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There is a [Conspiracy Thread] here, and I will seek it out!

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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Without prompting from Congress the Pentagon has authored plans for dealing with zombies, kaiju, and Kryptonian refugees. Others, too, they're occasionally rendered for public viewing and directors that play nicely with the pentagon's hardware lending program occasionally get tips from them.

    They pay some very smart people quite a bit of money to keep them ahead of any possible game, and there's only so many countries in the world to invade, keeping those minds on payroll and in practice is a big deal for national security, so they get to have some fun.

    NASA does stuff like this, too. Those, "NASA developing real warp drive," stories are really, "NASA comes up with math puzzle to keep the guys that solved the Pioneer Anomaly on payroll until something new comes up."

    Hevach on
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    Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    UFOS ARE FUCKING REAL SUCK IT BUTTHOLES I GODDAMN KNEW IT YOU ALL SAID I WAS CRAZY BUT WHO'S CRAZY NOW HUH HUH

    Alright maybe not but still, any removal of obfuscation from government UFO files is good. Transparency is good! And the personal accounts of some of these serious science types are pretty compelling and a lot of this stuff matches up with rumors and scuttlebutt I heard on shows like Coast To Coast AM years ago, so hey. Is it misinformation? Is it legitimate disclosure? Is it much less terrifying than anything else going on? Yes to all of them I'm stoked to have conspiracies to focus on that aren't fucking nightmarish.

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    ArbitraryDescriptorArbitraryDescriptor changed Registered User regular
    UFOS ARE FUCKING REAL SUCK IT BUTTHOLES I GODDAMN KNEW IT YOU ALL SAID I WAS CRAZY BUT WHO'S CRAZY NOW HUH HUH

    Alright maybe not but still, any removal of obfuscation from government UFO files is good. Transparency is good! And the personal accounts of some of these serious science types are pretty compelling and a lot of this stuff matches up with rumors and scuttlebutt I heard on shows like Coast To Coast AM years ago, so hey. Is it misinformation? Is it legitimate disclosure? Is it much less terrifying than anything else going on? Yes to all of them I'm stoked to have conspiracies to focus on that aren't fucking nightmarish.

    I kind of don't want it laid bare that all UFO sightings to date had perfectly terrestrial explanations.

    I mean, I maintain that they do, but I don't know that, and a world where UFOs are as roundly debunked as phlogiston just seems a little less whimsical.

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    GyralGyral Registered User regular
    Screw your conspiracy theories. Reality is the biggest theorist.

    Mike Adams, professor at University of North Carolina Wilmington, found dead two weeks before his "retirement."

    Yes, that Mike Adams, the burning piece of shit that UNCW basically had to pay off to get rid of him. Well, before his "retirement" he was found dead in his home.
    Earlier this year, Adams mocked women's studies as "non essential" and labeled civil rights protesters "thugs."

    Back in 2016, Adams used an ultraconservative opinion site to target a student at his school with an article titled “A Queer Muslim Jihad.”

    In 2013, he said gay couples should not receive equal treatment "because they do not equally benefit society."

    25t9pjnmqicf.jpg
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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    As one half of a straight couple with two biological children, I feel like an authority when I say this: your ability to perform the dark ritual to conjure flesh demons from your wife's genitals is AT BEST of neutral value to society and should entitle you to no special treatment.

    Hevach on
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    WiseManTobesWiseManTobes Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    Without prompting from Congress the Pentagon has authored plans for dealing with zombies, kaiju, and Kryptonian refugees. Others, too, they're occasionally rendered for public viewing and directors that play nicely with the pentagon's hardware lending program occasionally get tips from them.

    They pay some very smart people quite a bit of money to keep them ahead of any possible game, and there's only so many countries in the world to invade, keeping those minds on payroll and in practice is a big deal for national security, so they get to have some fun.

    NASA does stuff like this, too. Those, "NASA developing real warp drive," stories are really, "NASA comes up with math puzzle to keep the guys that solved the Pioneer Anomaly on payroll until something new comes up."

    If that one wasn't just an add-on I gotta know the response plan

    Steam! Battlenet:Wisemantobes#1508
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    JoolanderJoolander Registered User regular
    Seriously though, how do I get the job where I get paid by the government to write science fiction?

