Slashdot Mirror
Secret Files Reveal UK Police Feared That Trekkies Could Turn On Society
An anonymous reader writes: Scotland Yard was worried that fans of shows like the X Files and Star Trek might run amok during the Millennium according to secret files. The file, called UFO New Religious Movements (NRMs) And The Millennium, reveals that anti-terrorism experts were also concerned about the brain-washing effect of Dark Skies, Roswell, Millennium and The Lawnmower Man on viewers. According to the Telegraph: "The secret briefing note was obtained from the Met under the Freedom of Information Act by Sheffield-based British X-Files expert Dr Dave Clarke while researching a new book, How UFOs Conquered the World. Dr Clarke, who teaches investigative journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, said: 'The documents show the police and security services were concerned about the export of some new religious movements concerning UFOs and aliens from the USA in the aftermath of the mass suicide by followers of the Heaven's Gate.'"
Sure, it seems obvious now, but I'm kind of glad we have people looking at these ridiculous scenarios and planning how to deal with them *just in case*. It's difficult to predict the unknown so might as well be prepared for it even if it's unlikely.
Justifying a budget by inventing hypothetical enemies.
It's Tony Blair's fault. He expanded the police force far beyond any needs, and let them set up 'private companies' to coordinate their plans.
Those private companies became political campaign groups that expand laws to justify increased budgets. When we elect a leader to get a grip on these scaremongering oppressive ass-shats, their PR people go out and campaign against the politicians plans.
So you see endless stories with policeman hypothesizing new crimes and dividing society by creating suspicion.
With those uniforms ?
The article labels them "anti-terrorism experts" but the mere fact that they even considered this long enough for there to have been a written record belies that title and proves instead that they are "anti-terrorism idiots".
Trekkies always keep their phasers set to stun ...
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
Wanna keep us off the streets? Stop canceling our goddam sci-fi shows!
The dossier – called UFO New Religious Movements and the Millennium – was drawn up in response to the 1997 mass suicide by 39 cultists in San Diego known as Heaven's Gate.
Given that cults with a somewhat "sci-fi" approach to their idiocy exist it seems fair game to, at the very least, think through possible scenarios and plan accordingly. This is surely good disaster planning, certainly logical. What has happened here, it seems, is that someone has suggested regular "trekkies" are the real risk to garner attention and to sell someone's book.
Do I believe in UFOs and little green men? No, but shows like Dark Skies and The X Files taught me to question everything, especially information provided by those in power. That's what made shows like that useful. Now with Snowden et al we find that governments have been lying to us for years.
2038 will be a whole new level. Machines will run amok.
that Men in Black flashy thing.
Trekkies can't turn on anyone!
Protecting people from evil cults (even if they got the specifics of meme transmission a bit off by choosing "X-Files" and similar) is definitely something I would like my government to do. You need to research the cults, methods etc. to do that.
Further, if this was in existence a few decades ago, perhaps we would have nipped Scientology in the bud before it landed in the UK.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/403...
There you go. Now please reiterate your message about how people know nothing about it and that it promotes peace.
BTW Sorry about having to use a link from fox news, I know some people can't deal with the fact it exists but they were the only network willing to broadcast this. You might wish to consider what that implies about agenda in the media.
... but I'm kind of glad we have people looking at these ridiculous scenarios and planning how to deal with them *just in case* ...
Those motherfucking assholes are the real life version of the keystone kops --- They always do the wrong thing
Had the assholes really know their stuffs that British soldier Lee Rigby would still be alive today
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
And the London tube wouldn't have been bombed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7...
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The British Government is afraid of sci-fi that is actually written well enough to inspire people in any way.
When I saw this article on the front page of Slashdot, there were 47 comments on it.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
With every one of your anti-Islam posts you are just showing the world how small-minded, ignorant and scared you are, just like the fanatics you probably intend to rail against (but due to your ignorance you get them confused with people who identify with the same religion, but who are not fanatical). You have more in common with the fanatics than you think.
I am not the one who wrote the comment you replied to, but i agree with him (actually, in the one month i am a "Slashdoter", i have made some anti-Muslim/Islam posts myself - not very "popular", like the parent's that has modded down) - i don't know about the other guy, but i know about Muslims (i grow up with them, still live close to them), i read the Quran and the Hadiths, plus i am Greek (and Christian by the way, and as a "disclaimer"), so i may have the extra "historic privilege" to know few things more about the issue.
I don't think that i am "small-minded, ignorant", but yes i am "scared" (of Muslims) - as for this "You have more in common with the fanatics than you think", i must disagree: i (as a Christian - even "fanatic", or just a non-Muslim, like an "Atheist" is for example) don't believe what Muslims believe... and you better believe ME when i write to you that "i am scared of Muslims" (ALL MUSLIMS - i don't like ALL "Atheists", but i am not scared of them... most of them at least...)
