Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Jan 19, 2015 18:21:13 GMT -5
Sorry, double post.
And anyway, nobody likes Socratic discussions. Platonic would be better.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Jan 19, 2015 18:48:19 GMT -5
You should read this from Rational Wiki...you know, the website for rational people. Everything you ever wanted to know about chemtrails and why it doesn't make sense.
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Chemtrails
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Tennesseer
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Post by Tennesseer on Jan 19, 2015 18:58:25 GMT -5
High altitude aircraft must spray whatever they are spraying only during the winter because there are very few contrails overhead during warm months.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 19, 2015 19:08:36 GMT -5
Why must you take all the fun out of everything? Only if you don't find conspiracy debates and blue-sky thinking fun. I've devoted a good chunk of my life to scientific research. Conspiracy research is nothing like it. It's a different beast, although the goals are arguably the same. Scientific research is tightly confined. One must build in a very specific way on a very specific foundation. There are assumptions you must accept, gatekeepers you must satisfy, and limitations you have to tolerate. The result is a more or less stable, reliable pool of canonical knowledge. The knowledge is invariably limited in scope and complexity, and pertains only to phenomena that are fully observable, controllable, and repeatable, but it works extremely well for many things--so much so that most mainstream institutions of learning are predicated on it. Conspiracy research is a different beast. There are no gatekeepers, restrictions, or strict assumptions. Easily 98% of everything encountered while researching is either incorrect, baseless, or both. Sources are devoid of the canonical rigour of the hard sciences. When considering any material, one must inherently accept that it may be entirely untrue, it may be partly untrue, it may have correct observations but wrong conclusions, etc. As a result, conspiracy research is an exercise in aggregation, filtering, seeking patterns, corroborating those patterns, cross-referencing, attempting to deduce credibility of various sources, and painstakingly fitting it together into a plausible theory. It's a very nebulous, "fuzzy" phenomenon. I think of it as "fragile research". Even so, it certainly has its uses. Firstly, it exercises thinking muscles that scientific inquiry doesn't. It's requires a different set of talents that benefit cognition and awareness when properly developed. Secondly, because scientific research isn't sufficient to uncover truth of all varieties. Science demands foundations and baseline standards that aren't realistically obtainable a priori in many cases. It requires that research be conducted in a modular, incremental way rather than holistically. Routine scientific examination could never have uncovered the Manhattan Project, for example, or yielded the contents of the Snowden leaks, or deduced the nature of David Berkowitz' "Sam". It can't explain anything unique, unrepeatable, or genuinely anomalous. With respect to conspiracies, it characteristically can't overcome early barriers that contraindicate further research. In short, it's a hammer and the problem isn't a nail. As much respect as I have for science, even having devoted my career to it, I wish that people wouldn't use it as an excuse to swing from one extremum of blind subscription to conspiracy theories to the other extremum of rabid skepticism. Unfortunately, it seems that most people interested enough in a given conspiracy to discuss it fall into one of the two categories.
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ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ
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Post by ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ on Jan 19, 2015 19:12:47 GMT -5
Tenn, I live under 2 flight paths. One running north/south for take-offs & landings. Another runs east-west for trans-continental flights - the planes on the east-west flight path are usually not landing here at our Int'l airport - which is about 10-20 km from me. They're usually higher up in the atmosphere as they fly overhead - the contrails can be seen in the summer as well as winter - sometimes the large passenger liner looks like a dark dot in the sky - you can barely make out the wing-span of the plane - but you can see the long contrails it's leaving in its wake as it makes its way across the sky.
They're a moist white vapor trail and usually evaporate and disappear within a minute or two after the jet has passed over.
It's somewhat frightening to read how many people actually buy into the chemtrail conspiracies - that the Government is covertly spreading harmful gases into our atmosphere.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Jan 19, 2015 19:19:12 GMT -5
Tenn, I live under 2 flight paths. One running north/south for take-offs & landings. Another runs east-west for trans-continental flights - the planes on the east-west flight path are usually not landing here at our Int'l airport - which is about 10-20 km from me. They're usually higher up in the atmosphere as they fly overhead - the contrails can be seen in the summer as well as winter - sometimes the large passenger liner looks like a dark dot in the sky - you can barely make out the wing-span of the plane - but you can see the long contrails it's leaving in its wake as it makes its way across the sky.
