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They needed a pretext to invade Iraq for oil or whatever, then use a completely different pretext which did just as well and was just as deceptive. Yeah.. Actually it is easy to read something into how both Afghanistan and Iraq flank Iran.
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Sep 12, 2013 10:31
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Smudgie Buggler posted:Is this even really "conspiracy-theorist" territory? Does anybody who knows what the Warren Commission was seriously believe that Oswald acted alone? I mean, sure, to theorise otherwise is to theorise a conspiracy of sorts, but it's hardly the same thing as thinking there are aliens in Area 51. I thought every educated person took it pretty much as fact that JFK was killed by some sort of monied or political interest, most likely either Texan politicians or some rogue element of the CIA. Yes, the Kennedy Assassination is very much "conspiracy-theorist" territory. The report released by the Warren Commission is the most complete version of events from the Kennedy Assassination. For all its faults, there has yet to be an alternative hypothesis that can reasonably explain the day's events as well as the lone gunman theory. We can accurately recreate the entire assassination from the Book Depository. Covering up any kind of conspiracy would take a large number of people and we have not had any leaks to suggest involvement from the mafia, CIA or monied political interests. As far as the Kennedy assassination is concerned, you will probably find more evidence to support a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination. The Mitrokhin Archive documents attempts by the KGB in creating and supporting conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination in the United States and Western Europe. Mitrokhin claims the operations were an attempt to discredit the CIA and FBI to make it harder for them to work. The information is not very credible but it has more to support it than the idea of a CIA sponsored assassination against the American president. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 12:44
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For those interested, here is an interesting academic paper on beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories.quote:Abstract: http://www.academia.edu/1207098/Dead_and_alive_Beliefs_in_contradictory_conspiracy_theories
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Sep 12, 2013 13:11
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There's actually probably an interesting history of conspiracy theories that has remained unwritten up till now. Conspiracy theories remind me of tall tales or ancient mythos, basically they are stories created by a community to explain an event, and who over time the members come to internalize them with the actual truth. The most interesting thing is that there is no central source for these myths, which pokes a hole in the old "oh [group x] just made up this story for the plebs so they can control the plebs" idea, see: "did Jesus really exist" et all.
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Sep 12, 2013 13:26
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I hate Trutherism, but fortunately I never hear the crazy out there kind. I usually have to deal with "What about WTC 7?" and "Why didn't the passport burn?". I still haven't heard good answers for these.
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Sep 12, 2013 14:07
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http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4085 This is pretty drat good summary of why Tower 7's collapse was completely sensible given its damage. Skeptoid is a pretty drat awesome site for this kind of poo poo, and has so far avoided any of the sexist of militant atheism poo poo that seeps into a lot of sketpic websites. Now watch someone post something where he did or said something terrible I did not know about.
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Sep 12, 2013 14:15
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It's hard to find a major intelligence agency that didn't know that an attack was "imminent", or that didn't flag it with the white house.
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Sep 12, 2013 14:20
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My dad is convinced that the 2004 Madrid bombings weren't caused by islamist terrorists, but by ETA terrorists working in conjunction with a political party, in an attempt to remove the governing party from power in the general elections that happened 3 days after the attack. Shortly after the attacks the police found the extremists, who killed themselves before getting caught using the same type of bomb that was used in the trains. Apparently they were just murdered as part of the conspiracy v  vThere's no arguing with this stuff.
