At 03:54 PM 4/2/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Such considerations do not appeal to the minds of people who believe
in conspiracy theories. They are immune to rationality.
But be careful. There might be a real conspiracy, sometimes, or
something that has the same effect, i.e., collective suppressive
behavior that is as damaging, maybe more damaging, than collusion in
improper suppression.
With a genuine conspiracy, the conspirators know what they are doing.
But there was suppression of cold fusion research and ideas, for
sure, and sometimes it was conscious, but not conscious as "we don't
care if this is bad," but conscious in that the suppressors
communicated with each other and encouraged each other, and applied
collective pressure to make sure that this "garbage" didn't get strewn about.
A collective "natural" conspiracy, then, will present the same
results and appearance as a concious, evil plot, except that the
methods might be more restrained. A conscious evil plot would not
stop at things like murder, if they believed it would benefit their
cause. The natural conspiracy *probably* would, as the norm.
Sometimes individuals will believe that their cause is so important
that, well, what's a few lives, when if we allow this insanity to
propagate, many more lives will be lost. This happens more with
things like abortion or a belief that the government is out to
destroy everything we hold dear and create a fascist or collectivist state.
Lest we forget, the ends do not justify the means, because, in the
end, all that is real is the means.
I noticed that in the physorg blog -- discussion at which was
hijacked by some physics fanatics, over stuff that had nothing to do
with cold fusion, and, obviously, nobody is monitoring that for
relevance -- several skeptics focused on the idea that people like me
were screaming "conspiracy," because I pointed to the very real
suppression of research, and sourced it to Simon. They were
impervious to evidence. Pseudoskeptics, using the "conspiracy
theorists" label as ad-hominem argument, avoiding the substance.
Who cares about substance, isn't it about winning debates?
So new?
If I use a defective argument to make my position on something appear
solid, please bust me. Or at least try to!
