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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Serial? That’s an actual theory?

Mind you, after the utter, utter nonsense spread about Sandy Hook, I shouldn’t be so surprised.

Some families sued over that and won. Maybe one way to fight CS is to sue the perpetrators of them and win.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alex-jones-pay-100-000-sandy-hook-case-judge-rules-n1109096

Glenn Beck was sued over as conspiracy theory too.

https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/09/glenn-beck-boston-marathon-bombing/500075/

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The financial elite.....want Marxism?

Marxism? The Financial Elite?

It's just the old canard that communism is a jewish plot to weaken the aryan race by turning workers into race traitors against their rightful bosses. Again, the claims are nonsense but they're not made to be supported, they're made to justify what the believer wanted to do anyway. You want to fight workers' rights because they're loud and ungrateful and should do what they're told so you can profit off of them. So obviously it's not that they're being treated poorly, it's that jews are lying to them to get them to make trouble! Conundrum solved, now you just have to send the cops to gun down the union leadership. And very conveniently you'll also get to know who isn't fully on your side because they'll question your reasoning and complete lack of legal mechanisms.

Rosebuddy wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The financial elite.....want Marxism?

Marxism? The Financial Elite?

It's just the old canard that communism is a jewish plot to weaken the aryan race by turning workers into race traitors against their rightful bosses. Again, the claims are nonsense but they're not made to be supported, they're made to justify what the believer wanted to do anyway. You want to fight workers' rights because they're loud and ungrateful and should do what they're told so you can profit off of them. So obviously it's not that they're being treated poorly, it's that jews are lying to them to get them to make trouble! Conundrum solved, now you just have to send the cops to gun down the union leadership. And very conveniently you'll also get to know who isn't fully on your side because they'll question your reasoning and complete lack of legal mechanisms.

I wish i could exalt this post more.

It is more comforting to believe the hardship of the modern day is down to the intentional malicious actions of a few bad actors, than it being the product of generations of cultural evolution, enabling, and plain old incompetence. The former reality is one that can be fixed by eliminating the bad actors and even besides that there is a clear bad guy to fight and blame. The latter is ambiguous, not going to be fixed in one's own lifetime, and means blame is spread across so many different facets of society that everyone bears some part of it. There's no easy place for blame and fighting it means being the change you want to see, which people are broadly unwilling to do.

 Easy E wrote:
If you believe everything is false..... then anything can be true. If you believe nothing, you can believe anything.

That's a complete oxymoron. If you believe nothing, you believe... nothing. It doesn't open you up to 'anything.'
If anything it allows for more rational assessment based on evidence, to accept things only if they're testable and repeatable.

That is part of the problem on why Conspiracy Theory's multiply. There is a shocking number of people in the world who are Nihilists that believe in Nothing.

Nonsense again. Most conspiracy theorists are Extreme Edition Believers. They're Fox Mulder type people that _want_ and _need_ something to believe in, to the point that they'll warp their minds around contradictions in their own beliefs and disregard evidence.

I just want to throw out some observations about the conspiracy theory of “international” Illuminati-type cabals.

The first thing to note is that the purported cabals are always international. This is crucially important.

We have to keep in mind that nations are extremely recent. I’m not talking about peoples, kingdoms, empires, countries, etc., but specifically nations. The Founders of the United States were aware of the concept (and rejected it) in the late 18th century. By the mid 19th century, however, the concept had become the rallying cry for European liberals and, gradually, conservatives got on board such that, by the 1860s, Europe was massively reconfiguring along national lines. Most famously, the German Empire was declared in 1871. The American Civil War is similarly probably best understood as a transition from a confederation of sovereigns to a unified nation.

So nations-as-such have only been around for about 150 years and in that short time have been a fundamental contributor of extreme political upheaval, not least of all two World Wars. In other words, nations are not the ancient and stable institutions they present themselves to be and as we often assume they are. Therefore, there always has been (and continues to be) much anxiety around their existence.

