Members of AboveTopSecret.com: I'm Sad… And Maybe You Are Too…

muzzleflash
reply to post by SkepticOverlord

 

I am sad for the opposite reason, hah! (Sorta)

The last thread I have been working on is a "ghost thread". Tumbleweed-town.
I still am going to work on it too, strangely enough, despite it's translucent qualities.

I noticed there were no arguments or complaints really so far.
Posted four pages of information and only had like 2 other posters drop in for a split second to say "hey this looks cool!" (paraphrase) which is awesome and I appreciate their bump.

But seriously you would think with the information I am bringing, and the style I am presenting it, it should have caused someone to gripe me out (in the last few months at least).

Then again, I am reminded that it's a meaningful and positive development.
If I cannot get people to debate that stuff on ATS, it's doubtful I will find a debate anywhere else either.
Which is really awesome, but very lonely.

Oh and about the comments from posters later in this thread, of it being a "war", well there has always been a "war of ideas" ever since humans could communicate those ideas. The war itself rages on, but what really matters is "Honor".

There are honorable warriors and dishonored ones.
Life itself is a battle till the end, so everyone must decide what type of warrior they strive to be.

I have seen good threads, alot on the sceince and space forums die. Well written informative threads.

Yet start a thread about Obama and how he did some little minor thing and its gets 100+ replys.

ketsuko
reply to post by crazyewok

 

I hope you weren't talking about me when we were disagreeing about disaster preparedness. I was using communist/socialist governments as a means of getting those kinds of massive public works projects going because I was thinking of China, although not even China does those things to build disaster preparedness projects. They seem to be engaged in public works of ego stroking to prove how modern and powerful they are.

I wasn't implying I thought you were leftist only that I thought a more leftist control oriented state would be able to mobilize and force its citizens to build the kind of things you suggested.

O no I wasnt dont worry

It something else I saw.

I saw your point dont worry and see that yes it could be considred wastfull to plan for something that may never happen. Again that beyond right or left its just down to how much risk a socity is willing to take.

We are unaware that we are but an echo. The whole art of the orator probably consists in his giving listeners the illusion that the convictions and feelings he arouses in them have come not from him but from themselves, that he has only divined and lent his voice to what has been worked out in their innermost consciousness. Maurice Halbwach, On Collective Memory

Oftentimes, I reflect on this and its effects upon us all. To me, it always seems as if the lines that have been drawn in the sand are often false lines--atheist v. christian, gay v. straight, black v. white, and more. These things seem to me to so frequently be promulgated within news media from either side of the aisle. Sometimes, when I look out into the world, I see the workings of a monstrous machine whose manufacture is hatred, itself, fueling off of our innate tendency towards xenophobia.

These things that, to me, should hold little bearing upon our politics instead seem to frame it. Freedom of religion--all forms of belief and non-belief are to be accepted. All are created equal--well that as well was intended to be a shield against xenophobia. It was not so long ago that the Supreme Court ruled that the government had no place in the bedroom. To me, these things are all about liberty in its truest form, whether those differences are through birth or personal choice, and have no place in politics outside when a difference violates the principle of harm.

The source of it, I feel, is at the source of those orators who are aiming not for any sort of consensus on one of these subjects but instead, embracing them with a sort of radicalism for the sole purpose of product differentiation. Our left is more right than it ever was through the adoption of the Third Way and that has made our right move further to the right in order to maintain difference not in political ideology but social ideology. The two sides of the coin are still the same coin whose faces are not something that should exist in a free and liberty loving country who espouses that all are created equal in the eyes of God.

We've become a country where a radical blog post, a rabid political commentator, or the offhand comments by a reality tv star become the "subject of discourse for the day" as hammered out by our orators, whether they be Fox News, CNN, or some wordy politician. This is an US derived problem and that is so easily divined by simply going to a website like CNN and switching from the US edition to International. Why is that so?

We have to arise above this or else we are nothing but echoes of manufactured discourse.

If I can fit my apology in here?

