Math Study Shows Conspiracy Theories Prone to Unravel

Started by stromboli, January 26, 2016, 11:26:26 PM

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Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: stromboli on January 27, 2016, 09:50:01 AM
Did nobody point out that men get breast cancer?
http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/male-breast-cancer

Rare, but it happens.

I would put religion in the mass hysteria category before a conspiracy theory. Belief and theory are not the same.
I just replied, "Same with prostate cancer. If men got that there would be a cure by now!"
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

SGOS

Quote from: stromboli on January 27, 2016, 09:50:01 AM
I would put religion in the mass hysteria category before a conspiracy theory. Belief and theory are not the same.

I don't actually know if Christianity can be defined as a conspiracy, and I agree about belief vs. theory.  Most Christians don't conspire.  They just believe.  But there is a quality about the actions of architects that resemble a conspiracy, and the crap that takes place in the Vatican seems conspiratorial.  Mormon leaders working in secret in their private building seem to act in a conspiratorial manner too.  I realize I'm on semantic thin ice.  But when conmen work in private to defraud regular people such as rank and file Christians, it strikes me as a conspiracy, or at least something closely related.

josephpalazzo

Quote from: stromboli on January 27, 2016, 09:50:01 AM


I would put religion in the mass hysteria category before a conspiracy theory. Belief and theory are not the same.

But initially, it was a conspiracy: a number of people had to start the rumors that someone going by the name of Jesus resurrected. After a certain time, with no one really challenging this floating balloon, and with more adherents, it became a matter of faith.

Baruch

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on January 27, 2016, 07:19:08 AM
On Dec. 7th, 1941, Sen. Gerald P. Nye (not the sharpest pencil in the box) was giving a speech to an isolationist audience of American First members. During his speech a note was passed to him saying that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. (I wonder if he knew where that was at the time?) He finished his speech about how we should stay out of the war. Then, backstage, he exclaimed "Roosevelt must have tricked them into attack us!" And right there a conspiracy theory was born.

FDR with the cooperation of Congress, because of Japanese behavior in their war with China, had cut off oil and steel to Japan.  That was an act of war that had to be dealt with.  The Japanese chose the wrong way to respond ... the alternative was a too great loss of face.

The actual plan was for the Japanese to attack the US in the Philippines first, and then Hawaii would be used to reinforce the Philippines.  The US Navy had only that summer been forward deployed from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese were too smart and the Americans (initially) too dumb to imagine any other outcome (but Billy Mitchell knew better).  The Navy and Army commanders in Hawaii were scapegoated, because they actually were stupid.  I am convinced that McArthur knew better, yet his legendary war fighting abilities were crap until a year later.  McArthur botched the defense of the Philippines, precisely because he was counting on reinforcements from Hawaii, which never came.  It was generally assumed in racist America, that the Japanese would be lousy fighters.

The America First people were backers of Hitler ... people like Prentice Bush.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: josephpalazzo on January 27, 2016, 10:26:06 AM
But initially, it was a conspiracy: a number of people had to start the rumors that someone going by the name of Jesus resurrected. After a certain time, with no one really challenging this floating balloon, and with more adherents, it became a matter of faith.

And easy assumption, because "Jesus" means "G-d's Salvation".  It would be hard to imagine a messiah under any other name.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Baruch on January 27, 2016, 12:57:13 PM
FDR with the cooperation of Congress, because of Japanese behavior in their war with China, had cut off oil and steel to Japan.  That was an act of war that had to be dealt with.  The Japanese chose the wrong way to respond ... the alternative was a too great loss of face.
No idea what an act of war is, then? Got it. We cut off oil and steel because the Japanese were using them in real acts of war against a friendly country, China. Japan would have been out of luck on both materials anyway as we geared up for war against Germany. The oil was being demanded by the military, to build up our strategic reserves, by Britain, who was resisting acts of war by Germany, and the American public was wondering why they couldn't get gas on Sunday while we were sending it to Japan so they could kill Chinese.

