Where (if anywhere) is ATS headed?

Hi people, hope you are well.

I am curious if you think ATS is "going somewhere." What does that mean? Well, when I first came here, I thought of it (naturally enough) as a forum. A forum, as you know, is a big stone place that doesn't go anywhere. Lots of exciting and thrilling things go on inside a big forum like the Colloseum, but the forum itself doesn't change all that much. Whoever wins or loses the contests therein, the basic layout of the walls, floors, field, and so forth stay mostly as they are. Sure, it might get a new paint-job now and then, but stone is stone.

There is nothing wrong with a stationary forum --- In fact, its a blessing. We need all kinds of fora, and they help us grow in many ways.

But lately, I've been wondering if ATS could be developing a "life of its own." You know, like an emergent phenonenon of a sort, perhaps. Rather than only being a place where things happen, could ATS become a place that somehow makes things happen? A place that is no longer a place but a thing that heads out into the world on its own, teetering on the edge of a kind of self-awareness? And if so, where will it go, and what will it become?

I guess what started me thinking along these lines was the Loughner incident a few weeks ago. Not exactly a pleasant moment, but ATS seems to have come through it much better than I feared. For me personally, it was the first time to think of ATS being perceived through the eyes of "outsiders" as something that had an impact in the world. It was a kind of jarring moment...without thinking about it too much, I always assumed that what we did here, we did in our own little backwater of obscurity, without impacting the wider world in any real sense. Although it wasn't a positive moment, the Loughner incident showed me that ATS could become the object of wider attention itself, for worse or for better.

Since then, I've been thinking more about the long-term trajectory of this place as a phenomenon in and of itself, and how it will interact with the wider world .Looking beyond Loughner, it seems to me that ATS's influence can only grow -- after all, the tinfoil hat pessimism of yesterday is today's mainstream media headline, and people are looking for new answers...perhaps answers that some people here have.

There is still a lot of conflict -- political, religious, aesthetic, take your pick -- within ATS so I'm not positing that it would become monolithic in any way. But nonetheless, I think it will have a more prominent place at the table as an identifiable phenomenon in its own right, as time goes by. So with this in mind, I ask humbly for your opinions:

Where are we headed?

well i honestly think ATS is heading in the right direction. it has needed rules and guidlines, and is a place where the curious can learn and the knowlegable can share their knowlege. i think it will be much bigger in the near future due to the whole "disclosure" thing getting more and more popular.

To the far reaches of space, time and exposure. Uranus.

But really, to know where ATS is headed, you must first knod and understanf where it has been. Only the relics on this forum could truely see how this "entity" has developed from what it was to what it is.

In the four years i've been browsing, I have seen a dramatic change. Could I describe it? Not really.

It's as if a new generation has come about since I started. People are ignorant of the meaning of 'denying ignorance'.

This is a question for the beginners. The creators. The Administrators.

Into deep space, man...

We are the gov't of the future, the subconscious democracy of what we really think when we think nobody knows us.

We are Above Top Secret.

Man, that puts the fear into the Galactic Empire's heart.

We, Humans. are Above Top Secret...

Originally posted by Chakotay
Into deep space, man...

We are the gov't of the future, the subconscious democracy of what we really think when we think nobody knows us.

We are Above Top Secret.

Man, that puts the fear into the Galactic Empire's heart.

We, Humans. are Above Top Secret...

edit on 2-2-2011 by Chakotay because: Rock Like An Egyptian...

Very well said, sir

I have not been around in a couple of years for various reasons, not the least of which the sudden and overwhelming influx of new users who just don't do the research or have the base knowledge to effectively advance the thread...

This is my third and last persona on ATS... The quality think-tank atmosphere is just is not here anymore.

Not just the net - check out ATS live as well, and I can foresee a TV show ar some point in the future.

The forums will always remain the heart of ATS, but the wider message to a wider audience needs to be taken into account as well.

I see ATS growing beyond everything we can expect.

I see more and more people gaining awareness of these subjects and gravitating to this site in hopes to learn/laugh/debate/discuss these very troubling times around us.

Some members have stated they think this site is sinking into a "unwanted" territory or that the subjects here are becoming more and more "silly".

But I see that effect as a byproduct of the recent influx of membership.

You can't expect so many new members without expecting both the good and bad content to rise in number.

There will always be a large number of threads and posts that are "yknow...eh".

But there is also a rise of good content as well. And a increasingly larger audience here to discuss that content.

We will surly have more trolls, more crazies, more sillies, more junk.

