Alex_Krycek

In my continued research of this issue I found a recent column by Bill Walton in the Times of San Diego that proposes more or less exactly the same solution as my camp idea. It's called "Sunbreak Ranch" in San Diego. Very well thought out. Full column here: https://timesofsandiego.com/opinion/2023/01/14/sunbreak-ranch-is-the-answer-to-san-diego-and-americas-homeless-crisis/ Here's another program that is already active in Oregon called "Safe Rest Villages": https://www.portland.gov/united/saferestvillages

Exactly. So why not make further decisions on where exactly homeless addicts can reside? Otherwise the police will just continue to run them from place to place. Surely a more settled type of accommodation with food and sanitation would be better for them? Not if they're out in a remote area, for example North Country or Mohawk Valley if they're in NYC. There's some very remote areas where they would have to walk for miles to come into contact with other people if they chose to leave. If they have a track record of crime, homelessness, and drug addiction, it arguable they should have a choice. Good point. The death rate of addicts after the lenient policies kicked in has skyrocketed. I don't see how it's ethical and compassionate to provide addicts with free reign to overdose and kill themselves. Super easy to do that too with opioids. 100%. They want to live where they can more easily get their next fix, not to mention assault a passerby and steal their cellphone when they're out of cash. Makes sense to me. You're confronting the facts and presenting actual, concrete solutions, so apparently that qualifies you as one.

Cities already make legal decisions as to where the homeless can and cannot reside. Tent cities are forcibly cleared, homeless people can be arrested if they loiter in certain areas. There is already legal precedent to take such action. Unfortunately many cities have become much more lenient when it comes to the issue. What I think should be considered is the probability of risk to the public if someone is an addict, especially with opioids. These people need to commit crime to sustain their addiction - thus they target the innocent. So why not relocate them somewhere where A.) they can get more substantial help B.) they have somewhere nicer to live and can be monitored and C.) they cannot harm the general public? Most of you already advocated for building more dwellings for the homeless - this would be a form of that approach, specifically for those who are struggling with substance abuse. The alternatives are either to abdicate control and let addicts victimize society, arrest them for trespassing and send them to jail, or build more expensive bricks and mortar facilities in downtown areas (at a much higher cost to the taxpayer). A camp would be a compromise, middle of the road solution. Sure, I get it. There are different kinds of addicts. But an opioid addiction is a particularly dangerous type of problem that produces a particularly dangerous type of addict. This isn't a logical analogy. We're not talking about death camps as in Nazi Germany. Nobody wants to hurt these people. We're talking about treatment facilities where they would be required to stay if they are homeless and have an addiction. Certain conditions would exempt them from being housed there. If an addict can hold down a job and stay off the street, no need to be in the treatment camp. If they're homeless and aren't an addict, no need to be there either, as criminalizing homelessness isn't the point. It's that specific, dangerous element of homeless addicts who threaten society that need to be addressed.

This is precisely what is in dispute. There are those that argue that due to the addiction, the drug addict shouldn't be held accountable for his or her actions. They commit a violent crime and are released within 24 hours. It's insane.

If your brother isn't driven to crime due to his problem, he shouldn't face incarceration. If he drives drunk and hurts someone, he should.

What fantasy world are you living in where you think drug addicts care about these things? And as for the camps, if the convicted drug addict prefers prison, that would be fine. Perhaps the camps should only be reserved for those who want to be there instead of jail.

