Whoever would be guiding it is doing a piss-poor job of it. I want to speak with the manager.

I question how well an organization that has to remain secret can practically effect the real world though. If you start seeing Illuminati agents at every street corner, it's no longer a secret. If they remain practically invisible, no one has any reason to pay any attention or care about their ideas and goals. Either they guide everyone to do what they are already doing anyway, in which case they do nothing, or they try and guide people to do what they don't want to do but can't show themselves to visibly threaten or coerce them, in which  case they don't end up really doing anything either. There might be a number of groups that THINK they are doing this at least, but they become, to quote dues ex, "A bunch of pretentious old men playing at running the world. But the world left them behind long ago."
 
Freemasons for example, everyone thought they were a sinister organization bent on taking over the world, but really even at their worst periods they were more like what the Church of Scientology is today. Dangerous? Sure, maybe. Has a lot of influence? In some places. Actually capable of meaningful large scale political influence in secret? Heck no. The moment they tried to get away with something sinister the entire contrary knew instantly what they were up to and the backlash hit them so hard they never gained that level of control ever again, nor even want to anymore. And this was way before the Internet or any modern communication technology.

As for non-human forces? They would run into the same problem. Even if they could directly control some human's thoughts, mind control at the scale we are talking about would be pretty noticeable wouldn't it? And what would be the point off doing it that way? The best way would probably be to just come in the open and show themselves as gods or beings beyond human understanding and start a religion around it and let humans worship them. If they are clever they might hide and demand their followers have "faith" sure, but then people would just have more reason to disregard the teachings and do their own thing. Anyway those religious organizations aren't exactly secret are they? They obviously want to control everyone, and despite trying so hard they haven't ended up taken over the world.

No, this might be a threat for small communities or even individual nations, but not the world as a whole. Humanity is too chaotic and individualized to be taken over completely and controlled. And what use is a shadowy conspiracy if it simply doesn't effect you?

There's most definitely a group of elite bastards controlling the world & guiding it down the wrong path. The Illuminati, The Rothchilds, The Bilderberg group, The New World Order, The Industrial Military Complex, etc. The Illuminati have corrupted the movie & music industry in order to control the masses because everybody is such a mindless sheep that sits in front of their TVs like mindless zombies believing what mainstream media (read: propaganda machine) tells them. Then there's 'Predictive Programming'. Where they show you a concept in a movie or popular show (Family Guy) sometime before it happens. In fact, it better if I just provide links to such references.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_mediacontrol66.htm (Predictive Programming)

http://www.zengardner.com/scent-foul-play-robin-williams-predictive-programming/ (Robin William's Death)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiiCpX83GaE

(Dave Chapelle - Actor's Studio Interview)

https://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/illuminist-predictive-programming-sandy-hook-aurora-in-dark-knight-rises-batman-movie-illuminati-genocide-psyop-to-kill-the-2nd-amendment/ (Sandy Hook prediction)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7dnJFq7lJU

(Sandy Hook Hoax - Proof it was staged)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why (Edward Snowden's Hong Kong interview about PRISM surveillance system)

There's plenty more to find on the internet. Might want to look up all this stuff before 'Internet Censorship' kicks in & they erase all this info off the net!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACM3_-TK3Iw

 

 

As for non-human forces? They would run into the same problem. Even if they could directly control some human's thoughts, mind control at the scale we are talking about would be pretty noticeable wouldn't it?

As noticeable as millions of people liking Call of Duty over and over again. Or everyone liking movies that have been redone a hundred times. As noticeable as everyone going crazy over issues like the confederate flag when there are much more morally important things to consider (at least I believe so.) Yeah, these things are noticeable to the few outside of the majority. For the people who are caught up and swept up in the currents though, it's much harder to notice.

I definitely agree that as a whole humanity can't be taken over. The problem is, the ones who aren't caught in the influence don't have the right political or monetary leverage to do anything. All the big wolves out there are either directly under the influence or part of the conspiracy... is one argument.

