The Value of ATS Has Declined Over Time (at least for me)

originally posted by: intunewithmyself
I USED to be able to find some pretty awesome theories on this site. Now overtime I read something interesting there are 20 people telling him why it can't be possible...

What the actual F$&^ kind of conspiracy site wants to function correctly if every person's ideas are slammed? It doesn't matter what this guys opinions are, he's looking for someone else who thinks the same as him to talk to about this conspiracy. Not looking to get slammed. We should rename this debunk.com because that's ALL a lot of members try to do.

So who gives a # if there really isn't a flying spaghetti monster? I personally cannot say he isn't real strictly because deep down I truly do not know. There could be some mutated monster that looks like a wad of spaghetti lurking in the world somewhere.

Point is, no matter how absurd someone may sound for making a statement, the truth is thats his thought process. He's not looking for correction, he's looking for someone with the same thought process to form an opinion and pursue a conspiracy or mission together with.

Precisely! this is a big problem here and part of the reason i have drifted away.

a reply to: nullafides

Most of these things people are bringing up have been there a long time.

1. Fear of being moderated; since I started reading ATS
2. Annoyance at debunkers; since I started reading ATS
3. OPs abandoning threads; since I started reading ATS
4. American politics- ... blah you get the idea

The whole interwebs have changed, not just ATS. It's like a rollercoaster unfortunately, got no control of it till you get off the ride and look back muttering, 'they should have added another loop.'

a reply to: Metallicus

It is mostly garbage.

People are in love with those stars and flags.

I now see people with 250 comments and 10 million stars..how is that even possible? I guess you can buy them now?

I still check out the page but sometimes go months without checking.

Peace

a reply to: spav5

The 10 million thingo is often a bug.

a reply to: Metallicus
Yes your right. I noticed a steep decline in cat videos, and silly cool stuff on this site over the past 2 years. Which is a problem in itself, the internet should only be used for silly and goofy stuff, not all that gloomy or political seriousness mombo jombo crap.

But other then that? Nope! It seems to be the same site as its always been. Must be just you!

And you know for a grumpy, jaded old coot, to only now be effected by information overload is quite a bit weird. In most people it generally happens in there teens or younger, and then it gets bat # nutts after. Or it could just be me! And if you thought the # on this site was on the left field of out there oh boy are you wrong, real life will is much more crazy and silly wacky twilight zone once you really start paying attention to it.

But on that whole information overload jaded thing. It just strange for it to happen late, but sometimes it takes that stone a bit to sink in, but when it does. Nothing is ever the same. You are likely at that stage now.

You wish to be plenteously surprised? The time for that has passed. Before it was more like illuminated on things. Now its more like illuminauseous barf on the whole thing. When you broaden your perspective on things and life it does not necessarily become more easier or better, nope in fact its the opposite, things become more bogged down and harder, like a computer with to many programs running at the same time and malware everywhere, everything slows to a headache inducing crawl and ultimately a crash. Just be glad you don't find yourself zombie walking to places and then wondering how you got there, or why you decided to go there and what day and month it is.

Ignorance really is bliss. And once that stone sinks in in some things in life, nothing is ever the same. Now! Carry on there Metallius, carry on, because ATS and everything else in life surely will, with, or without, any of us.

a reply to: grainofsand

Don't be dissing my one liners.

originally posted by: Metallicus
I have seen a lot of the same posters post the same crap over and over.

Humans are kinda like that -- they get quite repetitive and boring once you get to know 'em.

a reply to: Metallicus


Correct me if i am wrong here please Metallicus (i often am, so won't take offence! ), but this thread appears to be more a lament on the toll of a being an ageing conspiracy buff rather than an assualt on ATS (as most responses seem to be implying).

If so, i wholeheartedly concur. It is also, sadly, completely inevitable. Constant repetition has that effect and that isn't an attack on threads in general or in specific, old or new. It is simply a fact of life. Something that is new, bright and vibrant is inevitably duller, less energetic and more of a chore further down the line. It doesn't mean that it is less valid or informative, just that the older you get, the more more you have seen it, done it and got the t shirt.

For me, what is personally more worrying is that the older i get, the more to the right i lurch on some issues. Is this part of the process of Early Onset Curmudgenlyness?

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Cobaltic1978

This type of thread appears every 3-4 months on here and has done so ever since I became a member.

Which means ATS has been in steady decline ever since you became a member.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we've located the source of the problem...

Damn it, I've been rumbled.

When the exposure of certain things went too high, the site was warned to crack down on those who were doing great work revealing, and posting topics of great importance, a whole wack of people were banned while troublemakers got too stay.

This was a clear indication that things were going to go downhill, and they did.

Shills used to get ridiculed and the boot, now its the other way around all too often.

a reply to: ParasuvO

Complete and utter nonsensical rubbish.

I agree with you....

I used to enjoy reading about conspiracy theories, latest UFO sightings, reports of weird creatures or any other unusual and strange posting - now days these seem to have diminished and most updates seem to be rehashing whatever is in the media at the time but perhaps this is more the flavour of the day who knows? But tbh if I want normal news then those are the respective sites I visit - I come here to read up on the unusual and the extraordinary!

a reply to: toddy3174

So debunkers are the problem? .
You just want everyone to agree with every conspiracy? Debunkers help sort out the crap from the plausible.

a reply to: Metallicus

I agree. There's four #ing bernie sanders threads just on the first page. A few other things?

