Fake news and mythology

  
What is the relationship between fake news and mythology?

Religious myths, conspiracy theories, and new gnosticisms.

                          First a definition, so we all start on the same page. A definition of fake news:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news

                          But what about myth? The term has acquired several, sometimes contradictory meanings. In the post-Enlightenment era (19th century and beyond), myth has come to mean a false - "primitive", "superstitious" or "pre-scientific" - description or narrative of the world. Traditionally though, stories that we today call myths - at least the Great Myths of religion - were taken as absolute truths in much the same way that a modern rationalist believes in the statement "two things plus two things gives four things".

               Myths in the traditional - religious - sense were critically  important parts of human psychic architecture. They situated the person in a universe full of sense, meaning and purpose. (In practice, the purposes of some of the hypothesized entities - spirits of the enemies one killed, nature spirits, offended divinities - could be quite malevolent.) The animistic universe of ancient hunter-gatherer peoples was a world full of life, purpose and intent. One placated angry gods, one offered sacrifices to obtain their favor in enterprises. We have forgotten how revolutionary the ancient Greek "philosophers of nature" were. Rather than seek the causes of events in the whims of gods and spirits, they sought to understand the unfolding phenomena and processes of the physical world in terms of material processes (which could be captured in the elegant intellectual forms of mathematics). 

 Pythagorean theorem: in a right triangle the length of longest side squared is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. Pythagoras flourished six centuries before Christ.

                One can draw several conclusions from an "evolutionary" perspective. The most obvious is that "Reason" - at least as the dominant mode of thinking - is a relative newcomer on the historical stage. Myth as a form of explanation of the world is vastly older! (In reality, it is an open question if Reason is the dominant mode of thought today.. We seem in some ways to have hit upon the worst of both worlds. We have, collectively, great powers for manipulating the physical world with technology but too often, alas, that manipulation is for idiotic or antihuman ends.)

                  In their highest manifestation, myths are "sacred stories" told to explain the world, why it is like it is, who "we" (the members of our tribe) are and what values we hold. Myths describe the Good Life (particularly the Good Life in a social context). Myths, as narrative, are an outgrowth - an extension and an elaboration - of the "primate politics" of our biological ancestors. They tell who did what to whom, what the outcome was and why that outcome is important to us living today. Myths are "hard-wired" into our human nervous systems: myths and stories are universal, wherever there are humans there is story telling and sacred narrative.

              But why are myths and narrative universal?  One can hazard, with some anthropological and psychological evidence supporting, that it is natural for humans to view the world through the lens of narrative. Because of hard-wired primate political thinking we naturally wonder who did what to whom and why. Our minds are simply hard-wired to think along narrative lines.

             From this perspective, the formal, mathematical abstractions of science are more recent evolutionary acquisitions. As such, "abstract thinking" lacks the compelling force of concrete narrative. Here we see one of the disadvantages that climate scientists and environmental activists have in dealing with the raw, more primitive, emotional narratives of GW "sceptics" and deniers. Quantum mechanical energy exchanges at the molecular levels are hard to grasp (abstract scientific thinking). Our primate political genes though, are programmed to identify and understand the following narrative-type: crooked university professors peddle the "climate change hoax" in order to make trillions of dollars on the carbon credit trading market. In other words, climate scientists are an enemy clique plotting to do "us" in dirty - this is pure primate politics!

A general listing of Authoritarian Personality traits (both leaders and followers)

authoritarian personality traits 

                In general, "classical" authoritarians see the world in black and white terms: "us" versus "them", "Good" versus "Evil". Their perceptions of social groups tends toward stereotypy: all wo/men (blacks, Jews, gays, Muslims..) share a common set of characters. The group one belongs to is more important than one's individuality. In addition, authoritarians demonize the excluded groups they hate: people belonging to out-groups are treated as subhuman, incarnate all evil, plot to enslave the world to their wicked ends.

