4 ms·

Did you get that information from Wikipedia?

shadowgovt 2y ago
Yes. Is there anything in their summary you would dispute? At least in my book, buying into the "US orchestrated 9/11" story is pretty cut-and-dried; not much room for debate on whether that makes one a conspiracy theorist.
- celdon25 2y ago
  We have confirmation that the Saudis did it, and that the Bush Administration actively suppressed any investigation into the Saudis and invaded Afghanistan instead. Sen. Bob Graham had a lot to say on it. No need to really say anything more than that. I don't think "Bush did it", but the media censorship industrial complex was complicit in suppressing the truth at minimum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQCkTu3n-KY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQCkTu3n-KY A better way to judge if he's a "conspiracy theorist" would be to look at what he says, what he cites as evidence, and judge for yourself if he has any credibility. A more valid disagreement would be his far-right political views. After the Trump shooting he shot down any conspiracy theories that had to do with it being an inside job, said conspiracy didn't make sense without any evidence, and then followed it up with a "simpler explanation: diversity". I consider myself center-right but he's too far to the right even for me (though I'm not a believer in using demographics to make hiring decisions, bias is not a fixable problem). I still think he's done a great job at exposing big tech. Wikipedia probably didn't include the above counter-argument. Disputes on Wikipedia are decided by a vote, and you're crazy if you think there isn't a bias there. I wouldn't trust it as a source for anything political. Even if individual statements are factual, the overall conclusion can't be grounded in truth when facts are cherry-picked.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    > Even if individual statements are factual, the overall conclusion can't be grounded in truth when facts are cherry-picked. I'm inclined to agree with you. But I think that statement would apply to a blanket simplification like "The Saudis did it" also.
    - celdon25 2y ago
      Here's a source which you may agree with: https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/new-video-documents-revive-questions-saudi-role-911-attacks-rcna158768 https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/new-video-documents-r...
      - shadowgovt 2y ago
        "A Saudi national gives a tour of landmarks in Washington, DC that shows entrances, exits, and checkpoints" is not at all compelling, no. That describes my trip overseas last year if you swizzle the nationalities. The notebook of plane calculations is more compelling, and the evidence that he was paid by the Sauds as an informant is interesting, but not particularly damning (one possibility: he could easily be taking free money on the side while he coordinated with the Taliban outside of Saudi interests).
  - Brian_K_White 2y ago
    Another thing to consider: Regardless of my own views, I think it's more valuable than not to have the voices of the wackos at the extreme ends in all directions. The extremists may have some opinions or beliefs or attitudes that don't add up to being a reasonable balance between some ideal and the reality of life, so you can say technically literally irrational or disconnected from reality, but those people are the ones who are motivated enough to find out things despite difficulty, and those people are the ones who make observations and points that are outside of your comfortable established norms rut, yet can't be denied when examined. Practically all forward progress actually only ever happens thanks to some discontented initial minority who are considered unreasonable for some time initially simply because they are the minority. But they are the devils advocate, and that is a critical role. If you have an idea or a philosophy that fails to stand up to some devil's advocate charge, then your philosophy was never valid in the first place and maybe you're the devil. Even if the devil's advocate is an extremist who also says some other things that are demonstrably invalid where you can easily provide a counter argument. It often takes that extreme person to spot a problem and bring the valid argument to light even if the valid argument is bundled with also a bunch of invalid arguments and conclusions.
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      It's nice in theory, but post-January 6 I'd like to think people realize the tangible effects gish-galloping lies can have on a society. I think we on the Internet have been way too comfortable with way too many devils' advocates for way too long. Because what the devil really advocates is the death of all coherent philosophies. And my time is too precious to me to find nuggets of truth in a pile of vomit these days; if someone like Mark Dice is making some interesting points, I'd be happy to entertain them... As themselves, isolated from the source. We live in a world with 5.45 billion people online. Until the AI gets good enough to "Reader's Digest" the Internet, tools like "consider the source" must be used as a first-pass filter; to do otherwise is to get washed away in a sea of noise. (Before someone drags in our old friend ad hominem, dusts them off, and props them up in the corner to stare silently at us in judgment for not following all the best practices discovered by rhetoricians engaging in the art of "attempting to convince people by logic, which does not need to be tied to reality" for mostly the political purposes of advocacy in court... I will note that "I’ve watched enough Mark Dice videos to know how bad it is" is an appeal to authority first, and calling out his conspiracy theory is an attack on that authority, i.e. 'He doesn't generally know what he's talking about; we should treat everything he says with heavy skepticism first.' So no, I'm not convinced anything Mark Dice says has any bearing on the actual ground-truth reality of how online communications work in 2024... What are his credentials to that effect?)

