ŷ������

Conspiracies happen, but IMO when they do they're an epiphenomenon of the institutional structure and class power. The mistake "conspiracy theorists" make is not to analyze history in terms of class and institutional factors, but instead to see it as driven by personal cabals (George Soros, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, etc.) or by esoteric ideologies ("globalism").

Yeah, that's the main point of this. Of course conspiracies happen. Governments have always plotted to take out other government leaders, and companies have conspired to keep the dangers of their products quiet. The difference is that you can find mundane and reasonable explanations for why these conspiracies happened.

Conspiracy theorists enjoy thinking that there are "forces" out there making bad things happen so that they can rub their hands together and cackle about it.
That does not make sense.
Sex, money, power, religious dogma, mental illness, etc. Those things make the world go around and are they defining factors in true conspiracies.
But most things happen because a chain of smaller incidents, sometimes only nominally related to each other, have come together in the right order to cause an explosion that changes our worldview.
But that's a scary thought, right? That there's no grand plan? Or that we might be powerless to stop things because there's no ONE bad guy? These seemingly nutty theories fill a void for a lot of people.

Great review! I feel like I don’t really need the book now. 🤪

Denise wrote: "Great review! I feel like I don’t really need the book now. 🤪"

Hah! No way! He goes into so much fun detail. I've actually grabbed up a few more of his books because this one was so good. lol

A great book on this topic: /book/show/1823

Sounds good! I'll add that to my list.

Anne wrote: “…not the least of which is because conspiracies do happen.��

Damn right!

All of our own U.S. government’s tomfoolery��

If the government hadn’t been trying so hard to convince us that the earth was round(ish) by faking photos allegedly taken from the Moon, maybe they coulda protected JFK from the Russian Mafia?

Or if Bush and Cheney hadn’t been so busy with the children from Pizzagate, then they mighta stopped the Jewish Right from planting those explosives on the steel beams in the World Trade Center Towers?

I may be mixing some stuff up.

All part of the government’s Deep Fake…endless confusion.

I don’t know what to believe. Girls becoming boys. Boys liking boys. Boys and girls peeing together in the same place.

It’s too much, I tell ya.

At least we finally have someone at the top of government who will tell truth��

Elon Musk!!!

As an aside, my favouritest title ever of a Presidential Executive Order:

Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government

Straight from the mind of Elon Musk. His friend, Donald Trump, had to nix the intermediate line of …Ideology Extremism and Orange Haired Male Groping��

Have you seen So I Married an Axe Murderer?

������

Conspiracy theories are the modern, more rational form of religion?

Giving us the needed answers that are difficult to fact check?

Ironically conspiracy theorists tend to fall into the trap of having far too much faith in governments and shadowy organisations. To continue to make a conspiracy work as more and often contradicting data is received, everything has to be "part of the plan" no matter how outlandish or contrary to the original theory it is.

Plans are all executed perfectly. Nothing ever goes wrong with the plan. Everything is telegraphed in "secret" public messages that are only made sense of some time after the conspiracy has occurred.

It's all rather contrary to the entire history of the human race planning and executing almost anything. I'm not convinced any of them have ever managed a project. Not convinced some of them have even tried to organise a party :)

Hanlon's Razor always comes to mind, though I'd add "mere chance" and the "combined actions of multiple actors all with their own desires and goals" to stupidity.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

LOL, that’s what “they�� want you to think. They’re actually conspiracy FACTS.

Andrew wrote: "LOL, that’s what “they�� want you to think. They’re actually conspiracy FACTS."

Damn it! He knows!

weateallthepies wrote: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"."

Exactly. That sums up the history of the world in one neat sentence. lol
But you're right. They have too much faith in {insert cabal here} ability to pull off some kind of global plan. If one thing is certain, it's that NOTHING ever goes according to plan.

Dave wrote: "������

Conspiracy theories are the modern, more rational form of religion?

Giving us the needed answers that are difficult to fact check?"

If there is no way to come up with a rationale that would disprove it, then there is also no way to prove it. You have to be able to say "if such-n-such" then it isn't true. But if it is a theory that requires faith to work, then you can't do that.
Without the ability to come up with a working contradiction to let you know something is false, you don't have a real truth.

Anne wrote: "Without the ability to come up with a working contradiction to let you know something is false, you don't have a real truth."

