Nothing New Under The Sun

What is your observation?

Something a little perturbing:-

1. There's a lot of information available for people to inform themselves from.
2. It is actually challenging in being able to assort the quality of information from the quantity.
3. People seem more disposed to listen and watch a human-being, of some kind, high-status or authorative, tell them about the information and do most of the thinking for them.

I did a very casual and very cursory glance at some internet numbers on Barack Obama "Obama EU" and filtered this week on youtube and google-news:-

• Google News (pg.1): (333 more articles) ; (10 more articles) ; (1,124 more articles) ; (2,561 more articles) ; (23 more articles)
• Youtube (pg.1): 123,219 views Washington Free Beacon ; 22,937 views BBC News ; 13,013 views Live Streaming News 2 ; 12,988 views euronews ; 7,698 views ABC news ; 5,724 views CNN

Some quick eye-balling and it already gives a useful impression of the numbers racked up in reach or "exposure" Obama can generate; let alone any serious scraping of data or analytics from television or radio or other forms of mass media numbers. And it seems betting odds have shifted consequentially since Mr. Obama's intervention:-

 Money talks and Polling walks...

If we alternatively take one of the sources of information above: Top 10 Reasons to Leave the EU ~ John Petley, which is recently published:-

 Very well written and high in quality information (and indeed ratio of quality to quantity) but, in word form - only.



I've started dipping into it, and it's well written and informative. Yet even this booklet is a great barrier to accessibility by people; merely because of the difference above between the President of the United States and one of many books and many more words on this subject. Today Owen Paterson gave a speech concerning the EU and the Referendum:-

 A good speech, convincing tone of voice, but little visual+ information

Again many good points were made. However, merely listening to the speech, I feel that it also is inaccessible, more words instead of the eye, the ear. And the youtube viewer count was only 100 views when I last checked. Strictly speaking for myself, I'd say Obama and Paterson are both adept at conveying a deep sense of conviction in the tone of their voices. More or less I can actually (or could) switch off my thinking brain and let my "creative"/contextual side of brain function take over (like autopilot) and "go with the flow of the voice" and generally pick up agreement signals how much I accord with my impression of the speaker already!!!

 I'm not at all sure our present culture is very "suitable" on the RHS and nor is our education very "successful" on the LHS?

I think the Right Brain (as it's modelled for convenience) "comes more naturally" to people. The Left Brain requires a significant investment of "learning" to tackle complex information. Perhaps this disparity is a foundation for working on/with in future democracy and politics?

What we see above is that books and long speeches tend to narrow down the elements of communication. What President Obama is able to do so successfully is add that extra 55% of "body language" which it seems to me our Right Brains "love" so much! And I think the betting firms are reflecting this as opposed to the little "exercise" I contrived in the top image of "Spot The Odd One Out".

And if we really want to question Obama's credentials further:-

EU Referendum: a reply to Mr Obama

"One born every minute..."

There seems to have been a huge amount of information today and that will require another blog to consider on another subject. The subject here is working out why people are so apparently "vulnerable" to politicians' tools of persuasion.

An interesting comment was made by Andrew Stuttaford in Brexit: Plan? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Plan!

"Mario Cuomo famously said, “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.” There’s a lot to that, but a campaign designed to reassure (as the Brexit campaign must be) will need to include quite a bit of prose too."

Which I found from the link at EUReferendum.com courtesy of Dr. RAE North. It's a very good piece, not only citing "The Definitive Brexit Plan" FLEXCIT (and referencing/linking directly to it), but it's well argued and equally insightful using interesting ideas such as above, which neatly fits in with our idea about Right and Left Brain thinking. I'm tempted to quote the whole thing but must resist, again connecting:-

"To that end, Brexiteers need to explain why those risks are far less than the undecideds now fear, and a pretty good way to do it is—smelling salts—a plan. Brexiteers need to demonstrate not only why Brexit, but how."

