The World-Wide Web or Internet is a vast interconnected storehouse of information, a virtually infinite fount of knowledge, a playground for the mind, the natural home of both intellectuals and seekers after the legendary utuppian pornucopia.
The World-Wide Web or Internet is a vast interconnected storehouse of information, a virtually infinite fount of knowledge, a playground for the mind, the natural home of both intellectuals and seekers after the legendary utuppian pornucopia.
That is, if you have a fairly up-to-date personal computer, a modem, and Web access, you can learn a bunch and have a whole lot of fun. A good part of the key lies in the way Web pages work: you can put into them cross-links to other Web pages, which may be in the same computer as the first, or half a world away. The reader clicks the mouse on the cross-link, and shazam! there's the other Web page, serving as an example or a fuller discussion, complete with its own cross-links. This is a profound difference from everything that has gone before, and it makes it possible for a magazine such as Tomorrowsf to be something new and marvelous.
There's precedent, of course. Linking is just hypertext writ large, and there are paper magazines that have Web pages. One such is Scientific American, which quite effectively links articles to sources of further information. I've used it to good effect in course syllabi. And I'm going to do it here, presenting just enough detail in this article to be amusing (I hope) and provocative. Just click on the links to see what I'm talking about and be suitably astonished and edified.
So, yes, you can learn a bunch and have a whole lot of fun. But don't go out without your hip boots. There is some very weird shit out there! The Web is a fount not only of information but also of misinformation and delusion, and so much of it is not marked in any way that if you tend to believe everything you read (perhaps especially on a computer screen) you will surface from the Web so coated with manure that you will need to shower with a fire hose.
For instance, did you know that vectors are male cult objects? That's what Michael J. Burns assures us at the end of his Web page, where he says (among other things) that, "One need not be uninformed, dogmatic, obsessed, intoxicated, dreaming, or mystically opposed to logic to disagree with the undue triumphalism [of academic physics]. ... it is a sad necessity to deal explicitly with the all-too-human outbreak of cultural dishonesty in physics. ... Unfortunately, simple issues such as vectors are misused by physicists just as loyalty tests are used by other dogmatic cultures...." Must have something to do with the eensy-weensy arrowheads.
And water is electrically negative, as you can find by visiting this site to learn the basics about dowsing, including the connection to ley lines: "Energy ley lines are natural flows of cosmic energy that are of the electrical sign (+) plus.... Where a water dome and energy ley line come together we have a 'power center.' Water is of the electical sign minus. Therefore, at a power center we have the presence of (+) - (-) or yin-yang or male-female. ... Everything in the universe has its own energy and vibrates to its own frequency. [The] biosphere ... is a primordial soup of their frequencies. We are born into and feel it at all times. It is the 'stuff' of universal consciousness. Dowsers are people who are consciously connected to this universal flow of energy." "Cosmic energy" is of course otherwise undetectable.
It gets much, much worse. Meet Earth Portal, where you can find such folks as Dan Winter, who wants us to know that according to the "Andromedans" we are genetic royalty akin to "Orion/Draconian and Reptilian," Earth has been quarantined from Galactic contact and is thus "a major vortex for the wars sweeping the Galaxy between Orion/Draconian vs. Pleadian [sic] vs. Andromedan civilizations," "the ... glandular emotions can ... magnetically quite literally bend galaxies," and "many government officials are relying on [the Andromedans] for their local galactic news." Gee, I didn't know that.
Earth Portal will also introduce you to Willard Van De Bogart, who tells us with a perfectly straight face that the "Nibiruans live on the planet Nibiru, which revolves around our sun every 3,600 years. Nibiru is the 12th planet (counting the Sun and Moon) in our local solar system, and is due to cross the orbits of Earth and Mars in the very near future[; the Nbiruans] created the Sumerian culture [and] also genetically created human beings as we know them.
"These astounding statements are made possible by the Sumerian cuneiform deciphering skills of Zecharia Sitchin, a linguist in command of many ancient languages who has set the scientific world on its ear with his astounding interpretations of ancient writings." You can find Sitchin at this site; he sounds a lot like another Erich von Daniken or Immanuel Velikovsky (who seems to be alive and well at the Catastrophism page, where you really should not neglect neo-Velikovskian Ted Holden's instruction on why gravity must have been weaker in the days of the dinosaurs).
You don't believe him? You wonder what happened to the Orion/Draconian/Reptilian crew? You'd rather hear from the Nbiruans themselves? Well, how about the Distant Children instead? This one's rather cute; you click on saucerite heads to see them tell us they are our kin from far off in time, and they have a message for us.
Messages? Would you believe subliminal messages in Windows 95? Visit here, and Bob Loblaw will assure you that the clouds conceal a horse, a vulture, a rock guitarist, and sexy stuff.
