So yes, this topic has been made now.

[Hades]

I can empathise with a lot of what you say Hades. But what I'm mostly alluding to, or trying is that there seems to be a sizeable chunk of people who see conspiracy in everything and don't trust anything that comes from the mouth of elected officials, main media networks, professors, doctors...

I'm not saying that those people are always speaking the truth, but it's more ludicrous to think that they are ALL lying when something doesn't fit your (often ill-educated, unqualified)opinion. (the your in the last sentence doesn't refer to you btw.... One of the problems of English).

Hence people believing that Obama is Kenyan, Climate change isn't happening, that America needs to be rescued by Trump, that ALL news outlets lie, that the Lizard people run the white house....

I see a huge difference in healthy skepticism, that you and others here have, and 'it's all a conspiracy run by 'THEM'.

ow, I completely agree with what you say here.
Now you gotta pay me a Rochefort 10 !!

Never heard about the Lizard people though...
Are the Lizard people the ones that poison our water with fluoride ?
I drink only tap water and not water from plastic bottles as a statement against us raping our planet, so all that fluoride ??? hmmm...
Good thing I drink enough beer ! (but wait, they use water to make beer)

[Hades]

Ahhh, but this again highlights the way the word "conspiracy" has been twisted by the cultural operating system.
You say "Again I wouldn't go as far as to shout conspiracy, just plain old simple cover up"

Some people "conspired to do something unlawful and harmful" (to children)

When we hear the word we automatically think "crazy".please don't take me wrong, I agree with your post, I'm just highlighting the use of the word "conspiracy" in the sense of whacky, crazy theory.

E-X-A-C-T-L-Y

(I'm just spelling this word out so Stace learns how to spell it)

to me, a huge cover-up on the highest levels of government means conspiracy.
I'll personally never even use that word since English isn't my mother tongue,
but yeah...

I've discussed this with my mrs last night, and about how when you suggest a few things that go into the mainstream way of thinking,
you're automatically considered a conspiracy-believer,
and how some of us still don't really think the mass media is manipulating our way of thinking,
though even the general conception of this word is in a way proof of that.
And my mrs was surprised that was even called a "conspiracy theory", she just considered that "general knowledge".

Just call everyone else who ever suggests there's something wrong a "conspiracy believer".
Hell, if they wanted, these people could have even invented stuff like that fluoride shit and Lizard people or whatever themselves,
having a great jolly old laugh, and know that in the end, this will only work in favour of all "conspiracy believers" being labeled as nutters, fruitcakes,...
I'm NOT saying this is what happened (it's not another conspiracy ), I'm just saying it is ow so easy to do this stuff.
People are so easily manipulated in their thinking and in looking the other way.

Fucking hell, during WWII everyone knew there must have been something horribly wrong if a train with say 5000 people arrives in the evening,
and in the morning the whole town is as silent as ever, and those 5000 people were just gone, nowhere to be heard or seen.
Everyone knew it, and yet a lot of them claimed they didn't know what really happened there... (it's a conspiracy !!!)
God, I'd put another smiley if I didn't find it so heart-breaking sometimes...

[jordanneke]

I don't own a T.V, I like to read the guardian, that is about as mainstream as I get.
I like to read all the facts I can get access to and then form my own opinion.
And my opinion is this.....

we are all schooled to make us obedient (workers)!
ALL governments are corrupt!
ALL religion is corrupt!
Voting is pointless (please don't give that old "if you don't vote you can't moan" line. George Carlin can argue against voting way better than me so check out his opinion of not voting)
The music industry HAS been hijacked!! call them illuminati or whatever, the point is music and musicians are now used to sell us trainers, cars, perfume, ect ect ect!
War is profitable!
there is a hidden agenda!
Conspiracy is just a word!
The Human farm is real!

lastly but not least EVERYONE is entitled to their own opinion, and that must be respected no matter how it makes us feel.

