Is someone pulling all our strings?

[Outoftheshadow]

It seems like there’s battles raging all over the place:
Attacks of free speech, no platforming, Twitter bans, Amazon refusing to sell books on body dysmorphia, attacks on democracy, Brexit, Scexit, denial of sex, butchering children, men believing they are woman, young girls believing they are boys, trans women are woman, COVID, misinformation, dwindling independent news outlets. rise in porn culture and I’m sure the list goes on.

The only sad constants are continued male dominance over woman, racism and religious conflicts.

It feels like we’re part of a war but we’re all so focused on the battle, we dont know who the real enemy is.

As Sun Tzu said over 2000 years ago ‘all warfare is based on deception’ (paraphrased) and he should know, he wrote the book on it.

The Green Party has no innate right to exist. Lots of people voted Green when it was the only party taking environmentalism seriously. They changed tack to evangelising about post-modern gender theory. Now it is imploding. Somebody else will get the protest votes that used to go to Green.

The biggest threat to life on this planet is climate catastrophe and there's a lot of stuff dividing our attention.

I don't think it's a huge conspiracy but I think there are a few influential groups who welcome the confusion. Single minded attention on the climate would mean a real push for real and accelerated change and that would be a problem for a lot of industries.

The Green Party has nullified any respect for their views on science with their ludicrous approach to sex and gender

I’ve not read all the comments so apologies if I’m repeating myself, but back in my rant on AI I was struck by how quickly, well immediately, so many responses were deleted due things that to mere mortals look sane whilst hatred and bile passes whatever filters are encoded. I would assume that the likes of Twitter and Facebook have really sophisticated algorithms and he’ll of a lot of data at their fingertips. So what if some boffin who had a twisted sadistic view of women and children put some basic code in at the start that preferred some content over others. He may not of thought anything of it, but self- learning AI is nothing new. This cancellation of reasonable comment and promotion of porn and hatred may be built into the system and no one knows, except the person who did it in the first place, who is very unlikely to own up to it. This shit is changing the real world and helping form policy. It they build robots, they’ll be women and children hating from the start.

Totally agree about AI. Bias is being built into the fundamental system and the truly scary thing is it's invisible.

I’m reading a book on The Great War by Paul Fussel and he presented the case how the general tone of language (written, art and spoken) affected the attitude of those men going off to war. They thought they were fighting duty, valour, bravery which prejudiced both their view of the enemy and set the expectations that they would be on the winning side. If even influenced the actions of military leadership. Obviously reality was in conflict. He demonstrated how language and art changed significantly in the UK afterwards as a consequence.

I posted the following on a thread in AIBU about the immediate rush to declare NAMALT in response to various debates kicking off there. I wanted to put it here because this thread reflects alot of my thoughts on the way the world is going at present. I think it might be a bit relevant here too (Not the first bit particularly, but maybe the rest)

The pushback against "conspiracy theories" as dangerous, has made me feel as though when people smell a rat, want to examine it, and maybe even find some truth, the response can easily be "You're seeing a rat when no rat exists. Your personal agenda is making you biased. If you pursue this rat you're delusional". This may allow genuine conspiracies to hide in fairly plain site for far longer, and as others have mentioned we're in a time when truth is a very subjective animal on the internet - which is now our main source of information.

We see what people want us to see first and foremost, and not all have the luxury of enough time to deep dive contentious and divisive issues and be fully formed with all the facts to prove their opinion.
If someone is immediately shut down with the implication that even trying to unravel things suggests a personal character flaw leading to negative consequences to them and their families and the wider community - well, it's very hard not to think "Family First" and STFU.
Just my opinion of course, but would appreciate any thoughts.

"In my community, our local mosque has worked really hard to prove they are part of the community and showed an amazing amount of tolerance and understanding of people's prejudices to prove that the actions of a few extremists do not represent the truly faithful.

Should they have had to? No. Because they weren't involved, nor supporting those who committed outrageous acts in their name. But they were gracious enough to recognise and deal with hatred stirred up by those with vested interests, both ideological and financial in sowing as much division as possible in communities. By doing this they protected themselves and the stability of the community. This is how problems are supposed to be resolved.

Peaceful, tolerant society's aren't good for a capitalist model. Money is made by solving problems. If a problem diminishes and affects the return, and a genuine new problem can't be found, a problem can be artificially created. I have watched videos about how to make yourself rich. An example is Geoff Bezos. He identified a problem, and was amply rewarded for it. He has the monopoly on that problem. Find a problem and market a solution. Create a problem, get it into people's heads by fair means or foul, and offer a solution. If it is a problem that makes people fearful, then people will pay a higher premium to solve it. Keep adding more and more nuance to the problem, your market expands. You make more money. There is a thing called disaster capitalism which exploits bad things for profit, because it's a free market and everyone has the right to make a living right? But everyone doesn't. Few people do. Those with enough power, influence and structure do. And they ringfence it here. Dubious motivations, morals and ethics are less important than profit. And when one transgression is allowed to slip though the net, they get more daring, more bold, because there is always a justification - "But this is just a bigger version of this strategy, and you didn't complain about that...."

Male violence is a problem. Women want a solution. Any solution proposed may be seen by some as a good thing, a bad thing by others. The one that gains the proposers the most advantage, be it power or money, will be pushed and pushed until we think it is the only solution. Social media and algorithms make spreading what is essentially propaganda so very easy.

You may say I'm a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but much of this is tried and tested economic fact, which should not be ignored.

However this genuine problem is addressed, and by Goddess it needs to be addressed, and should have been a long time ago, for the good of society all round, we have to be rigorous in examining who is offering the solutions, and whether the motivation is genuine or driven by something else."