By Jo Nova
The “Misinformation Industry” has been caught with its pants down — accidentally finding, then burying, the information that nearly everyone in their own industry “leans left”.
This is a field that generated headlines about how conservatives are more susceptible to believing misinformation, and conservatives consume more Facebook disinformation. It would be awkward then if the whole field turned out to be leftist academics, and they tried to hide that, which is exactly what just happened.
The leading “journal” on misinformation surveyed 150 of its own academic experts, then forgot to mention that one of the most striking and significant results from their own survey was that being a “Misinformation Expert” was a left wing phenomena.
Bjorn Lomborg noticed the statistics on their self-admitted political leanings buried in an appendix, and graphed it himself. He writes: “Misinformation experts are perhaps not quite unbiased”.
There was barely a conservative among them:
Speaking of misinformation, it’s a little misleading, don’t you think, to pretend this doesn’t matter in a field “devoted” to researching political misinformation?
It seems The Misinformation Review has been misinforming its readers.
The Misinformation Industry looks, acts and smells like a leftist invention to censor the right
Looking at their own statistics, the “misinformation” experts are a self-confessed group of leftist soft-scientists with little understanding of maths, physics, mining, chemistry and real life.
Experts leaned strongly toward the left of the political spectrum: very right-wing (0), fairly right-wing (0), slightly right-of-center (7), center (15), slightly left-of-center (43), fairly left-wing (62), very left-wing (21).
And they specialize in media-science and political-science and think that’s a “broad range”:
The misinformation experts represent a broad range of scientific fields. Experts specialized in psychology (39), communication and media science (32), political science (22), computational social sciences (17), computer science (9), sociology (8), journalism (8), philosophy (5), other (4), medicine/other (2), linguistics (2), history (1), physics (1).
Experts of what exactly?
As a theoretical field of science, the experts of misinformation could not even agree on a definition of misinformation itself. Only one in ten thought misinformation was “false information” alone. The rest felt that “misleading people” intentionally, or even unintentionally could qualify, which means the misinformation label can apply to anyone discussing a fact which they thought was true, and is actually true, but (as defined by the left-voting-experts) was “misleading” in the wrong context.
They just want to shut you up
When asked what we should do about misinformation, the correct answer, of course, is “explain why it’s wrong”. But the experts didn’t even think of that — instead they suggest nine ways to hide information and the vast majority of the pool of “experts” were happy with nearly all of them — deplatform, silence, moderate and censor away!
When asked “why do people believe misinformation?” the politically biased experts didn’t even blink — it was the human failures of confirmation bias, social identity and partisanship they declared — while buried six feet deep in confirmation bias, social identity and partisanship.
REFERENCE
Altay, S., Berriche, M., Heuer, H., Farkas, J., & Rathje, S. (2023). A survey of expert views on misinformation: Definitions, determinants, solutions, and future of the field. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-119
Website: misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu
h/t Ryan Maue, David Maddison
Right wing is what lefties call normal people. It is meant to be a putdown but it says more about the accuser than the accused.
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You normally see those on the right described as extreme right wing or fascists, rarely as just ‘right wing.’
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As Fascism was a 1920s variation on socialism/communism it is understandable that the left wing murderous racists Hitler and Mussolini are called extreme right along with what was half the governments in Eastern Europe. At present the equivalent French, German, EU groups are calling for war and there are again German tanks, shells and rockets in Kiev. As in 1941.
No one wants to identify with Hitler, but the modern pairing of boardrooms with Marxism is exactly Fascism. And the biggest, best funded group is only pretend Democratic, the EU. Plus the UN which is no peace maker. And Nobel’s effort at world peace, the Nobel prize has been corrupted into a political tool to reward friends and the compliant.
Money and power, a heady concoction for the unelected rulers of the Corporate world like Blackrock and billionaires who profited from free enterprise now push political domination Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg and more push DEI, ESG, BLM, Identity politics and locking people up for disagreeing using their own misinformation experts. Perhaps the only ones missing are Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
341
Also there are the extreme political organizations I would call Canberra, Washington, Brussells. In the 2016 contest, 98.4% of Washington DC voted for Hillary Clinton. They have since hunted down the rest. And the real danger there is that the entire apparatus of government is centred in Washington. Including the DOJ, FBI, CIA and all the people who write the laws, not the politicians who are too busy getting reelected.
But this geographic centralization of all actual power and elimination of anyone to the right of Karl Marx is devastating. Superficially democratic countries are drowning in complex legislation which on the surface is democratic but underneath is full of Post Modernism, Fascism, Racism, Climate Change, Veganism, Green extremism while pretending to be the opposite. You would not want to be a white male Catholic old style Liberal in such places. You would have to sit at the back of the bus. And be taken to reeducation camp, as is now common.
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We are watching the Green machine in play in Canberra, a city state of 600,000 people where the Green Attorney General wants men in jail for sex crimes and no one else. And had overriden the Crown Prosecutor’s view that there should be enough evidence to convict. It’s all about punishing people with the process as with the Higgins case when the complainant could not get a single fact right but still received $2.3Million in cash compensation while the man involved lost everything. Even if there was not a shred of proof. And men have been jailed, even pleaded guilty while clearly innocent. It’s the same in NSW. And the judges are complaining while the Green politicians interfere directly with the administration of justice. Just as in the US where the Biden whitehouse is directly instructing prosecutors attacking Trump as in the Fanni Willis fiasco in Georgia. They even have a full time employee on her staff.
