Are We Losing the Plot?

[Bullseye]

tldr;
Ok only a little bit ironic, but does this sum up general internet "life". Since the coming of the interwebs I can honestly say my online attention span has decreased.Fairly sure this applies to the majority.'Int old days FT was only published every two months,books few and far between, blah blah blah,but you really read every word carefully, now you can't keep up with everything.

 

[oldrover]

I've never seen a ghost or UFO although I'd been in my share of 'bad places' and ambled out again without recoruse roto logical thought. IIf it hurts stop doing it...

I think we (that is the forummers) and the population at large simply are not so easily mystified as we were. WE for the most part understand why it's possible to perceive something which isn't actually there as well as the understanding of migraine/fugue/epileptic states relating to otherworldly experiences and you can even throw in the sleep disorders that produce some of our worse 'nightmares'. We even know that what people see, when something is unexplained, can be altered in a very real way by the images at large in the world at the time - so 500 years ago people saw elves, in the late 1800's it was fairies and now we look at pictures and say "looks more like a mayfly to me..".

I think we're just better informed and consdier things more critically and less credulously. It's not a bad thing as if there is anything odd going on, we might find it. We'll just have to wade thorough all the misconceptions first.

I agree. I also spend a lot of my internet time (anything rather than work) on another similar forum, and there the prevailing opinion is the same as here. There are always a stream of newcomers who are mystified by, well... anything at all really. But I think most of us here and there have just been at this too long, and have reasonably explained most of what comes up.

There are still fascinating ones though, remember the fainting teaching assistants from a few years back here?

 

[Ulalume]

I keep a Fortean Journal. Pretty much all minor rather than high strangeness and all can probably be explained but I just enjoy them and don't try to look too closely. Does anyone else do this?

This is kind of how I use this forum.

 

[MercuryCrest]

remember the fainting teaching assistants from a few years back here?

No, but damnit, I DO remember the "Mystery of the Vanishing Cow-orker" from many years ago when I first joined. It was purged by the system, but that name always stuck with me. How do you forget "Cow-Orker"?

I think it was started by Leaferne, who has left the boards, but I always wanted a resolution....

 

[rynner2]

This is kind of how I use this forum.

Me too!