There’s also ‘but what of detrimental mutations’. Well....guess what. That’s also evidence for Evolution. If a mutation is truly detrimental (carnivore with an allergy to meat, or less able to digest meat, for curt examples?) then the sufferer is far less likely to breed in the wild. Rinse and repeat a few generations, and whatever predilection to that mutation exists will likely be bred out, strengthening the gene pool.
Sickle-cell anemia is a good example. Despite it being a nasty thing to have, it is still relatively common in Africa as it conveys a resistance to malaria as a side effect.
Was reading an article a few months back about misconception and sickle-Cell was brought up as one of the biggest. . . Apparently, proportionally more people in Adriatic/Mediterranean regions on the European side have sickle-cell than the proportion of people on the African continent. As a result, more Greek people have an immunity to Malaria than do continental Africans.
Being off topic: the point of the article was based more in how misconceptions (such as the sickle-cell thing) can have a negative impact on things like funding for health programs. This also gets into some implied biases and "racism" (albeit in this case, unintentionally) involved with genetic things like sickle-cell and others like it.
Guys, a lot of conspiracy theories are racist. I mean an old one was "the protocols of zion" which was nothing but anti jewish propaganda and used to help justify the holocaust.
Matt Swain wrote: Guys, a lot of conspiracy theories are racist. I mean an old one was "the protocols of zion" which was nothing but anti jewish propaganda and used to help justify the holocaust.
The basic fundamentals of the protocols stem from tsarist russian secret police.
I also fail to See how x versions of conspiracy theories that exist are classifyable as alot .
F.e. how many versions Off the 9/11 Towers one are there.
Alot of them are not rascist.
In many ways the conspiracy community is just a usefull idiot for political entities that Gamble on power. Vitorio mutilata, dolchstosslegende , etc.
OK doke. Totes subtle change of direction away, away from the religious edge. I know it’s genuinely hard to keep away from it with certain CTs, but I think we need a breather.
Here’s a corker I don’t think has come up yet....Mud Flood...
There’s also ‘but what of detrimental mutations’. Well....guess what. That’s also evidence for Evolution. If a mutation is truly detrimental (carnivore with an allergy to meat, or less able to digest meat, for curt examples?) then the sufferer is far less likely to breed in the wild. Rinse and repeat a few generations, and whatever predilection to that mutation exists will likely be bred out, strengthening the gene pool.
Sickle-cell anemia is a good example. Despite it being a nasty thing to have, it is still relatively common in Africa as it conveys a resistance to malaria as a side effect.
Was reading an article a few months back about misconception and sickle-Cell was brought up as one of the biggest. . . Apparently, proportionally more people in Adriatic/Mediterranean regions on the European side have sickle-cell than the proportion of people on the African continent. As a result, more Greek people have an immunity to Malaria than do continental Africans.
Being off topic: the point of the article was based more in how misconceptions (such as the sickle-cell thing) can have a negative impact on things like funding for health programs. This also gets into some implied biases and "racism" (albeit in this case, unintentionally) involved with genetic things like sickle-cell and others like it.
Sickle-cell certainly predominates in the eastern Med/Western Asia. Which few doctors in the west are aware of, and some of us have to do lots of reminding about the tests needed during pregnancy because they've filled you in the 'not-black-so-no-notable-difference' mental box.
Hello, i am catholic, nice to meet you. I am also a philosophy student. Please don't throw me in the same category of creationists or other nutjobs.
I wouldn't dream of it. As you notice, I was talking about religious apologists - not every single religious person.
Is there perhaps confusion here in using 'apologists' which, in a Catholic (or wider Christian) context, signifies something different than it does otherwise? The vast majority of people involved in Christian apologetics, for instance, will absolutely accept evolution and a great many of them are scientists. Real scientists, not biologist from Patriot Bible University 'scientists'.
I'm not a big fan of Billy. Yeah he appeared in a Mr. Spock costume, yeah he comes of as infinitely more human than lord zuck, but then again so does a walrus devouring a baby seal.
He was an arrogant little jerk, he vowed to eliminate and choice in what OS people would use, he vehemently crushed competition by any means fair or foul, but I always suspected he had at least a chunk of humanity in him, and maybe as he passe dmiddle age and realized he wa snot immortal maybe he wanted to rack up some good karma before going on the great journey. I'm willing to let him have some benefit of the doubt despite his earlier days.
To accuse him of this... Welcome to wackoworld, boys.
When will they realise that companies don't have to sneak tracking chips into you? All they need is the Apple Palm iChip and people will flock in vast numbers to voluntarily have a chip installed in their hand which can let them wave payments; check their facebook and download dozens of tracking apps and junk.
I'm not a big fan of Billy. Yeah he appeared in a Mr. Spock costume, yeah he comes of as infinitely more human than lord zuck, but then again so does a walrus devouring a baby seal.
He was an arrogant little jerk, he vowed to eliminate and choice in what OS people would use, he vehemently crushed competition by any means fair or foul, but I always suspected he had at least a chunk of humanity in him, and maybe as he passe dmiddle age and realized he wa snot immortal maybe he wanted to rack up some good karma before going on the great journey. I'm willing to let him have some benefit of the doubt despite his earlier days.
To accuse him of this... Welcome to wackoworld, boys.
Dude there's legit some weird gak going around the FB and conspirasphere in regard to mr gates and current events.
One group I'm in, there's an otherwise nice and thoughtful kiwi lady who, per her own words has been driven to "panic attacks" because of the things she's reading about covid/coronavirus. . . Now, she's always been (since I've met her via the fb group we're mutually in) an anti-vaxx nutter. . . But now, she's neck deep in conspiracy with this stuff.
apparently she's found "proof" that Bill Gates somehow owns the WHO, and is using the drive for a Covid-19 vaccine and the mandates that will come with it for, reasons. . She's convinced of the 5g thing, etc. . . I have pointed out to her that we're all of us, literally in a new place right now. None of us really knows what to "do" about any of this. I followed up with "but this constant seeking and finding conspiracy theory nonsense is definitely not helping you, especially if its driving you to actual panic attacks." I naturally pointed out that if she's wanting to find good reliable sourcing for whatever it is she's looking for, look for an .edu or .gov website
I mean really, theres so much to unpack with her views on Mr. Gates specifically in regard to current events. . . . I mean, theres the conspiracy on "owning" the WHO. There's the conspiracy of using the WHO for the creation of this nano-tech "vaccine" thing (still no idea what the ultimate aim is for it. . . is it simple location tracking? is it mind control? wtf is it??), there's the "mandate" on vaccines that she's convinced is coming, I mean this really does seem like a great confluence of many smaller conspiracies into one giant spaghetti dish of whacko
Yeah, well....dad just shared an article with me claiming all the things the Gates Foundation has done with "their" vaccines and the whole thing had my wife and me about pissing ourselves in laughter. Like how it claimed that the Gates foundation secretly sterilized half a million women in Africa hidden in an otherwise worthless vaccine, and how the Gates Foundation calls their vaccines "population control". Evidently they tried to make kids in India each take 50 (50, they claim!) polio boosters during their childhood, instead of the the couple we get normally killing hundreds.
Also because they are involved in C19 vaccine testing, we should be worried that this is their secret plan to put tracking chips into the vaccines.
Seems like these things would have been in.....the news?
Don’t underestimate the sheer power of They when it comes to conspiracy theories!
Automatically Appended Next Post: A thought.
I’m watching a documentary on Dinosaurs on Disney+. And it’s about how our understanding of them has changed as new discoveries are made.
So far, so good. It represents Science accurately, where findings are inherently open to challenge and reinterpretation. That’s literally what makes science reliable.
Yet.....yet.....
It’s introducing interpretations new to my mere Pleb brain. And counter points. The thing it doesn’t do is offer any indication as to which, if any, are mainstream, fringe and gathering pace, or whacko views.
That’s a problem to me, as it gives equal credence to each view, when that’s not necessarily accurate.
Granted, in an hour long documentary it’s hard if not impossible to give each suitable air time as to the why and why not.
And I’m not singling out this particular docu. Just trying to demonstrate how hard it is for Proper Science to make itself heard.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Don’t underestimate the sheer power of They when it comes to conspiracy theories!
Automatically Appended Next Post: A thought.
I’m watching a documentary on Dinosaurs on Disney+. And it’s about how our understanding of them has changed as new discoveries are made.
So far, so good. It represents Science accurately, where findings are inherently open to challenge and reinterpretation. That’s literally what makes science reliable.
Yet.....yet.....
It’s introducing interpretations new to my mere Pleb brain. And counter points. The thing it doesn’t do is offer any indication as to which, if any, are mainstream, fringe and gathering pace, or whacko views.
That’s a problem to me, as it gives equal credence to each view, when that’s not necessarily accurate.
Granted, in an hour long documentary it’s hard if not impossible to give each suitable air time as to the why and why not.
And I’m not singling out this particular docu. Just trying to demonstrate how hard it is for Proper Science to make itself heard.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Don’t underestimate the sheer power of They when it comes to conspiracy theories!
Automatically Appended Next Post: A thought.
I’m watching a documentary on Dinosaurs on Disney+. And it’s about how our understanding of them has changed as new discoveries are made.
So far, so good. It represents Science accurately, where findings are inherently open to challenge and reinterpretation. That’s literally what makes science reliable.
Yet.....yet.....
It’s introducing interpretations new to my mere Pleb brain. And counter points. The thing it doesn’t do is offer any indication as to which, if any, are mainstream, fringe and gathering pace, or whacko views.
That’s a problem to me, as it gives equal credence to each view, when that’s not necessarily accurate.
Granted, in an hour long documentary it’s hard if not impossible to give each suitable air time as to the why and why not.
And I’m not singling out this particular docu. Just trying to demonstrate how hard it is for Proper Science to make itself heard.
Soft tissue found in dinosaur fossils?
It's rare even on the scale of fossils, but it does happen. Once in a blue moon or so, circumstances come together where some of the soft tissues mineralize alongside the bone.
Much more common are soft tissue impressions. Not the soft tissues themselves, but molds made by material around the soft tissue, and sometimes even material filling those molds and making a casting of the soft tissues.
The "soft tissue in dinosaur fossils" issue shines a light on a conspiracy stable.
1. Scientist A releases paper.
2. News sources and blogs sensationalises finding for clicks and views.
3. Conspiracy theorists and others draws further conclusions, based on headlines.
4. Scientist A points out the actual findings DOES NOT support the conclusions drawn.
5. Scientist A is ignored....or even better, accused of being an untrustworthy shill for [ insert enemy here ].
A important part of the conspiracy theories univers are untrustworthy authorities.
In France for example they straight out told at tv
1/that masks were totally useless against the virus
2/ even if you had one you would probably not wear it correctly.
And now masks are said to become mandatory (they already are in some places and cities), with figures like 69% reduction in infection being told .
Instead of just acknowledging the lack of it. Just to avoir looking like they had no answer they prefered to say there was no answer.
And now, everyone doubt everything they say.
This is an actual and accurate topic so I thought I would bring it up.
Why would people believe such authorities when they say vaccines are fine or that this drug / medicine doesn't work, just after lying to the whole country ? People can be easily lost by all that.
I think authorities have a great responsabilities in this phenomenon
For you american people, we could speak about the LSD testing project (MK Ultra) or when they gave syphilis to some black people instead of vaccines to study the infection.
This kind of things, that actually happened, make people wonder what they could be working on today.
Touched on in the early posts (don’t worry, it’s a long thread!).
Essentially some conspiracy theories do turn out to be surprisingly, even entirely true. But the wider Conspirasphere twists those examples into evidence all must be true.
It’s the equivalent of finding out that the Puffer Fish is highly toxic - and then insisting therefore all Fish are highly toxic.
Time for another group example I feel!
Chemtrails. Oh yes. It’s a classic, and utterly, utterly ludicrous.
It’s not one I’m especially knowedgable on, but the claim is essentially the vapour trails behind planes are actually chemicals being sprayed upon the wider populace.
The main ‘proof’ they have is a photo (possibly various photos) of passenger planes clearly kitted out with large, liquid filled barrels. The theory maintains that’s all nasty chemicals.
Except....the truth behind such photos is far more innocent. In short, the barrels are filled with water, with pump equipment to shift the load. It’s part of safety testing, to help figure out ballast type stuff (I know that’s almost certainly the wrong term, but my brain insists)
And like all good CTs? The one question they can’t answer, so rarely if ever bother trying, is the height of the aircraft, and the inherent dispersal of anything at that height would be pointless. And that’s without factoring in how long any given vapour would hold itself together due to density etc.
Oh sorry haha
And do we know if some areas, some countries etc are more prone to conspiracy theories than others ?
Or some populations (I would think more poor people) ?
I mean, to me the YouTube videos tend to come from the UK and the US.
But then, YouTube’s algorithm, and a preference for videos in English make it awfully hard to tell - even before we factor in relative populations as a percentage of the world’s population with ready and reliable access to the necessaries to make such videos.
I suspect is a pretty even spread, when properly analysed, especially if we include folklore as a form of CT.
Example? The Tokoloshi, a mythical creature in certain African countries. It’s blamed for various things.
Which is an interesting thought point really. What is the actual difference between Conspiracy Theory, and Folklore?
Also, welcome to the thread and thank you for your contribution
godardc wrote: A important part of the conspiracy theories univers are untrustworthy authorities.
In France for example they straight out told at tv
1/that masks were totally useless against the virus
2/ even if you had one you would probably not wear it correctly.
I think there's a certain distinction being lost on this one, at least in the media that I've seen. . . Locally during the initial stages where reporting on masks was being done the *full* statement on masks was "masks are useless in preventing you GETTING the virus and you're wearing them wrong"
Now, the reporting is "wearing a mask will prevent you TRANSMITTING the virus" . . . which is a massive difference because the aim is entirely different as they are linking bodily fluids emitted while talking/breathing/sneezing/coughing, etc and so preventing yours from getting too far aids in slowing the spread.
But. . . . to the conspiracy theorist "its all just lies trying to control you!!!"
Which is an interesting thought point really. What is the actual difference between Conspiracy Theory, and Folklore?
Much of folklore doesn't really rely on an Illuminati or "They" as controlling everything around you. . . Much of folklore is tied to local mythic and religious traditions, so if there's a Spirit or deity "controlling" things, it is viewed in those terms rather than the material/physical/political world.
I guess the biggest difference between folklore and conspiracy is the level of human involvement?
I guess in the absolute broadest sense, the difference between conspiracy and folklore is non-existent. . . .
Which is why I think if we get into it, conspiracy theory requires a "human" version of They acting as the unseen malicious influence. . . The difference being that there's a level of "the grocer checking out your stuff could be secretly in on It", you can theoretically meet someone who is part of the conspiracy in your day to day. In folklore, you generally never see the Fey creature in question while you're awake.
The rare instances where a Fey creature is seen in the mortal realm and you're awake, a lot of stories revolve around being in a special place at a special time, with beliefs that the two opposing sort of converge there.
Alien ‘abductions’. There was an absolutely fascinating article in Fortean Times a few years back, which demonstrated modern tales of UFO abductions are surprisingly close matches for Faerie abduction stories of decades and centuries passed.
Further interesting blurring? Witchcraft often included a knowledge of healing herbs. Now, the practitioner likely only ever knew that they worked, not the how.
Good example? Willow Bark. It has natural analgesic properties, and if I’ve got the right one (never guaranteed), was eventually studied, with aspirin being the end result (active compounds identified, and either harvested or synthesised for efficiency)
Now, to someone of a certain, vindictive mind? We’re back to near Conspiracy Thinking - ‘If I cant explain it, then it must be unnatural (or in the modern day, therefore inexplicable).
Perhaps the person creating the medicine did mumbo jumbo, handy wavy as they did it. That’s entirely possible. A hand me down of ‘holy theatrics’.
OK. Skirting a bit too close to religion bashing here, so I’ll post up and pop off to better gather my thoughts.
But reading up on such things has always interested me
And like all good CTs? The one question they can’t answer, so rarely if ever bother trying, is the height of the aircraft, and the inherent dispersal of anything at that height would be pointless. And that’s without factoring in how long any given vapour would hold itself together due to density etc.
Well, the answer to that is obvious. The mind control story was just put out there as a false flag to destroy the credibility o people asking about the liquid canisters. All so that, years later, the chemicals would be present, and their presence regarded as completely normal, on the planes which crashed into the WTC towers. Jet fuel might not burn hot enough to melt steel but the liquid in those canisters sure can.
It was a multi decade conspiracy involving using another conspiracy as cover, until such a time as the domino could be taken out, toppling their bullseye like a house of cards. Checkmate.
/sarcasm of course.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ensis Ferrae wrote: In folklore, you generally never see the Fey creature in question while you're awake.
And if you do, then you are most likely insane. Purely from the folklore aspect wherein the insanity grants you the ability to perceive the truth that is hidden from those of sound mind (case in point in Johnathan Strange & Mr Norrell, not the reality of seeing something which is not there
Alien ‘abductions’. There was an absolutely fascinating article in Fortean Times a few years back, which demonstrated modern tales of UFO abductions are surprisingly close matches for Faerie abduction stories of decades and centuries passed.
I think alien abductions are both "folklore/mythology" and potential CT. I think they only become a CT once you start claiming there is some kind of cover-up going on. If a particular person's alien abduction story just involves being grabbed from their truck in the middle of nowhere and experimented on they're probably just plain old nuts.
So I think the definition from a few posts back is the best I can think of too - CTs require a human element, some kind of cover-up or intervention from people.
Folklore is famously difficult to define in anthropological terms (just like religion and myth). Put simply, some definitions of folklore will overlap with some definitions of conspiracy theory, but on a case-by-case basis there are probably few narratives that can be categorised as both.
I feel like a lot of abduction stories are the combination of peoples lack of understanding of a deep sleep state (and the process your brain goes through, be they logical or not) and a lack of ability to critique their own experiences, essentially removing themselves from the experience to be objective about it - elements of this are also linked to the mandela effect.
The reason I say this is firstly, I've had dreams that I was convinced happened at the time, to the point some were quite dark and I was truly worried for a time when I woke up that they happened. Interestingly, whilst I know these dreams did not happen, there is an element of my conscious that evidently still entertains the possibility that I did, as I get anxious (both somatic and cognitive) at the thoughts and then question if they happened again. (For those wondering, I dreamt I accidentally killed a friend in a gardening accident, and ridiculously hid the body in the dream as well, I have confirmed many times since that dream that the particular friend is alive).
I believe a similar thing can happen with people who have abduction stories, and also why they are so convinced they happened, because they get physical and cognitive markers that they may have happened also.
nfe wrote: Folklore is famously difficult to define in anthropological terms (just like religion and myth). Put simply, some definitions of folklore will overlap with some definitions of conspiracy theory, but on a case-by-case basis there are probably few narratives that can be categorised as both.
I would agree with this, though I also wonder if in a way conspiarcy theories have become the 'new folklore'. There really isn't room in modern society for urban and local legend like in earlier eras. Especially in modern cities and suburbs. We don't get stories like the Bell Witch anymore. While the two seem to me to be distinct things that sometimes overlap, I do think folklore and conspiracy theories fulfill a similar need in people to personalize the world a bit more and structure it into something that is personally understandable. Folklore also has an element of community identification. People could know where other people came from by what they knew about the area around them, and it enhanced a community's sense of ownership of their space. CT can be kind of like that too, but without the space component and we do live in a time when communities are far less defined by spaces.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: I feel like a lot of abduction stories are the combination of peoples lack of understanding of a deep sleep state (and the process your brain goes through, be they logical or not) and a lack of ability to critique their own experiences, essentially removing themselves from the experience to be objective about it - elements of this are also linked to the mandela effect.
Sleep paralysis is a big factor in abduction stories. Also with lots of old folktales about demons (esp. succubi & incubi), 'night hags', etc.
It's WILD if you've ever experienced it. Fortunately I didn't have the horrific hallucinations some people get. I just saw a dark mass and sensed malevolence the first time. After that one, no hallucinations but the paralysis was real. Even the most skeptical inquirer could think he/she had a paranormal experience. Trust me, it's really something.
gorgon wrote: Sleep paralysis is a big factor in abduction stories. Also with lots of old folktales about demons (esp. succubi & incubi), 'night hags', etc.
It's WILD if you've ever experienced it. Fortunately I didn't have the horrific hallucinations some people get. I just saw a dark mass and sensed malevolence the first time. After that one, no hallucinations but the paralysis was real. Even the most skeptical inquirer could think he/she had a paranormal experience. Trust me, it's really something.
I feel like while I've never had this particular experience, I've definitely had dreams that in the moment seemed extremely real and caused a real sense of distress while they were occurring. I didn't use to take good care of my teeth for example, so I had lots of cavities. Around that time I had a pretty damn vivid dream about all my teeth falling out and the following panic felt really damn real. It's one way to get into the habit of brushing and flossing XD
The "teeth falling out" is a common one along with the "dark shape looming over you". Sleep paralysis is a nasty one that I've had a few times - really scary to wake up too. Though I find that once I realise I know what's going on I'm reasonably (as far as I can tell) good at going "ok its just sleep paralysis; just go back to sleep and it will all be over"
Overread wrote: The "teeth falling out" is a common one along with the "dark shape looming over you". Sleep paralysis is a nasty one that I've had a few times - really scary to wake up too. Though I find that once I realise I know what's going on I'm reasonably (as far as I can tell) good at going "ok its just sleep paralysis; just go back to sleep and it will all be over"
Yep, once you learn to relax the paralysis passes quickly. I haven't had it in many years though. Think it's most common in the late teens and early 20s IIRC, and that's when I had it. Sleep disorders are no joke.
gorgon wrote: Sleep paralysis is a big factor in abduction stories. Also with lots of old folktales about demons (esp. succubi & incubi), 'night hags', etc.
It's WILD if you've ever experienced it. Fortunately I didn't have the horrific hallucinations some people get. I just saw a dark mass and sensed malevolence the first time. After that one, no hallucinations but the paralysis was real. Even the most skeptical inquirer could think he/she had a paranormal experience. Trust me, it's really something.
I feel like while I've never had this particular experience, I've definitely had dreams that in the moment seemed extremely real and caused a real sense of distress while they were occurring. I didn't use to take good care of my teeth for example, so I had lots of cavities. Around that time I had a pretty damn vivid dream about all my teeth falling out and the following panic felt really damn real. It's one way to get into the habit of brushing and flossing XD
First time it happened, I was trying to yell to my mom, whom I could hear eating breakfast in the kitchen. But all that came out was a little squeak. As the dark malevolent mass seemingly 'sat' on my chest, mind you. Then after a bit the paralysis and hallucination faded. Those were some long moments, though. It's crazy gak. Some people get much more vivid (and terrifying) hallucinations, and that has to be bananas.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: OK doke. Totes subtle change of direction away, away from the religious edge. I know it’s genuinely hard to keep away from it with certain CTs, but I think we need a breather.
Here’s a corker I don’t think has come up yet....Mud Flood...
Oh yeah. This is hilarious, and completely mental (the CT, not the videos!)
So many questions.... Even the debunking videos left me feeling like they lowered my IQ just by watching them(I could only make it half way through both). Really what the ?
Overread wrote: The "teeth falling out" is a common one along with the "dark shape looming over you". Sleep paralysis is a nasty one that I've had a few times - really scary to wake up too. Though I find that once I realise I know what's going on I'm reasonably (as far as I can tell) good at going "ok its just sleep paralysis; just go back to sleep and it will all be over"
Yep, once you learn to relax the paralysis passes quickly. I haven't had it in many years though. Think it's most common in the late teens and early 20s IIRC, and that's when I had it. Sleep disorders are no joke.
gorgon wrote: Sleep paralysis is a big factor in abduction stories. Also with lots of old folktales about demons (esp. succubi & incubi), 'night hags', etc.
