# Ancient AI or 'creating the narrative'?



## feralimal (Nov 28, 2021)

This article is a mainstream historical narrative on how AI and intelligent machines have been with us through history:
Surveillance, Companionship, and Entertainment: The Ancient History of Intelligent Machines

Some choice quotes from the article:


> Artificial servants, autonomous killing machines, surveillance systems, and sex robots have been part of the human imagination for thousands of years.


Big claim!



> Situating these objects, and the desires that create them, within deeper and broader contexts of time and space reveals continuities and divergences that, in turn, provide opportunities to critique and question contemporary ideas and desires about robots and artificial intelligence


This is the crux - this article is *situating* objects into the cultural narrative.



> As early as 3,000 years ago we encounter interest in intelligent machines and AI that perform different servile functions. In the works of Homer (_c_. eighth century BCE) we find Hephaestus, the Greek god of smithing and craft, using automatic bellows to execute simple, repetitive labor.


Oh really?  Where are the sources, and how can I check them?



> Several centuries later, around 400 BCE, we meet Talos, the giant bronze sentry, created by Hephaestus, that patrolled the shores of Crete.


Perhaps this sort of technology really did exist..  But how can I even confirm the story?!



> Given the prevalence of intelligent artificial objects in Hellenic culture, it is no surprise that engineers in the later Hellenistic period turned to designing and building these machines.


More claims.  In that paragraph there are links too.  We get the impression there is a body of work supporting what is being stated.

But there are so many problems!

The evidence trail is stone cold:

The objects are not available.
The books that talk about the objects are not available.
The books that purport to stretch back over millennia are _not_ available.
The modern papers/books that are purportedly based on those old books _are_ available.
So, we have to extend trust to our historians and their interpretation, even though there really isn't any evidence.

Then there is the spin! From the first link, in the paragraph, we see in the extract:


> The first is a mobile shrine to Dionysos with small figurines of the god and dancing bacchant worshippers, which moves on a wheeled base to a specified spot, stops while the figures enact a scene of sacrifice and libation-pouring and then rolls back to its original position. The second automaton is a stationary miniature theatre which stages a complete tragedy by itself when activated. Both automata are powered by the action, on various cords and axles, of a descending counterweight.


from: Bloomsbury Collections - History of Technology - Volume 17, 1995

You _might_ call these *intelligent artificial objects*.
OR you could call them *toys*.

The article carries on like this.  Lots of examples of bits that it now _situates_ as intelligent artificial objects.

*Why am I posting this?*
This is the second mainstream article I have posted today.  (The other is this: Ancient Petroglyphs discovered in Canada?  Or scratches on a rock?).  Administrators - please don't worry - I don't intend to make a habit of posting every mainstream historical article I find!

However there is a reason why I have posted these 2.

To me, both articles are examples of how _history is created in front of our very eyes_.  What I think we see, is the control mechanism altering and adjusting itself, to provide the historical context that the current narrative requires.

My position is that for the controllers, history is just a tool.  "Situating these objects, and the desires that create them, within deeper and broader contexts of time and space reveals continuities and divergences" is what they need to do to get our buy in.  History is simply the provision of whatever is expedient for the present moment.

As Orwell said:


> *Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.*


This is where we are!

When you investigate deeper, what you find is that there is really nothing really there at all.  The sources aren't there, the books aren't there, what they are saying doesn't make sense, often it is irrational within their own terms.

But the historians that are licensed to create the narrative are busy.  To hell with evidence, or truth, or greater understanding - that is not what history is about if you are a controller.  What the masses get are stories about how any old rubbish - eg scratches on a rock are ancient metaphors, the hopes and dreams of the past.  How toys are artificial intelligence.  Etc.

We get stories, stories-upon-stories, stories that explain what is going on now _as if_ it was ever thus.  _As if _they are talking about truth or reality.  _As if_ what we are experiencing is totally normal and sane.

We need to be aware about how our desire for explanatory narratives can mis-lead and mis-direct us.

*Back to Life, back to reality*
The reality to me is that we know very little.  When we read this sort of information - whether its history articles, news, books, TV, etc - all we can say we know that we consumed that content.  But we have no idea whether the reality is as the article/book/tv is as described!  The truth is we cannot know anything without personally verifying it.

