How The World Can Be Improved

By Rafael Barracuda

If we want to improve life on earth and our own lives, it is necessary to find a new guide: one that can meet the challenges of our time and of the future. The old guides were good in principle, but have become bogged down in calcified structures, often accomplishing the opposite of what was originally intended.
The development of society makes it necessary to find new guiding principles from time to time. To do so, however, we need to know what the history was, how the present society is structured, and how it is likely to develop.
The author aims to discover this by highlighting the following topics:

Information: truth and lies
Conspiracies: real and imagined conspiracies
Nodes and choices: in history and as individuals
Education
Religions
Cultures and subcultures
Good and evil
Resolving conflicts
Freedom
Justice
Security
How a poor country can become rich?
Nature and the environment and global warming
Art
Creativity
The meaning of life
Peace
Reform of the United Nations
Health: Physical and mental
Advice on how to become happy

What ultimately matters is how to safeguard and promote life on earth.
According to the author, making the right choice at certain crucial moments (called "nodes") is very important.
Ultimately, it is about love and the unity of all and everything,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rafael Barracuda
• Release date: Aug 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005980252

Book preview

Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview

When asking, how can the world be improved?, a further question naturally arises, what can we, human beings, do about it?

We don't control everything, but we can look at what we do control, and that is when we are faced with a choice. 

Then we can ask ourselves: Do we have the choice to abuse nature and others and do we have the choice to seek harmony with nature and others ?

Do we choose the quick money and power at the expense of others or do we choose to search together for a solution and for spiritual peace.

The choice is what to do with the earth, what to do with society, culture, what to do with our lives and what to do in our contact with others.

Every choice has implications for the future, this is especially true of special choices that start a whole new trajectory.

Leaving things as they are is also a choice.

Sometimes a good choice demands breaking a habit or learning a new one: that takes extra energy. We may not like that, but in retrospect we are glad we made that choice. After all, otherwise we would have been much worse off.

The important choice is:

Do we want a culture at the expense of nature or do we want a culture in harmony with the and our nature ?

In order to make a good choice, we must first know what the fuss is about.  That is why the right information is of great importance. But also how we should interpret that information: so it's all about how we should think. That's why this book focuses on thinking methods and information processing. What is fake news and what is really true? Is there such a thing as paranormal phenomena for example ?

But also what is the role of ethnic cultures ? 

What is the role of modern subcultures ?

What can be the role of art ?

What can be the role of various religions and philosophies of life ? 

What can be the role of Islam ?

How should we end terrorism and war ?

To what extent does heredity play a role ?

To what extent is environmental degradation and global warming a real problem

contribute to a healthy happy world ? This is discussed in chapter 18.

Improving the world suggests as if everything is entirely socially engineered by us.

It doesn't.

The world is only partly malleable: we have to do with heredity, with the legacy of the past, with nature and with unruliness that can arise. But that socially engineered part is only used to a very small extent, because people do not think in the right way and are bound by habits that do not take them any further.

An improvement of the world can only take place if people's minds are improved.  After all, every action of man begins in the mind. The most important thing for this is that people start thinking better, get a good attitude, find a good lifestyle and build a better culture (or rather: better cultures). The point at issue is that people CAN change, i.e., not just deteriorate, but improve.

Our goal is a world where everyone can be healthy and happy. And not only man, but also his natural environment: a healthy environment, the animals, the plants, because without a healthy environment, man himself cannot become healthy.

The question, of course, is whether that goal is achievable.

For example, happiness requires world peace.

Pessimists say world peace is impossible.

But look at Europe. For centuries the scene of wars and in the 20th century the scene of world wars that cost millions their lives. But since 1945, peace has reigned between England, Germany, France and other countries. A war between Germany and France is now unthinkable. So: If the impossible becomes possible in Europe, perhaps it can also become possible in the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, Putin threw a spanner in the works by going to war again: probably the last burst of KGB Russian terrorism: nevertheless, the biggest problem of our time.

He was able to do this by making the Russian population believe his lies.

For what we do, how we behave, what we build or tear down, begins first in our minds. Therefore, improving the world can also only begin first by improving the mind: by learning the truth and gaining a better worldview. For general orientation, a kind of basic philosophy is included in the back.

When it comes to the world, it's about the whole world, not just our own little world. Not just our own country either. The climate does not care about the German or Belgian border. The clouds that form over the sea enter the west of the country and drift to Germany and beyond. The economy and security of the Netherlands is also connected to the rest of the world. Our cell phone is made in Asia, as is the car, and the gasoline for the cars comes from the Middle East and the tea from Asia, the coffee from Africa and South America as well as numerous other daily foods.

This connection with other regions has always existed. Prehistoric man migrated from Africa 70000 years ago all over the world.

The eruption of the Tabora volcano affected the entire world.

A deviation of the Earth's orbit around the sun would endanger all life on Earth.

Since countries have existed, some are inclined to think that the world stops at national borders, but for the past 60 years the connection to the rest of the world has been greater than ever.

In doing so, we not only have to deal with products from other countries, but also with the people who made the products and with other people from other cultures.

However, not everything is social, political or economic.

Also important is what we do as individuals, what we do personally. It is also important that we can work on ourselves, that we can improve ourselves. How to make yourself happier, how to make yourself healthier.

It is certain that unhappy people, often contribute to the unhappiness of the world, while happy people, can also make the world a little better.

Happy people make other people happy too.

Therefore, several paragraphs focus on the individual.

(Sections 2.3.2.2. to 2.8 on personal nodes and sections 6.3.4. to 6.6. on how a person can become a bad person)

In addition, chapters on mental health (Chapter18) and the chapter with advice for a better life (Chapter 19) have been specially added.

