Different collection of conspiracy theories, different anti-establishment target … but
Spent over a year building the bomb in the RV in his back yard – trespass warnings on gate and front door – reported by a girlfriend back in 2019.
Mailed his “manifesto” to conspiracy mates, used his dog’s name Julio as his on-line ID, and took the dog with him in the suicide bombing – Breivik planned for the legal martyrdom rather than suicide.
Warner targetted AT&T assets and went for minimal human targets, early morning Christmas day, whereas Breivik targetted people that represented the left-right conspiracy extremes. (Destruction of the old downtown buildings and businesses particularly on the east-side of 2nd Ave will be long term damage to a great city. The west side already had modern office buildings.)
Supremacists or Antifa – all the same, extremist nutters at both ends of the “fascist” spectrum – and Trump has a lot to answer for. The AT&T / 5G / chips-in-brains conspiracists were welcomed to a White House meeting in the past year.
This CBS report will do for now, but will add detail and more links when the content of his packages are made public. (And this Tennessean story with some details a day earlier. More from ABC News overnight 2nd/3rd Jan.)
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Notes:
(And yes, Tim McVeigh preceded Anders Breivik.)
(Not becoming a “big story” amidst all the other Covid and Trump stories – mainly it seems because he killed no-one other than himself and his dog – by design. Doesn’t change the scale of the conspiracy-ideology-motivated action? It only leads if it bleeds! But just as dangerous to humanity.)
(And – the antivaxxer angle – different case – the Wisconsin pharmacist sabotaging Covid vaccines. We need to address not just countering the content of conspiracy theories – which generates more for-against traffic on the content. We need to address moderation the “environment” that supports the traffic – that reinforces the ideological conspiracies to action in the first place. See Jay Rosen at foot of the threads below.)
(And – the Trump-led 6th Jan insurrection – need I say more. Q it is.)
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Why do I care?
Thing is, conspiracy theories are an easy “intentional” take on what is a natural memetic evolutionary problem with reasoning degenerating to simplistic polarised extremes in our times of maximum information communication – it’s why I’m here these two decades.
We need “moderation” – proper journalism – unfettered communications are dangerously degenerate.
So great care needed in deciding responses and future actions. But VERY serious problem of people taking conspiracy theories seriously …
” What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) January 3, 2021
Seemingly unconnected?
(Each link is part of a Twitter thread …)
Desperately sad knee-jerk reaction based on political identity stereotyping with zero connection to either reality or the published article.
” What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) January 2, 2021
I think part of the problem is reducing GMO to a binary pro / anti issue. The process and the product have big influence on possible “unintended consequences” risk to the wider ecosystem. (Statistical fat-tails etc.)
” What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) January 2, 2021
Natural outcome of high-information environment – evolution to lowest common denominators.
Niche variety flattened out of the global system?
” What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) January 1, 2021
The connection ? … is mass communications – in fact it’s the mass interconnectivity of the communications that allow “like ideas” to connect with and reinforce each other – and drive to polarised extremes crowding out subtle variation and nuance.
This whole thread – the rejection of “journalism” by internet processes – Jay Rosen and Alice Dreger – two journalists that “get it”.
The falling cost for like-minded people to locate each other makes possible the mass delusion known as QAnon.
It enables the Trump cult to detach itself from anything verifiable and spin off into resentment space.
It’s sustaining the “stop the steal” movement right now.
21/
” Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 31, 2020
The most important thing I learned in 2020 could be put this way: information is downstream from identity.
This year I plan to learn how to explain it. 😎
” Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) January 1, 2021
“Information is downstream from identity”.
Remember that phrase!
Transparency, democratisation, freeing of information is all well and good, but lost without any anchoring in identity and provenance.
(One of the reasons DLT / Blockchain concepts are attractive even if promoted by anti-establishment types.)
” What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) January 1, 2021
Those of you baffled by my constant banging on about unfettered scientific objectivity *not* being a panacea for truth and knowledge would do well to get to know @AliceDreger and @jayrosen_nyu (both much better communicators than I) https://t.co/vfx6Lw2y56
” What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) January 2, 2021
Interesting. Gatekeeping (curation / editing / moderation) of democratised content media was a key topic at @HTLGIFestival in 2018 … must dig out notes.
” What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) January 2, 2021
I find it pretty much impossible to disagree with any of this. With ‘Information is downstream from identity’ (as I say, heavily pregnant, that one) you get a pointer to possible solutions. How to decouple the two. How to make the reception of new and perhaps unwelcome information non-identity threatening. How to persuade. How to build that in to the mechanisms of dissemination.
Note to self: go to Twitter, follow Jay Rosen.
Yes … arriving at “mechanisms” that might counter the effect will need to be based on “identity” but exactly how is the $64K question … for now I just call it “moderation” – I have ideas but not solutions.
(PS – Ref other recent posts / comments / tweets – “moderation” as used here is exactly “damping” in the systems engineering view of human affairs.)
And that “Information is downstream of identity” phrase is also heavily pregnant in my current day job. A high security information context, where identity is obviously crucial to security arrangements and yet many don’t recognise it as also key to understanding the information you do get access to. With sexier, flashier, immediate, graphical presentation of content people are easily conned into thinking it must be “good” information – Doh!
It strikes me that, in his heart, and from his earliest days as Brussels correspondent, it was a truth that our current PM grasped only too well.
You mean the idea that presentation / perception (a slogan without a plan) is the new truth / reality.
Yes, and everyone has learned that is part of the game – but the natural conclusion is polarised pairs of opposites, neither of which correspond to reality.
Does Rosen explain what he means by “information is downstream from identity,” or are we filling in the blanks for him?
I ask because I wonder how it relates to similar statements such as “epistemology is downstream from ontology” (which might be one take on Whitehead’s ideas about modes of thought influencing perception, or Rorty’s postmodern ragmatism regarding truth) or “truth is downstream from subjectivity” (which might be one take on Kierkegaard’s ideas about what is important for our choices, or again Rorty’s pragmatism about truth).
Rosen writes the blog at https://pressthink.org/ but I can’t find the word “downstream” there, so it must be a fairly new idea. His most recent blog post touches on the insatiability of the mainstream media for something to report, and its “libertarian” model of acting as an impartial conduit for news, without regard for truth.
As he says – he’s hoping to explain it in his own words in 2021.
Until then we’re filling in blanks – but in my case from several years of following him and his entourage on Twitter – so I have some idea where he’s coming from (and there’s more in that 20-odd tweet thread). I think the phrase has “just dawned on him” reviewing his old essay from 2009 at NY21. He is saying it’s a mistake he overlooked but now sees … it’s a new thought for him.
Wouldn’t be surprised to find “nothing new under the sun” in existing philosophical views>
As you know my metaphysical view is that even ontology is epistemological 😉
They’re not independent choices either way.
Leaving aside deeper philosophical views, as I say even from an information processing day job perspective – I find information is meaningless without identity, so the simple phrase rings true.