2) Military Rule. --True socialism allows for an equal say in politics. This means democracy, of which Communist Russia had little.
3) Centralized Government. --Cell based structures always work better. When power is disassociated from community, problems always follow.
4) Industrial competition. --Too little in areas of distribution. Socialism doesn't mean that competition is not allowed!
The problem is that the first three of these items are alive and well in America today, while the fourth, competition, is completely out of control, resulting in an excaberation of the first three, and a deterioration of the whole.
As a friend of mine likes to say: "The ideological structure of the U.S.S.R. only failed first. The American system is not far behind. The main problem is that both systems started out trying to treat the problem of government in a fair way, and both were derailed by corruption and greed."
I would add that the main difference between Russia and the U.S. is that the corrupt assholes in the Soviet Union used Fear and Violence to get their way. Whereas in the U.S., the corrupt assholes use highly sophisticated propaganda which aims at the heart rather than the mind.
Perhaps not. But then tell us why it failed. You don't need to list anything but the major factors.
Ahh! Ho ho!
Sorry. That's another of the nasty lies perpetuated by the current regime.
The whole, "The burden of proof," thing.
If you walk away stupid and mis-informed, I don't lose. By demanding proof, and by setting yourself up in a defensive position, as instructed by every court room drama ever broadcast on television, then all you are doing is fortifying yourself against the possibility of learning. Nobody loses out but you.
As such, the learning won't mean a thing if I do it for you, especially in an ego-driven debate where nobody ever fesses up to 'losing'. (Another nasty term.)
The information is all down at your local library.
If it's any consolation, I was driven towards certain types of knowledge in exactly the same manner. It's a tested formula, and by the end of it, you are MUCH stronger. Depend on your own faculties, and avoid indulging in obsession. Learn that facing the pain of being wrong is far, far better than coming up with elaborate schemes to lie to yourself and thus uphold delusions. Once you overcome this fear and the illusion of self-importance, and you will have won a very great battle which may allow you to become a warrior.
I'm not a teacher. I'm a trickster. Or an asshole, as some prefer.
If you truely think video games are the cause of a violent society then I feel sorry for you. Art and media are reflections of a society, not their determiners.
That very line, a variation of which I once used often myself, is fast becoming dangerous rhetoric.
Art may mirror society, but it's a two-way mirror! They each affect the other equally!
Take the whole 9-11 thing for example. . .
Crashing airplanes into sky scrapers was the ultimate in media expression. Emotional response was the sole purpose behind the act. That's why they call it 'Terrorism'.
Now, would you say that this act has lightened or darkened your world?
Art can most definitely affect behavior! The whole point of art is to affect behavior! I smile at a beautiful painting, and I have been changed from what I was only a moment earlier. I wasn't smiling before.
We're talking about a deep and fascinating jungle of perceptions. Humans are beautiful and complicated events. Don't let the prevailing winds of rhetoric and ignorance rob you of this understanding!
I doubt that's the only reason. One reason that comes to mind is that many people see the cry of "fairness" to mean "rob the workers to pay the bums". And there isn't much incorrect with that perspective.
Think about that one for a second, though.
Emotions of hate, greed, envy and moral outrage are the key 'hot' buttons to push if you want to win a seat as an elected rep.
I've met a LOT of people in my day, and very, very few of them would choose a parasitic existence when they could feel useful. Feeling parasitic leads to low self-esteem and bad health, and those who end up there have entirely different issues at work within them which are going to play out regardless of the economic realities surrounding them.
Basically, the perception that the "Bums will take over the world" is waaaay out of proportion to the reality of the situation. But it remains a very effective button to push if you want to inflame somebody's sense of justice in order to gain their support for a really bad, and usually completely unrelated idea. Unfortunately, you're not a bad example of this.
Communism didn't fail because people weren't motivated to work hard because they, "were assured a government check regardless of their effort." Not only is this complete bullshit, but the perception of it being 'truth' is one of the key lies upon which the American anti-socialist propaganda is based.
Nobody can do propaganda like the Americans! Everybody but the Americans realizes this. Leave your country for a year and you'll begin to look at your culture through very new eyes, and you'll understand why everybody else on the planet shakes their head and says, "Americans!"
Interesting, no? Like I said to the other fellow. Do some reading. It'll help free you from the puppet strings they tie to us all at birth. Difficult, though it may be, nobody can make a fool of you if you choose not to allow it.
How many copies of that heinous crap have been sold?
To all you imbeciles who think fucking and then murdering prostitutes even in a virtual reality environment is acceptable behavior. . .
Thanks guys.
You just helped to radically increase the chances of a camera appearing on every lamp post.
Sigh. As opposed to censorship as I am, there is a balance to the whole affair. This stuff goes in, kids. The brain is a soup pot. Yes, it may be deep and rich, and a little salt may not make that big a difference. But there has been a whole lot of nasty spice being added over the last few years, and if you don't think it is affecting culture. . .
You may be able to control your immediate impulses and actions, but the color and shape of culture is changed by its media. The world is a darker, meaner place as a result.
So, thanks again, for being stupid and morally bankrupt.
It'll be hard to care when they come to cart your sorry asses off the death camps.
Yeah just because people steal a dollar or few million in piracy and they are making money they should stop complaining.
Nevermind the fact that piracy is stealing and stealing is wrong. To hell with the greedy people that want to make money from the work and effort!
COMMUNISM FOR ALL!
Sigh.
Communism had both good and bad features, (and most of the bad ones can be directly blamed on Stalin.) And believe it or not, the U.S. has adopted nearly all of the bad Communist features despite it's bullshit, "Capitalist America Is Great" rhetoric.
Let's take an example which is common on Slashdot. . .
Patents and Copyrights.
A patent (awarded by the central government) which allows, say, Disney, to be the sole manufacturer of Mickey Mouse products, flies in the face of so-called Capitalism. A truly capitalist system would allow pure economic evolutionary forces to bestow success upon whichever company is able to produce the best Mickey Mouse products with the greatest efficiency.
Awarding arbitrary monopolies because they make sense or seem fair is one of the cornerstones of Socialism!
As such, patents and copyrights are anything BUT capitalist! --Which I don't necessarily mind, so long as they are used responsibly and fairly, (which they are most certainly not.) Basically, what we have is corporate American crying, "Rah Rah Capitalism!" from one side of their mouth, while from the other, they beg the state to protect their 'right' to maintain artificial, state-ordained monopolies.
In other words, you need to do more learning on this subject, (as do many). I suggest you take in as much unbiased history about Russia as you have done American nationalistic propaganda.
Fairness is the whole point of Socialism. The only reason most people don't want a fair system is that they hope to be a beneficiary of unfair practices.
