Survival Lesson # 4: Create trusted Surviving Class information networks, independent of authoritative Enabling Class networks
Survival Lessons to save the Surviving Class {updated Sept. 7, 2022]
I start each of these Survival Lessons with a reference to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four novel. The Ruling Class in the novel not only sought complete control over its subjects. It also sought to destroy their human spirits. Subjects with no human spirit are ever pliable to whimsical Ruling Class needs. Subjects with a destroyed human spirit will never be a challenge to the authority of the Ruling Class.
Novelist Tom Clancy had this to say about information networks:
“The control of information is something the elite [Ruling Class] always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.”
We have always had methods of communicating so that we could inform and protect each other and our common interests. As the Internet evolved, information networks became easier for users to connect, communicate, create and share content. It was and is an amazing business model where the platform (social media) obtains its content for free. At first the platforms were essentially invisible, doing all they could to encourage new users and content. Nevertheless, over time the platforms themselves became more powerful and more authoritative. This shift to greater authority and control was pleasing to the Ruling Class that wanted to convert free citizens into subjects under its control. The communication [social] platforms became powerful members of the Enabling Class, and their leaders are certainly part of the Ruling Class.
The above illustration captures the essential composition of most communication [social] platforms. They are controlled by the Enabling Class. These communication platforms have also become willing servants of the Ruling Class. Another insight to notice in this illustration is that communication among peripheral members/users of the network are dependent on the Enabling Class center. Communications must first pass through the center on its way to communicating with another user. Communication lines do not connected directly person to person as email operates. Rather all communications must first pass through the central Enabling Class hub before they can be directed to another member/user in the network. This “hub and spoke” type of network gives the central hub [Enabling Class] the power to filter, shadow ban, suspend or ban any member/user from communicating with another within the network. Recent events concerning Ruling Class corruption, vaccinations, COVID medicines, and immigration have demonstrated the willingness of the Enabling Class to censor and control the communications of its members/users in service to Ruling Class masters.
Is there any doubt that the Enabling Class is now tightly connected with the Ruling Class in communication/social networks to “control people” as Tom Clancy warned?
Is there any doubt that Surviving Class submission to this control places the survival and human spirit of the Surviving Class at risk? In fact is it ever wise to surrender one’s survival and spirit to a controlling authority? Is it ever wise to surrender one’s self-determination?
The survival lesson here is for the Surviving Class to free itself from the dependency of Enabling Class communication [social] networks and to start reverting back to simple and trusted communication networks. Trusted information networks will have the characteristic of one-to-one communication between each member, without a controlling central third-party hub. Small email networks are a form of a trusted network. Same for smartphone text message sharing. These are the networks that started the Internet communication revolution. Members are disciplined to share verified and useful information without spamming each other. Members of these networks trust each other with a common interest to enhance the survival and spirit of each other.
New communication platforms are emerging that promise to minimize their control of member to member communication, with reasonable exceptions for promoted violence or severe anti-social behavior. At present Substack and Rumble are promising to be unauthoritative networks with near invisible central hubs. Time will tell if these new platforms remain free from authoritative Enabling Class and Ruling Class control.
Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj of Substack: “Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse.”
True journalist Glenn Greenwald extends the risk of fake journalists and platforms that censor important ideas.
Glenn Greenwald: The worst of all - the most repugnant and despicable - are those calling themselves "journalists" while doing the opposite of what that term implies: they serve rather than challenge power, they deceive rather than inform, they demand censorship rather than free and open inquiry.
Heap scorn on the corporate outlets and their deceitful, pro-censorship employees abusing the "journalist" label. Read them with full skepticism, or just ignore them.
Support outlets and platforms that want to protect free inquiry and the right of dissent, not rob you of it.