July 25, 2010 - Rich Dolan

[tyder001]

I'll be around... and I've always liked the Braves, because I'm a former pitcher, so I've always respected a team (and in this case, a manager, Bobby Cox), that builds around a great pitching staff. Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz. Among the best of all time!

You should hear Smoltz in the booth with the Braves announcers. Brilliant baseball mind and stuff you just can't get anywhere else these days as far as insight into the pitchers thinking during a game.

 

[Paul Kimball]

You should hear Smoltz in the booth with the Braves announcers. Brilliant baseball mind and stuff you just can't get anywhere else these days as far as insight into the pitchers thinking during a game.

It will be interesting to see if Smoltz makes the Hall of Fame. Maddux is a shoe-in, and Glavine, with 300 wins, is a probable. Smoltz is trickier, but I think he did enough to merit inclusion, both in the rotation and as a reliever.

213 - 155, 3.33 ERA, 154 saves, 3034 K against only 1010 BB, and a career WHIP of 1.176. Pretty darn good. Plus a Cy Young award, 8 all-star appearances, and a silver slugger award. Plus 15 - 4 in the postseason, with a 2.67 ERA and 4 saves.

He would make my ballot.

When you look at what the three of them accomplished as Braves, they stand out as one of the best rotations ever:

Maddux: 194 - 88, 2.63 ERA - 4 CY Young awards
Glavine: 244 - 147, 3.41 ERA - 2 Cy Young awards
Smoltz: 210 - 147, 3.26 ERA, 154 saves - 1 Cy Young award

Total? 648 wins, 382 losses, 154 saves, 7 Cy Young awards.

Amazing.

 

[saucerwench]

Today, early this afternoon (1pm Central Time US) I had the SyFy channel on. (Everyone probably knows how much I just love the SyFy channel.....[ NOT!!!] ) Well, Rich Dolan figured prominently in this new docu-investigative type show about secret government sites and what is really in them. It was a fairly interesting piece. Although----John Lear and Bob Collins were involved as well. Mitchu Kaku < eeeugh probably misspelled for sure). Hosted by a genuine bonifide real newsmedia guy.

 

[dyingsun]

Today, early this afternoon (1pm Central Time US) I had the SyFy channel on. (Everyone probably knows how much I just love the SyFy channel.....[ NOT!!!] ) Well, Rich Dolan figured prominently in this new docu-investigative type show about secret government sites and what is really in them. It was a fairly interesting piece. Although----John Lear and Bob Collins were involved as well. Mitchu Kaku < eeeugh probably misspelled for sure). Hosted by a genuine bonifide real newsmedia guy.

I saw that particular show/special as well, would be nice nice if our hosts would throw in a question or two about it and what Mr. Dolan thinks about the 'Montauk facility/Bielek Stuff'.If you haven't recorded it already that is.

Anyhow, nice to have Dolan back on with you guys.

Btw, the show referenced was: Inside Secret Government Warehouses -Shocking Revelations

 

[jkoci]

I actually got to listen to the show when it aired this evening. Good job to all who participated. I always enjoy listening to Rich. His upcoming book on hypothetical disclosure should be interesting.

 

[Frank Stalter]

I actually got to listen to the show when it aired this evening. Good job to all who participated. I always enjoy listening to Rich. His upcoming book on hypothetical disclosure should be interesting.

They filled three hours and it was all pretty good. I don't talk that much in a week.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

They filled three hours and it was all pretty good. I don't talk that much in a week.

Nor do I.

I save it for the two shows. My wife wonders why I have nothing to say.

 

[Sean Elifritz]

This interview reinforced my opinion of Dolan. He believes EVERYTHING. He is more a conspiracy theorist than he is a truth seeker. I can't count how many times during this interview that he said, "It's possible", when asked about something absurd. He refused to dismiss even the Philadelphia experiment nonsense. And apparently he believes that it is impossible for anyone affiliated with UFO research to die of natural causes. A lot of people heap praise on his books but every time I hear him speak I am given a dozen reasons why I shouldn't bother reading them.

 

[ArchieBedford]

This interview reinforced my opinion of Dolan. He believes EVERYTHING. He is more a conspiracy theorist than he is a truth seeker. I can't count how many times during this interview that he said, "It's possible", when asked about something absurd. He refused to dismiss even the Philadelphia experiment nonsense. And apparently he believes that it is impossible for anyone affiliated with UFO research to die of natural causes. A lot of people heap praise on his books but every time I hear him speak I am given a dozen reasons why I shouldn't bother reading them.

