Why do we attract crazy people?

Austin Stanley · 2006-02-05 02:15:35

I've frequented these boards for a number of years now, and it never fails to strike me as curious as to the number of frankly crazy people we seem to attract. Most common seem to be people suffering with various degrees of what appears to be paranoid schizophrenia. The most obvious is Rick Dobson (International Space Agency guy) but there have been a number of others (some of which still sometimes frequent this board so I won't mention them by name).

While on some level it is intresting and faintly amusing to see these people, I often worry about them, and how they manage to function in society. I'm curious as to what everyone thinks attracts these people, and what, if anything we can do to help them/prevent it.

RIZ4ROCKET · 2006-02-05 16:43:23

I'm curious as to what everyone thinks attracts these people, and what, if anything we can do to help them/prevent it.

Why would you want to "prevent" attracting them (I assume) to this forum ?

What is it about someone else's insanity that causes you to wish them somewhere else ?

When Marge Simpson was attracted to that Architect, she extolled his virtues to Homer: "He's as smart as a person can be, without being crazy."

Personally, I believe there is always a very fine line between insanity and brilliance. Unfortunately, that line is usually being drawn by a complete idiot (who is neither insane OR brilliant).

I say, read the ravings of the lunatic. There may be something contained therein. (Except of course for clark. There's really nothing worth paying attention to there.)

John Creighton · 2006-02-05 17:03:26

I say, read the ravings of the lunatic. There may be something contained therein. (Except of course for clark. There's really nothing worth paying attention to there.)

And there is a certain probability a monkey typing randomly on a keyboard will produce the complete works of William Sakesphere. So I say to that so what.

John Creighton · 2006-02-05 18:56:46

I'm curious as to what everyone thinks attracts these people, and what, if anything we can do to help them/prevent it.
Why would you want to "prevent" attracting them (I assume) to this forum ?

To try to maintain some reasonable level of discourse

What is it about someone else's insanity that causes you to wish them somewhere else ?

Disruptive, incoherent behavior which in the worst case can lead to threating and abusive behavior.

When Marge Simpson was attracted to that Architect, she extolled his virtues to Homer: "He's as smart as a person can be, without being crazy."
Personally, I believe there is always a very fine line between insanity and brilliance. Unfortunately, that line is usually being drawn by a complete idiot (who is neither insane OR brilliant).

As entertaining as the Simpson’s is what useful wisdom does this quote leave us with. Intelligence comes mostly though hard work and a dedication to learning there are differences in peoples capabilities but I don’t believe most people reach the limits of what they can do.

The cliché that there is a fin line between genius and madness is due to aspects of psychology. The first is great contributions are often made by people who think in a different way and if their thinking is odd enough that it could be considered a form of madness. However, just thinking in a different way is not enough for an “orginal mind” to be able to accomplish great things.

Even an original mind must put in the hard work and learning everyone else must do on order to succeed. So in other words being weird doesn’t make you brilliant, it may help it may hurt but it is not enough in itself.

The other fact is that people that accomplish a lot tend to work extremely hard. This can lead to a great deal of stress and prolonged stress over a large period of time can cause a lot of problems include depression and scitsofrania. It is kind of like where the expression comes from, “the’ve lost it”. It is a simple fact that everyone has a level of stress they can deal with before they can’t cope in a normal fashion.

RIZ4ROCKET · 2006-02-05 20:10:14

As entertaining as the Simpson’s is what useful wisdom does this quote leave us with.

It leaves us with the notion that truth and wisdom are where you find them, and not necessarily spoon-fed to us by other people's notions of what "THE" truth is. This applies most-particularly (to me) to the Bible.

Also, it leaves us with the idea that sometimes other people appear crazy because in fact the person (or person's) making this judgement is rather dull and stupid.

I've never met anyone that worked REALLY hard at being brilliant, but I HAVE met lots of people that work real hard at trying to appear to be something other than stupid.

Coincidentally, these people also seem to put a lot of effort into appearing "not crazy" as well.

clark · 2006-02-06 06:31:36

You have to be slightly bent to want to live on Mars. You have to be less than sane to think people -should- live on Mars.

You're fooling yourself if you think any discussion about this subject, in this manner, is anything approaching rational. It is not.

Be that as it may, 'intelligence' (depending on how you want to categorize it) is a function of memory retention and recall; and logical analysis of form and association within a given context.

'Crazy' is merely a different perspective. You can be stupid and crazy. You can be brilliant and crazy.

Quoting cartoons is not usually indicative of brighter minds though. But that is just me and my own value system.

Earthfirst · 2006-02-07 21:58:25

I am not one of the crazy ones.

