“Everyone is in favor of free speech… but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” ― Winston Churchill
How the Disinformation Industrial Complex is destroying trust in science
–Climate Etc., Judith Curry (by David Young)
The Censorship Industrial Complex is the Revolt of the Elites
–Public, Michael Shellenberger and Leighton Woodhouse
Disinfo Dictionary
–Tablet Editors
Surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy has instructed major tech platforms, already squirming under Congress’ thumb, to submit information about CCP virus COVID ‘misinformation’ on social media, search engines, instant messaging systems, etc., etc.. Big Tech is to determine how much misinformation has flowed/is flowing through their sites.
He doesn’t mention email, but – in the name of ‘Public Health’ – I see no barrier to him asking NSA for a dump of all email with the phrases “Fauci lies,” “Joe Rogan,” “Wuhan flu,” or “Great Barrington Declaration,” and/or the words “ivermectin,” “hydrochloroquine,” “zinc,” and “Z-pack” in any combination.
As explained in the Federal Register, Dr. Murthy wants to know
“exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of Covid-19 misinformation,” [as well as] “Any aggregate data and analysis on how many users were exposed, were potentially exposed, or otherwise engaged with COVID-19 misinformation…
“The definition of health misinformation for the purposes of this RFI is health information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading according to the best available evidence at the time…
Starting with, but not limited to, these common examples of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), any aggregate data and analysis on the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on individual platforms including exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of COVID-19 misinformation.”
So is the flip-flop advice from CDC about whether N-95 masks work serial misinformation? How about whether cloth masks work? Is it about the possibility the CCP virus leaked from a Chinese lab? Careers were stunted for asking that question. Scientists were heartily vilified.
Is it misinformation that natural immunity doesn’t count? How about counting death with COVID as death from COVID?
Is this misinformation from the CDC?
“MYTH: COVID-19 vaccines can alter my DNA.
FACT: COVID-19 vaccines do not change or interact with your DNA in any way.Both messenger RNA (mRNA) and viral vector COVID-19 vaccines work by delivering instructions (genetic material) to our cells to start building protection against the virus that causes COVID-19.
After the body produces an immune response, it discards all the vaccine ingredients just as it would discard any information that cells no longer need. This process is a part of normal body functioning.
The genetic material delivered by mRNA vaccines never enters the nucleus of your cells, which is where your DNA is kept. Viral vector COVID-19 vaccines deliver genetic material to the cell nucleus to allow our cells to build protection against COVID-19. However, the vector virus does not have the machinery needed to integrate its genetic material into our DNA, so it cannot alter our DNA.”
That myth/fact distinction seems to be not so settled science. BNT162b2 is the Pfizer vaccine. You can skip to the sentence I bolded:
Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line
“Preclinical studies of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, showed reversible hepatic effects in animals that received the BNT162b2 injection. Furthermore, a recent study showed that SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the genome of human cells. In this study, we investigated the effect of BNT162b2 on the human liver cell line Huh7 in vitro. Huh7 cells were exposed to BNT162b2, and quantitative PCR was performed on RNA extracted from the cells. We detected high levels of BNT162b2 in Huh7 cells and changes in gene expression of long interspersed nuclear element-1 (LINE-1), which is an endogenous reverse transcriptase. Immunohistochemistry using antibody binding to LINE-1 open reading frame-1 RNA-binding protein (ORFp1) on Huh7 cells treated with BNT162b2 indicated increased nucleus distribution of LINE-1. PCR on genomic DNA of Huh7 cells exposed to BNT162b2 amplified the DNA sequence unique to BNT162b2. Our results indicate a fast up-take of BNT162b2 into human liver cell line Huh7, leading to changes in LINE-1 expression and distribution. We also show that BNT162b2 mRNA is reverse transcribed intracellularly into DNA in as fast as 6 h upon BNT162b2 exposure.”
The misinformation definition does include “best available information at the time.” Which would seem sensible but for the examples of such information flipping back and forth on masking, for example, and D. Fauci’s admission that he lied about it. As he also admittedly lied about the threshold for herd immunity.
So, who determines the best available information? The government bureaucrats? Whom we know lie for political and CYA purposes?
When is mis actually dis? Maybe when spreading information you know to be false? Like Dr. Fauci’s mask/herd immunity lies, or his semantic games around gain-of-function, or his surreptitious interference with the Great Barrington Declaration?
And when does “at the time” expire? Is “vaccines do not change or interact with your DNA in any way,” now misinformation? Half-misinformation? It’s only been shown in vitro, after all. The ‘Public Health’ narrative is that we don’t tell the public until there have been a couple of gold-standard RTCs in vivo. The public won’t mis this information. If they had it they might choose not to follow our advice about an experimental vaccine.
What Dr. Murthy’s definition means is ‘whatever we tell you at the time.’ And with the threat of Congressional regulation, he’s looking to enforce that under the “Public Health” version of the 1st Amendment. So, it’s far from over when Murthy gets the social media data.
Why wouldn’t he also have to know about the disproportionate effects of the CDC’s unconstitutional seizure of the rental housing market?