The world IS very chaotic, but to control the world you don't have to control everyone, just the majority. As long as you can influence leaders, they can influence the majority of their people. So you only really need like China, America, Japan, India, Russia, etc etc under control, and only the biggest parts of those places. Plus the way I always saw it was that they have very very long terms plans and they slowly influence things here and there. No need to do things immediately, especially if they pass their plans down the family line. Gradual little changes that seem natural here and there, but ultimately build up to a specific goal.

Same for aliens, I figure they may want to guide us in a certain direction and keep us on an evolutionary track where we dont advance too slowly or too fast and ruin our own existence. They don't want to show us that other life does exist in the universe yet, because they don't want us getting too ambitious as a species. Once we meet a certain requirement, then I believe they will be like, "Hey good job Humies you should join our U.G. United Galaxies.

Jeez there's a lot to say on this subject.

There's most definitely a group of elite bastards controlling the world & guiding it down the wrong path. The Illuminati, The Rothchilds

I'm glad you brought up the Rothchilds, because regardless of whether or not there are orgs like the illuminati, the Rothchilds are very real and have an incredible amount of power in the world. The way the world bank system operates is insane, pretty much every major country is in debt to the Rothchilds and other bank affiliates.

I'm going to look at all your links right after class! There's a lot of them so I don't have enough time right now xD

There's most definitely a group of elite bastards controlling the world & guiding it down the wrong path. The Illuminati, The Rothchilds, The Bilderberg group, The New World Order, The Industrial Military Complex, etc. The Illuminati have corrupted the movie & music industry in order to control the masses because everybody is such a mindless sheep that sits in front of their TVs like mindless zombies believing what mainstream media (read: propaganda machine) tells them. Then there's 'Predictive Programming'. Where they show you a concept in a movie or popular show (Family Guy) sometime before it happens. In fact, it better if I just provide links to such references.

As noticeable as millions of people liking Call of Duty over and over again. Or everyone liking movies that have been redone a hundred times. As noticeable as everyone going crazy over issues like the confederate flag when there are much more morally important things to consider (at least I believe so.) Yeah, these things are noticeable to the few outside of the majority. For the people who are caught up and swept up in the currents though, it's much harder to notice.

 

...

Or maybe a bunch of otherwise unrelated greedy corporations are just trying to squeeze money off of us and politicians are trying to get us to vote for them, and people simply don't know any better the to fall for their shit because they don't care enough to obsess about it every waking moment of their lives.

Look it's easy to see conspiracies in everything. Because that way it all makes sense, you have a enemy to fight, you can notice some hidden agenda and rise above the masses. But sorry to say, it's all meaningless nonsense to me. People are just chaotic and random monsters that hurt each other and act greedy sometimes. I deny that there is a huge shadowy force behind everything. At best they are billions of little shadowy forces behind lots of little things.

... Well, okay, actually, there is one thing at least that controls us all from the shadows: Our Memes. Ideas. Mind viruses that get into your head and spread from person to person. If there can be said to be a god, it exists as the noosphere. Your idea of shadowy conspiracies is one. So is this. So is everything you think and say. They make up it's mind. It is you, it is I, and your very words you say are it's lifeblood. Our minds are the battleground for the natural selection of ideas. I am sure you already know how ideas like "patriotism", "justice", "morality", "entitlement" screw people up. But the good news is, you can fight them. Just make counter-memes. Just spread the ideas you think are important, and I will spread mine. Let's see who's wins.

The world is changing. Not from fighting some made up shadowy enemy, but just by our ideas. The Internet is eroding old media to dust slowly but surly. The shadowy corners of it have already spawned "anonymous". A bunch of kids who play being hackers? Maybe. But ones who I think need no introduction to their ideals and deeds. The singularity is coming, if not a technological one then a cultural one where the net will create more self-improving ideas then can be possibly stamped out or controled.

