Information Overload is a Weapon of Control
Do you feel confused? Listless? Overwhelmed? Have you ever found yourself scrolling through news feeds and flicking mindlessly through social media posts with a strange mixture of outrage, dread, and boredom? Is your disgust at the thought of going online consistently overwhelmed by your compulsion to pick up your fondleslab?
Don’t worry. You’re not alone. More and more people are finding it harder and harder to put their devices down, even though it leaves them feeling restless, angry or empty. As a result, some are seeking ways to disconnect and unplug from the 24/7 siren song of never-ending news feeds, instant messaging and social media distractions, whether by ditching their smartphone in favor of a “dumb” phone or taking device-free holidays.
Yes, we all succumb to information overload, and yes, we all need a break from the online maelstrom every now and then.
But what if this state of information overload—the malaise we experience when we find ourselves paralyzed by a ceaseless stream of noise and nonsense—is not a mere byproduct of this vaunted “Information Age” but the actual point of it? Has it ever occurred to you that these devices have been weaponized against us? Or that the confusion and exhaustion we feel after spending an hour mindlessly scrolling on our smartphone is the effect that this weaponized technology has on our psyche?
And, more to the point, what can we do to protect ourselves from these daggers of digital distraction?
Discover the ugly truth about information overload (and what we can do about it) in this week’s edition of The Corbett Report Subscriber. And don’t miss this month’s subscriber-only video tour of a Japanese baseball game. For full access to the subscriber newsletter and to support this website, please become a member.
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I really enjoy these “Subscriber Exclusive Videos”.
Thank you, Mr. Corbett!
What is that old Dad to Dad saying while in the bleachers?…
“Teach your kids to hit…and then to steal skillfully.”
James, you are being overly dramatic and there is nothing to worry about here. Just kidding. This topic is distressing, because it seems there are no ways out for humanity in the long term. The smartphone, smart speaker, smart everything-zombification of society is already well under way. The only solution I see right now is to make the personal decision to drop the smartphone and smart devices, and be content knowing that you have done the right thing for yourself. Of course we should spread information on the dangers of the smartphone and encourage others to drop their smart devices as well. But without a worldwide revolution against 5G, against smart devices, how will we stop the horrible consequences of this future from eventually happening? I hate to sound defeatist, but what else can we do?
Homey you have given us( whoever ) reads this the . quote{ This topic is distressing…} willys. Mkey had one of the best solutions offering sometime ago to ” smash the damn things ” as fast as they are installed. However in Oklahoma they don’t sell Guy Fuchs ‘V’ masks.
What’s one to do? What else can we do? Good question!
Being Sunday morning in the land of 111°f heat-index, I can testify that Mary Baker Eddy cracked the metaphysical ‘ force’ science thingy 120+ years ago. J.D. Rockefeller knew the force she was tinkering with, but as a carnival snake-oil charlatan he could never throw a lasso around it.
Maybe just the unrelenting heat. I can say, Oral Roberts did get a lasso on the ‘force’ within us and profited from the circus act he developed from it. It was very similar to the video you sited with the sophisticated machinery.
> However in Oklahoma they don’t sell Guy Fuchs ‘V’ masks.
Perhaps you should search for “Guy Fawkes” masks then…
😉
Calibrator : Zing!you got me there like Ms. Wilbur in the first grade. Suck the humor out of the hurry I was in to mow the burmuda grass , did I mention the 111° heat index. How can I spell above 106°f.
feel like* temperature?
That was a good line anyway, you got me laughing which took the mind away from 112° index today.
Hope its cool where you reside.
You said it GBW.
It is really hot with these triple digit temperatures and high humidity!
I have been working mostly 9 hour shifts (no lunch) out in the sun handling thousands of pounds and loading trucks, sometimes so busy that it is hard to stop for a sip, or for an occasional cigarette.
Only need to pee once during the shift. Clothes are soaked where I look like I peed.
I often drink 3 to 4 gallons of liquids a day, and eat a lot of salt, potassium, magnesium along with other minerals and nutrients on these marathon workdays.
For an old codger, I got a lot of endurance and tenacity for this kind of stuff, but it is getting tougher as I age.
I deal with over a hundred people a day in this heat, and for the most part am pretty civil, even joking around.
But I won’t hold back my tongue to the few a-holes or disrespectful folks who give me too much lip about appropriate protocols, such as safety guidelines or their attempts to cut in line.
I don’t like to let loose with a scorching, chiding cascade of words, but there are times, like the Hulk, I morph from codger to curmudgeon. The heat don’t help things.
I don’t do the profanity, like some of my young coworkers. Probably, the biggest thing which sets them off with a cursing episode is some affluent person treating them like a low serfdom form of hoi polloi. Even George Carlin would blush.
LOL – I really enjoy the posts of old codgers like myself — although I suspect that you are closer to Carlin than me… 😉
This gallon you refer to, is it the 3.8 liter one? How the hell do you imbibe 12-15 litres of water per day? Or do you just pour it all over yourself?
