Tron (1982) – The Ultimate Predictive PROGRAMming

jay008 / 

Tron poster. Notice that the life disc is actually the energy “on” symbol.

By: Jay
“The grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer.  What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles?  Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see. And then, one day, I got in.” -Flynn
One of the elements I’ve sought to analyze here the convergence of technology and esoterica which is a connection generally overlooked. Despite modernity’s religious obsession with technology as the god of its own hands, the mythological nature of techne is largely unknown and forgotten. Having reached a point of godlike abilities, the power and exponential growth of technology is both wondrous and ominous. Disney’s 1982 Tron is remembered for its advanced special effects (for the time) and spectacular art direction, yet the deeper elements of its story have remained hidden. In this article, I intend to highlight the many revelations Tron gave us about the future, especially in light of the open sourced information we have seen in the last few years revolving around DARPA and the Pentagon’s black projects.
As most of us are now approaching two decades of familiarity with the Internet, it becomes fuzzier and fuzzier to recall those bygone days when we needed to find an actual phone line and make a call. It is even more difficult to think of the close of the 70s and the early 80s and what must’ve been in the minds of most viewers in 1982 after they viewed Tron. As a child of the 80s, I recall seeing it as a kid, but nothing stuck with me other than its surreal mix of German Expressionism and Atari-style visuals. Luring below all of this was actually a highly sagacious form of predictive programming and acclimatization. Disney has long been united with the Pentagon and of more recent alliance, the Siemens Corporation, in implementing the latest technological advances for its films and theme parks. I have highlighted this dark alliance here, detailing the revelation of its psychological warfare prowess.
Since 80s films are some of my most popular articles, upon reviewing Tron (after many years), and having analyzed the recent sequel, I was struck by how much was subtly revealed in the original. Since the film references Artificial Intelligence, the Internet, virtual worlds, game theory and video gaming, the shadow military establishment, and much, much more, we can begin to gain a picture of the reality of the whispered notion that the technological elite truly are 30-40 years ahead of the public. Again, it is crucial to keep in mind as you read and perhaps review the film, you are watching something that was in theaters in 1982! While people were playing Pac-Man and Atari arcade games, the establishment tech elites were integrating the already-existing Internet across the US to form the emerging Skynet tech grid we are now going under. Long before The Matrix, a similar plot had already described the heart of the coming “new world order.”

The apex of the pyramid shines its red Illuminist light.

In fact, it is not well-known that video games themselves arose from Pentagon military training ideas, combined with high level mathematics and game theory. Thinkers from the Rand Corporation as well as the work of John Nash would come together to produce the foundation for the rise of the virtual. Also significant was James Bamford’s 1982 book The Puzzle Palace, which revealed the existence of the NSA at that time. Meanwhile, the public has only now come to realize there is such an organization, while the media was denying there was such an entity up into the late 90s! Tron was truly a preparatory acclimatization to the coming aeon like few films were, and it has been largely missed (but not by JaysAnalysis). The movie-going public of 1982 had been awestruck by sci-fi spectacles like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars, both of which are superior films to Tron, yet neither epic had revealed what Tron would reveal. On top of all this, Tron is not merely a revelation of secret, advanced technology, but is in fact laced with occult, gnostic and Platonic, which I will now examine.

Don’t lose your electronic life Frisbee.

The film begins with Flynn (Jeff Bridges) coming together in a new creation sequence, where the virtual world emerges from a point of light, like an alternate version of the creation story of Genesis 1. Here the narrative is inverted, as Flynn is the “programmer” or “User” as they are called in the film, becomes the new Logos for the alternate world of “Master Control,” known as the Grid. Master Control is the demiurge created by ENCOM, the private tech giant that seeks to implement in the “real world” the level of control it exercises in the Grid. In the opening sequence the pathways of the circuits and chips fade into a large “real world” city, cluing the viewer into the idea that the two worlds are flip sides of the same “reality.”
Flynn, who formerly worked for ENCOM, had all of video game ideas stolen, relegating him to the lowly status of video arcade owner. With a renegade band of programmer buds, Flynn plans to hack back into Master Control to gain his vindication. Like Neo in the Matrix, Flynn is tricked by Master Control, who zaps him into the virtual world, which is an autocratic dictatorial police state. Interestingly, the elite guardian class of MCP (Master Control Program), and MCP itself, are all red, hinting at a possible Cold War connection. Indeed, it was under the guise of the Cold War that the secret shadow technological grid of our world was erected, and this is part of the film’s point: The Grid world is actually what is being erected in our world.

