Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories

[DrVolin]

I don't need to read much further than 'undermining the scientific consensus' to know where this is coming from.

[Wombaticus Rex]

But it has also spawned thousands of sites that undermine scientific consensus, overturn well-established facts, and promote conspiracy theories.

Morozov is a computer nerd and that's important. Nerds are curators of solutions -- the right code, proper installation, re-wiring it until it works. He assumes that technocrats in other disciplines are anchored by the same utilitarian objectivity. They ain't. Frankly, for him to even assume that about the technology field, knowing what he does about it's history, is willful naivete.

What's alarming about that sentence, though, is his total lack of understanding re: Science. Over-turning well established facts is the entire point of the entire enterprise, and it's hard to offer a more concise summary of the whole circus than "undermining consensus."

Mozorov appears to conceive of Science as a vast public opinion polling system, focus testing the most broadly agreeable Weltanschauungs for public consumption.

[brainpanhandler]

Without a doubt the "scientific consensus" should be challenged, vigorously, rigorously, at every turn. That is what science and scientists should do.

Then again I don't want petroleum industry hacks or right wing evangelicals creating the science curriculum for the public education system either.

The scientific consensus is not entirely useless.

[brainpanhandler]

There is a difference between arguing that an idea has no merit because of X, Y, and Z inconsistencies and factual errors; it is quite another to argue that an idea is crazy on its face and besides its proponent is a horrible person who also believes this terrible and crazy idea and associates with people who believe in reptiles from outer space.

Stipulated to, although the latter, at least here, is generally a product of either laziness and/or fatigue.

But I am worried about the mindset. I see it creeping around on other forums, and even this one, that orthodoxy qua orthodoxy must be maintained, and that straying too far outside the accepted box somehow constitues a great moral offense.

Maybe not a great moral offense, although I can see how you might have that "impression". The rhetoric is a problem. But there's no solution to that really, except moderation. And we have that. We have exceptional moderators, I think.

Strangely enough, at least it is strange to me, I have been accused here of being "closed minded", overly rational, too skeptical/rigorous. I no longer respond to such accusations. What's the point?

I like to think of this message board as a communal mind. I know... frightening, right? But even the blindest squirrels around here occasionally happen upon on acorn and I give just about every bizzare thought what I believe is due consideration. For instance this thread which just coincidentally poppped back up.

Spoiler:Whatever you do don't mention ch*mtr&Il$

[sfnate]

The Internet is a novelty-production machine. Recombinant knowledge is assembled from chaotic thought-forms, which are inserted into the maelstrom at the speed of light. Under these conditions, self-similar information instantly coalesces into fractal assemblages of aggregated knowledge, group-cognitive structures that often provide epistemological refuge for magical thinking. To the extent that the Internet is a separate universe of thought and (virtual) experience, it offers its own proto-physical laws, with conditions that are favorable to alchemical (in contrast to scientific) methods. In this digital environment, science and other instruments of rationality are analogous to, and often received as, grey alien visitors possessing an indecipherable alphabet and unintelligle agendas. Novelty-production in this realm is a species of Ahrimanic evolution, where the energies of intellect and spirit are converted into the diabolic logic of schizoid isolation from the maternal/material dwelling of embodied flesh. The tension between these worlds we simultaneously inhabit can be described and experienced as a kind of gnostic rejection of the real, except neither place is intuitively felt as really real, and the possibility of "knowing" is therefore terminally corrupted by doubt and confusion. Under these circumstances conspiracy cultures flourish like electronic mold in a digital petri dish--a metaphorical condition that figuratively implies the existance of a laboratory. Whether the experimental conditions are a carefully constructed project of alienated intelligence or the mad inventions of a demented and suicidal nihilism, it's impossible to tell, and probably no less fatal in either case. The hope remains, as it has always been, in the transcendant function that regulates the psycho-physical operations of reality, and describes true knowledge as the middle place between these worlds.

