Slashdot Mirror
Mysterious Website Actually Social Experiment
MaelstromX writes "For six months a website called eon8 (probably down) has carried a countdown to July 1, along with vague and mysterious codes. In addition, strange code-bearing posts associated with the site were made in various webforums, and the site carried a map of the world marked by spots of "deployment". All of this, along with some apparent recorded visits by US military and intelligence computers, led many people to believe this was an imminent terrorist operation or a massive virus to be unleashed on the web-surfing public. Turns out, it was just an experiment by a 23-year-old guy named Chris from Florida who wanted to see how people would react to an absence of information, and he was disappointed that people expected the worst -- even going to so far as to attempt to hack his webserver and make phone calls to anyone with any perceived tangential connection to the site or its host. A mirror of the site in its current state is available with an explanation added by the site owner after the countdown expired."
This was what they left behind before "Mike" restored control:
"Eon8.com gave us a relatively large desire for "more information". It was an interesting social experiment, but the 'reactions of the internet public' cannot be gauged or measured with web statistics. The possibility that this website could have been linked to something much bigger and perhaps more evil was compelling.
We are not lame noobs, just as you are not a 23 year old named Mike from Florida. Your name is Chris Rossi, and you are a 25 year old from Australia.
This has been an honorable challenge, and a wonderful project. Signed w00b,Amun,D.C.,and E.D.D."Just in case you were curious about it.
probably for the same reason that they watch Lost. Replace Eon8 with Dharma Initiative, and the similarities are marked.
:)
It's mysterious, has dead ends and redirections, uses cryptic codenames and strings of alphanumeric characters that hints at something much larger and sinister behind it, complete with a countdown to boot.
Interesting too, is how people also came up with all sorts of wild theories and found connections that the creators didnt originally intend (like the 8th eon being the end of the world).
"The purpose of this project was to determine the reactions of the internet public to lack of information."
Yeah, that seems to describe Lost pretty well too
people fear what they don't know. Also, what credentials does this guy have beyond being a web designer. i.e., what gives him the guts to carry out an 'experiment' like that and quantitatively derive results from it from an authoritative sociological standpoint? This is practically a myspace joke.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
It led to one more click. Nice Flocks.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Im going to completely ignore the typical grammar nazi posts I could throw in...
We havent been innocent for a very long time. The Veitnam war was probrably the end of it, and even before that fear played a hell of a big role in our lives ( you know... the whole Cold War thing ). The only thing that has changed since post World War 2 innocence is a greater lack of conformity, the fear mongering was always there.
Movies are a classic example, horror movies and thrillers specifically. The themes change from generation to generation, but there was always an underlying current. Godzilla representing the fallout of the nucleur era, countless war movies following vietnam, slasher flicks of the 70s and 80s teaching us our normal fellow man may infact be a psychotic killer. But here is an example much closer to home for me( at my age ). Did you every go trick or treating? Was *the fear* ever put into you that you had to inspect all of your candy, because psychos were putting razorblades and poison in them? Ever hear of a single case of that actually happenning? I mean... an actual case of someone you know? No, it was simply media generated hype.
Yeah, there are sickos in the world, always have been. Thing is, in our 24/7 media coverage generation we get overloaded with stories of pure evil. I have to imagine an immegrant from a war oppressed region of Africa has to look at America's modern day fears and laugh. When our biggest fears are whatever media/goverment generated terror scheme which never actually seem to happen. After that, our fears seem to revolve around meaningless shit like Grand Theft Auto and its murder simulations. To someone who came from a soceity where death was a daily occurance, our fears much seem pretty damned trivial.
Notice though, the government isnt doing much to curb those fears? Thats simple, a scared population is an easy to control population. Something the current regime seems to have learned exceedingly well.
I reference the wrong term. The right term is "anchoring".
Anchoring or focalism is a term used in psychology to describe the common human tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.
During normal decision making, individuals anchor, or overly rely, on specific information or a specific value and then adjust to that value to account for other elements of the circumstance. Usually once the anchor is set, there is a bias toward that value.
This article (and more info) found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring
Framing, by contrast, is described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(economics)
In any case, experiments that support "common wisdom" (in this case "fear of the unknown") based on bad logic or poor experiment design are just a pet peeve of mine. This is a perfect example of how not to actually perform an experiment.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
How do YOU think THEY get the EVIDENCE and INTELLIGENCE?
