No.449
We all know about the continuous effort to distort the meaning of most fundamental words like love, hate, male, female, freedom, power, etc. But what about other word related games played by the so called elite? Have you ever stumbled upon words that seem to be connected by some kind of a pattern? What about expressions? Some of them may have different meanings than what is commonly understood among the general public.
Let me get right to the point and present some of my suspicions:
1. Generation 'X', generation 'Y'. This expression implies that generation 'Z' will eventually come into existence. Now, 'z' is the last letter of the alphabet. So, last generation to have consciousness/free will? The ones that turn the lights off after leaving a room (old world order)? The last generation of natural humans that will be replaced by brainchipped/pharmacologically lobotomized slaves?
2. Some words containing the word 'con' (fraud): control, conspiracy, economy, consumerism, conceal, conditioning, conformism, confusion, congress, icon. Indeed, we are conned by them all every day.
3. Some words containing the word 'cult': culture, subculture, cultivation (of the mind), occult.
4. The word 'fashion' - to fashion something = to shape something.
5. The word 'monopoly' - mono-poly - one/many = one out of many, out of many - one.
All of this sounds vague, so I'm not claiming that it's ultimate truth. Just something to ponder upon.
Let me know what you think. And please do share your word related findings or theories.
____________________________
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No.450
>>449Interesting thoughts.
I looked up the etymology of some of the words you posted.
cult1610s, "worship," also "a particular form of worship," from French culte (17c.), from Latin cultus "care, labor; cultivation, culture; worship, reverence," originally "tended, cultivated," past participle of colere "to till" (see colony). Rare after 17c.; revived mid-19c. with reference to ancient or primitive rituals. Meaning "devotion to a person or thing" is from 1829.
conthe prefix con-, which can mean “with” or “thoroughly.” word-forming element usually meaning "with, together," from Latin com, archaic form of classical Latin cum "together, together with, in combination," from PIE *kom- "beside, near, by, with" (compare Old English ge-, German ge-). The prefix in Latin sometimes was used as an intensive.
From Middle English connen, from Old English cunnan (“to know, know how”). More at can.
According to a Pew Research survey (see image), generation X respondents selected their use of technology as a unique identifier setting them apart from the previous generation. The following generation, millennials, chose the same identifier but in even greater numbers. The second-most chosen identifier was music/pop culture, which is related to the use of technology. The other identifiers are also interesting, ‘liberal/tolerant attitudes’ and ‘clothes’- contrasted with ‘conservative/traditional attitudes’ and ‘respect’, of the prior generation.
Was generation X the first to take apart of a globalized uniculture facilitated by the use of technology? And is this enhanced form of mass media consumption growing for each subsequent generation? It would appear so. What comes next? Are we indeed, all worshiping together, in a convergence of culture, cultivated through control?
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No.451
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No.452
OP you might be interested in the books of Alan Watt. I'll post a few pages here, you can find a torrent for them on piratebay.
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No.454
With regard to generation x, y, and z, and the following generation which has tentatively been deemed 'generation alpha', I present to you a excerpt of the Wikipedia article (ironic) about Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation:
Simulacra and Simulation identifies three types of simulacra and identifies each with a historical period:
First order, associated with the premodern period, where representation is clearly an artificial placemarker for the real item. The uniqueness of objects and situations marks them as irreproducibly real and signification obviously gropes towards this reality.
Second order, associated with the modernity of the Industrial Revolution, where distinctions between representation and reality break down due to the proliferation of mass-reproducible copies of items, turning them into commodities. The commodity's ability to imitate reality threatens to replace the authority of the original version, because the copy is just as "real" as its prototype.
Third order, associated with the postmodernity of Late Capitalism, where the simulacrum precedes the original and the distinction between reality and representation vanishes. There is only the simulacrum, and originality becomes a totally meaningless concept.
Which order do you think we are in now? In a generation or two, we will be even more deeply embedded. The alpha generation will have an increasing proportion of experiences and perceptions based upon simulated realities.
When humanity is locked into our respective simulations, those who programmed the simulations will be defining what is real.
Is this what they call the "NWO"?
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No.455
Came across this and thought of this thread
Words evolve, perhaps more rapidly and tellingly than do their users, and the change in meanings reflects a society often more accurately than do the works of many historians. In the years preceding the first collapse of NorArm, the change in the meaning of one word predicted the failure of that society more immediately and accurately than did all the analysts, social scientists, and historians. That critical word? "Discrimination." We know it now as a term meaning "unfounded bias against a person, group, or culture on the basis of racial, gender, or ethnic background." Prejudice, if you will.
The previous meaning of the word was: "to draw a clear distinction between good and evil, to differentiate, to recognize as different." Moreover, the connotations once associated with discrimination were favourable. A person of discrimination was one of taste and good judgment. With the change of the meaning into a negative term of bias, the English language was left without a single-word term for the act of choosing between alternatives wisely, and more importantly, left with a subterranean negative connotation for those who attempted to make such a choices.
