Pollution is affecting our climates, increasing the severity of storms, and causing shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. It has been said time and time again, and yet it continues to be said, with good reason might I add! A recent study published in the scientific journal Nature, conducted by a team headed by Camilo Mora, claims that global temperatures will be drastically climbing within a generation. In less than 50 years we can see historical increases in temperatures, beating all past recorded highs for global temperatures. Imagine unbearable summers, intense heat waves, and dry times causing droughts and famine. At the same time, imagine freezing winter storms, strange weather patterns and unpredictable seasons. This is all in response to the amount of increase in greenhouse gas emissions and the effect they have on our temperature and weather patterns.
Now you may be wondering what exactly it all means, what a good comparison would be. The world’s hottest day was on July 10, 1913, clocking in at 134 degrees Fahrenheit in Death Valley, California. With global temperatures on the rise, and with the study predicting a drastic increase of global highs within 50 years, we can expect to see that high of 134 degrees Fahrenheit once again being reached, maybe even surpassed, sometime in the near future. Yikes. It is not only the heat we have to worry abut, but the erratic weather patterns as well, causing melting ice caps, deadly storms, intense rain; just to name a few.
After all, weather patterns are responsible for half of our daily waking lives:
It rains, we cancel our sporting activity (some hardcore players may disagree).
It snows, well SNOW DAY of course! (Sometimes).
Hurricane/Tornado/Typhoon, houses damaged.
Humid Hot Days, stay in and blast the A/C
Anyway, you get the point. Whether you agree that weather and weather patterns are intensifying and impacting the world is up to you, but what are our preventative measures against this? Some talk of greener technology, some speak of wind power and solar power, while some encourage changes in car performance and oil usage. Some ideas even recommend taking advantage of the increasingly severe weather patterns to embrace the positive changes and avoid or harness the bad.
None of these ideas are drastic enough to stop pollution all together, nothing drastic enough to clean up more pollution than we are generating. Maybe it is because we believe ourselves to be unbeatable and indestructible, that no matter what we do or destroy, human ingenuity will persevere.
Actually, we humans have always adapted and something like changing weather patterns and rising temperatures would be nothing new for us. In fact, I believe it would call for new crop irrigation techniques, new ideas towards more efficient cooling systems, and maybe even force us to venture out into space to colonize planets for the sake of our survival. An extreme, yes, but with our rate of pollution, and with the way we like to live comfortably and excessively, I would not be surprised if the proposed colonization of Mars is actually a trial for the coming desperate times. Weather patterns may shift, but so will humanity.
A new study has yielded that with our current rate of pollution, we will have to waste some 60 trillion dollars due to climate change. That cost will not be up front, it is mostly found in money we will likely have to spend to counter all the effects of global warming. Mother Nature sure has expensive tastes. According to some figures posted in the International Weekly Journal of Science: Nature, we are causing some costly damage to our planet, but that should not come as a surprise to us as we are still completely dependent on fossil fuels and wars over oil still exist throughout the world.
So what is it exactly? Why is this type of Global Warming a bad thing?
It seems to be that methane, which is stored under the melting ice of the Arctic, will be released as the melting icecaps continue to diminish. Researchers claim that:
A 50-gigatonne (Gt) reservoir of methane, stored in the form of hydrates, exists on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. It is likely to be emitted as the seabed warms, either steadily over 50 years or suddenly.
If all of that methane were to be released, we would most likely see a time where the climate shifts more than 2°C, causing intense weather patterns and wind pattern changes. Maybe you have noticed the recent intense weather patterns? The storms that rage and destroy? The flash floods that are intensifying in your area? The little degree or two extra that the global temperature has been altered by over the years is rapidly messing with our climate, and it is likely that we will only see more drastic results in our lifetimes if this sudden outpour of methane occurs.
Still, 60 trillion dollars, isn’t that a bit much?
For a time there has been speculation that the coasts would plummet underwater and we would all live in a Waterworld! Oh Kevin Costner, you do tickle my fancy so. But all of that was of the extremist perspective of course. There are however smaller versions of this, for instance the idea that California’s coasts will be completely submerged may be a plausible theory if all of Greenland’s ice melts. NRDC or Natural Resources Defense Council states that:
Greenland holds 10 percent of the total global ice mass. If it melts, sea levels could increase by up to 21 feet.
That 21 feet would likely raise sea levels and ocean levels high enough to take away from our beaches, and leave us with a smaller and less attractive California. Not to mention all the destruction and devastation in such an occurrence. And this is just California. In reality, the big thing to watch is the storms and wind pattern changes. And by watch I mean experience. In 2006 TIME posted that:
Two studies last year found that in the past 35 years the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has doubled while the wind speed and duration of all hurricanes has jumped 50%.
That was in 2006. At that rate, we can expect many many more damaging changes and the price to pay for all that is very, very steep. It might be even higher than the predicted 60 trillion. In fact, all of this is happening and the release of methane stored under the icecaps hasn’t begun yet. Tis a dangerous road we walk upon.
Leave it to us to mess up mother nature’s plan for Earth. Well, if its bound to happen anyways, might as well buy that Camaro ZL1 that I have always wanted and burn the crap out of some oil! MMM 580 HP…
We all know soda and diet soda aren’t exactly good for us. Pretty much in the same way that any sugar filled treat isn’t good for us right? Fatally wrong. Soda, yes, even diet soda, is one of the most harmful substances that you could possibly fill your form with, yet people still down the stuff like a dehydrated cactus lapping at a single drop of water. Even the cans that soda normally come in are incredibly harmful. The truth is that even a single gulp of soda is like a 120 mph head on collision with a brick wall for your organs. Need an extra push to kick your soda habit? Do yourself a favor and read on.
