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Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






Also compare modern UFO abduction stories to those of Fairy abductions in yesteryear. There are very clear similarities.

Of course, that's not to say either is actually happening, but it does show the reported phenomena goes back a long old time.

   
Made in us
Did Fulgrim Just Behead Ferrus?





Fort Worth, TX

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sebster, I think you are assuming all the aliens would be of uniform purpose, capability and, for lack of a better word, professionalism. Why assume they are the opposite of humanity in that regard?

.


Yeah, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if our first contact with alien life is with a Teaser.

"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me."
- Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks 
   
Made in us
Water-Caste Negotiator




orem, Utah

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sebster, I think you are assuming all the aliens would be of uniform purpose, capability and, for lack of a better word, professionalism. Why assume they are the opposite of humanity in that regard?

.


Yeah, to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if our first contact with alien life is with a Teaser.


this is by far the most convincing argument in favor of aliens having visited earth to me

are you going to keep talking about it, or do something already? 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sebster, I think you are assuming all the aliens would be of uniform purpose, capability and, for lack of a better word, professionalism. Why assume they are the opposite of humanity in that regard?


I'm not assuming anything of the sort. I am assuming that a species that was capable of interstellar travel that wanted to observe humanity without detection would have the ability to do it from a distance well beyond human detection, certainly well beyond human visual range. That they wouldn't need to fly in to the atmosphere and then zip about doing impossible tricks while they had their lights turned on.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/12 08:47:32


“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

This one is local to me, and keeps popping up on my FB:

Gateshead Council

We are aware that certain individuals are frightening local people with false stories about the street lights in Gateshead – despite the fact we, and others, have told them repeatedly that their allegations are entirely false.

For your reassurance, we’d like to set the record straight.

• Gateshead Council DOES NOT use 5G technology in any of its street lights, or in any other capacity. It has never done so.

• The street lights in Gateshead will not give you cancer.

• The street lights will not induce miscarriages in pregnant women, or cause insomnia, or nosebleeds, and they are not killing all the birds and insects.

• Gateshead Council is NOT carrying out secret government trials in 5G technology via our street lights.

We don’t know how these conspiracy stories start, but we are happy to report that this is exactly what these are. These tales are completely untrue and you should ignore them.

Please be assured that there is no scientific basis or credible evidence for any of these scare stories about street lights causing cancer and other illnesses. We’ve taken advice from Public Health England who reviewed guidance issued by the World Health Organisation, the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation and others, and they have confirmed that there is no risk.

We ask you to share this information with your friends and neighbours as we understand that some residents have been badly frightened by these tales, and the more people who understand that they are completely false, the better.
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






Just wait until David Wolfe gets wind of that story. The curly haired charlatan.

   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

 sebster wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Sebster, I think you are assuming all the aliens would be of uniform purpose, capability and, for lack of a better word, professionalism. Why assume they are the opposite of humanity in that regard?


I'm not assuming anything of the sort. I am assuming that a species that was capable of interstellar travel that wanted to observe humanity without detection would have the ability to do it from a distance well beyond human detection, certainly well beyond human visual range. That they wouldn't need to fly in to the atmosphere and then zip about doing impossible tricks while they had their lights turned on.


You just assumed they wanted to observe humanity without detection. That's your assumption. Maybe not all of them care about avoiding detection. Perhaps they are gauging humanity's reactions to specific levels of detectable interference. Perhaps they like playing mind games. Perhaps some of them are just bad at their jobs or have grown apathetic. If they do have the ability to alter or remove memories, perhaps that has bred a certain overconfidence or contempt for the painstaking details necessary for absolute stealth. Some believers report seeing inter factional conflict among the aliens, so there may even be an element of sabotage across parties. It's like Maskirovka times a million.

And if they are performing medical experiments, they can't do all their research from orbit.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/12 17:02:15


   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You just assumed they wanted to observe humanity without detection. That's your assumption. Maybe not all of them care about avoiding detection. Perhaps they are gauging humanity's reactions to specific levels of detectable interference. Perhaps they like playing mind games. Perhaps some of them are just bad at their jobs or have grown apathetic. If they do have the ability to alter or remove memories, perhaps that has bred a certain overconfidence or contempt for the painstaking details necessary for absolute stealth. Some believers report seeing inter factional conflict among the aliens, so there may even be an element of sabotage across parties. It's like Maskirovka times a million.

And if they are performing medical experiments, they can't do all their research from orbit.


Yeah, so maybe the aliens don't want to make contact, but do want to make their presence suspected to a small number of humans by flying about the sky doing weird stuff.

I mean sure, if you want to claim that's a plausible option, run with it.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

There's a difference between not wanting to make direct contact and meticulously covering all of your tracks. I'm pretty sure the polar bears who get tagged know humans exist even though no one has contacted them and researchers try to minimalize any disturbance.

