Conspiracy theories and Conspiracy theorists


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37 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

Phew, thank goodness, Alex Jones found that Beyoncé's Lemonade is tied to the CIA:

Korben,

I only saw 3 minutes, but I've had an overdose of Alex today. I'll see the rest tomorrow.

So far nothing kooky. And everything he said about the CIA and DOJ so far is verifiable through FOIA requests. He's probably already done it and it's on Infowars.

Speaking of this stuff, I haven't thought about the following for awhile. I wonder what DARPA is up to storytelling-wise these days...

More later (maybe)...

Michael

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4 hours ago, william.scherk said:

With such blob terms it  is easy to equivocate [...].

[....]

It is the scale of the blob that makes me less inclined to highlight these Four Theories as partially true, as pertaining to Climate Debate.

Sure is easy to equivocate with such blob terms - and to produce your reaction.

The folks who compiled the list are the ones who did the blob equivocating.

Ellen

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1 hour ago, Mikee said:

Well.  Here's how the left thinks Trump won the election:  Before a single vote was cast, the election was fixed by GOP and Trump operatives.

Mike,

Greg Palast looks like a mixed bag, an Alex Jones of the left, so to speak. I'm trying to feel negative about him, but I seem to have an inner dog-whistle about the crazies. I love 'em for some damn reason. It's been the bane of my life. :) 

If any of his allegations of voter fraud are true, they should be corrected. Obviously, he's gone way beyond reality in his speculations, but there might be something in there that's true. (The idea that there was a conspiracy by the Republicans right from the start to steal the election for Trump makes me stand in awe. :) )

Maybe Palast wouldn't mind teaming up with, say, Roger Stone or Bev Harris and investigate voter fraud on both sides.

Somehow, I don't think he would like that idea...

:)

Michael

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On 2016/11/03 at 1:15 AM, william.scherk said:

I first skimmed this as Guilt is a Cardiac Emotion (with Fear).  It made me think how many of our emotions can give us that cardiac feeling. Sorry, Tony, but I have to run it a few yards.

I agree we should be leery of those humans who do not feel 'guilt' in the senses where shame, anxiety or allied blends of disgust or/and fear and/or self-accusation normally arise -- at least  in normal human beings when they even inadvertently do evil (like through negligence, impairment, anger, loss of control).

Guilt is a kind of portmanteau emotion, and I do think it is a cardiac emotion -- in that it can be felt as a special blend of anxiety and what we feel in our bodies as shame or remorse (self-spoken with terms of disappointment, sorrow and regret). Sociopaths simply cannot feel this rooted anxiety about their kills. They may fear capture and punishment, or not -- but they do not mix remorseful or shameful feelings with it. They don't have actual remorseful/shame feelings.  They didn't get the whole kit.

The feelings I associate with conspuracy nonsense are fear-related, or at least trepidation or vigilance, just at a low simmer of paranoia. I associate also the feeling of 'aha' and the thrill of certainty, the satisfactory feeling of tumblers thunking into place, the excitement of finally seeing The Pattern. Some conspiracy stories I see as queer, quaint, funny, and some as dangerous and endangering. Of the last, it was the therapy cult of Recovered Memory that allowed full rein to madness, ripening into the Satanic Ritual Abuse rumour-panic and subsequent witchhunts.

The worst conspuracy theories I  think are shameless and/or trending sociopathic in themselves.  Which is why  feeding a debunked meal to another, knowing better, seems  cold-hearted or tainted with something to me, and in its worst excesses, engenders a feeling of disgust. 

What other names do we give to a feeling of 'self-recrimination'?

 

William, you can make emotion too complex, and overly- psychological. It is simple, philosophically (before we break it down to the nuanced and complicated stage) so long as you conceptually objectify emotionality, beginning with "identity". Does emotionality have a nature? Do specific emotions have their own natures? Sure. This far you'd agree, I think.

But cause and effect is where we have fallen out. Is a particular emotion inherent to the existent (incident, situation, words, idea, etc.) - or - is it a response according to a). what is the existent ?b). an individual's consciousness and particular view of existence?

What comes first? Identity and evaluation, and then the relevant emotion? or, an immediate emotion, first? (which is then over-ruled by 'reason', as Sublimists had it).

Plainly, one must know what 'the subject' IS, before any emotion is experienced. One integrates what is perceived by the senses with one's previous knowledge and experience, and then compares it to one's standards of life to find value/disvalue. That the process only takes a split second, and all one recalls is the subsequent emotion felt, is probably the cause of the persistent error of causal reversal -- and "emotionalism". Emotions aren't irreducible primaries, Rand had it. Nor are they "tools of cognition", nor should an emotion of itself dictate subsequent action. An emotion is the final act of a consciousness, simply an automated signal, like those on your car's dashboard. Ignore at your own risk.

In that case, any and all emotions on the "pleasure-pain spectrum" are valuable - instantly showing the health of the organism, threats to it, or (as with guilt, shame) any recent wrongful act which threatens his future state - and to the extent the person is rational (and not controlled by buried, subconscious connotations and associations) emotions are rational too. It is absolutely right to have fear, in the appropriate circumstance, for instance, and the same with anger, hatred, guilt, etc. Different individuals will have slightly different and even very contrasting emotions to the same thing, and that shows undoubtedly that emotions are not imbued, semi-mystically, in any existent.  

(You bring up anxiety, interestingly. I have been lately coming across more people who claim to suffer, and some who do clearly, of OCPD, and I am close to one such person. But as I see this, underlying the psychology of obsessive-compulsive behaviour, is the 'cardinal emotion' of anxiety, and other partners and derivatives in that group. OCD's root cause, I am sure, is the frantic and anxious drive to unattainable, supra-natural, perfectibility in oneself, outwardly manifested in attempts to have everything and everybody around one 'perfect' also.)

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9 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Bob,

1970-1973.

Michael

I spent a lot of time  visiting friends and colleagues at BU  around that time.  We might have passed each other on Commonwealth Avenue  or have even ridden on the Green Line car at the same time.

I once rode on the T  at the same time  as Uma Thurmin   (before she was in movies).  Very tall  lady,  I noticed. 

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27 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

I spent a lot of time  visiting friends and colleagues at BU  around that time.  We might have passed each other on Commonwealth Avenue  or have even ridden on the Green Line car at the same time.

I once rode on the T  at the same time  as Uma Thurmin   (before she was in movies).  Very tall  lady,  I noticed. 

She was born in 1970. You can't be referring to 1970-1973.

--Brant

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38 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

She was born in 1970. You can't be referring to 1970-1973.

--Brant

That was in the late 80's when I saw her on The T.   Her  appearance is quite striking and she is very tall for a female. 

If you wander around Boston enough you will see many people who are either famous or will have become famous.  

I even remember seeing John Kennedy  in Cape Cod before he became Sen. Kennedy.  My folks had a house out on the Cape. 

One thing I noted at the time was that the man seemed to have a spotlight shinning on him.  Maybe it was the way he carried himself that made him so notable.

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Emotions are not tools of cognition

-- I have not adopted the Randian view of emotion made clear in this phrase. I have gone on at length in several places, but my simplified take is 'Emotions Are Tools Of Cognition.'

This puts me at odds with Tony, and often at odds with other Randian thinkers ... (though I note that our departed Stephen Boydstun has written of the problems with the simple statement of Rand).

Here I riffed on my misreading of Tony's earlier remark ... and stress my understanding that emotions are felt in the body, that human beings feel emotions in the body.  I also brought forward the idea that what distinguishes a sociopath is a lack of 'remorse' ... and I tried to place that feeling in the body.

I don't consider Guilt a primary emotion, as it 'blends' a few of what are acknowledged as 'universal emotions.'  I boringly insert here the Plutchik 'colour wheel' of emotion ... 

Plutchik-wheel.png

5 hours ago, anthony said:
On 11/2/2016 at 4:15 PM, william.scherk said:

I first skimmed this as Guilt is a Cardiac Emotion (with Fear).  It made me think how many of our emotions can give us that cardiac feeling.  [...]

Guilt is a kind of portmanteau emotion, and I do think it is a cardiac emotion -- in that it can be felt as a special blend of anxiety and what we feel in our bodies as shame or remorse (self-spoken with terms of disappointment, sorrow and regret). Sociopaths simply cannot feel this rooted anxiety about their kills. They may fear capture and punishment, or not -- but they do not mix remorseful or shameful feelings with it. They don't have actual remorseful/shame feelings.  They didn't get the whole kit.

The feelings I associate with conspuracy nonsense are fear-related, or at least trepidation or vigilance, just at a low simmer of paranoia. I associate also the feeling of 'aha' and the thrill of certainty, the satisfactory feeling of tumblers thunking into place, the excitement of finally seeing The Pattern.

