Prophets of Doom

[indigobusiness]

Recently, many people expressed a powerful sense of impending calamity. After this tsunami, it seems they deserve some sort of due credit. Perhaps even an apology from those who ridiculed them?

[Warpy]

1. It's hard to feel optimistic

under the boot of the fascists. That sense of impending doom is free floating, and will assign itself to any catastrophe, saying "See? I told you so!"

[indigobusiness]

4. No, that isn't what I mean. The undercurrent of angst is always there...

but recently many people spoke up in threads regarding a compelling sense that something monumentaly tragic was about to happen. You don't find that sort of consensus every day.

Random number generators, placed around the country by Princeton researchers, showed an anomalous spike before 911. I wonder if they did the same this time?

[autorank]

2. I promise to be more Doom-like. But Byrd will stand up, however.

If he fails to do that, I will apologies for any excessive optimism. Hey, the new sludge reports looks great. I've been looking for the Pentagon report on climate change, about to convert 4-5 Repuke associates if I have it. Well, there it was on your page.

[indigobusiness]

6. This isn't about celebrating a doom perspective,

but about acknowledging those that came forward to speak about their sudden compelling feelings that something big and bad was about to happen. It takes guts to do that in the face of the ridicule of scoffers. Credit where credit is due, I say.

Thank you for your comment about my meager webpage, you are too kind.

[autorank]

12. You're right. One of my favorite characters is Cassandra.

She told the truth and nobody listened, rather they ridiculed. There is so much out there that points to doom, it needs to be repeated frequently just to desensitize people to the point where they can receive information. I know a number of very bright people who are clueless about Ohio. None of them had heard of the Pentagon eco-disaster report. I look at verified doom-saying as missionary work!

[indigobusiness]

13. We ignore, at great peril, the lessons of the Classics.

Cassandra is a great example of how we seem to have lost touch with the building blocks of the foundation of civilization.

[Az]

19. Cassandra is a myth we can learn from

But it is still a myth. The gods were not in communication with anyone let alone Cassandra. It is a lesson to listen to those who may have valid information. Not to listen to the gods, fates, or any other such sources.

If we sat around and listened to all the doomsayers we would be paralyzed with fear and intrepidation. If doom is our fate and we are constrained by it then give up now. Nothing you do will change anything. Surrender. Quit.

There are those of us that are not constrained by fate. We make our own destiny. Doom sayers are an annoyance to be brushed aside. If they bring something informative that we can act on then so be it. But if you are not going to be part of the solution then get out of the way.

[indigobusiness]

21. It's not about fear and loathing.

It's about using all the tools available in the manifestation of our free-will.

Those that claim to control their fate are only deluding themselves, they are lucky to control their actions.

If man could control his fate, there would be no injustice.

edit- Myths are lessons: we can chose to learn from them, or not, as we cultivate our fate.

[Az]

26. There is no fate

There is only the path we choose to walk. The scenary we find is not under our control but where we place our feet is.

The issue at hand here is do we throw our reason aside and give in to every emotional hew and cry or do we use the tools we can really use to solve our problems. Turning to prophets of doom is giving in to their emotional state of mind. They are not predicting the future. They are giving voice to their worries and insecurities. Listen to them and console them. But do not rush off to the battles their fears predict. Prepare for the battles you can reasonable expect.

[indigobusiness]

28. Reason is not declaration.

Questions must be reasonably posed before reasonable answers can be found.

[Az]

29. Agreed

But this means we must use reasoned methods to determine answers as well as reasoned sources. Not the entrails of goats or the position of the planets (unless you are planning a trip to Mars).

The issue at hand is that these are troubled times. The source of the increase in doomsayers is not some predetermined fate that is about to engulf us all. It is the terrible things that have happened recently.

Its the same thing that followed the attack on New York and DC. People became discouraged and depressed. Fears of more attacks and other disasters abounded. This is how our minds work.

When terrible things happen we project identity onto the cosmos and demand to know why the cosmos is doing things to us. We begin to try to appease the cosmos and hope our methods of appeasing it work. So we watch for signs of whether it has worked.

We have moved beyond this. We know the cosmos is not out to get us. We know that floods happen cyclically. We know that the earth is an active planet with plates that move about on their own. We know that disasters happen all the time. We also know that good things happen as well. Its nature. It happens.

