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"What is the Matrix? Control."

This essay was originally written by Daniel A. Nagy and published on his Facebook page on April 2nd, 2017. It is the third part in a series. The first two parts are available here: Part 1, Part 2. All three parts were originally published on facebook: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

This is the third part in a series. The second part is available here, the first part is available here.

In the first part, I have discussed the so-called Independent Media™, the seeming conspiracy of mass-media workers, especially, but not exclusively journalists, in creating and perpetuating a virtual reality by biased reporting and analysis, serving the interests of the International Community™. In the second part, I have discussed the role of Student Activists™ in doing the footwork and providing a recruitment pool for the rest of the International Community™. I have argued, that there is no need for these people to actually conspire or to be in the service or the pay of some shadowy background power; they are merely following their own perceived interests and their own thirst for power and status.

In this third part, I will look at the other side of the same academic coin:

Liberal Universities™

Their faculty and administration are not only tolerating political activism on campus, but actively encouraging and supporting it, as long as it serves the interests of the International Community™. On one hand, there is nothing new or surprising about the best scientists being in the pay of the most powerful rulers. Similarly, it is quite common for them to provide legitimacy and support for their paymasters. What is new, however, that there seem to be no rulers around. On paper, the best Liberal Universities™ are independent and private, yet, they act as if there was some shadowy background power pulling the strings and showering them with money and prestige, as powerful rulers of the past have done. Well, if you state that much in public, you are only going to make a fool of yourself.

Just like in the case of Independent Media™, academics are actually in the driver’s seat of the International Community™. They do not serve anyone in particular, but exercising and protecting their own power. As it always happens at the nexus of power and science, science suffers. Entire bogus fields of study emerge that have nothing to do with uncovering the secrets of the world using the scientific method and even legitimate scientific pursuits get corrupted by biased funding and publishing. I believe that the root cause for this to go largely unopposed is that division of labor and specialization have deepened so much during the past century that non-specialists came to rely too heavily on academic credentials and KPI’s such as publications in Prestigeous Journals™, which, in turn, are measured by another KPI, the so-called impact factor. This provides cliques of mutual support that cite each others’ papers and also sit on editorial boards of journals with an opportunity to completely capture entire disciplines and even to create new ones, irrespective of actual scientific merit.

When enemies of the International Community™ attempt to mimic its behavior by operating universities of their own or attempting to endow their cronies with academic titles, they invariably fail, often quite comically. Just like in the case with journalists, no matter how much the king pays to the professor, no matter how much money he plows into shiny campuses, it will never be as prestigeous and attractive as a true, independent Liberal University™. The best possible outcome for such attempts is complete capture of the institution by the International Community™ in which case the ruler might have bought himself a temporary, highly conditional (upon unwavering loyalty) peace.

In this light, it is not at all surprising that one of the core tenets of the International Community™, in fact, one of the core Democratic Values™ is that public policy needs to be based on scientific evidence. This is a huge departure from the practice of past rulers who might have paid keen attention to scientist advisors, but would have never given up agency or responsibility by delegating policymaking to scientists. This practice of requiring scientific evidence (in practice: academic approval) for policy decisions utterly corrupts science, for it implies that the only way to influence policy is to influence science. Thus, power is spoken to truth, honest pursuit of science in politically charged fields such as economics or climate becomes impossible.

As any person in the position of power, these academics are, of course, corrupt. Since they have near-absolute power, they are very corrupt, in fact, but also very expensive. This might seem like a weakness, and indeed it is sometimes possible to destroy individual academics by unmasking their corruption, but that may prove very difficult, expensive and dangerous. Going after entire Liberal Universities™ or fields of study, however corrupted, is a surefire way to draw the ire of the entire International Community™.

The true and ultimate weakness of academia is that it is entirely unnecessary and useless in the age of the internet. They hardly do anything useful anymore for anyone but themselves and their powerful friends. If you want to actually learn something, there is no reason anymore to enroll in an accredited degree-earning program, because you can listen to lectures and read papers by the best in any field online, often for free. There is also no reason to pay any attention, as employers, to academic credentials. If you need to hire scientifically trained talent, you can look at results of online competitions, open-source work, etc. If really needed, you should test the applicant in-house on the subject. Remember: the proof of Poincaré Conjecture was not published in a peer-reviewed journal and the Fields medal awarded for it was turned down. The best strategy for freeing yourself and the world from power-thirsty academics with top-notch credentials is to ignore them out of power.