William, you can make emotion too complex, and overly- psychological. It is simple, philosophically (before we break it down to the nuanced and complicated stage) so long as you conceptually objectify emotionality, beginning with "identity".

My personal notion of emotional complexity is not simply a feature of my addled misunderstandings, Tony.  The simple or basic or 'primary' emotions are not always discrete. The complexity of emotional life in a given person is just life.

Begin with Identity ... sure.  Identify the basic, primary, simple, universal 'palette' of emotions, as Ekman and Plutchik have done. There is a 'conceptually objectified' structure of emotion in the human being. 

That part is pretty simple, and should satisfy your 'conceptual' argument.  

Quote

Does emotionality have a nature?

That depends. It depends on what you mean by 'emotionality.'  I would say, on the face of it, no.  "Emotionality" is an individual aspect of personality, say.  Or "Emotionality" is  given with the higher primates. Or, most mammals have a 'simplified' emotionality compared to human beings.

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Do specific emotions have their own natures? Sure. This far you'd agree, I think.

It depends. In my framework of understanding, the primary emotions are the easiest to detect or elicit.  The blends and intensities of the felt emotion make the "Own Natures"  difficult to apply. For example, a feeling of remorse.  Remorse can be said to have its own nature -- distinct from a feeling of love, but it isn't primary -- it is a mixture of disgust and sadness and an intensely personal affect upon a personal self-judgement.

Quote

But cause and effect is where we have fallen out. Is a particular emotion inherent to the existent (incident, situation, words, idea, etc.) - or - is it a response according to a). what it is b). an individual's consciousness and view of existence?

Again, it depends on what you mean. I don't believe a particular emotion (joy) is inheres in anything but a person. Emotion can be assayed, in a person, maybe in a crowd, given contagion. Emotion can sort of be 'inherent' to a situation that involves people, but only in a descriptive sense ('an angry mood hung over the crowd').  Emotion cannot be in a word in any other sense but 'evocative.'  For example, fighting words, N**ger, F**got, etc -- can be 'triggers' to emotion, or could be said to provoke emotion, but lying on the page, there is nothing to be said other than "these are angry words, these are fearful words, these words are filled with hatred."

An idea can 'carry' emotion, but only as a part of a communication.  A word, sitting there, doesn't do the work. Conspiracy Theorist. Fool.  Sneer,

I think of emotions as embodied within a person, an individual, within his or her 'system,' a system which contains an active, intervening mind built of brain. To my mind, emotions are not particularly 'useful' without an intelligence, and are almost always implicated within cognition or associated with cognition. So, say  Fear.  Fear is very useful.  In concert with an assessing intelligence, an intelligence with memory and ability to reason, the individual fear can be the most useful emotion of all. 

Without a cognitive overlord, so to speak, without an ability to harness, prime, over-rule, analyse, reconfigure, all Fear can do is usher in a more deeply distressing feeling of dread.

For the conspiracy-minded person, a low-grade fear (paranoia) overwhelms the cognitive apparatus -- the 'fear'/vigilance token or label generalizes across irrational domains.

Cause and effect is fun.  What 'causes' a given emotion?  That can be simple (my subconscious concept of Bear was invoked by a pre-conscious glimpse of a big black thing moving towards me, ergo Fear).  It isn't entirely an easy thing to pick out a 'fear response' for refining or cognitive intervention. Eg, phobias, "panic" attacks, generalized anxiety.

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What comes first? Identity and evaluation and then the relevant emotion? or, an emotion immediately first? (which is then over-ruled by 'reason', as Sublimists had it).

What comes first?  The child, born with fledgling emotions.  Then the education of the child, by whatever means, good and bad. It takes some time and effort to 'over-rule' emotions, especially when they are felt intensely.  It is a life-long process to bring one's emotional life under 'control,' and not everyone makes it.

Anyway, I do not disagree "utterly" with Rand on the subject. I do try to point out that 'without emotions' (as in the striking case I brought forward from Damasio), one's cognition is crippled.  I don't think Rand would disagree with Damasio's findings -- and would reconsider the 'tool' precept. I figure she would look at the implications for decision-making. Is something that helps you make decisions a 'tool' or not?

