Friends, the gyre has widened. Again.
In September, Ben wrote a Brief called Schrödinger’s
Schrödinger’s Staredown
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That’s what this is about?!?!?!?! I just saw the pictures online and assumed it was just a bunch of ahole Patriot fans circling the wagons outside of Arrowhead. Ugh, I like my version better.
The best advice I’ve seen on this is to wait 48 hrs before diving in. Let the echo chambers stop reverberating. Then look. Not easy to do these days.
The Fear Industry…Do not drink anyones Coo-liad, anyone! You should always look to improve but always remain a skeptic and one Missionary trying to replace another Missionary…
“Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask.
“Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”
“What?” I ask.
“The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that.”
– Mockingjay, chapter 27…she kills the other missionary in the end…the supposed good missionary.
[A political cult is characterised by a political or economic doctrine that answers all the ‘big questions’ about life, the world and everything else. The doctrine that is handed down is then to be conceived of as a way to live one’s life – a project, handed down from Mount Sinai, that one is under the moral obligation to spread far and wide. This is why we refer to these movements as cults. And it is this that gives them such an awesome status in the glazed eyes of their devotees.
Finally, the political cult will usually offer their followers the possibility of a Heaven on Earth. If the follower behaves well and spreads their beliefs to others they will eventually arrive at some sort of Utopia. This is their reward for believing in the doctrines, despite these doctrines being ridiculed by others.] --Pilkington
Just go buy some gold bars, scream hyperinflation and the like…people love fear and paranoia and it sells very well with high profit margins!
At least that long. The perilous part of the racket is the “if you are silent, you are complicit” line that seeks to compel earlier action (externally) and the panicked impression that we are not appropriately offsetting some other side’s perspective (usually an internal impetus).
Totally agree, I’ve started to highly curate the content I consume. Reading primarily via Feedly, curated blogs and email news letters. Perhaps a small wiki page or something where ET readers can post their favorite sources (with a tag to identify if it’s leaning to one side of the gyre) would be neat. Would be happy to setup hosting for something like that if people are interested.
The narrative map did spark a thought in my mind. I’ve realized it takes hard work, careful thought and an elastic mind to try and navigate these complex issues. It almost seems as if the general news “browsing” public will never go through the effort to try, as it feels to good, and is far to easy to simply get angry.
But, how could we use data to help inform the general populous that the “chain of articles” leads them down the path towards an end of the gyre. This is sort of what Read Across the Line app tries to do. I’m imaging a chrome or safari plugin that shows you “where” on the narrative map you currently are, and where the links on the page are leading you. One could also think of an automated system that given your region “txts” you an alert if the current news station is heavily influenced. I understand that the “backfire effect” is pretty strong so this may be a non-starter.
If it were possible (and it probably is) to do this in a systematic way, this is a…really interesting idea, Willem. I’m always concerned about the injection of priors into the structure of something like this, but that goes with the territory. I’ll bring it up with the Quid team in our next conversation.
Phenomenal. This is an excellent article and perfect timing. I was watching this unfold this weekend on social media and felt the emotional pulls in each direction like the tide was going out on me. Probably because of bias against a lazy media I withheld judgement and wondered what else would come to light, but I still felt strongly pulled towards the “racist!” meme. The next day the “full video” clips started coming out and I strongly felt compelled to the “biased media!” meme. What was lost on me was as you pointed out the fact that this happened rapidly. The whipsaw was like a wave on a highschool physics graph with the midline being “I don’t care” and it pulled you a great distance one way away from center and then just as far in the opposite direction. The strength of each of those pulls was interestingly strong, but the speed for that wave cycle from beginning to end was really amazing.
It would be interesting to map these events out on a linear graph in chronological order. Things like “Kavanaugh!” “Shutdown/Wall!” etc. I wonder what they look like if we mapped them out as individual waves in a chronological sequence and then measured intensity and wavelength for each event. I think that would be an interesting exercise.
The beauty of managing global assets from far away in the Southern hemisphere is that we often “miss” the bluster of these false narratives. We certainly don’t miss that at all! Clear Eyes, Full Hearts.
It would. We can actually do this now when it takes place over days. Our present tools haven’t yet accommodated looking at these things over…well…hours. But no reason they can’t. We will explore it.
It is a rare luxury, but alas, I fear we shall all have our day in the sun!
I keep coming back to the French Revolution as a historical analog to our current situation. Hyper partisan media and events that quickly spiral out of control, with truth and justice left by the wayside. “If you are silent you are complicit” sounds like another way of say “the revolution eats its own children.” One difference is that we have seen minimal physical violence, even though the conditions seem ripe for that. Perhaps that is a function of a population that is relatively dispersed and siloed - one were media is the preferred battleground. What is worrisome is that the widening gyre suggest the potential for further escalation.
Two narratives is evidence of how far apart are our political viewpoints OR that the media has become militarized for disinformation… YES.
Life was so much simpler with only three big TV networks.
In this case, with the information I can parse from my bubble, ima gonna go out on a limb and say that there is a 70% probability of privileged teenagers being a55holes and a further 50% probability they are inspired by the privileged teenager POTUS.
You might want to consider getting information outside your ‘bubble’. The one thing I disagree with in the article is that “perfectly reasonable, perfectly intelligent, perfectly decent people” could come away with choice ‘A’. That is unreasonable based on the video accounts. Not to say you only have choice B, it doesn’t take much to rule out ‘A’.
Both of these comments make Rusty’s point for him. You’re both coming to the exact logical conclusion from your perspective. Rusty’s point is that its not the perspectives that are wrong, it’s the process.
There is likely a near 100% chance that at least one and likely a near 0% chance that all the teenagers would meet your criteria above. (No comment about the ‘teenager-in-chief’, I wish RG had used the same verbs for choice A or B instead of ‘slotted’ and ‘forced’.
With respect, even if I personally witnessed the events at ground zero in real time, I might disagree with you (or anyone else) . I have digested both narratives and based on all my inputs, background and lack of omniscience I stand by my call. YMMV. Besides which, it is the meta-narrative here that is important. In the first account youths inspired by trump is implicitly criticism of trump. But now the Trump-supporting media says the kids were provoked by librul nutcases. Touche!
Much more importantly, what % of this kerfuffle is amplified from St. Petersburg or Tehran or NK?
I understand and respect your perspective/position. My only point was when removed from the ‘narrative’ and looking at what had transpired I don’t think it reasonable to conclude that teens 'mocked, harassed, disrespected a veteran, native american elder (no telling he was a veteran and need to assume he is native american). Not to mention Trumps open racism while silently watching vulnerable populations being assaulted. That position might exist without any video or occurrence, thanks to the narrative machine however could not be reasonably concluded from the event.
I understand that your 70% and 50% probabilities are most likely based on their skin color, their dress, their MAGA hats and the fact they are at the Right to Life March to which you are certainly entitled. You may very well be correct.