Good article, the "four stages of reality" is definitely is especially interesting and it's definitely true that modern propaganda doesn't even have to have much relation to reality. You can see this also with the "mainstream alternative media": Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Shapiro, etc. If they decide that mark Zuckerberg is now a conservative hero, despite his actions not matching this in the slightest, then that must be the case. Or that deep state contractor and globalist Elon musk is now a right wing standard-bearer. And now people are already forgetting about the H1B fiasco now that Musk has distracted them by pretending to give a shit about grooming gangs. No one remembers anything!
The new years terror attack psyops have also faded out of the public mind now that the media has moved onto the next big thing, and even though it seems like many people were extremely skeptical of both attacks it didn't matter in the end and hardly anybody will remember that these things even happened in a couple months anyway. Such are the consequences of the media constantly bombarding people with new headlines to be outraged and scared of everyday.
Thanks dgb, good comment. The public's memory is that of a gnat at this point, exacerbated by technology; there is no accountability and no follow-through for the many devious narratives crafted by our elites, many of which drift off and are forgotten. They do whatever they want and there is no pushback. They change narratives at whim, even contradicting their prior ones, and they are never punished for it. This is all going to end very badly.
This article reveals how the interplay between information, perception, and power has reached a point where distinguishing reality from simulation is almost impossible.
The media-government complex described here, and the hyperreality it produces, thrives on passivity. This turns the citizenry into spectators, not participants, making it all too easy to disengage and accept a curated version of events. By the same token, reclaiming agency demands engagement. It calls for scepticism, critical thinking, and a commitment to staying curious, asking questions, and digging deeper.
The idea of a grounding mechanism is so important here. In a world where it feels like everything is designed to confuse or mislead us, we need tools to make sense of it all. Recursive prediction, as mentioned, is one approach: test assumptions, refine perspectives, and stay flexible enough to adapt as the picture evolves. At the end of the day, it's not about having all the answers—it’s about staying engaged and not letting the simulation win.
What I really like about this article is that it reminds us that the system’s strength is also its weakness. Hyperreality only works if we go along with it. The more people question and resist, the weaker it becomes. We need to begin to think of as sovereign individuals rather than passive consumers of media slop.
To save you reading any more Baudrillard: "And that’s Baudrillard’s point: that the West’s suppression and fragmentation of the reality-principle in its citizens enables it to perpetrate its atrocities without public opposition. Once reality is dead for its own citizens, horrific surpluses of reality can be imposed on people of other regions. That in turn creates an opportunity for a terroristic counter-balancing of reality against its own people.
And yet reality in terrorist events – as we saw in Italy, Germany and Belgium – is precisely the issue. Baudrillard’s Gulf War essays are about mediation: they are predicated on the comparison of reference to referent. This aspect is completely missing from his reflections on 9/11. No ‘The September 11th Attacks Did Not Take Place’, nothing like that. Instead, he mythologizes the terrorists, aggrandises the ‘War on Terror’, and bows down before the ‘incandescent images’ of that day. The Spirit of Terrorism (2002), quite simply, is neocon propaganda. At the exact moment that his vision was vindicated, the Baudrillard I knew had vanished and been replaced by a replica. From that moment on, as his theory dictated, he was a shadow of himself, a simulacrum among simulacra." https://thelethaltext.substack.com/p/mccluhan-in-manhattan
Thanks Lethal. Yes, I don't plan to read any more of Baudrillard (and wouldn't have read more after the first book if I hadn't bought three of them!). True character is revealed in times of stress such as with 9/11, and it was especially interesting to see the mask off moments during COVID with public figures such as Jordan Peterson and Noam Chomsky (well, Chomsky went mask off a long time ago with his defense of Pol Pot). I'll check out the link, thank you.
You are welcome, Neo. Yes I'm kind of fascinated by these critical lacunae and self-betrayals. As for M. Baudrillard, at least you got a kick-ass essay out of it. C'est la vie.
Yes but we can end up saying 'you know what, I can't believe anything anymore!' and that is the place you are most vulnerable for manipulation. You are a blank slate. Genius.
Taking everything the media and establishment says with complete scepticism is not the same as believing nothing. In fact the only reason one would have that scepticism is because one has developed their own abilities to judge and reason. It comes from a belief in oneself or a certain tradition that one holds.
Jaques Ellul and Oswald Spengler both pointed out that the original rural estates of clergy, peasant and aristocrat were most immune to propaganda because their base values of symbolic morality and honour were metaphysically unassailable (bit like the Amish today). The urban classes(bourgeoisie, proletariat etc) were most vulnerable because their values are easily manipulated (financial wellbeing, 'freedom' in the urban sense of lacking attachment, and safety).
Agree totally. Thank you for extrapolating. I just felt it needs to be said. I would think between the lines above, it is the intellectuals, without any root into a moral tradition with solid values are the easiest to manipulate.
In the west today, the intellectuals are by definition the easiest to manipulate. Because in the west today, in order to be considered an intellectual, you are required to believe the same things as all the other intellectuals.
Martin, that’s a really interesting way of saying it, yes exactly.
And I think it was Illich who wrote that we are also tested against each other in exams in schools and universities to confirm our belief and trust in the same texts. We then learn to believe in the texts outside of us.
This takes us away from our inner reliance and trust in our inner guidance and so we are then ripe for manipulation, but think we know it all.
