false – An Aura of Fleeting Thoughts

Never before has it been more important to check- cross check and re-check everything that gets played on to the television set, the channels that you subscribe to, the search results that come to serve you and not to mention the endless, forwards, messages and what have you! This piece is about trying to make some sense of the information or rather misinformation warfare in which we get drawn day in and day out at times knowingly and other times unknowingly when we tend to forward that last message on whatsapp without bothering to check if the content made any sense to begin with! So let’s try and unravel what really is going on here!

The later part of the last century, was rightly known as the Information Age- If one had the right information at the right time it gave the person/ business or the government of the day phenomenal advantage to lead and race ahead no matter what the subject would have been- whether it was about path breaking research, or best practices adopted over factory floors, or it was about business or governance strategies- You name it and you will find that the last 50 years has always been about “The Best way” of doing things, “getting things done”, “being the best”, individually or collectively by harnessing the power of Information. Till this point it was a linear fight for supremacy – Whoever had the right information at the right time would be the winner, but with technology and the dawn of the digital age- information became available at amazing speeds simultaneously across the world and there was never a question of any lag or delay and then it started to boil down to who had the first movers advantage, who got ahead first, how fast and what tools and resources were made available for them to make that rapid progress. Well even this was fair, considering you give the whole world community the same information at the same time and then it boils down to whoever has the maximum matter and money to spend and build on an idea! The real drama unfolds now, once people saw that information based challenges are becoming accessible and rapid progress is possible and the concept of dominance on sectors/ ideas and approaches to lives problems is beginning to get into the shredders, the real game got started – the game of information dominance through spread of misinformation! This is how we have, according to me ushered in the age of misinformation- The age of Information Warfare- A testimony to Human Dominance and never ending Greed for power (all types) and Opulence!

This age of Information warfare thrives on spreading information which makes sense, no sense and cryptic sense- this is done intentionally to divert, distract and keep competitors and people observing you loose their way and get entangled into a information mess in which they remain entangled and by the time they do come out of it- you would have probably achieved your objectives and then it really doesn’t matter whether they have access to the earlier original content or not- because that has become contextually irrelevant!

This new warfare front made possible thanks to the digital breakthroughs that we have collectively been able to make as humanity has proven far dangerous then any nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction! The misinformation business is responsible for almost everything that you see around- on the day to day basis- you would have come across commercials (with the small * of terms and conditions – which is next to invisible) claiming and suggesting things which are out rightly stupid, dangerous and rarely at time fatal- but as they say- the small little invisible * offers protection and the the petitions are always urged to use their collection and individual wisdom-which by itself is a challenge as that is a fast depleting asset! When things do get ugly as usually they do- you will generally have vested interest groups within nations/ communities and across nations who can collectively get into the role of spreading information in a calibrated,weighed manner to do a sinister loop and complete it’s objectives by unleashing public unrest/ strikes/ law and order situations and by the time this is all done the originator and the communication and the real essence behind the malafide act is all but cluttered into an ambiguity of trails, reports and reasons- which often heads no where and then the world is ready for another episode all over again! History is replete with examples when things have become really bad and this ability to spread directed misinformation has at times won wars at the right side of the battle and at times has ended up doing more damage to society at large! So when we know Mis-Information is as deadly as it gets to be- why do we thrive and allow it to propagate- why does it even get a hold?

The answers lie in the fabric of humanity itself- Human societies have long been far away from idealistic settings- there is a rampant inequality within societies, within different segments of a society or even within communities and not to forget the inequalities among nations and blocks of nations! Inequality that transcends all metrics normally considered for determining what should be the definition of Equality! Inequality manifests in different ways, it could be the inequality between the rich and poor (monetary inequality), inequality of opportunities, inequality of liberty and so on and so fort. The most important trigger comes from the Inequality of opportunity for World Dominance through governance and business. This is by far the most dangerous and the most sinister of all the different malaise of modern societies and has caused more harm then good to each and everyone of us! You may be thinking this has to do with only the intelligence community and the governments- no – this has everything to do with each one of us- as misinformation gets fed into minds which are not that good at checking facts from fiction- the results and consequences often turn deadly and dangerous! So now we know that there is a problem- how do we deal with it! Well read on…

“Practice the Pause” a technique told by many management teachers, the next time you get a piece of information and decide to do anything- absolutely anything with it- think what it is- check from where it is coning- think what is is asking you to do and think about the impact that you may individual end up creating by virtue of who you are- and whether that is needed or not! There will be times when the best thing to do would be nothing! There will be yet another times when you may have to ignore/delete the message and then there will be some other times still when you need to flag the message and the content off to relevant people in time so that disasters are avoided well in time! The challenge though remains to perform any of these actions, first and foremost you must have a thinking mind – irrespective of how intelligent you are or not- doesn’t matter-what does matter is whether you have the ability to sieve through the content and weigh it against common-sense, science and facts of the world! One more golden rule is what doesn’t serve the best and larger good of humanity doesn’t need to be there- If any message that you are to pass on – irrespective of what the source and whatever it is- If it doesn’t help anyone and ends up having more anxiety and anguish to even person then that message is not worth it- might as well bury it as soon as it reaches you!