Commie Master Control.

Once inside the Grid, Flynn cannot remember anything from his real life. In Platonic fashion, he has forgotten his origins and his “higher self,” known in the Grid as a User. AI programs are all “alive” in the Grid, but they are unsure of the existence of the Users. While Master Control knows the Users are real, and seeks to gain control of the real world, in the Grid, MCP enforces atheism and mandates that no programs may accept the existence of the Users. Meanwhile, MCP in the real world has a plan to hack the governments and banks for a takeover – a 1982 reference to the Internet! Amazingly, this is exactly what has happened in our own world, as the major tech companies have all built back doors into the world’s web and PCs. I needn’t even cite the countless articles to prove this, as it is now well-known, but what Tron demonstrates is that the Pentagon and its shadow tech establishment knew decades ago where we were headed.

THE GRID

Tron even mentions within the Grid “STRATCOM” and its purpose as a “war gaming” central command, where the entire Grid is surveilled to locate and destroy dissent. I regret to inform you that this is the big secret in our real world - Shadow military entities like STRATCOM and CENTCOM and the regional control grid established under the auspices of the Cold War have now been revealed by one of our world’s Flynn’s, William Binney, to be real. While “activists” scurry about fighting ridiculous and pointless battles, few and far between are the warnings about the real danger – the Skynet Grid being erected all around us. PKD, William Binney, Alan Watt, and now even Elon Musk a handful of others have consistently been warning about the incremental creeping tech terror that is rising.

Alternate 80s worlds of hexagonal design.

While Tron was likely intended to be read in a gnostic way, we can speculate that it is not as heterodox as one might suppose. Since MCP’s Grid is an atheistic dictatorship built around the idea of a strata of mundane programs, the guardian class that fights in the gladiatorial games, and MCP at the top, we can read it as a genuine warning. However, the fact that the Users function like gods, or the idea of the “higher self” of occult lore, it is more likely a gnostic fable. The teaching of multiple realities in which our “higher selves” are battling a great architect or demiurge is pure Platonic gnosis.
The Platonic presuppositions are also evident in the structure and architecture of the Grid. The similarities between the Grid and the real world are constantly compared in the film, as Flynn seeks to liberate a select few programs, and this explains why Flynn’s name in the Grid is CLU. “CLU” is a clue to the fact that more is going on here. The hexagonal and pyramidal structures are particularly significant as emblems of the platonic and possibly kabbalistic basis for the construction of the GRID. It suggests a deeper meaning in the fact that our world is structured according to the platonic solids, as I have detailed elsewhere. Since the world is infinitesimally ordered and structured, the entire basis behind the ability to construct virtual worlds proves the structure of our own world. In other words, as I’ve argued many times, the Darwinian narrative of ultimate chaos and disorder is completely false. World atheism is basically like MCP in the film – intent on keeping everyone “programmed,” while hiding real metaphysics.

Hexagonal and pyramidal structures.

CLU, functioning as a kind of philosopher king from the Allegory of the Cave, sacrifices himself to destroy MCP by diving into its power center (hacking it, in other words), but the formal structure around MCP has now shifted from hexagonal to pentagonal, and gives the impression of actually being inverted. Considering that the hexagon can also be a pentagram, it makes this usage all the more significant. This creates an opening in MCP’s firewall, and TRON is able to destroy MCP with his electrical life frisbee. Flynn’s sacrificial death brings him back to the real world where ENCOM’s CEO is outed as a fraud, gaining the evidence he needed to vindicate his ownership of the programs. Unfortunately, our real world is not as happy-ever-after, as the military industrial complex’s shadow tech grid has a virtual life frisbee version of all humans, tracking and tracing them from womb to tomb, gathering all this data for the future Skynet/Grid takeover. Remember the words of William Binney:
“The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control”, Binney said, “but I’m a little optimistic with some recent Supreme Court decisions, such as law enforcement mostly now needing a warrant before searching a smartphone.”