   
Made in ru
Lone Wolf Sentinel Pilot





Room

There is a unnamed world conspiracy to decrease the number of people. The visible part is called "Ecologists". Their goal is not the preservation of nature, but the destruction of people. This is a very influential group that controls almost all world governments with help of globalism and use dominance of the US state, which is controlled by them after the 1960s. According to their plan, Africa was to be destroyed by viruses, wars and famine. Ebola and AIDS are artificially created weapons against people. However, the plan did not work and the population still grows though it is sick, it is fighting and is undernourished. They want to plunge Arabs into chaos, so that they themselves destroy their states and then deprive them of water, electricity and other things. Europe is destroyed demographically and culturally. To make the management of the world more centralized, it is also planned to economically destroy Europe (especially the western part). For this, crowds of "refugees" were introduced there. These "refugees" are healthy young men, some of whom have combat experience. They are fighters of the future civil war in Europe, which will break its economic independence. As it was after the second world. Even the US according to their plan will be destroyed. And the process is already underway. This confuses me and I can not say "it's the Americans that destroy the world." Conspirators do not have human morals, or they are not people at all.

Mordant 92nd 'Acid Dogs'
The Lost and Damned
Inquisition
 
   
Made in gb
Assassin with Black Lotus Poison





Bristol

That is such laughable garbage that anybody who believes it should be sectioned for their own good as they demonstrate a complete detachment with reality.

The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.

Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
 
   
Made in gb
Ridin' on a Snotling Pump Wagon






Just goes to show....never label a conspiracy what can be put down to simple old utter incompetence and callousness.


   
Made in us
5th God of Chaos! (Ho-hum)





Curb stomping in the Eye of Terror!

 Freakazoitt wrote:
There is a unnamed world conspiracy to decrease the number of people. The visible part is called "Ecologists". Their goal is not the preservation of nature, but the destruction of people. This is a very influential group that controls almost all world governments with help of globalism and use dominance of the US state, which is controlled by them after the 1960s. According to their plan, Africa was to be destroyed by viruses, wars and famine. Ebola and AIDS are artificially created weapons against people. However, the plan did not work and the population still grows though it is sick, it is fighting and is undernourished. They want to plunge Arabs into chaos, so that they themselves destroy their states and then deprive them of water, electricity and other things. Europe is destroyed demographically and culturally. To make the management of the world more centralized, it is also planned to economically destroy Europe (especially the western part). For this, crowds of "refugees" were introduced there. These "refugees" are healthy young men, some of whom have combat experience. They are fighters of the future civil war in Europe, which will break its economic independence. As it was after the second world. Even the US according to their plan will be destroyed. And the process is already underway. This confuses me and I can not say "it's the Americans that destroy the world." Conspirators do not have human morals, or they are not people at all.

Isn't that basically the premise of the Kingsman?

Live Ork, Be Ork. or D'Ork!


 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
There's a difference between not wanting to make direct contact and meticulously covering all of your tracks. I'm pretty sure the polar bears who get tagged know humans exist even though no one has contacted them and researchers try to minimalize any disturbance.


Sure, and in that sense the abductions become, if not believable then at least coherent as a story. But we're talking about strange objects in the sky whizzing about doing stuff that's obviously impossible for human planes, while the lights are turned on. I mean, you don't have to reach the point of 'meticulously covering all your tracks' to just turn the lights off.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

 sebster wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
There's a difference between not wanting to make direct contact and meticulously covering all of your tracks. I'm pretty sure the polar bears who get tagged know humans exist even though no one has contacted them and researchers try to minimalize any disturbance.


Sure, and in that sense the abductions become, if not believable then at least coherent as a story. But we're talking about strange objects in the sky whizzing about doing stuff that's obviously impossible for human planes, while the lights are turned on. I mean, you don't have to reach the point of 'meticulously covering all your tracks' to just turn the lights off.


It would be pretty funny if most of those were examples of a natural phenomenon and then 2% were alien craft stealthily disguising themselves as that natural phenomenon.

Considering there are accounts of what human observers believed to be a skirmish between factions of UFOs, it's not unreasonable to wonder if all of them even give a crap if humans see them. Perhaps the abductors are not riding around with the flashing lights crew.

The tagged polar bear might wonder why the guys drilling for ice samples aren't behaving the same way the polar bear researchers do.

   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It would be pretty funny if most of those were examples of a natural phenomenon and then 2% were alien craft stealthily disguising themselves as that natural phenomenon.


The aliens have assumed we're smart enough to have figured out the natural phenomena behind those, and think we'll assume their alien spaceships are that same phenomena. But our scientific ignorance means we're on to those aliens. That's actually pretty good

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in ca
Squishy Squig





Nurgle's belly button

Huge difference between believing the moon is a hologram and simply believing that people in power will do bad things or let bad things happen for money/control.

