Anti-conspiracists are more biased, irrational

[Phatscotty]

I just have a really hard time believing anything the establishment says. Just because I cant definitively explain or prove without a doubt my theories does not make me a crazy. Ive dealt with enough good liars in my life to know when something doesn't seem right. If a person does enough research they will see how many people in history have worked together behind closed doors to bring about a certain type of system in which is being set up right now. Plans within plans. Step by step and by stealth. BTW zeitgeist was mostly propaganda.

It's a conspiracy that tacit history is only released in 'fictional' books and movies, where seemingly outrageous plots are actually an exact retelling of a story where only the players names are changed.



Clearly, this is part of the history of OPEC and the name-only edited transcript from the secret Saudi-Isreali pacts recorded by Niall Ferguson. Later it's revealed the Saudi Royal family are actually the 13th Jewish tribe as well as the truth behind the Iran Contra affair.

Spice = oil
Iraqis = Iraq

duh

[Metsfanmax]

Anyway, this write-up is indeed riddled with logical errors.

Recent studies by psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK suggest that contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, those labeled “conspiracy theorists” appear to be saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events.

Where in any of these studies is the question of mental illness or (in)sanity discussed?

The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.” In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

So the 'conventional wisdom' on 9/11 is to be determined from internet comments on news websites? There are very, very obvious reasons why this is not a good representation of the population as a whole. There is a huge selection bias in determining who posts online comments and who does not. And even within that population, there is likely a selection bias between those who post anti-government and those who post pro-government or government-neutral comments. And within that population, there's a selection bias on who posts to news websites and who posts to discussion boards (like this one). Further, the number of comments does not necessarily reflect the number of people who believe in each scenario, as it could be the same people posting multiple times in either camp.

Perhaps because their supposedly mainstream views no longer represent the majority, the anti-conspiracy commenters often displayed anger and hostility: “The research… showed that people who favoured the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals.”

The research itself provides a much more compelling explanation for why this is:

"As 9/11 conspiracism is by and large a minority viewpoint in the West (WorldPublicOpinion.org, 2008), this makes sense: conventionalists, rather than focusing on presenting novel information, instead attempt to enforce conformity to the majority viewpoint (Latané, 1981)."

According to them, their own theory of 9/11 ... was indisputably true.

This is not stated anywhere in the article in question.

[AndyDufresne]

Guys. I think I saw the moon move. And wink at me.


--Andy

[nietzsche]

Fraud!!

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=25336&p=4364037#p4364037

[Metsfanmax]

People who didn't vote for such representatives aren't liable for the acts the government, and generations of citizens who didn't exist nor could/did vote during this incident aren't responsible either. I've seen this line of thinking, and it may indicate some mix of the following: your beliefs are tinged with nationalism, you wish to feel less guilty yet supportive of despicable USG acts by including more people like you within it,

I can't accurately respond to your statement because I do not know what you mean by individual citizens being 'liable' or 'responsible.' I said that the American people collectively are responsible for actions taken by their own government, assuming that the government still represents them. This has nothing to do with nationalism (I hope I have made it clear through my past rhetoric that I have no special love for my country, the one where nearly half of the citizens are creationist) but everything to do with my general feelings on the relationship between a democratically-elected government and its constituents. And this is a line of thinking that is quite broad in application. Reparations are still paid to Holocaust victims despite none of the original members of the Nazi government still being in power. Affirmative action still exists in the United States despite none of the Southern slave owners still being alive.

or somehow voting for politician A who votes against US subsidies to Israel or who has no role in shaping USFP somehow means that voter is responsible for that incident.

How individual people vote is of course irrelevant in assigning fault, because no one person's vote uniquely determines the outcome of the election. What matters is not how you voted but whether you implicitly legitimize the power of your government by participating in its democratic structure.

The government is definitely separate from the people abstaining to support it, and it's separate in degree as demonstrated through voters and many representatives' inability to shape USFP, which is predominantly up to the discretion of a narrow elite within the USG with a democratic selection method (president with his typical 33% of voter support; a few key congressmembers with their lesser total voter amounts) and an authoritarian selection method (president selects war cabinet; chief bureaucrats and mid-level bureaucrats shape their own organizations). Clearly, 'the people' and the government are separate in these regards. The only clear connections between a minority of voters and USFP are presidential elections, a small minority of legislative elections, and public opinion polls (which can involve a majority).

