Page By Category
Blogs - Page 6
Users that have been posting for a while can create their own articles on the fly by using our built-in blogging service. Below are the most recent entries.
Desteni: A Conspiracy Cult. (UPDATED!)
Author: Clock
Date: Jul 01, 2013 at 09:13
This blog, originally published May 6, 2011, was updated on May 14. Scroll to the end for the update.
By Muertos
muertos@gmail.com
If you've been a regular reader of my blog for a while you might be led to believe that the Zeitgeist Movement is the only cult out there that uses conspiracy theories as a recruitment tool. As much as I wish that was true, unfortunately it isn't. I'm writing today for the first time on another and even more disturbing cult which has recently come to my attention: an organization called "Desteni." And after having investigated this group for only a short time, let me tell you―if you think Zeitgeist is pretty far out there, you haven't seen anything yet. Desteni makes the Zeitgeist Movement look like the Rotary Club.
Desteni was founded in 2007 by a South African named Bernard Poolman. While I will be researching Poolman's background more fully, from what I've been able to gather so far he is evidently a former police officer, and he now runs a farm in rural South Africa. He communicates with the members of his group mostly through YouTube, where Poolman presents himself as some sort of bizarre horned creature. I won't show it to you because I plan to place an audio/video version of this blog on YouTube, and it seems the Destenians are extremely aggressive about flagging critical YouTube videos with false DMCA claims―a practice not unlike the one occasionally utilized by more militant Zeitgeisters. Just trust me on this, Poolman's avatar is like something out of an Umberto Eco novel.
Desteni seems to have something else in common with Zeitgeist. Poolman's group advocates something called the "Equal Money System." The exact nature of this is somewhat vague to me, but it appears to be a utopian idea aimed at guaranteeing everyone on earth a basic standard of living, and all sorts of benefits are supposed to result from the institution of this system―for example, war, poverty and greed will become a thing of the past. These are not unlike the promises supposed to come from Zeitgeist's "Resource Based Economy." In contrast with Zeitgeist, however, Poolman and Desteni advocate an entire elaborate system of New Age living. Poolman and his chief lieutenants cloak themselves in New Age rhetoric. For instance, there's a lot of talk about "channeling," a classic New Age concept. It gets a little scary when you realize who and what they're channeling, but we'll get to that in a moment.
Also like Zeitgeist, Desteni's ideology―to the extent it is coherent―is predicated on a worldview that depends heavily upon conspiracy theories. They just use different theories than Zeitgeisters do. A lot of Destenians seem to believe in theories similar to those advanced by world-class nutbar David Icke, who believes that the world is controlled by a race of reptilian shape-shifting aliens. The most visible spokesperson for Desteni, a woman named Sunette Spies--who has got to be one of the weirdest cult icons I've ever seen--frequently references reptilians in her bizarre videos. Additionally, on Desteni's forums you can find frequent references to "reptilians," and although they don't hit it as hard as, say, the Zeitgeist Movement advances 9/11 Truth theories, it is clear that "reptilian" conspiracy theories are an important factor driving interest in the cult. (Example here) . What's problematic about these "reptilian" conspiracy theories―aside from the fact that they are totally divorced from reality―is that many observers of the conspiracy underground have pointed out that Icke's theories are simply science-fiction redresses of "Jewish world conspiracy" theories popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially in Europe. These theories held that Jews were an elite cabal of bankers and politicians intent on taking over the world. Substitute shape-shifting reptilian aliens for Jews and you've got David Icke's theories. The anti-semitic bent of reptilian conspiracy theories is very disturbing. Many Destenians also seem to be believers in the "Illuminati" and "New World Order" conspiracy theories.
It gets more disturbing when you realize who Poolman and his people claim to be channeling, if I may return to that concept. Given what I've said so far, if you had one guess as to who Poolman likes to channel, who would it be? Yup, you guessed it...Adolf Hitler.(http://web.archive.org/web/20110611041830/http://desteni.co.za/a/hitler-part-1-experience-of-life-on-earth) Yes, Desteni openly advocates the rehabilitation of Hitler's public image, focusing on the occult aspects of Nazi ideology. Lots of other people, and a fair number of inanimate objects, have also evidently been channeled, everybody from L. Ron Hubbard to a gas pump. To date I've only seen a very few of these videos, but the ones I have seen are exactly as bizarre as you would imagine.
Behind the "Equal Money System" and the New Age rhetoric, however, Desteni appears to be what many cults are at their core―a business. The real purpose for the group's existence seems to be as a tool of financial enrichment of its founder, Bernard Poolman. From Desteni's website you're encouraged to buy a number of books, videos and especially "self-improvement courses" in how to improve your life―exactly the same thing that Scientology sells, and makes millions of dollars a year at. Indeed the financial aspect of the cult, exemplified by something called the "Desteni I Process," is very obviously a pyramid scheme. The website uses language like "Downline" and other terms borrowed wholesale from Amway, Quixtar and other pyramid and multi-level-marketing outfits. The price of participating in Desteni is steep. For starters you'll be paying 200 Euros―almost 300 U.S. dollars a month, and the website clearly states that there is no refund available at any time.In addition to the pyramid scheme, another part of the scam seems to be to attract followers to visit Poolman on his farm in South Africa. Naturally, followers have to pay for this privilege. It is not know what actually goes on at this farm, but I've seen statements that Poolman encourages his followers to use Ecstasy while under his supervision.
What is most disturbing to me, aside from the anti-Semitic aspects of this group, is the behavior of the members on their forum. Evidently Desteni members are encouraged to post their deepest, darkest secrets on the forum and on the blogs and YouTube channels they're heavily encouraged to create. This is part of a process called "self-forgiveness." These confessions range the gambit, everything from sexual fantasies to involvement with gangs. In addition to subjecting their lives and even their thoughts to the dictates of Desteni orthodoxy, I believe these confessions are intended to give the group's leader potential leverage over his followers. That these people, most of them young, are willing to post their darkest secrets online at their leader's behest is a huge red flag.
There's also an eerie sameness in the appearance of Desteni followers. Poolman encourages his members to shave their heads, for what reason I haven't yet been able to fathom. Sure enough, the avatars of Desteni members on their web forum and their appearance in YouTube videos display an awful lot of shaved heads. Here is the cult leader controlling even the appearance and grooming of his followers.
I've also come across a lot of stories of Desteni members being encouraged to isolate themselves from family members and friends who are not in the group. This is very similar to Scientology's practice of "disconnection." In short, Desteni exhibits all the characteristics of a destructive and dangerous cult.
I've only just begun to investigate the Desteni phenomenon. This blog is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of this cult, merely a statement of the features of it that have piqued my interest. Perhaps some of the things I've observed about this cult are wrong. Frankly, I hope they are, because this organization seems on the face of it like an especially pernicious group. The synthesis of conspiracy theories and a utopian ideology into a cult is nothing new―we saw that same pattern with the Zeitgeist Movement. Desteni, however, while being much smaller than Zeitgeist, seems to be far more extreme. How extreme are they? That's one of the questions I hope to answer.
It's likely I will be posting more blogs about Desteni as I continue my exploration of this very strange, but admittedly fascinating, conspiracy theorist cult.
Thanks for reading.
Update: May 14, 2011
This blog has caught the attention of the Destenians. There is now a topic open on their forum where its author, Darryl Thomas, promises to "deconstruct" my blog, one paragraph at a time, on an ongoing basis. (http://deconstructingmuertosdaily.wordpress.com/)
Here's his rationale for doing so:
All I can say is that he'd better pick up the pace. I'm posting a second blog on Desteni this very afternoon, which is considerably longer than this one, so he'd better get cracking!
By Muertos
muertos@gmail.com
If you've been a regular reader of my blog for a while you might be led to believe that the Zeitgeist Movement is the only cult out there that uses conspiracy theories as a recruitment tool. As much as I wish that was true, unfortunately it isn't. I'm writing today for the first time on another and even more disturbing cult which has recently come to my attention: an organization called "Desteni." And after having investigated this group for only a short time, let me tell you―if you think Zeitgeist is pretty far out there, you haven't seen anything yet. Desteni makes the Zeitgeist Movement look like the Rotary Club.
Desteni was founded in 2007 by a South African named Bernard Poolman. While I will be researching Poolman's background more fully, from what I've been able to gather so far he is evidently a former police officer, and he now runs a farm in rural South Africa. He communicates with the members of his group mostly through YouTube, where Poolman presents himself as some sort of bizarre horned creature. I won't show it to you because I plan to place an audio/video version of this blog on YouTube, and it seems the Destenians are extremely aggressive about flagging critical YouTube videos with false DMCA claims―a practice not unlike the one occasionally utilized by more militant Zeitgeisters. Just trust me on this, Poolman's avatar is like something out of an Umberto Eco novel.
Desteni seems to have something else in common with Zeitgeist. Poolman's group advocates something called the "Equal Money System." The exact nature of this is somewhat vague to me, but it appears to be a utopian idea aimed at guaranteeing everyone on earth a basic standard of living, and all sorts of benefits are supposed to result from the institution of this system―for example, war, poverty and greed will become a thing of the past. These are not unlike the promises supposed to come from Zeitgeist's "Resource Based Economy." In contrast with Zeitgeist, however, Poolman and Desteni advocate an entire elaborate system of New Age living. Poolman and his chief lieutenants cloak themselves in New Age rhetoric. For instance, there's a lot of talk about "channeling," a classic New Age concept. It gets a little scary when you realize who and what they're channeling, but we'll get to that in a moment.
Also like Zeitgeist, Desteni's ideology―to the extent it is coherent―is predicated on a worldview that depends heavily upon conspiracy theories. They just use different theories than Zeitgeisters do. A lot of Destenians seem to believe in theories similar to those advanced by world-class nutbar David Icke, who believes that the world is controlled by a race of reptilian shape-shifting aliens. The most visible spokesperson for Desteni, a woman named Sunette Spies--who has got to be one of the weirdest cult icons I've ever seen--frequently references reptilians in her bizarre videos. Additionally, on Desteni's forums you can find frequent references to "reptilians," and although they don't hit it as hard as, say, the Zeitgeist Movement advances 9/11 Truth theories, it is clear that "reptilian" conspiracy theories are an important factor driving interest in the cult. (Example here) . What's problematic about these "reptilian" conspiracy theories―aside from the fact that they are totally divorced from reality―is that many observers of the conspiracy underground have pointed out that Icke's theories are simply science-fiction redresses of "Jewish world conspiracy" theories popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially in Europe. These theories held that Jews were an elite cabal of bankers and politicians intent on taking over the world. Substitute shape-shifting reptilian aliens for Jews and you've got David Icke's theories. The anti-semitic bent of reptilian conspiracy theories is very disturbing. Many Destenians also seem to be believers in the "Illuminati" and "New World Order" conspiracy theories.
It gets more disturbing when you realize who Poolman and his people claim to be channeling, if I may return to that concept. Given what I've said so far, if you had one guess as to who Poolman likes to channel, who would it be? Yup, you guessed it...Adolf Hitler.(http://web.archive.org/web/20110611041830/http://desteni.co.za/a/hitler-part-1-experience-of-life-on-earth) Yes, Desteni openly advocates the rehabilitation of Hitler's public image, focusing on the occult aspects of Nazi ideology. Lots of other people, and a fair number of inanimate objects, have also evidently been channeled, everybody from L. Ron Hubbard to a gas pump. To date I've only seen a very few of these videos, but the ones I have seen are exactly as bizarre as you would imagine.
Behind the "Equal Money System" and the New Age rhetoric, however, Desteni appears to be what many cults are at their core―a business. The real purpose for the group's existence seems to be as a tool of financial enrichment of its founder, Bernard Poolman. From Desteni's website you're encouraged to buy a number of books, videos and especially "self-improvement courses" in how to improve your life―exactly the same thing that Scientology sells, and makes millions of dollars a year at. Indeed the financial aspect of the cult, exemplified by something called the "Desteni I Process," is very obviously a pyramid scheme. The website uses language like "Downline" and other terms borrowed wholesale from Amway, Quixtar and other pyramid and multi-level-marketing outfits. The price of participating in Desteni is steep. For starters you'll be paying 200 Euros―almost 300 U.S. dollars a month, and the website clearly states that there is no refund available at any time.In addition to the pyramid scheme, another part of the scam seems to be to attract followers to visit Poolman on his farm in South Africa. Naturally, followers have to pay for this privilege. It is not know what actually goes on at this farm, but I've seen statements that Poolman encourages his followers to use Ecstasy while under his supervision.