"This is complicated by the fact that paradoxically the more information we receive, the greater the corresponding loss of meaning associated with it".
Bingo. The information age is rapidly transforming homo sapiens into homo stultus. I have long thought that knowledge is inversely proportional to information and that wisdom is in turn inversely proportional to knowledge. Plato's account of Socrates' famous conceit was founded in a deep truth. We are waterboarded with information 24/7 such that most people's experience of thinking is analogous to gasping of breath. The majority of us have consequently quite simply forgotten how to breath (think) normally. So much for the Age of Reason.
Speaking of Plato, I am firmly convinced that TPTB are seeking to bring about Plato's ideal Republic in all its horrifying aspects. Popper quite correctly pointed out that Republic is in effect the first totalitarian manifesto - complete with an underclass of brainwashed proles pacified via a series of "noble lies". But the allegory of the cave needs to be updated. Since the appearance of that great pioneer of hyperreality, we have lived in Goebbels' cave. In this one we do not need to be chained. We are transfixed and rendered inert by the mesmerizing images. In this cave the images are not the shadows of any objective reality, but a hyperreality created by Goebbels' disciples with the express purpose of rendering us docile. Digital soma. Escape is only possible by the few able to tear their gaze away. I managed this feat myself some time after 2016 by simply turning off all sources of mainstream "news" and I've never felt better informed.
In light of the above I find the recent volte-face by Zuckerberg suspicious in the extreme. My guess is the the woke left hyperreality has had its day and in its place an improved version, full of Trumpian "alternative facts", is headed our way. The 2016 election campaign and its aftermath was a watershed. Military grade information warfare and influence operations have been unleashed on the hapless citizenry and there is no going back. The "supreme form of democracy" Baudrillard describes has been achieved and with it mass retreat from political engagement and from the world in general. Plato needn't have despaired of democracy after all, the Guardians are in Control. Btw, I think the Matrix could have been improved by Morpheus being a Matrix creation himself, just like QAnon. I doubt the media execs would have gone for a Nineteen Eight-Four kind of ending though.
If you have not seen it, I'd highly recommend Adam Curtis' excellent 2016 movie HyperNormalisation. Curtis deals with similar themes and, for example, cites the influence of surrealist éminence grise; Vladislav Surkov on the information space in modern Russia. The aim of the Media Intelligence Complex everywhere is to destroy the will of the populous to identify any objective reality and it's highly successful. Political ideologies have been replaced by the postmodern anti-ideology of nihilistic hedonism. I don't know what color their pills are, neon pink maybe.
Where will it all end? Well as a compulsive abyss-starer hopium certainly ain't my thing. I think the fun will really start when, in the very near future, AI starts to redefine concepts like "guilt", "wrong" and even "truth" such that all forms of human reasoning gradually become redundant. If I had to pick a name for the coming Deus ex machina it would be "Syme" - after the dude whose job it is to remove words from the language of the Oceanians, thus destroying thought itself.
It's lonely outside the cave (which is largely why so few leave) and always encouraging to read something that provokes thought rather than suppresses it. Well done.
Thanks John, nice comment and I agree with you - "Political ideologies have been replaced by the postmodern anti-ideology of nihilistic hedonism" is a nice way of putting it. We're sadly rapidly approaching the end of thought itself among the masses. Re: Zuckerberg, his false about-face will be rapidly accepted by the public who will, with the attention span of gnats, rapidly move onto the next piece of attention-grabbing media narrative...I'll watch HyperNormalisation, thank you for the recommendation.
Interesting essay, I have to admit that as Ukraine faded into the background of our lives, and as I came to see those horrifying videos and read up about the complaints by officers on the Russian side and saw how many defended either this side or the other it seemed less and less likely Putin was against the globohomo despots.
At this point, I do think that the over-all structure of this empire is suffering hits, and that it's in some ways it is inevitable it should collapse as we live in an age of midgets who are in the shadows of giants. But the collapse can only occur once they've concluded their replacement of their heartlands populations as this seems the ultimate goal; the replacement of Russians and Americans, with the elites thinking that they can maintain their prior high standard of living without the people upon whom that very standard depends upon.
This was interesting. Seems both sides of the Ukraine conflict are corrupt and against the common people.
What is taking place in Ukraine and Russia is the theatre of slaughter, the old fashioned concept of war is the cover story which if stripped away reveals a cold blooded Slavic genocide. What are the costs of maintaining the scenery and scripts for this theatre, and are there simple words and illustrations to shatter the vile illusion?
> "the created hyperreality both supplants actual reality and then morphs actual reality into something totally different"
I find it hard to agree with the notion that this hyperreality has only begun recently. What does the industrial revolution have to do with it? Mass literacy and newspapers? Because to me, all cultures look equally artificial and detached from reality, purely by necessity of uniting large groups of people with stories, and having to compromise with reality as no survival strategy can be proven before being enacted. Muslims have genital cutting, explaining it with some form of a narrative - how is it not hyperreality? They consider bleeding penises to be a reference to Ibrahim - how is it not reality as a text?
> "it was a one sided massacre initiated by the United States! [...] Then the U.S. stood idly by as Saddam brutally crushed incipient rebellions by the Shia and Kurds under his rule and re-established his control - what kind of war was this exactly?"
I don't really understand why we need to make up new models to explain such easy stuff. America is the lord of the planet. Everything significant that happens in the world can be controlled. Every country lives on borrowed mercy from the insane Western Christian élite which has forbidden itself genociding foreigners.
