re-al

Shh!

You realise downvotes are a big deal for managing information on certain sites that we frequent...

I just don't see how a cell is similar to an insect.

I don't understand the emotion, or even the idea that I have to feel something about cars or roads. What is it to do with me, why should I care? Its not as if I can do anything about it.

The governance structure provided us with road infrastructure in the past. We were sold this idea and developed our lives around it.

Now the governance structure wants us to live in smart cities, with no cars. This allows for greater control and tighter management of the tax paying stock.

No one gets to vote for this stuff. It is not a way of life I would choose - I don't like being manipulated. I'm not going to stand at the sidelines and clap these changes on. It is communitarianism - but its not a good thing.

"Our revealed preference seems to be that we'd rather have homeless people live in tents than have poor people get free or nearly free housing."

Well, I'm sick of your preferences; they make no sense to me.

I'm being facetious, but why talk that way? You are an individual. If you have an opinion state it.

Government and its decisions are not you, you do not need to pretend that you agree with these decisions, or that they are somehow the result of a benign expression of voting decisions that you are bought into.

UBI is such blatant bribery by the existing governance structures, in order to ensure conformity to their ever increasing dictats.

I don't see how anyone things this action is a good thing - it's inflationary, it's bribery. How will people voice alternative opinions, when to do so will risk loss?

UBI is just a trick to have everyone willingly sign up into assimilation into the government's citizen-borg.

No. Blackrock and Vanguard are.

"Pegasus takes advantage of so-called zero-day vulnerabilities of software running on mobile phones, meaning built-in flaws that not even developers and manufacturers are aware of."

Vulnerabilities, eh - 'flaws'?

Or backdoors there by design?

What's in a name?

No one has 'the truth', it's just not that sort of thing. Everyone has opinions. Some opinions are lies. Transparency is the way to deal with the lies.

But if you're the one lying and have your hands on the levers of power, censorship is a great tool.

"Few pause to think that their phones can be transformed into surveillance devices, with someone thousands of miles away silently extracting their messages, photos and location, activating their microphone to record them in real time."

They were designed to be surveillance devices! Remember when you could replace your phone battery? They corrected that 'design flaw'. Smart phones, smart meters, smart cities, 5g... this is the infrastructure of the technocracy.

Smart = spy.

When papers like the guardian present articles like these as if they care, they are in fact doing a different job. They are actually acclimatising us to the future so that we are not shaken into action, but wring our hands for a bit and move on.

To those talking about journalists needing to protect freedom, what world are you on? Have you heard of 'project mockingbird'? Have you not yet realised that journalism is just a part of the governance structure, along with education, and of course the government?

You can't blame them! What seem like valid differences of opinion are political, national security threats, etc. Intolerance abounds.

But please - that 'storming of the US Capitol' was a joke - those people were pretty well behaved, and waved in by the police. I suspect to provide a justification to portray republicans badly later on. All those riots, in Portland etc, in the middle of epidemic? Those are fine and can carry on for months.

My thinking exactly! Do not extend trust - extend the attempt to try to verify, if you think the matter is important.

On living with uncertainty - this seems to be our major struggle. We can't say "I don't know", we would rather the life-raft of a comfortable story that assuages us. Most of us are both arrogant not because we know/have verified but because of stories/beliefs. It is hybris!

There are bad things all over the world, deaths, crashes, collapses, etc.

But what does that have to do with technologists working hard to eliminate freedoms and privacy, not just for themselves but for everyone? Do technologists have the truth, do they really know what is better for everyone else?

I'm totally fine personally with other people doing what they want to do. Buy a phone knowing you are being spied on.

But do you forget that we did not know we were being spied on. Some of us suspected perhaps, but this only became blatant with the Snowden revelations. The point is that this is not an open, free-sharing system - it is plainly deceitful, designed to extract our most personal information, to provide it to a corporation/governance structure whether we want it or not.

And now we see the long path we are on coming to fruition - we will have to have a phone, a vax passport to simply get into shops. We are facing a world like East Germany, but on techno-steroids.

So, fine, choose what you like. But do you not think a line is crossed when the techno-snooping becomes mandatory, with smart phones, smart tvs, smart meters, etc? Must I hand over all of my information to what is shaping up to be a fascist (government+corporate) governance structure?

Most people around here would say yes.

These are great questions.

I am absolutely on the path to self-liberation - the policeman in my head is gone. Its been a work of years.

Why do you say wild animal? Are you a wild animal if someone doesn't tell you what to do? I think you need to check your assumptions. We are naturally joyful, trusting creatures, but this is used against us.

And having children personally made me double up my efforts. I needed to find answers - I didn't want to commit my children to automaton living.

I was not in control - I was not the author of my life. I was provided a story, and that is now rejected. I write my own story - and fyi here is a good essay that captures how I feel:

https://kateofgaia.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/behold-a-whit...

The job we have - as I see it - is to act according to what we know. There is a big difference between what you know and what you *think* you know. Eg, do you know your date of birth? No, you do not. You do not remember it - you only know what you are told. Knowing is personally verifying! Say what you see and don't lie to yourself or others.

If you do not personally verify the stories you are told, you will be 'lost in stories'. Someone else (not you) is controlling the narrative. Technology is just the latest iteration of the stories - we also have government, religion, law, our 'educated' peers, etc.

Isn't it amazing how easily people are controlled? Why force people to do something, when you can actually make money off whatever slave device or process you've got.

This comes down to education. We have been educated to follow and accept, rather than think critically and take the long term view on something, and act on it. Very few people are even able to consider just how much of how they view the world is on account of the way they have been taught. They think the values they have are their own, but it is not on a basis of truth, it is repetition and being told what is right. It is not their personality/individuality extending into the world - it is consensus thinking.