From the addiction recovery stories I have read and watched, most if not all addicts get clean because they make a decision to get clean. That is, they take personal responsibility for the state of their life and where they want to go. As long as they pass the buck, and people around them enable them to pass the buck, blaming their addiction on social factors, trauma, their upbringing, or whatever excuse they want to reach for, instead of actually taking responsibility for their choices, will only keep them in the cycle of addiction. Your approach may appear to be one of compassion, deeper understanding and sympathy, but actually it is one of enablement that harms the addicts instead of helping them. Back to point number one: only the addict can take responsibility and stop making excuses for his/her behavior. The camps would be the more supportive alternative to prison, with counselors, psychologists, addiction experts and so on. If the addicts didn't want to take advantage of this help, they can go to prison instead. Give them that choice. If an addict is arrested for assaulting and robbing someone in broad daylight to feed their addiction, they should be punished accordingly. In fact, the approach I suggested is already taking place in many cities where addicts are given a choice of rehab or jail. It's not exactly a new concept, my plan would just be slightly more clear cut. I don't think so. The using is the disease. We all have problems, we all struggle to various extents in life. It's what a person does in response to that suffering that either improves their life or makes it worse. The addict has chosen a means of coping that is fundamentally destructive. The more you tell an addict: "You're different. You have special trauma. The addiction isn't the real problem, it's something nebulous and cryptic from your childhood" the more you give the addict an excuse to use. Just more enablement that supports the justification to use. If you tell them: "You're not really different than anyone else. What makes you different is how you choose to deal with it, i.e. by using." That is more helpful and is actually true. I agree. But what is going to make them want to change? Hitting rock bottom. When their environment becomes so uncomfortable that they have to finally step up and take the responsibility from within. That's why the enablement of giving them free reign to pitch a tent on main street, letting them off with a slap on the wrist when they assault and rob people for drug money, or coddling them by providing drugs or safe spaces to use will never work. You're just pushing the impetus to change further and further into the distance away from the present moment. You're normalizing their behavior and giving them a sense of entitlement to continue. Watch the documentary I posted. When the Vancouver city council changed their policy and allowed tents on the streets again, immediately addicts took advantage of that. When they changed the policy on policing to reduce the ability of police to patrol and enforce the law, the addicts took advantage of that. Such policies are simply illogical when dealing with addicts. An addict's goal is to use, full stop. That's why they live in tents on the street, to be near the drugs. Surely this is a clear fact. Somewhat of a far fetched analogy. The US has been sending drug addicted criminals to treatment instead of prison for decades, with conditions attached. It's not exactly a new idea. Everyone has to make a choice as to where they stand on the punitive spectrum. Do you send drug addicted criminals straight to jail, make them learn the hard way? Do you provide addiction treatment and support in prison? Do you send them somewhere else instead of prison, where they can get better help? Do you just let them use on the street and commit crime with revolving door policy, thereby endangering the public and putting innocent people at risk? Turning a blind eye is more unethical and destructive, in my view, since you're endangering both the addict and the general public. And how about those who work hard and pay rent, or run a business? How is your policy of enablement fair to them, when they see tents spring up outside their business, or are assaulted or murdered by homeless addicts just trying to get back to their residence that they work hard and pay for? The lack of respect that is shown to those innocent people is infuriating. With the camp option, at least it's a focused and clear approach as to what the goal is, instead of mixing addicts with violent offenders in regular prison. "Something they have no control over." Here we're back to the original problem. If they have "no control" over the addiction, then they shouldn't be allowed to roam freely in society, I'm sorry. If there is a mentally ill person who has "no control" over his or her actions, and is a danger to himself or others, that person can be committed to a psychiatric hospital and forcibly held. We don't allow people who have no control over their actions to endanger others at will, and then make excuses to further enable their reckless behavior. That entire way of thinking is fundamentally illogical. If someone has no control and commits a crime, and they tell you they have no control because of drugs, they lose their freedom, end of story. Having "no control" has never been a legitimate excuse to commit a crime. I live in one. I see this garbage everyday, although thankfully I only work near a drug infested area, I don't live near one. That would be intolerable, and I really empathize with those who have had their neighborhoods taken over by this scourge. It's disgusting, and the sooner we vote out the politicians who are backing these policies, the better for all. If someone commits a crime, they lose their freedom. Being an addict is not an excuse. Except I'm not proposing to incarcerate people due to their ethnicity, but rather due to criminal behavior. So down goes your analogy. This simply isn't the case. Homeless addicts choose to live in tents in downtown areas because it's where the drugs are. There are plenty of resources in most cities for such people to get off the streets. Their priority is using, not getting help. Nor is it ethical for those who never have to confront this problem in day to day life to make excuses for addicts. It seems to be driven by virtue signaling and not real life consequences.

The obvious implication is intelligent intervention / control. That wasn't an isolated incident either.

If homeless addiction is criminalized, consent wouldn't be required. Only if the lack of the vaccination directly affects the public health of others. It depends on the disease. Someone's personal physical fitness (weight) doesn't affect other people's health, so no.

