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| Thread: Technology is improving to the point of recreating reality | |
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fred79
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posted February 04, 2016 08:05 AM |
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Technology is improving to the point of recreating reality
i carried this over from the rt thread, since i figured it warranted a serious discussion.
fred79 said:
Quote:
you know what i find disturbing about this gif? that if a hack can make something look this real, then what can government agencies do with footage of anything? has anyone ever thought about that? or about how real hollywood can make things?
i'm not talking about a faked moon landing, either; so don't start on that.
i'm talking about, oh, i don't know... covering up a murder, or making something that would certainly be influential to the masses, appeal to their side of a story.
thoughts?
this thread isn't about conspiracy theories, so don't get it twisted. it's about how technology is advancing to the point where it's easier and easier to manipulate real-life media, and not have anyone watching it, to know the difference. the possibilites of this kind of thing are endless, and in the wrong hands...
i have no doubts, that government agencies and the like are already involved in this aspect of mass-control. if they haven't used this power yet, i have no doubt they will, if they need to.
i understand that the masses are already pretty much under control, i'm not a dimwit. but i think this aspect of it needs to be addressed. lol, even on a (decade-old)game modding forum.
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Drakon-Deus
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Qapla'
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posted February 04, 2016 08:20 AM |
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Good topic. I think that people are becoming more and more enslaved to technology. Not that most advances are bad, far from it, but if you become addicted to this "virtual reality" , it's not healthy any way you look at it.
And mass-control through that is a quite logical progression.
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friendofgunnar
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able to speed up time
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posted February 04, 2016 10:29 AM |
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It's possible but there's always countermeasures against it, for example algorithms for finding altered video.
The next time somebody is going to watch a movie I suggest they go to Youtube instead and binge-watch all of Captain Disillusions videos. He's got about 45 or so videos debunking video hoaxes with detailed explanations of all the video editing tricks that were used for each one.
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OhforfSake
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posted February 04, 2016 10:56 AM |
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The way we simulate now, to accurate simulate reality as described in the topic, we'd need the entirety of reality itself..
However, reality can be simulated to a "sufficient" degree, that it can fool others. I am not afraid it will happen in a court of law, because here measures are taken against it.. but imagine someone makes a similar video, except it's a video of you who, e.g., are unfaithful to your wife, or kicks a kitten or something similar.. and then distribute said video among the people close to you. You can claim it is edited as much as you want, but when it's not necessarily strictly illegal material (pretty sure kicking a kitten is illegal though), then I could imagine it could be really troublesome.
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Tsar-Ivor
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posted February 04, 2016 03:38 PM |
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I've had a similar inclination as well, for instance I was looking at the lore of certain fictional worlds created in a matter of years or a single life (in the instance of Tolkein for instance) with thousands of years worth of deep history. So how easy would it be for our history be fabricated, after all The Curch does contribute to much of our historical sources and evidence.
Again, not trying to say I believe that our entire history is false or not true, but I'm not entirely convinced that it is, and I can't prove that it is, that's what's worrying me.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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OhforfSake
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posted February 04, 2016 03:55 PM |
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But that's the general issue with history. You can't really do any tests to confirm first hand (it's all history now after all), everything is in principle second hand.. you may assume connections based on logic and experience, but if one part of the chain falls, other parts may be much less accurate.
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted February 04, 2016 04:33 PM |
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The people who wrote the "history" didn't write it for us, they wrote from their pov for a specific audience,in a specific timeframe, and often to sell certain ideas.
That is what most people forget, among many other things, when discussing history. That's not to say none is to be trusted, but not absolute either concerning specific matters, which aren't set like the time when X event happened etc.
And in the end, the winners decide what goes and what stays from public knowledge, and the losers will also try to twist it more in their favor.
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blizzardboy
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posted February 04, 2016 05:33 PM |
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You don't need digital manipulation to fool anybody. You just need an audience that absorbs everything at face value without an "intellectual immune system" to discriminate on what information it takes into its membrane and what information to reject. Look at news such as "Sun Magazine" or certain populist articles on the internet that make a business out of feeding fantasy. People believe because they want to believe it and because to some extent the modern entertainment industry has ramped up people's appetites for exciting news, such that they are dulled/desensitized to more rote news. We want our news to be James Bond-esque, hence why people emotionally become wrapped up in conspiracy theories such as 9/11 being a grand plot by GW Bush. Believing in those theories provides a sense of excitement and importance to their life that provides a sort of "high" to their otherwise mundane day. People in countries/cities/demographics with higher rates of discontent and depression will, by extension, more prevantly believe in either conspiracy theories or have radical/hysterical opinions to current events. It is an opium for them.