But on the brighter side, we will also have more brilliant content and more active minds to mull it over with.

Our community is growing. Our cyber home is expanding to harbor all sorts of new folks with various reasons for being here. I think this growth can't be stopped.

So, whatever it becomes- I am so glad to be part of it. The larger it gets the more important it is that we pay serious attention to our activity here. We are the ones driving this site. We are its caretakers and content makers.

So yeah...I love this site and see no reason why it can't become a household word.

Of course I know many who disagree...but hey, that's them.

MM

its going nowhere ,its full of racists and self important bigots that talk like Hitler
This forum is just a vicious circle of agression and insults .
People say stuff on here that makes me embarassed to be white .
People dont want progress , they prefer to argue about pathetic and shallow issues
How the NWO must be laughing at us right now ! .


very sad

reply to post by silent thunder


Its mainly a trolling board now, and with occasionally good thread.

Trolling board sums it up alot, shame as if people where serious here maybe we could have good debates, but no, of course too many facebook people.

reply to post by silent thunder

I don't think it goes anywhere particularly. It's an international forum and a community, that's all. Not sure, if the owners have specific plans for something, but as far as I'm concerned all is well. The community does not need to go somewhere particularly.

reply to post by silent thunder


If anything I do not see ATS turning into the issue. I see it as a place to accumulate and spread knowledge, a place to gain insight, and be alerted to new phenomena, political,scientific, cultural, and psychological. I do not believe that we should go too far down the road of making the forum in which this occurs, into the issue to be discussed.
To place over much emphasis on the importance of this site in terms of its effects on world events, would in my opinion be a mistake. We are different to the politicians and the power players on the world stage because we know we are just people, trying to get some sense out of a world full of nonsense. We are a group of people who probe and prod at oddity, who scrape and scratch at the surface of the doom and delight of the world, people in short who are not obsessed with the self , but interested in the whole of humanity.
It is the way of the fools at the top of world affairs to think themselves or thier actions in any way important to the world, the folly of mans biggest egos to suggest that his method or madness can truely hold a species captive in its embrace. That egocentric attitude and the dirt that comes with it, ought to in my opinion become something that we shun as we deny ignorance, for behaviour of that sort epitomises ignorance, and stifles enlightenment.
Those of us who want the truth about UFO, the truth about 9/11, the real deal on JFK and all the other biggest stories discussed here, are not interested in the weakness of mankinds Kings and Presidents. What we want, is the truth, to be allowed to judge for ourselves , and learn for ourselves, the lessons of the past, and improve our futures by that understanding. We wish for truth to be the norm, and secrecy and villany to be the exception. They are not. To become a facet of the world stage, this forum would have to drop its standards so damned far, that for me, it would cease entirely to be the useful source of information that it is today, and was to a greater degree when I joined in 07.
Since my joining this site, I have watched agog while minds so sharp you could cut beef with them, have cut into the heart of matters so murky and dire that I was once of the opinion that they could never be bought into the light. When I first joined, it seemed that every time I looked to read a post, there would be genius on display , either in the ability of members to understand the scientific principles relavent to a question or subject, or the sheer political insights expressed , and the meaning for the future of the words of the speakers.
Nowadays such insight is rare, some of the best informed members have ceased to comment, and the general standard of posts and threads has weakened in my opinion. Often, when the greatest brains I have had the pleasure of conversing with do see fit to comment, thier logic and insight is passed over by waves of sensationalism , buffeted by unconstructive criticisms and pushed so deep under the waters of foolishness and mental inadequacy that not even the light of nuclear oblivion could shine from under its icy depths.
I tell you this. If this site was to become a key source for the world, if it were to play a role in international affairs then it should not be allowed to do so in the state it is in at the moment. Until those great minds resurface with all thier knowledge and experience, I feel it would be a diservice to the world to allow our debating chambers to go any further down the influential route.
We need to excise some chaff from the wheat of this place, and leave only the golden tops of information to the future, if we are to have a legacy of the type which OP discusses in his opening post. I love this site, and I love what it can do to improve a persons world veiw, but there has to be a point at which the freedom to speak must be tempered with an ability to think . The one without the other is useless, but I would rather know a silent and logical man, than a loud fool.

I think the better question to ask and ponder is where is the Internet going, for ATS is just an extension of the Internet.

Indeed when one uses Loughner as an example he was far more active in other realms of the Internet than he was here on ATS.

