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Special Collaborator
Eclectic, JRF/Canterbury, Avant/Zeuhl
Joined: December 17 2019
Location: (redacted)
Status: Offline
Points: 4118
Posted: October 18 2021 at 03:12
TCat wrote:
I do understand what you are saying though as people do what they have to do in order to place the blame somewhere. And it sometimes even gets to the point that everything they hear and see ends up supporting what they want to believe. I think what you are saying is that it was still wrong for him to start this activism without really investigating things first, as you said, "identifying patterns even where none exist".
Oh yeah, for certain. I don't mean to condone these views or the people who espouse them, I'm merely trying to understand their appeal.
Joined: September 30 2006
Location: Pearland
Status: Offline
Points: 65311
Posted: October 17 2021 at 21:33
It's gotten to the point where most conspiracy theories have an opposing theory which discredits both, like 'We Have Secret Bases on Mars' vs. 'No One Has Ever Landed Anything on Mars', or, 'China on the Verge of War' vs. 'China on the Verge of Collapse' . It's become quite clear that almost all theories are wrong, misled, and by definition incorrect. Once one realizes this, it's all bullsh*t and one should go back to reading and being educated.
The "Birds Aren't Real" video is very funny, BTW.
"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy
Joined: April 05 2006
Location: Vancouver, BC
Status: Offline
Points: 36330
Posted: October 17 2021 at 21:02
I'm reminded me of a Doctor Who quote from the 70s (Tom Baker years, episode The Face of Evil).
The Doctor: You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering.
This quote gained some interest with the rise of "alternative facts."
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
Joined: February 07 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 11612
Posted: October 17 2021 at 18:05
Hopeful, definitely in a strange way. Yeah it made his life more hopeful. And he exercised his freedom to fight for something that he believed in. But, how much damage did his activism hurt those that believed him?
I do understand what you are saying though as people do what they have to do in order to place the blame somewhere. And it sometimes even gets to the point that everything they hear and see ends up supporting what they want to believe. I think what you are saying is that it was still wrong for him to start this activism without really investigating things first, as you said, "identifying patterns even where none exist".
People say it's their right to decide whether to get a vaccine or not. But when does the right to being able to live safely outweigh the rights to individual viewpoints. When do the facts become more important than unverified opinions?
Special Collaborator
Eclectic, JRF/Canterbury, Avant/Zeuhl
Joined: December 17 2019
Location: (redacted)
Status: Offline
Points: 4118
Posted: October 17 2021 at 16:47
A few years ago I read an article about a man whose grandson suffered from a severely debilitating form of autism, and who, convinced that the MMR vaccine was to blame for the child's condition, had made it his life mission to denounce the evils of vaccines all around the country. The reporter then interviewed the man's wife, who said that her husband's anti-vaccine activism had actually been very therapeutic and liberating for him, and it's not hard to see why: humans naturally tend to identify patterns even where none exist, and it feels more comforting to think of bad events in your life as having been bestowed upon you by malignant actors against whom you can lash out, rather than as a mere cruel twist of fate with no one to blame.
The worldview of people who are deep in some conspiracy rabbit hole might seem extremely bleak and pessimistic, but in a strange way it's actually quite hopeful too: those people can clearly identify that there is a lot wrong with society, but they see all of it as the result of deliberate actions by a few evil men at the top, and believe that disposing of them will be enough to make society righteous and happy again.
Joined: June 14 2007
Location: Sea of Peas
Status: Offline
Points: 51474
Posted: October 16 2021 at 10:58
BaldJean wrote:
progaardvark wrote:
Verbs don't exist. The universe was designed to contain only nouns. The designer couldn't design a brain that would work in a noun-only universe and put codes in our brains to download files of verbs. Some people are in tune with how the universe actually operates and have evolved to speak and write using only nouns. A leader is prophesied to be born in the coming decades that will help us remove verbs from our minds and lead us to the path to the great nouns in the sky.
on the contrary: nouns don't exist. everything is a process and hence a verb. you are not sitting on a chair, you are sitting on a chair that is slowly rotting
Unbelievable! I was debunked in under a half hour!
---------- i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions
Joined: April 21 2005
Location: Boston, MA
Status: Offline
Points: 16588
Posted: October 16 2021 at 10:52
TCat wrote:
But the problem now is, it seems like more people than ever are falling into these rabbit holes. A lot of it has to do with the access to so many forms of information and mis-information. It seems anyone can get a following anymore....Joe Rogan somehow went from being a comedian to a TV show host and now has a podcast where he fills up the ears of his listeners with false facts. He started the thing about taking the drug ivermectin to combat COVID. People heard that and started taking it instead of getting vaccinated, and ended up in the hospital from self-medicating. It just makes my head spin at how gullible people have become.
