A couple of weeks ago, the editor of The Cult Den published an opinion piece of mine. You can find it in two parts, by clicking this link for part one, and this link for part two.
This blog is my reply to David Martin's response The Cult Den is no more, so I'm afraid I don't have his response at the moment. I'll edit and repost a link if I manage to get hold of a copy at some point)
How exciting!! Not only did David Martin read my article about how to take the next step in evolving the internet, but he was moved to write a response! Not only did he write a response, but he sent virtual hugs within it! I'm a very happy Sarah now, I love hugs, virtual or real (although common courtesy suggests that the real life ones are preceded by at least an introduction thank you please!) It also gives me the opportunity to get my pretty purple Notepad out again and let my fingers do the talking.
In a brief exchange of tweets after David's response was announced, I said "I'll be back" and David replied "#hastalevista". Now I'm something of a pedant when it comes to spelling, and I have a basic knowledge of a couple of other languages - enough to know that it's hasta LA vista, because the A at the end of vista tells me it's a feminine word and therefore not preceded by "le". This led me to a Ted Talk about linguistics, which didn't cover masculine and feminine (I didn't expect it to, I had something else in mind) but helped me in a totally unexpected but wonderful way. It's probably advisable to watch this before reading so that everything from here makes sense.
Censorship is a topic of huge debate, whichever way you look at it. Who gets to decide what's good for us? The recent new UK laws regarding the British porn industry is a good case in point. Pretty much all of the newly banned acts involve female pleasure, so I've come to my own conclusions about those who wrote the list.
There's a huge list of banned books too. Who banned them? Why were they banned? Doesn't human nature mean that our curiosity should be piqued sufficiently to go and read everything we can get our hands on? Of course it does, and whilst those books remain almost impossible to find, we can't be bothered to try and dig them out. My current obsession with quantum and metaphysics led me to a podcast with David Yurth. Global Freedom Movement describe him as "...an independent scientist, inventor, patent holder, and general fount of knowledge. Co-developer of the Y-Bias model of physics and cosmology, he has much of value to say on a boggling array of compelling subjects—including no shortage of challenges to the status quo (just what we like around here!)." I love him <3
He's read a lot of books, many of which are "hidden" because either they were banned, or not widely published in the first place. Now he's a "general fount of knowledge" (to which my inner pedant is screaming "It's a font of knowledge!"). You may say "don't believe everything you read", but don't worry, I don't. The things I believe are the ones that quite literally ring true. I can feel it when something is true; I can wrap my head around it, and it resonates with me.
Isn't that interesting language? "Wrap my head around it" - I can fit it into my brain because it makes sense. "Rings True" and "resonates". This brings us right back to metaphysics and vibrations. When something resonates, we can feel that it's right. In my world, it really is as simple as that.
Aldous Huxley's Brave New Word is a new one on me, so I can't give an in depth response about the book itself, but I can point out a very interesting linguistic form of control in the very use of his name. I've heard his name before, but have never known exactly who he was, or what he'd written. To be honest, it usually makes me think of Huxley Pig. You know, the pig who has daydreams - and daydreaming is heartily discouraged and used to be a punishable offence when I was in primary school. Plus, he's a pig.
So my automatic reaction when Aldous Huxley's name is mentioned, is to think of a pig. An animal. Lesser than a human. A human who does that silly, childish thing called day dreaming.
Not an ideal start to get me on the road to reading anything written by the real Huxley is it?
I don't want to go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, I've been there before and it gets tiresome very quickly. My view now is that the books were written in complete innocence, it was a cute idea for a cartoon, and although I've never watched an episode, it probably does teach children good things. It's great that children's minds are very possibly being positively influenced by the cartoons or animations, and I hope that will help towards the greater good that I can't help but talk about.
The problem is the underlying mind control as we grow up in this society. The banning of daydreaming in school time, so that we automatically see it as "a very bad thing".
Let me tell you a little bit more about Sarah. I daydream. A lot. I daydream regularly about one particular person, and he doesn't even know I exist. Quite literally. I'm not talking about someone I've met in real life who "doesn't know I exist" in a metaphorical way because he has no idea I want to do.... He has no idea of my existence, that's all you need to know. Ha!
Daydreaming is good. Trust me, it's the best natural high when you have a particularly good one. I've found myself standing in my living room, singing into an imaginary microphone and imagining the recording studio around me, and the way my co-star looks at me as we're singing together. It was AWESOME!! Who bloody cares if it wasn't real?! I felt real emotions while I was doing that. I was in that studio. He was singing to me and looking into my eyes, and we connected. I went to bed so happy, and I think I even dreamed about him that night. Why wouldn't you want to experience your own high like that? Why are we being taught our whole lives that it's childish and silly and not to do it?
I guess it's so that we don't experience those intense feelings of joy. Joy. Joy is one of my favourite words, and now it's also the name of one of my favourite people! How cool is that? I often say that there's always room for more joy in your life - and now there's an embodiment of joy as well!! While I'm in that joy of the moment, enJOYing my daydream, I have no fear about anything. There are no bills to worry about, I don't feel hungry, I'm not worrying about anything. I'm too busy enJOYing the moment.
It's the same when we watch a band, or a new movie, tv episode, read a new book etc. Entertainment is vitally important. We're living in someone else's mind for a little while when we watch a movie. We're living in our own minds when we read a book, because even though the author wrote the words, it's our imagination that fills with the background. That's why seeing the movie after you've read the book is always a disappointment for at least some people.
