4 ms·

I'm inclined to use the word "terrifying." Some people I know call me "crazy" every time I take a position which contradicts MSM. They fully believe that the T.

by archhn 5y ago

I'm inclined to use the word "terrifying." Some people I know call me "crazy" every time I take a position which contradicts MSM. They fully believe that the T.V. is giving them the unadulterated truth of all matters that should concern them.

rendall 5y ago
I suspect the MSM engaging in coordinated lying on behalf of the powerful has been going on for at least half a century if not longer. The rise of the internet has allowed us, the audience, to independently falsify their accounts and listen to alternate perspectives, but I find it endlessly baffling that large numbers of people still just... allow their reality to be exactly what the MSM pundits tell them it is.
- westmeal 5y ago
  I suspect it's easier and comforting to not think about the terrible reality of our world, and to have an 'official' perspective is to be able to move on with your life.
  - archhn 5y ago
    There are essentially two mentalities I've observed in people around me. 1. The Optimist. Believes they live in "the best of all worlds" and everything always works out for the best--Voltare satirizes this idealism in Candide. 2. The Broken Nihilist. Believes everything is bull shit. Everyone is a liar, civilization is a scam, and all human interaction is a power struggle. The optimist doesn't feel the need to worry about anything because they believe some magic force will make everything right for them. They thus are more susceptible to deception because they believe there can be no bad consequences of their actions...they are living a magical life in the best of all worlds...nothing can go wrong. The nihilist, as we may suspect, is naturally immune to deception within the bounds of his reasoning capacity. This gives him an advantage over the optimist...and he always looks down upon the optimist as an idiot.
    - datavirtue 5y ago
      On my experience these "optimists" you describe are often raging pessimists when it comes to progressive human endeavors. And as a nihilist myself, I retreat into a study of institutions, trying to discover ways to alleviate human suffering. I do look down in disgust on these "optimists" but for very different reasons. They are the enablers of continued human suffering.
      - archhn 5y ago
        Pessimists in the sense of complacency? Like, "Oh, things are great as they are. We don't need to change anything. Everything should stay precisely as it is because the status quo os the image of right."?
    - lanstin 5y ago
      Look harder. There are people acting to make the world better, optimistic at times because of the effects of taking action on ones sense of the world, and yet aware of the gap between reality and the description, aware that even self deception is possible. the middle path, so to speak
  - nonrandomstring 5y ago
    > Fascinating, isn't it? Yes. From a human psychology POV it's absolutely fascinating (in the sense of being an open puzzle that compels one to ask deep questions). It concerns much more than illegal mass surveillance. What is truly astonishing is the distance between the stories we tell ourselves and the reality we inhabit. It's the same denial and rationalisation that means we can cope with climate emergency. Our age is the spectacle of the chasm. There's an enormous gulf between our mythology - what we tell ourselves about our rational civilisation, our empowerment by technology, our omniscient knowledge, our social contract, our freedom... etc - and the reality - that we have almost no basis for reason (except within narrow confines of science), are dominated by our technology, live in ignorance and fear, have torn up social contracts and become slaves to 19th century ideologies. This is the interregnum in which you can have revelations on the scale of Snowden exposing colossal constitutional violations, and have people shrug. >> to have an 'official' perspective is to be able to move on with your life Except people don't. They pretend to. In reality they move on with a shadow of what approximates to life under the conditions of extraordinary dissonance. They become docile, domesticated shells of real people for whom cultural, educational, economic and spiritual life dimensions are crippled. The awareness of dominance doesn't magically vanish, it is sublimated into broad cynicism, sarcasm, duplicity and inability to trust or believe in anything. Don't mistake tolerance for the effects being rendered harmless by wilful ignorance.
    - archhn 5y ago
      Excellent description of what's happening. Just look at all the mentally crippled people who resort to psychoactive drugs in order to quell the raging dissonance within them. They know something is wrong, but they've been conditioned to accept the system...so the only remaining culprit is themselves...and the psychiatric machinery is there to convince them they are sick. When I was struggling to confront our harsh reality, I just thought I was depressed. Those around me convinced me to go to the doctor and they played along. This scenario is playing out everywhere. People are being told they are sick when it's our society that is sick.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        Plenty of people are also sick.

