People will always oppose new infrastructure that disturbs their life and imposes burdens without benefits. The push for renewable energy is running headlong into push back from the people. How renewable energy proponents deal with this push back is key to actually achieving renewable energy goals. Censorship and propaganda are not an effective weapon. Instead, smart developers will put their energy into avoiding impacts altogether. If there are little to no impacts on the people, the people simply won't care enough to form entrenched and formidable opposition groups that are increasingly successful in stopping projects with outsized impacts. No opposition translates into successful projects. Stop waving your red cape at the bull.
Like this NPR article about "misinformation." NPR asserts
Like this NPR article about "misinformation." NPR asserts
In between posts selling anti-wind yard signs and posts about public meetings opposing local wind projects, there were posts that spread false, misleading and questionable information about wind energy.
Says who?
NPR sent Facebook a sampling of the posts from anti-renewable community pages. Facebook spokesman Kevin McAlister said in an emailed statement, "We take action against content that our fact-checking partners rate false as part of our comprehensive strategy to keep viral, provably false claims from spreading on our apps. The examples shared with us don't appear to meet that threshold as they have only even been shared a handful of times over a period of several years."
Who are these Facebook fact-checkers and what makes them experts with so much knowledge that they wield the power to shut down free speech that they find unacceptable? What ever happened to this concept?
Freedom of speech was the first amendment made to our Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Except Facebook isn't the government. It's a social media experiment that has become victim of its own success. Social media is for spreading the ideas and opinions of individuals to a wider audience assembled by the wonders of technology. It was never intended to be an encyclopedia of facts. But then the easy dissemination of ideas and opinions by real people started to get political. Dumb people with too much time on their hands began to debate, okay argue, on Facebook about politics... as if reading blather on an internet platform ever changed someone's opinion, or vote. Political beings needed to win their ridiculous political arguments, so they began to tilt the playing field to get a little extra help. They believed ad hominems to be helpful; an attack on the person with the idea, instead of the idea itself. But even that didn't quite work, so they upped the ante by simply removing these people's right to free speech by labeling their ideas "misinformation." And then they devolved into simply canceling these people by removing them from internet society altogether. Facebook, for its part, is a willing participant in this game. And it's all political. When did we start allowing political opinion to run our lives and ruin our social relationships? It think it happened right around the time 24/7 cable news shows invaded our homes. And its creeping invasion has slowly spread into today's abridging of free speech through "misinformation" claims that attempt to control your very thoughts. Simply telling someone that you don't like their idea or opinion is no longer sufficient. Instead they seek to burn those kind of unacceptable thoughts out of your brain through punishment and social isolation.
Thinkpol are no longer scary fiction. They're here, and they infiltrate every segment of our society. But no matter how hard they try, they will never erase independent thought.
There's more "misinformation" spread by renewable energy and transmission proponents than by its opposition. But control comes from claiming Thinkpol status and making biased determinations of what is true or false. It's not about facts though, it's about opinion. It's about erasing those thoughts that don't agree with the government's determination that you must sacrifice your home and your property so that other people can benefit without sacrificing their own homes and property. It's sanctimonious elitism at its finest.
But the people will continue to resist. An epic battle is brewing. Who will win is not as important as who will lose. We all lose when land use battles waste enormous amounts of money, time and energy. But what if we never have this battle at all? What if all the effort currently being poured into censorship and propaganda was instead directed at developing new energy solutions that didn't require any sacrifice? Smaller, localized energy sources where the impacts are visited on the beneficiaries have been rejected in favor of massive production and massive impacts. Why? Because certain elite are going to make massive profits owning and operating them. This includes new electric transmission, where there's lots of money to be made by creating a "need" that wouldn't exist if energy was produced where it is used.
Censorship and propaganda is eroding our basic freedoms, but it can never truly control our thoughts or our right to peaceably assemble and petition our government for a redress of grievances. There are better options than continuing our messy slide down the very slippery slope to totalitarianism.
Think about it... while you still can.
Thinkpol are no longer scary fiction. They're here, and they infiltrate every segment of our society. But no matter how hard they try, they will never erase independent thought.
There's more "misinformation" spread by renewable energy and transmission proponents than by its opposition. But control comes from claiming Thinkpol status and making biased determinations of what is true or false. It's not about facts though, it's about opinion. It's about erasing those thoughts that don't agree with the government's determination that you must sacrifice your home and your property so that other people can benefit without sacrificing their own homes and property. It's sanctimonious elitism at its finest.
But the people will continue to resist. An epic battle is brewing. Who will win is not as important as who will lose. We all lose when land use battles waste enormous amounts of money, time and energy. But what if we never have this battle at all? What if all the effort currently being poured into censorship and propaganda was instead directed at developing new energy solutions that didn't require any sacrifice? Smaller, localized energy sources where the impacts are visited on the beneficiaries have been rejected in favor of massive production and massive impacts. Why? Because certain elite are going to make massive profits owning and operating them. This includes new electric transmission, where there's lots of money to be made by creating a "need" that wouldn't exist if energy was produced where it is used.
Censorship and propaganda is eroding our basic freedoms, but it can never truly control our thoughts or our right to peaceably assemble and petition our government for a redress of grievances. There are better options than continuing our messy slide down the very slippery slope to totalitarianism.
Think about it... while you still can.
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