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The problem with 'conspiracy theorists' is, as you said, they don't stop asking questions.
The problem is they don't understand the answers or choose to ignore them, or just ask generally really stupid questions and don't provide any answers and they do not adhere to the most fundamental part of being a scientist which is once you have created a hypothesis it is your duty to break it down and prove it false.
Fact is 99% of these people aren't scientists or anything of the sort (I'm curious why you have degrees (plural), where from and what disciplines?), they think they're experts on fields they have no right to be in. Just go watch the 'truthers' vs Popular Mechanics and you'll see what happens when conspiracy theorists are presented with legit evidence and reasoned debate.
They fail, hard, and embarrass themselves beyond redemption. This is why noone takes you seriously, because you can't be taken seriously. You present bad arguments but are unaware of your own false logic or poor reasoning. Then you blame our 'narrow-mindedness' and go off and sulk in a corner convinced of your own greatness.
It's pathetic.
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It seems to me this is almost like a normal person's logic:
1) Observe something
2) Come up with multiple theories as to how that observation could have been produced
3) Test or think about what these theories imply
4) Revise/drop theories based on results
Except you just miss the last two steps.
I guess I am possibly biased in believing in Occam's razor. To me it makes a lot more sense that we are sitting on a planet orbiting the sun, than to be inside a computer simulation run by some other beings or under control of a mysterious organisation that would have to have perfect coverups of everything for the last thousand years or so, especially today in an age where information is so free. When a theory requires more and more complications to be valid the more you think about it, I tend to take that as meaning it is likely wrong.
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On February 19 2013 17:55 oldmansay wrote:
when tree grow flower..spring full bloom..
when flower die...spring just begin...
..pine cone.....
This is the best post in this thread.
I don't even know what it means.
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aliens crash-landed on earth a while ago and now they're just using us to build them a spaceship so they could get back to their planet. upon leaving, they'll get us back to the ape stage or destroy us completely 'cause we had served our purpose and are no longer usefull.
they use a hybernation form to pass unaged through eons and take turns in doing so.
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It was funny to hear the rest described as "believers" since one of those snide remarks us 9/11 dupes use for the conspiracy community is "he/she's a true believer." Funny start to my read, hearing that.
I kinda liked the read. I come away from it thinking that those in conspiracyville put too much stock in the rest of the world's inability to look at things with an open mind. In essence, since our own beliefs cloud our analysis, this extends to both (1) everyone and (2) significantly affects it. I may be a villager that thinks the Sun god actually talks to our medicine woman, but keep an open mind about what made the balloon fly up, or the well fills up with something underground. In the global sense, something that has something slightly wrong will be considered semi-rationally from all people hearing about it with their backgrounds. People fully trustworthy of their government, some slightly so, some not at all. To have all these at once drowning out the other voices and dismissing them is rare. I'm slightly encouraged that you do understand that some things have that 0.01% chance of happening, but are generally dismissed.
The other problem I have with the "they are simply responding rationally" is how easily the stereotypical one jumps from a 0.01% explanation to a second 0.00001% explanation to back it up / reject evidence. The fluorescent light bulb was actually invented by a misandrist in a sinister plot to kill sperm. The scientific lack of evidence of this is the same vast conspiracy; because the scientists that found nothing wrong with it wear protective underpants, and want their genes spread and others progressively whittled out! Stories that sound as implausible as this. This happened, and then the Jews did that, or the Big Business types did that. The knights templar hid it, the freemasons protected it, the American founding fathers moved it ... it all starts to sound like a bad movie.
So, no, I don't think the conspiracy theorist accumulates petabytes of good data as he has a fondness for his own conclusions and has a high tolerance for information that would lead a reasonable person to reject them. I like them around so long as a 0.01% chance might turn out to be true one day and the search will discover real evidence a year down the road. Just don't give them any kind of power because I'd like my head-wear not forced to be tin.
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I always wanted to know the mind of the average /pol poster lol.
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I've never come across any conspiracy theorist who had a (logically) consistent story. Ironically, none of them were openminded enough to even consider flaws in their stories.
"On the other hand, the “conspiracy theorist” never stops asking questions. Even when they are pretty confident they know what really happened, they inevitably question the official story – their personal official story. They are driven by the fact that they don't really know what happened."
Like i said above, this is untrue for all conspiracy theorists i've met. I dont want to generalise, but i don't think you should.
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On February 19 2013 19:22 Yorbon wrote:
I've never come across any conspiracy theorist who had a (logically) consistent story. Ironically, none of them were openminded enough to even consider flaws in their stories.
