Manipulation and Deception since ancient times

Preludium

I assume that the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with interference with elections in 9 countries is known.

Of reference - this extraordinarily bright and insightful youtube video by Carole Cadwalladr - linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSMr-3GGvQ where she argues that the technologists of Silicon Valley has the world in their hands, a bit of the same flavour though with different angle, you can experience in "The Great Dictator" by Charlie Chaplin (1940's). She argues that Facebook/Cambridge Analytica/Trump/Brexit are spoiling the democracy. I will in the following argue that we do not have democracy at all, and that the pursuit of a workable democracy would be an acceptable response to the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal. In fact - the highly dysfunctional so-called and perceived democracy we have, is not failing due to Cambridge Analytica. It is being revealed in its fallacy - and that is maybe the most bitter pill to swallow... I would like to state prior to your reading on, that it is not Carole Cadwalladr who is on trial here. So while I address what she is saying in direct terms - it does not mean that I am criticizing her as a person. I admire her guts, her provess, her braveness and courage to "Stand Trial" fighting for this "Truth" - which - unfortunately so many journalists are still thinking that they are representing every time they in strong angular perspectives, tweaks the facts into their stories...

Interlude

Carole Cadwalladr suffers from the misconception that the so called free and fair elections which she hails so much - never were free or fair. She suffers from the misconception that the democracy as we know it in the Western countries - is actually democracy. She furthermore suffers from the misconception that the "Majority rules it all" is a "Free and fair" form of running any - any - political, governmental, board - democratic system.

Her work is indeed good - it takes bravery and courage to uncover these things - however - let's say that the Silicon Valley listeners whose attention she has gotten - clicked a few buttons and reversed the systems - such that these can never be used again in the same way - and let's say that these so called free and fair elections were held again - we would have done negative work, for a true democracy.

Our democracy where we continuously leave a small majority to rule over a large minority - is failing - and that is why it can be exploited. If we had a representative system, where we did not see a parliament of a country rule by 179 votes against 178, that a country - with all of its citizens should - A) Go to war, B) Be put under martial laws, C) pay 10% extra taxes, etc. etc. etc. - and where all decisions which did not by default have to be decided upon at country or regional level - then we would be able to start a discussion about which kind of system we would be going for.

If we could reverse the deception, and Carole's "Free and fair elections" could be held again - we would have done negative work for a true democracy

It is only very rare, that we need these either-or decisions. Yet - this is what USA, EU, Canada, Australia, Russia, - ... Every known XXXX-cracy or XXXX-craty is doing. They push legislation decisions up to unnecessarily high levels, instead of instilling a practice of pushing all decisions which does not absolutely by force have to be decided at a higher level - DOWN.

Therefore - unless we are discussing the very few and important decisions - maybe 5% or less - which simply has country-wide positive impacts - for instance standards - where we can see that nation wide or global standards such as the Metric system - or the Imperial system - indeed provides enormous benefits for all.

If we had a system where it was not "Winner takes it all" - where the majority of voters cannot dictate what the minority shall do - and where we make such decisions - always - as a rule - as close as simply possible, to the individual in question - if possible even let the individual rule - then it would be directly impossible to have such idiotic scenarios as has been made possible by this centralistic thinking.

Luckily enough, it seem to be the centralistic, and largely despotic-in-disguised-ruled societies such as exactly the British, the American and similar societies - which are the most easy to manipulate. One can wonder why this approach has not been tried in Denmark - who may be one of the countries with the largest economic footprint compared to both its physical size and it size of its population. The answer is probably this, that due to a very non-centralistic approach for decades - the entire population is very well educated - and would likely never jump on such a glue-stick. Yet - beware and behold - the democracy there does also not work.

Therefore, Carole Cadwalladr - I challenge you on this - you have just revealed some of the achilles-heels of the current dysfunctional democratical system in existence. You have revealed that centralistic approaches to almost anything and everything stands to fail, due to the very failure of the centralistic approach as a principle on its own.

