Pseudoskeptics and Disinformants on ATS

reply to post by rich23


I apologize for the delayed reply.

Good points that stirred thoughts.

Thanks. I will be spending the next day's idle time thinking about subjective (he looked drunk), objective (his BAC was .10) and absolute ( neuronal and motor function diminsihed linearly to zero from .01 to .8 BAC) "proofs" in the context of given paradigms.

(Maybe the Scholar Forum can take on the Psi Prize!)

deny ignorance

jw

reply to post by rich23


Oh, and speaking of paradigms:

Paradigms shift:

"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
Francis Lord Kelvin (Physicist), 1899

"The (atomic) bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
Admiral William Leary, 1945

"This foolish idea of shooting at the moon is an example of the absurd length to which vicious specialization will carry scientists...the proposition appears to be basically impossible."
A. W. Bickerton, 1926

"Theories have four stages of acceptance:
i. this is worthless nonsense;
ii. this is interesting, but perverse;
iii. this is true, but quite unimportant;
iv. I always said so."
J.B.S. Haldane, 1965

"You can recognize a pioneer by the arrows in his back."
Beverly Rubik

"If at first an idea does not sound absurd, then there is no hope for it."
Albert Einstein

"If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day."
John Wheeler

"Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible."
M. C. Escher

Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws:
I. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
II. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
III. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.


Excellent post! Not that I haven't been critical, but it is one thing to ignore or refuse to believe the obvious, and another to ponder whether something is what it seems to be.

always deny ignorance everywhere

jw

[edit on 29-1-2009 by jdub297]

JW - very glad you enjoyed the posts. Robert Anton Wilson in particular is a favourite of mine (or was... hearing about his death was one of those moments when you remember where you were: I was down the pub when a fellow fan told me).

And thanks for the quotes. What an industrious poster you are! Some I'd heard, some not.

Always a pleasure,

Richard

Originally posted by SaviorComplex
In this thread, Skyfloating accused skeptics of using sockpuppets, then when asked to back up the accusation, he accused me of spreading disinformation and said he did not have to back it up.

As anyone can see who follows your link, I actually did back it up.

Bad example SaviorComplex.

[edit on 29-1-2009 by Skyfloating]

Considering the amount of stars and flags that Skyfloating got for his OP, I think it's safe to say, that most people on ATS are in agreement with him/her about this issue.

I still don't know if you're a girl or guy, but whatever..
I love you either way Sky



[edit on 29/1/09 by Majorion]

Did I miss this one in 2008?
Thank You sky as it is an important reminder for last year, this year or next. I will be bookmarking this thread and if I can give personal observation examples I will bring them over, it is just not always easy to feel like you are exposing another fellow member for whatever reason, after all I am not a professional sociologist and could easily make a mistake.
It is a fine line between a genuine call and a misunderstanding. I suppose after you suspect a member it is time to look deeper into their post history for patterns. I personally do not feel comfortable being placed under a microscope , but that comes with territory of visibility here on ats.
(De Ja Vous)

A logical fallacy that many "skeptics" here use is:

Argumentum ad logicam (argument to logic). This is the fallacy of assuming that something is false simply because a proof or argument that someone has offered for it is invalid; this reasoning is fallacious because there may be another proof or argument that successfully supports the proposition.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
A logical fallacy that many "skeptics" here use is:

Argumentum ad logicam (argument to logic). This... is fallacious because there may be another proof or argument that successfully supports the proposition.

On the other hand, if someone wants to persuade people that something is true, they shouldn't expect anyone to be swayed by arguments that are full of holes. I have to say that while I agree entirely with the intent of posting this definiton, I would still have sympathy with someone who rejects a proposition because it's argued incompetently.

On the other hand [again!] I'd like to think I'd be open to re-examining a proposition if a better logical argument for its veracity were presented.

reply to post by rich23


An example of this perhaps:

I sometimes make mistakes when arguing various topics on ATS.

Your typical Deflector would take my mistakes and blow them up to mean that my entire argument or my intentions are no good.

Of course none of us are innocent in this.

I've just been looking at a Project Camelot interview with John Lear and around 4.40 he gets into some interesting stuff.

I think it's well worth a view for some perspective about what happens here. I may or may not agree with what is, after all, only John Lear's opinion.

reply to post by rich23


Thank you Rich...

I had seen that video before and I didn't see that part... very interesting...

I also spotted something else though that now has me rethinking JL... between 12:44 and 14:30 time of your video link... Not the smoothest cover story I've ever heard...

Also, if you check between 16:32 and 16:50 time you will see that he wants to know the odds of this happening... He questions his own CS.

Rgds


[edit on 17-3-2009 by AllTiedTogether]

reply to post by AllTiedTogether


Personally, I just interpret the "what are the odds?" comment as being part of the synchronicity he's talking about.