I disagree. Not everyone's opinion needs to be respected. Everyone is entitled to have an opinion, but that doesn't mean you can't call bullshit on it. People need to do this more often. Not everyone's opinion needs to be given equal weight.

I pretty much disagree on the statements as you have written above.

For example, All governments are corrupt. Should read 'Some governments are WAY more corrupt than others' (therefore some governments can be trusted to a much greater degree.)

We are all schooled to be obedient workers. That's bullshit. You can't qualify that statement using 'ALL'. I teach, and I try to teach students to be critical thinkers, as do all my colleagues, and all the colleagues I've worked with in since I started teaching. Unless I'm part of the conspiracy too, or i'm such a brainwashed worker ant, that I don't even realise that I'm a brainwashed puppet of 'them'.

I'd change that statement to 'My experience of education is that I was schooled to make me an obedient worker.'


The one we agree on is war being profitable.

But I'm happy that not everyone thinks the same as me. That's healthy.

[Hades]

One of the positives I have taken this year is that my frustrations with the world, and I have many, I`m a bleeding heart artist, I genuinely feel the weight of the woes of the world on my shoulders, I always have, making art is how we deal with and express this (I assume most artists feel a little too much and art comes partly from this). So one of the positives I have come to, is that change on a big level is mind bending a just too intimidating.

Change on a local level, cooperation, COMMUNITY, love... on a local level, is how you make change. I`m an anarchist and I need to start practicing my anarchism by getting involved with autonomous self regulating community.
So now that we have moved, and are settling in, I`m looking for community initiatives to get involved with, to try to exact positive change directly. I`m even going through the process of becoming a free man of London ( bit of mental process, a little bit like joining the freemasons, which I actually did years ago), getting the freedom of the city by joining a livery (The Musicians Company) to start doing work hopefully in 3 areas. Teaching music as a form of therapy to kids with mental illness, doing the same with prisoners, and also want to get involve with Production lessons/dj lessons with underprivileged and/or problem kids.

This is fairly inspiring.

youtu.be/RG_BGMA2y5c

I can just picture Steve doing this :

"Kids, Pay attention damn it ! This is a distortion unit !!! You can NEVER EVER have enough of these ! All decent music ever heard was made using at least 57 of these in chain !
Now I'm gonna learn you how to build your own distortion unit !!
Hey you , yes you there at the back ! Where the fuck is your black t-shirt ???"

Seriously, I've been thinking about this a LOT the last 6 months.
Basically what I've done for the last 15 years, is cave away in my own little world to hide from the big bad world,
using my spare time to do what I wanted to do most : learn how to make music, watch tons of films, read a lot of books, and (as soon as they were born) have a lot of time for my kids.
Meanwhile I slaved away at some horror corporate shit-job, which should have been in theory about helping people,
but which in the end turned me into one of the most cynical persons I ever met, and got me pretty deep in a huge depression and burn-out.
So hiding away from our sad planet hasn't helped me at all in the end.

Now, with the danger of becoming one of these "ow, look at all the good stuff I'm doing" persons that we discussed earlier on
(and I'm sorry if I do come across like that but I'm only saying this because it fits the context in my opinion),
I can honestly say I'm at least trying to throw that shit around :

I rebuilt my roof to have solar panels installed. Not sure how much polution it costed to produce these panels,
but I'm very sure they give me clean energy for 80% of my house (my roof wasn't big enough for more panels and I took the maximum production capacity they had developed back then),
I always took public transport to work, and try to use my car as little as possible (though there is still room for improvement there)
I looked up a local vegetable team, and now every week I pick up my vegetables/fruit, directly bought from local farmers.
All of it is biologically grown, and I can honestly say I'm enjoying that.
Yes that means some weeks (especially in winter) you get a lot of cabbage and shit, but that's how people have lived for centuries before we got used to tomatos in january and stuff.
And hey, if I ever do want something else, I can still buy it once in a while and not feel guilty about it.
I almost never use plastic bags, ever. I don't drink bottled water, only tap water,...