At home, I have gallon jugs of water.
For work, I measure in liters.
I get up early. In the morning, I take about 1/3 a gallon jug and brew my coffee. After coffee, I drink about a liter with a big breakfast and vitamins/supplements.
Go to work. Work like a dog and sweat like a dog in the 110 degree heat with high humidity. Throwing 50 pound bags in an oven baked truck will make a person sweat even in freezing weather. (Actually, today will be nice with a high in the low 90’s.)
By the end of the shift, I have 4 or more empty liter bottles of water on the floor of my car.
I get home exhausted. I’ll grab some stuff out of the garden, fix a green smoothie using near a half gallon.
After chores and a shower, I will pop in a DVD, smoke a cigarette or two while I sip on beverages (maybe one or two beers or liter bottles of organic juice) followed by many glasses of water during and at the end of my meal.
I easily get over 3 gallons on these very hot days. I see the empty containers. Sometimes, in the evening I feel like I can’t get enough to drink, even waking up in the middle of the night to get glasses of water.
Once in a blue moon, I will come home and drink a two liter Dr. Pepper made with real sugar. At the time, it feels great going down. But the next day, I feel like crap and swear off the stuff…until the next time the urge bites.
Don’t worry: I often get compared with teachers.
Nasty teachers… 😉
Regarding the weather: As you may know I live in Germany, Northern Germany, but not near the coast.
It has been a very mixed summer until now.
It was boiling hot a few weeks ago (also about 110°), then it got really cold (65°) — for early July.
On Saturday we had about 78° but temperatures fell during the evening thanks to two really nice rain showers and even a small hailstorm.
In middle of this week we should have about 95° with the temps falling again sharply on Friday/Saturday to sub-70 on “Sun”day.
Of course all those clowns come out and claim that this is the result of global warming but my half-century old self remembers such shitty temperatures & weather chaos for as long as it has brain functions…
calibrator says: “Don’t worry: I often get compared with teachers.”
Ha! I guess they better learn their lesson.
Say calibrator, to me it seems that being in Northern Germany and having a triple digit heat day would be unusual, even for July.
I always pictured Germany as green (except in the winter) with full rivers flowing through it.
I don’t know much about Germany. Are there a lot of differences (language, culture) between northern and southern?
Another question:
Is it true on German income tax, that a tax is taken out which goes to the church? Or is that Sweden?
I probably should know something about Germany, because on all sides of my family, my ancestry goes back to Germany. My Grandparents on all sides were born in Oklahoma and Kansas, but as kids in the early 1900’s German was spoken at home. My Grandpa told me it was “Low German” that he spoke.
When I and a brother were little tots, he taught us German songs to sing with him at our bedtime. I don’t know what they mean, but I remember the glow on his face as he watched his little grandsons try to sing in German.
Yes, such high temperatures are somewhat unusual in Germany but they do happen from time to time.
When we have so much sun the green quickly turns to yellow, though, and the rivers and lakes lose a lot of water.
Germany had droughts in the past, though, so I’m highly skeptical of global warming. In 1540, for example, Europe experienced a mega drought of months without rain. You can imagine the consequences.
In Germany the winters are usually “white” but the farther north you get (unless at the coast), the less snow you have. Northern Germany is rather flat, though, and the Alps in the South naturally bring more snow.
Conifers are very dominant in many places though, so you often get some green even in winter.
I’d say that we had more snow in the 70s and the 80s, at least in some years the snow was massive. In the winter of 1978/1979 we even experienced a true “snow catastrophe” – massive snowfall combined with a blizzard (10 on the Beaufort scale).
Thanks to the wind the snow piled up to several meters in some places. I was a kid back then but I vividly remember jumping into three meters of snow and walking out at the ground level…
Watch the photos: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schneekatastrophe_in_Norddeutschland_1978
The last ten years or so definitely had less snow here but I think that could change anytime.
Germany always was a conglomerate of more or less different cultures owing to its history of different tribes and, later, states. The biggest difference is likely the North-South-axis, though, and if you know only Bavarians (like many Americans do) then you have only seen a small part of Germany.
It has to be said, though, that “German culture” is quickly disintegrating into very small “islands” or “time capsules”. Yes, Bavarians are often still regular Bavarians but the cities grow and get multicultural as for example London or Paris – for better and for worse.
Also remember that Germany also has two main Christian churches like the United Kingdom: Catholics and protestants. Of course geography plays a role here, too, and you find more catholics in the southern or south western parts of Germany. This of course had many influences on the culture.
Taxes:
If you are an employee you get taxed automatically as your employer will automatically pay certain taxes to the state for you (so you can’t get “wrong ideas”…).
This does indeed include the so-called “church tax” (if you are a member of a Christian church) or “worship tax” if you are non-Christian (for example Jews).