Do these guys really believe what they're telling us? Some of them are surely having a ball; Art Bell is laughing madly, and you should only sneak a peek at the Studmuffins of Science page. Or go to the Great International Spam Conspiracy page for a "classified document... procured [in part by] channeling a trans-dimensional 5th density Pleiadean entity referred to as O. H. Spmm". Loblaw actually sounds like he's having us on. The Distant Children may be a kind of science fiction. Van De Bogart may have his tongue in his cheek. But Winter and Burns sound like they really believe what they're dishing up.
So does Wade Frazier, who uses his Compuserve home page to push the "Better World Technology" claims of ex-convict Dennis Lee. Lee says he has the secret of free energy, mounts stage shows to convince you, and sells dealerships for $10,000 a pop. He also claims to be able to neutralize radioactive materials, and he says there's a massive government conspiracy to cover up the truth. Eric Krieg, a skeptical engineer who puts time into debunking New Age folderol, will tell you what's wrong here. He must be part of the conspiracy. Me too.
Did someone mention conspiracies? Oh, the fun you can have with your new head! Robert Anton Wilson (known for conspiracy fiction such as the Illuminatus trilogies) and Miriam Joan Hill are currently collecting material for an encyclopedia of conspiracies (due out in 1998 or 1999), and every conspiracy you can think of is listed alphabetically, with links to Web pages, at their Blackops Conspiracy Home Page. I just love the pages set up by folks who claim the government has installed mind-control devices in their brains--and have the CAT-scans to show you, too (you can visit the Mind Control Forum here). Nothing yet from the American cockroaches trapped in that Japanese Roboroach lab (see the photos and backtrack from there to see the real scientific papers behind the pics).
Want another good one? Did you know about the "photon belt" in space? We were due to pass through it in 1995 or 1996 according to New Age channelers, and the result would be "that the planet will enter periods of total darkness and total light, and that electricity and magnetic fields will no longer operate." We were also supposedly due for the Second Coming and the rapture. Nothing happened, of course, but if you want to see what all the fuss was about (and still is--only the dates have been changed), visit this site.
Maybe there's a repair crew on the way to fix the broken belt. Have you heard about the alien spaceship sneaking into the solar system by hiding behind Comet Hale-Bopp? The one those California web-designer cultists committed suicide to hitch a ride on? Or was it suicide? Within a day of the event, at least one post on the alt.conspiracy newsgroup was claiming it was all an IRS plot and government cover-up.
There's even a photo of the Hale-Bopp UFO, though the astro data cops say it was doctored. (And they should know--after all, NASA doctored all those photos that convinced the world people landed on the Moon, didn't it?). Whitley Strieber insists there remains "compelling debate" but the astronomers seem to have all the real evidence on their side (see site A and site B). On the other hand, perhaps there really is a whole new horde of alien kidnappers on the way.
Maybe we'll be okay, though. We'll just turn Jeff Harrington loose on them. He's the guy who thinks he can make TV newscasters blink and Bob Dole become practically incoherent by aiming psychic zaps at them. He also has plans to "photonically disrupt the British lottery. Sub-quantum particles of bliss will invade the broadcasting television cameras of focused greed and materialism."
But perhaps we needn't worry too much about all that greed out there. According to J. Adams, it can't last much longer: "Based upon the Elliott Wave Principle, Dow Theory, psychological barrier phenomenon and 'astroharmonics,' a compelling case can be made that we are near a Grand Supercycle turning point in stock prices that will be followed by ... a crash of unprecedented proportions [and even] an outbreak of global war." Sounds like the lottery should go bust too. Unless Cold Fusion hands us a jackpot to solve all our problems. You thought Cold Fusion was the bunk? Visit Cold Fusion Times for assurance that success is close at hand.
Perhaps they're getting a bit of a hand from the folks at Paranormal Management Systems, who swear the gummint is using electronic technology to put ideas in your head, but they have a strictly mental technology that will let you influence the stock market, your immune system, and lots, lots more. They charge 250 pounds for a 1-day workshop, but what on Earth do they need the money for? Or if Adams is right (see above), why aren't they using their powers to avert the crash? Is there a conspiracy here? Check the Blackops page to see if it's listed.
Maybe buckyballs will save us. Click here to discover the "Seed of Life pattern [which] represents the matrix at the heart of our beings ... Just like the Buckyball molecule, it would have seemingly an infinite number of vibration patterns [that] produce images and experiences that form our lives. [It is the] Spherical Pattern at the heart of astrological symbolism ... found on the Soccer Ball... [blends perfectly with] Eastern Medicine.... This kind of breakthrough is no coincidence. ... To find such perfect and complex mathematics Unifying Astrology and Eastern Medicine is a marvelous thing. We have studied [the spherical pattern] to the point of seeing Life move through it and from it. ... We no longer deal with the issue of whether or not Astrology or Eastern Medicine is true or false. They have led us to a Deeper Mystery through this research. Do we now question the deeper mystery on whether it is true or not? No. We have already confirmed that one too."
Would you believe "Scientific Spirituality"? It's the "Ultimate Unification Theory," just waiting for you to discover it right here, and it tells us that "The whole cosmos is an Absolute One Unity, which is 'everything' and at the same time 'nothing' (void)." (There's even a mathematical explanation.) So I suppose Elliott Waves, astroharmonics, buckyballs, and Hale-Bopp tagalongs are ultimately irrelevant. Or maybe not.
