Top Ten Fascinating Things That Fascinate Me

Posted by graysonjack on September 9, 2011 · 21 Comments 

Unfortunately it’s another list; and a long one at that.  So basically I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to read it. 

1.) The Voynich Manuscript- I spent over a week researching the crap out of this thing and never really learned anything more than a description of what it looks like.  It’s apparently a medieval manuscript written by an unknown author from Europe.  There’s 234 highly illustrated pages and is written in an unknown script.  What makes it so fascinating is that it is widely considered to be a scientific work with pictures of plants and astronomical patterns that don’t exist.

 Attached to the manuscript is a letter from Johannes Marcus Marci of Kronland, offering the codex for translation…in 1666!  Even then they had no idea what the origin of, or who the author of the book was.  Several theories are out there including (of course) being written by aliens, to it being a huge hoax concocted by the “most recent” owner for which the manuscript is now named. You can come to your own conclusions by visiting its home website here.

 

2.) Kim Jong Il- This crazy son of a bitch should be number one because he’s so freaking insane, however, due to his habit of, you know, murdering people, I won’t allow him to be the number one anything.  This guy is hands down the most fascinating cult of personality I’ve ever read about for an infinite number of reasons.  I could write several posts on just this one guy.  While his people starve to death because of famine, he makes matters worse by stealing any money other countries send to help the poor citizens of this broken nation.  He lavishes himself with luxuries like Hennessey Cognac, designer clothes and a DVD collection of 20000 movies.  As a matter of fact, Mr. Kim kidnapped a prominent South Korean film director and made him film a Godzilla propaganda rip-off…after imprisoning him for a lengthy amount of time.  Who does that?!

 Adding to his list of crazy, he maintains a functioning but uninhabited city for the sole purpose of showing off his “beautiful” cities to the South Koreans.  He also claims to be the best natural golfer in history and that he invented the hamburger in order to save his people from starving.  You can’t make up that kind of crazy.

 

3.) Alien Conspiracies- There is a formula for the probability of alien life in the Milky Way galaxy called ‘The Drake Equation’, which theorizes as many as 1 million alien civilizations could exist.  The argument to this belief is known as the ‘Fermi Paradox’, which basically asks the question: If there are so many alien civilizations, why haven’t we seen proof?

 Whatever your beliefs, there is no shortage of conspiracy theories involving alien cover-ups by ours and many other governments.  From them running the US to the little green men controlling our entire planet, there is no shortage of, or theory to wild for someone to believe.  There’s even a school of thought that promotes the ‘Seed of Life’ idea which hypothesizes humans all together are a result of an alien seeding program millions of years ago that “planted” our race.

 There are so many fascinating “proofs” of alien life on the internet that it probably ranks second only to porn in websites and poorly shot video.  My personal belief is that in the infinite vastness of space, it would be just a little small minded to believe there wasn’t even a freaking amoeba floating around somewhere out there.

 

4.) Unit 731- This is a bit of a darker subject and not the “ha ha” insane funny of Kim Jong Il.  It’s more the ‘holy shit, people did that to other humans(?)’ kind of insane.

 Unit 731 was a secret Japanese WWII biological and chemical warfare research center, who tested on humans instead of animals.  I’m not saying animal testing is right or wrong but holy hell, you have to admit human testing of this magnitude was a bit extreme even for the 1940’s (although I’m sure members of PETA would disagree). 

 It’s estimated that as many as 580,000 people were killed by these experiments, and as many as 200,000 Chinese military and civilian lives were killed as a result of the weapons produced.  Various experiments included vivisection for a wide array of reasons, weapons testing, germ warfare, and “scientific” studies like the ones shown here.

 I guess no government is immune from committing atrocities in the name of science…including our own.  There’s scientific research, and there’s murder; Unit 731 falls under the latter.

 

5.) Nazi Experimentation- Most people are much more aware of the Nazi’s human experimentation as it was not swept under the rug like the Japanese Unit 731.  Dr. Mengele, aka Angel of Death, was the most famous of the scientists in the 3^rd Reich; known for his work on twins, dwarfs and other “unique” specimens.  He was cruel with his victims, stripping them of clothes, family, dignity and ultimately their lives.  His and other top officials of Hitler’s regime, main goal were the purification and strengthening of the Aryan race. 

