Yeah - I've always been far more fascinated with Venus than Mars. I've written quite a few stories with Venus as the setting (usually in orbit, with a planet-modifying operation - these stories will be in my new collection, if I can just overcome the final hurdle and finish the bloody thing).
That 'mouse on mars' comment just occurred to me given the faked NASA Mars rover images, one of which includes some kind of rodent: https://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/
So whilst I have total doubt about NASA, I'm still seriously hoping that the Russians didn't stoop to faking anything. Personally, although this may be cognitive bias, so to speak, I am going to genuinely believe those Venus images are true (unless someone like Miles Mathis can prove me otherwise). In the words of Fox Mulder - I want to believe.
The issue with the Mars thing is that the atmosphere is so much thinner that any lander would need a massive amount of retro-thrust in order to brake and so on, meaning a seriously large payload, which goes way beyond the mission specifications. Venus is very different indeed, being a very thick atmosphere, so simply using some parachutes, as with the Venera landers, isn't really that difficult. Also, unlike the Mars images, which are far too 'earth-like' (Devon Island I believe) the Venus images are not, they really are 'alien'. And seriously hellish, for that matter.
Where did you get those images by the way - I'm familiar with the classic Venera 13 one (I think it's 13), but the other ones I've never seen before. Do you have links?
Also, from what I know about the Russian psyche, I think they would be ashamed to fake stuff. NASA and Americans, they don't give a shit, but Russians, no. They genuinely care (it's interesting, after all, that music like LoV can exist in a supposedly authoritarian state? Kind of destroys that propaganda, imo).
Anyway - interesting about the origin of their band name - Katrina is telling me they really did call themselves Venera in her world. Given her penchant for shoegaze, and her own record label (PAWS Records) and her Russian husband and children and so on, she is telling me they signed to her label.
Yeah, I know, parallel world stuff just keeps on imposing!
But this LoV set of yours was seriously, seriously beautiful - thank you so much!! Katrina never mentioned them. I'm going to have words with her.
"Yeah, I know, parallel world stuff just keeps on imposing!"
I think of Russia as a parallel world sometimes. Everything looks the same as here except for the weird writing. Same goes for Iran, which is a place I'd love to visit. I've had several Iranian friends over the years. Delightful people. China, when we visited in the 80's was more like a time machine... like stepping back 25 years. All the vehicles looked like ours did 25 years ago, and the people were dressed like we were in the 50's. That was during Deng's 4 Modernizations period. Didn't look too modern to me. Now China looks more like the future, at least in the cities. That was a strange experience, like landing on an alien planet. Everyone was supposed to be nice to tourists, but they didn't actually have many, and no one knew exactly how to behave. I tried tipping the bar girl (I was the only customer, like in North Korea today) and she almost panicked. Wasn't supposed to accept gratuities because that could have a corrupting influence I suppose. I bet that's changed.
Russia, Iran and China all fascinate me too. Iran and China having ancient civilizations which are preserved to a remarkable degree and Russia's, tho more recent, I consider to have been at the apex of Western cultural achievement when it was destroyed by the Bolshies. Now that I think of it, I guess Mao tried the same w/ China. Do revolutionaries ever get around to "building back better"?
Do you follow Linh Dinh's travelogues? He's got my politics, but he's also got a great common touch and hella writing skills.
I would like to have seen more of China. As it was we only visited Guangdong province and even getting around there was difficult because we were in that first wave of tourists after the great thaw. No one knew what to do with us, even buying train tickets was a challenge. They'd already built a hotel for tourists in Guangzhou, which was rather nice actually, but of course almost entirely empty.
Like I said, sitting in an empty bar (wife was tired and asleep in our room) chatting up the bar maid (who spoke decent English) and her semi-panic when I tried to leave her a tip was something right out of North Korea.
Another hilarity, which became tedious after a while, is that although I bothered to learn some Mandarin my wife who is Japanese didn't. People would speak to her first, and I'd have to to tell them she's not Chinese, which threw a lot of people off. Back then they couldn't really tell the difference, and a white guy speaking Mandarin travelling with someone who looked Chinese but wasn't really threw them off. Fortunately they could understand when she wrote it out in Kanji, as most of the basic characters are the same.
A highlight of that trip was when I tried to buy a cap badge from a railway worker (I'm a rail enthusiast) in a museum we visited. Like with anything unusual in China a crowd gathered, and the guy kept refusing and I kept upping the price as I really wanted that badge. Eventually his wife twisted his arm after I offered what was probably a day's wage to them, so I got the cap badge and still have it, while he probably just got another one from work. It was basically a red metal star, but with the railway symbol in place of the hammer and sickle like in this picture.
Must be fairly rare because I couldn't find an image of it anywhere on the net, so I used that picture instead. They were still using steam locomotives back then, many of them based on lend-lease locomotives from the USA.
Another thing that got attention was when I held hands walking with my wife. Nobody did that back then, much less a white guy with a Chinese girl, which they all took my wife for. One guy was staring so hard he fell off his bicycle. For part of that trip I wore army fatigues and a beret with a red star (Che style) just to see what sort of reaction I'd get. I think people thought I was a visiting Cuban military officer and my wife was my guide. Got some strange looks, that's for sure. I think that was the most fun I've ever had on any of my travels. I miss those days, which is probably why I wrote this goddamn essay...lol.
I followed Dinh for a while, but drifted off after his falling out with Ron Unz. I see he's got a substack now so I'll go have a look. Thanks for reminding me. I wander all over the net and often lose track of where I've been and who I engaged with. Part of growing old I guess.
I did a lot of travelling when I was younger but that's fallen off as it becomes more difficult and my age presents challenges I didn't have to think about back then. Also, my wife is what I call a hair-dryer traveller. If they don't have somewhere she can plug in a hair dryer she's not too interested... lol, although in fairness, she soldiered on pretty well when we travelled though Central America.
We had a major trip planned for Russia when the "pandemic" hit, and of course events since then have presented major obstacles, so that's on the back burner. The point was to see if she could adapt to life there, which I'm sure she could. If I were single I'd probably have moved there already, but I'm not about to ditch 36 years of marriage to someone I love just to satisfy my own ambitions. We'll make the trip eventually. If nothing else, I'm a patient little bear.
Dinh's falling out w/ Unz was his loss and Substack's gain. The old boy (younger than me) is a little too thin-skinned. Unz allows racial epithets. Won't censor them. Some hot head nationalists were calling Dinh a gook, not as cheek but angrily. I think he wanted them banned. Unz refused.
Freedom of speech ... it's a problem whether you allow everything or censor certain things. I think those guys were jerks, and Unz should have made some kind of gesture towards defending Linh. Maybe issuing a warning, offering guidelines for what was allowed and what would be considered over the line.
I sympathize w/ your bind between staycation wife and foreign roaming. But age will solve that as you are beginning to notice.
I can't tell the diff between Nips (cute term in English, Japs not so much) and Koreans. (Is there no abbrev/slur for Koreans?) But Chinese I can usually tell by appearance and language sound. (I won't use Chink for some reason, tho my grandmother did when referring to the laundry service.) To me these abbreviated ethnic descriptors are not automatically examples of hate speech. Depends on the context. Then again why try to legislate morality unless you want a theocracy or a totalitarian regime? Manners used to be enough restraint.
The same group that advocated abandoning manners is now pushing for censorship .
"Dinh's falling out w/ Unz was his loss and Substack's gain."
Yeah, I'd agree with that. I was never a huge fan of Unz, reading his site fell under "monitoring" for me, although he had some good writers on at times, Dinh being one of them. This was the deal breaker for me. He clung to his position as the evidence mounted against it. Don't know if he still does. Don't really care.
As far as names go, I don't call people by names they don't use themselves. Avoids a lot of trouble that way. My Aunt (British) was funny. Always referred to Indians as Pakis...lol. Tried to explain to her what a Sikh is, but she didn't get it. They were all Pakis to her.