[codswallop]

33. You're argument has gone so far afield

as to be unrecognizable in the context of this thread.

If you have an axe to grind, it is not pertinent to grind it here. Nobody has gone anywhere near the territory you're defending.

[newyawker99]

35. Hi codswallop!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[carnie_sf]

7. Maybe

Manufactured consent is more accurate (thanks to Noam Chomsky)

[eallen]

3. Only those who forecast a tsunami deserve credit for foresight!

[indigobusiness]

14. I think you are missing the point.

This isn't about glory.

[Az]

5. There are factors we can predict and some we can't

We should always be cautious of natural disasters but the notion that they can be predicted from mystical signs and such is probably not a good idea.

Statistically speaking such things happen all the time. If someone proclaims that a disaster is immenent odds are they will score a hit if they leave their parameters open wide enough.

[indigobusiness]

9. Who's to say what we can and can't predict?

I'm leery of those who make a habit of making predictions. Often they are far more wrong than right.

Phonies and charlatans aside, the normal, everyday people that came forward recently were comprised of more than a few who were unaccustomed to experiencing such a compelling sense that something dreadful was on the horizon.

It is foolish to turn our backs on any insight into human ability merely because we do not yet understand.

[Az]

18. What just happened

We are in a war. We lost an incredibly important election. Hopes that were once high were dashed to the ground. The feelings of doom and gloom come from very real things. Not from some impending doom yet to happen.

Unfortunately when people become moross and depressed they tend to make their own troubles. No longer able to carry the good fight they fail more often than not. And when real natural disasters occur they attribute it to the misery that already exists.

Get over it and get moving. Give in to the malaise at your own peril. If we stop to complain about how there is no hope and all is fated doom then we are done. Destiny or no. We will have doomed ourselves simply by deciding to die.

[NJCher]

10. repeat

This is what the poster said:

Recently, many people expressed a powerful sense of impending calamity. After this tsunami, it seems they deserve some sort of due credit. Perhaps even an apology from those who ridiculed them?

I read those threads. Yes, it does take guts to come out and say something like that. No one is implying that we base our predictions of tsunamis on feelings of foreboding. All the poster is saying is that there is a record here of people feeling a sense of foreboding and that it needs to be acknowledged.


Cher

[Az]

17. There are doom sayers all the time

Just like when we get a phone call from someone we are thinking about. It stands out. But we think about people all the time.

It is natural after an event such as the election and the continuing war for people to become depressed. When depressed their expectations of doom and gloom increase.

Have compassion for the feelings of doom. But to imply that their feelings of doom were prescient merely increases the sense of forboding. It is emotionally destructive to feed in to this sense of doom. So yes to your eyes I appear cold and insensitive. But my intent is to remove the sense of doom and improve the situation.

We cannot turn this nation around if we are convinced that our sense of doom is fate. We make our own fate. We make our own destiny. If we are convinced nothing but doom lies ahead then that is exactly what we shall create.

So get your heads out of you hands and start doing something with your hands. They are for helping, not for wringing.

[indigobusiness]

23. Judging things you can only pretend to fully understand is ridiculous.

If animals can instinctively sense an impending catastrophe (which they apparently did) why can't humans?

The ubiquitous noise of impending doom is not the same thing as a large number of people having those feelings for the first time, at once.

If you read this study, you will see empirical evidence for this phenomenon.

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html

To be helpful, ask meaningful questions or make meaningful points. Passing predetermined judgment is not helpful to anyone, or anything.

[Az]

31. Worlds of difference

An animal near an impending disaster may notice a change in the environment. A human sitting in their living room fretting about the times they see on their TV 1000s of miles away is not going to be tuned into an impending disaster.

And as to the Princeton reports... This is not a department within the University. The Princeton paranormal research group is rather notorious for very bad research. They are the guys that Uri Geller and John Edward(not the politician) bamboozled. The name buys them all the credibility they ever had.

And in this particular case there are plenty of explanations for why the animals bugged out long before the humans did. A tsunami can drastically change air pressue. The environment changes and animals flee. We can learn things from them. Things like a change in the environment is bad for us and we should watch what we are doing. Not that they are some how mystically tuned into the universe. They continue to be notoriously bad at guessing when oil tankers are going to crack open in their vacinity.