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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    Hevach on
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    PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    I'm pretty sure that case is "shine a custom flashlight on him and then shoot him", because we know the emission spectra a red star has.

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
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    TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    I mean, it's not like Obama condensed the plan into a pocket sized playbook and handed it to Trump or anything.

    Obama could have walked Trump's people through it as well. What's that? They did?

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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 2020


    https://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/press-releases-200724-seeds.shtml

    So people have been getting random, unsolicited deliveries of seeds from companies mostly in China, and... The theories are interesting.

    This isn't a great way to launch an attack of course. Americans have already brought some of the most deadly and invasive plants on earth here of our own accord, and they hardly add up to an existential threat. Invasive toxic plants kill a person or two a year and hurt small numbers. Kudzu has been spreading for centuries and aside from choking a few forests and making a lot of badly infested places look like shit the US isn't any worse off culturally or economically for it.

    It's actually not some new insidious thing. In years past many people have received empty boxes (a few years ago I got a box that was empty except a packing slip and some bubble wrap, slip said it contained 0.00001 pounds of "rod" valued at US$0.0001).

    What's going on? Well, to get anywhere with China's big specialty exporters (i.e. if you're stuff isn't already bound to US physical retailers and you're selling direct on the internet) you need to gain rank by moving a lot of product. You can't do this because the top ranks are companies that rival (or in a couple cases eclipse) Amazon in moving product. You start the game so far behind that the sun will burn out before you make it up to page 100. IF you play by the rules, that is. You could get to page 1 right now if you remember that rules are for other people and winning is for you.

    Note that rank is MOVING product. Not SELLING product. Companies would just ship a bunch of empty boxes to every address they could afford to and inflate their numbers - it should be no surprise that people getting this stuff have almost all bought something at some point from a site like AliExpress, that shipping database is available to vendors.

    Not long ago, there was a crackdown on this, outgoing packages started getting weighed to make sure people weren't cheating.

    The practice lives on now in the form of shipping shit. Defective product, dirt, office refuse (people have reported shredded paper, cut zip ties, and broken pens, for example), or small quantities of very cheap high margin product.

    What's a cheap high margin product that can be split down into especially small shipping units? Seeds are very high on the list. By the time you buy a packet of seeds for $1, most of it's prior costs added have been transportation, not production.


    Several stories with pictures of different seeds:

    https://www.whas11.com/amp/article/news/virginia-department-of-agriculture-warns-residents-of-seeds-from-china/65-2e195255-f7e9-46bf-8bea-f711415af3c3

    https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/mystery-seeds-possibly-from-china-are-being-mailed-to-virginia-residents/2371404/

    https://www.13newsnow.com/amp/article/news/local/virginia/officials-virginia-residents-should-report-any-unsolicited-packages-from-china-that-contain-seeds/291-f280c38b-61a6-40c0-a2ac-080a1ea9f894

    Older study about the empty boxes. Packing slip looks like my empty rod box, possibly the same company.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2019/10/25/americans-are-still-receiving-unordered-packages-from-asian-e-criminals/amp/

    The headline is silly. These aren't criminal masterminds, they're desperate merchants trying to cheat the system the same way as Amazon sellers buying hundreds of their own items and the millions of bogus product reviews rendering the feedback section of online retailers worse than useless.


    The empty boxes do still happen (nobody can check every one of the infinity of exports leaving China after all) and also spawn their own conspiracy theories.

    https://www.iheartradio.ca/89x/blogs/video-couple-thought-empty-box-from-china-contained-coronavirus-1.10535891

    Here's a guy who called 911 because China sent him a big box of coronavirus that he doesn't remember ordering.

    Hevach on
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    BlindPsychicBlindPsychic Registered User regular
    Hopefully they don't stuffing packages with baby powder or something

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    KaputaKaputa Registered User regular
    On the subject of UFOs, did we ever get an explanation for the objects depicted in those grainy black and white videos officially released by the US military some months ago?

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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Kaputa wrote: »
    On the subject of UFOs, did we ever get an explanation for the objects depicted in those grainy black and white videos officially released by the US military some months ago?

    No, that's why they're UFOs.

    Note that being unidentified doesn't mean they're aliens.