If everyone knows soda is bad for them, why do millions of people still tilt their heads back and indulge? The answer is simple: it’s easy. Soda is tasty, cheap, convenient, and EVERYWHERE! No matter where you go you’re bound to see an advertisement for some type of can or bottle of sugary satisfaction. There’s a reason advertisements exist, and it’s not for aesthetics: Advertising works!
Your brain is constantly processing every minute detail of information that your senses even remotely capture. Whether you remember it or not, all of this information is stored in your brain. If a Mountain Dew advertisement steps into your peripheral vision for even a moment it seeps into the murky depths of your mind and the next time your friend even mentions the word ‘mountain’ or ‘dew’ – BAM! Your synapses fire, a connection is made to the instantaneous glance of the Mountain Dew advertisement you saw earlier and your mouth begins to water. Why does your mouth water? Because you are addicted.
Soda is almost entirely water, sugar and caffeine, and sugar and caffeine happen to be two of the most addictive substances on the planet, nearly equal in their biological sway to heroin and meth. Consumption of sugar and caffeine are associated with a whole slew of attractive words like ‘binge,’ ‘craving,’ and ‘withdrawal.’
But that’s okay, people can become addicted to anything, whether it be carrots, television, or sex, so what’s the big deal?
The Big Deal: Soda Vs. Diet Soda
Soda and diet soda each have their own disgusting face that the advertisements hide, but let’s start with good ol’ regular soda first.
Within the first 10 minutes,10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. This is 100 percent of your
recommended daily intake, and the only reason you don’t vomit as a result of the overwhelming sweetness is because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor.
Within 20 minutes, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat.
Within 40 minutes, caffeine absorption is complete; your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, and your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream.
Around 45 minutes, your body increases dopamine production, which stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain – a physically identical response to that of heroin, by the way.
After 60 minutes, you’ll start to have a sugar crash.
Drug goes in, pleasure comes out, then CRASH! So you drink some more. Compared to the physiological effects of a simple serving of soda, cannabis suddenly doesn’t sound so bad after all.
The long term effects are far more startling. Let’s take a look at the specifics and scare your desire for soda back into the pit of future diabetes where it came from!
2. Soda is useless. There are absolutely no nutritionally beneficial components to soda, with the exception of a measly 4mg of potassium. Soda excels in one area: expanding your waistline.
5. If Mountain Dew can dissolve a rat think about what it does to your body, especially the enamel of your teeth. Soda is about as good for your enamel as staring directly at the midday sun is good for your eyesight. It is even worse for your teeth and causes more tooth decay than traditional hard candy. Sure, soda is cheap, but when’s the last time you only spent a few dollars at the dentist?
6. Drinking soda leads to kidney disease. All it takes is 2 servings of soda a day and you are automatically added to the long line of people more than likely to be diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. Soda also dramatically increases the rate of formation of kidney stones. It doesn’t take much either. Just a slight amount of soda consumption is a sure path leading to pain worse than child labor. As a person who has passed a kidney stone before, listen to me and not your tongue; the soda isn’t worth it!
7. Consumption of soda leads to harmful effects on the liver similar to the effects that alcohol has on the liver. When it comes to the liver, soda junkies are no better than alcoholics.
9. Finally, there is a high addiction potential when it comes to soda. As stated above, caffeine and sugar are insanely addictive. Many researchers are suggesting that sugar to be as controlled as alcohol and tobacco due to its harmful effects on the body and incredibly addictive nature.
At this point you might be thinking “I’m no fool, I dropped soda years back and replaced it with diet soda, the healthy alternative to all my sugary-sweet woes.” Think again, diet soda is even worse.
Diet Soda
A lot of what you read about soda still applies to diet soda. A common misconception is that diet soda is better for you than regular soda due to being calorie free as it does not contain high fructose corn syrup. Allow me to explain to you how diet soda is even worse!
1. Although diet soda doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup, it does contain artificial sweeteners so that your tongue can still get excited. The most common artificial sweetener used is aspartame, which is closer to a toxin than anything else. People from all over the world have reported adverse reactions to aspartame and double blind studies verify the results. The toxicological dangers of aspartame are well documented and the general rule of thumb that you will hear from medical professionals regarding the substance is to treat aspartame like a desperate Louis Vuitton wielding female and, “stay far, far away!”
2. Just like regular soda, diet soda is nutritionally useless, containing carbonated water, caramel color (depending on the soda), aspartame, phosphoric acid, potassium citrate, natural flavors, citric acid, and caffeine. There is no conceivable benefit to consuming soda or diet soda besides the fraction of a second pleasure your tongue devilishly persuades your brain is worth the well documented risks.
How could a zero-calorie drink raise your risk of obesity? Researchers have a few theories. Some people may feel that drinking diet soda gives them a “free pass” to eat more foods that may not be so low in calories, thereby leading to weight gain. Another theory posits that the sweet taste of diet pop alerts our digestive system that high-calorie foods are coming. When they don’t, our bodies are confused and our appetite increases in anticipation of the food it’s expecting.
4. Keep in mind that diet soda still contains phosphoric acid so the risk of bone loss is still ever present for diet soda drinkers.