by archhn 5y ago

rendall 5y ago

I suspect the MSM engaging in coordinated lying on behalf of the powerful has been going on for at least half a century if not longer. The rise of the internet has allowed us, the audience, to independently falsify their accounts and listen to alternate perspectives, but I find it endlessly baffling that large numbers of people still just... allow their reality to be exactly what the MSM pundits tell them it is.

westmeal 5y ago
I suspect it's easier and comforting to not think about the terrible reality of our world, and to have an 'official' perspective is to be able to move on with your life.
- archhn 5y ago
  There are essentially two mentalities I've observed in people around me. 1. The Optimist. Believes they live in "the best of all worlds" and everything always works out for the best--Voltare satirizes this idealism in Candide. 2. The Broken Nihilist. Believes everything is bull shit. Everyone is a liar, civilization is a scam, and all human interaction is a power struggle. The optimist doesn't feel the need to worry about anything because they believe some magic force will make everything right for them. They thus are more susceptible to deception because they believe there can be no bad consequences of their actions...they are living a magical life in the best of all worlds...nothing can go wrong. The nihilist, as we may suspect, is naturally immune to deception within the bounds of his reasoning capacity. This gives him an advantage over the optimist...and he always looks down upon the optimist as an idiot.
  - datavirtue 5y ago
    On my experience these "optimists" you describe are often raging pessimists when it comes to progressive human endeavors. And as a nihilist myself, I retreat into a study of institutions, trying to discover ways to alleviate human suffering. I do look down in disgust on these "optimists" but for very different reasons. They are the enablers of continued human suffering.
    - archhn 5y ago
      Pessimists in the sense of complacency? Like, "Oh, things are great as they are. We don't need to change anything. Everything should stay precisely as it is because the status quo os the image of right."?
  - lanstin 5y ago
    Look harder. There are people acting to make the world better, optimistic at times because of the effects of taking action on ones sense of the world, and yet aware of the gap between reality and the description, aware that even self deception is possible. the middle path, so to speak
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  > Fascinating, isn't it? Yes. From a human psychology POV it's absolutely fascinating (in the sense of being an open puzzle that compels one to ask deep questions). It concerns much more than illegal mass surveillance. What is truly astonishing is the distance between the stories we tell ourselves and the reality we inhabit. It's the same denial and rationalisation that means we can cope with climate emergency. Our age is the spectacle of the chasm. There's an enormous gulf between our mythology - what we tell ourselves about our rational civilisation, our empowerment by technology, our omniscient knowledge, our social contract, our freedom... etc - and the reality - that we have almost no basis for reason (except within narrow confines of science), are dominated by our technology, live in ignorance and fear, have torn up social contracts and become slaves to 19th century ideologies. This is the interregnum in which you can have revelations on the scale of Snowden exposing colossal constitutional violations, and have people shrug. >> to have an 'official' perspective is to be able to move on with your life Except people don't. They pretend to. In reality they move on with a shadow of what approximates to life under the conditions of extraordinary dissonance. They become docile, domesticated shells of real people for whom cultural, educational, economic and spiritual life dimensions are crippled. The awareness of dominance doesn't magically vanish, it is sublimated into broad cynicism, sarcasm, duplicity and inability to trust or believe in anything. Don't mistake tolerance for the effects being rendered harmless by wilful ignorance.
  - archhn 5y ago
    Excellent description of what's happening. Just look at all the mentally crippled people who resort to psychoactive drugs in order to quell the raging dissonance within them. They know something is wrong, but they've been conditioned to accept the system...so the only remaining culprit is themselves...and the psychiatric machinery is there to convince them they are sick. When I was struggling to confront our harsh reality, I just thought I was depressed. Those around me convinced me to go to the doctor and they played along. This scenario is playing out everywhere. People are being told they are sick when it's our society that is sick.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Plenty of people are also sick.