The Net (Documentary)

[Mikey]

I just watched the documentary "The Net: Unabomber, LSD and the Internet"

Das Netz (En: The Net) is an independent film directed by Lutz Dammbeck and subtitled "The Unabomber, LSD and the Internet". Das Netz premiered in 2003.

The film explores the ideas and histories of groundbreaking artists Marshall McLuhan and Paik Nam-june, hippy idealists such as Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey, counterculturalists such as John Brockman and Stewart Brand, cyberneticists such as Robert W.Taylor and Heinz von Foerster, and neo-luddite Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

This ducumentary is interesting because it gives insight into how computers, arts, the human potential movement, drugs, and the Cold War blended together. It shows footage of the CIA performing mind control experiments on animals and humans. It explores the mindset of the "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski. It features interviews with people who invented terms like "Personal Computer" or gave birth to the internet.

I can recommend this documentary highly.

The movie is online on youtube (in 12 parts): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wKerSv-xlU

 

[clerck de bonk]

Recommended in tandem with the Laurel Canyon series:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/155794-Inside-The-LC-The-Strange-but-Mostly-True-Story-of-Laurel-Canyon-and-the-Birth-of-the-Hippie-Generation-Part-1

 

[Ageeva]

I've just watched the documentary. You certainly understand the interviewer's concern about the cybernetic system getting out of control, also the whole interconnectedness of technology and art and the experimentation with mind control since the 1960's onwards. I think I'll watch it again, (helps refresh my German too), it's really fascinating. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Data.

 

[Voyageur]

Thanks Data, there were many fascinating things in the documentary, how it progressed, the interviews, the associations and of course much to think about further.

 

[The Mechanic]

Thanks Data for mentioning this documentary.

I just finished watching it, and frankly I didn't quite like it, although it surely gave me some food for thought.

The premise of the movie, that the internet was developed by a covert group of scientists as a way of creating a modern world citizen who would be immune to the tendencies that created the fascism of WWII, in cooperation with another group bent on winning the cold war and yet another group of early techno hippies, imho doesn't hold water. I think it wasn't fully explored also, as the film maker only follows up on a hand full of people that have had a hand in the creation of the technology that is now used to power the internet. The why question isn't answered, although he gave some interesting perspectives on it.

The obvious link between Ted Kaczynski and CIA mind control experiments wasn't explored upon further, which would be the interesting angle if you ask me. The whole experiment was filmed, the tapes of Kaczynski are missing, and that was that.. Too bad he didn't look into that. I don't quite know why the film maker even used Kaczynski in this movie, as it doesn't serve his purpose at all bringing him up in interviews all the time. The people interviewed understandably react emotionally to this.

The cybernetics stuff and the various perspectives on the origins of the internet made some sense though, although I thought it really lacked perspective, for instance on how technology like this gets twisted and coopted and then used for nefarious purposes. Also the link between the weeding out of authoritarian personalities from society and how the CIA/that military guy turned professor wanted to do that also wasn't explored further. However it sure gave me some food for thought.

The argument for or against a technological society was kind of moot, as I think tech can be used for good or for bad, so I think the whole discussion about "should we live in a shed in the woods and go back to nature or embrace high tech" could use some nuance. I also think the film maker was kind of rude towards one Kaczynski victim, asking him how he thought of Kaczynski's thoughts about cybernetics and technology. All in all I thought it was very low in information density. After watching it I can't really understand what the message was the film maker tried to convey.

I'd give it 2 out of 5.

 

[Cosmos]

I just watched it and yes there are interesting footages and interviewee in it.
the connection from the Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski) to CIA mind control programs in wich he was supposedly a test object is interesting too,
but what strikes me as bizarre is the constant undertone of the way the Filmaker portrays Ted Kaczynski as some kind of hero or at least somebody who has important things to say.

throughout the whole documentary excerpts between the Filmaker and Kaczynski via letters are being read out.

I don't know anything about this unamomber case to come to any kind of conlusions but if Ted Kaczynski really carried out those bombings or at least some of them and is conscious about it then I find it bizarre that the filmaker gives him so much kredit by reading out his letters without any critical assesments of them.

In one part Ted Kaczynski is writing about justifying violence. Even if he is a mind controlled victim what does his lack of empathy and justifying and approving of violence tell us about his being ?
and most importantly what does it tell us about Ted Kaczynskis writings and the uncritical way the Filmaker reads them out to the viewer ?

I don't know

 

[dantem]

I was watching it for the second or third time in a year, and this piece always stuck me as the most interesting. The 'particle distraction' described here looks really like Theology.

A: There are questions among those we ask about the world that it is possible to answer: "Heinz von Foerster, how old are you?" Well, you can look that up in a catalog: Born in 1911, that means he is 90. Or you can ask questions which cannot be answered, like for example: "Heinz von Foerster, tell me, what was the origin of the universe?" Well, then I could give you one of the 35 different theories. Ask an astronomer, and he says: "There was this Big Bang about 20 million years ago". Or ask a good Catholic: "Everyone knows that. God created the world and after seven days he was weary and took a break, and that was Sunday ..." So there are different, very interesting hypotheses about the origin of the universe. That is, there are so many different hypothesis because the question cannot be answered. So all that is relevant is how interesting is the story that someone invents to explain the origins of the universe.

Q: Of course we are very close to art there ... If it's a matter of inventing a good story, a poetic story ...

A: Exactly, exactly ... That's what it is. There is a struggle between two or three or even ten different poets. Who can invent a funny, amusing or interesting story so that everyone immediately thinks: "That's what must have happened!"

Q: But science, and your own research ... those are not just inventions or good stories? Surely they're based on mathematics, on numbers, on probability. On indisputable scientific data?