The centralistic societies such as Britain, USA and similar - are the easiest to manipulate

So, you have - if nothing else - brought a hard proof and hard evidence to that what we do have, is not democracy. It is a centralistic, majority-dictatorship system of rule we have - where major important neutral powers have been inculcated in the rule - such as - schooling and education systems, power systems, infrastructures, profound resources such as water supply - and - as we can see now - yet a bit far away - in Kashmir - see what happens when the majority rulers do not get what they want? They shut down these centralized structures, and thereby take people as hostages - no power, no communication, no internet, no phones :-)...

What we saw here, was that others, who have other centralistic powers - here Politicians in cohorte with Cambridge Analytica - in cohorte with Facebook (You recall, Mark Zuckerberg knew, 2 months in advance, what was going on, and did nothing!) - and those in these powers - they now switched off the democratic rules as we know them - the switched off the power, the communication, the access to full information - and manipulated voters in USA and Britain and 7 other countries - to vote based on falsified information.

Epilogue

Finally - Truth you say? As a journalist, you know that there IS no truth. And we ought to be sufficiently clever not to promote views stating that we are looking for the truth. You know as well as I , that part of journalism is to choose an angle of how to serve the information we have. That choice constitutes a manipulation. I am not saying this in any bad or good way - fact is though, that this is a manipulation. We have as a world nation a challenge here - because - as we know - there is no truth, beyond what can in very simple terms be described in regards to what we perceive with our 5 senses + thinking.

As a journalist, you know, that there is no truth...

Even there - you also know from information dissemination studies, and which was largely used by Cambridge Analytica and others with them - that the TRUTH is in the eye of the beholder. Not that one truth is necessarily at all in conflict with another truth - they can co-exist - but in that when there is no truth which can commonly be said to be a "Global Truth" - as it all depends on the angle from which we see - or is based on the perceptions we have, prior to be presented for the truth - then we have a serious problem discussing legitimacy.

You can indeed argue that "Turkey is joining EU - good or bad" - was not factual. But in very few years, we will be seeing a plentitude of fake videos and fake news, produced not by advanced computer science labs such as Cambridge Analytica - but produced by laptops such as yours and mine, and not produced by a Cambridge Analytica or their peers - but produced by any Tom, Dick, or Esmeralda - just for the fun of it. Manipulating either for leisure or for politics - what leaders are saying, such that we will end up - maybe 2022, or 2025 - not being able to trust a single thing, coming out of any public media.

So again here, I challenge you, Carole - where is all of this heading to? We can indeed discuss whether something were factual or not (ie. TUrkey joining etc.) - but soon we will be unable to distinguish our reality from the Matrix reality - the concocted, Augmented digital reality - because we would not be able to know, when we are listening to George Orwell'ish manipulations, or when it is a genuine Live recording.

I would like to end this little story with my own experience, where I sat, in 1997, in a small street called Tom Mboya street in Kenya, where back then only a few TV-channels were present. They often relayed CNN - and CNN was presenting - during the elections in Kenya - alleged LIVE footage from same Tom Mboya street, where I sat, though - the houses and buildings were clean in the footage, while the houses at that time - December 1997 - in the physical reality - were brown from dust. The so called LIVE footage displayed, allegedly LIVE - unrest in same Tom Mboya street with street fights, and chaos. As I sat in that café - I think it was called "Wimpy's" - there was nothing to that effect. I stood up, and stepped outside. People watched me. Then I stepped back in again and asked out in the room (the cafeteria) - what is this, poointing to the TV. I really made the restaurant guests's day. They laughed at me - how stupid I was - thinking that what is on the TV is the truth? I was in Kenya for the first time - I was on a trip in town on my own. It taught me something about the already back then - ongoing manipulation.

My thoughts went back to the time of Adolph Hitler - where Goebbels became famous for the words that if you repeat a lie a sufficient number of times - it becomes the truth.

Well. Now the adverts you are talking about, Carole - were apparently repeated so much for the Welsh' people, so that it became the truth.

So - this is not new, Carole - it has been the case since time immemorial - the only thing changed - is the way the manipulation is being done. This is likely an important part of why Jared Diamond in his work has proven over and over again - and without anyone being able to counter his words - that civilisations collapse when the elite in leadership cannot and will not and are not anymore being held accountable for what they do.

ANd this, Carole - will happen no matter if they use paper-spread pamphlets like during 2nd world war - use messengers like during the Roman Empire - write scriptures such as the Bible, or go further back - write stories such as the grand Bhagavadgita - ...