How is it ethical to allow addicts to kill themselves with drugs with no intervention? Is there not a duty of care that society has to such people? For non-addicted citizens, how is it ethical to make them vulnerable to stranger attacks by addicts, to place them in imminent harm from such people who suffer little to no legal consequences? How is it ethical to allow our cities to be taken over by homeless addicts, who use it as their personal toilet? The situation as it stands is already extremely unethical. The ethical approach would be for the government to step in and start taking corrective action. If this means criminalizing homeless addiction so we can treat drug addicts, I think that's entirely appropriate.

I'm reading about these now, hadn't heard of them. Quote from the article: “All we can do is make it as safe as possible, and if they decide that they want to give up, then we will immediately direct them to addiction support services.” My proposal is slightly different. Addicts would be in a safe, supervised environment, however they would not have a choice if they want to keep using or get clean. Once they're in the camp, they would be on a mandatory detox program, where they would have access only to substances that help them reduce their dependency. Of course food, water, sanitation, etc is all provided. But it wouldn't be an optional program. I disagree. Those policies you're referencing were intended for the entire population. This plan is targeted at a small but very problematic subset of the population. I don't think most people would have a problem removing homeless drug addicts from their environment.

If you live in a big city in North America these days, you probably encounter homeless drug addicts on a regular basis. Cities like Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Vancouver are dealing with escalating crimes waves due to policies that are soft on crime and drug addiction. Addicts shoot up in broad daylight, leave their needles on the sidewalk in public areas, treat public spaces as their own personal toilet, and assault citizens in brutal stranger attacks. Stranger attacks are becoming increasingly prevalent, jumping 39% in Vancouver, with a probability that 1 in 4 Vancouverites will be victimized by such attacks. So far the corrective approach has been sorely lacking - one of tolerance and non-intervention, to allow the homeless addiction issue to propagate and expand across the urban areas that it afflicts. I believe that some cities are fast reaching a breaking point, and will need to take more meaningful action with respect to this problem. The most effective solution I can see for this crisis, since it has gotten so out of hand, is to remove homeless drug addicts from cities and place them in rural, government supervised camps. These camps would be in rural areas where proper supervision and medical treatment could be administered to those with addiction issues. The camps would be made up of large portable dwellings with bunk beds, AC/heating units, with fully working toilets and sanitation facilities. On site medical and security personnel would supervise the day to day operations of the camps, with detox and recovery programs offered to help the addicts get clean. An addict would not be able to leave the camp until they get clean. My view is that drug addiction is a disease, and consequently widespread drug addiction is a public health emergency. Those with a contagious disease that threatens the health and wellbeing of society should be quarantined. There is already legal precedent for placing citizens in camps if there is a declared public health emergency. Covid quarantine camps are one example. I think there is a strong argument that the homeless addiction problem in major cities presents a public health emergency, regarding both the addicts and members of the public themselves. Is it really responsible and humane to let addicts kill themselves via drugs with no intervention or treatment? It is responsible or humane to the general public to let addicts leave diseased needles and human waste on public streets, or attack strangers in broad daylight? From a logistical and operational standpoint, government camps would be much cheaper than building bricks and mortar homeless shelters in downtown areas, which could be reserved for those who do not have addiction issues. The housing facilities in the camps would be cost effective to establish, and since they are on rural government land, the costs could be kept low. They would be scalable and portable; easy to establish, move, or expand. Homeless addicts would be transported in buses to the camps after a clearing operation of homeless affected areas is carried out by police. Ultimately the homeless addiction problem (which I believe is a disease) needs a concerted, government mandated solution, and shouldn't be allowed to escalate further, due to the threat to the health and safety of the public.

If you're referring to UAPs, they have been. There's a lot of photographic evidence of UAPs.