Ultimately, you can ask the question:

What good is a better world if we ourselves are not happier and if people are not happier?

Happier, better and healthier lives are related to how we treat others.

For intercourse that makes both ourselves and others happier, we must recognize that there are norms and values beyond those of one's own group.

Jesus and other great minds have proclaimed this for a long time.

The 14th Dalai Lama summed it up as follows:

It is about arousing love, which desires the happiness of all living beings and wishes that those beings who are deprived of it will receive happiness and its causes.

This means that if the behavior or views of our own ethnic, religious, or political group would be detrimental to that value, we should criticize our own group in it and try to correct it if necessary.

Anyone can do that and anyone can help improve the world.

But in doing so, there is a need for a new guide, one that includes the good core of religions and leaves out the bad aspects, combined with the wisdom of thinkers from all cultures and the insights of science, with the experience of practice and history. Or as Einstein said:

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

For that, everyone can stick to their own faith or ideology as long as it remains connected to the spirit of love for fellow humans, nature, the world and the cosmos. To do so, however, choices must be made, which are not always easy. If they don't cost money, they often cost human energy. Sometimes you have to go against the grain. Habits and convenience too often win out over right insight.

This book proposes practical solutions to many of the world's problems, such as how to make a poor country rich, how to better protect the environment, as well as how to easily and inexpensively prevent and, in some cases, cure diseases and defects.

Although the book is ultimately about the path to a healthy and happy world, it does not go on to discuss what happiness actually is or as usually where happiness is most prevalent, partly because the research methods used to determine it are, in the author's opinion, dubious. This book is about the path to health and the path to happiness: in other words, what conditions must be met to get both ourselves and a healthy and happy world ?

For anyone who wants to improve the world, it would be good to start by making the following promise:

1.1. I promise not to ever harm anyone just because they have a different religion or ideology or politics than me, even if those persons think they are my opponents and even if I think their opinion is wrong. Anyone may have a different religion or political belief than me.

It is important to have this as the first point because under the guise of improving the world and ideals, the most horrible things have happened to opponents of those ideals. Examples: The Inquisition, the conquistadors, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, the Congo Free State of Belgian King Leopold II, Pol Pot and the violent Islamic jihad, which is now being taken up by the so-called Islamic State and El Qaida and by Russia.

You can have the most beautiful ideals, if you put them into practice in the wrong way, you bring calamity instead of improvement.

Therefore, you can't blame anyone for being skeptical of do-gooders and, in fact, that skepticism is justified. It's up to you to prove the skeptics wrong.

Why this book was written ?

The idea is that knowing the problems and applying the solution can prevent the misery and therefore make humanity happier:

1.2.1. More than half of the deaths and illnesses of people under the age of 75 in the world are preventable.

Deaths or disabilities from accidents can be avoided by making the situation safe.

One example is the circular saw, which used to be responsible for workers having their hand or arm cut off, but can now be secured in such a way that it is practically impossible.

Another example is deaths or injuries from earthquakes or floods.

In 95% of cases, it is not the earthquake itself that causes the deaths, but collapsing buildings, which fall on people. Building earthquake-resistant homes and buildings can prevent this.

Also, most diseases are avoidable through a healthy lifestyle.

Almost all people who smoke get cancer or COPD after some years. So: Never start smoking and if you smoke: quit immediately.

Most people with heart problems suffer from stress, or have an unhealthy lifestyle. Later in the book, we will discuss how to change that.

Certain diseases in the third world such as cholera, typhus, malaria, etc. would be easily preventable, if the government or local community took the initiative to: build a water supply, build toilets with sewage, or in large underground closed septic tanks. From there it can be reused to produce methane gas for cooking and the rest for fertilizing farmland.

The impact of mental health problems can be reduced, which is described in Chapter 18.2.

Hereditary diseases or defects are usually preventable by a different choice of sex partner, or the selective choice of whether or not to have children by the use of contraception (among other things) or if it does occur today scanning the foetus or genetic engeneering or eventually by virotherapy.

Yet, people with disabilities will continue to be born. We must, of course, accept them as equals. We, the environment and the government, have the task of making their lives as good as possible, despite their disability.

1.2.2. More than half of all social misery in the world is preventable.

More than half of everything, but in some cases all misery can be avoided, in some cases 60%, and in maybe 10-20% nothing at all, depending on the situation and your place in that situation.

Wars are avoidable and if there are any, they must be ended justly.

Wars are usually caused by dictators or chauvinistic leaders who do not want to recognize the rights of other countries and peoples.

It is important that every nation, especially if it is a great nation or a powerful nation, recognize the equality of all other nations and peoples, especially if it is a less powerful nation and be critical of its own history and of excessive patriotism and chauvinism. Tolerance is a prerequisite for peace.

It is important that dictators be removed from power and that a democratic regime replace them, because dictators can declare wars far too easily.

It is also important to expose all the lies and fake information of warring countries, such as the Nazis and Russia, because if soldiers knew the truth, they would not go to fight for an evil cause.

People feel unhappy because of loneliness.

A change in the culture or subculture, so that no one is lonely anymore, can prevent that. That change may involve people interacting differently: seeing each other as human beings rather than as tools for accomplishing something. That change can include men and women interacting much more easily with each other. Real loneliness can only be solved by finding a life partner, and that can be arranged in most cases. See also Chapter 17 on the desired future society.

People feel unhappy because others are acting towards them.

A change in culture is necessary to prevent people from hurting each other. A description of a good subculture can be found in Chapter 5, Section 5.3.2.8. and Chapter 17. How to educate is in Chapter 3.

Further recommendations on how people can get along better are in Chapter 19. A possible explanation of some people's unpleasant behavior can be found in Section 6.3.4. on how a good person can become bad and how a bad person can become good and in Section 6.6.1. which looks at physical causes of unpleasant behavior.