So sure, in this case, the Americans had a deal with Saddam to have a nice little war to inaugurate the fall of Russia, why not? And Saddam agreed. This actually sounds manly and clean? Win-win? The Kurds are to Saddam what Saddam is to Washington.
> "[Baudrillard:] In the absence of the (greatly diminished) will to power, and the (problematic) will to knowledge, there remains today the widespread will to spectacle, and with it the obstinate desire to preserve its spectre or fiction."
Alright, this hits hard. Idiocracy rules. But what does it mean in reality? That the System has lost its mettle, and can't wage real wars at all? Or that we can never even know what the _real_ experts think because everything on boob-vision is a fake charade with gay clowns (Tucker, Soloviev)?
> "[Baudrillard:] Be more virtual than the events themselves, do not seek to re-establish the truth, we do not have the means, but do not be duped, and to that end re-immerse the war and all information in the virtuality from whence they came."
Yeah, that's literally what I'm telling my mom, treat the missile explosions as a lightning storm instead of some picture in a TV - you don't own the land the missile hits, and you don't live in that TV reality either, so why bother? For all we know, it's Oceania launching missiles at itself.
> "using recursive predictions to gradually refine and update one’s view of the world; the more one is proven wrong about predictions, the more one should refine one’s worldview."
Currently, my recursive prediction is concerned with the question whether the West is indeed split between America/EU, right/left, Trump/Biden, or these Greenland statements are mere signs of a changed course of a single organism.
> "This is complicated by the fact that paradoxically the more information we receive, the greater the corresponding loss of meaning associated with it."
That's why Redditards hate my schizo map! A good model of reality should be simple. Hence _political ponerology_ could be a thing as well (see Sofa Legion Strategos).
> "This brings us around to the Ukraine war. I’ve covered it twice before in May 2023 and February 2024"
Some of the points are still contestable - for example, a destruction of the Dnieper bridges would have led to a massive famine in the Left-Bank Ukraine. Now, why is famine not used as a weapon of war even in Gaza (google obesity in Gaza)? Because the Western élite is Christian to the core, with the most stringent ban on genocide. Hence why Russia can't use its nuclear arsenal to genocide my retarded country either. Morality and culture are as much in control as the deals behind the stage (and which one is supreme, I cannot know).
> "To me, the film raised the questions: is there a limit to elite propaganda? Does it have to be based in reality at all, especially in the modern era? Under what circumstances does it need to be based in reality, or at least to adjust itself to feedback received from the audience/masses?"
> "[Baudrillard:] “The image and information are subject to no principle of truth or reality.”"
Propaganda must not only attach itself to what already exists in the individual, but also express the fundamental currents of the society it seeks to influence. Propaganda must be familiar with collective sociological presuppositions, spontaneous myths, and broad ideologies- By this we do not mean political currents or temporary opinions that will change in a few months, but the fundamental psycho-sociological bases on which a whole society rests, the presuppositions and myths not just of individuals or of particular groups but those shared by all individuals in a society including men of opposite political inclinations and class loyalties. A propaganda pitting itself against this fundamental and accepted structure would have no chance of success. Rather, all effective propaganda is based on these fundamental currents and expresses them. Only if it rests on the proper collective belief will it be understood and accepted. It is part of a complex of civilization, consisting of material elements, beliefs, ideas, and institutions, and it cannot be separated from them. No propaganda could succeed by going against these structural elements of society. But propaganda’s main task clearly is the psychological reflection of these structures.
– Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, p. 38-9
Hi Aziz, yes, that's another example of a fake war, where 10/7 was both known in advance by Israeli intelligence and possibly planned by them in order to provide a casus belli for ethnic cleansing of the strip, which is very one sided. I've touched on this at various points including here: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/on-the-end-times-and-the-antichrist
It is likely the very same process is right now taking place within the walls of Israel, you know, those really high walls. It took me a great many years to sit with the degree to which wars are in fact faked, and for a variety of reasons. But, I now believe that is the case.
Imagine how tightly the image of what is taking place in Gaza is controlled by Mossad et al, given their motto. They tell us it is all about deception.
"...no individual person can own a shared description, and so we must be prepared if necessary to disagree about them. It could well be that a subject can never be closed, because none of us can say for sure, what something is or was, say for example a flower or a tree or a person or an appointment or an election. The description must be *shared* for it to stay most basic, most firsthand.
This is done most easily and understandably by computers and the internet."
Who Ordered the Maleficence?
Technology as a servant of society, not as its undertaker
"The never ending war in 1984 isn't real. Winston never sees tanks, war ships, people joining the army, fighter jets or whatever that can proof a war is going on. There isn't even proof that Oceania has an army. Only police helicopters and a line of trucks and that isn't evidence that an army exist. Also the prisoners of war could be fake, they could be thought criminals who are forced to play the role of prisoners of war. They could be actors that show up every time the Party needs prisoners of war. Remember the old man on one of the trucks. Winston remembers a war when he was young but that was WW2 and that was not the war against Eurasia and Eastasia. The floating fortresses are only mentioned on the telescreen and in the book of Goldstein (that also mentioned the war and a lot more) but that book was written by O'Brien and other Party members and we can assume that the Book is a complete lie. The warfare they see on the telescreen could be made by the Ministry of Truth, or it's footage from WW2. Also the fact that Oceania always has an enemy and an ally at the same time is strange because that would mean that the other two superstates are always fighting alone. It could also be that the ally is not fighting at all and that means that Oceania is the only superstate that is always fighting and the other two superstates have a time of peace. The bombs that sometimes are falling could be bombs from Oceania itself, the bombs are always thrown on the proles and not on the four ministries."