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    DiannaoChongDiannaoChong Registered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    It's probably along the lines of 'if they're stupid enough to come here, they are stupid enough to be tricked into doing what we want'.

    steam_sig.png
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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Some guys on metabunk identified the FLIR1, GIMBALL, and Nimitz ones as airliners, matched very well to known examples of large jets on similar imaging systems. Even showed how airliners at long range match the purported descriptions given by the pilots.

    Even got decent matches to specific flight numbers where timestamps and locations were accurately given (theres some guys on there that specifically match flight numbers to contrails even aged and disperse ones, I know HOW they do it but fuck if I can actually do it) and a specific airport on one where it isn't.

    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/2004-uss-nimitz-tic-tac-ufo-flir-footage-flir1.9190/

    The Go Fast video is most consistent with exactly what the instruments claimed, a small object moving slowly/drifting, like a balloon or soaring bird of prey (even show identical sightings that were positively identified as balloons), or a hovering drone. Basically every part of it is in agreement except the pilot's account, and the pilots account being unreconcilable with instrument data meets the Pentagon's definition of an unrecognized aerial phenomenon, and is the origin behind the vast majority.

    Edit: left out the link for that one.
    https://www.metabunk.org/threads/go-fast-footage-from-tom-delonges-to-the-stars-academy-bird-balloon.9569/

    Hevach on
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    OptyOpty Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    <wrong thread>

    Opty on
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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    Truly the darkest conspiracy of all?

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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Okay but if you're a gamer, then you already know that the difference between winning and losing is measured in milliseconds.

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    CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    Turns out when instruments and pilots disagree, the instruments are probably right

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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Couscous wrote: »
    Turns out when instruments and pilots disagree, the instruments are probably right

    And when they're not, they're usually consistently wrong and not just randomly wrong about one single object.

    Flight completely fucks our senses. We just don't have the brain or eyes for it. Our concepts of range, relative size, movement, and speed all depend on the physical frame of reference the ground draws around us and the things we look at. Take that frame away and our brains can't figure out shit, so all the weird processes and filters that happen automatically on our sight just stop happening.

    Pilots get a lot of training to overcome that, but everything is dependent on using fixed assumptions to kickstart the process. If the assumptions are wrong, your brain doesn't have the framing to tell, and your conclusion will be worthless.

    Hevach on
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    zagdrobzagdrob Registered User regular
    Literally a big part of pilot training is to learn to ignore your feelings and trust instruments, because people have gotten confused or vertigo and flown straight into the ground from safe level flight.

    I do hope not all UFOs are explainable, not that there are aliens, but I hate the idea we understand our world so well that nothing is unpredictable and unexplainable. It's just depressing to think everything is mundane and there is no real mystery left.

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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    https://www.military.com/video/military-aircraft-operations/carrier-landings/pilots-eject-a-6-intruder-keeps-flying/941488560001

    There's quite a few examples of planes flying better after their pilot nopes out. A Soviet pilot ejected and his plane recovered and crossed most of Europe before crashing. The US had a similar case known as the "cornfield bomber," where after the pilot ejected the plane exited it's spin and glided to a relatively soft landing.

    Not all of them are this, but some are caused by the pilot trusting his senses and fighting his plane, and when his senses tell him the plane is fucked he ejects and the plane just flies off as if to say, "See? What'd I fucking tell you?"

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    NobeardNobeard North Carolina: Failed StateRegistered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    If a kaiju attack happens we need to kill it and mine it's body for the inconceivable materials that let it ignore the square cube law and generally give physics the finger.

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    Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    If a kaiju attack happens we need to kill it and mine it's body for the inconceivable materials that let it ignore the square cube law and generally give physics the finger.

    Can you imagine the potential of McDonald's burgers made from kaiju meat? You might think Americans are fat now, just wait until they can eat all they want and simply violate the laws of physics instead of keeling over dead from heart failure. Just lumbering mountains of flesh, unrestrained by the confines of reality.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YM0Ln7KgrU

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    GaryOGaryO Registered User regular
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    If a kaiju attack happens we need to kill it and mine it's body for the inconceivable materials that let it ignore the square cube law and generally give physics the finger.

    Can you imagine the potential of McDonald's burgers made from kaiju meat? You might think Americans are fat now, just wait until they can eat all they want and simply violate the laws of physics instead of keeling over dead from heart failure. Just lumbering mountains of flesh, unrestrained by the confines of reality.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YM0Ln7KgrU

    I had one book of Kaiju stories where this was kinda the premise of some of them.
    It started with North Korea making a Kaiju that attacked American. so of course America had to engineer a human to grow Kaiju size to fight it like a giant Captain America. He exploded the NK Kaiju into pieces and nearby Americans decided that the free meat that rained from the skies made good BBQ material.

    Only it turned out that the NK Kaiju meat was semi-addictive. so the whole thing was in effect a nerfarious Korean plot to get America hooked on North Korean Kaiju meat, thus pumping billions into the Korean economy.
    Naturally America couldn't stand this and chopped up its own Kaiju dude and began making more so that Americans (and presumably everybody else) could enjoy delicious all 'natural' American Freedom-meat instead of communist meat.

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    MovitzMovitz Registered User regular
    GaryO wrote: »
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    If a kaiju attack happens we need to kill it and mine it's body for the inconceivable materials that let it ignore the square cube law and generally give physics the finger.

    Can you imagine the potential of McDonald's burgers made from kaiju meat? You might think Americans are fat now, just wait until they can eat all they want and simply violate the laws of physics instead of keeling over dead from heart failure. Just lumbering mountains of flesh, unrestrained by the confines of reality.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YM0Ln7KgrU

    I had one book of Kaiju stories where this was kinda the premise of some of them.
    It started with North Korea making a Kaiju that attacked American. so of course America had to engineer a human to grow Kaiju size to fight it like a giant Captain America. He exploded the NK Kaiju into pieces and nearby Americans decided that the free meat that rained from the skies made good BBQ material.

    Only it turned out that the NK Kaiju meat was semi-addictive. so the whole thing was in effect a nerfarious Korean plot to get America hooked on North Korean Kaiju meat, thus pumping billions into the Korean economy.
    Naturally America couldn't stand this and chopped up its own Kaiju dude and began making more so that Americans (and presumably everybody else) could enjoy delicious all 'natural' American Freedom-meat instead of communist meat.

    You made me google Kaiju, cause I'm old and don't know what kids are up to these days.

    Like, Godzilla have a family now?

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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    Movitz wrote: »
    GaryO wrote: »
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    If a kaiju attack happens we need to kill it and mine it's body for the inconceivable materials that let it ignore the square cube law and generally give physics the finger.

    Can you imagine the potential of McDonald's burgers made from kaiju meat? You might think Americans are fat now, just wait until they can eat all they want and simply violate the laws of physics instead of keeling over dead from heart failure. Just lumbering mountains of flesh, unrestrained by the confines of reality.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YM0Ln7KgrU

    I had one book of Kaiju stories where this was kinda the premise of some of them.
    It started with North Korea making a Kaiju that attacked American. so of course America had to engineer a human to grow Kaiju size to fight it like a giant Captain America. He exploded the NK Kaiju into pieces and nearby Americans decided that the free meat that rained from the skies made good BBQ material.

    Only it turned out that the NK Kaiju meat was semi-addictive. so the whole thing was in effect a nerfarious Korean plot to get America hooked on North Korean Kaiju meat, thus pumping billions into the Korean economy.
    Naturally America couldn't stand this and chopped up its own Kaiju dude and began making more so that Americans (and presumably everybody else) could enjoy delicious all 'natural' American Freedom-meat instead of communist meat.

    You made me google Kaiju, cause I'm old and don't know what kids are up to these days.

    Like, Godzilla have a family now?

    Godzilla's had a family longer than the Brady's had a Bunch.

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    ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    Movitz wrote: »
    GaryO wrote: »
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    If a kaiju attack happens we need to kill it and mine it's body for the inconceivable materials that let it ignore the square cube law and generally give physics the finger.

    Can you imagine the potential of McDonald's burgers made from kaiju meat? You might think Americans are fat now, just wait until they can eat all they want and simply violate the laws of physics instead of keeling over dead from heart failure. Just lumbering mountains of flesh, unrestrained by the confines of reality.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YM0Ln7KgrU

    I had one book of Kaiju stories where this was kinda the premise of some of them.
    It started with North Korea making a Kaiju that attacked American. so of course America had to engineer a human to grow Kaiju size to fight it like a giant Captain America. He exploded the NK Kaiju into pieces and nearby Americans decided that the free meat that rained from the skies made good BBQ material.