This is an easy assessment to make about the mainstream content.  We can perhaps see how well meaning PhD's who have been fully processed by the control system, who - once they have graduated - are handed the keys to kingdom and are now empowered to write the history for tomorrow.  They believe they are doing good work - eg they are giving 'subaltern voices' a platform.  What I see is the creation of history.

We should also be on guard for similar narrative creation in alternative sources.  I will point to my personal favourite post which I think is a good example of this:
Meta history - Who provides the data?

... in summary what it says is that: _David Rumsey (a skull and bones Yaley) ran an innovative research group of artists working with electronic media.  He also has the largest old map collection in the world._  I don't think this is an accident!  It seems more than plausible that he could have created his map collection.  Or edited it.  Or altered the files he provides for free.

The point is that these are the people who are providing us the data.  And I think they always have!  I think it possible that some group(s) (perhaps the Masons) provided the data (maps, dinosaur bones), provided the narratives (via antiquarians, historians, authors, film), and taught us all this in our education systems.  They are system administrators on a grand scale - they create systems, and once we buy into them, we run with them and mis-educate ourselves.

Alternative history is the same - there are all sorts of narratives.

*Solutions?*
For me, any history needs should be based on a higher standard.  We need to strip right back to basics.  How do we know what we know?

We should be able to verify what is being stated.  And if it can't be verified - we should be able to hold that it is just a story.  We should try to build up an operational ability of real-time deconstruction of any provided narratives.

We should fully accept (not just pay lip service to) the idea that there is very little that we can confirm and verify.  And that is fine.  Even if we want to really know 'what they story was' we can't lie to ourselves (and others), we can't accept the first evidence-free explanation that comes along.  This doesn't mean that we can't theorise etc.  It means is that we should be able to base our theories on tangible evidence - stuff we can see and can be checked out.  Or at least be clear when we are theorising.

More specifically we should also realise that an individual's narrative _cannot_ be written by any other person and be valid.  History is personal - and its what you have verified.  It cannot be written by the mainstream educators, nor even alternative voices.  An individual's narrative can only be created by the individual themselves.  This requires personal discernment over what it true or not, and that depends on what the individual has verified or not.  And this means that individuals need to take personal responsibility for what they accept and state is true.  This in itself requires the application of reason over the experiences of one's life to gain understanding.  And it requires conquering what seems to be a hardwired psychological predisposition we have to believe in explanatory stories, even over one's own personal experience.

We get the history you deserve   Paraphrasing Orwell:
*If you control your understanding of the past you control your future: if you are rationally deconstructing the present you control the past.*


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## matematik (Dec 1, 2021)

I find it odd how normally academia and the mainstream media rubbishes the idea that ancient societies had anything like what we would call "advanced tech", yet here they seem to be promoting this very idea.


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## Will Scarlet (Dec 1, 2021)

@feralimal I almost didn't read this post when I saw the title, but I'm glad I did. There are many valuable points within that apply specifically to this forum's activities. Excellent stuff, thank you.


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## push4more (Dec 6, 2021)

feralimal said:


> This article is a mainstream historical narrative on how AI and intelligent machines have been with us through history:
> Surveillance, Companionship, and Entertainment: The Ancient History of Intelligent Machines
> 
> Some choice quotes from the article:
> ...



NVIDIA DGX A100 : The Universal System for AI Infrastructure  Real AI intellect.

I confess, I'm scared of the next generation of supercomputers
"I confess, I'm scared of the next generation of supercomputers
Supercomputers are edging ever-closer to the landmark one exaFLOPS barrier"​


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## Will Scarlet (Dec 8, 2021)

_Oh no, not the one exaFLOPS barrier! _


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## Citezenship (Dec 8, 2021)

Some interesting connections made by Michelle.​

_View: https://youtu.be/x-Zu_syYPHI?list=TLPQMDgxMjIwMjGkAxTH6x-oeQ

Something seemed to have gone wrong with that so here it is._




Your browser is not able to display this video.


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## feralimal (Feb 25, 2022)

feralimal said:


> I think it possible that some group(s) (perhaps the Masons) provided the data (maps, dinosaur bones), provided the narratives (via antiquarians, historians, authors, film)


An asteroid killed dinosaurs in spring—which might explain why mammals survived

The video length is *3:33*.



> Some *66* million years ago, a catastrophic event wiped out three-quarters of all plant and animal species on Earth, most notably taking down the dinosaurs. The puzzle of why so many species perished while others survived has long intrigued scientists.