I started to get annoyed and bored about the Ukraine war because the story was a bit whimsical. When it progressed to attacks on Russia, Putin played a role in hyping up the nuclear war fear, just like was done during the cold war.
There was a similar dynamic of simulation during the beginning of COVID.
They brought traveling doctors to NYC etc to participate in the real yet 'simulated' situation. Those traveling doctors were isolated from the locals. They saw the horrors, while nurses were dancing on tiktok.
"And then there is the psychological effect of the Big Lie which is axiomatic in gaslighting. The paradox here is that the bigger the lie, the harder it is for the mind to bridge the gulf between perceived reality and the lie that authority figures are painting as truth. I believe that the prospect of being deceived evinces a primitive emotional response on a par with staring death in the face. We are hard-wired to fear deception because we have evolved to interpret it as an existential threat. That’s why deception can elicit the same emotional response as the miscalculation of a serious physical threat. Lies told to us don’t always bear the same cost as a misjudged red light, but the primitive part of the brain can’t make this distinction and we rely on cerebral mediation for a more appropriate but delayed response. And in the long run, the lie is often just as dangerous as the physical threat. Many government whoppers – ‘safe and effective’ – do cost lives.
To avoid the death-like experience of being deceived, a mental defence is erected to deny that the lie is happening."
"The never ending war in 1984 isn't real. Winston never sees tanks, war ships, people joining the army, fighter jets or whatever that can proof a war is going on. There isn't even proof that Oceania has an army. Only police helicopters and a line of trucks and that isn't evidence that an army exist. Also the prisoners of war could be fake, they could be thought criminals who are forced to play the role of prisoners of war. They could be actors that show up every time the Party needs prisoners of war. Remember the old man on one of the trucks. Winston remembers a war when he was young but that was WW2 and that was not the war against Eurasia and Eastasia. The floating fortresses are only mentioned on the telescreen and in the book of Goldstein (that also mentioned the war and a lot more) but that book was written by O'Brien and other Party members and we can assume that the Book is a complete lie. The warfare they see on the telescreen could be made by the Ministry of Truth, or it's footage from WW2. Also the fact that Oceania always has an enemy and an ally at the same time is strange because that would mean that the other two superstates are always fighting alone. It could also be that the ally is not fighting at all and that means that Oceania is the only superstate that is always fighting and the other two superstates have a time of peace. The bombs that sometimes are falling could be bombs from Oceania itself, the bombs are always thrown on the proles and not on the four ministries."
Lies need to be built on prior assumptions. These lies then form new assumptions.
You can’t make lies from whole cloth nearly as well. As people can’t make that “leap” very easily.
The trust the experts nonsense was a massive prior assumption they used to the hilt during COVID alongside images of heroic doctors pulling from hollywood movies and the like and it all shattered under the stress. They’ve been reeling in their partial absence.
In terms of Ukraine, the prior assumptions are pulled from the cold war and russiagate, as well as the west and thus Ukraine who is supported by the west being the “good guys”. Its been under a lot of strain but it seems they learned their lesson with covid and aren’t being quite as carefree with it.
This is simplified and shortened because I’m lazy but that should be a good jist.
Good article, the "four stages of reality" is definitely is especially interesting and it's definitely true that modern propaganda doesn't even have to have much relation to reality. You can see this also with the "mainstream alternative media": Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Shapiro, etc. If they decide that mark Zuckerberg is now a conservative hero, despite his actions not matching this in the slightest, then that must be the case. Or that deep state contractor and globalist Elon musk is now a right wing standard-bearer. And now people are already forgetting about the H1B fiasco now that Musk has distracted them by pretending to give a shit about grooming gangs. No one remembers anything!
The new years terror attack psyops have also faded out of the public mind now that the media has moved onto the next big thing, and even though it seems like many people were extremely skeptical of both attacks it didn't matter in the end and hardly anybody will remember that these things even happened in a couple months anyway. Such are the consequences of the media constantly bombarding people with new headlines to be outraged and scared of everyday.
Thanks dgb, good comment. The public's memory is that of a gnat at this point, exacerbated by technology; there is no accountability and no follow-through for the many devious narratives crafted by our elites, many of which drift off and are forgotten. They do whatever they want and there is no pushback. They change narratives at whim, even contradicting their prior ones, and they are never punished for it. This is all going to end very badly.
This article reveals how the interplay between information, perception, and power has reached a point where distinguishing reality from simulation is almost impossible.
The media-government complex described here, and the hyperreality it produces, thrives on passivity. This turns the citizenry into spectators, not participants, making it all too easy to disengage and accept a curated version of events. By the same token, reclaiming agency demands engagement. It calls for scepticism, critical thinking, and a commitment to staying curious, asking questions, and digging deeper.
The idea of a grounding mechanism is so important here. In a world where it feels like everything is designed to confuse or mislead us, we need tools to make sense of it all. Recursive prediction, as mentioned, is one approach: test assumptions, refine perspectives, and stay flexible enough to adapt as the picture evolves. At the end of the day, it's not about having all the answers—it’s about staying engaged and not letting the simulation win.
