Forrest Gump

Jean Baudrillard, author of Simulacra and Simulationsprovides a look at the difference between simulation and likeness. What actually distinguishes whether the simulation of an event is a "real" event or not? Baudrillard suggests that "simulation threatens the difference between "true" and "false", between "real" and "imaginary".

Artifacts are often destroyed in the display of history. Museums using artifacts to try a teach history through the visible likeness of objects. The simulacrum of the exhibit to the past. Showing the history often results in the death of the history being shown, a once perfectly preserved mummy now rotting in the light of an exhibit.

Baudrillard also states how Disney Land is set up in the likeness of being imaginary. It is just a distraction from the "real" world for some, it truly is the "real" world for others. A job versus a vacation. A place where the unusual or socially unacceptable in the "real" world is completely acceptable. This ability to change what is right or wrong based purely off of what the outcome is, or whether it benefits people is what blurs the line between real, a simulation, or just something similar. Watergate, the reality effect, once something becomes "real" it makes what was done immoral or wrong. Everyday information is mined the same way, however out-of-sight/out-of-mind. News organizations, Governments, independent companies, all of these have information that they found out in a way that most people would be terrified about. How does that ad on your homepage know you like baseball or dieting, your gender? It was mined, and bought. Was there a second shooter? Was the moon landing staged? Were there weapons of mass destruction? Any other countless conspiracy?

People fail to realize what is real until something serious happens or life changes. North Korea believes that Kim Jong-il was the greatest person of all time, the supreme ruler. This is "real" to them, to other people they know this is false. What happens when something is censored? The truth become fake, and the fake becomes real.

The first fifteen pages of the document made me think of Forrest Gump, blind of what he was doing, blind of what was real. Since it is a good movie, I may rent it and see what else I think.