Memories of the 28th Century

After writing my post on Restoring the Age of Reason I started thinking more about how the principals of the Age of Reason have been put into disrepute. The general methods used have been typical propaganda techniques. And then I started thinking about propaganda even more. I don't think enough attention is paid to propaganda these days, at least not in the U.S.A., and probably not in Western Europe either. There's a lot of propaganda going around these days, and maybe we have become too accustomed to it. The best propaganda isn't readily recognised as such, and heavy-handed advertising is so common that it's easy to forget about it and ignore the fact that someone is trying to manipulate our opinions with something less than logical arguments.

There are a fair number of online sites that discuss propaganda, and I think that everyone should take a look at a few. I pasted links to a few of them below. Wikipedia has a dandy list of common techniques of propaganda, when I encounter a person or group using some of these techniques, I become suspicious. These techniques include: half-truths, plausible lies, big lies, straw-man arguments, Name-calling, Lying and deception, Managing the news, Labeling, Exaggeration, Disinformation, Demonizing the enemy, Appeal to fear, Ad hominem, and other techniques are being used (article link below). Looking at the list of techniques reminded me of how the climate change alarmists present their opinions. Just consider that anyone who points out errors in their evidence, arguments, or reasoning is labelled a "denier of science", which is an ad hominem argument. In fact the climate change alarmists are the ones who deny science; they are simply trying to point the finger at people who disagree with them, which is a fairly common technique of propaganda.

Begging the question is another very common tool of propagandists. It is used by the climate change people, and it is shared by the people who pushed through obamacare. To them there is no question about the correctness of their positions. But perhaps the most common technique of telling big lies; complicated fabrications that are intended to completely hoodwink everyone.

Recognising that something is propaganda isn’t enough. With that information it is necessary to move along and actively oppose the lies of the propagandists. It is also very nice to know why someone is spreading propaganda, and that is uncertain with the climate change people. Other than researchers getting decent livings from grants, there isn’t a lot of money on the table for them. There might be some industry money from the alternate energy equipment manufacturers, but they aren’t as rich as the oil companies. I realize that the front people are mostly getting grant funding, and many of them actually believe what they are presenting, but what about everyone else? The general public may be thoroughly fooled, but they won’t stay fooled without a new layer of lies to cover over what has been shown to be false. The IPCC has come up with some new material, and that may be enough. So we have to keep up the pressure. Eventually, the spreaders of propaganda will run out of lies, half-truths, and logical impossibilities, and the actual facts will come out.

Yet another discipline where propaganda techniques are popular is religion. That bothers me, because I am quite religious; although not of one of the major varieties. And there is no reason for religions to use propaganda, unless they are uncertain about their own beliefs. Those of us who are completely confident in the veracity of our beliefs feel no need to hoodwink anyone into agreeing with us. I wonder about the depth of belief of people who cut the heads off people who have different opinions. To start with, it wouldn’t be hoodwinking. Personally, I don’t care about the benighted non-believers; they are wrong, and that’s their problem, not mine.


Propaganda techniques
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques
more techniques
http://www.uvm.edu/~jleonard/AGRI183/propoaganda.html


Evidence that the anthropogenic climate change arguments are false
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/ab...84921111118077
http://multi-science.metapress.com/c...ext.pdf?page=1

Observed warming natural
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/a...29183111016798
water vapor 87% of greenhouse gas warming
http://multi-science.metapress.com/c...ext.pdf?page=1