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Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts

7.5.21

Some Thoughts On Thinking

 


This may sound like a strange question, but do you think about thinking?

Believe it or not, it's a real thing.  It's called cognitive science, and it employs a lot of people covered in sheep skins sitting around thinking about thinking.  They ask the really tough questions, like how do we think?  Why do we think?  What do we think about?  And most importantly, why do we think what we think?

Philosophers since ancient times have killed a lot of goats and pulverized a lot of trees pondering these questions.  They have proposed reams of hypotheses, outlined scads of analyses, and probably smoked a lot of opium trying to figure out how and why people think.

Personally, I think the answer for the most part is, "They don't."

In any event, to get my degree as a professional communicator, I had to take a full year of cognitive science classes and write a bunch of papers about the use of role-playing, gate-keeping, linking, and remembering.

While this may all seem a bit tedious, even pointless, it plays a major part in your life.  Thought modelling is the basis for algorithms, which more or less control every aspect of our lives these days.  Behavioral responses are linked to cognitive processes that determine your suseptibility to advertising, marketing and other forms of mass stimuli.  Like it or not, folks who think about thinking can predict almost without fail how you will react to certain input by collecting your online data.

Now I could go on for hours about this topic, but I want to focus on a model I made that offers insight into personal opinions.

The illustration at the top is a visualization tool for how I think about opinions.  While much of the world is told to think of opinions in two dimensions - left/right, red/blue, etc. - I think of opinions in three dimensions with six aspects.  I have found that every opinion I've ever had or encountered falls somewhere within this matrix.  It doesn't matter what the topic is, and doesn't care what your political or ideological beliefs are.  In fact, the belief structure is the box in which the matrix is contained.

Take something as mundane as pork bacon.  The box would be your religious ideology.  Those with religious strictures against eating pork would fall somewhere in the -X/+Y range, and may actively try to keep others from eating pork bacon (+Z) or not care what you do (-Z).  I personally think pork bacon is God's gift to Mankind (+X), but I won't force anyone else to eat it (-Y), but I will actively seek sources to purchase it despite living in a predominantly Muslim country (+Z).

Now take something as contentious as abortion rights.  You might feel strongly that it is an individual choice (+X/+Y), but you would not participate in rallys or take political action (-Z).  On the other hand, you might believe it is murder and an offence against humanity (-X), you are very passionate about that belief (+Y) and you would join in a protest to block a clinic (+Z).  The box is most likely a religious belief system.

If we assign a set of values to the aspect, say 1 through 5 moving out from the intersection, we can plot a whole range of opinions and even begin to see which ones are contradictory.

More importantly, at least from a commercial point of view, we can find a pattern that can be matched with your behavioral pattern, and suddenly we have a predictive model of you, and we can use it to target your weak spots.

The box can be any set of overarching beliefs that affect our opinions.  It could be as large as a weltanschauung, or as small as a personal taste.  It could be an Aristotelian Materialist box that colors everything you think, or a salty foods box that affects your opinion on various cuisines.  It really gets fun when you place a whole lot of small boxes inside a weltanschauung box, and start producing a set of sets model for any given individual.

The latter is essentially what is happening this very moment as you and I post on social media and make purchases with credit cards and search for items on Amazon.  Each collecting organization sells its data on us to other organizations, then they overlap the data by name, location and demographic information, and POOF!  They've made a little digital you inside a supercomputer somewhere in Silly-Con Valley.

Your thought and behavior matrix is as unique as a fingerprint, but it is also predictive.  For instance, if you are +X/+Y/+Z about bacon, I can predict some of your shopping habits.  Additionally, based on other data in your personal matrix, I can create a table of probabilities that predict how you will react to certain stimuli.  If your box is Materialist, then you are receptive to ads for luxury items, entertainment and day spas.  If your box shows a strong interest in self-sufficiency and practicality, you are receptive to ads for DIY products and urban real estate.

And that's just the beginning.

This type of model is used by social media giants to decide who gets cancelled.  It's not just what you say or believe, but the effect you have on others.  The giants are strongly -X/-Y/+Z, and they are hunting folks who are +X/+Y/+Z.  As the list shrinks, their quantitative criteria will move closer and closer to the null point, or intersection of the axes.  Even better, they can influence you to edit your thoughts and behaviors to move yourself closer to the null point, a process known as herding.

Think you can't be herded?  How many cash transactions have you made in the past month?  There was a time when people got really upset at the idea of a cashless society.  Now, most folks hardly use cash at all, not because of some rule or law, but because we have been herded there with online shopping, cards of every conceivable type, and the use of online credits to buy services, like ride-hailing and game tokens.