Some of the folks that post here some times get far out. Even when talking about terraforming or, one way trips to Mars. Some posters like once some one said the moon did not exist, I wrote: Then what is that big sliver ball that I see in the night sky every so ofthen? He said that so string just made it look so. I then said back it must be cosmic yarn, and the cosmic kittens are pulling are strings. He got mad because I said that, But what person would think that the moon does not exist other than some lunnie.

John Creighton · 2006-02-07 22:32:18

I am not one of the crazy ones.
Some of the folks that post here some times get far out. Even when talking about terraforming or, one way trips to Mars. Some posters like once some one said the moon did not exist, I wrote: Then what is that big sliver ball that I see in the night sky every so ofthen? He said that so string just made it look so. I then said back it must be cosmic yarn, and the cosmic kittens are pulling are strings. He got mad because I said that, But what person would think that the moon does not exist other than some lunnie.

Are you trying to stir up touble sir?

Earthfirst · 2006-02-08 12:27:18

Yes and No, I did not say what username that said crazy person uses. To me any one saying the moon does not exist is a little loco. So I am not trying to make said person mad, but he being a mad does not help in the first place. Like the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World" was great, those folks would fit right in with the one way trip Mars peeps. On the internet you can bait the lunnies, but in real life I try not to make too many jokes. Because their pink Elephant friends might get mad, and bother my gaint bunny friends. I just can not stand the loss of another make belive friend to a randon pink elephant stomping.

clark · 2006-02-08 12:50:29

Wait. You mean the Moon -is- real?!

Maybe that would explain the tides. [shrug]

John Creighton · 2006-02-08 13:22:06

Yes and No, I did not say what username that said crazy person uses. To me any one saying the moon does not exist is a little loco. So I am not trying to make said person mad, but he being a mad does not help in the first place. Like the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World" was great, those folks would fit right in with the one way trip Mars peeps. On the internet you can bait the lunnies, but in real life I try not to make too many jokes. Because their pink Elephant friends might get mad, and bother my gaint bunny friends. I just can not stand the loss of another make belive friend to a randon pink elephant stomping.

I think you’re being a bit harsh. Few people have a strong grasp of advanced physics especially string theory. IIRC few physics are very strong in the area of string theory as it requires some pretty advanced mathematics. As a consequence of it being hard to understand people try to explain it by analogy and then people that try to understand these explanations often get confused and come up with interpretations of the interpretations which may seem a bit loony to someone more technically literate.

As for the one way suicide mission, what is wrong with considering the premise just as a thought experiment. If we wanted to get to mars what is the minimum amount of resources we would need to have some hail marry chance of surviving on the red planet. Sure the idea may seem a little crazy but if people believe in something enough they will do desperate things to try and attain those goals. Personally I don’t participate in that thread because I think even mars direct cuts the margins a little thin for my liking. However, I see nothing wrong with people discussing even more bare bones mars missions provided they are of interest to them. What place do you have telling people what they should be interested in?

clark · 2006-02-08 13:33:56

Not crazy, but absurd!

A point to the loon that can place the author of this:

"Likewise and during every day of an illustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it. We live on the future: 'tomorrow', 'later on', 'when you have made your way', 'you will understand when you are old enough'. Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for, after all, it's a matter of dying. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus he aserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horro that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. The revolt of the flesh is the absurd."

Sanity is but an exercise in day to day rationaliztion.

Josh Cryer · 2006-02-09 03:53:56

Why do we attract crazy people?

It all started with clark...

clark · 2006-02-09 06:45:47

In the beginning there was clark...

Has a nice ring to it.

I fully accept my status as 'crazy' as the categorization merely results from unrestrained creative expression. I embrace it so it cannot limit me.

But -ALL- of you are certifiably nuts.

You want to live on a barren planet because of some day dream fantasy of 'the future'. Either that or you want others to do it, thus allowing you to experience by proxy, or once again to bring you closer to some imagined version of what 'the future' should be like.

At no time do many here really question the sanity of the proposition. The fundamental belief is gospel, and thus acts as the foundation for all that is to follow. Since this bedrock is so insane to begin with, it acts as the primary bridge for all other manner of 'crazy' to join in. Sanity is a measure of comparisons after all, and if you think living on an airless planet in the frigid cold with nothing but space suit underwear and aero gel ceilings is a winning proposition, then your measuring stick for crazy is askew.

RIZ4ROCKET · 2006-02-09 10:31:15

Three Trilobytes were gathered around chatting. Two of the trilobytes had became aware that their apendages could be used for something other than propelling themselves through the water.

