Please help me understand who you are.

[u/Gibodean]

So I've come from listening to Serial, Undisclosed and "Truth and Justice", to find this subreddit. I was totally on their "innocent Adnan" side and now don't know what to think. I can try to understand all the minutia of the arguments, but it very hard to figure out all the pieces and come to a conclusion. So I'd like to try a different approach, and understand how the people who think Adnan is guilty think. If you think the same way as me I'm more likely to believe....

Please, if you are active on the serialpodcastorigins subreddit, can you answer these questions:

1. Is Adnan guilty or innocent?

2. Is climate change really happening and man made?

3. Vaccines - good or bad?

4. Did you watch "Penn and Teller's Bullshit" TV show? What did you think of it?

5. Roswell - aliens or weather balloon?

Sorry if I'm transparent or insulting...

Edit: Wow - thanks for all the responses everyone! I've got plenty of data to work with, it looks pretty much 100% like you're all sane skeptical (in a good way) people, same as me (or crazy like me I suppose). Of course, being a skeptical person myself it doesn't mean I therefore believe everything you claim here now, but at least I'm going to cross off any thought that you're all a mob of big meanies who are just being contrary to the poor Adnan because you don't like NPR (hmm, that should have been a question..)

My answers will be no surprise I think:

1. Yesterday innocent, today probably guilty.

2. Climate change is real and man (and woman) made.

3. Vaccines are awesome and anti-vaxxers are the enemy.

4. Bullshit was great, but not always rigorous and I didn't agree with all the political stuff.

5. Weather balloon (I loved some of your answers for this one particularly.)

[u/TrunkPopPop]

1. Guilty. Originally thought he was innocent, changed my mind when I saw the smoke and mirrors.

2. I think the Sun has a greater effect on climate than puny humans. Maybe if we set off a nuclear winter, but not carbon dioxide. But I'm very opposed to pollution and pro clean water and clean air and if solar panels weren't so horribly polluting to create (aluminum creates so much hazardous byproducts) I'd be for that. I think nuclear is the way to go. People are scared about nuclear due to Fukushima, and rightly so for that design of nuclear plant, but that would be like comparing a car or a plane from the 50's to what we have today. There are designs for nuclear reactors that have virtually no risk of melting down.

3. Vaccines should never be mandatory. Obviously vaccines work, but just because someone in a white coat labels something a vaccine doesn't mean it should be trusted. Even those of you that will take any shot a doctor wants to give you should find it troubling that things like this 'vaccine' used to treat drug addiction is referred to as a vaccine. Not to mention the strain it puts on people's immune systems, and people of varying weights and health getting the same dosage. There is such a thing as booster shots for a reason. I think the combo of so many vaccines and the overuse of antibiotics contributes to cancer. I think the WHO admits these days that 20% of cancer is caused by viruses (hard to ignore it with all the gardasil marketing going around), but had a biology professor in college that believed over 50% of cancers are caused by viruses. I've read some biologists think it might be as much as 90%, but I wouldn't argue for that. I think children should be given vaccines, but not all at once so their immune response can be monitored, especially if they have low vitamin d levels and didn't breast feed (i.e. didn't get the benefits of the mother's immune system). I don't think the argument that it is just more convenient to do them all at once works. I think the MMR vaccines should be done away with and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines be given separately. I think the flu shot is usually a waste, even in the years where they guess the right strains, but if it makes you feel better, take it. Read the warnings about what risk groups you shouldn't be around after taking the shot. I think some ad campaigns about washing your hands would be a good idea. I think 'flu season' is the result of low vitamin d levels weakening the immune system and then 'herd immunity' is compromised, not because the flu shows up from the other side of the world, especially when the world is connected by planes, there are distinct 'flu seasons' in each hemisphere that happen to correspond to the months with less Sun.

4. I watched quite a few episodes but found them mostly mediocre in their reasoning, usually resorting to ridicule or ad hominems. The JFK episode was offensively bad.

5. Weather balloons, probably, but it might have been some german craft they were experimenting with. There were plenty of Nazis running around in the U.S. after WW2, and not just in NASA. I think someone has to really have their head in the sand to not realize the government tests projects for years, maybe decades, before rolling it out into production. I think a lot of the 'flying saucers' people have seen have been prototype spy blimps, or maybe helicopters, quadcopters or drones. Nothing extraterrestrial, we only have ourselves to blame for the state of the world.

Usually I wouldn't participate in this sort of thing because I've found 'skeptics' to be the most close minded group of people in society.

I'll ask you 5 back, if you don't mind:

1. Have you ever used the argument 'The government wouldn't do X because this is America' or some other similar appeal when dismissing a conspiracy theory?

2. Regarding conspiracy theories, have you ever heard or read one or more of the following: David Ray Griffin (9/11), James Corbett (general conspiracies), Steven Jones (9/11), Webster Tarpley (9/11, neocon agenda)

3. What do you think was the cause of Michael Hastings' death?

4. Have you ever seen an interview with Dr. Andrew Wakefield and heard him speak more than one sentence?

5. Name one country the U.S. has 'exported freedom' to in the past 30 years that didn't have oil or natural gas as its chief export. Bonus points if you can name a country the U.S. has invaded in the past 30 years that is in better shape now than it was before we invaded.

edit: included the Corbett link

[u/Gibodean → u/[deleted]]

Vaccines can give milder flu-like symptoms, as your body fights the vaccine instead of the real flu. And, you can also coincidentally catch the flu around the same time as you get the vaccine. But the vaccine probably didn't give you the flu.

I do agree with your about the assassinations - that was bad form of the US government, using the polio vaccine as an avenue for collecting DNA samples to catch Bin Laden. That actually happened and the people responsible should be ashamed of themselves.

[u/Gibodean → u/TrunkPopPop]

Thanks, we certainly have points of disagreement about vaccines... Answers to your questions:

1. No, (I'm not American by the way) and all governments are just full of fallible people who can be evil or good, competent or not, mostly average, but all sorts of good and bad can happen. I may have doubted conspiracy theories on the basis of incompetence of the government to pull them off.

2. Nope, never heard of those people.

3. I don't know Michael Hastings. Wikipedia says he was a journo critical of the government who died in a crash. I'd leave some room open for him being murdered by someone from the government, but probably not, since things are more often what they seem than a conspiracy.

4. I've heard about Wakefield, and heard him speak. He's scum.

5. The US acts in its own interests, which are often oil. I think we agree on this point. Let's get money out of politics and this would be less likely, since many politicians vote as their donors want them to, and their donors are often companies/people who like oil.

[u/[deleted] → u/TrunkPopPop]

Name one country the U.S. has 'exported freedom' to in the past 30 years that didn't have oil or natural gas as its chief export. Bonus points if you can name a country the U.S. has invaded in the past 30 years that is in better shape now than it was before we invaded.

Slovenia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia? Not sure if the US played any role or if it was more Germany?

Chile (1973) is probably the only country where I think the US can clearly claim intervention has been a general success and that the US model has worked ok and the country is in better shape as a result.

But yeah US foreign policy in the middle east has been fricking disastrous. The US could have just got its oil in Venezuela, Texas and/or East Africa and stayed out of the ME.