Talk:Conspiracy theory

To whom it may concern, and self: need to include some stuff on occam's razor. Mememe 16:12, 20 Aug 2005 (EDT)

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All, I have been rewriting the Conspiracy Theory page virtually in its entirety. Please bear with me during the process, as I slowly learn how to present the material. I am not sure, for example, how to start a second page. Over time I hope to produce a comprehensive resource, but I will be able to work on it only in fits and starts. Creating the essay is my first task; then references and links to relevant resources will be included. I am a History Ph.D. with very little experience in presenting material on the Web, so please don't judge the results too soon. In time, however, it should shape up quite well. Sydneysider.

For the record, Sydney started his editing after this version of the article. Mememe 15:45, 20 Aug 2005 (EDT)

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The Validity of Cranks Filling Cracks in the Historical Narrative

The vast majority of ... conspiracy discourse is eccentric and clearly over-the-top. However, it is these web-based amateurs, and not our allegedly working professional journalists, who have kept alive a significant, largely ignored, body of evidence.

At this stage, the radical media democracy thriving on the web, at least as evidenced by the Bush conspiranoia sites, is short on logic, investigative discipline and common sense, but long on guts and moxie.

-- http://www.thethresher.com/indiscreet.html

Personally, I frequently find the scenarios debunked as "conspiracy theories" to be much more viable than the official lies; and I'm thankful for and to the true journalists who still do the full work of disclosing what we ought to know rather than what they want us to think.

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Thanks for YOUR comment, Maynard. The Bilderberg, CFR, etc., info was "discovered" long before anyone considered that it needed debunking -- or decided that those attempting to uncover the truth were inventing a "conspiracy theory" about it -- hence the 1964 Congressional documents and international journalists who have been hot on the trail for several years now. In fact, the "stalking" by the journalists and inquiring eye of the public actually drove the meetings away from the secrecy of the Bilderberg and out into the daylight .. yet, the secrecy goes on! Debunking can just be another term for "cover-up" ... hide the truth in plain sight, label everyone who looks too closely a "conspiracy theorist" ... well, you know the rest!

Addendum: Hmmmm ... "proof is always in the pudding" as my granny used to say. Re Bilderberg .. C.D. Jackson's files must be part of the "conspiracy", too:

Bilderberg: "Bilderberg - 1964 [unofficial meetings of leading citizens in govt. and industry in U.S., Europe, & Canada for discussions of international problems]."

Amen.

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Perhaps the first "conspiracy theory" was that more than one individual was responsible for the assasination of President John F. Kennedy. This theory is far more probable than the official version which does not harmonize with the evidence.

The latest "conspiracy theory" is that Saddam Hussein had something to do with Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. In this case the theory is in direct contradiction of the evidence. It is however the official line, albeit of a regime within which the white knight is always talking backwards.

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For more good evidence dredging, try here:

http://globalresearch.ca

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Science

Two minor comments about philosophy of science:

1- The Evolution theory can be prooved and falsified at least in its general principles (it is verified very often for example with lab rats or by farmers breeding their stock) so I will remove it as an example of unfalsifiable theory.

2- This quote:

"What happens in nature happens in accordance with natural laws; but what happens in human affairs clearly happens not because of any 'laws' but because human beings wish them to happen."

is very much subject to debate. Social psychologists have discoverd many "laws" that govern human behavior. (I also believe that social "laws" exist and remain yet to be discovered, but the consensus among the sociologists community is that those laws can't exist so I won't do too much about that here).

That is not to say that we have no freewill, but only that the so called human freewill has serious limitations. It is clearly false to say that "human affairs clearly happen because human beings wish them to happen". I dont have time to reformulate right now, I shall try to do it sometimes...

Bias in this article

While it is entirely true that elites and centrists sometimes use the term conspiracy theory to wrongly discredit dissidents, it is also true that people who promote conspiracy theories sometimes are not using logic, or are making claims that are unverifiable. Currently this page is heavily biased toward the former side of the issue. I would like to see a more balanced article. The article on Wikipedia is currently more balanced, and the claim that this page is largely based on that article (which is far more balanced) is no longer true.--Cberlet 10:24, 10 Jan 2005 (EST)

megaconspiracies are sometimes finite.

Just want to say that this is a very good article indeed, and one that I will be returning to many times as I wrestle with the issues it covers. Keep up the fine work.

My only beef with it at the moment (and to be fair, it is a beef that is actually addressed later in the article, though not in so many words) is that the word "megaconspiracy" is ambiguous. Does it merely mean a very big conspiracy, or does it mean a kind of total conspiracy of a metaphysical/metaphorical nature?

For instance to say that the governance of the United States has been largely concentrated in the hands of a few families for generations and that the electoral process is, for the most part, a sham is not the same as saying that it has been in the hands of dynasties of reptoids. The former proposition is indeed a very bold one and should not be accepted lightly, but it is still (at least before you bring in the reptoids) finite.

We live in a very complex society in which very big decisions frequently end up in the hands of a very small group of people and in which various institutional forces serve to protect those individuals from scrutiny. It would be quite unreasonable not to expect big conspiracies--conspiracies with far-reaching effects--in such a society.

The article on Wikipedia is currently more balanced, and the claim that this page is largely based on that article (which is far more balanced) is no longer true.--Cberlet

The wikipedia article explains at great length how belief in "conspiracy theories" is pathological. This is not a "balanced" view. A balanced article would also have explained at great length how conformism, a well-known cause of belief in irrational nonsense, is also pathological. Or else it would have left the detailed psychological stuff to the separate entry on Conspiracism, where it really belongs. As it stands it generates the impression that those who believe in "conspiracy theories" are pretty well automatically whacko, while those who disbelieve them, by that very fact, are rational and well-balanced.

Whether the wikipedia article was written by Joe Conformist, or is instead a consciously created piece of disinformation I honestly cannot say. The relationship between conspiracies and systems is indeed a very complex one. But it is definitely a pretty poor and biased article overall.

Documentation

Most of the material in the conspiracy theory article lacks documentation. The article also suffers from severe overbyte at 37kb. Artificial Intelligence 07:49, 23 February 2007 (EST)

Relocating material from the article page

Almost the entire article was unreferenced, difficult to follow and not of sufficient standard to leave on the page. So i have removed it and will archive it on a separate page at Talk:Conspiracy theory/Archived article so it is readily available if anyone wants to salvage parts and add refs.--Bob Burton 01:51, 20 October 2008 (EDT)

Edit note

While some of the material added expands the article there are some aspects that strike me as rather odd. For example, classification as "conspiracy theory" "The Israel Lobby in the United States" and "Israel's secret nuclear program" - is odd -- there is an Israel lobby in the US and Israel does have nuclear weapons - neither are imaginary.

A lot of the other material is very general but entirely unreferenced so I'm thinking about the best approach to take with it to improve the standard of the additions. I'll return to this tomorrow.--Bob Burton 06:21, 9 March 2009 (EDT)