So, all the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men and all the King’s cameras and electronic recording devices could not document anything paranormal occurring at the Skinwalker Ranch, in spite of scientists spending several years onsite trying to do so. NIDS never did document anything much happening anywhere, so Bigelow shut down NIDS in 2004. In 2016 he sold the ranch to Adamantium Real Estate, LLC, whose once-anonymous owner has just revealed himself to be Brandon Fugal, a wealthy real estate investor from Salt Lake City. Fugal had previously been involved in weird science projects, like “an attempt to create a gravitational reduction device that could produce clean energy”. (....) Not only was the yearslong monitoring of “Skinwalker” by NIDS unable to obtain proof of anything unusual happening, but the people who owned the property prior to the Shermans, a family whose members lived there 60 years, deny that any mysterious “phenomena” of any kind occurred there. The parsimonious explanation is that the supernatural claims about the ranch were made up by the Sherman family prior to selling it to the gullible Bigelow. Many of the really bizarre alleged incidents described in Hunt for the Skinwalker were witnessed only by Terry Sherman, who stayed on the ranch as a caretaker after it was sold to Bigelow. This isn't an accurate report of what has happened at Skinwaker Ranch. The History channel investigators have filmed UAPs emerging from, and disappearing into a fixed area of the property above a cliff (mesa). Terry Sherman, the previous owner before Robert Bigelow, reported seeing a UAP emerge from the same area at night, however on the other side of the opening there was daylight and a clear blue sky. Sherman also reported luminescent glowing orbs floating around the property that attacked his livestock and pets, as well as many other bizarre events. Regarding the NIDS team, they are on record about witnessesing the same type of phenomena. @Moontanman Suggest you watch a few episodes because all this phenomena is captured on camera during the show. Too many paranormal events to name - truly a mysterious place.

How much of SWR have you watched? I didn't find it to be a fiasco at all. Erik Bard and Travis S. Taylor are legit scientists running experiments to gather data and observe the phenomena at is occurs. The theory about the "portal" or wormhole on the property seems to be the best explanation of the phenomena that is manifesting, especially considering the UAPs they have filmed seeming to enter and leaving said portal. As for their purpose being financially driven, Brandon Fugal, the current owner of the ranch, is already a multi-millionaire commercial real estate investor. I doubt he's trying to scam his way to his next million via a public TV show. On the contrary, everyone on that team seems 100% genuinely interested in investigating the unexplained events that occur there. Also highly recommend the book Hunt for the Skinwalker, by George Knapp, if you want to do a deep dive on whats occurred there. The book documents the experiences of the previous owners of the ranch: the Shermans and also Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace, and the NIDS (National Institute of Discover Science) team he had working out there. Fascinating book.

What "major points" are you referring to? I thought I responded to your main argument already with my counter points. The points I received from your argument are: the eye witnesses can't be trusted because they're either stupid or lying (for financial reasons) the creator of the documentary or any material on UFOs is an opportunistic huckster merely out for financial gain Brian Dunning has the real facts on what happened eye witness testimony isn't real evidence (due in large part to point number 1) What did I miss? (genuine question)

In the Varginha case contact was unintentional. The craft was either shot down or crashed. The beings that were sighted were attempting to evade capture, not interact with the townspeople. Intriguingly, one of the military policeman who allegedly captured one of the creatures died from an unknown infection 2 weeks later. The doctor who treated him was interviewed in MOC. What you'd expect if your immune system came into contact with an extraterrestrial bacteria. As for other encounters where there was seemingly intentional interaction: the Ariel School landing, the Greater Barrington abductions, Betty and Barney hill, etc. Probably some attempt at either communication or closer study of our species, for the same reason human scientists occasionally lift an animal out of its natural habitat. Could be they're slowly making themselves known, so as not to cause panic amongst us paranoid apes. Slowly pulling back the curtain until the new reality is entrenched. With the Ariel school case I think that was an attempt to communicate via the culture, letting the story of the encounter filter down through the years, gaining greater and greater credibility. Of all the cases that has the potential to tip the scales in terms of convincing the general public about the veracity of their existence, the Ariel School would be it. If the secondary and tertiary effects of that encounter were indeed orchestrated, then we're dealing with a being of formidably high intelligence.

I think they're interested in the planet, not us. We're part of the scenery - a nuisance for the most part. As for playing hide and seek, the dark forest theory is a logical answer why they'd want to stay quiet. Human beings are quite dangerous, even normal ones who aren't armed to the teeth.

