The coming attack on ATS by MSM

In social and personality psychology students learn that ordinary people walk around with illusions. According to Taylor and Brown three patterns of these positive illusions emerge: people overestimate their good qualities, achievements, abilities; people overestimate how much control they have, and they are more optimistic than warranted by objective circumstance. These patterns describe normal, well-adjusted people. Taylor and Brown also suggest that the absence of these patterns is linked w/ depression and other forms of dysfunction.

Could it be that the people of ATS simply don't walk around with these illusions, and they actually construe reality as it truly is? Well to think that could be naive realism. Perhaps us ATSers are best described as existentially depressed? I personally think that questioning the things we do is probably more symptomatic of our sensitivity to what surrounds us.

Of course, has anyone seen the *big breath* Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007? It hasn't been passed by the president yet, but it has been passed by the House of Representitives.

www.govtrack.us...
(buttons won't work on my browser! Mods, please fix this if need be!)

reply to post by pickles123


I see that as a highly possible hypothesis, and I thank you very much for contributing this information.

I very much concur that lacking these illusions, which ultimately are positive reinforcement, could be a contribution to depression.

[edit on 12/17/08 by Yoda411]

Originally posted by blowfishdl
Did you really just link to another thread, which you created, surrounding this ABC article as evidence that ATS is under attack by MSM?

I find that statement of credible evidence to be completely absurd and bias.

You are completely right. I jumped there to get to the article and apparently had the wrong link on my clipboard. Thanks for pointing that out. try this

Originally posted by Yoda411

Originally posted by angel of lightangelo
Don't apologize to me because you do not see the harmful implications of this.

Do you disagree with the article because of it's credibility, or do you disagree with it out of fear of it being true?

I disagree because they failed to show one example, one case, one fact. Why should I believe that any more than a story about Santa Claus?

Originally posted by angel of lightangelo

I am not picky, I will be a jerk to all of you if you like. Just step up and say something stupid to me.

We've got ourselves a good old schoolyard bully here. So, "angel", what are you going to do now? Beat me up and take my lunch money?

Oh, no! I am so scared!

Originally posted by sebarud

Originally posted by angel of lightangelo

I am not picky, I will be a jerk to all of you if you like. Just step up and say something stupid to me.

We've got ourselves a good old schoolyard bully here. So, "angel", what are you going to do now? Beat me up and take my lunch money?

Oh, no! I am so scared!

Sigh. Whatever. Have anything to add to the topic or are you just looking to be obnoxious for personal reasons?

Wow. You all need to read the post by Yoda411 on this related thread. Just wow, you need to read it to believe it. This is seriously the concrete evidence which links the use of conspiracy websites to contribution to mental health issues.

Yoda finally did it!

Dear me, some of the worst cases of mental illness is masked by the msm and their cohorts with PHD's, we KNOW this to be true. They have swayed public oppinion for decades and generally attack the weak minded in the first place.

It will not take much intelligence and or education to see this attempt for what it is.

As an extension... Psychology has no clue how to define what is normal or abnormal. It's like, trying to find a definition for "good", it is a perception. Good luck. Personally, I think the article should be discredited not just because of what ABC is and says, but because the "experts" making these claims have no clue themselves. Psychiatry may have good intentions but it is just another making business.

[edit on 17-12-2008 by pickles123]

reply to post by Yoda411


yoda, you are very wise however which side of the fence are you truly sending energy to?

I 'had' to stop watching msm 'programs' long ago, they indeed were causing depressing effects, for instance after 911.

The only way I keep my sanity is by sites like this one. I do however have to take a break from time to time and that is why I am a document archivist. The reality of looking into the past somehow makes the present seem more plausible and easier to understand.

I recommend you take a deep look in the archives to see in retrospect what has happened and where we are now and the direction we are most definitely headed if we continue to ignore the facts.

Originally posted by pickles123
Could it be that the people of ATS simply don't walk around with these illusions, and they actually construe reality as it truly is? Well to think that could be naive realism. Perhaps us ATSers are best described as existentially depressed? I personally think that questioning the things we do is probably more symptomatic of our sensitivity to what surrounds us.

This is in my mind one of the most fascinating and unexpected things that studies have turned up about depression, and as someone who deals with chronic major depression, one of the most frustrating. How does one convince oneself things are better than they are, when your worldview already makes accurate predictions?

But as far as I've seen, the suggestion is that this is an inherent part of the depressive personality, not a learned knowledge.

In other words, it's not that depressed people were walking around with illusions like normal people, had them stripped away, and became depressed (that's more likely to be part of a post-traumatic syndrome I think than true depression).

Instead, it's that depressives are more likely to see the world as it really is.