Those who are doing real science no longer need to rely on academic credentials, even if they happen to have them.

"What is the Matrix? Control."

This essay was originally written by Daniel A. Nagy and published on his Facebook page on July 7th, 2015. It is the second part in a series. The first part is available here: http://fare.livejournal.com/184653.html. Both parts were originally published on facebook: Part 1, Part 2.

In that first part, I have discussed the so-called "independent media", the seeming conspiracy of mass-media workers, especially, but not exclusively journalists, in creating and perpetuating a virtual reality by biased reporting and analysis, serving the interests of the International Community™. I have argued, that there is no need for these people to actually conspire or to be in the service or the pay of some shadowy background power; they are merely following their own perceived interests and their own thirst for power and status.

In this second part, I am going to discuss another very important institution of power and its nexus with Independent Media™:

Student Activists™ and Community Engagement

As the cynical proverb goes, those who get through higher education by studying are doomed to get through life by working. However, there are plenty of other things one can do at university, some of them commonly denoted by the nebulous term "community engagement", ranging from participating in university-based organizations like the Student Union to doing volunteer work for various organizations in the non-profit sector, community organizing and direct political action.

It is "community engagement" where the most power-thirsty and politically ambitious among the students get the opportunity to network with all the right people. It is in these institutions, where they get their first real-life experiences of the workings of power, politics and corruption.

While all political and religious movements worth their salt do their best to gain a foothold at campuses, the International Community™'s grip on the better universities around the world seems inescapable. Conversely, whenever some other politicised group manages to gain the kind of pervasive influence on a campus typically enjoyed by the International Community™, such as introducing entire fields of studies with a political agenda, directly influencing salaries and scolarships and so on, the school immediately sinks in all academic rankings, starts losing out on the best students and faculty. It becomes little more than a training ground for the next generation of its political masters and a propaganda outlet masquerading as an institution of higher learning. Its real scientific output dwindles.

Not so with the International Community™! The fact that a university offers advanced degree programs in subjects like "gender studies" or "international relations" or "political science" does not, by any means, reduce the value of its physics, history or law degrees. The fact that its students are regularly doing the footwork for political campaigns and revolutions (both at home and abroad) is surprisingly reconcilable with academic excellence, albeit typically achieved by a very different part of the student body (with the exception of the aforementioned politically charged subjects). So, who are these foot soldiers of the International Community™ and what motivates them?

At first, just like in the case of media, it seems like a vast conspiracy. Surely, these agents are planted by some shadowy organization? Well, if you state that much in public, you are only going to make a fool of yourself. They all went through the regular recruitment process, and even if there were some strange irregularities (that actually happens more often than people are willing to admit), there is usually no third party to them; just the prospective student and school officials. Now, there might be some institutionalized "irregularities", such as formal or informal minority quotas and other preferences that might have helped these students get in, and you would surely find the International Community™ throwing its full weight behind these policies, but again, no shadowy puppet masters are pulling the strings, everything happens quite transparently, in broad daylight, so to speak.

Student activists are primarily motivated by an unsatiable thirst for power. It is regarded as the stepping stone to positions of greater power, such as journalism, diplomacy, politics and academic administration. The funding keeping these people from accidentally doing something productive in case they get hungry comes from a variety of sources; some of it is scholarships and stipends from other branches of the International Community™, but relying primarily on such direct payments would make the link too obvious. A far more common way of keeping activists paid is by pretending that the usual side shows of their activism, such as journalism, photography or art are worth paying for. For example, instead of paying them directly for participation in demonstrations and for bringing in more people, they are going to get paid for the pictures they take and the articles they write about the event, so that they, too, can believe that they are doing all the footwork of political activism out of pure and noble conviction. However, they do not need to take one minute off their activism to put bread on their plate. The quality of their journalistic or artistic output is not very relevant at this stage.

As we can see, there is no mysterious secret conspiracy here: news organizations (a.k.a. Independent Media™) has both the means and the motivation to recruit willing students for doing activist footwork for protecting and spreading the political system that keeps them enormously powerful. Ambitious students, on their part, constitute both a talent pool for future recruitment and a rich source of cheap labor.

In our next installment, we will look at why and how university faculty are not only tolerating but often encouraging such parasitic activities on campus. Again, without puppet-masters, entirely out of their own self-interest.

This essay was originally written by Daniel A. Nagy and published his Facebook page on December 11th, 2014. See also: Part 2.

