A lot of people are being dismissive of the “drone sightings” but I think we need to seriously address the issues that lie behind this phenomenon: people are really astonishingly dumb.
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Like Kirsten Gillibrand, who was raising questions today. But only after she sane-washed RFK Jr. because he says he likes healthy food and clean air. Not to mention her hounding Franken out of the Senate.
I'm flitting back and forth between on the one hand being astonished by the low state of mass communications and public discourse in this country and on the other laughing at what complete morons people are. It's pushing me in a very HL Mencken kind of direction.
Human nature seldom changes, hence why it's always a good time to review "The Mesmeric Mania of 1851, with a Physiological Explanation of the Phenomena Produced": https://archive.org/details/b21937928/
Important, though, to distinguish "people" from public figures. The latter seriously embarrassed themselves here (some, I'd say, should lose their credibility license), but I cut the former some slack because they rightfully depend on those public figures and media to inform them.
I have doubts about "rightfully depend." (a) Grownups should figure stuff out for themselves. (b) My experience is people embrace this woo because they like it, not because they're helpless victims of authority.
Yes, people lazily grab onto convenient and easy falsehoods. But don't you think there's some relative difference here? Members of congress and mayors and CEOs have access to microphones and ears and eyeballs others don't have.
Almost everything that's happened since the pandemic, and much of what's happened since 9/11, has been pushing me in that direction. I absolutely believe in democracy because there's no good alternative, but also let's not have vaccines or police. And the lights in the sky thing been done.
The turning point for me goes back to the 2016 campaign when tons of stories emerged about Trump stiffing Trumpy contractors and it didn’t seem to bother his supporters. And evidence continues to mount that tons of people kind of like being scammed.
It feels like 99% manufactured concern to get reactions and new followers when most of us can tell it is just R&D and we have no right to know everything about it. Sure it would be nice if NASA put out a memo stating it is R&D. But I really do not care at all.
What I would like to see is progress with drones to replace the use of helicopters by police and news stations. They are much cheaper to operate and not as loud. Fire fighters could send a drone ahead of the trucks to get eyes on the scene early to help save lives.
There are always going to be "extraordinary popular delusions" but what I find so striking is how our leaders and our news media have completely abdicated all responsibility to push back against it
I say "then it was neocons doing it" but IRL you've got Depends guy.
Though at this point they might be too silly to do anything because they think the Sun is just a 1km wide sphere about 69 miles above at the *checks notes* edge of the firmament and the *squints* Moon isn't rea-
See you won't have an interplanetary armada bearing down on you from the Moon in that scenario, though aliens in system might want to intervene to save you from your own silliness.
What's worse is that stupidity causing infrastructure to just break.
I think most people shooting at small planes would endanger themselves and those around them far more than the planes, especially if they're using handguns.
I’m a long-time admirer of your work but if this drone silliness is what it takes to convince you that we’re drowning in stupid you are a far more patient and forgiving man than I am. This is a nation that re-elected Donald Trump. Is there a better argument than that for terminal stupidity?
Aided and abetted by members of Congress and some of the media. The NYT article this morning was extremely credulous. It only got to the most probable explanations somewhere around paragraph 17 and very gently suggested that some of the sightings might have been aircraft or stars.
Which article is this? The NYT article I'm reading online right now promises "Ordinary Explanations" in the headline and provides those explanations in sentence 4.
"Please people come back to viewing us we'll even report on all of your favorite delusions as if they were real and call it News." CNN in 2024 soon to be 2025.
Even more than dumb, I think most are just bored and spend all day boiling their brains consuming right wing fever dreams on their phones instead of picking up fishing or something.
I think I may also have found an answer to the old question of “why did so many writers in premodern China report detailed dragon sightings in the sky”
Listen, those manatees were definitely hot mermaid babes and not the delusions of lonely, malnourished, sailors who may or may not have been driven mad from being stuck on a boat for god knows how long.
I went looking on FB for information on the North Carolina floods and found an alarming number of posts by people who were certain it was caused by government weather control machines
Also, people love to just make stuff up! As soon as everyone started carrying tiny cameras in their pockets, amazing how all the more elaborate UFOs and bigfoot and Nessie sightings stopped.
I think there’s a fine line between literacy and just being dumb.
And we know there’s a major lack of literacy, comprehension, and critical thinking.
You call people dumb for having a different perspective and life experience than you, I call the education system severely broken.
I watched the pentagon press release about Americas goals for Yemen and Syria, American shipping which affects prices and the next steps in an unstable world and the only thing the media asked about was the drones. Are they Chinese? secret? invaders? Aliens? He looked tired of saying no 20 times.
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But good God, this drone nonsense, and people who take it seriously.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20231027-behind-the-broadcast-orson-welles-on-the-mass-hysteria-of-the-war-of-the-worlds
Then it was neocons doing it.
Now my mother actually liked some elements of this FYI, though mostly the related war prints that got into Royal Academies.
Though at this point they might be too silly to do anything because they think the Sun is just a 1km wide sphere about 69 miles above at the *checks notes* edge of the firmament and the *squints* Moon isn't rea-
When's enuf enuf?
What's worse is that stupidity causing infrastructure to just break.
See, spacers kept it running, which was a theme.
What? I'm a 14 yo trapped in a 59 yo...
Though I'm not going to rule it out off-hand...
"Don't worry, that's not a dragon flying across the sky, Magistrate Zhou just strapped a rocked to his chair...again"
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals."
sigh
I used to get annoyed at people pointing to thisatmospheric phenomenon or that to “explain away” sightings.
A few months of reading later I learnt there is more atmospheric phenomena than I could imagine, add planets and planes etc and game over.
Rather more attractive, though sadly wrong, to believe in UFO’s from outer space than admit you saw something normal
2024: drones over New Jersey.
Go out looking for drones when already half convinced that they’re out there somewhere, and you WILL see “drones” galore.
(A couple of bright planets, meteor showers, and activity from several airports also helps.)
And we know there’s a major lack of literacy, comprehension, and critical thinking.
You call people dumb for having a different perspective and life experience than you, I call the education system severely broken.
Unfortunately, astonishing stupidity seems to be built into the human condition; the best we've been able to do so far is work around it.