What is most disturbing to me, aside from the anti-Semitic aspects of this group, is the behavior of the members on their forum. Evidently Desteni members are encouraged to post their deepest, darkest secrets on the forum and on the blogs and YouTube channels they're heavily encouraged to create. This is part of a process called "self-forgiveness." These confessions range the gambit, everything from sexual fantasies to involvement with gangs. In addition to subjecting their lives and even their thoughts to the dictates of Desteni orthodoxy, I believe these confessions are intended to give the group's leader potential leverage over his followers. That these people, most of them young, are willing to post their darkest secrets online at their leader's behest is a huge red flag.
There's also an eerie sameness in the appearance of Desteni followers. Poolman encourages his members to shave their heads, for what reason I haven't yet been able to fathom. Sure enough, the avatars of Desteni members on their web forum and their appearance in YouTube videos display an awful lot of shaved heads. Here is the cult leader controlling even the appearance and grooming of his followers.
I've also come across a lot of stories of Desteni members being encouraged to isolate themselves from family members and friends who are not in the group. This is very similar to Scientology's practice of "disconnection." In short, Desteni exhibits all the characteristics of a destructive and dangerous cult.
I've only just begun to investigate the Desteni phenomenon. This blog is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of this cult, merely a statement of the features of it that have piqued my interest. Perhaps some of the things I've observed about this cult are wrong. Frankly, I hope they are, because this organization seems on the face of it like an especially pernicious group. The synthesis of conspiracy theories and a utopian ideology into a cult is nothing new―we saw that same pattern with the Zeitgeist Movement. Desteni, however, while being much smaller than Zeitgeist, seems to be far more extreme. How extreme are they? That's one of the questions I hope to answer.
It's likely I will be posting more blogs about Desteni as I continue my exploration of this very strange, but admittedly fascinating, conspiracy theorist cult.
Thanks for reading.
Update: May 14, 2011
This blog has caught the attention of the Destenians. There is now a topic open on their forum where its author, Darryl Thomas, promises to "deconstruct" my blog, one paragraph at a time, on an ongoing basis. (http://deconstructingmuertosdaily.wordpress.com/)
Here's his rationale for doing so:
Even the title betrays his hopeless, towering ignorance on the subject he opines on. That's why I have to do this. I have to demolish the bogus thesis of "MUERTOS" in public, one paragraph at a time, once a day, every day, until we finally reach to the end of his tiresome, long-winded and insipid screed, by which time we will have torn to shreds all the point-by-point, all opinions made by "MUERTOS" and will have had a good laugh in the process.
All I can say is that he'd better pick up the pace. I'm posting a second blog on Desteni this very afternoon, which is considerably longer than this one, so he'd better get cracking!
Anatomy of a "Debate" With a Global Warming Denier and 9/11 Truther (Part II).
Author: Clock
Date: Jun 28, 2013 at 15:07
This is a post from Clock's Muertos Blog on Skeptic Project. If you have any questions, check out the Disclaimer
By Muertos
(muertos@gmail.com)
Back to my "debate" with a global warming denier and conspiracy theorist on Twitter.
So now I know I have not only an AGW denier, but a 9/11 Truther on the hook. I probably shouldn't have changed the subject but I couldn't resist.
RT @[Name Withheld]
I actually kind of regret that last bit, because it did sort of poison the well. Nothing gets a CT madder faster than mentioning tinfoil hats. So, [Name Withheld], sorry about that.
Yes! Now we're getting at it! First off, she admits she's a Truther. Most CTers, even if they are Truthers, tend to try to avoid that label if they're debating something other than 9/11, because it makes people crazy. (I can't imagine why! Disrespecting 3,000 Americans who died on 9/11--not a single one of whose families, I might add, supports their movement--should never be cause for disdain!) Furthermore, we now have our second invocation of "New World Order," and the accusation that I'm a "puppet." Anyone who disagrees with CT'ers is one of these things: puppet, shill, sheeple, disinformation, CIA plant, or brainwashed. Remember that.
I'm thoroughly enjoying this, so I decide to have a little fun with her. Again going for the RT, I'm curious exactly how nutty this Truther is, so I mention the latest silly theories to see if she'll bite:
"Exploding paint" refers to a bizarre theory by noted 9/11 Truther Steven Jones, a sometime physicist fired from BYU staff for promoting his lunacy and who is tenaciously clung to by deniers as an example of a "scientist" who believes in 9/11 conspiracies. Jones's obsession is an imaginary substance called "nanothermate" which he claims is a super-explosive that must have been used in the WTC disaster. How did it get there? He hypothesizes paint containing this super-duper explosive was applied to WTC structural beams sometime before 9/11, though when, how or by whom he can't quite say. Jones wrote a "peer-reviewed" paper (more on that later) claiming he analyzed some WTC debris, for which there was no proper chain of evidence, and discovered spherical structures he swears are consistent with "nanothermate." Evidence? Um...well, we'll get back to you on that...
"Space beams" is another wacky 9/11 theory, championed by Judy Wood, who says that the failure to find any trace of explosives in the WTC wreckage must be because the gubbermint used some kind of spooky beam weapon to destroy the towers. Mr. Chekov, please analyze said theory and report to me on the bridge of the Enterprise.
"Holographic projections" is a reference to an early 9/11 theory, now not widely held even among CTs, that there were no planes at all, despite hundreds of thousands of eyewitnesses. Dylan Avery, director of the conspiracist Internet film Loose Change, was once a "no-planer" but seems to have changed his position, probably because he realized people think it's ridiculous. Nowdays the CW among CTs is that the "no-plane" theory was trumped up by skeptics--you know, those sleeping sheeple like me who spread disinformation on the Internet--so it could be easily debunked and discredit the 9/11 Truth movement.
"Physics do not lie." Yes, but Steven Jones does; his theories have been debunked many times and yet he continues to push them as if they have a shred of truth. At least she admits space beams and no planes are nonsense, but she evidently accepts the exploding paint theory. I still can't get my head around it. Exploding paint, people! Do you see how far off in la-la land these conspiracists are? And to think, this all started with a discussion about global warming!
@[Name Withheld] "Nanothermate" is the exploding paint theory. Steven Jones is a liar. No scientific basis for it whatsoever.
Like those nice round 1,000 numbers? She's referring to the "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth," an organization founded by San Francisco architect Richard Gage to desperately try to drum up a few experts who ignored the overwhelming scientific evidence (such as the NIST report) as to why the Towers collapsed. Gage embarked on a well-publicized quest to get 1,000 people to support him and try to get a petition drive going. He did eventually, but some 2 and a half years after he said he would, and most of the architects on its list have questionable credentials--such as the guy who claims to have designed the Transamerica Pyramid when records show he was a college undergraduate at the time. Yeah right, like college undergrads regularly get gigs designing skyscrapers.
And, for the record, Jones maintains that his articles on superdupernanothermite/thermate are "peer reviewed." They are not. The "peer review" process to which he supposedly subjects his papers is nothing more than review by fellow CTs, not the scientific community (which will not publish him). Claiming that this is peer review is simply a lie. Ergo, Steven Jones is a liar.
9/11 nuttery is not the first brush Steven Jones has had with weird theories. In the late 1980s he was the only scientist who claimed that "cold fusion" could and did work, in his laboratory. He could not replicate the experiment that he said did it, which led all other respectable scientists to the conclusion that the experiment he was referring to either did not take place (in which case Jones is a liar) or was badly misconstrued by him (in which case he's not a very good scientist). Either way, Jones's grasp of physics is extremely questionable.
@[Name Withheld] Ah yes, the nut brigade known as "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth"...or should I say "Twoof"... http://bit.ly/aVUceP
The link is to a good debunkers blog, Screw Loose Change, rounding up some of the looniest news on AE911. Click it if you dare, but prepare to laugh (or cry). "Twoof" is a name debunkers often call 9/11 CTs, and it refers to fringe or "woo" beliefs, such as the ludicrous notion that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition.
This is setting me up to be called "sheeple."
Yeah, right. I'm sure there's an NWO hit squad out there ready to take down these idiots. Why bother? Just expose their lack of credentials and no one will believe them anyway. Wait, no one does believe them...so who's career is on the line anyway? Steven Jones? His career was toast in 2006 when he started this supernanothermite nonsense in the first place. He has no career left to destroy, which is why he's out there on the conspiracy circuit.
@[Name Withheld] Why cant I fathom it? Let me guess, I'm "sheeple"...I've been brainwashed by CNN and fluoridated water. Typical Twoofer crap.
She didn't respond to this, and then turned back to AGW denial with the usual spurious links:
Link to an anti-AGW site screeching about the CRU emails. Remember I said we'd get to those later? I'm not even going to bother explaining why two hacked emails are supposed to (in CT eyes) negate over 20 years of scientific study, I'll post a link a bit later on that summarizes the "controversy" neatly.
This link is to a tiresome article on The American Spectator, another conservative blog dedicated to throwing poo at President Obama, blaming ACORN for everything and hyping the Tea Party movement. Jeez, these CTs always go over old ground.
Link is to World Climate Report, another anti-AGW blog run by conservatives. The scientific arguments are easily refuted in various pages on this, one of the blogs http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php">I linked her to earlier.
@[Name Withheld] "Climategate" emails don't say what deniers, conspiracy nuts want you to believe they mean: http://bit.ly/cJCPzn
This link is to an article that explains why the CRU emails are not what AGW deniers hoped they were. The whole thing was newsworthy because of a "dog bites man" quality: evidence coming to light that humans are causing global warming is so commonplace that it doesn't make news, but, oh boy, find something to the contrary and it's front page news. The CRU is not the only source of climate change information, and AGW deniers themselves implicitly acknowledge this whenever they switch from waving around the emails as "proof" that AGW is a hoax, to throwing poo at Al Gore who in the next minute is the source of all information on climate change.
I'm still on about Steven Jones, though, so here's my last shot:
@[Name Withheld] Of course anyone (Twoofers) who thinks Steven Jones is a reputable scientist has a pretty low bar where science is concerned.
[Name Withheld] takes her toys and goes home with this pithy comment:
Of course not. I have a degree in history (and am going for another one), so I know nothing about history; I don't credit the "scientific" conclusions of oil industry funded front groups and a fired physicist who believes in cold fusion and exploding paint, so I know nothing about science. The sneer "You don't know anything!" is another variation on CTers famous conversation-enders, calling someone "sheeple" or "brainwashed." Anyone who disagrees with lunatic theories gets this treatment, and I'm used to it by now. Always, as it did in this case, it ends the discussion on the note that the CT is no longer going to waste her time on you because you're so far gone into the clutches of the New World Order that you can't possibly be brought back over to reason.
You may think all of this has been a waste of time, and to some extent you're right; conspiracists, trained as they are to ignore evidence, twist arguments and cherry-pick quotes, usually can't be dissuaded from their quasi-religious beliefs that the whole world is out to get them and if we would only listen to them peace, love light and harmony would shower down upon us like manna from Heaven. However, although it's a waste of time to convert them, conspiracists have a virtual monopoly on the Internet, because no one on the Internet actually checks sources and most information there tends to be believed as truth, which is why the idiocy of AGW denial has gotten such traction in popular culture. I think it's important to let people know, people who may not yet be taken in by Alex Jones and the conspiracy underground, that they do not have a monopoly on the truth; far from it. [Name Withheld] may be a lost cause, but if so much as one person comes away from this thinking, hey, you know, global warming might not be a hoax, or those crazy Truthers and their exploding paint and beam weapons might just be fruitcakes after all, the time I spent debating her (and writing this blog) is well worth it.
By Muertos
(muertos@gmail.com)
Back to my "debate" with a global warming denier and conspiracy theorist on Twitter.
So now I know I have not only an AGW denier, but a 9/11 Truther on the hook. I probably shouldn't have changed the subject but I couldn't resist.
RT @[Name Withheld]
Get a clue
<-Ironic statement coming from someone who believes 9/11 is an inside job. You tinfoil hatters are all alike.I actually kind of regret that last bit, because it did sort of poison the well. Nothing gets a CT madder faster than mentioning tinfoil hats. So, [Name Withheld], sorry about that.
@muertos http://newsbusters.org/node/10756</p>
Before she responded to my 9/11 Truth jab, she posted this link to an anti-AGW story from Newsbusters, which is a conservative "news" website devoted to tearing down mainstream media and hyping the whole Tea Party movement. This site loves to find critics of conservative policy and expose them for "outrageous" statements. Sorry, that's not very persuasive.
@muertos 911 was an inside job I am sorry that you like being a puppet for the new world order.
