Or how I learned to love our existential purgatory.

I promised Trent Lapinski that I’d write him a ‘very special article’. How deep down the rabbit hole are you willing to go? Mythology, conspiracy, religion and science fiction — all of these things may hold the answer as to why 2016 surprised you and why you’ve felt so depressed these past 4 years. We hope you’ll suspend some disbelief and stick with us through this 3-part series.

Part 1 — The Introduction:

Remember 2011?

I do. It was a wild year. Kind of a prequel to 2016, really. Since some of you can’t make it through an article without a Pop Culture analogy; 2011 was like the Rogue One: A Star Wars Story to 2012’s Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. 2016 was Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back.Here’s a short recap, just in case you didn’t give a shit back then.

January:
Tunisia Revolt — Beginning of the Arab Spring
Mubarak resigns in Egypt
February:
Libyan Civil War
March: 
Bloody Protests in Syria — The start of the Syrian civil war
Tōhoku tsunami
May:
Osama bin Laden is killed.
Ron Paul announces run for Republican Presidential Nomination
June:
News Reporter Hacking Scandal
Anthony Weiner photo scandal
July: 
South Sudan Independence
Anders Breivik Norway Massacre
September:
Occupy Wall Street Demonstrations
October: 
Steve Jobs dies
Earthquake in Turkey
November:
Greek Prime Minister Resigns over debt crisis
December:
US drone lost in Iran
US “ends” Iraq Mission
Kim Jon Il dies

Obviously history dictates the present, but 2011 eerily mirrors 2016.An old man runs as a candidate for a party he’s not a member of, rallies millions of ‘20 somethings’, gets 0 media exposure and nearly destroys the party in the process. An ‘Odinist’ NatSoc extremist commits a horrific massacre in Norway, “warning” of an oncoming ‘Islamic Takeover of Europe’. The Arab Spring sets in motion the collapse of the Middle East — forcing refugees North. A hacking scandal shows that News media will stop at nothing to produce a story. US involvement in the Middle East topples dictatorships and causes more unrest. The EU begins to fight over Greece’s debt. Iran gets a political trump card. Mask-wearing liberal burnouts attempt to stop the financial machine, but fail. Anthony Weiner fails to keep it in his pants.

This was the snowball that would turn into the monster. Piece together this events between 2011 and 2016. Benghazi, Smith-Mundt, Syrian Escalation, Refugee Crisis, Brexit, Weiner’s weiner— whatever. Fill in the blanks. You can draw your own conclusions.

2011 isn’t the point of this post.

. . .

Physics

On September 10th, 2008 CERN successfully fired protons with the Large Hadron Collider. Testing was then delayed for 14 months. Several bizarre accidents occurred which caused delay after delay.In November of 2009, the LHC finally became fully operational. CERN broke collision energy records in November and by March they were colliding particles like crazy. What unit of energy? teraelectronvolts (TeV). I can’t describe this collision + energy creation very well because I’m not a scientist (I have a BFA in something worthless), but basically it’s like two dudes shooting spitballs at each other through coffee straws.On July 4th, 2012, just as CERN was about to power-off the Large Hadron Collider, they discovered the Higgs Boson particle.

*bloop*

One interesting thing about the Large Hadron Collider and something that is often used as a ‘fear-mongering’ tool is the possibility for the LHC to create miniature black holes (WHICH COULD DESTROY THE EARTH™). While scary-sounding, it’s ‘not so bad’. While there is the potential for the LHC to create microscopic blackholes, their decay rate is so incredibly fast and their size so incredibly small that they would not be able to suck Earth up. We can’t even be certain if these black holes are even being created.We know they won’t cause Earth to go *bloop*, but we can’t observe what effect they would have on reality, either.

. . .

Many-Worlds

In 2012, a blog post about the Berenstain Bears and Universes is published. In 2011, a blog published a similar post about Berenstain Bears and Time Travel. In 2010, Fiona Broome publishes a website called “Mandella Effect”.The basic premise being — suddenly a large portion of the population remembers events and cultural references inaccurately, but are certain that the memory is accurate and something has shifted in reality.

Is this due to ‘many-worlds’, parallel universes, time-travel or just bad memory?

. . .

Time Travel

Between 2000 and 2001, a bulletin board user named John Titor, claimed to have traveled back in time, from 2036, to secure an IBM 5100. He made several predictions about the future — but gave himself an out by suggesting the ‘many-worlds’ interpretation of quantum physics may affect the actual reality.Here are some of those predictions:

• China Close to Putting Man in Orbit
• Iraq never will have had WMD’s
• CERN would discover the basis for time travel in 2001 and create miniature black holes, shortly after.
• 2004 Will Be the Last Olympics, 2008 Olympic Games cancelled.
• Civil unrest in USA due to growing tensions over “Order and Rights”, in 2004. 2005 President wants to Unite People but…
• More and more “Waco” events every month, 2008 it escalates in Civil War
• Massive Nuclear Devastation in 2015

None of those really added up. But China did put a man into orbit in 2003, and it did turn out that Iraq had no WMD’s. But for fun let’s look at these predictions with a pushed timeline.

• 2003 China Puts Man into Orbit
• 2005 No WMD’s found in Iraq
• 2012 CERN discovers Higgs Boson particle (2001)
• 2016 civil unrest in the United States over Laws vs Human Rights (2004)
• 2016 post-election, Trump Calls to Unite America, but tensions still rising after Hillary defeat (2004)
• 2020 Olympics Cancelled (2008)
• 2020 President X seizes power. Civil War Begins. (2008)
• 2027 Nuclear Devastation (2015)

I’m not suggesting that there’s any correlation here.

