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Aug 24, 2022Liked by Alan Flanagan

The pithy tweet/internet comment comes to mind, "If America saw what America is doing in America, America would invade America to liberate it from tyranny of America."

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I missed that one...and now am laughing out loud at the tragic truth of it!

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A major concern I have is around the continued existence of this very sort of website. Once the regulation of mis/dis/malinformation starts moving in the direction of censorial banning/"content moderation"/"fact checking" etc, how long until the information ecosystem becomes like that in China? "Who watches the watcher" as the old saying goes. This conversation is unbelievably relevant in Europe here too where there will likely be mass famine and subsequent mass migration of 10s if not 100s of millions of people from developing countries in the coming year or two which will coincide with many of those weapons poured into Ukraine making their way to black markets in Berlin/Paris/etc.

How much longer does a free speech platform like Substack survive in such a scenario?

The Google whistleblower Tristan Harris (Center for Humane Technology and the Social Dillema documentary) and his friend Daniel Schmachtenberger (Consilience Project) speak to this issue brilliantly.

In short: if we optimise for centralised control of information technology and potential force multiplying tools of catastrophe, we lock ourselves into authoritarian dystopia. Conversely, if we optimise for decentralised democratisation of information technology and potential force multipliers of catastrophe, we drive ourselves off the cliff of civilizational collapse. We need a "3rd attractor", as Schmachenberger put it recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XCXvzQdcug&t=1873s

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Yes, this is the dilemma. I like Jonathan Haidt's concept of "decentralised totalitarianism", where censorship and new norms are enforced but in a decentralised context. I'm not sure how this resolves, and ultimately, I think our current political landscape is incapable of solving any major issues anyway. I can just see the platforms themselves continue to make their own rules, and we'll continue to tumble toward a surveillance society where the private sector subsumes government as the agent of the totalitarian control, cheered on by its blind "free market" fundamentalists who paradoxically champion "freedom". Thanks for that Schmachtenburger link buddy.

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A conceptually useful yet scary label I have encountered to describe the direction of travel is the notion of technofeudalism.

This kind of sensorial craic online is only going to get worse with the "online harms bill" in the UK which can see companies fined huge sums for allowing "legal but harmful content" on their platforms. The down stream effects of the new "Hate Speech" laws in Ireland may have similar knock ons. Especially as socioeconomic fracturing worsens with the impending energy and food crises alongside mass migration and the all too predictable native reciprocal radicalization that will occur as anyone who criticises the technocratic status quo is likely labelled "racist/xenophobe/far right" etc.

Interesting times lie ahead.

Yes, the two new Schmachtenberger videos on Rebel are top drawer for thought provocation and providing glimmers of hope👌

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From the CSIS: "The vast majority of looting appeared to come from local opportunists with no affiliation and no political objectives. Most were common criminals."

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The FBI raided the home, not "the left", and there are no questions over the election. The point of the article was that the right has in fact not been restrained, rather it has been the primary source of terrorism in the U.S.

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The rioting through 2020 was not associated with left-wing terrorism specifically, although it certainly was associated with the left politically. And no one is standing over "electoral fraud" theories anymore, not even the former AG Barr.

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