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[00:00:00] You welcome to this special preview of the latest Patrons only episode of the Dispatchers podcast. If you like what you hear and you want to listen to the rest of this episode, just head on over to Patreon.com left foot media and become a patron with $5 or more per month. The link is found in the show notes below. In the meantime, please enjoy this preview.
[00:00:25] Hi everybody. Welcome along to this week's Wednesday edition of the Patrons only episode of the Dispatchers podcast. It is great to be back with you again, man. I don't know about you, but I am having one heck of a busy week, actually. I tell a lie. It's been one heck of a busy fortnight, actually.
[00:00:42] But yeah, it's been beautiful all the same. Monday was just awesome. I started the day first thing on Monday morning, speaking to all of the Year 13 students from a Christchurch high school about the issue of politics and Christianity. And it was really, really great. Very, very encouraging group to be with, I have to say. I was asked to give the keynote address, they were spending the day together looking at that particular issue, and I was asked to give the keynote address about Christianity and politics and the interplay between the two, some of the big principles around Christianity and politics, and how Christianity has actually shaped politics and Western society for the better in some very profound and important ways. In fact, I might actually turn that presentation into a podcast episode, I think, because a lot of people have expressed interest in that. But it was really encouraging because there were some great young people there. This was a group of Year 13 students and the conversations that I had with them afterwards was just, it's really impressive. There's some great young leaders. I took a lot of hope from that, and then I ended that day working with all of the year. Twelve students from a completely different high school in Christchurch talking about the loss of authentic community in the west and what we can do to recover that. And yeah, great day, man. It's a lot of hope out there, a lot of good things happening. But it's been a pretty full on and busy week. But nonetheless, here we are and ready to go with this week's patrons only episode of the Dispatchers podcast, right? We've got lots to talk about today. The big main topic of conversation is this fascinating new article that I came across in a medical journal about the fact that there are people who are transitioning, who are now experiencing brand new dysphorias as a result of transitioning. And that raises, I think, a very profound and important question. If transitioning is supposed to be a therapy to deal with dysphoria, gender dysphoria. And by doing that you actually give people other new dysphorias. Then that raises a pretty serious question about whether or not this is actually an effective or good therapy to be engaging in. We'll get to that. It's a very fascinating article, lots of interesting data in it and well worth being aware of and having a conversation about. We're also going to finish up today. Part of my new project on the podcast is really trying to bring some, wherever I can, some positive good news, hope, light stories that actually leave you feeling a sense of hope. And man, it's really good that the Christian vision of reality is really a beautiful thing and it can shape the world in profoundly powerful and important ways. And I want to bring sort of examples and stories of where we see goodness and truth and beauty in the world, because I think it's far too easy to get stuck in that sort of very reactive and negative space where everything's a crisis, everything's a problem, everything's evil, the world's collapsing as we know it and there's nothing we can do about it. And that's not a good place to be. We shouldn't be in that place. And if we live an authentic culture of goodness, truth and beauty, we really can powerfully transform the world around us based on how we interact with the world. And I think we have to have an attitude and an orientation of hope to be able to do that effectively. So my little contribution to that is trying to bring some good news stories to the fore, as well as exploring some of these sort of cultural issues in a deeper way as well. So we're going to finish with this beautiful story about Christian love for neighbour and how it's profoundly impacting New Zealand through the life of one man in particular. It's a really, really great story. Before we get to that though, or anything else in today's episode, I want to talk about the latest offering from the New Zealand Disinformation Project. We've talked about the Disinformation project a bit before on the podcast, as you are well aware. And really, as far as I'm concerned, they are not helping New Zealand society. But what they effectively end up doing, whether this is intentional or not, is their actions end up throwing fuel on the bonfire. And there is a lack of what some call social cohesion in New Zealand at the moment. There is a lot of division and that division runs very deep. And the problem with that is that we don't have a space for dialogue. And that's how you effectively deal with division, is you have robust dialogue. We don't have robust dialogue. And when groups like the Disinformation project come along and effectively act like a propaganda arm of the state or a particular ideology, and they accuse everyone who doesn't agree with their particular vision of the world of being dangerous neo Nazis or being part of some Russian global conspiracy to upend democracy as we know it, threats and enemies to the liberal order, et cetera, et cetera. You can see how that is really destructive. And it creates even further division, and it deepens those divisions in our society. And it hasn't been helpful. And I think another aspect or flaw with the Disinformation project, which I've talked about previously, is the fact that it's a very Orwellian type project and it's very technocratic. And what it does is instead of dealing with things in a very well, ironically, a very truthful way, which is where you talk about truth and lies, goodness and evil, it doesn't deal with the reality of what is actually ultimately moral questions in a moral way or with a moral response. Because what's happened in the modern ages, we've very much embraced a scientism, and there's been a sort of a technocracy that's come on the back of that, where basically scientific truth is considered the only reliable source of truth. And we've sort of got into a very technocratic way of thinking. And technocracy is one of the sort of pervading ideologies of the moment. And what it does is everything is filtered through this sort of scientific, technical filter and including moral issues. You don't just talk about truth and falsehood now. You've got to give it a technical sounding name like misinformation and disinformation, because that gives you, in this sort of new technocratic world, it gives you a sense of almost like priestly sort of authority, because you're one of the experts who talks about technical matters in a technical way.
