snowcrash wrote:http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7489Some great comments there.
Like this: (wall of text line break relief inserted)
sfnate wrote:The Internet is a novelty-production machine. Recombinant knowledge is assembled from chaotic thought-forms, which are inserted into the maelstrom at the speed of light. Under these conditions, self-similar information instantly coalesces into fractal assemblages of aggregated knowledge, group-cognitive structures that often provide epistemological refuge for magical thinking. To the extent that the Internet is a separate universe of thought and (virtual) experience, it offers its own proto-physical laws, with conditions that are favorable to alchemical (in contrast to scientific) methods. In this digital environment, science and other instruments of rationality are analogous to, and often received as, grey alien visitors possessing an indecipherable alphabet and unintelligle agendas. Novelty-production in this realm is a species of Ahrimanic evolution, where the energies of intellect and spirit are converted into the diabolic logic of schizoid isolation from the maternal/material dwelling of embodied flesh.
The tension between these worlds we simultaneously inhabit can be described and experienced as a kind of gnostic rejection of the real, except neither place is intuitively felt as really real, and the possibility of "knowing" is therefore terminally corrupted by doubt and confusion. Under these circumstances conspiracy cultures flourish like electronic mold in a digital petri dish--a metaphorical condition that figuratively implies the existance of a laboratory. Whether the experimental conditions are a carefully constructed project of alienated intelligence or the mad inventions of a demented and suicidal nihilism, it's impossible to tell, and probably no less fatal in either case. The hope remains, as it has always been, in the transcendant function that regulates the psycho-physical operations of reality, and describes true knowledge as the middle place between these worlds.
And this post:
bks wrote:I don't anymore. There is an error in snowcrash's acceptance of the frame that equates the evidence-based movements that cast warranted scrutiny on government lies, with the adolescent ejaculations of idiocy one can find in the comments section of any online news article these days. Nothing links them except the ill-fitting term "conspiracy theory".
This has to be stopped. They are not the same species of thing, even though media and academics insist on denoting them by the same term. Until that con job is exposed and derided, we can forget making sizeable inroads with the larger public.
That's not what I meant: I actually agree with bks. The problem is, and if I haven't alluded to it myself in the past, it has certainly been discussed before and is a running theme @ SLC: the subjective frame of reference, often ideologically motivated (hence, republicanism) which decides which "conspiracy theories" are deemed acceptable. Fox News peddles plenty of conspiracy theories and most if not all are eagerly glommed onto by their viewership, also the Republican Party's ideological base.
I've thought about this a lot and after much contemplation, I've concluded that much of this conspiracy theory evaluation, attempting to pinpoint them on a sliding scale of 'sanity' (is it totally nuts? scientifically possible but baseless? merely unlikely? plausible? likely) is usually arbitrary and subjective, because the criteria cited are merely the personal projections of the critic in question. Through years of doing this I've come up with a personal framework to separate the wheat from the chaff, something everybody on the web, spouting their opinions, seems to feel Exclusively Qualified and Uniquely Equipped to do.
Hence, Alexander Cockburn thinks 9/11 Truthers are nuts who think no planers are nuts but Pat Curley and James Bennet probably think Cockburn is a paranoid left wing nutter.
Who occupies the correct position on this epistemological spectrum? Intuitively, it can be provisionally concluded that anyone who rejects all conspiracy theories as false as well as anyone who embraces all conspiracy theories as true is fundamentally in error.
Note that 'theory' seemingly connotes 'undecidedness' to people who abuse that component of the usually derogatorily employed term 'conspiracy theory', rehashing the whole 'what does the word theory' really imply-discussion.
There are lots of layers and dimensions to this discussion. I was venting my frustration about how the soup of conspiracy claims expertly obfuscates the real issues. What is lacking is a reliable reference frame, as well as broad acceptance of such a reference frame. Everybody has their own definition of 'true', 'scientific' and 'plausible'. Suffice to say, I can't convey the full breadth of this topic in a short reply without leaving much to be desired in terms of scope, clarity and detail.
I'm sure we can all agree that promoting speculation as hard fact is irresponsible, but the term 'speculation' in itself already conveys a certain pre-judgment on the claim under discussion.
bks suggests I might be rejecting 9/11 Truth altogether based on what he's read, but I don't... the question again becomes where you position yourself on the 'what am I prepared to be open-minded about'-axis and where you pin the claims you're evaluating on the 'virtual slider' of plausibility, usually subjectively determined, even though many self-styled 'skeptics' may claim near omniscient qualities of factual judgment, while constantly undermining their own stature in that regard by demonstrating incompetence in various logical, philosophical, social or empirical fields.
Many truthers constantly complain their critics won't examine the evidence before rejecting it, and this is the core of the problem. On the one hand, practicality demands a priori rejection of some claims, on the other hand, some claims can never be properly evaluated in the first place unless they are carefully examined.
Most critics lack the skills to carefully examine the claims put forth by the 9/11 Truth Movement, which means they choose a priori rejection instead.
Again, when is a priori rejection justified? On whose authority? By what method? Using which reference frame determined by who based on what? I've seen plenty of charlatans claiming ownership of that reference frame, and this can only be resolved by getting into the nitty gritty. However, none of us have endless resources to follow every branch of the big conspiracy tree growing out of control on the web. As time progresses and the internet expands, the shape of the wheat/chaff curve approaches asymptotic.