We've had a lot of "Why?" from Leave Campaigners, the so-called "poetry/RHS Brain". But we've effectively had FALL! (or indeed FAIL!) on "How?" the so-called "prose/LHS Brain" for fear that voters won't "get it" given the discussion above, this all begins to fit together. And quoting another piece to use examples to illustrate this:-

"Many undecided voters, I suspect, have no great love for Brussels, but they are unwilling to take the risk (as they see it) of leaving the EU, a risk that the Bremainers are, naturally enough, playing up."

This comes after the below quote but the order or elaboration works this way: The current strategy as per the Legacy-News Media is:-

• Obama for EU vs Putin for Leave. (Good vs Bad Narrative)
• Vote to Remain for your children (risk-averse parents are finely-tuned to economic disruption given the extra burdens they're under with children and childrens' futures): This message is very RHS Brain and popular.

 It's literally called: "FamilyFuture960.jpeg" from Gov.uk!

 Making a nuisance of myself on twitter: Fighting RHS Brain with RHS Brain!

And here's the conundrum for the Leave side:- 

"It’s true that the ‘leave’ campaign is not in a position to determine how Britain’s departure from the EU would be negotiated. At the same time, it does need to show that there are Brexit routes and that they can be navigated in a safe and straightforward way. 

I'm actually not at all sure who Lilico is, except he has the same "aura" as Vote Leave it always appears to me, and the total lack of  "Intellectual Honesty" and hence "Message Discipline" seems to pervade all their messages as EUReferendum picked up on:-

Here we are talking about LHS Brain and it is particularly important at the "top level" of the campaign where supposedly the leadership and higher levels of learning will have for example read all the books and more in the opening image of this blog and/or better the ability to assort the information rapidly for quality and hence selection to people who rely on other humans to deliver their message accessing their RHS Brains more.

A for choosing a Brexit Plan, it's a sign of intelligence:-

Something our politicians dominating the campaign in Vote Leave - lack.

Grand Strategy: "Promotion"

The Lewis Chessmen at The British Museum

The Lewis Chessman can be viewed at The British Museum apart from many other stupendous wonders. A brief description of them:-

"The Lewis Chessmen form a remarkable group of iconic objects within the world collection of the British Museum. They were probably made in Norway, about AD 1150- 1200. At this period, the Western Isles, where the chess pieces were buried, were part of the Kingdom of Norway, not Scotland. It seems likely they were buried for safe keeping on route to be traded in Ireland."

"The chess pieces testify to the strong cultural and political connections between Britain and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, and to the growing popularity within Europe of the game of chess, the origins of which lie in ancient India."

These beautiful chess pieces are a nice segue from The Columbo Method: Norway. where we looked at the disparity between the strategy of the prestigious "King/Queen" pieces vs what the people aka the "Pawns" felt about The Norway Option. In fact as per these above chess pieces, people are more than happy with trade relations; so long as we remember the value of understanding our politics in a wider context and don't fall into the trap of narrowing the argument down via increasing the emotional pitch and pressure/compression as per Can we have our cake and eat it too? and How about a nice game of chess?

The Queen & King: The Yin & Yang of Power protecting Prestige

Dr. RAE North has blogged a series on politics categorized as "Strategy Ten" at EUReferendum.com. This is summarized in Strategy ten: summary and conclusion or indeed you can use the search or archive feature of that website or else google: [eureferendum.com: "....."]. For many people it's possibly too high-level considerations, the domain of the "Kings and Queens" of politics. And yet this is the real thing, what is reported as "strategy or negotiation" in the news-media is the equivalent of "Fool's Gold":-

• a ​mineral that is ​found in ​rocks and ​looks like ​gold but is not ​worth anything
• something that you ​think will be very ​pleasant or ​successful but is not or as per the Urban Dictionary: Someone who is in love with someone who is only using them, or taking advantage of them, but the person being used is still in love with the other person.