Such a tax can amount to a lot of money per month and foreigners that come to Germany, for example catholic French people, are astounded when they discover how much money they suddenly have to pay…
Expats:
As for expats I think its often the same with them: They love to remember the nice parts of their former existence but forget why they left in the first place.
America once was (and for some still is) a collection of expats that left their home countries for greener pastures. Often these expats were/are industrious and clever people, willing to work hard.
This is actually what once made America great.
I hope America returns to former glory without stomping the rest of the World into the ground, though…
Germany:
There are worse parts in the world to live in but unless you are a criminal or rich or both you basically sign up for “slavedom” when you live in Germany.
The leash may be a bit longer compared to other countries but you are forced to work, don’t really have free speech, movies still get censored, your friendly government can always inspect your bank accounts or open your letters (the respective laws against this are circumvented) and in the near future you will have to report ownership of gold…
Oh, and naturally Germans can’t own guns unless “special reasons apply” but only very few people get permits – the others are way too dangerous, unpredictable and evil to own guns.
And as we all know every single German is antisemitic and antiamerican and wanted the world wars, not only crazy Hitler. Every milkmaid also wanted total war so now we are disarmed, have no free speech and have our nice politicians decide for us because we are stupid.
But in all seriousness:
The de-anonymization on the internet etc. and the conversion to digital cash are slowly but surely progressing here, too, so a total technocratic heaven awaits us, too.
calibrator!
Oh geez! I found your write-up(s) fascinating! I read it with strong interest. It painted a very balanced portrait for me. Thank you so much.
I got a hefty chuckle out of the paragraph: “And as we all know every single German is antisemitic and antiamerican and wanted the world wars, not only crazy Hitler. Every milkmaid also wanted total war so now we are disarmed, have no free speech and have our nice politicians decide for us because we are stupid.”
In the 1950’s and early 60’s, I remember the prolific WW2 movies and TV shows about the “bad Germans”. It was as if the U.S. was rehashing WW2. In the very early 60’s, I was given a bunch of WW2 era surplus electronic equipment which I had fun with. And in the late 60’s, a girlfriend would take me for drives through the woods in a WW2 era jeep.
Ironically, German /northern Europe restaurants became extremely popular in the United States in the 50’s and 60’s. In the 50’s and 60’s here in the U.S., it also stood out that there were a lot of marriages to people from Germany. During that era, there was not the influx of all nationality immigration that we see today. For the most part, America was black, white, Native American and Hispanic near the southern borders.
~~~
COINCIDENCE in Weather – 1978/1979
Dallas had a record winter ice storm late 78/ early 79. (We get very excited if there is 2 inches of snow on the ground.) The TV show “Dallas” with J.R. was in its first season. Up north, they had major blizzards.
Here is a 90 second News clip from that era.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/NBC-5-Video-Vault-1978-Ice-Storm_Dallas-Fort-Worth-463188533.html
I swear, at the 51 second mark, it looks like the Apartment building I was living in near downtown Dallas when the ice storm hit. In fact, while jogging down the street about a year prior, I asked a film crew what they were doing filming at an old historic mansion. The guy told me they were filming a pilot TV show to be called “Dallas”.
I hope Germany has laws which prevent visiting Texans from driving in the snow and ice. If not, it would cripple the nation’s roadways every winter.
SCPAT: I must correct the misrepresentation and site you as the author of the quote ” This topic is distressing…” Im so sorry. It was a great statement. Not to mention how distressed I was after reading it. Proof is in the putting.
Long story short Im going to Denver to pick up the Third grade teacher Tuesday the 23rd. and in no way Im I driving back to this state until the weather gets below 95°f.
I recommend the meditation app Sadhguru. Just try it. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Corbett’s article links to Jason Bermas’ “Elon Musk Wants To Give you A Bluetooth Brain!”
Along that line of thought, the TECH is here now…
Don’t miss watching this…
“Brain machine interface in action with just a wristbandâ€.
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1463-new-world-next-week-with-james-evan-pilato/#comment-63677
(Thanks to Corbett Member “taoss” )
This tech was developed by the same guy who developed Microsoft’s “Internet Explorer”.
Direct link to VIDEO
https://jwp.io/s/ohqXcQeV
While the following article is not about mindlessly scrolling on our smartphone, it definitely gives us insight into data collection from smartphones.
QUOTE
“…Abdulaziz lives in Canada. Neither his distance from the kingdom nor that hacking into his phone violated Canadian law presented the Saudis with much of an obstacle.
Abdulaziz’s phone was hacked using Pegasus, a notorious piece of spyware developed by NSO Group, a cyberwarfare company based in Herzliya, Israel.
Pegasus is among some of the most sophisticated spyware available on the market and can infiltrate both iOS and Android devices. It also allows an operator to read text messages, including those that are end-to-end encrypted; examine photos; and track a phone’s location. The technology can also silently enable microphones and cameras, turning the phone into a portable surveillance tool to overhear and observe conversations happening in the phone’s vicinity.
