ZEITGEIST, The Movie

[Nick227]

Yes, that's what he said. I said that MDMA was as much the cause of death as water intoxication, i.e. both were factors, which I feel was a reasonable representation of the coroner's conclusion.

It's OT, but just for the record...
I don't have the actual inquest report, so I don't know what the primary cause of death was put down to. However, if anyone is to blame it would seem to me to be the government drug's agency that was, at the time, telling people that they have to drink a lot of water if they use E. It seems reasonable to assume that this was the motivation for Leah to consume 7 pints in 90 mins, according to the Wikipedia entry, and according to the coroner this killed her.

Please note that I'm not suggesting that the Home Office Drugs Unit were involved in a conspiracy to defame Ecstasy through giving out false information to the public.

We're getting way OT, so I'd like to leave it there.

Nick

 

[GreNME]

Hi GreNME,

Again, I see I am failing to clearly articulate my point. I apologise.

No, you're not failing to articulate. You are failing to accept that your conclusion may not be the only one that can be drawn. I shall explain.

I'm not talking so much about the "struggle for individuation" that individual media organisations might face or go through, rather pointing out that there is a basic level of evidence that the mass media is under centralised, discreet control. What you're asserting, if I understand it correctly, is subtly different though certainly related.

No, it isn't some need for a sea of individuals that I'm talking about. I'm talking about control and the lack of any one person, group, or 'interest' to be able to assert such control. The medium and players are changing too much. Logistically, it simply isn't possible for any such thing to happen, especially in a currently-evolving media.

What would you think to the possibility that Chief Execs and Editors of all major mass media could be members of an organisation who might meet occasionally and maintain discreet networking connections? Possible, likely, inconceivable, ridiculous?

Do you understand you are describing normal business associations? Other than that, your insinuations are vague. Companies of all sorts have inter-networking connections. Companies that serve the same field in the same market often have agreements between them, to ensure competition and to avoid monopolistic practices. Pepsi-Coke, Intel-AMD, Chevrolet-Ford-GM, Microsoft-Apple, and so on. Many companies have direct-line numbers and mailing addresses to their contemporaries in competing companies in the larger corporate world. That's the way it works. All the "hold your cards close and don't disclose" stuff is the bread and butter of the smaller companies, because they have a lot more riding on a lot fewer things than the larger companies. But do I think they all belong to one large, uber-organization? Nope. No evidence to suggest it outside of misreading the relationships I just described.

As mentioned above, I'm not talking so much about direct, corporate control, rather subtle, behind-the-scenes control. It seems to me that there is some evidence to suggest this could be present.

No, there really isn't. It looks like evidence until you actually look into what takes place in these relationships, and find out that they mostly exist to keep competition in the fields these companies serve. The relationships are definitely mutually beneficial for the companies involved, but not in the way you seem to be implying.

I certainly don't have the confidence you appear to have that the application can't be made to work. For sure, your knowledge of the engineering principles involved could well exceed mine.

Calling it "engineering" is giving it too much credit. I can crack RFID myself, and I don't qualify as an "engineer" in any sense. People way smarter and more skilled than I am have been pointing out the clay feet of this technology for a long time. Some of these people have been pointing this out directly to military and governments during this time.

You mean it couldn't be enforced because you couldn't stop counterfeiting?

No, counterfeiting is just one small part of it. It can't be enforced because there is no way to consistently or confidently use the technology for tracking. Have a tracker implanted in your right buttock-- wearing faraday-lined undies immediately makes the implant useless. Windows, walls, clothing, paint... all of these things either already exist right now or are ready to be put into existence that pretty much make such attempts to use the technology an empty gesture. There are companies out there that already use these signal-blocking materials and techniques to secure installations from everything ranging from wi-fi signals to cellular signals to AM/FM radio frequencies. There already exist materials that are no different in appearance and installation of window tint for your automobile that block these things outright.

It can't be enforced because it's physically impossible to enforce.

I don't know that it's really several decades, per se. For sure the more biblically inclined CT has made much of the 666 thing. I'm not quite sure about the prophecies thing, but I think that if one were to consider what an immediately pre-1984 Orwellian society might look like, it mightn't be so far from our world today.

No, it's been several decades, at least. I can assure you of this. The earliest I saw it-- the worrying about tracking implants-- was around the early 1980's. Ironically, you invoke Orwell, but you seem to ignore that Orwell was using elements of existing debates during the time he wrote the book for many aspects of his framework. Do you think Orwell's material sprung whole from nothingness?

Well, I hope I'm not merely acting out an underdog trip. It does genuinely concern me that these things could be real. And I simply find it makes me feel more at ease to inform people. I'm not courting ridicule. It's just that, in the scale of things I make in my head, I'd rather people knew and suspected I was a bit mad or over-the-top than people didn't know and it happened.

Oh, there's nothing 'merely' about wanting to play the role of the underdog. You were the one speaking of social archetypes just a couple pages back. Surely you aren't convinced that those same archetypes don't apply to your own perceptions of the world and yourself. You're just as human as the rest of us, you know. No shame in that.

However, I don't think what you are describing here is a case of people not seeing, so much as it is a case of you interpreting what you see differently.

I can't really see where the disdain bit is coming from. I think most people keep a front up but underneath there's a lot of concern about what's really going on in our world. There's a lot of insecurity because, finally, a part of us suspects that we are just being fed information from a remarkably small number of sources. And there are these occasional outbursts of quite inconsistent behaviour in the media and government.

People trust "the media" about as much as they trust government, in general. However, this (lack of) trust is not dependent on having a full feed of information flowing from as many sources as possible, attempting to connect all the dots into a unified theorem. That is the difference in your interpretation that you are experience. You are implying that there are connecting aspects to all of this, while most of the public writes these things off as attempts at sensationalism from dubious sources to begin with. It's one of the reasons Sam Clemens considered politics and religion something that is not discussed in "polite conversation."

Zeitgeist holds its Top 5 position on Google Video, I submit, precisely because of this. Deep down, people are becoming more and more concerned about the media, corporations, the government. On a superficial level we/they maintain face, but underneath...people are very open to a fresh perspective. This is not because of some inherent lack or failure on their behalf, rather it's human nature to try and fill the gap they sometimes perceive in their awareness.

This is another inference you are making that is nothing new. People aren't just now becoming distrustful of every last little thing they hear. People have been skeptical of politicians and talking heads for decades. What you are seeing is the population in general coming out of several years of being afraid after an attack that shook Western civilization as a reminder that there do exist groups out there who are so full of anger and hate that they will kill even innocent civilians to try to make a point. The public, as a whole, is now shifting to a mentality that this is not going to mean that they will submit to anything an authority might suggest simply because they suggest it. The US government in particular is beginning to also be considered comparable to the stories of the boy who cried wolf, and their tendency to be secretive is beginning to count against them. People in general prefer and demand a certain level of transparency, and as it becomes clear that they won't get that transparency they become resistant. This attitude is what was the downfall of Nixon in the 1970's, and why John Kennedy managed to win the presidency over his opponent (which was Nixon).

