04 December, 2016

Critical Thought in action No.2

Fake news

Change is afoot. Brexit and Trump are good examples. The President of Europe has asked for no more in or out of the EU referendums. As he expects the voters to vote leave.

Centralised control requires most people to believe the same things. Like being in the EU is beneficial to the working man. Russia is the enemy, again. Muslims are terrorists. Immigrants are taking your jobs.

Critical Thought fractures these simple story lines into highly complex issues. So, critical thought is not what these central planners want us to do. Any website or other media outlet not repeating the same simple story lines as the governments, is now being branded as a fake news site. In America, they have doubled down on this stupidity and stated that some fake news outlets have been infiltrated by Russian Intelligence.

Unfortunately, 340 million Americans have recently endured several months of particularly hateful presidential campaigning. Many Americans are now fearful of what the Trump will do next. Mainstream media has whipped up a frenzy of anti Trump and anti Russian propaganda. A fearful human is not a critically thinking human.

Fake news sites provide an alternative view. A differing opinion. This is good. It helps to flesh out a simple story and develop it into an understanding.

Fake news, simply means something that is false. Like reporting a celebrity death when they are very much alive. However, fake news is the label applied to those websites which disagree or argue against the simple stories the government's want us to believe.

In the UK we haven't really heard much of fake news. Currently, it is very much an American thing. Which is unfortunate as America's military is evenly matched against the rest of the world. I worry that the U.S. might start WWIII with the rest of the world when we no longer accept their greenbacks in exchange for the products of our labours.

My personal critical thinking has led me to believe that the global financial crisis of 2008 was just a tremor. There may or may not be more tremors before the big one hits. The big one being a loss of confidence in fiat currencies.

Critical Thought is hard. To do it, you must be calm. Open to new ideas and ways of thinking. Warm, content and relaxed. Critical Thought is based upon logic. However, the same level of understanding can be achieved through empathy or simply understanding the human condition.

Alternative news sites are a threat to our current way of life as they encourage a wider range of views. This makes government far harder.

Government relies on us the population fully believing their simple stories and explanations. We can then easily buy in to 'their' solution. A critically thinking human does not believe the simple story or the solution. The critically thinking human is not wanted by government or those seeking ever greater centralised control and power.

Thus when a website or media outlet is said to be fake by the mainstream media, go and read or view the site and see what you think. You will encounter some very different ideas and beliefs. You may even develop your own ideas. This is good.

As an Engineer, when faced with a problem, before a solution is given all the assumptions must first be stated. Today, a great many assumptions are never discussed. As these assumptions become more detached from reality, the world sleep walks into disaster.

A quick example based upon pensions. One very large pension provider wishes to cut its forecasted growth from 7.5 to 6 percent each year. However, many are fighting against this as their premiums would rise quite dramatically. In reality, the growth has been zero for several years. What they are assuming is difficult to understand. The reality is zero growth. However, no one has suggested they down grade projected growth to anything less than six percent. Bizarre. These clowns are in charge of your future retirement. This particular set of non critical thinkers are in banking, local government and federal government. The pension fund is calpers. Most funds face similar conditions.

The underlying forgotten assumption about pensions is that pension promises are affordable as our children and grand children will be far richer than us.

Which is unfortunate because the assumption has not been realised.

Very unfortunate. Unfortunately, should enough people critically think about this, it will bring down government. All of them.

This isn't a bad thing. Sustaining the unsustainable will make the change far more painful than it needed to be. The change is inevitable. Will the catalyst be another world war or something else?

This blog is written by me and only me. I finance it. I do my own research. I have no staff. I write what I want, when I want. No one helps. No one proof reads. No one makes suggestions. I was expecting this to be revolutionary and to be killed for it. So far, nothing. Which is disappointing.

Be seeing you

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