FEED or FAIL

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Intro: This essay is going to unfortunately be jumped upon by conspiracy theorists from La La Land. My apologies. By this I mean that mankind is so fundamentally floundering and bumbling that what is more likely than an intricate diabolical plot among people is a mess of intention, mistakes, luck and lots of after-the-fact obfuscation. For example, the US NSA (National 'Security' Agency) may have effectively destroyed the US Constitution's rights to privacy, thank you Bush League. But you can count on them being incapable of effectively dealing with all the private data they've stolen from us. IOW: Count on The Stooopid Factor. This is both a cynical concept and a realist concept.

What is FEED or FAIL?

It is a limited, 0 dimensional, binary thought concept to deal with both naiveté and psychopathy within our social systems. It also is both cynical and realist. As a 0 dimensional concept you can count on it being as bare bones and incomplete as possible. It takes into account so little about the system it is applied to as to be merely a first blind step in comprehending the system. It is guaranteed to be remarkably wrong in a remarkable number of aspects. Nonetheless, first cuts can be useful. This one is useful if only to make clear the difference between deliberate deceit and detrimental innocence. I find it to be equally frightening on either sides of this metaphorical coin.

A FEEDer is a deliberate liar who plans and perpetrates disinformation to other people. Typically the purpose is manipulation. In any kind of marketing moron system, manipulation is a prime lever, a mental machine for obtaining something surreptitiously from another fellow human being. As the victim, you are FED garbage that is meant to cause you to respond in a predicted way that benefits the FEEDer.

In advertising there are plentiful examples. An ongoing example as of this post is the Toyota FEED that it wasn't their faulty auto acceleration systems that killed over a hundred people. It was the floor mat. As a victim, you are FED that you don't have to have your car's pedal system replaced. You only need to replace your mat. Happy happy, joy joy. Toyota benefits from your ignorant belief in their FEED.

A FAILer is someone who inadvertently tells wrong information to others. The FAILer believes the information to be true. The information is NOT true. They have FAILed to comprehend and communicate facts. The most dangerous of FAILers are those in positions of authority. We're counting on them telling us factual information. They don't. They FAIL. I find the most sad and frightening of FAILers to be those who share new information to others, where the other person has no ability or resource for comparing this wrong information to any correct related information. This literally is the blind leading the blind. Good luck with that system. This is one reason I get upset at people in the technology field who don't do their homework and end up telling ignorant people a set of ignorant information.

A very popular example is when Steve Jobs of Apple put a metaphorical gun to the head of Bill Gates of Microsoft and made him invest $125 Million dollars in non-voting Apple stock. (The 'gun' in this case was a lawsuit that would have cost Microsoft well over $125 Million. It was in regards to Microsoft being caught red-handed stealing Apple QuickTime code. Meanwhile, Apple had $4 Billion in the bank and hardly needed the investment). How was this fact blundered in public? Ignorant FAILers told others that Microsoft had saved Apple from bankruptcy. Of course the ignorant then fed the ignorant, and you got an insane form of the game 'Telephone' or 'Gossip' where not even the original information was valid. Anyone who bothered to do their homework on the subject could discover the facts of the matter on the Internet within one minute. Hyper-FAIL.

I realized the FEED or FAIL concept while I was watching a TV program called "The Spy Factory." It is about, among other things, the demolition of US Constitution guaranteed rights to privacy during the Bush League era. I found myself listening to authoritative people telling me that having these rights stolen from me provided some sort of security from bad guys. The FEED was that it was OK that the NSA were able to intercept and analyze all unencrypted phone calls and Internet data transference WITHIN the USA by US citizens. It was OK because it made the US more secure, which is bullshite. Therefore, I found myself asking whether the speaker was a FEEDer, who wanted me to believe a LIE that benefited others but not me, or was the speaker a FAILer who ignorantly believed the pathological lies he had been fed by some FEEDer? I knew the information I was being told was blatantly wrong. But what sort of person was telling it to me? Naive or evil? Innocent or psychopath?

Another way to look at the FEED or FAIL concept is from the other side of the communication, the side of the receiver. From this perspective, the FEED is of your mind. Think of the FEEDers as sociopathic zombies who want to eat your brain. You believe their lie, they have fed on you. You have lost a part of yourself to their control. Similarly, if a FAILer has messed you over with misinformation, you now also FAIL to comprehend the facts of the matter. It's a FAIL contagion.

