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- Arthur B on Gull's From Hell and John's From Glasgow at 12:33 on 16-10-2018 - link Odd that Cornwell doesn't mention Gorman at all - that suggests that either she'd wholly failed to research her own theory, or she knew full well Gorman existed but decided not to mention him because his cranky demeanour would hurt her theory.
- Ronan Wills on Gull's From Hell and John's From Glasgow at 12:06 on 16-10-2018 - link Whoops, I see that this was actually answered in the post. This is why you don't comment before finishing the article.
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Ronan Wills on Gull's From Hell and John's From Glasgow
at 12:05 on 16-10-2018 - link
Ooh, this is a juicy one.
How exactly did Walter Sickert get pulled into the Ripper theory universe? I ask because the most memorable Ripper book I've read so far (which is admittedly not a lot) is Patricia Cornwall's one where she accuses him of doing it. The book is fascinating in that it's simultaneously extremely entertaining and total bullshit; I remember even as a teenager noticing the glaring logical flaws in the argument, such as Cornwall quoting someone as saying that it's impossible to study Sickert's life without at least wondering if he was Jack the Ripper, but then she never actually tells us what made her consider him a suspect in the first place. All of the "evidence" is predicated on the unspoken idea that there's some prior, compelling reason to look more closely at Sickert, but she never goes back to say what that is. -
Arthur B on Phillips & Keatman, Questers Extraordinaire
at 14:51 on 11-10-2018 - link
(I'd argue that paranormal "investigators" like John Keel in The Mothman Prophecies were doing exactly this, just without being aware of it)
I'm not 100% convinced that Phillips and Keatman are aware of the fabrications here. On the one hand, some of the stuff they describe seems pretty wild and for supposed paranormal investigators they seem to be pretty crap at actually getting photos of strange phenomena when they happen. (In Andrew Collins' stuff he makes it clear that a lot of stuff is only seen in the "mind's eye", which is a bit more of an excuse.)
I'm pretty sure someone involved in the Green Stone investigation was involved in the faking - probably the Sunderland family - since someone had to plant the items to be found. But I suspect at least a portion of the ParaSearch team were just very, very willing to believe. -
Ronan Wills on Phillips & Keatman, Questers Extraordinaire
at 18:20 on 10-10-2018 - link
Never heard of these books or this genre before. It's fascinating stuff.
I've always loved these kinds of intersections between reality and fiction, like the pre-release Blair Witch marketing or that fake Juaquin Phoenix documentary. But of course, in those cases the creators gave up the ruse once the story was released to the world.
As a writer, I can see the appeal of "psychic questing" if it was taken purely as a literary exercise; maybe by travelling to interesting locations with a basic premise in mind and letting the story that unfolds be dictated by the sights, events and feelings you encounter rather than via conscious planning. If someone like Stephen King put out a Totally Real And Accurate (wink wink) account of his spooky trip to the Winchester Mystery House or wherever, I bet a lot of people would be only too happy to play along.
(I'd argue that paranormal "investigators" like John Keel in The Mothman Prophecies were doing exactly this, just without being aware of it)
I always view phenomenon like this as arising from a need for the kinds of imaginative play people indulge in as children, but which society tells us we're supposed to give up as adults. -
Ronan Wills on Military Monsters In Alien Costumes
at 10:35 on 09-10-2018 - link
This really brings me back to my youthful UFOlogy days. I remember encountering the "MILAB" idea back in the day, and your exact objections to it, and being fascinated by it. The way psychology and culture intersect to create these shifting delusions is really interesting.