I am still trying to sort that��

I would like to say that I understand, but I think your argument is too subtle for me.

Seems to line-up with Bertrand Russell’s teapot.

(view spoiler)[ If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. (hide spoiler)]

I balk at the notion of any real or absolute truth. Our minds are very interesting entities and I don’t think they deal as well as they should with real truth. They attempt to protect us from emotional self harm (while often inflicting it) with all sorts of distortions.

Do we have 5 fingers or 101 fingers? Is that standard? Unchangeable?

My point being that even “facts�� are a matter of perception and subject to change. The way we communicate is far from precise.

I am by no means a conspiracy theorist. I find conspiracies to be a waste of my energy. If others want to dream up elaborate schemes of how we are all being manipulated, then I salute their hobby. I’m just too tired to care if the Earth is spherical or saucer shaped. I believe the Earth is spherical, but in my day-to-day experience, it matters little. My drive to work and back is flat.

I found your review very interesting because it casts conspiracies much the same way that I view religion. I never considered the two phenomenon synonymous, but…they do seem to have a lot in common.

I am more tolerant of religious people than I am of conspiracy theorists. I am trying to understand my prejudice.

Have you seen Debunking Borat on Prime?

vyVOnwDYISI

Probably not quite as technical as Professor Shermer, but Borat gets the point across.

What do you know of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Dave wrote: "What do you know of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?"

I love the people who never break character and insist that it's their religion. lol

Dave wrote: "Anne wrote: "Without the ability to come up with a working contradiction to let you know something is false, you don't have a real truth."

I am still trying to sort that��

I would like to say that..."

The teapot is a good example. If the person gives no way to disprove what they say is true, then there is no way to be sure that something is true.
And there's no such thing as absolute truth, but there is "pretty sure".
I can say I will die someday and while there is a chance that I'm the first immortal to ever live, you can be "pretty sure" that my statement is true.

Anne wrote: "I love the people who never break character and insist that it's their religion. lol"

Pastafarianism!

The Flying Spaghetti Monster has the biggest (meat)balls of all the supposed deities. A god worthy of worship.

Anne wrote: "I can say I will die someday and while there is a chance that I'm the first immortal to ever live, you can be "pretty sure" that my statement is true."

Yes, your current assembly of meat and bones will stop functioning. Mine will, too. Probably much sooner than yours.

And while few will debate that conclusion, the debate about what dying actually means is near endless.

The departure of your soul? The failure of biological hardware?

A step among the stairs? A doorway to a new dimension? A required transformative experience? Oblivion?

The heart of one of the most proliferate religions on the planet is their resurrected God. Death is a temporary state.

So, while I agree with your example that what we have chosen to call Death is an inviolate conclusion, what it actually means is far from defined.

Perhaps semantic and metaphysical philosophy and epistemology (which I despise because they confuse my black-and-white world), but there are occurrences/events (“factual��) and then their meaning. “Truth��, for me, tends to address the latter more than the former.

Conspiracy theories and religions are some of humanity’s nefarious attempts to place meaning on occurrences/events and help us understand our “place�� relative to those occurrences/events. Future occurrences/events have to be incorporated into those frameworks. That incorporation can become troublesome and ridiculous until the framework can no longer be logically supported.

Dave wrote: "And while few will debate that conclusion, the debate about what dying actually means is near endless.

The departure of your soul? The failure of biological hardware?

A step among the stairs? A doorway to a new dimension? A required transformative experience? Oblivion?"

And that's the sort of thing that drives me nuts! lol
The statement was simple. I will die and decompose, right? But noooo, some idiot will take that "very easy to verify" statement and go on an unprovable tangent, arguing things that we have NO WAY TO FACT-CHECK.
And that is what I'm talking about when I said "If there is no way to come up with a rationale that would disprove it, then there is also no way to prove it. You have to be able to say "if such-n-such" then it isn't true. But if it is a theory that requires faith to work, then you can't do that.
Without the ability to come up with a working contradiction to let you know something is false, you don't have a real truth."

Hahaha! I love our talks.

Anne wrote: "…some idiot��"

That would be me. 🙂

Thank you. And you’re welcome.

”And that's the sort of thing that drives me nuts! lol
The statement was simple.��

In my opinion, the statement was far from simple.