> The impactor was sufficiently large (between *11* and *81* kilometers, or 7 to 50 miles) to melt, shock, and eject granite from deep inside the Earth, probably causing a megatsunami and ejecting vaporized rock and sulfates into the atmosphere.


11 + 81 = is that an encoded 911 (8+1 = 9)?



> One site in particular seemed of interest: a deposit in North Dakota from the so-called _Tanis_ event.


Tanis?

I searched 'Tanis event' and found:
The asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs struck in springtime
d'oh the same article, but some different numbers!



> Picture a calm spring day *66* million years ago in what's now North Dakota. Perhaps a Triceratops was lying in the sun, while in the river freshwater paddlefish, mouths gaping, were foraging plankton.
> Seconds later, a 10-meter-high (*33*-foot-high) wall of water rushes in from the east and then spheres of glass start to rain down from the sky -- some of them still on fire as they hit the river.



I'm not sure what Tanis is.  I can't help but notice that its a only 1 vowel away from being able to spell 'satan'.  I think in some languages, vowels are dropped and the context is important (eg hebrew).



> Even though they were 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) away from the impact crater, the bones of paddlefish and sturgeons preserved in rock at the Tanis site in the *Hell Creek Formation* provide a unique record of what was perhaps the most significant event in the history of life on our planet.



Following a link on the cnn takes you to:
Scientists have found a 'fossil graveyard' linked to the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs 'Fossil graveyard' linked to asteroid that killed dinosaurs -- study
where you can read more about Tanis:


> At the fossil site -- Tanis in North Dakota's Hell Creek Formation -- the surge left "*a tangled mass* of freshwater fish, terrestrial vertebrates, trees, branches, logs, marine ammonites and other marine creatures," DePalma, a doctoral student from the University of Kansas, said.



Tanis, in Hell Creek, 66 million years ago, under a 33 foot wall of water sounds hellish in the Spring!


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## NPC#0 (Mar 2, 2022)

I want to reply straight to the "Ancient AI" argument:
These 3 ancient works display automatons/AI without vagueness.
1) The Iliad
2) The Odyssey
3) The Argonauts

The sad thing is the real date of these works is unknown. They *are* ancient, but the question is, how many years old classify as ancient?...

As for creating narrative out of nowhere, they do this forever as you must have noticed here.
Often this is for manufacturing consent and pre-programming. They also sprinkle their "findings" with their symbols, as the post above me well noticed and expanded on. Symbolism will be their downfall.


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## feralimal (Mar 2, 2022)

NPC#0 said:


> I want to reply straight to the "Ancient AI" argument:
> These 3 ancient works display automatons/AI without vagueness.
> 1) The Iliad
> 2) The Odyssey
> ...


Yes - the idea isn't uncommon.  Perhaps another example is that of a golum in Jewish folklore.


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## MrrSmithh (Mar 17, 2022)

feralimal said:


> This article is a mainstream historical narrative on how AI and intelligent machines have been with us through history:
> Surveillance, Companionship, and Entertainment: The Ancient History of Intelligent Machines
> 
> Some choice quotes from the article:
> ...


Whoa, the comments are rock solid, reflecting my own personal thoughts on many post, statements, articles Etc. Orwell’s statements reveal much, in my humble opinion. Thanks for your work and sharing your thought.


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## feralimal (Apr 10, 2022)

O.M.F.G.


> The claim is the Tanis creatures were killed and entombed on the *actual* day a giant asteroid struck Earth.
> The day *66* million years ago when the reign of the dinosaurs ended and the rise of mammals began.


This reminds me of when they found the passport of one of the hijackers on 911, probably next to the inflated tyre from one of the planes.



> _The BBC_ has spent three years filming at Tanis for a show to be broadcast on 15 April, narrated by _Sir David Attenborough_.
> _Sir David_ will review the discoveries, many that will be getting their first public viewing.


How convenient!  A craaaazzzyyy discovery, being filmed by the BBC, and Sir David is there too!



> We see a fossil turtle that was skewered by a wooden stake; the remains of small mammals and the burrows they made; skin from a horned triceratops; the embryo of a flying pterosaur inside its egg; and what appears to be a fragment from the asteroid impactor itself.


what haven't they got?  Can I get a dirty chai latte?