    Only it turned out that the NK Kaiju meat was semi-addictive. so the whole thing was in effect a nerfarious Korean plot to get America hooked on North Korean Kaiju meat, thus pumping billions into the Korean economy.
    Naturally America couldn't stand this and chopped up its own Kaiju dude and began making more so that Americans (and presumably everybody else) could enjoy delicious all 'natural' American Freedom-meat instead of communist meat.

    You made me google Kaiju, cause I'm old and don't know what kids are up to these days.

    Like, Godzilla have a family now?

    Godzilla's had a family longer than the Brady's had a Bunch.

    And certainly longer than the length of the Confederacy!

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
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    Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Gvzbgul wrote: »
    Or the New York race riots in which an conspiracy theory about a secret group of slaves planning a rebellion in conjunction with the native Americans caused a massive riot.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Conspiracy_of_1741

    Fakedit- a supposed Popish plot. Not native American.

    God I need to learn more about history. So much of the discourse is really basic surface level stuff that just describes large, monolithic groups when the reality is extremely complex and features surprising alliances and betrayals and subtleties and complications.
    zagdrob wrote: »
    If you go to a Rolling Stones concert and the lights go down but you haven't heard Satisfaction...the show isn't over.

    Similarly, if a Conspiracy Theory hasn't gotten to 'The Jews', you haven't heard the whole theory.

    Last Podcast on the Left has a number of episodes about various conspiracy theories. The hosts just have so much fun when they're talking about the Hollow Moon or the Reptilians or Washington, DC being patterned after Babylon to siphon mystical power through the Washington Monument or the secret time portal in the Bermuda Triangle that the Pleiadians have prepared as an escape route for the human race following the rise of the New World Order...

    ...but then they inevitably get to the part where the Jews are mentioned and the tone goes from "wow, what a bunch of wacky bullshit" to "goddd, god fucking damn it, why, why does it always go there, why can't we just leave it at aliens and shit, fuckkk."

    I guess that's why they've largely moved on to topics like Gef the Talking Mongoose, faked giants, the history of the lobotomy, and that weird point in time where people were reeeeeally paranoid about being buried alive.

    They did do a huge multi-part series on the history of Mormonism about a year ago, so that was neat at least.

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    Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Prohass wrote: »
    It makes sense, I mean if all it took to dissuade people of their beliefs, either in prophecy or anything else, was cold reality and the failings of a prophecy to come to pass, most religions wouldn’t survive, let alone cults

    On top of that, a "failed" prophecy to "true believers" means they clearly just didn't believe hard enough and thus have to double-down on believing in order to get the really serious for-real truth right. On top of that, you've got the people who just can't accept the idea they've wasted their time, so they've also got to double down on believing so they can also get the truth that proves they've not been total suckers.

    There's an interesting book called "A Brief History of the End of the World" all about various groups who anticipated the apocalypse (the covered groups are mostly, but not entirely, Christian in origin).

    Of particular interest is the Christian cult that decided when the rest of humanity had not perished as they'd anticipated that God must have intended for them them to wipe out all the rest of humankind themselves.

    They obviously did not succeed.

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    Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Can you imagine the potential of McDonald's burgers made from kaiju meat? You might think Americans are fat now, just wait until they can eat all they want and simply violate the laws of physics instead of keeling over dead from heart failure. Just lumbering mountains of flesh, unrestrained by the confines of reality.

    I'm fairly certain that's a fetish people have. Probably been on the front page of DeviantArt at least once.

    EDIT: Sorry for the triple post, I was hoping someone else would have commented by now.

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    BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
    Nobeard wrote: »
    Hevach wrote: »
    You need the sort of tactical brilliance you usually only hear about in stories which is rarely celebrated in reality.

    You need to spend most of your career planning to invade Canada or Iran or Texas or Iran or China or Iran, the vast majority of which are "just exercises in diverse planning," and you have to watch generals make a mockery of your Iran plans in wargames.

    The zombie plan was published some years back, and was probably better than any movie responses. Get people out of cities and scattered in small defended positions, focus on containment over eradication.

