There is a growing consensus that the simulation hypothesis may not be as far-fetched as once some may have thought. The way being paved for this through various films and ideas and as we gather more information about the apparent world around us and the construct upon which we base our ‘reality’. So, in my usual way, I shall use a list of films to illustrate how reality can and is determined by what’s around you. And by changing or simulating a different environment, can thereby change your reality and perceptions towards it.
The Matrix – so far this film is kind of heralded as the top spot for simulation theory played out in visual terms. It’s easy to understand, requires very little thought and appears to cover all bases. It’s too slick but a good starting point to get familiar with the idea.
Dark City – for me this film covers all bases and is neatly complex, it’s got psychological, physical, mental, metaphysical aspects and more.
Logans Run – This is a strange film, and has all sorts of overtones and undertones. But their reality is dictated and controlled and is no longer questioned.
Ready player one – an entertaining and fun look at the idea of a metaverse where it caters to your every want. Unless your want is to be able to fit in to normal life. It’s about finding out who you are by thinking you need to be someone else. Done in the classic Spielberg 80’s style, which I can’t fault.
Free guy – a recent film and goes even further into the computer programs running in the simulation touched upon in matrix. The replication of agent Smith, the fear of deletion by others. But this takes it further and goes with AI becoming sentient. An awareness of the system and programming develops leading to an evolution of thought. It’s a fun film though too and I recommend it. Easy viewing with lots of thinking material.
The Truman Show – a simulation of reality to convince one person it is. Meant to be portrayed as a reality TV show, but it’s a pretend sheltered fabricated existence. Until the party subject to the manipulation and lies snaps and realises all is not what it seems.
Star Trek – Next Generation – Many episodes involving the holodeck and varying degrees of simulated reality, but episode 138 of the series is very interesting.
Updated: realised I forgot two that should be in this list. Tron and lawnmower man. Both of those where people become part of the program.
Also, popular now as well as ‘reality tv’ are games simulating things. The Sims being aptly named and encourages people to build their ideal setting and characters. Tying into the metaverse possibly as an end game, who knows.
So, where does the simulation end and reality begin? Or once you believe the simulation is real, does that make it real? Are they just perceptions or absolutes? That will remain to be seen.
You may have guessed what the overall theme of this is by the title, if not, you will. Clowns have never sat well with me, and is the case for many I have learnt along the way. There may be various reasons for this, as the list of references below may reveal. But there is a crossover for me, into pantomime dames and other garish forms of ‘entertainment’ which use an overly exaggerated version of something, often in a stereotypical way, for you know, entertainment. But I have never found the representation of a ‘woman’ in these situations to ever be appealing or even funny. I cringe at panto stuff, but understand because of times past that apparently men were cast in the female roles for those things because women weren’t allowed on stage. Don’t get me wrong, when done correctly, men in drag or as dames can be hilarious and very on point. Some of my favourites being Monty Python, Kenny Everett and Lily Savage. So I decided it must be something else I am not enjoying about it, something not as obvious and which wasn’t funny.
The recent story time debacle going on has made me think about it and what it is that I personally don’t like or find comfortable about it, to revisit the theme as it seems remarkably similar in the way it is being presented. Just a bit of fun for kids. Firstly, I personally see no reason why you would need to dress up for story time, unless the outfit was appropriate to the story – i.e., Princess story = princess dress, dragon story, dragon outfit, relative to the activity and wouldn’t it be more fun to have the children also engage in dress up, after all, they enjoy it the most don’t they? Children can be very easily distracted and if they have something visual to look at kind of demanding their attention, then how much of the story is really going in anyway? But recently as the stories are being reported more and people protest to them taking place, I can’t help thinking the outfits and make-up of these ‘performers’ are really quite terrifying. I have been watching horror movies since I was a child, I know disturbing. Rather demonic and overwhelming on the senses in my opinion, and to a child who may take that imagery home with them, mull it over and give it lots of thought without any real context or understanding is a potential concern. To me anyway. Maybe not so much to others.
