It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

The Bully Mentality

page: 1
4

log in

join
share:

posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 08:13 PM
link   
So, I don't often post threads. But I just have to get this off of my chest.

Where in the world is anyone suppose to share personal stories of a subjective nature if not the "Gray Area"?

I am so tired and frustrated of some mentalities on here. Now I know people come here for varying different reasons. Some are interested in politics, some are interested in the spiritual, others the UFO phenomenon. It all varies quite a bit what interests a person who comes to ATS.

But what frustrates me to NO END is the need some people have to invalidate other peoples personal experiences. These people, who bravely step forward to share their story, often of high-strangeness are always met with naysayers. People demanding proof. Photos. In the one area of the site, where personal experiences of an odd unprovable nature are suppose to go!

People will come to this site, seeking to share their experiences, and what they are met with is a competitive mentality set out to simply prove them wrong. They complete derail the entire thread, leaving those people interested and truly wanting to hear that other persons story, instead, watching a pissing contest.

Let's see who can prove this a hoax and get the poster banned. Hee hee. They will even go so far as to indicate these people as past hoaxers, and insist upon it that they instead have the truth. Because that other person's personal perception and experiences - just can't happen. They never had anything like that happen to them, therefore, it's a lie. It's like it's a sport for these people! And the thread was placed exactly where it belonged - in "The Gray Area".

I know ATS as a community, will be a microcosm of the macrocosm of the life we live. There are bullies in life, and there are bullies here at ATS to. But shouldn't there actually be one Thread Forum for those people who want to share personal experiences without being harassed that they are liars or hoaxers? One place where posters can post about the incredible and unbelievable, and be left to it - so those of us that enjoy these sorts of stories REGARDLESS of it's actuality - can ask questions and enjoy contemplating the possibility?



Cirque



posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 08:22 PM
link   
reply to post by CirqueDeTruth
 


I couldn't agree more.

I love the personal stories and experiences of our members and am quite capable of making my own decision regarding their veracity. The people that post negative comments towards members who share their experiences in the appropriate forums are of no value.



posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 08:30 PM
link   
If anything, this is a community of skeptics. We question things. It's what we do, so it's not out of the realm of probability that we will question each other from time to time. You said this is a microcosm of the way we are in real life. This is true, and just like in real life, sometimes you need to learn to have a tough skin against people who doubt you, question you or otherwise give you a hard way to go. When people bite, you bite back. That's life. Just don't let the debates turn into arguments. If you can't handle that on a daily basis, you find your own clique and settle in with people of like mind.




posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 08:34 PM
link   
I see both sides.

I despise the pack mentality and those who are so close minded as to not even listen. And if you think something is totally hooey- then be polite and move along.

However, there are the cases of hoaxers who seek to take advantage of the ATS community. That is equally despicable. There are people who truly desire to believe in something greater than themselves and it sickens me to see hoaxers take advantage of people's curiosity, truth seeking, and open mindedness.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater is the best way to look at it. Don't immediately go into attack mode to make yourself feel intellectually superior by hurling insults at members. On the other hand, obvious troll is obvious and it is noble to call them out to help others not be misled and get taken advantage of.



posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 08:38 PM
link   
Remember most bullies are truly afraid those they attack will turn out to be "correct". Since there is no capacity to silence the doubt, efforts must be done to silence the voice/reminder.

Lots of fear here... fear masked as confidence. Sometimes even my own!

edit on 22-8-2013 by BardingTheBard because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 08:38 PM
link   
I know if I ever had high strangeness in my life, I would not make a thread about it on this site. Even with pics there will always be people that are gonna say theyre fake.

I've seen the bully behaviour in thread after thread. Too many people in this world are not very nice anymore. It's not just this site either. It's people in general.



posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 08:59 PM
link   
reply to post by AshleyD
 


I agree.

It's just some will say HOAX and have no proof themselves it's just a hoax. It's still only their perception that the other person is a hoax or liar. Shouldn't a 'skeptic' first have proof of the story or experience being a hoax, before pointing the finger and declaring someone a liar?

I certainly don't want to be taken in by a liar or hoaxer either, and am grateful that ATS has moderation for weeding out those who might be trying to deceive people. Who might later lead them to a site and convince them to buy a book or give them money, they don't have to give away. Or lead them astray from life by convincing them to give up all worldly goods and go and live out on the street. I can understand that. But just to declare a person a liar or hoaxer who isn't asking for a thing, other than a chance to tell their story...