What you are seeing is not a new phenomenon, but rather an extension or perhaps an echo of a general public attitude that has endured for a very long time.

 

[Nick227]

Hey Nick.

I find it interesting that you at least acknowledge that your views may be held up to ridicule and you're concerned that people are and will continue to, question your sanity and reason.

Well, I've been around the scene for the best part of a decade now, though by no means so active for all this time. I also did a lot of therapy stuff and I'm used to being in rooms of people all going crazy and screaming ****. People are welcome to question my sanity. DSMIV, I'm cool with it.

Remember that Ferrari scenario I posted last week ? I had a sneaking suspicion that you might be nuts and value your beliefs over "what's real" and also, I'd just finished reading Blueprint For a Prison Planet.

Wow, you read that! I'm impressed. I don't think I've read it for a good 5 years. I get embarrassed with my prose, the syntax, the articulation. I start to read it occasionally and it's like What, did I write that!?

Compare and contrast your attitude with a local CTer who's taken Zeitgeist to heart ( among other things ) and is so convinced that we're heading towards a society like the one you describe in Blueprint that he's identifying and expanding on ANY idea in the popular press that can be used to back up his beliefs in the nwo idea.

Thing is...he's not open for discussion on these ideas.

Here's a for instance. In North America, we're currently dealing with a ( albeit rather questionable ) government/corporate institution called the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which local CT guy is convinced is a big step in the whole NWO direction and goes so far as to quote the mention of using biometrics on the official SPP website as being "proof" of microchipping..yadayada. Problem is...when I pointed out the difference between biometrics and microchipping he responded with a know it all " that's just what they want you to believe ) and when I pointed out the drawbacks to RFID technology,,,he responded by telling me about " ones with a range of 2000 miles that they haven't told you ( meaning me ) about"

Focusing in on one specific part of Blueprint, the one where you envision a cashless society I can't say that I agree. I'm an independent street artist who only deals in cash and this makes me highly sensitive to people carrying cash issues, and I've got to say that since the date of publication of Blueprint, I noticed an increase in the amount of cash machines available to the general public.

Yes, I think there's probably a whole heap of stuff in there that hasn't exactly completely manifested.

The thing is.....you checked! This is good. If people read about the microchipping thing, it doesn't matter so much to me what their reaction is. The thing is...they remember it. Now, if at some time in the future it should just so happen that this whole microchipping thing comes more to the fore, then a load of extra guys are going to say to themselves - whoa, wait a minute, didn't this crazy guy back in '99 say this **** was going to happen? Maybe I should check deeper.

Every hotel, every tourist attraction, most restaurants, most grocery stores, have cash machines and if there truly was a plan afoot for "them" to restrict the use of cash, then how can you explain this obvious increase in cash machines?

People like cash. I do. I trust cash more than I trust cards. Seems fair enough to me. I notice that, here in the UK, the oil companies via petrol stations are increasingly not taking cheques, though.

We had the Madeleine McCann story over here in Canada, briefly, but the only reason we did was because it was so highly unusual like the Australian story of the couple who's daughter was " abducted by dingos" YOU may be getting the message that English children aren't safe and may see the guy who's marketing RFID technology to paranoid parents as being part of a greater plan, but most people do not.

That's true. But just in the extreme off-chance that one day in the future there might suddenly manifest a whole heap of compelling reasons to get your kids chipped, well, forewarned is forearmed.

Nick

We see a sensational story involving a cute little girl who disappeared under mysterious circumstances and a guy who'd looking to make a buck off the story.

Why...a few minutes with the google proved to me that, in the UK child abduction by stranger is statistically not much of a problem. Why would "they" allow this information to be published ? Or more correctly, why would "they" publish it in the first place. You think they'd at least embellish it, at least by am order of magnitude (or two) just to get "their" point across.

Don't get me wrong here Nick, I don't want to see an "Orwellian" society any more than you do but when you were reading 1984 didn't you find yourself wondering just how many people it would actually take ( as expressed as a percentage of the population ) to make a society like the one portrayed in 1984 to actually be what it was. I mean, when it comes right down to it, it would take a majority of the population to actively "watch" the minority.

1984 was written as fiction, and I took the licence you granted me in the intro paragraph of Blueprint to read it in the same way.

 

[Nick227]

No, it isn't some need for a sea of individuals that I'm talking about. I'm talking about control and the lack of any one person, group, or 'interest' to be able to assert such control. The medium and players are changing too much. Logistically, it simply isn't possible for any such thing to happen, especially in a currently-evolving media.

Hi GreNME,

You're saying that it wouldn't be possible to create the image of diversity and still retain a critical level of centralised control? I don't think it's necessarily such a hard thing to achieve at all.

Do you understand you are describing normal business associations? Other than that, your insinuations are vague. Companies of all sorts have inter-networking connections. Companies that serve the same field in the same market often have agreements between them, to ensure competition and to avoid monopolistic practices. Pepsi-Coke, Intel-AMD, Chevrolet-Ford-GM, Microsoft-Apple, and so on. Many companies have direct-line numbers and mailing addresses to their contemporaries in competing companies in the larger corporate world. That's the way it works. All the "hold your cards close and don't disclose" stuff is the bread and butter of the smaller companies, because they have a lot more riding on a lot fewer things than the larger companies. But do I think they all belong to one large, uber-organization? Nope. No evidence to suggest it outside of misreading the relationships I just described.

Sure, and now we have Sarbannes Oxley, we have iso9001 qc'ing management paper trails back to the boardroom. It's great. But you know what? I don't see so much of that activity going on in media-world. For sure, those guys aren't manufacturing stuff, per se. But they have the power to manufacture opinion, to manufacture consent. That's a power I don't want to see abused. Who's investigating anti-trust at the apex of media? The potential for abuse is clear and massive.

No, there really isn't. It looks like evidence until you actually look into what takes place in these relationships, and find out that they mostly exist to keep competition in the fields these companies serve. The relationships are definitely mutually beneficial for the companies involved, but not in the way you seem to be implying.

Calling it "engineering" is giving it too much credit. I can crack RFID myself, and I don't qualify as an "engineer" in any sense. People way smarter and more skilled than I am have been pointing out the clay feet of this technology for a long time. Some of these people have been pointing this out directly to military and governments during this time.

Fair enough. I'm relieved to hear it.

