I try.

Good post.

-- Elliot Temple
http://www.curi.us/blog/

In my observation, the situation is getting particularly worse among middle-eastern immigrant communities in the West. The less assimilated they remain, the worse this sort of thinking becomes too. And the more "intellectual" among them are also more likely to be reading and relating to the likes of Chomsky and hence be influenced by them. So, I see it as partly an identity problem, and partly irrational intellectualism.

-- Cyrus Ferdowsi, http://libiran.blogspot.com

Nazis starting the Reichstad fire. C'mon gimme a break!

Is Wikipedia correct on the history surrounding these events?

"The World" has the only "true" interpretation of the facts. All other theories should be discounted.

I think that those are not just other words, but a false assertion of the implications of the original words.

The World responded to an assertion that the commonly accepted theory that Nazis started the Reichstag fire was similar to the conspiracy theories that they criticize, by explaining why the theories are different.

The reader ignores the argument and implies that The World claims some sort of unique authority over interpretation of facts. This is in direct conflict with the evidence and is not only misleading, but rude.

Gil

1. If the Nazis were indeed "secretly" behind the fire doesn't that imply that their publicly stated objective were different? Why go to the bother of doing it secretly? Why couldn't the Nazis just publicly say: "Let's burn down the Reichstag!"?

2. The World implies that the US government could not possibly be involved in 9/11. (btw, I am not implying that it absolutely was involved) Like any good detective examining a crime, one has to ask: Who stood to benefit from the crime? One of the obvious answers is: government officials.

3. There is a good deal of evidence that the US government did know about Pearl Harbor beforehand and had been trying for some time to provoke such an attack. Let's assume for a second that this was an absolutely proven fact. Gil, would you be outraged by such a conspiracy? My guess is no. Because you believe US participation in WWII was a good thing anyway. Similarly, my guess is that if you had evidence that the US government (hypothetically) allowed 9/11 to happen that you would sit on it. Because, even though you were appalled by 9/11, you are happy to see the US (and more broadly the west in general) involve in a war on the Arab/Islamic world

I would indeed be outraged by a conspiracy to allow the Pearl Harbor attack to be successful, as a means to get into the war (and, btw, I have been outraged by this possibility for quite a few years). The government has an obligation to defend the country, and this would have been a massive betrayal regardless of the ends desired. I would think, by the way, that the fact that the attack was attempted at all would have been sufficient for propaganda purposes, even if the attack was met with a successful defense.

I would feel similarly about complicity with the 9/11 attack.

I am absolutely not "happy" to see the US involved in a war.

I do prefer that actual threats be recognized and addressed earlier rather than later, to help minimize them before more casualties are necessary. But, I don't think that this recognition requires, or justifies, mass murder.

If I knew of such a crime, I would not sit on it, but I would do what I could to bring the facts to light and the criminals to justice.

For some reason, I still have enough confidence in most people to trust them to handle the truth reasonably. I think they can distinguish between criminal internal conspiracies and real external threats.

Gil

The Angry Arab comments on the recent failed Israeli commando raid.

Interesting observation.

While some fall into the folly of assuming that every conspiracy-theory is meritorious simply because it is possible, even though it has no concrete support -- others run blindly to the other end of the spectrum and flippantly dismiss anything that even sounds conspiratorial, regardless of the amount of support it has. A good middle ground would seem to be to maintain a healthy suspicion toward any power-structure whose ability to operate clandestinely makes it largely unaccountable in the public sphere, while reserving final judgment until all of the facts of the matter have come to light (or as many as can be discerned given the nature of the case). And if one should question whether the USA has the ability to operate in such a clandestine manner in the global sphere, making bed-fellows out of our enemies only to use that alliance to a strategic advantage (while the public remains largly ignorant until after the fact), I might remind you of the Dixie Mission's approval of the Maoists, followed shortly by the US backing the KMT in the Chinese civil war; and Eisenhower's formal recognition of Castro, followed shortly by the Bay of Pigs invasion and Operation Mongoose. Money is a powerful motivator, and history shows time and again that it is often-times a more valued commodity than human life or civil rights.

It is the height of insanity to call this The Rising Tide of Insanity. Height of insanity is said tongue in cheek. In fact this phenomenon has nothing to do with insanity. It has only to do with the easy sloppy habits of current argument.

The War on Terror is another fine example:

Please explain how you fight a War on Terror. Where for example to you place your army? Now to call this a War on Conspiracy Theories goes even one step further in ridiculous rhetoric. Call it what it is. The Argument for Reason. The Argument Against Ideology. The Thinking Man's Guide to Thinking Rationally. Banish Such Banal Titles as The Rising Tide of Insanity. Please.