[JackRiddler]

Does Google have a responsibility to help stop the spread of think-tank calls to war, promotions of nuclear power and hydrocarbons as clean and sustainable sources of energy, corporate marketing hoaxes, aiming advertising for sugary poisons directly to children, and other forms of brainwashing?

...

People who rape children, run vast financial frauds, crash hot-air balloons, and write articles with unforgivably sloppy logic for the has-been Web magazine Slate have put the Internet to great use.

Ah, one more thing: Scientists should gin up a mob to tar and feather this guy for putting evolutionary theory on a par with the Official Story of the 9/11 Attacks.

.

[JackRiddler]

The Internet is a novelty-production machine. Recombinant knowledge is assembled from chaotic thought-forms, which are inserted into the maelstrom at the speed of light. Under these conditions, self-similar information instantly coalesces into fractal assemblages of aggregated knowledge, group-cognitive structures that often provide epistemological refuge for magical thinking. To the extent that the Internet is a separate universe of thought and (virtual) experience, it offers its own proto-physical laws, with conditions that are favorable to alchemical (in contrast to scientific) methods. In this digital environment, science and other instruments of rationality are analogous to, and often received as, grey alien visitors possessing an indecipherable alphabet and unintelligle agendas. Novelty-production in this realm is a species of Ahrimanic evolution, where the energies of intellect and spirit are converted into the diabolic logic of schizoid isolation from the maternal/material dwelling of embodied flesh. The tension between these worlds we simultaneously inhabit can be described and experienced as a kind of gnostic rejection of the real, except neither place is intuitively felt as really real, and the possibility of "knowing" is therefore terminally corrupted by doubt and confusion. Under these circumstances conspiracy cultures flourish like electronic mold in a digital petri dish--a metaphorical condition that figuratively implies the existance of a laboratory. Whether the experimental conditions are a carefully constructed project of alienated intelligence or the mad inventions of a demented and suicidal nihilism, it's impossible to tell, and probably no less fatal in either case. The hope remains, as it has always been, in the transcendant function that regulates the psycho-physical operations of reality, and describes true knowledge as the middle place between these worlds.

Now replace "The Internet" with "Contemporary society" and tell me if you'd need to change even one other word in the rest of it. Is science more of a force offline than on?

[JackRiddler]

But it has also spawned thousands of sites that undermine scientific consensus, overturn well-established facts, and promote conspiracy theories.

Morozov is a computer nerd and that's important. Nerds are curators of solutions -- the right code, proper installation, re-wiring it until it works. He assumes that technocrats in other disciplines are anchored by the same utilitarian objectivity. They ain't. Frankly, for him to even assume that about the technology field, knowing what he does about it's history, is willful naivete.

What's alarming about that sentence, though, is his total lack of understanding re: Science. Over-turning well established facts is the entire point of the entire enterprise, and it's hard to offer a more concise summary of the whole circus than "undermining consensus."

Mozorov appears to conceive of Science as a vast public opinion polling system, focus testing the most broadly agreeable Weltanschauungs for public consumption.

For the consumption of a public that is still as stupid as his argument implies, but pleasantly docile.

It's shocking. I don't know how alarming it is against the backdrop of all the other alarming stuff, including the real efforts to censor the Internet. Google will never have an ideological reliability system for rating sites; they'll just filter stuff out on their own, or on the request of corporate partners and governments, good luck knowing it when they do. Does anyone give a shite what some dipshit writes in Slate?

But it's shocking. Science relies on falsification. It's a process of getting it wrong, over and over. Should saying that qualify you for Mozorov's index? (Warning: This site tells you too much about scientific practice. Just eat the results as approved by the Wikipedia editors, okay?)

Let's grant him his area of expertise: I wouldn't know how good he is as a tech nerd. He would not be the first savant in a narrow field to expose himself as a naked idiot in general terms.

.