The world before nations was not “international” (this being a term that only really makes sense in the context of nations) but it was heavily interconnected in a way that nations, ever jealous of their exclusive jurisdictional claims, sought and still seek to undermine. Some of those “connections” (in the form of institutions) have persisted in the face of a political world increasingly defined by national borders and nationalists have always been skeptical of them. Examples include Catholicism, Judaism, and Freemasonry. New perspectives emphasizing the transience of nations also emerged, such as Communism, and (in some parts of the world) these too have been the targets of nationalist attacks. Nationalists have even consistently attacked “international” institutions (e.g., the United Nations), despite their existence implying that nations are indeed the fundamental building blocks of global politics.

This is the context for Illuminati/New World Order type conspiracy theories.

I'd say calling nations unstable is not taking into account the stability of what came before. If anything nations have survived and even thrived despite a pace of technological and social advancement which would have obliterated the stability of older governments.

 Manchu wrote:
I just want to throw out some observations about the conspiracy theory of “international” Illuminati-type cabals.

We have to keep in mind that nations are extremely recent. I’m not talking about peoples, kingdoms, empires, countries, etc., but specifically nations. The Founders of the United States were aware of the concept (and rejected it) in the late 18th century. By the mid 19th century, however, the concept had become the rallying cry for European liberals and, gradually, conservatives got on board such that, by the 1860s, Europe was massively reconfiguring along national lines.

This is the context for Illuminati/New World Order type conspiracy theories.

Eh. Somewhat. The problem is, most of the people who believe in these particular conspiracy theories don't understand the distinctions you're drawing. For most country/nation/kingdom are interchangeable synonyms, with the exception that the latter has a King (or sometimes Queen) or equivalent head of state.

That lack of understanding feeds a little into why they believe in the theories in the first place.

Hard to evaluate nations as stable when the course of their existence has been (1) extremely short and (2) even as a matter of their birth, a series of ongoing, violent catastrophes and moreover where digital technology, international cooperation and norms, and globalist commerce has called their relevance into question.

Also, one need not be aware of historical processes to be impacted by them. I agree that not being explicitly conscious of these concepts shapes the way one is impacted by them. A nationalist need not be a xenophobe but it’s no coincidence that they often go hand in hand.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I'd say calling nations unstable is not taking into account the stability of what came before. If anything nations have survived and even thrived despite a pace of technological and social advancement which would have obliterated the stability of older governments.

Hell no, nonononono, nations are anything but stable , and especially those of an ethno nationalistic founding have extreme violent tendencies, an complete disregard for local minorities and a mean streak of easily justified wars.

Meanwhile older structures like the HRE survived apocalyptic wars like the 30 years war which killed off approximately 40 % of the WHOLE population. And had just as devastating effects to endure on the hands of technology and by meassure of centuries outlasted even the oldest "nations".

 SolarCross wrote:

Anyway to go back to my favourite hobby horse. Conspiracy theorists are in no way intellectually inferior to circlejerk internet normies. Everything that everyone believes is false, but at least the conspiracy theorists are daring enough to defy the narratives of authority and are creative enough to entertain unconventional narratives. Moreover much of what they pull into their narratives comes from sources that any internet normie would regard as an authority anyway. What normie would say the Jerusalem Post was a fringe rag? Is it not at least as respectable as the BBC or CNN (snigger)?