Using NSO Group’s technology, Saudi agents monitored Khashoggi and Abdulaziz as they planned a social media campaign against the Saudi regime….”
LAWFARE BLOG July 19, 2019
https://www.lawfareblog.com/proposed-response-commercial-surveillance-emergency
yes, beware of dopamine hit tyranny… leading to information overload… and possible psychic burn out…
also I discovered with great interest “the book” hyperlinked in this article speaking about trolls and their tactics…and as I had concrete examples flash regularly to mind for their various more or less subtly manipulative perception management tactics, I winced at the ever-present possibility of becoming an unwitting accomplice, a duped “digital dagger of distraction”, diversion and subversion… accrued vigilance would be de rigueur…
The following tactic exposed in the hyperlink:
“…Their job is to pre-empt real opponents and to play 99-yard football. A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money…”
I haven’t fully grasped the meaning of it but for some reason it called to mind the ostensibly and thus deceptively laudable “Soros/Koch alliance to supposedly create an anti-war think tank”…
Sure, they’ve got the moolah but moreover these famous figureheads have strongly connoted images which are eminently useful for communicating more or less subliminally with “the masses” –
yet, something faceless certainly has even infinitely more means to “finance” such an outfit for whatever reasons…
harnassing, harmonizing and channeling the anti-war movement’s energy would be to harnass and channel something extremely powerful…
anyhow. time to get back to my day job: typing information into a computer…
p.s. your choice of conjunction, Mr Corbett, after the clause: “Now, this may describe your average day” makes me think you might have wanted to put a “not” into the phrase, making:
“Now, this may NOT describe your average day? BUT…”
At any rate, thanks for Yet Another thought-provoking piece.
Thanks for the heads up. You are of course correct that the NOT was intended in that sentence. Correction made.
James, have you thought about putting all the Corbett Report videos on Peertube? The reason why I asked is because just in case Bitchute gets shut down, you get further censored on Youtube, as Bitchute does have technical problems. It would also be cool if you could join on Mastodon or Pleroma (I’d recommend Pleroma BTW as it allows longer posts), I think it’ll be awesome to see you on the fediverse. Peaceful Anarchy FTW!
Here’s some info on the fediverse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse
https://fediverse.party/
Ouch.
And it is especialy ouchy because I’ve only just gotten back from a short trip abroad, where I so desperately wanted to stay, because I was out walking and looking around every day, only zeroing in on my ipad (wifi only) for a little bit. Now, in jetlag convalescence, the ipad has become this really awful thing.
But, tomorrow is a new day.
I think it’s good and right to severely restrict or altogether abandon hand-held devices, which is why I have a dumb phone, several computers, and … well.. and … this infernal ipad.
The only reason I have a smart phone currently is because I need it for my job. Otherwise it would give me great pleasure to smash the damn thing with a hammer.
The real challenge for me is to find a source of income that does not require the use of smart phones.
The desktop computer is fine for everything else.
All we can do individually is not to feed the Beast… in my case no Facebook, Apple, Amazon (minimal), Netflix or Google. I’ve opted for a flip phone that only communicates… and have all my tech on Linux (most apps open source). I have my own VoIP PBX, my own personal cloud, all devices in my home and office are wired so not nuking myself.
It has been a huge undertaking and my family and friends already had one “intervention”. Personally, I wanted to see if it could be done and exactly how hard it is. It can be done but it is extremely challenging. For me, it is a compulsion. My career has been in tech and I will continue to use it as a tool for my purposes.
Once the existing power structure collapses and is reformed, tech may return as a useful tool used at our discretion.
> Once the existing power structure collapses and is reformed, tech may return as a useful tool used at our discretion.
If you believe the ones in control today (and I don’t talk about politicians here) will be magically gone tomorrow and the people will then be able to freely choose a system of universal fairness then I can only say that you will be severely disappointed.
Even after a total world-wide collapse of civilization the very first thing the new people in power (they will cristallize somewhere/somehow) will do is building new nuclear weapons. Perhaps not rockets but most assuredly dirty bombs.
And there will be always people willing to help them do it. No force needed at all.
There is too much information readily available and the box of Pandora has already been opened.
The same goes for all other comm techs: Just like now it will be used to suppress opinions and/or break opposition.
But if a technology will indeed be banned in the future it is very likely that it happens because of draconic laws that are enforced just like the catholic church suppressed science for centuries. This wasn’t exactly of advantage to the people either.
How difficult was it to set up your own cloud? I’ve looked into the process a bit, but seems like it is expensive (monthly costs) and you have to have some knowledge of coding.
I’ve also been looking into the possibility of setting up my own ‘cloud.’ I think the way to go for an average consumer would be a NAS (network attached storage) device. Although I’m sure a pair of experienced, prying eyes could see everything you have downloaded if your device is truly a ‘cloud’ and is connected to the internet. But unlike Tony, my career is not in tech and I don’t own a NAS, so don’t take my word for it but maybe it could give you some ideas!
