Unexplained events and mysteries

[Ronald Zeeman]

My dad took a history course in university at 85 years old got the highest mark in the class, had an entourage of other students hanging on his expeience as he like me is very talkative, even gave speech Professors had a brunch planned in his honour, he broke leg ended up in hospital, passed away a few weeks later I was shocked these students turned up at his funeral.

 

[Judge]

Unexplained events? Let's go to Virginia City, Nevada. Where I have been in the "Old Washoe Club" a number of times. Often considered "ground zero" for paranormal activity in this living ghost town. One of the most interesting places I've ever experienced.

I still recall the last time I went with my brother and cousin. I was holding my Mel-Meter as I went down a steep staircase, and the person behind me touched my shoulder just as I watched my Mel-Meter momentarily spike in terms of displaying a sudden surge of an electromagnetic field. Didn't see anything on the walls or nearby that might emit such a thing.

And the nearest person behind me coming down the stairs was too far away to have touched me.

Much further to the south is the "granddaddy" of paranormal activity of the entire state. The Goldfield Hotel, which to this day remains closed to the public. Still, even from the outside the "creep factor" seemed very high for this place. Goldfield is barely what I'd call even a ghost town. Terribly run down and very small compared to Virginia City. Both though full of mysteries.

 

[Hypnalis]

I don't think there's much to be gained by continuing the Von Braun discussion (**), but a few minor points:

Heisenberg appeared out of conviction not to create the bomb,

He went as far as the Nazis did. Which wasn't far enough that Heisenberg ever had to make a participate/refuse decision. Nobody will ever know if the would have accepted or refused an SS commission.

Better known as the invasion of Japan. In which my father might well have been slaughtered in the first wave of that planned invasion as many historians have suggested over the years. That he may have quite literally been saved by the atomic bombing of Japan only two months later.

Exactly - fewer lives were lost (by a lot IIRC) by nuking Japan (probably still true even if you include the firebombing raids).But the technicians and soldiers who made it possible are (mostly) remembered positively.
Despite most of the victims being civilians.
The only ones that have their reputations attacked from time to time are Le May and Harris.
Due to the same cognitive bias as Von Braun. Though they're targeted for recommendations and decisions, while Von Braun was (in this context) a technician.

political expediency to use some of such personalities like Von Braun, Reinhard Gehlen and Klaus Barbie

A weapons designer, Military Intelligence officer, Secret Police officer.
Only one of them almost certainly had "dirty hands".

* Von Braun should be listed among "clean hands" technical people like Teller, Ulam, and Bethe.
* Gehlen worked in a grey area, but not more than people in the same positions among the Allies. So either "not worse than any soldier", or at least nowhere near Barbie.

* Barbie, on the other hand is indeed a problem.
The US made a decision not unlike the one that quite possibly saved your father's life. Both decisions were taken by people who had been making decisions like that all through WW2.
I'd argue (like you I think) that the USA should have left Barbie with the French.

I'd also argue that western countries should have stopped making such decisions long ago, but it continues to this day

(**)
OFC I'm not trying to "shut you down", or win a "Final Word" struggle. But I might not reply to further posts in this arc.

 

[Judge]

I don't think there's much to be gained by continuing the Von Braun discussion (**), but a few minor points:

He went as far as the Nazis did. Which wasn't far enough that Heisenberg ever had to make a participate/refuse decision. Nobody will ever know if the would have accepted or refused an SS commission.


Exactly - fewer lives were lost (by a lot IIRC) by nuking Japan (probably still true even if you include the firebombing raids).But the technicians and soldiers who made it possible are (mostly) remembered positively.
Despite most of the victims being civilians.
The only ones that have their reputations attacked from time to time are Le May and Harris.
Due to the same cognitive bias as Von Braun. Though they're targeted for recommendations and decisions, while Von Braun was (in this context) a technician.


A weapons designer, Military Intelligence officer, Secret Police officer.
Only one of them almost certainly had "dirty hands".

* Von Braun should be listed among "clean hands" technical people like Teller, Ulam, and Bethe.
* Gehlen worked in a grey area, but not more than people in the same positions among the Allies. So either "not worse than any soldier", or at least nowhere near Barbie.

* Barbie, on the other hand is indeed a problem.
The US made a decision not unlike the one that quite possibly saved your father's life. Both decisions were taken by people who had been making decisions like that all through WW2.
I'd argue (like you I think) that the USA should have left Barbie with the French.

I'd also argue that western countries should have stopped making such decisions long ago, but it continues to this day

(**)
OFC I'm not trying to "shut you down", or win a "Final Word" struggle. But I might not reply to further posts in this arc.

Agreed- forget Von Braun.

My point remains that it isn't about any one personality or their individual culpability. I could spend all day comparing decisions made in that era regarding many such personalities where they either avoided prosecution while another spent time in prison or was executed. That the legal and political processes in making such decisions among the Allied Powers were so riddled with contradictions and capriciousness that they amounted to a form of corruption.

Making me wonder how most of them would fair over the same circumstances, but in the present rather than the past. Particularly with the Internet and a highly aggressive media along with a highly polarized public. Of course we'll never know. Though I do find such rampant and historical contradictions yet another mystery in itself. One seldom discussed as well. It's ultimately hindsight, but I can't help but look at such things with a sense of ethics from the present- not the past. My bad.

I do find it interesting in modern times how such mindsets may be slowly evolving, such as the Sandy Hook lawsuit against the Remington Arms Company. Which elected to settle with the nine families representing 20 murdered children and six educators for an unprecedented seventy-three million dollars. When the legal dynamics and precedents consistently worked for the defendant, as it did for all arms manufacturers.

Remington Arms manufactured the AR-15 style weapon, but it was twenty-year old Adam Lanza who pulled the trigger. While no liability was ever acknowledged, the defendant still settled over a huge amount of money to the plaintiffs as a matter of legal precedent and public knowledge.

Beyond this, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[Hypnalis]

@Judge

We don't really disagree all that much.
It's clear we're engaging in the same issues, and I suspect that IRL we'd be on different sides a lot of the time, but that we'd be able to agree to "democratic comprises" when it mattered.

I'm a believer in Sowell's principle: "There are no solutions, only trade-offs".
IMO it works very well IRL as an aid for short-term decision making and planning.
And it's also a very useful principle for making projections.

If you apply it to both your family history (as you described above, and I referenced above), and the modern use of tactical "moral absolutism" as highlighted by the Remington example:

1. The first implies the principle that Society has to accept that in extreme cases, the rules must change. It's a fairly standard discussion actually. For traditionally Christian countries (which are about average in terms of societally approved violence at every scale), it often comes up as:
"Thou shalt not kill" has an unstated suffix: ... "except if your society agrees it's ok".

2. The second implies that there are things that should never occur, and if they do occur, anyone associated with the entire process is guilty/liable.

BTW (2) is actually internally inconsistent, which is why I used "tactical moral absolutism above.
A court system implies a formal administration exists, and used as part of the process that imposes society's collective will on its constituent parts.
In a democracy the laws reflect compromises based on "the will of the people", which implies that the laws reflect a collective acceptance of moral relativism.

But that means that if it was legal at the time for Remington to manufacture those weapons, the lawsuit should have been aimed at the Government ... which, in most states, not least the US, is not possible.

Similar inconsistencies exist for (1) of course, but I covered that in earlier posts.

Authoritarian states have no problems removing the inconsistencies of course.

But IMO there's no practical way for a Democracy to do so.
Modern democracies seem to prefer allowing multiple mutually exclusive principles simultaneously, and if pressed deny that there is any issue /lol.