No, counterfeiting is just one small part of it. It can't be enforced because there is no way to consistently or confidently use the technology for tracking. Have a tracker implanted in your right buttock-- wearing faraday-lined undies immediately makes the implant useless. Windows, walls, clothing, paint... all of these things either already exist right now or are ready to be put into existence that pretty much make such attempts to use the technology an empty gesture. There are companies out there that already use these signal-blocking materials and techniques to secure installations from everything ranging from wi-fi signals to cellular signals to AM/FM radio frequencies. There already exist materials that are no different in appearance and installation of window tint for your automobile that block these things outright.

And, longer term, if you had ID and financial data on the chip?

No, it's been several decades, at least. I can assure you of this. The earliest I saw it-- the worrying about tracking implants-- was around the early 1980's. Ironically, you invoke Orwell, but you seem to ignore that Orwell was using elements of existing debates during the time he wrote the book for many aspects of his framework. Do you think Orwell's material sprung whole from nothingness?



Oh, there's nothing 'merely' about wanting to play the role of the underdog. You were the one speaking of social archetypes just a couple pages back. Surely you aren't convinced that those same archetypes don't apply to your own perceptions of the world and yourself. You're just as human as the rest of us, you know. No shame in that.

For sure. I have my own patterns of attraction and needs. I actually got totally into therapy stuff after my own CT phase years back. I wanted to know the truth. These days...I remain concerned. I don't experience a deep psychological need to believe or not believe. I remain concerned. Like the sufi's have it - Trust in God, (and tether your camel!).

I actually wrote about some of the interplay between psychological stereotypes in the CT field a couple of weeks back. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61402&page=5 post 190, if you're interested.

People trust "the media" about as much as they trust government, in general. However, this (lack of) trust is not dependent on having a full feed of information flowing from as many sources as possible, attempting to connect all the dots into a unified theorem. That is the difference in your interpretation that you are experience. You are implying that there are connecting aspects to all of this, while most of the public writes these things off as attempts at sensationalism from dubious sources to begin with. It's one of the reasons Sam Clemens considered politics and religion something that is not discussed in "polite conversation."

I'd agree with him!

This is another inference you are making that is nothing new. People aren't just now becoming distrustful of every last little thing they hear. People have been skeptical of politicians and talking heads for decades. What you are seeing is the population in general coming out of several years of being afraid after an attack that shook Western civilization as a reminder that there do exist groups out there who are so full of anger and hate that they will kill even innocent civilians to try to make a point. The public, as a whole, is now shifting to a mentality that this is not going to mean that they will submit to anything an authority might suggest simply because they suggest it. The US government in particular is beginning to also be considered comparable to the stories of the boy who cried wolf, and their tendency to be secretive is beginning to count against them. People in general prefer and demand a certain level of transparency, and as it becomes clear that they won't get that transparency they become resistant. This attitude is what was the downfall of Nixon in the 1970's, and why John Kennedy managed to win the presidency over his opponent (which was Nixon).

What you are seeing is not a new phenomenon, but rather an extension or perhaps an echo of a general public attitude that has endured for a very long time.

I remain concerned. I'm concerned about the Leah Betts case. I'm concerned about Cassini. I'm concerned about ibogaine. I'm concerned about CIA complicity in the global drug trade. I'm concerned about this face that pokes out from behind the mask of media diversity every once in a while. These were my life experiences of witnessing government and media saying one thing and doing quite another. I remain concerned.

Nick

 

[GreNME]

Hi GreNME,

You're saying that it wouldn't be possible to create the image of diversity and still retain a critical level of centralised control? I don't think it's necessarily such a hard thing to achieve at all.

Then why don't you do it? Taking into account the last seven years of change in media types, access, and bandwidth allocation (radio, television, print, and internet bandwidth), if you truly think it's so easy to do, you have a premonitional advantage that even the most resource-rich company does not have.

What I'm saying is: all of that is easy to say if all you are going on is a hind-sight view of the past and not considering the haphazard way our lines of communication keep constantly changing.

Sure, and now we have Sarbannes Oxley, we have iso9001 qc'ing management paper trails back to the boardroom. It's great. But you know what? I don't see so much of that activity going on in media-world. For sure, those guys aren't manufacturing stuff, per se. But they have the power to manufacture opinion, to manufacture consent. That's a power I don't want to see abused. Who's investigating anti-trust at the apex of media? The potential for abuse is clear and massive.

You sound more like your fear is the fear of the mob. I think you are attributing to some clandestine collective the ability to manipulate mob opinion in a way that the mob has never historically needed help with. This little bug in how large groups of people placed in close proximity tend to behave is something that rabble-rousers, revolutionaries, hucksters, cults, military training and politicians have been taking advantage of for as long as there has been a such thing as 'civilization'.


Regarding RFID:

Fair enough. I'm relieved to hear it.

I'm not saying to not be concerned, I'm saying don't let that concern be so overwhelming that you think there is imminent threat. We're not close to having a feasible scenario for this, despite optimistic companies just dying to get in on first bids on government contracts (happens all the time).

On top of that, keep in mind the story of attempts at curbing piracy of software and digital media: no matter how tricky they are at blocking it, they are never able to protect it from being cracked. "Hackers" (benign tense) have been a subculture for at least three decades now, if not longer if you count smaller and smaller groups of tinkerers. I have no fear of losing access to data because there is no way to stop the flow of data, even more today than previous years. Any 'conspiracy' to try to take control of that will find themselves in the position of the little Dutch boy.

And, longer term, if you had ID and financial data on the chip?

You mean like we have today? Your largest threat with that is identity theft, not some faceless, nameless covert agency. Please, take it from me, who has dealt with identity theft (of loved ones, not myself), and has dealt with law enforcement's ham-handed attempts to follow trails of such people, that therein lies your biggest danger. I've even found that, legal hurdles (I can't issue a court order) aside, I have been more successful at tracking down electronic thieves than some law enforcement investigators I have spoken with. (aside: I'd love a job, but certain issues leave me 'unqualified')

For sure. I have my own patterns of attraction and needs. I actually got totally into therapy stuff after my own CT phase years back. I wanted to know the truth. These days...I remain concerned. I don't experience a deep psychological need to believe or not believe. I remain concerned. Like the sufi's have it - Trust in God, (and tether your camel!).

I love that quote.

I understand your concern, and I will say that in many ways I share some of them. I don't share them to quite the degree you do, but I certainly have a healthy distrust for many of the very authorities I have chosen to no longer rage against actively.

I actually wrote about some of the interplay between psychological stereotypes in the CT field a couple of weeks back. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61402&page=5 post 190, if you're interested.

Interesting indeed, but the stereotypes were a bit heavy on the hyperbole (hence being stereotypes, I suppose).

I remain concerned. I'm concerned about the Leah Betts case. I'm concerned about Cassini. I'm concerned about ibogaine. I'm concerned about CIA complicity in the global drug trade. I'm concerned about this face that pokes out from behind the mask of media diversity every once in a while. These were my life experiences of witnessing government and media saying one thing and doing quite another. I remain concerned.

