When we tell the truth it does not matter how complex a story gets, how many twists and turns or how many layers are involved. The math adds up automatically.
Understanding the truth
I subscribe to the camp of people who say, “I don’t care about your opinion.” Sure, it might sound harsh. I would rather say, you’re “entitled to your opinion” – but that does not mean that I will accept it at face value. In an argument I don’t care what you think or what you believe – I care about what can be demonstrated as factual.
A fact must be logical, measurable, and demonstrable – otherwise it is essentially conjecture. If a fringe opinion is isolated in the sense that it won’t affect others, then so be it. But if an unfounded opinion will be the base to make a decision that will affect others without having a strong basis to validate it as factual, then I do have a HUGE problem with that.
The truth is that facts are immutable, it does not matter if you like it or not, or if it hurts your feelings or not, or if it concurs with your assumption or not. Facts are what they are. And although there are ways to soften a blow when communicating facts in order to prevent destroying a person’s emotional health – for example if you have to break down tragic news to a person who has lost a loved one, no matter how you communicate this, it simply won’t change what happened.
The past is what it is. Nobody has been able to turn back time. Today, right now, as you read my words, it is the culmination of all the decisions you’ve ever taken in your life. Some were good, some were bad, some helped your development, some stagnated your progress… that’s life. The fact is that no matter how much we would want to change past events, we simply cannot.
When we tell the truth then it does not matter what factors will appear even hundreds of years for now; even if a bunch of lies try to cover up the situation, that won’t change what has indeed happened – even if the truth is never uncovered. But as we move forward and improve our forensics, analysis, historical records, then we can uncover the truth that was buried. For example, crimes that were solved, resulting in overturning wrongful convictions – proving somebody’s innocence.
AUTHORITARIANISM & PROPAGANDA The Puppet Master Tools
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There is no such thing as a perfect lie
When something is not true, it does not matter how well-crafted the lie or coverup might be – the math won’t add up somewhere. There are millions of events and decisions happening every second of the day, and if we were to rewind those events and every single action, all the math would add up automatically. If any of those events was a lie, somewhere you will find an inconsistency.
In my book Authoritarianism & Propaganda the Puppet Master Tools I talk about how distinguishing facts from opinions can help us be more objective in our decision making. Why is that relevant? Because as I type these words there is a spike of misinformation, scams, conning, swindles, demagoguery, propaganda, and other deceptions that are targeting our collective understanding of what is true and what is false.
This collective deception we are experiencing of course has a purpose – to normalize misinformation. When misinformation is normalized, then people are more prone to fall for conspiracy theories, fall into echo chambers, and lose track of how to think critically without being a partisan cynical. This is important because otherwise these lies open the door for authoritarian propaganda to highjack our biases. And by the way this is happening already.
This series of articles and books I am writing are intended to wake up people who have been targeted by propagandists from their subconscious nap. There are many people who are broadcasting the truth from any platform they can find. But the truth is being isolated more and more. Meanwhile, these falsehoods and opinions disguised as facts are gaining traction – and the reality is that a falsehood, much like negativity, tends to be very contagious.
But if you forget anything that I said today, remember that facts are logical, measurable, and demonstrable. Falsehoods, no matter how well-crafted they might appear to be, are still false. Calling or naming something “true” or “truth” does NOT automatically make it true. And those who want to deceive you might craft a very complex lie – but eventually they will get lazy.
What does that mean? It means that if their target audience is naïve enough, their con artists’ lies will be more and more sloppy. Even though their loyal followers will believe it, it will make it a lot more obvious to anybody else who is paying attention, and not buying into their BS. This is happening, and fortunately some who were lied before are finally starting to wake up from their subconscious nap. HLC