Which people do on this site. In abundance!

Cirque
edit on 22-8-2013 by CirqueDeTruth because: spelling error



posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 09:10 PM
link   
We often get threads where it is pretty obvious it's a hoax and you can't help but to appreciate the entertainment value of it. You will obviously have people call them out on their claims and when the thread goes on for like 15 pages and there is no proof, you have to accept that the thread will get closed. We have some very intelligent, open-minded and clever members who will not just accept something because the poster said so.

I don't think these people are bullies, they are just trying to find the truth without going on for like 20 pages to find it. Sorry you feel as you do, but try to understand how annoying it is to go on and on and get nowhere with such threads.



posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 09:19 PM
link   
reply to post by CirqueDeTruth
 


It was later moved to the gray area, originally in Aliens and UFOs.

Someone makes an outlandish claim, and ATS ask for proof, yet we're the bad guys?

I mean how do you say I have pictures then go ahh ah ahhhh not yet! How many pages did it go before an image appeared? How's that not some 'trolololol'

And it was a known hoaxer, so really I don't get your angle. You're free to go along and believe anything anyone says, I'm not saying you can't but just because we could smell the BS from a mile away doesn't make anyone a bully. I suppose the staff are bullies for banning him?




posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 09:36 PM
link   
reply to post by Lysergic
 


It wasn't just that particular thread Lysergic. Even towards the end of that thread, I was highly skeptical of the veracity of the claims made by the poster. However, I'd certainly have enjoyed seeing that thread develop more and here what this kid had to say, just because I'm interested hearing it. How peoples inner minds tick, what it is they think they have that is so important that we haven't heard before, and so on and so forth.

I've seen many a people come to the gray area over the past year or more I've been active on this site, get laid into with the same rhetoric. Even those who begin a post in the gray area, and make no claims to having external proof. Only their personal story to share. Even without those things, you will see people saunter in and say, "Is that you Bernard?" or "Pics or it didn't happen". Or the arm chair psychologists with their, "Take my professional advice, go see a shrink and get some meds". A professional opinion put out on a site towards a person they never even met in person. Really? In the grey area? Where these sort of personal stories are suppose to go.

I just see a double standard. Sure come on in tell us your story, so we can rip you to shreds for our own sport. What I ask myself, what I wonder is - what if this person is mentally unstable? What if, that person was just devastated, their whole world view that they thought they had a handle on crumbles, and this site being anonymous and all - you never knew - were we the ones who helped that person out onto the ledge? Ignorance is bliss. Isn't it?

It's things I wonder about.

Cirque



posted on Aug, 22 2013 @ 09:45 PM
link   
reply to post by CirqueDeTruth
 


Bah, totally deleted the text had typed up some how...


I get you, I can't speak for every thread, but I do realize some folks get tired of being given the run around and default into "YEAH RIGHT" mode, I've given in to it before. It's partially because I do want to believe, I do want it to be legit. Keep getting burned you become a bit more cynical. Yet you can't just believe anything anyone says willynilly or you'll get taken for a ride. I need to find the balance between being skeptical and keeping an open mind but its hard sometimes when folks say they have absolutely undeniable proof, when in reality it is much less than undeniable, some times almost insulting. Like we are all that stupid to just believe anything someone throws up there, that's what irks me. Stories and personal accounts are one thing, but claiming to have proof of alien beings is another.

Perhaps I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the buffoonery of Dr Greer.



posted on Aug, 24 2013 @ 02:05 AM
link   


I love the personal stories and experiences of our members and am quite capable of making my own decision regarding their veracity. The people that post negative comments towards members who share their experiences in the appropriate forums are of no value.


It is true and very frustrating, indeed. It's not limited to "personal stories" though (I will now refrain from explaining what 'person' actually is, just research 'meet your strawman', if you want to know, but beware - it's shocking, and you can't go back to the blissful ignorance).

I mean, I was just trying to ponder something that had bothered me awhile - the words "World Order" that in a book I had read, described a spiritual set of laws. Or a set of spiritual laws.

I figured, it might be a good fuel for processing the whole thing, and I sort of realized, perhaps THAT is what the "NEW World Order" means - not just a 'new order of the world', but to REPLACE the natural spiritual laws of the planet (The "World Order") with demonic/diabolic/satanic/twisted laws, with a completely different purpose and functionality. Hence, the "NEW" (meaning, REPLACEMENT) "World Order".