                I mention the Authoritarian Personality here because it represents a particularly primitive (hence emotionally compelling and "natural") expression of primate politics that is activated in situations of threat and uncertainty. The paranoid narratives of Authoritarians flourish in critical periods of social transition such as the one we are living through today. "Fascistic" paranoid delusional narratives become prevalent - even dominant - myths at times of social breakdown and transformation.

                It is hard to describe how wacky the paranoid delusional worldview can become! To do justice, I can only copy verbatim from a "chemtrails, New World Order conspiracy" website. Hold on t'yer hats, folks, the wind she's goin' t'blow!

"Population "Control," New World Order Style
  
The Illuminati's idea of Population Control falls into two broad categories:
 
1. Limiting the size of human societies and monitoring/controlling the movement of individuals within that society, and

2. Intentionally reducing the bulk of the world's population through GENOCIDE via the introduction of orchestrated conflicts, intentionally inserted toxic substances into the air (chemtrails), environment (depleted uranium), water/food supply (GMOs), and bioengineered, weaponized disease organisms (AIDS, Ebola, Bird & Swine Flu, etc.) along with anti-fertility compounds introduced via vaccines and other means of external transmission.
....
In order to preserve the 'best' of humanity when the supposed 'self-destruction' of the earth takes place around the year 2,000, the JASON Society proposed that a vast network of underground cities be built in order to secure living quarters for the chosen Illuminati elite, high level cooperative politicians, and selected military elements. Underground cities are also co-habitated by extraterrestrial alien groups that the secret government has made treaties with for technology exchange and human-alien hybrid breeding programs. The idea of the earth 'self destructing' around the turn of the century due to overpopulation was perhaps an early cover story for the justification of the underground cities. In the 1950's and 60's, the American public was led to believe that the contiuance of government, in the event of worldwide nuclear war, was a logical reason for undeground facilities, but we now know that the entire Soviet/American cold war and MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) scenario was an orchestrated Illuminati deception to bleed both Russian and American citizens of their wealth in order to finance black budget operations, secret technology developments, underground city construction, genetic engineering projects, time & space travel research, and anti-gravity, flying saucer spacecraft development.
Based on 1989 information, it was claimed that there were at least 75 underground cities in existence below the soil of America interconnected by high speed, frictionless trains called Maglev trains (Magnetic Levitation). The former Atomic Energy Commission had also constructed  22 seperate underground cities for their own use...

....  recommendations for population "control". They included:

1. Birth control (birth prevention and abortion - 43.8 Million babies aborted yearly worldwide.)
2. Sterilization (today includes vaccines) and
3. The introduction of deadly microbes to reduce or otherwise slow the growth of the earth's population.

Bioengineered Diseases
 
AIDS, Ebola, Gulf War Illness (GWI), and many other "new" diseases were intentionally bioengineered in laboratories that are mostly found in the United States and include the Army's secretive facilities at Ft. Detrick Maryland (2.). Drs. Nancy and Garth Nicholson have done a great deal of  research and investigation into the cause and treatment of Gulf War Illness, since they and their daughter (who was a helicopter flight nurse in the 1991 Gulf War) ALL came down with GWI.  In 1996, the Nichols published a paper which states their deep suspicions that GWI is due to bioengineered pathogens and that a hidden population control agenda appears to be in place.
Some bioengineered pathogens were designed to target certain ethnic groups for elimination. These groups likely include blacks, hispanics, Black Africans, Native Americans, and homosexuals. The preferred Iluminati method to introduce disease is via vaccinations. Tthe HIV virus which causes AIDS was introduced and spread throughout the majority of black populations in Africa via the World Health Organization (WHO) during their mandatory smallpox vaccine campaigns of 1976-1980.

The pathogens which produced Gulf War Illness were introduced to a limited number of Gulf War troops via "special" vaccinations (not recorded on the troop's official vaccination records) for Anthrax and other supposed dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. It was a CIA test run to see how many Gulf troops would succumb to the disease and how quickly they might die off. The results have been somewhat disappointing for the CIA/Illuminati planners. They thought their new little bugs would wipe out a lot more people, a lot faster than it has.."

