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wheez the roux posted:Monster was trying to save us all along! Aren't there audiophile forums where talking about double-blind testing is a bannable offense? I vaguely remember something like that happening when the James Randi Foundation people investigated some stupid-rear end magic device that was making the rounds in audiophile circles, and they found that nobody could notice any difference when listening tests were done double-blind. This led to some audiophile groups being convinced that double-blind testing was somehow responsible for the 'poor performance' of the widget. Sort of like how psychics/dowsers/mediums will suddenly declare the 'vibe of the room' is 'throwing them off' when they're tested with proper protocols. I don't think it's really the same as conspiracy theorists, though. These people are more of an example of the sunk cost fallacy. I think they feel that they've invested so much into the con that they can't back out, or they're understandably embarrassed about admitting they got taken in by wishful thinking.
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Jan 2, 2014 02:12
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Davros1 posted:Sadly, since being exposed to the internet for the last decade, my mother has fallen in with all this conspiracy crap. That's very hosed up, personally I think once it hits holocaust denial you should sever all ties and write the person off.
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Jan 2, 2014 04:48
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Have there been any conspiracies about the Voynich Manuscript? That seems ripe for them.
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Jan 2, 2014 05:43
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Spite posted:Have there been any conspiracies about the Voynich Manuscript? That seems ripe for them. It doesn't have an "official story" for conspiracy theorists to loudly rail against, so there's far less then you might expect.
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Jan 2, 2014 05:52
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Spite posted:Have there been any conspiracies about the Voynich Manuscript? That seems ripe for them. Cool stuff takes intelligence to discover.
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Jan 2, 2014 05:55
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Spite posted:Have there been any conspiracies about the Voynich Manuscript? That seems ripe for them. I saw a thing on tv where a guy claims to have figured out how they did it. They created a sheet of random symbols inside a grid, and spaced them a specific way, then they took a mask that was the shape of 4 letters on top of each other off center. They placed it over the letters on the grid and it would come up with things that looked exactly like an actual written language, but is purely gibberish. History is shown a Pawn Stars marathon and they keep showing an ad for the new season of Ancient Aliens, and it has Georgio saying, and i quote "The Ruler of this ancient people told his masons to build temples in this shape to reach a so called "higher plane". Is this a ancient misunderstanding of ALIENS?". No you poofed hair moron, its a common belief based on well established anthropological beliefs that can be seen in literally every culture we know of. They are literally short of saying "these ancient people wore hats, is that because they are imitating the space helmets of the aliens???" And if I knew someone who was a holocaust denier, I would not speak to them ever again, and probably just call them a literally nazi. Its one of the stupidest beliefs, beyond truthers and birthers because the nazi's did not hide that they did it. they cataloged EVERYTHING. You can go and see archives where every single name of every single person killed it recorded.
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Jan 2, 2014 06:53
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wheez the roux posted:Monster was trying to save us all along! To be fair power conditioners are a legit thing for musicians playing in venues with lovely wiring that pick up a lot of noise through high gain amps with huge lights and fans everywhere, and unlike almost every other thing Monster makes, that's priced about in line with what Furman makes. Still completely useless for your dumb stereo system though.
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Jan 2, 2014 07:34
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I'm thinking the approach you'd have to take to help a loved one who is caught up in conspiracy theories is close to what you'd have to do if they joined a cult. I'm guessing the psychology is pretty similar, people feel powerless and confused about the world around them and then someone gives them access to secret truths. That secret truth helps them feel like they understand and have control.
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Jan 2, 2014 09:36
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poo poo, when you reach the point of vaccine and holocaust denial you aren't even a conspiracy theorist anymore, you are just plain crazy. Its not like decades of medical and historical evidence from multiple independent sources is inconclusive. Has anyone ever taken a holocaust denier to Auschwitz-Birkenau? Because i cant imagine anyone short of mentally unwell keeping that opinion for long in that setting.
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Jan 2, 2014 11:21
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twistedmentat posted:I saw a thing on tv where a guy claims to have figured out how they did it. They created a sheet of random symbols inside a grid, and spaced them a specific way, then they took a mask that was the shape of 4 letters on top of each other off center. They placed it over the letters on the grid and it would come up with things that looked exactly like an actual written language, but is purely gibberish. The weird poo poo is the illustrations. There's stuff that could possibly be from the Americas, but it was apparently written around 1400. It's still almost certainly a very clever hoax though. My favorite conspiracy theory is that California is actually floating on a vast network of underwater caves. There are no earthquakes, only weapons tests.