It's WILD if you've ever experienced it. Fortunately I didn't have the horrific hallucinations some people get. I just saw a dark mass and sensed malevolence the first time. After that one, no hallucinations but the paralysis was real. Even the most skeptical inquirer could think he/she had a paranormal experience. Trust me, it's really something.
I feel like while I've never had this particular experience, I've definitely had dreams that in the moment seemed extremely real and caused a real sense of distress while they were occurring. I didn't use to take good care of my teeth for example, so I had lots of cavities. Around that time I had a pretty damn vivid dream about all my teeth falling out and the following panic felt really damn real. It's one way to get into the habit of brushing and flossing XD
First time it happened, I was trying to yell to my mom, whom I could hear eating breakfast in the kitchen. But all that came out was a little squeak. As the dark malevolent mass seemingly 'sat' on my chest, mind you. Then after a bit the paralysis and hallucination faded. Those were some long moments, though. It's crazy gak. Some people get much more vivid (and terrifying) hallucinations, and that has to be bananas.
In terms of Hallucintions, I’ve thankfully never experience sleep paralysis. But, when I’m ill with a fever? Horrible, horrible hallucination.
And that’s why I steer entirely clear of psychotropic drugs. Don’t care their billing, it’s not worth the bad trip.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: OK doke. Totes subtle change of direction away, away from the religious edge. I know it’s genuinely hard to keep away from it with certain CTs, but I think we need a breather.
Here’s a corker I don’t think has come up yet....Mud Flood...
Oh yeah. This is hilarious, and completely mental (the CT, not the videos!)
So many questions.... Even the debunking videos left me feeling like they lowered my IQ just by watching them(I could only make it half way through both). Really what the ?
Yeah just.... I mean I - what? At least Flat Earthers have SOME sanity to them; but this Mud Flood - please someone tell me its just made up !
Edit - wait the other video says its not justa belief but a "Church". So I'm going to say totally made up in an attempt to avoid tax.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: OK doke. Totes subtle change of direction away, away from the religious edge. I know it’s genuinely hard to keep away from it with certain CTs, but I think we need a breather.
Here’s a corker I don’t think has come up yet....Mud Flood...
Oh yeah. This is hilarious, and completely mental (the CT, not the videos!)
So many questions.... Even the debunking videos left me feeling like they lowered my IQ just by watching them(I could only make it half way through both). Really what the ?
Yeah just.... I mean I - what? At least Flat Earthers have SOME sanity to them; but this Mud Flood - please someone tell me its just made up !
Edit - wait the other video says its not justa belief but a "Church". So I'm going to say totally made up in an attempt to avoid tax.
Do Churches avoid tax that well?
I guess i have found a potential future calling if so
But, the trouble with Poe is one can genuinely never tell.
I’d follow the rabbit hole of watching the films made by those being debunked.....except my job requires my brain, so I’d rather not dunk it in acidic drivel.
Sometimes the conspiracy theorists get a shot in the arm, and I have to say the people who claim corona is a "conspiracy" have just gotten one.
You-know-who has just announced he's suspending immigration as a result of the corona crisis via executive order.
He wanted to drastically impede immigration from some countries since he undulated into the white house. Now, suddenly, the corona crisis comes along and POOF! He has the excuse to do what he wanted to.
Now this is how conspiracy theories grow. When a situation is exploited by people in power to further their agenda, it lends a certain credence to those who say "See? I told ya! It was done to further (whatever person or group.) agenda! You can see them using it that way! That proves they created it!"
I do not in any way believe this, but I can see how a lot of people might have been on the fence about believing covid was a conspiracy and might see it as one now.
It's not iron clad logic or serious consideration by any means, gut at least on the surface it looks suspicious. And that's more than enough for a conspiracy theory to feed and grow on.
Are there any conspiracy theories out there that are actually saying that the US response to corona virus is tailored to aid Trump's re-election campaign? Sure he gets to do what he wants, and it may end up helping him, but I'm not aware of any theories being touted that it's a conspiracy that has been manufactured to do that. Be interested if there are groups out there spreading that sort of thing.
If anything we see the exact opposite - conspiracy theory nutters claiming the covid response is a deliberate political ploy to undermine Trump's chances. (just look at all the fruit cakes calling Fauci a traitor, etc.).
Just because the conditions are right so that something "could" become a conspiracy theory doesn't necessarily mean it will become a conspiracy. It needs numbers, support and visibility for it to be a conspiracy theory. Can't say I've seen that in this scenario.
Henry wrote: Are there any conspiracy theories out there that are actually saying that the US response to corona virus is tailored to aid Trump's re-election campaign? Sure he gets to do what he wants, and it may end up helping him, but I'm not aware of any theories being touted that it's a conspiracy that has been manufactured to do that. Be interested if there are groups out there spreading that sort of thing.
If anything we see the exact opposite - conspiracy theory nutters claiming the covid response is a deliberate political ploy to undermine Trump's chances. (just look at all the fruit cakes calling Fauci a traitor, etc.).
Just because the conditions are right so that something "could" become a conspiracy theory doesn't necessarily mean it will become a conspiracy. It needs numbers, support and visibility for it to be a conspiracy theory. Can't say I've seen that in this scenario.
i guess the issue is with corona for trump re-election, is the fact that the states have in their realm more power then the central government and that is final, making any possible option for trump to distinguish himself in the crisis quite dificult in the first place.
Most conspiracy theories need atleast a grain of "legitimate" possibility and i guess that is in this case simply not given.
Comparatively to that the version were it is an attack on trump is more likely therefore more probable and therefore the dominant theory.
Mind you that is just how i'd explain that, but i am certain if you go searching deep enough you will find a theory of your first suggestion.
Henry wrote: Are there any conspiracy theories out there that are actually saying that the US response to corona virus is tailored to aid Trump's re-election campaign?
It's probably out there somewhere (literally anything you can think of is probably a conspiracy theory somewhere, conspiracy theories at like Rule 34). I don't think it'll ever be very prominent though. Most people who would believe such things of Trump view him as ignorant and incompetent. While that's what conspiracy theories themselves are generally made of, it's not the assumption they usually make about their subject matter.
Be interested if there are groups out there spreading that sort of thing.
The kind of people who would as a group try and push that kind of thing know their audience too well (and in this we're going way to close to the political range maybe).
If there is a conspiracy theory being pushed on that front, it's focused on the controversy around Hydroxychloroquine with some variations now targeting the aid rollout. I've seen a pretty big push on some places (Reddit and Twitter) to try and directly tie Trump/Trump's Family/High Level Republicans financially to Hydroxychloroquine. The sources for the claims are sketchy and don't seem to have any real evidence to back them up, but they're pretty prominent in some places and seem to just pop up no matter how much twisting needs to be made to squeeze them into looking relevant to whatever is being talked about with a ludicrous number of upvotes relative to replies (which on Reddit at least is the most obvious sign of bots earning their paychecks). It's something that would be more readily believed by people inclined to such than anything election related. There's already a ready and waiting audience willing to believe any number of financial sins on the part of the targets.
As an aside, social media is a pretty good litmus test for conspiracy theories in general. If you see something coming up with frequency in that area but has no mention/almost no mention on TV news, it's the first warning sign that the whole thing might be full of gak cause TV news will report just about anything so long as there's some vain thread to stake their credibility on. Something is a crock of something when even Fox News and MSNBC won't put it on the air.
i guess the issue is with corona for trump re-election, is the fact that the states have in their realm more power then the central government and that is final, making any possible option for trump to distinguish himself in the crisis quite dificult in the first place.
I must have missed that day in civics where they talked about the power of the states to bank $2,000,000,000,000+ in aid, direct FEMA and the CDC to action, manage (or mismanage) SNS, and declare national emergencies. It's not even worth it to go through all the reasons this makes zero sense. This is not how it works in the US. The states and the federal government share crisis management responsibilities, but many of the major statutes require overt executive approval to get anything started. There is no 'final' power between them in the current set up but it seems really asinine to me to ever swing that pendulum more toward the states than the federal government. FEMA and SNS can't even get out of bed in the morning without the President saying go ahead, regardless of what the states want and there shouldn't be any need to point out the disparity in financial capacity at this point.
Let’s be careful when discussing political angle CT’s.
We can only go so far into them without breaking the No Politics rule General terms, with the odd example properly fine, but be careful not to be partisan.
I must have missed that day in civics where they talked about the power of the states to bank $2,000,000,000,000+ in aid, direct FEMA and the CDC to action, manage (or mismanage) SNS, and declare national emergencies. It's not even worth it to go through all the reasons this makes zero sense. This is not how it works in the US. The states and the federal government share crisis management responsibilities, but many of the major statutes require overt executive approval to get anything started. There is no 'final' power between them in the current set up but it seems really asinine to me to ever swing that pendulum more toward the states than the federal government. FEMA and SNS can't even get out of bed in the morning without the President saying go ahead, regardless of what the states want and there shouldn't be any need to point out the disparity in financial capacity at this point.
I meant more in regards to Curfew , Closing schools, shops, etc. the baseline core options all Nations sofar used to somewhat decent efect overall, luckily. Considering this has been the issue in regards to the reaction and made news.
The whole financial aspect comes only after the crises and one could probably spin a conspiracy theory out of that but i guess that also depends on the future election in which direction it goes no?
Not Online!!! wrote: I meant more in regards to Curfew , Closing schools, shops, etc. the baseline core options all Nations sofar used to somewhat decent efect overall, luckily. Considering this has been the issue in regards to the reaction and made news.
If that's what you mean then yeah, that's fair.
The whole financial aspect comes only after the crises and one could probably spin a conspiracy theory out of that but i guess that also depends on the future election in which direction it goes no?
I would say the primary reason to spin a conspiracy about it now is to influence the election. It's a brave new world (ha!) and tracking bot activities has become its own past time on some subreddits. And even that sometimes raises my suspicious hackles. It's a complete fog of war and honestly even speculating about motivations and methods probably skitters really close to conspiracy theory itself! Maybe a good reason why it's not a strong topic for this thread actually, aside from the politics. It's too fresh. We can't really talk about it with the same conciseness as say, the moon landing or sovriegn citizens.
Not Online!!! wrote: I meant more in regards to Curfew , Closing schools, shops, etc. the baseline core options all Nations sofar used to somewhat decent efect overall, luckily. Considering this has been the issue in regards to the reaction and made news.
If that's what you mean then yeah, that's fair.
It's also those level of executive which now can make or break their careers. Which is why i incidentally regarded it as non beneficial, however in many ways i can see that it indeed could be regarded as beneficial considering that Trump states to fight against the deep state. In many ways if he can spin it (the not cooperation of governors) as resistance of said deep state that would mobilize some of his voteing blocks i'd assume. Could however also backfire depending on the results and the handling.
Still i feel like the economic downturn is too bad for him as to really support him.
The whole financial aspect comes only after the crises and one could probably spin a conspiracy theory out of that but i guess that also depends on the future election in which direction it goes no?
I would say the primary reason to spin a conspiracy about it now is to influence the election. It's a brave new world (ha!) and tracking bot activities has become its own past time on some subreddits. And even that sometimes raises my suspicious hackles. It's a complete fog of war and honestly even speculating about motivations and methods probably skitters really close to conspiracy theory itself! Maybe a good reason why it's not a strong topic for this thread actually, aside from the politics. It's too fresh. We can't really talk about it with the same conciseness as say, the moon landing or sovriegn citizens.
I agree, however we can talk about bots, boting and bot tracking.
Twitter is definitely a battleground for it but I’m less than familiar. Maybe my age is showing but I find Twitter difficult to follow. I’m more familiar with events on reddit as a result especially because of subs like redditsecurity where battling malicious bots has become a major topic the last few years so it’s a bit easier to track information imo.
One of the big issues is the diffusion of "sources of truth". In the olden days pre-internet we had the big 4 broadcasters whose had journalism built off the back of some big city Newspapers. All of them wanted to be seen as credible as that was the path to readership and getting material out there.
This model no longer exists. There are a number of reasons why, but the fact is that a lay person has no "Source of Truth" anymore. The absence of truth means there is a vacuum, and that vacuum will be filled.
LordofHats wrote: Twitter is definitely a battleground for it but I’m less than familiar. Maybe my age is showing but I find Twitter difficult to follow. I’m more familiar with events on reddit as a result especially because of subs like redditsecurity where battling malicious bots has become a major topic the last few years so it’s a bit easier to track information imo.
It is estimated that about 24 % off all twitter messages are from bots.
And there have been multiple incidents of it beeing used for propaganda actions and spamming conspiracy theories.
Then there's Twitter itself, what with the whole paradise papers thingy.
Easy E wrote: One of the big issues is the diffusion of "sources of truth". In the olden days pre-internet we had the big 4 broadcasters whose had journalism built off the back of some big city Newspapers. All of them wanted to be seen as credible as that was the path to readership and getting material out there.
This model no longer exists. There are a number of reasons why, but the fact is that a lay person has no "Source of Truth" anymore. The absence of truth means there is a vacuum, and that vacuum will be filled.
There’s also the advent of 24 hour news.
That’s.....that’s a lot of air to fill. Sure, it started off innocuously enough. Rolling news, the same articles being repeated each hour. So far, so good. Meant we as the consumer could tune in anytime, watch for a chosen period or article, and then be about our day. No longer were we tied to specific bulletin times.
Then? Oh it went down hill. Stuff that’s barely news gets overblown. Ridiculous, often poorly informed ‘analysis’ is simply wild speculation.
We kinda see the same thing (at least in the U.K. with 24 hour TV. You need to fill you schedule, but not break the bank. Enter “Reality TV”, which I blame for dumbing us down as a species. But that’s purely my opinion!
Then there’s the birth of the Internet. Can’t remember if I touched on this before, but I’ll set out my thoughts.
Nobody really saw the ubiquity of the Internet coming. And I’m probably one of the oldest people (40 in a few weeks, no I don’t know when that happened either) to complete their secondary school education (high school equivalent) without the Internet. We were aware of it, but at the time it was A) Expensive and B) not really practical for a campus of 1,000+ kids.
And it took people a while to learn how to teach others the art of parsing huge, huge amounts of information. The knack to be reading something and stopping to think “well, this all seems a bit too rosey”. I mean, confirmation bias wasn’t something I learned of until my 20’s (YMMV, depending on education etc)
This has left us with a very savvy generation, and older generations not at all prepared for the sheer onslaught of mischief the internet can bring,
Think back to FB a few years ago. “One Like, One Prayer, LoL” type stuff. Pictures yoinked from stock, and presented as someone’s family member.
Wasn’t too long until the political potential was recognised, and realised. No, I’m not singling out any wing, party or politician here. But the old adage about a Lie running around the world before the truth has got its socks on is write large.
Eventually you lead yourself to echo chambers. Man. I’ve seen more than a few on FB, and they can be pretty terrifying, regardless of political alignment,
And it took people a while to learn how to teach others the art of parsing huge, huge amounts of information. The knack to be reading something and stopping to think “well, this all seems a bit too rosey”. I mean, confirmation bias wasn’t something I learned of until my 20’s (YMMV, depending on education etc)
This has left us with a very savvy generation, and older generations not at all prepared for the sheer onslaught of mischief the internet can bring,
Think back to FB a few years ago. “One Like, One Prayer, LoL” type stuff. Pictures yoinked from stock, and presented as someone’s family member.
Wasn’t too long until the political potential was recognised, and realised. No, I’m not singling out any wing, party or politician here. But the old adage about a Lie running around the world before the truth has got its socks on is write large.
Eventually you lead yourself to echo chambers. Man. I’ve seen more than a few on FB, and they can be pretty terrifying, regardless of political alignment,
Actually the savy generation isn't that much better in regards to verifying information.
Key exemple are the aftermentioned twitterbots which are often regarded as a credible source for information.
And often many are especially those run by police, firewatch, etc. Then there is however the slew of non visible as bot marked bots that increase range of tweets, etc.
Heck the basic reccomendation for finding bot verification is the following:
"Periodic and regular timing" of tweets;
Whether the tweet content contains known spam; and
The ratio of tweets from mobile versus desktop, as compared to an average human Twitter user.
That is by no means an easy feat to accomplish to just verify if it is a bot.
And i am sure Lordofhats has some prime exemple of bots from reddit aswell.
It's also relatively easy to hide a bot amongst textbased social media.
It is very weird to accept just how dumb we are as a species
Yes, including myself. I’m just as guilty of not fact checking favourable reports as the next person.
Which possibly explains my interest in the Conspirasphere, and it’s regular debunks. When you can see ostensibly plausible initial arguments taken apart, it is a reminder to be somewhat more sceptical in general.
Yes, including myself. I’m just as guilty of not fact checking favourable reports as the next person.
Which possibly explains my interest in the Conspirasphere, and it’s regular debunks. When you can see ostensibly plausible initial arguments taken apart, it is a reminder to be somewhat more sceptical in general.
i think stupidity is only one of the key ingredients, the other beeing time and the last beeing as you stated confirmation bias, allbeit indoctrination or ideologicalisation might be a better term in some fields.
Time i regard as the most critical element.
And i guess especially for news, time is off importance considering your own 24 h/ news channel exemple.
Another aspect is time. Today we are bombarded with information from a vast wealth of subjects and backgrounds. Even very studious people with time on their hands can only fact check so many sources in a given day.
I'd argue that a large number of people are not well versed in conducting proper self learning and research and we are still in an age where many research documents are held behind pay walls. Plus those that are out there are not often readily known; they are academia known to those in their subject, but not really marketed and advertised to the lay person.
So its very hard to fact check because the facts that google will show are more likely to to be popular than factual. Popularity can be raised by so many things, even by being totally off the wall nuts and people come for a laugh can raise popularity of a site. Ken Rockwell a few years back was really famous in the online photography groups because his viewpoints were very "out there". Such as never using a tripod EVER. And he pitched his site to newbies. Now a lot was tongue in cheek and also not so much "this is how it is" but "this is how I do it". He gained infamy and also had sensible stuff on his site too - but by and large it was a good show of how personal opinion and a bit of sarcasm could easily make you popular and rank high even if the viewpoint went against the common views and advise.
The internet is a vast store of information, sadly few have the skill to sift the truth from the lies and using search engines often requires you to know most of the answer in order to phrase the question so that you find the rest of the answer.
i think stupidity is only one of the key ingredients, the other beeing time and the last beeing as you stated confirmation bias, allbeit indoctrination or ideologicalisation might be a better term in some fields.
Time i regard as the most critical element.
And i guess especially for news, time is off importance considering your own 24 h/ news channel exemple.
I don't know that stupidity is is necessarily an ingredient. I know some otherwise quite intelligent people who believe in (some) conspiracy theories. The most prominent of these is anti-vaxxers, who are by and large (when not religiously motivated) fairly well-educated. In addition, a colleague of mine who is otherwise extremely intelligent believes the moonlandings were faked.
I think it's more confirmation bias and not knowing your own blind spots when it comes to knowledge, which is not just applicable to the lower end of the intelligence spectrum.
Not Online!!! wrote: And i am sure Lordofhats has some prime exemple of bots from reddit aswell.
Reddit can be even trickier in at least one way, cause the site rules do allow bots and there's a large number that are mundane, from the humorous BananaBot (who gives you banana facts whenever you post the word 'banana') to the useful LightLinks bot (who provides links to books and fanfictions on some subreddits when people type out the titles). There's even a bot that will check a user's account to see if they've ever used the n-word because Reddit wants you to know it is woke and that gets used (and abused) on various subs! All these bots though openly identify themselves as bots. Malicious bot networks have become a topic but they are as hard to identify there as Twitter I'd guess. The big issue is that Reddit has a small staff (and seems quite content to keep it that way). It mostly falls to users themselves to hunt down and prove that a bot is a bot (or a network of bots) when they don't openly identify themselves as bots, that their behavior is malicious/manipulative, and by the time users have done that whatever the bots were doing has already happened.
Some of the stuff the bot networks are doing aren't really conspiracy theory. For example, Reddit users identified one network late last year that was used to disseminate leaked government documents in the middle of the British parlaimentary elections. These links pushed no conspiracy, but did spread misinformation. They did target the leaking of information into specific subreddits and then manipulated upvotes and downvotes to ensure their visibility. I won't direct link it because of the politics ban (it goes into other things that absolutely will not stay civil in my mind so I'm not even taking that step), but for anyone who wants to see an example, google "redditsecurity secondary infektion" for a very recent example of a bot network users had to hunt down and bring to the attention of the admins due to malicious behavior.
So basically like Twitter, but less reach and more text per post.
Some of the stuff the bot networks are doing aren't really conspiracy theory. For example, Reddit users identified one network late last year that was used to disseminate leaked government documents in the middle of the British parlaimentary elections. These links pushed no conspiracy, but did spread misinformation. They did target the leaking of information into specific subreddits and then manipulated upvotes and downvotes to ensure their visibility. I won't direct link it because of the politics ban (it goes into other things that absolutely will not stay civil in my mind so I'm not even taking that step), but for anyone who wants to see an example, google "redditsecurity secondary infektion" for a very recent example of a bot network users had to hunt down and bring to the attention of the admins due to malicious behavior.
And here we are in irregular media warfare territory aren't we?
Yup. Anything real world related on Reddit is an absolute dumpster fire (and many of the fandom subs aren't any better) and that's just one of the many reasons why. The one thing that is neat for Reddit is that it's very easy to go through account histories there cause the interface is easy to navigate. The Admins tend to leave banned accounts and subs up so that they can be inspected, so it's easy to go through them myself and see what they were doing even though I'll only ever manage a peripheral understanding of the specifics. As far as I'm concerned the only major benefit to the website is to see what's being talked about and posted, cause it's a decent microcosm of the Internet.
Edit: though I will admit idiots in cars is a guilty pleasure.
Easy E wrote: One of the big issues is the diffusion of "sources of truth". In the olden days pre-internet we had the big 4 broadcasters whose had journalism built off the back of some big city Newspapers. All of them wanted to be seen as credible as that was the path to readership and getting material out there.
This model no longer exists. There are a number of reasons why, but the fact is that a lay person has no "Source of Truth" anymore. The absence of truth means there is a vacuum, and that vacuum will be filled.
There’s also the advent of 24 hour news.
That’s.....that’s a lot of air to fill. Sure, it started off innocuously enough. Rolling news, the same articles being repeated each hour. So far, so good. Meant we as the consumer could tune in anytime, watch for a chosen period or article, and then be about our day. No longer were we tied to specific bulletin times.
I went to Germany for a school trip last year (for business school), so one of the things most of us did in the morning was turn on the news, or late in the evening. . . The impression of the 24 hour news channel that I found in the hotel was (and it could be wrong so native Germans, please correct if I am) that the 24 hour news channel ran basically like the local channel: sure they repeated the same stories each hour, but they also ran weather updates seemingly at least every 2-3 hours (as in, they only repeated the same forecast a couple times before updating it)
The biggest problem leading to a downward spiral of news quality is how the cable news (and all cable) was paid. . . In the US, we have Nielsen ratings, which is not rating quality, but quantity. As such, cable channels were paid based on the volume of viewership at a given time. Within the cable model, there is still the advertiser model, wherein an advertiser pays for ad time within a given time slot.