I painstakingly translated a few pages from a book, I skipped a lot of the text but only translated the passages that mentioned or had something to do with "World Order". Now, my translation was far from perfect, and even reading it later myself, I groaned a bit because of my mistakes and such - it's hard to translate a quirky, illogical language to english (not that it's all that logical itself, but that's beside the point).

After a lot of sweat, using the dictionary, typing, and doing some mental processing, I finally got the passages translated. I translated them directly to the ATS post, not first to a text file, like I probably should have done.

I expected people to at least take all that into account, and for some fruitful discussion to flourish about the topic, and perhaps someone (maybe clairvoyant or 'adept'-like) being able to add to it and explain it further.

Instead, what I got was ridicule, attacks, and "What? You expect us to believe that nonsense although you didn't give even ONE single link!!"-attitude. (How do I give a link to my own translation that only exists in the post? Or how do I give link to a physical book, that's not even in english? The book wasn't really even a "book" per se, because it was more like a "collection of bits from other books"-kind of a book, and the writings were not even part of another book, but just 'channeling' that a teenager did and never really published anywhere separately.. how do you give a link to something like that?)

This discouraged me very much from wanting to do anything similar ever again, but I have still written posts from time to time (Although to be fair, there WAS at least one sort of encouraging and more human response, that took the thought seriously and pondered it as a possibility, which was all I wished for anyway, and I really appreciated that post - but it wasn't enough to wash away the hostility that appeared before it)

I mean, what's the point of all the hard work, if that's the reward you get from it? At least give me a NEUTRAL reaction to hard work, that'll be good enough. But such a HOSTILE one.. well, how would anyone here feel, if that happened to them?

I guess like the Original Poster, because it indeed has happened to a lot of people, and seems to keep happening.

But then, maybe we shouldn't work for reactions, maybe we shouldn't be so hungry for social acceptance or things of that nature. Truth doesn't care about those things, why should we? If we care about that too much, we will become conformists that will be afraid to ever speak the truth, because they know the 'social punishment' that would happen. That's the kind of world this is. So to tell the truth, you can't give a rat's behind about what other people think or say about you or your writings.

It tells about the state of this planet, I guess .. people here are not really humans anymore, they are unable to express authentic, real humanity, like they could in the beginning. Now they can only express anger, hostility, warlike and animal-like qualities, perhaps lust and interest in the lower (bodily) urges and desires, but not much genuine humanity.

Then again, we did choose to be incarnated here out of our free will. We knew full well what kind of infernal asylum we were incarnating into. We have perhaps ALL oppressed someone at some point, causing a lot of frustration. Now we are simply reaping what we sew (? sowed? How .. well, let me check. .. ah, it's "sew" indeed). We are simply living our destiny, learning our Karmic lessons, doing our duty.

We are not SUPPOSED to be in a paradisic holiday now.. we are at work! We are learning.. we are experiencing extreme frustration and all kinds of emotional/spiritual/existential pain. So, we should thank those a.. those f.. those .. hostile id.. mor.. uhm.. our brothers and sisters who have helped us grow as human beings and helped us fulfill our Karmic duties, lightening our Karmic loads and getting those awful deeds of ours away from our conscience.

Perspective, it helps us to accept what we must go through. Though life on Terra is still a real bitch a lot of the time.

But at least we are not in North Korea .. I know, because we wouldn't be using the internet otherwise.

Just remember that a lot of this frustrating stuff is basically FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS, and that if we were to spend a month in the third world, basically starving almost to death, we would LUST to be demanded proof and to be treated badly by a wal-mart employee!

I mean, hungry children put together our sneakers and fireworks (dying in the process a lot of the time, and injured even more often), dolphins are murdered for our tuna, wales are still hunted, 100 000 people die of starvation every day, children sniff glue in The Philippines, and we complain about someone saying something we didn't like in the internet?

Perspective. It really helps us see things differently.
edit on 24-8-2013 by Shoujikina because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 24 2013 @ 02:36 AM
link   

[ Like we are all that stupid to just believe anything someone throws up there, that's what irks me. Stories and personal accounts are one thing, but claiming to have proof of alien beings is another.

