# I pit the derisive, condenscending, anti-conspiriacy ... \[merged threads\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 29, 2012, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653 "2012-06-29T02:19:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/181 "2012-07-04T14:52:52Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > To fight ignorance people should be taught to think for themselves. No, they should be taught not to be idiots. Thinking for yourself is a waste of time if your brain don’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/182 "2012-07-04T15:01:59Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > No, they should be taught not to be idiots. Thinking for yourself is a waste of time if your brain don’t work. I’ll have to disagree. I don’t care if people are idiots, as long as they’re idiots on account of their own reasoning. Some of my best friends are complete idiots. I’m probably an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/183 "2012-07-04T15:07:18Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > I’ll have to disagree. I don’t care if people are idiots, as long as they’re idiots on account of their own reasoning. Some of my best friends are complete idiots. I’m probably an idiot. In other words, I should drive a car I built myself, even though I have no idea how to build a car, rather than a car designed and built by trained automotive engineers? ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/184 "2012-07-04T15:15:11Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > In other words, I should drive a car I built myself, even though I have no idea how to build a car, rather than a car designed and built by trained automotive engineers? I don’t think the comparison is valid, however if you were to expound on the best car engine design, I’d have much more respect for your point of view, even if complete bullshit, if it was reached through independent investigation, rather than just a repeat of the general consensus of the dudes at your local pub. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/185 "2012-07-04T15:16:25Z")
That sounds like a 14 year old version of deep. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/186 "2012-07-04T15:20:08Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > That sounds like a 14 year old version of deep. That’s because everything sounds deep for a 14 year old. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/187 "2012-07-04T15:23:57Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > To be sceptical requires that you have given the issue serious thought. They have not. They’re just going with the crowd, repeating the popular sentiments. So, in regards to Ms. NonConformist of a few posts back who claims the military is “on the streets of St. Louis” and making mass arrests in Denver and other cities that the mass media is keeping quiet about, that St. Louis is built “on an unknown sacred city” etc. etc., I am obliged to run around disproving her paranoid fantasies, otherwise I’m a dull conformist playing to the approval of the Dope? > [@](#): > > At least it has a certain of entertainment value, sometimes the original or interesting insight. And if nothing else, a refreshing zeal and zest. I agree that sometimes the looniness has entertainment value (I’ve gotten a fair amount of enjoyment over the Giant Alien Lizards thing). However when it includes just enough shreds of plausibility that considerable effort must be expended on debunking it, and it contributes to a pervasive environment of paranoia damaging to useful social and political policy, I stop being entertained and start to get pissed off. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/188 "2012-07-04T15:29:34Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > I don’t think the comparison is valid, however if you were to expound on the best car engine design, I’d have much more respect for your point of view, even if complete bullshit, if it was reached through independent investigation, rather than just a repeat of the general consensus of the dudes at your local pub. And if my independent opinion happened to match that of the general consensus? Would I still be an “independent thinker”? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/189 "2012-07-04T15:51:46Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Firstly, I do not think ignorance is well fought if people are merely repeating the popular view. When the majority view changes such people will merely follow in lockstep. Secondly, ignorance is badly fought with facts. To fight ignorance people should be taught to think for themselves. Kozmik _is_ being urged to think for himself, that is, to think critically. _That’s_ the soul of fighting ignorance. Thinking for yourself is no good if it’s just random thoughts collected haphazardly. Critical thinking includes some of the elements that people have been trying to urge Kozmik to do, such as: 1. Gathering verifiable facts from credible sources. Critically examining what kinds of sources and facts carry sufficient weight as to be reasonably relied upon. 2. Constructing a coherent hypothesis that can be analyzed. 3. Analyzing that hypothesis with respect to reasonably reliable facts. 4. Demonstrating rational analysis, such as logical inferences and other types of valid reasoning. 5. Answering questions directly and admitting when facts and reasoning do not support a given conclusion. The fact that this particular forum is a place where things like this are valued is a virtue. Your bizarre iconoclasm seems to suggest that whoever is in the minority is in the right, regardless of the soundness of his or her case. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/190 "2012-07-04T15:56:08Z")
