The question of political / conspiracy theory content

One of the subforums is called UFOs. How can you even begin to consider the subject without tying in conspiracies? It's impossible.

Quite easily. From what I've read about the subject, there really *isn't* a conspiracy around UFOs in the sense that most people who have got their ideas from 'The X-Files' or the 1970s-80s conspiracy literature would understand it. More of an anti-conspiracy.

Right from the beginning, there has been a very public discussion of the subject from people both inside and outside the defense establishment of multiple countries. For various reasons relation to personal embarrassment and military secrecy, the specific details of some of the best cases were often obscured, but much of this legitimate secrecy has now expired and the data is mostly in the public domain.

The clear pattern that emerges is of a defense establishment that, instead of operating a conspiracy to investigate in secret, did their best to wilfully not acknowledge the topic at all, because it was an embarrassing problem nobody wanted on their desk. Because of this official denial, various private groups (what Jacques Vallee called 'the invisible college') began to organise to try to fill the gap. Military personnel joined these groups because they weren't allowed to discuss the subject in their 'day jobs'.

The people who did the most serious research did most of it in public, and their results are widely available (though boring).  There is a UFO phenomenon; we don't know what it is; we don't know how to engineer it; we do not have any crashed saucers; we might have some physical artifacts but they're not unambiguous; we don't know if the core phenomenon is primarily physical or mental, though it seems to be more of the latter; we don't know if it's intelligent or natural; it does not appear to pose a direct military threat or hazard to navigation; it's weird and annoying but generally it leaves us alone. After decades of planetary and astronomical observations and SETI investigations, the UFO phenomenon doesn't seem to have anything to do with physical extra-terrestrials from space. It's something altogether closer to home, and altogether stranger. Psi is probably the key to understanding it, but we understand even less about psi.

Around this serious core is a haze of pranksters, scientific debunkers and denialists, political propagandists, religious opportunists, and bad actors of various kinds who have poured fear and hoaxes into the pot to make money, to try to manipulate public opinion, to 'startle the real conspiracists out of hiding', to fight or promote what they thought was an alien invasion and/or foreign subversion, or to protect the population from what they thought was a dangerous and transmissible form of madness.

That's basically it. There's not a 'conspiracy' so much as a whole bunch of separate actors all investigating a mystery that nobody has the faintest clue what it's about. And a phenomenon that only appears 'in the field', not in the lab, and really does not like to perform 'on cue', for cameras, and so is very difficult to get a handle on.

At least that's my read of the situation. And in my opinion, the less we bring 'conspiracies' into the mix, the clearer our vision becomes.

Regards, Nate

I have not followed UFO stories since I had a passing interest in the subject more than 20 years ago. I remember at that time I decided that the phenomena can probably be explained, for the most part, in terms of inter-dimensional contact rather than space travel. I've since read that a few prominent thinkers, including Jacques Vallee and Tom Campbell, also prefer that hypothesis.

Since I think that we all experience inter- (or mutli-) dimensional realities, whether via dreams, OBEs or the transition from this life to the next, then the subject surely has a place here. Nevertheless, there is a difference between what I believe is called "Nuts and Bolts" ufology and the more philosophical approach and it is the latter that I would be in favour of including, whether it overlaps with conspiracies or not.

There's also a liability question. Andy was pretty strict about no suicide advocacy (so no "Suicide is fine b/c you end up in the NDE paradise"), I'm personally wary of any accusation of horrid crimes by specific persons without evidence that stands up in a criminal court.

Also not really interested in Holocaust Denial, Anti-Semitic conspiracies, and some of the really weird/creepy stuff that I suspect Alex deleted Other Stuff to rid himself the hassle of dealing with. 

OTOH, the Other Stuff forum is a nice reminder that whether skeptic or proponent we have families, friends, favorite TV shows + songs + movies, enjoy cute animals doing silly things, etc.

About UFOs... There are quite a few resources that deal with them without getting 'out there'. Some weeks before Skeptiko went to pot, I remember enjoying an interview where two ex-cops discussed their experience with cattle mutilation and none of the associated conspiracies (black helicopters and the MIB, for example) were even emphasized. Not that I mind if we get a little 'out there' in this topic (I don't, as mentioned in my first post) as long as we don't get into things like the Queen being a lizard.