Let’s take the “decompose�� part, first.

You are already decomposing and you are far from dead.

Your body is sloughing off dead skin cells and hair by the billions every day. Other parts of your body are slowly breaking down and certain processes are stopping altogether. We are more polite about this and call it “aging�� vs “decomposing��. (What is “truth�� and how does language affect its representation?)

After you are clearly “dead��? Maybe you will decompose.

I will be cremated.

You may die in an icy crevasse in Antarctica with the largely organism driven decomposition almost completely halted.

Or, perhaps the Egyptian process of mummification will make a comeback and your brain will be extruded through your nose and placed in a jar along with other organ while your blood is completely replaced with embalming fluid. Your body will be desiccated instead of decomposed.

Or, your body will be buried at sea and the fishies will eat all your soft, tasty parts long before they can decompose.

Or your body will be placed in a bacta or cryogenic tank awaiting some future sci-fi “resurrection�� process.

If you don’t have a very clear will, who knows what your children will do with your body?

As far as “death��, how do you define it? Your last breath? The cessation of brain activity? Heart beat? The end of consciousness? Making it to the “Light�� (which can’t be determined externally even if the “Light�� exists)?

Medical science can keep the body alive for an extended period of time with no sign of consciousness or brain activity. Machines replace the functions of the central nervous system.

I just saw Last Breath where a saturation diver survived for an extended period of time without oxygen. Scientists believe his survival was due to a unique combination of pressure and temperature near the floor of the North Sea.

What if you are cloned? When are you dead? When the “original�� with all your experiences and memories…which can’t be cloned…dies? Or when all the Anne look-alikes die?

And what if we are to the point where you can sit down with AI (that already can more accurately predict your preferences than your spouse after just a few minutes browsing Facebook or YouTube…the “Algorithm��) and answer questions for a few hours per day and then the AI can faithfully replicate your personality? When your physical organism can no longer support your brain, are you truly dead if an AI like Siri or Alexa can completely mimic you with voice samples including all your nuances and idiosyncrasies?

Have you seen Spock’s Brain?





Was Spock dead? (That actually came later in the second feature film and still didn’t stick.)

You have read more than enough superhero comics to know that the state of “dead�� is very fluid and ambiguous. Red Hood?

While, in general, I agree with your conclusion about fact checking, not all scientific theories can be fact checked. We often don’t have the measuring devices or observational tools to fact check theories.

How long were we looking for particles that had the characteristics of what we chose to call the Higg’s Boson?

A few decades elapsed after Einstein’s Theory of Relativity predicted what we later called “black holes�� and before we found actual evidence of them.

Dark energy and dark matter are highly theoretical, but the concepts make the math work. But their very hypothesised nature makes them nearly impossible to detect with current instruments. Are the concepts “true��?

Conspiracy theories and religions are different than the above. Because they make claims that are easily disproved or can never be proved/disproved.

There were microchips in the Covid vaccines? A preponderance of evidence against that conspiracy theory. A pro-Jewish group sabotaged the World Trade Center towers and orchestrated 9/11? A mountain of evidence against that. Humanity has never set foot on the Moon? I would suggest there is sufficient evidence to the contrary though conspiracy theorists would tell me that all the evidence is manufactured.

God got a virgin Jew pregnant? We will never know. Muhammad spoke with an angel? Moses saw God?

I, too, enjoy our talks. Not sure how book-centered they are, but I learn from them. We can have very different points of view (and often do), but we also listen to and respect each other. We communicate. A dying and decomposing skill.

Dave wrote: "God got a virgin Jew pregnant? We will never know. Muhammad spoke with an angel? Moses saw God?"

I know the answers to those questions with the same amount of certainty that I know the answer to questions like is Apollo dragging the sun behind his chariot right now? and are the little folk turning my milk sour?
It could be that my house brownie is pissed right now. There's just no darn way we can ever know for sure.

Dave wrote: "While, in general, I agree with your conclusion about fact checking, not all scientific theories can be fact checked. We often don’t have the measuring devices or observational tools to fact check theories."

