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I am constantly surprised by how many intelligent, generally rational people I meet also believe in (what I consider) absurd conspiracy theories. I've had peopl

by vosper 10y ago

I am constantly surprised by how many intelligent, generally rational people I meet also believe in (what I consider) absurd conspiracy theories. I've had people talk to me seriously about chemtrails, free energy devices being suppressed by oil company assassins, flouride in the water for mind control...

anigbrowl 10y ago
Conspiracy theories are sort of a hobby of mine - I've gone from feeling disappointed that they almost never turn out to be true (since they often make interesting claims) to fascination with why people believe them. Most conspiracy theories start with a false premise to which logic is then applied -often correctly. A trivial example popular among geeky music lovers is that instruments and whole compositions sound better tuned to 432Hz rather than the more common 440Hz. Much effort i devoted to showing why 432 is more numerically interesting than 440, and since 99% of music is about the juxtaposition of numerically interesting frequency rations, the arguments are superficially quite convincing, especially from an aesthetic point of view. Where it falls down is right at the beginning - not in the idea that 432 is an interesting number (it is) but in the idea that 432 cycles per second is important. People tend to forget that the second is a pretty arbitrary time division; we're just used to think about time as a fact because it is convenient in everyday life. Pro musicians and sound engineers are constantly thinking about frequencies to the quantity of a second comed to seem as real as the pull of earth's gravity to an aerospace engineer. In my experience, the longer the argument between an initial false premise and the conclusion, the more firmly the proponent will resist attacks on the theory, perhaps because it has required a higher initial investment of work to validate all the logical steps.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  432 Hz is (by definition) once every 21279240 + 5/24 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. Super aesthetically critical number right there.
  - Intermernet 10y ago
    But only at zero Kelvin. Once you punch that Caesium 133 up to room temperature you need the extra 8Hz to achieve aesthetic purity. On really hot days, you need to go to 440.1 or even 440.2.

by vosper 10y ago

anigbrowl 10y ago

Conspiracy theories are sort of a hobby of mine - I've gone from feeling disappointed that they almost never turn out to be true (since they often make interesting claims) to fascination with why people believe them. Most conspiracy theories start with a false premise to which logic is then applied -often correctly. A trivial example popular among geeky music lovers is that instruments and whole compositions sound better tuned to 432Hz rather than the more common 440Hz. Much effort i devoted to showing why 432 is more numerically interesting than 440, and since 99% of music is about the juxtaposition of numerically interesting frequency rations, the arguments are superficially quite convincing, especially from an aesthetic point of view. Where it falls down is right at the beginning - not in the idea that 432 is an interesting number (it is) but in the idea that 432 cycles per second is important. People tend to forget that the second is a pretty arbitrary time division; we're just used to think about time as a fact because it is convenient in everyday life. Pro musicians and sound engineers are constantly thinking about frequencies to the quantity of a second comed to seem as real as the pull of earth's gravity to an aerospace engineer. In my experience, the longer the argument between an initial false premise and the conclusion, the more firmly the proponent will resist attacks on the theory, perhaps because it has required a higher initial investment of work to validate all the logical steps.

jacobolus 10y ago
432 Hz is (by definition) once every 21279240 + 5/24 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. Super aesthetically critical number right there.
- Intermernet 10y ago
  But only at zero Kelvin. Once you punch that Caesium 133 up to room temperature you need the extra 8Hz to achieve aesthetic purity. On really hot days, you need to go to 440.1 or even 440.2.