Regardless of the specific addiction, those who have intervened in the life of an addicted loved one recognize that addicts, when confronted, often say anything to stop the confrontation.
“I’m not addicted. I can stop anytime,” is a common response.
Too often, the people around the addict pretend that is an acceptable answer.
Consider this note to you an intervention in your life. Your life likely has some exposure to Telegram, Rumble, or some similar platform.
If you aren’t addicted, turn it off.
Really.
Turn it off.
Turn off Rumble for a month.
What could you possibly lose?
Do not open Telegram for a month.
What would be the worst that could happen?
Unplug from your social media of choice for 30 days.
The way information gets processed in both of those forums is almost worse than television, because at least television helps you to fit in, instead of becoming a minority-of-one.
But fitting in with the world is not the goal. I realize that. Being a minority-of-one must not be the goal, either. It must be actively avoided.
There is a theory in adult learning that says, “The less one knows about a topic, the more likely a person is to be able to convince oneself of expertise on that topic.”
This too must be avoided — actively.
I’ve had some people try to convince me of some really weird stuff that they became expert in from Rumble or Telegram.
One component of expertise I tend to find is this: no one is an expert who is not yet able to convince me of his opponent’s perspective even better than his opponent.
Yes, that’s right. If you’re so expert in something, and I am taking your perspective seriously, I am probably going to say this to you: “Well convince me of the other side. Convince me why you are wrong.”
Because chances are this: if you really got most of your learning from Telegram or Rumble, then you aren’t likely to be able to fulfill that request. You will be shown as a fraud immediately. That’s because those places tend to be an echo chamber.
They tend to encourage groupthink.
Please understand, I am not objecting to you surrounding yourself with like-minded people and preaching to the choir. Not at all. In fact, I think that being around true believers can be very good for each of us.
A specific behavior by a true believer is the problem: silence in the face of a lie told by a friend.
On Rumble and Telegram, the culture of those places, are cultures of widespread agreement with whatever nonsense a like-minded person says — which happens to be one of the biggest problems I have with the mainstream, as well.
The Rumble bunch and the Telegram crowd offer me an alternative to the mainstream that is just as untrustworthy in some of its approaches as the mainstream, but is far more goofy in some of its theories.
Opposing everything mainstream does not get you any closer to truth. Agreeing with everything in alternative media does not get you any closer to truth. Doing the hard work of sifting out what is true and what is false is what gets you closer to truth.
So you can imagine when I see how much falsehood comes from the Rumble bunch and the Telegram crowd, I might want to ask how they arrive at those conclusions.
I talk to a dozen activists some weeks. I talk to a hundred other weeks. When you factor in all the emails and phone calls, groups I meet with, and media appearances, I may even talk to upwards of a thousand activists some weeks. In all that communication, it becomes easy to spot trends.
This is one trend: the Rumble bunch and the Telegram crowd are not thinking.
That’s it. They aren’t thinking. I don’t know what it is. I also see this — if you limit exposure to those platforms to let’s say once a week, you see a different phenomenon in that limited exposure group. People like that are able to separate the platform from their thought process and use it as a useful tool.
But beyond that, boy oh boy. You get something Tom Woods said to me in a conversation we had for his show this week: “TV brain.” The lines between where the TV ends and your brain begins get blurred. Only it’s not from TV, it’s from alternative social media and it, again, could be even more pernicious than the impact of television. The line between where Telegram ends and your brain begins gets blurred. The line between where Rumble ends and your brain begins gets blurred.
You see, crowdsourcing research can produce powerful results. But in doing so, it can be easy to lose track of where your responsibility in the research ends. Issues like trust come into play. This happens with any research. When your researchers have worked for you day and night for years, as is the case in some research settings, there is reason for trust. When your research partner is an anon on the Internet who you have (at best) met once or two in person, there is far less foundation for trust.
