The War on Reality

1. The War on Reality

2. hw8

3. Fake Video http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2505561/Motorcyclist-spends-100k-inventing-Terminator-style-helmet-GPS.html?ico=sciencetech^mostread

4. Aliens!!! “Humans do NOT come from Earth – and sunburn, bad backs and pain during labour prove it, expert claims” This article is in the Daily Mail Online, the #1 online news source in the UK!

5. Real Science? Who is Ellis Silver? PhD from where? Why does the article call him “Dr. Ellis”?

6. ideas4writers http://ideas4writers.wordpress.com/category/members-news/ “Hi, can you tell me more about Dr. Ellis Silver. Where is his doctorate from? Where did he do marine research in Texas (my home state)? I can’t find a biography of him or information about him anywhere. The Amazon page for his book says that ideas4writers is his publisher. Are you a publishing house?” – me

7. From the Article “DrEllis says that humans might suffer from bad backs because they evolved on a world with lower gravity.” Or maybe, it’s because we evolved from creatures that don’t walk upright (apes).

8. From the Article “He also says that it is strange that babies’ heads are so large and make it difficult for women to give birth, which can result in fatalities of the mother and infant. No other native species on this planet has this problem, he says.” Yeah… and… how does this support the idea that we’re from another planet?

9. “He also believes humans are not designed to be as exposed to the sun as they are on Earth, as they cannot sunbathe for more than a week or two – unlike a lizard – and cannot be exposed to the sun every day without problems.”

10. Sunburn Tony Barthel, curator of the Elephant House and the Cheetah Conservation Station at Smithsonian’s National Zoo says, “Most any animal that has exposed skin is susceptible to sunburn.” Reptiles like lizards die before they can get sunburnt. They are cold-blooded and overheat.

11. From the Article “Dr. Ellis says that while his idea is an extreme evolution of that idea, it is intended to be thought-provoking and he claims to have had a largely positive response to it. He is interested in whether humans came to Earth separately, perhaps by arriving on meteors and comets, before evolving into the species we know today.”

12. Meteor Arrival?

13. Team themis

14. The Good Guys Julian Assange, Wikileaks Glenn Greenwald

15. The Bad Guys Bank of America was concerned that Wikileaks had secret bank documents that showed illegal activity. They wanted to discredit both Wikileaks and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

16. The Bad Guys So the bank asked the US Department of Justice for help. The DOJ sent BofA to HB Gary, a private security firm that it used.

17. The Plan Here was HB Gary’s plan: create fake documents, and leak them to Wikileaks and Greenwald. Then, when they reported on the fake documents, HB Gary would show that they were fake. Finally, no one would trust Wikileaks and Greenwald any more, because they report fake things.

18. Manufacturing Reality This is what some people have called “Manufacturing Reality” or the “War on Reality.” Powerful interests, like banks, oil companies, and governments, try to create a false public perception.

19. The war on reality

20. Astroturfing

21. Fronts A “front” organization is a group that is funded by special interests, but tries to hide this fact and appear impartial. For example a front for the Communist Party in Hong Kong has the name “Hong Kong Youth Care Association,” which makes it seem as though it’s composed of local youth.

22. The Heartland Institute

23. The Heartland Institute • “The primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism.” • Received HKD$6.2 million from ExxonMobil, 2nd largest publicly traded company in the world. • Pays money to climate change skeptics, writes editorials against climate change, and puts up advertisements against global warming.

25. Misleading Names The Evangelical Free Church of China and the Society for Truth and Light organized an “Inclusive Love Praying Concert.” Was the purpose of the concert including more people? Was it loving more people?

26. Doublespeak

27. Doublespeak “Doublespeak” doesn’t have a clear definition. What I’m thinking about here is when you call something the exact opposite of what it is. Black is white, up is down, truths are lies…

28. New Ordinance in San Antonio • prohibit city government, contractors, and vendors from discriminating against LGBT people in employment. • prohibit housing and public accommodation discrimination against LGBT people. • prohibit City Council members from engaging in discrimination or demonstrating bias against LGBT people "while serving in such public position."

29. Shannon Bream, Fox & Friends “A First Amendment battle heating up in San Antonio, Texas, as lawmakers consider a controversial measure that could block business owners from holding contracts with the city if they speak out against homosexuality based on their religious beliefs. That could include Christians who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. So does this wind up being a case of reverse discrimination, potentially?”

31. Freedom of Speech One of the espoused virtues of many democratic societies is freedom of speech. But this is noticeably not the same thing as freedom from criticism or freedom from consequences.

32. Doublespeak Kirk Cameron (the crocoduck guy) recently received a lot of criticism for calling homosexuals “unnatural” and “a detriment to society.” When he was criticized, he argued that the criticisms violated his “freedom of speech.”

33. Doublespeak “I should be able to express moral views on social issues, especially those that have been the underpinning of Western civilization for 2,000 years — without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach ‘tolerance’ that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I’m in the public square.” – Kirk Cameron

34. Sockpuppets A sockpuppet is a fake online identity used to conceal biases and conflicts of interest.

35. Sockpuppets John Mackey, CEO of American grocer Whole Foods posted on the Yahoo! Finance message board without revealing his identity (his screen name was “Rahodeb”). He said that his company was great, and said that one of his competitors, Wild Oats Markets, had a bad business model and would fail.

36. Trust Me! In 2004, a computer glitch showed that many authors were writing reviews of their own books, while hiding their identity, on Amazon.com

37. Paid Reviews

38. Paid Reviews “Burger Box was one of the first restaurants I discovered on a recent visit to Hong Kong. Being from the United States… I discovered that it was much, much better than what I was used to back home. The food at Burger Box is excellent. A meal can easily be made of a large order of fries on its own, though where the restaurant really shines is with its burgers. The staff is extremely friendly and prepares your burger on the spot, just how you want it. The ingredients are fresh and high quality…all the food is absolutely wonderful.”

39. Burger Box “For the price, it's one of the better deals to be found near the piers. Each visit, my dining experience was pleasant and fulfilling.While I dined at Burger Box many times during my stay, I'm rating it based on a particularly good visit shortly before my departure. I recommend it highly.”

40. $ for Reviews There are in fact entire companies, where for between HKD$8 and $80, you can buy a positive review for your business on Yelp. The reviews are written by people from the Philippines, Bangladesh and Eastern Europe.

41. Fake Web Traffic • For HKD$0.0015 you can pay a computer in Nigeria to visit your website. This increases your ad revenue, and drives up your search engine rankings. • For $11 you can buy 1,000 fake Twitter followers. If your band seems really popular, it’s easier to get a gig.

42. Paid Protesters http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1051556/group-marches-against-falun-gong-national-day

43. Paid Protesters • Pro-Falun Gong march on National Day • Anti-Falun Gong protest • People in the protest bussed from China, have no idea what protest is about. • Organized by Hong Kong Youth Care Association, a front for the Communist Party.

45. Disinformation “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” – Mark Twain

46. Disinformation Disinformation is intentionally false or fabricated “information” used to mislead the public. Stupid articles in the newspaper about alien life in the atmosphere are misinformation: false, but believed as true by the people who say them. Disinformation is distributed by people who do not believe it, to manipulate the public.

48. Disinformation Campaign The US government leaked documents to the press suggesting that the government could not access people’s iPhone messages. This was successful: lots of newspapers reported on it. But it wasn’t true.

49. Radar that Reads Minds During the Iraq war, the US government reported that Iraqis were rebelling against Saddam Hussein in Basra. "We have radars, that, by tracing the trajectory of mortar rounds, are able to work out the source, as well as the target location, which in this case were civilians in Basra."

50. Censorship