People feel unhappy because they have to do heavy, unhealthy and boring work.

When robots are deployed, unhealthy, boring and dangerous work becomes obsolete.

But even before that time, people may be able to think about what work would suit them better. Except for forced labor, people are free to work or not, and do not have to accept unhealthy work.

If you open your mind to it, there may be ways to find better and healthier work, but you shouldn't just look at the pay.  For example: Working in a mine may pay well, but is that extra money worth your lungs breaking down from COPD, giving you breathing problems for years and living 10 years shorter ?

People feel unhappy because of poverty.

That too can be solved. See Chapter 10 which deals specifically with that.

People feel unhappy because they made the wrong choice in a situation.

Preventing wrong choices is the subject of Chapter 2, especially Section 2.3, which deals with choice situations or nodes.

People feel unhappy because of conflict.

Social conflicts are the subject of Chapter 9.

People feel unhappy about possible war and the political situation. Conditions for peace are described in section 16.5.4. with proposals for resolving some current political issues.

But most of the time it is about personal conflicts. This is discussed in Chapters 9 and 19: Personal Advice.

Environmental pollution and global warming is a threat to humanity.

What can be done about this is the subject of Chapter 11 and Sections 16.3 and 16.5.5.

People feel unhappy because of lack of human rights.

Chapters 6 and 7 deal with that.

People can feel unhappy because they have done things they know are bad, which makes the victims hate them.

Therefore, it is important to behave well. What is good is reflected in the Golden Rule, found in all world religions: Don't do to another what you also don't want done to you.

People feel unhappy because they have lost their guide.

In fact, that is the main reason for writing this book.

New guidance can be taken from chapter 2 on you can improve your thinking, chapter 5 on cultures and their influence and especially section 5.3.2.8 and chapter 4 on religion, chapter 6 on morality and section 6.7. on the usefulness of ethics, chapter 15 on the meaning of life and the purpose of life, section 16.1. what is minimally necessary to live and section 16.1.1. on what is most precious in life and chapter 19 on: Advice for a better life.

None of this means that ALL misery is preventable:

Certain shit stays. Death is inevitable, as are certain disasters and diseases.

For now, we are still dealing with bad leaders who are causing disasters.

Wars that happen to us could have been avoided by the leaders of the belligerent countries, especially dictators and aggressive countries, but those leaders have not done so, sometimes making civilians and soldiers the victims, without being able to do anything about it.

But it is precisely when unhappiness is absolutely unavoidable that it is important for people to learn to cope with unhappiness.

You can only accept the inevitable and from that bad situation try to make the best of it and then build a new future.

All too often, however, we think that something is inevitable, while if we really try our best, take the initiative and start looking for the solution, and don't let setbacks stop us but continue looking for the solution, that solution will actually come in sight. It is up to us to make that solution a reality.

Back to Contents

Chapter 2. Improve your thinking

Thinking, thank God, is free.

You HOPE not to think: you can simply accept the situation as it is, close your eyes and enjoy the sunshine. Wonderful: to stop thinking. Thinking can disturb more things than not thinking, moreover thinking costs energy.

Free thinking is best: free thinking is done in bed if you have enough time: you let your thoughts go with the flow, without obstacles: this can be done both before going to bed, and after waking up.

Moreover, it is often wiser to follow nature without reason than to follow reason without nature. The same can be said of your instinct or feeling.

Often it is wiser to follow your instinct without thinking, than to follow your mind without your instinct.

But for certain situations it is very useful if you can think and act in a certain way. Then you can use certain methods of thinking. You can learn that. That way you can raise your IQ by 10-25 points.

Without good thinking we cannot solve problems and one of those problems is that a large part of humanity is not healthy and in good shape, either physically or mentally.

Another problem is that society cannot be improved and therefore health cannot be improved if we don't think right.

In doing so, it is important to start from facts. However, sometimes certain facts go directly against what we have been taught and we have to change our theory of reality to be able to place them and recognize facts as such, otherwise you will continue to talk nonsense, even if it is generally accepted nonsense. But nonsense leads to dangerous and unhealthy states of affairs.

Therefore, it is important for anyone, anywhere in the world, to try to improve their thinking.

There are at least 3 situations in daily life, where it is necessary to be able to think well.

1. If your intuition lets you down and you have to make a judgment

Suppose someone suddenly lost their wallet at work.  You may think, That one's been pocketed. But who did it?  That one colleague who hates you, who was just in your office ? You accuse her, but she denies it and says you are looking for a fight with her. Then suddenly the cleaning lady comes and asks, Has anyone lost a wallet?" Ashamed, you will have to admit that you have falsely accused this one colleague. 

In short: you should not be guided by a bias. It is then important to examine the case objectively.

2.  When someone is quoted spreading a nasty message.

You should not blame the messenger for the message.

That is, you need to distinguish well between direct and indirect speech and the difference between the speaker quoting and the quoted. 

Direct speech is the sentence, I like soup.

Indirect speech is the sentence, He says I like soup The first sentence is usually true, but if someone says I like soup based on the second sentence, they can be awfully wrong: because I don't have to like soup at all.

This is difficult for some people who rely only on their intuition and do not want to acknowledge that their intuition is sometimes deficient, as well as for those who can only understand one message and who cannot understand that there are multiple perspectives. They then confuse the message with the messenger and then falsely accuse the one who is telling it. This leads to the embarrassing situation that the real culprit stays out of harm's way, while the person telling the story wanted to help you, but was falsely accused. This leads to a more difficult relationship with the person who communicates the message.

3. You are confronted with a new unknown situation, which creates a problem, which you must solve in order to continue living normally.

