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Author | Topic: Conspiracy Theories: It's all in your mind! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9512 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
^^ Well it's either that or they're just bloody idiots.
Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
^^ Well it's either that or they're just bloody idiots. Well, many of their leaders are smart enough to tie their own shoelaces. But what I have called the "cognitive trap" exists. Once one has entered into it, then one's own intelligence is actually used to keep one inside. Once the CT-ist is inside the conspiracy theory, then he will use all his intelligence to explain away any evidence for the truth.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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There is one thing that I've noticed that may help us to distinguish paranoid lunatics from people who are merely wrong.
The mark of the lunatic is this: that although he believes that there is a vast conspiracy to convince people in general that such-and-such a thing is true, yet he believes that any particular person who believes that is part of the conspiracy. Take evolution for example. It is at least conceivable that paleontologists are part of a vast conspiracy to make me believe in evolution. But when I say that I do believe in evolution, having been convinced by the paleontologists, then the creationist will tell me that I am one of the conspirators, that I'm only saying that because I hate God, etc, etc. It never occurs to him that I am one of the people who has been duped by the massive conspiracy of lies that he believes to exist. According to him, I'm part of it. The First Law Of Paranoia is this: there are no dupes, there are only shills. Similarly, I have been described as a "the most hideous of traitors" by 9/11 Truthers. They cannot imagine that their imaginary vast conspiracy to fool everyone fooled me in particular. At this point, one has to give them up. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 377 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
It's a cognitive trap. Yes, I see that pitfall. It sounds similar to my addiction to nicotine. Would you go so far as to say that it is the same process at work that leads to the formation of religious beliefs? What about the choice of your favourite and therefore the best sports team? Is this trap exploited by marketers trying to sell us deodorant and teeth whiteners? Are we not all susceptible to this kind of trap and most of us are in fact ensnared in some way with regard to some issue?
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Would you go so far as to say that it is the same process at work that leads to the formation of religious beliefs? What about the choice of your favourite and therefore the best sports team? Is this trap exploited by marketers trying to sell us deodorant and teeth whiteners? Are we not all susceptible to this kind of trap and most of us are in fact ensnared in some way with regard to some issue? No, most of these are not instances of the same sort of thing. Religious apologetics, to a certain extent --- lots of apologists seem to be trying to make various religious tenets unfalsifiable. But someone trying to sell me deodorant, for example, really has nothing he can do if it makes me smell like a cess-pit. He can't say: "Actually, the deodorant smells wonderful, what happens is that invisible elves, jealous of our otherwise successful marketing strategy, sneak under your armpits and paint them with goblin dung". this keeps them honest, and insures that most body fragrances do in fact smell quite nice. But a conspiracy theorist starts with that sort of argument: his essential belief is that the evidence proving him wrong has been faked by means he doesn't have to account for. A: No planes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11. B: But people saw them. A: Liars paid by the CIA. B: But also, no-one standing in the right place saw the Twin Towers go kablooie without seeing any planes. A: OK then ... holograms. B: What? A: Holograms of planes. B: But there's no technology that would make that remotely possible. A: That's what They want you to think. Obviously They aren't going to tell you about Their secret technology, are They? You're so naive. B: But independent scientists say ... A: What makes you think they're independent? B: But surely ... A: Oh, I see. They've gotten to you too. How much are They paying you to disagree with me?
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 377 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
But someone trying to sell me deodorant, for example, really has nothing he can do if it makes me smell like a cess-pit. Not like that. The deodorant company launches an ad campaign to convince us that we already smell like a cess-pit. Our insecurity and vanity kicks in and a few decades later it is an $18 billion/yr industry. Now this is not a conspiracy but just an example of how the formation of opinions can be easily manipulated. Not just the opinions of CTs but just about everybody's opinion. I am thankful for the presence of personal deodorants but it has gotten to the point where I encounter many more offensively perfumed people than I do people with offensive b.o. If you are still interested in the topic I am curious about your take on the latest revelations about the NSA's surveillance program. At the beginning of this thread it was listed as one of the many ridiculous CTs. How should the rational mind consider Edward Snowden's accusations about the NSA? Edited by Prototypical, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Not like that. The deodorant company launches an ad campaign to convince us that we already smell like a cess-pit. Our insecurity and vanity kicks in and a few decades later it is an $18 billion/yr industry. Now this is not a conspiracy but just an example of how the formation of opinions can be easily manipulated. Not just the opinions of CTs but just about everybody's opinion. However, it's not an unfalsifiable theory.