Wickerman - I sympathise with your plight. However, having read both Dolan's books I would recommend you, or anyone, read them. Dolan is a very good, literate writer and comes over as far less of a conspiracist in his writing than he sometimes does when interviewed. He does speculate a little, but tells the reader in advance and gives the basis for his speculations.

I have my own differences with Rich on all this conspiracy stuff (I've met him a few times and know him fairly well, and we've debated good-naturedly more than once), but overall I would say he's a serious, intelligent guy and quite well grounded in evidence. He also listens to others, and can be persuaded to modify his view or accommodate new facts when he discovers them - whether they fit with any pre-existing ideas or not.

His second book is really excellent - though rather intimidating, at almost 600 densely-written pages, it's worth the time. Really.

Peace.

 

[Tom From Hong Kong]

I very much enjoyed the episode, in particular the discussions surrounding: (i) UFOs and artificial intelligence, which is fresh and helped advance my own personal thinking on the UFO topic, and (ii) Debord's 'La Société du spectacle', with which I largely agree (particularly the part about the spectacle hindering critical thought).

Dolan may go overboard with respect to the national security state existing as an independent government beyond the government, but you do have to admit that reality very well may be trending in that direction. This may be in part a natural American reaction for the U.S. to over-estimate its opponents once they are identified as such (e.g., terrorism post 9/11), but it may also represent certain elements within the government taking advantage of our fears to extend certain control mechanisms. What ever the true cause, trillions of dollars remain unaccounted for, and no one should doubt how easy it is to convince the masses (however well educated) of a particular point of view, even in our "open" society.

Dolan does speculate a fair amount, but his statements are generally properly caveated, so no harm done. We're all adults and should know the difference (see paragraph one above).

As a side note, I would love to hear what Michio Kaku really believes about the UFO phenomenon. I have always had the sense that there is an interest there, but he is holding back given his public position. Indeed, wouldn't a Type III civilization be advanced enough to talk to the ants if it wanted to? Ant language should be simple enough for them to figure out.

 

[NTS]

"He believes EVERYTHING."

No, that's David Hatcher Childress. Dolan merely believes more than he should.

As for the whole national security thing in the U.S., conservatives here have been convinced for decades that everything they don't like, from losing in Vietnam to civil rights to the sexual revolution, is the result of excessive freedom. They were praying for an excuse to curtail it -- 9/11 was that excuse. I don't think a need to cover up the truth about UFOs had anything to do with it.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

"He believes EVERYTHING."

No, that's David Hatcher Childress. Dolan merely believes more than he should.

As for the whole national security thing in the U.S., conservatives here have been convinced for decades that everything they don't like, from losing in Vietnam to civil rights to the sexual revolution, is the result of excessive freedom. They were praying for an excuse to curtail it -- 9/11 was that excuse. I don't think a need to cover up the truth about UFOs had anything to do with it.

Well I found this to be reverting interview which focus on historical aspects (which is great) of Ufology and the so call military complex. Excellent question and great debating from Gene, Paul and Nick (Go Villa) and Rich Dolan. The only thing which was missing from this interview was Greg Bishop and just reading his book which is quite enjoyable indeed.

 

[DamnDirtyApe]

This was a much improved episode compared to the previous one.

It was the kind of show that makes me wish I was in the room as part of the conversation since it touched upon so many converging subjects and aspects of UFOs that interest me - namely what our own technological trends can tell us about likely scenarios for ET contact. I'm also a big Kurzweil fan and I find his (and several other futurists') predictions of mankind merging with, then eventually being replaced by, synthetic life compelling. At some point a fundamental transformation of human kind will happen as changes accelerate faster and faster.

Not sure I would agree with Kurzweil's general timelines, but even if he is off by a wide margin - say 100 years or more - the general phenomena of exponentially accelerating change and advancement is something I do think is happening. I would postulate that in practical terms, once a society - any society including ET - can achieve interstellar travel they will, almost by definition, be very far removed from what we now understand human beings to be. Whether that means our space faring descendants will be pure AI enhanced machines with nano-cloud physical manifestations or whatever I cant exactly say. But it does seem likely that we will never see the anachronistic future of normal humans (like we are now) who ALSO have interstellar capabilities. It's like imagining a society and social structure of 16th century Europe that also just happens to have modern aircraft carriers.

