My journey to coming here today started in 1974. That's me with the funny gloves. I was 17 and going on a peace walk. What I didn't know though, was most of those people, standing there with me, were Moonies. (Laughter) And within a week I had come to believe that the second coming of Christ had occurred, that it was Sun Myung Moon, and that I had been specially chosen and prepared by God to be his disciple.
Potovanje, ki me je danes pripeljalo sem, se je začelo 1974. Tu sem s smešnimi rokavicami. Stara sem bila 17 in šla sem na mirovni pohod. Nisem pa vedela, da večina ljudi, ki so tam stali, pripada Moonijem. (Smeh) In čez en teden sem že verjela, da je Kristus drugič že prišel, da je Sun Myung Moon in da me je Bog posebej izbral in pripravil za njegovo učenko.
Now as cool as that sounds, my family was not that thrilled with this. (Laughter) And they tried everything they could to get me out of there. There was an underground railroad of sorts that was going on during those years. Maybe some of you remember it. They were called deprogrammers. And after about five long years my family had me deprogrammed. And I then became a deprogrammer. I started going out on cases. And after about five years of doing this, I was arrested for kidnapping. Most of the cases I went out on were called involuntary. What happened was that the family had to get their loved ones some safe place somehow. And so they took them to some safe place. And we would come in and talk to them, usually for about a week. And so after this happened, I decided it was a good time to turn my back on this work.
No, tako super, kot se to sliši, moja družina nad tem ni bila navdušena. (Smeh) In poskusili so vse, da bi me izvlekli od tam. Odvijala se je nekakšna podtalna prisila v tistih letih. Morda se je kdo še spomni. Imenovali so se deprogramerji. In po petih dolgih letih me je moja družina deprogramirala. Potem sem pa postala deprogramerka. Začela sem sprejemati primere. In po petih letih tega početja sem bila aretirana zaradi ugrabitve. Večina primerov, ki sem jih prevzela, se je imenovala neprostovoljni. Družina je morala svoje ljubljene nekako spraviti nekam na varno. In tako so jih spravljali na varno. Potem smo prišli mi in govorili z njimi, običajno kak teden. Ko se mi je dogodilo to, sem sklenila, da je pravi čas, da neham s tem delom.
And about 20 years went by. There was a burning question though that would not leave me. And that was, "How did this happen to me?" And in fact, what did happen to my brain? Because something did. And so I decided to write a book, a memoir, about this decade of my life.
Preteklo je kakih 20 let. Žrlo me je pa vprašanje, ki me ni zapustilo. Bilo je: "Kako se je to zgodilo meni?" Dejansko, kaj se je zgodilo z mojimi možgani? Kajti nekaj se je. Tako sem sklenila, da napišem knjigo, spomine, o tem desetletju mojega življenja
And toward the end of writing that book there was a documentary that came out. It was on Jonestown. And it had a chilling effect on me. These are the dead in Jonestown. About 900 people died that day, most of them taking their own lives. Women gave poison to their babies, and watched foam come from their mouths as they died.
Proti koncu pisanja te knjige je bil narejen dokumentarec. Prikazoval je Jonestown. Zmrazilo me je. To so mrtvi v Jonestownu. Okoli 900 ljudi je umrlo tistega dne, večina si je življenje vzela sama. Ženske so dale strup svojim otrokom in gledale, kako jim je iz ust prihajala pena, ko so umirali.
The top picture is a group of Moonies that have been blessed by their messiah. Their mates were chosen for them. The bottom picture is Hitler youth. This is the leg of a suicide bomber. The thing I had to admit to myself, with great repulsion, was that I get it. I understand how this could happen. I understand how someone's brain, how someone's mind can come to the place where it makes sense -- in fact it would be wrong, when your brain is working like that -- not to try to save the world through genocide.
Na zgornji sliki je skupina Moonijev, ki jih je bil blagoslovil njihov prerok. Družice so bile izbrane za njih. Na spodnji sliki je Hitlerjeva mladina. To je noga samomorilskega bombaša. Kar sem si morala priznati, s hudim odporom, je, da razumem. Zdaj razumem, kako je do tega lahko prišlo. Razumem, kako lahko možgani, razum, pride do tega, da je prav - dejansko bi bilo narobe, če bi vaši možgani tako delali - ne rešiti sveta z genocidom.
