Propoganda (or just another conspiracy theory)

Most excellent propaganda.

This is my college degree. I went through three years of acquiring a "tool box," of how to use psychological studies of key words that cause flash points in demographics, and how to interpret reams of data gathered from on line profiles. Concepts like indo ctrination of ideas, to inoculating those ideas against outside reason. I learned well and my own senior thesis has been used as a quoted study. (On a side note, my school demanded Master level work for a Senior thesis. Kind of proud of that.) My class mates have gone on to work for the CIA, campaign speeches, advertising agencies, and writing comprehensive manuals. It wasn't until my Senior year that they tied it all together on how to manipulate public thinking. My shock was likened to a magician learning his trade and finding out his profession was capable of great evil. So there are times I see a master stroke, where others might see derisive conspiracy theories. Here is one such.


A group of posters started posting job spam;

"Joann, You wouldn't believe me, but it's easier now to get a job. A lot of employers use the internet now to list good jobs (with good pay). Stop wasting gas and time driving around. Here's a site that lists all the jobs available in your city. Go to YouGetWork.com"

First it started with no personalized name with just the message starting at "You wouldn't.... " and then went to the more chummy personalized prefix. This was enough to start an anti spam coalition. Once there was a foot in the door with the phrase "You wouldn't... " it became an automatic response to find fault with the poster and everything to do with the poster. Having started this distaste by the reader of a Yahoo news blog(ger), allowed the real reason for this indoctrination of distaste. They started adding reasonableness with sense making pre-posts like;

"The Fed is "printing" money and everyone thinks this will cause hyper inflation so gold is going up. But, nobody is taking out new loans and the banks are not loaning to anyone. So, it doesn't matter how much money the Fed prints when it isn't going anywhere. We are actually in a deflationary spiral in which businesses don't borrow and banks don't lend and prices are going down. But, almost overnight, the scene could change to hyper inflation. Therefore, we are in uncharted waters. Nothing has ever been so screwed up before!. Joann, You wouldn't believe me, but it's easier now to get a job. A lot of employers use the internet now to list good jobs (with good pay). Stop wasting gas and time driving around. Here's a site that lists all the jobs available in your city. Go to YouGetWork.com"

This was in a news article blog about gold going past $1,400 today. Notice how it starts with a real sense making fact, and then blasts into what has become an automated thumbs down response by other posters. While Hale Bopp may know his quasars, I know propaganda when I see it. Others may look at it all and tell me I'm doing a paranoiacs "They're everywhere" knee jerk, but if this isn't a text book example of what I learned at college, I'll eat the books I still have on persuasion and tailoring public opinion.

It bugs me this sort of thing is so pervasive and the public really has no antibodies to either recognize it or fight it off. Sadly this is one area where having half of the public left of the Bell curve really hurts society. The other sad fact is that people just don't have the time to go past the first level of fact checking if they fact check at all. Trust me, there is a faction that will ridicule this known fact and sure enough twenty posts later someone actually parroted the anti fact of this truth.

We are so screwed. The patient is sick and has no idea just how bad it is. Germany post WWI. Wiley Coyote has run off the cliff and can't look down or he will fall.