Smooth recovery over there in Alaska, that giant expanse of north country about 2/3 of the 9000ish km between here in Hokkaido and my BC where I grew up. I've flown over you more times than I can count and never once touched down. Mean to fix that one day.
I'll wave next time you go over. If my rotator cuffs improve, lol.
Main point, as a former believer, one who came to my senses when I saw Woods & Wildmen roleplaying around me, you can't dismiss the entirety of people who believe as BLAARGing dopes. I had wrong information. Came hear 12 years ago. Learned and changed. That's the short version.
We have another poster who used the term Legend Tripping, and used this same straw man to the point of extreme disruption.
Not one person here uses the term "BLAARGing dopes", nor refers to them as dopes, nor insists all professed believers are lying.
That is why it was such a low point on the forum that the argument for "Legend Tripping" was this incessant straw man: Footers aren't BLAARGing because skeptics believe all bigfooters are lying serial killer cannibal rapists. It was straw man and victim-playing and projection too.
Because the assertion of stupidity is on the believer in the long run, not the BLAARGer. The BLAARGer can learn. The obstinancy has nothing to do with lack of intellectual faculty. He is role-playing and the actor playing a role is more intelligent than the dope who cannot understand reality and adjust his beliefs according to the evidence.
I don't get the sensitivity about changing beliefs. I believed in the Loch Ness Monster. So what? I never bring it in to a discussion for victim-playing, straw-manning, etc.
If we really are staying on topic here then I cannot let you escape whether Roger Patterson believed he was filming a bigfoot when he was filming Bob Heironimus. Walking in the suit Roger modified himself.
Or whether Roger Patterson believed, when he was doing the PGF road trip, that the film he was showing was of a real bigfoot and not Bob Heironimus. Because he told everyone that story about coming around the bend on horseback, being thrown, running towards the bigfoot, etc.
Or whether Roger Patterson believed, when he was banging Thai hotties with his road trip money, that he was looking for a Thai Yeti.
Or whether the bigfoot personalities are the first peddlers of woo who actually believed they could bend spoons, cure the crippled, talk to dead people, channel power through crystals, magnets, that all these con men, and why not the Nigerian internet scammers too... they really do believe they have twenty million dollars to share with you.
Of all these hucksters, only the Bigfoot believers are true? This is an argument for an exception that really stands out against woo peddlers.
There is a science that studies the personalities self-selecting into woo. They tell us there is no person that knows better than Roger Patterson that he is full of ****. The rush he got from the money he pulled in is called "dupers delight".
This is not opinion, and declaring opinion is not an argument. Those are the terms used in the literature on personality disorders or character disorders.
Even a high school class of people gathered to hear Patterson's talk on "Do Abominable Snowmen Really Exist" is Dupers Delight aplenty. We know from The Making of Bigfoot he was faking tracks as he put posters up advertising his talks. Is this evidence he believed? It is evidence of hoaxing for self-promotion. Long before the PGF. Years before.
Patterson was clearly a bad character, a serial con man with no scruples whatsoever. The "lying for Jesus" position attempts to re-write his long history of antisocial behavior and demonstrates zero empathy for his victims. Everyone from phone companies to grocery stores to camera stores, an insurance company, little old men and ladies, Club registrants, creditors, on and on.
In court this absolutely is evidence you want in front of a jury. When adjudicating a decision about whether he believed in bigfoot when he was defrauding all those PGF clip three-dollar entry fee viewers. His investors, a lot of them, listed in Greg Long's book. He sold rights multiple times, just like The Producers (came out ironically in 1967).
You want that in front of the Jury so reasonable people can hear all the creditors, the 400% ownership investors in film rights or whatever it was, all the family store owners or service providers, the long list of victims step up on the stand to talk about how Roger Patterson lied to their face, all of them. That Roger Patterson's singular defining character trait was that of a con man.
And hear his brother-in-law just repeat exactly what he said Roger Patterson's Bigfoot expeditions amounted too: Beer and women. A jury needs to hear that when deciding whether Patterson actually believed.
I don't see evidence of real belief, which is pretty simple for an alleged cowboy. You just go shoot one. With either a rifle or a camera. That's a pretty easy assignment for real animals.
