Definitely Rambling Now

 

Moving on from the post before the last post, not the bugle tune, the post on here before this one, depending on whether I publish this now or hold off and publish something else before this or indeed if I remove the intervening post such that I'm talking about the last post but still not the bugle tune.

Given the medium via which this new form media is being distributed that causes such dissatisfaction with everything that has been normal for a few decades (I wanted to say longer but I realised that today's old media and the forms of democracy that exist in the west are not very old at all, not really!) we must explore, ok I must, what possible motive might anyone have for allowing or perpetuating this breakdown of trust of the old.

Well, it's simple (to me at least), especially if you fancy a good old fashioned conspiracy theory.

Consider where we see these stories that make us question or simply disbelieve all the politicians and all the old media that has been the staple of modern living for, erm, a few years. This new breed of stories exist in the new(ish) social media mediums. And who controls them? A very small band of ultra wealthy individuals that have absolutely no interest in elected office. But they don't need to be elected, now do they.

If they permit these stories to perpetuate causing ever greater numbers of people to question the elected officials, or even the totalitarian leaders, then democracies will decay and ultimately fail. But that will not suffice unless the totalitarian regimes can also be toppled otherwise if western democracy broke down on its own then totalitarian governments would make a land grab and the puppet masters that are permitting the stories causing increasing distrust of yesterdays governance and information would be co-opted into the totalitarian states, or more likely... executed! And that could be one outcome.

Alternatively, if the new, would be rulers of the world, manage to also destabilise the totalitarian states such that people in those states also distrust their leadership and the information sources. Then the world is ripe for the picking.

Just as these social networks allow the dissemination of stories targeted ever more carefully at the people most likely to believe and propagate them, they can also disseminate stories about who should be trusted, what should happen, who should be allowed to determine what is right, what is wrong. And once the old leadership class and the media that came with it has been consigned to history and is completely distrusted, despised and irrelevant. Then, the story will be controlled to determine what we should believe. 

As time goes by, we will be targeted on ever more minute ways, as individuals but individuals who have lost the freedom to be individualistic because we are now being controlled by the new puppet masters. 

Not that we weren't before but the new puppet masters will cut the old puppet masters strings just like Chinese fighting kites and then the new puppet masters will have control. 

You might say, whoa, hold up a second matey, we have elected governments and they won't allow such things. You can say that until you are blue in the face, so to speak. So hold on to your hats coz here we go...

The truth is, and granted you have to take your pick of what is true and what is my fevered imagination here, that control was relinquished years ago. 

The social media companies often take a step forward without asking and sometimes a government will say, wait, hold on, we need to consider that before we go any further. But the step was already taken and it can be hard to force back because social media and networks are fast, almost instantaneous and government and bureaucracy, certainly in a democracy, is very slow. 

So by the time a decision has been taken on that step that caused alarm, a few dozen more have already been taken and the step first taken is now seem as somewhat normal and acceptable to a degree and might be impossible to force back. 

So the governments that objected, or thought they did and wanted to think about it are a bit stuck, so they impose a fine and some guidelines about that first step and the fine seems massive but is tiny compared to the revenues earned from the step taken and the guidelines are easily accepted and agreed to, although they won't be, because the original step in question has long since been superseded by those many other steps that occurred afterwards. And so the cycle will go on. 

Until my original hypothesis comes to pass.

But the totalitarian regimes will not be so easily turned. They long ago foresaw the possibility and potential for such things are the biggest of these have done all they can to stir up trouble while at the same time having implemented theoretical, possibly actual, hard breaks in their countrywide networks to prevent the outside world getting in. Or indeed allowing awkward information getting out.

But who is really in control. The totalitarians states thinking they are aiding in the break down of western democracies and values for their own ends or the new puppet masters? After all, the puppet masters that allow the stories that stir up discontent with today's western democratic institutions and the media that runs alongside them either do so for a reason or they are simply Nihilists. Maybe they are.

I'm more inclined to believe they really do have a plan and they have a plan for dealing with the totalitarian states as well. I guess we will find out in a generation or so. I am pretty sure the basis of control will be an old fashioned one, greed. They will play upon our collective greed for want of all the things we see others have on social media. And then use it against us. That's my (conspiratorial) theory anyway.

As a slight deviation, in October 2003, Concorde was retired from service. The one extraordinary thing about this, apart from being a little sad that those majestic aircraft whos engine noise no longer penetrated the triple glazed office windows at precisely 11am every day were no longer flying. Apart from that, the extraordinary thing is, it is, as far as I am aware, the only time in history of technological evolution that mankind has determined to take a technological step back. Maybe it was only a stuttering step back but a step back it was and, as of now, is. 

I'd use that as a forecasting template for all technology if I were you. Steps back are very rare and unlikely. Genies are released. Get used to it!