Our social nature has huge benefits, and underlies much of our resilience and success as a species. But it can also steer us in bad, sometimes disastrous directions, and can be used to manipulate us.

We are social creatures. We influence one another, we care about each other, we follow each other and are able to cooperate and act together as a team. We’re also cultural creatures. We learn from each other - and learn most effectively by watching what other people do. It matters to us what other people say and think and do.

And yet these very qualities can be used against us to manipulate us into accepting, doing, and buying things that work against our deepest values, that we can come to regret, and that sometimes can lead us into horrible tragedy.  Here’s how to avoid that.

This is Fifth Generation Warfare

A train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, a small town at the headwaters of the Ohio River, occurred on February 3, 2023, and went largely unnoticed by the press. On average, a train derails every other day in the United States, and fifteen major chemical fires have occurred so far in 2023.

There was a dramatic black cloud, but it dissipated quickly. Some people were evacuated from their homes. Some fish were killed.

The chemical of concern was vinyl chloride, a common industrial material used to make PVC plastic. It is highly volatile and was historically used as a refrigerant in air conditioners and as the propellant in hairspray and rattle-can spray paint. You would know the scent if you were alive in the 1960s and 70s.

The material is toxic, but not so toxic as to stop women from shaping those mod hairstyles back in the day. The biggest complaint was the sticky coating that was deposited on bathroom mirrors.

Then something changed. Ten days after the train accident and fire, TikToc and the rest of social media exploded with incredible stories of a widespread disaster, coverups, and environmental pollution hundreds of times worse than Chernobyl.

Anonymous victims reported dead pets and farm animals, and the Amish had dropped dead in their barns. Armaggedon had arrived, and the U.S. Government was covering the disaster up.

But it was not a disaster: a major train wreck, a chemical spill, and a big fire, to be sure. But the end of the world? Nah.

We just watched the Chinese state propaganda machine in full motion. The volume, rhetoric, and visuals possible through TikTok were amped up louder than all the fake dead bodies during the Covid virus rollout.

Government officials were caught flat-footed, and now, candlelight vigils are being held for the "victims" worldwide. Hysteria is crazy level out of control.

The videos and commentary blasting from the internet were produced in China, and the quality is excellent. The propaganda ultimately bumped the Chinese spy balloons from the narrative and is fueling a movement to block the reshoring of industrial plants to the United States.

Intel is hiring 10,000 people in Ohio to staff their new chip plants. Or so they think. By the time the hysteria dies, many younger people will consider it their mission to stop those computer chip plants.

At the same time, ultra-globalist Nikki Haley has thrown in for the 2024 presidential election. Her history as an anti-industrialist is evident as she worked behind the scenesd to block a Boeing factory in South Carolina while giving speeches praising it simultaneously.

The first shots have been fired in the propaganda war, and the new arsenal of technologies is impressive. This is Fifth Generation Warfare.

Let's talk some more about it over at this week's HFR.

The times are turning our way!  For starters, Texas bans Citigroup from participating in a $3.4 billion state bond offering because of the bank's anti-gun ESG policies. Warning to Woke Banks: Don't mess with guns or oil if you want to do business with the Texas government!

Texas Drops Citi From Huge Muni Transaction Over Gun Policy

This issue of Skye’s Links has so much cool stuff for you to know that here might be a shortcut – scroll through the graphic or photo that starts each Link and stop at the ones you find most interesting. It could be Elon’s tweet about the most dangerous yet obscure deep state government agency – or Rep. Nancy Mace lacerating Twitter’s main censors –or funny ones like: