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Memories of the 28th Century

Falsifying Data

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Today, July 22, 2022, I ran into another example of someone(s) trying to control how people thought about something by controlling the data. Specifically, it was in regard to the Cambrian Explosion. The manipulator of facts had a set of conclusions and edited the facts to get there, and other opinions be damned. That was how news media in the Soviet Union turned opinion toward the government, and it is how the U.S. Government tries to turn opinion in its favor. That method is easiest to see in regard to corona virus and in the case of climate change.
The case of climate change is easiest to show, because it has been going on for decades, and NOAA has controlled the data. Well, NOAA controls the new data, but older data is kept in multiple locations. The most blatant examples of manipulating data were when local temperature records for some locations were altered. Apparently, they forgot that those records existed in several locations.

What gets attention is that I remember heat waves in the 1960's, when the temperature got over 100 degrees, but those records are said to not exist anymore. After I die, they will be able to get away with altering records, but they should wait a while.

Another area where the control of data has been useful has been in regard to covid19. The CDC quickly took upon itself the role of controlling what people learned about the virus and the disease that it sometimes caused. From the beginning of the outbreak, a great deal of effort was put into making it seem more serious than it was; although part of that was the general lack of knowledge of history. and the history of the medical profession. As a result of their control of the data, people have gotten the impression that covid is a major, serious disease, even though it has long been known as one of the several viruses that cause what is called the Common Cold. Some people even got the false impression that wearing a mask will prevent one from catching a corona virus, when the professional literature makes it clear that wearing mask helps to prevent infected people from spreading it, but they do nothing to prevent an uninfected person from catching a virus.

Science is not the only realm where control of the data allows one to control the discourse. Politicians have known about controlling data for a very long time. While he didn’t use the same terms, Machiavelli mentioned this technique in The Prince; Hitler used control of data and discourse to a great degree, and more recently, Trump tried to control things by controlling the data and the discourse, but Trump was so inept that most people saw right through his attempt to control.

People have become so accustomed to marketting fluff that they tend to just accept it, as if it were true. There are people who actually think that drinking bottled water is essential for life. Not long ago, there was a question on Quora from a younger person who wondered how people survived before bottle water, so I punctured his balloon and explained how it was just marketting fluff.

If you want to say things that are based solely on your opinions, then do so in the conclusions, but start with the best data that you can find. When you fake the data, you are inviting others to do the same, and they may start from your fake data and end up with it not even supporting your false conclusions.

It might be a good idea to remove the exception in fraud laws for marketting fluff, so that marketters would not be able to get away with lies. It would be nice, if politicians were also required to be truthful, but that probably is too much to even hope for.

There are many examples of lies being used . but I am sure that you can find as many more as I can.

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