There is an open source project called nextcloud that allows Google docs style of functionality except that it can be installed on your own server.
https://nextcloud.com/
Thanks a lot fragen, that is a good starting place
Tony, can you describe in a few sentences that intervention and what it looked like? You piqued my interest.
“I don’t know whether to shit or wind my watch. Guess I’ll shit on my watch!†-George Carlin
That’ the mental state they want us all to be in.
Great read, thanks for the justification. Recently I have been working hard at distancing myself from my devices. I try to only use my for for phone calls and I leave it on the nightstand when I’m working outside or going to the store etc. Social media is the hardest to break away from because I am researching vaccines and the harm they are causing. It is vital for people to understand everything you have written about here.
Thank you
Every time a skydiver jumps, he/she is committing suicide, unless at some point between the plane and the ground he changes his mind by throwing out the parachute. There is a gadget called an ADD (Automatic Deployment Device) that you can put in your rig, if you want to, that is pre-set to release the parachute at a certain altitude in the event that you are distracted or incapacitated.
Compulsive or addictive information input is mental suicide. You have to at some point in the day say, Enough, I’m turning it off now, just reflect on things and let my mind go wherever it wants. My mental parachute. Unfortunately so many people are not aware of how mentally distracted or incapacitated they are making themselves, since the mind does not have an ADD. But it can make a choice.
Perhaps the key is in recognising that possession and control is not something THEY DO – but something we each subscribe to and therefore share in the idea – even though it works against truly sharing anything worthy.
Conflicted identity running under a narrative control as a continuity or sustainability of conflict AS control set over a feared chaos may seek new arenas of ‘escape’ but always to meet its own fears that then have to be blocked out, suppressed and kept hidden by flagging them to any and every OTHER CAUSE.
Looking OUT THERE for hope of change or in fear of threat is always looking OUT from presumed ‘self’.
Breakdown is a disintegration of a fundamental disintegrity that ran as ‘socially’ acceptable or capable.
The replacing of a false foundation with a true cannot be gently effected on easy increments over time, for this would always allow the old mind to incorporate and subvert the FORMS of any change to maintain the SAME purpose of self-evasion in disguise.
However, once the core shift TO relational willingness or self-honesty has been accepted, we are then in a process of reintegration over time in steps of willingness as the underlying purpose of realigning in a truth that we have not manufactured or processed – and which embraces us as a restored awareness of integrality even as we release others and world from our previously unconscious judgements that we now see, say more about us than others.
Awakened purpose is also aligning in purpose. Holding a balance point within the polarities of our relational experience is learned by noticing where we go off beam and choosing NOT TO DO THAT NOW. This is a true act of self love that then allows an extension of worth to others without reference to judgements of deserve-ability.
This embracing openness is the alignment of a true control – because it is not driven or directed by chaotic fear masked under narrative justification.
If our ‘possessions’ bring fear of pain of loss then are they true or are they private and unshared agenda calling on force or false with-ness to maintain?
PS an advice I once met with regard to exposure to disturbing information ie news or of course fake news.
Don’t take on longer than you can then release in regaining your peace.
Peace is generally put in worldly terms, but abiding in the movement of our being is unconflicted presence.
Wholeness of being is the condition in which deceit cannot find a home and so divide and rule is really divide to rule out (deny).
If you choose to deny your peace under all kinds of narrative justifications, you can decide to look AT the beliefs and definitions that such a script embodies.
In short – we all carry forms of self hatred and self rejection that operates against our natural receipt of true Inherence. Uncovering this is in a sense ‘hateful’ but honest – and therefore connected to a core integrity that DOES HOLD PEACE even if all around is shouting or screaming to interject AGAINST Your acceptance/alignment.
When we give outer conditions built-in meanings, we give them power over us.
As for information – it all depends on where we are listening FROM. The mind of discernment is one of being shown or allowing truth to reveal itself – instead of the judgement of a personal select and reject division.
What really helps is switching of all notifications. It puts you back in the driving seat on your way to meet real people again. next step is only switching your device on when it suits you.
Are you not without a sense of irony in posting this piece, James? Is this the test?
You crafty devil.
Pfttttt
x
Why are we even debating this rubbish when Iran is in the headlights?
Crops of Smartphones…
July 20, 2019
What are click farms? A shadowy internet industry is booming in China
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/click-farms-internet-china-154440209.html
EXCERPTS
In China, the world’s largest smartphone market with over 800 million users, a unique type of farm springs up in urban areas.
The only crops there are smartphones.
The operations, known as click farms, can house hundreds or thousands of iPhones and Android phones on the shelves. They are plugged in and programmed to search, click, and download a certain app over and over again. The goal is to manipulate the system of app store rankings and search results….
