Idea Bomb
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h6>Eddison Flame</h6>
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
I want to set off an idea bomb. I’ve been trying to set one off for some time now, but so far I haven’t had any success. Don’t worry though, I haven’t given up yet, and I don’t intend to give up any time soon.
Thinking about my idea bomb problem, I wondered if maybe just talking about what an idea bomb is, and how one might work, could itself be an idea bomb. Anyway, maybe just talking about it would inspire someone else to set one off, which would be just as good an outcome to me.
So an idea bomb is an idea that precipitates sudden and major social change. It is an idea that explodes into the public consciousness and immediately gets people to start doing something new. An idea bomb, to my mind, is not just a mind expanding idea, but it also includes an activity. An idea bomb is like an algorithm, a set of instructions, that people can start doing to instantly improve, adapt to, or otherwise change their life’s circumstances.
To rulers, the idea bomb is the stuff of nightmares. Especially in this age, when an idea can spread around the world in hours or minutes, an idea bomb is truly an existential threat. If some idea were to spread around the world that sparked a global movement, the elites could instantly find themselves in a heap of trouble.
So, in order to be successful, the idea has to be appealing to people. Perhaps this is obvious, but just to be clear, if the idea does not appeal to people, then nobody will try it; it will not explode into the public consciousness. I would also argue that in order to be successful the idea should be simple. It should be simple enough that, with minimal effort, people can understand how the idea is beneficial. This feature, I believe, is what would cause the idea to spread quickly.
With these thoughts in mind, let me propose a sample idea bomb. Obviously, I don’t know that this will actually work, but hopefully it will be enough to get the idea across. Hopefully it is enough to inspire others to start designing their own idea bombs.
So, I was thinking about a particular problem we are facing, definitely in the United States, but possibly throughout the western world too. The problem is that it is very hard to wake people up to the truth that the government, really the whole capitalist system, is the cause of most of the problems we are facing here on planet earth.
People, the majority of people in the U.S. anyway, are very well insulated from these kinds of ideas. The reasons for this are many. Most of us have been indoctrinated from a very young age to love capitalism and to fear and loath anything remotely associated with socialism. This indoctrination is reenforced in our adult lives by what we see on the television. And finally, the icing on the cake, these days the majority us spend our days in well sealed echo chambers. If we don’t go looking for the information ourselves, we are rarely if ever exposed to the truth.
This is a hard problem to solve. Although there does appear to be a steady trickle of people finding their way to our movement, it still seems like we do a good deal of ‘talking to ourselves’. It seems that we have been somewhat isolated from the main stream. So the question becomes, how can we penetrate that bubble? How can we turn that trickle into a flood?
Well, I want to suggest we start holding Saturday meetings. Just imagine, what if, every Saturday, we all started going to our local parks to discuss these ideas? If we just got together in groups and took turns speaking, other people nearby would naturally come around to listen. People are generally attracted by a crowd. They wonder, “What’s going on over there? Why are all those people listening to that guy speak?”, and then they wander over to find out. Wouldn’t this expand our influence?
Imagine the effect this could have over time. Over time, as more and more people started engaging in these Saturday meetings, word would start to spread about them. Eventually it could be spreading quite fast. Eventually our ideas could really take fire, and the trickle could turn into a flood.
So, in order to do this, first the idea has to get out. There will have to be a concerted effort, especially by members of our movement who have a platform and an audience, to spread this idea around, because we will need a solid base of people who are willing to try this out before we start doing it.
Once the word has spread, then we can just start doing it. Of course, if you live in a small town, maybe nobody else shows up to your local park. In that case, you would have to find a park in the nearest large city.
Of course, we could also use social media to arrange these meetings, and this might be a good idea in the beginning. When the movement is still small, it would probably be helpful to publicize meeting places online, just to help people find each other. The goal, however, is to develop a decentralized movement that is taking place in towns and cities all over the world. A movement like that truly is the stuff of nightmares for the elites.
