Today I happened to find this blog which is "Devoted to smashing conspiracy theories and humiliating their purveyors!". It is quite interesting.

Conspiracy theories has interested me for quite some time. Especially since I am at a position where I have not been able to fully investigate (intellectually, if not in person) the facts of the different situations. I read something on a page, and because I have no clue to the context, it puzzles me whether this piece of news is really news, or a rumour set up for other reasons (political, religious, etc).

An example of this is the importance of the oil industry in the US activity in Afghanistan. I have read quite a lot of theories on how some US oil companies have a great profit pending on whether the Afghanistan regime is "friendly" or not. As I have gotten more insight into the situation, from different media sources, I have come to the personal conclusion that yes, the oil is a Large part of the picture of the Afghanistan war/bombings. How large a part, I do not know.

Talking about Afghanistan: How convenient for the possible profit-wishers in the US that the Taliban was such a dictatorian government! What if the Talibans had been moderates - but just refused to cooperate with the American companies?

Conspiracy theories can be attempts to shed some light on issues which are constantly put in the dark. It can also be highly dangerous and lead to antisemitism or a hatred of muslims, or similar evil. These theories can be used for political aims, to lead the (generally ignorant) public astray, or to simply confuse. We all know the tactical use of smoke on a battlefield..

What is your favorite conspiracy theory? It may be true, plausible, or clearly just air.

Here is mine:

There was no airplane crashing into the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. Something else happened, but it was certainly not a plane. Here is a page which is a good example of this theory. What do you think about this theory? What do you think about the people who propose this theory? If they are telling a false tale, why? What are their motives?

Conspiracy theories and their related urban legends are fun, interesting, and sometimes true.

Yesterday afternoon there was a shooting drama here in Bergen, with an drug abuser armed with a pistol walking on the roofs of the city. After about an hour of hasardious roof-walking he surrendered to the police without anyone getting hurt. While the drama lasted several blocks of the city was evacuated and armed police surrounded the area.

In our city of Bergen, such an episode is quite rare, and it has caused front page reports on regional newspapers. While the drama happened, I was just in the neighbourhood. And afterwards I thought "This kind of things isn't supposed to happen in Bergen, a provincial city of 240.000 inhabitants".

In our country of Norway, we are in some ways a bit naive. We are used to being able to leave our wallets on our seats in the trains when we go to the toilet. We are in several ways quite innocent.

Of course, times are changing, and Norway today is quite different than from just 30 years ago. But still a lone person high on drugs running around the roofs armed with a pistol is quite the headline.

I can't imagine living in a world city like New York where there are far more murders and other crime... Even Barcelona scared me. (But then again, Barcelona is notorious for it's level of petty crime).

For a long time I have been happily listening to the crysleep stream at bluemars.org. Today I logged on to the site and got this message.

"The dream is over

I am deeply saddened to report that i can not afford the kind of fees involved in broadcasting music on the internet. CARP has just killed microbroadcasting in the US.
..."

How fast something goes from being big news in the media and loads of sites going "stop this XXX legislative move" or something, to actually affecting one of my favorite online music sources.


but

If we think that the Golden age is over,
let us instead turn around and make a new golden age.

It is 11 PM and I am back in Bergen (western coast of Norway). Yesterday evening I was in Copenhagen, waiting for the bus to Oslo to leave. I had spent the weekend with my best friend through 7 years, and we had talked about a lot of things, played bridge, table-tennis and in general just enjoying some time together. My friend, Peter, is a classical pianist who has just bought his own house in central Copenhagen. The villa is huge, with more than 8 rooms and loads of space, as well as a nice garden. He surely got a base now. Oh how I envy him that.

As some of you might know, I had for Long planned to move to Hong Kong this summer. After finishing my period as president of this european university student association in April I prepared myself for it, learning cantonese for instance, and really looking forward to it.

