Uranus - Neptune cycle and the fabrication of Ignorance

1
Uranus-Neptune cycle which happened in 1992 at 16 Capricorn is now shaping our world for the next 171 years. These 2 planets represent individualism (Uranus) vs collectivism (Neptune).

"The present Uranus and Neptune cycle, which began with the social power for self-glorification, Capricorn refers to the domination of all social activity by the State, the Corporations or the Banks, or by some dominant personage.... What must be learned from this cycle is how to use the power born of Uranian changes and inventions for the good of all people, and not only for the benefit of a small group of 'rugged individualists. The urge to acquire money and power (Capricorn) even at the expense of moral values (Neptune) must remain the rule rather than the exception." " (Alexander Ruperti, Cycles of Becoming p. 227).

From the initial conjunction, we have now reached the 1st semi-square of this cycle.

"We need to 'take a step forward for some future fulfillment, all the pastward resistance or inertia within one rebels and refuses to take the step. Resistance here can mean simple uncertainty or hesitation expectable at the beginning of a cycle, or it can refer to more deeply entrenched patterns of fear or preference which are carry-overs from a past... Prideful preference must give way to the promptings of greater possibilities."
(Dane Rudhyar - Leyla Rael, Astrological Aspects, p.38 )

Here is the resume of a documentary which can bring some light on this conjunction.
"La fabrique de l'ignorance" (The fabrication of ignorance)
Franck Cuveillier, Pascal Vasselin
Resume
Manipulating research to delay the progress of knowledge on certain subjects is part of the strategy of a growing number of manufacturers. Researchers set out to dismantle the mechanisms of this phenomenon, which is gaining ground.
In this documentary, the director is showing us what is behind science and the social medias today, the struggle between freedom (Uranus) and our belief systems (Neptune). Science (Uranus) vs Religion (Neptune).
------------------

Every day more products on our plates, more products on the shelves. And every day, more questions "What is in our fields, in our plates, in our medicines, in our environment?"
Some citizens accuse the industry of hiding the truth from us. And we are asking science to step into the ring to better inform us. Here is therefore a target to be mined, to be corrupted for the industry.
We live in a world where some discredit science.
In northern Greece, as in several countries around the world, a hecatomb is hitting bee colonies. It is a know fact since 1990. At first, the scientists were puzzled.
Early 2000, the first reports showed the effects of the nicotinoids (chemical product) in the fields to explain the death of the bees. However, no definitive answer because since then, the number of studies has jumped. Suddenly it seems that a lot of scientists are interested by the death of the bees. Really? We need to take as step back to understand what is going on in Science.

Tobacco industry
-------------------
The pattern looks like the tobacco companies scandal. We have to go back to the 1950s when tobacco was tested with the greatest recklessness. The Marlboro Man being the iconic figure.
At this time, Saturn had just left a conjunction to Neptune in Libra. Uranus in a waning square to Neptune, a shift in the scientific approach.

In 1953, researchers caused cancer by brushing mice with nicotine. A war began. We know that a meeting of the greatest industrialists took place in December 1953 at the Plaza hotel in New York. The tobacco companies issued a press release:
"We pledge to help the research and for this reason, we create the Research Committee on Tobacco". And the industry embarked on scientific research. They claimed that their studies was to make everybody secure about tobacco. The goal behind was to use science against the established science. They funded "distraction research." For example, does tomato juice promote skin cancer? What is the relationship between lung cancer and baldness? They pledge that from all their studies, we could not establish the cause of lung cancer with cigarettes. The goal was to sow ignorance and confusion. And this approach has served as a model for almost all of the scientific denials that have followed.
Same thing for acid rain, the ozone layer, global warming, pesticides. Arguments which have been adopted by the conspirators and which have become truths. Some researchers say science is decades behind schedule.

When the tower starts to crumble?
------------------------------------------
40 years after the start of the tobacco war, a whistleblower of the tobacco industry took a step that will change everything. The package he sent on May 12, 1994 arrived at the University of San Francisco, addressed to Professor Stanton Glantz, expert in public health. It contained internal tobacco industry documents and they spoke very openly about the dangers of tobacco. These documents revealed the manipulation of scientific research. A few thousand pages which turned into 93 million pages when companies had to reveal all their documents. "Doubt is our product since it our 'body of fact' says one document. The industry has seized a virtue and made it a vice.

This has generated the study of a new field of study at Harvard called 'Agnotology' or the study of ignorance. At first, we thought that ignorance was only what we did not know. But we realized that we can 'produce' ignorance.
And what is it that prevents us from knowing and better yet what we prefer to ignore?
How to recognize it?
Let us take an example in toxicology.
A new food product arrives on the market and with it its share of suspicions.
Toxicology studies what is poison to health. The effect on health is proportional to the amount ingested. This is true for sugar, fat, or any other product. It is the dose that makes the poison according to the rule of toxicologists.
A baby who sucks on a plastic bottle containing a tiny amount of passing estrogens is not poisonous according to some reseach. True or false?

And here is the beginning of the battle.

