Are You Just Another One of Them? I received this e-mail on May 16, 2002, and I really couldn't believe how silly it was!  I simply had to share this with my friends, but instead of e-mailing it off to everyone I knew, I figured I'd just post it here. -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 19:19:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Piegan Mangar To: [My CSUS E-mail Account] Subject: Are you just another one of them? There is something extremely wrong with every single person in this world. They seem to be part of a pointless simulation. "The Matrix" has portrayed this idea somewhat, yet we watch it and go back to our daily lives. Yet in this very life, underneath the seeming diversity in people's opinions, values, talents, and interests, there is something that makes everyone the same. It is as though this planet is populated only by mindless fakes, objects that provide the appearance of intellect on the surface but are based on only mechanical reflexes and primitive thought patterns. I don't really care if anything I say has been said before, if it was portrayed in movies, in books, or in the lyrics of some useless song. With 6 billion people covering the globe at any given time, thousands and thousands of years of written literature, probability dictates almost any combination of words has occurred numerous times. Yet there is clear evidence there was no action, so those words, just like the people who spoke them, must have been just more fakes. I am forced to use this language (also created by the fakes) because there is no alternative, so everything I write here could be misunderstood to make me sound like one of them, but it will be the action that I take and the dedication that will separate me from them. In my estimation the fakes that occupy this planet don't make up 99%, but more like 99.9999999% of the population. I know this because I ve searched, and in my search have so far only found one true ally (I have found him via the internet as well). But even with those numbers we would not give up because there is no logic in giving up. The people on this planet are all fakes because the societies have made them this way. Ideas that populate people's minds have no logic or purpose. Concepts such as religion, god, morality, individualism, freedom, identity, happiness, love and billions of others are all just memes. Like parasites they infect the minds and spread from one person to the next. They have no point or purpose; they exist without any logical basis or foundation. The fakes are completely controlled by them, and they will never see beyond them. To not be controlled by them one must do more then just realize that they exist. One must resist any ideas that have no point, endlessly question, and never accept imperfection or compromise in any answer. We (myself and my ally) are different though. While we have had the limitation of existing only in these societies, something has made it possible for us to resist being indoctrinated into becoming one of those fakes. We have no arbitrary wants, needs, desires, or preferences. If this world continues to exist the way it is then nothing in it will ever have a point. It will always be just a product of random evolution, one with no importance or relevance. The only logical goal is to dedicate our lives to increasing our numbers, those that aren't fakes, so that in thousands of years our numbers may be such that the fakes would no longer be a threat to progress. Those that join us must see every other person occupying this planet as the enemy, and us as their only allies. Like us they must have dedication only to taking the most logical action, and to nothing else. To tell you more about us, we've posted some personal information about ourselves on a website. You'll also find past responses to us on that webpage. If you reply to us we're open to anything you say that makes logical sense. However, we'll be judging you based on what indications you give that you have accepted and/or rejected society. We will ask you some questions to test how resistant you are to thinking like everyone else. If you already have an essay or a web site that shows your way of thinking better than answering these questions would, just send us that instead. (1) What is your view of religion and how did you derive it? What limitations do you see in a strictly scientific view of the world, and what is necessary to overcome those limitations? (2) How do the things that you do in your day to day life differ from the things that you'd like to be doing in your day to day life in the future? (3) What values, morals, principles, and codes of conduct are most important to you? What if someone is in your way, or somehow interfering in the goal you are pursuing, would you consider killing them, given there were no consequences? (4) Do you prefer to follow your heart or your mind - why? Can you describe a time that you did something that went against your reason because of your heart? Did you regret doing it? (5) Imagine that you are given the opportunity to live on an isolated island for five years with up to three