So I think it's very possible that depressives are more likely to be attracted to a site like ATS where there are other people not insisting that they swallow the lies, and less likely that they become depressed (in a clinical sense) after reaching ATS.

Still, it is an interesting thought.

disclaimer: I'm reading the thread backward tonight for variation. I'm not going address the points that we talked about before today until I get all the way back, but I couldn't resist noticing a new point

adding:

reply to Lifthrasir:
Thank you for linking to that legislation – it's exactly the kind of thing that I think we should be keeping an eye on

[edit on 12/17/08 by americandingbat]

Originally posted by blowfishdl
Wow. You all need to read the post by Yoda411 on this related thread. Just wow, you need to read it to believe it. This is seriously the concrete evidence which links the use of conspiracy websites to contribution to mental health issues.

And then scroll down to where I put that to rest as well here

Okay, only one long catchup post tonight

Before that though, I want to say how proud I am to belong to a site where an argument like this can go on (and on and on) and remain more or less on topic and if not quite civil, not egregiously offensive.

Original post by JipStix

I have a degree in Journalism. I thoroughly know how "fact-checking" works, and also know how the industry works. You don't have to lie or falsify information in order to shape someone's opinion. All you have to do is present the information in a certain way that would evoke a certain response.

This post by JipStix was really great – I recommend rereading it to anyone who missed it. He/she discusses (from the perspective of a person with an education in journalism) how skew and spin can work in stories that remain “factual” or at least are not “lies.”

Original post by pieman
holy crap, the MSM is saying conspiracy theorists are nut jobs, jebus h cripes, thats a shock. i can't believe it, no-one has ever said anything like that before!!!!!!

it hardly makes a difference what the MSM say, it's looking more and more like the tinfoil hat wearing crazies on the corner were pretty much bang on, so the time for exposing conspiracies is almost passed one way or the other.

propaganda is obsolete, but media isn't much good at anything else. this stuff is just the last fart of a dying bohemeith

This view has also been expressed by several other posters – I just chose this one to quote because it was the first one in the part I was catching up on.

It is true that the MSM (including non-news media like movies, TV shows, etc) have long portrayed conspiracy theorists as “nut jobs.”

They have not long portrayed conspiracy theorists as clinically mentally ill people who are being exploited by others who run “online conspiracy empires” which may lead people into paranoia and even insanity.

In other words, the image is no longer a goofy, harmless, dude who stands on the corner in his tin foil with a sign while he tries to tell people that he was born on Jupiter.

Instead, the image is directly linked to clinical illness, even schizophrenia, to a public trained to believe that the only answer to mental illness is medication and in extreme cases institutionalization and sedation.

That’s a big difference, and it taps into the modern fear that mental illness will strike us or a loved one without warning.

Originally posted by dhunter
Just a thought - but what if by MSM mentioning ATS and this type of website - more people of like mind show up and register - and create an even bigger demonstration of "we're not gonna take it"?

Again, this was brought up by several people.

But the ABC article didn’t mention ATS – if it had, I would be less convinced that it was pure propaganda.

It provided links to two “conspiracy sites” – David Icke’s and one I’m unfamiliar with that is apparently a support site for people who believe that they are victims of “mob stalking”.

No link to, say, Alex Jones’ Information Wars site (although I don’t like him, I like the title of the site and think it’s accurate in terms of what’s going on).

No link to ATS.

No link to web sites about UFOs or the Federal Reserve/U.S.Treasury stuff.

The only examples used in the ABC article are on the fringe edge of even what’s accepted here at ATS.

That says “spin control” to me.

Original post by jefwane
The MSM is on the defensive. Despite their recent success in helping their chosen cadidate win the Presidency, they know that their credibillity and abillity to influence the more educated masses is waning. Though not as much of an anachronism as the newspapers are their traditional role has been usurped by the internet with it's myriad of multiple-link sites, blogs, and "conspiracy sites".
*snip*
Non-traditional sources of information are biting into the relevance and profitabillity of the MSM. You can probably expect attacks against non-MSM news sources of all types to intensify.

Exellent post. I’m mostly just putting it here so people who missed it have another chance to check it out

Originally posted by Yoda411
If there is an actual attack on ATS from NBC and the so called "Main Stream Media" wants to promote internet censorship, then tell me why one of ATS' biggest sponsors on the website is MSNBC?????

I will tell you why in a reiteration of why I believe they posted this article.

They posted this article to start their own conspiracy; that NBC is after all of you. They just totally played off of all of our paranoid fears in order to gain hits on their website, and increase ad revenue. If you search Google for conspiracy theory websites which link to this article, you will see it is all of them. They all are all swarming with people hissing about how this article was wrong, and therefor flocking the masses of so-called "underground media" over to NBC's website.

