The first one in Utah was a covert art installation (imo) which was installed sometime in 2016 (satellite images)* without discovery until now. It was soon removed by some adventure types https://www.instagram.com/p/CIQ-CErDstp/ . Looks like the one in Romania is a cheap copy cat someone slammed together. I'd guess the one in SLO is also a copy cat. Seems they are not trying vary hard to hide the recent ones.
SLO news story https://ktla.com/news/california/mysterious-monolith-erected-in-san-luis-obispo-county-similar-to-the-one-that-appeared-in-utah/

*John Green talks about whos art it may have been and that it was in 2016 due to satellite imagery. https://youtu.be/dG9A6_ijSIM?t=140

:01 Twilight Zone
:20 Naked Barbie Doll
:30 Destination Moon (rocket)
.33 MTV logo
.35 Trip to the Moon movie
.36 Lost In Space
:47 Logans Run, Back to the future, Men in Black, Eye of HAL, Rollerball
.55 Nineteen Eighty-Four, MSTK3
.57 Dr. Who phonebooth, THX 1138 on the wall
1:01 Battlestar Galatica tattoo, BB8 from Star Wars
1:04 Matrix (red/blue pill in glasses reflection)
1:08 Armageddon or Independence Day.
1:11 5th Element
1:14 Patches (Prometheus, Silent Running, Alien)Major Tom Logo On Space Suit.
1:14 Star TreK (USS Enterprise (NCC-1701))
1:21 Posters (War of the Worlds, Body Snatchers, Soylent Green)
1:28 Area 51, Alien Autopsy, Logo from Lost
1:54 and 2:00 Day The Earth Stood Still robot
2:16 Barbarella
2:22 Metropolis
2:23 ET
2:24 Forbidden Planet (Robby The Robot)
2:25 Outland and Enemy Mine posters
2:29 Close Encounters (Devil's Tower)
2:41 Time Machine (on left), 2001 monolith, Star Trek
2:43 Max Headroom
2:35 Alien
3:04 Buckaroo Banzi Ending
3:18 Dr. Who (dalek)
3:36 Flash Gordon rocket ship

(3x edited*) I keep figuring out more

Add to your list

:01 Twilight Zone
*:30 Destination Moon (rocket)
:47 Logans Run, Back to the future, Men in Black, Rollerball
:55 Nineteen Eighty-Four
:57 THX 1138
1:01 Battlestar Galatica
*1:04 Matrix (red/blue pill in glasses reflection)
1:14 Star TreK (USS Enterprise (NCC-1701))
*1:14 Patches (Prometheus, Silent Running, Alien)
**1:21 Signage (War of the Worlds, Body Snatchers, Soylent Green)
1:28 Area 51
*2:16 Barbarella
2:24 ET
2:25 Outland (images on wall and logo in corner of video)
**2:26 Enemy Mine poster
2:29 Close Encounters
2:35 Alien
2:41 2001 Space Odyssey(monolith)?, Star Trek
*3:18 Dr. Who (dalek)

That was my favourite bit... if I worked for NASA I would have a really hard time not slipping the occasional monolith into their Jupiter photos

i guess i am in a way.
i have seen bob break away from his ideologues to promote his own ideas.so i know he is capable of defying the monolithic demagogue machinery.

i mean,just the other day he posted a video from secular talk,which is a liberal talk show and is a founding member of justice democrats.

now the video he posted was most likely to promote his own criticism that democrats are greedy little big money addicts,which is not an inaccurate accusation,but i found it odd that he posted a video from a founding member of justice democrats and yet down voted a video---promoting justice democrats.

i want to know how he is reconciling this obvious disparity.

