1) Using numbers instead of letters is not a time saving technique. It's complicated and current keyboards make it a 'stretch'. (Those 3,4,5 and 7 keys are waaay off the 'home' row!) Indeed, 'leet' speak is used specifically to set people apart and stand one's turf in an age where being something apart from the establishment is really important. Though, it's so bloody juvenile! It's akin to spray painting walls with your 'tag' and by whatever a tattoo or piercing once denoted before such things became just another dipshit lemming affectation. (Hint: When more than 5% of the population adopt a trend, it slips from 'cool' to 'pathetic' really fast. Might as well wear a fucking Nike swish at this point. --Too bad those tattoos are permanent, eh?) Anyway, 'Leet' speak is about conveying attitude, and means nothing beyond that. Most of it will pass same as all that cute jargon from the fifties, daddio, --and the 1910's, what what?
In any case, I don't think anybody uses 'leet' speak for real anymore anyway. It's turned into a square-ball's old fogey conversation topic, (yes, I'm talking to you). All the original users have moved right the fuck on.
2) Sure, language is whatever written or spoken sequence is good for getting ideas across. So 'U' instead of 'You' is fine. It works. We all get it, so get over it. However, those who use such simplifications exclusively are doing themselves a disservice because. ..
3) POWER is the invisible factor here.
Twit-child who honestly doesn't know how to spell 'You', or who doesn't know when or why to capitalize, or who simply doesn't know how to construct words and sentences according to classic spelling and grammatical rules, is quite simply not going to get the respect s/he needs from the professional world in order to gain power in the higher rankings of society.
The fact of the matter is that there are millions of people who, upon receiving any correspondence littered with 'new & improved' spellings, are going to judge the sender ignorant, lazy and kinda slow.
The way things stand today, by knowing how to command written language with power and agility, one will ALWAYS have a much more successful time in dealing with banks, landlords, schools, government and businesses, -and all their fellow humans in any kind of written forum. Despite the logic behind new language validity, the impulse when one sees 'newspeak' is to think, "Fuck you, Loser." --And while you may want that on occassion, (there is power in everything), it's retarded not to be able to switch styles at a moment's notice. Why limit yourself?
So learn your ABC's kids. If not, chances are somebody will do worse than hurt you, (which they'll certainly try to do as well!). --They'll laugh at you with hate while you sink.
Lacking the facility to read and write properly is a one-way ticket to lower-class slavery.
With the world going to shit in a handbasket in more fascinating and varied ways that I can currently count, when somebody tells me that ass-wipe record executives are glue-gunning CD players closed with cheesey music stuffed inside the, I have but one question to ask. ..
How is this in any way important, interesting, vital, relevant or worthy of consideration on any level whatsoever which is not petty, braindead, boring and totally fucking Prozacked up the wahzoo?
This question has been brought to you by the ever-present, effervescent,
I think 'Fantasic Lad' fancies himself as some sort of pseudo phsycoanalyst but I think he has more than a few problems of his own;)
Actually, my language did seem in retrospect to be rather dense in ways I don't usually like. Clear thinking on complicated subjects is not always easy to communicate.
But I'm certainly no psycho-analyst, and of course we all have our own problems to deal with. In my case, I tend to prod less than intelligent people in ways that are not always altruistic. I like to poke idiots in order to see if they're done, and unfortunately that's just not cool with 'Yoda'. I'm sure I'll have to deal with that at some point, but not today.
In this case, the poster was being thick and stupid, and I thought that pointing out the foolishness in his behavior while offering some alternatives might actually be useful. You never know. Instead it sounds like he started picking his nose. Fair enough. We all go through that stuff. If he's on the right path, he'll figure it out eventually. Maybe you will too.
So. . , you attach so much of your own self-esteem to the choice you make in products that you consider any alternative product a direct attack on your person.
Unless the percieved value of the alternative product is 'lower' than the one you happen to currently use, you feel hunted, ill at ease and inferior.
Head spaces like this tend to also lean heavily on denial structures in order to maintain a mental comfort level, which leads in turn to increasingly faulty and difficult to maintain world-views. This causes the whole system to cycle whenever somebody points out a flaw in your belief structure. Round and round you go!
Hint: The easiest way to escape from such a merry-go-round is simply to step off. (You are NOT the products you use. You are far better. Products are there to serve you. If a new product comes along which serves you better than an older one, then using it instead does not mean you were a fool for making your initial decision. All it means is that you are allowing yourself to learn and grow stronger without needless resistance. There is ALWAYS room for upward movement; nobody is 'done', and nobody need feel bad for not being 'done'. Embrace this thinking and you will grow very quickly indeed; so quickly that others will step back and look at you in awe.)
I Don't have the evidence to back this up, but I know it's true
I'm not going to burn you for saying this, but I will ask you WHY you think you know it's true.
Think about that one carefully. Who told you, and who owns them?
In any case, the point remains: "So what if Iraq has nukes and chem warfare agents? --Iraq probably had nukes and chem warfare agents during the Gulf War, but it didn't use them because it knew that doing so would open itself up to nuclear and chemical reprival. Nothing has changed since then."
The whole, "they might get nukes" argument is just an excuse for U.S. empire building.
There was an article on the front cover of the Toronto Star today in which the Bush administration admitted that they didn't really care about weapons inspections being allowed into Iraq, and that what they really wanted was a 'regime change'. --Which means that Shrub's demand for "weapons inspections or else" was bullshit. It's all a damned puppet show, right from the airplanes to this stupid war.
Your damned president is a greedy war-monger; this has nothing to do with terrorists, and everything to do with oil and killing all the Jews. (You watch what happens when the Jews declare full-on open season on the Palastinians when the U.S. starts bombing Iraq!)
Screw the new laws, I'm more worried about the new public attitudes that are letting this kind of shit go down without so much as a second thought.
This is indeed a big concern which people seem to be barely even aware of.
I was down at the post office the other day, and an old man was trying to get his mail re-directed because he was moving in with his son's family. The guy at the desk wanted several pieces of photo I.D., but the old guy had stopped driving years ago because of his age, and had no driver's license. This was holding up the line.
At one point, the ancient man said in a quivering old-man's voice, "But I swear to god and hope to die, I am who I say I am!" and the young feller behind the desk actually chuckled at him with mild contempt and said, "Sir, in this day and age, that doesn't carry any weight at all. I need two pieces of photo I.D., or I can't help you."
The worst part was that everybody in the line up, excluding me, were actually nodding their heads in approval.
Society is being programmed to accept its own willing imprisonment. The bombings on 9-11 didn't fuck us. The COINTELPRO influenced media coverage fucked us. People are eternally foolish and niave. Fuck 'em. I'm pulling out a lawn chair to watch the end of humanity as we know it. The clock is counting. Less than ten years to go!
You stopped watching the show two episodes in and state an opinion on how the rest of the season went? There's a telepathy port on your TiVo?
Nah. I checked in with the series every once in a while. Usually couldn't sit through the entire hour, though. And the whole, 'druggie' thing with Willow and her 'problem' was pretty unbearable. What 2d genius thought that one up? (Or was that nonsense from the season prior? It's hard to keep track of all the lame.)
Though, I did catch the musical episode, which was a lot of fun. --It always pays to check in when Joss shows up to direct. But for the most part, you gotta admit; the show has become a shadow of itself since the glory days of seasons 2 and 3, when 90% of the episodes were stellar, rather than the other way around.
Not that I should really complain. After all, it's free entertainment pumping through the ugly box in the corner of my house. I'll take what I can get and turn off the rest. Suits me just fine.
Shirow is a brilliant designer and visual artist, but he is one of the worst damn story tellers I have ever, EVER read.
A classic case of putting the world-building ahead of the characters. The world is there to contain the characters, and the characters are there to convey the human message to the audience. When each is strong, when there is enough insight and compassion put into each, truly great story telling can take place. That isn't the case with Shirow.
Shirow gets an 'A' for graphic design, a 'B+' for world building, but lacks the compassion to be a great story teller. Now, you can see evidence of compassion. His earlier stories had some moments. But for some mysterious reason, he has chosen not to develop and apply this aspect of himself in his stories. He's moved away from learning about people, and directed himself into such devoid areas as porn, where human insight plays second fiddle, (if any fiddle at all), to glossy surface nonsense. Certainly, this is not necessarily evil or bad, but it is an almost contemptible decision considering what Shirow might have done with his talents.
Imagine if Miyazaki had decided to pursue porn? Any moron can draw a naked girl. Why waste real minds on such trivia?
