Mr. Dark ([info]mr_dark) wrote in [info]hoaxes,
@ 2004-11-10 01:12:00
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Current mood: tired

John Titor...can we call it, now?
It's been several months since I wrote my lengthy piece on the John Titor story.  I still get several comments to it a month, especially leading up to the election.

Now that it's been a week and no civil war has broken out, and only the most fringe elements of the left wing still dispute the outcome of the election, do you think we can officially declare the John Titor tale a hoax?  Without this lynchpin, the story falls apart completely.  If there is no 'civil unrest' over a 'disputed election in 2004', then there is no civil war.  No civil war, no nuclear war.  No nuclear war, no need to return to the past for some near-ancient IBM PC to solve some otherwise-unsolvable problem.

What does everyone think?  Can we safely stick a fork in it?  Do you think The Artist Formerly Known As John Titor will come forward and confess now that the hoax is out?


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[info]gothic_oreo
2004-11-10 02:06 am UTC (link)
Well, to play devil's advocate, there is mounting evidence of gross voting irregularities all over the country.

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[info]mr_dark
2004-11-10 02:17 am UTC (link)
Tighten your alumnium hat, the CIA is getting some thought-waves through. ;)

Seriously: no reliable source has -any- level of voting irregularities that would affect the election in either direction. Even the foreign observers allowed in to view things had no real complaints.

Titor painted a picture of widespread civil unrest following a violently disputed election. Clearly, the author was counting on a repeat of 2000 but with more polarized views and more widespread problems. That just didn't happen, and the closest we came to civil unrest was a bunch of anarchists in San Francisco trying to attack a McDonalds on election night.

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[info]nagisa_kaworu
2004-11-10 10:31 am UTC (link)
There's time...it could still happen.

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[info]mr_dark
2004-11-10 04:28 pm UTC (link)
By WHO? Today, even Kerry's top lawyer was quoted in the news saying there was no widespread fraud, the Republicans won fair and square...where's this mass uprising going to originate?

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[info]nagisa_kaworu
2004-11-10 05:06 pm UTC (link)
If it starts, it will start with the people. Democrats are pretty pissed off right now...and not everyone handles anger well.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flashmn.htm

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[info]softpaw
2004-11-10 02:18 am UTC (link)
could you link to your piece please?

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[info]mr_dark
2004-11-10 02:26 am UTC (link)
Dammit, I knew someone was going to ask me that. :)

http://www.livejournal.com/community/hoaxes/90359.html

There ya go.

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[info]softpaw
2004-11-10 02:31 am UTC (link)
thankyou

*toddles off to go read it*

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[info]pete3great
2004-11-10 10:01 am UTC (link)
mehe, i was going to ask but she(?) beat me to it. want to see those new comments.

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I was just searching for Titor because of a comment
[info]alrs
2004-11-10 07:11 am UTC (link)
http://www.livejournal.com/community/los_angeles/1146348.html

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[info]pete3great
2004-11-10 10:02 am UTC (link)
i thought titor said the disturbances wouldn't begin until 2005. hrm.

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[info]satrujit
2004-11-10 11:28 am UTC (link)
Never mind. Someone else linked the article I requested. I apologize; I commented before reading the other responses.

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The issue here really isn't a militia-stock hoax.
[info]praxismundi
2004-11-11 12:48 am UTC (link)
I agree.

Bush's landslide victory of three percentage points is clearly a mandate from the American people that they have at last united.

Move along.


Do you have any idea what the dollar is poised to do in the next three years?

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Re: The issue here really isn't a militia-stock hoax.
[info]mr_dark
2004-11-11 02:04 am UTC (link)
I didn't say any of that, and neither did Titor.

He specifically stated that the 'civil unrest' that began the civil war in 2005 was started after a disputed election in 2004.

Well, we just had the last major election of 2004 and it is not widely disputed. The only people disputing it are on the absolute fringe of the left-wing, and that's a group that has previously shown neither the will to be well organized nor engage in co-ordinated violence.

Regardless of whether or not you feel that President Bush has a legitimate mandate, I don't see you running out, buying a shotgun, and taking potshots at government assets. That kind of thing is what it would take to start the sort of mass civil unrest needed to eventually grow into a civil war.

