Listening to the Sounds of a Referendum

"Sounds Of Silence" by Astranat (Deviantart)

Most people have heard of The Butterfly Effect?

"In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state."

Some interesting observations concerning the so-called national discussion of Britain's Referendum on EU Membership in the legacy news-media from Dr. RAE North EU Referendum: the tedium of it all and from Lost Leonardo The Mainstream Debate ; an excellent summary at The Sceptic Isle The media’s analysis of the EU referendum is lamentable:-

"Prepare yourself for the long haul; there will be no early referendum. The timetable was set out last June in the Five Presidents’ Report. The process of treaty change will begin in 2017 and will look to create a two-tier EU, it is on the basis of that treaty that David Cameron will present Britain with it’s “reformed Europe” and “British model” of membership."

"Despite this reality having been apparent for quite some time the media are still making up rubbish about an early referendum, demands being made, rebuffed and backtracked on and generally muddying the waters."

The Brexit Door Presenting The 'Open Goal' along with many such refrains from White Wednesday (We Need To Talk About Immigration) laments the degradation of quality of argument (see Argument Abstraction) that is not only demeaning but also detracting from winning the argument (the irony of bigotry)

Brexit simplified = Arguing the Central Point: "What is Brexit?"

What all the above are really illustrating in total combination is this point (pun intended): The Central Argument not being argued means the quality of argument suffers; which Pete North points out in direct relation to both Leave Campaigns in Fun While It Lasted. It does mean more waffle to fill columns, more "controversy generation" for the legacy news-media. An example of a news-story that caught my eye in particular illustrating this:-

Glamour, Controversy, Accusations, Counter-Accusations: Purr-fect!

I can't see too many downsides to this story: The BBC gets splash coverage of Strictly Come Dancing (which is quite an enjoyable musical-dance show imo), Ola Jordan gets some publicity perhaps for her subsequent act and the news-media are delivered a news-story with all the elements of interest, in particular Ola Jordan herself, a consummately, professional dancer and alluring screen presence rolled into one.

Sometimes I don't really mind these sorts of stories, I think I "get" what is going on and I remember when the above lady won Strictly Come Dancing with Chris Hollins, demonstrating a huge degree of professional pride when they both won demonstrating two really wonderful emotions we all enjoy seeing on our screens (Reference: Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun):-

• Fiero = The expression of triumph when you have achieved a significant task (pumping your fist, for example). 
• Naches = The feeling you get when someone you mentor succeeds (professional pride)

In particular, Strictly Come Dancing demonstrates the second emotion very well in my opinion and it's great to see.

However such Sound And The Fury when it comes to Politics, an area where perhaps less pleasure should be mixed with business, we end up with:-

It's barely entertaining, in fact as per above it's "tedious and boring" which are deadly to democracy.

"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." ~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28

As we can see, most people are attracted to controversy, as per Robert Cialdini,  strong social relations pressures drive us to act in ways that influence us far more than we're really ready to admit and the result is the battle between people climbing the social ladder to dominate and those falling down the ladder into submission, for every Naches there's Schadenfreude at seeing our competitors or rivals fall off the ladder (!). If you notice a lot of those google news stories have "David Cameron" at the top: He must be very very important to our societies very survival and well-being to hold such media exposure and talk around him?

And this is the problem: This is not entertainment but very serious for millions of people yet here we are with this soap-drama scrutinizing the emotions on David Cameron's face; all that is going on is the Dominance-Submission relationship as per Legitimacy & Listening. But there we learnt that this is built from Authority Influence (see Cialdini: The "expert" in the white coat selling you toothpaste on the television advert (who is in fact an actor picked for his "chemistry appeal" again Cialdini) which itself is derived from The Office of Prime Minister which is based on 3 levels of Legitimacy:-

• Cognitive
• Moral
• Pragmatic

How do we lose the Referendum? By ensuring that authority is perceived in the public debate only through David Cameron. This is presently operating.