And so it goes, on and on and on..  Pretty wild, eh?

From http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwopopcontrol.shtml 

 Was the death of God a liberation for humanity? Or did it simply blow the doors off hell, liberating all its inhabitants.. Above, a modern degenerate myth, the Aryan Master Race (a degraded form of the Chosen People)

             Which brings us to the central theme of this article: are such degraded forms of mythology related in some way to the "death of God" announced a century and a half ago by the Austrian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche? (See note 1.) Nietzsche's view is contested from various perspectives but it is clear that he was, at the least, merely giving a name to a process of secularization in Western thought that goes back to the Renaissance. That secularization brought us the scientific and technical revolution, the modern concept of citizenry, democracy, the belief in human rights, feminism..The modern world of Progress. However a question remains unanswered for the unbiased observer. If Western thought is no longer guided by Christian theology, who gets to establish the new norms, the new values, the new definition of the Good Life, etc? 

               Religion and culture, claim some anthropologists are social mechanisms which regulate, control and direct human drives and behavior into socially acceptable channels. Religion and culture replace much of the instinctive (genetically programmed) behavior patterns observed in non-human animals. In culture and religion, the human has partially escaped the determinisms of instinct. To some degree, we humans are self-defining, self-determining, self-creating animals. We have, to some degree, escaped the strictures of Darwinian evolution and determine some of the conditions of our own future evolution.

               But what happens when "God" -the dominant cultural and religious system - "dies"-, bcomes inoperant, no longer credible to a growing (and eventually critical) number of people? Certainly, God's death means the end of certainty. It means an interregnum, a period of cultural, spiritual and political anarchy till a new "God" and a new "tables of the Law" rise and once again provide wo/men with meaning, sense, direction.

                In this perspective, the current spate of Conspiracy theories and fake news is the symptom - and the embodiment - of the current state of philosophical, moral and cultural anarchy. These degenerate myths constitute a "regression", in the Freudian sense, to an earlier state of behavioral adaptation. Such states imply that an ecosystem, a society, an organism is experiencing an "existential threat", a life or health threatening situation requiring some sort of creative response (note 2).

                An interesting synchronicity. Just as I was finishing this piece, I received a notice concerning the first article of John Michael Greer's new blog Ecosophia. It treats the same themes I have in pretty much the same way I have above. Such a convergence says something about the zeitgeist - The Spirit of the Age - we inhabit..

 http://www.ecosophia.net/the-twilight-of-anthropolatry/

 
 notes:

1- http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/friedrich_nietzsche_quotes.html

".. Nietzsche is concerned about.. relating.. that God is dead in the hearts and minds of his own generation of modern men - killed by an indifference that was itself directly related to a pronounced cultural shift away from faith and towards rationalism and science...

Nietzsche had been raised in an intensely devout and pietistic family atmosphere that he saw as having been unduly restrictive..
 
As an atheist who saw aspects of the influence of the traditions of christianity within which he grew up as having been regrettable Friedrich Nietzsche tended to welcome what he saw as The Death of God!

For Nietzsche a recognition that God is Dead to his own generation of men and women ought to come as a Joyous Wisdom allowing individuals to lead less guilt-ridden lives in a world that was no longer to be seen as being inherently sinful. He considered that earthly lives could become more joyful, meaningful and "healthy" when not lived within narrow limits set by faith-related concerns for the state of an individual's eternal soul.

Nietzsche seems to be suggesting that the acceptance that God is dead will also involve the ending of long-established standards of morality and of purpose.. the possible emergence of a nihilistic situation where people's lives are not.. constrained by faith-based considerations of morality or.. guided by any faith-related sense of purpose.

What are we now to do?

