Hard News: Where the crazy comes from
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3410:
There does seem to be some indication that the US Air Force deliberately manipulated some UFO propaganda to create an air of plausible deniability for sightings of (then) classified aircraft. And yes, some political Conspiracy Theorists sometimes muse that wacky Conspiracy Theories are deliberate noise, designed as disinformation which hides the real, more plausible Conspiracies in our midsts.
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3410,
Actually, that doesn't surprise me.
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3410,
if you just need the suggestion of malevolent plotting going on in secret to then make the move to assert that whatever is happening, it's due to a Conspiracy, then the world will look quite different to those who might cite Hanlon's Razor instead.
The thing is, there's malevolent plotting going on in every office . I find it really hard to believe that it doesn't happen on a much larger scale too.
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The difference, is, though, that suspecting that Conspiracies might be occurring is a very different thing to asserting that they are. To assert that they are you need to shoulder the burden of proof and show that their rival, conspiratorial, hypothesis is better than the (so-called) Official Theories, and most Conspiracy Theorists fail to do so.
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3410,
It is. The question - or one of 'em - is how to deal with the unproven conspiracy theory. All such exposed conspiracies, I'd wager, went through a period of being unproven theory which needed something other than universal rejection in order to move forward. It is, as you say, a matter of balance.
A study of how actual and proven conspiracies were exposed might be interesting.
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I think there is a problem in that while literally understood, a conspiracy theory is merely a theory which explains things by pointing to a conspiracy, the most common examples are wacky conspiracy theories. Wacky conspiracy theories are so very common that I feel quite justified in assuming a conspiracy theory is likely to be wacky until I see supporting evidence otherwise.
But that the theory requires positing of a conspiracy doesn't tell us much about the truth of the theory --- all explanations of 9/11 involve a conspiracy (as against JFK theories, which don't all involve conspiracies. But there's no reason to prefer non-conspiratorial to conspiratorial explanations of assassinations see Sarajevo). The phrase `conspiracy theory' isn't really a useful one.
The main problem is that true conspiracies aren't considered Conspiracy Theories, and so people misjudge the frequency with which they are true.
I also don't really think that the conspiracy theorists do have to prove that their conspiracy is correct to be of interest, because merely disproving the official theory is actually very very important. See again the Show Trials.
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I also don't really think that the conspiracy theorists do have to prove that their conspiracy is correct to be of interest, because merely disproving the official theory is actually very very important. See again the Show Trials.
I agree, but when a Conspiracy Theory challenges a widely-accepted and argued for Official Theory, it is up the Conspiracy Theorist to do the work. The example I like to use is the move from a geocentric to a heliocentic model of the universe; the heliocentrists were right, but they had to show that they were right, using good arguments, inferences and the like. That took a very long time, and it was reasonable for the laity, at the time, to say "But the geocentric model is so well-argued for that it must be the most justifiable position to take."
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I agree, but when a Conspiracy Theory challenges a widely-accepted and argued for Official Theory, it is up the Conspiracy Theorist to do the work.
But that isn't a matter of conspiracy or otherwise, but a matter of generally preferring bodies of evidence to not much evidence. I am also unsure about the division between conspiracy and official theory.
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I didn't say it was a matter solely to do with Conspiracy Theories; when you have a debate about rival beliefs the radical belief is the one that needs to shoulder the burden of proof. All Conspiracy Theories are are attempts at explanations, and like all attempts at explanations, some are good and some are bad.
With regards to Official Theories, I think I share the same kind of concern you have (if that concern is something like "I'm concerned that a lot of so-called Official Theories are also Conspiracy Theories.") but it's still a useful term to use to demarcate between well-accepted explanations and their conspiratorial rivals.
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And also I guess that `official theory' is a bit dodgy, because officialdom isn't uniform, and ideas can be locally very strong but not globally.
(Say, Lysenkoism.)
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I'm working on a paper at the moment dealing with that kind of issue. Epistemologists tend to define `officialness' in this kind of area as being `a belief founded on good principles, using best inferences, and the like' but the weaker notion of Official persists. For example, can political theories be properly `official' in the rarefied epistemic sense? I don't think they can, but I do think that if given a choice between a political theory and a mere (to say, basically evidence-less) Conspiracy Theory it would be reasonable to go with the political theory, even if it were wrong.