    The Godzilla and Kryptonian ones were asserted to exist and the public was assured via tongue in cheek social media posts thay the US is confident neither would happen but is prepared to win in either case, which just says so very much about out defense budget.

    I assume the main thrust of our Kryptonian response involves the words, "kneel before Zod."

    If a kaiju attack happens we need to kill it and mine it's body for the inconceivable materials that let it ignore the square cube law and generally give physics the finger.

    Since we are talking about theoretically war plans I will bring up the one I find really silly
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rOdOVJCqNc
    I have so many problems with the lore of the machines in the Matrix movies as why nuke them? I know the idea of EMP but I am sure the machines would have their parts treed or whatever it's called now against that Why black out the skies when they run on solar? How can you black out the sky and why so short sighted of an attack? How can they survive getting nuked and the Russian winter stops them for a few.
    Mega tanks they tired to make mega tanks in ww2 and they had problems {from mechanical to more often being to heavy}
    But segwaying from that to the Jagers why would you spend that much GDP on a large robot when you could make smaller power suits to drop onto the creature and cut thier way into?

    I could go on and on about the Machine war in Matrix

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    Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    I mean, the whole thing doesn't get past the premise of the machines making cheap goods and "collapsing" the world economy. If they make a fuckload of cheap goods to point of all manufacturers collapsing, then all that has happened is... all the rich assholes aren't rich anymore, and everybody that's poor now can get a bunch of food and fancy shit because the machines are making it all for cheap. At this point, the machines now have an economic stranglehold on the world, but why the fuck would humans in general care? They're getting cheap/free everything, which is pretty awesome on the part of the machines. The only people who would be mad are the incredibly tiny sliver of ex-rich humanity, and they're sure as fuck not going to charge into the machine city demanding to be rich again without a way to coerce a bunch of poor people to go die for them.

    So now the rich aren't holding humanity back and ruining the planet, the machines have all the control they could want to force equal rights, the average person doesn't even understand why the machines even had to fight for equal rights, and humanity and the machines are kinda free to do the things they want instead of blowing each other up or trying not to starve under the bootheel of the rich.

    Ninja Snarl P on
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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    I hate outside "required reading" with movies, and Pacific Rim put the answer to that stuff there. What we see in the movies is the last desperate gasp of the war - safeguards were gone, weapons that pilots weren't even told were installed are fully enabled and don't require authorization to use, and they were splattering so much kaiju insides around that even if they won there wasn't going to be much world left in a few years.

    For most of the war, they were killing kaiju without breaking the skin, and a whole industry had sprung up around breaking down the bodies without making a mess. If the marshal was giving authorization to unlock blades or plasma cannons or rockets, the fight was already being considered a loss, they were normally won with prolonged tag team wrestling with multiple jaegers. Nothing smaller could beat one with pure blunt force trauma, plasma cannons around the breach meant poisoning the ocean and eventually the whole water cycle, even before they figured out that the strategy was to toxify the world with dead kaiju, they still recognized that they could potentially lose the war that way even if they can kill them forever.

    Even by the time of the opening scene with knifehead that was no longer an option, kaiju were coming every couple months and were doing a lot more damage to jaegers, leaving longer turnaround times and full teams weren't ready to go. By the main part of the movie, they were even bigger and coming every few days and it had jaegers were no longer even getting full turnaround between fights, they were bolting down the important parts, refilling the tanks, and sending them back out, usually alone.

    The Matrix, on the other hand, actually *raised* all the problems in the required reading. The version in the movies basically said, "We don't know shit, but we know the machines were winning, we fucked the planet up in desperation, and it didn't work. Now we live in a giant orgy cave and play a video game against the machines." Lots of gaps, not so many holes.

    Hevach on
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    BrainleechBrainleech 機知に富んだコメントはここにあります Registered User regular
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    DiannaoChongDiannaoChong Registered User regular
    I mean, the whole thing doesn't get past the premise of the machines making cheap goods and "collapsing" the world economy. If they make a fuckload of cheap goods to point of all manufacturers collapsing, then all that has happened is... all the rich assholes aren't rich anymore, and everybody that's poor now can get a bunch of food and fancy shit because the machines are making it all for cheap. At this point, the machines now have an economic stranglehold on the world, but why the fuck would humans in general care? They're getting cheap/free everything, which is pretty awesome on the part of the machines. The only people who would be mad are the incredibly tiny sliver of ex-rich humanity, and they're sure as fuck not going to charge into the machine city demanding to be rich again without a way to coerce a bunch of poor people to go die for them.