What I really like about this article is that it reminds us that the system’s strength is also its weakness. Hyperreality only works if we go along with it. The more people question and resist, the weaker it becomes. We need to begin to think of as sovereign individuals rather than passive consumers of media slop.
Great comment, James.
Exactly James. The magician only fools us up to the point we understand it's all trick. The 'hypnotic reality' of the illusion is gone.
To save you reading any more Baudrillard: "And that’s Baudrillard’s point: that the West’s suppression and fragmentation of the reality-principle in its citizens enables it to perpetrate its atrocities without public opposition. Once reality is dead for its own citizens, horrific surpluses of reality can be imposed on people of other regions. That in turn creates an opportunity for a terroristic counter-balancing of reality against its own people.
And yet reality in terrorist events – as we saw in Italy, Germany and Belgium – is precisely the issue. Baudrillard’s Gulf War essays are about mediation: they are predicated on the comparison of reference to referent. This aspect is completely missing from his reflections on 9/11. No ‘The September 11th Attacks Did Not Take Place’, nothing like that. Instead, he mythologizes the terrorists, aggrandises the ‘War on Terror’, and bows down before the ‘incandescent images’ of that day. The Spirit of Terrorism (2002), quite simply, is neocon propaganda. At the exact moment that his vision was vindicated, the Baudrillard I knew had vanished and been replaced by a replica. From that moment on, as his theory dictated, he was a shadow of himself, a simulacrum among simulacra." https://thelethaltext.substack.com/p/mccluhan-in-manhattan
Thanks Lethal. Yes, I don't plan to read any more of Baudrillard (and wouldn't have read more after the first book if I hadn't bought three of them!). True character is revealed in times of stress such as with 9/11, and it was especially interesting to see the mask off moments during COVID with public figures such as Jordan Peterson and Noam Chomsky (well, Chomsky went mask off a long time ago with his defense of Pol Pot). I'll check out the link, thank you.
You are welcome, Neo. Yes I'm kind of fascinated by these critical lacunae and self-betrayals. As for M. Baudrillard, at least you got a kick-ass essay out of it. C'est la vie.
This pattern is used all the time:
Proposal: Take Vaccine for said virus.
Antithesis: No take this supplement for said virus.
Left unquestioned: does virus actually exist?
Proposal: Nuclear weapons needed.
Antithesis: Nuclear weapons scary and bad.
Left unquestioned: do nuclear weapons actually exist?
Proposal: GMOs are a great breakthrough and needed.
Antithesis: GMOs are dangerous and bad.
Left unquestioned: do GMOs actually exist/even feasible?
Proposal: Said war is good.
Antithesis: Said war is bad.
Left unquestioned: does said war even exist?
Proposal: JFK was killed by lone gunman
Antithesis: JFK was killed by conspiracy
Left unquestioned: Did JFK really die that day?
Yes but we can end up saying 'you know what, I can't believe anything anymore!' and that is the place you are most vulnerable for manipulation. You are a blank slate. Genius.
Taking everything the media and establishment says with complete scepticism is not the same as believing nothing. In fact the only reason one would have that scepticism is because one has developed their own abilities to judge and reason. It comes from a belief in oneself or a certain tradition that one holds.
Jaques Ellul and Oswald Spengler both pointed out that the original rural estates of clergy, peasant and aristocrat were most immune to propaganda because their base values of symbolic morality and honour were metaphysically unassailable (bit like the Amish today). The urban classes(bourgeoisie, proletariat etc) were most vulnerable because their values are easily manipulated (financial wellbeing, 'freedom' in the urban sense of lacking attachment, and safety).
Agree totally. Thank you for extrapolating. I just felt it needs to be said. I would think between the lines above, it is the intellectuals, without any root into a moral tradition with solid values are the easiest to manipulate.
In the west today, the intellectuals are by definition the easiest to manipulate. Because in the west today, in order to be considered an intellectual, you are required to believe the same things as all the other intellectuals.
Martin, that’s a really interesting way of saying it, yes exactly.
And I think it was Illich who wrote that we are also tested against each other in exams in schools and universities to confirm our belief and trust in the same texts. We then learn to believe in the texts outside of us.
This takes us away from our inner reliance and trust in our inner guidance and so we are then ripe for manipulation, but think we know it all.
👋👋
"This is complicated by the fact that paradoxically the more information we receive, the greater the corresponding loss of meaning associated with it".
Bingo. The information age is rapidly transforming homo sapiens into homo stultus. I have long thought that knowledge is inversely proportional to information and that wisdom is in turn inversely proportional to knowledge. Plato's account of Socrates' famous conceit was founded in a deep truth. We are waterboarded with information 24/7 such that most people's experience of thinking is analogous to gasping of breath. The majority of us have consequently quite simply forgotten how to breath (think) normally. So much for the Age of Reason.
Speaking of Plato, I am firmly convinced that TPTB are seeking to bring about Plato's ideal Republic in all its horrifying aspects. Popper quite correctly pointed out that Republic is in effect the first totalitarian manifesto - complete with an underclass of brainwashed proles pacified via a series of "noble lies". But the allegory of the cave needs to be updated. Since the appearance of that great pioneer of hyperreality, we have lived in Goebbels' cave. In this one we do not need to be chained. We are transfixed and rendered inert by the mesmerizing images. In this cave the images are not the shadows of any objective reality, but a hyperreality created by Goebbels' disciples with the express purpose of rendering us docile. Digital soma. Escape is only possible by the few able to tear their gaze away. I managed this feat myself some time after 2016 by simply turning off all sources of mainstream "news" and I've never felt better informed.