What is your knowledge/experiance of Islam/Muslims Sir?
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Yeah, see, it's easier to deal with something that's wider-spread and more innocuous than a concentrated real problem.
Lack of perspective FTW!
Now where'd I keep that Sub-Etha Thumb?
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Didn't Futurama have an episode like that? Where Star Trek became a religion and was banned at some point? I gotta find me that episode!
Given the vast weirdness of the government bureaucracy and its penchant for contingency plans for all kinds of events, I wonder if contingency plans for some branch of the government trying to take over based on paranoid contingency plans has ever happened.
The headline:
Scotland Yard was worried that fans of shows like the X Files and Star Trek might run amok during the Millennium according to secret files.
The actual story:
'The documents show the police and security services were concerned about the export of some new religious movements concerning UFOs and aliens from the USA in the aftermath of the mass suicide by followers of the Heaven's Gate.'"
Slight difference...
Anyway, was this going to be the Star Trek Wars or the Star Wars Trek?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I don't want the police deciding what belief I can and cannot follow, be that Trekky, Catholic, Dr Who or 'theatons' .
And you think its *OTHER* peoples cults they would protect against, but why should your choices get to be the special ones permitted? Freedom of expression is a right and not just for you.
My mom disowned me for prefering Picard over Kirk.
You are confusing fundamentalism with all followers of a particular religion, fundamentalists and moderates alike. That never ends well, as it is intellectually lazy and ensures you will reach the wrong conclusion.
Just like fundamentalists of every religion. Islam is not special in this regard. Read the Bible and see just how fucked up that book is, and try to understand how that appears from an outsider's perspective. Your nonsensical, generalisation-laden rant towards the end isn't helping you look rational.
So you think those people represent the entire religion. No wonder you are so confused.
The only agenda in the media over that video is the desire to not show a brutal, graphic murder to people who might be flipping through channels. If you hadn't thought of that, I guess that says more about you than it does anything else.
Yes, all Islamists are Muslim, but to turn against all Muslims because of the Islamists will cause even more Muslims to become fundamentalist, and deny you the one tool you should be clamouring to use to fight Muslim extremism - moderate Muslims. Your claims of the destruction caused by Islam also apply to Christianity, so you not mentioning that seems to cast doubt on the rational nature of your approach.
I suspect the Jedi are behind this.
I'm glad they were worried about Trekkies and not, like, Islamic State. Or super AIDS. You know, just one teaspoon of super AIDS in your blood and you're dead in three years. So just remember, intelligence agencies, there's nothing to be afraid of. Except super AIDS.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
To the government, everyone looks like a potential criminal.
If you wanted to nip Scientology in the bud, you could do so by fighting their lawyers to make it safe to expose their wrongdoing. But preventing blackmail and protecting whistleblowers isn't in line with the wishes of those in power.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The Qur'an instructs believers to go to war against Jews and Christians.
The Bible records the history of wars.
There's a difference between recording a violent history, and instructions to commit violent acts.
The Qur'an has no order to love your neighbor, to treat others as one would wish to be treated, or to not resist an evil man. The Qur'an's plan for peace is to obtain it by force.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Read the Bible and see just how fucked up that book is, and try to understand how that appears from an outsider's perspective.
Yeah. Maybe what's important isn't so much what the books say, but what the fanatical believers actually do.
..."Have a friend that excels in math and science? Report him!"
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Then you have read neither.
There is no comparison between the two in terms of violence. The Qu'ran is in part a history of the early conquests and has over a hundred verses about smiting the unbelievers.
While there is some "smite the unbelievers" in the Bible, it is limited to the Old Testament... which was not written by Christians, but is there to support the claim of Christ being the one prophesied in the Old Testament.
The new Testament, contains no such verses justifying the killing of unbelievers by Christians.
Smiting by the hand of God? Sure, but not by members of the religion.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
And give us bread, too!
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Why are American Asians a special bunch?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Way to dodge the question, bigot.
The Qu'ran is no more violent than the Bible, so you complaining about one and not the other is the very definition of bigotry.
OK - I'm not a christian but I'll do my best to answer. There are two diferent views on the bible in Christianity, Sola Scriptura and Sola fide. Sola fide (as practiced by catholics and orthodox) says that the bible does not give a clear complete and unabiguous message but must be interpreted by faith, divine revelations to certain limited people (e.g pope in catholicism), and tradition. To these christians it would not matter even if the bible contained commands to kill unbeleievers, take sex slaves, etc (it doesn't) as long as the pope or a tradition said it was wrong.