 

[Judge]

@Judge

We don't really disagree all that much.
It's clear we're engaging in the same issues, and I suspect that IRL we'd be on different sides a lot of the time, but that we'd be able to agree to "democratic comprises" when it mattered.

In general I am not a particularly ideological thinker. Though I do prefer to see decisions made along both ethical and logical lines when it comes to the rule of law.

"Democratic compromises" indeed. Though it irks me to some of them where politicians (both elected and appointed) seem to retain an upper hand over issues which should be formally adjudicated without such interference. (Though without implying that the judiciary always gets it right.)

What I see as a classic breakdown of a democracy's intended "balance of power".

Modern democracies seem to prefer allowing multiple mutually exclusive principles simultaneously, and if pressed deny that there is any issue /lol.

Point taken. Another mystery as to why such decision-making processes may always perpetuate themselves even when they shouldn't. Yet another catalyst for so many inconsistencies more often found with democracies than our totalitarian and authoritarian counterparts. Agreed, this is much closer to what I was posting about, rather than whether one enemy personality or another is actually guilty or innocent of past war crimes.

That the process in making such decisions whether to use people as assets or prosecute them is so often flawed. Ironically in many cases such personalities like both Wernher Von Braun and Iva ( one of several "Tokyo Rose" broadcasters ) Toguri were clearly assets and pawns of Germany and Japan.

One clearly coerced and the other apparently not. One prosecuted for treason as a radio broadcaster of enemy propaganda, the other not prosecuted given their scientific value to our military. And yet one of them was formally pardoned by a US president so many years later in 1977.

Worse perhaps that Britain tried, convicted and hanged William Joyce for a comparable role as "Lord Haw-Haw" serving the Nazis as a British citizen. His brand of treason was undeniable as an unrepentant National Socialist, but did his role as a radio broadcaster actually take anyone's life? (A similar point I made about executed Nuremberg defendant Julius Streicher, convicted merely as a disgusting anti-semitic publisher, but not a traitor.)

Ironic to consider in the present that our highest court allows for such hatred expressed publicly, as long as it cannot be proven to have directly precipitated an imminent, lawless act". A legal precedent that has significantly diminished any sense of "proximate causation".

So many of such cases...all involving the tampering of due process in the name of political expediency. And often with bizarre results. I suppose some will always side with a government to respond in such a way, but I'd steadfastly prefer to see such matters determined exclusively (and without prejudice) by a judiciary.

 

[Cyber]

Quoted from Cyber's post above:
Is or was Von Braun evil? probably yes ...

IMO the people who actually participated in their worst activities deserved to be prosecuted (all the way up the hierarchy too).

But the others?

Disobeying the Nazis wasn't a small matter.
And a credible threat to not just the target's life, but also their whole family's has always been effective, and continues to be so.

I think the weapons scientists deserved a free pass.
Punishing people who make tools or objects that could be used to do evil things is an extremely slippery slope.

hmm yes there are extenuating factors. If one wants to succeed in a Nazi regime (or to quote tupac "being a man in a wicked land") then one might be compelled to compromise one's morals and ethics. Drawing a line in the sand is a tricky thing though.

 

[Hypnalis]

I'd go with "One line in the sand" is impossible.
It's a restatement of the "Absolute vs Relative" split.

No matter how hard you try, there will be special cases, even if it's just handling the possibility of false positives.
(see the 3rd example of the Wikipedia article for the Prosecutor's Fallacy (called the "Base Rate Fallacy" there)).

IRL, the resources required for a task like that are often/usually dominated by the special cases.

This happens in IT too:
IRL, the amount of code it takes to perform "Move X dollars from Person A's account to Person B's account" is 95% verification, handling corner cases, and error handling.
Not that IT is special, but we can estimate code complexity quite accurately (on the rare occasions anyone actually does it /lol), so it's a quantifiable example.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

A chocolate fountain once mysteriously appeared directly behind me once at Walmart and I still don’t know how it got there. I turned around to get something off the shelf and put it in the cart and nothing was behind me when I went to get the item and I turned around and sitting on the floor was a chocolate fountain in its box. No one else was around me or in the aisle other than my roommate and one of the employees of the group home we were living in. It was very strange indeed and not the first time things just magically appear around me. I also tend to see a lot of tiny lights and black shadows in windows that quickly vanish just as they had appeared. The lights just float there in the air and are these little orbs.

