I used to admire the columnists that could boil a fairly deep thought into a very vivid and coherent summary sentence, but these days that same skill has been exploited, digitized and used to create clickbait for the masses.
I try to think of a thing to write, then I think of TOO MANY things to write. And then I don't write any of them. But still write something.
So, it goes to journaling (how was my day) et al
It was a decent day. Started with fruit in the morning, then onto pizza, then coffee coffee coffee. I finished out the night with videos about archaeological structures, Easter Island info (apparently part of a continent called "Mu" (no claims/proof of this by myself - I failed archaeology in high school, so... ;)
I remember the conspiracy days of past. I used to listen to Coast to Coast AM, batshit things like "Big Foot being a laser projection from the moon in order to intimidate folks in the PNW", to more *actual* info, like the population of Monarch Butterflies dropping in population from 4.1 million in the North American/Mexico region to roughly 350,000 in less than 20 years. Side: I saw a Monarch Butterfly the other day.
Anyway, the conspiracy stuff (the former, not the latter) was "innocent" back in 2013 (that era, likely before) as nothing came of it. Now conspiracy theorists and conspiracies, themselves, have become a threat to many. Not so much that more people believe them, or that those who believe them believe them MORE, it's that more of a spotlight has been put on them for politico-media reasons.
One thing I'll say on that, is (rather people believe them or not) if someone sees a thing on social media (and shared (recommended?)) by someone they know/love, it carries more weight as to the legitimacy or significance of that thing. I can also say that since the age of 8, I have been more or less obsessed with media, newspapers, magazines, + other forms of non-journalistic media (books, movies, music) and I feel that I was media literate at a very young age. Not because any of those events/stories had too much of an impact on an 8 year old, but because I wanted to write like the people writing the articles. So being knowledgeable of how they were written and what constituted GOOD v BAD writing/reporter was what was going to separate the "decent" writers from the shite ones. With that, I can say that what is in the media, or/and headlines, is less good/bad or even new/relevant (e.g news), but more concerned with HOW they (publications) get their stories across. Tweet-sized bytes of a paragraph for sharing, every few sentences being able to be boiled down to a "shareable" clip - the click brings the bacon, not the story/article within.
Rounding back to the point, be it political, conspiratorial, AI-phony content, whatever the case, it's gonna go further, be more permeable, when shared in a clip-sized setting or/and by a friend or family member.
So there's some littered thoughts turned typing
I used to admire the columnists that could boil a fairly deep thought into a very vivid and coherent summary sentence, but these days that same skill has been exploited, digitized and used to create clickbait for the masses.
I used to be a bit into "conspiracy theories" in my early 20s. I had a friend who was more prone to take them seriously, well, a couple of them, actually. One of them for a while wouldn't shut up about the illuminati, the reptilians, he even mentioned David Icke (yuck!) a few times; we worked together, too, so I was quite familiar with the lore for a while. The other guy liked to know about ancient advanced civilizations: Atlantis, Lemuria, Vimanas in India (excuse me, Bharat), alleged archeological findings of giants, which "science" covered up, and of course it all went in hand with secret societies ruling the world, too. We used to have a running joke about "HAARP wednesdays". I was always half skeptic, but I did like to entertain all those possibilities. Yesterday I was reminded about HAARP wednesdays when my wife said the earthquake in Russia was surely "a HAARP attack".
I think we all like to engage in such "conspiracy theories" (by the way, I've heard someone claim that the term itself was issued by the CIA to discredit some actual stuff going on, by lumping it all together with reptilian shapeshifters and flat earth "theory"), we all like them, to a greater or lesser extent. It is indeed true that there are sorts of "secret societies" that have immense political power, and it's not unlikely thay they engage in some form of ritual magic. Of course, the stuff about reptilian shapeshifters is very likely our own furnishing, but that's human imagination for you.