For christians following sola scripture it is a universally held belief that the new testament represents a new covernent. Hence in any contradiction between teh two the new testament takes precidence. So for them all the "turn the other cheek" guff invalidates the accounts of violence in the old testament.
Now for the Jewish interpretation I am really out of my depth, but my understanding is that they see the bible as a historic account of a maturing understanding of God, and that the accounts of the old testament show a young and impetuous race jumping to conclusions. (If anyone can correct or explain this further I'd appreciate it).
A final point - there certainly were some other religions that were violent too - the aztecs in later times spring to mind. personally I don't hold with the Muslim apologists view that if someone else has behaved badly then its OK for them to do it.
And the Bible instructs people to take slaves, rape people, etc. etc. The only point one can make by comparing these books as some sort of reflection on their respective religions is how futile it is. You are better than this, operagost.
This is all entirely irrelevant. If what you are saying is true, every Muslim on the planet must be frothing-at-the-mouth eager to kill everyone. Seeing as there are ~1.6 billion Muslims, even if 1% couldn't hold back and give in to their alleged intentions, there would be 16,000,000 million Muslims running around straight-up murdering people. Until that happens your argument holds no water. It's like standing outside in the middle of the day trying to argue that the sun exploded years ago. The evidence for you being wrong is all around us and staggeringly obvious.
Thanks for proving my point. You are scared, ignorant, and seemingly very happy with that arrangement. Your ancient Greek forbears would be *oh so thrilled* that you've thrown your cognitive ability down the drain and settled for knee-jerk reaction instead.
Anyone who extrapolates their own experiences to judge the entire world is a demonstrable idiot.
I can't win, they know it, I know it. So fuck them.
I've read neither in about 20 years since taking a comparative religion class at school.
It's the same God in both the OT and the NT. I wonder why, when Christianity's holy book's text is looked at, people leap through hoops to try to break apart the trinity or add all sorts of explanations for the hideous, God-sanctioned behaviour, with the Qu'ran it's apparently a factual guide book and evidence that all Muslims are violent psychopaths. It's all bullshit. Most Christians don't live by the Bible just as most Muslims don't live by the Qu'ran.
But whatever. This discussion is pointless. Neither book is at all suitable for teaching how to behave to your fellow man.
Explain that to me again?
Fuck off Islam apologist. Sure, not all muslim are islamist, but all Islamist are muslim.
Not all people in Northern Ireland during the Troubles were terrorists, but all the Northern Irish terrorists during the Troubles were from Northern Ireland, so anyone from Northern Ireland was probably a terrorist.
The argument is ludicrous. Hint: the number of terrorists is tiny compared with the total population.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Just like fundamentalists of every religion.
Just from a statistical standpoint, in the recent three or four decades (especially since the quieting of the Irish troubles), there seem to be a lot more incidents of Muslim fundamentalists killing people, and organizing into large groups to kill people, than there are incidents of Christian (any denomination) or any other religion's fundamentalists. So, on average, I'd worry more about meeting someone from that particular group. (Notable exception; the Hutu/Tutsi conflict wasn't world-religion based. It was just about killing people.)
Thanks for proving my point. You are scared, ignorant, and seemingly very happy with that arrangement. Your ancient Greek forbears would be *oh so thrilled* that you've thrown your cognitive ability down the drain and settled for knee-jerk reaction instead.
Anyone who extrapolates their own experiences to judge the entire world is a demonstrable idiot.
I repeatedly informed you about my knowledge AND experience of Islam/Muslims - you repeatedly answered me that i am an ignorant, stupid, coward, racist, fanatic, etc (while you did not anwered about YOUR knowledge AND experience of Islam/Muslims)
One of the many great things my great ancient Greek ancestors gave to the world is the reasoning proving that "anyone who extrapolates their own experiences to judge the entire world" is... WISE! They were scared of "barbarians" because of their knowledge AND experience of them, and with that reasoning they civilized much of the "barbarian" world.
You attack people (not just me - i read your replies to others in this thread) by accusing them for ignorance, stupidity, cowardness, racism, fanatism, etc, just because they express their objections to Islam/Muslims - i will give you an advise: READ SOME GREEK HISTORY... you may understand the irony of your accusations.
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
Hint: the number of terrorists is tiny compared with the total population.
Hmm. Maybe if we just called them "criminals against society", instead of justifying and explaining their actions as politically or religiously based, it would simplify things.
If everyone calling themselves a muslim was like the secular Christians who put up Christmas lights but don't go to Church every Sunday or study the Bible, then there'd be no terrorists and nobody would have any problem with islam.