But we had the same in Victoria where the Victoria Police advertised for sex crimes committed by the late Cardinal George Pell. And they had to try him twice to put him in jail, without any evidence at all. And the journalist driving this was given a Golden Quill for her efforts. And no one has even said sorry.
The corruption and takeover of the judicial system in socialist hotbeds like Canberra and Washington and even Victoria is complete. And taxes have to be raised because the people want more and the only way to get more is to raise taxes. Unrestrained Cities of paid political activists aka public servants are metastasising. It’s even happening at council level where our council and a few others have banned nuclear weapons and chase social engineering and megastructure building, not rubbish collection or road repair.
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Yes, with no way of stopping it. Voting minor parties doesn’t stop the bureaucratic cancers in the slightest.
My view of Trump is that the various bureaucracies (including those from enterprises considered too big to fail) need to be shoved back down in their holes – and shoved really hard.
That needs a rough, tough, crude, uncouth but determined personality such as Trump’s. Which is why he will be neutralised, one way or another.
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But neither does voting for the majors.
People might as well vote for the conservative and Libertarian minor parties because if enough do that, they will become major, or at least be able to form a Government.
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It’s inconceivable that 98% Clinton voters is a result of free and fair opinions. What sort of weird world is that? How is it even possible without very strict policy against hiring conservatives or Republican voters? Who would dare say they voted Republican?
Even the social pressure on people in Washington must be immense. Imagine suggesting Donald Trump was anything but an evil baby eating monster. You would be an instant pariah at work and at home. MAGA hats in the mail. And fired. For some Trumped up reason.
Canberra and Washington need to be decentralised. Break up the swamp into little puddles so they cannot turn into a very unjolly Green monster.
90
Yes and by his own party. Paul Ryan as speaker sabotaged every decision. And Mitch McConnell is still working hand in pocket with Schumer and the Chinese. RINOs all. Liz Chaney, driver of the 6 Jan committee who would not stop at the death sentence for Trump. And illegally destroyed all the records which could have shown it as the fraud it was. Some of Trumps sworn enemies inside the Republicans made the Democrats look reserved.
130
Australia has the best legal system money can buy.
Why rent a lawyer when you can buy a judge?
70
In China today we see the ‘contradiction’ being played out, after a stint with the free market XI is taking them back to pure Communism with Fascist tendencies.
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molson 🧠⚙️ (@Molson_Hart) on X: The 7 major ways China has changed between 2019 and 2024 … https://twitter.com/Molson_Hart/status/1771858094030565756
Yeah sure, maybe you could actually go to China and see what is happening rather than watching it on CNN?
00
It is a surveillance state where the CCP can make life very uncomfortable for the locals and their families if they challenge the CCP status quo. I have been to China 5 times, between 2005-2019 so I have seen some of these changes. For alternative views: (1) The China Show. (2) Frank Gaffney.
00
Left wing and right wing in football (soccer}, in the old days, it was also a right back and a left back.
It was the right back (in front again) and the left back (in the Dressing Room)……………………
50
And the origin of the “spectrum” is all about the degree of socialist revolutionary zeal and precedence of action:
Slaughter the “other” and then steal their property, or:
Steal the property and then execute the “other” after a “fair trial”.
Socialism is a DEATH CULT, be it “International Socialism, National Socialism, your basic dodgy Italian Fascism or its modern incarnation; Corporate State-ism, in which the dubious Austrian postcard painter also dabbled.
Perfecting humanity via state terrorism must seem like a great idea to the defectives; right up until they are re-categorized as “not pure enough”. “If only comrade Stalin knew”, and all that.
40
You normally see those on the right described as extreme right wing or fascists, rarely as just ‘right wing.’
They’re also often described as ‘populist’, not ‘popular’.
00
Indeed it does. The left want no discourse or alternative ideas. Albo is treading in the well worn paths of previous alp governments. Gillard wanted to censor discussion about AGW at the behest of Bob Brown and produced the Finkelstein Report. That report is still sitting there and can be implemented at any time:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-07/cox-free-speech-in-australia/3873668
https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13900
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In the US Biden is hounding anyone who takes an opposing viewpoint.
Biden also does not prosecute anyone who supports him.
Biden would be called the most corrupt politician even if he were not demented. In reality this is Obama’s third term; and Obama hates the US and the West.
Australia will not be far behind with albo’s Misinformation and Disinformation legislation. Everyone will be subject to scrutiny by a bunch of bureaucrats. If that were not enough albo also has his Nature Positive Taskforce operating where everything has to be judged on the basis of whether it does not harm nature.
I sure hope Elon hurries up and terraforms Mars.
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Was ‘Pandemic’ when ‘misinformation’ became a major issue?
I seem to recall that before the lab acc … I mean zoonotic occurrence, I was just uncooperative and stubbornly refusing to accept consensus.
But during ‘Pandemic’ I was misled.
Truth be told, I’ve been intentionally self misled since about 1973.
Seemed like more fun.
As a result, I often felt unsure about my path.
