5 ms·

> From about 1970-74, the CIA managed to convince the world that billionaire inventor Howard Hughes had decided to invest millions to mine “manganese nodules,”

by vcarl 11y ago

> From about 1970-74, the CIA managed to convince the world that billionaire inventor Howard Hughes had decided to invest millions to mine “manganese nodules,” balls of heavy metals that lie on the ocean floor. Via fake press releases, events, technical specs and front companies, the CIA convinced the world that Hughes was leading a new ocean-mining rush. This sounds exactly like James Cameron's astroid mining. I wonder if we'll find out in 50 years that the CIA was recovering a Russian spaceship.

trhway 11y ago
>that the CIA was recovering a Russian spaceship not Russian, i mean like not of Earth origin...
cryoshon 11y ago
The most difficult task of discovering these charades is openmindedness. Imagine, after all of the press releases and discussion around manganese nodule harvesting, saying Howard Hughes wasn't interested in mining manganese nodules at all, but sunken Russian ships. You'd be labeled as crazy. First off, people would be asking where the heck you got the idea that something along the lines of manganese nodules could actually be a cover story for the CIA. Then, you'd be slammed for saying things counter to the mainstream narrative. Finally, if you were somehow gaining a lot of traction (but how could you! who even cares about recovering sunken Russian ships) you might get a visit asking for your silence.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Being openminded isn't much of a start though. How do you narrow down which seemingly-normal things are really facades for something? How do you privilege the hypothesis[1]? If you were, in this case, claiming it was because the CI was looking for Russian ships - what evidence do you have? Given enough conspiracy theories, at least one will be right. But that one right one shouldn't be accorded any point if there was no reason to believe it over other ideas. 1: http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/
  - mirimir 11y ago
    In the 60s, there were many "conspiracy theories" about capabilities of US spy satellites. Now we know: http://www.space.com/13287-secret-spy-satellite-designer-reveals-lifes-work.html http://www.space.com/13287-secret-spy-satellite-designer-rev... And CIA experiments with LSD. Virtually nobody took those stories seriously at the time.
    - autobahn 11y ago
      the point is, the validity of particular conspiracy theories lends no particular credence to others.
      - thaumaturgy 11y ago
        You're exactly right. Otherwise, this logic would lend support to, for instance, the notion that the moon landings were faked, merely because other conspiracies have turned out to be true. And nobody that's sane really thinks the moon landings were faked, so we find that other conspiracies being true doesn't really help with evaluating any given conspiracy. Or maybe more succintly: we need more Edward Snowden and less Alex Jones.
        hugh4 11y ago
        What we need is more people capable of entertaining an idea without necessarily believing it. People who can acknowledge multiple possibilities and put reasonable plausibility ratings on them without getting too emotionally involved with any of them. People who can say "Yes, the widely accepted story is probably true, but here's five or six low-probability alternative possibilties."
        thaumaturgy 11y ago
        Internet culture doesn't foster that sort of attitude, unfortunately. Funny, I wrote some notes on this exact thing a couple of nights ago while I couldn't sleep but deleted them because they sucked. Crowded forums, especially those with points systems like Reddit and HN, have become contests and the people that win those contests are usually the ones that can argue a position with the most veracity. Nobody is impressed by anyone that says, "hmm, well, that might be true too, maybe"; that person is perceived as naive or weak or ignorant or wishy-washy. This isn't limited to internet culture either. Any politician that dares to change their mind on an issue is "waffling", it's a sign of a weak leader, not an introspective one. And this is really, really hurting the way that debate happens, at least in the US. You generally can't have a civil, thoughtful, enlightening discussion about gun control, abortions, religion, climate change, race and gender issues, or any of a number of other hot-button political topics. People instead pick a position and cling to it with all their might, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When one argument for their position stops working, rather than reconsider their position they just migrate to a new argument for the same position. (This is happening right now for instance with anti-vaccers, who have moved from "it's not safe" to "it impinges on my religious freedom".) ... Y'know, I think the world has gotten too connected too quickly. I don't mean that this interconnectedness is altogether bad; it is amazing to me that we live in a time now where two people in politically opposed countries can get together with a minimal amount of effort over vast distances and talk to eachother. That's fantastic. But I think it has also become overwhelming for a lot of people. We haven't had enough time to adapt. The relentless news cycle, the constant distractions from Twitter and social media feeds, the nonstop barrage of email and texting, the vast social timewasting (and often hostile) networks like Reddit, the unimaginable amount of information being pumped into a blogosphere that's expanding at rates resembling the earliest moments of the Big Bang ... I think most people are just completely overwhelmed by it, and coupled with this culture that reveres certainty and conviction over measured consideration, people have retreated to finding comfortable positions on every issue they care about and then clinging to them with all their might. It would be nice if there was a way to turn the dial back just a notch or two, to have some kind of network where we could easily limit ourselves to connections with a much smaller number of people, the same people on a regular basis, where it can become comfortable again to say something like "I don't know" in a context where you don't feel like you're in a gladiatorial arena and will get downvoted by the spectators for it.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  This conflicts with reality. In the real-world where historically the cover story crashed and burned very rapidly. There was only a period of about a year after the partial recovery of K-129 before the press knew of the deception, and only strenuous efforts kept the story from being published. Even then the story was delayed only a month. In 1975 the truth of Project Azorian was public, and there wasn't widespread disbelief as you would have imagined. Nor were there men in black doing awful things to keep the story secret, just administration officials asking politely.