[codswallop]

32. So you understand how the subtle mechanisms of animals work

and how subtle mechanisms in humans cannot possibly work?

Distance does not matter in nonlocal quantum phenomena.

William Tiller's work has proven this in human consciousness studies. Perhaps you could show how his clinical evidence is fraudulent?

[thecrow]

8. I used to have a recurring nightmare

in which I was in some tropical seaside place (thatched roofs, etc.) and a terribly frightening wave arose and was getting ready to crash.
At that point I would wake up, but I haven't had the dream for a few years now. It was terrifying when it would happen, though.

I wonder if I'll ever have the dream again?

[indigobusiness]

11. Probably not, now.

I can't help but wonder what your new nightmare will be?

[indigobusiness]

15. Global Consciousness Project (the Princeton study)

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html



September 11 2001: Exploratory and Contextual Analyses
Roger Nelson, Director, GCP

On September 11, 2001, beginning at about 8:45 in the morning, a series of terrorist attacks destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center and severely damaged the Pentagon. The disaster is so great that in New York we have as yet, two days later, only guesses about how many thousands of people perished when the WTC towers collapsed. Commercial airliners were hijacked and flown directly into the three buildings. The first crashed into the North tower at 8:45, and about 18 minutes later the second airliner hit the South tower. At about 9:40, a third airliner crashed into the Pentagon. At about 9:58, the South tower collapsed, followed by the North tower at 10:28.

The following material shows the behavior of the Global Consciousness Project's network of 37 REG devices called "eggs" placed around the world as they responded during various periods of time surrounding September 11. A book chapter gives a compact summary. These eggs generate random data continuously and send it for archiving and analysis to a dedicated server in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. We analyse the data to determine whether the normally random array of values shows structure correlated with global events. This page shows a wide range of exploratory analyses that provide context for the formal hypothesis testing related to the events on September 11. A number of people have done supplementary and complementary analyses, as well as direct replications. Links to these are provided below. An especially interesting effort was undertaken by Bryan Williams, who used data in 15-minute blocks, to compare with the seconds resolution used in the formal analyses. To the extent his results are similar, this provides some response to the question whether a general, external influence is at work, as opposed to an "experimenter effect" operating via fortuitous (albeit anomalous) selection of the analysis specifications.

The underlying motivation for this work is to discover whether there is evidence for an anomalous interaction driving the eggs to non-random behavior. In a metaphoric sense, we are looking for evidence of a developing global consciousness that might react to events with deep meaning. The whole world reeled in disbelief and horror as the news of the terrorist attack and the unspeakable tragedy unfolded. Our analyses show that the EGG network registered an unmistakable and profound response.

[amazona]

16. sorry to say but...

...I read the whole thread about the "impending sense of doom" and it was clear that the doom was supposed to be in the U.S. and not overseas in Asia.

You can't go around feeling an "impending sense of doom" and then taking credit because bad things after you had a bad feeling. There will always be bad things happening. The cause and effect isn't there.

I don't intend this as ridicule, only as an expression of my belief that if a person or poster claims to be a prophet, they need to actually prophesy. A good prophesy would include what, when, and where -- useful information that could be used to get out of the path of the disaster.

A generalized sense of "impending doom" is quite useless to me.

Your mileage may vary.

[Beam Me Up]

20. No. Genuine "prophecy" is not about 'predicting the future'.

This notion that "prophecy" is about 'predicting the future' is quite common but it doesn't quite match up with the function of prophets, sibyls and oracles of ancient times. Certainly their pronouncements at times foretold future events but that was NOT their overriding purpose. Their primary purpose was to generate an psychic force within the mind--particularly the mind of the petitioner--and at times the minds of whole communities of people. These psychic forces had REAL EFFECTS: their essential function was to shatter the reality constructs around which the ordinary sense of self/world was structured, thus freeing consciousenss toward the potential of deep insight. Zen Koans are examples of this function:

Unmon said: "I do not ask you about fifteen days ago. But what about fifteen days hence? Come, say a word about this!" Since none of the monks answered, he answered for them: "Every day is a good day."

