Absolutely. People follow the trend and the incentives, and may even reinforce them through a kind of perverse feedback loop. But this begs the question: Where do the trend/incentives come from originally? Answer: they are set by 'signals' and punishment/rewards that come from above - once those are in place, people fall into line.
It is in this sense that we can 'blame' the people: they (we) are too gullible and too afraid to challenge a (manufactured) mainstream view and a small subset may even become willing enforcers. But claiming the people was at the origin of the 'mania' is, from where I stand, very, very incorrect.
This started many moons ago as we were all transitioned from confident self reliant individuals to individuals in fear seeking a protector. Frank Furedi covers this well in his book How Fear Works. The explosion of the Internet and social media has just put this on steroids and become the ultimate force multiplier. We are constantly flooded with messages of fear and danger which excites our limbic system and then our hardwired instincts take over. Once this happens rational thinking gets thrown overboard and the masses fall victim to hysteria. Yes, we as a society are to blame as history has documented this and shown us the dangers and we continually fail to learn from this. With that said, those with influence know how to play this game and play it well (look at the nudging scandal in the UK). What was done was successful because it tapped into our oldest psychological component and I doubt that was just dumb luck.
Yes the public 'allowed' the tyranny, but Steve you only touch on the edge of the problem, that being 'how did that happen'? It wouldn't have happened 40 years ago, the public would never had tolerated such abuse of political power, and politicians 40 years ago would not have behaved so poorly BECAUSE they knew the public would not have tolerated it. Yes everything you list needs to happen, but IMO you should also be focusing your spot light on what it was that has, in the space of a few decades, turned the public into mindless sheep to such an extent they amount to little more than lemmings of a cliff, and willing to through their young off first?
I tend to think that the majority of governmental agencies, the entire administrative state let's call it, are overall too inept to pull off a concerted effort as such. I speak for America, but it's likely generalizable. So in that sense I tend to agree more with Steve. But I do think that all of what began in let's say, 2014 in the Academy, in which widespread cancel culture began to spread and proliferate was a critical point. About this same period we had the insane time leading up to the election of Trump, fast forward to the next election in which we elected a person who basically ran a campaign from his basement and all that has ensued since then.
So it's hard to not ask, what happened to civil disobedience, protests not DURING covid (June 2020) but ABOUT covid policy? Where were all the college students? Yes, I get it, the overall culture of fear that existed. Yes, there was the GB proclamation but look at the news even today. We're STILL masking toddlers in some of our blue cities. Why aren't we unsubscribing en masse to NTY, CNN etc etc. If we don't like that the legacy press is essentially a part of the DNC and that Pfizer seems to hold a de facto cabinet post, we can not buy their products, not read what they put out, not use their vaccines. But it does seem that at some point we have to organize and let our voices be heard, in the streets peacefully and at the ballot box.
Aug 19, 2022·edited Aug 19, 2022Liked by Steve Templeton, PhD.
In a spiritual way, yes. In a material way, no.
In a spiritual sense, the universe is 100% cooperative. Therefore, everything that happens, happens with collective agreement. Therefore, fundamentally, good exists, without there being evil. Everything that appears to us as evil is (spiritually!) a method, a mechanism, a means to an end, an act. People who are likely to play "evil" acts agree to do so in advance, and so do their potential victims.
In the practical world, however, we don't let a murderer go because the murder was spiritually ordained, and the victim probably agreed (or even wanted it) on a spiritual level.
In a spiritual sense, humanity was "asking for this" because we are hopelessly foolish, sleepwalking, gullible, compliant, lazy, cowardly, and naïve. Those are qualities that do not lend themselves to healthy growth. They lend themselves to pathological manipulation. A lesson therefore had to be taught, and a lesson like this involves consequences and suffering. The suffering may be great, because the foolish qualities are great. But the suffering is no greater than needed.
With that being said, there are definite perpetrators who are playing out the role of psychopathic manipulators, and the end game is for those perpetrators to arrive at justice, in the same way that we do not let murderers go. In the spiritual, we are at fault. But in the physical, specific people "did" this.
Aug 20, 2022·edited Aug 20, 2022Liked by Steve Templeton, PhD.
Thank you for the excellent column.
Concentrated ownership and control of our mass media and social media meant we did not hear multiple perspectives, but just the ones that promoted panic and irrational behaviors. Some sources claim 90% of our media by viewership is owned by just 6 companies.
We now know that our federal government officials actively leaned on social media platforms like Twitter to censor or deplatform journalists who disagreed with CDC and FDA Recommendations. We know our media was largely funded by federal government and pharmaceutical advertising.
