The old 'create a problem (misinformation) - provide the solution (censorship)' one-two never goes out of fashion.
Re. vaccines - it's the 'two sides to every story and then there's the truth' maxim that should be applied here: sure, correlation doesn't equal causation (vaccine harm) - as you say, but that applies the other way too when you look at disease reduction + prevalence of vaccines. I think it's a sleight of hand. Remember that most medical 'research' is funded by Big Pharma (who make trillions out of vaccines and the drugs to deal with the side effects of the drugs etc ad infinitum) so guess what? It's another game of 'Follow the Money'.
Hi Bettina! I completely take your point. Big Pharma is probably the most consistent villain on Netflix right now. They have done some very bad things. Personally I would draw a distinction between the COVID vaccines and the more ‘traditional’ vaccines which I took as a kid. But as the article hopefully articulates, we should all be free to make up our own minds.
In fact, the assertion of efficacy in any medication relies on correlation. It has to as the underlying mechanisms of operation of pharmaceuticals are not understood.
So, as you point out, a claim that correlation doesn't equal causation applies as much to medicinal compounds as it does to the gene therapy preparation commonly called 'the vaccine'.
Thanks. One recites the 'correlation does not equal causation' meme as a substitute for actually thinking about whatever the issue is. In practice 90% of what we 'know' is inductive, IOW we quite rightly link correlation with causation almost all the time and most of the time we are correct. Every time I jump into the lake I get wet and I suspect that correlation indicates causation. CDNEC is one of those memes that makes one sound smart while actually indicating dumbness -- all the more so for the fact that it is *technically* quite true.
Interesting. Something, if I’ve read it right, David Deutsch talks about as ‘rule of thumb’ in The Beginning of Infinity. No spoilers please. Haven’t got to the end yet. Actually. Maybe it doesn’t have an end.
It's all the fault of those rotten egghead Greeks and their invention of deduction. They started wrinkling their noses as the hoi polloi who tended to know things via experience. The brain is designed to know things via experience and that's mostly what we do. Not that I have any issues with deduction tho, it's quite useful in many situations.
People who don't understand the connection between nutrition and health (which includes most doctors - Big Pharma's pimps) and that it is as easy to buy a scientist as it is a politician, bolster the statistic that prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death - after cancer and heart disease.
You are so right. Selling medicines for complaints that could often be put right by a decent diet and a bit more of a healthy lifestyle. Obviously double evil when it comes to kids.
"Hi, I'm Marianna Spring, the BBC's disinformation correspondent and chief fact-checker. I got caught out telling a blatant lie on my CV when trying to get a job, but you can totally trust me not to lie to you about anything now I'm working for the impartial, unbiased BBC. Honest!"
I have some observations and questions if you will indulge me.
If you look at the timeline of the rapid advance of the censorship industrial complex, it advanced after Trump was elected and Brexit.
Trump coined the phrase fake news. It caught on because there were many of us who already recognized the bias in MSM. In addition he basically won the election without big money donors and by using Twitter to campaign. He also appealed to the working and middle class who have been demeaned and marginalized by the elites in power.
Have you seen the clip on Matt Taibbi site by ORF (?)? Where he put together the ridicule by the left, how Trump would never be elected. Oh my did they get pie in their face.
Trump done pissed off that crowd, they had to do something to save face, and something they did.
When you read the Trusted News Alliance, I get the sense it is all about controlling future elections. Like the election integrity alliance here in the US.
Like you said the legacy media are desperately trying to hang on to their control with censorship, (dubious)fact checkers under the moniker of safety. When that did not work they created GARM, to control the advertising money to cripple independent journalism. Still not working they are now trying to crush voices through slander and misinformation.
Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk, Russell brand, Laurence Fox, Trump, Nigel Farage, Stephen Crowder, J K Rowling, Bret Weinstein, whistleblowers, Christians, Robert Kennedy Jr, Matt Walsh, Mike Flynn, you tube reaction influencers. Anyone who does not follow their party line. It scares the bejesus out of me and should every person in the west.
And then there are these globalists.
I claim ignorance, what is the deal with the European Union? Every time I hear any proclamation from them it is scary authoritarian. Why are they needed? Why do they wield so much control?
And the United Nations? Now there is an awful group. Bullies and power hungry. I mean Iran is the leader of the human rights committee or whatever it is called. How does that make sense? Is it like men can get pregnant logic?
And the WHO have just declared themselves arbitrators of world wide health, THEY WILL DECIDE WHAT IS RIGHT AND HEALTHY FOR HUMANITY. I can’t breathe!!!!!