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Please don’t say socialism, how long has that idea been around? Ideas, real ideas come from the place where thoughts are born, in silence. The idea you are talking about is not a reply to other ideas, it can’t come from recombining words already spoken. It certainly won’t come from the intellect. Practice not thinking as well as thinking. Then it will turn up unexpectedly,it may well have done so already but we are all so busy thinking that we haven’t noticed it. As a new idea it can not resemble any other idea so you won’t know it. Just express your ideas and someone may recognise it, even if they don’t it’ll catch on if it’s THE idea. You may not know that you had it!
Some actual ideas would be a start. It’s pointless having assemblies of people ‘discussing’ or ‘debating’ if they’re not animated by actual ideas that begin to address the major problems facing humanity. And there’s no need to waste too much time ‘defining’ the problems because these now are pretty manifest to many: increasing poverty along with wealth and income disparities; the trashing of democratic rights and escalation of state-sponsored surveillance, repression and terror; the increased oppression of religious, racial, ethnic, gender and sexual-preference minorities; emasculation of workers’ power through the smashing of trade unions and hamstringing of workers’ struggles against employer and state attacks; ecoside and a near-universal refusal to tackle global warming; all the other social pathologies that signify the dissolution of a social system and a failure to replace it; and above all, the crisis of a lack of leadership to effectively oppose and otherwise stop all this.… Read more »
I prefer ‘true witness’ to ‘propaganda’ – which to me is an intention to plant ideas by which then to capitalise later. A study of the last century (at least) shows that the intent to engineer society is taken very seriously, invested with immense resource and carried out patiently and inexorably over generations. It may be that an invested establishment sees what ideas are ‘necessary’ to the conservation of (their) power over feared pain or loss, and are therefore promoted as ‘true’. As a hierarchy made from the avoidance of feared loss, that ultimately demands any sacrifice to maintain itself. (‘Too big to fail’ – is the insinuation and belief that NOT giving sacrifice to maintain the status quo will result in greater evil than good). New ideas that arise are not owned or controlled by their namesakes once they are taken up as corporate investment and officially accepted narrative.… Read more »
I still think getting rid of the MSM is an indispensable first step. For people to get out to discuss the serious things, they’d have to know what’s going on in the world and it’s not going to happen while they rely on the MSM. All we can do in our own humble way is share non-MSM articles and try to gently persuade people onto sites like O-G.
I do wonder if people really want to be awoken in the sense that we may be in this OG Forum and other alternative social spaces, away from the fourth estate parroting, most accept as their version of truth. Maybe it’s about joining the dots of like minded souls and spaces both in the real world and the virtual one first? This could be the way we could band together, instead of being in isolation, shouting our truths collectively with credible evidence to back this up. We should try to convey the things we can, without being called tin foil hat conspiracy loons, the label of choice flung at those who are not stuck on group speak mode, but with factual, logic based thought processes backed up by evidence. I just think if we tried to bombard people, globally with half the truths of both the past and present, and… Read more »
I had a brief conversation with my brother in law yesterday in which he expressed the opinion that the accusations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn were false. My brother in law so far as I can tell is not aware of sites such as this one or alternative media. So if even he can recognise the a-s lie for what it is then there is hope.
I don’t think you are describing anything new here. “Idea bomb”? You mean advertising? Have an idea then tell people about it so they change their behaviours eg go out and buy the product and drink it.
If you want to vote for a Socialist party, go and vote for them.
Simple as.
By the way, the internet doesn’t reach everybody and can be turned off at a switch by Govt. so don’t rely on it 100%.
‘Idea as bomb’ – that is the current paradigm. That You are an Idea in the Mind of God and as such are wholly beyond corruption or change. is not available or conceivable to the conviction and defence of an idea-bombing doublethink, and so the Idea of Healing is the undoing or if you like – the ‘defusing’ of the mind of the idea-bomb or attack on Life. What else could an illusion ‘do’ given power? Idea as perfect communication or One in All and All in the One. Giving and receiving as one – because they are the extension of idea to its creations. OR idea as possession and control – or marketisation and weaponisation. That is the choice on which all else depends – because each is a world that undermines and denies the other. A mind cannot serve two mutually opposing belief systems that both centre on… Read more »
More verbal effluent…
Bibra aka BigB aka Brian?