This is like Conspiracy Theorist bullgak 101. Given that "normies" and CTs are not well-defined monolithic groups I'm not sure you can make sweeping statements about the intellectual status of either group. What I would argue, though, is that the vast majority of conspiracy theorists demonstrate a lack of critical thinking and evidence evaluation skills in the specific area of their given theory. In that narrow sense an argument could be made that they are intellectually inferior within that subject area but I wouldn't say that's because they are necessarily generally intellectually inferior to the general population. I think it was touched on earlier in this thread but a lot of what I see from conspiracy theorists is a misunderstanding of a subject area magnified through a certain personality type or maybe political or religious leaning. Flat Earthers are a prime example of this: they often try to use maths to prove their theory but demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge of basic laws of science or geometry that make all their attempts laughably incorrect. I think it's a combination of a lack of understanding in a specific area combined with a blinkered need to prove their theory, kind of like a double blind spot. It may be some of these people lack the intelligence to even get close to understanding the things they're talking about, but there are plenty of non-believers who are probably in the same boat, the difference is they don't weaponise that ignorance and call it proof.

You say everything everyone believes is false, without justification. That's the type of tactic CTs use to justify their beliefs. If you can't be 100% certain about something, they say, then you have to believe anything (just look at evolution deniers and the "it's only a theory" line of reasoning). That's not how that works. 100% certainty is rare, especially so in the general population who are usually non-experts, but being only 95% sure of something doesn't mean we have to afford the same level of certainty to any other theory someone might present. I'm also not sure why the creativity of a narrative should have any bearing on whether it's actually true or not.

Finally, the stuff about sources is classic CT thinking too. There's difference between a source like the BBC or some other generally reputable media outlet reporting on what some high-ranking military official believes and them endorsing that belief. In the case of some Israeli general talking about some alien federation that's newsworthy because it's a fringe theory being repeated by a public figure in a position of authority. Them reporting on his belief doesn't lend the underlying theory any credibility. I usually find when CTs claim sources from reputable media outlets the sources usually don't actually back up their claims at all.

There's also apparently a theory that for many people (not all) CTs aren't arrived at and believed rationally, but rather emotionally, much like religion.

They try to address the same need for order in an apparently chaotic, uncaring (occasionally hostile) and cold universe.
Hence in the face of a rapidly changing society, ever-faster technology not to mention growing money problems for many on the lower economic rungs and on top of that now corona, people turn to these conspiracy theories so they can feel as though a world spinning out of control at least makes some sense - which makes people feel a semblance of control again.

Which would also explain why any given group of conspiracy theory believers so often exhibit cult-like behaviour. In many ways, they are.

In a few of the Flat Earth videos I've seen of their group meetings there's certainly a big purely social draw for many. For them its a chance to get together with other people; share an interest and work within the group itself. Giving a person social contact, social and group value and purpose/direction.


You see the same thing in some gang videos when they interview former gang members and one reason some join up is purely for the social linkages. That desire to be part of a group and to have value within the group itself.



I'd also note that conspiracy believers often have issues with understanding the subject matter, but its not just a lack of understanding. It's coupled to several other elements

1) Lack of confidence in "formal education". Many are often failures at school - either entirely or in specific subject areas. So they have a chip on their shoulder against the established sciences or maths and such. It's likely something they don't even realise they have, they just really distrust the "official" in any form

2) Being directly missed by others. Not only are they lacking in understanding in the subject area, but there are agents within the conspiracy theory who mislead them further. Starting out with a lack of understanding and then getting incorrect information ontop of that is going to leave them confused.
It's not just that they can't critically think, its that other groups are directly inhibiting their ability to critically think.

This is particularly true when it comes to the denial of evolution.

The actual teaching of evolution in schools (as opposed to further education) is pretty basic and doesn’t delve particularly deeply into the whole shebang.

For most, it’s enough. It sketches out the theory, and offers examples of proof. But, for someone who, all their life, has been given misinformation and misrepresentation, it only backs up what they’ve been told.

Common error of understanding? “Survival of the Fittest”. With limited understanding, it’s just a tagline. Worse. It’s actually a misrepresentation of the prediction. And it doesn’t originate from Darwin.

Anti-evolutionist arguments don’t stand up to much scrutiny. The Crocoduck is one often cited as evidence against - but the theory of evolution doesn’t predict a Crocoduck, or any such creature. Because that’s not what’s meant by a transitional organism.

