Summary of HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis HD Full [2016] [Subs]

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00:00:00 - 01:00:00

In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how different groups of people have used the idea of "hypernormalization" to create their own version of the "ideal world." He discusses how this idea is a dangerous illusion that will ultimately lead to disillusionment and disillusioned politics.

00:00:00 In 1975, New York City was on the verge of collapse and the banks that had been loaning the city money stopped doing so. The controller of the city made an announcement postponing the sale of bonds that were due in June. This announcement was made in front of Paul, one of the bankers who had promised to appear. It was clear that no-one wanted the bonds and they were never sold.
00:05:00 The video discusses how, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the banks took control of the city of New York, and how this led to an increase in individual radicalism. It also discusses the lack of response from the radical left, who had retreated in the face of the crisis. The new, individual radicalism of artists and musicians instead led to a surge in creative expression.
00:10:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how the Left retreated into an ironic coolness in the late 20th century in response to the emergence of new forms of power. This led to the increased power of those on the Right, most notably Donald Trump.
00:15:00 In the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger attempted to manage the volatile politics of the Middle East by dividing and breaking alliances between Arab countries, while working to include the Palestinians in a wider peace agreement. However, after Assad discovered the truth, his optimism waned and he became focused on revenge.
00:20:00 This video discusses how the Soviet Union failed to live up to its utopian ideals, and how the people of the time responded by becoming 'hypernormalized' and pretending that the society was functioning properly even though it was fake.
00:25:00 This video covers the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in it. In 1982, Israel sent a massive army to encircle the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, but they were not ready to surrender. As a result, there were numerous explosions near the buildings, damaging them all.
00:30:00 In the 1980s, the Iranian government used child soldiers in order to fight against their enemies, most notably Iraq. In the face of this violence, the United States sent troops to Lebanon to help maintain peace. However, this peace was not to last long as Assad, believing that the American troops were part of an Israeli-American conspiracy to divide the Middle East, decided to get them out of the region. This led to Assad's alliance with Iran, which gave Khomeini's regime a new and more powerful weapon- a "poor man's atomic bomb" that could be used for suicide attacks to weaken their enemies.
00:35:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how suicide bombings became a powerful tool used by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to destabilize the West. Assad saw suicide bombings as a way to defeat the Americans and force them out of the Middle East, and he was successful in doing so by using Iranian dissidents as his proxies.
00:40:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses the idea of "hypernormalization" and how it has been used by different groups of people to create their own version of the "ideal world." He discusses William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer" and how it predicted the rise of the computer network era, which in turn led to the development of the " LSD society." Curtis argues that the idea of hypernormalization is a dangerous illusion that will ultimately lead to disillusionment and disillusioned politics.
00:45:00 In the early 1990s, computer theorist and cyber-liberator, John Perry Barlow, wrote a manifesto called "A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace." This document outlined a vision of the internet as a place where anyone could freely express their beliefs, free from the constraints of traditional society. Two young hackers, Acid Phreak and Phiber Optik, took this idea to the next level by hacking into the systems of a major corporation and publishing Barlow's credit history online. This debate between Barlow and the hackers demonstrated the growing power of finance over the internet and the systems that supported it.
00:50:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how the Reagan Administration created an imaginary enemy, Colonel Gaddafi, in order to free themselves from the complexity of real Middle Eastern politics. Gaddafi was happy to play along, believing that he was more than just the leader of one country. However, Gaddafi's support for terrorism (and his role in the 1985 Rome and Vienna airports bombings) eventually led to his downfall.
00:55:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses the role of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the 1988 Rome and Vienna airport bombings. Curtis argues that Gaddafi was not behind the attacks, but was instead using them to increase his profile and promote himself as an international revolutionary. Gaddafi also arranged for a live satellite link to a mass meeting of the Nation of Islam in Chicago, where he told them that Libya was now their ally in their struggle against white America.

01:00:00 - 02:00:00

This video discusses how the West created a false story about Gaddafi in order to improve relations and get sanctions lifted.

