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Real0ne -> RE: The inner worlds of conspiracy believers (4/24/2010 6:45:51 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Apocalypso
The issue is that, if you're looking at covert operations, by definition you're going to be reliant on a fair bit of supposition and speculation.
Only if you have no conception of the telltale footprints these ops leave behind I would agree and since the greater majority like 99% have no clu its easy to pull crap off.
Because, quite obviously, we're talking about organisations and individuals that are trying to keep their activities secret. The fact that something is a conspiracy theory doesn't de facto make it incorrect. Watergate is in the realms of conspiracy theory. So is Cointelpro. They just happen to be true.
Secret activities are not a conspiracy. Some violation of law planned by more than one is a conspiracy.
The problem with most conspiracy theorists (and it's handy that RO is posting in this thread, as a good case study of most of the factors I'm about to outline) is more one of methodology than it is one of focus.
OK?
Starting your research into an issue with a particular theory in mind is one thing.
You mean like GW proclaiming that you should only listen to his conspiracy theory that 19 hijackers and all the rest are bs? You mean starting like that?
But a lot of conspiracy theorists extend that to sticking to that theory, even where there are available facts to contradict it. Whereas the proper thing to do if that happens is to abandon a theory you no longer believe you can legitimately support.
Yeh I had to laugh to this day they want us to believe OBL was the culprit of all evil when we know he was dead.
That's compounded by the fact that most conspiracy theorists only use supportive sources for their theories and refuse to seriously address critical sources at all.
Yeh they use nist and the omission commission!
So you have (and the 9/11 troofers are a perfect example of this) a group of people who largely use each others' work and nothing else, which means they're only looking at a tiny amount of the work available. Which is, quite obviously, a recipe for ridiculous levels of confirmation bias to creep in.
Again just like the liars, that constantly use the 1/2 truth nist and the omission commission reports ignoring all else because in their mind the guv ALWAYS TELLS THE TRUTH! (and thats a fact!)
They also overly focus on unanswered questions. Looking at questions that are unanswered is entirely legitimate. But what you can't do is extrapolate conclusions from that. Unanswered questions are just that. At best, they can disprove certain explanations. They can't prove anything by themselves, despite what some would have us believe.
Faulty thinking, false premise.
If a man is claimed to have died by heart attack and people ask why he has a hole in his chest from a 20 mm round suffice to say his heart stopped alright but not through natural causes as the claim would suggest but from a 20 mm blasting a hole in his chest.
From that we can extrapolate that the cause of death was a big assed hole in the chest not natural causes.
And partly because of that, they're so desperate to grasp onto any argument that might give them some backing for their pet theory, they end up uncritically accepting any old dross, no matter how laughable.
I have no idea who you are talking about but if you want to put that to the test since you mentioned me as target for this foolish post feel free to take your best shot at make this bullshit case of yours.
The real irony of all this is that people like RO actually end up providing cover for the kind of goverment skullduggery they think they're against. Because they raise the noise to signal ratio so much that all issues in this area end up being lumped into one big 'conspiracy theory' mass.
Another screwed up application of foolishness. I am not the conspiracy theorist GW bush is and the guv et al has not provided conclusive evidence that there story is even viable much less true.
And discussions of whether elements in MI5 worked to undermine the Wilson government end up being treated the same as David Icke claiming that the Queen is a reptilian alien.
oh yeh lets throw in the quackpots to really drive the point home and we can talk about jocelyn elders and that psycophant gonzales who top the charts in lunacy and get paid by the guv on top of it!
Particuarly as the focus on the more outlandish theories seems to happen at the expense of the less glamorous, but more significant ones. To take 9/11 as an example again, the troofers concentrate on the whole 'controlled demolition' argument, despite the fact there was never any real evidence for it
Really? that news!
smoke trails all the way to the ground!
You can, no wait that would give you more credit than you deserve, "I" CAN see the flash progression of explosions.quote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb9nd8H2IVw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfA_lawr8Zc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdjvNeZMr-A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx1djmkFIFw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBb-sbGwQu8
and it's been shot down in flames now,
the only one going down in flames is you!
by qualified engineers with no motivation to obfuscate.
fuck man thats such a huge load of bullshit it qualifies for a lie.
And yet they almost entirely ignore the question of Operation Cyclone and specifically the possibility that money was funnelled from the CIA to Bin Laden (possibly using Hekmatyar as a conduit).
Whatever thats your conspiracy theory and has nothing to do with the forensic evidence.
That's actually, in my view, a far more serious question and one with a lot more to recommend looking at it carefully. But looking at issues of pragmatic geopolitical policy is a lot less exciting then running round claiming that 9/11 was done by remote control/holograms/Godzilla and the troofers are more interested in making themselves feel special then putting in the hard slog of genuine research.
yeh yeh always pick the weakest link and talk about the idjits who think aliens and moon beams did it rather than look at the hard forensic evidence.
All of that is why some of us who are interested in these issues, but try to approach it in a sober method have taken to refering to what we do as "parapolitical research". It's a way of differentiating ourselves from the conspiracist swamp. Because while we freely admit our interests are fringe, that doesn't mean our methodology should be.
yeh thats why you glossed over the forensic evidence pretending anyone who would claim explosives is nuts even though we got da goods.
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