What People Don't Want Is Not To Be Not Confused

After the storm-clouds: A Rainbow

It becomes onerous to bang on about the "bubble effect" of politics. But it seems to work: On one side I have friends who give their primary or first reason for "Leave" because the UK is too small to fit any more foreigners and on the other side friends who give their primary or first reason for "Remain" because without those same foreigners our NHS would fall apart! What is interesting is that these reasons don't actually belong to either set of friends: They're parroting what they've heard in accordance with their baseline sentiments, most likely. And so evidently the drumming of various bespoke "memes" or messages along "sales pitch lines" seems effective for sheer scale of message distribution. So much for lies and campaigning.

So instead of a destructive picture, a  rainbow feels like the kind of picture full of hope and a positive outcome to all these dark clouds of confusion in the political conversation around the entire UK's chatting people. If you look at the rainbow it consists of layers of colour:-

Interestingly Wikipedia points out the origin of the colour number/order:-

"Newton, who admitted his eyes were not very critical in distinguishing colours, originally (1672) divided the spectrum into five main colours: red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later he included orange and indigo, giving seven main colours by analogy to the number of notes in a musical scale. Newton chose to divide the visible spectrum into seven colours out of a belief derived from the beliefs of the ancient Greek sophists, who thought there was a connection between the colours, the musical notes, the known objects in the Solar System, and the days of the week."

 If only nature was so neat and tidy.

Anyway, the idea of layers is in this case very intriguing as per yet another example as per EUReferendum.com:exit: hard or soft … in the head?.

It does not warrant much discussion as illustrated:-

Layer 1 (primary sources below this = Layer .0):-

Article 50 And Withdrawal: An explainer

Layer 2: Bernard Jenkin MP "SAYS":-

Layer 3: Reported by/in the Prestigious Financial Times (Legacy News-Media):-

Layer 4 Reaction and inflation of "noise" by the respondents reacting to it:-

In this case the noise production by this article can be observed in part by reading the FT comments, presumably written by well-meaning observers in the public (there's always astroturfing and bots and seeding). Here it does seem that Jenkins attitude is being called out. No doubt in other similar media, such as SpikedOnline! or The Daily Express, his comments will be championed. It's interesting that this time the FT ran the article, which usually along with it's stable mate of bs The Economist runs Economic FUD as it's main narrative against political change. Perhaps the obviousness of Jenkin is too good an opportunity to miss?

But this is still a problem: Nowhere does the FT investigate or build the knowledge base from the primary sources: It along with the rest of the accursed Legacy News-Media is merely "reporting" and selecting hot air from Jenkin. One of the major functions of newspapers is to confirm the biases of audiences: The "eurosceptic industry press" on "bonfire of red-tape" has been accused by Remainers of decades of indoctrination of voters that partly "explained" the Referendum result by the "old, left-behind, low income, uneducated, rural" blockheads in the UK!!!

Delusional:-

1. The systems of informing the public/voting base, especially the Legacy news-media.
2. The representatives in professional politics working between these layers to sell "memes" into peoples' heads effectively at scale.
3. The "white noice" amplifying this confusion.

If taking a step back and considering politics in the UK: The above are the prevailing conditions. It seems to me it's much easier to communicate what people DON'T WANT than to suggest what the NATION NEEDS according to the parameters of the actual arguments in politics; and hence the lure of incredible stupidity that "people are too stupid to be given a referendum on this issue!" that tempts some commentators. But there is an underlying reason why that is tempting: It's that in general people prefer confusion and this itself is the bread and butter of the successful politician in our society: It seems to me this explains why are loathsome politicians are so extraordinary slippery and able to aggrandize their positions in our society so successfully: Pay rises, expenses, rubbing shoulders with the prestigious, able to say what they like on the podiums and platforms devoid of the actual arguments:-

1. It's more effective to tell people what they don't want than to present the rigourous research on what the nation needs: Few will make the effort to understand and fewer the effort to promote this as evidenced by this Referendum.
2. They know people need to be confused and enjoy being cajoled in shaping their own preconceived biases; hence why politicians are so fashionable so long as their lies are clever or charming and appear to align with their followers' values. Equally the repulsion of those that do the same thing on the other side, is perhaps doubled! Those "filthy remainers/leavers!"

Alternatively, I noticed Dr. RAE North is producing a series of monographs Brexit: change of tactics:-

Monograph 1: Single Market participation and free movement of persons;

Monograph 2: The WTO Option and its application to Brexit; and 

Monograph 3: Financial contributions after Brexit.