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[info]another_thrill
2005-01-12 01:47 am UTC (link)
"Clearly, the author was counting on a repeat of 2000 but with more polarized views and more widespread problems. That just didn't happen"

So more polarized views clearly didnt happen? How do you explain the countless accusations made by both parties and the numerous republican vs democratic signs posted everywhere for 6 months? If that's not polarization, I dont know what is.

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[info]mr_dark
2005-01-12 01:54 am UTC (link)
You compare the drama over Ohio to the drama over Florida in 2000? Not even remotely close. Besides, Titor's brand of polarized views meant 'civil unrest', AKA people shooting at one another. The kind of accusations being tossed about by the extreme of the left wing have no chance of leading us into a civil war.

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[info]another_thrill
2005-01-12 08:00 pm UTC (link)
But did he state that civil unrest would occur in the first 12 days of 2005?

And to clear things up, I dont believe John Titor came from the future and so on so forth. It is a hoax in my opinion, but the predicaments he stated are occuring, but in less epidemic proportions.

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[info]koltrane
2005-02-28 11:28 pm UTC (link)
I've been doing a bit of reading on Titor today and came across your piece debunking his claims. I am writing this on the last day of February, 2005. As I write, there are no threats of civil unrest or escalating violence between a split US population. Who is to say what could happen by the end of the year, but Titor's predictions have pretty much been called out. I think it's time to officially classify Titor as a hoax.

To me, the most telling piece of evidence as to Titor's falsity is that he chose such crackpot forums to present his claims. Had he posted on a university's boards frequented by physics professors, I'd take a different tack, but Titor chose those whose gullibility is only exacerbated by their readiness to accept anything with a ring of authenticity. Titor knew that the Art Bell crowd would gobble his stuff up. These people also seriously entertain alien visits, vampires, men in black, reverse speech, etc. Titor chose his audience carefully.

Your comment about cold reading psychics is right on the mark. Look at what is missing from all Titor's "evidence": a photograph of his face, a photo of his insignia, the GE logo, a scan of any verbiage that would give greater detail as to the workings of his device, close-up photos of the device. He's a classic huckster. There's just enough information to whet the appetite, but nothing specific. The majority of the world can tell you the date of the Trade Center attacks, but Titor doesn't supply even a month for the start of a major war. Go figure. The details only come when Titor addresses events prior to his posts, like the computer, for example.

I love the car mounted time machine device! I think Titor was winking at the Back to the Future movies with this one. He even put it in an exotic car at first (a Corvette). At least he didn't call it a flux capacitor and mention an optimal speed of 88MPH.

Also, one would think digital photography would be the norm in 2036. Titor's photos look to be scanned film pictures. While I doubt film is on the scrap heap in 2036, certainly the more efficient method of taking pictures would be with a digital camera. If post-war GE can build an efficient time machine, you'd think they'd be cranking out digital cameras, too.

This guy is nothing more than a poor man's Nostradamus (another huckster). I predict we'll all be doing fine this time next year, and I'm no time traveller.

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[info]koltrane
2005-03-01 02:09 am UTC (link)
Oh, and a couple more things. One guy on the web made a great comment about how Titor characterizes the sides in the civil war as the anti-government rural states and the pro-government city dwellers, but the election results were the opposite...the more rural voters going for the existing government and the urban voters supporting the opposition, so Titor got it backwards.

Also, he said the cities were destroyed, but the capital of the US was moved to Omaha, a city that boasts a population of 700,000+ in its metro area. It's also the headquarters for the SAC and has always been considered a prime military target. Did the Russians just spare Omaha?

The more I read it, the more ridiculous it appears to me. The Art Bell crowd will buy anything, it seems.

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[info]koltrane
2005-03-05 03:44 am UTC (link)
By the way, am I the only one who noticed that the name "Titor" is a homonym for the first two letters of the words time travel? How else would you pronounce TITR? Yet more proof that Titor is a hoax, as if we need any at all.

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[info]mr_dark
2005-03-05 04:04 am UTC (link)
Well, technically, we discovered that Titor was pronounced 'Tee-ter' when that cheesball ad for the 'radio drama' came out of the official Titor camp last year.

Frankly, it's March 2005 and here we sit in the nice, calm, civil-unrestless United States, so it's safe to say he was full of poo.

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