Being mutant, along with the many viewing here, I’ve never liked the idea of exposing my private life to the world. So FB was out for me. Same with Twitter, as confining speech to 140 characters was a load of codswallop as far as I could see. Packing a computer around as sold as a phone/photo album,data download, homing/spy device et al so that my everything could be tracked was and is a non starter for me. I have a dumb phone. My desk top computer is already closely monitored for my thought patterns and quirks of character as typified and correlated with the matrix and gives away far far too much as it is.
Being mutant and having lived a good many years I am now very used to holding thoughts and opinions rather more independent and controversial from the non mutant majority. It is our mutant cross to bear as we watch our species degenerate across the broad spectrum largely due to atrophied consciences resulting in perverted science.
This mutant demeanor which developed over the years likely comes from asking questions of the purveyors of information and supposed truth of that which was supposed to be swallowed whole. “What is the essence of this Truth you seek?”
As for baseball as a metaphor for the matrix, played out on a sports field of rather Masonic symbolic design it is difficult to determine whether life or the game is impersonating which. I have noted however that all league teams are owned by the same social order of persons (there are no socialist owned teams are there?) and all play to win the championship as set up and ordained by this ownership. Teams which dominate are likened to a dynasty. Odd that there hasn’t been a new sports field game invented since the last of the era of invention…what 80 to 90 years ago?
There are new sports “invented” but they don’t stand to gain much attention from the general public since that’s spread as thin as thin can be.
But I do agree that there is something wrong with mutant people. They don’t seem to wander around aimlessly/brainlessly; they seem to be aware of their surroundings; they seem to be able to recognize other mutants at a brief glance; they seem to foster the incredible amount of patience and understanding for non-mutants (not much alike to what they receive in return); they seem to understand where pointless conversations go even as they start…
When you mention the truth that is meant to be swallowed whole, I immediately remembered that story about the bird that was caught, gorged on food in captivity and then cooked alive to be later swallowed hole while hiding your face in front of god behind a napkin.
I think we are looking at a double edge sword here. The Internet has provided some good things, like instant person to person international communication and language translations. Indeed, it has brought about the Information Age along with a mind boggling amount of data to sort out, but it ain’t all bad.
Steve Jobs, was born the same year I was, went to American Public Schools, and grew up in a middle class neighborhood. I never met him, yet I feel like I knew what his goal was when he, and his buddy Waz, created Apple Computers out of his parents garage. Yes, I believe his goal was to empower the individual with the advent of the personal computer. And, to a large degree, I believe it has worked.
Steve Jobs actually stole the Windows technology from Xerox, and Bill Gates Stole it from him. Then, Gates made a deal with IBM where he would be paid for the software on all IBM compatible Personal computers (Software that he did not yet have). Indeed, these guys swindled some major players in the military industrial complex in order to open up the information age to anyone with an Internet connection.
OK, so they made some money doing it, and money has a way of corrupting people, but it ain’t all bad. For the first time people are able to get to the bottom of the coop that took out JFK. And, multiple other coops have also been brought to light. The criminals behind the events of 9/11/01 have been exposed despite Trillions of dollars being paid out to silence the truth. To say that the bastards of Silicon Valley are closing the door to honest information and have found new ways to seek out and target decent, is certainly true, yet the door is still open, and if we can keep our whits about us, we can use the Internet as a tool to improve humanity.
Hell yes, take a break from it now and then (perhaps at least one day a week). I often go days without even turning my computer on, and half the time I don’t even know where my cell phone is. Yep, they would have a hard time tracking me if they had to rely on that thing, eh!
I really enjoy your thoughtful even-tempered posts but allow me to remark on a couple of your statements. First of all:
“Indeed, these guys swindled some major players in the military industrial complex in order to open up the information age to anyone with an Internet connection.”
You do not swindle major players in the MIC out of anything, with impunity. You either become a collaborator or you disappear.
Your “these guys” lumps Gates in with Jobs. Gates, it would seem from Mr Corbett’s work, comes from a wealthy eugenical family (I’ll confirm that) and so to suggest he sought to “open up the information age to anyone with an internet connection” in any positive way seems just a tad…naive.
“For the first time people are able to get to the bottom of the coop that took out JFK. And, multiple other coops have also been brought to light. The criminals behind the events of 9/11/01 have been exposed despite Trillions of dollars being paid out to silence the truth.”
TPTSB aren’t so worried about people accessing true information, only that this access should empower the people. As long as discovering bits and pieces of truth does not hinder their various projects of staying in power and accomplishing their vision for the future of Humanity
then access to information is in no way subversive or bothersome. On the contrary.
As usual, you’re very astute, manbearpig.
I’ve found the majority of seasoned conspiracy theorists simply can’t wrap their heads around the monstrosity of it all. Explains why so many fell for admitted intelligence assets becoming alt celebrity ‘truthers’. (Sigh)
I have to thank you for your reply in our last exchange on Elon Musk’s Martian Technocracy. You’re an amazingly talented raconteur. Witty and wise.