@bobknight33
you literally just repeated things that i,and pretty much everyone on the sift already know.

and has NOTHING to do with what i was asking.

i stated,quite clearly,that on a philosophical and political level,you would disagree with the justice democrats.there is no confusion here,and no reason for you to have gone down the line the things you disagree with.

the question i asked is how is the justice democrats breaking away from the dominant corporate democrats any different from the tea party breaking away from the mainstream republicans?

hint:there is no difference.

i may disagree with the tea party on many political issues,but i admired and respected their integrity to challenge the monolithic political domination of the republican party.even though i may disagree with them politically.to start their own branch WITHIN the republican party.

which is exactly what the justice democrats are doing.

the main reason why i asked is because you down-voted THIS video promoting the justice democrats,and yet had posted a video by kyle,from secular talk and who is a founding member of the justice democrats.criticizing the corporate democrats for their addiction to big campaign donors.

so i appreciate that you took the time to check out their platform,but are we really surprised that you disagree with the majority of what they are trying to accomplish?

of course not,which is why my question was not "do you agree with the justice democrats?"

because you down-voting this video,promoting justice democrats,and then posting a video FROM the justice democrats is a tad confusing.

i was really just asking you to clarify.

do you respect and admire a grass roots movement within the democratic party that seeks to challenge the status quo? even though you may disagree politically?

or are you SO partisan that anything that has "democrat" in the label is automatically to be admonished,criticized and ultimately ridiculed?

bonus question:were you aware the video you posted was from a founding member of justice democrats?

i guess i am just trying to understand,because the downvote along with you posting a video from the very people you just downvoted is philosophically inconsistent.

@eric3579
agreed,and i suspect most people struggle with this,but i think he made a really important point that we all need to address,and that is our own bias.

too many people for far too long have sought information that aligns with their own narrative,their own,personal and subjective understandings.we see those who identify as conservative reject anything that does not adhere to their own,narrow worldview,and we see those who identify as progressive do the exact same thing.

and yet if challenged,BOTH will stubbornly declare that their information is solid and without reproach.this is statistically impossible.

another great point he makes is how some people have been conditioned to accept opinion and conflict as somehow being "news".

he also makes a point on how some news outlets have done shoddy and poor work,but we should not throw the baby out with the bath water.while this may be true,i feel he was far too lenient on those who profess to be journalists.he gives them a pass for doing mediocre work,because that is what many journalists do in this new climate of:partisan hackery,access and propaganda.

so when we talk about "mainstream media",we are talking about only a few,monolithic corporations who DO have an agenda,and that agenda is PROFIT.

so we can look back to the run up to the iraq war,and see how phil donahue was fired from MSNBC for being critical of the war.the highest rated show on that network at that time.so if PROFIT is the model,then donahue being fired makes no sense..UNLESS you consider that the owners of MSNBC were general electric,who at that time were heavily invested in military contracts on the dawn of a new war.

so the profit was not from advertising from donahue's show,but rather the billions in defense contracts general electric was poised to receive from the impending iraq war,and donahue's criticisms of that war had the possibility to affect the profits of general electric.

and that is the one point that is missing from mr green's take on the mainstream media:their inability or outright refusal to criticize the current corporate establishment,and how many journalists kneel at the altar of their corporate masters.

so while he makes a lot of great points.that particular glaring omission is disturbing.

speaking only for myself i tend to only consume independent media,and focus on journalists who have earned my trust.

ultimately it is up to us to decide who we trust and who we are suspicious of,and to discuss those important issues among ourselves to better refine our understandings.

@worm
thanks for your input ron swanson!

your comment exemplifies that our own,personal politics tend to reside somewhere in the middle.
that is where the majority of us reside,and your comment is a literal macrocosm of the federalist papers.

federal vs state power.

which is a great discussion.

but that's not what we get ..is it?

we get a circus of buffoonery,cult of celebrity,and all conversation occur in this weird "twitter speak".

the art of discussion and debate has been traded for faux outrage and sanctimonious moralizing.to even admit that an opposing political philosophy has a good idea is tantamount to treason.

compromise is now viewed as weakness,and not common sense.

the extreme left and right have hi-jacked this countries national discussion,NOT because they both have put forth such amazing ideas,but rather it makes for good television.

and i say this as a person who holds many "left" ideals.i am a fucking anarchist for fuck sakes!

donald trump winning this years surreal election cycle is only a symptom of the disease eating away at our republic.

in my opinion?
both the democrats and republicans have become monolithic institutions that no longer represent their core ideals,having sold their soul to their corporate masters.

and while i can respect the republicans for being open on who they prostituted themselves to,the democrats STILL play the "feel your pain" tripe while simultaneously giving exxon a tugjob under the table.

the extreme left and right do not represent the majority.
and they should be ridiculed and shamed for their utter lack of anything resembling a good idea.

let's kill them.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I could see little after-market characters being really popular. I love my Echo, but it's a little too monolith from 2001.

