Conspiracy theories

[whart57]

12 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

It's a bit pointless to worry about "it could have been me" disasters that didn't kill or injure you. 

 

 

True, I was closer to serious injury or death when I came off my motorbike and went sliding down the road into the path of a lorry. Fortunately I stopped sliding before I crossed the centre line though it probably gave the lorry driver as much of a jolt as it did me.

 

On 7/7 however the sense of "it could have been me" was brought home when I finally got to Edgware Road and discovered that the ground floor of the hotel where the meeting was due to take place had been turned into a triage centre and there were victims all around having cuts and lacerations treated

[whart57]

10 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

The factor that I neglected to include in my previous post is tribalism - a powerful force amongst primates, whether they are a band of chimpanzees fighting off territorial rivals, football fanatics or those who seek "belonging" along religious, political or nationalistic lines (or the really dangerous combination of "all of the above").

 

The danger comes not from wanting to "belong" to a group, the danger is when that belonging gets defined as not belonging to another group. You see this when some tabloid or internet journo fills up space by asking football supporters about their club. The question "who do we hate?" is almost always in there.

 

Now with football fans the problem is generally contained to those occasions when clubs whose supporters say they hate each other have to play each other, but if that target group is there all the time - as is the case with different ethnic groups different religions or different nationalities - then that latent hatred is also there all the time.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, whart57 said:

Fortunately I stopped sliding before I crossed the centre line though it probably gave the lorry driver as much of a jolt as it did me.

 

Something similar happened to me last year when cycling: I was turning right off of a country line onto a path, got carefully prepared, saw a van approaching on the other side of the road, so made ready to wait for it to pass, then came off like a sack of potatoes, because I somehow got my right foot snagged on the pedal. I was sitting on the white line in the middle as the van passed me at about 6" distance before pulling to a stop. Oddly enough, I wasn't that shaken at the time (when I thought about it afterwards I was!), just very relieved to be alive, but the van driver really thought he'd hit me, and was badly shaken-up. He actually blamed himself, and said he should have stopped and let me cross his path. It took me a while to reassure him he'd done nothing wrong, and be sure that he was alright to carry on.

 

I have since changed from using SPD clips to magnetic clips on my pedals.

 

Sorry ......... back to topic .......

[Zomboid]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

then came off like a sack of potatoes, because I somehow got my right foot snagged on the pedal

I once had to cycle 5 miles back to my car with one leg because I fell off, got stuck in the clips and twisted my ankle into uselessness. That was hard going, but at least the car was an auto and my knackered ankle was the left one. I wouldn't have been able to use a clutch for about a week after...

Edited September 15, 2021 by Zomboid

[kevinlms]

17 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 Whilst tragic for those who did suffer of course, the IRA campaign in London caused relatively few deaths and injuries, compared to the general inconvenience and anxiety caused to the whole population, with transport services suspended more often than not by false alarms.

 

But that is what is behind most terrorism, the disruption to daily life, caused by relatively small bombs & false alarms. Not to mention the added security inconvenience and expense of providing it.

 

It is exceptional when the terrorists cause planes/trains to crash.

 

But against that, there is man made disasters, such as fires in aluminium clad buildings or the problem of corrosion in poorly built/maintained buildings, like what happened in Florida recently.

[GoingUnderground]

21 hours ago, petethemole said:

Or that their actual belief is, 'Covid doesn't exist/it's just the flu or a cold/said person was old and going to die anyway.' therefore conscience doesn't apply.  I have to share space with one of these people and it's scary.  Reasoned debate is impossible.

That's because you cannot debate a belief. As I was told once in my teens by a lady in her 80s, "Let's not talk politics, sport or religion, they're founded on beliefs and you can't change people's beliefs using argument or logic, only fall out with them." Even if you do change someone's belief, whatever replaces it is likely to attract them even harder.  They do say that the convert is the most ardent disciple.

[jonny777]

19 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

It's a bit pointless to worry about "it could have been me" disasters that didn't kill or injure you.  

 

For example I was nearly caught up in the 1987 fire at Kings Cross Underground.  My task at the time was installing a new computer system in a bank at Liverpool Street and had planned to work a little later on data conversion.  But the client had decided not to take call out cover after office hours, and a minor fault forced me to call it a day and I sent the team home.  I turned on the telly for the 9 o'clock News, and was in utter disbelief at what I was seeing - I found it hard to believe they had time to get cameras to the scene since I had come though there.

 

Or "I could have been killed" in the 1992 Baltic Exchange bombing.  At the time my job was located in the cashier's cage of a bank at Liverpool Street.  After the bombing I was only allowed to go back to that desk briefly to collect my personal stuff, and it was 6" deep on broken glass.   I had gone home at the normal time that Friday night, so I wasn't there when the bomb exploded a couple of hours later.  We were lucky in that our only casualty was a night security guard slightly hurt when blown off his feet by the blast.  Whilst tragic for those who did suffer of course, the IRA campaign in London caused relatively few deaths and injuries, compared to the general inconvenience and anxiety caused to the whole population, with transport services suspended more often than not by false alarms.

 

The simple fact is that in both cases I was somewhere else at the time - as was almost everybody else who were in these places daily.  There is a greater risk of "I could have been killed" every time you cross the street - 5 seconds earlier or 5 seconds later and you would have been knocked down!    

 

 

 

Exactly. 

 

I remember going to an Angus Steak House in London, and eating one of the most tasty steaks I can remember. I was with a work colleague and we had only really gone to look around the record shops and have a few beers. 

 

We finished our meal about 6pm and walked to Piccadilly Circus underground where we caught the tube to Marylebone and home (as it was then). After a decent nights sleep I remember switching on the radio at breakfast to hear the news that the IRA had bombed the area near Piccadilly Circus and there were a number of dead people. My first thought was that this must be wrong because I had been there and heard no explosion. 

 

Maybe my watch was wrong, or the precise time of the explosion? I don't know, and most likely never will. 

[Nearholmer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Piccadilly_bombing

 

If it was this ine, the time given here is 2100, rather than 1800.

[jonny777]

On 13/09/2021 at 22:40, AY Mod said:

 

I'm very supportive towards your experiences. I too have private and personal reasons too to recall the immediate aftermath of the event. I find the extreme theories disrespectful, at best, to those lost , injured and affected by the events. The creation and cultivation of these theories, in my book, are an abomination and I don't want to see any further repetition of them on here. Any more of it will lead to the closure of the discussion.

 

 

 

I could tell you a true personal story, but I can't because I'm too scared. 

 

The story would blow everyone's socks off; and is more sinister because all I did was recount my innocent observations on a web page. What happened next would make me realise that everything which is mentioned on a bog standard hobby website is being monitored by someone - and this was 20 years ago. 

 

Heaven knows what is going on now.  All I know is that we are far from being told the truth by those in power. 

[simontaylor484]

On 13/09/2021 at 10:00, woodenhead said:

Yes, the BBC reported it before it happened, in error according to the BBC but I've not seen what their source was for the information. https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/part_of_the_conspiracy.html

I believe the original source of the duff info was Reuters 

[jonny777]

25 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Piccadilly_bombing

 

If it was this ine, the time given here is 2100, rather than 1800.

 

Sorry, dyslexic typo. Whatever the time was, it was supposedly the same time we were there. 

 

[jonny777]

11 minutes ago, simontaylor484 said:

I believe the original source of the duff info was Reuters 

 

How can the info be duff, when it actually happened? - except 24 minutes after the broadcast saying it had already happened. 

 

Do you not find it suspicious that the BBC has 'lost' that recording? From one of the most newsworthy events of the century?

 

Do you also not find it suspicious that hundreds of people recorded that broadcast, and every time it was uploaded to Youtube it was deleted within an hour or so? 

 

In the end, the video was continually re-uploaded so frequently that Youtube had to admit defeat. 

 

 

 

[AY Mod]

Ah well.