xtisme, come on down, you muppet!

The BBQ Pit
101

I’m actually pretty interested in whacky beliefs and why people believe them, it’s something of a hobby. So I’m familiar with a lot of the UFO stories. I know that the Arizona lights were flares dropped by military planes dropping over mountains on the horizon. I know the Rendelsham forest UFO was unusual atmospheric conditions combined with a lighthouse.

More importantly, I understand the mentality of people like you which allows you to believe whatever you want the world to be. I understand that you have an entire support network of people who want to live in the same fantasy world as you, and put out books and DVDs and forums.

So I’d imagine if I read this book of yours, it would be about the same as dozens of other books like it which are easily debunked. I could read a hundred of these books, debunk each one, and you could claim “but yeah, you haven’t read book 101, so come back when you do that!”

If you want to present an argument, or at least repeat the basics of the argument from that book, go for it. We can debate it. Instead you have deliberately said “I’m right until everyone here reads that book!”, which, as I said, considering we’re talking about you and that author uncovering the GREATEST MOMENT IN HUMAN HISTORY, seems just a bit silly, right?

Here’s the thing - if there were actually rational reasons to believe in this sort of stuff - conspiracy theories and other woo - you’d think there’d be a contingent of people who’d say “Ok, I know conspiracy theories are usually nuts, but I know this one to be correct because ___”, right? But you don’t actually see that - what you see are morons who will accept any woo you throw at them uncritically. You believe in UFOs and a conspiracy to cover them up, and you probably also believe that western medicine is designed to keep you sick so the companies can profit from treatments, and that we’ve had cars that run on water but the oil companies covered them up, etc. right?

And similarly, if you were a rational person, you would be saying “ok guys, I know I’m making some big claims here, but please at least listen to me and give me a chance to convince you, here’s my evidence”. Not “whatever, if you guys don’t read this then I’m right”.

IOW, you do not act like a rational, reasonable person in possession of the knowledge you claim to have. You act exactly like the sort of kooks that are easily debunked. There is no reason to take your word on this. If you want to present an argument, go ahead - but you don’t want to present an argument exactly because you know that in any battle of logic or intelligence or fact any of us would give you a severe beat down. So instead you just assert that you are in posession of special knowledge and that we can’t even discuss it with you until we jump through your hoops.

102

Weasel words. You know fuck all about me personally, and for you to make any judgement on my personality based on such limited information as appears on this board, makes you look the foolish and irrational one.

103

Well, then, don’t be surprised when no one takes you seriously. “I read a book once that proved something unbelievable” is by itself a pretty weak argument. Given how “incontrovertible” the evidence is, I’d think you’d at least be able to paraphrase it. The fact that you can’t tells me it’s the usual hand-waving blah blah about how the author saw terrible, secret things that proved someone else told someone they believed they saw a Martian once but The Man doesn’t want the world to know. (Why? It’s not clear, but it’s important that all the lazy ass free thinkers of the world like ivan get the word out there.)

104

You are correct. Then let it said that the personality that you project on this message board is that of a half-witted asshole.

105

Which part am I wrong about?

106

So why should we bother?

107

And I suppose my posts are your cite? Ho, ho, ho! Seriously, just because you say it, doesn’t make it so, but carry on deluding yourself that you are appearing all smart and reasoning.

108

All of it. You are full of shit, fella. But keep trying. You might be able to find a button if you are persistent.

109

SeniorBeef: To paraphrase Mythbusters…well, THERE is your problem! :stuck_out_tongue: You try to be too reasonable and take the time to explain stuff. That’s why you don’t get the Pit threads from the kook brigade! Me, I gave up even the semblance of an attempt at reasonable after the 5th astounding 9/11 CT thread (Have you seen THIS video yet? You need to watch the whole thing before you can really understand what’s going on!). Ivan had mainly flown below my own radar until the recent 9/11 thread, where I was surprised to find him jumping in on the side of the whack-a-do crowd in support of the Truthers. At that point I guess I started paying more attention to his posts and rapidly determined he is a captive of the Woo.

He knows you are an idiot. From that, much can be extrapolated. Granted, you might be a wonderful human being (or mutant space goat), aside from your credulous nature and thorny personality. A real heart of gold hiding under the mounds of horse (or space goat) shit, to be sure.

