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Post by rocketdad on Sept 12, 2005 20:21:17 GMT -4
Well, so long...
It's been an interesting couple of weeks, but Rocketdad must move on. I don't have time to follow links by idiots to other idiots. I've tried several times to engage in intelligent debate and conversations, but nobody here with a brain seems to want to do anything but beat up on the morons, and the morons just want to parrot crap they get off the web.
I'm a carpenter by trade, so I value hard facts. Thanks to everybody here that provides them, even if you are casting intellectual pearls before swine like MargaBart.
I'm an anthropologist by training, so I'm curious about people. I stopped watching television just before the "taco bell chihuahua" in an effort to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in my head. And yet I know about the chihuahua. Go figure. I still had an antenna installed on my TV on 9/11, but I had to remove it not long after. I just couldn't stand it any more.
All the great experiences in cultural anthropology are over. Nobody can go back and visit the Yanomamo Indians for the first time again. I want to explore America as a foreign place, and that's part of why I quit the TV habit, so that I could feel like a foreigner here.
This experience has given me some things to think about.
I'm trying to understand the world around me, and this forum is an example some things that I hope are not trends in our society:
1) People seem very willing to accept high-production-value nonsense without question.
2) Media is pandering to fear-junkies. At the suggestion of some here I've been watching the "From the Earth to the Moon" series. The most anxiety-provoking flights, and the most anxiety-provoking moments, are given screen time.
3) People's bullsh!t detectors are being triggered by current events, but they don't know why and they don't know how to screen fact from fiction.
The debunkers here spend a lot of time and energy trying to help people understand, but they don't know what it is they need to respond to. I've seen 12 word posts by Margamatix responded to with multiple 12-paragraph or 12 page essays. By addressing the "facts" of a fallacious claim, you validate the "facts" as being worthy of further discussion.
Have fun. I'll probably check back from time to time, but I need to delete this site from my bookmarks before I punch my nice flat-screen monitor.
Rocketdad
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Sept 13, 2005 2:10:13 GMT -4
Sad to see you go: you've been an interesting contributor.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I feel this might be appropriate somehow:
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
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Post by JayUtah on Sept 13, 2005 17:49:42 GMT -4
Sorry to see you go. Level-headed people are in such short supply these days.
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Post by twinstead on Sept 13, 2005 21:27:36 GMT -4
I agree. Sad to see you go.
Can we assume that a trip to GLP is completely out of the question?
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Post by Obviousman on Sept 15, 2005 5:51:29 GMT -4
:'(Drop back occasionally and say hello, okay?
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 15, 2005 14:51:33 GMT -4
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Sept 20, 2005 1:55:04 GMT -4
I'm an anthropologist by training, so I'm curious about people. I stopped watching television just before the "taco bell chihuahua" in an effort to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in my head. And yet I know about the chihuahua. Go figure. I still had an antenna installed on my TV on 9/11, but I had to remove it not long after. I just couldn't stand it any more. Rocketdad You MAY be a victim of mind control. Try wearing a tin foil hat to reduce the noise in your head--you know the link. You switch back and forth from a decent rational guy to a frightening psychopath. Get help. |
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Post by echnaton on Sept 20, 2005 8:51:13 GMT -4
I'm an anthropologist by training, so I'm curious about people. I stopped watching television just before the "taco bell chihuahua" in an effort to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in my head. And yet I know about the chihuahua. Go figure. I still had an antenna installed on my TV on 9/11, but I had to remove it not long after. I just couldn't stand it any more. Rocketdad You MAY be a victim of mind control. Try wearing a tin foil hat to reduce the noise in your head--you know the link. You switch back and forth from a decent rational guy and a frightening psychopath. Get help. LOL |
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Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 22, 2005 4:36:36 GMT -4
The problem with DH is that you never know if she's for real or not, lol.
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golfhobo
Venus
DAMN! That woulda gone in the hole IF....
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Post by golfhobo on Oct 2, 2005 12:31:51 GMT -4
I stopped watching television just before the "taco bell chihuahua" in an effort to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in my head. And yet I know about the chihuahua. Go figure. I still had an antenna installed on my TV on 9/11, but I had to remove it not long after. I just couldn't stand it any more.
To get rid of the chihuahua, you might need to narrow your bandpass filter.
