It's Not A Conspiracy: If You Have That Much Power, That's Really What You Think About.

Uh-oh.

It's the middle of the summer and I'm still on this shit.

Uh-oh.

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Man...

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As long as it all makes sense, that's cool.

That's really it.

That's peace of mind.

And from there, it's on...

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Peace by Peace...

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I got a bunch of random ideas that people have never heard and find useful, so here's another one.

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But first, I saw this wicked quote on this wicked Che poster yesterday, it was at a youth centre where i did wicked gig fo' da keeds...

See if you feelin' this...

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"Let me say, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love."
- Che Guevara

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Wicked eh?

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TV vs. Internet

I remember scuba diving in Thailand.

It was wicked.

Malaysia too.

Wicked.

"If we couldn't see the sun risin',
Off the shore of Thailand,
Would you ride then,
If I wasn't drivin'?"
- Jay-Z, "Can I Get A...", Vol. 2... Hard Knock Life

There was a cute Scottish blondie gurrrl there among a bunch of other Euro's, pasty-party-people who you'd never think would be scuba diving instructors.

(No metaphors, please, we may be British.)

I remember asking her and others how they enjoyed living in a tropical paradise among friends and teaching scuba-diving for a living.

They liked it.

They liked it a lot.

Go figure...

(...)

They told us of drinks and songs on the beach, and an ultimately relaxed, safe and friendly lifestyle. They also told tales of night-swims, with crews of professional divers going deep enough to feel nitrogen narcosis, or "getting really high" by going deeper than they should, and in a loopy daze chasing after random fishies as they swam by. They always had a blast, and they usually had someone there to remind them that they'll die if they don't pop up to the surface soon.

(The designated diver?)

(...)

I remember a random question from one of us students:

Q. "So, how long do you chase the fish for?"

A. "Well... it depends. But really, until we get bored. Then, we may go chase another fish for as long as we want. Until we get bored."

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Sounds reasonable...

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Don't know why it stuck...

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But peep this: the television vs. the internet.

Which one is better for you?

Instinctively there's a bunch of answers favouring the latter, especially now that you can also watch TV on the internet.

But still, I harken back to the wisdom of the beach-bums for fresh insights into emerging technology in the information age.

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See, informational TV will give you as much information as they decide to.

Whether it's 30 seconds or 30 minutes of a story, they decide.

The problem: we may need different amounts of information on different issues to make enough sense of the world to give us peace of mind.

Not ultimate omniscient knowledge.

Peace of mind.

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Perhaps you're a huge Michael Jackson fan, and 30 second updates of this month's Trial of the Century are simply not enough to keep you satiated.

Maybe you get all twitchy, maybe your falsetto acts up.

Maybe you actually get more shook by the rapid-fire soundbits than if you hadn't heard them at all.

Now, you can channel this (see: James Brown, Usher, Justin Timberlake)... but what if you're not a multi-millionaire recording artist?

What then?

Perhaps hearing 30 seconds of Fallujah blew up (or Zarqawi blew it up), or Bin Laden's back (or he never left), or gays might get married (or they might not), or whatever your favoured issues are ain't enough.

In fact, just getting enough half-knowledge (if that) to freak the crap outta you may actually be worse.

A steady diet of this crap combined with the olde "if it bleeds, it leads" news maxim means we're constantly off-balance, and constantly assaulted by random freaky factoids about the big blue marble we all share.

After all, ignorance is bliss.

Unfortunately, in the information age it is also impossible.

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So, in the era of 24-hour news networks, 24 million stories a day, and corporately controlled information hierarchies designed to pacify and position populations to purchase pop-culture, maybe bits'n'bytes are not nourishing enough for you.

After all...

You decide what you wanna eat, right?

And how much?

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So, that's ye olde internet vs. ye olde television.

If something's bugging you, on the internet you can look it up, and keep chasing it like chasing a fish until you're bored of it.

Or excited by it.

But definitely not scared of it.

This isn't specific to any type of information, it works for any and all information.

Just get as much as you need.

"They" want to tell you what's important to you, how important it is to you, and how much you should know about it.

"You" can decide for yourself...