well, some folks think Biden was Obama's covert 3rd term....
I dealt with this sort of this for years with my best friend before she passed away, and have dealt with it with others, too. Especially about the Q predictions. It always left me scratching my head when the stuff Q predicted was going to happen didn't happen, but then the followers would come back and answer "well, that was a red herring to hide what is REALLY going on!"
I keep reminding myself that "sanity" has been largely defined by the leftist moonbats since the 1980 printing of the DSM-III. I heard an old maxim decades ago that has held me in good stead. "Follow him who seeks the truth. Beware of him who has found it."
I worked on the y2k thing for the pipeline that supplies most of california and oregon with natural gas. I'm the guy who told the toilet paper story to the entire Y2K community on our big private bulletin board.
I forget which 'doom and gloom' scenario this was for. I think it was the bank run, but we were already seeing it with generators almost 2 years out. (Side note: remember all the banks that got 'bought out' about 2 years prior? That was the government's Y2K people - those were forced sales).
Anyways, I told people that we needed to make it clear that this whole thing was a nothing burger (because it was) or we ourselves would be causing the problems - not the hardware or the software. Billing software was really the only thing that cared about dates.
The Toilet Paper story (which is true) goes like this:
In the Early Seventies, Johnny Carson made a comment about there being a 'toilet paper shortage'. This was solely done as the setup for a JOKE. That was all it was, a setup line for a joke.
By the end of the next day, you couldn't buy toilet paper for love nor money in most of the stores throughout the USA. People panicked, took it seriously and went out and bought it all. His talking about a shortage caused a shortage. Because people panicked.
Again, I don't remember if I fired this off in response to some of the folks talking about banking issues or food store issues, but everyone got the message loud and clear and shut up. As the government was on this board too, I suspect more than a few important people were also told to shut up.
Probably the most influential thing I've ever posted on a message board.
I recall Y2K. My bank hired a security guard. Not some Barney Fife doofus but a 6'2" circus strongman kitted out in navy blue 5:11's, jack boots, a bullet-proof vest that made him look even bigger and a huge gat on his hip. The gat looked like an HK. Serious AF. That's when I became a prepper because..."Oh Noes!" January 1st came and went. Never saw the security guard again. But I am thankful for catching the prepper bug. And the cynicism bug. Was fortunate that both cases were mild. Just enough. I stopped stockpiling ammo at 70K rounds and I really try to vet gossip, conspiracy theories, insider news and TEOTWAWKI predictions before I chain email it to former friends. I'm kidding. I only have enough ammo to repel boarders for 15-20 minutes before they Waco me. Most of my friends have died of old age.
The joke into the Y2K community went something like this: The only people who are going to make money off of Y2K are the engineers before it and the lawyers after it.
There are certain words that when found in a title or first line of an article, I just won't read the rest. One weird thing
This strange thing
These are two examples, I'm sure you've seen many more that are similar. It's all click-bait. Prognostications are the same thing. They want their 5 minutes of fame. It's all about fear. "If I can't rule in Heaven, then I'll rule in Hell" type thinking. Playground bullies of the psychological kind.
People in the "manky middle" and quite a few on both edges of that have been taught to put their brains to bed by middle school, and then never get them back up again. They hear and obey like well trained puppies. It's a sad thing to see.
Remember, the angels always say, "Fear not". So, look deeper into anyone who is telling you to fear.
Yup, Tiffanie. A sad commentary on the times that people are now willing to settle for 5 minutes of fame. The old standard used to be 15 minutes. Kind of like inflation but with the numbers going a different direction. I dunno...could be that that 5 minutes is in metric. They do that to sow confusion. ☺
I'm thinking now of Neil whosit from England... Ferguson, who confidently predicted half a million deaths every new Flu season. Until finally, it was useful to believe him.
Once is funny, twice is silly...
That creep kept his position a long, long time, and I don't believe it was down to gullibility.
Also, even though the Cassandras who predict that some government ratchet is gonna get stuck that way if you don't shut it down early, are in fact, mistaken, do you really want to take chances on it?
"Don't Trust the Bastards!" applies to all people in government. Especially those we voted for.
Go back to 1972, and the damn hippies were predicting Tin Soldiers & Nixon Coming would bring about a Fascist Tyranny. Well, he didn't- but he did bring about an expansion of Federal Government powers that are still hurting us today- hello, EPA!
The Cassandras aren't right, but they're not totally wrong either... it's back to the murky middle.
Conversely, there's also the professional Pollyannas, who keep pouring good time, effort, and money into lost causes while refusing to acknowledge potential problems. If you pretend that's not graphite on the ground, then your reactor is just fine, comrade!
Neither attitude is really sustainable alone. One needs to balance the positive with a realistic view of what is attainable, with an eye towards avoiding problems.
Go look at predictions for number of tornadoes and hurricanes by so called experts. They are consistently wrong , so wrong in fact I am surprised they are asked for their predictions year after year.
Fear P0rn and Rage Clickbait are things that have long garnered an audience- even before social media weaponized it.
