ATS has been consumed by an elitist mentality!

reply to post by daaskapital


How is more cops going to equal less crime? I live in an area with a high crime rate, also, its an area you cannot hardly cross the street without running into a cop. I don't see how all these cops are keeping the crime rate any lower than if they simply weren't here at all.

I am sure the police state proponents would beg to differ however.

Same goes for here.

Yeah, people loose their cool sometimes... I am guilty of that some; some people appear to be trolls - but maybe are just trying to figure something out for themselves that they cannot pinpoint; some people are popular like the kids in high school and some people the nerds, and the list can go on.

But, more cops are going to make that frustrated troll seeking answers look elsewhere, they will make the people who might be prone to genius at times stay out of threads because they might loose their temper, they will make people not want to participate so much on ats, because then ats will be a place that they cannot just be themselves...

If you have lived your life, you know someone just like each personality on ats. if you cannot deal with them here, you cannot deal with them anywhere. Why cant we just be ourselves, and whack each other over the head with a broom if and when we need it?

ATS is the ONLY place outside of my house where I can just be me... where I do not put on the mask... If ATS looses that haven-ness, I will never ever come back, and I wont be alone because I am not alone feeling that way about ATS. Real life outside my front door has not one thing to do with who I am inside, not one thing to do with what I care about in truth.. its about survival, its about hiding who I really am in order to survive.. On ATS, I can be me, I can get pissed off, I can have ideas, I can be who I really am without having to hide or pretend...

I pray your cops don't take that feeling away from all of us.


ATS is not elitist. What is elitist in an online forum anyway? Am I elitist because I like the class clown when others do also? Am I elitist because I support the man of sheer genius when others also appreciate his contribution? I like any genius regardless of post count, I laugh with all the class clowns even if its their first post, but nothing will stop me from entering the thread of a respected and recognized name except the thread title... and even then, I might just be curious about their poop.

beezzer
New members or old members, facts will win out, honest debate will win out in the end.

Not always. I've encountered a handful of posters here who, when presented with facts that run contrary to their obvious agendas, continually resort to disrespectful off topic name calling and deflection. Even with hard core facts presented, they stick their fingers in their ears, close their eyes, and chant insults. Eventually posters don't bother responding to them and the sad-sacks think they've 'won' a discussion even though the fact is that people just can't be bothered with their lunacy.

I wish I had the ban hammer for a day ... I really do ....

You know OP,

Sometimes, there are members who come along and they think they know their stuff then there are others who really do know their stuff.

I can think of one member who only ever seems to post on the 9/11 forum and is very skeptical of 9/11 conspiracies, I have seen this member just obliterate any notion of a false flag with one post just with his sheer knowledge of the topic. That is not being elitist thats just knowing more than the other guy.

its happened to me, wrote a thread thinking i had something good going on only to have someone right away point out a huge flaw in the OP and rip it to bits.

it does not feel nice, but now i know.

its how we deny ignorance.

its not elitist.

reply to post by FlyersFan

The ban hammer? The only people I would ban from this site are those that resort to insults and calling names. The rest of the crazy bastards can stay.

reply to post by Mamatus



*funBox prepares the soap and water*

BANNNED for swearing!

funBox

reply to post by FlyersFan

I wish I had the ban hammer for a day ... I really do ....

At times I just wish I had a hammer, and it was 'real life' ... I really do ....

reply to post by daaskapital


This has been my impression as well.

So basically you have an issue with people who disagree with you ? What can I say. You know what they say about opinions right?

daaskapital

FlyersFan
reply to post by daaskapital

 

Hit the alert button and/or keep records and notify an upper staff member.
I had to do that recently. One member was obsessive with me ... pathologically so, IMHO.
Turn the abuse over to the mods to take care of it.

Thanks for the input, and suggestions.

That sounds quite frightening.

I hope all is well.

Thanks again.

Why frightening? It's not like your physical location is not fully protected here. No stalkers are going to show up at anyone's door.

beezzer
New members or old members, facts will win out, honest debate will win out in the end.

Just my humble opinion.

Sure it does.