They're a moist white vapor trail and usually evaporate and disappear within a minute or two after the jet has passed over.
It's somewhat frightening to read how many people actually buy into the chemtrail conspiracies - that the Government is covertly spreading harmful gases into our atmosphere.
Yep, the very same gases that they themselves, as well as their loved ones, are breathing.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 19, 2015 19:20:05 GMT -5
You should read this from Rational Wiki...you know, the website for rational people... ...or who at least like to think they are. ...and tell everyone about it. You should read this from Rational Wiki...you know, the website for rational people. Everything you ever wanted to know about chemtrails and why it doesn't make sense.
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Chemtrails I did. Read the OP for the many reasons as to why their article isn't sufficient for our debate. If you do bother to read the OP, also note where dumping in articles and saying, "This is what my favourite skeptic wiki has to say about it." is precisely what I'm not looking for.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 19, 2015 19:22:10 GMT -5
It's somewhat frightening to read how many people actually buy into the chemtrail conspiracies - that the Government is covertly spreading harmful gases into our atmosphere.
Why is it frightening, exactly? Is it more frightening than, say, people irrationally believing that their pet cat loves them?
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Jan 19, 2015 19:28:18 GMT -5
It's somewhat frightening to read how many people actually buy into the chemtrail conspiracies - that the Government is covertly spreading harmful gases into our atmosphere.
Why is it frightening, exactly? Is it more frightening than, say, people irrationally believing that their pet cat loves them? My cat does love me. He told me so.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 19, 2015 19:29:00 GMT -5
High altitude aircraft must spray whatever they are spraying only during the winter because there are very few contrails overhead during warm months. I imagine the chemicals would only be distinctly visible as a condensate, which is also dictated by temperature. Also, I'm not quite sure what you're basing your observation on. Do you actually keep a mental log of the months you've seen contrails in?
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 19, 2015 19:37:18 GMT -5
Why is it frightening, exactly? Is it more frightening than, say, people irrationally believing that their pet cat loves them? My cat does love me. He told me so. Well you're scaring SL apparently. So stop it.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Jan 19, 2015 19:44:28 GMT -5
Why is it frightening, exactly? Is it more frightening than, say, people irrationally believing that their pet cat loves them? My cat does love me. He told me so. Sushi is like the Chooch. He has to love you. Nobody else would have him. I've also got a story of cat love proven, but this isn't the place for it.
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dannylion
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Post by dannylion on Jan 19, 2015 19:48:14 GMT -5
Why must you take all the fun out of everything? Only if you don't find conspiracy debates and blue-sky thinking fun. I've devoted a good chunk of my life to scientific research. Conspiracy research is nothing like it. It's a different beast, although the goals are arguably the same. Scientific research is tightly confined. One must build in a very specific way on a very specific foundation. There are assumptions you must accept, gatekeepers you must satisfy, and limitations you have to tolerate. The result is a more or less stable, reliable pool of canonical knowledge. The knowledge is invariably limited in scope and complexity, and pertains only to phenomena that are fully observable, controllable, and repeatable, but it works extremely well for many things--so much so that most mainstream institutions of learning are predicated on it. Conspiracy research is a different beast. There are no gatekeepers, restrictions, or strict assumptions. Easily 98% of everything encountered while researching is either incorrect, baseless, or both. Sources are devoid of the canonical rigour of the hard sciences. When considering any material, one must inherently accept that it may be entirely untrue, it may be partly untrue, it may have correct observations but wrong conclusions, etc. As a result, conspiracy research is an exercise in aggregation, filtering, seeking patterns, corroborating those patterns, cross-referencing, attempting to deduce credibility of various sources, and painstakingly fitting it together into a plausible theory. It's a very nebulous, "fuzzy" phenomenon. I think of it as "fragile research". Even so, it certainly has its uses. Firstly, it exercises thinking muscles that scientific inquiry doesn't. It's requires a different set of talents that benefit cognition and awareness when properly developed. Secondly, because scientific research isn't sufficient to uncover truth of all varieties. Science demands foundations and baseline standards that aren't realistically obtainable a priori in many cases. It requires that research be conducted in a modular, incremental way rather than holistically. Routine scientific examination could never have uncovered the Manhattan Project, for example, or yielded the contents of the Snowden leaks, or deduced the nature of David Berkowitz' "Sam". It can't explain anything unique, unrepeatable, or genuinely anomalous. With respect to conspiracies, it characteristically can't overcome early barriers that contraindicate further research. In short, it's a hammer and the problem isn't a nail. As much respect as I have for science, even having devoted my career to it, I wish that people wouldn't use it as an excuse to swing from one extremum of blind subscription to conspiracy theories to the other extremum of rabid skepticism. Unfortunately, it seems that most people interested enough in a given conspiracy to discuss it fall into one of the two categories. When I was at tech school back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was a civilian instructor who was convinced that "they" were beaming signals into his body. He had no clear explanation for why this was being done and none at all, or at least none that was comprehensible, as to why it was being done to him. He just believed it was being done. This was not a stupid man, but he did have a lot of other quirks that made it clear that his thought processes were way off the edge of the rational chart. This belief consumed his life and made everyday interactions and just everyday life very difficult. He lined all of his clothing with aluminum foil and wore a bucket on his head. (The MPs were eventually able to persuade him not to wear the bucket while he was driving.)
I had an acquaintance several years ago who was convinced that "they" were out to get her. She believed that "they" read her email, broke into her house and stole her mailbox key then stole her mail, followed her on the highway, tapped her telephone and internet connection, and conspired to deny her recognition and promotions at work. The sad truth was she was just crazy. She would concoct elaborate conspiracy theories using selected snippets of actual information and incidents that had happened to someone else and had nothing at all to do with her and combine that with bits and pieces of overheard conversations that had nothing to do with her and weave it all into a grand story with herself as the center and the target. This was an otherwise kind, generous, and funny person. (Unfortunately, she was also not very good at her job, hence the lack of recognition or promotions).
There was nothing really interesting in their thought processes, at least not to me, as they were clearly deranged. I found all of this very sad. These were two otherwise decent, potentially productive people who were profoundly unhappy and crippled socially and professionally by mental illness. That's kind of the reaction I have toward the chemtrail/NWO/Illuminati/Bilderberg conspiracy whackos. It just makes me sad.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 19, 2015 19:48:53 GMT -5
My cat does love me. He told me so. Sushi is like the Chooch. He has to love you. Nobody else would have him. I've also got a story of cat love proven, but this isn't the place for it. We'll start up a cat love conspiracy thread somewhere down the road. We seem to have a lot of conspiracy nutte unusually open-minded posters when it comes to anthropomorphizing pets.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 19, 2015 19:59:36 GMT -5
Only if you don't find conspiracy debates and blue-sky thinking fun. I've devoted a good chunk of my life to scientific research. Conspiracy research is nothing like it. It's a different beast, although the goals are arguably the same. Scientific research is tightly confined. One must build in a very specific way on a very specific foundation. There are assumptions you must accept, gatekeepers you must satisfy, and limitations you have to tolerate. The result is a more or less stable, reliable pool of canonical knowledge. The knowledge is invariably limited in scope and complexity, and pertains only to phenomena that are fully observable, controllable, and repeatable, but it works extremely well for many things--so much so that most mainstream institutions of learning are predicated on it. Conspiracy research is a different beast. There are no gatekeepers, restrictions, or strict assumptions. Easily 98% of everything encountered while researching is either incorrect, baseless, or both. Sources are devoid of the canonical rigour of the hard sciences. When considering any material, one must inherently accept that it may be entirely untrue, it may be partly untrue, it may have correct observations but wrong conclusions, etc. As a result, conspiracy research is an exercise in aggregation, filtering, seeking patterns, corroborating those patterns, cross-referencing, attempting to deduce credibility of various sources, and painstakingly fitting it together into a plausible theory. It's a very nebulous, "fuzzy" phenomenon. I think of it as "fragile research". Even so, it certainly has its uses. Firstly, it exercises thinking muscles that scientific inquiry doesn't. It's requires a different set of talents that benefit cognition and awareness when properly developed. Secondly, because scientific research isn't sufficient to uncover truth of all varieties. Science demands foundations and baseline standards that aren't realistically obtainable a priori in many cases. It requires that research be conducted in a modular, incremental way rather than holistically. Routine scientific examination could never have uncovered the Manhattan Project, for example, or yielded the contents of the Snowden leaks, or deduced the nature of David Berkowitz' "Sam". It can't explain anything unique, unrepeatable, or genuinely anomalous. With respect to conspiracies, it characteristically can't overcome early barriers that contraindicate further research. In short, it's a hammer and the problem isn't a nail. As much respect as I have for science, even having devoted my career to it, I wish that people wouldn't use it as an excuse to swing from one extremum of blind subscription to conspiracy theories to the other extremum of rabid skepticism. Unfortunately, it seems that most people interested enough in a given conspiracy to discuss it fall into one of the two categories. When I was at tech school back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, there was a civilian instructor who was convinced that "they" were beaming signals into his body. He had no clear explanation for why this was being done and none at all, or at least none that was comprehensible, as to why it was being done to him. He just believed it was being done. This was not a stupid man, but he did have a lot of other quirks that made it clear that his thought processes were way off the edge of the rational chart. This belief consumed his life and made everyday interactions and just everyday life very difficult. He lined all of his clothing with aluminum foil and wore a bucket on his head. (The MPs were eventually able to persuade him not to wear the bucket while he was driving.)