Glad you set the record straight.

1. If the Nazis were indeed "secretly" behind the fire doesn't that imply that their publicly stated objective were different? Why go to the bother of doing it secretly? Why couldn't the Nazis just publicly say: "Let's burn down the Reichstag!"?

The Nazis' publicly stated objectives were the destruction of liberal democracy in favour of national socialism, i.e. - state control of the economy and enslaving or exterminating "non-Aryans". Setting fire to the Reichstag, blaming communists and using this as an excuse to murder or imprison their political opponents is entirely consistent with this ideology.

2. The World implies that the US government could not possibly be involved in 9/11. (btw, I am not implying that it absolutely was involved) Like any good detective examining a crime, one has to ask: Who stood to benefit from the crime? One of the obvious answers is: government officials.

The American government claims to want to save lives. Even the stupid actions they take that result in the deaths of many people seem to be taken with that objective in mind, e.g. - the War on Drugs. In terms of their stated values they did not benefit from 9/11. So your assertion relies on the American government having motives different from their stated motives.

3. There is a good deal of evidence that the US government did know about Pearl Harbor beforehand and had been trying for some time to provoke such an attack. Let's assume for a second that this was an absolutely proven fact. Gil, would you be outraged by such a conspiracy? My guess is no. Because you believe US participation in WWII was a good thing anyway. Similarly, my guess is that if you had evidence that the US government (hypothetically) allowed 9/11 to happen that you would sit on it. Because, even though you were appalled by 9/11, you are happy to see the US (and more broadly the west in general) involve in a war on the Arab/Islamic world

I would be disgusted by FDR's actions if I thought FDR had allowed Pearl Harbour to happen in order to get America into WW2. But the idea that FDR deliberately allowed Pearl Harbour is false. And as FDR never publicly expressed any wish to harm Americans as opposed to helping them again this is a conspiracy theory. FDR did plenty of stupid things for which we can justly berate him, allowing Pearl Harbour to happen deliberately was not one of them.

Alan Forrester: "So your assertion relies on the American government having motives different from their stated motives."

I do believe he's finally got it! Congrats, Alan. Most people are addicted to drugs, religion or some other ideology. There are a handful that are sober when they write something. I'm having a martini right now!

Many are stuck on a "good and just" America and can't even admit the other logical possibilities that aren't so happy and innocent. The same people that plead "logic" and "sanity" are the very people won't don't understand that logic is about working through *all* existing possibilities methodically. Discounting possibilities without being able to disprove them is the true insanity.
We don't teach critical thinking skills in schools because... we can't think critically.

In fact, assimilating a large network of political facts together requires an extensive hard drive in that cranium of yours so it's not surprising that people still running Windows 3.1 can't understand beyond the fluffy surface of happy-happy-joy-joy. Those people edit Wikipedia and believe that people tend to edit in "good faith", hahaha. Loooooneytooooooons. Do you hear windmills in your mind.

"Many are stuck on a "good and just" America and can't even admit the other logical possibilities that aren't so happy and innocent"

America is a human mental construct. America cannot be 'good' or 'bad': only people can be either.

The loonies who go around believing in the most complex and unlikely theories simply because they are the most complex and unlikely, are the last people who should lecture the sane among us on critical thinking skills.

Many are stuck on a "good and just" America and can't even admit the other logical possibilities that aren't so happy and innocent. The same people that plead "logic" and "sanity" are the very people won't don't understand that logic is about working through *all* existing possibilities methodically. Discounting possibilities without being able to disprove them is the true insanity. We don't teach critical thinking skills in schools because... we can't think critically.

The title of your post is rather ironic as the one thing nobody could learn from it is logic. There are an infinite number of possible explanations, including an infinite number of theories in which the whole world is a dream in my mind. So I could not methodically work my way through all of the possible explanations. And as you are not running down the infinite list I can see that you don't take your own idea seriously. So let's move on to how we really can learn about the world. We can learn by proposing explanations and subjecting them to criticism. Sometimes we can even exclude a whole category of explanations because they are all susceptible to arguments of a particular form. I exclude all explanations that involve the external world not being a dream in my head without running through all of them by using a philosophical argument against solipsism, which may be found in The Fabric of Reality, by David Deutsch. Basically the world I see around me is complicated and autonomous from me so all solipsism really does is relabel the external world as a dream. Similarly I exclude all conspiracy theoretic arguments by arguments which may be found here.

Bravo!