Do you have a suspicion that the folks behind these Web pages are a little short on logical ability? That certainly seems to be the case with Dr. Bethe Hagens, Professor of Anthropology, Union of Experimenting Colleges and Universities, Cincinnati, Ohio, who says (American Dowser, Fall 1990) that, "Many a skeptic has become a believer in the reality of dowsing through a simple laying on of hands - the dowser's on the non-believer's. Through some unexplained connection, the dowser is able to manifest his ability through the novice whose hands he holds.... Could it be ... an immune system reaction? Support for this seemingly unlikely proposition comes, oddly enough, from ... [the equal mysteriousness of the brain-immune system link and] the activation of dowsing ability in a novice." That's a non sequitur if I've ever heard one.
The error is more subtle at The Society for Scientific Exploration which, partly with its Journal of Scientific Exploration, "provides a scholarly forum for unbiased discussion of anomalies and topics outside mainstream science, such as psychic phenomena, UFO's, etc. ... The Society does not endorse any particular point of view, but encourages informed exploration of all possibilities" (italics added). Unfortunately, it often seems to start from the premise that if anyone says something is true, whether it makes sense or not, it is worth investigating. The result is a dispassionate credulity that could sponsor a symposium last fall where speakers said such things as "the mysterious lost continent [of Atlantis] may lie beneath the ice of Antarctica," "consciousness plays a proactive role in the establishment of physical reality," and "the knowledge system of a great ante-diluvian civilization which allowed the ancients to perform technological feats incomprehensible in our terms [has been reconstructed]." Unbiased, okay, but informed? For one thing, the Antarctic ice has been in place far too long for Plato to have heard even a whisper of anything that preceded it. There's a difference between an open mind and a hole in the head.
Sometimes, of course, it just looks like a scam. Consider this one, which will introduce you to a 5,000-10,000 year old West African civilization, which left behind numerous statues buried in the ground. Discoverer Angelo Pitoni, an Italian geologist and amateur archaeologist and anthropologist, is willing to sell some of the statues to raise money for further excavations. Not accepted practice.
Is there any sign of hope out there? Or must the unwary inevitably come home with their minds soaked in nonsense? The Web is open to all, and it mightily resists censorship of all kinds, sexual, political, and intellectual. (I wouldn't have it any other way.) So the nonsense will remain. It will even increase, probably beyond all belief--at last report, the number of Internet users was expected to double this year, up by 40 million people, and it is not about to stop there.
Fortunately, a number of people and organizations have taken as their mission the flagging of nonsense, also known as psychoceramics, as the work of crackpots or kooks. Some take the trouble to link kooks to counterkooks or to analyze the kooks' errors. It is thus useful for anyone who cruises the Web to maintain a short list of such places; if something seems weird or feverish or too good to be true, check out the Blackops Conspiracy Page (see above). For an extensive list of Web pages to be wary of, click here. The MAD Scientist Network, which is staffed and maintained by a group of graduate and medical students at Washington University in St. Louis, uses more than 300 scientists at institutions around the world to help provide answers to science questions. And if what has made you suspicious has something to do with health, visit the National Council against Health Fraud at their Web page.
At the Kooks Museum, you can find out how God killed off the dinosaurs, how "Under the guise of the generally laudable and beneficial conservation mentality of maintaining the balance of nature, man has unwittingly included the conservation of Satan's lifeforms," and lots more. There's also a link to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Archive of Useless Research.
And then there are the skeptics' groups. For a definition of skeptics (briefly, they insist on objective evidence and therefore rule out very little on strictly a priori grounds), click here. The classic outfit is the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP); they publish The Skeptical Inquirer and have a Web page. You can find the Skeptics Society's Skeptic Magazine here.
The Enigma Project's aim is rigorous, objective scrutiny of paranormal claims; it says "credible and accurate technical data" may mean "the most bizarre anomalies would stand a better chance of being given serious attention by mainstream scientists." Among the results: an inconclusive report on "Chessie," the Chesapeake Bay version of the Loch Ness Monster, another on falls of ice from the sky, an analysis of a "gravity hill" with a surveyor's transit that shows that if your car is rolling, it's going down hill, and an exposure of a poltergeist that turned out to be hallucinations.
We need these groups and projects and kook collectors. We always have, but in the pre-Web past they had more trouble reaching the public than did the kooks, who were sometimes willing to spend every penny they had to self-publish and proselytise. The Web makes reaching the public easier and cheaper for the kooks, but it does precisely the same for the forces of reason. Perhaps better yet, it makes it easier than ever for the public to be skeptical, to learn what studies have been done to evaluate strange claims and to check plausibility (how long has that Antarctic ice been there?) or technical accuracy (is water really electrically negative? what was that about photon belts? Roboroaches?).
Used properly, the Web can help you stay out of humanity's intellectual cess-pits. Then you can leave those hip boots at home.