people of your choice. Survival will be extremely easy on this island because you will be given plenty of food, shelter, and other necessities for life. The only difference is that you are isolated from the rest of humanity and have no technology. Would you go? Who would you take with you and how many would you take with you? (6) Who or what is so important to you that you can't live without it? What things or people truly matter to you in your life? Why? (7) How do you justify doing something for fun or enjoyment? (8) Do you see that there is anything wrong with the way people act, or with the way our society exists? What exactly? Can you imagine how it could be changed? Feel free to tell me or ask me anything at anytime. If you didn't like this message for some reason, you can always show me how to do it right by sending me a better one. Do not simply reply to this email, if you do, we will likely not read your reply. If you do wish to communicate, first demonstrate your interest by solving a puzzle to obtain our website address and our second e-mail address. Only if you write to that address are we going to read your letter. Since there is the possibility that either the website or the corresponding e-mail address doesn't work, we have a third e-mail address for you to use. To find the third e-mail address, solve the puzzle given below. For this third e-mail address, you'll find a Java applet on our website that allows you to check whether or not you have solved the puzzle correctly. When you send me e-mail to my second or my third e-mail address, mention that you solved "puzzle 6" in the subject of your e-mail, that will immediately get my attention, and make it impossible to mistake your e-mail for junk mail. The puzzle for the third e-mail address: The solution to the puzzle is a string. When you solve the puzzle, take the resulting string and add "@yahoo.com" and that will be my email address. So the resulting email will look like "your_answer@yahoo.com". The solution string is ten characters long, three English letters followed by seven digits. There are ten parts to the puzzle that you must solve, one for each character. Part 1 In the five lines of text below, find the least frequently occurring letter. This is the first character of the solution string. SZADLTFOLNRCHUXDBDCALCCDCBVNMAKLCAOBBFGUM XMAABEINABAQBAOBAZBXAVBKCUDYHCYCQCDOCYNX ERFMCGCUVYJABPIHQWYHALOBKABAPXSMIBAJZYVBQA HUZBABKAGJBFOPXQIQSCDRCVCHGABJCKASDFMPRBAU BIWASLGWEBABJAWCRPZHBWVDKCAZWAIFRGPSAJAT Part 2 In the five lines of text below, find the most frequently occurring letter. This is the second character of the solution string. NIXSHWLWXURPEQVO ZAZKXYFTMJGNBECW UDHIRSKVPQZFLBAGO JMEDECTUFIHABJNQR PVDMOSKYTELGCY Part 3 The third character of the solution string is "n". Part 4 The fourth character of the solution string is "3". Part 5 The fifth character of the solution string is "6". Part 6 The sixth character of the solution string is "2". Part 7 Subtract one from the least significant digit of Albert Einstein's year of birth. (For this puzzle, this is the definition of least significant digit: The digit which is farthest to the right in a number. For example, if Albert Einstein was born in 1842, then the least significant it is "2", and one less would be "1".) Part 8 Subtract 17 from the number of prime numbers between 1 and 100. Part 9 What is the least significant digit of the sum of all the prime numbers between 1 and 100 (2+3+5+7+...89+97)? Part 10 The tenth character of the solution string is "0". Puzzle for the second e-mail address: The second e-mail address is the preferred e-mail address to write to. Solving this puzzle will give you both our URL and our second e-mail address. When you solve the puzzle, take the resulting string and add ".freeservers.com" and that will be our website address. So the resulting URL will look like "http://your_answer.freeservers.com". The second e-mail address is 128345@your_answer.freeservers.com Procedure: translation table a-d = 1-4 e-h = 5-8 i-l = 9-12 m-p = 13-16 q-t = 17-20 u-x = 21-24 y-z = 25-26 start string = fedcba21 fedcba21 12abcdef [read backwards] 23bcdefg [add one to all] 32cbedgf [switch two at a time] 3 c e g [discard every other character] 33cceegg [duplicate every character] cc335577 [translate every character] ee557799 [add two to every character] e 5 7 9 [discard every other character] j 101418 [double all characters] j j n r [translate the numbers; leaves letters the same] k l q v [+1 +2 +3 +4] k l q 22 [translate the last letter] k l q 44 [double the numbers; leave letters the same] kkllqq44 [duplicate letters; leave numbers the same] qkrlwq44 [add six to every other letter; leave numbers the same] qwlrkq44 [read letters backwards; leave numbers the same] qwl 44 [discard last three letters; leave numbers the same] qqwwll44 [duplicate all letters; leave numbers the same] hqnwcl44 [subtract nine from every other letter; leave numbers the same] hqnwcl44 [all done] To find the solution string, repeat the above procedure for start string = abcdef12 When you are done, you should obtain six letters followed by two digits. Ryan and Jacob