No, but there is an if/then to it, even if the if/then is theoretical. You can't just make a bold statement declaring something is true with nothing but some fuzzy feeling as your backup and get then upset that someone wants a shred of proof. And you most definitely can't shoehorn "magic" into anything you don't have yet have an answer for.
It's the so you're saying science has no answer for XYZ? well, then. that's proof that magic exists. arguments that kill my soul.
But when it comes to conspiracy theories, the logic is the same. There's something that someone already believes or has a bias toward - say, they think the government is crooked or that politicians lie. Both of those things are provable or have been proven to be true at one point or another. So when this person is presented with a conspiracy theory that confirms the bias (9-11 was an inside job!), they are primed and ready to believe it.
And you shouldn't assume that it couldn't happen.
The problem comes when the evidence shows it to be one thing (a terrorist cell), but the conspiracy theorists refuse to believe it because then the world is not as safe as they thought it once was.
But if one of the most powerful politicians in the world set it up? That's better.
A small group of terrorists with box cutters can hijack planes and kill thousands? Impossible!
An evil and very powerful political family used the CIA to start a war? Yes. Someone is in charge, things are less terrifying, and the world makes sense again.

Dave wrote: "In my opinion, the statement was far from simple.

Let’s take the “decompose�� part, first."

You're killing me right now. lol

Dave wrote: "I, too, enjoy our talks. Not sure how book-centered they are, but I learn from them. We can have very different points of view (and often do), but we also listen to and respect each other. We communicate. A dying and decomposing skill."

Is it dying though?
Let's take the word "dying" for example...

This sounds right up my alley! Great review!

Erin wrote: "This sounds right up my alley! Great review!"

Highly recommend this one to anyone! It's a lot of fun.

i LOVE conspiracy theories. they are my jam.

Anne wrote: "I know the answers to those questions with the same amount of certainty that I know the answer to questions like is Apollo dragging the sun behind his chariot right now? and are the little folk turning my milk sour?"

Is Apollo the anglicised Greek name for gravity?

I’m not sure that I would characterise bacteria as “little folk��, but they may name themselves and have baby showers when a few million of the next generation are “born��? I think bacteria thrive more in warm environments than the refrigerator and there must be an introduction mechanism. Bacteria are not uninvited guests. Just a bit mindless.



Your house brownie is upset? Uh oh�� I would suggest making amends. Quickly. 🙂

I think magic and religion used to explain natural phenomena is intellectually lazy. Maybe valid first attempts at understanding Nature 3,000-10,000 years ago when the majority of humanity was simply struggling to survive, but we can and should do better since Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius.

You have a soul? Can your version of the soul be killed? Does this soul then decompose due to the actions of “little folk��? (It all comes full circle. A great literary technique you have employed, even in short posts on ŷ������, to provide more resonance to themes.)

I struggle with any non sequitur argument. I am completely with you about using magic or religion to explain parts of Nature that we do not understand. Those ideas are next to useless in predicting natural behaviour or formulating laws of Nature. They are capricious. Despite my aversion to centralised government, I am very much a creature of order.

I think your thread goes a long way in helping me understand the emotional appeal of conspiracy theories. I struggle with emotional responses to anything. Despite craving order, my mind cannot use irrational arguments for causality of a chain of human events.

As we have discussed previously, a “safe�� world doesn’t interest me. I do not demand it. I believe the world is safer now than it has ever been…including current spots of conflict…Ukraine, Levant, central Africa. Safer even than Western Europe during the Pax Romana.

I prefer individual freedom even though that can entail chaos and all sorts of bad behaviour.

”You're killing me right now. lol��

😉

Sorry.

Anne wrote: "Is it dying though?

Let's take the word "dying" for example..."

🙂

To borrow a phrase from you, well played.

Kay Dee (what is your storygraph name? wrote: "i LOVE conspiracy theories. they are my jam."

You NEED THIS, Kay Dee! I know you would completely dig this one.

Dave wrote: "Anne wrote: "Is it dying though?

Let's take the word "dying" for example..."

🙂

To borrow a phrase from you, well played."

Thank you, sir. I live for those little moments when you and I come full circle. Or full Donny? Either one.

Dave wrote: "As we have discussed previously, a “safe�� world doesn’t interest me. I do not demand it. I believe the world is safer now than it has ever been…including current spots of conflict…Ukraine, Levant, central Africa. Safer even than Western Europe during the Pax Romana."

I agree. I've had 4 kids live to adulthood and didn't die in childbirth with any of them.
Life is good.