Of course the natural human inclination is to when ever possible make things "all about me", ATS becoming an extension of "me" because I am a member, and since Loughner was a "member" therefore it's all about ATS and thus "me", because "I" am here on ATS "too".

This is typical of our divisive divide and conquer indoctrinated "group think". That inclination to divide things up into neat little identifiable compartments that are all about "me" or conversely not about "me" but "you" if it's a different venue, thought group, political or religious group etc.

But the larger truth is ATS is part of the Internet and yes the Internet is slowly and sometimes painfully and awkwardly developing a collective concious as the "me's" of the world, come together often for the first time ever with the "you's" and "them's" of the world, to discuss and exchange ideas, and phillosophies, hopes, fears, dreams, dislikes, wants and desires, in an ongoing natural effort amongst what are normally sociable people when not divided, to reach some common ground, that we ideally might all see eye to eye on.

Of course that isn't easy, and as Loughner and many people display, the desire to dominate or elliminate those that don't think precisely like "me" or "us" but definately not like "them" is still very much the rule of the day.

But it's a rule that's changing as events and the ability to communicate about them is helping us to see that the people in Cairo aren't really that much different than us in a desire to be free and have a safe and prosperous way of life.

So it's all about if and when people can learn to appreciate and accept that other's unique customs and practices are just a peaceful pathway to their own security and prosperity if we can get out of our minds that they intend to impose it on us, because we ideally would like to impose "our" own customs on them, therefore they must want to do the same.

That has largely been the construct and fiction of governments and their medias, corporations and banks, looking to keep us divided and fearful of one another through ignorance and misconception and perceptions to allow for their own control and profit.

The Internet is finally giving us all that opportunity to overcome that ignorance of others by actually having a dialouge with others, who are both fundamentally different, but fundamentally very similiar to "us" and "me".

That's what the Internet is doing, and ATS as wonderful and powerful as it is, is just a part of that more wonderful and powerful thing known as the Internet, that really is slowly developing a collective conscious because for the first time we can all collectively communicate instantly almost any where in the world someone has the internet, which is almost every where now, and wants to communicate.

Lots of growing pains and uncertain days ahead, but that's the nature of life, fluid, unchanging and uncertain.

Well, thats it, I'm done posting on this 'forum'. Its evident that the TRUTH is not being told here and that the 'system' is promoting Luciferian doctrine. Tried to inject some TRUTH, but its evident that when this is done the vast majority of people on here don't want to hear or see it. So, thats it.

reply to post by silent thunder


lol - might as well ask where life, nations and everything is going.

This site is an education on the Sisyphusian nature of development and civilization. You just get one generation broken in and properly educated, then another one comes along and you have to start all over again! And again, and again!

As with any family or nation or business, the politics suck along with all the factions that rise and fall - you still have to keep everyone fed and housed through all the upheavals, so the economics are critical.

Kudos to the Owners and Staff for a truly difficult job very well done. :bow:

And my sincere thanks for not entrenching, stagnating and blowing off all the real folk who find their way here, and for continuing the noble experiment. muah

reply to post by silent thunder


ST,
am well and hope every membs are too...
2007 when i logged in to this site but since then changed my user name from enkira to alphamegs...
ATS is kind of familiar to me. i first came across it when i read "Project Blue Book" and that was eons ago.
"abovetopsecret" phrase is not really that new to me...
let's just keep our fingers crossed and hope we won't get burned....or zapped

ATS gave me nothing other then I already had only this time with different people that shared and gathered info. So IMO ATS is going nowhere as it is only a reflection of it's users. If the users grow, experience and learn Ats will develop, just as any other community does. If we change as species and will all become telepathicly linked what is the use of a forum as primairy tool for communication in a community that contains the species as a whole.


The real danger of "us" is "them"

Without sounding too anti corporation against ATS.....

Follow the money....quantity, members and advertising is what fuels this place and I can't see that changing.

Still a good place to post and discuss stuff, but it will never be the diamond it was a few years ago.

It's going no where. We are not allowed to put together a protest here, so no where. If we were all to get together for a mass american protest, or even world wide protest, it would be amazing. One thread on ats would have the power to create the biggest protest for rights and decency ever. But that violates terms and conditions. I'm Sorry that ats has failed us. I have to sleep on it to see if I even want to come back here again. I think I'm going to work with alternative media to discredit ats since it really has no credit. Just people talking. It's like the guardian or reuters, only with the fact checking of fox, so if we can't actually utilize this place to organize this place is worthless.

reply to post by silent thunder


Where's mankind headed?

Just like the human race ATS is just goin.