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“The Twitter Files show that there is a serious trust issue in the media environment, which is extremely dangerous at a moment when we pursue some common ground on historically controversial issues such as climate change and vaccination policies,” (Feltri). The public’s opinion and level of faith in the government’s reaction to the pandemic were significantly shaped by the information and updates about government policy that were shared via Twitter. From the information the people now know, it just adds to how hard it is to trust media and government. If the government operates in a way that is not transparent or accountable, it can be difficult for people to trust it. This is especially prevalent in this case from all the information censorship and attempts to keep information under wraps.

Here comes one of his ghosts to torture me. For carefully bringing in wood. I’ll be a failure. Maybe he won’t mind if I bother him. Caliban, a character who is frequently seen as a symbol of the colonial peoples of the New World, makes his debut in Act 2 of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” The exploitation and tyranny of colonized peoples might be compared to Prospero’s subjection of Caliban, who is thought to symbolize the colonial powers. “I’ll show thee the best springs. I’ll pluck thee berries. I’ll fish for thee and get thee wood enough. A plague upon the tyrant that I serve,” (Act II Scene II). The concept of exploitation and subjugation can be used to make a connection to Shoshana Zuboff’s book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” According to Zuboff, the leading tech corporations have made their fortunes by secretly gathering and analyzing enormous volumes of consumer personal data. This is similar to the way that colonizing powers exploited the resources and labor of colonized peoples for their own benefit. With the help of targeted advertising and other behavioral manipulation techniques, this data is subsequently used to turn consumers into a marketable commodity. “It is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us,” (Zuboff 14). Whether it is Prospero or the computer industry, those in power oppress both Caliban and the current internet user and use them for their labor or data. Claims of superiority or necessity, such as Prospero’s assertion that he is educating and civilizing Caliban or tech corporations’ assertion that their services are necessary to modern life, are used to justify the exploitation. Why these power relations are so dangerous can be partially explained by the psychology of totalitarianism. Totalitarian governments rely on complete population control, frequently accomplished via the employment of propaganda and other psychological tactics. Similar to how the internet firms in “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” exploit customers with targeted advertising and other psychological tricks. Individual autonomy and independence may be lost as a result of these strategies when people have a greater propensity to react to other pressures. Even if he finally fails, Caliban struggles against Prospero’s rule and makes an effort to assert his own independence in “The Tempest.” Resistance to authoritarian governments frequently includes this fight for autonomy as well.

Have you, Spirit, carried out my instructions for you to point the storm? And as you said, I have spread them over the island in armies. I came to the King’s son by myself. These lines come from separate areas of the text in Act 1, but they correlate directly with each other. The lines come from Prospero and from this, an argument can be made that the storm was whipped up by Prospero and he wants to regain his power by using control and manipulation to the others on the island. The readings from Zuboff and Desmet, and the video from Kuhn also relate to control and manipulation. Prospero’s actions can be seen as a metaphor for how businesses use technology and data to manage and sway customers. Businesses utilize data and algorithms to forecast and shape consumer behavior, much as Prospero does to influence others. Using data and technology, corporations in contemporary society have the ability to manipulate and control people. This is comparable to Zuboff’s claim that businesses affect people’s behavior and develop new systems of exploitation and control by using the data they collect. According to Zuboff, businesses are exploiting this data to build new types of exploitation and control, just like Prospero does in the play to influence and control the other characters on the island. Zuboff’s concept of “surveillance capitalism,” which she characterizes as a new economic system that depends on the collecting and analysis of personal data to develop targeted advertising and influence behavior, is also fundamentally based on the concepts of control and manipulation. The first act of The Tempest and The Psychology of Totalitarianism also both deal with the concept of power and control. Similar to how totalitarian governments utilize propaganda and manipulation to keep control over their citizens, Prospero in the play is able to use his magic to manipulate and control the other characters. “The entirety of human subjectivity becomes an insignificant by-product of mechanistic processes,” (20). From this perspective you can see that humanity does not matter, everything can be boiled down to simple particles that interact in accordance with the law of mechanics. Lastly, the first act of The Tempest shares ideas of change and transition with the Kuhn “paradigm shift” video. The Kuhn video demonstrates how scientific paradigms can change and evolve over time, leading to new ways of understanding the world, just as the play reflects a transition from the old order to the new. This idea can also be extended to how businesses and governments are reshaping social control structures and power dynamics through the use of new technologies and data collection. For instance, the emergence of new technologies like the internet and social media has created significant difficulties for governments in policing the spread of knowledge and ideas. In reaction, many governments have changed how they exercise their control, using methods such as censorship, propaganda, and monitoring.

Kennedy examines the role of the pharmaceutical industry in the development of the COVID-19 pandemic. He argues that the pharmaceutical industry has been complicit in the spread of the virus, as well as in the development of the vaccine. Kennedy argues that the pharmaceutical industry has been able to capitalize on the pandemic by creating a “vaccine-industrial complex” that has allowed them to reap huge profits from the sale of vaccines. Anthony Fauci learned at the dawn of his career that pandemics and fake pandemics provide opportunity to expand bureaucracy’s power and to multiply the wealth of it’s pharma partners. The chapter exposes Fauci for who he really is and shows he doesn’t care about the well being of people. Kennedy details Fauci’s status as a typical bureaucratic crisis-monger and serial liar in. Kennedy claims that Fauci and others at the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consistently clog the committees that decide whether to allow the marketing of all of these experimental drugs with individuals who have ties to Big Pharma or who are currently executives for one or more pharmaceutical companies. Everything is rigged, and the lying mainstream media, which receives millions or billions in advertising revenue from Big Pharma, has repeatedly repeated mountains of lies throughout the entire process.