Your online behavior has allowed a group of corporations to create a set of carrots to lead you in directions that make them happy, so they don't have to pull out the stick and spook the rest of the herd.  Even more thought-provoking, they have convinced you that it makes you happy, as well.

This behavior modifiaction stuff is fun and profitable!

The moral of this story is that we should all spend a bit more time thinking about thinking.  How do you think?  Why do you think what you think?  What do you think?  How does your thinking affect your behavior?

Try making your own opinion matrix.  Think of random opinions you have, plot them out in the matrix.  After a short time, you'll start seeing patterns in your thinking.  When you find the pattern, think about what belief system (box) is skewing your thinking.  Become cognitive of your own cognition.

The benefit, other than self-awareness, is that you can use this tool to create artificial creatures that are absoltely consistent in what they say and how they behave online.  This might be a useful skill in the near future.

Think about it.

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6.5.21

Premium Price For Carbon

 


UPDATE 30 May 2021: Man convicted in Missouri for selling fake "organic" meat.  This case only proves that they are protecting the logo and brand, not the perceived quality of "organics".

Back in the late 1970s, I had a "day" job as a produce buyer for the most famous grocery store ever in the history of the world.

I'm not kidding.

I say "day" job, because being a produce buyer meant getting up at 2am, and driving a truck out to the farmer's market to buy veggies as they came off the trucks from the fields.  It is because of this job that I became an aficionado of raw vegetables, legumes, tubers, and fungi.  All my wives have appreciated my talent for selecting produce for flavor, freshness and the exact moment it will ripen.

I also hung around the top restaurants in Houston, and possibly the world, acquiring a taste for fine dining and learning tricks of the trade from top chefs.

One of those top chefs was my mother.  Though never tested, I imagine she could take dog meat and dress it up so fine, James Beard couldn't tell the difference.

I even dated a chef for a time.  She was trained at the CIA (not THAT one) and taught me one of the neatest tricks I've ever learned - how to de-bone a chicken from the inside out.  Makes great stuffed chicken and turducken.

All of this is by way of saying I know a bit about food, and specifically produce (food plants, fruit, legumes, tubers, and fungi to be clear), and also to say that I know for a fact that people have been paying premium prices of "organic" foods since at least the 1970s, and likely long before that.

When folks think of organic foods, they ofter imagine the wagyu beef of the veggie world - daily massages, listening to Mozart, people paid to sit around and talk kindly to the plants, that sort of thing.  They might imagine strict oversight by government organization, ensuring your "orginic" food has no chemical fertilizers or insecticides.  Perhaps folks might go so far as to think "organic" means no mucking about with a plant's genome, a.k.a. GMO seeds.

If you are one of those folks, you should get prepared, 'cause here it comes.

There is no legal definition of "organic," nor is there any government enforcement of the term "organic".  In the USA, which has some of the strictest "ideas" about what "organic" means, the entire labelling system is a voluntary process, and acquiring the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) "organic" label means a farmer's produce is at least 95% "organic".  Note, however, that the whole thing comes down to a label, and little else.

In 1990, the US Congress mandated the USDA create a set of standards for "organic" foods.  Note here that it is a set of standards, not laws, rules nor any kind of enforcement structure.  In 2000, the USDA formed a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) which created the National Organic Program (NOP), whose sole job it is to hand out and protect the "integrity" of the USDA Organic label.  You will note carefully that their job is to protect the label, not the food.

Yes folks, "organic" is a marketing program, backed up by a PPP that enforces a set of  practices, and your local farmer can voluntarily join the program, fill out a bunch of forms, get inspected once a year and follow 95% of the guidelines to earn the right to use a label.

That's it.

If you don't follow the guidelines, you get your wrist slapped and you can no longer put the little sticker on your produce and you're not invited to the annual conference in Las Vegas, but you can still call it "organic," and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

And that extra cost for "organic" food?  That's to pay for all the bureaucracy  and the dancing girls at the Vegas hoe-down.

A big part of the problem here is that "orgainc" has a specific definition:

or•gan•ic ôr-găn′ĭk

  • adj.
    Of, relating to, or derived from living organisms.
  • adj.
    Of, relating to, or affecting a bodily organ.

 If your produce falls under the qualification of "life as we know it," meaning carbon is its primary constituent, then it is by definition "organic".  Everything else is marketing.  And one of the great deceptions of marketing is that it's not what you claim, but how you word it.