And likewise, this will be the final "general blog" here: I plan to change tactics and start learning and blogging more specifically on FLEXCIT:-

• 12.0 Agricultre
• 13.0 Fisheries
• 14.0 Environment Policy

UPDATE1!: Monograph #4 : "Article 50 and Brexit negotiations" ("Layer 0").

(02/08/2016) Within this mongraph is the direct reference to the government's "White Paper" 'on' Article 50. The monograph itself covers a lot of the framework of thinking around this subject that's needed to contextualize as much as searching for "definitive content" on the reasons why Article 50 is the actual Withdrawal process for the UK from the EU.

Finally, there's so much nonsense concerning " "Brexit means Brexit" (Theresa May) - What does that mean?"

Brexit (British Exit) = "WITHDRAWAL from EU TREATIES by ARTICLE 50 only."

The concept of definitions using parsimony does not include excessive ASSUMPTIONS beyond the core meaning. When this happens, an original meaning loses it's accuracy or "ambiguity in communication" (confusion reactions) is likely effected.

This leaves enormous scope for 'speculation' concerning the practical details ofEEA outside of the above conditional change of status. Anything excessive of EEA (via/by EFTA) namely EEA MINUS is distracting away from the core objective above. In fact... Hosuk Lee-Makiyama at 23 minutes... Namely an EEA PLUS (actually: EFTA/EEA + UK/EU residual negotiation settlement).

In fact, coming back to this process which should be initiated already: Go back to Monograph 1 !!

Update2! : On the confusion and commentary "layer" some recent articles today: 04/08/2016

Guardian: Britain should be offered tough Brexit deal, say voters in EU
FT.com: From gloomy to glad, Europeans respond to Brexit vote

Or to summarize what the legacy news-media of the FT and Guardian are offering their readerships here:-

"Those Filthy Remainers/Leavers! And I hate myself too, in case that's not enough alone!"

So not only do we have the legacy news-media creating crap upwards, it forces downwards crap from the confusion around people too. Evidently this is stimulating to people; particularly the peculiar sentiment above I've tried to capture. Fortunately the odd comment recognizes this and injects some common sense:-

Meanwhile right at Layer 0: Some technical trade discussion is provided in the latest monograph clearly splitting the confusion of "Treaty Politics or Relationship Expectations" from "Trade Technicalities or Practical Progression". Brexit: Monograph 5 

This is more applicable to Leavers to appreciate: The Relationship argument was right to reframe but the technical details and Trade arguments come later, don't mix the two foolishly or you'll heap on confusion (apparently preferred by most people....)

Before Decision-Making: Explosive Cocktails of Emotion

In one of the previous blog posts I noted how the news-stories wash over us incessantly bathing people in the emotional-narrative driven soup of the major broadcasters and tabloids. Evidently this serves a function which people feel a need for: The connection to the community and world within which they coexist and share and shape their expectations for life.

Legacy News-Media: No responsibility for sensationalism vs accuracy and training people to accept an unreality as the "norm".

For the concept of democracy to work, it hinges on the assumption that each voting adult who has made the successful transition from childhood as an independent decision-maker with a single vote to represent that, that such people are emotionally mature and rational. But if we compare the diet or environment within which voters exist, the above sensationalist news-media and the preference for people to seek pleasurable emotional stimulation even if it's "angry"; we can already see where this is going to lead to communication being impaired and reducing to people emotionally "venting": Sometimes nastily but invariably distracting away from building foundations of decision-making ie informing first.

Not only are people going to be less rational in their political discourse, they're equally reducing the complexity of understanding they are able to tolerate without feeling deprived of hyper-emotional presentation. The capacity to tolerate complex information itself is reduced. Just try reading some of the reports and papers that are primary source...

This may sound overly theoretical at the moment, but one look across "the pond" towards the United States of America and with the benefit of "outsiders' eyes" I think it seems very obvious how degraded their processes of democracy must be if we consider the communication of information to voters to aid their decision-making, even delusional on a mass scale, might appear by comparison to our standards? Now envision how the Chinese looking at the United Kingdom and wondering how poorly and chaotically do they run their political planning and policy to be able to effectively "run an entire nation"?! It may give pause for reconsideration of how we actually as opposed to apparently make decisions at a national level? There's so much grandstanding on "self-expression" (from Mill) and a "free press" and such little thought to extending BEYOND this beginning of democratic processes!! As if the beginning IS the process alone.

To bring the subject towards the focus of this blog: Brexit: Since we have had the decision, what is obvious is the ongoing attempt to emotionally digest it; from all corners and speakers

And I think this is perhaps of observation at a mass scale, in the confusion of the leadership or lack of it, in fact, of our political leaders concerning the permanent set of crisis operating across Europe concerning the EU, the EURO, Migration and Terrorism and how to politically deal with these things without a chain reaction due to the uncertainty vs confidence of our market economies.