[00:07:16] There's a very Orwellian dimension to all of this as well. Those terms, even I would argue, are Orwellian because they are so politically loaded now that they are very much tools of particular ideologies for silencing dissent and labeling those who even just raise questions about ideologies of being, well, dangerous extremists and enemies of the state. And as we saw from the disinformation project just a couple of weeks ago, you are participating in genocide. If you take a dissenting view on the gender constructionist ideology. So they're pretty out there at times, the disinformation project. But this one I thought was interesting because it was an article that appeared in the PSA, which is the Public Service Association. They're the union that represents the public sector in New Zealand. And so it's really Kate Hannah here from the disinformation, talking to her own tribe in a sense. And it's this very short interview, and I thought we'd just read through it and I'd give you a bit of commentary as we go. THe Disinformation Project is an independent research project, and already we're not off to a flying start because are they really independent? They are government funded. Anyway, let me carry on. They're an independent research project looking at misinformation and disinformation within New Zealand. Kerry Davis, the national secretary of the PSA, sat down with Kate Hannah from the Disinformation project to find out what is disinformation, how is it playing a part in our members'jobs and what we can do to counter it. To first understand what disinformation is, we need to understand the different types of disinformation, what they are called and what they mean. Kate Hannah explained that there are three types of disinformation. Even this is interesting because in actual fact, they make a distinction between disinformation and misinformation. So disinformation is not actually misinformation, if that makes sense. So it's even already you can see how the technical jargon is actually starting to create problems here with speaking truthfully about these matters already. Misinformation means false information created without the intent to hurt others. Disinformation means false information created with the intention of harming a person, group or organization. And there's a third category now called mal information, which is true information used with ill intent. And on that last one, this is an example of how this gets really Orwellian, because I've really racked my brains about this and I can't see how this actually applies. At a societal level, you can definitely have what they are calling mal information, which is ultimately just a malicious use of the truth to actually inflict pain or suffering upon other people. And so you can see how that would apply at a personal level, not at the societal level, but at a personal level. So let's say that Jan finds out that Bob is having an affair. And so Jan goes to Bob's wife and tells her, oh, your husband's having an affair. But the real reason she's doing that now, that's absolutely true what she said there. It is true. He's doing that thing. But the reason she's told the truth to Bob's wife is because Jan actually secretly is infatuated with Bob and she wants to actually be in a relationship with him. And so her hope is that this will actually destroy their marriage. And so you can see how that's someone who is using truth for their own malicious and evil intent. And so you can see how that applies at a personal level. But I struggle to see how this actually works at a societal level, because remember the disinformation project? They're not interested in those personal encounters. They're not publishing papers about people who are engaged in jealousy or personal intrigue, or who maybe want to be in a relationship with someone. And so they use truth in a harmful way to break up a marriage. They're not interested in any of that stuff. They deal with the sort of the societal picture, how society, how New Zealand society in particular, is corrupted by false information. And so I've racked my brains about that, and I thought, well, how does that actually work when you actually go up to the macro, so move from the micro into the macro of a whole society? How can you have a situation where you use the truth and that truth is used with ill intent? And I've sort of struggled to understand that. This feels a lot to me like an Orwellian attempt to actually protect ideology from being critiqued, to protect ideologies that are not grounded in truth from being critiqued by people who would present the truth and would challenge the falsehood in a particular ideology. And so they would say, well, that's mal information. Yeah, what you're saying is true, but your truth is going to harm people, so you shouldn't be allowed to tell the truth, that kind of a thing, because I've really struggled to see how that actually makes sense at a societal level. Anyway, let's carry on. She's then asked this question, who is influenced by misinformation and why? And this is quite a. I thought it was quite a funny answer, actually. Interestingly. And remember, we're talking to the Public Service Workers Union. Interestingly, public service workers are less likely to be influenced by misinformation. Kate says that is due to their roles requiring lateral critical thinking. A lateral critical thinker will question the source and investigate to validate the information. However, simple and accessible information is often taken for granted in increasingly time poor societies. In other words, people like you and I, part of our tribe. No, we're not the dumb dumbs.
