Why conspiracies?

[Duke]

Sorry, I got a little off topic.

I think I have said all there is for me to say about conspiracies.

I wasn't trying to shut you down. I was just trying to separate the abstract discussion (why are there conspiracy theories?) from the discussion of a specific conspiracy (what are the suspicious events of 9/11?).

I'll be glad to continue the discussion in one of the Loose Change threads, or in a new thread if you care to start one.

 

[Talentless]

The supposition being that any given theory not conflicting with physical law, and being, if minorly, plausible, their probability aside, conspiracy theories can be true in what they contend. But the bigger question from an ethical and logical position is more about upon whom they contend responsibility for these theories lies.

Conspiracies need motive, a reason to drive their engines and push their vehicles forward. The cospiracy theorist exposer falls short in his reasoning when he refuses to see the fallibility of the old adage 'follow the money.'

To such a person, discrediting, let alone disproving, the stated intentions of those behind the actions he calls conspiracies, in its corrupt connotation, is of little importance. By virtue of a substantial benefit that can incur for them, including ideological domination, the exposer sees only one motive. To him they are guilty of corruption whether or not there is proof toward invalidating their contentions otherwise. He also will convict a person of present bad acts by his guilt, or presumed guilt, for prior acts. Sometimes the acts are not related, or only similar in nature. There is a reason courts put a limit on the us of prior bad acts toward the attempted conviction of a defendent. Perhaps most important in need is something to back up the probable inference from the pattern of bad acts.

But the main fault in fairness and reason, and, to put this all together, of the conspiracy theorist is that he, and unfortunately too many others, too often predicates his whole line of of reasoning on the evil of those he alleges to have conspired. His cynical certainty as to the truth of his belief in the evil of the "conspiracist" presents a weak foundation for his entire argument.

 

[guska]

I wasn't trying to shut you down. I was just trying to separate the abstract discussion (why are there conspiracy theories?) from the discussion of a specific conspiracy (what are the suspicious events of 9/11?).

I'll be glad to continue the discussion in one of the Loose Change threads, or in a new thread if you care to start one.

I realised that i was off topic, and that is why I thought I would shut up.

@Talentless - Well said!

 

[Talentless]

@Talentless - Well said!

Thanks.

 

[Snortin Norton]

It seems this thread is dead enough, but I stumbled across a MySpace profile that will serve as a good example of conspiracy theorists gone awry.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=1552132

 

[exigeracer]

There are some people here trying to defend their government and country when they describe a conspiracy theorist. Conspiracists are not stupid or uneducated, quite the opposite. They come up with sometimes very plausible theories of occurances or phenomenons that require research and proof to seem accurate in many ways. The stupid and uneducated people aren't coming up with any theories, they are the ones who are eating what is put on their plate, no questions or complaints.

But the question is why? Why come up with an alternate concept of how something happened? People have learned, through their own findings and searching, that they aren't getting the entire picture through mainstream media. Where some people would dismiss this and not follow certain media sources and move onto something that they would deem more trustworthy, as many people have, they decide to invent their own news story as an act of rebelling to what the majority public will hear. To them, these invented stories serve as alternative facts to what the general public gets. This kind of inventing is taken on different levels by different people. Some people take it to the extremes because they instantly dismiss everything that they are told and come up with their own versions, but some others know how much "real" to take, and how much "fake" to come up with to support their theories. It's a matter of trust. People don't trust the primary source of information, which is basically not trusting their government.

Come on, everyone hears how politicians are dishonest liars, that stereotype in itself is enough to not believe anything they say for some people.

 

[FoolKiller]

Conspiracists are not stupid or uneducated, quite the opposite. They come up with sometimes very plausible theories of occurances or phenomenons that require research and proof to seem accurate in many ways.

