I could very well be wrong. Your thoughts don't seem all that foreign to me so I assume they have been mentioned in a related sense elsewhere already. I can't say for a certainty that it has been covered, and if you can say for a certainty that it has not then I stand corrected.

I still disagree with you that the interpretation you're going for is the surface explaination of the song. By your own admission, you're digging deeper into the song itself to draw these conclusions as well as in attempting to link Vicarious with the other songs on the album. Most people are not coming to these conclusions so it has to be something below the surface, if it exists at all.

That's not to say there isn't more to the song, or that your ideas are invalid, but clearly there's an easy to get idea being presented initially which references the media and people's apparent need for bloodlust. So ideas that revolve around those concepts are what's on the song's surface.

I would continue to suggest that those simplistic explainations that relate to the media, bloodlust, apathy, etc; are relevant and can be applied to the individual so as to make a positive impact. Whether or not they're exactly what Maynard hoped we would find, they still matter and shouldn't be discarded. You seem almost disappointed that this is all some people have come up with for the song's meaning. Me personally, I'm fine with it because I know people can still make good on that interpretation if they want to. And I have to believe on some level Maynard would be happy with that as well even if that's all anybody ever gets out of the whole thing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your conclusions are not obvious to the majority of people I've seen posting here. You can either see that as a compliment (ie, you should be thankful your interpretation requires more thought to obtain) or you can be offended (ie, you take this to mean I believe you're just another Tool crackpot). Honestly, since I don't know you well enough in the first place, I'm hard pressed to see you as merely one or the other anyways, but perhaps a little bit of both :)