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Likewise the U.S. gave the head of Japan's bioweapon research division Unit 731 a free pass from any sort of prosecution in the hope that his experimentation would give them something useful against the Soviet Union (it didn't.)
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Sep 27, 2014 17:04
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StandardVC10 posted:Likewise the U.S. gave the head of Japan's bioweapon research division Unit 731 a free pass from any sort of prosecution in the hope that his experimentation would give them something useful against the Soviet Union (it didn't.) The only idea Shiro Oshii had that the US actually tried was dropping plague infected Gophers into Mongolia.
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Sep 27, 2014 17:26
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twistedmentat posted:
Naziness aside, Skorzeny was a hell of a soldier. I wouldn't doubt it at all.
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Sep 27, 2014 17:48
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twistedmentat posted:Now did they all join because they wanted to burn all the jews and shoot all the slavs and make the world a Germanic dominated one? No, there's a great many primary sources showing that many of the scientific and industrial leaders who were members of the party were horrified at what they were doing beyond the conduct of the war. It's not like they could speak out against it in public, and they knew where their bread was buttered. They wanted contracts to build tanks and airplanes, so they'd keep any personal reservations to themselves, or just pretend they don't know what's going on. There are a few execs at Farben that clearly had convinced itself that Zyklon B was just a pesticide, even though it was more powerful than what would be needed to kill bugs and rats. Except that Farben personnel supervised human experimentation in several concentration camps, experimentation started on their own advice, so quite a lot of the VIPs must have known but decided to ignore it.
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Sep 27, 2014 19:00
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Von Braun also never expressed any sort of regret or remorse at what he was involved in. That the V2s were built by slave labor in well the conditions you could imagine the Nazis make their slaves live and work in, that he witnessed and made no comment on in his autobiography speaks a lot.
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Sep 27, 2014 20:13
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KomradeX posted:Von Braun also never expressed any sort of regret or remorse at what he was involved in. That the V2s were built by slave labor in well the conditions you could imagine the Nazis make their slaves live and work in, that he witnessed and made no comment on in his autobiography speaks a lot. If you ever watch any of those Disney tv specials about space travel that Von Braun hosted, they are hilariously circumspect about World War II and the role that Nazi science played in developing the Saturn Program. I think he straight-up says something like, "The German Army built on advancements from the previous generation to give to the world a new sort of rocket," when covering the history of space exploration. As a bonus, they have some incredibly racist cartoons mixed in there too.
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Sep 27, 2014 20:37
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Since we've been talking about Alien Files Unsealed on netflix, I thought some of you might appreciate this crazy thing also on netflix: Mystery of the Sphinx: http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70023310?trkid=13462100 It aired on NBC in 1993 and is hosted by Charlton Heston. For about an hour it's just a kind of dull debate between people who say that the sphinx's erosion was caused by wind and those who say it was caused by water. It acknowledges that water erosion would mean that it was several thousand years older than generally accepted, which is crazy and clearly wrong, but kind of boring. But about 15 minutes before the end, the whole thing shifts into high-octane crazy. Heston summarizes the special up to that point with a CG movie showing the sphinx being built and covered with sand. Then he says that Edgar Cayce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Cayce), a loving psychic from the 1920s who predicted that records from Atlantis would be found under the sphinx, and says that mysterious chambers have been found beneath the sphinx. He says that Atlantis built the sphinx, no explanation and no qualification. Then the show cuts to Richard Hoagland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Hoagland), a crank too storied to get into here, who says without qualification that Atalntis built the sphinx and was inspired by a civilization on Mars who built the face on Mars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_%28region_of_Mars%29#.22Face_on_Mars.22). He shows clips from a lecture he says he gave at the UN, but there's no loving way they'd let that loon into the UN. In his lecture he explains that if you mirror the sides of the face on Mars it kind of looks like an ape face, and then if you mirror that mirrored face the image kind of looks like a lion. Ergo spacemen got Atlantis to build the sphinx. Then it cuts to Edgar Mitchell, an Apollo Program astronaut who says that it's perfectly reasonable to believe in Atlantis and spacemen. And then it ends with a really exasperated Egyptologist who explains why it's unlikely that an unknown civilization existed 50,000 years ago and left no traced except for a single statue. It's nuts, and this thing was on broadcast television. God knows how many impressionable people are going around even now spouting this horseshit.