Joined: May 28 2005
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 10387
Posted: October 16 2021 at 10:24
progaardvark wrote:
Verbs don't exist. The universe was designed to contain only nouns. The designer couldn't design a brain that would work in a noun-only universe and put codes in our brains to download files of verbs. Some people are in tune with how the universe actually operates and have evolved to speak and write using only nouns. A leader is prophesied to be born in the coming decades that will help us remove verbs from our minds and lead us to the path to the great nouns in the sky.
on the contrary: nouns don't exist. everything is a process and hence a verb. you are not sitting on a chair, you are sitting on a chair that is slowly rotting
A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
Joined: February 07 2010
Location: Canada
Status: Offline
Points: 11612
Posted: October 16 2021 at 10:06
But the problem now is, it seems like more people than ever are falling into these rabbit holes. A lot of it has to do with the access to so many forms of information and mis-information. It seems anyone can get a following anymore....Joe Rogan somehow went from being a comedian to a TV show host and now has a podcast where he fills up the ears of his listeners with false facts. He started the thing about taking the drug ivermectin to combat COVID. People heard that and started taking it instead of getting vaccinated, and ended up in the hospital from self-medicating. It just makes my head spin at how gullible people have become.
Joined: February 01 2011
Location: Michigan
Status: Offline
Points: 13099
Posted: October 16 2021 at 10:00
BaldJean wrote:
Logan wrote:
The English footballer David Icke is a quite an interesting and dangerous personality. He believes that lizard people control our world.
"Humanity is actually under the control of dinosaur-like alien reptiles called the Babylon Brotherhood who must consume human blood to maintain their human appearance."
He thinks that the universe consists of vibrational energy. Apparently he had visited a psychic who told him that various truth would be revealed to him by the spirit world, which led to various prophecies, He is also someone who is listened to and has been on the anti-Covid-19-vaccine bandwagon, and has spread misinformation and dubious information. He has claimed that the vaccine is gene therapy and other things.
yes, I know about him and even watched some of his videos. hilarious
...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
Joined: April 05 2006
Location: Vancouver, BC
Status: Offline
Points: 36330
Posted: October 16 2021 at 09:56
Speaking of misinterpretation, and a problem with religious writings is that they are often so ambiguous, can be interpreted in so many ways, I've spent many, many hours listening to Do (Applewhite) and related materials of the Heaven's Gate cult. Those people were prone to conspiracy thinking, and at the time heavens Gate got started the idea of aliens visiting us (maybe they have, I don't know), that God is an ET, that angels are astronauts etc., that religion came from such extraterrestrial sources but the truth was not understood, was not that far-out. They believed that the Earth was being controlled by Luciferians, aliens, who were those cast out by the aliens of the Kingdom of God, the evolutionary level above human. Ti and Do, the founders of Heaven's Gate, felt they were the two written about in prophecy come as a sort of saviours. They adapted biblical passages and other things that fit a narrative. I guess everyone wants to be special (we all are I would say), and for those dissatisfied with the world, wanting answers and surety where there is none, and wanting escape (I can identify with that), it had appeal. A lot of these conspiracy groups act like cults, and in those bubbles, ideas are reinforced and elaborated on. Many of these "wacky" conspiracy theorists (of course various conspiracies are true) think of themselves as sceptics, but lack the tools and/or will for rational scepticism/ critical thinking. Some people do deeper and deeper and deeper down these rabbitholes, and then close off things that don't fit their narrative (open to odd ideas that seem to fit, but not really open-minded).
Joined: June 14 2007
Location: Sea of Peas
Status: Offline
Points: 51474
Posted: October 16 2021 at 09:54
Verbs don't exist. The universe was designed to contain only nouns. The designer couldn't design a brain that would work in a noun-only universe and put codes in our brains to download files of verbs. Some people are in tune with how the universe actually operates and have evolved to speak and write using only nouns. A leader is prophesied to be born in the coming decades that will help us remove verbs from our minds and lead us to the path to the great nouns in the sky.
---------- i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions
Joined: December 31 2017
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
Points: 4890
Posted: October 16 2021 at 09:44
BaldJean wrote:
"koalas don't exist"
I haven't heard that one before. I know they existed during the '90s. I would see them in the trees in my backyard and I would frequently hear them at night. But I don't know if they exist anymore. I don't see them anymore and I don't even hear them anymore.
No, I know how to behave in the restaurant now, I don't tear at the meat with my hands. If I've become a man of the world somehow, that's not necessarily to say I'm a worldly man.
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TCat wrote:
