I've always cared more about simply educating myself than convincing anyone else of anything.

I care about both.

Fair enough. I guess the difficulty with the "convincing others" part is that many will refuse to listen...and sometimes you simply can't really do too much of anything about that...so if one spends too much time being too concerned about trying to convince others, then they may find themselves veeeery frustrated and spinning their wheels in life.

At the end of the day, everyone has to drink on their own. No one will or even can do it for them. You can, of course, direct them to the water and tell them where the well is. If they choose to listen or not is up to them. If they don't? I just as soon say "Meh. Okay. Suit yourself." And walk on toward the water hole to quench my thirst while they remain parched wondering why they can't find a drink anywhere.

I've had enough thirsty folks tell me that I don't know where any water is for me to continue trying to help anyone get a drink but myself at this point.

That's not to say that I don't help people. I do. Definitely. I just don't spend my time trying to convince them of too much of anything.

In political science and PR they like to divide people along a spectrum -- there are people who are too stupid and stubborn to be convinced of anything, there are people who are on the fence, and there are those who agree with you. So you're told to identify and shoot for the middle category.

What's interesting is that across the board - especially in political polls - the 'middle' is vastly under-estimated. Americans routinely over-estimate how polarized politics is, mostly because that's the message the news media feeds you. In fact most people are confused, don't have time for it, and swing on on core issues frequently. Which is what you'd expect -- the world is a fucking big complex place, no way we're going to agree on everything or fit anything into a simple "right wing" or "left wing" dichotomy.

So, I think you might be underestimating the number of people in your life who are 'in the middle'. A lot of people are programmed with reflexive/defensive arguments and attitudes against anything that questions the status quo, so as soon as you say "9/11" it's like their brains shut down.

If you know a little bit about how these information control mechanisms work, it's actually not that hard to overcome them and get people to listen to you. I've done it.

I think you might be underestimating the number of people in your life who are 'in the middle'.

It's not so much that. It's more that I simply don't really care who agrees or doesn't agree with me. I care about what I personally learn and don't learn. I care about how much I can accrue in terms of good, valid information. After all, I can't help keep anyone from drowning if I myself don't know how to swim.

A lot of people are programmed with reflexive/defensive arguments and attitudes against anything that questions the status quo, so as soon as you say "9/11" it's like their brains shut down.

Correct and agreed.

If you know a little bit about how these information control mechanisms work, it's actually not that hard to overcome them and get people to listen to you. I've done it.

Yeah. I just, again, don't actually care about convincing anyone. I respect that you do/may. I just don't. I care about making sure that I know wtf is going on.

I have a difficult enough time of figuring it all out myself - what with all the misinformation and disinformation that's out there.

I just want to make sure that my ship's in order.

I can understand that. I guess where you and I differ is that I don't really look at myself as sailing my own boat. It's more like we're all on the same ship together and it's going to sink because the guys on deck are psychopaths. ;)

Maybe if I got a piece of land and went off the grid I'd be comfortable in not giving a shit what other people think.

I guess where you and I differ is that I don't really look at myself as sailing my own boat. It's more like we're all on the same ship together and it's going to sink because the guys on deck are psychopaths.

We don't differ on that point. We are all in the same boat. However, many don't see it that way, and going around trying to convince everyone around that we are all together might be a bit of an exercise in futility. I've found it to be a great waste of valuable time that I can much more effectively spend on making sure and understanding the ship we're in itself as well as understanding the psychopaths that are driving it to hell.

Maybe if I got a piece of land and went off the grid I'd be comfortable in not giving a shit what other people think.

TPTB would still find you, so you definitely wouldn't be all THAT comfortable.

I work on not giving a shit while still living in the muck of a big city surrounded by tons of people.

Okay - so would you peruse what I wrote up anyway? If only for the benefit of your own understanding.

What do you mean for the benefit of my own understanding? What would you say I would understand that I don't already know by reading what you posted?

Not saying that I can't/wouldn't learn anything new from what you posted. Of course I could. There's much I don't know about this world. I'm just wondering how you feel my understanding would benefit from reading it is all.

Shit, I don't know!

:)

Good answer. Upvote.

trying to convince everyone around that we are all together might be a bit of an exercise in futility

Actually this may be where the solution lies. Give them a reason to want to drink the water.

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Actually I would love if people form /r/conspiratard participated and critiqued what I write up. I mean shilling all day's gotta get old, have fun with us once in a while.

We have fun with you people all the time

Aliens are bs. Chem trails are bs. Vaccines autism unsure. Kennedy truther. 911 truther. You have to pick through the bs.