In light of the above I find the recent volte-face by Zuckerberg suspicious in the extreme. My guess is the the woke left hyperreality has had its day and in its place an improved version, full of Trumpian "alternative facts", is headed our way. The 2016 election campaign and its aftermath was a watershed. Military grade information warfare and influence operations have been unleashed on the hapless citizenry and there is no going back. The "supreme form of democracy" Baudrillard describes has been achieved and with it mass retreat from political engagement and from the world in general. Plato needn't have despaired of democracy after all, the Guardians are in Control. Btw, I think the Matrix could have been improved by Morpheus being a Matrix creation himself, just like QAnon. I doubt the media execs would have gone for a Nineteen Eight-Four kind of ending though.
If you have not seen it, I'd highly recommend Adam Curtis' excellent 2016 movie HyperNormalisation. Curtis deals with similar themes and, for example, cites the influence of surrealist éminence grise; Vladislav Surkov on the information space in modern Russia. The aim of the Media Intelligence Complex everywhere is to destroy the will of the populous to identify any objective reality and it's highly successful. Political ideologies have been replaced by the postmodern anti-ideology of nihilistic hedonism. I don't know what color their pills are, neon pink maybe.
Where will it all end? Well as a compulsive abyss-starer hopium certainly ain't my thing. I think the fun will really start when, in the very near future, AI starts to redefine concepts like "guilt", "wrong" and even "truth" such that all forms of human reasoning gradually become redundant. If I had to pick a name for the coming Deus ex machina it would be "Syme" - after the dude whose job it is to remove words from the language of the Oceanians, thus destroying thought itself.
It's lonely outside the cave (which is largely why so few leave) and always encouraging to read something that provokes thought rather than suppresses it. Well done.
Thanks John, nice comment and I agree with you - "Political ideologies have been replaced by the postmodern anti-ideology of nihilistic hedonism" is a nice way of putting it. We're sadly rapidly approaching the end of thought itself among the masses. Re: Zuckerberg, his false about-face will be rapidly accepted by the public who will, with the attention span of gnats, rapidly move onto the next piece of attention-grabbing media narrative...I'll watch HyperNormalisation, thank you for the recommendation.
Kojima talked about this in metal gear solid 2 all the way back in the halcyon year of 2001
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DwCEAdeFXEM
Kojima is the only true prophet of the 21st century. Its quite staggering he got this so correct.
I agree. I have issues with what’s been going on in Gaza, too. So much obvious propaganda from both sides.
Interesting essay, I have to admit that as Ukraine faded into the background of our lives, and as I came to see those horrifying videos and read up about the complaints by officers on the Russian side and saw how many defended either this side or the other it seemed less and less likely Putin was against the globohomo despots.
At this point, I do think that the over-all structure of this empire is suffering hits, and that it's in some ways it is inevitable it should collapse as we live in an age of midgets who are in the shadows of giants. But the collapse can only occur once they've concluded their replacement of their heartlands populations as this seems the ultimate goal; the replacement of Russians and Americans, with the elites thinking that they can maintain their prior high standard of living without the people upon whom that very standard depends upon.
This was interesting. Seems both sides of the Ukraine conflict are corrupt and against the common people.
nice to see you finally coming around.
Thank you for connecting these dots - excellent article!
For as long as I can remember, I have had this feeling ‘nothing is real’.
I lamented the replacement of markets (like Les Halles in Paris) for shopping malls.
Travel and Tourism also gave me this feeling - why go anywhere when it’s all the same.
Do you think that the Elites have become wedded to this idea of complete narrative control?
With Zelensky, the whole heroic arc was rolled out straight away, same with Cov!d.
They seem obsessed with selling stories, which then cease to make sense.
Saddam’s Weapons after 9/11 were a completely bizarre story that made no sense to me.
The storylines seem to be getting less realistic and plausible as time goes by - as if they’ve floated off into magical thinking.
What is taking place in Ukraine and Russia is the theatre of slaughter, the old fashioned concept of war is the cover story which if stripped away reveals a cold blooded Slavic genocide. What are the costs of maintaining the scenery and scripts for this theatre, and are there simple words and illustrations to shatter the vile illusion?
Exactly.
Opening the doors on the manufacturing of reality
Now I understand the meaning behind the scripture saying "wars, and reports of wars"
First of all, your post has been shared by a kind soul (you?) on r/conspiracy, small world!
https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1hyytfs/the_ukraine_war_did_not_take_place/
> "the created hyperreality both supplants actual reality and then morphs actual reality into something totally different"
I find it hard to agree with the notion that this hyperreality has only begun recently. What does the industrial revolution have to do with it? Mass literacy and newspapers? Because to me, all cultures look equally artificial and detached from reality, purely by necessity of uniting large groups of people with stories, and having to compromise with reality as no survival strategy can be proven before being enacted. Muslims have genital cutting, explaining it with some form of a narrative - how is it not hyperreality? They consider bleeding penises to be a reference to Ibrahim - how is it not reality as a text?