I heard once that CIA invented the term as a derogatory, while this may not be true, it certainly works as one seeing as how people use it to conflate ridiculous claims with plausible ones.
   
Made in ca
Longtime Dakkanaut




Building a blood in water scent

 Darling wrote:
Huge difference between believing the moon is a hologram and simply believing that people in power will do bad things or let bad things happen for money/control.

I heard once that CIA invented the term as a derogatory, while this may not be true, it certainly works as one seeing as how people use it to conflate ridiculous claims with plausible ones.


I have heard that too, but I wonder if the "CIA invented the term conspiracy theory" is itself a conspiracy theory!

Also, the difference between 'ridiculous' and 'plausible' is subjective and will depend on who you are talking to.

We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'” 
   
Made in ca
Squishy Squig





Nurgle's belly button

Agreed, it is a subjective matter and should be taken on a case by case basis. Claiming "tin-foil hats" is really just ad hom.
   
Made in de
Battlefield Tourist






Nuremberg

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they general psychologically unhealthy thought patterns and can result in increased paranoia and eventually to pretty antisocial behaviour. I think the widescale propagation of conspiracy theories does real harm to society to be honest.

Edit: My mother is pretty bad for this, sadly. It doesn't help that through chance in her life, she's actually seen some actual conspiracies happen - one was the locking up of her aunt in a laundry back in Ireland back in the day, and another was your run of the mill local corruption over land. She's incredibly suspicious of authority due to this.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/25 19:33:32


   
Made in gb
[DCM]
Et In Arcadia Ego





Canterbury

 feeder wrote:
 Darling wrote:
Huge difference between believing the moon is a hologram and simply believing that people in power will do bad things or let bad things happen for money/control.

I heard once that CIA invented the term as a derogatory, while this may not be true, it certainly works as one seeing as how people use it to conflate ridiculous claims with plausible ones.


I have heard that too, but I wonder if the "CIA invented the term conspiracy theory" is itself a conspiracy theory!

Also, the difference between 'ridiculous' and 'plausible' is subjective and will depend on who you are talking to.


https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VsRMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA141&dq=%22conspiracy+theory%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1g7IT8eEBKSi2gW2_ejmDQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%22conspiracy%20theory%22&f=false

1870, The Journal of mental science: Volume 16 - Page 141

etc etc etc

https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-the-cia-invented-the-term-conspiracy-theory-in-1967-in-use-for-70-years-prior.t960/

The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
 
   
Made in ca
Squishy Squig





Nurgle's belly button

Ah well there you have it. Still though, the word is definitely used as a derogatory in modern times.

"general psychologically unhealthy thought patterns and can result in increased paranoia and eventually to pretty antisocial behavior."
I'm not so sure about this though, I'd be interested to see a study. Seems to me like the video game issue IE Do games make people violent or were they violent before the game came along. In other words, are we talking about a bad influence objectively/a bad influence in its specific application (one game(Conspiracy Theory) vs. another) or certain people shouldn't be participating because of pre-existing mental conditions?
Sort-of-a-kinda-thing.
   
Made in ca
Calm Celestian




Florida, USA

 LordofHats wrote:
Well who else would have made Oswald's magic bullet?

That one is easy, Kennedy himself did it!


There is a fine line between genius and insanity and I colored it in with crayon. 
   
Made in us
Posts with Authority






The Conspiracy Theorists are out to get me!

The Auld Grump

Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.

The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





The Flat-Earthers apparently believe that the reason no one falls off the edge of the world is because of the 'Pac-Man effect'. In short, the world is a virtual reality with a wraparound screen.

Sure, whatever gets you through the day...

CHAOS! PANIC! DISORDER!
My job here is done. 
   
Made in us
Proud Triarch Praetorian





 Vulcan wrote:
The Flat-Earthers apparently believe that the reason no one falls off the edge of the world is because of the 'Pac-Man effect'. In short, the world is a virtual reality with a wraparound screen.

Sure, whatever gets you through the day...


So, is the earth flat or are we in a virtual simulation? I am so confused right now.
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 Vulcan wrote:
The Flat-Earthers apparently believe that the reason no one falls off the edge of the world is because of the 'Pac-Man effect'. In short, the world is a virtual reality with a wraparound screen.

Sure, whatever gets you through the day...


And to achieve that effect, the computer simulators found the easiest way was to build their virtual simulation as a globe.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut




Had an actual conversation with an actual flat-earther the other week, in the pub.

Now I know why they call him Mad Mick XD

'The water would run off!'

Gravity.

'Invented by NASA!'

fml.
   
 
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