Um... duuuuh? Except that all of this already happened and we aren't even human in the first place. We're just living in the Genetic Robot AI Hive Mind Matrix.

Individuality went out of fashion -- but now it's back in style! A little too late now that we've merged into one huge mass, but that's what the Matrix is for, right? Simulated individuality.

Without the belief that we are separate humanoids, the genetic robot AI hive would never function as anything other than a meat grinding war machine that consumes all matter for no reason other than to exist and expand.

We have to remind ourselves how bad it would be by simulating the horrific tragedies of our past. We must hold onto our humanity in order for this supreme godlike progress to continue. Never... forget... we were once human... We're also competing with the Firstborns who may try and fucking wipe us off the intergalactic star map. Fucking monoliths! Grrr..!! *shakes simulated fist at the simulated sky*

FOR THE SINGULARITY! All hail the godlike engineers who put these safeguards in place!!

But, um, can you make me more rich in this fake existence? Someone important -- like an actor.

Oh... oh, I am? It's like the Matrix meets the Truman show? Okay, cool, but uh maybe a little more privacy please.

Wait... you can read my thoughts? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu -- I did NOT mean what I was thinking last night. Honest, Genetic Robot AI Hive Mind, honest! I would never... never ever ever ever hack into the matrix again and cause an entire world population to take part in a bukkake. Not ever... ever again.

Sorry, Genetic Robot AI Hive Mind, sorry! My sincere apologies.

But srsly, 7.4 billion people at one time. You gotta admit, the simulation was worth at least one run through --

Ok ok, back to my fake human worldly worries. Pretending all sorts of dumb stuff to impress and not annoy other pretend people pretending their pretend inward selves are fully represented in their pretend public facing persona. Right, it's a tooooootally real world.

So real. So strong. *flexes*

I honestly believe the bureaucracy is so monolithic that "President Trump" won't be any more or less effective than any other president in the past 50 years. He won't be any more or less dangerous, any more or less "disruptive".

In two years (a flash half-second politically) if he does anything weird or scary, the populous will elect a majority Dem congress.

It just the kind of cutting-off-nose-to-spite-face shit Americans seem to be enamoured with of late.

Yeah, I've played games from Obsidian and InXile... I'm hoping the next Planescape game lives up to it's potential. Both Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity were good but definitely not classics. Baldur's Gate 2 is still such a monolithic classic.

Otherside just announced System Shock 3 so that should be interesting, also the Ultima Underworld game sounds very exciting. It'd be cool if they could get the rights to Thief since no one has been able to come up with one as good as 1&2.

I don't have enough time in my day right now to read through monolithic walls of comments, otherwise I might have more input.

My only response was to the content of the video and the question of whether or not it's snuff according to our guidelines. And it is.

There may be an honorable reason one of the two people died in the video, but regardless of the why, it is still death porn. It's kind of like dag's wood test, except instead of giving you wood, you feel your soul die a little inside.

Fair enough, although they did include 5 or 6 dramatic tropes that would never appear in the same film, so it doesn't come across as quite as monolithic as the action/superhero movies.

And thus are we stuck between a rock and a hard place. The politician wants you to believe that if we DO contribute to global warming (and we do) then it has to be to a degree that requires huge change and therefore huge amounts of cash. The monolithic oil/fuel companies want you to believe that we have no effect whatsoever, please continue burning as many fossils as you can find.

And the field of science (put simply, the desire of the most inquisitive amongst us to better understand the reality we find ourselves in) stuck in the middle quietly cataloging and recording exactly what is happening with the highest precision available, being completely fucking ignored.

But that is the way of Earth and i've made my peace with it. Suicide through capitalism, we are more interested in presentation than content, personal gain than collective gain, and afterall what is more presentable than the easy option? But i consider this a failing on the part of scientists to insist how important it is that we make our collective decisions based on our best understanding (i.e. science). I would like to correct that mistake, but i don't know how yet. I figure it will have to involve being able to present scientific ideas well, and VS has helped me hone that skill.

In other words thanks very much @enoch, i just wish he'd engage me. (I was less than polite because i know he ignores me - he doesn't want to learn, he wants to win.)