I had an acquaintance several years ago who was convinced that "they" were out to get her. She believed that "they" read her email, broke into her house and stole her mailbox key then stole her mail, followed her on the highway, tapped her telephone and internet connection, and conspired to deny her recognition and promotions at work. The sad truth was she was just crazy. She would concoct elaborate conspiracy theories using selected snippets of actual information and incidents that had happened to someone else and had nothing at all to do with her and combine that with bits and pieces of overheard conversations that had nothing to do with her and weave it all into a grand story with herself as the center and the target. This was an otherwise kind, generous, and funny person. (Unfortunately, she was also not very good at her job, hence the lack of recognition or promotions).
There was nothing really interesting in their thought processes, at least not to me, as they were clearly deranged. I found all of this very sad. These were two otherwise decent, potentially productive people who were profoundly unhappy and crippled socially and professionally by mental illness. That's kind of the reaction I have toward the chemtrail/NWO/Illuminati/Bilderberg conspiracy whackos. It just makes me sad.
Not all theorists are like that. I've seen paranoid schizophrenia firsthand. I know how dangerous it can be. Generally speaking, it's "different" from run-of-the-mill Internet paranoia. But Internet paranoia can get superlatively bad too. I usually point people to www.timecube.com as a cautionary warning about how far gone some people are. But as I say, not all theorists are like that. That's one of the reasons these subject are so hard to debate. Even before the debate begins, it's an exceptional undertaking to sift out a few scholarly individuals from among a sea of paranoiacs or conspiracy hobbyists, and few people ever make the effort.
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b2r
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Post by b2r on Jan 19, 2015 23:14:04 GMT -5
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imanangel
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Post by imanangel on Jan 20, 2015 0:31:05 GMT -5
The theories are all true. Shhh...be careful, we are being watched. Last night I was about to blow the lid off the whole thing and was suddenly silenced. I typed it all up and then it disappeared into an abyss. After that, I wasn't able to access the boards. I need some tinfoil.
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ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ
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Post by ՏՇԾԵԵʅՏɧ_LԹՏՏʅҼ on Jan 20, 2015 0:53:36 GMT -5
Step away from your Conspiracy Theorist there in Italy... but be sure and don the suit first:
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cael
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Post by cael on Jan 20, 2015 8:42:39 GMT -5
My cat does love me... she snuggled up against my face and purred at me this morning! ....or was she trying to smother me? We'll never know.. Once last summer when we (my office) were manning a table at a local farmer's market for work (with public health information), a crazy guy came up to us and talked about chemtrails for 5 minutes before wandering away again. Asked us why we weren't concerned about it since he thought it was a public health issue that the government was poisoning people. When he left, my nurse (who's young and not naive, but probably not aware of crazy stuff like I am lol) had to ask me wtf he was talking about, she thought he was kidding. He was not.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 20, 2015 8:56:54 GMT -5
My cat does love me... she snuggled up against my face and purred at me this morning! ....or was she trying to smother me? We'll never know.. Once last summer when we (my office) were manning a table at a local farmer's market for work (with public health information), a crazy guy came up to us and talked about chemtrails for 5 minutes before wandering away again. Asked us why we weren't concerned about it since he thought it was a public health issue that the government was poisoning people. When he left, my nurse (who's young and not naive, but probably not aware of crazy stuff like I am lol) had to ask me wtf he was talking about, she thought he was kidding. He was not. 1) Your cat snuggling you does not mean it loves you. 2) Now that you've read this thread, the next time a CTC theorist accosts you, you can tell him you've properly educated yourself on the topic and his efforts are better spent on informing the unenlightened.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Jan 20, 2015 10:48:17 GMT -5
I've heard of Western countries using AIDS to kill off Africans, the CIA killed John Kennedy, all the stuff around Roswell aliens, the generalized aliens gave us technology stuff, and the whole thing about Free Masons running the world. Gotta say though, never heard of chemtrails. I only recently saw something about this and I immediately dismissed it as an unfounded distraction. Filed under "don't know, don't care".