See that's why a shaodwy secret conspiracy will never work, Their memes will die off, one by one. Their ideals will be lost. Even if they create multitudes of fake ones, no one will remember or know their true ideals or goals, not even it's followers. They will be lost while the rest of the world moves on and ignores them. They can't control how we think, They can't even understand how we think. No isolated dead end ideology who's members are strictly insular ever will. No one who thinks they know best and think outside ideas are dangerous can understand the future.

If they exist, they are too late. All of them. Humanity has advanced to far. They had their chance. Back in the middle ages they might have been able to do it, when most man still feared gods. Back in before world war 2 they might have been able to do it, when man still trusted ideologies. Back in the 80s they might have been able to do it, when man still trusted their entertainment. Now? All that trust is gone, except for sheep that don't know any better, and the sheep are shrinking. It's too late. If they had the power left to shut us down and censor us, they would have done it already.

Don't you dare tell me all that struggle was for nothing. Don't you dare tell me it was all a shadowy manipulation. Humans did that, collectively. Twitchs plays Pokemon anarchy style maybe, but it was done. And whatever shadows may exist is nothing compared to that.

It seems to me like you believe these kinds of organizations have end goals other than retaining power. I also seem to get the feeling that you believe these kinds of shadows wouldn't want some sort of singularity, and that everything they do has to be evil. Also if these organizations existed, they would go much deeper than politics, business, and money.

To me its sort of like someone playing with an ant farm, or a group of people playing with an ant farm. Can they control them directly, willing the whole to do something? No, of course not. But after years of research they can indirectly influence the ants. They drop in a specific piece of food here. Introduce a predator there. Block a tunnel, add a tunnel. Etc etc etc.

Saying that humanity has advanced far at all is sort of... small. Only compared to the way we started have we advanced at all. When it comes to the scale of things, though, humanity has barely taken a step.

And really, if there are some crazy obsessive hacker teenagers out there who can bust into the pentagon, why can't there be some 40 year old guy who used to be a genius hacker and has only gotten more and more skill while working for an organization that can provide unlimited resources. Why couldn't there be hundreds of them?

Also why wouldn't they be able to understand how we think? When it comes down to it, in some way, us and them are one and the same. So yeah, they could and probably do understand how we think, assuming they exist at all.

Why would they want to "shut us down and censor us"? And if we can be controlled by our ideals, why couldn't they release an ideal here, and an ideal there, such as patriotism?

Or such as communism is bad. Kill the commies.

Jews are devil spawn. Lets put them in camps and gas em.

Middle east? Damn terrorists. Ragheads. Kill em all.

You know, for some examples of both addictive concepts and propaganda.

Did you know the majority of people get their news from television?  Not from personal investigation. And in a lot of places, majority rules. Yet its the majority who is actually trusting their entertainment.

I'm not saying believe in this conspiracy, that it is definitely true. I'm simply saying it could easily be true, and while nobody should obsess over it, the idea that it is a possibility should definitely exist. I'm saying that we don't know whether they exist or not, and until we have unrelenting evidence that says they don't exist, we must accept the possibility that they could exist without saying that they definitely do. Both extremes are a rejection of personal ignorance.

Organizations take people, people get ideas. Ideas about how to get power, and how to keep it. If they all just wanted power for themselves, why not someone lower in on the latter betray them? Why work for people who lord over you, especially if they are secret? Just kill um and take their place right? What keeps people loyal, what keeps their logistics working? What lets them influince others that much? Money doesn't always work. Planting ideas only works in a broad sense. Threats don't always work either. It's just statistics, that they are gonna screw up sooner or later.

Of course there ARE hundreds of skilled old hackers... most of them work for tech companies now as security experts. The only reason the crazy kids get away with so much is the companies are too cheep to listen half the time.

Of course there is both addictive concepts and propaganda flying around, most of it countered by other addictive concepts and propaganda, and none of it particularly subtle. You think any shadowy government cabal is behind jokes like Fox News?

As for "rejection of personal ignorance" ever heard of Russell's Teapot?

Granted I am not saying their are NOT forces at work trying to control us, but I think they are either small, self-absorbed, and pety, or, not all that terribly secret. No one was the least bit surprised when the NSA was caught spying on people and if you were I have a bridge to sell ya.

Also: Life is a chaotic mess of matter that seemed to spontaneously emerge from slime due to the right mix of random elements. Given this context, how can it be seen as anything but awe inspiring that humans have advanced so far? Or did aliens do that too? How about the universe as a hole and the shear amount of time that has past just to reach this point. Not to mention the amazing idea that the universe happens to be able to support all this in the first place. If you are not in awe of humanity's ability to even think at all, I think you need to check your heart, it might have died at some point.

Why do humans insist on thinking of humans as wrenched hopeless creatures? Still comparing them to a made up fantasy magic man who can do anything with a thought and is pure good and always right? I mean, yeah fairy's are still better but only be cause we don't sit around feeling sorry for ourselves and just have fun. Though maybe we are the sinister force behind everything! Naw... too boring. Much more fun to just play with the minds of individuals instead of the whole race.

I think it's very easy to say we as a society are not to blame for the way things are, because we're being controlled by some evil secret superpower or that this is the divine plan.

It's a lot easier truth to swallow than the actual scenario of, no, we are alone and society became the way it is on it's own, and we will continue to do so in a completely chaotic way. It's a lot safer and more convenient, it's easier to sleep at night not thinking that everyone, yourself included, is contributing to fucking up the world and that everyone is too apathetic to do anything significant about it.

It sounds like you've been playing a lot of games, and been immersing yourself in conspiracy theory media. It's a fun idea, and a cool fantasy that can create some really interesting ideas but no- there are no real super-villains, puppet-masters, or cosmic forces controlling us in any significant way. (Let alone aliens, for which the present ideal of physics dictates that the human species will never even make contact with them). This isn't to say that there aren't individuals and corporations that aren't trying to get information on you and influence you - any Western government, Google, companies like Microsoft. Really though, the motivation is far from any social experiment, or societal control, it all just boils down to marketing and paranoia.

I agree with Chaosian here. And to be honest, the idea of us being the root of our problems is less scary than thinking there's an invincible entity or organization behind it all. To me, at least. Yeah, there are large organizations that are pulling a lot of very large strings, but forcing an entire world under a certain agenda isn't possible, there's too many people with many different thoughts and personalities. I used to be really in to conspiracies when I was 14, which was only a couple of years ago. And while some where proven true, I just can't believe this one until solidly proven. People often sit idly and worry about the state of the world and they let it consume their thoughts, even though they cant -or won't- do anything about it.

Mainstream media these days really is toxic, but is laughably so. I agree it severely dumbs down people's intelligence, but it's all a big selling point.

To Killo
 

Did I imply humans were wretched creatures? If I did, I did not mean too. I believe experiences have shaped some people into horrible people, but I believe for the most part many people would actually do good unless forced into circumstances of self-preservation. And even then there are some people who would choose others above themselves. Like I tried to state before, just because there might be a controlling shadowy organization doesn't mean they are evil. They could be benevolent, maybe they steered us away from some horrible things. Maybe they are the people who believe they will get their hands dirty so that others wont have too. Or they could be straight evil. idk. But I am aware of the possibility.
 
Okay, I believe existence itself is amazing or awesome, but I don't mean that in a positive or negative way. It's highly contradictory that anything like this could exist. Except in statistics, where anything is possible after enough repetition. However trying to say the accomplishments of human beings is anywhere near as astounding as the mere existence of everything is strange, at best. Which is again what I'm saying, when you compare how far (which isn't far at all) humans have made it to how far we will one day make it, it's not impressive at all. I mean, you can look at it from a buddhist/tao sort of standpoint and say it's equally as amazing for a snail to move a foot as it is for a bird to fly a mile as it is for a human to take a plane around the world. When it comes to terms of accomplishment, though, that snail is easily capable of more as is the bird, and the humans seem even more so accomplished in that light.
 
But in the scale of things all those accomplishments are specks, both in time and space ratios.
 
I really like that russels teapot, and it reminds me of Schroedingers Cat. Except with the cat, nothing is true or false. The cat is both dead and alive, but neither dead and alive as all possibilities exist until proven otherwise. I think with both the teapot and the cat my point stands; any intelligent choice would be to say we can't know, but that it is possible. There could very well be a teapot, or a planet full of talking donkeys around sirius. It's unlikely - for as much as we know logically - but to speak adamantly for or against until proven otherwise, that's just ignorant.
 
I think if shadowy forces were behind Fox News, then it would be a joke on purpose. Which, its funny you call it joke, but you do realize the sheer amount of people who actually take Fox seriously, right? You call it a joke, but a vast number of people actually watch and believe that show religiously. Which again, leads me to my point of that people can be influenced and all the anti-propaganda is only taken up by people who are immediately casted out as lunatics and paranoids by a majority of the american population.
 
As for if people would betray each other in groups like those, maybe they do. Maybe they betray each other all the time. There's no reason why it couldn't happen. Stuff could get leaked out all the time, and then people could be killed off all the time. The top dogs could be constantly in survival mode. Perhaps the groups have fallen apart crumbled and come back together.

To Chaos and Jelly

I agree that we are ultimately to blame for the way the world is, for it not improving wholly in strides. I agree that people ultimately are apathetic about it, and that's actually one of the main things that I criticize people about. People like to say "oh I cant help everyone" or "Oh don't blame yourself for all that you can't make things better" etc etc, but if we all tried, or worked towards trying, then we could make a real difference and we could improve things.

Also, I actually don't immerse myself in conspiracy. I don't look a lot of things up and I don't think about conspiracies a lot. I'm too busy trying to learn to script and program, and too busy writing. Too busy with school, plus I think there's too much misinformation and I'm too lazy to sift through all that bs for the good stuff.

However, how can you strongly say that these things don't exist? I mean, how much of this world do you really know? How many people have you really met? How many military bases have you been too? How many inches of the world have you covered?

How can you say, for sure, that these things don't exist without having absolute definite proof that they don't. Maybe, instead of me trying to console myself and think the world isn't horrible because of me and humanity, maybe instead you're trying to console yourself and allow yourself to feel empowered, maybe you are scared of not having control of yourself and you'd rather accept everything as your fault, even when it isn't?

unless you're saying that since we're all connected atomically that everything is technically your fault, and by default, all our faults.

Okay, how many of your actions do you consciously control? I mean, a lot of what you do is left up to your subconscious. Do you purposely, consciously, intently control your breathing every second of the day? Do you control every single little thought that enters your mind? Do you purposely take every single step that you take, and move your body exactly how you want too at all times? Have you never once in your life accidentally walked into a room without meaning too, or went too far while spacing out, or said something you didn't mean too? And you want to tell me that there is no possible way you can't be influenced?

Chaos can't be completely controlled, but it CAN be influenced, at certain scales. That much has been proven time and time and time again, even with Chaos theory in existence. Especially with Chaos theory, because Chaos Theory says that once you pass a certain scale that things become unstable. But what is that scale of influence? Every persons has a different one for themselves.

So it is possible, and while we are ultimately responsible for things, it doesn't mean we can't be influenced.

There's most definitely a group of elite bastards controlling the world & guiding it down the wrong path.

So I did actually take the time to look at all this stuff, but there's not much solid evidence behind most of this. The Sandy Hook one was pretty believable though, and I'm definitely leaning more towards "it was staged" after seeing that.

The Family Guy/Seth Mcfarlan one is kinda disturbing, but I didn't take the time to actually check the dates of the episodes and get hard evidence so I'm a bit skeptical. It could also be a case of the collective unconscious etc etc.