Three cheeks on the same ar*e.
I’ve got an IDEA: BOMB the houses of parliament.
(Only joking, of course).
;o)
No need; it’s collapsing anyway, though that might just be accellerated by the Notre Dame effect. The problem is that no-one seems to focus on the idea bomb disposal units, which constantly do a good job when people think they’ve invented the ultimate idea bomb. I’ve been saying for years that the thing that breaks through in waking the public up will be something completely unexpected. That’s because it will be just as big a surprise to the idea bomb disposal unit as it is to the rest of us. The idea bomb that has now hit the UK is Brexit, in that suddenly ordinary people are saying they are disillusioned with Parliament, and many are saying they won’t vote again. Then they arrested Julian Assange, which is the worst thing they could have done if they are trying to keep the public from subversive thoughts. The public couldn’t see… Read more »
Gwyn Fawkes?
Gwyn Fawkes, indeed. Although I’m still lacking one of those bullet-proof codpieces which you mentioned.
For years, and I mean years, I thought that we celebrated Bonfire Night because someone tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament………..
Me too, He was The Guy.
Totally understandable, Mikalina.
The basic problem has been termed “incommensurability” by Kuhn. The old evolutionary redundant paradigm and the new evolutionary paradigm have little or no interface; and are totally incommunicable to each other. The core example is that the new paradigm is nondual and whole (Dynamic Systems Ecology) – the old capitalised Cartesian Error Protocols are relentlessly dualising and mechanically reductive to the parthood nihilation of holism. Mars and Venus. Transitional forms – green capitalism and social-individuality – are merely extensions of the old, transferring and internalising the new. Gramsci put it best: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Those “morbid symptoms” are the old logic trying to recuperate the new logic. Dualism cannot axiomatise and describe nondualism without dualising it. This is the cultural aporia. Hybrid forms will extend… Read more »
Off topic i know. But has anyone seen this?
LATEST CIA Director and NYT Accidentally Expose Skripal Poisoning Hoax – DUCKGATE
https://theduran.com/cia-director-and-nyt-accidentally-expose-skripal-poisoning-hoax-duckgate-video/
Our masters don’t even bother to keep their stories straight, or even believable anymore. When you control the media that the vast majority of humanity obtain their information from, why bother – since you literally control the narrative? Suddenly we have dead ducks and sick children as part of the Skripnal plot according to no less an authority than the CIA – who knew?
“Our masters don’t even bother to keep their stories straight, or even believable anymore. When you control the media that the vast majority of humanity obtain their information from, why bother – since you literally control the narrative? Suddenly we have dead ducks and sick children as part of the Skripnal plot according to no less an authority than the CIA – who knew?”
For much of this sort of stuff, you don’t need to control the spawling media complex, you just need to control the White House briefings schedule. Who didn’t know?
So very obviously NOT accidental, as weren’t the pre-announcement of WTC-7’s collapse, the terrorists popping up alive, the popping out of the second plane’s nose cone and Silverstein’s “pull it” – among so many things.
