Latent News & Amplified Deflection

The biggest job we have ahead of us it discerning what is important.
That has always something we all need do do, but how best to do it is
changing quickly.

What's different now? In democratic countries there used to be consensus that institutions and the rule of law were important. We all agreed on the rules and the political sides were right and left: those who prioritized the rights of the rich and powerful on the right and those who emphasized the rights of the poor and disenfranchised on the left but all within some common consensus about some rules. The right and left duality has ended; now it's those who believe we need rules that everybody obeys and those who believe they should not have to obey rules. They believe in Wilhoit's law, "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”...and they're the in-group.

In the 60's everybody in the US listened to news anchor Walter Cronkite. When he started to question the US invasion of Vietnam, it changed the national conversation. At that time many many voices were not let into the national narrative but with an agreement that the rule of law was important and should apply to everybody equally, there was a mechanism to bring them in, at least in theory.

But now, one side of the political spectrum has dispensed with that
equalizing agreement. And nobody watches the evening news anymore. There is money and power to be made by siloing us within our phones and feeds. The the information we get from our social media feed is that we feel like we are reading articles or links posted by our friends because humans (usually) that we know or feel like we know post them; it used to be that way. But now that is an illusion. Because we don't see what the algorithm conceals and they conceal what we should see. Legacy media, in an uneasy truce with this new reality is often boring bullshit increasingly owned by broligarchs anyway. Not all but very much of it.

Driving and driven by these changes is something I think of as amplified deflection, sort of the graduate version of trolling. When a bully insults somebody on the playground, they are doing it out of instinct; that's what they do. But they are also doing it to keep the
attention on that act rather than on their insecurity and weakness. Fascists and fascist adjacent leaders today try to be or are very good at making wild policy pronouncements. The purpose is to create outrage, anger, fear, and frenzied conversation among the resistance. And, importantly, to keep us from talking about what matters, what they don't want us to discuss. And exhausted, less insightful journalists and the worlds "content creators" then dutifully go about amplifying that deflection. They do it in two ways, one is to pretend it is real, pretend to take it seriously, take it at face value. This is boring and a waste of time. The New York Times does this. The other outrage, which is also pointless. But both take up time and attention. But they are safe and get clicks that are carefully measured and will continue.

So what are those things they want to deflect us from? I think of
these things as latent news. Latent meaning "Existing but not yet
developed or manifest; hidden or concealed. Lying dormant or hidden until circumstances are suitable for development or manifestation." So the opposite of "if it bleeds, it leads" Laten news are things that don't bleed and rarely lead. Latent news takes work, circumspection, thought, tons of background knowledge and often, connections or at least leaks to whistle blowers. Amplifying deflection is easy, just
typing, BREAKING: He said this ridiculous thing!

Go latent over deflective. Looking for advice on how.
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