5. Although the pH level (acidity) of diet soda is not as strong as regular soda, it is still extremely acidic, and leads to enamel loss in the same way that soda does.
6. Remember the kidney problems that were associated with regular sodas? Same applies to diet sodas. Sorry ladies and gentleman, diet soda is not going to fix the kidney stone problem.
7. If you’re fond of dark sodas, I have bad news for you. Researchers have found that the seemingly harmless caramel coloring found in dark sodas may lead to an increase risk of multiple forms of cancer.
8. Diet sodas even more commonly contain that wretched chemical sodium benzoate. Again, sodium benzoate causes irreparable cell and DNA damage, leading to accelerated aging and age related diseases. If you’re part of the YOLO fad, maybe soda is for you, otherwise, stop burning your wick at both ends, put down the soda, and ‘live long and prosper.’
9. To sum up, diet soda involves all the same risks as soda, and is also associated with a higher risk of obesity, greater toxicity due to aspartame, and even greater DNA damage.
So what should you drink?
Water, tea, and every so often 100% fruit juice, but not too much as fruit juice contains a hefty amount of sugars, even if they are natural. Seem like a boring list? Well guess what? Doing a crossword puzzle in the comfort of your home might be boring but it beats dying of cancer as an obese diabetic 50 year old on a semi-sterile hospital bed.
Besides, tea is a world of variation regarding taste and physical effect. I guarantee there are at minimum 100 diferent types of tea out there that you will discover and fall eternally in love with, if only you make a conscious effort and kick the soda habit. One of my favorite brands of tea is Yogi.
Make no mistake, soda is an addictive drug, and it will take time to wean yourself off of it. Once you do though, you will wonder how you ever stomached the horrid junk in the first place.
Predicting the future is hard. At least that’s what Nostradamus tells me every time I’m on mescaline. But, damn it, if Ed McMann can do it, we might as well take a swing here at Wondergressive.
According to the calendar, it’s been 2013 for a little while now, and that means it’s probably safe to say we didn’t all explode in boiling hellfire at the end of 2012. It’s unfortunate, because, of all the dooms-day prophecies floating around, that Mayan prediction was especially promising. That means, though, if ever there was a time to plan for the future, it’s today.
It may come in the form of implanting our sentience into cyborgs, imprinting clones with a map of the alpha version’s memories, or just extending our stays on this plane to 6 or 700 years via sea turtle style metabolism manipulation. However events may unfold, Carpe Diem has never before been so pertinent. (If immortality’s too big of a leap, just follow some of the previous links and see what we mean.)
So in the spirit of having oodles of time to do whatever the hell you want, we present you with part one of Qwizx’s guide to surfing oblivion.
Step 1: Shifting Perspectives (Introduction to the Avatar mindset)
Just change your mind a bit. The tools have been laid out already for those in the mood to adapt rather than shunt the burden off onto the next generation. Let’s take a moment and let some of the implications of prolonged life settle in…The ritual goes: same window, different visuals…
Instead of renting, or mooching off the parents, as immortals, we now own the property. Every perk and burden that comes with that. Global warming something you’re concerned about? You personally will be here in a few thousand years to experience the fall out. Think the country’s going to shit? You, yourself, will be witnessing the rise and fall of empires and shift of power regimes. Want to own your own continent? Spend a few hundred years amassing a fortune and learning all the skills you’ll need to rise to the top and control the ignorant populace. Want to topple a violent dictator? Same thing, control the ignorant populace. The point is, you will have the time, so anything conceivable is not only within your grasp, it’s your responsibility to foresee. Congratulations, us.
Just pretend you know with certainty that you and all those you love will live forever, then jot it down.
I understand this has just been a tease, a bit of intellectual foreplay to ponder, but I hope you’re as titillated as I am. Over the next few weeks we’ll be covering a whole range of lessons for the up and coming demi-god, from the 10,000 hour mastery law to do-it-yourself propaganda to Napoleon Hill’s formula for becoming the next Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
In any case, let’s not waste the next millennia on boredom.
You know him. Maybe you are him. The casual acquaintance, not quite friend, he saunters forward, dilated pupils scanning over each of his shoulders, iPad casually out and ready, a knowing smile forming a crest of righteously pompous paranoia across his stubbled jaw, beads of youthfully enthusiastic perspiration clinging to his hipster handlebar mustache, and, beaming with false solidarity, he presses play:
Half-way through the clip, he starts digging through his leather “Tool” wallet and pulls out five pre-creased bills to further baffle you with (below).
Ok, great, I’ve seen this stuff before. So was 9-11 an inside job? Maybe just allowed to happen for private agendas? It’s old played-out news, and, most likely, your mind was made up long ago. The more important question no one seems to be asking is, “why should we give a shit?”
Woah woah woah!! You can’t mean that?
I do. Absolutely. And if I do my job here, hopefully you’ll be shrugging with indifference as well by the end of this article, and the world can be a happier place with just a few more rainbows and baby unicorn farts. Come follow me on this fanciful rollercoaster ride, enjoy all the benefits of “disregarding bad news.”