Hello all,

I used to be on ATS a lot about 5-7 years ago. Last 2-4 years I didn't really bother. Recently, I started checking out the "new" ATS, and I'm a bit flabbergasted about the things that have changed...

First of all; I actually wanted to make a new thread for this post, but to my knowledge, I am not allowed to make a new thread anymore, and have to "prove" myself before I can. What's with these WATS points? Wasn't even allowed to POST a reply in a 9/11 topic! Strange.

Secondly, I remember ATS as a very big site back in those days (5-7 years ago), with lots of interesting posts, daily, with a good balance between skeptic and "over-the-top" content. There was a lot of badmouthing, shilling etc. going on, but I personally could wade through the sh*t easily to find INFO. Information is what this site is all about, to my knowledge. What I see now, (maybe because I know what I want to know now) is that the amount of interesting, thought-provoking news articles seems to have dwindled, or the interesting stuff is being overshadowed by loads of more popular, but less significant articles.

On the old ATS, people had an idea/case, and then other people constructively combined their efforts to prove or disproof the posters case. Most interesting threads grew to humongous proportions, and were like collages of different minds, working towards clarity on a certain subject. There even seemed to be "common consensus" about "THE conspiracy", and people were really making joint efforts to "connect the dots"; ATS seemed to have more DIRECTION back then, and I felt at home.

What I seem encounter now, is like time stopped back then, and I see a lot of "new" posts discussing a lot of things I already knew 5 years ago, because of ATS and other sources of information/speculation. It seems like regurgitation of old knowledge/speculation became the standard; Not as much "advancement", or DIRECTION as ATS used to have. It could be me, I certainly found my DIRECTION the last couple of years, so I might be less easily awed by all the "news" coming onto my plate nowadays, but this dish has certain undertones of "haute cuisine", where the same restaurant used to deliver a full plate. Like a plastic layer that intrusively wrapped ATS in a very slow, gradual, but noticable way.

Third, I get the feeling that the searchable database of ATS has been "cleaned" extensively over the years, and that a lot of important discussions, that reached the point where they had become "databases" on certain subjects, have disappeared, or became almost unfindable. And then I see a new topic about the same subject, starting all over again, never reaching that same point. Sad if you ask me. I don't really mind, but I find that the "usefulness factor" of the threads on ATS has drastically plummeted.

This brings me back to a recent post about "old ATS" in the 9/11 forum, the reason I started writing this reply. I feel like I have known the "old ATS", and things have really changed, in my opinion. ATS used to be a place for me to find the latest alternative news, but now I have diverted to a lot of other places for that, because the news here seems to have fallen behind.

This brings me to my final point: In the days I first discovered ATS (7-8 years ago), they even had a very convenient, easily navigatable database of hard to find articles and documents, like MJ-12 leaked docs., interviews on reverse engineering, extensive articles about Roswell, etc. etc. I've never been able to find this database again after the first "modernisation" of ATS I witnessed. I have always mourned for this, as this loss of accessible knowledge on a lot of VERY interesting subjects has helped tremendously to take the DIRECTION away from ATS as I see it. I thought this was a site about uncovering the greatest secrets, unraveling the mystery together, but it seems like ATS only drifted towards an information-hungry black hole that continues to suck up established pieces of the puzzle so they can be "re-discovered" again an again, never coming to fruition...

I'm sincerely sorry for adding my rant to your rant OP, but it seems the subject matter of both posts is aligned in a significant way. If you found this TL;DR then it's your loss. Reading this will make it clear I'm not a shill, and that I'm a wise young man just giving you all my own assessment of what was, and is now. Hope someone reads this who can verify my feelings about this site.

Sincerely,

--- Nicky van Rijn ---

reply to post by daaskapital


I believe it comes down to extreme closed-mindedness combined with an egotistical desire to present one's inflated sense of self-status to others. They tend to forget that they are merely individuals with an opinion on a website that encourages the discussion of non-mainstream subjects and alternative topics.

While the prevalence of this behaviour is still reason for concern, I strongly believe that more and more average members are starting to recognise these types of posters and learning how to better deal with them.