Do you ALSO think that all COPS on the BEAT should be PULLED OFF
their BIG brother jobs of OBSERVATION and maintaining a presence
and only INVESTIGATE crimes that HAVE already been committed?
PS. How is my FLUENCY in your RANDOM capitalization language?
The one that Slashdotters might remember is the Transmeta website.
The of course there is Ginger, which was the Segway, which is just an expensive scooter.
When I lived in Charlottesville, VA there was a several month campaign of "the connosiers are coming". When they came, it was a "club" where you paid a flat fee and got discounts at local restaurants.
The pattern with this kind of thing is that it's always anti-climactic. The same thing goes for song count-downs on the radio. Oh. Stairway to Heaven wins again. Even when that doesn't happen, whatever song does win is always a letdown. I think it's just human nature. It always seemed to me that David Letterman's 3 or 4 was funnier than the number 1 on his top ten. Was that on purpose, or is number 1 always a let down? I guess the way to test that would be to have Letterman tape several versions of his top 10, show them to different audiences and ask them if they thought number 1 really belonged. The problem with that is that "delivery" is an important part of comedy, and I suppose that "deliver" is an important part of other information too. In other words, "metadata" is "data" or as an earlier generation used to say, "the medium is the message". In this case, the guy just transmitted nothing but metadata, and I think the results were not too surprising. In the absence of data, people attach the metadata to the context, in this case, our current climate of paranoia and fear provided the context.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Actually its more like your girlfriend calling you, yelling 'Help m-' and then hearing the phone being crushed before the line is cut. Then calling her home phone, her workplace and her friends to learn no one knows where she is or whats shes doing.
Something like that practically happened to me. My girlfriend had been living in Paris for a few weeks and on the day she was leaving Paris for another town, I get this phone call. It wakes me up at 4:00AM. It's international, her cellphone, and all I can hear is what sounds like a lot of scuffling and some muffled cries and then the phone goes dead. This was shortly after that girl got kidnapped and killed while on the phone with her boyfriend.
I tried calling her back on her phone with no luck. No answer. I tried her old apartment.. disconnected. I kept calling. No luck.
I started going through ideas in my head - what could I do? Call the Paris Police? And tell them what?
I kept trying to call her cellphone.
After about 30 minutes, she answers with a perky, "Hello?"
Turns out her phone was in her purse and the send button got pushed while she was running for the train and she didn't know about it. The cries were a child in the same cabin she was in. That's the story she told me, anyway.
But, it's a big feeling of helplessness to think someone you care about is in trouble and there's really nothing you can do.
Is there some ergot growing in our wheat supply nowadays that is causing people to lose their minds? Is it all that floride in the water? Cosmic rays? What the hell is going on?
That's a very good question. Just what the hell is going on? Well, I've been thinking about this social symptom of hysteria for quite some time (years actually) and I think I may have an answer
I would postulate the problem stems from social stress and the breakup of the plutonic family structure. I mean, sure we have a mother and/or father. What I'm talking about is the social bond with your family and relatives. Seriously, how many of you on Slashdot maintain those close ties to them and/or siblings. Hell, how many of you even have a "best friend" and not just some jokers you hang out with?
I'm being very serious. The social communal system has fractured big-time in western civilization. Honestly, I'm not sure if and when the pendulum will swing back the other way.
Life is not for the lazy.
And the fun keeps on going now that the Wikipedia article for Eon8 has been nominated TWICE for deletion resulting in much flamage and sock puppetry by the SomethingAwful and YTMND crowd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_fo r_deletion/Eon8_(2nd_nomination) o r_deletion/Eon8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_f
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
The foundation for none of this is new, most of it has been around since people started sharing caves. Most of it has roots in our territorial animal natures. Survival of ones genes meant as it still does providing for and protecting ones self and ones offspring from nature and other people. The same instincts that allowed us to survive to this point are still in effect. The threats are still here, the details have become more complex and in some cases of a slightly different nature or requiring different types of reactions. So much is, as I said initially, the same as always. In the end a lot of it is about the ability to control of ones life.
