Being right does not automatically make anyone else wrong; even when you have the loudest voice

The Penny appears to finally be dropping amongst the masses that power does not necessarily mean virtue. And it’s certainly no guaranteed of integrity either.

Meanwhile, for the powerful, reality is also now dawning that position, influence and how loud they may be in public (or how many people hear them) doesn’t mean that they can do anything they want and that the power they seem to have will automatically make anything they do right.

The problem is, belief that position and being seen to have won the argument, got the result or controlled the narrative – often with words, deeds and actions that are morally apprehensible when it comes to political power, have not only convinced the political classes that ‘do as I say, not as I do’ is baked in.

Politicians really have reached the point where they believe they are right, no matter the consequences or real human cost from whatever they do or what they say.

All because they are the ones deciding what’s right and what’s wrong.

Wrong things shape our beliefs and make them feel right

It’s not only a problem that public policy that isn’t really about the public at all is damaging lives, people, communities, the environment around us and the businesses that we need to survive and thrive.

The fact that sanitised but nonetheless tyrannical behaviour is coming at us constantly through every channel and digital stream that most of us regrettably consider to be credible sources, mean that many people are becoming conditioned with the belief that behaviour that is reflective of what our so-called leaders are doing is not only correct, but good for one and all.

The Dehumanisation of Life through remote-controlled Techno-Tyranny

Regrettably, there is an urgent need for us all to recognise that the dehumanised way of life that is progressively taking over with each and every step taken towards the Tech and AI Takeover, where it seems that every need possible can be met through the tap of a finger on our phones, is feeding into the nightmarish version of an increasingly dystopian life and living environment for us all.

It’s sucking up lies from each direction, whilst simultaneously convincing us that we still have freedom and choice.

We’ve lost sight of the very principles and values that equip us to function, communicate and interact with other human beings face-to-face. All within a rapid, dehumanising transformation process, that is currently succeeding in convincing otherwise very sensible people that the only guides and directives necessary for a successful life come from a smart phone or online.

What is more, the whole process has already began removing and questioning ‘common sense’, taking everything in life backwards.

We find grown adults fighting over whether the basic tenets of life are either wrong, right, open to interpretation or that taking what should be obvious as read and thereby offending somebody over what only they might ever believe is itself enough to justify ruining the other persons life.

We are the sum of our experiences

It really doesn’t matter who we are. One thing that we can almost certainly be sure that we have in common, is that if you or I were to stop and reflect upon our current view of the world; what everything means and how we see it; we would both be right.

We would both be right, because as individuals that’s what all the experiences up until this moment have taught every one of us. Even when our experiences may have been harmful to us, been incorrect (because of what others have done) or because for whatever reason, they are basically skewed.

Experience is cumulative too. Whilst none of us may wish to admit that the understanding we have of anything can only be as much as layer-deep, or that we have only reached a certain level of knowledge about anything; such limitation of understanding can therefore mean that what we believe to be right isn’t completely right.

It can certainly be very disconcerting to reckon with the reality that reaching GCSE, then A-level, then degree level, then masters level, then doctorate level in the same very specific subject may well mean that whilst we may have a very good and correct subjective view; in objective terms, even then, as an ‘expert’ or with even a recognised level of qualification, we are still a very long way from getting it right.

Misplaced confidence based on our beliefs being ‘who we are’, when our beliefs come from those who influence us

Recognising the value that we give to others when they have been awarded academic qualifications is one thing.

Then there is also the phenomena which is the way that we give credibility to others simply because they have a role (like politicians or public officers) and most alarming today, to influencers (which can mean many things), based on nothing more than the reality that they have a platform of some kind, where the number of people watching, following, liking or subscribing gives them credibility that reaches beyond all other things.

Oddly, when anyone speaking or even writing doesn’t appear to have one or more of these status anchors, we seem to consider whatever they are sharing to not have the same legitimacy. No matter the content of what they say. And if what they say contradicts our own message and belief system in some way, there is all too often the chance that we will simply assume that whatever they offer has no value and that they are therefore ‘wrong’.

Misplaced confidence based on our beliefs being ‘who we are’, when our beliefs come from the establishment, religion and the shibboleths they impose

Perhaps more difficult to consider and accept is the role and influence that what we might otherwise call cultural or societal norms have on our beliefs and therefore behaviour. Because we can all too easily believe that these are just the things that ‘normal’ people do.

How we behave in public. How we consider some behaviour and actions to be acceptable whilst others are not. How we consider right and wrong. How we look up or look down upon others – in ways that would be called prejudices in any other terms. Increasingly how we stop and question actions and behaviours that we had previously not given a second thought to because we considered them to be normal, but now we stop and feel guilty because we thought them.

These are all based upon the belief systems that are set, adapted and increasingly forced into our lives by the organisations that we recognise as being the establishment. And for some more than others, from our religions which can become the most important source or framework for our behaviours and what we expect for ourselves and from others across our lives.

Whilst we must recognise that some of the rules and social codes that have come from our system of governance and our religions can be very good for us and for everyone in very specific contexts, we also need to understand, accept and therefore recognise that many of the rules and social cues that we live by were or have been created as forms of social control.

They have been created and are used to foster and promote fear of something that is apparently outside of our control, so that what we do have control over can in turn then be restricted and therefore controlled by someone else.

For instance, there is no need to question the existence of a God, Source, universal force or whatever we may each choose to call the focus of what we might ultimately believe in, to recognise that words and interpretations can change each time they are passed on.