[Sounder]

Slomo wrote…

The idea that the state and its organs, and Authorities of all types have a right and a duty to force orthodoxy upon the unwashed masses is the fundamental atrocity that, for me, underlies much of what is discussed on this forum.

But that is their right and their duty; otherwise our vertical authority distribution system would collapse.

One thing that seems to be a general characteristic of boilerplate propaganda is a desire to marginalize through negative association any questioners of normative thought. (You know, kind of like what AD does with many cut-n-paste stink bombs that he uses as a substitute for thinking.)
The mental processes that Bernay’s and his ilk understand are the herd like tendencies of humans where insecurities can be repressed or claimed as being strengths by providing a scapegoat on to which the insecure conformist can project their own idiocy. I imagine there is a brisk demand for essays that inhibit the addressing of certain uncomfortable questions by associating said question with unsavory elements. This tack is a strategic requirement for propagandists that would otherwise lose the argument if they were to have to engage at the level of ideas.

If intellectuals were to direct their prodigious talent toward creative reassessments in preference to living within ideological straitjackets then this world might be turned into paradise nearly overnight.

[JackRiddler]

And now, I shall confess to often feeling myself at the opposite pole. Much as with the following from Truth Action forum.

http://truthaction.org/forum/posting.ph ... te&p=48029

I have to admit I'm beginning to detest conspiracy theorists passionately. I'm talking about the absolutist whack jobs with a penchant for dishonesty to the bitter end. Many of them, I suspect, enjoy being liars. It's about lying to infuriate a hated ideological adversary as effectively as possible. No-one can be compelled to tell the truth. The folks over at SLC are extremists who hate everybody not on board with Republicanism, and have in fact declared Republicanism to be identical to a litmus test of being American, just like... basically every Republican who ever lived. Such a sclerotic mentality doesn't allow for the possibility of government wrongdoing to achieve support through seismic shifts of public opinion for what they see as a God given mission: to bomb democracy into helpless third world nations the world over.

But, as much as I despise this brand of "my country right or wrong"-types, I also despise the conspiracy mongering, lying mental patients who seem to have been multiplying exponentially these past years, like a virus, with the false conspiracy theories becoming evermore resistant to antibiotics. The professional conspiracy theorist buys conspiracies by the bundle, and espouses all of them packaged together. The package in question identifies the political convictions of the package owner, and yields a pretty reliable indicator of the understanding of such a person of empirical subjects like physics, chemistry and math. No planers suck at physics and math. Mini-nukers suck at physics, DEW-proponents suck at everything including engineering, logic, and common sense. You don't have to be a scientist to understand the need for 9/11 Justice. Perhaps. But it helps if you understand science before you start yapping about it as if you know about it.

We're watching a mosaic of paranoid idiocy and empirical incompetence impede progress and consume valuable human efforts. Every time a valuable movement coagulates around an unearthing of a real government conspiracy, a group of full-time conspiracy clowns takes over and fucks everything up preemptively. Julian Assange was partially right. Just my 2c. I'm seeing way too much mendacious crapclowns around & I've really had my fill. This is a problem with the educational system, too. Billy Joe Bob the no planer on 911blogger knows jack shit about collision dynamics and if he doesn't and knows he doesn't he should shut the fuck up about it, rather than making declarative statements about scientific matters way above his limited mental bandwidth, reinforcing some other like-minded conspiracy buff's delusions.

Harsh words, but I don't give a damn.

And tell me that the following parody video bears no relation to any real person you've known:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWFXEn-4BBM

The Morozovs and the debunker squads are intellectually lazy to perform a similar associative game, throwing all ideas out of their comfort zone into one bin labeled "conspiracy" without empirical examination, while irresponsibly eating whatever shit their government serves up, but they never lack for fodder: The stereotype CT exists, and-

Every time a valuable movement coagulates around an unearthing of a real government conspiracy, a group of full-time conspiracy clowns takes over and fucks everything up preemptively.

snowcrash goes on with a pretty hair-raising example.