The reason I have an issue with garish presentation specifically being aimed at cashing in on children’s love of bright, sparkly, shiny colourful things, is because it’s been used before for nefarious purposes.
John Wayne Gacey – He was a serial killer in the 70’s who killed lots of young men. And one of his side hobbies was being part of a clown club, which gained him the name killer clown, but he didn’t kill as a clown. Interesting though is what he had said about why he enjoyed being a clown “acting as a clown allowed him to regress into childhood”. That is why it’s on this list.
IT – We should all know this clown Pennywise, either the original (to which I refer), or the remake, or the book. An awful and very scary depiction of a clown in full demonic mode. Enticing a child with a red balloon. Honestly, I thought about little Georgie for a long time after that.
McDonalds – Yes, the fast-food chain. Who’s main advertising tool was a clown, weird really for food. And food that has turned out to not be the healthiest, a slight leap from serial killers to bad nutrition, but neither are in the future interests of the child. Gratification and profit seem to be heading of the wheels of these machines.
Child catcher (chitty chitty bank bang) – Need I say more? Possibly not, but I will. Lollipops and music, to lure the children into the cage.
Hansel & Gretel – a gingerbread house and sweets to lure them in.
Pied Piper of Hamlin – music and dance to get the children to follow and be led to their abduction.
The last two may be Fairy Tales, but I believe there is always a thread of truth running through them too, as with movies and stories that remain with us. All of these things highlight a child’s tendency (and some adults too), to have their attention taken with something that seems bright and bouncy, but without knowing what is really going on. I don’t fully understand the need to expose school age children from nursery to secondary school to drag acts. I have read an account of a private school in the states that had a drag act sprung on them in church service. Heels and sequins parading up and down the aisle, for what purpose I cannot imagine. Why is it that we have a niche part of the adult entertainment industry suddenly being inserted into educational environments, religion and everyday society and events? It’s baffling to me.
What is also baffling, is how women have been slagged off and vilified for years for wearing heavy makeup, and what some consider to be inappropriate clothing but now it’s men doing it, that’s fine and we just clap and say well done. I really don’t get it. She’s a slapper or a prostitute for wearing that, but he’s a hero. Am I the only one thinking WTAF is going on here, are we actually in the Twilight Zone? Maybe it is just me that sees the overdoing of the outfits and makeup as a cover for something, whether they are hiding from themselves or something darker, that remains to be seen, but having to outwardly express yourself in such a garish manner, means you are compensating for something in my view. Why aren’t you comfortable as you? Why the extra razzle and dazzle? I just see painted faces and outfits pretending to be something, rather than it being an expression of self. I think I must be missing their whole point. How can you ever be you, if you are trying to be something or someone else?
A washing up liquid bubble landed and stayed for a while, I noticed it was still there a short while later and got a small bit of footage. Very hard to hold still, so sorry about the wobbling 🙂
A new way of breeding seems to be on the cards in the strange ideals of the rather disturbing international organisations.
You won’t have to procreate the old fashion way, indeed not. You can ‘spawn’ in an entirely detached way in the future apparently in their vision. Growing your offspring in a pod, in your living room no less. With monitors and a clear covering so you can watch it gestate. Maybe this is what the Tamagotchi things were really all about, prepping kids for a future where you will be inclined to ‘care’ for a virtual creation.
They appear to be doing a good job of desensitising people towards other people, animals, reality and so forth. Changing terms, definitions, meanings. Trying to go for things like birthing person, taking away the word mother and female associated words for things. I believe it’s to facilitate a detachment from being normal and doing normal natural things. The system appears to want to insert themselves in every person detail of your lives. But if they can get people before they are born, and manipulate the components, fully monitor the process and adjust as necessary, then you stand more chance of developing what they may consider a more appealing society.
