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Sunday, February 25, 2024
Fwd: Your Gut Health and Carbonated Beverages?
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Fw: This Invisible Army Fights for Your Health, 3 Traps that 'Bomb' It
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The human gut is finally receiving the respect it deserves — and so are its trillions of inhabitants.1 You are, at your core, a microbial being,2 and while microorganisms are found everywhere from your skin to your mouth and even your blood,3 it's your large intestine where your body's largest bacterial ecosystem resides.4
If you treat it and the rest of your microbiome well, good health — both mental and physical — is likely to result. By nourishing this complex microbial community, you can even influence your gut-brain axis, which regulates digestion, mood, immune function and much more.5
The Number of Microbes Living in Your Gut Is Staggering
Your gut is home to bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea and eukarya. The latter two resemble bacteria but are distinct groups of microorganisms. Bacteria, meanwhile, make up the vast majority of microbes in your microbiome. Three main phyla or groups of gut microbes make up the human microbiome and serve diverse structural, protective and metabolic functions:6
- Bacteroidetes — Porphyromonas, Prevotella and Bacteroides
- Firmicutes — Ruminococcus, Clostridium, Lactobacillus and Eubacteria
- Actinobacteria — Bifidobacteria (the most prevalent type)
Broken down, the average person may host the following quantities of bacteria in different body regions.7 Remember that this is just an average — your age, health status, diet and environment all influence the numbers and diversity of microorganisms in your gut.8
Your Gut-Brain Axis Is an Information Highway
Gut microbes' effects don't only apply to your gastrointestinal tract. They interact with your central nervous system via the microbiota-gut-brain axis, a two-way information highway that involves neural, immune, endocrine and metabolic pathways.24 By promoting proinflammatory cytokines, bacteria may also play a role in damaging the integrity of the microbiota-gut-brain axis and the blood-brain barrier.25
There are also 10 gut microbiota genera with a significant link to Alzheimer's. Six are negatively associated with Alzheimer's, meaning they're less common in people with Alzheimer's than in those without the disease and may therefore have a protective effect.
The remaining four are positively associated with Alzheimer's, meaning they're more abundant in those with Alzheimer's disease, making them a risk factor for the condition. Specifically:26
- Bacteria protective against Alzheimer's include Firmicutes phylum (Eubacterium nodatum group, Eisenbergiella and Eubacterium fissicatena group) as well as from Actinobacteria (Adlercreutzia, Gordonibacter) and Bacteroidetes (Prevotella 9)
- Bacteria associated with Alzheimer's include Firmicutes (Lachnospira and Veillonella), Actinobacteria (Collinsella) and Bacteroidetes (Bacteroides)
What's Hurting Your Microbial Health?
Researchers are only beginning to tap the surface when it comes to unveiling the complex relationship microbes have with human health and disease. But it's known that microbial diversity in your gut is a good thing, while decreased diversity in the gut microbiome has been linked to chronic conditions such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
In general, gut microbial diversity decreases with age,27 but even younger people are being affected. The overuse of antibiotics, elective C-sections and processed foods have been described as primary factors "driving the destruction of our inner ecology."28 C-section delivery is associated with an increased risk of immune system and metabolic disorders, possibly due to altered microbes.29
Dramatic increases in chronic diseases, including Type 1 diabetes, asthma, obesity, gastroesophageal reflux disease and inflammatory bowel disease, are also linked to the loss of bacterial diversity in our guts — caused by the overuse of antibiotics.30 Consumption of whole foods, meanwhile, is linked to higher gut microbiota diversity,31 as is consuming herbs and spices, for instance.32
But processed foods, which are devoid of fiber needed to feed a healthy microbiome, contain chemicals such as the herbicide glyphosate that also disrupt microbes.33 From EMFs and air pollution34 to antibacterial soap, your microbiome is under constant assault from the world around you.
How to Optimize Your Gut Microbiome
Avoiding antibiotics, including those found in conventionally raised meat, is key to keeping your microbiome health intact. Ultraprocessed foods, artificial sweeteners, chlorinated and fluoridated water, elective C-sections and antibacterial products are other culprits that can worsen your microbial health.
A healthy gut microbiome depends on the consumption of fermented foods. A study assigned 36 adults to consume a diet high in fermented foods or high-fiber foods for 10 weeks. Those consuming fermented foods had an increase in microbiome diversity as well as decreases in markers of inflammation.35
If you do take antibiotics or are looking for another supportive measure for gut health, consider spore-based probiotics, or sporebiotics. These are part of a group of derivatives of the Bacillus microbe and have been shown to dramatically increase your immune tolerance.