2.1.1. Why is knowing the truth important to us ?

Some act airily about the truth. Don't worry about it. What does it matter if it's true or not? is said.

Following are 5 reasons why it is important to know the truth.

1.This makes you understand things that are otherwise incomprehensible.

It helps to improve your knowledge if you know how something is really put together. As a result, you understand (better) the connection with other knowledge.

Why does Geertruida hate Jan? Isn't Jan such a nice uncle, who doesn't hurt a fly? But Jan lied to her about her biological father, causing her to miss out on an inheritance and never getting to know her siblings, who are now untraceable. That's a truth you didn't know yet.

2.You can't solve problems (or solve them properly) if you don't know how it really works.

E.g. an auto mechanic who doesn't know why a car that won't start because it looks like nothing is wrong because the battery and everything is functioning normally. He can't fix that car because he doesn't know that in the car in a hidden place (behind the glove box) there is a safety switch that cuts off the supply of gasoline if the car has received a shock by e.g. taking a curb while driving.

3.It saves a lot of time and it's much easier if you know how something really works:

If you need to go somewhere, but you don't know how to get there because you don't have a navigation nor a map, you may have to search for a very long time before you find your destination, if you find it at all. Whereas if you know the right way, you will have found your destination in 1/10 or less of the time.

It can be a matter of life and death to know what is real.

A pharmacy assistant who helps a customer, who asks for a pill but can't find the pill and finally just gives him a pill that looks like it, because the patient is a heart patient that pill can cause a heart attack.

Or: a motorist driving in the mountains in the dark when the lights are out can drive right into the abyss because he cannot see that there is an abyss there: in other words, because he does not know that there is an abyss there.

Your host asks you to choose between 2 glasses of lemonade that look the same to a host. But one glass contains a deadly poison. Then you need to know which glass contains it. Then you can always accidentally knock that over.

4.If the story is wrong, there are nasty consequences.

Groups form based on a narrative. That story may be: there-and-there we must take that side because there-and-there is the enemy.

Now if you read or hear a story that is not true, you are choosing the wrong group to be a part of. This is what Nazis, Communists, fundamentalists and criminals have used to mobilize people actually against their own interests. This is how groups, who are normally friends are pitted against each other and senseless wars, senseless hatred, or senseless violence or all kinds of other harm occurs.

5.You can't make the right choice if you don't know how things really are.

In the million-dollar hunt to win a million, you have to know which suitcase contains the million, otherwise you get nothing.

If you borrow money from a seemingly decent, but in reality criminal lender, you may think that the loan has gotten you out of trouble. But because the lender has lied to you about the interest you have to pay, you get into much bigger trouble, causing the debt to mount up so quickly that you can't pay anything at all and finally get evicted from your home by a bailiff.

True or false

True or false is the basis of computer logic.  When an assertion is made, one looks to see if it is true. If it is true, it is given a 1 or if it is not true, it is given a 0. One searches until the title of the book matches the book itself. If it does, it is true. If it doesn't, it's not true. Sometimes there are books with the same title. Then one repeats the search process with the name than the author.

Note: Although you know the truth, it's not always helpful to say the truth bluntly right away. By doing so, you can hurt people and disrupt your relationship with people. You yourself can also get into big trouble as a result.

Sometimes you just have to shut up, even though you are sure it is different. Often it's about small things, where the other person keeps insisting that it's not so. But what does it really matter ?

Yeses, noes games don't convince anyone. And everyone has incorrect or incomplete ideas about certain subjects. Arguing about whether it is true or not only damages your relationship with the other person. And that relationship is far more valuable than being right on certain issues.

Only if it is really important to that other person or the situation, should you bring it tactically and carefully, often in portions in multiple times, unless it is an emergency.

2.1.1.2. Fallacies and fake news:

Lying is primarily the specialty of Nazis and Communists (Marxist-Leninists). Of course, any group that is out for power and considers it secondary to the truth lies, as do the supporters of jihadist organizations and organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. But systematically reversing the truth, noting the victims of one's own movement as perpetrators, has been a specialty of Nazis and especially the Russian secret services, such as the NKVD, the KGB and the FSB since 1917 and of all the individuals, organizations and regimes they have brought to power, such as the Chinese Communist Party, Chavez in Venezuela, Assad in Syria, Kim in North Korea and many dictatorships in Central Asia. Falsifying the truth and even making fake evidence is, after all, mainly a pastime of the Russian secret services. It already started through the party newspaper: Pravda, which means the truth.

No newspaper in the world has lied as much as precisely the Pravda.

The reason lies in what Lenin said, namely that propaganda is about winning the people to the revolution and that is secondary to the truth.

If the lie helps with that goal, it is fine according to him. The end justifies the means. Propaganda is the 4th wheel of the wagon of the revolution, which is to conquer power, and that, according to Lenin, is more important than the truth.

He himself set the example in this regard, promising democracy and when it came down to it, not implementing it.

Not surprisingly, Lenin, who was a spy for the Germans, reasoned this way. After all, lying is the lifeblood of spies. Putin was also head of the KGB, which could only function through lies.

Russia has an army of so-called trolls for this purpose, which are people in the service of the state, who are paid handsomely to spread lies, and turn the truth around. One of the locations known in the West, where part of the troll army is based, is in the so-called: Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg. Internet trolls have also been assigned in 30 countries.

The employees send out messages every day for Facebook, Twitter, to newspapers, and all media, which have to make people believe that not Russia, but America, Nato or their own government is the enemy, who undermines their well-being...

For this purpose, idiotic theories are invented, such as from Q-Anon, that the Democrats in America are part of a satanic pedophile network, which abuses and murders children, or that the attack on the World Trade center in 2001 in New York, was the work of the CIA: an inside job, just like the assassination of Kennedy.