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Sep 28, 2014 00:59
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Jack Gladney posted:
Could you sum up why this is unlikely? E: I don't doubt 50,000 as unlikely; although, there have been permanent settlements from that timeframe identified. I do believe the wet sahara hypothesis, and if a sphynx was built earlier, it would have undergone weathering from water during this period, aye? My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Sep 28, 2014 |
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Sep 28, 2014 01:03
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My Imaginary GF posted:Could you sum up why this is unlikely? The Egyptologist is the only rational one in the special. He's trying to explain that it's basically impossible for a civilization to come into existence and leave no trace. He says that there were no civilizations that early and that the history of human settlement in Egypt is too well-documented for there to be room for Atalantis, but the show just glosses over him. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear.
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Sep 28, 2014 01:10
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Jack Gladney posted:The Egyptologist is the only rational one in the special. He's trying to explain that it's basically impossible for a civilization to come into existence and leave no trace. He says that there were no civilizations that early and that the history of human settlement in Egypt is too well-documented for there to be room for Atalantis, but the show just glosses over him. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. Er, I'm unsure if I've made my point clear: the existance of extensive civilization in pre-contact Americas can, at best, be described as a contentious issue. Why would it be safe to assume no civilization existed during the time of the wet sahara, which then underwent collapse due to climate change or other environmental factors? The earliest known permanent settlement in the region can be dated to something like 40,000 BCE, and with settlement comes institutions and tradition.
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Sep 28, 2014 01:18
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My Imaginary GF posted:Could you sum up why this is unlikely? I don't know all the buzz on what caused the erosion on the sphinx, but there's a pretty clear consensus against water erosion. The water erosion people don't seem crazy or unprofessional, but it seems like maybe the evidence is ambiguous. There's a much better sphinx documentary on netflix here that goes into it in more detail: http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70299214?trkid=13752289 But like I said, the crazy part is claiming that human civilization is 50,000 years old, Atlantis is real, and Martians talked to them. And they squeeze it all together into about 15 minutes.
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Sep 28, 2014 01:21
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Tias posted:Except that Farben personnel supervised human experimentation in several concentration camps, experimentation started on their own advice, so quite a lot of the VIPs must have known but decided to ignore it. I thought that's what i said, they knew about it, but they did their best to ignore/forget it. There was a lot of that by the guys creating and building the Nazi war machine. Though someone like Porsche or the Heinkle brothers couldn't really deny what they were building, but at least their tanks and planes they knew would be used in traditional warfare. These crackpot shows always do that, have some actual scientist on, and then make him look like the crazy one; ignoring all the evidence and beholden to the OFFICIAL STORY.
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Sep 28, 2014 01:31
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Jack Gladney posted:I don't know all the buzz on what caused the erosion on the sphinx, but there's a pretty clear consensus against water erosion. The water erosion people don't seem crazy or unprofessional, but it seems like maybe the evidence is ambiguous. There's a much better sphinx documentary on netflix here that goes into it in more detail: http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70299214?trkid=13752289 All I see as essential for human civilization is fire and language. The rest is a product of population density. I completely agree with you on the wackjob portions re: Mars Talks and Atlantic, I disagree that civilizations have not existed which we are, presently, completely unaware of, and may forever never know. Now, for conspiracy theory chat: Harold Washington was assassinated for building a black machine. Kennedy was in contact with Daley through a bisphoric contact to have a few boxes thrown into the river.
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Sep 28, 2014 01:39
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He's not talking about simple community groups though, he's talking about a civilization complex enough to build epic monumental architecture. And the insane part is that the Sphinx would survive but literally zero other evidence. If you're a civilization complex enough to build the Sphinx, you're complex enough to have division of labor and dedicated artisans, and the work force would require large scale agriculture to keep the builders fed. Those are all things that would leave extremely large amounts of evidence in addition to the Sphinx.
