Hey all! The other day, I came across an interesting thought experiment relevant to this sub, so thought that I'd share it here.

Imagine this: you're sitting in a uni lecture, and suddenly receive a text message from your grandmother letting you know that she had a serious fall about an hour ago.

The reaction of most people in this scenario would be one of sadness / worry. Of course, we would all agree that your grandmother falling over is not a good thing.

However, let's think about how the "goodness" of the world has changed after you receiving the text message. Before receiving the message, your grandmother had already fallen. After receiving the message, your grandmother had still fallen, but we now have the benefit of you knowing about the fall, meaning that you may be able to provide help, etc. In actual fact, you receiving the message has improved the "goodness" of the world.

Now, sure, your perceived goodness of the world has decreased upon reading the text message - one minute, you were enjoying your uni lecture, and the next, you learn that your grandmother is injured.

However, that's just your perception of world "goodness". The actual "goodness" metric has increased. The fall happened an hour ago, and the fact that you received a text about it is a good thing.

So here's the question: should a truly rational agent actually be happy upon hearing that their grandmother has had a fall?

I first heard about this thought experiment the other day, when my mate brought it up on a podcast that we host named Recreational Overthinking. If you're keen on philosophy and/or rationality, then feel free to check us out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. You can also follow us on Instagram at @ recreationaloverthinking.

Keen to hear people's thoughts on the thought experiment in the comments!

I understand that economics is not generally the subject of this sub; but I think catastrophism and economics fits within the perview of skepticism.

A lot of Democrats in the US are prepping for an economic collapse, which I think is unnecessary catastrophizing. However, I also hear Democrats saying that the price of goods will increase if Trump places tarrifs on Chinese goods, which I assume is true. Should I buy all the Chinese goods I might need for the next few years now?

I'm living in the USA but not American, so I don't know how quickly your government acts. Could the tarrifs begin in January? Do I need to buy things now? Will we get any warning before the tarrifs are placed (i.e. will Congress be debating this for months giving me time to stock up)?

Are there any economists here who can explain how much more expensive things generally get when tariffs are put in place? For example, will a 20% tarrif really raise prices of Chinese goods in the USA by 20%? Or will Chinese companies likely lower their prices a bit so that things will just be 10 or 15 % more? Will competing goods from places like Philippines and Mexico also raise prices because they will be in demand?

I really loved his content and have some conspiracy theorist friends who I would like to show some of his videos too

Like the Heritage Foundation, fed society, the one Peter Thiel is in, prager u? If this isn't allowed please delete.

Some of the same people who have been making unfounded claims about UFOs for years have been invited to testify in Congress this coming Wednesday. If you've been convinced by UFO claims in recent years or are just curious about who these people are here's what you should know about some of those who will be testifying.

TLDR quick summary:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gb4z-kTbwAAdpVz?format=jpg&name=small

Source:

https://x.com/MiddleOfMayhem/status/1854977433218564412

Luis Elizondo

Luis Elizondo is a former United States Army Counterintelligence special agent, former employee of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, media commentator and author. Elizondo claimed to have been the director of a program known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) under which he studied UFOs. The U.S. government disputes this.

Elizondo has been caught using alternative Twitter accounts known as "sock puppets" to harass those who question his claims and in his recent book titled Imminent claimed to have, along with 4 other soldiers, used his remote viewing powers to remote view into a terrorist's cell to shake his bed and scare him. According to Elizondo the terrorist later told his attorney that 5 angels appeared in his cell and shook his bed. In his book Elizondo bizarrely confesses, seemingly proudly, to have been known as "The Czar of Torture" at Guantanamo Bay.

In addition, Elizondo has been accused of faking a UFO video on his property, claimed to have seen orbs in his home on countless occasions but never took any pictures or videos of them, and whenever he's asked for clarification about his claims Elizondo uses his supposed non-disclosure agreements as a convenient excuse to not answer questions. In many podcasts and videos Elizondo has alluded to being killed if he were to reveal what he knows.

Elizondo has not provided any evidence to prove his claims. As if that weren't bad enough, Elizondo has surrounded himself with the same questionable true believers who have been promoting their wacky UFO and paranormal beliefs for decades.

People like Hal Puthoff, a former high ranking scientologist, electrical engineer, parapsychologist, and government researcher who is mentioned many times in Elizondo's book Imminent and is the source of many of Elizondo's claims. Puthoff is a believer in remote viewing (ability to locate and see remote objects+places with your mind), was fooled by known spoon-bending fraudster Uri Geller, and has not proven anything after decades of pushing for UFO disclosure and advocating for the reality of paranormal phenomena.

Elizondo is a former counterintelligence agent. Counterintelligence agents detect, identify, assess, exploit, counter and neutralize damaging efforts by foreign entities. In other words they are professional liars.

As if all of this weren't enough during his recent book tour Elizondo was caught showing a photo of an indoor chandelier reflected in window glass and presenting it as evidence of a huge "UFO mothership" to paying attendees:

https://x.com/MiddleOfMayhem/status/1851273969422520382

https://anomalien.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/ufo-mothership.jpg

https://www.the-sun.com/tech/12789497/ufo-claim-from-ex-pentagon-official-draws-criticism/

Debunk:

https://x.com/MickWest/status/1852577008347435260

Timothy Gallaudet

American oceanographer and retired Navy Admiral Timothy Gallaudet claims that giant underwater crafts known as unidentified submersible objects (USO) traveling at incredibly high speeds have been detected by the U.S. government. Gallaudet also claims his 6yr old daughter is a medium who sees spirits and can communicate with them.

Gallaudet's wife and daughter appeared on a paranormal TV show called Dead Files in 2016. Gallaudet and his wife claim that their house is haunted by violent poltergeists. Their youngest daughter thinks ghosts and monsters are hiding in her room and her parents validate her fantasies as real. Gallaudet says he's taken his daughter to multiple psychics to try to help her.