The sound of a tiny drop of water dropping into an ocean.

How do we win the Referendum? By questioning that authority against expertise and real knowledge that is communicated from a source of authority based off that cognitive legitimacy that is tranmitted either through or around the legacy news-media. The more it can be shown/revealed that Cameron's legitimacy is deeply compromised by The Great Deception and vica-versa the more cognitive legitimacy is amplified from a source of authority in public, open communication, the greater the public will make their verdict on the EU Referendum on the value of David Cameron to our society vs the damage to our society he is perceived to be causing and continuing via his domination of the Popular Referendum.

Leave Campaign: A source of cognitive legitimacy

We have this referendum because our politicians made a huge mistake they have not admitted to and have after >40yrs admitted they cannot resolve legitimately without the people signing up to "What Next?": How about politicians being forced to listen instead of making so much wasteful noise for once? As per Leave HQ: Why We Must Leave?

I Can't Believe It's Not Brexit! Can You?

I can: It's NOT butter!

I am very cynical of advertising; a particularly good area of research on  sales techniques is Robert Cialdini's The Art of Influence, so much so GCHQ as part of it's online influence training/methods referenced this work iirc. Effectively the above is attempting to ensure their brand is remembered by you when you're shopping and swamped by choices of which "butter" to buy, you may have a tendencies to pick the brand on familiarity simply due to a default and low requirement to think about such a trivial choice.

The above I remember because it had a very annoying "Ear Worm Catch-Phrase" but also for me, margerine tastes nothing like butter! Where one tastes "organic" in the way vegetables or meat taste "organic", margerine tastes synthetic. Evidently it sells very well, perhaps due to "low fat" branding and "easily spreadable properties" so it has it's place and I'm not knocking it as a poor quality product, just that it's an imitation butter and I'd personally prefer be labelled as such:-

"is an imitation butter spread used for spreading, baking, and cooking. It was originally created from beef tallow and skimmed milk in 1869 in France by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, as a result of a challenge proposed by Emperor Napoleon III to create a substitute for butter for the armed forces and lower classes. It would later be named “margarine”.

Whereas butter is made from the butterfat of milk, modern margarine is made mainly of refined vegetable oil and water, and may also contain milk. In some locales it is colloquially referred to as "oleo", short for oleomargarine.

Margarine, like butter, consists of a water-in-fat emulsion, with tiny droplets of water dispersed uniformly throughout a fat phase which is in a stable crystalline form. In some jurisdictions margarine must have a minimum fat content of 80% to be labelled as such, the same as butter. Colloquially in the US, the term margarine is used to describe "non-dairy spreads" like Country Crock, and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter! with varying amounts of fat content."

What I'm trying to say here, is that advertising is the Art of the Plausible. As such there's a great deal of this in politics, where multiple viewpoints and values in modern secular societies are concerned. This may be "Popularity Politics", but it leads to an erosion of clear definitons and hence clear communication as per Communication: Shadows On The Wall (2) .

The stricter definitions of the words are:-

Possible > Plausible > Probable > Likely

But in politics it boils down between Plausible and Popular Sounding to gain "Vote Share" (in whatever context (people/politicians/nations/etc) vs politically possible within the rules of for example Treaty Laws and the wider interrelations such as Market forces and as well within some scope of popular acceptability. As the diagram above attempts to illustrate there's a widening divergence between the the art of selling a political proposition and the actual political "product" itself. Like the above "margerine" it may advertise itself as equivalent to butter but it is not defined as butter technically!

And so it is with Brexit. Which I've defined very clearly and as simply as possible in Brexit For Beginners and elsewhere The Brexit Number and the EU Onion. The result of this lack of clarity is of course confusion as repeated numerous times for example: Understanding The Mountains Of Madness. We looked The Columbo Method: Norway previously and perhaps another detective can help when considering the Plausible vs the Possible:-

Brexit: When defined seems like a much less grand out-come than anticipated. But that's because it's merely the first step into a larger world.