I bet you ANYTHING, that there are executives out there hoping to make this technology the only way media is released.
All they need do is to push to outlaw permanent storage mediums.
Sounds ridiculous?
All they have to do is the following. . .
1) Make three grades of 'self-destructing' disk, -A one week, a six month and a one year disk, each priced differently.
2) Make permanent storage media prohibitively expensive by law.
3) Push for the pay-per-click universe where everybody must store their data on-line. (Why wouldn't you want your data stored on a public hard drive? What do you have to hide? Are you a terrorist?)
This whole new scheme of destructo-disks just seems like a subtle and clever way to encourage the market in the direction similar to something described above.
Sound foolish? Ask yourself this: Do you think for an instant that any major corporation wouldn't immediately implement such a scheme if they thought they could get away with it? And then ask: Are people not getting dumb and pliable enough to not only decline fighting such a system, but to actually support the oh so 'reasonable' arguments the P.R. officers would use to promote it?
Read some of the silly regurgitations you see on Slashdot if you don't believe.
Ah well. This is why we call it the 'good' fight. We may be destined to lose, but that's not what matters, is it now?
Yet another reason Star Trek will never become a reality.
I don't know about anybody else, but when I signed up for the "Future" and this digital revolution, it was partly so that all non-physical art; literature, music and film, would be publicly accessible, for free, from a discreet and tastefully designed computer consul. --Preferably on a spacious and graceful starship.
The entire Star Trek universe was/is a weird Freudian hallucination wherein all the races are rarified aspects of our current selves.
This idea of taking something purely digital, something which is reproducible with no threat of waste or effort, and tying it to a wasteful, laborious and greedy method of storage and distribution is so bloody Ferengi, it makes me retch.
The flowers of humanity are not shared openly, but dangled like carrots in an infantile effort to 'get something'. How ugly and foolish!
We're a bunch of silly hobbits, squabbling over Bilbo's estate gifts, getting the name tags lost and digging holes in his basement.
Hooray for us.
I can't wait to start ripping off the media giants and distributing their crap for free to anybody who asks. Too bad most of it is unwatchable. --Though I suppose it'll make stealing it less time consuming in that I won't actually have to view any of it. . .
People who want to be able to trust a single or very small number of popular news sources for their information are either lazy, ignorant or just don't care.
And that's fine. That's a valid choice.
Although, dealing with people of this nature can be frustrating as hell! Still, it's pointless to argue such matters with those who are more interested in maintaining comfortable illusions than they are in struggling for real knowledge.
For those, however, who do find themselves on the path of personal growth, independant news sources can provide a slice of un-polished data which, while often unprofessional, poorly researched, (or plain raving mad), when cross examined, can prove to be very useful for gleaning new facts and ideas.
-Fantastic Lad
Not an issue until bandwidth increases for all
on
The Napsterization of TV
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't know what the percentage of web-users on 56K is, but I tend to think it's still at least half.
I run on DSL. Downloading a movie is unreliable, boring and the final image is usually pretty bad. I'd rather walk through snow and ice to rent some crap from Blockbuster. And I almost never even bother doing that.
T.V. sucks. Most movies suck. There are a million more interesting ways to be entertained. I hate television! -Bad writing, bad production values, bad acting, and all packaged in a sludge of mind-warping advertising and propaganda. Why subject myself to such a horrid assult? Why would anybody?
But nearly everybody does. And right now, it's a million times easier to flop down and waste away in front of whatever crap is being broadcast than it is to go hunting on-line for 50Meg low-res, shit color episodes of whatever (with the last two minutes missing because of some download failure).
Until cheep and ubiquitous download speeds arrive which allow for very easy, very quick access to high quality television content. . . Well, it just won't make much difference to the status quo.
And I am willing to bet ANYTHING that even if such a time does come, that it won't make a lick of difference. I don't care what distribution/financial model is adopted, there will ALWAYS be TONS of new and 'interesting' programming being shoveled up for the populace to waste away in front of.
Pardon me, but if anybody thinks that the Powers That Be are going to allow all the meat puppets to unplug themselves from their nightly borg-alcove brain-fry sessions. . .
Well anybody who thinks that has been watching too much TV.
Now, if you'll excuse me, the Scary Monkey Show is about to start. . .
By the way, I don't see what "Flouride" has to do with the rest of your list.
Look up "Dental Fluorosis"
Perhaps it's time for you to dig a little deeper. Try not to knock delicate bones on the rocky climb down. Or perhaps more importantly, use your pineal gland while it still works.
Strobing lights of many different kinds, (TV included), puts the viewer into a semi-hypnotic state which allows for messages of all sorts to be more easily absorbed by the mind.
Music videos are particularly nasty in this regard;
The messages in most pop music are moronic: Love is the most important thing in the world. You are not having enough sex. You must have low self esteem without love or sex. --Not to mention the host of responses you are 'supposed' to have to all manner of stimuli.
Charming.
TV doesn't need to have subliminal messages to brain-wash its audience. The programming itself is more than enough to do the job.
And here's the scary part: The effects on society are invisible, because society has already been formed into the shape TV wants it to be. --That is, the end result is considered normal because the condition is ubiquitous.
But TV is just a small part of the whole. Every little jab adds up.
Fluoride
Cell phone EM
Asparatame
Advertising
Air pollutants
Too-many work hours
Pre-natal sonic scans
Unhealthy food combinations
Propaganda and corporate agendas in: News & educational programming
Zero-exercise car culture
Recreational drugs
Non-recreational drugs, (anti-depressants, antihistamines. ..)
To name just a few of the bigger stabs. There are many more subtle attacks. Any one or two of them by themselves are not enough to completely deplete the bulk of humanity, but they quickly add up.
The end result?
A populace which is soft, dumb & easy to manipulate. Ripe for. . .
Just run a story on Free Energy or the Harmfulness of EM on Slashdot to see 600+ posters come out with their denial horns blaring. You can tell just how important a secret is by how loudly people are programmed to auto-react.
People on Slashdot are victims.
You were modded down to 'troll' for giving your honest opinion in a free debate zone. It's more than just a bad mod; it's the result of culture-wide thought conditioning. (I'd call it mind-control, but too many idiots here would assume that I meant short term, electrode in the neck bullshit. Mind control happens over the long term.)
The fact is, Slashdotters are part of the geek-elite: tech-geeks are prime targets because even though they are only pawns they remain in many ways the engineers and keepers of today's accepted reality. We make the machines go; and the nature of the machines determines our level of enslavement.