The third trilobyte (named clark) said:

You want to live on the barren land because of some day-dream fantasy of 'the future'. Either that or you want others to do it, thus allowing you to experience by proxy, or once again to bring you closer to some imagined version of what 'the future' should be like.

But the two explorer trilobytes ignored the nervous and kooky trilobyte, and climbed out of that mud puddle anyways.

clark · 2006-02-09 11:19:43

I am imagining trilobytes having a conversation.

[sigh]

anthropromorphism can be so ugly when abused.

Marsman · 2006-02-14 19:55:02

Red Colony attracts the same loons you do. But the proposition that going to Mars and colonizing Mars is insane is something I cannot agree with. We know that it is a harsh and deadly world, just like the Moon and every other body in the solar system. That is not the issue. It's like people want to climb Mt Everest even though there are some very life threatening challenges to overcome. People do "insane" things all the time. Why do people jump out of flying planes with just a thin piece of fabric between them and instant death? Why do people with nice cushy jobs leave and go to work in 3rd world countries where the chances of being killed are much higher? Why do people eat junk food knowing that it will cause heart attacks etc? Why do they abuse drugs and alcohol knowing full well the potential health problems it may cause? Those are some negative examples. But what about people who invent things against all odds? Read the life of Edison or Da Vinci. why would they keep on trying when everything tells them it can't be done? Look at the explorers of the past as well.

Columbus was told by the flat earth society that he was sailing to his doom yet he went anyway and you have benefitted as a result. Look at the settlers of the past, look at the struggles they went through and the disasters that sometimes came upon them. (like the Vikings settlement in Canada) In fact why do people even bother trying to do anything that involves risk? Why do you drive your car or ride your bike every day knowing the stats on road fatalities? Why would so many people bother flying in the knowledge that they may die in a crash? There are degrees of risk in almost everything we do so should we stop living our lives because of the risks and just shut ourselves in?

Why explore space? Why should we have a space station that is floating through a very hostile environment and take the risks of living in it and servicing it? I would contend that taking risks is a very human attribute, it is a part of our curious nature and our thirst for knowledge. Mars is a calculated risk. It will by no means be a stupid or insane venture. If and when humans go there it will be as a result of many decades of unmanned missions and data. Not even Christopher Columbus had that kind of data. We are not sailing into the unknown with Mars. We know what it is, and we know what the challenges will be and right now dedicated people from NASA scientists to Mars Society analogue station researchers are working on overcoming those challenges. Going to Mars will be one of the most well researched and prepared ventures we ever embark upon. People with the frontier spirit who want to explore and live their lives on a new world are to be respected. Living there permanently will be another challenge but no worse than any other risk we face living our lives here. Mars is a dead world with no air for humans to breathe but does that make it insane to want to go there? If we can supply air? and food? Why would we explore our oceans when going down requires a artificial supply of air? I think the ISS is no more as insane as going to Mars. It needs all of its supplies from another place, unlike Mars where resources are available. As far as space exploration goes, planetary bodies offer far more in the way of resources than an artificial space habitat ever could.

As for why this forum attracts loons, well that is common to all forums if you ask me. People who are not the best with social skills come into a online community and instantly are marked as "crazy" because it is clear from their posts that they are not all there. All you can do is ban them before things get out of hand as we have had to do with Red Colony.

RIZ4ROCKET · 2006-02-15 01:33:36

People with the frontier spirit who want to explore and live their lives on a new world are to be respected.

Yes, but people with that same "frontier spirit" that want to explore the limits of human understanding and awareness at a more mundane level are to be labeled "crazy", and banned from Public Discourse, lest they create that "new world" in which to live by infecting others with their "crazy" ideas.

Earthfirst · 2006-02-15 14:32:23

Marsman who did you kick out of the red colony? I look at the post at redcolony bur I dont post. Most people seem about the same as the people here, but the folks at redcolony are more about Mars and space stuff than here. At newmar people like me get tired of Mars and like to post silly things, jokes, and other non-sense.
clark and bill seem to be very funny some times, others too. But most of the time every one is logical here. If you miss the context that they wrote the post in ofthen it sounds crazy or far out.
But the folks here are only minor loons when compare to some of the quest on the radio show Coast to Coast with Art Bell, or Nori. Last night some guy was saying that Atlantis was going to rise from the sea. Also that Jesus was an asended Atlantain that lives on another plain, and that bio fuel would solve all are fue needs.
We are not as CooKoo as we could be!

clark · 2006-02-16 08:09:14

First and foremost, do not go looking for what is missing in your life here, or there, or anywhere. Answers do not wait outside of yourself.

But that is neither here nor there, as it were.

You are insane. All of you. Nutters. Freaks. Nut jobs every single one of you. The level of your insanity is only paralleled by your deep and endless well of rationalizations.

