Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Mini: Musings and Prognostications Continued (Censorship)

Transcript

Mini: Musings and Prognostications Continued (Censorship) · Why We Do What We Do

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we Do Mini. I'm your
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  Speaker 1: host Abraham and I'm Shane. I Saycology podcast. We talk
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  Speaker 1: about all of the things that people do and animals do.
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  Speaker 1: And then once a week on Mondays, we release these
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  Speaker 1: short form discussions that are just a tiny, quick dive
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  Speaker 1: into a thing. And this is actually kind of a
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  Speaker 1: unique mini because this is following up a full length
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  Speaker 1: episode and I had some ideas that I forgot to
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  Speaker 1: put into that episode that weren't really enough for another episode,
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  Speaker 1: so we just extended them into a mini episode and
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  Speaker 1: that's what I decided to do.
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  Speaker 2: And that's how we got here today. That's how the
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  Speaker 2: podcast was born.
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  Speaker 1: So yes, indeed. So if you're joining us for the
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  Speaker 1: first time, thank you, welcome, appreciate you being here. If
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: you'd like to support us, you can pick up some
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  Speaker 1: merged from our merch store. Join us on Patreon, well
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  Speaker 1: and all kinds of good stuff over there. Also, on
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  Speaker 1: our full length episodes, I'll read your name in the
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  Speaker 1: credits of that episode. You can leave us a rating
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  Speaker 1: and review, like and subscribe and of course tell a friend.
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  Speaker 1: But let's go ahead and dive into our topic very
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  Speaker 1: quickly here, which is we recently released, I think at
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  Speaker 1: the time of this recording, like a week and a
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  Speaker 1: half ago or so, an episode just sort of discussing
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  Speaker 1: our thoughts about the recent election in the United States
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  Speaker 1: and our predictions for the future with what we know
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  Speaker 1: about what's happening currently and what's likely to rise in
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  Speaker 1: the next administration for however long that goes on. And
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  Speaker 1: I just had some more thoughts I wanted to extend out,
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  Speaker 1: and so this mini is essentially musings and prognostications about
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  Speaker 1: what happened and what's going to happen moving forward, but
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  Speaker 1: in a sort of little extension format.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, there's a couple more topics that we wanted to
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  Speaker 2: touch on. It's possible that we may more of these
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  Speaker 2: episodes to kind of like talk about current events, to
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  Speaker 2: make sure we're staying up to that, because there's just
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  Speaker 2: so much to unpack. We haven't talked about foreign policy
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  Speaker 2: and war and international trade and all those things, but
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  Speaker 2: today I know we're at least going to talk about
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  Speaker 2: two things, which is censorship and immigration.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, so one of the things that occurred to me,
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  Speaker 1: and again I had planned to discuss more in the
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  Speaker 1: original episode, is this idea of censorship because what's very
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  Speaker 1: likely to happen in the next administration is a lot
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  Speaker 1: of things are likely to go very sideways and turn
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  Speaker 1: out very poorly. But how would you know. Even things
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  Speaker 1: that affect a huge amount of people may not affect
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  Speaker 1: you or anyone in your inner circle directly. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: just look at COVID. There are people who believe that
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  Speaker 1: that wasn't real when there were like hospitals nearby who
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  Speaker 1: had to turn their parking garages into a makeshift morgue
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  Speaker 1: because there were so many bodies piling up. But because
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  Speaker 1: those people didn't personally know someone who had died of COVID,
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  Speaker 1: they refuse to believe it was the case. So it
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  Speaker 1: is not that difficult to remove yourself from a situation
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't directly affect you and then not have any
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  Speaker 1: information about the fact that that's going on, even though
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  Speaker 1: it's affecting hundreds of thousands or even millions of other
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  Speaker 1: people that are sort of just not in your orbit directly.
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  Speaker 2: Right, And that happens, unfortunately with a lot of different issues,
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  Speaker 2: right like, it's not just COVID. It is things like IVF,
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  Speaker 2: it is things like human rights, it is things like
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  Speaker 2: access to education. It's you see that when you go, well,
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  Speaker 2: it's not it's not my family, it's not my friends,
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  Speaker 2: and then people just leave it alone and then they
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  Speaker 2: just cannot access information.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And so with this idea of censorship, one
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  Speaker 1: of the things that's already happening is the Trump administration
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  Speaker 1: is completely stacking their cabinet with yes people, people who
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  Speaker 1: are only going to tell him what he wants to hear.