An example would be David Cameron's so-called renegotiation which seems to have chopped and changed, from memory:-

Fool's Gold (Pyrite) Reporting in the Media:-

1. 24 renegotiation/reform pts
2. 11 renegotiation/reform pts
3. 10 renegotiation/reform pts
4. 7 renegotiation/reform pts
5. 4 "principles"
6. 0 progress before December "afterall"... !

At each stage the News-Media has faithfully reported the "latest news" only for the "news" to magically change. In fact all that is happening is as per the strategy of Breadcrumbing the people along via the News reports. This strategy is all part of the theatre and projection of power to protect the prestige of the offices of Prime Minister and the offices of the other heads of government and the Institutional credibility of the EU as to it's legitimacy to authority and governance as per Legitimacy & Listening.

Opening Gambit: Pawns are placed into strategic formation: They're... "political pawns"!

As everyone knows who's played chess: The "early game" has all sorts of openings usually with an emphasis on pawns and ensuring they are moved with economy of movement into formation. Their power is in their "cannon-fodder" quality (trading pieces for tractical positions) and their "numbers". In the EU Referendum the people are pawns and the current news-media reports are effectively placing the people into formation. One of the key early lessons I was told in chess was that commanding the "Middle Ground" was vitally important for maximizing position and movement options all around; influencing the rest of the board compared to the edges. For this reason, the rise of polling to try to coordinate these pawns into strategic positions has of course grown. Leave.EU: The Science Behind Our Strategy (Goddard & Gunster) has employed such methods via Cambridge Analytica as well as Stronger In Europe on both sides of the chess board (Black (pro-intergovernmentalism pawns) vs White (pro-supranationalism pawns) (goes 1st!)) to ensure they get the most out of their "pawns":-

Application of the tools of data science to polling data

As we've seen with the control of the message from the media in I've been expecting you... ;  Fatal Car Crash: Two Dead After Car Accident and Understanding The Mountains of Madness ; polling seems the most appropriate way to influence voters in their millions through the filter of the News-Media, the Knights of the Legacy-Media with their ability to confuse and jump around deceptively and camouflage the next move:-

The Knight or Rook (Legacy-News Media) is a most especially deceptive and supportive piece

And of course to finally complete the Chess Analogy the power of the Castles of Big Business & Banks, the CBI and the big banks. Perhaps too little attention has been given to these pieces in this blog so far, apart from Lakshmi: Goddess of Prosperity (1) and Lakshmi: Goddess of Prosperity (2) and most of the politicians themselves, the Sweet-Tongued Bishops with their ability to come at you "sideways".

I've always thought how well these two work together projecting power from a distance: Castle (business/banks) and Bishop (politicians)

Despite all these powerful pieces, as any chess-player knows or quickly learns: Looking after your pawns, deploying them skilfully and understanding their strategic role is where the game is often won and lost: The fine margins long before the "end-game". And this is going to be very true of the EU Referendum in 2017. Many people are not interested in politics, our politicians have deliberately obfuscated and confused the subject as per the huge in-tray voters have to contend with from Brexit for Beginners.

In chess the win/loss conditions are "Check-Mate" or "Resignation by toppling the King" ; the assumption is that Leave vs Remain win condition is a >=51% result to either side in the Referendum. But actually there's another game of political chess being played here: Democracy as well as EU Membership. The Referendum is a chance for people/the pawns to win the game where for >40yrs they've been deprived a say and over x7 major treaties as well as removing such a large source of enervating political energy that itself is costly. In Chess there's a special rule for pawns called "Promotion":-

"Promotion is a chess rule that a pawn that reaches its eighth rank is immediately changed into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color. The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square, as part of the same move. The choice of new piece is not limited to pieces that have already been captured; it is legal for promotion to result in a player controlling, for example, two Queens of the same color despite starting the game with one. Promotion is immediate and mandatory for any pawn that reaches its eighth rank, and the pawn may not remain a pawn. Pawn promotion, or the threat of it, often decides the result of a chess endgame."