    So now the rich aren't holding humanity back and ruining the planet, the machines have all the control they could want to force equal rights, the average person doesn't even understand why the machines even had to fight for equal rights, and humanity and the machines are kinda free to do the things they want instead of blowing each other up or trying not to starve under the bootheel of the rich.

    The rich people tell the governments where to point the guns. And the poor would suffer first as the rich try to struggle to maintain position, and they already make the poor blame each other, it would be super simple to tell people things that arent humans are their enemies. People are now begging for schools to open back up so they can barrel into a pandemic to earn a paycheck. I refer to it is "They are trying to march workers into the economy volcano hoping instead that it will shower us with favor"

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    Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    I mean, the whole thing doesn't get past the premise of the machines making cheap goods and "collapsing" the world economy. If they make a fuckload of cheap goods to point of all manufacturers collapsing, then all that has happened is... all the rich assholes aren't rich anymore, and everybody that's poor now can get a bunch of food and fancy shit because the machines are making it all for cheap. At this point, the machines now have an economic stranglehold on the world, but why the fuck would humans in general care? They're getting cheap/free everything, which is pretty awesome on the part of the machines. The only people who would be mad are the incredibly tiny sliver of ex-rich humanity, and they're sure as fuck not going to charge into the machine city demanding to be rich again without a way to coerce a bunch of poor people to go die for them.

    So now the rich aren't holding humanity back and ruining the planet, the machines have all the control they could want to force equal rights, the average person doesn't even understand why the machines even had to fight for equal rights, and humanity and the machines are kinda free to do the things they want instead of blowing each other up or trying not to starve under the bootheel of the rich.

    The rich people tell the governments where to point the guns. And the poor would suffer first as the rich try to struggle to maintain position, and they already make the poor blame each other, it would be super simple to tell people things that arent humans are their enemies. People are now begging for schools to open back up so they can barrel into a pandemic to earn a paycheck. I refer to it is "They are trying to march workers into the economy volcano hoping instead that it will shower us with favor"

    There's also a huge new wave of people going "why the fuck would I go back to my incredibly shitty low-paying job when unemployment offers better pay?" People are only trying to force themselves back out there because the rich fuckheads are withholding relief pay to force the poor to work during a pandemic.

    If the machines have already hit the point where they've made the necessities of life dirt-cheap worldwide, it's already too late for the rich to take the situation back because their leverage is all gone. They can tell the poor they employ as soldiers to point their guns at the source of getting everything they need, but they'll collectively go "fuck off, we don't need your bullshit anymore, the machines have us covered".

    Anyway, it would be far more likely the rich would try to use the situation to get even more rich until it is looooong past their ability to change it, then flail helplessly when they realize there aren't politicians they can buy out to save their asses.

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    Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    Hexmage-PA wrote: »
    Gvzbgul wrote: »
    Or the New York race riots in which an conspiracy theory about a secret group of slaves planning a rebellion in conjunction with the native Americans caused a massive riot.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Conspiracy_of_1741

    Fakedit- a supposed Popish plot. Not native American.

    God I need to learn more about history. So much of the discourse is really basic surface level stuff that just describes large, monolithic groups when the reality is extremely complex and features surprising alliances and betrayals and subtleties and complications.

    To elaborate on this, if you really wanna make your goddamn head explode Scanners style go look up the history of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, in particular a dude named William Holland Thomas.

