I’ve been reading Promethus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson. Despite the book being written in 1984, there are some solid predictions about the next 30 years that are startlingly accurate.
This post focuses on some ideas about disinformation that are *highly* relevant today.
“Nobody really knows anything anymore, or if they do, they are careful to hide the fact. The which is objectively repressed (unspeakable) soon becomes subjectively repressed (unthinkable).”
It’s not what you know that matters. It’s what everyone around you believes to be true.
“If there is a secret police, every branch and department of the government and institutions not part of the government become suspect as a front for them. Something bearing the label of HEW of might actually be the CIA or NSA in disguise.”
Edward Snowden tried to tell us, but the United States made him a criminal.
“In such a deception network, conspiracies proliferate. Rumor is necessary, it has been found, when people cannot find “official” news sources to be trusted to tell them what’s really going on.”
Alex Jones and QAnon are the result of our corrupt government and complicit media. One of the main reasons people believe the 2020 election was stolen is because the process isn’t particularly transparent and is rife with areas where corruption could take place.
It’s easy to attack people for being election deniers, but it’s a heavy enough issue that perhaps the United States government will consider modifications to the process.
“The more omnipresent the secret police, the more likely it is that intelligent men and women will regard the government with fear and loathing.”
If this sounds like the general zeitgeist right now in America regarding law enforcement, it’s not a coincidence.
“The government, on discovering that growing numbers of citizens regard it with fear and loathing, will increase the size and powers of the secret police, to protect itself.”
Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. 2A people have good cause to be worried, perhaps?
“Every conspiracy regards itself as an affinity group–men and women who share the same goals and work together. When you and I do it, it’s just an affinity group. When the gang over there does it, it’s a damnable conspiracy.”
Everyone thinks their version of reality is correct
