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Giant owls ate my conspiracy thread…

Azrael23 said:
But you can`t rip it to shreds, if you can, prove it.
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Can't. Be. Fucked.

Seen it done over and over - use the search function and read the old threads on this subject. It's tedious.
 
Azrael23 said:
Prove It.
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Azrael, if I was in the pub with loads of people and I wanted to talk about football and they were all talking about string, and my attempts to steer the conversation from string to football were met with indifference and hostility, and everyone said we're not really interested in football thanks, I'd either let the conversation about continue or find new company. Isn't it a bit rude and anti social to carry on like this?

I'm sure you could find lots of other fun things to talk about - like do you remember parma violets? Or what was your favourite Bucks Fizz song?
 
If you are prepared to trawl the net for the sources you have already posted surely you can spend a few minutes using the search function of this very site?

If not, why not?
 
Azrael, if I was in the pub with loads of people and I wanted to talk about football and they were all talking about string, and my attempts to steer the conversation from string to football were met with indifference and hostility, and everyone said we're not really interested in football thanks, I'd either let the conversation about continue or find new company. Isn't it a bit rude and anti social to carry on like this
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it's a fair point, vince, but I did start this thread to talk specifically about football and the nature of discussing football in the forums here. frankly I find all that string chat to be rather frivolous;)

my perspective is the opposite; I am continually blindsided by people calling me a 'loon' or accusing me of 'posting shit', whether I happen to be discussing the death of Diana, '911 was an inside job' or 'giant lizards abducted me to venus', and regardless of what position I take on each of these issues. It was even inferred that I was a 'conspiraloon' in the Di thread for saying 'I don't know how she died'...

I am not sure what anyone gains from these exchanges of insults- let us 'loons' have our little corner to chat away in and swap alex jones links... anyway, I have made my point... 'the camera never lies' is my favourite Bucks Fizz tune; I like it marginally more than I like nazi jazz, but slightly less than root canal work...
 
I think it has been mentioned before in P&P that the problem with the conspir...certain posters on the side of the more extreme kind of theories do tend to demand their side has to be true becuase the rest of the world cannot prove a negative. Then, of course, those who are more level-headed and want to find the truth on certain subjects are banded together with the more extreme kind, and nobody gets anywhere.

I like the string/football analogy, good way to put it :)
 
liampreston said:
I think it has been mentioned before in P&P that the problem with the conspir...certain posters on the side of the more extreme kind of theories do tend to demand their side has to be true becuase the rest of the world cannot prove a negative. Then, of course, those who are more level-headed and want to find the truth on certain subjects are banded together with the more extreme kind, and nobody gets anywhere.
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That is precisely the problem.

These debates are polarising: you end up taking sides either with those who do believe the conspiracy theory or those who reject it entirely.

Personally, I don't believe we know the whole truth about 9/11 yet and maybe we never will. But a sensible debate on exactly who knew what and when becomes very difficult to continue when it's infested with a small number of people insisting that there were radio-controlled planes, that bin Laden is employed by the CIA etc etc, and suggesting you're some sort of media-dupe if you don't believe that.

The threads get sidetracked into more and more nitpicky discussions of tiny fragments of evidence that are said to demolish the 'official version,' and it all ends up going round in ever decreasing circles, getting more and more acrimonious until a mod loses patience and bins it.

It's futile. no wonder people get pissed off with it.
 
It also helps obscure actual investigation into stuff like 9/11 by sending loads of people off on bizarre tangents - I'm thinking primarily of the CIA stringing all those UFO nuts along for about 20 years so they could more easily cover up HA flight tests and all that kinda stuff.
 
roadkill, you have hit the nail on the head. I'd add 'a general tendency to respond to arguments with abuse' to the list of annoyances, again, from a small number of people...
It's futile. no wonder people get pissed off with it.
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yeah. if you are interested in hearing different people's opinions about what may or may not constitute the truth, as you appear to be, and indeed as I am, it can be frustrating...
 
snouty warthog said:
a general tendency to respond to arguments with abuse
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Not quite.

The general response to what you call "arguments", and what everyone else calls "evidence free wild speculation" is "use the fucking search button, we've heard it all before"

Only after that does the abuse come, and, if you can't be bothered to do that simple courtesy, it's deserved.

Once again - We have heard this stuff time and time again, and it's been debated here until everyone is sick of it.
 
snouty warthog said:
roadkill, you have hit the nail on the head. I'd add 'a general tendency to respond to arguments with abuse' to the list of annoyances, again, from a small number of people...

yeah. if you are interested in hearing different people's opinions about what may or may not constitute the truth, as you appear to be, and indeed as I am, it can be frustrating...
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Two observations to make.

1. Some people do respond to arguments with abuse, but it's much as bees says. It becomes rather wearing when you've heard the same way-out theory fifty times before.

2. I'm interested in hearing opinions and debating possibilities. I'm not interested in flights of fancy about the global illuminati and their owl rituals, radio-controlled planes etc etc.
 
Roadkill said:
Some people do respond to arguments with abuse
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But there's still some confusion here.

"snouty warthoh, you're a cunt"

That's abuse.