Say it with me, "People here want to live in a place that precludes all of the depth and breadth of experiences that are available here on Earth because they think that is what the future should be."

There are other freaks and nut jobs who think we should live in communes, or that their particular brand of religious zealotry should be enforced. It is all fundamentally the same. Crazy monkey’s flinging poop at each other.

Look, I grant you that some rationalizations are pretty, even convincing on some idealistic level. But I guarantee you all, every single one of you, that if you use that obvious imagination that drives you to believe in this foolish dream, and get practical about it, you will come to your senses.

Ask yourself what it is that you are looking for on Mars that cannot be found here on Earth. Every single thing you can think of is a rationalization that tries to justify a preconceived desire. The dirt is always redder from afar.

You look to Mars as escape, so don’t pretend otherwise. But Mars will never be an escape because human begins cannot escape them selves. All of history is this lesson- the forgetting of this lesson, and the relearning of this lesson. Humanity will not go to the stars and become ‘greater’, we will go and become more ‘numerous’. That is all that waits beyond the black night pale dotted with stars. To believe otherwise is to believe in a lie, and to choose not to face our actual motivations.

We here talk about a dream, but so few actually stop and try to imagine living that dream. Living the dirty, cramped, smelly, claustrophobic, death defying daily existence that is that dream. When you’re not climbing Olympus Mons, what will you be doing? When you’re not walking though a glorified park, where will you go?

Any life on Mars is a stale and artificial recreation of what already exists here on Earth.
There is a reason people do not live at the bottom of the ocean, even though the technology to do so allows us to.

Do not chase Martian mirages in her deserts, they are not real.

Earthfirst · 2006-02-16 18:15:55

I don't want to live on Mars, or go to Mars in person. The reason being what clark said. All the same things on Mars can be found here on Earth, On Earth it's even better because we can live in the open, the air is good, soil clean, lots of water, plants, and aniamals to eat. The earth is the garden of Eden compared to cool dry Mars.

What I like about Mars is the exploration part, discovering new land and such. Robots or people on Mars does not matter, in both ways we are exploring Mars. As for living on Mars my self, that will not happen. First only a few Astronuaghts might go to Mars. For me the Earth is home, as for the rest of the people here thinking that you will be living on Mars some day is a crazy idea. Because it is not going to happen. Just be happy with the pretty pictures sent back from the robots.

As for terraforming that idea is far out too, no such project will ever take place in are short life spans. Talking about is like being an arm chair general, you think that you can run this world as a utopia, and in hunderd years turn Mars into a copy of the earth. But in the real world your ideas don't matter, you are 45 years old living in your parents house still. You can't even keep your room clean much less change a surface of Mars. You stalk Cap. Kirk at star trek meetings. You spend most of your time on the internet at forums and chat rooms. Your idea of work is being a tester for free the Civ games, or othe PC games. You could write a book about all the serects in video games, but don't. You are the tipical internet nerd, who runs away from life for a make belive world that is safe. You are all crazy and run away from the present life. Be it Mars, video games, scifi stuff, your crazy ideas is just running from the real world. I can't blame you because every one does it in their own way. Movies, sports, novels, gambeling, sex, durgs, just name it and people do it for fun.

Living on Mars is crazy now, so is terraforming. I like to think of these ideas as a form of a fun, its just fun to think about. Just like sports and other stuff is, thinking about it does not make you crazy. But thinking that you will be on Mars your self in 10 yrs is crazy.

RIZ4ROCKET · 2006-02-16 21:43:44

Really. These stupid conversations go from "Everyone here at the Mars Forum is Crazy Except for Me Of Course, we should Ban the Crazies" to "I don't want to go to Mars, and anyone who wants to is Crazy."

Result, a "Mars" forum dedicated to identifying anyone that supports the notion of going to Mars, and then banning them.

I think a more useful expenditure of the community resources would be to identify the stupid and educate them.

clark · 2006-02-17 06:41:16

It's all absurd. Everything.

Lighten up.

As a wise man once said, before the written word, "this is just text."

SpaceNut · 2006-02-17 07:10:44

I disagree with it being crazy to think of places other than Earth to live on. We must make baby steps though in order to achieve this goal. If we look at the timeline of human history to invention, one can see that we lurch ahead at would might be precieved as a snails pace but only within the last 100 years have we began to speed up. The conquering of space I would imagine will be very simular and as the cost of space flight falls for all so will the quantity of people wanting to go will increase over time. Space for a very long time will not be easy nor will it be without risk to those that should try.

John Creighton · 2006-02-17 08:47:16

I'd go live on the bottom of the ocean if I had a good job there.

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