Can we stop rewarding people for half truths and whole lies?
Help.
This post
https://steemit.com/nature/@fyrstikken/chemtrails-killed-the-honey-bees
Got 7oo dollars. This post is lies. This post is 100% conspiracy nut pulling things out of thin air. Chemtrails don't exist. They're widely debunked. To quote Astronomer Bob Berman:
"The conspiracy web sites think the phenomenon started only a decade ago and involves an evil scheme in which 40,000 commercial pilots and air traffic controllers are in on the plot to poison their own children."
The entire thing is nothing more than people looking at plane contrails and exhaust and thinking it's some sort of poison from the government. Why exactly the government wants to mass poison its own citizens, they never seem to say. Similarly, while the disappearance of bees is a problem, exactly what does the government have to gain by ruining their own capacity to grow crops? Whats the plan there? How are the shadowy Illuminati gonna make money off of destroying their own economic capacity?
Not to mention the fact that air dropping particulate matter as a weapon ISN'T EFFECTIVE. The US government tried it with anthrax and found out that it just dispersed so widely that it wasn't effective and was almost impossible to predict from only a few thousand feet, let alone the roughly 40,000 feet that planes generally cruise at. After that we tried dropping bombs of the stuff, which actually worked to a degree because of the unique structure of anthrax...but I'm getting off topic. Dropping poison as a mist from 40,000 isn't an effective method of doing anything other than wasting a lot of poison mist.
And then we have this post.
This post is about how you have a gland in your head that allows you to be a psychic except that the government is poisoning you with fluoridated water! I wrote a frankly stupidly long post on why all that was lies.
https://steemit.com/steem/@ecto/the-hidden-power-inside-yourself-debunked
Which no one read, of course.
Then I had a small argument with a guy who thought that the moon landings were faked because of his ruthless paranoia toward television. And then another lady who claimed to be a psychic.
Is this where steemit is going? Are we gonna be that internet place where we give people hundreds of dollars for saying that 9/11 was a government plot or that Vaccines are causing autism? Because I really don't want to be part of that. Because these things are not a matter of opinion, they are demonstrably wrong and are actively spreading false information and building a climate of terrified and ignorant people. And that has consequences. Those anti-vaccers have lead to the resurgence of previously nearly extinct diseases. They put themselves and their children and the general public at risk because they choose to believe the mad ramblings of some jerk's blog or some celebrity advocate whose only qualification is being famous. And I don't want steemit to be the place where some mid-western mom sees a 900 dollar story about how Chemo is actually big pharma poison designed to kill cancer patients and yank her child out of treatment because she correlated those 900 dollars with the article being valid.
I'm not saying we should stop them from speaking. They have the right to believe whatever stupid garbage they want. I just don't want them to be rewarded for it, because as soon as you start rewarding them, you're reinforcing that behavior, you're making it a trend. People trying to make some money off steem will see it and try to copy it. And that scares the crap out of me; because I don't really want Steemit associated with 9/11 deniers, fringe wackos, and con artists.
A lot of people on here believe these things.
And? If I BELIEVE it is ok to firebomb an abortion clinic because god wants me to, is that something we should condone?
I don't care what people believe, but if they don't have evidence to back it up then they can't expect it to be treated like fact. For most things like religious belief thats fine, but when someone starts peddling ideas that can undermine the safety of the public or cause harm to others, I refuse to sit idly by and let their "Belief" stand equal with fact.
I posted in the first post you linked trying to explain that its nonsense back when it was first posted. You aren't the only one trying to fight against the conspiracy garbage.
Sorry, probably a bit harsh of a tone on my part.
Your bias is blinding you to the piles of evidence that is out there, including patents, videos, testimonies, and ground level tests for particulate on crops.
Chemtrails do not exist bud, there is no bias, its just plane fantasy talk.
I say "chemtrails" as defined as chemicals dispersed by overhead flying planes for the purpose of controlling the minds of the general population.
Nice pun. ;)
I never said anything about mind control but there's no doubt that hazardous elements are being released daily into our skies. Weather (punny huh) it's for climate modification, to keep people sick, or to harm non gmo crops, I just don't know, but someone is spraying crap in the sky, in grid patterns over cities, and that's undeniable to anyone that's taken the time to look.