The result is that disquieting & detached feeling throughout Shirow's work. Everything he draws seems to generate that dance-club atmosphere, where the beautiful swell in their powers, while everybody else goes home feeling sad & lonely. The consumers and the eaten. (There is such an energetic transfer in those kinds of environments.) And since Shirow long ago stopped impressing me with his socio-political junk philosophy, particularly because I think it is quite impossible, and indeed pointless, to attempt any deep cultural understanding without a solid grasp of human compassion, I find his work to be virtually worthless as anything other than an exercise in clever visual design.
Furthermore. . . And this one stands out for me, one of Shirow's main strongholds of dramatic focus is flawed!
He's a big, big fan of that dark, heart-achy, 'Bladerunner-like Feeling', brands of which are so popular among fashion magazines, goths and and any number of post-industrial approaches to art. --That, "I don't quite understand it, but it makes me feel like there's something out there which is kind of cool, and kind of sexy and kind of. . , I don't know, but I desperately want to touch it whatever it is, even though it makes my heart ache, and I know it's basically impossible to achieve whatever it demands. . . You know what I mean?" --A feeling which exactly none of the photographers and the artists and the fashion victims, etc., seem to understand the nature of on any level other than that of the surface experience. Which makes them little better than mindless worshipers who carry the torch forward for the rest of us to follow without knowing where or why.
Essentially, Shirow doesn't know what the hell he's doing.
This might actually be a reason to flip on the boob/moron-tube once more.
Faith was easily, for me anyway, the most touching character I've seen on television in a long while. It's uncommon in television to see a character grow so much through a series. Think about all the phases she went through, including all the frustration, heart-break, broken efforts and masks worn, all the way to a final redemption. Underneath everything, there was a good kid after all. So many people in the real world go through similar trials, and never manage to jump the final hurdles. It was very satisfying to see her survive the journey. A very touching character.
Faith is easily one of my favorite television characters to have graced the screen in a long while. --I found Jeri Ryan's (Sp?) charcter 7of9 on Voyager to be similarly evocative, (which was one of the bigger surprises of the last decade of television considering the initial impetus for the character; -Window dressing for a dying series!
Though. . . Since Joss withdrew from directly working on Buffy, the show has turned into exactly the kind of high-gloss 90210 teen-shine crud it originally launched in sharp contrast with. --You know? With wisdom, compassion and actual human insight rather than a 'Pretty Kids' club house full of 'Oh So Meaningful' self-centered drama. Stopped watching about two episodes in last season, right around the time I decided to Never Watch Television Again. (An abstaintion I find myself unable to keep with absolute faith every week, but hey. Balance in all things, right?)
Basically, the problem is that Joss was each of the characters, and knew how to write them instinctively; no formulas or mechanical thinking required. --And perhaps more importantly, he could look over a script from one of the staff writers, and fix in a flash the rough guestimates at dialogue the other writers could only ever try to capture through observation. Like some guy trying to do Kermit's voice post Henson. When such a level of understanding and humanity is achieved, no matter how hard the second in command may try, nobody can ever be Kermit again. Like-wise with Buffy & crew.
Hopefully Joss will be working on the new Faith material. If not, then I'll be damned sure to avoid the living hell out of it. I wouldn't want to see an almost flawless story tainted by new and bullshit writers attempting to work with Faith's character.
Though, this Firefly thing. . . Frankly, Joss is one of the few creative geniuses of our time who has made his mark in television drama. I'll give anything he works on a try.
I just hope that, unlike poor Lucas, he can avoid the thought-police and keep his brain from being sucked out through a tube for being too likely to have a positive impact on culture! Cuz, you know, we gotta go perpetrate our greed and evil upon the world and it would be disadvantagous to have people in the West influenced by wise and humane thinking!
Heavens, No!
-Fantastic Lad
Would Make a Cool Television Series. . .
on
Man Conquers Space
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· Score: 2
You know, regardless of how the real world happens to be in regard to actual space travel, I think NASA's optimist's conquest of space film would make a cool basis for a story series.
If written well and produced well, it would be fun!
Especially the part where greed, human stupidity and war-mongering don't get in the way of progress and exploration.
Eye witness accounts of this nature are wonderful things. Everybody wants to see something super-natural in order to guage and experience it.
Maybe it was real. Maybe it was swamp-gas. Both are entirely possible in my estimation.
In what manner did it dissapear? Did it fly off over the horizon, getting smaller & smaller until it was gone? Did it simply fade from view? Typically, when genuine, these things fly off at 'incredible speeds'.
The faintest whiff of a YRO article, and there is Fantastic Lad. Spouting uniformed, paranoid nonsense like some delusional sheep.
Ah. You again, the uber-prolific Anonymous Coward, (cool handle BTW), my apparently schizophrenic supporter/detractor for these recent years.
I am beside myself with joy to see that a writer of your calibre, who is so brave and well-posted, (if entirely chaotic), is taking note of my few humble scriblings. A true honour indeed! I only wish I knew your secret. . .
And see? Like you, wherever there is ignorance and the whif of an old but sadly, never dead topic, (over 500 posts on this one), there you will find me handing out pamphlets in the overwhelming rain of ignorance with my tinfoil hat set neatly upon my Fantastic head. Ahhh, but life is sweet, is it not?
If you feel that it is so important to make people aware of the issues, then express your thoughts in a well organized manner instead of sounding like a whining 12 year old kid.
Oh, please. You clearly don't have the brain power or personal charisma to enter into an interesting or useful discussion to save your life. Don't waste my time by flatulating into cyberspace about proper conversational conduct.
Grumble grumble. (In a grumpy mood today.)
You know, the problems related to privacy and personal freedoms have all been discussed at great length by me and others, both on this board and others similar. Today I just don't have the patience to bother with it; the endless parade of ignorance here requires a state of mind which I just don't have today. Sorry. However, it is not beyond my ability to be stunned by the level of ignorance in that parade.
My own fault really. I'm an idealist. I try too hard perhaps to live in a nice world. Every now and again, I get to thinking that people in general might really not be through juvenile naivete heading for such an ugly, ugly fall. But then posts like yours get attention, praise and support. Good lord, man! If you can't figure out why and how you've been misled and misguided with each of the items you listed, then your eyes and ears must be glue-gunned shut.
Pardon me for building walls here; I know your back is up against one big-time by this point. Miles away from listening to reason thanks to my mean-ass attacks and total lack of supporting evidence. (I still say, go find your own before spewing such dumb-ass opinions!!!) But the fact of the matter is this:
What you believe makes no difference to me. The only people who place any value on what you believe are exactly the same people who benefit from your support. So believe what you want and get screwed. Go register yourself. Go wave a flag. Whatever. The fact that you were able to post such an asenine comment after supposedly reading through all the pros & cons regarding National I.D. cards on this Slashdot story means you either, A) didn't actually read or evaluate any of the posts, B) Did, but had your, "I'm right and nothing nobody says. .." filters set to kill, or C) Genuinely didn't understand what you read.
In all three cases, you end up ranking pretty poorly on the Hope scale. --As in, there ain't much for you.
And now I've wasted my time blowing hot air into a class-B twit balloon.
I won't bother attacking his simple-minded reasons for having a national I.D. Another poster has already responded reasonably well on that account, (cduffy). He left out many points, but if you read his comments you might begin to understand. Also, PLEASE skim through all of the comments on this Slashdot story with the understanding that this is NOT about YOU and your ego and winning arguments and being right or wrong. This stuff is important. Open your minds and try to recognize the ways in which this can be dangerous. There are multiple perspectives here, not just YOURS, and the fact that there are multiple perspectives should NOT be threatening to you. Grow up!!!
I really did feel a shiver of apprehension run through my body when I realized yet again that most people are so ignorant on these sorts of issues that they are actually willing to give deluded twits like the one above the Good Nod.
Your post contains exactly the kind of information people should be made aware of in these sorts of discussions; the results of a previous implementation of a bad idea.
ps. Best Pinball of all time? I loved the Guns N' Roses Machine... perfect flipper balance (you weren't always using one of them like in Goldeneye and others).
Oh, definitely! The Guns N' Roses board was one of the two best I've ever played. The difficulties of the various challenges on Axel's(sp?) self-designed machine were tuned to perfection. That was a really, really smooth game. --My other favorite was the Indiana Jones board. That was not only a fantastic game, but it was filled with a ton of Indy memorabilia and sound-bite treasures. While I respect Axel Rose's love of pinball, I never much cared for his brand of music. But Indy. . . Now there's a pop-culture icon which still makes me want to have adventures and fight nazis and feel ten years old.