As such, you can always count on the brain-mush factor in people. Slashdot is living proof. Tell them it's not 'cool' to believe in Cold Fusion, or what have you, and the low-egos around here will drop the idea like a hot rock in order to jump back into the safety of popular concensus and the modified truths sold to them since birth. --Why do you think we were fed so much 'science' learning channel crap when we were kids? --I'll tell you why: It's because kids are easy to program. Most of the people here will argue till they're blue in the face to defend their childhood conditioning, which makes them no better than kids brought up in hard-core Christian communities. They insist that they choose through free will, but the truth is they've been brainwashed since birth.
Just run a story on Free Energy on Slashdot to see 600+ posters come out with their denial horns blaring. You can tell just how important a secret is by how loudly people are programmed to auto-react.
While I don't know about the story in question, ZPE is not only proven, but Bell Labs and Lucient Technologies announced a couple of weeks ago that they're actually employing it in the manufacture of experimental nano-tech. You can read the press releases. You can see those three letters, "ZPE". So anybody who doesn't "believe" in free energy is now officially ignorant. Which means 60% (or more) of the posters on this thread can just shut their programmed gobs now, please & thank you.
Second. It's FREE energy. NOT perpetual motion. ZPE is based on ambient energy which has been previously un-advertised, (it's been part of human knowledge since around Tesla's time), and has remained untapped by the general public. (Of course, today it's only been given a status of working on the quantum level, and only because its the only fucking way nano-tech is going to work; industry needed the knowledge to become declassified. But there ARE working large scale versions of free power sources. Trust me on this.
--For fuck's sake! Why do you think Tesla, the inventor of AC power generation has been black-balled from history and science for the last half century? Use your massively over-rated nerd brains for half a second.)
Next point: Cold Fusion, (which does indeed work, btw), is again, NOT perpetual motion. It's simply a low temperature system of creating a fusion reaction. It's not magic. The logic behind the process is not wishful in any way. It makes solid sense. The only reason Cold Fusion has been so heavily resisted is that those in power don't want you to have it. --M.I.T. purposely fudged their results of a working Pons & Flieshman model during the big hoopala after the cold fusion paper was published. Several big institutions got the set-up working. M.I.T. fudged their results and used their clout to kill Cold Fusion and to maintain support for their hot fustion research programs; this was researched, documented and aired by one of the big news outlets. (CBS, I believe, made the hour documentary back in the early 90's.)
But the programming still sticks. It runs deep, and tech-geeks are prime targets, because even though they are only pawns, they remain in many ways, the engineers and keepers of today's reality.
As such, you can always count on the brain-mush factor in people. Slashdot is living proof. Tell them it's not 'cool' to believe in Cold Fusion and the low-ego morons around here will drop the idea like a hot rock in order to jump back into the safety of the modified truths sold to them since birth. --Why do you think you were fed so much 'science' learning channel crap when you were kids? It's because kids are easy to program. Most of the idiots here will argue till they're blue in the face to defend their childhood programming, which makes you no better than kids brought up in hard-core Christian communities. You insist that you choose through free will, but the truth is you've been brainwashed since birth.
The story of Indiana Jones crosses a whole century. And the Fifties were a neat time, as well as the thirties. Lots of cool things were going on. It was the decade during which Magic was served the last really big blow in the West, (not quite a death-blow, but close).
Paradigm shifts of that nature usually litter the ground with interesting stories.
Seeing a different kind of Indy movie where an older Ford fits perfectly into the times could be really cool. As proven in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Indy doesn't have to swing from a whip and fall from an airplane in order to blow you away with amazing story-telling.
Though. . . I somehow doubt Lucas will go in that direction.
I just hope they don't set the film in the thirties and try to force an almost 60 year old Indy in the roll. --It seems impossible, but after Phantom Menace, I wouldn't put anything past Lucas.
Flanery was amazing as a teen to early twenties Indy. Now that a decade has almost gone by since the first YIJC, Flanery would be aged to perfection for the adult role.
If you have only seen the first one or two episodes of YIJC, and were put off by the fact that the stories were not of the same inspiration as the Harrison Ford movies, or if you were thrown by the fact that the story patterns did not fit any of the television formulas we've all grown so comfortable with, to the point of those conventions having become invisible, (and thereby making them feel weird and uncomfortable when they are broken.), well. . . Do yourself a favor and try again. Most of the YIJC episodes are absolutely stunning.
Sadly, though, an important part of the show was removed for the video tape release. They took out the 90-something year old Indy who walks about town telling his stories. This effectively unglues a significant chunk of the story logic and makes certain repeating patterns in the stories seem irrational and even kind of dumb. If you can find a friend who recorded the originals off air, then you're onto the real stuff.
Why is it that such treasures as YIJC get lost in the shuffle, while the lamest series get released on DVD and promoted through the roof?
Ah well. Diamonds are hard to find in the wild, too, I suppose.
I make an effort to talk with room mates and friends often, and to go out and do something frivolous and social at least once a week. I still don't think people get together often enough, but then I'd easily blow half my time socializing if I could.
The Web, while nourishing in the sense of information gathering and widening of one's knowledge base, (if you make the effort), and while it provides useful forum to send your ideas through the crucible of debate and argument and whatnot. . , the web is definitely NOT nourishing in a social sense.
I know people whose only friends are on-line ones. How sad! My heart aches for people like that!
While email can be pleasant in the same way that letter writing is pleasant, it's a far, far cry from being in the physical presence of people you care about and who resonate well with your energy, personality and ideas. There are so many things about humanity you can only learn in the physical presence of others. You can't hug, or laugh with or spar with or make love to an email.
Cabin fever happens for a reason. Being social is like drinking water. And virtual water just doesn't cut it.
I generally tend to agree with Katz's sentiments. The dangers of the web are just one more thing we must be aware of in order live healthy, full lives.
The solution is fucking EASY. We were doing it for years. Centuries, in fact.
Step 1) DON'T participate in digital commerce. (SIMPLE! Use cash.)
Step 2) Go to a bank teller every time you need to withdraw cash. The tellers will get to know you and your routines. Unless an imposter physically looks and acts just like you, it will be very hard to rip you off through identity fraud.
Step 3) Quit whining about convenience. Learn how to fucking budget!
Yeah, I know it's not as easy as all that. The world is being ram-rodded into a currency system which practically requires that you carry a corporate credit card. But that's only because people keep believing in the bullshit being fed to them. They keep eating it up! One of the most frustrating things in the world is to have your life shaped into pain by morons when you know better, and when they keep insisting that you're the foolish one.
Biometrics = Evil. (If you don't understand why, then sit the fuck down and figure it out!)
(-Most of the preceding was not directed at the poster. Just venting ire. Sorry.)
I recently watched one of the high-end news shows which ran an hour documentary on hackers and the net.