Let’s set some conditions. We’re estimating the probability that an intelligent life form in the universe has: achieved interspecies sustainability (i.e. they’ve moved past, or never encountered, the challenge of blowing themselves up exists at the same time as humanity has solved the distance problem by harnessing a physical principle that human beings have yet to actualize. Using this physical principle and the technology built upon it, they are able to traverse the galaxy efficiently. By efficiently, I mean physical distance is basically irrelevant to them. They have understood how to manipulate spacetime in such a way as to go where they want, when they please. So in other words this species is a type 3 (galactic civilization) as defined by people like Michio Kaku. For the sake of this thought experiment we can apply the extremely conservative percentage of .000001% that these three conditions would be met in a particular dataset. I think the odds are much higher than this, but for the sake of argument let’s say there’s only a .000001% chance of these conditions arising. So based, on .000001%: The SETI Institute estimates that there are 300,000,000 habitable planets in the Milky Way. Of these, if we assume that .000001% of these planets has produced the species fulfilling the conditions above, there would be 3 species within the Milky way that are capable of visiting Earth. If we move beyond the Milky Way, the odds are even more favorable. Mario Livio, an astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute estimates there could be between 100 billion and 200 billion galaxies in the universe. Let’s assume 100 billion galaxies. 100 billion galaxies multiplied by 300 million habitable planets in each galaxy is 3e19. With a .000001% chance of meeting the 3 conditions stated above (remember this species has solved the distance problem), there would be thousands of species capable of reaching Earth. With 3,000,000,000,000,000,000 (3e19) planets capable of supporting life in the Universe, it's highly possible at least 1 of those has met the three conditions stated above, if not more.

Does "scientific rigor" mean concocting self serving alternative explanations, rather than giving credence to the actual eye witness reports of people who were there? Did Dunning visit Varginha or otherwise corroborate his theory with people who actually claim it was Mudhinho or whatever else he is positing? If not, that doesn't sound very rigorous to me; it sounds more like confirmation bias - i.e. "I'll fabricate whatever convenient explanation I can to fit these unusual events into my narrative." If you start out with a conclusion that something must be false, and then ignore anything to the contrary, that isn't a scientific approach. No, I'm not trolling. Kind of insulting that you would insinuate that but I'll let it go. There have been too many credible reports lately to dismiss these events. In my view they have to be taken seriously at this point. You seem to fundamentally believe that the possibility of aliens visiting Earth is nonsense, that anyone reporting such events is engaged in "hucksterism", and people who give credence to them are either gullible or trolls. You've said as much in your previous posts. As established I have a different outlook - I think the odds of visitation by an intelligent extraterrestrial species are incredibly high given the number of habitable planets and the age of our universe. I don't see alien visitations as abnormal - it was always only a matter of time. Further - the denial of the probability of aliens is actually very dangerous for our species, but that's another topic. This is how you choose to frame it: "all of the witnesses of the Varginha incident are deluded idiots who have been caught up in mass hysteria, or are making up this story to attract tourists to make money." Then you ridicule it further by comparing it to giants and Paul Bunyan - again because your anchoring belief is that this must all be nonsense. Sure, when you frame it like that, it doesn't sound very authentic. But you have to establish first that those witnesses really are deluded or self serving opportunists before your theory has any weight. When you have this many credible witnesses who have no interest in lying, who corroborate each other in a logical way despite not knowing one another, taken with all of the other cases (such as the Ariel School and many, many others), combined with the statistical inevitability that intelligent beings will eventually visit Earth, such information should be taken seriously and not dismissed, that's all I'm saying.

On the other hand, in legal circles, our society places enough trust in eye witness testimony to allow the rendering of a verdict capable of either exonerating or convicting those accused of a crime, however serious it may be. Eyewitness testimony cannot and should not be so casually dismissed. In the Varginha case we have physicians, former soldiers, those from the local news media, as well as normal citizens who all reported experiencing something unexplainable that day. I for one find it compelling; those like TheVat do not. We can each cast our own votes as to the veracity of such an event, ideally after taking all the evidence from both sides into consideration.

