• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

November 8, 2015 — Dr. John Brandenburg with Goggs Mackay


Forums New posts
Gene Steinberg

Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
Dr. John Brandenburg is a fun guest, with lots of thought-provoking information and theories to present about Mars and the possibilities that intelligent life once existed there, and that it may have come to an end do to someone, or something, firing nukes on the red planet.

We welcome your opinions on this episode.
 
Gene, I'm shaking my head here. What is the logic in closing the Jacobs thread with the comment:

"And I see that having a civil discussion on this issue is impossible. The thread is closed."

Only to continue to talk about the issue in today's show? Really Gene?
 
I'm referring to the forum flamewar. It was hardly civil, as you know. We've tried before. If I could depend on a reasoned discussion of the important issues involved, I'd reopen the thread. But I'm not convinced it'll ever happen.

And it's not directly relevant to Dr. John Brandenburg's appearance on the show, since it wasn't about abductions.
 
Gene, I understand, but the name of the forum section related to what is discussed on the show is “Talk About the Show”. Ergo, if you and the co-host discuss something on the show, logically you should allow the forum members to discuss the topic in the “Talk About the Show” section of the forum, no?

You and Goggs did discuss the Jacobs show thread and the comments made by some (including myself) at the beginning of this show.
 
I don't want to censor this discussion outright, and you're a long-time listener and deserve respect. But every time we give it a go, it becomes so polarized that it gets real personal, and that's not fair to Jacobs or Emma Woods. And all I get is demonized because I want a balanced discussion that observes both sides of the issue. I find fault on both sides, as you well know, particularly if you listened to After The Paracast this week and heard my little monolog as Chris added some background color.

I'm also not going to be rigid about this either. So go ahead and talk about it in relation to what we mentioned on the show, but I'm going to watch it carefully. If it goes too far, I'll shut it down.

Fair enough?

If you have any other questions about the process, you are always free to open a private conversation with me, or send me an email (I think you know the address).
 
I for one am glad the Jacobs/Woods thread was closed off. Everyone had a chance to give their opinion. I seriously doubt anyone came around to the other side. The whole abduction discussion is one big sinkhole. There are far too many people playing around with hypnosis that have no real training. Once you start asking leading questions the entire session falls apart. The other thing that bugs me is that these questioners already have an agenda they are trying to prove. A cooling off period was overdue.
 
DaveM, I find the closing of threads to sometimes be tantamount to censorship. It's great that you're happy that the thread was closed, but you should also consider the fact that if you don't like a thread you don't have to read it. The same goes for anything on the Internet. No one is forcing any one of us to read anything we don't want.

Having said that, this is Gene's site and he is in control of what gets discussed in the forum. If he wants to close a thread, it's his judgment call. I was merely bringing up the fact that by discussing the topic again in the Nov 8th show Gene is keeping the subject on the table.
 
It seems for some that you are either totally ok with Dr Jacobs and his work, or totally not ok with it. I personally don't have a view that is too strong either way, but for some people it seems with an issue such as this, you are expected to be all one way or all the other. Those at the extremes seem almost more tolerant of people at the opposite extreme than of people who are in the middle?
 
Goggs, well said. But the issue for me is more on the intellectual level and not "like a religion".

In re to tolerance, that's up for debate. I, for one, highly respect those who are in the middle and maintain an intelligence and insightful perspective on these subjects.

Maybe in time, and when more information is divulged, there will be more clarity around some of the individuals in the field and we can make better judgment calls and find more common ground.
 
Apocalypto said:
DaveM, I find the closing of threads to sometimes be tantamount to censorship. It's great that you're happy that the thread was closed, but you should also consider the fact that if you don't like a thread you don't have to read it. The same goes for anything on the Internet. No one is forcing any one of us to read anything we don't want.

Having said that, this is Gene's site and he is in control of what gets discussed in the forum. If he wants to close a thread, it's his judgment call. I was merely bringing up the fact that by discussing the topic again in the Nov 8th show Gene is keeping the subject on the table.
Click to expand...
I look at it like this. The people who come to this site are lucky to be able to express their opinions. This topic got out of hand. You may call it censorship. I do not. The Paracast is free unless you subscribe to the Plus. Frankly the owners can do damn well what they please. You might try another country like Russia or China and then tell me about censorship.
 