After ‘Pandemic’ I feel vindicated.
Even prescient.
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Honk, I’m glad you didn’t actually say “lab accident” because I’m well informed that would qualify as misinformation and warrant censorship…any counter-narrative statements simply cannot be allowed to exist in cyberspace as they may encourage people with conformist tendencies to engage in critical thinking. Shame on you 😉
50
Is Christianity “misinformation”?
Is it misleading to claim that a man rose from the dead?
Is Islam “misinformation”?
Is it misleading to claim that on September 24, 622, the prophet Muhammad completes his Hegira, or “flight,” from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution on a flying horse?
Is Judaism “misinformation”?
Is it misleading to claim that the world was created in 6 days?
Is the religion of “Climate Change” “misinformation”?
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Co2 Lover I’ve watched recent debates and they state that Mohammed flew on a flying donkey.
But a lot of laughable things have been said about this horrible bloke. Many recent scholars even doubt that this loony even existed. Who knows?
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Don’t get me started on religious nonsense.😉
41
Hang on.
Religion is ‘the opium of the masses’. [Marx IIRC. And presuming that then [1870s or 1880s] the masses couldn’t afford ‘enough’ opium to make their (nasty brutish and short) lives bearable].
Right – we’re all gonna die.
But – if you get religion, it’s gonna be a bearable [if you’re good] sort of death.
With promises …
So –
Touching the face of God. [If He is bearded – like me ….]
72 Virginians.
Life everlasting – and a white coat – and mebbe wings, harp, halo and the rest.
Not sure what the climate cognoscenti get. . . . . CO2 at 415ppm, and an unchanging world.
So, every slight you’ve had happens again and again [Groundhog Day like …].
Other religions are available – with [I guess] other paradises.
I suppose that if your life is basically agricultural labour, dawn til dusk, from the age of eight until you can’t manage it, for the local boss-person – Sheik, Arch-Countess, Kalif, Margrave, Archbishop, Daimyo, Princess, Abbot or Abbess, sadistic squire, whatever – the possibility of a future with glory [however the legend has it] may be very attractive.
Whilst you’re alive …
Auto
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Its how they interpreted something they didn’t understand, ignorant yet sincere.
Any characters they say were flying about, angels and the like, then obviously it was a UAP involved in the transportation.
The virgin birth 2000 years ago maybe the truth, an archangel was involved in that instance.
14
Why do politicians lie (provide “misinformation”) to the people?
Everyone lies. That’s a well proven fact of human psychology. A better question is why politicians habitually lie with far greater consequences to society they don’t even consider.
The reasons politicians lie, cheat, steal, connive, backstab, cover up, and sell out the people are simple. Selfish, shallow, narrow minded, short sighted, frequently evil people put the absolute worst people into office for their own gain. Why is anyone surprised that our leaders are narcissists, power freaks, perverts, thieves, and liars?
330
What do you get it you ask a politician to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’?
3 different answers
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“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made”
– Groucho Marx
10
The only time 99.99% of politicians tell the truth is when they call other politicians liars.
In Australia there is only about one handful of honest politicians.
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This certainly confirms my “bias”, if truth can be called “biased”. English speaking humans have understood what “false” meant, and there was no call to add a new word to the lexicon, but lefties can’t take the truth (is there a more certain sign of this than the whole “misinfo” campaign itself?). They had to come up with a new word, not “false” because the info is not actually “false”, instead it’s true. Because right wingers kept identifying true things, the left needed a word that conveyed “bad info”, and the word misinformation was born. That way, the left can attack “truth” that they don’t like, even make it sound like it’s false without calling it false. I am glad to see this study, but it was flaming obvious that the “experts” who were thrashing about “misinformation” were the prize suckers for any hoax about Trump. One day soon, some clever comic is gonna create a “you might be misinformed” bit, like the “you might be a redneck” guy.
Exhibit A- It’s true that a boy cannot become a girl, but such truth will get you tagged as a misinformation peddler.
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The only thing stopping the Left achieving their global socialist/communist “utopia” (dystopia) is the free flow of information otherwise known as free speech.
The Left are intolerant of alternative opinions not in accord with their Official Narrative.
That’s why they’ll do everything to stop it.
Therefore one of their first targets was the takeover of the media and the means by which “journalists” were “educated”. From the 1970’s they changed the education of journalists from being on-the-job to being in “universties” which had already been infiltrated by the Left. See my comments in yesterday’s thread (60% of US….).
When the Lamestream media had been taken over by the Left, they were relatively satisfied until the emergence of independent information sources such as citizen journalists like Jo Nova or individual commentators on social(ist) media controlled by Meta (Farcebook etc.) and Goolag (YouTube and search and ranking engines) and pre-Musk Twitter.
When the independent (usually conservative-oriented) commentators on Meta, Goolag and pre-Musk Twitter started to gain too much popularity the platforms all started censoring, deplatforming and cancelling them or sometimes shadow banning them so as to hide their censorship efforts. This continues to this day.
They are still not controlling citizen journalists like Jo hence Governments such as Australia’s introducing “misinformation” (censorship) legislation.
