The Red Pill

With the ease at which video can be captured, uploaded, and shared across the world today, there is a veritable buffet of red pills ready for our consumption. As discussed in class, though, many of these red pills just bring you into a different blue pill state of mind where you just believe something else even though it may too be biased. The first obvious example for me is the 911 truth movement “documentaries” on Google Video and Youtube. The most famous of these is Loose Change which tries to convince its viewers that the September 11^th terrorist attacks were planned and orchestrated by the US government even though the video ends without giving many real reasons as to why they would want this to happen. I can think of many, but one wonders why the filmmakers wouldn’t come to a more convincing conclusion.

Many people promoting the video and the movement urge us to “wake up” and see the truth. When I first saw the video three years ago, I was 16 and rather impressionable so I took the sided with the filmmakers. Having given it more thought now, though, I see that while many facts don’t line up it just isn’t plausible to think that this administration could pull off a cover-up of this magnitude without something leaking out. With as many scandals that have been exposed over the few years, how could this have been kept secret?

Another red pill on the web today is the internet phenomenon, presidential candidate Ron Paul. I frequently visit the site Digg.com for news, tech, and offbeat stories, and over the last year Ron Paul supporters have been spamming the social news website with stories and "inspiring" videos. He’s a radically conservative (in the economic and foreign policy sense) republican who believe in more freedom and liberties for citizens. His message is good, albeit a little too radical for my liking, but it is the spamming of Digg that has made me never want to vote for him. I almost feel like a patient in a hospital with crazy doctors (Paul spammers) trying to force the red pill down my throat.

These two examples, with videos on Youtube and elsewhere, show that people can be convinced to wake up, but the reality that they are waking up into may be just as opinionated and skewed as the one where they were fast asleep.