Where we stand
Today, 36% of Americans either are certain or pretty sure that 9-11 was an inside job. So, this is not some fringe group of loonies, but a rather hefty chunk of “we the people,” not to mention the masses on the fence open-minded to the idea. The countless YouTube links circulating Facebook are everywhere so the question has been posed to just about everyone by now. If we can all unite for a moment and assume the very worst, “9-11 was our government killing its own people,” that’s exactly why we need to knock this right the hell off. Terrorism is bad, but thinking about terrorism is far worse…
There is a natural rhythm to peering down the rabbit hole. First is the rush of finding something sensational; it triggers this carnal craving to be “in the know”. Then, once the initial high of learning something edgy wears off, the specific details slowly fade away from our memories and we’re left with only a few linchpin ideas. These are the singular points that, at least to us, are utterly irrefutable. The linchpin is a beautiful mental process that allows us to unburden and feel righteous in our opinion, free wonder about other things.
On the official story believer’s side of the case is the old, “how could that many people possibly keep something this big a secret?” Then, to the conspiracy theorists, all they need are 2 words, “building 7,” and the argument is over. In either case, it’s like an atheist preaching to a born-again; it always ends in a, “well I just have faith,” and a perforated stress-ulcer coupled with bloody stool.
I mean something far greater than apathy when I say this: once you quit giving a shit, it’ll all be roses. I promise.
Whoever the group responsible, there is a wide array of believed motives. Conspirators say Iraq war, oil, create enemy, repeal rights, globalization, fear agenda. Meanwhile, official storyers say… umm… “They hate freedom” or something, U.S.’s Saudi Arabia presence, sanctions on Iraq. Whoever the culprits, whatever the aim, each of these explanations shares a common bond; they all hide under the same umbrella: “propaganda.” There is some message that attack was designed to send. There was a message, and that is part of why we need to stop caring…
See, the mind of the conspiracy theorist is an interesting place. They tend to be the more curious amongst us, believing themselves more open to the truth than others. Whether their world view is ever validated or not, there have always been a segment of the people who don’t buy the “official line.” Be it JFK, the moon landing, Lincoln, freemason founding fathers, or “God” is a mistranslation for “Aliens,” alternative explanations of history abound.
What that means is, if a small powerful group of the world’s elite was responsible for 9-11, they knew full-well that some would shout “bullshit.” It’s a matter of human nature. So don’t you think, just maybe, if they knew how you’d react, that might have been part of the plan?…
I hope you can bear with me here. Remember, we’re still assuming the “truthers” are right.
Since the 60’s, the idea of “the man” has been all but ubiquitous, but in the last decade especially, an overwhelming shift in perspective has occurred to where it’s now just assumed common knowledge that “your government is out to get you,” like some unspoken rule. FEMA camps, chemtrails, illuminati symbols, clips of cops beating rioters all flood through our bandwidth. Ideas that would have gotten one ostracized a decade ago are now commonplace. politicians are corrupt, the news is filled with lies, food is poison and breathing causes cancer, so cynicism seems to be justified, but let me ask you this: How bad was 9-11 really?
Even the “they” out to get you isn’t out to get you.
3000 people died that day. That’s terrible, but not really (how dare you?). Nearly 3000 people have died since you started reading this article.
But those weren’t Americans so it’s not as important? Or, those were largely natural causes (circle of life)?
The callous truth is, in spite of all the hype, the numbers are a speck of rubble amidst the heap of steel and concrete that is human mortality. Being blown up by a terrorist is terrifying (hence the name), but not only are you more likely to die slipping in the shower than you are to die in a terrorist attack, you are 4,167 times more likely (where’s the war on hygiene?).
Here’s what I’m suggesting: the result has been accomplished. Even If our own government were the orchestrators of 9-11 (again, maybe so, maybe not), it absolutely doesn’t matter.
The numbers are so small they are inconsequential. If the government attacks its own people, you should worry about it if you also expect to be struck by lightning while holding a winning lottery ticket; it could happen, but it won’t.
The dwindling baby-boomers who still trust FOX-news may fear terrorist, but the internet doesn’t. The internet, though, is afraid. We are afraid of something far worse…
If these elusive shadow men really run the show, the larger game was not anything tangible, but the propaganda campaign that followed, where we now collectively fear our government. That was the aim. The result has been this massive uneasiness on the collective mind of the people that the one’s they were supposed to rely on were out to get them, and that is far scarier.
Pissed off guys in caves with access to box cutters is not a threat to a heavily armed nation. But a group who controls the riot police, watches all the satellites, monitors your browsing history, and owns the judicial system is trying to kill you… that’s scary.
Guess what, my friends; they aren’t. 3000 people. Whoever it was killed just enough to make it seem plausible that they are killing us. They aren’t. They just aren’t. Do serial killers exist? Of course. Will you be skinned and made into a lampshade at some point this week? Absolutely not!!!
Now I can already hear the backlash. “He must be working for the man. They got to Qwizx, too.” Or, “What about the FEMA camps, flying drones, and U.S. citizens put on no-fly lists or labeled terrorists without trial?”
Yep. Those are things alright. So what? The only thing that’s changed is now we know about it. Far worse things have happened and will continue to, because that is part of the human condition. Say thank you to the internet for being a check on the villains of the world’s nefarious bullshit. You are just as safe you were before you did a Google search for codex alimentarius, but now you are aware.
They want you scared; there’s nothing to be scared of. When you “expose the truth” you’re really the one spreading the fear. The very powers you’re trying to expose, you are doing their job for them.
A few weeks ago, we posted a potentially paradigm altering question: Can the human mind be trained into photographic recollection? (This is a follow up, so maybe check out the link before reading on) Two sentences are more than enough build up. The results are in folks, and…
The short answer is “yes”.
