Welcome Thread - New Members Post Here

Hello from Canada!

Seems I've decided to put my money where my mouth is with a less-than-anonymous username, so for now I'll save the personal details, other than to share I do fancy myself a rather rational and critical thinker.

Recently, there's been a significant uptick in conspiratorial banter amongst my friends and family and in a one particular instance we fear for the individual's mental health as they struggle with a sudden and totally unrelated personal issue. Turning to conspiracy at a time of great stress can lead no where good.

So off the the great-link I've come looking to polish my interpersonal skills and any tips specific to our immediate needs. I realized facts alone aren't going to cut it. Fortunately, Mick's book--which my wife and I are currently working through--and this site were not hard to find. I've joined up in hopes to both lend what support I can to this cause and have this community on standby to support us once we start to tackle the daunting task of coaxing a loved-one out of their hole.

Thanks.
Warren
 
Hello everyone!

I'm Jon, I first ran into Mick on Kenny Biddle's podcast and absolutely loved his book, I look forward to conversing with all of you!
 
Greetings from the UK.

A friend I have known for 40 years has in recent times been keen on all sorts of odd notions. I visit him a few times a year and have been struggling to keep up with the latest conspiracy, new view of history and of the world in general. I thought I had the answers to chem trails, moon landings and so forth, but mud floods, giants and moon people are new to me. I’m looking for tools and techniques to navigate the many rabbit holes he seems to explore.
 
Hello,
Thank you to all the members who make this site possible. I am here to challenge my beliefs about the coronavirus and supply chain issues that are affecting the world.
 
Hi!
I'm happy to have come across this site. I have a keen interest in UAP stories and claims and I am currently looking into the Nimitz encounters. I got inspired to look into them after watching Mick West's videos on his youtube channel. It seems that really serious work is being done on these UAP sightings but there is little media attention given to realistic and logical explanations.
 
Hi!
I'm happy to have come across this site. I have a keen interest in UAP stories and claims and I am currently looking into the Nimitz encounters. I got inspired to look into them after watching Mick West's videos on his youtube channel. It seems that really serious work is being done on these UAP sightings but there is little media attention given to realistic and logical explanations.
Yeah, realistic and logical explanations don't sell as well as mysterious fascinating tales, that's the problem. And welcome.
 
Hello.
You sure have a lot of interesting and useful stuff around here. I came across this site while discussing 9/11 conspiracy theories at another forum. I'm also interested in (as in discussing and trying to debunk) claims on creationism, flat earth, covid-19, etc.
 
Hi, I came across Metabunk after watching a few of Mick's videos on UFOs. I never paid much attention to UFO claims since I always assumed it was just a combination of sensor errors, human errors, and wishful thinking but when the Dept. of Defense started making headlines with UFO talk I started looking into it and found Mick's videos.

As far as debunking goes, I'm more interested in debunking medical quackery these days - like the daily flood of anti-vax Covid nonsense that an unfortunately large percentage of my social circle now traffics in. Since these are people I really do care about, I'm especially interested in being able to talk to them respectfully. I don't want to win arguments, I want to help them make better, and potentially lifesaving, medical decisions. I've found that ridicule, condescension, and mockery are very ineffective and just harden their positions. The Covid experience has been very interesting since I've been able to see many people who I know well become hardcore anti-vax over a relatively short period of time so I think I now have a much better understanding of the process of how and why people believe weird things. Of course, that doesn't mean I know how to get them to stop believing weird things. For example, for the anti-vax people I know, sending them articles from any mainstream news site or, worse, a "fact checking" site would do nothing but discredit me in their eyes. For example, they assume anything from Snopes is, by definition, a lie. And the more the "debunking" sites say something is false, the more they will believe it is true. So I have to find primary sources and be able to explain in my own words why something is true or not true if I want to have any chance of reaching them. So that's why I'm here. Thanks.
 
Hi, I'm Stevie. Joining here mainly because of my interest in UFO's. I would say I'm a UFO 'agnostic' if that's the right description. lol. I'm hoping there is good balance here , where arguments for and against can be made.
 