Nick

Just try to consider that some of what concerns you might very well be the discomfort at the power of the mob. That certainly frightens me. I fear a conspirational bureaucrat an order of magnitude less than I fear the zealous crowd, and one does not need the other to exist. You can see the mob at work when you go to a political activist meeting, to a religious convention/convocation, to a sports game, and plenty of other places. It's this fear of the mob that influences in part my distrust of claims of 'truth' where 'fact' and 'interpretation' should be. Pretty much any grand atrocity throughout history can be traced back to that zealous mob.

I think that is what causes so much of the rejection and resistance to common conspiracy theories in places like this forum (and, conversely, what causes the creation of it in other forums): the mob. People know and have at least some level of desire to resist being caught up in the current of heightened emotion that can often lead to irrational behavior. Some people get caught up in currents in direct opposition to the ones they knew (the 'rebel' or apostate). Visit many controversial demonstrations and you will see two sides of an issue-- one demonstrating for or against something, and another demonstrating against the first demonstrators-- literally yelling in each other's face with an emotion-charged dogma.

I find that horrifying because it is that kind of emotionally-charged dogma that gives a person the frame of mind to blow themselves up in order to kill large numbers of other people. Conspiracies are toothless and impotent compared to that.

But I'll have to digress from that tangent. I can correspond more with you directly outside of the forum on that topic, but I think we're getting further and further away from the original points that led us here at this juncture.

 

[Nick227]

You sound more like your fear is the fear of the mob. I think you are attributing to some clandestine collective the ability to manipulate mob opinion in a way that the mob has never historically needed help with. This little bug in how large groups of people placed in close proximity tend to behave is something that rabble-rousers, revolutionaries, hucksters, cults, military training and politicians have been taking advantage of for as long as there has been a such thing as 'civilization'.

For sure, mob rule can be a disturbing thing to come up against. But it's not so much what concerns me. Rather the other end of the spectrum.

For there might be increasing anti-trust legislation operating in industry and service sectors. But where is it in media? To skip to the chase a little, what do you think of the Bilderberg Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg and their notorious (in CT circles) "steering committee?" Personally, I think it would be great to get some anti-trust legislation in there.

Regarding RFID:

I'm not saying to not be concerned, I'm saying don't let that concern be so overwhelming that you think there is imminent threat. We're not close to having a feasible scenario for this, despite optimistic companies just dying to get in on first bids on government contracts (happens all the time).

I agree, it's not an imminent threat. The real issue, imo, is really as to how likely it is that the media is already under centralised control. For me, I see some evidence that this could be the case. For others not. Personally, I think many people are simply not inclined to even examine this scenario. It's too worrying to think about!

What do you think of the Bilderberg Group, btw?

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Here's a starter on Bilderberg from Wikipedia. They have a full list of attendees online.

"The original intention of the Bilderberg Group was to further the understanding between Western Europe and North America through informal meetings between powerful individuals. Each year, a "steering committee" devises a selected invitation list with a maximum of 100 names. Invitations are extended only to residents of Europe and North America. The location of their annual meeting is not secret, but the public and press are strictly kept at distance by police force and private security guards. Although the agenda and list of participants are openly available to the public, it is not clear that such details are disclosed by the group itself. Also, the contents of the meetings are kept secret and attendees pledge not to divulge what was discussed. The group's stated justification for secrecy is that it enables people to speak freely without the need to carefully consider how every word might be interpreted by the mass media.

Attendees of Bilderberg include central bankers, defense experts, mass media press barons, government ministers, prime ministers, royalty, international financiers and political leaders from Europe and North America."

No publicly available minutes of discussions. No ISO9001. Anyone QC'ing the decision-making process here? Proper process management procedures being followed? You guess?

Does this concern you?

Nick

 

[GreNME]

Here's a starter on Bilderberg from Wikipedia. They have a full list of attendees online.

snipped for brevity

Attendees of Bilderberg include central bankers, defense experts, mass media press barons, government ministers, prime ministers, royalty, international financiers and political leaders from Europe and North America."[/I]

No publicly available minutes of discussions. No ISO9001. Anyone QC'ing the decision-making process here? Proper process management procedures being followed? You guess?

Does this concern you?

Nick

Well, let's see: informal, meaning not under the requirements of reporting to stockholders or any governmental committee; pretty forceful on the privacy of the meeting; their stated purpose is said to promote better relations; they demand confidentiality due to the nature of the attendees' various jobs and respective security levels.

Concern me? No more than other informal "richie-rich" meetings do.

There is nothing to require minutes for the meetings. The group actively says they don't want the media to misrepresent what is discussed as if it were meant to be stated as policy. This is not a stockholder's meeting, nor is it a parliamentary committee. It's a bunch of rich folk getting together and sharing their ideas on political and social issues. This bothers me about as much as snobby country clubs bother me-- which isn't to say not at all, but not so much that I think I am in any clear and present danger for their existence. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that Wikipedia has allowed phrases like international financiers to remain in the article, given its baggage and the fact that the list given in the article effectively lists 'bankers' first and last in the list.

 

[MetalliSociety]

i don't know if anyone has said they were going to do this (probably have, but i'm new to the forums) but i'm going to be making a rebuttal to this film, sort of in the SLC style. Ihaven't been able to find any rebuttle movies for this one, so I figured i would make one. Your thoughts?

 

[LashL]

i don't know if anyone has said they were going to do this (probably have, but i'm new to the forums) but i'm going to be making a rebuttal to this film, sort of in the SLC style. Ihaven't been able to find any rebuttle movies for this one, so I figured i would make one. Your thoughts?

Welcome to the subforum, MetalliSociety.

And yes, it's a great idea to do a rebuttal video, and I for one look forward to seeing it.

 

[Stout]

Nick...Blueprint was a good read. We're always out harshest critics.

So am I correct in assuming that you're happy just to get people talking ?

The way I see it, there's no need for "them" to wait for the technology that would make your worst microchipping fears a reality when, if "they" wanted to, "they" could force us into a Myanmar type society right now. "They" don't need anything other than the machine guns "they" already have.

Thing is, the local conspiracy guy i mentioned previously is taking all this to heart and making videos telling us that " THE END IS NEAR" and basing his views on the assumption that the international bankers are, well,, not nice guys at heart.

So I'm going to continue to pay my mortgage, and keep the equity, thank you. I'm going to keep on using credit cards after actually reading all that fine print, and keep on keeping on as usual, secure in the belief that the end isn't as near as some others wish me to believe.

I'm going to keep checking though, and watching, and arguing ( hey...it's fun ) that CTs are nothing more than that...theories, but i'll keep my Faraday cage underwear clean and pressed.....you know....just in case.

 

[MetalliSociety]

Welcome to the subforum, MetalliSociety.

And yes, it's a great idea to do a rebuttal video, and I for one look forward to seeing it.