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Sep 12, 2013 14:37
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1st AD posted:The worst ones are the architects for truth or whoever who claim that the WTC towers were filled with thermite or some other explosives and there was a timed demolition coinciding with the towers being struck. Without personally siding with the controlled demolition crowd, wouldn't the fact that the towers came down from a plane impact imply that the towers could be destroyed by a targeted impact / explosion. As in the whole building wouldn't have to be rigged with explosive. edit: yes thats it^ wtc 7, google says internal fire brought it down. Coylter fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 17:02
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Elman posted:My dad is convinced that the 2004 Madrid bombings weren't caused by islamist terrorists, but by ETA terrorists working in conjunction with a political party, in an attempt to remove the governing party from power in the general elections that happened 3 days after the attack. Don't tell him 9/11/01 was also the New York City Mayoral Primary that was later won by Bloomberg 
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Sep 12, 2013 17:08
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Coylter posted:Without personally siding with the controlled demolition crowd, wouldn't the fact that the towers came down from a plane impact imply that the towers could be destroyed by a targeted impact / explosion. As in the whole building wouldn't have to be rigged with explosive. Yeah, it's possible to just blow up part of a building with a big explosive, but that's not how controlled demolition works. To demolish a building, you place many explosives throughout the building at key points to strategically weaken the structre. It would also be possible to just light off a single truck-sized explosive somewhere in the structure, and it would probably accomplish the same goal with a less predictable outcome. Problem is this adds its own complications to the narrative, mainly how the explosives got there in the first place. It would have to be a drat big bomb, so someone would have noticed something as the crack CIA team or whoever put it into place. My favorites are the people who think that by analyzing 480p Youtube footage, they can discern exactly how the building was destroyed. A collapsing building is a collapsing building, regardless of what made it collapse. They look the same. And all that 'falling at the speed of gravity' poo poo, I talked to a guy who claimed this and it turns out he actually did not know simple physics. F=m*a completely wrecked his argument. Didn't shut him up though. boner confessor fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 18:25
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Popular Thug Drink posted:My favorites are the people who think that by analyzing 480p Youtube footage, they can discern exactly how the building was destroyed. This particular part, the way they'll obsess over the details in a video that's been re-encoded and reformatted dozens of times before they see it, reminds me of how fundamentalist Christians will point to a King James Bible as the original and definitive version of the Bible, as part of whatever they're trying to prove.
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Sep 12, 2013 18:38
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I thought I was safe from this stuff until a guy I actually respect posted something on Facebook about how the WTC had been recently bought by a billionaire that immediately got insurance that would give him a ton of money should something happen. The particulars of this particular theory elude me right now. I am a bit favorable towards the idea that conspiracy theory is, at least in part, a misfiring of our pattern recognition mechanisms, much like superstition. We tend to look for and find patterns -causal patterns in particular- to explain the world around us, and find it very distressing when we can't. Like the man leaving the roulette table because a certain unlucky number came up (perhaps because he once lost big after that same number came up), conspiracy theorists go to past experiences (either personal or within the culture) when an explanation is too complex, too chaotic or not satisfying. Since there have been many instances throughout history of manipulation and lying by power elites, the leap isn't a hard one to make. A second factor is, obviously, the sense of belonging to an elite group. It's not a coincidence that truthers often refer to their moment of "awakening" as "taking the red pill"- casting themselves as the enlightened heroes. Now, if there was only ONE truther, he would most certainly feel extremely distressed. But since there is a group of them -facilitated by the Web- they find validation and belonging, two strong and pleasant feelings. Well, this guy said it better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgSbaKpCjq4
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Sep 12, 2013 18:39
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The thing that always mystified me was the concept that Bush couldn't have started any war he wanted without using a massive conspiracy to justify it. Why orchestrate a massive event that would destroy the American government if it was revealed, when you could just say Osama bin Laden has attacked American interests and is determined to attack inside the United States. Sure, there would be protests, but you can brush those off and fire up the propaganda machine. That's a hell of a lot less risky and expensive then destroying a central pillar of your financial system. Also, why would he gently caress with the Pentagon when he needed it to arrange his upcoming wars?
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Sep 12, 2013 18:49
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I think people like to believe in conspiracy theories, no matter how horrific, nutty, or evil they may be, because they leave open the possibility of action. Look at all the horrible things that have happened that would fall into the realm of conspiracy theories if we didn't know they were true. The fact there were no WMDs in Iraq, the PRISM program spying on everyone, the banks basically loving over the entire world in 2008, and further back you have the Gulf of Tonkin, the various coups in South America, Iran Contra, etc. Even more mundane, horrible things we do on a regular basis like the bombing of civilians under shady legal juristiction. All these things've happened and, for the most part, nothing was done. There was no movie ending where the villain is exposed and the evil empire comes crumbling down around them. In reality, there's some protests, but the bad guys smirk and shrug, the media supports them, and evil keeps on trucking. A conspiracy theory provides an out. If 9/11 was a false flag operation, if Obama did orchestrate Benghazi, if the Illuminati is really turning us all into lizard people, then that will finally provide the outrage that will make everyone stand up and drive good to triumph. This is why I don't believe in the crazy, massive coverups. For the most part, they aren't even necessary. Or maybe they're just adults playing at kids playing at pretend.
