From: Erik Moeller (flagg@oberberg-online.de)
Date: Thu Jan 15 1998 - 12:28:02 MST
Anders Sandberg wrote:
> True. But I'm becoming a bit worried about the prevalence of
> conspiracy thinking; it is alsmot the secular religion of the 90's. I
> almost daily hear people explain things in the world around them by
> references to conspiracies, and it seems to be the favored rhetorical
> tool for anybody outside the direct political mainstream (sometimes in
> it too) to explain the situation by some form of conspiracy (ranging
> from the patriarchal to the statist to the market conspiracy).
You may get this impression, but it comes mainly from the worldview propagated
by the media and the propaganda itself. To be more precise:
1) There are lots of books saying the stuff you just said, that conspiracy
theories are a new religion of the Generation Y (or Q, or ABC, anything but
X), that they help to explain things etc. Their evidence or inspiration is the
conspiracy stuff shown in TV.
2) A lot of pseudo-conspiracy-theory stuff like the X-Files is broadcasted in
TV. It's desinformation, plain bullshit and sometimes true information all
mixed together. And it's popular as hell. But not because of its conspiracies,
but because it deals with supernatural stuff,
has nice special effects, a good marketing department and likeable actors (the
last factor is important, too, as many X-clones failed).
> To me this is a sign of sloppy thinking. Sure, there are dirty
> dealings and secret alliances out there, but that doesn't give
> conspiracy theories explanatory power. A conspiracy theory usually
> works by showing some suggestive but weak evidence, and then
> explaining away the lack of confirmation by cover-up. It is
> unfalsifiable ("Of course there are no witnessess, they have all been
> scared into silence"), defends itself vigorously from criticism ("See?
> They have indoctrinated you too!") and promotes spread (in order to
> help others see the truth). In short, they make very efficient memes,
> but they do not have to be true to spread well.
By this defintion, conspiracy theories perfectly fit here. I've oftenly been
accused of being indoctrinated by "liberal media" or being an evil socialist.
The sources I've stated have been declared useless because they came in part
from the government or "conspiracy theorists". The suggestive but weak
evidence: "We all pay too many taxes, government is robbing us."
You are called a conspiracy theorist when you only mention the CIA nowadays.
Ian Goddard's postings about TWA 800 were all of very high quality and
although some of his conclusions are a little naive, I've archived them all.
The recent forwards from Albionic were a bit poor of evidence, but I know that
these guys can do better than this. Don't get too confused in this huge game
of information and desinformation. It's all a big conspiracy anyway.
Erik Moeller
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