Example: Gabrielle Giffords

This is a staged and scripted load of crap. Period.

She was NOT shot. It is just another false event, portrayed as real... Wake up America! You're being scammed, in a huge way!

Compare "the new" Giffords with the woman in the link below. You will have to humanly decode my encryption, which was the only way I could post without activating the key word "Error" trigger:

FINALLY, SOMEONE THAT'S NOT IN A DELUSION.

You are correct!

Also dinosaurs = Sci-fi.

CONTROL BY FEAR: T.V. it's a weapon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCW7o07e4Qo

not much blood for being shot in the head wouldnt they heve someone appyling pressure to the wound

@koolone22 Bingo!, it's not real. The guy with his hand on her's, was the person claiming to have put pressure on the wound as soon as she got shot. Isn't it funny he also shows no sign of blood and his hand is bloodless.

And now she's back! No paralysis, no slurred speech, no scars! The reported hollow point bullet would blast out the exit point of the skull along with a good amount of brain with blood everywhere. I guess they feel we are just too stupid to think and too afraid to act.

"dallasgoldbug",youtube channel is a great source of info. Looks like Az. is the hotspot for these actors and produced terror events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slePgZQlT4M

staged 

bushbasher46 2 weeks ago

@vodkaman360 it was fake

BULLYSHT 2 weeks ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4oZQxtSBow

----------------------------------------------------------

These are prime examples of delusional lowlifes, and guess what, the 9/11 "Truth" Movement attracts them like shit does flies.

I understand the anger.

.

[bks]

Every time a valuable movement coagulates around an unearthing of a real government conspiracy, a group of full-time conspiracy clowns takes over and fucks everything up preemptively.

JackRiddler wrote:

I understand the anger

I don't anymore. There is an error in snowcrash's acceptance of the frame that equates the evidence-based movements that cast warranted scrutiny on government lies, with the adolescent ejaculations of idiocy one can find in the comments section of any online news article these days. Nothing links them except the ill-fitting term "conspiracy theory".

This has to be stopped. They are not the same species of thing, even though media and academics insist on denoting them by the same term. Until that con job is exposed and derided, we can forget making sizeable inroads with the larger public.

[eyeno]

Quote:
This is a staged and scripted load of crap. Period.

She was NOT shot. It is just another false event, portrayed as real... Wake up America! You're being scammed, in a huge way!

There is one aspect of intrigue about this case for me. I'm not adhering to the belief that she did not get shot. The intrigue for me is the possibility that she subscribed to her shooters youtube page before she was shot. The supposed evidence that was put forth seemed fairly convincing that she had subscribed to his youtube before she got shot. Of course its not absolute proof but the things I saw made it look decently convincing that it was true. Any thoughts?

[Sounder]

Jack wrote….

And now, I shall confess to often feeling myself at the opposite pole.

And this is a good and fine thing and perhaps also why I enjoy your bias or intellectual antidotes to somewhat sloppily expressed ‘alternative’ explanations of events. It is also very good as far as being a check function on my own sometimes loose habits toward speculation. Although to be fair, I do not to push or present speculations as requiring belief from others. (Theoretically speaking, beliefs would be difficult to incorporate into any horizontal authority distribution system.)

So while we may be on opposite poles in some sense often or maybe most of the time I am quite comfortable with and appreciative of your analysis. And while I could never choose to hate anything passionately as snowcrash rhetoricizes, I do relate to his distaste for folk that are jumping on bandwagons while having no clue as to who is driving.

But again, don’t blame the victims. Instead take responsibility by creating a better metanarrative. May she who shatters the most sacred cows win.

Sure it’s foolish and juvenal for folk to build their identities around ‘beliefs’ that are framed within a narrow set of categories. In this sense many conspiracy theorists are mimicking orthodoxy in claiming a fixed or limited cause that can be reinforced by similarly thinking folk.

