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....)

A Communication Revolution: The Flowering Of Ideas

Andrew Graham takes it upon himself to sermonize to the masses the word of "Above The Line" and the privileged and prestigious few in our society in the UK.

The above is taken from The Guardian:  If you think the UK will be in control after Brexit, dream on ~ Andrew Graham. It was selected from "Google News" = "Brexit" for the date of 17th June 2016 and appeared on the front page of these search results. It is not especially exceptional, in fact it's very ordinary and hence more representative from my consideration of scouring over such news sources and article on this subject for over 2 years and longer.

What is noticeable, however is that whereas years before such articles were an impregnable wall with a high uptick of supporting comments (god only knows who...) we see more and more that "Below The Line" the comments section often "gets straight to the point" without all the bluster and bullshitting and deception of words on the page: See above the 3 top comments. Comment 2 perfectly regurgitates the types of Remain arguments we looked at in the previous blog: The Remain Argument: A Hollow Relationship Built From Empty Promises. In fact, the tone of the actual article is interesting, if you look at the highlighted comments, we knew this was coming from the Remain argument:-

1. Dismiss
2. Threaten
3. Plead

For so long the argument on EU Membership has been "Dismissal" not engagement in our national conversation. This still carries on in vestigial form as "The Tory Party feuding" meme but little quantifies the sheer volume of news generation and political attention expended (in my opinion wastefully though likely effectively for obfuscation by politicians against the people) on this subject for so long (decades).

Whenever this Dismissal broke down, and serious consideration finally bubbled up from the depths, the FUD was effectively deployed and the graveness of an "unthinkable" exit from "the club" (or cult??) was pronounced.

Finally, even though this Referendum is premature due to our Prime Minister's bent behaviour (too much power vested in one tiny little frame spells trouble surely?), the fact the option is extant means that due consideration has had to build for the possibility of withdrawal. And hence the "Pleading" tone. In fact Pete North, No Mr Deacon, respect is earned. notices this cajoling, this use of prestigious figureheads to assert their opinion based on their own shallow engagement with the arguments and much worse - with the people themselves. Titles, reputations, measures of social success (money) and the like all tend to make such people believe their opinions carry more weight perhaps than other people? Well maybe in their own area of expertise and experience, but are they able to balance their personal perspective with a universal perspective more objective and informed of the actual arguments themselves? It does not seem so, just looking at the "thrashing around" of Philip Greene when brought to bear on the end result of BHS I think a lot of the people in the upper echelons of society have learnt only that their ability to exhibit dominant behaviour has led to success and prestige in whatever field of life and work they're involved in and you see them revert to this preferred tendency when under pressure.

 OUTRIGHT FRAUD: People will surely look back at Vote Leave's £350m LIE and Remain/Cameron/Osborne's "Brexit is the wailing and gnashing of teeth" via "Econometric Expert Studies Consensus!" and wonder what the hell possessed people to "FOLLOW" and not "QUESTION". In fact they'll likely surmise a social behavioural phenomenon of Dominance Behaviour amongst "the knaked ape" inviting and allowing such destructive deception on populations of people.

I'd argue, for a lot of people, you'll always be under the thumb of such a process in society with such types rising to the top, so-called obsession with "leaders" in business payed bloated salaries (same phenomenon in drug gangs) and people who are naturally inclined to "follow". But there is a possible way to rebalance society more evenly from this "type dominance" eg Tony Blair was a striking example here: Knowledge. I think the spread of more knowledge in society will see a greater diversity of types of people engaged in politics professionally and hence it may be considered a growing diversity of ideas flourishing in contention with finding solutions to problems. In fact we're already seeing this with the useless displays in the news-media and in our Westminster "talking-shop". And much more so online too. Looking again at the above Guardian Article, the tone of pleading is that "Our betters will only be able to look after us if we vote for how they say we should vote".

 Concerning Brexit: Those with their hands on the levers of power inform the people on "what is fit" criteria - but for whom: The Few or The Many? When ideas are free and fairly allowed to compete under actual conditions... we see in the case of the many many Brexit plans produced, only a few are viable to "generate a new population" eg “These route maps by Pro Brexit thinkers”, he said, “go by names such as Flexcit, Europe 2.0, or the Liberal Case for Leave.” (Cook’s Piece starts at about 10 minutes)

Flexcit Breaks Cover – Newsnight ~ The Brexit Door

But it's time for people to look after themselves and thereby avoid these establishment types reverting to looking after themselves through dominating the rest of the people ie "Representative Democracy" - a Fraudulent Democracy by all accounts so far?

