Cluesforum—Exposing Mass Deception

Yes, Simon!

I am glad you dug that out again. In fact, if you read the whole 'The Nuke Hoax' thread, you'll see I made mention of that as well. And the weird connections between various "George" and/or "(Or)Well(e)(s)" names.

Issue 5: Hi, ‘The Vicsim Report’
K and Hoi read from the first part of Hoi's documentation of CNN's "Vicsim" hoax — as originally reported in his The Vicsim Report (2009)

Sorry for the delay. Sometimes life has other plans than making a regular podcast. But anyway, here it is — a proper intro to the vicsim paper, along with some chat about other things. Please let me know what we're doing right or wrong for iTunes listeners in this thread.

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Great show guys, enjoyable. Then again, you made things easy for yourselves, didn't you?... You 'worked with' one of the most entertaining Hollywood scripts to EVER hit Off-Off-Broadway - the 9/11 VICSIM epic !

Thank you, Simon! I am glad you enjoyed it. I know it's a rather dull show compared to blockbuster movies, but the topics are so intellectually interesting I hope it makes up for the lack of spectacle and whiz-bang. I look forward to getting to "Part 2" because that's when we have to talk of the most ridiculous and entertaining aspects of the epic: the actual examples of all the flukes, horrible pictures, and the absolutely absurd tribute comments.

By the way, I just removed much of the hissing and a couple other hiccups from the show, so if you want a more pleasant listening experience, check out the version I just exported and uploaded. (It's also a few seconds shorter.)

This was a fascinating conversation. The fact that CNN would actually name a 9/11 victim memorial site cookie "DEAdHead" is still blowing my mind. Great work, Hoi & K! Even the web design is soothingly elegant. I am looking forward to the future Chronicles!

Thank you so much, starfish prime. And if you think it's a good intro to our research for others (where the forum wouldn't cut it), please encourage people to sign up on iTunes by searching for "clues chronicle" there.

Another one from kham and me. Sorry for the long delay. We might have gotten this one out earlier but we ended up interviewing Videre several days after our intro recording back on Friday, November 13th — just as the latest Moloch-worshiping ritual in France was booting up on their simulation computers. Videre managed to sneak in a couple digs at that whole charade, but we focused mainly on a reading of the Moon Hoax thread.



Issue 6: Hi, 'Videre' and the possibility that we've never sent anything to the moon

We've already recorded episode 7 — the first JFK episode! I just have barely had time to edit this one and I will work hard on getting the JFK one out the door ASAP. Then, episode 8 will be our attempt at tackling the big bank scams and we are hoping to have something really special for that one!



As always, please let us know if we are missing anything in show notes or you noticed an error or you have a criticism or comment. Thank you!

Just thought I'd help clarify a couple of items from the Moon Hoax thread.

If my memory serves me correctly, I think the Moon Hoax thread was born out of some posts & links 'excised' posted, relating to Jay Weidner's analysis of Kubrick's The Shining, as mentioned here.

by ogrady on November 20th, 2009, 4:16 am

Came to this thread a bit late in the day. Always enjoy studying the moon landing hoax.

Wanted to thank excised for the link to the Jay Weidner analysis of The Shining. I've enjoyed a lot of the material linking Kubrick (one of my favorites) to the Apollo hoax.

http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?p=585970#p585970
Sadly they appear to be among the missing posts.

Also I think Hoi actually started off the Moon Hoax thread with a post that I had posted with a link I'd found, about how an area in Australia had seen a different moon landing broadcast to the rest of the world, & I'd likened it to the 9/11 'nose out' debacle.
Although that post is among the missing posts, it was captured in the quote function of this post.
http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?p=1713151#p1713151

I am totally out of all of this, and I apologize if I am commenting the podcasts in the wrong place... And I also am sorry that more often than not I reappear on this forum to manifest my distaste or disapproval for the directions this forum is taking and generally break Hoi's balls.

