Guest Post by Sundance
CTH has encountered criticism for our position on information. Perhaps it is important to step back and explain exactly why we should not be playing by rules established to control us while engaged in the battle of ideas. First, my position:
…”There is no such thing as “disinformation” or “misinformation”. There is only information you accept and information you do not accept. You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.”…
There are only two elements within the public discussion of information, truth and not truth.
In an era filled with “fact-checkers” and institutional guardians at the gates of Big Tech, let me explain exactly why it is important not to accept the speech rules of the guards.
When you accept the terms “disinformation”, “misinformation” or the newest lingo, “malinformation,” you are beginning to categorize truth and lies in various shades. You are merging black and white, right and wrong, into various shades of grey.
When your mind works in the grey zone, you are, by direct and factual consequence, saying there is a problem. You are correct; however, this is where people may make a mistake. The problem is supposed to be there.
It is not a solution to the problem to try and remove the grey simply because it takes too much work to separate the white pixels from the black ones. You were born with a gift, the greatest gift a loving God could provide. You were born with a brain and set of natural instincts that are tools to do this pixel separation, use them.
If you define the grey work as a problem you cannot solve on your own, you open the door for others to solve that problem for you. You begin to abdicate the work, and that’s when trouble can enter.
The sliding scale of Pinocchio’s is one of the most familiar yet goofy outcomes.
Put more clearly, when you accept the terminology “disinformation”, you accept a problem.
The problem is then the tool by which authorities will step in to make judgements.
Speech, in its most consequential form, is then qualified by others to whom you have sub-contracted your thinking.
When you willingly sub-contract information filters to others, you have lost connection with the raw information.
CTH was founded upon the belief that truth has no agenda, nor does it care about you, your feelings, or your opinion of it. It just sits there, empirically existing as evidence of information in its most pure form.
The search for truth, in all things, is the mission objective of this assembly. Often, we don’t like the truth; often, the truth is bitter, cold, challenging and even painful to accept. However, the truth doesn’t care. Information in its most raw form is ambivalent to your opinion. If you struggle to accept these things, that’s when you need grey. The New York Times is not called the “grey lady” accidentally.
Personally, I am an absorber of information – perhaps on a scale that is unusual. But I do not discount information from any form until I can put context to it and see if the information makes sense given all the variables present. When something doesn’t feel right, it’s almost always because it isn’t right.
Often, I find myself struggling in the grey and complex. It is not unusual to spend days researching, digging, clarifying a situation, only to discover the path to finding the truth is in another direction entirely. Erasing everything and starting over is frustrating, but it is genuinely the only approach that works; and often finding truth is supposed to be difficult, that’s why it is rewarding.
In the digital information age, we are bombarded with information. It is easy to be overwhelmed and need to find something or someone who has better skills at separating the black grains from the white ones. All opinions in this quest should be considered; thus, it is important to allow the free flow of information.
I am not necessarily a speech absolutist. There is some language that needs to be constrained if we are to participate in a respectful society, with grandma’s rules and knowing the audience. The CTH has guidelines for comments for this exact reason. However, those constraints need to be based on a set of inherent values. When it comes to information it is important to draw a distinction from speech.
There needs to be an open venue for all information. Unfortunately, when we begin to apply labels or categorization to information, there’s an opportunity for information to be manipulated – even weaponized. Saul Alinsky spent decades pondering the best techniques to weaponize information and speech. Alinsky’s intentions in the endeavor to change society by changing how language and information was used were not good. He devoted his completed rulebook book to Lucifer.
Be careful about anyone saying we need to label or categorize information in order to control or remove speech from the discussion.
You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a God-given brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
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This article is terrific. I completely agree. But please tell me what the fuck CTH stands for. I googled it and saw that it’s a Thai cable and satellite TV company and Compact Toroidal Hybrid whatever the hell that is. Isn’t it common practice to spell it out at the onset and then refer to initials? Please don’t piss me off first thing in the morning. But still an excellent perspective.
CTH is Conservative Tree House
Conservative Tree House
The Conservative Treehouse
Who knew? Thanks, guys.
Did you just assume our genders !?!?!?!
/sarc
Yup. It pisses off the right people.
You mean the left people.
!!!
“I am not necessarily a speech absolutist. There is some language that needs to be constrained if we are to participate in a respectful society, with grandma’s rules and knowing the audience. The CTH has guidelines for comments for this exact reason. However, those constraints need to be based on a set of inherent values. When it comes to information it is important to draw a distinction from speech.”
Only problem I have with that is what committee decides what is expectable and what is not and what are the penalties for non compliance. Free speech is not without consequence, I simply think Government has no business in regulating it.
Wyrd that you got downvotes for that. I agree with you. WHO gets to decide?? That is the problem. That’s always the problem in all this.
Speech should not be constrained by government or the authorities. It should be constrained by people thinking you’re an asshole when you say certain things.
Which is why homogeneous communities are so important.