Thank you for the kind words! I'm not sure how long it will take me to complete this project, but hopefully, it will be as good as the likes of SLC or S911Mysteries.

I found this forum in part to Mr. Roberts, and decided to check it out. This is a really good place for debates and all that, and hope that my 2 cents will be worth something

So yeah..."Screw Zeitgeist"...coming soon to a internet connection near you!

 

[Nick227]

Nick...Blueprint was a good read. We're always out harshest critics.

Thank you!

So am I correct in assuming that you're happy just to get people talking ?

Yes

The way I see it, there's no need for "them" to wait for the technology that would make your worst microchipping fears a reality when, if "they" wanted to, "they" could force us into a Myanmar type society right now. "They" don't need anything other than the machine guns "they" already have.

Thing is, the local conspiracy guy i mentioned previously is taking all this to heart and making videos telling us that " THE END IS NEAR" and basing his views on the assumption that the international bankers are, well,, not nice guys at heart.

Well, that's his trip. What to do? I mean, the whole CT scene, when you really dive right in there, is quite a journey. It can take a while to integrate.

Personally, I doubt that one could impose one's will long-term on the general populace en masse with machine guns, but that's just me.

So I'm going to continue to pay my mortgage, and keep the equity, thank you. I'm going to keep on using credit cards after actually reading all that fine print, and keep on keeping on as usual, secure in the belief that the end isn't as near as some others wish me to believe.

I'm going to keep checking though, and watching, and arguing ( hey...it's fun ) that CTs are nothing more than that...theories, but i'll keep my Faraday cage underwear clean and pressed.....you know....just in case.

I do pretty much the same!

Nick

 

[Nick227]

i don't know if anyone has said they were going to do this (probably have, but i'm new to the forums) but i'm going to be making a rebuttal to this film, sort of in the SLC style. Ihaven't been able to find any rebuttle movies for this one, so I figured i would make one. Your thoughts?

I look forward to seeing it. Bet you $100 it won't equal Zeitgeist in the Google ratings war though!

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Well, let's see: informal, meaning not under the requirements of reporting to stockholders or any governmental committee; pretty forceful on the privacy of the meeting; their stated purpose is said to promote better relations; they demand confidentiality due to the nature of the attendees' various jobs and respective security levels.

Concern me? No more than other informal "richie-rich" meetings do.

There is nothing to require minutes for the meetings. The group actively says they don't want the media to misrepresent what is discussed as if it were meant to be stated as policy. This is not a stockholder's meeting, nor is it a parliamentary committee. It's a bunch of rich folk getting together and sharing their ideas on political and social issues. This bothers me about as much as snobby country clubs bother me-- which isn't to say not at all, but not so much that I think I am in any clear and present danger for their existence. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that Wikipedia has allowed phrases like international financiers to remain in the article, given its baggage and the fact that the list given in the article effectively lists 'bankers' first and last in the list.

Well, given that the owners of the world's media are present at the meetings I can't help feel that mis-representation might not be such a concern. I can't recall Rupert Murdoch's private business being splattered all over the front pages of any of his newspapers.

The Bilderberg Group and their steering committee looks like something out of James Bond to me. I couldn't imagine a more suspect organisation if I tried. 100+ of the West's richest, most powerful politicians, media barons, defence contractors, international bankers, and royalty all gather together every now and again for a little informal sit down, with no media access. I wonder what they discuss. And just what function is their "steering committee" supposed to fulfil?

Personally, these days I can only conclude, when looking at the whole CT scene, that someone somewhere is setting these guys up. You couldn't create a more suspicious-looking scenario if you tried. The Bilderbergs, 9/11, the War on Terror, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act - regardless of the truth, with such a suspect-looking cast of characters and scenes films like Zeitgeist can only grow and grow.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Have you been following the other links I've provided? One link was a list of many words, providing examples of similar words that meant similar things and similar words that meant the opposite of each other in different languages. But if you want some interesting reading, you can check out this link (complete with equations!), this link (with cultural analyses), or this link (a basic article).

I'm surprised at your incredulity, I must say.

Hi GreNME,

I looked at these three articles with reference to our discussion that the notion of there being a valid "monomyth" (the claim in Zeitgeist and elsewhere that Jesus was a mythological figure who resembled earlier similar mythological figures) was tentative.

I didn't really find that any of these articles suggest this. The first two seem to dwell on the statistical aspects of language development, and purport to show that the perceived similarities between quite different languages could have arisen by chance. Thus this is simply a statistical analysis and I don't see that it could be taken to make much statement about mythology.

The third study, from Juliette Blevins, appears to me to relate that the perceived linguistic similarities could have arisen because of innate issues around oral transmission of specific sounds - certain sounds being more likely to be accurately transmitted down the ages than others. Again, I can't really see how this could relate to the transmission of mythological stories down the ages, except, perhaps, to point to the significance of archetype and, imo, this tends as much to reinforce the monomyth contention as much as anything else.

I must say that I didn't study the first two papers in any great detail so if you can point here to some more evidence I'd be very happy to read it. It's an interesting subject, to me anyway!

Relatedly, I received a reply back from the author of the first article, Mark Rosenfelder. He's quite a critic of comparative mythology and raises interesting points in the linked article...

Hi, Nick,

You could certainly try... though comparative mythology seems to me
to be so vague and jerry-rigged that I'm not sure how easily it can
be analyzed statistically.

I went through some of my own quibbles about Campbell here:

http://www.zompist.com/rants04.html

Best wishes,
--Mark

Nick

 

[GreNME]

i don't know if anyone has said they were going to do this (probably have, but i'm new to the forums) but i'm going to be making a rebuttal to this film, sort of in the SLC style. Ihaven't been able to find any rebuttle movies for this one, so I figured i would make one. Your thoughts?

My thoughts are "let me know in PM if you want any assistance." While the draft notes I took and posted a few pages back were just a rough beginning, there is so much wrong with the first part of the movie alone that I could make that into a two-hour segment without using all of the footage from the film.


----

Well, given that the owners of the world's media are present at the meetings I can't help feel that mis-representation might not be such a concern. I can't recall Rupert Murdoch's private business being splattered all over the front pages of any of his newspapers.

Emphasis mine. Do you not see how the desire to avoid "private business" being paraded in front of tabloids is one of the reasons for the high security at these gatherings? Not everyone is an attention whore like Hollywood bumblers or other debutantes. If I even had a quarter of Murdoch's net worth I'd have regularly-used security personnel to keep my private life my own.

The Bilderberg Group and their steering committee looks like something out of James Bond to me. I couldn't imagine a more suspect organisation if I tried. 100+ of the West's richest, most powerful politicians, media barons, defence contractors, international bankers, and royalty all gather together every now and again for a little informal sit down, with no media access. I wonder what they discuss. And just what function is their "steering committee" supposed to fulfil?

