Here’s a long piece about why Whitney Webb’s Epstein book and podcast interviews have had a more detrimental effect on the public’s grasp of the Jeffrey Epstein story than the censors could ever dream of having:
A book or any other printed material needs to be precise and as brief as possible in order to properly convey the material therein. A smart writer knows this and endeavours to reach that goal. It is no good to say “but I had to include everything so that people will understand” instead what should be done is to get a really good understanding of the material so that one might express the essence of it with just enough backing history that the reader can have faith that the material is accurate.
When attempting to baffle with bullshit, however, authors and lawyers often use a simple trick: bury their mark in unnecessary documentation. Overload the senses, use too many words, offer too much documentation.
The aim, of course, is to make the reader or target feel that there’s no way they can actually verify the information or even absorb it all.
Often this trick in itself is evidence of foul play or malfeasance, however it could be that the person producing the material is simply ill equipped to handle the case they are working on and so they throw everything into the mix hoping that the sheer volume will confer some sort of legitimacy on the work. I’m not commenting, in the case of Webb, on her intentions.
Part 2
Think of the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes.
The point of that tale is to demonstrate that a group of people will go along with a delusion if ‘popular’ people embrace it first.
Where real life differs from the tale is that in real life, if someone comes along to point out that the whole group of people were fooled, more often than not the group will turn on the person pointing out the truth rather than awaken from their shared delusion.
This is what has happened with Whitney Webb and her book about Epstein. She wrote this huge and unreadable book (which no, I haven’t read) and immediately got invited onto popular shows (Glenn Beck first) to receive high praise for it. This was ‘The King’ endorsing the new invisible fashion.
Soon the commoners (even though they didn’t read past the first chapter, let’s say, of the book) wanted to look smart & informed so instead of admitting that the book was a cloud of verbal flatulence they joined in the adoring chorus.
The truth is that Tracey’s critique is valid.
He doesn’t go far enough in his warnings about it, though. His aim is not my aim. It appears to me that Tracey just wants to discredit links to Israelis and Jewish intelligence (not sure). In my case I want people to realize that the truth of Epstein not only includes links to Israel, but also to the world of science (progress) / transhumanism / AI and probably to much darker stuff. That his links to Howard Lutnick are not properly investigated. Etc.
When Webb goes on podcast after podcast with her flood of info and in her grating manner (the combination of which sets one’s teeth on edge and makes their eyes glaze over) she serves a more dangerous role than would a censor of info about Epstein and his connections.
She makes people believe that they’ve got the full story, but also that that story is too complex to grasp, and in the end they slip back into “muh egg-shaped penis” titllation instead of ever really reaching understanding.
This has been my sense of Webb as well. I also have not read her book for the reasons given above.
We should all be wary of influencers while also taking in whatever information is good.
I, for one, accept the fact that we are living in a world run by elites; and with that in mind I offer qualified support to whichever side or faction of the elite seems pragmatically best to me.
To put that another way: would you ever really want to live in a real democracy? wherein every moron alive who knows nothing can determine the fate of a nation?
It’s just as well we have pretend elections which amount to public opinion polls at best.
AI may change the game but, so far, elites have always ruled and still do. ABN
ARECENT GROUNDBREAKING EXPERIMENT in which anesthesia was administered to rats has convinced scientists that tiny structures in the rodents’ brains are responsible for the experience of consciousness. To pull it off, these microscopic hollow tube structures, called “microtubules,” don’t rely on our everyday flavor of classical physics. Instead, experts believe, microtubules perform incredible operations in the quantum realm. Citing the work of earlier researchers, the study infers that the same kind of quantum operations are likely happening in human brains.
During their rat brain experiments, scientists at Wellesley College in Massachusetts gave the rodents isoflurane, a type of inhaled general anesthetic used to induce and maintain unconsciousness for medical procedures. One group of drugged rats also received microtubule-stabilizing drugs, while the other did not. The researchers discovered that the microtubule-stabilizing molecules kept the rats conscious for longer than the non-stabilized rats, which more quickly lost their “righting reflex,” or the ability to restore normal posture, according to their findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal eNeuro in August 2024.
