Sometimes when I hear people discussing fringe paranormal subjects, they'll call strange idea #1 "worth consideration" and at the same time strange idea #2 "nonsense". This leads me to think it would be helpful to try and clear up the important distinction between an idea and its messenger.
I've noticed people here generally consider Mac Tonnies' crypto-terrestrial idea as worth consideration, and the idea of dozens of visiting alien races supported by Clifford Stone as nonsense. Likewise, Jaques Vallee's idea of an overarching intelligence manipulating humanity as a psycho-social control mechanism is worth consideration, and yet the drone idea of self-operating code is nonsense.
Looking at them all together, I think one can see the absurdity of this kind of thinking.
Not one of the above ideas fits even remotely into our current picture of reality, they are all very far out. Is one or more non-human races existing undetected on the earth alongside man for millennia honestly more plausible than many alien races visiting from space? Is the idea of a super-powerful intelligence invisibly manipulating society for ages more plausible than a code that operates itself?
All ideas, both valid and invalid, are equally perceived as nonsense from the point of view of a smaller or incomplete system. The hosts assert that we are children and that our understanding of the world is paltry at best (a sentiment which I agree with).
This means the system by which we understand the world is very small and incomplete. And from that system, all valid laws which are part of a larger system are equally absurd. Arthur C Clarke's famous quote about magic refers to this rule. We cannot precisely distinguish between the nonsensical ideas and the valid ones until our understanding is enlarged.
Now having said all that, I don't think that we are helpless to discern anything. There is still a significant characteristic which the drone story and Clifford's story both share: They are both stories which come from questionable sources.
But what seems important to me is to distinguish between the source and the idea. Because a source is questionable or shady, one cannot *necessarily* conclude that the ideas he supports are false. It's certainly possible, but not a necessary conclusion.
There are two reasons that I think this subject is worth bringing up:
1) In the interest of accurate discussion. I hear people calling someone's ideas "loony", when in actuality the source is loony. To conclude from this that the idea is untrue is to make a false assumption. If a crazy loon on the street corner says "UFO abductions happen", does this mean we can conclude that abductions don't happen? That's what the general public does, and it's a result of poor thinking.
2) I also think this subject applies to a tactic of those who are "in the know". I've sometimes wondered what I would do to suppress a subject that I wanted to keep secret. One useful tactic would be:
Agency holding the secret gets a crazy or untrustworthy guy to publicly promote an idea, this idea contains elements of the info that the Agency wants to keep secret. The general public, seeing this guy and his lack of credibility, will almost certainly make the leap of logic to disregard the man's ideas along with the man himself.
For my money, I would say that an example of this tactic would be Bob Lazar.
I'm possibly just preaching to the converted here, but this seemed like a useful subject to bring up.
I've noticed people here generally consider Mac Tonnies' crypto-terrestrial idea as worth consideration, and the idea of dozens of visiting alien races supported by Clifford Stone as nonsense. Likewise, Jaques Vallee's idea of an overarching intelligence manipulating humanity as a psycho-social control mechanism is worth consideration, and yet the drone idea of self-operating code is nonsense.
Looking at them all together, I think one can see the absurdity of this kind of thinking.
Not one of the above ideas fits even remotely into our current picture of reality, they are all very far out. Is one or more non-human races existing undetected on the earth alongside man for millennia honestly more plausible than many alien races visiting from space? Is the idea of a super-powerful intelligence invisibly manipulating society for ages more plausible than a code that operates itself?
All ideas, both valid and invalid, are equally perceived as nonsense from the point of view of a smaller or incomplete system. The hosts assert that we are children and that our understanding of the world is paltry at best (a sentiment which I agree with).
This means the system by which we understand the world is very small and incomplete. And from that system, all valid laws which are part of a larger system are equally absurd. Arthur C Clarke's famous quote about magic refers to this rule. We cannot precisely distinguish between the nonsensical ideas and the valid ones until our understanding is enlarged.
Now having said all that, I don't think that we are helpless to discern anything. There is still a significant characteristic which the drone story and Clifford's story both share: They are both stories which come from questionable sources.
But what seems important to me is to distinguish between the source and the idea. Because a source is questionable or shady, one cannot *necessarily* conclude that the ideas he supports are false. It's certainly possible, but not a necessary conclusion.
There are two reasons that I think this subject is worth bringing up:
1) In the interest of accurate discussion. I hear people calling someone's ideas "loony", when in actuality the source is loony. To conclude from this that the idea is untrue is to make a false assumption. If a crazy loon on the street corner says "UFO abductions happen", does this mean we can conclude that abductions don't happen? That's what the general public does, and it's a result of poor thinking.
2) I also think this subject applies to a tactic of those who are "in the know". I've sometimes wondered what I would do to suppress a subject that I wanted to keep secret. One useful tactic would be:
Agency holding the secret gets a crazy or untrustworthy guy to publicly promote an idea, this idea contains elements of the info that the Agency wants to keep secret. The general public, seeing this guy and his lack of credibility, will almost certainly make the leap of logic to disregard the man's ideas along with the man himself.
For my money, I would say that an example of this tactic would be Bob Lazar.
I'm possibly just preaching to the converted here, but this seemed like a useful subject to bring up.