Yeah, Unz was very weak on co-vid. He got bogged down on defending China v the US as the creator of the virus. Everyone else moved on to no-virus and anti-vax positions.
Pakis sounds cool to me. I'll bet that's where most of the subcontinent immigrants came from. I don't think it was misapplied to Caribbeans. Never had a problem w/ "Yanks" when I was a kid in England. Yugos was what my low class white neighbors were calling Croats in Hoboken. That way they didn't have to get into discerning East European nationalisms. Simple people want simple language and colloquialisms they come up w/ are spicy.
There are some onerous names that come w/ gender identity - the pronoun thing for one and the cis designation for another. That's asking too much. I'm not referring to myself as cis and if you look either male or female there's your pronouns until proven otherwise. As for the they/we thing just forget about it. The left wants to control thinking by controlling language. Orwell nailed it in 1984. And how about the ever changing Negro/Black/ Afro-American identity continuum? What are Caribbean black citizens supposed to do w/ that?
There's polite speech and there's slang speech, fit for different occasions and circumstances. Then there's mandated correctness which is mind control: you're a racist and will be punished unless you conform to our designations.
Last bit - someone I knew from days in Hoboken posted a schedule for Nicaraguan baseball. He would casually refer to the players as Nicas. I don't think it caused offense when he was down there. Got the feeling they used it themselves. The subject of natives or Indians came up because they are less numerous, clustered in a few areas and smaller in size compared to African slave descendants. When I asked him what they called themselves he said indigenous. He chided me for saying Indian. Well, they don't call themselves that. It's what white liberals call them. They have a tribal name or names. White conservatives call them Indians.
You may have noticed but I did get a bit tipsy last night. Ebullient, is the word. I think the LoV set was a bit of a trigger. I ended up staying up till 3 in the morning frantically writing a story (which does have a bit of Venus in it). So all in all it was a good trigger.
Yeah - I've never been able to relate to people who have negative feelings towards 'the other'. Racism, I mean. For me, the default state is curiosity and the joys of discovery. And when I visited Moscow in 1990 it really was like a different world that I'd never known existed. It was a seriously profound experience.
And yes, me too, there are loads of places I haven't seen that I would still love to visit...
Liking the LOV band. It's a return to territory I warm to - shoegaze.
Evelyn, you are touching on a complex subject in what appears to be a confused way. But from reading your other comments I believe you are not subservient to any prevailing ideology, but rather come across as an open truth seeker. I love what you say about NASA and the science establishment in general, but Miles Mathis as a dissident guru not so much.
Races contain multiple ethnicities, variations on the basic theme. Russians may seem other, ie in culture, language and to some extent religion, but racially they're white. Right? So they're not other racially. Of course there can be Russian nationals who are not white, but they're usually not in Moscow.
Racism, as defined by wokeness/cultural Marxism which has overtaken most Western govts at this point, focuses negative racial feelings towards whites. Only whites can be racist. Therefore you should criticize them in all their confrontations w/ other races both historically and contemporaneously. You may dump your hate on them and, if you happen to be white, be sure to signal you're an anti-racist. This conditioning becomes a tremendous psychological burden for white people and some respond by saying FU to speech codes and imposed pc attitudes to race.
Racialism and racialist are terms I relate to. I'm curious about races - how are they constituted, what are their accomplishments, their histories, their behavioral and intellectual tendencies. Then there's the issue of identity. It's become trendy no pretend one is no race at all, just a citizen of the world or only identified w/ an ethnicity w/o racial attachment.
Since whites are under political attack, I've felt it necessary to take on a defensive racialism as may be evident from my comments thus far.
Hmm - I get what you're saying - I think it would've been better, in that case, to not even mention race at all - what I was really talking about in terms of 'the other' was 'cultural identity' - which is far, far more important for personal identity than 'race'. In fact, I would even argue that 'race' is totally irrelevant. Race is just a genetic thing and has nothing to do whatsoever with cultural identity...
Unfortunately, 'racists' don't seem to understand that kind of nuance...
RE: Mathis - I've only come to him lately so I'm still trying to work him out tbh - so yeah, I'm in the open-mind stage... He certainly has ideas that provoke my brain to start working, though, and whether I agree with him or not my brain appreciates that kind of thing lol.
Based on your skipping over my comments about "white plight" and your own apodictic statement that 'cultural identity' - which is far, far more important for personal identity than 'race'. In fact, I would even argue that 'race' is totally irrelevant. Race is just a genetic thing and has nothing to do whatsoever with cultural identity... " I think any further talk of race from my side would only perturb you.
You might be interested in alt-science talk about Venus tho. I know a bit about catastrophism, the theory that cosmic mishaps, or wars according to more extreme visionaries, profoundly changed the landscape of planet Earth both literally and metaphorically. Furthermore, said catastrophes occurred w/n the memory of our ancestors not millions of years ago and they were caused, in part or in whole, by a close passage of the planet Venus. Immanuel Velikovsky is considered the godfather of this hypothesis. His book, Worlds in Collision, the best introduction. Carl Sagan earned his stripes attacking IV, tho he was not alone. The entire astronomy establishment went ballistic at Vel's popularity w/ the hoi polloi during the 50's.
I had to look up apodictic too. Just a fancy word for certainty, seems to me.
Mind you I take your point - I was using language somewhat loosely.
I make a strong distinction between 'race' and 'cultural identity'. Whilst it is indeed true that a 'race' can have a distinct cultural identity, simply by virtue of their having grown up in a particular geographical area with a fairly homogenous society, today we should perhaps better think in terms of 'sub-races' - a good example would be Slavs versus Russians - Russians are Slavs, let's say, but they're not the only ones. Likewise, 'Russian' incorporates a whole conglomeration of sub-races from various original geographical areas, each of which have their own variant characteristics constituting a variant/unique cultural identity. Although notice they seem to all get along pretty well. Like normal human beings.
Actually a better version would be 'British' - then subgroups 'English' 'Welsh' 'Scottish' and so on. Then further subdivisions based on dialect - there is a world of difference between, say, the Cornish (south west) and Geordies (north east), and these differences are not just those of language, but those of outlook, personality and dialect - all of which help to form a cultural identity.
This why I have no time for 'racists' or 'racism' - because it's crude and offers no time for 'nuance'. Furthermore, whilst I perfectly accept the 'right' to dislike a particular cultural identity - bound up as it is with 'ideology' and 'personality traits', I would not apply that to 'race' unless we can assign a distinct personality to that race. In the same way, I absolutely reserve the right to dislike an individual because of their negative or immoral personality traits and their attitude towards the other. No one, for example, says we should have 'anti-discrimination' (i.e. 'woke') laws forcing one individual not to criticise the behaviour or outlook of another individual based on their personality, behaviour, and attitude. I shouldn't be forced to be friends with people who disgust me. Cultural identities work in the same way, but a 'race' without a distinct, homogenous 'identity' is a meaningless term except for taxonomic purposes.
Sorry if all that sounds somewhat pedantic, but I think these are important distinctions to keep in mind.
I used to be, like ebear, somewhat agnostic on Velikovsky - now I'm with Mathis in considering him controlled opposition and frankly, therefore, full of shit. The laws of physics alone preclude the whole caboodle.
I'm agnostic on Velikovsky's theories, but one catastrophe that probably did occur was the collision of proto-earth with a large iron-bearing planetoid that contributed its mass, with the remnants eventually forming our moon.
There's a huge range of conditions that had to be met for life to exist on Earth. So many that I'm tempted to regard it as a plan. First you need an iron core to generate the magnetic field that protects life from solar and cosmic radiation, and at the same time provides enough mass to prevent atmospheric escape. Of course you need a lot of water acquired from collisions with comets to even have an atmosphere, and you need a stable, not too eccentric orbit, to prevent total freezing on an annual basis, and a rotation and inclination to likewise prevent total freezing on a daily basis, plus generate the seasons that drive adaptation of plants and animals.
