Edx, you described how you were treated in a another thread, when you first joined
Why are you now exhibiting and condoning the same behaviour that you described being subject to by people here?
For a start, at the time I wasnt aware of how much Alex Jones and Loose Change lie and just how bad they were. I really shouldn't have been defending them.
Secondly, you arent aware of the conversations I'm referring to or of the points I raised. I can see now that as I was defending the truthers
based on
my own ignorance of a lot of the points I was making, I just couldnt see it at the time. But either I was too slow to get it or they weren't explaining it to me clear enough it just went to argument hell eventually, which means you end up debating more about who said what and what they really meant when they said it, rather than about the points in question.
The only valid point I made was that certain debunkers can have a tendency to not have much time anymore to assume you are honest because they have come across so many liars in the truth movement (
such as those just "JAQing"). As a consequence they can come across as very short and even rude sometimes, as a casual observer if you dont know why you could wonder why they were like that.
I had great respect for skeptics for a long time and this forum and the JREF in general since I had debated religion and Creation and general "woo" for ages. I really had no knowledge of any conspiracy theories and the people who promoted them apart from Creationist ones until I learnt about 911Truthers through Zeitgeist, eventually I realised my skeptics and JREF community didnt subscribe to it, but instead of discarding them as "close minded" or say they were just working for the gubmint (
which I thought was just plain stupid) I was willing to find out WHY they were so critical and acted that way, since at the back of my mind I knew there had to be a reason. So I at least wanted to see if I could find out what that was.
As I eventually discarded all truther beliefs and debated them myself, I can now see where all that frustration comes from. Not all truthers are like that, but they are ones that are willing to change their minds and several people have PM'd me in other forums and said I helped them change their minds and helped them think differently.
Around here unfortunately you usually get the worst of the worst, the looniest of the looniest. Just look at Bill Smith, who thinks glowing molten steel was running down the streets and covering buildings or Heiwa who believes that you'd have to drop the top part of the WTC from a distance of 2 miles up in order to crush the bottom part.
But thats just the tip of the ice berg. Since I stated a
youtube channel the kinds of things truthers have told me have been I-N-S-A-N-E. So yes, I have grown quite frustrated with them myself and while I know i am a lot more patient than some people here I would have given myself a good thrashing back then believe me even though I would have been more patient. Thing is, I would have listened, because I did. For example, while I didnt like the way Mark Roberts argued at all on the internet, I had to admit that he was right and now I really respect the work he did and why he gets so pissed off at these guys. If you look at my opening post, I deserved a MUCH worse reception than I got, yet people like TAM welcomed me.