Given what he saw as the "unbelievability" of the "God-hypothesis" Nietzsche himself seemed to favour the creation of a new set of values "faithful to the earth." This view perhaps being associa[ted] with the possibility of the "Overman" or "Superman."

"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment..."

Friedrich Nietzsche ~ Thus spoke Zarathustra"

2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_%28psychology%29

"Regression: a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more [adaptive] way. The defense mechanism of regression, in psychoanalytic theory, occurs when an individual's personality reverts to an earlier stage of development, adopting more childish mannerisms. Psychiatrist Joel Gold suggests that careful use of "ARISE" (Adaptive Regression in the service of the Ego) can sometimes yield creative benefits. To the extent that one is handling thoughts and impulses less like an adult, ARISE involves play, appreciation and primitive pleasures, and imagination."

 


 

Reclaiming citizenship: democracy and its discontents - 1

abbreviations used:

CC - climate change
GW - global warming
LIA - Little Ice Age

            Civilization is at a tipping point. There is now no serious doubt left that mass human die off is a distinct possibility. Overpopulation, environmental destruction, badly managed natural wealth (renewable resources like the ocean fisheries), climate change - all these augment geopolitical instability. Witness the rise of terrorism in recent decades. Mass human die-off is the human equivalent of "ecological overshoot" followed by population collapse which occurs when an organism manages to temporarily overexploit a vital resource, causing a population boom followed by a bust when the resource runs out. Various assumptions about human response to the environmental / demographic crisis naturally lead to different die-off "scenarios": geographical specificity, intensity, duration, possibility of rebound,.. After Rome fell, Western civilization was reborn during the Renaissance eight centuries later. Other civilizations vanished like the dinosaurs. One thing is certain to most (if not all!) thinking people today: we live in a Time of Troubles. These are usually associated with mass human die-off.

A historical example: The onset of the Little Ice Age (LIA). Duration: circa 1300 - 1850. At the beginning of the 14th century: the Renaissance, Europe was urbanizing, the bourgeosie flourished as did commerce, wealth and population. These were the Good Times of the Medieval Climatic Optimum: slighly elevated temperatures, climatic stability and in Europe, generally good, if not superior crop yields. Cultivars migrated northward: olives and wine were grown in England! Microbes migrated too: malaria and leprosy - tropical diseases today - were edemic throughout Europe, as far north as Scandinavia.

               But things changed incredibly rapidly, within the span of a few decades, as the LIA slammed into Europe with astounding ferocity.

 
             The early years of the 14th century marked a rapid transition from the Medieval Optimum to the LIA: extreme weather destroyed crops, extensive - and inhabitual - flooding combined with repeated cold waves resulted in many deaths from hypothermia and malnutrition related infections (due to immunosuppression). Then the bubonic plague hit, a newly emergent disease similar to AIDS, Ebola and SARS in our day. New epidemic strains of old diseases are killing the little brown bat of North America and amphibians worldwide. Epidemiologists and ecologists suspect that changing climate plays a role in emergent diseases by modifying host-parasite interaction. Today, for example, we see malaria spreading to regions formerly malaria free as global warming (GW) allows mosquitios to inhabit regions formerly too cold. At any rate, once bubonic plague appeared, its spread was facilitated by extreme weather induced crop failure and mass malnutrition which suppressed human immune systems. (In modern times, it is estimated that malnutrition induced disease kills as many as 10 times the number that initially starve to death.) Waves of "environmental refugees" flooded into towns and cities seeking employment. These mass migrations became "vectors" of bubonic plague transition. Overcrowed, malnourished, immunosuppressed migrants living in unhygenienic conditions were fertile ground for the plague to take root. Those that survived fled - and carried the plague with them. Waves of plague washed over Europe from country to country. A century and a half later, circa 1450, Europe's population had declined by a whopping 25 - 40% according to the experts you consult - at least they concur that it was a Time of Troubles accompanied by mass human die-off, note 1.