Long story short: in order to secure quantity of viewers, the news program "needs" to go more sensational. But there's something that, IMHO, is more damaging than that (at least in terms of journalistic integrity and quality) that I will illustrate through a story a good friend of mine told me. . . So, long time ago, when my buddy was fresh out of university with a journalism degree, he was working a local news station that happened to have an automotive manufacturing plant in the town (he will never tell me which company it was). One of their investigative reporters had a story phoned in by a worker, they investigated, shot a story, edited, etc. etc. etc. and when the day came they were finally ready to air the story, they called over to the plant. They said, "hey, we've been prepping this story, and we're giving you this courtesy call as X major issue is the main idea behind what we're airing" . . . the manufacturer PR replied with "you run the story, we pull all of our advertising money". So, they didn't run the story.
Now, I'm not so sure that countries like the UK or maybe Germany have this same issue, because as far as I'm aware, the UK government funds the BBC and has a general "we won't interfere so long as you don't cross this line" rule to preserve journalistic integrity, but it seems to me that having advertisng money and cable money involved in the actual news "product" (cuz sadly that's basically how its viewed by the execs) is inherently a bad thing because it will invariably lead to declines in quality.
I also think it is easy for the conspiracy theorists to see conspiracy in the way the US has its news media set up. . . I mean, sure, you have ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox as "major" channels. . . but the local news station is actually owned by Sinclair Media (and will be on different carriers, so it could be CBS in Seattle, but the ABC affiliate in Portland, etc) . . . Of course, in this situation the only "conspiracy" is profit, but the CT peeps out there won't see it that way.
Ensis Ferrae wrote: The biggest problem leading to a downward spiral of news quality is how the cable news (and all cable) was paid. . . In the US, we have Nielsen ratings, which is not rating quality, but quantity. As such, cable channels were paid based on the volume of viewership at a given time. Within the cable model, there is still the advertiser model, wherein an advertiser pays for ad time within a given time slot.
Long story short: in order to secure quantity of viewers, the news program "needs" to go more sensational. But there's something that, IMHO, is more damaging than that (at least in terms of journalistic integrity and quality) that I will illustrate through a story a good friend of mine told me. . . So, long time ago, when my buddy was fresh out of university with a journalism degree, he was working a local news station that happened to have an automotive manufacturing plant in the town (he will never tell me which company it was). One of their investigative reporters had a story phoned in by a worker, they investigated, shot a story, edited, etc. etc. etc. and when the day came they were finally ready to air the story, they called over to the plant. They said, "hey, we've been prepping this story, and we're giving you this courtesy call as X major issue is the main idea behind what we're airing" . . . the manufacturer PR replied with "you run the story, we pull all of our advertising money". So, they didn't run the story.
Indeed, it is just "business as usual" in a way. You might be interested in listening to Jessica Yellen on the Mindscape Podcast who discusses these sorts of issues there. Here is a brief part of what she mentions:
0:17:45 JY: There’s also eyeball meters, so that people can now tell… Executives can now tell as viewers are turning the channel. So, “Oh, they were watching for that topic, but they’re turning for this topic. Let’s go back to that topic.” That kind of thing. Now, the flaw in this from my point of view, is that this is all based on their framework. Which is news needs to be told like sports. Viewers want news that feels like ESPN. So it has to be all that conflict, jargon, competition and outrage. And they program everything through that filter. I can get into how it got to be that way. But the bottom line is, I know for a fact, because I’ve done the research, it leaves a huge audience unaddressed, because so many people feel alienated by that sports-like coverage, they just turn it off, and so they’ve already limited their audience to the people who want news that feels like sports and yes, within them their metrics and their analytics can measure how many they’re getting, but I believe that there’s a massive unaddressed audience out there, and they’re just missing the opportunity.
I think that whole self-feedback loop that executives can get locked into is something we've seen a lot with media. We see it with films from hollywood and even the structure of TV shows all the time.
Go back 20 years and TV shows were almost all episodic. You could drop in at any point and its basically the same cast, same adventure structure no matter what it was.
Today that approach is almost becoming a legacy compared to heavy story driven based shows. The latter was considered quite exceptional and not wanted back when shows like Babalon 5 were trying to push for a more story structured approach.
We see Hollywood do the same thing; heck right now we are in the grips of a huge Comic film franchise fest. With loads of comic films for comic fans that reinforces that comic films are THE thing right now. And yet there's huge portions of the population eager for something else.
Sometimes chasing the "popular" thing is good ,but I think media often goes just a step too far with it at times. I think its better today now that we've actually more TV production firms starting up and producing things; increasing variety of what is produced. Computer games show the same thing, with the rise of Indie studios and online retail for games we saw the market erupt with variety and new ideas because it is possible for indie companies to test waters and try new things and fill niches.
H wrote: Indeed, it is just "business as usual" in a way. You might be interested in listening to Jessica Yellen on the Mindscape Podcast who discusses these sorts of issues there. Here is a brief part of what she mentions:
0:17:45 JY: There’s also eyeball meters, so that people can now tell… Executives can now tell as viewers are turning the channel. So, “Oh, they were watching for that topic, but they’re turning for this topic. Let’s go back to that topic.” That kind of thing. Now, the flaw in this from my point of view, is that this is all based on their framework. Which is news needs to be told like sports. Viewers want news that feels like ESPN. So it has to be all that conflict, jargon, competition and outrage. And they program everything through that filter. I can get into how it got to be that way. But the bottom line is, I know for a fact, because I’ve done the research, it leaves a huge audience unaddressed, because so many people feel alienated by that sports-like coverage, they just turn it off, and so they’ve already limited their audience to the people who want news that feels like sports and yes, within them their metrics and their analytics can measure how many they’re getting, but I believe that there’s a massive unaddressed audience out there, and they’re just missing the opportunity.
Sports is definitely the model. Mike Greenberg on the old Mike & Mike sports radio show was a modern program director's dream. He used to find ways to bring up Tim Tebow and Lebron no matter what the topic was. Sometimes completely awkwardly. ("But let's talk about Tim Tebow.") Because apparently ESPN could see a little spike every time those topics came up.
It made the show unlistenable at times. The show was much more freeflowing and interesting whenever Greenberg was out. And so many people you talk to will say how bad ESPN has gotten and how they don't watch or listen anymore. But the people who are left live on that stuff and so get served up heaping portions of Mike Greenbergs and endless numbers of 'hot take' shows.
Anyway, swap Tebow out with things like "Hillary's e-mails" or "The 10 Biggest Lies Trump Told Today" and that's pretty much the news as we know it. *shrug*
Lots of industries go through something like this...focusing more and more on a small number of their most engaged customers instead of trying to appeal to a wider audience. Shoot, isn't that GW just a few years back? You would hope that news organizations would be different than companies selling miniatures to niche hobbyists. But.
Overread wrote: I think that whole self-feedback loop that executives can get locked into is something we've seen a lot with media. We see it with films from hollywood and even the structure of TV shows all the time.
Go back 20 years and TV shows were almost all episodic. You could drop in at any point and its basically the same cast, same adventure structure no matter what it was.
Today that approach is almost becoming a legacy compared to heavy story driven based shows. The latter was considered quite exceptional and not wanted back when shows like Babalon 5 were trying to push for a more story structured approach.
We see Hollywood do the same thing; heck right now we are in the grips of a huge Comic film franchise fest. With loads of comic films for comic fans that reinforces that comic films are THE thing right now. And yet there's huge portions of the population eager for something else.
Sometimes chasing the "popular" thing is good ,but I think media often goes just a step too far with it at times. I think its better today now that we've actually more TV production firms starting up and producing things; increasing variety of what is produced. Computer games show the same thing, with the rise of Indie studios and online retail for games we saw the market erupt with variety and new ideas because it is possible for indie companies to test waters and try new things and fill niches.
More interestingly, things that changed the status quo aren’t exactly carefully stage managed, instead being break out.
MCU? Nobody saw that juggernaut coming. And prior to X-Men, the ‘general consensus’ was super hero films don’t sell. Same with A New Hope when that came out.
Yet their impact was such, then as now we see competitors falling over themselves to get a slice of the pie, no matter how ham fisted.
To a lesser degree, we saw the same with Paranormal Activity. A zero budget bolt from the blue which reinvigorated the rather flaccid horror genre, which had spent years eating itself. Low budget. High returns - when it’s done well
We can also look at examples where it fizzled out. Specifically, Lord of The Rings. Those were and are great films. Genuine landmarks in Cinema. Yet.....nothing really followed up. Not even The Hobbit trilogy (which despite my easily pleased nature definitely sucked. And not just because they cast James Nesbit).
This also happens in TV. Even Reality TV, when it first started, was something fresh, new, interesting and even entertaining. Sadly, it soon devolved into mindless fame hungry people embarrassing themselves for their Five Minutes, neatly gutting any casual sociological interest.
I bet if we looked into it, like properly assessed the trends in the Conspirasphere we’d find something similar!
Overread wrote: We see Hollywood do the same thing; heck right now we are in the grips of a huge Comic film franchise fest. With loads of comic films for comic fans that reinforces that comic films are THE thing right now. And yet there's huge portions of the population eager for something else.
Are there, though? People largely HAVEN'T been supporting movies that aren't big comic franchise films. The medium budget rom-com is just about dead in theaters. Now they'll just take it to streaming services. And why not? It's better watching those and snuggling at home with your SO anyway.
We've even seen genre films of previously popular IP get good reviews from fans and critics and bomb in theaters. Terminator Dark Fate, Blade Runner 2049, etc. Hell, we've also seen COMIC films get good reviews from critics and audiences and still underwhelm at the box office. Shazam, Birds of Prey, etc.
There's a HEALTHY degree of skepticism about the BO for Villeneuve's Dune film, even though it's got a killer cast, a highly regarded director and is based on one of the great sci-fi works ever. Years ago, that thing -- provided it isn't a messy bomb with critics, etc. like Lynch's was -- would be money in the bank. Now...I don't know, and I say that as a giant Dune fan.
Marvel kinda figured out the right instrument for the right time to do great business in theaters -- a loosely episodic, building series that uses each film to promote and guarantee box office for the next. But other than Marvel, Star Wars, and selected DC films...what's really been crushing it in theaters?
Lots of industries go through something like this...focusing more and more on a small number of their most engaged customers instead of trying to appeal to a wider audience. Shoot, isn't that GW just a few years back? You would hope that news organizations would be different than companies selling miniatures to niche hobbyists. But.
Lol, this is likely the reason why there are so few proper cars being developed these days. . . it's all horrible, boring, dreary crossovers
Warning - article isn’t exactly bipartisan in the CT’s it brings up. For the purpose of the thread, it’s the commentary and not the examples that are of interest
Warning - article isn’t exactly bipartisan in the CT’s it brings up. For the purpose of the thread, it’s the commentary and not the examples that are of interest
I mean, I'd say some conspiracy theories are deeply dangerous. I've already had my rant about how Sandy Hook destroyed lives twice over and how anti-vaxxers are killing people. Sovereign Citizens kill a surprising number of law enforcement officers year to year. Moreso than the low level of media attention directed their way suggests. Other conspiracy theories, despite what they are, are fairly harmless. Fake moon landing nonsense normally doesn't hurt anyone. Though there is that time that astronaut punched that one douche who harassed him on the street about it, that was uncool of them. I think CTs get used by people with agendas and I think those agendas are sometimes deeply dangerous, which is maybe a more accurate summation of the article's main concern. Sometimes though a conspiracy theory is just... people being at their less than best in a way that is strange and bizarre, but brings no one any harm. Depends on what the conspiracy is and whether or not the theorist is truly deranged or just not as bright as they think they are.
There's also probably a factor of time involved. I mean, as long as NASA doesn't hire one to launch rockets flat-earthers are completely inoffensive outside of their weirdness.
Warning - article isn’t exactly bipartisan in the CT’s it brings up. For the purpose of the thread, it’s the commentary and not the examples that are of interest
I mean, I'd say some conspiracy theories are deeply dangerous. I've already had my rant about how Sandy Hook destroyed lives twice over and how anti-vaxxers are killing people. Sovereign Citizens kill a surprising number of law enforcement officers year to year. Moreso than the low level of media attention directed their way suggests. Other conspiracy theories, despite what they are, are fairly harmless. Fake moon landing nonsense normally doesn't hurt anyone. Though there is that time that astronaut punched that one douche who harassed him on the street about it, that was uncool of them. I think CTs get used by people with agendas and I think those agendas are sometimes deeply dangerous, which is maybe a more accurate summation of the article's main concern. Sometimes though a conspiracy theory is just... people being at their less than best in a way that is strange and bizarre, but brings no one any harm. Depends on what the conspiracy is and whether or not the theorist is truly deranged or just not as bright as they think they are.
There's also probably a factor of time involved. I mean, as long as NASA doesn't hire one to launch rockets flat-earthers are completely inoffensive outside of their weirdness.
Sovereign citizens?
You mean those declaring their own land? Claiming government is illegitimate. etc.
Didn't realize they were that dangerous. How come?
In the violent sense, they have a habit of squating and shooting at the officers who show up to evict them. Apparently the Sheriff is only the highest authority when he’s not doing anything. Among other things, the Oklahoma City Bomber and the El Paso shooter both espoused elements of sovereign citizen ideology that feed into their behavior so theirs is also a trend that feeds into some other things at times that are even more violent. They have a shared origin with the militia movement in Posse Comitatus so their ideology finds its way around.
In a less overtly violent way, some of the scams they perpetuate can really screw with people’s finances and that’s not really much better. The term paper terrorism was coined to describe their habit of bombarding people with empty litigation design to intimidate.
Edit: it can also go in really outright murder directions. There’s a case where a guy set his own house on fire and shot the first cops who showed up. I can’t remember his specific reasoning but he was an SC. The movement does attract some people who just want an excuse to hurt others I think.
LordofHats wrote: In the violent sense, they have a habit of squating and shooting at the officers who show up to evict them. Apparently the Sheriff is only the highest authority when he’s not doing anything. Among other things, the Oklahoma City Bomber and the El Paso shooter both espoused elements of sovereign citizen ideology that feed into their behavior so theirs is also a trend that feeds into some other things at times that are even more violent. They have a shared origin with the militia movement in Posse Comitatus so their ideology finds its way around.
In a less overtly violent way, some of the scams they perpetuate can really screw with people’s finances and that’s not really much better. The term paper terrorism was coined to describe their habit of bombarding people with empty litigation design to intimidate.
Edit: it can also go in really outright murder directions. There’s a case where a guy set his own house on fire and shot the first cops who showed up. I can’t remember his specific reasoning but he was an SC. The movement does attract some people who just want an excuse to hurt others I think.
Comparative movements exist in germany but they are mostly regarded as nutjobs. However they recently also stirred up some trouble.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Why are exponents of Sovereign Citizen (US) or Freeman on the Land a bloody menace?
Not Online!!! wrote: There's also probably a factor of time involved. I mean, as long as NASA doesn't hire one to launch rockets flat-earthers are completely inoffensive outside of their weirdness.
Sovereign citizens?
You mean those declaring their own land? Claiming government is illegitimate. etc.
Didn't realize they were that dangerous. How come?
There's a bit more to their beliefs than that. Mostly it's a lot of magical thinking regarding the courts, stemming from a severe misunderstanding of how they operate. Sort of like a cargo cult, really, if the cargo cult had guns and a tendency to take over wildlife refuges.
The U.K. version is arguably less serious, as we don’t tend to involve guns etc.
I mean i can partially understand the argument of Reichsbürger or such groups, in way i regard them as a symptom of a failure somewhere in the governmental system be it democratic deficit or only partially functioning. HOWEVER only partially, that has more to do with my philosophical standpont on constitution and democracy than anything, but just because i find some things partially illegitimate isn't reason enough for me to just shoot someone now is it?
Or declare my own country for that matter.
There's a bit more to their beliefs than that. Mostly it's a lot of magical thinking regarding the courts, stemming from a severe misunderstanding of how they operate. Sort of like a cargo cult, really, if the cargo cult had guns and a tendency to take over wildlife refuges.
well, atleast cargo cults were peacefull for the most part.
I find them actually kinda fascinating.
I know much of this thread has been devoted to "heavy" conspiracies involving lizard-folk, NWO, and global dominance, but what are your views on the rather innocuous conspiracies out there?
If you're wondering what I'd consider an innocuous conspiracy, here's an example:
In 1966, the Ford GTs famously beat Ferrari at Le Mans. . . there's even a recent hollywood movie about it . . But, while doing more research on Ken Miles and his cars (for scale model projects) I came across a group (I guess one term would be boffins? anoraks? I dunno. . . ) who was absolutely CONVINCED that Ken Miles had, in fact won the race. They were setting out to prove it by reconstructing the race of the top 3 cars to prove that, lap by lap, the Miles/Hulme car was consistently so much faster than Mclaren/Amon's GT-40 that the ONLY possible way for Miles to have lost, is that race officials opted to simply "not count" a number of his laps.
The main thrust of the argument here, I guess, is that because of Miles' . . . particular. . personality, he was rather unliked by certain members of not only the Ford executive committees, but apparently he'd pissed off some FIA types as well during the course of his racing career, and as a result of his prickly-ness, they didn't *want* him to be the only triple crown endurance racer in history.
Honestly, when it comes to a lot of the "innocuous" types of conspiracy, seems like we can really just hover around and dive into all sorts of sports/sporting situations. And really, what I think makes them this way, rather than the "dangerous" sorts of conspiracy is that ultimately, it doesn't matter. . .belief in this subset of conspiracies doesn't really affect how one participates in a democratic government, or public policy, or really anything like that. . . it just leads some to maybe, dislike a particular team or sport for a particular and peculiar reason.
Yeah, heard a lot of that with the last couple Superbowls and semi-finals leading up to that, about how the league and refs are going to 'steal' games from teams to promote the other team that serves their agenda... whatever that is- usually a particular quarterback who is 'definitely' going to win the Heisman trophy or whatever.
Mind you, the predictions I've heard the last couple years have an accuracy of about one game in six predictions being successfully 'stolen,' so why they believe their conspiracy is an open question.
Conspiracy Theorists are easy to understand - their epistemological errors come from their inability to accept objective evidence/proof, under the proper context, with reality as the standard for judgment.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Had to Google a word....thank you! Always nice to expand ones vocabulary a wee bit!
Oddly, there are those unable to accept empirical evidence, but also those unwilling to do so.
It’s the former I see as victims, the sort used to fund religious sects, woo peddlers etc due to their natural mindset.
It’s those that are wilful that are the real problem.
Isn't there a very blurry line between the two tho?? Can you maybe expand on what you mean between unable and unwilling??
Because when follow that with "victims" who are used to fund religious sects, woo peddlers, etc. I personally would usually put them in the unwilling category myself.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and that last one?
A promissory note is legally binding..
Read the full letter, then see if you can tell me where the consumer has gone wrong....
There is a new variant starting up with somewhat more weight behind it.
It works on the Common Law principle and argues that if Amazon can openly negotiate not to pay tax, and do so in arrears this sets a legal precedent for common citizens to also do so. I find this interesting as it is understood that lawful tax cannot be legally deferred. I know a man who works as a council executive and faces this question frequently and honestly by people who simply cannot pay their council tax. He has no choice but to inform them that a due tax cannot be defered, there is no mechanism for doing so. However now apparently there is as corporations can and do do so.
I do not know of any case that has gone to court over this issue yet, but it is only a matter of time, and the first cases will likely be individuals not caught up in any Freeman of the Land bull, but poor people who say 'if Jeff Bezos doesn't have to pay tax on his earnings why cant I.'
Quite frankly, they've got a point. I wonder if the ACLU or someone else could consider this one a reason for a class-action lawsuit, as it seems this discriminates legal entities based on income?
Not a lawyer, just speculating...
I was playing the resident evil 3 remake yesterday, and it got me thinking - could modern media and video games feed into the rise of 'nutty' conspiracy theories?
Most folks know resi as the series with lots of zombies and monsters. The 'big bad' are an evil pharmaceutical called 'umbrella'. They make the virus, and release it, essentially for ***** and giggles.
Playing 3, you,end up in this giant secret lab built under a hospital. This thing was huge and skyscraper level underground. Even Jill has a comment as to how did no one notice it there. Another was stranger things s3 where the Russians have built a secret facility under the town there seemingly miles big.
I just wonder if the 'ease' and familiarity we have with this huge facilities in our media and video games could help hoodwink people into thinking these kinds of things were possible when they're not. They're nothing like facilities in real life. I work in them, I mean, were the resi 3 secret facility real, a facility that big would cost billions and would require (tens of) thousand states of workers and years to build. It would not be a secret.
Deadnight wrote: I was playing the resident evil 3 remake yesterday, and it got me thinking - could modern media and video games feed into the rise of 'nutty' conspiracy theories?.
I'd say it's more the other way around myself. You get conspiracy theory stuff in games because they're prominent in the cultural consciousness, even among people who don't believe in that sort of thing. They do, as many posters have pointed out, make for gripping narratives when you ignore all the ways they don't make sense.
Deadnight wrote: I was playing the resident evil 3 remake yesterday, and it got me thinking - could modern media and video games feed into the rise of 'nutty' conspiracy theories?.
I'd say it's more the other way around myself. You get conspiracy theory stuff in games because they're prominent in the cultural consciousness, even among people who don't believe in that sort of thing. They do, as many posters have pointed out, make for gripping narratives when you ignore all the ways they don't make sense.
Suspect there’s some kind of loop in play.
Person plays Resi 3. Thinks the underground facility is a cool concept.
Person then looks for real world examples. And some do exist, stuff like Missile Silos, forgotten bomb shelters. For example? Where I grew up in Edinburgh, up on Corstorphine Hill? Is a disused/never used Cold War era bunker.
Depending on which rabbit hole you go down, it can lead to ever more bizarre theories.
There are also all sorts of rumours about tunnels under the town. All man made, apparently leading from The Pantiles to the Common. Even rumours of unfeasibly long ones going up to Hawkenbury, which is now part of the town.
Particularly in the U.K., most sizeable towns likely have such relics. Either old storage places, smuggling holes or remnants of WW2 planning.
Person then looks for real world examples. And some do exist, stuff like Missile Silos, forgotten bomb shelters. For example? Where I grew up in Edinburgh, up on Corstorphine Hill? Is a disused/never used Cold War era bunker. .
Huh!
I have lived in Edinburgh for ten years and I have never heard of this place.
Person then looks for real world examples. And some do exist, stuff like Missile Silos, forgotten bomb shelters. For example? Where I grew up in Edinburgh, up on Corstorphine Hill? Is a disused/never used Cold War era bunker. .
Huh!
I have lived in Edinburgh for ten years and I have never heard of this place.
Consider me educated and extremely interested.
Thanks!
First heard about it at Primary School in Drum Brae. Of course the legend was there were skellingtons and dead bodies, but hey!
I just wonder if the 'ease' and familiarity we have with this huge facilities in our media and video games could help hoodwink people into thinking these kinds of things were possible when they're not. They're nothing like facilities in real life. I work in them, I mean, were the resi 3 secret facility real, a facility that big would cost billions and would require (tens of) thousand states of workers and years to build. It would not be a secret.
Just a thought..
Like the supposed armies of the signatories of the Antarctic Treaty, that guard the ice wall running the circumference of the Flat Earth.
They appear to grand masters of hide-and-seek, with amazing unique survival skills.
Person then looks for real world examples. And some do exist, stuff like Missile Silos, forgotten bomb shelters. For example? Where I grew up in Edinburgh, up on Corstorphine Hill? Is a disused/never used Cold War era bunker. .
Huh!
I have lived in Edinburgh for ten years and I have never heard of this place.
Consider me educated and extremely interested.
Thanks!
First heard about it at Primary School in Drum Brae. Of course the legend was there were skellingtons and dead bodies, but hey!
You two would have a field day over where i live .
