Even the Zeitgeist guy himself stopped talking about conspiracies. Saw this vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTbLslkIR2k

And he keeps mentioning there is no conspiracy but it's the natural result of human self interest.

So even he got past the point of people meeting in dark rooms and planning to rule the world together.

I didn't know Zeitgeist was more than one film. I think I may have seen all of them put together into one video on youtube or something, but I do recall the title: the Move forward...

It's all horseshit. This guy believes in extreme socialist and utopian models. Everyone should be equal, nobody get's what they earn, only what they are allotted, all that nonsense. The problem with human society isn't that the model is wrong, it's that all individuals do not fulfill their full potential. But this nut doesn't understand that every human being cannot achieve what his neighbor achieves. Housing and food for everyone would't fulfill true equality, nor would it even fulfill true happiness. It is human nature to find joy in success; doing something different or better than others, and being an individual, not conforming to the rules every person must live by. I hate when scumbag liberals like this treat "rich" like it's a four letter word. For your edification, it is the result of prosperity, not a privilege for a randomly selected portion of humanity.

Yes, I'd concede the title is ridiculous and poorly chosen, for the reason you gave and others. However, you don't "know" anything without evaluating what it actually IS. Think for yourself, don't let others do it for you because you "trust" them.

Considering I really don't feel like wasting my time on a pro-woo "documentary", you bet your ass I'm going to trust (no scare quotes needed) them. I can't think of any compelling reason to watch this film, so why invest the time and energy to find it and watch it? No thanks.

The amount of time I spent reading everything I could find on UFOs and spending money on the latest videos which would leave you in no doubt, as a kid.

Too many people ready to exploit my gullibility is all I found, at the end of one long book which had me convinced, the author suddenly started talking about religion and how it was his duty to tell the world the message he'd been given - I've not read a ufo book since, and I'd read everything from Erich von Daniken to Billy Meier

If something is up there the colossal amount of bullshit put out by people looking to make money or become known has stopped my interest. If you want to hide something this day and age simply bury it with too much material on the subject.

There was one other president,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_UFO_incident

...ahem...

Once again, I'd argue the exact opposite. Sure, there is a handful of people who every year make it from ragd to riches in the best possible "American dream" fashion, but the vast majority of the rich people in the world have a background that gives them an incredible lead long before the race starts. Imagine that I had had, say, a meagre 100 000 old Finnish marks (~16 000 euros) of extra money from my parents when I started university in 1991; I would have put it in Nokia stocks, just like everybody else around me did, and with a bit of skill, I could have made enough money to buy a house before having kids. Or if I had had the connections a few people on the same department had; while we started at the same time, one of them is a pretty well-off CEO now, and the fact that one of his family members held an important position in both the industry and the professional association here sure as fuck did no harm. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, especially knowing how professional, intelligent and nice the dude is, but he did get a substantial head start just with his family and the associated connections.

Have money or connections, and you have it relatively easy. Have those because you were born in the right family, and I'd say it IS a privilege for a random portion of humanity. Just like simply being born in the western world is.

For my Montreal friends who refuse to watch a UFO doc (and I've never seen a UFO doc, so I get where you're coming from), what say you to my post on the first page about unidentifiable flying objects over Ottawa? Out of curiosity, do you not believe me, do you think it has some reasonable explanation, or was that perhaps some weird ass shit?



This is so idealistic it's fantasy.

Oh, hi there, Mr. Galt!

I have no reason to disbelieve you, especially considering a very quick Google search reveals that not only many people in Ottawa saw them too, but the "orange ball" type of UFO is very common all across the world. I've seen suggested explanations going from ball lightning to Chinese lanterns, and while I don't know what it is you saw, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation. What you could do instead of wondering "WTF is this??", is note down the dates and times of your sightings and see if they fit a certain pattern (what was the weather like on those days? were there any events or festivals going on where these strange lights could have come from? etc.), was there any sound, was it always at night, were they static or moving (if moving, how fast did they seem to move, and keep in mind a blurry object in the distance of the night sky can fool your eyes), etc. In other words, investigate it instead of going "OMG ALIENS" (not saying you yourself said this, but it's all too typical).

