Paranoia
Dec 2nd 2017, 6:57 am
#1
Listen to the Music
Thread Starter
Joined: Mar 2013
Location: Fraser Valley BC
Posts: 4,705
Paranoia
When I was young and convinced that London was the centre of the universe and that England had won the war, I knew for a fact that the dreaded Hun ate babies. Why? Because I'd seen WW1 propoganda that proved it, so it had to be true.
Has anything changed much in a century? I think not. Tonight I'm led to believe that Kaspersky may be a puppet of the Russian bear, and what evidence is there that this assertion is true? Absolutely none, but it's a russian company so it must be true, and if not true it just might be so that's all right then.
When everyone in the entire universe uses a windows operating system, should I be really afraid, as a consequence, that the CIA have a file ten foot thick on me and my passion for making model boats?
Do I really have to live in the belief that Russia, the DPRK and a miriad of other naferious groups want to hack pictures of me picking my nose or should I realise that they're all just playing a game.
Unfortunately it's the latter, but it's a game that shouldn't ever be played because there can be no winners other that those who benefit from keeping us all afraid and fearful, and that has been apparent since the end of WW2. It must have been devastating for the weapons industry when the Berlin Wall and the USSR collapsed... but nil desparandum, we now have a new enemy, and a conventional one that we can recognise and it's time to ramp up the paranoia against the old foe. Time to invest in nukes again I think.
Has anything changed much in a century? I think not. Tonight I'm led to believe that Kaspersky may be a puppet of the Russian bear, and what evidence is there that this assertion is true? Absolutely none, but it's a russian company so it must be true, and if not true it just might be so that's all right then.
When everyone in the entire universe uses a windows operating system, should I be really afraid, as a consequence, that the CIA have a file ten foot thick on me and my passion for making model boats?
Do I really have to live in the belief that Russia, the DPRK and a miriad of other naferious groups want to hack pictures of me picking my nose or should I realise that they're all just playing a game.
Unfortunately it's the latter, but it's a game that shouldn't ever be played because there can be no winners other that those who benefit from keeping us all afraid and fearful, and that has been apparent since the end of WW2. It must have been devastating for the weapons industry when the Berlin Wall and the USSR collapsed... but nil desparandum, we now have a new enemy, and a conventional one that we can recognise and it's time to ramp up the paranoia against the old foe. Time to invest in nukes again I think.
Dec 2nd 2017, 1:36 pm
#2
Stand-up Philosopher
Joined: Apr 2009
Location: Regina Saskatchewan
Posts: 16,344
Re: Paranoia
Remember the videos of Russians taking the turrets off of tanks and turning them into farm tractors? It didn't last, and neither did any of the disarmament pledges from our side, ditto chemical weapons, nukes, land mines, cluster bombs, WP, or any of the other agents of extra-judicial killing. Like TH White's red and black ants, there is always an excuse to arm.
Re paranoia: In The President's Analyst the evil superpower turned out to be Bell Telephone (if you haven't seen it, do) - the updated version would have Google in that role. The reason it is such a great search engine is because it compiles data on everyone and everything; you can use duckduckgo or something like it, but you won't get the best answers. When Zuckerberg posted a selfie (I think it was him) with the cam on his laptop taped over paranoia really took hold and seemed to gain some legitimatacy. I'm willing to accept that they could do it, but not sure it's a concern for me. Golden opportunity for exhibitionists, at any rate.
Re paranoia: In The President's Analyst the evil superpower turned out to be Bell Telephone (if you haven't seen it, do) - the updated version would have Google in that role. The reason it is such a great search engine is because it compiles data on everyone and everything; you can use duckduckgo or something like it, but you won't get the best answers. When Zuckerberg posted a selfie (I think it was him) with the cam on his laptop taped over paranoia really took hold and seemed to gain some legitimatacy. I'm willing to accept that they could do it, but not sure it's a concern for me. Golden opportunity for exhibitionists, at any rate.