Evolution doesn’t predict a half chimpanzee, half human organism. At all. Because it instead predicts a long series of incremental changes via mutation. An enlarging of the eye here, strengthening of the wrist bones there, to further over simplify.

And we know these mutations occur, because we see them in nature. It’s when they provide some form of benefit and advantage that evolution predicts they’ll be passed along. If they continue to prove useful, you’ll end up with a sub-species, and even, in time (thousands of years) a new species - defined, as I understand it, as the new organism being unable to procreate with its predecessor.

Example of beneficial mutation? The North Ronaldsay Sheep. In short, it survives on seaweed. And nothing but. After centuries of relative isolation on North Ronaldsay, it can no longer eat grass. That’s a useful mutation for its environment. Normally the patrol the shore, scoffing it’s salty fare. But some have been documented to swim out for its dindins.

And it’s that last behaviour which could lead to natural selection - should the ability to swim prove crucial to getting enough food. Should one or two lambs be born with say, webbed feet in that situation, those basic swimming aids may see the gene responsible spread further, until all North Ronaldsay have such webbing. Rinse and repeat over millennia, and we might even see Sea Sheep, and a continuing populace of non Sea Sheep, both descended from the North Ronaldsay common ancestor.

It’s the sheer, mind boggling time span required that seems to confuse folk.

Apologies if I’ve dropped some non-factual clangers. My knowledge isn’t perfect, nor particularly wide! As always, I’m open to becoming better educated

With evolution there's also confusing elements in that

1) Genetics don't just affect one property. Having a longer neck so you can reach higher food is a gain, however that same gene that affects that might also result in you having weaker eyesight. So you'd have one bonus propping up a weakness. Provided that the benefit outweighs the negative then you can have a negative element preserved within the genepool

2) Benefits and downsides are partly based on both perspective and situation.
Eg being highly selective in your food source is great when you've a stable ecosystem as it gives you a niche to fill. However in a changing system you might find your main food source ends up becoming very rare and thus that once beneficial trait becomes a negative one.

Perspective wise its all about interpreting a trait. Some might interpret certain animal properties as a negative element and others might identify them as a positive one.



Timescale is also really hard for people to wrap their heads around. The vast span of years it takes to evolve things is so vast its really beyond mane people's casual ability to really appreciate. Even within the few thousand years of our own history we have trouble. Consider how often we talk of the Romans; the Greeks, the Middle Ages as if they are single generation peoples/periods of time. When in reality they span hundreds of years each and vast changes over both time and location. And that's just a few thousand years of human history - consider the vast spans of evolutionary time and its mindboggling.

I also agree with the concept that we call a thing a thing and expect it to be the same thing all through time. Even though we've ample evidence of changes. Consider many modern dog breeds look nothing like they did just 200 or even 100 years ago. Yet we'd call them the same breed of dog even though physically some have gone through dramatic changes even that if we saw them side by side today we'd class them as different breeds.

(background - my degree is in biology, with a lot of ecology / evolution / animal behaviour. 20 years ago now though, and haven't worked in the field since, so I'm rusty)

Yeah that gels pretty much with my understanding. I think the biggest misunderstanding is that evolution is a linear process where some chimps stopped evolving and stayed as chimps, and others kept going and eventually arrived at humans. So there should be some intermediate species in between chimps and humans. Also that humans are 'more evolved' than chimps, which is not the case. Or that evolution has finished and we're the end result...

Hadn't heard about the sheep, they're fun

I think you've got it covered pretty well, though I've been given to understand the concept of a transitional species isn't actually used in evolutionary biology much anymore. Any given organism is a member of a distinct species (and occasionally a subspecies), but given the incremental nature of speciation it's impossible to mark a specific point in the line of descent of a species and say "this is where it's no longer species X, but species Y". Unless that's what you were trying to get at?