When you read that book, your imagination builds the scenery. When a movie is made, other people's imaginary scenery is brought to life. The nuance you put on each conversation is personal to you, so a director's view of the book is more than likely different in many ways to your understanding of the book. Quantum wave theory shows us that there are innumerable possibilities, and although there will be some concentrated overlaps in what actually happens, there are also lots of places where there's no concentration or overlap at all.
I'm getting into yet another rabbit hole now. I need to come back to the point....
David asks: Who is to say what is acceptable and what isn't? What should be included on the main stream internet and what shouldn't?
That's where I need to fill the gaps a bit. "Is it for the greater good?" covers everything. Inventions, discoveries, talents, ad infinitum. However, the emphasis of the article was put as being "Entertainment". That emphasis wasn't mine, it was the editor's. See what I mean about those waves of possibility? Now that the emphasis has been put there, I can answer the question that has arisen.
Entertainment is important, there's no two ways about that, and I've already demonstrated above that's how I feel. Everyone has different things they enjoy, and we all love to be entertained. I think my main question when it comes to entertainment would be "does it cause harm to anyone?" We're all familiar with the "no animals were harmed in the making of this..." but what about people? There are a lot of books, films, music, etc where people are harmed. But was any actual person caused intentional harm in the making of this movie? Was anyone forced to do something against their will in the making of this movie? We need to see the distinction between fact and fiction. Yes, there may have been many people harmed in the story of this movie, but was any actual blood shed? Were any actual arms chopped off or was it CGI? Was anyone actually doing anything against their will, or were they actors who wanted to play this particular part? I'm thinking about the porn industry as much as anything else here. Were all the actors happy with everything their role entailed? Is it something I might enJOY? OK then good, let's have a look!
Certification still needs to come into play, but let's be more open minded about it. Let's certify things according to what we, as good parents, would want our children to see. There would be grey areas where some people think that a movie given a 12 rating is suitable for their 10 year old, but there'd also be parents of 14 year olds who'd rather they didn't see it. That should be where parental control comes in. Most parents do care about their children. We don't need the government to tell us how to do it, because we've been taught how to be good parents by our upbringing - and where that may have failed, our own instincts have kicked in and we've made a conscious decision not to do something that hurt us. Obviously this isn't always the case, but those cases involve harm to a human being, and therefore come in under the two questions above.
The representative members of society are society as a whole. We don't need a room to sit in, we're volunteering on our own time in our own homes. Nobody commutes to this job, and nobody gets paid. It's all done on an ad-hoc basis from our own homes on our own methods of internet surfing. Nobody is chosen for their CV, they're recommended and verified by their own usage. Anyone who tried slipping something vile in would be very quickly spotted, the content removed, and then it's back over at channel 1 for the people who really want to watch it - and maybe a government would then remove it (I don't know, I'm not focusing on Internet 1 any more!)
This is getting really long, so I'll address the other points more briefly (if I can manage it!) "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". I am no more able to deny this than anyone else - we can all see the evidence before us today in very real terms. That's why no one person has absolute power, and why it's of vital importance that this is a community endeavour. The online community, not someone sitting in a seat in an office with a big red button in front of them.
"They are ideas that all fair minded people aspire to" Yes. And that's exactly why all fair minded people are positively encouraged to become part of the community of moderators, and how it's self-regulating and self-perpetuating.
I'll cover religion in it's own post, I have an opinion piece in mind after watching Bill Maher's documentary, Religulous. I have far too much to say on that subject to expand on my views here. (*edit. I've now posted said article Here)
"...the voiceless and marginalised are always down trodden" Agreed, they are, because the system we're currently living under keeps it that way. With channel 2, there would no longer be voiceless folks, because we'd all be thinking "for the good of all".
When something is a "reality", nobody questions it. The sun comes up in the morning, every day. It's an unquestionable fact, and therefore we don't even think about it. I wonder how many doubters would have had something to say about the vision of the internet itself before that was a reality? I do honestly welcome questions about my vision, but I do have the proviso that if you ask questions, you listen to and think about the answers with an open mind. It really is like a parachute!
The problem with trying to explain my view of this, is that it's all-encompassing. I can see that it would work, because I know the positive impact of positive energy. Light and Dark, as mentioned, are very relevant. Martin Luther King Jr. once said "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
We're currently under the control of the Darkness. We're living in fear because we're constantly bombarded with images that stir up fear. ISIS, Ebola, war, racism, child abuse, immigration.... the list goes on and endlessly on. We live in constant fear of things that have been around since time immemorial. The media has brought all of these things to our attention, and yes, they do need attention, I'm not denying that for a second.
The problem is, we're focusing on the wrong things. Instead of focusing on the problems, we need to be focusing on the solutions. We need to be doing something about them, getting rid of the problem at it's root. We have the answers to all of those problems. Very clever people all over the world are coming up with incredible ideas and putting them into action. School girls in Nigeria have invented a urine powered generator - water powered generators of all kinds could revolutionise power generation. That's one problem that has a solution. This boy's daydreaming brought him to a solution for his Grandad's wandering due to Alzheimers.
I promise you, there's a solution to every problem we're facing in the world today, because someone who's suffering the problem has daydreamed their way to a solution. That's why we need to daydream, and why we need to change our way of thinking. The video I linked at the top of this article mentions "theft of ideas". We need to stop thinking of it as theft, and go back to thinking of it as "sharing of knowledge". Nikola Tesla was an incredible inventor, but ridiculed in his time. Tesla have recently shared their knowledge so that any car manufacturer in the world can produce a car based on their technology - which is much better for the environment than petrol and diesel cars. Imagine the possibilities if all the good ideas were shared in one place...
Have a problem? Find a solution - and if you can't daydream one up, Google it, on Internet Channel 2!
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