The slightly longer answer is “FUCK YEAH!!!! WHEW!!!! (6 back-flips)”
For the last month, I’ve been religiously following this protocol, and it has worked. I have a photographic memory. No joke. After the power-lust erection and adrenaline jitters subsided, after a few hours of daydreaming plots to use this new ability for super-villainy, after a day of gazing at perfect recollections of stolen glances at cleavage, I feel I’ve calmed down enough to share with you eager readers the wonderful news… and you can totally have this too.
It’s incredibly easy. Do it. That’s really all you need to know. Do it now… but for the more curious, like I know you are, just a few things:
What’s happening in the brain that makes this work?
Well, there are 2 theories of how color vision works. Trichromatic theory says, essentially, that there are 3 types of cones (receptors) in the eye that sense specific pairs of colors; the occipital lobe then translates this information into what we call vision.
More interestingly, though, and what we’ll be looking at in detail, is the opponent-process theory of colored vision. With the opponent-process theory, whenever it suddenly shifts to dark, a perfect photo-negative image of whatever was just in the visual field gets transposed onto the retina. That’s the mechanism at work for the well-known illusion on the right (stare for ten seconds, then look away and blink fast) (or maybe it’s God talking to you. I don’t know). That negative image is what we utilize for super memory…
As long as the eyes are open, these negative images are constantly being processed and filtered by the brain. See, way too much is happening at once, though. Your eyes take in trillions and trillions of bits of visual information every instant, and almost none of it matters. So the occipital lobe, hard-worker that he is, weeds out what it doesn’t think is necessary. While you “see” everything around you, you only actually perceive an infinitesimal amount, the things that pertain to your safety/survival or what you’re focusing on in the moment. For example:
So, how does the occipital lobe know what’s important? Easy, you tell it. You do this all the time and don’t even think about it. A new parent will notice the “Diapers: Half Price” sign that the rest of us glazed over like it had neon lights, just like Alex Jones fans tend to see the chemtrails and “all-seeing eyes,” as though reality had been hit by a highlighter. Watch: right now, take a quick moment, without moving your eyes; notice all the things around you that are the color black…
Easy, of course, but did you notice that while you were doing that, everything else just sort of faded away? You could still see it, but it just wasn’t in focus, sort of. This is the process we hack…
The mind is plastic, flexible to our will, and if we know how it operates, we can train it to do just about anything. To develop a photographic memory; we need only develop a simple habit, so, real quick, let’s understand how habits work. It’s 30 days. That simple. If we do something every day, after 30 days, it no longer takes effort. The mind is retrained and the process is automatic (remember this for anything you want to do, because it’s universal, not just for memory training).
So with the dark-room process, we read words etched into our retinas, right. These negative images are always there and, usually, disregarded as irrelevant. What we’re doing is stepping into this process and saying, “Hey, don’t throw that out just yet. Let me take a look at that.” (You control your brain; your brain doesn’t control you, and never let anyone tell you otherwise), so the brain says “Oh, ok. Here it is. I didn’t realize you wanted that.” Your brain, however, is in the habit of tossing these negatives, so every day for a month we step in and say, “let me see that for a second.” after 30 days, the brain gets the point and will automatically save these images for you to look at whenever you want. Welcome to the club; you now have a photographically perfect memory.
Additional tips (in retrospect)
1.) Don’t read a book. The absolute best thing to attempt to read is not a book. What works much better is black background with bright and blocky white lettering. Far far easier to try to read.
2.) Wink. Part of the frustration you’ll come across with attempting to read your hindsight is overexposure. If you flash the lights before the image is totally dissolved, there is this overlap effect, like double exposed film (I’m not too ancient for remembering what film is, am I?). The solution: wink. Do it with one eye at a time; it has no effect on the process and allows one eye to recover as the other works. Doing this, my overall exercise got to as little as 3 minutes.
3.) Ask. Who knows how many little gimmicks and tricks I figured out? Feel free to write me at qwizx@wondergressive.com. I’ll get back to you as quick as my busy life will let me, and if there’re enough of the same questions, later, I’ll add an FAQ to the bottom here.
Finally, and most importantly, did I mention “fuck yeah” and “cleavage?”
Isn’t it fun to pretend we have control over our bodies? Isn’t it fun to believe that freewill isn’t some fanciful bit of make-believe? I don’t know about you, but that’s one of my favorite late night drunken fantasies (oh yeah, gettin off (or not) to the illusion of choice). Really though, the bag of chemicals we live in is a precarious balance of hormones, enzymes, and other gook, teetering the high wire of sanity by the tiniest margins. If that statement needs any justification, maybe give PCP a try.
The excretions of other life forms have altered our realities and actions for epochs, so the idea is nothing new. Usually we think, however, that these things are mostly under our control. From licking a toad, contracting the stomach flu, or perhaps a total personality makeover after a blow to the head, our body’s chemicals and fluids determine everything. So, keeping that in mind… there’s a good chance you, at this very moment, have a mind-controlling parasite, making your decisions for you. It happens all the time.
Half of the world’s population is currently infected with a fun-loving little fucker known as Toxoplasma, the sci-fi sounding name of a cat poop dwelling parasite that will make you crazy.
Try saying it out loud. Toxoplasma. You’ll feel pretty badass.
Now look to your left. Look to your right. You have a 50% chance of infection of…Toxoplasma. (You said it out loud, right?)
Come on. You can’t be serious?