None of these things are static in principle. If we want substantially different USFP, then we elect representatives that advocate it. If we don't do that, it suggests we don't really want substantially different USFP. If you attribute this to, say, low voter turnout then it still means that the citizens are responsible for the government that represents it (since they could have had a different one if they had showed up to vote).

Think of it this way, if you donated $10,000 to a Seemingly Reputable Charity, which you later discover has spent the money on pimping out prostitutes, I wouldn't find you guilty or responsible because you'd be a victim of fraud. When the USG commits fraudulent acts, 'the people' who didn't expect/want such acts, can't be held responsible. Of course, if people expected such acts from the USG, then they're responsible--to some degree, depending on whether or not they voted for the relevant, influential politicians.

Again, this is not about individual responsibility. I also don't really believe that the fraud analogy carries through, because we don't vote to pass in the laws, we vote to elect the people who do. We have intentionally forgone the ability to directly choose the actions taken by the government by electing people who make those choices for us. Therefore it is, I think, logically unsound to argue that we are somehow collectively not liable when that government does something objectionable. As for the question of 'fraud', we have a judicial process to sort that out.

I don't see how this would endanger citizens. If anything, their being informed would cut short USG's occasional steps toward authoritarianism, which has obvious negative implications for the well-being of citizens.

At worst, Israel would be hated by groups that already hate it, and US citizens and Israeli citizens would be more reluctant to willingly support the interventionist dreams of their governments. Israel would have still won the war against Egypt; Americans, who typically don't care about USFP anyway, would perhaps have been less reluctant to subsidize Israel--but I doubt it; and the UN nor any international institution have been able to force Israel to respect its court summons. And regardless of the release of such information, larger factors still mitigate imagined dangers to citizens--e.g. Israel developing nuclear weapons has resulted in no neighboring country engaging Israel in a large-scale convention war. Instead, substitutes like insurgencies/terrorism have been used which result in relatively less casualties thus danger for citizens.

Such information is clouded because it grants lower costs and greater freedoms for the least democratic organizations of the government. It's win-win for them under the guise of national security arguments which many citizens gobble up because they don't know any better.

The USFG is able to make these predictions just as well as you are. If it is correct that essentially nothing happens if the U.S. admits that Israel attacked the USS Liberty intentionally, then why did it not do so? Your argument about information being 'clouded' doesn't work, I think, because there's a difference between simply neglecting to release information, and actively engaging in a conspiracy to hide information.

[BigBallinStalin]

Americans cannot be held collectively responsible; that's a vacuous concept. 'The Americans' are composed of many individuals who have differently engaged their political process. Voting for person X under a variety of stated conditions can delineate the causal chain of responsibility; therefore, methodological individualism reveals the correct answer while homogeneous reasoning and collectivist methodologies--at the 'American People' level--clearly fail to illuminate the issue.

Votes matter because it's the closest you get to conveying your consent.

So, the government and USFP in many aspects is separate from 'the people'. The problem with USFP is that only the president, a key congressional members, and key bureaucrats really drive its agenda, which is why changing the kind of representatives might not result in the expected change in USFP. Public opinion strongly constrains USFP options at the time of intervening but is generally unimportant throughout the intervention--in terms of waging the war (e.g. Vietnam is an exception, but given lower costs of war--in news-worthy casualties, this effect has been significantly muted--e.g. Libya 2012, AFG and Iraq 2002-2012ish).

Those who don't vote aren't responsible if their desired candidates are unavailable or have little chance of succeeding. This is largely due to status quo's ability to reinforce an effective cartel over the market of political parties, so I find it hard to blame people for not participating in a system which has (un)intentionally created the outcome which discourages voter participation.

The question on fraud isn't settled by only a judiciary since citizens themselves can come to their own conclusions on the matter of fraud--through reasonable means. It's not like government itself is the only means of defining fraud, and it can simply be unwilling to seriously investigate political matters. The analogy holds because you also don't directly decide how your $10,000 is spent. As with electing a politician, you believe that the politician/organization will best represent you/your funding.


