécile se croit le plus sage- apprentimarcv
Ne traitez personne d'imbécile – Jésus

The greatest fool thinks himself wisest - learnermarkv
Call no man a fool. Jesus

Chapters

• 0:08 Three flavors: Misinfo politics
• 2:08 Disinfo politics
• 6:43 Info politics
• 8:16 Info monolog and dialog
• 9:29 Mengzi, Humanity and Duty
• 10:37 The World Agora
• 11:43 Peace is prehistoric
• 12:34 Weapon technology
• 12:59 Weapon managers
• 14:07 Battle elites
• 15:46 Proto elites
• 16:36 Early weapon narratives

Transcript

WORLD WAR COVID
From WeaponWorld to PeaceWorld
Learner, begin

- INTRO AND VOCAB #2 -

  Info elites can practice one of three broad categories of info politics. The first two categories simplify information content; the third complexifies it. Transitions between these categories are gradual, granular and flexible; they can go backward or forward ― they need not be categorical, abrupt, monolithic or progressive. 

1. Politicians (or elites) of misinformation broadcast as many lies as possible. This is standard behavior for tyrants modern and ancient. Sooner or later, anything not a forbidden truth turns into a mandatory lie. Misinfo politics create top-down weapons elites optimized for war. Think of the regimes of Stalin and Saddam Hussein. 

It would be a relatively simple task to sort what remains of the truth from the misinformation broadcast through official monologue media. In most cases, the exact opposite of what was announced is closer to the truth. 

Misinfo politics breed paranoia, suspicion and terror. Nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. Under this claustrophobic compulsion, the info elite shrinks to a minimum and then purges itself beyond that. Brain-dead dogma becomes manifest reality, repeated mindlessly across every medium. Rather than merely manipulate mass opinion, misinfo elites fantasize they can transform reality itself ― as on paper, so in reality. They murder and terrorize every proletarian they can lay their hands on until their fantasy replaces common sense. 

While gangsters rule, self-blinded misinfo politicians wage holy war against Learner creativity. The end result is brutal warfare abroad and intellectual decimation (every nine readers beat the tenth to death) at home to validate official propaganda: the ultimate simplification of public reality. Society runs on its own inertia and feeds off its last reserves until it grinds into chaos and ruin.

We can rate misinformation by its “hardness.” How difficult has the elite made it for the info proletariat to survive? The harsher the tyranny, the worse the politics of misinformation. 

“Softer” tyrannies are richer, they replace misinformation politics with disinformation politics. Disinformation is much more subtle and difficult to manage than misinformation. 

As weapon states mature, the defects of misinformation politics become obvious. Lies yield nothing but stolen wealth and its entropy into chaos ― sustainable wealth only grows from the truth and its public trust. Thoughtful reformers attempt to weave a few strands of peace mentality (including a few straws of info politics) into the rotten basketwork of weapon management. This mix of opposites cannot hold together for very long. Instead, it pits corrupt weapon managers against frustrated weapon dissidents in a centrifuge of disinfo politics. Here we are, ruled by... 

2. Disinfo elites include a mix of so-called populists and moderates with a hard core of reactionaries who rule in the end on every important topic. They broadcast their semi-monologue through extensive hierarchies of corporations, governments and/or religions. Unlike misinformation politicians, they permit carefully screened feedback in minute doses, like a therapeutic poison. 

Whereas information politicians would prize it as the staff of life.

The keyword in disinfo politics is "but" as in: "We hear your calls for reform. We understand that true morality, morale and efficiency dictate that we do things better; but …” there follows a long list of excuses why inefficient and immoral practices must remain routine.

“Please be reasonable, ladies and gentlemen. What you propose is impractical, too costly, subject to abuse by thugs, harmful to ancient protocols,  political heresy (socialistic for capitalists and vice versa), would encourage our enemies, etc., etc....” Ephemeral religious dogma, ideological gobbledygook, distortion of history, exquisitely composed literary blather, commercial advertising, sports babble, arena violence, empty show trials, soap opera trivia, “scientific” data and “mathematical” conclusions that wind up being utterly false: the whole broadcast through robotic monologue media ― nonstop, from as many sources as possible, in lavish detail, with painful exactitude and at full volume. 