"Azrael23, you're a conspiraloon"

That's a description.
 
beesonthewhatnow said:
It is not the belief itself that defines a conspiraloon, it is the idiotic method of their argument. Zero checking of "facts", total disregard for reliability of sources, and an unswerving belief that there is a "bigger picture" that only they can see.

Put forward logical argument, backed up with reliable evidence, and you may gain more respect.

Otherwise, expect the ridicule you deserve.
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I have to agree (although snouty sent me a very polite and reasonable PM, for which due respect and thanks ... :) ).

I was trying earlier to find the thread in which Donna Ferentes included his 'Ten Characteristics of Conspiracy Theorists' but I think said thread may have sank off the forums .... :confused:

Luckily, I've just found that I backed the list up because was so good!

Not accusing snouty of anything in this list btw ... but plenty of others do conform to some or all of them ...

Donna Ferentes said:
Ten characteristics of conspiracy theorists

1. Arrogance. They are always fact-seekers, questioners, people who are trying to discover the truth : sceptics are always "sheep", patsies for Messrs Bush and Blair etc.

2. Relentlessness. They will always go on and on about a conspiracy no matter how little evidence they have to go on or how much of what they have is simply discredited. (Moreover, as per 1. above, even if you listen to them ninety-eight times, the ninety-ninth time, when you say "no thanks", you'll be called a "sheep" again.) Additionally, they have no capacity for precis whatsoever. They go on and on at enormous length.

3. Inability to answer questions. For people who loudly advertise their determination to the principle of questioning everything, they're pretty poor at answering direct questions from sceptics about the claims that they make.

4. Fondness for certain stock phrases. These include Cicero's "cui bono?" (of which it can be said that Cicero understood the importance of having evidence to back it up) and Conan Doyle's "once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth". What these phrases have in common is that they are attempts to absolve themselves from any responsibility to produce positive, hard evidence themselves: you simply "eliminate the impossible" (i.e. say the official account can't stand scrutiny) which means that the wild allegation of your choice, based on "cui bono?" (which is always the government) is therefore the truth.

5. Inability to employ or understand Occam's Razor. Aided by the principle in 4. above, conspiracy theorists never notice that the small inconsistencies in the accounts which they reject are dwarfed by the enormous, gaping holes in logic, likelihood and evidence in any alternative account.

6. Inability to tell good evidence from bad. Conspiracy theorists have no place for peer-review, for scientific knowledge, for the respectability of sources. The fact that a claim has been made by anybody, anywhere, is enough for them to reproduce it and demand that the questions it raises be answered, as if intellectual enquiry were a matter of responding to every rumour. While they do this, of course, they will claim to have "open minds" and abuse the sceptics for apparently lacking same.

7. Inability to withdraw. It's a rare day indeed when a conspiracy theorist admits that a claim they have made has turned out to be without foundation, whether it be the overall claim itself or any of the evidence produced to support it. Moreover they have a liking (see 3. above) for the technique of avoiding discussion of their claims by "swamping" - piling on a whole lot more material rather than respond to the objections sceptics make to the previous lot.

8. Leaping to conclusions. Conspiracy theorists are very keen indeed to declare the "official" account totally discredited without having remotely enough cause so to do. Of course this enables them to wheel on the Conan Doyle quote as in 4. above. Small inconsistencies in the account of an event, small unanswered questions, small problems in timing of differences in procedure from previous events of the same kind are all more than adequate to declare the "official" account clearly and definitively discredited. It goes without saying that it is not necessary to prove that these inconsistencies are either relevant, or that they even definitely exist.

9. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims. This argument invokes scandals like the Birmingham Six, the Bologna station bombings, the Zinoviev letter and so on in order to try and demonstrate that their conspiracy theory should be accorded some weight (because it’s “happened before”.) They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison, or that the fact that something might potentially happen does not, in and of itself, make it anything other than extremely unlikely.

10. It’s always a conspiracy. And it is, isn't it? No sooner has the body been discovered, the bomb gone off, than the same people are producing the same old stuff, demanding that there are questions which need to be answered, at the same unbearable length. Because the most important thing about these people is that they are people entirely lacking in discrimination. They cannot tell a good theory from a bad one, they cannot tell good evidence from bad evidence and they cannot tell a good source from a bad one. And for that reason, they always come up with the same answer when they ask the same question.

A person who always says the same thing, and says it over and over again is, of course, commonly considered to be, if not a monomaniac, then at very least, a bore.
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Yet to see any rationally, logically argued refutation of any of the above points by any card carrying conspiracist ...
 
bushowl.jpg
 
editor said:
Lizards are soooooooooooooooooooooooo 2005.

Owls are where it's at.
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Lizard World Order. It's them 'zards again. The owls are just a front. I guess that the 'zards don't like going out in the night so the owlies do all of the nocturnal operations. All make sense now.
 
Today

It wasn't two long in the mega-thread de jour, the maximum security at airports one, for conspiracy favourers to come out of the woodwork.

But a 48 hour ban ensued for Azrael23, and that should give the others pause for thought ... :)
 
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