Nothing Can Be Done When People Believe Lies

I once thought up a title for a possible book: ” Using the Rubber Yardstick: the Role of Fraud and Deceit in Economic Analysis and Economic Policy” .

But I never did and never will know enough to be able to write such a book. If somebody knows enough to write such a book and wants to go ahead and do so, and if they think that is a catchy title; they are free to use it. I hereby Copyleft that title.

There’s always been a lot of deception out there, but it is getting worse. I remember when it was an important skill for a politician to–I remember when there was such a thing as it being important for a politician to have ANY kind of skill–um, as I say, to be able to talk and sound decisive without actually saying anything at all. It was important to be able to mislead without outright lying, and give the appearance of substance to empty words. Much of the US Democratic party and indeed the Canadian Liberal party still clings to this outmoded approach to political communication.

But the REASON these skills were relevant is important: There was a considerable social cost to lying outright; politicians could suffer serious career problems if they were caught at it. This cost is gone, although not symmetrically–as far as I can tell, the further left you are, the more such costs remain. The loss of that cost is a big problem. Mealy-mouthed politicians who never said anything sucked, but politicians confidently making big statements that are total lies is even worse.

The quote attributed to Karl Rove:

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

– Anonymous senior advisor to George W. Bush, as reported by Ron Suskind in 2004

We in the West live in the Empire of Lies.

Sometimes it isn’t plain lying, it’s that those in responsible positions don’t know either. Because it’s too trivial to know, it’s better to pretend, or imagine.

It used to be called “postmodernism” and was very much in vogue in the 80s and 90s. The world didn’t exist, only the pictures in our brains, which were formed by the displays of the stock exchanges.

I believe this was a function of the rentier take of the economy. In the rentier world nothing exists, except the fictitious value of their possessions. So facts get trivial and not worth bothering about.

That’s the way they think.

So many liberal politicians still don’t get that when someone asks whether a woman can have a penis, it’s not a test of fairness, tact or diplomacy; it’s a test of honesty.

We ALL already know the answer; we know you do too. The test is whether you have the guts to say it out loud or will lie to appease your party and the media, which are totally down with coercing girls into changing in front of men, women in prison being impregnated by convicted rapists, and confused children left with broken bodies and missing genitals.

I would not be nearly as pessimistic as you are in the hed. In my view, the situation is emphatically not that nothing can be done – it is that little to nothing can be done only by bashing on a keyboard adrift in a seething sea of hundreds of thousands of competing IO actors.* One has to find other means of getting to people and influencing their beliefs.

More related to the centroid of your piece – why do people believe things that are wrong? As Bruce says, most people want to believe stories, they don’t like the hard work of epistemology, and they *really* don’t like that any given issue has many multiple competing partial “truths” that they have to hold in their head and continually re-evaluate as they look at different dimensions of the issue. Probably most importantly for the modern context, there’s a non-stop supply of easy to digest stories on tap.

From what I have seen, reasonably close up to various aspects of governmental decision making, most of this isn’t actually the system or even most external actors seeking to influence the system putting out stuff that is untrue – the stuff put out is just not the whole truth or the “best” truth. A key problem is that people are making decisions by picking through the flyshit looking for peppercorns because they think the right data makes the decision for them, rather than stepping back, looking at the big picture and making decisions based on less certain, less detailed data that *actually* directly addresses the issues at hand. This is particularly problematic given that explicitly political actors (members, their staffs, a component of lobbyists) are in a different category and will actually say things that are at significant odds with reality. Preoccupation with spices and flyshit is a not a great strategy for dealing with them.

* The ultimate objective of many of the more organized IO actors is to get the consumer to believe that their views are correct, pure and just, the “other side” is comprised of irredeemable assholes who are bitterly opposed to them, that stridency demonstrates the worth of one and one’s views, that doubling down is always the answer, and that nothing can be done because of the other side (who are irredeemable assholes, see above).

“A lie is how we change the world into something fake but better for us.”

Of which, there are two varieties. The lies we tell ourselves, and the lies we tell others.
The second doesn’t exist without the first.