Such explosive cocktails of emotion were deemed too dangerous at a national level by the original thinkers of the EU Supranational solution (Jean Monnet) almost one hundred years ago towards the ending of World War One. I notice our present analysts of the Referendum such as Matthew Goodwin has taken time to use the voting data to describe the obvious: "Britain is divided" along his preferential measures of Education, Age, Income Bracket, Metropolitican vs Rural for example.

From such studies many commentators come out with rationalizations: "People voted for Brexit because...".

Of fascination however, is this quote from Dr. RAE North at EUReferendum.com:-

Brexit: getting to grips with the issues 

"The thing is, when we are dealing with something as important as a complete revolution in the way we are governed, with the health and wealth of the entire nation dependent on it, that is the sort of detail we should be looking at. To have a amateurs casually interviewing a few high prestige witnesses, simply to confirm the prejudices of the questioners, is a complete waste of time and effort.

Of course, we are so good at having prolonged inquiries after the event – the BSE inquiry, the Bloody Sunday inquiry, Leveson and, more recently, the Chilcot inquiry. At a cost of hundreds of millions, it seems no expense is spared in our attempts to find out why things went wrong. Why then should we not invest a little of that money up-front, in attempt to make sure that we do things right?

And, if Parliament can't hack it, it should move over and cede the ground to people who can do the job. We used quite frequently to have Royal Commissions to examine issues of substance, and their weighty reports used to fuel debates for years thereafter. If ever there was an example of a need for such a Commission, the post-exit reconstruction of Britain is one.

As it is, one cannot escape the impression that officials are flying blind and, outrageously to mix metaphors, are totally out of their depth." 

The former in red is symptom of the investment in distractions due to the failure of using knowledge to promote decision-making capacity in place of "forceful personality" (see Blair-mania and the promotion of celebrity of our leaders: "The first lady or coloured candidate emotional-pleading narratives) and hence subsequently the loss of capacity in decision-making in light of new or alternative evidence.

Is it little wonder that Parliament emulates this "explosive cocktail of emotions" within the population when they bray like donkeys at each other? It's a show, a distraction which itself feeds most of the legacy news-media which in turn feeds itself based off the emotional needs of the population. The "house of workshop" (where decision-making is deliberated via structured and organized activity and rules for such (Parliament)) itself has become a fossil not fit for the work of policy and intelligence driven decision-making at a national and democratic level.

The latter in blue suggests that investment in decision-making behaviours themselves that demonstrate an encapsulation of "intelligence" will likely help the UK avoid the excesses (in red): But it takes a very conscious and very committed and finally very community-driven initiative to set such higher expectations for the entire UK. Pete North makes this point:  The revolution that never was:-

"Much of what is said by European leaders is for the time being merely political signals to their own electorates now that Hollande and Merkel are facing re-election. There is always a gulf between what politicians say and what is technically feasible.

[...]

In that regard, I will not be watching PMQs or even paying that much attention to the words of the EU commission. It will be in the back rooms and select committees where Britain’s fate is decided. That is where I will be watching. What I have seen thus far is not encouraging."

 After a failure of decision-making we end up with the euphemisms of failure: "Mistakes Were Made". In fact no real communication produces such analysis of results as Matthew Goodwin above desperately attempts, like a blind man in the dark, to grasp the meaning of but never quite getting there: Only rearranging the data into interesting patterns. He's not alone, I listened recently to almost the entire Lords Debate on the Referendum on the BBC Parliament channel and not once did I hear the authority of attempting to first understand the EU, via using a history of it "The Great Deception" before attempting to use such a common ground to then promote discussion of Brexit from. You could hear a thousand different reasons, all as plausible and personal as the next and never come away with a deeper understanding. Not beginning correctly, and hence attempting to begin at the end and ending up with more emotional cocktails exploding... entropy of politics and the fear of the ruling order of "too much democracy" such as "Referendums are a scourge on democracy"!

But if we look at this argument, then I think it supports the idea for Brexit to ensure as much political decision-making concerning Article 50 is "automated" or "off-the-shelf" as is possible to MOVE BEYOND THIS EMOTIONAL BEGINNING and get away from it as successfully as possible via FLEXCIT: Stage 1. Failure to do so is very obvious presently in the discussions:-

Brexit: the consequences of failure 

People like Nicola Sturgeon and Lord Lawson, it may be rationale to understand what role they are play-acting in their absurd demands and declarations from Brexit, but if you take the "model" of "emotion" before decision-making: This is indeed what they are playing at: They are playing and captivating and conditioning peoples' emotions to shape-decision-making political power. They are "beneath contempt" as per Dr. RAE North:-

"Handled properly, the benefits of Brexit for the UK could be huge, but there should be no illusions about the effects of a botched exit, based on this sort of insanity. We thus need people to stop playing fantasy Brexit and to focus on reality. We really cannot afford these games."

 It's much less that democracy is a danger, for good democracy promotes good communication and hence good argument and hence good decision-making practice and indeed the experience of improving at this with more practice. It's our leaders who are the cause of and consequence of failure "we cannot afford these games" quite numerically and literally!

Politics: Feeding the 46,500,001...

This info slide above describing junk food is possibly analogous to much/most of the news-media output on the political stories of the day. There does seem to be a social-circadian function to these stories that are "on the hour, every hour" so to speak, a collective rhythm to the day for peoples' establishment of their context to the world around them?

But if you're interested in more than this, then you may find that the quality of information is not very high for increasing understanding of politics apart from the more emotional stimulation and submersion socially within the constantly, ever-washing news stories.

The "good news" is that curated properly, there is a way to select (visibility problem) from this "roiling sea of emotion and excessive information":-

1. State of UK Politics

The great failures of statesmanship over Iraq and Brexit shows how much we need a proper leader

We pay but have no say

Just whose voice counts?

Sizing the ‘Liberal Leave’ position

2. State of Brexit

A Brexit consensus - EFTA EEA is the bridge 

Brexit: immigration versus market - a false choice

Public Law for Everyone: Brexit | On why, as a matter of law, triggering Article 50 does not require Parliament to legislate

This sources will more than suffice for an entire week of political news-media at the very least, if spaced across an entire week for the weekly intake of news - at the very very least!

Referendum Result 2016: A Systemic Failure of Governance of People

A Failure of Governance: Power flows down and dilutes knowledge of political decision-making at each "tier". Knowledge must flow upwards and control decision-making at the highest executive level of concentrated political power eg Wargames, Referendum Campaigns, Spending and Taxation of Peoples' Money etc...

Huge attention is reserved for the top tiers of our governance and this is primarily due to the inward and self-regarding effect of these "decision-workers" who must reserve "the wind-borne apples and milk" for themselves:-

Newsnight has already done it's "self-regarding self-importance" show a few days ago on the death of one of its MPs. But this tragic event if abstracted only confirms the prevalence of which way the cameras are eternally pointing in this Top-Down driven government.

The results are already in for this Referendum, the real results not the "stoicastic" elements and that is confusion and people talking in confabulation loops over and over with each other, a useful illustration of this is Reddit once again due to the high visibility of the commentating structure:-

Illustrative of all the newspapers, think tanks, "experts" and tiers of governance and otherwise that contribute to this "universal" Babel-17 confabulation or "nonsense" or indeed as George Orwell called it: "Duckspeak".

Pete North has somewhat heroically blogged on the current "Media-o-drama" concerning the tragic and senseless killing of a human being (Female, Mother, Daughter, Sister, Charity & Community Worker etc ie diverse and positive identities irrespective of her views on politics Labour Pro-EU Minister of Parliament). I'm not sure even so how effective his articulated views can possibly be in the face of the media storm of emotional self-importance and egotism with all the powers of state and media behind such self-involved displays:-

"An abject, self-imposed humiliation awaits if this proud, important country walks away" ~ David Cameron

The expectation that I hold from these displays of hyper-emotional peer pressure and conformity shaming?

More reactionary "stunts" by people who pick up this "energy" and believe it's the way to act whichever side of the good people vs the bad people you are on:-

"Brussels isn’t the bad guy. Tory cuts cause Britain’s troubles" ~ Phillip Inman

See Pete North's blog for more of this: An Atmosphere of Contempt. It's interesting that terrorist attacks from Jihadist Adherents have occurred against UK citizens whereas a terrorist attack from citizens has occurred against the Establishment identity and it was primarily the Establishment that triggered the Middle Eastern wars... as well as the EU Membership without the Mandate of the UK Citizens (people) on both subjects:-

The 1975 Referendum ~ Butler & Kitzinger p.10

There will be no self-criticism of the UK Establishment and Legacy News-Media over this issue: What will happen is that they will revert to type as they always do:-

• Dominance: The Westminster Politicians will exert their dominance in displays of Social "Solidarity" dictated by themselves when "one of them" is struck down senselessly.
• Hyper-Emotionality: The Legacy News-Media will whip up a frenzy of outpouring of sentiment and assume a sensible veneer but the cameras will be focusing inwards self-regardingly.