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Sep 12, 2013 19:02
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I used to live with some conspiracy theorists. They were loving nuts. A lot of their issues stemmed from things that happened to them, just general heart break, that they had trouble processing. One of them, I forgot his name, he told me his mom died of lung cancer. I (stupidly) asked if she was a smoker like him and he said "Yeah, but she was also given vaccines and [untintelligible]." He later tried to show me the True Cure for cancer and why there's such a great conspiracy to hold back the truth. It was hard to accept that his mom died and the doctors couldn't do enough, so he actively searched for ways to explain why the doctors were wrong. He'd built it up so much that he figured the doctors actually were indifferent to his mom's case. There might've been something else beyond that about feeling inadequate as a son. There's something powerful, attractive, and redeeming in feeling smarter than everyone else. ----- Someone mentioned paranoia. yeah. Paranoia is completely irrational. It's based on anxiety and fear. You can't even say "what's the worst that happens" to these people because they can't rationalize the fear, it's too overwhelming. There's also Just World Fallacy, which was a famous explanation for Holocaust deniers. "Surely a government as smart and clever and underhandedly tactical as ours would have been able to stop 19 guys from hijacking four airplanes and murdering civilians. No, there is something far greater afoot." There's part of that in 9/11 truthers, but it's not the complete picture.
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Sep 12, 2013 19:28
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Miltank posted:The trump card that I often see getting pulled has to do with the third WTC tower going down. Is there a black and white answer for that? I was at the US Merchant Marine Academy during 9/11. A large percentage of my class had been in the towers days before (it was just after the first parents weekend where the plebes get to leave campus for the first time). Several of our professors were NYC firefighters, several worked at the Port Authority (I think two of those died). Anyway I had classmates/upperclassmen in the city during the attack. Some were EMTs who helped out in the immediate aftermath. One had a camera and took lots of pictures. By circumstance he was briefly in that last WTC building helping get people out before it collapsed. There was pretty heavy damage to the building. I don't know if I still have the photos floating around. I'll look. It's bullshit like all the other Truther stuff.
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Sep 12, 2013 19:52
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Miltank posted:The trump card that I often see getting pulled has to do with the third WTC tower going down. Is there a black and white answer for that? The broken bones posted:There's something powerful, attractive, and redeeming in feeling smarter than everyone else.
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Sep 12, 2013 21:43
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As far as 9/11 conspiracies go, I find the alternate "explanations" centered around the WTC and Pentagon to be crap, but United 93 getting shot down seems pretty realistic. Maybe I'm the idiot here, but why wouldn't the military hit a hijacked plane after 3 others just flew into crowded landmarks? It has nothing to do with an inside job and the motivations are a lot more plausible (if not justifiable) than manufacturing a reason to go to war overseas. It doesn't even have to have fake phone calls or black box recordings. I am somewhat curious as to how all those calls got recorded, but there could be an easy answer to that. The main point is, why would the government take the chance on a ragtag group of airline passengers stopping another heinous attack, even if they were somehow aware such a thing was occurring on the plane?
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Sep 12, 2013 22:40
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I've always felt like conspiracy theorists are almost there. I like to study critical theory and social theory, which often rest on similar bases, i.e., that there are systems in our society that enforce control and hierarchy and rest outside of the realm of one-on-one personal relationships: think of Foucault's theory of discourse, where ideologies and authoritarian functions are happening on an individual and state level at the same time. You can't really "prove" a social theory through empirical evidence, but it's not that kind of argument. For instance, you can never "prove" the patriarchy exists, and people too often fall into that trap and say "do you think there's a CONSPIRACY of men planning how to oppress women?" Of course not. Instead, you take something like feminism, discourse theory, or Marxism and apply it to a set of events to see how far it takes you. In short, social theories are like scientific theories in that they both aim to interpret problematic evidence in order to describe some underlying law or principle in a culture or nature. A conspiracy "theory" works in much the same way, at first. You assemble evidence that causes problems with an understanding of an event (how far away Lee Harvey Oswald was, the tensile strength of the beams in the WTC), and then you start theorizing what new explanation might solve these problems. The issue with conspiracy theories is they introduce arbitrary explanations that are either factually invalid ("explosives were planted in the WTC") or entirely unprovable ("lizard people"). Other theorists, when presented with problems in their theory, aim to re-work the theory or assimilate the evidence into the theory (scientists reading this thread, let me know if I'm off track). Someone might say that the working poor enjoy increased standard of living under capitalism, but a Marxist might say that's just an exercise in hegemony, the rich giving the poor just enough so they don't agitate--Marxism can explain this problem. Something like relativity, I assume, has addressed many evidential challenges over the years. Conspiracy theorists don't do this. When presented with opposing evidence they simply ignore it, or accuse the other person of being blind or bought. There's no effort to integrate conflicting viewpoints or evidence into the conspiracy theory. That's why the JFK discussion is probably not totally a "conspiracy theory;" over the years, there has been a lot of forthright discussion about the events of that day, and differing interpretations. A conspiracy theory rests on the emotional appeal of its argument, while social and scientific theories rest on their strength in understanding a wide variety of physical or social events. deptstoremook fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 00:41
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The most rational explanation I've heard on why conspiracy theorists are so diehard (and common) is actually a psychological point of view. For some people, the thought that random terrible poo poo happens is scarier than an evil shadow government controlling everything. The evil shadow government theory means that somebody is in charge. They might be dicks, but somebody, somewhere, has control of the situation. The reality that no, sometimes terrible poo poo happens to good people for no goddamn reason at all is so terrifying to them that they choose to believe or even make up conspiracies. Anybody who falls into that category is also pretty much immune against the best logic against conspiracy theories, Occam's Razor. It's a mental self defense method that just happens to be super loving annoying on Facebook.
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Sep 13, 2013 01:22
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Relentless posted:The most rational explanation I've heard on why conspiracy theorists are so diehard (and common) is actually a psychological point of view. I believe that this psychological explanation of conspiracy theorists is actually an attempt to escape the realization that some people are very stupid.
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Sep 13, 2013 01:35
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How do you guys feel about the bombing of the USS Cole and the government's obfuscation of the facts surrounding it? I read about that in Richard wright's book The Looming Tower, and about how the government did so much to block FBI agent John O'Neill's investigation of it. I also find it very strange that O'Neill happened to have died in one of the WTC tower collapses. Around the same time I also read another really great book titled The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy and became convinced that Israel has so much political and financial capital to gain from orchestrating an attack like the Cole bombing that I wouldn't put it past them to do such a thing. I figured this thread would be a good place to discuss this without getting turned into the lizard-people-believing, conspiracy theorist strawman that has been mentioned previously ITT
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Sep 13, 2013 01:50
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I'll put myself out there in this thread. I war a hardcore conspiracy theorist for 7 years. I have read probably around 60 books on the subject, watched nearly every relevant documentary, know something of the history of conspiracy theorists in this country, and understand the various camps within the truther movement. I'll answer any questions, but some of them might be near book form to really break down what goes on in that movement. I know the major players, many of the minor players, and even some of the internal controversies. (Hell, i was actually in Cleveland to see David Icke the day he and Jesse Ventura started their infamous feud.) So fire away guys.
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Sep 13, 2013 02:17
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Prester John posted:I'll put myself out there in this thread. I war a hardcore conspiracy theorist for 7 years. I have read probably around 60 books on the subject, watched nearly every relevant documentary, know something of the history of conspiracy theorists in this country, and understand the various camps within the truther movement. I'll answer any questions, but some of them might be near book form to really break down what goes on in that movement. I know the major players, many of the minor players, and even some of the internal controversies. (Hell, i was actually in Cleveland to see David Icke the day he and Jesse Ventura started their infamous feud.) So fire away guys. What led you to change your mind about conspiracy theories?
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Sep 13, 2013 02:23
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Silver2195 posted:What led you to change your mind about conspiracy theories? Literally medication. No exaggeration. Three months on psych meds and just not paying attention to the stuff and all the conspiracy theory stuff was out of my system. I went from "Alex Jones is an amazing freedom fighter" to "Christ gently caress what was I thinking, this guy is a lunatic".