I do suspect that the amplitude and frequency of many of these issues is trending dramatically upwards in the last 50 years or so. I think a lot of it is driven by the massive increase in information available today, both in volume and speed of update. In addition the world is in a period where the growth of specialized knowledge and thus new information is growing faster than ever before. There is also the same type of increase in the rate of technological, social and economic change in the world today. These are areas where one can make the statement that today is different the past and it not be anthropic. The rates of change in the general information available, technological, social and economic evolution in the world viewed on a graph with the history of mankind have went from a nearly straight gradually rising line to almost perpendicular in the last century, even more so in the last half. Yet in many ways we are the same instinctive creatures we have been for tens of thousands of years or more. The environment we live in however is changing in ways that make if more and more difficult to control some aspects of our lives and thus our instinctive fears arise. I believe this is the primary cause of the issues you are concerned about.
I also think a lot if it recently, at least in the USA is getting worse because the politicians and pundits are using the issues at hand in dramatic and divisive ways. This seems to be so whether we are talking about global warming or gay rights. I think that the original intent of many politicians and pundits were to use these issues divisively in an objective methodology for their own gain. However these politicians and pundits are subject to many of the same instinctive pressures as everyone else and I suspect the drum beats from opposing views are tending to drive each other faster and harder in a vicious cycle.
From what I an see from my own situation and attitude, watching those I know well and my observations of the general population via the news and such I make the following very general observations. Keep in mind that I realized there are many shades of gray in these very general observations.
Those on the right tend to get upset by things of a sexual nature, this seems to me to be about loss of control of others primarily the opposite sex and children, thus loss of control of their own lives through proxy. Many seem to get upset about what they see as their rightful resources(money) being wasted on what they consider the undeserving(the idle poor). Many of those on the right seem to be especially fearful of things and people alien to the specific cultural background in which they were raised(example:foreigners).
Those on the left tend to get upset by things of a privacy nature, this seems to me to be about loss of autonomy, of having to conform to others expectations of what is proper, thus loss of control of their own lives directly. Many seem to get upset about what they see as their rightful resources(money) being hoarded by those they see as undeserving(the idle rich). Many of those on the left seem to to be especially fearfully over any type of potential violence(example:guns).
I could go on but I won't tonight. Like I said before I realized that individuals cannot be classified this cleanly. For instance I consider myself very much a Liberal and I consider the right to bear arms as very
OK, I fell for that one.
THe old trick where someone makes a statement (X) and I reply with "Not X" and then get hit with "what, you don't believe Y? you must be retared"!!
You're a clever one alright.
You said that conglomerists, monopolists, etc. controlled the market. I said they did not. Now you are claiming that they bias investment risk in their favor. That's the sme thing to you is it? "Contol" and "bias risk"? And I'm naive?
Stop whining about the little people trying to get back some control of their lives
I'm "whining" about little people who try to get control of my life, you dolt. You may have this weird pyschological disorder that makes you think a bunch of obese felines are pulling the strings in your life - but I should not have to be legislated into playing a role in your own demented fantasies.
"The market" is not something that can be controlled. Look at how many "fat cats" lose ther shirt from one year to the next (I'd direct you to sources, but the site hosting the article I want appears to be down). And look how many regular Americans make it from rags to riches (e.g. prety much every single tech company founder). Yes - in this chaos the CEO of a 500 billion dollar compan has exponentially times more power than you do. And if you try to go head to head wih his company you'll end up with your ass in a sling - at best. But the idea that the "fat cats" are somehow united in the cause of oppresion is absurd. They're all doing the best they can for themselves and you are essentially jaded. That's it.
You want to cut your nose off to spite your face. What you don't understand is that your high standard of living is the DIRECT result of "fat cats". The drive, the passion, and yes sometimes the greed of these empire builders is what has made America thrive.
It comes to this: any effort to "make things right" for the little man benefits a congolmeration of people who've had a run of bad luck, people who are too stupid to make it big, and people who are too lazy to make it big. This is achieved at the expense of the ones who - for the most part - know how to create wealth for themselves and others. Everybody gets a more equitable slice of the pie but the pie gets smaller. Capitalism leaves things alone. The pie gets A LOT bigger. Enough safety nets are put in place to provide an absolute minimum for those who need the help.
The fat cats have taken control of everybody's lives in order to eliminate risk to them, and that is the abdication of personal responsibility that you ought to be decrying. Picking on the little people for getting back a small bit of control is pathetic.
