The motto should be changed to "more ignorance"!

a reply to: deadlyhope

Because they usually are. So many conspiracy theories get hashed and rehashed here and they almost always get linked back to the same sources. The same charlatans and exposed frauds promoting the same crap. So if you don't have a source or you link to one of those dubious sources no one is going to believe you. We've all seen it before and it is just as full of holes as the last time we've seen it.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

So now we are going in circles, we should be sheeple and only believe what's on the nightly news, because it's a "chore" to sift through the good and bad?

I say throw most everything the msm reports out, that's a good start towards the truth. Just my opinion, though. Based on reoccurring evidence

originally posted by: deadlyhope
a reply to: Krazysh0t

So now we are going in circles, we should be sheeple and only believe what's on the nightly news, because it's a "chore" to sift through the good and bad?

I say throw most everything the msm reports out, that's a good start towards the truth. Just my opinion, though. Based on reoccurring evidence

Or you could be a bit intellectually honest and attempt to get a solid picture of what's going on from many different sources, pick out the obvious scams and lies, and critically analyze what is left for the hidden lies.

Pretending like the MSM is completely untruthful is just as ignorant as pretending like they always tell the truth. Doing that just makes you a sheep for alternative media to lie to you.

If you want to be a REAL truth seeker, you don't avoid the lies. You learn how to pick them out from what you are reading so that only the truth remains. This requires being well versed in logical fallacies, separating emotions and opinions from facts and logic, learn about various disinformation tactics (for example: it is a common tactic to hide conflicting information in an article at the bottom of it so that you can paint a narrative that is opposite of what is going on but still be listing all the facts since many people don't read the full article and are largely skimming it if anything by the time they get to the end), and many other tricks. The most important trick of all is to recognize your confirmation biases and be willing to change them if information comes out that says they are wrong.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Well said. I can agree with what you are saying, but would say it that way more so if I were on a different forum. Rants, I make stronger statements that near blanket statements to present how strongly opinionated about the topic I am.

But, the way you put it, makes sense and I can agree.

a reply to: deadlyhope

There is nothing wrong with ranting but keeping a logical thought process while doing so.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: real_one

So what if you are wrong?

You ever heard the phrase "A sucker's born every minute"?

Better check the time...

If you actually believe that the electoral process actually decides who the president is, and that the president does anything other than read a teleprompter and make the odd appearance on the international stage, then there is nothing I can do for you, you are too far gone to be helped.

Good luck with the elections...get a flu shot while you're at it.

a reply to: real_one

You didn't answer my question. What if you are wrong? Is it possible that you are afraid to consider that possibility because you've invested so much dedication into it being true?

PS: I've been where you are too, but I ask myself that question all the time, "What if I'm wrong?" Then I start exploring that possibility. It has led me to more truths than you may realize. Though, if you cannot even consider a simple question like that, then your first line of your post that I'm responding to is very apt for you.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: real_one

You didn't answer my question. What if you are wrong? Is it possible that you are afraid to consider that possibility because you've invested so much dedication into it being true?

PS: I've been where you are too, but I ask myself that question all the time, "What if I'm wrong?" Then I start exploring that possibility. It has led me to more truths than you may realize. Though, if you cannot even consider a simple question like that, then your first line of your post that I'm responding to is very apt for you.

I don't answer loaded questions, especially when I know for a fact that I am right.

Keep on ignoring your shadow government and pretending that your vote matters.

TY for providing the perfect example which the OP illustrated.

Nevermind the man behind the curtain, all is good, all is as it seems.

originally posted by: real_one

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: real_one

You didn't answer my question. What if you are wrong? Is it possible that you are afraid to consider that possibility because you've invested so much dedication into it being true?

PS: I've been where you are too, but I ask myself that question all the time, "What if I'm wrong?" Then I start exploring that possibility. It has led me to more truths than you may realize. Though, if you cannot even consider a simple question like that, then your first line of your post that I'm responding to is very apt for you.

I don't answer loaded questions, especially when I know for a fact that I am right.

Loaded question? It's a pretty simple question. In fact, it looks like you are deflecting. And I think I see the reason why in the word phrase following the loaded question one. You have just admitted to having a confirmation bias. You have already embraced ignorance and nothing can be shown to help you until you recognize that NO ONE knows they are right.

Keep on ignoring your shadow government and pretending that your vote matters.

TY for providing the perfect example which the OP illustrated.

Nevermind the man behind the curtain, all is good, all is as it seems.

So what if you are wrong?