We would know relatively little about social(ist) media’s censorship efforts and manipulation of “democratic” elections and suppression of truthful information about covid and its treatment and many other subjects had it not been for the fact that pro-freedom, pro-free-speech advocate and freedom fighter Elon Musk devoted a significant amount of his fortune to purchasing Twitter and opening it up to free speech, even though it may never make much or any money for him.
Once Musk opened up Twitter to free speech he went from a darling of the Left because of his manufacture of EVs and being a presumed supporter of the anthropogenic global warming fraud to be hated by them. (Incidentally, I don’t think Musk in his manufacture of EVs thinks he is doing anything more than making toys for rich virtue-signaling Leftists.)
The Australian Government is also desperately trying to introduce censorship (“misinformation” (sic)) legislation which is the exact same legislation that the fake conservative Liberal Party wanted to introduce in their last term in office. My comments to Government on it are at
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/acma2023-31735-david-s-maddison.pdf
Almost everything the Left have done and are doing has been documented in Orwell’s prophetic “novel” Nineteen Eighty Four.
“IN TIMES OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT TELLING THE TRUTH IS A REVOLUTIONARY ACT”
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What is Voltaire’s famous quote about freedom of speech?
80
I wonder what Voltaire and Will Rogers would say today
40
The irony is that as damning as this survey is in terms of showing the clear bias it’s probably even worse because lefties are generally unable to assess their own bias. The 15 who describe themselves as centrist and the 41 who classify themselves as slightly left of centre viewed through the lens of a genuine political agnostic are probably extreme left. The ABC for instance would probably be now 100% lefties but if asked a large proportion of them would claim to be centrist.
What I view as centrist and a lefty views as centrist is not the same. I’m a member of the Libertarian party which I describe as the truly centrist political party, fiscal conservatives ie small government and small taxes and social progressives freedom of speech, anti vaccine mandates and legalisation of cannabis, free markets from government interference.
If one can’t agree what constitutes one’s political position on the political spectrum then they certainly can’t determine what is misinformation.
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To put it simply and possibly crudely, you would have to be special kind of leftist dumbsh*t to be proud to describe yourself as a ‘misinformation expert’.
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Another irony is that historically one of the cornerstone beliefs of a lefty should be freedom of speech but nowadays it is the left of politics that wants to shut it down. Restricting speech and freedoms generally seems to be signs of fascism . Fascism is I believe definitely right of centre. Nazis is a slur to describe the extreme right but the Nazis describe themselves as a national socialist party ie the extreme left.
The reality is that the terms left and right have become extremely difficult to define such that parties like the Liberals who try to describe themselves as a broad conservative church to be as appealing to as many voters as possible has moved its policies further and further to the left and in my view certainly before Dutton was appointed had become a left of centre political party.
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National Socialists are far Left, not of “the Right”.
The philosopher of fascism, of which National Socialism is a derivative, was Giovanni Gentile, a Hegelian Marxist.
Leftists need to stop being in denial about the true nature of National Socialism. And we see from the Left much of the same behaviour today such as extreme environmentalism, veganism, black uniform wearing thugs of Antifa, antisemitism, violence, boycotts, “youth movements” and indoctrination of youth etc..
Also see Dinesh D’Souza “The Big Lie: Exposing the (National Socialist) Roots of the American Left”.
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I’ve had this discussion many times that National Socialism is radical, therefore Left. Anti monarchist and in favour of big corporations ( fascism) it differs from communism in that it was not internationalist but was similar in its obedience to the State. Hegel was a modern proponent of Cicero and the notion of ” suum cuique”. To each his own had great appeal throughout the 18 and 19 th centuries. The lowest common denominator.
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David and others who replied,
Thanks for your comments they explain a lot. One of the constant occurrences that frustrate me about the left is the use of language to disguise the true and often insidious nature of things, Black Lives Matter, inflation reduction act, the nature positive plan etc.The more innocuous the name the more sinister the intentions.
20
(Only) Black Lives Matter.
10
The artificial distinction right vs left was invented by Joseph Stalin who wanted to put light between his (international) socialism and Adolf’s national socialism, thus pulling the wool over the eyes of generations of political pundits who can not understand that the two were two sides of the same coin of fascism. The name fascism derives from an Italian word (fasces) for a workers collective, a trade union.
A distinction individualist-collectivist is a much better dichotomy, with fascists, communists, socialists on the collectivist side as opposed to freedom loving individualists.
40
The Left have got themselves in somewhat of a bind when dealing with the truth because a foundation philosophy of the modern Left is postmodernism. Postmodernism doesn’t believe in notions of objective truth and believes that “truth” is whatever you think it is. That’s why you hear Leftists say things like “My truth” rather than “The truth”. Like everything of the Left, it rejects the views of The Enlightenment. Also, like everything from the Left it requires the application of Orwellian doublethink to accept it (“the act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and accepting both of them”).
251
Finding the truth has always had a left bias. But to conflate a political stance with research is only something seen in ideologically pure discourse.
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Nonsense.
The Left fundamentally don’t believe in alternative opinions or the truth. That’s why they devote so much effort to censorship.
And with a core philosophy of the modern regressive Left being postmodernism, “truth” has no meaning to the Leftist anyway.
In any case, everything the Left is doing is documented in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four.
431
Sorry Peter,
I appreciate alternative opinions, but in this case, and in my opinion, that is complete rubbish.