To them they would think we were close minded, and if you believe the first few tenants of their conspiracy the conclusion may not seem so far fetched.
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I will just highlight what I feel is wrong with your reasoning.
While I do agree that truth is an axiomatic construction, it is hypocritical to present yourself as an absolute skeptic, as conspiracy theorists defend their own theories (you can't call that an hypothesis if you've decided in favour of something). The only absolute skeptic is a solipsist who does not act, which is impossible because our brain still functions following the priority of survival in our day-to-day lives. Do you doubt that reality is real every second of your life? For example, those who believe in the NWO will doubt certain facts only to replace them with facts of their own, allthewhile not questioning anything else. Ironically, they'll often exclusively read literature which goes their way, effectively swapping a thought process they see as "mainstream" with another.
This view is what defines conspiracists. Why do you find so many among drug users? Is paranoia really a consequence of their illumination, or the cause of it all?
It's basically a counter-culture that defines itself against what is considered "mainstream". It's really not that different from hipstership. There's the idea that conspiracists have found a superior way of thinking, when you are in fact only rejecting what is considered normal. In the majority of cases, I find that it's a way for mediocre thinkers to pat themselves in the back and compensating for their lack of classical and/or academical knowledge. As for the others, I do believe that they simply get lost on the possibilities. My grandfather is an intellectual who went down that path, but I wouldn't classify him next to some college dropout who is trying to regain his self-confidence by convincing himself that he's a cultured critical thinker.
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From what I read, I doubt you really posses an academic grade in anything related to nat. sciences. Or you didn't understand your statistics course.
The problem stems from the fact that we build bridges and they don't collapse. So it seems at some point the "normal" people are up to something. And we don't have to come up with a million theories if one suffices. (Grossly simplified.)
Otherwise: Welcome to postmodern thinking. Leading to nowhere but highly sophisticated.
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This and the thread linked in OP, may by the most stupid things i ever read.
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I have many friends who are into conspiracy theories (or whatever you want to call them). I see them much the way i see religious people, in that i think their mind has taken the easy path, succumbed to the ultimate academic temptation, which is a truth that cannot easily be disproved (this is my opinion and just a way to illustrate my point, i don't want to get into a debate about religion.)
Of course, each person has different beliefs and sees different truths, so i can't comment too much without generalizing.
What i can say is that the following people are proven liars:
Michael Tsarion (who managed to get a video proving that he lies removed from youtube on multiple occasions).
David Icke
Alex Jones (the worst type, because he mixes lies with a healthy dose of truth)
Jordan Maxwell, whose lies are insane, including multiple versions of his own personal history.
The amount of followers these people have is surprising, to say the least, seeing as they seem to condone critical thinking. People seem to be unwilling to think critically about their own views i think, when it comes to conspiracy theories.
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I enjoy conspiracy theories a lot, better than mainstream movies  but I would not call myself a conspiracy theorist
as most of these dudes I come across are pretty extreme in their thinking where I just don't really give a fuck if there's aliens or not or who really runs the world, give me a good bedtime story and I'm happy.
Also ,I have secrets and do lie on occasion so I can't expect important figures to be saints
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Well, i have quite a lot to say to this.
I am one of those walking the line between being a full on conspiracy theorist and a healthy "believer" of the "normal" opinion.
I talked to alot of people about alot of those theorys and i can say most of the people questioning events are full on stupid to mad, but i avoid believing the official statements just like them.
I have a healthy basis for my disbelieve and i think most of the people questioning the process of "questioning events" are just like the other side of the scale full on stupid to mad.
So first why do i question the official statement:
In germany we live in a society who honors people who would in today standarts be considered conspiracy theorist, they disbelieved the intention of the state and the believes of society.
Those people tryed to spead the word and inform people about whats really going on.
Blind believing in the statements of the country leaders are considered a crime in some parts of german history,
so that you might do evil by just believing what everyone else does believe.
So i choosed for myself to never walk blindly in the world and question everything what might be considered facts.
This is a reason we have a lot of people in germany being just like me not easy to convince.
So authoritys might want to blind the people and throw wrong or misleading information in to satisfy the people minds and convince them of being "good".
I want to have this NAZI card out of my hand firstly so that i dont have to come back to this over and over again.
So if thats the first step of your thought process the world becomes much more complex and difficult to understand since you have no easy and totally rigt sources at your hand to build your opinion also you cant actually be sure about anything anymore.
I think this is already enough to crack most of the "normal" people up becouse they dont know what to believe anymore.
I on the other hand are able to live with that quite well and are a "healthy" disbeliever.
