Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 15:19:05 +0100

scott@loves.tech

There are wolves and there are wolves in sheep's clothing. It is easier to spot the wolves than it is to spot the wolves in sheep's clothing. And, unfortunately, a lot of people claiming to be the good guys are wolves in sheep's clothing. Some of the give aways include the desire to gain and centralize power, and the desire to silence opponents. And we are, unfortunately, seeing a lot of that lately.

People who say all of the right things, and who are on the "correct side" in a battle, are sometimes wolves in sheep's clothing. It's why many initiatives for good ultimately fail. They are corrupted by wolves in sheep's clothing. We have to be aware of that if we want to prevent bad actors from taking control or co-opting our initiatives for good.

show all 21 Comments

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 17:09:32 +0100

Hilmar R (u-zapalot)

hi-u@zapalot.in-eu.net

Hmm,
Very vague and non-specific. Can't it be more precise? What and who is meant? Such general statements do not help anyone. In information theory, the less precise a statement is, the truer it is. If I say, tomorrow the weather will be bad, this is certainly true somewhere on earth, therefore true. If I say more precisely, the weather is bad tomorrow at my location, this can be so, is however not hundred percent already certainty, and can thus be wrong. So if there is anything concrete, please share. A sheep in the wolf's coat (no offense

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 23:50:26 +0100 last edited: Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:03:36 +0100

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Hilmar R (u-zapalot)

Very vague and non-specific. Can't it be more precise? What and who is meant? Such general statements do not help anyone. In information theory, the less precise a statement is, the truer it is.

Yes, it can be a LOT more precise, but I am purposefully avoiding making this a political post. And, as someone who has studied political science, I see this very very frequently.

Here are some examples without naming specific people, or political parties:

Stated goal: protect people from being attacked by trolls and haters.
Tactic: Give themselves and their allies control over what can be said and not said by censorship and suppression of speech.
Real goal: silence opposition and control the narrative.

There are some groups of people in the fediverse (mostly centered around Mastodon) that are proposing the centralization Mastodon or a centralized block list so they can have more control. They spout lofty goals like creating a safe space and protecting vulnerable communities, but if you look at their actions, they regularly ban people for disagreeing with them, or for being from the wrong political, social, or ethnic group. This is a tactic that they have used before on major social media networks and in the mass media, so they naturally want to extend their control over the internet and the fediverse as well.

Promise: affordable healthcare or some other lofty goal.
Tactic: hide provisions in a bill or law that benefits themselves and mislead people about the true nature of the bill.
Reality: the bill they introduce or law they pass does not do what they say it does, but instead enriches themselves & their allies, gives them control of your money, and takes away your choices.

They structure it like this so that if you oppose the specific parts of the bill that are flawed or dangerous, they falsely state that you are against the stated goal of the bill (such as affordable healthcare), when in reality, the reason why you oppose their bill or law is because they are lying about what it will do.

Stated goal: being tough on crime and corruption.
Reality: they purposefully implement it in a racist way by targeting certain ethnic groups, and/or use it as an excuse to go after their enemies.

This is a favorite of both racists and tyrants alike. They paint a pretty picture about how it is supposed to work, but they really are out to silence a certain group of people. For example, in many states in the U.S., if you are a felon, you can't vote. So if they target minorities that typically support a different political party, and get them convicted of crimes, they reduce the number of votes for the opposition political party. And dictators regularly use this tactic to clean house and get rid of rivals for power.

Stated goal: give workers power by having them own the means of production.
Tactic: Propaganda and their constitution promise all sorts of rights, but they ban completing political parties and require being a member of that party to hold office. Since you can't get elected without being favored by the party, power flows up to the party leader and away from the voters.
Reality: The workers only own it on paper; the real control is by the party and the corrupt bureaucrats that run the factories. Since there is no competition, workers become virtual slaves to their new overlords.

Collectives, communes, cooperatives, and employee-owned companies actually work well when they are independent and decentralized, because workers have a choice who they can work for and consumers have a choice of providers. And yet communist systems, and even some socialist systems, propose centralizing power. The basic scam is they promise the workers power and fair wages, but then structure it so that the leaders at the top really get the power and wealth.