Anyway: I listened to the one about the Moon Hoax and I found it barely understandable and not at all entertaining. First of all, there is little to no effort to communicate "outside of the circle". This effect, already present on the forum but mitigated by the focus on clarity and readability, seem to go rampant in the format of the podcast conversation.

Second of all, the choice itself of the podcast seems odd. It doesn't add anything to what already is present on the forum (we do can read and don't need anyone to read this stuff to us!) Instead, it takes out of it the MOST IMPORTANT part, which is the imagery. Furthermore, it goes in the direction of one Alex Jones, pretending to be saying momentous things via the "radio", which is just an old trick to play "being grassroots". We only need a 40s iconic mic Larry King-style and the stereotype is ready.

As it is, the operation appears to me to quite useless and I don't understand it at all. Is any of this supposed to interest or attract anyone to the topic of the Moon Hoax?
Or is this rather meant to push cluesforum further and further into a corner? (since the flat earth bullshit didn't work?)

Much more interesting (and, I admit, difficult) would be trying to find a language that really reaches everyone. Instead of spending half the podcast interviewing one user on why she uses a certain nickname, continuing polemics with trolls, take on discussions for "insiders" left over months or years back, commenting minor passages in the research that have a place in a skype private conference, better energy could be spend in focusing on few simplified, clarified discoveries that a thread made (1, 2 of them would be enough in one podcast), making readable and understandable the lingo we use, or relate to the things that inspired us originally to get into this.
I mean, tell your guests to read a thread and pick ONE discovery from it and explain it to us thoroughly! Call in someone who disagrees! Pretend this is thought out a little more!

Bottom line, it seems really odd and counter-intuitive to associate a podcast to the research on media fakery. Such research needs images and videos to reach a wider public. There is a reason why Simon made a movie called September Clues, and why that worked. Words are often a burden to images, which never as in this case "speak louder than words".

Off the top of my head: Perhaps, a project involving workshops, or mini-conferences, in campuses, or bookshops, or online, presenting the research on media fakery and its consequences in a simple, clear way, answering questions from the public, while putting it all on youtube later, would have made more sense. It could have been called... The September Clues Fakery Educational Travelling Conference (nah, just kidding).
I mean I know it sounds like a lot of work that I for one would not be able to do -- but it seems to me something more appropriate, more open, more rife with debate and unforeseen consequences, more bound to create contacts -- than a podcast between "insiders" of the forum where everyone agrees with everyone and there is even less debate than on the forum!
Uh, please, don't let me lose another episode!!

One last point (not as important, but still worth mentioning): the Moon Hoax podcast briefly mentions the conversion of the forum from RealityShack to Cluesforum saying that "we converted the forum" and "we made mistakes in doing it" as we "didn't know php so much". Being the one person who was responsible for that conversion, having put into that a considerable amount of energy and man hours, having been back then the one person on the forum who actually understood some of that programming language, I can say that this is not an accurate description of the events. That conversion "with mistakes" (which in the largest part I corrected one by one in front of the computer afterwards) was the only possible technical solution at hand and the alternative would have been to sit on the RealityShack forum in the hands of censors and dubious administrators to this day (Dubious administrators and contributors such as DDuck and OzzyBinOswald that I believe I first push out of their characters until they imploded. -- or I am remembering incorrectly?) I say this not for the spite of not having been mentioned! but for the feeling of history-rewriting in place that this reconstruction of the events gave me.

nonhocapito wrote:Much more interesting (and, I admit, difficult) would be trying to find a language that really reaches everyone. Instead of spending half the podcast interviewing one user on why she uses a certain nickname, continuing polemics with trolls, take on discussions for "insiders" left over months or years back, commenting minor passages in the research that have a place in a skype private conference, better energy could be spend in focusing on few simplified, clarified discoveries that a thread made (1, 2 of them would be enough in one podcast), making readable and understandable the lingo we use, or relate to the things that inspired us originally to get into this.

