What conspiracy theories do you believe in? - Put your tinfoil hats on

[NoReturn]

Preface: Many criticisms are completely right about Made in Abyss.
THAT BEING SAID I want to share something interesting from a recent chapter in light of the discussions around reincarnation here:

[...]

Made in Abyss is strongly inspired by Buddhism, so their take on "the soul" is especially interesting here. Almost like the body is a radio that is playing a song. The radio does not contain the song, and the song originates from elsewhere, but the radio is the thing that lets us hear the song that's inaudible in the air.
Instead of soul parts, like @Catch The Rainbow said, it's more like "the soul" is a phenomenon, not an object.

A wave is a "thing" we can point to it, but we cannot isolate it and have it stored. When it crashes on the shore, it dissipates back into the ocean. There was a wave, it was objectively a thing that we could see that was there for a period of time, but that wave was made of water, and it returned to water when it was done.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Yeah. I'm not talking clones like same-aged artificial identical twins. I mean gross stuff like "This person turned out extra strong, they'd make a good soldier" or "This celebrity is hot. I want my own copy I can control from birth."

- "Immortality".
- A belief that one is superior and you're blessing the world by bequeathing a second coming of yourself.
- A chance to perfect oneself by this time giving your "self" the "correct" upbringing to maximise your potential.

There's a good book, by C J Cherryh, called "Cyteen", about this sort of thing. The basic premise is a society that uses clones to bulk out its population, with the clones having greater or lesser intelligence depending on their expected role in society. The clones are quickly trained for their roles by the insertion of artificial memories in their sleep - a technology also used by regular people to learn new skills. One of the characters creates a clone of herself and has it raised to mimic her own upbringing as closely as possible, including the insertion of some artificial memories, in an attempt to "recreate" herself after her own death and achieve a form of immortality. The clone recognises herself as distinct, but has difficulty separating her identity from that of her antecedent, especially when she sees old video of her. It's portrayed as all a bit fucked up. Great book, but very long.

 

[Bonesjones]

There's a good book, by C J Cherryh, called "Cyteen", about this sort of thing. The basic premise is a society that uses clones to bulk out its population, with the clones having greater or lesser intelligence depending on their expected role in society. The clones are quickly trained for their roles by the insertion of artificial memories in their sleep - a technology also used by regular people to learn new skills. One of the characters creates a clone of herself and has it raised to mimic her own upbringing as closely as possible, including the insertion of some artificial memories, in an attempt to "recreate" herself after her own death and achieve a form of immortality. The clone recognises herself as distinct, but has difficulty separating her identity from that of her antecedent, especially when she sees old video of her. It's portrayed as all a bit fucked up. Great book, but very long.

That's literally the plot to Blade Runner

 

[I'm a Silly]

Now if you want a more subtle thing that is pre-programming, look at the "I have Black friends" meme. You already know what I'm referring to - the way "I have Black friends" is cast as a thing racists say to pretend they're not racist. Except that it is counter-evidence that you're not racist. If your mates are of ethnic group X then you're probably not racist against group X. But the phrase was turned into a pro-active meme to counter anyone who disagrees with the Critical Race Theory proponents. Whether it's denying your racism or as a way to dismiss your personal experience that people of X group don't think the way the proponent says they do, the moment you say "I have ______ friends," the thought terminator kicks in to make the listener dismiss whatever follows and add a Racism mark to you for saying it.

Culture is littered with such phrases placed like evil vaccines to prime people against thinking certain things or listening to certain people.

That's why I always say that I have black enemies; it's true, because I grew up in a chocolate city and I knew so many black people that I could afford to throw a few back.

Jewish projection, the most common kind.

Hence the meme:

 

[SIMIΔN]

This celebrity is hot. I want my own copy I can control from birth." or - as already happens in parts of rural China - "I want to purchase a wife for my son and I'll raise them together so I don't have to pay bride price later."

Why clone beauties when plastic surgery is far more precise and reliable.
Besides, much of what makes male and a lesser extent female celebrities so attractive is the social proof from their fans and the fantasy of having something others want.

As for raising future spouses together, sometimes it works,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongyangxi

, but more often than not, those who spend their childhood together end up sexually repulsed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect

 

[Meriasek]

That's literally the plot to Blade Runner

Mixed in with a heavy dose of Brave New World.

 

[teriyakiburns]

That's literally the plot to Blade Runner

It's literally not. They share elements in common, but blade runner is a Noir procedural with a heavy action, while cyteen is a political thriller. You have to take an extremely reductionist view to say they have the same plot, to the point that you'd be essentially arguing that everything ever written is a rehash of the epic of Gilgamesh.

