The Critical Thinking Conspiracy

If you can forego entertainment, gratification and stars/flags for TRUTH, thats still pretty rare in this day and age. But desperately needed. The unvarnished truth arrived at through critical examination is usually not that entertaining and wont get many stars/flags.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
If you can forego entertainment, gratification and stars/flags for TRUTH, thats still pretty rare in this day and age. But desperately needed. The unvarnished truth arrived at through critical examination is usually not that entertaining and wont get many stars/flags.

edit on 28-4-2011 by Skyfloating because: (no reason given)

Might be a Big Ask, but how about an 'invert, function for some viewers.

Default is to order/promote by Flags and Stars (keeps everything the same)

but...

There's a Registered User option to invert everything, order/promote by least Flags and Stars.

Needs more of a 'group think, about it, and how could that translate into quieter posts being promoted back into the mainstream after a lot of critical review?

Just a strawman idea :-)

Could such a schema be easily hijacked though?

I think this is a non-trivial problem, but one well worth exploring.
A working solution might even be something of value to sell/licence to other sites.

If I were 'King' I'd invite a couple of PhD interns to work on that one.

Originally posted by ommadawn
Rather than keep bashing the original posters for their innane offerings, perhaps
it would be better to keep constant sideline threads like this going.

Don't attack any one original poster, but make it very clear what sensible/critical
folks consider to be a load of BS and label as such.

The hope is to shame/educate the people who produce the rubbish, and perhaps also praise
people who come up with genuinely interesting/good stuff.


That won't break up the stars and flags kiddies but will perhaps make them think about how they are perceived.

*Brainwave*

Why not simply invert the stars and flags ratings?
The more they get, the less they are promoted.
Problem solved overnight.

ommadawn, thats a great point....impact from watching others and how they act is the best deterrent.

With respect to the inverse flags idea.... maybe a list of votes down and equal amount of votes up, so perhaps the amount of disdain and like become evident proportionally. Right now, it's completely disproportionate as, a dislike is a non-event, while a like is a major event.

However, in my eyes the importance lies in this: that (as I'm sure we have all well noticed) there are far too many gullible and frankly easily influenced people out here....more so than I think one would imagine, and, as such many see things of this nature, take it as gospel, and proliferate it through the Web. Years ago this would not have happened as (I feel) it would have been a non-issue; it would have been thoroughly researched and looked at before it ever became a thread with such implications.

it is sad..
great post.. you no longer have 666 stars

(sorry I still have a few hangups

)

Originally posted by wishywashy

Just a n00bs 2 cents worth.

And here's my $.02, a n00b isnt defined by amount of time, it's defined by attitude. No need to worry about that, personally the last thing I look at from someone, is the amount of time they've been on ATS, and the quality of what they're posting first.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
If you can forego entertainment, gratification and stars/flags for TRUTH, thats still pretty rare in this day and age. But desperately needed. The unvarnished truth arrived at through critical examination is usually not that entertaining and wont get many stars/flags.

That's very true Sky, and, frankly, what I would REALLY like to attain/get back to.

In this day and age, it's rare, but not impossible....being a patriot is easy when someone has made the first step toward it

Originally posted by pccat


it is sad..
great post.. you no longer have 666 stars

(sorry I still have a few hangups

)

Hahaha.

Thank you, and no worries, I have hangup's too....among them, are some atrocities committed in the name of the Church against innocent women thought to be witches...hence the avatar, the antithesis of how I live life is easy to announce by displaying it so profoundly online

Ok I would like to add to my own thread here.

Just for observation sake, I'm taking the first Forum, the first page. And first let me post a quote from SO's I'm pissed!!! (political trolls and hacks) thread:

I'm infuriated at the tone of politics on ATS... and fed-up with the trolls, hacks, and idiots who favor insults over issues.

.
.
.

With that in mind, every ATS member and guest can now know this: If you post on ATS as a political fool engaging in gratuitous ideological insults, you will find no favor or sympathy from our staff.

Now, with that all in mind, let's take a more indepth look at that first page I mentioned earlier:

Thread # | Title
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

1 ----------------Video: PROOF!!! Obama Birth Certificate Fraud
2 ----------------Obama's NEW Birth Certificate proven to be fake hours after release
3 ----------------Holy Mother!!! I have Proof the Birth Certificate Has Been Edited!!!!!
4 ----------------The Whole World Is Now Saying That Obama's "NEW BORN" Birth Certificate Is A Forgery!
5 ----------------A tale of two birth certificates: (Compare Obama's BC to twins born day after-incredible)
6 ----------------White House Releases Obama's Long-Form Birth Certificate
7 ----------------Newly released Obama birth certificate is not fraudulent - heres why:
8 ----------------natural born Citizen Obama is NOT, Illegal holds office
9 ----------------The Kenya Birth Certificate of Barack Hussien Obama
____________________________________________________________________________________________

NINE threads, on the same topic, on the first page of the first forum I traversed today. I dunno, you think perhaps some agenda there?


Let's look at another forum (I dont feel like looking at the political forum all day to find dupes, there must be hundreds more)

I'm moving over to the Chemtrail forum. Here I'm going to point out multiple things, the first being, one persons agenda (wjere I guess a single thread just wasn't garnering enough attention for him, I guess multiple's might do the trick)

Thread # | Title
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

1 ----------------Stratospheric Aerosol Geo-engineering aka "Chemtrails" DEBUNK THIS !!!!
2 ----------------Chemtrail Debunkers....
3 ----------------A collection of "Chemtrail" Patents
4 ----------------Not your typical Chemtrail thread
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

These 4, posted by the same guy on the first page of the Geoengineering and Chemtrail forum.

Now, on to junk science and sensationalizing WHILE duplicating (bear in mind, ALL this on first page):

Thread # | Title
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

1 ----------------Strange Chemtrail Photo on CNN Political Ticker
2 ----------------Chemtrails On CNN Home Page Over US Capitol: Conditioning?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, granted the above are only two threads, BUT the point is that it IS a duplicate, AND it's sensationalizing for one huge reason, they COULD be clouds, they COULD be contrails, they COULD be chemical dispersant, but what there ISN'T, is a way to prove anything.


These are just the first 2 forums I've decided to target today.... tomorrow is another day....but an agenda? What do you think?

These are just the first 2 forums I've decided to target today.... tomorrow is another day....but an agenda? What do you think?

I think that's a great start. At least having a thread like this where we can all come a bitch-off for a while (when it all gets too much, WIAGTM) is a start.

Maybe add sneaky comments in these threads along the lines of

"one to keep for WIAGTM" and see how long it takes 'em to work out what that means.

Don't be rude, don't troll, hate or spam.
Undermine like f*ck though :-)

Perhaps we could even have a WIAGTM-of-the-week award for the most riddiculous posting or subject that has been multi-posted.

Don't go attacking the individuals, but their messages and approach.

Too much hate around already to be throwing mud in people's faces by name.

reply to post by ommadawn


Hahahaha that's actually a great idea, I doubt though that enough could be onboard (except maybe you and I) for that, but I'm not opposed to starting a movement.

I agree, too much hate and mudslinging in the first place....a well placed acronym might do a world of good .... AND it's searchable


Now, I'm going to spend the next few days trying to figure out if it can actually mean something haha