Speaking of which, the moon also played a critical role in causing the tides that exposed early marine life to the land and drove evolution in that direction, which solar tides are probably too weak to have achieved. Then there's the cloud cover and water cycle that provides rainfall across previously barren ground that the migrating marine species could take advantage of. Take any one of these critical components out of the equation and life as we know it couldn't exist.
The question I then ask myself is, how rare is this confluence of events? Does it take an entire galaxy of colliding worlds to produce one Earth-like planet, or are planets like ours common to solar systems like ours, which make up about 7-8% of the stars in our galaxy?
Another question. Why are the distances so great? Exploration is basic to our nature, and yet the distances seem to preclude that ever happening on an interstellar basis. Are there new physical principles we haven't yet discovered that allow us to bridge the distances a la Star Trek, or is this as far as we'll ever get, and from here we either annihilate ourselves or simply devolve into a giant ant-heap ruled by super elites, of which the WEF are just an early example?
Or maybe we revert to an agrarian existence, with an over-layer of super-technology that maintains homeostasis until we forget how we built it? Something like AC Clark's 'Diaspora' which was one of my favourite novels when I was a kid.
Of course I'm only able to think these thoughts because the basic problem of putting food on the table has been solved in my area, but not across the board, so maybe that's where we should focus our attention? So many questions...
"The issue with the Mars thing is that the atmosphere is so much thinner that any lander would need a massive amount of retro-thrust in order to brake and so on, meaning a seriously large payload, which goes way beyond the mission specifications."
Bear in mind the gravitational attraction of Mars is only 38% of Earth's. Landing procedures are explained here.
I'm not in the skeptic camp when it comes to the moon or mars missions. I believe they happened, but I think some of the footage was done in a studio because of poor quality (or loss) of the originals. You see some funny claims made by the skeptics, like the US flag couldn't be waving on the moon because no atmosphere. That one's my favourite. The flag had an internal metallic frame to make it stand out, which wasn't hard given the moon's gravity is only about 16% of Earth's. Also, with no atmosphere, if you set it moving there's no air to stop it waving, so only the inherent friction of the design would cause it to eventually stop.
I was a big sc-fi fan in my younger days. I even came up with an outline for a story which I never wrote. It concerned a future discovery in physics to the effect that the interstellar medium actually causes light to slow to a crawl, but the resonance of the galactic magnetic field acts like a reverse lens, kind of like looking down the wrong end of a telescope, so you perceive the speed of light as constant. What it meant is that the stars are actually much closer than we think - very much closer, like right next door....lol. This was the basis for a whole series of adventure stories (in my mind) but I never could get the physics to sound credible. It was kind of like one of Dmitry's impossible 'what if' scenarios. Much later I discovered that Einstein used a similar approach when trying to puzzle out the cosmos. He called them "thought experiments." I have a few of my own, like what would the world look like if the proton to electron mass ratio was 22, instead of 1836? The math is way over my head, so It's just talk, but you get the idea. BTW, there actually is a research program that looks for signs of life on Venus. I haven't looked into it yet, but it's on the list.
Serious moon skeptics don't cite the stretched flag. What clinched it for me was footage of some astronaut running in a loping fashion which supposedly demonstrates low gravity. But the runner never bounces higher than normal which would be required. Slo-mo camera seems more likely to account for the unusual gait.
I like your science idea as the basis for a story-setting. I'd definitely read that. I've been delving into Miles Mathis' stuff recently, and although I've only just started I am already convinced that what is presented as mainstream science is really a load of rubbish. The idea of the P-E mass ratio being different does conjure up parallel worlds ideas. The way I see it, in an infinite reality, there must logically be a portion of the whole in which the ratio really is 22. This may also have been the basis of Lovecraft's ideas - namely 'what happens when incompatible worlds collide?' - that's to say, the monsters' ethics may seem evil to us, but to them, our ethics would seem evil. It's a fascinating philosophical idea.
There's the presence of phosphine on Venus which is generally seen as a by-product of living organisms (no natural explanation, that is). Revealing that they are trying to play that down.
I wouldn't trust a single word on wikipedia, by the way. For totally neutral subjects which are not a threat to the powers-that-shouldn't-be sure, it's a good resource, but for even the slightest thing they don't want people to know, it cannot be trusted. And that goes for a lot of science. The fact they even need to have a separate page for mars landing is suspicious. It's almost as if they think people might have doubts if they understood the science.
Both Mars and Venus are around 96% carbon dioxide, for example. The reason why the surface temperature on Venus is so high is nothing to do with the 'heat-trapping' thing with CO2, it's actually the atmospheric pressure mainly. Venus' gravity being around 90% of ours and closer to the sun. Mars, however, as you say, is only 37/38% of ours, meaning the CO2 doesn't cause the same pressure, despite the molecules weighing the same (44 - compared to 28 for the rest of our atmosphere - that fact alone destroys the whole global warming rubbish). This extreme thinness of the Martian atmosphere is the real reason why landing on Mars is so much more difficult - without the possibility of atmospheric entry braking, it has to be retrothrust, which requires a lot of fuel etc.
With regards to the moon landings - it's not so much the little anomalies like waving flags (although it is relevant - the flag was still, then it waves, then it goes back to still - in a vacuum this wouldn't happen - it would either be permanently still or permanently waving), but rather the 'continuity errors' - such as footprints starting in the middle of the photo with no indication of any entrance. Same goes for the rover - it's as if it was just plonked down, rather than wheeled over. Most moon landing sceptics assume these obvious continuity errors are deliberate whistleblowing. The Aulis site https://www.aulis.com/ is quite comprehensive on the details.
Personally I would love to believe it all happened - and I know I have a total cognitive bias when it comes to NASA versus Russia, so whilst I can perfectly accept that NASA is a liar, I really, really don't want to believe that the Russians faked anything. It's what upsets me the most about it all - I really want to know what's out there and denying the people the joys of discovery is just pure evil.
So I am going to consciously decide to continue believing in Venera...
I don't think the USSR lied about their achievements in space, But I suspect they covered up a lot of failures. Yuri Gagarin is credited as the first man in space, but perhaps he was just the first man to survive reentry? Not something you'd want widely known, right?
As an example of how "belief systems" come to be...well, believed, let me give you an example.
from Wicked-Pedia
"On March 27, 1968, Yuri Gagarin, the first man to go into space, died together with pilot Vladimir Seryogin during a routine training flight, after the MiG-15 jet fighter they were flying crashed near Novosyolovo in the Soviet Union. "
"Designated MiG-15, the first production example flew on 31 December 1948. It entered Soviet Air Force service in 1949"
OK, so putting on my tin-foil receiver, I ask, what exactly was Gagarin doing on a training mission in an aircraft whose design was already 20 years old? Obviously there would have been improvements since 1948 that needed testing/training, but how was it Gagarin's job to be doing any of that with all the risks that entails ?
Point is, he was far too valuable as a spokesperson for the USSR, which is not an offer you can refuse. He should have been visiting schools inspiring young people, visiting the USA as an ambassador for space exploration, or any number of important political functions, not flying around in a sketchy Mig-15! His flying days should have been over.
So, the next the thing I'd throw in the pot is, well... maybe he was about to expose something they didn't want known? He'd of course be under constant surveillance, as everybody of any importance was back then, so maybe he was overheard, or confessed something to the wrong person?
Now, I made all that up from whole cloth from just two facts recorded about the guy: First man in space. Died in a plane crash. We don't even know if those are facts - only that we can assign them some degree of certainty based on reportage at the time, and investigations since then.
I used the term "belief system" intentionally. I got it from Alfred Korzybski, who apparently coined it. He wrote what for me is a foundational work on how we use language to communicate, and more importantly, why we go off the rails so often when trying to understand each other, and perhaps most important of all, how language is used to mislead and deceive us.