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Sep 28, 2014 01:47
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A Fancy 400 lbs posted:He's not talking about simple community groups though, he's talking about a civilization complex enough to build epic monumental architecture. And the insane part is that the Sphinx would survive but literally zero other evidence. If you're a civilization complex enough to build the Sphinx, you're complex enough to have division of labor and dedicated artisans, and the work force would require large scale agriculture to keep the builders fed. Those are all things that would leave extremely large amounts of evidence in addition to the Sphinx. So, there's an extremely large amount of evidence in addition to Great Zimbabwe? poo poo happens, civilizations collapse.
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Sep 28, 2014 01:51
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IIRC, the water erosion is only on the higher side of the sphinx. The thing is on a slope. Even if it doesn't rain much, water piles up on that side. So there's no reason to think it's extremely ancient.
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Sep 28, 2014 02:34
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My Imaginary GF posted:So, there's an extremely large amount of evidence in addition to Great Zimbabwe? poo poo happens, civilizations collapse. Yeah, I think so? They had money and art at least, plus there was a related culture still there when the Portuguese showed up. This is not my field at all, but the oldest stone structures are like 12,000 years tops, and there's only a very few that old. Most of them are 5,000 to 2,000. Agriculture's only like 9,000 years old. And the people leave their broken plates and cups everywhere.
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Sep 28, 2014 03:00
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My Imaginary GF posted:So, there's an extremely large amount of evidence in addition to Great Zimbabwe? poo poo happens, civilizations collapse. I'm curious to know how Great Zimbabwe in any way supports the idea of civilizations existing 50,000 years ago and leaving no trace considering that Great Zimbabwe: - Isn't anywhere close to 50,000 years old - Is dated to the Iron Age, newer than Stonehenge is believed to be - Is a very obvious remnant showing a civilization existed Also, we do have signs of human civilization from possibly tens of thousands of years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteora#History http://visitmeteora.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/theopetra-cave-inhabited-by-humans-130-000-years-ago/ Humans, and their precursors, did not exist in a capacity to built a structure like the Sphinx 50,000 years ago. Anyone who believes otherwise is doing so because it's what they want to be true. Any discovery of a civilization of that level existing that long ago would be bigger news than finding an untouched Pyramid. Evil Fluffy fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Sep 28, 2014 |
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Sep 28, 2014 03:54
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Seventh Arrow posted:I've been reading through Popular Mechanics' debunking of 9/11 conspiracy theories and what do you know, they left the comments open. And of course, loony truthers descended on it like ants at a picnic. An interesting read, no doubt. *twitches* Must....not....respond....to....comments....
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Sep 28, 2014 06:39
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muscles like this? posted:Anyway, one thing I remember hearing about Project Paperclip was that the reports on German scientists all went through a thorough white washing to remove any stain of Nazism. Instead shockingly enough every scientist just happened to be apolitical, especially Von Braun. Just ignore that whole "SS Major" thing.
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Sep 28, 2014 09:13
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Animal-Mother posted:Do these people think anything real ever happens? Do they think their life is the Truman Show? They think they're the only ones watching it and everyone else is a character and has no clue how deep it all goes. Jones has effectively changed conspiracy culture from a small group of mostly mentally unstable people, to thousands of insecure idiots that use it to convince themselves they're smarter than everyone else. Literally every major news event is a smokescreen for what really happened. I'm kind of amazed that Jones has been able to keep it going, but his followers seem to be quite persistent.
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Sep 28, 2014 15:33
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Oh come now, conspiracies have been a thing since the dawn of man. What makes the crowd bigger and stronger is we have the internet where any crank can post an argument that sounds like something people like whereas before they could only really soapbox among small groups in isolated areas. Hell, Elvis conspiracies are huge and were so long before the internet was a thing. Same with the Apollo landings and JFK.
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Sep 28, 2014 16:00
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You can't deny that Jones and others like him have made Conspiracy Theories mainstream. Before they were limited to crackpots and people who did lots of direct mail order books. The internet gave them a platform to get their messages out, but it was still on the fringes. Now, thanks to Jones and Beck and others, CT's are mainstream and in every walk of life, and the GOP's entire platform is based on conspiracies. They always said "Democrats are going to raise your taxes and make you less safe!" but now they straight up say "Obama is a secret Muslim and wants to turn America into a second Caliphate and is going to take your guns!". The idea of Sandy Hook being a false flag, along with everything else, is reported on mainstream news as if its a plausible alternative to what happened.