Spore-based probiotics do not contain any live Bacillus strains, only its spores — the cell wall or protective shell around the DNA and the working mechanism of that DNA. As such, they are not affected by antibiotics and may be able to reestablish your gut microbiome more effectively when taken in conjunction with the antibiotic.
In your gut, the Bacillus species also convert sugar into vitamin C, a nutrient well-known for its anti-infectious effects and, according to Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, a long-time mentor of mine, sporebiotics also massively increase reproduction of acidophilus, bifidus and other beneficial microbes in your gut via the electromagnetic messages they send out.
This is entirely unique. When you take a regular probiotic, they primarily take care of themselves. Bacillus spores, on the other hand, enhance many other beneficial microbes. Bacillus spores also create 24 different substances that have strong antimicrobial properties. But they do not kill indiscriminately the way antibiotics do. As noted by Klinghardt:
"Seeding the gut with things that make it stronger, more resilient towards the offenses we present to it is a huge key to our time. We need to live through this insane time, and we need to use all the tools that give us more resilience, which is for me like a holy war.
Resilience means immune tolerance — tolerating the stresses of our time, and any tool that does it, that is healthy, that doesn't have side effects, is important to have in our tool chest. [Sporebiotics] is one of the major ones."
- 1 Nutr Rev. 2012 Aug; 70(Suppl 1): S38–S44., Intro
- 2 Bitchute, Microbiome and the Immune System, Interview With Rodney Dietert, Ph.D. January 22, 2021
- 3 Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Mar; 24(6): 5633
- 4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21 Visual Capitalist, What Lives in Your Gut Microbiome?
- 6 Nutrients 2019 Feb; 11(2): 258, 2. Gut Microbiota Composition and Function
- 9 Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol., 01 March 2019. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2019.00039
- 10 Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 5254 (2020)
- 11 Front Biosci (Elite Ed). 2023 Oct 16;15(4):23. doi: 10.31083/j.fbe1504023
- 12 Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2023; 107(2-3): 517–534., Pseudomonadota: From the oral cavity to the gut microbiome
- 16, 17 Microorganisms 2022, 10(2)
- 18 Brain, Behavior and Immunity January 2024; 115: 458-469, Introduction
- 19 Brain, Behavior and Immunity January 2024; 115: 458-469
- 22, 23 Nutrients 2019 Feb; 11(2): 258, 4. Gut Microbiota Strains and Obesity
- 24, 26 Scientific Reports March 31, 2023
- 25 Scientific Reports March 31, 2023, Introduction
- 27 Aging (Albany NY). 2019 Jan 31; 11(2): 289–290
- 28, 29 The Invisible Extinction, Synopsis
- 30 Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine December 2018, 85 (12) 928-930
- 31 Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2019, 20(8), 1835
- 32 The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 152, Issue 11, November 2022, Pages 2461–2470, doi: 10.1093/jn/nxac201, Intro (Archived)
- 33 Substack, 'Toxic Legacy' — How Glyphosate Destroys Your Health June 27, 2021
- 34 Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec; 19(23): 15494
- 35 Cell July 12, 2021
Papaya Supports Digestive Health
Papaya Supports Digestive Health
Rich in fiber and with a high water content, this nutrient-dense fruit naturally supports a healthy digestive tract. However, its secret "ingredient" for digestion is papain. A study published in Metabolites explains:5
"Due to their antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic, anticancer, fibrinolytic, and immunomodulatory properties, these two enzymes [papain and bromelain from pineapple] have found numerous applications in medicine as digestive assistance, as a potential adjunct in cancer therapy, in the treatment of osteoarthritis, diarrhea, sinusitis, sports injuries and respiratory tract diseases (as a mucolytic), as well as in food production, textile industry, and cosmetics."
