District 9

[Heiko]

damn, that was pretty poor.......let's change our fantasy of aliens..........it just creates wrong expectations......take some nice shrooms, in some goog environment, meet other levels of conscienceness, and speak again........

[Machinesworking]

The notions of Capitalism & Democracy do not jibe philosophically or in practice. Any house so divided against itself, in as many abstract and diverse ways as is imaginable where all causes aim for the same canceling/winning results, can hardly hope to stand.

I agree and disagree with this, interesting point BTW. In practice democracy and capitalism are the most successful forms so far. This doesn't mean they're the best, just what has worked. In the sense that democracy is simply a form of voting in officials, it's most incompatible with fascism and military run socialism's like North Korea or Stalins USSR. With the mish mash of socialism and capitalism that most countries are, it tends to in theory work, but in practice let's be honest, he who has the most money buys the most support and gets the adoration of the crowd etc.

In practice capitalism leads back to the tiered hierarchy of kingdoms, and communism is almost always strangled by the military that puts it into power. What has worked is a system of competing ideas that forces more of a tiered system on the actual distribution of wealth and power, <-- that can be read wrong, what I mean is instead of the government serving the demands of the 51% majority, each percentage of a vote is considered. This way say if you don't like Obama or McCain you could vote for your favorite third party person, and a percentage of your second choice, could be thrown at whomever you consider the lessor of two evils. There are countries that do this, as well as allow a percentage of the other parties into parliament etc. So you would have Green party members and Libertarians etc.

None of this will ever get any attention as long as people are stupid enough to think in terms of red and blue though.


Also, completely off subject, but it's my contention that any alien race that has advanced to the point of interstellar space travel would most likely be benevolent. Any civilization that had faster than light drives would be so technologically advanced that the average being on that planet would be able to build hydrogen bombs in their kitchen. So the self destruct mechanism that mankind has would be gone, along with the needless ravaging of earthlings. The evil greys are most likely figments of the psyche IMO, not saying all alien encounter people are whack jobs, but the ones that say a short bald guy anally probed them are probably.

[3osc]

Also, completely off subject, but it's my contention that any alien race that has advanced to the point of interstellar space travel would most likely be benevolent. Any civilization that had faster than light drives would be so technologically advanced that the average being on that planet would be able to build hydrogen bombs in their kitchen. So the self destruct mechanism that mankind has would be gone, along with the needless ravaging of earthlings.

Or they get really good at killing off their enemies. Or live in a strict caste system where only the upper echelons of society have access to the materials required to build weapons. Or they have nerve staples to control the population. Or they're 10cm tall and couldn't stand a chance in a physical confrontation with something the size of a human. Or they're made of Nutella. Or, or, or, or.......

[DrXparaMental]

The notions of Capitalism & Democracy do not jibe philosophically or in practice. Any house so divided against itself, in as many abstract and diverse ways as is imaginable where all causes aim for the same canceling/winning results, can hardly hope to stand.

I agree and disagree with this, interesting point BTW. In practice democracy and capitalism are the most successful forms so far. This doesn't mean they're the best, just what has worked. In the sense that democracy is simply a form of voting in officials, it's most incompatible with fascism and military run socialism's like North Korea or Stalins USSR. With the mish mash of socialism and capitalism that most countries are, it tends to in theory work, but in practice let's be honest, he who has the most money buys the most support and gets the adoration of the crowd etc.

In practice capitalism leads back to the tiered hierarchy of kingdoms, and communism is almost always strangled by the military that puts it into power. What has worked is a system of competing ideas that forces more of a tiered system on the actual distribution of wealth and power, <-- that can be read wrong, what I mean is instead of the government serving the demands of the 51% majority, each percentage of a vote is considered. This way say if you don't like Obama or McCain you could vote for your favorite third party person, and a percentage of your second choice, could be thrown at whomever you consider the lessor of two evils. There are countries that do this, as well as allow a percentage of the other parties into parliament etc. So you would have Green party members and Libertarians etc.

None of this will ever get any attention as long as people are stupid enough to think in terms of red and blue though.


Also, completely off subject, but it's my contention that any alien race that has advanced to the point of interstellar space travel would most likely be benevolent. Any civilization that had faster than light drives would be so technologically advanced that the average being on that planet would be able to build hydrogen bombs in their kitchen. So the self destruct mechanism that mankind has would be gone, along with the needless ravaging of earthlings. The evil greys are most likely figments of the psyche IMO, not saying all alien encounter people are whack jobs, but the ones that say a short bald guy anally probed them are probably.

On thoughts concerning Gov.: I was very tired last night when I posted that and whereas the basic thoughts put forth are philosophically decent and all, but what I really meant more specifically is that "professional politics" don't work. There is no question that democracy in the sense that the constitution was originally drawn up to support, is both ethically fair and just. The problem is that when you mesh a free for all of extremely potential forms of capitalism with basic legislation and representation...the rest is what we have now. A royal mess.

