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And for your viewing pleasure, the obligatory XKCD reference. http://xkcd.com/258/ http://xkcd.com/258/ There is probably more than meets the eye because the

by 616c 13y ago

And for your viewing pleasure, the obligatory XKCD reference. http://xkcd.com/258/ http://xkcd.com/258/ There is probably more than meets the eye because the brain matter behind them is making it so.

twobits 13y ago
If you put everything under one name, it helps ridiculing the plausible theories by injecting stupid ones.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  Yes The matter discussed has nothing to do with the other , more common, theories.
- javert 13y ago
  Yep. Ayn Rand called this "package dealing," though she wasn't thinkimng about conspiracy theories in particular. For instance, "selfish." Is that pursuing rational long-term values, or is that victimizing others in a futile attempt at short-term gain? Catholic priests lumped them together intentionally since the middle ages, and so it continues throughout our culture today to help justify various kinds of collectivism. Today people are doing it with "conspiracy theories" to try to prevent challenges to their worldview. But the fact is, sometimes, conspiracies actually do happen!
lukifer 13y ago
There is a problem with reflexively dismissing "conspiracy theories": it increases the attack surface for deceiving the public. Imagine telling a computer user "Don't be so paranoid, it's safe to open that binary. Do you really think there's some conspiracy to hijack your computing power as part of some botnet? Har har!" Case-by-case, you'd be right nearly all of the time (at least for software the user sought out themselves, and didn't get linked to by spam). But by dismissing that concern out of hand, it becomes far more likely the user won't do 5 minutes of Google research, and will open an untrusted binary that really is unsafe. Skepticism should apply across the board, and certainty should be an unachievable asymptote for "official" and "crackpot" explanations alike. There is a sufficient track record of powerful entities successfully deceiving the public that even the craziest of theories should be examined and considered, if only to spread the antibodies of skepticism.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
Is that tongue-in-cheek or unintentionally ironic? This comic itself represents "cutting away context from facts and arguments and assembling them into reassuring litanies". "Why is person A saying X?" "Oh, you can just ignore that, exactly like when Person B says Y... it's just a conspiracy theory. What we do is, we use the mentally unstable, the confused and the mislead as an excuse to not look anyone else in the eye either, whenever it gets uncomfortable. This makes us morally and intellectually superior."

by 616c 13y ago

And for your viewing pleasure, the obligatory XKCD reference. http://xkcd.com/258/ http://xkcd.com/258/ There is probably more than meets the eye because the brain matter behind them is making it so.

twobits 13y ago

If you put everything under one name, it helps ridiculing the plausible theories by injecting stupid ones.

raverbashing 13y ago
Yes The matter discussed has nothing to do with the other , more common, theories.
javert 13y ago
Yep. Ayn Rand called this "package dealing," though she wasn't thinkimng about conspiracy theories in particular. For instance, "selfish." Is that pursuing rational long-term values, or is that victimizing others in a futile attempt at short-term gain? Catholic priests lumped them together intentionally since the middle ages, and so it continues throughout our culture today to help justify various kinds of collectivism. Today people are doing it with "conspiracy theories" to try to prevent challenges to their worldview. But the fact is, sometimes, conspiracies actually do happen!

lukifer 13y ago

There is a problem with reflexively dismissing "conspiracy theories": it increases the attack surface for deceiving the public. Imagine telling a computer user "Don't be so paranoid, it's safe to open that binary. Do you really think there's some conspiracy to hijack your computing power as part of some botnet? Har har!" Case-by-case, you'd be right nearly all of the time (at least for software the user sought out themselves, and didn't get linked to by spam). But by dismissing that concern out of hand, it becomes far more likely the user won't do 5 minutes of Google research, and will open an untrusted binary that really is unsafe. Skepticism should apply across the board, and certainty should be an unachievable asymptote for "official" and "crackpot" explanations alike. There is a sufficient track record of powerful entities successfully deceiving the public that even the craziest of theories should be examined and considered, if only to spread the antibodies of skepticism.

PavlovsCat 13y ago

Is that tongue-in-cheek or unintentionally ironic? This comic itself represents "cutting away context from facts and arguments and assembling them into reassuring litanies". "Why is person A saying X?" "Oh, you can just ignore that, exactly like when Person B says Y... it's just a conspiracy theory. What we do is, we use the mentally unstable, the confused and the mislead as an excuse to not look anyone else in the eye either, whenever it gets uncomfortable. This makes us morally and intellectually superior."