As IF Times

Source: Colin Kaepernick earns support from diverse chorus, including John Brennan, over Nike ad | Fox News

Many may recall back in our university or college days, that the targets of student antipathy were the large mega- corporations that were ostensibly responsible for inflicting all kinds of ills upon society.  Big oil in particular was seen as evil since they were heartless goliaths that trampled upon the rights and freedoms of the plain folk in their single minded pursuit of the dollar. 

Valid or not, protests against the perceived evils of these large corporations became more common as people use their voices to hold large companies to account for their activities.  To this day, if a rare species of grub may be endangered by a pipeline or a dam, a veritable village  of protesters appears to protest the project and by extension, the company behind it.  The standard pushback was against “the military industrial complex” which was the oppressor of the people.  Today, the issues that get people to wearing masks and holding signs are more bizarre and comical, ranging from the protests against drinking straws and grocery bags, all the way to free speech in general. 

With the passage of time, the perception of the evil corporation has not really changed, though many have made significant concessions to public sensibilities.  What has gone unnoticed is the rise of other corporate behemoths whose reach and negative influence is far more pervasive than those demonized in past generations.  

Without exaggeration, the majority of the world is now subject to the activities of a handful of powerful companies.  Unless you have been living in the deep Amazonian rainforest, your life has been touched by Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix,Twitter and Apple.  Together these companies influence virtually every aspect of people’s daily activities.   They all have the same common denominator of providing some form of convenience to a public that needs and craves instant gratification.  This is best expression of capitalism; a need is identified and is addressed by a service.  This continues the legacy of Henry Ford, Eli Whitney and Jacob W. Davis of Levi Strauss fame.  

What’s different about today’s modern behemoths is that they aren’t content just to sell people on products and services.  They are also very much intent on shaping the way people think.  Not happy just to make billons of dollars by selling lifestyle, they are shaping mindsets.  As if they were characters in a Bond film, we have actual real life “Villains” who are controlling the thought processes of hundreds of millions of people. 

The recent announcement by Nike of their new sales campaign posting Colin Kaepernick as their icon, adds that company to the list of mercenary companies that would have been loudly protested back 30 years ago.  To be fair, Nike’s business demographic are younger people, particularly the black demo, who are more likely to sympathize with Kaepernick’s actions.  Older people, less likely to support Kaepernick’s actions are less likely to be customers anyway.  But if this decision is based solely on business, they had every opportunity to propose someone who is of genuinely heroic stature; a guy like Pat Tillman springs to mind.  Some may know that Tillman gave up his professional football career to serve his country by joining the army in the wake of 9-11 and then was tragically killed in action. 

Instead, Nike has chosen to insert their political viewpoint in championing Kaepernick, not in spite of, but because of his protests against the national flag.  He is the Jane Fonda of the modern epoch. 

People once mobilized against what they perceived to be the evilness of large corporations. It’s ironic now that corporations have never been more invasive and manipulative…and no one protests.  It’s much more disturbing that the people currently being celebrated for their actions, are anti-heroes… instead of real ones.

Source: Facebook has a climate-denial problem

Oh oh; my days may be numbered.  But wait! I don’t depend on Facebook to broadcast my views anyways, so we’ll just carry on until they get enough influence to block everyone on the internet.  The way things are going, I figure I have another 4 months at least.

The battle for real information and news keeps getting more intense as the conduits for information join with the information purveyors themselves in steering and shaping the public discourse.  No one will deny the hard slants offered by the majority of the popular news outlets, both print and video media.  But you don’t expect the vehicles you use to access news to be also gatekeepers for content. This is the equivalent of your forks and knives blocking you from eating a rib steak because they feel you should be a vegetarian.  Both Twitter and Facebook have publicly censored conservative speech in favor of egregiously offensive leftist postings.  Apple and Spotify have now joined the fray by censoring those that don’t conform to their corporate worldview.   It is allowing a very small cabal of people to dictate what the masses are allowed to consume.  Free thinkers and libertarians should all have their hair on fire over this.  Unlike what Colonel Nathan Jessup thinks, we can handle the truth.

While this may be cause for celebration by the increasingly irrational left, we can easily see such actions engendering serious deleterious consequences for society as a whole.  It’s not even a matter of right or wrong, it’s a matter of putting a halt to the progress of civilization.  Imagine if Copernicus’ findings were not allowed to be publicly aired because the idea of the Earth orbiting the Sun instead of the then accepted belief of the  opposite, was deemed to be heretical.   Copernicus prevailed because he could demonstrate proof of his theory.   In today’s world, you don’t even need proof of a theory to confer legitimacy.  Just a bunch of Facebook likes and voila, it’s truth! If Twitter had been around in the day, I’m sure Copernicus’ inbox would have been flooded by angry and derisive tweeters calling for a good stoning.

The American Economist and Social Theorist Thomas Sowell wrote that, “Darwinian adaptation to environment applies not only to nature but also to society.  Just as you don’t find eagles living in the ocean or fish living on mountain tops, so you don’t find leftists concentrated where their ideas have to stand the test of performance.”

Thus, when opposing views are not aired and debated on “public” social networks, it paves the way to groupthink, a condition that would put an end to innovation of every kind.  Interestingly, this mindset is a bizarre take on Copernicus’ theory.  It portends that truth revolves around the individual, rather than the actual reality that the individual orbits the truth.