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Sep 13, 2013 02:26
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Blind Pineapple posted:As far as 9/11 conspiracies go, I find the alternate "explanations" centered around the WTC and Pentagon to be crap, but United 93 getting shot down seems pretty realistic. Maybe I'm the idiot here, but why wouldn't the military hit a hijacked plane after 3 others just flew into crowded landmarks? It has nothing to do with an inside job and the motivations are a lot more plausible (if not justifiable) than manufacturing a reason to go to war overseas. It doesn't even have to have fake phone calls or black box recordings. I am somewhat curious as to how all those calls got recorded, but there could be an easy answer to that. The main point is, why would the government take the chance on a ragtag group of airline passengers stopping another heinous attack, even if they were somehow aware such a thing was occurring on the plane? The military probably did give authorization to take the planes out, but fighter jets weren't allowed to hang around being fueled and armed until after 9/11 which takes a while, so they likely would have had to ram the plane to take it out. There are numerous recorded cell phone calls and the flight recorder going all the way to the crash and none say anything about being shot down. The debris field was only about 1.5 miles, which is consistent with a high-speed crash crash and far too small for a plane that is breaking up prior to crashing. It's not conclusive, but the official story certainly makes more sense given the data.
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Sep 13, 2013 02:38
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Prester John posted:Literally medication. No exaggeration. Three months on psych meds and just not paying attention to the stuff and all the conspiracy theory stuff was out of my system. I went from "Alex Jones is an amazing freedom fighter" to "Christ gently caress what was I thinking, this guy is a lunatic". Speaking of Alex Jones being a lunatic: quote:On his Tuesday radio show, Jones said that efforts to have Syria place their chemical weapons under the control of the international community was a United Nations conspiracy to “come into any country they want, that has any type of weapons systems — and call them WMDs, and then dismantle that country’s infrastructure.” His poo poo goes way beyond your run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory and gets into schizophrenic paranoia, disordered thinking and word-salad nonsense.
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Sep 13, 2013 02:44
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Oh come on Prester John, you get a pass. What the hell is anybody else's excuse?
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Sep 13, 2013 02:48
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SedanChair posted:Oh come on Prester John, you get a pass. What the hell is anybody else's excuse? Many of them are probably mentally ill too. Of course, the fraction of believers who are mentally ill probably increases with the implausibility of the conspiracy theory. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 02:53
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A very large number of conspiracy theorists simply have never been told accurate information. They only ever hear about things from other conspiracy theorists, and simply don't take time to look up, say, that yes buildings collapse when a they have huge fires burning in them after they're hit by a plane.
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Sep 13, 2013 02:57
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Rhesus Pieces posted:Speaking of Alex Jones being a lunatic: Actually that is all ordered and makes sense. I could decode the entire thing and explain the entire Alex Jones viewpoint of "The Conspiracy". In the truther movement there are two big, but informal, camps. You could call them the "Alex Jones Crowd" and the "David Icke Crowd". The Icke crowd, despite being the guy behind 4th dimensional blood drinking higher vibrational aliens who appear reptilian to us and need the the illuminatti bloodline in order to possess their hosts, is actually the far more tolerable crowd if you ever meet them in person. The Alex Jones types are just belligerent and loving impossible to deal with, even amongst their own crowd. Silver2195 posted:Many of them are probably mentally ill too. Of course, the fraction of believers who are mentally ill probably increases with the implausibility of the conspiracy theory. There is an experience the Schizophrenic mind has often, and that is "waking up". Suddenly, all the connections become clear, you can see the world for what it really is. It is as plain as day. It all makes sense. Naturally to the Schizophrenic mind this sort of thing can happen over pretty illogical/mundane stuff, but experiencing it is sort of a high, and it can be kind of habit forming. Conspiracy theorists often also talk of this "waking up" experience, where all of the sudden it clicked for them and they could see it all.( For most I have personally encountered this was during watching a documentary like Loose Change or its ill-begotten ilk.) Once you have this waking up experience, you relearn everything about the world. You have a life changing perspective that causes you to re-evaluate literally everything. (I imagine it is very similar too, if not identical too, the dramatic conversion experience some people go through with religion.) You spend time rethinking everything, the world is suddenly a different place. There is an order to things, a higher pattern you can now perceive. You can place previous mysterious world events into neatly labeled mental folders that explain it all. On top of this, the fact that no one else in your day-to-day life can see this pattern gives you a sort of superiority feeling. You can see it, your smarter, you rose above your cultural brainwashing and now you can truly perceive the truth. When major world events happen and you create a mental narrative for them, one that gets matched up by Alex Jone's take on the event, and supported by other "awake" people, it becomes a very deep mental hole that is very difficult to dig your way out of. In short, when your "real truth" is verified by other people you perceive to be "awake" just like you, its enthralling. Perhaps not thrilling, not always pleasant (fear and anxiety play a tremendous role in all this) but it does occupy almost all your attention and spare time.