But then it is that reality bites. I always knew that my economy suffered from my excessive volunteering, and if you mix low income with a tendency to - for instance - buy loads of books, then at some point you need to take a stand and fix the situation.

So, in short, I am back in Bergen in order to fix my monetary situation, getting on track, and saving up money for whatever entrepreneurship projects I have in mind. In short, not the correct time to move to another continent - especially since I do not even know if I will be able to get 1) work permit, and 2) the right to abode in Hong Kong. The job market there is pretty tough at the moment, and unless I have some special skills which they deem valuable...

Tomorrow I will go job-hunting, and at the same time I will try to catch up with some old friends and acquientances here in this city. I really want to do something apart from earning money, and I have thought about starting a youth magazine here in Bergen. A personal project where I can use my connections with professors and anarchists, members of parliament (my cousin, for instance) and excessive online gamers... To create a magazine which does not claim to be revolutionary different, but at least is a place where I can express my issues, my concerns, my stories. So I have thought about ways in which I can gather economic support for the printing of such a magazine, but at least to have access to computers with all the necessary software to do the layout of it, and making it in a .pdf-version which I can show to eventual supporters.

I am still together with my girl-friend, thank heaven the relationship survived this small -- irregularity. But I will not move with her to HK just Yet.


These days I have also thought a lot about myself (yeah, I am an egoist, I know), my path, what it is that I want to do? To keep on volunteering my time for something which others doesn't see the point of? Should my own vision of things be enough - for me?

I have this .. fear inside me, that I am growing a bit too cynical, a bit too harsh, a bit too eager to stamp on things as being hysteria, or emotionalism, or just dreaming without having a real interest in putting this dream into reality. I think that so much of what people around me are so overly concerned with, really doesn't matter much at all. Within this thinking, what would be my own path? We all know that to be obsessed with money is not healthy for our psyche, but still so many of us strive for more Things. Things which we need money for. I think some of the words of Tyler Durden are quite fitting in this area. And then again, not really.

Why are we here on this earth? To help each other? To boost our own egos? Or is it to strive for perfection in the arts and sciences? Within myself, I have a great urge to help my fellow humans. But would I really be helping somebody by giving them something they do not wish or need? (Preaching, economic help if what they really need is to control their own consciousness, to name two examples) I am not sure what we humans need, especially today. As I have said in another update some months ago, this world is So complex, so Inutterable subtle, that to try to push it into a set of neat boxes is close to madness.

And yet, we often need those boxes. Good and evil, beautiful and ugly, interesting and dull, and so on.. Our conceptual boxes are what helps us order the world, makes us Able to navigate in the world. The navigation system might not be actually correct, but it is a guide, and by experiences we can gain further insight.

I guess my problem is that I have too few boxes. There is this deep insatisfaction within me that I do not seem to find something which can hold my interest for more than a few months, or at maximum a few years. Let's take this TIG youth network, for instance. Earlier I spent quite a lot of time thinking about it, being concerned about different aspects of it, and trying to voice my opinions on some things. I also did my share of advancing the community here by posting discussion posts and updates on different topics. But at some point I realised how little this meant for the people we are supposed to help here. I myself had not managed to get out of my ego-trip and I spent hours searching for new discussion threads where I could raise my Voice on this or that.

Furthermore, I had failed to notice soon enough what this network IS, as opposed to what it claims to be. So instead of just moving on, I stayed here, sinking ever more into my own thought patterns.

Basically, I have for these last weeks tried to break out of these thought patterns, these ways of thinking about social action and being results-driven. Not because I need to go to some other extreme, but that there should be a balance in things.

My conclusion, if any, is that things need to start local. To build a house, one needs a foundation. And seldom can the foundation be a mass of more or (mostly) less engaged members scattered around the globe.

And another conclusion, which is something which I have taken to mind to a higher degree, is that any change in the world must start with yourself.

And this leads me to the daoist(?) saying:
"Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment. Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength."



So I guess I will be spending far more of my time now striving towards mastering myself; knowing myself.

:)