« Archives in February, 2022

“Disinformation”

Okay, so a few things:

1. “Disinformatsiya” is rancid totalitarian duck-speak from an empire that imploded because *everything about it was a lie*. Transliterating it into English does not make it fresh and wholesome. “Misinformation” as a criterion for deciding which heretics to assault is such an integral part of Western civilization that it’s only found in all the best parts, like the Dark Ages, or the Reign of Terror, or … well, you get the idea.

2. “Lockdowns” are not a legitimate function of any government of free citizens. Lockdowns are what prison guards do during a prison riot. Do you think you are our jailers? Are the inmates of “your democracy” getting a little too rambunctious for your delicate sensibilities?

Your self awareness might not have been properly screwed down at the factory, but can you even *hear* yourselves?!

Spoiler alert!: The side that is hysterically censoring things in a desperate attempt to keep people from meeting and talking with each other, the side that angrily denounces the horrifying prospect of thoughts being independently formed in uncontrolled minds, while the jenga tower of their radiant and unquestionable truth makes ominous groaning noises are …. wait for it … NOT the good guys.

At this point you can lose, or you can lose, or you can maybe rethink your allegiance to people who are only going to be spurred to ever more desperate acts of oppression and evil, because they are stuck in the same dilemma you are.

1. You can “win”: Let’s suppose that your allies can successfully stamp on the collective human face forever. Never-mind that most people are never going to break the way you want them to: There will be the omnipresent danger that somewhere the light of understanding will dawn in someone’s eyes. Will it be accompanied by gratitude for those who were desperately trying to stop it from happening? When your victorious prison guards throttle the last human being in the last lockdown in the last gulag, where will that leave you? Yay.

2. You can lose: What if history doesn’t end? The video is never going away. The pictures are never going away. There are too many cameras in too many hands, too many people writing to each other, too many diaries being recorded. You can frantically erase things on all the “platforms” you control, but you can’t stop every letter or burn every book. Some people still use email. Hell, some people still use snail mail. Despite your feverish efforts, people are having beers at bars again and *talking*. At some point people are going to look back at the age of lockdowns and wonder whether your name was on any of the proposals howling for concentration camps and persecution. If mankind has a future worth bothering about, how do you think the would be prison-guards of humanity will be remembered? Will anyone care about their social credit score?

3. You can decide to forfeit this false position, either out of self-preservation, or because you suddenly remembered any relevant excerpt from all of human history and realize this is not going to go anywhere good. Maybe you haven’t hurt anyone yet. Or if you have, maybe you haven’t by your actions or cruel inaction killed anyone yet. Can’t say the same thing for your allies. Maybe no one will ever have to know. It’s not too late to get off this sinking ship. The faster this falls apart, the faster we can repair the damage and go somewhere worthwhile.