210
Finding the truth is not a prerogative of the left.
‘Leftwing audiences value publicly funded news organisations such as the ABC and SBS much more than rightwing audiences do, according to the latest digital news report.
‘The value of news from a public broadcaster varies greatly according to the political persuasion of the audience, with the left much more likely deem it to be important personally and socially (74%; 80%) than the centre (50%; 58%) and the right-wing (43%; 51%).’ (Guardian)
50
In a nutshell, the Australian Brainwashing Corporation has been spreading misinformation on some important issues.
‘Justin Stevens was appointed director of the division on 31 March 2022. Although statutorily required to deliver news impartially, editorially, the ABC has for some decades leaned to the Left of Australian politics.’ (wiki)
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I’d argue “finding the truth” well and truly predates any such concept of “left” and “right”. The first self-aware humans contemplating their existence wouldn’t have the least notion of ideology. All of that comes much later.
I think you are trying to say that ideologies may impact on an individual’s objectivity when they are attempting to assess facts or data.
Your last sentence is self-contradictory. “Ideologically pure discourse”? That term implies facts devoid of ideology. Sure, that would be great- let parties of opposing points of view present their respective opinions and openly debate them.
00
Mr. Fitzroy says finding the truth is a left wing thing, but the left always acts as if truth must be ignored. So, you lefties search for truth, like dog poop, so you can avoid stepping in it?
The second sentence is so pretentious, tells me all I need to know about you.
00
Indeed.
In the “paper” (it barely qualifies to be called that) they graph nearly everything else but failed to graph the political leanings data, knowing that few people would attempt to digest the statistics:
240
Misinformation begins with “Programmatic Specificity” and goes downhill from there!
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Where have I heard that term ” programmatic specificity” before.. hmmmm. He slaps his forehead and comes to realise the utterer of such nonsense.
20
How many people (present company excepted) realise that the results they get with the popular search engines like Goolag are not honest but carefully engineered to propagate the Official Narrative?
281
It is funny how the Internet Gutenburg has become a threat to the established elites, and now must be reined in by them.
After they championed it with such aplomb all the way to the bank.
A power vehicle of liberation and enslavement all in one.
Light begets Dark or vice versa.
A bit Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge-ish.
60
I was a very early adopter of the Internet and was on it long before most people had heard of it.
I originally saw it as a guarantee against the possibility of a dictatorship because it was originally designed to survive a nuclear war, and any attempt to censor or control it would be interpreted as damage and the information would be routed around it.
Alas, in the last decade or so, the Left have taken over this wonderful invention and destroyed it like everything else they touch.
As President Trump said, “everything woke turns to sh-t”.
On the other hand, we do have Elon Musk and his implementation of free speech on Twitter and we also have his Starlink network to deliver the Internet from space. That will help prevent the Left from shutting down Twitter.
The Australian Government has already been trying to censor Twitter and threatening it with big daily fines.
Why would Musk even bother with Australia, but we will no doubt be able to receive Twitter via Starlink if the Government shuts down the feed.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/06/21/australia-could-fine-twitter-up-to-475000-a-day-over-hate-speech-concerns/
60
Also, Musk has removed the video length limit on Twitter, so lengthy talks can be presented which don’t comply with the Official Narrative and which would be otherwise subject to Leftist censorship on Meta/Farcebook or Goolag/YouTube.
Even though Musk probably won’t make money out of Twitter, what a wonderful gift to humanity!
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Refer to my post at #20.2 re The Australian article.
Now the left are worrying that AI might not always comply with the Official Narrative.
40
But is any sane person surprised by any of this so called revelation?
I’m just surprised that even Lomborg’s well resourced team has taken this long to ferret out the evidence against these left wing loonies.
I’ve confronted lefties about some of their insane ideas and beliefs and their look of horror and loathing has to be seen to be believed.
IOW stupid lefties hate data / evidence / facts /truth and some of the worst con merchants hate with a vengeance. But some more reasonable young people do see the light and can change. Just ask Jo Nova.
200
The political spectrum.
See:
https://theobjectivestandard.com/2012/06/political-left-and-right-properly-defined/
Essentially:
Left
Rights-violating ideologies and systems (extreme force).
Communism, socialism, fascism, anarchy, theocracy etc.
Middle
Rights-violating ideologies and systems (degrees of force).
Modern “liberalism”, “progressivism”, conservatism, etc.
Right
Rights-respecting ideologies and systems (no force).
Capitalism, classical liberalism, constitutional republicanism.
150
Thanks for that David. I still have difficulty classifying ideas along a single linear scale.
Or is the left-right thing only one of the many dimensions?
40
Forrest, there are two dimensional versions of the political spectrum but I think the linear version works fine because fundamentally, all political systems come down to the amount of freedom that is allowed to be experienced by non-Elites.
60
Hans Eysneck developed a two dimensional classification with “Left” and “Right” on the horizontal axis and with “Authoritarian” and “Democratic” on the vertical.
