bamalama
don't do that
Fuck.Me
Why Conspiracy Theorists are so prevalent.
- Thread starter Gnome Chompsky
- Start date
bamalama
don't do that
I can almost understand some lifestyle punk rocker booking an ambiguous conspiracy theorist to speak, but this blokes fucking blatant.The boneheads and other assorted racist and fascist types in the audience must have been creaming themselves
ska invita
back on the other side
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
isn't it all just re-runs of shonky 90's american cable network UFO progs intespersed with other loonery?
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
Some people are inclined to believe theories about conspiracies because conspiracies happen all the time.
Some such theories are shite, and some are well founded.
Cod psychology and supposition around motivations to believe or disbelieve have zero impact on whether a given theory has grounding or not.
Some such theories are shite, and some are well founded.
Cod psychology and supposition around motivations to believe or disbelieve have zero impact on whether a given theory has grounding or not.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Fuck me, it's Dr fuckoff. What are you saying this time. Let's investigate.
1) a question begging assertion about peoples psychology that assumes truth in conspiracy theory
2) An odd attempt at balance that offers no understanding of what a methodology to uncover what is shite and what is well founded might be.
3) An example of what you disliked in 1) and some quite odd reasoning.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I am often suspicious when I encounter someone who seems incapable of using the word "psychology" without shoving "cod", or some such qualifier in front of it.
Are you seriously claiming that none of the phenomena so beloved of CTers is capable of being explained via psychology?
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
Fuck me, another "Dr" Fuckoff (I wouldn't claim a doctorate)
What are you doing this time. Let's investigate.
1) Not addressing the actual points very much
But I was a bit brief, so I'll expand : Having read the article I've actually found nothing new in it. It's similar to something I read here perhaps late last year. I'm not sure it complies with stated policy on conspiracy, but because it is a dig at CTers it may have found more traction.
"Conspiracism" is certainly a lens through which some see the world, and they are wrong to automatically do so. It's absurd and offensive to assume within minutes that something like the Boston bombings or the Woolwich horror were the works of intel agencies or whoever.
Likewise, "anti conspiracism" is just as much a lens, adopted without much rationale while proudly boasting of it's rationality.
There are parallels with the age old theist/anti theist or atheist debates : Both sides being advanced with varying degrees of evangelism and fundamentalism, yet all the sound and fury on either side has little to do with whether or not there is actually a "god/gods".
As for methodology to uncover what is shite and what is well founded - without the lens of prejudice, one can only pick very carefully through presented evidence and the credibility of sources etc. on a case-by-case basis, and it is inordinately time consuming - very often a hall of mirrors in which people get lost, including myself.
Nonetheless, conspiracies happen. Believing that they happen need no more be the product of prejudiced world view than believing establishment presentation of facts.
Many people are capable of thinking for themselves, regardless of the whys and wherefores of a given CT. As with the theism debate, there is no shame, and quite a lot of potential credibility, in saying "I don't know".
It's often reasonable to distrust the certainties of the "WAKE UP SHEEPLE" and "SHUT IT CONSPIRALOON" camps.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What? Seriously - what?
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
acknowledging conspiracies that have evidential basis like the possible murder of JP1 is a million miles away from being able to smell the wrong on NWO stuff. Seeking to cast people who don't have truck with that sort of shit as 'just as blinkered as the troofers' is a load of shit. Casting yourself as open minded even hand joe is equally shit
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I don't think this idea that opposing conspiracy theory nonsense is just the same as conspiracy theory nonsense flies, TBH 
It's just like the argument of religionists that you've rather cack-handedly tried to co-opt - "if you are opposing our belief in something unproven, you're arguing about something unproven so the basis of your argument is no better than ours, plus we KNOW that our unproven god exists, so you lose". It's bollocks, and a failure in elementary logic.
Too much of the conspiralunacy around is only too easily explained in psychological terms, to the point where it's not unreasonable to start from that assumption.
That's not to say conspiracies don't exist, but even when they do, the CTer crowd seem positively eager to cast off the shackles of rational thought, and use the (genuine) conspiracy to build ever more extravagant loony castles in the air - it's like an endless arms race of barkingness.
All neatly explicable by the science of psychology, neither cod, haddock, nor hake.
It's just like the argument of religionists that you've rather cack-handedly tried to co-opt - "if you are opposing our belief in something unproven, you're arguing about something unproven so the basis of your argument is no better than ours, plus we KNOW that our unproven god exists, so you lose". It's bollocks, and a failure in elementary logic.
Too much of the conspiralunacy around is only too easily explained in psychological terms, to the point where it's not unreasonable to start from that assumption.
That's not to say conspiracies don't exist, but even when they do, the CTer crowd seem positively eager to cast off the shackles of rational thought, and use the (genuine) conspiracy to build ever more extravagant loony castles in the air - it's like an endless arms race of barkingness.
All neatly explicable by the science of psychology, neither cod, haddock, nor hake.