Nice…succinct and honest!I have been an absorber of information since about 8 or 9 started reading the newspaper regularly.It has taken the other half-century to make heads or tails of it all(the internet blew it out of the water)..My line of work is a reality based one,HVAC service technician of thirty years….yes, TRUTH is self-evident.There’s a reason it doesn’t operate.
My Sisters wants someone to lay it all out for her,I told her it doesn’t work that way….
You reach conclusions/truths and search and compare…..the funny thing? she would disagree with the lot of it!
A little doggerel inspired by AC’s observation that many, if not most, of the self-appointed “opinion leaders” of the Right are faker and gayer than a transman at a lesbian bar in San Francisco.
No matter what they do,
No matter what they say,
All of it is building cred
To lead the weak astray.
No matter what they swear,
No matter how they bark,
All of it is gatekeeping
To leave you in the dark.
No matter what they vow,
No matter how they’re based,
All of it is fake and gay
To keep your trust misplaced.
And when they turn upon you
To denounce your tawdry tone,
It’s just an act designed to make
You think that you’re alone.
On a related note, I can affirm, state, and confirm that I do not have an official 302, or a 302 of any kind. Non serviam.
I find playing devil’s advocate in just about everything is very useful. Although, it pisses people off. It’s strange to me how sensitive people can be.
Not so much fun during the funeral service I imagine.
“Thought, however unintelligible it may be, seems as much a function of organ as bile of liver. This view should teach one profound humility, no one deserves credit for anything. Nor ought one to blame others.” ~ Charles Darwin
What’s the diff between autonomic & automaton, in that case? Maybe the difference between a self-driving Porsche & a self-driving Pinto(cchio). Could be. Doesn’t have to be. Relative to Porches, there’s bags & bags of Pinto beans.
Prodigies don’t think it all through & out in advance. But all that “thinking” is somehow embodied & emergent.
Cross an idiot & a savant … but no, that’s not how dating apps work. And nobody knows how idiot savants work. But Rainman could sure work the numbers.
“If you define the grey work as a problem you cannot solve on your own, you open the door for others to solve that problem for you. You begin to abdicate the work, and that’s when trouble can enter.”
Every wo/man is an island. If you invite the grey worker-wolves into your island (cue that Liam Neeson flick), it’s Lord of the Flies time, & you’re Piggy. The Marquess of Queensberry parliamentarianism you’ve been “given” is marinade concocted by wolves … wolves words marinade. It’s part of the wolves bite force. Call it pre-bite/digestion, maybe.
People have about 120 psi of bite force. And they use too much of that chewing words.
But they are also addicted ~ words become their coca leaves ~ & as their already domesticated teeth wear down they more & more look around, as fallen prey to bite force envy. Bigger is better. Higher psi bite force is better. So wolves are “hired” to do the chewing.
Which is like frog-ferrying a scorpion that waits until you’ve gotten it to the other side.
Frog’s gotta frog. Scorp’s gotta scorp. Autonomic.
“weaponize”
“Verily, I have often laughed at weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws” – but they had clause after clause in The Constitution™.
Eventually, quite soon in fact, John Wick, & John Hancock, are killing guys with pencils.
Is a pencil a weapon? A harpoon, maybe?
No. Pencil, let alone graphite smudges on the page, hasn’t been “weaponized” (isn’t this just more of the same “mis/dis/malinfo”?).
It’s just that the ones whimpering “weaponized” ain’t got no Moby in ‘em.
Jaguar Paw’s claws clause:
But goads for toads is for movie audiences.
When it comes to the tight corners, running your mouth is more likely to be a weapon against yourself (as you have been so thoroughly groomed – another beefed memorized muscle reflex short-cut – to do).
Maybe internal dialog here, maybe just embodied “verbs” that onlookers confuse with their pasted-on words – I “see” (remember) a lotta muscle-memory ~ “no mind” ~ & that prolly “thinks” in something closer to dyslexic pictures than puny words:
CTH should reconsider its premises on Trump in light of specific outcomes and admit Sundance was played.
Russiagate was a distraction and Trump was always controlled opposition.
Free speech doesn’t need any elaborate explanation. All speculations must be welcomed as time makes truth obvious.
This has been my major issue with Sundance as well. (Was banned there for pointing it out.) He draws a lot of the right conclusions and his research is top notch on the surveillance state, but his massive blind spot when it comes to his favorite President can not be reconciled with his stated positions.
He also refuses to touch the jab issue, given his older age it’s safe to assume, although he hasn’t confirmed that to my knowledge.
The first hate speech laws were the beginning of thought control. All information has value. Censorship is a cardinal sign of weakness and violence is the natural pinnacle of censorship. The people running the current narrative suffer hubris and the inherent insecurities of the imposter. Credentials times ability can produce achievements of genius or the steaming piles of excrement our credentialed class is currently heaping upon us. It didn’t work for the Soviets and it isn’t working in Europe and it won’t work here in the USA. Every criminal is a socialist and every socialist is a criminal.
2+2=4. You cannot convince me otherwise. Go up to a young person and try and get them to believe it’s 5. It’s scary how easy it is.