On 05 Apr 2014, at 16:19, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 12:30 PM, Telmo Menezes
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 11:47 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
That doesn't narrow it down too much.
Je m'accuse. I was one of them.
My point was that conspiracy theories, in the sense of power elites
secretly cooperating to further their own interests against the
interests of the majority are not, unfortunately, unusual events in
History. We know of countless examples of this happening in the
past. I think it requires some magical thinking to assume that this
type of behaviour is absent from our own times.
I further pointed out that broadly discrediting any hypothesis that
some elites might be conspiring against the common good, in broad
strokes, seems to benefit precisely the ones in power. Furthermore,
thanks to Snowden, we now have strong evidence of a large-scale
conspiracy by western governments that I would not believe one year
ago. In this case I'm referring to the secret implementation of
global and total surveillance, with our tax money, by the people we
elected, to spy on us, infringing on constitutions.
I can't help but notice the very common rhetorical trick of using
the nutty conspiracy theories (UFOs, the Illuminati, fake moon
landing, etc.) to discredit the much more mundane and reasonable
suspicions of elites abusing their power. The paper you cite in this
thread uses that trick too.
This broad denial of the existence of conspiracies is silly, if you
think about it. The official explanation for 9/11 is a conspiracy
theory: some religious arab fundamentalists conspired to create a
global network of terrorist cells with the objective of attacking
western civilisation. They hijacked planes and sent them into
buildings and so on. If you don't believe in this explanation, you
are then forced to believe in some other conspiracy.
Of course conspiracies exist. The current denial of this quite
obvious fact feels Orwellian, to be honest.
To state "conspiracy" in some domain or level seriously, you have to
be precise and point accurately. Who, what, where, when, why? Just
referring to "elites" or entire industries, of which I am often
guilty, doesn't suffice. That's a sort of conspiracy comfort tale,
which has the same effect as denying damaging backdoor deals on a
large scale exist: inaction, no coordination, less people on the
streets.
The distinction is not trivial, as the comfort tale is abused as
some explanatory weed, that illuminates all aspects of world
politics, the hopeless vista of the speaker's position; everything
they disagree with being part of the "grand conspiracy" and
everything they agree with the opposite.
The comfort tale use is not serious and more a psychology thing
istm. PGC
In the case of cannabis conspiracy, Jack Herer gives already much
names and details. All points have been confirmed, like the fact that
Ford and the followers will scupper the evidences that cannabis can
cure mice cancers.
In the case of 9/11, it is harder to evaluate the portion of the
misdoer in the government, and the extent of their participation or
leading role, but it is easy to have suspicion on some people (the
same as for marijuana, basically).
Bruno
Best,
Telmo.
On 5 April 2014 22:31, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> wrote:
It was in one of the climate threads.
Le 5 avr. 2014 09:11, "LizR" <[email protected]> a écrit :
On 4 April 2014 19:35, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> wrote:
2014-04-04 1:29 GMT+02:00 LizR <[email protected]>:
"Climate Deniers Intimidate Journal into Retracting Paper that Finds
They Believe Conspiracy Theories"
Ironically, it looks like they are conspiring to silence any mention
of this fact!
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-deniers-intimidate-journal-into-retracting-paper-that-finds-they-believe-conspiracy-theories
PS I know this isn't about "everything" but there seems to be some
interest in this topic on this forum.
It is strange, because when I did mention that here, the answer was
that it was perfectly normal and rational to believe in global
conspiracy theories and irrational not to.
That sounds a slightly strange view, imho. Who said that, may I ask,
and in what context?
(I will be sending my ninja assassins round to deal with them later,
as per the standing instructions of the Grand High Adepts of the
Illuminati...)
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it,
send an email to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