First, we lie to ourselves because we have to rationalize lying to others.
Thus, it’s the propensity to lie to oneself that is interesting to me.

That propensity doesn’t exist without low self-esteem.
Madison Avenue practices the art and science of generating low self esteem.

The feedback loop is in place.

They only teach these things at billionaire school (read … the Ivy League).

america is a banana republic, only using dollars instead of bananas. we have lots of dollars, just like a banana republic has lots of bananas.

the people who came into power in 1993, equated money as wealth, money is but a medium of exchange. wealth is production.

so everything since 1993 has been for the stock and financial markets, to the detriment of production, well paid and skilled workforce, up to date machinery and factories, real wealth.

so if you want to know the real worth of america, its has to be reset to 1992. so the stock and financial markets, must face a bloodbath of epic proportions, sooner or later, that is coming.

the best thing that could ever happen is for america to lose reserve currency status, and that’s whats going on about iran, russia and china right now.

once we lose it, it will be the sonic boom heard all over the solar system.

the true damage to american and the world, was done from 1993-2001. in 2001 i said the mess can’t last long till implosion, and it imploded in 2008, catching millions flat footed and bewildered.

keen and pickettys graphs are brilliant. both peg 1993 as the true start of a very long long depression scenario.

GDP is worthless. workers get none of it, and it covers up a lack of true wealth.

The COLA first entered the picture with the GM/UAW contract of 1948. Those of us who still are payed based on these are getting screwed. I googled stuff. I hope it’s of interest.

Of course “statistics don’t lie,” is a lie
What could be more objective than collecting cost-of-living statistics? Stapleford masterfully shows that the process of determining what it cost to live in America was actually deeply political and contested over the course of the twentieth century. Who was doing the counting, with what measures, and to what ends made all the difference.” — Lizabeth Cohen, Harvard Universityhttp://www.tomstapleford.com/books/cost-of-living-in-america/

Reading an article from Washington’s blog (The blog no longer exists and there seems to be no archive), I remembered that a key item in labor negotiations was once the CPI with its “market basket” of goods.
What Killed the Middle Class
How about rising costs? The federal agencies tasked with measuring inflation assure us inflation is near zero…
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/03/killed-middle-class.html#more-54724

Inflation obfuscation

Changes made in CPI methodology during the Clinton Administration understated inflation significantly, and, through a cumulative effect with earlier changes that began in the late-Carter and early Reagan Administrations have reduced current social security payments by roughly half from where they would have been otherwise. That means Social Security checks today would be about double had the various changes not been made.

Since the 1990s, the CPI has been subject­ed to three other adjustments, all downward and all dubious: product substitution* (if flank steak gets too expensive, people are assumed to shift to hamburger, but nobody is assumed to move up to filet mignon), geometric weighting (goods and ser­vices in which costs are rising most rapidly get a lower weighting for a presumed reduction in con­sumption), and, most bizarrely, hedonic adjust­ment, an unusual computation by which addi­tional quality is attributed to a product or service.

Most of the time, hedonic adjustment is used to reduce the effective cost of goods, which in turn reduces die stated rate of in­flation. Reversing the theory, however, the de­clining quality of goods or services should adjust effective prices and thereby add to inflation, but that side of the equation generally goes missing.

*Product Substitution:
Up until the Boskin/Greenspan agendum surfaced, the CPI was measured using the costs of a fixed basket of goods, a fairly simple and straightforward concept. The identical basket of goods would be priced at prevailing market costs for each period, and the period-to-period change in the cost of that market basket represented the rate of inflation in terms of maintaining a constant standard of living.

Of course, replacing hamburger for steak in the calculations would reduce the inflation rate, but it represented the rate of inflation in terms of maintaining a declining standard of living. Cost of living was being replaced by the cost of survival. The old system told you how much you had to increase your income in order to keep buying steak. The new system promised you hamburger, and then dog food, perhaps, after that.

http://www.skeptically.org/crash/id20.html

I would extend Eric Anderson’s comment with folk wisdom: the worst lies – the most immoral lies, the ones that lead to the most terrible harms – are the lies we tell ourselves. Such lies corrode the self. Do it enough and no ethics remain, because there is no self left to be ethical.