I also find it funny, that based on a simple question, you are inferring tons of things about how I think about the government. I feel like next time I need to know how I should think about something, I should ask a rather simple question and you can tell me everything that I need to be thinking at that moment.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

It was a loaded question, and I will reply to your loaded question with another loaded question which you will call a deflection.

What if I am right?

Now let me be serious...

Okay, let me humor you just so you can sleep well tonight.

If I am wrong, then the Battle of Waterloo was won by Napolean, the Reichstag Fiire was done by a Dutch Commie, Egypt sunk the USS Libery, the Gulf Of Tonkin incident actually happened, Cold War was real, 911 OS story is true, everything the state sponsored media says is true...I'm sure you catch my drift by now...

And you used to be just like me?

You don't know me from jack squat other than a few times on here where I said some stupid stuff when I was drunk and you have been upset ever since.

I've even caught you disagreeing with me just for the sake of disagreeing.

I'll catch you taking one side in one thread, then I will post a comment that mirrors your opinion in another thread and you will attack my opinion even though it mirrors yours.

Maybe I'm the one who knows a lot more about you than you think.

Check my avatar

a reply to: Boadicea

Or, when it was pointed out that the media had "primed the pump" so to speak with stories on how polls showed that over 30% of Trump's supporters believed exactly what that person asked, and then he suddenly shows up and looks exactly like the perfect stereotypical redneck presentation of what we'd expect that type of supporter to look and sound like and asks THAT question exactly not but a few days later and we point out the possibility of plant ... a poster then proceeds to chase you around and snidely ask if you think everything else is a plant or shill.

And yet here we are barely a week, if that, later, and that person has completely vanished into the ether.

Joe the Plumber became a national news story for weeks, months, longer.

This guy who seems like the perfect excuse to expose Trump just disappears? Riiiight.

a reply to: deadlyhope

I get what you're saying. But normally I just ignore the threads that annoy me.

As for Hillary & every other candidate, just do your own research on them. There are plenty of legit reasons to like or dislike every one of them. Look into their actual proposed policies and their track records. Each of the candidates has their own personal websites, so you can see their words from their own side's mouths. Otherwise, you're just listening to other people's interpretations of what those policies and track records are. I mean, if you want to know the Dalai Lama's beliefs, would you ask an atheist or listen to a speech from the Dalai Lama? Obviously they can lie, but their critics can be lying too.

Also, our mainstream media is corporate owned. So of course they're going to manipulate the public narrative to fit their masters' ideals. If you were a billionaire and your employees kept airing negative things about you, would you be more likely to fire them or give them a raise? And if you were trying to get a job from a billionaire, would you approach him or her with negative words or with praise? Reporters, analysts, and commentators are employees too (though some have their own business ventures too).

a reply to: deadlyhope

Its not us longtimers....we get it. Its the newbies who quote from the MSM machine....until we school them in it

originally posted by: DazDaKing
a reply to: deadlyhope

Did you not get the memo? About 5-10 years ago ATS started becoming mainstream (slowly) and since then it's really just become a place for people to go to with their set opinion and argue to the death about who's right.

In that sense, it's become just like any other general public board. Like you say, most of the new topics are always about the tiny details of this entire facade with specific news articles that by their inherent design are meant to polarize people and stir constant debate.

Threads that are based on more 'classical' ATS topics are usually taken over/bombarded by people skeptical of the subject at hand, with the usual accompanying insults, and it ultimately all becomes more of an intellectual show down than any form of productive discussion.

This is because these discussions usually get mercilessly focused onto very specific instances of evidence, and hence the topic is rarely allowed to expand beyond the requirement to produce it (or falsify it). This is of course a problem when ATS is inherently based on topics that lack primary evidence - hence making them a conspiracy. The theories arise from secondary evidence by their nature.

Tldr version; Welcome to the Internet lol.

Excellent post! but there are subjects like 9/11 here that get beaten...but only almost to death, I need not mention the rest, because where there is something that does not feel proper, someone may come along to up the ante: that's where items that were not given in the original menu, become presented in a matter-of-fact way, as if the singular logic was always there, and no need to discuss it, when in the meantime the original menu gets altered.

Apologies to mods for having the need to use the full quote.

originally posted by: Boadicea
a reply to: deadlyhope

And that's just one end of it. There's countless posts based on what the media puts on, but also countless posts, evidence, facts, studies, etc showing that the media lies, manipulates, controls, etc.... [snip] ...Edit: this isn't me just saying that I dislike what others talk about. It's me saying I dislike how a majority of members (likely) realize the msm lies to us daily, yet will make a thread in which they adamantly trust what's on the TV and wish to discuss it to death, and put so much energy into such topics.

