Monday, October 25, 2010

The Problem with End-of-the-world Scenarios

     By now, I’m sure you’ve heard that the world will end on December 20, 2012. Being the calm, rational person that you are, I’m sure you don’t believe it. Ask yourself, though, “Do I fully disbelieve it?” Do the people around you fully disbelieve it?
     Many years ago, a friend told me that you can get almost anyone to believe almost anything as long as you tell him, “Science has found a way.” Let’s test that theory for a moment, shall we?
     The gestation period for an elephant is two years. Let’s assume that two years was the gestation period for the now-extinct woolly mammoth. Now, we know that frozen mammoths have been found containing fully intact DNA.
     Now, let’s suppose that scientists (there’s that word science again) attempted to clone a woolly mammoth from tissue they had in hand; and let’s further suppose that everything went smoothly and according to plan. Could they clone a woolly mammoth in less than three years?
     That’s good. You hedged a little with your answer. You said, “Probably,” or “Possibly.”
     Actually, the correct answer is, “No.” The DNA would have to be inserted into living cells. Since there are no living woolly mammoth cells, the mammoth DNA would have to be inserted into elephant cells, and the result would be a hybrid species. They would need around five generations of cloning before the product could no longer be called a hybrid.
     You may have already known that, but the highly convincing pseudo-science of Jurassic Park has conditioned you to accept it as fact anyway.
     When you first heard of the movie 2012, you probably rejected its doomsday scenario out of hand. Since then, however, scientists (there goes that word again) have been telling us of several extinction-level possibilities.
     There’s a giant asteroid headed this way. If it even comes close to hitting us, the movie scenario can play out. If it hits us straight on, we won’t even have time to say, “Good night, Gracie.”
     There’s also the prospect of a solar storm that can seriously affect us here on Earth, especially those of us who depend on computers. You probably own dozens of computers on which you depend in your daily lives. In addition to your laptop, computers run your wrist watch, your television set, your microwave oven, the carburetor and other devices in your car, and many other devices.
     If that happens, major national economies will collapse. The semi-nomadic Himbas in Africa will get along as they’ve gotten along for thousands of years. Members of neighboring tribes, who now laugh at the Himbas for their “backward ways,” will be freaking out.
     Events of that sort will certainly happen someday, but almost certainly not in our lifetimes. What about an invasion from outer space—you know: like the one in the movie Independence Day? In that movie, one rumpled-looking nerd with a laptop took on one of the most technologically advanced species in the universe. The nerd’s former rival then united all the world’s peoples under a one-world government, whipped the snot out of those galoots and sent them scurrying back to hyperspace.
     The concept is so ridiculous that MacIntosh used it in a commercial.  (Here)  (At the 31-second mark, see how much time he has left before the attack from aliens: 9 minutes and 11 seconds.)
     Can you believe it? Oh, well, maybe not now, but can you be sure that you can never be conditioned to believe it—the way you were conditioned to believe unlikely things about cloning?
     A few months ago, during the Halliburton/BP oil spill, the companies that caused the spill locked down the entire Gulf area and took control of all spill-related information coming from the Gulf. We were constantly bombarded with information (or disinformation) that hinted at an extinction-level event; and that all our lives were saved by Halliburton and BP—the people who were managing the “news.” How many Americans actually questioned this highly filtered news?  Not very many. Most people considered it news, as credible as news from any other source.
     This event proved how easy it would be to override the First Amendment and fool tens of millions of people into thinking that the U.S. Congress needed to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Who is heavily invested in companies that would benefit from cap-and-trade legislation? BP, that’s who.
     Now, can you be sure that you, or others around you, can’t be tricked into believing that we’re being invaded from outer space? Being so tricked, can you be sure that neither you, nor those around you, will demand that our Constitution be abolished in favor of a world government that may turn out to be totalitarian?
     It sounds pretty far fetched, I know. It’s as far fetched as believing that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11, or that Gulf War Syndrome doesn’t exist, or that Halliburton and BP were the heroes of the oil spill and not the villains, or a host of other things that people have been conditioned to believe.
     Please take a look at what a fellow named Bill Cooper has to say about a bogus invasion from outer space. (I ask you to consider that government was not Mr. Cooper’s forte. He speaks of a “one-world, totalitarian socialist government.” Under a totalitarian regime, libertarians and socialists are equally under threat. Mr. Cooper was unwittingly subscribing to a false paradigm—left versus right—that is used to keep us divided against one another.)
     I’m not saying that anyone would try to trick us into believing that such a doomsday scenario is for real. I am saying, though, that if we do hear of a space invasion, we should look behind the curtain and see who is pulling the strings.
     For further information, and to watch the You Tube video “Hoax Alien Invasion Planned—Bill Cooper,” click here.

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