Yes! Now we're getting at it! First off, she admits she's a Truther. Most CTers, even if they are Truthers, tend to try to avoid that label if they're debating something other than 9/11, because it makes people crazy. (I can't imagine why! Disrespecting 3,000 Americans who died on 9/11--not a single one of whose families, I might add, supports their movement--should never be cause for disdain!) Furthermore, we now have our second invocation of "New World Order," and the accusation that I'm a "puppet." Anyone who disagrees with CT'ers is one of these things: puppet, shill, sheeple, disinformation, CIA plant, or brainwashed. Remember that.
I'm thoroughly enjoying this, so I decide to have a little fun with her. Again going for the RT, I'm curious exactly how nutty this Truther is, so I mention the latest silly theories to see if she'll bite:
RT @[Name Withheld] @muertos 911 was an inside job
<-Let me guess...exploding paint? Beam weapons? The planes were holographic projections?"Exploding paint" refers to a bizarre theory by noted 9/11 Truther Steven Jones, a sometime physicist fired from BYU staff for promoting his lunacy and who is tenaciously clung to by deniers as an example of a "scientist" who believes in 9/11 conspiracies. Jones's obsession is an imaginary substance called "nanothermate" which he claims is a super-explosive that must have been used in the WTC disaster. How did it get there? He hypothesizes paint containing this super-duper explosive was applied to WTC structural beams sometime before 9/11, though when, how or by whom he can't quite say. Jones wrote a "peer-reviewed" paper (more on that later) claiming he analyzed some WTC debris, for which there was no proper chain of evidence, and discovered spherical structures he swears are consistent with "nanothermate." Evidence? Um...well, we'll get back to you on that...
"Space beams" is another wacky 9/11 theory, championed by Judy Wood, who says that the failure to find any trace of explosives in the WTC wreckage must be because the gubbermint used some kind of spooky beam weapon to destroy the towers. Mr. Chekov, please analyze said theory and report to me on the bridge of the Enterprise.
"Holographic projections" is a reference to an early 9/11 theory, now not widely held even among CTs, that there were no planes at all, despite hundreds of thousands of eyewitnesses. Dylan Avery, director of the conspiracist Internet film Loose Change, was once a "no-planer" but seems to have changed his position, probably because he realized people think it's ridiculous. Nowdays the CW among CTs is that the "no-plane" theory was trumped up by skeptics--you know, those sleeping sheeple like me who spread disinformation on the Internet--so it could be easily debunked and discredit the 9/11 Truth movement.
@muertos Physics do not lie. You are being fooled. Look into history and our monetary system and economics. Authority is NOT truth
@muertos its called nano thermite look it up ! and all the other stuff you mentioned is utter nonsense.
"Physics do not lie." Yes, but Steven Jones does; his theories have been debunked many times and yet he continues to push them as if they have a shred of truth. At least she admits space beams and no planes are nonsense, but she evidently accepts the exploding paint theory. I still can't get my head around it. Exploding paint, people! Do you see how far off in la-la land these conspiracists are? And to think, this all started with a discussion about global warming!
@[Name Withheld] "Nanothermate" is the exploding paint theory. Steven Jones is a liar. No scientific basis for it whatsoever.
@muertos thats ridiculous 1,000 scientist and 1,000 architects support his theory. He is not a liar.
Like those nice round 1,000 numbers? She's referring to the "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth," an organization founded by San Francisco architect Richard Gage to desperately try to drum up a few experts who ignored the overwhelming scientific evidence (such as the NIST report) as to why the Towers collapsed. Gage embarked on a well-publicized quest to get 1,000 people to support him and try to get a petition drive going. He did eventually, but some 2 and a half years after he said he would, and most of the architects on its list have questionable credentials--such as the guy who claims to have designed the Transamerica Pyramid when records show he was a college undergraduate at the time. Yeah right, like college undergrads regularly get gigs designing skyscrapers.
And, for the record, Jones maintains that his articles on superdupernanothermite/thermate are "peer reviewed." They are not. The "peer review" process to which he supposedly subjects his papers is nothing more than review by fellow CTs, not the scientific community (which will not publish him). Claiming that this is peer review is simply a lie. Ergo, Steven Jones is a liar.
9/11 nuttery is not the first brush Steven Jones has had with weird theories. In the late 1980s he was the only scientist who claimed that "cold fusion" could and did work, in his laboratory. He could not replicate the experiment that he said did it, which led all other respectable scientists to the conclusion that the experiment he was referring to either did not take place (in which case Jones is a liar) or was badly misconstrued by him (in which case he's not a very good scientist). Either way, Jones's grasp of physics is extremely questionable.
@[Name Withheld] Ah yes, the nut brigade known as "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth"...or should I say "Twoof"... http://bit.ly/aVUceP
The link is to a good debunkers blog, Screw Loose Change, rounding up some of the looniest news on AE911. Click it if you dare, but prepare to laugh (or cry). "Twoof" is a name debunkers often call 9/11 CTs, and it refers to fringe or "woo" beliefs, such as the ludicrous notion that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition.
@muertos I suppose your one of those "the government couldnt possibly do this to us!" types right?
This is setting me up to be called "sheeple."
@muertos A&E 4 9/11Truth have put their careers on the line to support something greater then you obviously r capable of being able 2 fathom
Yeah, right. I'm sure there's an NWO hit squad out there ready to take down these idiots. Why bother? Just expose their lack of credentials and no one will believe them anyway. Wait, no one does believe them...so who's career is on the line anyway? Steven Jones? His career was toast in 2006 when he started this supernanothermite nonsense in the first place. He has no career left to destroy, which is why he's out there on the conspiracy circuit.
@[Name Withheld] Why cant I fathom it? Let me guess, I'm "sheeple"...I've been brainwashed by CNN and fluoridated water. Typical Twoofer crap.
She didn't respond to this, and then turned back to AGW denial with the usual spurious links:
@muertos Run Al Gore Run! Former student claims Climategate University 'often' falsified data. #global warming http://bit.ly/cdBERk
Link to an anti-AGW site screeching about the CRU emails. Remember I said we'd get to those later? I'm not even going to bother explaining why two hacked emails are supposed to (in CT eyes) negate over 20 years of scientific study, I'll post a link a bit later on that summarizes the "controversy" neatly.
@muertos Climategate: This time its NASA #global warming http://bit.ly/bOxFBF
This link is to a tiresome article on The American Spectator, another conservative blog dedicated to throwing poo at President Obama, blaming ACORN for everything and hyping the Tea Party movement. Jeez, these CTs always go over old ground.
@muertos Study Al Gore doesn't want you to see. Most "global warming" not due to man http://bit.ly/cvg4M8
Link is to World Climate Report, another anti-AGW blog run by conservatives. The scientific arguments are easily refuted in various pages on this, one of the blogs http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php">I linked her to earlier.
@[Name Withheld] "Climategate" emails don't say what deniers, conspiracy nuts want you to believe they mean: http://bit.ly/cJCPzn
This link is to an article that explains why the CRU emails are not what AGW deniers hoped they were. The whole thing was newsworthy because of a "dog bites man" quality: evidence coming to light that humans are causing global warming is so commonplace that it doesn't make news, but, oh boy, find something to the contrary and it's front page news. The CRU is not the only source of climate change information, and AGW deniers themselves implicitly acknowledge this whenever they switch from waving around the emails as "proof" that AGW is a hoax, to throwing poo at Al Gore who in the next minute is the source of all information on climate change.
I'm still on about Steven Jones, though, so here's my last shot:
@[Name Withheld] Of course anyone (Twoofers) who thinks Steven Jones is a reputable scientist has a pretty low bar where science is concerned.
[Name Withheld] takes her toys and goes home with this pithy comment:
@muertos that shows what you even know about history and science in the first place
Of course not. I have a degree in history (and am going for another one), so I know nothing about history; I don't credit the "scientific" conclusions of oil industry funded front groups and a fired physicist who believes in cold fusion and exploding paint, so I know nothing about science. The sneer "You don't know anything!" is another variation on CTers famous conversation-enders, calling someone "sheeple" or "brainwashed." Anyone who disagrees with lunatic theories gets this treatment, and I'm used to it by now. Always, as it did in this case, it ends the discussion on the note that the CT is no longer going to waste her time on you because you're so far gone into the clutches of the New World Order that you can't possibly be brought back over to reason.
You may think all of this has been a waste of time, and to some extent you're right; conspiracists, trained as they are to ignore evidence, twist arguments and cherry-pick quotes, usually can't be dissuaded from their quasi-religious beliefs that the whole world is out to get them and if we would only listen to them peace, love light and harmony would shower down upon us like manna from Heaven. However, although it's a waste of time to convert them, conspiracists have a virtual monopoly on the Internet, because no one on the Internet actually checks sources and most information there tends to be believed as truth, which is why the idiocy of AGW denial has gotten such traction in popular culture. I think it's important to let people know, people who may not yet be taken in by Alex Jones and the conspiracy underground, that they do not have a monopoly on the truth; far from it. [Name Withheld] may be a lost cause, but if so much as one person comes away from this thinking, hey, you know, global warming might not be a hoax, or those crazy Truthers and their exploding paint and beam weapons might just be fruitcakes after all, the time I spent debating her (and writing this blog) is well worth it.
Anatomy of a "Debate" With a Global Warming Denier and 9/11 Truther (Part I).
Author: Clock
Date: Jun 28, 2013 at 15:03
Written by Muertos
So, most people who know me know that I really hate conspiracy theories. I mean, I really hate them, to the point where I feel morally compelled to argue with them on the 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 chance that I might actually be able to change their minds. (Contrary to popular belief, it does happen--many prominent debunkers are former conspiracy theorists who realized the idiocy of their beliefs and turned their attention to arguing the other side). But when you get into the conspiracy debunking business you are bound to encounter some truly remarkable people. I encountered one such person this morning on Twitter, and it turned into one of the more entertaining exchanges I've had with the conspiracy crowd in quite a while. I thought I would post about it just to show you an amusing example of just how far out there conspiracy theorists really are, and how quickly they resort to their stock tired arguments about why the rest of us just don't get it.
This exchange was started by a re-tweet of a friend of mine, let's just call him "The Dude" (as in The Big Lebowski), who's one of my favorite posters on Twitter. So far as I can tell, The Dude is an outspoken Libertarian, which is fine, and he is as amused and appalled as I am by some of the crazier conspiracy theories out there, such as HAARP (supposedly a secret beam weapon that causes earthquakes). Evidently he does not believe in anthropogenic global warming, a subject we've disagreed on before in relatively good humor. He was the one who re-tweeted this, early this morning:
RT @[Name Withheld]:
In Twitter parlance this is a "re-tweet," where essentially you re-broadcast something you want others to read for whatever reason (not necessarily expressing agreement). My anti-conspiracy instincts kicked in here, so I did an @ reply to both, also as a RT. {Clock Comment:The green represents the Theorists tweets.} (if it were not, only those people who follow me and who also follow The Dude would have seen it, with a simple statement:
RT @[The Dude] @[Name Withheld]:
[Name Withheld], who I'd never heard of before this exchange, who doesn't follow me and whom I don't follow, replied within a few minutes:
Uh-oh. Sounding the call to battle! Well, I probably shouldn't have taken the bait, but I did. So, I did the first thing any good debunker does: ask what evidence the conspiracy theorist relies upon. This is a good move for a couple of reasons. First, it separates the men from the boys, so to speak; most of the lightweight CTs (conspiracy theorists) bug out at the mere mention of the word "evidence," and they won't be around for long. Second, the answer will tell you what kind of CT you're dealing with--whether they're an Alex Jones groupie, a tax protestor, an NWO/secret society believer, or (a rare breed) a non-conspiracist conservative who disagrees on global warming. Almost all CTs are Alex Jones fans, and Old Leatherlungs is a notorious source of lies and obfuscation on climate change as well as every other conspiracy theory under the sun, so I sort of begged the question in my reply:
@[Name Withheld]
[Note: the way you will tell in this blog who's talking to who, is the person to whom it is addressed is referenced at the beginning of the tweet with an @ symbol.]
"Wake up!" is one of those phrases you hear a lot from CTs. It goes along with "sheeple," their favorite word for people who don't believe conspiracy theories. Both buzzwords play into the concept which is the very bedrock of conspiracist belief: that the majority of people are "asleep" or unaware of what's really going on, but they, the CTs, are enlightened enough to understand the true nature of the world, and altruistic enough to try to bring this "truth" to the rest of us. This is the classic roleplay of conspiracism: the valiant, picked-on, everyman (or woman) theorist who boldly refuses to accept government and media "disinformation" and is out there fighting the good fight against the dark forces who supposedly control the world. At the mention of the words "Wake up!" I knew I had a live one on the hook.