"Since the queen is the most powerful piece, the vast majority of promotions are to a queen. Promotion to a queen is often referred to as queening. A promotion to a piece other than a queen is called underpromotion"

To use one more final analogy: The most important game for people/pawns is not the EU Membership status, but the status of our politics of governance: Our democracy and how that is represented in a global world vs an EU construct.

Promotion: From Pawn to Queen

Pete North makes this clear in a this recent blog: Brexit: a time to step up to the plate :-

This year I've gone big on the global regulatory agencies. Not just because I'm an epic nerd but also because knowledge is power and in this game, and it can be a most potent weapon. It's as exciting as it is interesting.
Because regulation is all about making things work better, faster, safer, and cleaner and working in harmony with other systems it means it is at the cutting edge of technology. [...]

While this process isn't inherently corrupt, it can at times be murky and half the reason for that is that virtually nobody is watching this process and it is accountable to no-one. If ever there was something considerately in need of democratisation it is the global regulatory process. Our media tends to focus on the daily biff-bam politics of Westminster which is so far down the chain as to be completely uninteresting to anyone following the real business of government.

Watching MP's debating whether schools should be teaching first aid is like watching my local parish council deciding if Filton roundabout should have new street-lamps. It's actually embarrassing to watch the mother of all parliaments reduced to this. What's depressing is that MPs can't begin to comprehend just how debased and usurped that institution is.

And again from LeaveHQ: Land of the dinosaurs

Time to adapt to new strategies for survival and prosperity at the Global Level

"That is why LeaveHQ takes a different pitch to the old guard. We have talked at length about the way in which regulations are now going global and that the EU is not the top table and is just as much a recipient of law as we are. Examining the consultation process shows that the EU routinely usurps our own influence in initiating reforms and often adopts law we would otherwise veto. 

We are no longer a heavy industry economy, we rely on intellectual innovations as our exports and thus industries can spring up out of nowhere. If we want to create the best trading environment for them then we need to be looking out for their interests at the global level and not waiting on the packed time table of the EU's diplomatic service. Our current relationship is a hindrance to our global agility and it is our view that all of Europe suffers for the lack of competitiveness.

In order to get the best for ourselves and Europe, Britain needs to be at the top tables looking after its own interests. What's good for London and our tech industry is good for all of Europe - and it is myopic of the EU not to recognise this."

EU Referendum: the role of prestige

Political Strategy: "Pawns of Prestige"

Perhaps the "win condition" for the upcoming EU Referendum in 2017 is not what people think it is defined as, perhaps the real win condition will be the success rate of the conversion or to use our analogy Promotion of people from "political pawns" into "political actors" with real knowledge and hence real political power?

"Your Move."

A Political Mirror: People

Wickher Island: The News-Media's Political Mirror

Both the BBC news reporters, Matthew Elliott and George Osbourne are all viewed through the mirror of Monty Python's Wicker Island. Meanwhile John Longworth like some sort of religious prophet talks about uncertainty that has been talked about since the early 1960's on our EU Membership!

"The period of uncertainty could be very damaging... get the referendum out of the way as quickly as possible and then move on!

 The Tower Of London: Popular poppies - art, history & culture and opinions

Listening to the many opinions of people on whether or not the Ceramic Poppy "installation" should end or continue, at The Tower of London in November 2014, for a few more weeks was very illustrative of the diversity and strength of feeling people have over any given subject, given enough respondents.

Of course these were real people and they expressed themselves with great emotion, with respectable point of view and curiously all had a valid contribution. In effect there was no such thing as "The Answer"; any decision would prove both popular and unpopular; a point which was made at LeaveHQ in The Problem With Politics. What however was refreshing about this was that everyone provided well reasoned answers however and managed to communicate themselves and their point of view with sincerity but also it seemed to me with self-confidence and appreciation that many other opinions existed yet they believed in their own contribution equally.

