Kudos to the 2012hoax team and contributors

Summary:

...Kudos. Obviously.

Kudos to the 2012hoax team and contributors

UndeadxNurse 27 Jul 2010 05:45

To be frank, I honestly don't know how the owner/creator of this website, the staff, and the contributors can answer some of the people who come here.
I have witnessed a fraction of the ignorance and pure stupidity that I'm sure that the 2012hoax staff has witnessed, and that fraction is enough to drive me utterly insane.. But then again, my temper is terrible and I have absolutely no tolerance or patience for ignorance and stupidity.

So for being able to put up with those types, day to day, every day, until 2012 finally passes… You guys, the 2012hoax staff, deserve kudos.
And for keeping your cool much better than I'm able to, while still maintaining your original goal to help people.. That also deserves kudos.

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Wie Sie säen, so sollst du ernten.

Re: Kudos to the 2012hoax team and contributors

Astrogeek 27 Jul 2010 06:48

Ian O'Neill passed on a message to me from David Morrison on the show last night, where Morrison praised my 'stamina' with regard to this hoax. While I was flattered, I had two responses.

1) This website is a collaborative effort. If I had to do this all by myself, I would fail, utterly. I depend heavily on the people who review the pages, who suggest changes and improvements, who feed me articles and material to look at, and who write some of the other pages. I have particular high praise for the original group who vetted so much of my material and corrected it. The guys who hang out in the forums (including you) are awesome, and I am humbled by and grateful for your efforts. I am also deeply indebted to the various scientists who have stepped forward to help, Dr. Normark, Dr. Larsen, Dr. O'Neill, Dr. Morrison, Dr. Van Stone, Dr. Hoopes, and I know I'm forgetting some. In a big way, all of you keep the site going much more than anything I do.

2) I am highly motivated. I am a parent of four kids. As part of my passion for astronomy I enjoy going into local schools and giving astronomy presentations. Astronomy is 'cool' when you're 8 to 12 years old, and can still imagine being an astronaut, sailing out beyond the orbit of Earth. Maybe some of them will be, who knows. But the joy I get out of sharing astronomy with these kids has been tainted by this hoax. I used to get some really fun questions in the Q&A sessions, like what would happen to you if you fell into a black hole, or what would happen if you traveled faster than light, or why do the movies always have a 'whoosh' sound when the spaceship goes by…

All of that went away, and has been replaced by worried kids asking question after question about 2012, bringing up every crackpot theory that we discuss here. In fact, I started my original article on my blog way back when in order to have a resource to point the kids to.¹ So, what I am is angry. I'm steaming mad, furious at the people who would callously scare people, especially kids, in order to make a few bucks. I'll admit that I'm a bit OCD, and this issue has got me going full blast.

Several times people have commented that I appear angry about this… and my response is "Yeah, you bet.".²

I will be here until January 1st, 2013, at which time I will cheerfully turn off commenting, and let the site revert to a subdomain of wikidot, and go back to my former life, educating kids about astronomy.

Footnotes

1. Someday I'd like to be updating that again, instead of doing this…

2. Note to the various proponents… it would not be a good idea for us to meet face-to-face.

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind

Re: Kudos to the 2012hoax team and contributors

Jim Smith (guest) 27 Jul 2010 12:07

UndeadxNurse said

To be frank, I honestly don't know how the owner/creator of this website, the staff, and the contributors can answer some of the people who come here.

I've been involved in several controversial, highly emotional issues, usually on the unpopular side, and my mentors gave me much useful advice.

One thing that applies here is that peoples' fears and accusations are seldom without some basis in fact. For example, governments do lot of bad things, and typically cover them up by exactly the means 2012Hoax is accused of participating in: setting up paid disinformants, corrupting scientists to do bogus peer reviews, and orchestrating campaigns to intimidate whistleblowers and ruin their reputations.

I was told by my mentors that given that history, we can't expect people to "trust" us: the best we can do is convince them that we're responsive to their concerns. In that way, they may begin to see that we have their best interests at heart, perhaps more so than the leaders of their own movements.

Emotional issues also tend to draw people who are genuinely mentally ill, and we've seen our share of them here. They're recognized as such by most people on their own side of the issue, so we need to be careful in handling them, since no one worth impressing is impressed by people who go out of their way to ridicule them.

Re: Kudos to the 2012hoax team and contributors

UndeadxNurse 27 Jul 2010 15:10

I definitely understand what it is that you're saying, Jim.
For me, I'm really not bothered in the way that I get angry, or irritated by those who are scared and simply ask a lot of questions, but I'm more-so angry, irritated and furious at those who come here to try to make the matter worse. Granted, freedom of speech, they have it, but I have just as much right to call them an idiot when they insult or look down upon those who are scared.

Personally, and this may make me seem like I have a very cold heart, but if it were just the adults who were scared, I probably wouldn't care that much. Adults should know better, unless of course, as you (Jim) stated, they have a mental illness which makes them prone to being paranoid, they have anxiety, etc.

I'm more-so bothered by the fact that some of these proponents and some of those who support these proponents say that the kids should know better. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but when I was a kid.. I didn't know anything about astronomy, or space, or physics. You could have told me that a giant Hippo was going to collide with Earth and I probably would have believed it and the reason for believing it would mainly be due to the fact that it was told to me by an adult, by someone kids are supposed to look up to.

I've always been quite short-tempered, probably due to my genes, but I'd like nothing more than to grab one of these people and just slap them completely stupid..

@ Astro

That's awesome that you like to have those sessions with kids, it's nice to know that there are still people in this world that kids can look up to and go to for facts.
I only hope that we never have to go through this again with another year, but I'm almost certain that some blood-sucking con-artist will whip up another story for another year, just as they have done in the past.

Just as I have said before, in earlier posts, I have never been afraid of anything like this, but I try my best to understand where the ones who are afraid are coming from. When I was a kid, I lived with a different kind of fear, so I already have a little bit of understanding that I try to put into play.

Many times you will see me crack a joke, or throw in a little bit of sarcasm. Not only is it a defense mechanism, it's to help the other person calm down, perhaps even chuckle. Then again, when I'm mad at someone, I toss just as much sarcasm, if not more.
Maybe when this is all over, things will go back to the way they were before. Silly questions about space ships, etc in the class rooms, kids wondering about more than just a date.

Although I am simply amazed that Astro or the others have not lost their minds. I may have lost my mind just trying to gather all of the data, let alone gather data and answer a flood of questions.

So to repeat myself.. Kudos to you all and I think that I speak for everyone effected by this when I say - Thank you for trying to help those who are looking for answers. For all you guys know, you may have saved a life, or many lives.

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Wie Sie säen, so sollst du ernten.

Last edited on 27 Jul 2010 15:14 by UndeadxNurse Show more