So, I replied with a barrage of links. You don't need to click them all but of course I encourage you to do so, especially if you're a global warming denier yourself; they're generally links to scientific peer-reviewed studies of climate change data, blogs and online articles by scientists explaining them in plain language for non-scientists, and numerous other examples of the overwhelming scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is real and a urgent problem. Note specifically: not a single one of these links has anything to do with Al Gore. I also fashioned all of these as RT's, again so my followers could see them whether or not they were following the CT.
RT @[Name Withheld] "Where's the evidence for global warming?" Try here http://bit.ly/IhRxI and here http://bit.ly/53hAd for starters...
RT @[Name Withheld] "Where's the evidence for global warming?" I suggest you look at this http://bit.ly/aJ6Yhe & this http://bit.ly/aQqFzi
RT @[Name Withheld] "Where's the evidence for global warming?" You should also read this http://bit.ly/J8frJ and this http://bit.ly/4So3Bp
RT @[Name Withheld] "Where's the evidence for global warming?" Don't forget this http://bit.ly/n0xmY and this http://bit.ly/a4hkwC
She replies:
As usual whenever AGW deniers argue with debunkers, Al Gore is quickly trotted out and just as soon shot down. AGW deniers to a man (or woman) believe that Al Gore is the source of most climate change data--except when they believe that the East Anglia Climate Resource Unit is the source, for other reasons (see later on)--and attacking Al Gore's scientific credentials is usually a first step. Well, thanks, but Al Gore is not a scientist, he's a politician, and I don't think anyone would seriously maintain otherwise, so this is a silly objection.
One of the links in my barrage did reference a NASA study, and NASA has been on the forefront (especially on Twitter) of combating AGW denial online. But note again the instinctive play to conspiracist orthodoxy. NASA, as part of the government, is evil and automatically distrusted. [Name Withheld] also brings the word "scandal" in--which is a clear telegraph that eventually she'll bring up the CRU emails--and ends with "know [yo]ur facts," another CT meme meant to establish the inherent superiority of her information.
Yes, there has been, and all the scientific (not opinion) evidence collected since 2001 validates the conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change, whose 2001 report was one of my first links. The IPCC released a second report in 2007 confirming their initial conclusions. There has been no change in scientific consensus on AGW since 2001, and if anything it's gotten even more pronounced. What few peer-reviewed studies that have come out since 2001, such as the infamous 2007 paper by Gerlich and Tscheuschner that claims (hilariously!) that global warming violates the second law of thermodynamics, have been roundly denounced as pseudoscience and quackery, and their perpetrators exposed as fronts paid by large corporate interests to desperately create the illusion that AGW is scientifically controversial. Gerlich and Tseuschner is a very dull topic, but if you want to read about why they're quacks, go to this link and knock yourself out.
Well, this certainly looks definitive! However, let's just take a couple of the names on this list at random and see how they pan out. Sourcewatch (www.sourcewatch.org), a watchdog website of AGW denial front groups, is a good place to check out the credentials of scientists who oppose AGW:
Robert M. Carter (claims AGW is not happening at all): not a climatologist; member of Australian think tank funding "research" to impeach IPCC conclusions.
Sallie Louise Baliunas (claims climate change is natural): astrophysicist funded by the Western Fuels Association, a consortium of coal industry leaders.
Tad Murty (claims AGW is a hoax): outspoken member of an organization called Friends of Science, an oil industry-funded group that was recently under investigation in Canada for electioneering without registering as a political lobby group.
Need I go on?
Whenever you argue with a CT, you know Ron Paul is going to come into it somewhere, as he's basically the only politician CTs like (although most of them have no idea of the 30-year history he has of hawking conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia in his infamous newsletters). This link is to an article pushing the "Oregon Petition," which was an online petition dating from 1998--yes, that's right, 1998, twelve years and two Presidential administrations ago--of "scientists" claiming to oppose AGW theories. Mind you, this was before the IPCC report, and since 1998 very few of the "scientists" whose names appear on the petition still support it, or are even verified to be scientists. The Oregon Petition is, quite simply, a fraud. Don't take my word for it. Collected debunkings of this ancient turd are here, but don't count on the infallible Representative Paul to tell his thousands (millions?) of gullible followers that what he's pushing is, from start to finish, a sham.
The "31,000" number is right off Ron Paul's website, and refers to the Oregon Petition which I've already shown to be a fraud. Note again the use of "get a clue," as if I'm the one who's misinformed.
This argument has already turned into more entertainment than I ever hoped to have when I signed on to Twitter this morning, but it got better when I clicked on [Name Withheld]'s profile just to see what else she was talking about. In the "information" section of her profile she describes herself thusly, omitting irrelevant details:
9/11 "Truth" is, of course, the so-called "movement" that wants to try to convince you the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by [fill in the blank--George Bush, Israeli intelligence, Larry Silverstein, the Illuminati, or all of the above] as a "false flag" operation to justify...well, exactly what I'm not sure, because the story changes all the time. Only the most lunatic of the lunatic fringe believes 9/11 "Truth," a movement whose leaders include serial wife-batterer Charlie Sheen, former trash TV host Rosie O'Donnell (who lost her show The View in part because she couldn't shut up about nutty conspiracy theories) and the infamous Steven Jones, who we'll get to in a minute. In case you know little of the conspiracist underground, "N.W.O." means "New World Order," supposedly the totalitarian society a shadowy group called "the Illuminati" is trying to imprison us in. Never mind the fact that the Illuminati, a secret society that never had much influence anyway, has been defunct since the 1780s. No, that doesn't stop CTs from insisting that we're this close to total world domination by...well, again, not sure who, though you can be reasonably certain George H.W. Bush has something to do with it, because he used the words "new world order" in a speech in 1991. We're really zooming off into nutbar territory here, but that's what we signed up for.
I'm not even including the link to [Name Withheld]'s Myspace page which was included in her bio. Let's just say it involves lots of American flag and Statue of Liberty graphics along with impassioned pleas to expose pedophiles in the White House among other shocking things, and contains video embeds of the infamous packed-with-lies conspiracist film Zeitgeist, which itself spawned another whole creepy subculture of paranoid nonsense. We won't go there.
There's more to the story. Stay tuned for the hilarious conclusion!
This entry was posted in Conspiracy Debunking. Bookmark the permalink.
So, most people who know me know that I really hate conspiracy theories. I mean, I really hate them, to the point where I feel morally compelled to argue with them on the 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000 chance that I might actually be able to change their minds. (Contrary to popular belief, it does happen--many prominent debunkers are former conspiracy theorists who realized the idiocy of their beliefs and turned their attention to arguing the other side). But when you get into the conspiracy debunking business you are bound to encounter some truly remarkable people. I encountered one such person this morning on Twitter, and it turned into one of the more entertaining exchanges I've had with the conspiracy crowd in quite a while. I thought I would post about it just to show you an amusing example of just how far out there conspiracy theorists really are, and how quickly they resort to their stock tired arguments about why the rest of us just don't get it.
This exchange was started by a re-tweet of a friend of mine, let's just call him "The Dude" (as in The Big Lebowski), who's one of my favorite posters on Twitter. So far as I can tell, The Dude is an outspoken Libertarian, which is fine, and he is as amused and appalled as I am by some of the crazier conspiracy theories out there, such as HAARP (supposedly a secret beam weapon that causes earthquakes). Evidently he does not believe in anthropogenic global warming, a subject we've disagreed on before in relatively good humor. He was the one who re-tweeted this, early this morning:
RT @[Name Withheld]:
man made global warming is a fraud look into it.
In Twitter parlance this is a "re-tweet," where essentially you re-broadcast something you want others to read for whatever reason (not necessarily expressing agreement). My anti-conspiracy instincts kicked in here, so I did an @ reply to both, also as a RT. {Clock Comment:The green represents the Theorists tweets.} (if it were not, only those people who follow me and who also follow The Dude would have seen it, with a simple statement:
RT @[The Dude] @[Name Withheld]:
man made global warming is a fraud look into it.
<-I have looked into it, and it's not a fraud.[Name Withheld], who I'd never heard of before this exchange, who doesn't follow me and whom I don't follow, replied within a few minutes:
@muertos yes it is
Uh-oh. Sounding the call to battle! Well, I probably shouldn't have taken the bait, but I did. So, I did the first thing any good debunker does: ask what evidence the conspiracy theorist relies upon. This is a good move for a couple of reasons. First, it separates the men from the boys, so to speak; most of the lightweight CTs (conspiracy theorists) bug out at the mere mention of the word "evidence," and they won't be around for long. Second, the answer will tell you what kind of CT you're dealing with--whether they're an Alex Jones groupie, a tax protestor, an NWO/secret society believer, or (a rare breed) a non-conspiracist conservative who disagrees on global warming. Almost all CTs are Alex Jones fans, and Old Leatherlungs is a notorious source of lies and obfuscation on climate change as well as every other conspiracy theory under the sun, so I sort of begged the question in my reply:
@[Name Withheld]
@muertos yes it is [global warming a hoax]
<-What's your evidence for believing so? Hopefully not Alex Jones![Note: the way you will tell in this blog who's talking to who, is the person to whom it is addressed is referenced at the beginning of the tweet with an @ symbol.]
@muertos id love to hear you opposing thoughts and why it is not a fraud. It is a fraud seriously. Welcome to global government, wake up!
"Wake up!" is one of those phrases you hear a lot from CTs. It goes along with "sheeple," their favorite word for people who don't believe conspiracy theories. Both buzzwords play into the concept which is the very bedrock of conspiracist belief: that the majority of people are "asleep" or unaware of what's really going on, but they, the CTs, are enlightened enough to understand the true nature of the world, and altruistic enough to try to bring this "truth" to the rest of us. This is the classic roleplay of conspiracism: the valiant, picked-on, everyman (or woman) theorist who boldly refuses to accept government and media "disinformation" and is out there fighting the good fight against the dark forces who supposedly control the world. At the mention of the words "Wake up!" I knew I had a live one on the hook.
So, I replied with a barrage of links. You don't need to click them all but of course I encourage you to do so, especially if you're a global warming denier yourself; they're generally links to scientific peer-reviewed studies of climate change data, blogs and online articles by scientists explaining them in plain language for non-scientists, and numerous other examples of the overwhelming scientific consensus that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is real and a urgent problem. Note specifically: not a single one of these links has anything to do with Al Gore. I also fashioned all of these as RT's, again so my followers could see them whether or not they were following the CT.
RT @[Name Withheld] "Where's the evidence for global warming?" Try here http://bit.ly/IhRxI and here http://bit.ly/53hAd for starters...
RT @[Name Withheld] "Where's the evidence for global warming?" I suggest you look at this http://bit.ly/aJ6Yhe & this http://bit.ly/aQqFzi
RT @[Name Withheld] "Where's the evidence for global warming?" You should also read this http://bit.ly/J8frJ and this http://bit.ly/4So3Bp
RT @[Name Withheld] "Where's the evidence for global warming?" Don't forget this http://bit.ly/n0xmY and this http://bit.ly/a4hkwC
She replies:
@muertos no its not just Alex Jones its all the other evidence. Al Gore is full of shit and has NO scientific background
As usual whenever AGW deniers argue with debunkers, Al Gore is quickly trotted out and just as soon shot down. AGW deniers to a man (or woman) believe that Al Gore is the source of most climate change data--except when they believe that the East Anglia Climate Resource Unit is the source, for other reasons (see later on)--and attacking Al Gore's scientific credentials is usually a first step. Well, thanks, but Al Gore is not a scientist, he's a politician, and I don't think anyone would seriously maintain otherwise, so this is a silly objection.
@muertos ok first off FYI NASA is owned by the government and is a part of this scandal which is being confronted first off know ur facts
One of the links in my barrage did reference a NASA study, and NASA has been on the forefront (especially on Twitter) of combating AGW denial online. But note again the instinctive play to conspiracist orthodoxy. NASA, as part of the government, is evil and automatically distrusted. [Name Withheld] also brings the word "scandal" in--which is a clear telegraph that eventually she'll bring up the CRU emails--and ends with "know [yo]ur facts," another CT meme meant to establish the inherent superiority of her information.
@muertos i think there has been a lot more actual and factual scientific data collected since 2001. Look it up.
