holy crap that's the funniest thing I've seen in weeks.

alandeus wrote:

gio wrote:Holy fuck, what an appropriate day for this discussion.

Here ya go, Bob: go to town on this one.

You get Horatio Sanz drunk enough, he'll confess to anything.

I think him and Ron Jeremy were separated at birth.

gio wrote:Holy fuck, what an appropriate day for this discussion.

Here ya go, Bob: go to town on this one.

Here - I'll start.

have you ever heard of a show trial?

These things went on a lot in Totalitarian Russia.
Someone would be accused of something and then would be put in the hands of the intelligence services they would then face months of isolation and torture after which the accused, previously pleading innocent, confess to the crimes they were accused of plus a few more for good measure.

How is this different? Is it because your boys would never dream of torturing the enemy?

Maybe his confession is genuine.

Maybe, if you are at all intelligent, you would treat any such confession with a reasonable dose of suspicion.

that's a reasonable argument. Evidence of torture at Guantanamo could support.

But this is skepticism. I'm a fan of that. It's not conspiracy theory.

Please clocker bob, don't be so foolish as to think you've been the only conspiracy theorist in my life, or so egotistical to think this thread is about you. I got my BA in history, and there were about 3 or 4 of you in every class I was in. Conspiracy theories are a way of life for many people

I had a buddy that was in a study group that was into them. It was a middle eastern course, so we'd talk about the Balfour declarations, the carving up of the Ottoman Empire, and so on. It doesn't take hardly any research to realize that things are a huge mess over there, and Western policy and self interest has largely damaged it even more. I say Western, because it has never been only U.S. policy that has left the M.E. fooked.

I've gone over these things enough times in my own life that there is no way this audio recording board would ever merit my going over it again. But suffice it to say that while I know things aren't as simple as Fox News would like you to think, they also aren't as simple as you would like to think.

Ultimately, conspiracy theories are about over-simplification, self-entertainment, and with the number of posts you have on this board, I'd say in your case a need for attention.

By the way, they just installed a diving board at the cement pond. You should try it out bob....

The Pentavirate does exist!

edit: fixed url

clocker bob wrote: Thank you. We're done. You have agreed that the official history of 9/11 is inadequate. Now, if you have some sense of honesty, you will go back to the first post you made in this thread, where you wrote this:

gio wrote:Conspiracy theories have none of these qualities. They are often a rambling vomit of facts skewed by bias and ingorance towards reasonable evidence.

and reword it to state this:

"I personally don't like to spend much time on conspiracy theories, so I can't say for sure which ones are CRAP and which ones aren't. I am unwilling to debate the merits of any particular conspiracy theory, so I would be drastically overstepping the bounds of my limited research by making an unsubstantiated, broadbrush and pejorative claim like "Conspiracy theories are often a rambling vomit of facts skewed by bias and ingorance towards reasonable evidence"; frankly, I haven't done nearly enough research on conspiracy theories to sort the good from the bad. I do think that there is information yet to be learned about 9/11 in particular, so I commend all those who continue to research those events, and will withhold judgement on their research until I've actually looked at it."

Signed,

Also Gio I'm curious as to whether you are going to agree with this re wording of your statement?

Earwicker wrote:

clocker bob wrote: Thank you. We're done. You have agreed that the official history of 9/11 is inadequate. Now, if you have some sense of honesty, you will go back to the first post you made in this thread, where you wrote this:

gio wrote:Conspiracy theories have none of these qualities. They are often a rambling vomit of facts skewed by bias and ingorance towards reasonable evidence.

and reword it to state this:

"I personally don't like to spend much time on conspiracy theories, so I can't say for sure which ones are CRAP and which ones aren't. I am unwilling to debate the merits of any particular conspiracy theory, so I would be drastically overstepping the bounds of my limited research by making an unsubstantiated, broadbrush and pejorative claim like "Conspiracy theories are often a rambling vomit of facts skewed by bias and ingorance towards reasonable evidence"; frankly, I haven't done nearly enough research on conspiracy theories to sort the good from the bad. I do think that there is information yet to be learned about 9/11 in particular, so I commend all those who continue to research those events, and will withhold judgement on their research until I've actually looked at it."