In hindsight, the change in meaning clearly reflected and foreshadowed the disaster to come. Individuals and institutions abhorred making real choices. At one point more than three-quarters of the youthful population entered institutions of higher level learning. Credentials, often paper ones, replaced meaningful judgment and choices… Popularity replaced excellence… The list of disastrous cultural and political decisions foreshadowed by the change in meaning of one word is truly endless…
Was that merely an aberration of history? Hardly, for the same changes in language today reflect our own future. Take the word "filch," now applied to the wealthiest of the wealthy. The original meaning was "to steal slyly in small amounts, to pilfer." When the longer term (:filthy rich") previously used was resurrected after the second collapse, the contraction and the theft "overtones" of the original meaning of "filch" fit admirably the social needs of the time. The growing application of this term to those who are more than moderately successful clearly reflects a widespread social unrest and dissatisfaction with those who control the wealth and power of our present-day society.
Choosy moms choose Jif. Not discriminating moms. lel, language and perceptions.
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No.477
>What is etymology
I'm not dismissing your post altogether, but am I correct in taking your post to mean these ancient word roots, prefixes and suffixes have been re-appropriated to exert subtle control?
Like some fag trying to force the "girugamesh" meme except actually successful?
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No.478
>>477Same anon here (ID).
This assertion actually coincides with a thought that came to me just today. Namely, that culture/group consciousness can mutate much faster than DNA. You could of course use gene therapy to radically change an organism's genotype, but to apply the same principle to a collection of minds, say facebook, could be as simple as forcing a meme.
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No.479
Way back, near the birth of this board there was a thread with the goal of exploring the definition of the word "freedom", which should have been the first installment of a series of similar threads.
Maybe we can try to continue it, with one thread per word like in the original.
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No.480
>>479You wanna make this thread the "freedom" thread?
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No.481
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No.550
>>478It is very common in academia to think of culture as a natural extension of biological evolution. Just as genes are shared between generations, memes are shared between generations, memes being a common knowledge shared by a population.
You're accurate in you're assement than cultures can evolve much faster than biology, simply because of the artificial control by the culture sharers.
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No.575
>>550>Just as genes are shared between generations, memes are shared between generations, memes being a common knowledge shared by a population.Indeed, this is what I was referring to. This notion occurred to me as I was reading a book by E.O. Wilson, the Social Conquest of Earth. Wilson is a naturalist with extensive background in researching ants, but his writing deals heavily with social animals as a whole. He rejects the idea that humans are a "blank slate" and says instead that we all have inherited tendencies as well as learned behavior. An example is the so-called Westermarck effect, the tendency for humans not to feel sexually attracted to people they were close to in early childhood (parents, siblings, childhood friends). The Westermarck effect is an adaptation to avoid incest that works as a rule of thumb, as it does not necessarily distinguish between near and distant relatives.
Memes can offer explanations to people for reasons not to inbreed, but even genes speak to us through phenomena such as the Westermarck effect, even if these messages lack nuance or detail. Where our genes may suggest vague feelings of disgust, fear, arousal or longing, feelings that persist tenaciously, memes offer an opportunity to appeal to reason, logic and judgement.
If I told you I was in fact your long lost sister you would hesitate to pursue a relationship with me. Even if you were a tribesman who knew nothing of chromosomes and genetic disorders you would likely have your own local myth, your own inherited meme on the dangers of incest.
I find this interplay of memes and instinct essential to understanding manipulation. To deceive a man is one thing. To play on his primordial fears is clever.
I would love to provide sources on any of the above subjects should source be requested. Feel free to correct me on anything I may have misinterpreted or anything misleading I may have suggested.
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No.578
>>575Just here to say this is an excellent post. You don't merely disclaim the "blank slate" hypothesis, you supply specific scientific evidence against it and you examine the ramifications of that. Posts like these are what make /32/ what it is.
Getting back on topic, could you share some of those sources you mentioned?
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No.580
>>578Gladly.
>the Westermarck effecthttp://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/597178?uid=3739920&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21105444496773http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2010/08/17/oedipus-complex-2-0-like-it-or-not-parents-shape-their-childrens-sexual-preferences/http://lccn.loc.gov/81006552The library of congress link is not particularly helpful, but you can see that it makes reference to the case studies of the Kibbutzim.
>Richard Dawkin's review of "The Social Conquest of Earth"http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/edward-wilson-social-conquest-earth-evolutionary-errors-origin-species#.UlLItRBELIgI find the relationship between Dawkins and Wilson amusing from a distance. Wilson dismisses many of Dawkins's ideas on the selfish gene and has called the man a mere "journalist" as opposed to a proper scientist.
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No.590
>>450>Are we indeed, all worshiping together, in a convergence of culture, cultivated through control?Nicely put.
>>452'Alan Watt' project is interesting, unique and sophisticated to an extent. It provides a good opportunity to study the tactics of psychological warfare against the 'on the brink of full awakening' demographic.
>>454You made me think about Brave New World and the caste system presented in it. Maybe the alpha generation (full 3rd order) will serve as a starting point of an re-enactment of Huxley's vision?
>>477You are correct. Etymology doesn't matter in this context. It's all about managing the relationship between the human mind and the keys to it, i.e. words. And about little coincidences that tend to pop up if you look closely enough.
