technology – The Burning Platform

The Irony of Phenomena Past and Present

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

In the film industry, there is a marketing strategy called “counterprogramming” whereupon two opposite types of movies are released on the same weekend. The idea is to appeal to separate demographics and, ultimately, drive more people to the theaters.

This occurred last month when two summer blockbusters were released on the same day, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”. The former is a film about the iconic children’s doll and the latter is about the inventor of the atomic bomb.

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Interestingly, the release of the films began a social phenomenon called “Barbenheimer” where many film-goers would see both shows as a double feature.

Subsequently, while visiting relatives earlier this month, some of them asked if I would consider going to both films just for kicks, or, at the very least, if I would tag along to see “Oppenheimer” only. The ladies were planning to see “Barbie” all dressed up in their pink summer outfits and they feigned dramatic sighs as I declined their offer.

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Modern Meanderings in the Fire’s Light

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

For the most part, I’ve lost interest in the news. Ukraine war? Don’t care. Lost submarine? Yawn. Pride Month? Good luck with that. Canadian wildfires? So what. Russian civil war? Whatever. Elections? Been there, done that.

I believe it was French Philosopher Voltaire who defined “cynicism” as armor against despair, but, honestly, it’s not that. On the contrary, I am enjoying life more than ever and my days are meaningful and well-spent.

One year ago, I wrote about helping a former business associate by driving a dumptruck a few days a week. In that moderately metaphorical article, entitled “Building Roads While the World Wilts”, I described my perception of America’s remaining attributes, particularly, out here in the “fringe” and mentioned how people “here on the edge seem to be ignoring The Borg”, then wondered…. “For how long?”

Now an entire year has gone by… and in spite of all the new headlines… very little has changed in my world. So far.

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The Lies Of The Borg Are The Glue That Binds

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

The Borg are an alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the Star Trek franchise. The Borg are cybernetic organisms linked in a hive mind called “the Collective”. The Borg co-opt the technology and knowledge of other alien species to the Collective through the process of “assimilation”: forcibly transforming individual beings into “drones” by injecting nanoprobes into their bodies and surgically augmenting them with cybernetic components. The Borg’s ultimate goal is “achieving perfection”…

– SOURCE

You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

– The Borg

Ironically, this article begins with an epilogue. It is because what began four years ago with a dream to Make America Great Again® has now become the nightmare of a collectivist coup and The New Domestic War on Terror®.

For years now, I have speculated on the presidency of Donald Trump as the “bleeding of the brake lines before the big stop”. Unfortunately, it now appears that speculation has been answered in the affirmative, because it happened: America has been assimilated into The Collective.

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VONNEGUT’S DARK VISION ARRIVED 60 YEARS EARLY

“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.” – Harrison Bergeron – Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut’s short story – Harrison Bergeron – was written in 1961, and in Vonnegut’s darkly satirical style, portrayed America in 2081 as an disgracefully dystopian nightmare. Little did Vonnegut know what he considered outrageous and 120 years in the future, would be far closer to our current dystopian reality just 60 years later. The story was brought to my attention by my wife a week ago when we were talking about the absurdity of masks, their uselessness in stopping viruses, how they are nothing more than a means to control the population, being used to spread fear, and as a dehumanizing technique.

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FOURTH TURNING ELECTION YEAR CRISIS

“The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

“There is no darkness but ignorance. The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” William Shakespeare

I read The Fourth Turning in 2006, after seeing it described in John Mauldin and Doug Casey’s newsletters as an uncannily accurate assessment of American history based upon generational configurations which recur on eighty-year cycles, a long human life. Strauss and Howe wrote the book in 1997 and used their generational theory to predict the Crisis that would begin in the mid-2000’s and come to an indeterminate climax in the mid-2020’s.

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Netflix’s “Social Dilemma” is Pure Deflection Because the Best Lies Always Contain Some Truth

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

This blogger sees Netflix in the same way “Godfather”, Vito Corleone, viewed his enemies. In other words, I keep my books and blogs close, but television and movies closer. This is because social narratives are the new religion. As I’ve stated before in previous articles, I have a love-hate relationship with Netflix. It offers a convenient and affordable access to an impressive library of film and documentaries – but not without its cultural bias. It’s like anything else, buyer beware; or, rather, I simply slice off the meat and leave the bones when it comes to infotainment.

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The Most Interesting Man in the World: Two Faces on the Same Coin

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Presidential elections are planned distractions

To divert attention from the action behind the scenes

Like a game of chess when the house is a mess

Or a petty money squabble when your marriage is in trouble

Or a football game when there’s rioting in the streets

It’s just another movie, another song and dance

Another poor sucker who never had a chance

– Timbuk3. “Just Another Movie”, Greetings From Timbuk3 (1986), Mamdadaddi Music/I.R.S. Music, Inc. admin. by Atlantic Music

Before the big game there’s a coin toss and by the luck of the draw, decisions are made even before the teams take the field. It is the same for politics with, perhaps, the exception of luck having anything to do with the outcomes. Regardless, the games play on our screens and we passively watch; anxiously waiting to see what happens.

It’s an all-or-nothing blitz to score big and winners take all. In the interim, there are the commercial breaks revealing ads refined by the fires of focus groups and in boardrooms.

Edward Bernays, the influential pioneer of public relations and the nephew of iconic psychologist Sigmund Freud, wrote in his 1928 book “Propaganda” (page 37) regarding an “unseen mechanism of society” that constituted “an invisible government” that was, assuredly, “the true ruling power of our country”. Bernays added: “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”

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TECHNOLOGY: DISTRACTING, DISTURBING, DECEIVING & DELUDING OURSELVES TO DEATH

“What Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth.

When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Something as mundane as using the restroom at work sometimes ends up triggering deeper thoughts about technology – its benefits, deficiencies and danger to our culture. I’ve been using the same restroom at work for the last twelve years. They remodeled the restroom a few years ago with the latest technology – automatic flushers, automatic soap dispensers, automatic spigots, and automatic towel dispenser. This technology is supposed to make things better, but from my perspective the technology just added complexity, glitches and unnecessary complications.

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