The Other Side of Midnight - Richard C. Hoagland - Live Chat Thread

[K_Dubb]

I don't go out of my way to diss the guy. He does have the gift of gab. I love a good story as much as anyone. When he is not asking a question and then butting in to answer it himself, he can actually do a good interview. When he starts spouting his pseudoscience, I usually just turn it off. There is only so much disbelief that I can suspend.

1/3 of an imaging panel was all I ever could listen to. Tying politics to a hyper dimensional physics model isn't even funny anymore. At least for me.

I supported the show for quite awhile with Club 19.5 to support DMRN. I've never gone back to listen to any of the archives. Without this thread, I would never listen to the show.

Well yeah the pseudoscience itself is silly and threadbare (though I'm no scientist), but most myths are, when you look at them close-up.  But the ancient-aliens-with-advanced-technology myth is doing battle with the living-in-the-matrix one to become the most successful new religion of the 21st century -- it is no longer fashionable to call it religion, but that is what it is.  Classic struggle:  ancestor-worship vs. faceless omnipotence, each with a veneer of science and technology to make it palatable to our age.

To me Hoagie's ideas themselves aren't as interesting as why these particular people should be advocating them at this time.  It's like one of the minor prophets had a radio show.

[pate]

meh, dud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jryzEU7WAlg

[21st Century Man]

Thank God there is still a thread without the stupid Pepe meme.

[Sandra Kristen]

Thank God there is still a thread without the stupid Pepe meme.

[pate]

Which one are you supposed to be, the dude with the light-saber or the little boi?

[norland2424]

Which one are you supposed to be, the dude with the light-saber or the little boi?

Hey look the gay guy pate isn't drunk yet

[pate]

Hey look the gay guy pate isn't drunk yet

Stop by later, honey.  I'll stick it in ya!

[norland2424]

Stop by later, honey.  I'll stick it in ya!

We both know that you take dicks, i mean hell i hear you sucked alot of Vietnamese dong

[zeebo]

... Hoagie is a great communicator -- not of his theories (I still have no idea why a tetrahedron should have special properties) but of scene-painting.  I can feel the desert wind, see the cardboard-cutout sets at CBS, imagine the distant sunlight reflecting off Martian cliffs ...

Yes agreed.  Even if I have doubts about his tales, they can be evocative diversions.

[starrmtn001]

Well yeah the pseudoscience itself is silly and threadbare (though I'm no scientist), but most myths are, when you look at them close-up.  But the ancient-aliens-with-advanced-technology myth is doing battle with the living-in-the-matrix one to become the most successful new religion of the 21st century -- it is no longer fashionable to call it religion, but that is what it is.  Classic struggle:  ancestor-worship vs. faceless omnipotence, each with a veneer of science and technology to make it palatable to our age.

To me Hoagie's ideas themselves aren't as interesting as why these particular people should be advocating them at this time.  It's like one of the minor prophets had a radio show.

I wish Joseph Campbell were still alive.

[Dr. MD MD]

I wish Joseph Campbell were still alive.

Seconded! 

[zeebo]

...So Hoagy's no angel, but we still listen. Why do you think that is ?

Ya know, the strong espresso which just hit my bloodstream gave me a mini-epiphany about this.  I think maybe it's like Star Trek TOS.  See when you are really charmed by a show, you love the great stuff of course, the heights it sometimes manages to attain - but you also come to find even it's faults and failures endearing as well (e.g. the cheesy sets & costumes, the plot holes, Kirk's overacting, etc.). 

So w/ OSOM sometimes we get great moments of insight, intriguing speculation, optimism for our collective future - other times we get trite political drivel or preposterous scientific arguments, etc.  But as a whole it's an entertainment, compelling both for it's good and bad elements, often occuring simultaneously. 

There are dealbreakers though, there have been a few shows which have been so unseemly either in topic, tone, or interviewing style, that I've thought of bailing for good, but come midnite I always seem curious what thoughts will spring out of hoagie's silver-maned head.

[K_Dubb]

Yes agreed.  Even if I have doubts about his tales, they can be evocative diversions.

I think NASA needs an official tale-spinner -- a bard, if you will.  Those explorations are truly epic, but unless they're told with the same verve, people a hundred years from now will remember the good scientists there only as Hoagie's windmills.

[Dr. MD MD]

I think NASA needs an official tale-spinner -- a bard, if you will.  Those explorations are truly epic, but unless they're told with the same verve, people a hundred years from now will remember the good scientists there only as Hoagie's windmills.

I wonder if he would actually be willing to abandon his woo to do that? 

Not that they'd ever ask him back now though. 

[GravitySucks]

I think NASA needs an official tale-spinner -- a bard, if you will.  Those explorations are truly epic, but unless they're told with the same verve, people a hundred years from now will remember the good scientists there only as Hoagie's windmills.