It is in this sense I consider emotions 'part of' cognition, enmeshed and implicated in cognition, helping to underscore cognition, part of the gearing of cognition. In this sense I consider emotions to be essential to human thought, and in a secondary sense as individual markings of an interior 'sense of life.  We humans are constantly at watch 'reading' the emotions of others to the best of our abilities, reading a crowd, reading a nation, taking the pulse of the world of humans.  We watch animals for their emotional life -- it gives us information about their likely behaviour.

I acknowledge that an objection can be made to 'tool' in the sense of implement.  As something 'applied' to machinery or process by analogy, as a tool  can tighten, loosen, lever, crush, disperse.  That isn't quite what I mean.

And I don't mean that emotion dominates cognition, categorically. Nor of course that it should, and especially in the sense of rational inquiry as cognition, as reasoned thinking.  Emotion qua emotion may drive inquiry, but it can also fret it with biases. In this connotation as tool, the implement impedes and obstructs.

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Plainly, one must know what 'the subject' IS, before any emotion is experienced. One integrates what is perceived by the senses with one's previous knowledge and experience, and then compares it to one's standards of life to find value/disvalue.be 

Sure. As with the 'automatic' detection of the Bear Coming At Me by a subconscious brain circuit, clanging out from my amygdala, I disvalue the bear causing me harm. And within a moment, that clanging alarm is followed by a visual appreciation of the Bear. It wasn't a bear. I wasn't in danger.

It is in the "integration" that I find more fun with emotions.

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That the process only takes a split second, and all one recalls is the subsequent emotion felt, is probably the cause of the persistent error of causal reversal -- and "emotionalism". Emotions aren't irreducible primaries, Rand had it. Nor are they "tools of cognition", nor should an emotion of itself dictate subsequent action. An emotion is the final act of a consciousness, simply an automated signal, like those on your car's dashboard. Ignore at your own risk.

I guess I have been talking past you every time, since it doesn't seem that you understand my arguments.  "Emotions aren't irreducible primaries" is a blank.  "Rand had it" is true for you but not true for me. I do not consider her infallible.   The generality of your comments here doesn't map to what I know about emotions. You are not arguing with me, but with someone else.  

If your dashboard does not show emotion (as with Damasio's signal case) then you are frigged.  You cannot maintain a normal human life. Nothing is 'tagged' with value/disvalue, though your thinking mind is fully on line. You cannot make even simple decisions. 

It is again in this sense that I consider emotions tools of cognition. And maybe it is there that you can better understand my point of view, Tony.

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In that case, any and all emotions on the "pleasure-pain spectrum" are valuable - instantly showing the health of the organism, threats to it, or (as with guilt, shame) any recent wrongful act which threatens his future state - and to the extent the person is rational (and not controlled by buried, subconscious connotations and associations) emotions are rational too.

So, without a normal kit of emotions, decision-making becomes hideously protracted and without issue. 

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It is absolutely right to have fear, in the appropriate circumstance, for instance,

So, is it absolutely Wrong to have fear in inappropriate circumstances?  

Is it absolutely Wrong to not have fear in appropriate circumstances?

Absolutely absolute.

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and the same with anger, hatred, guilt, etc. Different individuals will have slightly different and even very contrasting emotions to the same thing, and that shows undoubtedly that emotions are not imbued, semi-mystically, in any existent.

It would help my understanding  of your point of view if it were de-larded of moralism. To my mind emotion is simply a fact of human life. It is not mystical to point to universal emotions among human beings. I don't know where you get the mysticism ...

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(You bring up anxiety, interestingly. I have been lately coming across more people who claim to suffer, and some who do clearly, of OCPD, and I am close to one such person.

Obsessive-Compulsive disorder is not particularly 'moody' or emotional to me (like a phobia).  

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But as I see this, underlying the psychology of obsessive-compulsive behaviour, is the 'cardinal emotion' of anxiety, and other partners and derivatives in that group. 

Did I lock the door? Lock, relock, lock, tap tap tap, wash the hands, wash wash wash. 

Yeah, an anxious fear of consequences for not completing the obsessive ritual, that can be seen to underlay the disorder. 

Quote

OCD's root cause, I am sure, is the frantic and anxious drive to unattainable, supra-natural, perfectibility in oneself, outwardly manifested in attempts to have everything and everybody around one 'perfect' also.)

Sounds relatively plausible.  What is the best, most rational therapy for OCD, then?  How does one get in there to re-programme the individual's emotional-cognitive apparatus?  What options are there for the person in your life who suffers? How does one get in there to help relieve the individual of distress, help him or her to escape repetitive and self-destructive behaviour?