Yes, there has been, and all the scientific (not opinion) evidence collected since 2001 validates the conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change, whose 2001 report was one of my first links. The IPCC released a second report in 2007 confirming their initial conclusions. There has been no change in scientific consensus on AGW since 2001, and if anything it's gotten even more pronounced. What few peer-reviewed studies that have come out since 2001, such as the infamous 2007 paper by Gerlich and Tscheuschner that claims (hilariously!) that global warming violates the second law of thermodynamics, have been roundly denounced as pseudoscience and quackery, and their perpetrators exposed as fronts paid by large corporate interests to desperately create the illusion that AGW is scientifically controversial. Gerlich and Tseuschner is a very dull topic, but if you want to read about why they're quacks, go to this link and knock yourself out.
Well, this certainly looks definitive! However, let's just take a couple of the names on this list at random and see how they pan out. Sourcewatch (www.sourcewatch.org), a watchdog website of AGW denial front groups, is a good place to check out the credentials of scientists who oppose AGW:
Robert M. Carter (claims AGW is not happening at all): not a climatologist; member of Australian think tank funding "research" to impeach IPCC conclusions.
Sallie Louise Baliunas (claims climate change is natural): astrophysicist funded by the Western Fuels Association, a consortium of coal industry leaders.
Tad Murty (claims AGW is a hoax): outspoken member of an organization called Friends of Science, an oil industry-funded group that was recently under investigation in Canada for electioneering without registering as a political lobby group.
Need I go on?
@muertos http://freethemarketman.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/31478-scientists-rejects-global-warming-theory/
Whenever you argue with a CT, you know Ron Paul is going to come into it somewhere, as he's basically the only politician CTs like (although most of them have no idea of the 30-year history he has of hawking conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia in his infamous newsletters). This link is to an article pushing the "Oregon Petition," which was an online petition dating from 1998--yes, that's right, 1998, twelve years and two Presidential administrations ago--of "scientists" claiming to oppose AGW theories. Mind you, this was before the IPCC report, and since 1998 very few of the "scientists" whose names appear on the petition still support it, or are even verified to be scientists. The Oregon Petition is, quite simply, a fraud. Don't take my word for it. Collected debunkings of this ancient turd are here, but don't count on the infallible Representative Paul to tell his thousands (millions?) of gullible followers that what he's pushing is, from start to finish, a sham.
@muertos hmmm more and more evidence because 31,000 scientist are totally wrong right! Get a clue
The "31,000" number is right off Ron Paul's website, and refers to the Oregon Petition which I've already shown to be a fraud. Note again the use of "get a clue," as if I'm the one who's misinformed.
This argument has already turned into more entertainment than I ever hoped to have when I signed on to Twitter this morning, but it got better when I clicked on [Name Withheld]'s profile just to see what else she was talking about. In the "information" section of her profile she describes herself thusly, omitting irrelevant details:
"Bio... 911 Truth Activist, and I expose the N.W.O."
9/11 "Truth" is, of course, the so-called "movement" that wants to try to convince you the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by [fill in the blank--George Bush, Israeli intelligence, Larry Silverstein, the Illuminati, or all of the above] as a "false flag" operation to justify...well, exactly what I'm not sure, because the story changes all the time. Only the most lunatic of the lunatic fringe believes 9/11 "Truth," a movement whose leaders include serial wife-batterer Charlie Sheen, former trash TV host Rosie O'Donnell (who lost her show The View in part because she couldn't shut up about nutty conspiracy theories) and the infamous Steven Jones, who we'll get to in a minute. In case you know little of the conspiracist underground, "N.W.O." means "New World Order," supposedly the totalitarian society a shadowy group called "the Illuminati" is trying to imprison us in. Never mind the fact that the Illuminati, a secret society that never had much influence anyway, has been defunct since the 1780s. No, that doesn't stop CTs from insisting that we're this close to total world domination by...well, again, not sure who, though you can be reasonably certain George H.W. Bush has something to do with it, because he used the words "new world order" in a speech in 1991. We're really zooming off into nutbar territory here, but that's what we signed up for.
I'm not even including the link to [Name Withheld]'s Myspace page which was included in her bio. Let's just say it involves lots of American flag and Statue of Liberty graphics along with impassioned pleas to expose pedophiles in the White House among other shocking things, and contains video embeds of the infamous packed-with-lies conspiracist film Zeitgeist, which itself spawned another whole creepy subculture of paranoid nonsense. We won't go there.
There's more to the story. Stay tuned for the hilarious conclusion!
This entry was posted in Conspiracy Debunking. Bookmark the permalink.
Nine Years On: September 11, The Anniversary, and the Deluded Deniers.
Author: Clock
Date: Jun 28, 2013 at 14:55
Written by Muertos
Tomorrow is September 11, 2010, the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania. On this occasion, we should stop and remember those who died on that terrible day and their families, and especially the heroic first responders--firefighters, police, EMTs and others--who gave their lives to save others. Never in the history of America will this anniversary ever pass without a solemn remembrance of who and what we lost.
There are those, however, who will not be granting respect to the victims of 9/11, to our firefighters, police officers, military and civilian officials, and ordinary citizens who did heroic things on that day. The group who will not be doing so is a small, and thankfully dwindling, population of hard-core conspiracy theorists who refuse to believe the facts of what happened on September 11, instead using the event to push an agenda of paranoia, fear, and often of anti-Semitism and intolerance. If you're at Ground Zero tomorrow, you may see a few of them--a very few--chanting through bullhorns, passing out flyers and wearing "Investigate 9/11" T-shirts.
These are the people who will tell you that, despite Osama bin Laden's confession to 9/11 and those of his cohorts who planned and executed this terrible act, "a bunch of guys with box cutters couldn't have done this." As if people from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan are too stupid and backwards to do anything right. Yes, this racist view is common among 9/11 deniers.
These are the people who will tell you that it had to be a "controlled demolition" because "jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel." Never mind that there was a lot more burning than jet fuel, that the steel was weakened (not melted), and that independent scientific analysis has proven exactly how the World Trade Center towers collapsed--9/11 deniers breeze past all of this in their zeal to pin the crime on an enemy they dislike, which is usually the U.S. or Israeli governments or an imaginary group called "the Illuminati" or "the New World Order."
These are the people who will tell you that "the people" (meaning the victims of the planes hijacked on 9/11) "are secondary," meaning, they don't believe they really died, or, if they did, they don't care. "The people are really secondary" is a direct quote from conspiracy theorist Dylan Avery, who created the 2005 documentary Loose Change and who believes the passengers may have been in on it.
These are the people who will look at a photo of a woman standing in the burning maw of the World Trade Center where the plane struck and will remark that "her clothes aren't even singed." This is a direct quote, again from Dylan Avery, regarding Edna Cintron, who died in the World Trade Center disaster.
These are the people who will tell you that Barbara Olson, who called her husband from Flight 93 to say goodbye, wasn't really on that plane, and that her voice was "morphed" through some super-secret technology. Barbara Olson was a real woman who really died on September 11. Conspiracy theorists don't care about her.
These are the people who will tell you that Todd Beamer, a genuine American hero who led the passenger revolt that prevented Flight 93 from crashing into the Capitol or the White House, was a government plant and that his "Let's roll!" statement was a jingoistic slogan trumped up to have emotional effect. Conspiracy theorists aren't impressed by what Todd Beamer did. They don't care about the people whose lives he helped save.
These are the people who will tell you that New York City firefighters are under some sort of "gag order" to prevent them from telling the world what they supposedly know about "controlled demolition." This despite the fact that many of the firefighters' friends and co-workers died on 9/11. Conspiracy theorists don't care about the firefighters. They slander them instead.
These are the people who will tell you that Osama bin Laden, who confessed in an authenticated video message in October 2004 to personally masterminding the 9/11 attacks, is innocent. Yes, conspiracy theorists think this man, who has the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands, was "funded by the CIA" and was totally blameless--despite the fact that he confessed. Conspiracy theorists don't care about justice for Osama bin Laden. They celebrate him instead.
These are the people who will tell you that there were no bodies at the Pentagon--ignoring the horrific carnage there that is well documented, such as this [WARNING: graphic image].Conspiracy theorists don't care who this person was or the horrific manner in which they died.
These are the people who will tell you that the "alleged" hijackers are still alive--despite all evidence to the contrary. Yet, ask a conspiracy theorist why no one has tried to contact one of them, all you'll get is excuses. Conspiracy theorists don't care about these supposedly innocent people.
These are the people who will tell you there were no planes at all and that what flew into the World Trade Center towers were holographic projections because the towers were blown up with beam weapons. Yes, there are many 9/11 deniers who really believe that.
These are the people who will tell you that Larry Silverstein, a totally innocent man, is not only guilty of blowing up World Trade Center 7, but that he "admitted" it on a scripted PBS documentary made a year later. Conspiracy theorists don't care about smearing the reputations of innocent people.
These are the people who will tell you that the confession of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was one of the operational planners of the attacks, is invalid because it was tortured out of him, despite the fact that Mohammed detailed his role voluntarily for an Al-Jazeera documentary that was made before he was even captured by U.S. forces. Conspiracy theorists don't care that he's guilty. They won't even mount a campaign for his legal defense in his upcoming trial. Why? They don't care.
These are the people who will tell you that because George W. Bush read a storybook to children in a classroom right after being told about 9/11, that must prove that he did it. Conspiracy theorists don't care about logic or reason. They care about fingering Bush for 9/11 despite all evidence to the contrary.
These are the people who will tell you that 9/11 was part of a Jewish world conspiracy--the same conspiracy, some of them claim, that involved the faking or deliberate exaggeration of the Holocaust. Yes, many 9/11 Truthers are Holocaust deniers. Conspiracy theorists don't care how hateful, hurtful or toxic this sort of thing is, and how it offends every rational thinking person.
It's astonishing that, nine years after the disaster, these asinine beliefs are still out there and still command adherents. But they do. 9/11 denial will probably never die away totally. Conspiracy thinking is notoriously difficult to stamp out, and it's corrosive to logic and reason everywhere it appears. I've been battling 9/11 deniers for years. No matter how many times you show them the NIST report, or photos of bodies at the Pentagon, or try to get them to care about the real people with real families who died in this tragedy, they persist in droning on about melting points and free-fall speeds, about how the Project for a New American Century supposedly predicted a "new Pearl Harbor," or how Bush and Cheney are war criminals and Obama is no better. These people won't listen to reason. No amount of evidence will convince them. They're allergic to evidence. It will never convince them.
I am contemptuous of 9/11 deniers, that's undeniable. But at the same time I pity them. What must it be like to live in a world so ruled by fear and paranoia that you see conspiracies everywhere you turn, where public service is synonymous with corruption and evil, and where evidence means nothing? What is it that drives these people to reject so totally the dictates of logic and critical thinking--and ignore the human cost of a tragedy as vast as 9/11? I couldn't live in the conspiracy theorists' world. I wouldn't want to.
But, as sad and pathetic as 9/11 deniers are, let us never forget that human cost. Every person who died on 9/11 had a family, had friends. Many of the innocent victims had young children whose parent will never come back. Many of the survivors have trauma and scars that last to this day. The shadow of the tragedy of 9/11 will be cast over American society for many decades to come. Despite the shrill calls of the deniers who refuse to accept what really happened, our focus on this anniversary should be to remember the dead, the sacrifices of the heroes, and try to move forward in a way that validates and makes sense of what has happened.
My heart goes out to everyone who lost a loved one or a friend on September 11, 2001. Let us never forget or never lose sight of the truth of that day.
Tomorrow is September 11, 2010, the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania. On this occasion, we should stop and remember those who died on that terrible day and their families, and especially the heroic first responders--firefighters, police, EMTs and others--who gave their lives to save others. Never in the history of America will this anniversary ever pass without a solemn remembrance of who and what we lost.
There are those, however, who will not be granting respect to the victims of 9/11, to our firefighters, police officers, military and civilian officials, and ordinary citizens who did heroic things on that day. The group who will not be doing so is a small, and thankfully dwindling, population of hard-core conspiracy theorists who refuse to believe the facts of what happened on September 11, instead using the event to push an agenda of paranoia, fear, and often of anti-Semitism and intolerance. If you're at Ground Zero tomorrow, you may see a few of them--a very few--chanting through bullhorns, passing out flyers and wearing "Investigate 9/11" T-shirts.
These are the people who will tell you that, despite Osama bin Laden's confession to 9/11 and those of his cohorts who planned and executed this terrible act, "a bunch of guys with box cutters couldn't have done this." As if people from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan are too stupid and backwards to do anything right. Yes, this racist view is common among 9/11 deniers.