 My fascination with events such as these and Unit 731 aren’t morbid curiosity, but rather the psychological mindset that allow otherwise normal people to commit such atrocities in the name of science and/or country.  It usually begins with one man who might be an actual sociopath, but through a combination of brainwashing, intimidation and following orders, others are brought into this man’s depraved world; that’s why things like experimentation with genetics, disease, interrogations, pharmacological, sterilization and surgery happen on a huge scale. One man can create a world of hell for millions.

 

6.) Psychology- This is kind of an all encompassing topic for me.  One could lump many of my ‘fascinating’ subjects into some area of study of psychology.  The way the human brain works is completely amazing in how flesh and blood and tissue can function much like, and sometimes better than, a computer.  Yet one glitch, one virus or one hard hit can completely change that functionality.  Sometimes we’re even programmed wrong from the very beginning.  Anything from fear of the dark, to becoming a serial killer all have their roots in the make-up of the brain.

 What especially fascinates me, are those with schizophrenia; the true catch-all for the bat-shit crazy…voices and hallucinations.  The art some of these men and women create are true masterpieces, more so than the likes of today’s commercial artists.  I always felt most good authors and artists had a bit of crazy in them, but walked a fine line between painting ‘Starry Nights’ and killing a hundred and twenty people so they could bathe in the blood of their victims youth. 

 

7.) Space- The one concept of space that gets me more than any discovery of planet or star ever could, is the infinite size of it all.  Every time I think I’m close to understanding the ramifications of just exactly what infinite space means, my head starts pulsing, preparing to explode.  It’s like trying to divide by zero; it can’t be done.

 There are so many questions I want answered: how can something be infinite?  What’s beyond infinity?  If it’s not infinite, what’s on the other side?  What’s holding space up? If there was nothing before the big bang, how is there something now?  If there WAS something before the big bang, how did it get there?  And on and on ad infinitum. 

 My head hurts now.

 

8.) Serial Killers- I don’t find them fascinating because I think what they do is “cool”; I find them fascinating because it involves a combination of things that I find to be psychologically stimulating much like the Nazi’s and Unit 731 from earlier in the list.  The psychology behind these deeds is absolutely mind blowing.  Gacy, Dahmer, Bundy…all of these men had cravings that could not be satiated through what is considered normal interaction and behavior with other humans.  Rarely do we see serial killers who simply kill because they enjoy taking a life.  Usually there’s another motive and death is just a means to the end; tying up loose ends.  Be it sexual gratification or other, death isn’t usually the primary goal of the killer.  What I find particularly fascinating are the killers who see it as a sort of game and leave behind clues as to who they are and why they commit these crimes.  Those are some truly twisted individuals who are much scarier than your run-of-the-mill gang banger, and I so badly want to get into their head.

 

9.) Religion- There’s no negative connotation to this fascination as most of you might think because of earlier posts; no, this is a subject that I’m interested in purely from a sociological stand point.  Religions of the world are so different in practice and deity, but at the core are all the same.  Every religion at its base teaches love, kindness and harmonious living between neighbors.  Unfortunately there are individuals in every religion who take words too literally and shed blood in the name of their god.  It’s silly to think that religion is supposed to be something we practice in order to become better humans but instead it brings about intolerance and war.

 Anyway, to read about some folks who have gotten it right, check out some of the far eastern religions who didn’t put their focus on deities but rather focused on their actions.  Also, you ever notice how almost every single religion ever created, all evolved from some of the same stories and principles, i.e. Eden, the great flood and the struggle between good and evil?                     

 

10.) Rongorongo- I’m fascinated by language; where it started, how it came to be and geographically specific writing systems.  But for the sake of this post, I’ll focus on the most unusual and intriguing; Rongorongo.

 What’s so unusual about it is that it’s considered to be one of a total of four independent inventions of language.  This is because it was a found on Easter Island, which prior to being discovered in the 19^th century, had no record of European (or otherwise) inhabitants or explored save that of the original natives.

It’s a glyph system that to this day has not been deciphered despite hundreds of attempts by language experts and code breaking experts.  Without the help of a “Rosetta Stone”, it’s not likely to actually ever be deciphered.  It still produces fascination however, to a growing population of language enthusiasts.  To learn more about this incredible language, please visit here.

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Filed under lists · Tagged with Alien Conspiracies, Kim Jong-il, Nazi Experimentation, Psychology, Religion, Rongorongo, Serial Killers, Space, Unit 731, Voynich manuscript