Censorship: “America’s Secret Censorship-Industrial Complex” by Michael Shellenberg

Censorship: “America’s Secret Censorship-Industrial Complex” by Michael Shellenberg

Go to the link, below for this must-read item. The US government and powerful interests developed a powerful censorship operation operating in conjunction with social media companies. It is important to understand how these groups function. They are not publicly engaging with their opponents in an open exchange of ideas. They aren’t asking for a national debate over the limits of the First Amendment. Rather, they are creating blacklists of disfavored people and then pressuring, cajoling, and demanding that social media platforms…

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Rule by technocratic experts

Rule by technocratic experts

The inventors of “public relations” (the name given to the field after “propaganda” grew out of favor) argued for rule by technocratic elite, thinking that important decisions should be left to “experts” and not democracies.

Why do science and health reporters lack background in their subject?

Why do science and health reporters lack background in their subject?

Bloomberg, and many media outlets, use unqualified or questionably qualified “reporters” to cover complex topics in science and engineering. Such reporters learned what they know from media and interviewing others, who talk to the press as part of their own evangelism. This is not how the media should be doing reporting.

Why does everyone lie? Because it works.

Why does everyone lie? Because it works.

Why does everyone lie? Because it is effective and easy to get away with it, even when prominent people and organizations tell obvious grand lies. We have been trained not to question, not to think critically, and not to think for ourselves. Thinking for yourself is double-bad wrong think and should be punished.

Climate: Messaging fail

Climate: Messaging fail

If forests are not renewable, then nothing is renewable. This makes no sense. Source: Greta Thunberg on Twitter: “Climate strike week 233. #FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrike #ForestsAreNotRenewable https://t.co/IZN857fdjy” / Twitter

Crazy: The U.S. Racial Classification System is Nonsensical

Crazy: The U.S. Racial Classification System is Nonsensical

In 1977, the US decided to classify people by race. We decided the world was made up of 4 “races” and 1 “ethnicity”. An indigenous heritage person in North America is “Native American”, but an indigenous person in South America is …. Hispanic. People in Korea, Japan, Singapore, Pakistan, India and more are “Asian” “race”, which makes no sense. And many people are of mixed racial heritage (including my family) – but oddly, even if only a tiny part of the heritage is an ethnic group, it is legal to declare yourself part of that group. As the interviewed professor notes, it is now possible for a majority of the U.S. population to qualify as a “minority owned business”. That’s funny when a majority can qualify as a minority 🙂 It is a big mess that was news to me as I had not thought about these issues before.