Something to think about

Hi guys, I just wanted to share my story, and maybe give you some interesting insights.

To start with just a quick introduction, I am now 30 years old, have a good education and work a nice job.

During university I got into the 9/11 debate and was quickly hooked. Searching for new reports and videos every evening and really getting into the inside job camp.

Following that I quickly got into other conspiracy stuff as well, the fed, Irak, the bush administration itself, ufo /alien related topics, haarp you name it, I researched it.

All this process went along for about two years and at the end of that period I basically was completely convinced that the world we live in is just a staged play for us to consume products and don´t question authority.

I even insulted one of my PR professor after asking him if he knew about the bilderberg group. As he said yes and said that its not a big deal I wrote him a letter basically telling him that he is a coward for not acting on his knowledge etc.

I talked to other students about 911 etc. I was really, really into the whole thing.

After I moved to a new job things started to slow down a bit, but I was still a believer in all of these topics. Worrying about haarp and chemtrails at night, angry about the apparent unjustice that was 911.

Then I heard a short documentary on the radio about conspiracy theories and why they are so popular. They then shared the result of a study the government did about the reasons. I was allready prepared to laugh at the foolish attempt to brainwash the masses with their explanation.

Unfortunately what they said was very logical and stopped me dead. They said that conspiracy theorists tend to inform themselves using a very small range of media and tend to ignore others. As I was getting my info and news from here and maybe two or three other sites all in the conspiracy community.

After a while this then becomes your reality as you read nothing else day in and day out, and as soon as you see a "normal" news report you dont take it seriously.

If you would take all the different information into account while weighting each piece the same you would get a different result.

Do I now think that every conspiracy theory is wrong? No, I don´t. We all know that there are proven ones in the past. Do I still think that haarp is a death ray and that chemtrails are for poisoning the people? I highly doubt it.

I still listen to Coast to Coast and enjoy the show. And some I still find very interesting. Its just that my perspective has changed a bit and I do not take things that serious anymore. And you know what? I live a lot more relaxed that way.

And you should take into consideration that the whole conspiracy field is a market, with a lot of books and conferences to sell.

Just open your eyes a little and take the world for what it is. A beautiful place with lots of exciting things to discover and way to few time to do so.

Just my 2 cents,

Nightaudit.

reply to post by Nightaudit


Sorry I came to this website because it is the best for conspiracy theorists and it seems to me that you would rather be a part of a blog site that discusses what you are doing right now. I think twitter and facebook are still accepting applicants, you might want to think about signing up there man.

Peace

Regardless of whether most conspiracies are true, you seem well educated enough to know that the entire root of it all is the current monetary system/economy in which we live in.
A resource based economy would cure all of the problems with the world. The only problem is that most fear change and would rather continue to be sheep in a slaughterhouse.

www.zeitgeistmovie.com...

reply to post by Nightaudit



An open mind is a good thing to have. I believe a lot of conspiracies, but I've made it a point not to be 100% convinced of anything unless 100% proof is right there in front of my face. There are many things that I am almost convinced of, based on the research I've done on my own, but there's still a small part of me that isn't convinced and keeps me searching for the truth. I think that as soon as one gets dead set on one side of a conspiracy, that individual closes his/her mind. Not a good idea, IMO. It's different if there are facts to base the decision on, but too many people make up their minds based on other people's opinions.

I think the best advice to give anyone on ATS is to research on the facts that are available before getting all paranoid. It's never a good idea to blindly believe anything. As much as I love ATS, there's enough stuff on here to drive someone insane if all info is taken at face value. We all have brains for a reason and we need to make up our own minds instead of letting someone else do it for us.

I agree the monetary System is a mega disaster waiting to happen, which is one of the reasons why I like Ron Paul that much. He is one of the few that speaks the truth.

And I do not want to bash all Theories at once here, which would be absolutely absurd if anybody tried it. I just wanted to share my viewpoint here as I was a hardcore guy as propably some users here still are, and wanted to explain why I changed my point of view slightly.

I just realized that I live much more happily and isnt that what its all about?

Thank you for the Zeitgeist link, I have seen the movie and it is one of the best and well researched out there. And it does make some very, very good points.

Especially as I am running my own business now, I was worried sick in the beginning. Fearing immediate collapse of the worlds financial system. But in the end its very simple. There is nothing you or I can do to prevent the collapse from happening. And I think we will see some form of global financial event in the next 5 to 10 years.

So all we can do is put our money in safe places, mainly property or hard values like gold. These things will allways survive a crisis. If you have all your cash in the bank, you could be looking at trouble once the poop hits the fan.

reply to post by gemineye


Exactly! Thank you. That is exactly what I am saying. My problem was that I got all the facts from a very limited amount of sources, which led to me forming my opinion on allready biased info.

This radio documentary just opened my eyes all of a sudden and made me think about the way that I did form my opinions.

I still think that there are some strange occurences about 911 that we are not told, and there are quite a few other topics that I am very interested in.

Its just that I am more laid back and think at least twice before believing anything from any source.

In college we used to play a card game we called BS. In this game the object was to lie or not lie about your cards and to try and catch other players in their lies. When you thought someone was lying about their cards you called out "BS". We had a lot of fun playing this game and for a while we played it more and more and more. At one point, if some of the regulars were not there to play, there would be underclassmen ready to fill in and try their hand at the game.

After a week or so of intense play a few of us noticed something we didn't like. We began to find ourselves in class listening to lecture and saying BS, or sitting in cafeteria and overhearing someones conversation and calling it BS.