Anything that generates emotional intensity can become addictive, because the brain wants that rush. There's a good reason conspiracy theorist fight hard to keep their delusions- they are fear junkies getting high, like any tranq zombie on the streets of San Fran.
And note- the Conspiracy Theorist are Always Right meme is FALSE. It works in the same way as Astrology or Psychic Cold Readings- if you throw out enough vague stuff, you'll eventually hit something true. Doubly so if you're dishonest and willing to twist something after the fact.
I'm still laughing at a guy I worked with who didn't pay on his student loans because he was convinced that Y2K would upend the system and his loans would be lost and forgotten.
Honestly, the late 1960s and early 1970s were far, far more perilous times than today. The key difference is there was no 24-hour news cycle or social media to get everyone all worked up into a hysterical frenzy.
At least 35 years ago, I heard a radio report about the mayor of Pittsburgh at the time, Sophie maslof, (Maslov?), who made a great posturing show about how she was giving up her semi-automatic pistol for gun control by turning it into police. She went on to say that everybody should do the same as she didn't give up their guns and everybody would be safe.
The radio host went on to explain that what the mainstream media had not mentioned was the fact that Sophie maslof owned a second semi-automatic pistol and a revolver in addition to the one she had given up.
She hadn't given up anything, and she undoubtedly still had security and police protection as the mayor.
And if it wasn't Sophie maslof, it was a city councilwoman at the time.
Either way, it points out that the hypocrisy of the Democrats and the mainstream media has existed for decades.
I remember Y2K; I was in college when the clocks rolled over.
Imagine my surprise when, after being told that all the systems using two digits for the year would revert to "00" and all the dates and people's ages would be catastrophically wrong, causing The End Of All Things(!!!!!), most unmodified/"unfixed" systems rolled from year "99" to year "100", and life went on normally. It turns out that starting with a two-digit year didn't affect much most of the time, because the computers' logic circuits decided that the next integer after 99 is 100. Shocking, I know.
They all eventually got patched to show the correct year as "2000", and at the same time everyone's personal info got modified with the "19" at the beginning of their birth year (nobody was suddenly 1,920 years old). But the point is, the dire predictions about the systems that calculate age by subtracting birth year from current year did NOT come to pass, and the computers and software still worked just fine in the interim.
well, some folks think Biden was Obama's covert 3rd term....
I dealt with this sort of this for years with my best friend before she passed away, and have dealt with it with others, too. Especially about the Q predictions. It always left me scratching my head when the stuff Q predicted was going to happen didn't happen, but then the followers would come back and answer "well, that was a red herring to hide what is REALLY going on!"
"marital law"
Given the examples, the typo is understandable... 😏
Sigh. Fingers out-ran my think-pudding again. Corrected. Thank you.
The E4 Mafia would seem preferable to either..... Just sayin'.
Thanks for another breath of sanity.
We, the Cautiously Optomistic realists appreciate it.
I keep reminding myself that "sanity" has been largely defined by the leftist moonbats since the 1980 printing of the DSM-III. I heard an old maxim decades ago that has held me in good stead. "Follow him who seeks the truth. Beware of him who has found it."
I worked on the y2k thing for the pipeline that supplies most of california and oregon with natural gas. I'm the guy who told the toilet paper story to the entire Y2K community on our big private bulletin board.
I forget which 'doom and gloom' scenario this was for. I think it was the bank run, but we were already seeing it with generators almost 2 years out. (Side note: remember all the banks that got 'bought out' about 2 years prior? That was the government's Y2K people - those were forced sales).
Anyways, I told people that we needed to make it clear that this whole thing was a nothing burger (because it was) or we ourselves would be causing the problems - not the hardware or the software. Billing software was really the only thing that cared about dates.
The Toilet Paper story (which is true) goes like this:
In the Early Seventies, Johnny Carson made a comment about there being a 'toilet paper shortage'. This was solely done as the setup for a JOKE. That was all it was, a setup line for a joke.
By the end of the next day, you couldn't buy toilet paper for love nor money in most of the stores throughout the USA. People panicked, took it seriously and went out and bought it all. His talking about a shortage caused a shortage. Because people panicked.
Again, I don't remember if I fired this off in response to some of the folks talking about banking issues or food store issues, but everyone got the message loud and clear and shut up. As the government was on this board too, I suspect more than a few important people were also told to shut up.
Probably the most influential thing I've ever posted on a message board.
I recall Y2K. My bank hired a security guard. Not some Barney Fife doofus but a 6'2" circus strongman kitted out in navy blue 5:11's, jack boots, a bullet-proof vest that made him look even bigger and a huge gat on his hip. The gat looked like an HK. Serious AF. That's when I became a prepper because..."Oh Noes!" January 1st came and went. Never saw the security guard again. But I am thankful for catching the prepper bug. And the cynicism bug. Was fortunate that both cases were mild. Just enough. I stopped stockpiling ammo at 70K rounds and I really try to vet gossip, conspiracy theories, insider news and TEOTWAWKI predictions before I chain email it to former friends. I'm kidding. I only have enough ammo to repel boarders for 15-20 minutes before they Waco me. Most of my friends have died of old age.
