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Author Topic:   Conspiracy Theories: It's all in your mind!
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 86 of 137 (700504)
06-03-2013 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by Dogmafood
06-02-2013 3:05 AM


Re: How can you tell?
Here is a pilots description of what Hanjour acheived.
BTW, looking back, the post you refer me to is unsigned. As we now know, people who post on that website don't have to be pilots. Am I missing something, or is there any reason whatsoever to think that the author of that screed was a pilot?
That particular blog post begins:
First let me say i offer no theory or speculation. I definitely do NOT offer that is was a missle, global hawk or otherwise. All the following will be facts (according to reports) and questions.
So, i started with NTSB, since they are the "go-to" guys when you want a report.. right?
This is what i get...
Call me a snob, but I would not like to be flown around the sky by someone who writes like that. But this aside, why do you say that he's a pilot at all?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Dogmafood, posted 06-02-2013 3:05 AM Dogmafood has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 90 of 137 (700562)
06-04-2013 1:21 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by Dogmafood
06-04-2013 11:25 AM


Re: How can you tell?
Would you say that the population at large is prone to having opinions that they have no evidenced reason for having?
Well, now and then. I used to believe that baby giraffes don't have spots, I have no idea how that got into my head. We're all prone to picking up false information.
A CT is a different sort of thing. It's a cognitive trap. You see, having entered into a CT, then all the evidence one doesn't like can have been faked. And any tiny apparent anomaly (which may not be an anomaly at all, but a result of one's misunderstanding of the subject on the lines of "why are there still monkeys" or "why doesn't the hole in the Pentagon correspond to the wingspan of the plane") is a demonstration of a crack in the facade. (To this the CT-ist can add the normal human faults of confirmation bias and laziness.)
A CT-ist, in short, constructs an unfalsifiable hypothesis. No amount of disconfirmatory evidence can shoot it down; and it has in fact no predictive power --- the hypothesis does not predict that such-and-such a guy at the FAA should be having his first day on the job, or that police should have collected evidence from the Citgo gas station within (some unspecified number of) minutes rather than hours, but they seem ... odd ... which is sufficient.
And it is doubly unfalsifiable because the CT doesn't have to construct a hypothesis as such --- nothing further than that THEY are not telling us the truth, that a conspiracy happened, but not any particular conspiracy. He doesn't have to put up any particular hypothesis that one can examine, he just has to say: "Larry Silverstein used the word "pull", isn't that ... odd?"
With respect to expert testimony, if experts say he's wrong, then they are lying, or brainwashed, or afraid to confront the truth, or would lose their jobs if they speak out ... whereas the handful of cranks on his side are brave fighters for truth, and not the statistically expected bunch of nuts that you always get.
And so on and so forth. As I say, it's a cognitive trap --- once you start thinking like that, there is no evidence that will talk you out of it. The trick is not to get into it.
As to whether there are fundamental differences in psychology, I would guess that these would be purely statistical in nature. The reason why CTs succeed as memes is, as I've tried to explain, because of the nature of the proposition itself.
Are there psychological factors, inclinations of character, that make people more likely to accept CTs? Probably. I have formed no opinions as to what they are, but the OP contains some research on this issue. But we should remember that correlation is not cause. For example, other research shows that conservatives are tidier and more punctual than liberals, but surely that doesn't make them conservatives.
I think the essential reason people become CTs is that they are confidently offered "evidence" that they don't know how to refute. It overwhelms them. For example, with 9/11, they are told: "The collapse of the Twin Towers looks just like a controlled demolition, and the Towers fell perfectly into their own footprints", and so they get argued into CT-ism. There's evidence, y'see, albeit completely made-up evidence. They get this statement from a trusted source, they start being CT-ists.
Six months later, when you show them what a controlled demolition looks like and that bits of the Towers fell all over the damn place, they'll say: "Well of course They took great care to make sure that it didn't look in any way like a controlled demolition". Because now they are CT-ists, they've got themselves into an unfalsifiable position. Having entered into the cognitive trap, they can't be talked out of it by refuting the evidence that talked them into it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by Dogmafood, posted 06-04-2013 11:25 AM Dogmafood has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by Tangle, posted 06-04-2013 2:32 PM Dr Adequate has replied
 Message 94 by Dogmafood, posted 06-07-2013 7:30 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 92 of 137 (700570)
06-04-2013 2:57 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by Tangle
06-04-2013 2:32 PM


Re: How can you tell?
^^ Well it's either that or they're just bloody idiots.
Well, many of their leaders are smart enough to tie their own shoelaces. But what I have called the "cognitive trap" exists. Once one has entered into it, then one's own intelligence is actually used to keep one inside. Once the CT-ist is inside the conspiracy theory, then he will use all his intelligence to explain away any evidence for the truth.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Tangle, posted 06-04-2013 2:32 PM Tangle has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 93 of 137 (700571)
06-04-2013 3:15 PM


The Mark Of Paranoia
There is one thing that I've noticed that may help us to distinguish paranoid lunatics from people who are merely wrong.
The mark of the lunatic is this: that although he believes that there is a vast conspiracy to convince people in general that such-and-such a thing is true, yet he believes that any particular person who believes that is part of the conspiracy.
Take evolution for example. It is at least conceivable that paleontologists are part of a vast conspiracy to make me believe in evolution. But when I say that I do believe in evolution, having been convinced by the paleontologists, then the creationist will tell me that I am one of the conspirators, that I'm only saying that because I hate God, etc, etc. It never occurs to him that I am one of the people who has been duped by the massive conspiracy of lies that he believes to exist. According to him, I'm part of it.
The First Law Of Paranoia is this: there are no dupes, there are only shills.
Similarly, I have been described as a "the most hideous of traitors" by 9/11 Truthers. They cannot imagine that their imaginary vast conspiracy to fool everyone fooled me in particular.
At this point, one has to give them up.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 95 of 137 (700809)
06-07-2013 12:19 PM
Reply to: Message 94 by Dogmafood
06-07-2013 7:30 AM


Re: Cognitive trap
Would you go so far as to say that it is the same process at work that leads to the formation of religious beliefs? What about the choice of your favourite and therefore the best sports team? Is this trap exploited by marketers trying to sell us deodorant and teeth whiteners?
Are we not all susceptible to this kind of trap and most of us are in fact ensnared in some way with regard to some issue?
No, most of these are not instances of the same sort of thing.
Religious apologetics, to a certain extent --- lots of apologists seem to be trying to make various religious tenets unfalsifiable.
But someone trying to sell me deodorant, for example, really has nothing he can do if it makes me smell like a cess-pit. He can't say: "Actually, the deodorant smells wonderful, what happens is that invisible elves, jealous of our otherwise successful marketing strategy, sneak under your armpits and paint them with goblin dung". this keeps them honest, and insures that most body fragrances do in fact smell quite nice.
But a conspiracy theorist starts with that sort of argument: his essential belief is that the evidence proving him wrong has been faked by means he doesn't have to account for.
A: No planes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11.
B: But people saw them.
A: Liars paid by the CIA.
B: But also, no-one standing in the right place saw the Twin Towers go kablooie without seeing any planes.
A: OK then ... holograms.
B: What?
A: Holograms of planes.
B: But there's no technology that would make that remotely possible.
A: That's what They want you to think. Obviously They aren't going to tell you about Their secret technology, are They? You're so naive.
B: But independent scientists say ...
A: What makes you think they're independent?
B: But surely ...
A: Oh, I see. They've gotten to you too. How much are They paying you to disagree with me?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 94 by Dogmafood, posted 06-07-2013 7:30 AM Dogmafood has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 96 by Dogmafood, posted 06-10-2013 7:57 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 97 of 137 (701007)
06-10-2013 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 96 by Dogmafood
06-10-2013 7:57 AM


Re: Cognitive trap
Not like that. The deodorant company launches an ad campaign to convince us that we already smell like a cess-pit. Our insecurity and vanity kicks in and a few decades later it is an $18 billion/yr industry. Now this is not a conspiracy but just an example of how the formation of opinions can be easily manipulated. Not just the opinions of CTs but just about everybody's opinion.
However, it's not an unfalsifiable theory.
If you are still interested in the topic I am curious about your take on the latest revelations about the NSA's surveillance program. At the beginning of this thread it was listed as one of the many ridiculous CTs.
Where?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by Dogmafood, posted 06-10-2013 7:57 AM Dogmafood has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 98 by xongsmith, posted 06-10-2013 2:49 PM Dr Adequate has not replied
 Message 99 by Dogmafood, posted 06-10-2013 4:20 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 104 of 137 (829644)
03-11-2018 3:21 AM
Reply to: Message 103 by Phat
03-10-2018 2:07 PM


Re: How can you tell?
Have you ever heard what sort of noise a controlled demolition makes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaBQ3AkRetI
People would have noticed.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by Phat, posted 03-10-2018 2:07 PM Phat has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 105 by jar, posted 03-11-2018 7:19 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 110 of 137 (829663)
03-11-2018 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by Phat
03-11-2018 12:47 PM


Re: How can you tell?
Building 7 is the mystery, however. No planes hit it. Yet it came down in a somewhat controlled fashion.
"Somewhat controlled"?
It's not a mystery, Phat, it had a massive hole in it and was on fire. Not only can its collapse be explained after the event, it was anticipated before the event --- the firefighters knew that it couldn't survive that much damage and so evacuated the area. I can find you a jillion statements from firemen saying this, if you like.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by Phat, posted 03-11-2018 12:47 PM Phat has seen this message but not replied

  
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