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  Speaker 1: And we saw a version of this play out during
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  Speaker 1: COVID when he was president last where he said, we
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  Speaker 1: have to stop measuring it because that's why we're getting
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  Speaker 1: such big numbers, is we're measuring it. I'm like, measuring
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  Speaker 1: measuring COVID does not cause COVID. That's stupid, right, But
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  Speaker 1: what essentially what they were advocating is let's pretend it's
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  Speaker 1: not a problem, and if nobody knows how bad the
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  Speaker 1: problem is, we can pretend the problem is not that bad.
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  Speaker 1: And now he and at the time, there were a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people in positions to push back on that
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  Speaker 1: and say, well, I'm just going to say the data are,
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  Speaker 1: what the data are, and like we're just going to say,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to share what those information are. And there
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  Speaker 1: were places that underreported it and places that over reported it,
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  Speaker 1: in places that appropriately reported it, but there was the
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  Speaker 1: pushback from the administration to just not have accurate data.
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  Speaker 1: And it's part of the censorship theme of the conservative
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  Speaker 1: movement in pretty much all places in the world, but
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  Speaker 1: definitely in the United States right now, that the idea is,
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  Speaker 1: don't provide accurate information. All right, Well, on that downer note,
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  Speaker 1: let's exert a downer note in the form of ads.
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  Speaker 1: So if our GDP shrinks, if our economy is collapsing,
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  Speaker 1: if we if unemployment skyrockets, we might not know if
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't affect us directly, because the government might just
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  Speaker 1: say that's not happening, it's not real, right, and they
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  Speaker 1: just might not report on it, or they might lie
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  Speaker 1: or obvious gate And like a lot of people will
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  Speaker 1: hear that and believe because they already are inclined to
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  Speaker 1: believe whatever this person says. They might hear that and believe, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: things are great, They've never been better. Specifically, Trump's disdain
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  Speaker 1: for reporters and the media holding politicians accountable. There is
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  Speaker 1: a likely going to be a pretty significant push to
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  Speaker 1: decrease the journalist's ability to do their jobs right, which
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  Speaker 1: means that like, even though independent media outlets could be
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  Speaker 1: reporting on what's actually happening out there, the government typically
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  Speaker 1: has not been able to censor that, and the government
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  Speaker 1: right now is gearing up too specifically censor that, so
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  Speaker 1: that the only news you get is news that is
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  Speaker 1: government is curated by the government to tell you what
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  Speaker 1: they want you to believe, and they're like putting people
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  Speaker 1: in place to make sure that that happens right now,
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  Speaker 1: So there is the likelihood that we won't even know
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  Speaker 1: how bad things get, and people may even believe that
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  Speaker 1: things are going well even if they aren't, because of
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  Speaker 1: their tendency toward a huge amount of censorship by only
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  Speaker 1: putting people who are going to tell them what they
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  Speaker 1: want to hear and only going to report on things
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  Speaker 1: that make them look good. And part of the evidence
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  Speaker 1: for this is the fact that every dictatorship that has
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  Speaker 1: ever lived has done this right, and like it is
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  Speaker 1: endemic to conservative governments that they do this, that they lie,
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  Speaker 1: they obfuscate, they cheat, they steal, they portray information that
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  Speaker 1: is factually demonstrably wrong because it allows them to maintain
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  Speaker 1: control over the electra. Look at Russia, this is like
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  Speaker 1: just how they operate. They just say like this, things
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  Speaker 1: are fine, right, this is the story, and the media
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  Speaker 1: outlets are not allowed to report things that contradict the
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  Speaker 1: government's official statement about those things. So people in Russia
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  Speaker 1: won't even know what's happening in Russia because the government
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  Speaker 1: will make sure that they only get the information of
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  Speaker 1: the government control and they can. China does this version
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  Speaker 1: of this too. China and Russia will block access to
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  Speaker 1: internets from other countries, so people can't even get news
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  Speaker 1: from outlets that are reporting about what's happening in their country.
