You guys had me worried

[Greg M]

I was being to get worried about the show. So many people in various places have said that the show isn't the same since, David left, or since you have gone to radio, and that is all true. But, David didn't make the show popular, the audience made the show popular. No audience, no show!
But for awhile I was concerned that this show was getting to Greerish ( there is a new phrase, to mean some thing bad), the "bite" to ask the hard questions was gone , and it seemed like every one was turning into doe eyed believers ( you guys go Greer and I gone). Several of the last few shows, have been really insightful and "wow".
I know format change is hard, but I really do miss the spontaneous rants that involved a few choice words .... Those moments of honest / blunt truth are gems , but the self censorship you guys do now, though understandable, bites!!
I was very disappointed , that when you had Leslie Kean on, and she tripped herself up a few times -- that she wasn't taken to task for it, or asked to correct herself.
She is an interesting person, and it looks like she has done her homework, has put herself on the "line", and challenging NASA, was mighty damn brave of her, but some times I get the impression that she says, what she thinks that particular audience wants to hear.... And that is just as dangerous to this field as Billy myers is ( and I don't mean to insult her by saying that, but lost creditability is hard to gain back in this group simply because it is so vast in our beliefs but so narrow becuase of the lack of new information.... People who find out that I question the possibility about UFO all seem to jump to the same conclusion, and ask about Roswell ( and they are very confussed when I bang my head against a wall, and tell them Roswell is not he measuring stick to compare UFO info by. What will it take to get people beyond that?
Instead of " I brake for ufo's", we need the bumper stickers to say " I run people over who stop for Roswell"

 

[tyder001]

Now when you say Leslie Kean contradicted or stumbled what do you mean? You provide no examples and yet take her to task on your "opinion" and apparent bias. Not being combative but just pointing it out. Do you have examples where the host didn't take her to task?

 

[pixelsmith]

The show is definitely different since dB left... good riddance I say. I got so sick of his self importance and the never ending "I am a child of a holocaust survivor" crap. The Paracast is FAR better without him and his big egomaniacal/narcissistic head. end rant.

Mods please feel free to delete this post. I feel better now.

 

[Ron Collins]

The show is definitely different since dB left... good riddance I say. I got so sick of his self importance and the never ending "I am a child of a holocaust survivor" crap. The Paracast is FAR better without him and his big egomaniacal/narcissistic head. end rant.

Mods please feel free to delete this post. I feel better now.

It's an opinion. I don't necessarily agree with the opinion, but that is no reason to delete it. I think David brought a lot to the show and to the discussions. I sometimes had disagreements with him but that is to be expected. I thought there was a different personality that hosted the show than the one that moderated in the forum.

There is no doubt that the show is different. I would call it an evolution. Neither is particularly better than the other but that is to be expected as you change personalities. Also the show intent and philosophy has evolved. With David here he treated it as a personal discovery and he was nice enough to let us all listen to his struggle to make sense of it all. Thus, as he regularly pointed out, he didn't care what anyone thought or what opinions they had. I accepted this then and went along for the ride knowing it was what it was.

When David left Gene had a different vision. One I like quite well. That was to focus the show toward an audience rather than a publicly available insight to personal discovery for the hosts. He has provided a good level of interactivity with allowing questions to be asked of upcoming guests and is honestly concerned with trying to find better ways to involve the audience. It is a good evolution and I think it will continue to evolve.

About the initial thread post, I don't know where to start. It is very disjointed. There seems to be about 4 main points floating around in there and at least one of them is the idea that the hosts approached Leslie Kean with kid gloves. If that is the case, show us. Tell us what questions you would have asked. If you take issue with something said, then enumerate them and lets discuss it. Otherwise it comes off a pot shot.

 

[pixelsmith]

Don't get me wrong, I still admire dB's contribution to the computer/digital world. He is a pioneer in that field and I respect him for that.

He was great host at first and turned into a raving lunatic host and a crappy baby-like moderator. If he disagreed with you or you with him, he would call you names and lock the thread OR ban you.

 

[tyder001]

Well since he's not here to defend/attack/reason then maybe we don't need to be discussing him. Especially since unlike some of us (for instance tyder is nowhere near my real name) his name and personal information is right out there in the open. So, (imo) it's not really fair to drag up his name and career and run it through the mud one way or the other. Still, just my two cents.

 

[pixelsmith]

Well since he's not here to defend/attack/reason then maybe we don't need to be discussing him. Especially since unlike some of us (for instance tyder is nowhere near my real name) his name and personal information is right out there in the open. So, (imo) it's not really fair to drag up his name and career and run it through the mud one way or the other. Still, just my two cents.

Sure it is. A good share of this forum and many podcasts are based on dragging someone's name and/or career through the mud.

 

[tyder001]

Well, I'd be a hypocrite if I denied that.
Still, it just doens't seem right in this case.

 

[pixelsmith]

Well, I'd be a hypocrite if I denied that.
Still, it just doens't seem right in this case.

You don't have as much history with him as I do.

Here is the order of members who first signed up here several years ago. Gene, David, Pixelsmith.

 

[Brian Now]

Now when you say Leslie Kean contradicted or stumbled what do you mean?

Yeah, I too would like to know more about that. It's been a while since I listened to that one but I don't remember her tripping herself up. Did I miss something?

On DB: miss his intelligence and skepticism a lot.

On the show: The format here is weekly but unfortunately in this field it's not possible to have 52 different, upstanding, relevant guests a year. Maybe if this were a science podcast or even a celebrity news show you could get that kind of consistency. But in this field there's just no way. The show is saddled to this format though, so there will have to be many more questionable guests in many shows to come!