The terms right and left refer to political affiliations originating early in the French Revolutionary era of 1789–1799 and referred originally to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France
You can find out where you fit by taking this test
https://www.mapmypolitics.org/
40
Forrest Gardener,
IMO you have it right. In order to say better/worse you *have* to reduce a multi-dimensional thing to a single line. Nobody can answer the question “Which is the best car” without first deciding: is it to tow a boat, is it to go really fast, minimise cost, drive on rough roads, etc. We each work out our own axes for many things and, because of this, people can argue endlessly about cars, politics, etc.
I did like Arnold Kling’s Three Languages of Politics where he had a go at defining three axes used by competing tribes. I characterise his three axes as Liberty, Equality and Fraternity as per the French national motto. Works well in the broad for libertarians, socialists and conservatives, but each individual will have his quirks.
40
good of you to demonstrate just how pervasive misinformation is:
you link fascism with the left, yet Britannica, Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster, all say that it is a far right ideology.
You also link force to the left, but fail to differentiate between political force and physical force, instead using the term ‘rights violating’, but fail to describe which rights are being violated. You could just as well argue that capitalism is a rights violating force, given the existence of sweatshops, child labour as examples
210
Everything has turned around and is going the other way now Pete, please keep up, because we are not coming back for you.
40
Mussolini’s father was a high ranking socialist bully and Benito came up with a hybrid model which impressed Hitler, I think its on the right.
12
The moment you read ‘here’s what you need to know’ you know it’s a furphy. The ABC is fond of that.
200
Have you heard the story of a “furphy” being named after tall tales being told by soldiers around water carts made by J. Furphy & Sons of Shepparton in World War I?
However, this story is itself most likely a furphy.
In his book Memories of a Signaller, Harold Hinckfuss wrote of the “furphies” or rumours of pending movements of troops, while awaiting transfer to the French lines from Egypt. His account claims that the association of “furphy” with the latrines is not due to any association of toilets with drinking water beside a cart, but because a “furphy” was a term for a fart: “Every day in the tent someone would come up with a ‘furphy’ that he had heard whilst down at the latrines. That is why the different stories were called furphies (‘furphy’ was the term used for a fart).”
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When I was in the Regular Army in the mid 60s and 70s we still used the term Furphy for stories that weren’t true
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Do furphies exacerbate climate change? *asking for a friend*
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The problem is that they have got away from the center ground – the interplay point where the advantages and disadvantages of ideas are discussed and progressed. As such all they do is double down and make their situation worse.
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Yes, I do!
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1771934645380100570/
Enjoy! 😁
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Outstanding.
Trigger warning for Leftists. It will make your little brains explode, LoL.
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As Senator Babet (UAP, Victoria) just said on Farcebook:
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Remember the equine PM of New Zimbabwe, Mrs Ed once said,
‘We, the govt are your single source of truth, anything else you hear is misinformation.’
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Is rewriting History (or “Her”story) “misinformation”?
In Australia Aboriginal history is being rewritten with books like “Dark Emu” being but one example.
Aboriginals are called “First Nations Peoples” when the 500 or so native tribes all with their own language and leaders were never a “nation” and were not even the first human inhabitants of Australia.
Practices such an infanticide and brutality to females, a reality of being hunter gatherers, are hushed up and life in Australia before British settlement is made out to be some sort of “Garden of Eden” to promote the agenda of Marxist racists.
You can bet that attempts to put the historical record right will be labelled as “misinformation”.
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Um- “Nations is plural”.
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Good catch, very adroit.
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Are you suggesting that it should be singular, ie Nation?
If so, explain why.
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No, I’m not.
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I don’t see the problem with Nations being plural. But the peoples doesn’t need an s unless you’re trying to make a possessive with an ‘s.
People is plural.
There are indigenous people of Australia who prefer the use of “peoples” when referring to Indigenous People as a whole. But it’s not necessary or correct to say “peoples” after the plural of “nations”, because “nations” plural achieves what “peoples” is meant to convey when stating “indigenous peoples”.
I assume this is what you’re getting at. But for some reason not willing to explain. Despite the prompting and opportunity.
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Are you suggesting that every tribe was a separate nation? Doesn’t seem reasonable.
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Nope. There were vastly more tribes than ~500. Each nation was not made up of a single tribe. CO2 lover was wrong in many ways.
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“‘First Nations’ recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the sovereign people of this land. It goes further than ‘First Australians’ as it recognises various language groups as separate and unique sovereign nations.”
The fact that it is a ridiculous construct is unnoticed. Yes, we are all individuals.
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The Australian today had an article where teachers were advised not to trust AI versions of Aboriginal history but instead teachers should consult local aboriginal communities!
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More on fake Aboriginal History
“Truth is dead to the Left”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEdHCmAOaz4&ab_channel=SkyNewsAustralia
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Gaggle and Farcebook should be disenfranchised immediately! They are masquerading as information centres but in reality just grooming society in preparation for their eventual control and manipulation of us with CCCP-like control!
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I wonder why all the Big Tech billionaires are building themselves end-of-the-world bunkers?
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/billionaires-building-bunkers
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff
https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/vantage-why-have-bunkers-become-the-new-billionaire-obsession-13743609.html
Hey Leftists, even though you constitute their slave army of useful idiots, guess what? They’re going to leave you all behind when the SHTF! LoL!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
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Bunker building has been popular for decades, but like so many such “bubble” worlds, they fail to understand the practicalities and human needs, and so eventually fail.