Aha, this is significant. I won't make any assumptions on your frame of mind here, but let me explain for you why your wording here illustrates (IMO) a key element that your average, run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorist would look on as conclusive proof of something even if there is nothing much to go on in the first place. A "steering committee" sounds a lot more ominous that it really is, and is really just a trumped-up title and another way of saying "organizational board" or "party planners" in order to sound important. What can (and seems to) be misconstrued about this kind of title is that it sounds like it has more direct or implicit power than it has in reality. While I've never been to a Bilderberg function, I can say that every other case I've ever come across a "steering committee" I have come across an administrative unit that handles planning for a gathering, organization for meetings, finds locations for a get-together or convention, makes calls / sends letters, figures out accommodations, designates parking, and other 'mundane' duties. Considering this is a meeting of multi-millionaires and billionaires, I would be more surprised to see if they didn't hire administrative staff to handle things like that. Some of these people hire individuals to walk their dogs, for goodness sake.

Personally, these days I can only conclude, when looking at the whole CT scene, that someone somewhere is setting these guys up. You couldn't create a more suspicious-looking scenario if you tried. The Bilderbergs, 9/11, the War on Terror, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act - regardless of the truth, with such a suspect-looking cast of characters and scenes films like Zeitgeist can only grow and grow.

As I've said before, the biggest disconnect of conspiracy theories is the attempt to tie in numerous incidents that are not completely related or things that the accuser is under-informed about. Compound this with a tendency to over-attribute significance to odd minutiae and possibly some paranoia due to distrust of authority, and you have the building blocks for the most basic of conspiracy theories. Misunderstanding and distrust of authority come in spades among a wide variety of people, so that part isn't even difficult or out of the ordinary. The rest is just a slight shift of focus, like crossing your eyes a tiny bit to the point where an image just starts to blur, and then that image is interpreted in a Rorschach manner to find meaning.

I'm not one to quote Freud too much but in cases like this it's appropriate: "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Hi GreNME,

I looked at these three articles with reference to our discussion that the notion of there being a valid "monomyth" (the claim in Zeitgeist and elsewhere that Jesus was a mythological figure who resembled earlier similar mythological figures) was tentative.

Unfortunately, Nick, not everyone is going to approach the idea of comparitive religiosity in the same manner that you do, so if you are looking for references as you define them you are only going to find references when reading things that frame things the same way you would. I'll go into more detail further down.

I didn't really find that any of these articles suggest this. The first two seem to dwell on the statistical aspects of language development, and purport to show that the perceived similarities between quite different languages could have arisen by chance. Thus this is simply a statistical analysis and I don't see that it could be taken to make much statement about mythology.

I find this inability to connect language and mythology to be interesting, since the whole idea behind the "monomyth" connects so many different types of cultural references-- all passed on through the local languages-- through the perceived similarities in their descriptions. The reason this applies to the "monomyth" theory is because the entirety of the "monomyth" theory is based on perceived similarities as relational, very similar to perceived similarities in languages. The same approach that applies for language applies equally for culture and, yes, religions and mythologies.

The third study, from Juliette Blevins, appears to me to relate that the perceived linguistic similarities could have arisen because of innate issues around oral transmission of specific sounds - certain sounds being more likely to be accurately transmitted down the ages than others. Again, I can't really see how this could relate to the transmission of mythological stories down the ages, except, perhaps, to point to the significance of archetype and, imo, this tends as much to reinforce the monomyth contention as much as anything else.

The third study does not state "certain sounds being more likely to be accurately transmitted down the ages than others," as you seem to have interpreted. It states that there is a certain range of sounds that are natural for the human mouth and vocal chords to make, and that these sounds and their limited number are common throughout language development in completely different and segregated cultures around the world. The concept is "parallel evolution," and is not a new concept, but the study Dr. Blevins was part of covered an aspect of the concept that had not previously has as deep of a documented study.

The idea I am trying to emphasize by pointing these out is that it has already been established in more than one field of study that completely separate cultures that had zero known communication managed to develop parallel to each other and still have similarities. This is evident through archaeological study in how ancient engineering and social constructs were often similar in their beginnings. This is evident in linguistics in that various types of examinations of the development of current and long-gone languages points out exactly why similarities are not a reasonable factor in determining relationship. This is evident in archaeological study of ancient structural engineering: ancient Egyptian pyramids, various ziggurats from different cultures, and ancient Chinese structures, for instance, were not built using two axes (four sides of support) randomly. They were built that way to provide maximum structural integrity and because it allowed for a tapered method to bring the structures higher. Histories of ancient times are taken from archaeological (cultural, structural, geological, sociological) study, ancient writings-- which typically consist of transactory notes, laws and announcements, and religious material-- with any surviving oral tradition that may exist being studied as well.

Basically, given that all of these other factors that had once been posited to have singular origins are now considered to have developed separate through parallel processes, the idea of a "monomyth" seems to be not only a minority among these other schools of thought, but actually tends to be contradictory to a number of other fields. In many ways, a "monomyth" idea and the results of a number of other archaeological studies are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

I must say that I didn't study the first two papers in any great detail so if you can point here to some more evidence I'd be very happy to read it. It's an interesting subject, to me anyway!

Relatedly, I received a reply back from the author of the first article, Mark Rosenfelder. He's quite a critic of comparative mythology and raises interesting points in the linked article...

Hi, Nick,

You could certainly try... though comparative mythology seems to me
to be so vague and jerry-rigged that I'm not sure how easily it can
be analyzed statistically.

I went through some of my own quibbles about Campbell here:

http://www.zompist.com/rants04.html

Best wishes,
--Mark

Nick

Did you read the set of quibbles in his rant? They express very similar ideas to what I've been expressing. There are so many cultural factors throughout many civilizations that point to parallel evolution that claims of a unified singular origin basis stand completely on their own and with no real support from the number of other fields that study these same cultures throughout history. As Rosenfelder seems to also suggest, the theory of a "monomyth" idea being some overarching influence on the development of so many various mythologies seems to mostly only be supportable by ignoring many other facets of the various cultures throughout their development, among other things.

 

[Nick227]

Emphasis mine. Do you not see how the desire to avoid "private business" being paraded in front of tabloids is one of the reasons for the high security at these gatherings? Not everyone is an attention whore like Hollywood bumblers or other debutantes. If I even had a quarter of Murdoch's net worth I'd have regularly-used security personnel to keep my private life my own.

For sure. But the point I was trying to make was that these guys own the media. They have anyway the power to apply a ban on any reporting, thus making the need for a media-free zone not actually necessary.