The threads that got people going at Skeptiko were the controversial ones.

They attracted people too, not all weird thinkers, far from it. I am much more likely to post something about something that's happened in the news or about conspiracy theories, more likely about my own thinking, than I ever am to post about something like nde or reincarnation etc. Those topics are more measured and news about them relatively sparse.

I also must make the point that I really think that there is a spiritual angle to what is going on with today's politics, I think the turmoil is deliberate. I feel quite sure that I t would be a mistake if we ignored this and concentrated on paranormal topics.

I would like to have the forum busy, with all types of thinking and people. I don't want to have it that when I come to it, there's been three posts that day. I think we have to make a choice:

Slightly edgy forum, but relatively busy & interesting (for me at least).
Safe, nice forum, but dead.

I think of it as being a choice between a silent library where you can hear people blow their nose in detail, or a busy cafe with laughter and occasional raised voices.

Stan. (Steve from Skeptiko for this one post)

From my point of view the question is about what sort of site this should be.

For one thing, the very existence of the Psience Quest forum at present is a result of various problems over a period of time which have led to the starting of this new site.

As such I hope it will be a new beginning, an opportunity to cut away dead wood and encourage fresh green shoots. I think this is a good time to take stock, look at how we got here, not just over the past few days, but extending over the past several years.

When a member occasionally was banned or departed with a loud noise it may have been obvious, But how many more members drifted off in disillusionment when they realised that the forum was heading in a direction different to what they had hoped?

In that respect, our first priority is to honour those whose voices are barely heard. Those who speak with the loudest or most forceful voices will survive regardless.

But that is just generalities. Now on some other sites where topics such as Near-Death Experiences or reincarnation or survival of consciousness are discussed, there can be an atmosphere where people talk dreamily and without much attention to common-sense. I've been to a few such places where the talk was often about such things as Orbs, and people just taking for granted that these were the manifestations of spirits of one sort or another. That is one end of the spectrum. I see political / conspiracy theory content as representing the other end of that spectrum.

To me both extremes are not representative of what this site should be about. There is a middle ground which includes such things as scientific research into matters relating to consciousness, as well as allowing plenty of space for personal experiences to be discussed.

I do hear occasionally from people who say, personal experience is all very well, but nothing like that has ever happened to me, so I can't talk about it. That's a fair comment and I respect it. But it also highlights that perhaps those who do have something to say may not be here. These unheard voices may be members who have left, or who are reluctant to even join.

In this context I think politics definitely and conspiracy theories too may be one of the best ways of driving away the very people who we need on board.

This doesn't mean those matters should never be mentioned - that would be unworkable. But lowering the profile of such topics so they don't regularly show up in the "View New Posts" or "View Unread Posts" listings should be given some consideration.  There may be ways of organising  the forum/sub-forum structure which could perhaps help.

As far as I could tell, Skeptiko began losing users in increasingly frequency as it grew more political. Others, like Neil, left quietly after implying that they were not happy with a "dichotomy", which was exacerbated as more skeptics were stigmatized. On that line, Tim mentioned that moderation had become overbearing, as did a few others (most remained). Gabriel was vocally against the constant Christian bashing and left for a while because of it. Many, many others simply stopped posting during the last year... Which means that they either grew bored of dozens of conspiracy/Christian podcasts, political squabbling or overbearing moderation.

I personally cringe these days whenever I hear the word conspiracy. 

Can't you see the danger in this? 

I think it's very ironic that the very people that have been ridiculed and treated as 'simpletons' for years, the sceptics saying that they are daft', their ideas are just mad, etc, are so intent on doing the exact same thing to other groups.

Those sceptics are so close minded, aren't they?

I personally cringe these days whenever I hear the word conspiracy. 

Can't you see the danger in this? 

There are always dangers. I know from some personal experience when I went down the conspiracy theory path decades ago, as well as what I've seen happen to some of my close friends, that it can also be considered as a form of self-harm. One needs to swim carefully in these murky waters.