Frankly, its quite sad! And for some of us it is like living amongst the borg, with all these received opinions.

Thank you Mr Health and Safety!

Well, don't stop investigating then, its your USP :)

Is it not possible to talk about election fraud? I believe that this really has happened historically.

I would be fine to agree with you if you have proven that there is not election fraud, but obviously having a different opinion is not proof.

Many dark pattern designers, would claim 'bad design' as the excuse. Its hard to read intent, and hard not to suspect malicious intent when there is a cash value on the upside of the 'bad design'.

I have another one - when you pay cash at a machine, and it does not give you the best change, but gives you the heaviest change. Oh and 4-way traffic management guaranteed to cause a huge traffic jam in the name of health and safety, when cars and drivers (and pedestrians) would better manage the road themselves without any assistance. (I suspect the traffic management is training for us to get used to degrading of the roads, so that 'self-driving' cars are able to navigate diversions cos of the traffic lights.)

Not doors, but there are many anti-patterns are intentional - they are there by design!

Eg, "Accept All" cookies - always there. "Reject All"? No. Click preferences, scroll to the bottom, past all the minimised options that hopefully are not selected, then choose the ambiguously named "Confirm my choices" (when I haven't made any choices). This stuff is on purpose! Its there to make you lose the will to live, and just accept whatever crap they have to offer. Like phoning your broadband or energy supplier. Or being able to swap out your phone battery. Or have a machine auto-call or text you to harass you, if you are 1 day late on a payment.

The point is that there is a cash value to many of these 'problems' even if they can be easily engineered away. Its the weaponisation of irritation and hassle, and its ubiquitous in modern living.

Where this ends up, is that we are forced to accept, accept, accept. Its not a great mental state to be in - its the mentality of the prisoner. One cannot help be far less proactive in a modern society - you cannot take things in hand - to get anything done needs to escalated up the ladder.

We are being trained to be timid acceptance lambs. :)

at nomemerror (I cannot reply directly)

I don't understand why your comment is flagged and dead! You are making a perfectly reasonable point. HN admins, what is unacceptable about what is being stated - I genuinely do not see it.

Of course controlled burns have been known about for centuries - these are not mysteries! But why in the modern age do we NOT control burn - that is the question.

Putting aside the climate change being out of control, can we try to consider this from a 'perception management' perspective.

If there are lots of huge fires that would create the impression in the news of huge climate change issues, would it not? But, would that be a fair assessment, if the huge fires have been orchestrated by a failure to do what we have known about for centuries?

I don't think so.

But using this issue to create the impression of climate is what is happening - eg the fires last year is Australia. These were framed as another massive climate change issue, not as a governmental failure (to undertake controlled burns). The effect is that we wring our hands over another massive climate change issue going unaddressed, whereas what is going on is a contrived situation that is framed on climate change.

TLDR: These fires are *not* climate change - its only *portrayed* as climate change.

Why cant we just plant more trees? Or let the trees we have grow bigger, to soak up all that extra carbon?

Controlled burns prevent big fires??! Surely not.

So, you're telling me, that if they don't do controlled burns, you could end up with a huge inferno?! Impossible.

Next you'll be saying that the huge infernos are orchestrated, in order to promote the idea that climate change is out of control!

These aren't fossilised - at least it doesn't say so.

How can bones last 51,000 years?

Just think, the science isn't in for vapes. But it is in for rna vaccines!

Terms is how we communicate, hence my use.

If you ask me, I'm calling a spade a spade, and Carney is saying a dog turd is cake. But I think its great you engage in the conversation - we can then establish what each of us means by whatever term, and proceed. You will not get any such satisfaction from Carney and his ilk.

I'm providing more concrete terms for others to potentially investigate, instead of the evocative, idealistic ideas we are provided.

We are told 'progress', 'society', 'justice' etc - these mean whatever you like. But who is stating them? What do they mean by them?

What is justice to person who represents the governance structure? What is progress to someone who heads up a corporation?

These are terms we all use, but the idea behind them means exactly the opposite by those who govern us, to what we commonly understand.

Ultimately, its for us all as individuals to understand what those terms (and other) mean to us, and to then do the research to see if that is the usage that those who govern us also have. That is the work for any individual to do.

Of course, no one checks what is meant - no one. Yet it is all out there. The mistake we make is to assume we are on the same page.

Yes.. Jack Ma got to the top doing business in China, but then proves himself to be a bad judge of the situation by making speeches against the Chinese authorities. I don't think so.

I think Jack Ma is just a figurehead (like most business people) - an actor that is there to raise the profile of the brand. I don't think he owns what they say (though I'm sure he is well remunerated).

All we can really say I think, is that his role came to an end, and he has stepped off the stage.

And so do we, when we participate in voting - we legitimise the theater.

But don't worry - we are at the end of the democratic time. We are moving/have moved into technocracy communitarianism, where all the meaningful decisions are taken by NGOs at the supra-national level. This is why we have electric car charging points, 7-8 storey building blocks with a shop downstairs, narrower roads (the future is car-less), tiny homes, being pushed off the land, etc.

Mark Carney etc will be help lead the charge away from capitalism.

"In his book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, Mark Carney, former governor both of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, claims that western society is morally rotten, and that it has been corrupted by capitalism, which has brought about a “climate emergency” that threatens life on earth. This, he claims, requires rigid controls on personal freedom, industry and corporate funding."

If you're confused how the governor of 2 national banks is now rallying against capitalism, don't worry - go back to sleep.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/peter-foster-mark-carney-ma...