Adam Curtis - Hypernormalisation

[Lord Percy]

An extremely interesting rundown of what led to the world being the way it is today (over the course of the last half century).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/adam-curtis-hypernormalisation

Long but worth it.

TL;DW:

Basically explains how society went from a politics-based society to a money-based society, while people have become increasingly controlled by the false idea of 'freedom' via their internet worlds which a) are not real and b) put them in ideological echo chambers where they only see what they want their world to consist of.

Which allowed for the all the important stuff in the real world to carry on unchallenged.

Then we have Vladislav Surkov, Putin's right hand man in Russia who introduced a whole new form of propaganda where the state media machine basically lies about everything end then they tell the people they're lying, so nobody knows what to believe any more.

Which allows for all the other important stuff to carry on unnoticed.

Which has been mimicked in western nations as we see endless 'scandals' and 'leaks' etc, but nobody is ever really punished for it.

So all the other important stuff carries on unnoticed.

Apart from people shouting about it in the internet world, which does absolutely nothing. Oh apart from kick-starting massive rebellions e.g. the Arab Spring or the "Occupy" protests of the US and Europe, but these quickly fail because there's no structured plan or entity to carry this idealism of the internet into the real world, so the old powers quickly come back, thus proving the powerlessness of modern society which increasingly congregates online.

Most interesting is how the whole thing has been almost entirely about control of the middle east. The documentary essentially covers how east-west tensions have been constantly guided along with the evolution of society.

Lots of stuff about Syria, Assad (current and father), Gaddafi, and how these leaders seemed to flip constantly between being a friend or foe of the west, while the primary aim throughout was to get at Syria, a country which ended up destroying itself due primarily to Muslim in-fighting catalysed hugely by the concept of religious martyrdom which was promoted by... Hafez al-Assad in his vision to attack the US!

And now we have the likes of Trump's rise to popularity, and the UK leaving the EU, which some argue is a sign of the swansong of modern western politics.

A really good watch if you have the time.

[Derivative]

Saw this earlier and I'd like to watch this. The intro had me thinking it was a parody, though .

[Sun Wukong]

We've always been at war with Eurasia...

The West, as I see it, is quite well doomed just on the basis of the "Everyone gets to be an astronaut" problem. Even I am dismayed by the amount of people expecting to jump straight in to high paying jobs, the boom of "life-coaching" as a profession (quite a sleazy form of pyramid selling, if you ask me) and the SJW kneecapping of all endeavour.

Benevolent dictatorship. Only way to get shit done
____________________
Top cat
"Hard times lead to hard people. Hard people lead to good times. Good times lead to weak people. Weak people lead to hard times." Smegballs
"Oh and STE balloons would be one of the nicer things we would receive at the office, the amount of dog turd in jiffy bags is not funny." Jsmith86

[Sun Wukong]

Youtube link for those outside the UK/sick of the BBC's bullshit



Edit: Nope, the Beeb has shut it down.

What a time to be alive, boys.
____________________
Top cat
"Hard times lead to hard people. Hard people lead to good times. Good times lead to weak people. Weak people lead to hard times." Smegballs
"Oh and STE balloons would be one of the nicer things we would receive at the office, the amount of dog turd in jiffy bags is not funny." Jsmith86

[_Will_]

Some good stuff, some tripe - critical & individual thinking need be applied on this one.
____________________
Past -Honda qr50 | 2004 Peugeot Tkr s 50| | 1996 Yamaha XJ600s Diversion|

[Lord Percy]

[Lord Percy]

[-]

[Sun Wukong]

Excellent watch thank you
____________________
Top cat
"Hard times lead to hard people. Hard people lead to good times. Good times lead to weak people. Weak people lead to hard times." Smegballs
"Oh and STE balloons would be one of the nicer things we would receive at the office, the amount of dog turd in jiffy bags is not funny." Jsmith86

[M.C]

[thx1138]

Was flicking through iplayer and saw this show, vaguely remembered this thread so I watched it.

It was good.

Jumped about a bit, and at around 160 minutes long, I do wonder if the filmaker had stitched a couple of docus together.


but overall, an okay docu

[M.C]

Long, rambling, contradictory with many glaring errors. A middle class conspiracist pushes his own political opinions (which aren't new or interesting).

[Ribenapigeon]

Basically, just be a boring bastard and the guvment/space lizards etc will leave you alone.

[M.C]

I feel the need to attack this some more You know how you get those poundshop DVDs (sports/music bios) that are made on such a budget, they don't actually depict anything worthwhile? That's what this is. It's like the guy went into the BBC archive, found a few random videos on YouTube and stitched it all together. Something truly truly irrelevant suddenly becomes incredibly pivotal because he has a free cheap clip.

[Lord Percy]

Snob!

[Lord Percy]

[M.C]

You seem to be confused by how many sides there are in Syria... a lot is the answer You have various rebel factions who if they were to ever defeat Assad would turn on each other. Originally Britain wanted to get involved and back them, parliament voted against it.

Then ISIS emerged... how connected to the rebels they're is an interesting one, as long as Assad is there they have a common enemy, with Assad gone they'll start killing each other. Obviously with ISIS emerging the UK decided to get involved.

Personally I think it's a mess and we shouldn't be there, however the west played its part in destabilising the region, and created the power vacuum in Iraq helping ISIS emerge. Adam Curtis is a thinly veiled conspiracist, I assume so the BBC would be onboard, but he'd still be able to get his views across.