Camelot and Avalon Projects:
Attention, disinformation!
July 17 - 21, 2010
English version
The Honorable Mr. Keshe
The Thrive Project
Richard Vialle's Degravitron
(and the response of a young "mathematician-physicist", full of diplomas)
Raoul Frank Hatem's "superunitary" pseudo-scientific generator
N
ow we live in a strange era, where one cannot say that we are deprived of information, but rather that we are often saturated with information, or at least supposedly so. When you read a newspaper, watch a TV program, check a website, watch a video, or use a search engine, you are in a situation of
information search
. Contemporary events, such as the H1N1 vaccination campaign, have shown that you cannot take everything at face value. And this is valid in all areas. In the end, it is
you
who decide whether an information is credible or not. At the time, I had summarized this approach by drawing a slider, with a big question mark regarding its position.
T
he situation on the right evokes an alarmist, even catastrophic, position.
T
he history shows that it is very difficult to position oneself between the reassuring speech and the alarmist cry. Review world history, just before 1939. People who feared a global conflagration were mocked by many. The Englishman Chamberlain himself, after meeting the Chancellor Adolf Hitler, returned from the famous Munich meeting in 1938, with a piece of paper signed by him, exclaiming "Peace is saved!". In this text, Adolf Hitler promised to limit his appetite for conquests to the annexation of the "Sudetenland", a region located in western Czechoslovakia, bordering Germany, with a certain percentage of German speakers. Other nations soon found out otherwise.
Chamberlain, after his meeting with Hitler in 1938: "Peace is saved!"
I
n passing, I would like to say that by choosing this historical anecdote, I did not intend to insert any allusion related to any facet of our present. It is there to remind us that our world has known times when, on the eve of a deadly, terrible, global conflagration, people seemed completely unaware. My own parents told me that in 1939 no one would have believed for a second that a new world war would start, and I still hear my mother recall that people said, "If there was a war, think, with the current modern means, it would be over in a few months!"
A
nd yet...
I
f I placed a television screen on the left side, it is because often this box of images plays a role of anesthetic. However, it is remarkable to note that channels like Arte can broadcast alternately, depending on the subjects, well-supported information, historical or based on very thorough and documented investigations, as well as real brainwashing, of
disinformation
, like the 2004 program "September 11 did not happen", hosted by journalist Daniel Lecomte.
Journalist Daniel Lecomte
O
ne cannot say "don't watch the Arte channel, it only disinforms you". Informing oneself is an
active
attitude. In principle, the job of a journalist is to make verifications, through cross-checking, field investigations, and archive consultations, for his readers or viewers. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a lack of professional awareness in this profession.
T
hose who manage sites like mine must constantly do similar work, which takes time and is not always easy. I must admit, I am greatly helped by my readers, who guide me in my research and possibly correct my mistakes.
I
nformation is never neutral. A void information, a bombardment of "people" information is in itself an act of disinformation, aimed at capturing the attention of people, to prevent them from looking elsewhere.
W
hen confronted with a speech, questions immediately emerge. Who is speaking? Who is expressing themselves? What channel is used? What type of information appears through this channel? Does this source regularly mix facts with baseless statements?
S
ometimes it is the speaker's competence that should attract attention. Today, sites like Wikipedia allow, with a simple click, to access a profile of the speaker, and to access their background, their CV. I sometimes express a personal opinion on certain scientific and technical aspects, when it falls within my range of skills. This allows me to formulate a personal opinion on the plausibility of such or such information. This has allowed me to react quite early to the emergence of certain techniques, such as the famous "chips" or RFID, simply because of my ability to extrapolate the evolution of an emerging technology.
I
always try to be cautious when citing a particular site or media. I have also learned to be more cautious when people from the media (or those who pretend to be) of any size, ask me for something. After some bad experiences like my participation in the program "L'Arène" on France, on March 21, 2007, hosted by Stéphane Bern, I can tell you that if I go on a set, I always take with me, well hidden, an MP3 audio recorder, to signal, if necessary, any censorship measures during the broadcast (it should be noted that the 2009 program on Direct8 had no major cuts. But as you have noticed, this had no follow-up, the channel having been quickly taken back under control).
Dossier: UFOs and the Media
I
n other cases, it appears necessary to point out people who present themselves as scientists, specialists in this and that, without any background. A few years ago, I was approached by readers who sent me hours and hours of lectures by a certain Jean-Marc Roeder, "quantum physicist". After listening to everything, I concluded that the character was completely inconsistent, and I said so without hesitation on my site.
Jean-Marc Roeder, an admitted pseudo-scientist
Scientific background: zero
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/quanthommesuite/roederholodynamquant.htm
I
n forums, one can hear participants protest by saying that I am quite sharp towards people "who are fighting the same battle as me". To this I respond that since 2008, apart from popular science books, I now limit my science information channels to participation in international scientific conferences (Vilnius, 2008, MHD, Bremen 2009, hypersonic aerodynamics, Jeju, South Korea, MHD, 2010, Prague, 2012, MHD) and to high-level scientific journals with a review committee (Acta Physica Polonica, 2009, three MHD articles). Outside of this, we have decided to strictly control the content and distribution of our interventions, without needing to resort to third parties.
W
hen a media regularly hosts people like Jean-Marc Roeder, they can be classified among the communication channels lacking seriousness. This is the case for
Radio Ici et Maintenant
, directed by Didier de Plaige (whose real name is not actually that, but the name of the Ashram where this ex-Buddhist had stayed for a while), which widely opens its a...