Person then looks for real world examples. And some do exist, stuff like Missile Silos, forgotten bomb shelters. For example? Where I grew up in Edinburgh, up on Corstorphine Hill? Is a disused/never used Cold War era bunker. .
Huh!
I have lived in Edinburgh for ten years and I have never heard of this place.
Consider me educated and extremely interested.
Thanks!
First heard about it at Primary School in Drum Brae. Of course the legend was there were skellingtons and dead bodies, but hey!
You two would have a field day over where i live .
I cant walk 100m without bunkers.
Kent is particularly well served, what with being on the main invasion routes.
It’s actually one of my favourite counter-invasion tactics - remove all the road signs. I love going for a bimble round the country lanes, for they are twisty and turny. Great for an adventure with no set destination. Given during the WW2 era we didn’t have A roads or Motorways? That’s a remarkably efficient way to confuse the enemy.
I think town/village name signs were also taken down?
Sure, the enemy could find their way in the end. But it’ll slow it all down!
They removed/blacked out all the town names and roads. The idea being that any spies dropped at night would find it hard to orientate themselves if there was no signage around. It also was supposed to help identify potential spies to the local since locals would already know where they were and the way to most common local places. So people asking for directions would get spotted.
Remembering that in those days we didn't have google maps and the like.
In terms of the Conspirasphere? David Icke has been banned from FB.
I’m not going to link to the story, as it contains bizarre racist stuff from the man himself. Suffice to say I can’t see Twitter keeping him around much longer.
He has of course called it all ‘fascist’, and shows ‘the elite are scared’.
No mate. People are just fed up with your unhinged drivel.
Or any one of a number of other things. Suffice to say its no shock he's been banned and will likely be banned from other places too. He'd have been fine if he'd stuck to his regular posts and such; but he got all the attention over this pandemic and the stupidity surrounding 5D networks.
Or any one of a number of other things. Suffice to say its no shock he's been banned and will likely be banned from other places too. He'd have been fine if he'd stuck to his regular posts and such; but he got all the attention over this pandemic and the stupidity surrounding 5D networks.
TBF tho, considering the attitude of some of Labour in regards to jews i am not as much surprised as i could be.
I think a lot of conspiracy theories are based on a lack of knowledge about science and technology. People assume things are possible in reality that only work in SF stories at best and spy-fi movies at worst.
Red Mercury is a popular conspiracy theory and total BS (and i don't mean ballistic skill) to anyone who knows some science and physics.
5G em transmission creating the corona virus? I already went on a near screaming tirade about that.
HARP? Don't even get me started...
Chemtrails? Oh Puh-leeeeze.
If people understood even a little physics, technology, etc, they'd see a lot of these theories are totally unfeasible if not flat out impossible.
Matt Swain wrote: I think a lot of conspiracy theories are based on a lack of knowledge about science and technology. People assume things are possible in reality that only work in SF stories at best and spy-fi movies at worst.
Heh, I touched on this. I agree. WHen people visualise 'science' or labs, it's not hard to imagine the citysized structures you see in the resident evil movies or video games and how vaccines can be made, for example with the click of a finger and how all these nefarious organisations 'just do' these things seemingly as easily as they do and without any hassles ('a brilliant scientist just happens to make, and release a Tyrant'). They do it in entertainment because of plot armour. I think people all too readily transfer this and overlay it onto real life.
To be fair things like underground cities mostly don't exist because those who want to do it aren't rich enough and those who are are busy building skyscrapers and palm-leaf shaped housing estates in the sea
Matt Swain wrote: I think a lot of conspiracy theories are based on a lack of knowledge about science and technology. People assume things are possible in reality that only work in SF stories at best and spy-fi movies at worst.
Red Mercury is a popular conspiracy theory and total BS (and i don't mean ballistic skill) to anyone who knows some science and physics.
5G em transmission creating the corona virus? I already went on a near screaming tirade about that.
HARP? Don't even get me started...
Chemtrails? Oh Puh-leeeeze.
If people understood even a little physics, technology, etc, they'd see a lot of these theories are totally unfeasible if not flat out impossible.
Me, I tend to think these people watched the old Warner Brother's cartoons. Particularly the ones about the 'house of the future' or even the ones where characters would shut a refrigerator, and a little gnome comes out a hatch and turns the fridge light off.
The people who buy into these conspiracy theories are the people who watched the 'refrigerator light=magic gnomes' cartoons and totally believed it.
Overread wrote: To be fair things like underground cities mostly don't exist because those who want to do it aren't rich enough and those who are are busy building skyscrapers and palm-leaf shaped housing estates in the sea
It's possible and also allready done, but also as someone that actually has "lived" in one for military service it's not inherently comfortable or uncomfortable just not a dwelling i reccomend outside of minecraft
Matt Swain wrote: I think a lot of conspiracy theories are based on a lack of knowledge about science and technology. People assume things are possible in reality that only work in SF stories at best and spy-fi movies at worst.
Heh, I touched on this. I agree. WHen people visualise 'science' or labs, it's not hard to imagine the citysized structures you see in the resident evil movies or video games and how vaccines can be made, for example with the click of a finger and how all these nefarious organisations 'just do' these things seemingly as easily as they do and without any hassles ('a brilliant scientist just happens to make, and release a Tyrant'). They do it in entertainment because of plot armour. I think people all too readily transfer this and overlay it onto real life.
For me, it’s more that a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.
Now I’m a smart guy. My career depends upon my ability to learn and parse information. Yet, in terms of education? I’ve a clutch of 24 year old C Grade GCSE’s.
Amongst those is a ‘double C’ in science. Now, that means I have a very, very basic understanding of Chemsitry, Biology and Physics. Or to be more accurate? I did. Pretty much a lifetime ago.
But I still understand the concept of the scientific method. Everything I learned was based on repeatable experimentation. And I also have a grasp that a good chunk of Proper Science is trying to disprove itself. And as technology marches on, and ever more sophisticated instruments become ever more widespread and accessible? Our collective knowledge as a species can only increase.
Science allows for the Crackpot to be proven right, provided the research is solid, and the result can be replicated by other, possibly less nutty types.
CT’s? Yeah. They’ll take the same ‘qualification’ I do, and consider it comprehensive. And anything more complex than they had at school? Oh that just big confuse word. Done to hoodwink I. But I are smarterererer. Youtube say so’ type thinking.
This is NOT an attack on Teachers, who mostly do a sterling effort getting knowledge into people. But, it may yet be an indictment of the Curriculum they have to teach,
I think it highlights how poorly the education systems around the world are geared up to teach self learning. In fact UK side at least, we don't even encourage nor reward self-learning as a skill until you're at University (and even then its more a 2nd year thing in many subjects where 1st year is a bit like Alevels in that there's often a lot you can achieve with the core reference books - its just more than one "core text book" whilst at school it was typically one per subject).
So for the majority they spend their most formative years not learning how to self learn a subject. So when they start to try they are a high risk of falling into pitfalls of false information online and that leads them down a rabbithole of confusion and they don't even know they are in one let alone how to get out.
This is a problem born of mark schemes. Because the mark scheme system is efficient to mark with its used, but it has a snare built into it. Any student that does self learn within a subject is, at best, liable to pick up no additional points for material outside of the scheme; and at worst could lose points if they present a more modern correct answer/argument, which differs to the mark scheme answer.
So not only are students not really equipped with the skill until Uni, but its discouraged until then anyway. So for many flat-earthers and other almost "anti-science " groups where I tend to notice that they are predominantly students who didn't go to uni for the sciences (perhaps they did and did the arts or they never went); they specifically lack the self learning skills that they need to prove their own theories.
Overread wrote: I think it highlights how poorly the education systems around the world are geared up to teach self learning.
I dont know about the UK, but in the US we have a definite problem of allowing certain, unscientific beliefs to be "accepted" as proper scientific answers. Obviously, we don't really need to expand upon that particular rabbit hole, but it goes to show that when the understanding of science that a student may garner in their K-12 career is shaky as feth, it really opens the door to deeper misunderstanding of many other areas of the scientific realm.
Overread wrote: I think it highlights how poorly the education systems around the world are geared up to teach self learning. In fact UK side at least, we don't even encourage nor reward self-learning as a skill until you're at University (and even then its more a 2nd year thing in many subjects where 1st year is a bit like Alevels in that there's often a lot you can achieve with the core reference books - its just more than one "core text book" whilst at school it was typically one per subject).
So for the majority they spend their most formative years not learning how to self learn a subject. So when they start to try they are a high risk of falling into pitfalls of false information online and that leads them down a rabbithole of confusion and they don't even know they are in one let alone how to get out.
This is a problem born of mark schemes. Because the mark scheme system is efficient to mark with its used, but it has a snare built into it. Any student that does self learn within a subject is, at best, liable to pick up no additional points for material outside of the scheme; and at worst could lose points if they present a more modern correct answer/argument, which differs to the mark scheme answer.
So not only are students not really equipped with the skill until Uni, but its discouraged until then anyway. So for many flat-earthers and other almost "anti-science " groups where I tend to notice that they are predominantly students who didn't go to uni for the sciences (perhaps they did and did the arts or they never went); they specifically lack the self learning skills that they need to prove their own theories.
As an FE lecturer, all I have to say on the above in regards to self learning is you are asking everyone in the school system to actually be able to perform quite a comprehensive skill that requires high levels of analytical and evaluative skills. That is a mature and high level that usually is only capable from around the age of 15 to be honest.
Additionally, some people actually are incapable of reaching that peak, or well, are in a education system that has to take you in and spit you back out at a certain age within fairly high class sizes of mixed abilities.
If you want to solve it the system has to change, at which point we can teach effectively. a one size fits all system only caters to the middle ground, and quite poorly, it doesn't allow the gifted to flourish and implement the self learning skills you want above, and it doesn't provide the necessary support to learners who need it. I can't tell you how many times I have been frustrated personally in the classroom at the absolute divergence of abilities within a group.
However, your point in bold is genuinely amazing and a debate I had specifically with a lead examiner this year (I am also an examiner for the specific exam). What they wanted as 'perfect score' answer was completely wrong in regards to up to date research in the subject (Sport Science, stuff is always changing...). I was making an argument that an actual correct answer on the subject would have picked up 25% of marks at best, because we are teaching out of date knowledge, that does not reflect current practice (which they would be learning next year at Uni). Crazy.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: For me, it’s more that a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing.
Now I’m a smart guy. My career depends upon my ability to learn and parse information. Yet, in terms of education? I’ve a clutch of 24 year old C Grade GCSE’s.
Amongst those is a ‘double C’ in science. Now, that means I have a very, very basic understanding of Chemsitry, Biology and Physics. Or to be more accurate? I did. Pretty much a lifetime ago.
But I still understand the concept of the scientific method. Everything I learned was based on repeatable experimentation. And I also have a grasp that a good chunk of Proper Science is trying to disprove itself. And as technology marches on, and ever more sophisticated instruments become ever more widespread and accessible? Our collective knowledge as a species can only increase.
Science allows for the Crackpot to be proven right, provided the research is solid, and the result can be replicated by other, possibly less nutty types.
Well, this is where epistemology, I think, is the key. What is at hand is not the content of what you know, per se, the bare fact of what the contents of chemistry or physics are, but rather the manner in which you can take information and parse it against itself to discern what might be a fact and what might not. In other words, collecting seeming facts is largely irrelevant, what you need is the system by which you can discern what is justifiably knowledge and what isn't.
In other words, how does one discern what constitutes justifiable knowledge and what does not? Reading all of a physics book does very little to do this. Which is why any specific knowledge is fairly "useless" in the grand scheme of things. We have collections of facts all over, that is just information. What really matters is the manner in which we can know what to do with this information.
I won't repeat my post from pages ago, but it is why information cascades are a sort of key part of this, most probably. But the sorts of "crippled epistemologies" at hand in trying to justify these sorts of conspiratorial thinking, really reveal what is going on, I think. It's not a question of "low information" necessarily, but rather a whole stance on the role of information and what is justifiable. You could think of it as a manner of "top-down" or "bottom-up" thinking, but also just as confirmation bias run rampant.
But let me digress here, I think my posts are often sorts jargon-gallops as it is...
This is where I think university education is a huge deal. . . I know at least in the US, university gets a bad rap as a place of "liberal brainwashing", but the truth of the matter is not that they force people to think a certain way, its that they teach you skills that can be used to evaluate sources, which has a tendency to cause people to start leaning a similar direction. Well, at least that's what *I* did in the history department, and I know most of the "social sciences" (sociology, poli-sci, etc) typically work on the same principles when looking at sources.
And, again here in the US, there is this bizarre mistrust of education, and we often seem to celebrate ignorance. Conspiracy theorists thrive in this sort of environment. And I think it shows when you try to trace down the origins of so many conspiracies and they all point to one country.
And, again here in the US, there is this bizarre mistrust of education, and we often seem to celebrate ignorance. Conspiracy theorists thrive in this sort of environment. And I think it shows when you try to trace down the origins of so many conspiracies and they all point to one country.
It's not just the US.
Who can forget Michael Gove's "Britain has had enough of experts"?
This is where I think university education is a huge deal. . . I know at least in the US, university gets a bad rap as a place of "liberal brainwashing", but the truth of the matter is not that they force people to think a certain way, its that they teach you skills that can be used to evaluate sources, which has a tendency to cause people to start leaning a similar direction. Well, at least that's what *I* did in the history department, and I know most of the "social sciences" (sociology, poli-sci, etc) typically work on the same principles when looking at sources.
And, again here in the US, there is this bizarre mistrust of education, and we often seem to celebrate ignorance. Conspiracy theorists thrive in this sort of environment. And I think it shows when you try to trace down the origins of so many conspiracies and they all point to one country.
It's the same in the UK, well, I know it is that way to a certain extent, if you are doing a BSc or other science based, you have to undertake research methods in some part, that means in theory you learn to critically evaluate sources for quality. Now some people will always try and justify findings to further their own narrative, but if you are ethically minded, you will not do this.
Slightly distrusting of typical BA disciplines though to be honest, especially within the social sciences.... I've read about enough bogus papers being published to not fully trust the ethical integrity of their disciplines. If anyone is unaware of a fairly famous hoax played on some publishers of social sciences then read this, known as 'The New Sokal': https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/
However, it is not just the social sciences that are evidently unethical... This article I read a few months back is truly horrifying in regards to bogus anaesthesia research published: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02241-z
If you want to talk about conspiracy theories, seriously, the world of research is much deeper and darker than just the 'pay for research' cases of big business buying research that supports their products. There are some seriously messed up practices going on, and that's also without mentioning the amount of PHD students who commit suicide each year.
Overread wrote: I think it highlights how poorly the education systems around the world are geared up to teach self learning. In fact UK side at least, we don't even encourage nor reward self-learning as a skill until you're at University (and even then its more a 2nd year thing in many subjects where 1st year is a bit like Alevels in that there's often a lot you can achieve with the core reference books - its just more than one "core text book" whilst at school it was typically one per subject).
So for the majority they spend their most formative years not learning how to self learn a subject. So when they start to try they are a high risk of falling into pitfalls of false information online and that leads them down a rabbithole of confusion and they don't even know they are in one let alone how to get out.
This is a problem born of mark schemes. Because the mark scheme system is efficient to mark with its used, but it has a snare built into it. Any student that does self learn within a subject is, at best, liable to pick up no additional points for material outside of the scheme; and at worst could lose points if they present a more modern correct answer/argument, which differs to the mark scheme answer.
So not only are students not really equipped with the skill until Uni, but its discouraged until then anyway. So for many flat-earthers and other almost "anti-science " groups where I tend to notice that they are predominantly students who didn't go to uni for the sciences (perhaps they did and did the arts or they never went); they specifically lack the self learning skills that they need to prove their own theories.
As an FE lecturer, all I have to say on the above in regards to self learning is you are asking everyone in the school system to actually be able to perform quite a comprehensive skill that requires high levels of analytical and evaluative skills. That is a mature and high level that usually is only capable from around the age of 15 to be honest.
Additionally, some people actually are incapable of reaching that peak, or well, are in a education system that has to take you in and spit you back out at a certain age within fairly high class sizes of mixed abilities.
If you want to solve it the system has to change, at which point we can teach effectively. a one size fits all system only caters to the middle ground, and quite poorly, it doesn't allow the gifted to flourish and implement the self learning skills you want above, and it doesn't provide the necessary support to learners who need it. I can't tell you how many times I have been frustrated personally in the classroom at the absolute divergence of abilities within a group.
However, your point in bold is genuinely amazing and a debate I had specifically with a lead examiner this year (I am also an examiner for the specific exam). What they wanted as 'perfect score' answer was completely wrong in regards to up to date research in the subject (Sport Science, stuff is always changing...). I was making an argument that an actual correct answer on the subject would have picked up 25% of marks at best, because we are teaching out of date knowledge, that does not reflect current practice (which they would be learning next year at Uni). Crazy.
True I'm sure my theory would be much harder to put into practice, but I suspect there would be some leeway to making some changes. Eg perhaps introducing two or three text books for one or two subjects rather than just the one text book. Thus at least presenting the idea to students of using more than one source material. Weening them off the concept of a comprehensive text book approach to learning.
Though yes a real big change would be a means for the marking scheme to be more flexible. Sadly it seems they want to go the other way with the increase in tick-box examinations and that whole side of things. Something I dislike because to me tick-box systems tend to end up being very crafty with wording so that two or three can logically appear to be the right answer, but only one is the perfect definition. Though I went through over 10 years ago now so this is only secondhand info that there's more tickboxing going on. I know even back then there was increasing talk of them wanting to do more tickbox exams.
Ensis Ferrae wrote:And, again here in the US, there is this bizarre mistrust of education, and we often seem to celebrate ignorance.
Well, I am not sure that it is necessarily a "celebration of ignorance" in all cases, so much so as it is more distrust of so-called "expertise." In a sense, this can sometimes be justified, because people really do use "knowledge" in immoral, or unethical ways. Or, use knowledge to push a vested interest. In other words, knowledge alone doesn't really insulate from confirmation bias. In a sens, one could sort of say that information is "neutral," but people might not be. In reality, I don't think information, like language, is actually ever neutral. Because it might be, in-itself, but we don't even have knowledge, or just information, in-itself, we have it for-ourselves. Which means that whatever the Self is, tinges, taints, or twists whatever information is at-hand. If nothing at-hand, then we've already suspected that "knowledge" is, in some part, to be exploited as a means, so why not just make something up? When we could be radically skeptical of anything, why then believe anything besides what confirms your biases?
See, it all is complicated. Very complicated. It seems to be to be a whole intersection of identity, epistemology, information theory, and so much more. All that really winds up my jargon machine too, which is always already running, and makes it really hard to talk about it all succinctly too. Maybe if I was just better with words it would help too.
Crispy78 wrote:It's not just the US.
Who can forget Michael Gove's "Britain has had enough of experts"?
A mere two years after serving as Secretary Of State for bloody Education...
Well, I don't know who that is, but I can think of a variety of "vested interests" in pitching that. Again, I don't really want to rehash what I wrote pages ago, but there are all sorts of reasons to be skeptical of so-called experts. Yet, at the same time, there is also good reason to believe what many of them are saying.
But that is the nuance to it all. You have to learn when skepticism is a "useful" stance and when it's not helpful, or serves only to confirm one's own biases.
Overread wrote: I think it highlights how poorly the education systems around the world are geared up to teach self learning. In fact UK side at least, we don't even encourage nor reward self-learning as a skill until you're at University (and even then its more a 2nd year thing in many subjects where 1st year is a bit like Alevels in that there's often a lot you can achieve with the core reference books - its just more than one "core text book" whilst at school it was typically one per subject).
So for the majority they spend their most formative years not learning how to self learn a subject. So when they start to try they are a high risk of falling into pitfalls of false information online and that leads them down a rabbithole of confusion and they don't even know they are in one let alone how to get out.
This is a problem born of mark schemes. Because the mark scheme system is efficient to mark with its used, but it has a snare built into it. Any student that does self learn within a subject is, at best, liable to pick up no additional points for material outside of the scheme; and at worst could lose points if they present a more modern correct answer/argument, which differs to the mark scheme answer.
So not only are students not really equipped with the skill until Uni, but its discouraged until then anyway. So for many flat-earthers and other almost "anti-science " groups where I tend to notice that they are predominantly students who didn't go to uni for the sciences (perhaps they did and did the arts or they never went); they specifically lack the self learning skills that they need to prove their own theories.
As an FE lecturer, all I have to say on the above in regards to self learning is you are asking everyone in the school system to actually be able to perform quite a comprehensive skill that requires high levels of analytical and evaluative skills. That is a mature and high level that usually is only capable from around the age of 15 to be honest.
Additionally, some people actually are incapable of reaching that peak, or well, are in a education system that has to take you in and spit you back out at a certain age within fairly high class sizes of mixed abilities.
If you want to solve it the system has to change, at which point we can teach effectively. a one size fits all system only caters to the middle ground, and quite poorly, it doesn't allow the gifted to flourish and implement the self learning skills you want above, and it doesn't provide the necessary support to learners who need it. I can't tell you how many times I have been frustrated personally in the classroom at the absolute divergence of abilities within a group.
However, your point in bold is genuinely amazing and a debate I had specifically with a lead examiner this year (I am also an examiner for the specific exam). What they wanted as 'perfect score' answer was completely wrong in regards to up to date research in the subject (Sport Science, stuff is always changing...). I was making an argument that an actual correct answer on the subject would have picked up 25% of marks at best, because we are teaching out of date knowledge, that does not reflect current practice (which they would be learning next year at Uni). Crazy.
True I'm sure my theory would be much harder to put into practice, but I suspect there would be some leeway to making some changes. Eg perhaps introducing two or three text books for one or two subjects rather than just the one text book. Thus at least presenting the idea to students of using more than one source material. Weening them off the concept of a comprehensive text book approach to learning.
Though yes a real big change would be a means for the marking scheme to be more flexible. Sadly it seems they want to go the other way with the increase in tick-box examinations and that whole side of things. Something I dislike because to me tick-box systems tend to end up being very crafty with wording so that two or three can logically appear to be the right answer, but only one is the perfect definition. Though I went through over 10 years ago now so this is only secondhand info that there's more tickboxing going on. I know even back then there was increasing talk of them wanting to do more tickbox exams.
The specific examination issues doesn't come from box ticking, well it does, fundamentally you cannot have 12,000 papers all being an essay format based upon ones own opinion on a subject matter, and then another persons opinion on the grading of such. We examiners need to be funnelled in regards to marking also, otherwise internal verification of that mark is virtually impossible (and some examiners aren't that great), so you don't want wrong grades being awarded. Which means a question has to be funnelled, and marks have to be triggered by specific actions that the students are taught to write towards triggering.
It's incredibly difficult to justify in words why we do this, but basically, there's method to the madness, and secondly exams in my opinion are harder in some qualifications than they use to be. You then get the argument that exam rates keep going up so they can't be harder... Well, the reason why that is, is because the subject content has not been updated for so long, teachers become masters of teaching to the exam, they almost know what is coming and can prepare the students to multiple scenarios. As well as being an examiner I obviously teach exam units also, and my grade average goes up every year, I can pretty much guarantee how many A's I can get in a class now in August, before I've even met my class. Change and update the subject material, and grades will drop again. Guaranteed.
Slightly distrusting of typical BA disciplines though to be honest, especially within the social sciences.... I've read about enough bogus papers being published to not fully trust the ethical integrity of their disciplines. If anyone is unaware of a fairly famous hoax played on some publishers of social sciences then read this, known as 'The New Sokal': https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/
None of those hoaxes ever submit bogus papers to a "hard science" to act as a control group. So their conclusions are meaningless as they do not offer any proof that false papers being published is limited to the social sciences.
