Truth Facts General

The Influence of Movies on Us

Sometimes I have to wonder how an educated person or persons can be so dumb. A group of scientists came out with a statement saying the universe can’t exist. This sounds like they must believe in something like the Matrix. Sometimes there are scientists who just can’t believe in the obvious and yet they may believe in something there is absolutely no proof for. Occam was an English Franciscan friar who said the correct answer to a problem is the one with the fewest assumptions. This has been the guiding principle for years. To say the universe doesn’t exist would cause us to have to make many assumptions. One would be we are not really seeing what we think we are and probably not even moving. I do have to admit something, the movie “The Matrix” did introduce a concept which many of us never thought about. To believe something like this is true is to believe in something which has no scientific basis. There has always been fringe science and this is how I classify this theory.

Some people believe artificial intelligence and robotic machines will wipe us all out. This belief has spread to some scientists. Artificial intelligence is a double-edged sword. There have many predictions about Artificial Intelligence or AI wiping out the human race. Some have predicted this will happen a lot faster than we expect and have gone so far as to say we will all be gone by 2050. There is plenty of gloom and doom about AI to spread around. The other edge of the sword states Ai will benefit the human race and we will join with AI and become smarter and stronger humans and this joining might even eliminate disease and slow down aging or completely eliminate it. Much as the movie “The Matrix” has influenced some about our universe, the movie “Terminator” has influenced a lot of people about how they feel about artificial intelligence and robots. As early as 1927 movies were being made about AI and robotics. Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang featured a humanoid robot.

There have been movies which have created an interest in extraterrestrials. One which comes to mind is the original “The Day the Earth Stood Still” in 1951. It showed a traditional shaped UFO which was piloted by a robot with artificial intelligence which carried a human like passenger coming here to make contact who was shot by scared humans. This movie fueled the interest in UFOs at the time. It was made only a few years after the Roswell crash. It sent a message which was not to jump the gun and assume alien contact was dangerous. This message was overcome by the movies such as “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers” and “War of the Worlds” which came out later. Did these movies have any influence on the military? No one can say for sure, but we did adopt a policy of shoot first and ask questions later. We lost planes. but never admitted to the fact UFOs were alien even when fleets of them parked a few feet above the White House several times in 1952.

Movies certainly do leave an impression on us and even influence us. One fairly recent movie which has influenced some people is “V for Vendetta.” The movie features revolutionaries all wearing the same masks and striking out against the government. Many believe this influenced the creation of the organization known as Anonymous. Anonymous is an organization of hackers who we might find attending different protests wearing their masks. The group is said to be responsible for among other things denial of service attacks. This is where they set up so many computers they can flood a website and bring it down. They seem to have a political agenda, but also others.

One movie which demonstrated to us how war changes people depicted how soldiers who returned from a war were not the same as before they left for it. The movie was “The Deer Hunter.” Before this not many people who didn’t have direct contact with those returning troops knew what they were going through or how they had changed. It showed us how tortured many of the troops have become over what they had done and what was done to them. In the movie some of them take up Russian Roulette. This is where one bullet is put into a revolver and each person playing takes a turn putting the gun to their head and pulling the trigger. The loser shoots himself and usually dies. It also demonstrates these soldiers felt they had to be punished for their part in the Vietnam War.

We all seem to be interested in John F. Kennedy’s death. Even all these years later it is still one of the major conspiracy theories. The movie “JFK” from 1991 brought all the conspiracy theories to the forefront again. The JFK assassination had so many faucets to it people were interested in. First there was the handsome playboy president, the beautiful actress Marilyn Monroe who died mysteriously and the vice president who wanted to be president, Lyndon Johnson. It even had the president’s brother going after the mob. The public was never satisfied with the investigation and the killing of Oswald the so-called assassin by Jack Ruby added more mystery. The movie is still making the rounds on television and influencing people.

One movie we probably don’t think of as having an effect on society is “Jaws.” Jaws was about a giant shark terrorizing the beaches of a town. The shark was portrayed as particularly vicious and of a size where he could chew up a small boat. The movie was a huge success as it was a combination of horror and good story. The effect it had on society was the beaches became a little emptier as people took the movie to heart and I bet people who see it today still think twice for taking that dip.

Many psychologists and psychiatrists believe movies influence us even when we don’t realize it. We may make a decision bases on a subconscious memory from a movie. How many times have we seen children copying the actions of a character from a movie? Think about this, if we can be influenced by movies, how much do violent games influence us?

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