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wyouser
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Post by wyouser on Jan 20, 2015 11:35:55 GMT -5
Conspiracy Theory? Spaying chemicals into the air? That has nothing to do with governments people. It's all those damn wasps , gnats , and mosquitos! If they'd leave "we the people" alone we wouldn't be fogging up the planet trying to "OFF" their little asses with Deep Woods Off!
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Jan 20, 2015 13:52:47 GMT -5
Conspiracy Theory? Spaying chemicals into the air? That has nothing to do with governments people. It's all those damn wasps , gnats , and mosquitos! If they'd leave "we the people" alone we wouldn't be fogging up the planet trying to "OFF" their little asses with Deep Woods Off! I WISH they'd do something about them. Instead they spray this inert waxy shit everywhere. I say bring back the DDT. And if you don't agree with me, you don't live in Florida.
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Bob Ross
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Post by Bob Ross on Jan 20, 2015 17:25:30 GMT -5
I WISH they'd do something about them. Instead they spray this inert waxy shit everywhere. I say bring back the DDT. And if you don't agree with me, you don't live in Florida. I'm completely OK with covering Floriduh in DDT, or napalm. Would save medicare a ton. I'm completely OK with merging Florida and Germany and putting a camera on every street corner to capture the hilarity. And after that, the napalm.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Jan 21, 2015 17:40:20 GMT -5
I'm completely OK with covering Floriduh in DDT, or napalm. Would save medicare a ton. I'm completely OK with merging Florida and Germany and putting a camera on every street corner to capture the hilarity. And after that, the napalm. You guys are just cold.
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weltschmerz
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Post by weltschmerz on Jan 22, 2015 13:02:34 GMT -5
Conspiracy Theory? Spaying chemicals into the air? That has nothing to do with governments people. It's all those damn wasps , gnats , and mosquitos! If they'd leave "we the people" alone we wouldn't be fogging up the planet trying to "OFF" their little asses with Deep Woods Off! I WISH they'd do something about them. Instead they spray this inert waxy shit everywhere. I say bring back the DDT. And if you don't agree with me, you don't live in Florida. The same DDT that almost made eagles and brown pelicans extinct? That DDT? Yeah, it sounds like a great plan.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Jan 24, 2015 20:19:20 GMT -5
I WISH they'd do something about them. Instead they spray this inert waxy shit everywhere. I say bring back the DDT. And if you don't agree with me, you don't live in Florida. The same DDT that almost made eagles and brown pelicans extinct? That DDT? Yeah, it sounds like a great plan.
You still believe that fraud? She murdered, and continues to murder nearly 2 million people a year by preventable disease- mostly children- since DDT was banned. Disgusting. Literally sickening. www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/Carson.html
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 24, 2015 20:29:11 GMT -5
The same DDT that almost made eagles and brown pelicans extinct? That DDT? Yeah, it sounds like a great plan.
You still believe that fraud? She murdered, and continues to murder nearly 2 million people a year by preventable disease- mostly children- since DDT was banned. Disgusting. Literally sickening. www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/Carson.htmlThe fact that DDT kills off the insects responsible for spreading disease isn't exactly a stellar argument in favour of using it. Yes, two million people per year might avoid contracting malaria and live slightly longer until inevitably being killed off by famine, war, and other pestilences. But insects are also a fundamental pillar of the food chain. The consequences of wiping them out make two million deaths per year seem trivial by comparison.