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Jan 2, 2014 11:23
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BottledBodhisvata posted:To be fair, I do think the Sphinx weathering is a pretty interesting detail that might support the existence of an advanced human society before Egypt. That doesn't seem particularly far-fetched considering how many holes we have in our historical records. Which actually would explain why the head is so comically tiny in proportion to the body, which always kind of bothered me.
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Jan 2, 2014 11:48
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Davros, I'm sorry to hear about your mother. Hopefully she'll shake it off eventually. I'm inclined to believe that everyone is gullible for falling for a conspiracy theory or another to some extent, but some are probably more susceptible than others. When I first read about the 9/11 conspiracy theories I was a little unnerved for a while - I mean, the US government could just be lying - but common sense prevailed soon enough. It appears that for some people it doesn't. I think a big part of this problem is the fact that, to be quite frank, a lot of the "mainstream media" is actually to some extent designed to preserve a status quo. Things like social inequality, Guantanamo etc. don't get covered enough. So then you have these "alternate news sources" on the internet along with nutjob channels like RT and some people then have a hard time distinguishing who is telling the truth. It's like, they read that Alex Jones thinks the US government is filled with lizard men, and while that is obviously the fact and everything the MSM has told them all their life has been a lie, no consideration goes towards pondering whether or not Alex Jones is a trustworthy source of information. They just take it all at face value. Fabulous Knight fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 12:33
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Fabulous Knight posted:I mean, the US government could just be lying - but common sense prevailed soon enough. Yeah they'd never do that...
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Jan 2, 2014 12:37
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Iriquois posted:Has anyone ever taken a holocaust denier to Auschwitz-Birkenau? Because i cant imagine anyone short of mentally unwell keeping that opinion for long in that setting. I can't find if his visit already happened and if so if it changed his views. But I honestly doubt educating someone who's at that level of crazy about the holocaust is going to accomplish anything.
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Jan 2, 2014 12:46
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I work with a guy who is a 9/11 Truther. The discussion started along the lines of the government faking it to start wars and the towers were brought down by explosives, etc. I tried to debunk things and link various studies from reputable sources but it didn't really work. He kept referencing that Loose Change video and wouldn't read anything I sent until I had watched that video. Actually watched it, too. Not just sit there and dismiss it, I had to take it all in like some kind of indoctrination. The best part was when another co-worker came in and I tried to get her opinion on the matter. It turns out she was a Truther also and cited the Loose Change malarkey. Any reference I made to studies and experts were rebutted by them saying they could find counter studies and experts to prove me wrong. I basically gave up when they claimed that facts were really just opinions.
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Jan 2, 2014 13:10
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This is one that doesn't come up as much nowadays, but what's the deal with HIV deniers? The most obvious motive to me is homophobia, but it doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to reconcile AIDS being God's punishment for homosexuality with it being a virus. Do they think that AIDS is literally caused by being gay? Or is it something else entirely?
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Jan 2, 2014 14:40
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made of bees posted:This is one that doesn't come up as much nowadays, but what's the deal with HIV deniers? The most obvious motive to me is homophobia, but it doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to reconcile AIDS being God's punishment for homosexuality with it being a virus. Do they think that AIDS is literally caused by being gay? Or is it something else entirely? Hard living, basically. If you are heavy into poppers and drug combos combined with long term lack of sleep and poor diet you're immune system might poo poo out on you and then taking drugs that restrict DNA replication might also cause you to shrivel up and die. If you really care have a read of http://www.duesberg.com/
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Jan 2, 2014 14:56
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Thanks! I guess it's not what I assumed, but I'm still kind of confused as to why. Also, from that site's FAQ: quote:Life is comparable to the law: it is based on logic and precedent. There >>>>is neither a precedent for a virus that consistently kills it's host, as is claimed for HIV, nor would it be logical for a virus to kill the host it needs for its survival. I was expecting some bad biology, but holy poo poo, that is dumb.
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Jan 2, 2014 15:22
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made of bees posted:Thanks! I guess it's not what I assumed, but I'm still kind of confused as to why. Yeah it does seem to be mostly bollocks, but I do think there's some truth to the African aspect of his argument. The UN classifies everyone in Sub-saharan Africa whose immune system has failed or is severely weakened into the HIV statistics regardless of whether they've been tested for the HIV virus and other shady poo poo like that. Edit: I think the contrast of different symptoms that HIV presents is probably my biggest reason for reading the HIV!=AIDS "conspiracy" arguments. Is there another pathogen that lies dormant and is asymptomatic for as wide a range of time as HIV? Aren't there people who lived perfectly fine for like 10 years before finding out they have HIV as well as people who develop symptoms within a month and die that year? What would possibly cause this? Not to mention the relatively high proportion of false positives and false negatives that HIV tests give. Larry_Mullet fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 15:31
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Fabulous Knight posted:I think a big part of this problem is the fact that, to be quite frank, a lot of the "mainstream media" is actually to some extent designed to preserve a status quo. Things like social inequality, Guantanamo etc. don't get covered enough. So then you have these "alternate news sources" on the internet along with nutjob channels like RT and some people then have a hard time distinguishing who is telling the truth. It's like, they read that Alex Jones thinks the US government is filled with lizard men, and while that is obviously the fact and everything the MSM has told them all their life has been a lie, no consideration goes towards pondering whether or not Alex Jones is a trustworthy source of information. They just take it all at face value. Matt Taibbi's The Great Derangement goes into this a good bit in the 9/11 conspiracy section.
