Why is sciforums traffic so low now?

Discussion in 'Site Feedback' started by Magical Realist, Apr 7, 2016.

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  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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  3. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    You have provided nothing other than your own opinion reUFO's being Aliens. time travellers, and/or interdimensional beings, which you change from one minute to the next to obfuscate the issue at hand.
    Let me tell you again......
    Most of the thousands UFO sightings are readily explained. A small percentage remain unexplained and hence UFO's.ie Unidentified!!!
    Initiating Occam's razor, one can logically assume that those "Unidentified" and unexplained, are probably due to atmospheric disturbances, and phenomena, illusions caused by refraction/reflection of light, mirages, and even trickery and gamesmanship.

    There is no conclusive evidence to show they are any of the three artifacts you imagine and change depending on who and what you are debating.
    Your 64 children and that sighting, again no conclusive evidence, remembering that the children, like you are impressionable and gullible, and the majority probably believe what they were told by another....you know how it is.
    If 500 people that were at church last Sunday, claimed that Jesus appeared to them, and they all swear it to be fact, does that make convincing evidence for his appearance? If you prefer you can substitute Muhammad or Buddha.
    For the umpteenth time and as I was trying to explain to krash, Aliens would not just continue to visit us, flittering in than flittering out again, and never once make their presence official, like appearing on the lawns of government house in Canberra, or Buckingham Palace in London, or the White House in Washington.

    You have speculation that's all...In some cases like your belief in ghosts and Bigfoot, you have nothing but twisted illogical stories and tales.
     
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  5. Bells Staff Member

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    You don't believe they are aliens and you were not responding to paddoboy's claims about aliens, when you directly addressed his claims about aliens and even admitted that you used the story of the 62 kids in Zimbabwe because you wanted to refute his claims that people who see lights in the sky are seeing illusions.. And to refute a claim about lights in the sky, as you allegedly claim, and which was the last part of the paragraph of his post, you directly addressed the first part of his post about aliens visiting earth, by waxing the lyrical about the story of the 62 kids who apparently saw a UFO land and an alien walk out of it..

    Not only that, because you hadn't twisted yourself into enough of a pretzel, you then turn around and say this:

    You distinctly stated in this thread that you did not even mention anything about aliens visiting Earth or aliens piloting a UFO, while forgetting that you had actually referenced to a story, as evidence, to refute paddoboy's argument, which dealt directly with aliens piloting a UFO and visiting Earth.

    Is that sinking in yet?

    Worse still, you are using an argument you don't even believe in, to refute what he is basically agreeing with you on. That "aliens" are not visiting Earth. You don't believe they are aliens either. Here is what Paddoboy said:

    The reality is that we have no hard evidence for Earth being visited by Aliens....
    We have plenty of extraordinary evidence that UFO sightings have been seen and reported, but no evidence that they are anything other than illusions of an overactive mind, atmospheric phenomena, or some other possible Earthly explanation.


    You don't believe in aliens anymore. Why try to refute someone who also does not believe in aliens? Paddoboy wasn't talking about "interdimensionals" in his post. He was talking about "aliens". Remember? You don't believe in aliens anymore. So why refute or argue against someone for saying something you agree with in the first place.. That there is no "evidence for Earth being visited by Aliens".. You don't even believe in aliens, yet you feel you have to refute him and use your previous evidence of "aliens" and then declare you weren't talking about that, but about the illusions of lights in the sky, and then change your mind again and claim you were just refuting his claims they (the lights in the sky) were hallucinations, by using a story of a UFO being flown by an alien and landing and scaring kids, which had nothing to do with lights in the sky and everything to do with paddoboy's claims about Earth visiting aliens, which you say you weren't even addressing.

    To wit, you don't believe in aliens. So why argue for the existence of aliens and use stories about aliens, to refute someone's saying he doesn't believe aliens are visiting Earth?

    By referring to a story about a UFO landing and an alien walking out of it and scaring children..