Matters of significance are lied about obsessively, usually by omission. This trancelike state becomes hypnotic and self-reinforcing. Producers and spectators alike refuse to sort obvious lies from the truth. Disinfo elites are just as vulnerable to their own disinformation as the host proletariat. Destructive activities increase while real wealth evaporates. The populace ignores its greatest strengths and perils in favor of successive elaborations of trivia. It is easily convinced of its imaginary wealth when on the verge of bankruptcy and vice versa. Public policies become arbitrary and dithering, without ethical or ideological basis. The regime improvises as it goes along and outcomes suffer accordingly.

Superfluous information becomes easier (cheap or free) to find and more profitable to mass-produce, while the useful kind gets harder to broadcast and acquire: more and more expensive, laborious, censored and declared “non-commercial”. Belief in anything but rabid commercialism, faith in anything but naked greed and senile dogma, all but those are forbidden by universal consent and popular decree. 

Disinfo elites turn into bloated Mandarinates. As soon as certified mediocrities and authoritative conmen are actively promoted, gifted Learners get relegated to info proletarian status and sub-creative frustration. These habits of deliberate misunderstanding, consensus oversimplification and social mediocrity are only reversed in times of war when many frustrated talents are recruited into revitalized weapon cadres. 

I recall a photograph of American shipyard workers heading home at end of shift during World War II (sic). An enormous sign stood above the front gate: “Tell us your good ideas!” No such sign would have graced a similar factory gate at the same time in history, had it been between wars. 

Just as a slap in the face may stop a fit of hysterics – and a deep kiss, likewise – mass trauma is the usual method to put an end to this delusional state. Without warning, disaster and warfare strike because no one bothered to answer vital questions. Everyone is so surprised when their sand castles come tumbling down. Thereafter, disinfo elites declare war ― a much simpler task than promoting abundance and fellow feeling. Mass murder simplification becomes the norm once again. At that point, it’s too late to adopt peaceful info politics, since went to waste the wealthy and serene populace needed. 

Learner – by the way – is the kiss.  

On rare occasions, peace dissidents overcome this social inertia and spread the good news that everyone should share Learning even-handedly. As info elites begin to pay miraculous attention to this idea and broadcast it, they work themselves out of the job of restricting information flow. At that point, info elites and proletariats merge into an information (or learner) commonwealth.  

3. Politicians of information generate truth and lies without prejudice or favor on every topic, for Learners to sort out among themselves. A Learner commonwealth emerges through unrestricted public discourse and extensive dialogues between self-selected info-jurors. They pursue their topics of passion without regard to wealth or status ― since those would be theirs by right in an Information Commonwealth. 

Many stories that appear to be lies are just more complex elaborations of the truth. Whether through literary fiction, new ideologies, academic postulates, inventions, discoveries or reinterpretations of ancient dogma: the truth prevails because it is more profitable in a peaceful setting. People revalue information content because it seems more important to them than expensive artifacts and mythmaking about military security. 

Taking the opposite tack, misinfo societies opt for nothing but lies and terror. The truth becomes worthless because its pursuit will get you killed. No such choice remains in disinfo societies where white noise drowns out everything else, until the World Trade Towers come tumbling down in controlled demolition. Then everyone resumes the deceptive chatter of reassuring normalcy, thus exposing their neck to the axe without doing anything to ward it off.  

In politics of information, expanding communication systems develop more interactive, complex and adaptive exchanges. People engage in many more dialogues across new media, instead of submitting to top-down, monologue propaganda from “superior” elites. They are more interested in their topics of passion than in the mass media’s messaging for the most part personally irrelevant thus useless. 

TV is a monologue medium, as are radio, print media and non-interactive web pages. You know, those worthless corporate and bigot propaganda web pages without a CONTACT link?  Find mine below.

The Greek Agora, Town Hall meetings (unscripted… Gotta add that, now that Bush the Lesser’s disinfo technicians have scripted, rehearsed and hand-picked Town Hall audiences as a matter of routine), telephones and postal or electronic mails: all of them serve as examples of dialogue media. 