Bottom line, it seems really odd and counter-intuitive to associate a podcast to the research on media fakery. Such research needs images and videos to reach a wider public. There is a reason why Simon made a movie called September Clues, and why that worked. Words are often a burden to images, which never as in this case "speak louder than words".

Thanks, nonhocapito. I agree that more efforts should be made. Would you like to try to make some of those?

My (correct) intuition about this podcast has been that it will bring in people who are not visual/logical learners. So far, this has been useful to explain to people who are extremely remotely outside of the conversation some better understanding of where we are coming from. Of course, it is only some better and not very much better, as you rightly point out. All I can say is I keep receiving compliments from listeners who say, "Wow, you really have broken down this research into its essentials." In the last couple weeks, I have had people come to me saying, "I finally get it! Thank you! The podcast has such good writing!"

No ideas yet on how we can reach the kinesthetic learners. Maybe they'll need to feel Simon's face? Just kidding.

Why all people couldn't understand text and pictures and videos and plain logic — like we do — is one of the hard lessons I do think we all need to understand if we are not going to come at people berating them for failing to learn things in the way that we learn them. I am not saying any of us is doing that, although I have noticed all of us admins do it at least once. Some people have bigger ears than eyes. That's just the way it is.

A universal teaching program that covers all the various ways in which different learners learn — including the way you learn, nonhocapito — would be something we would definitely all love, and which we would need a lot of input on from the different learning-types. Would you like to contribute? Would you like to help with something like that? If so, please let's start a thread in or near the "Getting the Word Out" thread. However, I also read your suggestions and I think there are ways to do them.

By the way, please understand that this show is also very American so far, quite "liberal" and other properties. And this is only a minor point. But it might also contribute to your sense of boredom and lack of feeling the nuances of our daily conversation. I must say most every talk show I've ever heard nearly bored me out of my skull!

nonhocapito wrote:One last point (not as important, but still worth mentioning): the Moon Hoax podcast briefly mentions the conversion of the forum from RealityShack to Cluesforum saying that "we converted the forum" and "we made mistakes in doing it" as we "didn't know php so much". Being the one person who was responsible for that conversion, having put into that a considerable amount of energy and man hours, having been back then the one person on the forum who actually understood some of that programming language, I can say that this is not an accurate description of the events. That conversion "with mistakes" (which in the largest part I corrected one by one in front of the computer afterwards) was the only possible technical solution at hand and the alternative would have been to sit on the RealityShack forum in the hands of censors and dubious administrators to this day (Dubious administrators and contributors such as DDuck and OzzyBinOswald that I believe I first push out of their characters until they imploded. -- or I am remembering incorrectly?) I say this not for the spite of not having been mentioned! but for the feeling of history-rewriting in place that this reconstruction of the events gave me.

No history is being rewritten. Don't worry. Your solution to the transfer was a most excellent solution. Simon and I later re-organizing based on the transfer was something else entirely and you are not to blame. And not to turn your own argument against you, but I fear the nitty gritty of just what was done at what time to bring over the conversation may not interest many people. So perhaps our words were not chosen so well in our casual-speak on the podcast. Would you care to join the podcast and help us write a brief episode on what actually took place? As antipodean points out, however, there are some fine details of each thread's construction methods that may be too boring to go over further than the way I mentioned it: basically, stuff got mixed up a little. Listeners don't need to know much more. Simon pointed this out to me when we were considering putting some of that technical discussion in the first two episodes and he shook his head and said — basically — nobody cares.

The concept of this podcast is to get some people who don't already to come to the forum, read and get interested in all the writings. So far, locally for me, at least, that has been effective.

As far as organizing big conferences, it's a wonderful idea.

The forum itself, despite your interest, my interest and Simon's interest in it, is actually a very very boring way to learn the truth. Such is life, too.