Cool post. Thanks for bringing up those old memories!
75% of Slashdotters are the voice-box bitches of corporate evil.
Plug 'em into a dumb-ass, 'documentary', give them government approved 'science' text books during their tender formative years, let 'em watch Star Trek, let 'em believe they are coming to these conclusions on their own, (like the average, "No really! I chose this life without any influence from my church group," born again Christian), and that their fucking CD player and cell phone are proof positive that 'science' is honest and up front. . , Do these things, and they'll be your unthinking Yes-men forever and anon, ready to spit and fume like robot dogs in defense of whatever bullshit 'truth' the Wealthy Few want installed today.
The most bent part is that the ones they support laugh at them from behind their backs. "I wonder what the unwashed brainwashed are doing today. .."
According to another piece of propaganda, (A 'documentary' on one of those so-called 'learning' channels), as of last year, these types of lasers worked in the following way. . .
They install in a large passenger style aircraft a huge chemical battery which operates on a principal similar to the 'fuel-cell'. The laser system itself is huge, taking up about half the length of the plane. The beam, when fired, is redirected through an X,Y, rotating nozzle in the nose of the plane. The system can shoot 30 times, (or so), before having to land in order to refuel the battery cells.
The whole kit & kaboodle is designed to knock missiles out of the air. A second or two of focused beam is enough to vaporize a section of missile chassis. It can be fired quickly at lots of different targets, and can sort of just 'roam around' the skies waiting for the rebel forces to launch their painfully overdue attack against Death Star America. If you are the sort to believe this kind of tripe, at the airing date of the 'documentary', there were supposedly two working prototypes of these aircraft, and everybody seemed fairly pleased with the results. That was last year sometime.
The 'New Scientist' was either too dumb to report it with any brain-power, or (as I'm guessing), was putting out enough fluffy dots for all the American geeks and twerps to connect on their own, thus allowing them to speculate and 'discover' the 'truth' on their own, thereby making them believe in it and cling to it with the crab-like tanacity which comes, for some reason, when people think they are discovering something on their own. . , thereby legitimizing whatever bullshit truth the Powers That Be want installed.
And to connect those dots. . .
I'm guessing that the advantage of a fighter jet equipped with a smaller version of one of these laser thingies means that it can instantly take out a target. A beam of light is instantaneous. No more Tom Cruising around for a weapons lock, (though the recruiting department will probably make up for that somehow. "Now Even Pathetic Tech Geeks Can Become The Jocks Of The Sky Through Wonderful Technology. Get Laid Just Like Those Movie Stars With Big Penises!", or some shit. Look within. It's all pre-programmed into you by the fun, fun televisioin you watch and music you listen to.
Anyway, the computer controlled eye in your fighter scans the target 'enemy' jet, matches the profile in its memory, decides which one of thirty prime spots it wants to hit, and FLASH, a fuel gasket turns to ash and down goes your opponent. I'd rather have two shots every thirty seconds from a system like than a dozen lousy air to air missiles. (If I died, went to hell, and became a fighter pilot, that is.)
Whatever.
Aside from the fact that far better technology has been around for decades, any such crap which makes it to television or the 'New Scientists' of the media, is all just advertising to make people believe the whole war charade isn't as unbelievably retarded and back-assward as it is.
I sadly must admit to having been duped a year or so ago. More of that stupid television nonsense. I should know better!
It was the second hour of a two part documentary on hackers, and it was VERY well produced with lots of subtle manipulations all of which seemed friendly and wise. The finished product aired detailed several true items, amplified them, mixed them in with some twisted until almost false items, dropped in serious faced legislators with hysterical, doom & gloom viewpoints, mentioned the FBI and CIA many times, fuzzed out people's faces, --And then spin doctored the whole concoction into a whirlwind of fear.
Their points were:
1. There is basically NO security which can stop the truly determined hacker.
2. YOUR vital information, money, identity, etc. is valuable to the evil hacker and can easily be comprimised.
3. Airplanes can be dropped out of the sky, hospitals shut down mid-operation, train systems messed with and whole economies crashed, blah, blah, blah. . .
4. There are not enough laws and legal recourses to deal with this disaster which could at any moment strike.
5. Even the American military has a special division charged with the task of swooping in to keep the country from self-destructing should an evil hacker decide to end the world via the internet. -It's THAT serious! Fear! Fear! Fear! (Yawn)
Anyway, because I forgot for a short while that I was WATCHING TELEVISION that I was also being MANIPULATED. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (I stopped watching the evil tube months ago. I'm not sure how I lived back then! Even without two hours or more of crap nonsense per day, there still aren't enough hours between sun-up and sun-fall to get in all the living I want. --Oh, and try watching something after six months of abstaintion; even the 'good' shows suddenly look remarkably brain-dead!)
Anyway, all the government has to do, when enough of this incorrect, (but remarkably easy to sell), belief structure has been installed, is deliberately screw with some major utility or whatever, and then drop in the paratroopers. And people won't put up a fuss, cuz you know, hackers, right?
Essentially, the whole fear-farm works like this:
1. Show vital services and just how bad things would be should they be crashed. This causes anxiety and fear.
2. Deliberately misguide people into believing that ---insert scapegoat here--- can easily cause the above mentioned disasters.
3. Show how the legal systems are woefully underprepared for dealing with this kind of threat.
4. Leave the audience dangling and ripe for the picking. --You only have to get enough senators to watch your 'informative' crap, and bingo! Job done.
Sure. But the claim that science makes, is that I can go down to Houston one evening and watch the shuttle launch. Science is open to people to people looking over their shoulder
The interesting thing is that nobody is stopping you from looking over the shoulder of the martial artist who can put his hand through two inches of plate steel.
But you have to find the guy first, earn his respect and abandon your current life. Because the kinds of powers we're talking about there require a complete altering of yourself and mind. Of course, this sounds ridiculous to you now in the place and thinking where you currently reside. But that's just the point, you see?
Easier is that you try to affect your dreaming state, or attempt to see auras, or percieve things beyond what you normally do. Nobody is stopping you from doing this except you. With first hand experience, you don't need to worry about what popular science has to say on the matter. And then you will understand why those on the outside of the cage behave the way they do towards those on the inside, who snarl and hiss and deny not just that the door is standing open, but that there is a door in the cage at all.
One must NEVER drag another out; it would harm them. It would interrupt their learning cycle before they are, 'ripe'. The captive must choose.
if they refuse to let their powers be tested under controlled conditions, and allow scientists to do repeated experiments, with everything that goes with it, they shouldn't be surprised when most people don't believe them.
The question you should ask is why belief must these days be predicated upon scientists running tests in far away labs, declaring their results positive or negative, and people believing blindly whatever they say.
-When any number of phenomenon can be experienced first hand by any interested person who is willing to think outside the imposed parameters.
This is what scares those in power; that people will decide to take up this natural power and grow in awareness. I am not saying that science and technology are bad, but I AM saying that the dark underpinnings which have also been sold with science and technology are such that people are very easily told what to believe. -And what they are told to believe is that they should not try to raise their awareness.
A raised awareness might lead to people becoming free. The power elite would not like that! No sir. And this is the sole reason I'm blowing bandwidth on this subject.
In other words, "damn, I don't have any other examples, so I'll just pretend that I do but won't tell."
Well, unfortunately I wasn't keeping records and notes of all my reading when I was looking at examples of this kind of activity. A quick search, however, through my files brought up these names: George Bull, Morris K. Jessup, Karen Silkwood, Frank Edwards, Phil Schneider, Stefan Marinov. (All murdered in fairly clear ways, some of whom, I believe, in clear attempts to misdirect; Morris K. Jessup in particular; that is, kill a guy who is spouting crap in a very obvious assassination, and then all the conspiracy people will spend all their time looking so carefully at the dead guy's notes that they miss what's really going on. But that's just my thinking.)
Then there are the big ones, like Nicoli Tesla, Albert Einstein and Von Neumann, all of whom were manipulated to some degree, in both very obvious ways, and in some very un-obvious ways. I'm afraid you'll have to look up the information regarding these items yourself; I'm not about to go re-tracing my steps with hyperlinks and footnotes for your benefit, particularly when I'm not convinced that you really want to see any of this stuff in the first place. All I can say is that the reading is very interesting if you are ready to dig and to consider, but you must be willing to work at it.
Mind-controlled? How exactly does that work?