RE: the last bit, the USFP makers and I face different incentives. I don't have anything to lose if Israel is revealed to be engaging in mass murder. If I was head of the NSA, some regional commander, or even some lowly civil servant, then I could stand to lose my job--especially if I disobey the orders of my superiors. (This is why it's not surprising that it takes time for people involved in the event to 'blow the whistle'.) This is why applying methodological individualism is useful in this matter. I don't find that last sentence convincing because those two acts are the same side of the coin; if you examine the event, information was actively being suppressed.

[Metsfanmax]

Americans cannot be held collectively responsible; that's a vacuous concept. 'The Americans' are composed of many individuals who have differently engaged their political process. Voting for person X under a variety of stated conditions can delineate the causal chain of responsibility; therefore, methodological individualism reveals the correct answer while homogeneous reasoning and collectivist methodologies--at the 'American People' level--clearly fail to illuminate the issue.

It is not a vacuous concept when you think about the examples I gave. There are meaningful ways to hold a citizenry collectively responsible for actions that the citizens themselves did not take. Holocaust reparations are an obvious example of that. Whether or not it's a good thing for the Holocaust survivors to be given reparations, the only meaningful entity that can pay those reparations is the German people collectively. It may not seem fair to the individuals who pay higher taxes as a result, that weren't themselves concentration camp guards, but nevertheless if we agree that the reparations need to be paid then there is no other method of doing so. These actions of holding people collectively responsible are important because it provides an incentive for these people to act differently the next time a similar event happens. The Nazi government was in large part made possible by the actions (or lack thereof) of the German citizens, and the reparations motivate people to be more politically engaged so that the next Hitler cannot take power through apathy or fear.

Votes matter because it's the closest you get to conveying your consent.

You consent to the political process, not to any particular candidate. Simply by voting you consent to the result of the election, even if it's not the person you voted for. If you do not consent to the person that was elected because you did not vote for them, then you're not even participating in democracy anymore. Imagine what would happen if people left their country or state every time someone they didn't like was elected.

So, the government and USFP in many aspects is separate from 'the people'. The problem with USFP is that only the president, a key congressional members, and key bureaucrats really drive its agenda, which is why changing the kind of representatives might not result in the expected change in USFP. Public opinion strongly constrains USFP options at the time of intervening but is generally unimportant throughout the intervention--in terms of waging the war (e.g. Vietnam is an exception, but given lower costs of war--in news-worthy casualties, this effect has been significantly muted--e.g. Libya 2012, AFG and Iraq 2002-2012ish).

All of those elected officials can be replaced. If we replace them with officials who have similar ideas on USFP, then we have only ourselves to blame when they take similar foreign policy actions.

Those who don't vote aren't responsible if their desired candidates are unavailable or have little chance of succeeding. This is largely due to status quo's ability to reinforce an effective cartel over the market of political parties, so I find it hard to blame people for not participating in a system which has (un)intentionally created the outcome which discourages voter participation.

At the individual level, any one person's vote is almost vanishingly unimportant in determining the President, so how does their vote make them responsible? If that individual hadn't voted, Obama would still be President.

The question on fraud isn't settled by only a judiciary since citizens themselves can come to their own conclusions on the matter of fraud--through reasonable means. It's not like government itself is the only means of defining fraud, and it can simply be unwilling to seriously investigate political matters. The analogy holds because you also don't directly decide how your $10,000 is spent. As with electing a politician, you believe that the politician/organization will best represent you/your funding.

There is no guarantee that the conclusions citizens come to on fraud are meaningful or objective. That is the benefit of a structured legal system to evaluate these truth claims. It may be susceptible to corruption but on average it's going to do better than the typical citizen, due to lack of information or expertise on the part of the latter.

RE: the last bit, the USFP makers and I face different incentives. I don't have anything to lose if Israel is revealed to be engaging in mass murder. If I was head of the NSA, some regional commander, or even some lowly civil servant, then I could stand to lose my job--especially if I disobey the orders of my superiors. (This is why it's not surprising that it takes time for people involved in the event to 'blow the whistle'.) This is why applying methodological individualism is useful in this matter. I don't find that last sentence convincing because those two acts are the same side of the coin; if you examine the event, information was actively being suppressed.

