You’re in a community of 100 sheep. Two of them are actually wolves but only the wolves know who’s who. Every night the wolves pick two sheep to eat and every day, the sheep can choose two sheep to ban from the community. The wolves have a 100% chance of picking a sheep, while the sheep without knowledge will forever have a much lower chance at picking the right wolves. The sheep will slowly be taken out, until a large amount of sheep have been culled.
When we don’t know what is true, we lose our ability to protect ourselves from the wolves. It’s one reason why there is such a disdain for those with power. We assume that those with power have the highest chances of being a wolf and that if we cull those with power, then surely the wolves would be gone. Alas, it won’t work. 1. Even if we removed all those in power and they were all wolves, who is going to be in power next (or have the most influence)? How will we know who ends up in power isn’t also another wolf? 2. Even if we were lucky and picked those who aren’t wolves to lead the charge, it would only be a matter of time before those who were once sheep turn to wolves. The one thing we have to rely on is our ability to discern what is true and what is not, to slowly, methodically and endlessly account for the wolves as they arise.
Being Woke and Red Pilled
I know what you may be thinking, “well thank goodness I’m no sheep”, maybe you took the red pill. In our little game theory setup however, sheep is just another term for good guy and wolf is another term for bad guy. The sheep are those who won’t take out others for money, power and control. But yes, ideally we are awake and ‘red pilled’ so we can better account for the wolves and act accordingly. Unfortunately our ability to discern fact from fiction, to know ‘truth’ is ultimately dependent on others to which we have no real ability to prove. From religion, to anything in history, everything is from another person’s perspective and bias.
For example we have books that tell us what the Civil war was about, yet one book says slavery was the primary reason for the war, while another book says it was about state independence and capitalism. Both quoting primary sources and seemingly based in truth. If anyone claims to know ‘for sure’, how do they know? Because their family said so? Because enough correlating evidence shows them otherwise? Where did the correlating evidence come from and how can it be verified? It may seem as if I’m splitting hairs, but it’s important, the things we learn about history are completely dependent on evidence that we have no direct proof of and is also over long and extended periods of time. We can’t name one historical topic that doesn’t have an alternative reality or possibility. If we’re willing to staunchly defend a particular historical theory, we really have to ask ourselves why, when we have no direct evidence, just books and heresy?
What the ‘truther’ community seem to forget is that waking up and being red pilled in our reality doesn’t mean we’re finding and understanding actual truth. It means we realize when our own truths, our own assumptions are incorrect. It is not a one time event, like taking a pill or ‘waking up’ and never having to worry again. No, it’s a constant action, a constant fight to introspect and prove ourselves wrong on our own internal beliefs.
If we find out a truth and speak negatively about those who have not realized the same truth, we are not red pilled, we are not awake and can just as easily fall for the next big untruth. If we follow a trusted truther’s opinion, without our own evidence and understanding, we are also lost. If we use terms like ‘woke’ to make fun of others or underscore their ignorance, we are likely still ignorant ourselves. Why be angry about what others do not know or understand? Why not help them understand instead of finding ways to belittle them? And if we hold no animosity towards those who don’t understand, and find ourselves still using vocabulary that pushes a negative narrative about others with no solutions, chances are we are a victim of controlled opposition.
Controlled by the Opposition
Lenin once said that the best way to control the opposition is to lead the opposition. Despite him not being someone we aspire to emulate, it’s exactly what all of the largest governments and corporations understand fully. It is why police have undercover agents infiltrating gangs and why gangs have police on payroll. It’s why we have intelligence agencies and spies as depicted in our favorite TV shows and movies. These are the easy analogies, but what about social media? What about TV shows and games? What about lobbyists? What about a non-profit organizations, religions? What about the food companies? What about the pharmaceutical industry? What about common household goods?
