“See their dreams and aspirations... crumble in front of their face.
And all of their wicked intention... to destroy the human race.

So come we go chant down Babylon one more time.
Come we go chant down Babylon!”

- from "Chant Down Babylon" by Bob Marley

Modern media, defined here as the communications, entertainment and advertising industries... are suspect, in that they dictate the content of information being delivered to the public. Media moguls within the entertainment industry control content, who in turn are influenced by advertising agencies that (along with their clients) bankroll the production costs of entertainment programming. Communications companies deliver, via their networks and a tech-driven  array of wireless gadgetry, data rich content, created to a great extent by the entertainment industry.

This powerful media triad... communications, entertainment and advertising... secure political favor through the power of the lobbying industry, which controls what increasingly has become a “Reality TV” form of government. As opposed to other powerful industries seeking influence over our government such as the Arms Industry or Big Oil, the media triad's primary commodity is the manipulation of the people's perceptions... through content. Seeing an opportunity, our government seeks a “Quid pro quo.” As such, these industries wield enormous power and influence and cannot be trusted by virtue of the age-old adage that absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

As an example, take the predominance of television in the 20th century. There is a reason why TV executives refer to shows they produce as “programming.” There is a reason why advertisers pay small fortunes for commercials and for product placement in popular television programs. Their intention is simple. They desire to program (in the mind programming sense) the masses to do their bidding. Overtly, they want the masses to buy their products... but covertly... they want the masses to think the way they want them to think. They want people to think like good consumers.

When exactly, was the importance of citizenry overshadowed by the convenience of the consumerism, in the eyes of the PTB? When did the citizen become the consumer?

The masters of the airwaves clearly see the US citizenry, at least those with disposable income, as consumer, not a citizen. They will stop at nothing to broadcast their disinformation... to impose their version of reality to suit their nefarious, capitalistic agenda. This deceptive content of control we label: “Babylon Bandwidth.”

Here is a subtle and formidable adversary...

Babylon Bandwidth symbolizes the propaganda and disinformation output from modern mass media. Through a most egregious and politically incorrect example of cultural appropriation, we have lifted the term/concept “Babylon” from the Rastafarian understanding of an oppressive and unjust predator/dominator culture. Rastas use “Babylon” in a very similar sense as to how science fiction prophet Philip K Dick used the terms “EMPIRE” and “Black Iron Prison.”

So Babylon Bandwidth represents the insidious and pervasive Black-Op that is being waged upon mainly unsuspecting populations, worldwide. This black-op, perpetrated by the prevailing predator/dominator patriarchy, is so complete as to be mistaken for our consensual reality. It is devised and developed through public relations, and is activated and delivered through mass media platforms. The key to it’s success is dependent upon the psy-op’s ability to persuade through emotion and desire.

Babylon is tricky that way… it makes you think you actually want the doors of the Black Iron Prison to clank shut behind you.

The Rastas have a magical component of resistance, revolt and liberation from Babylon, whereby they wake up from the illusory spell imposed upon them. Their revolutionary counterstrike is known as “Chant Down Babylon.” This is the Rastas' magical (musical & ceremonial) response to the predator/dominator paradigm. This counterstrike aligns quite nicely with the tactical measures outlined here... as well as in our Blows Against the EMPIRE blog series.

Historically, at least since WWII, the US political infrastructure has been bureaucratic in nature. Recent political events have rapidly moved away from bureaucratic business as usual, to a more disruptive model. This change came about, in part, due to the rise of social media. Recent campaign cycles were driven more by social media (facebook, twitter, youTube) than traditional news media. Traditional media, driven, first by the big 3 television networks, then by cable news, were structured around a bureaucratic model. Social media is more disruptive in nature. It's strength is immediacy, at the cost of accuracy.

This is a game-changer for how people get their news. Social Media News is decentralized. It acts as more of a disruptive insurgency than a bureaucratic orthodoxy. It is also virtually un-regulated by any form of oversight or regulation.

Pop Phenom
There is, however a major component of content delivery and control that the media masters desperately struggle with. This is the all-important phenomena known as... “Popular Appeal.”

Although each agency, network, or platform controls their individual output, its relative success or failure is dependant upon how it is received by the viewing public. To be effective, output must be popular. To be popular, it must resonate on a deeply emotional level with the masses. Try as they might, the media masters cannot consistently predict or control popular appeal. Consequently, each individual media mogul is forced to react... to constantly re-adjust their messaging, in response to popular sentiment.