It can be challenging at times, but remember to stay calm and collected when addressing these types of posters because, in many cases, they want you to lose your cool and say something incriminating. Don't let them drag you down to their level and win with experience.

Holy crap, all the emicons changed again.

Aaaaanyway, S&F OP.

I've experience all of this, and seen others experience it as well. I'm extremely happy I'm not the only one noticing all this. The only cure is to stand tall, and retaliate... stand up for yourself when it happens, and throw a little psychology in there. It helps tremendously to understand why someone is assaulting you in a particular way, and it serves as flawless ammunition to retaliate with.

As much as the moderators do, there's only so much possible control over such a prosperous online community as full as ATS. And, no matter what community it is, reputation and popularity are always going to be an inevitable and unfair part of the system. The only thing you can do is call them on it.

Well I was on a Hitler discussion. It was an interesting one. I had some info that others agreed with and disagreed with then some other members came in and accused me of being a Holocaust Denier. I said something about the Holocaust but not that I denied it. I don't think it happened the way they said it did but that's not the point. After those comments came through I watched the discussion rather than getting involved. It got a bit heated here and there but not as bad as some discussions I had been a part of before.

Anyway a mod came in and shut the thread down. So I went to the board questions forum and voiced my distaste at the thread being shut down. Then other people voiced their opinions and accused ATS of this, that and so on. Then a mod came into that thread and # that one down as well!!

Sheesh!

What is going on with ATS? I joined ATS in 2009. It has been a good forum full of lot's of interesting subjects and discussions. Very rarely did they shut down any threads though. You'd get slammed with 'Manners and Decorum', T & C Violations, A Warning message in your U2U and sometimes if you were a complete arse you'd get banned.

But never thread closed every 2 seconds. The Mod said there that ATS doesn't like Hitler so we don't discuss it here. Eh? So we can't discuss Hitler? WW1? WW2? Israel? Come on!

I got a warning a couple of months ago because I was saying Sandy Hook and the Boston Marathon were False Flag attacks. Thread closed! Warning in my U2U.

What has happened to ATS?

Hmph!

I would love to know the percentage of posters on this site that live with their mothers to "take care of them". Mom does the laundry and house work, pays the bills. You know the type. People are not always true representations of themselves online.

reply to post by Amagnon

A great deal of belief is based on empirical truth, that is the sum of our observations which we havent found any contradiction in so far. Empirical truth always depends on agreement. In other words if I say Im sitting on a chair, and you agree then its true - regardless if I am sitting on a chair or not. So long as nobody else comes along and disagree's then we can make truth anything we agree on.

I think you are getting some things mixed up here. What you are describing here is “consensus reality”, not something “empirical”.

Empiricism is the philosophy that all knowledge is derived through sensory experience, what is observable. Consensus reality is what a group or society agrees is real or true, whether it is real or not, and does not require empirical evidence for the belief to exist. Two people agreeing that someone is sitting on a chair when a chair does not exist would not be an “empirical truth”.

I find the term “empirical truth” to be problematic as well, but that is another subject. But then again, I don’t divide truth up into different categories either.

reply to post by daaskapital


Hi Daas,

Reading through your opening post on this, i am not really too sure where i stand on this issue. Allow me to elaborate.......

I firmly believe that the point of a website such as ATS is to foster and encourage debate on each and every topic. By definition, there will be wildly conflicting opinions on any given topic which will inevitably lead to a clash of opinions / beliefs. This is right and to be expected. By challenging views we disagree with we also open ourselves up to actually looking at those views. For example, i am very much an anti gun in society person. However, by participating in gun control threads i open my thinking to try to see the others point of view.

However, there is completely no need to belittle anyone, even in the most heated of debates. Especially as ultimately, what constitutes reality? Whose reality? Considering we all potentially live in a hologram that is an area to stay away from!

Do people really follow into other threads though to carry on attacking other members? I honestly can't say it is something i have noticed but then i have to admit that it isn't something i have looked for, excepting a few members who have posted clearly inflammatory comments and then refused to even discuss them, instead repeating them ad nauseum - that doesn't foster debate, it fosters resentment.