The
System is Our Enemy
by Not Sure
12 May 2024
“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system
is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see?
Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are
trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that
system and that makes them our enemy. You have to
understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of
them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight
to protect it.”
-- Morpheus, The Matrix
Alan Watt cut through the Matrix with the long, sharp
blade of a lifetime’s accumulation of knowledge, and wisdom honed by experience
and observation. He did not think that
some part of the system could be saved.
He never suggested that a righteous and uncompromised politician might
turn things around. Or that people
could benefit from digital currency if only they could control it. Decentralized finance (DeFi) and “personal
tokens” would not excite him. The system
that we are all born into, the system that changes over time, but remains the
same system, that SYSTEM IS OUR ENEMY, and all contained therein, IS OUR ENEMY.
Many people embark on a process of “waking up” or
disconnecting from the system, but they don’t get far. They fall victim to one of those landmines in
Alan’s Allegory of the Open Field Between the Forest of Our Slumber and the
Forest of the Safety of Our Own Conscious Minds. In that open field the Awakening Soul hears
someone shouting, “Klaus Scwab Bad. Bill Gates Bad.” This resonates with the awakening soul. It has the ring of Truth. The Circus Barker has caught your attention
and now he tells you that Donald Trump or Ron Paul or Ross Perot or Marine Le
Pen or Nigel Farage or Javier Milei is Good.
In the dangerous open field, a voice cries, “Freedom of
Speech! The Way of The X is Freedom of
Speech!”, but that same voice cries, “mRNA tech Good” and “Get your brainchip here!” and “Buckle up in your brand-new
Self-Driving, Electric Vehicle” and “All aboard to Mars!” The more I think about it, the more that
voice sounds like a character from a Philip K. Dick novel.
Or maybe our frightened soul is overcome by the
negativity of it all. Perhaps the
cacophonous cries in the open field seem like the sounds in a lunatic
asylum. Our Awakening Soul covers his
ears and darts into the sanctuary of the first church he spots. Here he learns that all this chaos and
destruction was foretold, so Let Go and Let God.
***
In
this Redux from May 22, 2016, Alan Watt is in fine form. Just the month before, he was in the
hospital, battling to survive the “perfect storm” of three different
illnesses. Hamish’s tumors had
reappeared, but a careful regimen seemed to be slowing their growth and Alan
looked forward to having a few summer months with his beloved pooch.
In this talk, Alan illustrated the predator/prey dynamic
with several stories from nature.
Chasing
Truth? Be Like the Terrier,
Never
Lose Sight of Your Quarry's Derriere
©
Alan Watt, 22 May 2016
The quarry is the prey, the rabbit, that the hound
pursues. An obsolete form of the word refers
to the entrails, or the guts of the prey, that will be tossed in a heap for the
hounds to devour after the hunt.
The terrier never for a second loses sight of his prey’s
back end. No diversionary tactic can
succeed in taking the dog’s eyes off the rabbit’s tail. Alan said that in the pursuit of TRUTH, we
must be like terriers.
The warning Morpheus delivers is helpful in that pursuit
of truth. Everyone inside the Matrix is
hooked up to a system based on lies and deception. TRUTH CANNOT BE FOUND IN THE MATRIX. The only reason to venture into the Matrix is
to unplug a lost soul or two. But as
Alan said, “You can only help the rare individual who has already started
asking the right questions.” The
initial process of awakening is the work of an individual. We cannot help them. We only wait, outside the system, for
Awakening Soul to appear.
***
Here
is an example of An Enemy Inside the Matrix in Service of the System:
Her name is Dr. Claudia R. Schneider. She received a PhD from Columbia University,
New York in 2018. She appears to be
associated with the University of Canterbury, NZ and the University of
Cambridge, UK. In one of the Holy Books
of the Internet, her works are listed.
According to The Sacred Text of Google Scholars, Dr./Ms. Schneider is
prolific. Please see “additional
reading” for a list of her Holy Work on Behalf of The Salvation of The Universe
and All That We Hold Green, Sustainable and Most Godly.
I was interested in a piece she co-wrote in October of
2023 entitled, “An emotional road to sustainability: How affective science can
support pro-climate action”. Not
surprisingly, it is important to The Control Freaks in Charge, that our
emotions are studied and understood so that Sustainable Behavior and
Decision-Making can be Encouraged. There
is an exciting and relatively new branch of “science” called Affective Science. Priests called Emotion Researchers want to
engage with “sustainable emotions” and empirically test “the possibility of
positive reinforcing feedback loops between anticipatory and experienced
emotions following the adoption of sustainable behaviors”. How this is different from Pavlov’s dogs is
anyone’s guess.
She is also keen to study “non-Western emotions” and to
explore “the extent to which people’s understanding and experience of
climate-relevant emotions differs across non-WEIRD populations.”
For those of you new to deciphering the Sacred Text of
Google Scholars, this is the definition of WEIRD: Western, educated,
industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies. Now you too can call yourself a Scholar.
Just scratching the surface of Affective Science is frightening. A big part of the field of study is the
“recognition of emotions” in others. One
of the major tools used in this study is FACS.
Facial Action Coding System which taxonomizes human facial movements by
their appearance on the face.
Naturally, FACS is helped in a big way by Deep Learning,
a subset of Machine Learning, part of what we most humbly and respectfully call
Artificial Intelligence (AI). Kneel! Cross Yourself! Better offer up a mea
culpa; I am guilty, my fault, my bad, because FACS can distinguish between
two types of smiles: the insincere and voluntary Pan-Am smile, which contracts
only the zygomatic major muscle, and the sincere and involuntary
Duchenne smile, which contracts both the zygomatic major and inferior
part of the orbicularis oculi.