At the University of Missouri in the United States, a researcher discovers that the industry puts a sex hormone bisphenol-A in the plastic of baby bottles. Over the years, he observed its effects on mice and discovered that infinitesimal doses had greater effects than one might expect.
Why is this study important? Because toxicologists usually test large doses of a product X but rarely infinitesimal doses. However, low-dose bisphenol-A does not act as a poison but as an 'endocrine disruptor'. And between dose and effect, researchers are discovering unexpected effects.
And the research community did not accept his results at first. And they were in good faith. But now the industry is entering the dance. And alternative studies contradict this researcher's data. Who wants to understand, because 93% of independent studies confirm his results but none of the industry research findings. And that's where the mouse comes out of the bag. The industry chooses genetic models from catalogs of mice in which bisphenol-A does not convert into estrogen.
And when we choose mice from a catalog, we can make a mistake because we don't know or because we know too well! Abracadabra! A corrupted protocol can derail science.

In France, bottles containing bisphenol-A are prohibited. But this victory concerns only one article of a single company in a single country. A trickle-down victory for science, 20 years after the first alerts!
In the population, there is an increase in metabolic disorders, obesity, endocrine problems, mental illnesses, diabetes, hormonal dependent cancers, infertility.
And in all these types of problems, endocrine disruptors are all suspects because our bodies are all imbued with them.

Social medias
----------------

Meanwhile, the Internet is spreading tailor-made science by speakers who have no scientific knowledge. And the target is us. Social networks are ideal places to improve your knowledge.
In France, the Institut des Systèmes Complexes hosts mathematicians and engineers, computer scientists who analyze social networks. Regarding the climate, for 3 months, they analyzed 20M messages and found an unusually high number coming from the Hearland Institute in the Chicago area.
Those who influence the debate are fewer but more active to influence the debate. This is the advantage of climate skeptics despite the evidences escalating. Without social media, these groups could not survive.
The Heartland Institute produces tweets, lectures, articles. Its director on climate issues has no scientific training or knowledge. And when climate skeptics hold conferences, the Hearthland Institute is always there. But what are the interests they defend?

Naomi Oreskes, historian of science surveyed what the Hearthland Institute says on social medias. And do not get me wrong here, this Institute is only the tip of the iceberg. Many more clones exist in the world.
“By reading their articles and their notes, we discovered that their motivations were not monetary but ideological. The main actors had prominent roles during the Cold War. They deeply believed in the communist threat. And they took it out on themselves. to environmentalists whom they saw as masked communists. "
The director of the Heartland Institute says that "the real motivation of environmentalists is political control and we stand before them."

And if the climate threatens us, it means that we will have to change our consumption habits and for some this is very hard to admit. Our way of life is threatened and for them there is no reason for that. Science does, but not if it prevents us from living happily and carefree.

The alliance between the industry who manipulates science for profits and the complotists who do it for political or ideological reasons is the perfect combo for misinformation.
With regard to regulations, governments will need to institute a package of measures that could include better data transmission and greater transparency in the advertising market; rigorous verification of algorithms; commissioning studies on adverse effects and risks; as well as the search for new accountability mechanisms applicable to social medias.


What if we also had within us the need not to know?
-------------------------------------------------- --------
Psychology has clearly identified the mechanisms by which we construct our beliefs. We limit our knowledge ourselves.
Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist of the University of Bristol made some research on what leads us to a scientific consensus. He explains how we react if our beliefs are threatened by scientific consensus. To gauge interest in conspiracy theories, he placed people in front of screens and asking them if they agree with some statements, which are clearly prejudices. Whenever a scientific consensus conflicts with their beliefs, they justify themselves with conspiracy theories. And he found that the more conservative people are, the more they will opt for conspiracy theories. The perfect crime against Humanity. And the social medias only accentuate. the gap between the 2 camps.
Social medias business model is based on the number of clicks. So more polarity = more clicks = more profits.

There is always the case of the individual researcher who would be funded by industry, but the problem must be approached with some hindsight. It is the market economy that influences science and determines in which areas research will be carried out. The best example is the case of AIDS for which a vaccine has not yet been found. (last Saturn / Pluto conjunction) vs COVID for which a vaccine was found in less than a year.

All the laboratories are therefore competing against each other. At the turn of the 2000s, the key word was genomics for medical consequences. In 2010, it was nanotechnology. In 2020, it is Artificial Intelligence. During this time, scientific territories are deserted because there is no economic motivation. These are the vast territories of ignorance because we don't want to know or because we never thought about it.

This is a problem that Mankind will have to solve - Uranus vs Neptune.
Capricorn has to do with scientific research. Earth sign means the discoveries will concern the material world.
Here are the latest scientific discoveries made in 2020
** Plastic-eating bacteria.
** Unlivable' heat by 2070.
** Cloud seeding to produce snow.
** Neowise comet.
** 3D map of universe.
** World's oldest known animal.
'** Zeptosecond' measured for first time.

The opposition will be in 2078-81 in the Cancer-Capricorn axis.

The next conjunction in 2165 in Aquarius will open up the gates to the limitless possibilities or our mind (Air sign)
Last edited by Ouranos on Thu Oct 21, 2021 3:40 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Blessings!