To all those I may have been too blunt to... but I will be honest, as I know no other way to be.

I rejoined the forum recently with the sole purpose of revenge in mind, some time ago I took a bad blow from a member named MIMS (MadnessInMySoul) and a few of his friends.

The whipping was good, but it forced me to go out and discover my own truths, and after I had a better handle on my situation I did return with the sole intention of getting even.

I returned and found MIMS gone but I did see some of the same stuff going on, attacking from both sides and like a dummy I decided to get in on it.

I think I said the things I wanted to say and even still upon returning I always felt that justice was not equal so that lead to me complaining in a different way about the forum and so on.

My stupid attempt at humor earlier failed bigtime, I was hoping to get a laugh I guess so I could respond with what I truly wanted to say to people.

I used this account just for that purpose and if you would like to remove this account after I had posted this and if it doesn't get deleted, just please close this account.

I like to read the forums here so I would appreciate if I can keep my IP open? I've learned alot here, and have become somewhat a Ninja in training because of you folks here.

I just must learn to wield it more wisely...

I love all you folks really, Happy Holidays and again I am sorry for any damage I may have done...

Sis

reply to post by crazyewok


If one looks at history, odds are you will find the exact same issues permeating each and every society, and indeed, generation since the dawn of time. Our existance is not unique. Our paths are not our own. Our issues are not new. Many have come before us and many will follow us. You just got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, and the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord




I like the idea of trying to span the divide with tolerance. Many people consider themselves tolerant until it is something they believe strongly in. And then the tolerance is out the door.



I have a very simple rule and I believe the founding fathers of this once great country felt the same way.....................You have the right to do whatever you want unless it infringes on anothers right to do the same.



If you everyone tried to live by this simple yet effect mindset the world would be a better place. Also everyone needs to stop looking over the fence at the neighbors grass and worry about their own backyards.

SkepticOverlord
But maybe there's hope. Let's see if there is. I want to challenge our members to stow their animosity for beliefs not their own in one area for one week: Religion.

This time of year, originating as pagan solstice celebrations and evolving with the Christ Mass, has had core common themes from the Norsemen to modern Christian celebrations; that of hope for the new sun/year, goodwill toward others, and gifts of importance for those in need.

Let's stand down from the religiously-inspired bickering and give each other the gift of silence.

Let's extend goodwill toward those we used to engage in heated debate.

Something has indeed shifted lately. I don't remember being so interested in the religiously-fueled threads like I have been recently. I've changed my order of topics in "My ATS" to reflect it and I find myself only participating in those types of threads for at least a couple of months now. Why is that? I think it's because they've become more interesting as of late and it has become a topic that many are willing to see as a scholarly pursuit as opposed to a platform for hate rhetoric.

Maybe many of us have taken an interest in an effort of keeping hate at bay an by injecting sober retorts that dilute the otherwise belligerent rants. I have difficulty operating from a fear-based perspective and it seems many have difficulty operating in any other fashion aside from hate and fear. When you add religion to the mix, it gives people a perceived entitlement towards the unwritten laws of moral indignation.

Love, kids, love. Remember, no matter what people may have told you growing up, nobody needs to "earn" your respect of love; it should be the way you regard strangers by default. If you can accomplish that, you can speak to anybody about nearly anything and come out learning more than you went in to "teach".

SkepticOverlord
Let's show hope for a new year.

One week, starting now.

What?! Let's try it for the whole year!

Maybe it's time to roll out some endogeny with ATS. On the second page, somebody showed a picture of ATS bracelet. Maybe we should have something like that so, when we see somebody waiting at the DMV with one on, we know that it is somebody we can talk to with opposing views who we can trust to be thoughtful and open about it.

Come on, SO... you know you always wanted ATS to be more like Fight Club (without the violence).

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Your sadness stems from the much deeper realization that the focus of which your 3d self struggles desperately to frame, is trying to tell you IS THE FRAME that is crushing you down.