Personally, I’m inclined to think that you are trolling in this thread. If you wanted a serious discussion you would have crafted an OP to actually debate and discuss the subject. Instead, you came here to do some kind of backhanded pitting of me while ‘giving me the chance’ to dispute your whacky ideas. Since, presumably you have at least the intelligence of a radish, you must have known that tossing out UFO crapola on a science oriented message board, especially in the ridiculously ‘appeal to authority’ (snort) way you did so wasn’t going to win you many converts, so, QED, you are trolling. Not just for me but for much of the board. At a guess, you’ve been frustrated at being smacked down in several threads, especially by the Mods, and you are setting things up for a spectacular (well, in your own mutant space goats mind) blowout and banning event.

-XT

110

Let’s pretend I wanted to discuss A Brief History Of Time by Steven Hawking… would you respect anyone’s opinion on the book’s contents who hadn’t actually read it?

111

You think being taken seriously was the point…?

Well, duh.

112

You wish!

113

So far, both baboons and retarded teenagers have been libeled by comparing them to the OP. We should stop with analogies, because the OP is really beyond compare, and you just insult those you compare the OP against.

ETA: Can radishes be libeled. If so, include them.

114

Is this another drive-by retard post, or are you going to substantiate your position?

115

People who already agree with him.

116

Wouldn’t I be making my posts on a board where I was more likely to find those kind of people, if that was the case? Or do you guys think I’m doing this all over the internet?

117

Are you comparing your book to A Brief History of Time? That’s so fucking ridiculous I don’t even have a joke for it.

It’s a black hole of stupid.

118

Yes, I would. If the person demonstrates sufficient knowledge of the field in question to be able to discuss the ideas presented in the book coherently, then direct personal experience of the book is not necessary for that person to be able to provide some insights into the claims the book is making. Note, of course, that this requires that the person on the other side of the debate make a basic effort to describe the general ideas the book puts forward.

So, for example, if we have a discussion on the Theory of General Relativity, and someone says, “I just read A Brief History of Time, and in it, Professor Hawking says that the universal constant is not the speed of light, but is instead the amount of time it take mayonnaise to spoil. Is this true?” Someone who has not read A Brief History of Time could still weigh in on this question, even though they have not read the book.

Of course, the poster is receiving his information second hand, so properly speaking, he should not make any conclusions about Stephen Hawking, or his book, based off that exchange, because his impressions about both are filtered through the person reporting on the book, and it’s entirely possible that any errors in the argument are introduced by the person reporting the information, and not in the original argument. However, he can still comment intelligently on the arguments as they are reported to him, and in the process of that, he may find that it is necessary to resort to the primary source, and investigate the book himself.

It may help you to understand the debate process here if you compare it to the experience of writing papers for university. If your professor gives the class an assignment that requires a fair amount of research, do you expect the professor to personally vet each source given in the bibliography of every individual paper? Of course not. Similarly, if you were tasked with writing a paper on a subject, would you expect to receive good marks for simply writing, “Read This Book by Author X, it tells you everything you need to know?” The Straight Dope functions in much the same manner. The purpose of the forums here is not to provide a clearing house of citations, with every poster expected to find the books mentioned and read them in their own time. Rather, the proponents of a particular view are expected to digest their own sources, and provide the rest of a board with a summary of what that poster feels are the strongest arguments for their view. We follow the “marketplace of ideas” model of discourse, here. If you want people to buy your ideas, you will need to invest some time into selling them. You need to convince people that your source has value. Hectoring them for not reading a book they’ve never heard of, simply on your say-so, without giving them any reason to trust you, or your source, is not going to be an effective way of propagating your ideas.

You’ve read Dolan’s book. Tell us what it says. Tell us why you think this is persuasive. If his arguments are that strong, you should have little trouble supporting his position. After all, you have an advantage over the rest of us: you have read the book, and can refer to it at will. If his argument is so unassailable, you should have little trouble demonstrating this through frequent reference to the book which, surely, will have anticipated and dealt with alternate interpretations of the primary data. On the other hand, if you can’t do this - if other posters are routinely able to demonstrate enormous flaws in the books arguments that you cannot repair, even with the advantage of having the book in your hand, against an opponent who has never even seen it - then there’s a good chance that Dolan is not the towering intellect you suppose, and is instead simply another hack in a field that’s over run by them. I’ll admit, my money is on the second scenario. And with the way you’re approaching this conversation, you’re never going to have the chance to prove me wrong about that.

119

We’re werewolves on the moon
We carry our harpoons
But there ain’t no humans on the moon
So we tell tall tales
And sing our werewolf tunes

120

You make a lot of sense, Miller, but I just don’t enjoy typing as much as you. If you really wish to enlighten me, read the book yourself and then come back and point out its failings.