>>478>>550Yeah. Change/distort the words, change the future.
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No.793
One wordgame I've noticed is the avoidance of the terms illegal and legal, in favor of the terms lawful and unlawful.
This is particularly troubling because lawful mean legal, but unlawful does not mean illegal. Unlawful does not mean "forbidden" it means "not explicitly specified as legal".
Things that are illegal are forbidden, but things that are unlawful are most probably freely allowed actions that have no law governing them. Eg: It is unlawful for me to wear a raincoat indoors every second tuesday of February.
The effect is broadening things that are perceived as forbidden by way of conflation of "unlawful" with "illegal". For instance: Laws are now being written concerning Lawful actions, Lawful communications, with Unlawful actions or communications being made punishable. The public who conflates "unlawful" with "illegal" will naturally think, "Oh, yeah. Punishment for unlawful actions is apt" when instead they should be thinking, "Wait, why are we making laws against anything not explicitly mentioned by legislation?"
This interplay is fairly new to my knowledge, within the past couple of years I've seen it spread far and wide. I've noted that many shills use the unlawful/lawful dichotomy even when not explicitly shilling, as if to normalize their incorrect usage and thus foster public confusion over the new rules they're expected to accept.
Not that the powers that be will actually enforce punishment for any unlawful deed. Selective enforcement of the law is key to the formation of a police state where no one can obey all the rules so anyone can be arrested for political reasons and punished for unrelated infractions.
<tinyboard flag alt></tinyboard>
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No.1962
Words, and how they're used as weapons and too control, is THE question, really.
Orwell, ''Politics and the English Language"[1]:
>"Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers."
And cat-v.org[2]:
>"While freedom of expression should always be sacrosanct, it is important to recognize some words are harmful.
>"But the reason words can be harmful is not their meaning, but their lack of meaning. Words are a communication tool, a symbolic system to represent complex ideas in a concise and clear way, words that for whatever reason do not have a minimally clear and well defined meaning become harmful as everyone (the speaker and the listener or anyone else for that matter) can attach whatever semantics they find convenient at any given time."
There are two modes of human communication, in one we convey facts about the world or the contents of our minds, in the other we convey information about ourselves: our values and group identity.
Wesley Morganston expands on the idea in his Introduction to group dynamics[3]:
>"It is commonly known that words carry meaning on two levels: denotation, or strict, dictionary-level meaning, and connotation, or emotional association; but there is a third, exosemantic level. The word “eldritch”, for example, denotes otherworldliness and connotes a feeling of cosmic horror toward its referent; but it also exosemantically implies that its user has read Lovecraft. The word “liberty” is no different from the word “freedom’, The word “praxis” is no different from a certain definition of the word “practice” except in its exosemantic layer: “praxis” is heavy; “praxis” implies familiarity with—association with—the academic tradition that uses the word “praxis”."
I view the connotation of a word as part of the spectrum between the two modes of communication, emotional responses are "thedish", as he puts it, they depend a great deal on the culture of the speaker.
In another post expanded on by Scott Alexander of slatestarcodex[4], Wesley stripped the informational content from a news article leaving only the emotionally charged language, which is a fun method to apply yourself, it's a great illustration of how people actually think about politics instead of how we think and say we think about politics (And everything else.).
[1] http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/
[2] http://harmful.cat-v.org/words/
[3] https://nydwracu.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/why-anarcho-fascism-an-introduction-to-group-dynamics/
[4]http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/24/nydwracus-fnords/
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No.1963
>>1962
the rules of grammar cannot be sanctioned by governments or people
Aṣṭādhyāyī grammar is far more refined that English and cannot be attacked by mortals
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No.1964
The phrase 'free speech' is being corrupted by association. Every time you hear about it in the media, it's "how do we balance the risk of terrorism against the right to free speech" or "how do we defeat child pornography while still acknowledging free speech?" The phrase is already bordering on pejorative, which will have a knock-on effect on both free and right. If you're in an argument and you bring up your rights, everybody in the room unconsciously associates you with terrorists and paedophiles. It's regarded as more of an excuse than a valid point.
Then of course we have terrorism, the most staggeringly blatant language manipulation of the modern age.
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No.1967
>>1964
"Freedom of speech" is both a legal right and a cultural value. Many people (esp. media elites.) support the legal right but support the cultural value only when it suits them.
Other words that are used more for their associations then actual meaning:
"Conspiracy theory" (Imply there are no conspiracies, or that everyone who believes the government does illegal things is a loon).
"Democratic" (Good, irregardless of the outcome.).
Denialist"
"Hate Crime" (Someone *worse* or *more evil* then the crime would be normally.)."
"Hate Speech".
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No.1998
>>449
1. Yes, X and Y are commonly used mathematic variables (used for contrast with each other). The fact that Z exists and that they're at
the end of the alphabet is just how it happened to be. U and V are used for functions, N is used for arbitrary counter like integers.. No real conspiracy there.
2. 3. >>450 took care of these pretty well
4. Yes, the clothing designers have been fashioning clothing since the beginning of clothing. You fashion a pot out of clay, fashion clothing out of clothes.
5. Webm related.. Come up with something more coherent to start a discussion with
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