The Good, The Vague, and the Ho-Hum

It (almost) never ceases to amaze me how quickly a minor comment will snowball into something huge. For instance, this whole WikiLeaks / Assange UFO statement. What Julian Assange actually said was:

"Many weirdos email us about UFOs or how they discovered that they were the Anti-Christ whilst talking with their ex-wife at a garden party over a pot-plant," he wrote when asked if any of the documents he had received referred to extraterrestrial life.

"It is worth noting that in yet-to-be-published parts of the cablegate archive there are indeed references to UFOs."

That's a fairly tame statement, one which says to me that the references are nothing more than off-the-cuff remarks or part of a general discussion. When you take into consideration the preface, "Many weirdos email us about UFOs...", it becomes more difficult to believe that any major or shocking information will be disclosed. Now, if Assange had worded it like this:

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Technology, Privacy and Nothing About UFOs

A popular discussion for many years has been the acceleration of technology and our dependence on that technology at the cost of less human memory usage. This is not a new take on the idea that we are losing some of ourselves to an increasingly gadgetized world, but rather just my input, which tends to fall on deaf ears when discussed with most people.

We certainly love our devices. Our phones, our laptops, our Global Positioning Systems, and the myriad softwares available for each. Our phones process faster than all of NASA’s computers during the age of the Space Race, our laptops packed with more punch and much less size than a 386 IBM circa 1996. We carry with us music studios, vast music libraries, and thousands upon thousands of photos & documents. The total collection of each of our lives, comfortably fitting on a handful of gigabytes with room to spare. These are, of course, amazing and impressive things, but what price have we paid beyond dollars?

How many of you could tell me 5 of your friends phone numbers without referring to you cell phone’s contact library?

I can barely remember my own, let alone the number of anyone else. I’d be proper fucked if I had to make an emergency phone call, sans cell phone. Yeah, I could try 411 if anyone I knew was listed.

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Hoodely-Hoo and the Blah, Blah, Blahs

When my girlfriend and I are watching movies that have some pretty far-fetched plot changes in a seemingly realistic story, she often comments on how completely unbelievable it is. I usually counter that by replying, "Suspension of Disbelief, dear". More often than not, this receives a playful, mocking impression of me, waving her hands all about like a kid who's had too much Lik-M-Aid, exclaiming, "Suspension of Hoodely-Hoo! Suspension of Hoodely-Hoo!"

I was thinking about this last night while watching some old Star Trek episodes (TOS) and it occurred to me that the kind of off-the-wall claims present within UFOlogy are not too unlike a B-movie plot that requires a healthy serving of Suspension of Disbelief. Then there are those like myself, shaking there head at the screen mumbling "Like that would ever happen".

Calling UFOs or referring to UFOlogy as 'science fiction' is nothing new, but still, it is depressing that so much of it plays out like an old Buck Rogers episode, and that so many would be willing to stave off reality and common sense for the sake of a few thrills they can cling to in opposition to the monotony that is most of our lives.

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