Post by buzzbomb on Apr 10, 2021 23:40:21 GMT
I've been asked a few times now what my motivation is for writing about these disappearances. The obvious answer is that it interests me. We all have interests and many of us have them concerning things that are seen as a bit quirky. I actually met a guy at work who collects petrified buffalo/bison penises. Why? Because it interests him (and they are actually worth money even though he rarely or never sells them). My interest is in people who vanish without a trace and are never seen again. It's intriguing mainly because how did it happen? How does someone step five feet off a trail to take a leak or something and then are never seen by anyone again and none of the witnesses saw or heard a thing? Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Sure, there could be a perfectly natural explanation but none that are available really seem to work. So we have to find a new explanation but what?
Now, what do I think of Paulides? He's a crank. What do I mean--he's crazy? I don't think so even though he might be. Doesn't come across as though he's crazy. But I just said he was a crank, didn't I? Yes, but there is a big difference between a crank and a kook. Kooks are jerks who entertain bizarre ideas and theories that they are convinced are right. Marjorie Taylor Green, for example, is a kook. She's annoying, says nothing even the tiniest bit interesting or informative, and isn't even entertaining. Certainly, she has no humor. Her ideas are actually dangerously stupid. She's just a crazy jerkoff--a kook. There is another aspect to a kook to contrast with a crank that I'll get to in a minute.
A crank is someone who entertains ideas that are off the beaten track if not radically different from everyone else's. For that reason, his ideas are often wrong BUT they are entertaining and they make people think, they generate discussion. Charles Fort was a crank. His books were full of ideas that certainly nobody else of that time had. He was so cranky that even when a society was formed in his honor, he refused to have anything to do with it. A man after my own heart. A crank is harmless but there's something about her you admire. She thinks outside the box in a way you find engaging even if you don't buy what she's pitching. Erich von Daniken is a crank. Like him or not, he introduced us to the idea of the "ancient astronaut" which has become a global cultural fixture. Is he right? Definitely not. BUT----he might be on the right track (I think he is, actually). Whether I believe von Daniken's ideas or not has no bearing. He has been a very successful crank. He too is harmless.
David Paulides is, as I stated earlier, a crank. We can't say, however, that his ideas are wrong or right because he doesn't really offer any. When a guy disappears in the woods under bizarre circumstances, Paulides doesn't say that Bigfoot got him or a dogman or a UFO or a gateway to another dimension swallowed him up. It could be any of those things or none of them. A lot the case histories he presents, however, often seem to suggest bigfoot and Paulides has written a number of books on bigfoot so 411 has the reputation of suggesting that missing people are abducted by bigfoot but that is not Paulides' conclusion. He offers no conclusions.
The hallmark of the crank is that his ideas are engaging enough that they inspire a following dedicated to that subject. Hence, we have a 411 crowd and an ancient astronaut crowd and Fortean Society. But the crank, we must remember, is harmless whereas a kook is not. A crank as Gavin Menzies says that the Chinese circumnavigated and mapped the earth on a voyage in 1428 and people debate that but nobody gets hurt. A kook, on the other hand, calls Coronavirus the Chinese Virus and inspires idiots to attack, beat and kill people on the streets who even look like they might be Chinese. IOW, a crank gains a following but his ideas remain confined to this group but a kook tries to make his ideas mainstream and will even try to legislate them into our lives. A kook's ideas are dangerous for that reason. 411 is harmless but QAnon is not.
Once the crank ideas go public and mainstream, they transform into kookism because they sink into the hearts of idiots everywhere. When such ideas become ingrained in the heart of an idiot, they become dangerous because that idiot believes he has to do something insane in order to convince the public that these ideas need to be taken seriously. Creationism is not crankism but is kookism since politicians try to legislate this pile of garbage into our lives. Flat Earthism rides the cusp between crankism and kookism but looking more and more like it may cross into the latter because many creationists are flat-earthers as well as many Muslims.