There is still an ethical incentive and people generally want to do the right thing.

[saxitoxin]

Americans cannot be held collectively responsible; that's a vacuous concept. 'The Americans' are composed of many individuals who have differently engaged their political process. Voting for person X under a variety of stated conditions can delineate the causal chain of responsibility; therefore, methodological individualism reveals the correct answer while homogeneous reasoning and collectivist methodologies--at the 'American People' level--clearly fail to illuminate the issue.

It is not a vacuous concept when you think about the examples I gave. There are meaningful ways to hold a citizenry collectively responsible for actions that the citizens themselves did not take. Holocaust reparations are an obvious example of that. Whether or not it's a good thing for the Holocaust survivors to be given reparations, the only meaningful entity that can pay those reparations is the German people collectively. It may not seem fair to the individuals who pay higher taxes as a result, that weren't themselves concentration camp guards, but nevertheless if we agree that the reparations need to be paid then there is no other method of doing so. These actions of holding people collectively responsible are important because it provides an incentive for these people to act differently the next time a similar event happens. The Nazi government was in large part made possible by the actions (or lack thereof) of the German citizens, and the reparations motivate people to be more politically engaged so that the next Hitler cannot take power through apathy or fear.

Votes matter because it's the closest you get to conveying your consent.

You consent to the political process, not to any particular candidate. Simply by voting you consent to the result of the election, even if it's not the person you voted for. If you do not consent to the person that was elected because you did not vote for them, then you're not even participating in democracy anymore. Imagine what would happen if people left their country or state every time someone they didn't like was elected.

So, the government and USFP in many aspects is separate from 'the people'. The problem with USFP is that only the president, a key congressional members, and key bureaucrats really drive its agenda, which is why changing the kind of representatives might not result in the expected change in USFP. Public opinion strongly constrains USFP options at the time of intervening but is generally unimportant throughout the intervention--in terms of waging the war (e.g. Vietnam is an exception, but given lower costs of war--in news-worthy casualties, this effect has been significantly muted--e.g. Libya 2012, AFG and Iraq 2002-2012ish).

All of those elected officials can be replaced. If we replace them with officials who have similar ideas on USFP, then we have only ourselves to blame when they take similar foreign policy actions.

Those who don't vote aren't responsible if their desired candidates are unavailable or have little chance of succeeding. This is largely due to status quo's ability to reinforce an effective cartel over the market of political parties, so I find it hard to blame people for not participating in a system which has (un)intentionally created the outcome which discourages voter participation.

At the individual level, any one person's vote is almost vanishingly unimportant in determining the President, so how does their vote make them responsible? If that individual hadn't voted, Obama would still be President.

The question on fraud isn't settled by only a judiciary since citizens themselves can come to their own conclusions on the matter of fraud--through reasonable means. It's not like government itself is the only means of defining fraud, and it can simply be unwilling to seriously investigate political matters. The analogy holds because you also don't directly decide how your $10,000 is spent. As with electing a politician, you believe that the politician/organization will best represent you/your funding.

There is no guarantee that the conclusions citizens come to on fraud are meaningful or objective. That is the benefit of a structured legal system to evaluate these truth claims. It may be susceptible to corruption but on average it's going to do better than the typical citizen, due to lack of information or expertise on the part of the latter.

RE: the last bit, the USFP makers and I face different incentives. I don't have anything to lose if Israel is revealed to be engaging in mass murder. If I was head of the NSA, some regional commander, or even some lowly civil servant, then I could stand to lose my job--especially if I disobey the orders of my superiors. (This is why it's not surprising that it takes time for people involved in the event to 'blow the whistle'.) This is why applying methodological individualism is useful in this matter. I don't find that last sentence convincing because those two acts are the same side of the coin; if you examine the event, information was actively being suppressed.

There is still an ethical incentive and people generally want to do the right thing.

BBS is right and you're wrong.

I don't have time to be wordy right now, though, I have to get tucked into bed.

[Metsfanmax]

BBS is right and you're wrong.

I don't have time to be wordy right now, though, I have to get tucked into bed.