[00:12:45] We don't get suckered by the misinformation and disinformation. Oh, no. It's those other people out there, the common people. And it is quite funny because aside from the fact that it's an old rhetorical trick, one of the oldest in the book is that you try and flatter your audience. But it's also, this is her own tribe. And effectively, what she's sort of saying here is that our tribe is exempted from this supposedly serious and extremely serious and nefarious threat of misinformation and disinformation. Don't worry, it doesn't affect us. It's just those other people out there. I thought that was rather hilarious because, of course, it's not true. I mean, a public service worker, and I know plenty in this category, are not exempt from being presented with false information and then sadly believing that false information to be true. It's the human condition. Being a public service worker doesn't exempt you from human fallibility. You don't suddenly become a divine and infallible and all knowing and incapable of deceit or being deceived when you become a public service worker. If only that were true. But it's quite funny. Next question she's asked is this. How is the spread of misinformation and disinformation affecting how our members are treated? Kate explains that when language is consistently used to undermine groups of people, these people lose their trustworthiness. Dehumanizing language used towards others diminishes trust in these groups and can create an environment of concern and sometimes anxiety stemming from those who are the target of dehumanizing language, which is very interesting to me because I would actually argue that the moment the disinformation project, which it did only a couple of weeks ago, is accusing people like women's rights advocates of participating in a genocide, I would argue that is a dehumanizing language to be using in reference to people over a simple disagreement. And they do this actually on a regular basis. It's kind of ironic. It's very interesting how I don't think they realize that what they're doing is actually the very thing that they are claiming to critique, because they have also promoted false information previously. Like I talked about with the fire and Fury documentary, whereby Kate Hannah made a claim in that documentary, by the way, it won a media award the other night.
[00:15:02] But that's a whole other story. We won't go there but Kate Hannah, in that documentary, claimed that the Nazis were anti medical science and anti health. And effectively, this was because she was trying to cast dispersions on those people who had opposition to mandatory COVID vaccines. And so she was trying to sort of link them with Nazism. But that claim is just simply not true. The Nazi regime was, in actual fact, the most medically advanced of its time, and they used medical science and medical technology in a very nefarious and evil way for their particular ideologies, like eugenics was one very big example of that. And so the claim she made there is absolutely not true. Now, when I called that out publicly on social media, Sanjana Hatotua, who is the other worker at the disinformation project, he ridiculed me. He mocked me on Twitter for pointing out what was an obvious truth. So, yeah, there's a bit of irony in all of this. Public service workers are often labeled as bureaucrats, or in some instances, bloated bureaucrats, which diminishes trust and fuels concern that resources are going to those who are already supposedly well resourced. Now, this whole statement here is, I think, is actually interesting because I don't know about you, but I've never heard anybody call a public service worker a bloated bureaucrat. I don't think that's correct.
[00:16:27] The actual term, by the way, is bloated bureaucracy. So in other words, the institution, whatever bureaucratic institution you're talking about, has become bloated. And it usually is often. Also, it's not just like resourcing and finance. It's a sense of wastefulness that people are talking about. She says here it's that supposedly the well resourced institutions are already getting enough resources, are now getting too many resources. But generally, when people talk about a bloated bureaucracy, they mean it's just become too overinflated. There's too much of it, and that it's a wasteful kind of thing, rather than her description here. And as I said, I've never heard anybody say, oh, you're a bloated bureaucrat, as if it's a personal insult. You're a bit of a fatty, aren't you?
