08-15-2014, 09:38 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Chas
OBob never once "scared" me with his postings. In fact, I find him quite interesting.
Although I may not agree with most of the things he may say, I never felt the need to prove him wrong. I notice most of the people on this form that I admire never do either.
OK, let the attacks begin on me now I guess...
Chas, you take a quite benign view of what most informed people would consider to be groundless fear-mongering. I would advocate the view that paranoia, and propagation of paranoia among the more credulous in the population is pretty corrosive of the social fabric. The implication of Janet L's and O-Bob's responses to skepticism about their claims suggest that anyone that disagrees with them is either in collusion with a great conspiracy against the planet's population, or is completely ignorant of reality.
On these forums the silliness can be ignored; when it shows up in public hearings with the intent of influencing public policy that adversely affects the larger population, it's a good deal less benign. Janet L claims that the MK observatories are supporting the military - so more people show up at the public hearings to obstruct development of observatories based on these nonsensical claims... Fear-mongering over generalized spraying of chemicals - now we have to shut down the use of agricultural chemicals that are essential to successful farming...
It's okay to secretly suspect your neighbor is a witch, but when you're part of the crowd that wants to burn him/her at the stake, it's another matter.