Miners not told full story about their plight.

Are you seriously comparing your bourgeois little existential problems with those of men trapped in a cave who might die?

Seriously. I can see what the original post is getting at, but if you're going to wax philosophical about current events, please don't trivialise the plight of those miners by putting it in the news and current events forum.

So I see the forum is only good for satirical bantering, superfulous ego stroking and crass flaming peppered with trolled-pics from googles images, but any serious conversation is met with derision?

There's plenty of serious conversation around here. But if you can't stand those other things being mixed in with 'serious' conversation, then what are you doing on an internet message board?

You mean "what I am doing", simply stating it is a tragedy but doesn't it make you think... I'd not mind that other stuff I am saying the first comment by Jane.s was a blatant flame to the newbie and it shouldn't go unnoticed. It was an interesting notion and the tragedy was mentioned no flame necessary, the derision is a sign of lacking anything interesting to add.

Jane.s Don't you see the potential for mining story ideas, no pun intended? Do not get on me about silly political correctness. I said it was a tragedy but the most enlightening stories are generated from making metaphorical connections no matter how absurd.

Like I said, I can see what you're getting at. It's pretty obvious that most people are blissfully unaware of what's happening in the world, and even those who consider themselves to be in the know probably don't know half of what is really going on. This is why sites like Wikileaks are becoming increasingly important, and that's why the government wants to shut those sites down. The amount of spin and misinformation going around about the BP oil spill is a good example - the amount of oil leaked into the gulf is obviously much, much higher than BP or the US Government is saying it is, and I don't think we'll ever know the true amount, because probably they don't even know it themselves. But I just don't know that saying any of this is like being in a very small space, 2500 feet underground with 29 other men and limited oxygen is entirely fair. No one is limiting our oxygen supply. At least not yet.

One time some people were at my house, and one guy said, "Let's continue this conversation around the grill."

I went outside and turned on the grill, and asked if he had any meat to cook. He said, "No, I was speaking metaphorically".

_kit Have you looked at the sky lately, it seems they may be just doing that. Or at least some good fiction could make this interesting.

Just how is anyone trapped in their consciousness or enslaved to our existence?
One example of each should suffice.

Yeah, pretty much.

Seriously, metropotome, your metaphor idea is a bit ridiculous. I don't feel enslaved in any way. What makes you think you're being enslaved to do anything? Do you mean the natural work and pain life comes with? Could you provide a system in which there is no pain, you can do whatever you want, and you don't have to answer to anyone? Because if you call anything other than that enslavement, you, sir, are emo, and if you haven't heard, emo ain't cool. Now, if you're referring to a consciousness controlling everything you do and say by influencing you to do it (e.g. The Matrix, Inception, a deterministic god, priming in advertising techniques), then MAYBE I can see your point. But I feel I've learned enough to know that no conscious being is capable of gathering all the information and determining all the variables to be able to control my life in any way that would make me feel used or even uncomfortable.

The only thing I can see with the miner thing is something like would the government tell us that an asteroid was heading directly towards earth and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

List any part of your existence, school, work, diet, love anything and it can be shown that it is contrived, manipulated.
The question is not is there any one thing that is enslaved but rather is their any one thing that you can cite that is not?

I still didn't see any example of how anything is enslaved or trapped.
You are as enslaved as you want to be. At least here, maybe in China not so much.

It sounds like you're arguing Free-Will vs Pre-Destination which is so far down the list of things that relate to those miners that it would take six to seven months to dig it out.

Circular logic is awesome because I say it is.

Liberum69 - I can bet you were born sometime after 1982. You grew up in Barney's circle of a sheltered acquiescent childhood. I love you, you love me... Wake up. My analogy was that the "authorities" were restricting the flow of information to attempt to shield the miners from the reality of their situation. Just as our "authorities" do the same to us, daily, while offering us bread and circus. One day you will reflect on what I am saying and, see it. Do you have kids? Mortgage, investments, are you invested in the world we leave?