(I was thinking of using Lysenkoism as an example in the paper, as well as the Moscow Trials.)
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there's the conspiracy to invade Iraq, the conspiracy to overthrow Allende, the conspiracy to overthrow Castro, etc etc.
The difference being that there is hard evidence to support these: minutes of meetings that get unearthed in archives, people prepared to go on the record to state what they saw and heard, etc.
Has anyone credible come forward for the moon landing conspiracy? No. Anyone for the controlled demolition on 9/11? No.
I'm a bit bemused by the vogue for rejecting, en masse, "conspiracy theories" as fringe lunacy. To disbelieve without evidence is no better than to believe without evidence.
When did you stop beating your wife? :)
You didn't? I disbelive your denial unless you can produce evidence.
I wonder if anyone's ever suggested that all the really out-there conspiracy theories are part of huge plot by the international banking cartel to discredit, by association, the accurate conspiracy theories. ;)
I do have my suspicions about the 'loose change' mob. Their media saturating fruitloop wackiness has effectively shut down anyone who asked hard questions about the frankly ropey 9/11 commission report, such as these women.
However, suspicions will remain suspicions until someone produces (if they ever do), hard evidence.
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But the difference is in the evidence not the nature.
(Although I am sure there's a certain style of argumentation that is common to the nuttier type of conspiracy theories, it's the nutty part that's of interest, not the conspiracy part. Why nutters are attracted to conspiracies is interesting, and the type of nutty conspiracy theories people go for is also.)
HORansome, I assume you know Kathy Olmstead's work, right? That line about people believing the US gov't was lying and conspiring because it was lying and conspiring always struck me as a good point.
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3410,
I disbelive your denial unless you can produce evidence.
What I meant was that to dismiss without weighing evidence is no better than to accept without weighing evidence.
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What I meant was that to dismiss without weighing evidence is no better than to accept without weighing evidence.
Even in the face of vastly more likely and widely supported alternative explanations?
I remember hearing somewhere that the scale of required payoffs to hush up a mooted 9/11 demolition would have made the conspiracy the biggest employer in American history.
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3410,
"The sun rotates around the earth" was once a "vastly more likely and widely supported... explanation."
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"The sun rotates around the earth" was once a "vastly more likely and widely supported... explanation."
Yup, and one with no compelling reason for the average beet-growing peasant to disbelieve it, until a credible alternative explanation arrived backed by devastating evidence.
If you're faced with accepting or rejecting a theory with *no* evidence to support or disprove it, and there are other theories that are widely backed and supported by evidence, I think it's wiser to reject than accept.
In fact, if there's no proof at all either way, or you are reliant on supposedly suppressed proof - and there are effective alternatives backed by data and consensus - just ignore that theory altogether. People are curious and the media love a suppressed explanation with evidence behind it. If there's a smoking gun it'll eventually be found.
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Although I do not support Glen Beck's 912 Project, I fully endorse Stephen Colbert's 10.31 project.
Regarding the "9/11" Truth movement, I always thought Matt Taibbi summed up the trouble with their argument:
The people who really run America don't send the likes of George Bush and Dick Cheney to the White House to cook up boat-rocking, maniacal world-domination plans and commit massive criminal conspiracies on live national television; they send them there to repeal PUCHA and dole out funds for the F-22 and pass energy bills with $14 billion tax breaks and slash fuel efficiency standards and do all the other shit that never makes the papers but keeps Wall Street and the country's corporate boardrooms happy. You don't elect politicians to commit crimes; you elect politicians to make your crimes legal.
That is the whole purpose of the racket of government. Another other use of it would be a terrible investment, and the financial class in this country didn't get to where it is by betting on the ability of a president whose lips move when he reads to blow up two Manhattan skyscrapers in broad daylight without getting caught.
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But according to 9/11 Truth lore, the financial patrons of democratic government were game for exactly that sort of gamble. According to the movement, the Powers That Be in the year 2000 spent $200 million electing George Bush and Dick Cheney because they were insufficiently impressed with the docility of the American population. What was needed, apparently, was a mass distraction, a gruesome mass murder that would whip the American population into a war frenzy.
The same people who had managed in the 2000 election to sell billionaire petro-royalist George Bush as an ordinary down-to-earth ranch hand apparently so completely lacked confidence in their own propaganda skills that they resorted to ordering a mass murder on American soil as a way of cajoling America to go to war against a second-rate tyrant like Saddam Hussein. As if getting America to support going to war even against innocent countries had ever been hard before!