Wow! Where to start. . . This stuff is REALLY fascinating, so if you only look up some of the items I'm providing here, look up these three:
Greenbaum Lecture. --That's the psyche side.
Jose M. R. Delgado --The famous 'stop the charging bull with a button push' guy. He was into the direct control of the brain through electrical impulses delivered, in his early experiments, through implanted wires, and later on, with EM.
Joseph Goebbles --The man who pioneered population control through mass media.
If someone claims they can bend spoons with their mind, let them try. If someone can read minds, then let's see them do it. There aren't millions of variables here, the majority of paranormal claims are easy to test. They never work. NEVER. It doesn't matter how many ad hominem attacks you launch against me, James Randi, or skeptics in general, it still won't make ESP exist.
What can I say? You say NEVER with such utter conviction, there really isn't much point in trying to offer you new info for consideration. There is plenty, (though clearly, you haven't seen any of it; and unless you specifically look beyond CNN and the popular media feeds, you won't), however I am not going to bother listing them for you. And no, it's not that, "damn, I don't have any other examples, so I'll just pretend that I do but won't tell," it's that I don't feel like working in order to provide you with links and names etc. just for you to dismiss out of hand. Your level of awareness is YOUR problem and nobody else's.
If I'm reading you incorrectly, then I apologize, but must still recommend you go look for the material yourself. Start with Healing Touch; there were some good double blind studies done in the late eighties. Also, Acupuncture is another system with a fairly low threat factor for normal people stuck in orthodox thinking; Acupuncture clearly works, (even on animals during surgery, which removes the question of any placebo effect), but orthodox medicine doesn't want to admit it because it raises some foundation breaking possibilities. --It's nothing scary; it's all well within the realm of physical science, it just undermines certain 'rules' of medicine which would upset many were they broken. Anyway, that information is all out there as well, for those willing to search.
Now you're REALLY making things up out of whole cloth. How are they penalized? This isn't a rhetorical question, please tell me how all the John Edwards, Erich von Danikens, and Uri Gellers are PENALIZED. Go ahead.
Are you intentionally mis-understanding the semantics here?
First off, I am not familiar with any of the three authors (?) you listed. I assume you believe they are con-artists of some color or other, and because you bring them up with such confidence, then I suspect they probably really are. I wouldn't know until I read their material, however.
In any case, when I said penalized, I meant that the James Randi's of the world look at the fact that New Age books are sold rather than given away for free, as proof positive that New Age books are filled ONLY with lies and that their authors are ALL in it just for the money. --A damning statement and a 'penalty'. And that's what I meant. Perhaps 'penalize' was the wrong word to use in this case, but that's hardly the point. I hope we're done with that! I hate it when this kind of conversation devolves on one side into the mere clashing of word semantics; it's usually at that point when denial is in full swing and nothing is being heard. Rather like covering one's ears and singing, "La, La, La, I can't here you!"
But I don't think we're at that point, so I'll just let it be for now.
I hope that gives you something interesting to chew on. Enjoy! (If you will. It's up to you. Learning is fun!)
Only it has happened, many times. Many physicists have shown themselves to be quite credulous, which is why the best debunkers tend to be magicians.
Many physicists, yes. -And while some of them have made mistakes, which is natural when exploring new ideas, some of them have also been right. In any case, I said, "Respected Bodies of Scientists" and I phrased it that way specifically so that the objection you raised would not be valid. The editorial staff of Nature, for instance, is very likely going to have a huge bias against printing something which might make people like you call them silly no matter how good the evidence and logic. They have lives and wives to worry about. I was trying to point out the strong biases which exist, and I believe I have done so. Next point. . .
Right. Do you also believe in UFOs, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trans-mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?
Let's see. . .
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, don't know what you mean, yes, never heard of them, don't know, and which theory of Atlantis specifically?
Listing a lot of different bits of 'taboo' thinking does not dubunk anything; it's just a sloppy attempt at ridicule, (one of the Skeptic's favored weapons and one which stands in stark, almost sad contrast to their supposed stance of scientific reductionism. Real scientists don't resort to school yard tactics when their ideas are challenged. Fearful children do this. And so does Randi). Please try again.
Can you please point out any evidence of researchers being "regularly assassinated"? Beyond the biochemist thing, which is troubling but not necessarily evidence of a conspiracy?
This is an example of exactly what I'm talking about when I say that no evidence is good enough for somebody who has already made up their mind. You find the 'biochemist thing' troubling, but not so much as to actually make you think in new ways? Hm. So in that case, no, I can't point out any evidence which will convince you. This does not mean that there isn't plenty of it out there; there is. Many of the greats, and many less famous scientists have been bullied, persuaded, mind-controled and, yes, in the harshest of circumstances, even killed. Go get over your mental blocks, and then go do some research.
Only that James Randi's challenge includes an independent judging panel agreed upon by both he and the testee. Go read how the Randi challenge is set up; it's a fair, even-handed way to test supposed supernatural powers. And on another note, he HAS been proven wrong, just not on supernatural/alien issues; check his web page. He freely admits this.
I spent about five minutes hunting through his website, but I was unable to find the reference to his having been proven wrong. I don't doubt you, because I know he has been, but I guess he burried mention of it deep on page 7. Although, I did notice something else. . .
In the first few lines in the first article next to his photograph, he writes: "The scam-artists delight in reaching back for ancient ideas, particularly those that bear some real value, and then they distort it all into flummery -- which as we know, sells exceedingly well"
And then barely half a page down, we see well positioned among the other main buttons a Donations option. "Through your support the JREF is able to continue its efforts. Help us today through a donation. You can do so easily using PayPal."
Hmm. . .
I'm not saying that there isn't a ton of greed and lying existing in the New Age market. But how is it that debunkers are allowed to ask for money in order to publish their information, but that people writing books I might want to read are penalized for the same thing? Is it because James Randi is a hypocrite? --And one so vastly over-stuffed that he doesn't see the irony on his own home page?
There are thousands of people who are convinced they have powers. In controlled experiment settings, they're always proved wrong. ALWAYS. The powers evaporate, leaving a string of excuses, evasions, and prevarications.
No. Only in the controlled experiment settings you choose to look at. --Which again cuts directly to my point that the Evidence skeptics cry for is, for all intents and purposes, unattainable. There have been a wide number of studies which have given positive results of various phenomena. But a good study doesn't mean good marketing. James "the Amazing" Randi, however, is a self promoter first and foremost, and he is supported by wealthy forces which want to see his, "Go Back To Sleep Citizen," message spread far and wide.
Randi, to my knowledge, basically proposes to give prize winnings to anyone who can demonstrate to the world on camera the existence of Auras and similar.
The fact that nobody has come forward to claim this prize, again, as I understand the general argument of the Skeptic, is evidence that such phenomenon probably do not exist.
There are some fairly obvious flaws with this argument, and the fact that they fail to immediately register with the otherwise often intelligent Skeptic, I think demonstrates something significant.
Some of the problems I have with Randi's challenge are as follows. . .
1. Evidence is virtually impossible to legitimize. When people say "Evidence" they mean either, "As seen on TV", or, "As Reported by a respected body of scientists."
The problem is that Television evidence is never credible unless accompanied by the approval of a Respected Body of Scientists. There is actually quite a lot of video tape evidence of a wide number of strange events available for public viewing, but what worth is it? Even video tape of a shuttle launch, shot with the most expensive 'movie quality' equipment could be argued as fake by somebody with such a bent. Public acceptance of any event all comes down to what popular opinions are encouraged/reinforced by media dissemination and authority bodies. As a result, 'Evidence' is never going to be good enough on its own. Evidence must be accompanied by the approval of Authority. And Authority, (Respected Bodies of Scientists) are NEVER going to place their jobs and reputations in jeopardy by admitting that they were wrong, that Magic exists and the $20 New Orleans psychic had it right the whole time. Just won't happen.
2. People who get too successful in convincing the world of phenomenon outside the accepted realm of science are ridiculed, tormented, punished and murdered. Or nailed to crosses. Take your pick. There is, quite simply, NO way that a person with genuine abilities would be allowed to change the whole Western belief paradigm by way of James Randi's little challenge. --Think about it. Even in the corridors of accepted science, researchers are regularly assassinated for rocking the boat. That string of deaths of top biochemists and assistants over the course of last year and early this year is a fairly good example. There are others.