Remeber that little detail about 95%?  You can drive a whole lotta sins through that remaining 5%.  For instance, if less than 5% of the genome is artificial, "organic".  If less than 5% of the farmer's weed killer is glyphosate, "organic".  If the farmer uses less than 5% ammonium nitrate, "organic."  If the irrigation system only receives 5% of its water from the local nuclear plant, "organic".

Essentially, paying top dollar for the "organic" label is a marketing ploy backed up by the watchful eye of a PPP that follows the guidelines of the USDA.  Your food is no more safe, fresh or natural than any other apple on the cart.

There's a fun little test you can do right in the socially distance comfort of your home.  Next time you brave the prutid and infected world to run to the store and buy some high-priced "organic" veggies, be sure to save the seeds.  Rinse them off and dry them thoroughly, then plant them in some nice "organic" soil, throw a little water on them every day, and be sure not to use ammonium nitrate or glyphosate.  In about 5-8 weeks, let us know what came of your little experiment.

I'll bet you decide to save a few bucks and stop shopping at Whole Foods by end of summer.

By the way, putting a couple free-range chickens in your back yard is a fantastic, "organic" pest control system, and all those bugs make the yolks dark yellow and full of flavor!

 

22.8.20

Selling Fear

One of our highly intelligent readers asked me to address the COVID operation from a marketing standpoint, which was an intriguing and irresistible topic.  Marketing, and its slightly more respectable older sibling Public Relations, are essentially psychological tools (weapons) that control mass desires and perceptions.

There are three primary forms of mass media: textual, visual, and audio.  Each is capable of telling a complete story by itself, but more interestingly, they can be combined to tell three different but related stories at the same time.  As a fun experiment, the reader should try watching a newscast, first with just the video, then just the audio, and note any differences in your perception of stories when you separate the two.

That said, let's take a look at how COVID is sold and programmed to manipulate a mass audience.  We will look at the tricks used to sell COVID, how it is packaged, and the motives of those selling it.

Let's ask ourselves what we really know about COVID.  We are told it is a virus, that it originated in Wuhan, China, and that it is deadly.  When we seek proof of these three propositions, most of us have no means to prove the existence of a virus, so we depend on "experts" to tell us that the cause of some set of symtoms is a virus.  We depend on the "experts" to tell us that the first known cases were in Wuhan.  We depend on "experts" to explain the connection between certain events (infection, progression, mortality) and the virus we cannot see.

The entire COVID narrative depends entirely on a small group of individuals with credentials we are told make them "experts" telling us how to connect certain dots to form the picture they want to paint in our minds.

You and I have been trained since birth to accept the authority of certain individuals and organizations on certain topics.  We rarely, if ever, question our underlying assumptions, which make us vulnerable to all kinds of marketing and PR.

If I take a middle-aged male with a soothing voice, put him in a lab coat and stick a stethoscope in his pocket, and place him in a vaguely clinical setting, then add a voice-over saying, "Nine out of ten doctors believe/recommend/choose...," most people would not only assume the man is a doctor, but that what he is saying is authoritative and true.

This effect depends heavily on the human propensity to delegate authority to someone else so we don't have to do all the work involved for ourselves.  This effect is commonly called "suspension of disbelief," and mass media is built on it.

If we take a performer with a certain (scientifically determined) look and vocal range, dress them up and place them on a vaguely "newsy"' looking set, we tend to delegate authority to them as "employees" assigned to find, digest and deliver information to us in a compact and packaged format.

Because we have delegated certain authority to these performers, we accept uncritically any random person they trot out as an authority on some topic.  We assume the performer has done the work necessary to vet the "expert" credentials.  We never see the expert's diploma or transcript, nor do we ever personally interview those who conferred "expert" status on them.  We base our assumptions about the expert on assumptions about the performer on assumptions about institutions.  We are at the mercy of multiple layers of assumptions that few of us examine on a regular basis.

When the performer trots out an expert who says a deadly virus is sweeping the planet, most of us have no way to verify the patient from whom samples were taken and scanned under an electron microscope and compared to the list of known viruses and determine whether the virus is indeed the cause of the sumptoms in the patient.  We assume that all the experts being presented to us have done all the work to verify the information they are telling us, and that their motives are pure and benign.

When I search for images of the SARS-COVID-2 virus, what I get looks very much like images of the seven other corona viruses that afflict humans, and since the images are generated by a computer counting the electrons bouncing off the surface of the virus, the images are in fact generated by an algorithm.  I have no means at my disposal to analyze those images, nor the computer and algorithms that produced them, so I am dependent on "experts" to interpret that data for me.

This doesn't begin to address all the tricks used - color, composition, lighting, music, etc. - but being aware of the use of "experts" is important to understanding how COVID is packaged.

