Post by rkz on Jul 14, 2018 14:27:38 GMT
Like most thing in this case, people spent an inordinate amount of time on this very specific aspect and ended up turning it into far more than it was. Some threads had nearly turned it into an unsolvable mystery about how he was creating physically impossible perfectly cut holes in panes of glass. People were working with individuals to develop machines that could replicate this that all turned out to be large and impossible to carry machines that could only perform these actions on panes of glass that were face down on tables in order to stabilize them. Theories about him being an experienced glazier grew out of this and theories about how he created these 'impossible' holes in the glass started to almost mythologize the GSK.
In the end, there wasn't really any evidence saying any of these purported 'perfect' holes ever existed. The simplest explanations were correct - he broke glass. There wasn't anything mysterious about it.
Another example where you can see this tunneling in on one aspect (although this one is actually tangible - but not 100% attributable to JJD) is people's obsession with the punishment map, mad is the world poem and, to a lesser extent, the custer essay. People have spent thousands of hours and made the investigation of these things almost equal to a full time job. In the end, they never really went anywhere and it isn't even clear if they ever belonged to JJD. But some people are still spending countless amount of time still trying to act like they are some lynch pin in this case that could cause it to all fall apart.
But if a few people want to chase down and exotic lead, well... why not? You never know.
Too bad some of that energy wasn't channeled into looking at rouge cops, years ago.
As soon as someone mentions the glazier angle, all of a sudden people are looking at glass company employees on the comapny's website and declaring that that one older guy who looks "sneaky" just HAS to be EAR.
As soon as someone learns that author Michael Bowker was once looked at for being EAR, all of a sudden people start seeing sinister things in his facial expressions and his word choices.
As soon as JJD's captured, all of a sudden people get it in their heads that JJD HAD to be a user on this forum and go chasing after anyone with suspicious posts.
And as soon as people get it in their heads that a certain poster HAD to be EAR, all of a sudden people start seeing sinister things in that person's posts.
It just keeps happening and happening, and if you point out that this pattern just endlessly repeats itself and that no one seems to be learning from it, all of a sudden people start acting like YOU are the jerk in this situation.
If people want to chase down leads, fine, have at it. They just need to better understand how easily a community of well-meaning researchers can be manipulated - either consciously or unconsciously - into chasing after ghosts and how an individual's well-intentioned enthusiasm can topple over into a mob mentality once others arrive at the same level of enthusiasm.