Signed,

Also Gio I'm curious as to whether you are going to agree with this re wording of your statement?

No.

I will reword my own damn statement:

"Every time I have engaged in discussion with conspiracy theorists, which is approximately three or four times in my life, via the internet, I have been provoked, annoyed, and generally bemused by garden-path arguments that lack conclusions and retain a consistent level of ambiguity. I find this frustrating. It gets worse when they internalize arguments against their positions and retort with unnecessary ad hominem arguments. I have witnessed conspiracy theorists attack their detractors with ad-hominem arguments which, to paraphrase, often get into the territory of "those who do not wish to spend time digging into conspiracies are "spineless" or "lazy" or "satisfied with the status quo."" I think this is bullshit. There is a line between paranoia and skepticism. I find conspiracy to be uncomfortably on the side of paranoia. These arguments could theoretically continue for decades and end up nowhere. If their theories prove correct, good for them. I'll stay away, thanks."

big_dave wrote:The vast majority of "conspiracy" language is loaded with the fear that clever people are organising themselves against you.

And do you think that 'clever people' have never organised themselves against other large groups of people?

A conspiracy theory does not necessarily have to hold that all groups/organisations/secret societies are somehow all in cahoots with each other against us. This for me is too much to think plausible.
A conspiracy just has to hold that powerful groups/organisations/secret societies will sometimes organise against large numbers of other people to maintain/stabilise their power.

If you don't believe that groups/organisation/secret societies ever conspire against you then you are naive in the extreme and are as ahistorical as anyone you might accuse.

Most of you seem to think that no one conspires unless they are exposed as doing so.
This is patently ridiculous.
No one would be exposed of anything ever if there was not investigation.

Flaneur wrote:Does the presence of WMDs in Iraq circa 2002 count as a conspiracy theory?

Yes and no. It did not become a conspiracy theory by virtue of it being proven untrue. I don't think you are implying that, but I'm just pointing out all conspiracy theories should not be tainted by retroactively placing erroneous theories ( or flat out fabrications, in the case of Iraqi intel ) into the 'conspiracy theory' basket. The WMD's were a conspiracy theory promoted by the spinmasters, but you know that they will never speak those words.

are conspiracy theories only those which debunk the official story?

Not at all. The official myth of 9/11 is a far-fetched conspiracy theory, but because of the fake stature granted to the myth makers, it becomes gospel. Even a semi-critical look exposes it as more riddled with leaps of faith than even mediocre conspiracy theories.

big_dave wrote:I assumed that all conspiracy theories came about during the communist witch-hunt years, anti-left and anti-intellectual in their make up.

big dave wrote:What could be more retarded than the basic fear that people you loath might dare to organise themselves. Crap.

You must be some psychotic Randian fucknose. Fear of being conspired against is 'retarded'?? I would call blissful ignorance to the need to keep a watchful eye over those in power about the most retarded thing I've ever heard.

clocker bob wrote:What could be more retarded than not knowing that the mother lode of conspiracy theories, 9/11, came 15 years after the end of the Cold War and 40 years after the communist witch-hunt years?

big dave wrote: you ahistorical nitwit.

Oh, I'm an ahistorical nitwit? Learn to write a sentence in the English language. What does this say again?

big dave wrote:I assumed that all conspiracy theories came about during the communist witch-hunt years, anti-left and anti-intellectual in their make up.

Do you know how to place events on a timeline? Do you know that the word 'all' means 'every'? Did you mean to say that 'all conspiracy theories came about during the communist witch-hunt years' or not? You are either wrong, or you can't formulate your thoughts.

big dave wrote:The vast majority of "conspiracy" language is loaded with the fear that clever people are organising themselves against you.

And your point is what? There is no such thing as 'clever people organizing themselves', so therefore, such language is without exception inappropriate?

big dave wrote: Come to think of it, it means almost the exactly the same thing for thought as "organised labour" means for physical work.

You are wacked. Organized labor refers to organized bargaining. Organized in the sense of a conspiracy means organized planning and execution. Two different things, nitwit.

big dave wrote:This is not a set of terminology that I'd feel comfortable being on the same page as.

Your mish mosh of poor reasoning and historical and theoretical ignorance doesn't belong on a piece of paper wiped across my ass crack.