Thiarna

I had started to post this a day or so back, but didn't get to finish at the time. Since then I see the conversation has moved on a huge amount. Two points that I picked up since that was PD's post which I look forward to reading properly when I get a chance, and your reply where you mentioned a scientific education may be obsolete. I think that is why there is such hostility towards fringe topics from those with more conservative views. Science is still relatively new and has achieved a huge amount in 400 years or so, but all this is built on human understanding and could be lost in a generation. Science seems under attack both from old fundamentalist religious ideas and from disillusioned new age views. If there is a widespread growth in consciousness this does not mean the knowledge and understanding we have built up of the physical world need be disgarded. I don't feel I need to widen the filter, if anything I would be better to focus more on ideas which are relevant and practical to my life at the moment. My goal is to have enough of an awareness of whats going on around me and to react to whatever changes actually do take place, but to spend most of my energy dealing with the world as I see it now. There is certainly a place for preparation, I make the preparations and leave it at that, I certainly would not celebrate when seeing difficulties felt by those who do not. I agree with you this far, change is a constant and for a variety of practical reasons the world of the next fifty years will be unable to continue as it has for the last fifty, but for me there are better guides to the greater world than the ones I've seen in this thread. I don't think the world will change physically, but if it does so be it. If a change is happening I think it is people's minds and in society as a whole. For some the changes may be catastrophic, for many they may not even realise they can no longer do things they took for granted now, but looking back in history it may just be another bend in the road. In the past times of major upheaval often seem to be accompanied by apocalyptic thinking. As I said I simply aim to be able to realise what is changing and how, and to react appropriately. I generally prefer to read than listen or watch videos, mainly because what might take an hour to narrate can usually be read properly in a few minutes and skimmed more quickly again, but also because narrators tend to use Jedi-type mind tricks to make their argument seem more convincing, which usually puts me in a defensive frame of mind or just irritates me. I think David Wilcock in particular is guilty of this. But why do you assume our world view needs to change? The group here is surely on the open minded end of the scale already. I do hate talk about sheeple, and the assumption from some groups that they can see so much better than the population as a whole, but I do suspect that people here more than elsewhere will change their world view if and when it becomes necessary. As I mentioned I do think there may be a widespread change in people's thinking, but I think it is better developed in cognitive science for example than in what I've seen of these fringe groups. My readings in this area are still very limited but my instinct is that here I can get a more complete picture, and have more hope of finding practical applications of what I learn. I don't think they are are frauds or looking to get rich quick, but they do not draw a clear distinction between spiritual experiences and physical reality. What they say seems based around some core truths, but for me there are better explanations from more established religions that have struggled with similar questions for centuries. I've checked some videos on Camelot, skimmed David Wilcock's, and listened to most of Bob Dean. They are interesting, sometimes entertaining but not important to me right now. When they try to clothe their ideas in supporting scientific theories or try to reject good science is when they lose me. There are quite a few useful links coming through on this thread though. I couldn't describe all the assumptions I make when I decide if something is worth taking the time to investigatte, but I'm reasonably well educated, and am comfortable and confident in my spirituality, so I'm happy to work with whatever bag of assumptions that gives me. I'm well aware that this puts me in a minority on a global scale, I could just as easily have been brought up on creationism instead of science, or barely educated at all.