         The fact that we live in a Time of Troubles is the central fact of our existence today (deny it as we will). If we choose to live authentically, we must accept it (though we quibble over its general significance, personal relevance, timing, outcome..)

         One point, though, stands out as capital: we cannot blame fate. Our "fate" was collectively constructed - or "chosen". It was not imposed by God. Undoutedly, evolution played a role in the way our minds work but that simply means we are the products of evolution, not its slaves. A big part of the evolution of the human mind was the development of a "General Problem Solver" which evolved to operate in a relatively context free fashion on all sorts of complicated and ambiguous problems. Above all, humans are endowed with "reflective reason": the capacity to "stand outside ourselves", view our own actions from "above", study their trajectory, postulate where that trajectory will lead and take corrective action, if needed.

           It is high time that citizens of democracies reclaim their citizenship from the economic / commercial / financial / industrial / bureaucratic juggernaut which has "stolen" our citizenship, our power and our rights.

          Reclaiming citizenship? In democracies citizens are free, equal and bonded in fraternal respect. That's the theory anyway..

                  Liberty  -  Equality  -  Fraternity
                  Liberté  -  Égalité    -  Fraternité
                  Libertad - Igualidad - Fraternidad

             Le Peuple est Roi! The people are the rulers in a democratic regime. The buck stops at the people. If we don't like the state of the world - and we take democracy seriously - the people are responsible for the state of the world. Either the people are King or they are not - you can't have it both ways..

             But what do we see today? The "King" - the People - have let themselves be divested of their power by Corporate power and greed (and the influence it buys). My favorite definition of fascism runs:

Fascism: the control or seizure of the State by the Corporate Elite.

            We need only think of how mass media control the flow of information and the biases (if not outright lies) they introduce to serve the political and social agenda of their clients (the fossil energy industry, for example). The fossil energy lobby has mounted a somewhat effective compaign against climate science and renewable energy technology. This campaign was not sufficient to block renewable energy development, only slow it significantly (particularly in North America and, by providing a false model of "development", in large third world countries like China and India).

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2015/08/the-organisation-of-denial-conservative.html       

          Of course, it is easier to displace blame onto a cabal of Evil Greedies than to step up to the plate and accept responsibility: we, the people, have let ourselves be duped; we have bought into a soul destroying, culture destroying, planet destroying hyper-consumer society. Now the shit is in the fan and we ain't got nobody to blame but ourselves. Easier to blame someone else than give up all the goodies we've gotten ourselves addicted to, eh?

Logical inconsistency in conspiracy theories? 

          There exists an omnipotent, omniscient - and evil - Universal Conspiracy (names vary) which controls all aspects of our lives and the life of human societies in general. 
Since the Universal Conspiracy controls all information flows, the information we have about UC and its doings cannot be trusted. Therefore, we can conclude nothing about UC, even its existence. 

When conspiracy theories become dangerous. The most obvious case is when displaced responsibility is shifted to defenseless scapegoats. These are useful to ruling elites because they can be safely abused, temporarily releasing pent up frustration, fear and rage among the masses. Unfortunately, the fix wears off fast so a fresh bout of hate-spew (if not violence) is soon required.

           More insidiously, conspiracy theory hate-spew excuses one from taking concrete action in one's personal life and immediate surroundings. This is why you see so much hate-spew on the internet. You get an immediate and potent "hit" or "high" with little real effort, an emotional "bolus" effect, like an injection of your favorite poison or a toke on a crack pipe. Ego gratification is also easily achieved by "unmasking" and hate-smearing Evil Greedies. Community based activism, on the other hand, is slow, demanding, often more ego-bruising than ego-stroking. Ultimately, conspiracy theories are another "last resort of the powerless" (or those who see themselves as such, whether it is admitted or not). In a similar vein: "cynicism is the last resort of the powerless" (unknown source).