What I can't figure, is why you removed the antenna and left the now worthless TV? Wouldn't that space be better filled with a nice white oak bookcase or something?
All the great experiences in cultural anthropology are over.
Apparently you've slept through Generation X and the Gothic revolution.
I want to explore America as a foreign place, and that's part of why I quit the TV habit, so that I could feel like a foreigner here.
Perhaps relocating to the Southwest near the Mexican border would help.
Media is pandering to fear-junkies. At the suggestion of some here I've been watching the "From the Earth to the Moon" series. The most anxiety-provoking flights, and the most anxiety-provoking moments, are given screen time.
A moonshot had a countdown of what 10 hours? Usually nothing happened until T-minus 10 minutes. Would YOU have sat through the first 9:50??
By addressing the "facts" of a fallacious claim, you validate the "facts" as being worthy of further discussion.
Hmmm.... I had a real good argument for this, but by posting it I would be validating your fallacious claim. In fact, I don't even know WHY I'm discussing it! lol.
.....other than to say, I'm glad you didn't REALLY leave. I've enjoyed your perspective on all issues where I've seen them. You might as well put your username back into the orange column. Time to 're-engage.'
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Post by jaydeehess on Nov 4, 2005 0:06:38 GMT -4
I am sure that most of the rational people here have had many of the same thoughts as rocketdad re: the woo-woo's. However to simply ignore their ramblings and to allow them to fling manure about while describing the maure spreader as a font of knowledge is , to my mind, a worse situation.
The CT's and HB's of the world are quite happy to show us that polls demonstrate that X percentage of the populace believe that 9/11 was a gov't conspiracy or that Apollo was faked. Should we be satisfied that the percentage of persons with technical training or education do not believe such nonsense? No, IMHO, it is simply too dangerous to let that happen without trying, in some small way, to set the record straight.
Perhaps we cannot change the mind of those who come here with nonsense messages but there is a large non-posting group of internet denizens who are also reading about these topics. Clavius, BadAstronomy and this forum are being visited by these people and hopefully some are learning that a critical mind is required when looking for information on these topics.
I post on sites where I, a lowly electronics tech, have the most education in sciences of all there. When someone posts that rockets require something to push against or that since UFO's are unexplained that they must be alien visitors I point out the fallacy of the statements. I get positive feedback occasionally from people who thank me for explaining Newton's laws of motion or pointing out the fallacious leap of intuition.
That of course does not happen here. Most here have more education and training than I do. I come here because it is nice to read a forum where the majority is not making idiotic statements and to get explanations of things I do not fully understand such as Jay's explanation of the computer modelling that NIST used for the aircraft impacts to the WTC towers.
Such is not to rocketdad's taste and as I said we probably all share the frustration to varying degrees. I am constantly impressed that JU has not thrown up his(figurative) hands but rather continues to counter the BS.
Sorry about the rambling post and I bear no ill will to rocketdad for his decision to educate himself rather than struggle with the ignorant.
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lenbrazil
Saturn
Now there's a man with an open mind - you can feel the breeze from here!
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Post by lenbrazil on Nov 4, 2005 8:53:47 GMT -4
All the great experiences in cultural anthropology are over. Nobody can go back and visit the Yanomamo Indians for the first time again. Wow finally a post from one of my areas of expertise. Actually rocketdad there still are unconnected tribes in the Brazilian Amazon and I believe in other countries as well. One group was contacted for the first time last year. There are also many tribes who have had only very limited contact with the outside world. This situation probably won't continue much longer. Getting scientist down here is imperative because they are out numbered by evangelists. In fact FUNAI Brazil's "Indian" affairs agency has a special department for isolated tribes. That department is headed by Sidney Possuelo. Google his name for more info. If you are interested in doing anthropology down here, I know some people and could help set it up. Send me a PM or reply here. |
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Post by Retrograde on Nov 5, 2005 11:43:30 GMT -4
Well, I'm fairly sympathetic to rocketdad. What you people do in your free time is your business, and I can certainly understand why it is safer to engage in this activity over the internet rather than to go to the psychiatric ward and do it in person. I've been lurking for a while, but every time I am tempted to argue with one of these chuckleheads, I ask myself why I don't do something fun instead, like maybe shoving a red hot poker up my a$$...
There seems to be a good core group here, if there were some place everyone got together without the chuckleheads, I wouldn't mind hanging out there...
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