A tangent on narrative. All of humanity relies on narrative. This isn’t a weakness, it’s simply how our cognition works. But in the West we seem to lean on a particular kind of narrative, that of the individual life story. We put narrative at the centre of our identity – to be me is to be someone whose life tells this story. Usually the story comes from the culture. We see this with people who are obsessed with the performance of an event (I always think of a wedding) for its role in a narrative, rather for what the event means on its own terms regardless of narrative. The wedding tells the story of my life proceeding along a good and happy path rather than being a deeply personal turning point towards a relationship with another unique individual.

There are other ways to anchor the self – in relationships, in a sense of duty, in the tao of going with life’s ebbs and flows, for example. I’m thinking of the story of the farmer to whom a number of things happened. Each appeared good or bad, but his response was always “we’ll see” – and often the “bad” turned out to be a boon, while the “good” led to a bad outcome. He was not in control of his life narrative, but his equanimity and acceptance of the real world gave him stability.

Maybe the Western life narrative allows for rapid adaptation and transmission of new ways of dealing with the world’s problems – I don’t know, I haven’t looked into it. But it is brittle. Reality often breaks the narrative, creating a threat to the self. I imagine two responses the individual can make are breakdown and denial – denial being a lie to the self, which over time corrodes the self away.

I remember a student politician who was impeached by the student body. His response was that this was unjust because he was a good person. In my view he had made a terrible mistake. They didn’t impeach him, the human being – they impeached him in that position. He couldn’t tell the two apart. His self was wrapped up in his narrative, so much so that he thought that his goodness entitled him to power. He lacked the grace to follow the tao: “I tried to serve well and I believe I did, but I bow to the will of the voters.”

I don’t think the the opposite of the lie is truth. It is honesty. Honesty with the self, which then permits an honest encounter with reality, and with other people.

Obviously this is a subject dear to my heart (& brain), and one reason this is a preeminent go-to site for me. I had to do an oil change today, kind of time-consuming, but got lots of radio time to comment on, in addition to the usual Trump Slop, lies, delusions and pure bullshit.

John Stockwell a great truth-teller, I recall back in the day James Bamford in The Puzzle Palace spilled the beans on what preceded our TIA/ Total Information Awareness plan, announced under Cheney and roundly hated by the public, including Republicans, supposedly stopped. It never stopped, just went unconvincingly underground, Edward Snowden had to flee to Russia to save his life after sharing an update, Chelsea Manning subject to jail-time and abuse before an Obama faux-noble Pardon.

I have studied rhetoric, which led me to propaganda, even my high school students could pick up what it was fairly quickly and easily. There’s usually a little algorithm, or sampler box of dozens, people use to flagrantly lie and propagandize.

Let’s start with the simplest one, our own LAS loves to repeat the Big Lie over and over, per Goebbels, “Russia’s savage, unprovoked attack on democratic Ukraine.” In 7 words, multiple lies: 1. Even before Tori’s Maidan coup in the early 21st century Ukrainian pols who ranted, “Their children will hide in basements [while we bomb Russian-speaking areas], our children will learn and grow in schools.”

In the truthful information Holocaust Survivor memoirs shared after liberation, it is extremely clear that Polish camps like Auschwitz were managed by Germans, Poles and Ukrainians did the lower killing functions, (primarily, to be fair, the Western Ukros from the Galizia era, not those in the East living in comity with Russians), and the Red Army liberated many survivors. To give just 2 examples, Primo Levi wrote fiction and nonfiction after his release and return to Italy, he spoke of his admiration for the main Russian General who “got out of a car smaller than him” in Levi’s telling, inspired them all with his confidence and espirit de corps. Levi was near starvation, had to be carried out, it was days before he could eat enough to walk and evacuate. LAS just omits vast amounts of information that is highly relevant to his claims, a neat little Wizard’s trick that only makes the Messenger seem stupider. Well, it’s bad faith which creates stupidity. Oh and Antony the Blinkin’ Blinkin’s stepfather Samuel Pisar, as Max Blumenthal loves to share, from a Death Camp by . . . Russians!! Curse them!!

