The thoughts and beliefs of the silent majority: the masses who live their lives day in, day out with no real purpose are pretty much controlled by various social mediums. If you look at social trends; analyse the topics on the forefront of people's minds, they're pretty much the result of one, or a few people's actions.

If there's a car accident, there's no huge social impact, but if the media decide to report on every single car accident which is taking place: atrributing them to various things, such as drink-driving, joyriders, people being influenced by GTA .etc, people absorb these messages, and after some social cohesion, the masses have effectively been 'written' with a message: in this case it may be that drink-driving is bad.

Of course there's nothing wrong with this, and it seems pretty obvious. But don't you find it worrying that our brains are constantly being 'written' to by superiors? Not many people take the inititiative and actually try to look further into things, or even care. They're just happy to sit back and live life.

Whilst they're sitting back, not caring, the ones at the top of the social hierachy are the ones pulling all the strings: they're dictating global events for whatever reasons they see fit. The ones at the top just utilise the bulk of the population as a tool comparable to how RAM operates in a PC: the people's minds are mediums which can be constantly wrote to: over and over again, but our short life expectancies mean that eventually, a generation is killed off and all the stored data is lost.

The ones pulling the strings, or perhaps their ideologies, are comparable to a processor in such a system, the cerebral cortex of society; dictating what gets written to the RAM, and in which quantity. Though this is all assuming that the upper echelons of society all strive towards one goal.

What is missing from such a concept is the presence of a user: someone pulling the strings and dictating the outcome of the processor's - the upper echelons of society's - actions. This can be a secret society, god, science, whatever. It doesn't really matter: it's the only thing which can dictate the system, sans self consciousness.

Which brings me to my next point, if there's nothing at the top - an imperfect co-ordinator dictating commands downwards, then does the system realise self-consciousness and become a perfect, unbreakable system? A system where the future is predictable, and which you cannot escape?

If science reaches the point of perfection, or if a perfect social theory is released - will that mean the end of the human race? Will we just all become parts of a system where our actions have been pre-empted? With kings and gods, we had imperfection: death, suffering and ignorance, but we also had art, hope and unpredictability: we look back on such times romantically, though when we look towards the future, it always seems bleak: as if everything is heading towards a huge black hole: a point of no return...

Is this the paradox of progress? We strive to reach perfection, yet once we reach it - it's over.

The average westerner today has more opportunity to create their own destiny than the average member of just about any prior civilization. Get a rudimentary grasp of history before you spout nonsense.

The average westerner today has more opportunity to create their own destiny than the average member of just about any prior civilization. Get a rudimentary grasp of history before you spout nonsense.

Not really. As we're becoming more and more developed as a species, we're beginning to make our societies work as perfectly as possible: pretty much everything in the world is based upon models; it's all pre-planned.

The destinies we seek have pretty much all been documented. Whether we wish to become rich, seek power, get independance .etc: millions of others may share these dreams and there's hierachies in society in place to 'guide you' through to your destiny. Are you really 'building your own destiny' if you're merely following a set path; a model where the genetically superior succeed?

In the past, where we had little understanding of the world, everything was more spontaenous. People's ignorance of the world meant that achieving your destiny was pure and original. Consider the first person to climb Everest, he stepped into the unknown and overcame the unimaginable. Now look at the people who's dream in life is to climb Everest: all they have to do is work a job, save money, get fit and buy a package for £20,000 or so which allows them to get a guide up there. Of course you have the option to scale another mountain, which may have never been climbed before, but you can still apply pretty much the same principals to it: there's a theory of mountain climbing which you can apply.

As we're progressing further and further, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find anything that's pure. What seems like fulfilling a destiny may merely just be us being a hardworking cog in a more grandiose design...

Either way, there's no need for you to act like a cunt in your reply.

The average westerner today has more opportunity to create their own destiny than the average member of just about any prior civilization. Get a rudimentary grasp of history before you spout nonsense.

I'd have to agree for the most part.

Zeitgeist is a term made popular by German Dualist in the 19th and 20th century. The idea was that any period in history and any society can be labeled according to how the German's felt. Zeitgeist would have you believe all Christian believe soley in the bible, that nothing but chaos and famine lived in the Dark Ages, and most importantly that the Jews or some 'superior' is running your life.