Here's a clip from the TV show Dead Files in which Gallaudet's wife speaks about her daughter's experiences with the paranormal. In addition, Gallaudet says he sought help from Theresa Caputo, known as the Long Island Medium from her TV show on TLC:

https://x.com/i/status/1795866760098492739

Theresa Caputo is a fraud who uses a well-known technique known as cold reading to take advantage of grieving people. This same technique is used by magicians all the time. Here's a video debunking Caputo (warning, some strong language and adult jokes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Cy-fY72B0

In this interview Gallaudet discusses his paranormal experiences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1sgHZLzBDk

In this interview Gallaudet discusses underwater alien bases, UFO psyops, and weather manipulation weapons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NVDCtSxIac

Why would Congress spend millions of dollars investigating these outlandish claims?

The truth is that most of our elected officials are ignorant when it comes to a majority of things. They are focused on landing political points with their constituency and fund raising in order to get reelected. If you remember the embarrassing Facebook hearings in 2018 in which CEO Mark Zuckerburg was questioned by congressional leaders about Facebook's stance on social media privacy as well as Facebook's abuse of private data then you know where I'm going with this.

There's nothing wrong with being old but the ignorance on display at the Facebook hearings by those in charge of drafting legislation and passing laws was unacceptable. Congress members unfamiliar with social media and technology calling the internet a literal series of tubes and asking Zuckerburg basic internet questions shows that Congress is broken. These hearings are a way for Congress to appear to be doing something in a time of extreme partisanship and an inability to pass meaningful legislation.

The UFO topic is one of the few with bipartisan congressional support however the biggest proponents of UFO legislation tend to lean far right. Republican members of Congress like Tim Burchett, Matt Gaetz, Anna Paulina Luna, and others have pushed for UFO legislation. Many of these far right congressmen and women supported overturning the 2020 presidential election and continue to support Donald Trump to this day. Tim Burchett has said that UFOs are in the Bible and are possibly demonic in nature. Tim Burchett believes the U.S. government is covering up UFOs. These are not neutral people waiting to see where the evidence leads.

All of the information I'm providing here can be easily found via a 5 minute Google search. The fact that members of Congress can't be bothered to ask their interns and staff to do some basic research on who these people are and what they've been saying for years is unacceptable.

If you're interested in learning more about recent UFO claims and those behind them checkout my post from a few months ago in which I go into detail about other big players in the UFO world and the 3 Navy UFO videos:

https://old.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/1fjk1k7/you_should_know_that_the_people_promoting_ufos/

https://aaplog.org/fact-checking-the-fact-checkers-abortionists-misrepresent-the-facts/

I mean the bottom 2 paragraphs, since the first is special pleading about how performing an abortion is fine if you didn't intend to terminate the fetus from the "consent to sex is consent to pregnancy" crowd.

What are responses to the notion that specific complications are rare and go away, and that abortion would somehow be more dangerous? At best I can only come up with the alternative explanation of Pro-Choice doctors being fanatical fetus rippers, which sounds like a ludicrous strawman coming from the people trying to deny that they perform abortions, but nothing distinctly medical.

Scattered social media users have been passing around the conspiracy theory that Hurricane Helene was geoengineered the hurricane to clear land in North Carolina to mine lithium. Not only is the part about Hurricane Helene false, but also the second part about there being lithium in the parts of North Carolina hardest hit by Hurricane Helene are also false. Geologic studies carried out and published decades before lithium was used commercially in batteries show a lack of minable lithium and many other valuable mineral resources in the areas devasted by Hurricane Helene. 

Links to digital files of studies, where they exist, they include:

Lemmon, R.E. and Dunn, D.E., 1973. Geologic map and mineral resources summary of the Bat Cave quadrangle, North Carolina, and mineral resource summary. Geological Map Series, 202-NE, scale 1:24,000. North Carolina Geological Survey.

Robinson, G.R., Lesure, F.G., Marlow, J.I., Foley, N.K., and Clark, S.H., 2004. Bedrock geology and mineral resources of the Knoxville 1 degree X 2 degree quadrangle Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. U.S. Geological Survey, Open-File Report OF-2004-1075, 1:250,000.

These and other organizations also found that the occurrence of spodumene, a lithium ore, in North Carolina is restricted to the Tin-Spodumene Belt / spodumene pegmatite district along the King's Mountain shear zone, which is a suture zone between Laurentia and Gondwanaland.

Links to digital files of studies, where they exist, they include:

Horton Jr, J.W. and Butler, J.R., 1977. March. Guide to the geology of the Kings Mountain belt in the Kings Mountain area, North Carolina and South Carolina. In Field guides for Geological Society of America, Southeastern Section Meeting, Winston-Salem, North Carolina: Raleigh, North Carolina Department of Natural and Economic Resources (pp. 76-143).

Horton, J.W.; Butler, J.R., 1986. The Kings Mountain belt and spodumene pegmatite district, Cherokee and York Counties, South Carolina, and Cleveland County, North Carolina. In Centennial Field Guide; Neathery, T.L., Ed.; Southeastern Section of the Geological Society of America: Boulder, CO, USA, 6, pp. 239–244.

Horton, J.W., Butler, J.R. and Milton, D.J. eds., 1981. Geological Investigations of the Kings Mountain Belt and Adjacent Areas in the Carolinas. Carolina Geological Society Field Trip Guidebook, October 24-25, 1981. Carolina Geological Society.

Kesler, T.L., 1942. The tin-spodumene belt of the Carolinas: A preliminary report. U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 936-J, p. 245-269.

North Carolina Geological Survey, Lithium. Educational Fact Sheet.