Personally, I can well imagine the CIA or some other clandestine organisation doing the whole "let's try to mind control people and make it look like aliens" thing like once or twice just for the lulz--stranger government plots have happened--but the idea that it was ever a common, widespread practice just doesn't work for the basic logistical reasons you outlined in the post. These supposed government conspiracies are always so competent that they never slip up in big, verifiable ways that would show up on the evening news, but so specifically incompetent that they keep giving the game away to amateur internet sleuths. - Arthur B on Save vs. Libel, Pt. 2: The Rumour Dies, the Scars Remain at 21:59 on 08-10-2018 - link I don't know whether it's an actual upsurge or whether it's that the existing TERFs out there are just being louder; I'm not aware of any real studies on how many people out there are ideologically transphobic (as opposed to just having a knee-jerk response they don't bother to construct intellectual quasi-justifications of).
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Ronan Wills on Save vs. Libel, Pt. 2: The Rumour Dies, the Scars Remain
at 19:28 on 08-10-2018 - link
This is an interesting collection of articles. I was vaguely aware of the individual pieces of the story, but had never had the whole narrative laid out chronologically before.
It got me thinking about what today's equivalent is, and the conclusion I came to is that it's--unfortunately--marginalized identities. I know in the UK there's a sudden upsurge of groups pressing the idea that being trans is something your kids contract due to reading too much Tumblr, for example. -
Ronan Wills on GOGathon: What a Lovely Thing I've Seen In the Black Mirror!
at 13:13 on 08-10-2018 - link
I've got you beat on the "castles with strange names that coincidentally resemble sci-fi properties" front: there's a castle in Ireland called Castle Matrix. The name appears to be a clumsy Anglicization of the original Irish name.
I've been curious about GOG's selection of spooky point and click games for a while. Years ago I picked up the famous Barrow Hill and came to similar conclusions as you in regards to its quality, but something about the atmosphere of the game still struck a chord with me. In a way, I think games like that were made too early; they'd work much better as full 3D games, sort of like Gone Home but with more puzzles. -
Ronan Wills on All My Friends Know the Pale Rider...
at 20:03 on 03-10-2018 - link
I think I'm going to add this to my ever-expanding reading list...
I almost get nostalgic for these vintage, pre-internet conspiracy theories. When you compare them to the Qanon nonsense doing the rounds at the moment (last time I checked in on the Q brain trust, they had decided that JFK Jr was secretly still alive and possibly Q himself) they almost seem benign and harmless...until you remember stuff like Waco and the militia movement it emerged from.
While I'm on the subject, I was just thinking the other day that it seems as if government conspiracies have completely overtaken UFOs as the modern mythology of our times. You really don't hear much about aliens anymore, and it seems like the new "grainy UFO photo" is someone on twitter decoding "secret messages" in Trump's press appearances.
I think I preferred the UFO era, frankly. -
Arthur B on Always Be Purging
at 10:28 on 03-10-2018 - link
There is presumably also an industry in paid mercenaries to protect you or valuable property from Purgers - with their payment held in escrow, to be released only the day after Purge day, void if you/your property gets damaged.
Which raises the spectre of insurance companies hiring private armies for Purge Night in order to protect policy owners' lives and property - because proactively preventing anything bad happening to them is cheaper than paying out on the policies. -
Ronan Wills on Always Be Purging
at 00:30 on 03-10-2018 - link
If I remember correctly, Purge insurance is in fact brought up a few times as a booming industry, although how exactly it works is never explained.
Maybe the reason the franchise never moved beyond murder is because any other crime would force you to think more about how the Purge actually works, and you'd realize pretty quickly that it doesn't make any sense. -
Arthur B on Always Be Purging
at 17:34 on 02-10-2018 - link
I guess they *could* set things up so absolutely no commercial transactions within, into, or out of the US can happen on Purge Night.
The annual tanking of the economy as a result feels like it wouldn't quite be worth it.
(For that matter, can you imagine the number the Purge does on the insurance industry? Either your insurance covers stuff that happens during the Purge - in which case your premiums are going to be absurd because the odds of bad shit happening are radically increased for everyone - or your insurance doesn't cover you for the most reliably dangerous night of the year, in which case it's worthless and the industry tanks.) -
Arthur B on Always Be Purging
at 17:22 on 02-10-2018 - link
Yeah, I'm not seeing how that stops someone with sufficient access to just hack a bank's accounts ledger and give themselves an account with $99999999999999999999999999999999.99 in it, or whatever.
