Weird getting weirder anti-social media

Guildedagain

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I was blindsided yesterday when I heard about this but dismissed it as a joke.

Until I looked it up today.

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Guildedagain

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To be clear, this is not meant to be a discussion about Covid, or the causes of it, or anything political at all.

Just pointing out the insanity that seems to be trying to pass for normal in these crazy times.

Have a laugh ;]
 

matsickma

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As a kid I remembered all the rumor's related to the Beatles, the backward message on the White Album Revolution No9, the Day in the Life tune on Sgt Pepper portraying a member of the house of Lord's being killed in auto accident in suggestions it refered to Paul McCartney, "I burried Paul", "28 IF" license plate of Abby Road, etc, etc. I took it in stride a was reluctant to think it was all some great story or conspiracy.

As I got older went to college took a basic Philosophy and basic Psychology course as part of my few non technical electives basic human tendencies and ways of thinking were discussed and with the addition of sociology and a macro economics course that was the extent of a liberal arts education to balance out all the technical engineering curriculum.
Those few courses proved to be so valuable in understanding the tricks the mind and group thinking can have on an individual and groups of people.

I tended to avoid rumor and opinions and take some of the wild stories with a grain of salt. I witnessed a pretty good mechanical engineer go over the deep end on conspiracy theories after 911, then revert back to the JFK assicination and then go off on a tangent that the moon landing was staged and never happened.

A smart, educated persons was easily pulled into a fantastic web of conspiracy. I began to realize that this person saw all these random act that were not associated but began to group them into a cabal that made sense to justify the conspiracy. Butterfly effect, random actions, statistical likelihood were not accepted as a possible answer because it was consider to be so unlikely the person couldn't accept that answer scenerio. Their had to be a conspiracy!

I worked with that guy 20+ years ago and never forgotten how an educated and trained person who I had greatly admired by his designs could go down the rabbit hole of rationale and come to believe these crazy things. How?!
And then I thought ,"if him...then what about the many others"? The early teenage memories of all those devoted conspritory Beatles fans popped into my head and I realized they have grown up and are out there.

The internet didn't provide an age of enlightenment...it provided a medium to mislead and manipulate many unsuspecting people who can fall prey to some pretty crazy ideas.
I think they say our species is around 400,000 years old. And we began to make sense of things about 10,000 years ago. But only in the last 200 years did most of us learn the stars are distant suns, less than 100 years ago learn about viruses and only receintly learn about many other miracle of nature.
Those 400,000 years of very incremental learning of the human mind and society shows just how long it takes to begin to understand things. As a species we prevailed inspite of no clue about how nature really works. Our minds today are likely not all that different from 400,000 years ago except it is filled with a lot of modern information. Some accurate and undeniable and a lot of other info that we beleive because as humans we have to beleive we can make sense of it ...correctly or incorrectly.
I sure hope we can hold on to a society where fringe groups stay a significant minority. We have major problems to solve and we won't get there with the kind of crazyness that is floating around out there!
M
 

bobouz

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When I first started birdwatching, I would typically hope I was seeing something rare. But rather quickly it became clear that real-world probabilities meant that what should be there, is most likely what is there.

It’s tempting to want to believe in the rare, unusual, or offbeat - but far wiser to stick with the most probable explanation or answer.

Essentially, if it’s supposed to be a duck, ten to one it’s a duck!
 

Stagefright

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As a contrarian, I tend to question anything considered normal or universally true. The unfiltered feedback available on the Internet gives me options to explore as I try to make sense of the world around me. An opinion I have developed over the years is that most real improvements to the human condition are the result of a fringe lunatic or dumb luck. The masses (popular opinion) are just along for the ride.

Virgin sacrifice was once normal
 

Midnight Toker

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As a contrarian, I tend to question anything considered normal or universally true. The unfiltered feedback available on the Internet gives me options to explore as I try to make sense of the world around me. An opinion I have developed over the years is that most real improvements to the human condition are the result of a fringe lunatic or dumb luck. The masses (popular opinion) are just along for the ride.

Virgin sacrifice was once normal
I'm a contrarian in the fact that if a finding didn't come from one of the world's foremost accredited institutions, it's likely written or at least funded by an an entity w/ a greed driven alterior motive. Growing up in the D.C. Suburbs where most of my friend's parents were scientists who worked for the US Dept of Agriculture, NIH, NSA, NASA, NOAA, etc. I've never once even entertained the notion that "govt" is some sort of entity sperate from society. We ARE the govt and all it's depts. These are our parents, uncles/aunts, brothers/sisters, children. My best friend's father was chief of the parasitology division of the Dept of Agriculture. He kept going to his lab several days a week for 10-15 years AFTER he retired....just because he is a scientist by nature that couldn't walk away from lingering unanswered questions. Those are the types of people And the institutions they represent that I wholeheartedly trust. What I don't trust.....opinionated people on the internet with crazy conspiracies supposedly backed by a study from some institution no one has ever heard of before.
 

Rocky

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I'm a contrarian in the fact that if a finding didn't come from one of the world's foremost accredited institutions, it's likely written or at least funded by an an entity w/ a greed driven alterior motive. Growing up in the D.C. Suburbs where most of my friend's parents were scientists who worked for the US Dept of Agriculture, NIH, NSA, NASA, NOAA, etc. I've never once even entertained the notion that "govt" is some sort of entity sperate from society. We ARE the govt and all it's depts. These are our parents, uncles/aunts, brothers/sisters, children. My best friend's father was chief of the parasitology division of the Dept of Agriculture. He kept going to his lab several days a week for 10-15 years AFTER he retired....just because he is a scientist by nature that couldn't walk away from lingering unanswered questions. Those are the types of people And the institutions they represent that I wholeheartedly trust. What I don't trust.....opinionated people on the internet with crazy conspiracies supposedly backed by a study from some institution no one has ever heard of before.
It always amazes me that people think that some huge government bureaucracy could keep secret things like aliens, when simply the White House (any administration) leaks like a sieve any time something controversial happens.

Science is built on healthy skepticism and reproducible results. But it seems large numbers of people only believe in it when it brings them smart phones and internet porn.
 
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