To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).
1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty".
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."
"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
"Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong — but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong."
"Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow."
"A rational anarchist believes that concepts, such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame ... as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world ... aware that his efforts will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."
"A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased — he hates all creative people equally."
"All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function."
"Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor."
"The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens." - William Graham Summer
In the beginning there was nothing, and nothing happened to nothing, until nothing exploded, and created everything. Then, the nothing that became everything rearranged itself for no reason into self-replicating complex life forms, that became intelligent beings that believed in God.
The sheer magnitude and complex web of deceit surrounding the individuals and organizations involved in this conspiracy is mind boggling, even for the most astute among us. Most people react with disbelief and skepticism towards the topic, unaware that they have been conditioned (brainwashed) to react with skepticism by institutional and media influences that were created by the Mother of All mind control organizations: The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. Author and de-programmer Fritz Springmeier (The Top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines ) says that most people have built in "slides" that short circuit the mind's critical examination process when it comes to certain sensitive topics. "Slides", Springmeier reports, is a CIA term for a conditioned type of response which dead ends a person's thinking and terminates debate or examination of the topic at hand. For example, the mention of the word "conspiracy" often solicits a slide response with many people.
"When police confront you, they will attempt to incite you; any verbal offense, any instinctual reaction generated by their trained in-your-face confrontation is construed as an assault by YOU."
This is a link to the song Sons of Thunder by the band Sleeping Giant. The lyrics are posted underneath.
I'm sharing this because it's my new favourite song, I've listened to it every day for the last week.
If this makes me corny, I'm extra corny with a side of corn.
You've heard it been said "Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth." But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek tell them to hit the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let them have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with them two. Give to the one who asks and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You've heard that it was said "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven.
This conflict burns in my veins, I feel injustice surround, stopping my movement in hope The stinging words of the crowd, they speak of me like I've lost my mind, like I am some kind of joke I see the enemies rage, I hear the sickening voice taunt, I feel his wicked eyes shine Simply no longer afraid, I throw my head back and laugh, and take a drink of new wine The fight is over your souls
Sons of Thunder Calling the fire down Burning with hope Sons of Thunder
My only weapon is truth, hatred's more powerful or so it would seem, sapping my belief in all the things you've shown in the secret My friends and family just scream, angry at you and they cry out to me They speak sincere unbelief and inside them they meant it
Sons of Thunder Calling the fire down Burning with hope Sons of Thunder
Overcome this world with love
Is there no one who understands, has everyone turned aside, is anyone listening, someone hear me Does anyone understand, has everyone turned their own way, Father help me, return!
In that moment I have felt my life slip from my hands Becoming heaven's weapon In that instant felt your spirit enter mortal man See you at Armageddon Bringing me home.
Am I the only one that gets pissed off when going for a handshake, and the other party latches onto your hand in such a way that YOU are left in the position of having the less than optimal handshake?
Motherfucker.
Wait for my the inside of my thumb to hit the inside of your thumb before you close your grip.
Worst of all though...
People who force a shit handshake on you, then squeeze the fuck out of your hand as though to rub in the fact.
The only reason we're having this shitty handshake is because you pincer-clawed me early, don't try and blame me with all that muscle flexing down your forearm.
In December 1976, two days before "Smile Jamaica", a free concert organized by the Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley in an attempt to ease tension between two warring political groups, Marley, his wife, and manager Don Taylor were wounded in an assault by unknown gunmen inside Marley's home. Taylor and Marley's wife sustained serious injuries, but later made full recoveries. Bob Marley received minor wounds in the chest and arm. The shooting was thought to have been politically motivated, as many felt the concert was really a support rally for Manley. Nonetheless, the concert proceeded, and an injured Marley performed as scheduled, two days after the attempt. When asked why, Marley responded, "the people who are trying to make this world worse aren’t taking a day off. How can I?"
