WELCOME TO THE FUNHOUSE: The Presidential Deepfake--I mean Debate

"DON’T TRUST, VERIFY. Through experience, your intuition. Because the way that images are created, deepfakes, videos, you will literally not know what is real and what is fake." ~ Jack Dorsey

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It’s almost time for the big DEEP FAKE Funhouse to begin: THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE.

A couple of days ago, my friend Rick Munn @noreward_norisk made this comment on X:

The Biden/Trump debate was always going to be a car wreck if it ever actually happened…now it has been revealed that there will be no audience, participants microphones muted when the other is speaking, and they won’t be shown on screen at the same time.

A rule Rick didn’t mention is that Trump and Biden won’t be allowed to have any props, no cheat sheets, and presumably no little earpieces telling them what to say. However, they will each get some old-fashioned paper and a pen so they can write notes down.

At least half the country doesn’t think Joe Biden is capable of a coherent thought, let alone being able to survive a marathon debate. They’ll be watching closely to see if it’s really “Sleepy Joe” or a “body double”. If it is him and he seems snappy and alert, they will be sure it’s due to a cocktail of drugs. Although the Washington Post has assured us that, no, he won’t be on “performance enhancing drugs”.

On the other side, nobody seems to be speculating about whether or not the real Donald Trump will show up. The real Trump is exactly what everyone wants to see. In the words of Rob Flaherty, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Biden:

“This debate is an opportunity to show the American people what those of us who watch Donald Trump all day, professionally, are seeing, which is that he is more unhinged, he is more dangerous, he is out for revenge, and anything that raises those stakes directly with the American people is a net positive for us.”

No matter how these bitter rivals perform, each side will be sure they see beyond the conspiracies, the deep fakes, the lies, to the truth of what’s happening on that stage. And each side sees that truth in complete contrast to how the other side sees it.

We’re crossing a threshold with this debate. Clicking on our devices to watch it, we will be entering a simulation of reality. A game that’s being played inside our heads. For most people, if the outcome doesn’t go the way they think it should, they will say it was a set-up.

It will be even worse with the elections in November. There can only be one winner and the other side will cry foul—the whole thing was a fake!

Have you ever been in a Funhouse? In one room you think you’re walking on the ceiling; the hall of mirrors makes you think there’s a million of you and you begin to wonder which one is real.

In some of the mirrors you’re long and skinny, in others you’re short and fat.

How about carnivals and amusement parks. There’s a reason why so many horror movies take place in them. They started out at the turn of the century as places where “freaks” were on display and people paid to gawk at them. Of course, we don’t do that now—do we?

Of course we do. Just check out “X” sometime. It’s appalling.

Here’s Daisy and Violet Hilton, a pair of British “Siamese Twins” who toured the US sideshow in the 1930's.

Visual Studies Workshop/Getty Images

They’re celebrating their 17th birthday, with two creepy men in suits. I wouldn’t like to think what these girls went through amusing men like this. Who are the real freaks, the girls or the men?

We are living in a Funhouse, filled with freaks. An amusement park where you get on the ride, and it never ends. That ride keeps getting wilder and wilder. To some Biden is the freak, to others it’s Trump. We will watch in fascination as they spar on the stage. At least, we hope something exciting will happen, despite the stringent rules.

As Trump joked, “It’s like death. This could be the most boring — or it could be the most exciting. Who knows?”

Take a look at the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960. It was set up similarly to the one about to happen tomorrow. It was pretty dry. But I don’t think anyone was wondering in those days if what they were seeing was real or not.

Now, take a look at Trump and Biden’s 2020 debate. Here’s the most chaotic moments.

Apparently, the election comes down to six swing states. And within those six swing states, it comes down to the voters on the margins who haven’t yet decided. So, this debate is all about catching their attention. Except that won’t happen on Thursday night. The voters that need to be influenced aren’t the ones who watch prime-time television on CNN. I mean, who even does that anymore?

They will be watching whatever 10-second clips make the rounds on TikTok, or Instagram or X, and those clips will be pushed by the influencers who get the most clicks and then who get the most advertising and are pumped up by the algorithms. It will only take a few hours for narratives to be formed and solidified, for the theories to become reality of which candidate is on drugs or a deep fake or whatever.