DrBubb, I'd ask you why you feel it necessary to put threads like this in the main discussion forum? This is not meant as a criticism, I'm genuinely interested in whether you feel you need to help a wider audience to see your understanding for example, or whether you feel the topics do not get properly challenged in the fringe section? You obviously find some merit in these topics, for me the one thing you could do for me to follow the links through is to filter to ones which you have found practical and useful today, and say how. I don't generally care if the writer refers to conventional scientists or has traditional qualifications. Sorry for the long winded reply to the topic. I do think a part of it is a deeper change taking place, that interest in these topics is being driven by a common force or collective subconscious, but so far there does not seem to be much genuine new knowledge created to date, instead many new gurus looking to profit from this drive. I think there is hope for a more concrete change when the scientific method is better applied to our own consciousness, but I see no indication that this is the case with the people you refer to here. This echos back to the original topic of the thread - is human thinking changing? I have noticed people in a few different areas of my life take up more and more of the "fringe" views in recent years, both on the internet and off. In each case (including your self DrBubb) these are intelligent, logical and sane people. And yet 90% of the ideas do appear to be nonsense. You ask if the sceptics have followed the suggested links - in my case no. I realised a long time ago that I do not have time to follow through on every topic I find vaguely interesting and need to filter extensively. I almost never watch video presentations - if a point can't be made without scary mood music and cheap animations it's not worth making. Superficial references to quantum this or multi-dimensional that put me off too. The best filter we have to date that I know of is peer review. If I come across an interesting mainstream article referring to some study I try to at least read the abstract of the original paper. In cases like this thread there is usually someone around to give a second opinion from a more conventional point of view, unless someone comes away with a changed point of view, or unless I have a lot of spare time I rarely follow the links. So why are these topics becoming so much more popular? The conventional answer would be that the internet gives those with almost any conceivable idea with a way to meet and support each other in their beliefs. I think science has to take a large part of the blame, partly because a good scientific theory is intrinsically so much harder to understand than a good conspiracy theory, partly because so many useful science theories are funded by commercial interests who do not want to see the ideas go to a wide audience, leaving extremely complex but for the time being almost useless research for the wider public. The biggest fault with science is the condescending idea that scientists can come up with single coherent truths for the uneducated masses, when all theories come with a variety of conflicting interpretations which are worked out over time. For example the idea that an educated doctor has to have all the available knowledge of human health in his head for every patient, when most of them are well capable of researching a similar level of detail quite easily.

The 50k most wealthy individuals could easily get direct access to bullion markets, so I doubt it. From https://www.credit-suisse.com/news/en/media_release.jsp?ns=41610 the richest 80k people have > $50 million.

Reckon its time to swap some poor-mans gold for rich-mans gold about now.

Catching up nicely now - up more than 40c in about an hour.

Someone here said ECB are doing everything they can to keep Gold below €650, so might we see Euro up against the dollar or gold down next week?

Looks like there might be a gap in their data feed.

Is it significant that silver dropped 8% in the space of an hour from 8am ET, then stayed flat, while everything else (Gold, Oil, Stocks) trended down for the whole day, and that US Indices also ended up down 8% in the end?

I wonder is there a risk with this trade on whether the future contract will last the 12 years?This article on financial sense seems to be saying that the oil market is being moved away from being sold through futures. I'm sure there are other events which would stop oil futures being traded too. So what would happen if the futures market in oil failed for some reason, but oil prices remain high? If I understand correctly you wouldn't end up out of pocket because no money actually changes hands until you close the contract, but you just may not be able to realise any gain.

Hi, I came across this board today when looking for some sort of contrarian investments for less than wealthy people like myself. I havent had much time to look around yet, but what I have read so far looks very interesting. I will be sure to check in regularly, and though I won't know enough to add much to what is already being posted, I should be able to come up with some interesting questions. When looking for investments I guess I was looking for some sort of ready packaged contrarian fund which would include alternative energy, commodities, etc., but I guess like most things it is worth trying to put in the research required to manage the investment myself. I have been sure for a few years that investing in the right alternative energy could be a very good move. When I looked around before though a lot of the companies I looked more like they were looking for donations than investments. I think peak oil is going to hit within the next 2-3 years, if we have not already hit the peak. Lately I get the impression that an expensive marketing campaign has been started to try and get people used to the idea of nuclear power again. It may be that nuclear power is part of life beyond oil, but there seem to be so many articles saying it is not so bad that it looks organised. If there is a behind the scenes campaign going on it's probably motivated by keeping the existing big energy companies in power, rather than on what is best for the world. Anyway, thats why I'm here, thanks for the site.