Guidelines for distinguishing between true and made up stories about SHTF

Reading through some of these threads I find that there are way too many gullible people on here that will believe just about anything that gets posted on here or on YouTube. There is a part of your brain called the (RAS) Reticular Activating System, it acts as a filter, when you focus on something it goes in your RAS and you will see more of it, kinda like if you were to buy a certain car like a Hummer you would notice it a lot more of them on the road, when in reality they were always there, you just didn’t pay attention to them. Same thing is happening with the 2012 SHTF scenario, most of the people have already made up their mind that S will HTF and they look for evidence to support their belief and ignore anything that isn’t according to their belief system. I was reading a post the other day, someone said that he thinks we might have an earthquake coming, because his dog was barking a little more than usual, someone else commented to get the dog checked out by a vet and rule out that the dog is not sick first and then look into other theories. Someone else said some natural disaster might happen, because their husband was a little moody lately. That person should ask her husband how things are at work, maybe things are a little more difficult with the economy before assuming that it’s because an earth changing event will occur. Another thing I noticed is that most want SHTF to happen and most people believe that when these natural disasters occur and other people get killed, “they” will survive and life will be much better for “them”. Here is a reality check, even though some people’s current situation might suck, if we lose power or something else happens that will prevent you from having normal access to food and clean water it’s gonna suck even more. If things suck right now, try looking for a solution within and how you can change and not wait for the environment to change around you.

Ok, here are some guidelines for weeding out the false stories from ones that actually are based on some truth. Ask yourself these questions before believing something.

1. False prophet making a fat profit.
If someone is making any kind of profit selling DVD’s or some kind of survival kits or anything like that and they are telling you the world will end, then their information loses credibility and is most likely false or exaggerated to sell their stuff. Why would you need to make money if the world is ending, you should give the stuff away for free.
Examples
Harold Camping – this guy is a master at this, he has been predicting the end of the world to happen for years, his first end of the world was supposed to happen in 1994 and he has been calling dates all the way up to Oct 21 2011. In the process he has made millions of dollars and ruined many people’s life because they quit their jobs, emptied their kids college funds and invested money into him. This guy has been wrong for 17 years now and people are still listening to him, I just don’t get it, I’m sure you’ll find many posts with people waiting for Oct 21st 2011.
en.wikipedia.org...

Alexander Retrov - is another brilliant individual predicting 12-15 magnitude earthquakes to happen on 9/26/11 and making money of his DVDs. Not only did he get simple facts wrong such as when planets were discovered, but he also predicted 12-15 magnitude earthquakes which are geologically not possible. An earthquake that happen in Japan in 2011 was 9 on the Richter scale, an earthquake 10 on the scale would produce 10 times more shaking than 9. Earthquake 12 would produce 1,000 times more shaking. An earthquake 12 on the Richter scale would be equivalent to earth getting hit by a planet half the size of earth. Earthquake 15 would produce 1 million times more shaking than the Japan earthquake. Think about how much damage the earthquake in Japan caused and imagine 1 million times the damage of Japan earthquake. Anyway, this is another guy that said his predictions are correct, but the date was wrong and we shouldn’t focus too much on the date just on the predictions (and his DVDs).
www.youtube.com...

2. Track record
If someone is making any kinds of claims and they are not selling anything, check their track record, have they predicted anything before and did it come true, have they predicted something that didn’t come true and now they are just changing the date or have they never predicted anything and this is their first one. So far I haven’t come across anyone who has been able to consistently predict future event correctly. There are people who have predicted earthquakes and other things, but there are predictions made every day, so this is just a matter of chance.

3. Vague predications
Something big will happen in the next 6 months that will change things forever.
D4rk KN1ght – this guy’s IP address was traced back to another user name that made fake UFO predictions, his thread is in the HOAX section, his predictions did not come true and people still believe him, not because he was such a great guy, but because people want to believe SHTF will happen. People are taking bits and pieces out of his predictions and saying that the things that he was saying are happening, yes there are UFO sightings, yes there are all kinds of noises, but if it appears that more of it is happening, it’s probably because you are paying attention to it and looking for it.

4. People doing it for attention.
Sometimes people don’t care about money, but they are just doing it for attention, YouTube is a great source for these people. These threads or videos usually start out by saying... I’ve been sent here to warn you or I’ve been given this message by a Zen monk or I’m have a confession to make and want to help everyone. These type of people often make up some end of the world story and it's missing key information like how it will happen. These people will also take vague versus from the bible and twist it around to fit their predictions, pointing to the bible that it’s saying the earth will shake, it might say that in the bible, but it’s not referring to the specific time that they were referring to.
9Nania – this is some girl on YouTube that predicted an earthquake to happen on 9/26/11, then she moved up her prediction to 9/30/11, then she moved it up a few more days, after she kept getting all these dates wrong, people on YouTube ripped her a new A-hole so she shut off all comments on her channel and now she sounds like an even bigger nutcase. She is saying the government will do experiments on you without you knowing, you will experience nausea, pain, itchiness, nightmares, vivid dreams, bruises needle marks, buzzing and you will not know where it’s coming from. Chances are good that people will experience some of these symptoms at some point for some other reasons and they will think that she was right and the government is experimenting on them like she said. Despite all these wrong predictions she still has over 14,000 followers.
www.youtube.com...