Ultimately, the classic defenses of an alibi and witnesses are still going to be a major guard against this sort of thing. Without that, yes, you can certainly hoax a whole lot of people, though I still think a realistic mindset in itself will do a lot to protect against that. I don't need any proof to look at that gif and to assume one of two things: 1) it is fake, 2) the president was doing it in a comical context. Remember the classic stance here is: you don't have to prove a negative.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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Stevie
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posted February 04, 2016 06:09 PM |
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What a load of garbage. I can see already this thread is going the "conspiracy theory" way because some people just can't help it. Keep poking at how believing something which isn't the official version from the gov is somehow someone's opium, because that's all you can do.
blizzardboy said:
You just need an audience that absorbs everything at face value without an "intellectual immune system" to discriminate on what information it takes into its membrane and what information to reject.
lol, the irony.
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The Young Traveler
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fred79
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posted February 04, 2016 06:33 PM |
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Edited by fred79 at 19:04, 04 Feb 2016.
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blizzardboy said:
We want our news to be James Bond-esque, hence why people emotionally become wrapped up in conspiracy theories such as 9/11 being a grand plot by GW Bush. Believing in those theories provides a sense of excitement and importance to their life that provides a sort of "high" to their otherwise mundane day. People in countries/cities/demographics with higher rates of discontent and depression will, by extension, more prevantly believe in either conspiracy theories or have radical/hysterical opinions to current events. It is an opium for them.
is that really what you think about people who have their own mind, and see how obvious it is when others're trying to direct their minds using mass media, the government(or any position of leadership), and every other marketing aimed at the populace? i mean, honestly?
my question for you is, do you have your own mind? do you own it, or are you only carrying it around for those who tell you what to think?
do you NOT see what's going on in the world, or are you just denying that conspiracies have always existed as long as there have been a power struggle in humanity, because it is too frightful to contemplate?
i think, blizz, that you're confusing american consumerism with critical thinking and reality. or maybe not; feel free to clarify.
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 04, 2016 11:06 PM |
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Edited by artu at 23:09, 04 Feb 2016.
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Well, as a coincidence, I am reading this at the moment and history of mass manipulation and hoaxes go way beyond the digital age as we all know. While at it, let me recommend the book, put aside the horrible Turkish translation, it is really fun.
Blizz is quite right, when it comes to major events, there is seldom any hoax, it's about people needing to feel excited, sharper or whatever they lack... If we're going to go down the conspiracy theory road, almost all of them (not just 9/11) are logically very inconsistent to begin with, refuted technically by experts from all over the world who have no personal interest in lying, the narrative presupposes too many witnesses and participants lying (a never ending cycle as the years go by and the refuters accumulate, as I explained earlier.) Don't take this personal Fred, cause I really don't mean you, but such crap is not on "the independent thinker" menu, it's the wannabes who waste time with such non-sense. Just because something is unofficial, it doesn't mean it makes sense. Governments, of course, do engage in black-ops, mass manipulation through propaganda, fake documents etc. But there are many parameters they look out for, is it small enough to go away if they get caught, how many details can go wrong, how many people will be involved (as little as possible is ideal)... And most of the time, such things are not about directly faking events but manipulating them in a way that nothing can trace back to you directly, remember what Brzezinski says? We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. That's how it's done, not by faking moon landings or commercial planes or poisoning city water...
So the relevant question on this thread would be about this, it's not just about how much you can fake digitally, it's about how much you can fake without a trace, because as the technology to fake things improve, so does the technology to detect it. And if there is no way to detect if a digital image is fake or not, it won't be admissible as evidence in any serious platform anyway. You will still need hard evidence and alibis.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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Stevie
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posted February 04, 2016 11:22 PM |
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Edited by Stevie at 23:23, 04 Feb 2016.