And the list goes on...

I could spend days listing how corrupt individuals lie to people to get power and wealth. It is very very very common. And yet people fall for it time and time again. It's like they can't see it all around them.

The basic lesson I am trying to state, which is nearly universal, is that if someone seeks money and power, take a close look at WHY they want it. Look at their behavior, not their words.

I am not saying that everyone is evil, and that everyone in power is bad. In fact, we need MORE good people in power. But, we need to be awake enough to realize that the stated goals are not always the real goals. and we have to stop falling for propaganda and promises that never materialize.

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 01:52:39 +0100

Bill Statler

billstatler@forum.statler.ws

I knew a guy on a forum who was a marketing researcher. Well, he never told us that he was anything other than a "scientist", because that would have interfered with his ability to manipulate the narrative on the forum, but I figured it out with a little searching.

What I learned from him is that truth isn't facts. Truth isn't something you discover, it's something you create in the minds of your audience.

I mean, that's how marketing and propaganda professionals see it. There are all sorts of tools for creating this sort of truth. Censorship is a great tool, but it's old-fashioned, and difficult to conceal nowadays. It's even better if you can persuade your audience that they have a Big Scary Enemy, and everything the Enemy says is part of their evil conspiracy and can't be trusted. In this way, people provide their own censorship by editing out the Enemy's words from their input stream.

Well, I could write thousands of words about this. But anyway...

Regarding the Fediverse, I agree there are wolves in sheep's clothing. But there are, I think, a much larger number of people who see themselves as shepherds or sheepdogs, urgently trying to protect their flock -- because they have accepted the "truth" about the Big Scary Enemy.

What these people are missing is the inherent resilience of a decentralized Fediverse, that puts a lot of power in the hands of individual users and instance administrators. We don't need a lot of help from centralized authorities (who can only be self-proclaimed authorities, because the Fediverse doesn't support centralization!).

Lots of issues here, but I'm stopping now or I'll be rambling for hours...

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 10:18:04 +0100

Einer von Vielen

einer@digitalesparadies.de

There are some groups of people in the fediverse (mostly centered around Mastodon) that are proposing the centralization Mastodon or a centralized block list so they can have more control. They spout lofty goals like creating a safe space and protecting vulnerable communities, but if you look at their actions, they regularly ban people for disagreeing with them, or for being from the wrong political, social, or ethnic group.

Haha, so true. Back in history...This is what happened in socialist times on a large scale, kindergarten, schools, university, media, art, politics.

And yet communist systems, and even some socialist systems, propose centralizing power.

By own experience (living in East Germany), this was what they DID - but in contradiction to their own theory. The theory was to first centralize the power to achieve the goal (the state is ruled by workers and peasants) and then time by time dilute and decentralize the power, see for example "The State and Revolution", by Lenin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_and_Revolution.

We had to attend all sorts of training courses back in these times, in school, at the army, at university,... To confront the teachers and course instructors with citations from books of Lenin or Marx was always a good laugh and at the same time the application to win the balls of steel award. The consequences where not always very funny. You had to be very careful how to do it, e.g. pretending this is an honest discussion you want to have. The whole "game" was characterized by dishonesty, the real existing socialism itself as well as the way to make a laugh.

@Scott M. Stolz (scott@scottstolz.com) Interesting to read your comments for somebody like me. After all the experiences in the past I tend to deeply distrust centralization of power and people showing a big moralistic attitude in the public. I like your advice to look at what somebody does, at the results.

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 12:01:42 +0100 last edited: Mon, 09 Jan 2023 12:07:46 +0100

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Bill Statler

I agree there are wolves in sheep's clothing. But there are, I think, a much larger number of people who see themselves as shepherds or sheepdogs, urgently trying to protect their flock -- because they have accepted the "truth" about the Big Scary Enemy.

