A lot of our problems with modern conspiracy theorists are tied into how people who don’t want appreciate science think it’s also a good idea to attack the science. The Antiscience movement is in full swing. Free speech is good, but ultimately members of society owe it to themselves and those that surround them to find the right answer. Not just the convenient answer of what they want to hear. The simultaneous belief in contradictory thoughts is a large piece of the antiscience belief system. People who genuinely think that the Earth is flat, plane contrails are poisoning us and 5G causes Covid are using modern science to disseminate misinformation that the technology they are using is rooted in the debunking of their stupid opinions. And I need to work in the obligatory reminder - the internet grifters just love this. Disinformation = misinformation + a fundraiser.
Picture old timey sailors. A civilization with a water source was primed to be a lot better off than a desert with a scant supply. Instead of just standing near the shore and poking at unlucky fish close enough to stupidly get near your sharp, pointy objects you could access a supply of tasty fishies not easily available if you figured out how to make a floating piece of wood to get out to new areas.
A more modern example of the speed of technological process outpacing social progress are the World Wars. You were the king of the block if your battleships were better than others. Then by the end of WWII we found it was much more important to use the speed of jet aircraft and bomb the shit out of others from a safer distance. Now unmanned drones and guided middles are better than planes for killing from afar.
The smarter people making progress in earlier maritime civilizations figured out the Earth was round. And navigation with a compass became a huge deal. And we can be pretty sure that some of them were considered heretics by those that were just itching for 5G to come along and be used as a convenient scapegoat. Because one of the things that we know about people being assholes, is that even if they’re wrong, even if they know deep down they’re wrong, they DON’T like to be told about it. Much better to find a scapegoat to blame. Sure it can be fun to sit down at the tavern and have a debate with other sailors about how you think the government assassinated Ahab, there was another big sea creature on that grassy knoll, but sometimes you need a crisis actor or completely mythical target. You know, something convenient that won’t fight back, that won’t punch you for being the drunken tavern asshole you are.
The Sirens Did It. Or it may be more correct to say the harpies did it. Who knows for sure 100%.
https://www.audubon.org/news/sirens-greek-myth-were-bird-women-not-mermaids
Surprisingly, old timey sailors like some entertainment to go along with scoring with Brandy the fine barmaid while on a layover between voyages. And there’s already some nice, perfectly fine predictive programming from Greek times to capitalize on. Greek sirens, hideous looking bird/human hybrids, now that’s just plain stupid that somebody would think that was for real. But change the format from hideous bird woman to sultry woman/fish that makes sense now. Keep the alluring voice though, cause that part is pretty cool.
There’s always been people with a problem separating fact from fiction. And tales and songs of your covering up your colossal fuck up by crashing your ship on the rocks - they know there wasn’t a storm last night.
Comely fish woman did it.
My personal belief is that any story about comely fish women that used to be hideous bird women isn’t any good unless the head is a fish and the torso is the woman parts. You’re just being racist, or mermaidist, if you insist otherwise. But moving on.
Do you really think that mermaid stories weren’t grifting? Aarrgh, matey, buy me another grog an I’ll share ye the story of how I got me peg leg from a shark…no wait crashing’ me ship on the rocks because the comely siren distracted me from my sailin’ duties. Arguably, the story has a lot of legitimate entertainment value for those that accept it as the fiction it is. But it is distracting from the real story that the Jesuits are behind the mermaids. The gematria proves that.
Some stories are better than others. Some storytellers are better than others. If you look for your bogeyman now as a comely fish maiden hybrid you aren’t going to get as much attention, unless you can tie it in to modern times and our current technological progress. Voting for people that the entire campaign platform amounts to, “I have the right to believe in mermaids”, isn’t going to help you with the next pandemic and how climate change is going to kill all the mermaids off.
No comments:
Post a Comment