I’ve noted that Taibbi started with a highly naive attitude about the history of media and censorship, firmly believing that newspapers formerly “exposed the truth” and “afflicted the comfortable.”

He also believed that censorship is aimed at WHAT, not WHO. He believed that censors were turning lies into truth and truth into lies.

I haven’t seen much learning on the first point, but this week he seems to be learning about the second point.

At 19 minutes:

“They’re working backwards from who the person is, to decide whether that’s a good story.”

But he still isn’t quite there. At 21 minutes he says “This is the science of detecting off-narrative content.”

NO, NO, NO. The content is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT. The person is THE ONLY VARIABLE.

This is the science of knowing WHO is on top, not WHAT is true.

Every courtier in every strict regime has to master Whoism. Accounts of England under Elizabeth I and Henry VIII made this clear. The ruler’s whims changed every day, and if you were still favoring Lord Snorblesby after the queen switched her sweet spot to Earl Wimsonhurst, OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

This is the basic nature of psychopaths. Brits seem to understand it far better than Americans, because Brits are more honest about caste and human nature. Americans have learned a pile of lies about “meritocracy” and “voting” and “constitutions”, all designed by the psychopaths to cement their power.

Lewis Carroll told the story as the Red Queen. Orwell told the story with modern trappings. The outer party (courtiers) had to acquire a fast-moving sense of status. Anything said by a Correct Person is a COMMAND, and anything said by an Unperson is CRIMETHINK.

= = = = =

One of the vax substackers noted that Taibbi is ALSO starting to question the whole structure of lies around the “virus”, which is an even more remarkable level of naivete. I didn’t notice this bit of learning.