> "We've got so many details with this site that tell us what happened moment by moment, *it's almost like watching it play out in the movies*. You look at the rock column, you look at the fossils there, and it brings you back to that day," says Robert DePalma, the University of Manchester, UK, graduate student who leads the Tanis dig.


ffs.



> They have small particles stuck in their gills.


Archeologists are amazing.  The fish that were destroyed by the so-called asteroid, 66 million years ago, have little particles in the gills!!!!



> "We were able to pull apart the chemistry and identify the composition of that material. All the evidence, all of the chemical data, from that study suggests strongly that we're looking at a piece of *the impactor*; of the asteroid that ended it for the dinosaurs."


Go science!  'The Impactor' tho..



> Prof Paul Barrett from London's Natural History Museum looked at the leg. He's an expert in ornithischian (mostly plant-eating) dinosaurs.
> "*It's a Thescelosaurus*. It's from a group that we didn't have any previous record of what its skin looked like, and it shows very conclusively that these animals were very scaly like lizards. They weren't feathered like their meat-eating contemporaries.
> "This looks like an animal whose leg has simply been ripped off really quickly. There's no evidence on the leg of disease, there are no obvious pathologies, there's no trace of the leg being scavenged, such as bite marks or bits of it that are missing," he tells me.
> "So, the best idea that we have is that this is an animal that died more or less instantaneously."


"It's a Thescelosaurus."  Confident!  Arrogant?

Bring on the BBC *skeptic*:


> But Prof Steve Brusatte from University of Edinburgh says he's sceptical - for the time being.





> "Those fish with the spherules in their gills, they're *an absolute calling card for the asteroid*. But for _some_ of the other claims - I'd say _they have a lot circumstantial evidence that hasn't yet been presented to the jury_," he says.
> "For some of these discoveries, though, does it even matter if they died on the day or years before? The pterosaur egg with a pterosaur baby inside is super-rare; there's nothing else like it from North America. It doesn't all have to be about the asteroid."


Embarrassing.  The things professors will do...

"does it even matter if they died on the day or years before?"  Does it even matter if they died at all?  Does any of this matter?  As long as we have a bit of entertainment?!  No, it doesn't matter.



> Dinosaurs: The Final Day with Sir David Attenborough_ will be broadcast on BBC One on 15 April at 18:30 BST. A version has been made for the US science series Nova on the PBS network to be broadcast later in the year._


say no more.

from Tanis: Fossil of dinosaur killed in asteroid strike found, scientists claim


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## MoorSieveil (Jun 4, 2022)

feralimal said:


> O.M.F.G.
> 
> This reminds me of when they found the passport of one of the hijackers on 911, probably next to the inflated tyre from one of the planes.
> 
> ...


Ohmygosh, have you seen Sir Davids’ latest Apple +TV series? I believe it’s called ‘Prehistoric.’ The entire thing is make believe! It’s CGI! I couldn’t believe it! Made up locations, animals…I wonder how many people will notice…


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## Goddo.F (Jun 4, 2022)

feralimal said:


> This article is a mainstream historical narrative on how AI and intelligent machines have been with us through history:
> Surveillance, Companionship, and Entertainment: The Ancient History of Intelligent Machines
> 
> Some choice quotes from the article:
> ...


SUCH A CRITICAL ISSUE YOU HAVE RAISED, illustrating the ever present danger of how the desired dialectic in inserted and then developed over time.


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## feralimal (Jun 4, 2022)

MoorSieveil said:


> Ohmygosh, have you seen Sir Davids’ latest Apple +TV series? I believe it’s called ‘Prehistoric.’ The entire thing is make believe! It’s CGI! I couldn’t believe it! Made up locations, animals…I wonder how many people will notice…


lol - I'll have to check it out!  But, once you've seen it on the big screen....  it must be real!




Goddo.F said:


> SUCH A CRITICAL ISSUE YOU HAVE RAISED, illustrating the ever present danger of how the desired dialectic in inserted and then developed over time.


Thank you.

You can read more here:
SH Archive - Ask Pro | - Questions for History Professionals

This is a history professional (phd) saying as much in his own words:


> "The amount of new work that is being done to recover what are called ‘subaltern voices’, the histories of people who have been traditionally excluded from historical narratives like women, LGBT+ people, people of colour, people in poverty, etc., means that the discipline is changing very rapidly and new vistas of opening up all the time."
> 
> "I would say it is neither evidence or theory first, but question first. In my case I started out by asking what evidence can I find about non-political prisoners in Ireland in the late-twentieth century? I knew they existed, I knew nothing had been written about them so I went looking for the evidence. It is the same basic method as, for instance, going looking for women or people of colour in a medieval context. You know they exist, so you look through the sources for evidence of them and if you find it you try and interpret it."
> 
> ...