In the 7 words above, count the lies/distortions. “Russia’s savage, unprovoked attack on democratic Ukraine.” 1. “savage”, hyperbolic adjective– even the NYT and other MICIMATT members admitted Russia very surgical and careful in their invasion, valued human life of “our brothers” as the Banderist Fanatics believe they are NOT Slavs but Blond Aryan Beasts. Few are. 2. “unprovoked”– oh, boasting you would join NATO and the Cocaine Comedian begging Biden staff for a large Nuclear weapon, or several, was not nothing. 3. “democratic”– The Z Penis Piano Player declared martial law, no elections for 2+ years. Men dragooned off the streets by ICE-style Thugs trained in snatch-and-grab. And once the SMO began, they did (as USA might do next year for Trump) another measure was to sweep up first the minorities within Ukraine, Moldovans, Belorussians, Hungarians, Romanians, Poles etc. and best of all, Russians. As Ms. Lindsey would’ve wanted, Russians killing Russians, “the best money we’ve ever spent.”

Another gaslight he fires up is based on flat lying about historically documented facts. When Yeltsin collapsed Russia and handed everything over to Oligarchs, killing 5 million by looting the Soviet Pensions (you’d never hear LAS admitting their were pensions), leading to massive deaths of despair and poverty, he loves to fulminate about the rank “injustice” that a bunch of Nuclear Bombs weren’t handed over to the Ukros. He won’t do the research to answer Why? Laziness, as some commenters note, mental laziness.

The Ukrainian leaders quickly realized they lacked (a) Atomic scientists capable of safely storing, perhaps at some future date arming the weapons; (b) Delivery systems for the bombs (pretty basic requirement), etc. not available, country too small and poor to be an actual Nuclear Power, was never UK-sized in its history. Ukraine given partial Independence by Brezhnev, a Ukrainian. So Bill Clinton did something sensible for once in his Admin, let the Millenia-old Russian civilization take custody of the weapons so no more Chernobyls would follow the first one. . . not a bunch of hicks living in THE Ukraine, “the border” with Poland, the Polanskis are not the Untermenschen the Banderists imagined, for the most part. Oh, and ironically, a chief (& correct) reason the West might not want Iran to have Nukes, every regime nearby will then have to get them, hundreds of times more unsafe if something goes wrong. Not that that changes an iota of what TPTB will do, they Don’t Care.

Ukraine known to be Europe’s most corrupt and backward country for decades before the SMO– Weapons-trafficking, drug-trafficking, sex-trafficking, organ-trafficking, you name it. But on February 23, 2022, all this was swept clean and memory-holed by the MICIMATT, they’re brave, ooh, they’re “Freedom Fighters” like Reagan’s Contras were, mining harbors, burning down crops, killing random civilians including the elderly, women and children, raping women and children of the “neighbor” race, hey somebody’s gotta do it.

Now to stop shooting fish in a barrel and pivot. Beau of the 5th Column another gaslighting liar, a somewhat educated pretend hick with a hairy face, Southern drawl, but very “Woke” front about US politics. The late Beau’s podcast (he’s still alive, I’m sure, but the cast handed over to his domineering wife, lost audience share, now mostly forgotten.) The Ukrainians at one point were given White Phosphorous to use against Russians, if memory serves, it was the Zionist Apartheid Entity that sold it to them (& certainly wishes now that they hadn’t) as the Z-Man delusionally declared his shit-empire would become “big Israel” in the region. Beau first truthfully admitted using White Phosphorous “is a War Crime”, but then said he was confident that the Ukros would be “careful” with its use, ‘coz as we all know, Nazis are so widely known for their equanimity, calm deliberation, moderation, and measured behavior. (Okay, Pete Hegseth begs to differ.)