The problem is as old as humanity. The part-problem is that there are no new ideas. Eddison critiqued his own idea bomb idea – those who are likely to choose freedom – ‘outside’ the current death-system – have already made the choice and move. And we are networked, to and extent already. I met a few more like-minded folk earlier this week …and so networks can extend. Deleuze and Guattarri had a name for what Eddison is proposing – the rhizome. Rhizomatic forms are horizontal (transverse) operating through – but more eloquently in between stratified statist colonised forms of ‘govermantality’ …in the “interstices of the intermezzo”. State forms are seen as “arborescent” – ‘tree-like’ and hierarchical. I introduce this terminology only to make the point that there is a pushback against introducing ‘new’ ideas even on this site. I post this only to say that it has ALL been considered,… Read more »
It’s not just the same-old same-old . We are in an era of mass surveillance unlike anything previously seen and public morality has been severely eroded. At least there was no public ambiguity with Genghis Khan. Leaders don’t even pretend to be honest and forthright now and some exult in fooling the masses, and are chosen by their parties for that very perceived virtue. The public are termed muppets by the amoral thieves at Goldman Sachs who brazenly bribe the Clintons, falsify applications to EU membership so they can then sell the euro short, but then supply infestations of cabinet ministers to the US government. It will take leadership for reform. Someone who is unafraid of AIPAC and similar lobby groups, to take advantage of advances in communication, someone who is prepared to play the long game, so he/she is not assassinated. Mistrusting the MSM is a great place to… Read more »
George Why would we want to replicate the power structures – well known, even by Jimmy Carter, to be the least democratic the world has ever known – that have reproduced the greatest death cult known to humanity, and projected it through history? Genocide after genocide. Which was corrupted and compromised long before AIPAC was even constituted in 1951. Those power structures of liberal democracy deserve to be in the dustbin of history …for all our sakes. Leadership is a strange attractor: who would want to lead? Only someone who already sees themselves as superior or dominant: a cognitive elitist. As soon as you commit to dominant leadership: you already have the subordinate, inferiorised led. Organised into hierarchies of autocratic rule: projected through time, from theocracy to the secular theocracy of modern neolib/neocon Americanism – the world’s fourth religion – you have produced the infantilised automatic subjects of despotic depolitic… Read more »
Big B, The existing power structure is appallingly bad for the common man. But you have to start somewhere and listing reasons why it won’t work seems self-defeating. I think that the framework of a democracy can still be utilized, and votes can still count. It took a long time for this mess to develop and it will take a long time for it to b cleaned up. Leadership can come from those who have personally suffered from the flagrant abuses, it usually does.
I take your point about how everything should be restructured but a reexamination of how we got here is best done after the “here” is upended. There are lessons to learn and implement in face of desperate opposition. Can this be bloodless? Probably not, history tells us, over and over.
I take your point, George. I am well aware that we cannot just end capitalism, or dismantle the current power structures overnight. The resulting anarchy would be anarchy, if you get my drift …especially with all the guns on the street. So we have a contradiction: when is a transition a transition …and not just a perpetuation of the existing disastrous power structures? I mean, being British (whatever that means these days) – I’m not an expert on America. But from reading the likes of Chris Hedges: I’m not expecting a sudden breakout of democracy. If I wanted to be cynical: if AOC weighed 400 lbs and was a cross-dresser called ‘Terence’ – I don’t think she would be anywhere near Congress. And that is no disrespect of AOC – it’s the rest of them My understanding, is that post Citizens United relaxed the campaign finance laws – the floor… Read more »
“We do not know who we are. We do not know where we came from, much less where we are going.”
The above is an example of an inept “Cancel reply”.
If NOT KNOWING is truly accepted, then something alive can move through the space made clear. Because the sense of a LACK of identity is covered over or stuffed with fig-leaved pretences and asserted grievance based power in defence and vengeance – we – human beings – as become as those who know not what they do. Where we come from is our true Author-ity. Mythic creation stories provide support for an identity, that is then justified or sanctified as the authority from a past made in anger. That we do NOT come from the past is hidden by making it as our god, source or narrative support. That we carry the burden of a grievous past is the filtering mind through which we ‘see’ through a glass darkly. Undoing and redeeming the past is releasing the present to extend as our future. When you know wholeness of being, you… Read more »
Here is a much simpler idea bomb.
Only ever vote for an independent political representative.
Political parties only exist to enable the 1% to exert their influence. It is easier to control the powerful few that control the party than it is to control each and every independent politician. ZTruly competent individuals will not tolerate having their interests conflicted in the process of doing their job, and the 1% influence on political parties certainly conflicts with the interests of those being democratically represented by the party member masquerading as representative.
No meetings, no organisation to corrupt or threaten. Just a dead simple action any voting adult can implement all by themselves. As more people do it it will encourage more and better independents to stand for election.
If voting ever changed anything it would be forbidden.
Not sure that I quote correctly nor whom I quote but that’s the gist.
It is an illusion that politicians rule, they administer for the benefit of whom? – 3 guesses.