Hello! I'm a retired polymer chemist who was interested in Fortean phenomena in my youth, but find natural physical actions are far more satisfying. I have been reading this site for a while, and admire the skills of Mick West and others who understand the technical details of things like aircraft instrumentation, photography and video recording, and trajectory analysis.

Thanks, Mick!
 
Hi!
Got very curious about the UAP news earlier this year and went down the rabbit hole lol. However I am somewhat of a skeptic and found your videos on youtube to be very informative. Mainly joining because I found an underappreciated UAP video that I wanted to post and was hoping for would be discussed. Moreover I remember playing a Playstation Magazine demo of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater as a kid - awesome game! :D Appreciated the game and appreciate the debunking now.

Awesome work Mick!
 
Hi all. I have been a Metabunk reader for a while, and I joined because of a recent thread on some Roswell claims as I have read a lot on that subject and had something to contribute. Keep up the good work, Mick and everyone!
 
This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
Hi. I'm a retired software developer. I came here from a link in a UFO subreddit. Some people there are way too credulous.
 
Hello everyone. I am DaveF, a software engineer from Richmond Indiana, USA. I have an interest in science, reason, and critical thinking and have been following Metabunk.org for quite some time. I decided to register with the hope of contributing to some of the discussions.
 
Created an account to encourage myself to lurk. I miss reading and interacting with forums. I'm a veteran of the old SGU forums. Or an old veteran of the SGU forums, if you prefer. My account over there is still open, if not exactly active.

At any rate, interested to see wh---.

Hang on a second. How did this thing automatically pick up my avatar? Where did it get it? WEIRD.

:)
 
Hi all, I have been lurking and reading here for a short while after coming across Mick's videos on YT. I probably will not post very much as the standard of investigation and inquiry seems very high, but I'll certainly stick around and come here for the best info on combating conspiracy theorists online.

Cheers
Martin
 
This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/

This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
Hey all. I'm vee. From England but live in Dallas Texas now. I'm a software engineer, got a masters in physics. Getting a bit sick of Twitter so finally decided to come check out this place!
 
This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
Hello All, I am a logic and evidence driven person who has a very hard time with people who express opinions as facts, and refuse to engage. I only ever ask for two things, their logic, and their evidence. It is amazing how often that is enough to end a nescient conversation :)
 
Hi everyone. I learned of and appreciated Mick's efforts in UFO debunking YouTube videos a while back, and became aware of this website today, which I think is a good concept and I appreciate the efforts in the threads I've read so far. I have a general interest in the psychology of cults and conspiracy thinking as well as techniques of rational persuasion such as street epistemology (which is pretty much just the Socratic method).

I found this site while researching whether anyone had thoroughly debunked a popular anti-vax paper by the sham medical journal IJVTPR, which I just posted a new thread about. The thread may appear soon. Its understandably held for moderator approval since I am new to the site.
 
This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
Hello everyone, I have just finished Mick's audiobook and it was amazing, I have been using various debunking sites to help me with my father in law, he is a very large conspiracy theorist and has been for several years, starting around the same time Trump was elected and the whole Q anon movement started. Mick has given me the tools to calmly and with scientific evidence put forward the proper evidence of various conspiracies

So, thank you Mick and to everyone else who makes this possible

Kindest regards The Bi-Polar Lemming
 
Hi everyone! I'm Michael. Just a photographer and genuine truth-seeker hoping to join the conversation, and analyze data in a non-biased and respectful manner. Thanks for having me :)
 
Hello everyone,

I'm Jason. I found this site recently by accident when I was web searching a topic.

The way that thread on that topic felt more like a discussion instead of the normal online arguing I try to avoid (most of the time) made me want to post there.

After reading more in the about and guidelines sections, I had a "where has this been my whole life?" feeling, prompting me to actually add to my profile and stay a bit longer.

About me: I was in the military up until 2019, so I have a lot of experience with topics in that realm. My field was in Public Affairs, Combat Camera, and military Intelligence (PSYOPS, or MISO when I was in).

