Rational Behavior: is it too boring?

YES! Definitely! Be alarmed for the Adrenaline!

Facts may be troublesome in the Noomedia Era but they persist nevertheless.

Politicians - especially those bad at handling the nuts and bolts of governance - have long resorted to diversion to cover their tracks. Propaganda is hardly new. But the extremes we’re witness to today arise because of Noomedia. Blending reality with virtual reality requires the use of goggles and googles, the suspension of conventional thought in favor of the belief that everything is staged with conspirators abounding, and someone is coming to get YOU.

That does not mean that there are no real conspiracies and no real bad actors dispensing bullshit. It just means we need, more than ever, a better understanding of sociology. The human race has not suddenly evolved into a new species, intent on undercutting each other to achieve some new sinister goal. We’ve always had a few predators among us. Not just the kind who will do us physical harm but those trying to pick our pockets to enrich themselves with added wealth and power. They exist in corporate boardrooms and public office, as well as dark alleyways.

What’s changed is the extreme ways the predators utilize to cover up their misdeeds. The coverups aren’t new. Noomedia just grants a multitude of fresh curtains to keep us distracted so it’s harder to look behind the correct curtain.

A couple of examples:

1) Racism has always been a big problem in the US and in most countries. People of color suffer numerous inequities. They have less political power, less economic power, less access to healthy neighborhoods, healthcare and job advancement. They’re at greater risk of being incarcerated and of being attacked by law enforcement staff.

It does not mean that no one with economic and/or political clout is trying to correct the inequities. It does not mean that all cops are bad people trying to harm minorities.

But in the Noomedia Era, key political actors have championed reverse victimology louder than ever before. It’s not people of color being limited and threatened, it’s the white people! Especially wealthy white people! Especially wealthy white male people, where most of the wealth and power exists!

And in addition to the Noomedia blitz of extreme messaging, the old power structures keep grinding away as they always have. The Supreme Court’s rulings on Citizens United and last week’s ruling dismantling the Voting Rights Act occurred because it’s filled by ideologues that display the political treachery of guys like Mitch McConnell, who blocked one SCOTUS appointment and is threatening to do it again. And who has made the filibuster sound like some sacred relic that God demands we revere. McConnell and his acolytes and their funders also helped block and diminish accusers who pointed out the past predations of Brett Kavanaugh.

In earlier days, a bad nominee would simply be withdrawn and replaced by another ideologue. That’s no longer necessary because Noomedia makes it much easier to propagate propaganda.

2) Q-Anon leaves plenty of mouths agape with its outlandish claims and logical inconsistencies. It also utilizes reverse victimology to convince people that people without power are the greatest threat to the universe ever. It could be minorities or the actual female majority that are coming to get ya, to steal your kids and make them into sex slaves. And they have the entire narrative twisted from what’s really going on. Now even the highly esteemed Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is weighing in on the whole fake pedophilia narrative.

The lies and propaganda are not new. What’s new is the megaphone. It permits the old propaganda tool of repetition to be magnified exponentially.

This is why I harp on the need for a return to boring old rationality. P.T. Barnum understood human psychology. Historians and sociologists do, too. It all boils down to understand motives.

Some people amass wealth and power with a breathtaking amount of greed that really is a classic hoarder disorder. They’re insatiable. And they drive an extraordinary amount of the dysfunction and inequities and disorder in the world. If most of us can grasp that huge driving motive, it’s easier to skip looking behind lots of fake curtains, to focus on the most probable curtains.

While many political and business leaders utilize the same tools of propaganda, there remains a distinction between good advertising methods and ridiculous bullshit that should not be so hard to discern, for most. And again, a few examples of what I’ve come up with in recent months:

1) Reality TV isn’t. Most people don’t resort to subterfuge and cheating on that scale.

2) Reality TV stars should never draw a vote for higher office. Their expertise at shoveling shit is so transparent that it takes a special kind of stupid to buy into that. Governing well takes a range of talents and training and experience. People who excell at that can be tedious and boring and that’s not a bad thing. Their responsibilities require a level of intellectual sobriety to better avoid calamitous consequences.

3) If a crime family advocates crimes against humanity, believe them. I mean, believe that they’re criminals. Whether it’s someone like Cheney ginning up stories about weapons of mass destruction without, yanno, evidence… or making up fake science to discredit real scientists…. your skept-o-meter oughta be flashing red when you hear it. Torture? WTF?! That doesn’t even work! Hillary running a pedophile ring in a pizza parlor? C’mon folks, take off your virtual reality goggles and reacquaint yourself with the natural world.

4) Before the last election, it was very apparent that the only way the criminal Trump organization could avoid being charged for its crimes was to utilize NDAs and pardons to buy the sil;ence of underlings. And most importantly, to win re-election. When polling made it clear months in advance that Trump’s odds of winning were exceedingly slim, Plan B had to be casting doubts on the election results. There is no defense against actual evidence, especially with the degree of incompetence Trump has shown in hiring good attorneys.

So the whole Stop The Steal promo is just another empty curtain.

So is ‘the immigrants are coming to ruin us!’ Translation: Here’s the current bogeyman you need to fear, instead of watching us.

So is: ‘the Chinese are threatening us economically!’ How? By outcompeting us at capitalism? I thought that’s how free market capitalism was supposed to work. It’s another curtain, playing on nationalism and ethnic bigotry.

Looking through the old school lens of understanding motives and the rationality that comes from understanding history and sociology, it’s not all that difficult to see what’s what. Just don’t get blinded by the flash, zing and interactive roleplay of Noomedia, and we just might be able to make headway against real dire threats like bigotry and global warming. And pandemics.

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Here’s an old curtain.

And here’s a real curtain that the world always seems blinded by. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and, er….

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