. . .

Simulation

In 2003, Nick Bostrom published a paper in the Philosophical Quarterly. It was entitled Are You Living in a Computer Simulation? Bostrom supposes that one of three scenarios are true.

(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation.

Science fiction and philosophy has always played with the idea, whether intentionally or not — but it‘s never been something anyone truly considered. Over the past few years, the ‘simulation argument’ has started to grow in popularity, especially within Pop Culture. As our technology continues to improve and we continue to see incredible advances in entertainment devices such as video games and in computer processing power, it‘s become difficult to just outright dismiss the argument.Two people, that you may have heard of, definitely entertain the ‘simulation argument. 

Neil Degrasse Tyson and Elon Musk

But does it even matter if our lives are a simulation? What difference would it make, isn’t it just the same as a “Benevolent Creator” such as God?

. . .

Gnosticism

No one is certain where the roots of Gnosticism lies. There are many schools of practice. It could be drawn from Greek philosophy or Buddhism or Egyptians or Babylon — it can be fit into every religion, though the Christianity school of Gnosticism seems to be the most common, today.Gnosticism is confusing to define, because the many varied interpretations lead it to be whatever an individual wants it to be.

A common characteristic of some of these groups was the instruction that the realisation of Gnosis (esoteric or intuitive knowledge) is the way to salvation of the soul from the material world. Gnostic systems, particularly the Syrian-Egyptian schools, are typically marked by:

The notion of a remote, supreme monadic divinity

The introduction by emanation of further divine beings known as Aeons.

The introduction of a distinct creator god or demiurge, which is an illusion and a later emanation from the single monad or source.

The estimation of the world, owing to the above, as an “error” or flawed simulacrum of a higher-level reality, but possibly as good as its constituent material might allow.[8]

A complex mythological-cosmological drama in which a divine element “falls” into the material realm and lodges itself within certain human beings

A doctrine of salvation in which the divine element may be returned to the divine realm through a process of awakening.

The supreme divine source is known under a variety of names, including “Pleroma” (fullness, totality) and “Bythos” (depth, profundity).

Source 

The interesting part of Gnosticism is how much it mirrors the ‘simulation argument’.But we’ll talk about this in Part 2.

UFO’s, Ayy lmaos and Space Travel

Life sucks for for the ‘Tundra Dweller’.

There’s still no certifiable evidence that aliens exist. They may be secretly controlling our planet, may have planted the seeds of life, or may just be an entertaining fabrication of our wild imagination. I’ve recently reread Dougal Dixon’s Man After Man. (You may recognize it from this absolutely ‘hilarious’ image macro that circulates during each Holiday Season.) The book is a fictional, but fascinating hypothetical look at the future of mankind. To summarize, Dixon paints a picture of the future of mankind. After Earth’s environment decays, human genetic manipulation creates monsters on Earth, while the ‘pure humans’ leave the planet to explore space. Millions of years pass and the progeny of the ‘pures’ return to Earth, completely changed and harvest it — killing everything in the process. While extremely hyperbolic and unlikely, it does play on the theory that Aliens may just be mankind from the future — whether it’s time travel or inter-dimensional hopping.We are currently experiencing a second space race. It’s very cool and now with proof that the improbable EM drive may actually work , we could very well see a future in the stars. Fulfilling the dreams of the millions raised on Star Trek.

Gimme that holodeck, though.

There’s also very paranoid speculation that Aliens are Demons. There’s also speculation that there are many alien factions, some good — some bad. For some reason, we are the center of the universe. Or maybe we are the center of all universes.In the 50’s, a man named George Van Tessel, supposedly channeled messages from Ashtar, an extraterrestrial being promising that humanity had the ability to tap into the ‘Universal Mind of God’. A sort of space Jesus, who according to Tessel, was also an extraterrestrial. Back in Mesopotamia, there was a god named Ishtar — the embodiment of Love.

And it all goes back to memes.

. . .

‘Meme Magicks’: The Power of Collective Thought

Ashtar Sheran and the Power of the Meme

This isn’t a new idea. Many religions, cults and esoteric practices promote collective thought energy as a sort of power. It can heal, destroy or create. It is claimed to be a forbidden knowledge used by ‘elites’ to accomplish their spooky Apocalyptic goals. Many of these magicks are tied to a deity or spiritual force — which represents the general vibe of what the magic is supposed to do.Dawkins coined the term ‘meme’ in the 70’s and it essentially is a cultural thought virus. An idea ingrained in our biochemistry that resonates with us across generations or culture. Religion could very well have been the first ‘meme’. (A cat photo with words on it is an image macro, by the way.)MEDIA and THE MEDIA have spread ideas very quickly over the past 60 years. The internet has expedited this process as well. The power of the ‘meme’ seems to have a prophetic nature, whether it is just self-fulfilling prophecy or coincidence. 

The power of the meme became noticed in 2014 and was used extensively in 2016 — by normal people.

This sets the framework for Part 2.

In Part 2, we’ll explore how all of these things fit together. In Part 2, you’ll explore psychiatrists in our immediate area. Thank you, ahead of time. Also, Illuminati and various dark corners of the internet, you don’t need to worry about me. I don’t know anything. I just want to live a peaceful life. 

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Hi, I'm robek. I write dumb stuff. I'm moving some of it over here. Okay! I'll post part 2 tomorrow.