    Here's some quick facts on him:
    • As a boy, Thomas worked for the US Congressman Felix Walker clerking at his trading post in Qualla Town, a center of the Cherokee Nation. Thomas signed a three-year contract of servitude in return for $100, room, board, and clothing. He quickly became friends with the Cherokee and learned their language. He was adopted into the tribe by Chief Yonaguska, who gave him the Cherokee name Will-usdi (Little Will).
    • In about 1820 Felix Walker was forced to close his stores; since he was unable to pay Thomas what he owed him, he gave the youth a set of law books. At the time there were no bar exams, and anyone who read law (generally with an established firm) was allowed to practice. Thomas became well-versed in frontier law. In 1831 Yonaguska asked him to become the Cherokees' legal representative.
    • In 1835 as some Cherokee were negotiating the Treaty of New Echota with the federal government to arrange for exchange of lands in Indian Removal, the Eastern Band asked Thomas to represent them. His adopted father and some other Cherokee had received land reserves of 640 acres (2.6 km2) by an earlier treaty and no longer resided in what was considered the Cherokee Nation, under consideration in the new treaty. Although technically the New Echota Treaty should not apply to them, the Qualla Cherokee were apprehensive. Those negotiating the New Echota Treaty were not taking into account the desires of most Cherokees. Seeking assurances, the "reservation" Cherokee and some others asked Thomas to represent them in Washington, D.C.
    • In 1839, just before he died, Yonaguska persuaded the Cherokee to accept his adopted son as their chief. During the 1840s and 1850s, Thomas worked to gain recognition of the Cherokee as citizens of North Carolina. He used Cherokee money, as well as his own, to purchase land for them in his name. At the time, Cherokee were prohibited from owning land outside the Indian Territory. His purchases became the basis of much of the Qualla Boundary, and he named the various sections: Paint Town, Bird Town, Yellow Hill, Big Cove and Wolf Town.
    • When the Civil War broke out and Thomas realized that neutrality was impossible, he agreed to organize the Cherokee to support the Confederacy. The 400 warriors he recruited formed two Cherokee companies; together with six companies of white men, many of whom were ethnic Scots-Irish, they comprised the famous Thomas' Legion of Cherokee Indians and Highlanders.
    • Colonel Thomas and his Legion controlled the mountains surrounding Waynesville. During the night of May 5, 1865, they built hundreds of campfires to make the Union garrison think that thousands of Cherokee and Confederates were about to attack them. The Cherokee punctuated the nights with "chilling warwhoops" and "hideous yells," according to a Union report, firing occasional shots to improve the effect. The next morning Thomas and about 20 Cherokee entered Waynesville under a flag of truce to demand the surrender of the garrison. The Union troops did so. On May 9, 1865, however, a Union officer told Thomas that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his army one month earlier, and the colonel agreed to lay down his arms. The Civil War was over, and the last shots in North Carolina were those fired in Waynesville.
    • After the war, Thomas went home to his family and those Cherokee who still looked to him as chief. In 1866, he received a pardon from President Andrew Johnson, after which he hoped to reenter politics and business.
    • In March 1867, Thomas was declared insane and committed to a state mental hospital in Raleigh. From then until the end of his life in 1893, he lived in and out of mental hospitals. In 1887 Thomas was still able to assist the ethnologist James Mooney of the Smithsonian Institution by telling him of Cherokee history and lifeways. Mooney was doing research and field studies on the Cherokee in western North Carolina.
    • He is remembered today as a figure in the outdoor historical drama Unto These Hills performed in Cherokee, North Carolina. The Museum of the Cherokee Indian displays the battle flag of Thomas's Legion as part of the Cherokee heritage.

    Source

    I had visited Cherokee, NC one day a couple of years back as part of a daylong road trip through the mountains. I got home and looked the place up on Wikipedia and ended up being completely gobsmacked by what I read. If it weren't for that last bullet point I'd suspect this was all Confederate apologia somebody had made up. I mean, I don't know what Thomas' thoughts were on slavery or why Thomas' Legion allied with the Confederacy instead of the Union, but the fact that he's remembered fondly even today, to the point that the flag he flew in support of the Confederacy is considered a key aspect of Cherokee heritage and featured in the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, is very surprising.

    I'm also personally interested in attending a presentation of "Unto These Hills" (which is apparently the third-oldest outdoor historical drama in the United States) someday. In part because I'm curious to see how prominently Thomas' character is featured, how he is portrayed, and if the Confederacy is mentioned at all.

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    HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    The Union was absolute shit at best to Native Americans. The Confederacy promised them land and autonomy. They were probably lying but at least they were different and various tribes had allied (and would continue to ally) with anyone wanting to fight the USA on the hopes that at least they could go into this set of lies with their eyes open and without generations of bad blood clouding everyone's judgement.

    Thomas's motivations might be more suspect, but I suspect the Cherokee themselves could probably give a fuck if white men enslaved black men or not.

    Hevach on
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