3. James Randi has too much personal stake in his 'Quest for Truth'. Remember the last time you were caught out and shown to be 180 degrees of wrong in a subject you were not just spouting with authority for years, but upon which you based massive amounts of self-worth? Perhaps this has never happened to you. Perhaps you are very good at the denial game, (which allows you to continue living in a wishful thinking daydream and not feel like a damned fool). This is James Randi. I strongly suspect that he would do almost anything to prevent himself from being proven wrong in a massive public forum. This is the kind of bias James Randi comes installed with. He has NOTHING to do with truth, and everything to do with witch hunting and serving his ego-based agenda.
4. As chance would have it, I happen to know several people who have 'supernatural' abilities but who, a) Have never heard of James Randi and his little propaganda machine, b) have been so sufficiently tormented and stunted for being different while growing up by ignorant and/or cruel people around them, that they instinctively cringe away from such mean-spirited (and most likely fixed) public challenges like Randi's; they would probably shrivel up and die if forced to stand on a stage facing a million eyes determined to see only what they want to see, and to pour out only scorn and disbelief regardless of what is demonstrated. --Or d) (and this is a big one), Those who do manage to arrive to maturity with confidence, health and strength of mind, in order to reach such a state where abilities manifest with great power, also tend to have grown a million miles beyond caring what a bunch of juvenile Skeptics happen to think. There are many excellent reasons for this. Money quickly, quickly changes its importance to truly enlightened people. There are certain things people should NOT be shown until they can handle it. For the very powerful, it is easy, wrong and cruel to explode a young soul's viewpoint before it is ready to graduate to larger realities. Such would interrupt their learning cycle, and such powers are not allowed to individuals until they truly understand that they must limit how they express their abilities. --Another way of looking at it is to realize that convincing demonstrations void free choice in people. It circumvents faith, and faith is not something which can or should be bottled; it's something which must be reached on its own, or it is false and worthless; much like the 'faith' hammered into people regarding 'science'. --I put science in quotes, because while the study of maths and physical reality are an important way to advance, 'science' as propagandized into blind faith in the public, (people who believe without questioning or searching for themselves), LIMITS and allows for massive control. And further, a large portion of psychic abilities/phenomena are predicated on forces which only exist when you focus attention upon them. "I'll see it when I believe it." --While we do of course have scientific models which recognize this concept, the basic idea is automatically rejected by the majority of people, simply because it flies very much in the face of the normal 'science' the Lords of Today want people to remain addicted to.
Understand that the worries and demands of the unbelieving public become unimportant when one is no longer in any personal doubt about the existence of magic. Only those trapped in the small cage built from accepted scientific realities have any interest in the outcome of, "Yeah? Prove it!" contests, which are designed primarily to calm inner ruffles within the Skeptic, and have little or nothing to do with determining truth.
--Essentially, believe what you want. No collection plate will be passed, no representative will come to your door, and above all, nobody with any wisdom is going to worry about what you believe. Your faith is your own problem; find your own way, and do try to have fun with it.
The nice thing is, when you are ready, teachers will emerge who will guide you. That's how the universe works.
Slashdot Mirror
1) Using numbers instead of letters is not a time saving technique. It's complicated and current keyboards make it a 'stretch'. (Those 3,4,5 and 7 keys are waaay off the 'home' row!) Indeed, 'leet' speak is used specifically to set people apart and stand one's turf in an age where being something apart from the establishment is really important. Though, it's so bloody juvenile! It's akin to spray painting walls with your 'tag' and by whatever a tattoo or piercing once denoted before such things became just another dipshit lemming affectation. (Hint: When more than 5% of the population adopt a trend, it slips from 'cool' to 'pathetic' really fast. Might as well wear a fucking Nike swish at this point. --Too bad those tattoos are permanent, eh?) Anyway, 'Leet' speak is about conveying attitude, and means nothing beyond that. Most of it will pass same as all that cute jargon from the fifties, daddio, --and the 1910's, what what?
In any case, I don't think anybody uses 'leet' speak for real anymore anyway. It's turned into a square-ball's old fogey conversation topic, (yes, I'm talking to you). All the original users have moved right the fuck on.
2) Sure, language is whatever written or spoken sequence is good for getting ideas across. So 'U' instead of 'You' is fine. It works. We all get it, so get over it. However, those who use such simplifications exclusively are doing themselves a disservice because. .
3) POWER is the invisible factor here.
Twit-child who honestly doesn't know how to spell 'You', or who doesn't know when or why to capitalize, or who simply doesn't know how to construct words and sentences according to classic spelling and grammatical rules, is quite simply not going to get the respect s/he needs from the professional world in order to gain power in the higher rankings of society.
The fact of the matter is that there are millions of people who, upon receiving any correspondence littered with 'new & improved' spellings, are going to judge the sender ignorant, lazy and kinda slow.
The way things stand today, by knowing how to command written language with power and agility, one will ALWAYS have a much more successful time in dealing with banks, landlords, schools, government and businesses, -and all their fellow humans in any kind of written forum. Despite the logic behind new language validity, the impulse when one sees 'newspeak' is to think, "Fuck you, Loser." --And while you may want that on occassion, (there is power in everything), it's retarded not to be able to switch styles at a moment's notice. Why limit yourself?
So learn your ABC's kids. If not, chances are somebody will do worse than hurt you, (which they'll certainly try to do as well!). --They'll laugh at you with hate while you sink.
Lacking the facility to read and write properly is a one-way ticket to lower-class slavery.
Fantastic Lad
How is this in any way important, interesting, vital, relevant or worthy of consideration on any level whatsoever which is not petty, braindead, boring and totally fucking Prozacked up the wahzoo?
This question has been brought to you by the ever-present, effervescent,
-Fantastic Lad
Actually, my language did seem in retrospect to be rather dense in ways I don't usually like. Clear thinking on complicated subjects is not always easy to communicate.
But I'm certainly no psycho-analyst, and of course we all have our own problems to deal with. In my case, I tend to prod less than intelligent people in ways that are not always altruistic. I like to poke idiots in order to see if they're done, and unfortunately that's just not cool with 'Yoda'. I'm sure I'll have to deal with that at some point, but not today.
In this case, the poster was being thick and stupid, and I thought that pointing out the foolishness in his behavior while offering some alternatives might actually be useful. You never know. Instead it sounds like he started picking his nose. Fair enough. We all go through that stuff. If he's on the right path, he'll figure it out eventually. Maybe you will too.
-Fantastic Lad
No. Not even for a fleeting second.
What an curious thought. Luckily for both of us, you may only inhabit your own. Do with it as much or as little as you choose.
-Fantastic Lad
Unless the percieved value of the alternative product is 'lower' than the one you happen to currently use, you feel hunted, ill at ease and inferior.
Head spaces like this tend to also lean heavily on denial structures in order to maintain a mental comfort level, which leads in turn to increasingly faulty and difficult to maintain world-views. This causes the whole system to cycle whenever somebody points out a flaw in your belief structure. Round and round you go!
Hint: The easiest way to escape from such a merry-go-round is simply to step off. (You are NOT the products you use. You are far better. Products are there to serve you. If a new product comes along which serves you better than an older one, then using it instead does not mean you were a fool for making your initial decision. All it means is that you are allowing yourself to learn and grow stronger without needless resistance. There is ALWAYS room for upward movement; nobody is 'done', and nobody need feel bad for not being 'done'. Embrace this thinking and you will grow very quickly indeed; so quickly that others will step back and look at you in awe.)
-Fantastic Lad
I'm not going to burn you for saying this, but I will ask you WHY you think you know it's true.
Think about that one carefully. Who told you, and who owns them?
In any case, the point remains: "So what if Iraq has nukes and chem warfare agents? --Iraq probably had nukes and chem warfare agents during the Gulf War, but it didn't use them because it knew that doing so would open itself up to nuclear and chemical reprival. Nothing has changed since then."
The whole, "they might get nukes" argument is just an excuse for U.S. empire building.
There was an article on the front cover of the Toronto Star today in which the Bush administration admitted that they didn't really care about weapons inspections being allowed into Iraq, and that what they really wanted was a 'regime change'. --Which means that Shrub's demand for "weapons inspections or else" was bullshit. It's all a damned puppet show, right from the airplanes to this stupid war.
Your damned president is a greedy war-monger; this has nothing to do with terrorists, and everything to do with oil and killing all the Jews. (You watch what happens when the Jews declare full-on open season on the Palastinians when the U.S. starts bombing Iraq!)
-Fantastic Lad
This is indeed a big concern which people seem to be barely even aware of.