COVID is packaged as an imminent and existential threat to every human being on the planet.  It is packaged as a virus, which none of us can see, and we are told that someone is infected by use of a test that none of us can verify (theory, design, processing).  A certain set of symptoms (matching several influenza and corona viruses) is a sign of infection by this virus.  And finally, it is all "wrapped" in a package labelled "SCIENCE".

Please forget that SCIENCE is a methodology for testing facts and assumptions, and NOT a belief system designed to stamp "authority" all over information, based entirely on a nested set of assumptions.

The packaging of COVID is designed to increase our credulity.  If "authorities" and "experts" and SCIENCE are all over the packaging, it must be true.  On a simple level, if you put French's common yellow mustard in a jar with French words all over it, you can double the price.  If you put a skull and cross-bones on the label, most people will not taste it to verify whether the contents are poisonous.  Thus, if we take an invisible threat, wrap it in "authority" and "expert," and stamp SCIENCE all over the label, not many people will question the information's veracity.

Let's take hydroxichloroquine, or HCQ, as an example.  Here is a drug that has been used by millions of people across the planet for decades, and is listed by the US government as being safer than aspirin (widely sold on the shelf of any convenience store).  It is frequently used to treat dengue fever, which is caused by one of four different viruses, so we know for a fact that it is effective against at least some viruses.

So, we have a cheap, common and safe drug with a long history of effectively treating some viruses.  Those are facts.  Now ask yourself, what is your perception of HCQ.  If terms like "side effects," "heart problems" and "poison" come to mind, then you have been watching mass media.  Whether you believe that information or not is irrelevant.  If your doctor wants to prescribe it for you, you will immediately react with fear.  Giving in to that fear or suppressing it depends entirely on your cognitive capacity and access to alternative information.

Ultimately, we are being manipulated by and with FEAR.  Fear is a very powerful emotion that is rooted deep in our minds.  It shuts down our reasoning capacity and causes us to react on instinct.  No one can stop fear, but we can suppress it, but it takes a significant conscious effort.

When we strip away all the unknown or unverified (unverifiable) information available on COVID, what we are left with is FEAR, wrapped in AUTHORITY and stamped with SCIENCE.  Quite simply, these three concepts are at the root of the entire global phenomenon we generally call COVID.

The FEAR is generated by the unknown and the uncertain.  We are unwilling or unable to verify the threat, so like the skull and cross-bones on the label, we won't question the contents out of FEAR we may be wrong.

We may be wrong because AUTHORITY has certified that our FEAR is warranted.  We read the label and saw the warning, and now some guy in a lab coat with a stethoscope in his pocket is verifying our FEAR.  He has lots of letters after his name, and other AUTHORITY figures confirm his AUTHORITY.  Thus, we give in to the FEAR.

This brings us to SCIENCE, a term which should never be confused with science, which is a set of rational rules for testing and verifying facts.  Rather, SCIENCE is itself a set of assumptions and beliefs that act as a modern theology.  It generates myths and deities that we are taught to hold sacrosanct.

SCIENCE has a high priesthood called AUTHORITY, which is telling us to FEAR.  If we cannot question SCIENCE, then none of the propositions built on it can be questioned, either.

If we want to unravel the marketing effort known as COVID, we must first examine our FEAR.  Where is it coming from?  What is generating it?  Who is selling it?  What is their motivation?  Once the FEAR is addressed, the rest of the illusion will crumble, in the same way that being on the set of a commercial and meeting the actor in the lab coat destroys the illusion that he is a medical professional.

We now turn to the last question - What is their motive?

The answer to this is a bit more difficult, because we must discern what is in the heads of a complex set of characters - individuals and institutions - and why.

The first thing we ask ourselves when unravelling a marketing campaign is, "What are they selling?"  The answer is either an action or a belief.  They want us to buy a product, or believe something about it.  This is not always easy, and involves another set of nested assuptions.

In order to get us to buy Air Jordans, we must first be convinced that Michael Jordan is an honorable and believable person worthy of trust and emulation, that he has intimate knowledge of shoe technology, that he genuinely believes in the product he hawks, and that some part of his skills in basketball are due to his shoes and that we can purchase those skills with no more effort than a visit to Foot Locker.

In the same way, to believe the COVID narrative, we must first believe there is a virus, that the AUTHORITY has perfect knowledge of this virus, that they know how to mitigate the virus, and that if we buy what they are selling we can escape harm and reduce FEAR.