We already knew bacteria were controlling our minds, but now there’s this little fella, too. He lives in cat poop, we breathe him in, and he sets up shop in our nervous system, excreting enzymes that lead to schizophrenia and overall bat-shittedness (not necessarily a bad thing). Essentially, I get infected, I get this hankering for another cat, then I get more infected, I adopt the conviction “who needs men?” and before you know it my home soon becomes a den of feline chaos.
It seems that society’s obsession with lolcats is actually all a part of some master plan being orchestrated by this little bastard. It flips our brain’s chemistry to, you guessed it, love cats.
The heated war between dog people and cat people will rage for centuries more, but now we know about all the fuss over our feline friends: we are victims of a cat conspiracy to take over our internet memes, one poop at a time.
Ripped directly from the headlines of tomorrow comes the announcement that men in black are indeed here now. Never fear though. A bit of future technology, now well into the experimental phase, has effectively been used on test subjects to wipe selective memories.
We have shown previously that lateral amygdala (LA) neurons with increased cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element–binding protein (CREB) are preferentially activated by fear memory expression, which suggests that they are selectively recruited into the memory trace. We used an inducible diphtheria-toxin strategy to specifically ablate these neurons.
…Or in lay-speak, “See that bit of brain there? When I scooped it out, he didn’t remember anymore. Cool, huh?”
Wow, how’s that work?
Because memories are found in specific collections of neurons, haphazardly zig-zagging the brain, and digging around in the brain is kind of hard (it’s brain surgery, not simple rocket science), finding the particular cells that carry a memory is like finding a needle in an active volcano.
This new development, however, uses a CREB protein as a marker, dropping the difficulty to finding a needle in a hive of fire-ants. This highlights the role of a particular neuron bundle in a memory (snip, easy as circumcision), and suddenly Uncle Rick is no longer lobbing coffee cups at Thanksgiving dinner when the electric carver reminds him of Charlie back in ‘Nam.
Now, when it comes to memory, we’ve seen how to fix it in the elderly, implant fake memories for entertaining the kids, and even develop photographic recollection, but now: Eternal Sunshine, Total Recall, Memento; take your pick. On Monday, how bout Jason Bourne-ing” the shit out of your parents and when they start to suspect they’re super-soldiers, leap out with an “April Fools, you’re actually a middle-class suburbanite!!!” Get’s ’em every time.
Joking aside, obviously the ramifications of this new procedure are staggering, and the potential for… wait… What was I talking about?
Fun side-note:
Anyway. Almost totally unrelated (segways are for chumps), something you won’t want to forget: kick-start you day being serenaded in Portuguese by a dimply Brazilian girl. Easier to greet the world with a smile…
Oh, you’ve heard of photographic memory before? Than perhaps you’ve already heard of Stephen Wiltshire, a.k.a’ed as “the Human Camera.” He is the artist responsible for the picture above, aptly titled “Monte Carlo.” I’m no art critic, but the tremendous accomplishment in this work is almost unparalleled in human history, not because the painting is especially brilliant in form or technique, but because the image depicted is photographically perfect to what you would see in a helicopter ride over Monte Carlo. For only a brief few minutes, a helicopter ride is just what Stephen went on; then he went on to paint this work entirely from memory.
Stephen is an autistic savant who sketches perfect skylines, down to the minutest of details, directly from his briefly-glimpsed photographic memories. Much has been said about this incredible young man already, and a full length documentary can be seen here, but this article is not about Stephen. It is about you. It is about you and your ability to do the exact same thing: develop a photographic memory.
The Photographic Memory
Photographic memory, yeah, just like that. darozz.tumblr.com
Lauded across civilization as one of the ultimate powers of mankind, the photographic memory has long resided in the realms of mythos, ambiguously skating the lines between reality and legend. The possibilities of attaining such a superhero ability, being nearly limitless, fill one’s mind with a power-high from just imagining it. Yet, as it currently stands, our general understandings widely boil down to hearsay and urban legend, dismissed the way of alchemy, until now…
On ehow.com, there is a tutorial on how to develop a photographic memory using only household appliances, within the span of a mere 30 days. Outrageous! Wild claims are nothing new to the internet and bullshit alarms should sound pretty quick. This method, however, seems to keep showing up over and over and overall acrossthe internet like a foul rumor that just won’t die. While repetition hardly grants the premise credence, it does bring to light an intriguing question. Why can’t we find anyone who’s actually done it?
For such a simple training program with such amazing benefits, it seems no one is willing to put in the effort, or if they are, they are unwilling to share their newfound photographic memory with the world. So this is where we come in…
As of the publication of this article, I am 7 days into my own regimen, and I can tell you I’ve glimpsed victory (more on that shortly). This is, though, the 4th attempt I’ve made in the last 6 months, for reasons we’ll look at in a moment. Our focus here is to validate or discredit this idea by self experimentation, posting results, and looking for feedback/others interested in training their brains to be more.
The Photographic Memory Method (basic)
Instructions
1. This system will take 1 month for you to develop a photographic memory, you must take 15 minutes every day and dedicate it to this training. For the first month, your eyes will take about 5 minutes time to adjust to daylight reading.
2. Find a dark room in your house, free of distractions for 15 minutes. I use the bathroom. The room must have a bright lamp or ceiling lamp.
3. Sit down next to the light switch with your book and paper that has a rectangular hole cut out of it the size of a paragraph.
4. Cover the page, exposing only one paragraph and hold the book out in front of you. Close your eyes and open, adjust distance so that your eyes focus instantly with ease on the writing.