…”We want Driverless Cars!! We Want Driverless cars!! Make Driverless Cars Not Wars!! Driverless cars for the 99%! Driverless cars for the People!!!”
“Remember that??”…
LMAO. Hilarious.
Have you ever watched the old classic French movie Mon Oncle (circa 1958)?
C’est une bonne utopie technologique.
dakodak 2Ph! j’irai voir! 😉
Don’t fear the singularity
For those interested in AI / Machine Learning(ML),
check this latest paper.
Are We Really Making Much Progress? A Worrying Analysis of Recent Neural Recommendation Approaches
https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.06902
Checks all existing ML methods.
Only 7 of them could be reproduced with reasonable effort. For these methods, it however turned out that 6 of them can often be outperformed with comparably simple heuristic methods, e.g., based on nearest-neighbor or graph-based techniques. The remaining one clearly outperformed the baselines but did not consistently outperform a well-tuned non-neural linear ranking method.
As I explained before about AI:
ML is not a miracle method, but a statistical method.
The paper even explains that good statistics outperforms ML.
Why is that?
A program can not create information (like structure or sense)
out of no-where (information problem),
nor can it check itself (see stopping problem).
Essentially the scientists try to solve the
hard problem of consciousness.
The reason scientists believe in true AI
(computers that can really think),
is due to materialism.
It is now clear that replicating the brain does not produce
a true artificial intelligence in any way.
This is good news, because now we know that all research does
not lead to anything extreme.
The singularity (true AI) is impossible.
So we will not be ruled by any extremely smart robot overlords,
but instead by stupid and corrupt humans.
True AI is impossible, due to information problem and stopping problem.
The interesting thing is that this is also evidence that
consciousness is created outside of the brain.
This solves both problems.
For those interested check my posts at
http://www.reddit.com/r/paradigmchange/
“Don’t fear the singularity”
I don’t believe in singularity. Still, developments in AI will change mankind and today’s trends ain’t look good.
Bringing consciousness to AI (ML) debate might be deceiving. By proving AI can’t be conscious you get false sense of security, high level debate obscure nasty details that already affect our lives.
“ML is not a miracle method, but a statistical method.
The paper even explains that good statistics outperforms ML.”
Wrong.
Although you can see statistics in ML, you can’t say it is just statistical method. Actually, inner working of neural networks is not well understood.
I found a good analogy for AI/ML/NN is homeopathy. Remedies and methods are well developed in homeopathy, but why things work can’t be exactly explained.
ML is not panacea, it’s just a tool and every good craftsman knows proper tools should be used.
The paper you are referring analyses algorithms for recommendation tasks.
OK, maybe ML is not suitable for these problems. But you just can’t extend article’s findings to other problems, where ML proved to give outstanding results (image, language, games…).
Accuracy of various ML approaches is tested with the use standardized data sets. Looks like these data sets need some improvement.
Finally, it’s not impossible that mentioned article have some of the science illnesses.
Let’s look at AI (ML) from another perspective.
Language model GPT-2 is creating text using leads, answering questions, summarizes, reading comprehension…
Impressive and creepy.
“Unicorn AI”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89A4jGvaaKk
more about GPT-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-6F4rhRYLQ
Most people and many also scientists are falling for the hype.
The AI tries to make a model out of lots of data.
The model are the statistical concentrations of data, which
are stored in the neural network with a Tensor with lots of parameters.
It is like huge amount of numbers.
The neural network can “remember” this model via a hill climbing algorithm.
The neural network, has no clue what those concentrations of data
actually mean. So it has no clue of a 3D world, or of words that
might have different context.
The neural network can be used without too much effort, to create a statistical relationship between words and certain meaning.
This all requires data that helps it establish these relationships.
So the neural network is essentially a manager of correlations between lots of data. It can find relationships between crimes and areas and people. Probably it will see a relationship between the amount of flights to Nigeria and murders in San Francisco.
If we know a bit more about what we are studying, we can use proper statistics. With that we can see how far these relationships are actually real and useful. That is why the videos are about unicorns, that do not exist in the real world.
This is something that a neural network can not do. It can be fooled with simple things and produce good looking garbage.
The current wave of new discoveries with artificial neural networks comes from the better computers. We are now able to calculate with huge Tensors with far more data. And we can do this with many different settings and data-sets. So statistically the people are p-hacking so the calculations are producing what they want.
We are currently seeing problems with automatic driving and auto-pilot software (Boeing). That is because the researchers have put to much trust in them. This has everything to do with marketing. The same is with the quantum computing hype.
>>>
>>>
The real danger
They will create robots that can walk or automatically drive, and can identify certain targets. Those robots will still need human operators, otherwise they will simply fail certain tasks (like Boeing). And also they will drop supplies at ISIS or other terrorists.
The robots may be used in certain combat situations. But they will be tricked just
as we can trick humans. We may probably fool them with fake walls and fake doors.
