Why do people believe in conspiracy theories, or why does Tom exist...

[lxskllr]

There's 2 problems here. First, not all conspiracies are created equal. Some are quite plausible, and there's good reason for for people to obfuscate the truth. Other theories are just out there. Second, the government screws up just about everything it touches. The more complicated the work it's trying to do is, the more screwed up it will be. This adds inconsistencies to what is an otherwise truthful endeavor, and makes it appear less than truthful. One could assume they're trying to cover up facts, when the truth is they're merely inept. Just because the official story has holes, it doesn't mean it isn't truthful.

[dEFinitionofEPIC]

"Conspiracy Theorist" Detractors ---- Those who claim such vermin lack "critical thought" ----Look at the PLETHORA of quotes and statements made by 9/11 commissioners, congressman, military personnel, scientists, and engineers... provided at the link below... and tell me that there is NO REASON to be skeptical about anything!

http://www.infowars.com/the-911-whistleblowers

For a small sample:

Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: “It is a national scandal”; “This investigation is now compromised”; and “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”.

The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry, said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.”

Former Congressman Daniel Hamburg.
"Any government that could bomb its own citizens in the major city of the country could do anything....you can't put anything past them," said Hamburg, clarifying that he was referring to 9/11.

U.S. Army Air Defense Officer and NORAD Tac Director, decorated with the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Soldiers Medal (Capt. Daniel Davis) stated:
“there is no way that an aircraft . . . would not be intercepted when they deviate from their flight plan, turn off their transponders, or stop communication with Air Traffic Control … Attempts to obscure facts by calling them a ‘conspiracy Theory’ does not change the truth. It seems, ‘Something is rotten in the State.’ “

[justintempler]

Right and I understand that. I'm not talking about a conspiracy with aliens or the new world order or chemtrails here,.....

There's a flaw in your reasoning. You can't use the existence of a conspiracy that has already happened and then attach the word theory to it after it has already been explained to you.

That's like trying to buy a lottery ticket with the winning numbers after the drawing has already taken place.

Example... There was no Manhattan Project Conspiracy Theory
Example... There was no Operation Northwoods Conspiracy Theory
People didn't know these conspiracies existed until after they had already taken place.

Show me a case where someone developed a conspiracy theory that ended uncovering a conspiracy.

47 years after JFK got killed all the conspiracy theories in world still haven't provided any answers.
9 years after 911 official story, no conspiracy has come to light
?? how many years of UFO investigations, no one has yet to produce any evidence of any aliens or any alien spacecraft.

Conspiracy theories are only valuable if they can uncover a conspiracy.
Conspiracy theories are worthless is we already know the details of the conspiracy.

[ratcheer]

Flight 93 was to hit the Building 7, but was shot down. So they had to pull Building 7 so the evidence could not be found. But I wonder if flight 93 even crashed....

There is another, somewhat related site that discusses, in depth, all the info about the flights: http://www.pilotsfor911truth.org/

Tim

[sgreger1]

There's a difference in acknowledging that something else could have happened than believing something else happened contrary to official explanation. This is why JT's comments are valid.

I think you don't understand what i'm saying. The things I listed are no longer "conspiracy theories". They are events that we know to have happened, just like how we know the Holocaust happened. At the time, the concept of the Holocaust may have been a conspiracy theory for example, with people claiming the government was planning to round up jews and burn them. People like JT would have said they lacked critical thinking. But it happened. Later on it turned out that the conspiracy against the jews was correct.


I am not advocating that NEVER believing the official story and ALWAYS believing the alternative story (conspiracy theory) is the right thing to do. I am saying that the underlying reason for the large quantities of conspiracy theories we see is because the seed of distrust has been sewn into our psyche after years and years of shady government activity and successfully executed conspiracies. The things I listed are not contested, they happened. They are "conspiracy theories that turned out to be true" basically. The only one that is not officially accepted in my list is perhaps the JFK assasination but I don't know too many people that were dumb enough to believe the magic bullet theory. Either way, the point is that they were real events that happened that at the time if someone discussed their existance would have been called a loon who lacks critical thinking, but in retrospect they WERE happening, contrary to popular belief.

[sgreger1]

http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/rel..._of_wrong.html

Everyone must reda this. It is required reading to participate in this thread lol. Isaac Asimov's essay on "The Relativity of Wrong".

I think conspiracy theories are "incomplete" explanations of something, not necessarily wrong and not all the way correct, but having arrisen out of a refined version of the original theory. The original theory in 9-11 for example being it was muslim terrorists, and conspiracy theories add additional evidence not available or taken into account during the initial investigation to form a more refined version of what may have happened. Even then it may be wrong, but LESS wrong than the official version.

[sgreger1]

There's a flaw in your reasoning. You can't use the existence of a conspiracy that has already happened and then attach the word theory to it after it has already been explained to you.

That's like trying to buy a lottery ticket with the winning numbers after the drawing has already taken place.

Example... There was no Manhattan Project Conspiracy Theory
Example... There was no Operation Northwoods Conspiracy Theory
People didn't know these conspiracies existed until after they had already taken place.

Show me a case where someone developed a conspiracy theory that ended uncovering a conspiracy.

47 years after JFK got killed all the conspiracy theories in world still haven't provided any answers.
9 years after 911 official story, no conspiracy has come to light
?? how many years of UFO investigations, no one has yet to produce any evidence of any aliens or any alien spacecraft.

Conspiracy theories are only valuable if they can uncover a conspiracy.
Conspiracy theories are worthless is we already know the details of the conspiracy.

