Fellow humans,
History is littered with examples of “powerful people” taking advantage of “common folk” by means of force and manipulation. From slavery to an endless dosage of COVID vaccinations. Today, let’s focus on manipulation, especially the manipulation of words. Most people are probably familiar with the phrase “studies show” in the news. Let’s unpack the phrase to decimate its face-value validity, and rightfully so.
Any individual or group can conduct a study about anything, slap the phrase on our content, and then watch too many people blindly believe our message. In fact, our very own CDC has decided to utilize the phrase in order to mask our children. For the record, in preparation of writing today’s letter, I used DuckDuckGo to search “studies show,” and the fourth result was the CDC article. In other words, I was not expecting to find government content with the phrase, but I’m not surprised.
The responsibility of the reader (audience) is to ask questions. Imagine being a police officer, and you approach a man with blood on his hands. The first thing he says to you is, “they were trying to hurt my family.” Your response should be, “who is they?” As an audience member (victim) of the greatest propaganda war we may ever witness, all of us should be constantly asking more questions, especially when our safety and money is involved. Always ask the right questions at the right time.
The responsibility of journalists and government “leaders” is to have integrity, because with great power comes great responsibility. When you read SALtoshi Whitepaper to understand Bitcoin, my content should make sense to you. Maybe not always and immediately, because certain topics are complicated and take time to learn, but most of the time you should not be confused, and none of the time should you blindly believe me. If my content ever says, “studies show middle-class families should contribute 1 percent of their income to bitcoin,” then I’m failing you. When a journalist or leader fails us, we should stop giving them our attention and support.
My working theory points to individual critical thinking as the most effective solution to the problem of falling victim to the ongoing propaganda war. Intellectual laziness is our greatest threat in the information age. Too many people would rather spend time mindlessly engaged in pointless entertainment than exercising our minds. Scrolling through social media and binging TV shows is possibly the most unhealthy activity for our minds, and leaves us vulnerable to manipulation. How? Because the aforementioned activities weaken our minds, especially our attention span. The human mind is possibly devolving, and future generations may be the closest resemblance to zombies. If we want to survive, we need to be smarter.
Hopefully my message is very clear — asking the right questions at the right time, and individual critical thinking is our best chance to break free from mass formation psychosis (or whatever you want to call the issue). If you don’t believe certain groups of people all over the world have been coordinating to manipulate us via the internet and misleading information, then I feel sorry for you. Yuval Noah Harari briefly discusses the hacking of humans, which means the concept of mass manipulation has already been made public, and has certainly begun. Our blind obedience is resulting in concentrated power and wealth, which is likely falling into the wrong hands.
What should we do? I have some ideas, but ultimately each individual should engage in seeking answers and critical thinking. Generally, we could start by trying to understand who
is conducting certain studies and for what reasons, because certain studies most definitely lead to a major impact on our lives. Doctor Robert Malone is a great example of what right looks like, because he digs deep into certain medical studies (especially regarding COVID), activates his own critical thinking, and then comes to his own conclusion. Separating ourselves from group-think (or whatever term you want to use) can lead us to our true selves.
Studies show the human race has been walking a dangerous path as far as information consumption. The studies have been conducted time and time again by one individual, and the individual is me. See how easy? Believing “studies show” at face value is stupid, and we’re not stupid animals. In fact, humans are the smartest animals on planet earth, although our actions don’t always display our intelligence. Individually we can make a difference for the betterment of humankind by practicing our own critical thinking, otherwise somebody else will for us.
Until next time,
Salvatore Norge
P.S. — Bitcoin has never been more relevant and important.
I have exciting news to share: You can now read SALtoshi Whitepaper in the new Substack app for iPhone.
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.