I don't mean to come across in lacking in pity or heartless. This is another news-story in which someone or some people lost their lives. In fact so many news stories are of this sort, I avoid watching the news given it's not productive or positive to do so: Every day in every life there are the small and personal trials and tribulations we all have to contend with personally, that is more than enough in my opinion to shoulder. But I dilike immensely the modern societal condoning of this collective displays with 1 minute silencing popping up everywhere as "a mark of respect".

The problem with this I find is that it sanctifies a very narrow picture of what to respect:- [Source: http://bigemf5.deviantart.com/art/Burning-the-Midnight-Oil-25847669]

 Carrying on carrying on... there is real work being done for people, by people but not for intention to be recognized and lauded by other people that seems to be the primary perogative of those people and politicians who cleave to centralized power above everyone else.

Democratic Deficit: Out Of Touch

 Layers of Popularity: Is that Democracy or something else? I think this picture explains the nature of progression of this referendum succinctly

Above is a synthesis of the complete discussion of the subject of this blog. It's an illustration of the low quality arguments and why they appear so much more visible. Starting back to front almost with a conclusion and then proceeding to explain. Let's describe the above:-

1. Left-Hand Side Columns: X-axis Knowledge 0-5 dominates the debate
2. If we presume that in the absence of knowledge people resort to what they believe to be "true" or most applicable to them this is based on emotion or personal bias ("what matters to me").
3. Top Left-Hand Side Row: Y-axis Popularity 10-5: We see that with a leader figurehead our PM holds the most prestige and drives at least 50% of the polling attitudes and all the political infrastructure beneath his office.
4. Second to him is Boris Johnson, and this is reflected in the Personality Contest that has taken over the Referendum.
5. Right-Hand Columns: X-axis: I've only added Dr. RAE North. I could have added Andrew Duff floating around a similar area, but wanted to highlight the disparity visually more strikingly so with a single face.
6. The various ratios are indicative, a general feel, a general impression of the speakers and their coherence and consistency of their arguments vs how regularly they draw attraction from mass media channels of communication.

 Why Chinese leaders are laughing at Donald Trump

There was an interesting and I think accurate observation in City AM by Louisa Bojesen:-

"Then an important point was made. Democracy only works when you have a society of smart people. Think about it. [...] Some might argue that, if you can’t have an “intelligent democracy”, then you would be better off with a kind of “benevolent dictator” system."

Now looking at the reaction of a system of government that believes democracy does not work:-

Phillips quotes the Communist party-controlled Global Times: “The rise of a racist in the US political area worries the whole world… He has even been called another Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler by some western media... Mussolini and Hitler came to power through elections, a heavy lesson for western democracy.” Phillips writes, “Trump, or ‘Chuanpu' as they call him in China, has been a gift to Communist party spin doctors paid to convince the country’s 1.4bn citizens that rule of the people is a sure path to chaos and destruction.”

Before progressing, retrospectively there's some themes that repeat here: We looked at the absence of intelligence in How To Vote: A Simple Guide to Decision-Making; which as part of a long-standing goal of this blog attempted to provide a simplification for conducive decision-making for the voter. This was off the basis of previous work: Discrīmen: Arguments have their own reasons where the idea of reduction in knowledge per level of dissemination/distribution to more and more people is a natural process of democracy decision-making but still a workable framework for improving national decision-making and I believe do-able/achievable. Then to come back to Democracy directly: Dêmos + Kratos = A Community That Communicates Productively here we looked at a similar theme to this blog but also provided details of successful democracy in Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The assertion here was that the quality of communication is possibly correlated positively with democracy and by implication a more intelligent decision-making process; achieved.

 Uniting Nations - Out Of Touch: "You're outta touch; I'm outta touch!"

Our older forms of social organization are our family and then tribal forms which probably existed many times longer than all the subsequent forms of human organization put together. thus when dealing with people, the LOCAL SCALE of Democracy is all important.

The Harrogate Agenda:  2. Real local democracy

"To that effect, our aim must be to invert the entire structure of the British state. Instead of the top-down systems, we need to start locally and create structures built from the bottom-up. [...]

What we are proposing is nothing short of revolution. The fundamental building blocks of our democracy should become independent local units which owe their existence to the people who live within their boundaries. Instead of being statutory bodies – i.e., defined by statute, from which they derive their powers, under the control of central government – they become constitutional entities. Their existence, powers and revenue-raising capabilities are defined by the people via the medium of constitutions, approved by local referendums.

These local authorities – which could be counties, cities or the former county boroughs – become independent legislatures is their own right. Whereas local authorities were once permitted to make by-laws, defined and permitted by central government, true local government makes its own laws in its own name. Each district makes all the laws for matters exclusive to its area, using powers defined by its own constitution, applicable within its own boundary.

