tragek

Great song!

Perhaps it's wrong to color a person's perception about lyrics like this and it robs them of the experience of understanding what it's about. On the other hand, judging from the number of posts for DIMD and the nature of the subject matter, someone might as well do it.

I think the meaning behind unDeveloped lies between the external ideas and the individual thinking them.

I'd say this track has to do with the Tsunami in Japan but since unDeveloped was released in May and the Tsunami happened in March, I'm not so sure. There's also the "voodoo" lyric, which suggests it could also be about the Haitian earthquake. But Haiti isn't overseas, so again I'm not sure. Either way you're talking about understanding how these situations were handled and what were the circumstances that led up them. You're probably also talking about that capitalized misspelled musical instrument, if you've heard it.

It's also worth mentioning that the number of people killed in Haiti was around 300,000. The number of people killed in Japan was around 15,000 at this point with 5,000 missing.

Also, you could think about how much of a connection there is between scientific research and the social utility that results from it. How much of scientific research actually gives our world something useful that makes it a better place to live in. And how much of that research further degrades our world. But I guess it's all progress right? It's in our DNA they'll say, that's what we do as a species is discover things and build machines, etc etc. And if you're going to allow people to research things that (supposedly) make our world better, you have to allow people to research the things that steadily destroy it.

Makes you wonder about selling a nuclear power plant as waterfront property.

There's also the layer of this track that deals with the individual asking about what's going on that led to such terrible natural disasters. And is it even worth asking / acting?

Also, perhaps there's an element where either the "construct" is watching these awful situations in other countries or it's the American public salivating as they watch such disasters unfold on our various television news networks. Either way there's some laughing going on I think.

But we're such a generous country and we provided aid to these countries during such an awful disaster. I think the "Action, this quick again" lyrics has to be sarcastic because of how slow the US can be to act in such scenarios. Maybe "beating the game" is not dying, in other words surviving as you watch people dead in piles of rubble in other countries and enjoying the fact that you're still alive and not in such an awful country and such an awful situation. In effect, you "beat the game" because you're alive and they're dead.

Though it could also be those will ill intentions who are dealing with the small fishes in order to "beat the game," or more specifically killing the small fishes directly or indirectly. As in systematic depopulation.

There's also the element of deceiving foreign governments about America's true intentions when providing aid, etc.

In the end, if you take nothing else from unDeveloped, maybe the most important thing is the idea of misinformation.

For the type of person who is deeply concerned with congruence in the world, the type of person who seeks out some sort of truth to stand on in order to understand existence, this misinformation can be very problematic.

And it's the fact that it's difficult, sometimes impossible to use science to inquire into the hidden intentions or meanings of other people's actions. Even more difficult is when groups of people are piled up into institutions and you attempt to reach firm conclusions about those situations. Then imagine how that difficulty can be magnified even further when you're examining these situations from your living room and on top of that you have a pretty weak basic education you're relying on.

So you're deeply concerned with finding the truth, but the truth you're looking for is perhaps impossible to determine and you're looking for it from a poor vantage point (making it even harder to determine).

But misinformation flows in both directions. On one hand, maybe you can't accept the "Official Version" that is presented to you. And on the other hand, the "Official Version" has been altered and obscured because it's assumed that you can't accept it. Or more specially, everyone obscures the truth in their heads, almost subconsciously, before they disseminate it to the outside world.

There's a difference between a person searching for social truths from their couch and a person measuring the natural world using science. But one is so much more boring than the other, and seems so much less pertinent, right?

And so people approximate the truth as best they can from their position in the world, and alter the "Official Version" as much as they have to in order to feel OK about it from both the dissemination angle and the acceptance one.

So misinformation just keeps piling up, just piles of shit that keep growing and distorting reality. The Internet is a good example, obviously. And from both ends, in many cases, the people who put forth this false information think they are doing someone a great service, they think they're protecting something or promoting something. But it's all just bullshit.

It's not the case that truth doesn't exist either, that you can't possibly trust any information. It's just that, with the gross excess of misinformation, you grow distrusting of any information you're presented with which is problematic.

Finally...

Beware of those who claim to possess ultimate truths about the world. But also beware of those who question the ground they walk on.

And it's not that you should stop crying about all the poor decisions seen, just have to stay away from the alliance between that and your insides. Also knowing that it's not necessary to devise a thesis of everything and make constant connections between all situations. You're most likely stumbling in the dark anyways.

You have to wonder if the conspiracy theory type of attitude that shows its scales throughout unDeveloped is perhaps some construct designed in order to be able to accept the state of the world.

Like instead of thinking up a God who is the creator of the many benign occurrences in the world, you create a Devil who is responsible for all the problems.

Because if the world is controlled by the long-reaching omnipresent tentacles of this nefarious construct then working to change things becomes less of a concern.

Instead, absolutely all you can possibly do is "wake up" to what's going on around you. And until everyone "wakes up" nothing can be done.

So once again, you retreat into your shell where all you can possibly pay attention to is your own existence because this conspirational power is too great for you to combat alone. Other people need to wake up for change to occur. A process that involves the vague ideas of "expanding your consciousness" or "understanding the truth." That change will occur from this "awakening" alone. Or in the provocation of some large-scale civil unrest that never happens.

The inaction of such people is interesting considering their views, if they hold them to be absolute truth. You'll see lone wolf type of stuff, but nothing organized that actually moves closer to doing anything positive. Of course we've seen conspiracy theories turn into genocide in the past, but you can't paint them all as being the same in terms of ideas. The more modern ideas typically don't carry any serious combined action it seems.

No doubt there's evidence for organized conspiracy, but you have to question supposed truths when they carry so much weight. What's wrong with a worldview that doesn't incorporate those sorts of ideas?

Difficult to justify inaction, cognitive inequities when it comes to understanding why certain events have occurred. That is, the official version that you witness is too hard to take in and it doesn't have the flow of a nice narrative, too jagged, too many things you don't fully understand and the dots are difficult to connect.

Moreover, there's the idea of having access to sort of hidden knowledge, a separator for you against a massive cross-section of the population (the majority of people) who are in the dark about such issues.

These heavy belief systems are extremely problematic and, I think, exist because they serve specific intrapersonal functions.

But do I only suggest this because I can't accept the truth of what's really going on?

And then somehow, though the faces look different and the words change position, you can't distinguish your discussion with the fundamentalist christian from your discussion with the ardent conspiracy theorist. It's like the same song, just a different verse.

Belief systems are designed to serve specific intrapersonal functions. If you end up in a situation where a belief system isn't necessary to you, truth becomes less meaningful because you're only concerned with the truths of specific actions you're involved in. But critical thinking and inquisitiveness are really something to be celebrated, but when you take the easy road to pursue those interests and are bombarded with misinformation (often not deliberately), you're going to have a hard time truly getting to the bottom of anything.

It's a strange world we live in where people who claim to be most connected to the concrete truth of the world are perhaps the same ones who could be hiding from it the most. Even stranger when you've been there.

But so many problems... No way to solve 'em. Have to run them through your machine, change into something else more comfortable. Or just put your head in the sand.

No matter what you do though, you won't be able to stare directly into this metaphorical sun for very long. Because if you do, the last meal you consume... will probably taste like gun metal. Or something to that effect.