But crankism, I think, is good for the soul. Every now and again you have to suspend your skepticism and see where the currents take you. This is easier said than done. I could never be a flat-earther because you not only have to suspend your skepticism, you have to suspend your brains as well. UFOs? Crankism and gaining prestige in the face of the tic-tac phenomenon. Not hard to suspend skepticism here especially if you're ever seen one. It would be healthy for scientists to suspend skepticism concerning UFOs and see what there is really is to see.
The reason it is healthy to crank out now and again is because being certain all the time is flat out unhealthy. I was watching something on TV a few weeks back and some guys filmed a hairy creature on a mountaintop. One scientist said it was a bear. She concluded it could not be a Sasquatch simply because "such things don't exist." Now, if she concluded it was a bear due to various characteristics she observed, okay. But to exclude the possibility of a Sasquatch simply because you don't believe in their existence is dangerously close to not being science. She clarified by saying, we've sighted these things forever but never found bones, preserved relics of these creatures have always been found to be fake and they live too close to society to evade us so easily. But have they evaded us? People claim to have seen them and we have clips of them that might show the actual creature and I don't call that evading us if this evidence is valid. The fact that people have been sighting them forever would indicate that they just might be real. No bones doesn't necessarily mean anything. If the Sasquatch tribes exist and are similar to humans, then they live in their own social order with rules and may not leave the bones of dead ones lying around where they can be found just as we don't leave grampaw's bones laying around in the front yard. Now, do I believe in Sasquatch? No, not really. Do I believe Sasquatch could be real? Yes, I do. There is no contradiction. To believe in something is to draw a conclusion and I have drawn no such conclusions on the existence of Sasquatch but I have also drawn none concerning the creature's nonexistence as well. So does it exist? I see no heard evidence that it does but might it be real? Yes, it certainly could be real.
So we should be careful about our conclusions. It hurts your cred to say Sasquatch doesn't exist--until it suddenly does. So crankism is healthy. It keeps us from getting too rigid in our beliefs. The one thing that I can suspend my skepticism over is 411. To say you don't believe in that people oftimes vanish in inexplicable ways is to ignore the evidence that it does, in fact, happen. But that doesn't mean there is no explanation. However, if no explanation is forthcoming then I reserve the right to suspend my skepticism. Thank you.
Now, what do I think of Paulides? He's a crank. What do I mean--he's crazy? I don't think so even though he might be. Doesn't come across as though he's crazy. But I just said he was a crank, didn't I? Yes, but there is a big difference between a crank and a kook. Kooks are jerks who entertain bizarre ideas and theories that they are convinced are right. Marjorie Taylor Green, for example, is a kook. She's annoying, says nothing even the tiniest bit interesting or informative, and isn't even entertaining. Certainly, she has no humor. Her ideas are actually dangerously stupid. She's just a crazy jerkoff--a kook. There is another aspect to a kook to contrast with a crank that I'll get to in a minute.
A crank is someone who entertains ideas that are off the beaten track if not radically different from everyone else's. For that reason, his ideas are often wrong BUT they are entertaining and they make people think, they generate discussion. Charles Fort was a crank. His books were full of ideas that certainly nobody else of that time had. He was so cranky that even when a society was formed in his honor, he refused to have anything to do with it. A man after my own heart. A crank is harmless but there's something about her you admire. She thinks outside the box in a way you find engaging even if you don't buy what she's pitching. Erich von Daniken is a crank. Like him or not, he introduced us to the idea of the "ancient astronaut" which has become a global cultural fixture. Is he right? Definitely not. BUT----he might be on the right track (I think he is, actually). Whether I believe von Daniken's ideas or not has no bearing. He has been a very successful crank. He too is harmless.