Last night, at 1:30 in the morning, me, an old female friend, and two guys she knew had the benefit of being on the receiving end of a pair of brand new cops flexing their newfound power.
Or hey, maybe they were "just doing their jobs".
Yeah, right.
Winding up at the end of my going away dinner/mini-party on Monday night in Wellington, just the awesome couple whose couch I was crashing on, and the longstayer girl I was shooting shit with, all in a little house on the very edge of the inner-city.
That girl ducked just outside to catch up with another friend who was going away the same night, and as I later found out, would be at Wellington airport at the same ridiculously early hour as me, but going to another part of Australia.
A few minutes later I step outside onto the street to say goodnight to her as I'm about to hit the couch, and shock-motherfucking-horror, I do so with about a half of a Kingfisher beer in my right hand.
Yeah, you can guess where it goes from here.
I'll elaborate further when I can be fucked, it's a saga of bullshit that follows. I think a "letter to the editor" is seriously in order.
P.S. As I write this, I'm sitting in Sydney airport, my connecting flight having been delayed, and my exhaustion threatening to take over completely. FUCK YEAH!!HH!H!HA
Just because we can do a thing, does not mean we should.
Simply because science opens up new avenues and pathways, does not mean we ought to walk them. There are some things best left alone, but I won't go giving you a complete list of my personal "do and don't list" of science.
There are a few points I will touch on though.
We have the means to engulf our world in flames, to destroy this fragile planet many, many times over. Paranoia has driven competing nations to manufacture and stockpile thousands upon thousands of these weapons.
At times all that has kept our species from pouring untold destruction onto our neighbours is the knowledge that they could push their own little red button before the fire fell from the sky. The only thing keeping us from wreaking untold destruction, is mutually assured destruction.
There is no black and white, life or death barrier keeping us from pushing the boundaries in other areas though. That enormous gray area known as morality.
"Why not?"
That seems to be the catchall reasoning for pursuing every questionable area of research. It can be put more eloquently than that, but what it boils down to is simply this.
The first question instead needs to be.
"Why?"
Why not clone humans? Why clone humans?
This topic gets my goat something chronic. Put aside all the broad moral reasons why we should avoid this as a species, and consider instead the individual.
Imagine BEING that first cloned child, the first cloned human being. Imagine having all that celebrity and fame (or infamy) thrust upon you from the moment you were "conceived". Imagine finding out what you are, and having to deal with this horrifying fact.
"The programmed reproduction of man will, in fact, dehumanize him." - Leon Kass
Discovering a sense of self is already hard enough in this increasingly homogenous world, without the added weight of being some cunt's copy/paste experiment. I am quite sure that there are enough human beings feeding off of this planet, that we don't need to start cloning more.
My Jerry Springer final thought...
Why do we have so much fear of death, yet so little reverence for life?
It's time to leave the safety of the farm and venture out into the big hostile world again.
Think positive thoughts.
Things will go well, I'll get a good job, "And live large. A big house. Five cars, you're in charge. Comin' up in the world. Don't trust nobody got to look over your shoulder constantly."
Love brought me to the door, hate kicked it down I no longer need to breathe smoke and spit fire I no longer need to stoke my funeral pyre A deal with the devil, my fingers crossed He's too busy gloating, thinks I've already lost
Pats me on the shoulder, smirks as he dies I chopped him in half, the beginning of our new lives You can look me in the eyes now love, you can trust what you see As all that's left now, is the very fucking best of me Can you please, please, please forgive me.
BE A GOOD CUNT!!!!!!
"Albi the racist dragon" loves you all so very, very much
Hang out with them goddamnit. Don't run with a spankbottom manboy crew for your entire youth.
Talk to your friends parents when you're at their house, and when you bump into them in the street, say hi to your teachers if you see them out and about, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
It was one of the best things I could ever do to work for a year in a suburban sports bar.
The men there were dicks, they were rude, they argued with me, they scowled at me, they felt like shit after crossing the line from time to time, they thought about what they said after they said it, and they most definitely pushed my limits, goddommot fronk.
