Which is Worse? Disinfo, Lies or Ignorance?

To the uninitiated we are crack pots, dream chasers and whackos. To those with a discerning mind and time to read the plethora of UFO literature out there we are the ultimate skeptics as we have been burned time and time again. Our hopes are raised and dashed over and over; for some of us every day reading ATS, for others it is rare for us to go “all in” over a topic and press the believe button.

There are those of us here who apply the scientific method to what we see and read though most of us will agree that we will call a duck a duck if it looks, walks and quacks according to known Fowl SOP.

My question is who does the most damage to the “honest” pursuit of UFO truth? I’m not talking about the harmless hoaxers of ATS who work us into a lather with promises and semi verifiable information until they disappear or one of our more tenacious members finally raises an un-ignorable B.S. flag and they run.

The scoundrels I’m talking about are of the following caliber;

The Richard Hoaglands / Stephen Greers

Genuine caring people with science backgrounds and righteous credentials who start out saying “Hmmm” and are sucked into the hall of mirrors so deeply until they see aliens in every angle of pi or worse, have connected aliens so deeply to the metaphysical that they lose even us with their star child ramblings. (Note: I’ll give this group credit that though they may be making a living off of book sales and t-shirts they aint’ getting’ rich!)

The Rick Dotys and Bob Collins

One seems to be a first class liar, the other a fool at best. But either way you slice it, they tell a story too easy to believe, too cut and dry. Top Secret/SCI documents seem to fall in their lap. Where are the MIBs when you need them? Or are they in cahoots? Are they “disinfo” agents? Why? Who are we trying to fool? The American public doesn’t really care one way or the other. That Trooper Doty has allegedly fleeced people for money makes me discount him easily. I wish I could say Mr. Collins was a good writer, but I’m not much for flattering lies and lousy grammar.

The Telepathically Linked 2012 Orb Catchers

I have no problem with Telepaths, 2012 aficionados or Orbs. I do have a problem with uninformed theory and uneducated “proof”. I don’t need to go too far into this type, we know them, we talk to them every day. They steal whole minutes from us as we read the first post in their threads. I don’t hate them. But I want to sit them down and teach them some basic science.

I didn’t want to write a huge post and scare people away, well maybe I did… Either way there are more scoundrels to list but I will stop there.

So who is it for you that make the whole thing taboo in mixed company? Is it the mainstreamers with actual agents and book deals? The self publishers with poor type face and poor grammar? Or the posters who think that maybe spider webs are messages from the Zetas and their dog is spying on them? Let’s hear it. Open post…


[edit on 9/6/2009 by whiskeypoet]

for me its those people who require a very complex answer when a very simple one achieves the same result.

e.g - why are we here ? because life strives to survive vs god put me here for x, y, z reason vs starchild theory.

i always go with the simplest because it works every time.

Occams Razor has found my lost car keys for me on many occasions. I have to agree with you.

Disinformation is the worst of those three, at least to me. The idea of deliberately miseducating the populace can have no motives other than pure evil and greed.

Disclaimer: I'm a theist but not of the Abrahamic faiths. I have minor biblical scholar and scriptural skills. Also I am not a scientific/legal or medical expert in any field. Beware of my Contagious Memes! & watch out that you don't get cut on my Occams razor.All of this is my personal conjecture and should not be considered the absolute or most definitive state of things as they really are. Use this information at your own risk! I accept no liability if your ideology comes crashing down around you with accompanying consequences!

Explanation: I would posit Ignorance as worse than disinfo/lies [those two are basically the same thing!] because its only Ignorance that give disinfo/lies their power!

Personal Disclosure: Worse than all of the choices that the OP gives us a choice from, is willful stupidity! Starred and Flagged!

reply to post by SkepticPerhaps


The question for me with disinfo is, disinfo to keep investigators from revealing or legitimizing classified data? Or disinfo for the pure purpose of confusing and frying minds?

The former merely frustrates me. The latter is evil.

reply to post by OmegaLogos


Allow me to clarify where I differ in my definition of Disinfo Vs. Lies. (Personal definitions)

Disinfo - An agent of unknown origin spread half truths and complete untruths to discourage a clear path to understanding.