(and also a few great ones sprinkled in there too)

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Actually, we've had a few guests over the years, last year and before, that were questionable. Most were quite fascinating and pretty knowledgeable about their subjects, although I grant they didn't impress everyone.

Indeed, I think we've had a wider range of good guests since the transition. More to come — much more.

 

[Thabtos]

I was being to get worried about the show. So many people in various places have said that the show isn't the same since, David left, or since you have gone to radio, and that is all true. But, David didn't make the show popular, the audience made the show popular. No audience, no show!
But for awhile I was concerned that this show was getting to Greerish ( there is a new phrase, to mean some thing bad), the "bite" to ask the hard questions was gone , and it seemed like every one was turning into doe eyed believers ( you guys go Greer and I gone). Several of the last few shows, have been really insightful and "wow".
I know format change is hard, but I really do miss the spontaneous rants that involved a few choice words

Steinberg can actually be pretty biting sometimes but it's real subtle. Chris is just a nice guy. He's a gentleman to everybody.

Even though the format its not as adversarial as it used to be, we as forum members have to the power to ask the hard questions ourselves. Our queries are faithfully conveyed to the guests by the hosts. I even got O'Brien to say "boar's teat" on air.

So next time there is a guest who appears to offer suspect testimony, we can do research and give them challenging questions via forum!

 

[Will Penguin]

Steinberg can actually be pretty biting sometimes but it's real subtle. Chris is just a nice guy. He's a gentleman to everybody.

Even though the format its not as adversarial as it used to be, we as forum members have to the power to ask the hard questions ourselves. Our queries are faithfully conveyed to the guests by the hosts. I even got O'Brien to say "boar's teat" on air.

So next time there is a guest who appears to offer suspect testimony, we can do research and give them challenging questions via forum!

I agree. It's a good thing to ask tough questions, but when a show turns in one big skirmish with the guest, frankly, it just bores me. I like a show that asks good questions and assumes its audience is capable of evaluating the guest's credibility for themselves.

 

[Greg M]

I laughed at the Boar's teat comment, I haven't heard that expression for years. There has been a really good balance in the shows, we are in a no win situation , and I understand that and admit I am one of the whiners! Any opinions I make, are clearly my own-but I am a firm believer in giving credit where credit is do, and saying something is crap when it is ( based on my opinion) and I am not a believer in shoving my opinion down somes throat . This ( the UFO) is one group is so divided in their beliefs, but we are also united in the fact that , we are " out side " the main stream. Seeing a complete group agreement on anything , will never happen any where, so we can't expect it here, that's just the nature of the beast ( with or with out the influence of the trickster).

 

[Jeff Crowell]

The thing with dB was he shot from the hip and said a lot of things a lot of us just WISHED we could say. If he felt something was BS he wasn't afraid to say so. He came up with intelligent questions about some pretty fantastic scenarios and called people out on crap when he saw their story as crap. It's true that the dB of the beginning and the dB of the end of his time on The ParaCast was a different person but in the end I believe this is because of stress and frustration in the field in general. I think this field has that effect on people. It's driven more than one researcher over the edge in any number of ways.

I still hold out hope that the old dB makes a return but that's in his own time and in his own way. The PC is different now, not saying it's better or worse.....just different. Speaking badly about dB is like bad press and the old saying, "All press is good press, even bad press is good press." Love him or hate him, dB helped lay the foundation for the show we know-and-love. I think it's hilarious about how a thread like this comes out about once every few weeks or months...people bitching about dB and about how the show's "better" without him...and yet here we are, STILL talking about him. That's the impact he had on this show, and on this field.

I can say this. Invite dB back for a single episode (somehow) on any topic and watch the download numbers go through the frakkin' roof.

Peace.

 

[Greg M]

well - I dont know if it means that I am pulling a David, or if I am getting so tired of political correctness ( people are so worried about offending someone, or saying the wrong thing - that the real meaning to their message is being lost) that I tend to blurt out what I was actually thinking and then think afterwards ( Did I really say that out loud) and the people I work with, will say 'Yes, you said it out loud" ( then I get in shit, for being blunt. I never attack the person, but I will disagree with what they've said. Where has the ability to accept justified criticism, or honest comments gone? People have generally turned into politically correct, watered down IQ morons, that flinch at the slightest hint of correction....(thank god, I am not a supervisor anymore, because honesty gets one fired)

 

[pixelsmith]

:

The thing with dB was he shot from the hip and said a lot of things a lot of us just WISHED we could say. If he felt something was BS he wasn't afraid to say so. He came up with intelligent questions about some pretty fantastic scenarios and called people out on crap when he saw their story as crap. It's true that the dB of the beginning and the dB of the end of his time on The ParaCast was a different person but in the end I believe this is because of stress and frustration in the field in general. I think this field has that effect on people. It's driven more than one researcher over the edge in any number of ways.

I still hold out hope that the old dB makes a return but that's in his own time and in his own way. The PC is different now, not saying it's better or worse.....just different. Speaking badly about dB is like bad press and the old saying, "All press is good press, even bad press is good press." Love him or hate him, dB helped lay the foundation for the show we know-and-love. I think it's hilarious about how a thread like this comes out about once every few weeks or months...people bitching about dB and about how the show's "better" without him...and yet here we are, STILL talking about him. That's the impact he had on this show, and on this field.

I can say this. Invite dB back for a single episode (somehow) on any topic and watch the download numbers go through the frakkin' roof.

Peace.

i am glad he is gone.... did you know he is the child of a holocaust survivor?

 

[Gene Steinberg]

This is not a topic we need to discuss. But let me tell you this: Our bandwidth usage is twice what it was last year, which means many more listeners are downloading the show; unique visitors to the site are also much higher. And I haven't included the traffic GCN receives from The Paracast.

Make of that what you will. Case closed!