And this learning music to young kids. I would love to do that.
In my youth I have worked for 6 summers on a playground with kids from pretty rough neighbourhoods, and I can honestly say those were some of the happiest summers of my life.
If I knew of a way to get in touch with people that could make this happen (because I suck at self promo and organizing all the practical stuff), I would do it instantly.
And I'm honestly trying to find a new job that would make me feel as if I'm contributing something to society and humankind.

It's the only way I can try to not turn into a completely cynical and depressed person.
The hiding game just didn't work.
It's time to face the music.

[Hades]

This is a response before catching up to the rest of the thread, I apologize to you cunts in advance.

I think the despair and helplessness is the biggest story the present has to face in terms of evolution of the species. This has been something that I've struggled with my whole life. As a conservation biologist, I've seen what we've been doing to our very support system and tried to rally against the establishment, only to realize how much of a runaway train the whole thing is. It's depressing, it's enormous, it's painful.

This is a new state though. We are more interconnected than ever. We are more able to empathize over distance, but also affect others at a distance, even through our apathy to where our desires are being fulfilled from. Beliefs used to be fought locally, but now they are enforced through the power of markets and force well beyond the reasoning of anyone individual. We are a part of Nature, and thus follow her rules. Niches tend to be filled, even when they are extremist.

Placing blame on everyone may seem a fair approach, but it does nothing. That is still a reaction of fear or anger. These are not the solutions for moving forward. We're reaching a crux in humanity where we need to salvage what it means to be human. If we continue to give into our base instincts we will be consumed by our vices and continue to destroy ourselves and the planet. Inspiration is certainly the way forward, as is compassion. None of us can do everything - it's emotionally exhausting as well as impossible. There are things to be said for both the strategies of running away from everything, or embracing all the faults to work from the inside, wherever that may be.

Our pain is real. It cannot be avoided much longer, though we desire for it to go away. It's incredibly hard to have discussions and action for positive change because of the tendency to react, or to push out the uncomfortable. Those are also evolutionary responses. We will have to work against our pain the whole way. It is the way, but only to show us the wrong, it is not the source of change. I believe that change is to be more compassionate, and to embrace being the best we can, as best we can.

Good news is, we're more on the road to the solution than we ever have been. The overall rates of murder, war and violence are down per capita. We're headed steadily towards a post-scarcity world. e.g. Hans Rosling's statistical bubbles of world improvement:
youtu.be/jbkSRLYSojo

great post 1nfinitezer0,

but that video...
my wife sometimes used these same arguments when she was trying to boost my depressed mood about our current state of the world.
Of course things are better now than they were in 1810 or even 1910. Isn't that bloody obvious ?
But if you just think about how much better it already could have been, and how much history is repeating itself constantly over and over and over again...
I don't see this guy talk about the environment. He says "yes, we can be there in the bright future, with bees and everything"
and he seems to think that a growing world population living longer is a good thing,
while it is one of the very biggest problems we will have to deal with in the future. There are only so many of us that our planet can bare.
And the fact that we have more money just means we will buy more stuff to polute our planet with...
Or energy sources running out, and the wars that are being fought to have access to them.
Or...

[Lost to the Void]

Yeah his argument that we are moving to a post scarcity world is bizarrely reasoned.
We have finite resources and if every part of the world becomes a 1st world country, that means more consumers in a world of less resources = extreme scarcity world.

[Hades]

exactly

[Pelecaras]

I don't own a T.V, I like to read the guardian, that is about as mainstream as I get.
I like to read all the facts I can get access to and then form my own opinion.
And my opinion is this.....

we are all schooled to make us obedient (workers)!
ALL governments are corrupt!
ALL religion is corrupt!
Voting is pointless (please don't give that old "if you don't vote you can't moan" line. George Carlin can argue against voting way better than me so check out his opinion of not voting)
The music industry HAS been hijacked!! call them illuminati or whatever, the point is music and musicians are now used to sell us trainers, cars, perfume, ect ect ect!
War is profitable!
there is a hidden agenda!
Conspiracy is just a word!
The Human farm is real!

lastly but not least EVERYONE is entitled to their own opinion, and that must be respected no matter how it makes us feel.