    And then you tried to claim you had not said anything about aliens or UFO's being piloted by aliens..

    Worse still, you don't even believe aliens exist.

    Ah so now it's the entire statement and not just the last paragraph...

    So is it the last sentence of the paragraph? Or the entire statement now which you are now arguing? Which one is it?

    All the cases of which you had argued were aliens and in one, even argued that aliens flew a UFO and landed near a school and the alien scared a bunch of school children. And then you tried to claim that you had said no such thing about aliens flying UFO's or aliens visiting Earth.. If you don't believe in aliens, why are you trying to refute someone's claims that there is no evidence of aliens visiting Earth?

    Are you now changing the meaning of the word refute to mean twisting yourself into a pretzel and contradicting yourself?

    Wonderful..

    Well I don't know, you just said in your previous post that you "refuted that entire statement with four cases" that you mentioned. Is it the entire statement or the last paragraph?

    Because the last paragraph has nothing to do with aliens piloting a UFO and landing on Earth. And yet you felt compelled to refute his comments by using a story you have repeatedly used to prove aliens visit Earth and land on Earth and apparently scared some school kids.. And then declaring you don't believe in aliens, but still fighting for their existence.. Perhaps you should go back and refresh your memory about what you have actually said.

    But all 4 cases were about aliens visiting earth in UFO's and in one case you used, landed on Earth and aliens scared some kids in Africa. The very aliens you don't believe even exist.

    There is no such thing as aliens, remember? You don't believe in aliens anymore. His comment was about aliens visiting Earth. So why refute when someone says they don't believe there is any evidence to support the claim that aliens are visiting Earth in their UFO's when you don't even believe aliens are visiting Earth in UFO's? Worse still, you are refuting that UFO's are nothing but "illusions", atmospheric phenomena and Earthly explanations, by citing stories about something you don't even believe in any more.. And even worse, you cited a story or "case" of aliens flying a UFO and landing near a school and then walking out of said UFO and scaring school kids and then tried to claim you had said nothing about aliens or aliens visiting Earth. Not to mention you have gone back and forth about what, exactly, it was you were addressing in paddoboy's posts.

    Perhaps you should stop trying to twist things around and stop arguing for the existence of something you don't even believe in. You don't believe in aliens and therefore, you should agree that aliens are not visiting Earth in their UFO's.. Correct? So it pays to not refute someone with previous evidence you have cited about aliens existing, because he dared to agree with you that aliens (that you now claim do not exist) were visiting Earth in their UFO's..

    Well the only thing you have refuted is your claim that you don't believe in aliens. Because you sure seemed offended when someone claimed that aliens weren't visiting Earth in their UFO's.

    And contrary to what you believe, outside of this forum, you don't really enter my mind and I sleep very well actually. But thank you for your concern.

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  7. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    I offer this in support of my hypothesis and move that the thread be closed.
     
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  8. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    For f****'s sake! Are you as dumb as he is? Nowhere in any of my posts have I argued that people should be allowed to change the meanings of words. Get a ****ing grip on reality Bells. Reading comprehension from you is as rare as heatstroke in the Arctic. You do this is often. And then you make judgements based on what you think was said.

    Now read this very carefully, or have your carer do it for you.

    Many people, probably everyone at one time or another, make subtle, or gross changes in how they are using words. This happens. IT IS REAL. I am not saying they should be allowed to do it, I am observing that they do do it. Do you now understand? ****!
     
  9. Bells Staff Member

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    No Ophiolite, I am simply applying your argument. You remember, that you said that he should be castigated for changing the meaning of words. He is being castigated. And despite that, you believe he is being hounded. And defend that people change meanings of words. The issue is that MR does it only to suit any given situation - ie - when he has backed himself into a corner, he changes the meanings of the words he's used and then denies he had ever said it. You don't think that is dishonest. I do and I am fairly certain a fair few other people on this site also view it as being dishonest.