I mean, maybe they revert that the next day on the assumption that it's illegal... but what basis do they have for doing so? Doesn't that undermine the Purge?
You presumably can't bring criminal or civil complaints against someone who, say, blows up your car or hacks your leg off during the Purge, so what basis do the financial authorities have for undoing anything you get up to during the Purge? -
Ronan Wills on Always Be Purging
at 16:57 on 02-10-2018 - link
Yeah, the "no government officials" thing was clearly invented for Election Year, just so it could then be rescinded as part of the plot.
Election Year also addresses the bank thing, by claiming that they move all of their money to secure, undisclosed locations. Which wouldn't actually stop a whole swathe of financial crimes from going down, but I think the writers were operating on this idea that banks keep the entirety of their assets in a big vault at all times. -
Arthur B on Always Be Purging
at 13:32 on 02-10-2018 - link
I am bugged beyond all reason to hear that there's a rule that you can't target government high-ups during the Purge. It massively undercuts the whole premise - if all law is rescinded during the Purge, that kind of has to mean all law, otherwise you're violating the fundamental gimmick of the franchise.
Then again, I'm also the sort of person who wonders why all banks and businesses don't suddenly collapse on Purge Night because a lot of white collar workers spend the evening sat in their poor people-proof bunkers embezzling all the money they can get their sticky little hands on. -
Arthur B on A Very Specific Level of Scepticism
at 23:44 on 01-10-2018 - link
Re: government interest in UFOlogy - consider that in some countries ordinary plane-spotters have been arrested and accused of being foreign spies.
It seems plausible to me that any government working on, oh, say, top-secret stealth aircraft or whatever would worry about the prospect of information on test flights making their way to foreign powers they'd rather keep that stuff secret from - and a respectable, sober, intellectually rigorous UFO scene is a problem for that, because such a scene would make a point of rigorously investigating odd stuff seen in the sky, quickly discard those 99.5% of cases which are easily explained you note, and put a big fat "this shit is interesting" flag on the remaining 0.5%. It'd basically be a huge - and inadvertent - intelligence resource for anyone trying to figure out where test flights of unusual aircraft are happening.
If your country has freedom of speech hardwired into its Constitution, suppressing such reports is not really an option. But what is an option is flooding the scene with so much utter bullshit that it stops being a useful resource... -
Ronan Wills on A Very Specific Level of Scepticism
at 21:56 on 01-10-2018 - link
When I was a kid and into my early teens, I had an intense fascination with paranormal activity of all kinds, primarily UFOs. Much like kids experiencing professional wresting for the first time, I took it as a given that there was some underlying truth to the whole phenomenon, although I like to think I showed admirable skepticism by dismissing the government conspiracy and "ancient astronauts" angles outright.
I no longer believe that there's any credible evidence that extraterrestrials of any description have ever visited Earth; as far as I'm concerned, 99.5% of supposed UFO and alien sightings can be explained as hoaxes, psychological incidents, or people mistaking mundane events for something more...and when it comes to the 0.5% left unexplained, a simple "we don't know" answer is more intellectually honest than assuming a paranormal explanation.
That said, I still enjoy reading about this stuff, both because the cultural and psychological forces at play are fascinating in their own right and because a lot of the stories are delightfully spooky. The problem, as this article highlights, is that it's hard to find any sort of rigorous research into the topic that isn't compromised in some way. "UFOlogists" and the like are inevitably too gullible or credible, or will happily give their pet corner of the topic a pass while exhibiting a proper level of skepticism about other people's ideas.
What I always look for--but rarely find--is a properly skeptical viewpoint that's interested in truly exploring the subject, rather than just debunking it (which is usually so easy to do that I don't need some smug google-scientist's help).
