Friday, March 16, 2018

Fake Lies

In south Florida, people are dead after a horrible crime. They never had a chance. Despite frantic efforts, nothing will bring them back. All we can do is prevent the next one.

Do we ban engineers, universities, footbridges or cranes?

Probably not the crime you were expecting. But doing stress testing on a newly installed structure above live traffic is nothing less.

Recently we had a nationwide Walk Out organized (and paid for) by powerful organizations: Soros and Bloomberg to be specific. Having been involved in "grass roots" political efforts, I know exactly how much time, money and effort is required to pull off a Nationwide Day of Anything. It's sustained efforts by hundreds of people with a budget of millions.

You have almost certainly not heard that yesterday was AR-15 Day, or mARch 15th. But there was a huge one day spike in firearm background checks as millions of Americans rushed down to their gun shops and bought firearms in fear of the next wave of newly proposed laws, which will make as much difference as the last set. Zero equals zero. And the newly purchased guns... also zero.

This is not a subject in which facts matter. We have evolved a whole new language of Orwellian double think - "alt facts," "fake news," "false flag" - to hide the underlying fact that we are in a cultural war and truth is already a battle casualty.

I have gone to some trouble to monitor on social media, using exemplars, memes from numerous angles. If you are already on the Left, your feeds were bombarded with variations on "The Teens Will Save Us." If you are already on the Right, your feeds were bombarded with edge cases: students misbehaving instead of protesting, students suspended for refusing to protest, students suspended for pro-2nd Amendment protesting. Note that the truth of any particular story is irrelevant.

My academic training is in social ecology with a strong side of criminology.

Most of what has been said about gun control is crap.

Most of what has been said about guns in schools is crap.

Most of what has been said about active shooter response is crap.

The handful of genuine experts are drowned out in a sea of sepsis. Consider that an unbiased gun control expert is like a tobacco researcher or to use an older phrase, a whore with a heart of gold. The few we have we should truly treasure.

Recently, a reserve police officer and politician decided to teach his high school students disarm techniques with a loaded handgun and committed a negligent discharge. This is almost certainly NOT the story that you have heard. Most media reporting states "armed teacher," some questions the narrative by adding "police officer" but you have to dig deep to discover the depths of stupidity lurking behind the narrative.

Everyone responds to this incident according to their biases. "See, guns in schools are dangerous!" "He should neither be a teacher nor a cop!"

Genuine analysis of the facts on the ground is rare. It doesn't sell clicks and ad impressions. It takes effort to sift truth from lies. It takes local expertise to sort through what he thought he was doing versus what he had the authority to do.

There is a most disturbing trend for social media to start censoring perspectives they disagree with. This is being called a response to fake news. One recent effort involves using Wikipedia, a crowd sourced encyclopedia, to vet postings to YouTube, a video publisher. I could weep but the ocean is made of tears.

I won't have the effort to get past this type of censorship. I'll be lucky to be able to point it out after it happens, because nuking accounts is the primary method.

After the Patriot Act was passed, librarians started putting up signs warning patrons that their library records could be reviewed by government agents and that libraries could not tell them if this had happened. After the first government visit, the signs were taken down, to warn people without breaking the law.

This is my Patriot Act sign.

I am going to continue to try, with limited time and no budget, to share my perspective when opportunity permits. I don't charge to read my views nor do I insist on them. Enjoy or ignore, your choice.

When I go dark, it will either be Author Existence Failure (which I don't plan on any time soon) ... or a Fake News algorithm deciding for you that I am unfit to read.

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