    To wit, he's changing meanings of words from post to post and then accusing people of lying for addressing one post, and then declaring he never said that because he was talking about the new meaning of the word he has just come up with. You have argued that perhaps we should not expect too much from him in how he posts, because you don't think he is very bright. To wit, you are saying that he should be allowed to get away with it to a certain extent, because you consider him to be "dumb" or "not very bright". I disagree. I don't think MR is dumb, nor do I believe that he is "not very bright". I happen to think that MR is a very intelligent man. I also think he is dishonest when he twists and changes the meanings of words in subsequent posts to avoid providing any evidence and to avoid supporting his claims.

    So let me ask you, when castigating him for twisting meanings of words around to suit his narrative and to avoid supporting his claims of fact, how exactly are we meant to do that when he then lies and demands he never changed the meanings of those words or argument, while changing said meanings of words and arguments? If castigating him is now hounding, if asking him to actually clarify his position is now hounding, how exactly are we meant to castigate him?

    I asked him, what he meant and why he used a particular argument and then denied he had actually made that argument. I asked him to clarify his position and I asked him what he meant. What I got in response was contradiction after contradiction and denial after denial. From he addressed the last part of the paragraph by using stories about aliens landing and scaring children, to denying he had said anything about aliens or aliens piloting UFO's, to then saying he was actually addressing and refuting paddoboy's claims by using a story about aliens (that he does not believe exists), to then saying he was addressing the whole statement, and then in the next post, advising he was only addressing the last part again. The last couple of pages has literally been about trying to clarify his use of the examples he cited when a) he doesn't believe in what he cited and b) he keeps contradicting exactly what he was addressing. To wit, he says he doesn't believe aliens exist, but he is refuting someone with 'evidence' of aliens existing, because that person said that aliens are not visiting Earth and stories of alien UFO's and their lights in the sky can be described and explained by other things.. The very aliens that MR apparently does not believe in anymore.

    Now, you say that people should not be allowed to change the meanings of words. And that they should be castigated for it. But when said castigation happens, when I point out that his behaviour is dishonest, I get accused of hounding. I beg to differ. I think his behaviour is absolutely dishonest. MR does not believe in aliens currently, because he is required to prove aliens exist. Suddenly, poof, he doesn't believe they exist, while arguing and using what he determines to be evidence of aliens and stories about aliens and then accusing people of lying for addressing the evidence of said aliens, because he's not talking about aliens. Remember the toast analogy, apply it here.

    Or are you suggesting that we just treat him like he is a simpleton? Because I refuse to do that.

    And frankly, I don't exactly appreciate your level of personal abuse.
     
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  10. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I move that this thread be closed too. There's absolutely no reason to let Bells continue using this for her twisted personal campaign of trying to obsessively accuse me of things I never said or meant. At this point its bordering on mental illness and should be allowed to drop into merciful obscurity. If for noone else's sake just for Bell's sake. Good grief!
     
  11. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I think that anyone actually explaining a ufo report is rare. What happens is that proponents produce speculations about extraterrestrials, or whatever it is, while oftentimes opponents just speculate about plausible sounding mundane explanations for individual reports. Their belief seems to be that if a mundane explanation is even conceivable, then it must somehow be the correct explanation. Rarely is anything more done to decide between the contending hypotheses.

    True. I think that MR's point is that if there's a residuum of reports that seem resistant to mundane explanation, then it's reasonable to hypothesize that they have an extramundane explanation. Jumping to the conclusion that the extramundane explanation has to be extraterrestrials in spaceships might be unwarranted, which is the point of MR's remarks about other hypothetical possibilities like time travelers or extradimensional beings. In other words, it all makes sense and it isn't an attempt to obfuscate anything.

    That might be a good argument strategy, but it requires a lot more work. One needs to assign values on the relative likelihoods of various kinds of things happening and then apply those values in a scheme of belief justification. Probabilistic epistemology happens to be an active area of philosophical investigation, in formal epistemology. Until that's perfected, all that people can do is apply these kind of ideas intuitively. But that's going to be a lot more subjective.