Why would anyone buy into this devilish propogana?

The average westerner today has more opportunity to create their own destiny than the average member of just about any prior civilization. Get a rudimentary grasp of history before you spout nonsense.

But how many hours does the average American spend watching television?

I have talked to a man who said he played Everquest 2 or 3 hours a day. Another man called it Evercrack. LOL

Having an opportunity and being psychologically capable of taking advantage of it are two different things.

Psychology is the study of not thinking.

TV didn't exist 70 years ago and radio didn't exist 110 years ago. But the internet puts info distribution into more hands than any technology ever before. So how do we most effectively mess with people's RAM?

DT

Imo, you view the whole of humanity as being far too cohesive. There are farrr too many different cultures, sub-cultures, philosophies, ideologies, systems of media, etc to achieve such cohesion and one single 'system'.

But how many hours does the average American spend watching television?

I have talked to a man who said he played Everquest 2 or 3 hours a day. Another man called it Evercrack. LOL

Having an opportunity and being psychologically capable of taking advantage of it are two different things.
DT

Is this not the very definition of having freedom? Having the luxury to do what he/she wants to do with their time? Just because you don't see it as being productive towards some end, doesn't mean they're not utilizing their freedom. Everything in life doesn't have to be a means to an end.

The average westerner today has more opportunity to create their own destiny than the average member of just about any prior civilization. Get a rudimentary grasp of history before you spout nonsense.

There is no destiny. Everything is preplanned because of the laws of physics that occurred before us. With the right amount of knowledge and vector calculations, we could literally figure out what a person would do in any event.

There's always room for corrupted data...

Is this not the very definition of having freedom? Having the luxury to do what he/she wants to do with their time? Just because you don't see it as being productive towards some end, doesn't mean they're not utilizing their freedom. Everything in life doesn't have to be a means to an end.

Is submission freedom?

Did people die to free people from slavery, just to let them become slaves to another system? I don't think so. I believe freedom is the act of resistance: continually trying to break free from a pre-determined system you was born into.

The freedom fighters of the world seem to all stop too soon; they assume that once they've liberated a country or whatever, that everything will remain perfect forever: the battle has ended. This is not the case, when you fight to let future generations live an easy life, you are ultimately denying them freedom; the true act of freedom fighting is a continuing battle against ignorance, it's to try and liberate the people from any means of control and make everybody individual, responsible beings.

Is submission freedom?

Did people die to free people from slavery, just to let them become slaves to another system? I don't think so. I believe freedom is the act of resistance: continually trying to break free from a pre-determined system you was born into.

The freedom fighters of the world seem to all stop too soon; they assume that once they've liberated a country or whatever, that everything will remain perfect forever: the battle has ended. This is not the case, when you fight to let future generations live an easy life, you are ultimately denying them freedom; the true act of freedom fighting is a continuing battle against ignorance, it's to try and liberate the people from any means of control and make everybody individual, responsible beings.

Then you're just a slave to 'the struggle' and 'the struggle' or battle becomes the system of control. I'd rather just do as I please, that's true freedom.

Well, Revvy much of your thoughts seem to be concerened about the masses submitting to a form of control. I admit this system of control is incredibly pervasive, intricate and well constructed. I agree with the poster who said that we are more free than any other point in history, it is true. One important fact on this issue is that the elite knew that they could only realise the promises of industrialism through having an educated population, this of course is a threat to their status, a free thinking population is not easy to control, so extensive measures were made to maintain the control of their subjects, through the creation of mass media and entertainment.

Now all of that is given but you must realise is that the population now has the tools of free thinking and independence at their disposal, although free thinking is in conflict to conforming to the mass culture in order to be accepted by their peers. But regardless, this is a choice which is not only made, but continually made by all every single moment that they live. They consent to this control and are therefore also tools of their own control as their tacit consent approves and reinforces the false ideology. There no reason to assume that their conformity threatens your happiness, the only thing that it will threaten is the liberties that are supposed to protect everyone. Your ideas seem to be similiar to Rousseau, man being a noble savage, the masses must be forced to be free.