5. Turn off light. You will see an after glow as your eyes adjust to the dark. Flip light on for a split second and then off again.
6. You will have a visual imprint in your eyes of the material that was in front of you. When this imprint fades, flip the light on again for a split second, again staring at the material.
7. Repeat this process until you can recall every word in the paragraph in order. You will be able to actually see the paragraph and read it from the imprint in your mind.
Tips & Warnings
Do not get discouraged, it will work. It has been working for the military for 70 years.
You will be developing this technique to a point where you will be able to execute this during the day, all day.
Rate this article with the stars by my screen name.
Omitting even one day, can prolong training by as much as a week.
As I’ve said, I’ve tried and failed 4 times now, but I’ve learned a few secrets along the way that I’d like to share, because I have seen this work.
But why did you fail the last 4 times?
Well, it’s pretty simple actually. It’s boring. Actually putting in the effort to get a photographic memory is boring and tedious but mostly there was no feedback or reassurance because no one else (as far as we know) has done this yet. So, sitting in a dark bathroom every morning, frankly, I felt like a lunatic and quit. Congratulations to you, then. I’m here at your disposal (qwizx@wondergressive.com) and with enough traffic, we’ll be starting a forum as well, so you have just gotten past the biggest obstacle of attaining a photographic memory, no support, and haven’t even done anything yet. All that said, let’s break this down step by step, so you can know what to expect.
Photographic memoy, or eidetic memoryhttp://www.tumblr.com/tagged/eidetic%20memory
1. This system will take 1 month for you to develop. You must take 15 minutes every day and dedicate it to this training. For the first month, your eyes will take about 5 minute’s time to adjust to daylight reading.
The first few days are really interesting, because the sensations are just spectacular. You’ll literally be able to see into the past through peripheral images burned into your retina. As for 15 minutes, this isn’t quite right. For the first several days, it will be more like 30-45; then you’ll develop a system and be able to pull back to 15. When it says “5 minutes to adjust,” this means don’t start the process until you’ve been in the dark for at least 5 minutes. After the novelty wears off, this routine will get tedious, so I highly recommend using this few minutes wisely: turn on some music for a reference to how much time has passed and brush your teeth or any other bits of your morning routine that don’t require light. I go so far as to take a waterproof flashlight into my cold shower (you can get flash images of individual droplets hovering in midair).
2. Find a dark room in your house, free of distractions for 15 minutes. I use the bathroom. The room must have a bright lamp or ceiling lamp.
The bathroom works well, but it must be pitch black. Be sure to shove a towel under the crack in the door and unplug any appliances with even a tiny light. “Dark” just won’t cut it; it needs to be complete blackness. Also, if you’re using a bathroom (closet works great too), be sure to let anyone living with you know you’ll be in there for a while, cause it’s really frustrating to be 12 minutes in and get an “I gotta pee” knock, only to have to start all over.
3. Sit down next to the light switch with a book and a paper that has a rectangular hole cut out of it the size of a paragraph.
Light switch is great, but flashlight is better so you won’t have to stand uncomfortably the whole time. The type of bulb is important as well; it can’t be one that emits residual light, cooling down gradually, as it needs to be a quick flash and nothing more or the effect is ruined. LED is excellent. As far as the book goes, forget it for the first few days. Just play around with the process until you can see a fair amount of detail in various objects in the room. After a few days, incorporate a book, but a child’s book with very large print (or print off anything you’d like, but with at least 20 sized font). Don’t be discouraged, because on the first day you won’t be able to read a paragraph, just get a vague shape of the page. it improves over time.
4. Cover the page, exposing only one paragraph and hold the book out in front of you. Close your eyes and open, adjust distance so that your eyes focus instantly with ease on the writing.
The concept here is fascinating: you’ll be training yourself to be able to read a paragraph only from a brief glance. After 30 days, the amount of time it takes to establish a habit, you’re mind will essentially be on autopilot, doing this automatically. How cool! Over time use smaller and smaller font to train your eyes.
5. Turn off light. You will see an afterglow as your eyes adjust to the dark. Flip light on for a split second and then off again.
Have fun playing around with the length of the flash, because the difference of a few milliseconds makes a huge difference, especially if there is any motion going on. Eyes work like cameras, and we want to avoid time-lapse photography (right).
6. You will have a visual imprint in your eyes of the material that was in front of you. When this imprint fades, flip the light on again for a split second, again staring at the material.
You’ll be able to see everything, as though the lights were still on. It’s a dizzying experience (can be scary and mind-blowing).
7. Repeat this process until you can recall every word of the paragraph in order. You will be able to actually see the paragraph and read it from the imprint in your mind.
Just start with details around the room and work up to this. Count tiles, trace wood-grain lines, anything. The memory itself is exactly “photographic;” an image is at your mind’s disposal. In the end, if you asked me what was the third word of the second paragraph on page 327 of Moby -Dick, I’d know it was blubber, not because I have it all memorized but because I can bring up the image of that page perfectly to my mind’s eye. It works on this same idea: currently, do you know what the fourth word in this paragraph is? Probably not. But you can find out easily enough because it’s only an inch or two up.
