Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Joe Rogan Is The Real Mind Virus" video.

  1. The problem with these discussions is that EVERYONE involved is presenting opinion as fact, its just some are not twisting the facts. Joe Rogan , Rogan's guests, Sam Seder, Emma Vigeland and all the rest of the OPINION BASED MEDIA are all PARTS of the overall problem with emphasis on the word PARTS because there is not 1 single part to this. There are multiples of multiples of parts to this issue of opinion first facts second media. Sorry if this looks like an essay. I've seen that Bezmenov video numerous times and versions of it are posted on some of the most repulsive radical channels who think they are clever posting something they think is about "people people" when its actually ABOUT THEM TOO. This is Rogan's monster mistake in mentioning Yuri Bezmenov (see below). Its also Sam and Emma's problem because as another part of the opinion based media they are also part of the problem. They just aren't as much of a problem as Joe Rogan because at least they are trying to BALANCE or COUNTER BALANCE the misinformation and at least try and present facts rather than fiction. Where they are part of the problem is they cater to a specific section of society and that's one of the main issues with people like Joe Rogan, Alex Jones, Fox News, etc. All these outlets target their audience with some consistent themes and rarely ever present anything that might aggravate or turn off their audience. In the case of this channel think about how many "How dumb is Dave Rubin?" or "How narcissistic is Ben Shapiro?" or "How much of a maniac is Tim Pool or Steven Crowder?" video's do they post? All these channels no matter how much they care about telling people TRUTH what they are actually telling people is THEIR OPINION of what is truth. Its just that some of them back up their opinions with facts that can be checked and verified as fact. Case in point the "Twitter files." YURI BEZMONOV For those who haven't heard who he is, go check Wikipedia for more details, but basically he claimed he was a KGB agent who defected to the west in 1970 and settled in Canada. He was later fired form his job with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by Justin Trudeau's father Pierre on a request from the Soviet Ambassador at the time. That's another interesting point on free speech. He wrote several books and Essays using the alias Tomas David Schumann and on Wikipedia there are links to several of those works. In 1984 he did, what is now a famous interview which (with some hunting) you can watch here on YouTube. There are also shorter excerpts posted on various channels here on YouTube several of which SOME are fairly radical Right Wing channels who think they are highlighting the problem, but failing to realise they are a major part of the problem. The most relevant part of that Bezmenov video was where he describes the aim of what he calls "ideological subversion." In Bezmenov's own words (punctuation mine) "What do they mean by ideological subversion is. Is the slow process which we call either ideological subversion or active measures. Active in the language of the KGB or psychological warfare. What it basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country." Bezmonov was 100% RIGHT in that societies can (over time) be demoralised to the point where they cannot discern fact from fiction. Bezmenov was also 100% WRONG on the effectiveness of the Soviet efforts because as we know less than a decade later the Soviet Empire had collapsed NOT America. That's actually a great lesson for any nation. Sometimes the external enemy is less of a threat than your own political system. That should be the lesson Western Nations should have learned from but never did. We were to happy watching the Soviets collapse and declaring we'd won the Cold War. Instead we ignored the lesson and are now where we are. FYI - I'm Australian and we haven't learned form this either. Despite our sunny outlook and beautiful beaches we have some very serious structural issues that have similarities with other issues across the rest of the Western World. Jonathan Haidt was credited with saying, "There's a cacophony where the Radical Left and Radical Right just scream at each other while the rest of us, trapped in the middle, are simply exhausted." That explains so many of our issues and why they persist. Instead of solving problems we just yell at each other about them. Its that exhaustion that leads people to listen to people like Joe Rogan and Sam Seder without thinking or checking and just taking their words at face value. It makes manipulation of truth very easy.
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