ADD/ADHD = Being children but their parents can't handle the fucking jandle SAD = Lamest acronym ever + not being a flatliner Depressed = Incapable of smiling cluelessly through the lies and bullshit Three Strikes = You're out NRA = Guys (and gals) with guns, that's all FCASTUHXC/XXAGV/XAGSAHGX/AXFASBHA = Too many letters, self important bullshit.
And most important of all
BALLS = WE FUCKING HAVE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When you look upon the world from an extreme viewpoint, it is going to look extremely fucked up. If you look upon the world from a plain old honest viewpoint, it just looks plain old fucked up.
I did one night in Q-town, and it was ruined 3/4 through when I brought the same bullshit little boy mindset from Canberra-central out to a good friends 21st, and when the being really wasted came on, I did in bro-town as one would do in Rome.
What a fool.
Thinking about that night still devastates me, for two reasons.
1. That I was stupid enough to think that your average Australian woman could hear me refer to her awesome uncle as a "good cunt" without shrieking like a fucking banshee for a couple of her pet boy-men to turn on me. 2. That I left my balls there, sitting on the ground, about 30 minutes following, and getting pissed off at the coolest man conversation I had in that entire country, when a clever man told me that I was carrying a head full of shit.
What a big little boy I was. I apologise profusely to Willy's end of night crew.
If we want to resolve this "evil" shit, don't try to punish rotten hearted men by blowing up women and children that they give the merest of a fuck about.
Go into each village, town and city, and have the good women pick out the rotten men who need to be thrown into a hole.
Start over.
"Motherfucker, I'll watch you buuuuuuuuuuuuuurn." The Bronx - History's Stranglers
I decided to take the names out of my last entries, I'll reserve judgement for a little while longer. There are three guys in particular who I've not ever seen front up to their shit. Have a word with me, online or face to face. If you think you're one of these three guys or are afraid I've seen filth with you as well, don't be a stranger.
I can't assume that these three read my blog, but if noone cares about them enough to get word to them then, they'll be named.
Gisborne Boys High School is the microcosm/little thing that represents the big thing of a national problem.
A ruthless pecking order was (is still?) retained for the purposes of, what, producing men?
Have we considered the kind of man, though.
That is one stage in growing up, finding and flexing your nuts. We can easily forget that we need to evolve day to day to day to day to day to ad infinitum.
Forget to take our heads out of our arses, basically.
The slips doled out upon having stood up to the domineering father-figures (the particular teachers I'm talking about would know who they are) that were meant to guide us, or getting in a fight with one of our classmates, you know, childish stuff.
This only taught our teenage and adolescent minds that doing this was how you got into bro-town, and the respect of our peers, some of them at least.
This mindset is clearly unhealthy, leading to the 200 person parties ending in a near riot at the back, causing untold hassle for the police. People doing wrestling moves on each other in class as jokes, for no good reason, and no doubt even more extreme idiocy that I never personally experienced.
These were the mark of our graduating years, late 90s to early 00s by my count. If I missed out your year, but you insist that you're staunch too, well con-gratu-fucking-lations.
I remember getting my first Friday after school detention, and it being double-take time for the outdoor assembly when goody-ten-shoes me had to stand and be acknowledged.
Instant degree of a silly sort of notoriety.
I look at my friends, and by extension all the men in Gisborne of quarter-life-crisis having age.
We have all this reckless pride, but wasted it, and some of us continue to waste it, on jousting with each other and hoping that someone was watching.
While we're so occupied, butting heads with headbutters, the villians slipped past us, to our women and children.
What are we doing to ourselves?
Wake up New Zealand.
THAT was the message in Once Were Warriors. (a review)
You idiots!!11141ONE112!@3$#
P.S. Now a girl write up the female version of this.
P.P.S I wanna give a shout-out to Ray-Ray and Big Steve