For one section, they had cameras sit in on a bunch of young military techies studying the logistics of combating a huge hack-attack; like nuclear power plants being shut down or hacked into danger zones. Airlines losing planes. That kind of thing.
I've been pondering just how exactly the developed nations could be whammied into a state of martial law. The current world situation doesn't have enough momentum to actually put thousands of Americans in prison camps. And the forces which drove the Nazis just aren't there. ("We are descendants of superior Aryans from space!" -No joke.) People today, while easily manipulated, haven't been sold that kind of propaganda, but it remains quite clear that a form of undeclared fascism (That is, "freedom", so long as you eat shit, breath shit, think shit, absorb shit media, and work too hard, and don't mind being overseen by Shirow-style O.R.C.S. with machine gunes, in order that you be reduced to the position of Zombie-like Serfdom), this it seems to me, will be the natural conclusion given the forces of greed and corporate evil moving in the world today.
Choice means that people might not buy your product. Remove choice, while maintaining the illusion of a free society, and bingo! You have the perfect consumer; driven because s/he still believes in the American Dream, but a serf nonetheless, whose task it is to pour wealth into the coffers of the powerful. And to be miserable for those who eat misery. . .
Anyway, it was interesting; the documentary basically said the following:
1) Security basically doesn't exist and isn't getting any better. Information systems are open to those who understand how.
2) The possibility of a huge disaster is ever-present and continues to grow as we become more dependant on I.T.
One military analyst basically said, with a straight & serious face, that in the event of a huge digital attack, "Declare martial law. Shut everybody down and take control of the situation. That'd be my recommendation."
Hmmm.
I don't know how true the above is, but the fact that it was being sold by a respected authority voice, indicates that they're trying to soften people up for just such a turn of events.
There is: you are dangerously arrogant. You need to join the real world for a little while and see that all your supposed greater "maturity" and "intelligence" is just self-righteous navel-gazing.
As for "socially retarded": let me guess, you were the outsider who couldn't get along with others, whereas all these people had huge social networks of friends, right? You make me laugh, dweeb.
Ooh. Touched a nerve there, did we?
"You make me laugh, dweeb"? Goodness! That even sounds like a line from one of the pig-children in ZIM. Ahh. Snif. That takes me back!
Though, I'm sorry. In highschool I was actually one of the popular kids. (Shiver. That word.) Though, I made efforts to distance myself from the Cordellia/Heathers and their fashion-clone ilk. With marginal success. -Gad. I'm actually serious. Highschool was bloody strange! Back then I really was an arrogant dick; I wasn't just blowing steam on Slashdot! Why are teenagers drawn to smarmy jerks? I mean, you learn posture, strength of mind, amicability, how to kick the shit out of a bully, how to listen to and sort of care about the pathetic nonsense which passes for the average teenager's life, --and people won't leave you the fuck alone. Everybody wants to be your best friend or your girlfriend or whatever, when it takes every atom of patience you have just to stay in the same room with them!
And yeah, I'm sorry, but most kids I went to school with were fucked up losers with a host of personality problems of one kind or another. Cruel, Boring, Shallow and Spineless seemed to be the factory setting. It was exhausting!
I especially hated the dorks who enjoyed bullying other kids. Especially dorks who bullied the geeks. --The geeks, despite their problems, were the only truly interesting people in the whole freeking school! They liked to think! (Well, the organized crime kids were also pretty interesting; the ones who would cut class and spend the day ripping off anime and expensive art supplies from the shops downtown. . . One guy even lifted an airbrush compressor! What balls! Guerilla artists who refused to work with anything but stolen supplies. How out-there is that?)
In any case, I guess this is why I spend so much time scratching my head here at Slashdot. The people I knew who were into tech knowledge and anime and all things geek were also incredibly smart in dozens of other areas; they were open-minded to levels that Timothy Leary would appreciate, without the chemicals!
They didn't suck up propaganda. They didn't champion Western science as the be-all end-all.
I guess I just assume too much. . . Based on my highschool experience, I naturally assume that if you have a knack for maths and physics, you must also be enlightened.
Of course, I've run into a few individuals like that around here, but holy shit! I must have lucked out while growing up, cuz the bell curves from then and now do not match.
My periodic outbursts around here only reflect my continued disappointment. . , and my bafflement at the high number of guys who use the word 'dweeb' and actually mean it.
The whole point of subversiveness is to open eyes. What's wrong with kids considering the flip-side to the Disney lie which fills nearly all other programming? Even you refered to Nickelodeon's normal children's schedule as "inane kiddie trash".
How is ZIM any worse than, say, MAD Magazine?
Having ZIM around would have made my school years far more endurable. "My GOD! It's not just me! Somebody else out there also sees that nearly all the people populating this school are dangerous, immature, socially retarded, materialist, petty morons! Whew! I was beginning to think there really WAS something wrong with me like everybody keeps saying!"
I guess the only thing that bothers me about ZIM is that it utterly condemns humanity; while ZIM does actively attempt to expose the everyday bullshit we must live with in this world, watching would lead one to think that there isn't anything good or worthwhile out there at all, which is completely false.
Rather than cancel ZIM, I'd prefer to see it stay on while infusing Nick's programming with shows which carry underlying messages which promote honor and noble living. I seem to recall things like, "G-Force" having a positive effect on me as a kid. I'd suggest the promotion of stuff like "Sailor Moon" if it wasn't for the weird sexuality of it, and the whole bit about girls being tough and capable, but only so long as the strong male lead can rescue them on a regular basis. What shit.
And "Pokemon" is basically just, "Cock-Fighting for Kids."
There are always bugs in the residences of diplomats and the various cubby holes of mid-range political activity. But at the higher end of the scale. . . That is, if there are bugs on the Chinese version of Air Force One, then you can safely bet that they WILL be found.
Which means that they were meant to be found.
Bugs aren't interesting.
The interesting thing is that it made high profile 'real' news (i.e., the Washington Post).
Why? Easy. -To further the programming of public awareness on both sides of the Atlantic.
-See stories about how China now filters Email. Look for similar material over the next few months.
The highschool play unfolding on the world stage is clearly being performed in order to cast China in the role of the next big bad guy.
Why?
So that when the curtain finally goes up on 'act 2' (-That'd be the whole plot development between Pakistan, India and China, each with nukes, BTW), the U.S. will have paved the way for public sympathy in supporting the country most able to provide, um, oil. And general fear.
I'm betting on concentration camps being open for business in the U.S. in another ten years. Maybe sooner.
Why?