Philip K. Dick wrote Minority Report, a 1956
novella upon which the 2002 film of the same name was loosely based. Ms. Schneider’s Holy Writing can be helpful
on “An emotional road to sustainability: How affective science can support
pro-climate action”. Her work can counter
“Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world”. Her contributions to the Field of Affective
Science aid the Most Sacred Work of Pre-Cognition and its Application in the
Crusade Against Crime and Pre-Crime.
© Not Sure
Additional reading:
Dr. Claudia R. Schneider
https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/staff/dr-claudia-r-schneider
Winton Centre for Risk and
Evidence Communication – Dr. Claudia R. Schneider
https://wintoncentre.maths.cam.ac.uk/about/people/claudia-schneider/
From The Sacred Text of
Google Scholars:
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Cited by |
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Risk perceptions
of COVID-19 around the world S Dryhurst, CR Schneider, J Kerr, ALJ Freeman, G Recchia,
... Covid-19, 162-174 |
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Susceptibility to
misinformation about COVID-19 around the world J Roozenbeek, CR
Schneider, S Dryhurst, J Kerr, ALJ Freeman, ... Royal Society open
science 7 (10), 201199 |
2020 |
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The influence of
anticipated pride and guilt on pro-environmental decision making CR Schneider, L
Zaval, EU Weber, EM Markowitz PloS one 12 (11), e0188781 |
2017 |
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CR Schneider, S Dryhurst, J Kerr, ALJ Freeman, G Recchia, ... Journal of Risk
Research 24 (3-4), 294-313 |
2021 |
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Positive emotions
and climate change CR Schneider, L
Zaval, EM Markowitz Current Opinion in
Behavioral Sciences 42, 114-120 |
2021 |
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JR Kerr, CR
Schneider, G Recchia, S Dryhurst, U Sahlin, C Dufouil, ... BMJ open 11 (8),
e048025 |
2021 |
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R Maertens, FM
Götz, HF Golino, J Roozenbeek, CR Schneider, ... Behavior Research
Methods, 1-37 |
2023 |
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CR Schneider, DD
Fehrenbacher, EU Weber International
Business Review 26 (6), 1023-1033 |
2017 |
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Predictors of
COVID-19 vaccine acceptance across time and countries JR Kerr, CR
Schneider, G Recchia, S Dryhurst, U Sahlin, C Dufouil, ... MedRxiv, 2020.12. 09.20246439 |
2020 |
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Communicating
personalized risks from COVID-19: guidelines from an empirical study ALJ Freeman, J
Kerr, G Recchia, CR Schneider, ACE Lawrence, ... Royal Society open
science 8 (4), 201721 |
2021 |
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CR Schneider, ALJ
Freeman, D Spiegelhalter, S van der Linden medRxiv |
2021 |
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CR Schneider, EU
Weber Journal of Social
Issues 76 (1), 172-199 |
2020 |
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Transparent
communication of evidence does not undermine public trust in evidence JR Kerr, CR
Schneider, ALJ Freeman, T Marteau, S van der Linden PNAS nexus 1 (5),
pgac280 |
2022 |
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Motivating
prosocial behavior by leveraging positive self‐regard through values
affirmation CR Schneider, EU
Weber Journal of Applied
Social Psychology 52 (2), 106-114 |
2022 |
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CR Schneider, ALJ
Freeman, D Spiegelhalter, S van der Linden Judgment and
Decision Making 17 (4), 849-882 |
2022 |
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An emotional road
to sustainability: How affective science can support pro-climate action CR Schneider, S
van der Linden Emotion Review 15
(4), 284-288 |
2023 |
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Social norms as a
powerful lever for motivating pro-climate actions CR Schneider, S
van der Linden One Earth 6 (4), 346-351 |
2023 |
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LM Tanase, J Kerr,
ALJ Freeman, CR Schneider Royal Society Open
Science 9 (8), 212013 |
2022 |
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Motivating
Prosocial Behavior: The Potential of Positive Self-Directed Emotions CR Schneider Columbia
University |
2018 |
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The effects of
communicating uncertainty around statistics, on public trust J Kerr, AM van der
Bles, S Dryhurst, CR Schneider, V Chopurian, ... Royal Society Open
Science 10 (11), 230604 |
2023 |
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The effects of
communicating uncertainty around statistics on public trust: an international
study JR Kerr, AM van
der Bles, C Schneider, S Dryhurst, V Chopurian, ... medrxiv, 2021.09. 27.21264202 |
2021 |
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G Recchia, CR
Schneider, ALJ Freeman MedRxiv, 2020.12. 04.20243840 |
2020 |
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LM Tanase, JR
Kerr, ALJ Freeman, CR Schneider PsyArXiv |
2021 |
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G Recchia, CR
Schneider, ALJ Freeman BMJ open 11 (5),
e047731 |
2021 |
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T O’Garra, K Alfredo, CR Schneider Working paper |
2015 |
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Communication of
Statistics and Evidence in Times of Crisis CR Schneider, JR
Kerr, S Dryhurst, JAD Aston arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.01789 |
2023 |
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A Marcoci, DP Wilkinson, AL Abatayo,
E Baskin, EM Buchanan, S Capitán, ... MetaArXiv |
2023 |
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S Schneider, C.R.,
Freeman, A. L. J., Spiegelhalter, D. & van der Linden PLOS ONE 16 (11),
e0259048 |
2021 |
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Risk perceptions
of COVID-19 around the world S Dryhurst, CR Schneider, J Kerr, ALJ Freeman, G Recchia,
... Journal of Risk
Research 23 (7-8), 994-1006 |
2020 |
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CR Schneider Controlling 25
(1), 32-35 |
2013 |