[FRIAM] where are the "patriot hackers"?

[uǝlƃ ↙↙↙]

So, as always, a discussion of composition is necessary. How can one go from "breatharianism" to disinformation-facilitated cults? The bureaucracy of Falun Gong provides the constructive ephemeris for outlets (like The Epoch Times). 

Your mention of a co-occurrence of supernatural beliefs with times of hardship sounds a lot like a refocus onto exploration (away from exploitation) in times of ecological stress. The distrust in our institutions like the CDC or FDA could be a result of some serious inadequacy in those institutions. But unless we know what those institutions do *at all*, we can't modify them. We can only destroy them. And if those institutions grow naturally out of some substructure, in us, that remains, new institutions will accrete up that have the same, or similar, inadequacies. So, the *form* our distrust takes is important to whether or not we can build better, less inadequate, institutions.

Steve mentioned punctuated criticality, which is spot on, I think. If we opt to destroy the things we don't like and don't understand, then we lose any knowledge stored in those things. (I have in mind sickle cell anemia and malaria.) But if we can trace their construction, we can find branch structures within their accretion and deconstruct back to those branches (and take an alternate branch). Absent that careful deconstruction, any "distrust" in bureaucracy is just as misplaced as any trust in it. This is true for everything from peer-review to UFO abduction.

I've experimented some with breatharianism and meditation, too. And even though I think it all boils down to hyperventilation and hallucination (no Nick, I don't disagree with you in the large, only in the small), unless I can reconstruct or trace the composition from Falun Gong as an individually scoped practice to a disinformation outlet like The Epoch Times, I wouldn't be able to *justify* deplatforming it entirely. But I suppose it doesn't matter. The right-winger at the pub who literally responded with "So what?" when I told him our hospitals are overflowing, our medica staff exhausted, and refrigerated trailers are ready to hold the dead bodies, most people don't give a sh¡t about historical accretion or composition. They'll simply assert their value judgements and fumble along according to their hallucinations.

And if that's really the case, then Falun Gong (and animism, BTW) should be eradicated as the total bullsh¡t it is. As for the Chinese government, the enemy of my enemy is sometimes my friend. Even a broken clock is right twice a day... which is why military time is best! 8^D


On 12/29/20 10:24 AM, jon zingale wrote:
> Falun Gong is an interesting case. Across from the University of Texas at
> Austin was one of my all-time favorite vegetarian restaurants, Veggie
> Heaven. The owners of VH were Falun Dafa practitioners from China. Images
> about the restaurant portrayed meditators floating above lotuses with auras
> of light. The last page of the menu included a heartfelt letter speaking
> about the plight of practitioners in China, complete with images of beaten,
> imprisoned and tortured practitioners. The prices at the restaurant were
> very inexpensive (one could get a veggie bowl for $5) and yet they would
> participate in a daily humanitarian effort. Homebums and traveler kids would
> find their way to the door of VH, hold up a finger or two, and shortly a man
> would step out of the door and bring them food. This would happen dozens of
> times a day. One day, even I tried it and low-and-behold, hot food was given
> to me.
> 
> Shortly after this introduction, I started looking into the qigong practices
> and history of Falun Dafa. No doubt it appeared to be a questionably
> bureaucratic organization, not unlike the Christian churches here in the
> west. That said, the qigong practices seemed to do something for my base
> stress level.
> 
> Through my continued interest, and access to the wonderfully extensive UT
> library stacks, I came across the book "Breathing Spaces: qigong,
> psychiatry, and healing in China" (a book which I believe I have mentioned
> on Friam before). To my surprise, the book does not so much cover the health
> benefits of qigong but rather chronicles mental health issues involving
> qigong practices, persecution of qigong practitioners in Chinese psychiatric
> hospitals, and the rise of belief in "superhuman abilities" via qigong in
> China shortly after the Tiananmen Square incident.
> 
> The big take-home for me, and a possible connection to organizations like
> qAnon, is that in times of hardship it is well documented that communities
> have been observed incorporating "supernatural belief and abilities" into a
> kind of warrior's narrative. For instance, historians like John Hope
> Franklin [1] and anthropologist Wade Davis [2] have noted this tendency in
> the transformation of Yoruba into Voudun by Africans brought as slaves to
> the new world.
> 
> Once while playing go with my buddy Joe at St. Johns, I asked him about the
> perception of Falun Gong in China (he is from Hefei). Joe's take was that it
> was a largely fraudulent and criminal organization and that the Chinese
> government was very much right to go after it. I didn't press him very hard,
> in part so as to not strain our relationship (a potential weakness on my
> part). Still, when I search the web even now, I am surprised by the amount
> of literature that exists pointing to the potential mental health risks of
> such a meditative practice. In the conclusion of Qigong-induced mental
> disorders: a review[3], the authors state:
> 
> "Despite the widespread use of Qigong, there is a conspicuous lack of
> controlled data regarding its effects on mental health. Qigong, when
> practiced inappropriately, may induce abnormal psychosomatic responses and
> even mental disorders."
> 
> Which, when I read it I cannot help but feel that this "peer-reviewed paper"
> is somehow propaganda.
> 
> I am not always so sure what it could mean to "trust" nations or peer-review
> in this post-enlightenment period. Yesterday, the United States
> president-elect gave an address where he reports that "Many of the agencies
> that are critical to our security have incurred enormous damage. Many of
> them have been hollowed out"[4]. If he is speaking truthfully, then I am
> unsure what a network of trust can be. If he is not, then the same. My
> takeaway here is that it is more than reasonable to have a lack of faith in
> one another and in our institutions. I speculate, that without good cause to
> restore trust, we ought to expect organizations like qAnon to become more
> mainstream.
> 
> Meanwhile in the US: 300k dead from Covid, rampant unemployment, a K-shaped
> economy, closings of small businesses, and a stock market decoupled from the
> economy. Bipartisan politics has: given rise to climate change as a
> political button, prevented many in need from receiving assistance, and a
> political system decoupled from reasoning about issues. Those of us in the
> upper part of the K-shape hold onto our stocks and jobs and hope that it
> gets better. Those of us in the lower part prepare for what?
> 
> [1] From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (at least I
> think it was here?)
> [2] The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey
> into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic
> [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10336217/
> [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mkRWc9yKIQ&ab_channel=GuardianNews


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