How long would you tolerate living in an underground burrow, knowing the world above is a WW3 radioactive wasteland?
The novelty of the trinkets and toys would wear thin quickly and would be happily traded to bask in the warming rays of the sun.
I’ll take my chances up top.
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I seem to remember a certain chap who started a lot of trouble in Europe. He was very big on the bunker idea. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t make it out.
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Already experts, the lefties have won,
And outnumber the right, ten to one,
On what is misinformation,
Likewise disinformation,
Mal-advice non lefties should shun.
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FWIW
“Behavioural Scientists Aren’t Just Wrong About How to Win Over Electorates to Crackpot Progressive Policies; Their Evident Contempt for the Masses Has Contributed to the Global Populist Revolt”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/03/25/behavioural-scientists-arent-just-wrong-about-how-to-win-over-electorates-to-crackpot-progressive-policies-their-evident-contempt-for-the-masses-has-contributed-to-the-global-populist-revolt/
The unintended consequences of “misinformation”?
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https://www.gbnews.com/news/bbc-licence-fee-tim-davie-radically-transform-broadcaster
We can but hope our Government will follow the BBC’s lead and insist that “Their ABC” acknowledge news and information is no longer their sole prerogative to manipulate and distort at will! It’s time to reign in The ABC and remove the staff collective that runs it!
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In my experience, anyone who claims to be ‘slightly right’ or ‘in the centre’ is a sly Lefty looking for approval.
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That left me smiling, and rightly so.
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FWIW
“Still maybe suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome, Tanya Plibersek will make the most of this new opportunity to trip the light fantastic. Hint: we should be concerned. She’s in charge of saving critters and all kinds of plant life; of resuscitating nature.
The “initiative” is called Nature Positive. The goal: to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030 on the way to bringing nature back to its pristine state by 2050.”
(My bold)
https://newcatallaxy.blog/2024/03/25/pliberseks-big-chance/
The “environment” will be in big trouble then?
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Does that mean that all the wind and solar plantations can be demolished and returned to their former uses as either farmlands or forests?
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I’m wondering how the current spate of environmental flattenings for installing wind and solar will be woven into that?
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This is what misinformation and disinformation is doing to our young people.
From American Thinker this video entitled:
https://youtu.be/Zb8ORrIljuQ
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The last time Fascism reared its ugly head they were burning books . This is the latest update/upgrade . We are Borg , you will comply…
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In Australia the Millennials are moving to the left, more the women than men. When they use the word ‘progressive’ we know its a stitch up.
Meanwhile in Germany the young men are turning to the right.
https://theconversation.com/australias-young-people-are-moving-to-the-left-though-young-women-are-more-progressive-than-men-reflecting-a-global-trend-222288
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When the fact checkers are the source of the misinformation:
.
Dick Smith threatens to sue the ABC after their fact checkers claim he was wrong to say, ” No country has ever been able to run entirely on renewables — that’s impossible.”
So far the ABC is standing by its claim. Even though they’re aware the fact they checked is different to the fact that Smith stated.
Smith said, “No country has ever been able to run entirely on renewables — that’s impossible.”
Smith is explicit in saying “entirely”, but fact check has chosen to only look at electricity grid production and misrepresent what Smith is saying.
.
ABC fact check article.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-22/fact-check-dick-smith-renewables-entire-country/103617364
.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13234667/Elon-Musk-Dick-Smith-ABC-fact-checkers.html
Michael Shellenberger tweeted that, “one of the government’s main fact-checker groups has been caught spreading misinformation about renewables and nuclear.”
To which Elon Musk replied, “Having government ‘fact-checkers’ is a giant leap in the direction of tyranny“.
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Dick Smith’s response on 2GB radio.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_HvNElqRmA
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In this age of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is there an AI “fact checker” to check on other AIs? And one to check of the AI “fact checker”?
Or do the AIs get together to collude amongst themselves?
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Most if not all AIs seem to have a built-in Leftist bias, the same as their “teachers” so having them check each other is pointless.
I don’t think we have true AI, if we did it could teach itself and also learn from mistakes as revealed to it when mistakes were explained to it by the rational thinking community.
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Bhutan imports coal fired power station electricity from India!
“Renewables” have failed Bhutan
https://www.thethirdpole.net/en/energy/bhutan-failed-hydropower-goal-and-geopolitics-of-energy/
Alway wise to “fact check” Australia’s “Misinformation” Power House – the ABC.
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What is the “Truth”?
If 1+1 = 2, am I a liar if I claim that 1+1 = 10?
If the “science is never settled” are there no scientific truths?
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1+1=10 if Jane and John have 8 children. But that’s biology. In maths, 1+1 does = 10 (but check with Lobachevsky first).
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In 1931, the Austrian logician Kurt Gödel published his incompleteness theorem, a result widely considered one of the greatest intellectual achievements of modern times. The theorem states that in any reasonable mathematical system there will always be true statements that cannot be proved.
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“Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is my name, oy!”
Oh dear, now I’ll have a Tom Lehrer brain/ear worm the rest of the day…
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LOL. 1+1=3 when a Man and Woman get together for a good time. Baby as number 3 comes later. Mind you that could be 3 and 4 for twins and for triplets that’s…………………….trouble.
