Republican Vampire posted:

Yeah it's almost as if rather than reading words letter by letter we instead just sort of glide over them and, in the process, fill in a lot of blanks with questionable accuracy.

It's actually kind of sad and I'm worried that the woman who runs the site has some kind of disorder. If you read her posts, or the posts of her readers and fans, it's basically people being obsessive about how perfect their memories are and how they couldn't possibly be wrong about anything. I get that it's a bit scary and difficult to face the fact that we've all got a lot of false memories because memory is horribly inaccurate and undergoes constant revision, but the extent to which these people are in denial about that is disconcerting.

RagnarokAngel posted:

This sounds like a pretty typical new age wackery to me rather than anything truly insane.

EvilGenius posted:

That was my thought. It's a classic example of how memory works. You read Bernstein, commit it to memory, and then never actually read the author again.

I have an example of this, while we're sharing stories. I was having a convo with my wife about how the UK singles charts used to be the top 40, rather than the top 30. She told me it had always been the top 30, which I was adamant was not true - they changed it at some point in the late 90s or early 00s because singles sales were abysmal and numbers 31+ were selling bugger all.

2 weeks later we listen to the chart again, it's the top 40, and my wife is adamant that it's always been the top 40, and [url= http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Singles_Chart]she's right.[/URL]

I know there must be some faulty memory going on, but it still creeps me out.

I think what must have happened is similar to the Bernstein effect. I didn't really watch TV or listen to radio while I was at uni in the 00s. I probably heard a top 30 genre chart, assumed they'd changed the format of the singles chart, and never discarded that belief because I wasn't paying attention. As for the convo with my wife, Christ knows!

Mercury Hat posted:

This showed up on my Tumblr dashboard earlier:
[list]

Centripetal Horse posted:

Sir Tonk posted:

Wow, people seem to really be getting into ebola conspiracies. I've seen a number popping up on social networks.

They all seem to revolve around a sinister intent to infect a percentage of the US and reduce world population (the old standby). It'd be nice if the news outlets would stop trying to scare the hell out of everyone.

edit

Vorpal Cat posted:

What world do these people live in where two is considered an outbreak?

FuzzySkinner posted:

Alex Jones is a terrible person, and I really pray he gets exposed for the fraud he is.

Sir Tonk posted:

This Week was leading with that nitwit Congressman that said he *knew* about multiple ISIS fighters that've come through the Mexico/US border. They're approach wasn't "Why would a Congressman say something so ridiculous?", it was "Could what this Congressman said be true???"

They're basically enabling people like Jones with their refusal to label anyone as insane. People like Bachmann, Gohmert, King (the Iowa one), and Paul should've been laughed out of Congress ages ago.

Evil Fluffy posted:

Nobody will believe it when it happens because given how much he seems to love Russia he's either on the take for them or just can't hide his love for Cult of Personality fascist leaders.

My Imaginary GF posted:

So, there's an extremely large amount of evidence in addition to Great Zimbabwe? poo poo happens, civilizations collapse.

Sir Tonk posted:

Wow, people seem to really be getting into ebola conspiracies. I've seen a number popping up on social networks.

They all seem to revolve around a sinister intent to infect a percentage of the US and reduce world population (the old standby). It'd be nice if the news outlets would stop trying to scare the hell out of everyone.

edit

Mercury Hat posted:

This showed up on my Tumblr dashboard earlier:

"Who remembers the Berenstain Bears? Many people actually remember it as the Berenstein Bears. It’s part of the Mandela theory, or a term that someone is positive something happened although it didn’t. Many attribute these false memories as a glimpse into a parallel universe. (Source)"

Seems reasonable, lots of people misremember the same things all the time. But then when you go check out the rest of the site, you get things like this:

My research began in 2005, after someone in Dragon*Con’s “green room” mentioned that others (besides me) remembered Nelson Mandela dying in prison. A lengthy conversation followed. For hours, a group of us — mostly authors — discussed our own memories of that event, as well as other events that don’t match the timestream we’re in now.

That’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s related to alternate history and parallel realities.

Exploring the quantum / “Sliders” concept further, I discovered an entire world of shifting realities that people try to reconcile daily.

Though some of these may be false memories and other issues of mental health, or simply erroneous news reports, the sheer volume and consistency of them raise deeper and more intriguing questions.

And this:

This morning, I was enjoying 9 Things You Can Learn from Hamlet and made a comment referencing the debate about whether or not William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him.

[...]

Each of these have staunch supporters who — when someone insists on a contrary view — make most flame wars look tame.