Virtual babies maybe for some people, while they ‘train’ you to do it their way. All monitored of course, it will be remote and studied. You will be studied. The world around us is one big maze now, and we are the rats. They are building new puzzles, obstructions and incentives as we speak, constantly adapting as we do. But they really don’t seem to want us breeding like rats now do they? If you haven’t watched the films Logans Run and Dark City you should. And if you haven’t read Brave New World, you should. There is much to understand…
It’s a funny thing time. It can stretch on forever or be over in the blink of an eye. We are beholden to it in the modern age, and it’s not by accident. But is it natural? Were we always slaves to the order of it rather than just taking part in the process of it. Was there always an order to it? Has it always run on a cycle, a countdown with a reset date? Like each night at midnight when we ‘reset’ the day to start over. To run the simulation again and again until it eventually reduces the cycle back to zero. But on a bigger scale.
We have our time divided up and dictated, whether we like to admit it or not. The system of our whole day being split into three eights to command a separation and categorising of our time. Work time, down time, sleep time. All very ordered. For industry of course, and the working part of those hours used to be much higher and has changed over time depending on the needs of the corporations, not because of the needs of the people, although it’s painted as such.
And to facilitate the above, we have clocks everywhere. Alarm clocks to frighten, sorry, startle you out of sleep to start your work day. If you are lucky enough to not have to start with an alarm, it can only be a good thing. Your body gets to decide on what terms to start the day. But so much of our daily routine involves and revolves around time and breaking it all down by way of numbers. Clocks being integrated into most parts of your day, to wake you, get you to school, or work, clocking in and clocking out as they say. In your house, on your wrist, now on your phone. TV Programmes arranged by time slots, everything organised by time. Yet it passes us by quite unnoticed sometimes. Hasn’t the time flown by one might say. As can it drag on and seem an eternity, depending on the activity at hand.
The church also plays their part I have noticed. Bells ringing, every quarter hour, and numerous times to signify the hour change (after 1 o’clock obviously). It’s around 96 times a day I think they chime, for timekeeping purposes of course. Nothing to do with the hypnotic rhythmic tolling periodically.
As a society, we are set on a calendar (which has been changed and altered I might add, but for this we’ll go along with what we are told, with some places running on a different one). With years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds. And from day dot, having this instilled in us through our childhoods and for the rest of our lives. Along with our age, which is marked by an annual ritual acknowledgement of it, and having multiple tasks, laws and expectations placed upon it.
It can also really tamper with a person’s stability and sensibility if you mess with or rearrange someone’s timeline or knowledge of it. But is that only because people are given a timeline to work within, so without that, you have no grounding or starting point. Imagine if every clock you passed was keeping a different time. And each day things didn’t have a specific reference point for anything, it seems like it would be hectic and chaotic. And perhaps it would without a different system in place. People like to have a starting point, to know where you came from, what you are doing and ideally where you are going. Time can reveal all of these things, if there isn’t a truck load of obstacles in the way and human interference. Time will tell as they say.
We know, or appear to know that time is fixed in our daily lives, past, present and future. Yet we dream and fantasise about travelling backwards or forwards through it. Capturing the secrets of the past, or to reveal the wonders and worries of the future. But the conundrum of either only being able to view said events, or of being perpetually doomed to keep trying to fix something you never can isn’t a happy one. Maybe it’s a good thing we can’t, as far as we know anyway.
Time waits for no-man they say, and it marches forth whether you are taking part or not. But that makes it sound as if time is an entity, rather than a mathematical system of numbers to calculate us into conditioning. As if we have a choice and that time is not our enemy, who is following and stalking us to our fate as we are led to believe. But more a friend, who we can walk with and will be with us to the very end. Depends on your perspective I guess. Your time is up, is another saying we have, to make us think we are a personally on the clock, that we have a set time to go. Like we are programmed to expire and do so because we believe it to be true. Who can say for sure.
It could have been as simple as night and day, afternoon and morning, I’ll never know.
MKW Publishing 