Hoaxs, Scams and Frauds…

[AutoliteParticipant]

I’ve always been interested in bulls~~~. I think it started when I was a little kid. My mother regularly read the ‘National Inquirer’ and it would kinda creep me out that adults believed stories like the one about ‘Bat Boy’ and ‘Hitler Still Alive’ and about space aliens and s~~~. Mom was also a fan of the book “Chariots of the Gods”.

My father wasn’t much better. He was into ‘Pyramid Power’ and bogus medical stuff like those bronze bracelets that are suppose to heal arthritis.

On another thread there was a story that cropped up about the ‘Paluxy Footprints’ (which is a known hoax*) and I find it very unsettling that there are so many folks who will buy into such things.

I have a VERY SERIOUS question for my skeptical bros on this forum. Does it bother you that we have people all around us who buy into such nonsense? How do you deal or cope with this?

The reason that I’m asking is because it bothers me and it bothers me more than I think it really should. I really want to get past the unsettling feeling that this sort of thing causes me. Does this sort of thing bother any of you the way that it bothers me? I honestly want to know if it’s just only me…

*However, the “man track” claims have not stood up to close scientific scrutiny, and in recent years have been abandoned even by most creationists. A few individuals such as Carl Baugh, Don Patton, and Ian Juby, continue to promote the Paluxy “man tracks” or alleged human tracks in Mesozoic or Paleozoic from other localities, but such claims are not considered credible by either mainstream scientists or major creationist groups.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy.html

[skinemaxJackParticipant 11]

Why do I care if someone buys nonsense? Them wasting money on snake oil leaves opportunity for me.

Father "When are you going to grow up and settle down" Son "When I damn well please."

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

You know, I think it’s sad and pathetic when people feed the trolls, send their money to Nigeria and pick up the phone no matter who’s calling… but what can you do about it?

Are you going to dedicate your life to making stupid people slightly safer? ‘Cause you aren’t going to make them less stupid.

My only regret is that I am too good of a person to take advantage of all these idiots myself.

[AutoliteParticipant]

Stargazer wrote:

You know, I think it’s sad and pathetic when people feed the trolls, send their money to Nigeria and pick up the phone no matter who’s calling… but what can you do about it?

Are you going to dedicate your life to making stupid people slightly safer? ‘Cause you aren’t going to make them less stupid.

I’ve accepted that there’s “nothing that I can do about it”. I’m going to stop trying to change people’s minds. I like to think that I’m past that now. I now see more clearly the utter futility in trying to do that. It just bothers me knowing that there are people who still buy into such obvious bulls~~~.

Are you telling me that knowing that nothing can be done about it is how I should cope? That is maybe the attitude I should be taking…

[Joey CusackParticipant 1044]

Doesn’t bother me Auto, just the way the world works. Some folks are gullible.

Funny how creative scam artists can get to make a buck. Or 100 grand a year! Would this guy have fooled you?

[AutoliteParticipant]

Joey Cusack wrote:

Would this guy have fooled you?

Well he’s dresses better than me and that would makes me think twice. I’ve actually told pan handlers that they needed to dress down if they wanted people to fork over cash…

[DarkRyuParticipant 2354]

The VAST majority of humans are beyond stupid. I’m not talking about ignorance, and I don’t blame people for making mistakes. But most humans will believe anything you tell them, hence why religion still exists in the 21st century and why all these banks and corporations can get away with the s~~~ they get away with.

I’ve just accepted this as a fact and I realize that I’m (sadly) much more intelligent than the average person. I’m very HAPPY when I meet someone of similar intelligence so we can have a conversation that’s actually interesting.

I don’t enjoy being smarter than most people. I wish I was average (though I should clarify that I wish the majority of the population was as smart as I am, NOT that I become as dumb as the rest of the population). Being intelligent is both a blessing and a curse. Being intelligent has allowed me to make very good money and become financially independent, but on the other hand if people weren’t so f~~~ing stupid we wouldn’t have a need for money anymore. Money is nothing but a TOOL USED BY THE PEOPLE IN POWER TO ENSLAVE EVERYONE ELSE. I know, because I’m almost a top 1%’er. Though that’s really not that impressive because all you have to do is make more than $500k/year to be part of the top 1%.

EVERY SINGLE DAY I have people coming into my shop who were the victim of a tech support scam. How these people still fall for this stuff is beyond me. A scammer calls up and says that they’re from “technical support” and says that your computer is infested with viruses but they can remove them for $399/year with unlimited free tech support. Then the scammer remotes in and installs keyloggers and other fun stuff so they can get your credit card numbers and steal your identity, and then at the end they charge your card for the $399 and send you on your way. I could probably set one of these operations up in China or India and be raking in $1M/year or more from it.