Some might think that local authorities are too small to become legislatures, but size is not an issue. Few people for instance, realise that Iceland, with a population of 313,000, boasts fewer people than the London Borough of Croydon (363,000) and very substantially less than the Metropolitan District of Bradford (501,000).

Yet Iceland is a sovereign nation. It has its own government, its own parliament, its own laws, its police and even its own fishing policy and navy to enforce it. Despite its small size, the country does tolerably well, with a GDP of $12.57 billion (146th in the world) and a GDP per capita of $38,500, the 24th highest in the global league (higher than the UK’s $36,600, the 33rd highest).  It also has its own local government, with 59 local municipalities.

In Norway, which has approximately five million inhabitants, there are 428 municipalities and 19 county authorities. More than half the municipalities have less than 5,000 inhabitants and only 14 have more than 50,000. The largest municipality is Oslo, which is also a county. It has approximately 620,000 inhabitants. But the smallest municipality is Utsira with 209 inhabitants.[...]

In some respects, this also solves some of problems we have with MPs. One might expect seats to be apportioned on a county basis, with approximately one per 120,000 head of population. This ratio gives a House of Commons roughly the same size as it is at present. The boundaries would be fixed.  As population varied, so would the number of MPs, keeping constituencies wholly within the bounds of specific local authority areas.

The reckoning should be, incidentally, based on population rather than electorate. Our MPs should be representing the interests of all of their constituents, not just those who can vote.

However, some might argue that, with a reduced workload, fewer MPs would be needed, with a ratio of perhaps 200,000 or more for each representative, possibly stretching to one per 500,000 head of population. Where the United States House of Representatives manages to make do with 435 voting members, our House of Commons might be able to reduce itself to less than 300, saving expense. We might expect numbers in the House of Lords to be proportionately reduced – with perhaps only a hundred or so working members needed.

 Now we look at China: Demographics of China

"According to the 2010 census, 91.51% of the population was Han Chinese, and 8.49% were minorities."

What we have it appears to me is the transition of Tribal to Institutional/ Centralized Governance which is then dealing with Globalization and Market Forces acting on such institutions. Many people think the solution to this is "The Blob Solution": To increase the size of the units of these institutions to counter-act global forces. I don't think this is a very good solution for the future, it takes power away from people and that usually ends up badly for people. Secondly we can look at the effects of the "Blob Solution" today in the UK and indeed in the EU. Firstly our UK Referendum:-

The EU choice is clear: let in murderers and rapists or ruin your children's lives. Thank God we've resisted hyperbole

 Readers can feel "relief" that the result the Legacy News-Media promotes and supports is as banal as they thought it was; and how fortunate to have the Legacy-News Media point it out!

Is it irony or hypocrisy or both? Either way this result is exactly mirrored in the above graph I've provided. The problem is "loss of knowledge" the greater the mass of people the message is communicated to from a Centralized source. Here the Blob Effect exerts it's effects to the detriment of increasing knowledge and making intelligent democratic decision-making. So China may find this supports their own system of governance. But it does in the sense of the scale of people they have to govern and the "homogeneity" of those people (91% self-identifying Han). 

 Legacy News-Media Visualized Accurately: This is really the source of news you're being provided with!!! (packet of BLANK photocopy paper)

Compare to Europe:-

EUROPE:

• 50 Countries
• ~225 languages
• 742,452,000 population

"Ancient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation. Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece. The Greeks city-state, the polis, was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece^. In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens. The Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions: in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer; in drama with Sophocles and Euripides, in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes. In the course of the 5th century BC, several of the Greek city states would ultimately check the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars, considered a pivotal moment in world history, as the 50 years of peace that followed are known as Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilization."

For whatever reasons, Greece, perhaps it's network of surrounding cultures fed into an increase culturally shared and synthesized knowledge as well as it's own forms of cultural transmission and education? I think this is the measure of success that is worth looking at more than territory size or number of people within a grouping system. If we look at the history of the European Union in The Great Deception (I recently reread it) it shows a lot of attempts to make a big group unit at the same time as not acknowledging a changing world nor the negatives of politicians power mongering more power between themselves as we've seen so often with the outcomes of the European Union. Instead I think the increase in Local Democracy via:-

Curiously I came up with a similar model of understanding to explain the differences between the Middle East and the Western Civilization and where Western Civilization might need to be focusing attention while being overly distracted by the Middle East's transition problems (their problems don't necessarily match our problems: See transitions T->I/M vs I/M->N): a dire shortage of alternative models.

