Tag: war

Psychic Warfare from 1981-2008

An interesting post on Brainsturbator, on US Military Psi research and brain change.

The year I was born, in 1981, the US Government decided magick was real.  Well, the “US Government” is of course an abstraction—specifically, Congressional Research Service was commissioned to do a report on psychic phenomena and offered the following conclusion:

“Recent experiments in remote viewing and other studies in parapsychology suggest that there exists an ‘interconnectiveness’ of the human mind with other minds and with matter. This interconnectiveness would appear to be functional in nature and amplified by intent and emotion.”

That sounds like a pretty accurate description of magick to me.  Score one for the weirdos, right?

Of course, I don’t expect you to believe that. Ignore any claims that wouldn’t get made outside a college-level physics textbook.  There is no need to believe in non-human or “extra-dimensional” intelligence, no need to believe in telekinesis, no need to believe in any of the claims made by the magick community.  They are merely designing rituals to alter their perception and experiencing self-generated hallucinations.

The illusion of moving images is a puzzle that humans have cracked to great success, and by flashing sequential photographs at 24 frames per second or more, we get to watch movies—windows back in time.  Humans have even learned to “fake” three-dimensional objects with holographic technology.

If it can be engineered, it can be reverse engineered. If these people are “merely” altering their own consciousness and then taking their own imagination at face value, these rituals can be modeled, measured and ultimately replicated.  It is obvious, both to skeptics and to practicing magicians, that most of the words, props and staging involved with ritual is a matter of personal preference and probably not integral to the actual effects.

What would you do with six trillion dollars?

Charlie Stross asks the best question I’ve seen in a long while:

The direct cost to the US government of the war and occupation of Iraq — counting only funds appropriated by Congress — so far runs to roughly $523Bn.

However, that’s the direct cost — money directly spent on the project. There are indirect costs, too: Joseph Stiglitz estimates the true cost of the war to be $3Tn to the United States, and $3Tn to the rest of the global economy. These are indirect costs, and factor in the long-term additional expenses that the war has accrued — everything from caring for brain-damaged soldiers for the next 50 years through to loss of economic productivity attributable to instabilities in the supply of oil from Iraq.

We can tap-dance around the indirect costs, but the direct costs (that headline figure of $523Bn) are inarguable.

So. What fun boondoggles could we have bought with either $523Bn (at the low end) or $6Tn (at the high end)?

Charlie does the math and works out that the money pissed away on The War For Oil could have paid for over 500 colonists to set up on Mars, or enough nuclear power stations to provide a quarter of the worlds electricity needs. Then asks for other suggestions.

Well… what would you do

EDIT 30 May: It’s notable just how quickly the thread replies were jumped on by wingnut neocon apologists trying to say that when Iraq 2 is ‘a success’ there’ll be loads of profit and benefit. Yeah, sure, if you’re a major shareholder in Halliburton or Blackwater…