We are worried and concerned about the issues and concerns media brings to our attention. We are overwhelmed with words. AI generates images and content in ways that we had yet to imagine and we are misdirected and misinformed.
At the same time that media plays to the public desires and thirst for attention in viewership numbers, we are played by people who look into cameras and tell us untruths with confidence and arrogance. It plays to the days of the empire, where a person stands before the people, raises a fist and breeds emotion from the masses.
Words and how we deliver them are as vital as any weapon. How information is structured, protected, and shared can decide outcomes at the highest strategic levels.
The weapon here is more interesting than we may think. The words, the things we say and the things that are accessible to our children are driving a new cultural norm beyond anything that we may consider close to our values in American society.
This is leading us to believe that we have the right and freedom to say anything we want to say. We can be our authentic selves, and we can share our deepest and raw nature with the world. This perspective pulls us toward tolerance for behaviors that may have not long before been considered highly deviant.
I have a voice, here on my blog and social media enables all of us to say what we think. We are held accountable to the extent of our visibility and our offensiveness. We are held accountable and create value based on our common threads and our common desires. The hidden desires and wants that once may have been buried deep within are now brought to the top through social content bubbles. These burst with temporary gratification and drive, influence the way people think.
The truth no matter how terrible can be shared and skewed from the perspective of a brilliant mind. The threat which is right in front of you, is the idea that we should have open conversations and communication to work through our perspectives and our differences. Beyond the brilliant minds of our great thinkers, the people should sit down at the table and talk about these things and work them through.
The fact is, we are now numb and overwhelmed by so many words, so much information and so much tolerance, that it doesn’t seem to matter. What does this mean?
We are distracted and influenced to the extent that we gladly hand over our resources and our responsibility to not just ourselves but others. We are easily offended but at the same time, we are meant to share our true thoughts.
We are driven to division. The distraction is a magic trick right before our eyes. It is misdirection and illusion. It is highly possible that the system was always in place to distract us or to motivate us to do things or accept things but now, it is just in your face. There doesn’t need to be a speak easy or the secret society of skull and bones. Things that we believe or once believed are facts are now turned over.
I think it is leading us to societal madness. The minute that we call it out, we are also viewed as a bit looney. If we look at history as an indicator, we are in big trouble as a society. The things that are playing out have happened before but they happened without the technologies that we have today. In some ways, there are similarities but in others there is a dramatic and extremely powerful difference.
As an example, Genghis Khan used strategic campaigns which integrated military tactics with advanced psychological warfare, agile adoption of technologies he could use to win, intelligence, communication, governance and the illusion of autonomy for locals he left in power. He advanced trade, exchange and economic prosperity which helped him maintain control.
The scale of his empire and the controls he had in place were more than innovative, they were transformational in regard to communication. He had relay stations and couriers that would be able to create human networks at scale. He had trusted agents that were reliable and disciplined.
While his actions on the battlefield were extremely important, his persona, the fear of his empire and his blend of extreme ruthlessness created conditions for the masses to fall in line. At the point that individuals benefit from economic conditions that are favorable, why would someone complain? In fact, wouldn’t a complaint end badly for that individual?
The application today is very similar. Beyond Khan, we see that humans haven’t changed much as it comes to dark psychology. This person is bad and the other is good. Right and wrong, as we are taught was born for the purpose of control. Control for the initial sake of food, shelter and procreation. Beyond this, it is for power. Power is not evil within itself but the mechanisms to gain control over another human being are both limited and simple at the same time. You either have their attention and obedience or you don’t. You can trick them, you can have them fall in love, you can have them in fear, you can have them with hope, but for power to exist, you have to have them with communication. Words and actions that support the words. More today that actions may not be required. Just words to control and words to inspire.
Even so, our human language is limited. Communication is also qualified and realized through what we believe to be true in some abstraction. Our reference to what we believe is right or wrong and our moral character that we believe we share in common with others. These drive us and compel us to do “things.”
I think my biggest issue at this point is that we are losing at least what I thought we wanted to be as a people. I am saying, even with our differences, there may have been enough in common that we could find peace in our world. The dream of a child who watch “The Day After” 1983 or something like this. Easy enough to see how our world could be destroyed quickly. We didn’t account for the world to be destroyed systematically and slowly by greed and psychological warfare on the people.
As I recently worked for the Department of Defense as an expert for the consolidation in public facing web, it never occurred to me how the daily feeds of information were so influential to the core. I knew the words were important but the nature and the speed are something to study and understand. You see, Khan had networks of people that could control millions of people and this took days to do. Today, you can control millions of people in moments.
Not only do you have the technology to generate words, share words, disseminate words, you have more opportunity for deception. You have more distortion of reality and facts. The checks and balances that may have perceptually been in place are now all but gone.
We are not free and while we can write in the dark and share our thoughts openly. The system(s) now in place can and will block, tackle rationale thinking. In fact, I wrote too much today as you the reader may be distracted by your phone, a video, a child, a spouse, a podcast, music, incoming news .. who knows. It’s just too much and what the hell are you supposed to do about it anyways?
We are not only driven by the words, we are driven by the visibility of the words. Did someone click it? Is it so extreme that it held your attention? If it got your attention and it was compelling, you share it. You share it and we see it and we talk about it and it is now real.
What drove me to this post today was the great feminization article from Helen Andrews. Not that I can reasonably address it right now. The words on paper that made American lose food and resources. The words that allow leaders in our world hold the people, the good people as hostages. If we believe that more of the world, our common world, that people want similar things. These would be most people, I think, that would want peace, trade and prosperity. The words of the few, create powerful narratives which create staggered columns of fear intertwined with ideas of hope and for some, rise to power.
The powerful can’t possibly be powerful if they are alone on an island, they need us to empower them. The words they use, the influence they have generates the narratives in our minds and we fall.
As we have seen in all of human history, words and communication, these are what allow us to be at peace and these are the very same things that drive us to war. We could have so many things in common and have a strong desire for peace but at the same time be on the end of a blade.
Shame on me, I will write it anyway. The differences between the people in power for what we perceive as good as opposed to what we perceive as bad is not in the style but in the substance. Charismatic leaders can drive human beings to their death or inspire human beings to find inner peace. These are not tools of magic, these are tools leveraged by those who understand how to tap into the energy and light a fire that spreads across humanity.
As you consider the story in your next podcast or the article you are reading. How it made you feel and how it drove you to share it or not. Did it bring you to anger because it went against your values? Did it compel you to argue against it? Did it compel you to share it and argue for it?
The things that come to into your view and awaken energies that you never knew you had. What strikes you like a bolt of lightning in one direction or the other. It comes across as words.
I am my destroyer and I am my savior. If I take action on the words, I can find myself in a position of destitution or deliverance.
This is our truth. This is YOUR truth.
Thank you for taking time to read this.. I hope that you can see how important you are and that your decisions and your thinking have an impact on all of us. The call to action is .. to break out of your matrix..
Disclaimer: NO AI used.. these are my opinions not that of a machine.