Timendi Causa est Nescire

Seneca once said "Timendi Causa est Nescire. In English, this translates to "Ignorance is the cause of fear."

And for the life of me, I cannot get this quote out of my head. I have sat here and ingested hours upon hours of content from our so-called 'elected officials' as they pop off at the mouth about TikTok and its threats against national security. I have seen Senator Tom Cotton outright lie to American citizens about why TikTok qualifies as a security threat and Senator Josh Hawley talk about how the app needs to be "firewalled". Yes, "firewalled".

Let me make something explicitly clear:

This is not me "turning" on my side of the aisle or anything of the sort. This is purely and absolutely a fire in my belly to call out elected officials who do not have the best interest of their constituents in mind. However, recently this whole issue has shifted from "they don't have our interests in mind" to the fact that they are willing to outright lie to you all in the sake of 'taking care of you'. Mind you, the same thing they spouted off during COVID. Just two weeks to stop the spread, right? Just get the shot and it'll all stop, right? They want to get the point across that they do not believe you can take care of yourself and furthermore, they don't want you to have access to information and news that isn't cleared by them.

How do I know this? Easy. Two simple facts.

One: The CEO of TikTok, Shou Chew, is a former intern of Mark Zuckerberg.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/25/tiktok-ceo-shou-zi-chew-started-in-tech-as-facebook-intern.html

Zuck has gone out of his way to attempt to sink Chew numerous times through lawsuits and a myriad of other attacks. In his time as a Facebook intern, he made it clear that he wanted to move away and create a similar but different platform that would be a competitor to Facebook. Which, by the way, he did expertly well as it has become the number one competitor to Meta platforms from Facebook to Instagram.

Two: Tom Cotton has a direct vested interest in Meta and it's stock.

Throughout the last year, Senator Tom Cotton has expanded his stock portfolio to net him a $1.4m gain. However, if you pull the public elected official records of stocks, you will not see a single thing. But, his tax records show this $1.4m gain. Through some very simple digging, you will see that ALL of that $1.4m comes from Meta subsidiaries. I am specifically harping on Tom Cotton because he is the one that has been the biggest proponent for the U.S. Government banning TikTok and he is the one that went viral for repeatedly calling a Singaporean man Chinese in a frantic and desperate attempt to discredit him. And when you get caught with your pants down in this egregious of a fashion, someone will eventually call you out.

Here is the point in all this -- These people are going out of their way to lie to you about your safety in order to line pockets and ensure continued power. You know too much and the freedom of fluid information is something that these people cannot control and it terrifies them. If you know too much, then you know that many of them are frauds. Ask yourself, if they really cared about your information, would they stop Meta from actively buying and selling customer data? The same company that is proven to be selling YOUR information to China. Of course they would. But this is the same reason that they are going after Marvel Rivals, which is the number one video game in the world right now, all because it was developed by a Chinese developer.

If they actually cared about anything more than what I have outlined then they would also go after Temu, Alibaba, Shien, and many many more. They aren't though, are they? No, they're going after the single most free and open source of free-flowing information in this history of mankind and it scares them.

My grandmother always used to say "If someone will lie to you, they will steal from you" and that is a lesson I learned at a very young age. And looky here, these people are lying to you so they can continue to reap the financial rewards that come with lying to you.

They do not want you to know how this technology works because it's complicated and as long as you don't know more than they do, it makes you easy to manipulate. They do not want you to know how firewalls work and how servers work. You are so much easier to control when you are ignorant and afraid.

I for one will not be ignorant, and I sure as all get out won't be afraid. Maybe it's about time to start chucking the tea back in the harbor.

Timendi Causa est Nescire