And that's at the root of where I feel a lot of the "small physical ET's in nuts and bolts UFO" believers fail to make a convincing case. The idea that an intelligence could master interstellar travel yet crash so many ships or would still be living in frail, vulnerable containers (organic physical bodies) does not have the ring of truth to it for me. While no one can say for certain exactly WHAT ETs might do and why, the "space pilot" version of the Grays and such and Roswell bodies is already an outdated concept in a world with nano-bots and AIs coming down the road in our own future.

Paul's comments about ET's being a hyper intelligence that creates avatars to interact with us feels closer to the truth since I could easily envisioning humans doing the same thing 300 years from now on another world, yet I still would have to wonder why they would need to steal DNA and such from us. Once again, with abductions, you have examples of supposed ET's acting in ways already more primitive and blunt than modern humans operate.

As for Dolan's idea that "they" are waiting for us to leapfrog to a minimum level of development at which point we will become more as peers, he forgot to mention that all the while they too will have been advancing, thus we will never ever be able to catch up. Perhaps development of this type follows an S-curve, such that the next 100 years will see a vast increase in technology and intelligence, and then things will slow down to a trickle. If that's true then it would imply ET's have stalled out somewhere too, but again I go back to the idea that even 100 years difference equates to a monumental scale difference no matter what. And given the timescale of the universe, the chances that they would only be slightly ahead of us is so incredibly remote as to be non-existant. Rather than a few hundred or even a thousand years ahead, they are equally likely to be millions or hundreds of millions of years beyond us. We would truly be the ants that Kaku mentions. Looking for radio waves or laser beams in space is laughable if that is the case.

So I'm with Kaku on this - frail, error prone Et's are not visiting this Earth, and if there ARE here they are essentially godlike and beyond our capability to fully comprehend or detect. Perhaps everything from UFO's to FairyFolk are simply alien versions of "cat toys" like I use with my cat to entertain myself. My cat can't even begin to comprehend the world around him from a human standpoint , and similarly IMO, we could never be able to bridge the human - advanced ET gap.

So as I learn more and more about the future of mankind, the more I think that our own technological trends and a "singularity" event shines illumination on 20th century conceptions of ETs. Makes me wanna go back and re-read Valee. I wonder if in 100 years, the notion of gray aliens in starships will be as quaint as the 1890 airship wave with its reported passengers dressed in maintenance engineer clothing that eventuality met its end after hitting a windmill.

 

[Paul Kimball]

Perhaps everything from UFO's to FairyFolk are simply alien versions of "cat toys" like I use with my cat to entertain myself. My cat can't even begin to comprehend the world around him from a human standpoint , and similarly IMO, we could never be able to bridge the human - advanced ET gap.

Mac Tonnies thought about it in exacly this way - see his comments at the end of the clip from the memorial show Nick Redfern, Greg Bishop and I did on Radio Misterioso last year, which I've posted at my own podcast.

http://tosot.podbean.com/2010/07/23/memories-of-mac/

---------- Post added at 12:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 PM ----------

I very much enjoyed the episode, in particular the discussions surrounding: (i) UFOs and artificial intelligence, which is fresh and helped advance my own personal thinking on the UFO topic, and (ii) Debord's 'La Société du spectacle', with which I largely agree (particularly the part about the spectacle hindering critical thought).

I actually prefer Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life (see: http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/5) from the Situationist movement, but I thought (a) The Society of the Spectacle was more relevant to the conversation that had taken place, and (b) it was about all the Marxist theory GCN would be willing to handle.

I think it's a shame that 99% of Americans probably have no knowledge of either writer or his works.

Someday Rich and I will stretch out and have the conversation that I think we both really want to have about the national security / surveillance state.

---------- Post added at 12:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:45 PM ----------

This interview reinforced my opinion of Dolan. He believes EVERYTHING. He is more a conspiracy theorist than he is a truth seeker. I can't count how many times during this interview that he said, "It's possible", when asked about something absurd. He refused to dismiss even the Philadelphia experiment nonsense. And apparently he believes that it is impossible for anyone affiliated with UFO research to die of natural causes. A lot of people heap praise on his books but every time I hear him speak I am given a dozen reasons why I shouldn't bother reading them.