No, but they seem to suffer from paranoid delusions. If they felt that one issue was a conspiracy then I could think that maybe they have seen something that I haven't or maybe they just can't believe something, but they tend to find a conspiracy in everything. For example, the people that believe loose change also tend to believe that everything the Republicans do is a conspiracy of some sort, even to the point of thinking that they allowed black people to die in Katrina, or some extreme cases think Bush started up Katrina with his hurricane machine.

It goes the other way as well. When Clinton was in office I heard everything from he is the antichrist because he resembles the description given by Nostradomus to Clinton/Janet Reno ordered the Waco compound set on fire, to missile attacks in the Middle East were designed to distract/hide the media from Monica Lewinsky, to he had Watergate witnesses killed.

Many times there seems to be politically motiovated emotional reactions psychologically backing up these crazy theories.

The stupid and uneducated people aren't coming up with any theories, they are the ones who are eating what is put on their plate, no questions or complaints.

I heard this exact comment from a conspiracy theorist I work with. Just because I don't see a gunman on the grassy knoll or a missile in a grainy photograph does not mean that I am stupid or uneducated. It could be that there is no evidence to solidly defend the conspiracy theory or that I have seen evidence to the contrary. Conspiracy theorists will try and explain evidence against their theory as fake or planted, but everything they have must be pure fact.

Come on, everyone hears how politicians are dishonest liars, that stereotype in itself is enough to not believe anything they say for some people.

There is a big difference between taking money under the table, lying on the campaign trail, and illegally searching offices and murdering, scheming villains like we see in the movies, which is the only place I have seen these kinds of politicians.

I honestly believe that conspiracy theorists just get so worked up in their political beliefs that that they completely villify the politicians they don't support and if they continue down this thought process they eventually attempt to attach purely evil actions to that person, which in their villified vision makes complete sense to them.

I am sure that if there was enough solid evidence to find any conspiracy theory true that political commentators would ride it until it was investigated. Short of a few extreme activists, celebrities, and struggling politicians trying to make accusations nothing has come about from any of these theories. Then when you consider how many things get leaked nowadays from "unidentified sources" you would think that something as big as some of these accusations would be leaked, but it hasn't.

 

[ledhed]

the further you get away from an event , or as more time passes , the more people tend to forget or the event itself becomes shrouded in myth . Its like taking a story and telling it at one end of the line and then going to the other end....to hear a different story.

Then there is the looney tune crackpot tin foil hat society...they think everything is a conspiracy by purple she wolf sea monsters in heat that have swilled way too much jolt and have been left in Antartica to club wooly mamoths .


not to mention all the gullible idiots ..as a wise man once said " there is a sucker born every minute "

 

[exigeracer]

I heard this exact comment from a conspiracy theorist I work with. Just because I don't see a gunman on the grassy knoll or a missile in a grainy photograph does not mean that I am stupid or uneducated. It could be that there is no evidence to solidly defend the conspiracy theory or that I have seen evidence to the contrary. Conspiracy theorists will try and explain evidence against their theory as fake or planted, but everything they have must be pure fact.

Although I agree everything you said, you seemed to be misunderstanding me with this excerpt. I did not intend to label people either stupid or educated, the educated being the theorists and everyone else being stupid. That's not what I meant.

It's just that people keep grouping the theorists as the stupidest people. Although there may be something else goin on in their minds, they are hardly stupid. It's sort of like how people thought Einstein was a nut just because he thought differently. I'm not saying that these theorists are geniuses by any means, but they do have a fairly complicated mind to be capable of coming up with some of these theories.

But, like you mentioned, there are the extremists with their hurricane machines that have to be overlooked when examining at the entire picture. There will always be this fringe or extremist groups which have to be dealt with differently than everyone else.

 

[FoolKiller]

Although I agree everything you said, you seemed to be misunderstanding me with this excerpt. I did not intend to label people either stupid or educated, the educated being the theorists and everyone else being stupid. That's not what I meant.

OK, I get what you meant now. I think your wording was just so close to what the guy at work said to me that I made that connection.

 

[Snortin Norton]

Has anyone seen Wag The Dog?