Pentagonal structure of MCP.

We are willingly in the Grid, and we willingly accept our PROGRAMming. Let’s break free from the virtual gaming casino gulag.  Tron is about forging our way into a new frontier, the nano frontier.  However, the establishment is not interested in you forging that frontier, but in trapping man in a virtual matrix of synthetic reality.

CARBON NANOTUBES, SPACE ELEVATORS, AND A POSSIBLE HIDDEN SPACE STORY…

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Joseph P. Farrell • Filed Under: Cosmic War •http://gizadeathstar.com/2014/09/carbon-nanotubes-space-elevators-possible-hidden-space-story/

Here’s a story that I found this past week that I think is another indicator of “something” going on “out there,” that may not be quite the same story as we’re getting “down here,” and while we’ve blogged about this particular technology before, this story comes with an “update.” We might call it “carbon nanotubes” 2.0. But before we get to that possible hidden story and the day’s high octane speculation, first, the article itself:
Japanese company plans to build a functioning space elevator by 2050
There is is, boldly emblazoned in the headline: the Japanese plan to turn the science fiction idea of a “space elevator” into reality in a mere forty or so years:

“Space elevators have long been the realm of science fiction, but the Obayashi Corporation in Japan has now announced that they’re planning to have one up and running in the next 40 years. And, if they’re successful, it could revolutionise space travel – it’s estimated the elevator would be able to take people into space for one percent of the cost of a rocket.
“Although it might sound impossible, a 2012 international study already concluded that space elevators such as this one are scientifically feasible thanks to advances in super-strong carbon nanotubes. “The tensile strength is almost a hundred times stronger than steel cable so it’s possible,” Yoji Ishikawa, a research and development manager at Obayashi, told Matthew Carney from Australia’s ABC.” (Underlined emphases and links in the original; bold and italics emphasis added).

Now, you’ll recall that just last year the Japanese came out with another equally stunning “grand project” idea, namely, to line the equator with solar panels, and beam power back to the Earth in the form of microwaves. You’ll recall that at that time I pointed out that beaming that amount of power back to Earth would most likely “cook” the area around any collection antennae, making the area uninhabitable… to anything. In fact, I pointed out that similar ideas had been studied by the US Air Force in the 1960s. In short, the Japanese were planning, if one read between the lines a bit, to turn the Moon not into a power plant but into a “death star” of sorts. No sooner had I blogged about that story, than a few days later the Chinese called the bluff, and very blatantly proposed turning the Moon into a death star, using similar means. China had called Japan’s bluff.
Now, it’s in that context that I think one should view this current “grand announcement” from Japan. The article points out the current difficulty of carbon nanotubes, at least, as far as we’re being told publicly:

“But the big hurdle is trying to make carbon nanotubes long enough to reach into space, at the moment the Obayashi Corporation admits they can only create nanotubes that are 3 centimetres long. Researchers all over Japan are now working on dramatically extending this length – they even run competitions each year to collaborate on the problem, Carney reports for ABC.“. (Underlined emphasis and links in the original, bold and italics emphasis added)

Obviously, a mere 3 centimeters is a bit short of the 96,000 kilometers of the vision, but it’s a start.
But there would be other possible space uses of such materials, if they can get the bonding problem worked out, and are able to construct much larger objects from such nanotubes. Note that these nanotubes have 100 times the tensile strength of steel, in other words, nanotubes would be able to withstand the tremendous stresses and strains placed on such a “space elevator” that would simply snap steel like a twig….
…or they would be the perfect material for a spaceship designed for long range exploration, their tremendous strength perhaps able to withstand impacts with micro-rocks that could rip through more conventional materials. Couple this technology with “self-repairing” nano-bots programmed to make small repairs automatically, and voila, one has a materials science that is approaching what would be required for long-range manned exploration of space. Add a 3-d printer for the more difficult parts replacements and… you get the idea. Now, once again, the real question is, just how far along in such technologies might “they” be in the black projects world? If you’re like me, you probably suspect they’re farther along than the public statements would allow, perhaps already able to construct much larger objects out of such carbon nanotubes, perhaps even to the point of Mark One versions of self-repairing materials.
There’s also an interesting pattern here, if one considers this story in the light of last years “Lunar Death Star/Microwave “Power Plant” stories, and that is, that it would seem to indicate that Japan is becoming the nation of choice for the western elites to make “announcements” of stories that could, if considered carefully, indicate technological capabilities beyond those in the public record.

