Kubrick and Clarke were spot on when they illustrated that we descend from hostile little monkeys and we haven't really migrated away from our basic natures. We despise what is foreign, or alien, and pursue its destruction with a white hot intensity.
If only we could harness that irrational nature and use it to our own advantage. I think President Reagan (many times spouting half-baked ideas himself) once said that there would never be a peace on Earth until aliens attacked. Or landed. I forget which. I often think about this pearl of wisdom, and confirm the logic by citing the great Orson Wells' fabled experiment with extra-terrestrial tomfoolery.
Well no extra-terrestrials have landed yet, proving that there is in fact intelligent life out there after all. Still, that doesn't mean that we can't convince the world population that aliens have indeed landed and are doing evil things to humans. Gentlemen, we have the technology. The gatrillions of dollars and person hours that we spend on building warheads, radar proof bombers and laser satellites - it all could be funnelled into a massively funded and perfectly scripted tale that would shake our fearful, warlike natures to the core.
An alien language could be constructed (no, not Klingonese, too predictable) and special effects, the likes of which Hollywood has never seen, could completely pull the wool over everyone's eyes. It has to be airtight. Don't ask me what the story is, I'm and ideas man, not a details guy. I mean, movies like Contact only scratch the surface of what I'm talking about here.
Maybe "they" have landed on the moon. Maybe they breath the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere of Venus and thrive in its 300 degree heat. Maybe they tap into a communication system and announce to the world "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!" It doesn't really matter. What matters is, that news agencies like CNN believe it and report it, that the internet explodes into a huge network of people brainstorming and swearing allegiance to the human brotherhood and sisterhood.
Technology would boom, industry would fire up. All because of a little computer animation and an airtight script. With a common enemy maybe we could all concentrate on working together rather than shooting ourselves over patches of oil or domes over rocks.
As for the widespread belief that alien contact would initiate mass hysteria and riots - I don't buy it. I consider that to be protectionist fear mongering by established power brokers. It's time for the tail to wag the dog! PEACE THROUGH CGI!!-- pixelswisher, Dec 07 2001 Wag the Dog http://us.imdb.com/Title?0120885Same idea, different subplot [phoenix, Dec 07 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] . < That's the pixel I'm contributing to the effort.-- bristolz, Dec 07 2001 pixelswisher: Why do you think we're attacking Afghanistan (and before that Iraq, the Cold War...)? Same principle, only it's killing real Asians rather than CGI martians. I'm not sure which is more expensive.-- pottedstu, Dec 07 2001 <BestDavidSpadeVoice> I saw this the first time around when it was called "Wag the Dog". </BestDavidSpadeVoice>-- phoenix, Dec 07 2001 I like the idea name...
(since I am already wasting space I would like to point out how my 3 pixels are as great a contribution as all the other full stops used in anotations so far)-- RobertKidney, Dec 07 2001 and three times mine, [RK]. You are clearly an overachiever.-- bristolz, Dec 07 2001 Well, they'd likely, maybe, use PERL to manage the CGI render farms. Then again, I think the scripting language of choice in the big CGI houses is Python.-- bristolz, Dec 07 2001 You mean people use Python for something other than being smug?-- pottedstu, Dec 07 2001 I think static HTML would promote world peace better than CGI. It's more indexable, and doesn't facilitate "data hiding" as much as CGI and all those sinister object-oriented technologies.-- LoriZ, Dec 08 2001 Sinister OOP.
Sounds like a rap artist.-- phoenix, Dec 08 2001 I second what [pottesdtu] said. Creating phantom menances doesn't bring people together in a *meaningful* way. And read some of Philip K. Dick ("The Penultimate Truth") and George Orwell (duh) to observe the (well, imagined -- but very likely) effects of mass deception regarding bogus wars and enemies on people. I like the impulse behind this idea, but perpetrating vast hoaxes is just bound to turn out badly.
Another point is that such a conspiracy is bound to be uncovered. One thing my father pointed out to me about conspiracy theories is that people acting in concert are generally about as smart as the stupidest individual in the bunch. Meaning that whatever hoax was intended will ultimately fail. A pretty convincing argument against all that Area 51-type stuff, I thought. The more vast a conspiracy is, the more likely it is to contain leaks.-- snarfyguy, Dec 08 2001 The biggest problem with this is that computer generated images need computers to run on, and nobody's going to be impressed by a bunch of monitors on skateboards purporting to be an attacking alien armada.
Pottedstu: Are you trying to say that the people killed in the events of September 11th are all phony, nobody really died, and nothing was destroyed?-- StarChaser, Dec 08 2001 Dude: I *saw* it with my own eyes in real life, and so did thousands of others. There's no way anyone can credibly argue that it was a hoax. I'm sure that's not what he's saying...-- snarfyguy, Dec 09 2001 My fiancee used to do search and rescue work. Six of her team have died in the efforts, a couple of them when the second plane hit the tower and dropped debris on them. She's medically retired, but is still the 'mom' of the team, and she's spent some hours on the phone putting them back together after the worst tragedy they've run across in their careers.
These people worked on the earthquake that collapsed that two level road in California.
In turn, I've spent some hours on the phone putting her back together.
I believe it happened. She believes it happened. Neither of us were there.-- StarChaser, Dec 09 2001 If you have ever had to break some really bad news to someone, its a really weird thing, the event has happened but it is not real to the other person until you say the words. Am I making any sense?-- po, Dec 09 2001 UnaBubba: There is external evidence that humans visited the Moon. Radar and laser reflectors...<puts away his pin> Another try? I got plenty o' bubblepoppers...-- StarChaser, Dec 09 2001 Well! Nobody burned me for incorrectly spelling "Orson Welles" so I consider this effort to be a resounding success!
<pi>xleswisher-- pixelswisher, Dec 19 2001 His cousin's surname was Round.-- bristolz, Dec 19 2001 random, halfbakery