The Great Teachings of all times have had to confront the natural tendency of the mind to build a structure that it believes is 'the real world.' This structure is absolutely essential for the survival of the organism. But for further evolution toward 'higher knowledge' or 'higher truth,' something has to cause the incessant internal chatter to stop so a finer and more essential faculty than thought can see.

[indigobusiness]

24. I can always count on you

to illuminate these conversations.

Thank you.

[SpiralHawk]

25. Grasshopper, what is the sound

of democratic votes being flipped in republican computers?

You have less than 4 years to bring me your answer.

[indigobusiness]

22. You are misrepresenting the nature of those threads.

Many people refered to their feeling that something tragic was impending at the time of Diana's crash, the Bam earthquake, etc. Most focused on the 911 tragedies, which seemed apt, but people tend to contextualize things in terms of what they know personally.

[Medium Baby Jesus]

27. You are kidding, I hope. n/t

[DrWeird]

30. Why the fuck does anybody deserve an apology?

Every week or so somebody starts a "I think something bad is going to happen thread." Something bad was bound to happen sooner or later, nobody deserves credit for that.

No they're just coming out of the woodwork, some dipshit last week figured that Osama bin Laden was going to use a stolen nuclear weapon to create a tsunami that would hit New York. It was a rather effective combination of every ridiculous fear of popular culture.

The other day, some other dipshit pseudoscientist from Oregon who thought he could predict earthquakes called up the India government posing as an expert and told them another tsunami was about to hit. Unbeknownst to the Indians, he based his conclusion on scared animals. There was wide spread panic, I'm sure a lot of people got hurt. Those kinds of people should be ashamed of themselves, not given credit.

[Behind the Aegis]

34. my random thoughts

There will always be people predicting doom. According to many on the Christian right, we should have had an Apocalypse several times over! However, I do believe their are individuals that can "see" or "sense" things, but we are taught as children to ignore it as 'childish.' The thing is there are so many frauds out there, it is hard to tell who is who. Also, one has to take into consideration a couple of things...people will 'see' things from their perspective, meaning that they relay what they saw in their own terms and vocabulary. Another thing to consider is that, perhaps, some things are pre-destined and other events will happen if all "the right things line up." So, if someone 'sees' a "lined up" event, it may change and never occur. And, if someone sees a "pre-destined" event, they may only be able to communicate in terms that don't match the exact event. I have to admit, I thought it was odd to see something like this thread in GD...I think that is cool! :)

[txaslftist]

36. Bogus...

There are always people predicting doom, day in and day out.
Go to some of the more wacky websites like 'rapture ready' and you can see it. Bad things happen, pretty much all the time. I can predict with near certainty that "some time next week a great number of people will die suddenly".

Then there will be an apartment fire in Brazil or an earthquake in Uzbekistan or a terrorist attack in Chechnya or a train derailment in Ohio, maybe all four.

Then I can turn around and say "I told you so..."

It's bogus. Try to find a verifiable account of a specific prediction like "A large number of people will die suddenly in Moscow on the 28th of June," and you will come up pretty much empty. Anything you find that seems to be a genuine prediction can be statistically debunked using standard probability.

No one is owed an apology here, least of all those people who say "I have a bad feeling about next month" That kind of umbrella prediction is so vague it can be stretched to cover any kind of 'disaster'.

That's my take on it.

[HeeBGBz]

37. Its about intuition and being in touch with it

"I feel a great disturbance in the force" You know, that kind of thing.

Tinfoilers. God bless em.

Of course we don't need intuition here. Only those with book larnin allowed. Please, DU'ers, don't use your opportunity to have gotten a college education as a weapon. Some of us, due to experience and life choices, weren't that lucky.

Some have gained skills in other areas. Skills that can be honed if recognized. It's not about specific prediction which would be great.

Consider it more of a "heads up" kind of thing. Like if you see animals running in the other direction your gut instinct should say "Run AWAY!!" rather than discussing the quantum possibilities of why a collection of molecules in animal form grouped in consciousness to begin a kinetic movement in a northerly dir... *SPLAT!*

Ridicule and derision are a right wing thing. They make fun of you so you will shut up. Get others to point fingers and laugh. They've been doing this since the Robertson Panel in 1953.