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Jan 2, 2014 15:34
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asdfsdfg posted:I work with a guy who is a 9/11 Truther. The discussion started along the lines of the government faking it to start wars and the towers were brought down by explosives, etc. I tried to debunk things and link various studies from reputable sources but it didn't really work. He kept referencing that Loose Change video and wouldn't read anything I sent until I had watched that video. Actually watched it, too. Not just sit there and dismiss it, I had to take it all in like some kind of indoctrination. Next time their child gets sick, ask them to watch a video on youtube and not take it to the doctor.
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Jan 2, 2014 17:14
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made of bees posted:I was expecting some bad biology, but holy poo poo, that is dumb. Yeah, viruses that make the host contagious for decades, that's totally illogical. Two HIV viruses strolling up and down in the courtyard of Plato's Academy would be like "this doesn't make any sense bro"
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Jan 2, 2014 17:59
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A virus that kills people?  Why that's just too insane to believe.
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Jan 2, 2014 18:13
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Tupperwarez posted:Aren't there audiophile forums where talking about double-blind testing is a bannable offense? I vaguely remember something like that happening when the James Randi Foundation people investigated some stupid-rear end magic device that was making the rounds in audiophile circles, and they found that nobody could notice any difference when listening tests were done double-blind. This led to some audiophile groups being convinced that double-blind testing was somehow responsible for the 'poor performance' of the widget. Sort of like how psychics/dowsers/mediums will suddenly declare the 'vibe of the room' is 'throwing them off' when they're tested with proper protocols. Some of this stuff is purified insanity. http://www.lessloss.com/anchorwave-interconnects-and-speaker-cables-p-205.html*I $2000 for a loving speaker cable. I assure you speaker cables have *gently caress all* impact on sound quality. line level cables, a little bit, but not speaker cables.  Translation "Oh sure it doesnt turn up on your PUNY MORTAL SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS, but trust us, these microevents are there and they are REAL." Keep in mind, we're talking about noise to a signal with enough amplitude to drive a loving 100 watt speaker setup. Also;- http://gizmodo.com/363154/audiophile-deathmatch-monster-cables-vs-a-coat-hanger quote:
duck monster fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 19:21
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Forgall posted:"Legions of unemployed who spend all their welfare money on drugs" are about as backed by evidence as orbital laser cannons. Some actually do, but they do so because they have a mental disease and should be helped, not scorned. It's not like a person who trades their EBT card for heroin is living a good life. They've already suffered far more than any person should have to. If punishment/negative reinforcement treated addiction, no one would be an addict.
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Jan 2, 2014 19:27
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I love how the comments are all monster cable users defending their purchase.