Any organization that makes large amounts of money, has the ability to communicate to large amounts of people, has the ability to put their product in most of our homes or better yet in our bodies, all have major potential for wolves. This much is obvious, but what isn’t as obvious is that most of these groups will have strategically controlled opposition. Honeypots for those who are trying to understand, who want to do the right thing, who want to stay informed. For example, pick any household good, something as simple as a plastic glove for washing dishes, would never have something as nefarious sounding as controlled opposition right? We’d be wrong. The plastic glove industry is well over 20 billion dollars in just the US and to think for a second, controlled opposition isn’t rooted in the various groups against plastic from environmental groups to latex allergies we would be grossly mistaken.
Let’s imagine for a minute we are the controllers of some large scale conspiracy. There’s no way to keep it perfectly concealed because it’s just too large. Instead if we wanted to keep our conspiracy in check, what better way than to create a community of accepting individuals, to welcome them in, have them tell their heartfelt stories, present all of their researched arguments, people and organizations supporting the cause against us. Before we know it, we’ll have every possible argument and can build a case against it all; we’d have the trust of the sheep wanting positive change and allowing for us to mobilize their resources to their own detriment. Even worse, this level of controlled opposition is the most basic. If we’re finding an organization actively blocking or removing certain posts, while this may be a controlled opposition-’lite’, understand that the best controlled opposition would never do this. It’s going to allow everything, even promote positive events for the community and champion efforts we all want to get behind. The best controlled opposition will not play their hand until it’s absolutely necessary and even still, it would ideally be in a way that allows them to lean on the trust of the community.
Entangling Subjective Biases and Truth
If the idea of true controlled opposition isn’t enough, a bigger problem is our own human tendencies that can be hacked and taken advantage of. For instance, there are those who despite the evidence showing that COVID-19 vaccines were not more effective than natural immunity, that it statistically should not need to be given to children and that it was proven to not stop the actual spread of the virus, they will not take a stand to help push against vaccine laws and mandates, they won’t push for more transparency and accountability in the pharmaceutical industry. We can argue that it’s simply ‘bias’; however what bias seems to be is our ability to selectively choose what truths we believe in; subjective ones that allow us to manipulate our own psyche for instant emotional comfort.
Imagine for example we bumped another car in the parking lot, causing a scratch. Our decision is to either leave a note with our information or just drive away. Our decision tree may include various factors: 1. What did we do that one time our car was scratched by someone else? 2. Do we have insurance? 3. How bad is the scratch? 4. Did anyone see us? On and on we can make up various questions to make a decision.
Each one of these factors we’ll string together into an entangled web of experiences that lead to a potential ‘truth’ which interestingly is also a ‘decision’ and can show our ‘bias’ towards one thing or another. In other words, what we believe is true dictates how we make our decisions which is ultimately why we have biases.
But this is where the problem is, let’s assume we do not have valid insurance or money in the above example. Yet we want to still be a ‘good person’ and do the right thing. What ‘truth’ can we manipulate to have our string of experiences still make us a ‘good person’ while at the same time, not impacting our money or our license to drive? The only truth that isn’t subjective in our examples above is the ‘How bad is the scratch’ truth. Since the idea of ‘how bad’ is subjective, we can very quickly make that assessment as ‘not bad at all, very tiny, not noticeable’ and guess what, all is well in our paradigm.
Using subjective truths to our benefit and redefining the truths that serve our purpose whenever we can is our mental ‘cop out’, our mental gymnastics that can result in allowing for anything to be justified. The same scratch on our own car versus a scratch on another persons car may legitimately look different to us because we’ve fabricated our own truths. The result is an ability to entangle any ‘truth’ into our reality.
Deep Faking
Clearly we have a lot of major issues when trying to navigate truth, from our own subjective manipulation to controlled opposition and the wolves still doing as they please. There’s yet one more major issue to underscore and that’s deep fakes. We may know deep fakes are being used or are likely in the future, but it is important to underscore how extreme the impact may be eventually.