"Chem trails" are BS but geoengineering and stratospheric sulfate injections are real.

any downvoters care to elaborate?

This thread got hit hard. My favorite part is how this is the most up voted comment.

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Shut the FUCK UP.

shrug we just need to get louder and use better media than reddit. You can't flat out shill a billboard, or an airplane banner

Personally, I'd like to hear a little bit about each of those topics. If it's no trouble.

If you are going to advocate anything, make it education. Read a book... to your child. If you are going to prophetize anything, make it success.

I'm with this guy. I'd rather give someone the tools to come to a conclusion than force mine onto them.

Back in the '90s when I first got a computer and hooked up to the internet (I really miss the dialup noise - is that weird?) I often brought up how police/gov't could use it to monitor and spy on people. I was often told I was a f'ing loon. To this day, when I try and discuss 'conspiracy theory' issues with others, my wife included, I get rolling eyes and expressions of 'here we go'.

When I was growing up, we kids were always told to question things. Never believe whatever your told without proof. We were taught that those attributes were what journalism was about.

I consider myself a pretty skeptical kind of guy. I tend not to believe things without concrete proof. I also believe that security/political entities are capable of engaging in acts that are not in the best interests of the public they serve. History has numerous examples of this. Declassified documents and whistleblowers have confirmed this.

What I do find incredible is the atitude and actions of many so-called die hard skeptics. I've heard some of them belittle others because they don't strictly adhere to science. But I'd say that the people they are so belittling are in fact practicing scientific principles by questioning. Isn't that the base principle of science? To question and then to seek the answer to either prove or disprove and to allow one's peers to confirm? I find it absurd for a skeptic to flatly state 'there is no God, it's a fairy tale' when humanity has not conclusively proved or disproved the existence of God. Same could be said of GMO's, or Vaccines, or Global Warming, or whether or not a country's political/security entities could perform dispicable actions against it's own citizens - which I find curious since history shows that it can and has happened before. Everyone has no trouble believing the Reichstag fire was Hitler's fault, but they find it impossible to believe that Bush or Cheney or who ever arranged for planes to be hijacked? People of done dastardly things throughout history for money/fame/power, why would some today be immune from doing the same thing? In the end, the proof is in the pudding as they say.

I really miss the dialup noise - is that weird?

No, its nostalgic! You been around long enough to remember 14.4 baud rate modems? I remember when 56k modems came out, nearly crapped myself. When I got a second one free I figure out how to use them both at the same time! My parents were pissed when I took up both phone lines :)

I'm old enough to have used commodore 64's, with the tape drive. My friend had one and we spent stupid amounts of time tooling around with it. And his father used it and had this massive modem they hooked up the rotary phone to it. I don't remember them doing anything cool with it though.

I resisted owning a computer at first when I became an adult and went to work (I believed them to be a huge time waste before getting one. I still do, but I'm resigned now to the fate of it). My first x86 had a 28.8k. It wasn't long then until the 56k's came out. Seems then the industry was advancing really fast.

Well you beat me then! I go back to the large square floppys. I used Dos and windows for work groups later.

TRS-80 bitches

/discussion

Care to tell your opinion on aliens visiting earth?

Not that many people here believe in alien visitors / chemtrails (From commercial airliners) / autism vaccines

Right, that's why I made this thread before writing up anything. I want to get a feel for what people are interested in. Otherwise I'm just going to get down-voted and it won't be of use to anyone.

I'm interested in all of it. Worst case it's just a good story to tell

I think a lot of people here are aware of chemtrails and the fact that vaccines cause autism amongst other things.

One big issue is disinformation. It seems a lot of conspiracy theorists are too scared to call other conspiracy theorists out on disinformation.

Example: A 9/11 thread recently claimed the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 violated Newton's Third Law. Now anyone with a high school-level of physics education knows that's not true, yet nobody called the OP out. And when I asked for someone to explain how the collapses violated said Law, I got no explanation.

Most 9/11 truth theories are also mutually exclusive. Even if one is correct, that necessarily means all of the others are wrong.

Let's go into the magic aspect. As above so below?

While I myself no longer join in the fight to convince people who want nothing more than to be left alone in a world they have created for themselves that is safe and secure from all conspiracies, I would find it interesting watching or reading someone else show how they can argue the point.

You know what, even the esoteric would be fun. Especially since things like magic and the occult aren't things I subscribe too. I wouldn't argue it with you but would find it interesting to read. I guess that is to say the subject of the occult and magic fascinate me even though I don't subscribe to them, same with religion in general.

What about aliens? How do you go about that?

:)

Good answer. Upvote.