I think it's a little more complex, in that good posts require links from supposedly respectable news sources. Anything less (such as blogs) are immediately questioned by many, and sometimes for good reason. You seem to agree with me that NO news sources are respectable any more. But it does present a catch-22 when writing posts.

I would also suggest that people tend to use those news sources that support a premise they already believe and wish to discuss. My problem is that so many people believe they know what they cannot know. Look at the brouhaha over Trump not "defending" Obama from that mean and scary man who said Obama is Muslim... NO ONE knows what is in Obama's heart. We know that Obama once practiced the Muslim faith... we know that he has since attended a Christian church... we know that he claims to be a Christian now. But the reality is that only Obama knows for sure. Trump can give his opinion... But Trump cannot know either.

Obama never was a practicing Muslim. The school his father put him into as a young child required Muslim as the religion. It was in a heavy Muslim part of Indonesia. He just wanted his child in a good school. My mother put down Catholic the 2 years I went to Sacred Heart Academy. She had not practiced in many years and I was just learning Wicca at the time. She normally would have had me in a private school, but not being in the best economic situation, Catholic schools were cheaper and far better than public school.

The rest of your post mainly agree with, though.

a reply to: reldra

I guess the whole point of my post is saying that we don't know Obamas past, only people that actually attended that supposed school with him would know anything about it or if he did at all.

a reply to: eluryh22

We all drink the Kool-Aid. It just comes from different sources,
and in different flavors.

Which is okay. That's what makes the world go round.

originally posted by: real_one
a reply to: Krazysh0t

It was a loaded question, and I will reply to your loaded question with another loaded question which you will call a deflection.

What if I am right?

If you are right, then quite a few things about physics, human behavior, and science are wrong. Very many things in fact. Believe it or not, I've asked this question before.

Now let me be serious...

Okay, let me humor you just so you can sleep well tonight.

If I am wrong, then the Battle of Waterloo was won by Napolean, the Reichstag Fiire was done by a Dutch Commie, Egypt sunk the USS Libery, the Gulf Of Tonkin incident actually happened, Cold War was real, 911 OS story is true, everything the state sponsored media says is true...I'm sure you catch my drift by now...

That's not exactly true though. For instance, the Gulf of Tonkin event can STILL be a conspiracy. It just doesn't have to be some silly NWO plot to involve America in Vietnam. It could just be a silly plot by our then leaders to involve us in Vietnam.

Though other things like "Cold War was real" make you sound a little odd. The Cold War was definitely real.

And you used to be just like me?

Sure, I came to this website to explore conspiracy theories and entertain them as being true. Though once I discovered the shaky premises that they are reliant on, I decided that they weren't worth believing anymore. Heck, the original reason I even FOUND this website was because I wanted to find evidence on Ancient Aliens. Now I don't believe in that hypothesis, because I've done my research. I've done my research on the NWO as well. It can't exist. Humans just don't get along well enough generation to generation to create a conspiracy that can span hundreds or thousands of years and still be unknown. It just defies the odds.

Though I've never believed that 9/11 was a conspiracy perpetuated by our government. That is also impossible. Especially since after 14 years, no one has come forward as a whistle blower. But even then, I STILL researched many truthers' claims like the free fall argument or tower 7. I am a VERY big stickler for doing it too. You can't argue a debate if you don't fully know your opponent's argument, nor are you fit to even make an opinion on it if you don't equally consider all sides to it.

You don't know me from jack squat other than a few times on here where I said some stupid stuff when I was drunk and you have been upset ever since.

I've even caught you disagreeing with me just for the sake of disagreeing.

I'll catch you taking one side in one thread, then I will post a comment that mirrors your opinion in another thread and you will attack my opinion even though it mirrors yours.

Maybe I'm the one who knows a lot more about you than you think.

Uh... If you say so... Though I think you over-analyzed what I meant when I said that I used to be like you... Though I call BS on you claiming I was contradictory. When I become contradictory, it's because I've evolved my thinking and have discarded ideas that I've found to be lacking in evidence, or found ideas that have better evidence supporting them.

Check my avatar

Cool... You pretend to be a fictional character from a movie just like millions of other people on the internet... Wow... You are SOOO original...

a reply to: Krazysh0t

It is interesting how one thing that's certainly false to one person is most definitely true to another.