That's ok, your pithy response forced me to change my perspective.

[thegreekdog]

So if I don't vote, I'm not responsible? Cool.

[_sabotage_]

BBS I have been telling you that you are biased and irrational for a while.

And it was 12, not 19, since 7 have appeared in the media to say they are alive and weren't involved.

A guy on dialysis who had the previous day been treated at a CIA hospital. Who was never even charged for the crime. So where do we even get the concept of Bin Laden being responsible? The FBI didn't have him down for 9-11, he was never charged, the only "evidence" against him were confessions videos, unfortunately the CIA has said they did fake Bin Laden videos, so you would have to take a close look at their authenticity, which isn't very promising.

So you guys let the media lie to you and let them take you to the bank. Can you stop now? Thanks.

[BigBallinStalin]

Americans cannot be held collectively responsible; that's a vacuous concept. 'The Americans' are composed of many individuals who have differently engaged their political process. Voting for person X under a variety of stated conditions can delineate the causal chain of responsibility; therefore, methodological individualism reveals the correct answer while homogeneous reasoning and collectivist methodologies--at the 'American People' level--clearly fail to illuminate the issue.

It is not a vacuous concept when you think about the examples I gave. There are meaningful ways to hold a citizenry collectively responsible for actions that the citizens themselves did not take. Holocaust reparations are an obvious example of that. Whether or not it's a good thing for the Holocaust survivors to be given reparations, the only meaningful entity that can pay those reparations is the German people collectively. It may not seem fair to the individuals who pay higher taxes as a result, that weren't themselves concentration camp guards, but nevertheless if we agree that the reparations need to be paid then there is no other method of doing so. These actions of holding people collectively responsible are important because it provides an incentive for these people to act differently the next time a similar event happens. The Nazi government was in large part made possible by the actions (or lack thereof) of the German citizens, and the reparations motivate people to be more politically engaged so that the next Hitler cannot take power through apathy or fear.

I saw the examples, but they don't hold because they don't tie citizens to the state which controls some political boundary; otherwise, if we apply your logic consistently, then all the black Africans of South Africa are responsible for apartheid. Hell, all Africans are responsible for remaining colonized. The Mongolians should pay reparations to all citizens within previously conquered territories because they're responsible for the Mongol Empire. The citizens of Iran and Iraq are responsible for the Iran-Iraq war--not the governments themselves. The people of Zimbabwe are responsible for the public policies of its dictator which has impoverished them. Those apply if you're going to insist that citizens bear the responsibility of authoritarian governments (a la Hitler's Germany). Any citizen of a democratic country is also responsible of equally ridiculous actions carried out by their governments--e.g. all American citizens of the past and today are responsible for incarcerating the Japanese-Americans as well as firebombing and nuking hundreds of thousands of Japanese abroad (Wow, didn't know I was responsible for all that!). The American citizens--even the anti-war protesters--are responsible for invading Vietnam; all US citizens are responsible for Obama's extra-judicial killing of a US citizen. The list goes on.

All of that is nonsense because the acts of citizens vary in degree and kind to the acts of their respective states. Your way of framing these issues unjustly takes culpability off the relevant politicians and bureaucrats within states who actually committed those acts and off some amount of citizens who voluntarily contributed in varying degrees to such state actions. Collectivist reasoning to your degree is incorrect when reduced to the absurd.

Votes matter because it's the closest you get to conveying your consent.

You consent to the political process, not to any particular candidate. Simply by voting you consent to the result of the election, even if it's not the person you voted for. If you do not consent to the person that was elected because you did not vote for them, then you're not even participating in democracy anymore. Imagine what would happen if people left their country or state every time someone they didn't like was elected.

No, the social contract is a myth, so the closest you get to consent is voting, which enables one to express their preference on a set of public policies (not all public policies). Other than that, you'll have to remind where I signed some contract saying, "BBS is responsible for the USG interning the Japanese-Americans, killing all those civilians, and launching into reckless wars."