Lies - An author who makes up stories based on half truths and complete untruths to garner attention and or monetary gain.

Note: Ignorance was my nice way of saying willful stupidity, thought they are not exactly the same either :-)

reply to post by whiskeypoet
Disclaimer: I'm a theist but not of the Abrahamic faiths. I have minor biblical scholar and scriptural skills. Also I am not a scientific/legal or medical expert in any field. Beware of my Contagious Memes! & watch out that you don't get cut on my Occams razor.All of this is my personal conjecture and should not be considered the absolute or most definitive state of things as they really are. Use this information at your own risk! I accept no liability if your ideology comes crashing down around you with accompanying consequences!

Explanation: Coolio! in that case I would have a sliding scale from least worst to most worst and my version would look like this....

0]lies [as per your clarified definition].
1]naivety [Standard ignorance. i.e. you just don't know!].
2]disinfo [as per your clarified definition].
3]willfull stupidity [those who should or do know better and still refuse to capitulate to the truth!].

and why I feel they should be ranked liked this is as follows...

0] Perfect for testing the the naive and helping oneself!
1] These people don't help anything except to maybe ask a fluke question!
2] These people willfully muddy the waters for no other reason except to harm and destroy the truth!
3] These people have been debunked and yet continue to wallow in their own crapulance and thereby stink up the place for us all. They harm our sense of pride in our species and this is far worse than any lie they promote.

Personal Disclosure: I'd prefer a liar to someone who is naive as at least the liar has some handle on the truth so as to actually lie convincingly. Also you can debate the matter constructively with a liar where as a naive person can't really discuss anything convincingly or constructively.

Originally posted by OmegaLogos
reply to post by whiskeypoet

 

Personal Disclosure: I'd prefer a liar to someone who is naive as at least the liar has some handle on the truth so as to actually lie convincingly. Also you can debate the matter constructively with a liar where as a naive person can't really discuss anything convincingly or constructively.

And therein lies the rub... The Intelligent Liar comes with a good back-story and nifty documents and quotes wrapped around trendy vernacular and shared assumptions...

The naive person comes with misplaced faith and "What they know cuz I know it!"

I don't believe anything - and if that were a corner stone of everyone's thought process, then I think a more healthy world would result.

The point of belief occurs when we rule out all other possibility as the explanation of some observation or other.

The bottom line is - there is always another possibility - to believe is to give in to mental laziness, because a belief gives security and doesn't require any more questions.

So if you don't believe anything (I mean ANYTHING - for example, I don't believe I exist, I don't believe I can sit or run etc) - then how do you manage to keep functioning?

The answer is very simply - through knowledge and understanding. When you receive some data accept it as knowledge - being neither true nor false.

If you can APPLY this knowledge in some way then you UNDERSTAND the meaning of that knowledge in a certain context - it still doesn't make it true.

For example I understand how to prepare food and eat it - I understand that if I don't eat that I feel hungry and weak. This is not a belief - as beliefs very often do NOT REQUIRE PRACTICAL APPLICATION.

So basically - if I can't practically apply knowledge - then it just sits there as being a possible meaning to something that I don't yet understand.

So - it doesn't matter if there are disinfo agents, liars, or whatever - the knowledge of ET's only becomes understanding when we can apply it personally. That might mean a personal chat with one - or some piece of knowledge imparted to us that we can use - and so on.

In other words - who cares what people say or think. If ET's come down and give us some knowledge that we can apply - then the application of that knowledge will be demonstrable.

If people chose to ignore that knowledge and application, that would be like people not getting on a round the world cruise because they think the world is flat and they can't go around it - only they would lose.

[edit on 9-6-2009 by Amagnon]

reply to post by Amagnon


I think there is some wisdom buried in what you say. I don’t personally subscribe to being another's quantum dream, but I will say that one of my proudest moments was years ago when I learned three very important words.

"I don't know."


[edit on 16/6/2009 by whiskeypoet]