To get data-sets for combat, they have to use them in real combat.
But the failures will hinder the sales, and I don’t think the sellers want to do that.
Remote control stuff (like drones) is easier.
Manufacturers will just do as in the pentagon wars and produce after specifications.
The current popular trend is to make computers understand news and posts on the internet.
I think Google’s and Facebook’s goal is to stop any news that is real,
and to promote news that is faked by the officials.
After that comes voice recognition and tracking of our free opinions.
With that they can try to setup a 1984.
But with that the progress will also stop, because new ideas (and profit)
only come from freedom.
So I do not think they will get that far, before their own company collapses.
The Go-woke-go-broke will break down these companies as in the worst case,
their leaders will be psychologically unstable trannies, psychotic never-trumpers,
depressed narcissists, and psychopathic child abusers.
The AI will be trained with data-sets based upon their ideas and opinions,
and have no clue about the real world.
I’m pretty sure you didn’t watch videos I’ve proposed. GPT-2 is more sophisticated neural network.
AI Language Models & Transformers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rURRYI66E54
“The current wave of new discoveries with artificial neural networks comes from the better computers.”
This certainly helps but new approaches and architectures are crucial. It is explained in the above video.
It’s true, if you put garbage in you will probably get garbage out. But be sure, “house negroes” at Google and Facefuck and elsewhere are doing their best to develop Real Stuff, they want to satisfy masters.
Masters want real stuff and occasionally that means convincing is enough. But be sure, Selfish Ledger will have to work.
Same is with autonomous vehicles (and subset killer robots). Ok, 100% performance is impossible, but performance better than humans is within the reach, for some instances I believe this is actually true. At the end, propaganda is always here to fill a little gap in performance.
“But with that the progress will also stop, because new ideas (and profit) only come from freedom.”
Freedom is not necessary, illusion of freedom is enough, maybe even less. Unfortunately, majority think like that traitor from Matrix: “I don’t care if this steak is real. It tastes good.”
“…their leaders will be psychologically unstable trannies, psychotic never-trumpers,
depressed narcissists, and psychopathic child abusers.”
Why to denigrate cliques at top?
With this approach we might lose that their actions are actually about self-preservation.
They have the right to self-preservation, don’t they?
I apologize. It’s really my fault. My favorite ploy when I was a Dungeon Master for D&D, & I was popular, was to give this note: “You receive a compulsion to not reveal you’ve received a compulsion.” Little did I know in 1992 that that would become weaponized.
Forgive me.
WATCH THE GROOMING VIDEO ALL THE WAY
Thanks FlyingAxblade! I meant to say the same thing. She does an awesome job!
The irony of the matter is I used my phone while listening to her talk.
And she’s pretty much spot on, people have become so accustomed to these devices that, in my opinion, the critical point she’s referring to, when the switch will be ready to be flipped, has already transpired. Stuff like that pokemon go hysteria only helps drive that point home. We’re already THERE and have been for some time now.
Many of these people, especially young’ uns who have come in contact with their first omnipotent device of self-destruction at about 15 years are done for. Many of the “older” people have fallen completely for the narcissistic bourgeois way of living it enables and craves.
What’s REALLY going to sting is when the 10-year-olds come of age, these guys have been using said technologies starting their year 2 or earlier and their brains, unless they were bestowed by natural resilience or at least somewhat intelligent parents, are transformed into something that never before existed. Sugar rich diet will be a piece of cake for this information-overload-porn upbringing.
Anyway…
Truly an excellent plea for us to stop and think about what’s really going on.
Before she even mentioned “gulag”, I had already found the following clip from Doctor Zhivago. If this crazy train continues full-speed ahead (and of course, it will), eventually we’ll all be faced with the terrible “would you rather die by suffocation (figurative death of your identity for the greater good) or by starvation (keeping yourself/soul intact but living in a concentration camp)” dilemma.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dr+zhivago+klaus+kinski+
Maybe my mood is just bleak today, but I feel like we’re really only living on borrowed time. ðŸ™
Oops, wrong link. Here’s the right one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5vNbGLhZXw
Pearl-
Hi darling. We are living on borrowed time. Let’s just enjoy the company of our chickens and cats. I think it was Charles Bukowski who said,
“I’m just watching the end of the race.â€
“What race?â€
“The Human race.â€
(And every other living thing on this planet.)
And on a more positive note……
You have excellent timing, Cooly. As I was reading your reply (which warmed my heart), my scruffy, bouncy dog was dashing about tossing and chasing his pitiful squeaky toy which slid beneath the couch again. His impatient barking for my intervention didn’t allow me to remain in that beaten down, state of mind. Today’s a new day!
Interesting short story, I thought you guys might like.
https://www.reddit.com/r/shortstories/comments/cijnes/mf_three_little_pigs/
Very creative! I’ve often thought that “The Little Red Hen” should have a reboot for grown-ups who refuse to grown up.