17 Comments
Nov 22, 2022·edited Nov 22, 2022

I'm not sure that it belongs here but for what it's worth I will give my simple position on media. I realize this is not exactly what you're writing about but anyway:

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I don't trust anything the media says. At this point they have said explicitly, both for covid, Ukraine and I believe other situations, that they are not going to tell us anything that would make us question the official narrative.

They have made explicit that their purpose is indoctrination, not information. This has been the case all along, as Noam Chomsky noted in manufacturing consent.

The only information I trust is those coming from certain substack and other independent sources and even then I still read it fairly carefully.

I would hope that any thinking person would take this approach but

Unfortunately many people have the same attitude towards media and officialdom as peasants in the Middle Ages had towards the Catholic Church; belief and unquestioning acceptance, especially towards the medical authorities whom even pre covid they have been terrorized into believing they are totally dependent on, and just as the Catholic Church did then, the forces of power, profit and control use that for their own advantage.

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This is a great explanation of the processes and strategies of information operations, but what it also has made me think about is just how well coordinated and prepared the entire COVID related IO campaign was. I find it very very difficult to believe that that was spontaneous, my experience with DoD and government is that they could never be this organized, secretive, or effective. The scale and effectiveness of this IO campaign is staggering.

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I can see that this is a brilliant article but it is so dense and obscure that I think the potential audience for it is very minimal. I couldn't even begin to think of sharing it with any of my friends, which is unfortunate because it seems like something with a lot of important ideas to offer.

If I may offer a well meant suggestion, please have a plain english abstract and summary at the beginning

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Nov 21, 2022·edited Nov 21, 2022

As commonly used today in medicine

Misinformation=Heresy

In politics when something is called misinformation that means it's true

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My main (but still provisional) takeaway from this article:

One cannot claim ignorance as an excuse for causing harm by acting on the information provided by others if the agent in question did not seek to personally verify that acting on the relevant information will not cause harm. For example, a politician who causes harm by acting on the advice of experts cannot claim that he acted in good faith in trusting the experts; he is personally liable for causing harm because he failed to verify that acting on the relevant information would not cause harm and therefore intentionally acted with indifference to the possibility of harm.

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Nov 20, 2022Liked by Ethical Skeptic ☀

From your intel backgroud, TES, you know all about disinformation.

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Nov 20, 2022Liked by Ethical Skeptic ☀

so easy to have lies and missing information survive the 'transfers'.

it has been a long time since i had a loose, intermittent association with very smart researchers tackling the problem of 'fusing' data emanating from many sources and diverse data systems to accumulate decision grade information.

data issues: pedigree, reliability, shelf life, and durability arose. and how complete, w/ gaps identified.

handling: taxonomy/dictionary/word. definitions, message syntax, recording, filing, and presenting.

the idea was to amass data, refine data to information and fuse it into knowledge, which informed by experience and outside input rise to wisdom.

infers ability to assess truth (epistemology) and thinking like God (theological definition of wisdom)

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Nov 20, 2022·edited Nov 20, 2022Liked by Ethical Skeptic ☀

It's been just long enough to begin to wonder what you've been up to and behold two pieces that will take quite a bit of rereading to absorb most of the fine points. Big time thanks!

As a case study framework it reminds me of Nils Meltzer, UN Rapporteur for Torture, explaining how he had been influenced by a propaganda operation so successful he failed to realize he was being brainwashed. "A murderous system is being created before our very eyes"

https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange

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