What has the AUTHORITY sold us to mitigate FEAR?  Do not trust our friends and neighbors.  Wear a face covering.  Do not attempt to treat yourself.  Only a new (as yet uninvented) medication can stop the FEAR.  Only listen to AUTHORITY, no one else can possibly understand what is happening.

If we sum up the messages, it would seem that we are being channeled toward global AUTHORITY and that daily contact with the people around us will somehow weaken or undermine this transition (personal experience).  SCIENCE is the only way to understand the nature of the threat.  Only AUTHORITY can interpret SCIENCE.

Taken together, it seems that we are being sold a command and control system that the average human cannot and should not question.  The punishment for not following orders is death from an invisible bogeyman called COVID.

The result is billions of humans acting entirely on instinct and FEAR.  When humans do this, they tend to rally to leaders, or AUTHORITY.  This is the "circle the wagons" effect, and it is so effective that it is ubiquitous.  Humans herd when threatened, and herds conform to whatever the leaders tell them.  It is built into our psyches and it at the heart of almost all marketing.  People buy products to conform to social norms so they can be accepted into the group to receive the protection from the unknown (FEAR) that they crave.

We are being herded.  FEAR is the sheepdog.  AUTHORITY is the shepherd.  SCIENCE is the slaughterhouse.  Our individual identity, will and independence are the targets.  The marketing team wants full control over what goes into and onto, and how we use our most primordial possession - our Selves.

In other words, the marketers want Perfect Consumers.

19.1.19

Q The Endgame

Previous posts:
Deep Throat v. Q
Q The Conspiracy - A Phenomenon
The Gospel According To Q
A-Marketing We Will Q
The Name Of The Q
Q The LARP Carp
Spe-Q-lating On Q
In The Twilight Of The Q
Jonesing For Q
Analyzing Q-Analysis
The Q Prophesy
To Q Or Not To Q
A Quantum Of Q-Bit
Surfing the Q Wave
CQ CQ CQ
Q Tips And Quislings
Some Quick Q
The Q Treason

Q, for all intents and purposes, has not posted anything of consequence since 6 January 2019, when it claimed that Ted Cruz was also surveilled during the 2016 campaign cycle, when he and Trump were battling down the home stretch towards the nomination.

Q, as it is wont, fails to provide any evidence other than a handful of MSM links talking about how the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee.  Such a bombshell Drop should have riled up the Qniverse, since it would provide strong substantiation for the Trump Surveillance narrative, but the revelation has gone largely ignored by anyone, much less the Qvians.

Since that time, Q has primarily re-posted past Drops or quoted Trump Tweets or simply given long lists of MSM links.  As usual, there is never any affirmative interpretation given by Q, that is left to the Apostles and Acolytes whose job it is to generate consensus in the classic Hegelian Dialectic style.

It is interesting to note that throughout last December and into early January, the Qniverse was a cacophony of rumors about impending unsealing of indictments, martial law and military tribunals.  One could hardly find a moment of Q Commentary that didn't mention these topics and crow excitedly about the possibility.

Then I wrote my last article called The Q Treason, and spent a subsequent hour with Jeff Rense on topic, where I dissected the US laws, regulations and court decisions regarding both martial law and the tribunals.  Curiously - though no one in the Qniverse that I have found has directly addressed my research - the topics vanished from the running commentary.  Can I make a cause-and-effect case here?  Without further information, no, but the coincidence leads to interesting inferences.

When I say vanished, I mean I have only heard the word "tribunal" mentioned once in passing, and not a single other reference for the past three weeks across the dozen or so commentators I monitor regularly.

The topics of martial law and military tribunals have floated around the Qniverse since nearly the moment Q appeared on 4Chan (later 8Chan).  The idea was that the thousands of "sealed indictments" of high-ranking US officials and the impending arrests would lead to mass unrest and violence, and that the perpetrators would be tried by military tribunals because the civilian courts were so corrupt - and the perps masters of the process - that they would escape justice on technicalities not available in military courts.

The issues came to a head in late December, with Q Interpreters seeing imminent arrests around the beginning of January 2019.

Much discussion centered around a widely circulated video by someone called "Law Johnston".  Several searches of YouTube show that the video was circulated through third-party channels, as there doesn't seem to be any channel overtly operated by someone named "Law Johnston," though there is a channel called "ManOfChanges," operated by a Lawrence Johnston, who promotes himself as a fine artist.

The video in question does not appear on the ManOfChanges channel, but at least one of the videos on the channel appears to be hosted by a man looking similar to "Law Johnston" and this man has a similar Sam-Elliott drawl and breathy delivery.  Some of the videos on the channel also deal with various conspiracies, so it would be reasonable to link the two on circumstantial evidence.

