Copying and pasting from Twitter with probably some edits. Don’t know. Haven’t done it yet. Or have I? Difficult to remember. ;D
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There’s the word problem. Is [behavioral modification] exactly slavery? If someone is hypnotized into doing something, is it? Probably not. But when you also PSYOP and [exploit] things like Ryan’s familial loss[, the death of his wife and daughter by a drunk driver]…well, did he really have a choice? [And there’s the standing question of what free will means anyway. Neuroscience tends to doubt its existence.]
[This is one of the many] hurdles when discussing something that most people either don’t believe exists, or, if they do, misunderstand. [It’s not necessarily torture and forgetting. Sometimes it’s as simple as knowing a person better than they know themselves and exploiting that. A little push. A little hurdle to make sure they turn the direction you want, or don’t turn, continue forward. And since it can work on the majority of people, the idea that a confirmed target is more dangerous than most anyone else is just fear talking. Though I wouldn’t always say “We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” it’s true much of the time.]
We can’t get regulation of things decades old now. Imagine how long we’re talking about, how many years [before people even understand the methods and means available, much less the implications. It’s a fools errand to attempt to be a regulation activist unless you’re immortal.]
And oversight. Are you kidding me? We vote. We don’t elect. Elect requires [or at least implies] a choice. [Generally speaking, candidates] are decided by moneyed interests, [and those interests] would clearly love to bring back slavery [because only the bottom line matters to them, not how they got there.]
So what, precisely, this side of mass suicidal civil war, rebellion, revolution, horrors repeated from history’s past, can possibly rectify the situation? What is supposed to be the mitigating factor? Who is supposed to utilize it? [Because, apart from a broken ‘Manchurian candidate’ mercy-killing a sick sea lion in fiction, I can think of nothing that would work. Nothing meaning that which cannot be seen, technically doesn’t exist except as some neuochemical cocktail in our brains. Yes, despite scholars stating Shakespeare referred to female anatomy as ‘nothing’ in his title including that word, I rather also think he meant love. Benedick and Beatrice clearly thought so. They’re not in love, you know.]
We’re in new territory [because it isn’t precisely slavery, just something akin to it.] Except of course science fiction [and even the Bible and other religious texts, somehow I should think, have] for decades and decades [centuries and millennia] predicted it, virtualized it [and illustrated it]. Now it’s here. What do we do?
Does it have to get unbearably bad for a majority before things get better? That’s not a very effective way to run [an elected representative] society, IMO. Dictatorships aren’t either. Neither is any flavor of what they have in Saudi Arabia. [No system is perfect. Who expects perfection? Not me. But this means totalitarianism no matter which system it operates under, Capitalism or Communism…same result: Quasi-Slavery.]
The correct solution is clearly openness. But it ceases to be as effective when it’s exposed. At least the puppet masters think so.
Truth is Russia and China probably know a whole lot more about the US version than the American public.
Which means what? It is the American [and allied] public that [the US and ‘Five Eyes’] want to hide it from.
Which in turn means what? They know [that the public] wouldn’t approve. Though the viciousness is getting so [prevalent through demonization of ones political opponents] there’s [going to] undoubtedly be a small minority saying, “So what? You served your country,” [But that] really means some rich asshole’s interests[, not the public as a whole. While it might sometimes be true that helping the rich helps the economy and all of us–eg, trickle down theory, it is clearly not working right now.]
They say things to themselves like, “It’s necessary,” as if democracy would go ‘poof’ if they didn’t.
See the joke there? Democracy has gone up in smoke because they did it. Like a wisp of smoke.
Which was an additional reason I titled that unfinished story The Wisp, beyond the trickster legend. [Refers to eternal vigilance, and what happens when you forget what that means, if you like.]
Terrorist Are Made, Not Born
http://www.icsahome.com/articles/terrorists-are-made–not-born-stahelski
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