Cuz Fear is Food. Solution? Refuse to play. Fear is a choice. Laugh a lot. Love your friends. Stay healthy. Learn how to avoid the bullshit, in the air, in your food, in the programming. The end of the world, (beginning of the new), only happens once in a very long while; Try to enjoy it!
I've hated the X-Files since the second episode. (The first episode was actaully promising, but then it got real dumb, real quick. Imagine how great the X-Files would have been if David Lynch & Mark Frost had worked the project.)
Carter was only successful because there was a severe vacum in culture which needed to have that massive up-swing in weird UFO, crop circle & abduction stories acknowledged in some manner. He did it in the dumbest possible way which has had the basic effect of making such material seem ridiculous and beyond consideration. "Nobody cool believes in conspiracies anymore!"
Nice job, Carter! You did a bang-up job of putting the nation back to sleep with your nose for extraordinarly DUMB writing. (The X-Files actually had one of those 'The Office Tower Computer has gone Homicidal' stories, for goodness sake! I thought we'd left that kind of crap behind with Wonder Woman and freeking Knight Rider!)
If you know so much...why didn't you invent the process 10 years ago?
Didn't you read my comment? I already told you; I was too lazy to get up and do the job. You don't have to rub it in! It was the early 90's, for crying out loud. You know? Grunge? I was busy wearing saggy pants!
Slashdot Mirror
Now it's time for you to explain why you would still adhere to an system that has failed.
Sigh. Oh, alright. I'll offer a few hints, since it seems you missed my point:
I don't adhere to fascism. I doubt many of the Russian people did either. The Big Secret is this: Russia was not a Socialist state.
The problem is that the first three of these items are alive and well in America today, while the fourth, competition, is completely out of control, resulting in an excaberation of the first three, and a deterioration of the whole.
As a friend of mine likes to say: "The ideological structure of the U.S.S.R. only failed first. The American system is not far behind. The main problem is that both systems started out trying to treat the problem of government in a fair way, and both were derailed by corruption and greed."
I would add that the main difference between Russia and the U.S. is that the corrupt assholes in the Soviet Union used Fear and Violence to get their way. Whereas in the U.S., the corrupt assholes use highly sophisticated propaganda which aims at the heart rather than the mind.
-Fantastic Lad
Ahh! Ho ho!
Sorry. That's another of the nasty lies perpetuated by the current regime.
The whole, "The burden of proof," thing.
If you walk away stupid and mis-informed, I don't lose. By demanding proof, and by setting yourself up in a defensive position, as instructed by every court room drama ever broadcast on television, then all you are doing is fortifying yourself against the possibility of learning. Nobody loses out but you.
As such, the learning won't mean a thing if I do it for you, especially in an ego-driven debate where nobody ever fesses up to 'losing'. (Another nasty term.)
The information is all down at your local library.
If it's any consolation, I was driven towards certain types of knowledge in exactly the same manner. It's a tested formula, and by the end of it, you are MUCH stronger. Depend on your own faculties, and avoid indulging in obsession. Learn that facing the pain of being wrong is far, far better than coming up with elaborate schemes to lie to yourself and thus uphold delusions. Once you overcome this fear and the illusion of self-importance, and you will have won a very great battle which may allow you to become a warrior.
I'm not a teacher. I'm a trickster. Or an asshole, as some prefer.
-Fantastic Lad Learning is fun!
That very line, a variation of which I once used often myself, is fast becoming dangerous rhetoric.
Art may mirror society, but it's a two-way mirror! They each affect the other equally!
Take the whole 9-11 thing for example. . .
Crashing airplanes into sky scrapers was the ultimate in media expression. Emotional response was the sole purpose behind the act. That's why they call it 'Terrorism'.
Now, would you say that this act has lightened or darkened your world?
Art can most definitely affect behavior! The whole point of art is to affect behavior! I smile at a beautiful painting, and I have been changed from what I was only a moment earlier. I wasn't smiling before.
We're talking about a deep and fascinating jungle of perceptions. Humans are beautiful and complicated events. Don't let the prevailing winds of rhetoric and ignorance rob you of this understanding!
-Fantastic Lad
Think about that one for a second, though.
Emotions of hate, greed, envy and moral outrage are the key 'hot' buttons to push if you want to win a seat as an elected rep.
I've met a LOT of people in my day, and very, very few of them would choose a parasitic existence when they could feel useful. Feeling parasitic leads to low self-esteem and bad health, and those who end up there have entirely different issues at work within them which are going to play out regardless of the economic realities surrounding them.
Basically, the perception that the "Bums will take over the world" is waaaay out of proportion to the reality of the situation. But it remains a very effective button to push if you want to inflame somebody's sense of justice in order to gain their support for a really bad, and usually completely unrelated idea. Unfortunately, you're not a bad example of this.
Communism didn't fail because people weren't motivated to work hard because they, "were assured a government check regardless of their effort." Not only is this complete bullshit, but the perception of it being 'truth' is one of the key lies upon which the American anti-socialist propaganda is based.
Nobody can do propaganda like the Americans! Everybody but the Americans realizes this. Leave your country for a year and you'll begin to look at your culture through very new eyes, and you'll understand why everybody else on the planet shakes their head and says, "Americans!"
Interesting, no? Like I said to the other fellow. Do some reading. It'll help free you from the puppet strings they tie to us all at birth. Difficult, though it may be, nobody can make a fool of you if you choose not to allow it.
Best of luck.
-Fantastic Lad
To all you imbeciles who think fucking and then murdering prostitutes even in a virtual reality environment is acceptable behavior. . .
Thanks guys.
You just helped to radically increase the chances of a camera appearing on every lamp post.
Sigh. As opposed to censorship as I am, there is a balance to the whole affair. This stuff goes in, kids. The brain is a soup pot. Yes, it may be deep and rich, and a little salt may not make that big a difference. But there has been a whole lot of nasty spice being added over the last few years, and if you don't think it is affecting culture. . .
You may be able to control your immediate impulses and actions, but the color and shape of culture is changed by its media. The world is a darker, meaner place as a result.
So, thanks again, for being stupid and morally bankrupt.
It'll be hard to care when they come to cart your sorry asses off the death camps.
-Fantastic Lad
Sigh.
Communism had both good and bad features, (and most of the bad ones can be directly blamed on Stalin.) And believe it or not, the U.S. has adopted nearly all of the bad Communist features despite it's bullshit, "Capitalist America Is Great" rhetoric.
Let's take an example which is common on Slashdot. . .
Patents and Copyrights.
A patent (awarded by the central government) which allows, say, Disney, to be the sole manufacturer of Mickey Mouse products, flies in the face of so-called Capitalism. A truly capitalist system would allow pure economic evolutionary forces to bestow success upon whichever company is able to produce the best Mickey Mouse products with the greatest efficiency.