Other annoyingly incorrect "counter" arguments are the whirlwind Boeing 747 assembly (ironically actually an argument for evolution); "but evolution doesn't explain where life originated" - that's abiogenesis, evolution was only ever an explanation for how you get a great variety of species complexity and order in organisms from blind natural forces; and "I'm not descended from a monkey" - that's correct. Both monkeys and ourselves evolved from a common ancestor.

The only people currently rejecting Darwinian evolution are bible / koran literalists. The reason they reject it is because they prefer the bible to be true rather Darwin and no one has come up with a particularly nice way to have both. Everyone just believes what they want to be true. There are people who only wave Darwin around like a tribal mascot because they dislike Christians but anytime someone wants to actually act on Darwinism as if it were true they spit their dummy out. So it goes both ways, but at least the bible literalists are trying to be consistent.

 SolarCross wrote:
There are people who only wave darwin around because they dislike Christians

Are there? Do you have any examples of that?

I'm aware that the most common arguments against evolution are religious and therefore the tension is normally between adherents to a particular religion and those who argue for evolution. I'm not sure you can really claim those arguing for evolution are doing so just to spite any particular religion though.

Slipspace wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:
There are people who only wave darwin around because they dislike Christians

Are there? Do you have any examples of that?

I'm aware that the most common arguments against evolution are religious and therefore the tension is normally between adherents to a particular religion and those who argue for evolution. I'm not sure you can really claim those arguing for evolution are doing so just to spite any particular religion though.

Not all, but there are some who are vocal in their contempt for Christianity and those people like to signal their virtue as anti-christians by professing their allegiance to Darwin as a totem of their enmity. This professed allegiance disappears the instant that anyone starts drawing any obvious conclusions from Darwin though. In my experience of online debate these people tend to be adherents of one of the communist sects although also many political liberals / secular humanists will also do this.

Theistic Evolution is a concept propagated by one of the biggest churches and accepted though?

OK this is risking getting political, but I guess you're maybe talking about a more right-wing ideology suggesting a Darwinian element to supporting those not able to look after themselves or something? And how it goes against survival-of-the-fittest Darwinism to help people who can't help themselves?

Firstly, that ignores the many examples of altruism being a beneficial trait that evolution has selected for in the natural world.

Secondly, just because that is how the natural world (often) works, it doesn't mean we can't choose to be better.

Crispy78 wrote:
OK this is risking getting political, but I guess you're maybe talking about a more right-wing ideology suggesting a Darwinian element to supporting those not able to look after themselves or something? And how it goes against survival-of-the-fittest Darwinism to help people who can't help themselves?

Firstly, that ignores the many examples of altruism being a beneficial trait that evolution has selected for in the natural world.

Secondly, just because that is how the natural world (often) works, it doesn't mean we can't choose to be better.

Also, evolution is a theory of biological diversity and speciation. Just because somebody applies a label of "Darwinism" or "evolution" to a non-biological process doesn't mean it's directly analogous. You can't really blame the original theory for the way it's subsequently misused.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Theistic Evolution is a concept propagated by one of the biggest churches and accepted though?

Yes indeed many Christians have basically conceded the field to Darwin but they still want to keep their faith so they try to awkwardly patch it with little stories like "genesis is not meant to be taken literally" and that sort of thing. Not all Christians are willing to surrender that point though and even fewer Muslims. The reason is not that they are stupid though, just the opposite they are smart enough to realise that the whole edifice of their belief system rest on Genesis and if it is not true then there is no good reason to believe the rest of it either. They choose to reject Darwin even with a good working knowledge of its propositions because they prefer their old stories over Darwin's newer one. In this way they are like all of us, including all of us here. We believe what we want to believe.

 SolarCross wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Theistic Evolution is a concept propagated by one of the biggest churches and accepted though?

