Wednesday 3 March 2021

The Z Man on false information, misinformation and disinformation

The Z Man is apparently a decent, intelligent and well-informed man who is trying to understand the modern world, one piece at a time, but without the necessary basis in a coherent world view (i.e. Christianity). 

He is great at describing the pieces of the jigsaw, I don't know of anyone better; but cannot put the pieces together - because he has made the prior assumption that there is no Big Picture (i.e. he believes that reality has no over-arching purpose or meaning). 

His latest post (read the whole thing) is a really excellent micro-dissection of the phenomenon of false information in all of public discourse; which has created the situation where "The only thing modern man can know about his sources of information is they are wrong". 

Here is a taste:

Modern man is now awash in both misinformation and disinformation, in addition to false information. Misinformation is deliberately inaccurate information, which is intended to deceive. Disinformation is deliberately inaccurate information, but from an institution like the state or the media. Of course, false information is information that is inaccurate due to bad data or logic. 

Compounding this is the current campaign against misinformation and disinformation. The first thing you should notice is the people most responsible for the tsunami of disinformation are claiming to be at war with disinformation. Unless this results in mass suicide by media and entertainment, it means they are lying... 

There is no such thing as a disinformation expert, outside of the institutions promulgating disinformation. One cannot be an expert at doing something unless you are actually doing that thing. 

Note also how the primary sources of both misinformation and disinformation talk about this phenomenon as if they are the victims of it. The managerial class is the single source for the flood of false information... 

What the managerial class is doing is a firehose of falsehoods with the stamp of authority. Put another way, the new phase of the misinformation/disinformation tsunami is the managerial state crying out in pain as it strikes the society over which it rules. 


Note added by BGC: 

The 'complete' Big Picture in this instance is quite simply the Spiritual War; specifically Satan's agenda, and the fact that Jesus called the devil Father of Lies.

God's creation is the source of truth; naturally, therefore, that which opposes creation opposes truth.  

Therefore, as the side of evil becomes more more-and-more dominant in the world, deliberate falsehood increases. 

2 comments:

Bruce B. said...

One of my favorites, he's a daily read. Wife and I listen to his show on Friday mornings.

Jacob Gittes said...

I read the Z Man occasionally, but I gave up, because it caused an overall negative feeling in me. I believe this feeling was caused by the fact that the Z Man never comes close to offering a solution, and I felt that he was ignoring the spiritual war, and the fact that the enemy is endowed with supernatural evil. And thus, only supernatural good and God and men who understand this have a chance of opposing it in any kind of substantive way.

Short version: he ignores spirituality, and I felt a lacuna or futility to his writing.