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Jan 2, 2014 19:29
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Larry_Mullet posted:Yeah it does seem to be mostly bollocks, but I do think there's some truth to the African aspect of his argument. The UN classifies everyone in Sub-saharan Africa whose immune system has failed or is severely weakened into the HIV statistics regardless of whether they've been tested for the HIV virus and other shady poo poo like that. I don't know whether you're genuinely asking those questions or just saying that that's what the conspiracy theorists are confused about, but no, HIV is not some kind of singularly bizarre pathogen (well, sort of - there IS a reason other than its death toll that it's the subject of so much research). There are certainly others that lie dormant for long and variable periods of time, like syphilis (sometimes) and also a lot of viruses related to HIV, the lentiviruses - plus others I'm not knowledgeable enough to name off the top of my head, I'm sure. The exact mechanism for when the virus transitions from latent to active is rather poorly understood, but essentially seems to have something to do with environmental cofactors - there are various chemical triggers that HIV responds to in high enough quantities that cause it to activate. There's no mystery behind why there is a variable latency period, just what exactly controls the variability. It's also a myth that HIV tests give unusual numbers of false positives, at least now - the current state of the art tests are pretty reliable. False negatives happen because HIV is very subtle and proficient at avoiding the immune system, and HIV tests are all about HIV antibodies - so if there are no antibodies it comes up as negative. In general, if you are confused about things like this you're going to have a lot more luck looking at a few scientific papers to find the answers instead of reading dumb conspiracies, no offense. Edit: Also immunodeficiency among adults is really not very common except in the case of AIDS, so lumping those few people with a non-HIV-weakened immune system into the HIV statistics is basically totally irrelevant. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 19:30
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Iriquois posted:poo poo, when you reach the point of vaccine and holocaust denial you aren't even a conspiracy theorist anymore, you are just plain crazy. Its not like decades of medical and historical evidence from multiple independent sources is inconclusive. See, here's the the thing about Holocaust deniers. Yes, the camps exists, and yes, there were Jews held there, but what they believe is that the camps weren't set up for the purpose of exterminating an entire people. They'll argue that camps were just basically "holding pens" because what the Nazis really wanted to do is transport all the Jews out of Germany. That's it. When the Nazis talked about "stamping out" the "Jewish menace", what they meant was forcing them out of Germany. That the plan was to ship them off to the Soviet Union or somewhere. The only reason Jews died in the camps was because of Allied cutting off Germany. They claim that the infamous showers were simple that, showers. They claim that the Zyklon-B that was used for gassing was only used for delousing, and there's evidence that the Zyklon-B wasn't present in strong enough doses to kill anyone.* And the stories of people dying in the showers were just stories that spread throughout the camps to scare the prisoners. They claim that the number of deaths were grossly exaggerated. The number of deaths were only in the thousands, not the millions. They claim that since the stories of bodies being turned into things like soap and lampshades have been proven to be false, then every thing must have been made up as well. They believe if they find one inconsistency, then that means ALL the evidence must be wrong. But what about the Nazi who afterwards admitted to it? They were obviously coerced, even those who had nothing to gain by it. And since there was never a specific document that read "Dear Nazis, Kill all Jews, Love Uncle Adolf", they point to that as their main evidence that the Holocaust wasn't something the Nazis had specifically planned out as a deliberate act. They're also quick to claim that they're not racist, and that they don't personally hate the Jews, but that Holocaust is TOTALLY A JEWISH CREATED LIE so the Jews can stick it to the non-Jews. *The evidence I spoke of? Scrapings taken from the shower walls 60-plus years after they happened. Because as we all know, being exposed to the elements has absolutely no impact at all.
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Jan 2, 2014 23:21
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I wanted to throw my hat into this as well. I am myself a former Truther of Alex Jones listener. OMG did I buy into (and buy) his BS for years. For me to get out of it was I guess another of people thinking I'm a weird and not wanting to spit out stuff I didn't investigate pass a surface scan. Coming back to him made me realize how stupid it at was. At least now I can laugh at it. I'm kinda interested myself that I bought into it. I guess it was a kinda sheltered life and looking at conspiracy theories for fun (which I still do), and the college environment I was in. (EDIT - I accidentally submitted before I was done. WHOOPS!) Lightning Jim fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jan 2, 2014 |
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Jan 2, 2014 23:28
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Davros1 posted:They claim that the Zyklon-B that was used for gassing was only used for delousing, and there's evidence that the Zyklon-B wasn't present in strong enough doses to kill anyone.*
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Jan 2, 2014 23:29
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Holocaust deniers are weird because a lot of the time they claim it didn't happen but they'd be perfectly okay if it did and in the upcoming RAHOWA they'll totally kill all the Jews.
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Jan 3, 2014 01:38
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muscles like this? posted:Holocaust deniers are weird because a lot of the time they claim it didn't happen but they'd be perfectly okay if it did and in the upcoming RAHOWA they'll totally kill all the Jews. This is what actually makes me mad. Why the gently caress does a Neo-Nazi says "holocaust never happened"? I mean, they already state that non-aryans should be removed from the genre pool. If it was me, I would be saying "Holocaust happened, and we have to repeat it".
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Jan 3, 2014 01:58
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Grouchy Smurf posted:This is what actually makes me mad. Why the gently caress does a Neo-Nazi says "holocaust never happened"? I mean, they already state that non-aryans should be removed from the genre pool. If it was me, I would be saying "Holocaust happened, and we have to repeat it". True Aryan planning wouldn't have left a single undesirable alive! Therefore it was all a fake by the race traitors and we need to do it right this time. 
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Jan 3, 2014 02:16
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Grouchy Smurf posted:This is what actually makes me mad. Why the gently caress does a Neo-Nazi says "holocaust never happened"? I mean, they already state that non-aryans should be removed from the genre pool. If it was me, I would be saying "Holocaust happened, and we have to repeat it". Some Neo-Nazis are down with the holocaust having happened, because they think it was a good thing, there's not really a consistent viewpoint that they all share about it. I stumbled across a nazi on tumblr one time who was very angry with a lot of nazi music because it glorified the holocaust rather than denied it.