"The idea he outlines is thatUS intelligence took an interest in the UFO community not because they had UFO secrets to hide, but because they were concerned about accidental exposure of non-paranormal but decidedly secret projects as an accidental consequence of curious UFOlogists clumsily poking about - and were also concerned about the prospect of Soviet agents using “harmless bumbling UFO investigator” as a cover story in order to surreptitiously keep tabs on US military bases and test sites."
This is the only government conspiracy angle that I find plausible. I think it's pretty much certain that the US government kept a close eye on the UFOlogy scene, although I'm not aware of any concrete evidence that it happened. The idea that they'd deliberately plant information to throw people off secret military projects seems like a logical step on from that.
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Robinson L on F91 and the Problem with Gundam Pacifism
at 15:02 on 25-09-2018 - link
Re: Black Robe
Okay. I mean, I'm not convinced that culture clash films require villains, or that you can't have good people and bad people on both sides. But that's a very good point about not depicting Indigenous peoples as monolithic.That's really more a universal, human thing though, isn't it? We tend not to care about how wars are waged unless we're on the losing side, and even if we do lose, we can always spin things to a narrative of the lost cause.
Is that meant to dispute my central thesis, or just a tangent? Because I see it working much better the second way, and I'm going to answer it as such. If I misread, please help me out.
I threw in that disclaimer to cover my ass because my knowledge of warfare is limited, especially outside of the traditional Western canon. I've done a bit of research on Indigenous peoples in the Americas, and allegedly, most nations practiced a mode of warfare which - though still awful - didn't entail the level of atrocity we see in Western warfare. I've also come across a smattering of other references to different types of warfare out there, so I'm not making a blanket statement about all forms of human warfare worldwide and through all of human history.Not to worry, the only really memorable instance is when an American sailor is supposedly haranguing a rickshaw driver, but he's actually begging the driver to slow down.
Whew, thank goodness.Ran is quite good. You should see it.
Yeah, I've taken a little break from Kurosawa's stuff lately, but now that I've finally read King Lear, I'll probably get to it in another couple of months. - Arthur B on Ferretnibbles 4 - Raymond's Scattered Summer Cinema at 23:15 on 24-09-2018 - link Casting X as Y means that X the actor is playing the character Y...
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Robinson L on Eromanga Sensei: Overrated Trash
at 22:30 on 24-09-2018 - link
S'okay, I got the idea from the article. I just got bemused at the specificity.
Robinson: Reminds me of that line from House about those 18 restrictions being so simple "even a 17-year-old can figure it out."
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Raymond: Would you believe me if I told you that was the exact location from where the revelation sprang?
*snorts* Really? I should've guessed.
And now, for some reason, I'm reminded of an early Team Four Star bloopers video, which started with this disclaimer: "If you are under the age of 18 and have never heard the word 'fuck' before ... well, you have now."somehow there's a sweetness that permeates the whole thing.
Well well, good on them. Probably not something I'll ever check out, but it's weirdly nice to know that it exists, which I would not have expected to find myself saying. - Robinson L on Ferretnibbles 4 - Raymond's Scattered Summer Cinema at 20:02 on 24-09-2018 - link (Or am I missing the joke?)
- Robinson L on Ferretnibbles 4 - Raymond's Scattered Summer Cinema at 20:00 on 24-09-2018 - link Meaning like how we have Lucy Liu as Yun Jingyi, more commonly known as Joan Watson, on CBS' Elementary? I agree; sadly, such was not the case with the casting of Into Darkness.
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Arthur B on Ferretnibbles 4 - Raymond's Scattered Summer Cinema
at 15:10 on 24-09-2018 - link
recast Khan Noonien Singh as Benedict Cumberbatch
I think you have this the wrong way around, because having a PoC play Hubert Cumberdale would actually be very progressive casting. ;)