Aliens: I don't know what to think about that. I really don't. Mass psychosis? I think not. The entire stage set is just not right. Think about a few key issues in light of relative perspective considerations. Understand above and beyond all that I am no "believer", but rather am at a loss for a rational understanding of an undeniable phenomenon.

1) Right now, around the globe, 10s of formidable countries are disclosing years of documentation and research (legitimate scientific research and collective studies, not some 40 year old guy speculating in written form from under his mother and father's roof. This is the real deal)concerning the extremely real UFO phenomenon.

2) The Catholic church has gone out of their way to reclassify their position on non human extraterrestrial or extra dimensional life forms. I am certainly no respector of religion, but why is this?

3) In John Mack's cross study of the abduction phenomenon, there are no specific patterns from that of abductees prior to their experiences. Everyone from the clergy to professional politicians, statisticians, teachers, doctors, housewives, architects, etc. have undergone the phenomenon. Most of these people for all testable and practical purposes are psychologically normal before and after the experience. How can so many different types of creditable human beings, within such a broad ranging cross section of our globe, all experience the same relative experience as a result of some type of as of yet identifiable psychosis? It boggles my mind, that's for sure.

4) Why do the professional technical people that are most likely to see what is described by themselves as "non human technology" the ones that see these objects and report the validity of their observations, most? Pilots, Astronauts, Professional Physical Scientific Observers, Military personnel, etc. Why do most lay observers report seeing "UFOs", instead of like the aforementioned who claim to know what they saw was not human in origin, present their observations as questions more than absolutes. Sounds like Occam's razor in action to me.

There will ALWAYS be the wackos, but the UFO thing in the last 25 years has bared out some startling conclusions.

Here's a little tidbit of info: I just found out yesterday or the day before, that one of the actual scientist that worked at the Battelle Memorial Institute whom the government contracted to do the research on the UFO crash debris from Roswell, came forward and admitted his participation! This was the result of a declassification of released documentation via the FOIA. This same documentation was claimed to have either never existed, or as Battelle themselves contended, was lost. This being after, in 1960, this scientists metallurgic colleague co-author of the study that worked at the same institute had admitted his participation but had no way of confirming or substantiating his story.

http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2009/08/scie ... swell.html

[Machinesworking]

@ DrX Wasn't arguing that UFO sightings and encounters are all faked, just that there's an element in the 'community' that are obviously whack jobs. Far too many people have stated that at the very least the government is hiding what evidence they have gathered to date. Far too many documents with 90% of the words blacked out have been released, and it's too common IMO to link it all to top secret planes like the Stealth etc.

I just feel about it the way I do about new age types trying to use quantum physics and mechanics to bolster their pseudo mystical beliefs, or of the anti government mob. The amount of disinformation spread by advocates does nothing but muddy the picture. At least in the case of UFOs, people can't do nothing but guess and rely on third party evidence though, so it's not surprising.

[DrXparaMental]

@ DrX Wasn't arguing that UFO sightings and encounters are all faked

I knew that, I guess I just wanted to emphasize some of my real key points of interest. I apologize for the dumb thread jack. I am just a wandering intellectual. That's "kind verbal code" for air head.

[LoopStationZebra]

It's clear to me after reading more of this thread that several of you simply need to be spanked.

District 9.

Was pure fucking scifi gold.

FFS.

[knotkranky]

Ya know, the next day i liked the flick more. My mind had to slow it down.

I'm gonna see it again and not sit so close. Very distracting.

maybe a little smoke too.

[Tarekith]

It's clear to me after reading more of this thread that several of you simply need to be spanked.

District 9.

Was pure fucking scifi gold.

FFS.

+1. Just saw it and man that was a GREAT movie. Loved it, very well done.

[jsg4z]

maybe a little smoke too.

+1 need second viewing with more time to process.

[knotkranky]

yeah, i believe i had too many pre conditions. It was a better after some thought. But i did sit too damn close.

[h4nc0]

Just saw this. What a fucking movie. I am amazed.

[337]

I thought it was the best movie to come out of the summer, and some of the sound effects were just nuts.

Every time that alien christopher or his kid were going through stuff on the computer screens there were hundreds of weird sounds wizzing by...and I get annoyed at not being able to turn the start up tone on my macbook off

[8O]

Just caught this at what was maybe the first screening in Germany - great film. Looking forward to District 10...

[G-force]

Saw it today(Saturday)---it's the f*cken sh*t. It's great when a movie comes out and you see the trailer on commercial and go "Oh, here we go again" another Independence Day/Day The Earth Stood Still-remake/ Sci-fi bull and then hear it's good, and then you go see it and think, "Damn, they're right---this was awesome!"
Think "Sci-fi Slumdog Millionaire" and you're good to go! A great movie with great cinemtography, great screenplay, great plot, great special effects---without the typical banking Hollywood cast, and Hollywood backlot---but, instead, shot on location in another country. RT gives it 89%, but I give it a 90, IMHO.

GO SEE THIS!!!!!!!!!