It's heavy sledding, written for academics not the general public (which I count as his main failing, although in 1933 that may have been his only option to get published) However, Stuart Chase came along a few years later and clarified a lot of what he wrote in a much easier to understand way, so I also recommend:
All this goes to say that I've avoided "believing things' without substantial proof for many years now. That's not to say some belief systems aren't highly functional, even beneficial, without having to be true. I regard some religions in that sense. Korzybski also coined the phrase "the map is not the territory." I've taken that to heart completely. I try to make as accurate a map of reality as possible, all the while reminding myself that it's just a map, and that my prior beliefs plays a major role in the mapping process, and that those beliefs can be highly transitory, even when at certain points in our lives they appear to be true. People in the past believed all kinds of crazy stuff. I mean, it sounded good at the time, right? Otherwise why believe it? So what makes us any different from them today?
I have a name for this process. I call it "managed uncertainty" or MU for short - something I stole from Robert Anton Wilson, although he uses it a bit differently. It basically says that we can never be absolutely sure about anything, but to survive we have to make some assumptions about what is true *at the moment* bearing in mind that those moments can be anything from a few minutes to several centuries. That brings up another concept which I got from Douglas Hofstadter called framing. The name itself gives you an idea what it's about. How we frame something - or place it in a context - is almost as important as the thing itself.
I'll leave it at that for now. I can go on all night about this stuff, but some of us have to sleep right?
I shall have to delve into those links at some point. But if I'm reading you correctly I would broadly agree. From a neuroscience perspective it is indeed true that humans see the world and act in a heuristic way ('managed uncertainty) - that's to say they make 'best guesses' - if something works then this 'action' or 'belief' gets reinforced (i.e. the neural connections are strengthened) - which creates 'habit' and 'fixed opinions'. If it doesn't work then the opposite happens, known in neuroscience as 'pruning'.
This is one reason why it's very difficult for people to have their minds changed - it requires a genuine neuro-physical unravelling, which does, indeed, cause a genuine headache - and given that humans, like all animals, are programmed to avoid pain (because pain is a signifier of impending damage), they will strongly resist having their opinions and habits challenged, simply out of a kind of self-defence.
From the map analogy - they are reluctant to make alterations to the map, let alone throw it away. It's a good analogy - I like it.
On a related level, as social animals in particular, humans don't see the world through 'facts' or 'truths' - they see the world through 'stories'. If the story makes sense to them, provides a good map of the world and their pathway through it, and serves them well in life, then they will take the heuristic option of 'I will act as if it is true'. So if a belief or action is correct 99 times out of 100 they will assume it's 100%. Obviously, when the 1 out of a 100 comes along, that causes issues (unless it's a mundane matter). For 'guesses' - yes - 'assumptions' is an equally good word.
This, of course, is where narrative theory and the power of propaganda come in - but that's another story lol. People see the world equally through emotions - since a good story engages their empathy.
But I'm in danger of an essay. I will rein myself in for now.
I know what you mean about sleep. I haven't been getting enough of it myself...
I'm all about essays if you haven't noticed, but yes, learning to condense our thoughts into something succinct is a skill worth developing. Don't feel under any obligation to read the books I posted. I often refer to certain authors just to simplify the process of explaining where I'm coming from, in fact here's my short list of the most influential authors I've read. I think it helps establish a baseline for conversation if we can see what the other person's influences are, plus I'm always open to new authors, even though it may take time to get to them as my plate is pretty full right now.
In no particular order:
Alfred Korzybski, Stuart Chase, Marshal McLuhan, Douglas Hofstadter, Marvin Harris, James Grier Miller, Robert Anton Wilson, Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, Richard Feynman.
Yeah - I have a lot on my plate too, so it may take me a while. I've heard of most of the people you mentioned of course, and am familiar with some of them. For me, I would probably say I come from a more classical philosophical background (especially Nietzsche and the ancients, and philosophy of science - which ventures into the writers you mentioned of course), combined with a healthy dose of esoterica, paganism, history and psychology. Oh, and then there's my own speculative fiction.
Still, there are indeed gaping holes in my personal library...
Yes, I'd always thought the death of Gagarin was suspicious to put it mildly. I hadn't known the plane he was flying was twenty years' old though - that confirms it as far as I'm concerned - otherwise it makes zero sense.
Another suspicious death is, of course, Korolyov himself - 'complications following a routine appendix operation' - ?! one of the most important people in the country?! Incompetence doesn't account for that - so, again, that's either murder or another faked death, IMO.
So that's the other option/hypothesis is that Gagarin's was a faked death - that sort of thing does happen. I'm sure I read somewhere some time ago that the real first man in space (or at least successful orbits) was Ilyushin (can't remember his first name - son of the famous aircraft designer), who crash-landed in China with several broken bones, but was looked after by the Chinese. So they hastily concocted Gagarin's flight (whether real or not) and presented him as the first success. I don't know about that - could be a manufactured misdirection. Besides, I thought Gagarin was chosen (above Titov) because he was a good honest farm boy (and quite handsome, too).
I would also be very unsurprised if there were manned spaceflight attempts before this which ended in failure of one kind or another and were never made public. Obviously the likes of Gagarin and Titov and Tereshkova and so on would have known about these, one imagines. This idea is reinforced by genuine failures of unmanned probes which were passed off as tests or whatever (I think this is the case for some of the early Veneras actually). That's understandable when cold war PR is a factor. So whether Gagarin intended to blow the whistle (or defect), or they simply faked his death, I don't know - that would be seriously classified stuff!
Interestingly, a similar line of reasoning applies to the Apollo 1 fire which killed (or allegedly killed, let's say) Gus Grissom, who, as the most senior astronaut, would've been already pencilled in to be the first guy on the moon. So, if the whole thing was going to be faked and Grissom wasn't the kind of guy to go along with that charade, then there's a motive. Certainly, filling a capsule with pure oxygen and exposed wiring is such a reckless and dumb thing to do that one can only conclude it was deliberate (that and their not being able to open the hatch). That whole episode veritably reeks of conspiracy.
I'll respond to the second half of your comment separately.
Is there actually a theory about Gagarin's death? I came up with that on my own. Just goes to show that whatever you can imagine, someone else has probably already done it. I don't think the plane itself was 20 years old though. Just the design. But again, after 20 years in operation, you'd expect the design was safe. The DC3 was designed in the 1930's and there's still a few flying even though production ended in 1943.
The first two images are artist's impressions based on radar mapping of the topography from orbit. I guess I should have mentioned that. The third image is from one of the later missions that survived long enough to take a few pictures.
Venus' atmosphere is made mostly of carbon dioxide, according to NASA. The planet is also shrouded in clouds of sulfuric acid. Because of its heat-trapping atmosphere, Venus has the hottest surface of any planet in the solar system.
the atmospheric pressure on Venus is incredibly high, particularly at its surface. If you could stand on Venus, the pressure would be like having the weight of a small car on every square inch of your body or being about 0.6 miles under the ocean on Earth.
The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (1,350 psi), roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) under water on Earth.
another peculiarity of Venus is it rotates on its side at an inclination of 177.3° and a day on Venus is about 116.75 earth days, while the orbital period is 224..65 earth days, so basically a Venusian year is just under two Venusian days long....lol.
[Evie] I believe young people today use the expression 'omfg' to designate sentiments along the lines of 'wow'.
Katrina didn't tell me about this amazing band. Now she is telling me. She'll be providing a comment in due course. But for now, all I can say is, LoV are astounding and just as good, if not better, than Slowdive. Katrina would say they're better. But she's biased (more on that later).
Totally amazing and totally beautiful - thank you!!!
Yeah - I've always been far more fascinated with Venus than Mars. I've written quite a few stories with Venus as the setting (usually in orbit, with a planet-modifying operation - these stories will be in my new collection, if I can just overcome the final hurdle and finish the bloody thing).
That 'mouse on mars' comment just occurred to me given the faked NASA Mars rover images, one of which includes some kind of rodent: https://www.marsanomalyresearch.com/
So whilst I have total doubt about NASA, I'm still seriously hoping that the Russians didn't stoop to faking anything. Personally, although this may be cognitive bias, so to speak, I am going to genuinely believe those Venus images are true (unless someone like Miles Mathis can prove me otherwise). In the words of Fox Mulder - I want to believe.
The issue with the Mars thing is that the atmosphere is so much thinner that any lander would need a massive amount of retro-thrust in order to brake and so on, meaning a seriously large payload, which goes way beyond the mission specifications. Venus is very different indeed, being a very thick atmosphere, so simply using some parachutes, as with the Venera landers, isn't really that difficult. Also, unlike the Mars images, which are far too 'earth-like' (Devon Island I believe) the Venus images are not, they really are 'alien'. And seriously hellish, for that matter.
Where did you get those images by the way - I'm familiar with the classic Venera 13 one (I think it's 13), but the other ones I've never seen before. Do you have links?
Also, from what I know about the Russian psyche, I think they would be ashamed to fake stuff. NASA and Americans, they don't give a shit, but Russians, no. They genuinely care (it's interesting, after all, that music like LoV can exist in a supposedly authoritarian state? Kind of destroys that propaganda, imo).
Anyway - interesting about the origin of their band name - Katrina is telling me they really did call themselves Venera in her world. Given her penchant for shoegaze, and her own record label (PAWS Records) and her Russian husband and children and so on, she is telling me they signed to her label.
Yeah, I know, parallel world stuff just keeps on imposing!
But this LoV set of yours was seriously, seriously beautiful - thank you so much!! Katrina never mentioned them. I'm going to have words with her.
"Yeah, I know, parallel world stuff just keeps on imposing!"
I think of Russia as a parallel world sometimes. Everything looks the same as here except for the weird writing. Same goes for Iran, which is a place I'd love to visit. I've had several Iranian friends over the years. Delightful people. China, when we visited in the 80's was more like a time machine... like stepping back 25 years. All the vehicles looked like ours did 25 years ago, and the people were dressed like we were in the 50's. That was during Deng's 4 Modernizations period. Didn't look too modern to me. Now China looks more like the future, at least in the cities. That was a strange experience, like landing on an alien planet. Everyone was supposed to be nice to tourists, but they didn't actually have many, and no one knew exactly how to behave. I tried tipping the bar girl (I was the only customer, like in North Korea today) and she almost panicked. Wasn't supposed to accept gratuities because that could have a corrupting influence I suppose. I bet that's changed.
Russia, Iran and China all fascinate me too. Iran and China having ancient civilizations which are preserved to a remarkable degree and Russia's, tho more recent, I consider to have been at the apex of Western cultural achievement when it was destroyed by the Bolshies. Now that I think of it, I guess Mao tried the same w/ China. Do revolutionaries ever get around to "building back better"?
Do you follow Linh Dinh's travelogues? He's got my politics, but he's also got a great common touch and hella writing skills.
I would like to have seen more of China. As it was we only visited Guangdong province and even getting around there was difficult because we were in that first wave of tourists after the great thaw. No one knew what to do with us, even buying train tickets was a challenge. They'd already built a hotel for tourists in Guangzhou, which was rather nice actually, but of course almost entirely empty.
Like I said, sitting in an empty bar (wife was tired and asleep in our room) chatting up the bar maid (who spoke decent English) and her semi-panic when I tried to leave her a tip was something right out of North Korea.
Another hilarity, which became tedious after a while, is that although I bothered to learn some Mandarin my wife who is Japanese didn't. People would speak to her first, and I'd have to to tell them she's not Chinese, which threw a lot of people off. Back then they couldn't really tell the difference, and a white guy speaking Mandarin travelling with someone who looked Chinese but wasn't really threw them off. Fortunately they could understand when she wrote it out in Kanji, as most of the basic characters are the same.
A highlight of that trip was when I tried to buy a cap badge from a railway worker (I'm a rail enthusiast) in a museum we visited. Like with anything unusual in China a crowd gathered, and the guy kept refusing and I kept upping the price as I really wanted that badge. Eventually his wife twisted his arm after I offered what was probably a day's wage to them, so I got the cap badge and still have it, while he probably just got another one from work. It was basically a red metal star, but with the railway symbol in place of the hammer and sickle like in this picture.
https://www.railpictures.net/images/d2/6/5/1/5651.1581455311.jpg
Must be fairly rare because I couldn't find an image of it anywhere on the net, so I used that picture instead. They were still using steam locomotives back then, many of them based on lend-lease locomotives from the USA.
Another thing that got attention was when I held hands walking with my wife. Nobody did that back then, much less a white guy with a Chinese girl, which they all took my wife for. One guy was staring so hard he fell off his bicycle. For part of that trip I wore army fatigues and a beret with a red star (Che style) just to see what sort of reaction I'd get. I think people thought I was a visiting Cuban military officer and my wife was my guide. Got some strange looks, that's for sure. I think that was the most fun I've ever had on any of my travels. I miss those days, which is probably why I wrote this goddamn essay...lol.
I followed Dinh for a while, but drifted off after his falling out with Ron Unz. I see he's got a substack now so I'll go have a look. Thanks for reminding me. I wander all over the net and often lose track of where I've been and who I engaged with. Part of growing old I guess.
I did a lot of travelling when I was younger but that's fallen off as it becomes more difficult and my age presents challenges I didn't have to think about back then. Also, my wife is what I call a hair-dryer traveller. If they don't have somewhere she can plug in a hair dryer she's not too interested... lol, although in fairness, she soldiered on pretty well when we travelled though Central America.
We had a major trip planned for Russia when the "pandemic" hit, and of course events since then have presented major obstacles, so that's on the back burner. The point was to see if she could adapt to life there, which I'm sure she could. If I were single I'd probably have moved there already, but I'm not about to ditch 36 years of marriage to someone I love just to satisfy my own ambitions. We'll make the trip eventually. If nothing else, I'm a patient little bear.
Dinh's falling out w/ Unz was his loss and Substack's gain. The old boy (younger than me) is a little too thin-skinned. Unz allows racial epithets. Won't censor them. Some hot head nationalists were calling Dinh a gook, not as cheek but angrily. I think he wanted them banned. Unz refused.
Freedom of speech ... it's a problem whether you allow everything or censor certain things. I think those guys were jerks, and Unz should have made some kind of gesture towards defending Linh. Maybe issuing a warning, offering guidelines for what was allowed and what would be considered over the line.
I sympathize w/ your bind between staycation wife and foreign roaming. But age will solve that as you are beginning to notice.
I can't tell the diff between Nips (cute term in English, Japs not so much) and Koreans. (Is there no abbrev/slur for Koreans?) But Chinese I can usually tell by appearance and language sound. (I won't use Chink for some reason, tho my grandmother did when referring to the laundry service.) To me these abbreviated ethnic descriptors are not automatically examples of hate speech. Depends on the context. Then again why try to legislate morality unless you want a theocracy or a totalitarian regime? Manners used to be enough restraint.
The same group that advocated abandoning manners is now pushing for censorship .
"Dinh's falling out w/ Unz was his loss and Substack's gain."
Yeah, I'd agree with that. I was never a huge fan of Unz, reading his site fell under "monitoring" for me, although he had some good writers on at times, Dinh being one of them. This was the deal breaker for me. He clung to his position as the evidence mounted against it. Don't know if he still does. Don't really care.
https://www.unz.com/runz/vaxxing-covid-and-international-mortality-rates/
As far as names go, I don't call people by names they don't use themselves. Avoids a lot of trouble that way. My Aunt (British) was funny. Always referred to Indians as Pakis...lol. Tried to explain to her what a Sikh is, but she didn't get it. They were all Pakis to her.
Yeah, Unz was very weak on co-vid. He got bogged down on defending China v the US as the creator of the virus. Everyone else moved on to no-virus and anti-vax positions.