I suggest another 'test' that conspiracy theories should be held up to:

Assume that you are one of the ring-leaders, at the start of the planning phase of this conspiracy.

Assume that you wish to achieve their aims (according to the conspiracy theorists) - power, wealth, a war with the Middle East, accessing Iraqi oil supplies, whatever.

What courses of action are open to you? How risky is each? How costly?

Given the various alternatives, is it possible that you would select 'the conspiracy theory' as a suitable way forward?

I believe that the USA-involvement-in-9/11 conspiracy completely fails this test. There are so many simpler, cheaper, and safer ways for the USA administration to achieve the nefarious aims attributed to them by the conspiracy theorists - if they wanted to. Which one depends on what you believe the USA's aims were.

E.g. - Getting their hands in Iraqi oil. It would have been so much easier for the USA to cut a deal with Iraq than to engineer a war. The USA was the driving force behind maintaining the UN sanctions, and could have had them lifted if they wanted to. They could have negotiated almost anything with Sadam - exclusive oil deals, US military bases on Iraqi soil, etc. Sadam was a pragmatist above all else. With the USA with him, rather than against him...

There are a limited number of logically possible explanations of some fact or event (as only a limited configuration of other facts, objects or events can produce the fact or event in question). IFF you could change the foundation of observation or reasoning (such as positing solipsism or immaterialism or phyrronism), you could generate a theoretically infinite list of possible alternate explanations, but you've already indicated that you believe (I agree with you) there is apodictic proof for some type of ontological realism / epistemic rationalism. Thus there are a limited number of logically possible explanations of 9/11.

One logically possible explanation is that the events of 9/11 were orchestrated and-or perpetrated by members of the US government. To legally prove guilt in this country you need to establish 4 facts:
corpus delicti - the proof that a crime occurred
means - the ability of the accused to commit the crime
mens rae - motive to commit the crime
opportunity - circumstances allowing the accused to commit the crime

The corpus delicti is generally undisputed (though I wouldn't be too surprised if some anti-America propaganda somewhere denied that 9/11 even happened).

There is certainly the possibility of a mens rae (anything from gaining a strategic military position in the middle east to gaining oil rights).

The means of the US government to commit 9/11 is generally undisputed (government employees who appear on TV generally say things like "the government isn't competent enough to do something like this"--right, we can send R/C buggies to mars, but not secretly demolish some buildings, heh).

The opportunity of the US government to commit 9/11 is generally undisputed.

Thus is is perfectly logical to believe that the US government may have orchestrated and-or perpetrated the events of 9/11. It may not be correct or the most reasonable belief, given all of the evidence, but it is certainly not crazy.

NB. Crazy people may also believe it for crazy reasons, like thinking that giant reptilian aliens from Zeta Reticuli run the US government, but that just makes them and their reasoning crazy, not necessarily what they believe. Just like a person can believe that GWB are the president's initials, and be right, but also believe the president is a big rabbit named "Giant Whiskered Bunny," and be crazy.

^ That was in reply to Alan above in Re: Logic 101

Mk: If the conspiracy theory (whichever one) is right, they may have tried all that first. Also, war itself generally generates wealth by driving up domestic production, so I'm not sure if it would be "cheaper" in the long term to go to war or try to negotiate a contract. Also, war justifies our large-scale military presence in the Middle East, whereas just negotiating with Saddam doesn't (even if he welcomed it with open arms). Note that I'm not arguing for any particular conspiracy theory (nor do I embrace any of them), only pointing out that your counter-examples already assume the absence of a conspiracy and cannot therefore be used as a litmus test to disprove conspiracy theories.

war itself generally generates wealth by driving up domestic production

That's false.

Yes they would. They would have to be lying about whether their motives are the same as those of hundreds of thousands of people who actually implemented their policy, and of the tens of millions who supported it politically.

I think you meant to respond at this thread. You're moving the goal posts. The question isn't whether "the government" (i.e., some conspiratorial subset of the entire government) have the same motives as the superset which implements their purposes (at least not according to the characteristics of a "Conspiracy Theory" you specified). The question is whether "the government" has to hold secret, ulterior motives that differ from their acknowledged, public motives. I see no reason why any conspiracy theory about 9/11 requires this. You might very well argue that they require a different belief about which actions will best secure the goals implied by the motives--but that is a completely different question. (E.g., Marxists and the Austrian School both claim that their motives are foster a stable, sustainable, healthy society--but they have radically different ideas about how to achieve this goal).

That's false.

It may be false, but that doesn't prevent it from being a motivating factor for those who believe it is true.