The inability to admit that none of this is actually natural, but is being fueled from a source you have been taught to ignore......

The anger, frustration I see in your 9/11 and Sandy Hook posts tells a tale that you wish things WERE "normal" but you sense the Matrix itself is wrecked, what you do not seem to go into , is the SCIENTIFIC METHOD, which ultimately is the religion of the damned, the final capstone of slavery, that everyone runs to in case they feel 'out of control'.

Thankfully a whole number of us have been red-faced and are not allowed to be swallowed up in the norms and smaller minded approach that somehow things are of a "human nature" and that it is all part of EVOLUTION, on some path it just well,, is ON.

It is for the intelligent ones such as yourself that we dare speak on ANY topic, even when your censorship system shows the exact same fear present in all the categories you outlined as the source of the problems as you see them.

Using flawed systems to find a REAL answer is the epitomy of weak energy, and it leaves all feeling powerless..

When we see Off-topic posts removed we wonder just who and what rule set is in the subconscious mind of the ones in charge, but then we remember again it is all spawned from the same set of rules they stridently hate, and yet defend as the cornerstone they must cling too.

New ways of thinking are incapable of being heard, AT ALL, by the majority, and even hear we see them being outlined and categorized, in EXACTLY the same fashion that is, has , and will ALWAYS be presented by the system designers of our slavery, without the main players themselves ever allowing themselves to DARE to bend outside of it...

Fear of the soul being killed itself is draining the energy of many, but the fear of the soul being sent to Hell.....that is where this all REALLY lies.

Time to find all new levels of skepticism, and thank you for this site, in all its forms, it is a very useful tool !!

Wrabbit2000
reply to post by blupblup

 

I think ATS is what it's always been on this, personally? A reflection of the larger world it's content comes from. We can be better than average for spotting what has the rest of the world at each others throats tho...and we sure ought to try, anyway. Just my opinion.

Well it is a microcosm for sure, but it's also worse.... people think they're anonymous here, they hide and say the nastiest things, no quarter given, in a way that they probably wouldn't do in the street.

Take all the gay-bashing and so on recently.

Just because one has free speech and is able to hold a view and an opinion that is archaic and offensive, doesn't mean everyone wants to hear it or that you should spout off about it on every thread or at every opportunity.

I could go into every single religion thread or whatever it was that I disagreed with or felt like pissing on that day and just post crap all over it, spew hatred.
But I don't.... It's a concious CHOICE.

People don't do that very often here.

They think that everyone needs to know their opinion on every matter and in the most hate-filled, offensive, matter-of-fact way.

THAT is what is wrong with ATS.

As the owners have said umpteen times over the years... if you have nothing nice to say, then say NOTHING.

We're all guilty from time to time but the last couple of years and increasingly so last few months, it's gotten so bad that many older members don't come here as much now.

It's a shame really.

Daedalus
reply to post by SkepticOverlord

 

I'm not sad...i'm pissed off.

You're probably not gonna like what i have to say, but i'm gonna say it anyway.

i've been a registered member here for very nearly a decade, and i lurked for a time before that....i remember when simon was still running the show..

i've watched the community grow, and evolve, and i have noticed the trend you've described...i attribute it to a combination of the fact that this is a publicly accessible forum, the people joining up over the last few years, the evolving ruleset of this place, and certain heavy-handed moderators (absolutely not gonna name names, so don't anybody waste your time asking).

one of the things that pisses me off the most is the infiltration of this place by "political agents" "provocateurs" and "paid shills"...i think that was where things started to go wrong....when they started showing up, things started to get nasty...and it's not as if we can ban them for having an opinion...and that's what they count on. they deliberately piss people off, and come just shy of breaking T&C, so nothing can be done to them...and of course, being the inquisitive, argumentative group of truth-seekers we are, everything NEEDS to make sense, everything NEEDS to be logical, so it's not even as if we can simply ignore these yobs either......so the arguments continue....