Here is a list of some spectacularly 'wrong' people. What are they? FEEDers or FAILers? What if they're BOTH? What if they're NEITHER?!

_______________________FEED__________FAIL

George W. Bush ________[ ]___________[ ]
Paris Hilton __________[ ]___________[ ]
Phyllis Schafly _______[ ]___________[ ]
Johnnie Cochran _______[ ]___________[ ]
Dr. Timothy Leary _____[ ]___________[ ]
Adolf Hitler __________[ ]___________[ ]
Filippo Marinetti _____[ ]___________[ ]
Karl Marx _____________[ ]___________[ ]
Pat Robertson _________[ ]___________[ ]
William Kristol _______[ ]___________[ ]
L. Ron Hubbard ________[ ]___________[ ]
Sun Myung Moon ________[ ]___________[ ]
Kim Jong-il ___________[ ]___________[ ]
Rush Limbaugh _________[ ]___________[ ]
Clarence Thomas _______[ ]___________[ ]
Fidel Castro __________[ ]___________[ ]
Bill Gates ____________[ ]___________[ ]

Please note that I am not interested in comments about my selections for this list. That's not the point. Thoughtful comments about the concepts are welcome.
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FOD: Red China vs The World:The Reverse Golden Rule

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As a citizen of the USA, I have my personal perspective about the ongoing debacle with China. My thoughts on the matter go like this:

Gotta love how Red China has learned western ways. This week they're using a propaganda trick right out of the Neo-Con-Job book. And it's my favorite! When someone accuses you of a sleazy move, take their words and turn them right back on them, pretending with a straight face that it is actually you that are the accuser and they the guilty. If that sounds entirely pathological, you get a *DING* and a gold star. ;-)

Here is the story of deceit that got me all riled up today:

China slams US criticism of Internet controls

Let me very briefly and simplistically set the scene. The story by now is very old, 12 years old to be precise. I've told it many times across the net as have plenty of others. So if you've heard it before, you're excused from class.

1998: US President Clinton and the US Congress provide Red China, aka 'Mainland China', aka 'Communist China', aka 'People's Republic of China', with Most Favored Nation status. It is the culmination of over two decades of courting the Red Chinese government to open up China once again to the west for trade and biznizz (my spelling of 'business' whenever something childish, primitive or self-destructive is afoot).

That same year, immediately after Most Favored Nation status was acquired, the Red Chinese government reached out to their computer hacker community and encouraged them financially to form what became the Red Hacker Alliance. You can read about the RHA HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE. Their stated goal was to prevent hacking of Red Chinese computers by foreign countries. Here is a paraphrasing of their manifesto,

'The "Alliance" which identifies itself as “a network security research organization made up of Chinese patriotic hackers,” specializes in network security, “patriotic hacker training,” and software development, according to the group's Internet site.'

However, their activities evolved such that their purpose served to perpetuate Red China's paranoia, as expressed through their requirement of subverting all rights of privacy, across the entire planet.


[The timeline table above is from the original online version of 'Evolution of the Red Hacker Alliance'.]

Meanwhile, the Red Chinese government have been discovered soliciting hackers at US universities. A secret Red Chinese government memo was also discovered a few years ago that explicitly declared a 'Technology War' against the USA.


Mankind can be so strange. Humans require a sense of security and safety. Here we see that requirement taken to an extreme expression of selfishness and self-destruction. Again we have the simple equasion that one's behavior toward others is an expression of one's behavior toward one's self.

The US government, in their incompetence, their fear of looking foolish, as well as their need to feel safe behind a mask of perceived security, didn't acknowledge the actions of the Red Hacker Alliance until circa 2007. This was despite the fact that the RHA had blatantly and admittedly attacked hundreds of US websites, including the White House and the US Navy, in 2001. That's six years of public denial. The mind boggles. Among the proven hacks by the RHA have been the Bot zombieing of numerous US federal computers such that all and any data posted to them, banal or top secret, was sent directly to computers of RHA members in Red China.

(Hmm, I forget. What is supposed to be the purpose of the NSA?)