Slightly distrusting of typical BA disciplines though to be honest, especially within the social sciences.... I've read about enough bogus papers being published to not fully trust the ethical integrity of their disciplines. If anyone is unaware of a fairly famous hoax played on some publishers of social sciences then read this, known as 'The New Sokal': https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/
None of those hoaxes ever submit bogus papers to a "hard science" to act as a control group. So their conclusions are meaningless as they do not offer any proof that false papers being published is limited to the social sciences.
I assume it is because it is incredibly difficult to hoax in a hard science discipline. You can't really get away with making up a complete new theory like you can with the social sciences. However, like my other example above, the hard sciences do have issues, mainly with falsifying data as the example shows.
My main distrust of the social sciences is the absolute lack of common sense when reading the above 'findings', additionally, due to the nature of how they 'conduct' research - being, not taking a hard science pathway for it and allowing flimsy research practice, usually because it furthers their agenda - it just makes it a bit of a joke to be honest. Agenda based research is against what I would consider should be the absolute corner stone of research - objectivity.
Slightly distrusting of typical BA disciplines though to be honest, especially within the social sciences.... I've read about enough bogus papers being published to not fully trust the ethical integrity of their disciplines. If anyone is unaware of a fairly famous hoax played on some publishers of social sciences then read this, known as 'The New Sokal': https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/
None of those hoaxes ever submit bogus papers to a "hard science" to act as a control group. So their conclusions are meaningless as they do not offer any proof that false papers being published is limited to the social sciences.
I assume it is because it is incredibly difficult to hoax in a hard science discipline. You can't really get away with making up a complete new theory like you can with the social sciences. However, like my other example above, the hard sciences do have issues, mainly with falsifying data as the example shows.
Right, so there is a way to submit false papers. But they don't do that because it wouldn't support the agenda they are trying to push.
Hoaxing in hard sciences doesn't need to be making up a completely new theory. Falsifying data is equally applicable.
Slightly distrusting of typical BA disciplines though to be honest, especially within the social sciences.... I've read about enough bogus papers being published to not fully trust the ethical integrity of their disciplines. If anyone is unaware of a fairly famous hoax played on some publishers of social sciences then read this, known as 'The New Sokal': https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/
None of those hoaxes ever submit bogus papers to a "hard science" to act as a control group. So their conclusions are meaningless as they do not offer any proof that false papers being published is limited to the social sciences.
I assume it is because it is incredibly difficult to hoax in a hard science discipline. You can't really get away with making up a complete new theory like you can with the social sciences. However, like my other example above, the hard sciences do have issues, mainly with falsifying data as the example shows.
Right, so there is a way to submit false papers. But they don't do that because it wouldn't support the agenda they are trying to push.
Hoaxing in hard sciences doesn't need to be making up a completely new theory. Falsifying data is equally applicable.
I'm with you, it's just as much of a problem, what I'm trying to say is it is 100% easier to disprove or invalidate from the first time reading it in a hard science, you can't get away with creating new theories that go against established theories. You absolutely can do that in the social sciences, and that's because they do not adhere to high standards.
Falsifying data in hard sciences, and when I am saying falsifying data, I'm talking about it only becoming apparent if you forensically go through the data to look for issues. You cannot do that in the social sciences as a lot of the time there is no hard data, there are no numbers, so it is easier to blag.
Erm, you realise that it is contextualy easier to disprove social sciences and that there is a difference between quantifyable science and qualitative science?
Not Online!!! wrote: Erm, you realise that it is contextualy easier to disprove social sciences and that there is a difference between quantifyable science and qualitative science?
Yeah, considering I teach research methods, I'm fairly aware of the difference. I also tend to disagree with you and would state it is easier to disprove quantitative sources.
Easier is probably the wrong word to use actually, you can for definite find issues within quantitative data if you analyse them, as in you can come to a definitive conclusion, this can be difficult with qualitative.
Not Online!!! wrote: Erm, you realise that it is contextualy easier to disprove social sciences and that there is a difference between quantifyable science and qualitative science?
Yeah, considering I teach research methods, I'm fairly aware of the difference. I also tend to disagree with you and would state it is easier to disprove quantitative sources.
Easier is probably the wrong word to use actually, you can for definite find issues within quantitative data if you analyse them, as in you can come to a definitive conclusion, this can be difficult with qualitative.
TBF, especially in philosophy, which if it employ methodology in most cases employs qualitative, the key is to find the premises that are or have issues.
The core issue however is, that qualitative lends it's hand better to dogma, or world view science type things. as in the more restitance and adherence to dogma, which makes disproving, atleast for me easier but actually removing a view quite a bit harder.
Which is also where agenda science rears it's head especially in newer subdivisions of social science which as of yet had not a phase where they started to form standard value combinations unlike economy or political science.
Remind me, wasn't SKOAL also the the whole greivance study incident?
Yup found it.
I believe the core issue is with people actually having a lack of integrity, and less with the methods employed.
Also i don't know how differing culture affects the liklyhood of Agenda science or ideological indoctrination for social studies, beeing linked to the corresponding culture can mean that it is impacted a lot by it.
I'm absolute not discrediting all qualitative research, it is required and the absolutely only way to conduct studies in certain aspects, your example above, I'd be hard pressed to form a conclusive and empirical quantitative based research approach for philosophy. I use qualitative approaches all the time in my sport performance business, when I want to know what makes a person tick and motivates them, there's only so much I can do with hard data to form conclusions, I have to speak to them as well, which then can potentially lean me into being subjective, even if it is not conscious. So I usually rephrase key questions multiple times to ensure I have as much clarity about their thoughts and feelings as possible.
Yeah, that's what I allude to above to be honest when I say I am distrustful of a fair amount of research from the social sciences and it is all because of the infiltration of agenda based research. That's not to say the hard sciences also do not have agendas also, and go out of their way to prove such agendas - even tweaking figures as I referenced above in the second link.
I have to say I do have a narrow view of agenda science though, I tend to only ever read studies that are either American, or English and well... America is the pinnacle breeding ground of aggressive agenda based research.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On a slightly interesting tangent talking about research, have some of you read the story about testing of the rona in Tanzania, with fruit coming back as a positive test? I actually laughed, as it turns out it seems to be a flaw in the testing process conducted at this specific lab used.
That would have opened up a complete can of worms though in regards to the conspiracy theorists stating that the data is been inflated....
endlesswaltz123 wrote: I'm absolute not discrediting all qualitative research, it is required and the absolutely only way to conduct studies in certain aspects, your example above, I'd be hard pressed to form a conclusive and empirical quantitative based research approach for philosophy. I use qualitative approaches all the time in my sport performance business, when I want to know what makes a person tick and motivates them, there's only so much I can do with hard data to form conclusions, I have to speak to them as well, which then can potentially lean me into being subjective, even if it is not conscious. So I usually rephrase key questions multiple times to ensure I have as much clarity about their thoughts and feelings as possible.
So basically you follow what is a good qualitative approach to the letter.
As for Philosophy: Philosophy does rarely use either approach. Philosophy at most attempts to give context to methodological research more often and or the base tools by supplying logic for social science the themes and questions. Or is concerned about if we are even real but that field insofar only really meets with psychology, neurology and of course the new hip stream of simulation theory so in a way quantum physics. Also as an aside, it's funny to me that neurology and Psychology are at a point where the question is now basically the same as philosophy asked what, 2000 years ago in the question of how body and mind interact, just from another direction?
Our most important tool is basically mind experiments. Rarely requiring data and beeing more a set of premises and arguments aswell as a conclussion. Not to say that we don't include it or disregard data, it just depends on which subdiscipline you work in philosophy. The practical part of course uses if it is any decent what is available in datasets from other disciplines (economy and alot of other sciences come to mind which are further sub disciplines born out of philosophy), however qualitative research is based upon premises and questions, which are basic logic operations which is basically all we do more or less making it comparatively easy to spot internal logical issues in it.
Yeah, that's what I allude to above to be honest when I say I am distrustful of a fair amount of research from the social sciences and it is all because of the infiltration of agenda based research. That's not to say the hard sciences also do not have agendas also, and go out of their way to prove such agendas - even tweaking figures as I referenced above in the second link.
I have to say I do have a narrow view of agenda science though, I tend to only ever read studies that are either American, or English and well... America is the pinnacle breeding ground of aggressive agenda based research.
there was an interesting interview in the NZZ with a historian in switzerland, about the "fiction of one scientific truth":
https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/caspar-hirschi-im-interview-ld.1554576 TLDR, humanities as their main job is to critically intervene. In order to not allow experts to give out unchallanged statements or the "simple" political recipie or action in order to avoid giving the population clear simple picture , because the situation as it is isn't clear.
Also there's another issue endimic in regards to cultural influence over science.
the , let's call it sphere issue. What i mean by that is that language groups tend to form shperes which are quite verifyable take the "german sphere of academia" f.e. it is quite a bit more distanced to regular societiy the reason is found in it's inception as a Elite that was not in possession of power and therefore had to distance itself from the other elites (nobility and economy elites), which has lead to a more ivory tower behaviour, overlycomplex lingua academia and other nice little side issues. And the "big " german states of Austria and Prussia, later on german empire were autocratic and had a top down structure. Basically beeing academicaly correct was more important then political influence after 1848 which has lead to an (sometimes) over correct and over complex language and structure of it. On the other hand it in general has hand and feet what is made, just a pain to read, and yes this it the field where you can throw in Hegel and start unmigitated suffering for philosophy students and professors
And that is just a difference that is verifybale via releases of papers and books and for whom they are released, comparatively the "anglosphere" is a lot more accepting of the laymen and is written often for the laymen.
and then you have the wierd hodgepodge and structures that we have which separete us from the german sphere propper to a degree aswell as from the french and italian. Probably best seen when you compare political science in its research of direct democratic processes and influences of it on society. Which tends to be alot more critical of it's role in the sourounding nations meanwhile over here it is just a fact as is paying taxes and dying.
Culture is quite heavily influencing prevalent tools and dogmas. the key is to be atleast aware of them.
As for the agendasetting issues, we don't seem to suffer from that as violently because we have politicised basically everything but in a system that is based upon the simple fact that you shall still work together out of principle, but that has also to do with how the political system inherently influences the society and all it's branches but vice versa how science inherently influences politics aswell can probably best shown with rousseau and the heavy republicanistic dogma under which switzerland falls in it's core foundation idelogy of how the state should be run.
I remember a few years ago when the mid-west got hit with a big blizzard, and people were like "so much for global warming." Paradoxically, blizzards of that scale were a century ago, common place in the American Mid-West. Not a freak once in a decade occurrence. Frankly, at this point all you have to do is look at some places in Central/South America and Africa to see that climate change is real and is devastating. Frankly, whether or not humans are causing it is something of a policy/academic issue. To be in denial of shifting climate patterns today is to be in absolute denial of one's own ignorance.
And because I still think it's fascinating, whenever I talk about climate change I always bring up that the Middle East used to be home to massive sprawling cedar forests. It wasn't the highly arid/desert climate it is today until about 250 years ago. The oldest piece of human literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh, has a moral lesson about the dangers of mass deforestation. How the feth did the Sumerians manage to work this gak out thousands of years ago while idiots today just want to be obtuse dicks bizarrely obsessed with the performance of the fossil fuel market?
We live in an age of short term thinking and divided family units. This tends to encourage much more short term resource extraction and use. It's why so many places are happy to strip trees at an insane rate, but don't even bother with replanting.
Though at the same time a lot of poorer nations are strip deforesting to convert the land into farmland to generate food and income. Basically they are,at an insane speed, repeating what countries like the UK have already done. And because we see it happening now we see the destruction it cause. In the UK we don't see as much of it because we already did it generations ago, if at a steadier pace.
It's worth noting that the Mississippi river at St. Louis used to freeze over regularly. And when I say 'freeze over', before the highway bridges over the river they'd drive small trucks over the ice routinely in the twenties and thirties.
I moved there in the mid-eighties and lived there forty years... and never once did the river freeze over AT ALL.
I moved there in the mid-eighties and lived there forty years... and never once did the river freeze over AT ALL.
An argument could be made that we were beginning to see "proper" climate change by the mid-70s . . . Growing up and seeing the LA Rams play on TV, LA always had a heavy, heavy "fog" (aka, the smog was hella thick). . . Seeing LA now (even pre-lockdown 2020), with all of the improvements to emissions regulations, business practices, etc. there has been quite a big turn around in air quality since the early 90s.
Then there's where I actually grew up in the PNW. . . when I was still in school, by mid-december the highest the temp would reach would be around 43 F. And about half the days, if they were clear, I'd be waiting for the school bus and it would be 20 (they finally delayed/altered bus schedules when it hit 19 F or below a couple times). . . Where I live now near Tacoma, WA. . . the winters have been wild swings. One year it got cold and icy with a couple snow storms. This past winter it was warm as feth, with only one light dusting of snow. I know that I'm using individual weather events as examples, but I think y'all know what I'm on about. . . the "themes" of various seasons are changing in weird ways, and its generally getting warmer, which is not good where I'm at
On a more interesting note, this thread got me to wondering how one could engage with conspiracy theorists.
As we've all seen, hitting them with facts doesn't seem to work.
It turns out the trick is to not go all confrontational but to get them to do the thinking themselves.
Since conspiracism does not come from rational analysis (it is very much a rationalisation of something one has already decided is true), engaging in my facts vs your facts rarely works; they'll only dig their trenches that much deeper.
Some things that can work: First, for all techniques, empathize with them over something unrelated, so they start to think of you not as an opponent or an agent of "the man", but as a sympathetic ear or part of some peer group (a local sports team victory or whatever).
Then ask them questions about their beliefs. To a moonlanding denier, for example, you could ask something like "I don't understand. I can see that there are no stars in the pictures, but I don't see stars in the sky during the day here on Earth either."
Another approach might be to lay out both sides. Since conspiracy theorists often explain away any evidence that disputes their side as proof of "the cover-up", lay out the arguments against the theory, and add things that would prove your side wrong. Then sum up the arguments for the theory and ask them: "what could prove this theory wrong?" or, "What evidence would be required to change your mind?". If they say "nothing", you're wasting your time anyway. If they're at least a kittle bit interested in sincere debate, they'll start thinking.
Both methods puts the ball in their court to start examining their beliefs, and with some clever/gentle coaxing, they'll hopefully discover "for themselves" that they were wrong.
In either case, the key is empathy first, then gently bring in the logic.
Plandemic, aka planed pandemic, aka BILL GATES WANT'S TO CHIP ALL OFF US!!! / not...
came up at the start of the thread but recently the general populus of far left and right morons and other wierdo or fringe groups has highjacked it and staged protests in germany and switzerland here.
This will probably read more aggressively than it's meant to, so please read it assuming a jovial tone, but I think there's a whole heap of strawmanning going on here and it feels a lot like the interdisciplinary-critiques I read in undergrad essays that's rooted in a lack of familiarity with material outside of one's own field. I believe a lot of conspiracy thinking emerges from the same problems, so it's even on-topic!
Slightly distrusting of typical BA disciplines though to be honest, especially within the social sciences.... I've read about enough bogus papers being published to not fully trust the ethical integrity of their disciplines. If anyone is unaware of a fairly famous hoax played on some publishers of social sciences then read this, known as 'The New Sokal': https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/
How many is 'enough'? What does bogus mean? Further examples?
I assume it is because it is incredibly difficult to hoax in a hard science discipline. You can't really get away with making up a complete new theory like you can with the social sciences. However, like my other example above, the hard sciences do have issues, mainly with falsifying data as the example shows.
How precisely are you using 'theory' here? It obviously means different things in hard science than elsewhere and I want to be sure I'm reading you correctly.
My main distrust of the social sciences is the absolute lack of common sense when reading the above 'findings', additionally, due to the nature of how they 'conduct' research - being, not taking a hard science pathway for it and allowing flimsy research practice, usually because it furthers their agenda - it just makes it a bit of a joke to be honest. Agenda based research is against what I would consider should be the absolute corner stone of research - objectivity.
What constitutes a 'lack of common sense'? Why is positivism the only valid approach? What constitutes 'flimsy research practice'? Why do you jump from these vague accusations to 'agenda based research'? Which agendas? How do they lead research? Examples?
endlesswaltz123 wrote:
I'm with you, it's just as much of a problem, what I'm trying to say is it is 100% easier to disprove or invalidate from the first time reading it in a hard science, you can't get away with creating new theories that go against established theories. You absolutely can do that in the social sciences, and that's because they do not adhere to high standards.
Which standards? Are you trying to judge one (group of) discipline(s) by the standards of another? Why is that appropriate?
endlesswaltz123 wrote: You cannot do that in the social sciences as a lot of the time there is no hard data, there are no numbers, so it is easier to blag.
Is the reliance on soft data a reason to discount research when it is only available data? Why?
endlesswaltz123 wrote:I have to say I do have a narrow view of agenda science though, I tend to only ever read studies that are either American, or English and well... America is the pinnacle breeding ground of aggressive agenda based research.
I think trying to make a case about thorough and robust research and then saying you only read material from two countries is alarming. Do you maybe mean you only read material in English? I'd still find that deeply problematic, and it wouldn't fly in much of the humanities, but I'm conscious of it being a commonplace problem amongst scientists in the Anglophone world.
TheMeanDM wrote: Is Umbrella Guy with the hammer starting the looting in Minneapolis a conspiracy theory or a real thing?
the conspiracy that he's a cop??? Seems to point to the "real thing" . . . but it is unconfirmed, and likely to be impossible to confirm. . . . . But, lets be real for a moment. . . . I don't think ANYONE wants to actually discuss that, as that will inevitably go wrong here.
Ok this is conspiracy theory related and I jut saw it on my FB feed. I edited it a little because i wanted to share it here.
Imagine being Bill Gates right now.
You spend 30 years of your life and give $50 billion supporting humanitarian causes. You directly save hundreds of thousands of lives in Asia and Africa by providing anti malaria drugs, research and netting to half of 2 continents, you drop infant mortality rates throughout the entire developing world by funding vaccine programs including vaccinating 40,000,000 children for polio, you give 25 Billion to fund HIV research and charities, and convince dozens of others like you to chip in billions more, amongst a plethora of philanthropic endeavors, you also fund free educational platforms like Khan Academy so people can have free access to high quality education. You even fund and build two Covid19 vaccine research centers as we speak...
Then after donating much of your wealth to charity you advocate for doubling taxes on the rich like yourself, and pledge 90% of the remainder to charity in your will.
Arguably doing more to better life on earth for humanity than any other human being to ever live.
You then hop on the internet, only to find millions of scientifically illiterate imbeciles that are using the very computers you pretty much invented in the first place to call you a child murdering arch villian antichrist who created an epidemic, knowing full well you have been warning the world about it for years, all because they watched a YouTube video made by some conspiracist moron with the intellectual comprehension of a ing potato.
So you're saying that the man who couldn't even market Zune products to us would be incapable of orchestrating a pandamic? That sounds far too rational.
Matt Swain wrote: Ok this is conspiracy theory related and I jut saw it on my FB feed. I edited it a little because i wanted to share it here.
Imagine being Bill Gates right now.
You spend 30 years of your life and give $50 billion supporting humanitarian causes. You directly save hundreds of thousands of lives in Asia and Africa by providing anti malaria drugs, research and netting to half of 2 continents, you drop infant mortality rates throughout the entire developing world by funding vaccine programs including vaccinating 40,000,000 children for polio, you give 25 Billion to fund HIV research and charities, and convince dozens of others like you to chip in billions more, amongst a plethora of philanthropic endeavors, you also fund free educational platforms like Khan Academy so people can have free access to high quality education. You even fund and build two Covid19 vaccine research centers as we speak...
Then after donating much of your wealth to charity you advocate for doubling taxes on the rich like yourself, and pledge 90% of the remainder to charity in your will.
Arguably doing more to better life on earth for humanity than any other human being to ever live.
You then hop on the internet, only to find millions of scientifically illiterate imbeciles that are using the very computers you pretty much invented in the first place to call you a child murdering arch villian antichrist who created an epidemic, knowing full well you have been warning the world about it for years, all because they watched a YouTube video made by some conspiracist moron with the intellectual comprehension of a ing potato.
You can lead a horse to water, but then the horse is going to turn around and accuse you of being the villain for trying to poison it by drinking.....
Disciple of Fate wrote: So you're saying that the man who couldn't even market Zune products to us would be incapable of orchestrating a pandamic? That sounds far too rational.
My favorite response to this is "You mean the man who makes the operating system all your computers and servers run on needs to invent a pandemic to gain control over your life?" If Bill Gates wanted to play big brother, he could do it anytime he wanted.
There's a fair number of people who firmly believe that charity (or giving aid freely) means they're up to something. They firmly believe (mostly because they're taught from childhood) that people innately can't be good. So anyone that seems to be doing weal must be up to something else.
As my career involves accessing (with their full permission) people’s banking records etc?
Yeah. There’s really no need at all to put a physical chip in anyone in the first world. Like. At all.
Between that data and a very basic understanding of how peeps get from A to B, I can pretty much figure out your movements over a week, especially if you’re sensible and check your online balance at least once a day.
Indeed Doc, heck the young folks pretty much use the Twitbooks and Instafaces to broadcast where they are and who else is there all the time, although one of directionally challenged chumettes will post pics asking where she is after going for a walk around the local backroads
Turnip Jedi wrote: Indeed Doc, heck the young folks pretty much use the Twitbooks and Instafaces to broadcast where they are and who else is there all the time
Double indeed.
Have a cell phone? You know that even if you turn the GPS tracking off, the phone is still collecting and storing location data? You literally can't use a phone without pinging a cell tower. Data that is collected and sent back to advertisers via your apps and internet use?
The reality is that most people give away everything about themselves freely. It's just a question of having the time, the money, and sometimes the right soft/hardware to make anything of the information. Honestly, as seedy and insidious as it sounds, its a very mundane thing. It's an unavoidable byproduct of all the conveniences of the modern world. A lot of it directly benefits us in some ways, and in other ways it's an annoyance, and in others it can be abused. Beside the point a bit.
Anyone who thinks Bill Gates (or anyone for that matter) is manufacturing diseases to trick people into vaccinating themselves so that they can plat microchips in you is a fething idiot showcasing nothing but their own ignorance of how computers work.
Turnip Jedi wrote: Indeed Doc, heck the young folks pretty much use the Twitbooks and Instafaces to broadcast where they are and who else is there all the time
Double indeed.
Have a cell phone? You know that even if you turn the GPS tracking off, the phone is still collecting and storing location data? You literally can't use a phone without pinging a cell tower. Data that is collected and sent back to advertisers via your apps and internet use?
The reality is that most people give away everything about themselves freely. It's just a question of having the time, the money, and sometimes the right soft/hardware to make anything of the information. Honestly, as seedy and insidious as it sounds, its a very mundane thing. It's an unavoidable byproduct of all the conveniences of the modern world. A lot of it directly benefits us in some ways, and in other ways it's an annoyance, and in others it can be abused. Beside the point a bit.
Anyone who thinks Bill Gates (or anyone for that matter) is manufacturing diseases to trick people into vaccinating themselves so that they can plat microchips in you is a fething idiot showcasing nothing but their own ignorance of how computers work.
We have a show on tv in the UK called Hunted, where it's a challenge to evade being captured by a team(s) of ex police/military over a few weeks who have access to all the surveillance information and resources that the Police actually have.... Put it like this, you want to avoid capture, you need to stay off main roads and motorways, totally away from city/town centres and you absolutely cannot utilise anything connected to the internet/satellites, they track you down so quickly, even burner phones, if you use them to contact someone they know, or think you may know, they can track you down just off of that. It's quick work for them as well.