 

[Bonesjones]

It's literally not. They share elements in common, but blade runner is a Noir procedural with a heavy action, while cyteen is a political thriller. You have to take an extremely reductionist view to say they have the same plot, to the point that you'd be essentially arguing that everything ever written is a rehash of the epic of Gilgamesh.

Sorry your book from 1988 stole ideas from a book from 1968 and also the movie from 1982. No one cares how mad you are about it.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Sorry your book from 1988 stole ideas from a book from 1968 and also the movie from 1982. No one cares how mad you are about it.

I see we can add lack of basic literacy to your long list of retardations.

 

[Bonesjones]

I see we can add lack of basic literacy to your long list of retardations.

which is currently zero, so good luck with that.

 

[Meriasek]

Sorry your book from 1988 stole ideas from a book from 1968 and also the movie from 1982. No one cares how mad you are about it.

Breeding semi-artificial/altered humans/humanoids as slave labour is an old tale. Breeding humans for their position in life is the main point of Brave New World, Wells' The Time Machine had a more evolutionary take on the physical caste division, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner went more towards the whole "what it means to be human" angle, and there's tons and tons more.
I always wondered whether the Michael Bay movie The Island from 2005 was maybe inspired by the novel Duplik Jonas 7 from 1992, or if it was just coincidence. The main plot point is the same: Humans can get perfectly fitting transplant organs by having clones of themselves for the express purpose of organ harvesting should it be needed. The clones live in a secret facility and are being lied about the rest of the world, and they're kept as healthy as possible.
Probably a coincidence is that the principle of printing more or less perfect fake money in the first Reacher novel The Killing Floor is very similar to one described in an old Mickey Mouse story written by an Italian publishing house in 1990*. Since the paper can't be faked but dollar bills all having the same size, they bleach the bills and print them with larger values in a small town somewhere.
* In Europe we're a bit less saturated with Disney, so for decades we've had monthly Donald Duck pocket books that are still quite popular with kids. This originated with Topolino in Italy and I think most of the stories are still written by Italian authors.

/edit:
Makes me wonder how many American authors maybe scour some niche European books and stories for inspiration.
Like, Duplik Jonas 7 is a not very famous German novel that mainly got some exposure because it's sometimes read in schools. It's how I know it.
Oh, speaking of Topolino, they also had a recurring story/world that was basically a riff on Battlestar Galactica and a little bit of Star Wars thrown in where there was also a plotline about replacing key "humans" with biorobot replicas. I guess they did introduce the fully humanoid Cylons in Galactica 1980, but maybe someone on the BSG reboot team read some obscure euro comics in the late 90s...

 

[Bonesjones]

I always wondered whether the Michael Bay movie The Island from 2005 was maybe inspired by the novel Duplik Jonas 7 from 1992, or if it was just coincidence.

I know there was a short story with the same plot I remember reading as a kid, I can't seem to find it. It wouldn't surprise me if it was an adaptation of that book.

Probably a coincidence is that the principle of printing more or less perfect fake money in the first Reacher novel The Killing Floor is very similar to one described in an old Mickey Mouse story written by an Italian publishing house in 1990*

American money didn't change for like 50 years and only got updated in the 90s because of large scale forgery operations by nation states.

In Europe we're a bit less saturated with Disney, so for decades we've had monthly Donald Duck pocket books that are still quite popular with kids. This originated with Topolino in Italy and I think most of the stories are still written by Italian authors.

I'm guessing you mean comic books, which took a life of their own in Europe compared to America as far as Disney characters go.

 

[Meriasek]

American money didn't change for like 50 years and only got updated in the 90s because of large scale forgery operations by nation states.

Yeah. I think the Topolino story didn't involve the special paper that made the operation in The Killing Floor necessary, but the basic principle was the same: 1 Dollar and 100 Dollar bills have the same paper, so two dudes take all the 1 Dollar bills, bleach them, and reprint them.

I'm guessing you mean comic books, which took a life of their own in Europe compared to America as far as Disney characters go.