"Patents"
There are patents for anti-gravity machines that are nothing but a 50 gallon metal drum filled with magnets. Unless you can prove these things were made and used for the purpose you're saying they were, then It means nothing.
"Videos"
Ok. Such as?
"Testimonies"
I can find you testimony that the pope is ushering in an alien god and that CERN is using the large hadron collider to dig a portal to hell. Do these people have any empirical evidence? Or should I just accept them at their word?
"Ground level tests for particulate on crops"
First, source. Second, what do you mean by this? Spraying chemicals at ground level to see what they do? Low level crop dusting flybys? High altitude dispersal and then analysis? What?
Sorry about your tiny penis.
I worked at a ski area and repaired a cannon that shot shells full of silica, aluminum, baruim, and strontium into the atmosphere with the intention of seeding clouds. I asked my boss if all ski areas do it and he said that the big ones use planes.
I know what a contrail is and understand how moisture in the atmosphere corresponds with ground level weather and I can tell when there should be contrails. I have videos showing the contrails of jets flying in formation and the jet in the center turning on and off a wide dispersion of what I can only describe as chemtrails.
I used to powerwash cars at a dealership near Tinker AFB in Midwest City, OK. The fighter jets very rarely left trails in the sky but the big jets left them pretty frequently. A friend that worked at the base said there are extra additives in the fuel for the larger jets that will "fuck up the engines of the fighters because the tolerances are closer and the particulate clogs them up"
Geoengineering is real, documented, and anyone denying it is either ignorant or a government/corporate shill.
CIA Director John O. Brennan to CFR, June 2016
I'm not sure how you can argue with the director of the CIA, but go for it.
Why would I argue? If the tech exists, which it does, and it could benefit someone in some way, which is does, someone's going to use it.
Your username is brilliant btw. :)
So...He talked about a technology that might be used to do something positive and that somehow means they ARE using to do something malevolent?
I think you may have made a few leaps in logic.
I see no leap in logic; you flat-out denied the existence of any chemtrails:
@apocaloptimisto and @transcendfinance showed that chemtrails, or, to be more accurate, "geoengineering" is totally a thing. This does not prove the particular "conspiracy theory" about mind andor population control. It doesn't prove that every contrail is an illuminati plot. But it does disprove your claims that chemtrails don't exist, and that these theories are "debunked". The opposite is true. The dispersal of chemical agents into the atmosphere is common practice for various applications and widely known.
I sincerely hope that Steemit will be the internet place where truth can be spoken to power; where honest, rational and intelligent debate and cold, hard facts are given greater value than the opinion of a thousand authorities.
The Steem whitepaper clearly says:
That explicitly includes facts we would prefer not to be true and opinions we disagree with, and I, for my part, welcome that :)
I denied the existence of chemtrails in terms of the common parlance of what chemtrails mean. I didn't say geoengineering. When I say chemtrails I mean the idea that the government is dumping hazardous chemicals on the populace to poison them, not that they're seeding clouds. Chemtrails as they are often defined by conspiracy theorists go far beyond the idea of planes releasing chemicals. Its the idea of this cospiracy to dump mind controlling or otherwise hazardous chemicals on the populace that has been refuted. Though I will also point out that the fact that geoengineering exists does not in any way prove that the government is using it for evil purposes, as people also like to claim.
"I sincerely hope that Steemit will be the internet place where truth can be spoken to power"
Ok. But neither of those are truth and that's the problem.
"cold, hard facts are given greater value than the opinion of a thousand authorities."
Do you hear yourself? We should ignore the literal facts that are attested to by thousands of well trained and knowledgeable experts on a subject and instead indulge in fringe thinking because some guy's blog has a story about how he met someone that said something one time?
Literally nothing these guys have said has given any proof to any of the wild claims they like to make.
"That explicitly includes facts we would prefer not to be true and opinions we disagree with, and I, for my part, welcome that :)"
Allow me to give you a counter point. You are a pedophile. You molest children. No, I do not have any proof of this beyond anecdotal evidence. Yes, this claim is potentially damaging to you. But its just one of those facts we'd prefer not to be true. And I'm sure its an opinion you'd disagree with. In fact, the authorities might say there's no evidence for it either. BUT if I can get enough people to believe it by aggressively spreading the idea, clearly that group belief is just as good as the word of the authorities right? It's all free speech right? Please, smile and welcome the angry mob.