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AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP
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Post by AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP on Jan 24, 2015 23:05:54 GMT -5
The fact that DDT kills off the insects responsible for spreading disease isn't exactly a stellar argument in favour of using it. Yes, two million people per year might avoid contracting malaria and live slightly longer until inevitably being killed off by famine, war, and other pestilences. But insects are also a fundamental pillar of the food chain. The consequences of wiping them out make two million deaths per year seem trivial by comparison. If this were even remotely true, it would be of concern. However, "Silent Spring" is not a scientific work at all, but a lie made of whole cloth. It's a fairy tale from beginning to end. It is utterly without merit.Page 106. In Lansing, Michigan, a spray program began in l954 against the bark beetles that were transmitting Dutch Elm disease. Carson states “[With local programs for gypsy moth and mosquito control also under way, the rain of chemicals increased to a downpour.” She expresses no concern for the survival of the magnificent elm trees, the dying oak trees, or the torment of people who lived near hordes of blood-sucking mosquitoes, but has tremendous pity for a few birds that had disappeared from the sprayed areas. These positions brought her very little support from the residents. Carson praises Michigan State University ornithologist George Wallace, who had theorized that robins on the campus were dying because they had eaten earthworms containing DDT from the soil. Many other areas sprayed with DDT did not have dying robins, but Carson studiously avoids mentioning that. Wallace also did not mention the high levels of mercury on the ground and in the earthworms (from soil fungicide treatments on the Michigan campus), even though the symptoms displayed by the dying robins were those attributable to mercury poisoning. Instead, Wallace (and Carson) sought to blame only DDT for the deaths. The dead birds Wallace sent out for subsequent study were analyzed by a method that detected only “total chlorine content” and could not determine what kind of chlorine was present; none was analyzed for mercury contamination). It was obviously highly irresponsible for Wallace and Carson to jump to the conclusion that the Michigan State University robins were being killed by DDT, and especially for Carson to highlight the false theory in her book long after the truth was evident. In many feeding experiments birds, including robins, were forced to ingest great quantities of DDT (and its breakdown product, DDE). Wallace did not provide any evidence that indicated the Michigan State University robins may have been killed by those chemicals. Researcher Joseph Hickey at the University of Wisconsin had testified before the Environmental Protection Agency hearings on DDT specifically that he could not kill any robins by overdosing them with DDT because the birds simply passed it through their digestive tract and eliminated it in their feces. Many other feeding experiments by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and various university researchers repeatedly showed that DDT and DDE in the diet could not have killed wild birds under field conditions. If Carson had mentioned these pertinent details it would have devastated her major theme, which continued to be the awful threats posed by DDT to all nonhuman creatures on the face of the Earth. Instead of providing the facts that would clarify such conditions, she spent several more pages on unfounded allegations about DDT and various kinds of birds. Page 109. Carson alleges that because of the spray programs, “Heavy mortality has occurred among about 90 species of birds, including those most familiar to suburbanites and amateur naturalists. ... All the various types of birds are affected—ground feeders, treetop feeders, bark feeders, predators.” Carson provides no references to confirm that allegation. The Audubon Christmas Bird Counts, in fact, continued to reveal that more birds were counted, per observer, during the greatest “DDT years,” including those types that Carson had declared to be declining in numbers. When marshes were sprayed with DDT to control the mosquitoes, a common result was a population explosion of birds inhabiting the marshes. The increases evidently occurred because of a reduction in bird diseases that were formerly transmitted by local blood-sucking insects, greater abundance of available food (less plant destruction by insects), and increased quantities of hepatic enzymes produced by the birds as a result of ingesting DDT (these enzymes destroy cancer-causing aflatoxins in birds and other vertebrates). www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/Carson.html
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Virgil Showlion
Distinguished Associate
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[b]leones potest resistere[/b]
Joined: Dec 20, 2010 15:19:33 GMT -5
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Jan 24, 2015 23:38:21 GMT -5
