WHy are there so many conspiracy nuts here? By a conspiracy nut I mean people who constantly claim conspiracies in such a way that it is actually impossible to falsify (thereby being anti -scientific) abd with mind numbing regularity .
Names, please. Btw, this thread ought to be in the “Member Issues” section (https://forum.freecapitalists.org/groups/memberissues/forum/default.aspx). Let me know if you need help moving this thread.
Many? There are astonishingly few conspiracy nuts here considering that people on this forum are both suspicious of “the official story” and tend to dislike government. It really kind of surprises me that having figured out the FED and being an anarchist or borderline anarchist doesn’t go along with “911 truth” more often.
I’m a “conspiracy nut” - aka historical revisionism in the Rothbardian tradition. As for falsifiability, you’re confusing the testing of hypotheses with the forming of them. The police detective does not insist that all his potential hypotheses be at all times capable of being falsified. Rather, he entertains a superposition of multiple possible scenarios in his head based on his theories of human behavior and whatever evidence/testimony he has been able to collect so far.
There’s no question that the world is run by the power elites. Pointing out that all my hypotheses assume this fact does not mean my hypotheses are “unfalsifiable” it simply means they all share the common assumption that the power elites rule the world. The only question remaining is how this mostly concealed rulership expresses itself in the headlines.
Clayton -
Good question. With no good reason they believe the government is conspiring to do good things and tell the truth.
Conspiracy occurs at all levels of society - husbands against wives, wives against husbands, employees against their employers, politicians with monopoly businesses. To conspire is to simply collude and if our courts and prisons demostrate that it occurs seemingly at all levels of society why wouldn’t it occur in the power centres of the world? Interestingly you must believe in some form of conspiracy as you support a gold standard… To support a gold standard you are surely aware of the gold price supression scheme of the 90’s and noughties through the central bank gold sale agreements? Are you a conspiracy nut? You don’t understand gold until you understand fiat paper and you cannot understand fiat paper until you understand why the central banks want you to have it.
People can’t believe everything they hear, so conspiracy theorists aren’t always nuts. They’re logical people, more often than not. It’s really a shame more people don’t look at both sides. If more people looked at both sides, the government wouldn’t have as much credibility.
Few things in life can be taken at face value.
As someone said, in this forum in particular there are only few (well, I mean outspoken, not silent ones). But libertarianism as a whole tend always to attract conspiracy nuts because of our philosophy and “anti-statism”. You see, not only anarchists suffer from state’s interventions and regulations, but nuts too. So they are hoping that in free society they will get free pass. And that is actually true for the most part. People would be free to choose homepathic “treatment” over regular, scientific medicine and so on. No politician would stop conspiracy nuts making gatherings at public or private places and shouting their bullshit. It’s called free-association. I personally see it as a good thing. No matter what peoples’ beliefs are, they should be free to peacefully interact with each other and say what they wanna say.
On falsification, just because it is impossible to falsify something doesn’t mean it’s not true. Scientific method is good, but can’t be used in all spheres. I look at it as a useful and pragmatic method, but not something as an absolute validator of universal truths. In physical reality it is the best method finding out how our universe works, but it is not sufficient to explain morality, economics and so on.
But yeah, I also tend to avoid conspiracies however, the biggest conspiracy can be called (by an outsider) that one which is being discussed here the most of the time - the State. Its religious rituals, its mystical positive laws etc.
This is actually a good question. LIke several other people have pointed out, theres very few conspiracy nuts on this site, but theres something about libertarianism that attracts kooks of various varities.
I suspect most of these people have taken anti-statism to an almost religious like fanaticism. For them its not enough to observe and acknowldge the negative effects of the state, for them ever state action must have malicious intent behind it(ex. the anti-flouridation people who think the state is intentionaly trying to poison people) and the state must somehow be behind every ‘evil’ thing that happens in the world(ie 9/11 ‘truthers’).
There’s always a few “poisioning our precious bodily fluids” types a la Dr. Strangelove. I agree with the above from MaikU that we do attract fringe characters no doubt. Personally I’m not into conspiracies, or at least I’m more susceptible into buying tamed conspiracies. For instance, if you think the military-industrial complex doesn’t have the best interest of the public in mind and feeds the public falsehoods through their bought-off politicians in an effort to increase public hostility towards a non-existent foreign threat, that is a conspiracy, yet it seems completely reasonable. It’s also a conspiracy to say that AIG or other banks that were bailed out probably had an influence on the legislation and banking regulations in order to give them an upper hand. Barriers to entry are conspiracy theories; yet again, completely possible. In fact we know many instances of this happening. Thinking that the FBI would train Egypt’s secret police sounds conspiratorial, yet again, WikiLeaks proved it to be correct.
