Thanks, Steve G for your post.
I agree with all you said but would like to add a few words on the dangers of some if the extremist sites. One of the common themes at those sites is warnings that sources of differing information are always wrong and part if the conspiracy. Be it the main stream media, FDA, big Pharma, government agencies, other blogs, your neighbor, ... The first thing they do it try to cut you off from other sources of information. Once that is done they control you and your opinions. I am always astonished at how many poeple willingly fall for this manipulation. One clear sign of one of these manipulative sites is their emphasis on the emotion of anger to get a person involved. They use it to work a person up and use the anger to overide the person's common sense and critical thinking. Having read many of these conspiracy sites I am amazed at not just the amount of undocumented speculation but also the great amounts of outright lies and misinformation. I find it insulting when people send that type of information to me personally. Believing that I would be ignorant or lazy enough to fail to check the "facts" they present. And I don't like my time wasted by posts of that type. - Steve N From: Steve <[email protected]>To: [email protected] <[email protected]>Sent: Sun Dec 20 10:04:34 2009Subject: CS>Conspiracies The problem with conspiracy theories is that they are usually presented as facts and no effort is given to provide serious documentation or support. Usually the support behind the statements is in the theorist's rationalization which involves a series of suppositions, each one relying upon the accuracy of another, like individual dominoes stacked precariously one upon another. As long as every single supposition/domino is dead on accurate, the whole thing manages to stay together, but if one is wrong, the entire structure falls. Generally, theorists don't really have much in the way of facts, but they have a lot of opinions.On the other hand..... there really are conspiracies. And the nature of conspiracies is that the perpetrators do not like them to be discovered. People attempted to reveal the conspiracy are targeted for discreditation, ridicule, or elimination.What do you do? You do your best to listen to what is claimed, attempt to determine if it has any realistic merit, and make your best conclusion.Popular conspiracy theories in my lifetime include:Man landing on Moon is a HoaxRoosevelt knew about the Pearl Harbor attack in advanceObama is not born in the USKatrina Hurricane relief efforts were bungled purposely because victims were African AmericansGlobal Warming (now climate change since the earth has been cooling for about 8 years) is due to human activityAnd many others.People who promote these theories are mostly sincere. They are forceful. They are passionate. But being sincere, forceful, dramatic, or loud does NOT mean you are correct. Making claims without any proof by someone who is sincere or loud convinces many people. The Katrina victims theory is particularly weak because absolutely no documentation or support exists for the claim. Global warming theory is particularly suspect, especially now, because the scientists doing climate change research have been proven to have conspired to for years to toss data and studies that don't support the theory. Now, the claims that David Rockefeller owns 85% of the world's pharmacies could possibly be true I suppose. But, nobody seems to be able to come up with any documentation, so I ignore this. But let's say it's true. On top of this, for the conspiracy to be accurate, we need to believe that an incredibly rich man who will never be able to spend 10% of his wealth is so crazed by money and power that he will deliberately go out of his way to risk everything to cover-up or discredit alternative treatments and remedies that may have some real merit. This is a lot for someone to accept without some real documentation.As far as the claim that the WTC were not brought down by terrorists amazes me since I saw the buildings collapse on live tv. The buildings each took much longer than 10 seconds to collapse from the time they were struck by the airplanes. There are a number of well researched papers discussing the mechanics of how that happened. Imploding experts use dynamite to implode buildings. This was entirely different and the imploders' expertise is pretty much irrelevant here. There are tons of evidence that 911 was indeed orchestrated by Al Quaida terrorists. Me? I'm just skeptical of exotic claims. I'm willing to listen to just about ANY theory as long as there is some real evidence to back it up. Evidence other than someone connecting a bunch of assumptions and opinions. I think we are currently living through one of the biggest conspiracies on record right now, namely the efforts to pass the so called 'Health Care Reform Bill.' I think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that various politicians are being blackmailed to support it or paid off in one way or another. I have no proof of this, so I can't promulgate my theory as anything more than a suspicion. If successful in their efforts, the government will have unprecedented power over our lives. Anything you might have to say about 911, Rockefeller's banks, the Fed, or the FDA pales in comparison with what this power grab is likely to do.That's my take. Steve G.