And in fact, I just wrote about this in The Cozy Relationship between Tech Giants and the US Military, where it’s been proven that Google influences election results, which can be especially critical when it comes to undecided voters.

“I am definitely watching for what goes viral,”, says Justin Gest, professor of policy and government at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government

Yeah, the fun begins Thursday night. By Friday, the social media “Hall of Mirrors” will have distorted everything.

It's kind of weird because just as I'm writing this, I read in the news that 18 people had to be rescued from a carnival ride in the same town where I live. It’s almost as if the algorithms made it up because I’m writing about it. Or wait, that can’t be true. It must be that I was fed the carnival news because the algorithms picked up on the word that I’m writing about. Am I reading too much into it? How can I know?

All of this is making people pretty spooked. Without a reference point, a spot on the horizon that keeps us centered, the mirrors will keep on shifting reality. We cling to our point of view with a tenacious desperation because if we let go of it, we’re afraid we will get lost in the Funhouse and never find our way out.

Except that’s exactly the opposite of what’s happening. We’re afraid to step outside the Funhouse because harsh reality will no doubt shatter the cozy lies upon which we are being fed.

Here’s perhaps the most important advice you will ever get. It comes from Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square CEO. Like Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin, Jack Dorsey fascinates me. I like to keep up with what he has to say. Unlike Elon Musk, he stays out of the limelight, but for that very reason, he should be taken much more seriously

His warning is exactly what I have been saying ever since I started writing Break Free, and it applies to everything we do going forward, including the debate tomorrow night. I encourage you to watch the talk, TECH & FREEDOM, but I have quoted what I think to be the most important part below this link:

“DON’T TRUST, VERIFY. Because the way that images are created, deepfakes, videos, you will literally not know what is real and what is fake.

It will be almost impossible to tell. It will feel like you’re in a simulation…. And it’s very important that you shift your mindset to verifying the things that you need through experience, THROUGH YOUR INTUITION. Because all these devices in your bags, in your pockets, they’re offloading from that image of the neuron and because all these things are on your phone now, you’re not building those connections in your brain anymore.”

Don’t underestimate the importance of this warning. YOU’RE NOT BUILDING CONNECTIONS IN YOUR BRAIN ANYMORE. AI is doing it.

Jack Dorsey continues:

“There's a lot of conversation these days about the importance of free speech and I think that is a complete distraction. The question and the debate and the conversation that we should be having is around free will because these algorithms are being used to direct your attention… You're seeing what the algorithm is programmed to have you see…. These are black boxes not even the companies [that are creating them] necessarily understand how they work and that's really scary.”

I reiterate, all of this is exactly what I have been writing about ever since I started Break Free. Your brain is being encouraged to stop working, to let AI think for you.

Don’t fall for the algorithm’s siren song. SHIFT YOUR MINDSET. Start exercising your brain. Go back to living and learning from real experiences. Break free of the simulation. There will come a point where that will be the only way to know if anything is real. Through actual, personal experience.

It’s quite possible that it won’t be long before those who insist on living in the real world and relying on their ow intuition will be considered the freaks.

BE A FREAK!

I don’t usually take photos when I’m running, hiking, kickboxing or whatever, because that’s my reality time, away from the simulation. But I took this picture especially for this essay, to show how I ended my day yesterday.

When I train, I tune in to my mind and my body. I breathe hard, sweat, it makes me feel uncomfortable, I push to my limits. I focus all my energy on reaching my goal.

Later, my effort is proven in my sore muscles, the satisfaction I feel, my clearer thoughts. This reminds me that I live in the real world, and I like it there. It makes me stronger in mind and body and it uplifts my spirit.

Running is a simple act. But it takes effort and resolve. It doesn’t require money, or technology, or drugs. It doesn’t require a Fitbit watch telling me how hard I worked out. I should know that by instinct.

I’ve started reading Aayan Hirsi Ali’s book Infidel and just this morning I read about her grandmother who “never learned to tell time at all. All her life, noon was when shadows were short, and your age was measured by rainy seasons. She got on perfectly well with her system.”

We don’t need all these outside forces telling us what to think and how to act. All we need is our free will, and a firm resolve to make our own choices, be they wrong or right. That’s how we learn, not by obeying algorithms.

When I walk out the door and start to run, the algorithms never know about it. And that’s a really wonderful feeling.