I disagree. Not everyone's opinion needs to be respected. Everyone is entitled to have an opinion, but that doesn't mean you can't call bullshit on it. People need to do this more often. Not everyone's opinion needs to be given equal weight.

I pretty much disagree on the statements as you have written above.

For example, All governments are corrupt. Should read 'Some governments are WAY more corrupt than others' (therefore some governments can be trusted to a much greater degree.)

We are all schooled to be obedient workers. That's bullshit. You can't qualify that statement using 'ALL'. I teach, and I try to teach students to be critical thinkers, as do all my colleagues, and all the colleagues I've worked with in since I started teaching. Unless I'm part of the conspiracy too, or i'm such a brainwashed worker ant, that I don't even realise that I'm a brainwashed puppet of 'them'.

I'd change that statement to 'My experience of education is that I was schooled to make me an obedient worker.'


The one we agree on is war being profitable.

But I'm happy that not everyone thinks the same as me. That's healthy.

Hmmmm, I'm pretty sure I started my list with "and my opinion is this....."

So I can qualify the remarks with the fact that is my opinion, I am not stating facts, just my opinion.

One of my sisters is a teacher, so too her husband, do I believe she's part of the "conspiracy"? No of course not, do I believe you are part of the "conspiracy"? No of course not. Do I believe that you try your best to inspire your pupils and teach them to be intelligent, analytical free thinkers? Yes I do. You are not the system! you are a small part of the system I believe is bias toward fee paying pupils.

It's my belief that that's the way the world works, I don't just pull my beliefs out of the ether, I read, learn, analyse and then make up my mind objectively. You don't believe so, that's fine, like I say we are all entitled to our opinion.

[jordanneke]

Yeah, as I say - If everyone thought the same as me, the world would be a horrible horrible place. But the weekends would be fun.

[Pelecaras]

Yeah, as I say - If everyone thought the same as me, the world would be a horrible horrible place. But the weekends would be fun.

"Vive la difference" brother

[1nfinitezer0]

great post 1nfinitezer0,

but that video...
my wife sometimes used these same arguments when she was trying to boost my depressed mood about our current state of the world.
Of course things are better now than they were in 1810 or even 1910. Isn't that bloody obvious ?
But if you just think about how much better it already could have been, and how much history is repeating itself constantly over and over and over again...
I don't see this guy talk about the environment. He says "yes, we can be there in the bright future, with bees and everything"
and he seems to think that a growing world population living longer is a good thing,
while it is one of the very biggest problems we will have to deal with in the future. There are only so many of us that our planet can bare.
And the fact that we have more money just means we will buy more stuff to polute our planet with...
Or energy sources running out, and the wars that are being fought to have access to them.
Or...

Heh, you're right, it's not all daisies and hookers. But my initial reaction to the OP was to try and inject some positivity into the discussion. Now that I've read through most of the thread I find myself agreeing with all of you to a certain degree.

The environment is my biggest concern, and over-population is still a problem, free energy or not. Oh yeah in regards to Nuclear, a nuke-loving friend of mine is working with Thorium salts and preaches it like gospel. Seems like a pretty decent alternative until we've got fusion figured out.

I'm not one to be interested in "conspiracy theories" most of the time, but if you believe that the mainstream media is telling you the complete truth and that there aren't a lot of people with a vested interest in keeping the public misinformed, then you haven't properly considered the state of humanity. One thing that you can see time and time again, is that there's always some sorta outlier situation, be it due to psychopathy, obsessive drive, love, art, shamanism, or plain out wacky, niches tend to get filled. Those with a selective advantage tend to propagate. Power structures throughout history build themselves up, consolidate power, and protect it as best they can, usually leading to an imbalance of wealth that eventually collapses through revolt. Civilizations tend to die from external causes, which are often environmental. We're facing both right now.