Sticking with the SMO a bit longer, the Punditocracy class brainwash themself and are willfully stupid, probably bang their head against a concrete wall before producing their slop. At one point I briefly admired Kyle Kulinski, but ego and laziness overwhelmed what little talent he had. He did a piece about how “Vlad Putin is dying of AIDS, Advanced Parkinson and Cancer, boils on his ass, possibly Ebola as well!! He “fell down the stairs and doodied his pants” in front of a large crowd, yet Kyle could never present the film or the receipts. But hey, morons clicked on the post (I did, regretted it, but knew never to bother with him again.) Hey, but now the opposite story is being told: “Xi and Putin caught on a hot mic talking about their guaranteed Immortality, they have harvested organs to keep them eternally young and vital”. . . At one point when elderly, W.B. Yeats wanted his virility back (like Hegseth wanting to shoot our RoboCop soldiers up with testosterone, want it or not), and had someone graft monkey-testes onto his own pair!! I don’t know if this had any result, beyond making his midsection a horror-show like Laura Loomer’s 8-x surgeried face, I’d imagine any woman he could’ve seduced would look at that, vomit, and run out of the room screaming.

Speaking of Loomer!!: https://www.nbcnews.com/world/ukraine/laura-loomer-meets-zelenskyy-ukraine-major-reversal-war-rcna589014?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Just under 3 years after “Daddy” & No Chance Vance gave Z-man his Oval Office Humiliation Ritual (Richly deserved), “You have no cards!!” “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel” in a few years if we don’t give you the additional $95 billion you’re demanding this week; well, Daddy is known to be schizophrenic viz his (entirely baseless, mostly) beliefs that come and go, he switched, now loooves him some Ukraine. So between blow-jobs for Daddy, Laura switched 180 degrees too, after “2 years of pushing Russian propaganda,” she had a come to Trump-Fat Jesus moment. Beware– meet the Green Homunculus too closely or the “Elensky Curse” will hit you, see Starmer and countless more. The Ukrainian Oligarch and his wife severely wounded in Monaco’s first known instance of Terrorism in its entire history, ran dozens of giant Scam Call-Centers across Ukraine stealing billions from neighboring countries, “for a good cause”. Their son had earlier been arrested by Interpol and did some jail time, bailed out after a short term. Hey LAS, maybe you shouldn’t have developed some minimal ethics and thrown away that CPA, this would be a great Independent gig for you, bet you’d get a cut to share with your family also.

Colonel Daniel Davis covering some great Daddy incoherence today, ran a Fox Guy spitballing (spittle flowing), “President Trump is doing this for the safety of our children and grandchildren because he loves the American people so much, they can NEVER have a nuclear weapon,” shell out more for gas and stop cooling your house you stupid peasants, Daddy says Sacrifice for your betters is zer goodt. And Maria Bartilomo speaking to another Fox Bimbo, “The Iranians have lost their entire army (sic), Navy, Air Force (sic), all their missiles, I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND they’ve hit like 14 bases today, how can that be happening? Stupid spokesmodel, he lied. Truth Social =RT = Social Pravda for CHUDs.

What I heard on the radio today; briefly tuned in to a Limbaugh style Hate Radio segment: “Since 9/11, 753,947 Americans have DIED due to Jihadi violence!!” Claims pulled out of some fat, moronic DJs ass, but as with LAS, basic context thrown into the ocean, never to be seen again. Some who died were certainly killed by al-Jolani’s Syrian head-choppers, burning people alive in cages, etc. You know, fellow travelers with Jake Sullivan’s boast in an email, “ISIS works for us now”, so cool. Same asshole lauded some state where the Governor is demanding that a Mosque not be allowed to broadcast locally the Call to Prayer 5x daily. No First Amendment in that shithole state, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” That’s Communism, Mamdami style bullshit, we can’t have that!