Population groups are pitted against each other: for example, lies are spread to blacken immigrants, while at the same time supporting right-wing anti-immigrant groups, such as Le Pen in France. The Yellow Hesje uprising was also

orchestrated from the Kremlin. As long as there is unrest and conflict.

800px-55_Savushkina_Street

Figure: One of the offices from which the Russian troll army is controlled, 55 Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Putin has made sure that only information from Russia is distributed, approved, by his political censors. All independent news sources have been banned or prevented from working by false charges.

All official channels of Russia serve the lies, which ignorant people, including in the West, adopt without question. Even in wikipedia: To better understand Wikipedia's vulnerability to both ignorant disinformation and intentional disinformation, a pilot study was conducted by the EC last year that focused on four well-known pro-Kremlin disinformation disseminators SouthFront, NewsFront, InfoRos and Strategic Culture Foundation. All four are linked to Russian intelligence agencies.

At least 690 articles referred to these disinformation disseminators. Most of the articles in question referred to southfront.org (57 percent), followed by news-front.info (27 percent).

VPRO Tegenlicht wrote in 2020: " Sowing confusion is a powerful weapon. Our online newsfeeds have become a battlefield for the superpowers. The Russians, in particular, seem to be masters of the strategic use of disinformation. Russian trolls are constantly producing whole and half falsehoods, fake news that appears on social media and news sites.

Their aim is to sow confusion, divide populations and put alliances under strain. This is the war of the future. "

Examples abound, but in order not to make it too long just a few:

After Putin ordered the shooting down of the MH17 passenger plane in revenge over EU sanctions, the Russian troll army sent 65000 tweets in 2014 blaming Ukraine, the victim. Nos.nl of 13-5-2019 wrote:

"Employees of a Russian troll army blamed Ukraine in more than 65,000 tweets in the two days after the 2014 downing of flight MH17. After analyzing 9 million tweets, The Green Amsterdammer writes that the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg was much more active than previously reported.

The international investigation by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has revealed that the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was downed over a Ukrainian village on July 17, 2014 by a Buk missile from a Russian Army Kursk brigade. All 298 occupants were killed.

After the downing, a centrally coordinated, aggressive disinformation campaign got underway, writes the Green. Various theories were launched in pro-Russian media to exonerate Russia. This also involved the St. Petersburg agency, which specializes in influencing discussions on social media.

At first, the trolls did not seem to know exactly what was going on. For example, they wrote that pro-Russian separatists had downed a Ukrainian plane.

Only the next morning did the message become unequivocal that the Ukrainian military had shot down the Malaysian aircraft. Around eleven in the morning, the trolls launched three hashtags: #Kievhas shot down Boeing, #KievProvocation

Another example is from Yevhen Fedchenko in stopfake.org on 6-2-2016:

For the Kremlin, propaganda has become an important part of the information war. Over the past decade, Russia's propaganda machine has been structured and effectively applied, reaching a climax during the annexation of Crimea and the subsequent devastating war in eastern Ukraine. It began in 2005 with the creation of Russia Today (later RT) and each year more media" are added to this global network.

Another propaganda arm, Sputnik International, opens a new office somewhere in the world almost every week, employing qualified local journalists who produce radio and distribute multimedia in nearly thirty languages. According to their website, Sputnik points the way to a multipolar world that respects all the national interests, culture, history and traditions of each country.

This is simply one of the many examples of duplicity employed by the propaganda channels. In reality, their goal is to influence global public opinion, distort reality, and act as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin.

Initially, the Russian propaganda machine is designed to reach a much larger audience than just Ukraine or Russia's neighbors. The actual ambition is global media dominance. General Breedlove, NATO's top commander in Europe, said recently that this is not just about Ukraine. Russian activities are destabilizing neighboring countries, and the region as a whole. Although he was referring to the military part of the Russo-Ukrainian war, propaganda remains as a very important part of this war: a global war over interests, perceptions and values.

Paul Globe points out that our idea of national security should not be limited to military action. In this sense, the Russian propaganda apparatus is a threat to global security. Not only does it distort the truth to incite hatred and manipulate the political and historical context in Russia itself - to set an anti-Western course and fuel a bellicose attitude toward Ukraine - but it is also used on a global scale as a powerful weapon against fundamental human values. One of the main pillars of contemporary Russian agitprop is denial that democracy in a general sense, with free media and free elections, exists anywhere in the world. The core of the Kremlin's propaganda, both inside and outside Russia, is a postmodernist denial of everything.

Today's Russian propaganda system is often compared to that of the Soviets during the Cold War. Of course, it borrows techniques from the KGB's playbooks; many concepts are easily recognized, from the puppeteers from Washington to the secret agents, but now it is fundamentally different. Ideology was an important part of Soviet propaganda, which clashed with the values of the counter-propaganda of the West. The central role played by communist ideology ultimately made Soviet propaganda weak and inappropriate; such ideological views appealed only to specific (leftist) political parties or countries.

The current Russian propaganda does not contain a new ideology, because Russia has no ideology. Instead, it derives its values from everywhere. In this way, the system can produce a large number of little propaganda channels, with each channel having its own specific target audience. The more messages the better; it multiplies the confusion. In the words of Peter Pomerantsev, you could argue that the goal is not to provide a unique story, but to create a collision of stories with the aim of confusing the audience with different messages. Of course, you can easily uncover some excellent stories: that Ukraine is a fascist state formed by the corrupt U.S. government killing its own people in Ferguson; that Ukraine is a collapsed country; or even that it is the Americans/NATO fighting in Ukraine - and that, of course, there are no Russian troops on Ukrainian soil.