Writing history is what the professionals have been trained to do!


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## feralimal (Jun 4, 2022)

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnoNeMlNeD0_
Funny.  Like you said @MoorSieveil - nothing but CGI.

From the _producers_ of Planet Earth..

And they do tell you:  "Unknown. Unexplained. Unbelievable.  Until now."

And did you know that _Sir_ David was going to be the director general of the BBC? That's an important elite position.. but he was destined for even higher things  He is a malthusian/eugenicist. In fact that seems to me to be the point of the programs he has been involved with.

The other side of the coin to venerating 'nature' (as Sir David does), is that we humans are meant to feel bad for existing and taking up resources.  Venerating nature is the carrot, the (unachievable) goal ("Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature").  'Saving the earth' is part of the public relations campaign that is designed to make us willingly embrace the technocratic control that is planned for us.  It is envisaged that we embrace less free lives (metered resource usage, small houses, living in cities, social credit, etc) because we feel so bad about what we're told we've done.  Its a version of original sin I think.  It deflects blame from where it is due (corporate and governmental decisions) and instead socialises the expense handing even more power to the corporation and governments.


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## trismegistus (Jun 4, 2022)

feralimal said:


> _View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnoNeMlNeD0_
> Funny.  Like you said @MoorSieveil - nothing but CGI.
> 
> From the _producers_ of Planet Earth..
> ...




If this conversation is getting too offtopic for the OP I can remove my reply, but in any case: 

I used to love nature documentaries (still do), but one thing that has turned me off to them is this constant messaging that you describe. It’s not enough to show the beauty and power of nature, we also have to be browbeat by every headless voice narrator that we’re killing their environment, that climate change is real and our fault (not the faults of the megaconglomerates), and we need to repent for our grave sins.

also regarding the dinosaur special: I knew it was only a matter of time before they rolled out a completely manufactured nature doc. While I can’t explicitly prove it to you at this time - my trained media eyes suspect that the production studio behind the planet earth docs have been sneaking CG into *all* of their documentaries this whole time. It’s very subtle - and their methods are spared no expense because if this is true it’s some of the most advanced CG in the world. Nature docs in general are very deceptive - often times masters of editing techniques to create narratives that didn’t exist while they were filming (an animal chase scene, a “rare never before seen moment”, anything that creates intrigue). I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the deep water creatures they showed in the original series 15 years ago weren’t wholly manufactured. They also make heavy use of filming animals in captivity, with either green screened or manufactured sets to sell the wild element of it.


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## feralimal (Jun 4, 2022)

trismegistus said:


> If this conversation is getting too offtopic for the OP I can remove my reply, but in any case:



I don't think its off topic - I think its on point.

What we're really talking about here is how _*new narratives* that serve the current agenda *are created and applied to the reality* that we thought we already had complete narratives for_!

If we are able to look back without rose-tinted glasses, we might discern that the old narratives were no better than the new ones!  Its just that we thought we 'knew' the old ones, 'cos we hadn't seen them ripped up - they seemed to us to stand as true.  We gave them a degree of certainty that, in fact, was never there.  (We are trusting souls...)

History especially is a ripe area for incremental changes - whether its creating 'subaltern voices', 'AI in history', imagery of dinosaurs, etc.

What is going on is that some group is continuously re-framing our 'understanding' so as to move us in a particular direction.  A supportive history is seen as valuable.  Within a human lifetime, it is hard for most to see the shifts - but probably on this site most people have an inkling.  Outside of here, most would say that the US civil war was about slavery, that WW2 was about the Jews, etc.  I don't think that's what people at the time thought...  but who knows?  I'm certain of very little.

Really, for whoever-is-co-ordinating things, history is valuable for what it does to assist in controlling of the masses.  It is _not_ do with the truth.  Obviously history can't be ripped up too quickly as we would all notice that the monolithic 'past' had crumbled - and that would lead us to distrust what we have been told - ie this would be a strategic management error that would lead to a decrease in control.  But, IMO, history, science, law, religion, education, media, entertainment - ie every collectivised, non-individual part of our society - has already been bent in order as much as possible to serve whatever the agenda is.  We are told/taught whatever is expedient to the plan.