If you are still interested in the topic I am curious about your take on the latest revelations about the NSA's surveillance program. At the beginning of this thread it was listed as one of the many ridiculous CTs. Where?
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 6.4 |
Dr. A asks:
If you are still interested in the topic I am curious about your take on the latest revelations about the NSA's surveillance program. At the beginning of this thread it was listed as one of the many ridiculous CTs. Where? In Message 2:
The Feds are intercepting cellular and online communications - xongsmith, 5.7d
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 377 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
However, it's not an unfalsifiable theory. Hence the part where I said that it wasn't a conspiracy and irrelevant to the point about the general fallibility of the process that people use to form their opinions.
Where? If you mean where are the revelations then I read about them in the Washington Post and The Guardian. The idea that it might be a conspiracy was mentioned in messages 2, 5, 6, 11, 31 and 52 of this thread. My question is how can we tell the difference between unfounded suspicions and what looks like evidence that supports them. The theory that the govt is monitoring all communications is not unfalsifiable in principle but it may as well be as far as the average citizen is concerned. What capacity do I have to vet Mr Snowden? Should I refrain from forming an opinion about the subject?
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1053 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
If you mean where are the revelations then I read about them in the Washington Post and The Guardian. The idea that it might be a conspiracy was mentioned in messages 2, 5, 6, 11, 31 and 52 of this thread. That's not true. Only message 2 mentioned NSA monitoring of communications as a conspiracy theory, amongst a list of conspiracies believed in by a friend ranging from the possible to the bizarre. roxrcool conceded that some of these may be plausible. Messages 5, 6 and 11 were all in agreement with the fact that the NSA do intercept electronic communications. Nobody has challenged these claims anywhere in the thread. Neither Message 31 nor Message 52 mention government monitoring of communications at all. Message 31 was about NTSB's role in the investigation into the September 11th attacks (I know, because I wrote it) and Message 52 was about David Icke's idea that the world is ruled by a global elite. Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.
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Dogmafood Member (Idle past 377 days) Posts: 1815 From: Ontario Canada Joined: |
Right you are. Message 31 doesn't belong on the list. Message 52 mentions the internet as being controlled by some shadowy group. I believe that Straggler was mocking the idea.
But is this the salient point? Are you saying that the idea that the govt was monitoring all communications was a valid unsupported conspiracy theory? My point is that speculation is an integral part of the way that a normally functioning brain works. We speculate and then we confirm. The mistaken CTist fails to confirm their speculations. Are they psychotic then or just inept?
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caffeine Member (Idle past 1053 days) Posts: 1800 From: Prague, Czech Republic Joined: |
But is this the salient point? Are you saying that the idea that the govt was monitoring all communications was a valid unsupported conspiracy theory? No, my point was that it was never really unsupported, which is why nobody really challenged it in this thread. The European Parliament's resolution on the Echelon system (written, incidentally, 12 years ago) concluded:
quote: and
quote: Their report on the matter contained a discussion of the evidence, including the admission from several former intelligence workers that the NSA, together with their counterparts in other countries, intercept all the electronic communications they can; and including references to cooperation on such an information interception agreement in official documents of the UK and New Zealand. This is the difference with the vague, paranoid brand of conspiracy theory. Things that actually happen leave evidence.
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Phat Member Posts: 18348 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Yesterday I watched one of those conspiracy movies.
There are some valid questions and arguments in the conspiracies themselves. Take 9-11. Building 7 almost certainly came down via a controlled explosion.The Towers themselves similarly collapsed quite uniformly. There was an official commission that investigated, but perhaps Percy is right...part of my brain jumped into action after listening to this stuff. Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. —RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." —Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith Paul was probably SO soaked in prayer nobody else has ever equaled him.~Faith
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Have you ever heard what sort of noise a controlled demolition makes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaBQ3AkRetI People would have noticed. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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jar Member (Idle past 422 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Plus the time needed to prepare the charges and the actual number of charges as well as all the associated wiring. The towers were occupied and filled with people daily who just might have noticed the work involved in setting the charges.
But wait...there's more. There is a reason no one noticed. The reason is that all the charges were placed during the original construction and so were already built in to be used on command.
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