Thus, you see a disproportionate number of absurd and utterly colloquial news stories. One of the most remarkable fake stories is that of a three-year-old boy from Slavyansk who was allegedly crucified by Ukrainian soldiers. The news was brought by the government-owned Russian television channel ORT. This outrageous lie was based on one witness statement from a woman who, as it turned out later, had never been to that place and, moreover, was married to a former Ukrainian policeman who had defected to the Russians after the annexation of Crimea. This "crucifixion" story traces back to World War I, when it was first used, and to Games of Thrones where it recently appeared. But most essential is the explanation of why this story appeared on television in the first place. When broadcaster Irada Zeynalova was asked about it in person, she replied, It should not be the journalists who prove that this event took place; it is up to all of you to prove that it did not.

StopFake.org has investigated and debunked more peculiar stories, including Ukrainian military planes spread HIV over Donbas to punish locals (to encourage locals to flee the territory), President Obama bans the use of balalaikas [Russian stringed instruments] in the U.S. until 2020 (to inflate anti-American sentiment among Russians), and Two slaves and a patch of land for Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Donbas (to demonstrate the allegedly barbaric conditions in the Ukrainian military). If you look at these stories individually and use a basic level of critical thinking and media literacy (while being unaffected by the constant wave of propaganda from all sides), most people find these stories entertaining and not very newsworthy.

Nevertheless, this approach has proven effective. It focuses on bringing absurd stories based on belief and not fact, on rumor and not knowledge, and then spreading them frequently on television and social media. This makes the constructed information popular (even viral), potentially highly influential, and difficult to debunk.

Conspiracy theories are especially difficult to debunk. Indeed, the proponents of conspiracy theories tend to think that there is no such thing as coincidence: someone is guaranteed to pull the strings, a brain that constructs the realm of politics and media, war and peace, elections and commerce. In this shadowy world, blame the other and whatasboutism are substitutes for facts and rational decisions.

This makes the public happy with and receptive to Russian propaganda. In many corners of the world, people are relieved when they can hold someone else responsible for their problems. Taking advantage of irrational and disillusioned thinking is what really distinguishes contemporary Russian propaganda from its Soviet predecessor, and what makes it so effective and dangerous. "

Since Russia tries to twist and reverse the truth in such a professional way that many people believe in the lie, it is of great importance to know the truth, the reality.

In the war Russia is waging against Ukraine, Russia is using the old KGB method: Reversing the truth: Russian soldiers are shelling civilians, firing rockets at shelters in Marioepol in the theater, but for Russian television they are blaming Ukraine.

The Russians tortured, raped and murdered residents of Butscha, but blame Ukrainians. 

The Russians shelled schools and hospitals, but blame Ukraine. Blaming a victim is one thing, but it is all the more inhumane when they themselves have been the victims.

Every time with all of Russia's war crimes, they blame the other side. Unfortunately, a large part of Russians, believe this, mainly due to lack of other information. In fact, in Russia under Putin it is forbidden to talk about a war, if you do you can get 15 years in prison or concentration camp. Putin only calls it a special military operation, with Russian so-called "peacekeepers, intended to liberate the Ukrainians from Nazism." Of course, that's total nonsense, where nota bene President Zelensky is himself a Jew, and while the Russians were using missiles to destroy the Babi Yar monument, which commemorated the massacre of the real Nazis of World War II.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Russia is not just taking militaure action against the military, but that they are deliberately and actively killing civilians, even if they have nothing to do with the military.

That was the Russian strategy in Chechnya, where the Russians massacred a large part of the population. Grozny, the capital, was known as, the most devastated city on earth. They did the same in Syria, to maintain their puppet Assad. Syrian cities were also totally destroyed and schools and hospitals bombed. They are doing the same thing now (April 2022) in Ukraine.

Figure: The Russian strategy against the civilian population: top left: Grozny, Chechenye, bottom left: Aleppo, Syria, Right: Mariopol. Source: International Red Cross and Times of Israel

Russia's war in Ukraine and other countries is only possible because a large part of Russians, as well as other countries, including America, France, Italy and Greece, believe in fake news.

In more than 30 countries, it is actively promoted by local agents of the Kremlin and certain political parties, such as Trump in the United States of America, Le Pen in France, Thierry Baudet in the Netherlands, etc.

The Russian TV channel Pervi Kanal showed footage from Le Pen's headquarters. There were bottles ready with the label: Marine présidente 2022 even before the 2nd round, although the Western media predicted that Macron will win.  In 2014, Le Pen's party received a 9 million euro loan from the Russian-Czech FCRB bank.

Fake news must be debunked. This can be done by checking it against debunk. eu, but you can quickly draw conclusions yourself based on certain characteristics.

If it comes from a state, where there is no independent press, and where criticism of the government is prohibited and punished, then you don't have to believe it a priori.

Someone who tells the truth is not afraid of criticism, but someone who lies is.

Furthermore, you have to ask yourself: What is the background of the person who brings the news ?

Is it an internet troll, (someone who is paid to spread lies) ? 

What has he posted in the past ? Has he also lied in the past ?

Does that person or the organization he works for have an interest in his story ?

The following are some well-known common fallacies:

A common mistake in thinking is wishful thinking.

Because of your own interests, your own needs or those of your group, you can't believe that something is happening that doesn't match them.

Example:

My idol (e.g., pop star or hero) can't be a child abuser

My son couldn't possibly be a rapist

That leader is a wonderful person. I'm sure that one didn't kill anyone. Those so-called proofs were made up by the enemy

But also vice versa:

It is impossible for the enemy to have done such a good deed, because they are monsters.

That psychiatrist who says I'm schizophrenic is lying. I'm perfectly normal

That person who says I was wrong about it is my worst enemy.