Trouble is we were all double sworn to secrecy and if we violate our oaths they are ready, willing and able to send us all back to Serpo to serve out our life sentence.

[K_Dubb]

I wonder if he would actually be willing to abandon his woo to do that? 

Not that they'd ever ask him back now though. 

I don't think he'd even have to do that, just contain it the way the old map-makers put their monsters in the corners.  You'll never convince me everybody believed they were actually there.

Science now is so deathly afraid of contaminating its hands with fancy they'd never do it.  But I am sure some vision of Cibola or Xanadu hovers there unacknowledged in astroguy's mind when he pores over all those craters.  Nobody ever explored anything secure in the knowledge there was nothing there.

[JesusJuice]

Thank God there is still a thread without the stupid Pepe meme.

[(Sandman) Logan-5]

Trouble is we were all double sworn to secrecy and if we violate our oaths they are ready, willing and able to send us all back to Serpo to serve out our life sentence.

So that's where all the scientists have disappeared to.

[K_Dubb]

Trouble is we were all double sworn to secrecy and if we violate our oaths they are ready, willing and able to send us all back to Serpo to serve out our life sentence.

Haha.  What I am trying to say, poorly, is that exploration has always been part curiosity, part exploitation, and part romance, and that you guys do yourselves a disservice by surrendering this latter field to the likes of Hoagie without a fight.

[(Sandman) Logan-5]

Fucker !

[(Sandman) Logan-5]

Ya know, the strong espresso which just hit my bloodstream gave me a mini-epiphany about this.  I think maybe it's like Star Trek TOS.  See when you are really charmed by a show, you love the great stuff of course, the heights it sometimes manages to attain - but you also come to find even it's faults and failures endearing as well (e.g. the cheesy sets & costumes, the plot holes, Kirk's overacting, etc.). 

So w/ OSOM sometimes we get great moments of insight, intriguing speculation, optimism for our collective future - other times we get trite political drivel or preposterous scientific arguments, etc.  But as a whole it's an entertainment, compelling both for it's good and bad elements, often occuring simultaneously. 

There are dealbreakers though, there have been a few shows which have been so unseemly either in topic, tone, or interviewing style, that I've thought of bailing for good, but come midnite I always seem curious what thoughts will spring out of hoagie's silver-maned head.

+ 19.5     

[norland2424]

Ya know, the strong espresso which just hit my bloodstream gave me a mini-epiphany about this.  I think maybe it's like Star Trek TOS.  See when you are really charmed by a show, you love the great stuff of course, the heights it sometimes manages to attain - but you also come to find even it's faults and failures endearing as well (e.g. the cheesy sets & costumes, the plot holes, Kirk's overacting, etc.). 

So w/ OSOM sometimes we get great moments of insight, intriguing speculation, optimism for our collective future - other times we get trite political drivel or preposterous scientific arguments, etc.  But as a whole it's an entertainment, compelling both for it's good and bad elements, often occuring simultaneously. 

There are dealbreakers though, there have been a few shows which have been so unseemly either in topic, tone, or interviewing style, that I've thought of bailing for good, but come midnite I always seem curious what thoughts will spring out of hoagie's silver-maned head.

The show will pick up after the election is over

[trostol]

The show will pick up after the election is over

no it wont

[norland2424]

no it wont

Yes it will, once he has no excuse to talk politics

[pate]

Trouble is we were all double sworn to secrecy and if we violate our oaths they are ready, willing and able to send us all back to Serpo to serve out our life sentence.

We are close to finding the lost mash-up answer to the question "Where Have All The Space Cowboys Gone?"

It is in the data:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPR108kwNo4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwoiy-Fwm0E

We await some more video-processing for the answer, as a scientist myself I theorize the answer to that question will be 42, not 19.5.

I have tried to mathematically make 42=19.5, and even thymes'mm it by 32 I cannot get the sense of it.  Even The Value of Pi by 19.5 does not yield 42, although that reslut is closer to actual reality...  mmm.

ediotic:  torsion data-process error.  Still not computing...

Twit'diot:  Found way of eliminating unused space and compressing data...  Process taking longer than thought..

3ediot:  Picture becoming more frag'demented over thyme... mmm

[pate]

Yes it will, once he has no excuse to talk politics

Inexcusable, ma'am!

[trostol]

Yes it will, once he has no excuse to talk politics

nah cause once most likely Hillary wins..he will switch to disclosure

[norland2424]

nah cause once most likely Hillary wins..he will switch to disclosure

Haha but remember he already claimed that she won't win hahaha

[trostol]

Haha but remember he already claimed that she won't win hahaha

lol yes and he is right about sooooooooooooooooooooo many things

[(Sandman) Logan-5]

The show will pick up after the election is over

Heh, heh, heh, let's hope so. There are more than enough other shows out there dealing with politics. I'm here for the Archologies.