War of the Worlds

["L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>]

Apparently, many Cypherpunks hold the Wells' program `War of the
Worlds' up as a masterpiece of public deception. `The problem was that
people trusted their radios.' Actually, I think the problem was that
their radios betrayed them. The radio had been built up as a medium of
trust -- with news reports by anchormen that were among some of the
most admired and respected public people. They were betrayed by Wells.
Wells had the sense to apologize, and many new safeguards and taboos
evolved from the fiasco.

War of the Worlds, on the radio, is similar to Medusa building up trust
with tentacles in cyberspace, and then betraying trust by unplugging
them when the going gets tough. Except, however, that Wells and other
officials apologized for their lapse in judgement. With Medusa, there
is no concept of `plugging away' to resolve an unpleasant situation.
Medusa just severs a snake and runs away like a coward or a criminal.
There is nothing but disreputable shame in this.

When CBS (?) broadcast `the day after', a simulation of a nuclear
holocaust, there was a great hullaballoo about all the care they had
taken to ensure that no one took the dramatization seriously. Also, NBC
ran into intensely unpleasant repercussions for their `fake exploding
pickup' piece (didn't someone resign over this)?

The point is that the media takes Truth very seriously. They go to the
greatest lengths to achieve it.

Psychopunks love to cynically talk about how the entire media is just
another disinformation outlet. *You're* just another grotesque
disinformation outlet, deceiving honest reporters and infecting
respectable outlets like Wired and NYT with your soothing lies about
`privacy' and `Big Brother' when really talking about `rights and
protections for criminals'.

The King is Dead. Long Live the King.