We need a technological solution for decentralized social media that makes it impossible to censor, so we can hear multiple perspectives, especially in times of mass panic.
The prep work was contained in Event 201 that in essence created the Trusted News Initiative where media agreed to silence dissent, worldwide. Event 201 related to a pandemic with a much higher IFR than SARS-2. But once the wheel was set in motion it became nearly hard to stop and is only now slowing.
This presumes the state of the public is a perfect representation of human nature and not an engineered state-of-being created by economic distortions, unraveling of the social fabric, and mass media propaganda.
Many pre-covid trends (censorship, lack of transparency, 'scientism, ect) start to appear more like *preparations* than mere accidents or organic developments.
It's foolish, or outright negligent to dismiss the idea of a 'mastermind' (or group) when there are many with the means, motive, and history.
Yes, certainly large groups of people helped pushed the culture to where it was. It's certainly debatable who's most responsible for that. A lot of other things played a role, though, like unprecendented wealth, instant access to information, increased social isolation, loss of civic institutions, etc.
Fully agree that every individual must take responsibility for their choices, for the information they consume and what they agree to. However, what of the information being provided via legacy media if it is in full cahoots with those determined to capture perception? To suggest there was no 'mastermind' is to ignore the clear consolidation of a small group, globally, behind the coordination of the Covid scam, it is short-sighted and ignores the nearly uniform response, (many countries rewrote their emergency plans just prior to) . The suppression of treatments, the censoring of information, the same hands involved wherever you look - WEF, BMGF, WHO - etc make it quite clear there was absolutely a collective mastermind who decided on one solution in advance and who despite the plethora of data that tells us the vax should have been pulled by now, continues to lie and covers up the truth with the full aid of the media. Not to mention, as Dr. Yeadon points out - that 3 companies deciding on the same protein to replicate in their 'vaccine' (and its being the most dangerous one, the spike) also suggests coordination. To suggest this happened outside of a consolidated directive force is to miss many connective dots. IMO.
I look in the mirror and see someone who railed against this insanity from the start — lockdowns, coercion, mandates, fear propaganda, school closures, the whole catastrophe — and I’m also one of the population that has voted against continued government expansion my whole life, without any success obviously; democracy is unfortunately failing us in ways that are too big to address in a comments section.
I accept no blame, and I will continue to be as angry as hell at the elites who did so much damage in such a short amount of time. Yes, reform everything we can, but good luck with that, history tells us that governments and other “trans global” organisations are increasingly imposing themselves on little people like me who just want them out of my life as much as is possible.
You, fortunately, are not alone. Many have turned to alternate media to express themselves. Our hopes are leaking out along with a strong dose of truth.
It's partially true. I hate to make this simple but it's human stupidity and especially American stupidity. The reason the swedes avoided this is because they didn't fall into the typical American mindset , which is "it's a war on X". When you treat things like a war, then lying becomes acceptable ("the first casualty of war is the truth" - Aeschylus), and organizing military like suppression of free speech etc also suddenly seems reasonable. Over reacting is simply overwhelming force, which is a good thing. After all, it's a war. Can't let those traitors speak freely. Even a week ago Fauci made a statement about "the fog of war". This was the problem. Americans cannot do anything without acting like "it's a war", and of course, the Chinese government demonstrated that locking down in a massive military operation was the way to go. Sure, subsequently there were the typical human pressures of money and corruption and definitely Pfizer has a major interest in boosting everyone as frequently as humanly possible (or more frequently), but ultimately, the American mindset of militarization (the war on terror...the war on drugs etc) is responsible.
While I realize culpability of the masses in complying with totalitarian solutions to a "germ situation" we all should have learned about in biology class, the full court press by "powers that be" tells me otherwise. To cancel the truth tellers, to threaten the livelihoods of and silence those physicians saying, "Wait, WHAAT?", to demonize early treatment with safe off-label therapies in the ambulatory stage, to disseminate harmful in hospital protocols in "top-down-this-is-what-the-cdc binder says", all prior medical logic be damned, PHONY studies in JAMA and Lancet, that later needed to be retracted,... the list goes on. Following the money and the evil schemes to deceive the people into mind-numbing confusion and fear help me see my way out of this rabbit hole.
Disagree to a certain extent. Follow the money and you will find where the coordination comes from.
Absolutely. People follow the trend and the incentives, and may even reinforce them through a kind of perverse feedback loop. But this begs the question: Where do the trend/incentives come from originally? Answer: they are set by 'signals' and punishment/rewards that come from above - once those are in place, people fall into line.