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Apart from your opinion on conspiracy "theories", 9/11, etc. with which I disagree anyway, what really bothers me is..
artu said:
And if there is no way to detect if a digital image is fake or not, it won't be admissible as evidence in any serious platform anyway.
Em.. So how do you differentiate something truly genuine from something apparently genuine that may or may not be genuine but can't be detected as such? I hope you get my drift, because if comes to the point when you can't tell the difference, then you automatically cast a shadow of doubt on literally everything.
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The Young Traveler
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 04, 2016 11:44 PM |
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What I mean is this, if there comes a point in technology, where they can not tell the difference between true or fake images anymore, people won't produce fake images to seriously conspire against someone anyway (especially on a governmental level), because it won't hold any water to begin with. It won't be any different than gossip. Will you imagine to put the blame of murder on someone by gossip? No, it just won't work. Same will apply to digital images if the fakes excel to a point in which they become completely indistinguishable from reality.
That's not how it is now. They can detect fake images and it's not rocket science.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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fred79
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posted February 05, 2016 12:33 AM |
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artu said:
If we're going to go down the conspiracy theory road
i wasn't trying to. i stated that in the initial post. but it veered that way regardless.
artu said:
Governments, of course, do engage in black-ops, mass manipulation through propaganda, fake documents etc. But there are many parameters they look out for, is it small enough to go away if they get caught, how many details can go wrong, how many people will be involved (as little as possible is ideal)...
i'm not going to bother researching all the conspiracies that have existed, just to continue in this vein. there's no point, we'd just go round and round, since we don't see eye to eye on this(and apparently never will). there is plenty of obvious evidence that conspiracies and other government deviltry exists, with or without 9/11. how people can refute that is beyond my comprehension. it's like saying stars don't exist. they're all around you, and you can see evidence of them, if you just used your eyeballs.
artu said:
So the relevant question on this thread would be about this, it's not just about how much you can fake digitally, it's about how much you can fake without a trace, because as the technology to fake things improve, so does the technology to detect it.
who controls the satellites, artu? who controls the media? who controls what technology comes out to the masses, and has their hands in EVERYTHING that controls people in society? until you think of how you would control a populace of billions of people, you're never going to see where i'm coming from. you have to put things in THEIR perspective, in order to see things around you clearer. you can't think like a drone, but like the drone-controller.
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fred79
Disgraceful
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posted February 05, 2016 01:23 AM |
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Edited by fred79 at 04:12, 05 Feb 2016.
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artu said:
That's not how it is now. They can detect fake images and it's not rocket science.
who exactly are you referring to? if you're referring to non-government entities; they can be bought or silenced.
if you're referring to random yahoo's from the general populace, you're forgetting, that people who question government here in the u.s. are either one of two things: "anti-american"(which means you can be targeted by the "patriot" act, especially with the ever-increasing threat of actual terrorism), or "conspiracy theorists".
allow that to sink in a little bit. the more i read what you and blizz write on the subject, the more i understand that you two aren't grasping the obvious, at least in this regard.
edit: deleted something that didn't really pertain to the topic. had more to do with internet bots gathering information. snowing bots. 
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blizzardboy
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Nerf Herder
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posted February 05, 2016 05:29 AM |
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Stevie said:
Em.. So how do you differentiate something truly genuine from something apparently genuine that may or may not be genuine but can't be detected as such? I hope you get my drift, because if comes to the point when you can't tell the difference, then you automatically cast a shadow of doubt on literally everything.
If you've been best friends with Ted for 20 years and you know that person intimately, and a disgruntled employee with bloodshot eyes walks up to you, breathing heavily, and says "Ted shot my cat between the eyes" your default stance is going to be (or should be) disbelief in the claim.
This isn't just useful in a legal context but for life in general. You don't just absorb whatever **** comes your way or even become plagued in serious doubts over people's reputations unless you have a compelling reason to do so. The heavy use of photoshopping means that such images in general are taken less seriously. If you look at it another way: when you get something in the email telling you that you won 1 million dollars, you are probably going to delete it without giving it longer than a fraction of a second of thought. Those kind of fakes are basically targeted towards the small minority of people out there that it might work on (usually elderly people with limited exposure to the world)
____________
"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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Stevie
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posted February 05, 2016 06:15 AM |
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Edited by Stevie at 06:57, 05 Feb 2016.