More than 2 kinds of liars, but one key distinction: Liars who know they are lying : Carb when he accused me of supporting the murder of the 9 World Central Kitchen staff by Celeb Chef Jose Andres; I have never advocated for Genocide of any group, not even the ones I most despise, Zionists, and Fascists generally. I do support the statement “The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi,” but I would only beat up or kill a Nazi that attacked me first (were I able, they’re usually cowards, don’t attack unless they think you’re defenseless.) LAS may have moments he knows he is lying, but is what we could call “Mind-Captured,” the word “Russians” appears in his mind, he is triggered with Rage, wants to kill, torture, maim, just spews logghoreic verbal diarrhea over word salad. “Ukraine WON the War!! coz a petrol bomb was detonated on (essentially an Amazon Center) in Russia today!! Oh, that also means that Timothy McVeigh won a Revolution against the Deep State in Oklahoma City in 1995, alright? Well, not really. Timothy at least got Gore Vidal to interview him and share his madness with the world, likely his biggest actual somewhat positive (for him, we’re talking propaganda here) achievement.

Trump might initially know when he lies, but quickly alchemically it becomes “Truth” (Antisocial) when it crosses his lips. I’ll give the political class credit, they are thoroughly baked in it. AOC’s well-known flagrant, “Joe and Kamala are working Tirelessly for a Cease Fire” (and adds sotto voce “And it’s not actually ‘a Genocide,’ Israel has the RIGHT to defend itself!!”)

Heard Vance recently, didn’t see Thiel’s hand up Vance’s anus at the time either: “We could raise wages for workers, BUT in the real world that means there would be less (sic-fewer is correct for count nouns, not non-count) JOBs for workers!!” Sure boss-man, you’re just grateful to escape from the lower-middle class into the Billionaire Buddies Camp, loving the view from on high. Pull that ladder up behind you, those proles stink, they don’t have hair- and makeup people like you do. (They say he applies his own Eyeliner, but I’m sceptical; did he want to be a Goth at one time; never seemed that cool to me.)

The host notes, “Our “masters” have completely forgotten that democracy is supposed to be about service to the people.” Well that’s very OLD news, goes back to about the Powell memo, 1973. They know that they’re shearing sheep, killing hogs, harvesting organs, serving the Chosen People (Zionists including Huckabee, not “Jews” generically. The ADL and the ZEA sow anti-Semitism to reap a Whirlwind, force all Jews into Safety via Ethnic Cleansing “in Israel.” The angry young Iranians in 1978 not the only ones taking embassy spies as “hostages.”)

Good comment by Mago, I also like Diff Clue’s “Rubber Yardstick.” There’s an “I know you are but what am I?” quality to that, childish ignorance. Pure projection. Net not being helpful getting me the right Vance quote, but he literally said words to the effect, Iran is so poor and backward because the Regime spends all their money and weapons and nothing on people . . . etc. From the Admin that is demanding a $1.5 Billion Dept. of War Budget, and “Daddy” literally says, “the Federal government CAN’T cover Medicare, Social Security (despite the Laws, but he is above the Laws), Child care, schools, the States will have to do that!! We’re keeping you SAFE (getting ready to send the Libs to those Big Beautiful buildings we bough up near Railroad lines, initially Work Camps, and then . . . we all know) peasants, thank us!! 7 wars at the same time, great, if we were as cool as the Zionists we could do 8!! A yardstick changes size based on the Importance of the Entity being measured.

To Bukko, agreed. To PLG, yes. Shared an excellent link to a philosophy podcast here a couple weeks back. People chosen by voters for office speak confidently, even if entirely ignorant, thus inspire confidence, “They will protect me”, usually He; this is why men usually beat women in electoral politricks, US has never had (& may never until its dissolution) a Woman President. The lie that any such W.P. would be less of a Psycho-Killer than pretty much every single one since Abraham Lincoln has been. First example in the podcast: A ship had gone aground on the rocks and the Captain dead, the crew had to choose a new Captain. One inveterate Seaman who understood Navigation, Currents, crosswinds, etc. offers his services, but a bigger, confident blowhard announces, “There’s no problem, I got this, we’ll just do x,y.z.” The group chooses the blowhard. 4 days later all drown. Oh, lastly, in head-to-head elections between Men, the taller wins 70%+ of the time. In 1959, radio listeners who heard the JFK-Nixon debate thought Nixon won; those who saw it on TV overly thought the Handsome Rich Boy beat the sweaty, hirsute, widows’ peaked poor kid.