Fortunately with commentary and a two-way communication process of Many People with Many People over for example the internet we're seeing progress by-passing the controlled channels of communication; we're also seeing the abilities of many people leading to a finer and more attuned "Bullshit Detector" that is so important to develop alongside the knowledge increase of the actual arguments and indeed the ability to understand arguments and debate and critical thinking processes as well.

So the point of this article is not only look at the actual arguments themselves, but the channels of communication and the responses to arguments and in particular the lopsided "Above The Line" tendency of Remain advocates against the "Below The Line" Leave advocates:-

 The online forum system using tree-commenting at reddit is very good structure for reading, but as the above shows very open to manipulation and dismissal of constructive comments with high information value in favour of ignorance, prejudice and stamping down on "dissenting voices" from the preferred orthodoxy at this subreddit (r-unitedkingdom). Whether or not for traffic, for groupthink amongst various regulars or other possibilities (manipulative), the same process of communication hinderance to the exchange of information and ideas...

Here we see that politics in the UK has a massive dysfunctional communication problem. But where communication channels open up to more people, more ideas and stronger ideas will become exposed to more people and more fairly:-

 EU Referendum: Flexcit v.6

 FLEXCIT V.6 - Now up to 80,000 downloads and counting...

Confused? Don't Be: Consensus Now! Contrition Much Later.

I may have misread the artist's intention here, but this is the nearest I could find to illustrate the targeted emotion of "Contrition". (Incidentally an emotion that I think is displayed a great deal more successfully in Japanese Anime than in Western animation which seems closer to some version of "humble-brag" and hence inferior storytelling execution and design for the viewing by children).

In our arguments, on such a complex and large subject as EU Membership, we deal with subjects that are not a question of complete exactness. As such the details we input into our arguments are mostly not a question of completely verified facts or figures though constituent parts of those arguments should/must contain as many of these as possible or as few of their opposite as possible). And so it must follow that any conclusions from results that analysis adn research allows, cannot equally be completely validated.

This then brings us into the realms of political consensus to dictate our decisions we would take once democratic discussion has operated on the above.

However, there is still a sequence:-

1. Identify The Problem
2. Narrow Down The Solutions Possible
3. Interpret The Consequential Outcomes

If you are at all familiar with EUReferendum.com for the past so many years, this is exactly I would say the work that has been (again I would say successfully) carried out there. Today's blog by Dr. RAE North, EU Referendum: the lack of a plan very much retrospects on that work (indirectly) point out because it has NOT being incorporated by either Aaron Banks or Dominic Cummings and hence why this is a mistake for the present Referendum campaign commandeered by Vote Leave:-

"But the alarming truth is that they probably can't. To win this referendum, we had to get in first and pre-empt the scare tactics, laying a solid base of reassurance. Thus, the moment Dominic Cummings, for no good reason, rejected the idea of an exit plan, the leave campaign's fate was probably sealed.

We might possibly have been able to claw back from this huge error if Arron Banks had been a man of his word, and backed Flexcit as he said he would. He would also have had to have been successful in seeking lead designation for the "leave" proposition. He was our last chance, and he failed.

For an excellent review of where we could have been, Andrew Stuttaford's article in National Review is the place to be, especially as he makes the point that we have been pursuing the idea of an exit plan for years, only to have been ignored for several and different reasons.

Asa Bennett helps by making it clear that Vote Leave's refusal to adopt and exit plan – any exit plan – was never personal. This was a function of the flawed logic and ignorance of Dominic Cummings, the progenitor of a failed strategy – and also the craven response of the people around Cummings who never had the courage to rein him in.

The result has been a train-wreck campaign."

Why did these people not use the work that had already been laid down? In their own pockets of supporters they decided variably that (2. Narrowing down the solutions possible) would lead to a loss of consensus amongst different groups: For Leave.EU/GO that meant the "anti-immigration" supporters. For Vote Leave that meant the Top Echelons of the "eurosceptic aristocracy" and their dysfunctional dynamic would not permit such.