This is an important conversation.
What is happening in Canada is dreadful, not least because should Justin Trudeau remain in power it will show Canadians are not who they thought they were, do not have the institutions they thought they did, and are uninterested in recovering either their culture or representative democracy.
Is there some flaw in the British parliamentary system that has been exposed by the pandemic and changes wrought by social media? I wonder because, while serious authoritarian overreach can be alleged in most neoliberal democracies, Australia and New Zealand seem more up front about it than most. This most certainly includes the United States.
An hour. If you need an incentive to watch the whole thing, Here is a 5 minute summary. What goes before explores why it’s true.
Jennifer Granholm is highly experienced at gamifying green giveaways. She has acquired lots of badges, awards, stickers, and trophies – and now she’s leveled up.
Her latest accomplishment is the “If you fail, just do the same thing again. Only bigger,” badge, with “Fed cluster.” It grants the power to reuse your old speeches just by changing a few numbers.
Biden Administration Rolls Out $3 Billion EV Battery Program
“As electric cars and trucks continue to grow in popularity within the United States and around the world, we must seize the chance to make advanced batteries — the heart of this growing industry — right here at home,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “With funding from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re making it possible to establish a thriving battery supply chain in the United States…
But the White House acknowledged that China controls an “outsized share” of global mineral refining capacity in a supply chain report published in June. Mineral refining is a key component for renewable energy technology including battery manufacturing.”
Compare that announcement with this one from 2010:
Our first clue should have been that they didn’t name it ‘MichiganWatt’ – December 9, 2010.
Despite bad reviews of ethanol and an unrequited flirtation with windmills, the Governor thinks she has a clue about THE NEXT BIG THING:
“In Michigan, we are trying our own version of this race — focused on the lithium-ion advanced battery for electric cars, a high-tech product previously manufactured almost exclusively in Asia.
We offered irresistible state tax incentives for manufacturers of “advanced energy storage.” We pancaked our state incentives on top of the competitive federal Department of Energy grants to advanced-battery companies and suppliers. We also created robust public-private partnerships.”
Her reasoning was that if we gave A123 $100 million it would make them a success. What it did was encourage bad business decisions. “Irresistible tax incentives,” are so hard to resist you don’t worry about business plans.
That mention of ethanol? It was the previous BIG THING. Granholm had just watched the bankruptcy of her earlier irresistibly incentivized green boondoggle – $20 million for an ethanol plant that never got built.
That bright future for batteries in Michigan didn’t work out either.
One of the reasons China has an outsized share of battery manufacturing is because Jennifer Granholm hand picked winner went bankrupt. And then the Chinese bought it for pennies.
And the winner the statists picked is… China – August 13, 2012.
A123 has ripped off the American taxpayer for $249 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy. It was one of former governor Granholm’s favorite picks, to the tune of $100 million. The Chinese are grateful, I suppose, for taxpayer assistance while A123’s stock dropped from $26.00 to $0.82. Without said assistance, A123 might have been gone before they could buy it. Worse yet, from Obama’s point of view, Bain Capital might have turned it around.
Charles Murray reviews a leftwing tome on the topic in the Claremont Review of Books: Meritocracy’s Cost
Check it out and come back.
Jordan Peterson frequently points out that hierarchies are natural and inevitable, from lobster fights to human IQ, and that hierarchies tend to corruption. This is the framework for “absolute power corrupts…”
The question is not how we eliminate the inevitable, but how we control the consequences.
Harrison Bergeron is an example of what happens when a corrupt hierarchy is put in charge of eliminating hierarchies.
Freedom of conscience is the fundamental human method of hierarchical control. Which is why corrupt hierarchies attack free speech and institute thought police. You can’t say “All Lives Matter,” “Trans males are not women,” or “Let’s try ivermectin.”
The corruption in our governing meritocracies, by which I mean the academic, military, political, economic, and cultural Anointed* – concentrated in, and supported by, our major population centers – threatens to bring down the Republic.
What is to be Done?
-V. Lenin, 1902
*Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, 1996
“…the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else?”
“Systemic processes tend to reward people for making decisions that turn out to be right—creating great resentment among the anointed, who feel themselves entitled to rewards for being articulate, politically active, and morally fervent.”
“. . ideology. . . is an instrument of power; a defense mechanism against information; a pretext for eluding moral constraints in doing or approving evil with a clean conscience; and finally, a way of banning the criterion of experience, that is, of completely eliminating or indefinitely postponing the pragmatic criteria of success and failure. —Jean-François Revel1”
“What is seldom part of the vision of the anointed is a concept of ordinary people as autonomous decision makers free to reject any vision and to seek their own well-being through whatever social processes they choose. Thus, when those with the prevailing vision speak of the family—if only to defuse their adversaries’ emphasis on family values—they tend to conceive of the family as a recipient institution for government largess or guidance, rather than as a decision-making institution determining for itself how children shall be raised and with what values.”
“The vision of the anointed is one in which ills as poverty, irresponsible sex, and crime derive primarily from ‘society,’ rather than from individual choices and behavior. To believe in personal responsibility would be to destroy the whole special role of the anointed, whose vision casts them in the role of rescuers of people treated unfairly by ‘society.”
