It is so easy to think 'if we could just fix this one problem the whole country and the whole world often, would be a better place. Like preventing the war in Vietnam would have saved the mahogany forests from millions of shrapnel fragments, 3 million Vietnamese from dying, and the US economy might have stayed in the positive for a lot longer. And a lot of ex military would not have PTSD (I know one). But it is depressing to think about things that have gone wrong and it doesn't give a direction to move in.
JFK Commencement Address at American University, Washington - June 10 1963 "Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other."
Post 2 related to Russia in particular, the preceding paragraph is: "No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements--in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage."
On a very positive note: the Internet allows half of the world's population to benefit from the wisdom of people ancient and modern And how to do things more efficiently and with less waste. Last week I looked up how to fix someone's car. Today I heard some advice from Tom Bilyeu and worked out how to solve one of the big problems I'm having right now.
Modern medicine is likely the only reason I'm alive today a couple of times over. In the 20+ years since I almost kicked the bucket, I've witnessed modern technology create wonders in my home. I had a beeper. Now I have a Samsung smart phone that can double as a PC when plugged into a hub. I had a 36" 480i CRT TV that weighed 220 lbs. 75" 4K LED that weighs about 75lbs now. I had a dial up modem with access to the internet using a service called NetZero. Now I have about 200 Mbps cable modem and wireless throughout the house that can stream 4K to multiple TV sets simultaneously.
That's a reference to Marvin the paranoid android, with a brain the size of a planet, featured in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He was created in England hence the Old World Earth is shown first.
The Internet which is the size of the planet means people can research to see which of several opinions is correct. But most people here ignore the facts and stick with their first opinion, hence my deduction that 'he who lies first lies best'.
The first thing many of the US public heard was an announcement by Joe Liar Biden On Feb 24th 2022 Joe Biden stated: "Sorry to keep you waiting The Russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of Ukraine without provocation, without justification, without necessity. This is a premeditated attack" Joe couldn't get NATO to back him because Jens Stoltenberg said: "Ukraine Soldiers the war started in 2014". Jens may have been referring to the CIA orchestrated overthrow of the government of Ukraine in Feb 2014, or starting the low level bombardment of Donetsk in October 2014, which continued until the 'aid' sent over by the US reached the front lines and it became a high intensity bombardment on Feb 19th 2022. I haven't found any source to verify the stuff Joe was reading off the teleprompter.
Stuff we get right - The Internet is to me is our biggest achievement. Like the TARDIS it can allow us to see things in other places, though just on this planet and only a bit about places outside it. And it can go back in time a certain amount. So it is wonderful.
I feel like the internet is a blessing and a curse, and humanity's grip on it is still in the teenager stage.
The Internet can provide superficial joy through 'cat videos' and that includes toddlers learning to speak in mumbo jumbo conversations. The Internet also brings many top world experts to anyone interested in any given topic. What a lot of people want is conformity, and for the Internet to provide only the US/UK government supplied information as the Mainstream Media promotes.
I think I like the internet because it makes it impossible for government to control the way people see national and world events. Government propaganda has become ineffective, especially among the younger generations. Good riddance.
Yes, somewhat less effective among the younger generation, but most people usually believe the news, including the crap Joe Biden said on Feb 24 2022, - even though so much of it could be easily disproven. Basic to it I'll guess is the US public don't think it matters. There's a big ocean on each coast, trees to the North and desert with cacti to the South, so what does it matter to us?
The US public is impaled on both horns of the dilemma - 1. The US public won't put any effort into understanding what is going on in a war. If in 2022 Joe Biden says Russia is starting a war, the public believes it. If NATO states the war started in 2014, the public ignores that. Because it doesn't matter. 2 The US is geographically isolated, but is planned to spend 842 billion dollars on our offensive capability, not including I guess the actual wars we are involved in. So we are both perfectly safe but also want to blow a fortune on weapons we can use to attack other countries, and weapons we are currently using to attack other countries, to make us even safer. And we believe the govt on that but don't spend the time to verify the stuff the govt says because we are completely safe so it just doesn't matter. but we feel afraid enough to spend a fortune on weapons that can't be used for actual real defense (posse comitatus)
The oldest generation that still gets the vast majority of their news from big corporate media is dying off. The internet offers us a new world where government loses its monopoly on truth. And they're freaking out about it. Without new media? I don't think Donald Trump could have won in 2016. If he wins 2024 I credit the Internet. Hilarious that the new CEO of tax subsidized NPR tells us (I infer) that getting as many people buying the government narrative, even if false, is more important than the truth.
A very interesting point. Back in the days of broadcast TV and lots of newspapers, there was in general only one narrative. Walter Cronkite was definitive, also David Brinkley, so everyone believed the same thing - Unity. It was often wrong, but did that really matter?
did it really matter? no. is it any different now? no. we knew we were being lied to then and anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together knows we're being lied to now. we simply have a variety of lies to choose from these days. the media, whether it is broadcast news or internet bloggers, is selling us a product and they are going to shape that product to suit their target audience. it's about marketing, not information. gathering information is a labor intensive affair and the average consumer is far too lazy to do more than swallow what they are given. face it folks, we all know biden isn't actually a senile shell of a man. shell, yes - senile, no. we also know trump isn't some criminal master-mind, intent on tearing down our government and installing himself as god-emperor. he may be a bit of an egotistical blowhard and not necessarily a moral paragon, but he is no less honest than the rest of the political animals we have running the show. there are a series of rather obvious truths like these that we choose to ignore in order to alleviate that nagging suspicion that our own individual political ideologies are shallow and ill-informed. we now have an overabundance of choices in news that allows us all to delude ourselves into believing our own biases are the correct biases.
