A reading of my article – Then and Now
(c) K Wicks
article
The World’s A Stage, Or A Fair
The world’s fairs. I hadn’t even heard of them until a few years ago. There are various videos and theories on the internet about them, the public reasons for them, and of the ideas that they might not be as they seem. I have also mentioned them briefly in my article Just Passing Through, and after giving them more thought decided they deserved their own article, although maybe not entirely from the same angle as others people’s speculations.
On the face of it, they appear as what they say they are, and as we still have them today, it would seem there is nothing to see here. Although these days, despite being more advance technologically, we don’t go to half the effort we once did – check out the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition 1893 (wiki) for a bit more on what I mean there and how seemingly splendid and temporary these sites and venues were. You can see why people might ask questions, my own personal thoughts being how wasteful a time it was if they could indeed construct things like that just to destroy it after. As well as all the other rather magnificent building that were all ‘founded’ around 1850 onwards and seemed to be the norm, despite often small or tiny populations – my article The Old World looks at that point in history a bit. A big time for skilled workmen, lots of money and materials, and locations for these sites being no object – I must be thinking of a much poorer late 1800’s which doesn’t seem to have been there after all, not with the ‘evidence and history’ we see around us. Currently called Expo’s and still being held in big cities, although mostly in already established venues, hired for purpose, and showing off new and innovative ideas and inventions to the travellers who make their way to them. People work at them; people visit them and technology is distributed from them as far as I know.
In Dublin during the famine times, they had one of these fairs. Because famine, war and disaster create vast amounts of wealth for some, and industry doesn’t stop because of these things, it thrives. Much changed in Ireland over those few years, millions starved, millions left – conveniently offered passage to New York we are led to believe. Needing numbers to fill up the cities that had been built for them perhaps. And it strikes me as similar to now, how they create a problem in an area, and then ‘encourage’ the locals to leave, either by bribery, force and whatever it takes to clear an area, and create another where you would like one, with minimal fuss and kickback. But as much easier way than stealing people in slavery emerged, convince them to sign up and go where they are needed themselves. Offer them ‘wages’ and appear to compensate them for their time and life being given in service. An exchange, so it looks like an agreement, but one which has been made to appear that way. Because now it has stepped up a gear, and they are making it clear you won’t be getting a choice in the future about who’s slave to be, or what trade to be a slave to, or how much you can demand for your slave wage. Instead, we are now becoming a slave to technology, and those that control and distribute it. They hold people to ransom with it already, slowly closing any gaps and loopholes that some may find to keep themselves out of the grid.
They would have been perfect opportunities to encourage all the innovative people with bright ideas to step forward, to try and get investment and share their ideas with the captains of industry. Who then could very neatly tie them up, for later use, or to corner the current market. I always thought patent offices were also a handy way to make sure you get to see all the clever stuff first, to commandeer the ideas and inventions and therefore the future. I can easily see now why some people may have kept their rather genius ideas to themselves. To stop it falling into the wrong hands, and all that…
(c) K Wicks
In A Maze – article reading
The Rat Race
A number, like the mice in The Beautiful Mice, but shows something different. A balance. The golden ratio of a living balance in a way, I guess. Not in a sterile Georgia Guidestones kind of way though. I give thought to the idea that we are unable to escape our ‘container’ apparently, so like the rats and mice that get put into the controlled environment, we also are subject to the conditions, and all of that goes on to help form our habits and behaviours as individuals and as a group. Now, we are led to believe that back in the day, people had a certain amount of freedom to go where they want, and do what they pleased, within reason of course. It would seem that being a complete arse or psychopath has never gone down particularly well as a likeable trait, so if you were a basically decent human being, you could have freedom right? Wrong.
Once I learnt of previous restrictions placed upon hardworking average people, for the sake of controlling wages and work distribution, mentioned in my article A Working Strategy, I realised then that mostly we have been at the whim of others people’s rules, boundaries and ideals for hundreds of years now, not just mere decades as some would speculate. What we thought was freedom, and what we apparently fight to preserve, was already a form of control and surveillance of our lives, it just didn’t seem as intrusive. But The Digital Doomsday Database goes some way to explain how we are just in a technological version and going through an update to past times. Same shit, different day springs to mind here. The census, taxes, records of birth and death, insurance companies listing your possessions and assets, banks having your financial fingerprint, governments now wanting your digital fingerprint for every breath and interaction of your life. Those things now being quantified as a transaction, rather than experiences, or time or something more than a percentage and profit margin.
But as I said, it’s an extension of where we were before, this isn’t all entirely new, just a new format to present it. Sometimes though, it does seem as though the powers that be, view the ordinary folk as a bit of an infestation. How we might view rats, even though we would be the ones that allowed them to congregate in what we would call ‘unnatural’ numbers. Like people, herding them into cities at strategic points in the past, causing health issues by way of conditions, paving the way nicely to then appear to help with said health problems. Prevention rather than cure used to be the way, so a fear of what was to come was needed, to make people believe that the cure would be better than the end result. So, we are led to believe that there needs to be an intervention, to stop it all getting out of control. But what if that’s what stops it ever stabilising, that it needs to reach a critical mass and turning point, needs to run its course and find a balance within its own circumstance and environment. Without interference. We’ll never know as we are constantly being interfered with, manipulated, steered and treated like the commodity they see us as. And we get tricked into believing we are, and seem to act accordingly. All of us.