And how many politicians are there, independent or not, who cannot be bought or bribed and survive, not just politically?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-twain-voting-quote/
How would we know, if all that ever get elected are party politicians? It is a relatively painless act, withdraws support from “business as usual” and encourages those who find the party system repugnant.
The alternatives involve far riskier tactics. I am not a coward, but I prefer to exhaust lower risk options first.
Public meetings, free flow of ideas and so forth. Well there is a place in London, in Hyde Park, next to Marble Arch to be exact, called ‘Speakers Corner’. You can go there every Sunday and listen to all manner of political, social and religious views from guys standing on soap boxes and various other home made plinths. I used to go there as a lad every Sunday afternoon to listen, it was quite educative. However most of the audience treated it as a form of entertainment – a bit of a laugh at the expense of the cranks. American tourists were completely bemused by the whole show. But in essence that is what it was. Predictably, It didn’t seem to have changed the world.
However, that was in a more becalmed era. Hope springs eternal.
“…‘Speakers Corner’. You can go there every Sunday and listen to all manner of political, social and religious views from guys standing on soap boxes and various other home made plinths.” For example: Donald, Lord Soper (a.k.a. Lord Soapbox), Baron Soper of Kingsway in the London Borough of Camden, the first “Nonconformist” minister of religion to sit as a life peer in the British House of Lords (which he claimed to be earthly proof of the reality of life after death), President of the Methodist Conference 1953–54, pacifist (banned from broadcasting on the BBC during World War II because of the power of his arguments), socialist, opponent of nuclear arms, blood sports and gambling, active protector of the weak, underprivileged and social rejects–addicts, law breakers, the homeless– at the West London Methodist Mission, outspoken opponent of Thatcherism and Reganism. “Shoplifting is not sinful, agrees Soper,” by Robert Shrimsley Lord Soper,… Read more »
Perhaps a song/poem/ditty/anthem/meme that encapsulates the lightning revolution that we need Eddison.
I have no idea how one could go about bringing enlightenment to americans. This is primarily because the US is just too damn big. The population is so large in the US that few can possibly feel close to any ideals based movement, simply because whatever the movement is, by the time it is large enough to exert leverage its leaders would be remote from the bulk of supporters.
I flatly refuse to live in societies that large because of this and many other reasons connected to the centralisation of power structures in large nations.
If I lived somewhere like the US my first interest would be devoted to splitting the joint up into many small communities run by leaders much closer to the citizens because even socialism struggles to achieve its aims within this type of huge and seemingly soulless structure.
I think it’s primarily because they’re too damn stupid.
I enclose an excerpt form a Book written by a quite famous Man . Can You identify him ? And IF You can .. doesnt that raise some Questions and Thoughts ..in Your Mind ? “ For the first time in my life I heard a discussion which dealt with the principles of stock exchange capital and capital which was used for loan activities. After hearing the first lecture delivered by the Speaker the idea immediately came into my head that I had found a way to one of the most essential prerequisites for the founding of a new party. To my mind, the merit of the Speaker consisted in the ruthless and trenchant way in which he described the double character of the capital engaged in stock exchange and loan transactions, laying bare the fact that this capital is ever and always dependent on the payment of interest. In… Read more »
I haven’t read it all but phrases immediately jump out that make it sound like the programme of the Nazis.
Spot on. It’s from Mein Kampf.
So Hitler invented MMT? 😀
I think the Gillet Jaunes are already doing this?
The right to free association is a basic human one – and very productive. That is why it is so much hated by our rulers. Also why capitalists try to control this productive process and extract their profit from it. From small companies to large multi-nationals.
As for the truth being hidden from us’ this is an old, old thing going right back though antiquity. The truth lies buried and we have to dig to find it. There is nothing truer than truth and that is why the forth estate – the media – has been so much infiltrated and owned over the centuries.
They pretend to purvey the real truth, but of course we know they rarely do.