Lastly, I attempted to see how the million man Palestine March went in London. I think things were suppressed here. Not much news and the first article simply blamed 6 English guys (I believe who they said were drunk) for the only violent, bad behavior. Oh and of course they were right wing(what does even mean anymore?)
I do worry for you Londoners. The police have become feckless. Do you think this is it?
Thanks for those thoughts Deidre. My main response to your Trump point is that I am old enough to remember when Obama using Facebook to dodge around the established methods of campaigning and fund raising was hailed as a refreshing break from orthodoxy. I even seem to remember the Obama campaign using Cambridge Analytica -the company accused of ‘data harvesting’ to ‘fix’ Brexit-although I might have got that wrong. But the Obama Campaign certainly used that sort of data expert. My point is it was considered ‘new’, ‘exciting’ and the ‘future’ when Obama did it, but brainwashing and underhand when Trump used social media to help win votes.
As to the globalists. What do the powerful ever want? I guess it’s a simple as the interests of big politics, big business and big data all coinciding. It doesn’t need to be a ‘conspiracy theory’ (not that you are saying it is.) Thanks as ever for you support and thoughts.
You are probably right about Obama and Facebook, I have never facebooked. But Obama was well funded for sure from donors. It had to have been astronomical.
The BBC have got away for far too long with the middle-class fairy-tale that they exercise Reithian 'impartiality'. They never have been anything other than soft-Left partisan right from the start. The 'Reithian' bit is that they stick on the end of a news item something along the lines of "the PM's Office [or whatever] has denied that......." They stick this on the end of their highly editorially SELECTIVE take..... a manipulative farce because the biggest bias in any news reporting is not so much what is SAID as what is LEFT OUT. How could an organisation whose 20+ thousand employees will almost certainly be overwhelmingly left-wing voters possibly be 'impartial'. https://www.takimag.com/article/bbc-lapses-from-its-normally-impeccable-standards-of-self-righteousness/
Spot on as ever Graham. I know that not everyone at the BBC agrees with that stance and many regular staff get annoyed at the ‘stars’ throwing their opinions about on Twitter. But as I’ve said before, it’s state funded, and essentially a branch of the civil service, to expect it to be anything but left leaning, pro big state, anti-Tory and pro state intervention is crazy talk. Why pretend it is impartial? There are lots of great things about the BBC, not least an incredible heritage. Maybe it’s time it moved (even slowly) to a subscription model.
Yes a subscription model is the sensible thing....and if this Tory government hadn't been so self-destructively useless, that might actually have been set in train by now.
The search engines seem to be going a decent job of suppressing the small, independent commentary sites that use to be everywhere but apparently have all disappeared.
And it's not like those lads needed much advertising revenue to host a simple little site where they upload their stream of consciousness.
I have definitely noticed this. As you can imagine I do an awful lot of googling for the links in these articles. Often it takes an age to find the counter story, or a listing which does not simply reflect the mainstream narrative version of a story I *know* is false.
NB Correlation is not causation but aligning the well researched and argued points about vaccines RFK makes with the rise of Crocs is fallacious, whether he's right or not.
Hi Matt. Fair enough. But where do you stand on Crocs? I used to be anti but now I’m wearing a super comfy pair. (Camo-sound horrible but actually….just a bit horrible) Recommended. Just watch out for the sizing, you have to convert for UK. Thanks so much for your comment.
Had crocs for years, really like them. Key is to know the right time and place. Good for a trip into the garden or crossing the beach pebbles for a swim in the sea. Less good for dinner in a swanky restaurant, or anything other than the things that they are good for mentioned above.
No, I mean your using Taylor Swift and Crocs as a demonstration of the CNC 'truth'. ... Or ... is it me who was caught out? I'd never suggest a person's devotion to Crocs was feigned!
Or their devotion to Taylor Swift. No worries Ray. It’s getting too complicated for me. But I think we’re all generally on the pro Crocs, anti-Big Pharma page here!
Right. And we think it's ok to suspect that jumping in the lake really does cause you to get wet *even* while we quite properly remind ourselves that correlation is not an absolute proof of causation. All good!
Do you know that I don't know a single Taylor Swift song? And I've never owned Crocs? It just goestashowya that simple minded dolphins like me should just believe whatever Dr. Faucci says.
In order to obtain the concern this issue undeniably needs, it would be more helpful if you briefly described the issue, which is a message from Brendan Carr, the FCC commissioner:-
On 15 November the FCC will vote on President Biden’s plan to give the Administrative State effective control of all internet services and infrastructure..
I oppose President Biden’s sweeping, unprecedented and unlawful plan."