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Sep 28, 2014 17:49
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twistedmentat posted:The idea of Sandy Hook being a false flag, along with everything else, is reported on mainstream news as if its a plausible alternative to what happened. I agree with conspiratorial thinking becoming an ever larger part of the typical conservative platform, but when did this happen?
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Sep 28, 2014 18:06
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twistedmentat posted:You can't deny that Jones and others like him have made Conspiracy Theories mainstream. Before they were limited to crackpots and people who did lots of direct mail order books. The internet gave them a platform to get their messages out, but it was still on the fringes. That has kind of a long history in America too. The major parties have long accommodated Birchers and anti-Catholics and people who think the world is about to end. I do the the Internet has lowered the bar of entry into crazy belief systems, though. Teenage contrarianism has probably taken on some strange flavors in the last 10 years.
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Sep 28, 2014 18:10
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StandardVC10 posted:I agree with conspiratorial thinking becoming an ever larger part of the typical conservative platform, but when did this happen? About 3 seconds after the shooting hit the news.
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Sep 28, 2014 18:47
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How about another conspiracy: Ron Paul is a Russian sleeper agent in deep cover. Ron Paul is, more or less, a communist.
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Sep 28, 2014 19:32
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Everyone's a communist unless they toe the line. Also they're facists and Satan, and Muslim, and Foreign born, and *insert any other slam they have here*
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Sep 28, 2014 19:49
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twistedmentat posted:You can't deny that Jones and others like him have made Conspiracy Theories mainstream. Before they were limited to crackpots and people who did lots of direct mail order books. The internet gave them a platform to get their messages out, but it was still on the fringes. They made specific conspiracy theories mainstream but the idea of conspiracy theories is present in most human circles (or other fictitious renderings on the truth). They standardized the specific conspiracy theory spouted but they didn't make a new thing appealing to people.
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Sep 28, 2014 19:53
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Jack Gladney posted:That has kind of a long history in America too. The major parties have long accommodated Birchers and anti-Catholics and people who think the world is about to end. I do the the Internet has lowered the bar of entry into crazy belief systems, though. Teenage contrarianism has probably taken on some strange flavors in the last 10 years. Those tended to be at the local level though, nationally you'd never have a serious contender for President claiming the his opponent was going to hand the country over to the Pope. Well, not since Al Smith. (Yes i know Kennedy had that, but Nixon was not running around going 'a vote for Kennedy is a vote for Catholic opresssion!'")
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Sep 28, 2014 20:15
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I think that thinking conspiracies are more widespread now is part of the same general bias that makes people think the world is turning to poo poo. JFK assassination and Moon Landing have already been mentioned, but what about Goldwater? Sure, he lost. But the Birchers were able to learn from that and make Reagan the God-Emperor of America. Then we can go back to things like the Know-Nothings or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It helps that secret societies were a big part of the nationalist push, so in a lot of places there were a lot of conspiracies. The Masons were a libertine group, an excuse for the wealthy to party but they also represented a booj push against the nobility and clergy to create an alternative association for power. Then you've got groups like the Black Hand or arguably Al Qaeda where a small group of people got together and loving delivered on their world-changing approach. Then you've got broader, more societally accepted conspiracy theories like the Dolchstosslegenden in Post-WWI Germany, Post-Vietnam America and Post-American Civil War South (plus many other places, I'm sure!). They've been around for forever and, thankfully, they've also been mocked for forever. For every person talking about their secret passage to the Kingdom of Prester John, there were five people ragging on what scam artists people talking about Prester John were. It was notable when someone fell for that trick because it was buffoonery. The problem, right now, isn't that there are more conspiracy theories, it is that people in power are electing to look for the Kingdom of Prester John. In short: Dear Sir or Madam, I am an exiled prince and need help accessing my fortune. I have reached out to you because I know you are a good and just Christian.