Moving on, the imminent arrests and trials have now been replaced with speculation on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Government Shut-Down.

On the topic of Justice Ginsburg, the Qniverse has decided that she is going to exit the Supreme Court any day now.  There is quite a bit of speculation that she is already dead. 

There is an obvious political problem here.  President Trump has already appointed two justices, and a third would presumably put the conservative balance heavily on its side, with at least one more justice needing to be replaced in the next six years, assuming Trump is re-elected.

Obviously, the radical Marxist/Socialist elements within the federal government are in a panic over Ginsburg's imminent departure.  Ginsburg is an iconic emblem of this political faction and her exit represents the end of any overt presence of this ideology on the Supreme Court bench.

Being well into her 80s, and having just gone through a double lobectomy to remove cancerous nodules from her lung, it is hardly a secret that she is on the way out

The excitement in the Qniverse centers around the fact that Republicans kept the leadership of the Senate, which is solely responsible for confirming presidential appointments, particularly Supreme Court justices.

The Democrats have a vested interest in hiding Ginsburg's condition, and it would be quite apparent at the annual State of the Union Address normally given to the collected branches of the federal government by the president around the 20th of January each year.  It therefore stands to reason, among a number of other issues, that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would want to cancel the Address, using the shut-down as an excuse.  The missing justice would overshadow any other message the Democrats would want to deliver in their post-address rebuttal.

Trump responded by cancelling Pelosi's overseas junket by cancelling her Air Force transportation.

This brings up the issue of the government shut-down, which will be 30 days old on Sunday, 20 January 2019.  The 30 days is important to remember.

It has long been lamented in the Qniverse that Trump cannot advance his agenda because the federal government is stacked from the ground up with Marxist/Socialist elements that infest the so-called "Swamp".  The Qvians have long espoused the need for Trump to "drain the swamp," but no one could figure out how that would be accomplished without the mass arrests long promoted in the Qniverse.

It is no secret that in any government anywhere, the bureaucrats run the show.  These lifetime employees of government establish a kingdom within the kingdom, then proceed to make it nearly impossible to get rid of them.  Thus, in any real sense, it is these "swamp dwellers" who have the actual power, and not the elected or appointed leaders.  This is a truism that is as old as government itself, and history is replete with leaders decrying the bureaucracy.  They are represented by the classic character in history and fiction who whispers in the ear of the king, such as the Sheriff of Nottingham of Robin Hood fame, or Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings..

In the US, it is virtually impossible to reprimand an apparatchik, much less fire one.  The system was eloquently and succinctly summarized recently by an "anonymous" op-ed piece in The Daily Caller.  The writer's premise is that federal law allows employees to be "RIFed" only after a 30-day (22 working days) furlough.  Reduction In Force (RIF) is the bureaucratic euphemism for "lay-off," which has been widely adopted by corporations, as well.

This "30 days" number immediately led Qvians to refer back to two previous Q Drops:

Q1280 was dated 27 April 2018, and Q1935 was dated 28 August 2018.  Q1280 states, "Done in 30. [30]."  Q1935 states, "Think FLYNN [30]. Exactly [30]."

It should be noted that Q1280 was widely interpreted at the time to refer to an upcoming prediction about John McCain's death, that supposedly dropped exactly 30 days before his death.

Q1935 appears to reference General Mike Flynn, though the Drop does includes a long list of federal bureaucracies and implies that they are "central to operational success," and goes on to say Obama/Clinton operatives within those agencies are preventing Trump from realizing his agenda - though not in so many words.  The text does not link 30 to any of the agencies, nor does it imply RIFs as an option to clearing the agencies.

The two references to "30" are in context with Flynn and McCain, and do not appear to have larger contexts or implications.

It should also be noted that the only other reference to "30" in all the Q Drops is #1933, from 26 August 2018, in which Q appears to take credit for John McCain's suicide/murder.  This Drop is covered at length in my previous articles.

Taken at face value, it is impossible to say that either of these Drops directly implies a government shut-down extending longer than 30 days.  In both contexts, they refer specifically to two individuals, and one of the Drops (1935) mentions a number of federal agencies and says they are critical to "operational success," but says nothing about using RIFs to clear them out.  A search of Q Drops brings up no overt mention of RIFs or lay-offs, and the only mentions of "shut down" involve closing off various channels of Deep State communications.

Nothing I can find the Q Drops can be clearly interpretted to imply that the government shut-down was imminent, or that it would be used to RIF obstructing bureaucrats and clean out The Swamp.  Neither does any Q Drop hint at anything but mass arrests as part of The Plan or a means to clearing The Swamp.

