Flooding The Zone & Other Sicknesses

Steve Bannon, the evil strategist, coined the term “flood the zone” as a disinformation tactic. The idea is to put so much content out there that people (the masses) become confused and disoriented. This leaves people (because we are fallible) open to coercion. This allows certain types of people, people who want power, people who want attention, people who often have bad intentions, to step up and say, “Look at me, I have the answers.”

We see this a lot on social media. Especially on Twitter (aka. X). Elon does this. Trump does this. MAGA republicans learned this trick. It’s misdirection and deception. It’s wrong and it’s sinister. It also works.

What is the Truth with a capital “T” nowadays? This is, weirdly, in question.

Why is this weird? Well, the Truth should not be subjective. It should be objective. Truth and Fact are not such distant cousins. Previously.

We are not Post-Truth or Post-Fact. While we’re at it, it’s evident we are not Post-Racist or Post-Classist.

We are struggling as a Democracy and as a society.

No, Rome has not yet fallen. People elsewhere still look to the United States as a beacon of hope. This is saying something after four years of Donald Trump in charge. The world looked on in horror and is still giving us a chance.

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I have been trying to figure out what is going on with “Truth” for a while now.

People seem to think they know. I don’t really think they do.

Not because I think I’m smart.

Not because I think it’s a big conspiracy.

I think it’s because of tactics like flooding the zone.

It’s difficult to wrap our heads around current agendas.

What is Elon up to? What does he really want? What doesn’t he already have?

This makes me think of why Tristan Harris left his role in Big Tech and started the Center for Humane Technology. Because Big Tech is heartless. Because people are acting in ways that are nefarious. They are doing evil and claiming they are simply acting in the good old-fashioned manner of “move fast and break things”. This is pretty much the scariest thing I can think of when you’re talking about rapidly advancing AGI (aka. Artificial Intelligence that is capable of training itself to self-optimize at an exponential rate). We are in trouble.

I’m glad to see at least a few folks with some sway are raising their hands and saying we need to pump the brakes.

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What is your theory about why so many are pushing us to distrust mainstream media?

Why is this so popular? Popular at a time when we have more readily available sources of misinformation and disinformation (and issues with propaganda campaigns and election interference) than ever before. This is suspect.

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