So in this Consensus Activity without "2." we cannot break through the message to "3. Interpreting the Consequential Outcomes or indeed Conclusions" and hence "Uncertainty, Could & Consensus" and all pundits leaning on the findings of the Biggest Consensus" discernment possible from polls, from various groups of identities:-

It's not only the above who are famed for their prowess in lying. It's also groups of economists and their famed prowess for poor predictions:-

Economists deserve to be ignored

Brexit could add two years to austerity, IFS says

Brexiters’ insouciance is the privilege of the rich - Free FT piece

Only 27% of voters think Leave campaign "credible and trustworthy", down 10% in week.

The Treasury warns of a “do-it-yourself” recession after a Brexit vote

Leaving the European Union would be a “major mistake” that would cost Britain in both the short and the long term, almost 200 economists are warning today. In a letter to The Times, 171 academic and 25 non-academic economists say that Brexit would ...

Economic Brexit? Consensus/Computer says: "Inconceivable!"

Be that as it may, we do actually have certainty about something: EUReferendum.com predicted all this >2/3yrs ago and longer. In fact, EUReferendum.com is the source of "Problem Identification" it then follows with the most competent and rigorous analysis of the "Solutions Possible" and follows on with 3.

So let's come back to the orginal problem for this political Direct Democracy Referendum process:-

1. We cannot be completely exact.
2. This does not however preclude the principles of working towards verification of facts and figures into our arguments to the highest confidence degree (peer review is not the same as consensus through conviction of the largest group of people or the most socially elevated).
3. Hence our conclusions if we are to make predictions are to be considered with the most confidence towards validating our course of action in the subsequent outcomes of Remain or Leave.

But this is just to point out the obvious. What is the fundamental problem here in the actual process of politics, as opposed to working methodology for our information usage?

Education.

The information I think is very solid from EUReferendum.com. However the big problem is education. In fact this Referendum in 2016 premature it may be, it will act as the emotional consensus trigger towards a subsequent national contrition that is the release from the phony arguments freeing up space and putting people into a frame of mind where they DEMAND to learn more as opposed to react over-excitedly and in thrall to the habitual channels of communication of politics (juvenile quality) and we can see more mature methods introduced subsequently.

 What Happened? The shock of Brazil fans... ""this isn't supposed to happen to Brazil's national, football team.""

I might go further and say this Referendum, the more the FUD, The Economic Uncertainty is pushed by the Remain and Establishment groups in their consensus building the more this prestages the subsequent step of Education and the conditions that are needed to make this more possible than the past 2 years have suggested it has not been.

The need of people to learn I think will only be triggered after experiencing this contrition on a suitably mass and national scale. I think this because individual sense of contrition is different from when a whole group of people suddenly experience that they were all hopeless wrong or self-deceived in their previous impervious conviction of being right (especially being right together in such "sound" company!). That anime face I hope attempts to convey this "(collective) Oh Shit!" feeling.

So far the politicians and economists are paving the way. On the one hand, the UK gaining 10 years advance on this process could have been wonderful. But "could" as Remain keep pointing out is no good basis for arguments and ensuring we improve the quality of arguments in our national decision-making.

And this comes back to the second part of this blog, the first being the quality of arguments, the second being the quality of the participants of arguments: Namely people have to learn to elevate their own quality through mistakes and experience of making mistakes: This Referendum is at least conducive on that second part if not on the first part. The politicians and economists are purely reflecting this - which gives people an opportunity to see and experience their own limitations in contributing to real democracy and thus the narrow form it takes (exclusion) consequentially, by those big groups of consensus builders who effectively displace the widening of arguments by more contributions by more people.

To use a flesh example, when Brazil were thoroughly thrashed by Germany:

"This match, however, ended in a shocking loss for Brazil; Germany led 5–0 at half time, with four goals scored in a span of six minutes, and subsequently brought the score up to 7–0 in the second half. Brazil scored a goal in the last minute, ending the match 7–1."

I was not surprised: They had looked like a weak team riding their status for too long in achieving results while Germany had spent years of hard work building their team for winning the World Cup in 2014 (I think ever since England thrashed them back in the early 2000's 5-1 or something (2001)!). But you can see the shock and dismay of the fans above. At least losing so badly may lead to asking questions more seriously and hence identifying the problems more successfully.