You obviously took some time and energy to find and read negative reviews of the movie, during which time you could have watched the first 5 or ten minutes on topdocumentaryfilms and decided for yourself whether to watch the rest.

It's common for science-related entertainment/news to offer a brief commentary on the credibility of things like this, since the ideas tend to get out and skeptics like to get a brief overview of what is credible and what is not from a reliable source. I recommend listening to the Skeptoid and Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcasts, they tend to include a bit of reasonable, fact-checked commentary on things like this that spread around the internet like diseases.

No. I am a regular at a skepticism forum, the JREF one. As such I am exposed to reviews of all kings of things relating to woo, I don't have to actively seek it out (besides, a quick google search is barely 1 or 2 minutes of my time and more productive in the end). Also, what Zodi said is true.
Moreover, I was into UFOs and aliens a lot as a teenager, so it's not like I never did any research whatsoever on the matter. But after countless books, "documentaries" and articles that invariably lead nowhere, I have developed a healthy skepticism, and will not bother with more of that nonsense unless I have a really good reason to. A few kids on a metal forum going "nuh-uh, this one is actually worthwhile, no really, this time it's for real!" is not one such reason. Sorry.

Yeah, I did that. I did a bit of investigating, but I had to wade through a whole bunch of alien crap. I am also sure, as you are, that there is a reasonable explanation and I hadn't considered aliens; I just don't know why it's so hard to find it considering these things seem so widespread. In case you're interested (and I don't gather you are, and I don't blame you), the weather was clear but very windy on the first day and clear and not especially windy on the second sighting; we believe it happened to be the first day of Shebat; on the first night, we did hear a loud bang about a minute before each sighting; both times were at night, but the one video I watched on youtube shows lots of daytime sightings; they were moving at a constant rate of speed and were unaffected by the wind, if I had to wager a guess, I'd say around 80km/h but that's a shot in the dark.

Anyway, I appreciate your sentiment and won't derail the thread any longer, unless a discussion forms; I just wish my (half-assed) attempts at journalism led to anything tangible, and it would be awesome if UFOs weren't associated with aliens, or had some other handy acronym to differentiate them from alien spacecraft UFOs.

Hard to find? A reasonable explanation is easier to find than a flying object with no explanation.

Well, you'd think so, but there are tons of sightings, videos, pictures, etc. and no explanations. No one seems to doubt their existence, but no government has stepped up to acknowledge them. I was wondering if it might have anything to do with geoengineering, since geoengineers (and whoever pays them) have a history of doing sketchy shit and then telling the public about it way later (spraying aluminum dust in the sky, cloud seeding, fucking space mirrors, etc). But I really have no idea. I just love official transparency, and this is clearly official opacity.

Not this one, but I'm not quite sure that we've been told everything about it. As far as I know, the 9/11 commission never really investigated the source of funding for the attacks. And now that we know bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan, I'd like to know what role they had if any.

It would be a Big Bad Thing to find out the truth, which most probably entails the involvement of several members of the Saudi royal family.

Just consider the implications and you'll understand.

I'm not sure about that, according to a reporter to met with bin Laden in the 90s he was the most hated man among the Saudi royals.

And yet the Saudis funded the Taliban (who were of course in connection with Al-Qaeda) against the Northern Alliance. Just because the Saudi Royals didn't like the bloke, doesn't mean they weren't prepared to use him.

I'd recommend checking out King Corn as well. It really goes into some gritty details on corn and high fructose corn syrup.

Bin Laden didn't need any funding to carry out his operations, he was worth over $100 million. Even so, the Saudis gave them (al-Qaeda) money. The nature of the money is disputed; the most common explanation offered is that it was protection money meant to bribe them from not launching attacks against the Saudi royals.

It's best to do your own research. The thing that annoys me is how instead of wanting to discuss and debate the truth value of the film the vast majority of people are just asserting that it's false but can't argue their position.

Don't just write something off as being false because that's the socially acceptable and normal thing to do. At least be able to make sensible points.

Also, don't bump old topics just because you think your post will add something to it when it really won't.