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Mr. Adams says he's a fan of conspiracy theories, but I don't think so, since he suggests conspiracy theories are typically "any wild story" engineered to sound
by jeromec 16y ago
Mr. Adams says he's a fan of conspiracy theories, but I don't think so, since he suggests conspiracy theories are typically "any wild story" engineered to sound feasible. This definition goes against the whole reason for including the word "theory" which is supposed to suggest underlying assumptions are at least in part based on observations. He unwisely paints such theories as black or white in terms of how feasible they are, without acknowledging that the truth of many popular conspiracy theories may (often likely) fall somewhere between completely false or true.
Take his first example of a small group of rich people secretly running the world. Have people in the past conspired to influence outcomes at a local town or city wide level? Certainly. How about a larger scale than this, such as at a state or country level? Again, in many places, most certainly. Could that scale be increased even larger? Are there super wealthy people with power and influence? Certainly. When viewing things this way this "unlikely" theory becomes a lot more feasible, and the truth is probably somewhere between zero intentional conspiring, and one evil mastermind with an underground hundred-monitor supercomputer.
What about aliens abducting people? I don't know about implanting chips in people's necks, which Mr. Adams seems to have thrown in to conveniently push this theory into the complete nonsense pile. I've always heard simply about alien abductions. Now, most credible sane scientists will tell you that it's more likely than not there is alien life in the universe. If we've now established alien life likely exists, we can also reason that it's possible that some alien life is further evolved and advanced than humans. In my opinion, the first place the abduction theory breaks down is the likelihood of any actual contact with aliens in existence (the universe is a really, really big place). I would say that's unlikely enough to effectively kill the abduction theory completely. However, if one lets the mind wander and play then maybe sufficiently advanced life forms could have discovered a way to leap through spacetime akin to the Starship Enterprise's warp speed ability. Sure, that's still a huge stretch, but it does give a bit more entertaining feasibility to this abduction theory Mr. Adams has so completely dismissed.
To me that's how a true fan of conspiracy theories entertains them. ;)
- loup-vaillant 16y agoI agree about the few rich people running the world. I'd even be surprised if no such group were at least trying to. The catch is, it's probably not secret: our financial system for instance is basically designed to put all the money in the pockets of bankers (wild oversimplification). Finance is complicated and boring (for most people), but it's not secret. "Not secret" has a strong tendency to imply "no big deal" (scarcity bias), so we don't pay attention. This is frighteningly brilliant: the absence of actual secrecy (and conspiracy) tend to enhance the de-facto secrecy (and conspiracy). Minor point about the aliens: if aliens had FTL interstellar travel, they would have built a galactic civilization before they found us. Such a civilization would be visible from Earth. See http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html for more details on these speculations. So, there may be more avenues to the abduction theory, but this one is closed.
- loewenskind 16y ago>Such a civilization would be visible from Earth. How can you possibly know this? We don't know how big the universe is. Maybe they're on "the other side"?
- khafra 16y agoThey would be visible from Earth because they would be everywhere. Even if some members of a galactic-expansion-capable civilization did not want to expand enough to exploit all available resources, they would be quickly out-competed by the ones who did want to.
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- notahacker 16y agoThe universe is a big and mysterious place. It's doubtful whether the all-pervasive influence of human civilisation on earth would be that evident to a sentient barnacle anchored to an isolated islet far from inhabited land.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago> The universe is a big and mysterious place. Sounds like a Deeply Wise Curiosity Stopper. OK, it's all speculation, but it's still reasonable to expect visible changes, like Dyson spheres. And the barnacle certainly would detect us. We changed the weather. We use planes all over the place. At the very least, it would detect Iridium Flashes, which are hardly natural. (OK, that would take a scientist sentient barnacle, but humanity does science anyway.)
- notahacker 16y ago
- Jabbles 16y agomost credible sane scientists will tell you that it's more likely than not there is alien life in the universe Really? I would have thought that no credible scientist would try to extrapolate from a single data point. I think the current consensus in the scientific community is "we don't know".
- vog 16y ago> Mr. Adams says he's a fan of conspiracy theories, but I don't think so, since he suggests conspiracy theories are typically "any wild story" engineered to sound feasible. But how are those wild stories engineered? By collecting all facts and half-truths that seem to fit. (... and often by inventing additional "facts" as appropriate.) So of course those stories are partly based on observations. > This definition goes against the whole reason for including the word "theory" which is supposed to suggest underlying assumptions are at least in part based on observations. For the reasons above, I think that your definition is almost equivalent to the definition of Mr. Adams.