Further, papain and other papaya extracts have antibacterial properties against multiple enteropathogens, including E. coli, listeria and salmonella, and as such have been used in food products to enhance safety. In a study on mice, papain was found to decrease potentially disease-causing proteobacteria while increasing beneficial Akkermansia muciniphila, suggesting "beneficial effects on the gut microbiota."6
Increasing evidence also supports the use of fruit proteases like papain for prevention of colitis, inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic diseases, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease,7 while the researchers concluded, "Oral administration of bromelain and papain to healthy young mice demonstrated a stimulatory effect on pancreatic function, resulting in improved digestion capacity of dietary protein."8
In the Metabolites study, papain was found to significantly increase trypsin activity in the pancreas, likely due to enhanced bioavailability of amino acids from the breakdown of dietary protein. This is another sign of its digestive support, the team explained:9
"Papain boosted the presence of active trypsin in the cecum [the beginning of the large intestine], which was accompanied by reduced protein content in the chyme [partly digested food]. Thus, it is assumed that a plant enzyme-enriched diet could influence the hydrolysis of proteins into short-chain peptides, which increases food digestibility and modifies gut microbiota composition …
[W]e presume that fruit proteases have the potential to alter the gut microbiome by enhancing protein-digestive capacity, providing substrates for bacterial metabolic requirements."
Papaya Provides a Wealth of Nutrition
Papain is just one reason to enjoy this sweet, juicy fruit. Papaya is also a rich source of phytochemicals, including alkaloids, phenolic compounds, carotenoids and glucosinolates. Micronutrients, including calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper and manganese, are also found in papaya, as are magnesium, potassium, vitamin C, vitamin E and B complex vitamins. A literature review published in Foods continued:13
"Lycopene, the main pigment in red pulp papaya, has important health implications as a strong antioxidant due to its great capacity for scavenging free radicals among carotenoids, closely followed by β-cryptoxanthin and β-carotene. Seeds are rich in phenolic compounds, including benzyl isothiocyanate, glucosinolates, β-carotene, and carotenoids.
… Usually, only papaya pulp is consumed, and ripe fruit is a carminative, diuretic, expectorant, sedative, and has preventive action against dysentery, skin diseases, psoriasis, and ringworm. The unripe fruit is used as a remedy for ulcers and impotence, reducing menstrual irregularities, and promoting natural menstruation flow in women.
… Papaya juice helps in relieving colon infections and gastrointestinal maladies, such as dyspeptic and celiac disease, whose patients cannot digest wheat protein gliadin but can tolerate it if treated with crude papain. In fact, two important compounds of papaya are chymopapain and papain, which are widely useful for digestive disorders and disturbance of the gastrointestinal tract."
Fermenting Papaya May Boosts Its Benefits
Papaya Supports Digestive Health
Rich in fiber and with a high water content, this nutrient-dense fruit naturally supports a healthy digestive tract. However, its secret "ingredient" for digestion is papain. A study published in Metabolites explains:5
"Due to their antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic, anticancer, fibrinolytic, and immunomodulatory properties, these two enzymes [papain and bromelain from pineapple] have found numerous applications in medicine as digestive assistance, as a potential adjunct in cancer therapy, in the treatment of osteoarthritis, diarrhea, sinusitis, sports injuries and respiratory tract diseases (as a mucolytic), as well as in food production, textile industry, and cosmetics."
Further, papain and other papaya extracts have antibacterial properties against multiple enteropathogens, including E. coli, listeria and salmonella, and as such have been used in food products to enhance safety. In a study on mice, papain was found to decrease potentially disease-causing proteobacteria while increasing beneficial Akkermansia muciniphila, suggesting "beneficial effects on the gut microbiota."6
Increasing evidence also supports the use of fruit proteases like papain for prevention of colitis, inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic diseases, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease,7 while the researchers concluded, "Oral administration of bromelain and papain to healthy young mice demonstrated a stimulatory effect on pancreatic function, resulting in improved digestion capacity of dietary protein."8
In the Metabolites study, papain was found to significantly increase trypsin activity in the pancreas, likely due to enhanced bioavailability of amino acids from the breakdown of dietary protein. This is another sign of its digestive support, the team explained:9
"Papain boosted the presence of active trypsin in the cecum [the beginning of the large intestine], which was accompanied by reduced protein content in the chyme [partly digested food]. Thus, it is assumed that a plant enzyme-enriched diet could influence the hydrolysis of proteins into short-chain peptides, which increases food digestibility and modifies gut microbiota composition …
[W]e presume that fruit proteases have the potential to alter the gut microbiome by enhancing protein-digestive capacity, providing substrates for bacterial metabolic requirements."