Yet you didn't post your source. Interesting how you have a convenient explanation for everything at the ready. Perhaps you should do more than just a "cursory search" when looking into matters such as this. I find it equally laughable how you find yourself unable to objectively consider this event as it is reported by the actual eye witnesses. I wonder why that is. And yes, I'm sure the town makes millions off of that UFO museum. Right back at you. Don't allow your confirmation bias and self-ordained skepticism to get in the way of objective observation. And it's not a youtube video, it's a feature length documentary; one that you won't watch, of course, because you already know you're correct.

As Mudinho did live there, and that was his typical behavior, then for the young women to have seen a space creature there would have to have been two such beings — the known one, Mudinho, and the hypothetical one, an alien — but as they reported only one skinny humanoid crouching in the mud, and not two, we are left with no rational support for there having been any beings present other than Mudinho. Today, the three women do still give interviews about their experience. There is one very important detail that has changed since their original story: Today, they say they knew Mudinho well, and had even given him cigarettes in the past; so of course they would not have mistaken him for an alien. However, in their original reports from 1996, they said they didn't know him, and took him for a devil when they saw him. It's one more example of stories changing and growing to fit a changing and growing narrative that gains mass traction in pop culture. Everyone wants to be in on it, and everyone wants to be seen as credible and correct. I agree with @Moontanman that there is a body of cases that do appear to represent truly anomalous and unexplained aerial events, and these may at some point turn out to be some fascinating atmospheric phenomenon that expands our view of things. They should not be dismissed, and should be studied. But these Stanton Friedman generated narratives are mostly self-promoting flapdoodle and just piss poor science. As Dunning notes: Friedman's whole career, in fact, consisted of compiling bits and pieces of poor-quality evidence, mainly unverified eyewitness testimony usually taken years or decades after an event; and then composing an original alien visitation story that incorporates all those bits and is presented as the factual account of what happened. He's best known as the original author of the Roswell mythology, in which he worked with a retired mortician named Glenn Dennis. In 1989 — more than four decades after the 1947 Roswell crash was alleged to have happened — Friedman carefully wove together a string of snippets of Dennis' assorted memories of having worked in that town, and created the story we know today of a spaceship crash and small alien bodies being recovered. It was published in 1991, the first time that story even existed. Friedman couldn't have cared less that the things Dennis thought he remembered actually took place over a span of twelve years and had nothing to do with each other; his goal was to craft an original UFO narrative. That was Friedman's thing. That was what he did professionally... Would Mudinho have necessitated the Brazilian military arriving to Varginha en masse, blocking off roads and pointing rifles at people? I don't think so. Also, I think three teenage girls are able to discern the difference between a human and non-human creature in broad daylight at 3:00 pm.

What I like about Fox's approach is how thorough his investigations are. So for example he will find the original news interviews of the eye-witnesses from 1996, and then locate that exact same witnesses for his documentary in 2022. Their stories haven't changed. Nor are they seeking publicity or fame; quite the contrary. Many witnesses in MOC did not want their identity revealed, due to the inevitable mockery and derision that is so often directed towards people who dare to speak of encounters with aliens. For example, the three girls, who saw the being in 1996, and then came forward again for MOC, were the brunt of years of such ostracism. Regarding the veracity of the witnesses, the argument from so called skeptics seems to be: "If it's just one person, the witness isn't trustworthy, because that person is obviously a lying opportunist. If dozens of people who don't know each other come forward and report the same thing, it's mass hysteria or the result of gossip." The latter argument is a bit far-fetched. For me there have been too many credible witnesses, not only with this case but with numerous other cases, involving people who have no interest in lying, or fabricating stories, or tarnishing their own professional reputations. Finally there's the view that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but should alien visitations really be considered "extraordinary"? Such a dialogue would loop back into a conversation about the Fermi Paradox, but ultimately I don't think such visitations are really extraordinary, given the nature of our universe. It's only extraordinary within the confines of a very narrow minded, anthropocentric perspective of the universe.

@Moontanman Did you get a chance to watch James Fox's latest documentary? Since you enjoyed Phenomenon, you might like this one also: Moment of Contact (2022). It investigates a case in Varginha, Brazil that happened in 1996, where a tic-tac shaped UFO was shot down (or crashed) on the outskirts of the city, and two living bipedal creatures of an unidentifiable species were sighted by the residents of Varginha hours later. Attached a clip from youtube where one of the witnesses, who was in the Brazilian army at the time, shares his story.