I remember I used to argue with a friend of mine (another!), telling her "I've never seen a reptilian shapeshifter, but I have certainly seen humans kill thousands and destroy whole ecosystems for personal gain", and she told me a fanciful story about an acquaintance of an acquaintance see a reptile hand emerge from a hooded figure in a very hush-hush event in some office building, who was eating a human baby. Apparently, that was proof enough for her.
> I remember I used to argue with a friend of mine > (another!), telling her "I've never seen a reptilian > shapeshifter, but I have certainly seen humans kill > thousands and destroy whole ecosystems for personal gain", > and she told me a fanciful story about an acquaintance of > an acquaintance see a reptile hand emerge from a hooded > figure in a very hush-hush event in some office building, > who was eating a human baby. Apparently, that was proof > enough for her.
That's nothing. In my country, half its citizens believe in a bleach drinking/injecting nazi monster who is quite possibly the reincarnation of Hitler, just because people whom they consider high priests of Truth - who are in fact paid to make up stories that lead to the greatest advertising revenues - say so....
Speaking of Hitler, it's funny how he gets all the rep for being the incarnation of evil itself, taking all the credit well-deserved by others. What was the name of the US president who threw two hydrogen bombs on civilian targets?
Carter.
<long pause>
:-)
Yeah, um... I dunno. A lot of people don't seem happy unless they're idolizing someone, even on the negative/evil side of the spectrum. Or they idolize the most/first of something. That's happening again in ths US, what with the "first black female president" thing. And all I can think is "but I *thought* we were beyond bullshit categories like race and gender!" But I guess not. Or I'm past it, but remain surrounded by idiots, etc.
I just want to scream SHUT THE GODDAMNED FUCK UP YOU MOTHERFUCKING MORONS, because out of one side of their ass they're whining about racism and/or sexism, yet out the other side they're talking about race and/or gender as though it somehow matters.
Can't have it both ways, dumbassed motherfucks!
Sumpin' like that....
On shapeshifters, I'm not gonna lie, the Skinwalker Ranch documentary and the documentary about the documentary is one of the most fascinating stories I've ever heard. Testimony, evidenced, and in the documentary video of tons of bizarre shit hapening there. It is the 500 sq mi area of Utah that is supposedly riddled with paranormal activity, from shapeshifters, to men in black encounters, to pets being eaten in their backyards by a large wolf that is there one second, gone another.
I am not "into" shapeshifter subjects or even anything regarding cryptozoology or unknown creatures, I will say paranormal phenomena is a very real thing. even if not related to "afterlife". I lived in Oakville, MO. for seven years, and at the end of town is Cliff Cave, and the entrance is merely 40 ft by 40 ft, but the cave stretches the length of Oakville, a hundred feet tall in some places, and nearly the width of the town. This large cavernous area underneath a town has a bizarre effect (I think) but like if one lives under power lines or on property with an underground lake beneath it.
For all intents and purposes, there are dozens (many I know the first name of) people in the apartment complex I lived at, who lived there longer than me, and they said they had moved to Oakville for this reason or that, didn't intend to stay, but just DO. And they don't like the town a lot, either. I felt "stuck" there, but not by means of not being able to afford to move or lack of properties to move TO - I just felt "the predictable is predictable" in Oakville, and the safety element was abundant there (if days are so similar, no threat). But I swear, exact same days repeated in that town. There were people of the same walks of life (age, background, hobbies, interests, etc) that were neighbors for years on end, and they nary exchanged more than a nod and a hello with one another. No other activity elsewise - no work from home or other preoccupations - just people who in every sense of the word should be friends, and they couldn't be more stand offish or formal.
A guy who lived below me (50, drank beer daily, barbequed a couple times a week, watched TV loudly, laughed loudly. A nice guy. The guy DIRECTLY across from his balcony, same age, habits, background. They never talked. Even if both were on their balconies at the same time, they would have small exchanges, were nice to one another, seemed like no animosity, they just both chose to not know each other for this reason or that. Same is the story with everyone I met in that town.