Papaya Provides a Wealth of Nutrition
Papaya Supports Digestive Health
Rich in fiber and with a high water content, this nutrient-dense fruit naturally supports a healthy digestive tract. However, its secret "ingredient" for digestion is papain. A study published in Metabolites explains:5
"Due to their antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, antithrombotic, anticancer, fibrinolytic, and immunomodulatory properties, these two enzymes [papain and bromelain from pineapple] have found numerous applications in medicine as digestive assistance, as a potential adjunct in cancer therapy, in the treatment of osteoarthritis, diarrhea, sinusitis, sports injuries and respiratory tract diseases (as a mucolytic), as well as in food production, textile industry, and cosmetics."
Further, papain and other papaya extracts have antibacterial properties against multiple enteropathogens, including E. coli, listeria and salmonella, and as such have been used in food products to enhance safety. In a study on mice, papain was found to decrease potentially disease-causing proteobacteria while increasing beneficial Akkermansia muciniphila, suggesting "beneficial effects on the gut microbiota."6
Increasing evidence also supports the use of fruit proteases like papain for prevention of colitis, inflammatory bowel disease and other chronic diseases, including diabetes, cancer and heart disease,7 while the researchers concluded, "Oral administration of bromelain and papain to healthy young mice demonstrated a stimulatory effect on pancreatic function, resulting in improved digestion capacity of dietary protein."8
In the Metabolites study, papain was found to significantly increase trypsin activity in the pancreas, likely due to enhanced bioavailability of amino acids from the breakdown of dietary protein. This is another sign of its digestive support, the team explained:9
"Papain boosted the presence of active trypsin in the cecum [the beginning of the large intestine], which was accompanied by reduced protein content in the chyme [partly digested food]. Thus, it is assumed that a plant enzyme-enriched diet could influence the hydrolysis of proteins into short-chain peptides, which increases food digestibility and modifies gut microbiota composition …
[W]e presume that fruit proteases have the potential to alter the gut microbiome by enhancing protein-digestive capacity, providing substrates for bacterial metabolic requirements."
Papain is just one reason to enjoy this sweet, juicy fruit. Papaya is also a rich source of phytochemicals, including alkaloids, phenolic compounds, carotenoids and glucosinolates. Micronutrients, including calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper and manganese, are also found in papaya, as are magnesium, potassium, vitamin C, vitamin E and B complex vitamins. A literature review published in Foods continued:13
"Lycopene, the main pigment in red pulp papaya, has important health implications as a strong antioxidant due to its great capacity for scavenging free radicals among carotenoids, closely followed by β-cryptoxanthin and β-carotene. Seeds are rich in phenolic compounds, including benzyl isothiocyanate, glucosinolates, β-carotene, and carotenoids.
… Usually, only papaya pulp is consumed, and ripe fruit is a carminative, diuretic, expectorant, sedative, and has preventive action against dysentery, skin diseases, psoriasis, and ringworm. The unripe fruit is used as a remedy for ulcers and impotence, reducing menstrual irregularities, and promoting natural menstruation flow in women.
… Papaya juice helps in relieving colon infections and gastrointestinal maladies, such as dyspeptic and celiac disease, whose patients cannot digest wheat protein gliadin but can tolerate it if treated with crude papain. In fact, two important compounds of papaya are chymopapain and papain, which are widely useful for digestive disorders and disturbance of the gastrointestinal tract."
Fermented papaya is also receiving attention as a nutraceutical with anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, anticancer and antioxidant properties. Due to its potential to reduce oxidative stress, it may be useful for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, allergic disease, cancer and antiaging support.14
In one study, individuals who ate fermented papaya for six months experienced a significant reduction in one biomarker of oxidative stress damage to DNA, increased aging and the development of cancer.15
Further, fermenting dietary fibers from papaya also leads to the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which play a role in building the gut barrier, making it less permeable to disease-causing microorganisms.16 Fermented papaya preparations have even been found to favorably modulate gut microbiota in older adults receiving their nutrition from feeding tubes.17
With both anti-inflammatory and immune-modulatory properties, fermented papaya preparations contain both prebiotics and probiotics, and may help stimulate the immune system in the colon.18
What Else Is Papaya Good For?
Beyond gut health, papaya exerts a number of additional beneficial effects on human health. Papaya leaf extract, for instance, significantly increased platelet and red blood cell counts in an animal study,19 while papain may have antiobesity effects.