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Sep 13, 2013 03:09
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Prester John posted:The Icke crowd, despite being the guy behind 4th dimensional blood drinking higher vibrational aliens who appear reptilian to us and need the the illuminatti bloodline in order to possess their hosts, is actually the far more tolerable crowd if you ever meet them in person. I flipped through one of Icke's books and it was crazy - lots of stuff about vibrations, holograms, and planes. He also had lots of illustrations by Dees. I'm not surprised they are more tolerable - it seems like Icke is building a narrative for chill types who buy into healing crystals and stuff. Alex Jones sucks up to Icke now and then and it seems like he mainly puts the same narrative into an obnoxious Limbaugh frame. Thanks for posting, Prester John. It is a shame that if you tried to reason with one of these people they would dismiss you the second you mention being medicated.
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Sep 13, 2013 03:18
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McDowell posted:I flipped through one of Icke's books and it was crazy - lots of stuff about vibrations, holograms, and planes. He also had lots of illustrations by Dees. I'm not surprised they are more tolerable - it seems like Icke is building a narrative for chill types who buy into healing crystals and stuff. Alex Jones sucks up to Icke now and then and it seems like he mainly puts the same narrative into an obnoxious Limbaugh frame. Yeah, Icke's main message is that all of 3 dimensional reality is a gigantic holographic simulation we built for ourselves, so just chill out. Our hologram has gotten hijacked a bit by external influences not native to this particular space-time continuum(the reptilian aliens), but that is no reason to panic, we are going to get through this. Remember, its all just a simulation, and the important thing is the connections you make and how you decide to help the people in your daily life. Jones types are "ARRHGHBLARGLBLARGE IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME YOUR A SECRET GOV'T PLANT SENT HERE TO DERAIL OUR NOBLE FIGHT AGAINST THE ILLUMINATTI". Goddamn, they are insufferably arrogant at the best of times too. Yeah, they would also dismiss me at the faintest whiff of the word "medication". Some would even think I was being mind controlled.
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Sep 13, 2013 03:23
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deptstoremook posted:I've always felt like conspiracy theorists are almost there. I like to study critical theory and social theory, which often rest on similar bases, i.e., that there are systems in our society that enforce control and hierarchy and rest outside of the realm of one-on-one personal relationships: think of Foucault's theory of discourse, where ideologies and authoritarian functions are happening on an individual and state level at the same time. The whole problem is that the conspiracy theorist is not attempting an honest investigation, it's all a fishing expedition to find facts to support a conclusion that's already been made (namely, that there's a coverup of some sort). This is why the narratives constructed by the conspiracy theorists make no sense. Take any event at all. If you examine it closely enough you're going to find some unlikely things going on. That's because unlikely things happen all the time. If you look at a million pieces of evidence it isn't surprising if you find something that had a million to one shot of happening. Once these "inconsistencies" are collected then the narrative is built. That's why Bush faked the attack to start the war in Iraq, even though none of the hijackers were from there. That's why the buildings were brought down with explosives, even though a plane would do the job. That's why they blew them up with thermite, even though thermite isn't an explosive and C4 would've made a lot more sense. That's why there was no plane attacking the pentagon, even though it would make a lot more sense for the conspirators to just hijack one more plane if they've already gone that far. It's because the narrative has been constructed around an essentially random set of "facts", united only by their support of the predetermined conclusion that there must be some sort of coverup. As a side note, I've noticed how convenient a tool the false flag attack is to the conspiracy theorist. It's because the false flag allows one to reassign blame however one wishes in order to fit any situation into your narrative. If A attacks B and B retaliates, well then that might be justified. But if the initial attack was actually a false flag by B well then now everything is B's fault. So if some event contradicts your view of who's the good guy and who's the bad guy just claim false flag and everything's back in its right place.
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Sep 13, 2013 04:24
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Install Windows posted:A very large number of conspiracy theorists simply have never been told accurate information. They only ever hear about things from other conspiracy theorists, and simply don't take time to look up, say, that yes buildings collapse when a they have huge fires burning in them after they're hit by a plane. I actually encountered something like this. She began the conversation with "I don't know anything about engineering, but I just don't see how a plane could bring down a building like that." Well, I went down the list, talked about jet fuel, fire, how steel weakens at high temperature, the dynamics of how the buildings fell, etc., and she really didn't have much to say after that. I don't know if it actually convinced her, but she'd clearly never heard the real explanation before. She wasn't a hardcore conspiracy theorist, though, so your results may vary.