It goes without saying, any and everything can be faked today, right now. We see the mouth patterns of a fake video or the infamous ‘strange fingers’ and assume we’ll know. But, we have to assume that this is the public capabilities, not the proprietary government or deep state capabilities. So far, we have been all but lucky that it’s not more prevalent. Literally everything that isn’t physical can and will eventually be generated. Images, videos, audio clips, personal profiles and even ‘live’ streaming is subject to being fake. It cannot be stressed enough, that every piece of information has the potential to be faked in some form.
We have to remember that we are entering a future where whatever we want to be true, can be backed by generated deep faked sources, articles, books, images, videos and even people. There will be data supporting every angle, making any fact able to be supported. If we want someone to be a criminal, we can generate the evidence proving such. No amount of research will be able to disprove the deep faked data and the best case we’ll have is dead end leads that link to past authors that don’t seem to have a well documented family history.
The ‘solution’ will be curated content, served up by the wolves themselves and ‘verified’ with their stamp of approval. When this data flood occurs, down will be up and up will be down. The wolves will have full control of the realities they want to create which in turn means full control of the sheep subject to these realities. To an extent we may not want to accept, this is already the case and it could get worse. Our histories have been manipulated time and time again by the wolves.
Bleak or No?
Of course, all this talk is pretty dark, and seemingly impossible to avoid or know how to stay positive. Well suffice it to say, it’s not bleak, in fact we should not fear at all. The beauty is, despite the wolves having all the knowledge and control in just about every serious topic, despite the deep fakes and all the insane ways we can be tripped up in our own subjective truths, doing the right thing is natural and comes out on top as long as we let it and never stop working towards truth.
If it isn’t clear, knowledge and understanding is how we combat the wolves and the inner wolves brewing inside of us. We have to navigate a world with wrong or fake agendas and purposes built on lies, deceit and death. In doing so, we cannot assume those we agree with are on our side, and we cannot assume those against us are not on our side. We cannot assume going against the narrative is actually against the narrative. Instead, we must constantly move towards truth as we have tangible evidence, and demand nothing less from those around us, eventually bleak or no, we will overcome.
In our initial wolf versus sheep setup, what I didn’t underscore is that despite the wolves having all the knowledge, the sheep who never stop trying will just about always win. The cliché strength in numbers is a thing. The sheep will win without learning anything about the wolves, and will eventually win because the constant reduction in sheep, forces them to effectively stop being ignorant. The truth rises to the top. Imagine then, if the sheep learn even just a little bit about the wolves; that would increase their chances of winning even more.
It is very interesting to note that the two ways the sheep lose are 1. The sheep give up and stop trying to find the wolves or 2. The sheep are tricked into become wolves themselves, tipping the scales. Ever recall someone say the cheater has the advantage? Or that businesses are able to win more if they cheat and take advantage of others? These unfortunate concepts are self-inducing and become true only if we stop fighting and let them be true.
P.S.
My apologies to the wolf lovers out there (I’m a dire wolf fan myself), we can swap sheep to be bad and wolves to be good if you want. I also want to note when I first heard of this knowledgeable wolf versus ignorant sheep game theory idea I just assumed sheep would always lose and they had no hope because they were ignorant; the various talks on it seem to indicate this as well. The only reason I realized otherwise is after programming the scenario myself in python using various setups and random probabilities.
The ratio between number of wolves to sheep determines whether the sheep will win or not, as long as sheep have a significant number advantage they will win over the wolves (going above 15% wolves is bad for example). Also impacting is the number of sheep the wolves can kill and number of random picks the sheep have, the lower the number that can be killed/picked the higher chance sheep will win because they have more chances to find wolves.
If we include reproduction and the idea that both wolves and sheep can swap places, the wolves winning means some wolves will turn to sheep and the sheep winning means some sheep will turn to wolves. It’s ends up a never ending cycle and no group really ‘wins’, but instead it’s a simple choice, what side would you rather fight for? Truth or deceit?