But and alas all of us lack discrimination when we process information that conforms to our pretenses. In my case the lack of discrimination shows up when I come across information that validates my pretense that we are living in something like the Truman show where everything is scripted and fake. (Which is odd and maybe an unconscious response to a search for authenticity) Of course I know intellectually that much of what happens are natural results of complex confluences of events, but at the same time, I have been nagged by a sense of falsity within normative explanations for my whole life.

And I can’t shake the impression that our crude criterion for understanding keeps us as hamsters running on our wheels, when we could at least be hamsters sniffing for food and running through a maze with a clear purpose.

[JackRiddler]

There is an error in snowcrash's acceptance of the frame that equates the evidence-based movements that cast warranted scrutiny on government lies, with the adolescent ejaculations of idiocy one can find in the comments section of any online news article these days. Nothing links them except the ill-fitting term "conspiracy theory".

Would that the lines were so easy to draw. I don't think it's snowcrash's error to accept this frame, rather that this frame is forced on the public discourse in which snowcrash must participate. Two opposite sides collude to share it: On the one hand, the mid-size industry of small-scale conspiratainment producers who flock to attach themselves to each new "event" a.s.a.p. On the other, the corporate news and its freelance corps of professed "skeptics" and authors of screeds in the "exasperated debunking" voice. With respect to hidden institutions and suspicious events, their symbiotic interaction produces a binary similar to Democrats vs. Republicans, wherein everyone is called upon to accept one side as a whole and reject the other as a whole. The idea that both might be wrong (or right, or irrelevant, or incomplete, or in agreement with each other) can win battles, especially on those rare occasions when the field is level. But it is always fighting an uphill war, because it does not pre-possess the categories that everyone already knows. Once a set of ready binary categories establish a hegemony over the public discourse, it becomes very hard to break. Those who operate as automatic advocates of one side or the other have the advantage in fielding and framing whatever new events and circumstances arise. "For comment on today's surprising news, we now turn to..." the usual suspects.

So what you call "adolescent ejaculations of idiocy" in the blog comments sections tend not to be original stupidity, but shit that has rolled down the hill from one or another stupidity factory. It's industrial. It's got a niche within the culture, which makes it very hard to counteract: even if you render (for example) Alex Jones or Gary Null into a public joke and a pariah, another preacher will set up shop to take his place. And this new guy won't tell his own stories to his own fans for fun, he too will be jumping into every new development to force it to fit his own schtick. And the corporate news (and the mainstream attitude) will simply not examine cases without bias, or allow you or your case to exist on your own: "Well YOU say you're making your independent case, but so does that guy on the radio, you both sound crazy... Why can't the two of you get your stories straight? ... And what motivates you both to have such ideas, what fallacy or psychology do you share? ... Don't try to evade your responsibility for HIM and his nasty ideological commitments! ... Isn't it really the case that you're just bitter because he has more followers?" And then that shit rolls down the hill, where the "adolescent ejaculations of idiocy" alternate volleys of hate at "sheeple" and "conspiracy theorists."

You, bks, are a master at exposing the faults in the framing, the associative fallacies and the false dichotomies that are evident in logical terms, but that doesn't stop the real-existing structures that power the false association of separate ideas into a single "conspiracy theory" category (one that includes some non-conspiratorial magico-religious stuff but excludes many conspiracy allegations, i.e. the ones about Mexican drug-lords or angry Muslims or corrupt Russians that are acceptable as mainstream news fare). And let's not pretend there is not a real psychology that wants to link every event straight back to its own version of master narrative and place it in an associative galaxy of exotica.

This has to be stopped. They are not the same species of thing, even though media and academics insist on denoting them by the same term. Until that con job is exposed and derided, we can forget making sizeable inroads with the larger public.

Yes. And I ask you: How? Looking at the problem practically, not only as a faulty logic, but as social structures and dynamics.

.

[Nordic]

People just need to learn to think for themselves.

But that's probably the thing the PTB fears the most.