Re: virus: Re: the greeks would be geeks

zaimoni@ksu.edu
Mon, 24 Feb 1997 11:51:38 -0600 (CST)


On Sat, 22 Feb 1997, Ken Pantheists wrote:

> Tad wrote:
>
> My point is that it is easier to draw pleasure from
> *pretending* doing something rather than doing the *real* thing. It is
> much safer, no risk. By reading a book or watching a movie you get into
> an artificial world, where you can feel emotions, but in fact you cannot
> be hurt.
> ********************************************************************
>
> Your basic premise is correct-- but in the rest of your statement--
>
> Tad:
> I have nothing against books, alcohol or drugs. You can have them all
> and
> *still* think independently (providing you are not stoned at the
> moment).
> It is *replacing* your thinking with them which is fatal to your MIND
> (or
> your meme-pool, I should say).
> *********************************************************************
>
> -- you outline the basic fear that is behind the eyes of every member of
> every censorship board in the world.
>
> The censor has a set belief, once the censoring mind encounters an
> abstract model that is different from his or her model, (in the form of
> a novel, movie or painting) that is designed to engage the emotions and
> thoughts of the reader (the *real* mind) the censor flips out-- "what if
> people think this is real and really start thinking like this ??
> (Yikes!)
>
> Stories affirm models of the social world and social contracts-- They
> ARE our thinking Tad!
>
> Your placement of them in the same bin as recreational drug and alcohol
> abuse doesn't prove anything but your academic laziness.
>
> (ooooo. maybe you are manipulating us.... ooooo.....is that Lesson
> number 11? Generalization?)
>
> Over all-- it is the easiest thing to identify a threat. To mislabel
> things as Manipulation, Control, Cancerous etc. Television has trained
> us to believe the Danger Prophets on the six o' clock evening news.

????
Identifying threats is anything but easy. Your comments about
mislabeling demonstrate this.

"Manipulation", "Control", etc. -- I'll call them metathreats. A
threat is something more concrete.

Example: [Skimming CNN last night; this was in Health]
The USDA has been conducting tests of ground beef produced via "advanced
meat recovery techniques". They have discovered spec violations in the
resulting product.

[Paraphrase]
"The tests also detected spinal cord in the ground beef produced by these
techniques. Spinal cord is not an expected ingredient in ground beef."

I'm wondering how relevant this is to the outbreak of "mad cow" disease
in Great Britain, that hit the news about 6-8 months ago.

=====

Threat: The above spec violation permits the spread of certain rare
diseases, with very high efficiency, that cooking doesn't negate the risk
for.

Metathreat: Those who use this procedure are defrauding you.

I find the metathreat insufficiently supported--but that's what will
register for most readers.

> The easiest threat meme to spread is "this is a threat to your
> autonomy". Or in your words-- your independant thinking. Tad-- you don't
> think independently. At some point you enter the world and you subject
> yourself to the Model. Otherwise you would never *do* anything. You
> would never live anywhere. Try building just... one *house*
> autonomously. A Real house-- not one that exists in your independent
> brain.
>
> We did a play about the Amish recently-- Now there's a group you have to
> admire from a memetic standpoint. They *totally* understand the power of
> the Model. They see it, they totally understand how it infects you right
> down to the buttons on your shirt.
>
> There is no such thing as an abstract or unreal experience. There are,
> as you point out, vicarious experiences that are less risky, but they
> are not unreal. You just refuse to acknowledge them as real texts.

Certainly. Considering the use of "vicarious experiences" to actually
perform training for various sports, these are definitely real.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/ Towards the conversion of data into information....
/
/ Kenneth Boyd
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