Yes indeed many Christians have basically conceded the field to Darwin but they still want to keep their faith so they try to awkwardly patch it with little stories like "genesis is not meant to be taken literally" and that sort of thing. Not all Christians are willing to surrender that point though and even fewer Muslims. The reason is not that they are stupid though, just the opposite they are smart enough to realise that the whole edifice of their belief system rest on Genesis and if it is not true then there is no good reason to believe the rest of it either. They choose to reject Darwin even with a good working knowledge of its propositions because they prefer their old stories over Darwin's newer one. In this way they are like all of us, including all of us here. We believe what we want to believe.

Remaining ardently upon the "old story" is to ignore the present by favour of dogmatism. Further than that, it is outright disprovable, as is the whole notion of god to a degree. And i say that as a catholic. And frankly if you regard it as akwardly patching then you frankly have issues with the theodizee and any fact that there exists a notion of evil for a supposedly benevolent all powerfull god.

That has nothing to do with smart, but rather with selfdelusion. In some cases even connected actively to malice in order to exploit people. Hence why wealth gospel and such structures exist and prosper.

And there we have the whole cult like structure that was allready brought up.

Some conspiracy theory thinking seems to be based on the 'counter intuitiveness" mentality.

Now don't think I'm condemning counter intuitive thinking, it's actually valid in a lot of cases, especially in scientific research where things don't always go they way "common sense' would say they should. (Quantum research, for example.)

But some people take the counter intuitive thing to just ridiculous extremes.

The 'rational" for it seems to be that there are things that are counter intuitive and true, combined with "Well, no one would say something that apparently impossible unless they had proof it was true."

Oh, yeah, let's not forget the whole 'confirmation bias" thing.

Plus the counter intuitive will often smugly say that the fact you think his views make no sense is due to your inability to grasp his "higher reasoning"...

Here's a cartoon illustrating the modern counter intuitive in action.



With the whole creation thing, the counter intuitive will say "So called evidence for evolution..is actually evidence for creationism!" and "The evidence reputed to defeat creationism...actually proves it!"

So counter intuitivism, which is often valid, is also often misused to support views that have no factual basis. This makes it a tool to prop up a lot of CTs.

Man, that cartoon is dark!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Man, that cartoon is dark!

Had to add in in an edit because quick reply doesn't give the picture option.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Theistic Evolution is a concept propagated by one of the biggest churches and accepted though?

Yes indeed many Christians have basically conceded the field to Darwin but they still want to keep their faith so they try to awkwardly patch it with little stories like "genesis is not meant to be taken literally" and that sort of thing. Not all Christians are willing to surrender that point though and even fewer Muslims. The reason is not that they are stupid though, just the opposite they are smart enough to realise that the whole edifice of their belief system rest on Genesis and if it is not true then there is no good reason to believe the rest of it either. They choose to reject Darwin even with a good working knowledge of its propositions because they prefer their old stories over Darwin's newer one. In this way they are like all of us, including all of us here. We believe what we want to believe.

Remaining ardently upon the "old story" is to ignore the present by favour of dogmatism. Further than that, it is outright disprovable, as is the whole notion of god to a degree. And i say that as a catholic. And frankly if you regard it as akwardly patching then you frankly have issues with the theodizee and any fact that there exists a notion of evil for a supposedly benevolent all powerfull god.

That has nothing to do with smart, but rather with selfdelusion. In some cases even connected actively to malice in order to exploit people. Hence why wealth gospel and such structures exist and prosper.

And there we have the whole cult like structure that was allready brought up.

Self-delusion is ubiquitous though and the most ubiquitous self-delusion is that it is only the other guy who is self-deluded. Everyone here is also doing that at the same time as being completely and deliberately unaware of it. There is no escape from our ownselves and the needs of the self always and should obscure the truth which is probably useless to the self and unknowable anyway.

 SolarCross wrote:

Self-delusion is ubiquitous though and the most ubiquitous self-delusion is that it is only the other guy who is self-deluded. Everyone here is also doing that at the same time as being completely and deliberately unaware of it.

**Deleted Myself and Nothing of value was lost.....**