These are the people who will tell you that it had to be a "controlled demolition" because "jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel." Never mind that there was a lot more burning than jet fuel, that the steel was weakened (not melted), and that independent scientific analysis has proven exactly how the World Trade Center towers collapsed--9/11 deniers breeze past all of this in their zeal to pin the crime on an enemy they dislike, which is usually the U.S. or Israeli governments or an imaginary group called "the Illuminati" or "the New World Order."
These are the people who will tell you that "the people" (meaning the victims of the planes hijacked on 9/11) "are secondary," meaning, they don't believe they really died, or, if they did, they don't care. "The people are really secondary" is a direct quote from conspiracy theorist Dylan Avery, who created the 2005 documentary Loose Change and who believes the passengers may have been in on it.
These are the people who will look at a photo of a woman standing in the burning maw of the World Trade Center where the plane struck and will remark that "her clothes aren't even singed." This is a direct quote, again from Dylan Avery, regarding Edna Cintron, who died in the World Trade Center disaster.
These are the people who will tell you that Barbara Olson, who called her husband from Flight 93 to say goodbye, wasn't really on that plane, and that her voice was "morphed" through some super-secret technology. Barbara Olson was a real woman who really died on September 11. Conspiracy theorists don't care about her.
These are the people who will tell you that Todd Beamer, a genuine American hero who led the passenger revolt that prevented Flight 93 from crashing into the Capitol or the White House, was a government plant and that his "Let's roll!" statement was a jingoistic slogan trumped up to have emotional effect. Conspiracy theorists aren't impressed by what Todd Beamer did. They don't care about the people whose lives he helped save.
These are the people who will tell you that New York City firefighters are under some sort of "gag order" to prevent them from telling the world what they supposedly know about "controlled demolition." This despite the fact that many of the firefighters' friends and co-workers died on 9/11. Conspiracy theorists don't care about the firefighters. They slander them instead.
These are the people who will tell you that Osama bin Laden, who confessed in an authenticated video message in October 2004 to personally masterminding the 9/11 attacks, is innocent. Yes, conspiracy theorists think this man, who has the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands, was "funded by the CIA" and was totally blameless--despite the fact that he confessed. Conspiracy theorists don't care about justice for Osama bin Laden. They celebrate him instead.
These are the people who will tell you that there were no bodies at the Pentagon--ignoring the horrific carnage there that is well documented, such as this [WARNING: graphic image].Conspiracy theorists don't care who this person was or the horrific manner in which they died.
These are the people who will tell you that the "alleged" hijackers are still alive--despite all evidence to the contrary. Yet, ask a conspiracy theorist why no one has tried to contact one of them, all you'll get is excuses. Conspiracy theorists don't care about these supposedly innocent people.
These are the people who will tell you there were no planes at all and that what flew into the World Trade Center towers were holographic projections because the towers were blown up with beam weapons. Yes, there are many 9/11 deniers who really believe that.
These are the people who will tell you that Larry Silverstein, a totally innocent man, is not only guilty of blowing up World Trade Center 7, but that he "admitted" it on a scripted PBS documentary made a year later. Conspiracy theorists don't care about smearing the reputations of innocent people.
These are the people who will tell you that the confession of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was one of the operational planners of the attacks, is invalid because it was tortured out of him, despite the fact that Mohammed detailed his role voluntarily for an Al-Jazeera documentary that was made before he was even captured by U.S. forces. Conspiracy theorists don't care that he's guilty. They won't even mount a campaign for his legal defense in his upcoming trial. Why? They don't care.
These are the people who will tell you that because George W. Bush read a storybook to children in a classroom right after being told about 9/11, that must prove that he did it. Conspiracy theorists don't care about logic or reason. They care about fingering Bush for 9/11 despite all evidence to the contrary.
These are the people who will tell you that 9/11 was part of a Jewish world conspiracy--the same conspiracy, some of them claim, that involved the faking or deliberate exaggeration of the Holocaust. Yes, many 9/11 Truthers are Holocaust deniers. Conspiracy theorists don't care how hateful, hurtful or toxic this sort of thing is, and how it offends every rational thinking person.
It's astonishing that, nine years after the disaster, these asinine beliefs are still out there and still command adherents. But they do. 9/11 denial will probably never die away totally. Conspiracy thinking is notoriously difficult to stamp out, and it's corrosive to logic and reason everywhere it appears. I've been battling 9/11 deniers for years. No matter how many times you show them the NIST report, or photos of bodies at the Pentagon, or try to get them to care about the real people with real families who died in this tragedy, they persist in droning on about melting points and free-fall speeds, about how the Project for a New American Century supposedly predicted a "new Pearl Harbor," or how Bush and Cheney are war criminals and Obama is no better. These people won't listen to reason. No amount of evidence will convince them. They're allergic to evidence. It will never convince them.
I am contemptuous of 9/11 deniers, that's undeniable. But at the same time I pity them. What must it be like to live in a world so ruled by fear and paranoia that you see conspiracies everywhere you turn, where public service is synonymous with corruption and evil, and where evidence means nothing? What is it that drives these people to reject so totally the dictates of logic and critical thinking--and ignore the human cost of a tragedy as vast as 9/11? I couldn't live in the conspiracy theorists' world. I wouldn't want to.
But, as sad and pathetic as 9/11 deniers are, let us never forget that human cost. Every person who died on 9/11 had a family, had friends. Many of the innocent victims had young children whose parent will never come back. Many of the survivors have trauma and scars that last to this day. The shadow of the tragedy of 9/11 will be cast over American society for many decades to come. Despite the shrill calls of the deniers who refuse to accept what really happened, our focus on this anniversary should be to remember the dead, the sacrifices of the heroes, and try to move forward in a way that validates and makes sense of what has happened.
My heart goes out to everyone who lost a loved one or a friend on September 11, 2001. Let us never forget or never lose sight of the truth of that day.
The Truth About 9/11 Truth...And Debunking.
Author: Clock
Date: Jun 28, 2013 at 14:46
Written by Muertos
Republished by Clock
Once in a while you read something that puts a complicated subject into such clear and perfect perspective that it instantly becomes, by virtue of its cogency, virtually the last word on the subject. I had that experience recently with a paper by Ryan Mackey, a former debunker from the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) forums, on the subject of 9/11 conspiracy theories. I'm devoting a blog post specifically to bring this article to the attention of my readers because I believe it's that important and it deserves to be highlighted.
Mackey has written a paper called The Great Internet Conspiracy: The Role of Technology and Social Media in the 9/11 Truth Movement. Currently the paper is available as a .PDF file here. (http://www.911myths.com/tgitc_1_0_final.pdf) It's 83 pages long, including footnotes and sources. This paper should be required reading, both for the misguided souls out there who are still unfortunate enough to believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories, but also--and even more importantly--for those of us who have devoted considerable time and effort to refuting and debunking these theories. Mackey's paper shines a very interesting light on us, our motivations, and our actions, and it does so in a way I have not seen before.
Why Did 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Take Off?
Mackey's main point in the paper is to analyze how and why 9/11 conspiracy theories rose and eventually fell in the public consciousness. His main thesis is that the short-lived popularity of conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks was largely due to a "perfect storm" of converging factors, chief among them the changing role of the Internet in peoples' social lives and identities.
Some of the main related points that Mackey makes are:
He argues that "9/11 Truth" peaked in 2006 and has been on a steady decline since then. He backs this up with observations on how popular Truther activism has been since 2006 (not much), how many people are still out there talking about 9/11 conspiracy theories (not many), and what the general public's view of "Truthers" is today (most people think they're nuts, or simply ignore them).
He argues that the brief surge in popularity of "9/11 Truth" is not an effect of the content of the conspiracy theory. He gets there by analyzing 9/11 conspiracy theories in the context of other conspiracy theories that have been popular over the past 30 years, such as the "Apollo moon hoax" or Columbine school massacre conspiracies.
He argues that what made "9/11 Truth" seem to have more importance than it did was the activist nature of some of its purveyors--such as Richard Gage, whose tactics of taking the conspiracy theory to the public differ greatly from previous pre-9/11 conspiracy theorists who are mostly content with talking about conspiracy theories in small insular groups that don't reach out to others.
This is a key point. Mackey says:
"So that is it in a nutshell - there we have the secret ingredient that distinguished the 9/11 conspiracy theories from others. It had somehow mutated from the traditional, imaginative, individual realm of personal fantasy into an aggressive strain of misguided activism. In so doing it had insulted the public and made itself look far more fearsome than it actually was. My Internet-based metric of "popularity" was detecting something different than I had expected. I was not measuring an increase in the number of conspiracy theorists or in their coherent mobilization behind a single cause. Instead, I was only finding the volume and rancor of the arguments between a few noisy Truthers and everyone else. "
The reason for this misguided activism? Social media, says Mackey. The heyday of "9/11 Truth" was also the heyday of MySpace, the first real social networking site to take off. It was also the time when YouTube burst into the public consciousness. I've written before about how and why YouTube is uniquely attractive to conspiracy theorists. The convergence of these factors, says Mackey, meant it was suddenly easy for misguided Truthers, most of whom are too lazy to go out and do any activism in the real world, to pretend to be activists by forwarding links to YouTube videos supportive of the conspiracy theory. This, combined with the ferocity of how Truthers argue with people who don't support their theories, made it look as if legions of tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists were having a real impact on public consciousness--when in fact their decline had already begun.
Is The Truth Movement Dead? Yes.
The refreshing thing about Mackey's paper--and one that comes as welcome news to me, as it should to other debunkers--is its confirmation of what I think most of us have suspected for quite a while now: the 9/11 Truth movement is dead. By that I mean, it is not totally extinct, as you can see from a few hard-core dead-enders out there still preaching the faith, but it's basically "as dead as it's going to get." Mackey has this to say:
"With its best days behind it, the Truth Movement is once again just another ordinary conspiracy theory. But there is no reason to assume it will totally disappear. Of the thirty popular conspiracy theories we examined earlier, almost all can still gather attention and spawn debate today, usually in strange corners of the internet such as the David Icke Forum or Above Top Secret. On rare occasions, they may even be seen in real life. I'm betting, however, you won't catch even a glimpse of the Truth Movement. "
This is entirely consistent with my own observations. The websites that trafficked in 9/11 Truth in 2005/06 are now either gone or just about dead. Loose Change, which Mackey credits with being a huge boon to the Truth movement, is discredited now--including by its own creator Dylan Avery, who has disavowed most of it. Mark Roberts, the "Obi-Wan Kenobi of debunkers" who ran the single best website to debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories on the entire Internet, hasn't updated the site in almost three years. The ten-year anniversary of 9/11 saw virtually no organized activity by Truthers. Indeed, there is little reason to think that 9/11 Truth is going anywhere but into the dustbin of history.
Mackey is also right that it won't ever totally disappear. My latest, and possibly, last debunking effort is against a new Internet conspiracy theory film called Thrive, which mentions (in passing) 9/11 conspiracy theories. I still occasionally get angry responses from Truthers on Twitter who don't like when I say something that supports the "official story." But the chances of 9/11 Truth having a major resurgence are virtually nil. It's just not going to happen.
That is, frankly, a relief.
Is Debunking Worthwhile? Yes, and no.
Some of the most startling issues in Mackey's paper, at least to me, regard his views of debunkers--of which he admits he was (and possibly still is) one. Early in the paper he tackles the very thorny question about whether systematic opposition to 9/11 conspiracy theories--arguing with Truthers on the Internet, basically--has any real point. After concluding that a small portion of his time spent since 2005 pushing back against 9/11 conspiracy theories was worthwhile, Mackey says:
"The majority however was clearly wasted, or more accurately of no value beyond simple entertainment. Like many others, I would often self-justify my involvement with the notion that other readers, those with a less technical background who might be swayed by the Truth Movement, would read my comments and learn from them. Over the years I have received messages and e-mails from a few people who were convinced by my efforts, but only a very few - around ten. Many more (in the hundreds) were those who wrote simply because they too were irritated by Truthers, or engaged in their own arguments against Truthers, and found my contributions useful or amusing. And, of course, there were the Truthers themselves, numbering about forty, who wished only to argue with me on a private channel in addition to the public debate. Some even wrote just to issue vague threats about what would happen to "traitors" and "collaborators" once they achieved their Utopia. There were also a few who were so incoherent that I wondered how they'd managed to operate a computer in the first place. But that's all - a very small group indeed."
This also mirrors my own experience exactly. I do occasionally receive messages of thanks from former conspiracy theorists who have read my stuff and taken from it some useful information with which to change their worldview--such as the fellow who recently thanked me for helping him get out of the pro-conspiracist Zeitgeist Movement. But Mackey's observations about how few these really are, and especially about self-justifying, also ring true.