What kind of things do i question and why:
I question everything having a hughe impact on the following events of history as well as everything giving someone a hughe advantage about others or changing public opinion in favor of them or others close to them, for example events like 9/11, the moon landing, information about weapon of mass destruction...
Or information about evil/good doing of organisations or countrys.
If someone would say i just do it for the sake of good or the intention of "improving" the world i get highly suspicious.
And i get the confirmation about being right much too often to question those thought processes.
I quite need a lot to convince me that something is the one real "truth" and therefor are mostly on the search for it instead of choosing one fitting the best in my life.
I dont make my life easier with it so i dont see this argument coming toward me in any way and i dont get angry on people believing what they get fed by media or society, but i do feel sad for them and think they missed out a great opportunity to have a better understanding of things going on.
What is able to convince me and how is it done:
Things like the moon landing are proven right in my opinion but it took me a hell lot of informing and questioning to come to that conclusion, o watched the videos of believers as well as of those trying to disprove them.
So it needs someone to question something first to disprove them afterwards becouse you can actually question nearly everything this process might take a while (a hughe respect to those doing this "disproving" of conspiracy theorist even when they think it is stupid) becouse this is done offten very sloppy and and with a hint of disrespect towards the doubts its quite hard to find very good educational information.
The moon landing is proven becouse a lot of very good scientist invested a big amount of time and alot of experiments to confront and disprove those theories.
What do i regret to belive and why:
There are other events wich might sound just as stupid to you like the moon landing being filmed in a studio, lets dont take the most recent one (9/11) and focus on something else instead, like the landing/crash of aliens on this planet.
As i said i highly doubt everything giving a nation or organisation a big advantage over others is to doubt therefore if aliens would have crashed or landed they could give someone a hugeh technological advantage, if someone would admit they had contact with them they would be forced to share information with others and so they would loose some of the advantage, also they would need to explain themselfe how they handled the situation and might loose the trust and the support of the society, everything having a compareable impact on society would be doubt by myself as well.
So heres a little list of things i still doubt if any of you has a good video on them disproving conspiracy theorist there i would be pretty happy if you share them with me.
-Invention of modern economic models. (as a system to enslave people)
-Federal reserve Banking worldwide (a sytem to enslaves states as well)
-Banking system overall (just a big scam on us)
-Alien interaction / techhnology being implemented (i am 50/50 here and its too old to have a hughe impact on us)
-9/11 (as a reasoning for going to war) (i dont belive it was a full on inside job, but i believe they even supported them on the way and let it happen, by not stopping them, to have a reason to go to war)
-Rothshild organisation having a hughe impact on modern day politics and decistion making. (here i also doubt they are controlling everything)
-Lobbyism doing moraly inexcusable things to society for profits.
-People becoming enslaved by the rich. (by having more money they earned by us using against us)
-Secruity mechanism are there to control people and prevent them from standing up and trying to reshuffle the system once again to make the world a better place.
...
How can society prevent me or us from making those assumptions:
Letting those conversations be freely thrown into the pot and give them some respect disprove them not by saying the person having them is stupid or blinded, do it by proving shit with sience!
tl;dr
Its healthy to question things and its healthy to ask questions.
If society doesnt adopt to them, those people just get fire for their thoughts and the problem wont be solved it will get worst.
Anyway have a nice day everyone and threat those people with a little respect.
And sorry for the errors i try to improve my english every day but im a bid of a dyslexic
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I'd say that, labelling theories under a " conspiracy " label in order to dismiss them is also biased.
Even if I don't agree with most of those theories, I find that questionning things and putting them to the test is always good.
Like in a very scientific way, it's reasonable to ask yourself, how can the World trade center collapsed at the free fall speed, which is a scientific fact. Some basic math point that out, and yes it involves that the towers somehow collapsed from bottom or at least from within.
Which leaves us with another scientific dilemma, how can the structure collapse from bottom or within when the strutural pillars where made from a very specific steel not supposed to melt anywhere near the fuel combustion temperature.
I find that fact scientificly bothering, I ain't saying the CIA is lying to us to protect the alien, just that something is fishy here.
Plus the fact that they recovered a passport made of paper in the crash site, but they couldn't find the flight data recorder supposed to resist pretty much anything.
There is nothing about "consipiracy" here, just scientific inconstencies leaving a room for other theories about those events.
And I think that it's good to keep an open mind when put in front of facts.
Could those pillars 've been made from a cheaper steel to reduce costs ? have the terrorists planted bombs in the building before the plane crashed? could those attacks be the work of a another group in order to engage war in the Golf.