Interesting talking about charities above, I absolutely refuse to donate to charity, or well, big charities. So much money is spent on advertising and 'awareness', the money is just p***ed away, hardly any gets to where it needs to get too, and then I am extremely skeptical of what happens to that money at the other end if money is given to third parties to spend as they see fit...
Interesting talking about charities above, I absolutely refuse to donate to charity, or well, big charities. So much money is spent on advertising and 'awareness', the money is just p***ed away, hardly any gets to where it needs to get too, and then I am extremely skeptical of what happens to that money at the other end if money is given to third parties to spend as they see fit...
Its always worth checking on charities (and non-profits- had a bad experience working for one, not actively illegal just crappy behavior by the boss)
Humble bundle is the simplest example, because the information isn't hard to find- you just have to un-hide it on the payment information section. Unless you specifically change it, the amount that goes to charity is 15%, they keep 35%, and the donor (like GW in the case of humble book bundles) gets 50% (the software percentages might be different, but that's what came up the last time I checked on books). The donor getting some of their money back for their products makes sense to me, but 35% for the book keepers always raises my eyebrows. Sure, they'll need some for staff and credit card fees and etc... But they could cut their costs dramatically just by moving out of San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the US. As primarily (if not totally) an internet presence, they don't need to pay for SF real estate and rental costs.
Of course they were bought by IGN, who are in turn owned by J2 Global (along with a bunch of other stuff), and they're a billion-dollar-a-year corp.
Matt Swain wrote: Well, one reason bill gets dumped on is he's not a christian, and of course many people believe if you're not a christian you are automatically evil.
Wait what?
I am from one of the most ardently catholic Region in the most ardently catholic Part of my state , wtf is that Logic?
Especially from a Christian view?
Matt Swain wrote: Well, one reason bill gets dumped on is he's not a christian, and of course many people believe if you're not a christian you are automatically evil.
Wait what?
I am from one of the most ardently catholic Region in the most ardently catholic Part of my state , wtf is that Logic?
Especially from a Christian view?
As a fellow (former) Catholic, how did you not know that Catholics aren't Real Christians, according to pretty much every other denomination? It was one of the big bludgeons brought out against Kennedy's campaign.
Matt Swain wrote: Well, one reason bill gets dumped on is he's not a christian, and of course many people believe if you're not a christian you are automatically evil.
Wait what?
I am from one of the most ardently catholic Region in the most ardently catholic Part of my state , wtf is that Logic?
Especially from a Christian view?
As a fellow (former) Catholic, how did you not know that Catholics aren't Real Christians, according to pretty much every other denomination? It was one of the big bludgeons brought out against Kennedy's campaign.
I feel an urge overcoming me , of picking up the nearest crucifix to Hammer some Sense into some people...
That whole Debate should've been over after 1648 but no. Feths sake man the more "enlightened "we Seem to get as a species the more idiotic we grow seemingly...
Matt Swain wrote: Well, one reason bill gets dumped on is he's not a christian, and of course many people believe if you're not a christian you are automatically evil.
Wait what?
I am from one of the most ardently catholic Region in the most ardently catholic Part of my state , wtf is that Logic?
Especially from a Christian view?
I've been watching a lot of atheist vs christian debates of late - bored and in Africa - , and I think the logic goes something like this:
1) You can only have an objective morality through divine commandments
2) Atheists don't believe in a god, and therefore cannot have an objective morality
3) Subjective morality = nihilism
4) therefore atheists are evil.
It's espoused in its more direct form more by the stricter protestant sects/proponents like Ken Ham and Dennis Prager I think, but more moderate (well, relatively) people like Jordan Peterson spout it as well.
The logic itself is flawed on nearly every level that I can think of, but that's the gist of it.
Matt Swain wrote: Well, one reason bill gets dumped on is he's not a christian, and of course many people believe if you're not a christian you are automatically evil.
I thought it was more to do with the niggles of various MS products creating an endless fog of low grade evil QED he's working for the bad place
I've been watching a lot of atheist vs christian debates of late - bored and in Africa - , and I think the logic goes something like this:
1) You can only have an objective morality through divine commandments
2) Atheists don't believe in a god, and therefore cannot have an objective morality
3) Subjective morality = nihilism
4) therefore atheists are evil..
Without sidetracking this into actual religious discussion, the counter to this is that humans as a society are herd creatures, and being considerate of- and/or helping others is good for the overall wellbeing of the herd as a whole. Instant scientific basis for morality, right there.
LordofHats wrote: Anyone who thinks Bill Gates (or anyone for that matter) is manufacturing diseases to trick people into vaccinating themselves so that they can plat microchips in you is a fething idiot showcasing nothing but their own ignorance of how computers work.
To be fair, the microchip was only half of it. The other half of the Gates conspiracy theory was that the vaccine would lay the groundwork to kill off a giant chunk of the world's population, based on Gates having previously espoused population control.
I’ll draw an OP line under this train of thought with my take it on it as an atheist, commenting on Religious Puritanism,
I don’t do thing described as Sins/Evil in various religious texts because I really, really wouldn’t like them to happen to me or mine.
Morality is not absolute, even within a given umbrella religion.
As an atheist, I do ‘The Right Thing’ because that’s where my moral compass points, and not from fear of some supernatural punishment down the line.
Right. Line drawn within the thread. If you’re interested in discussing the issues raised, hit me up in PMs. I’m broad minded, and love a good mutually respectful discussion.
Matt Swain wrote: Well, one reason bill gets dumped on is he's not a christian, and of course many people believe if you're not a christian you are automatically evil.
Wait what?
I am from one of the most ardently catholic Region in the most ardently catholic Part of my state , wtf is that Logic?
Especially from a Christian view?
I've been watching a lot of atheist vs christian debates of late - bored and in Africa - , and I think the logic goes something like this:
1) You can only have an objective morality through divine commandments
2) Atheists don't believe in a god, and therefore cannot have an objective morality
3) Subjective morality = nihilism
4) therefore atheists are evil.
It's espoused in its more direct form more by the stricter protestant sects/proponents like Ken Ham and Dennis Prager I think, but more moderate (well, relatively) people like Jordan Peterson spout it as well.
The logic itself is flawed on nearly every level that I can think of, but that's the gist of it.
The word you're looking for is 'empathy'. The ability to understand that The Other is a person too, and they don't like being treated poorly any more than you do.
And no, it doesn't require any sort of divine belief to acquire.
Guys, we've tiptoed along the line of religious discussion long enough here - we all know it's not allowed on Dakka, so let's move on from that line of discussion, please.
Agreed. I merely wanted to answer the qiestion and move on which is why I only repeated the reasoning without putting forth my own views on the matter. Apologies for derailing the thread.
The best of the Gates conspiracy claims is that he secretly but forcibly (by hiding it in another drug) sterilized half a million African women about ten years ago. All part of his population control agenda.
Seems like someone would have leaked that to the news, and there probably would have been lots of coverage and charges.
Birth Rates dropping due to successful vaccinations in lower developing countries is a real thing with many studies. It generally means people don't feel like they have to gamble by having enough kids so that at least some survive to take care of their parents when they are elderly.
Here’s a link shared out of intellectual interest. In that I don’t believe the claims, but the article itself is very interesting reading, and I wonder what others might make of it.
TL/DR? Cryptozoological article, exploring the concept of high altitude life forms.
I’ve read it before in Fortean Times, and the writer isn’t particularly tinfoil.
So this came up in the Coronavirus thread and made for interesting exchanges. To prevent derailing, started this thread.
What is it I’m looking to discuss? Well, not so much a specific a conspiracy theory. And this isn’t an effort to ‘name and shame’ or point and laugh at specific individuals. Rather, I want to discuss the far more interesting question of why people can come to believe in even the most insane of conspiracy theories. For example, Flat Earth. We know beyond the shadow of any doubt at all that’s utter bobbins. The earth is round, we’ve been to space, and have the pictures to prove it.
Yet, not all conspiracy theories are completely mental - and some even turn out to have more than just a grain of truth, but to have been absolutely on the money. And that’s what makes them an interesting topic of discussion in my book.
Example? Well, the readily findable examples may be a bit too political to be kicking off with. So I’ll trust you to Google them yourself rather than me start the thread off on the wrong foot and hamstring the discussion. But they do exist, 100%.
Turns out, there are those with a recognised, psychological predilection to believe in conspiracy theories. In essence, it causes an inherent distrust of any research and opinion other than one’s own. And in some cases, an absolute unshakeable faith that You Are Right, regardless of any actual knowledge on a given subject. Their opinion is the Be All And End All.
And for the avoidance of rank hypocrisy on my behalf - this is just my own, loose understanding that has been garnered having had a casual interest. I am perfectly happy to be educated, and who knows depending on need, re-educated about this!
Now to get into more interesting things. For many (not all) conspiracy theories, a common strand is Selective Evidence. The conspiracy theorist discounts any and all evidence against their take. The reasons given will vary - it’s a lie, its a shill, the person questioning them is working for The Man etc.
Let’s take a common bit of long debunked tripe. Jet Fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel. Ultimately, correct. But it’s application ignores entirely that it need only burn hot enough to damage structural integrity. And that a building collapsing in any given way will depend up its method of construction. It also completely discounts any prior physical damage to the structure.
They also often struggle to provide a solid, rational answer to ‘yeah.....but why?’. Example here? Those that believe Kurt Cobain was murdered. Sure, the evidence there far from rules it out. The ‘yeah, but why?’ element in this case is that it implies a cover up. What’s the point? If as some would have you believe Courtney Love murdered him, what’s the reason for Police protecting her? What’s the motivation to get her off Scot Free? Compare to Conspiracies proven true - those typically had a clear advantage to be had from them.
They also tend to be implausible in execution. Some of the more bizarre ones would require a huge number of people to be complicit, and seemingly utterly without qualms or morals. Even more so when it’s a widely accepted fact that most/all Governments have shown absolutely nowhere near the competence required to pull such things off.
So that’s my opener. Before I hit submit, please remember this is a discussion, and intended to be friendly and open minded. If you feel things getting a bit heated, please give yourself a breather before your next post.
So to answer your question: The reason there is conspiracy theories is due to the fact that people lie and go to extraordinary lengths to cover it up. Some are Myth, some are partially true and some are true with out evidence to support it.
The world is guided by people with influence to meet their preferred narrative. It has always been this way and will always be this way. Some people rage against the machine is all....
What an interesting thread and one that makes me extremely angry at the extremists!! haha...
OK, here is an observation and grip to personal data collection... Why is my computer slower that it was 15 years ago? It truly takes longer to switch from programs, move about on the internet and such now that it did on previous Windows versions.
Here is my theory: More social media and other account synching to 'connect your digital life', but mainly just to collect data about you. Everyone wants instant connection and recognition between their multiple accounts, feeds, posts, pics, etc. and it all takes a lot of extra computing time and power to do, collect and store. All the stuff they collect about everything you say and do and everywhere you go on your computer is just too valuable. Information is the most sought after commodity and companies pay huge bucks to get this personal and consumer data and use it for promotion and advertising purposes.
I mean, why else would all of these companies develop apps and online tools for totally free, especially when it is clear they are not raising enough revenue from basic advertising to keep it afloat. Hint: they do it to collect info to sell to companies (I am looking at you, Google) - however, I really do not mind this, what I mind is the by-product being YOU HAVE SLOWED DOWN MY COMPUTER!!!
MDSW wrote: Why is my computer slower that it was 15 years ago?
One of my favorite computer jokes:
(2020) Hey buddy, what are you doing with those 16 kb of RAM?
(1967) Sending a man to the moon.
(2020) Neat.
(1967) What is going on with those 32 gb of RAM?
(2020) Oh, the computer's frozen. I think there's an excel formula open somewhere.
A big part of why computers might seem slower, is the mountains of ever increasing junk software on the back end. Don't want to use Cortana? Well tough gak, cause it's running anyway. Which is maybe a bit mean. Computers have become more user friendly over the years and some of the stuff in the background is necessary. Lots of old viruses and malware that would have worked in the 90s don't anymore because security software has made things harder than that, but that doesn't necessarily make the computer run faster. There's also just degrees of 'bloat' when it comes to operating systems and Windows is particularly bad about it. There's a lot of junk in the system that probably doesn't need to be there but Microsoft's developers have never really gone back through and cleared it out.
And I think you're generally correct here:
Here is my theory: More social media and other account synching to 'connect your digital life', but mainly just to collect data about you.
A lot of data collection is passive. It really doesn't slow you down that much, but everything is synced up and many programs are very poorly optimized in the current IT development environment. A good example is Discord, which can take up shocking amounts of bandwidth even after accounting for all the things it's doing. That can slow you down especially when it comes to places with decrepit internet infrastructure (which is more places than you'd think).
MDSW wrote: Why is my computer slower that it was 15 years ago?
One of my favorite computer jokes:
(2020) Hey buddy, what are you doing with those 16 kb of RAM?
(1967) Sending a man to the moon.
(2020) Neat.
(1967) What is going on with those 32 gb of RAM?
(2020) Oh, the computer's frozen. I think there's an excel formula open somewhere.
A big part of why computers might seem slower, is the mountains of ever increasing junk software on the back end. Don't want to use Cortana? Well tough gak, cause it's running anyway. Which is maybe a bit mean. Computers have become more user friendly over the years and some of the stuff in the background is necessary. Lots of old viruses and malware that would have worked in the 90s don't anymore because security software has made things harder than that, but that doesn't necessarily make the computer run faster. There's also just degrees of 'bloat' when it comes to operating systems and Windows is particularly bad about it. There's a lot of junk in the system that probably doesn't need to be there but Microsoft's developers have never really gone back through and cleared it out.
And I think you're generally correct here:
Here is my theory: More social media and other account synching to 'connect your digital life', but mainly just to collect data about you.
A lot of data collection is passive. It really doesn't slow you down that much, but everything is synced up and many programs are very poorly optimized in the current IT development environment. A good example is Discord, which can take up shocking amounts of bandwidth even after accounting for all the things it's doing. That can slow you down especially when it comes to places with decrepit internet infrastructure (which is more places than you'd think).
Another thing to consider is that on a standard HDD (the ones with platters, not a SSD) when your OS, particularly windows, downloads things, say, an update or the files to install a video game, and then goes through the process of writing onto the hard drive, it is physically writing data onto the platter.
Over the years, all that writing and re-writing of information onto hard drives is going to effectively "score" them. . . similar to getting a deep scratch on your fave CD/DVD or vinyl record.
This also doesnt even go into the problems Windows has perennially had "issues" with its writing prompts and fragmenting data. . . The more fragmented the drive, the longer it takes to access the data. Seems that Windows has long valued the "ease of writing" as opposed to "ease of access"
Well, I guess you can blame the "Look at ME!" generation, where they insist everything they do is digitally documented and every thought they have is shared with the world and they want it easy to synch up all of these sources.
I have always thought there is simply too much personal data out there online. You can find out everything about anyone. I also think some of these companies have no ethics - just because something can be shared, should it? You used to have to go into a county office and manually look up data, so it was difficult to find info - but now it is digitized and easy to unload into cyberspace.
Another thing to consider is that on a standard HDD (the ones with platters, not a SSD) when your OS, particularly windows, downloads things, say, an update or the files to install a video game, and then goes through the process of writing onto the hard drive, it is physically writing data onto the platter.
Over the years, all that writing and re-writing of information onto hard drives is going to effectively "score" them. . . similar to getting a deep scratch on your fave CD/DVD or vinyl record.
This isn't quite accurate. While it's possible for the platter to get scratched and thus destroying data, the R/W head doesn't actually ever touch the disc under normal conditions. It works by flipping the polarity of magnetic bits, not physically changing anything. Damage to the platter only really happens from either mechanical failure, or jostling the drive while it's spinning, forcing the disc into the write head thanks to gyroscopic forces.
This also doesnt even go into the problems Windows has perennially had "issues" with its writing prompts and fragmenting data. . . The more fragmented the drive, the longer it takes to access the data. Seems that Windows has long valued the "ease of writing" as opposed to "ease of access"
With SSDs being pretty much standard these days, fragmentation isn't really an issue on modern PCs. Rather annoying on older machines, admittedly, as Microsoft never adopted the autodefrag systems that Macs use.
MDSW wrote: Well, I guess you can blame the "Look at ME!" generation, where they insist everything they do is digitally documented and every thought they have is shared with the world and they want it easy to synch up all of these sources.
So... the baby boomers? Most of the people I know that use facebook & the like are my parent's generation- their friends and business contacts.
When I think ease of use and sharing, I definitely think of grandparents.
MDSW wrote: Well, I guess you can blame the "Look at ME!" generation, where they insist everything they do is digitally documented and every thought they have is shared with the world and they want it easy to synch up all of these sources.
So... the baby boomers? Most of the people I know that use facebook & the like are my parent's generation- their friends and business contacts.
When I think ease of use and sharing, I definitely think of grandparents.
I think it's also a male vs female thing. I've not been on Facebook in over a year, and have never had twitter, instagram and the rest of those things.
My wife, on the other hand, has all of them except twitter (I think) and does... stuff... on them all the time.
There's a similar pattern among my friend group - most of my male friends do still have FB, but that's about it.
still think that sometimes tech slowing down is a misfiring perception thing
many many moons ago I worked in the printroom of my local council and we got a brand new full bells and whistles copier far better than the orky tech we used, and for a while all was well but about 6 months in my manager was convinced it wasnt going as fast as day one, service engineer duly comes out and runs the beachmarks with results same as set up day and even with evidence my boss was convinced otherwise
of course lazy coding doesnt help as just because you have a squillon gigglybits you dont have to use them
Definitely not baby boomers - sure they use FB and such to keep in contact with family, but I think you know the generation that has to post every single moment of their life on Instagram, twitter feed, etc. where they are, what they are doing, selfie posts, etc.
MDSW wrote: Definitely not baby boomers - sure they use FB and such to keep in contact with family, but I think you know the generation that has to post every single moment of their life on Instagram, twitter feed, etc. where they are, what they are doing, selfie posts, etc.
...it is not the boomers...
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure it isn't.
Seriously, this isn't a "generational" thing at this stage in time with smartphones and tablets. Maybe when it was digital cameras and laptops and MySpace, but there's a reason why these things are so dominant. It's available to anyone who has a device that can connect to the internet.
You do understand as well that there's a reason why people who have lived basically in an entirely texting-based world might use pictures or quick videos to showcase things rather than typing it out on a phone keyboard?
MDSW wrote: Definitely not baby boomers - sure they use FB and such to keep in contact with family, but I think you know the generation that has to post every single moment of their life on Instagram, twitter feed, etc. where they are, what they are doing, selfie posts, etc.
...it is not the boomers...
If you say so. The only person I know personally that behaves that way is my brother, who turns fifty this year.
Most of the people I know that use facebook are my mother (who's a great grandmother now), a few authors and a pile of farmers, most of whom have kids and grandkids.
So in terms of Generations using social media, my knowledge is mostly of X and Boomers.
If the Kids Today are doing too, it strikes me more as a cultural thing, and not a generational thing.
Turnip Jedi wrote: Does tin foil stop the mind probes or have 'they' leaked this myth to get better readings due to foil acting as a conductor ?
I don't think it would stop physical mind probes cuz they are physical. . . But, so long as one builds a tin foil hat correctly, it will reflect "the signals" and prevent them getting into your head. . . Last I heard, signals up to 4G WiFi are reflected so long as the foil hat is constructed shiny side out. . . If you make one with the dull side out, it wont work and the signals will get you, man.
Looking at the rest of the post, at a guess, Mad Doc is reminding everyone that this topic, at the best of times, skirts a fair few "thou shalt not" rules of this forum, and to be mindful of that and behave.
Probably a rudimentary understanding of radio waves.
Wrapping an aerial in another metal affects its effectiveness, so “it makes sense” it’ll stop radio waves penetrating your brain.
Honestly, IMHO, it is a play on the overall ignorance of conspiracy theorists. . . So, growing up, young EF's parents refused to pay for cable/satellite TV. This meant that even in the earliest years of the 2000s, we had the ubiquitous "rabbit ears" antennas. Tin foil, or Reynolds Wrap, Aluminum foil, whatever brand/label on the box, was an important part of keeping the TV signal coming in strong.
For those Americans who are old enough, remember the early Directv commercials where the old guy was talking about "Its snowing in Miami" ?? Well, the tin foil on the ends of the antenna enhanced our signal enough to prevent snowfall in the city of miami during sporting events
So, because it turns out things like tin foil actually enhance signals, I would say that the phrase/practice comes from a lack of understanding these basic RF principles (even if one does not have an educational background in the subject, seeing this in action, in this case, is enough knowledge) and is used in a negative/pejorative way to describe people who believe in Conspiracy Theories.
Looking at the rest of the post, at a guess, Mad Doc is reminding everyone that this topic, at the best of times, skirts a fair few "thou shalt not" rules of this forum, and to be mindful of that and behave.
I understood the overall gist, its just that 'can everyone to and have 24 hours on the Naughty Step' doesn't make any sort of sense. I've no idea what a 'Naughty Step' is or how to parse 'to and have' in English grammar. And the Mad Doc speaking entirely in character isn't exactly unknown.
They do, but you can turn it off. It's a fairly complicated process and it may disable some fairly functions, because obviously they don't want you to, but it is possible.
TheMeanDM wrote: I am guessing its been talked about already but.....
Google/FB/et al. are listening to our conversations when our phone is nearby.
Who *hasn't * had that creepy asf experience of talking about something and then BOOM its there as an ad.
Or one time, my girlfriend and I were at an Italian restaurant.
I ordered some chicken with capers.
We were talking about what they were.
I went to Google and typed "what are" and before I even typed capers.....it filled it in for me.
Seriously?! You tipped your hand there Google!
IIRC, Amazon found itself in hot water with Alexa when a family was watching a film wherein a couple were arguing and it turned into domestic violence (as in, the scene being acted was DV, not that the viewers were), and half hour later some cops show up to "check up on" them.
Since then, I recall Amazon admitted to/fully explained the "passive listening" feature that they had been advertising that people were ignoring. They have since, I think, said that Alexa only listens when you call for her, but I think if I were to believe that, then there's a bridge in NY with a "for sale" sign on it for me.
The unit has to "listen" at all times to detect its name. I can see justification for having a feature that if the unit detects loud cries and key words "eg help help - call the police etc...." then it could spark a police call to be made out of safety concerns.
That said the issue is that its not the "computer" out of startrek - it can't tell the context of a situation; nor even "see" what is going on around it. You can be watching a DVD, listening to music, kids playing, even a parrot or raven repeating a word.
So for such a feature to work it has to have even more backup monitoring facilities built into it in order to be effective. Personally I'd have no issue with a slave unit watching without recording information - ergo passive monitoring. I can even see great value in such technology for vulnerable individuals. Eg the elderly or disabled who might be fine to live on their own, but who might fall or injure themselves in a way that leaves them unable to summon aid.
Of course Alexa and most of the current monitoring tech isn't a solo slave unit; its a unit tied into a company that has to stream its data online all the time. As a result there's vast temptation for companies to want to tap into that data stream. Even if they don't, even if the managers are dead set against it and refuse to allow it to happen, the fact that its online all the time and that it COULD do that is enough deterrent for many. It's like letting a spy into your home.
Everyone is fine with home security CCTV that they can turn on and off when they want; which cannot turn itself on when it wants and when the recording is kept on-site and you control that data fully. It's the lack of control over your data; about your data going into the web that gets people worried
Yes the application is currently lacking, but think of the lives it could help save in years to come?