It is a question of satisfying the armchair formula. Dialogue media could carry more useful information and much more inspiration across the same bandwidth than monologue media. The sum of useful communications equals real wealth (divided by the sum of useless and/or noxious messages?). The same amount of hard cash available today, only much more valuable without inflation. 

“Your intent is noble, but your appeal misguided. If you talk to these emperors about profits, and in their love of profit they stop their armies – their armies will rejoice in peace and delight in profit. Soon ministers will embrace profit in serving their sovereign, sons will embrace profit in serving their fathers, younger brothers will embrace profit in serving their elder brothers – and all of them will have abandoned Humanity and Duty. When these relationships become a matter of profit, the nation is doomed to ruin.

“But if you talk to these emperors about Humanity and Duty, and in their love of Humanity and Duty they stop their armies – their armies will rejoice in peace and delight in Humanity and Duty. Soon ministers will embrace Humanity and Duty in serving their sovereign, sons will embrace Humanity and Duty in serving their fathers, younger brothers will embrace Humanity and Duty in serving their elder brothers – and all of them will have abandoned profit. 

"When these relationships become a matter of Humanity and Duty, then the sovereign is sure to be a true emperor. So why mention profit? Mencius, translated by David Hinton, Counterpoint, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 219. 

It is up to us to create a Virtual Agora, a vast cultural network that spans the globe. The World Wide Web is the startup prototype of this Learner virtual agora. Insofar it spreads, it bodes well for us.

With few outside threats and lots of surplus wealth, a mature society would allow Learners to complexify information politics. 

Since social complexity increases the likelihood of turbulence, it risks bursting the levies of social convention intended to contain and regulate it. Therefore, info politicians must improve vocabularies and habits of communication. Otherwise, the roar of chaotic argument may decline back into misinfo politics. 

The latest temptation of info elites, to censor the Internet from the top down, and of proletarians, to cripple it from the bottom up (trolling, viruses, hacking, flames, spam and other info-trash) are pathetic denials of an ever-expanding information universe. Think of a colicky baby who twists away from a spoonful of strained peas. Disoriented individuals and groups re-simplify their existence by weaponizing recent complications they consider vulnerable to their abuse. 

In pursuit of abundance, the best practitioners of disinfo politics tend to disarm unilaterally and thus invite military aggression. 

Some earlier societies grew into info politics, but were destroyed militarily and wiped out of the historical record (they became “prehistoric”) because their  senior managers promoted internal wealth and peace, while hungry strangers lingered outside: poor, militant and jealous. 

Note this tendency in the United States, where military casualties used to be political poison. This public aversion, to military casualties in particular and to militarism in general, tempts aggressive outsiders and internal militarists to inflict more damage. As their assaults grow bolder, better coordinated and more destructive, survivors revert to politics of misinformation and overt weapon tyranny: tempting options on a hypermilitarized planet where knee-jerk panic often trumps rational thought. 

Weapon technology includes the mechanical hardware and flesh-and-blood wetware of warfare: military forces (weapon technicians); intelligence agencies both foreign and domestic; weapons industrialists and workers, their enormous capital plant and inventory of weapons. Nowadays, there is one personal fireharm for every ten inhabitants of Earth, and two or more bullets cast every year for each of them. Just in case the first one misses… 

Weapon managers discriminate against everyone and everything they can blame for their many policy failures (since they are mediocre peace managers at best, by definition): the poor, women, non-heterosexuals, children, liberals, ethnic/religious minorities, migrants and immigrants, primal myths, human nature and nature itself. The smartest of those managers begin recruiting reactionary candidates from among despised and abused minorities. That way, they can pay lip service to pluralism while stimulating all kinds of social abuse. 

There is no recruit more faithful than an outsider recently converted, and no downtrodden population more loyal than one convinced its members can win some implausible lottery to success, provided it be at the expense of “inferiors.”  

“The more justly constituted the society, the more admirable its political form, the more war [weapon mentality] threatens to weaken its institutions and to pervert them. And it is also true that the best form of government is that least adapted to the exigencies of war.” How to Think about War and Peace, Mortimer J. Adler, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1944, p 42.  