Intelligent, insightful and thoughtful comment by bruce wilder. Like LAS, when he isn’t triggered with Insane Rage by certain things, brown-skinned people, lesbians with pink hair, guys who commit property damage against an out-of-control Gestapo agency, he is quite perceptive. And hey, Bruce to repeat myself, maybe eventually you’ll admit the truth to yourself: Latinos and Hispanics exist, we are nearly 8% of the World Population, much larger than Zionists, e.g. USA holds 4.2% of the World’s population while (until recently) consuming nearly 80% of available resources and materials. Hispanics have been around for Centuries, Millenia, there’s a lot of us, sorry if that offends you. And one Clown writing about “LatinX” non-identity doesn’t erase all of us from the Face of the Earth, much as you might wish it did. Nearly 2x as many Hispanics as USAians, as Daddy would say, “Sad!”

That penultimate sentence reminds me, I’m sure some others recall when Covid-19 started up, RFK Junior’s false claim that it was “designed in a weapons lab” to kill especially “Caucasians and Black people”, “Asians and Ashkenazi Jews” to be protected with genetic immunity. https://politifact.com/factchecks/2023/jul/19/robert-f-kennedy-jr/covid-19-wasnt-targeted-to-spare-jewish-and-chines/

Now Vicki Nudleman (“Nuland”) admitted to Congress over half a dozen US-funded Bio-Labs in Ukraine, I’m sure that as with the Pager Attacks in Lebanon, they may have wished to exterminate certain races and spare their “own”; not sure that is easily done.

This reminds me of a classic Sci-Fi story I read many years back. A brilliant Scientist is deeply Misanthropic, devises a weapon that will harm all the “Bad” people across God’s Blue-Green Earth. He realizes it worked once deployed, without even leaving the room. He has shrunk to 1/3 of his normal size, the punishment for all the Bad Ones. He is satisfied.

Carb’s reference to epistemology is correct. To really figure out any problem one has to look at a range of contributing factors, dispassionately and with a gimlet eye, dodging your own biases, shibboleths, etc. Given the ubiquity of screens and screen time, most will not be bothered. “I saw it on my screen!”, ipso facto it’s real.

“The Invisible Gorilla” phenomenon (this goes back to mago’s note) is a great Magic, deception trick, see here. https://brainhealthuniversity.com/brain-health-insights/you-see-what-you-expect-the-curious-case-of-the-invisible-gorilla/

“Inattentional Blindness.” This loops me back to the Daddy is keeping our White Grandchildren Safe, Israel is a SAFE place for the (fake, Ashkenazi non-Semite impostors) “Jewish People.” A sucker born or sucked dry every minute. Those pockets don’t pick themselves!!

Great comments per usual.
I tried to copy and paste a link to Jeff Beck’s seminal album Truth with Rod Stewart on vocals, but failed because of this and that.

If anyone such as different clue has any inspiration to try, it would be appreciated—at least by me. Otherwise, it’s just another roadside attraction, and I’m not getting into Tom Robbin’s northwest 80’s crapola.

Hoarse, a great reference. I remember reading Cat’s Cradle and tons of Vonnegut when young. I’d assume your point is that that “religion” is like the MAGA Cult, the “Slava Ukraina!! Go Bandera cult,” the Elizabeth Clare Prophet cult which twice sold everything and went to live in caves underground, World supposed to end . . . she apologized to her family and followers late in life, admitted she was deluded. I forget if Cat’s Cradle is the one that ends in an aborted Revolution? It’s just looting and revenge, fails to cohere, “letting some steam off.” I assume the Watts Riots had happened, c. 1965, probably the model he used. “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss,” Pete Townsend’s greatest quote.

To friend Mago, found what you wanted. At first it looked like just one 3:20 clip, but no, on the 2nd Rod Stewart cut, enjoy–

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXRKTcRs-Xs4aNOtubCY_JH65V-QgfRD9

‘Including most people I know, who look at me like I’m a nutter when I yabber about what’s really going on. They can’t counter what I say, so their eyes glaze over and they switch to a different topic.’

People often get mad at me when I attempt to indulge them.