Well I'm happy that people tell you that this was useful. Listening, I didn't have this feeling at all, but as you say that's maybe a problem with being into the research.
Bottom line here you talk about things that are in front of your eyes that the listener doesn't see! Should we read the thread as you speak? Then the speaker should constantly tell us "go to this page" or something... otherwise, once again, all this stuff is for insiders who already know the thread and agree with you and just want to be on board. You continue old polemics with contributors who are not there and cannot answer... Bottom line you set up a conversation where the two parts agree with each other on everything. This is a typical american-tv version of a public discussion that seems quite popular these days (it's all an Alex Jones, a Max Kaiser do, with the occasional disagreer hired for the purpose) and of which I don't really understand the usefulness.
I apologize if I dropped in, once again, only to complain and not chipping in the time that I don't have. Having the time I'd be happy to be part of a conversation about hollywood and 9/11 or the italian experience with fakery and propaganda, for example, but not with people that already agree to agree, so that we can slap each others backs all the way through. I would also need to point at a picture now and then, or let a video roll.
One last way to do it could be to find someone who is new to all this (obviously not an experienced troll), have this person read the thread and come back with all the uncomfortable questions, so that some experienced researcher can try to answer them. At least it wouldn't be a conversation that we already know it's going in the direction of friendly laughs and comfortable approval.

Well, I am not sure if you noticed but there are multiple times that kham and I have disagreed "on the air" and now Videre too.

Even moreso, there are thoughts and observations we do not say, but which we may be thinking. This is the subtlety of "talk" and the words we choose to say. There is also politeness and kindness and trust being exchanged or withheld at various points.

The difference between blatant disagreeing, which is what TV constantly thrusts in our faces for its entertainment value, versus subtle disagreeing, which happens in real, human, polite conversation — I think we make a good example of. No offense, but you may not be picking up on those disagreements because you have been seeing/hearing too much mainstream garbage. If all the times we do agree annoy you, I am not sure what to say. Who would you suggest as a co-host — someone who really doesn't like what anyone has written and has no ability to provide context to the listener? Or maybe you'd prefer that we step up our speculations about how to interpret what we're seeing? I still don't quite understand what is bugging you. Because an inexperienced researcher is not someone we might necessarily trust and it may result in more things you dislike: boringness. Who would be good for this role?

One reason I try to include interviews is to get more mentalities involved and helping to carry through the show. But you don't like the idea of an interview either? Is there anything you do like about the show? Is it all completely wrong and evil?

How do we exactly resemble an Alex Jones show? Is it the camaraderie? Are we not acidic enough? And then, if we do have what you want where someone is there just to disagree, except of course they'd basically be unpaid and unscripted, as we the hosts are, why don't we just allow our own selves to weigh the doubts we have and choose to air them or not? In that case, the effect is still the same. kham and I are the hosts. It's still us doing it.

If you want to have more/better conversation about the show, it sounds like you just don't like us.

It's also possible that we are having cultural differences, as usual. In that case I would just suggest you adopt an "American" magnanimity and try not to get too excited about our differences, nonhocapito. We are on the same team!

No I'm sorry in the conversation I listened to I didn't catch any disagreement that was worth mentioning. And I have no one to suggest as in my awful negativity I think, as I said, that a podcast to explain media fakery doesn't make much sense.

Also please note that I didn't say "big conferences" but "mini conferences". If you had them online you could maybe use youtube streaming and people asking questions or contributing via messages, or maybe there's some other platform better suited -- I haven't really explored this but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of technological solutions to make this appealing while economically viable -- the really difficult task being finding the people who could be interested in this while not being already or just people who contribute to the forum, maybe running some promotional campaign on social media before the event. Just throwing ideas off the top of my head.

[EDIT:] to complete my answer, I don't really feel we are "on the same team" since for several reasons I have stopped contributing regularly to this forum, and in my sporadic returns many things I haven't liked about it -- besides since the first days when I started contributing to the RealityShack my attitude was not magnanimous and I never really felt any "camaraderie", and this was a good thing, too, since this would have meant being a comrade to OzzyBin or Fred...