At the same time as the explosion at Globalization, this leaves the present institutions simply failing people and resorting to reversals to Tribalism or else attempting to make democracy work at ever larger groups/blobs of people: The European Union ie Institutional Hierarchies further away from Local Democracy ie Family and Local Ties in touch with their personal experience and relationships.

Looked at via this particular model or perspective, it seems to me to connect a lot of different things that otherwise appear disparate:-

• EU Referendum: corruption at the heart of the media
• The EU is not a trade bloc - it's a power cult
• The smoke and mirrors of global governance
• If The Conservative Government Is Truly Evil, Where’s The Left Wing Revolution? 
• Labour – vacating the stage
• Brussels bombings and political capital 
• EU Referendum: they've got your number

I think it's probably better for anyone interested to read the above articles then start to think in context to the above model how they all are connected; for example "understanding the troubles that afflict the Middle East" may actually improve Foreign Policy along with greater democratic input into our policies by our people. Suffice to say for the purposes of this blog a simple and honest conclusion:-

The result of this referendum does not matter either way. The process of knowledge dissemination via the various channels which will be an indication or measure of the quality of communication via mass media and now electronically see Dr. RAE North's comments EU Referendum: positives and negatives:-

"Interestingly, at the Dawlish meeting, back in September 2014, we predicted that the opposition would be majoring on the idea that leaving the EU would be a "leap in the dark". Here we are now, with the Prime Minister pushing precisely that as a slogan and the "Stronger In" campaign sending out leaflets with that emblazoned on the front.

Countering this meme will be our positive contribution to the campaign, funded largely by the generous contributions of our readers, which are still coming in via the direct route. Nonetheless, we still need additional funds to get the message out, and to support our blogging effort.

Our current plans take account of the Scottish experience where much of the campaigning took place on the internet. The battle was largely out of sight of the legacy media – which made the usual mistake of believing that it was dominating the debate"

this is changing the nature of how we communicate ideas and make decision-making at a political level. The quality of communication is a very strong measure of the underlying deficiencies or deficits in democracy: How open it is, how transparent (not behind closed-doors) and how diverse the ideas input into decision-making are. In answer to the question by Louisa Bojesen above: I'd prefer to live in a politically much more local system such as Norway, Iceland or Switzerland than China: The Blob Solution just increases the exertion of political weight over those below. When we see figures such as Trump or Johnson on our televisions and newspapers, all that's proving is:-

Pigeon-Holing Popularity = '50% Democracy' (at it's maximum)

• A Democratic Deficit
• Hierarchical Institutional Redundancy (News-Media, Parliament, Religion, Banks etc)
• A lack of Alternative Solutions: reverting to old or present solutions to future problems

The Political Food Web of Prestige

The Food Web of Political Prestige

Before explaining the above, a wire frame version in text:-

Wire Frame: Layers (red arrows) & Levels (Groups) of Political Prestige

 Vital Statistic of this Vision of Politics of our EU Referendum:-

(1) Top of the Food Chain: David Cameron = PM Office of Power

At the top of the food web is David Cameron, The Great White Shark, with a huge huge huge Prestige Base flowing downwards far larger in magnitude than anything else both absolutely and in proportional ratio of dispersal of prestige further down the food chain.

Dr. RAE North has being making this effect explicit for sustained number of blogs, in particular: EU Referendum: the role of prestige. The ability to recommend via Government and via Statesmanship with the EU and other major institutions and other European leaders  and through various meetings shape the conditions of the vote is without equal.

(2) Legacy News-Media has a vast number of connections

What is noticeable, is that the channels of communication (their tentacles in the top diagram) of this Referendum are pivotal to the outcome of the vote. Groups can only influence other groups to influence yet further groups via the channels of communication available to them, their exposure.

A strong example of this is the spread coverage that the prestige of David Cameron entitles him and the folly of the legacy news-media reporting as per Dr. RAE North EU Referendum: a humiliating retreat from journalism this seems to explain a major component of the level of ignorance over the EU and Brexit of the British public for >40yrs... and again blogged about by LeaveHQ in The media has lost the plot  and again via The Sceptic Isle: The media’s analysis of the EU referendum is lamentable.

(3) The Electorate/Public are many LAYERS down the Prestige Food Web

Looking at Polls, the randomness of them in conjunction to general public sentiment, the obsession of the politicians with Big Data Mining of people's information, the rarity of Referendums in the UK and indeed voting on Major Treaties to do with the EU, the public are treated as political problem to be avoided as much as possible. Given the failure of the Legacy News-Media to educate at the same time as the opportunity of the public to set up their own blogs for other people and organize the information from other groups such as Think Tanks, papers published by the HM Government, by the EU or indeed the vast range of Global Bodies (UNECE, EFTA, Codex Alimentarius, WTO, G20, etc etc) as well as Political Parties, there exists an opportunity to directly communicate structured information via the internet to voters for this Popular Referendum.