> "it was a one sided massacre initiated by the United States! [...] Then the U.S. stood idly by as Saddam brutally crushed incipient rebellions by the Shia and Kurds under his rule and re-established his control - what kind of war was this exactly?"
I don't really understand why we need to make up new models to explain such easy stuff. America is the lord of the planet. Everything significant that happens in the world can be controlled. Every country lives on borrowed mercy from the insane Western Christian élite which has forbidden itself genociding foreigners.
So sure, in this case, the Americans had a deal with Saddam to have a nice little war to inaugurate the fall of Russia, why not? And Saddam agreed. This actually sounds manly and clean? Win-win? The Kurds are to Saddam what Saddam is to Washington.
> "[Baudrillard:] In the absence of the (greatly diminished) will to power, and the (problematic) will to knowledge, there remains today the widespread will to spectacle, and with it the obstinate desire to preserve its spectre or fiction."
Alright, this hits hard. Idiocracy rules. But what does it mean in reality? That the System has lost its mettle, and can't wage real wars at all? Or that we can never even know what the _real_ experts think because everything on boob-vision is a fake charade with gay clowns (Tucker, Soloviev)?
> "[Baudrillard:] Be more virtual than the events themselves, do not seek to re-establish the truth, we do not have the means, but do not be duped, and to that end re-immerse the war and all information in the virtuality from whence they came."
Yeah, that's literally what I'm telling my mom, treat the missile explosions as a lightning storm instead of some picture in a TV - you don't own the land the missile hits, and you don't live in that TV reality either, so why bother? For all we know, it's Oceania launching missiles at itself.
> "using recursive predictions to gradually refine and update one’s view of the world; the more one is proven wrong about predictions, the more one should refine one’s worldview."
Currently, my recursive prediction is concerned with the question whether the West is indeed split between America/EU, right/left, Trump/Biden, or these Greenland statements are mere signs of a changed course of a single organism.
> "This is complicated by the fact that paradoxically the more information we receive, the greater the corresponding loss of meaning associated with it."
That's why Redditards hate my schizo map! A good model of reality should be simple. Hence _political ponerology_ could be a thing as well (see Sofa Legion Strategos).
> "This brings us around to the Ukraine war. I’ve covered it twice before in May 2023 and February 2024"
Some of the points are still contestable - for example, a destruction of the Dnieper bridges would have led to a massive famine in the Left-Bank Ukraine. Now, why is famine not used as a weapon of war even in Gaza (google obesity in Gaza)? Because the Western élite is Christian to the core, with the most stringent ban on genocide. Hence why Russia can't use its nuclear arsenal to genocide my retarded country either. Morality and culture are as much in control as the deals behind the stage (and which one is supreme, I cannot know).
> "To me, the film raised the questions: is there a limit to elite propaganda? Does it have to be based in reality at all, especially in the modern era? Under what circumstances does it need to be based in reality, or at least to adjust itself to feedback received from the audience/masses?"
> "[Baudrillard:] “The image and information are subject to no principle of truth or reality.”"
I could quote Dr. Robert Morgan quoting Ellul.
https://archive.vn/xemdh
Propaganda must not only attach itself to what already exists in the individual, but also express the fundamental currents of the society it seeks to influence. Propaganda must be familiar with collective sociological presuppositions, spontaneous myths, and broad ideologies- By this we do not mean political currents or temporary opinions that will change in a few months, but the fundamental psycho-sociological bases on which a whole society rests, the presuppositions and myths not just of individuals or of particular groups but those shared by all individuals in a society including men of opposite political inclinations and class loyalties. A propaganda pitting itself against this fundamental and accepted structure would have no chance of success. Rather, all effective propaganda is based on these fundamental currents and expresses them. Only if it rests on the proper collective belief will it be understood and accepted. It is part of a complex of civilization, consisting of material elements, beliefs, ideas, and institutions, and it cannot be separated from them. No propaganda could succeed by going against these structural elements of society. But propaganda’s main task clearly is the psychological reflection of these structures.
– Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes, p. 38-9
How do you write at such length about a fake war without even once mentioning Israel's "war" on Gaza?
Hi Aziz, yes, that's another example of a fake war, where 10/7 was both known in advance by Israeli intelligence and possibly planned by them in order to provide a casus belli for ethnic cleansing of the strip, which is very one sided. I've touched on this at various points including here: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/on-the-end-times-and-the-antichrist
The "GoPro Hamas" footage of the attack is literally fake and AI generated:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/1gHC5exNDpKA
Look at all the glitches. Literally fake.
You're already subscribing to 95% of the official narrative, implicitly.
The fact is, there is no reason to believe anything happened on "10/7" at all, other than an audio-visual data roll-out.
I mean, fan-man aerial attack? Really?
They're mocking you for believing in their cartoonish fantasy.
It is likely the very same process is right now taking place within the walls of Israel, you know, those really high walls. It took me a great many years to sit with the degree to which wars are in fact faked, and for a variety of reasons. But, I now believe that is the case.
Imagine how tightly the image of what is taking place in Gaza is controlled by Mossad et al, given their motto. They tell us it is all about deception.
A very interesting take on what is taking place there by a man from the Netherlands - https://www.martinvrijland.nl/en/news-analyses/palestijnen-zijn-tijdens-qatar-world-cup-2022-naar-dubai-en-abu-dhabi-verhuisd-de-gaza-oorlog-is-een-filmproductie/
Wasn't it Sean Penn who gave Zelensky one of his Oscars....? They tell us even.