It is in this sense that we can 'blame' the people: they (we) are too gullible and too afraid to challenge a (manufactured) mainstream view and a small subset may even become willing enforcers. But claiming the people was at the origin of the 'mania' is, from where I stand, very, very incorrect.
This started many moons ago as we were all transitioned from confident self reliant individuals to individuals in fear seeking a protector. Frank Furedi covers this well in his book How Fear Works. The explosion of the Internet and social media has just put this on steroids and become the ultimate force multiplier. We are constantly flooded with messages of fear and danger which excites our limbic system and then our hardwired instincts take over. Once this happens rational thinking gets thrown overboard and the masses fall victim to hysteria. Yes, we as a society are to blame as history has documented this and shown us the dangers and we continually fail to learn from this. With that said, those with influence know how to play this game and play it well (look at the nudging scandal in the UK). What was done was successful because it tapped into our oldest psychological component and I doubt that was just dumb luck.
Mattias Desmet is really good on this topic. He has a new book out named The Psychology of Totalitarianism.
As a Canadian, i saw this with my own eyes and ears. We DEMANDED it. They are still sleeping here. For the most part.
Yes the public 'allowed' the tyranny, but Steve you only touch on the edge of the problem, that being 'how did that happen'? It wouldn't have happened 40 years ago, the public would never had tolerated such abuse of political power, and politicians 40 years ago would not have behaved so poorly BECAUSE they knew the public would not have tolerated it. Yes everything you list needs to happen, but IMO you should also be focusing your spot light on what it was that has, in the space of a few decades, turned the public into mindless sheep to such an extent they amount to little more than lemmings of a cliff, and willing to through their young off first?
It was a cultural shift. A disastrous one.
Very courageous to actually speak (write) it out! Thank you. We, the 'sheeple' did let it happen, and are now reacting too late and too slow.
I tend to think that the majority of governmental agencies, the entire administrative state let's call it, are overall too inept to pull off a concerted effort as such. I speak for America, but it's likely generalizable. So in that sense I tend to agree more with Steve. But I do think that all of what began in let's say, 2014 in the Academy, in which widespread cancel culture began to spread and proliferate was a critical point. About this same period we had the insane time leading up to the election of Trump, fast forward to the next election in which we elected a person who basically ran a campaign from his basement and all that has ensued since then.
So it's hard to not ask, what happened to civil disobedience, protests not DURING covid (June 2020) but ABOUT covid policy? Where were all the college students? Yes, I get it, the overall culture of fear that existed. Yes, there was the GB proclamation but look at the news even today. We're STILL masking toddlers in some of our blue cities. Why aren't we unsubscribing en masse to NTY, CNN etc etc. If we don't like that the legacy press is essentially a part of the DNC and that Pfizer seems to hold a de facto cabinet post, we can not buy their products, not read what they put out, not use their vaccines. But it does seem that at some point we have to organize and let our voices be heard, in the streets peacefully and at the ballot box.
Thanks Steve, a provocative and thoughtful piece.
In a spiritual way, yes. In a material way, no.
In a spiritual sense, the universe is 100% cooperative. Therefore, everything that happens, happens with collective agreement. Therefore, fundamentally, good exists, without there being evil. Everything that appears to us as evil is (spiritually!) a method, a mechanism, a means to an end, an act. People who are likely to play "evil" acts agree to do so in advance, and so do their potential victims.
In the practical world, however, we don't let a murderer go because the murder was spiritually ordained, and the victim probably agreed (or even wanted it) on a spiritual level.
In a spiritual sense, humanity was "asking for this" because we are hopelessly foolish, sleepwalking, gullible, compliant, lazy, cowardly, and naïve. Those are qualities that do not lend themselves to healthy growth. They lend themselves to pathological manipulation. A lesson therefore had to be taught, and a lesson like this involves consequences and suffering. The suffering may be great, because the foolish qualities are great. But the suffering is no greater than needed.
With that being said, there are definite perpetrators who are playing out the role of psychopathic manipulators, and the end game is for those perpetrators to arrive at justice, in the same way that we do not let murderers go. In the spiritual, we are at fault. But in the physical, specific people "did" this.
Thank you for the excellent column.
Concentrated ownership and control of our mass media and social media meant we did not hear multiple perspectives, but just the ones that promoted panic and irrational behaviors. Some sources claim 90% of our media by viewership is owned by just 6 companies.
We now know that our federal government officials actively leaned on social media platforms like Twitter to censor or deplatform journalists who disagreed with CDC and FDA Recommendations. We know our media was largely funded by federal government and pharmaceutical advertising.