Look around yourself, the life being sold to you. What is their motivations, why do you have the outlook you have? What do you drive, consume, where do you shop, what do you think, what is the source of your opinions, what is color of your walls, the brand of your television, how many hours do you spend on video games, do you reflect upon the foods you eat, marketing campaigns that manipulate you, the lyrics of the music you pick, the location your automobile was built, the materials used to construct your home,....
You exhaust me and your ignorance scares me. No offense but you say your awake and nothing is controlling you or that you are the master of your existence or that there are no people or organizations controlling your behavior, then we are all fucked. Let them google us, map us, chip us, Real ID us, database us, limit us with one size fits all bureaucracies and silicon valley engineered scripts. I feel real safe with thinkers like you. Who is ridiculous? Go accessories your iPod

I think he's getting at things like epidemics and murderers we aren't warned/ told about because they would cause wide-spread panic and make the situation worse. Or all the secrets that other people know that you don't that would completely change your perception of the way things are and affect the decisions that you make.

For instance, it is a routine practice for a company to hire someone to a full time, permanent position with someone in the company (usually not the person doing the hiring) knowing that they will be eliminating the position in a month or a year (but not disclosing this information to the potential hires under the guise of corporate information security - i.e. they do not want their competitors to know of a impending change they will be making in management or financial difficulties they may have run into). This is information that would affect the people applying for the position and it might affect their decision to take the job if offered.

Is that what you mean?

Yes... Now we are thinking. I like this guy he doesn't mask his ignorance by flaming or insulting critiques.

The fact is this "Life being sold to you" wouldn't exist if there weren't buyers. If that's what people want then of course that's what we're going to be given.

You might get the responses you're looking for over there on infowars.com.

Read freemena, that is a person that can think, see beyond themselves. This is not about conspiracies. It is about story ideas. About seeing where others don't. Come on THINK. You don't have to like me, but you flamed me.

I too, once played Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. What the government does. It's wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for what they do. Like badwrong, or badong. Yes, what they do is badong. Did you see that Zeitgeist movie? More stuff that is wrong.

Seriously though, being an asshole wont turn people to your cause, however right you might be.

It's stupid to refer to the trapped miners, you COULD just make the point without making a bad simile.

To make people listen to you without getting irritated with you say something like: 'I understand what you mean, and I'd feel the same way if I were you.' Then go: 'I look at it this way because this and that, although you've got a valid point.'

Not exactly like that but in that general direction.

We will get to a point of 'enlightenment' or, as a race die trying.

Freemena just listed five separate story ideas. Think about fight club chapter 3, the auto industry and what they don't tell you, now extrapolate it, it is everywhere you look. And to act like it isn't or it is a byproduct of consumption or that regulations can help strikes me as superficial. This is part of it of course but it is also psychological, it is natural, it is product of consciousness, each of builds a prison and than confines ourselves to it. Some are more sealed and protected than others.

If you don't want to 'sold to' move into the middle of nowhere. Get off the internet, cancel your email, credit card, sell all your earthly possessions, and live off the natural world where not a soul could find you. Don't go on the internet and bitch and moan about how freewill is some illusion created by some higher power. If you want to be free, be free.

In many ways the miners are no worse off. You have been over sensitized, political correctness afflicts you, it stops you from seeing. I am sorry I hurt your feelings. I was attacked, I was asked to prove myself I met derision. My response is that, a response. Do you feel tongue and cheek satire is an adequate response.

It is not about being sold to. It is about what is hidden from you.

metropotome, you are pretty narrow-minded. Some people say they think your simile is bad and stuff, and you bitch about them being total retards or something.

Get Over Yourself. Get of your high horses. Stop holding that shit in, it's making you a douche.

Well whoever is hidden stuff from is doing a pretty good job at it, since I have no idea what's being hidden from me. Ot maybe it's just that I don't care. Just because ones not interested in how they're unable to control the basic facets of ones life, doesn't make one ignorant.

Oh. I am sure it is just that you don't care. And, the definition of ignorant is a lack of understanding of something, and that is what you just described in the facets of your lifet. So it does in fact make you ignorant.

okay. once and for all. Are you wanting story ideas or just to grab at metaphysical straws?

The flames in the grill were very real, but alas, there was no meat forith them to cook.

Flame my burgers and I will appreciate their tastiness.

The idea is to wake up. For everyone to get a different view of reality. The fact that the group is following your lead does not make it right. It reinforces your narrow view and it takes a shock to see beyond it. Capitulation and recapitulation though the mob only strengthens the prison. You could have just as easily ran with the idea and opened yourself up to interpretations of your reality that you were unaware of. This leads me to your Derrida post and once this is resolved I have many insights into Derrida that will possibly help you if you are prepared to let your guard down, your carapace that conceals your fear.

