Zeitgeist and the Threat of Dangerous, Pandemic Internet Memes.

September 12th, 2008 · 17 comments or link to (permalink)

The comments thread under my rant against the execrable Zeitgeist has taken on a life of its own. Most people are clearly cranks, but a few are curious as to why I think such a seemly amateur and relatively unimportant film is worth talking about at all.

Rather than discussing the details of the film, which for me is like a chemist arguing with a priest as to whether you can turn water into wine by saying a prayer, I am more interested in the general pathology of conspiracy theories on the Internet (Perhaps this would be a good topic for some second-rate liberal arts degree).

The ability to travel to new continents created pandemic disease that wiped out many aboriginal Americans. The web has created a potential for diseases of the mind to spread more rapidly across continents than ever before. It is reasonable to take seriously the threat of idea pandemics caused by false ideas, spread via any new and powerful medium. The Rwandan genocide was triggered by the more traditional and less virulent medium of radio, as Hutus spread rumors that they would be attacked by Tutsi. I suspect that it is theoretically possible that an idea could spread via the Internet and translate into large scale violence, and that we should be on the look out for Internet memes that could mutate into malignant forms, just in case.

Current viral ideas on the Internet are largely benign, if bland or tasteless, from cuddly animals (LOLcats) to people drinking each other’s shit (2 girls one cup). Looking at the statistics from YouTube, conspiracy theory clips are extremely popular and increasingly so. Many of the ideas in these are only a few plot changes away from resembling those that have triggered violence, historically. Zeitgeist is a prime example.

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Germaine Greer loses it.

July 28th, 2008 · comment or link to (permalink)

Carl Dowse (where I lifted this from) says it better than I ever could:

“a film dating back to 1968 starring the feminist writer Germaine Greer in a rather embarassing parody of herself prior to the publication of her international best-seller, The Female Eunuch”

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Primal Therapy (FEBL media)

June 17th, 2008 · 4 comments or link to (permalink)

Watch the first clip for as long as you can stand it – I lasted 3 minutes, then watch the one below it. Even better, hit play on them both at the same time.

Like much cultish nonsense, primal therapy makes a case that sounds consistent (mad, but consistent), and then assumes that this equals the truth. What I like most about this, is that the woman above (who has all the left-bank, professorial moves down: using glasses as pointer; snapping her fingers for answers; nodding sagely; genuine French accent) is actually talking about the stuff below.

Remember folks, established cults do this stuff even more strangely.

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One Inch Punch Documentary – Buhooolshit.

April 7th, 2008 · 9 comments or link to (permalink)

One Inch Punch Documentary

One inch Punch is a very popular movie on YouTube with roughly the same viewership as an episode of CBS’ 60 Minutes. Its a full movie that is short enough for people with ADD and gives hope to those who have been bullied by colossal, barbeque munching, Nascar fanatics for having the withered limbs and pallid skin of a computer addict. It suggests that no matter how physically challenged you are, if you join a pseudo religion that looks like it has been created by Dungeons & Dragons characters, for Dungeons & Dragons fans – and work hard, you will be able to kick anyone’s ass.

I have chosen ‘One Inch Punch’ as representative of all martial arts movies which are supposed to be taken seriously and which seem to be another example of FEBL (Fucking Entertaining Big Lie) media. Its a succinct 7 minute piece that highlights perfectly what I have against spiritual fighting and in particular the bollocks that is called Kung Fu.

Yes, these guys are extremely fit, just as pro wrestlers look like Popeye, but that does not make Kung Fu any more real. What it does mean is that the One Inch Punch with a two foot follow through trick, can be performed by a suitably adept stuntman to make it look convincing. Add some commentary using hackneyed metaphors about ‘channeling energy’, by people who look like they can’t take a joke, to the de facto credibility of a tradition started by ancient monks and you have the makings of a proper little religion.

When it comes to religion I take the Hitchens amendment – i.e. what can be claimed without argument can be dismissed without argument. The reason martial arts can be dismissed is that they exhibit all the traits of a religion. They are a crypto-religious cultural artifact, the Eastern equivalent of fair maidens and broad-swords and traditional Western medicine such as blood sucking leeches, only interesting as fantasy or high camp slapstick.

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Vaccination – The Hidden Truth

January 24th, 2008 · 14 comments or link to (permalink)

This terrible movie is another great example of FEBL (Fucking entertaining Big Lie) media. For some reason, in recent years a bio-luddite movement has formed against one of the greatest, proven, scientific discoveries in medicine and biggest sources of the relief of global suffering, the process of vaccination. A growing cult has chosen to identify vaccination as some kind of grandiose conspiracy and in doing so, they are engendering paranoia and endangering lives.

The format of this paranoia is very similar to both the Scientologists war on psychiatry or Evangelicals war on Darwinism. Rather like the fact that there are a small minority of biologists who believe in Intelligent Design, this documentary shows the views of some of a small minority of physicians who have problems with vaccination. There are risks with vaccination as there are with almost any medical procedure, and people who do not believe in it, but that does not mean that vaccination does not work, or that the benefits so vastly outweigh the risks that they are overwhelmingly worth it.

In the United States, the place of Tom Cruise for a war on physicians rather than psychiatrists, is taken by the quack radio host, Gary Null (who is not in this Australian documentary but is a popular anti-vaccination extremist). Null’s method is to setup vaccination as some kind of faceless government conspiracy compared with touchy feely alternative medicine, an argument which he delivers with a pleasant, soft, reassuring voice. This is an easy way to persuade people, because it is not comparing like with like.

Rather like the way that natural child birth surrounded by candles is a preferable environment to a sterile linoleum floored hospital room, but is a more dangerous one, vaccination only works if everyone does it, so vaccination tends to be delivered through the somewhat anti-septic environment of government organized vaccination programs. It is because government programs tend to be more faceless and sterile than private ones that they raise the suspicions of those who are susceptible to paranoia and equate truth with personal desirability.

The solution to damping this paranoia was spectacularly shown when we visited our pediatrician, Michel Cohen, as group of prospective parents, before our son was born. At the end of a question and answer session, one man said that he was wary of governments and therefore wary of vaccination. Dr Cohen’s answer was that although it should be the man’s choice what to ultimately do, vaccination was not so much about the individual as about the community.

By replacing society and government with ‘community’, telling the guy he had a choice and implying that lack of vaccination put the individual before the community, i.e. was selfish, Dr Cohen had pulled a Gary Null. He had expressed something in comforting terms, but this time it happened to be the truth. Brilliant, quite brilliant.

Vaccination Information Service/Taycare Pty Ltd
45 min 20 sec Jan 20, 2008
www.vaccination.inoz.com

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