All is propaganda, but all is not lost. We can replace the noise machine with our own narrative, and sidestep all the narrative control and manipulation by those currently running the show. Podcasts and podcasters, websites, probably twitsters too. One problem, of course is that the signal to noise ratio in the sea of podcasts, alternative media "stations", websites and the like is bad, reducing the efficacy of using those platforms to begin to deliver a reality based messaging stream, and I didn't bring up twitter because, well, twitter.

Another problem is narrative control exercised by the owners and controllers of the platforms. Twitter, Facebook, and you tube, for example decide who can say what how, and seem to be reflexively conservative to right wing in their operations in this regard. Any ISP can block any web based content and hosting services can refuse to host sites and/or content for any reasons that they feel like and will increasingly come under pressure from TPTB to reign in or shut down those contradicting, challenging or questioning official psyops, propaganda and other narrative management campaigns, such as consent building for the next regime change war or junta, etc. At some point, the people will have to build out their own self- owned and controlled media and communication infrastructure, but that is a topic for another day.

So what's the key for finding a reliable reality based narrative? Don't seek a narrative, just look for seemingly trustworthy information and keep checking and refining it. Discussions, back-and-forth communication, the exchange of sources; these things are all important. Gate-keepers not so much; in fact, eschew gate-keepers and all sites dominated by one, be it ideological, group think, some individual or committee, and the like. Admittedly totally anarchic sites are probably mostly noise, or at least difficult to put up with, but even c99 has gate-keepers. All the same, I think c99 actually pretty nearly fits the bill; Johnny, Joe, and the mods try very hard to only interfere in cases of serious incivility between posters, trolling, or posts that wander too close to one of those legal pitfalls that will get the site shutdown. That's in part because all of those involved are pretty much fanatical advocates of free speech and open, unfettered discussion. So, I'd look for places and persons that are very much advocates of, dedicated to, and believers in free and open discussion with no unnecessary restrictions.

The blind pig problem:

We could try to apply Sherlock's dictum,"once you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth", but we run into a snag with that "impossible" condition. If I am presented with putative information from the FBI, CIA, or any of the rest of the 17 "intelligence" agencies. I will usually insist on proof, though I might give conditional partial credence given enough sufficiently strong evidence. (Not that that matters, they never give any evidence, their reputation is supposed to ensure belief, but actually should do the exact opposite.) Just as it is totally fallacious to accept things simply on the say so of any specific person or organization (ad hominem or generic fallacy, as the case may be) it is likewise the same fallacy to absolutely reject anything simply because it comes from some specific source. Just as it is not impossible for some cop to get on the stand and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is is also not completely impossible for one of these organizations to actually somehow discover the truth about something and then turn around and actually divulge said truth and actually do so without in any way coloring or slanting it. (Not impossible. That's a perfect example of why I like to phrase things in the negative. To me, it really makes the intent and content much more clear than "possible".)

So we cannot just dismiss sources or their contents outright, but we can still engage in filtering, or can we? We all know all kinds of sites and sources that are per se not objective. Republican sites and platforms, Democratic sites and platforms, candidate specific sites and platforms, electoral politics sites, capitalist sites, socialist sites, communist sites, government sites, etc. all have an axe to grind. The fact that they aren't objective, of course, doesn't make them wrong, and certainly not on everything. The local DMV, PITA though it probably is, is vastly more credible than the feebs or CIA. A used car salesperson will probably at least get the brand and year right, but will the average politician? Some things that influence the filtering process are verifiability, falsifiability, history, and, of course, cui bono. If it is trivially easy to prove or disprove a statement, then the likelihood that it is true usually increases, and if it is very difficult or impossible to do either, then there is no need for the presenter of the information to be worried about being caught out and the probability that is true must be dependent on other things, like, cui bono, history, and the like. That's why self-interested or conflicted sites and persons are generally not to be trusted, though they still could tell the truth, especially if it serves their interests to do so in the case at hand. Both the guilty and the innocent have an interest in claiming innocence, so a vested interest isn't necessary damning.

The main thing is that if we wish to build out a network of trustworthy sites and sources, we are going to have to be it. There are plenty of folks who seem to more often than not be on target. These are generally people who insist upon having hard evidence and credible first hand witnesses before asserting something to be fact. These are the people whose information (though not necessarily opinions and/or conclusions) we should be sharing, after, at a minimum, an at least cursory analytical scrutiny of the likelihood that the instance of reportage under consideration is in fact substantially more likely than not true. Sometimes we should make independent checks or tests before so doing, but that decision can't easily be rule based, so it is, obviously a judgement call. Persons or sites not meeting those standards need to be identified as such as the alleged information is transmitted with some sort of caveat such as "this is from such and such, a less than gold standard source, so take it for what it is worth" or somesuch. I emphasized credible, above, and that is a big key here, assessing credibility. One think I'd like to point out cn be illustrated by some information I posted from Greg Palast the other day. He, in part, relied on testimony from an ex-spook. Not a per se trustworthy source. Can a spook ever be an "ex" spook while living, and can they ever be trusted on anything? In this case, the spook's testimony was essentially self-incriminating, and that makes a big difference. The general rule is that self-incriminatory evidence is vastly more credible than self-serving, or even neutral evidence. At law there is a presumption that such evidence is true. While presumptions are always rebuttable, they are useful and two that I find particularly useful are that self-incriminating or self-compromising testimony is very likely to be true and self-serving testimony is inherently suspect. Of course, that's an indirect application of the cui bono test, so is included in the tool kit on that basis anyway. Another is the hearsay rule. I don't x to tell me what y said, I want y to tell me what y said. This is a legal rule, true enough, but it is as old as "get it from the horse's mouth", which goes all the way back to an egregious error of Aristotle's making.

OK, that's about it for today. We need to be our own reliable, credible, reality based network. We need to remember and be conscious of that while we do it, and we need to refine, examine, share, explicate and discuss our assorted credibility determination tools and methodologies. The underlying key, as always, is to get to the evidence and make sure that there is evidence. Another of Sherlock's dicta was "observation and deduction", rumor and deduction just won't cut it. In addition, we need to always be conscious of specificity, today's narratives and statements tend to be complex and compound, so things like "bob's assertion is (true / false)" is likely to be too broad to be overly helpful without more detail as to what specifics and in what way it is so.

be well and have a good one

Title Image Calling; picture captured by Ryan McGuire of Bells Design and free of copyright restrictions.

It's an open thread, so have at it. The floor is yours
.