I mention all of this by way of noting that the three overt references to the number "30" in the Q Drops are now being interpretted to imply that Q was telegraphing to Qvians the use of the shut-down to RIF unwanted employees.  This interpretation uses the Q mantra that "future proves past," thus this 30-day number for the shut-down must be seen as yet another Q Proof of fulfilled Q Prophesy.

To my mind, this is clearly an unwarranted conclusion.  In fact, this closely resembles the habit of many Biblical interpreters to take passages far out of context and use them as proof that the Bible clearly anticipated events thousands of years later.

In fact, US federal regulations DO allow furloughed employees to be RIFed after 30 calendar/22 working days, but there are enough catches to make any bureaucrat smirk appreciatively.

Firstly, the Furlough Rule excludes "Emergency Furloughs" related to appropriation SNAFUs.  Secondly, the rules require a re-organization plan be in place, describing how remaining employees will be shuffled around and job descriptions altered before the RIFs can take place.

It seems that the existing rules exclude the current situation on two counts.  It may be that reorganization plans do exist within the Trump administration, but no hint of that has leaked out yet. 

In any case, the current shut-down was initiated by the lack of appropriation of funds, and so is exempt from the RIF rules, meaning that once the funding is in place, the employees will need to be furloughed an additional 30 days to be eligible for RIFs.  Furthermore, the rules say that employees may have a "right" to be shifted to another position, rather than laid off completely.

So where does this leave the impartial observer wishing to determine the truth behind the Q Phenomenon?

We must conclude that Q is a marketing tool for the Trump administration.  Its promotion of Republican ideals and candidates make it quite apparent that the operation has a clear political agenda.

We must also conclude that Q is being used to promote a kind of anti-narrative that countermands the Mainstream Media.  While some may see this as a good thing, controlling what people think and do without their express understanding of how it is done, for any purpose, is immoral and suspect on its face.

We must finally conclude that the Q Prophesies are in fact of little value when interpretting current events.  We have been told repeatedly about sealed indictments, but there is precious little evidence they exist.  We have been told repeatedly about The Plan, but it takes some rather strenuous mental acrobatics to extract any sign of a coherent and coordinated Plan from either Q's Drops or Trump's actions.

We have further been told repeatedly about The Storm, but there is scant evidence that this is anything more than Trump/Q reacting to the various efforts of the opposition to disrupt and possibly end his administration.  In other words, Q is an effort on the part of the Trump administration to make reactions look proactive, and thus provide the illusion that Trump/Q are firmly in control and have anticipated every possible move by the opposition.

We have no reason to conclude that Trump/Q are secretly orchestrating major political events to achieve their agenda.  Rather, we must conclude that Trump/Q are opportunistically taking advantage of situations as they arise, while attempting to project leadership and control over the situation.

In no case do we appear closer to the Qvian Holy Grail of seeing Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or any of the other arch-villains of the Republican weltanschauung being goose-stepped to the gallows, than we were a full two years ago when Trump took office - or three years ago when he started floating the idea of jailing Clinton.

Sure, a number of high-profile bureaucratic figures have been "resigned" or outright fired, but this is nothing extraordinary.  It is par for the course in any change of administration.  Get rid of past loyalists and replace then with current loyalists.  Politics as usual - though perhaps in slower motion than most.

One might be swayed if some amazing maneuver allows Trump to RIF a full one-third of the federal work force, but that doesn't seem possible under the current rules - at least for another 30 days or more.  Some "unsealing" of indictments and a few high-profile arrests might convince one of The Plan, but there doesn't appear to be any effort to prepare the masses for such a move in any of the media, including Q Drops.

If anything, the outstanding work of WikiLeaks and Tom Fitton/Judicial Watch will be the downfall of high-profile criminals long before anything Trump/Q appear to be doing.

One prime example of the lack of predictive power within the Qniverse is Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.  The Qvians launched a maelstrom of excited speculation around the appointment of Whittaker after the resignation of Jeff Sessions in November 2018.  The contention was that Whitaker was unbound by nearly any constraint and could quickly fire Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller, and then exit the scene when the new AG was confirmed by the Senate.  In fact, Whitaker has spent his time fighting a court challenge to his appointment, pushing some papers around and warming a chair until the new AG is confirmed.

The Qvians have now shifted the same narrative to William Barr, pending his confirmation as AG.  Given the track record of the Qniverse to accurately predict future events, we will not hold our breaths.  But we can say with some confidence that the Qniverse will find some way to take credit for predicting whatever does happen.

