Maybe they accidentally DDoS'd themselves? At the congregation I went to last night, they did a live demo of the site on a tablet. One of the things they went over was how to download videos so that you could play them for people offline. If that was done all accross the US, and everyone went to the site to download the video, it wouldn't be surprising if that brought the site down.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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JW.org down?
by jw07 ini'm seeing tons of comments from sad jws on my facebook feed saying that the beloved golden calf jw.org is offline.. what are you seeing when you try it?
*crosses fingers* i wish it could never ever return.. are they getting too much traffic to support?.
work of hackers?
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Controversial Opinion: Why the web site campaign is actually brilliant
by Apognophos inthere's a lot of talk right now about how stupid it is to have jws hand out leaflets with urls on them.
"why go to someone's door to tell them they can visit a web site that lets them ask for someone to come to their door?
" well, i'm sorry, but i have to weigh in with a contrary opinion here on how clever the society is.
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OneEyedJoe
Some notes from this week's KM review:
Wasn't at my normal hall, (wife had some plans thursday and somehow we ended up going to a different congregation) but I found it hillarious when an 80 yr old man got up there for the first part, but had to introduce a 20-something MS to do a live demo of how to use the web site and save videos on a tablet.
The other thing that was hillarious to me was that the demonstration at the end was entirely scripted right there in the KM. Why couldn't we just read it ourselves? Also, no one noticed the irony that the "worldy" guy in the demo was talking about how "everyone thinks they have the answers" and then the JW guy interjects something to the effect of "hey there's a unique website - it has the answers!" Are they really this dumb that they don't realize that, scripted into a demo that every congregation is going to watch is a pretty succinct description of why the site actually isn't unique?
In what world is someone who starts a conversation with "everyone thinks they have the answers but no one makes anything any better" going to be receptive to a JW professing to have all the answers? Oh yeah, it's the world of the make-believe demo.
They also related an experience (did anyone else get this same one, or was this a one-off for this congregation?) where they talked to a guy who already knew of the website, and had his kids watch the caleb and sofia videos. The guy on the stage was so proud to announce, "People know Caleb and Sofia by name!"
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Rationale for international conventions
by Socrateswannabe init's been kicked around already that the conventions were logistically disasterous and spiritually vapid.
my question, and i hope you will add your comments to mine, is: why?
why did the wtbs go through the trouble of putting these things on?
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OneEyedJoe
I think origonally they were created as a revenue source. The international delegates pay a premium to the WTS to have their travel arranged for them, and the WTS negotiates lower rates for rooms and travel and makes out like bandits. That's why the international conventions weren't usually in the US, because the US is where they have the largest supply of potential delegates with money. This year, they threw the party in the US to distract from the decline and the 100 years of nothin'.
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how to survive a three day assembly?
by purrpurr inhi i have to go to one of these soon.
i find it difficult enough to sit through a meeting knowing what i now know.
how to survive a whole three days???!!!
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OneEyedJoe
Yeah, if you can make it by without having to actually sit with anyone, just show up for lunch.
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October 2014 Kingdom Ministry (KM - 10/2014 PDF)
by WatchTower87 inour kingdom ministry october 2014 .
instruction: press the 'skip ad' button top right, you should then see the download screen more easily.
no virus ;-).
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OneEyedJoe
Step 2 was 2012 if I remember correctly - 2011 being the peak of memorial attendance that has not yet been beaten.
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How good are we at spotting propaganda and logic fallacies outside the religion of the JWs?
by cognisonance inin the book take back your life, recovering from cults and abusive relationships, i think it mentioned that many often jump from one cult (or abusive relationship) to another, not being able to see the tell-tale signs with foresight, only hindsight.
therefore, i encourage everyone to take at least a cursory look at this report.
what are your thoughts?.
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OneEyedJoe
well one thing seems certain. Whoever designed that flyer either has ADD or was designing for those who do. I gave up trying to read it through after the first page, it was just too much effort to follow the flow of text that jumped randomly around the page.
As a rule, though, I'm pretty skeptical of anyone who wants me to sign up for something flaunting a free tshirt.
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Controversial Opinion: Why the web site campaign is actually brilliant
by Apognophos inthere's a lot of talk right now about how stupid it is to have jws hand out leaflets with urls on them.
