Towards Rigorous & Radical Conspiracy Theory

[American Dream]

I've been reflecting and refocusing- and for me it's back to work time. Conversations that support the work can sometimes be helpful but much of it is, for me right now, a distraction from other things that are more important. All of this has led me to take Matthew Lyons very seriously- and that's really valuable- but I'm refocusing now on the tasks at hand, not on extended conversation.



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[American Dream]

(Duplicate Post)



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[jakell]

Sorry to snip but, when I see this..

....We are wasting time.....

..I just want to jump up and down and shout 'meta-issue', along the same lines as when I used the term in my previous post.

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=37774&start=255#p538658

We have been seeing it here, how a smokescreen is used to create boredom and indifference in casual observers, and these are the real hurdles of our age. We've (mostly) got past the ones that grabbed our attention in obviously existential ways, now we have to tackle the real killers, the mind numbing techniques that are deceptively effective when a society reaches it's decadent stage.

[Sounder]

We are wasting time.

For me, ‘real power’ lies in our collective conceptual structures; this might also be called our dominant narrative or cultural structural framework.

There are a lot of reputations, both left and right, riding on the maintenance of this ‘real power’.

jakell wrote...

..I just want to jump up and down and shout 'meta-issue', along the same lines as when I used the term in my previous post.

Right, so luther provided a meta-issue in 'real power' and I pointed out where I consider that this lies.

That idea may not resonate well around here but I'm sticking to it anyway.

[jakell]

I see what you mean. My reference to meta-issues was not about externalities, but about thread, and ultimately, forum dynamics and related to boredom and indifference memes seen lately via non-contributing 'contributors'.
To me, a meta-issue nearly always involves glancing in a mirror to try to avoid the underlying assumption that it's all 'out there', otherwise it's just an 'issue' (in my own parlance).

The two posts I made a while back were attempting to find a confluence between the self and these externalities, specifically realting to CT's:

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=37774&start=195#p537919
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=37774&start=210#p538205

[Luther Blissett]

I fully recognize that I waste time, but I try my damnedest not to. I spend as much time in my life as possible involved in projects that address inequality or injustice as I possibly can. For instance, I spent all day Saturday building a site for some activist lawyers who do tons of good work. I don't see that as wholly separate from my antifascism or even my "conspiracy theory." These projects can either be productive or destructive. I see analysis as a very important component of this and the more I think about it and talk about it here and in other virtual and real spaces the better prepared I am for these projects.

Luckily, it's been some years since I have felt bored.

[TheBlackSheep]

We have been seeing it here, how a smokescreen is used to create boredom and indifference in casual observers, and these are the real hurdles of our age. We've (mostly) got past the ones that grabbed our attention in obviously existential ways, now we have to tackle the real killers, the mind numbing techniques that are deceptively effective when a society reaches it's decadent stage.

The two posts I made a while back were attempting to find a confluence between the self and these externalities, specifically realting to CT's:

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=37774&start=195#p537919
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=37774&start=210#p538205

It seems to me that the reason this thread isn't really moving in a productive direction is because the goal of it is not clearly defined. You have referred to a couple of your past posts in which you attempted to contribute some concrete ideas to the thread (conspiracy theory as escapism and self-indulgence) but because of the context of the thread it is not certain where exactly to go with those ideas. I mean that it's not certain if you wish an analysis to be made of instances where conspiracy theory has been characterized by those things... If that is the case, I think that it's not really just conspiracy theory but nearly all of modern life—in that much of what we expend our minds and energy on (using our time, talking to peers, etc.) are part of self contained bubbles. Some examples (outside the realm of conspiracy theory) are the way that our work (human effort) is mainly directed to 'productive' tasks that are not directed towards the construction of our personal goals or visions in life, unless indirectly, that we work for money so that we can in essence buy the type of (usually preconstructed and prepackaged) life of our (often preconstructed and prepackaged) desires.