IMO, the "always listening" thing is one of many reasons why the wife and I have decided to never own one. . . I can see the merits in having a "silent dial" feature where personal safety is concerned, similar to how you can now apparently tell Siri that you are being pulled over.
The main thing with it, is that 1) Amazon didn't do well enough (apparently) in advertising the always listening function and, 2) people didn't read far enough into descriptions/terms of use to see that this was a function. . . Part of the reason I can think of for that story blowing up when it did, was a combination of lack of development of the tech (ie, it couldn't discern between real voices and whats being projected from the TV), and a lack of understanding the technology at hand.
Yeah, at this point the data gathering itself isn't even a conspiracy theory- the question is just how deep does it go. Personally I won't own one because of the chance of it overhearing account information or personal data when you're talking on the phone. I can just imagine that 15 dollar an hour employee hearing everything they need to access my bank account and balancing the risk of getting fired with stealing my identity.
Always on microphones are not something I want in my home.
TheMeanDM wrote: I am guessing its been talked about already but.....
Google/FB/et al. are listening to our conversations when our phone is nearby.
Who *hasn't * had that creepy asf experience of talking about something and then BOOM its there as an ad.
Or one time, my girlfriend and I were at an Italian restaurant.
I ordered some chicken with capers.
We were talking about what they were.
I went to Google and typed "what are" and before I even typed capers.....it filled it in for me.
Seriously?! You tipped your hand there Google!
Constant use of the microphone is unlikely due to the battery drain. What's more likely is that Google simply used your phone's location and looked up what other people have searched for in the same place. If you wonder what capers actually are, chances are that others have as well.
So the big info companies aren't listening to you constantly. They just always track where your phone goes, how long it stays there, what you use it for and reference this with all other activities they can trace your name to (use of credit cards or similar). Then they sell this data to advertising companies so they can sell "perfect" ads to other companies.
Companies are so good at gathering information on people that grocery stores have a good estimate of when people are going to have children so they start targeting thse people with special offers for diapers and such.
And yet its not perfect. It amuses me when I have to get a gift for someone online and I notice ads suddenly get really keen to sell me random stuff based on something I got for someone else. Or those "one off" purchases that are nothing typical nor normal but again get picked up.
Google though I'm starting to get annoyed with. Though more because their code seems to be really maximising the most popular rather than most recent articles way more than it ever used too.
A lot of it is like Apple interfaces and such - if you "fit" the mould much of the stuff seems scary accurate because its does things as you want almost before you want them. Part of that is not just the machine reading you, but also you being "trained" by the machine/system. OF course if you fit the mould they are working with you don't realise this "training" aspect because its mostly fitting in with how you are.
If you're a bit outside of it you start to see some of the cracks because the system targets you with the wrong things. Of course another aspect is selective remembering - if you notice things being accurate you're more likely to keep seeing and remembering them whilst overlooking the inaccurate; the opposite is also true.
In that its similar to "cold reading" that mediums and the like will use. They'll get loads of bits wrong or hazy, however those they puzzle out to get right are what people remember.
Overread wrote: And yet its not perfect. It amuses me when I have to get a gift for someone online and I notice ads suddenly get really keen to sell me random stuff based on something I got for someone else. Or those "one off" purchases that are nothing typical nor normal but again get picked up.
Google though I'm starting to get annoyed with. Though more because their code seems to be really maximising the most popular rather than most recent articles way more than it ever used too.
A lot of it is like Apple interfaces and such - if you "fit" the mould much of the stuff seems scary accurate because its does things as you want almost before you want them. Part of that is not just the machine reading you, but also you being "trained" by the machine/system. OF course if you fit the mould they are working with you don't realise this "training" aspect because its mostly fitting in with how you are.
If you're a bit outside of it you start to see some of the cracks because the system targets you with the wrong things. Of course another aspect is selective remembering - if you notice things being accurate you're more likely to keep seeing and remembering them whilst overlooking the inaccurate; the opposite is also true.
In that its similar to "cold reading" that mediums and the like will use. They'll get loads of bits wrong or hazy, however those they puzzle out to get right are what people remember.
Yeah, for all the "they know everything!" rhetoric some of these systems are truly dumb. I still can't believe Amazon doesn't have a simple system for ignoring stuff you buy from someone's wish list, for example. I bought one kid's book for my nephew a year or so ago, form a wish list, and Amazon spent the next 6 months bombarding me with suggestions for what a 4-year old might read when I don't have any kids of my own. Similarly, I got adverts for new houses for over a year after I'd bought one and moved in. That kind of puts a nail in the coffin for any theory about Big Data tracking our every move.
The confirmation bias point is spot on. I suspect if you kept track of all the ads you were served you'd realise the hit-rate is pretty poor overall. I suspect my YouTube watching habits must have triggered something in their algorithm to make them think I'm a prime target for online gambling, for example, which is odd because I have literally never visited a gambling site in my life, never mind used one.
Of course at the same time as we are getting data mined to spot shopping patterns, the advertising system has to factor in wild-cards because otherwise each individual would be getting ads on an ever more niche set of criteria on what you shop for online. Plus firms pay for exposure through ads, so something like gambling likely gets a lot more hits because they pay a lot more to get seen. Even if you don't flag as a gambler you'll get the ads to tempt you.
I think the whole data pooling and mining is both scary and not scary. I think the greater issue is the potential for it to become very big data sets through trading and individual user tracking systems. Ego the issue isn't Amazon suggesting things based on what you've bought from Amazon before; its when your Amazon is added to your ebay purchase history and your google search history then all of that added to your highstreet shopping patterns. Then data pooled based on address so that your data is combined with those at the identical address to yourself.
Ergo one data set on its own used by one outlet isn't a big issue for most people; its when data is traded, combined and processed with unique identifiers to build a very complete profile of you.
Constant use of the microphone is unlikely due to the battery drain. What's more likely is that Google simply used your phone's location and looked up what other people have searched for in the same place. If you wonder what capers actually are, chances are that others have as well.
So the big info companies aren't listening to you constantly. They just always track where your phone goes, how long it stays there, what you use it for and reference this with all other activities they can trace your name to (use of credit cards or similar). Then they sell this data to advertising companies so they can sell "perfect" ads to other companies.
I **rarely** have my location/gps turned on....like...only if I am traveling somewhere unfamiliar.
Constant use of the microphone is unlikely due to the battery drain. What's more likely is that Google simply used your phone's location and looked up what other people have searched for in the same place. If you wonder what capers actually are, chances are that others have as well.
So the big info companies aren't listening to you constantly. They just always track where your phone goes, how long it stays there, what you use it for and reference this with all other activities they can trace your name to (use of credit cards or similar). Then they sell this data to advertising companies so they can sell "perfect" ads to other companies.
I **rarely** have my location/gps turned on....like...only if I am traveling somewhere unfamiliar.
I have a Google Pixel 4, and even with ALL of my GPS items turned off I still get idiotic "Google knows what you did" messages. . . Like, I went to Best Buy recently to physically see a TV I was interested in person (I was following all social distancing protocols, before ya ask), and by the time I got to my truck, there was a notification in my system saying "How was your visit to Best Buy?" Google is a bit insidious in that not only do they stalk your movements by asking for reviews of places, they try and "get" people by having an RPG scaled level system to the reviews . . . I'm apparently 5 reviews away from whatever the next level is, but I never leave reviews through my phone, And its been years since I last left any kind of online review of a business.
Constant use of the microphone is unlikely due to the battery drain. What's more likely is that Google simply used your phone's location and looked up what other people have searched for in the same place. If you wonder what capers actually are, chances are that others have as well.
So the big info companies aren't listening to you constantly. They just always track where your phone goes, how long it stays there, what you use it for and reference this with all other activities they can trace your name to (use of credit cards or similar). Then they sell this data to advertising companies so they can sell "perfect" ads to other companies.
I **rarely** have my location/gps turned on....like...only if I am traveling somewhere unfamiliar.
Turns out they can still track you via cell towers and wifi. It's not as accurate (Google Rewards is convinced that I'm going to the storage units by my office rather than the office, and won't stop asking about them), but with big box stores you've got enough empty space around that they can figure it out pretty easily still.
Turning GPS tracking off really doesn't do anything.
The reality is that the world is so connected now that you can't avoid the grid unless you willfully set out to fall off of it. Which lets face it, is not a practical solution for the bulk of the population.
People should stop worrying about "can I be tracked" and be more worried about "what can the people tracking me do with that information legally?" Right now, it's not that much. But then, no one is running massive metadata to decide who to provide health insurance too, who is likely to be a reliable employee, and who is likely to commit what crimes.
People need to be far less concerned with the insidious shadow government controlling their lives and far more concerned with the pragmatic risk-averse mega-corporations marketing data based solutions to problems in ways that could potentially lead to unintended and rampant systematic discrimination based on nothing but what behaviors you tend to fall into.
Once the debate becomes "well yeah it sucks for you, but 85% of people who shop on craigslist are late for work by 15 minutes 35% of the time and 5% of those people are also rapists and pedophiles so you can't expect the company to just take a risk that you as a craigslist shopper will always show up to work late and maybe be a rapist/pedophile" good fething luck trying to have anything approaching a reasoned discussion (EDIT: and before anyone says it, yes this is already happening in China which has increasingly embraced 'big data' as a means of controlling population behaviors). We can't even get people to recognize systematic discrimination over skin color. It'll only get dumber if it expands to include mundane behaviors.
Wargamers are known to have poorer than average washing habits - often spend extended time alone with their hobby and research their hobby using the internet - the same pattern of behaviour that terrorists and cimrinal hit-men also display. As a result wargamers might be terrorists - don't employ any wargamers
In other news people who drive red cars - totally best employees promote them and give them a company car. Note red is currently the top selling car colour.
Overread wrote: Wargamers are known to have poorer than average washing habits - often spend extended time alone with their hobby and research their hobby using the internet - the same pattern of behaviour that terrorists and cimrinal hit-men also display. As a result wargamers might be terrorists - don't employ any wargamers
Even better; Wargamers are an insular mostly male hobby with lots of intersection to the incel sub-culture, a sub-culture increasingly connected to terrorist behaviors and criminality, never mind the rampant sexism, misanthropy, and self-pity that makes for unstable personalities. It doesn't even have to become a hard line of 'don't hire X'. It can be as simple as background checks become data based and listing risk factor (which background checks generally already do, the field is just trapped in the 70s and doesn't make use of many technological advances) and people making judgement calls based on the risk factors.
They probably won't of course, this is a bit reactionary about something that's probably a long shot, but this is an example of why I'm baffled by people's priorities. They'd rather think Bill Gates wants to microchip them in some holdover of CIA conspiracy theories from decades ago than feel any concern about things that are already advancing. Recently a lot of big tech pulled out of the facial recognition game and while they gave nice and fluffy reasons for that numbers tell us the reason IBM and the rest are yanking the plug is because it's not a profitable business. Making facial recognition work right now is too expensive and it's too spotty. Data science is the next field for trying to remotely identify people and is likely to be far more profitable and far harder to get people to feel any concern about.
We already felt some of this with companies wanting access to peoples facebook accounts. Not just "do you have a facebook" but straight up "your boss requires you to friend them" etc... I believe it got clamped down on legally because outside of things like national security, most companies do not need to see your facebook.
Sadly with many things like this because those in power are often older there's often a huge generational gap going on. So the world might push on, but those in the key positions are still decades behind in attitude. This is especially true of technology. Heck lets not forget the world has changed a lot. In my lifetime alone we went from no internet through to a point now where living without it is actually a significant disadvantage and where it could very well become a basic right like access to clean water - at least within developed nations.
Even right now if you try and live without it you can hit some barriers - many jobs don't accept hand/paper copy applications; many places you can't easily contact with phone or mail (that's if you can even find such details); basic information on most subjects assumes that you can access the internet for "further details". Sure you can still live without it, but as time passes it becomes more and more important.
Overread wrote: Wargamers are known to have poorer than average washing habits - often spend extended time alone with their hobby and research their hobby using the internet - the same pattern of behaviour that terrorists and cimrinal hit-men also display. As a result wargamers might be terrorists - don't employ any wargamers
Even better; Wargamers are an insular mostly male hobby with lots of intersection to the incel sub-culture, a sub-culture increasingly connected to terrorist behaviors and criminality, never mind the rampant sexism, misanthropy, and self-pity that makes for unstable personalities. It doesn't even have to become a hard line of 'don't hire X'. It can be as simple as background checks become data based and listing risk factor (which background checks generally already do, the field is just trapped in the 70s and doesn't make use of many technological advances) and people making judgement calls based on the risk factors.
They probably won't of course, this is a bit reactionary about something that's probably a long shot, but this is an example of why I'm baffled by people's priorities. They'd rather think Bill Gates wants to microchip them in some holdover of CIA conspiracy theories from decades ago than feel any concern about things that are already advancing. Recently a lot of big tech pulled out of the facial recognition game and while they gave nice and fluffy reasons for that numbers tell us the reason IBM and the rest are yanking the plug is because it's not a profitable business. Making facial recognition work right now is too expensive and it's too spotty. Data science is the next field for trying to remotely identify people and is likely to be far more profitable and far harder to get people to feel any concern about.
Yikes, but pretty much, cameras be manipulated, or have just a really really bad position at the wrong time, but , datapoints when device xyz enters a WLAN or any other network, where you payed with your cards, etc, is WAAAAYY more reliable and easier to track.
@overread, they might be older just way to slow, in regards to digital entertainment f.e. they finally adressed Lootboxes in the house of lords.
To be fair lootboxes were fine then big firms went totally nuts with them - heck EA put a straight up real money driven casino into a basketball game. That was just begging for legislation to come smack them down at least to force them to comply with formal gambling restrictions and laws. Probably even more because those games were aimed at those considered "underage" for gambling.
But now I think we've got a bit distracted from tinfoil hats and lizard people .
Overread wrote: To be fair lootboxes were fine then big firms went totally nuts with them - heck EA put a straight up real money driven casino into a basketball game. That was just begging for legislation to come smack them down at least to force them to comply with formal gambling restrictions and laws. Probably even more because those games were aimed at those considered "underage" for gambling.
But now I think we've got a bit distracted from tinfoil hats and lizard people .
was just a counterpoint against the generational gap, prolly more grey area then anything and the whole lootbox thing, i mean, let's be honest, EA was by far not the worst offender when acti-bliz literally startet patenting MM systems and psycholgues and psychiaters got involved.
I do wonder though if we will see any conspiracy theories go out from the redit purge considering some of the purged subredits were quite, erm , invested in some?
Not Online!!! wrote: i meant more how many are created by the governments as diversions / social experiments?
maybe a few but I suspect most of it comes from internet echo chambers populated by insomiancs, the un-medicated and neuro-diverse (not sure thats the correct polite term and certainly not belittling those who may be prone to buying into the nonsence)
Not Online!!! wrote: i meant more how many are created by the governments as diversions / social experiments?
Well, that's just the thing though right? How could one know the answer to that question? And that forms, essentially, the crux of the problem.
The fact is, there seems to be evidence it has happened at least once, which then makes it sort of an open-ended question as to the plausibility that it might be happening (almost) any number of other times. Which is why, from a deontological sort of perspective, any lie is a very bad idea. If there is no duty to "truth" (whatever that actually is) well, then all sorts of utilitarian sort of cases could be made for lies and the like.
Turnip Jedi wrote: well lizards in shiny hats are distracting especially as everyone else pretends they cant see them
Actuallly.
How many conspiracy theories do you rekon have been part of smokes and mirrors by let's say governments?
I have always wondered if the folks who go on and on about "the New World Order" and all the bad things that will supposedly happen are part of (or at least used by) the supposed NWO.
Because they tend to be people who are so fething irritating that I wish there really were UN black helicopters to take them away.
Not Online!!! wrote: i meant more how many are created by the governments as diversions / social experiments?
Well, that's just the thing though right? How could one know the answer to that question? And that forms, essentially, the crux of the problem.
The fact is, there seems to be evidence it has happened at least once, which then makes it sort of an open-ended question as to the plausibility that it might be happening (almost) any number of other times. Which is why, from a deontological sort of perspective, any lie is a very bad idea. If there is no duty to "truth" (whatever that actually is) well, then all sorts of utilitarian sort of cases could be made for lies and the like.
See here 's the thing, during the initial wave of Corina over here the government was basically Like " no mass don't really work" yet in Hospitals etc masks became a rarity enforced by government. Masks were a rarity.
Just These Sweets occaisonal lies in Order to help the greater good in this case allowing for supply to go to the hotspots aka hospitals.
Now we get as of monday Mask enforced in public transportation.
Turnip Jedi wrote: well lizards in shiny hats are distracting especially as everyone else pretends they cant see them
Actuallly.
How many conspiracy theories do you rekon have been part of smokes and mirrors by let's say governments?
I have always wondered if the folks who go on and on about "the New World Order" and all the bad things that will supposedly happen are part of (or at least used by) the supposed NWO.
Because they tend to be people who are so fething irritating that I wish there really were UN black helicopters to take them away.
Now now , i wouldn't wish my worst neighbours to be taken away by a tyranical governement. That just ain't right and said neighbours is a
Things like this are one of the many reasons I'm glad I still rock a dumb-phone. (well that, they cost me all of $10 each for a 4 pack, they last several years each, the battery life is ridiculously long, and they still fit in my pocket).
That being said, I got my wife a nice laptop for Christmas and set it up using my info so she could use it immediately after opening it. We were talking about a vacation (pre corona times). She NEVER searched for where we were going, and I had yet to look anything up on my desktop. The next thing I know I'm getting ads for hotels near Joplin, Missouri. This isn't even close to a major Tourist destination, so it HAS to be that new laptop.
Not Online!!! wrote: See here 's the thing, during the initial wave of Corina over here the government was basically Like " no mass don't really work" yet in Hospitals etc masks became a rarity enforced by government. Masks were a rarity.
Just These Sweets occaisonal lies in Order to help the greater good in this case allowing for supply to go to the hotspots aka hospitals.
Now we get as of monday Mask enforced in public transportation.
Well, that was likely a part of the whole calculation, yeah.
Part of it though, I think personally, was also just a framing problem. In other words, people were looking at "mask ineffectiveness" from the standpoint of the wearer getting it, say from it being in the air already. In this sense, the mask is not very effective. However, re-framed the other way, in keeping a carrier from putting the droplets out into the air, it is more so effective. So, that essential re-framing does chance the manner of considering something justifiable or not.
But point taken, which is why I am not an Absolute Deontologist, of course. Because there may well be times where the truth could cause a panic. So, yeah, notions practicality might put one in a bad place, only able to look at either bad or worse choices.
Now this is a harmless one but just as this is a harmless one who is to say that such Sweets little lies and wrong perceptions/framings weren't conveniently used when uncomfortable deals showed up etc?
In terms of governments using the Conspirasphere to mask shenanigans?
That’s quite possible.
I mean, I as an individual am know amongst my friendship and professional circle for Never Lying. I won’t go into the reasons for my dedication to the truth (or at least opinions based on evidence).
Yet? Such a reputation has allowed me to tell absolute whoppers and get away with it.
It’s a power earned through trust, and very sparingly used, lest it all bugger itself up!
So I suspect governments have indeed pointed to wacky Conspiracy Theories to discredit genuine claims of bad behaviour.
Well the USA did once play with weather control. They dropped dry ice in the high atmosphere in the pathway of hurricanes in a hope it would stop them. I believe that they had some success in influencing them, but instead of killing them or deflecting it pushed them onto the islands instead.
That said that info comes from a TV show I poorly remember from years back. It might well have been that any influence was purely marginal or unproven and that the hurricanes would have gone that way originally.
The problem is that we are only really just coming to terms with the idea that there are natural cycles that last beyond a one year duration.
Simplistic understanding is that we've a year and things happen within that year in a cycle and pattern year in year out. Which fits with how we humans live our lives. Thing is natural cycles can be many years, decades or longer in operation. Many species actually require periods of short term instability in order to thrive.
We've also issues with understanding the concept of "disasters". Fires in the USA forests are classed as a disaster and are shut down, which is resulting in multiple species suffering population loss because they specifically require the fires to clear areas of woodland, with some plants not even starting germination until after a fire.
Meanwhile even in systems we have artificially created we don't understand we made them. Take most savanna ecosystems - conservation groups shut down many native people slash-burning areas of the woodland in them. The result years later is that many of the savanna systems started breaking down. It took the breakdown to realise that the whole system was basically manmade on a vast scale. Because it had operated for so long the ecosystem had adapted so all our understanding of the "stable ideal" was based on an artificial construct to start with.
How do you even come to manage that with an ecological view - do you allow the system to advance and operate without human interference or do you maintain the interference at a historically accurate level and if so over what scale? Accepting that either way you will likely lose some species - often as not exacerbated by the fact that many ecosystems are now isolated by roads, cities, farms, fences, minefields etc... all of which mean that the natural spread of species is significantly hindered.
So yeah weather adjustment, if we had it I'm not sure if we've enough accurate long term weather data to actually be able to make any changes without creating disasters either for ourselves or for ecology.
For ourselves the issue would be that small changes in area A would result in big changes in area B on the other side of the world. The weather system is vastly complex and chances are modelling it at an accurate level, whilst it has improved over the years, is still many computer advances away from being a reliable well understood system.
I’m not for even a nano- second pretend to be educated enough as to whether it’s man made, natural, or a combination of the two.
But it is happening. And frankly, reducing CO2 and other emissions is hardly going to make anything worse, is it? To quote that cartoon I can’t find.....”what if we’re making a better, cleaner world for nothing”.
Once again it comes back to the Internet, and humankind’s natural confirmation bias. So. Much. Information. And a decent slice of it absolute nonsense.
I’m not for even a nano- second pretend to be educated enough as to whether it’s man made, natural, or a combination of the two.
But it is happening. And frankly, reducing CO2 and other emissions is hardly going to make anything worse, is it? To quote that cartoon I can’t find.....”what if we’re making a better, cleaner world for nothing”.
Once again it comes back to the Internet, and humankind’s natural confirmation bias. So. Much. Information. And a decent slice of it absolute nonsense.
Speaking of climate change as a conspiracy, and i think they may be something to it, there is a scientifically valid method to dealing with it that shows potential in reducing co2 levels. The response of major governments has been to ban its implementation.
Speaking of climate change as a conspiracy, and i think they may be something to it, there is a scientifically valid method to dealing with it that shows potential in reducing co2 levels. The response of major governments has been to ban its implementation.
The problem is the knock-on-effects. Consider that algae blooms have destroyed river ecosystems as a result of rapid growth due to runoff of fertilisers from fields. Yes the oceans is big, but if everyone started doing it or you do it enough to kick off a self supporting feedback loop you could end up solving one problem and creating a new one. So basically if you do enough of it to impact the atmosphere you might well be causing vast damage to the ocean ecosystem. The sea already has issues with plastic, rubbish, heavy metals and overfishing.
We know ecosystems are super fragile, being as they are the result of millions of years of evolution, where each species has found its own niche, or died off.
We see this with alien species out competing native species, such as species of Crayfish from the Americas running riot in British river systems.
Now, us as humans reducing our output of CO2 and other gases and nasties. Whilst doing what we can to replant forests and jungles? That helps the ecosystem rebalance itself of its own accord.
But it needs to be done with extreme care, less we solve one problem by creating another.
And this is the thing that irks me about climate change deniers. We’re only risking our own species, really. The planet doesn’t need us. Yes we’ll take more than a few other species with us due to our stupidity - but the planet will continue all the same. We just won’t be there to see it if we don’t act now.
I've watched quite a few video's in regards to 9/11 again recently.