To bring this back to Korben's topic, Tony -- what is your view of the psychology of Conspiracy Ideation?  What can Ayn Rand's theories of emotion/cognition bring to the table? Or, how do we bring Reason to the table and differentiate between theories?

Edited by william.scherk
Added some clarifications, spoiler
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Wiiliam, All too much to explain a simple device which has evolved and mutated in man, over yonks and yonks along with his rationality. Emotions - when properly apprehended and handled - are obviously for the good of the organism, i.e., the mind and body which experiences the phenomena. And for the good and survival of the early tribe too, as I've remarked.

Obviously.

All other strains of "man" didn't survive.

You rather sneer at my mention of Rand. She wrote very briefly and succinctly on the topic. It needs far more fleshing out by further thinkers. But as well, I always speak from my own observations and I've found her basic framework to be true.

I started a topic, and if you like you can move your objections over there.

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6 minutes ago, anthony said:

Wiiliam, All too much

With charity for none.

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4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

That was in the late 80's when I saw her on The T.   Her  appearance is quite striking and she is very tall for a female. 

If you wander around Boston enough you will see many people who are either famous or will have become famous.  

I even remember seeing John Kennedy  in Cape Cod before he became Sen. Kennedy.  My folks had a house out on the Cape. 

One thing I noted at the time was that the man seemed to have a spotlight shinning on him.  Maybe it was the way he carried himself that made him so notable.

I remember seeing him too--in Tucson, in 1960, riding in an open convertible seeking delegates to the Democrat convention. Eight years later I saw his brother Robert, also in Tucson, giving an on-campus stump speech to about 40 people two months before he was shot. Dangerous business seeking the presidency or being President. I personally am afraid Trump will be blown up or shot down on Inauguration Day.

--Brant

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31 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

I remember seeing him too--in Tucson, in 1960, riding in an open convertible seeking delegates to the Democrat convention. Eight years later I saw his brother Robert, also in Tucson, giving an on-campus stump speech to about 40 people two months before he was shot. Dangerous business seeking the presidency or being President. I personally am afraid Trump will be blown up or shot down on Inauguration Day.

--Brant

I am sure security will be as tight as possible on I Day.  If Trump is done in,  it will discredit the Democrats whether they had anything to do with it or not.

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13 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:
18 hours ago, william.scherk said:

With such blob terms it  is easy to equivocate [...].

[....]

It is the scale of the blob that makes me less inclined to highlight these Four Theories as partially true, as pertaining to Climate Debate.

Sure is easy to equivocate with such blob terms - and to produce your reaction.

The folks who compiled the list are the ones who did the blob equivocating.

What they were looking for in their study was a better tool.

Instead of every last culturally-specific conspiracy theory (ie, 1-101, Government  invented AIDS to decimate the black community in the USA) that respondents would ratify or reject, they sought a generic short-list of questions to work across cultures and languages.

The items on their 'list' were then actual collected conspiracy theories, stripped of their indicators (measurement omission?). The first such list was seventy-five items long. Such a tribute to paranoia and imagination.

Anyway, they then subjected their long lists to find the co-variants. In the end they came up with a shorter generic list. I gave the link to the table from which I copied a column, which showed a midpoint in their winnowing, and the means by which they winnowed.  The list of 59 was used to discriminate the most 'reliable' questions. 

What I found interesting here was the 'buy in.'  In other words, one could 'ratify' the generic by adding in the features of the blob that were identified in one's own mind. By design.

I mean, I don't believe that Ellen 'ratifies' the four generic Certain Groups conspiracy notions when it pertains to, say, radio astronomers or epidemiologists or the government-employed scientists who sample your water for coliform and other nasties.

Anyway, that the four generic+detail elicitations worked to detect conspiracy ideation is not further remarkable. I would rather entertain Ellen's stance as correct, and ask her again how we can get at the conspiracy of climate scientists/advocates/fiends.

How do we smash the plot?

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Brant wrote: I personally am afraid Trump will be blown up or shot down on Inauguration Day. end quote

If the threat is plausible the “swearing in” can be moved indoors as they might do if it were raining or snowing. What would plausibility be? Of course a gunshot or someone yelling, “Sic Semper Tyrannous!" (this is from the internet "Thus ever to tyrants" a line from Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar” and the state motto of Virginia. Others in the audience claimed Booth yelled "The South is avenged".)

