Growing up, one of my criticisms of Orson Scott Card's "Enderverse" was how unrealistic it seemed that children could literally rise to power simply through posting theories and arguments on the internet.
How wrong I was.
How wrong I was.
Another example is the Silo book series, recently adapted to a series on Apple TV. I remember reading those books thinking it was insane than the people would act in such clearly counter-productive ways against their own interests, or that leadership would make up elaborate lies rather than just telling people the truth so they would see why certain actions were necessary. And now I'm watching the same plot a decade later, and it all hits home.
While watching the first two seasons, I still haven’t understood why the creators of the silos wouldn’t just have told people the truth to avoid the dysfunctionality that results from the cognitive dissonance that the leadership has to maintain. Telling the truth would also preclude the rebellions that keep recurring because the people realise that they’re being lied to. Is the rationale for the elaborate lies and rituals clearer in the books?
On the other hand, I can understand why the leader of the post-apocalyptic bunker in Paradise goes to extreme lengths to lie to the residents about the outside world.
That said, I do vaguely recall things making at least somewhat more sense eventually, but I've basically forgotten all the significant plot details (I'm not even 100% certain I finished the series; I may have caught up with the author and then forgotten about it), so I'm basically experiencing it all again for the first time.
However, the first time I heard about the CIA’s MKUltra project, I assumed that it was a 70s’ conspiracy theory but was shocked to then discover that it’s true. Dosing non-consenting victims with hallucinogenic drugs outside of a controlled clinical test made as much sense as the US military’s psychic spies and “men who stare at goats” program. I was similarly shocked to learn about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (though less surprised, given US history), particularly that it continued right up until 1972 – this really made no sense as antibiotics had already been proven to be an effective treatment back in the 40s. More recently, when I first heard of the systemic sexual abuse and rape of thousands of mostly white English under-age girls by gangs of mostly Pakistani men in places like Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford and Peterborough, it sounded like a far-right racist fantasy. I still find it hard to wrap my head around that one; I still see – and want to see – people as being essentially good/moral and this conflicts with that narrative.
Sorry for going off on such a disturbing tangent. I want to start reading more books and will add the Silo series to my list.
The TV series has included extra things that the books do not have, which haven’t added much to the plot, just a slower pace.
This playbook was described well by an ex-KGB agent who specialized in propaganda in this 1984 interview[1]. I suggest watching the full interview. The timeline of what we're seeing today aligns well with the surge of adtech, social media, and smartphones. A nation can be fully destabilized in the span of a generation, and modern tools make this much easier and cheaper than Yuri Bezmenov could have predicted.
Apparently, if the right people read your ideas then they’ll get convinced that the rest of Ohio feels the same way?
Well, Hitler and Szálasi (crazy Hungarian Nazi guy) and Lenin/Stalin come to mind as the closest actually, so maybe that's where OSC got the idea.
Hm, now I'm curious who was the youngest elected head of state...
edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_state_leade...