What happened to Hugh Manatee?

[Burnt Hill]

No one got Hugh banned but himself.

Oh I agree IanEye. Its just the behaviors/writings that bothered others never bothered me. And yes he brought his style to some of my own threads. I often read him as science fiction from some similar world. And often I thought he was simply trying to be amusing and no one "got" him.
Its just this current wave of wondering about him throughout RI that got me wondering if it was time to ask him back?

[Searcher08]

...Hugh never was able to convince anyone in any depth with a current example. And since everyone here would at least entertain his recipe for redirection it was only fair that he provide the proof in the pudding. He never did to my knowledge,...

I thought that he did make one prediction at one time.
I have a vague memory that he said Wesley Clark was going to be President.

The way many people treated him was not very pleasant; much of the stuff he came out with was associational nonsense, yet he could also post stuff from the very furthest reaches of communication science research and seemed to understand, stranger yet he peddled things like 'inoculation theory' which were old and really outdated. It took me a long time to realise that HMW was not interested in exchange, he just wanted people to both sign-up to his KWH world and also to reject anything that lay within six degrees of WOO. I think this second aspect was the thing which created the most bad feeling here. People at RI are interested in a bunch of stuff and dont tend to like being told they should limit their model to what someone else says.

Also - where would Keyword Highjacking fit into a world not based on "Search" - a Google world but on "Social (Media)" - a Facebook world?

[semper occultus]

I thought that he did make one prediction at one time.
I have a vague memory that he said Wesley Clark was going to be President.

...there is a branched-off time continuum where that happened tbf...

[zangtang]

.....where Jack Palance is alive, and Ernest Borgnine is dead.
There's too many biros - but no fu#>*ng coathangers

[Luther Blissett]

Also - where would Keyword Highjacking fit into a world not based on "Search" - a Google world but on "Social (Media)" - a Facebook world?

All it would seem to take would be the right intensity, frequency, and volume from the interested party, executed through actual staged events, persona management, popular media (output is the same whether it be "Google" or "Facebook"), entertainment, memes, art, or an orchestrated movement.

[Burnt Hill]

It's funny I penned a micro essay last night regarding Hugh and the clamor from those who miss his brand of wares. I aborted when I realized I was, again, spending time discussing Hugh and his, to be charitable, bat shit crazy theories, or theory. I appreciated Hugh's tenacity and single minded sense of purpose, and for a hounded crank he could be gentlemanly at times, but at the end of the day he really is the poster child (ironic huh?) for fanatical conspiracy magical thinking that takes a small germ, and runs with it as the grand unifying germ theory and believes those who don't see what he sees are Blind! BLIND! BLIND I TELL YOU!. This would even be interesting if he was expounding something truly mind blowing, but really he amplified themes that people here are familiar or hospitable with to a decibel where it is beyond rational understanding. Hugh never was able to convince anyone in any depth with a current example. And since everyone here would at least entertain his recipe for redirection it was only fair that he provide the proof in the pudding. He never did to my knowledge, and I'm someone who believes that military intelligence and the entertainment industry do work hand in glove at times. Instead he provided anagrams and numerology based on military events and personnel that he scrabbled into Hollywood and Disney promotional material.

For those who miss Hugh...the guy was nothing but prolific. He is smeared throughout the halls of R.I. and since his theory can be deftly applied to everything under the sun I wonder what people are lacking. I for one have no clue what Hugh would say regarding most events. The guy was not very ambiguous. Also, regarding his banishment. I believe he was given numerous chances and second chances but still he cross pollinated untold number of threads with his theories that others had to weed through to even discover what the OP was. Hugh was even instrumental in having new board rules created explicitly because of him and his theories. No one got Hugh banned but himself. If he would have stuck to one or two threads of his own initiation or even used the blog feature he would have had the shaft to mine his key word hi jacking jewels to his own delight. But he had to force his theories on everyone else.

I hope Hugh is doing well. I hope he is not doing any theorizing along the lines he did before. Because I think the two are mutually exclusive.

Excellent synopsis as always brekin, thanks.

[brekin]

yea but did he tell anyone to kill themselves?

did he ever...

It is often the case with a banning or conflict that behavior behind the scenes is factored in, so no, it's not always a matter of floors and ceilings.

More to the point with Hugh, consider that there are much more damaging things than name calling, such as clouding legitimate efforts to expose heinous human rights abuses by sinking them in a ship of obvious WOO. Personally, I'd rather have someone call me crazy outright and be done with it.

Each to his own. I'd like a board that had less personally directed suicide promotion as well as less torrents of Woo.

[BrandonD]

Each to his own. I'd like a board that had less personally directed suicide promotion as well as less torrents of Woo.

