Happy Conspiracy Day!

[Lurker]

Well, seems like there are a lot of keen people noticing and/or posting about conspiracies today. So what the hell, here's a thread to rant about neighbors, liberals, communists, conservatives, fascists, just whatever. My only requirement is that the conspiracies must involve just a tad bit of paranoia, if not more. Have at it.

[booyalab]

[conspiracy theory]G.W. Bush is a part of a society whose primary goal is to unite the world in worship of Satan. Everyone except Muslims and Christians basically believe in some form of new age philosophy already- an invention of the illuminati. Islam will be rejected through the impression given by Al Qaeda, a farce of the US government. Christianity will be ruined through the infiltration of the Church by Satanists and the misrepresentation of Christianity by the president himself. Once everyone is a humanist, the new world order will be established. [/conspiracy theory]

[Lurker]

Excellent conspiracy theory, Booyalab.

Now, I realize that some of you out there don't actually think what you believe IS a conspiracy theory, and you want to be taken seriously. So, in that case, post your sincere belief about the government, god, walmart, gas companies, neighbors, whatever.

*regrets thread title*

[booyalab]

Excellent conspiracy theory, Booyalab.

Now, I realize that some of you out there don't actually think what you believe IS a conspiracy theory, and you want to be taken seriously. So, in that case, post your sincere belief about the government, god, walmart, gas companies, neighbors, whatever.

*regrets thread title*

good point. whenever you believe anything that involves antagonists and agendas that you disagree with, you're a conspiracist.

[Lurker]

good point. whenever you believe anything that involves antagonists and agendas that you disagree with, you're a conspiracist.

A good conspiracy should involve interlocking entities. For example: The United States government, on a mission from God, tells my neighbor - a government spy - to track my movements and conversations, and report any subversive or sacreligious activity back to them.

[LongSilence]

Animal rights activists and environmentalists are secret alien spies sent to slow down scientific progress so that the invasion, once ready, will face less advanced resistance. Some people assume creationists are in on it... but in fact they're just stupid.

[placid_panic]

i don't like how the phrase "conspiracy theory" has come to mean "disregard this idea". as if there aren't organized groups of people working to deceive and exploit others.

[Lurker]

i don't like how the phrase "conspiracy theory" has come to mean "disregard this idea". as if there aren't organized groups of people working to deceive and exploit others.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't someone out to get you.

[Rhu]

Misdirection rhetoric is catchy, popular, and politically correct. You can use it to set the tone for preempting any argument you choose.


i don't like how the phrase "conspiracy theory" has come to mean "disregard this idea". as if there aren't organized groups of people working to deceive and exploit others.


printf("Look, I know where you are going with this. 'The Jews run the media and the banks, and there's a conspiracy to blah blah blah.'\n");
printf("Thank you *so much*, Osama Bin Hitler, for beating that old drum again.");

It is now implicit that you'd have to defend any conspiracy revalation against automatic dismissal on grounds of absurdity, racism, sexism, classism, personal agenda, patriotism, anti-patriotism, anti-semitism, or every possible emotional motivation you might have.

If you leave a hole, your motives get questioned. If you don't, you've written a very long and probably very boring essay, and your motives will probably get questioned for being so defensive, anyway.

[Lurker]

I have my own "conspiracy theory." The U.S. government and certain huge corporations run the country in concert. This is why certain obvious truths aren't truly acknowledged and acted upon, say for instance, global warming. When the government is sponsored by big business, it will be very reluctant to regulate that big business. I don't know what this ends up being...but it certainly isn't a fair representation of the people. The U.S. government doesn't have the interests of ordinary people at heart, which makes it just like most governments. The best form of government is small scale and held directly accountable to the people (which is, what, a tribal council?). The U.S. government employs a lot of smoke and mirrors tactics that are largely successful in fooling the people and keeping them content.