The other problem with the " 9/11 truth movement" I have is that it almost wilfully ignores any discussion of the geopolitical involvement which probably led such an incident in the first place. It's no surprise that many of the "truthers" are paleoconservatives like Alex Jones.
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Nick, while you're here, do you understand how Rodney Hide's plans for local government fit together, long term? Seriously.
I have a fair idea. Of course the Auckland restructuring and then local government in general are different beasts but with the same body.
Rodney's views haven't changed much over the years in terms of local government and I don't think I'm speaking out of class by saying he thinks rates should be capped and spending should be restrained. That's pretty trite. He is also very keen on greater fiscal transparency in local government and having the central government legislation apply in that regard (Public Finance Act etc). But I guess to get a real answer you'd have to ask Rodney. There are some offerings here:
Of course, Rodney being Minister makes him responsible but it's very important to note he is not in Cabinet. That's often overlooked. Like most things under MMP governance, their is another party that is pretty bloody big and sits around the cabinet table as a monopoly.
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Thanks, Nick.
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J W,
Not into conspiracy theory much found this interesting article looks like good science to me.
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.commentview&comment_id=158 -
this interesting article looks like good science to me
Without wanting to be too harsh about it, it looks like more of the usual unsubstantiated bullshit to me.
There are a lot of statements in that article that are presented as absolute fact, with no reference to back them up. Here's one:
A video of the South Tower shows molten metal pouring out, glowing a radiant orange-yellow. Some have claimed this is molten aluminum, which melts at a lower temperature, but molten aluminum would be silvery in these conditions. This is molten iron or steel.
So because it's not aluminium, it must be steel? So absolutely no chance it could be something that isn't either of those two things?
Edit: one of the names on that article (Richard Gage) pops up as a prominent name in the 9/11 truth movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Truth_movement#Scholars_for_9.2F11_Truth_.26_Justice
And a quick look at the wiki page on the conspiracy theories is enough to satisfy me that it's more of the same:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_controlled_demolition_conspiracy_theories
But I would say that, being a brainwashed commie-nazi and all...
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Not into conspiracy theory much
Your profile website would suggest otherwise:
Humanity has been blamed for the mess here on Earth. The true puppet masters remain hidden. Their manipulations have caused this situation, yet most don’t even know they exist. Our suffering is calculated and it serves them. This reptilian race needs to be exposed and evicted. This is happening right now even if unseen.
[...] There are hundreds of articles and thousands of reversals and EVP. But don’t believe me or anyone else. You have the ability to speak about any subject and give yourself answers in reverse. You have the ability to check anyone in the public arena to see if they are giving accurate information. It’s all within, but not in our conscious minds which are awash in opinions, and beliefs, most of them faulty. Reverse Speaking is tapping into a part of the mind, usually unavailable except through this modality. It knows your true history and much more.
[...] I started experimenting 5 years ago trying to capture EVP (electronic voice phenomena). This is the recording of non-physical voices on digital and tape recorders. For 3 months I recorded every day and heard virtually nothing. I finally joined the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena AAEVP and got the technical support that I needed to hear the voices.
After about a year, I learned that spirit voices were reversible. By reversing what they said, I could hear if they were telling the truth. I began to experiment by reversing their voices as well as my own, and to my astonishment, in reverse, I was hearing and speaking to them in real time. I did not need the electronics. We were having back and forth conversations.
From there, I began to reverse all kinds of people who were speaking publicly as well as continuing to have conversations with non-physical people. Everyone, it seems, speaks in reverse.
[...]
Reverse speaking and EVP combined, have given me a glimpse into a part of the mind that was shut down thousands of years ago by an alien race who have been manipulating humanity ever since. The true knowledge is available to anyone willing to take the time and the small investment to have the equipment to listen. No one lies in reverse. We all know exactly what is happening and we are all desperately trying to tell ourselves.
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Reverse speaking and EVP combined, have given me a glimpse into a part of the mind that was shut down thousands of years ago by an alien race who have been manipulating humanity ever since.
Bankers have been around for only six hundred years so there's a mistake right there.
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We all know exactly what is happening and we are all desperately trying to tell ourselves.
Quite touching.
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