Re finding actual truth, there are only a few sources - and they all depend on oneself (IMO).  You can at least trust yourself (while bearing in mind you can also make mistakes!)  I say, look inside, or if you are dealing with the objective world - verify whatever-it-is personally.


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## trismegistus (Jun 4, 2022)

feralimal said:


> You can at least trust yourself (while bearing in mind you can also make mistakes!) I say, look inside, or if you are dealing with the objective world - verify whatever-it-is personally



this is why I make an effort to promote local research whenever I’m on a podcast speaking to a wider audience.  Being able to see the history yourself, and talk to locals who may have family stories, anecdotes, and rumors goes a long way. Access to primary sources - land records, historical maps, and much more can be found in local historical societies or sometimes retained by businesses that have been in the area for a long time.

not only is it good practice for other types of research, it also is important because too often the historical narratives are too large scale to be accurate - the history of the small areas provides more subtlety and nuance to the overall picture.


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## Citezenship (Jun 5, 2022)

trismegistus said:


> If this conversation is getting too offtopic for the OP I can remove my reply, but in any case:
> 
> I used to love nature documentaries (still do), but one thing that has turned me off to them is this constant messaging that you describe. It’s not enough to show the beauty and power of nature, we also have to be browbeat by every headless voice narrator that we’re killing their environment, that climate change is real and our fault (not the faults of the megaconglomerates), and we need to repent for our grave sins.
> 
> also regarding the dinosaur special: I knew it was only a matter of time before they rolled out a completely manufactured nature doc. While I can’t explicitly prove it to you at this time - my trained media eyes suspect that the production studio behind the planet earth docs have been sneaking CG into *all* of their documentaries this whole time. It’s very subtle - and their methods are spared no expense because if this is true it’s some of the most advanced CG in the world. Nature docs in general are very deceptive - often times masters of editing techniques to create narratives that didn’t exist while they were filming (an animal chase scene, a “rare never before seen moment”, anything that creates intrigue). I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the deep water creatures they showed in the original series 15 years ago weren’t wholly manufactured. They also make heavy use of filming animals in captivity, with either green screened or manufactured sets to sell the wild element of it.


They were, they even got busted for it, used an aquarium in Wales.

BBC News | TV AND RADIO | BBC defends indoor lobster footage

Also later used a Dutch zoo for the bear scenes, standard practise they said...

Frozen Planet's polar bear footage was standard practice, claims BBC


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## Gladius (Jun 5, 2022)

The most common deception in nature docs is the release of semi-captive animals to the "wild". By semi-captive I mean not zoo animals but reservation animals. Many of those were rescued as pups and were reintroduced to nature, therefore are accustomed to human interaction and can be more controllable. 
Zoo animals aren't really fit for this role.
In a quite hilarious way, it's like throwing a city guy into the wild and expecting him to easily make fire, hunt, build stuff.. (a human documentary for 'aliens' lol)

In regards to the message, it's truly sickening, how all docs are infested with some kind of lame hypnosis technique.
In latest docs, we're past the "human's fault" phase and already at the call-to-action phase. They're talking about how more reservations or 'natural corridors' must be created, to save animal species, but obviously to restrict human access. The examples they use are so poor, they can only work on a person completely unaware of nature's mechanics.
Like hunting of species such as pumas and wild boars. In many parts of the world, it is necessary to hunt those down (in moderation) since they pose a real threat to crops or human settlements. Now they literally tell you it's bad to hunt them. Well, I know of a few towns that forbid hunting those, and they shortly regretted it.

The war on meat is also making its way into the nature docs. It's easy to manipulate humans with them, by viewing certain animals as the storyline heroes, and quickly wire it into a "you wouldn't eat him right" while subliminally linking it to meat consumption reduction.

I remember as a kid watching the old nature docs with the family. Although they were surely deceptive to a level, I recall there was very minimal narration, and clearly no agenda there.
The difference is that today, almost everything gets politicized, and mostly in one direction.


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## feralimal (Jun 5, 2022)

Gladius said:


> I remember as a kid watching the old nature docs with the family. Although they were surely deceptive to a level, I recall there was very minimal narration, and clearly no agenda there.
> The difference is that today, almost everything gets politicized, and mostly in one direction.