In a study on obese mice, papain reduced body weight, lipid accumulation and inflammation, with the team concluding, "Collectively, these results suggest that papain exerts anti-obesity effects … by regulating levels of adipogenic factors involved in lipid metabolism and inflammation; thus, it could be useful in the prevention and treatment of obesity."20 They continued:
"As a popular folk remedy, papain was used to reduce pain, inflammation, infection, swelling, diarrhea, and allergies, in addition to improving digestion. It is also known for its wound healing properties, antibacterial activity, and exhibits inhibitory effects on platelet activation, monocyte-platelet aggregate formation, strongyloidiasis, atherosclerosis and peritoneal adhesion."
Papaya also shows promise for diabetes. Supplementation with fermented papaya preparation for 14 weeks led to improvements in several organs affected by oxidative stress during diabetes. Levels of C-reactive protein significantly decreased, while the LDL/HDL ratio was also affected. The study's authors, from the University of Mauritius, explained:21
"FPP® [fermented papaya preparation] may present a novel, economically feasible nutraceutical supplement for the management of diabetes and for those at risk for cardiovascular disease, neurological disease and other conditions worsened by overt inflammation and oxidative stress."
Papaya's anticancer effects are also being explored. In one study of 14 plants foods, only papaya extract had a significant antiproliferative effect against breast cancer cells.22
Papaya extract has been explored for the treatment of breast, liver, blood, pancreas, skin, prostate and colon cancers,23 while Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center explains, "Papaya leaf extract modulates the immune system by enhancing the production of Th1 cytokines such as interleukin-12, interferon-gamma, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha."24
Extracts from the black seeds of ripe papaya have also been found to have anticancer effects on prostate cancer cells, leading to significantly decreased proliferation.25
- 1 Tasting Table September 1, 2023
- 2, 20 Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Sep; 22(18): 9885
- 3 Foods. 2022 Feb; 11(4): 563., Intro
- 4, 10, 11 Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2013;34(1):38-46
- 5 Metabolites. 2022 Nov; 12(11): 1027., Intro
- 6, 7, 8, 9 Metabolites. 2022 Nov; 12(11): 1027
- 12 Int J Health Sci (Qassim). 2023 Sep-Oct;17(5):23-30
- 13, 14 Foods. 2022 Feb; 11(4): 563
- 15 Mediators Inflamm. 2015;2015:624801. doi: 10.1155/2015/624801. Epub 2015 Apr 7
- 16 Inverse, The Science Behind Probiotics
- 17, 18 PLoS One. 2017 Jan 6;12(1):e0169240. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169240. eCollection 2017
- 19 Asian Pac J Trop Biomed. 2013 Sep; 3(9): 720–724
- 21 Prev Med. 2012 May;54 Suppl:S90-7. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2012.01.014. Epub 2012 Feb 11
- 22 Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2009;60 Suppl 6:32-46. doi: 10.1080/09637480802312922
- 23 Anticancer Agents Med Chem. 2019;19(13):1577-1587. doi: 10.2174/1871520619666190722160955
- 24 Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Papaya Leaf
- 25 Journal of Cancer Metastasis and Treatment August 28, 2017
- 26 Non-GMO Project, FAQs (Archived)
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Fwd: Delaying the Inevitable
Just in case you were not yet aware, there is an effort to make factchecking and (mis)information management into an academic discipline.
"A survey of expert views on misinformation: Definitions, determinants, solutions, and future of the field"
ESSAY SUMMARY
The experts we surveyed defined misinformation as false and misleading information. They agreed that pseudoscience and conspiracy theories are misinformation, while satirical news is not. Experts across disciplines and methods disagreed on the importance of intentionality and whether propaganda, clickbait headlines, and hyperpartisan news are misinformation.
The experts agreed that social media platforms worsened the misinformation problem and that people are exposed to more opposing viewpoints online than offline. Respondents were also skeptical of the claim that misinformation determined the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, whereas psychologists were not.
The most popular explanations as to why people believe and share misinformation were partisanship, identity, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and lack of trust in institutions.
The experts we surveyed agreed that current interventions against misinformation, such as media literacy and fact-checking, would be effective if widely adopted. Experts were in favor of platform design changes, algorithmic changes, content moderation, de-platforming, and stronger regulations.
These experts also agreed that in the future, it will be important to collect more data outside of the United States, do more interdisciplinary work, examine subtler forms of misinformation, study platforms other than Twitter and Facebook, and develop better theories and interventions.
What is misinformation?
What do misinformation "experts" agree on?