I met ONE(1) person in those 7 years that I am on a talking basis with - then and now. No one else there knew me or much of me, or I them, or they each other. A paranormal effect of anti-social behaviors and delusional-like levels of safe living.
Anyway, it's my THEORY, ha!
Hope all are well :)
For some reason the pub failed to notify me of this reply...
Anyway, isn't that the reality of the whole of the US? I thought people over there were so individualist that they would not have much interaction with strangers whatsoever, moreso in the age of the internet.
> On shapeshifters, I'm not gonna lie, the Skinwalker Ranch > documentary and the documentary about the documentary > is one of the most fascinating stories I've ever > heard. Testimony, evidenced, and in the documentary video > of tons of bizarre shit hapening there. It is the 500 sq > mi area of Utah that is supposedly riddled with paranormal > activity, from shapeshifters, to men in black encounters, > to pets being eaten in their backyards by a large wolf > that is there one second, gone another.
It's *still* got nothing on Washington, D.C.!
I went through an overt conspiracy theory fascination phase in the days of my youth, long before the internet. It was what I want to call "classical conspiracy theories", e.g. The Rothchilds, The Bilderbergers. I want to say there was some "Adam Weiskaupt" (sp?) in the mix. New world order. Hints on the back of the dollar bill. Blah blah.
I knew I was a fool to believe, and yet oh, the seduction of the print material delivering such.
Nowadays, conspiracy seems essentially a dead topic for "news" media having replaced basically all descriptions of events with gossipy insinuation of hidden intent, complete with "leading", context tinkering/circumcision/bludgeoning, etc. In other words, what does/could "conspiracy" mean when everything's conspiracy?
The net (ha): I don't believe a word of "the news" regardless the source. Looks like anything/everything for an advertising buck.
There are also subconscious "in person" effects, i.e. others seeming like faith zombies, glassy-eyed on the verge of melting down for being one of the few that "gets it" while being mostly surrounded by... by, well, those I'm describing surrounding me. ;-)
It turns out that taking everything to be fiction is not too far off the enlightenment/liberation pace....
Lost me through part of that. Ha
Honestly I have no regrets being away from the news. I left Twitter and reading list news sites in 2019, and I felt like I was escaping an existing dumpster fire my the final strands of rope on a helicopter that was going full tilt upwards.
Then COVID happened, quarantine(s), work/lifestyle changes for everyone (incl me, tho that just meant learning programming/Sysadmin things), and by mid-2020 I had to search for what things were in order to have any idea what was being put on blogs. Some things searched for at the time were - what is Cancel culture?, is the US in a famine?, etc, as I had no idea what these things were though they seemed to be (are?) fairly prevalent on social media (well, not so much famine, but..). I think (theoretically) where I would be (mentally) if I had stayed on Twitter and the news gossip hearsay and shit-talk centers of the Web, and I would have likely needed to be committed to decompress from all the madness there.
Life is better w/o media (nearly all of it). I stay busy and amused with volunteer work, and sometimes slamming words onto Midnight.pub or in IRC, but other than that, it is all Real World, busy-bosy stuff. I am all for it! :)
I can't get it out of my head that everything written is opinion, which is essentially disclosure of momentarily "held" beliefs, both explicit and implied. It's as though there's a huge ball of interconnected notions writhing about, those nearer the surface being there due to greater attention in a moment, the interconnects also defined by belief, balances/mixes of sub-notions also in perpetual morph, but real-ized like the multi-state-ed cat in, relatively speaking, hardened word combinations/orderings.
And, of course, readers tell themselves they're "in touch" with a writer's thoughts/beliefs/opinions, but by then the writer's mind has long ago "writh-o-morph-ed on", as it were, so readers actually possess only a snapshot, a single frame of a long reel of a life unfolding per forces mind can't hammer into words.
Don't hold me to any that, though, of course, because by the time you read it even the wisp of what it once was will have disintegrated into <can't be said>.