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Sep 13, 2013 07:25
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Rhesus Pieces posted:Speaking of Alex Jones being a lunatic: But look how close he gets! Let's pick apart that quote: "The United Nations [uses regulatory justifications to interfere with and] dismantle a country's infrastructure:" true enough, if you push his words around a bit and include other NGOs. "globalists [are the] front-and-center problem:" alright, I'm with you so far. "[globalists] are the biggest, most organized, eugenics-based, scientific dictatorship:" check, check, check, check, these have all been convincingly argued in different academic contexts. "trans-humanists at the top that plan the extinction of almost everybody and a new species to rise up or humans merged with machines:" whoops, looks like he went over the line! drat it. "Everyone is going to be deindustrialized:" oh, I think the plan is quite the opposite, but we can award points for effort. "Obama and the globalists and the robber barons, they're going to fly around in their jetcopters and their Air Force Ones and their red carpets, like gods above us:" isn't this already the case? "And they're going to get the life-extension technologies:" also true, if this technology is developed. Maybe this wasn't a good example of an Alex Jones rant? Because it pretty much goes over established points in anti-globalization thought, with a side of (always all-too-plausible) cyberpunk dystopian speculation. The only problem is--as always with these people--he attributes this to a deliberate conspiracy and determined effort on the part of global elites. That's likely not the case, but what he's describing is certainly a possible outcome of our current systems of power. So close, yet so far. I always want to think of the conspiracy theorists as fellow critics, but they're too focused on finding blame, scapegoats, and unchanging explanations to really have a conversation wtih.
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Sep 13, 2013 07:25
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HappyHippo posted:As a side note, I've noticed how convenient a tool the false flag attack is to the conspiracy theorist. It's because the false flag allows one to reassign blame however one wishes in order to fit any situation into your narrative. If A attacks B and B retaliates, well then that might be justified. But if the initial attack was actually a false flag by B well then now everything is B's fault. So if some event contradicts your view of who's the good guy and who's the bad guy just claim false flag and everything's back in its right place. It seems to me sometimes that the False Flag is akin to the old playtime retort of "no, you didn't shoot me, 'cause I have a forcefield!" It makes any conspiracy assertion infalsable, since if my conspiracy states that X runs the world in a scary, omnipotent way, X getting damaged or hurt would wound my conspiracy. But apply some False Flag to that poo poo and voilà, watch X become even scarier. Conspiracy theorists also show one element of Ur-Fascism in that the Conspiracy is simultaneously monstrous and scary and also buffonish and weak. Jones does this shtick particularly well; just watch him talk about being followed by goons acting like stereotypical film spooks, and how dumb are they to think he wouldn't notice. In order for the conspiracy to work it can't overwhelm the followers of the theory into stupor, but rather to hit a delicate balance: THEY are out there and THEY run the show but WE THE PEOPLE can easily win if enough of us WAKE UP. Of course, the leading voices in the theory know just how and will gladly tell you in their new book, on sale now. Sick_Boy fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Sep 13, 2013 |
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Sep 13, 2013 07:29
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One advantage that thermite has over C4 for the purposes of a conspiracy theorist is that you can make thermite out of iron oxide and aluminum dust. How hard do you think it is to find evidence of iron oxide and aluminum dust in the world trade center ruble. Why bother looking for other posible explanations for you evidence when you already know the answer.
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Sep 13, 2013 09:20
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Prester John posted:I'll put myself out there in this thread. I war a hardcore conspiracy theorist for 7 years. I have read probably around 60 books on the subject, watched nearly every relevant documentary, know something of the history of conspiracy theorists in this country, and understand the various camps within the truther movement. I'll answer any questions, but some of them might be near book form to really break down what goes on in that movement. I know the major players, many of the minor players, and even some of the internal controversies. (Hell, i was actually in Cleveland to see David Icke the day he and Jesse Ventura started their infamous feud.) So fire away guys. What is the conspiracy theorist explanation for why they are allowed to go around blowing the cover of the conspirators on something as easily controlled as the internet?
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Sep 13, 2013 11:02
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