 

[Dagan]

Lost / Ancient Technologies. I am convinced more and more that long, long ago, civilizations had pretty solid (maybe even better) technology in comparison to what we are reaching currently. What do you all think?

 

[Judge]

Lost / Ancient Technologies. I am convinced more and more that long, long ago, civilizations had pretty solid (maybe even better) technology in comparison to what we are reaching currently. What do you all think?

Indeed. Particularly those structures which have long outlasted the civilizations who built them.

Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, Chichén Itzá, Machu Picchu, Gila Cliff Dwellings,Pyramids of Giza, and so on.

Those who built incredible structures that seemed far beyond their collective society's ability at the time. Yet they built them, and they still exist today.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Taken a number of my geneaology surnames back ten generations, getting near the limit for surnames 1600, where first name was combined with vocation location. Every thing I'm seeking is converging. Interesting surnames more interesting patterns.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Found a new surname Jobse, checked to see if connection to Verhulst, yes thier was multiple connectuons even found DNA connections. 3rd cousins deeper it goes better it gets. Also tied to Roelse( house of rule)

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I have four major surnames in my family tree, lady Roelse, shares DNA with all of them even through she is only a fourth cousin. The most significant name MInderhoud does not show at all on my personal tree. And my Surname Zeeman does not show does not show up under the list of Verhulst's. my grand mothers surname. Zeeman family is to small to make the list of family surnames getting pushed out by Jobse yesterday. Why is lady Roelse tracking the Verhulsts. why is she special, any thing to do with me being told "I am the messenger" in a sleep state a few years ago. Most people on Myheritage have a hand full of connections, sorting out small mysteries like who is my bio family of adopted I joined to find If I was related to Pieter Zeeman found 17 so far built a data base of 22,000 connections, lady Roelse has 38,000 connections why.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I cannot believe that I connected five DNA threads from lady Roelse to myself, what makes me an Aspie not a NT.
get insights others do not.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Realized a few weeks ago my wife and I share genealogy through a shared surname This morning I searched this surname for DNA my wife both my sons and my brother shared DNA but not me. interesting I am 82% dutch, my brother wife and sons are all more English. Dutch is not significant in my brothers DNA. weird, througth we are definitely brothers

 

[Crabcore]

Unexplained events? Let's go to Virginia City, Nevada. Where I have been in the "Old Washoe Club" a number of times. Often considered "ground zero" for paranormal activity in this living ghost town. One of the most interesting places I've ever experienced.

Wow, I could swear that I just saw a documentary or show about this place. I can't place it but I'm sure it'll come to me!

I've always wanted to go to a place like this. I'm mostly a skeptic but I 100% believe people when they say they felt / heard something, so part of me really wants to go to one of these places and experience something like that for myself. I've certainly had really unexplainable things happen in my life, but nothing that outwardly unnerving!

Edit: I think it was Project Fear. I'm addicted to trash, obviously

 

[Judge]

Wow, I could swear that I just saw a documentary or show about this place. I can't place it but I'm sure it'll come to me!

I've always wanted to go to a place like this. I'm mostly a skeptic but I 100% believe people when they say they felt / heard something, so part of me really wants to go to one of these places and experience something like that for myself. I've certainly had really unexplainable things happen in my life, but nothing that outwardly unnerving!

Probably "Ghost Adventures" when they were in the ballroom of the Old Washoe Club. They've been to the club multiple times over the years. To most locals the club seems to be the location with the most activity. Seriously creepy upstairs, but a great place to hoist a few at the saloon on the ground floor.