[00:17:14] I don't know anybody who ever says stuff like that. But, yeah, it's interesting because what this effectively is doing here is it's sort of shielding even a legitimate critique about bureaucracy and what is often called the managerial class and the way in which that affects our society now. And I know I have friends who work in the public sector, and even as recently as last night I was having a dinner conversation with a couple of them, and they have recently left the public sector to start aid on their own, in their own private ventures. And they've told me that they're extremely concerned about the number of really good Christian people, good moral people, who have actually pulled out of the public service because of this, and how it's really now becoming very ideologically monocultural. And there's sort of this homogeneous, there's a lack of actual intellectual and moral and philosophical diversity that is starting to take hold. And also the power that it wields is it's just largely unaccountable. In a lot of ways the system is, and often it's not really the people working in these places. It's not like their fault. There's a whole mechanism in a system that we've allowed to actually rise up and to flourish here. That's not a good thing. And so it's even getting to the point where this is, the conversation we were having last night was about how politicians, who are actually very good, intelligent politicians, but there is so much information and so much happening in the sort of the bureaucratic space that they, as politicians, are not even able to keep on top of it. And that means they can't fulfill one of their most basic and fundamental duties, which is to effectively and intelligently and prudently keep the public sector accountable, because it's become largely unaccountable, because it's so bloated and there's so much happening. And the ability of someone to actually even understand a portfolio that they might have has become extremely hard. And that creates a very serious problem of unaccountability. So when you talk about bloating and stuff like that, that's a problem, and it should absolutely be critiqued. And she goes on to say this, and this is quite an interesting statement that Kate Hannah makes. The disinformation project is working with social media teams within ministry departments to ensure public messaging is clear and cuts through disinformation that would hinder people from being able to access vital public services. Now, I didn't realize this, and I think this is something that actually does need a little bit more questioning. Why is the disinformation project involved in this way with these various ministries and these various departments? This is what I mentioned earlier. They are, I think, a very propagandistic venture. And this really does speak to that fact that they are involved in shaping messaging and that messaging. It's quite clear from the disinformation project and how they approach things is very, very much ideologically shaped. And so they have a vision of reality shaped by ideology. And therefore, the messaging that they will be preparing and critiquing and putting together and helping other ministries to put together is shaped by that ideology. It is really propagandistic. And I think that's something that we all have a right to Critique and ask, well, what's Actually going on Here and how are you shaping this? Because it's Clear that they swing in One direction very strongly, rather than saying, well, how do you create just General messaging that communicates? Well, it's ideological Messaging that they are very much Focused on. Now, the final question she's asked is this, what can be done to eliminate misinformation in the workforce? The disinformation project is working with agencies to create deliberate strategies to try to counter some of the impacts on workers. So again, here's the disinformation project. Working with actual agencies now, beyond just messaging, they're now working within the Internal mechanisms of the agency. So in other words, things going on inside the Organization they're now involved in. If I'm understanding that correctly, this is a very interesting and revealing interview in this regard, just how Far and wide the reaches of this particular Organization. Kate says success encountering these issues requires an all hands approach. It needs to cover what leaders and managers can do and what people can do in their own teams. However, the biggest impact comes from having a practical approach that brings HR human resource teams into play to create better transparency and associated support processes in place for workers. In other words, what they're saying here is that the internal systems and processes within an organization should actually be governed by disinformation protocols. And there should be. What she's suggesting here is complaints Processes for this. There should be training for this. There should be a disinformation ideology, effectively, that exists Within Organizations. And so you can see how this thing has spread far and wide. In fact, based on this, my prediction is that within a year or so, just like previously, people have complained about how they get subjected to this sort of constant equity diversity inclusion type training, which is so ideologically colored and shaped as a sort of a compulsory part of the workforce, the modern workforce, I guarantee people are going to be complaining about the fact that they are being subjected to regular misinformation and disinformation training and protocols and requirements as well. So, yeah, a very, very interesting and revealing interview from the Disinformation project. Quite funny, of course, that the public sector is not prone to disinformation. The rest of us dumb dumbs, we're not smart enough to tell the truth for the falsehood, us hillbilly redneck types.
[00:22:58] It is quite funny. But yeah, very, very interesting interview. And that's the latest from the Disinformation project.
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[00:23:26] Left FootMedia the link is found in the show notes below. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the dispatches.
[00:23:45] Sam Sam.