It drives me crazy and I feel really alone. Poor me.

I want a rainbow pony.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo1ndgHz0Iw

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Here’s Jeff Beck:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoftqQgE7wU&list=PLyKteCBep2RVaGzV6QvWtPsu75bAclELH

If you don’t want to use googletube you can try invidious or download it from pirate bay.

I don’t know if the Beck estate or Rod Stewart will be angry at not getting a cut from your downloding their ‘intellectual property’ via the pirate bay.

Metallica sure went nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcnrcnQjNY

Oh wow! Talk about timelucky coincidence! . . .

Here is a Belle of the Ranch video called
“Let’s talk about Trump’s October Surprise….”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpOXruRCqp4

It is about how the TrumpAdmin is going to roll out a ” new way” of “measuring” inflation which is carefully engineered to produce a lower rate.

And I will say in a different way what I think Ian Welsh said above, that banging away on keyboards can indeed influence things, in a slow spreading reawakening-of-the-brains way one brain at a time. And those re-awakened brains can find eachother and figure out how to do things in the real world meatspace brainspace.

A while ago an Air Force person named Jeff Vail wrote something called a Theory of Power. He at times used the word “rhizome” to apply to his concept.
A Theory of Power. Jeff Vail. 2004
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Theory_of_Power

Here is Jeff Vail’s site called Resilience.
https://www.resilience.org/resilience-author/jeff-vail/

Here is part of a set of articles Jeff Vail once got published on The Oil Drum, a peak oil blog of which there used to be several.
A Resilient Suburbia? 3: Weighing the Potential for Self-Sufficiency
Posted by jeffvail on November 24, 2008 – 1:07pm
http://theoildrum.com/node/4774

Between Jeff Vail, John Robb, Dmitri Orlov, Ran Prieur and some others; much brain wake-upping can be achieved.

And sites like Ian Welsh’s blog can help people re-offer and spread such links and sources.

How many miles did a 1995 Taurus last v.s. a 2017 Taurus?

I have bought old cars and driven them into the junkyard since 1981, starting with a 1969 Volvo in college. Car prices have a massive hedonic complement; they’ve improved astonishingly in 40 years.

You can’t buy a swappable-battery electric car because aside from the battery, the car will last half a million miles and this does not make for a viable consumer car business. NIO makes them in China: a delivery guy drives it all morning, goes to the battery swapper and eats his lunch, drives all afternoon and does another swap before leaving work. The battery swap takes maybe 5 minutes.

I previously thought that differences in the lifespan of the two Ford Tauruses (Ford Tauri?) would explain much of this, but that does not appear to be the case.

What does explain a goodly bit of it is that the two vehicles are quite different product offerings. Yes, both are the lowest cost version for that model year, but the ’96 model year was apparently a stripped down fleet model and the ’19 model year the base consumer model designed to get higher profit margins when people buy additional option packages. The latter year has a lot more standard features, a much bigger engine, a significantly better transmission, etc.

I would say that there is merit to both common perspectives on this. The economist, seeking to identify pure price increase does need to account for the changes in product offerings. The consumer, increasingly not being provided with product offerings in their desired price range, validly says their cost of living is increasing. As with everything these days, it’s about the distribution, not the toppling figure.

(As a technical note, for new automobiles in both Canada and the US the quality adjustment isn’t hedonic – it’s based on direct estimates of the value of changes to vehicle characteristics, either market-based [Canada] or producer cost-based [US]. I can only imagine how much work this must entail for those toiling in the depths of Tunney’s Pasture…)

Another aspect should be that ppl is WILLING to believe the lies because they align with a preconception of the world or an agenda they already have. If the lies serve their interests/goals, they have no need to question these.

The problem is that we continue to treat this as if we were rational animals, when all evidence points in the opposite direction. A clear example of this delusion (on the power of rationality on humans) is the recent (2026) movie “disclosure day” from Spielberg. The premise that uncovering a hidden truth will suddenly unite the world is inane and childish; specially when we have 3 continued years of broadcasted GENOCIDE in Palestine, and there are ppl that still have the gall to discuss the use of that term.