I’m not posting to debate the origins of Shakespeare’s plays. Instead, what if each theory’s enthusiasts are adamant because they each slid into this timestream from a reality in which that WAS the origin of Shakespeare’s plays?

[...]

My question is: What if these people have slid from other realities, don’t realize it, and are simply defending history that — to them — seems obvious and evident, because it’s what they experienced at the time? It’s what they recall from news reports and history books in the timestream they came from.

I love the internet.

Evil Fluffy posted:

Why would they confront these people when it might damage their ratings? What sort of godless commie monster are you to think that media outlets should care beyond their bottom line?

quote:

This is nothing new, and is not unique to Obama. This article is also quite inaccurate as far as the literal meaning of the order.
While this specific executive order is new, orders like it have existed for quite some time. I know you guys want to have a reason for hating Obama, but come on…Democrat, Republican…they’re all crooks. Reagan signed numerous executive orders that are far worse than this, and the wordage used was not at all vague. They flat out said that the federal government can take your home, vehicle, whatever, if they deem it necessary. It was all in relation to “REX-84″.
Executive orders are, in my opinion, unconstitutional, unless they pertain directly and exclusively to the workings of the executive branch. But alas, I am an original Constitutionalist, and a strong proponent of State authority and minimal federal powers (as outlined in the Constitution). So, quite literally, 99% of what the federal government does is unconstitutional. Even the beneficial agencies, if they delegate authority over the states, are unconstitutional (ATF, FBI, CIA, Dept of Energy, Dept of Education, etc). But whether they are beneficial or not is irrelevant (fruit of the poisonous tree theory).
The federal government has very quickly evolved into an evil regime. The Civil War was a good start for them. Remember, we were supposed to be a confederacy. Hence why we are called the “United States”, and not the “Federation of States”.

QuarkJets posted:

Have you guys noticed this sort of conspiratorial accusation with other insane groups?

RagnarokAngel posted:

I think most people don't like saying their memory is faulty. Our memory is supposed to be the only objective personal truth of our personal reality, so the idea that it could be incorrect just feels wrong. Our mind does its best to convince us what we remember must be correct, too, so we end up doubling down.

This sounds like a pretty typical new age wackery to me rather than anything truly insane.

Evil Fluffy posted:

Nobody will believe it when it happens because given how much he seems to love Russia he's either on the take for them or just can't hide his love for Cult of Personality fascist leaders.

QuarkJets posted:

I've noticed a trend of crazy conspiracy-believing people claiming that their opponents are all paid shills.

FuzzySkinner posted:

My dad had Glenn Beck cranked up a bit. (He then promptly switched it off joking that he was tired of hearing about the world ending)

and I caught a really stupid ad claiming that "OBAMA IS GONNA SEIZE YOUR FOOD IN A TIME OF CRISIS! BUY A FOOD SURVIVAL PACK"

So I did a quick google search and came across this:

https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-n...rgency_03182012

I'm a tad bit puzzled though in regards to the paranoia though.

Also the comments section is a crazy person goldmine!


Really? That's news to me!

Also, yes, I sure do trust the states to provide quality drinking water, electricity, and quality roads! Just like how the South did, I mean it didn't take them a ridiculously long time to get on the grid. Oh wait....

muscles like this? posted:

Yeah, off the top of my head, both Israel and China pay people to go on message boards/comment fields and talk up the respective country.

Jack Gladney posted:

Scientologists too, although they surely don't get paid. I think Burger King or Yum Brands or some other fast food company tried to get shills on message boards way back around 2000. I think I remember them on Fark of all places.

Party Boat posted:

One thing I've noticed is they get really angry if you turn it around on them. In a Facebook argument with an anti-vaxxer (yeah I know) he said something along the lines of "keep believing everything you're told, I bet you think global warming's real as well". I said that all his arguments made sense now that I knew he was in the pocket of Big Oil and holy poo poo the meltdown was glorious.

muscles like this? posted:

Yeah, off the top of my head, both Israel and China pay people to go on message boards/comment fields and talk up the respective country.

QuarkJets posted:

What most people around here don't realize is that every papaya tree in the region is a GMO variety

Miss-Bomarc posted:

In the strictest sense, everything that people eat is a GMO. There are no populations of feral beef cows. The kind of corn you find in a grocery store is not found in nature. GMO has been a thing since humans stopped living in trees.

SocketWrench posted:

This is all to prep the military for the coming ebola outbreak at which point they're going to round up everyone into FEMA camps and those that don't go will be shot.