Don't Give Notice to the Devil

“It’s as if you had said to the devil one morning, look I'm going to get rid of you! I'm not going to have anything to do with you anymore! And so the devil who is an archangel and is terribly clever is all set for you; and because he knows that you are getting out of his way he surrounds you with greater temptations than you ever imagined. So if you are going to outwit the devil, it's terribly important that you don't give him any advance notice and this is where the work of the sly man comes in”. - Alan Watts, Outwitting the Devil

Hi, 2021, I’ve not written here for a while, but that may just begin to change! They say start or end with a quote and this one may seem out of place, but bear with me, all will make sense in the end… I’ve got a new iPad which I primarily bought for controlling Pro Tools for my music and audio projects, but it’s also been a welcome catalyst for getting me back into the healthy practice of note-taking, journaling and writing again; something I hope to continue practising diligently. I also want to publish my content somewhere that’s mine and with minimal risk of what is increasingly becoming a concern of mine, and that is censorship... Relentless censorship. Well, where else better than my website, after all, that’s what personal websites used to be for before the centralised world of platforms such as Facebook.

This is some ways a follow up on my previous “My Departure From Facebook” journal where I initially outlined some of my concerns with Facebook and took steps to distance myself from the platform deactivating all my pages and personal profile. Skip forward 18 months, I find myself back on the platform as I reactivated shortly after the start of the pandemic in the hope it would provide me with anecdotal accounts and information surrounding the virus. Well, let’s just say my original concerns seem somewhat exacerbated given what I’m now seeing which is outright social polarity and a worrying level of censorship and “approved narratives only” Soviet-style policing which I’m steadfastly against.

I first noticed this when embarking on my NFT journey during the first lockdown, it kept me sane exploring this new form of ownership in the blockchain technology space, I loved learning how it all worked and spent hours compiling and releasing some of the AEPL repertoires into the space. It was around this time I was becoming increasingly vocal on YouTube about the poor management of royalties for artists, songwriters and rights holders as a whole and how the lockdowns had and continue to harm the music industry as a whole. To digress slightly but give some context, my point here was that the death of ownership (CDs, DVDs, Vinyls) and continual diminishing of earning power through royalty models on platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music and Youtube had been commonly known for years, but because the big boys were profiting just fine via touring and merchandising alone, no one did anything about. It's all been very reactionary since those methods of earnings have been suddenly stamped out.

Getting back to point, the NFT model peaked my interest as it had the potential to address this issue and all within the digital paradigm which could be easily accessible to current and future generations who are perhaps less interested in traditional ownership. I was so excited by this idea, that at the expense of AEPL, I ran multiple giveaways of my first NFT during my explanations of the technology to my Youtube audience to see if anything would stick. Facebook of course had other ideas, they deemed my excitement and giveaway as harmful rhetoric censoring many of my posts, placed warnings of a potentially dangerous scam” on anyone who clicked the links and even placed me in the digital gulag for 24 hours on one occasion for “repeatedly breaking community guidelines”. No, I was trying to build a community, just a community that Facebook knew nothing about! This of course all went out the window once the big boys jumped on the bandwagon, NFTs now seem to be accepted, one rule for them and another for me.

Now I may cover this in a later post, but the pandemic and how to deal with it is also relevant here, a persons opinion matters despite it potentially daring to go against the approved party line, the fact doctors and PHDs are being silenced for proposing a different approach or point of view is something that should not sit well with anyone, especially those who have a basic knowledge of 20th-century history! My final point here is that based on my recent struggles with health and diet (which was the initial reasoning for my Facebook post), I see no reason why I should take anything from the World Health Organisation seriously again.

Now the preamble is over, it’s time to discuss where we are now why we should consider the platforms use and not give notice to the devil. The following is something I posted on Facebook last week with regards to health information and advice and some of the personal struggles I have overcome this year by essentially doing the polar opposite to what was recommended to do because it didn't make sense to me. As soon as I pressed publish, it didn’t sit well with me…

“The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.” - Michael Crichton

“I read this while stumbling around some ideas this morning and it seemed particularly poignant. I contemplated the work I had done over the past 10 weeks to bring myself back towards health and escape hell, this process allowed me to carefully identify the demons which lurk; after all our society feeds them very well. I’ve always been a bit of a sceptic; a little contrarian; a bit of a rebel or at least allowed myself the time to think outside the box and read between the lines, no matter how ludicrous those lines may be.