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you'd like to know more specifics: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-kilanski/

I'm looking forward to future discussions, and thank you for having me.

Nevermind. Landru keeps deleting my posts and giving different reasons as to why, none of which make any sense. I mistook this place for a safer space, but it looks like every site has admins these days abusing censors just to bully others. It's too bad. That was fast.
 
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Hello fellow rationalists! I'm so happy I found this site! I discovered metabunk.org from a quoted item on iflscience. I followed the link and the hours later I still had not returned to iflscience to finish the original article I started reading there.

I came to my discovery and acceptance of reason and logic as the only valid arbiters of truth via Ayn Rand. Whatever you think of her philosophy or her fiction it must be admitted she was great at explaining complex subjects in a clear and thorough way. One great benefit to learning critical thinking skills from her writing was the inclusion of philosophical angles to arguments of scientific theories and psychology. It has made my understanding of why people believe or don't believe things more complete and has helped me decide, when necessary, whether trying to argue a belief to a particular person or audience is a waste of time.

I look forward exploring the sight and forums and bouncing ideas back and forth on many topics.
 
Hello! My actual name is Ed Lake. I just discovered this forum this morning. I've been exposing conspiracy theories for almost 20 years, beginning with the theories about the anthrax attacks of 2001. I wrote a book about it. I had a web site where I collected all the facts, but I shut it down last year. That web site got me on TV and in Time Magazine.

In later years I investigated other theories, including a favorite on this forum: The Flat Earth theory. I put my analyses on my blog here: http://oldguynewissues.blogspot.com/

About six years ago, I started looking into a real puzzling science question: Why do most college physics textbooks have a WRONG version of Einstein's Second Postulate to his Theory of Special Relativity? I've been writing science papers about what I've found. There is no "conspiracy" involved. It is just that mathematicians view things differently from the rest of us, and they believe in their mathematical models as if they are the Word of God. There are forums where they argue endlessly, no two of them arguing the same theory. Fascinating stuff.

I also have my own web site at www.ed-lake.com
 

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Hi everybody, I'm Abby. I'm 20 years old, currently reading Mick's book Escaping the Rabbit Hole after believing too readily some things in my mid-teens that ended up impacting my mental health pretty badly... Thank god that I love science, though.
 
Hi Everyone,
I'm an old, retired lady that just happened upon Mike's book in our library. He mentions this website in his book so I thought I would check it out. I almost lost a friend who is definitely down the rabbit hole, but I backed off and we are still friends that just talk about interests we have in common. I am hoping between Mike's book and this website I can continue being friends with people that have opposing views.
 
Hey —

I stumbled upon Flat Earth videos on YouTube about 4 years ago and began interacting in the comments, thinking I could inform and reason with these folks. This is generally futile. I found Mick through the Metabunk curve calculator and have lurked here, accessing threads about FE topics I confront. I've also dealt with the Moon Landing Hoaxers, COVID deniers, Big Lie believers, Climate Change deniers, 9/11 conspiracy folks, fake Sun crowd and the like.

In my opinion people are liable to FE because of a common tendency toward conspiracy thinking rather than critical thinking, and a poor conceptual understanding of science. FE videos seem to overwhelm naive viewers with rapid fire sensational issues outside of their understanding—a Gish gallop..

What I have learned. When FEers say open minded, it's a euphemism for suppress critical thinking. Common sense means naive incredulity. Some FEers seemingly entertain a constructive dialog, then have you jump through hoops as they play arbiters of science. Fundamentally, it's not about evidence, rather it's a conspiracy theory and the conspiracy card always trumps evidence. If anything, evidence contrary to FE risks reinforcing belief in a conspiracy, pushing it deeper. (And then there are the con artists who know FE is nonsense but profiteer off the gullible.)

I would like to address new arguments used by FEers, find better way to address these without devolving into personal attacks, and have some ideas I might seek feedback on.

Thank you for providing this forum Mick.
 