It's so hard, dealing with this stuff. Occasionally there's enough information that I'm fairly sure someone's a plant. And, for example, I'm pretty damn sure that Fintan Dunne (see this thread and the website linked therefrom is CIA, for reasons I make clear in the thread. Lear... my gut feeling is that he is what he says, no matter how outlandish the claims he makes. I've been looking at the other parts of the interview and it's making me re-evaluate some positions I've held and research some other stuff.

But I think Lear's point about this place being like a "collection point" is valid. And there's a lot of money swishing around this site. Does it all come from advertising? I don't know. I'm also intrigued by what's been happening with the Anonymous posters. They put stuff up and it gets vetted before we proles get to see it. Now that's interesting, no?

Originally posted by rich23
But I think Lear's point about this place being like a "collection point" is valid. And there's a lot of money swishing around this site. Does it all come from advertising? I don't know. I'm also intrigued by what's been happening with the Anonymous posters. They put stuff up and it gets vetted before we proles get to see it. Now that's interesting, no?

If you had to see the amount of spam, porn and insult we have to sift through before publishing an anonymous post, you'd be most grateful.

Compare this to Forums in which normal conversation has become impossible because there is no screening going on whatsoever.

Now with all of the Mods having been members before they were Mods....dont you think one of them would speak up if stuff was being kept secret? Since every Mod sees Anonymous posts it would be quite impossible to keep the lid on anything.

Suspicion is of service as it uncovers secrets, but it can also be taken too far.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Ok, point taken - mostly because it comes from you. I just don't get that mentality of wanting to mess things up by spamming or posting porn.

What happened to the drug conspiracy forum is sad. I do think there's room for a place to discuss specifically drug-related issues: here I'm thinking about CIA drug-smuggling, GHW Bush being a director of Eli Lilly, MKULTRA, that kind of thing.

But of course some dumb stoner kids have to come along and ruin it.

reply to post by rich23


I think that topic will be back some day. There's just too much to say on it...MK-Ultras '___' experiments, CIA-Drug-Running, Criminalization as the cause of abuse through rebelllion, etc.etc.etc.We'll see.

__________________________________

And as for anonymous posts: Dont take my word for it. Just think for a second: If there were a cover-up ALL Moderators would have to be involved in it.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by rich23

 

(snip)

And as for anonymous posts: Dont take my word for it. Just think for a second: If there were a cover-up ALL Moderators would have to be involved in it.

As a former Mod, I can attest that there is no conspiracy against the general membership, by the Mods, in the unseen areas of ATS.
The process of reviewing Anon Posts is done by review and committee. When it's decided that there is no content to the post that supports the topic, or if there is unacceptable language, intent or content, it is not passed to the thread.
Non-staff can guess at what goes on behind the scenes here and they can assume whatever they want. It's your perogative. But, I KNOW they bust their asses to keep ATS an honest and open forum. If 2/3rds of the membership posted within the restrictions the Mods have to, the Mods would have less to Moderate and can do more of what ANY member wants to do: Investigate theories, test and experiment hypothosis and share what they find. But, they can't, because there are SO MANY posters that feel the need to ignore the parameters the site has set up to maintain a stable enviroment.
Mods aren't cops.
Mods are Janitors.
They clean up the refuse that so many members feel they have a right to litter the Halls of ATS with.

And they do it for the site, not for a paycheck.

There ARE Skeptics here that cross the line of acceptable tactics.
There are believers that do the same thing.

Neither reaches toward the truth in an honest, forward way.

My $.02
Cuhail

I hope I will not be punished for being honest:

- I think (I am convinced) that this site has been founded by some sort of government (or pseudo government) agency, like NSA or similar.

- I know that the owners are agents of this (whichever) agency.

- Most of the people posting here do not suspect this, and I can still find interesting topics, and very interesting people.

- I know that they know my name, and I am 100% sure that all people who post here are known to them by name, address, personal history - everything. I have no doubt about that. The only thing is that they do not have enough agents nor time to track us all all the time, as we are not important to them.

- The horrible things that are being done to human kind today make this site actually benign, not really exposing anything to the level that would make any difference.

- Mixing totally absurd and naive concepts with real information actually helps the evil rulers of the world, so this site is much more harmful than useful to the "truth movement" if there is such a thing.

- One has to have a lot of experience and knowledge to be able to understand how a site like this operates. To me, it is very predictable now, as I have learned how the "pseudo skeptics" operate. Most of the time, I am able to just ignore them...not waste my energy.

- Starting with the dark color of this site, the owners are trying hard to disqualify it as any serious source of information (just imagine any news quoting anything from ATS - that would be a joke). So, they are doing a really good, professional job.

- And so on, and so on...

p.s.

I am very grateful to a number of really interesting people whose writings I found very interesting, and I have learned a lot here thanks to them.

...one more thing: it may be better not to let the "pseudo skeptics" know that we know who they are. If they get exposed, they will change tactics and evolve. They may be even harder to trace.

Originally posted by greshnik
I hope I will not be punished for being honest:

Why would you be punished? Nobody is punished for posting their opinion here. Only T&C Violations are punished.

[edit on 17-3-2009 by Skyfloating]