As an example, I’ve often found myself thinking…

“That just doesn’t make sense, based on what?”

“Surely that can’t be true?”

“This has not been my experience on the matter”

“I am/we are told to believe this but why, has anyone seriously never questioned this?”

“This bloke/woman is talking utter bollocks the body language is all over the place”

“This goes against common sense or ancestral appropriateness”

From there if it bothered me enough, I’d attempt to work these questions out through further study and if permitted, through conversation to reach a conclusion. Should that conclusion be one contrarian in nature, then so be it… If a conclusion couldn’t be found, I would at least begin to understand what the right questions could be to solve the problem in the future.

I wouldn’t say this has made my life any easier, it can feel pretty isolating at times and it can be frustrating as I’ve realised how little people think in our times. I also believe it’s better to study ideas independently and then attempt to discuss them first in close circles/communities and then in the wider world for a larger debate. You could say I’ve just defined social-cultural history there to a point. We have essentially evolved our traditions and knowledge based on this premise.

Yet in our new (and yes, it’s very new) global digital society which is ever-tightening its control of narratives, ideas and thought, critical thinking is becoming harder and harder to do… It’s for these reasons, I believe a sceptical mind should be heralded, celebrated and pushed in our society now more than ever before. I didn’t intend to write so much this afternoon, but it’s just happened… My final thoughts are that if a narrative is being censored, controlled or you sense powerful entities gather to essentially burn books; return to your line of questioning on the subject and repeat the thought process with diligence.”

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking. - George S. Patton

Now in his “Outwitting the Devil” discussion, Alan Watts was specifically talking about addiction and avoiding temptation, but I think the same philosophy can play out in this example too. Twitter used to be a way you could call out a journalist, doctor or politician for being deceitful or telling half-truths in the pursuit of the good; Facebook used to be a platform for friends, families and communities to share and discuss subjects openly (I cover this here) and; talk shows used to calmly debate opposing views without consequence. Now we're worried about being cancelled, vehemence towards anyone with a different opinion is lauded, the news is tailored with very similar narratives on all sides and social media oligarchs are no exception here. Almost every major organisation in the west is in lockstep and as Vladimir Bukovsky said before his death in 2019 which Skyquaker highlighted their single ‘Queen Kong”, “the West is sleepwalking away from democracy, and people just don't want to know”. Social media companies are not publishers, they can't be accepted as gatekeepers and they can't be trusted based on their recent antics. Frankly, if you hold the view “they are a private company they can do what they want” then you are truly dimwitted and don't realise that you are saying.

So in conclusion why did my Facebook post not sit well with me? Well the two full-length journals on my issues with Facebook may provide some insight… I've been personally shut down or shadowbanned for simply discussing an idea in the crypto space or voicing concerns over lockdowns. I've seen others removed or placed in intellectual gulags over discussing diet and health and I'm sick of seeing their ‘disinformation” notices on anything remotely relating to a party-line subject. We evolved as human beings by separating the truth from the bullshit for ourselves, within our families, within our communities and then discussed our findings with the wider world. Telling people to think on Facebook felt frankly absurd, I was giving notice to the devil, I was telling Facebook that I was done with them, I was telling the algorithm too much truth and I'm not a fan I'm being on lists!

Did I miss much during my 4-month purge from the Facebook pre-pandemic… Not really, Messenger was perhaps missed in terms of keeping in touch with the odd friend or colleague, but that could have easily moved to a messaging service since as Signal. I didn’t miss the posts at all and didn’t feel I missed out on much at all. Will I be posting ideas and paragraphs to Facebook moving forward? No! I plan to write my thoughts, project news and updates here as I much prefer the experience. I will for the time being share my blog posts on my Pages as a way of reaching those who proficiently use the platform, but this may adjust, especially if I get a replete of my NFT experience again.

Be well folks, keep thinking and talk soon,

-MWB-