I hope I don’t see another lens flare video of the sun saying that there is an object next to the sun, people who make these videos obviously know they are fake but they just do it for attention.
www.youtube.com...

5. Who benefits in this ?
I remember reading things that the Elite want to eliminate 90% of the US population. How will the Elite benefit in this, who will cut their lawn, who will build their homes, cars, electronics, who will work and pay taxes, who will wipe their a$$ ? This is like saying that a Microsoft employee heard that Bill Gates wants to fire 90% of his employees, how would he benefit, who will keep him rich ?

6. My cousin works at NASA and I heard
If you hear someone say that they know someone somewhere high up and they gave him this info, chances are good that they are just trying to make their claim believable that’s why they are saying it, if it was secret information I’m sure it wouldn’t be available to some big mouth bozo that will put it up on YouTube and could get his IP address traced back and get in some deep $hit.

7. Source - where is the information from ?
If it’s the Mayans the Hopi, the Chinese or any other group of people, I don’t buy it, no disrespect to any of them, but I don’t know them personally and I wouldn’t take their word for it. They are human also and I’m sure when opportunity presented itself in front of them, they don’t mind ca$hing in exchange for a little lie. Besides all that I hear is “other people” saying that the Mayans and Hopis, etc are predicting the end of the world.

Just because you saw a video on YouTube that says that Elenin has such gravitation pull that it causes earthquakes on earth, doesn’t mean it’s true. Do a little research and realize that if this comet had gravity it wouldn’t have an enormous coma and YouTube is not a place to do research, it’s a place for regurgitated misinformation.

8. If you think SHTF is about to happen and the elites know it, watch the market. Yes, this can actually help to see what is going on.
Most of the elites invest in the market and if you see an unusual amount of selling activity for no particular reason, than they know something you don’t. I was fortunate to spot this in the past, recently the US got downgraded to AA+ by S&P and before the announcement there was an unusual amount of selling on high volume with no particular reason, this was the elites short selling right before the announcement. This is called insider trading and it’s illegal, but it’s legal if you are selling without any insider information.
When you see unusual activity in the market for no particular reason especially if it coincides with some event that might be happening than I would be on high alert.

With all that being said, we are going through some turbulent times and the biggest threat that I see is the structure of the US and global economy. For those of you who don’t know, in a nutshell, right now the government is borrowing money at a faster rate than ever before in history. During Obama’s presidency the government borrowed more money than they did between when George Washington and Bill Clinton was president. That’s more debt in less than 4 years than we accumulated in over 200 years. You ask how will we pay for this debt, well will just borrow more money to pay of the interest on the money that we already borrowed. Anyone can tell that we are only getting into a deeper hole and not resolving the underlying issue, we are kicking the can down the road. The borrowing will only end in 2 ways, first we only pay about 3% interest on average on this debt and it’s not a fixed rate, I can’t imagine if our almost 15 trillion dollar debt gets up to double digit interest rate like in some of the European countries. Problem #2, (less likely) we might eventually run out of creditors, China and Japan being the biggest outside creditors. It’s funny how China & Japan lend us money so that we can buy products from them, it’s kinda like getting a Macy’s department store credit card….here I’ll lend you some money so that you can buy our stuff. China and Japan are both export economies and the US is an import economy so I don’t see a benefit in them stopping doing this until SHTF and we can’t pay them back.

The other threat that is scientifically proven are the solar flares from our sun. We are entering the 24th cycle of the solar maximum which scientist predict will be more severe than most other cycles. With having an economy that so heavily relies on electricity, we are more vulnerable than ever to this threat. This is what NASA mentioned might happen if we get hit by a major solar flare and lose power

problems would be lasting: a burnt-out multi-ton transformer, for instance, can take weeks or months to repair. The total economic impact in the first year alone could reach $2 trillion, some 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina or, to use a timelier example, a few TARPs.

science.nasa.gov... Where will we get $2 trillion if we lose power and most people aren’t working and paying taxes.
This year we have already experienced millions of people losing power due to solar flares, if a major solar flare knocks out the power grid in most major cities, this could spell chaos which could be hard to contain and bounce back from given what is already going on with protests across the country.

