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Appreciation post: My uncle's rant about crop circles in 2021 made me see this whole thing differently
Three years ago, my uncle visited from Lincoln and we got into it over a documentary. He was all in on the alien theory for crop circles, saying the patterns were too complex for people to make overnight. I was the skeptic, pointing out the guys who admitted to doing it with boards and rope. He got so mad, his face turned red, and he yelled, 'You just believe what they want you to!' That stuck with me. It wasn't about the circles anymore, it was about why he needed it to be aliens so bad. I started looking into why people cling to some ideas and ignore plain facts. The whole fight changed how I talk to people about this stuff. Now I try to understand where they're coming from first. Anyone else have a family blow-up that actually taught you something about these debates?
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skyler_craig21d ago
kevinfisher asked what your uncle saw in them, and I think that's the whole key right there. My dad is the same way with local zoning meetings, he'll argue about a new development for hours and it's never really about the land use, it's about losing the town he grew up in. @kevinfisher is onto something, because once you notice that pattern in one argument, you see people protecting a part of themselves all over the place. Your uncle needed those crop circles to mean something mysterious because the alternative was just a world where people pull pranks and that's all it is.
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kimlee3mo ago
That Lincoln visit must have been intense. What do you think your uncle was really afraid of, if it wasn't about the circles?
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