Conspiracies, sheeple, the universe and everything

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

You mock me several times and call me a CT. So yes, I describe your sheepness.

I should not have climbed down on your niveau? Ok, I give you that one.

As I wrote abou niveau, not Dowly, so I'll bite:

Niveau sieht nur von unten wie Arroganz aus – Klaus Kinski
(niveau only looks like arrogance from below)


Why did I mock your "political history of the middle East in 5 sentences"? Because you use oversimplification of a complex matter, which in the end all comed down to "THEM" – whoever they are, Illuminati, jews, the stinky rich, stinky rich jewish illuminati from outer space or whoever might just plan every step which happens in the history of the world. This might be not your personal point of view, but when checking out conspiracy sites it all ends in the same thing: the big theory to explain everything.
At the end it results in binary thinking. Simple explainations for complex stuff.

Yeah, of course your defense mechanism steps in and says: "Y'all are sheeple." Which is funny in the end, as you don't seem to grasp the possibility that some of us mainstream media believers who suck every dick the government offers us, might have done their research and think for ourselves.

Dowly stated here on subsim that he did not believe the official version of 9/11 after the events. So he possibly did some research and came to other conclusions. Maybe he was also tied into a chair Clockwork Orange style by the Finnish authorities and was force-fed the official version. Using Occam's Razor, I'll stick with the first theory.

So is it unfair in reverse to paint all the Verschwörungsspinner (conspiracy nuts - ct is the best german computer mag) with one big brush? I say no.
After all the time I have wasted checking out conspiracy resources and discussing it in real life, I came to the conclusion that most troofers show an alarming amount of resistance to reexamine their theories when things are disproven. A trait which is also often seen with religious fundamentalists.

Simple examples would be the photos of plane parts in front of the Pentagon which are around since 12 years, still the missile theory looks pretty popular. Or the WTC7 fell in this short amount of seconds with the "proof" being a vid (funny enough from the mainstream media ) which shows only a limited angle, not the building as a whole.

More than that it is a tiring game the conspiracy guys play, as a critical thinker can only respond, being always one step behind:
Teddy Troofer:"See here is my proof: Pearl Harbor was an inside job."
Ralf Rational:"Ok, I did some research: here are the historical sources which make your 'evidence' bogus."
TT: "Well, but they still did 9/11"
RR:"Sigh, okay, I sepnt some weeks follwing your claims, I found no proof providing your theories! As in every official statement there are flaws, but I found this the best explaination out there "
TT: "Well, they still made the Gulf of Tonkien incident up."
RR:

It can be entertaining for a while, but in the long run it gets repetetive, tiresome and boring.

Wasting time is also the keyword when it comes to reconsider one's opinion. It's pretty discouraging for us humans to find out that all the amount of time and energy you put into watching grainy videos, photographing jet trails or looking why the Reich still exists, has been wasted. Yet, every scientist worth it's title does so, when following a theory for decades and finding out another person developed a better-fitting theory, they say:"Screw it, when the new theory has better explainations, I'll stick to it from now on."
However many of us "commons" do the same. This goes for the guy who suddenly discovers Dawkins, finds his arguments fitting to his believes and says:"Damn all the time I spent in church! Atheism ftw!" or vice versa for the girl who says "I have discovered the bible, cool book. I'll throw away my Marx and regret the time I spent reading it." Certainly oversimplified examples, but showing the concept of independent thinking which doesn't work without the ability to reexamime our views.

Another example of oversimplification? Sure:

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

There is nothing you can prove over the internet.

This is nonsense, as the internet is a medium. Legitimate sources is all that matters, you might find them on the web, you might find them in newspaper archives. The medium itself says crap about legitimacy or truth.

Same goes for this:

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

Stay with the mainstream if you prefer.

If something is mainstream or not says nothing about its value and legitimacy. A hastily cobbled together website which only links to others, equally badly made websites, who link each other as a source makes them still not anymore believable. Source critique ftw!
My favorite German newspaper is the Jungle World – with a circulation of about 5 issues certainly not the most mainstreamy paper . I like it, not because it often represents my opinion, but because it covers the topics that interest me. What makes them good to me is that despite being quite lefty, they have no problems linking or quoting articles from conservative papers, like the FAZ, Jerusalem Post or The Times. Why wearing blinders, when others do provide a good coverage of certain topics?
Also, if you are a 9/11 troofer: with 40% of Americans believing 9/11 was an inside job, I would hardly consider this opinion being very undergroundy.

One last word about conspiracies, and as we are on a gaming site. In Civ 4 , when discovering companies or modern capitalism there is an inmteresting quote. I'll quote from my mind from, but it goes along this line of thought: When two businessmen meet in private to talk, they commit a conspiracy. (I.) True dat!

The fact that real life attempts to profit from others, to cut civil rights and the like exist, does not make Alex Jones and the ogthers more believable, the opposite is true. Using the "I told ya so!" from the conspiracy folks as a proof of the legitimacy of their theories is a fallacy. If I run blindfolded onto the street and point at every car, shouting: "It's a green car!" I will certainly point at some green vehicles.

Ducimus fell into this trap here:

Originally Posted by Ducimus

'm not saying I believe it, but I do find myself wondering if the conspiracy theorists have it right. Hell, a few months ago if someone told me big brother is watching everything i say or type, id have called them a wacko. Then the whole NSA thing came out.. so *shrug* i dunno.

Just because this topic hasn't been on the public radar, doen't mean that there wasn't any evidence before Snowden. Though I prefered reading about it from people who know their stuff, folks like the American EFF or the German CCC who had been on this for years.

So yeah, when confronting the ruling class about this nasty system they built, I prefer to say:"Your surveillance works like this, here is the technical data, here is the evidence, here are the laws which enable me to say you have no legitimation! And here's my moral code which allows me to say FU!"

Imho this creates a better line of argumentation than saysing "Boo! You are surveilling us! And poison the air with chemtrails! And you blew up a tower! And also killed Bambi!"

This is also why I prefer reading about history from well researched books rather than looking into what Nostradamus wrote.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Penguin

If I run blindfolded onto the street and point at every car, shouting: "It's a green car!" I will certainly point at some green vehicles.

That was an excellent analogy.