Aha, this is significant. I won't make any assumptions on your frame of mind here, but let me explain for you why your wording here illustrates (IMO) a key element that your average, run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorist would look on as conclusive proof of something even if there is nothing much to go on in the first place. A "steering committee" sounds a lot more ominous that it really is, and is really just a trumped-up title and another way of saying "organizational board" or "party planners" in order to sound important. What can (and seems to) be misconstrued about this kind of title is that it sounds like it has more direct or implicit power than it has in reality. While I've never been to a Bilderberg function, I can say that every other case I've ever come across a "steering committee" I have come across an administrative unit that handles planning for a gathering, organization for meetings, finds locations for a get-together or convention, makes calls / sends letters, figures out accommodations, designates parking, and other 'mundane' duties. Considering this is a meeting of multi-millionaires and billionaires, I would be more surprised to see if they didn't hire administrative staff to handle things like that. Some of these people hire individuals to walk their dogs, for goodness sake.

Good point.

As I've said before, the biggest disconnect of conspiracy theories is the attempt to tie in numerous incidents that are not completely related or things that the accuser is under-informed about.

Under-informed about because there is an extreme lack of information here. One of my overall points about Zeitgeist is that it is highly popular because there is such an utter lack of information pretty much anywhere about these things. No one knows what the Bilderbergs get up to, bar themselves, and they're reputedly sworn to secrecy. A culture which depends on this degree of secrecy inevitably face CTists.

Compound this with a tendency to over-attribute significance to odd minutiae and possibly some paranoia due to distrust of authority, and you have the building blocks for the most basic of conspiracy theories. Misunderstanding and distrust of authority come in spades among a wide variety of people, so that part isn't even difficult or out of the ordinary. The rest is just a slight shift of focus, like crossing your eyes a tiny bit to the point where an image just starts to blur, and then that image is interpreted in a Rorschach manner to find meaning.

Yes, exactly. And CTs will continue to be popular and find support until proper public investigations are carried out.

I'm not one to quote Freud too much but in cases like this it's appropriate: "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

For sure. And sometimes "ceci n'est pas une pipe."

I find this inability to connect language and mythology to be interesting, since the whole idea behind the "monomyth" connects so many different types of cultural references-- all passed on through the local languages

Well, and symbols.

-- through the perceived similarities in their descriptions. The reason this applies to the "monomyth" theory is because the entirety of the "monomyth" theory is based on perceived similarities as relational, very similar to perceived similarities in languages.

I don't think you can drag it so strongly back to language. Much is found in symbology. Of course pictographic languages bring the 2 together, but still it's primarily about symbols.

The third study does not state "certain sounds being more likely to be accurately transmitted down the ages than others," as you seem to have interpreted. It states that there is a certain range of sounds that are natural for the human mouth and vocal chords to make, and that these sounds and their limited number are common throughout language development in completely different and segregated cultures around the world. The concept is "parallel evolution," and is not a new concept, but the study Dr. Blevins was part of covered an aspect of the concept that had not previously has as deep of a documented study.

Well, the partial abstract you forwarded stated...
"As language is naturally transmitted from one generation to the next, human perception and articulation makes certain kinds of sound change (like the shift of final b d g to p t k) more frequent than others. At the same time, people are very unlikely to mispronounce or mishear a simple consonant as a click-sound, providing few opportunities for clicks to evolve naturally"

The idea I am trying to emphasize by pointing these out is that it has already been established in more than one field of study that completely separate cultures that had zero known communication managed to develop parallel to each other and still have similarities. This is evident through archaeological study in how ancient engineering and social constructs were often similar in their beginnings. This is evident in linguistics in that various types of examinations of the development of current and long-gone languages points out exactly why similarities are not a reasonable factor in determining relationship. This is evident in archaeological study of ancient structural engineering: ancient Egyptian pyramids, various ziggurats from different cultures, and ancient Chinese structures, for instance, were not built using two axes (four sides of support) randomly. They were built that way to provide maximum structural integrity and because it allowed for a tapered method to bring the structures higher. Histories of ancient times are taken from archaeological (cultural, structural, geological, sociological) study, ancient writings-- which typically consist of transactory notes, laws and announcements, and religious material-- with any surviving oral tradition that may exist being studied as well.

Could you explain to me why this phenomena might be considered a premise on which to discount the existence of monomyth. I would have thought that it more likely reinforced it.

Did you read the set of quibbles in his rant? They express very similar ideas to what I've been expressing.

I did. The one that stuck out for me was his point that there would have been relatively little for ancient man to construct mythological tales around. The sun, the moon, birth, death, and the journey into adulthood would have been inevitable themes as there likely wasn't so much else about to deal in.

Whilst this undermines certain features of monomythology, I don't see that it undermines the pretext in Zeitgeist, that Jesus was simply another retelling of the same myth.

There are so many cultural factors throughout many civilizations that point to parallel evolution that claims of a unified singular origin basis stand completely on their own and with no real support from the number of other fields that study these same cultures throughout history. As Rosenfelder seems to also suggest, the theory of a "monomyth" idea being some overarching influence on the development of so many various mythologies seems to mostly only be supportable by ignoring many other facets of the various cultures throughout their development, among other things.

Well, as I understand it, parallel evolution refers to shared environmental (evolutionary, social) conditions creating similarities in cultural expression. Aside of the example I give above I do rather fail to see why this would have such an influence of mythology. You cannot track it all back to language and simply assert this as a common demoninator of these phenomena.

Thanks for an illuminating discussion.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

There are so many cultural factors throughout many civilizations that point to parallel evolution that claims of a unified singular origin basis stand completely on their own and with no real support from the number of other fields that study these same cultures throughout history.

one other thing (!)....could you explain to me how parallel evolution theory actually negates a theory of unified origin? Surely it is simply another means of explaining apparent phenomena. There could be a unified origin that develops through parallel evolution, just as there could diversified origin that develops through parallel evolution, just as there could be a unified origin that develops through divergent evolution and appears separated.

Am I wrong?

Nick

 

[GreNME]

For sure. But the point I was trying to make was that these guys own the media. They have anyway the power to apply a ban on any reporting, thus making the need for a media-free zone not actually necessary.

It makes it as necessary as it does for anyone else. When I hear phrases like "own the media" I am given the impression that the originators of such claims have very little clue what "the media" really is. These moguls you refer to own "the media" just about as much as Bill Gates owns Microsoft-- which is to say not at all in the literal sense of the term. These moguls "own" companies and corporations that maintain administrative control over numerous media outlets, though in most cases there is very little direct administrative control over the different smaller affiliates that fall under their banner. Some people, like Murdoch, have worked to direct levels of management down as far as it could go in order to provide results that are to the enjoyment of Murdoch, but even with his remarkable (and documented, tracked, and highly criticized) success, there are still NewsCorp affiliates who run stories that are antithetical to Murdoch's own publicly known political views. There are still articles, radio spots, and other pieces that fall outside of the ideology of Murdoch-land. Since many of the affiliates don't have the ability or resources to rely solely on inside writing and journalism, the work of other sources (including freelance and otherwise affiliated) is common use.

