BLAARGing

[River]

Apparently some people don't know what evidence means.

Evidence of what? (be specific, and scientific)

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

I just don't see why you can't find another good reason to have fun in the woods without lying.

This is a big con job 'footers have managed to pull off. As a rule they are not people who get out in the woods by any ordinary outdoorsman standard. That is why they call driving to a picnic area an "expedition", and why one of our current proponents has done a grand total of two in the last couple of years. The most vocal of all says it is a health issue that keeps him from getting out at all.

If you don't get out, or rarely, then that leaves you with lying if you are going to present yourself as having some kind of meaningful outdoor credentials. I was out three hours today hauling logs with my son two miles back in the wilderness. That is the correct term to use for where we were, I did not wear camo, I did not have a gun, but I don't need to pretend because these logs are worth $5-$6 per foot. I am back home because my chain saw pull start rope broke and now the snow is too warm to make it back up the mountain.

Shrike is a great example of having spent years on the bigfoot forums trying to convince people of their folly when they never believed in the first place. But now he is showing whole classes of undergraduates how to BLAARG, and this is way more effective than taking on all of the canards.


I came here after years of studying manipulative personality disorders. It was striking to me how all of the BLAARGer tactics precisely matched, and it made no difference whether they said they believed or denied that they believed. Their arguments were exactly the same and both were lying about what they were doing. Both were playing the "let's toy with naiive skeptics" game.

What we learn from this literature is that manipulative people most of all want to discredit the people who know them by their tactics and expose them for what they are. Sharon Hill and jerrywayne have the biggest personal insults for people cutting too close to the bone. Instead of a logical argument you get comments about being a dick or foaming at the mouth. It is another really big clue.

HarryHenderson is making the point that we can easily understand why a person only casually acquainted with bigfoot can think it a reasonable belief. But as you spend progressively more time in it and are forced to contend with reality the BLAARGing hypothesis has ever greater validation.

 

[bruto]

I had a wonderful photograph of a bigfoot, but unfortunately a bigfoot snuck in to my house and peed on it so now it's all blurry. Trust me on this, they're very clever.

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

The best example of BLAARGing I see in bigfootery is streaming into American living rooms almost daily on Finding Bigfoot. Every one of those (quite literal) characters is acting in a specific role on that show, and each is completely incongruent with the claims of finding squatchy evidence in each episode. The last thing I would do if I actually believed I was in the presence of one or more wood apes would be to leave the area as they do every week on that show.

Notice how much of a lie the so-called skeptic role is on that show.

I think one part of these discussions that may be vexing to jerrywayne is that the cases we discuss here are very often BLAARGy. The fact that there may be a majority of people at the BFF who actually believe in bigfoot rarely enters into our discussions here. Instead, we tend to address specific claims like those of BLAARGer Chris and the BLAARGers at NAWACKy, OK. Just because >50% of our threads here might address BLAARGers does not mean that >50% of bigfooters are BLAARGers.

This does not explain his years of relentless misrepresentation of BLAARGing.

Why would someone incessantly misrepresent the views of others? The way to demonstrate someone is incorrect in an application of a theory is to pony up the evidence instead of lying about their position and then using the logical fallacy of the golden mean.

Roger Patterson is wonderful as an example. Evidence: long history of hoaxing tracks. Hoaxing a film. Hoaxing the Indian tracker and then hoaxing an actor to play the hoaxing Indian. The absurd bigfoot capture van. The absurd blasting of loud music to "attract" this allegedly secretive animal, the building of the tree house not on a remote site where bigfoot should be but instead on Jerry Merrit's movie prop Hollywood western town. His entire lifetime of conning people out of money. Where does he go after making money on his hoax film? To Thailand, with no bigfoot history whatsoever but known as an army boy for delightful bar girls. But he lies and says it is a bigfoot expedition. His film is not an aberration of "lying for Jesus" amidst all his true efforts. It is exactly like all of his other conning.

The only legitimate thing he did besides the army was circus and entertainment performance arts. This background screams fraud, not true believer. What evidence can be laid down for true belief? Neither of the two people asserting his true belief has offered one shred of evidence.

Given Roger Patterson is the first one up as an example of true belief - wow, what a lack of evidence indeed!

 

[The Shrike]

In bigfooter taxonomy, I sense a good deal of overlap between hoaxers and BLAARGers. I see the former as a subset of the latter. Thoughts?

 

[Vermonter]

I didn't know it had an actual definition - I thought it was a euphemism for projectile-vomiting made-up stories everywhere.