Perhaps I still have a bad taste in my mouth from the buffoonery of Dr Greer.


I can relate to the "bad taste in the mouth" experience, in a world with so much disinformation, snake-oil-salesmen/women, illusions, marketing hype, money-minded people, calculating manipulators, psychopaths and such.

I can really appreciate the frustration of having thought something is real, and found out that it was just a hoax. Even the famous 'alien autopsy' video falls into this category, I presume.

But I still wouldn't start immediately being hostile against someone who says something that might be considered "outrageous" by the deniers. It's not wisdom to outright DENY something without investigating or researching it one bit, but to an extent, it can be understandable. If someone claims to be a vampire, for example, it's quite hard to take such an individual seriously. I would tend to agree with their statement after I see them actually turning into a bat and back with my own eyes. (And I am aware that people change definitions so much that a word can completely lose its meaning - so you wear black a lot and you like sleeping during the day and you say you 'suck energy from others', and that's how you define 'vampire'? Sigh)

However, I do agree that if someone makes a CLAIM that is really 'outrageous', they should have at least SOMETHING to back it up. Perhaps I made this mistake when I translated those passages - it probably seemed like I was 100% convinced and claiming that it was the absolute truth, when in fact, I just wanted to present the information for others to process, and hopefully get more information and perspectives about it.

Like, if I claim that I am the actual, famous Superman, and can fly and dodge bullets, it's pretty understandable if no one takes my statement seriously without some heavy proof.

But if I claim that "this was written in a book in another language, I just translated it", that shouldn't require that much proof (and how could I prove it anyway? take photos of the book or something? And then you'd have to be able to read another language, which most people here probably couldn't, etc., so before that happens, it still wouldn't be "proof", etc.)

If someone claims that they experienced something amazing, I don't think it should require proof or photos, links or such evidence. I mean, those things are difficult to prove - like, how do you prove to me that you saw a beautiful sunset when you spend your holiday in Hawaiii in 1997? You can even show me photos, and I can claim that they can be any photos of any sunset, taken during any year, and so on.

I don't mean we should -believe- anything, either (I have written a post about believing belonging to those who don't see, not for people who can find out). But we don't have to be hostile.

If the story sounds credible, and is written in an entertaining way, I think such story should be encouraged and not attacked. Sure, it might not have happened, but if it's consistent and if it's plausible that it might have happened, why not just leave it at that? It can still be a good read, and it can still make the reader think and process, relate, gain insights or perspectives.

I have seen "UFOs" (flying objects that I couldn't identify as anything Earth-created or 'natural' - though I tended to identify them as spaceships) in my time, and I have had really 'amazing' mystical/synchronicity experiences that no one would believe if I told them (well, maybe someone gullible would), but I don't expect anyone here to take my statements about such things seriously, so I don't really care to write about those things. They are more 'esoteric' events anyway, meant only for me.

But I am not ready to just attack or be hostile towards someone just for explaining their similar experience, which might be true, although it might be a hoax as well. Just because it COULD be a hoax, doesn't mean that it is!

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Yeah, I hate those cliché sayings, but sometimes they really point out what I mean.

I think we should at least TOLERATE people's experiences and stories, and while we can ask about possible photos or other proof, we don't really have to be hostile jerks about it, do we? We can still take it as a possibility even if we don't have that evidence, and we can still equally keep the possibility that it's just a hoax at the same time.

But then again, from another perspective, it's more effective for strengthening people to let them experience all kinds of idiocy and hostility. What doesn't put you in a coma, shall make you stronger, as they say.

I see both sides of the issue, which makes writing this post very difficult. And there comes the charlimit.. trying to get out of the way, AAGH! *BLAM*
edit on 24-8-2013 by Shoujikina because: (no reason given)



posted on Aug, 26 2013 @ 11:03 AM
link   
I see it happen a lot. The grey area is for people to say "You know what I just had something weird/cool happen it made me feel like..."

Or "Think about this outside the box..what if ..."

When people go there and say

"I just levitated a cheeseburger with my mind and ate it with no hands"

Then people ask them for the proof and they are vague, we question it, and some do it more passionately than others.
I dont veiw that as being a bully, I veiw that as a person seeking attention and then not backing up what they claim and that is 90% of what is on the grey areas threads.
edit on 26-8-2013 by Tylerdurden1 because: (no reason given)



new topics

top topics



 
4

log in

join