-mass volume posters that don't contribute to discussion
-NLBS or any other sponsored videos
-Jesse Ventura

There were some good guest threads where people asked questions, but other than that its just been trash. The political threads are the worst especially. Everyone here is either VERY liberal, a complete libertarian lunatic, or an enlightened star child who "figured it all out" and "sees both sides of the spectrum for what they are." It isn't the content that has changed, it's the attitudes of the people here. Everyone is getting more full of themselves, and then with the popularity of the website more idiots are coming through to feed the egos of the older posters here.

also the modding has gotten a LOT more aggressive on here. Very strange.

Anyways, websites go through stages. There are some mass posters here that just need to #ing lurk more and make room for outsiders to make actual interesting topics - bring new material to the table.

a reply to: LiberLegit

also the modding has gotten a LOT more aggressive on here. Very strange.

No it hasn't .............

If anything it has gotten more lenient; to the extreme.

Personal insults are overlooked or outright allowed. Profanity both overt and hidden is almost never questioned.

I think that's a good thing to allow people to express themselves without censorship.

I was once reprimanded and given a point deduction for using the word "Mook"

General comment coming

Has anyone ever took up the idea that maybe you are part of the problem? Myself included

Think about it....we all get all "upset" that the forum "is not the same", etc, etc

It's NOT SUPPOSED to be the same. Society, social media, forums, etc evolve. It's organic, normal and expected that something like a forum is going to evolve. We (as in the people of ATS) evolve as well. We also age and with age comes maturity...though not all the time. We get older and less accepting of things that don't fall into our set of ideals and views and we cement ourselves on an idea that we grew with whether said growing was 20 years from child to adult or even a scant 3 years on a forum. The entire serial position effect tells it like it is. The primacy effect explains how we remember "what was" as relevant and the recency effect tells us we remember "what is" as relevant.

Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe people should let go of the past. Remember and hold it personal but stop using it as a yardstick with which we measure all current activities. It's basically the equivalent of that silly argument of which quarterback is better, Bart Starr or Aaron Rodgers (psst I like the Packers) but still if you took Aaron and moved him and his skills to the 60's the entire set of football is different. If you brought Bart to today in his prime he may look like a 3rd bench player.

Yes I get that there are certainly silly arguments, people who derail topics, and overall nasty words time to time. But I started here in 2008...and the same amount of silly arguments, derailments, and nasty words existed then too and I am still not an old-timer here when you compare to those who were with ATS at the start. There are plenty of good, solid and valuable threads out there. Maybe the problem is we need to get over ourselves and quit comparing the "good ole days" to today because 2008 (in my case) is not 2015.

So how are "you" (again general term) part of the problem?

1. You have got to stop living the past
2. You need to dig deeper than just the surface and find good stuff...which guess what...was true in 2008 as well
3. If you don't like NLBS or Off the Grid...don't watch...seriously why do people let themselves do this? Go into something you likely aren't going to care for, then watch it and are "surprised and outraged"
4. Do something about it....make a powerful thread and there will always be people to follow

Or maybe just ignore and report the trolls and stop being a martyr?

and yes in case you already forgot the first couple of sentences...this does describe my past actions as well...so leave your high horse argument at the door...I know who I am and I am so far from perfect that I can't even see the ball field they are playing in

a reply to: Metallicus

I agree it has totally gone down hill.

I used to enjoy this site a whole lot more in the past.

I like conspiracies, enjoy discussing them, but now there's a lot more garbage and bashing each other instead of talking openly discussing and debating conspiracies.

And now there's people who want to talk about pets. No offence but this is not the place.

Stay at facebook or something, this is a conspiracy site.

I hope this site can heal itself, I used to really enjoy this place.

a reply to: LiberLegit

EDIT!!!

See? Told you I am not perfect!

By the way....NLBS and Jesse don't' do much for me....but there is an EXTREMELY potent content blocker on the market. It's completely freeware and will never cost a dime. I know MODS please don't execute me or my post for this because I know we don't talk about content blockers here...but I am going on the limb and risking it

This content blocker is this hidden gem...it's called Self Control (copyright unknown). So you order this, it arrives immediately and when you install it, it basically allows you to look at a thread, make an exceptionally rapid assessment of whether this thread is likely to personally incite the user, and then the content is blocked. It makes it practically impossible to click the link

I'm telling you I avoided this software update for a solid 34 out of my almost 36 years...but I installed it and never looked back

a reply to: kreator666
seriously? the forums that used to be BTS are separate from what used to be exclusively ATS. There is a pets forum....ignore it. If a pets thread is for some reason in the grey area then report it. Some of the forums I stay to on the ATS side are the education area, philosophy, secret society, and a couple others and I haven't seen an invading pet thread in those

originally posted by: intunewithmyself
I USED to be able to find some pretty awesome theories on this site. Now overtime I read something interesting there are 20 people telling him why it can't be possible...

What the actual F$&^ kind of conspiracy site wants to function correctly if every person's ideas are slammed? It doesn't matter what this guys opinions are, he's looking for someone else who thinks the same as him to talk to about this conspiracy. Not looking to get slammed. We should rename this debunk.com because that's ALL a lot of members try to do.

And? What's wrong with having skepticism? Part of what makes a theory legit is that it can take and overcome any and ALL criticism.

People looking for others to just blindly agree with him are idiots and not to mention are in the wrong spot. That's called an echo chamber.

So who gives a # if there really isn't a flying spaghetti monster? I personally cannot say he isn't real strictly because deep down I truly do not know. There could be some mutated monster that looks like a wad of spaghetti lurking in the world somewhere.

Point is, no matter how absurd someone may sound for making a statement, the truth is thats his thought process. He's not looking for correction, he's looking for someone with the same thought process to form an opinion and pursue a conspiracy or mission together with.

Then he needs to be able to take in ALL opinions, even the ones that go against his ideas. You clearly either don't know what "open minded" means or you are unsure as to what Denying Ignorance implies.