In short, Q does not have a better or worse track record than any anonymous source in the MSM.  In fact, given the gravity of Q's implied coming attractions, we can only conclude that Q is little more than a weaponized version of the Boy Who Cried Wolf at worst, and an ace PR team at best.

For their part, the Q Apostles and Acolytes never seem to follow through on any of the Events du Jour.  Instead, they seem to quickly and effortlessly shift gears and completely forget about failed Prophesies, preferring to focus on the latest current events and the newest Storm Theory.

As noted above, the issues of impending Martial Law and Military Tribunals have simply vanished into the ether, with the Qniverse now focused on Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the RIFs.  In fact, even the "73,090 "sealed indictments" (as of 31 December 2018) have simply slid into the memory hole.  I have not heard any of the commentators mention them since early January.  I attribute all of this to the fact that these items represent wildly failed predictions. 

Granted, Q never overtly makes the predictions, but they are extracted by "code breaking" from Q Drops, and Q does nothing to disabuse Qvians of those conclusions, nor does it openly confirm them, which allows for significant wiggle room.

For their part, the Apostles and Acolytes wave off the failures with a kind of "the Lord works in mysterious ways" dismissal.  "Future proves past," they always say.

Interestingly, none of this seems to dissuade the Qvians in the least.  They easily switch from one focus to another, based on whatever issue the Trump/Q team  command, without even so much as a wave back to the dying memes.  They are consumed with "confirmation bias" and refuse to acknowledge past failures and re-directions, instead focusing laser-like on the latest Q Theory.

For the student of marketing and mass media, the Q Phenomenon is a magnificent case study in the power of the medium when one has unlimited resources to throw at it.  It behooves all of us to study this Phenomenon and learn how to identify it and inoculate ourselves from it, lest we fall prey to a significant new form of propaganda.

Even if the Q Phenomenon turns out to be completely innocuous and benign, at some point someone will land on the formula and use it for far worse ends.

Cue Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

2.10.18

CQ CQ CQ --.-. --.-

Voter registration drive - marketing
Previous posts:
Deep Throat v, Q
Q The Conspiracy - A Phenomenon
The Gospel According To Q
A-Marketing We Will Q
The Name Of The Q
Q The LARP Carp
Spe-Q-lating On Q
In The Twilight Of The Q
Jonesing For Q
Analyzing Q-Analysis
The Q Prophesy
To Q Or Not To Q
A Quantum Of Q-Bit
Surfing the Q Wave


I've obviously had a lot to say about the Q Phenomenon.  Since May 2018, I've tried to build a solid and objective argument that Q is dangerous and that ALL followers of Q do so based solely on faith, which is a characteristic of religion.

At this point, it is probably more effective to let Q speak for itself.  Since it claims that the 8chan board is its only "official" outlet, I will only take Q Drops from that source to ensure these are actual Q Quotes.  

There is, of course, a lot more (over 2,300 drops as of this writing), but these are selected samples that prove my case.  The reader is encouraged to verify these and all other conclusions I've made by reading Q itself.
Propaganda and sales pitch - marketing
HRC and Saudi Arabia linked in human trafficking - conspiracy theory
Imminent HRC arrest - failed prediction and/or disinformation (psy-op)
Q makes excuses for why none of its earth-shaking predictions have come true

Admits using disinformation but is NOT a psy-op?
Attacking religious establishment w/o evidence - First Amendment?
Voter registration drive for Republicans - marketing
Making excuses for failed predictions
Using comic book graphics but not a LARP
Failed predictions
Taking credit for shutting down US surveillance assets
Gov't conspiracy to hide UFOs and ETs

Remain passive, let the experts handle this.
Using q-analytics to track and trace IP addresses
Quoting Scriptures to attract religious audience
John McCain MIHOP (murder) or LIHOP (accomplice)

Q hawks T-shirt sales - marketing





22.8.18

The Silence Of The Q

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

1.8.18

Deconstructing Q Anon - RadioFarSide on Rense Radio

We want to express our sincerest thanks to Jeff Rense and his team for their invaluable support.  If this topic interests you, please keep an eye on the Rense Radio Network for exclusive content and updates as we ferret out the Q.

Previous posts:
Deep Throat v, Q
Q The Conspiracy - A Phenomenon
The Gospel According To Q
A-Marketing We Will Q
The Name Of The Q
Q The LARP Carp
Spe-Q-lating On Q

Reposted with kind permission from Jeff Rense, here's the first interview where Bernard Grover begins peeling away the layers of Q.

30.7.18

Spe-Q-lating On Q

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.