the thing about these people is that they either truly believe in the things they're saying, or they're paid to believe in them, or they genuinely love being disruptive, or they're paid to be disruptive. and because of the ruleset here, we're not allowed to call them out on their BS, or dig up the particulars of whether or not they're paid, and expose them...we hafta politely sit here, and let it continue...i think that's one of the biggest irritations to "ATS old timers"..of which i am one.....and i think that's why a lot of our great old ones have decided to walk away from this place.....you can't win a debate against an opponent who's paid to keep it going, or is too delusional to accept that they're wrong, and concede...

i took a break from this place for a while, not too long ago....when i started posting again, i found that this place was worse off than when i left...more bickering, more disruptive idiots, more shills, more agents, i remember when i could participate in a political debate without being called names....but the agents hafta keep the myth of the left/right paradigm alive....otherwise the whole house of cards comes down....can't have that, can we?

and then there's the lunatics, and disruptive idiots......like the "holographic planes" people in the 9/11 discussions, or the "nobody died" crowd that shows up, and absolutely f**king RUINS every single goddamn thread on Sandy Hook, to the point where now we can't even talk about the goddamn event, without feeling like we're gonna get banned...or how about the "1+1=7, because god invented all the numbers" people in the religious debates......or the people who inject religious nonsense into topics that have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with religion...

ATS is a world gone mad...much like the real world, there are not enough of us left who seek actual truth, and who practice common sense, and decency...who care about facts, and reality, rather than fantasy, opinion, and pleas to emotion, and what social media tells them is important...

the ATS i remember is dead. maybe we can bring it back, but i'm not holding my breath..

edit on 23-12-2013 by Daedalus because: spelling

You are absolutely 100% correct. Too many have joined to angrily express "the facts" as they see them, not to join in discussion.

ATS was a place to discuss and read about things happening in our world in an open and informed way. Much of what we talk about is controversial but we used to be able to count on reasoned arguments not relentless ad hominen attacks.

I hope we can all take this time between now and the New Year to rededicate ourselves to the ideals of reasoned discussion.

crazyewok


I have seen good threads, alot on the sceince and space forums die. Well written informative threads.

Yet start a thread about Obama and how he did some little minor thing and its gets 100+ replys.

edit on 23-12-2013 by crazyewok because: (no reason given)

Absolutely mate... ATS has essentially become the Youtube message boards (minus the swear words) or facebook recently.
No thought, just crap posted about mindless, unimportant drivel, while fantastic, well researched and important threads get no response really because the membership may actually have to READ something.

It's like people just make sensationalist headlines, just to get Stars & Flags and then the thread becomes hundreds of pages of Left/Right, Liberal/Conservative CRAP.

It's so sad to see... we used to be a discussion board, a place for active minds to meet and chat and throw around ideas and now...well, I don't know.

It's not everywhere either, there are other sites where you can still have discussions.... but it's not solely an ATS problem either.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Nicely stated sir.

Lately, I've been reading more than posting. This is due to the exact nature of your OP. It's disheartning at the very least. I'm just rolling on a year hear, oddly enough it's the same left/right banter that just kills the mood to contribute.

During this time I've learned a lot just about the world in general, which is most appreciated btw~ I've learned a better way of talking and expressing that anger. Sadly, I see poster who are hell bent on a narrow perception and disregard everything else. It's just the way of the world I guess...

Hell, I could get back lash just for posting this! How's that for Ignorance? I don't know skeptic, I just don't know anymore. As much as I love this site and the content therein and being on it for nearly a year, really show's how much farther the world needs to go. Yes, you can attain that picture just by reading responses here on a daily basis...

Welp, I'm just one voice in a sea of monsters and mayhem. The last time one voice was able to do something, I think they were lynched and mobbed.

Just another shuting his mouth and watching ignorance reign~

Best regards, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I wonder if something else is really worth considering with the rest of the discussion here? I hear lots of talk about more fighting threads and hostility with Duck Dynasties and Prancers in Alabama, among other things (you all gotta admit, that last one had humor to it, too).