Popularity is an intangible and more importantly, an ineffable commodity. If enough people are enamored with a media phenomenon... for a long enough period of time... it becomes a trend. This is of course the “holy grail” of the media industry. A trend, reduced to it's most basic component, we define as a Meme. Since advertising effectiveness and hence advertising revenue is dependant upon mass appeal, significant research and development resources are budgeted to study such memetic trending. For this reason, the collective output of the media industry is significant on a cultural level, as it mirrors the culture being targeted.

Close examination of the combined collective output of modern media tells us much about our global citizenry. By virtue of what is being marketed to us, modern media reveals perceived trends in how we think, feel and react to events of consequence in our world. Indeed, it illuminates collective characteristics of our consensual reality… our collective consciousness, as reflected by the manipulations of the above mentioned media masters.

In the 21st century, political operatives and political consulting firms, such as Cambridge Analytica have become major players in influencing political election outcomes, through analyzing social media. Cambridge Analytica deployed a profiling system using online data, primarily facebook likes. They compiled psychological data derived from millions of facebook users, largely without users' permission or knowledge. They collected data on voters, scrutinizing demographics, consumer behavior, and internet activity. Cambridge Analytica exploited the fact that individual psychological targeting is a powerful tool that can influence people... and with a limited number of “likes” ...people can be analyzed with incredible precision.

The big data analyzing technologies are currently approaching Babylon Bandwidth's “holy grail” of popular appeal prediction. In this regard, populations are in increased risk of media manipulation. The increasing popularity of media output becomes an indicator of what resonates, what “grabs the attention” of specific (or in the words of the marketing magicians), “target” populations. However, such technologies cut both ways. Information technology can also be used as a tool of personal autonomy.

By scrutinizing how we are being marketed to, we gain more insight into who we are as a culture. By waking up to Babylon Bandwidth, we begin to understand the extent of media manipulation. Just as the messianic character Neo (from the Wachowskis' 1999 film: The Matrix) woke up, so too do we in our awakening, begin to realize “how deep the Rabbit-hole goes.”  

Today, as information technology evolves more rapidly, the media masters begin to lose control of the medium, even as they gain sophistication. Even with its vulnerabilities, social media has, to a certain extent, de-centralized modern media, diluting Babylon Bandwidth's hypnotic power. The perceptive and vigilant citizen can, in effect, use modern media to their advantage by gleaning trends in the media-stream.

In considering trends, specific pieces of media content lose importance. In the words of Marshall McLuhan... the medium is the message… a medium itself, not the content it carries, becomes the focal point of significance. Realization of these trends allow us to sharpen our predictive faculties in contemplating the future. By examining trends in media for purposes of prediction, we logically place emphasis on a popular or “Pop Future.”

Synchronicity & Synchromysticism
Pop Future... or the perceived trending in entertainment,  infotainment and information services, as evidenced via the world wide web and social media platforms such as facebook, et al... is a culturally powerful predictive tool. We intend to fight back against Babylon Bandwidth, using these and other such tools to our advantage. We will examine all available data-streams for the purpose of predicting possible, probable and prescriptive outcomes to present day scenarios, as they pertain to personal autonomy.

We will examine the complex intertwining advancements and expectations in the hard sciences such as astronomy, physics &  biology, as well as other disciplines of relevance such as, psychology, sociology and anthropology. Additionally, we pursue intuitive disciplines, peering through the lens of the new and relatively esoteric interdisciplinary system known as Synchromysticism.

Synchromysticism is a contemplative and predictive discipline. Rather than focusing on the overt, surface messaging of media output, the synchromystic focuses on the covert, symbolic, archetypical meanings that dwell deep beneath the surface of ordinary consciousness. As the name implies, synchromysticism correlates multiple meanings of a given signal, mining the sub-conscious for intuitive concepts, such as synchronicity.

In this regard, synchromysticism is heavily influenced by the study of the collective unconscious as pioneered by Dr. Carl Jung. Jung was the founder of analytical psychology. He emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, religion and philosophy. One of his most notable ideas was the concept of synchronicity. Jung created the term synchronicity to describe the alignment of “universal forces” with the life experiences of an individual. Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidences were not merely due to chance, but instead reflected the creation of an event or circumstance by the alignment of such forces. In difference to these forces, consideration is given to the power of mass media and its influence on humanity’s psyche.

Pop Future seeks to illuminate the mysterious universal synchronicities, as mirrored by mass media, to better understand the forces that are at work, shaping our newly emerging global culture. By searching for patterns in the noise... by aggregating  and analyzing transmissions from the collective conscious... we will harness the resulting information to our advantage... forecasting the Future from what emerges.

Find below a collection of in-house and third party links that may prove useful in our memetic endeavors...