The Minds of Men | Official Documentary by Aaron & Melissa Dykes
A rather exhaustive documentary on the MKUltra program. The link leads to a timestamp later in the video that offers a decent summary. It “feels” like all that research went nowhere, but you can be sure there were things discovered about the mind that is actively being used today. We’ll never know the extent of anything since most of the records were destroyed.
The Century of the Self – Part 1: “Happiness Machines”
Closely related to the above. One of the big takeaways: advertising is a form of “long hypnosis” (my term), where it creates a dynamic social latticing to which people, as that seek group acceptance by default, will automatically want to conform.
Barbie Savior (@barbiesavior) • Instagram photos and videos
An offshoot of the hipster Barbie account. The weird thing with both accounts, is if you used real people, it wouldn’t appear as obvious satire.
How Social Darwinism Made Modern China
I have nothing to add here. Ijust thought the article was interesting.
Why First-Born Children Are Better Leaders
This would explain why I don’t have leadership qualities, being a distant last-born. Though, this idea is coming from experts, and experts are often wrong or intentionally full of it.
Ghada Chehade: Cosmology Crisis 2021 | Thunderbolts
Plainly-spoken explanation on the state of modern science and cosmology; these can sometimes be too technical. As I’ve said before, I have no personal stake in whether currently-accepted cosmological theories are correct or not. I’m just here for the light show, and it would be admittedly a little fun to hear some of those ideas were wrong all this time.
Black Widow: An Unbridled Catastrophe
Black Widow is a mess of a movie. This review is probably much more entertaining, and it’s nearly double the run time. I’ve never heard a worse motivation for a villain, with no build up or logical tie-in: there’s too many girls. Come on, writers!
Secret Files on The Eye of The Sahara & The Lost Ancient City of Atlantis | Richat Structure Africa
Interesting video, but those files are nowhere near “secret” if the files are declassified. The files are “declassified”—literally the opposite of “secret,” but I guess you could say they were secret for a while?
Signs of the Swarm – “Lost Within Reflection” (Official Music Video)
Mute this video if you dislike metal, because the visuals are what were interesting, especially for one mostly composed of concert footage. My favorite is still Periphery’s “The Way the News Goes,” which has an opposite aesthetic to this Signs of the Swarm video.
How The Immune System ACTUALLY Works – IMMUNE
Excellent video. Some of the impression is the drama in the visuals, but what a different and brutish universe the human body’s interior can be.
Clueless White Guy Orders in Perfect Chinese, Shocks Patrons and Staff
Something about the way this dudes frames his schtick is really obnoxious, but it is impressive. Far east languages are essentially a world apart from European ones. I don’t know how much longevity the same type of content could possibly have, but that’s for career YouTubers like this guy to figure out.
Christianity is not “the tradition of the elders”
There’s more to it than this, obviously, but even a surface reading of the gospels reveals that the kind of religion Jesus was offering—or more accurately, hearkening back to—parasangs away from the orthodoxy of His time.
4 Comments
I may want to see the MKUltra documentary, but I’ve already learned that it was the dumping ground for a lot of curiosities. That is, it was the excuse for all kinds of really nasty stuff, and only the vague appearance of actual science. It’s no surprise it was all covered up. However, the really useful stuff had to be divorced from any origins in MKUltra by policy. From our perspective today, it simply shows the utter depravity of government officials.
First born as leaders: the Atlantic offers common psychology theory with a very poor explanation. For example, all of my siblings went their own path, neither leading nor following, except me. As second born, I ended up leading because everyone kept following. I still have no real interest in leading anyone, but people keep following. But I think the more orthodox position is that the first born lead because they keep getting saddled with it by their parents, who are looking for a break in child rearing.
The Immune series is good stuff.
The vast difference between Judaism and OT Religion is one of the few things Vox gets right, but it’s also one of the best kept secrets in Bible History studies. Lots of seminarians know it, but almost nobody in the pews seems to understand, nor will they readily accept it when you try to tell them. It’s politically incorrect. We can thank folks like John R. Rice, who stood on the shoulders of Scofield, and pushed that crap right after WW2. It changed everything. Evangelicals went from not even having American flags in their churches to being super patriots/pro-Israel fanatics.
The MKUltra doc was interesting, if a bit dramatic. There were some spots where I wasn’t sure if narrators were reading actual quotes from people who played a part, or were dramatizing some things. That’s minor, though. There’s just a lot of information and connections to documents and track, which is why it’s nearly 4 hours.
I want to ask some religious scholar types that I’ve come across in real life about that idea, re: the pre-Evangelical view of things, but I would have to track them down. We’ll see.
The interesting thing about the cosmology video is she’s pointing out fairly common human behavior when suffering from cognitive dissonance. They double down and make excuses and repeat them as though that will make them true. Seeing a lot of that right now in the media re Covid. I thought about writing a post about this phenomenon and Covid the other day, but I honestly feel tired and burnt out. So maybe will, maybe won’t.
Goalpost moving, yes. But maybe other things.
It’s been a few days. Surely you feel well enough to post about the thing-which-shall-not-be-named?