We live in an age where access to information is a sure ticket to success and hence the converse also hold true- access to misinformation can spell untold misery and chaos at times damaging individuals and at times communities and nations as a whole! The certain way to move around this in-your-face- covert enemy of mis-information is to develop filters through wisdom and knowledge and apply ample common sense to all that you receive- without the screen of prejudice and develop a way to weight the content of information in its totality and then take a call whether it serves or deserves its existence! This kind of mindful approach to content when repeated over and over again will ensure the damages caused by misinformation campaigns world over is as minimal as possible!

I will leave you here with these thought, grab your cup, check your whatsapp messages and think well before you forward the next message! Think- Is it really worth It- Does it add value to the receiver or to you as a sender of the message! If it does go ahead, if it doesn’t delete that crap!

Ciao for now, will catch up soon with another article!

If you think or rather want to continue to think that “We’re in this together” and “Together we will prevail”, are great things that seem to inspire each one of us- Well, think again, these statements look great, the only problem that I have with them is, dude, I did not sign up for any of this shit! I would have rather joined a UN coalition force to rain down a barrage of bullets on the bad people or signed up for the olive green uniform for my country but to get drawn into a global narrative that is being literally shoved down my throat and placed in front of my face by trying to tell me that I need to contribute and be a part on this- so called war against a virus! I mean, wait a minute, have we really lost it!? A war against a virus, I mean really?! Take a pause and think about it (since you would be either in a quarantine or a lock down), how come one gets coerced to contribute to alter something about which neither anyone has complete facts- the How, Why and What of it and neither the solution to it!- neither you are a biologist, chemist or a molecular scientist- so what’s really going on with all these forceful patriotic narratives, the clapping, banging, singing all over the world- what’s really happening! Well this is what is called as the “War of the narratives” and this is something that every nation wages at some or the other time, the only difference being this time, all of them are doing it, at one go for one singular narrative- The Pandemic!

History is replete with examples wherein narratives have been created to drive select agendas of individuals who have been able to harness power, position or both and lead societies, nations to the gates of hell! So why is it that even when people, who are generally well educated, aware and have a thinking mind fall into the trap of these gimmicks and symbolism of false narratives? The answer lies in the qualities that I enlisted! Literacy, Awareness and Mind never help when literacy is not equated and filtered through education, awareness is built on prejudice and pre-preemptive assumptions and people even after having a mind, decide to lock and kept it away!

Misplaced narratives are perhaps the greatest invention of human mind! It is no surprise that most of the times they have been used to push through agendas which normally would have not gone through! So why do have them in the first place? Well, go back to history! Each time global communities- whether they be nations or regions have stalled and the governing agencies (elected governments, dictators and whatever fits into this systems that rules over the masses!) have hit a trim level with regards to any vital metric of the society that they govern, it has almost always ended up giving birth to powerful narratives- which essentially were a distraction created for the masses more then anything else! What these narratives almost always did was to lead people in a directed way of seeing at problems or thinking in a particular manner which reinforces the decisions made by the governing agencies! If we go back to the times when the great world wars were fought- you will notice a singular trend- every action that was taken even from the beginning of each of the wars was to do something with a powerful narrative by an individual or group of individuals who had come up with a clever strategy to communicate what served their purpose- to an extent that millions of people- whether soldiers or otherwise felt it a patriotic obligation to get in harms way (especially when a few of those countries were least impacted directly at a time when limited escalation broke out!) Consider Vietnam- the much famed theater of war from where US had to move back and was also the reason why powerful counter narratives were made in way of movies and films to keep sending the positive messages around the war to the general public! Truth certainly comes out, but if it gets mistimed- it looses its essence! This fact is being used and abused by people who govern and believe in creating false narratives!