Meanwhile, many Internet companies capitulated to Red China's censorship 'laws' in an effort to profit from their huge population. The first serious protest against Red China's totalitarian tactics was made by Google this past week in the aftermath of their discovery of Red China's hacking into the Gmail accounts of anti-Red China dissidents. After reading these private email messages, their contents were used to prosecute the dissidents as enemies of the state, leading to jail time and execution. The hack was performed via yet-another security flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer. (A patch for the IE security flaw was posted this past Thursday). Bravo Google for fighting both hacking and censorship, finally living up to your motto of 'Don't Be Evil'.


PERSPECTIVES:

Here we are in the USA, bizy giving the citizen rights of free speech to corporations while China refuses to extend to any citizen the simple right of privacy. There is no such thing as freedom of speech or freedom of thought or freedom of choice in Red China. Red China is the world of the book 1984 by George Orwell. THE PARTY is watching you. It's the SOS that inspired the Cold War. And yet, looking at the situation from inside the head of a Red Chinese citizen can frazzle your mind. They believe they're fighting for 'freedom'!

"For we love China, our motherland! We love Freedom!"

To get perspective from within Red China, have a look at a grab of the short film "2008 !China Stand Up!". It was created by Tang Lie, a Red Chinese citizen, in response to western media condemning Red Chinese aggression against Free Tibet protestors. It extols the views of Mao, rants at western imperialist subversion of the Red China economy (despite the fact that selling products to the west is the basis of the modern Red Chinese economy), and blames the Dalai Lama for violent protests against Red China's own imperialist occupation of Tibet. Here is a quote from the video using what I call 'reverse propaganda':

"And they lie, they lie, lie...again and again!"

The liars lie about their country's lies. Or do they? What if these people believe what they're saying? What if what sounds like ridiculous propaganda to me sounds entirely righteous to them?

Of course, this issue gets messed around from black and white into gray mud when considering that the west, certainly the USA, does indeed interfere with Red China's affairs. If only the USA were pristine, innocent and well meaning in their affairs with the rest of the world. But we're not. The USA, unfortunately, is home to some of the most exploitative and self-destructive power brokers in the world. Toss in the political lunacy perpetrated by the Neo-Con-Jobs in the USA since 1997 and it's not so hard to understand why thoughtful people view the intentions of the USA with skepticism.

Therefore, I end my brain twisting essay by pointing out that we have two corrupt and dishonest powers attacking each other on many fronts. History teaches that this is what humanity does in general. Both sides are enemies of sanity when they play manipulation games against each other. As individuals we can only take what means the most to us and express it to others. In my case, I have no way of knowing all the dirt pulled on China by the USA. But it is blatant what China has pulled on the USA and what they pull on their own citizens regarding human rights, particularly their rights to privacy and free speech. Don't consider me any fanatic of USA skullduggery. However, consider me at odds with the foolish and paranoid government in Red China attempting to lie about their persistent 'Technology War' against the rest of the world.

Here are a couples sites where you can keep track of Red China's computer crimes:

China Digital Times

The Dark Visitor

And of course, here is a counter-perspective site that follows western crimes against Red China. Use a translation site, such as Babel Fish or Google Language Tools, for reading.

Anti-CNN.com, Access China Communication Network

If you're into understanding the human frailty I call Deceptive Truth, try reconciling the information provided by these three websites. Bring aspirin. Better yet...


If you're really into a challenge, make your head explode by watching the disturbing video of a nice little Red Chinese kid reciting the propaganda line fed to the populace about how Tibet really is part of China, come visit and see. "China has done nothing wrong." And so forth. (o_0)

'STOP ATTACKING CHINA.2008 CHINA STAND UP!'

We never know everything about anything. This little kid lives with reality distortion and so do the rest of us. All we can do is make choices that help us gain enough perspective to think outside the boxes we are handed. We struggle to find sanity in the midst of a cacophony of confusion and delusion.

"We will stand up and hold together always as one family in harmony!"

It could happen. But I believe we have better success focusing on oneness and harmony within our individual selves. That's hard enough to accomplish in one lifetime. Then let The Reverse Golden Rule naturally follow from there. One's behavior toward others is an expression of one's behavior toward one's self.
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