The psychology of powerlessness and the lure of authoritarianism. What can finite, feeble, isolated, anomic wo/man do, facing such a protean, polymorphic Force of Evil? Raised as a traditional - if not reactionary - "christian", I recognize the situation of mankind facing the Ultimate Enemy, Satan, his power and his legions of evil spirits. The solution (I was) offered by the Church was to throw ourselves at the feet of God, beg his Mercy and Forgiveness and "seek to offend Him no more, obey Him in all things". Such views are often linked to the Authoritarian Personality as is the the most extreme form, fatalism, the belief that we are powerless before destiny.

"Another trait which is common to all authoritarian thinking,.. typical of authoritarian character, is the conviction that life is determined by forces outside the person, outside his interests and wishes, and that the only possible happiness consists in submission to these forces." 

http://www.cepsr.com/clanek.php?ID=328 

For the classical work on the Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality 

             So, then, are conspiracy theorists, CC / GW "sceptics" and deniers really closet authoritarians (consciously or consciously) seeking a Führer to submit to? Do they seek an embodiment of Absolute Good who will, in turn, give them a mandate to brutalize (evil) scapegoats with a clear conscience? (note 2)

              Personal experience suggests this might be so as do many observable tics and character traits shared in common with the classical Authoritarian Personality type (see especially the original work by Adorno et al - above link):

- stereotypy: individuals are judged collectively according to the group they belong to, not as individuals,

- black / white (dichotomous) thinking: "You're either with us or you're against us" - George W Bush. The world is divided into warring camps, no nuance (or alternatives) permitted. One side, "ours", is all Good, the other, "theirs" is the Incarnation of Evil.

- vilification, viturperation, denigration ("hate-spew"): CC /GW "sceptics" and deniers do not "debate" atmospheric physics, they spew hate. This was a major trait of authoritarians (nazi sympathizers) observed by Adorno et al: The Authoritarian Personality.

- fatalism: we are controlled by external forces. These are evil in nature. Our sole salvation - if there is salvation - is to submit to a force of Absolute Good (God or the Führer) who will guide us on the Right (and only right) Path.

- hypocrisy: clinical testing of high scorers on the "A-Test" (Authoritarin Scale) showed a "poorly integrated", "polyfacetted" personality structure. A "fractured" personality with poorly communicating parts (in extreme cases, on could speak of latent sub-personalities). The right hand did not know what the left hand did (and might not "want" to know - in the Freudian sense, a willful or self-interested ignorance). The authoritarian is often seen by others as hypocritical (perhaps manipulative and uncaring if a position of authority). Authoritarians accuse the groups they hate of the very traits and actions that are so evident in their own characters and actions. CC / GW "sceptics" and deniers abuse climate scientist of "cherry picking" data that fits their theories but one can find few greater cherry harvesters than the "sceptics" and deniers themselves! 

- scapegoating: high A-Test scorers show a greater need to find scapegoats to blame for all that's wrong with the world. Given the chance to work out their aggressiveness, some find great zest and pleasure (sadism).

- paranoia: trust does not flow easily. Few are trusted, the worst is always seen or sought for. The world is a hostile place, full of evil and - of course! - conspiracies.

- jargonized speech: authoritarians often spout a weird, emotionally charged jargon. Warning! Professions and specialized branches of study - medicine, mathematics, philosophy.. - naturally develop specialized jargon ("shop talk") to communicate more effectively with their peers. Terms like "velocity" in physics don't have the same meaning as they do in ordinary usage: velocity in physics refers to the speed on an object relative to some reference point and includes the direction the object is moving in (relative to some frame of reference).
            The jargonized speech of authoritarians, though, seems intended either to obscure or to manipulate (or both). In a foundational document (Party Platform), published in September 1919, the Fascist Party of Italy put forth the principle that reasoned thinking (or debate) on political issues was to be short-circuited by linking hot-button words (communist traitor, Reds, pinkos, liberal, secular humanist, faggot, the N word,..) to individuals, groups, political positions and social policies. The goal is to mobilized the masses through demagogy. Donald Trump provides a good contemporary example of this use of hot button, emotionally charge hate-spew..