In our current case, no government sounded off alarms about the deadly contagion that the virus is in the beginning, but as they realized that mistakes were costly- the narrative changed from the governments accepting accountability and responsibility- to telling citizens what to do and enforce a lock down. The lock down in nations where the virus was more aggressive ensured that those who were sick were more or less written off and had no chance of waging a come back as the system was reduced to choose between people when it comes to who lives and who doesn’t- Inhuman it seems and it certainly is- the worry here though is not that world wide health systems can’t cope with this kind of deluge of sick people- The fact here remains that governments watched every our and every day as the things began to spiral off and decided to get active only when it started to suit their objectives- again not by- being honest and truthful of the omissions and mistakes, but rather by creating false narratives and putting the onus on people for their own life- The over all feeling across the world based on what governments are telling their citizens is “Well, we have a problem and you can alone ensure you are safe if you do a, b, c and If you don’t do this, well I cant guarantee you anything!”

Misplaced narratives work extremely well to serve political and strategic points for governments but in the long run they ruin and completely break down the communication and trust within the social frameworks and end of the day, more often then not end up reducing citizens to some crazy “Citizen ID no XXX”. That’s about it- eventually this is where we all will be heading to and this is what will remain as the reflection of the nation that we belong to . This one number will define how high and farther we get within the context of the society we live in. So you may want to ask me now, if “misplaced narratives” are so bad and dangerous why are they allowed and how do they get a foothold in the first place?

You will be surprised to learn, that individually each one of us and collectively as a society we ourselves are to blame for the extent of false/misplaced narratives we are ready to buy into and agree to! Yes, this is very similar to herd mentality and the overbearing need to comply with “social conformity bias” to be accepted as part of society and not be seen as an outlier or oddity who can be taken out/ ejected depending on what type of society you are going about in! The reason why these things get a foothold is surprisingly our “intellectual inertia” a behavioral attribute wherein we perhaps know what we are witnessing is against established logic and normal universal principles of humanity, yet we decide to do nothing about it- nor say, nor act and well this inaction serves as acceptance in the scheme of things and misplaced narratives start to rule! Remember Hitler- one person who made millions believe that killing innocent people from a specific community was their greatest duty of service to their nation” well, yes- this is what it is and this is how it can get played out from a worst case scenario point of view- An Individuals delusional thinking and intellectual hallucination and fixation of an idea- brought the whole world to the edge and resulted in sufferings and deaths of millions and millions to an extent that the effects of those are felt even today when you visit towns and places tucked away on the quiet corners of Europe, Japan or other theaters where all hell had broken loose! A simple act of not using intelligence, cognition and displaying inertia at individual levels when reinforced by societies leads to a deafening silence which fuels the development of “misplaced narratives” which eventually end up harming the society which has surrendered and outsourced its ability to think to the whims and fancies of an individual or a group of individuals! So is there no hope around this? What’s the way ahead, are we kind of really doomed?

Well the fact remains, if there’s a problem, there is a solution always and this applies to the ability to ward off misplaced narratives as well! The first and possibly the only step is to use individual intelligence and wisdom before you agree to disagree to anything that is coming your way- e.g. If I were to tell you clap for five minutes everyday at 12 pm to become a millionaire in one year- well I am sure giving some kind of marketing twist I will be able to tempt you to try that dumb thing! But if you have a mind which starts to weigh my statement against principles of science, philosophy and common-sense , you will know this is rubbish and nonsense and you will ask me to shut up! When one voice turns against a misplaced narrative- it by itself is powerful and when you amplify that using the power of social media and create a compelling counter narrative which is based on facts and science- which can be verified and explained in plain speak- this powerful counter narratives are what revolutions and pressure groups are made up of! Remember the Jasmine Revolution, – well that and many such were the result of powerful counter narratives when individual members of society came together and decided to stop misplaced narratives by confronting it collectively in unison with facts and more acceptable solutions!

Misplaced narratives are often the first steps before a nation is planing to change their political framework and these are more often then not tests run with tact and strategy and regular intervals to gauge the mood of the citizens so that any dissent can be stifled- using appropriate force as needed to ensure that the governance agenda- whatever that is- can be met! If you happen to be in any nation wherein you are seeing the political class becoming more and more in your face and in your app or in your life- Well, welcome you are now officially part of a society where a powerful misplaced narrative is completely hiding away from you what is really happening behind the scenes! If you think-all world leader woke up to a pandemic late- well think about it! If they have so many resources and time to mitigate and control the things now- why couldn’t they stop that from ever reaching to those levels in the first place!? No, I don’t need you to answer now, but keep thinking, maybe the “Pandemic is a Misplaced Narrative” and there is something bigger unfolding- which is hidden in plain sight!

I will leave you here with a cup of strong, very strong coffee and wake up your mind, and try to sieve through the narratives that you have been a witness to and allow your intelligence and wisdom to guide you to unravel which one of those are indeed, “Misplaced narratives and who fast are they racing to impact you!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another piece soon!