9/11 Trutherism and what I just can't figure out about the conspiracy crowd

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > 9/11 Trutherism and what I just can't figure out about the conspiracy crowd

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

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?

# ¿ Sep 13, 2013 02:23

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 00:45

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

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

# ¿ Sep 13, 2013 02:53

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Mr. Funny Pants posted:

It's been pointed out that the government wouldn't have hid from shooting down United 93 because it would have made them look competent. I come at it from an additional angle: is there any sane person who would have objected to shooting it down? Was there any person in the government stupid enough to think that the American people would have flipped out if it had been shot down? Of course not.

There would probably have been a few people yelling about the government killing American civilians on American soil, no matter the reason.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 20:06

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

withak posted:

You can't reason someone out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into.

This is a popular cliche around here, but I don't really believe that. People can be reasoned out of beliefs they hold for irrational reasons, just not always and almost never in one conversation.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 21:19

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Grouchy Smurf posted:

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/10/21/color-photography-from-russian-in-the-early-1900s/544/

Random pictures.

Seriously, do you people really believe that you great grand parents were blue and no one noticed?

Since you seem genuinely puzzled, I guess I'll have to ruin things and explain :thejoke:

to you: No, our great-grandparents weren't blue, it's just a parody of conspiracy theories and "little-known facts."

# ¿ Mar 4, 2014 02:22

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

twistedmentat posted:

Probably the most damaging book in the history of Mankind.
And there is a reason all the villains in the movie are played by the most Jewish looking Jewish in Hollywood.

To be fair, Ayn Rand herself was ethnically Jewish.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 20:31

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Shbobdb posted:

The problem with "quantum physics" is that it is usually disinformation for questioning sheeple. They'll look into the truth, find a bunch of garbage (like Icke, paid Illuminati shill) and decide that all conspiracy theories aren't worth looking into.

I mean, even if we were to accept the official 9/11 narrative, what is that but a conspiracy theory? You have 9 men who make a secret pact with each other and then go about changing the world. Those 9 men had ties to a broader, globalist agenda (Al-Qaeda) that, presumably, also has similar "right-sized" secret pacts. Or the invasion of Iraq, where the Bush government cooked the books (Yellow Cake!) to wage war on a country utterly unrelated to 9/11 to fulfill the goal of the Project for the New America Century/Neocons-in-general.

If those are too recent for you and you want to let history shift out the "crazy controversy" how about Operation GLADIO or MK-ULTRA?

We all believe in conspiracy theories. It is just a matter of which "conspiracy theories" we believe in. The Illuminati exploit this through information oversaturation. Have you ever wondered why every high school curriculum includes "1984" but vanishingly few include "A Brave New World"? One talks about the past of totalitarianism, so like racism, it is something that used to be a big deal but no longer happens as opposed to the present and future of totalitarianism. Be an America, drink Bud Light, watch NASCAR, talk about the Kardashians, Orgy-Porgy! The government's watching you is an absurd idea, until Snowden leaks proof that the government is. And then Snowden and Manning are traitors! Unamerican!

It is very deft. Control, but not too much control. So we don't notice that all our media comes from the same sources because it occasionally allows itself to disagree, thereby granting us the much sought-after illusion of freedom and of choice.

Source your quotes.

Edit: The "conspiracies actually exist" point is an important one, but that doesn't excuse worrying about "the Illuminati."

Edit 2: A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that real conspiracies generally involve fairly small numbers of people with human rather than alien motivations. The idea of "the Illuminati" fails on both counts.

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Mar 11, 2015

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 00:42

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Shbobdb posted:

Yes. Al-Qaeda planning 9/11, the Bush administration planning the invasion of Iraq and steroid use in baseball were all super small cabals and no one could have predicted their actions.

Al-qaeda in the narrow sense was a fairly small organization. The size of the group of people who deliberately lied about intelligence concerning Iraqi WMDs is hard to determine but probably not very large; groupthink probably played a bigger role than conspiracy (although I think a lot of people on this forum disagree with me on this point). Steroid use in baseball hardly counts as a conspiracy; it was an open secret for decades. None of these are comparable to the idea that a single group founded in 1776 and outlawed in 1784 has been running world politics ever since.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 02:10

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Shbobdb posted:

"The entire US intelligence apparatus and American mass media" = "a small group"

You heard it here first folks!

You're speaking as though the entire intelligence community and the entire mass media were deliberately lying. That clearly wasn't the case; read, say, Fiasco by Tom Ricks for a more nuanced (but still appropriately critical) view.

Misdiagnosing the problem as "lots and lots of evil people lied" is counterproductive if your goal is to stop something like that from happening again.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 02:27

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Shbobdb posted:

trilateral commission

quote:

illuminati front groups

quote:

project monarch

quote:

proven illuminati connections

This is bordering on self-parody.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 02:41

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

EnderWiggin posted:

Surely Monarch (on principle) isn't that hard to believe. That intelligence agencies and scientists would want to see if it's possible to mind control people. Why wouldn't they try it if they got the opportunity?

Anything beyond that (whether/how well it works, is it/how much is it being used today) would be conjecture based on circumstantial evidence.

The only evidence for the existence of Monarch (as opposed to the broader MK-ULTRA program) is the word of one person whose story is full of inconsistencies.

The first Google result for Project Monarch declares, "Amidst the subtle cerebral circumvention of the gullible populace, through a multitude of manipulated mediums, lies one of the most diabolical atrocities perpetrated upon a segment of the human race; a form of systematic mind control which has permeated every aspect of society for almost fifty years.