Pakis sounds cool to me. I'll bet that's where most of the subcontinent immigrants came from. I don't think it was misapplied to Caribbeans. Never had a problem w/ "Yanks" when I was a kid in England. Yugos was what my low class white neighbors were calling Croats in Hoboken. That way they didn't have to get into discerning East European nationalisms. Simple people want simple language and colloquialisms they come up w/ are spicy.
There are some onerous names that come w/ gender identity - the pronoun thing for one and the cis designation for another. That's asking too much. I'm not referring to myself as cis and if you look either male or female there's your pronouns until proven otherwise. As for the they/we thing just forget about it. The left wants to control thinking by controlling language. Orwell nailed it in 1984. And how about the ever changing Negro/Black/ Afro-American identity continuum? What are Caribbean black citizens supposed to do w/ that?
There's polite speech and there's slang speech, fit for different occasions and circumstances. Then there's mandated correctness which is mind control: you're a racist and will be punished unless you conform to our designations.
Last bit - someone I knew from days in Hoboken posted a schedule for Nicaraguan baseball. He would casually refer to the players as Nicas. I don't think it caused offense when he was down there. Got the feeling they used it themselves. The subject of natives or Indians came up because they are less numerous, clustered in a few areas and smaller in size compared to African slave descendants. When I asked him what they called themselves he said indigenous. He chided me for saying Indian. Well, they don't call themselves that. It's what white liberals call them. They have a tribal name or names. White conservatives call them Indians.
You may have noticed but I did get a bit tipsy last night. Ebullient, is the word. I think the LoV set was a bit of a trigger. I ended up staying up till 3 in the morning frantically writing a story (which does have a bit of Venus in it). So all in all it was a good trigger.
Yeah - I've never been able to relate to people who have negative feelings towards 'the other'. Racism, I mean. For me, the default state is curiosity and the joys of discovery. And when I visited Moscow in 1990 it really was like a different world that I'd never known existed. It was a seriously profound experience.
And yes, me too, there are loads of places I haven't seen that I would still love to visit...
Liking the LOV band. It's a return to territory I warm to - shoegaze.
Evelyn, you are touching on a complex subject in what appears to be a confused way. But from reading your other comments I believe you are not subservient to any prevailing ideology, but rather come across as an open truth seeker. I love what you say about NASA and the science establishment in general, but Miles Mathis as a dissident guru not so much.
Races contain multiple ethnicities, variations on the basic theme. Russians may seem other, ie in culture, language and to some extent religion, but racially they're white. Right? So they're not other racially. Of course there can be Russian nationals who are not white, but they're usually not in Moscow.
Racism, as defined by wokeness/cultural Marxism which has overtaken most Western govts at this point, focuses negative racial feelings towards whites. Only whites can be racist. Therefore you should criticize them in all their confrontations w/ other races both historically and contemporaneously. You may dump your hate on them and, if you happen to be white, be sure to signal you're an anti-racist. This conditioning becomes a tremendous psychological burden for white people and some respond by saying FU to speech codes and imposed pc attitudes to race.
Racialism and racialist are terms I relate to. I'm curious about races - how are they constituted, what are their accomplishments, their histories, their behavioral and intellectual tendencies. Then there's the issue of identity. It's become trendy no pretend one is no race at all, just a citizen of the world or only identified w/ an ethnicity w/o racial attachment.
Since whites are under political attack, I've felt it necessary to take on a defensive racialism as may be evident from my comments thus far.
Hmm - I get what you're saying - I think it would've been better, in that case, to not even mention race at all - what I was really talking about in terms of 'the other' was 'cultural identity' - which is far, far more important for personal identity than 'race'. In fact, I would even argue that 'race' is totally irrelevant. Race is just a genetic thing and has nothing to do whatsoever with cultural identity...
Unfortunately, 'racists' don't seem to understand that kind of nuance...
RE: Mathis - I've only come to him lately so I'm still trying to work him out tbh - so yeah, I'm in the open-mind stage... He certainly has ideas that provoke my brain to start working, though, and whether I agree with him or not my brain appreciates that kind of thing lol.
Based on your skipping over my comments about "white plight" and your own apodictic statement that 'cultural identity' - which is far, far more important for personal identity than 'race'. In fact, I would even argue that 'race' is totally irrelevant. Race is just a genetic thing and has nothing to do whatsoever with cultural identity... " I think any further talk of race from my side would only perturb you.
You might be interested in alt-science talk about Venus tho. I know a bit about catastrophism, the theory that cosmic mishaps, or wars according to more extreme visionaries, profoundly changed the landscape of planet Earth both literally and metaphorically. Furthermore, said catastrophes occurred w/n the memory of our ancestors not millions of years ago and they were caused, in part or in whole, by a close passage of the planet Venus. Immanuel Velikovsky is considered the godfather of this hypothesis. His book, Worlds in Collision, the best introduction. Carl Sagan earned his stripes attacking IV, tho he was not alone. The entire astronomy establishment went ballistic at Vel's popularity w/ the hoi polloi during the 50's.
I had to look up apodictic too. Just a fancy word for certainty, seems to me.
Mind you I take your point - I was using language somewhat loosely.
I make a strong distinction between 'race' and 'cultural identity'. Whilst it is indeed true that a 'race' can have a distinct cultural identity, simply by virtue of their having grown up in a particular geographical area with a fairly homogenous society, today we should perhaps better think in terms of 'sub-races' - a good example would be Slavs versus Russians - Russians are Slavs, let's say, but they're not the only ones. Likewise, 'Russian' incorporates a whole conglomeration of sub-races from various original geographical areas, each of which have their own variant characteristics constituting a variant/unique cultural identity. Although notice they seem to all get along pretty well. Like normal human beings.
Actually a better version would be 'British' - then subgroups 'English' 'Welsh' 'Scottish' and so on. Then further subdivisions based on dialect - there is a world of difference between, say, the Cornish (south west) and Geordies (north east), and these differences are not just those of language, but those of outlook, personality and dialect - all of which help to form a cultural identity.
This why I have no time for 'racists' or 'racism' - because it's crude and offers no time for 'nuance'. Furthermore, whilst I perfectly accept the 'right' to dislike a particular cultural identity - bound up as it is with 'ideology' and 'personality traits', I would not apply that to 'race' unless we can assign a distinct personality to that race. In the same way, I absolutely reserve the right to dislike an individual because of their negative or immoral personality traits and their attitude towards the other. No one, for example, says we should have 'anti-discrimination' (i.e. 'woke') laws forcing one individual not to criticise the behaviour or outlook of another individual based on their personality, behaviour, and attitude. I shouldn't be forced to be friends with people who disgust me. Cultural identities work in the same way, but a 'race' without a distinct, homogenous 'identity' is a meaningless term except for taxonomic purposes.
Sorry if all that sounds somewhat pedantic, but I think these are important distinctions to keep in mind.
I used to be, like ebear, somewhat agnostic on Velikovsky - now I'm with Mathis in considering him controlled opposition and frankly, therefore, full of shit. The laws of physics alone preclude the whole caboodle.
"apodictic"
I had to look that one up!
I'm agnostic on Velikovsky's theories, but one catastrophe that probably did occur was the collision of proto-earth with a large iron-bearing planetoid that contributed its mass, with the remnants eventually forming our moon.
There's a huge range of conditions that had to be met for life to exist on Earth. So many that I'm tempted to regard it as a plan. First you need an iron core to generate the magnetic field that protects life from solar and cosmic radiation, and at the same time provides enough mass to prevent atmospheric escape. Of course you need a lot of water acquired from collisions with comets to even have an atmosphere, and you need a stable, not too eccentric orbit, to prevent total freezing on an annual basis, and a rotation and inclination to likewise prevent total freezing on a daily basis, plus generate the seasons that drive adaptation of plants and animals.
