I see lots of websites on the Internet about dumb and crappy 9/11 conspiracy theories lacking supporting evidence to their cause. Demolitions, no plane into the pentagon, the highjacked jet that landed, and people hidden. All this is so stupid. Why in the world do these morons think that the US would plan this thing? One video said it was for money. How in THE HELL would the US make money off of that? Why are these people so ignorant?
Assuming it was planned, the political benefit of the Bush Administration comes to mind. Also, a topic like this should probably be in Great Debates or, from your rather irritated tone, in the Pit.
Not the US making money, but lots of big corporations are sure making a lot of money off of 9/11:
the companies that sell the airport passenger scanners.
the companies that sell all that new security equipment.
the companies that contract to provide the staff to operate all that stuff.
the companies selling ID tags and electronic door locks to every big employer.
the airport vending machine operators, since the restaurants are now outside the security area and it takes too long to go out and come back in.
the airport parking facilities, since they now make you park instead of waiting to pick up passengers.
Heck, nowdays even the companies that sell deodorant, perfume, shaving lotion, etc. are making money, since you have to throw that away and buy new ones at your destination!
It’s like when they say that the war in Iraq is costing US taxpayers $100,000 per minute, that money is not just disappearing – it’s being paid to various corporations selling supplies or services to the military (plus a bit going to pay the soldiers themselves).
(Not that this makes those 9/11 conspiracy sites ay more believable.)
Because the alternative – that a small group of dedicated zealots managed to kill thousands of innocents with nobody to stop them – frightens them so badly they can’t deal with it.
Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, has an interesting take on this: He’d rather the world were run by the Trilateral Commission or the Bilderburg Group or International Jewry or some other group of eggheads, because the alternative is that the morons who appear to be in charge are, in reality, running things.
Conspiracies provide a ward against the randomness and chaos of history, however illusory that ward may be. The impulse to believe in them is the same impulse that drives people to believe in more mainstream religions.
Derleth nailed it. Conspiracy theory is not based on reasoning, but arises from the desire to impose order and managability on a frighteningly meaningless and chaotic universe. It doesn’t have to make sense, so it frequently doesn’t.
Actually, it’s more than just that. Human beings evolved with a fundamental need to understand the world – not just how things work, but why they work. And if this understanding can’t be explained by direct observation (at least, by the primitive, pre-scientific human mind), our brains just make shit up, thereby explaining what it is that makes the sun to rise in the morning (Apollo), what causes thunder & lightning (Thor/Zeus), what makes fire hot (Prometheus), what happens to our awareness when we die (Hades/Set/Baal/Jesus/Muhammed/Buddha/etc.)
As our understanding of the physical world increases, scientific method has replaced the need for animistic gods, which is why nobody believes in the Greek/Roman/Aztec pantheons anymore. Monotheistic religions persist, because science still can’t explain certain fundamental questions about the human condition – such as, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Science can’t help, because the latest advances in science (esp. quantum mechanics & chaos theory) that there is NO order to the universe at all, everything is based on random collision of coincidental events, and that’s it. Religion gets weaker each decade, as people begin to catch on to the fact that it’s all a mental trick to begin with.
What’s left? What can fill that need for order? For some…it’s best to assume it’s all a conspiracy. It’s actually comforting to have faith in conspiracy, since you don’t even need to pray every Sunday or obey the ten commandments or anything like that. It’s a religion that demands blind faith, and nothing else.
(Hmm, it seems this reply is more GD than Pit, but I don’t care, so go fuck yourself. ;))
In addition to the other reasons already mentioned, there’s the human desire to know. People want to feel that they know what’s going on. But knowing what’s really going on requires years of study and understanding and ongoing effort. Conspiracy theories provide a shortcut; now you can “know” what’s going on by reading a single pamphlet. All that knowledge and information aquired by other people over the years can be dismissed; your special knowledge trumps everything they know.
Many people forget that there have been some very real consipiracies. The one, IMHO that started it all was the CIA one that overthrew Arbenz. Of course, there were a bunch of undertones, so to speak that got him overthrown, but the general consensus and party line is that the CIA pulled a fast one and overthrew a complete government/nation.
Also, during the Nixon Administration, there was, apparently, more CIA activity in the affairs of other nations. IIRC, Allende’s murder in CHILE??? was directly tied to a CIA plot. The United States had a really great conspiracy, that even the conspirators said was a conspiracy in the Bay of Pigs business. There is no shortage of actual conspiracies; the trick is to know which one is real and which one isn’t.
I understand what you’re trying to say, and I think you are right in many cases, but certainly not all. Speaking for myself, I have absolutely no fear of terrorism. I do believe that a small group of dedicated zealots managed to pull this off, but that doesn’t frighten me. I am, however, terrified of my government. I see them as being far more capable of destoying the things I hold dear.
I think a lot of the conspiracy people feel a similar way.
As I’ve commented elsewhere, “conspiracy theory” has become a convenient way for detractors to dismiss any collusion of mischief by a group of folks. Getting the heads of several international energy companies together to plot out a new US Energy Policy in secret constitutes a “conspiracy,” too.
I once read a book describing various conspiracies. The authors pretty much accepted at face value any conspiracy that was based on government malfeasance; they had no trouble believing the FBI shot Martin Luther King, the CIA shot both Kennedies, the DEA invented crack, the Pentagon controlled the weather, the NSA was mutilating cattle, Reagan was a frontman for the Illuminati, pretty much the whole octopus. But then when they discussed something like Elvis faking his death or bigfoot running around Idaho, they suddenly became skeptics. These theories were ridiculous and anyone who claimed to have evidence to support them was obviously a liar or a fool. Standing on the outside, their bias was blazingly obvious.
I don’t think they discussed UFOs. They probably couldn’t reconcile their belief that UFOs didn’t exist with their belief that the Air Force was covering up their existence.
YES! Thank you! I was on YouTube the other day looking for 9/11 video, curious to see if there were views that I hadn’t seen (and I did find several) and was appalled by all the conspiracy bullshit videos out there. You can’t read a Moby or Peter Gabriel blog on MySpace without being assaulted by stinky conspiracy theory bullshit posts (not by Moby or Gabriel, but by the people who comment on the blogs). I mean really, it’s getting ridiculous.
I’m a liberal as they come. I hate Bush as much as anyone with sense. I’m terrified of the people running the government and HATE HATE HATE what they’re doing to the Constitution and this country, but all that 9/11 crap (Controlled demolition??) is just insane.
I’m really starting to think that it was started or is being perpetuated by Rove Republicans, to make liberals look like loonballs.
One trait I’ve seen in people who believe outlandish conspiracy theories is an outsized need to be seen as smarter than the rest us bozos who can’t see the truth out there.
Another is a desire to demonize one’s opponents, which understandably is present in a lot of lockstep ideologues. Examples here include the Vince Foster “murder” and people who insist Bush was behind September 11. A perennial favorite was that “incumbent President Nixon/Clinton/Bush is considering cancelling the upcoming election”.
Also, some conspiracies (ones in which the believer is targeted specifically) serve to flatter the ego – the government doesn’t aim billion-dollar satellites at us ordinary folks, so they must really be somethin’ special.
Also, the huge mass of information you need to digest to make lunatic fringe conspiracy theories seem even remotely plausible gives folks the illusion of being exceptionally well-informed and intelligent. It’s sort of like the folks who get a feeling of being terribly knowledgeable and “intellectual” after spending huge amounts of time studying astrology or numerology.