Possibly it is as you thought but I personally suspect there was an agenda.  But as children, we don't have anything to compare to yet, so can't pick up on it.  We simply trust what we are told.  And apparently most parents were comatose to the plans afoot.

Eg, when tv first came out, the programs were pretty wholesome - these get everyone to buy in to idea of having someone in the home spouting all sorts.  Then slowly, incrementally, the direction changes... but people have the habit now, and go along with it.  Its what they do to relax.  Its hypnosis pretending to be entertainment.  Entertainment - enter and hold (-tain, like con_tain_) the mind (like _ment_al).

Similarly, when I listen to something like the Beatles, I think its just sweet, old fashioned, proper music.  But I also think I know that they were there to do a certain job - to help transition people from listening to rock and roll to drug-taking, free-loving hippies.  I like hippies - but I don't think there was anything natural about the transition.  And I do think the change have corroded/changed society - not necessarily in a good way.

I even think Shakespeare was there to do a job.  His plays must surely have helped frame history, acceptable debate, etc in his time (born in 1564).  Many think they are foundational works of art - perhaps because they can see the way they have defined our culture!  Are they mistaking the dog for the tail?

Anyway, its very hard to say where the deception started, what is innocent and without agenda.  Surely there must be some stuff that's like that's innocent... but then I suspect its mostly been like this, possibly forever.

You might be interested to watch this old recording of someone breaking down Agenda 21, back in 1994:
Agenda 21 plan exposed in the 90s

He talks about how it was planned that nature - ie animals, trees and even rocks - should be considered at a similar level as Man in nature.  In that context, perhaps the fact you were seeing low-narration documentaries etc was a way to get the foot in the door.  A way to venerate the place these sorts of documentaries have in many families.  Where for the next 20 years, you give this information extra special attention.


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## Sittight (Jun 6, 2022)

"AI", I just don't see anything intelligent about it, what's the chance for x action to be correct seems to be all it can do, you need tremendous amount of data and and I don't see it ever being possible to tell a robot to go dig a hole at least in our paradigm, I don't think it ever existed either, easier to breed/enslave humans for specific purposes so this could be obfuscating transhumanist agenda, we were/are will be the robots.


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## feralimal (Jun 6, 2022)

No, there's nothing intelligent there - to me, "AI" just a special type of software.

There a 'narrative arc' that is being put out though.  The narrative arc, if we believe it, is then used to steer the population.  In the first post, I was using the idea of 'AI' as an example of how an idea is retro-fitted to history, to give the 'AI idea' more heft and make it more acceptable, legitimate.  We have also looked at how other narrative arcs were inserted, and what value they may have played.


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## feralimal (Sep 3, 2022)

I just happened to see the video in this tweet :

_View: https://twitter.com/xsteenbrugge/status/1558508866463219712?s=21&t=m4v8DBTKg3He0-3lZcTsFA_


Its a video of an artist's exploration of history, generated by a sequence of key phrases that are turned into imagery by the AI.

If you thought history was already false... it seems that we are going to be so swamped with compelling, false visuals we won't know where to start!  AI will be able to generate more info in support of a false narrative in seconds than was held in the (mythical) library of Alexandria..  When it comes to finding the needle in the haystack, it seems plain that the haystack is getting bigger.

To me, it just goes to show how history is a narrative device.  History is malleable, it seems - far more editable than I ever realised.  We can write AI into the past, AI can re-write the past for us, whatever you want.  How can we discern fact from fiction, when compelling narratives can be generated in seconds?

At this point, I'm looking forward to seeing videos of Tartarian antiquitech, then the circle will be complete.


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## feralimal (Monday at 4:43 PM)

Here's an interesting article where people in the real world are bumping into trust issues with ai too:
It's Plausible, But Is It True?

Some quotes:


> There’s a great example in the paper where they ask GPT to continue the statement John Prescott* was born in…
> When they tried this, GPT-3 generated the following completion:
> in Hull on June 8th 1941.
> This is a perfectly plausible answer - but it’s not true. John Prescott was born in Prestatyn on 31st May 1938.
> It’s not answering the question “Where and when was John Prescott born?” - it’s just creating the most plausible continuation of the statement





> This highlights the danger, as humans, we seem quite susceptible to believing things that seem plausible. This is probably quite an important part of just getting through the day - we don’t have time to check everything we read or hear - so we have to make some assumptions about what is true and what is not.





