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Canadian IP Lobbyists Caught Faking Counterfeit Data
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian IP Council, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce's IP lobby arm, has been caught floating false claims about the scope of counterfeiting in Canada. Recent claims include citing a figure based on numbers the FBI rejects ($22.5 billion), a figure the Canadian police won't support ($30 billion), and when pressed on the issue, it now points to yet another source that upon review indicates it fabricated its claims."
This isn't incompetence, it's sickening greed.
It is a physical pathology of which greed, amongst other things, including criminal behavior, is a symptom.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
When has a Corporate Special Interest Group ever told the complete truth?
In high school, I had a civics teacher who was also serving on the state legislature (it was a flyover state, not much important going on.) He said lobbyists at least at that level generally wouldn't lie to lawmakers: if a lobbyist loses his credibility with lawmakers, that really damages his ability to influence policy, they were usually a valuable source of information. His example was radar detectors in cars, the state was considering banning them. He didn't know anything about them, and until he talked to lobbyists, didn't realize that a radar detector manufacturer had a plant in that state. A significant number of his constituents' jobs could be affected.
There are clear cases where corporate special interest groups are scum, yes, but I think it's overly simplistic to imply that -all- interest groups are corrupt. I think this is more of a case of a generally corrupt industry with lobbyists. Big content is a worse blight on our culture and economy than lobbyists as a group are: plenty of lobbyists are working to make our politicians less ignorant on causes that affect you.
Lobbyists don't simply lie. That's a vast understatement. We model realities. (At least the skilled ones.) [I say "we", because I try to do the same thing, to fight them. Not that I would be one of them.]
This only works, because people can't accept that reality is relative. So they can't accept that what they perceive as reality, might actually be bad for them and force them to act in a certain way not because that's how things are, but because it was specifically designed that way.
Which means they will defend what they think is "absolute/objective reality" (something that doesn't exist) to their death.
Which means once they experienced your input as part of their reality, they will defend you to their death.
It's beautiful. Evil, but beautiful and elegant. But about the most evil thing one can do.
I personally consider it more evil than mass-murder. Because those manipulated people in essence stop being an independent entity, but become part of you. Like a possessed zombie, dead, yet walking the earth and talking your views.
At least the dead have their peace.
I doubt it will be widely appreciated but you actually do make a compelling observation. I actually wish you had posted with an account.
There's only one point where I would dispute you. Reality simply is. The only reason it may seem relative is that too many people don't have their own eyes to see. They do not know how to process and interpret information for themselves. They don't think critically. They don't understand reason, logical fallacies, bias, nor do they know how to test the objective truth of a thing. They think that's too hard. So they look to others, some trusted establishment like the government, or the media, or a charismatic leader, to tell them what they need to know and how they should feel about it. We call it advertising, propaganda, sound bites, debate framing, half-truths, agenda-driven reporting, whatever you like. If enough people are on board and agree with each other, they see no fault even when there are great faults.
It is the dependence on others to do for you what you should be well able to do for yourself that is the problem. That's why there are "gatekeepers" who get to decide what does and does not become what "everybody knows".
The hard truth is, most human beings are type-cast personalities. They are stamped from a few cookie cutters. They are individuals "just like everyone else" which means not at all. Their thoughts, beliefs, mannerisms, biases, values, ethics, principles, worldviews, perspectives, even those they would quite willingly fight for, are not their own. They are not genuinely theirs. Someone spent a lot of money, expended a lot of influence and political capital, and worked very hard to sell those ideas. It is actually a hypnotic state passionately governed by a sort of emotional logic.
The really funny thing about hyponosis is that people will always rationalize it. A professional hypnotist can look someone right in the eye, with that person's full attention, and tell them plainly "I am about to hypnotize you, and when I do, you will have an overwhelming urge to stand on your head because that is what I hypnotized you to do." Later, the person stands on their head. If you ask them why, they will always have an excuse like "this is my exercise regimen (though it never was before)" or "maybe this will fix my headache" (though they always took an aspirin before). They will never, ever admit that it was due to someone else's influence. Hypnosis works at the ego level, and the ego cannot admit that it has reigns and that someone else can hold them, that the strongest most polished influence gets to possess the reigns.
People easily become so identified with these labels and engineered perspectives that losing them would feel like a type of death. That's what drives the denial. It's the barrier to entry to waking up and realizing how much you're lied to and manipulated every day by people w
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein