The Internet Is AConspiracy Theory1 Wednesday, August 12, 15[hello and thank you business; ask people to come forward; stuff about jenga]BEFORE WE GET STARTED2 Wednesday, August 12, 15Before we get started! 9/11 stuff probably about 15 minutes from now! Anyone for whom that might be uncomfortable or unpleasant, just thought Id let you know to give yourself time to adjust or escape.Good? Ok!3 Wednesday, August 12, 15Camp Imgurians! hello my name is @mikerugnetta4 Wednesday, August 12, 15Mike Rugnetta. I am the writer and host of a YouTube show calledyoutube.com/PBSIdeaChannel5 Wednesday, August 12, 15Idea Channel, which applies philosophical and critical concepts to things in the popular culture canon. Im also the creator of a podcast called inniteguest.org/reasonably-sound6 Wednesday, August 12, 15Reasonably Sound which is concerned with the science, theory and culture of all things audio and one-third of 7 Wednesday, August 12, 15MemeFactory: a live, lecture based performance art trio about what you might inaccurately label INTERNET CULTURE. We wrote a 8 Wednesday, August 12, 15book about that very subject and it has been stuck in legal purgatory for almost 5 years but if you want to read an 9 Wednesday, August 12, 15imageless, creative commons licensed version of it, I GOT THE HOOKUPTONIGHT were gonna talk about 10 Wednesday, August 12, 15believing stuff. Specically, belief as it relates to 11 Wednesday, August 12, 15ACTION and how the 12 Wednesday, August 12, 15internet helps with BOTH of those things. Were also gonna chat about the weird thin line between belief and This weird line, right here13 Wednesday, August 12, 15KNOWLEDGE, and how PROOFhttp://bit.ly/1KPr4c114 Wednesday, August 12, 15works (or doesnt as the case may be) for a certain subset of the population. Of course well talk about the role internet technology15 Wednesday, August 12, 15plays in those processes. To get things started, I wanna talk about some of the most important examples of incontrovertible proof in our time:16 Wednesday, August 12, 15So in the interest of same pagedness, in case anyone is unfamiliar, 17 Wednesday, August 12, 15HalfLife is a very popular series of first person shooter games starring silent scientist protagonist Gordon Freeman. Its published by 18 Wednesday, August 12, 15SIERRA and made by 19 Wednesday, August 12, 15VALVE, the folks responsible for 20 Wednesday, August 12, 15STEAM. Its also probably worth showing you21 Wednesday, August 12, 15Gabe Newell, Valves co-founder and managing director of game development, since hell come up a lot.Half Life the first was released in22 Wednesday, August 12, 15 1998, the second in 23 Wednesday, August 12, 152004. Both games enjoyed near 24 Wednesday, August 12, 15universal praise. Ive heard Half Life likened to 25 Wednesday, August 12, 15Use Your Illusion, 26 Wednesday, August 12, 15Citizen Kane, and27 Wednesday, August 12, 15Guernica: a genre if not movement if not MEDIUM DEFINING work. The big difference between HalfLife and 28 Wednesday, August 12, 15these other gargantuan creative monoliths? After Guernica, Picasso painted 29 Wednesday, August 12, 15Dora Maar au Chat, after Citizen Kane Orson Welles made30 Wednesday, August 12, 15The Magnificent Ambersons and after Use Your Illusion 31 Wednesday, August 12, 15Ok. Well. That maybe isnt such a great comparison but the point remains: more than ten years later we solider on 32 Wednesday, August 12, 15without a followup...Thats not33 Wednesday, August 12, 15Team Fortress 2or34 Wednesday, August 12, 15Portalor35 Wednesday, August 12, 15Portal 2oorrrrr36 Wednesday, August 12, 15Left for Dead, Left for Dead 2 or DOTA 2 BUT YOU GET IT37 Wednesday, August 12, 15The people want a third half-life! Something whichgiven the series pervasive positive public perception MUST BE IMMANENT. Somewhere, deep in some 38 Wednesday, August 12, 15top secret valve compound, there IShas to be, no way there is nota group of people WHIPPING UP THE PIXELS RIGHT NOW but... still no explicit sign. And so, in the shadow of this belief, being-in-the-world becomes like the process 39 Wednesday, August 12, 15CERN engages in to look for the Higgs-Boson: if we look very, very closely we will not see the thing itselffor it is impossibly illusivebut we will see evidence, residue, of its existence. And that will have to be proof enough. Such is the process depicted by a set of images collectively called 40 Wednesday, August 12, 15Half-Life 3 confirmed.Now, absent impossibly expensive 41 Wednesday, August 12, 15scientific machinery and a bevy of 42 Wednesday, August 12, 15physicists boffins well versed in the process of verification, its very easy to get 43 Wednesday, August 12, 15carried away... in ones desire for confirmation, in ones search for evidence. In the 44 Wednesday, August 12, 15early days of HL3 Confirmed, the imminence of the game was palpable and so the images were half, or maybe even a little more than half, serious. They were humorous reflections of a likely reality: 45 Wednesday, August 12, 15"HalfLife 3 is DEFINITELY on the way, heres how we know. LOL." But as time goes on, and HL3 feels less and less likely, the 46 Wednesday, August 12, 15sarcasm and self-awareness grows and the http://bit.ly/1IokIiO47 Wednesday, August 12, 15entire world becomes an ironic cipher for the grand scheme keeping Gordon Freeman under wraps. Suddenly 48 Wednesday, August 12, 15anything [APPEAR] and everything 49 Wednesday, August 12, 15confirms HalfLife 3. [APPEAR]The claim I want to make is this: without the technology of the internet, it is unlikely we would find these images which jokingly confirm the existence of this video game. Or, at least, 50 Wednesday, August 12, 15THIS MANY of these images which jokingly confirm the existence of this video game. Without the technology of the internet, we would not be able to construct a shared meaning surrounding these images 51 Wednesday, August 12, 15And without the technology of the internet, the beliefironic or notthat there is, should or WILL be a 52 Wednesday, August 12, 15Third Half Life game would either not exist, or would languish in the kind of pre-internet non-feverish anticipation awarded to things like 53 Wednesday, August 12, 15Aliens and 54 Wednesday, August 12, 15Ok, well. You get the point: the internet helps us 55 Wednesday, August 12, 15take actions which can encourage or sustain certain beliefs. This fact isnt unique to the internet, by a long shot. But I do think some of how the internet is built and works means it does these things in a manner thats somewhat novel for56 Wednesday, August 12, 15particular beliefs, particular actions [APPEAR] and particular people [APPEAR]. But before we get into the thick of that, some exposition will be helpful.Theres this idea that57 Wednesday, August 12, 15 belief requires 58 Wednesday, August 12, 15action. Without occasion to act upon them, beliefs are just ideas. Under appreciated polymath and social activist, philosopher 59 Wednesday, August 12, 15John Dewey said beliefs are tools for dealing with reality; Noted genius and slightly more appreciated bag of dicks60 Wednesday, August 12, 15Charles Sanders Peirce said their purpose was to counteract doubt, which is a naturally uncomfortable position for the mind to occupy. Either way and whatever those beliefs, until they are embodied and enacted, theyre just theories. concepts. They lack conviction, weight.This doesnt mean beliefs necessarily REFLECT or DEPEND UPON reality, though. Beliefs may help ushttp://bit.ly/1KPtirZ61 Wednesday, August 12, 15ORGANIZE REALITY. They may help make it a little more FRIENDLY. Beliefs may resemble, and in many cases be all buddy-buddy with FACTS, but beliefs, duh, are not facts. Still that doesnt stop lots of us, by which I mean MOST of us, from sometimes behaving they like they are anyway. Assoonasafirm belief is reached,we are entirely satisfied, whetherthebelief be true or false. C.S. Peirce62 Wednesday, August 12, 15This is one way to frame the idea of beliefs requiring action: that organization of realitywhether its true or falseis an action. In order to say we hold certain beliefs, we must organizeact uponour reality in a manner consistent with them. ()63 Wednesday, August 12, 15(And for the sake of argument well have to agree that if someone acts counter to their "beliefs", they dont REALLY believe them, at least not in the moment comprising their action.)Now, lets be super clear here: people who post or enjoy http://bit.ly/1KPtC9Y64 Wednesday, August 12, 15HalfLife 3 Confirmed Images probably don't BELIEVE those images prove, without a doubt, the existence of HalfLife 3. However I DO think the collective action of finding and sharing these images sustains ()65 Wednesday, August 12, 15(or maybe creates, well talk about that in a second) 66 Wednesday, August 12, 15a belief in HalfLife 3s possibility. Even when the images are http://bit.ly/1KPtI1s67 Wednesday, August 12, 15patently ridiculous, they STILL serve as a reminder that HalfLife deserves another sequel.http://bit.ly/1KPtPdn68 Wednesday, August 12, 15HL3 Confirmed images will stop being funny, or maybe even tolerable, the moment our collective hope for HalfLife 3 is gone. Then theyll just behttp://bit.ly/1KPtUh869 Wednesday, August 12, 15cruel. Salt in the wound.But ok what about the other side of this: if beliefs are sustained or confirmed by action, do actions sustain or confirm belief? Do http://bit.ly/1KPtVlb70 Wednesday, August 12, 15ALL actions... sustain belief?Sorta, yeah. One could argue that while interacting with the world, we believe 71 Wednesday, August 12, 15in the outcome of every practical action we take. Most of the time, our beliefs are confirmed. The list beliefs held in response to stuff learned via direct interaction is included in the set of things we might call COMMON KNOWLEDGE. These are the beliefs buddy-buddy with FACT: when you drop something,72 Wednesday, August 12, 15itll fall; tomorrow the sun will rise to the 73 Wednesday, August 12, 15east; the next 74 Wednesday, August 12, 15Paul Rudd movie will probably be like, yknow, PRETTY GOOD. Common knowledge beliefs also let us to act with confidence: I pay for my $4.50 75 Wednesday, August 12, 15bagel sandwich with a $5 bill hidden in a crumple of $1 bills. I find the button in the http://bit.ly/1KPumMk76 Wednesday, August 12, 15elevator for my floor and I press it. Though highly practical and infinitely predictable, doubt is eradicated at every step of this process: 77 Wednesday, August 12, 15Do I have the five I believe I do? Yes. Will the cashier give me change? Yes! And oh, with my receipt, not separately. How is the elevator button grid laid out? Ah yes theres my floor. Will the elevator make it all the way there? THANK GOD.But as our actions become more 78 Wednesday, August 12, 15abstract and the 79 Wednesday, August 12, 15doubt we are attempting to remove becomes more pervasive or ephemeral... As our beliefs abandon reason and verification for convenience, comfort, or as Peirce put it: satisfaction... thats when things can get 80 Wednesday, August 12, 15kooky. We could jokingly call 81 Wednesday, August 12, 15HalfLife 3 Confirmed a conspiracy theory, but its not. Its dressed up like one, but lacks the conviction. People trafficking in this stuff dont believe their ability to locate countless images seemingly referencing HalfLife betrays the existence of a secret plot to keep 82 Wednesday, August 12, 15Gordon under wraps at the expense of their own freedom or agency.83 Wednesday, August 12, 15Belief in the illuminati, on the other hand, holds that the ability to locate and draw connections between certain pieces of information betrays the existence of a secret society of shadowy individuals who possess influence over the worlds governments and resources. Their aim is, allegedly, to bring about a global totalitarian oligarchy sometimes referred to as the 84 Wednesday, August 12, 15New World Order. Though one of these is an 85 Wednesday, August 12, 15internet joke and the other is an actual belief held by actual people in the actual world, their operations are surprisingly similar. But before we talk about how and why that is, first we need to talk for a few minutes about how Real Conspiracy Theories86 Wednesday, August 12, 15Real Conspiracy Theories work. Belief in the illuminatiConspiracytheoriesdo not interpret events as a coincidence,butrather asbeingmotivatedby oneoriginarycause: evil. Mari-Liis Madisson, Semiotica87 Wednesday, August 12, 15or New World Order is, as you are no doubt already aware, just one of many conspiracy theories. Each is of a varying uniqueness, but most possess similar operating principles. To the conspiracy theorist the 88 Wednesday, August 12, 15JFK assassination, 89 Wednesday, August 12, 15Global Warming, 90 Wednesday, August 12, 15a collapsed economy or in extreme cases, 91 Wednesday, August 12, 15personal failings, are the result of 92 Wednesday, August 12, 15evil forces secretly conspiring. Conspiracy Theorists arrive at their beliefs for many, very complicated reasons, one of which has to do with a desire and ability to find and organize proof.Conspiracy theorists tend to suffer feelings ofhttp://bit.ly/1OSfhup93 Wednesday, August 12, 15helplessness: personal, social, political, epistemological. Largely, conspiracy theorists believe they can't take meaningful significant action because an evil forceand not coincidence or circumstancehas colluded to thwart progress or truth. So instead, they take the only action they feel is available to them: [mind map]http://bit.ly/1OSfv4D94 Wednesday, August 12, 15drawing connections. Linking bits of information, pieces of media, the actions and speech of othersthings well collectively refer to as signs and sets of signs. They link these signs intending to create proof of their theories, but really they create COHERENCE. As beliefs do, any given Conspiracy Theory may or may not have some relationship to FACT, but undoubtably its signs will have strong relationships to ONE ANOTHER. This is the conspiracy theorists verification: coherence between signs which, though they have little or no obvious business being connected in the first place, perform some convincing relationship under the http://bit.ly/1KPr4c195 Wednesday, August 12, 15magnifying glass of the highly suspicious.()96 Wednesday, August 12, 15(And, we should pause here to admit that just because something is a conspiracy theory does NOT mean that it is false; only that it is a bunch of signs put in questionable relationship to one another, often inspired by personal suspicions.Often conspiracy theories sound totally bananas and are wrong, but we should remember that Watergate, The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, the Iran Contra Affair, The Manhattan Project and countless other happenings were all literal conspiracies described as and discovered to be exactly that.Mark Fenster writes in his book()97 Wednesday, August 12, 15Conspiracy Theories: Secrets and Power in American Culture that, though the conspiracy theorist is often considered on the fringe of society, they can also represent an earnest, and important demand for accountability and transparency in an increasingly opaque world.Except, of course, in cases where conspiracy theorizing intersects with sexism, racism and other forms of prejudice. Which it does. OFTEN.)98 Wednesday, August 12, 15Right or wrong, conspiracy theorists dont wade into verification territory the same way those folks at CERN do. They wade, further and further, into 99 Wednesday, August 12, 15Peirces satisfaction, into 100 Wednesday, August 12, 15Deweys dealing with reality. One reason for this is that theirhttp://bit.ly/1OSfCwU101 Wednesday, August 12, 15linked-signs provide agency. They are the thing upon which action is taken and out of which further belief can result. They are a source of power. They are also the source of popular conspiracy rhetoric: any lay person can become an expert! You can know the truth! If you only 102 Wednesday, August 12, 15do the research. Here, "doing the research" means creating or accepting relationships between otherwise unrelated signs, thus confirming conspiratorial beliefs. Conspiracy doesnt deal in highly specialized knowledge or challenging concepts but a willingness to trust the coherence between signs as bond, and as the result of diabolical plots arranged by 103 Wednesday, August 12, 15lizard people, http://bit.ly/1OSfMVd104 Wednesday, August 12, 15The President or the cast of105 Wednesday, August 12, 15Degrassi: The Next Generation. Without coherent sets of signs to represent their beliefs, there is no action to be taken, no research to be done, no plot to be found. To avoid this being the case, because there 106 Wednesday, August 12, 15CANT NOT be some secret plot, ANY AND ALL SIGNS become FAIR GAME. A defining feature of most conspiracy theories is that they are pervasive. Any and http://bit.ly/1OSgEZX107 Wednesday, August 12, 15everything can, and might, signal a conspiracy.HL3 Confirmed parodies this process.Illuminati Confirmed108 Wednesday, August 12, 15reproduces it.The Eye of Providence is thought to represent the presence of the Illuminati wherever it appears. It appears LOTS of places; but before we talk about that: lets talk about how this symbol became associated with a powerful secret society hell bent architecting a global, totalitarian government... despite the fact it doesnt REALLY have any relationship to the Illuminati at all. The Illuminati was an 109 Wednesday, August 12, 15actual organization in 18th century Europe. They were dedicated to swaying the opinions and operations of those in seats of power who were showing undue deference to religion. They were pretty ineffective, actually, and disbanded by the early 19th century. Popular conspiracy shifted to blaming the Jewish population, Catholics, 110 Wednesday, August 12, 15ALIENS and, at present, mostlyhttp://bit.ly/1OSh5DG111 Wednesday, August 12, 15 social groups and governments or http://bit.ly/1OShtls112 Wednesday, August 12, 15their agents. But the 113 Wednesday, August 12, 15Illuminati has stuck around in popular culture. http://bit.ly/1OShxSl114 Wednesday, August 12, 15THANKS, DAN BROWN. The reason popular culture settled on the 115 Wednesday, August 12, 15Eye of Providencemeant to evoke the all seeing vision of Godas the symbol for conspiracy makes lots of sense. Its gotten lots of play throughout history: it was almost on the 116 Wednesday, August 12, 15Official Seal of the US! It's seen in 117 Wednesday, August 12, 15FREEMANSONRY, on 118 Wednesday, August 12, 15American Money, in the symbology of http://bit.ly/1OShN3O119 Wednesday, August 12, 15many religions. And its 120 Wednesday, August 12, 15CREEPY AS HELL. Disembodied eye! Floating atop a pyramid! Magic lines. Lines indicating I dont know. Magic. If I were in the Evil Secret Society Design Office and there was a book of Evil Secret Society symbols in the same way there are books of tattoo designs in tattoo shops, and I came across THIS Id like be BAM. WERE DONE HERE. WERE GOING WITH THE FLOATING EYE. This symbol perfectly evokes the kind of thing some imagined, aspiring autocrat loves. Creepy. Mysterious. All seeing.In a way, associating the eye of providence with conspiratorial dealings is, itself, a conspiracy theory: we can 121 Wednesday, August 12, 15connect so many things about its past that it makes PERFECT NOT-ACTUAL-BUT-ALMOST-SENSE that itd signal dastardly doings. And its ubiquitous! Its everywhere! Surely that must mean something! But, really, 122 Wednesday, August 12, 15its less a case of actual frequency and more a kind of bias. Its sort of like how, after you went to that party a few weeks ago and met that woman 123 Wednesday, August 12, 15Brenda and she was nice but just... I dont know there was something weird about her and now youve RUN INTO HER ON THE STREET LIKE, 3 TIMES? Or how after youve http://bit.ly/1Dx4RzC124 Wednesday, August 12, 15broken up with your significant other, you realize every song on the radio was trying to warn you the whole time that things we going south. If youre 125 Wednesday, August 12, 15idly thinking on something, these weird coincidences arise, but if you are http://bit.ly/1KPr4c1126 Wednesday, August 12, 15hyper-focused, you can organize your world by those thoughts with GREAT conviction and success. For Bronies, 127 Wednesday, August 12, 15everything is ponies. For conspiracy theorists, everything is 128 Wednesday, August 12, 15secret threats to freedom. Its some combination of frequency illusion or the baader-meinhof effectwhere after youve heard of something once it keeps popping upand confirmation bias, a likelihood to interpret the world in ways that fit your already arrived at conclusions. Either way and whatever it is: 129 Wednesday, August 12, 15Brenda is definitely following you. 130 Wednesday, August 12, 15Basically, what Im saying is that The Eye of Providences Ubiquity is not proof there are131 Wednesday, August 12, 15people lurking in the shadows any more than Hs and Ls and 3s prove HalfLife 3s existence. Rather, they are both proof that people have decided those signs are meaningful. When a132 Wednesday, August 12, 15simple, recognizable sign which is ubiquitous either because of its usefulness or its hopelessly non-specific nature takes on significant meaning, it can become a cipher for the multitude of nefarious forces secretly calling the shots. Now, HsLs3sSUREyou might say. Thosere gonna be literally everywhere? But a pyramid with an eye? REALLY? Well, as it turns out:133 Wednesday, August 12, 15YOU134 Wednesday, August 12, 15CAN135 Wednesday, August 12, 15FIND136 Wednesday, August 12, 15THE EYE137 Wednesday, August 12, 15OF PROVIDENCE138 Wednesday, August 12, 15LOTS139 Wednesday, August 12, 15OF140 Wednesday, August 12, 15PLACES. You just have to know where to look. Of course, an important aspect of this is that, at this point, humans have produced so much visual material that one could reasonably expect to assemble enough evidence for any visually supportable belief picked out of a hat, especially if that belief involves signs not SIMPLE but ICONIC.This is, similarly, the case with the set of conspiracies surrounding141 Wednesday, August 12, 159/11: people claiming the government, or Satan by way of the entertainment industry or the Jewish Population were somehow responsible for the attacks searched for, found and assembled142 Wednesday, August 12, 15 pieces of media which appear to predict the attacks, but really just display a 143 Wednesday, August 12, 15well known and often considered piece of architecture in various fictional situations, some of themof courseinvolving 144 Wednesday, August 12, 15violence. Some depictions include145 Wednesday, August 12, 15buildings which resemble the Twin Towers but, as far as building shapes go, the World Trade Center was really thehttp://bit.ly/1hlnCfr146 Wednesday, August 12, 15platonic ideal of SKY SCRAPER. Big. Tall. Rectangle. If, tomorrow, some terrible fate befalls the http://bit.ly/1hlnHQe147 Wednesday, August 12, 15statue of liberty, in two weeks, conspiracy theorists could surface http://bit.ly/1hlnLjc148 Wednesday, August 12, 15every piece of media, every drawing and depiction of Lady Liberty being toppled by aliens or seized by villains or spoken of as the subject of attack. This talk,149 Wednesday, August 12, 15could be used to prove I knew was what REALLY going on. One of the reasons that would be possibleand done so quickly, with such authorityis that so much of that visual media weve been making for centuries is150 Wednesday, August 12, 15 searchable and sortable and cross-reference-able and http://bit.ly/1OSfv4D151 Wednesday, August 12, 15CONNECTABLE via the internet. These are just some of the actions we can take on the internet; what are the beliefs that might reasonably result?The internet places an infinity of information in remarkably close proximity. Every image, video, piece of text and code isas far as the actions of human beings are concernedadjacent (or nearly so) to every OTHER image, video, piece of text and code. The internet is, and has been, from its very beginning, a system of 152 Wednesday, August 12, 15interconnections. For better or worse, those interconnections and the things being interconnected are not weighted; a practical infinity of things is easily linked and associated. It is likely that we, even as savvy users, think of the internet and the places on it as http://bit.ly/1hlo9y5153 Wednesday, August 12, 15one mass, or a continuous landscape, as opposed to severalor an impossibly large numberof networks joined together to create a massive but heterogenous entity. This is a knee-jerk conception that I fight in myself constantly.As an extension of this, theres a threat of viewing the http://bit.ly/1hloPTY154 Wednesday, August 12, 15bits and pieces of that entity as being made equal or equal-ish. In this view, if the internet is a http://bit.ly/1hloWPr155 Wednesday, August 12, 15vast desert, the content on it is grains of sand. Every grain of sand isfor all its unique complexity and beauty when you http://bit.ly/1hlp5Cq156 Wednesday, August 12, 15get all up in its grillstill roughly the same to the naked eye. We may understand that each grain of sand is different, but in some way they are all very similar. They are roughly the same weight, they all provide roughly the same value.I try my best to think of the internet not as a vast http://bit.ly/1hlp3KP157 Wednesday, August 12, 15sea or http://bit.ly/1hlpcOz158 Wednesday, August 12, 15landscape or159 Wednesday, August 12, 15 municipal dump of content, but more like a http://bit.ly/1hlpq8l160 Wednesday, August 12, 15quarry, out of which resources of varying sizes and weights, importance and value can be extracted. Everything from dust to these massive blocks of unimaginable weight and solidity. Hefty presences which demand consideration alongside small and beautiful detritus which might easily fit in your pocket. All of it the result of work, sure, but some the result of more work. All with some kind of worth, sure, but not all the same kind of worth. This attitude makes the facile linking of any-and-everything a little more... fraught.When we, as civilians, 161 Wednesday, August 12, 15interact with the internet, and the media or information or data stored on it, it is all with a set of actions which are, roughly speaking, simple. The internets technology turns massive http://bit.ly/1hlpsgx162 Wednesday, August 12, 15quarry blocks of content into grains of sand: the technology homogenizes the effort of our actions. There are exceptions but as far as popular usage of internet technology is concerned: to find and lift and use the weighty bits is often the same amount of effort, the same amount of action as finding and using individual morsels. This is how it it comes to pass that 163 Wednesday, August 12, 15PLOS article and http://bit.ly/1hlpJQk164 Wednesday, August 12, 15BLOG POST can, for some, have equal weight. 165 Wednesday, August 12, 15A twitter account run by some guy who has no idea what hes talking about and an entry on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy end up screen-shotted on the same slide.http://bit.ly/1hlrf4Y166 Wednesday, August 12, 15Its how a million public domain images and a collection of pdfs about http://bit.ly/1hlrn4w167 Wednesday, August 12, 15THE COMING ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT or this significantly less terrifying168 Wednesday, August 12, 15PDF about novelty cupcakes become just as available for consideration and comment.169 Wednesday, August 12, 15On the internet, we can easily find and quickly connect whatever set of signs we like and the technology doesnt complain. And, for the record, Im not either! This is a beautiful 170 Wednesday, August 12, 15internet-thing. When we talk about the democratizing effect the internet has had for the groups of people with access to it, this is one of the things were talking about: equal technological respect for content. Or... disrespect as the case may be. 171 Wednesday, August 12, 15But its important to remember that THE INTERNETespecially search, content reposting or rehosting and the stripping of data so often associated with the database-ification of mediahas a tendency to erase authors and context. Or maybe it collapses them? If the internet is all http://bit.ly/1hlo9y5172 Wednesday, August 12, 15one continuous context, and all one173 Wednesday, August 12, 15anonymous, faceless author... ....with each individual discovery of a piece of media, a potential piece of evidence" for whatever our cause... its context is created anew in whatever frame, and frame of mind, the seacher finds that media. They see in it what they bring to it. This is how the weight of all signs becomes homogenized. This is how the internet, as a piece of technology, becomes a174 Wednesday, August 12, 15conspiracy theory.It is easylike with HL3 confirmed, Illuminati confirmed, actual conspiracy theories, and our own seemingly mundane, totally down to earth beliefsto find belief-confirming coherence in the internets infinite set of equally weighted signs.http://bit.ly/1UqVZzN175 Wednesday, August 12, 15The internets arrangement of technologies cares not about the source, quality or potential worth of your ideas. It doesntor shouldnt, as popular sentiment goesadjust access based upon those things. The great technological equalization of contentmaking all or mostly all of it available for connection, critique, comment, reference or remixhas made previously unimaginable things possible.But we should not forget that technological equalization ISNT BY ACCIDENT...http://bit.ly/1UqW4DE176 Wednesday, August 12, 15...but by design. The operation of internet technology is not natural. Its constructed, by a relatively small group of people responsible for software, architectures and protocols. There are ideas, concepts, aims and politics baked into the operation of these things. Many of those ideas and politics are now invisible to us; they seem natural, given or logical, but theyre not. And when confronted with their177 Wednesday, August 12, 15contingencyespecially where it allows us to take actions related to our beliefswe are lead to ask some tough questions about ourselves, and what we expect from our technology.The internet, like so much technology, is an Ideological Technology178 Wednesday, August 12, 15Ideological Technology. The way our technology operates tells us the ways its creators think technology and THE WORLD can or should operate. If that operation appears natural to us, thats because weve naturalized it.179 Wednesday, August 12, 15In Conspiracy Theories, A Critical Introduction, Jovan Byford talks about how one might think the availability of verifiable information on the internet would lead to an overall decrease in the number of conspiracy theories and theorists; but one would be super double extra no-tag-backs wrong. The opposite, as it turns out, is true. The internet is a testament to the human brains ability to entrench, not relent, in light of conflicting information.And I mean, really, is it that ridiculous to think that because the internet allows us to easily1 2180 Wednesday, August 12, 15connect things we might begin to believe they should be connected? Technologically and otherwise? That we would not connect ideas ourselves in the same way our favorite global nework does? A feeling of 181 Wednesday, August 12, 15success resulting from realizing those easy connections is the residuethe trails of the Higgs Boson, indicating the real and true existence of something. The evidence of something else, something BIG.182 Wednesday, August 12, 15And it was there the whole time! The proof! The connections were right in front me! I just wasnt LOOKING. I just didnt know HOW. But I learned! I did! And I finally saw it.If you were to do the research, http://bit.ly/1Ur0iep183 Wednesday, August 12, 15you would realize, too.HL3 CONFIRMED184 Wednesday, August 12, 15THANK YOU@mikerugnetta185 Wednesday, August 12, 15