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Sep 28, 2014 21:17
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^In a way you could kind of list Mormonism in theretwistedmentat posted:Those tended to be at the local level though, nationally you'd never have a serious contender for President claiming the his opponent was going to hand the country over to the Pope. No, instead you'd have one claiming his opponent was "a blind, bald, crippled, toothless man who is a hideous hermaphroditic character with neither the force and fitness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman." while the other retorted with "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.". John Adams vs Thomas Jefferson
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Sep 28, 2014 21:27
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Shbobdb posted:I think that thinking conspiracies are more widespread now is part of the same general bias that makes people think the world is turning to poo poo. JFK assassination and Moon Landing have already been mentioned, but what about Goldwater? Sure, he lost. But the Birchers were able to learn from that and make Reagan the God-Emperor of America. Then we can go back to things like the Know-Nothings or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It helps that secret societies were a big part of the nationalist push, so in a lot of places there were a lot of conspiracies. The Masons were a libertine group, an excuse for the wealthy to party but they also represented a booj push against the nobility and clergy to create an alternative association for power. Then you've got groups like the Black Hand or arguably Al Qaeda where a small group of people got together and loving delivered on their world-changing approach. Then you've got broader, more societally accepted conspiracy theories like the Dolchstosslegenden in Post-WWI Germany, Post-Vietnam America and Post-American Civil War South (plus many other places, I'm sure!). I don't think you can minimize or leave out the effect that Watergate had on national cynicism. I mean, I'm sure people thought politicians were crooked before Nixon, but I think the idea that the President could do something serious enough to get impeached was quite a shock to a lot of people.
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Sep 28, 2014 21:41
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Seventh Arrow posted:I don't think you can minimize or leave out the effect that Watergate had on national cynicism. I mean, I'm sure people thought politicians were crooked before Nixon, but I think the idea that the President could do something serious enough to get impeached was quite a shock to a lot of people. That just shows they forgot about Teapot Dome.
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Sep 28, 2014 21:45
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When Nixon walked because he was immediately pardoned it pretty much threw out the notion of a president ever being punished, and Obama made sure to remind everyone with his "look forward, not back" poo poo to ignore Bush and not send most of the administration to a windowless cell for the rest of their lives.
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Sep 28, 2014 21:51
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Evil Fluffy posted:When Nixon walked because he was immediately pardoned it pretty much threw out the notion of a president ever being punished, and Obama made sure to remind everyone with his "look forward, not back" poo poo to ignore Bush and not send most of the administration to a windowless cell for the rest of their lives. What did Bush do that you wouldn't if you were President?
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Sep 28, 2014 22:03
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Evil Fluffy posted:When Nixon walked because he was immediately pardoned it pretty much threw out the notion of a president ever being punished, and Obama made sure to remind everyone with his "look forward, not back" poo poo to ignore Bush and not send most of the administration to a windowless cell for the rest of their lives. Wasn't Ford's rational that the country needed to focus on now instead of spending years prosecuting a President? Too bad the GOP didn't remember that when they spent years trying to prosecute Clinton. My Imaginary GF posted:What did Bush do that you wouldn't if you were President? I'm not falling for your trap 
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Sep 28, 2014 23:26
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My Imaginary GF posted:What did Bush do that you wouldn't if you were President? -Start the war in Iraq -Torture people -Even if that wasn't him, trying to find a legal rationale for torturing people
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Sep 28, 2014 23:28
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Having just been exposed to the wonderful world of Bin Laden's Death conspiracy theories, I gotta ask: Isn't it rather uncontroversial that he died in the raid? I thought there were some photos taken which were used to positively identify him, or DNA samples or something. (My favorite theories are that they picked the exact time to dig out his already-dead corpse to coincide with the premiere for a Donald Trump show, to punish Trumpy for being a birther - or Alex Jonas insisting that they had Laden FROZEN IN NITROGEN for 10 years, to roll him out as needed  )
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Sep 28, 2014 23:30
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StandardVC10 posted:-Start the war in Iraq -Choke on a pretzel -Fall off a Segway -Ask "Is our children learning?"
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Sep 28, 2014 23:41
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