David Paulides is, as I stated earlier, a crank. We can't say, however, that his ideas are wrong or right because he doesn't really offer any. When a guy disappears in the woods under bizarre circumstances, Paulides doesn't say that Bigfoot got him or a dogman or a UFO or a gateway to another dimension swallowed him up. It could be any of those things or none of them. A lot the case histories he presents, however, often seem to suggest bigfoot and Paulides has written a number of books on bigfoot so 411 has the reputation of suggesting that missing people are abducted by bigfoot but that is not Paulides' conclusion. He offers no conclusions.
The hallmark of the crank is that his ideas are engaging enough that they inspire a following dedicated to that subject. Hence, we have a 411 crowd and an ancient astronaut crowd and Fortean Society. But the crank, we must remember, is harmless whereas a kook is not. A crank as Gavin Menzies says that the Chinese circumnavigated and mapped the earth on a voyage in 1428 and people debate that but nobody gets hurt. A kook, on the other hand, calls Coronavirus the Chinese Virus and inspires idiots to attack, beat and kill people on the streets who even look like they might be Chinese. IOW, a crank gains a following but his ideas remain confined to this group but a kook tries to make his ideas mainstream and will even try to legislate them into our lives. A kook's ideas are dangerous for that reason. 411 is harmless but QAnon is not.
Once the crank ideas go public and mainstream, they transform into kookism because they sink into the hearts of idiots everywhere. When such ideas become ingrained in the heart of an idiot, they become dangerous because that idiot believes he has to do something insane in order to convince the public that these ideas need to be taken seriously. Creationism is not crankism but is kookism since politicians try to legislate this pile of garbage into our lives. Flat Earthism rides the cusp between crankism and kookism but looking more and more like it may cross into the latter because many creationists are flat-earthers as well as many Muslims.
But crankism, I think, is good for the soul. Every now and again you have to suspend your skepticism and see where the currents take you. This is easier said than done. I could never be a flat-earther because you not only have to suspend your skepticism, you have to suspend your brains as well. UFOs? Crankism and gaining prestige in the face of the tic-tac phenomenon. Not hard to suspend skepticism here especially if you're ever seen one. It would be healthy for scientists to suspend skepticism concerning UFOs and see what there is really is to see.
The reason it is healthy to crank out now and again is because being certain all the time is flat out unhealthy. I was watching something on TV a few weeks back and some guys filmed a hairy creature on a mountaintop. One scientist said it was a bear. She concluded it could not be a Sasquatch simply because "such things don't exist." Now, if she concluded it was a bear due to various characteristics she observed, okay. But to exclude the possibility of a Sasquatch simply because you don't believe in their existence is dangerously close to not being science. She clarified by saying, we've sighted these things forever but never found bones, preserved relics of these creatures have always been found to be fake and they live too close to society to evade us so easily. But have they evaded us? People claim to have seen them and we have clips of them that might show the actual creature and I don't call that evading us if this evidence is valid. The fact that people have been sighting them forever would indicate that they just might be real. No bones doesn't necessarily mean anything. If the Sasquatch tribes exist and are similar to humans, then they live in their own social order with rules and may not leave the bones of dead ones lying around where they can be found just as we don't leave grampaw's bones laying around in the front yard. Now, do I believe in Sasquatch? No, not really. Do I believe Sasquatch could be real? Yes, I do. There is no contradiction. To believe in something is to draw a conclusion and I have drawn no such conclusions on the existence of Sasquatch but I have also drawn none concerning the creature's nonexistence as well. So does it exist? I see no heard evidence that it does but might it be real? Yes, it certainly could be real.
So we should be careful about our conclusions. It hurts your cred to say Sasquatch doesn't exist--until it suddenly does. So crankism is healthy. It keeps us from getting too rigid in our beliefs. The one thing that I can suspend my skepticism over is 411. To say you don't believe in that people oftimes vanish in inexplicable ways is to ignore the evidence that it does, in fact, happen. But that doesn't mean there is no explanation. However, if no explanation is forthcoming then I reserve the right to suspend my skepticism. Thank you.