You're beginning to sound like one of these college kids that's just discovered Nietzsche, Machiavelli and BF Skinner after downing a handful of mushrooms and have decided they're going to save the world!

Nathan I hold degrees in architecture and philosophy. I just thought I was at Chuck Palahniuk's website not marthastewart.com. I thought by being here you wanted to open yourself. No I do not think I am right, In fact I know nothing. It seems you have it all figured out. You have been desensitized to controlling structures and over sensitized to you social issues. You are afraid of hurting someones feelings and have lost the ability to distinguish. You act with derision toward those that want to offer different points of views. The fact is the analogy was not ridiculous and you had a choice to respond in a way that was productive or to move on. But you wanted to butt heads so let's butt. You do not realize that you are proving my point every time you post. You are the story not the controlling authorities that is old news. The story is how you can not see what you have turned into. A PC world that seeks less difference and an egalitarian society homogenizes itself where difference becomes something that as seen as a threat. Read Derrida and pay attention to his definition of Difference and the importance it has in understanding.

A 'different view', or your view? And, by calling me ignorant, is calling yourself ignorant. Do I know the information itself? No. Do i know it exists? Yes. And I'm highly doubtful you know the information. Unless you are one of those fat comic book nerds, that has all the information that those super secret pseudo-queues government agencies that doesn't get released to the general public who always has that cousin that works for the FBI as a code breaker and came across these odd documents, that incriminate high level government officials to some vast conspiracies, and your cousin decides the best thing to do with that irrefutable piece of evidence would be to give it to his fat comic book obsessed cousin, who then can ramble about this stuff to all his 'friends' that go to the same comic book store he goes to, and the forums he trolls on. Unless you're one of those of course.

I'll give you the others, but in regards to love, I think that's an incredibly cynical point of view. The kind of 'love' that's able to be manipulated or contrived isn't really love. People may convince themselves that it is (and people do that to themselves all the time) but that's not the same thing. I'd be interested to hear you demonstrate otherwise.

BPL - I think you are missing what I said. In using the word ignorant by its definition, it means a lack of knowledge or understating and you admitted to not caring and willfully not knowing about the facets of your life this is by definition, ignorance, that is all I am saying. I just wanted to discuss the ways authorities keep information from us as a means of control and the cool story ideas that can come out of it.

You mean the contrived and overused ones?

First off, what is chuck palahniuk's website supposed to be, rather than martha stewart's website? Why do you presuppose that one has more worth than the other? Chuck palahniuk has a lot more to him than just a couple bumper sticker slogans from Fight Club. Indeed, there a many people here that don't even particularly care for his books, but enjoy the camaraderie of the members.

As for myself, what is it about me that it seems I have it all figured out? If I had it all figured out then I would be well on the way to becoming who I want to be. No one has it all figured out, there is a possibility that there is nothing to figure out. And how in the world do you think that I am afraid of offending anyone? Or that I've been de-sensitized or over-sensitized to anything? You are jumping to outrageous conclusions based on little to no data, and that is far, far worse than being ignorant of something. it borders on the dangerous even!

Whether you realize it or not, my response was productive. It generated debate and discussion. Just because you didn't happen to like either does not negate it. I still call for you to come forth with some sort of example. Show your work.

I would put forth that all those "prisons" and "traps" are there, but they only become prisons when you decide to recognize them as such. In this case, Ignorance truly can be bliss. If I live in the same house for 20 years and I love that house, don't see how I could live anywhere else but that house, but then one day take a tour of some multi-million dollar palatial home, it would be easy to become disillusioned with my house and see how small and boxed in it feels.
Hopefully that flimsy example can be used to show you how to add to your argument. Coming in and saying the same thing time and time again, with no explanation, with nothing added, no one is going to possibly be able to see your point of view.

Finally, If you think my meager replies are anything resembling "derision" then you're going to have a long road to haul in life.

Hi Nathan

No it started as an observation that I made, that is that authorities rarely if ever officially announce that they are withholding anything. Even though we all know that they do, so when I saw this I thought it was an interesting topic, that could revolve around all of the other myriad of things that the authorities either neglect to tell us or mis-inform us about all in the name of secrecy, smooth efficient markets, national security etc. Especially given its transgressive nature and the natural fodder for fiction that was bound to fall out of it.