The Bruges Group: Who Governs Britian? Meeting today

Above The Bruges Group is putting on another meeting and the title quesion is very good to see. I was tempted to go along to this, yet I decided that despite some of the eminent speakers and the opportunity to talk to people attending this event, there was a more constructive and much much larger audience I would prefer to "talk to" and also to attempt to understand their understanding as being the focus of that title question: "Who Governs Britain?" You do or should.

Previously, When to Attend/Hold Meetings, it was noted the function of a meeting is directly related to it's group size. At significantly large group sizes you get singing/chanting/music group cohesion signals and bonding and identification with colours and banners; and very little "content" for members understanding, which is assumed, for example:-

Protest without power: Music, movement, gathering activities may make people feel better, but...

"Our objective is to recover power. Our focus is on the acquisition of power. And once we ourselves, the people, hold the power, we can then attend to the many problems and injustices that plague modern society. But without power, there is only protest – and we achieve nothing of any lasting value."

 The above from the title page of The Harrogate Agenda, perhaps is the best place to start when considering what "The Many/We The People" generally behave like, understand and coordinate like. It has to be recognized that as group animals we naturally tend to form groups and create a lot of action and noise and move around a lot as our initial approach to solve political problems: Observations invariably confirm this is the first reaction and pattern of behaviour adopted by people. Perhaps we all see ourselves as Potential Lions if only we're given a fair political platform to stand on; aided by our fellows?

 Do you feel an urge to join in?!

It can safely be said that this is the unacknowledged working assumption of all the Referendum Campaign Groups, particularly UKIP and Leave.EU: It shapes their output as per many summaries from Pete North:

• Continuity UKIP
• Leave.EU is working for David Cameron
• Right On Cue

The other campaign group Vote Leave employ a different political strategy as per Pete North again The Leave campaign race to the bottom. They're effectively attempting to ensure that the campaign is framed by the preferences of The Establishment, and ensure the argument is complex and contradictory and hence fertile ground for the politicians to deceive and fuge as per Using A Macroscope on Cameron's Reform. Vote Leave Campaign appear to be an example of The politician's Top-Down Referendum as per How About A Nice Game Of Chess?

As per Dr. RAE North's Strategy Ten: Communication series:-

This may seem bizarre to us now, but it is the case that anyone who wanted to know in 1975 could easily have deduced that he negotiations were a fraud. All they had to do was read Kellner's piece on the front page of the Sunday Times.

At the time, it seems to me, there was a sort of collective delusion. People didn't know that the negotiations were a sham, because they didn't want to know. They didn't know that staying in the EEC meant "ever closer union", because they didn't want to know.

But there was something more to it – a lot more. What we were also seeing were the effects of "prestige".

When we look into the mirror we individually we see a Lion, but when Politicians look at us through the mirror of Polls this is what they see:-

The Few vs The Many: General Elections are a Catch-22

And Polling is in general becoming the type of mirror they see us through, even less as sheep and more and more as mere random numbers as per Politics And The New Machine:-

I asked Doug Rivers what role the measurement of public opinion plays in a democracy. He said, “The cynical answer is ‘Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down.’ ”

This said, there is some use in knowing roughly what other people think, if they are broad sentiments and as reported by Dr. RAE North EU politics: we're on our own (almost) 

EU Referendum 2017: UK (& Cyprus) - The EU anomalies in the data

"Picking up on the Eurobarometer poll again, it is interesting to see the EU-wide question being asked on whether individual countries "could better face the future outside the EU" see chart above - click to enlarge).

With the question being asked in January, it comes as no surprise to see the UK recording 47 percent agreeing with that proposition, as opposed to 41 percent disagreeing. And that is against the EU average of 32 percent agreeing and 58 percent disagreeing. In other words, we are way out ahead of the EU average in believing we'd be better off out.