01:00:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how Gaddafi was portrayed in the media as a dangerous andthreatening figure, which helped to fuel the US's desire to attack him. However, there were doubts within the American government about whether the allegations against Gaddafi were accurate, and the attack ultimately failed.
01:05:00 In the 1980s, people in the United States reported seeing unidentified objects in the sky, and investigators who believed in UFOs revealed that they had discovered top-secret government documents that stated that alien craft had visited Earth. But, actually, the reality was even stranger. The American Government might have been making it all up, that they had created a fake conspiracy to deliberately mislead the population. The lights that people imagined were UFOs may, in reality, have been new high-technology weapons that the US Government were testing. The government had developed the weapons because they, in turn, imagined that the Soviet Union was far stronger than it was and still wanted to conquer the world. The government wanted to keep the weapons secret, but they couldn't always hide their appearance in the skies so it is alleged that they chose a number of people to use to spread the rumour that these were really alien visitations. One of those chosen was called Paul Bennewitz, who lived outside a giant air base in New Mexico and had noticed strange things going on. Years later, I sat down with Paul at dinner and told Paul exactly that everything we did was a sanctioned counterintelligence operation to convince him that what he was seeing was UFOs and that what we didn't want him to know was
01:10:00 The video discusses how the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent rise of the Russian Federation changed the way the West viewed reality, with politicians and other elites becoming more detached from the real world. The events of the Soviet collapse were not seen coming by most, and led to a period of intense introspection in the West.
01:15:00 In the 1980s, banker Larry Fink built a computer called Aladdin that could predict with certainty the risk of any investment. This system has helped keep society stable in the face of complex and interconnected problems, and is still in use today.
01:20:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how certain medications and artificial intelligence have been used to change the way people perceive and react to the world. He focuses on the case of Wenatchee, Washington, where more citizens took Prozac than any other town in America. This change in perception was said to be a result of the medication changing the way the central nervous system functions. However, the change in perception was not without its consequences; some of the town's citizens became distant and apathetic to their own needs.
01:25:00 In "HyperNormalisation", Adam Curtis explores how the development of artificial intelligence has changed the way that politics is practiced, with the result that democracy is under threat. Curtis interviews Jess Marcum, a man who became infamous for being able to predict the outcomes of casino games with perfect accuracy, and who Trump sought out for help in the early days of his presidency. Marcum explains that his ability to read and understand data is what allows him to win, and that without it, he would not be able to function in society. The interview provides a glimpse into the dangerous potential of artificial intelligence, which can be used to manipulate and control people without their knowledge or consent.
01:30:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how the apparent success of Donald Trump was really only a facade, and that he was ultimately unsuccessful due to various factors, including his reliance on shady characters, his business going bankrupt, and the public's unwillingness to believe that he was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing.
01:35:00 In this video, Adam Curtis explains how the suicide bombings perpetrated by Hamas during the 1990s led to the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Israeli society became overwhelmed by the terror and the peace process was abandoned. Netanyahu, a politician opposed to the peace process, took power and turned against it. This led to even more horrific cycles of violence.
01:40:00 In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the United States government adopted a new strategy called "shock and awe." This involved bombing Afghanistan and Iraq into submission, hoping that these countries' dictators would be overthrown and replaced with democracies. However, this strategy backfired, as the tyrants retained power and the people became more radicalized. 20 years later, the same strategy is being used against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who is also resisting reform. This has led to a new image of terrorism being portrayed as a simple problem of evil tyrants, rather than a complex political conflict.
01:45:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how the Iraq War was started due to false information provided by a MI6 informant. The informant had seen scenes from a movie, The Rock, that depicted a container with nerve agents that was very similar to the real-life situation. This information was enough to convince Blair and Bush that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, which led to the invasion of Iraq. After the invasion, the Syrian government helped to fund and arm radical Islamist militants who fought against the US and UK. This conflict has led to the displacement of millions of people and the rise of ISIS.
01:50:00 This video, "HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis HD Full [2016] [Subs]," discusses how the West created and then turned to Gaddafi as aheroic figure in order to make the case that the Iraq War was successful. However, it is later revealed that Gaddafi did not actually have the weapons he was saying he had destroyed, and the West's perception management efforts turned him into a fake hero.
01:55:00 This video discusses how the West fabricated a false story about Gaddafi in order to get sanctions lifted and improve relations. Gaddafi was actually just pretending to be involved in the Lockerbie bombing in order to get sanctions lifted, and this was all done for the benefit of the West.