This may be something that debunkers don't really want to hear. I mean, we spend a lot of time pushing back against these idiotic theories, demonstrating why they're wrong and explaining why people shouldn't believe in them. It's sobering to have someone tell us that most of this time is wasted. But Mackey may have a point. Whether you agree with him or not, you have to admit it's worth serious consideration.
Who Are Debunkers? Why Do We Do What We Do?
Even more startling than Mackey's views on the usefulness of debunking, however, is his description of who debunkers are and why we do what we do. This may also be unpopular in the skeptic crowd, but it's worth taking a look at what he has to say:
"[T]he "debunkers" opposing the Truth Movement do not merely correct misinformation invented by Truthers, but go further, opposing the mindset and social mechanisms that gave the Truth Movement a place to form. The modern debunkers view the Truth Movement as a defective world view that somehow escaped summary judgment and gained acceptance on the Internet, defying the "system" of the Marketplace of Ideas and thereby requiring a systematic response. Unfortunately, a permanent solution is not actually achievable. There is no way to stamp out all Truthers, particularly not while preserving the spirit of open exchange the Internet supposedly represents.
As a result of this frustration, many debunkers have noticed a reactionary, obsessive behavior appearing in their ranks, one that occasionally manifests with fervor reminiscent of anti-Communism. And strangely, these incidents seem to be increasing, even though the Truth Movement is in full retreat. I uncovered signs of this myself in a small 2009 opinion poll on the JREF Forum, where a plurality of respondents indicated not just willingness, but actual desire, to continue arguing with Truthers to the bitter end."
Again, my own experience has confirmed absolutely what Mackey has said. I recognize this behavior even in myself. There is no question that I believe conspiracy theorists in general, and 9/11 Truthers in particular, have a defective worldview that should be stamped out if at all possible. If deconstructing this worldview is not possible--as I concede it is not--the next best thing is to relegate conspiracy theorists to a permanent status of marginalization, a lunatic fringe with such immediate negative associations that it can never, and will never, achieve any sort of mainstream acceptance. I've certainly directed a lot of effort toward this end, and I believe my efforts have been successful, at least to the limited extent that success is realistically possible in this realm.
In his (and our) defense, Mackey goes on to say:
"But while this kind of determined retaliation is counter-productive, it is understandable. After all, if the free market of ideas seems to be failing, many will rush to shore it up. A Utopian Internet that only educates, never misleads, is certainly a worthy goal. It just isn't realistic."
This is also probably true. My own personal motivations for debunking do not stem from a "Utopian" vision of the Internet--I have always accepted, and still do, that the vast majority of the Internet is polluted with worthless crap, and in such an environment toxic mindsets such as conspiracy theories will undoubtedly flourish. I don't take a very philosophical approach to the Internet in general. However, one of my main motivations in debunking is to make sure that there is at least some factually accurate and logically supportable information out there next to the crap--to make sure that someone who Googles "Thrive movie" or "Zeitgeist Movement" at least gets some genuine information instead of propaganda spun to support a conspiracy theorist viewpoint. So, to this extent, I agree with Mackey's observation again.
One thing that should be made clear-and one thing that is in danger of being misinterpreted by conspiracy theorists-is the idea that agreement with Mackey's points regarding the pathology of debunkers implies that any arguments made by debunkers in that context are in any way invalid. Every criticism I have ever made about conspiracy theories, conspiracy movements or cults, or the conspiracy theory worldview is 100% correct so far as I know it, and one of the major tenets of skepticism is to approach things of this nature with facts that can be verified and reasoning that is logically sound. People's reasons for debunking may vary. Whatever they are, it does not affect the content of the arguments they have presented. This is what separates debunkers from conspiracy theorists. Debunkers employ true arguments and cogent reasoning to destroy conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists will not shirk at deploying demonstrably false arguments to support their views, because in their minds the end justifies the means. This point must be clearly understood in order for this evaluation of Mackey's thesis to make sense, but it's a point I suspect will be completely lost on conspiracy nuts.
Do We Have To Worry About Conspiracy Theories?
In the final sections of Mackey's paper, he makes a very interesting argument. He claims that in today's rapid-fire Internet environment, dominated by instant social media like Twitter, the rise and fall of a conspiracy theory which in 2005/06 might have taken years can instead now take weeks, days, or even hours. He gives two interesting examples: the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory, and the supposition, promoted primarily by Truthers, that Osama bin Laden was not killed by U.S. forces on May 1, 2011.
About the first, Mackey says:
"The Birther conspiracy theory...made the jump into the mainstream very quickly. Unlike the Truth Movement, it seems to have begun its runaway growth phase in only a matter of months, steeply increasing in popularity from mid-2009 through April 2011. It peaked with something like 30% of Americans believing the conspiracy theory (there is a lot of scatter in the polls), but then rapidly slipped to a stable support level of about 10%. Overall, this trajectory is comparable to the Truth Movement's popularity, except for the greatly accelerated leap into public view.
This behavior is consistent with our theory of Internet-fueled growth: Unlike the Truth Movement, the Birther conspiracy already had activists and an argumentative public, courtesy of an unusually contentious period in politics, and already had social media to spread its message. However, the type of information being discussed was much less engaging - one might spend hours poring over a .GIF image of an old birth certificate...but there just wasn't anything as shocking as 9/11 to be found this time. It thus comes as no surprise that it would enter the mainstream more quickly, attract a significant number of low-commitment supporters as before, and then dissipate once the conspiracists had exhausted their argument."
About the Osama bin Laden conspiracy theory--the "Deathers"-he says this:
"We see a similar pattern in the Deather conspiracy theory, except here the timeline is compressed even further. This conspiracy theory exploded into the mainstream at the same speed as the news story it challenged, reaching the media almost instantly. One amusing note comes from David Wiegel of Slate, who referred to "Osama bin Trutherism" in an opinion piece on the very day bin Laden's death was announced. A few polls showed a sudden spike of believers, as high as 20% to 30% in various hastily-conducted media surveys, but after only a week it was clear that the conspiracy theory was already in decline. As Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling described it on 10 May 2011, only half-joking, "we've got more voters who think the President is the Anti-Christ than think Osama bin Laden is still alive."
From the standpoint of debunkers, I was on the front lines during the rise and fall of the "Deather" theory. Mackey points out that this theory was spread primarily by Twitter. I am a very heavy Twitter user. On the morning after bin Laden's death was announced, I was already responding to angry @ replies by conspiracy theorists--many of them undoubtedly Truthers--who had begun to argue that bin Laden wasn't really dead, or that the circumstances of his death were very different than reported, etc. Within 12 hours of the announcement of bin Laden's death, I was already armed with links to news stories and other sources that indicated the true circumstances behind bin Laden's death and especially his hasty burial at sea, and I was deploying them against the "Deathers" who used the same sort of spurious arguments that Truthers used to try to show that 9/11 was an inside job. However, I remember being surprised that "Deatherism" died out (no pun intended) within a week. Now it is extremely rare for me to be directly confronted with a bin Laden death conspiracy theory, on Twitter or anywhere else. This conspiracy theory is also dead.
Is there hope in these examples? Mackey seems to think so. The Internet now moves much faster than it did in 2005/06, and even much faster than in early 2009 when Orly Taitz was out there pushing her Birther garbage. Now, Mackey argues, it is possible to witness the entire life-cycle of a major conspiracy theory in a matter of days. His observations about how conspiracy theories peak among people with "low commitment" to them, and then fade to about a 10% support rate, is extremely interesting. 9/11 Truth is now at about this level, and most of us (debunkers) think 9/11 Truth is the biggest and baddest conspiracy theory on the block. If Birtherism and Deatherism can rise, peak and fade so quickly, do we need to be concerned about future conspiracy theories?
Are we ever going to get another conspiracy theory like 9/11? A theory that is prominent enough to create social movements and cults, like the Zeitgeist Movement? Hopefully an event like 9/11 will never happen again, but even if it does, there is some suggestion in Mackey's analysis that perhaps the conspiracy theories that would inevitably result from it might have much less public saturation and staying power than 9/11 theories. We can only hope.
Conclusion
9/11 conspiracy theories are utterly untrue. They are asinine, insulting, brain-corroding garbage. That is beyond question. In analyzing why these ridiculous theories took hold--among conspiracy theorists and debunkers alike--Mackey has given us, I think, some very valuable insights not only into the pathology of conspiracy theories, but into the minds of those who believe them and those who push back against them.
I am certainly what Mackey would consider a "high commitment" debunker, meaning, I feel it is particularly important to push back against conspiracy theories. I am also quite possibly a product of my times. I came to the debunking community in 2005, just about the time 9/11 Truth theories were exploding, and my first real forum of debunking was on MySpace, the first serious social networking website. MySpace, of course, is dead. No one goes there anymore. 9/11 Truth is virtually dead; almost no one believes it anymore. We now live in an age of Twitter, Google Plus and communications that move at a speed impossible to believe even in 2005. Perhaps, lurking behind Mackey's fascinating analysis, is an argument that exactly the thing that propagates conspiracy theories in the modern world--the Internet--can also serve as a limitation on their reach. I sincerely hope that is true.
Thanks for reading.
Republished by Clock
Once in a while you read something that puts a complicated subject into such clear and perfect perspective that it instantly becomes, by virtue of its cogency, virtually the last word on the subject. I had that experience recently with a paper by Ryan Mackey, a former debunker from the JREF (James Randi Educational Foundation) forums, on the subject of 9/11 conspiracy theories. I'm devoting a blog post specifically to bring this article to the attention of my readers because I believe it's that important and it deserves to be highlighted.
Mackey has written a paper called The Great Internet Conspiracy: The Role of Technology and Social Media in the 9/11 Truth Movement. Currently the paper is available as a .PDF file here. (http://www.911myths.com/tgitc_1_0_final.pdf) It's 83 pages long, including footnotes and sources. This paper should be required reading, both for the misguided souls out there who are still unfortunate enough to believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories, but also--and even more importantly--for those of us who have devoted considerable time and effort to refuting and debunking these theories. Mackey's paper shines a very interesting light on us, our motivations, and our actions, and it does so in a way I have not seen before.
Why Did 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Take Off?
Mackey's main point in the paper is to analyze how and why 9/11 conspiracy theories rose and eventually fell in the public consciousness. His main thesis is that the short-lived popularity of conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks was largely due to a "perfect storm" of converging factors, chief among them the changing role of the Internet in peoples' social lives and identities.
Some of the main related points that Mackey makes are:
He argues that "9/11 Truth" peaked in 2006 and has been on a steady decline since then. He backs this up with observations on how popular Truther activism has been since 2006 (not much), how many people are still out there talking about 9/11 conspiracy theories (not many), and what the general public's view of "Truthers" is today (most people think they're nuts, or simply ignore them).
He argues that the brief surge in popularity of "9/11 Truth" is not an effect of the content of the conspiracy theory. He gets there by analyzing 9/11 conspiracy theories in the context of other conspiracy theories that have been popular over the past 30 years, such as the "Apollo moon hoax" or Columbine school massacre conspiracies.
He argues that what made "9/11 Truth" seem to have more importance than it did was the activist nature of some of its purveyors--such as Richard Gage, whose tactics of taking the conspiracy theory to the public differ greatly from previous pre-9/11 conspiracy theorists who are mostly content with talking about conspiracy theories in small insular groups that don't reach out to others.
This is a key point. Mackey says:
"So that is it in a nutshell - there we have the secret ingredient that distinguished the 9/11 conspiracy theories from others. It had somehow mutated from the traditional, imaginative, individual realm of personal fantasy into an aggressive strain of misguided activism. In so doing it had insulted the public and made itself look far more fearsome than it actually was. My Internet-based metric of "popularity" was detecting something different than I had expected. I was not measuring an increase in the number of conspiracy theorists or in their coherent mobilization behind a single cause. Instead, I was only finding the volume and rancor of the arguments between a few noisy Truthers and everyone else. "
The reason for this misguided activism? Social media, says Mackey. The heyday of "9/11 Truth" was also the heyday of MySpace, the first real social networking site to take off. It was also the time when YouTube burst into the public consciousness. I've written before about how and why YouTube is uniquely attractive to conspiracy theorists. The convergence of these factors, says Mackey, meant it was suddenly easy for misguided Truthers, most of whom are too lazy to go out and do any activism in the real world, to pretend to be activists by forwarding links to YouTube videos supportive of the conspiracy theory. This, combined with the ferocity of how Truthers argue with people who don't support their theories, made it look as if legions of tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists were having a real impact on public consciousness--when in fact their decline had already begun.