Summary
Read and look at things from a non judgmental point of view, most people have already made up their mind about 2012 and will only look for evidence to support their belief and ignore anything that might prove their belief to be wrong.

If you come across a prediction, run it past the 8 items mentioned above.

The biggest threat we face right now is the global economy collapsing that could result in violence which is similar to how the great depression ended. Also our sun is a threat to us over the next few years which would kick start the global economy collapse if it was ever to knock out our power grid.

What should we do ? Should we prepare ? Yes preparing is always a good idea, anything can happen at any time, having some extra food, water and supplies is always a good idea, it’s kinda like insurance against SHTF scenario. But preparing to the point where you sell all your stuff, quit your job and move to a cave is ridiculous, but some people have posted that they are in fact doing that.

The purpose of this thread is to help people realize that a lot of these stories are just made up and to stop attracting attention to it and focus on real threats.

reply to post by taws6


You quoted 2009 material. Since then the maximum has been pushed back from 2012 to 2013 and predicted to be a lower than average maximum.

I'm having a hard time believing how NASA let the cat out of the bag and then conveniently said we are going to have a mild solar maximum after saying that we were supposed to have a severe solar maximum. Going from one extreme to another makes it hard to believe them. Regardless, what they say will see what happens, but the real threat right now is our economy. The more people lose their jobs, the more free time they will have and more angry they will get, will probably see more protest around the world.

reply to post by taws6


You've made an interesting point here. How could there be such an extreme swing in the predictions?

The issue lies in the difficulties of predicting solar behavior. The solar maximums are not 11 years apart. They are 11 years apart on average. The time interval changes between maximums. This time the data suggests that that the maximum is a year later. The data suggests the maximum is less than average, not more than average.

The prediction for over or under average does not mean that events will be less powerful. It means that on average the solar events will be less than average.

Originally posted by taws6
I'm having a hard time believing how NASA let the cat out of the bag and then conveniently said we are going to have a mild solar maximum after saying that we were supposed to have a severe solar maximum. Going from one extreme to another makes it hard to believe them.

Better data, better models.

Since the sun is a dynamic system (like... human beings, for instance) you can get some average behaviors for a set of data but it's not hard and fast and what happens at any given time depends on what's happened just previously.

Think about ... well, think about the creek near my home. We're in a dry year, but we recently had rain, so there's water in it right now. During rainy years there's a lot of water but we can go through a month of no rain and there'll be no water in the creek. We can predict that there'll be water in it during the spring and fall because these are our two rainy seasons, but we can't predict how much or whether on October 31st there will be water in that creek. The sun's a similar dynamic system. I doubt we'll ever be able to say exactly what it will do for any length of time in the future because it's huge and complex.

Byrd, no idea why I received any stars for my post. You have quite eloquently described the problem.

cheers

reply to post by Byrd



I'm done with listening to predictions, first NASA said that we are supposed to have a severe solar maximum than they said

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

(the key word there would be if"
science.nasa.gov...

I've been watching the sunspot number every regularly and for example today it's 149, that's a little more than 90 and we are far from the most severe part of the solar maximum.
spaceweather.com...

I'm just going to watch the events as they unfold and see it with my own 2 eyes rather than listen to NASA predictions saying that "if we are correct" nothing is is gonna happen.

reply to post by taws6


What you are doing is part of what NASA is doing - looking at sunspot numbers. A maximum does not indicate any particular event, but a mean of the events that happen. A much lower than average maximum could still have a very large event. On average it might be less, because a single event is not affecting the average much.

Predicting solar activity is not easy. It is complicated. The more observations that are made the more that can be learned about the Sun. If it wasn't such a difficult problem then it would have been solved long ago.

Notice that the link you posted was to a 2009 article. The original prediction for this solar cycle was an above average cycle. All this means is that the current activity of the Sun is not easy to predict.

The latest forecast revises an earlier prediction issued in 2007. At that time, a sharply divided panel believed solar minimum would come in March 2008 followed by either a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak solar maximum in 2012. Competing models gave different answers, and researchers were eager for the sun to reveal which was correct.

"It turns out that none of our models were totally correct," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's lead representative on the panel. "The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way."

All you need is your crown Chakra. it rings and tingles when you learn certain things.

Just Sayin.

If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

science.nasa.gov...

If I had to guess their "predictions" are not panning out so far, today's sunspot number is 207, that's more than double than 90 which is what they are predicting for the peak of the solar maximum to occur in about 2 years. I guess lets just watch and see.
spaceweather.com...

reply to post by taws6


The article you linked to was written in May 29, 2009.

Here are more recent comments on solar activity
science.nasa.gov...
science.nasa.gov...

These articles continue to point out that there is a lot to understand about the Sun and innovative methods to accomplish that task.