Building 7 makes such little sense still, and I don't know how I hadn't before, must be a mandela effect or something but I absolutely only watched footage of the building collapsing for the first time in the last few weeks. I'd love to know the odds of it collapsing in such a way without the use of a controlled demolition. In addition to this, I've seen some camera angles of the fire in building 7... If the severity of the fire was enough to impact the structure of a skyscraper, none would ever be built again.
I need to investigate further and read some of the documents that certain theorists cite in regards to this, just to verify if they are making things up.
One example is that David Icke suggests the official reported reason for the fire and thus the collapse of building 7 is due to a 'furnishing fire', so just the office furniture.
David Icke saying that is a problem though, namely due to his other theories on the lizard elite, and his ridiculous 5G causing covid rantings of late. He isn't the most credible of sources.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: I've watched quite a few video's in regards to 9/11 again recently.
Building 7 makes such little sense still, and I don't know how I hadn't before, must be a mandela effect or something but I absolutely only watched footage of the building collapsing for the first time in the last few weeks. I'd love to know the odds of it collapsing in such a way without the use of a controlled demolition. In addition to this, I've seen some camera angles of the fire in building 7... If the severity of the fire was enough to impact the structure of a skyscraper, none would ever be built again.
I need to investigate further and read some of the documents that certain theorists cite in regards to this, just to verify if they are making things up.
One example is that David Icke suggests the official reported reason for the fire and thus the collapse of building 7 is due to a 'furnishing fire', so just the office furniture.
David Icke saying that is a problem though, namely due to his other theories on the lizard elite, and his ridiculous 5G causing covid rantings of late. He isn't the most credible of sources.
Building 7 is pretty well understood as far as what caused its collapse - if you keep digging I'm sure you'll find the reasons. On the controlled demolitions side of things I strongly suggest you go and find some pictures of what a building that's been rigged for demolition looks like inside and research how much time and how many people it takes to set that up, then ask yourself what the likelihood of that being done in an occupied building is.
I still think a lot of conspiracy is born out of a need to assign a pattern or meaning to random horror, JFK and 9/11 being prime examples maybe Oswald and the hijackers just got lucky
As for Icke I keep swinging between unhinged fruitloop who fully beleives his own twaddle and peerless performance artist who knows exactly the buttons to press for that sweet attention shot, still a crappy footballer either way
endlesswaltz123 wrote: I've watched quite a few video's in regards to 9/11 again recently.
Building 7 makes such little sense still, and I don't know how I hadn't before, must be a mandela effect or something but I absolutely only watched footage of the building collapsing for the first time in the last few weeks. I'd love to know the odds of it collapsing in such a way without the use of a controlled demolition. In addition to this, I've seen some camera angles of the fire in building 7... If the severity of the fire was enough to impact the structure of a skyscraper, none would ever be built again.
I need to investigate further and read some of the documents that certain theorists cite in regards to this, just to verify if they are making things up.
One example is that David Icke suggests the official reported reason for the fire and thus the collapse of building 7 is due to a 'furnishing fire', so just the office furniture.
David Icke saying that is a problem though, namely due to his other theories on the lizard elite, and his ridiculous 5G causing covid rantings of late. He isn't the most credible of sources.
Building 7 is pretty well understood as far as what caused its collapse - if you keep digging I'm sure you'll find the reasons. On the controlled demolitions side of things I strongly suggest you go and find some pictures of what a building that's been rigged for demolition looks like inside and research how much time and how many people it takes to set that up, then ask yourself what the likelihood of that being done in an occupied building is.
I totally understand the points of view of counter arguments, rigging a building and the time taken being one of them (it's 6 weeks or so off the top of my head).
In regards to 'understanding' of its collapse. When experts are supporting counter arguments, I don't think it is actually clear that a definitive cause can be proved or disproved at this time, which is a problem in itself. I don't conclude that NIST is a defining and only credible source, and that its findings outweighs and discredits all other experts views due to a lack of independence from government.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: I've watched quite a few video's in regards to 9/11 again recently.
Building 7 makes such little sense still, and I don't know how I hadn't before, must be a mandela effect or something but I absolutely only watched footage of the building collapsing for the first time in the last few weeks. I'd love to know the odds of it collapsing in such a way without the use of a controlled demolition. In addition to this, I've seen some camera angles of the fire in building 7... If the severity of the fire was enough to impact the structure of a skyscraper, none would ever be built again.
I need to investigate further and read some of the documents that certain theorists cite in regards to this, just to verify if they are making things up.
One example is that David Icke suggests the official reported reason for the fire and thus the collapse of building 7 is due to a 'furnishing fire', so just the office furniture.
David Icke saying that is a problem though, namely due to his other theories on the lizard elite, and his ridiculous 5G causing covid rantings of late. He isn't the most credible of sources.
Building 7 is pretty well understood as far as what caused its collapse - if you keep digging I'm sure you'll find the reasons. On the controlled demolitions side of things I strongly suggest you go and find some pictures of what a building that's been rigged for demolition looks like inside and research how much time and how many people it takes to set that up, then ask yourself what the likelihood of that being done in an occupied building is.
I totally understand the points of view of counter arguments, rigging a building and the time taken being one of them (it's 6 weeks or so off the top of my head).
In regards to 'understanding' of its collapse. When experts are supporting counter arguments, I don't think it is actually clear that a definitive cause can be proved or disproved at this time, which is a problem in itself. I don't conclude that NIST is a defining and only credible source, and that its findings outweighs and discredits all other experts views due to a lack of independence from government.
That core issue with Conspiracy Theorists, and indeed the overall conspirasphere is that any such contradictory report is proof of a cover up, and only the report they favour is to be trusted.
It’s the difference between ‘well, that confuses things. Are their other people knowledgable in the right field that can clarify?’ and ‘ahahahahahahaha I was right all along! This confirms it, everything else is a fraud, a fraud i tells ya!’
This is also seen in Cryptozoology (a subject I find really interesting in particular). A few years ago, an unusual and not readily identified clump of fur was found. This was of course claimed to be evidence of Bigfoot. DNA sequencing showed (if memory serves) to have been a hybrid between Polar and Grizzly Bear. An unusual breed to be sure, and potentially a Cryptid in itself if there’s a stable breeding population. But not Bigfoot. Naturally. Bigfoot hunters claim the DNA test was faked etc.
As for why I’m keen on Cryptozoology? Because of the concept that somebody saw something. And the research into just what that something might really have been is a good read. Take Globsters, a relatively common ‘Cryptid’ to be found washed up on beaches. They look really, really weird. So you can fully understand The Average Joe thinking it must be some unknown sea creature. (Link - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/sea-creature-globster-monster-beach-washed-up-philippines-whale-a8349336.html )
They’re not. They’re just decomposing Whales. But the science of how something like a Whale ends up looking like a big old furry mess is fascinating from a biological point of view.
That's a fair observation and something I completely agree with, I am fairly objective and considered in regards to conspiracy theories, in the sense that I think most are so ridiculous personally...
Some though, like 9/11, and actually JFK, the 'official' truth does not make complete sense.
In regards to my scepticism about tower 7, and it not just being conspiracy theorists and discounting NIST is that you have legit experts in their field like architects and engineers for 9/11 truth going against the findings, with studies funded by them (an issue, I agree) providing counter findings. In addition to this, these findings are research, conducted by universities and passing through ethics boards... If they thought it would be damaging to their reputation, it would not be published, but they have been, meaning the consensus is far apart.
There is legit disagreement in the field on what happened with tower 7. It's not like the world is flat theories where you do not have one single reputable expert arguing it is.
I wonder, especially in the case of JFK after literally decades of discussion, but also applicable to 9/11 due to the much greater volume and speed of such discourse nowadays, how much of the controversy is due to either the conspiracy theorists or people with something to gain -and those people do exist- either unintentionally or, (respectively) intentionally muddying the waters with acoustic noise designed to make it so the average no longer knows which way is up.
Also, as discussed earlier in the thread, a lot of conspiracy studies are inherently flawed - even published ones.
Bran Dawri wrote: I wonder, especially in the case of JFK after literally decades of discussion, but also applicable to 9/11 due to the much greater volume and speed of such discourse nowadays, how much of the controversy is due to either the conspiracy theorists or people with something to gain -and those people do exist- either unintentionally or, (respectively) intentionally muddying the waters with acoustic noise designed to make it so the average no longer knows which way is up.
Also, as discussed earlier in the thread, a lot of conspiracy studies are inherently flawed - even published ones.
I'm fairly convinced Trutherism (at this point) is predominantly driven by scam artists and hucksters. Trutherism is an entire industry at this point. A tiny fringe industry, but one that much like Scientology has explicitly targeted the top and bottom of the income scale. The top gives it money and is already prone to wanting to cast the government as the villain anyway (because money). The bottom is full of people who don't understand engineering anymore than anyone else and is also already prone to distrusting the government for varieties of reasons. They give the whole thing a thin veneer of legitimacy via appeal of the people fallacy. That might have been a bit different when I was younger and the disaster new, but today I think it's pretty clear the entire thing is just a money making scheme that happens to be politically advantageous for some.
There is no mystery to the B7 collapse. Saying the NIST was government commissioned is all well and good, but if it was a crock of gak independent academics and engineers the world over would have lined up to cast doubt on it and that has never happened (at best individual aspects of the methodology have been called out, but never the overarching product). All there is is a tiny fringe of people, most of them with questionable academic qualification or with expertise in unrelated fields. To rehash an old example I used earlier, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky (a whole two people) couldn't keep a BJ a secret, and we're supposed to believe the 'government' managed to brow beat over a thousand people into producing the NIST as part of a cover up? It's patently absurd.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: Some though, like 9/11, and actually JFK, the 'official' truth does not make complete sense.
When did real life ever make complete sense?
Its one of those absurdities of life. . . . I'm currently reading a book on WW1 and the author kinda hints that the start of the war went the way it did because the various antagonistic factions couldn't decide what the word "is" is . . . . As in, one prime reason is because, diplomatically and internally, for Russia, the term "mobilize" meant to call up and prepare troops. For Germany, "mobilize" meant "Lets pre-emptively invade France by way of Belgium, crush them in a few weeks, then deal with Russia head on" . . . And diplomatically, the German ambassadors took Russian mobilization to mean "they are gonna invade the feth out of us", while the Russian diplomats took Germany's mobilization to mean "prep for a war while ultimately trying to prevent it turning into a shooting war"
But. . . that is far, far too messy for conspiracy theorists who have an absolute need for "control", or someone/thing that has it pitted against those who want it
endlesswaltz123 wrote: That's a fair observation and something I completely agree with, I am fairly objective and considered in regards to conspiracy theories, in the sense that I think most are so ridiculous personally...
Some though, like 9/11, and actually JFK, the 'official' truth does not make complete sense.
In regards to my scepticism about tower 7, and it not just being conspiracy theorists and discounting NIST is that you have legit experts in their field like architects and engineers for 9/11 truth going against the findings, with studies funded by them (an issue, I agree) providing counter findings. In addition to this, these findings are research, conducted by universities and passing through ethics boards... If they thought it would be damaging to their reputation, it would not be published, but they have been, meaning the consensus is far apart.
There is legit disagreement in the field on what happened with tower 7. It's not like the world is flat theories where you do not have one single reputable expert arguing it is.
I'm not sure I'd call Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth reputable (even the "experts" tag may not be applicable) and there are serious problem with any supposedly scientific organisation that seems to pre-suppose a conclusion and rather suspiciously keeps getting reports they've funded to back up their conclusions, against the general consensus of the rest of the scientific and engineering community. That aside, I think one thing conspiracy theories try to exploit is that the real world is never as simple and controlled as a scientific experiment and we will legitimately have things we may not be able to explain once we've analysed all the data available. My problem with conspiracy theories is they usually use a "God of the gaps" style argument that says any unaccounted for variable or any outlier is proof of their chosen conspiracy.
In the case of WTC 7 it's highly unlikely we'll ever know precisely what happened because the collapse happened in the real world, not controlled laboratory conditions. All investigations into these kind of events will have gaps in their knowledge and disagreements about the exact details but I've yet to see a credible report or paper that suggests the collapse was due to anything other than the combination of fire and debris damage. It's not enough to point out gaps or errors in an investigation, you also need to provide credible evidence to back up any alternate theory that's put forward. That's often where conspiracy theories fall down, IME.
You also need to look at the questions asked. Let’s compare two, as an example.
Question 1 - “What caused and contributed to the collapse of WTC 7”
Question 2 - “Could the collapse of WTC 7 be due to a controlled demolition”
There, Question 1 is an honest, open question. It’s seeking answers, without seeking a specific answer.
Question 2 is a conclusion in search of supporting evidence. And if anything suggest that it could have been a controlled demolition? That’s a hard conclusion in the Conspirasphere that it must have been, and couldn’t have been anything else.
Worse, any given report just needs to be wordy enough to confuse The Man In The Street, such as myself. If it’s using technical language, I won’t know whether any conclusions drawn, or claimed, are accurate. To add further confusion, CTs will often cherry pick quotes that support them.
This all helps to legitimise their often bonkers claims.
People should honestly just read the NIST report. I'm not an engineer and after reading the summary alone I understood it. It's honestly really straight forward. The guy who headed the study even pointed out how simple it was in numerous interview; "It's like when you put a jar of pickles under the water to make the lid easier to remove, only the water is jet fuel and the jar of pickles is now collapsing to the ground because the entire structure has been compromised by high heat (summary + minorly sardonic)."
Really. The study into how WTC7 collapsed actually broke new ground in modeling and caused the adoption of a bunch of new safety features for how skyscrappers are built. A big part of why the building went down is that no engineer before 9/11 was really thinking about how thermal expansion could compromise a building.
LordofHats wrote: I'm fairly convinced Trutherism (at this point) is predominantly driven by scam artists and hucksters. Trutherism is an entire industry at this point. A tiny fringe industry, but one that much like Scientology has explicitly targeted the top and bottom of the income scale. The top gives it money and is already prone to wanting to cast the government as the villain anyway (because money). The bottom is full of people who don't understand engineering anymore than anyone else and is also already prone to distrusting the government for varieties of reasons. They give the whole thing a thin veneer of legitimacy via appeal of the people fallacy. That might have been a bit different when I was younger and the disaster new, but today I think it's pretty clear the entire thing is just a money making scheme that happens to be politically advantageous for some.
I think the real appeal of conspiracy theories is that it ironically makes people feel safe. Believing the government can put together an airtight ruse to kill thousands of people and justify some war (for example) requires you to believe that the government is so capable and efficient that such an attack is actually impossible - and in contrast this can be preferable to the idea that the chaotic soup of nature, international politics and human fallibility could kill any one of us in a way that is neither foreseeable nor truly meaningful.
Why not a bogus attempt on a President or Senator’s life? Doesn’t even need to be successful. Hell, even the whole ‘ramming speed’ thing needn’t be successful. It simply doesn’t take that level of terror to justify reprisals.
For ‘Them’ (insert blamee of your choice) to ramp it up to that level leaves them nowhere else to go other than a dirty bomb or nuclear attack, which let’s face it is a helluva lot harder to hide any level of complicity.
endlesswaltz123 wrote: That's a fair observation and something I completely agree with, I am fairly objective and considered in regards to conspiracy theories, in the sense that I think most are so ridiculous personally...
Some though, like 9/11, and actually JFK, the 'official' truth does not make complete sense.
In regards to my scepticism about tower 7, and it not just being conspiracy theorists and discounting NIST is that you have legit experts in their field like architects and engineers for 9/11 truth going against the findings, with studies funded by them (an issue, I agree) providing counter findings. In addition to this, these findings are research, conducted by universities and passing through ethics boards... If they thought it would be damaging to their reputation, it would not be published, but they have been, meaning the consensus is far apart.
There is legit disagreement in the field on what happened with tower 7. It's not like the world is flat theories where you do not have one single reputable expert arguing it is.
I'm not sure I'd call Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth reputable (even the "experts" tag may not be applicable) and there are serious problem with any supposedly scientific organisation that seems to pre-suppose a conclusion and rather suspiciously keeps getting reports they've funded to back up their conclusions, against the general consensus of the rest of the scientific and engineering community. That aside, I think one thing conspiracy theories try to exploit is that the real world is never as simple and controlled as a scientific experiment and we will legitimately have things we may not be able to explain once we've analysed all the data available. My problem with conspiracy theories is they usually use a "God of the gaps" style argument that says any unaccounted for variable or any outlier is proof of their chosen conspiracy.
In the case of WTC 7 it's highly unlikely we'll ever know precisely what happened because the collapse happened in the real world, not controlled laboratory conditions. All investigations into these kind of events will have gaps in their knowledge and disagreements about the exact details but I've yet to see a credible report or paper that suggests the collapse was due to anything other than the combination of fire and debris damage. It's not enough to point out gaps or errors in an investigation, you also need to provide credible evidence to back up any alternate theory that's put forward. That's often where conspiracy theories fall down, IME.
Its also weird for someone who watched it happen live. Its never occurred to me to question what happened to the Towers (and the Pentagon) because it happened in real time with overlapping camera views. I saw the gaping hole in the Pentagon with Eyeball Mk1 within days of the event, and living in DC it warped a lot of daily life. When they resumed flights out of Reagan National Airport a year+ later, it was terrifying, since I hadn't heard a plane on that flight path (over my apartment building) since 9/11 itself. So the first one at 6am when I was still asleep was frankly flashback time.
The 'conspiracy' involved assembling the crew to takeover the planes, and is completely within the realm of reality. The fall of the buildings seemed a straightfoward application of physics, both velocity and heat.
The real consiparcy is the invention of conspiracy.
Im paraphrasing:
"After all, who would be scared of us if bunch of people living in caves managed to wreck our biggest city..."
"so we invented the conspiracy so people will think we are all powerful instead and think we are capable of blowing up our own city and faking he whole thing"
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.
It was legit but it was allowed to happen. No detonation needed.
To elaborate, this utterly insane idea manages to seamlessly twirl together conspiracy theories about Jews, 5G, covid-19, NWO, and maybe a number of others I've missed.
To elaborate, this utterly insane idea manages to seamlessly twirl together conspiracy theories about Jews, 5G, covid-19, NWO, and maybe a number of others I've missed.
impressive, well, kinda.
I still find it wierd when the jews get brought up as NWO shadow government cabal, mostly because bringing them on course for such a thing would be like herding cats, considering their immense internal fractures.
LordofHats wrote: People should honestly just read the NIST report. I'm not an engineer and after reading the summary alone I understood it. It's honestly really straight forward. The guy who headed the study even pointed out how simple it was in numerous interview; "It's like when you put a jar of pickles under the water to make the lid easier to remove, only the water is jet fuel and the jar of pickles is now collapsing to the ground because the entire structure has been compromised by high heat (summary + minorly sardonic)."
Really. The study into how WTC7 collapsed actually broke new ground in modeling and caused the adoption of a bunch of new safety features for how skyscrappers are built. A big part of why the building went down is that no engineer before 9/11 was really thinking about how thermal expansion could compromise a building.
...are you suggesting that the architect of the WTC did not consider 'what if a passenger airplane flies into this building?' Such incompetence is far less plausible than a controlled demolition sir.
The real consiparcy is the invention of conspiracy.
Im paraphrasing:
"After all, who would be scared of us if bunch of people living in caves managed to wreck our biggest city..."
"so we invented the conspiracy so people will think we are all powerful instead and think we are capable of blowing up our own city and faking he whole thing"
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.
It was legit but it was allowed to happen. No detonation needed.
You like the South Park take... but also disagree with it? You feel that the government knew it was coming and specifically did not stop it? Can you elaborate?
LordofHats wrote: People should honestly just read the NIST report. I'm not an engineer and after reading the summary alone I understood it. It's honestly really straight forward. The guy who headed the study even pointed out how simple it was in numerous interview; "It's like when you put a jar of pickles under the water to make the lid easier to remove, only the water is jet fuel and the jar of pickles is now collapsing to the ground because the entire structure has been compromised by high heat (summary + minorly sardonic)."
Really. The study into how WTC7 collapsed actually broke new ground in modeling and caused the adoption of a bunch of new safety features for how skyscrappers are built. A big part of why the building went down is that no engineer before 9/11 was really thinking about how thermal expansion could compromise a building.
...are you suggesting that the architect of the WTC did not consider 'what if a passenger airplane flies into this building?' Such incompetence is far less plausible than a controlled demolition sir.
Hilarity aside (I totally agree with your sentiment, I just don't want this to become a gotcha moment for some nutjob), WTC7 wasn't hit by a plane and that's probably why the Truther conspiracy has over the years increasingly centered on it.
WTC7 did get hit by debris and caught fire. And yes, it was not common in architectural engineering (or at least wasn't at the time) to account for fires burning on multiple floors so hot that they caused the building superstructure to expand and lose stiffness resulting in the collapse of the interior pylons and complete compromise of the building. It actually is maybe kind of an 'out of place and time' moment for some. These days computers and computer simulations are taken for granted and it probably seems utterly bizarre that buildings like the World Trade Center were ever constructed and designed without taking all the variables into account. But the first WTC7 building was originally built 1987 when advanced computer modeling was still new. Engineers were among the first fields to embrace computers but back then they were used to speed up basic elements of design, not advanced simulations for potential fringe case disaster scenarios. The building was never designed to account for the question 'will a big fire cause it to collapse'. It's kind of Titanic moment in a way. It was probably taken for granted that a sufficient sprinkler system would combat any fire before it could possible engulf extensive parts of the structure and compromise its basic construction. No one in 1987 was testing "what if planes are flown into another nearby building and debris hits our building when it collapses spreading fires across multiple floors.' Ironically, things like getting hit by debris were taken into account, which is why WTC7 was able to endure exterior damage without collapse but gave way to the effect of thermal expansion.
Well thank you for those extra tidbits of information good sir.
Another one of my favorites is 'jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel' as if steel completely retains all structural integrity at any temperature right up until it hits melting.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Well thank you for those extra tidbits of information good sir.
Another one of my favorites is 'jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel' as if there is some binary temperature point where steel goes from completely solid to molten.
Also, jet fuel might not but who knows what temperature the chemicals they use for chemtrails burn at. /sarcasm
Because the head of a major Police Union has apparently made the news for having a Q-Anon mug in his office and I now have a bug up my ass about it.
Needless to say Q-Anon is bs, but it's particularly dumb because you can find on a simple google search how bs it is. Namely that 'Q' probably didn't have Q clearance and seemingly had no idea what Q clearance is. It's a department of energy clearance and is predominantly handed out to civilian personnel with knowledge of nuclear secrets. Someone with Q access would have no special knowledge of government policy or broader government secrets. It's equivalent to a TS clearance (handed out by the DoD), but simply having clearance doesn't entail having access to information. You can literally find this information with a google search.
I can only assume Q got the idea of claiming to have Q clearance from an episode of Archer. Q (the original anyway, there's a whole other conspiracy theory about who the 'new' one is) was an obvious troll, yet an entire group has sprung up that is apparently incapable of noticing.
Actually the whole Q annon thing allways fascinated me in a bizarre way, it goes back into that deepstate debacle with an awefull lot of people supposedly beeing part of a conspiracy..
An awefull lot of potential leaks so to speak. It doesn't make a lick of sense from the outside.
It's generally thought hat the Q who posts on 8Chan today is not the same person who first posted on 4Chan in 2017.
EDIT: There's a bit of a conspiracy about the conspiracy theory that the owner of 8Chan has coopted the Q identity but it only has circumstantial evidence to support it.
Metro apparently doesn't like me using an ad-blocker - I really need the ad-blocker people to step up their game and implement an ad-blocker-blocker-blocker, as this is annoying.
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