So, the government and USFP in many aspects is separate from 'the people'. The problem with USFP is that only the president, a key congressional members, and key bureaucrats really drive its agenda, which is why changing the kind of representatives might not result in the expected change in USFP. Public opinion strongly constrains USFP options at the time of intervening but is generally unimportant throughout the intervention--in terms of waging the war (e.g. Vietnam is an exception, but given lower costs of war--in news-worthy casualties, this effect has been significantly muted--e.g. Libya 2012, AFG and Iraq 2002-2012ish).

All of those elected officials can be replaced. If we replace them with officials who have similar ideas on USFP, then we have only ourselves to blame when they take similar foreign policy actions.

It's not that simple as I've already explained. The feedback mechanism doesn't work as you think it does.

Those who don't vote aren't responsible if their desired candidates are unavailable or have little chance of succeeding. This is largely due to status quo's ability to reinforce an effective cartel over the market of political parties, so I find it hard to blame people for not participating in a system which has (un)intentionally created the outcome which discourages voter participation.

At the individual level, any one person's vote is almost vanishingly unimportant in determining the President, so how does their vote make them responsible? If that individual hadn't voted, Obama would still be President.

For reasons already explained in how a vote conveys one's preferences and consent, thus the chance of one vote swaying the election is irrelevant.

The question on fraud isn't settled by only a judiciary since citizens themselves can come to their own conclusions on the matter of fraud--through reasonable means. It's not like government itself is the only means of defining fraud, and it can simply be unwilling to seriously investigate political matters. The analogy holds because you also don't directly decide how your $10,000 is spent. As with electing a politician, you believe that the politician/organization will best represent you/your funding.

There is no guarantee that the conclusions citizens come to on fraud are meaningful or objective. That is the benefit of a structured legal system to evaluate these truth claims. It may be susceptible to corruption but on average it's going to do better than the typical citizen, due to lack of information or expertise on the part of the latter.

There is no guarantee that the conclusions of the Judiciary (which do conflict) are meaningful or objective because the judiciary is not the Mecca of Truth for such claims. Interpretation of the Law is a very subjective matter--look at how easy it is to arrive at different conclusions from just picking out phrases within the Constitution. Judges do that all the time. Those are state-mandated 'truths'. If we take your stance seriously, we may as well drop philosophy and science and insist on adhering to the superior standards of the Judicial Branch in determining truth.

No, sir. Once again, citizens can use reason to determine if an act of their government was fraudulent.

RE: the last bit, the USFP makers and I face different incentives. I don't have anything to lose if Israel is revealed to be engaging in mass murder. If I was head of the NSA, some regional commander, or even some lowly civil servant, then I could stand to lose my job--especially if I disobey the orders of my superiors. (This is why it's not surprising that it takes time for people involved in the event to 'blow the whistle'.) This is why applying methodological individualism is useful in this matter. I don't find that last sentence convincing because those two acts are the same side of the coin; if you examine the event, information was actively being suppressed.

There is still an ethical incentive and people generally want to do the right thing.

That's an unfounded assumption about the intentions of people who you don't know. This goes back to the unknown gray area on people's intentions which we've been through; however, we can examine people's incentives, and we can glean useful predictions and conclusions from methodological individualism. It still holds that the 'endangered citizens' claim of yours was exaggerated; that controlling information grants lower costs and greater freedoms for the least democratic organizations of the government; that national security arguments reinforce that outcome; that there is no practical difference in the USS Liberty incident between neglecting to release information and covering up the flow of that information.

From a public choice perspective, I don't assume that 'men are angels'; people in power are very similar in a basic sense to you and me. The difference is that they face different incentives, live within different institutions (rules of the game), are rewarded through different means, pursue different goals, and through these factors produce very different outcomes--regardless of whether or not they were trying to be well-intended.

For example, I can understand why a lowly NSA officer within some plane witnessing a terrible crime will tend to not blow the whistle; we've seen what happens to people who have recently done just that, but that's the extreme highly publicized case. In many cases, doing the right thing is very difficult and discouraged--in fact, doing the right thing can become doing the wrong thing. Just talk to people who've worked in bureaucracies and federal enforcement agencies. I'm not saying anything wild or new about how individuals operate within governments.

[Gillipig]

Some truth to it, quite naive to think the government tells you everything important that happens. They're hiding stuff alright, only qustion is what they're hiding and what is just makebelieve on our part.