What should be done about misinformation?
Ideas have strange properties. When the world is not ready, they can hide away for days, weeks, years, decades until the right time for their emergence. And then they present themselves, in harmony, all over the world.
Ideas are sticky. They slip into those minds that are open and embed themselves, as if into the subconscious, into the land of dreams and possibilities. Then they suddenly pop into awareness at the strangest of times, when some confluence of circumstance and need combines to make the previously hidden seem obvious.
And ideas have power. Power to subtly shift perspective and then abruptly change the world. Power to overturn economies, societies and governments.
Which is why those stakeholders benefitting from current status quo actively seek to suppress the spread of new ideas, inconvenient truths, and independent thought.
Recently revealed data and truths concerning the power of Google and the modern American Administrative state to craft, distribute and enforce approved narratives, and thereby to control election outcomes, have been nagging at my mind. I had already become worried about the power of modern PsyWar and Cognitive Warfare to twist minds into supporting a ruling oligarchy when governments (and bureaucracies) convince themselves that they are justified in deploying this technology on their own citizens. That this technology dwarfs any concerns about ballot integrity, makes the fundamental philosophical underpinnings of a self-governing republic (individual and collective sovereignty and autonomy, freedom of speech) completely obsolete, and appears to be the portal which will usher in an era of technocratic totalitarianism. Corporatism (or techno- Fascism) on steroids.
A shadow now haunts my mind. I am deeply troubled in confronting the reality that the world and version of political truths that I have been propagandized to believe over my entire life is merely smoke and mirrors. A vague uneasiness has been lurking around me over these last four years; a sense that I have not only been censored, defamed, and lied to during the time of COVID, but over my entire life. A deeply disturbing specter that the United States government is not the knighted champion of Camelot so frequently and pervasively portrayed in media and literature. Rather its actions since WW II have been those of an immature, petulant and narcissistic adolescent that feels entitled to exploit geopolitics and war to advance short term power and economic objectives that benefit a small elite, rather than more broadly advancing "democracy", global economic development, and those ephemeral aspirations of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not only have I been propagandized and lied to, but I also sense that the window of time where this behavior by a monolithic Imperial state has been tolerated is coming to an end, winding and grinding down into mundane corruption, bickering self-interest and bureaucratic dysfunctionalism. And that there is no way to stop this accelerating funhouse carousel of painted ponies and mirrors before an abrupt catastrophic failure of the hidden gears throws all into revolutionary chaos.
Maybe something like this has been bothering you also?
Whether fortunate or not, we live in a time of both disruption and deception. A period when change has become an inevitable norm, and yet objective reality is considered an obsolete anachronism. An anachronism that cannot be tolerated, and must be twisted or expunged to serve the interests of those most powerful who will always act to maintain their privilege. Poised in transition between the relatively stable legacy "Pax Americana" bequeathed to us by American military and political victories over twentieth century totalitarian regimes, and fragmentation into an increasingly multilateral rough and tumble world characterized by shifting transitory alliances based on short term interests and opportunity. We all now confront a surrealist intellectual and psychological landscape where truthiness becomes just another product to be marketed. Or propagandized. Or censored. Marketing, propaganda and censorship each being subtle linguistic variations on a single theme of methods to exert external control over the thought and behavior of what otherwise would be autonomous, independent and sovereign individuals.
At the moment we have the luxury to travel through the world of thought and objective fact, seeking meaning. This too may be transitory, a brief window of time that we will look back on nostalgically, pondering our own historical naivety. Consider how you saw the world during early 2020 to your current point of view. We are fortunate to still live in a time when we are able and allowed to exchange ideas, to trace down and discuss discovered artifacts of truth, to assemble our own narratives to explain those artifacts, and to act based on those belief systems. A time defined as that brief window which preceded a future present when only approved narratives are allowed to be shared. A period bounded on one side by a cascading collapse of a carefully crafted but fundamentally immature American Imperial state, and on the other by the rise of insatiable globalist corporatism.
For many, including myself, the fabric of the widely shared belief in the benevolence of the American Imperial state has been irreparably rendered by the grossly dysfunctional national and transnational mismanagement of the COVIDcrisis. Others were better able than I to see through the cloud of propaganda and lies long before SARS-CoV-2 was constructed. A virus developed and assembled by a bizarre and improbable collusion between US-dominated "biodefense" intelligence interests, the Chinese CCP/PLA (and its dual function Wuhan Institute of Virology), and an international network of entitled biomedical researchers.