That turns into “I heard it on the internet,” but instead we treat it as research. Idle gossip is a better term for it. The work of a talebearer, a blabbermouth, a scandalmonger, a quidnunc, a libeler, hearsay, myth, noise, disinformation, rumbling (the name of the platform is literally the name of an English word for gossip), babble, blabber, insinuate, calumny, slander, obloquy, vituperation, contumely, billingsgate, derogation, traducement.
Look up “gossip’s bridle” or “scold’s bridle” or “branks,” for indications that this behavior was both problematic and unwelcome in other eras. It should be equally unwelcome today.
Wiser generations had words that precisely describe most communications among the Rumble bunch and the Telegram crowd. This generation calls it “research.”
As that research is so ineffective at getting at the truth, I have a hard time calling it research. In fact, I find that the Rumble bunch and Telegram crowd may actually be worse than fake news in the quality of their research. Overall, they are no worse than the fake news at the moment, because they have no power, but they are probably worse than the fake news as it relates specifically to the inaccuracy of what they have to say.
Does this describe everyone on Rumble or Telegram? Absolutely not. I love that those two platforms and other free speech platforms exist, but the way they are abused (and by people who should know better) certainly troubles me.
Sadly, disinformation abounds in present-day patriot communities.
Disinformation is common among dissident groups. Disinformation has long been understood as a useful way to enfeeble, dissident groups — by encouraging their natural curiosity beyond what is healthy and driving it to a perverse point. This disinformation-spreading behavior was a component of the FBI’s COINTELPRO, a program which I presume continues in some form. The program existed to enfeeble dissident movements. You can enfeeble a dissident movement if you can fill their communications with enough lies, because 1.) the true believers will become disenfranchised by the lies and 2.) the would-be converts never come to consider the dissidents trustworthy. This happens simply because the dissidents permit liars in their midst.
I have, myself, been guilty of spreading disinformation. I write a lot. I publish a lot. In the midst of that volume, it can be especially easy to make mistakes. When I get something wrong, I try to acknowledge and to then apologize and correct as notably as I screwed up. It is not always possible to get people to pay attention to the apology in the same way. People are often more interested in hearing what they want to hear.
Within the contemporary patriot movement, there is very little pressure to correct lies and to apologize for when one is wrong. That is dangerous. And it can not simply be blamed on a handful of FBI agents conspiring to deceive. I don’t know what it can be blamed on, but dissent among the dissidents is not encouraged. As individuals, we can each stop the lies in our circles of influence, but that is not what most patriots seem to do. I personally love getting pounced on by my readers when I make a mistake. A lot of my readers know that and behave accordingly. It keeps me on my toes. It keeps me honest. It helps me to correct errors in judgement that I may otherwise have missed.
In my newly-released book, “The Case for Robert Kennedy,” one of my arguments for Kennedy as a presidential nominee, is that he is one of the few people high profile enough and upright enough to keep Trump honest.
Everyone needs that in his life — to be kept honest, to be held accountable.
I need it.
You need it.
The movement we are building needs it.
In the month of June, I would like you to get off Rumble and to get off Telegram. I would like you to join me in reading someone who has thought deeply about the subject of freedom and how it was enacted from the 1760s to 1790s in the place we now call the United States.
I speak of this particular work because I believe that period in American history closely parallels our own. I also recognize that author is a uniquely skilled pro-liberty voice.
We will read deeply, think deeply, and discuss deeply. We will be seeking examples from the past that apply to the present. We will be making this actionable in our own lives.
This is the opposite of Rumble and Telegram.
If you are anything like many of the activists I encounter, then this is an opportunity. This is a chance to be kind to your brain and to get away from the toxicity - I am not using that word lightly. This is a toxicity that comes from the frequent use and abuse of platforms like Telegram and Rumble.
These platforms have their strengths, but this is an opportunity to sharpen your tools in ways the other platform simply can not provide.
Especially in these hard times, if you spend this month enjoyably learning what worked in other hard times, that time spent will repay you and your loved ones for many years into the future.
Tap here to join me in that - https://realstevo.com/liberty
Allan Stevo
I'd like to hear you dispute any of Dan Bongino's podcasts.....
I never watch or listen to any of that...