Speaking of which, the moon also played a critical role in causing the tides that exposed early marine life to the land and drove evolution in that direction, which solar tides are probably too weak to have achieved. Then there's the cloud cover and water cycle that provides rainfall across previously barren ground that the migrating marine species could take advantage of. Take any one of these critical components out of the equation and life as we know it couldn't exist.
The question I then ask myself is, how rare is this confluence of events? Does it take an entire galaxy of colliding worlds to produce one Earth-like planet, or are planets like ours common to solar systems like ours, which make up about 7-8% of the stars in our galaxy?
Another question. Why are the distances so great? Exploration is basic to our nature, and yet the distances seem to preclude that ever happening on an interstellar basis. Are there new physical principles we haven't yet discovered that allow us to bridge the distances a la Star Trek, or is this as far as we'll ever get, and from here we either annihilate ourselves or simply devolve into a giant ant-heap ruled by super elites, of which the WEF are just an early example?
Or maybe we revert to an agrarian existence, with an over-layer of super-technology that maintains homeostasis until we forget how we built it? Something like AC Clark's 'Diaspora' which was one of my favourite novels when I was a kid.
Of course I'm only able to think these thoughts because the basic problem of putting food on the table has been solved in my area, but not across the board, so maybe that's where we should focus our attention? So many questions...
"The issue with the Mars thing is that the atmosphere is so much thinner that any lander would need a massive amount of retro-thrust in order to brake and so on, meaning a seriously large payload, which goes way beyond the mission specifications."
Bear in mind the gravitational attraction of Mars is only 38% of Earth's. Landing procedures are explained here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_landing
I'm not in the skeptic camp when it comes to the moon or mars missions. I believe they happened, but I think some of the footage was done in a studio because of poor quality (or loss) of the originals. You see some funny claims made by the skeptics, like the US flag couldn't be waving on the moon because no atmosphere. That one's my favourite. The flag had an internal metallic frame to make it stand out, which wasn't hard given the moon's gravity is only about 16% of Earth's. Also, with no atmosphere, if you set it moving there's no air to stop it waving, so only the inherent friction of the design would cause it to eventually stop.
I was a big sc-fi fan in my younger days. I even came up with an outline for a story which I never wrote. It concerned a future discovery in physics to the effect that the interstellar medium actually causes light to slow to a crawl, but the resonance of the galactic magnetic field acts like a reverse lens, kind of like looking down the wrong end of a telescope, so you perceive the speed of light as constant. What it meant is that the stars are actually much closer than we think - very much closer, like right next door....lol. This was the basis for a whole series of adventure stories (in my mind) but I never could get the physics to sound credible. It was kind of like one of Dmitry's impossible 'what if' scenarios. Much later I discovered that Einstein used a similar approach when trying to puzzle out the cosmos. He called them "thought experiments." I have a few of my own, like what would the world look like if the proton to electron mass ratio was 22, instead of 1836? The math is way over my head, so It's just talk, but you get the idea. BTW, there actually is a research program that looks for signs of life on Venus. I haven't looked into it yet, but it's on the list.
Serious moon skeptics don't cite the stretched flag. What clinched it for me was footage of some astronaut running in a loping fashion which supposedly demonstrates low gravity. But the runner never bounces higher than normal which would be required. Slo-mo camera seems more likely to account for the unusual gait.
I love all this kind of stuff!
I like your science idea as the basis for a story-setting. I'd definitely read that. I've been delving into Miles Mathis' stuff recently, and although I've only just started I am already convinced that what is presented as mainstream science is really a load of rubbish. The idea of the P-E mass ratio being different does conjure up parallel worlds ideas. The way I see it, in an infinite reality, there must logically be a portion of the whole in which the ratio really is 22. This may also have been the basis of Lovecraft's ideas - namely 'what happens when incompatible worlds collide?' - that's to say, the monsters' ethics may seem evil to us, but to them, our ethics would seem evil. It's a fascinating philosophical idea.
There's the presence of phosphine on Venus which is generally seen as a by-product of living organisms (no natural explanation, that is). Revealing that they are trying to play that down.
I wouldn't trust a single word on wikipedia, by the way. For totally neutral subjects which are not a threat to the powers-that-shouldn't-be sure, it's a good resource, but for even the slightest thing they don't want people to know, it cannot be trusted. And that goes for a lot of science. The fact they even need to have a separate page for mars landing is suspicious. It's almost as if they think people might have doubts if they understood the science.
Both Mars and Venus are around 96% carbon dioxide, for example. The reason why the surface temperature on Venus is so high is nothing to do with the 'heat-trapping' thing with CO2, it's actually the atmospheric pressure mainly. Venus' gravity being around 90% of ours and closer to the sun. Mars, however, as you say, is only 37/38% of ours, meaning the CO2 doesn't cause the same pressure, despite the molecules weighing the same (44 - compared to 28 for the rest of our atmosphere - that fact alone destroys the whole global warming rubbish). This extreme thinness of the Martian atmosphere is the real reason why landing on Mars is so much more difficult - without the possibility of atmospheric entry braking, it has to be retrothrust, which requires a lot of fuel etc.
With regards to the moon landings - it's not so much the little anomalies like waving flags (although it is relevant - the flag was still, then it waves, then it goes back to still - in a vacuum this wouldn't happen - it would either be permanently still or permanently waving), but rather the 'continuity errors' - such as footprints starting in the middle of the photo with no indication of any entrance. Same goes for the rover - it's as if it was just plonked down, rather than wheeled over. Most moon landing sceptics assume these obvious continuity errors are deliberate whistleblowing. The Aulis site https://www.aulis.com/ is quite comprehensive on the details.
Personally I would love to believe it all happened - and I know I have a total cognitive bias when it comes to NASA versus Russia, so whilst I can perfectly accept that NASA is a liar, I really, really don't want to believe that the Russians faked anything. It's what upsets me the most about it all - I really want to know what's out there and denying the people the joys of discovery is just pure evil.
So I am going to consciously decide to continue believing in Venera...
I don't think the USSR lied about their achievements in space, But I suspect they covered up a lot of failures. Yuri Gagarin is credited as the first man in space, but perhaps he was just the first man to survive reentry? Not something you'd want widely known, right?
As an example of how "belief systems" come to be...well, believed, let me give you an example.
from Wicked-Pedia
"On March 27, 1968, Yuri Gagarin, the first man to go into space, died together with pilot Vladimir Seryogin during a routine training flight, after the MiG-15 jet fighter they were flying crashed near Novosyolovo in the Soviet Union. "
"Designated MiG-15, the first production example flew on 31 December 1948. It entered Soviet Air Force service in 1949"
OK, so putting on my tin-foil receiver, I ask, what exactly was Gagarin doing on a training mission in an aircraft whose design was already 20 years old? Obviously there would have been improvements since 1948 that needed testing/training, but how was it Gagarin's job to be doing any of that with all the risks that entails ?
Point is, he was far too valuable as a spokesperson for the USSR, which is not an offer you can refuse. He should have been visiting schools inspiring young people, visiting the USA as an ambassador for space exploration, or any number of important political functions, not flying around in a sketchy Mig-15! His flying days should have been over.
So, the next the thing I'd throw in the pot is, well... maybe he was about to expose something they didn't want known? He'd of course be under constant surveillance, as everybody of any importance was back then, so maybe he was overheard, or confessed something to the wrong person?
Now, I made all that up from whole cloth from just two facts recorded about the guy: First man in space. Died in a plane crash. We don't even know if those are facts - only that we can assign them some degree of certainty based on reportage at the time, and investigations since then.
