I was reminded of a quote from the wonderful BBC adaptation of Delderfield's 'To Serve Them All My Days' where David Powlett-Jones, a firebrand Welsh left winger teaching in an English public school, told his pupils that the account of the war (WW1) being fought then would be determined by the winners.
This leads to an exercise in determining exactly who the winners are to be in such a position where they could control the flow of information and why?
I previous mentioned Stephen Hawking and his 2010 proclamation that 'philosophy is dead' meaning that observable evidence would play second fiddle to the opinions of those immersed in academic discipline. This of course leads to many thoughts and questions, notably about Hawking himself. But the main point is that Hawking appeared to be calling for something akin to the pre renaisssance when clergymen held a monopoly on the narrative (from God) and therefore all challenges to this would be deemed blasphemous and antecedents to extreme punishment, as Galileo discovered when explaining the Copernican theory
I think this was on display more recently during covid where a collaboration of the political, media and medical establishment tried to prevent a counter narrative emerging (for our own good). Censorship of mainstream social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube gave rise to alternative platforms like Rumble, Odysee, Bitchute, Substack and X (post the Elon Musk takeover of Twitter)
Your conclusion of this superb piece is entirely correct and echoes something Margaret Thatcher said which was essentially with freedom comes responsibility.
It is most important that counter claims have substance to back them up as establishment pawns aren't very good at debate beyond their scripts
But as the modern day Gutenberg Press replaces mainstream media, and Jacinda Ardern's demand that the people 'go to the government for accurate information' becomes a historical footnote, expect increasing non compliance from people in response to further attempts of control and censorship
I edited out the section I wrote about Covid to respect the new word count that readers requested. My observation was that experts in virology, economics and mental health all recognised their expertise and demanded a particular action. They did not soften or change their view in the light of others' expertise.
The political leaders at the time chose to hide behind the virologists. This is precisely the fear of the unknown and the worst case scenario that makes them panic about AI. No one seems to realise that competing with the US and China to make your country safer from AI, entrenches the control those countries have over the technology.
As an addendum re the EU referendum and in agreement with the government use of fear to try and uphold the status quo, the best speech by far in 2016 for the Leave campaign was not Farage or Gove or even Johnson hitching onto the bandwagon, largely because none of them seemed to know where the vote split was!
No it was the 1975 Oxford Union address by Peter Shore because
a) he was a man of the left when Labour notionally cared about the working class
b) even then he said the aim was a federal Europe, which was borne out by the subsequent treaties and
c) he said the government would rely on fear in its campaign to remain
I was reminded of a quote from the wonderful BBC adaptation of Delderfield's 'To Serve Them All My Days' where David Powlett-Jones, a firebrand Welsh left winger teaching in an English public school, told his pupils that the account of the war (WW1) being fought then would be determined by the winners.
This leads to an exercise in determining exactly who the winners are to be in such a position where they could control the flow of information and why?
I previous mentioned Stephen Hawking and his 2010 proclamation that 'philosophy is dead' meaning that observable evidence would play second fiddle to the opinions of those immersed in academic discipline. This of course leads to many thoughts and questions, notably about Hawking himself. But the main point is that Hawking appeared to be calling for something akin to the pre renaisssance when clergymen held a monopoly on the narrative (from God) and therefore all challenges to this would be deemed blasphemous and antecedents to extreme punishment, as Galileo discovered when explaining the Copernican theory
I think this was on display more recently during covid where a collaboration of the political, media and medical establishment tried to prevent a counter narrative emerging (for our own good). Censorship of mainstream social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube gave rise to alternative platforms like Rumble, Odysee, Bitchute, Substack and X (post the Elon Musk takeover of Twitter)
Your conclusion of this superb piece is entirely correct and echoes something Margaret Thatcher said which was essentially with freedom comes responsibility.
It is most important that counter claims have substance to back them up as establishment pawns aren't very good at debate beyond their scripts
But as the modern day Gutenberg Press replaces mainstream media, and Jacinda Ardern's demand that the people 'go to the government for accurate information' becomes a historical footnote, expect increasing non compliance from people in response to further attempts of control and censorship
https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111that.html
Thank you John.
I edited out the section I wrote about Covid to respect the new word count that readers requested. My observation was that experts in virology, economics and mental health all recognised their expertise and demanded a particular action. They did not soften or change their view in the light of others' expertise.
The political leaders at the time chose to hide behind the virologists. This is precisely the fear of the unknown and the worst case scenario that makes them panic about AI. No one seems to realise that competing with the US and China to make your country safer from AI, entrenches the control those countries have over the technology.
We will reap the whirlwind of ignorance, both over AI and Net Zero. Michael Taylor had an excellent piece about the latter today https://open.substack.com/pub/mjtcoldwater/p/is-miliband-mad?
https://youtu.be/wd7NzQgHLn8?si=-086MPg7VfRhFozj
As an addendum re the EU referendum and in agreement with the government use of fear to try and uphold the status quo, the best speech by far in 2016 for the Leave campaign was not Farage or Gove or even Johnson hitching onto the bandwagon, largely because none of them seemed to know where the vote split was!
No it was the 1975 Oxford Union address by Peter Shore because
a) he was a man of the left when Labour notionally cared about the working class
b) even then he said the aim was a federal Europe, which was borne out by the subsequent treaties and
c) he said the government would rely on fear in its campaign to remain