Meta-trust

I noticed somebody citing a poll on trusted institutions by the Edelman outfit. Looked and quickly realized the “poll” was a pusher. It was telling businesses that they need to be strictly DNC if they want to be trusted. More “climate”, more “diversity”, more “virus”, more “science”. This obviously won’t work. Taking a side is EXACTLY WHAT PEOPLE DISTRUST. Not a surprise considering who Edelman is.

Went back to Pew again and found as always that Pew is strictly nonpartisan, so I trust what they say. Pew simply OBSERVES the facts without RECOMMENDING any action. This is what SCIENCE should be doing. Observe, don’t command. Nouns, not verbs.

This advice used to be tautologous. Nobody needed to say it. For thousands of years every salesman and marketer and teacher and preacher tried to avoid unnecessary dividers. Every marketer understood the need to STRICTLY AND COMPREHENSIVELY AVOID all hints of side-taking on unnecessary issues. Just sell your product or sell your ideas and stay out of the divide zone. The people who might want your product have a variety of tastes on OTHER matters, and you’ll lose them instantly if you stray into those OTHER matters.

The new insistence on dividing at all costs is extremely recent. It started in the 80s after the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, and ran harder and faster with the cable “news” networks and the developing web. The web was designed by NSA, and its purpose was evident VERY early. Back in the pre-html days of BBS and Compuserve I observed total Teamness. Every subject and every forum, from sex to tech to politics to religion, instantly developed Team A and Team B. As long as you stayed with one team or the other you got respect. When you stepped out of the chalk lines and tried to mix the messages or criticize your own team, you were OUT.