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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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 Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:59 am Post subject: None dare call it conspiracy. Do you? |
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| Pligganease wrote: |
| bacasper wrote: |
Good subtitle to that article:
Wide-ranging conspiracies do take place, whether you or I, or Charlie Brooker, are inclined to believe it or not |
Better one:
Not everything on Planet Earth is a wide-ranging conspiracy and people who think everything on Planet Earth is orchestrated through a wide-ranging conspiracy are insane.
Just for curiosity's sake, what do you think about the following questions?
Was the moon landing faked?
Was Pearl Harbor allowed to happen?
Did aliens land at Area 51?
Were JFK,
RFK,
and JFK, Jr
all assassinated by numerous conspirators?
Did the royal family assassinate Diana?
Was 9/11 orchestrated by the US government?
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So, what is it? Yes. No. Maybe. But. Fact or Fiction.
Where do you stand? |
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ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:08 am Post subject: |
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Was the moon landing faked? NO
Was Pearl Harbor allowed to happen? NO, but there were people inside the government who knew war was imminent and expected an attack by the Japanese to come somewhere and at the very least did not act to prepare.
Did aliens land at Area 51? NO
Were JFK, NO (There is no evidence beyond Oswald)
RFK, MAYBE (needs more investigation. There are too many questions and the original investigation was botched, evidence lost or destroyed.)
and JFK, Jr NO
all assassinated by numerous conspirators?
Did the royal family assassinate Diana? NO
Was 9/11 orchestrated by the US government? NO (but we should investigate more to determine the cause of collapse, refute the nonsense, and actually do some engineering structural research of value.) |
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Pligganease
Joined: 14 Sep 2004
Location: The deep south...
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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| ontheway wrote: |
Was the moon landing faked? NO
Was Pearl Harbor allowed to happen? NO, but there were people inside the government who knew war was imminent and expected an attack by the Japanese to come somewhere and at the very least did not act to prepare.
Did aliens land at Area 51? NO
Were JFK, NO (There is no evidence beyond Oswald)
RFK, MAYBE (needs more investigation. There are too many questions and the original investigation was botched, evidence lost or destroyed.)
and JFK, Jr NO
all assassinated by numerous conspirators?
Did the royal family assassinate Diana? NO
Was 9/11 orchestrated by the US government? NO (but we should investigate more to determine the cause of collapse, refute the nonsense, and actually do some engineering structural research of value.) |
Agree with this.
Still, it's pretty obvious that these questions are never going to be answered by the person to whom they were directed. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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I know some people enjoy coming late to a party so they can make a grand entrance. Personally, if I'm late I always feel like I missed something.
That's the feeling I get from this thread. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:18 pm Post subject: |
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I think one should go further and, regardless of a yes or no answer, also note what it would take you to change your NO to a YES or your YES to a NO.
| ontheway wrote: |
| Was the moon landing faked? NO |
No. However, if China or Japan sends a probe that overflies the landing sites and finds no evidence I would be forced to say YES.
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| Was Pearl Harbor allowed to happen? NO |
No. Pretty simple. A good verified document with Roosevelt's signature ordering a stand down for 1942.
| Quote: |
| Did aliens land at Area 51? NO |
No. We might mean Roswell here. Regardless. An alien body or some metal from another world.
Were JFK, NO (There is no evidence beyond Oswald)
| Quote: |
RFK, MAYBE (needs more investigation. There are too many questions and the original investigation was botched, evidence lost or destroyed.)
and JFK, Jr NO
all assassinated by numerous conspirators? |
No. I think there are enough lone nuts out there that we don't have to invent entities until necessary. CSI like forensic evidence would convince me.
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| Did the royal family assassinate Diana? NO |
No. Someone steps forward and admits he killed Diana, some documents with the Queen's signature.
| Quote: |
| Was 9/11 orchestrated by the US government? NO |
No. Peer reviewed scientific evidence the buildings could not have been destroyed by planes. A few people in this MASSIVE conspiracy come forward. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| also note what it would take you to change your NO to a YES or your YES to a NO |
For me, I would change my No to Yes if I became neurotically obsessed with this stuff and worked up a paranoid world view to explain how the world works.
PS: How did this thread escape the stickies? |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| PS: How did this thread escape the stickies? |
I think it's a general discussion on conspiracy theories.
For a tinfoil hat conspiracy I have something called the DeAngelis-Novella Postulates:
Any ripping good conspiracy theory must fulfill three postulates. It must have three sides:
1) The evil side. These people have access to vast amounts of power, transcend governments, have access to superior science, command vast organizational structures, and yet also are in the habit of making primary mistakes so obvious any schlub ESL teacher can see the errors. For example, the moon is a dry lifeless world and yet Buzz Aldrin clearly has mud on his boots! So man never went to the moon.
2) The sheeple. The vast majority of the population have no idea about the conspiracy, keep their head down, and are being led like lambs to the slaughter.
3) The army of light. These are the people who have seen the truth. It is their sacred duty to expose the conspiracy and bring it down. Those who don't recognize the light of reason, when presented, are either part of the conspiracy or they're committed sheeple.
For example real conspiracies will always fail one or more of these postulates. |
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ReeseDog
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Classified
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Pligganease wrote: |
| ontheway wrote: |
Was the moon landing faked? NO
Was Pearl Harbor allowed to happen? NO, but there were people inside the government who knew war was imminent and expected an attack by the Japanese to come somewhere and at the very least did not act to prepare.
Did aliens land at Area 51? NO
Were JFK, NO (There is no evidence beyond Oswald)
RFK, MAYBE (needs more investigation. There are too many questions and the original investigation was botched, evidence lost or destroyed.)
and JFK, Jr NO
all assassinated by numerous conspirators?