Finally one afternoon following a game I was driving away from the game when I came to a stop light that had turned red. I called out BS and drove right through it. When I realized what I had done I pulled to the side of the road to clear my senses.

That evening I mentioned this kind of jokingly to a few friends but they too had noticed this behavior in themselves outside of the game. We came to understand that we had not only become addicted to this game but in a way we had brainwashed ourselves. We had become conditioned to search for lies. We were hearing them everywhere even if they were not lies. Even if they were just stop lights.

It would be nice to live in a world where people only told the truth. But we don't. We live in a world where fact and fiction have traveled together up through the ages guiding and entertaining us at the same time. Some of us have come to understand that it is now necessary to untwine this fact/fiction rope before we hang ourselves with it. We need to use fact for guidance and fiction for entertainment.

Distinguishing between the two can be difficult. Especially when we need to speculate because we can only speculate fictionally. We try to do this as factually as possible. Some of us anyway.

So I wanted to share back at you . Conspiracy is a fine line drawn between our need to live true and honest lives and lives lived in constant fear. Vigilance is one thing and paranoia quite another.

I am glad for your realizations. And please, don't go to facebook. Don't you know it is just a front for the military industrial complex?

Very nice post you did there. I admit I had to giggle about your incident with the stop light.

It is indeed a very fine line between conspiracy theory, conspiracy fact and just urban legend.

The most frustrating thing for me after while was that you didn´t get a conclusive answer in almost all of the topics.

Lets take the flew shots for example. Wild theories were all over the place about the secret underlying agenda. Some people apparently died after getting them, and all the conspiracy media I consumed talked about it. It was a hot topic.

Now look back, what have we learned? Nothing, a lot of speculation but no conclusive answers. Was there a real risk of an epidemic outbrake? maybe in theory. I suppose it was some good lobbywork of big pharma that maybe had a role to play. But who is to judge?

The same conclusion can be reached about a lot of, if not all topics that are discussed here. We never really get an anwer and that makes it rather frustrating im my point of view.

Does that mean we should stop asking questions? Definately not, no. It´s just that there is not really a point in worrying about most of the issues.

Getting back at your example, the conspiracy world was working the same way for me. You subconsciously transferred your thoughts to everyday events. That is why posts about the earthquake in Japan or Chile being fabricated by higher powers pop up on sites like this. Because it just cant be a random act of nature can it?

I just think that a few steps back and a fresh view can help judgement.

reply to post by Nightaudit

Getting back at your example, the conspiracy world was working the same way for me. You subconsciously transferred your thoughts to everyday events.
I just think that a few steps back and a fresh view can help judgement.

Exactly. And this is of course not to say that the things we read into whatever events are not there. We just need to understand our own falibility and not go overboard.
Which reminds me.

An American myth that has always bothered me is the myth of, let's see, how to best name this?

How about "giving 110%."?
This concept of complete dedication. Our sports parade it out to us all the time. Trying harder. Pushing through. Our movies are full of this idea. You can overcome the bad guy if you never give up. Our CHILDRENS movies and TV shows emphasize it. You can do it if you give it everything you've got. You will fail if you don't. This striving to the Nth degree. You know what I mean here? Never quit never quit never quit.

Now I see this as a conspiracy. Conscious conspiracy? Maybe, maybe not. But it does work to get people to believe that if they fail, or are not successful it is their fault instead of the fault of our society or system. It gets them so involved in the singleminded pursuit of perfection that there is no time to as you say of taking that step back. People work harder and harder and condemn those who don't for being lazy. Push push push. The harder people work the more production can be gotten out of them. But to me it is more than this.

In religions the same concept is stressed. If you have doubts then your faith is not strong enough, or its the devil taking over through your lack of belief. Any sign of weakness is the devil.

With this concept inculcated into us from birth, it is only natural that this drive will be carried on into our search for what is true. Once again this is not to say that our own natural human inquisitiveness and desires to be real bear upon the quest. I'ts just that with this "perfection pursuit" overlaying our mental processing, it is no wonder that so many who engage in conspiracy theory can so easily loose the ability to step back. Whoosh , right through another stoplight.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


Yes I see what you are getting at here. A maybe artificial pressure to strive for perfection in work-life and at home. A concept that we are told from childhood on.

I have to say that you can see this story in two different kind of lights. One is a matter of trying to force stress on you that normally would not be needed. A way of subconsciously influencing us to go to our limit and even beyond. Like the donkey and the carrot. Allways so close, but forever out of reach.

I would hesitate to see the not bringing of 110 % equal to failure. Heck, I think the majority of cubicle drones do not even work at 60 % of their real capacity and they are doing just fine. I also think that it is very dangerous to not accept responsibility for certain issues and blame them on the system you live or work in. There are allways two sides to a story of course, but I firmly believe that we are responsible for our own actions and therefore for the results of these actions as well.

On the other hand it can be seen as a story of hope. That no matter how outrageous and seemingly impossible your goals and dreams are, that you still can achieve them if you work hard enough. This of course has to bee seen in context. Could I for example become the ceo of microsoft, if I really, really wanted it? I seriously doubt it. So naturally there are boundaries to this concept.
But there is a grain of truth in there. Lets say you allready work at company x, or allready are in a relationship with person y. Your goal might be to achieve position z within a certain period of time (applicable for both examples if you catch my drift, sorry for the pun couldnt resist). In that case it would make sense to give 110 % to achieve that goal. Stay after hours and finish that report early. Heck make a report that wasnt even directly your job, but something you realized and thought would be of use.

Do generally more than is expected of you in a given situation and you are giving the mythical 110%.

I personally see that as an option, not as a necessity.