We’re told the pen is mightier than the sword. We’ve known, for as long as we’ve had the concept of “sticks and stones,” that words can make people uncomfortable should they have to defend their ideas about how others should be made to behave.
Those cultural memes make our chief sword wielders nervous. And present an opportunity to manufacture a crisis that should not be wasted. The technological advances in speech clearing houses make it (momentarily) feasible for the whole country to become a State safe space, where never is heard a regime discouraging word.
Four concepts, three of them false, are necessary to this goal.
1-The defining characteristic of the modern Nation State is a monopoly on physical violence.
-Encyclopedia Britannica
2-Social (racial, sexual, etc., etc.) equity (identical outcomes) cannot be achieved without identity group targeted State intervention. Otherwise, the best we could hope for would be a necessarily imperfect equality before the law (identical opportunity). Ironically, identical outcomes will require a great deal of policing. The State is proposing to swear in our speech clearing houses.
3-Words are violence.
How the Left Turned Words Into ‘Violence,’ and Violence Into ‘Justice’ -Quilette
Brandeis ‘Word Police’ Highlights the Absurdity of Modern Progressivism -Newsweek
Words are apparently killing people as I write. The President has said of Facebook, “They’re killing people!”
After some Facebook pushback, he’s waffled a bit on who exactly are the murderers. Maybe it’s just a few Facebook users committing capital crimes. Well… a few would be the speakers… unclear if the apparently myriad listeners are just accessories after the fact. IAC, if we didn’t have Facebook there wouldn’t be any Facebook speakers or listeners. The regulatory threat exists despite Mr. Biden’s walk back.
Besides, the people getting killed would be those deplorables who read Facebook based on algorthims designed to “engage.” So, who cares?
No matter how you cut it, the question is free speech. In summary, the President can say ‘they’ are killing people. ‘They’ can’t say he is.
The official position is that we cannot depend on individuals to decide what they want to read or hear.
We have the technology to give the State the the pen control it needs to secure our right to think correctly. Still, it is not enough that the State possesses all the swords and all the pens. To ensure equity in ideation it follows that we cannot depend on individuals to decide what they want to say.
4-In some cases silence is violence.
How “Silence is Violence” Can Become Compelled Speech -Johnathan Turley
‘Silence Is Violence’: D.C. Black Lives Matter Protesters Adopt Strategy of Intimidating Random White People -Reason Magazine
This fourth item may seem over the top. But how are we going to enforce equal outcomes if private conversations are not controlled? How could they be controlled? The Lives of Others makes a suggestion. Watch it if you haven’t.
Mr. Biden’s press secretary assures us the State is just making suggestions about who Facebook should allow to speak, even as she suggests “banned on one should be banned on all,” and even as messaging apps are being eyed for government filtering: White House May Work With Carriers To Screen Anti-Vax Messages
The advantage to the State? No one will have the slightest skepticism about Dr. Fauci’s pronouncements, inflation, CCP virus lab leaks, penises in female shower rooms, Iranian nuclear ambitions, or immigration policy. The risk of regime change will drop precipitously. I don’t mean a mere embarrassment at the ballot box, but the risk of violent overthrow by bare chested people in furry hats, overtly parading in the halls of Congress based on the intel from unassembled Lego models of the building.
The people who told you the Steele dossier proved Donald Trump was a Russian agent, that Hunter Biden’s laptop wasn’t his (and if it was, the contents were faked), that Hillary Clinton’s private email system wasn’t a security risk, that coronavirus could not possibly have escaped a lab (which they absolutely did not fund), that it is anti-scientific to keep penises out of female shower rooms and off the women’s Olympic medals platform, that it’s Republicans who want the police defunded, that Kamala Harris had visited the non-existent border crisis two and a half weeks before she got within 800 miles of it (close enough for government work), that a Lego kit is evidence of insurrection, that starving Cubans are protesting because they lack CCP virus vaccines – which is the fault of the United States (protestors waving American flags notwithstanding) … have stepped up to the task of identifying speech they call ‘disinformation.’
They are saying “Trust us.”
No. Sticking to fresh water fish; several sturgeons in the milk bottling plant.
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“Now is the when time we juxtapose,” to quote Small Dead Animals.
1-FBI tells Americans to monitor family members for signs of ‘extremism’ and snitch on them
I’d be unhappy about this even if this wasn’t the one-time employer of Andrew McCabe, Peter Strozk, Kevin Clinesmith, James Comey, and Henrik Impola.
This is the only good argument for defunding police I’ve heard. By Congressional order, the Capitol Police are exempt from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. And, what part of the word “Capitol” is unclear?
3-Democrats Move to Take Over Your Credit Score and Go Full ‘Woke’ – Just Like Communist China
Using the lower credit rating of some as an excuse to watch everything everyone does. See CCP.
Let me summarize:
“Based on a tip from your Antifa sister, your social credit is overdrawn based on warrantless surveillance secretly conducted by a police force reporting directly to the Speaker of the House and not subject to normal public inquiry.”