As to the comparison with Alex Jones I made it because 1) the "radio"/"podcast" format he started with was not genuine but a trick to pretend he was "grassroots" and not an agent; here the choice of a podcast appears to me similarly unnecessary and demonstrative, although I'm sure for different reasons; more importantly 2) as with the Alex Jones format the conversations doesn't seem to be really centered on the idea of an open debate with unpredictable differences and outcomes, which it should be if the aim is to "reach out".

Well, I'm sorry you just don't like us as hosts because you don't feel the show for whatever reason. Sounds like there is nothing we can do about that.

As for conferences, even a mini one is really big for people like us. We don't have money and time to spend on much more than what we're already doing!

However, you are right, it would be wonderful and great. But how? It seems like Ab and others have kinda taken over the "market" for that because that's what steers most people: YouTube and conference calls and that sort of thing. It has turned into Ab's audio-chats, which are also their own form of very limited audiences. What actually draws people? Viral videos, artificially vetted and promoted by YouTube — things like that. Think YouTube is going to help us with that?

The Clues Chronicle is not the ultimate solution. It is one small expansion of our very small audience. It is a true podcast, however, and it's formated like one. It's different from that whole interactive thing, and I hope you appreciate that not everyone is all technological/Skyping/forum using like us. Some people just go to work, and want audio blasting at them that's intellectually stimulating and entertaining. Maybe they subconsciously want a slow way out of their media rut, too, because they are attracted to our podcast for whatever reason. It's also worth it to reach different generations and people types. I hope you can appreciate other types of people, not just those like yourself.

I don't disagree it's a great idea to do some kind of conferences, but again — it's Simon and me right now! Even you are saying you don't have time to do anything that you suggest.

nonhocapito wrote:I never really felt any "camaraderie", and this was a good thing, too, since this would have meant being a comrade to OzzyBin or Fred...

You're right that this is not a good place for fast friends or anything like that. Those paid shills are just par for the course, though. Real friends like kham and I, however, do like to talk about things we like. And we like CluesForum. If that's annoying to you, I don't know what to say. I think friends are great, and I feel lucky to have someone like k to talk with, agree with and disagree with in a fun friendly format — and we are actually talking about very weird and interesting things, that some people (not many, but some) also find interesting because of the way we talk about it.

nonhocapito wrote:As to the comparison with Alex Jones I made it because 1) the "radio"/"podcast" format he started with was not genuine but a trick to pretend he was "grassroots" and not an agent; here the choice of a podcast appears to me similarly unnecessary and demonstrative, although I'm sure for different reasons; more importantly 2) as with the Alex Jones format the conversations doesn't seem to be really centered on the idea of an open debate with unpredictable differences and outcomes, which it should be if the aim is to "reach out".

Except that it has drawn you out of the woodwork to join the conversation and complain about it. I have to say, so far, that isn't the best thing to come out of the podcast.

But if it leads to a better idea that actually gets done and not just talked about, it would be awesome.

Maybe it would be best if you posted in our "Getting the Word Out" thread, where we are always talking about different and new ideas to get the word out. You don't seem to be into podcasts. Here is that thread: http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=456

You may have noticed other people made similar "conference"-type suggestions but also did absolutely nothing about it themselves. I challenge you to devise and implement an idea that would actually work like The Clues Chronicle and successfully reach a greater audience while also refusing to work with others to do so. It seems like your competitive spirit may be useful to that end. How about it? Up for the challenge? Want to be a one-man propaganda campaign?

As Videre points out in the last episode of our podcast, social engineering is the very science that we are up against as people unwilling to use such shrewd methods ourselves, on principle. It is kind of a fascinating subject we all have a lot to learn about. Maybe we will continue to dig into it more, in future episodes!