 Weapon managers get battle elites (about a 10% minority of weapon technicians) to do their jackals’ share of the dirty work. Educated officers or enlisted slaves: it doesn’t matter. Half genetically damaged and half the issue of childhood fears of abuse or neglect, battle elites thrive on both sides of the battlefield, riot zone, jailhouse bars and Belsen wire. 

The remaining 90% of weapon technicians? They serve as logistics and morale supports for battle elites on their side, and as easy prey on the other; finally, as firepower multipliers (artillerists and such) on both sides. Whether in peace or in war, battle elites do the close-up killing and the rest do the dying.

Battle elites cannot readily bring their aggression under control. This makes them valuable assets on the battlefield and costly criminals elsewhere. We all share some battle elite traits, even though most of us keep ours under strict control. Call it good manners, good taste, conscience, civility, delicacy, decadence or mere cowardice: most of us are not hard-wired to thrive on the battlefield and in bar fights, the way battle elites are.  

We can split battle elites into two groups. 

The Dirty Dozen of born warriors, gunmen, bullies and outcasts who often outgrow their aggression with proper maturity and loving-kindness. 

The Himmler Subgroup: primarily civilians, ostensibly good parents, spouses, neighbors and administrators ― and quite often, brilliant cowards. Charming and seductive as long as it suits them, they look forward to wreaking havoc on a world of Others they despise. They seek the highest rungs of power, from which they can get away with as much mayhem as possible, shielded by their rank.  

Just as a shark grows rows of spare teeth in reserve, info proletariats nurture info proto-elites eager to overthrow the current info elite. Proto-elites are a motley crew of ambitious clerks, students and subalterns — employed by authorities or not, but covertly dissenting from them. These frustrated rebels only cohere clumsily once the failure rate of their elite maxes out. 

It is important to note that this apparent sea level of frustration is preventable along with its shifting tides of dissent. By prioritizing weapon requirements and limitations, WeaponWorld creates a bottleneck of positions of responsibility too narrow to fit every mind avid for such responsibility. On PeaceWorld, those frozen out of weapon priorities will stake their claim to responsibility in other topic-of-passion networks they choose. More connection and responsibility, less frustration, less dissent. 

Eric Hoffer analyses proto-elite leaders in his book, The True Believer. Unfortunately, he indulges in the sorry habit of biographical reductionism. He turns the intricacies of global social movements into an inventory of their leaders’ personal idiosyncrasies. 

Herodotus treated history and current events as cults of personality, as have many historians and journalists since. Everything happens because some poor slob and his flunkies – officially designated Leaders – made it happen exactly the way they foresaw. 

“By the mid-4th century, there existed a large and well-known body of Greek literature that had as yet no convenient name – it was not yet called Historia – but was generally described as the “writings of the deeds of war” or “inquiries about the deeds of war’: it included Herodotus, Thucydides, the several continuations of Thucydides, which went under the title Hellenica (Affairs of Greece) (only Xenophon’s survives), and the accounts of the western Greeks by the lost Syracusan writers Antiochus and Philistus, which went under the title Sicelica (Affairs of Sicily). It was taken for granted that this literature was the source of knowledge for anything about war, diplomacy or interstate relations. P. 85. 

“But what of the historians? The 5th century had bequeathed two major narrative styles, the linear epic style of Herodotus and the antithetical realistic style of Thucydides, which were associated with two different views of the world ― the encomiastic Herodotus world of moral achievement and cosmic law versus Thucydidean pessimism and irony….” Doyne Dawson, The Origins of Western Warfare: Militarism and Morality in the Ancient World, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1996, p. 95. 

This sort of narrative is about as convincing as that which follows. I’m driving a car and in absolute control. So I’m going to flip into carefully pre-planned slots every car in a hundred-car pileup on a freeway in the fog, and thus make sure that my car and those that follow mine roar out the other end without a scratch. Sure, buddy, it could happen! Yet that would be a rather simple problem, compared to running an entire country. See the leadership section in the chapter “Identity Politics.”

…

COMMENT?  markmulligan@comcast.net

- INTRO AND VOCAB #3 -