Would internet threats be plausible? Chatter? I think those little bullet proof glass sheets blocking the path of a bullet are cool. A nearby company in Pocomoke makes them and bullet proof tablets for kids. A Pope-mobile bubble? As an aside, here where I live I hear booms every few minutes when people test fire their weapons in anticipation of Deer Hunting Season. My gray fox is afraid to poke her nose out of the seven acre woods. I doubt the swearing in will be around here.

They are most likely watching the area where the swearing in is to be so no one can pre-plant a bomb and from TV I know they will also be aware of what is going on below ground. How is this for a TV plot? The President and President elect move to their positions. A half mile away a drone loaded with five pounds of explosives is launched . . .   

Peter

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25 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

What they were looking for in their study was a better tool.

William,

You left off the rest of the phrase:

What they were looking for in their study was a better tool to give them the ruling class perspective and results they already use.

Gotta control the hoi polloi. Gotta stop them low information suckers from thinking for themselves and make them agree with us masters...

:)

Michael

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35 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

... how we can get at the conspiracy of climate scientists/advocates/fiends.

William,

I would probably start with money, sex and power, not in that order of priority.

:evil: 

Seriously. Look at the climate scientists. Look where they get their money. Look at the sex they are hiding. And look at those with power over them...

Do you see any common threads running through all that?

:)

This is Human Nature 101.

Helpfully,

Michael

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16 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

[below]

Bob wrote:

/Quote/  "The boys at IPCC have not got cloud formation down nor do they have a good understanding of oceanic cycles which include El Ninyo and La ninya. There are the decadal oscillations and the flow of the thermo-haline currents. We have miles to go before we really get a grip on Earth climate." /end Quote/

The "boys at IPCC" - more widely, the general run of climate modelers - also have miles to go before they get down the difference between arbitrary assumptions and parameter tweaking on the one hand and real science on the other.

A caveat:  An article's appearing in the voluminous IPCC report is no guarantee that the article is pseudo.  Each article, wherever it appears, needs to be judged on an individual basis.   Also, sometimes work presented in the body of an article is sound, but then a non-sequitur is tacked on making an unwarranted connection to AGW claims.

Ellen

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William asked: How do we smash the plot? end quote

I will consider that question in a way you did not mean, more in the sense that the protests against President Trump, the election, and the Constitution ARE a plot. It is a plot that could foment the type of hatred that can “sway” the loonies and the hard core leftist into doing something rash . . . and historic . . . which is the assassination of President Trump, with President Obama as collateral damage.

At what point does a protest become a riot? At what point does a protester become a terrorist? When does a protest become a rebellion? I think what is happening now between celebrities and the left leaning press are a conspiracy. Time and again you hear the lame stream media parroting the same words and the same ideas. They are getting marching orders from somebody and at some point President Obama’s ideas and team may be co-opted by something ever more dangerous.

Ellen noted and again I will take her statement generally to bolster my theory: Also, sometimes work presented in the body of an article is sound, but then a non-sequitur is tacked on . . . . end quote

So, is the Secret Service paranoid if they investigate potential threats against the President? I do not like the idea of chanting protesters within hearing distance of the inauguration for safety and for the esthetic affect. I don’t like the idea that The Secret Service, or the grounds keepers, or people in general might be bribable or that they might be blackmailed into allowing something to happen. As these protests continue I do start to see a pattern. Is it getting hot in here?

Peter  

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5 minutes ago, Peter said:

William asked: How do we smash the plot? end quote

I will consider that question in a way you did not mean, more in the sense that the protests against President Trump, the election, and the Constitution ARE a plot.

Peter,

If I were evil, I would consider this question in even a different light.

"How do we smash the plot?" could also mean, "How does that plot work so we can use one like it to control people?"

Well... I guess I did just consider it...

I guess I'm feeling evil right now...

:evil:  :) 

Michael

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Smash the plot! Stash the pot, Ho-daddy, the cops are knocking on the door. If we had a drugged up citizenry they would be easier to control, Michael. I like the idea of pay back to the propagandists but I would like to see reason and not manipulation used. Something I really despise is a really convincing con man. You know the kind. The are usually sincere sounding and nice looking.