One must always be willing to look critically also at oneself and critically at what you had always thought. But people tend to deny everything that goes against their interest or desire. This is foolish, because only by knowing the truth, even if it is not what you would have wished, can you avoid getting into (more) trouble and often can you really solve the problem.

A nice summary of thinking errors provides the site:

yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ an initiative of the School of Thought.

If you want to think cleanly, studying the fallacies on that site is mandatory reading.

From it we quote the following fallacies. That site calls them fallacies:

You have twisted someone's argument to make it easier to attack.

You labeled something as good or bad based solely on the place, institution or person it came from.

You claimed that a compromise, or a middle ground between two extremes must be the truth.

The middle between the view that the earth is flat and square and that the earth is flat and round like a pancake is still not true.

You have attacked your opponent as a person or his character traits in order to undermine his argument.

You assumed that what applies to one part also applies to the whole or to other parts; or that what applies to the whole also applies to the parts. This often happens in ideology and politics. However, just because a party is right on one issue, it does not have to be right on other issues.

You used a personal experience or isolated case instead of a well-reasoned argument or convincing evidence.

Because you find something difficult to understand, or because you don't understand how something works, you let it appear that it is probably not true.

Going with the flow: because everyone thinks so

You said that the burden of proof is not on the person who made the claim, but on someone else who just had to prove that the claim is not true.

Appeal to emotion rather than evidence

One adjusts the framework so that the view applies only to a supposedly real case.

Cherry picking: You have selected some of the data in such a way that it seems to support your argument

The assertion is false because the reasoning was false

You intentionally used words with multiple meanings or ambiguous language to disguise or misrepresent the truth.

Black and white thinking: You acted as if there were only two possible alternatives

In your argument, the conclusion was already contained in the premise: what had yet to be proven was already assumed to be true.

You have assumed that a real or perceived relationship between certain things immediately implies that one is the cause of the other.

You avoided answering substantively by starting to criticize the other party's person yourself instead of addressing the issue itself.

You argued that something is true, justified, inevitable, good or ideal, only because it is "natural.

You moved the goalposts or made up an exception when your claim was shown to be false.

You asked a question that incorporated an assumption that ensured it could not be answered without appearing guilty.

Seeing repetition where there is none

Appeal to authority

You said something is true just because an authoritative figure thinks so.

So much for (the sometimes edited) quotes from yourlogicalfallacyis.com

A common fallacy is to see the indirect mode before the direct mode. Linguistically, the direct tense is: I'm crazy. , while the indirect tense is: He says I'm crazy, which absolutely does not have to mean that I'm crazy too, but HE says it: Who is he?  Especially when unpleasant things are told about you in the indirect tense, simple people can blame the messenger for the message. This can lead to unpleasant situations, where you make the one you wanted to warn an enemy, while the real enemy remains unaffected.

2.1.1.2.1. Admit your mistakes and fix them.

Over time, others sometimes point out to you a faulty line of thinking that you have. The key then is to examine that to see if it is so and be honest with yourself. With all thoughts, try to recognize if they are wrong, and if they are, you need to admit those errors and fix your thought process.

Knowing reality consists of 2 parts: knowledge (what you know) and thinking (how to use the knowledge).

2.1.1.3. Characteristics of Truth .

Truth doesn't change when you look at it from different points of view. Truth is based on facts. Every fact is true, undecided or untrue.

A politics or a philosophy of life is based on a great many views. If one claims that those views are based on facts, one can try to test each fact by truthful methods.

On that basis, one can say whether any assumption or proposition of that worldview or politics, which is claimed to be based on fact, is based on truth or not. Of course, one must examine whether the fact has been tested by others or in the past. Unfortunately, not all statements of fact are so unambiguous.

Many statements are true only under certain conditions:

A statement might be: A piece of white paper can never be a piece of gray paper.

However, this is only true under the condition that the exposure of the paper is constant in the room where the paper lies.

Suppose a ray of sunlight falls on a piece of gray paper and the white paper is in shadow, there seems to be no difference.

Or that the white paper is in a dark room. If you then take a black and white photo, the white paper looks like gray. Therefore, for a good photo, the white balance must be set correctly, automatically or not.

Also, many facts we cannot test in practice or do not test well, so there remains debate whether it is true or not.

Truth does not care about generally acceptable conceptions, of tradition, family, love or hate, conventions, morality, ethics, faith, economic interests, society or politics.

Examples:

- There was discussion in Belgium about the claim that Mrs. Delphine Boël is an illegitimate child of the King Albert II. This can be confirmed by a DNA test. If it turns out that this endangers the stability of the state, one can try to stop or falsify the result. But the result reflects the truth. The same is true for children of those (pseudo) holy persons: priests, gurus, etc.

- If religion claims that the sun revolves around the earth, rather than the other way around, astronomers can extract evidence that confirms or disproves that claim. A church court cannot disprove the truth revealed by that evidence because it is not basing its decision on astronomical observations.

- If a religion claims that the earth is 6,000 years old, when it can be proven that it is over 4 billion years old, then it appears that the claim that the earth is 6,000 years old is not the truth. The age of the earth cannot be determined by a belief in a particular religion.

- If it can be proven that the workers in a communist country have much less to spend and worse working conditions than in a comparable capitalist country, and moreover have less freedom, then this undermines the thesis that the workers have it better in a communist country than in a capitalist country. For this, one can compare, for example, purchasing power, the number of working hours, working conditions, and the freedom of the individual such as free travel and privacy.

Since some countries have (had) a capitalist and a communist variant, this facilitates the comparison.

And even if one country does not have both variants, one can look for a country similar in culture and history.