 

[Tolls]

Anecdotes are a form of evidence. They aren't very hard evidence, but still a type of evidence in my opinion.

And against the anecdotes we have a complete lack of any physical evidence. No hair or scat or anything. Nothing to show that a 7'+ unidentified thing is living out there in those woods. Things that we can find for pretty much any other beastie, including ones significantly smaller than the aforementioned ape.

All this lack of evidence in areas that haven't been unexplored wilds in centuries.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Apparently some people don't know what evidence means.

But it's OK; you can, in fact, learn what "evidence" means, and what evidence actually is.

What is it that you have, that you, personally, think represents evidence (concrete, empirical, objective, non-anecdotal evidence) of the existence of a previously uncatalogued giant North American primate?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Anecdotes are a form of evidence. They aren't very hard evidence, but still a type of evidence in my opinion. The geographical patterns found in sightings are a much harder form of evidence.

The PGF is another form of strong evidence.

Of course, people can use all sorts of special-pleading to try and dismiss these. And they can at least to their own satisfaction because evidence is all it is, not proof.

And this is a good place to start. Anecdote, particularly contrafactual and contradictory anecdote, is not "evidence". Anecdote may,in fact, be a good reason to suspect that there may be a phenomenon about which to seek evidence, but it is not, in fact, "evidence".

At best, anecdote could be considered evidence of the fact that a person believessomething has happened; or wishes to be taken as so believing.

You might also want to brush up on your concept of "special pleading". It is not, for instance, "special pleading" to point out that other large fauna leave physical evidence of their existence (hair, scat,middens, corpses, nests, and so on). The parties doing the"special pleading" are those who make excuses for the fact that 'Squatch leaves none of this--by claiming, or implying, that 'Squatch is different.

 

[Resume]

In bigfooter taxonomy, I sense a good deal of overlap between hoaxers and BLAARGers. I see the former as a subset of the latter. Thoughts?

I think hoaxers are indeed BLAARGers, playing the footie game for reasons ranging from status (look what I "discovered!") to fun, to $$.

 

[Arisia]

Sadly there must be plenty of money in it for the cable channels and certain presenters on those channels that clearly know they're promoting a fallacy.

 

[Psi Baba]

The best example of BLAARGing I see in bigfootery is streaming into American living rooms almost daily on Finding Bigfoot. Every one of those (quite literal) characters is acting in a specific role on that show, and each is completely incongruent with the claims of finding squatchy evidence in each episode. The last thing I would do if I actually believed I was in the presence of one or more wood apes would be to leave the area as they do every week on that show.

I was going to suggest this too. I mean, it's a TV show, for goodness sake. They're getting paid to do that. It's BLAARGing by definition. If they were to actually find Bigfoot, the show would be over. Therefore, the #1 goal of that show is to NOT find Bigfoot. We all know the title of the show should be Talking About Pretending to be Looking for Bigfoot.

 

[William Parcher]

This is my understanding of BLAARGing.

For further explanation and correct me if I'm wrong -- You are saying that perhaps a person claiming to believe in Bigfoot is making that claim because he does not believe in Bigfoot.

Well no not the way you just put it. A disbelief in Bigfoot in not the cause of BLAARGing. It would be caused by some attractor(s) to having people think that you are a believer and that Bigfoot exists. There is a range of possible attractors and only one of them is money. The majority do not seem to be in it for money and instead it seems to be a self-satisfying hobby/pastime.

BLAARGing can be thought of in really simple basic terms. It is pretending that Bigfoot is real or probably real and consequently pretending that you are a believer.

BLAARGing seems to be a form of trolling, in a way.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The whole "BLAARGing" thing came about due to the Figbooters* having a distinct tone and style that separates them from other slingers of Woo. It really does seem like they are following a script or a guide

I've long thought that outside of your outright traditional trolls or the mentally impaired the vast majority of Woo Slingers don't actually believe in their Woo in the same way a person believes in stuff that actually exists. They are arguing something they don't actually think in order to make some grander point. There's just too much disconnect between what they are arguing and what they are claiming. Often times I get the impression that with the more sincere among them know exactly how discussions with skeptics are going to go before they even start them and go through the motions to verify to themselves that skeptics are a bunch of big closed minded meanies so they can pat themselves on the back about being more open minded.

It does come across as this weird performance art or skit. I've often said that arguing with a Woo Slinger is like being dropped into a scene with someone and they got their half of the script but you didn't.

And with Figbootery it is so very extreme. The tone, the language, the arguments stay so consistent that it is like dealing with different members of the same club.