Ellen Stuttle wrote in the thread “On the Psychology of the Terrorists” Wed 10/17/2001, 12:46 PM, on Atlantis: In understanding why we were attacked, we have to try to understand the psychology of the attackers. Their response isn't a rational response to grievance . . . Their response is a pathological response. One has to understand the pathology in order to try to find a cure.
end quote

Well said, soon after 9/11, Ellen. Has anyone ever found a cure? No. Are we any closer? I am somewhat dubious of President Trump but with Obama out of the White House I think we might be closer to a cure for domestic terrorism. It may never be “cured” but it may become more farfetched with a reasoning, AND not ideological President. And if he is a success, it could usher in a new era of peace, prosperity, a better life for all, especially minorities, and with no PC bs.

With a President who despised Ayn Rand out of office, and his “legacy” crushed and tossed in the ash bin of history . . . things are looking up.

Peter

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1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

[below]

William wrote:

/Quote/ [WSS]  "What I found interesting here was the 'buy in.'  In other words, one could 'ratify' the generic by adding in the features of the blob that were identified in one's own mind. By design.  /end quote/

That's just what's wrong with the vague questions posed, that one can think there's local truth in the generic wording, and then what?  Do you answer "true" or "false"? One is being set up to be pegged as a conspiracy kook if one answers "true."  Furthermore, the idea is being insidiously instilled that there's no local truth in any of the generics.

/Quote/ [WSS]  "I mean, I don't believe that Ellen 'ratifies' the four generic Certain Groups conspiracy notions when it pertains to, say, radio astronomers or epidemiologists or the government-employed scientists who sample your water for coliform and other nasties.  /end quote/

I don't even "ratify" that there's precisely a "conspiracy" pertaining to climate issues.  There are people who are deliberately trying to put something over.  There are people who go along for money and/or prestige and/or security in their academic positions.  There are scientists who don't know the area but assume that other scientists wouldn't be engaged in deceit.  There isn't some organized "conspiracy."

/Quote/ [WSS]  "Anyway, that the four generic+detail elicitations worked to detect conspiracy ideation is not further remarkable. I would rather entertain Ellen's stance as correct, and ask her again how we can get at the conspiracy of climate scientists/advocates/fiends. /end quote/

How do you know it did "[work] to detect conspiracy ideation" when it's so vague it could catch lots of fish which don't belong in the net?

As to how you can "get at" the corrupting of climate science (not "the conspiracy" which, precisely speaking, there isn't), William, I think if you haven't gotten clued in by now, you haven't been searching well, and I'm not desirous of spending time assisting.

Ellen

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15 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

William, I think if you haven't gotten clued in by now, you haven't been searching well, and I'm not desirous of spending time assisting.

Okay.

16 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

/Quote/ [WSS]  "What I found interesting here was the 'buy in.'  In other words, one could 'ratify' the generic by adding in the features of the blob that were identified in one's own mind. By design.  /end quote/

That's just what's wrong with the vague questions posed, that one can think there's local truth in the generic wording, and then what?  Do you answer "true" or "false"? One is being set up to be pegged as a conspiracy kook if one answers "true."  Furthermore, the idea is being insidiously instilled that there's no local truth in any of the generics.

Did you visit the study, the table, the explications?  

If the measurement sought is degree of conspiracy ideation then that is what it seeks to measure. Somebody might be stung by inferring that if you don't plank down a one on a Likert-type scale then you will have been (wrongly) identified as a nut, a crank, a fool.

As far as I can tell, the instrument will be used and further refined not in clinical psychology or workplace psychology but in social psychology. It isn't a 'case study' approach or a 'therapeutic' approach.  I see it more as a statistical approach:  if significant popular 'buy-in' to a topic conspiracy theory can ultimately cause harm, it isn't because someone measured its significance in the population. 

The 'list' is derived from real actual beliefs current in the world.  If anyone has the least interest in what the researchers ended up with as a measurement tool, they can follow the links back a couple pages.

Ie, it is not only or in first instance a clinical tool. It is a survey tool.  What percentages of you people in Uzbekistan 'endorse' items on the Generic Scale? Not what does the scale mean as a 'test.'   There is further validation of the measuring tool in the literature, not least in the Journal Of Snooty Europeans Examining People Like Insects.  And of course, someone has taken the resulting short-list generic tool to allow self-administration ... personality-testing.info/tests/GCBS/ **

16 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

/Quote/ [WSS]  "I mean, I don't believe that Ellen 'ratifies' the four generic Certain Groups conspiracy notions when it pertains to, say, radio astronomers or epidemiologists or the government-employed scientists who sample your water for coliform and other nasties.  /end quote/

I don't even "ratify" that there's precisely a "conspiracy" pertaining to climate issues.  There are people who are deliberately trying to put something over.  There are people who go along for money and/or prestige and/or security in their academic positions.  There are scientists who don't know the area but assume that other scientists wouldn't be engaged in deceit.  There isn't some organized "conspiracy."