[last_caress]

I have my own "conspiracy theory." The U.S. government and certain huge corporations run the country in concert. This is why certain obvious truths aren't truly acknowledged and acted upon, say for instance, global warming. When the government is sponsored by big business, it will be very reluctant to regulate that big business. I don't know what this ends up being...but it certainly isn't a fair representation of the people. The U.S. government doesn't have the interests of ordinary people at heart, which makes it just like most governments. The best form of government is small scale and held directly accountable to the people (which is, what, a tribal council?). The U.S. government employs a lot of smoke and mirrors tactics that are largely successful in fooling the people and keeping them content.

Uhh, that's just a fact.

[Lurker]

Uhh, that's just a fact.

A lot of conservatives disagree with you.

[Rhu]

A lot of conservatives disagree with you.

The conservatives on CNBC certainly don't. They tend to say straight up that government favoritism is a great reason for investing in certain companies.

[Lurker]

The conservatives on CNBC certainly don't. They tend to say straight up that government favoritism is a great reason for investing in certain companies.

That's sad. :mellow:

[Rhu]

Yes, though I'd say that anyone whose primary concern is to make money purely for the sake of making money is sad.

Well, perhaps not as sad as it is just really alien.

[Lurker]

I like how you think, Rhu.

[LongSilence]

Yes, though I'd say that anyone whose primary concern is to make money purely for the sake of making money is sad.

Well, perhaps not as sad as it is just really alien.

Alien to what?
Most people make money at least with the idea of it being spent at some point, to confer some status or so they can wield some real or imaginary power...

[Rhu]

Alien to what?
Most people make money at least with the idea of it being spent at some point, to confer some status or so they can wield some real or imaginary power...

Alien to any frame of reference that I understand. I sometimes like to try to put myself in the place of others and see if I can figure out what makes them tick, what makes them happy.

I can't see it in these people. Working almost every day for long hours, spending their "free" time grasping for to improve upon mastery of a system to the point that it shuts out any possibility to really engage themselves in any other activity. Buying status symbols purely for the purpose of polishing a facade. Toys not to be explored or understood, just shown off and thrown away.

It doesn't seem like there's any joy, any relaxation, any living without schedules or directions, any opportunity for thoughts to wander. It's a system that seems to have come from nowhere and its permanance is sustained entirely by the belief of its participants that it is right.

It is a mode of something monsterous or alien.

[LongSilence]

It's amazing what people can do with their time when it doesn't have to be all spent finding food and finding a mate... No wait, that's exactly what most of these people are doing. Not everyone wishes to understand life as it is or was- they just seem to get on with it. Work helps bring in food and secure an accepted place in society, which can be helpful for finding a short-term and eventually a long-term mate.

Thinking of the variety i assume you are referring to doesn't necessarily make everyone happy. In fact, its well known for making people more melancholic if not depressed. And its not like everyone you're thinking of are complete automatons, are they? They have they own idiosyncrasies, neuroses, preferences, knowledge, memories that make up themselves. Indeed, just because they don't spend much time questioning their actions and their roles doesn't mean they can't appreciate their own lives, and the time they use for themselves.

Surely its not monsterous or alien to be able to cope with things that might seem tedious to others? Particularly when it means getting certain things done.

[booyalab]

A lot of conservatives disagree with you.

that the government should be small scale? wtf

as for global warming, yes, we are experiencing a warming trend. That's a fact. But the idea that it's permanent and entirely humanity's fault is NOT a fact. (maybe it is, but we dont know it is)

[Lurker]

Surely its not monsterous or alien to be able to cope with things that might seem tedious to others? Particularly when it means getting certain things done.

Sure, we all want to get things done, but when our life revolves around busting ass to buy a luxury car, that shows a perversion of values. People identify more with what they own than who they are. Marx called it the "fetishism of commodities."

Think about memories, our memories are just standardized and uniform. They are not truly individual to us and our lives. We all remember this video game or that movie, but all we are doing is identifying a memory that millions of other people have shared. What's so special about that?

[Rhu]

Surely its not monsterous or alien to be able to cope with things that might seem tedious to others? Particularly when it means getting certain things done.

Monsterous, perhaps not. Unnatural and alien to me--Attempting to operate like them is like running an emulation program for a machine with a completely different instruction set. Even with skills and training to do the exact same sorts of tasks, it would be very difficult and probably harmful to maintain.