*Standard butt covering shouldn't be necessary BOCTAOE

 

[dmaker]

I believe social acceptance is a large driver for some BLAARGers. All you have to do is pretend you believe or even that you are open to the idea and you gain instant credibility with the community. Now you have a common enemy--skeptics and mainstream science. You have forums where you can go to fight the good fight. These are, of course, all level 1 activities.

As you advance you can perhaps create your own blog or web site. Maybe you will found an XXRO type organization for your state or region. Goodness knows, we don't have enough of those. Perhaps your interest may lead to you writing a book, or joining a high profile failure like the Falcon project. Or you might end up on TV submitting moss as a hair sample while the rest of the world laughs.

For many, I think the instant community you get from pretending to believe is a powerful tonic for some pretty lonely and/or attention starved people.

 

[Garrette]

The whole "BLAARGing" thing came about due to the Figbooters* having a distinct tone and style that separates them from other slingers of Woo. It really does seem like they are following a script or a guide

I've long thought that outside of your outright traditional trolls or the mentally impaired the vast majority of Woo Slingers don't actually believe in their Woo in the same way a person believes in stuff that actually exists. They are arguing something they don't actually think in order to make some grander point. There's just too much disconnect between what they are arguing what they are claiming. Often times I get the impression that with the more sincere among them know exactly how discussions with skeptics are going to go before they even start them and go through the motions to verify to themselves that skeptics are a bunch of big closed minded meanies so they can pat themselves on the back about being more open minded.

It does come across as this weird performance art or skit. I've often said that arguing with a Woo Slinger is like being dropped into a scene with someone and they got their half of the script but you didn't.

And with Figbootery it is so very extreme. The tone, the language, the arguments stay so consistent that it is like dealing with different members of the same club.

*Standard butt covering shouldn't be necessary BOCTAOE

My initial reaction is that it is not unique to Bigfooter. You could apply an analogous term to the prolific woomeisters of psy: John Edward, Sylvia Browne, Deepak Chopra (though he has mastered the art to make it appear he is not insulting anyone when he really is). Even the religious like Ken Ham, Duane Gish, etc., though they may lean a bit more to the believer side than the average pretender; I would still include them, though, because their continued belief is (a) dependent on willfully ignoring contravening information and (b) the driving force is still a pandering to the audience.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Now I understand a bit more, and the analogy of Civil War re-enactors helped a lot to let me attach the concept to something with which I was more familiar: You take on a persona, use language, and engage in actions to enter into a cultural subtext for some period of time or under some predetermined criteria. So long as you don't break character, you're golden!

The issue though is that BLAARGing is distinctly different from LARPing or Historical Reenactors or your local Ren Faire.

Those people don't honestly claim to be doing what they are doing. They admit they are playing, in fact playing is the point.

 

[JoeMorgue]

For many, I think the instant community you get from pretending to believe is a powerful tonic for some pretty lonely and/or attention starved people.

It was summed up beautifully on the Alien Abduction episode of Penn & Teller's B.S. and, despite stopping Woo being as close as I personally have to a meaning in life, a sentiment I completely agree with.

There's no evidence that these people had any unusual experiences. They're just like all the rest of us with dreams and fantasies. We all need a little attention. That shrink is a scumbag (expletive) taking money from lonely, sad people in exchange for (expletive), but the abductees are just people who pathologically need a little attention like... well, like us. You want to stop all this alien (expletive)? Just pay attention to the people around you. Say hi. Humans are desperate for human contact. Let's not make our fellow travelers spend sixty bucks an hour to some pig-dog to be the center of attention. People shouldn't have to convince themselves they have a reptilian lover in outer space to get a few minutes of your time. P & T are siding with the creeps. We always have. We love them. We are them. There are enough earthly reasons to be interested in each other. The (expletive) just gets in the way.

 

[Resume]

There is another component to all this: the internet persona that some manufacture as they enter the BLAARG. Phony attornies, detectives, adventurers, researchers, etc. In addition to your footie claim, you can also make up a career/lifestyle to enhance your bigfoot appeal to authority. A lot of the folks below belong to this group.

For many, I think the instant community you get from pretending to believe is a powerful tonic for some pretty lonely and/or attention starved people.

Some of these folks should be advised to seek help rather than encouraged in their delusion.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Some of these folks should be advised to seek help rather than encouraged in their delusion.

And here is another place where the standard go to defense of "Skeptics are big closed minded meanies that like destroying everything beautiful in the world and oh won't you let us have our fun who are we hurting" breaks down into nonsense.