Brilliant stuff as always. I could rant on about the BBC and it’s blatantly biased reporting on Israel and Gaza (why is everything the IDF says is ‘alleged’ and everything Hamas says is backed up by at least two other sources?) but more importantly is the lack of coverage of the constant state of fear the Jewish community is living in. The CST are at their wits end trying to provide support, reporting threats to the police (good luck with that) and protecting Jewish schools yet I can find scant coverage of this on the BBC and other left leaning media. How on earth can they get away with this?
Biden, Sunak and Southgate all replaced in the next 6 months? Wonder if that’s worth a tenner bet...
Keep up the good work my friend but, Crocs - seriously?? 😂
I think you are onto a winner with your bet Matthew. It’s going to be fascinating how they replace Biden. Unless of course they go for the obvious method. But then timing is the key. Because Kamala.
Genuinely can’t take anything BBC News says seriously anymore. Especially with its po faced authoritative tone.
Thanks for your comment. Always great to hear from you.
I read this article with enthusaism, it gave me a lot of entlightenment and intellectual pleasure to read it.
But it left me with two kittle question concerning the meaning oft words. 1: Who is auntie? 2. What is TNI? It woul be very helpful and highten my reading pleasure still if you could let me know. Thank you. Best regards.
Thank you for those kind words Renate. Auntie is just an old fashioned British name for the BBC. It denotes a slightly patronising but kindly personality, attributed to it in more innocent days gone by. TNI is just an abbreviation of the Trusted News Initiative. Hope that helps.
The old 'create a problem (misinformation) - provide the solution (censorship)' one-two never goes out of fashion.
Re. vaccines - it's the 'two sides to every story and then there's the truth' maxim that should be applied here: sure, correlation doesn't equal causation (vaccine harm) - as you say, but that applies the other way too when you look at disease reduction + prevalence of vaccines. I think it's a sleight of hand. Remember that most medical 'research' is funded by Big Pharma (who make trillions out of vaccines and the drugs to deal with the side effects of the drugs etc ad infinitum) so guess what? It's another game of 'Follow the Money'.
As ever, love your writing, my friend.
Hi Bettina! I completely take your point. Big Pharma is probably the most consistent villain on Netflix right now. They have done some very bad things. Personally I would draw a distinction between the COVID vaccines and the more ‘traditional’ vaccines which I took as a kid. But as the article hopefully articulates, we should all be free to make up our own minds.
Indeed! So infuriating to have the government take it upon itself to be my new mummy & daddy and 'protect me from harm'.
I know. And just as infuriating, people seem to like it!
Quite right.
In fact, the assertion of efficacy in any medication relies on correlation. It has to as the underlying mechanisms of operation of pharmaceuticals are not understood.
So, as you point out, a claim that correlation doesn't equal causation applies as much to medicinal compounds as it does to the gene therapy preparation commonly called 'the vaccine'.
Thanks. One recites the 'correlation does not equal causation' meme as a substitute for actually thinking about whatever the issue is. In practice 90% of what we 'know' is inductive, IOW we quite rightly link correlation with causation almost all the time and most of the time we are correct. Every time I jump into the lake I get wet and I suspect that correlation indicates causation. CDNEC is one of those memes that makes one sound smart while actually indicating dumbness -- all the more so for the fact that it is *technically* quite true.
Interesting. Something, if I’ve read it right, David Deutsch talks about as ‘rule of thumb’ in The Beginning of Infinity. No spoilers please. Haven’t got to the end yet. Actually. Maybe it doesn’t have an end.
It's all the fault of those rotten egghead Greeks and their invention of deduction. They started wrinkling their noses as the hoi polloi who tended to know things via experience. The brain is designed to know things via experience and that's mostly what we do. Not that I have any issues with deduction tho, it's quite useful in many situations.
People who don't understand the connection between nutrition and health (which includes most doctors - Big Pharma's pimps) and that it is as easy to buy a scientist as it is a politician, bolster the statistic that prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death - after cancer and heart disease.
You are so right. Selling medicines for complaints that could often be put right by a decent diet and a bit more of a healthy lifestyle. Obviously double evil when it comes to kids.
If there's an Evil Empire ...
"Hi, I'm Marianna Spring, the BBC's disinformation correspondent and chief fact-checker. I got caught out telling a blatant lie on my CV when trying to get a job, but you can totally trust me not to lie to you about anything now I'm working for the impartial, unbiased BBC. Honest!"
Don't believe them, don't believe them, question everything you're told (Stiff Little Fingers, Suspect Device)
Ha ha. And yet she kept her job…..Hi patrocles. I have that, or a least a couple of their singles, on vinyl right here.
As always Low Status, spot on.