There are things I believe can be said, though, in response to some of your beliefs.

-very rich people have a lot of a power, and could easily collaborate together to ensure their profits are on the up and up, and not disturbed too much.

Many assumptions could be formed from that statement, but the statement itself is factual - that it's possible. I would even say it's likely. If I owned a small business, I would do all I could to make more money - but, I believe myself to be ethical, so I would want to ensure some quality of goods and service, and be honest and good to people as well. Whether you believe gazillionaires have these morals, you're on your own.

We were not given the true story of 9/11 - whatever that may be. It's been proven time and time again that planes hitting such buildings cannot cause that quick of a collapse, and that wtc 7 had to be demolition, or similar. The building fell like it was free falling, in the exact way demolitions do.

Whatever people assume from there is conjecture.

I'm not entirely sure what to think about your hypotheses in general, though. Unless you were in all planes, and buildings involved, and had a hell of a lot of phones tapped you were listening into for the days, months, maybe years following 9/11 - why would you know more than any other person?

And assuming generations of people could not get along is a long shot. Imagine owning a huge portion of banks, real estate, oil, or otherwise. Your bound to have contingency plans to ensure you can't just be offed and taken over, you're bound to secure your piece of the pie. So why wouldn't such people work together to manipulate not only their own markets, but the entire Country?

originally posted by: deadlyhope
a reply to: Krazysh0t

It is interesting how one thing that's certainly false to one person is most definitely true to another.

It's all about perspective, confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, and how willing you are to be honest with your beliefs. If you consider yourself to be 100% right and nothing presented to you is going to change your views then you can't be honest with your beliefs. You are just being a sheep to whatever form of media is telling you these things.

There are things I believe can be said, though, in response to some of your beliefs.

-very rich people have a lot of a power, and could easily collaborate together to ensure their profits are on the up and up, and not disturbed too much.

Many assumptions could be formed from that statement, but the statement itself is factual - that it's possible. I would even say it's likely. If I owned a small business, I would do all I could to make more money - but, I believe myself to be ethical, so I would want to ensure some quality of goods and service, and be honest and good to people as well. Whether you believe gazillionaires have these morals, you're on your own.

Right, rich people DO have a lot of power and can easily collaborate together, but one mustn't forget that these rich people are humans too and are subject to the same failings as everyone else. They make mistakes. They are selfish. Some are more moral than others. Some cannot trust anyone else.

These things all conflict. Rich people aren't a lump sum group all with the same goal of getting as much money as possible while screwing over everyone else. They all have different goals and motivations that made them rich and motivate them.

We were not given the true story of 9/11 - whatever that may be. It's been proven time and time again that planes hitting such buildings cannot cause that quick of a collapse, and that wtc 7 had to be demolition, or similar. The building fell like it was free falling, in the exact way demolitions do.

Actually, it's been proven that all of what you just said is hokum arisen by distorting facts of what happened during that day (the building took longer to fall than conspiracy theorists usually claim) and that the official account is the most likely explanation. There is PROBABLY some things that happened during that day that will go unanswered or haven't been explored properly, but saying that anything but a bunch of terrorists hijacked 4 planes and flew them into 3 buildings while one crashed in a field is dishonest and shows confirmation bias (you are unwilling to even consider that the OS is true and have defaulted to the explanation you've given).

I can't say how many times I've seen a truther say, "as soon as I saw those towers fall, I KNEW it was the government," or something along those lines. THAT is an admission of confirmation bias. You have decided the outcome of the event without having done any research in the matter. Then when people like that usually DO do their research, it is only to research the truther conspiracies and not research what the government said happened (usually making claims about how those sources can't be trusted without providing any valid reason why they can't be trusted). That is intellectually dishonest.

Whatever people assume from there is conjecture.

I'm not entirely sure what to think about your hypotheses in general, though. Unless you were in all planes, and buildings involved, and had a hell of a lot of phones tapped you were listening into for the days, months, maybe years following 9/11 - why would you know more than any other person?

I know how to follow all evidence. That's what I know.

And assuming generations of people could not get along is a long shot. Imagine owning a huge portion of banks, real estate, oil, or otherwise. Your bound to have contingency plans to ensure you can't just be offed and taken over, you're bound to secure your piece of the pie. So why wouldn't such people work together to manipulate not only their own markets, but the entire Country?

Bullcrap. How many times does a child go through his teens and rebels from the parent and goes off and does things with his life that the parent didn't want him to do? All the damn time. Do you think that rich people behave any differently? If you do, then prove it.