To objectively ascertain the following, one may need to re-examine preconceived ideologies relating to the dualistic nature of mankind.

Resolving the philosophical question of whether we are inherently good or inherently evil is tantamount in shaping our perception of reality; specifically, the spiritual variable within the equation of life."

Better yet, "In 1776, a Bavarian Jesuit by the name of Adam Weishaupt was commissioned by the House of Rothschild to centralize the power base of the Mystery Religions into what is commonly known as the Illuminati, meaning "Enlightened Ones." This was an amalgamation of powerful occultic bloodlines, elite secret societies and influential Masonic fraternities, with the desire to construct the framework for a 'New World Order.'"

Does that sound sensible to you?

quote:

As for 9/11, there's a poo poo-ton of conspiracy theories questioning the official narrative. If you have the patience to wade through a ton of YouTube stuff (a lot of which is/might be bullshit) you'll definitely find a reasonable amount of suitable evidence to doubt the official narrative.

"The events of that day were shady as gently caress" is a conclusion I think any reasonable person might draw if they followed all the different lines of investigation into the subject.

Undoubtedly the presence of WMD was also a shady as gently caress premise to go to war.

With two wars started and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed on shady premises it brings the wars (and their motives) into question as well.

I think discussing the actual evidence that 9/11 was some sort of set up is a bit pointless because there is a wealth of great information readily available online. If you really want to see the case against the official narrative it can easily be found.

I do not, in fact, have the patience to wade through a ton of YouTube stuff. There's a great deal of easily debunked 9/11 Truther stuff on the Internet; what sites/videos specifically do you find credible?

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Mar 11, 2015

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 17:03

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Shbobdb posted:

So . . . you are laughing because the CIA director and numerous actors have come out and said Project Monarch is true?

Link to the CIA director saying this? I think you might be confusing Monarch with MKULTRA generally.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2015 23:32

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Carsius posted:

The flat earth society is great fun to read about - a textbook example of Poe's Law in action if I've ever seen one.

Though aside from a couple message boards and token social media accounts, there's very little information about them.

I'm pretty sure most of the people who post on the FES message boards aren't for real.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2015 15:51

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

twistedmentat posted:

In regards to the flat earth, its never been mainstream belief, despite what we believe about earlier cultures. In the Victorian era there was a desire to paint earlier people as dumb and uncultured, so this myth grew. Colombus proving the earth was round appeared in this era as well, along with all the other myths associated with him because I guess the 19th century American population needed to create a new hero?

Anyways, the Flat Earthers also have roots in biblical literalism, because hey why not? But they were never a big group, or even influencal. The FES is only about 70 years old, and is kinda sad. Small groups of people putting out nonsensical papers trying to prove the earth was flat, even after we have photos of earth come back from space.

Its become kinda popular among the CT set, seeing the UN flag as a tact admission by the Jew Lizard Illuminati that the world is flat, and Antarctica is actually surrounding us, to keep us in! Oh yea, every single shot of the world being round, shadows on the moon and all that good stuff, all fakes.

To be fair, Flat Earth was the dominant paradigm in China until the 17th century AD, and some of the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers in the 5th century BC also believed the world was flat. It wasn't mainstream among educated people in medieval Europe, but it's not like no one ever believed in it.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2015 21:31

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

McDowell posted:

How do Zeitgeist people react to Adam Curtis? I guess they construct dissonance about all BBC being in line with the master conspiracy of lizard dominion.

Here's a complete library for those who go onto other forums.

Adam Curtis is terrible. Please stop watching him.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2015 22:12

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

McDowell posted:

Care to elaborate on this opinion?

He loves shoehorning events into grand narratives, insinuates :tinfoil:

things, and uses rhetorical and narrative tricks to make it seem like he's provided evidence for a claim when he hasn't. He's also an apologist for crazy people like the National Bolsheviks.

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Jun 16, 2015

# ¿ Jun 16, 2015 15:13

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Moose-Alini posted:

What's so bad about a one world government anyway? Some guy accosted me in the street ranting about it, and couldn't explain why that's bad. No money conversions, passport to anywhere, no war. Sounds pretty cool to me!

Conspiracy theorists usually believe that the world government would be a totalitarian one.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 19:00

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Jack Gladney posted:

In that case it's not unusual because we're used to seeing the other spelling and the two names sound the same and when you're a kid you don't usually fixate on details like that and were maybe even more focused on reading the books out loud or having them read to you. It's a thing likely to be misremembered that way.

It's like the other big thing on that Mandela Effect site: they remember Jif peanut butter as Jiffy peanut butter, and I can think of four possible reasons. Jiffy is an actual word that might get compounded with another word that sounds like it that is only used to sell peanut butter. There is another brand of peanut butter called Skippy that has the same syllables and y-ending. There very well could have been advertizing for Jif that played on the similarity between "Jif" and "jiffy" as similar words. The last time you gave any serious thought to peanut butter you were probably a child.

The real question is why I thought for years that it was spelled Jiff with two Fs.

I thought it was Jiffy too. :tinfoil:

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 18:35

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 00:45

Silver2195: Apr 4, 2012

Paul Krugman posted:

[N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is 'Soroi'.

I don't know enough about the economic issues involved to know how fair this assessment is, so make of it what you will.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2015 11:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > 9/11 Trutherism and what I just can't figure out about the conspiracy crowd