Not crazy things you think might be true but things you are absolutely sure are true.
Here is mine:
I am convinced that Karl Rove used computer trickery to steal Ohio for George Bush in 2004 and tried to do it again for Romney but was stopped by Anonymous (the computer hacker outfit). An article about the shenanigans in 2004 and 2008 here. And this article has the actual video Anonymous sent Rove.
And more generally I believe that Democrats have to win by larger margins than normal because electric voting machines are often rigged in Republican favor. It just seems funny that when you see stories of this and when voting results don’t match exit polls, it is always in favor of the Republicans.
So yeah, it’s crazy and all the evidence for it is circumstantial but nonetheless I am positive it is true. What is the craziest thing you are sure is true?
I believe life is a game, and it makes no sense for us to just get one playthrough. Therefore, I’m convinced that I’ll get another shot at it. I’ve basically been using this first go to run around the game world slapping my butt, trying to figure our where everything is, like the first time around a Hitman level. Of course, I made a mess of it and I’ll end up dying stupidly early on, but I’ll *nail *it on the next replay.
I’m inclined to agree with the OP about Karl Rove and voting.
I’m also convinced that it was no accident that bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora. Bush & Co. knew that if they caught him their entire excuse to invade Iraq would be undermined, so they let him get away. I can’t imagine there will ever be proof that’s what happened.
I’m almost certain I believe in the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum physics – in the most practical sense, that all possible historical time-lines are fully realized.
For instance, we survived the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that’s why we are here to observe this world. But I believe that some 98% of all human time-lines came to a fiery end in 1962, when Kennedy and/or Khrushchev screwed the pooch.
One of the horrors of this view is that it is impossible for me to commit suicide: I can only exist in those worlds where I don’t do such a thing!
(There is no joy in this version of invulnerability. I might not be able to die in a car crash, but I can get terribly badly hurt!)
Yeah. If you ever need to talk someone down off a ledge, I think the quantum immortality argument is the one that will get them down. If there’s even the slightest chance that they’ll survive the jump, that’s the one that they’ll be here to experience, just in a wheelchair, or as a vegetable. Still wanna jump?
I need to hear more about this quantum immortality thing! I knew about the parallel histories/many worlds aspect of quantum physics, but didn’t quite think of it that way. Very interesting.
What is it you believe about prayer, exactly? You believe it has the power to grant you wishes? Or a more rational belief? (checks thread. Oh. Nevermind.)
I’m convinced that after the Supreme Court repeatedly struck down New Deal legislation on the grounds of strict federalism, Roosevelt had J. Edgar Hoover amass blackmail files on all the Supreme Court judges, whereupon they started finding any legalism necessary to uphold expanded Federal authority.
For the most part prayer for me is just what is commonly called a concious contact with God or a supreme being. With one exception I never ask for anything. I am absolutely convinced that when I loose something my prayers are answered to find it. My rule is I do the most systematic thorough search I can muster, and then I do it again maybe 3 times. If I don’t find it I turn it over to God. I find things in the wierdest ways you can imagine and I find them on time, sometimes with only seconds to go.
I believe that what we commonly refer to as a “soul” is a type of energy, and that energy exists for some period of time after physical death. So, ghosts. But not really in the classic haunted house/horror movie sense, just that the energy has to go somewhere.
It sort of comes from Larry Niven’s “All the Myriad Ways” and Jack Vance’s “Rumfuddle.” I call it “The Ultimate Anthropic Principle.”
You can only observe worlds in which you exist as an observer. It’s flawed in being both tautologous and non-falsifiable. That’s why it qualifies as crazy!
I really like Lumpy’s theory that FDR had some kind of leverage over the Supreme Court, and Quimby’s theory about the Ohio electoral votes.
(One of the people who ran the Ohio voting system came here to San Diego to take over as our registrar of voters. I was one of those who was out protesting against them.)
I do too although I do not have many opinions on what it entails exactly. I don’t know whether to be terrified or thrilled that we are caught in a space-time loop with absolutely no way to get out. Even if you kill yourself because of present bad circumstances, another universe will just recreate the same conditions that caused your present consciousness again and again into infinity. An infinite number of lives sounds good on some levels but mainly exhausting and depressing because I know that many of them will not be good.
I believe in the Muses. I think good art and music is inspired by a kind of divinity, and that great artistic ideas are sort of floating around the cosmos. From time to time a person is allowed to be the medium through which they’re brought into the world. Sure, to take those ideas to a fully realized state you still need the 99% percent perspiration, and the artist gets the credit for that part, but the 1% inspiration comes from outside yourself.
I mentioned it in another thread as sort of a metaphor or a joke, but I do really believe it, on some level, and I do actually think about art in that way. I can’t really help myself.