To understand Brexit in terms of the difference between Plausibility and Possibility in Politics, FLEXCIT applies considerable definition of limitations ie demarcation between plausible and possible Brexit events and hence options. This is the grounding for The Market Solution:-

"Negotiators  will  have  to  deal  with  the  political  realities  of  the  day,  and  be forced to respond to the demands and limitations imposed on them."

"Compromise will not so much be possible as inevitable."

"We do not consider that it is possible to resolve all the issues arising from forty years of political and economic integration in one set of talks, or one stage."

"Whilst  we  aver  that  it would  be  impossible  to  win  a  referendum  with  a  plan which  seeks  to  reject  the  EU's  freedom  of  movement  provisions."

"Estimates  cannot  be  any  stronger  than  the  validity  of  the  assumptions on which they are based. Weak assumptions, lacking a sound evidential base or not  rooted  in the  real  world, are  poor  foundations  for  any  plan.  Dazzling predictive    models    and    complex    calculations    cannot    remedy    inherent deficiencies."

"No solutions offered in respect of specifics are of any  value unless  they  fit with others  to make a fully integrated whole.  There  is  no  point defining  any one  policy  area  if  the outcome creates irresolvable problems  elsewhere.  Partial  solutions  are  not  an  answer.  An  exit strategy must  work  as  a  whole,  providing  the  best  fit  over  the  entire  policy domain – even  if  it requires  adopting sub-optimal  policies  in  some specific areas."

Numerous stringent caveats on Brexit production are clearly given from multiple view points in FLEXCIT, by Dr. RAE North. Heed Sherlock Holmes' deductive advice!

And much of the Legacy News-Media and "think tanks" stream of report after report about "What is Brexit?" including "Plausible Brexit Options" not appreciating the narrowing to "Possible Brexit Options", for example: British Influence: What Would Happen if the UK Voted To Leave or indeed another report it's similar to: Global Council Brexit: The Impact on the UK and the EU and there are endless numbers of these reports. The most interesting facet of them comes down to:-

Advertising political propositions: Which is the more plausible product vs MORE importantly which is the most possible product?

No doubt David Cameron's Association Membership "British Model" will be "much better/butter" (sorry about the pun!) than all? Well no not if it's a lateral transition not a vertical transition in redefining our relationship with the EU:-

So we come back to: British Influence: Ten questions that Brexit supporters need to be able to answer which LeaveHQ addresses, which draws from much of the answers to these questions already written in FLEXCIT: The definitive EU exit plan for Britain:-

Brexit: Ten answers to ten questions

So feel free to read the more in-depth answers there. However, one of the important tasks of this EU/Referendum/Brexit debate is to organize information and increase understanding. A "war of words" or "wall of text" is an inhibitor to this outcome. So given the above use of conceptual understanding given above, to answer the questions in a way that presents the essence of A Science of Simplicity in which is asserted:-

• Complexity = EU = Fragile = Deceptive
• Simplicity = Brexit = Flexible = Trust

Where Brexit defined =

"Brexit (British Exit)" = “Withdrawal from the EU Political Treaties which grant representation of politicians in the EU political institutions and removal of such representation” - only – via triggering Article 50 Lisbon Treaty

Which means Brexit is merely x1 step, a single stage or Present Simple Event of change of Relationship Status of the UK with the EU qualitatively not quantitatively as component of FLEXCIT, the full process, itself. This incidentally is not wishful thinking: It mirrors the "Engrenage" and "negotiations" that are phantom of our Prime Minister David Cameron according to the EU Time-Table on Association Membership status (new relationship quantitatively not qualitatively) stretching from 2013-2017-2020+!

Here's the answer to British Influence. I've even appropriately organized the questions according to their categorization to help with clarity of understanding. What Brexiteers/Pro-Brexit Supporters need to do is understand that Brexit must be politically possible (which is much much smaller range of possibility than "politically plausible"), to then trigger democratic legitimacy and trump The Great Deception once and for all in Britain.