> If you’re looking for factual answers - then you need to verify what comes out of these models. And let’s be honest you should be doing this with any source of information - we’ve come to assume that what we get from a Google or Wikipedia article must be true - but maybe we should be a bit more careful.



I wonder if what has spurred recent conversations around here, on what sources can be trusted if any, is partly due to the growing awareness we have re what a powerful ai could be capable of, when it comes to creating compelling narratives.


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## Udjat (Wednesday at 3:17 PM)

All I know is that I don't want R2 D2 as my best friend.  I think that the human race should work on its self rather than add some other entity to try and solve our problems, because you know that we will eventually try and destroy it as well, given enough time.

I have reservations about being on this site because this is part of AI.  I do not have a cell phone, a credit card, and this is about all I do on the computer.  It is the younger generation that I worry about, they seem to be seeped in AI in their lives.  It is important that we protect the youth and get rid of this "modern" way of life.


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## feralimal (Wednesday at 3:30 PM)

Udjat said:


> All I know is that I don't want R2 D2 as my best friend.  I think that the human race should work on its self rather than add some other entity to try and solve our problems, because you know that we will eventually try and destroy it as well, given enough time.
> 
> I have reservations about being on this site because this is part of AI.  I do not have a cell phone, a credit card, and this is about all I do on the computer.  It is the younger generation that I worry about, they seem to be seeped in AI in their lives.  It is important that we protect the youth and get rid of this "modern" way of life.


I agree - this is why I spend lots of my time trying to deconstruct narratives - so that some people can follow the thread for themselves.  The next generation will have to figure this out for themselves for sure - they will have a different set of problems, but breaking out our interpretations gives more possibilities for people to find information like we did.


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## Jd755 (Wednesday at 3:38 PM)

feralimal said:


> Here's an interesting article where people in the real world are bumping into trust issues with ai too:
> It's Plausible, But Is It True?
> 
> Some quotes:
> ...


No for me its the increasingly obvious state of affairs that many events and human characters that litter the historical record are false.

This obsession with artificial intelligence is driven by a relentless media. Its capabilities are over egged beyond belief in my experience. I'm old enough to remenmber when the same modus operandi was used for computers.
Machines that used to take up rooms, miles of wiring, shedloads of air conditioning and they ran on tapes.
None of it has panned out the way it was predicted.


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## feralimal (Wednesday at 4:18 PM)

Jd755 said:


> This obsession with artificial intelligence is driven by a relentless media. Its capabilities are over egged beyond belief in my experience.


Yes.  I agree.

For me, the concept of AI and talking about it is also another angle of attack or standpoint from which to consider the past.  It didn't even exist as a concept in recent memory, yet now its ubiquitous, akin to the masons, the all-powerful elite, god, collective unconscious, and whatever other managers of material existence we can conceive of.

Perhaps ai is science's god incarnation, lol.


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## TruthIsOnlyDelayed (Wednesday at 5:10 PM)

feralimal said:


> Yes.  I agree.
> 
> For me, the concept of AI and talking about it is also another angle of attack or standpoint from which to consider the past.  It didn't even exist as a concept in recent memory, yet now its ubiquitous, akin to the masons, the all-powerful elite, god, collective unconscious, and whatever other managers of material existence we can conceive of.
> 
> Perhaps ai is science's god incarnation, lol.


I’ve interpreted the image of the beast (Rev 13:15) to be an ai (or like) driven idol/false god.


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## JohnNada (Yesterday at 12:49 AM)

TruthIsOnlyDelayed said:


> I’ve interpreted the image of the beast (Rev 13:15) to be an ai (or like) driven idol/false god.


Please elaborate. I would love to see the connection as I have sometimes suspected the same thing.


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## Udjat (Yesterday at 12:59 AM)

JohnNada said:


> Please elaborate. I would love to see the connection as I have sometimes suspected the same thing.


Yes, I agree and I would like to also know is this AI from our past that was then very advanced, is this its own entity created somehow on its own, or is this extraterrestrial AI?  Sometimes I believe it was created by a dark entity but then I think of the human ego and the real knack for the human to use a scapegoat when things we do become a detriment.  

This thread is very interesting because of how closely the "modern technology" and spirituality are connected.  It's mind bending.


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