Although doctors and public health officials have emphasized the value of booster shots to maintain immunity to the virus, some people have expressed worries about the price, availability, and potential side effects. This is not supporting the mainstream media narrative to get the booster shot because it is completely safe. The mainstream media has pushed the narrative that if you don’t get the vaccine or the booster, you will be at a higher risk to get COVID which is not necessarily true. Experts don’t know all the information to know this stuff. Vaccines usually take years to perfect and be safe, so the uncertainty of the vaccine and booster have to be talked about more. The choice to get a booster shot should ultimately be made based on the patient’s unique situation, medical history, and competent medical guidance. Being forced to get the vaccine or booster because it’s mandated for a job, school, or sport is ridiculous and shouldn’t be the case. https://www.self.com/story/controversy-covid-19-vaccine-booster-shots

The video with Dr. Aaron Kheriaty is a timely and important reminder of the dangers of technocracy and the need to protect the Hippocratic Oath and the Nuremberg Code. I learned of the potential risks of self-spreading vaccines, transhumanist ideology, and government gag orders, all of which threaten the ethical principles of medicine and the safety of patients. This information is very credible because it is a warning for what could be. Self-spreading vaccines are a new technology that could potentially be used to vaccinate large populations quickly and efficiently. However, this technology raises serious ethical concerns, as it could be used to manipulate people without their knowledge or consent. Transhumanist ideology is another potential threat to the Hippocratic Oath and the Nuremberg Code. It could lead to a situation where people are treated as objects and their autonomy is disregarded. Gag orders are another potential threat, it could lead to medical professionals being unable to speak out about important issues, which can have serious implications for patient safety. From my searches on Google and DuckDuckGo it seems Dr. Aaron Kheriaty is someone who has very strong beliefs and won’t back down. UC Irvine fired him because of his refusal to get vaccinated. He has the best interest of the people in mind and I don’t doubt anything.

Dr. Steven Nissen called for an immediate halt to the rollout of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine due to its potential link to rare blood clots. He argues that the risk of these clots is too great to ignore and that the vaccine should not be administered until further research is conducted. Dr. Nissen seemed to be one of the only ones who cared about the well being of people, as the EPOCH article discusses emails that were released by the FDA show that the agency rushed the approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in order to enable vaccine mandates. The emails also suggest that the FDA was aware of the potential risks associated with the vaccine, but chose to approve it anyway. It is hard to trust anyone when it comes to information about COVID. CDC officials who had spread misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic have apologized after it was revealed that the source of the false data was not from public emails, but from a private source. It is important to note that this is not the first time the CDC has been accused of spreading misinformation about the virus. In the early days of the pandemic, the CDC was accused of downplaying the severity of the virus and of providing inaccurate information about the spread of the virus. Several other organizations, including the World Health Organization, have been accused of providing false or misleading information about the virus.

Emails in the article show that scientists at the National Institutes of Health were considering the possibility of a laboratory origin for the virus, but also discussing alternative explanations such as zoonotic transmission. This is significantly different from the global narrative of the origin of COVID, because people think the virus came from bats and pangolins in China. Specifically, people think someone ate a pangolin which started the spread of the virus. It is likely for scientists to have a significant change of heart in what to leave in and what to leave out in the pursuit of scientific truth. I think scientists considered the possibility of a lab leak, and whether information was suppressed or downplayed for political reasons is very possible. An actual lab leak would have stirred up everything, as it was already a crazy time, it would’ve been even crazier. It seems smarter that the scientists would have left this truth out for the good of the general public.

Reading this article was shocking. I hadn’t heard any of this information about Dr. Fauci, and yet this was the man we were listening to during the pandemic. The article explores how Fauci ran experiments between 1988 and 2002 at the Incarnation Children’s Center in New York City and its multiple sister facilities in six other states and hundreds of foster children who tested positive for HIV. Black and Hispanic foster children were used as lab rats by Fauci’s partners, who tortured and mistreated them in a gruesome series of unregulated medication and vaccine tests. Many of the experiments resulted in the deaths of the children. During the AIDS epidemic, he portrayed himself as the world’s savior while making billions of dollars for his partners in the pharmaceutical sector. And now he is pushing the new vaccine, why should we trust this man and why has the media portrayed this man as someone we should trust?

This documentary included some things I find factual and some fabricated things. The film supports allegations that Bill Gates intends to use vaccines to wipe off up to 15% of the world’s population. The argument is supported by a misrepresented video clip of Gates from a 2010 TED Talk in which he asserts that improving healthcare in developing nations might curb population growth. There is no actual evidence to back that up. There are also thought to be factual concepts brought up in the film. The film’s central claim is that the COVID-19 immunizations have allegedly led to a mass death abruptly of otherwise healthy people due to excessive blood clotting caused by the spike protein created by the mRNA vaccine. Of course, people can believe what they want about the claims made in the film, but the evidence points to these claims being more fabricated than factual. I found more support from the film on DuckDuckGo than google. On the first page of my search I found an article on independentsentinel.com that mainstream media is dismissing this movie as a conspiracy theory so rapidly, the mainstream media seems to be doing damage management for Big Pharma while ignoring the primary points the film raises. I’m to conclude that mainstream media doesn’t want this film getting out. I have learned that people don’t even want to see the other side of things and just listen to whatever they are told.