Just as you can be a committed Christian and go to Church and read the Bible without wanting to kill people, so you can also be a committed Muslim and go to your Mosque and study the Koran without wanting to kill people. Otherwise, there would be literally millions of terrorists just in Europe.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The Star Trek Wars
Terrorism is a red shirt.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
It is indeed pointless, you don't know what you are talking about, you admit you don't know what you are talking about (going on 20 year old remembrance) ....
But somehow you know what you are talking about.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
https://twitter.com/ap/status/...
oh yeah, and here you go from the AP
All Christian terrorists are also Christian! Don't shut your eyes to the truth!
There are many versus that also teach to treat Jews and Christians well as they are fellow monotheists, or peoples of the book.
"Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve."
Islam does have orders to love your neighbors, because Islam includes the teachings of Christ as well. They just don't consider him divine.
Meanwhile, in the new testament: "Then He said to them, 'But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.'" Of course it's out of context, but using religion for violence has always been about taking things out of context.
The trekkies and conspiracy nuts grew up and got government jobs. Remember 911 we invaded Iraq and only the conspiracy nuts in the white house knew why.
Maybe in the United Kingdom Scotland Yard fears local fans of American science fiction programs, but they got it backwards. The real troublemakers, tracked by the F.B.I. and U.S. Secret Service, are American fans of the British television show Doctor Who. The American authorities fear that these American fans might go mad and kill themselves, turn against society or start a weird cult. After all, it is patently obvious that X-Files and Star Trek convey perfectly normal behaviors, but Doctor Who presents some very odd and disturbing ideas, not to mention the strange accents and misspellings of simple words like "color" and "civilization".
Fuck off Islam apologist. Sure, not all muslim are islamist, but all Islamist are muslim.
Not all people in Northern Ireland during the Troubles were terrorists, but all the Northern Irish terrorists during the Troubles were from Northern Ireland, so anyone from Northern Ireland was probably a terrorist.
This. I know this argument borderlines on "no true scotsman" but you can argue that a lot of the people who join Islamic terrorist groups are proper Muslims. A lot wont follow the same tenants as are proselytised by the likes of ISIS, certainly this is the case with most western recruits. Then again, the tenants of groups like ISIS hardly represent the majority of Muslims.
The argument is ludicrous. Hint: the number of terrorists is tiny compared with the total population.
This cannot be understated.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I've read neither in about 20 years since taking a comparative religion class at school.
It's the same God in both the OT and the NT. I wonder why, when Christianity's holy book's text is looked at, people leap through hoops to try to break apart the trinity or add all sorts of explanations for the hideous, God-sanctioned behaviour, with the Qu'ran it's apparently a factual guide book and evidence that all Muslims are violent psychopaths. It's all bullshit. Most Christians don't live by the Bible just as most Muslims don't live by the Qu'ran.
What you've got to remember is that the Qu'ran is selectively quoted out of context deliberately by people who have an irrational hate of Muslims. They do this because often the context doesn't support their point.
If you selectively quoted the bible, it looks just as bad. Zechariah 12:3 for example tells Christians to kill false prophets, Leviticus made it clear it's OK to keep slaves, then there is the well known example of Ezekiel 25:17 (think pulp fiction). In fact the entire story of Ezekiel 25 is pretty violent and advocates killing an entire people, the thing is, I know this is a story, a work of fiction the same as verses in the Qu'ran are poems built in the same manner. If you take individual parts of Ezekiel 25 it sounds like commands from god to kill the Ammonites, but in context its part of a story.
It's a case of "figures dont lie, but liars figure".
But whatever. This discussion is pointless. Neither book is at all suitable for teaching how to behave to your fellow man.
Erm, pretty much.
Almost all Christians ignore things like Leviticus on slaves, by the same token almost all Muslims dont take "kill the unbeliever" literally.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Protecting people from evil cults (even if they got the specifics of meme transmission a bit off by choosing "X-Files" and similar) is definitely something I would like my government to do.
I do not want my government involved in such things. I want my government involved in infrastructure and physical harm mediation. Protecting me is not on my list of things a government should do.
Yes, there is some protection afforded by the fact that the government will mediate physical harm issues, but the subtle point is that it is not done for protection but to mediate after the harm has already been done. You can not actually prevent ANYTHING.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Further, if this was in existence a few decades ago, perhaps we would have nipped Scientology in the bud before it landed in the UK.
If it were in existence ~1400 years ago, perhaps we would have nipped Islam in the bud.
If it were in existence ~2000 years ago, perhaps we would have nipped Christianity in the bud.
And I wonder how many readers agreed with my first line, then threw a shit-fit when they got to my second line.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.