BANNED

The other day I was watching Chalmers' Ted Talks in a lounge chair next to the couch where the kids were watching a cartoon. My recommended Up Next video was  titled "BANNED Rupert Sheldrake Video," so I clicked play. The talk is titled "The Science Delusion," and Sheldrake gives evidence of Constants fluctuating in physics. The constant's value is determined through averaging values found around the world. He was building a case that fixed constants are in fact fluctuating variables, and because science is never skeptical of common theorems, equations or principals, progress is stunted.
I could get on board with his argument, and thought of how I recently reevaluated ideas I was taught. After having kids my outlook on Evolution, as a basis for the beginning of life, changed completely, to where Evolution sounds more ludicrous than what many consider fantastical in religious literature. I am not much of an animal person, and maybe it's my inability to find their company anything beyond laborious that makes me unable to see them as equivalent. I can attribute them as having souls, or a level of conscious, but if we were all the spawn of a single celled amoeba, I would expect that another species should show some heightened intelligence, that is on par with human beings. For example, the fact that we have invented these systems, materialistic systems, like a washing machine, clothes, cars, and rocket ships, and there is not evidence of another species even devising a species-made weapon of defense, or constructed a mode to ease in how they acquire food. There is not even evidence of another species constructing something as simple as a hammer. Another thing that troubles me, is after millions of years evolving, no two species have learned the same language, or are able to easily communicate between each other.
I believe the evidence of evolving is substantial, and therefore believe in Evolution, but I think that human beings are the intention of evolution, there was meaning to Evolution, human life is far too amazing to not have been.
Sheldrake uses humor as a way to communicate his idea, and a funny one liner was, "scientists needed one miracle, and then they built all facts off of that," when talking about The Big Bang theory.
I think the point of the talk is to show how easily people accept common scientific Theorems, and seeing as how most people don't have the foundation to understand these principals, it is blind faith that keeps them grappling to them. Widespread acceptance somehow makes the word "theorem" evolve into "truth."

I considered why this video was banned. I figured it was because of marketing. The "banned" video discusses two dogmas from Sheldrake's book where there are eight more. The word "banned" peaks interest in buying the book to see what more Sheldrake has to say.  I wondered how many more banned Ted Talks there are, so I googled "banned Ted Talks" and found two more videos, Graham Hancock's "The War on Conciesness," and Nick Hanauer's "Rich People Don't Create Jobs."

Nick Hanauer's talk was brief, it's only five minutes long, and his main point is tax the rich. We live in a time where rich people pay 15% and middle class pay 35% in taxes, and this does not cause an uprising because the middle class are led to believe rich people are responsible for giving jobs to the masses and therefore should not be taxed. The current state of divided wealth is incredible and I have no idea how the wool has been pulled so easily over our eyes, and people are still complacent with their dwindling wealth. Hanauer shows that as the rich get richer, the middle class get poorer, and the only way to alleviate this is by requiring the rich to pay a higher tax. I am not sure why this video was banned, perhaps this is the kind of information that unsettles the masses, and there could actually be an outcry resulting in positive change, although I'm doubtful.
I wonder how the middle class is so compliant in this tax equivalent of a cactus sodomy. The middle class has Stockholm Syndrome for upper class. I think the media's obsession with celebrity helps in upper class sympathy. Were inundated with celebrity culture, and it gives a false sense of appropriation; if I buy this Luis Vuitton, then I am one of them. I think it also serves as a lesson, that extreme wealth is at anyones fingertips, you just have to be hungry enough to grab it, and so people think, when I am in the position of being rich, then I don't want to have to give all my money to the tax man. The notion dispelled is rich people work harder than anyone to get where they are, and they should not be penalized for hard work, and because I am the same caliber of hard working person destined to be rich, I too will not be penalized when I am rich.

The last video, Hancock's War on Conscious was interesting because he was so open with how he feels like he communicates with a spiritual world. I usually think of scientists as atheists, who would consider a hallucinogenic experience no more than one's imagination running wild. I suppose Hancock's video was banned because it is pro-hallucigenics (used responsibly) and he pleads with the audience to wake up and stop being so passive as the world is being destroyed for ridiculous reasons, like frequently needing to eat cheeseburgers. The video, beyond his discussion on Ayahuasca, is about being conscious of how the world is being abused, and being conscious on ways to be a better citizen of the earth, and there will be hell to pay for those who do not wake up.
I was impressed by Hancock's story of Ayahuasca, but did not feel any desire to venture down that path of conscious exploration. My experience with hallucinogens were, for the most part, awful, where I spent most the time thinking people could read my mind. I was probably not doing it responsibly, but I'm terrible at using substances in moderation, or with intention. Thank goodness I wasn't a teenager during the 70's because I certainly would have died from jumping off a roof, convinced I could fly.

Speaking of destroying the earth, the other day I was listening to the radio and a NASA scientist was being interviewed because water has been discovered on Mars. I stopped in my tracks because it seems like a great time to find an untapped well, considering the water crisis. It will no doubt serve us when we have destroyed the air quality and need to harvest oxygen. It's very human-like to venture all the way to Mars when we run out of resources, rather than try to live within our means, much like using plastic utensils, and paper towels, that equate to ease in cleaning, even though these items are made half a world away, ride across the Atlantic, to the shipping trucks, then grocery stores, to households, then ultimately in a landfill. That plastic forks lifecycle equates to one second saved dishwashing.

This was my fist experience chasing the Ted Talks dragon, and I had a good time. I will spend an hour next time watching not banned videos, although I doubt I will have this much to say. That was a real doozie!