October 2003 | Technoccult

Memory morphing

October 22, 2003 / Klint Finley

Memory morphing is an old school psychology trick… suggest that something may have happened to someone, and they will think they did it (remember “repressed memories”?). This Independent story explores the possibility of this technique in advertising. As soon as I started reading the article I thought “Don’t they do that already?”… Maybe.

“There is evidence that memory morphing might happen, though I don’t think anyone has actively tried to use it. Certainly some advertisements I have seen have a very good chance of doing it. There is advertising I can see that reminds me of good times I have had. I will probably remember the brand as having been there, although it might not have been.” But he believes morphing can only take place in a “credible” way. If consumers have had a bad experience, it will be impossible to turn that into a positive memory.

Full Story: The Independent: Selling you a new past

There’s an interesting bit towards the end from Mark Earls, planning director of Ogilvy London: “What is important these days is not what advertising does to consumers, so much as how consumers use advertising to make statements about themselves to other people.”

via Abe

New life enhancement web zine from R.U Sirius

October 18, 2003 / Klintron

Neofiles is a new web zine by R.U. Sirius, sponsored by a supplement company called Life Enhancement:

The conception that human beings could radically alter their own situation the phenomenological world by understanding and using its gifts is at least as old as alchemy. Dreams that people may one day fly (done), project their voices and images over vast distances (done), go to the moon (done), and live for hundreds of years (working on it), occupied a psychological terrain on the borderline between science and magic for long centuries. By the late 20th Century it was clear that the radical expansion of possibilities was a science project.

Neofiles

(via Boing Boing).

Dreams of work

October 18, 2003 / Klint Finley

Was it Marx that wrote something about how the capitalists had won because we even worked in our dreams?

Last night I dreamed that two girls from work, the primary two that I do stuff for, showed up at my apartment at 6:30 am sharp. They came in through my balcony door (I don’t have a balcony in real life). Somehow they’d managed to get a large number of Bon merchandise samples, including a desk, up to the 3rd floor balcony from a beat-up old SUV parked in the ally. They told me they needed to store them here. I was both embarressed at the state of my apartment and irritated that they’d shown up un-announced and without knocking. I protested that there was no room for the items in my apartment, that as they could see it was too cluttered alread. But they just told me to help them and not to worry, I was on the clock. I threatened to not show up Monday for Monday Reports (the most important part of my job there, in fact a rather critical function). They just laughed.

Thank God nobody saw that…

October 10, 2003 / Klint Finley

At least once a day I find myself doing something and thinking “Thank God nobody saw that…”

Men not becoming extinct after all?

October 7, 2003 / Klintron

St. Louis Dispatch reports:

Scientists used to think that men might become extinct, that people might have to find new ways to have sex, and that we might evolve into a new species, all as a result of the demise of the Y chromosome.

But a new study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., has determined that the Y is here to stay. The landmark research is the first to explore the contents of the Y chromosome of any species. The results appear in today’s issue of the journal Nature.

Full Story: St. Louis Dispatch: Men not becoming extinct after all

Burning Man stories

October 7, 2003 / Klintron

I keep forgetting to blog this: a collection of Burning Man stories from the Fray.

The Fray: Burning Man Stories.

R.U. Sirius interviews Howard Rheingold

October 4, 2003 / Klintron

People have a problem discriminating between the investment bubble and the long-term impact of the Internet. The printing press didn?t create democracy or science, but both those institutions were enabled by, and are impossible without, a literate population. I think most people would agree that democracy and science, with all their limits and faults, have improved life, over the long run, for most people. But printing didn?t abolish war (indeed, science and technology helped make war more deadly to more people) or poverty or injustice. People should stop expecting new technologies to produce utopia. People use tools to improve life, and to lie, cheat, and steal. I?m optimistic that the more we know about our tools, the better our chances to influence beneficial outcomes and protect against destructive ones.

(via New World Disorder).

EY! What the FUCK are you ON about, Sigmund?

October 4, 2003 / Klintron

I missed this interview with Grant Morrison when it came out a couple months ago… must have been moving, couch surfing, or running around naked and green at Burning Man.

The Architect scene in “Matrix: Reloaded” – that was hard to understand. I kept thinking where was Dane McGowan to say, “EY! What the FUCK are you ON about, Sigmund?”

Comic Book Resources: Catching up with Professor M: Talking with Grant Morrison

Technoccult

Mutate Your Mind

MonthOctober 2003