That's how it works. The wolves in sheep's clothing don't tell the shepherds, sheepdogs, and sheep that they are really wolves. Instead, they convince them to work against their own self-interest.

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 12:24:50 +0100 last edited: Mon, 09 Jan 2023 12:26:04 +0100

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Einer von Vielen

Interesting to read your comments for somebody like me. After all the experiences in the past I tend to deeply distrust centralization of power and people showing a big moralistic attitude in the public. I like your advice to look at what somebody does, at the results.

I've studied political science and it's an area I've continued to research over the years, and a common thread of tyranny is consolidation of power, regardless of the political or economic system involved.

A lot of the problems we are having in the U.S. and the world right now is directly caused by consolidation of power, both in the private sector and the public sector. Even if you wind up with benevolent leaders for awhile, the greedy will weasel their way in and take power, and that winds up corroding any good intentions some people involved had.

That is why that it is important to decentralize power, and make sure there is competition and choice. You will always have bad actors out there, but at least you could limit the damage they do by limiting their power and reach. and since people have a choices, people will tend to migrate away from bad actors, to competitors where they are treated better.

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 15:19:45 +0100

Einer von Vielen

einer@digitalesparadies.de

You describe the reasons to use Hubzilla and Streams, Linux, LineageOS/GrapheneOS,... At least there are options in some parts of the digital world.

But what to do as citizen in the USA or Germany to fix the problems described above, e.g. bad effects of increasing centralization?

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 15:25:49 +0100

Hans

hans@federate.hopto.org

Educating people seems to be the most important thing there is. There is a world wide group who is triggering people to take part in the protests on the right side. In the Netherlands, during the Farmers protests there have been former military active from the US who now form a right wing press group lead by people like Banon. I am sure they are active in other countries too.

They are covering there stories since those people are angry and they slowly make them mad. Together with centralized social media that helps a lot. Let's not forget they are active in decentralized networks too

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 18:25:26 +0100

Einer von Vielen

einer@digitalesparadies.de

@Hans (hans@federate.hopto.org) I doubt that the right wings are the problem.

Take current Germany as example. The right wings are not in power at all. We have Social Democrats and the Green Party in power. You would think they are educated, have the right ideas and plans and will do the right job. What do we have:

- A war in the Ukraine the politicians are heating (not ending in a civilized way)
- increasing flux of weapons and money from Germany into Ukraine that heats the war (and makes the defense industry happy and Ukrainian and Russian people dead),
- less income for the common people as direct consequence of the sanctions against Russia (Does anybody can tell a case in recent history where sanctions did stop the war and did not make common people poor?)
- a big refugee problem (more) in Germany, less available flats, degenerating social system, more competition between refugees and people with low income, accelerated social separation
- we burn more coal and wood. Our car parked in the city center or Munich is now black from wood fires to heat apartments and houses
- more natural gas and oil imported by "friendly" states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia (to make them even more rich and finance their wars and religious terror)
- more expensive public transport compared to a year ago
- ...

If you would throw the dice for political decisions the outcome would be better for the common people (in Germany) despite all big moral and words of the Socialist and Greens. They do not act green and social. That is a bitter fact. The plan to spend 100.000.000.000 € extra in the defense industry plus all the "fantas-trillions" Euros they throw as weaponry and "peace" bombs onto Ukraine.

How would it be possible to act worse than this? (Ok, sending own troops directly to "defend our democracy" would be worse.)

@Hans (hans@federate.hopto.org) Do you really think the so called right wing parties in Germany would do it worse? How? (I am no big fan of them either.) The opposite is true. The AfD was the ONLY party that voted officially against the participation in the war. That is a BIG shame for every other party in my eyes, because what else can be worse than sending people death.

That said I would more stick to the arguments @Scott M. Stolz (scott@scottstolz.com) has thrown into the round. It is more about centralization, corruption by money and power, neo-liberalism, privatization,...

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 18:42:18 +0100

Hans

hans@federate.hopto.org

@Einer von Vielen

Do you really think the so called right wing parties in Germany would do it worse? How? (I am no big fan of them either.) The opposite is true. The AfD was the ONLY party that voted officially against the participation in the war. That is a BIG shame for every other party in my eyes, because what else can be worse than sending people death.