Is The Truth Movement Dead? Yes.
The refreshing thing about Mackey's paper--and one that comes as welcome news to me, as it should to other debunkers--is its confirmation of what I think most of us have suspected for quite a while now: the 9/11 Truth movement is dead. By that I mean, it is not totally extinct, as you can see from a few hard-core dead-enders out there still preaching the faith, but it's basically "as dead as it's going to get." Mackey has this to say:
"With its best days behind it, the Truth Movement is once again just another ordinary conspiracy theory. But there is no reason to assume it will totally disappear. Of the thirty popular conspiracy theories we examined earlier, almost all can still gather attention and spawn debate today, usually in strange corners of the internet such as the David Icke Forum or Above Top Secret. On rare occasions, they may even be seen in real life. I'm betting, however, you won't catch even a glimpse of the Truth Movement. "
This is entirely consistent with my own observations. The websites that trafficked in 9/11 Truth in 2005/06 are now either gone or just about dead. Loose Change, which Mackey credits with being a huge boon to the Truth movement, is discredited now--including by its own creator Dylan Avery, who has disavowed most of it. Mark Roberts, the "Obi-Wan Kenobi of debunkers" who ran the single best website to debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories on the entire Internet, hasn't updated the site in almost three years. The ten-year anniversary of 9/11 saw virtually no organized activity by Truthers. Indeed, there is little reason to think that 9/11 Truth is going anywhere but into the dustbin of history.
Mackey is also right that it won't ever totally disappear. My latest, and possibly, last debunking effort is against a new Internet conspiracy theory film called Thrive, which mentions (in passing) 9/11 conspiracy theories. I still occasionally get angry responses from Truthers on Twitter who don't like when I say something that supports the "official story." But the chances of 9/11 Truth having a major resurgence are virtually nil. It's just not going to happen.
That is, frankly, a relief.
Is Debunking Worthwhile? Yes, and no.
Some of the most startling issues in Mackey's paper, at least to me, regard his views of debunkers--of which he admits he was (and possibly still is) one. Early in the paper he tackles the very thorny question about whether systematic opposition to 9/11 conspiracy theories--arguing with Truthers on the Internet, basically--has any real point. After concluding that a small portion of his time spent since 2005 pushing back against 9/11 conspiracy theories was worthwhile, Mackey says:
"The majority however was clearly wasted, or more accurately of no value beyond simple entertainment. Like many others, I would often self-justify my involvement with the notion that other readers, those with a less technical background who might be swayed by the Truth Movement, would read my comments and learn from them. Over the years I have received messages and e-mails from a few people who were convinced by my efforts, but only a very few - around ten. Many more (in the hundreds) were those who wrote simply because they too were irritated by Truthers, or engaged in their own arguments against Truthers, and found my contributions useful or amusing. And, of course, there were the Truthers themselves, numbering about forty, who wished only to argue with me on a private channel in addition to the public debate. Some even wrote just to issue vague threats about what would happen to "traitors" and "collaborators" once they achieved their Utopia. There were also a few who were so incoherent that I wondered how they'd managed to operate a computer in the first place. But that's all - a very small group indeed."
This also mirrors my own experience exactly. I do occasionally receive messages of thanks from former conspiracy theorists who have read my stuff and taken from it some useful information with which to change their worldview--such as the fellow who recently thanked me for helping him get out of the pro-conspiracist Zeitgeist Movement. But Mackey's observations about how few these really are, and especially about self-justifying, also ring true.
This may be something that debunkers don't really want to hear. I mean, we spend a lot of time pushing back against these idiotic theories, demonstrating why they're wrong and explaining why people shouldn't believe in them. It's sobering to have someone tell us that most of this time is wasted. But Mackey may have a point. Whether you agree with him or not, you have to admit it's worth serious consideration.
Who Are Debunkers? Why Do We Do What We Do?
Even more startling than Mackey's views on the usefulness of debunking, however, is his description of who debunkers are and why we do what we do. This may also be unpopular in the skeptic crowd, but it's worth taking a look at what he has to say:
"[T]he "debunkers" opposing the Truth Movement do not merely correct misinformation invented by Truthers, but go further, opposing the mindset and social mechanisms that gave the Truth Movement a place to form. The modern debunkers view the Truth Movement as a defective world view that somehow escaped summary judgment and gained acceptance on the Internet, defying the "system" of the Marketplace of Ideas and thereby requiring a systematic response. Unfortunately, a permanent solution is not actually achievable. There is no way to stamp out all Truthers, particularly not while preserving the spirit of open exchange the Internet supposedly represents.
As a result of this frustration, many debunkers have noticed a reactionary, obsessive behavior appearing in their ranks, one that occasionally manifests with fervor reminiscent of anti-Communism. And strangely, these incidents seem to be increasing, even though the Truth Movement is in full retreat. I uncovered signs of this myself in a small 2009 opinion poll on the JREF Forum, where a plurality of respondents indicated not just willingness, but actual desire, to continue arguing with Truthers to the bitter end."
Again, my own experience has confirmed absolutely what Mackey has said. I recognize this behavior even in myself. There is no question that I believe conspiracy theorists in general, and 9/11 Truthers in particular, have a defective worldview that should be stamped out if at all possible. If deconstructing this worldview is not possible--as I concede it is not--the next best thing is to relegate conspiracy theorists to a permanent status of marginalization, a lunatic fringe with such immediate negative associations that it can never, and will never, achieve any sort of mainstream acceptance. I've certainly directed a lot of effort toward this end, and I believe my efforts have been successful, at least to the limited extent that success is realistically possible in this realm.
In his (and our) defense, Mackey goes on to say:
"But while this kind of determined retaliation is counter-productive, it is understandable. After all, if the free market of ideas seems to be failing, many will rush to shore it up. A Utopian Internet that only educates, never misleads, is certainly a worthy goal. It just isn't realistic."
This is also probably true. My own personal motivations for debunking do not stem from a "Utopian" vision of the Internet--I have always accepted, and still do, that the vast majority of the Internet is polluted with worthless crap, and in such an environment toxic mindsets such as conspiracy theories will undoubtedly flourish. I don't take a very philosophical approach to the Internet in general. However, one of my main motivations in debunking is to make sure that there is at least some factually accurate and logically supportable information out there next to the crap--to make sure that someone who Googles "Thrive movie" or "Zeitgeist Movement" at least gets some genuine information instead of propaganda spun to support a conspiracy theorist viewpoint. So, to this extent, I agree with Mackey's observation again.
One thing that should be made clear-and one thing that is in danger of being misinterpreted by conspiracy theorists-is the idea that agreement with Mackey's points regarding the pathology of debunkers implies that any arguments made by debunkers in that context are in any way invalid. Every criticism I have ever made about conspiracy theories, conspiracy movements or cults, or the conspiracy theory worldview is 100% correct so far as I know it, and one of the major tenets of skepticism is to approach things of this nature with facts that can be verified and reasoning that is logically sound. People's reasons for debunking may vary. Whatever they are, it does not affect the content of the arguments they have presented. This is what separates debunkers from conspiracy theorists. Debunkers employ true arguments and cogent reasoning to destroy conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists will not shirk at deploying demonstrably false arguments to support their views, because in their minds the end justifies the means. This point must be clearly understood in order for this evaluation of Mackey's thesis to make sense, but it's a point I suspect will be completely lost on conspiracy nuts.
Do We Have To Worry About Conspiracy Theories?
In the final sections of Mackey's paper, he makes a very interesting argument. He claims that in today's rapid-fire Internet environment, dominated by instant social media like Twitter, the rise and fall of a conspiracy theory which in 2005/06 might have taken years can instead now take weeks, days, or even hours. He gives two interesting examples: the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory, and the supposition, promoted primarily by Truthers, that Osama bin Laden was not killed by U.S. forces on May 1, 2011.
About the first, Mackey says:
"The Birther conspiracy theory...made the jump into the mainstream very quickly. Unlike the Truth Movement, it seems to have begun its runaway growth phase in only a matter of months, steeply increasing in popularity from mid-2009 through April 2011. It peaked with something like 30% of Americans believing the conspiracy theory (there is a lot of scatter in the polls), but then rapidly slipped to a stable support level of about 10%. Overall, this trajectory is comparable to the Truth Movement's popularity, except for the greatly accelerated leap into public view.
This behavior is consistent with our theory of Internet-fueled growth: Unlike the Truth Movement, the Birther conspiracy already had activists and an argumentative public, courtesy of an unusually contentious period in politics, and already had social media to spread its message. However, the type of information being discussed was much less engaging - one might spend hours poring over a .GIF image of an old birth certificate...but there just wasn't anything as shocking as 9/11 to be found this time. It thus comes as no surprise that it would enter the mainstream more quickly, attract a significant number of low-commitment supporters as before, and then dissipate once the conspiracists had exhausted their argument."
About the Osama bin Laden conspiracy theory--the "Deathers"-he says this:
"We see a similar pattern in the Deather conspiracy theory, except here the timeline is compressed even further. This conspiracy theory exploded into the mainstream at the same speed as the news story it challenged, reaching the media almost instantly. One amusing note comes from David Wiegel of Slate, who referred to "Osama bin Trutherism" in an opinion piece on the very day bin Laden's death was announced. A few polls showed a sudden spike of believers, as high as 20% to 30% in various hastily-conducted media surveys, but after only a week it was clear that the conspiracy theory was already in decline. As Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling described it on 10 May 2011, only half-joking, "we've got more voters who think the President is the Anti-Christ than think Osama bin Laden is still alive."
From the standpoint of debunkers, I was on the front lines during the rise and fall of the "Deather" theory. Mackey points out that this theory was spread primarily by Twitter. I am a very heavy Twitter user. On the morning after bin Laden's death was announced, I was already responding to angry @ replies by conspiracy theorists--many of them undoubtedly Truthers--who had begun to argue that bin Laden wasn't really dead, or that the circumstances of his death were very different than reported, etc. Within 12 hours of the announcement of bin Laden's death, I was already armed with links to news stories and other sources that indicated the true circumstances behind bin Laden's death and especially his hasty burial at sea, and I was deploying them against the "Deathers" who used the same sort of spurious arguments that Truthers used to try to show that 9/11 was an inside job. However, I remember being surprised that "Deatherism" died out (no pun intended) within a week. Now it is extremely rare for me to be directly confronted with a bin Laden death conspiracy theory, on Twitter or anywhere else. This conspiracy theory is also dead.
Is there hope in these examples? Mackey seems to think so. The Internet now moves much faster than it did in 2005/06, and even much faster than in early 2009 when Orly Taitz was out there pushing her Birther garbage. Now, Mackey argues, it is possible to witness the entire life-cycle of a major conspiracy theory in a matter of days. His observations about how conspiracy theories peak among people with "low commitment" to them, and then fade to about a 10% support rate, is extremely interesting. 9/11 Truth is now at about this level, and most of us (debunkers) think 9/11 Truth is the biggest and baddest conspiracy theory on the block. If Birtherism and Deatherism can rise, peak and fade so quickly, do we need to be concerned about future conspiracy theories?
Are we ever going to get another conspiracy theory like 9/11? A theory that is prominent enough to create social movements and cults, like the Zeitgeist Movement? Hopefully an event like 9/11 will never happen again, but even if it does, there is some suggestion in Mackey's analysis that perhaps the conspiracy theories that would inevitably result from it might have much less public saturation and staying power than 9/11 theories. We can only hope.
Conclusion
9/11 conspiracy theories are utterly untrue. They are asinine, insulting, brain-corroding garbage. That is beyond question. In analyzing why these ridiculous theories took hold--among conspiracy theorists and debunkers alike--Mackey has given us, I think, some very valuable insights not only into the pathology of conspiracy theories, but into the minds of those who believe them and those who push back against them.
I am certainly what Mackey would consider a "high commitment" debunker, meaning, I feel it is particularly important to push back against conspiracy theories. I am also quite possibly a product of my times. I came to the debunking community in 2005, just about the time 9/11 Truth theories were exploding, and my first real forum of debunking was on MySpace, the first serious social networking website. MySpace, of course, is dead. No one goes there anymore. 9/11 Truth is virtually dead; almost no one believes it anymore. We now live in an age of Twitter, Google Plus and communications that move at a speed impossible to believe even in 2005. Perhaps, lurking behind Mackey's fascinating analysis, is an argument that exactly the thing that propagates conspiracy theories in the modern world--the Internet--can also serve as a limitation on their reach. I sincerely hope that is true.
Thanks for reading.