I made a mistake, then. I read this as general agreement with the four selected items on "The List" ...

Quote

#44, #54, #56, #58 are true regarding the AGW scare except that the word "ensure" in #54 is well overblown

I guess that your opinions have moved over the years of attention to the greater topic. I think your opinions are mostly Lukewarm, but it has been a while since you laid out what/who you believe or trust, where/by what means you find the most certainty, and which particular harbingers of doom are off-base.

For other readers, to be a Lukewarmer is to still be a critic of overblown advocacy or scare tactics among active, notorious climate researchers.  It essentially means that you understand and accept the effect of the so-called Greenhouse Gases in maintaining a human-friendly climate. That there is a physical mechanism by which the GHGs contribute to making the earth warmer than it would be without them in the atmosphere. 

Further, I'd say a Lukewarmer has spent some time looking at hundreds of items of research and observation -- including temperature 'reconstructions' of the past.  Among that welter of evidence -- especially observations -- a Lukewarmer will conclude that there is a chance or a relative probability that increasing carbon dioxide and other GHGs will have nudged the earth's temperature up, over and above, and visible through so-called 'natural variation.'

Finally, my concept of the Lukewarmer includes that he has found some convincing, persuasive, probative or very suggestive 'signals' in observations of the earth and sea and atmosphere -- that the earth is in general warming (relative to pre-industrial levels) more than it would without the increase in atmospheric CO2, etc.  

So this will usually mean that  discussion can be grounded.  A warming world is at least tentatively accepted. Then the nitty-gritty arguments over who is zooming who can roost.

16 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

/Quote/ [WSS]  "Anyway, that the four generic+detail elicitations worked to detect conspiracy ideation is not further remarkable. I would rather entertain Ellen's stance as correct, and ask her again how we can get at the conspiracy of climate scientists/advocates/fiends. /end quote/

How do you know it did "[work] to detect conspiracy ideation" when it's so vague it could catch lots of fish which don't belong in the net?

As to how you can "get at" the corrupting of climate science (not "the conspiracy" which, precisely speaking, there isn't), William, I think if you haven't gotten clued in by now, you haven't been searching well, and I'm not desirous of spending time assisting.

I mean that you scoped out four statements / theories and said that they were "true,"    Now that you have added qualifiers and caveats, I see my mistake.  I had hoped you might have more general things to say about the topic of conspiracy theories and how you approach them.

As for how you think one can 'get at' the bad actors in climate science  ... meaning to overthrow the bad actors, I can guess at what you hold in your heart.  I know the audience is smallish on a Sunday, but there are other Lukewarm readers who would be well advised by you. I mean, even if you have written me off as a dupe or a dolt or an alarmist misinformed or whatever, that leaves a lot of non nitwits still interested in your views.

But I will state it again for the porch. What can one do to counter-act the influence of the bad actors in climate science -- since as I mentioned, world-wide every august body adheres to the same set of scientific  'understandings' ... ?  It seems deeply rooted and to cross all borders.

There are two sides (and more, perhaps) to this story, this debate, this discussion. 

--  I will copy-paste my last few AGWA! posts to the placeholder thread at my OL blog.   This thread may have a long life without this excursion.

___________________

** My 'score' ...

GenericConspiracyScaleWss.png

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15 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

But I will state it again for the porch. What can one do to counter-act the influence of the bad actors in climate science -- since as I mentioned, world-wide every august body adheres to the same set of scientific  'understandings' ... ?

William,

I would start by checking this premise.

"... world-wide every august body adheres to the same set of scientific 'understandings'..."

Do they?

I find it telling you put "understandings" in quotes. 

Just like the ruling class stopped seeing normal productive people and got their asses kicked by the election of Trump, I believe those who have bought into the manmade climate eschatology myths are ignoring a whole lot of dissenting voices in science--or demonizing them when they get some publicity.

Here's another suggestion. If you want to get rid of the bad actors, start by actually doing something to get rid of them instead of shuffling them from one sinecure to another when they get caught acting bad.

Michael

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