    Now you're just projecting your own assumptions into a hypothetical alien mind that might have a very different psychology. Perhaps they are something like intelligent social insects and have nothing analogous to a government and don't even understand the concept.

    Besides, if we imagine that the ufos are time travelers, then we already have a very neat explanation for their failure to make contact. If time travelers visit their own past and dramatically change things, then presumably history would unfold differently and their own future wouldn't exist. So their own survival would depend on their not changing anything that they already know happened in our time. Now suppose that they know about the ufo phenomenon in our time. They would be fine if they conform to that, since their visits from the future would be what caused it.

    Sure, that's all that anyone has in most of these cases.

    Why are they 'illogical'? What is contradicting what? Why are they 'twisted'?
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2016
  12. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Here's an interesting possibility. Suppose ufos are attempts of some future AI artilect to study/modify history in accord with it's own programmed needs. Perhaps far in the future the machines really DO become conscious, and much more intelligent than humans, so that they figure out how to time travel and modify matter/energy into what they want. This rings true with the often corny and naive presentations of aliens we see in ufo encounters. They present as short alien humanoids or greys with typical interests in gathering samples of vegetation/soil and even of breeding some hybrid alien/human species. That is so naive it is laughable. But it feels like what a machine intelligence would do--a nonhuman mind that has no human intuitive sense of when things are authentic or fakey. Whatever the intelligence is that is behind ufos, it doesn't seem SO smart as to pull off the alien thing beyond some cheesy vaudville skit.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2016
  13. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    Bells, if you really think MR is dishonest...your the mod. If you want to respect the 'freedom' of the web, then this thread is the result.
    I think it would be better to change the site's name or at least take out that sci part in 'sciforums'.
    Maybe the hits will go up. [hugs]
     
  14. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Yes... thats what i refered to earler as ether "Sht or get off the pot"... an while administration is at it... why not make a clean sweep an get rid of the rest of the riff-raff pot-sturin trouble-makers an Make Sciforums Grate Again.!!!
     
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  15. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    What do you think Bells should do with someone he/she thinks is dishonest? Remember Bells is talking of MR.
     
  16. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Well let me say this about that:::
    One time i posted a quote from Bells which i had mistakenly taken from the wrong post on the page (which didnt affect the pont i was makin) an i was sent a notice that i had received a "pont" for bein intelectualy dishonest... now that was when rules was follered to the "T" an Sciforums was Grate an i accepted my punishment wit-out complaint... ie... Sciforums shoudnt have rules they cant or dont intend to inforce... ie... people will learn they have no recourse but to shape-up or ship-out... then Sciforums will become Grate Again.!!!
    Concluson:::
    Threat of moderation wit-out action only serves to create bad posters an Sciforums suffers... so i say... ban Ban Perma-Ban.!!!
     
  17. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    Krash, this 100%, would it have anything to do with the site... https://www.luisprada.com/the_lacerta_files/
    You did admit you were the one being interviewed here...
    Do you think you are 'not a human being' ? Are you the evidence MR needs?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 9, 2016
  18. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Frankly, if a moderator applies mod action to a member who has made a genuine mistake and does this with an accompanying accusation that questions the members integrity, said moderator should be expected to make a full retraction and apology, be suspended for one month and then carefully monitored for six. Your acquiescence is noble, but ultimately makes the problem worse.
     
  19. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

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    A bit more stronger on the modding I think is needed, if that means banning, then so be it. To much freedom for freedom sake results in this kind of thread.
     
  20. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Good pont... but aparently youv'e never "discussed" wit Bells... lol... but i have... an i knew that ignorin the issue was the way to go.!!!
     
  21. Retribution Banned Banned

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    Go a few posts further up

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  22. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    I get the impression from administration that moderation ant the prollem... that bad posters is the prollem... ie... no changes in moderation is needed.!!!
     
  23. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Oops... egg on my face... my apologies to Ophiolite

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