9/11 - Have we learned anything?

[El Pibe]

A conspiracy is a plan to commit an illegal act, so it will by definition be prosecutable in a court of law.

The problem with conspiracy theorists is that they refuse to accept that the world is chaotic and that people get things wrong.

Rather than see ineptitude (the cia failed to see the ability and ambition of al qaeda) they see omnipotence (the cia/mossad/the lizards were behind the planes/performed a controlled explosion/used a death ray from the moon).

The degree of omnipotence they attribute nefarious forces seems to be inversely proportional to the sanity of the conpiracy theorist.

What gets me is the selectivity of their obsessions. I don't see why noone has said that the indian ocean tsunami was caused by an underground nuclear explosion in techtonic plates by barrat homkes in order to sell more houses or somesuch for instance.

Of course I'm not really called el pibe, I'm actually a composite avatar from an MI5/Shin Bet/NSA disinformation operation.

[New Nexus]

Sorry, I do not play with Passive aggressive types.

Have a nice day.

[El Pibe]

I thought that all pretty reasoned, even reasonable. Passive aggressive would be all 'I'm not playing' .... oh.

interstingly looking at the DSM-IV definition of passive-aggressive, two-four are striking:

complains of being misunderstood and unappreciated by others

is sullen and argumentative

unreasonably criticizes and scorns authority

;-)

[Huguenot]

:))

[nashoi]

Does the Jon Ronson book have a chapter on the 'real motivaton' of people who write books seeking to expose conspiracy theorists to the 'real motivation' behind their arguments?

[New Nexus]

?Conspiracy theorist? is a term used by silly people whom cannot conceive of a world outside their narrow media fed narrative, so they use the term ?conspiracy theorist? to marginalize people and thus conversation stopper / blocker - people who use the phrase ?Conspiracy theorist? are only trying to censor free speech by using such phrases.

[Huguenot]

Jon Ronson is a celebrity comic writer who generates humour from the absurdities of everyday life.

In particular he gets entertainment mileage by pricking the ballooning egos of many a pompous ass.

I suspect narcissitic conspiracy theorists would be very high on his list for precisely that reason, and that's the only 'real motivation' he needs.

It has added spice from the fact that conspiracy theorists simply cannot see what other people see - how ridiculous they are:

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~ichthus/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/mirror.jpg

[New Nexus]

And once again you?re back to reductio ad absurdum, well to follow your theme, you must think the world is flat.

[Huguenot]

I'm not sure you know what the phrase means old chap:

Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to the absurd") is a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence.

Me saying 'conspiracy theorists are absurd' is not reductio ad absurdum.

[New Nexus]

I refer you to the answer I gave a moment ago

[El Pibe]

I thought NN might appreciate this

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/who-runs-the-world/