BARVENNON.COM
AUSTRALIAN DIARY
JUNE 2011
DATA
Data is the name used here as a catchall for any information transfer
between people. The technology for transmission of data started
with the development of speech, then
evolved through handwriting, printing presses,
radio, movies, television and the internet. Each of these
advances produced a geometric increase in the ratio of originator
nodes to receptors and a corresponding
decrease in the absolute importance of any new "star"
originators. In the sense that Socrates, Shakespeare, Chaplin
& Gandhi are
"stars".
There is a new evolution. Sarah Palin has made us
notice. Barak used it, but
nobody in the media really commented, so nobody over 35
noticed. I
read lots of media and connect with electronic media. Mostly I
read Murdoch press and listen to shock jocks and watch "Sunrise" on 7
and download Drudge. I follow those media because I grew up with
that type of media. I follow those flavors because they seem to
have the least amount of editorial interference with the reporting of
facts.
I find Facebook mildly annoying, and have never attempted
to connect with Twitter. Mostly because I don't want to
be a twit, which was an extremely derogatory term when I was
young.
Anyhow, back to Palin. She is touring and totally avoiding "The
Media" to the point that first grade journalists have the greatest
difficulty even finding her. When they did after much diligent
detective work manage to track her down they were extremely disparaging
of her campaign calling it "disorganized" and similar. It got me
to thinking. Murdoch noticed it five years ago when he complained
that "nobody over 30 reads newspapers". The star system is
falling apart. The liberal bias instilled by the boomers is
sticking in everyone's craw. The new paradigm is what we are
labeling "viral".
Our
culture
has
metamorphosed.
This
is
the
sign of the collapse of
capitalism.
Maybe you think that is extreme? Consider. In the new
world, what can you not buy with money? The answer is control of
data flows. That is why the power elite is so frightened by
Julian Assange.
"Dataism" is the new economic paradigm. Dataism is an economic
system based where those who have the power to collect, organise,
analyse, generate and
deliver
data are the wealthy. That is what Twitter, Facebook and Google
do.
It is a cultural progression. First
was control of land by sword. We called it Feudalism. Then
came control of gold which came to be called
Capitalism. Military
power could not control wealth generation, which is why commercial
nations prevailed over feudal nations. The
new
wealth
is
data
flows
and
those that liberate data flows will prevail over commercial
nations. It is the next step to a laissez faire economy.
One of the driving forces of the new revolution is high level abuse of
data
control. Recent examples are the Serbian Ratvan, (who, due to
ambitious World Court prosecutors has already been found guilty
by the classical media) the FIFA World Cup going to Qatar (even before
the
recent scandal it was obviously determined by bribery).
FURTHER EXAMPLES
The "Big Ideas" forum
at Sydney university had a talk recently on spreading
health messages "virally". When the first speaker defined
"virally" I realized that he was describing a meme. When the
second speaker talked about the Autism-Inoculation alarmists, I felt
like pointing out that these alarmists are identical to the global
warming alarmists and save the whales alarmists etc. etc. They
are examples of an old meme (the "alarmist" meme) that has a new &
more vigorous life due to social media.
The
"alarmist meme" is the infection of naive minds with an alarming
situation.
Wesley used it (The fear of Hell). Hitler used it (Need for
Lebensraum).
Lenin and McCarthy used it.
There is always an underlying
truth. Carbon Dioxide probably does increase global
temperature.
Inoculations may well produce increased autism.
However the damage that would be done to mankind if we followed the
"alarmists" prescriptions would in total be far greater than the damage
that would be done if we followed the advice put by the so called
"deniers". Are the thousands saved from Autism worth the millions
dead of Measles? Are the tens of thousands saved from the heat
death, or forced to abandon their waterfront homes worth more than the
millions of children in third world countries who would die of
starvation to provide ethanol for transport, or because carbon taxes
mean fertilizers can
no longer be applied for food production?
The real experts, not the Economists and
Paleontologists, but the
Doctors and Engineers who protect mankind's health and keep our
technological civilization
operating know this. Unfortunately the alarmist meme easily
overwhelms the stodgy "parental" meme of those who know.
The only way to fight the alarmist meme is with a stronger meme, such
as that described here.
It
is
why
Tony Abbott is making progress. Unfortunately, it is not a
meme that is likely to find favour with any of the political class.
WIKILEAKS
Kristinn Hraffnsson of Wikileaks spoke to a largely hostile audience of
what mostly seemed to be Liberal journalists at Sydney University on
17th June. Most of the audience seemed to think that journalists
were in a special relationship with governments and had a right and
duty to keep secrets from the public. This was apparent from the
jeers when Kristinn quoted Rupert Murdoch to the effect that truth wins
out over secrecy. The audience seemed to think that he was being
ironic.
Chair was the brass (Editor?) from SMH.
On that day Matt Drudge cited UCLA Professor Tim Groseclose as stating
that Washington correspondents vote 97% Democratic, and that
Drudgereport is 53% liberal. Rupert Murdoch has been quoted that
"nobody under 30 reads newspapers".
I am not surprised by either statistic. Murdoch's Australian is
less biased than the SMH. That is easily proven. The
Australian usually carries nearly three times as many news items as
appear in the Herald. About one third of it's content is mostly
what the SMH also publishes, the other two thirds is "non liberal" news
that the SMH apparently did not think was newsworthy.
So that is why I do not buy SMH. It is too selective in what it
prints. And having heard their boss's views on what should not be
published, I now also know why.
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