But now the gloves are off, and as the underlying truths of this global tragedy are gradually being revealed, the American Imperial state and its allies (governments and corporations) are increasingly resorting to raw power to avoid the consequences of their actions. And with this, it is becoming easier to see the fist. A fist that takes the form of the most aggressive and pervasive global suppression of thought and speech ever witnessed in recorded history. One that is rapidly becoming normalized as an industrial/academic censorship and propaganda complex.
Science, technology, and geopolitics can all be described as methods for devising optimal solutions to various problem sets. In some cases, the problem sets are stable and universal, such as the nature of the universe and the properties of physical matter. In other cases, the problem sets are constantly changing as the underlying understandings and current solutions change or evolve under pressure to optimize a solution to address a need.
What censorship and propaganda do is to delay or prevent development of innovative ideas and solutions to unmet needs.
What happens as humans apply their minds and muscles to solving problems and creating value (and wealth, a storage form of value), is that the systems and technologies which they create get closer and closer over time to an optimized solution to the problem. Humans are able to not only adapt to changing conditions in real time, but can also efficiently archive and transmit their solutions to other humans through complex written and verbal communication. The result is rapid widespread innovation.
As the systems and solutions improve, they usually encounter obstacles which cannot be addressed by the current paradigm or model of reality. And when this happens, a gap develops between the problem or unmet need and current capabilities to address that gap due to some sort of boundary condition. This gap between unmet need and current solutions typically increases over time, particularly during periods of change.
In the case of science and technology, a scientific "revolution" will occur when some new idea, observation or solution ("disruptive technology") results in a restructuring of understanding about the problem and potential solutions. Such events suddenly (abruptly) dissolve or overcome the boundary which has limited the development of an optimal solution to the problem, and a set of more optimal solutions are rapidly developed until the next boundary condition is encountered. The larger the gap between current and optimal solution, the more disruptive the change.
Political propaganda and censorship act as boundary conditions to development of more optimal solutions to the problems with which politics is concerned. Problems involving economics, finance, resource distribution, and (increasingly) the nature and impact of the human species on its environment, other species, and itself. When a local or more global hegemonic power (such as post WW II USA) or cabal (such as the World Economic Forum, WHO or United Nations) acts via propaganda and censorship to restrict the free flow of ideas and innovation in order to maintain its dominance, this leads to a growing gap (disparity) between current and optimal solutions. This gap is the unmet need, resolution of which is impeded by deployment of propaganda and censorship acting in service of a minority and against the interests of a majority of humankind.
In the case of periods of rapid change, this gap may rapidly expand, resulting in large differences between optimum and allowed solutions. This is particularly the case when objective reality ("truth") is discarded in favor of subjective "truthiness" in which reality becomes whatever dominant individuals or groups assert it to be, and for which they may employ psychological manipulations of various forms to impose their subjective versions of "truth" (false narratives) on the larger population. Of course, these processes are exacerbated when political power is more globally aggregated rather than being decentralized. What might otherwise be a localized failed experiment becomes massive tragedy under a centralized or globalized political system of organization and governance. Example: COVID-19.
Eventually, this unmet need results in an intolerable level of social stress or strain, or difference between the average human condition and that of the elites which act to create boundaries to change, and a new constellation of ideas will arise which purport to resolve this discontinuity. The historic structure of human revolutions demonstrates that frustrated humanity will often abruptly endorse these new and different ideas- even though they have not been demonstrated to resolve the gap between current and optimal solutions.
In contrast, in a decentralized human society grounded in objective truth, where open and honest debate about ideas between sovereign autonomous is the expected norm, what develops is a process wherein solutions to problems are constantly being explored, deployed at small scale, and subjected to the crucible of reality-based decision making. The consequence is an incremental set of improvements which allow real-time "evolution" of more optimal solutions to the problem set. And has the added benefit of avoiding development of a frustrated, disempowered majority willing to accept any alternative to a dysfunctional present.
Justification of the use of propaganda and censorship in order to sustain a hegemonic political/economic system which primarily benefits an oligarchy of one form or another (saving "democracy", for example) represents immature, narcissistic, short term thinking. This must be rejected, if for no other reason that it will delay development of more effective solutions to current problems, and will also strongly contribute to the development of future social and political revolutions resulting in disparate adaptation of unproven ideas and ideologies.
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