Two weeks into my first attempt, my mind made a leap. I was spinning in revelry at the notion that soon I’d have the super power of photographic memory and I wanted to test it, so I went to the shelf with all the movies and tried it out. I wasn’t really sure what to do or how to “take a picture” so I looked at a shelf with 200 or so videos and just thought “click,” looking at the shelf for only a second or so, being careful not to consciously read the titles. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine, not remember, the shelf. ‘Imagine’ isn’t quite right either; maybe see is the best word. Once you experiment you’ll understand what I mean. The experience is like perfectly looking into the past with a camera with resolution as detailed as your eyesight and clipping out a perfect 3 dimensional frame of reality. you can go back and look at these images the same way you look at a photo album except… it’s more like if time suddenly stopped, but you can’t perceive beyond whatever you’re focused on this exact moment. I imagined the shelf and could see every bit of it, even details I’d never noticed before, like little cracks in the wood or tiny things that would normally elude or not interest me. Most importantly, I could read every title. Today, 4 months later, I still can.
One man’s speculations and lunatic claims are hardly proof of anything, so let’s try this together. What have you got to lose besides your mind?
A few days ago, we looked into the coming rise of a new species being developed by the technocrats; it’s nigh. Spectacular as this notion is, as it turns out, the next stage in human development has already arrived, interlaced inconspicuously amongst us, as though “They Live” were a documentary.
You see, everyone loves a good ethnic slur, but under our thin veil of cultural, linguistic, economic, and pigment differences, it’s understood that we’re all one collective unity of mankind. Hi, brothers and sisters. So with the utmost love and respect for all y’all round the globe (minus Canada, America’s ceaseless punchline), we can all join hands in an orgy of discrimination against the one group that’s not like the others. Proudly, I’ll stand on my soapbox of an anonymous keyboard and proclaim something we’ve all long suspected, but never voiced: “yuppies aren’t human.”
…Literally… Let me explain
If there’s one thing I’d gleaned from my last stint in the psych-ward (like you didn’t suspect), it’s how, like an uncured slab of beef, the lines between mental illnesses, unfortunately, are neither cut nor dry (consider the utter failure of the DSM). A great deal of consensus, however, stands in the psychologist community to where these muddied lines can be drawn, and the word “psychopath” is not a term bandied lightly, folks. A psychopath, apparently, is not always the image immediately drawn to mind of some knife wielding pariah, glazed in dried mustard and animal-semen (gross), prowling the subway adorned only in a single strategically-placed pool-floatie, who passes the day lobbing “Jesus saves” paper-airplane pamphlets at jaded urbanites. Nah, he’s probably wearing a silk tie, Gucci perhaps.
Psychopaths, in fact, while occasionally criminal masterminds, are masterful social chameleons, often indistinguishable from the crowd. Preconceived notions blown. A new theoretical analysis suggests that psychopathy is not merely a mental disorder, though, but rather the psychopath is a separate new sub-species of human altogether, a new animal. No joke. Sure, Patrick Bateman may lob revving chainsaws upon fleeing call-girls, but he wasn’t human, so it’s copacetic. Evolution, it seems, just won’t take a day off. Psychopathy is categorized with traits of:
To sum all that up, psychopaths (henceforth redubbed Homo PsychopathiusTM) are highly-intelligent, calculating, manipulative machines of self-interested ambition, lacking the capacity for conscience due to the inability to feel emotion. They are a manifestation of the cliché wolf in sheep’s clothing as a predator in white-collar work clothes, and these things aren’t human.
With an untappable spigot of raw uninhibited self-interest at its disposal, Homo Psychopathius often rises to the top of whatever organization/ field it sets its aim at. They are natural visionaries, innovators, and leaders of men, so it just makes sense that, statistically, the career with the highest propensity for psychopathy is nothing less than the CEO.
Over the last few decades, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed, the global power regime has shifted reigns from the uber-nation to the empire-corporation being the vaster colossus of influence. Our ruling class, then, are the highly-competent next stage in evolution, being more adapted for the major-leagues without the nuisance of those silly outdated oddities called feelings. Further still, note this list of the top ten careers Homo Psychopathius are found in, not forgetting the psychopath, more often than not, is at the forefront head of his field:
1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (Television/Radio)
4. Salesperson
5. Surgeon
6. Journalist
7. Police officer
8. Clergy person
9. Chef
10. Civil servant
Wait! Wait! Wait! Holy shit! What are you saying?
This thing is smarter than you, vastly more driven to power. It controls the companies you work for; it represents your legal system, decides what news you hear, tells you what to consume (down to a science), holds your life in its hands, arrests your deviants, propagates your religions, and it dominates your politics… oh yeah, and cooks your food (never trust a guy with a set of personally engraved knives, I guess).
We’re not alarmist here. Rather, I propose a happy compromise over this news: as successful as these things have proven themselves to be, rising to the apex of society, I offer that we humans dutifully permit this new animal to take the reins (cause it already has) as the new dominant species of the planet. You win, psychopaths. Game over. Anyway, our outdated human machine doesn’t mind serving as the structural base for your mighty overlord will. We’re more suited for playing Minecraft, masturbating, and following your orders. It’s kinda what we’re good at. If it’s not overly presumptuous of me to assume the diplomat between our 2 great peoples, let me be the first of my kind to say, “I vow my allegiance. All hail the morlocks! (I’m on board, guys. Eat someone else’s kids.)”
Fellow sapians, kinda brings the whole “Occupy Wall Street” thing into a new light, huh? Looks like the X-Men comics had it right all along: the 1% with all the powers really were the next stage of human evolution.
Take it; leave it; use it as an excuse to embrace your inner asshole.
Wondergressive 
