I’m generally pro-conspiracy theory mainly because 1) conspiracies that seem wierd at first are generally revealed to be true (Morgans/Rockefellers/FED, Watergate, CIA trafficking drugs, MKULTRA, FDR & Pearl Harbor, etc.) 2) They are historical explantions, that is, they name names and give dates, and discover discrete motivations which is much truer than characterizing things as democracy vs islamo-fascism or as progressivism vs. plutocracy. 3) Finally, the more conspiracies that people understand and know, the more skeptical they will become of government in general as a simple matter of induction. If all government from roman times to now is essentially corrupt, then our government cannot be substantially trusted.
Um, could you elaborate on how exactly Intellectual Property laws tie in to a culture of nonactivity?
I did in my original post. Though probably a bigger part is government laws, rules, regulations. IP Laws tie into that because it allows for monopolization and the security to invest millions.
That seemed to be more of a general rant against technology enabling a more sedentary lifestyle than anything to do with IP laws.
I suppose you’re trying to get the point across that without IP laws… Uhh, people wouldn’t be so inclined to make computers or something? I’m sorry, I’m really confused as to your reasoning.
I do like the angle against spectator sports, though. Never got why people like those.
Lots of conspiracy theories are true. Like plans to milk your investors out of billions, or to organize a central bank. However even these are usually done in semi-good conscience by most of the participants and they also don’t entail a Manichean worldview or bizarre super-powers to be attributed to the cospirators.
What’s more is the irrelevance of the conspiracy - what does it matter if the US Government ever went to the Moon? Or if Barack Obama is Kenyan? It’s totally meaningless and entails nothing, these people are just getting worked up over the most irrelevant crap instead of the real issues, like that NASA is a waste of money and Obama is welfare-warfare statist.
The official version of 9-11
I don’t agree, the people who believe it was detonated are just smoking crack (and this includes Jesse Ventura), and there’s nothing unbelievable about Saudi terrorists. The USG indirectly has some blame for both provoking Muslims and being incompetent at defending America, but that’s nothing we learned after Sept. 11th, people have been saying that for decades. So even if it were true that the USG was directly behind it, so what? It doesn’t make them any less useless. The populace is never going to believe these stories because (aside from them being false) they accept the democratic welfare state paradigm and reject the possibility of this sort of thing anyway. There is a mountain of evidence that Lincoln was a dictator or that FDR knew about Pearl Harbor, but nobody ever believes that because it contradicts their political theology. So not only is this crazy crap, it’s irrelevant crazy crap and bringing it up is pointless and counter-productive unless you just like speculating about things which frankly you have neither the technical knowledge nor the access to information to assess anyway.
Listen to Rothbard’s history lectures on the 19th and early 20th centuries. In some sense he makes everything out to be in the control of the Morgans and the Rockafellers (and maybe it was)
Rothbard attributes to them far too much knowledge and ability, sometimes of an almost supernatural kind, but not so much as the Alex Jones types might. It is obviously true that Morgan and Rockefeller were important to the rise of modern Progressivism and the central banking system, but to dream of them being the driving force behind it is silly. Academics, the media and the bureaucrats were the real movers and shakers behind these developments, Moran and Rockefeller just happened to fit with them ideologically and for business reasons.
I have to disagree with you there. If you have ever studied the science behind the creation of our universe
Astrophysics, high energy particle physics and evolutionary biology happen to be my major interest in the physical sciences; and your views are laughable :). God can’t exist through sheer logic, no amount of declaiming evolution (which is also logically entailed, not just evidentially) just plays your hand as a religious nutter.
My problem with conspiracy theories is that they don’t convince people of the fundamental problems with statism. If 9-11 was an inside job, every American would despise the Bush presidency, but would American’s still support Obama’s socialist policies? I would say yes.
Exactly.
Then of course there is that od cosmopolitan/ populist divide that seems to seperate libertarians. Unfortunatly the “cosmopolitans” (think Reason) aren’t that great of an alternative.
In the United States at least there is also a third group, which are definitely related to the libertarians even if not libertarian by the standards of the moralistas: the cynical amoralist and Nietzschean types. The Church of Satan, the Stirnerites, the Nietzschean anarchists, etc. are all fairly close to libertarians on most issues. I find the populists tend to be southerners, the Cosmo’s tend to be North-Easterners and the Nihilistic sort tend to be north-westerners (L.A. Rollins lives not far from where I do).
You can’t prove God doesn’t exist. Just like you can’t prove I don’t have an invisible friend standing next to me at all times.