But what is fascinating here is that, apart from Cyprus, we are on our own. With Cyprus, which has 51 percent preferring out, to 43 in, we comprise just two of the 28 EU member states who can turn in a majority against the EU."

 There's an interesting contemporary interview of the public in London by aljazeera: 'Brexit': Should the UK leave the EU or not? and to summarize:-

• "We live in globalized times."
• "We managed on our own for thousands of years."
• "We must look to history to see why we are united."
• "We are tied together - culturally, economically and socially."
• "We have strength in unity."
• "It's important for us to stay together."

How we like to think of ourselves when we give our political opinions...

In actual fact, the above summary of word/spoken/linguistic form of opinions are no different from the above footage of mass gathering: The instinctive reaction to huddle together as a group to solve political (group) problems/pressures/threats. This probably explains the emphasis on polling data: The whole, the behaviour of groups as a whole: Their random opinions merging into a group "feeling".

It's much easier to observe this via live footage:-

1) Dubliner’s Reactions to Joining the EEC 1972 
2) Scottish Independence Referendum:-

Bashful Opinions: Scottish Independence: "Aye or Naw"

3) Denmark Referendum on EURO membership:-

Old vs Young: People/News-Media/Advertising overestimate "youth" and underestimate "maturity" in Western Industrialized cultures (compared to traditional societies)

4) Young UK Students Political Education of debating:-

Commendable enthusiasm from young students but very very black and white thinking processes; no wonder politicians/advertisers target the young

I think there is a connection between all these clips, and in fact many other clips that could have been presented or perhaps have been aired at one time or another that most people will have watched and listened to other members of the publics' opinions... Invariably when the public are interviewed on any sort of political subject, invariably they respond in a juxtaposition between providing an answer full of conviction at the same as providing an answer that makes them look as they would like to appear or not wish to appear. Usually this leads to a sort of "bashful confidence" which is peculiarly contradictory in such combination!

'Public Opinion': The Holy Grail of Politicians

We've looked at News Presenters and increasingly so our leading politicians. Most people know how the rest of the politicians behave. But less well appreciated is how the most important group, the people tend to speak and behave when we talk about politics. There's enormous industry and expenditure on the data science and analytics of polling data; because understanding how people behave and think about politics is a kind of "Holy Grail" of politics.

And here's the "the greatest trick the politicians ever pulled on the people in referendums":-

And how we really behave when we give our political opinions...

Many people will not know the details of the politics, it will be an unknown and this unknown leads to the natural reaction of caution and even as per the inexperienced kitten above "fear" as we've come across so many times before FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). But because we don't understand something does not mean we have to be fearful of it.

As per Dr. Simon Usherwood, University of Surrey:-

My own view would be that the UK has suffered for a long time from a lack of deep public debate about European integration, just as it has from a lack of debate about the country’s wider position in the world, from which the European question cannot be disentangled. The referendum is probably the best opportunity there will be for a generation to get people interested and engaged enough to talk about, so we should make the most of it.
That debate doesn’t need to be brought to life by politicians or the media, because we enjoy a public space that is more open and accommodating of different voices than ever before. If those people who do care about having the debate can start to build it, then there is an opportunity to create something that is organic, considered and useful, however the referendum turns out. That opportunity is in our hands, not anyone else’s.

What is people's power? In General Elections, there is none. It's a Catch-22 system. But when it comes to a Popular Referendum, there's a reason the Politicians have not given the people a referendum (EEC,EC,EU,EZ...) in >40 years and the first and only in 1975:

 In Referendums, peoples' opinions are the real power and the politicians know this.

If everyone acts fearful we get the results we DO KNOW (as per The Knight 'N Knave method) so well: General Election results of musical chairs where no-one's vote amounts to anything of value! If we drop our fear, then I think we will get something of value from our vote: Making the politicians do what we want them to do for us - for once.