We need a technological solution for decentralized social media that makes it impossible to censor, so we can hear multiple perspectives, especially in times of mass panic.
The prep work was contained in Event 201 that in essence created the Trusted News Initiative where media agreed to silence dissent, worldwide. Event 201 related to a pandemic with a much higher IFR than SARS-2. But once the wheel was set in motion it became nearly hard to stop and is only now slowing.
This presumes the state of the public is a perfect representation of human nature and not an engineered state-of-being created by economic distortions, unraveling of the social fabric, and mass media propaganda.
Many pre-covid trends (censorship, lack of transparency, 'scientism, ect) start to appear more like *preparations* than mere accidents or organic developments.
It's foolish, or outright negligent to dismiss the idea of a 'mastermind' (or group) when there are many with the means, motive, and history.
Yes, certainly large groups of people helped pushed the culture to where it was. It's certainly debatable who's most responsible for that. A lot of other things played a role, though, like unprecendented wealth, instant access to information, increased social isolation, loss of civic institutions, etc.
Your wrong! There were therapeutics that worked. They were suppressed on purpose.
Excactly Helene - that are 2 dozen reasons that it was an orchestrated campaign master minded across the globe.
Your wrong! There were therapeutics that worked. They were suppressed on purpose.
Pfizer is spending billions to make hundreds of billions. That’s all you need to know. Pfizer is the Death Star in this movie.
Fully agree that every individual must take responsibility for their choices, for the information they consume and what they agree to. However, what of the information being provided via legacy media if it is in full cahoots with those determined to capture perception? To suggest there was no 'mastermind' is to ignore the clear consolidation of a small group, globally, behind the coordination of the Covid scam, it is short-sighted and ignores the nearly uniform response, (many countries rewrote their emergency plans just prior to) . The suppression of treatments, the censoring of information, the same hands involved wherever you look - WEF, BMGF, WHO - etc make it quite clear there was absolutely a collective mastermind who decided on one solution in advance and who despite the plethora of data that tells us the vax should have been pulled by now, continues to lie and covers up the truth with the full aid of the media. Not to mention, as Dr. Yeadon points out - that 3 companies deciding on the same protein to replicate in their 'vaccine' (and its being the most dangerous one, the spike) also suggests coordination. To suggest this happened outside of a consolidated directive force is to miss many connective dots. IMO.
I look in the mirror and see someone who railed against this insanity from the start — lockdowns, coercion, mandates, fear propaganda, school closures, the whole catastrophe — and I’m also one of the population that has voted against continued government expansion my whole life, without any success obviously; democracy is unfortunately failing us in ways that are too big to address in a comments section.
I accept no blame, and I will continue to be as angry as hell at the elites who did so much damage in such a short amount of time. Yes, reform everything we can, but good luck with that, history tells us that governments and other “trans global” organisations are increasingly imposing themselves on little people like me who just want them out of my life as much as is possible.
You, fortunately, are not alone. Many have turned to alternate media to express themselves. Our hopes are leaking out along with a strong dose of truth.
It's partially true. I hate to make this simple but it's human stupidity and especially American stupidity. The reason the swedes avoided this is because they didn't fall into the typical American mindset , which is "it's a war on X". When you treat things like a war, then lying becomes acceptable ("the first casualty of war is the truth" - Aeschylus), and organizing military like suppression of free speech etc also suddenly seems reasonable. Over reacting is simply overwhelming force, which is a good thing. After all, it's a war. Can't let those traitors speak freely. Even a week ago Fauci made a statement about "the fog of war". This was the problem. Americans cannot do anything without acting like "it's a war", and of course, the Chinese government demonstrated that locking down in a massive military operation was the way to go. Sure, subsequently there were the typical human pressures of money and corruption and definitely Pfizer has a major interest in boosting everyone as frequently as humanly possible (or more frequently), but ultimately, the American mindset of militarization (the war on terror...the war on drugs etc) is responsible.
While I realize culpability of the masses in complying with totalitarian solutions to a "germ situation" we all should have learned about in biology class, the full court press by "powers that be" tells me otherwise. To cancel the truth tellers, to threaten the livelihoods of and silence those physicians saying, "Wait, WHAAT?", to demonize early treatment with safe off-label therapies in the ambulatory stage, to disseminate harmful in hospital protocols in "top-down-this-is-what-the-cdc binder says", all prior medical logic be damned, PHONY studies in JAMA and Lancet, that later needed to be retracted,... the list goes on. Following the money and the evil schemes to deceive the people into mind-numbing confusion and fear help me see my way out of this rabbit hole.