The Referendum is when the politicians have failed to resolve a question of politics which continues to damage their legitimacy and hence must pose the question directly to the public. More information on Referendums as per Direct/Real Democracy: How They Do It In Switzerland by Campaign For An Independent Britain.

(4) The LEVELS of Prestige at which each group functions prohibits public education

It seems to me that blogs are exposing this, along with Twitter; leading to Technological Disruption to the old order. Some clear examples of these clashes:-

Lost Leonardo blogs about such an exchange at F For Fail. Another example is from the Pro-EU Think Tank British Influence which published Ten questions that Eurosceptics must answer about Brexit ; but when challenged by a blog "below the line" (get used to the meaning of this phrase!!) such as, Brexit: Ten answers to ten questions and then the "Think Tank" British Influence avoids communication as per the follow-up: British Influence haven't the guts to take us on. What is fascinating is that the video linked:-

FLEXCIT Presentation by Dr. RAE North

Is highly accessible. If I was from a Journalist post or a Think Tank, doing my research in this area, I would have found this video and compared it to many else besides for example these "Brexit" presentations list: Alternatives to EU Membership Conference 2015 - 16 videos and even the Brexit IEA shortlist from another "Think Tank" and developed a full picture of the state of the art of Brexit. But the Fallacy of Omission is employed via the tools of Prestige.

(5) The Higher The LEVEL of Prestige operating the more compromised the communication

A very good example of this is our Prime Minister, David Cameron or indeed the many eminent high status personages we met in The Columbo Method: Norway. Dr. RAE North records David Cameron's words here EU Referendum: in the deadly grip of "Europe" which is increasing beginning to hark back to one Tony Blair and the national sense of betrayal over The Iraq War. But then this is decades old as we've also discovered written in the history of the EU in The Great Deception, which continues to be largely ignored, apart from the very rare gleam of light, "AN OPTIMISTIC VISION OF A POST-EU UNITED KINGDOM" - Rt Hon Owen Paterson MP through the self-made miasma of confusion created by the interrelation and interactions of the different layers of prestige per group per level. This insistence not to form a researched basis or common ground for argument over the perceived problem of EU Membership continues to add more layers of deception over the original ones, decades ago by such as Edward Heath.

(6) Party Politics & Think Tanks, News-Media & Campaigns tend to be compromised by each other

The curiosity this food web of prestige is made clear in a number of blogs by The Boiling Frog:

• EU Referendum: WESS Digital, Guido And Matthew Elliott
• EU Referendum: Enriching Matthew Elliott and Friends...?
• Business For Elliott's Friends 
• EU Referendum, Data Mining And Hong Kong
• Guido Fawkes: Vote Leave, Take Control?
• EU Referendum: Elliott Was Director Of Britain in Europe Campaign Ltd 

 And it extends to "friends in journalism":-

• EU Referendum: a particularly stupid idea
• EU Referendum: designation - the war of words  

A different angle compromising so-called Think Tanks was covered previously with the IEA Brexit Prize:-

• Lakshmi: Goddess of Prosperity (2) 

When we do get Think Tanks that hover nearer to a more "impartial" picture of Brexit as per The Adam Smith Institute "What exactly is the case for Brexit?" they seem too partial to their own filters and could simply refer for a much clearer and "on the pulse" picture from a "mere blogger" as Lost Leonardo provides: The Story So Far... 

Perhaps for a Referendum one of the worst forms of negative bias is the "tribal identity politics" such as discussed by both White Wednesday and The Brexit Door respectively, dragging everyone else down to their low quality argument zones as per Argument Abstraction, respectively:-

• We need to talk about immigration 
• Presenting The 'Open Goal'

This problem is easily magnified when for example a Twitter a/c with a handle that contains all the costume of "eurosceptic" retweets sources that are compromised by this food web that confuse, deceive and play according to the rules of prestige not real information quality and no wonder Pete North blogs Fun while it lasted concerning the "damaged goods" that is all three of the present Referendum Campaigns (Vote Leave, Leave.EU and BSE):-

LeaveEU is evidently passionate about leaving but I've yet to come across an Economist EU/Brexit article that was not deeply compromised... and the "decoy" starts drawing other "birds of a feather" in.

(7) The Structure of the Polical "Food Web" suggests a Top-Down Political Reality...

For me I can't do better than suggest despite the slight tendentious diagram construction, that better communication will lead to better relationships which requires systematic reformation of our politics closer towards people:-

• Brexit - A Catalyst For Political Reform
• Grand Strategy: "Promotion"