Seattle Bubble Forum Archive

Due to siddha99 showing up again, we had a fresh infuse of conspiracy theory talk on the forums. I just wanted to explain the only rational approach to these theories in a single place, rather than scattered all over the forum.

So, what is the reasonable response when somebody produces a video, and calls you a sheeple? The only rational response is to assume the null hypothesis until proof is given that the null hypothesis is wrong. For emphasis, if you are logical you will always assume the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis for each conspiracy is always that it is false.

Someone with a favorite pet conspiracy will now come along and tell me how that's not true, how their conspiracy is special: yada-yada-yada.

So, why the null hypothesis? It's because, given enough time, someone could conceivably produce an infinite number of conspiracies. Wealthy are trying to destabilize world economies to reduce global population by 70%! The catholic church is preparing USA for a collapse so we can be invaded by Mexico! The government invented sock gnomes to steal your socks out of the laundry forcing you to buy new ones, which only empowers the already massive textile industry!

See, you can make up lots of idiotic conspiracy theories and the only rational response is to dismiss them all outright until sufficient evidence is provided to overcome the general evidence against.


But what about a real conspiracy? What about Iran Contra, or some similar thing? What about the conspiracy theory that the Iraqi (and perhaps Afghanistan) war was started as a way to pipe money to friends of Bush/Cheney? In the case of Iran Contra, that's well documented and out in the open now, so obviously once that level of transparency happens a reasonable person will accept it.

The Iraq War conspiracy is a more interesting example, because it's still kind of in that no man's land. Normally, a conspiracy (the kind you can dismiss) do not really match up with reality very accurately. Once you start to ask questions they become tenuous. This one, not so much. Why would they want to pipe money to their friends? Seems obvious. How? The war and special no-bid contracts. On the other hand, we haven't seen any official reports with emails or that kind of thing. So, it's entirely possible that Bush has really just done everything as he thought it was best, and that the no-bid contracts were really given because they thought Haliburten was reliable. In other words, in a case like that you can not particularly fault someone for espousing either opinion.

FWIW, every single person on this site applies the null hypothesis all the time in the real world. Consider religion. The null hypothesis is that no specific religion is real. Now, most people have had experiences or education that convinces them that one of those religions is in fact true, but they still apply the null hypothesis to the uncountable number of other religions. See, the null hypothesis at work for you.

This story describes what is really going on with the markets today:

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/g/mcnrsts.html

Most conspiracy theories remind me of the movie, They Might Be Giants. It was a peculiar film and worth watching if just for George C. Scott's performance, but good luck finding it.

But I digress. My point is that if you look hard enough, you will eventually find a real bone-fide conspiracy, but even then, it is not the one you were originally looking for. And it is nowhere near as earth shattering as you thought. The other problem is that people just can't shut up. Iran contra was a very, VERY limited conspiracy with limited goals and limited membership. Yet even IT was outed. And then there is Watergate. And that was really about almost nothing. That is, the break-in itself was small potatoes. But once there was a hint of it becoming exposed, co-conspirators were coming out of the woodwork to make a deal. Human beings are not capable of complex conspiracies any more than dogs are capable of simple math.

The other problem is that I have noticed that most conspiracy theories depend too much on motive as their "proof": Guy dies. Guy's wife cashes in $1mm insurance policy. Therefore guy's wife must have knocked him off.

On it's own, that is not compelling for obvious reasons, even if the wife DID knock him off.

I literally laugh at the conspiracies surrounding 911. Take the pentagon building. I have an acquaintance that actually SAW the airplane just before it hit the building. These silly conspiracy theorists don't bother to mention that for an airliner to fly in that low to hit the pentagon, it would be seen by a LOT of people. And it was – and one of them was someone I actually know of – and he himself is a pilot. But there is plenty on the net and on YouTube for those looking for fun conspiracy stuff.

Oh, http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/911_p ... esses.html

When it comes to conspiracies, I like to put this to use: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Whenever the 9/11 whackjob conspiracies come up, particularly Loose Change, I've used these arguments to limited effect. There are NO secrets in D.C., someone is always willing to talk for a price. Look at how much basic info gets leaked day in and day out. Blowing up the WTC, crashing a couple planes into the towers just before you blew them up, just so you could further entrench your hold on power (you being some shadow group).... this is 1000s of people all in on it, and none of them are spilling the beans?

RCC, the Iraq conspiracy is a tough one, because the two primary conspiracies (that it was done to control Iraq's oil or that it was done to pay off Bush's allies) both have some limited truth to them. If Iraq didn't have oil, nobody would have ever cared about Saddam and his sandbox. And going to war does benefit many companies that Bush & Cheney have ties to. Halliburton's no-bid contracts are often used as a reference, but the simple truth there is that nobody else can match the equipment, resources, and know-how that Halliburton has. KBR (now divested from Halliburton) is the only company that can cap large numbers of burning oil wells. So they get no-bids. It'd be hard to prove a conspiracy, in this case.

That said, someone who buys into a particular conspiracy theory will never be convinced otherwise. I've had people argue that the lead structural engineer on the WTC is a less credible source on the structural failure of the WTC than some random guy with no formal engineering education, usually because the SE was "in cohorts with the Government".

WestSideBilly,

I'm not actually calling the Iraq War a conspiracy. I was actually just pointing out the same thing you did.

If Iraq were a crime scene, we'd be able to pick up a few prime suspects, but we'd need to then do a lot of additional digging to get a conviction. For instance, some internal memos or something like that.

That's what makes it such an intriguing case study of this topic.