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  Speaker 1: And so again the only information they get is distilled
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  Speaker 1: to them by the government's bureau of people, whose job
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  Speaker 1: it is to only feed them the information that they
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  Speaker 1: want them to have. And so I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: much of that's going to come to fruition, but some
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  Speaker 1: amount of it already is and is likely to continue
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  Speaker 1: on that trajectory.
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  Speaker 2: And to add to that, that's kind of the I
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  Speaker 2: think the lower end of the problem that will happen.
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  Speaker 2: I think the larger part of this too, is that
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  Speaker 2: censorship also occurs when an administration or a government makes
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  Speaker 2: enemies of people who are informants and people who are
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  Speaker 2: sharing information and makes them enemies of the state, which
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  Speaker 2: ultimately is a scary thing because then journalists can become
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  Speaker 2: enemies of the administration. They can be prosecuted for reporting
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  Speaker 2: out specific information, and that can turn into a slippery
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  Speaker 2: slope around the concerns that have to do with freedom
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  Speaker 2: of speech. Yeah, there is a piece there where people's
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  Speaker 2: lives could be really messed up and people can get
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  Speaker 2: hurt and people can die as a result of being
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  Speaker 2: made an enemy of the state.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Soviet Russia did this. Obviously. We have Jamal Kashogi
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  Speaker 1: with an example of how this has played out. North
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  Speaker 1: Korea rules with an iron fist over the media and
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  Speaker 1: consumption of information that people have access to, so like
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  Speaker 1: they part of the reason Trump is so obsessed with
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  Speaker 1: Kim Jong un is his ability to completely control, to
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  Speaker 1: dominate and manipulate people's perception of what's going on in
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  Speaker 1: the country and the government right, and like people starve
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  Speaker 1: to death there and nobody knows about it because the
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  Speaker 1: government won't we pourt on it, and like they can
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  Speaker 1: just keep running. It's an unstable form of government, but
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  Speaker 1: it can last a lot longer than you'd think, even
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  Speaker 1: though it's pretty much inevitable that it will fail at
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  Speaker 1: some point. Right, because this mini has already lasted the
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  Speaker 1: length of a mini, and we still have a whole
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  Speaker 1: nother discussion to have inside of this, I think what
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna do is call this one now and just
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  Speaker 1: say that this mini was just about censorship and it
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  Speaker 1: is his own thing. That's that's why I'm feeling.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think there's too
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  Speaker 2: much to unpack in general, and we're going to have to.
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  Speaker 2: We're this is the first time we've had a we
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  Speaker 2: were not calling it a two part mini, but this
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  Speaker 2: is the first time we've had to split a mini. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: because it got too big. It's like it's like a
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  Speaker 2: shareable fund.
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  Speaker 1: A mini split if you will, Uh huh exactly. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So we we should just sort of made the decision
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  Speaker 1: to preserve the integrity of the mini as it is designed.
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  Speaker 1: It is kind of an oxymoron to have it be
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  Speaker 1: nearly the length of an episode and also to have
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  Speaker 1: it be part one in part two. So instead, what
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  Speaker 1: we're doing is this is the end of this discussion
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  Speaker 1: that we're having today, and so thank you so much
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  Speaker 1: for listening and check out. Next week we'll have another
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  Speaker 1: discussion on musings and prognostications on another topic, which is immigration. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but thank you so much for joining us. If you'd
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: like to support us, who can head over to our Patreon,
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  Speaker 1: leave us a rating and review, like and subscribe, pick
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: up some merch at our merch store, and if you'd
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: like to email us about something we said in this
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: you can reach us directly info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: or you can join us on the social media platforms,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: including on Blue Sky. All right, Shane, thank you for
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: recording with me today. Is there anything I'd like to
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  Speaker 1: add or anything I forgot before we move? Close this
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  Speaker 1: one out?
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  Speaker 2: Nothing today?
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: All right? Then Why We Do What We Do Mini
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: is out.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
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  Speaker 1: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.