Hey, Rune - sweeping overgeneralizations are a poor basis for debate of any sort…the real world tends to be a bit more…complex. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/191 "2012-07-04T16:00:11Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > No kidding. You should see some of the media from other countries. Whereas the US Media tends to ignore CTs, they feed them. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Good luck with that. The internet is mostly populated with idiots. > [@Kimballkid](#): > > Also, did you see on that list the many entries with a country abbreviation in parenthesis, that means those items belong to the country in the parenthesis. Yes, I know that. Do you know that some of those “items” used to belong to different “countries”? For example, Hong Kong (China) used to be Hong Kong (UK). > [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > So demonstrate that 1) “the Illuminati is necessary to explain world affairs” as it applies to 9/11/01, and 2) demonstrate that your “Illuminati theory” _actually_ explains 9/11/01. > > Oh, yeah. Now, since you brought it up, you also have to explain how your theory makes sense of 12/07/41, too. Evidence - not proof - is the [Project For A New American Century](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#.22New_Pearl_Harbor.22): > [@](#): > > **Though not arguing that Bush administration PNAC members were complicit in those attacks** , other social critics such as commentator Manuel Valenzuela and journalist Mark Danner,[39][40][41] investigative journalist John Pilger, in New Statesman,[42] and former editor of The San Francisco Chronicle Bernard Weiner, in CounterPunch,[43] all argue that PNAC members used the events of 9/11 as the “Pearl Harbor” that they needed––that is, as an “opportunity” to “capitalize on” (in Pilger’s words), in order to enact \*\*\* long-desired plans\*\*\*. Emphasis mine. I agree with Valenzuela, Danner, Pilger, and Weiner, and I follow the argument to wherever it leads. > [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > What the fuck is this supposed to even mean, you nutjob? It means George W. Bush is suspicious of political journalists and their “unseen editors”. > [@Acsenray](#): > > 1. Gathering verifiable facts from credible sources. Critically examining what kinds of sources and facts carry sufficient weight as to be reasonably relied upon. Valenzuela, Danner, Pilger, and Weiner are credible sources. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/192 "2012-07-04T16:33:21Z")
Your “evidence” does not say what you think it says. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/193 "2012-07-04T16:56:29Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > That’s because everything sounds deep for a 14 year old. Apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/194 "2012-07-04T17:01:37Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The fact that this particular forum is a place where things like this are valued is a virtue. Your bizarre iconoclasm seems to suggest that whoever is in the minority is in the right, regardless of the soundness of his or her case. It’s homeopathic philosophy. The fewer people that believe in it, the more correct it must be! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/195 "2012-07-04T17:05:04Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > Care to explain how _The New York Times_ humored me? I have a better idea: let’s stick to the subject. I’m guessing your letter was not about how the Stuxnet-writing Illuminati run the world, so it’s not relevant. The fact that you may be able to write coherently on one subject does not mean your views on global conspiracies are valid. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/196 "2012-07-04T17:47:58Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > Valenzuela, Danner, Pilger, and Weiner are credible sources. Instead of making broad conclusory statements like this, how about constructing a coherent argument? Who are Valenzuela, Danner, Pilger, and Weiner? What do you consider significant about what they say? And how do what they say support your hypothesis? Hell, just start with stating an actual hypothesis before you even go to those steps. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/197 "2012-07-04T20:24:55Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The problem with the anti-conspiracy brigade is that it has long since been the default position. . . . That’s built in to our knowledge system. The Null Hypothesis is always the default position. Does the Illuminati secretly rule the world? I don’t know: show me a reason to believe so, otherwise I will continue to act as if I had never heard the proposition. > [@Rune](#): > > The truth is overrated . . . Maybe so, but that’s a really shitty reason for urging us to believe lies. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/198 "2012-07-04T23:37:58Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > The truth is overrated, . . . So, you’ve decided to join the ranks of that wing of the Lefties who think that facts are the oppressive weapons of the ruling class? 😃 Or, are you just taking an oppositional stance to anything posted on the SDMB in order to maintain your image as an “independent thinker” (as you regurgitate any idea that is rejected by a majority of posters, here). 😉 ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/199 "2012-07-04T23:44:09Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > Evidence - not proof - is the [Project For A New American Century](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#.22New_Pearl_Harbor.22): That’s not evidence for the Illuminati. That’s evidence for the Bush administration being slimy. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/200 "2012-07-05T00:01:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > That’s built in to our knowledge system. The Null Hypothesis is always the default position. > > Does the Illuminati secretly rule the world? I don’t know: show me a reason to believe so, otherwise I will continue to act as if I had never heard the proposition. > > Maybe so, but that’s a really shitty reason for urging us to believe lies. The truth is just a way for The Man to keep us down. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653.md?page=11)