From Clipping Bureaus to Trend "Simulation"
Who really owns the public mind and when did the engineering start?
This week an article caught my attention titled, “The Feed Is Fake,” by Lane Brown, a feature writer for New York Magazine.
He is making an argument many commentators make about the algorithmic feed—that it distorts reality AND it is a recent problem.
What all of this amounts to isn’t just one problem but a stack of them, each feeding the next. Most people now encounter the world through algorithmic feeds built to warp reality, on platforms with every commercial incentive to keep users scrolling and very little incentive to distinguish genuine interest from astroturfed imitations.
That story is wrong by about a hundred and twenty years.
The machinery used to engineer public opinion in this country was built in the late 1800s, by the same concentrated corporate and financial interests that were buying up the railroads, the steel mills, the oil fields, and the banks.
The same men who consolidated industrial America also consolidated the channels through which Americans formed opinions about industrial America. (Truth not found in history textbooks)
When I encountered that immense revelation, I was doing research for Masters of Illusion. I was floored.
The implications as you sift through them are mind-blowing.
It changes the entire frame of the 20th century. What WAS it all about?
It shifts the genesis of “propaganda” away from governments back to those from which it came.
It devastates the whole idea free speech.
Ultimately, if you are honest, it forces a complete mental restructuring of how you were told society works and how you generally experience it.
To be honest—that’s a bit challenging.
Remember this year’s motto…
Real Hope Begins When Illusions End!
Enjoy the video, but by all means get Masters of Illusion and keep it on hand for a ready reference.
Thanks again to all the new subscribers. My work exists because of you. Please share and distribute when and where you can.
Once you train yourself to read the media in this way, you’ll have greater and greater insight.