I was in the back of a taxi the other day, and had the most curious experience of listening to "the news", something I have vigorously avoided for many years. In this "news" bulletin, the honeyed-voiced presenter was interviewing a military expert, who earnestly expressed his concern that the citizens of Russia are victims of "state propaganda" and a "disinformation campaign" conducted by the Russian government via the Russian media.

Excuse me for a minute, but... bahahahahahahahahaHA!

State propaganda and disinformation being used to criticise state propaganda and disinformation!

I had to suppress a snort as this ludicrous, surreal "news" went on, because the reality is, devotees of "the news" will uncritically accept the statement that Russian media is disinformation; Russian governments conduct state propaganda campaigns to dupe and bewitch their populace... But it would never happen here! Our politicians and presstitutes tell us the truth!

It is patently obvious to anyone with the slightest scintilla of common sense that all mainstream media vehicles in all countries are state propaganda organs, and simply operate as slick PR campaigns for the ruling elites. Mainstream media doesn't report "the news", it reports the agenda of those who orchestrate world events, and tells you how and what to think about said events. That is true in Russia; it is true in the UK; it is true everywhere. The genuinely "free" press only exists outside of the mainstream, and through channels that have no establishment sponsorship or endorsement. Funnily enough, the mainstream condemns all these channels as "fake news" - which the masses unquestioningly accept, despite the fact politicians and journalists are known to be professional, consummate, and repeated liars. A 'conspiracy theorist' is simply someone who questions the statements of such accomplished and prolific liars.

This led me to an interesting question: when people tell us something, or when we read or watch it, what is it that inspires us to believe we are being told the truth? My baseline foundation is that, if I read anything in a mainstream media vehicle or watch it on television, then it isn't true. It MIGHT be true, but I'll start off assuming that it isn't, until it can be confirmed by a more credible source.

I remember once really enraging a normie in an argument by asking the simple question, "how do you know what you know?"

If you are a normie, then it's very difficult to answer this question honestly without being revealed as a bit of a dupe, because the answer is invariably, "I read it in the papers" or "I saw it on the news".

Every time I have a debate with a normie about vaccines, they won't readily admit this, but instead claim to "follow the science". So I ask them to show me just one single, solitary scientific paper they have read to inform their views.

They never can, of course, so I tell them, "you don't follow the science, you follow the media."

When I tell them about all the safety risks of vaccines, they inevitably respond with, "oh, so you're a scientist then, are you?"

No, I reply, but we've just established you don't read scientific papers, so what would it matter if I was? I am a writer, and that's what you base your views on - writing. All those pieces you've read in the papers about the wonders of the vaccine, all those teleprompters read by newscasters you've listened to, do you believe these are written by scientists? No, they're written by writers. I'm a writer, too, so why do you trust the writers on the telly and in the fish and chip wrappers, but not me? How do you know they're telling the truth and I'm not?

They can't answer, because the truth is, they have no evidence whatsoever determining that the narrative in the mainstream is true, they've just uncritically accepted it with no further investigation, and when this is pointed out to them, it angers them, because they know ultimately it's an indefensible position. You shouldn't uncritically accept ANYTHING as true, no matter the source, you should ALWAYS investigate and corroborate it further, and you should use primary sources - e.g. if "the news" claims a scientific study has found such and such, go and read the actual study and determine a) whether it did actually find what the news says it did, and b) what biases and limitations the study might have had, such as, small sample size or funders with conflicts of interest.

Normies appear to believe that the phrase "a study has found that..." is synonymous with "it is an ineffable, incontestable, divine truth that...". The reality is that studies can find anything you want, depending on who funds them and what the scientists in question have been instructed to find - whereas scientists who attempt to maintain their integrity and go against establishment interests, quite soon find themselves out of a career, an issue I covered in much more depth here.

To further illustrate my point that, just because a scientist or other establishment authority figure declares something, doesn't make it true, a few days ago, my mother-in-law visited a consultant surgeon to discuss her upcoming operation.

"Have you had your Covid booster?" Asked the surgeon snippily (not sure why he presumes it is any of his business).

"No, I haven't had any Covid vaccines," replied mother-in-law.

"Well, I'm afraid in that case you should know there's a 25% higher chance of your dying in the peri-operative period," said the surgeon solemnly.

The operation is on her hand!

Obviously, there is not the slightest sliver of evidence anywhere that an mRNA injection formulated for a respiratory virus would have any impact whatsoever on the clinical outcome of an orthopaedic surgery (and thankfully my MIL is very well aware of this!), but the mass mind has been trained to unquestioningly accept declarations from authority figures as fact, no matter how ludicrous or lunatic they might happen to be.

Conversely, no matter how logical, sensible, coherent, and evidence-based my arguments, I am dismissed by normies as a tin-foil-hat nutter, because I am not ratified by the media - and that is the real reason, it's nothing to do with my qualifications or intelligence, as was illustrated with acute stark clarity in a recent argument with a jab-happy normie, who played what he clearly believed was his trump card, by smugly demanding, "have you been to university?"

"Er, yeah," I said, slightly thrown by this random demand for biographical detail in the midst of a discussion about myocarditis and D-dimer tests. His jaw very nearly dropped, because clearly what he was expecting (what the media has entrained him to expect) was,

"No, I ain't got no education innit, I don't need none 'cos I done watched David Icke on YouTube."

He looked a bit desperate when I confirmed I had in fact been to university, so in a last ditch attempt to discredit me, demanded, "which one?"

Clearly hoping for, "the University of Swindon Ring Road and David Beckham Studies", or some such, he looked positively crestfallen when I replied:

"The University of Liverpool. And also the State University of New York."

"Oh, well... well... I went to the University of Manchester."

"Good for you."

And that terminated the conversation, because when he couldn't dismiss me as an ill-educated moron, he had nothing left - needless to say, he couldn't actually engage with the points I was making or logically articulate a counter view.

And that demonstrates the colossal power of the mainstream media, and how the ruling classes have got the servile, supine masses exactly where they want them: Uncritically accepting dangerous, ludicrous soundbites as "facts" and literally staking their life on their veracity. This man I was arguing with had no idea why he had got the injections, other than the media told him to, just as he will have no idea why he is now walking around in a blue and yellow t-shirt and expressing vicious disdain for Russian vodka. These people do not possess their own minds, the media does.

This all reaffirms that in order to survive and thrive in the years to come, it's imperative to repeatedly ask oneself the question, "how do I know what I know? How do I know this person or source is telling me the truth?"

With "deepfake" technology, photoshopping, crisis actors, and some of the most breathtakingly devious liars ever known to man running the show, it's harder than ever to be sure - but I do know this: if every prominent politician, media vehicle, celebrity, bank, supermarket, and corporate giant in the Western world go lockstep on an agenda - just as they did on Covid and just as they are now doing on Ukraine - then what they are saying is not true and what they are pushing is not in your interests.

How do you know what you know? Keep asking.