Breaking Kayfabe: the 'news' is faker than WWE, time for experiments!

EPISODE 1: How to summarise as much as possible about how politics really works in a 60 second video?

Here’s an experiment. I’m calling it Breaking Kayfabe in honour of the fact that, as the legendary music producer and founder of Def Jam Recordings Rick Rubin says: the mainstream news is fake, WWE is real!

The Undertaker’s Wrestlemania XX Entrance

Politics is getting crazier and crazier.

People want to understand what’s really happening.

The old ‘news’ and punditry from the old political media seems not just useless but fake and part of the craziness — the politicians jabber crazy nonsense then the media take the crazy nonsense seriously and jabber their own crazy nonsense as ‘explanation’.

And, twisting the doom loop tighter, the old media seems even more herd-like than ever because of social media dynamics whereby they herd themselves via social media and instant messaging.

Closing borders is racist… Only racists oppose closing borders…

Herd immunity without vaccines is the science and the policy… Herd immunity without vaccines was never the policy…

The central question in the referendum is about whether we’re in the Single Market and Customs Union… The referendum was never about whether we’re in the Single Market and Customs Union…

Putin’s claim that NATO wants Ukraine in NATO is a lie… Ukraine must join NATO…

The war is weakening Russia so we must continue… The war is strengthening Russia so we must continue…

Over and over we experience this narrative whiplash but when we watch those mouthing these lines on TV, they are the only ones who think their lines are real, the rest of us know it’s fake and they keep changing their story! Crazy!?!

So we have a world of the old parties, old media and old academia that seem to be focused on the nonsense jabbered by each other to each other — they are not focused on reality or the voters. Their story to themselves is that the world is getting crazy because ‘normal voters’ are ‘fooled by misinformation’ so have ‘lost trust in our institutions’ (i.e lost trust in *us having the power*).

And we have the world outside this Insider network that thinks the Insider network is not just useless but either lying or deranged — it’s often hard to be sure which — and deserves the exact opposite of ‘more trust’.

And we have elites themselves fragmenting so now we also have people like Elon supported by friends in the Silicon Valley network — the heart of the Left madness and previously integrated almost entirely with the Insider political network — turning against the politicians and even exposing their crimes! Crazier and crazier!?!

While AOC and the neocons who brought us the Iraq-Libya-Afghanistan debacles are increasingly memetically synchronised, not just on more war but also on more censorship!?! How did that happen?!

People are also swamped by content. They don’t want to and don’t have time to wade through long things trying to figure out what’s important in the news. And why bother when you can’t easily tell what’s fake?

Think about the war. How can you tell what’s really happening? It’s incredibly hard. Most of what the governments say is obviously lies. Most of the academic and think tank world, who are supposed to correct the errors of government, reinforce the lies and add to them. Obviously you can’t trust the BBC, CNN etc: non-stop lies and, even more disconcerting, non-stop narrative whiplash — they don’t even maintain the coherence of their story. It’s impossible to live a normal life and spend hours combing the internet to figure out which randoms are actually accurate.

So I’m going to experiment with super short and simple video that focuses on what’s important.

I’m also interested to see how people share these, given short videos are taking over from text.

This is Breaking Kayfabe…

[These will be restricted to subscribers for some period then opened to all, period will vary…]

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EPISODE 1: How to summarise as much as possible about how politics really works in 60 seconds?

If you watch politics and government with these five Golden Rules in mind, which are the exact opposite of the Official Story, the news will make much more sense.

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TRANSCRIPT

How does government really work?

First, not even nuclear weapons are taken seriously so never assume the problem leading the news is taken seriously.

Second, roughly all the most talented people at building things are excluded from our civil service, the politicians you vote for have roughly zero power to hire, fire or incentivise officials so they have no real power. 

Third, if you think of the most fundamental principles that lie behind the most successful organisations in history — principles like extreme speed and clear responsibility etc - then our government works almost totally on exactly opposite principles.

Fourth, the MPs are usually NOT focused on the election which is usually far away, they’re focused on what they think they need to tell the media today to improve their chances of promotion. 

Fifth, the civil service and politicians’ top priority is not doing a good job for voters, it’s preserving existing power and budgets, if you don’t share this priority you don’t get promoted. 

Breaking Kayfabe Episode 1, share with friends who want to know how government really works…

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Added 2/5 on Rule #1 and nukes

The very next day (2/5) we see an interview with Macron.

He says ‘France has always rejected the use of tactical nuclear weapons’.

This is a lie or ignorance. In the 1970s France had nuclear weapons and discussed their use.

Either way, an immediate definitive example from the leader of a nuclear power of my Golden Rule:

Not even nuclear weapons are taken seriously so never assume the problem leading the news is taken seriously.

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Leave ideas for future episodes in comments.

E.g…

The Ukraine war in 60 seconds.

The referendum in 60 seconds.

The 2024 election in 60 seconds…