We have a clearly labeled Terms and Rules here. They are boilerplate, normal for online forums. We tend to veer on the side of being lax about enforcing those rules. Other forums are far more rigid than we are. But when a thread devolves into personal attacks, charges that one or another member is a criminal or otherwise engaging in illegal behavior, it has to stop.

Remember, too, that some might regard the forum owners as potentially liable for defamatory content. We do not have the funds to defend ourselves should members get out of land. Some of it is already borderline.

You can call it censorship if you want. I call it common sense.
 
And now can we possibly, maybe, perhaps talk about Dr. Brandenburg and his appearance on the show rather than a brief segment of a few minutes duration?
 
Yes, let's get back on topic... Re: Dr Brandenburg.
WANTED: ASTRONAUTS to prepare for intergalactic war! Earth vs the Klingons, Xneu The Terrible, The Sith and the Romulans.
It's a sad day when our only motivation to get off our space faring asses is to build up a military space fleet.
OK, so here are my issues with this guest; first, Dr. Brandenburg is correct when he says that there is an urgency to get out into Deep Space but, The emergency isn't because somebody nuked Mars Half a billion years ago. The emergency is because of the astroid 99948 Apophis that was discovered in 2004. This astroid is going to pass less than 20,000 miles from earth in 2029. That's closer than a communication satellites orbit. But the big concern is how that will affect that astroids orbit. There is the possibility that ,that astroids flightpath could be perturbed. And the real question is what will that change do to it. Will it come back around much closer seven years later? If you look at what's going on with the NASA and the Orion spacecraft everything is geared towards studying and possibly redirecting astroids. Including, going out to study the moons of Mars. All you have to do is look at the NASA website and you'll see what I'm talking about. There's nothing new about this astroid bit or going to Martian Moons.

Secondly; I don't believe that you can travel faster than the speed of light. I know a lot of people will disagree with me on that and some won't. Because of that, I think it means blowing Mars up to set an example to the rest of the galaxy is nonsense. It seems like one of the big problems with the UFO world in general is, too much science fiction pollution. Dr. Brandenburg is right, we Earthlings are a bunch of savages even though we have made technological advances. But, consider this. Even if some society in another star system were able to develop something as exotic as traveling faster than the speed of light or warping space. I simply can't believe that they would not shed their savage tendencies. I don't think you could make it to that advanced a stage and be Savage and still survive. Let's face it if we don't get our act together on this planet, we're not going to get to the interstellar space travel phase. I realize that science-fiction has all kinds of dramatic characters like Star Wars and Star Trek but that is just earths history and it's drama set and a futuristic space framework which which I love but it is what it is, fiction. Another words I'm not afraid of intergalactic A-holes coming to get us.

In closing I do agree that exciting discoveries on Mars will get us out there quicker because we just don't seem to have enough motivation to go there however, my guess is that Elon Musk will probably get there before NASA does. ;) oh by the way another great show!
 
Last edited:
Apocalypto said:
Goggs, well said. But the issue for me is more on the intellectual level and not "like a religion".

In re to tolerance, that's up for debate. I, for one, highly respect those who are in the middle and maintain an intelligence and insightful perspective on these subjects.

Maybe in time, and when more information is divulged, there will be more clarity around some of the individuals in the field and we can make better judgment calls and find more common ground.
Click to expand...

You know something Apocalypto? Considering how long you've been a member of the forum (far longer than I) and the fact your post total is in the 300's, I imagine either you only post when you really feel compelled to, or you simply do not log in too often.
But I wonder maybe are you the quintessential 'lurker' maybe?;) Are you actually here all the time, just silently watching, like a benevolent sky-deity? What IS the secret of 'The Apocalypto' one?:)
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Remember, too, that some might regard the forum owners as potentially liable for defamatory content. We do not have the funds to defend ourselves should members get out of land. Some of it is already borderline.
Click to expand...

Most of the dialogue that could be considered defamatory is coming from forum members, not moderators, so simply providing a forum for dialogue wouldn't result in liability for the forum owner under the First Amendment. However, that doesn't mean that someone won't become offended and attempt to litigate a potential non-issue with Gene and those associated with the forum. Even frivolous litigation costs serious money to defend, and I can't imagine any of us would want to spend that kind of money to defend against something we were hardly a participant in.
 
Back
Top