in the shell

I found this article pretty interesting. I find it amazing how information and experience can be transmited and mutated so quickly, and in such a decidedly dangerous fashion. Like Al Qaeda or Kuze's refugees, could these kids be considered stand alones?

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/int? ... 1801168800

douyang wrote:I found this article pretty interesting. I find it amazing how information and experience can be transmited and mutated so quickly, and in such a decidedly dangerous fashion. Like Al Qaeda or Kuze's refugees, could these kids be considered stand alones?

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/int? ... 1801168800

Wow. Just wow. I'm not sure how that happened. It seems so out of left field! Didn't they realize he was DEAD? That it killed him? I think this brings up more questions than it answers.

That is terrifying. Makes you wonder if the human race are losing touch with reality.

Wow....just wow.
They're nine, ten, I can understand that, but...
Twelve, thirteen, that's GOT to be old enough to understand you're gonna die if you hang yourself, and old enough to tell if he's executed, he's dead.
Like Epiphany said, humans are losing touch with reality...

Here's a quote from the article:

Because "some people have said Saddam is a hero and martyr and have glorified his death, this has affected children," Ramy said.

But Jasem Hajia, a child psychologist in Kuwait City, cautioned against placing all the blame on video images. "This is extreme, and I think there were physiological disorders as well with the children," Hajia said.

It's a little ambiguous, but it seems to me the information contained in the article points to a mutation in in the memes that were supposed to be transmitted by the worldwide internet dissemination of Saddam's execution footage. Namely, that the evil dictator who slaughtered thousands of people, including his own family, to maintain absolute power is finally getting the justice he deserves, and his comeuppance signifies the new age of freedom and democracy and the righting of old evils, "freedom on the march", as Bush and the new Iraqi government might like to put it.

And these kids, probably with the other ideas instilled into them by adults and their culture, such as say, Saddam is a hero because he stood up to the infidel bullies of the west, namely the U.S, (and it is interesting to note that many arab countries actually supported Saddam in the first Gulf War despite his tyranny and atrocities precisely because he was fighting against the infidel west, and he was "one of them", part of the muslim arab tribe, I guess). Add to this the islamic glorification of martyrdom for allah's cause, and the practice of lauding martyr's who die for the cause as heroes (and from what I hear, the parents of young palestinian suicide bombers are even given food and money by their neighbors as congrats), and of course, the religous idea that death isn't really the end of an individual and that martyrs get rewarded in heaven with dozens of beautiful virgins to screw (which adolescent boy wouldn't buy into that lottery?).

The end result is these suicides transforming one message into an entirely different and opposing one.

Of course, I don't know if all or any of them are muslim or not, or did it because of religious or cultural beliefs. And I don't know much about memetics, just what I've been introduced to by Richard Dawkins and SAC. But this makes a whole lot more sense to me than believing someone ten years or older can be so ludicrously stupid/ignorant that they don't know hanging oneself is supposed to result in death, and that it was in fact a damn execution. (For one thing, if they were really that dumb to begin with, how did they ever survive to age ten? Wouldn't they be hit by traffic crossing the street or something?)

And most of the cases described seem pretty much like premeditated suicides to me. Finding a long cloth or rope and then pulling up a chair so you can reach that ceiling fan...damn.

And there is more reason to believe that futher attempts by the Iraqi government to put the past behind them and win hearts and minds may backfire due to some similar process:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/ ... index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/01/ ... index.html

Just found someone who gets the point across much better than I can:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 93,00.html

What you are seeing is just another steep of evolution, a tragic one maybe, and even thought evolution might bring many tragedies, it has also lead to our existence. I consider that to be quite an accomplishment.

Epiphany wrote: Makes you wonder if the human race are losing touch with reality.

I don't mean for this to sound the way it will, but I mean it as plain as I can: And can you define what makes reality? How much of what we live in is real to the stand alone individuals, and how much is to the collective consience? Those kids felt something only unique to them, and felt it right. I doubt they were too stupid to figure out that death would be the result of hanging. I'm sure there was a cause behind their actions. A cause, one that we are as of yet unable to probably understand, and probably wouldn't even if it was clearly explained.

mm

marto_motoko wrote:

Epiphany wrote: Makes you wonder if the human race are losing touch with reality.

I don't mean for this to sound the way it will, but I mean it as plain as I can: And can you define what makes reality? How much of what we live in is real to the stand alone individuals, and how much is to the collective consience? Those kids felt something only unique to them, and felt it right. I doubt they were too stupid to figure out that death would be the result of hanging. I'm sure there was a cause behind their actions. A cause, one that we are as of yet unable to probably understand, and probably wouldn't even if it was clearly explained.

mm

Reality is what we observe with our five senses. Your senses can be fooled or just plain wrong sometimes, but this is really the best and only thing you have. I have no idea what you mean by what is real to the collective unconscious. That unconscious is really nothing more human culture itself, and how can a set of ideas be aware of anything?

douyang wrote:
Reality is what we observe with our five senses.

As someone who's more than curious of it, and has questioned it for years, I honestly can't say that I believe there's a specific reality. I doubt we all persieve things as they truly are, if there even is a true sense of being.

That unconscious is really nothing more human culture itself, and how can a set of ideas be aware of anything?

I think what you're reffering to is conscience. Not consciousness. And who says that the unconscious is so specific, when even modern day psychology defines it as no more than paradoxal. Our capability to truly set down the brain with its specific functions and more is a simple generalization, and a theory. While truly well supported to it's most possible capability, there isn't a concrete understanding of our mind.

As for collective consciousness, I was reffering to the theories of all human minds sharing a certain link. I do believe there's a certain bond, and level of unity between people. Wether it's something done through a level of awareness of not, is a different story.

mm

But this makes a whole lot more sense to me than believing someone ten years or older can be so ludicrously stupid/ignorant that they don't know hanging oneself is supposed to result in death, and that it was in fact a damn execution. (For one thing, if they were really that dumb to begin with, how did they ever survive to age ten? Wouldn't they be hit by traffic crossing the street or something?)

Don't talk like that about them, they're dead. (Or wait... they did actually kill themselves, right?). And as to understanding them, I think that it's very human to want to be part of something bigger. To do something that feels important. That frequently makes people do things that aren't right, are stupid, or are just plain not what you'd think a person in their right mind would do. The tug at your heart, the pain you feel over the need to do something can be present in kids as well as adults. Unfortunately they are misguided and in their minds they have this "hero" they want to emulate. Can happen all too easily- the conditions this time round are of course at the worse case end of the spectrum as this is the particularly thing they fell into. It's sad, but it is a product of what we are and it always has been. I think it's inevitable that we hear stories like this in the world. Best we can do is try to... carry on trying to make the world better.

Ah heck, I see now that this topic is over a year old. Oops. Sorry, I'm still thinking it's 2007.

Oh Boy... thats all I can say. Humanity is overrated!