Now that everyone seems to be jumping on this subject of "woo", can someone please define that term for me - particularly within the context of this forum?

[brekin]

Each to his own. I'd like a board that had less personally directed suicide promotion as well as less torrents of Woo.

Now that everyone seems to be jumping on this subject of "woo", can someone please define that term for me - particularly within the context of this forum?

Everyone is going to have their own definition, and putting aside for a moment, the general definition of New Age fluffy thinking that throws out any logical or even rational analysis I'd say, for me, for this particular forum, "woo" is any cherished and beloved topic that causes someone to suffer duress and regress when it is put under any rigorous examination.

We all have our woo centers and one man's woo can be another man's hard science, but the woo is out there, because its inside all of us. Dosage will vary of course.

[Nordic]

Nordic wrote,

I didn't get him banned, in that I have never been a mod and have never had the ability to ban anyone.

Dude, that's complete and utter bullshit, you were highly responsible for having him banned, other that that, I HAVE ALWAYS enjoyed your posts, but to say you had no influence is just so completely far from the truth I had to say something. You guys crucified him, why one couldn't just ignore what you didn't like, is your own shit.

Sheesh dude, calm the fuck down and read what I wrote. I did not get him banned, I have never been a mod. Yes I advocated it because as Peartreed said (did you read that?) he behavior was trolling and made a mockery of this place.

But I was accused of getting him banned and that is simply not an accurate FACT.

If you don't like it take it up with whoever banned him because it wasn't me.

I like the place better without him, yes, for certain.

Could you imagine the trolling he'd be doing now about, well, everything?

And the guy never did address the most obvious suspect in the "keyword hijacking" universe, and I asked him to repeatedly: Obama and Osama. I mean, come on.

No he was never a bully or a jackass like, say Jack Riddler, who is a smart fellow but seemingly a wretched human being (or certainly seems to be online) but I seriously thought he was mentally ill, seeing the face of Jesus in his pancakes and then interrupting every conversation he could find to show it to us.

Whatever. I find the wistful remembrances of him to be rather odd.

What's frustrating was that he would seem to be on the right track and then veer off right over a cliff. I had to at times suspect he was the very thing he was supposedly warning us about. For who might come to this site, read some of his babble and think that we're ALL a bunch of conspiracy wankers. It seemed he was quite willing to paint this house over with his colorful brush for anyone visiting.

I, in fact, almost never recommended this forum to anyone because of him.

[Nordic]

Keyword hijacking certainly exists. Especially now in the age of Google. What's it called, something like Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.

Just look up what Glenn Beck did to the Overton Window. He wrote a fucking book with that title, so if you try to actually look up what the Overton Window is really about ( it's about what Fox News does) well, you're inundated with shit about his book.

But that's basically an aside. HMW took that and ran with it till he saw it in everything. And yes, decided that this was the place where he could beat the inhabitants over the head with his non-existent (they only existed in his mind) examples of this and everything else he subscribed to.
In fact that's what annoyed me more than anything about him -- he would find an interesting theory, like CIA involvement in Hollywood, then would just DESTROY it with his paranoid delusional theories, in spite of all evidence or even others personal experience.

Certainly there is CIA involvement in Hollywood. Look at the Gary Devore story. The Sony hack also uncovered evidence of it. But there's not some master evil genius choosing the color scheme for every single B movie poster or whatever.

I can't believe we're still talking about him. We must be bored.

I put him on ignore but it didn't help because his responses were so provocative and trolling that the subsequent comments would be responses to him and usually included the quoted text of what he's written.

I think if this place livened up a little - it certainly has slowed down here in recent years - he wouldn't be missed at all.

[Burnt Hill]

I dont know. I really got a kick out of his pov and his tenacity. It never bothered me and I never took any of it personally. I always found it easy to ignore him if necessary, and usually checked back if I had ignored him(I might have missed something amusing). So thats what it boils down to for me. I found the Manatee amusing and sometimes educational, and in my world the discourse would have never led to his being banned.

[Burnt Hill]

Also I think it is healthy to reflect back on the ways of a prolific and banned poster. For me it certainly isn't out of boredom, he was a pretty big voice around here back when- well he was a manatee, wasnt he?

[Project Willow]

There was a time when it was considered ill manners to go on at length discussing a person who is no longer active here, unless it was to raise a glass to them in the Lounge:

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=16700

I'd suggest that while discussion of KWH, or perhaps the process of becoming a martyr are perfectly suited for GD, such long expositions of a more personal nature belong elsewhere.

[82_28]

Don't worry, bro. I wasn't accusing you of anything. I could care less. I'm basically saying I could tolerate him in the sense he was free to be in my eyes. Just like right now I'm not going to go read world net daily -- but just maybe I will just to see what all the right wing dicks are foaming about.