And so what is this? How does this work? And how I've come to view what happened to me is a viral, memetic infection. For those of you who aren't familiar with memetics, a meme has been defined as an idea that replicates in the human brain and moves from brain to brain like a virus, much like a virus. The way a virus works is -- it can infect and do the most damage to someone who has a compromised immune system.
Kaj je to? Kako deluje? In kako sem prišla do spoznanja, da sem doživela virusno, memetično okužbo. Za tiste, ki ne veste, kaj je memetika, mem je definiran kot zamisel, ki se razmnožuje v človeškem umu in prehaja z uma na um kot virus, zelo podobno kot virus. Virus dela tako - lahko okuži in povzroči hudo škodo nekomu, ki ima oslabljen imunski sistem.
In 1974, I was young, I was naive, and I was pretty lost in my world. I was really idealistic. These easy ideas to complex questions are very appealing when you are emotionally vulnerable. What happens is that circular logic takes over. "Moon is one with God. God is going to fix all the problems in the world. All I have to do is humbly follow. Because God is going to stop war and hunger -- all these things I wanted to do -- all I have to do is humbly follow. Because after all, God is [working through] the messiah. He's going to fix all this." It becomes impenetrable. And the most dangerous part of this is that is creates "us" and "them," "right" and "wrong," "good" and "evil." And it makes anything possible, makes anything rationalizable.
Leta 1974 sem bila mlada, bila sem lahkoverna, in v svojem svetu sem bila precej izgubljena. Res sem bila idealistična. Preproste zamisli k zapletenim vprašanjem so zelo privlačne, ko si čustveno ranljiv. Tako se zgodi, da prevlada krožna logika. "Moon je eno z Bogom. Bog bo popravil vse težave na svetu. Moram samo ponižno slediti. Kajti Bog bo ustavil vojne in lakoto - vse tisto, kar sem hotela sama - le skromno moram slediti. Navsezadnje, Bog je [dejaven skozi] Mesijo. On bo popraviti vse to." To postane nepremostljivo. In najbolj nevaren del tega je, da ustvari "nas" in "njih", "prav" in "narobe", "dobro" in "zlo". To naredi, da je vse mogoče, da se da vse upravičevati.
And the thing is, though, if you looked at my brain during those years in the Moonies -- neuroscience is expanding exponentially, as Ray Kurzweil said yesterday. Science is expanding. We're beginning to look inside the brain. And so if you looked at my brain, or any brain that's infected with a viral memetic infection like this, and compared it to anyone in this room, or anyone who uses critical thinking on a regular basis, I am convinced it would look very, very different.
Ampak, če bi pogledali moje možgane v letih, ko sem bila Moonijevka - nevroznanost napreduje eksponencialno, kot je včeraj povedal Ray Kurzweil. Znanost napreduje. Začenjamo gledati v notranjost možganov. Če bi pogledali v moje možgane ali katerekoli možgane, okužene z virusno memetično okužbo, kot je ta, in primerjal s komerkoli v tem prostoru, ali komerkoli, ki redno kritično razmišlja, sem prepričana, da bi izgledali zelo, zelo drugačni.
And that, strange as it may sound, gives me hope. And the reason that gives me hope is that the first thing is to admit that we have a problem. But it's a human problem. It's a scientific problem, if you will. It happens in the human brain. There is no evil force out there to get us. And so this is something that, through research and education, I believe that we can solve. And so the first step is to realize that we can do this together, and that there is no "us" and "them." Thank you very much. (Applause)
In to, naj bo še tako čudno, mi daje upanje. Razlog, da mi to daje upanje je, da si je najprej treba priznati, da imamo problem. Toda problem je človeški, je znanstveni problem, če hočete. Dogaja se človeškim možganom. Ni zunanje zle sile, ki bi vplivala na nas. Zato verjamem, da bomo, z raziskavami in vzgojo to lahko rešili. Prvi korak je, da se zavedamo, da to lahko naredimo skupaj, da ni "nas" in "njih". Hvala lepa. (Aplavz)