I would really like to see selective breeding become popular so that the intelligent have children with other intelligent people. NOT forced by the government of course, but voluntary. The sad thing though is that smart people generally don’t have children nowadays. I know I never will. The way it works is the dumber you are, the more kids you have and the smarter you are, the less kids you have.

[MGTOW KnightParticipant 7477]

Stargazer wrote:

Are you going to dedicate your life to making stupid people slightly safer? ‘Cause you aren’t going to make them less stupid.

My only regret is that I am too good of a person to take advantage of all these idiots myself.

Doc is yet again spitting truth. I couldn’t have said this better myself. (Applause)

Fuck bitches... literally and metaphorically

[MACHOParticipant]

Autolite wrote:

I’ve always been interested in bulls~~~. I think it started when I was a little kid. My mother regularly read the ‘National Inquirer’ and it would kinda creep me out that adults believed stories like the one about ‘Bat Boy’ and ‘Hitler Still Alive’ and about space aliens and s~~~. Mom was also a fan of the book “Chariots of the Gods”.

Sounds like the root of the issue started very early during your youth!

Autolite wrote:

I have a VERY SERIOUS question for my skeptical bros on this forum. Does it bother you that we have people all around us who buy into such nonsense? How do you deal or cope with this?

I have always believed that a problem half understood is already half solved! I think your early fascination has caused that fixation.

You must own a better Crystal ball than I

[,Participant 1301]

strengthen and expand your NFG with an ignore attitude.

You’ll exhaust yourself if you allow it to make you twitch inside.

Raw truth is not exact nor is it the epitome of righteousness when it comes to people. We is analogue, and we lie, and its okay.

with joy/without hate

[AutoliteParticipant]

MACHO wrote:

Sounds like the root of the issue started very early during your youth!

As a kid, a lot of things my parents believed I thought was strange. But I didn’t really know what to think. I guess it was my ‘tween’ years when I started to realize that they were full of s~~~ about a lot of things. Still, I wasn’t about to say anything and p~~~ off my meal ticket… 😀

[AutoliteParticipant]

DarkRyu wrote:

The VAST majority of humans are beyond stupid.

I think there’s more to it than that. There are otherwise very smart people who believe in very stupid things. It’s called the “need to believe” and it’s emotion driven.

Sometimes people will heed the emotional side of their mind over their logical side. When emotion, or that “need to believe” overrides logic, we get absurd belief.

That’s as best as I can figure it anyway…

[AutoliteParticipant]

, wrote:

strengthen and expand your NFG with an ignore attitude.

Thanks for that. That seems to be the gist of the replies. “NFG” needs to be the attitude that I must adopt…

[DarkRyuParticipant 2354]

Autolite wrote:

DarkRyu wrote:

The VAST majority of humans are beyond stupid.

I think there’s more to it than that. There are otherwise very smart people who believe in very stupid things. It’s called the “need to believe” and it’s emotion driven.

Sometimes people will heed the emotional side of their mind over their logical side. When emotion, or that “need to believe” overrides logic, we get absurd belief.

That’s as best as I can figure it anyway…

Sorry, but I’ve never seen that. If people allow themselves to be driven by emotion rather than logic and reason, then they lack self-discipline and behave more like stupid animals than humans.

Now there is a little thing called “intuition” that I believe is something that smart people use to help fill in the gaps when they don’t have all the necessary information. Your intuition can be wrong and you shouldn’t trust things based solely on your gut instinct, but it is a tool that you can use to help you in a tight spot.

But yes, most people don’t fall for scams because they’re using their intuition, but because they’re being led by their emotions and not thinking logically. I’m sorry, but that’s a stupid person.

Intelligence is much more than being book smart. I knew a lady that everyone thought was so freaking intelligent. She could recite just about any fact about anything. She was about as smart as Google back before Google even existed. But she was f~~~ing stupid. She had absolutely no common sense. She couldn’t think logically and foresee the end results of her actions until she had already f~~~ed up.

Intelligence is something you’re born with. Either you have it or you don’t. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to gain intelligence if you were born stupid. You can tell if a kid is intelligent before they even get to preschool. It has to do with how your mind works and how you approach problems. It’s being able to see the consequences of your actions before you decide to do something. Anyone can memorize facts, and after being here on this planet for a while, everyone gains experience. But base intelligence is different.

[AutoliteParticipant]

DarkRyu wrote:

Sorry, but I’ve never seen that. If people allow themselves to be driven by emotion rather than logic and reason, then they lack self-discipline and behave more like stupid animals than humans.

I think reference dealing with the unsettling feeling that I described in the OP, I might need to also just be more tolerant of people and try to understand why they believe in bulls~~~.

I watched a video in which Dr. Richard Carrier mentioned something called ‘Agency of Detection’.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_detection

Apparently it is a psychological trait (if that’s the right word) that humans have developed through evolution that is a supposedly a survival mechanism. It could help explain why so many people believe in ‘entities’ that just aren’t really there…

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