Actually this is false, you can prove God doesn’t exist because ‘he’ is logically incoherent and cognitively content-less. Which by definition does not exist, since it means/entails nothing. Aside from that proving a Universal negative is not impossible, it only is for the Religious apologists and ‘skeptics’ confuse knowledge with ‘absolute knowledge’, the latter being a meaningless shibboleth. Okham’s razor means it would be irrational to believe you have an invisible undetectable dragon in your garage which means that no piece of knowledge could exist about said Dragon. Ergo it has been proven, within the bounds of real knowledge and not imaginary nonsensical forms of knowledge, that such a dragon does not exist.
Translation: Everybody who does not agree with me is a “nut”, “crank”, “weirdo” who is “clearly ridiculous” and furthermore these “crazies” make me and my precious “movement” look bad- why tolerate them?
Not everybody, though I’d say a good portion of them. The point is that what these people believe is ridiculous on both theoretical, scientific and factual grounds and lending credence to their theory basically makes you nothing but a lunatic shill. You may as well start looking for Bigfoot and the Mothman. Indeed, these stories are less credible than that.
Since it appears from you post’s that you know what/who is insane/crazy.. please tell me more.
Anyone who believes in the supernatural, socialism or the ability of an elite class to deliberately and systemically guide a population of billions of people is a crank who believes nonsense.
@John’s Periodic Table: Awesome
“or the ability of an elite class to deliberately and systemically guide a population of billions of people is a crank who believes nonsense.”
As a matter of fact, the Rothschilds, Rockerfellers, and the rest of the Jew banksters are only scryers of the great Mecha-Medici Family. With funding (Jewish robot oil) and fondling from the Kochtopussy, these ressurected robots guide the Jewnksters with all of the relevant information required for the global rape of the middle-class. I know this because Rothbard was my pen-pal.
As a matter of fact, the Rothschilds, Rockerfellers, and the rest of the Jew banksters are only scryers of the great Mecha-Medici Family. With funding (Jewish robot oil) and fondling of the Kochtopussy, these ressurected robots guide the Jewnksters with all of the relevant information required for the global rape of the middle-class. I know this because Rothbard was my pen-pal.
Lol.
Don’t be so hard on yourself and everyone else lol. We all like having fun sometimes, and I hardly think it’s a conspiracy more than technology enabling man to have more leisure time. I mean, the world elite probably enjoys the fluff too. No one is a machine.
edit: oh didn’t notice there was a page 2
Everyone is a machine, and to some extent an artifact (molded by deliberate human application of technical knowledge and physical forces). So yeah.
mass media = mass conditioning that is pretty much the point. TV, internet, games, nothing against computers. Just the fact that some people spend 24 hours rewatching a season of 24. Obviously they have their own value scale, but the ‘entertain me’ mentality, and 'government do it for me; seem interconnected.
It’s just something I noticed. Maybe I put an unfair focus on IP, but it seems like without IP, business models would be focused differently.
You know what I meant. No need to go all deterministic on me
I missed the LRC article on reptilians. Please link me to it. Thanks.
I missed the LRC article on reptilians. Please link me to it. Thanks.
I wasn’t saying LRC had Reptilian articles, but there are certainly a lot of these people who swarm around the libertarian movement.
On the other hand, I consider a secret race of interdimensional yarmulke wearing lizard men to be more plausible than Biblical Creationism any day.
If you’re looking for a conspiracy crank, then David Kramer is the resident bottle of paranoia and irrationaility at LRC.
Here’s some of Callahan’s blog posts to get you started on Kramermania.
http://gene-callahan.blogspot.com/2010/08/scanning-lrc-blog.html
http://gene-callahan.blogspot.com/2010/08/banning-smoking-in-restaurants.html
Hahahahaha.
Gene Callahan can be pretty crazy, too, though.
“I missed the LRC article on reptilians. Please link me to it. Thanks.”
I like the “deliberately act insincere” angle you’re going for. It reminds me of the socratic method.
I like the “deliberately act insincere” angle you’re going for. It reminds me of the socratic method.
The word for it is ‘snarky’. People like to get snarky when offended and unable to defend themselves rationally.
I like how the best you have on LRC conspiracy nuts are the opinions of Gene Callahan on David Kramer. You could have at least gone for the “AIDS might be fake” articles. But, at least you know what the Socratic method is, although you forgot to capitalize the “S”.
“I like how the best”
I’m sorry to hear that.
“You could have at least gone for the “AIDS might be fake” articles.”
I could have, but it seems that you’re already aware of their existence. Come up to the front of the classroom, and show us your school project Daniel.
“But, at least you know what the Socratic method is, although you forgot to capitalize the “S”.”
We’ve all got our choices to make.
I enjoy your over-generalization.