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Let's bring that in court.
In a world where technology doesn't allow flawless, untraceable video editing:
- if that employee brings you video evidence of Ted shooting his cat which is detected as edited, then the employee is guilty of fabricating evidence and Ted's charges are dismissed;
- if that employee brings you video evidence of Ted shooting his cat which is not detected as edited, then Ted is guilty and sanctioned accordingly.
BUT
In a world where technology allows flawless, untraceable video editing:
- if that employee brings you video evidence of Ted shooting his cat which is detected as edited, then the employee is guilty of fabricating evidence and Ted's charges are dismissed; (same)
- if that employee brings you video evidence of Ted shooting his cat which is not detected as edited, Ted could claim the editing of the video is untraceable, which is a fair possibility, and he could walk away because to my knowledge people don't get behind bars on suspicion of committing a crime.
Do you now see the difference? If truth becomes completely elusive then the only thing that's left is suspicion and doubt, and acting on either one is fundamentally wrong. So pray there won't ever come a day of such uncertainty.
____________
Guide to a Great Heroes Game
The Young Traveler
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted February 05, 2016 07:45 AM |
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fred said:
i'm not going to bother researching all the conspiracies that have existed, just to continue in this vein. there's no point, we'd just go round and round, since we don't see eye to eye on this(and apparently never will). there is plenty of obvious evidence that conspiracies and other government deviltry exists, with or without 9/11. how people can refute that is beyond my comprehension. it's like saying stars don't exist. they're all around you, and you can see evidence of them, if you just used your eyeballs
I'm not sure what defines something as a conspiracy theory to you but you are clearly broadening the extent here. Not every speculation or accusation about illegal government activity, black-op or "deviltry" is a conspiracy theory. (Watergate wasn't for example, neither was calling Weapons of Mass Destruction story, a scam). You don't see evidence for conspiracy theories, you see evidence against them. (Such as rocks from the moon, and yes, they can test if they are really from the moon by radiation exposure levels or testimonies from the relatives of people who were on the 9/11 planes etc.) Actually, this is so very often like this, it is now part of the encyclopedic definition:
One feature of conspiracy theories is that they tend to evolve to incorporate evidence against them, so that they become unfalsifiable and, as Michael Barkun argues, "a matter of faith rather than proof."[5][6] The term conspiracy theory has thus acquired a derogatory meaning, and is often used to dismiss or ridicule beliefs in conspiracies.
fred said:
who controls the satellites, artu? who controls the media? who controls what technology comes out to the masses, and has their hands in EVERYTHING that controls people in society? until you think of how you would control a populace of billions of people, you're never going to see where i'm coming from. you have to put things in THEIR perspective, in order to see things around you clearer. you can't think like a drone, but like the drone-controller.
fred said:
who exactly are you referring to? if you're referring to non-government entities; they can be bought or silenced.
if you're referring to random yahoo's from the general populace, you're forgetting, that people who question government here in the u.s. are either one of two things: "anti-american"(which means you can be targeted by the "patriot" act, especially with the ever-increasing threat of actual terrorism), or "conspiracy theorists".
Again, I'm not so sure what you're getting at here. A government is not 10 sinister masterminds in a vault and a secret lab with evil scientists. It's a structure consisting of thousands of employees who are mostly normal people. And there is not just one government, there are many governments who are willing to dig out each other's dirt when it suits them. Also governments can put pressure on the media, manipulate the masses to a degree, it happens all the time, yes. But they don't have absolute control over every journalist, scientist or regular citizen. They don't even aim for that. Even in oppressive regimes, their reach and power has a limit. This sounds like the time you take a real phenomenon such as governments experimenting with drugs and mind control (on individuals during interrogations) and carry it to an absurd level (such as governments drugging their own city water supply to hypnotize the whole population).
So, if what you're getting at is this:
"The U.S. government may have a technology that enables untraceable video/photo editing and it hides it from the rest of the world in order to fake visual data whenever necessary. So, every image we see about anything can be fake."
Just repeat that out loud to yourself a few times, and you let what you suggest sink in.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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