I have some observations and questions if you will indulge me.
If you look at the timeline of the rapid advance of the censorship industrial complex, it advanced after Trump was elected and Brexit.
Trump coined the phrase fake news. It caught on because there were many of us who already recognized the bias in MSM. In addition he basically won the election without big money donors and by using Twitter to campaign. He also appealed to the working and middle class who have been demeaned and marginalized by the elites in power.
Have you seen the clip on Matt Taibbi site by ORF (?)? Where he put together the ridicule by the left, how Trump would never be elected. Oh my did they get pie in their face.
Trump done pissed off that crowd, they had to do something to save face, and something they did.
When you read the Trusted News Alliance, I get the sense it is all about controlling future elections. Like the election integrity alliance here in the US.
Like you said the legacy media are desperately trying to hang on to their control with censorship, (dubious)fact checkers under the moniker of safety. When that did not work they created GARM, to control the advertising money to cripple independent journalism. Still not working they are now trying to crush voices through slander and misinformation.
Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk, Russell brand, Laurence Fox, Trump, Nigel Farage, Stephen Crowder, J K Rowling, Bret Weinstein, whistleblowers, Christians, Robert Kennedy Jr, Matt Walsh, Mike Flynn, you tube reaction influencers. Anyone who does not follow their party line. It scares the bejesus out of me and should every person in the west.
And then there are these globalists.
I claim ignorance, what is the deal with the European Union? Every time I hear any proclamation from them it is scary authoritarian. Why are they needed? Why do they wield so much control?
And the United Nations? Now there is an awful group. Bullies and power hungry. I mean Iran is the leader of the human rights committee or whatever it is called. How does that make sense? Is it like men can get pregnant logic?
And the WHO have just declared themselves arbitrators of world wide health, THEY WILL DECIDE WHAT IS RIGHT AND HEALTHY FOR HUMANITY. I can’t breathe!!!!!
Lastly, I attempted to see how the million man Palestine March went in London. I think things were suppressed here. Not much news and the first article simply blamed 6 English guys (I believe who they said were drunk) for the only violent, bad behavior. Oh and of course they were right wing(what does even mean anymore?)
I do worry for you Londoners. The police have become feckless. Do you think this is it?
I apologize for being long winded.
Thanks for those thoughts Deidre. My main response to your Trump point is that I am old enough to remember when Obama using Facebook to dodge around the established methods of campaigning and fund raising was hailed as a refreshing break from orthodoxy. I even seem to remember the Obama campaign using Cambridge Analytica -the company accused of ‘data harvesting’ to ‘fix’ Brexit-although I might have got that wrong. But the Obama Campaign certainly used that sort of data expert. My point is it was considered ‘new’, ‘exciting’ and the ‘future’ when Obama did it, but brainwashing and underhand when Trump used social media to help win votes.
As to the globalists. What do the powerful ever want? I guess it’s a simple as the interests of big politics, big business and big data all coinciding. It doesn’t need to be a ‘conspiracy theory’ (not that you are saying it is.) Thanks as ever for you support and thoughts.
You are probably right about Obama and Facebook, I have never facebooked. But Obama was well funded for sure from donors. It had to have been astronomical.
The BBC have got away for far too long with the middle-class fairy-tale that they exercise Reithian 'impartiality'. They never have been anything other than soft-Left partisan right from the start. The 'Reithian' bit is that they stick on the end of a news item something along the lines of "the PM's Office [or whatever] has denied that......." They stick this on the end of their highly editorially SELECTIVE take..... a manipulative farce because the biggest bias in any news reporting is not so much what is SAID as what is LEFT OUT. How could an organisation whose 20+ thousand employees will almost certainly be overwhelmingly left-wing voters possibly be 'impartial'. https://www.takimag.com/article/bbc-lapses-from-its-normally-impeccable-standards-of-self-righteousness/
Spot on as ever Graham. I know that not everyone at the BBC agrees with that stance and many regular staff get annoyed at the ‘stars’ throwing their opinions about on Twitter. But as I’ve said before, it’s state funded, and essentially a branch of the civil service, to expect it to be anything but left leaning, pro big state, anti-Tory and pro state intervention is crazy talk. Why pretend it is impartial? There are lots of great things about the BBC, not least an incredible heritage. Maybe it’s time it moved (even slowly) to a subscription model.
Yes a subscription model is the sensible thing....and if this Tory government hadn't been so self-destructively useless, that might actually have been set in train by now.
The search engines seem to be going a decent job of suppressing the small, independent commentary sites that use to be everywhere but apparently have all disappeared.
And it's not like those lads needed much advertising revenue to host a simple little site where they upload their stream of consciousness.