In a sense, they proved how paranoid and impressionable conspiracy theorists can be. Therefor, they pulled the right trigger to set off this emotional bomb on this website and others. Who fell for it? All of us.

While the argument for the past several days has been whether or not the article is true, we have completely become enemies within the same cause and overlooked the bigger picture which I have attempted to outline here.

In the end, ratings are the #1 goal of a news website because this translates into revenue.

[edit on 12/17/08 by Yoda411]

1) The way ATS advertising works is such that companies do not directly contract with the site for ad space. Rather, they contract with a middleman called (dang, I forget. The link is at the bottom of every page. Media Mayhem maybe?). That company in turn packages ads and buys space on ATS for them. So MSNBC may have no idea that ATS is one of the hundreds or thousands of sites that Media Mayhem is running their bits on.

Even if they do, advertising on your rival’s space is always a good call – that’s why networks don’t sell ad spots to each other.

2) It’s an interesting theory that ABC (it’s not NBC, btw) was trying to start a conspiracy theory with this story. I don’t think it’s that plausible, but I’m willing to consider it.

That theory though acknowledges what I’ve been arguing all along which is that the story had an ulterior motive and is not the innocent fluff news piece it pretends to be.

This point is also raised in this post by Yoda411 and this post by Yoda411

[reply to post by Kratos1220
I can definitely see the possibility that this is the beginning of MSM's attempt to belittle conspiracy theories, the websites that promote the discussion of them and the people who believe in them. I think they are testing the water to see how people react to this idea and that will determine if and how they proceed with this. I don't think it's nothing, though.

Another excellent post. I’m really impressed that this topic is still getting such quality thought here

Originally posted by blowfishdl
Wow. You all need to read the post by Yoda411 on this related thread. Just wow, you need to read it to believe it. This is seriously the concrete evidence which links the use of conspiracy websites to contribution to mental health issues.

Yoda finally did it!

Okay, I went and read the post. And followed the link to the thread started by the ATS member in question.

This is gonna be kind of hard to discuss, because I do not want in any way to minimize the harm done by an individual, but I also don’t want to judge or denigrate someone whose life ended in such tragedy.

Using this boy as the poster child for harm caused by ATS however just won’t work.

Yes, he was a member; yes he posted here with possibly delusionary statements; yes he even mentioned here that he was suspected as a possible school murder/suicide candidate by school officials.

At least in the thread that Yoda linked to, he does not give any cause to believe that such a tragedy is imminent – if anything, he gives the impression that the school officials should have such a scenario in hand.

During the course of that thread, he is offered derision by one poster (who later recants and apologizes) and support by many. Some do support his assertion that seeing a white owl might be connected with death or ill luck; but one can hardly blame the tragic end of his life on that connection.

I don’t know what sort of reception his ideas had on other sites, or what the nature of those sites is (I don’t think nazi.org is what ABC had in mind as a “conspiracy theory website). But ATS is certainly not implicated in that crime.


(edited to tame bbcode tags)
(edit to add link to Virgin Media to test Net Neutrality thread in Breaking News Forum today)

[edit on 12/17/08 by americandingbat]

I am glad a few of our members came forth and added some very good thoughts and examples to this current page.

It was time. I am always impressed when the great minds come out and show what is up!

This communtiy is so diversivied and intellegent that sometimes I think it is undersetimated!

Keep it up,,, Good thread!

reply to post by Max_TO
The MSM is being displaced as peoples main source of info Max_TO it's not surprising that ABC and the other networks are trying to discredit ATS and sites like it well aware,outraged and informed people do not make good consumers or mindless drones as for the coming attempts to censor us I say let them come.

reply to post by Yoda411


Master Yoda,

I didn't say stop looking MSM because they manipulate you. I suggested to boycott products annouced in MSM, that call us mentally ill people.

Originally posted by pickles123
In social and personality psychology students learn that ordinary people walk around with illusions. According to Taylor and Brown three patterns of these positive illusions emerge: people overestimate their good qualities, achievements, abilities; people overestimate how much control they have, and they are more optimistic than warranted by objective circumstance. These patterns describe normal, well-adjusted people. Taylor and Brown also suggest that the absence of these patterns is linked w/ depression and other forms of dysfunction.

Could it be that the people of ATS simply don't walk around with these illusions, and they actually construe reality as it truly is? Well to think that could be naive realism. Perhaps us ATSers are best described as existentially depressed? I personally think that questioning the things we do is probably more symptomatic of our sensitivity to what surrounds us.

Does anyone have the numbers of most recently added people chatting here... I bet half are agents

reply to post by angel of lightangelo


Damn Bro! Now you're but schoolyard bully! I never thought you were that bad... Just misunderstood and VERY vocal..

We're just a few poeple who don't claim to be bad... But the bad don't mess with us...

Good seeing you!