Awarding arbitrary monopolies because they make sense or seem fair is one of the cornerstones of Socialism!
As such, patents and copyrights are anything BUT capitalist! --Which I don't necessarily mind, so long as they are used responsibly and fairly, (which they are most certainly not.) Basically, what we have is corporate American crying, "Rah Rah Capitalism!" from one side of their mouth, while from the other, they beg the state to protect their 'right' to maintain artificial, state-ordained monopolies.
In other words, you need to do more learning on this subject, (as do many). I suggest you take in as much unbiased history about Russia as you have done American nationalistic propaganda.
Fairness is the whole point of Socialism. The only reason most people don't want a fair system is that they hope to be a beneficiary of unfair practices.
-Fantastic Lad
All they need do is to push to outlaw permanent storage mediums.
Sounds ridiculous?
All they have to do is the following. . .
This whole new scheme of destructo-disks just seems like a subtle and clever way to encourage the market in the direction similar to something described above.
Sound foolish? Ask yourself this: Do you think for an instant that any major corporation wouldn't immediately implement such a scheme if they thought they could get away with it? And then ask: Are people not getting dumb and pliable enough to not only decline fighting such a system, but to actually support the oh so 'reasonable' arguments the P.R. officers would use to promote it?
Read some of the silly regurgitations you see on Slashdot if you don't believe.
Ah well. This is why we call it the 'good' fight. We may be destined to lose, but that's not what matters, is it now?
-Fantastic Lad
I don't know about anybody else, but when I signed up for the "Future" and this digital revolution, it was partly so that all non-physical art; literature, music and film, would be publicly accessible, for free, from a discreet and tastefully designed computer consul. --Preferably on a spacious and graceful starship.
The entire Star Trek universe was/is a weird Freudian hallucination wherein all the races are rarified aspects of our current selves.
This idea of taking something purely digital, something which is reproducible with no threat of waste or effort, and tying it to a wasteful, laborious and greedy method of storage and distribution is so bloody Ferengi, it makes me retch.
The flowers of humanity are not shared openly, but dangled like carrots in an infantile effort to 'get something'. How ugly and foolish!
We're a bunch of silly hobbits, squabbling over Bilbo's estate gifts, getting the name tags lost and digging holes in his basement.
Hooray for us.
I can't wait to start ripping off the media giants and distributing their crap for free to anybody who asks. Too bad most of it is unwatchable. --Though I suppose it'll make stealing it less time consuming in that I won't actually have to view any of it. . .
-Fantastic Lad
And that's fine. That's a valid choice.
Although, dealing with people of this nature can be frustrating as hell! Still, it's pointless to argue such matters with those who are more interested in maintaining comfortable illusions than they are in struggling for real knowledge.
For those, however, who do find themselves on the path of personal growth, independant news sources can provide a slice of un-polished data which, while often unprofessional, poorly researched, (or plain raving mad), when cross examined, can prove to be very useful for gleaning new facts and ideas.
-Fantastic Lad
I run on DSL. Downloading a movie is unreliable, boring and the final image is usually pretty bad. I'd rather walk through snow and ice to rent some crap from Blockbuster. And I almost never even bother doing that.
T.V. sucks. Most movies suck. There are a million more interesting ways to be entertained. I hate television! -Bad writing, bad production values, bad acting, and all packaged in a sludge of mind-warping advertising and propaganda. Why subject myself to such a horrid assult? Why would anybody?
But nearly everybody does. And right now, it's a million times easier to flop down and waste away in front of whatever crap is being broadcast than it is to go hunting on-line for 50Meg low-res, shit color episodes of whatever (with the last two minutes missing because of some download failure).
Until cheep and ubiquitous download speeds arrive which allow for very easy, very quick access to high quality television content. . . Well, it just won't make much difference to the status quo.
And I am willing to bet ANYTHING that even if such a time does come, that it won't make a lick of difference. I don't care what distribution/financial model is adopted, there will ALWAYS be TONS of new and 'interesting' programming being shoveled up for the populace to waste away in front of.
Pardon me, but if anybody thinks that the Powers That Be are going to allow all the meat puppets to unplug themselves from their nightly borg-alcove brain-fry sessions. . .
Well anybody who thinks that has been watching too much TV.
Now, if you'll excuse me, the Scary Monkey Show is about to start. . .
-Fantastic Lad
Look up "Dental Fluorosis"
Perhaps it's time for you to dig a little deeper. Try not to knock delicate bones on the rocky climb down. Or perhaps more importantly, use your pineal gland while it still works.
-Fantastic Lad
Strobing lights of many different kinds, (TV included), puts the viewer into a semi-hypnotic state which allows for messages of all sorts to be more easily absorbed by the mind.
Music videos are particularly nasty in this regard;
The messages in most pop music are moronic: Love is the most important thing in the world. You are not having enough sex. You must have low self esteem without love or sex. --Not to mention the host of responses you are 'supposed' to have to all manner of stimuli.
Charming.
TV doesn't need to have subliminal messages to brain-wash its audience. The programming itself is more than enough to do the job.
And here's the scary part: The effects on society are invisible, because society has already been formed into the shape TV wants it to be. --That is, the end result is considered normal because the condition is ubiquitous.
But TV is just a small part of the whole. Every little jab adds up.
Fluoride
Cell phone EM
Asparatame
Advertising
Air pollutants
Too-many work hours
Pre-natal sonic scans
Unhealthy food combinations
Propaganda and corporate agendas in: News & educational programming
Zero-exercise car culture
Recreational drugs
Non-recreational drugs, (anti-depressants, antihistamines. .
To name just a few of the bigger stabs. There are many more subtle attacks. Any one or two of them by themselves are not enough to completely deplete the bulk of humanity, but they quickly add up.
The end result?
A populace which is soft, dumb & easy to manipulate. Ripe for. . .
Hm.
Well, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?
-Fantastic Lad --"All your base are belong to us"
People on Slashdot are victims.
You were modded down to 'troll' for giving your honest opinion in a free debate zone. It's more than just a bad mod; it's the result of culture-wide thought conditioning. (I'd call it mind-control, but too many idiots here would assume that I meant short term, electrode in the neck bullshit. Mind control happens over the long term.)
The fact is, Slashdotters are part of the geek-elite: tech-geeks are prime targets because even though they are only pawns they remain in many ways the engineers and keepers of today's accepted reality. We make the machines go; and the nature of the machines determines our level of enslavement.