I was down at the post office the other day, and an old man was trying to get his mail re-directed because he was moving in with his son's family. The guy at the desk wanted several pieces of photo I.D., but the old guy had stopped driving years ago because of his age, and had no driver's license. This was holding up the line.
At one point, the ancient man said in a quivering old-man's voice, "But I swear to god and hope to die, I am who I say I am!" and the young feller behind the desk actually chuckled at him with mild contempt and said, "Sir, in this day and age, that doesn't carry any weight at all. I need two pieces of photo I.D., or I can't help you."
The worst part was that everybody in the line up, excluding me, were actually nodding their heads in approval.
Society is being programmed to accept its own willing imprisonment. The bombings on 9-11 didn't fuck us. The COINTELPRO influenced media coverage fucked us. People are eternally foolish and niave. Fuck 'em. I'm pulling out a lawn chair to watch the end of humanity as we know it. The clock is counting. Less than ten years to go!
-Fantastic Lad
Nah. I checked in with the series every once in a while. Usually couldn't sit through the entire hour, though. And the whole, 'druggie' thing with Willow and her 'problem' was pretty unbearable. What 2d genius thought that one up? (Or was that nonsense from the season prior? It's hard to keep track of all the lame.)
Though, I did catch the musical episode, which was a lot of fun. --It always pays to check in when Joss shows up to direct. But for the most part, you gotta admit; the show has become a shadow of itself since the glory days of seasons 2 and 3, when 90% of the episodes were stellar, rather than the other way around.
Not that I should really complain. After all, it's free entertainment pumping through the ugly box in the corner of my house. I'll take what I can get and turn off the rest. Suits me just fine.
-Fantastic Lad
Shirow is a brilliant designer and visual artist, but he is one of the worst damn story tellers I have ever, EVER read.
A classic case of putting the world-building ahead of the characters. The world is there to contain the characters, and the characters are there to convey the human message to the audience. When each is strong, when there is enough insight and compassion put into each, truly great story telling can take place. That isn't the case with Shirow.
Shirow gets an 'A' for graphic design, a 'B+' for world building, but lacks the compassion to be a great story teller. Now, you can see evidence of compassion. His earlier stories had some moments. But for some mysterious reason, he has chosen not to develop and apply this aspect of himself in his stories. He's moved away from learning about people, and directed himself into such devoid areas as porn, where human insight plays second fiddle, (if any fiddle at all), to glossy surface nonsense. Certainly, this is not necessarily evil or bad, but it is an almost contemptible decision considering what Shirow might have done with his talents.
Imagine if Miyazaki had decided to pursue porn? Any moron can draw a naked girl. Why waste real minds on such trivia?
The result is that disquieting & detached feeling throughout Shirow's work. Everything he draws seems to generate that dance-club atmosphere, where the beautiful swell in their powers, while everybody else goes home feeling sad & lonely. The consumers and the eaten. (There is such an energetic transfer in those kinds of environments.) And since Shirow long ago stopped impressing me with his socio-political junk philosophy, particularly because I think it is quite impossible, and indeed pointless, to attempt any deep cultural understanding without a solid grasp of human compassion, I find his work to be virtually worthless as anything other than an exercise in clever visual design.
Furthermore. . . And this one stands out for me, one of Shirow's main strongholds of dramatic focus is flawed!
He's a big, big fan of that dark, heart-achy, 'Bladerunner-like Feeling', brands of which are so popular among fashion magazines, goths and and any number of post-industrial approaches to art. --That, "I don't quite understand it, but it makes me feel like there's something out there which is kind of cool, and kind of sexy and kind of. . , I don't know, but I desperately want to touch it whatever it is, even though it makes my heart ache, and I know it's basically impossible to achieve whatever it demands. . . You know what I mean?" --A feeling which exactly none of the photographers and the artists and the fashion victims, etc., seem to understand the nature of on any level other than that of the surface experience. Which makes them little better than mindless worshipers who carry the torch forward for the rest of us to follow without knowing where or why.
Essentially, Shirow doesn't know what the hell he's doing.
But, ooh. His pictures are soooo cool.
Please.
-Fantastic Lad
Faith was easily, for me anyway, the most touching character I've seen on television in a long while. It's uncommon in television to see a character grow so much through a series. Think about all the phases she went through, including all the frustration, heart-break, broken efforts and masks worn, all the way to a final redemption. Underneath everything, there was a good kid after all. So many people in the real world go through similar trials, and never manage to jump the final hurdles. It was very satisfying to see her survive the journey. A very touching character.
Faith is easily one of my favorite television characters to have graced the screen in a long while. --I found Jeri Ryan's (Sp?) charcter 7of9 on Voyager to be similarly evocative, (which was one of the bigger surprises of the last decade of television considering the initial impetus for the character; -Window dressing for a dying series!
Though. . . Since Joss withdrew from directly working on Buffy, the show has turned into exactly the kind of high-gloss 90210 teen-shine crud it originally launched in sharp contrast with. --You know? With wisdom, compassion and actual human insight rather than a 'Pretty Kids' club house full of 'Oh So Meaningful' self-centered drama. Stopped watching about two episodes in last season, right around the time I decided to Never Watch Television Again. (An abstaintion I find myself unable to keep with absolute faith every week, but hey. Balance in all things, right?)
Basically, the problem is that Joss was each of the characters, and knew how to write them instinctively; no formulas or mechanical thinking required. --And perhaps more importantly, he could look over a script from one of the staff writers, and fix in a flash the rough guestimates at dialogue the other writers could only ever try to capture through observation. Like some guy trying to do Kermit's voice post Henson. When such a level of understanding and humanity is achieved, no matter how hard the second in command may try, nobody can ever be Kermit again. Like-wise with Buffy & crew.
Hopefully Joss will be working on the new Faith material. If not, then I'll be damned sure to avoid the living hell out of it. I wouldn't want to see an almost flawless story tainted by new and bullshit writers attempting to work with Faith's character.
Though, this Firefly thing. . . Frankly, Joss is one of the few creative geniuses of our time who has made his mark in television drama. I'll give anything he works on a try.
I just hope that, unlike poor Lucas, he can avoid the thought-police and keep his brain from being sucked out through a tube for being too likely to have a positive impact on culture! Cuz, you know, we gotta go perpetrate our greed and evil upon the world and it would be disadvantagous to have people in the West influenced by wise and humane thinking!
Heavens, No!
-Fantastic Lad
You know, regardless of how the real world happens to be in regard to actual space travel, I think NASA's optimist's conquest of space film would make a cool basis for a story series.
.
If written well and produced well, it would be fun!
Especially the part where greed, human stupidity and war-mongering don't get in the way of progress and exploration.
I guess that's where ol' Gene R. came from. .
-Fantastic Lad
Maybe it was real. Maybe it was swamp-gas. Both are entirely possible in my estimation.
In what manner did it dissapear? Did it fly off over the horizon, getting smaller & smaller until it was gone? Did it simply fade from view? Typically, when genuine, these things fly off at 'incredible speeds'.
Just curious.
-Fantastic Lad --Art Bell: disinfo genius?
Ah. You again, the uber-prolific Anonymous Coward, (cool handle BTW), my apparently schizophrenic supporter/detractor for these recent years.
I am beside myself with joy to see that a writer of your calibre, who is so brave and well-posted, (if entirely chaotic), is taking note of my few humble scriblings. A true honour indeed! I only wish I knew your secret. . .
And see? Like you, wherever there is ignorance and the whif of an old but sadly, never dead topic, (over 500 posts on this one), there you will find me handing out pamphlets in the overwhelming rain of ignorance with my tinfoil hat set neatly upon my Fantastic head. Ahhh, but life is sweet, is it not?
Yours, A huge fan,
--Fantastic Lad
Oh, please. You clearly don't have the brain power or personal charisma to enter into an interesting or useful discussion to save your life. Don't waste my time by flatulating into cyberspace about proper conversational conduct.
Grumble grumble. (In a grumpy mood today.)
You know, the problems related to privacy and personal freedoms have all been discussed at great length by me and others, both on this board and others similar. Today I just don't have the patience to bother with it; the endless parade of ignorance here requires a state of mind which I just don't have today. Sorry. However, it is not beyond my ability to be stunned by the level of ignorance in that parade.
My own fault really. I'm an idealist. I try too hard perhaps to live in a nice world. Every now and again, I get to thinking that people in general might really not be through juvenile naivete heading for such an ugly, ugly fall. But then posts like yours get attention, praise and support. Good lord, man! If you can't figure out why and how you've been misled and misguided with each of the items you listed, then your eyes and ears must be glue-gunned shut.