Would you not find it difficult to operate as they do for any given period of time? That's all I'm saying about the matter, I'm avoiding a positive or negative judgement on their existance from within their reference frame.

[Lurker]

that the government should be small scale? wtf

as for global warming, yes, we are experiencing a warming trend. That's a fact. But the idea that it's permanent and entirely humanity's fault is NOT a fact. (maybe it is, but we dont know it is)

Neo-Conservatives generally support big government. Just look at the Reagon, Bush Sr., and Bush administrations and their military spending. We have also run a huge budget deficit under all three of these presidents. Conventional wisdom says that conservatives support smaller government, but it's not true. They support smaller government in some areas, namely social support, taxation, and government regulation of industry.

Global warming is mostly humanity's fault. When I was in college, plenty of science professors I worked with did research in this area. To think that humanity isn't mainly to blame is to ignore a huge amount of scientific research. The only reason anyone debates this issue at all is because it has huge repercussions for industry, and people don't want to face that they might have to change their ways and/or pay more for electricity and gas. And naturally, people who work in these industries don't want to admit it. That's obvious.

[ptGatsby]

To think that humanity isn't mainly to blame is to ignore a huge amount of scientific research.


Actually, the debate is over the causes... there has been huge research into a lot of different things that could be causing it. It hasn't really been determined yet by the community.

I'm fairly firmly on the side of "Humans causing"... least, causing a significant amount of it, but that's an opinion, not fact. When I have to rank the different explanations and impacts, to me, humans sit at the top.

And yes, if you measure governments by $, republicans (err, conservatives, right) have historically been big government. This is a result of having only two parties - both polarise their stances in an attempt to win votes... it rarely reflects reality, or the nature of government in nature. Rhetoric never does, I guess.

[melancholeric]

This is a result of having only two parties - both polarise their stances in an attempt to win votes..
Not quite.

Imagine a street with two grocery stores on it, one on each end of the street, let's call them A and B

-A------------------------B-

Now, let's assume that people choose their store based on the distance alone. Now, A decides to move a bit closer to the center because the people left to it will still visit there (because it's closer to them than B), but also gain customers from the center.

--------A-----------------B-

You can guess what B will do. This will repeat until it looks like this:

-------------AB------------

Which is pretty much what will happen in most two party systems, and to lesser extent in multiparty systems aswell.

[ShadyShady]

The Nasa Discovery ship just used a laser weapon to shoot down North Koreas missle launch.



Tuesday, July 4, 2006; Posted: 4:51 p.m. EDT (20:51 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- North Korea launched a long-range Taepodong-2 missile early Wednesday in an apparently unsuccessful test that failed in flight, a senior State Department official said.

(http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/07/04/korea.missile/index.html)

[ptGatsby]

Not quite.


I must admit, mine is just based on observation, but I do not believe that the 'middle' road is the normal result of having a two party system.

Your store analogy is appropriate... Lets use places like Starbucks or Walmart. These are highly polarized issues, where people will talk about how much they like or hate this place, how its evil or good... In cases like Walmart, people shop regardless of what they might say in private, but in cases like Starbucks, people will pay more, travel farther and whatever else to get the exact same coffee they could get somewhere closer.

People do vote along a bell curve in a normal election... but there is no real bell curve when 96.3% of the population voted for only two parties... In these cases, both sides - just like starbucks and its competitors - benefit from enacting a cooperative competition strategy. This can be seen for many industries, like Pepsi-Coke, and acts much the same in politics.

The significant effect of such a strategy is that people tend to weight rhetoric more heavily, rarely seeing outside of the very polarized issues, even where there is a non-issue. While its nice that people talk about the health effects of pop... that isn't exactly a limelight issue. Least, not when I was a kid. It was about 'being a coke drinker' or 'a pepsi'. Cause you know one tastes so much different... and they do, just different enough for people to have an opinion.

It isn't so much about the distance from a generic 'center' party (left-right axis), its about polarizing any issue. If the Left say "the Sky is Green", then the Right will say "The sky is purple"... and people, knowing full well that the sky is blue, will agree with one side or the other. The other parties will say "The sky is blue" and will be ignored.