A: Yes, but these days there is already so much data that is no longer possible to include all the different data in your "story". And then artificial data is invented. For example "particles" ... Then "particles" are invented that do whatever it is we don't understand. So in my opinion particles are always the solutions to problems that we can't solve any other way. That is, they are inventions that help to explain certain problems. those are particles.

Q: I think I have to understand a dumb question...

A: I understand, yes... Right, let me explain it a bit better. Let's say there is a hole in my theory, one I can't gloss over. So what I do is, I just say: Look, here are some new particles, that are either green, yellow or... I don't know what... They replace the hole in my theory. So I maintain that each particle we read about in today's physics is the answer to a question that we can't answer.

Q: But that's terrible! How can we let a world-wide, networked system of machines grow, more or less into infinity, if it is based on theories that apparently have holes or are only "good stories". I mean on such shaky foundations?

A: Yeah!

Q: Isn't that dangerous?

A: Yes, in this world-wide functioning system of machines all theories are correct. And of course that's what people want. And why are they correct? Because they can all be deduced from other theories and "stories"...

Q: But what will it lead to? How does it go on?

A: It goes on deducing indefinitely.

Q: But there have to be limits somewhere?

A: No, not at all, that's the good thing about it. You can go on forever.

Q: In logic?

A: Yes, precisely.

Q: But in reality?

A: Where is reality? Can you show it to me?

 

[Thomas Alan]

I was watching it for the second or third time in a year, and this piece always stuck me as the most interesting. The 'particle distraction' described here looks really like Theology.

A: There are questions among those we ask about the world that it is possible to answer: "Heinz von Foerster, how old are you?" Well, you can look that up in a catalog: Born in 1911, that means he is 90. Or you can ask questions which cannot be answered, like for example: "Heinz von Foerster, tell me, what was the origin of the universe?" Well, then I could give you one of the 35 different theories. Ask an astronomer, and he says: "There was this Big Bang about 20 million years ago". Or ask a good Catholic: "Everyone knows that. God created the world and after seven days he was weary and took a break, and that was Sunday ..." So there are different, very interesting hypotheses about the origin of the universe. That is, there are so many different hypothesis because the question cannot be answered. So all that is relevant is how interesting is the story that someone invents to explain the origins of the universe.

Q: Of course we are very close to art there ... If it's a matter of inventing a good story, a poetic story ...

A: Exactly, exactly ... That's what it is. There is a struggle between two or three or even ten different poets. Who can invent a funny, amusing or interesting story so that everyone immediately thinks: "That's what must have happened!"

Q: But science, and your own research ... those are not just inventions or good stories? Surely they're based on mathematics, on numbers, on probability. On indisputable scientific data?

A: Yes, but these days there is already so much data that is no longer possible to include all the different data in your "story". And then artificial data is invented. For example "particles" ... Then "particles" are invented that do whatever it is we don't understand. So in my opinion particles are always the solutions to problems that we can't solve any other way. That is, they are inventions that help to explain certain problems. those are particles.

Q: I think I have to understand a dumb question...

A: I understand, yes... Right, let me explain it a bit better. Let's say there is a hole in my theory, one I can't gloss over. So what I do is, I just say: Look, here are some new particles, that are either green, yellow or... I don't know what... They replace the hole in my theory. So I maintain that each particle we read about in today's physics is the answer to a question that we can't answer.

Q: But that's terrible! How can we let a world-wide, networked system of machines grow, more or less into infinity, if it is based on theories that apparently have holes or are only "good stories". I mean on such shaky foundations?

A: Yeah!

Q: Isn't that dangerous?

A: Yes, in this world-wide functioning system of machines all theories are correct. And of course that's what people want. And why are they correct? Because they can all be deduced from other theories and "stories"...

Q: But what will it lead to? How does it go on?

A: It goes on deducing indefinitely.

Q: But there have to be limits somewhere?

A: No, not at all, that's the good thing about it. You can go on forever.

Q: In logic?

A: Yes, precisely.

Q: But in reality?

A: Where is reality? Can you show it to me?

The quote you sited reminds me of something I read long ago in one Carl Sagan's books, I don't remember which one. At the time the issue was between the Big Bang theory and what was called the steady state (that is the Universe is constantly being created with no known beginning.)

Sagan talked about a study regarding the how scientists were then selves born: by Caesarian section or through the birth canal. They found that nearly all of the scientists born through the birth canal were proponents of the Big Bang while those born by Caesarian tended to support the steady state idea. Sorry I don't references, it's been years since I read it.

Maybe scientists and the rest of us too look out into the world and the Universe and see but a reflection of ourselves.

Mac

edit: spelling

 

[gdpetti]

:) Yes, love the analogy which I've seen used humorously in this cartoon thingy... ok, will have to learn how to post images on this site... anyway, perhaps you've seen it before, the one with the set of twins?

--In a mother's womb were two babies. One asked the other: "Do you believe in life after delivery?" The other replies, "why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later. "Nonsense," says the other. "There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?" "I don't know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths." The other says "This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short." "I think there is something and maybe it's different than it is here." the other replies. "No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere." "Well, I don't know," says the other, "but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us." "Mother??" You believe in mother? Where is she now?" "She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her, there would not be this world." "I don't see her, so it's only logical that she doesn't exist." To which the other replied, "sometimes when you're in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her. I believe there is a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality." --

Seems the same conversation keeps getting repeated with only a change of focus and form.

 

[Divide by Zero]

The particle discussion was very interesting- I posed a similar question to Ark years ago about dark matter/energy being a load of hooey:
https://youtu.be/Bg8bEsG9D4A?t=5m1s

There is the whole documentary as one youtube now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLqrVCi3l6E