Another way that this is so is that much of our "free time" is spent on 'entertainment' that again does not contribute towards a personally constructed vision of our desired reality (regardless of how dubious the latter may be in theory or in essence).

The same goes for reading all news mediums. We read about the issues, perhaps we are filled with such emotions as wonder, disgust, consternation, curiosity, etc, etc. and we might share these views with others but such discussions are rarely if ever geared towards creating first a consensus and second a workable action plan and third constructive action.

There are no doubt many reasons for these things. A few might be that in our modern society our expectations have been so much raised that any sort of 'home-made' efforts would appear as futile or laughable compared to the manufacturing processes made possible by large scale organization and advanced technology. Certainly there are other reasons as well.

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I had personally taken this thread to be something of a theoretical discussion, towards developing the figurative tools for uncovering and presenting conspiracies. I saw the place of presenting the content as being partially in other threads that highly certain facts or issues that may or may not be part of a larger concerted effort being uncovered by forum members.

But ultimately I do see conspiracy theorizing, theorizing generally, as well as information gathering, distribution and processing to be unconstructive (not unhelpful) in the sense that it of itself will not bring about a concrete change. At best information would act as a support to conscious and intelligent individuals who, knowing things like what the current reality of modern life is, as well as the "how-to" of accomplishing various constructive actions, could take the information away as tools utilizable in the situations of their lives.

As regards 'conspiracy theory' formal, to the latter, I have usually considered the purpose of conspiracies (as well as other jarring current/past events—when uncovered and proven) to be to open the eyes of those who thought that all was well with the world so that all we need to do is sit back and enjoy the movie (so to speak) so that they might realize that politics is not dead, and a no longer necessary superfluity. It is something quite alive which needs to be addressed through constructive action.

Which brings me back around to the need to define what exactly it is that is being attempted by this thread. Surely it can't be an attempt at action in itself, because I'm not sure if that could ever properly be done on-line at all. All that can be accomplished here is an aquiring and refining of tools that can be taken away for concrete action in the 'real world' (as far as we can label our 'post-modern' bubble gum world reality. [<doesn't matter how long you chew it, it doesn't diminish, just tastes like sh*t)

[jakell]

It's a been while since I started bothering whether a thread is moving in a positive direction or not, because this isn't really a direct indication of whether important stuff is being addressed.

Different forums have favourite themes and memes, to the extent that this can be quite limiting, and it can be observed that threads based around these almost seem to run on rails towards a familiar conclusion, and then the same thing seems to start up again, and again (I find the repitition creepy after a while).
These well attended themes don't really need my help, so I leave them to others, I'm more interested in unpopular themes, and more specifically why they are unpopular, I have a few theories about the psychology of this.

As to the thread topic. As no-one was really interested in a narrow ideological approach the OP has given up. but this raises anh interesting issue there on the collaborative approach vs the solitary approach. if you find yourself in an 'army of one', then issues of solipsism, obsession, escapism and self indulgance can come to the fore and especially interfere with rigour. Any conspiracy buffs will very likely have seen more fo their fair share of this, and worse
Not popular topics I know, but like I said, I like to look where other don't feel inclined to

[slimmouse]

Not a million miles away from my own thoughts on the OP.

When everything gets fundamentally condensed, and all the smoke clears.....



I dont think we should ever forgets that we are ruled essentially by a psycopathic clique, at least if their "political representatives" are anything to go by.

[American Dream]

The Devil is in the deatils. It's not just finance capital causing our problems- it's also "productive" capital. It's not just a group of people controlling the banks (and it's certainly not their "jewishness" and/or "zionism" creating all the problems) it's much more importantly a system- which has a life of its own- remove one set of bad guys and new people will surely take their place.

The ruling class does manipulate us through their media and some owning class people surely do profit from war but it's not nearly so simple nor dualistic as people like David Icke would lead us to believe..

[slimmouse]

AD, I respect your opinion, and I hope you respect my disagreement.

It certainly isnt just as simple as that. Hence my distinction in my opening comment.