What these people "own" is a revenue source, not some magical keys to the public mind. There is definitely sensationalism, pandering, bias, and intellectual dishonesty that goes on in all types of media, including news media. There is no evidence that it's all being directed by anyone but a series of flaky, overzealous, and disconnected people who run affiliate stations or are program managers, editors, and in some cases even the journalists themselves.

Basically, I refer back to Hanlon: never attribute to malice what can easier be attributed to stupidity. I can't think of a better representation of this than the news media.

Under-informed about because there is an extreme lack of information here. One of my overall points about Zeitgeist is that it is highly popular because there is such an utter lack of information pretty much anywhere about these things. No one knows what the Bilderbergs get up to, bar themselves, and they're reputedly sworn to secrecy. A culture which depends on this degree of secrecy inevitably face CTists.

But there isn't an extreme lack of information. It's the extreme different in the interpretation of information based on the assumptions of the viewer of the information. See my response to the "steering committee" thing as an example. I only know this after having seen steering committees and what they do, and after having the experience of dealing with bureaucratic organizational structures where lots of people have overblown titles compared to their actual duties. This is an organization phenomenon that is common in bureaucratic ladders where everyone wishes to be a manager of something. It isn't even an obscure phenomenon. Conspiracy theorists, however, often never consider simplistic answers like this to explain what is otherwise referred to them as ominous and suspicious signs of foul play.

This is actually one of the reasons I find Hanlon's Razor to apply so well and so often. The ignorance isn't stemming from lack of information, it's from lack of acceptance that the information might be otherwise mundane or innocuous.

Yes, exactly. And CTs will continue to be popular and find support until proper public investigations are carried out.

Only in the minds of conspiracy theorists. Many of the things a conspiracy theory may demand investigation of have either already been examined or are already known without the ominous subtext. Without the ominous subtext of supposed malicious intent, many conspiracy theories crumble under their own assertations.

Well, and symbols.

...

I don't think you can drag it so strongly back to language. Much is found in symbology. Of course pictographic languages bring the 2 together, but still it's primarily about symbols.

'Symbols' are just representations for language, and are studied along with character-based linguistics. Symbols are dependent on interpretation, and any number of symbols can be placed together in a similar context when they are described in a single language. This is the failing of attempting to understand the conveyance of symbols without understanding the context of how concepts are conveyed within their respective languages. I'm not claiming that someone studying these things needs to understand all languages, but understanding how different languages portray concepts is crucial to understanding what the symbols actually are. Otherwise (like with pre-Rosetta-Stone Egyptology) many of the symbols and symbolism are subject to conjecture and wild speculation.

The third study does not state "certain sounds being more likely to be accurately transmitted down the ages than others," as you seem to have interpreted. It states that there is a certain range of sounds that are natural for the human mouth and vocal chords to make, and that these sounds and their limited number are common throughout language development in completely different and segregated cultures around the world. The concept is "parallel evolution," and is not a new concept, but the study Dr. Blevins was part of covered an aspect of the concept that had not previously has as deep of a documented study.

Well, the partial abstract you forwarded stated...
"As language is naturally transmitted from one generation to the next, human perception and articulation makes certain kinds of sound change (like the shift of final b d g to p t k) more frequent than others. At the same time, people are very unlikely to mispronounce or mishear a simple consonant as a click-sound, providing few opportunities for clicks to evolve naturally"

That passage is describing differences in accent and variation within a single language passed down over time. This is what I meant earlier about attributing too much significance to the wrong things. The passage you quote is talking about differences like the difference in things like the American and British pronounciation of words like aluminum, schedule, and herbs (with special mention of Eddie Izzard for using it as a joke).

The idea I am trying to emphasize by pointing these out is that it has already been established in more than one field of study that completely separate cultures that had zero known communication managed to develop parallel to each other and still have similarities. This is evident through archaeological study in how ancient engineering and social constructs were often similar in their beginnings. This is evident in linguistics in that various types of examinations of the development of current and long-gone languages points out exactly why similarities are not a reasonable factor in determining relationship. This is evident in archaeological study of ancient structural engineering: ancient Egyptian pyramids, various ziggurats from different cultures, and ancient Chinese structures, for instance, were not built using two axes (four sides of support) randomly. They were built that way to provide maximum structural integrity and because it allowed for a tapered method to bring the structures higher. Histories of ancient times are taken from archaeological (cultural, structural, geological, sociological) study, ancient writings-- which typically consist of transactory notes, laws and announcements, and religious material-- with any surviving oral tradition that may exist being studied as well.

Could you explain to me why this phenomena might be considered a premise on which to discount the existence of monomyth. I would have thought that it more likely reinforced it.

I pointed out to you examples of why other fields have come to the conclusion of separate development of key aspects of their respective cultures and civilizations. The implication is that the general consensus has concluded separate development of many of these civilizations, which would remove the possible methods through which any unified "monomyth" could be transferred from one civilization to another. The existence of a monomyth and the consensus of every academic field regarding ancient civilizations are mutually exclusive to one another.

I did. The one that stuck out for me was his point that there would have been relatively little for ancient man to construct mythological tales around. The sun, the moon, birth, death, and the journey into adulthood would have been inevitable themes as there likely wasn't so much else about to deal in.

Whilst this undermines certain features of monomythology, I don't see that it undermines the pretext in Zeitgeist, that Jesus was simply another retelling of the same myth.

You're moving the goalpost now, Nick. Do you want to cover how this discredits the idea of monomyth, or are we now back to speaking specifically of the Jesus myth in Zeitgeist? The whole rest of your post was referring to the former, not the latter.

Well, as I understand it, parallel evolution refers to shared environmental (evolutionary, social) conditions creating similarities in cultural expression. Aside of the example I give above I do rather fail to see why this would have such an influence of mythology. You cannot track it all back to language and simply assert this as a common demoninator of these phenomena.

You understand incorrectly. Parallel evolution refers to separate but similar environmental conditions resulting in similar (but not always the same) results.

one other thing (!)....could you explain to me how parallel evolution theory actually negates a theory of unified origin? Surely it is simply another means of explaining apparent phenomena. There could be a unified origin that develops through parallel evolution, just as there could diversified origin that develops through parallel evolution, just as there could be a unified origin that develops through divergent evolution and appears separated.

Am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong. That is does not correctly describe parallel evolution.

Also, there is no evidence to imply the unified origin has any sort of existence. If you honestly think that you have a framework where some unified origin has evidence of existence that would fit it into the same area as genetic origin (which is the only singular source of origin we have evidence of at this time), then you should publish a peer-reviewed paper, because you will have made a groundbreaking discovery.

Parallel evolution has two things developing in separate environments with many similar features, and states that similarities in those separate developments are the cause not of a relational nature between the two separate developing things, but of each individual thing to its environment.