If you're feeling like a lab rat in some macabre science experiment,
manipulated by shadowy forces for unknown purposes, that’s because you're
waking up to the reality of the situation.
We are a nation of lab rats.
Tough news to hear, I know. But it’s true, nonetheless.
We're subjected to daily doses of propaganda and social conditioning,
reinforced by technology, designed to:
- distract and burden us by keeping us consuming as much
as possible, preferably while taking on debt to do so
- keep us isolated and socially fractured, to prevent any
effective organization against the existing system of power and control
- block information that might make us aware that this
social manipulation is going on
I’ve written consistently about these forces over the years seeking to
help you see the structure of the cultural walls that contain us all. I've
been doing this because achieving success, as well as finding deeper meaning
and purpose in life, rests upon increasing our awareness of the forces
shaping our beliefs and actions.
This includes being aware of the propaganda,
the sophisticated marketing ploys, and the controlling nature
of our dominant cultural belief system. Once you can
recognize them for what they are, you free yourself from their influence over
you.
These systems of diversion and distraction have gotten orders of magnitude
more potent over the recent years, pacing with advances in technology.
Our brains' biological wiring is so well-understood now that it's routinely
used against us.
For example, at one particular video gaming company, as part of their
orientation, newly-hired developers are required to attend a “dopamine boot
camp” in which learn the best ways to deliver paced rushes of "brain
pleasure" chemicals to video game players. Just as a caged rat quickly
learns how to depress a bar in order to receive a sip of cocaine-infused
water, video game players are intentionally hooked on the carefully-tuned
dopamine stimulations that video games are designed to provide.
The sterotype of the non-stop gamer who ignores everything else in life to
play videogames throughout the night? There's a lot of science behind that.
Gamers are simply being intentionaly turned into addicts by the video game
companies. Addicted customers are profitable customers.
The mega-popular Instagram app is similarly designed. Study after study
show that it breeds envy, addiction and loneliness in its users.
You might think that such outcomes are the unfortunate, unplanned
side-effects that emerged after its well-meaning developers
attempted to create an app that would bring people together. After all,
it’s a “social media” app, right? So maybe these are accidental
outcomes?
Not at all. These were precisely the effects sought by the developers.
Why? Because insecurity and dependence result in more usage of the
app. Instagram and its parent, Facebook, are deliberately exploiting
our biological social wiring to capture our focus (and our
money).
This video does a great job explaining how. It’s worth your time to
understand even if you don’t use Instagram (because you certainly know
someone who does).
Once you start to see how the mechanism of control works in one instance,
you’ll soon be able to notice how it's being used everywhere.
The hijacking of our wiring by Instagram, principally the mirror neuron
pathway that seeks to learn and quickly adopt the behaviors of the successful
people around us (very useful in a tribal setting), leaves us ultimately
depressed and deflated when presented with the unattainable visual images
endless posted by celebrities and the ultra-wealthy -- most who have
professional help carefully crafting their posts using Photoshop and careful
staging.
The problem is, these images provide our brains with no helpful
information on how to mirror the success of these individuals. Yet our wiring
keeps firing awa,y trying to sort it all out, like a moth bumping into a
lightbulb at night.
The result? Lots of frustrated, addicted people whose use of social
media only results in deeper feelings of loneliness,
despair and insufficiency. If you think any of this is by accident,
then you're missing the point entirely. Addicted customers that are in
a perpetual state of wanting are the very best customers.
The incredible documentary 'HyperNormalization' by Adam Curtis (released
on Oct 16, 2016 on BBC), provides one of the best exposés I've yet seen on
the intentional and deliberate strategy to keep the populace numbed and
subjugated, so that it will be easier to manipulate. It really is a
"must watch":
This film reveals and describes in detail the latest sophisticated methods
for steering public opinion, most of which build upon the concepts of the engineering of consent (Bernays, 1920’s) and manufacturing
consent (Chomsky 1990’s). Where Bernays sought to create a public
consensus through propaganda resulting in a conduit for political will to
exert itself, HyperNormalization aims to cut political will off at the
knees.
Under HyperNormalization, the populace is polarized via isolation,
conflicting data, or false information (“aluminum tubes!”) so that no public
consensus can be reached. That, of course, is the point. And
while confusion reigns, laws that protect the financial and political elites
are busy being passed with no effective opposition or even basic inquiry
happening at all.
Ultimately, public will is neutrazlied. The masses devolve into perpetual
arguing among themselves over trivial matters while their life energy and
financial well-being is sapped by an increasingly totalitarian and predatory
state.
Sound familiar at all? It should. It's happening around us on a
daily basis.
If we weren't so terribly distracted by social media or bickering over
inane political issues, would we really tolerate:
Each one of these violations (and many dozens more I can list) shares one
common feature: they're the deliberate outcome of corporate policy operating
within a captured political system. They are not accidents! They didn’t
"just happen".
Further, based on the observations presented in HyperNormalization, it’s
also no accident that there are no organized protests or effective citizen
engagement on any of these issues. Public will has been neutralized. The
masses are too isolated, dispirited, and numbed to mobilize.
A particular frustration I have is when politicians spout off about the
importance (the sanctity!) of democracy when there’s no evidence that
any remains in America. Our country is run by the few for the few. The rest
of us are just tax donkeys/debt slaves/mindless consumers to be harvested
from.
Meanwhile, thepast twenty years of data proves that there’s literally zero
correlation between what US citizens want/don’t want and the passage of any
particular piece of legislation.
(source: 20 years of data reveals that Congress doesn't care what you
think)
How is it possible that there’s literally zero correlation between what
the public wants and the laws that are passed? How can any politician
get away with talking about how much they value “democracy” without being
hounded off the stage for ignorance, dereliction of duty, or both?
Conclusion
I highly recommend that you watch the above videos on Instagram
and HyperNormalization.
One, I’d like you to understand the world and its rules a little bit
better -- with the hope that this knowledge affords you a better chance of
charting an independent destiny and living a life filled with purpose.
True connection and being in service to others are what give our lives
meaning. The research is crystal clear on that.
Two, the world is figuratively and literally on fire. While there are
still spoils to be had, the powers that be are racing to secure them for
themselves, at the expense of the unsuspecting masses. In order to avoid
ending up inherting a future with no resources and no prospects, we each need
each other -- and the world needs us, as well -- to bring our very best
selves to the story.
There are powerful forces at work that want the exact opposite of that.
Not because there’s an equally valid competing philosophy they offer, but
because they want your money for their bank accounts and they want their
social power to remain uncontested.
But make no mistake: the trajectory we are on ends very badly. It
ends in collapse -- of our economy, of our ecosystems, of society.
Whether the final pin that pricks the current bubble is a resource crisis, a
crash in the financial markets, or a sudden shortage of fossil fuels -- it
makes no difference at all. The endgame will be the same.
Reclaiming our time, our attention, and our integrity is vital.
In Part 2: Breaking Free we take back our lives from a
system that has lost our trust, does not serve our interestes, and no longer
deserves our full participation.
It’s time to escape our cages. The future belongs to those who can
break free from their lab rat existence and become free and fully-expressed
individuals again.
It’s time.
Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free
executive summary, enrollment required for full access).