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There are 10 types of people in the world.
Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
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1+1 = 10 in the binary system (that is on base 2).
As in: there are exactly 10 genders,
but then again,
I know my binary.
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More usually stated as “There are 10 kinds of people. Those that understand binary and those that don’t”
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The “REDS” are indeed under the government offices “BEDS”. You are being scammed kids, enjoy your dystopian left-wing future..bwahaha. You will own nothing and OBEY,or else, off to education camp…bwahaha, suckers.
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Is what the fearmongers said in 1952 and nothing came of it
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But in 1952, they only had the town square to push their communistic ideas to whoever turned up. Today, they have social media, brainwashing the sheep by the millions every second….bwahaha. Enjoy your soylent green left-wing future.
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err… you too
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Imagine if the likes of Hitler, Lenin, Stalin ect had today’s social media, how much of a free world we would have been comrade.
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In science there is another form of misinformation, the voice of authority from minions.
I have read many amazingly silly illogical science articles from NOAA, NASA and others and they must be written by children. You get the raw information but they write as if everything they say is backed by the entire of NOAA, NASA, the scientific world.
Plus they use the simplistic language for explaining to children a topic like the C12/C13 isotope kinetic fractionation. That is because the people writing what I think is drivel are actually children themselves. And their conclusions are what they are told to write, but don’t make sense.
My suspicion is that for all the great scientists of of the Royal Society, NASA, NOAA, BOM, there are publicity officers, professional writers on the periphery who create all the press releases. And they are really children scientifically, but claim the authority of the parent company and all the scientists while supporting the current political topic, say why the entire forecast for a major drought across Australia this year was as wrong as it could be, short of Noah’s flood.
The reason they cannot write at a higher level is that they cannot. Their job is waffle and push the company line, like man made CO2 driven Global Warming/hurricanes/floods/droughts. And to sound credible with a few word salad phrases.
It’s partly because the real scientists can’t be bothered. Or even disagree. Likely the writers are instructed by the management class who are political animals pushing the views of their own masters. So we the paying public are treated like mushrooms. And expected to believe that while the results were completely wrong, there was a perfectly good scientific explanation for why they were not wrong at all.
Usually the typesetting is good with nice graphs, until you look at them closely. It’s a form of lying, but in Climate matters and social matters in general, they may as well use an AI generator for the meaningless verbage. Perhaps they do.
And most of all. You were never wrong. Just misunderstood. There really was a major drought this summer in Southern Australia except for all that unexpected rain caused by some other phenomenon. And anyone who disagrees is clearly misinformed.
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If you watched certain YouTube videos, investigators demanded your data from Google
Shared YouTube data prompts civil liberty worries.
If you’ve ever jokingly wondered if your search or viewing history is going to “put you on some kind of list,” your concern may be more than warranted.
In now unsealed court documents reviewed by Forbes, Google was ordered to hand over the names, addresses, telephone numbers, and user activity of Youtube accounts and IP addresses that watched select YouTube videos, part of a larger criminal investigation by federal investigators.
The videos were sent by undercover police to a suspected cryptocurrency launderer under the username “elonmuskwhm.” In conversations with the bitcoin trader, investigators sent links to public YouTube tutorials on mapping via drones and augmented reality software, Forbes details. The videos were watched more than 30,000 times, presumably by thousands of users unrelated to the case.
YouTube’s parent company Google was ordered by federal investigators to quietly hand over all such viewer data for the period of Jan. 1 to Jan. 8, 2023, but Forbes couldn’t confirm if Google had complied.
The mandated data retrieval is worrisome in itself, according to privacy experts.
Federal investigators argued the request was legally justified as the data “would be relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation, including by providing identification information about the perpetrators,” citing justification used by other police forces around the country.
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What is the Latin word for left? Sinister (Latin for ‘left’) indicates the left-hand side as regarded by the bearer – the bearer’s proper left, and to the right as seen by the viewer. The definition of Sinistre – meaning: sinister, baleful, malign mean seriously threatening evil or disaster. About fits doesn’t it?
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“All Thespians are liars” said the Thespian.
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Has anyone else heard of the Digital ID Bill being rushed through Parliament tomorrow?
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The biggest problem these misinformation experts have is that often that ‘misinformation’ is a misinformation called ‘truth’.
Incidentally, I for one don’t give a rats for that one ‘physics’ expert. He or she is just the runt of the year who couldn’t get a proper job in the specialism. A competent person would have something better to do.
Oh, and in the list of subjects missing from the expertise base, biology, in particular biology of the reproductive system ought to lead the list.
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It stands to reason that the political extreme that gave us ‘woke syndrome’, drew up all the rules and regulations that apply to it, found the treatments required for those who resist it, and created the examination papers that test for its abundance should future at large in judgements about its public appearances, its folklore, its raison d’etre and so on. It just proves what a sham the whole thing is and why our democracies need to start legally requiring it to be listed in party political manifestos so that its real popularity can be tested by us all.
Of course we will need to ensure that our election processes have the highest integrity in all respects as they once did before ‘woke syndrome’ reared its ugly head and before we make these changes.
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The Third Reich is alive and kicking. See Antifa.
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Please Jo, ‘phenomena’ is a plural. The singular is phenomenon.
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