The GJ are partially responsible for this idea. Clearly they’re having meeting every Saturday. They have proved that something like this is possible. The reason I am calling for meetings and not protests is because I don’t think protests are very effective. If we want to effectively protest, I believe we need to start organizing a mass exodus from the system. We need to get organized into independent sustainable groups, and then we need to, all together, stop interacting with the system to the greatest extent possible. This will require an entirely altruistic mindset. Everyone will have to come together in complete support of each other. We will have to share everything. We will have to be willing to give everything we have to make this work. We will have to be able to sustain each other until this whole thing is over. It will take a great effort, that’s… Read more »
Some might say this is a false dialectic, that there are other alternatives. I disagree. I believe we will have to escape the system at some point. I believe there will be a sharp transition to an openly and brutally authoritarian system in the relatively near future. The surveillance capabilities of this system will make it practically inescapable and entirely invulnerable from attack from within.
Because of this we will absolutely have to escape the system if we want to mount any kind of defense in the future.
Listen. Seriously, just listen to the public discussion. For the past quarter-century, Democrats and liberals have been calling on us join a “revolution” to protect the status quo of the better-off, the middle class (reframed as “working class” in 2016), within our capitalist system. That’s the problem. There remains a powerful resistance against acknowledging it. If enough people begin comprehending the problem, there might be a solution. But to date, such efforts have proved futile.
There are many who try to bring this to light, to expose the crimes of the few against the many.. and many who are willing.. satisfied.. (?) to display their knowledge and education by writing reams about all this.. stuff..
But.
Nothing changes. At all.
Does it?
Still, it all goes on, across Africa, the South Americas, the middle east, and now down under too..
latest example: https://153news.net/watch_video.php?v=5NH44NNWADB – so, back to the question,
What are we going to actually do about it? Or you? Any of you?
Keep writing, and reading, and arguing.. hold meetings.. spark up another discussion group..
about how very terribly wrong and unjust it all is?
Right?
The infamous scene of debate about ‘what are we going to do about the Romans’
from the great ‘Life of Brian’ springs to mind..
oh the irony..
to quote my only favourite amokianism.. ‘well whaddya gonna do?’
“Video does not exist”
https://153news.net/watch_video.php?v=5NH44NNWADB
is it about ‘The CIA Takeover of America in the 1960s is the Story of Our Times’?
https://off-guardian.org/2019/04/07/the-cia-takeover-of-america-in-the-1960s-is-the-story-of-our-times/
I like it. Paid trolls from the NSA would attend in a flash. They would know all about you in a flash. They would then send in actors and actresses to pull the usual stunts. The key would be to outnumber them by the number of sites.
Ah, but that’s the problem. Which “we?” The US is rich vs. middle class vs. poor, workers vs. those left jobless, further split by race and political ideology.
Fortunately in this case the numbers overwhelmingly favour the people. The rich are few, and they like it that way.
I’d prefer without a meeting place. Ideas can be spread without a meeting place. The latest I have heard is:
Make a list of all the countries to whom US is either irrelevant or with whom the US has a ‘difference’ of opinion. Quite a list, growing by the day – take it from there.
‘… NSA … would know all about you in a flash.’ They already know all about you so wouldn’t gain any additional info from your attendance.
Perhaps – but the Idea Bomb of the Establishment effectively subverts, marketised and weaponises any Movement of being – hence the need for something that cannot be turned against Life -(ourself). Hence the idea of the Undoing rather than the persistence of the idea of the ‘doer’ or separated controller – set over life – that must then fear and fight subjection (under its own rules – or in receiving the measure that it set for others). In terms of the world it may seem that no matter what peace is established, it can be subverted to division by fear and deceit – but we are each in our own lives and in specific sets of relations that may ripple out – but do not ‘control’ by means of ‘impact’. So regardless of any of the forms of evils in the world I hold that fear and deceit are at… Read more »
Africans have a monkey trap. They put nuts in a coconut shell with a small hole and the monkeys after grabbing the nuts cannot remove their hand. Even when they see the hunter approaching and their impending doom, they do not let go of the nuts. Humans are the same as monkeys.
They’ve got us by the nuts, John.
:o)
Speak for yourself, I wear a bullet-proof codpiece.