by vcarl 11y ago

trhway 11y ago

>that the CIA was recovering a Russian spaceship not Russian, i mean like not of Earth origin...

cryoshon 11y ago

The most difficult task of discovering these charades is openmindedness. Imagine, after all of the press releases and discussion around manganese nodule harvesting, saying Howard Hughes wasn't interested in mining manganese nodules at all, but sunken Russian ships. You'd be labeled as crazy. First off, people would be asking where the heck you got the idea that something along the lines of manganese nodules could actually be a cover story for the CIA. Then, you'd be slammed for saying things counter to the mainstream narrative. Finally, if you were somehow gaining a lot of traction (but how could you! who even cares about recovering sunken Russian ships) you might get a visit asking for your silence.

MichaelGG 11y ago
Being openminded isn't much of a start though. How do you narrow down which seemingly-normal things are really facades for something? How do you privilege the hypothesis[1]? If you were, in this case, claiming it was because the CI was looking for Russian ships - what evidence do you have? Given enough conspiracy theories, at least one will be right. But that one right one shouldn't be accorded any point if there was no reason to believe it over other ideas. 1: http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis/
- mirimir 11y ago
  In the 60s, there were many "conspiracy theories" about capabilities of US spy satellites. Now we know: http://www.space.com/13287-secret-spy-satellite-designer-reveals-lifes-work.html http://www.space.com/13287-secret-spy-satellite-designer-rev... And CIA experiments with LSD. Virtually nobody took those stories seriously at the time.
  - autobahn 11y ago
    the point is, the validity of particular conspiracy theories lends no particular credence to others.
    - thaumaturgy 11y ago
      You're exactly right. Otherwise, this logic would lend support to, for instance, the notion that the moon landings were faked, merely because other conspiracies have turned out to be true. And nobody that's sane really thinks the moon landings were faked, so we find that other conspiracies being true doesn't really help with evaluating any given conspiracy. Or maybe more succintly: we need more Edward Snowden and less Alex Jones.
      - hugh4 11y ago
        What we need is more people capable of entertaining an idea without necessarily believing it. People who can acknowledge multiple possibilities and put reasonable plausibility ratings on them without getting too emotionally involved with any of them. People who can say "Yes, the widely accepted story is probably true, but here's five or six low-probability alternative possibilties."
        thaumaturgy 11y ago
        Internet culture doesn't foster that sort of attitude, unfortunately. Funny, I wrote some notes on this exact thing a couple of nights ago while I couldn't sleep but deleted them because they sucked. Crowded forums, especially those with points systems like Reddit and HN, have become contests and the people that win those contests are usually the ones that can argue a position with the most veracity. Nobody is impressed by anyone that says, "hmm, well, that might be true too, maybe"; that person is perceived as naive or weak or ignorant or wishy-washy. This isn't limited to internet culture either. Any politician that dares to change their mind on an issue is "waffling", it's a sign of a weak leader, not an introspective one. And this is really, really hurting the way that debate happens, at least in the US. You generally can't have a civil, thoughtful, enlightening discussion about gun control, abortions, religion, climate change, race and gender issues, or any of a number of other hot-button political topics. People instead pick a position and cling to it with all their might, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When one argument for their position stops working, rather than reconsider their position they just migrate to a new argument for the same position. (This is happening right now for instance with anti-vaccers, who have moved from "it's not safe" to "it impinges on my religious freedom".) ... Y'know, I think the world has gotten too connected too quickly. I don't mean that this interconnectedness is altogether bad; it is amazing to me that we live in a time now where two people in politically opposed countries can get together with a minimal amount of effort over vast distances and talk to eachother. That's fantastic. But I think it has also become overwhelming for a lot of people. We haven't had enough time to adapt. The relentless news cycle, the constant distractions from Twitter and social media feeds, the nonstop barrage of email and texting, the vast social timewasting (and often hostile) networks like Reddit, the unimaginable amount of information being pumped into a blogosphere that's expanding at rates resembling the earliest moments of the Big Bang ... I think most people are just completely overwhelmed by it, and coupled with this culture that reveres certainty and conviction over measured consideration, people have retreated to finding comfortable positions on every issue they care about and then clinging to them with all their might. It would be nice if there was a way to turn the dial back just a notch or two, to have some kind of network where we could easily limit ourselves to connections with a much smaller number of people, the same people on a regular basis, where it can become comfortable again to say something like "I don't know" in a context where you don't feel like you're in a gladiatorial arena and will get downvoted by the spectators for it.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
This conflicts with reality. In the real-world where historically the cover story crashed and burned very rapidly. There was only a period of about a year after the partial recovery of K-129 before the press knew of the deception, and only strenuous efforts kept the story from being published. Even then the story was delayed only a month. In 1975 the truth of Project Azorian was public, and there wasn't widespread disbelief as you would have imagined. Nor were there men in black doing awful things to keep the story secret, just administration officials asking politely.