This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Vegas VBIED and NJ Drone Crossover Event
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xglaXVtQcis?si=ysIxFOPjPZdtHVOG
Nothing is better than a good crossover episode and it appears that the latest twist in the Las Vegas Trump Hotel bombing continues from last years cliffhanger NJ Drones episode.
The Shawn Ryan Show (B list independent media podcast) released an episode today that was an interview with Sam Shoemate (D List Instagram account that highlights military corruption and malfeasance). Between Jan 29-30, Sam was contacted by someone alleging to be Matt Berg with an urgent request to pass along his info to Shawn Ryan, Pete Hegseth, and Fox News. Sam was in contact with the alleged Mr. Berg on signal and ultimately received an email claiming that Mr Berg was on the run, escaping to Mexico, and that the USG was hot on his trail and potentially trying to kill him. Fortunately for Mr Berg, he had a Vehicle Bourne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) which apparently had held them off. This email also made at least two explosive claims.
Its unclear to me which of the two claims were the bigger deal to Mr Berg. He’s obviously distressed about the China drones, but he spends a lot of time on the war crimes as well.
Back to the story – Sam, the recipient of the email, writes this off as an unverifiable crackpot and sits on it. Until the news breaks on Jan 2 that Mr Berg blew himself up under very strange circumstances at a Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. It appears from what I am seeing right now that the mainstream media and Las Vegas sheriff has confirmed that email that Shawn Ryan published is from Matt Livelsberger. Even if they didn’t, there are plenty of details that made this seem to be extremely likely.
I think we can table the war crimes issues for the moment and just focus on the China drones.
This email, in an of itself, certainly doesn’t prove anything about the origins of the drones, but it certainly is a curious claim. Mr Bergs military MOS would potentially put him in a position to be read in on advanced US drone programs. There are a number of people in the independent media world who have made the case that the USG has been running black physics programs and cracked gravity 70 years ago. People usually respond to this with ridicule and note that something like this could never be kept secret. Personally, I just add this to the growing list of leakers and dot connectors that indicate that the UAP phenomenon is at least in part, terrestrial black projects that have access to what we would otherwise call science fiction technology.
If gravity has been cracked, it potentially means that other wild stuff like zero point energy is also on the table. What other energy sources would be able to explain UAPs the size of small cars that fly with anti-gravity drives. Tech like this would be extremely dangerous for obvious reasons. Reasons that would explain the secrecy. This would also explain why the USG changed their stance on this topic in the last 5-10 years. China has caught up with whatever we’ve been doing for a long time.
What do you all think of this? Hoax? Crazy person? Legit whistleblower? There are ton of threads to pull here. Is Mr Berg even dead? Did he fake his death in order to get a big spotlight on this?
I am personally acquainted with a former special ops soldier with PTSD from committing war crimes in Afghanistan who makes identical claims about UFOs and science fiction technology, although he believes the USG obtained this stuff from aliens in exchange for 'letting them eat us like squirrels'. It's possible that this explains increasing obesity rates through the government fattening us up for the grey aliens to serve at the golden corral in a flying saucer. But the more likely hypothesis is that special ops soldiers have very high rates of PTSD and believe all sorts of strange things, perhaps by using psychedelics as a coping mechanism.
PTSD doesn't make you believe in aliens.
Okay let's start with schizophrenia. Well known disease, somewhat understood etiology and biological mechanisms. Makes people believe weird shit, be psychotic. Relatively easy.
Then gets harder. Schizotypal personality disorder. Weird people....with magical thinking? Makes people believe weird shit. Maybe look kinda psychotic but not actually be psychotic? Might have schizophrenia as a complication. Okay that's kinda complicated. People in military have it? Well no probably not, it would be hard to get through basic but maybe?
What if it seems more personality driven - are SJWs psychotic? Religious people? Some people will say they are absolutely untethered from reality and psychotic and believing weird shit. Plenty people will say "no this is the state of the world."
Okay then so what if you are traumatized, you are looking for answers or your world view is knocked over. You try and fill it with something and find something online. Pizzagate, SJ, UAPs, whatever.
Maybe then you're kinda psychotic (well....a little delusional) but you don't have hallucinations or negative symptoms. Now other people think you have weird beliefs (but others don't!).
Or you end up with straight up schizophrenia or some other psychotic disorder because of stress/trauma or resulting substance abuse.
Special forces guys get pretty intense psychological assessments when they join and periodically during their service. So presumably he didn’t have any really obvious psychosis disorders in his youth or during his service.
Schizophrenia and other typical psychotic disorders most commonly manifest in young adulthood but can occur later randomly or because of some medical or substance induced insult - or acute stress.
True psychosis doesn't need to be the cause here - consider born again Christian or woke/anti-woke converts. Can have really really strongly held beliefs that others may feel are not reality based.
A veteran can also seek solace from their experiences and trauma and end up with odd or way too strongly anchored beliefs, even without something that meets formal diagnostic criteria.
Guy may have met criteria for major depression with psychotic features but based off the information available so far he doesn't really "look" like that.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link