We must recognise that ultimately, to further the scope, reach, influence and power of religions, the people who benefit from being in control of those religions have created compelling stories and interpretations of those stories and what they may or may not require of us. All based upon material that has itself been passed on potentially many times, each time by another person who was never actually there at the time whenever the chain of these stories first began or could be witnessed firsthand.

Genuine, voluntary and uncoerced faith in the system and faith in a religion can be the same or should be the same. In that they are most powerful, most compelling and most beneficial to us and to others, when they are left to us all to recognise what we believe to be true and in turn to then apply our understanding of everything in terms of what we know to be wrong or to be right.

There is no system in existence that seeks to control or compel others coercively that is also unquestionably right or correct

Doing anything because someone with authority or because a book says so isn’t voluntary belief or choice.

It is dogmatic servitude that excuses itself by insisting that slavish adherence to whatever it teaches, automatically makes it right – even when it is very clearly wrong.

We are indeed fortunate that what we might call the societal operating system of British Culture is based upon the secularisation that the evolution of a Christian system has allowed to develop, that was itself probably only possible because of The Reformation and the otherwise questionable parts of the reign of King Henry VIII.

However, the freedom of thought and expression that becoming unshackled from the Church has ultimately brought has also made us massively vulnerable to anyone who understands how narratives, group thinking and the tools that media offers can be used to introduce and make us subservient to contrary systems of belief.

Indeed, alien beliefs that run contrary that everything our society has been built on have been progressively introduced and are reshaping societal beliefs, leading to people questioning their own common sense, whilst others simply accept philosophies and agendas that are ultimately not offering anything that is good for anyone and least of all you or me.

Fear is today being used to disproportionately exaggerate societal problems, in ways that have created the risk that those problems may quickly become even bigger problems that we would never otherwise have experienced.

Whilst learning to stop, count to ten and then think about what is being said, who is saying it, why they are saying it and what is really happening would help every one of us to uncover the truths that are good for us all to believe.

Finding and creating beliefs that we can trust

There exists no person, no government, no establishment and no religion that has the right to insist that either you or I believe whatever they say or require of us, without question.

Such expectation is an abuse of the rights of whoever they are victimising or making a victim of. Whether that victim is aware or sees their relationship as being that of a victim under an oppressor or not.

This is not a question of those with responsibility hiding information from those under their care that would otherwise be harmful to them.

This is about those with responsibility for others abusing the trust that others have given and that has been assumed from anyone who is vulnerable and then either ignorantly or deliberately misusing that trust to abuse they very people they are there to protect from such abuse.

We are in troubling times

Regrettably, few institutions now exist where integrity can be assured from the actions, behaviour and decisions from anyone that we don’t personally know and have no good reason to belief that they are and always will be as good as their word.

The digitisation and mission creep of the online world has exacerbated this greatly and made the overall process of dehumanising everything progressively worse.

The reality we must face is that if we want to own our own beliefs and develop them using reliable and trustworthy sources, we can and must only use face-to-face relationships and the benefits of the social interactions that remain open and available to us without accessing anything that is only available to us online.

The only relationship that matters is the one that’s right in front of us

For all the benefits that we may be able to agree upon, the latest forms of digital technology and artificial intelligence are also introducing a much bigger and malevolent dark side into the world as we know it.

Almost every system that has and is being introduced into daily life for you and me, is either already or soon will be used as a tool of control.

And these tools can and only will work as effectively as they do, because we believe that what they bring or give to us is good for us in ways that make us forget or overlook the freedoms they have replaced and ultimately the non-financial price that we pay.

Yes, AI for medicine, AI for diagnostics, AI for workplace safety and purposes like these are and will always be good uses. Especially so when they are not about profit but about improving life and therefore the common good.

But AI in any form that appears to make life easier, quicker, or that replaces the need for us or any person to do anything are not and will not be good for anyone other than those who profit from it.

The AI and Tech-takeover really doesn’t offer the whole of humanity anything that any of us need in day-to-day life. But it is set to take away a massive amount from us that we do.

Of all the beliefs that we have been conditioned to have, the belief that whatever is outside of us is better than us and that it reduces our value in any way, is the worst one possible for any of us to have.

When we interact properly with others and use all of the senses and skills that we have to communicate and to read, listen to and understand communication in the circumstances that can and only will ever be offered through real one-to-ones, we will soon begin to remember or realise that these are some of the very best sources of learning – and therefore belief development that any of us could ever have.

Once you become a number, it won’t matter what you believe

Relationships – that’s real relationships, with real people, in real life, really matter.

Once all those relationships have been lost and we no longer have the ability to interact normally beyond familial or friend-based relationships in person and everything else is done without people with names online, our opinions, what makes us happy, what makes us healthy and what is actually good for us will no longer matter. Because the humanity in relationships and therefore the values that make us human will have successfully been cast aside.

The most concerning aspect of the process and steps that are now taking us towards this destination is just how quick and therefore soon we will arrive there.

Whilst most of us still don’t even question what we have unknowingly given up and that has been taken from us, because we have accepted the belief that what has been given to us or that we have often actually paid money for has been good or even better for us in some way.

Thinking for yourself isn’t about being right. It’s all about thinking the right way

Whilst we may not have used this term here until now, critical thinking is the key for all of us to unlocking the door to the pathway that leads to understanding what everything in life is all about.

Critical thinking isn’t just the magical formula that gives us back the power to define our own belief system.

Critical thinking is the golden gift that enables us to recognise and understand the value of all the experiences that have made us and therefore to self-define who we are, and who we will be.

A certain truth that we would all benefit from learning, understanding and living is that none of us are right or will be right until the time that we recognise we are all right and that being right is just the next step in learning what else is right, until we all agree that right is exactly the same thing.