Pardon me for building walls here; I know your back is up against one big-time by this point. Miles away from listening to reason thanks to my mean-ass attacks and total lack of supporting evidence. (I still say, go find your own before spewing such dumb-ass opinions!!!) But the fact of the matter is this:
What you believe makes no difference to me. The only people who place any value on what you believe are exactly the same people who benefit from your support. So believe what you want and get screwed. Go register yourself. Go wave a flag. Whatever. The fact that you were able to post such an asenine comment after supposedly reading through all the pros & cons regarding National I.D. cards on this Slashdot story means you either, A) didn't actually read or evaluate any of the posts, B) Did, but had your, "I'm right and nothing nobody says. . ." filters set to kill, or C) Genuinely didn't understand what you read.
In all three cases, you end up ranking pretty poorly on the Hope scale. --As in, there ain't much for you.
And now I've wasted my time blowing hot air into a class-B twit balloon.
-Fantastic Lad --God, I'm feeling pissy today!
I really did feel a shiver of apprehension run through my body when I realized yet again that most people are so ignorant on these sorts of issues that they are actually willing to give deluded twits like the one above the Good Nod.
-Fantastic Lad
Thank you!
-Fantastic Lad
Oh, definitely! The Guns N' Roses board was one of the two best I've ever played. The difficulties of the various challenges on Axel's(sp?) self-designed machine were tuned to perfection. That was a really, really smooth game. --My other favorite was the Indiana Jones board. That was not only a fantastic game, but it was filled with a ton of Indy memorabilia and sound-bite treasures. While I respect Axel Rose's love of pinball, I never much cared for his brand of music. But Indy. . . Now there's a pop-culture icon which still makes me want to have adventures and fight nazis and feel ten years old.
Cool post. Thanks for bringing up those old memories!
-Fantastic Lad
Plug 'em into a dumb-ass, 'documentary', give them government approved 'science' text books during their tender formative years, let 'em watch Star Trek, let 'em believe they are coming to these conclusions on their own, (like the average, "No really! I chose this life without any influence from my church group," born again Christian), and that their fucking CD player and cell phone are proof positive that 'science' is honest and up front. . , Do these things, and they'll be your unthinking Yes-men forever and anon, ready to spit and fume like robot dogs in defense of whatever bullshit 'truth' the Wealthy Few want installed today.
The most bent part is that the ones they support laugh at them from behind their backs. "I wonder what the unwashed brainwashed are doing today. . ."
Best P.R. you can buy. . .
-Fantastic Lad
According to another piece of propaganda, (A 'documentary' on one of those so-called 'learning' channels), as of last year, these types of lasers worked in the following way. . .
They install in a large passenger style aircraft a huge chemical battery which operates on a principal similar to the 'fuel-cell'. The laser system itself is huge, taking up about half the length of the plane. The beam, when fired, is redirected through an X,Y, rotating nozzle in the nose of the plane. The system can shoot 30 times, (or so), before having to land in order to refuel the battery cells.
The whole kit & kaboodle is designed to knock missiles out of the air. A second or two of focused beam is enough to vaporize a section of missile chassis. It can be fired quickly at lots of different targets, and can sort of just 'roam around' the skies waiting for the rebel forces to launch their painfully overdue attack against Death Star America. If you are the sort to believe this kind of tripe, at the airing date of the 'documentary', there were supposedly two working prototypes of these aircraft, and everybody seemed fairly pleased with the results. That was last year sometime.
The 'New Scientist' was either too dumb to report it with any brain-power, or (as I'm guessing), was putting out enough fluffy dots for all the American geeks and twerps to connect on their own, thus allowing them to speculate and 'discover' the 'truth' on their own, thereby making them believe in it and cling to it with the crab-like tanacity which comes, for some reason, when people think they are discovering something on their own. . , thereby legitimizing whatever bullshit truth the Powers That Be want installed.
And to connect those dots. . .
I'm guessing that the advantage of a fighter jet equipped with a smaller version of one of these laser thingies means that it can instantly take out a target. A beam of light is instantaneous. No more Tom Cruising around for a weapons lock, (though the recruiting department will probably make up for that somehow. "Now Even Pathetic Tech Geeks Can Become The Jocks Of The Sky Through Wonderful Technology. Get Laid Just Like Those Movie Stars With Big Penises!", or some shit. Look within. It's all pre-programmed into you by the fun, fun televisioin you watch and music you listen to.
Anyway, the computer controlled eye in your fighter scans the target 'enemy' jet, matches the profile in its memory, decides which one of thirty prime spots it wants to hit, and FLASH, a fuel gasket turns to ash and down goes your opponent. I'd rather have two shots every thirty seconds from a system like than a dozen lousy air to air missiles. (If I died, went to hell, and became a fighter pilot, that is.)
Whatever.
Aside from the fact that far better technology has been around for decades, any such crap which makes it to television or the 'New Scientists' of the media, is all just advertising to make people believe the whole war charade isn't as unbelievably retarded and back-assward as it is.
It's all just for show and sale.
Yours in a bitter frame of mind,
-Fantastic Lad
It was the second hour of a two part documentary on hackers, and it was VERY well produced with lots of subtle manipulations all of which seemed friendly and wise. The finished product aired detailed several true items, amplified them, mixed them in with some twisted until almost false items, dropped in serious faced legislators with hysterical, doom & gloom viewpoints, mentioned the FBI and CIA many times, fuzzed out people's faces, --And then spin doctored the whole concoction into a whirlwind of fear.
Their points were:
1. There is basically NO security which can stop the truly determined hacker.
2. YOUR vital information, money, identity, etc. is valuable to the evil hacker and can easily be comprimised.
3. Airplanes can be dropped out of the sky, hospitals shut down mid-operation, train systems messed with and whole economies crashed, blah, blah, blah. . .
4. There are not enough laws and legal recourses to deal with this disaster which could at any moment strike.
5. Even the American military has a special division charged with the task of swooping in to keep the country from self-destructing should an evil hacker decide to end the world via the internet. -It's THAT serious! Fear! Fear! Fear! (Yawn)
Anyway, because I forgot for a short while that I was WATCHING TELEVISION that I was also being MANIPULATED. Stupid, stupid, stupid. (I stopped watching the evil tube months ago. I'm not sure how I lived back then! Even without two hours or more of crap nonsense per day, there still aren't enough hours between sun-up and sun-fall to get in all the living I want. --Oh, and try watching something after six months of abstaintion; even the 'good' shows suddenly look remarkably brain-dead!)
Anyway, all the government has to do, when enough of this incorrect, (but remarkably easy to sell), belief structure has been installed, is deliberately screw with some major utility or whatever, and then drop in the paratroopers. And people won't put up a fuss, cuz you know, hackers, right?
Essentially, the whole fear-farm works like this:
1. Show vital services and just how bad things would be should they be crashed. This causes anxiety and fear.
2. Deliberately misguide people into believing that ---insert scapegoat here--- can easily cause the above mentioned disasters.
3. Show how the legal systems are woefully underprepared for dealing with this kind of threat.
4. Leave the audience dangling and ripe for the picking. --You only have to get enough senators to watch your 'informative' crap, and bingo! Job done.
It's all a shell game, and the winner takes ALL.
-Fantastic Lad
The interesting thing is that nobody is stopping you from looking over the shoulder of the martial artist who can put his hand through two inches of plate steel.
But you have to find the guy first, earn his respect and abandon your current life. Because the kinds of powers we're talking about there require a complete altering of yourself and mind. Of course, this sounds ridiculous to you now in the place and thinking where you currently reside. But that's just the point, you see?
Easier is that you try to affect your dreaming state, or attempt to see auras, or percieve things beyond what you normally do. Nobody is stopping you from doing this except you. With first hand experience, you don't need to worry about what popular science has to say on the matter. And then you will understand why those on the outside of the cage behave the way they do towards those on the inside, who snarl and hiss and deny not just that the door is standing open, but that there is a door in the cage at all.
One must NEVER drag another out; it would harm them. It would interrupt their learning cycle before they are, 'ripe'. The captive must choose.
But it's okay to make invitations. . .
-Fantastic Lad
The question you should ask is why belief must these days be predicated upon scientists running tests in far away labs, declaring their results positive or negative, and people believing blindly whatever they say.
-When any number of phenomenon can be experienced first hand by any interested person who is willing to think outside the imposed parameters.