Good question. They might have voted against the war (and there is a lot to say for that) but what would happen if all of the European countries would have voted against it? The Russians would invade it anyway since, I think we all know, the resources in the Eastern part of the Ukraine are worth a lot of money (next to the strategic part of the Krim).

Not sending them into death would indeed be an ideal situation but invading the country is taking place. We can make choices but if we stop making them the Russians will invade other countries too. They might even move to Romania, Moldavia and even Serbia since those countries are 'related' to each other.

They could have come up with a different strategy maybe. Fact is that I doubt the right wing politicians would neither be able to solve it. I doubt if it would have helped against the high energy prices, etc...

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 23:52:08 +0100

Einer von Vielen

einer@digitalesparadies.de

@Hans (hans@federate.hopto.org) Some decades ago the Russians invaded "Romania, Moldavia and even Serbia", and Ukraine and Poland and parts of Germany and.... After this we had politicians that were not keen to solve problems using weapons. Result: the Russians are not present in all these countries any more. By the way the USA is still in Germany and "leads" some important decisions over here. Think of North Stream 2. They actively tried to prevent it by the means of sanctions and much pressure. At some point it was blown up. Members of the German parliament still do not get answers about the status of the investigations from the German government (we remember is socialist and green now).

I think blaming guys like Putin or groups like the right wings will not be part of any solution neither for climate change or war in the Ukraine or elsewhere.

Just think of a world where the Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine could have voted whether they want to have an autonomous status, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements#Minsk_II,_February_2015 This was actively prevented with the help of external powers like the CIA, USA, big western companies, by sending weapons, training of Ukrainian soldiers along with NATO "allies", Millions of Dollars for "western" propaganda. Probably the same forces that are now heating war.

The emphasis on my points is not the USA - it is on centralized power, corrupted greedy people leading mighty organizations. The USA is just a kind of placeholder. You could even replace "USA" with the name of corrupt "organizations" in the Ukraine that have more interest in gaining more power or earning money from the war instead of ending it. They can because they have enough power to do so (and are supported by some "western" forces.) Nobody of them was ever interested in asking the ordinary folks what they want, see Minsk 1 and 2.

By the way @Hans (hans@federate.hopto.org) when did you hear somebody mentioning Minsk 1 and 2 in the public media? I was thinking about it recently and can't remember really to be honest. Some of my friends even do not know the basic points of it but keep insisting that ONLY Putin is guilty for war. They do not know anything about ten-thousands of dead since 2014 and that there was an ongoing civil war there. That tells much about the media too, who sets the agenda there, who owns it and so on. But this is another sad topic. As far as I know most of the media in Germany tends see themself more left, woke and progressive than the average people. You can recognize it by the topics and the modern grammar using gender neutral words.

There is a study of German universities about the extend of how biased the main German media is on the Ukrainian war, see https://www.otto-brenner-stiftung.de/fileadmin/user_data/stiftung/02_Wissenschaftsportal/03_Publikationen/2022_Ukraine_Zwischenbericht.pdf

That leads us somehow back to the original topic.

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 23:55:23 +0100

Einer von Vielen

einer@digitalesparadies.de

OMG @Scott M. Stolz (scott@scottstolz.com) I really hijacked your post. Sorry!

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:16:31 +0100

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Einer von Vielen

I really hijacked your post. Sorry!

It's okay. I enjoy these types of discussions. I'll chime in later on some of the posts.

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 02:44:43 +0100

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Einer von Vielen

But what to do as citizen in the USA or Germany to fix the problems described above, e.g. bad effects of increasing centralization?

It's not too late in most countries, and there are a lot of things that can be done, such as:

1. Support small businesses and independents.

2. Understand how franchising works, and figure out if local chains are owned by small businesses or by the corporation itself. Supporting a small business that has a franchising license still supports decentralization, even if they are using a common brand name.