Symantics Justin. The point is not to validate conspiracy theories in general, but to make note that FEMA having done exercises in rounding people up is what breeds these new conspiracy theories where people think FEMA is being trained to round people up. Conspiracies by the government to spread disinformation and infiltrate dissident groups is what leads to current conspiracy theories that allege the gov is manipulating the media etc. The point is that this is why people believe these things, because we have seen things happen in the past, and many of them have come true.

In the past people alleged that the government was controlling the media for example. People used to think the government was trying to cover up UFO's or the fact that the government was gathering intelligence on UFO's. It turned out, years later, that this was true, that they actually spent money to launch a campaign aimed at making people not believe UFO's existed, and then denied the existence of UFO's for years only for it to come out at a later date that they had been usin the Air Force to monitor the phenomena for 20 years.


Or how about the conspiracy theory that no WMD's existed in Iraq and that the government had made an elaborate hoax in order to convince the entire world Saddam had WMD's as a preface to war in Iraq. People said "Lol, every country's intelligence agencies agree they have WMD's, how could government pull off such an elaborate scheme that would cost trillions and involve the death of tens of thousands of people".

Turns out it was true.

I'm sure there are countless other examples.

[devilock76]

Symantics Justin. The point is not to validate conspiracy theories in general, but to make note that FEMA having done exercises in rounding people up is what breeds these new conspiracy theories where people think FEMA is being trained to round people up. Conspiracies by the government to spread disinformation and infiltrate dissident groups is what leads to current conspiracy theories that allege the gov is manipulating the media etc. The point is that this is why people believe these things, because we have seen things happen in the past, and many of them have come true.

In the past people alleged that the government was controlling the media for example. People used to think the government was trying to cover up UFO's or the fact that the government was gathering intelligence on UFO's. It turned out, years later, that this was true, that they actually spent money to launch a campaign aimed at making people not believe UFO's existed, and then denied the existence of UFO's for years only for it to come out at a later date that they had been usin the Air Force to monitor the phenomena for 20 years.


Or how about the conspiracy theory that no WMD's existed in Iraq and that the government had made an elaborate hoax in order to convince the entire world Saddam had WMD's as a preface to war in Iraq. People said "Lol, every country's intelligence agencies agree they have WMD's, how could government pull off such an elaborate scheme that would cost trillions and involve the death of tens of thousands of people".

Turns out it was true.

I'm sure there are countless other examples.

It is spelled semantics, on a side note.

The point being made is a conspiracy theory being made, especially the outrageous ones then being proofed. The Manhattan Project would be a great example.

As for Iraqi WMD's, we knew they had them, we sold them to them. They are not all accounted for, so they went somewhere. Not finding something is not the proof it wasn't there. No one has found Atlantis yet but I am sure someone here knows all about it and how advanced they are and they had created the world's first combination drinking fountain and bidet.

Ken

[dEFinitionofEPIC]

It is spelled semantics, on a side note.

nice....

[devilock76]

nice....

I like my little slices of irony as much as the next person.

Ken

[tom502]

Maybe he's an anti-semantic?

[sgreger1]

It is spelled semantics, on a side note.

The point being made is a conspiracy theory being made, especially the outrageous ones then being proofed. The Manhattan Project would be a great example.

As for Iraqi WMD's, we knew they had them, we sold them to them. They are not all accounted for, so they went somewhere. Not finding something is not the proof it wasn't there. No one has found Atlantis yet but I am sure someone here knows all about it and how advanced they are and they had created the world's first combination drinking fountain and bidet.

Ken

No, it's spelled "I-don't-****ing-care-about-spelling". Contrary to popular belief on internet tubes, improper spelling /= stupid. I am just not great at spelling and often times shoot of shit without proofreading it. (Because I don't get paid to post on snuson)


As for Iraq WMD's, I am well aware of what happened with the WMD's, but incase you havn't kept up to date on the news, there is now a lot of evidence showing that we knew damn well they were not there and yet proceeding with the invasion regardless. I personally believe they were moved to syria or some other safe-haven, but the point is that A) Having WMD's has never been an acceptable justification to start a war (most other countries have them, yet we don't attack them), and B) We knew we were unlikely to find anything but went anyways because our objective was to stop Iraq from using WMD's. Even once we realized they were not there, we continued the fight.

[sgreger1]

I like my little slices of irony as much as the next person.

Ken

What is ironic in this situation? Does anyone find it genuinely ironic that Sgreger1, the most infamous misspeller on the forum misspelled a word?


I guess that disproves everything I've said. I resign that I was completely wrong, as demonstrated by my incorrectly spelled word. Good day.

[devilock76]

What is ironic in this situation? Does anyone find it genuinely ironic that Sgreger1, the most infamous misspeller on the forum misspelled a word?


I guess that disproves everything I've said. I resign that I was completely wrong, as demonstrated by my incorrectly spelled word. Good day.

The irony was you critiquing someone on semantics and then me being semantical in correcting your spelling on semantics. I really was just trying to be funny by putting that first. I guess you are over sensitive about such things. Which might mean you do care about spelling, or your inability at it. Hey I am pretty bad at it too but I am used to double checking things, even on forum posts. Sad I know, but this is how habits get a hold of us.

Ken

[devilock76]

Incidentally my even biggest weakness in forum stat points is homophonophobia. Funny how it also tends to be a pet peeve of mine. I really have to scan my stuff to pick up the numerous to, too, two mistakes I make by touch typing habit without thinking of context of the sentence.

As for bad spelling = dumb or not, it does not equal dumb. And considering this site has international appeal...

However with spellcheckers embedded in browsers, it does tend to show a bit of laziness. On a forum, does it matter, no, I mean this is casual communication at best. But in these debates on such heated topics, well there comes a point where care helps to make ones point. That is all.

However to re-emphasize, I was just being silly by pointing that out.

Ken