The thing is, speaking as a member and something I've said before too. ATS is User Content driven. 100%. If we suddenly get a flood of nature, science and space threads ...we'll look like a cross between a Greenpeace Locker Room and a NASA breakroom for awhile.... Lots of science with a little edge to the opinions that gives it character and enjoyment to read.

At the moment, everything is hyper-political. It's very visible in the United States but is it unique? Definitely not... Australians, English, New Zealanders and even occasional members from much smaller nations come on to say similar things about or in very polarized ways. Heck, even Thailand almost went a step beyond this time.

The threads are about it, from every angle. So......as one might expect, the tone is debate and heavily divided. Just like the trend in topic matter.

The good news is always that we can change it by choosing and posting entirely different topics for threads. Not everyone, and not all of them... Naww.. Just a choice, sometimes, to pick the happy story over the gore. ..or the human interest over the metro section.

Change can come around as quickly as it came to be needed....One contribution at a time.

My Bunny Inspirational of the Day.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord

Well, a timely action from SO. Things have been getting a mite hinkey around here of late. What's most disturbing is a yahoo factor emerging from some of the Mods that never would have been acceptable until recently. That is changing the tenor of the site ...and will ultimately sink it if allowed to continue.

Mods do not just moderate...but I expect them to be moderate as well. Lose that and you become Brand X...you know...those guys.

...and a Merry Christmas to all and sundry from the Great Hinterland.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


I have noticed a eer somewhat bias from some mods.

I guess it has to be hard to keep unbiases as we are all human. But maybe something that needs a small eye on.

JohnnyCanuck
reply to post by SkepticOverlord

 

Well, a timely action from SO. Things have been getting a mite hinkey around here of late. What's most disturbing is a yahoo factor emerging from some of the Mods that never would have been acceptable until recently. That is changing the tenor of the site ...and will ultimately sink it if allowed to continue.

Mods do not just moderate...but I expect them to be moderate as well. Lose that and you become Brand X...you know...those guys.

...and a Merry Christmas to all and sundry from the Great Hinterland.

Absolutely agree with that.
I've seen mods acting in such an unbelievable manner that I've had to check my browser just to see if I'm on ATS.

Yeah I know "Mods are people too" but seriously... "People" need to sort it out

I will try to contain the beast that is unleashed when I become emotionally compromised.
Im a human being just like everyone else, and I realise I can succumb to anger as can everyone else.

I think SO raises an important observation, that of the extent of division being unleashed on us at an alarming and relentless rate. The more political scandals that come into the light of day(and man has there been some humdingers lately), the more the MSM is dividing us at every opportunity. Everything is brought down to a left vs right debate, not a right vs wrong debate. I hear it daily on LBC London, I read it daily in the newspapers, I try to highlight it on sites such as ATS as well as with family members and friends. I have been called crazy so many times, even I question my sanity on occasion.

Some friends and family come around and start pointing out their own observations to me, others say "I just want to get on with my life" and others say "You're weird" or "You Nutter".
That will never stop my own personal quest for knowledge and understanding of the crazy world we live.
The thing is, the more I learn, the crazier and confusing I find the world to be.

In the spirit of christmas and goodwill to all men(and women), I will try to be civil and keep my emotions in check.

reply to post by blupblup


My issue is not with what the MODS do, it's with what they don't do. Of course I'm not privy to what goes on behind the scenes but I have lost count of the times I have hit the ALERT button and nothing has been done. And it wasn't for something open to interpretation or something frivolous, it was blatant 'post removal' material.

I'd like to see the MODS get a bit more Chuck Norris on people's ass. The inmates are running amok.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Damn Bill....very well put.

Ill be back this evening with some comments.

Ideology should be shown for what it is. Ideology, though unavoidable, is a matter of opinions and tastes, meaning each and every ideology is personal and unique to each and every individual. Once an ideology claims itself as true, all encompassing, an ideology for all people, or speaks in absolutes, it negates itself and breeds nothing but contempt from and towards the opinions of individuals.