So, as many are wondering these days, why do we all appear to accept the unfolding mayhem and disaster we see around us, and not actually do anything about it. And I do wonder, who is more of an idiot, the people in suits talking nonsense and pretending to ‘lead’, or is it the people on the ground who still listen and look up to these people. Looking to them for guidance still. It’s baffling. Because if the rats had realised it was other rats that were keeping them In A Maze, and messing with them for fun and money, starving them ‘just to see’ and other ghastly things, would they go insane? Escape? Get revenge? Put up with it and just lose the will to live? Perhaps all of those, as we see around us. They appear to be going for a bigger net to catch everyone, and at the same trying to create a smaller and more confined area for their projects. Wanting to monitor, medicate and dictate your purpose like a parasite. And all these systems and algorithms now appear to be an electronic version of one, like we had the ‘computer viruses’, now we have the computer parasites. Because if you aren’t in the system, giving it your time and energy, thoughts and data, it can’t work as intended or survive. People, however, can survive quite well without them…
(c) K Wicks
If You Die In The Matrix – article reading
An Attitude of Entitlement – article reading
Nature or Nurture? – article reading
The Grey Matter – article reading
The Beautiful Mice
An experiment with mice, of a carefully constructed area and set living conditions that couldn’t be changed by the mice, and they couldn’t escape. They were beholden to the experiment, and it ran its course as it was meant to. Repeatedly. And the results came back the same.
Universe 25 – The Behavioural Sink (wiki).
“Created a series of “rat utopias” – enclosed spaces in which rats were given unlimited access to food and water, enabling unfettered population growth”
There is much more to it, and I suggest you read through. And as you know I have written other articles about animal and people experiments, In A Maze, An Experiment But A Big One and Memory as well as the odd crazy idea or two like in Changing Into What Exactly?. But I was unaware of the behavioural sink experiments until only a few weeks ago, and clearly given what has occurred in society over the last three years, certain sections of certain societies definitely seem to be going through what appears to be very similar circumstances to those unfortunate mice. Fully engineered to be that way of course, as we see with the current human counterparts.
“In his most famous experiment in the series, “Universe 25″, population peaked at 2,200 mice and thereafter exhibited a variety of abnormal, often destructive, behaviours including refusal to engage in courtship, females abandoning their young, and homosexuality.”
Now, you can make of that what you will. But it does go some way to answer some of my questions about nature vs nurture, and of environmental causes being the root of certain social and behavioural changes, in people and animals. Unfortunately, I am unsure of when we were ever ‘normal’ (if we were) and to know when there was ever a Time people weren’t messing around with things and influencing the outcome somewhat. Tinkering and tailoring to requirement.
And at this point – I suddenly think of one of my favourite books as a child Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and the film of it, The Secret of NIMH. Which of course is about a group of mice and rats who escape a lab and an experiment. Which upon looking it up again, it appears that it was written in reference to those very experiments that Calhoun was running, and I hadn’t even realised what NIMH even stood for (shaking head at my own stupidity here) – as it stands for National Institute of Mental Health. I guess it was interesting to read and see about what happened once the rats and mice escape, because it was nice to think that some do, giving very little thought to what went on in the lab other than what you were told. But we have had our own version along the way, just bigger ‘labs’ and more subjects and studies by the whitecoats.
Such as television programs like Big Brother and Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, make me think of strange short-term, human versions of this scenario. To observe how they react in close quarters with strangers, without enough food, and having to play whatever ‘game’ they come up with to entertain the viewers. But the purpose of that game is always much more than it appears. They will have also observed people within military and penal settings for this behaviour, knowing how much is enough, or too much and steering the mood and mentality where they want it to go. Anywhere where you deliberately crowd people and keep them restricted, whether it be by rules or barriers, a similar mindset develops. Boarding schools also spring to mind here, and tower blocks. Regimented, ordered and making sure you get limited privacy.
I used to wonder why they built houses so close together, why they planned them with windows facing each other, and in a way that made it appear to be about community and ease of services to each location, but it wasn’t really. Just as these 15-minute towns and cities aren’t, it appears to be about continuing to condition people to be mentally prepared to be physically herded into ‘safe zones’ and to only rely on a central point to advise you, guide you and look after you. But really, I now see society and all the new ideas being rolled out as an extension of Universe 25, but for people. That they know what happens when you put in too many, and just keep feeding them. They will either feed you to death, or then take it away and watch the mayhem ensue, which results in destruction either way. Turning instinct into a self-destructive force if it isn’t allowed to follow a natural course. We have ended up being In A Zoo either way, just currently it appears to be an open one. For now…
(c) K Wicks
MKW Publishing 