Raking In On Rents: The US Housing Crisis Begins Anew

By Devon DB

Global Research, September 27, 2014

Region: USA

Theme: Poverty & Social Inequality

Wall Street wrecked the economy in 2007 due to dealing in shady mortgage securities that were given dubious triple-A ratings and put the entire global economy on the brink.  Do you think those big banksters learned their lesson and decided not to dabble in overly complex financial instruments and to stop deceiving people? The answer is of course, a resounding no. Not only have the bankers not received virtually any punishments for nearly destroying the economy, they are now involving themselves in the rental arena and may create another financial crisis in the process.
The situation began when the Federal Housing Finance Agency Real-Estate Owned (REO) initiative program launched in late February 2012. The purpose of the program was to allow “qualified investors to purchase pools of foreclosed properties with the requirement to rent the purchased properties for a specified number of years.” The thinking behind the program was that it “could provide relief for local housing markets that continue to be depressed by the volume of foreclosed properties, and provide additional rental options to certain markets.” The initial phase involved allowing companies to purchase large amounts of foreclosed properties from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, given that in a couple of years the properties would be converted into rental housing.
It must be noted, however, that in a August 10, 2011 information request regarding the then-upcoming REO Program, it was stated that a specific goal was to “solicit ideas from market participants that would maximize the economic value that may arise from pooling the single-family REO properties in specified geographic areas.” Now, this makes sense in that you need information from corporations who can deal in the REO business on a large scale, but it also allows for these very same corporations to have influence in what occurs and to potentially steer the program in a direction that would be to their benefit.
Once this program was open, companies began snapping up properties quickly and then securitizing them, called REO-to-rental securitization. The first company to do this was Blackstone which “[packaged] rental income from single-family homes it owns into a pass-through security, similar to a mortgaged-backed security.” While some economists argued that this could aid the hardest hit areas of the housing crash, others worried that “these new investors could face big challenges managing large portfolios of dispersed rental houses.” Investor companies such as Blackstone wanted to get into this new business as it had the potential to net returns that were much higher than either investing in Treasury securities or stock dividends. For example, “While a 10-year Treasury note yields little more than 2%, economists at Goldman Sachs calculate that rental property investments yield more than 6% on average, nationwide.”
From the very beginning of this new venture, there were already alarms raised about the situation. While Moody’s was allegedly giving such securitizations a triple-A rating, Fitch Ratings saw a major problem with this, namely that there was “limited performance data for the sector and individual property management firms.” This meant that people didn’t really know what they were getting themselves into as this was new market and thus the situation was quite risky. Earlier this year, Standard & Poor’s warned that rental security bonds didn’t deserve triple-A status due to their “operational infancy,” disagreeing with other rating agencies such as Moody’s, Krolls, and Morningstar.
Rent securitization has the potential to have some serious effects. Daniel Indiviglio, a columnist at Reuters, argued that the lack of data on securitization presents a number of challenges. The securities “may require an entirely new infrastructure for appraising how rentable a home is and at what price. And the faults that the crisis exposed in securitization reinforce how crucial a good crop of historical information is on rental trends.” Without having any long-term historical data, investors and rating agencies will be forced “to make assumptions on new stats like vacancy rates, tenant turnover costs and property management fees.”
Another factor is that potential bond purchasers will want to demand serious compensation for ponying up the money to buy these vacant houses as one cannot assume that the property is stable unless tenants have lived there for quite some time or signed a medium or long-term lease, which is quite rare for renters who are just moving in. “And with foreclosures focused in a few key regions and resulting rentals appealing to specific segments of the population, concentration risk is likely to be magnified.” This all raises the possibility that rental securitization may cost more than it is actually worth.
In addition to the actual financial risk for investors, there is also the possibility that rental bonds could possibly be increasing rents. In January 2014 it was reported that Congressional Representative Mark Takano (D-Calif.) “sent a letter to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., asking for an investigation into rental-backed securities deals” as he was saw that rental prices were increasing and that “a surplus of investors in rentals — along with new rental-backed securities deals — could have the effect of artificially raising rental prices, making housing even more costly in parts of California.”