02:00:00 - 02:45:00

Adam Curtis discusses how the internet has allowed for a more globalized world, but also how it has led to the rise of fake news and the normalization of trauma. He argues that the 2016 US presidential election was won by Donald Trump thanks to his manipulation of social media, and that the Brexit campaign led to the rise of fascism in Europe.

02:00:00 The video describes how the internet has changed the way people interact and the implications of this for politics. The video also discusses the effects of 9/11 on the security agencies.
02:05:00 The video discusses how the internet has both positive and negative effects, with the latter stemming from the way in which social media algorithms filter information to make users "like" and share content they are likely to enjoy. The video then transitions to a discussion of the 2016 US presidential election, in which it is argued that the manipulation of social media by the Trump campaign helped him win the election.
02:10:00 The video discusses how the Occupy movement, which was started in response to financial inequality and corruption in American politics, was successful in changing American politics. However, the movement was ultimately crushed by public anger and the use of police force. This led to the Arab Spring, which saw revolutions take place in Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries. The video points out that the Occupy movement was able to change politics without the use of leaders or power, thanks to the internet and social media.
02:15:00 In this talk, Adam Curtis discusses the rise of revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, which were largely supported by Western governments and media. However, these revolutions soonfaileddue to the lack of a coherent vision of the future and the inexperience of the revolutionaries. The same problems arose in movements in other countries, such as Occupy Wall Street.
02:20:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how the Soviet Union used political technologists to create a "bewildering, constantly changing piece of theatre" that allowed them to control the public's perception of reality. In the late 1990s, one such technologist, Vladislav Surkov, emerged as a key figure behind President Putin. Surkov's aim was not just to manipulate people, but to go even further and play with and undermine their perceptions of the world so that they are never sure what is really happening. As Surkov's ideas became more central to Putin's grip on power, people began to doubt the reality of Russian politics altogether.
02:25:00 In "HyperNormalisation," Adam Curtis argues that the shape-shifting used by Donald Trump in his presidential campaign was a strategy of power that allowed him to defeat journalists and opponents without ever having to substantiate his claims. The video also discusses the admiration that Vladimir Putin has for Trump's strategy.
02:30:00 In this video, Adam Curtis discusses how the algorithms used to control social media platforms have made it so that radicals and angry people no longer have any impact, and that the current state of politics in the West is due to the decline of belief in the stories politicians tell their people. He also points to the rise of Syria and the use of suicide bombing as an example of how politics has become weakened.
02:35:00 In this video, historian, journalist, and broadcaster Adam Curtis discusses the history of Syria, which he argues is a case study in the effects of "hypernormalisation." He describes how the war in Syria has created a situation in which groups like Isis can thrive, and how the US, UK, and France have been unable to determine an objective or strategy for dealing with the conflict. Curtis also speaks about the role of Abu Musab al-Suri, an Islamist ideologue who has been successful in spreading fear and uncertainty among Europeans and Americans.
02:40:00 In the video, Adam Curtis discusses the events in Paris last week and how they relate to the Brexit and Trump campaigns. He argues that both campaigns used fear to win votes, and that the Brexit campaign in particular may have led to the rise of fascism in Europe.
02:45:00 Adam Curtis' documentary, HyperNormalisation, looks at the ways in which society has become numb to the abnormal. He interviews people who have experienced traumatic events, and examines how society has responded by trying to normalize these events.