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Jan 3, 2014 03:01
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Popular Thug Drink posted:Some of them are in the Impossible faction, for which I think the 'strongest' argument is that the Van Allen belt is some kind of instakill death zone. The rest think that it was faked at first just to put the Soviets in their place and prevent massive shame to America. Which oddly enough implicates the Soviets in the conspiracy as well, as they had everything to gain by exposing a landing they could easily track and expose as a fraud. My friend had a boss who was a huge "Apollo Hoax" guy. From everything I heard he was actually a really cool boss besides the whole conspiracy bit (he also thought that Soccer was a socialist conspiracy to pacify the masses). He thought it was funny to get a bunch of his friends (many of which, including me, are Engineering students) and his co-workers, including said boss, for a party. And then press his boss's Moon Landing conspiracy button near all the engineers. The end result was four engineering students trying not to scream and throttle this guy in the middle of Buffalo Wild Wings as we debunked his claims and he still wouldn't budge, including me bringing up "What, were the Russians in on it too? They had every goddamn radar on the sky to make sure we didn't drop bombs on them and everything to gain from humiliating their Capitalist opponents!" Talking to conspiracy people is one of the most frustrating things I have ever done, and you can never tell when some of the coolest people will suddenly drop the "I'm a nutter and won't listen to logic" bomb.
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Jan 3, 2014 03:36
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It becomes a religion to a lot of them. There comes a point where it's all about identity. They don't simply believe the moon landing was faked, it's part of who they are and you can no more logic them out of it then logic someone out of a particular religion. They've simply integrated too much of their self worth into "knowing the truth" to ever let it go.
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Jan 3, 2014 03:44
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A human heart posted:Some Neo-Nazis are down with the holocaust having happened, because they think it was a good thing, there's not really a consistent viewpoint that they all share about it. I stumbled across a nazi on tumblr one time who was very angry with a lot of nazi music because it glorified the holocaust rather than denied it. Probably the most vicious of US neo-nazi cults, the world church of the creator, basically thinks hitler was a failure because he didn't do the holocaust like he promised or something mad like that. Of course this is the same group that proposes invading ALL countries to wipe out ALL non white people anywhere in the world because "The whole world is ours". Of course after assasinating a judge and all sorts of other shenanigans they've pretty much earned a very special spot in the anti-terrorist world being I *think* the only nazi group mentioned in the old Army northern command lists of terrorist groups.
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Jan 3, 2014 05:06
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Grouchy Smurf posted:This is what actually makes me mad. Why the gently caress does a Neo-Nazi says "holocaust never happened"? I mean, they already state that non-aryans should be removed from the genre pool. If it was me, I would be saying "Holocaust happened, and we have to repeat it". It's an attempt to give people more reason to distrust the Jews. "They're pulling the wool over your eyes! It's all a zionist plot! That's how deep they'll go!" It's a lot harder to garner sympathy when youre saying "Yeah we killed em, and I'd kill em again!"
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Jan 3, 2014 05:33
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New one on me, but Fukushima-related. There's some bacterial outbreak that is wiping out several species of starfish on the California coast. A guy in the cafeteria this morning came up to me and, apropos of nothing, said "you heard about the starfish, right? Know why that's happening? Fukushima radiation." "Really? Uh, huh." "Yeah, they won't talk about it." "I saw that on the news, they said it was some disease." "No, they won't really say why because you know why? People would panic. So they pretend it's something that can't hurt you." "Why would they do that?" "They don't want people to panic. I've built my own radiation detectors, and you know how much they've gone up?" (he made a vaguely expanding gesture with both hands.) "Okay, well, guess I won't eat any starfish then, ha ha! My burrito's ready, gotta go. Uh, thanks!" (I kind of wanted to ask why the radiation was killing only some starfish species, and not everything off the coast including fish, seaweed, otters, and oh yeah ALL THE OTHER STARFISH, but I didn't really want to engage his crazy because I might inadvertently befriend him.)
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Jan 3, 2014 05:43
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Miss-Bomarc posted:New one on me, but Fukushima-related. There's some bacterial outbreak that is wiping out several species of starfish on the California coast. A guy in the cafeteria this morning came up to me and, apropos of nothing, said "you heard about the starfish, right? Know why that's happening? Fukushima radiation." Obviously the radiation caused a normally harmless bacteria to mutate into a monster starfish killer.
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Jan 3, 2014 06:38
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