You're just raving at this point. I really wish you could hear yourself. You ARE the crazy-eyed guy on the subway grabbing people's lapels and telling them the end is near. Your argument is nothing but ad hominem. Please, tell me what the hell the word "fat cat" means to you. It's like these people aren't human to you. THey are are alien overlords. And also tell them what on earth you mean by "they have taken control of everybody's lives". Look at Africa man. The warlords, the starvation, the chaos. That's what life looks like with out the fat cats. Look at feudalism or theocracies. That's where we came from. What are these mysterious freedoms that have gone by the way side and when in history did we have them?
I'll take you as more than a deranged lunatic when you can answer those two questoins.
1. What is a "fat cat"?
2. How, precisely, did they gain "control over our lives"
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Apparently minimal govt thing wasn't working so well and private enterprise wasn't providing enough so we invented social security.
Yes, it was a time called the Great Depression. The name should indicate it was an emergency, and Social Security was an emergency soluion. Where's the emergency now?
Why don't we look to see if people are better off in those countries then they are in the US or other countries which provide even more social benefits.
Because it makes far more sense to look at how American private organizations work. Other nations have other cultures, other infrastructure, other politics, and other economies. So whatdo you think we could really learn from such a comparison?
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Anyone who claims to not even understand who the fat cats are is pretty starnge, not for believing that, but for thinking others will believe that he believes that.
No, I'm serious. Is Bill Gates a fat cat? Warren Buffet? Steve Jobs? How about my grandfather. He owned his own business and it was worh over a million. Now my uncle owns it, and it's probably 2 or 3 times as valuable. Are they fat cats? What about my boss? He and his two buddies started a company that now makes revenues of about 1.5 million annually. Are they fat cats? It is owners or CEOs or board members? Are self-made men and women excluded? How about inventors who get rich? What about lottery winners? How about those who inherit wealth?
I know exactly what the idea of a fat cat is. But that's just an idea. I want to know how you would map that idea onto reality. Calling me strange for wanting you to be specific in your rhetoric isn't going to make your arguments sound any less childish.
Anyone who claims that the fat cats don't have a lot more control over society than the thin ones is incredibly naive.
You're typing, so you must be literate, but this comment makes me wonder. Go read my post and tell me where I said rich people don't have more power than poor people in the markets. I believe the term I used was that they had "exponentially" more power. Maybe that word was to big for you?
Anyway - I eagerly await the transformation of your hot-air rhetoric into an actual argument. In the mean time I'd urge you - as a peon - to work on not being a peon instead of becoming a powerful peon. While all these self-declared victims are whining about how poor and mistreated they are, I'm just going to go make shit happen. You could do, if you were more intersted in working for youself instead of trying to get handouts.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Once again you make outrageous statements based on some sort of religious conviction.
Uh, what would be my prior statement? This is my first comment in this thread.
What do you mean doesn't work? If the majority of recepients didn't like it they would not fight so hard for it and they would fight to change it. Maybe in your world recepients of social security don't interact with society and are not happy with SS but in my world that's just not true.
Oh, they're happy alright. They just shouldn't be. In my opinion the purpose of socialism is to act as a safety net for those who are either unlucky for a time, or are disabled in some fashion. Therefore, the ultimate goal of any socialist program should be to try to get people off the program entirely. The best way to do that is to integrate recipients into society with payers - thus allowing them to network for jobs, develop skills, and hopefully appreciate the fact that there is a better way.
Everybody I know who is on social security feels like they deserve every bit of what they got because they paid into it while they were young. They supported their elders and now it's your turn to support them.
Now, this is by far the worst possible use for social security - as a retirement plan. If you want to save up for retirement, just do it - you'll save far more privately than with social security. Also - current recipients did NOT support their elders to the degree that they want to be supported - just look at a chart of life expectancies vs time - their elders died much younger than they will. The first generation of recipients didn't support anybody - the last generation of payers won't get supported at all. Yup, it is grossly unfair - but reality nonetheless - all we're doing right now is debating whether the last generation of recipients has already passed, is about to pass, or will pass 10-20 years from now before the system collapses.
The problem with anything is abuse.
Agreed - and social programs that have no plan on getting people off of them are inherently abused. Again, I didn't call for a ban on social programs, just a reworking. Social programs should always seek to help enable their recipients to become independant, to whatever degree that this is possible. For some this may never happen, but integration with society should still be pursued. Nobody will resent somebody who is severely mentally handicapped for not paying in more than they take out. Those who are able-bodied/minded, on the other hand, should be encouraged to work.