It's easier for the common person to ignore it all, because the level of comfort is higher than ever. Quality of life for all of us with access to a computer and the time to wax on about this is pretty great. Has everyone seen that recombinant records comic comparing Brave New World with Orwell's 1984? tl;dr we're being entertained into placidity http://www.recombinantrecords.net/2009/ ... -to-death/

And I'm SOOOO on board with the lack of critical thinking being a huge problem. But it's a vested interest again, for the masses to not catch on. In times of revolt, suppress the press, shut down information flow, tell them what you want them to hear. Thankfully the internet is growing structures which are helping us get around this. But the progress towards public education is still slow. I agree with Steve about the need to teach more about being human, about finding happiness and purpose within rather than being stuck with just your animal drives ruling your life. I think that's part of the solution. And techno, because techno.

I dunno where I'm going with this post... but I love chatting about this type of stuff. I still think we can change the world, each in our own small way. So, I'd like, hug you all now or something...

[Alume]

Fuck I have a lot of reading to do.

[Hades]

about time you got back, you Dutch twat !
you costed me at least half a day of my life typing all this shit !

BUT(T) I can honestly say that this topic actually mostly made me feel better than the Greek one Pedro opened a few months ago.
At least in this one, a LOT of people really wrote interesting things, showing they cared and were seriously thinking about things,
in the Greek one, it almost felt as if there were only a handful of people trying to decently inform themselves about what was really going on.

Things are improving !
Only thing I gotta do now is run over Jordan with my car.
I know his "colours", so on his next bicycle-ride...
problem is my old and trustworthy volvo died about a year ago, and I'm afraid he might be stronger than my current Skoda

[Hades]

So, I'd like, hug you all now or something...

Pedro's gonna offer his ass once again, don't worry

but no seriously : thx for the nice post !

[Alume]

about time you got back, you Dutch twat !
you costed me at least half a day of my life typing all this shit !

BUT(T) I can honestly say that this topic actually mostly made me feel better than the Greek one Pedro opened a few months ago.
At least in this one, a LOT of people really wrote interesting things, showing they cared and were seriously thinking about things,
in the Greek one, it almost felt as if there were only a handful of people trying to decently inform themselves about what was really going on.

Things are improving !
Only thing I gotta do now is run over Jordan with my car.
I know his "colours", so on his next bicycle-ride...
problem is my old and trustworthy volvo died about a year ago, and I'm afraid he might be stronger than my current Skoda

I just threw up a ball, I'm not really a discussion guy. I prefer jumping in discussions others have and ending them with oneliners while I'm looking down cleaning my glasses. I'll then put them back on when Im coming close to the end of the sentence and I'll finish it with my head up in normal position again.

No but seriously, I've been scanning this thread and although I dont post that much I do value all your opinions and I can find my self in all of them as well. At the end of the day its what and how you feel about particular situations and how you deal with what other people might feel.

[Hades]

man, that first post you wrote...

I remember you once saying how you weren't good with words, and look now
all eloquence and seriously deep thoughts !

I salute you !

[Alume]

Thank you sir:)

I appreciate that.

[Dust Layer]

Subsekt writing school.

[Mono-xID]

Get your tin foil hats out motherfuckkaz, it's a conspirazy !!!

youtu.be/2frJ3e0hxPE

[ashley BORG]

So I just had a chat with a friend about this over a few drinks. She has 2 Belgian family members who work for the EU commission. She had some good insight into how the EU is happy to turn a blind eye to certain things. But the most interesting thing she said was that most Western intervention into Middle Eastern conflict is actually driven from from the high ranking / rich ME states. They refuse to get their hands dirty and deal with the shit on their own door step, and so leverage their oil and energy resource deals to have the likes of EU and America to do their dirty work.

Anyone who has an insight to that region will know there's a hierarchy to the countries and so it will be seen way beyond the the likes of Saudi and Qatar to sort out Syria. It's almost a matter of face.