Did the royal family assassinate Diana? NO
Was 9/11 orchestrated by the US government? NO (but we should investigate more to determine the cause of collapse, refute the nonsense, and actually do some engineering structural research of value.) |
Agree with this.
Still, it's pretty obvious that these questions are never going to be answered by the person to whom they were directed. |
I agree, too. All of this is pretty solid. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| the DeAngelis-Novella Postulates |
That pretty well sums it up. Who is/are DeAngelis and Novella?
My personal favorite part of conspiracies is the schlubs as you call them, figuring 'it' out. I think what impresses me most about them is the level of self-confidence. I'm always awed when someone who is not trained in an area sets up as an expert. I wish I had that kind of self-confidence. They remind me of high school sophomores who generally are experts on every topic in every field.
I'm duly impressed when someone has an opinion on ballistics, for example. All I know about ballistics is what I've come across in reading some true crime stories. I avoid discussing the topic with someone who also knows only what he read in a book about a crime written by someone who is not trained in it. It doesn't help when things like that get discussed as a string of hypotheticals. I get kind of dizzy when too many 'ifs' are linked together. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| the DeAngelis-Novella Postulates |
That pretty well sums it up. Who is/are DeAngelis and Novella? |
Hosts of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive.asp
They've many times articulated these three elements on the podcast.
| Quote: |
| My personal favorite part of conspiracies is the schlubs as you call them, figuring 'it' out. I think what impresses me most about them is the level of self-confidence. I'm always awed when someone who is not trained in an area sets up as an expert. I wish I had that kind of self-confidence. They remind me of high school sophomores who generally are experts on every topic in every field. |
The most recent This American Life has a great podcast about a backyard tinker who has decided Einstein is wrong. They match him up with a physics prof who explains why he's wrong, why he's made very very fundamental errors. The backyard guy concludes
1) the prof isn't very smart (despite him having a Phd and having a couple patents under his belt)
2) he's just afraid to see it his way
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| I'm duly impressed when someone has an opinion on ballistics, for example. |
I take the position when the vast consensus of very smart subject matter experts agree the science supports a position (ie the WTc ... errr never mind I don't want to start a debate... ie evolution is real) they believe that based on a lot of very very good evidence and not because they're stupid and corrupt. That's not to say they're not wrong. Technically all scientific theories are wrong as all theory gets revised and revised. But odds are they're mostly right and what they are wrong about is in increasingly smaller gaps. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
I think one should go further and, regardless of a yes or no answer, also note what it would take you to change your NO to a YES or your YES to a NO.
| ontheway wrote: |
| Was the moon landing faked? NO |
No. However, if China or Japan sends a probe that overflies the landing sites and finds no evidence I would be forced to say YES. |
No problem there:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/19528/1066/
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2008/05/20080520_kaguya_e.html |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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This �test� was originally directed at me. I did not answer on the thread where it was posted for a couple of reasons. The first is it was off-topic to that thread. The second is that I was not going to dignify such a rude and inane proposition with an answer.
But since you, OP, have now asked nicely, I will.
Was the moon landing faked? No
Was Pearl Harbor allowed to happen? I agree with ontheway: NO, but there were people inside the government who knew war was imminent and expected an attack by the Japanese to come somewhere and at the very least did not act to prepare.
Did aliens land at Area 51? No
Were JFK, Yes
RFK, Yes
and JFK, Jr Probably
all assassinated by numerous conspirators?
Did the royal family assassinate Diana? No
Was 9/11 orchestrated by the US government? �The US government� is such a nebulous entity. No, I don�t believe Congress passed a resolution to have the WTC attacked, but yes, it is clear that elements of US intelligence and the Air Force had a hand in it. See sticky for more.
So, just what kind of mindset or worldview lumps all these things together? And I wonder how or why these six items were chosen. But I guess the person who chose them will never answer the question. |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 2:29 am Post subject: ... |
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| Quote: |
| PS: How did this thread escape the stickies? |
Yeah. Major party foul to start a thread with dead Kennedys in it.
Plus, I don't see how this is a current events thread.
Most importantly, it interferes with my viewing updates on the Bob Barr Tsunami Tea Party New Wave Fourth Shift Sixth Estate Manic Revolution. |
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Milwaukiedave
Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Location: Goseong
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| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 3:08 am Post subject: |
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| I agree with BA on the fact that we did have some sort of warning that the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming, but did not react quickly enough to counter the attacks. I seem to have read about it somewhere, I just can recall where it was. |
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OneWayTraffic
Joined: 14 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 6:24 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| Quote: |
| the DeAngelis-Novella Postulates |
That pretty well sums it up. Who is/are DeAngelis and Novella?
My personal favorite part of conspiracies is the schlubs as you call them, figuring 'it' out. I think what impresses me most about them is the level of self-confidence. I'm always awed when someone who is not trained in an area sets up as an expert. I wish I had that kind of self-confidence. They remind me of high school sophomores who generally are experts on every topic in every field.
I'm duly impressed when someone has an opinion on ballistics, for example. All I know about ballistics is what I've come across in reading some true crime stories. I avoid discussing the topic with someone who also knows only what he read in a book about a crime written by someone who is not trained in it. It doesn't help when things like that get discussed as a string of hypotheticals. I get kind of dizzy when too many 'ifs' are linked together. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
Here's your answer. Skill in an area and the ability to evaluate skill are related. People who are of lesser skill frequently lack the cognitive tools necessary to realize this.
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Across four studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd.
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