The joke into the Y2K community went something like this: The only people who are going to make money off of Y2K are the engineers before it and the lawyers after it.
There are certain words that when found in a title or first line of an article, I just won't read the rest. One weird thing
This strange thing
These are two examples, I'm sure you've seen many more that are similar. It's all click-bait. Prognostications are the same thing. They want their 5 minutes of fame. It's all about fear. "If I can't rule in Heaven, then I'll rule in Hell" type thinking. Playground bullies of the psychological kind.
People in the "manky middle" and quite a few on both edges of that have been taught to put their brains to bed by middle school, and then never get them back up again. They hear and obey like well trained puppies. It's a sad thing to see.
Remember, the angels always say, "Fear not". So, look deeper into anyone who is telling you to fear.
Yup, Tiffanie. A sad commentary on the times that people are now willing to settle for 5 minutes of fame. The old standard used to be 15 minutes. Kind of like inflation but with the numbers going a different direction. I dunno...could be that that 5 minutes is in metric. They do that to sow confusion. ☺
I'm thinking now of Neil whosit from England... Ferguson, who confidently predicted half a million deaths every new Flu season. Until finally, it was useful to believe him.
Once is funny, twice is silly...
That creep kept his position a long, long time, and I don't believe it was down to gullibility.
Also, even though the Cassandras who predict that some government ratchet is gonna get stuck that way if you don't shut it down early, are in fact, mistaken, do you really want to take chances on it?
"Don't Trust the Bastards!" applies to all people in government. Especially those we voted for.
Go back to 1972, and the damn hippies were predicting Tin Soldiers & Nixon Coming would bring about a Fascist Tyranny. Well, he didn't- but he did bring about an expansion of Federal Government powers that are still hurting us today- hello, EPA!
The Cassandras aren't right, but they're not totally wrong either... it's back to the murky middle.
Yep. Maybe "Never underestimate the cussedness of human beans" does not qualify as doomsayer-ing.
There's also the professional Eyores, who emotionally kneecap those struggling build good things in bad times.
IDK if the Lawdog's essay spies to them, though.
Conversely, there's also the professional Pollyannas, who keep pouring good time, effort, and money into lost causes while refusing to acknowledge potential problems. If you pretend that's not graphite on the ground, then your reactor is just fine, comrade!
Neither attitude is really sustainable alone. One needs to balance the positive with a realistic view of what is attainable, with an eye towards avoiding problems.
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
Go look at predictions for number of tornadoes and hurricanes by so called experts. They are consistently wrong , so wrong in fact I am surprised they are asked for their predictions year after year.
Fear P0rn and Rage Clickbait are things that have long garnered an audience- even before social media weaponized it.
Anything that generates emotional intensity can become addictive, because the brain wants that rush. There's a good reason conspiracy theorist fight hard to keep their delusions- they are fear junkies getting high, like any tranq zombie on the streets of San Fran.
And note- the Conspiracy Theorist are Always Right meme is FALSE. It works in the same way as Astrology or Psychic Cold Readings- if you throw out enough vague stuff, you'll eventually hit something true. Doubly so if you're dishonest and willing to twist something after the fact.
I'm still laughing at a guy I worked with who didn't pay on his student loans because he was convinced that Y2K would upend the system and his loans would be lost and forgotten.
Honestly, the late 1960s and early 1970s were far, far more perilous times than today. The key difference is there was no 24-hour news cycle or social media to get everyone all worked up into a hysterical frenzy.
At least 35 years ago, I heard a radio report about the mayor of Pittsburgh at the time, Sophie maslof, (Maslov?), who made a great posturing show about how she was giving up her semi-automatic pistol for gun control by turning it into police. She went on to say that everybody should do the same as she didn't give up their guns and everybody would be safe.
The radio host went on to explain that what the mainstream media had not mentioned was the fact that Sophie maslof owned a second semi-automatic pistol and a revolver in addition to the one she had given up.
She hadn't given up anything, and she undoubtedly still had security and police protection as the mayor.
And if it wasn't Sophie maslof, it was a city councilwoman at the time.
Either way, it points out that the hypocrisy of the Democrats and the mainstream media has existed for decades.
I remember Y2K; I was in college when the clocks rolled over.
Imagine my surprise when, after being told that all the systems using two digits for the year would revert to "00" and all the dates and people's ages would be catastrophically wrong, causing The End Of All Things(!!!!!), most unmodified/"unfixed" systems rolled from year "99" to year "100", and life went on normally. It turns out that starting with a two-digit year didn't affect much most of the time, because the computers' logic circuits decided that the next integer after 99 is 100. Shocking, I know.
They all eventually got patched to show the correct year as "2000", and at the same time everyone's personal info got modified with the "19" at the beginning of their birth year (nobody was suddenly 1,920 years old). But the point is, the dire predictions about the systems that calculate age by subtracting birth year from current year did NOT come to pass, and the computers and software still worked just fine in the interim.