This is the problem. There are children literally dying because their parents believed some stupid celebrity over doctors. Steve Jobs died of easily treatable cancer because he believed that eating a better diet would cure him rather than getting actual medical attention. These blatant falsehoods perpetuated by highly opinionated people with no real knowledge of the subject have consequences. Sometimes fatal ones. And I don't want steemit to become a den of such things.
Because once you start getting into that "everything the government says is a lie" mindset, it spirals. How long until our first 5k holocaust denial post?
The very first thing I would like to assure you of is that I am not your enemy, and do not view you as such. I will, however, now write some things that hopefully make you really, really angry.
Your argument is broken in several pieces, your whole approach is useless.
One huge problem is that you take the most fringe claim, pretend that is what all, even the expert, activists state and then continue to destruct it for its obvious nonsense. It is formally called the "strawman fallacy". You set up a strawman and then knock it down to declare yourself the winner, but that is not how it works, you must pass the Ideological Turing Test and attack the strongest possible interpretation of the argument of those who you disagree with.
The other is you shifted the goalposts. First you flat-out state chemtrails don't exist, then you must backpedal and admit that it is true that chemicals are being dispersed into the atmosphere quite regularly, but counter with the unbacked a priori assumption that these must be completely benevolent and harmless. That is intellectually dishonest.
You are leading the whole debate ad absurdum by twisting the words of your opponent. I clearly said "cold hard facts", not "some guy's blog has a story about how he met someone that said something one time". That's really, really poor style, ecto.
And yes, I proof-read myself and I stand by it: what the facts are, what the truth is, cannot and will not be overturned by the consensus opinion of a million experts. And I sincerely hope that Steemit will be a place to bring some of these truths and facts to light.
And finally, your insults and abuse are not fit to convince anyone of your cause. I understand you want to save lives, because conspiracy theories are potentially dangerous. If you would take the issue seriously though, you would actually shut your mouth and listen when a learned, rational, intelligent, patient and friendly "conspiracy theorist" offers to spend his free time to clear up some misunderstandings and misconceptions you are having. Instead of trying to save my life, you are insulting me, driving me away, and reinforce my belief set. You are hurting your cause. STOP IT. NOW. Unless you are a cynical asshole that gets off on making people kill their children by not giving them all those healthy vaccinations -- then absolutely continue what you are doing. applause.gif
Yeah, we don't call it the "rabbit hole" for nothing, you know ;)
What are you going to do about it? Write an angry post to complain about it? ò,Ó
Or educate people with cold, hard facts, thorough research, and reasonable arguments and eventually beat it with a 6M post?
Most people talking about chemtrails say that they're government made poisons to do anything from cause cancer to control minds. I'm not saying that things like cloud seeding don't exist, I'm saying that the government isn't doing a large scale project to rain poison down on major cities.
As per your car dealership story, I fail to see how a fighter's engine's being damaged by flying through a passenger jet exhaust trail (at altitude) correlates with anything talked about here.
Also, nice documented sources. You and some guys you knew. Real neat.
And "most people" are fucking idiots. How do you know? Do you work for the government and have top secret clearance or something? Have you seen the patents? Search Evergreen Air, CIA contract, bankruptcy, inventory and you might find a few interesting stories/pictures. They come up and go down pretty frequently. The internet is gov/corporate controlled so you only see what they want you to see...most of the time.
You're not a reader are you. They used different fuels for the different jets. The fuel for the cargo and passenger jets had "particulates" added.
If I gave a shit about your opinion, I'd dig up and post videos but sadly, I just don't. ;)
Sorry for the harsh tone but you're effectively calling me a liar, which I'm not.
Nice try illuminatii but you gave yourself away when u decided to use 3 links in your post....
illuminatea COMFIRMED!!
Hi! This post has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 8.8 and reading ease of 65%. This puts the writing level on par with Leo Tolstoy and David Foster Wallace.
Excellent post!