That's what makes politics so strategic. Its about picking a platform that will win you popular vote... herd mentality, no different than cooperate marketing strategies to sell things on image. Middle of the line doesn't sell.

[melancholeric]

I must admit, mine is just based on observation, but I do not believe that the 'middle' road is the normal result of having a two party system.
It's a normal result of any democratic system on the long run.

Just to clarify, are we talking about rhetoric or actual politics? Because there's usually a considerable gap between the two (talk is cheap ... ).

Also, I meant generally, as in economic left-right, or civil liberties (liberal-conservative) spectrum, or isolationism-interventionism, or ... the list goes on. Specific issues might be more polarized (especially with the rhetoric).

Cooperative competition strategy doesn't quite work that perfectly. Overall, the parties are more concerned of the moving voters (who are around this so called center). People left from the left wing party will vote them anyway, even if they move a bit closer to the center. Same on the right, of course.


Middle of the line doesn't sell.
In politics, it definitely does: just look what has happened to all these so called socialist parties in Europe during the last century or so. Or some right wing parties aswell.

And well, I don't know much about American politics, but from what I've seen I can't see much difference between the two parties. But then I can't see much difference between most parties here either.

Their similarity, on the other hand, might be one reason why politics get "personal" and a good amount of campaining is just mudslinging with zero relevance to actual issues.

[ptGatsby]

Just to clarify, are we talking about rhetoric or actual politics? Because there's usually a considerable gap between the two (talk is cheap ... ).


Ah, this is the gap.

I was referring to just 'talk' and rhetoric. Mostly I was referring to the concept that conversatives/republicans were always considered small government, but this hasn't been true in a very long time. People continue to believe it because it is an effective platform for both sides.

In practise, they are barely different...

I didn't mean it on an absolute left-right scale, only that parties are platforms that are engineered to oppose the other side.

Having a professional political caste system, like the US, causes the platforms to be entirely engineered (or close to), in which case it is in the interest of the main parties to polarize the public.

The more parties there are, the more this is difused... if you only have two parties and 4 main choices, you have a simple decision - pick the other side, or make it a non-issue. If you have 4 parties though... not so easy!

Otherwise I agree with you, I think.

[Hustler]

Which is pretty much what will happen in most two party systems, and to lesser extent in multiparty systems aswell.

Extend the analogy to three stores and you see that the conclusion you've drawn doesn't necessarily apply to a multiparty system. Everytime you shift your position, you gain along one interparty line but you lose along the other. There is probably an equilibrium point, much like where A and B eventually position themselves right alongside each other, but it isn't necessarily going to be a central position, nor is it going to be the same for everyone, especially as things get more complicated.

[melancholeric]

It does actually work with three parties aswell
-A--------B---------C-
-----A----B----C------
The difference is that B isn't moving anywhere, and the others move towards that.

And yes, multiparty systems tend to work the same way, but of course real politics are more complicated than simple models. The principle is rather oversimplified, but it does apply ... to some extent.

There are no models that would apply 100 % to the real world ... if there were they wouldn't be called "models".

[Rhu]

There are no models that would apply 100 % to the real world ... if there were they wouldn't be called "models".

Still, using a model that assumes all political issues can be simplified into a one dimentional system leaves a little something to be desired.

[melancholeric]

Still, using a model that assumes all political issues can be simplified into a one dimentional system leaves a little something to be desired.
Or several one dimensional systems. We could use economic left/right as an example.

And then we could make another system of say, civil liberties. Liberal vs. conservative. Or environmentalism.

And there's nothing that's stopping us from dividing those into smaller issues, let's say civil liberties ... take say drugs. Most political parties in Europe are getting closer and closer to the imaginary center: very few advocate complete legalization of every single drug there is, but then there aren't many who'd advocate 10 year prison sentences for possession of pot. Far fewer than what there used to be a few decades -- or even a few years -- ago.

Now, you'd need to think of each issue as a separate one dimensional system ... or more realistically, you could create a two-or-more dimensional system (similar to say politicalcompass.org (http://www.politicalcompass.org/)) but that gets a bit too complicated for me since I'm lazy.