"...no individual person can own a shared description, and so we must be prepared if necessary to disagree about them. It could well be that a subject can never be closed, because none of us can say for sure, what something is or was, say for example a flower or a tree or a person or an appointment or an election. The description must be *shared* for it to stay most basic, most firsthand.
This is done most easily and understandably by computers and the internet."
Who Ordered the Maleficence?
Technology as a servant of society, not as its undertaker
https://tomg2021.substack.com/p/who-ordered-the-maleficence
"The never ending war in 1984 isn't real. Winston never sees tanks, war ships, people joining the army, fighter jets or whatever that can proof a war is going on. There isn't even proof that Oceania has an army. Only police helicopters and a line of trucks and that isn't evidence that an army exist. Also the prisoners of war could be fake, they could be thought criminals who are forced to play the role of prisoners of war. They could be actors that show up every time the Party needs prisoners of war. Remember the old man on one of the trucks. Winston remembers a war when he was young but that was WW2 and that was not the war against Eurasia and Eastasia. The floating fortresses are only mentioned on the telescreen and in the book of Goldstein (that also mentioned the war and a lot more) but that book was written by O'Brien and other Party members and we can assume that the Book is a complete lie. The warfare they see on the telescreen could be made by the Ministry of Truth, or it's footage from WW2. Also the fact that Oceania always has an enemy and an ally at the same time is strange because that would mean that the other two superstates are always fighting alone. It could also be that the ally is not fighting at all and that means that Oceania is the only superstate that is always fighting and the other two superstates have a time of peace. The bombs that sometimes are falling could be bombs from Oceania itself, the bombs are always thrown on the proles and not on the four ministries."
https://www.reddit.com/r/1984/comments/c58vul/the_never_ending_war_isnt_real/
I started to get annoyed and bored about the Ukraine war because the story was a bit whimsical. When it progressed to attacks on Russia, Putin played a role in hyping up the nuclear war fear, just like was done during the cold war.
There was a similar dynamic of simulation during the beginning of COVID.
They brought traveling doctors to NYC etc to participate in the real yet 'simulated' situation. Those traveling doctors were isolated from the locals. They saw the horrors, while nurses were dancing on tiktok.
https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/pierre-korys-new-york-story
Perhaps they need to fake things in order to keep people stuck in half reality as Michael Nehls states in this interview.
https://robc137.substack.com/p/covid
"And then there is the psychological effect of the Big Lie which is axiomatic in gaslighting. The paradox here is that the bigger the lie, the harder it is for the mind to bridge the gulf between perceived reality and the lie that authority figures are painting as truth. I believe that the prospect of being deceived evinces a primitive emotional response on a par with staring death in the face. We are hard-wired to fear deception because we have evolved to interpret it as an existential threat. That’s why deception can elicit the same emotional response as the miscalculation of a serious physical threat. Lies told to us don’t always bear the same cost as a misjudged red light, but the primitive part of the brain can’t make this distinction and we rely on cerebral mediation for a more appropriate but delayed response. And in the long run, the lie is often just as dangerous as the physical threat. Many government whoppers – ‘safe and effective’ – do cost lives.
To avoid the death-like experience of being deceived, a mental defence is erected to deny that the lie is happening."
(From https://leftlockdownsceptics.com/alleged-cia-involvement-in-jfk-assassination-goes-mainstream-so-now-what/ )
https://www.reddit.com/r/1984/comments/c58vul/the_never_ending_war_isnt_real/
"The never ending war in 1984 isn't real. Winston never sees tanks, war ships, people joining the army, fighter jets or whatever that can proof a war is going on. There isn't even proof that Oceania has an army. Only police helicopters and a line of trucks and that isn't evidence that an army exist. Also the prisoners of war could be fake, they could be thought criminals who are forced to play the role of prisoners of war. They could be actors that show up every time the Party needs prisoners of war. Remember the old man on one of the trucks. Winston remembers a war when he was young but that was WW2 and that was not the war against Eurasia and Eastasia. The floating fortresses are only mentioned on the telescreen and in the book of Goldstein (that also mentioned the war and a lot more) but that book was written by O'Brien and other Party members and we can assume that the Book is a complete lie. The warfare they see on the telescreen could be made by the Ministry of Truth, or it's footage from WW2. Also the fact that Oceania always has an enemy and an ally at the same time is strange because that would mean that the other two superstates are always fighting alone. It could also be that the ally is not fighting at all and that means that Oceania is the only superstate that is always fighting and the other two superstates have a time of peace. The bombs that sometimes are falling could be bombs from Oceania itself, the bombs are always thrown on the proles and not on the four ministries."
Lies need to be built on prior assumptions. These lies then form new assumptions.
You can’t make lies from whole cloth nearly as well. As people can’t make that “leap” very easily.
The trust the experts nonsense was a massive prior assumption they used to the hilt during COVID alongside images of heroic doctors pulling from hollywood movies and the like and it all shattered under the stress. They’ve been reeling in their partial absence.
In terms of Ukraine, the prior assumptions are pulled from the cold war and russiagate, as well as the west and thus Ukraine who is supported by the west being the “good guys”. Its been under a lot of strain but it seems they learned their lesson with covid and aren’t being quite as carefree with it.
This is simplified and shortened because I’m lazy but that should be a good jist.