To back up his case, Takano cited a 2013 Federal Reserve report which stated, with regards to companies buying up houses and renting them out, that without proper oversight “investor activity may pose risks to local housing markets if investors have difficulties managing such large stocks of rental properties or fail to adequately maintain their homes” and that “Such behavior could lower the quality of the neighborhoods in which investors own rental properties.”
But, we can safely assume that Congress already has laws to oversee rent securitization…right? It isn’t as if they would just go and let a situation similar to what just occurred go without being properly regulated….right? Well, it seems that there is no legislation overseeing rent securitization whatsoever. Representative Takano for Congressional hearings in January 2014 to look into the issue and so far it seems that nothing has happened.
While the situation is bad in Congress, it is even worse for people who live in houses that are owned by these corporations. Mindy Culpepper lived on the outskirts of Atlanta in a home which was consistently inundated with the stench of raw sewage and while she and her husband paid $1,225 a month to live in the three-bedroom house, her landlord in the form of Colony American Homes completely ignored her complaints. This isn’t a recent problem either; the Culpeppers have had to live with that stench from the first day they moved in.
Speaking of Atlanta, on April 15, 2014 the organization Occupy Our Homes Atlanta released a report entitled Blackstone: Atlanta’s Newest Landlord in which it was found that: (1) Tenants wishing to stay in their homes can face automatic rent increases as much as 20% annually. (2) Survey participants living in Invitation Homes pay nearly $300 more in rent than the Metro Atlanta median. (3) 45% of survey participants pay more than 30% of their income on rent, by definition making the rent unaffordable. (4) Tenants face high fees, including a $200 late fee for rental payments. (5) 78% of the surveyed tenants do not have consistent or reliable access to the landlord or property manager.
Furthermore, it was reported in July 2014 that while the company Invitation Homes “claims to have spent $25,000 per home to bring them up to standards, 46 percent of respondents reported plumbing problems, 39 percent found roaches or other insects, and around one in five had issues with air conditioning or mold or leaky roofs.” Thus, we can see that these corporations only care about making money rather than taking care of tenants.
All of this has a major impact on the working-class as they already spend more than half of their income on rent but with rent securitization, the economic problems begin even before people have entered the door. The organization Homes For All, released a report focusing on the Los Angeles rent securitization scene and found that “A major barrier to rental accessibility, especially for low-income renters, is the required deposit amount. In Los Angeles, the average deposit amount equated to 157 percent of respondents’ monthly rent amount. The highest deposit required as a percentage of monthly rent was 281 percent, and the lowest was 53 percent.” With regards to amount spent on rent, the report found that “67 percent of [the] respondents had unaffordable housing, and 47 percent were severely cost-burdened.”
There are other problems as well. In New York City, where private equity firms are buying up apartment buildings which are rent-controlled, companies are pushing long-term residents out of their apartments in order to redo the dwellings and sell them at market prices. These firms are often engaging in illegal tactics such as “mailing fake eviction notices, cutting off the heat or water, and allowing vermin infestations to take hold.” Serious money is on the table for these companies. For example, in 2005, Rockpoint Group “bought a complex of apartment buildings in Harlem known as the Riverton Houses. To justify the whopping $225 million mortgage, the company projected that it would be able to more than triple the rental income from $5.2 million to $23.6 million by forcing out half of the rent-regulated tenants within five years.”
Rent securitization is a major problem, not only because it mirrors the mortgage crisis that just occurred, but also because of the human impact it has. People who are already in difficult conditions, living in rent-controlled apartments are being forced out and those who are purchasing these corporate-owned apartments are living in wretched conditions and rarely to get any service whatsoever. We need to say no to this new scheme because if not, it may allow for the mortgage crisis to become a rent crisis.
This was originally published on Occupy.com.
Devon Douglas-Bowers is a 22 year old independent writer and researcher. He has a BA in Political Science and is the Politics/Government Department Chair at the Hampton Institute. He can be contacted at devondb[at]mail[dot]com.