As far as presupposing that either site has more value than the other, this is precisely the point I was making to you about difference. Of course their is a difference between them and to insinuate that they are Equal is very politically correct. This is what liberal/academic politics of egalitarianism attempts to posit, that is that we all get the first place ribbons, however, the problem is that when we are all the same then we exist in a homogenized society of nothingness. Creativity exists in our differences and the freedom to be able to point out those differences. And in this same line of thought, this is why I refer to you as being afraid to offend anyone. “You” were afraid that the Miners had been offended or that martha stewart has been defamed. And when you get infected with political correct speak you are over sensitized and when you no longer care about the consciousness around you that shapes your existence or the controlling systems and forces in your life you are desensitized.

I agree that your responses were productive, I have enjoyed it, I got much more out of it then you think. I would not denigrate you for this. The truth is that this post took a decidedly different direction right from the start and most of my comments to you were more the collective “you” and to try and regain any of the original intent is absurd. It has served its purpose.

Your last paragraph is good. why do you think this happened? I have my hypothesis, but I have been trying to state this the entire day, this is in effect what this post has turned into. a meta-post about the characteristics and pervasive “think” that leads to the same mind numbing banter. It is because political correctness has neutered us all. we are not able to bring creative topics because creative topics are based on difference.

With out Prey we consume each other. Even in open forums. Ee either attack or joke.

Your last sentence is correct as well. After reviewing your statements you were not derisive, it was more the collective tone of the PC mob. It is hard to keep that many strains straight.

My analogy was not crass or out of line and could have opened many new insights because it can be argued that we are far worse off then they are, that they are the luck ones. It is a matter of perspective but to abjectly jump on me as insensitive, or ridiculous drove the conversation towards the nature of our own perspectives (not you per say), I could have led the conversation by being very specific about each point, but rather as a newbie to the site I was more caught up in the superficial or mob sentiment of the active users at that time. There were a few lucid responses and in hindsight you were nether joining the discussion or hastening its descent into a meta-post. But I did not start this topic to lead or to preach but rather to open, and I believe it did do that in its own way, so all of my comments have been purposefully reactive,.

This explains a lot. You've wasted years of your life and are trying to validate that lost time, effort, and cash by offering enlightenment to your perceived inferiors on teh innarwebs.

How awesome for you.

Incidentally, no aspect of my life is contrived. I'm free.

Indeed. If I was trying to troll you I would've posted something more along the lines of:

Do you really want the truth about the miners?

In truth when the mine collapsed they fell into a parallel dimension, where they encounter the parallel selfs and enter into a reoccurring time loop with the universe trying to re-correct itself, and the government is now observing the scenario, being able to view an isolated, contained time loop without outside interference. They also quickly realized that this also provides a good social situation where if one was to meet ones self in a public environment. I use the term 'public' loosely, since it's not an actual 'public' environment, but more of a communal one. But still a fascinating case study none the less.

To go back to the original topic; of course "they" are lying to you, and me, and everyone else.

What the question really should be is, are they 1) malicious lies, or 2) for our own good, or 3) because no one wants to be the one who breaks the bad news, so the lie continues to purpetuate?

there's an analogy you can contemplate for both the existential stuff as well as apply to solid things like these minners

I suspect the answer might often be the last. It is a really hard psycological blow to ones own mind to have to be the one to tell an awful truth to another.

Miners not told full story about their plight.

''''

From the article:
Authorities believe it would be too much of a psychological blow to tell the miners that experts estimate it could take three to four months to drill the men out

metropotome, do you consider yourself superior over your peers?

Have you reached the next step in human evolution? Are you one step closer than the rest of us to the übermench?

You need to realize that most people just want a normal life; living with their life partner, having kids, making money and have a beautiful home.

If being enlightened means having to give anything up, short of no-one wont. People doesn't ever want to lose things, and will die protecting it rather than losing it. That might be ignorant, well, it is, but as Nate said, ignorance is bliss.

Everyone who cares know what the problem is. We are not told all that we deserve to know, the truth of what our governments, and it's organs does, and does not do is withheld from us. Stop telling us about that. We understand the problem. You are acting like a xenophobic -or some other fundamentalist- who wont listen to an argument because he will be proven wrong.

If you know so much that you can tell who has the right or wrong view on life, then you must be able to give an example of utopia. And how it would work.

'Potome's Socratic-Fu is weak; logical fallacies all up in the joint. That combined with the consistent grammatical and punctuation errors force me to question claims of advanced education. I'm guessing age and level of education are roughly half of what is claimed.

Started off as a pretty good troll. Just doesn't hold up though.