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Hello to all.
Lurked around for years here. Really like the breakdowns on the 'Bunk'
As for me, i used to be a engineer for hydraulics in aviation, but due to covid im not in that field anymore (Currently self employed helping pressure testing in new buildings)
Avid weather watcher, contrail photography, radio aircraft scanning, astronomy.
Im in the UK in the 'Litchfield Corridor'
 
Hi All, Finally taken the plunge and joined your happy band.
Originally an Analytical Chemist my scientific approach is well founded on observation and logic, though applied in various work roles principally in the Environmental sector but also in archaeology , arts and theatre.

My interest in this site was born of a longstanding 'debate' with a lad i've known since meeting at Glastonbury festival 40years ago. He turned to the Dark Side and whilst i still consider him a mate, we struggle at times as his initial interest in UFO's has dveloped in to full on conspiracy obsession to the extent he's even quoted QAnon in the past. He watches allsorts of loony stuff that youtube , the so called history channel and accepts it as factual.
I've also involved myself as a local Climate denial debunker, but with the Covid pandemic i've been active and pretty busy in replying with facts to nonsense posts on local newsites or simply having misinformation removed.

I guess it's a familair story of an interest developed over time and why this site was pretty much an instant hit with me. Perhaps in time i might add to the good work the community here does in enlightening others.
 
Hello, all! I've been lurking for a while and decided to take the plunge. I was intrigued (in the same way as one could be watching a crash in slow motion) by Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch and knew the forum would have all of the missing context.

I'm so confused by Travis Taylor. I'm sure the paychecks are nice but his professional bio doesn't scream hack to me. Seems he could be doing any number of other things.
 
Hi!

I'm a college student currently taking a class on conspiracy theories. We're currently reading Escaping the Rabbit Hole, and I knew I had to join the website. Also, I know way too many people who believe way too many things they shouldn't, and I can't wait to prove them wrong :)
 
Hi! I'm a freshman at Kent State University. I'm currently taking a colloquium class on conspiracy theories and Escaping the Rabbit Hole is our required text for second semester. We've been exploring this website in class this evening and I can't wait to dive into the book!
 
This thread is for any first time poster to (optionally) post an introductory "hi everyone" post, which will also get you "verified" (meaning you can post without anti-spam restrictions) once that post, and a few posts in another sub-forum, have been approved.

A few words on who you are and how you ended up here would be appreciated. Or just say hi!
upload_2013-11-7_15-17-0.png

It's highly recommended that you first read the Posting Guidelines:
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/
Hello All - I am William from Canada and am so pleased to have found this site. I did buy and read Escaping and that led me here.

I have a sibling who I love and who believes aliens walk among us and human evolution has been enhanced if not created by alien and / or alternate dimensional beings. This belief is mixed with belief in reincarnation and I am fairly certain this is rolled into becoming a god and transcending death? This is what many like James Gilliland, self proclaimed guru and abductee, is selling at the ECETI Ranch campground and magical crystal / pot-boiler book / TransPersonal Release Session (TPRS) store.

My sibling’s family visited ECETI Ranch in Washington and plan to make a journey to the US south west to search for evidence of extraterrestrial visitation. My sibling is also a successful JD.

I have been reading about this sub-culture for a few years now and trying to understand how intelligent people get stuck in this very deep and wide crevice.

Knowledge is power and I am looking forward to learning from everyone here. Thanks Mick for your great work. TTYS
 
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Hi!

I'm a college student currently taking a class on conspiracy theories. We're currently reading Escaping the Rabbit Hole, and I knew I had to join the website. Also, I know way too many people who believe way too many things they shouldn't, and I can't wait to prove them wrong :)

Welcome. However, beware your adversarial approach - there's a huge difference between:
(a) making them look stupid in a crowd of undecided people who will then shun their nonsense; and
(b) encouraging them to reevaluate their views with more clarity, and decide that they shouldn't be spreading nonsense any more.
You sound like you're aiming for (a) rather than (b). Alas, the real killer is that (a) only exists in Metabunk Fanfiction, not reality.
I know this, because I'm coming from exactly the same place.

(I was about to end with "And remember that their jet engines of bluster will beat your conveyor belt of insight", but decided against it, despite how pertinent it may be.)
 
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