As such, you can always count on the brain-mush factor in people. Slashdot is living proof. Tell them it's not 'cool' to believe in Cold Fusion, or what have you, and the low-egos around here will drop the idea like a hot rock in order to jump back into the safety of popular concensus and the modified truths sold to them since birth. --Why do you think we were fed so much 'science' learning channel crap when we were kids? --I'll tell you why: It's because kids are easy to program. Most of the people here will argue till they're blue in the face to defend their childhood conditioning, which makes them no better than kids brought up in hard-core Christian communities. They insist that they choose through free will, but the truth is they've been brainwashed since birth.
-Fantastic Lad
While I don't know about the story in question, ZPE is not only proven, but Bell Labs and Lucient Technologies announced a couple of weeks ago that they're actually employing it in the manufacture of experimental nano-tech. You can read the press releases. You can see those three letters, "ZPE". So anybody who doesn't "believe" in free energy is now officially ignorant. Which means 60% (or more) of the posters on this thread can just shut their programmed gobs now, please & thank you.
Second. It's FREE energy. NOT perpetual motion. ZPE is based on ambient energy which has been previously un-advertised, (it's been part of human knowledge since around Tesla's time), and has remained untapped by the general public. (Of course, today it's only been given a status of working on the quantum level, and only because its the only fucking way nano-tech is going to work; industry needed the knowledge to become declassified. But there ARE working large scale versions of free power sources. Trust me on this.
--For fuck's sake! Why do you think Tesla, the inventor of AC power generation has been black-balled from history and science for the last half century? Use your massively over-rated nerd brains for half a second.)
Next point: Cold Fusion, (which does indeed work, btw), is again, NOT perpetual motion. It's simply a low temperature system of creating a fusion reaction. It's not magic. The logic behind the process is not wishful in any way. It makes solid sense. The only reason Cold Fusion has been so heavily resisted is that those in power don't want you to have it. --M.I.T. purposely fudged their results of a working Pons & Flieshman model during the big hoopala after the cold fusion paper was published. Several big institutions got the set-up working. M.I.T. fudged their results and used their clout to kill Cold Fusion and to maintain support for their hot fustion research programs; this was researched, documented and aired by one of the big news outlets. (CBS, I believe, made the hour documentary back in the early 90's.)
But the programming still sticks. It runs deep, and tech-geeks are prime targets, because even though they are only pawns, they remain in many ways, the engineers and keepers of today's reality.
As such, you can always count on the brain-mush factor in people. Slashdot is living proof. Tell them it's not 'cool' to believe in Cold Fusion and the low-ego morons around here will drop the idea like a hot rock in order to jump back into the safety of the modified truths sold to them since birth. --Why do you think you were fed so much 'science' learning channel crap when you were kids? It's because kids are easy to program. Most of the idiots here will argue till they're blue in the face to defend their childhood programming, which makes you no better than kids brought up in hard-core Christian communities. You insist that you choose through free will, but the truth is you've been brainwashed since birth.
-Fantastic Lad
Paradigm shifts of that nature usually litter the ground with interesting stories.
Seeing a different kind of Indy movie where an older Ford fits perfectly into the times could be really cool. As proven in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Indy doesn't have to swing from a whip and fall from an airplane in order to blow you away with amazing story-telling.
Though. . . I somehow doubt Lucas will go in that direction.
I just hope they don't set the film in the thirties and try to force an almost 60 year old Indy in the roll. --It seems impossible, but after Phantom Menace, I wouldn't put anything past Lucas.
-Fantastic Lad
Flanery was amazing as a teen to early twenties Indy. Now that a decade has almost gone by since the first YIJC, Flanery would be aged to perfection for the adult role.
If you have only seen the first one or two episodes of YIJC, and were put off by the fact that the stories were not of the same inspiration as the Harrison Ford movies, or if you were thrown by the fact that the story patterns did not fit any of the television formulas we've all grown so comfortable with, to the point of those conventions having become invisible, (and thereby making them feel weird and uncomfortable when they are broken.), well. . . Do yourself a favor and try again. Most of the YIJC episodes are absolutely stunning.
Sadly, though, an important part of the show was removed for the video tape release. They took out the 90-something year old Indy who walks about town telling his stories. This effectively unglues a significant chunk of the story logic and makes certain repeating patterns in the stories seem irrational and even kind of dumb. If you can find a friend who recorded the originals off air, then you're onto the real stuff.
Why is it that such treasures as YIJC get lost in the shuffle, while the lamest series get released on DVD and promoted through the roof?
Ah well. Diamonds are hard to find in the wild, too, I suppose.
-Fantastic Lad
The Web, while nourishing in the sense of information gathering and widening of one's knowledge base, (if you make the effort), and while it provides useful forum to send your ideas through the crucible of debate and argument and whatnot. . , the web is definitely NOT nourishing in a social sense.
I know people whose only friends are on-line ones. How sad! My heart aches for people like that!
While email can be pleasant in the same way that letter writing is pleasant, it's a far, far cry from being in the physical presence of people you care about and who resonate well with your energy, personality and ideas. There are so many things about humanity you can only learn in the physical presence of others. You can't hug, or laugh with or spar with or make love to an email.
Cabin fever happens for a reason. Being social is like drinking water. And virtual water just doesn't cut it.
I generally tend to agree with Katz's sentiments. The dangers of the web are just one more thing we must be aware of in order live healthy, full lives.
-Fantastic Lad
Yeah, I know it's not as easy as all that. The world is being ram-rodded into a currency system which practically requires that you carry a corporate credit card. But that's only because people keep believing in the bullshit being fed to them. They keep eating it up! One of the most frustrating things in the world is to have your life shaped into pain by morons when you know better, and when they keep insisting that you're the foolish one.
Biometrics = Evil. (If you don't understand why, then sit the fuck down and figure it out!)
(-Most of the preceding was not directed at the poster. Just venting ire. Sorry.)
-Fantastic Lad
For one section, they had cameras sit in on a bunch of young military techies studying the logistics of combating a huge hack-attack; like nuclear power plants being shut down or hacked into danger zones. Airlines losing planes. That kind of thing.
I've been pondering just how exactly the developed nations could be whammied into a state of martial law. The current world situation doesn't have enough momentum to actually put thousands of Americans in prison camps. And the forces which drove the Nazis just aren't there. ("We are descendants of superior Aryans from space!" -No joke.) People today, while easily manipulated, haven't been sold that kind of propaganda, but it remains quite clear that a form of undeclared fascism (That is, "freedom", so long as you eat shit, breath shit, think shit, absorb shit media, and work too hard, and don't mind being overseen by Shirow-style O.R.C.S. with machine gunes, in order that you be reduced to the position of Zombie-like Serfdom), this it seems to me, will be the natural conclusion given the forces of greed and corporate evil moving in the world today.
