Keeping Fear Alive

Manipulating people's emotions thru the big five which are: fear, hate, greed, false pride and blind loyalty is the heart of the propaganda business. It's easy to bring out the worst in people using these base emotions and this kind of pro...paganda can usually get people to believe and/or do anything once they succumb. There's that famous insight by Herman Goering to the effect that "it works like this in any country.... you can get the people to go to war (even though they don't want to) if you just tell them they are being attacked." And Edmund Burke had a good quote that "Nothing so effectively robs the mind of its ability to think or act as fear."

Con artists are masters of using greed to dupe their victims. Almost all frauds depend on the effective use of greed.

And the social psychologists Soloman Asch (line test) and Stanley Milgram (electric voltage test) showed how a high percentage (usually about 2/3s) of all people have such deeply rooted need to conform so as to be accepted by others which entails obedience to authority. Asch's social psychology experiments in the 1950s termed it "gestalt" (group think) and attributed a lot of the "good German" behavior to this kind of false pride and blind loyalty.

Original music from Ysabella Brave

Not only a great performer of classics but also original music... A YouTube media star.

Ysabella Brave

You can always spot star quality. This girl has it all: personality, talent and very pleasant on the eye.

Bin Laden Outtake - Is this a fake?

RFID for humans!

I'm glad the US is actually banning something . The California state Senate has approved legislation to bar employers from forcing workers to have RFID chips implanted under their skin. (Well, Duh!)

RFID tags have been used for years to identify pets, track inventory and more recently in contactless smartcards and other ID systems. State Senator Joe Simitian proposed the bill after RFID developer VeriChip was licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration to sell implanted identification devices. Simitian said that, so far, about 2,000 people have had VeriChip's devices implanted. "RFID is a minor miracle, with all sorts of good uses," said Simitian. "But we should not condone forced 'tagging' of humans. It is the ultimate invasion of privacy."

Some people actually want to be implanted though. Think of all those benefits like switching lights on and off automatically? (Seriously some people do think that's a great idea!)

Of course this issue is a central plot theme to SAURIA. Have you checked out my book at all? ;-)

Skyscraper Safety

Surely 9/11 is the biggest event in modern times not only politically but also for science, reason and engineering! Why can't we have a large scale and RATIONAL debate with ALL the facts? Why can't we have independent analysts investigate the Twin Tower (and WTC7) collapses? If skyscrapers are so likely to explode if there is a fire then shouldn't we stop going inside anything more than 10 stories high? How can engineers ever convince us that they are safe? WTC7 - a 48 story building with minor structural damage and a light fire exploded and collapsed in 7 seconds!!! Surely either a) ALL BUILDINGS OF SUCH HEIGHT ARE UNSAFE or b) THE BUILDING WAS DEMOLISHED WITH EXPLOSIVES - either way this is crucial information and must be investigated.

WTC, NY, USA, Planet Zog

The illusion of the mind to create the effect of space and objects in front of us is profound and almost impossible to move away from. However, assuming the model perceived by my senses is some way an accurate reflection of "reality". And assuming that "New York" exists as recalled by from previous mental models of that environment. And that my memory retains two previous states of that environment: One with the twin towers and one without. Then I have to ponder exactly what changed the model from one state to another?

My experience with the substance known as "Steel" is passive. It appears to be immensively strong and not known to spontaneously collapse and melt (melting point of steel is 1800 degrees C) even when hit very hard or heated to 600 degrees C (max temperature of an open fire which is less than the temperature of a gas hob). Yet apparently on certain planets, for example on "Planet Zog", steel is all wibbly-wobbly and spontaneously melts when hit very sharply with a Boeing 767.