No appeal to Great Philosophers, Infallible Scientists, Heroes of War, Heroes of the Fatherland can undo the conclusion of that comparison.

- The idea that sexuality only plays a role after the age of 18 can be undermined by surveys in which young people under 18 indicate that sexuality plays an important role in their lives. This is made all the more likely by the fact that biological human development indicates that sometimes a girl as young as 12 can have a child and a boy at 13 can become a father.

- The amount of nitrogen emissions from pigs and cows is not independent of their number. The more pigs, the more nitrogen oxide, ammonia and other gases, just as with all mammals. The fact that the possibility of not taking more animals increases the likelihood of bankruptcy for the livestock owner does not change the fact that those nitrogen oxides are produced.

The following lists some thinking methods that can be useful in solving problems

.

2.1.1.4. Learn as many different thinking and learning methods as possible.

Basically, all thoughts and conceptions must be critically examined if we want to know the truth. Thus, we should not assume anything only on authority, nor should we assume anything only because most people think so. Everyone must critically examine their own thoughts.

In order to achieve good thinking, you must first be able to parse language. You need to know what a verb is, a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, an adjective, a noun, an adjective, etc. Then, with a long compound sentence, you have to dissect what the main clause and what the subclauses are. Only then can you find out the meaning of a sentence.

It is also important that you know the exact meaning of each word you use. Don't use words you don't know the meaning of. Therefore, it is important to know the definition of a term.

To communicate well with each other, you must agree on the definition.

You need to know the context for the ultimate meaning of a word or phrase.  Certain texts have a very different meaning in one story than when they occur in another story. Therefore, you should never just take texts or phrases out of context. It is ultimately about the story.

You need to be able to think of a word or concept as being replaced by a symbol or code. For example, Netherlands by NL or for a certain type of the color blue 44BBFF in the Internet language HTML.

You have to be able to abstract. If a child sees a chair and she hears the word chair, she can make an association between the sound of the word chair and what she sees and feels is a chair. But the child only knows the one chair with 4 legs. Only after the child has seen several other chairs, with 1,3, 4, 5 legs in different shapes from armchair to folding chair, and everywhere the word chair is given, then the child has made an abstraction that she calls chair.

You have to be able to think in analogy: that is, something goes the same way as something else: Because bare trees have branches which themselves have thinner branches and because bare trees resemble veins in the human body, those veins can also branch into thinner veins. What's important is that you learn to recognize patterns.

Furthermore, if you want to make statements about a subject, you must first gain as much knowledge as possible about that subject.

The goal of science and mathematical logic is often to design a model, a schematic representation of reality. Then to see the model as part of a process: how the model changes over time and other circumstances.

Further, you must have a certain general development to be able to place knowledge about that special topic in context and possibly judge it by a certain value.

A good example of new research and thinking methods is described in Futures techniques: see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_techniques

General development is of the utmost importance if you want to be able to separate fantasy from reality. General development must then be combined with thinking in a proper way.

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2.1.2. Conspiracy Theories .

Many conspiracy theories rely on fantasy and originate in a story or novel, but and real conspiracies also exist.

It is very important to distinguish real conspiracies from those that are fantasy based or made up.

It is not always easy to make that distinction. To be able to make that distinction, you have to distrust all information a priori, be constantly critical and skeptical, and above all, look at what the original source of the story is. Usually we know a story from the 3rd or 4th hand. The original source is usually in a foreign language: English, Russian, Chinese. If it is of interest to the press, some journalists translate it, doing violence to the context in many cases. After such a translated story is included in the newspaper, it appears somewhat distorted usually on social media or a website. In other words, even good information usually appears somewhat distorted to the average reader.

But in addition, deliberately fabricated stories and lies are spread by paid Internet trolls from Russia or other countries or Nazis or jihadists. Therefore, when we find the original source, we must ask ourselves:

What interest could that source have in such a story ?

And with any story or theory, you have to look up what the critique of that story is. How does that story relate to the criticism of the story ?

How credible is this criticism or is it also motivated by interests ?  What do we know about all parts of the story from scientific sources ?  Find all the names of the story on the internet.

How neutral and scientific is the original source ?

By what incontrovertible facts is the story supported ?

To what extent is the story contrary to existing knowledge about all parts of it ?

To answer these questions, therefore, one must not rely blindly on one source, but do one's own conscientious research, and this is only possible if one is sufficiently generally educated or if one looks everything up from a source that is more than 80% reliable, such as the English-language wikipedia or scientific information that is not influenced by capital, faith or politics.

2.1.2.1. Real conspiracies

Real conspiracies exist:

Totalitarian organizations and secret services are known to have committed and still commit conspiracies. Examples are: the communists, the Nazis, the fascists, Russian KGB aka FSB, the US CIA, the secret services of other countries, but also some church organizations or sects, Muslim extremist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, organizations like Scientology, which falsely calls itself church but is in reality a criminal organization, etc.  One Christian organization that works in secret in America is The Fellowship: Very similar to the Muslim Brotherhood, but without the violent wing.

These organizations have a plan to gain power and influence. They have a secret organization in addition to an overt organization. They infiltrate existing organizations in government agencies, in generally known institutions.

Also, some companies, sometimes international companies and monopolies spread fake stories and fake information to, for example, eliminate competition or present their own position more favorably than it is. Finally, fake information and certain conspiracy theories come from the minds of criminal organizations, such as the Mafia. Even smaller criminal groups that are in the crosshairs of a judge or police officer may try to use fabricated stories to blacken that judge, if they cannot corrupt him.

It is likely that the development of ghetto culture was created and promoted by racist cells of individuals from the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) and Nazi groups.

There are several indications that the Secret Service the FBi or the CIA tried to addict the black population to drugs in the 60s and 70s. And it is