The Wellesley study is significant because the physical source of consciousness has been a mystery for decades. It’s a major step toward verifying a theory that our brains perform quantum operations, and that this ability generates our consciousness—an idea that’s been gaining traction over the past three decades.
Done properly, FIML takes the worst parts of communication and treats them as the most interesting. And they are interesting. I guarantee you will see yourself and your partner very differently after a few months of FIML practice. Vague impressions and uncertain emotions, many of which you may not even be aware of, will give way to an increasing fineness of detail and definition in your communications with each other. And this will have a major impact on how you view yourself, and how you talk to yourself. The same will be true for your partner.
Another way of looking at FIML is to understand that you and your partner are creating your own micro-culture. What is in your culture and how it works is up to you. I don’t think it will work well or last long if you do not have an ethical basis for it, but beyond that, the rest is up to you. As a side note, FIML cannot possibly work if one partner is dishonest. There is no point in doing it if you plan to lie. Please see How to do FIML for a complete explanation of what is meant by honesty and what its limits within FIML practice are.
As partners progress in FIML practice, they will notice that each FIML query becomes a sort of example that expands within the mind. Once you notice a mistaken impression in one area and have dealt with it, you will probably notice that that same mistake is being repeated in other areas. This will strengthen your initial insights and make it easier to correct other occurrences of that mistake. Once you succeed in this a few times, you will experience significant feelings of relief and an increase in mental and emotional energy because your mind is no longer working against itself in that area.
And all of this will make FIML practice easier and more fluid in any other areas that come up. Just knowing that you have done FIML successfully and that both partners are willing and able to benefit from further FIML discussions is a huge relief. Not much is going to bother either one of you because you both know that you have the tools to deal with whatever presents itself.
Remember that FIML is not about judging. FIML is not about consciously or unconsciously importing structures or judgments from the large culture around you into the micro-culture you are co-forming with your partner. An example of what I mean could be tone of voice. If your partner’s tone of voice bothers you, start a FIML query, but do not expect or look for them to apologize for it. Rather, look for them to explain it while you explain to them what you think you heard. If you heard derision, say, where none was intended, the mistake is probably all yours, though your partner may want to reflect on that tone of voice anyway. Both of you can decide how to deal with that tone of voice in the future. Do you want it removed from your micro-culture? Do you want to keep it but understand it differently? The choice is entirely up to the two of you.
Notice how important it is in this example that both partners be completely honest about what they meant and what they heard. If one partner lies and says there was no derision in their voice when there was, your FIML practice sucks. This is so very important because partners not only can but must co-form their own micro-culture. Another way of saying that is we do not want to import anything thoughtlessly from the larger culture. We want our micro-culture to be clean, clear, and honest. We want it to be something that both partners agree on without reservation or hidden motives. If one of you is lying, none of this is possible. A lie is essentially a hidden standard, a standard one partner imports in secret without telling the other.
To continue our example, another important point can be made about tone of voice in this context. Basically, who can say what is “derision” in someone’s tone or not? A flat sounding, no-nonsense, here-is-the-info tone of voice can easily be misinterpreted as derision when it is not. If you import the false notion that any flat, no-nonsense tone is derisive, right there you are placing a huge limit on you and your partner’s capacity for full and open communication. Not having any strong, no-nonsense tone in your micro-culture more or less condemns you both to not being able to get your own facts and make your own decisions for yourselves. It may very well cause or perpetuate a passive attitude toward your existence and your place in the world. Decide for yourselves what your tones mean and how to deal with them. Of course, we have to keep the standards of the larger culture in mind, but not so much that we surrender our wise autonomy to them.
FIML practice works because it integrates and focuses linguistics, psychology, sociology, and interpersonal communication all at the same time. We use our speech to find sound data points that can be calmly and reasonably discussed. This exposes our psychology while providing us with sensible feedback from our partners. This helps partners co-form their own culture without having to conform unnecessarily to the culture of someone else. And all of this frees our interpersonal communication from blockage, misunderstanding, fear, and so on.
Mindfulness practices improve our ability to recognize error.
A recent study shows this by monitoring brain activity with an EEG.
The EEG can measure brain activity at the millisecond level, so we got precise measures of neural activity right after mistakes compared to correct responses. A certain neural signal occurs about half a second after an error called the error positivity, which is linked to conscious error recognition. We found that the strength of this signal is increased in the meditators relative to controls,” said Jeff Lin, co-author of the study linked just below. [emphasis mine](link to quote: How meditation can help you make fewer mistakes)
Few Buddhists will be surprised at the general findings of this study.
Error recognition is what first got me to read about this study.
The findings became even more interesting to me when I saw the statement about the one-half-second error positivity response in the quote above.
Error recognition or the recognition that one might be making an error is key to successful FIML practice.
The second key is to act on our recognition quickly, within a few seconds if possible.
I have always figured it takes about a half second more or less to feel a slight disturbance that tells us we might be forming a wrong impression about what someone is saying or doing. That we might be making an error.
It is this disturbance that tells us it is time to do a FIML query. Virtually every time I do a proper FIML query I find I am either flat out wrong or wrong enough to want to revise my original impression.
In the past, I have called the slight disturbance mentioned above a “jangle,” a term I don’t really like because it makes the response sound stronger than what it is. I suppose I could refer to it as the “error positivity response,” but that would require an explanation every time I used it.
[Edit: I have decided to solve this problem this way: A jangle is basically a trigger. The word jangleis usedrather than triggerbecause the word trigger normally places too much responsibility on the speaker. A jangle should be understood as an internal emotional or psychological trigger that the listener 100% owns until it has been queried about. In most cases, partners will find that their jangles largely or entirely belong to their own psychologies and not their partner’s.]
In Buddhism, a jangle is probably the second of the five skandhas—sensation.
Buddhist practice will definitely make you more aware of the second skadha or “error positivity response.”
By being aware of this response in conversation with a trusted partner, FIML practice helps us take our mindfulness to a new level by providing us with the opportunity to ask our partner about their intentions. In this way, we check our own mental work for error.
If this is done quickly enough to preserve clear memories of 1) your “error positivity response” and 2) your partner’s memory of what was in their working memory at that moment THEN you both have one of the few psychological facts you can both be sure of.
Facts of this sort are not just psychologically of great significance, they are also of philosophical significance because they really are one of the very few fact-types you can truly know about your own idiosyncratic existence; your own very weird being.
I believe this is why the Buddha emphasized the importance of the moment.
FIML practice explodes the moment or expands it to include more reliable information (your partner’s input). And this allows both of you to do a really good analysis of what just happened, what that moment entailed.
And doing that many times, will help both of you see how you really are. It will help you break fee from erroneous psychological frames or theoretical misinterpretations of any type.
Former chief of staff of the Ukrainian Army’s elite Azov Brigade Lieutenant Colonel Bogdan Krotevich has claimed that Ukrainain forces in the disputed Donbas regions are facing an increasingly catastrophic situation, with Russian units poised to achieve two major encirclements.
“I honestly don’t know what exactly you are being told, but I can tell you: the Pokrovsk-Konstantinovka line is, without exaggeration, a complete f**k up.
And this f**k up has been growing for a long time, getting messier every day,” he stated in an open letter to President Volodymyr Zelensky on August 11.
Pokrovsk has been surrounded by Russian forces, while Konstantinovka is facing semi-encirclement, he added, sharing a map which he claimed showed the situation in the area, which corroborated media reports of a major Russian breakthrough to the north of Pokrovsk.
One of the alleged aggressors in the viral Cincinnati brawl has been hit with a federal charge, according to authorities.
Montianez Merriweather, 34, was accused of being the ‘catalyst’ in the July 26 beating in downtown Cincinnati that left six people injured and caused widespread outrage on social media.
Across the US, drinking rates have plunged to their lowest level in 90 years.
Only 54 percent of adults said they had a drink last month, according to Gallup data.
That’s the lowest level since the polling group began collecting the figures in 1939.
Only 46 percent of Republican voters reported having any alcohol in all of last year, a one third drop from 2023.
By comparison Democrat drinkers only decline by five percent in the same period.
‘Americans’ drinking habits are shifting amid the medical world’s reappraisal of alcohol’s health effects,’ Gallup said of the findings.
‘After decades of relative steadiness in the proportion of US adults who drink, [we have] documented three consecutive years of decline in the US drinking rate as research supporting the ‘no amount of alcohol is safe’ message mounts.’
American Buddhist Net 