I used to get it as I had a sky box but no subscription. I watched it occassionally. They had proper batshit stuff on September the eleventh. It used to have Democracy Now at 6pm on weekdays. It seemed to have crystal healing, spirtitualists and other shit like that.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Philip can barely raise a teacup to his lips these days let alone throw a roman salute
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
they've called false flag so many times in their world view there must be no genuine things whatsoever. The D-Day landings is false flag to these wankers
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
'Nothing is what it seems.'
Including, obviously, the sentence above; and this one.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Everything that happened didn't.
One of the things i think was left out of the pamphlet was was that these idiots can only work on the large level - ask how and why this translates into a green space being sold off (and their absence from any campaign) and nothing. That's one way to kill them.
One of the things i think was left out of the pamphlet was was that these idiots can only work on the large level - ask how and why this translates into a green space being sold off (and their absence from any campaign) and nothing. That's one way to kill them.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Proudly mind. OK. What is it's irrationality taffers? You know that methodology problem you just ignored?
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
The reason they can only work on the large level is because they can only deal in broad generalities (until it's on their turf, then they're going to be as nitpicking as you like). We're both pissing in the wind by inviting taffboy to cite specifics - we know he can't, and he knows he won't.
fogbat
The Talibum
I don't think this idea that opposing conspiracy theory nonsense is just the same as conspiracy theory nonsense flies, TBH
It's just like the argument of religionists that you've rather cack-handedly tried to co-opt - "if you are opposing our belief in something unproven, you're arguing about something unproven so the basis of your argument is no better than ours, plus we KNOW that our unproven god exists, so you lose". It's bollocks, and a failure in elementary logic.
Too much of the conspiralunacy around is only too easily explained in psychological terms, to the point where it's not unreasonable to start from that assumption.
That's not to say conspiracies don't exist, but even when they do, the CTer crowd seem positively eager to cast off the shackles of rational thought, and use the (genuine) conspiracy to build ever more extravagant loony castles in the air - it's like an endless arms race of barkingness.
All neatly explicable by the science of psychology, neither cod, haddock, nor hake.
If you're gurnard do fish jokes, I'm off.
You might like
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
By Richard Hofstadter. Harpers. November 1964
a Texas newspaper article of 1855:
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
Some cod psychology
Confirmation bias
Because of the way our brains work, we tend to put greater weight to things we perceive that confirm what we already know (or think we know). This is not a flaw that affects a few of us - it's a universal aspect of human psychology, and even when we know we're doing it, it is something we find incredibly hard not to do.
This may have to do with the fact that information which contradicts what we (think we) know tends to arouse a much stronger emotional response than information which confirms it - this has been demonstrated using MRI experiments. Not only do we tend to filter information in this way, we tend to recall information that confirms our preconceived ideas more readily than information which doesn't.
Apart from obvious places like political views and opinions on social issues, confirmation bias shows up in areas like cult membership - it is notoriously difficult to "debrief" ex-members who have been very carefully coached into holding very far-reaching preconceptions about the organisation they became a member of, and/or about society at large. It's also a major factor in areas like the paranormal (where people may over time invest a lot of emotional capital in the belief that there's something "out there"), or conspiracy theories, where, over time, a conspiracy theorist may come to believe an increasingly unevidenced series of claims, to the point where it becomes easier and easier for them to believe that novel claims are, likewise, predicated on similar bases to those they already believe. Here, too, we have the added problem, as with the paranormal and cult membership, that to start rejecting such claims (or to start listening to those who are denying or ridiculing the claims) comes at such an emotional cost that it is far less painful to continue accepting even quite outlandish ideas than to accept that they can be challenged.
Confirmation bias
Because of the way our brains work, we tend to put greater weight to things we perceive that confirm what we already know (or think we know). This is not a flaw that affects a few of us - it's a universal aspect of human psychology, and even when we know we're doing it, it is something we find incredibly hard not to do.
This may have to do with the fact that information which contradicts what we (think we) know tends to arouse a much stronger emotional response than information which confirms it - this has been demonstrated using MRI experiments. Not only do we tend to filter information in this way, we tend to recall information that confirms our preconceived ideas more readily than information which doesn't.
Apart from obvious places like political views and opinions on social issues, confirmation bias shows up in areas like cult membership - it is notoriously difficult to "debrief" ex-members who have been very carefully coached into holding very far-reaching preconceptions about the organisation they became a member of, and/or about society at large. It's also a major factor in areas like the paranormal (where people may over time invest a lot of emotional capital in the belief that there's something "out there"), or conspiracy theories, where, over time, a conspiracy theorist may come to believe an increasingly unevidenced series of claims, to the point where it becomes easier and easier for them to believe that novel claims are, likewise, predicated on similar bases to those they already believe. Here, too, we have the added problem, as with the paranormal and cult membership, that to start rejecting such claims (or to start listening to those who are denying or ridiculing the claims) comes at such an emotional cost that it is far less painful to continue accepting even quite outlandish ideas than to accept that they can be challenged.
They're back? I thought they'd finally gone under, despite a load of top names in the conspiraworld buying it out.
Tell you what I like: common law freemen on the land types. I fucking love watching videos of that stuff. It's the most bizarre thing in the world; 'i do not stand under that statement officer'.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Alright wishface, long time no see!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Than the one that you called everyone a cunt for suggesting was you. Fuck off to highbridge.
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