As I noted more than once, I don't agree with everything Rich says or believes. But as I wrote in my review of his second book (http://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/2010/05/ufos-and-national-security-state-vol-ii.html):

In a world where on the one hand you have the Condon Report concluding that there is no scientific merit to the study of the UFO phenomenon, and then government after government saying that there is no defence significance to UFOs, and on the other hand you have a case like the 1976 Tehran incident, where the US Defence Intelligence Agency concluded that the value of the information garnered from the case was of "high, timely and of major significance," how could you not at least question the official history?

In other words, there is "the truth"... and then there is the "other side of truth." The important thing about Dolan's work lies not in his conclusions, which may or may not be correct (in my opinion, some are, and some are not, but readers of his book - and it is worth reading - should judge for themselves), but in his encouragement to us to ask questions about the official story, not just concerning the UFO phenomenon, but about the very way our society is ordered, and how our governments treat the truth.

I know disbelievers don't want to hear stuff like that, but that's their problem (not saying you fall into that category, Wickerman).

Of course, Rich's example of the work by Webb is another good one. Anyone who thinks that we know the whole story is a fool, and just doesn't understand history.

---------- Post added at 12:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 PM ----------

Dolan does speculate a fair amount, but his statements are generally properly caveated, so no harm done. We're all adults and should know the difference (see paragraph one above).

Rich has also shown the capacity to revise his conclusions and speculations, and admit where he might have been wrong, or overstated his case - a rare thing in the UFO field (heck, it's a rare thing in any field). The James McDonald case is a good example.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Rich has also shown the capacity to revise his conclusions and speculations, and admit where he might have been wrong, or overstated his case - a rare thing in the UFO field (heck, it's a rare thing in any field). The James McDonald case is a good example.

That's an example of intellectual honesty, where Dolan admits that he might be wrong and is willing to revise his conclusions. I regard both books as works in progress. If he had to do it again, I gather Dolan would make changes to both.

 

[Paul Kimball]

That's an example of intellectual honesty, where Dolan admits that he might be wrong and is willing to revise his conclusions. I regard both books as works in progress. If he had to do it again, I gather Dolan would make changes to both.

That's the thing about books, or films... they're fixed in time, unless you release a subsequent revised edition, or a director's cut. That doesn't invalidate them, but people should be allowed to change their minds, or revise their conclusions, particularly where new evidence / information comes to light in subsequent years. Indeed, the real problem comes not when a person revises an opinion / conclusion, as I did with MJ-12 many years ago, or as Rich seems to have done with McDonald's death - the real problem comes when a person refuses to change their mind when confronted with evidence to the contrary.

 

[Greg M]

July 25, 1010 - Rich Dolan

I am so sad to hear you are leaving the show!! You have a distictive voice and you have added so much to the show. You will be back as a guest though, right?

 

[Paul Kimball]

July 25, 1010 - Rich Dolan

I am so sad to hear you are leaving the show!! You have a distictive voice and you have added so much to the show. You will be back as a guest though, right?

When I have something new to say, yes, I'll pop back as a guest, here, there and everywhere.

---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:18 PM ----------

As I've done with a couple of the shows I co-hosted, here is an excerpt:

http://tosot.podbean.com/2010/07/26/kimball-and-dolan-american-fascism-the-society-of-the-spectacle/

In these two clips, Rich and I discuss whether the “national security state” that he writes about in UFOs and the National Security State, Vols. 1 and 2, is a symbol of a growing fascist state in the United States; we then discuss some Marxist theory as we look at Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle (http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4), and how it is more relevant to our society than ever.

Obviously, I encourage everyone to listen to the entire episode!

Paul

 

[dad2059]

July 25, 1010 - Rich Dolan

Sorry to hear that you're leaving Paul, especially when I've started to listen to the show on a fairly regular basis again. :'(
Oh well. Good luck and fair winds to you on your journey.

DamnDirtyApe upthread pretty much says it for me. Rich covers intelligently all of the themes I find interesting, even in the Singularity discussion I was pleasantly surprised that he covered nano-cloud/AI intelligence as a likely ETI.

While the old 'nuts and bolts' ETH stubbornly hangs on for relevance, it seems to me that any hypothesis that relates to this strange phenomenon will 'out-mode' itself over time, perhaps until this speculated 'Singularity' carries us to that area where we'll finally understand what vexes us about the whole damn thing.

 

[trainedobserver]

July 25, 1010 - Rich Dolan

Great show. Best one in a while.