 - obsessional concern with social rank and convention: a trait well exemplified by many US Republicans (especially the conservative wing of the party). These folks are also more likely than Democrats (especially liberal Democrats) to deny CC / GW. They often attribute CC / GW with a plot to create a Socialist State (often centered in the United Nations). Many of those folks would seem to conform to light or moderate Athoritarian Personality Type profiles. However, I've observed that some of the flakier conspiracy theorists (professing belief in multiple - sometimes mutually exclusive - conspiracies) present a somewhat modified attitudinal profile. These "hard-core" conspiracy theorists openly flaunt their non-conformism and marginality. They flatter themselves as "counter-cultural". They seem little concerned with adapting to conventional norms. Are they simply variants of the Authoritarian Personality? Are they non-Authoritarians because they lack an essential trait? I am not sufficiently versed in social research to answer that question. (I intend to discuss this issue with a couple of psychologists, though..)


Aside: It is an interesting and informative exercise to apply these criteria to the Right Wing types making so much noise of late: Stephen Harper and many of the people around him, Donald Trump and other GOP luminaries in the presidential race (USA).

            What the long term effects of conspiracy theories, GW / CC denial, etc might be, one thing can be said of their practical effects in the here-and-now. They rationalize / justify maintaining the status-quo which, for many middle (especially upper midddle) class Occidentals, still ain't so bad, compared to the Third World or our own poor. Conspiracy theories functionally deresponsibilize a still relatively comfortable - but increasingly skittish - citizenry from reclaiming personal responsibility for the state the world is in. 

            Yet, if society is to "advance", or more modestly, if only a surviving fraction of humanity is to have a chance of flourishing, the citizen must reclaim the right, duties and responsibility of Citizenship.

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2014/08/four-pillars-of-sustainable-economy.html   
    

notes:

1- If we take the midpont of the above estimated range (25 - 40% die off), we obtain a 33% mortality. One out of three Europeans died between, say, 1300 and 1450 due to famine, plague, flood, hypothermia, malnutrition induced disease and their various combinations. However, this 1 in 3 figure surely underestimates the impact of the CC induced disaster. It represents the decline in population relative to the value attained circa 1300. In reality. population was "flourishing" - by Medieval standards - in 1300 and so the  real impact should be measured against this rising  trend and the value population would have reached if the LIA and plague had not intervened. If we consider the (hypothetical) case of a modest 2% population growth rate per decade for the period 1300 - 1450, we achieve a "business-as-usual" projected population increase of 34.5% between these two dates. Crunching these figures gives a more realistic die-off ratio of 1 in 2. That is, population declined by 50% compared to the value it would have reached if the Good Times of the Medieval Climatic Optimum had continued.

                       (1.345 - .67) / 1.345 = .5

          1.345 is the ratio of the "business-as-usual" projected population for 1450 compared to the real population of the baseline year 1300. The ratio of the real population in 1450 compared to the baseline is .67 (signifying a real population decline of 33%). The numerator 1.345 - .67, or  .675, is the difference between the real population in 1450 and the population projected if the Good Times of the Medieval Climatic Optimum had continued.

2- sceptic: original meaning versus use by CC / GW "sceptics". The term has its origins in Greek philosophy. Today, there are a variety of usages, sometimes contradictory. The following is the one at most variance with the attitude of most CC / GW "sceptics" I've met:

" methodological skepticism is an approach that subjects all knowledge claims to scrutiny with the goal of sorting out true from false claims"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism 

In contradistinction, CC / GW "sceptics" are ideologues who possess The Truth: CC / GW are lies concocted by the Evil Greedies in order to do evil things. Example: pro-GW college professors plot to make "trillions" off carbon credit trading - ignoring, of course, all those oil company CEOs and investors who risk losing millions or billlions if decentralized, locally controlled, renewable energy systems were to be widely developed!