No one knows,. But exactly as my view on religion, i'd say I'm agnostic, I won't pretend to know things or believe in things if I don't have strong evidence to back them up, until then, all theories have to be kept in mind and put to the test.
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On February 19 2013 20:46 Chilling5pr33 wrote:
So heres a little list of things i still doupt if any of you has a good video on them disproving conspiracy theorist there i would be pretty happy to share them with me.
-Invention of modern economic models. (as a system to enslave people)
-Federal reserve Banking worldwide (a sytem to enslaves states as well)
-Banking system overall (just a big scam on us)
-Alien interaction / techhnology being implemented (i am 50/50 here and its too old to have a hughe impact on us)
-9/11 (as a reasoning for going to war) (i dont belive it was a full on inside job, but i believe they even supported them on the way and let it happen, by not stopping them, to have a reason to go to war)
-Rothshild organisation having a hughe impact on modern day politics and decistion making. (here i also doupt they are controlling everything)
-Lobbyism doing moraly inexcusable things to society for profits.
-People becoming enslaved by the rich. (by having more money they earned by us using against us)
-Secruity mechanism are there to control people and prevent them from standing up and trying to reshuffle the system once again to make the world a better place.
...
The difference between you and the mainstream conspiracy theorists (Icke, Maxwell etc.) is that you are viewing these things separately. The fundamental flaw in many conspiracy ideas is that they try to link all shadowy organizations and evil goings on to one conspiracy, led by a small group of people.
as for
-Alien interaction / technology being implemented
I believe that the most likely explanation for theories that involve early intelligent alien interference with humans is that they are a kind of myth, symbolizing the development of the early rational human mind. Obviously there is very little proof either way, but i would go for the simpler, more sensible option every time.
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As a scientist, I have run into my fair share of conspiracy theorist (with or without citation marks, as you prefer). Although of a sightly different flavour than the fake-moonlanding political one, I think the principle is the same. People loudly debating their beliefs that are radically different from the commonly accepted ones. I have since some time stopped trying to disproof their ideas (they've had a hundred people trying that already, I cannot say anything that will convince them more), and rather trying to kindly educate them on the subject, or failing that, stay out of the discussion.
What makes me continue to spend time on it is partially my perceived obligation as a scientist to educate the public, but more importantly a curiosity as to why these people insist over and over again, sometimes spending a significant fraction of their lives on these ideas, despite everyone telling them over and over again that they do not understand what they are taking about.
So I came to this thread hoping for some more insight in the subject. 
At first glance at this thread, trying to apply the mindset in the OP to the people I've ran into, I get the answer that they continue to insist because they are just really that convinced that they are right. They have not only understood the specific subject at hand better, but they are also better at approaching problem in general, which is why they are having so much problem with the in comparison ignorant community.
However, that doesn't really help me much, but maybe I missed something. :/ I know that they are very convinced (about their approach being superior, and everyone else being ignorant to not see it), and that is essentially all I read from your OP as well. My question would rather be at a more emotional level: do you ever question yourself? Do you ever think that maybe YOU are the one having the flawed approach, and the officials (or how you prefer to refer to the other people not agreeing with you) got it right? How can you be so sure that you found something that many highly talented, intelligent and educated professionals have overlooked? I know I sometimes question if our model is really better than the model of the competing groups, and I am not always happy with where that thought process leads.  I also know it is a very tricky path to go, with many ways to divert. I'll admit that I seldom spend much time actually considering the merits of the scientific conspiration theories though.
Maybe my question refer a bit more to the science flavour of "conspiration theorists" that I have been in contact with, but maybe you can give some insight anyways. Also nto sure what "university degrees (involving science/math/engineering)" exactly means, but that is fine. The science consipration theorists come from barely high school education, to completed masters (or sometimes even PhD, although much more rarely), so shouldn't matter much.
It seems from your OP that you view yourself as more scientific than the rest in some sense. Do you think the same is true for the people mailing me with their theory about how particle physics is all wrong?
Anyway, long post, and maybe not coherent all the way. Sorry for that. Cheers!
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On February 19 2013 20:57 Jockmcplop wrote:as for I believe that the most likely explanation for theories that involve early intelligent alien interference with humans is that they are a kind of myth, symbolizing the development of the early rational human mind. Obviously there is very little proof either way, but i would go for the simpler, more sensible option every time.
Yeah thats actually nothing i care about as well i just wanna show i have some "stupid" ideas as well and i am really not sure what to think but since it hasent any impact on my daily life i dont mind eather way :D
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A conspiracy theorist basically say "I could believe X, or I could believe Y. X if FAR more probable, so I'll believe Y". Which sounds quite irrational IMO.
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EPT