3. Support projects such as Hubzilla and Streams, that actively work to decentralize the internet. Even if you can't write code, writing how-to guides, and promoting the technology helps get the word out.

4. If you own a business, pay your employees and subcontractors well. If enough businesses do this, it puts pressure on businesses that treat employees poorly. And you get loyal and productive employees by treating them well, so it is a win-win.

5. If you have access to capital, then start public benefit corporations like Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs, a rural internet service provider cooperative, or something else that disrupts companies that overcharge for their products and services.

6. Start a business that helps others become independent. Perhaps a business that helps other people start their own businesses.

7. Start a cooperative, credit union, or employee-owned company. Investor funding and control is only one way to structure a company. There actually are many other ways a company can be managed and owned.

8. Pay attention to proposed legislation, and when dangerous and ill-conceived laws are proposed, speak up and make yourself heard. You have a better chance of stopping it before it becomes law.

9. If so inclined, research individual politicians instead of depending on the party labels. In some countries, like the United States, parties are closer to being a coalition, because there are different factions within each major party. Moderates and extremists sometimes wind up under the same party label. Then vote for politicians that support your values, instead of assuming they do based on party label.

There are more things that can be done, but most of them are specific to a particular country. For example, there may be specific proposals and initiatives that support decentralization and competition. For example, some states are considering ranked-voting (also known as instant run-off), which allows you to pick a first choice and if that one does not win, then your secondary choice(s) will get your vote instead. This will allow people to vote for third-parties, without the diluted vote problem, and would bring more competition to elections.

We already have millions of people migrating to decentralized solutions. We just have to keep up the momentum. If enough people switch to decentralized solutions, a tipping point will be reached and it will become the norm.

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 07:48:49 +0100

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

@Einer von Vielen

Some decades ago the Russians invaded "Romania, Moldavia and even Serbia", and Ukraine and Poland and parts of Germany and....

Well... IIRC the austrian guy often compared to the current russian leader these days, invaded Poland first.

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:05:49 +0100

Hans

hans@federate.hopto.org

@Mario Vavti Do you mean 1980?

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:46:12 +0100

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Mario Vavti

Well... IIRC the austrian guy often compared to the current russian leader these days, invaded Poland first.

And 16 days later, a certain Russian leader invaded Poland and annexed his half, leaving the other half to a certain Austrian guy.

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 09:57:52 +0100

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Einer von Vielen

Take current Germany as example. The right wings are not in power at all. We have Social Democrats and the Green Party in power. You would think they are educated, have the right ideas and plans and will do the right job.
...
If you would throw the dice for political decisions the outcome would be better for the common people (in Germany) despite all big moral and words of the Socialist and Greens. They do not act green and social. That is a bitter fact.

In the U.S., we seem to have a similar problem:

One group says all of this wonderful stuff, but their laws rarely accomplish what they say they do, and are filled with pork for their backers.
Another group proposes all sorts of horrible things that will hurt certain groups of people, and then try to actually enact these horrible laws.
Yet another group actually wants to solve the problems, but their ideas are so misguided that if made law, would actually make things worse.

Things are not looking good.

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 10:02:59 +0100

Mario Vavti

mario@hub.somaton.com

@Hans i mean 1939

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 11:07:07 +0100

Einer von Vielen

einer@digitalesparadies.de

There are other consequenses of war and sanctions: 600% increase of "trade with women" in the Ukraine, see https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/osze-menschenhandel-101.html That is the opposite of values-driven foreign policy the German (and EU) government claims to follow. They should take all measures to prevent the "nurturing soil" for this kind of things. Instead they are heating it.

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 14:29:37 +0100

Hans

hans@federate.hopto.org

Even within the countries their seek shelter this happens. Not as much as trade but they are put to work for very low wages....

Terrible, but what would happen if we would do nothing? I am happy to see so many people indeed getting that help. It is only a sad story that refugees from the middle east (not those youngster who are looking for a more luxery life) are out in the cold due to that. Belgium let's them sleep in abandoned factories, Netherlands are stalling shelters, ....