The point is that the State has such a sketchy and malicious record that some libertarians assume the worst. However, like South Park pointed out, you can’t play two sides of the same coin; is government inept or all-powerful? I think government is mostly inept at what it does, so I don’t think it can orchestrate something like 9/11 with nobody figuring out. Could they have failed to act on intelligence? Perhaps. But I don’t think it was an “inside job.”
There’s a difference between historical revisionism, which is always good, and conspiracy theories (and theorizing as such). One looks at the facts as they are to reconsider the events in a new context, and the other conflates concocted mentalities and intentions as facts to justify mentalities/opinions.
The government-inept theory looks at the government as a provider of goods. But regular citizens are not their customers because they are not dealt with on a voluntary basis.
Government is a bandit gang writ large, as Rothbard said. And in that dimension (getting resources without being productive), they are extremely succesful.
For instance, if you think the military-industrial complex doesn’t have the best interest of the public in mind and feeds the public falsehoods through their bought-off politicians in an effort to increase public hostility towards a non-existent foreign threat, that is a conspiracy, yet it seems completely reasonable. It’s also a conspiracy to say that AIG or other banks that were bailed out probably had an influence on the legislation and banking regulations in order to give them an upper hand. Barriers to entry are conspiracy theories; yet again, completely possible. In fact we know many instances of this happening. Thinking that the FBI would train Egypt’s secret police sounds conspiratorial, yet again, WikiLeaks proved it to be correct.
I entriely agree with you here. there is plenty going on in the world that is conspiratorial but its the Conspiracy nots who immediately pronounce on every happening- 9/11,7/7 the klilling of Bin laden,obams brith cerificate.they beleive the lot.
As for falsifiabiity.if an statement cannot be falsified then it is meaningless.
WHy are there so many conspiracy nuts here? By a conspiracy nut I mean people who constantly claim conspiracies in such a way that it is actually impossible to falsify (thereby being anti -scientific) abd with mind numbing regularity
How do you expect to get an answer to this question, or are you just being deliberately goading?
Do the mods wish to move this thread to Member Issues?
True that. After all, the government itself is the most successful PDA. Though offering pda services through an exchange method can be enhanced beyond that conceived by some rothbardian theorists: https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/the-failure-of-anarcho-capitalism/14636
When we have terrorist attacks that occur and we have no credible investigation then the least any decent man can do is investigate such atrocities himself. Due to the internet the investigation of crimes is decentralised and multi threaded, it is collaborated and circumstantiated. You can then call individuals that have found conclusions in to their research, conspiracy theorists.
Is someone a conspiracy theorist for questioning the media?
It is the stigma through association, the dan brown/crazy ufo cliche of a conspiracy theorist gives a bad name to individuals that try and speak the truth about what their investigations have found.
Can this statement be falsified?
Clayton -
But what happens is some people find a lot of information and some of it can be incorrect and they will develop an ideology based on this information and then they go on to forums and can be very dogmatic about their opinions. Not only is this an ineffective approach but it can also be very annoying to everyone else. Often the information is put across in a very ineffective way by offering poor sources and limited information. This can also give any credible information the dogmatic individuals put across a negative association.
Take the water fluoridation as an example, you pointed out that conspiracy theorists think that there is a global conspiracy to put a poison in the water. In reality water fluoridation is a serious topic, where countries have banned it (1)(2) and books have been written on the subject etc. But thinking that there is a global concerted effort to poison everyone is a step to far.
I must agree with you though about fanatical or dogmatic individuals.
Is someone a conspiracy theorist for questioning the media?
Theres a difference between questioning the media, and offhandedly rejecting everything from ‘offical’ or ‘mainstream’ sources. My grandfather always gave me this advice: be skeptical of everything, including your own skepticism.
There is a difference, but off handedly rejecting everything from the mainstream sources still wouldn’t make you a conspiracy theorist.
To be a conspiracy theorist you would have to concoct a home-baked theory that explains the events differently, or subscribe to such a theory from someone else.
(I would also add the qualification that to be deserving of the negative connotations of “conspiracy theorist” one should not only subscribe to a theory that is false, but to one that is even more ridiculous than the official explanation. Frequently neither the conspiracy theory nor the government explanation are the real story of events.)
So far that I have seen no one that has concocted or subscribed to any alternative theories in regard to the death of OBL (there has only been asking questions) and nothing at all connected to other conspiracy theories. (Except from one “Holocaust revisionist” with a low post count a few weeks ago.)
So I am sorry but this topic is a total miss. The question of why conspiracy theorists are attracted to libertarianism is an interesting one that valids examination, and many of the posters contributing to the thread weighted in on the subject seriously and sincerely. However the original poster is either disingenuous or showing the marks of hysteria and/or paranoia. He has concocted a wild and ridicilous theory of his own and presented it as the opening premise of this (anti-wild-theories) topic which makes the whole thread a very strange one. This forum is not actually swarming with conspiracy theorists, certainly has not been in the time he has been active here.