"What is the Matrix? Control."

One essential element of the existing world order is a mysterious, yet very powerful entity commonly referred to as the "international community". To the uninitiated, it might look like some vast conspiracy and quite a few people believe that it is one. To the rest, these people are nuts, believing in weird conspiracy theories. Yet another set of people noticed, that the truth value of most statements does not change if "international community" is replaced by "U. S. State Department" or vice versa. From this, they conclude that it is simply a different name for American diplomacy. They also, quite justifiably, end up as targets of mockery when agents of the International Community™ accused of being on the payroll of the U. S. State Department very obviously aren't.

Yet, the role of the International Community™ in the modern world order cannot be overstated. Its most visible activity is enforcing "democratic values" around the world and crushing those that deviate from them with all its military and financial might, if necessary. Left to their own devices, democracies very often deviate from these "democratic values". For example, majorities, given the opportunity, have no qualms about taking advantage of minorities, and in general, fascism is a known failure mode of democracy to which it easily and quickly evolves with the strong support of the (often overwhelming) majority of voters. There are quite a few policies that are consistently unpopular with voters, yet democratic leaders are at pains to enact them nonetheless, often at substantial political costs to themselves and substantial economic cost to their subjects. It is very tempting to get some extra popularity and prosperity by deviating from the Democratic Norms™. The International Community™ is there to reign in those deviants. It is the ultimate arbiter of all disputes, its decisions are enforced without appeal and no government or other organization can measure up to its military and financial might.

The International Community™ is often accused of hypocrisy, for having friends and allies that can get away with flouting any and all Democratic Norms™. However, these relationships, with very few exceptions, do not last long; it can turn on its erstwhile friends and allies at the slightest display of wavering loyalty and it does.

In this series of essays, I would like to explain my understanding of what the International Community™ is, how its seemingly inconsistent and downright crazy decisions are made and who are the people "behind" it. At this point, I would also like to acknowledge the inspiration by one Mencius Moldbug, with whom I disagree on almost everything else. I believe that the International Community™ is composed of individuals and their institutions all acting in line with their individually perceived interests, without actually conspiring with one another. They are mostly motivated by lust for power, fear, greed and missionary zeal, all reinforced by an unshakable faith in their own superiority and entitlement. They sow destruction, misery and death. In each installment, I will discuss one institution of power of the International Community™. Here's the first one:

Journalists and the Independent Media™

The Freedom of Press™ is one of the core Democratic Values™. What it means in practice is that journalists enjoy immense power and privilege in the existing world order. They can violate anyone's privacy without consequences, for example. They are above the law for mere mortals or even mere governments in many other ways, too. Enemies of the International Community™ are mistaken in thinking that all they should do is outbidding the International Community™ in order to get journalists as loyal as those serving it. No matter how much outlets like RT pay their journalists to push the agenda of their government, they will have defections and miss top talent; because the journalists of the International Community™ push their own agenda, not that of the U.S. State Department (with which it often coincides for reasons discussed in a later essay) or any other government or business interest. No matter how much the king is paying to the journalist in money and privilege, the journalist will still desire to swap places with the king and be the one controlling the King's fate, not the other way around. This is why buying or creating "alternative" media outlets to counter the influence of the International Community™ in the media is a futile enterprise doomed to failure. If you set out to counter the propaganda of the International Community™, there is no journalist on whom you can count. If you do, you will end up with an inferior product and painful defections.

As any person in the position of power, journalists are, of course, corrupt. Since they have near-absolute power, they are very corrupt, in fact, but also very expensive. This might seem like a weakness, and indeed it is possible to destroy individual journalists by unmasking their corruption, but that may prove very difficult, expensive and dangerous.

The true and ultimate weakness of journalism is that it is entirely unnecessary and useless in the age of the internet. They do not do anything useful for anyone but themselves and their powerful friends. If you want to learn about something, there is no reason anymore to read or listen to journalists, because much better (more accurate, more reliable, etc.) sources of information abound. The best strategy for freeing yourself and the world is to ignore them out of power.

All that is not to say that you should hate journalists and that they are useless, evil people. Sure, as long as they work as journalists, they are useless and what they do is evil, but that is something that they can change and there is no reason for not helping them. Their skills are quite useful and valuable in a wide range of entirely peaceful and productive endeavors ranging from entertainment to marketing. Political journalism — hopefully — has no future, but these people — hopefully — do.