Choice means that people might not buy your product. Remove choice, while maintaining the illusion of a free society, and bingo! You have the perfect consumer; driven because s/he still believes in the American Dream, but a serf nonetheless, whose task it is to pour wealth into the coffers of the powerful. And to be miserable for those who eat misery. . .
Anyway, it was interesting; the documentary basically said the following:
One military analyst basically said, with a straight & serious face, that in the event of a huge digital attack, "Declare martial law. Shut everybody down and take control of the situation. That'd be my recommendation."
Hmmm.
I don't know how true the above is, but the fact that it was being sold by a respected authority voice, indicates that they're trying to soften people up for just such a turn of events.
-Fantastic Lad
As for "socially retarded": let me guess, you were the outsider who couldn't get along with others, whereas all these people had huge social networks of friends, right? You make me laugh, dweeb.
Ooh. Touched a nerve there, did we?
"You make me laugh, dweeb"? Goodness! That even sounds like a line from one of the pig-children in ZIM. Ahh. Snif. That takes me back!
Though, I'm sorry. In highschool I was actually one of the popular kids. (Shiver. That word.) Though, I made efforts to distance myself from the Cordellia/Heathers and their fashion-clone ilk. With marginal success. -Gad. I'm actually serious. Highschool was bloody strange! Back then I really was an arrogant dick; I wasn't just blowing steam on Slashdot! Why are teenagers drawn to smarmy jerks? I mean, you learn posture, strength of mind, amicability, how to kick the shit out of a bully, how to listen to and sort of care about the pathetic nonsense which passes for the average teenager's life, --and people won't leave you the fuck alone. Everybody wants to be your best friend or your girlfriend or whatever, when it takes every atom of patience you have just to stay in the same room with them!
And yeah, I'm sorry, but most kids I went to school with were fucked up losers with a host of personality problems of one kind or another. Cruel, Boring, Shallow and Spineless seemed to be the factory setting. It was exhausting!
I especially hated the dorks who enjoyed bullying other kids. Especially dorks who bullied the geeks. --The geeks, despite their problems, were the only truly interesting people in the whole freeking school! They liked to think! (Well, the organized crime kids were also pretty interesting; the ones who would cut class and spend the day ripping off anime and expensive art supplies from the shops downtown. . . One guy even lifted an airbrush compressor! What balls! Guerilla artists who refused to work with anything but stolen supplies. How out-there is that?)
In any case, I guess this is why I spend so much time scratching my head here at Slashdot. The people I knew who were into tech knowledge and anime and all things geek were also incredibly smart in dozens of other areas; they were open-minded to levels that Timothy Leary would appreciate, without the chemicals!
They didn't suck up propaganda. They didn't champion Western science as the be-all end-all.
I guess I just assume too much. . . Based on my highschool experience, I naturally assume that if you have a knack for maths and physics, you must also be enlightened.
Of course, I've run into a few individuals like that around here, but holy shit! I must have lucked out while growing up, cuz the bell curves from then and now do not match.
My periodic outbursts around here only reflect my continued disappointment. . , and my bafflement at the high number of guys who use the word 'dweeb' and actually mean it.
-Fantastic Lad
Man, that's brilliant! I'd love to see that episode!
Ahh. There's so little worth watching these days.
-Fantastic Lad
How is ZIM any worse than, say, MAD Magazine?
Having ZIM around would have made my school years far more endurable. "My GOD! It's not just me! Somebody else out there also sees that nearly all the people populating this school are dangerous, immature, socially retarded, materialist, petty morons! Whew! I was beginning to think there really WAS something wrong with me like everybody keeps saying!"
I guess the only thing that bothers me about ZIM is that it utterly condemns humanity; while ZIM does actively attempt to expose the everyday bullshit we must live with in this world, watching would lead one to think that there isn't anything good or worthwhile out there at all, which is completely false.
Rather than cancel ZIM, I'd prefer to see it stay on while infusing Nick's programming with shows which carry underlying messages which promote honor and noble living. I seem to recall things like, "G-Force" having a positive effect on me as a kid. I'd suggest the promotion of stuff like "Sailor Moon" if it wasn't for the weird sexuality of it, and the whole bit about girls being tough and capable, but only so long as the strong male lead can rescue them on a regular basis. What shit.
And "Pokemon" is basically just, "Cock-Fighting for Kids."
Now THAT'S creepy.
-Fantastic Lad
There are always bugs in the residences of diplomats and the various cubby holes of mid-range political activity. But at the higher end of the scale. . . That is, if there are bugs on the Chinese version of Air Force One, then you can safely bet that they WILL be found.
Which means that they were meant to be found.
Bugs aren't interesting.
The interesting thing is that it made high profile 'real' news (i.e., the Washington Post).
Why? Easy. -To further the programming of public awareness on both sides of the Atlantic.
-See stories about how China now filters Email. Look for similar material over the next few months.
The highschool play unfolding on the world stage is clearly being performed in order to cast China in the role of the next big bad guy.
Why?
So that when the curtain finally goes up on 'act 2' (-That'd be the whole plot development between Pakistan, India and China, each with nukes, BTW), the U.S. will have paved the way for public sympathy in supporting the country most able to provide, um, oil. And general fear.
I'm betting on concentration camps being open for business in the U.S. in another ten years. Maybe sooner.
Why?
Cuz Fear is Food. Solution? Refuse to play. Fear is a choice. Laugh a lot. Love your friends. Stay healthy. Learn how to avoid the bullshit, in the air, in your food, in the programming. The end of the world, (beginning of the new), only happens once in a very long while; Try to enjoy it!
-Fantastic Lad
Yeah. Like "Harsh Realms"?
I've hated the X-Files since the second episode. (The first episode was actaully promising, but then it got real dumb, real quick. Imagine how great the X-Files would have been if David Lynch & Mark Frost had worked the project.)
Carter was only successful because there was a severe vacum in culture which needed to have that massive up-swing in weird UFO, crop circle & abduction stories acknowledged in some manner. He did it in the dumbest possible way which has had the basic effect of making such material seem ridiculous and beyond consideration. "Nobody cool believes in conspiracies anymore!"
Nice job, Carter! You did a bang-up job of putting the nation back to sleep with your nose for extraordinarly DUMB writing. (The X-Files actually had one of those 'The Office Tower Computer has gone Homicidal' stories, for goodness sake! I thought we'd left that kind of crap behind with Wonder Woman and freeking Knight Rider!)
Good riddance, Carter.
-Fantastic Lad
Didn't you read my comment? I already told you; I was too lazy to get up and do the job. You don't have to rub it in! It was the early 90's, for crying out loud. You know? Grunge? I was busy wearing saggy pants!
Sheesh.
-Fantastic Lad