Ultimately however, I would suggest that any Corporation that isnt a Financial corporation, along with our governments are essentially in tow to their firnanciers. To suggest that Governments arent is folly for a kick off at least.

And we do also know the interllocking nature of these corporate relationships, company x, part owning y, z, a.... etc.

The lackeys of the above trickle down to us through their political representatives, who themselves eventually end up working for one of the said companies. Tony Blair for example, with Goldman Sachs.

And finally. There is truly only one set of corporations who make money out of every last fucking one of us, including the corportations themselves.

Please dont turn this into any kind of racist nonsense. Im being serious here.

[American Dream]

While the kind of economic theory you are citing (finance capital vs, "productive" capital) is really, really common amongst overt nazi/fascist types who really are racist and xenophobic, it goes beyond them, too- it is a trope of the far right in general.

Bankers- much less jewish bankers- are not the cause of all our problems. That line of thinking- as currently proposed by Icke and even more notorious figures- has led humanity down a very bad road...

[slimmouse]

While the kind of economic theory you are citing (finance capital vs, "productive" capital) is really, really common amongst overt nazi/fascist types who really are racist and xenophobic, it goes beyond them, too- it is a trope of the far right in general.

Bankers- much less jewish bankers- are not the cause of all our problems. That line of thinking- as currently proposed by Icke and even more notorious figures- has led humanity down a very bad road...

I have you on ignore, but decided to looki at what your wrote, which is of course taking us down the "nazi-racist-yellowbrickroad".

I mentioned in an ealier post that every time I want to look at this problem seriously, the racist slant is never far behind.

I was right. We obvously shouldnt be talking about the crippling cost to human labour brought about by private banking corporations, who do indeed own governments as the latest bailouts clearly indicate.

We also shouldnt look at how they work hand in glove with corporations to rape the earth, and send us all off into wars for their benefit.

We should clearly just accept this as a fact of life.

Eiither that , or we're far right Nazi Anti-semites?

Thats clearly what you believe AD, is it not?

Carry on.

[American Dream]

We obvously shouldnt be talking about the crippling cost to human labour brought about by private banking corporations, who do indeed own governments as the latest bailouts clearly indicate.

We also shouldnt look at how they work hand in glove with corporations to rape the earth, and send us all off into wars for their benefit.

We should clearly just accept this as a fact of life.

Eiither that , or we're far right Nazi Anti-semites?

You're not getting what I'm saying and/or just spinning it towards gross distortion.

We really should look at how finance capital works hand in glove with productive capital to rape the earth, and send us all off into wars for their benefit- and we absolutely should strive to understand what is going on within that ecology besides explanations that focus on jewish bankers and other such bogus models. Cleaning up such explantations by calling it "Rothschild Zionism" is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.

Anyway, I'm done with this- have said what I need to say. I hope you'll think about it some.

[slimmouse]

We obvously shouldnt be talking about the crippling cost to human labour brought about by private banking corporations, who do indeed own governments as the latest bailouts clearly indicate.

We also shouldnt look at how they work hand in glove with corporations to rape the earth, and send us all off into wars for their benefit.

We should clearly just accept this as a fact of life.

Eiither that , or we're far right Nazi Anti-semites?

You're not getting what I'm saying and/or just spinning it towards gross distortion.

We really should look at how finance capital works hand in glove with productive capital to rape the earth, and send us all off into wars for their benefit- and we absolutely should strive to understand what is going on within that ecology besides explanations that focus on jewish bankers and other such bogus models. Cleaning up such explantations by calling it "Rothschild Zionism" is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.

Anyway, I'm done with this.

Im pretty sure my own model is bogus, as most likely is yours.

Nonetheless, heres my work in progress

It focuses on the power to create money on our behalf being clearly bestowed to a few people, whereupon we all get it in the neck, so to speak.

Every last living soul almost.

Is that not a reasonable assertion Im making?

How has the above particular heist upon humanity happened within your own particular model?

How did they manage to steal billions of hours of human labour in 2008, scott free?