Yes. They are called Topolino in Italy and Lustiges Taschenbuch in Germany, published about monthly since basically 1967. They're at like number 500 at least by now. They had some fun riffs on popular stories in them sometimes. Retelling Michael Strogoff or Goldfinger with Micky Mouse, Les Miserables with Scrooge, and sometimes they did some recurring worlds/stories that were kinda sorta riffs of popular stories. Like Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. Particularly the LotR riff took a life of its own since it largely follows its own story with an interesting scifi spin. I mean, it's all fun stories for kids, but they did have some good ideas every once in a while and made some enjoyable stories. Maybe it's just comfy for me because I grew up with those...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Duck_pocket_books

/edit: Of course they were hit and miss and made for children and thus often very silly and full of plotholes and I don't know how the quality evolved in the 2000s, but they sure had some decent writers in the 90s.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Breeding semi-artificial/altered humans/humanoids as slave labour is an old tale. Breeding humans for their position in life is the main point of Brave New World, Wells' The Time Machine had a more evolutionary take on the physical caste division, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner went more towards the whole "what it means to be human" angle, and there's tons and tons more.

The reason I mentioned Cyteen is because it delved into the social and political ramifications of using cloning to perpetuate the intellects and talents of specific people in order to create a sort of legacy existence. The question then becomes not one of what it means to be human, but rather is there such a thing as individual identity, when you can (with great effort) recreate a person's behaviours and personality? Should the clone be treated as a unique individual or as an extension of their genetic donor? And of course, the moral and ethical considerations of recreating someone in order to exploit their particular talents for society's gain, against the background of a society that already does this in a more general way, but has somehow convinced itself that there's a difference in this particular case.

 

[Bonesjones]

Yes. They are called Topolino in Italy and Lustiges Taschenbuch in Germany, published about monthly since basically 1967. They're at like number 500 at least by now.

I remember reading a few back in the early 2000s. It's funny what they got away with compared to the ultra-sanitized versions we got in the USA.

 

[Meriasek]

View attachment 7329754

I remember reading a few back in the early 2000s. It's funny what they got away with compared to the ultra-sanitized versions we got in the USA.

Yeah, although to be fair, the Topolino comics were also a lot more tame than that. I noticed they have a lot of the German version, Lustiges Taschenbuch, on Internet Archives.

https://archive.org/details/ltb147-3b9f

This is the one with the The Killing Floor story, maybe Google Lens might help with translation. There's also an interesting original fantasy story in it that I enjoyed as a kid. Very DnD. Quite literally, Micky and Goofy are transported to a fantasy dimension via an enchanted board game.

 

[𖦹Junkpop𖦹]

believe the troon epidemic serves as both a test for public acceptance of transhumanism and population control.

Many AI tech cultists even use similar arguments that were used to defend transgenderism for the past decade as well.
Remember, a lot of the now "anti-woke" people used to be hardcore shills for it. Even Trump once allowed MTF's on Miss Universe and hung out with Bruce Jenner last year with musk. I don't think these two are truly anti-tranny due to musk's and trumps history. They just want to make people think they are.

Both movements reject sense for what feels good. Both reject biological realities. They both promise liberation from your current constraints. Both see themselves as progressive movements. Both argue against binary categories. Both believe that corporate/big pharma/corpo-backed "science" has your best interests at heart. Also note that both groups tend to claim to be anti-establishment, then at the same time subconsciously dick-ride whatever the establishment is pushing.

If you disagree with them, both the AI tech cultists and the Troons are saying the same thing, but they don't even realise it. It just has a slightly different wording. They despise each other, but they are both on the same coin. It's just that Chuddies vs. Troonies don't realize it yet.

Yeah, and also it plays into the needs of child trafficking. Surrogacy, being able to change a child’s birth certificates. The ability to remove a child creates these ‘parent less’ children who belong to no one and are thus very vulnerable. I think all this is linked

You're onto something. What you said reminded me of the sanctuary states for trans care in the U.S. They have laws that protect access to chemical castration of minors. As well as the troubled teen industry.

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

I always wondered whether the Michael Bay movie The Island from 2005 was maybe inspired by the novel Duplik Jonas 7 from 1992

The Island is actually based on Parts: The Clonus Horror. Seriously, Dreamworks was sued by the writer of Parts and they settled out of court.

 

[Otterly]

That's literally the plot to Blade Runner

Blade runner is a brilliant film and one of the vanishingly few where I’d say the film is as good as and in some ways better than the book. The androids aren’t really clones, they’re manufactured labour, and the book is indeed a procedural noir with thematic musings about what it means to be human when things we’ve constructed can look and act more human than us. What happens when the artificial we’ve constructed blurs into what’s naturally there? The book deckard is way less sympathetic than the film one, and there’s zero doubt Rachel is an android in the book.
The book really makes the androids and humans do things at various time that makes you question who acts more humanely.
One thing that strikes me when I watch it these days is that back when it came out, the setting - that dystopian raining corporate hell - was extreme. And now it’s just how things are. All that shock factor was lost.

 

[Meriasek]

All that shock factor was lost.

Come on, say it. You know you want to.
Like tears in rain.