The consequences of our failure to achieve widespread media and information literacy before we achieved widespread manipulation through mass communication for purposes of advertising and propaganda are complex and ubiquitous.
A two-path approach to resolving those consequences can bring us – in reasonably short order – to a much more peaceful, progressive, and prosperous world. The purpose of the first path is to mitigate, slow, and repair ongoing damage. The purpose of the second is to prevent the damage from happening in the first place.
These two paths merge to an overall strategy to address, in both the short and long terms, the fundamental roots of most of the issues challenging us today to the extremity of our very existence, pull us back from that edge, and teach our children and grandchildren how and why to avoid dancing so close to that edge ever again.
“The tools of compliance-gaining and persuasion are agnostic; it’s the intent of the user that makes all the difference. We can turn these tools on themselves to help people understand themselves and their world more completely.”
– John Henry
The First Path
In pursuit of correcting the short-term problems, we promote and advance more completely developed reasoning skills among the general population through mass media. This includes everything from memes to feature length documentary films, streaming, “culture jamming,” and creating the visible systems of social validation and support which empower the further development and application of those skills.
The tools of compliance-gaining and persuasion are agnostic; it’s the intent of the user that makes all the difference. We can turn these tools on themselves to help people understand themselves and their world more completely, and to more effectively empower them to protect themselves against the attempt to apply those tools with malicious intent. This is fairly simple, and frankly happens every day, it’s just that the people in control of the tools right now are motivated by profit rather than public interest.
The Second Path
To address the long-term questions of how to firmly establish the necessary educational infrastructure to teach information literacy – the ability to read through bias and manipulative persuasion tactics, particularly with regard to media and politics – we develop comprehensive educational materials both for the general public and for educators at every level, beginning at the earliest stages of literacy, and ultimately this will – automatically as a side-effect – begin the process of returning our education system to being an education system rather than the employee training system it has become over the last forty years or so.
Naturally there are hundreds of details involved, most of which neither are nor can be set in stone within the context of this document. We encourage you to read further throughout the site, get on the mailing list, and stay connected via this site and social media to keep up with our latest roadmaps and short-term plans, goals, and activity.
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