Yes. Is there anything in their summary you would dispute? At least in my book, buying into the "US orchestrated 9/11" story is pretty cut-and-dried; not much room for debate on whether that makes one a conspiracy theorist.

celdon25 2y ago
We have confirmation that the Saudis did it, and that the Bush Administration actively suppressed any investigation into the Saudis and invaded Afghanistan instead. Sen. Bob Graham had a lot to say on it. No need to really say anything more than that. I don't think "Bush did it", but the media censorship industrial complex was complicit in suppressing the truth at minimum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQCkTu3n-KY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQCkTu3n-KY A better way to judge if he's a "conspiracy theorist" would be to look at what he says, what he cites as evidence, and judge for yourself if he has any credibility. A more valid disagreement would be his far-right political views. After the Trump shooting he shot down any conspiracy theories that had to do with it being an inside job, said conspiracy didn't make sense without any evidence, and then followed it up with a "simpler explanation: diversity". I consider myself center-right but he's too far to the right even for me (though I'm not a believer in using demographics to make hiring decisions, bias is not a fixable problem). I still think he's done a great job at exposing big tech. Wikipedia probably didn't include the above counter-argument. Disputes on Wikipedia are decided by a vote, and you're crazy if you think there isn't a bias there. I wouldn't trust it as a source for anything political. Even if individual statements are factual, the overall conclusion can't be grounded in truth when facts are cherry-picked.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  > Even if individual statements are factual, the overall conclusion can't be grounded in truth when facts are cherry-picked. I'm inclined to agree with you. But I think that statement would apply to a blanket simplification like "The Saudis did it" also.
  - celdon25 2y ago
    Here's a source which you may agree with: https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/new-video-documents-revive-questions-saudi-role-911-attacks-rcna158768 https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/new-video-documents-r...
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      "A Saudi national gives a tour of landmarks in Washington, DC that shows entrances, exits, and checkpoints" is not at all compelling, no. That describes my trip overseas last year if you swizzle the nationalities. The notebook of plane calculations is more compelling, and the evidence that he was paid by the Sauds as an informant is interesting, but not particularly damning (one possibility: he could easily be taking free money on the side while he coordinated with the Taliban outside of Saudi interests).
- Brian_K_White 2y ago
  Another thing to consider: Regardless of my own views, I think it's more valuable than not to have the voices of the wackos at the extreme ends in all directions. The extremists may have some opinions or beliefs or attitudes that don't add up to being a reasonable balance between some ideal and the reality of life, so you can say technically literally irrational or disconnected from reality, but those people are the ones who are motivated enough to find out things despite difficulty, and those people are the ones who make observations and points that are outside of your comfortable established norms rut, yet can't be denied when examined. Practically all forward progress actually only ever happens thanks to some discontented initial minority who are considered unreasonable for some time initially simply because they are the minority. But they are the devils advocate, and that is a critical role. If you have an idea or a philosophy that fails to stand up to some devil's advocate charge, then your philosophy was never valid in the first place and maybe you're the devil. Even if the devil's advocate is an extremist who also says some other things that are demonstrably invalid where you can easily provide a counter argument. It often takes that extreme person to spot a problem and bring the valid argument to light even if the valid argument is bundled with also a bunch of invalid arguments and conclusions.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    It's nice in theory, but post-January 6 I'd like to think people realize the tangible effects gish-galloping lies can have on a society. I think we on the Internet have been way too comfortable with way too many devils' advocates for way too long. Because what the devil really advocates is the death of all coherent philosophies. And my time is too precious to me to find nuggets of truth in a pile of vomit these days; if someone like Mark Dice is making some interesting points, I'd be happy to entertain them... As themselves, isolated from the source. We live in a world with 5.45 billion people online. Until the AI gets good enough to "Reader's Digest" the Internet, tools like "consider the source" must be used as a first-pass filter; to do otherwise is to get washed away in a sea of noise. (Before someone drags in our old friend ad hominem, dusts them off, and props them up in the corner to stare silently at us in judgment for not following all the best practices discovered by rhetoricians engaging in the art of "attempting to convince people by logic, which does not need to be tied to reality" for mostly the political purposes of advocacy in court... I will note that "I’ve watched enough Mark Dice videos to know how bad it is" is an appeal to authority first, and calling out his conspiracy theory is an attack on that authority, i.e. 'He doesn't generally know what he's talking about; we should treat everything he says with heavy skepticism first.' So no, I'm not convinced anything Mark Dice says has any bearing on the actual ground-truth reality of how online communications work in 2024... What are his credentials to that effect?)