I used the term "belief system" intentionally. I got it from Alfred Korzybski, who apparently coined it. He wrote what for me is a foundational work on how we use language to communicate, and more importantly, why we go off the rails so often when trying to understand each other, and perhaps most important of all, how language is used to mislead and deceive us.
https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/alfred-korzybski/pdf-science-and-sanity-an-introduction-to-non-aristotelian-systems-and-general-semantics-download/
It's heavy sledding, written for academics not the general public (which I count as his main failing, although in 1933 that may have been his only option to get published) However, Stuart Chase came along a few years later and clarified a lot of what he wrote in a much easier to understand way, so I also recommend:
https://oceanofpdf.com/authors/stuart-chase/pdf-epub-the-tyranny-of-words-download/
All this goes to say that I've avoided "believing things' without substantial proof for many years now. That's not to say some belief systems aren't highly functional, even beneficial, without having to be true. I regard some religions in that sense. Korzybski also coined the phrase "the map is not the territory." I've taken that to heart completely. I try to make as accurate a map of reality as possible, all the while reminding myself that it's just a map, and that my prior beliefs plays a major role in the mapping process, and that those beliefs can be highly transitory, even when at certain points in our lives they appear to be true. People in the past believed all kinds of crazy stuff. I mean, it sounded good at the time, right? Otherwise why believe it? So what makes us any different from them today?
I have a name for this process. I call it "managed uncertainty" or MU for short - something I stole from Robert Anton Wilson, although he uses it a bit differently. It basically says that we can never be absolutely sure about anything, but to survive we have to make some assumptions about what is true *at the moment* bearing in mind that those moments can be anything from a few minutes to several centuries. That brings up another concept which I got from Douglas Hofstadter called framing. The name itself gives you an idea what it's about. How we frame something - or place it in a context - is almost as important as the thing itself.
I'll leave it at that for now. I can go on all night about this stuff, but some of us have to sleep right?
I shall have to delve into those links at some point. But if I'm reading you correctly I would broadly agree. From a neuroscience perspective it is indeed true that humans see the world and act in a heuristic way ('managed uncertainty) - that's to say they make 'best guesses' - if something works then this 'action' or 'belief' gets reinforced (i.e. the neural connections are strengthened) - which creates 'habit' and 'fixed opinions'. If it doesn't work then the opposite happens, known in neuroscience as 'pruning'.
This is one reason why it's very difficult for people to have their minds changed - it requires a genuine neuro-physical unravelling, which does, indeed, cause a genuine headache - and given that humans, like all animals, are programmed to avoid pain (because pain is a signifier of impending damage), they will strongly resist having their opinions and habits challenged, simply out of a kind of self-defence.
From the map analogy - they are reluctant to make alterations to the map, let alone throw it away. It's a good analogy - I like it.
On a related level, as social animals in particular, humans don't see the world through 'facts' or 'truths' - they see the world through 'stories'. If the story makes sense to them, provides a good map of the world and their pathway through it, and serves them well in life, then they will take the heuristic option of 'I will act as if it is true'. So if a belief or action is correct 99 times out of 100 they will assume it's 100%. Obviously, when the 1 out of a 100 comes along, that causes issues (unless it's a mundane matter). For 'guesses' - yes - 'assumptions' is an equally good word.
This, of course, is where narrative theory and the power of propaganda come in - but that's another story lol. People see the world equally through emotions - since a good story engages their empathy.
But I'm in danger of an essay. I will rein myself in for now.
I know what you mean about sleep. I haven't been getting enough of it myself...
I'm all about essays if you haven't noticed, but yes, learning to condense our thoughts into something succinct is a skill worth developing. Don't feel under any obligation to read the books I posted. I often refer to certain authors just to simplify the process of explaining where I'm coming from, in fact here's my short list of the most influential authors I've read. I think it helps establish a baseline for conversation if we can see what the other person's influences are, plus I'm always open to new authors, even though it may take time to get to them as my plate is pretty full right now.
In no particular order:
Alfred Korzybski, Stuart Chase, Marshal McLuhan, Douglas Hofstadter, Marvin Harris, James Grier Miller, Robert Anton Wilson, Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, Richard Feynman.
Yeah - I have a lot on my plate too, so it may take me a while. I've heard of most of the people you mentioned of course, and am familiar with some of them. For me, I would probably say I come from a more classical philosophical background (especially Nietzsche and the ancients, and philosophy of science - which ventures into the writers you mentioned of course), combined with a healthy dose of esoterica, paganism, history and psychology. Oh, and then there's my own speculative fiction.
Still, there are indeed gaping holes in my personal library...
Yes, I'd always thought the death of Gagarin was suspicious to put it mildly. I hadn't known the plane he was flying was twenty years' old though - that confirms it as far as I'm concerned - otherwise it makes zero sense.
Another suspicious death is, of course, Korolyov himself - 'complications following a routine appendix operation' - ?! one of the most important people in the country?! Incompetence doesn't account for that - so, again, that's either murder or another faked death, IMO.
So that's the other option/hypothesis is that Gagarin's was a faked death - that sort of thing does happen. I'm sure I read somewhere some time ago that the real first man in space (or at least successful orbits) was Ilyushin (can't remember his first name - son of the famous aircraft designer), who crash-landed in China with several broken bones, but was looked after by the Chinese. So they hastily concocted Gagarin's flight (whether real or not) and presented him as the first success. I don't know about that - could be a manufactured misdirection. Besides, I thought Gagarin was chosen (above Titov) because he was a good honest farm boy (and quite handsome, too).
I would also be very unsurprised if there were manned spaceflight attempts before this which ended in failure of one kind or another and were never made public. Obviously the likes of Gagarin and Titov and Tereshkova and so on would have known about these, one imagines. This idea is reinforced by genuine failures of unmanned probes which were passed off as tests or whatever (I think this is the case for some of the early Veneras actually). That's understandable when cold war PR is a factor. So whether Gagarin intended to blow the whistle (or defect), or they simply faked his death, I don't know - that would be seriously classified stuff!
Interestingly, a similar line of reasoning applies to the Apollo 1 fire which killed (or allegedly killed, let's say) Gus Grissom, who, as the most senior astronaut, would've been already pencilled in to be the first guy on the moon. So, if the whole thing was going to be faked and Grissom wasn't the kind of guy to go along with that charade, then there's a motive. Certainly, filling a capsule with pure oxygen and exposed wiring is such a reckless and dumb thing to do that one can only conclude it was deliberate (that and their not being able to open the hatch). That whole episode veritably reeks of conspiracy.
I'll respond to the second half of your comment separately.
Is there actually a theory about Gagarin's death? I came up with that on my own. Just goes to show that whatever you can imagine, someone else has probably already done it. I don't think the plane itself was 20 years old though. Just the design. But again, after 20 years in operation, you'd expect the design was safe. The DC3 was designed in the 1930's and there's still a few flying even though production ended in 1943.
This is what I'm talking about right here. Pure madness, but it worked out OK in the end.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/john-frum-cargo-cult
The first two images are artist's impressions based on radar mapping of the topography from orbit. I guess I should have mentioned that. The third image is from one of the later missions that survived long enough to take a few pictures.
Here's why the missions didn't survive very long.
https://www.space.com/18527-venus-atmosphere.html
Venus' atmosphere is made mostly of carbon dioxide, according to NASA. The planet is also shrouded in clouds of sulfuric acid. Because of its heat-trapping atmosphere, Venus has the hottest surface of any planet in the solar system.
the atmospheric pressure on Venus is incredibly high, particularly at its surface. If you could stand on Venus, the pressure would be like having the weight of a small car on every square inch of your body or being about 0.6 miles under the ocean on Earth.
The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (1,350 psi), roughly the pressure found 900 m (3,000 ft) under water on Earth.
another peculiarity of Venus is it rotates on its side at an inclination of 177.3° and a day on Venus is about 116.75 earth days, while the orbital period is 224..65 earth days, so basically a Venusian year is just under two Venusian days long....lol.
[Evie] I believe young people today use the expression 'omfg' to designate sentiments along the lines of 'wow'.
Katrina didn't tell me about this amazing band. Now she is telling me. She'll be providing a comment in due course. But for now, all I can say is, LoV are astounding and just as good, if not better, than Slowdive. Katrina would say they're better. But she's biased (more on that later).
Totally amazing and totally beautiful - thank you!!!