"why go to someone's door to tell them they can visit a web site that lets them ask for someone to come to their door?
" well, i'm sorry, but i have to weigh in with a contrary opinion here on how clever the society is.
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OneEyedJoe
jgnat - You're absolutely correct, they're not very smart about targeting potential converts, and I don't think they'll ever start doing any such targeting in a way that the average JW would be aware of. What they might eventually do (if new converts are actually what they want) is start buying google ads (or having the R/F buy them and let them count them as placements or something) that target obvious keywords like bible, jesus, god, etc. But the real target will be some other things, like targeting people dealing with drug addiction (or addiction in the family), or people getting out of break-ups, or those who've just lost someone in death, etc. Targeting people who are searching for help in an emotionally traumatic time would give them a chance to get a foothold when someone's critical thinking skills have been suspended and they're susceptible to love bombing.
If they do this, I think they'll experience significant growth, at least in the near-term.
They just have to be very careful how they implement it, because the average JW strongly believes that every person (regardless of mental state, etc) deserves to get a witness, so they can't make it too obvioius that they're targeting the vulnerable only. Though, now that I'm thinking about it, it's pretty common for them to relate experiences from the platform about a householder who's well known to be rude that finally comes around after the death of a loved one. Those experiences really took on a new meaning for me once I found out how cults usually recruit, and who is most vulnerable.
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October 2014 Kingdom Ministry (KM - 10/2014 PDF)
by WatchTower87 inour kingdom ministry october 2014 .
instruction: press the 'skip ad' button top right, you should then see the download screen more easily.
no virus ;-).
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OneEyedJoe
@Londo
My comment would be, "The demonstration was effective because it dodged a question that can't actually be answered biblically"
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Controversial Opinion: Why the web site campaign is actually brilliant
by Apognophos inthere's a lot of talk right now about how stupid it is to have jws hand out leaflets with urls on them.
"why go to someone's door to tell them they can visit a web site that lets them ask for someone to come to their door?
" well, i'm sorry, but i have to weigh in with a contrary opinion here on how clever the society is.
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OneEyedJoe
Yeah, i think the big thing that peole are going to find to be missing on jw.org is a comments section. Obviously it would be absolutely impossible to host a comments section because it would immediately be flooded with folks like us enlightening the R/F and any potential converts. Hopefully people will do a search for jw forum or something similar, which will take them right here.
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You should meet Brother Smart Engineer
by garyneal inmy wife, who now thinks i am not competent enough to discuss spiritual matters with the kids, thinks that i could really benefit from discussing matters of the bible with this nasa engineer who attends meetings at her kingdom hall.
apparently, he is quite knowledgeable in the bible and has a good grasp of their doctrines.
at least according to her as i never actually spoken with the man at length but i do know that he is an elder.
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OneEyedJoe
Also you might look over this article on JWfacts:
http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/questions-to-ask-a-jehovahs-witness.php
that has some good questions to keep in mind that will stir up a little cognitive dissonance and make the engineer quite uncomfortable.
While I was in the process of waking up, one of the things holding me back was that I knew a number of "smart" people that believed it, and I felt uncomfortable being pompous enough to think of myself as smarter than them. I read some papers on the topic of why smart people believe stupid things, and that was one step towards finally finding TTATT. Basically what it boils down to is that smart people, when in an emotionally trying state (could be short term - the death of a loved one for example - or long term - wife converted to being a JW, and it's difficult to deal with the rift it causes) smart people can sometimes suspend their critical thinking skills and allow a stupid idea to take hold. Once a stupid idea takes hold and the person starts to invest in it, they start to defend it from any conflicting information. The more they invest in it, the more they have to lose if its wrong and the more they'll defend the idea. In this state, conflicting information can actually serve to reinforce the false belief. What got me past that, was I made an agreement with myself that I was honestly searching for the truth, and would go wherever that lead me (fully expecting that it would lead me back to the JWs). Once I did that, it was the beginning of the end for my JW beliefs.
If you can get a similar agreement from the engineer (especially if he already has a doubt or two) then you might be able to wake him up, but it won't happen all in one discussion. How fun would that be, though? Your wife brings Br. smart engineer over to convert you and you make an atheist out of him!