I have definitely noticed this. As you can imagine I do an awful lot of googling for the links in these articles. Often it takes an age to find the counter story, or a listing which does not simply reflect the mainstream narrative version of a story I *know* is false.
And how often, when you know a link is bona fide, you click and get "Oops! Error 404"
You’re right, I’d never heard of the TNI - every day I get more and more convinced I’m living in an Orwell novel.
Oh 1984 has been re written P. It’s now told from Julia’s point of view. We are the Dead.
https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/07/feminist-retelling-of-nineteen-eighty-four-approved-by-orwells-estate
Good point well made.
NB Correlation is not causation but aligning the well researched and argued points about vaccines RFK makes with the rise of Crocs is fallacious, whether he's right or not.
Hi Matt. Fair enough. But where do you stand on Crocs? I used to be anti but now I’m wearing a super comfy pair. (Camo-sound horrible but actually….just a bit horrible) Recommended. Just watch out for the sizing, you have to convert for UK. Thanks so much for your comment.
Had crocs for years, really like them. Key is to know the right time and place. Good for a trip into the garden or crossing the beach pebbles for a swim in the sea. Less good for dinner in a swanky restaurant, or anything other than the things that they are good for mentioned above.
I wondered why I got so many weird looks at the Coronation! Thanks Matt!
I love Crocs, especially their flip flops-very comfortable and you can throw them in the wash.
Ha! Sarcasm isn't funny unless you 'catch' the odd person, like Matt. All in good humor tho.
No sarcasm Ray. Love my Crocs. Definitely not trying to catch out my readers.
No, I mean your using Taylor Swift and Crocs as a demonstration of the CNC 'truth'. ... Or ... is it me who was caught out? I'd never suggest a person's devotion to Crocs was feigned!
Or their devotion to Taylor Swift. No worries Ray. It’s getting too complicated for me. But I think we’re all generally on the pro Crocs, anti-Big Pharma page here!
Right. And we think it's ok to suspect that jumping in the lake really does cause you to get wet *even* while we quite properly remind ourselves that correlation is not an absolute proof of causation. All good!
Do you know that I don't know a single Taylor Swift song? And I've never owned Crocs? It just goestashowya that simple minded dolphins like me should just believe whatever Dr. Faucci says.
How's that for some Goodthink?
And then there is this. Be very afraid.
https://hollymathnerd.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web
I often read Holly. Thanks Fiestynca, I’ll read this one later. .
Don’t wait too long. This is a rather urgent FCC matter.
In order to obtain the concern this issue undeniably needs, it would be more helpful if you briefly described the issue, which is a message from Brendan Carr, the FCC commissioner:-
On 15 November the FCC will vote on President Biden’s plan to give the Administrative State effective control of all internet services and infrastructure..
I oppose President Biden’s sweeping, unprecedented and unlawful plan."
Thank you, you are correct.
Brilliant stuff as always. I could rant on about the BBC and it’s blatantly biased reporting on Israel and Gaza (why is everything the IDF says is ‘alleged’ and everything Hamas says is backed up by at least two other sources?) but more importantly is the lack of coverage of the constant state of fear the Jewish community is living in. The CST are at their wits end trying to provide support, reporting threats to the police (good luck with that) and protecting Jewish schools yet I can find scant coverage of this on the BBC and other left leaning media. How on earth can they get away with this?
Biden, Sunak and Southgate all replaced in the next 6 months? Wonder if that’s worth a tenner bet...
Keep up the good work my friend but, Crocs - seriously?? 😂
Yes Crocs.
I think you are onto a winner with your bet Matthew. It’s going to be fascinating how they replace Biden. Unless of course they go for the obvious method. But then timing is the key. Because Kamala.
Genuinely can’t take anything BBC News says seriously anymore. Especially with its po faced authoritative tone.
Thanks for your comment. Always great to hear from you.
Fifth booster? Those are rookie numbers 😬
Ha ha!
Thank you for your prompt reply! It really is very helpful.
All part of the service.
I read this article with enthusaism, it gave me a lot of entlightenment and intellectual pleasure to read it.
But it left me with two kittle question concerning the meaning oft words. 1: Who is auntie? 2. What is TNI? It woul be very helpful and highten my reading pleasure still if you could let me know. Thank you. Best regards.
Thank you for those kind words Renate. Auntie is just an old fashioned British name for the BBC. It denotes a slightly patronising but kindly personality, attributed to it in more innocent days gone by. TNI is just an abbreviation of the Trusted News Initiative. Hope that helps.
You used a couple of other acronyms that I didn't get. Too lazy to go and fetch them now.