This is what scares those in power; that people will decide to take up this natural power and grow in awareness. I am not saying that science and technology are bad, but I AM saying that the dark underpinnings which have also been sold with science and technology are such that people are very easily told what to believe. -And what they are told to believe is that they should not try to raise their awareness.
A raised awareness might lead to people becoming free. The power elite would not like that! No sir. And this is the sole reason I'm blowing bandwidth on this subject.
-Fantastic Lad
Well, unfortunately I wasn't keeping records and notes of all my reading when I was looking at examples of this kind of activity. A quick search, however, through my files brought up these names: George Bull, Morris K. Jessup, Karen Silkwood, Frank Edwards, Phil Schneider, Stefan Marinov. (All murdered in fairly clear ways, some of whom, I believe, in clear attempts to misdirect; Morris K. Jessup in particular; that is, kill a guy who is spouting crap in a very obvious assassination, and then all the conspiracy people will spend all their time looking so carefully at the dead guy's notes that they miss what's really going on. But that's just my thinking.)
Then there are the big ones, like Nicoli Tesla, Albert Einstein and Von Neumann, all of whom were manipulated to some degree, in both very obvious ways, and in some very un-obvious ways. I'm afraid you'll have to look up the information regarding these items yourself; I'm not about to go re-tracing my steps with hyperlinks and footnotes for your benefit, particularly when I'm not convinced that you really want to see any of this stuff in the first place. All I can say is that the reading is very interesting if you are ready to dig and to consider, but you must be willing to work at it.
Mind-controlled? How exactly does that work?
Wow! Where to start. . . This stuff is REALLY fascinating, so if you only look up some of the items I'm providing here, look up these three:
Greenbaum Lecture. --That's the psyche side.
Jose M. R. Delgado --The famous 'stop the charging bull with a button push' guy. He was into the direct control of the brain through electrical impulses delivered, in his early experiments, through implanted wires, and later on, with EM.
Joseph Goebbles --The man who pioneered population control through mass media.
If someone claims they can bend spoons with their mind, let them try. If someone can read minds, then let's see them do it. There aren't millions of variables here, the majority of paranormal claims are easy to test. They never work. NEVER. It doesn't matter how many ad hominem attacks you launch against me, James Randi, or skeptics in general, it still won't make ESP exist.
What can I say? You say NEVER with such utter conviction, there really isn't much point in trying to offer you new info for consideration. There is plenty, (though clearly, you haven't seen any of it; and unless you specifically look beyond CNN and the popular media feeds, you won't), however I am not going to bother listing them for you. And no, it's not that, "damn, I don't have any other examples, so I'll just pretend that I do but won't tell," it's that I don't feel like working in order to provide you with links and names etc. just for you to dismiss out of hand. Your level of awareness is YOUR problem and nobody else's.
If I'm reading you incorrectly, then I apologize, but must still recommend you go look for the material yourself. Start with Healing Touch; there were some good double blind studies done in the late eighties. Also, Acupuncture is another system with a fairly low threat factor for normal people stuck in orthodox thinking; Acupuncture clearly works, (even on animals during surgery, which removes the question of any placebo effect), but orthodox medicine doesn't want to admit it because it raises some foundation breaking possibilities. --It's nothing scary; it's all well within the realm of physical science, it just undermines certain 'rules' of medicine which would upset many were they broken. Anyway, that information is all out there as well, for those willing to search.
Now you're REALLY making things up out of whole cloth. How are they penalized? This isn't a rhetorical question, please tell me how all the John Edwards, Erich von Danikens, and Uri Gellers are PENALIZED. Go ahead.
Are you intentionally mis-understanding the semantics here?
First off, I am not familiar with any of the three authors (?) you listed. I assume you believe they are con-artists of some color or other, and because you bring them up with such confidence, then I suspect they probably really are. I wouldn't know until I read their material, however.
In any case, when I said penalized, I meant that the James Randi's of the world look at the fact that New Age books are sold rather than given away for free, as proof positive that New Age books are filled ONLY with lies and that their authors are ALL in it just for the money. --A damning statement and a 'penalty'. And that's what I meant. Perhaps 'penalize' was the wrong word to use in this case, but that's hardly the point. I hope we're done with that! I hate it when this kind of conversation devolves on one side into the mere clashing of word semantics; it's usually at that point when denial is in full swing and nothing is being heard. Rather like covering one's ears and singing, "La, La, La, I can't here you!"
But I don't think we're at that point, so I'll just let it be for now.
I hope that gives you something interesting to chew on. Enjoy! (If you will. It's up to you. Learning is fun!)
-Fantastic Lad
Many physicists, yes. -And while some of them have made mistakes, which is natural when exploring new ideas, some of them have also been right. In any case, I said, "Respected Bodies of Scientists" and I phrased it that way specifically so that the objection you raised would not be valid. The editorial staff of Nature, for instance, is very likely going to have a huge bias against printing something which might make people like you call them silly no matter how good the evidence and logic. They have lives and wives to worry about. I was trying to point out the strong biases which exist, and I believe I have done so. Next point. . .
Right. Do you also believe in UFOs, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trans-mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?
Let's see. . .
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, don't know what you mean, yes, never heard of them, don't know, and which theory of Atlantis specifically?
Listing a lot of different bits of 'taboo' thinking does not dubunk anything; it's just a sloppy attempt at ridicule, (one of the Skeptic's favored weapons and one which stands in stark, almost sad contrast to their supposed stance of scientific reductionism. Real scientists don't resort to school yard tactics when their ideas are challenged. Fearful children do this. And so does Randi). Please try again.
Can you please point out any evidence of researchers being "regularly assassinated"? Beyond the biochemist thing, which is troubling but not necessarily evidence of a conspiracy?
This is an example of exactly what I'm talking about when I say that no evidence is good enough for somebody who has already made up their mind. You find the 'biochemist thing' troubling, but not so much as to actually make you think in new ways? Hm. So in that case, no, I can't point out any evidence which will convince you. This does not mean that there isn't plenty of it out there; there is. Many of the greats, and many less famous scientists have been bullied, persuaded, mind-controled and, yes, in the harshest of circumstances, even killed. Go get over your mental blocks, and then go do some research.
Only that James Randi's challenge includes an independent judging panel agreed upon by both he and the testee. Go read how the Randi challenge is set up; it's a fair, even-handed way to test supposed supernatural powers. And on another note, he HAS been proven wrong, just not on supernatural/alien issues; check his web page. He freely admits this.
I spent about five minutes hunting through his website, but I was unable to find the reference to his having been proven wrong. I don't doubt you, because I know he has been, but I guess he burried mention of it deep on page 7. Although, I did notice something else. . .
In the first few lines in the first article next to his photograph, he writes: "The scam-artists delight in reaching back for ancient ideas, particularly those that bear some real value, and then they distort it all into flummery -- which as we know, sells exceedingly well"
And then barely half a page down, we see well positioned among the other main buttons a Donations option. "Through your support the JREF is able to continue its efforts. Help us today through a donation. You can do so easily using PayPal."
Hmm. . .
I'm not saying that there isn't a ton of greed and lying existing in the New Age market. But how is it that debunkers are allowed to ask for money in order to publish their information, but that people writing books I might want to read are penalized for the same thing? Is it because James Randi is a hypocrite? --And one so vastly over-stuffed that he doesn't see the irony on his own home page?
There are thousands of people who are convinced they have powers. In controlled experiment settings, they're always proved wrong. ALWAYS. The powers evaporate, leaving a string of excuses, evasions, and prevarications.
No. Only in the controlled experiment settings you choose to look at. --Which again cuts directly to my point that the Evidence skeptics cry for is, for all intents and purposes, unattainable. There have been a wide number of studies which have given positive results of various phenomena. But a good study doesn't mean good marketing. James "the Amazing" Randi, however, is a self promoter first and foremost, and he is supported by wealthy forces which want to see his, "Go Back To Sleep Citizen," message spread far and wide.
-Fantastic Lad
The fact that nobody has come forward to claim this prize, again, as I understand the general argument of the Skeptic, is evidence that such phenomenon probably do not exist.
There are some fairly obvious flaws with this argument, and the fact that they fail to immediately register with the otherwise often intelligent Skeptic, I think demonstrates something significant.
Some of the problems I have with Randi's challenge are as follows. . .
--Essentially, believe what you want. No collection plate will be passed, no representative will come to your door, and above all, nobody with any wisdom is going to worry about what you believe. Your faith is your own problem; find your own way, and do try to have fun with it.The nice thing is, when you are ready, teachers will emerge who will guide you. That's how the universe works.
-Fantastic Lad