The fact that DDT kills off the insects responsible for spreading disease isn't exactly a stellar argument in favour of using it. Yes, two million people per year might avoid contracting malaria and live slightly longer until inevitably being killed off by famine, war, and other pestilences. But insects are also a fundamental pillar of the food chain. The consequences of wiping them out make two million deaths per year seem trivial by comparison. If this were even remotely true, it would be of concern. However, "Silent Spring" is not a scientific work at all, but a lie made of whole cloth. It's a fairy tale from beginning to end. It is utterly without merit.Page 106. In Lansing, Michigan, a spray program began in l954 against the bark beetles that were transmitting Dutch Elm disease. Carson states “[With local programs for gypsy moth and mosquito control also under way, the rain of chemicals increased to a downpour.” She expresses no concern for the survival of the magnificent elm trees, the dying oak trees, or the torment of people who lived near hordes of blood-sucking mosquitoes, but has tremendous pity for a few birds that had disappeared from the sprayed areas. These positions brought her very little support from the residents. Carson praises Michigan State University ornithologist George Wallace, who had theorized that robins on the campus were dying because they had eaten earthworms containing DDT from the soil. Many other areas sprayed with DDT did not have dying robins, but Carson studiously avoids mentioning that. Wallace also did not mention the high levels of mercury on the ground and in the earthworms (from soil fungicide treatments on the Michigan campus), even though the symptoms displayed by the dying robins were those attributable to mercury poisoning. Instead, Wallace (and Carson) sought to blame only DDT for the deaths. The dead birds Wallace sent out for subsequent study were analyzed by a method that detected only “total chlorine content” and could not determine what kind of chlorine was present; none was analyzed for mercury contamination). It was obviously highly irresponsible for Wallace and Carson to jump to the conclusion that the Michigan State University robins were being killed by DDT, and especially for Carson to highlight the false theory in her book long after the truth was evident. In many feeding experiments birds, including robins, were forced to ingest great quantities of DDT (and its breakdown product, DDE). Wallace did not provide any evidence that indicated the Michigan State University robins may have been killed by those chemicals. Researcher Joseph Hickey at the University of Wisconsin had testified before the Environmental Protection Agency hearings on DDT specifically that he could not kill any robins by overdosing them with DDT because the birds simply passed it through their digestive tract and eliminated it in their feces. Many other feeding experiments by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and various university researchers repeatedly showed that DDT and DDE in the diet could not have killed wild birds under field conditions. If Carson had mentioned these pertinent details it would have devastated her major theme, which continued to be the awful threats posed by DDT to all nonhuman creatures on the face of the Earth. Instead of providing the facts that would clarify such conditions, she spent several more pages on unfounded allegations about DDT and various kinds of birds. Page 109. Carson alleges that because of the spray programs, “Heavy mortality has occurred among about 90 species of birds, including those most familiar to suburbanites and amateur naturalists. ... All the various types of birds are affected—ground feeders, treetop feeders, bark feeders, predators.” Carson provides no references to confirm that allegation. The Audubon Christmas Bird Counts, in fact, continued to reveal that more birds were counted, per observer, during the greatest “DDT years,” including those types that Carson had declared to be declining in numbers. When marshes were sprayed with DDT to control the mosquitoes, a common result was a population explosion of birds inhabiting the marshes. The increases evidently occurred because of a reduction in bird diseases that were formerly transmitted by local blood-sucking insects, greater abundance of available food (less plant destruction by insects), and increased quantities of hepatic enzymes produced by the birds as a result of ingesting DDT (these enzymes destroy cancer-causing aflatoxins in birds and other vertebrates). www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/Carson.htmlIt's an interesting and valid criticism, Paul, but the fact remains that the purpose of DDT was to wipe out insect populations. As many benefits as that may have, it can have a detrimental or even devastating impact on entire ecosystems. Perhaps in Africa, where the risk of malaria is so high, using DDT makes sense to cull the insect populations. It also makes sense there to grow some of the vitamin-A-enriched frankenfoods since the potential consequences are unlikely to outweigh the benefits to public health. In North America, malaria, vitamin A deficiency, etc. aren't major concerns, while other things such as the collapse of insect colonies, extinction of species, cancer, heart disease, etc. very much are and the risk/reward equation changes. Read through the Wiki article on DDT for a litany of serious environmental and health hazards associated with it, none of which are founded in "Silent Spring". We don't absolutely need DDT here, and good riddance to it. If ever we run into a raging malaria outbreak, I'll be more than happy to bring it back. ETA: Also, I notice in the Wiki article that malaria is only responsible for roughly 800K deaths per year in Africa, hence even if 100% of all malaria infections were caused by mosquitoes, and DDT was 100% effective in wiping out mosquitoes, your figure of 2 million deaths per year is still off by more than a factor of two. I'm not sure where you got it from.
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