Quote
The actual plan was for the Japanese to attack the US in the Philippines first, and then Hawaii would be used to reinforce the Philippines.  The US Navy had only that summer been forward deployed from San Diego to Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese were too smart and the Americans (initially) too dumb to imagine any other outcome (but Billy Mitchell knew better).  The Navy and Army commanders in Hawaii were scapegoated, because they actually were stupid.  I am convinced that McArthur knew better, yet his legendary war fighting abilities were crap until a year later.  McArthur botched the defense of the Philippines, precisely because he was counting on reinforcements from Hawaii, which never came.  It was generally assumed in racist America, that the Japanese would be lousy fighters.
The US Fleet had been forward deployed since the year before. Adm. Richardson had complained that the facilities at Pearl were inadequate for the Fleet, and FDR ordered Kimmel to replace him.
Quote
The America First people were backers of Hitler ... people like Prentice Bush.
The Committee to Defend America First were not so homogeneous as you claim. There were Quakers, and militant North America only people and variations in between. However, America First never had more than 800,000 members total, and far fewer active members. The isolationists never passed any legislation they proposed and never blocked any legislation they opposed. 

I used to teach this stuff.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Gawdzilla Sama

BTW, the oil and steel embargoes were Executive Orders, no input from Congress needed.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Baruch

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on January 27, 2016, 01:10:44 PM
BTW, the oil and steel embargoes were Executive Orders, no input from Congress needed.

Just another example of Presidential over-reach ;-)  FDR couldn't have gotten it thru Congress I suppose.  The majority of Congress before Dec 1941 wanted nothing to do with the war in Asia or Europe.  But not out of pacifism ... puleese.  The US had a prepared war plan to go to war against the British Empire to steal Canada, until 1939.

I don't think the Quakers and other pacifists, would have numerically made a difference.  My own father's father was pro-German, as was my mother's family (being German-American).  The Ford Motor Company, IBM, the bankers associated with J P Morgan etc including Prentice Bush, were heavily involved in industrial development in Germany, especially Prussia/Silesia.  Also Lindbergh was pro-German.  IBM was responsible for the tabulating machines that facilitated the roundup of Jewish people in Germany.  Henry Ford was a raving anti-Semite, Hitler gave him a hero of industry award and kept a signed photo.  Until after WW II, the Americans were more into eugenics and anti-Semitism than the Germans.  Joe Kennedy Sr was one of the German lovers too ... JFK had to be assigned to the Pacific, to get him away from German femme fatales operating in London.

Until long after Japan invaded China, China's principle ally was Germany, not the US.  Nationalist Chinese troops wore German helmets when defending Singapore against the Japanese.  But everyone "played" China ... getting their feat wet, but not seriously involved.  Stalin's support, on again, off again, for the Chinese communists, didn't bear fruit until late in the war.  It was because everyone had given up on China, in 1940 (9 years after the initial invasion of Manchuria), that Hitler switched sides to Japan, who had traditionally been allied to GB.

Now post-facto ... I certainly agree with the embargo on Japan.  But that is cheating.  The Japanese could have wiggled free, but their egos trapped them, just like pride trapped the German leadership.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Sal1981

The conspiracy, a real conspiracy at that, that comes to mind is the Watergate scandal.

Baruch

Quote from: Sal1981 on January 28, 2016, 06:04:19 AM
The conspiracy, a real conspiracy at that, that comes to mind is the Watergate scandal.

Not to the R-people ... the CREEP guys were simply lost, looking for the men's room.  The real Nixon scandal, was taking the US off of the gold standard.  That and young Henry Kissinger promising Mao that the old Henry Kissinger would move all the American factories to China.  Agnew was no big deal, he was only guilty of taking too-small bribes when governor of Maryland.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

drunkenshoe

A life span of a conspiracy theory depends on it function and from what kind of circumstances it was born, because they are also collective productions of a society created to cope with a certain situation. Like many 9/11 examples. Or JFK ones. It's a huge trauma that affects anyone which a society feels helpless and struggles to cope with.

Do they benefit/profit groups and communities in the society? They'll live on.

Conspiracy theories are so very different from each other in nature, there are many types. Some are so powerful they are not even seen as one and create categories for a given culture. A conspiracy theory is not just a series of illegally planned and executed political events and crimes commited that start at a certain date and following a process to a goal ending at another date. It's not just what individuals or some groups create to manipulate, but something societies produce collectively themselves or define certain events as one in self defense or blame another party for any unwanted situations, events that have huge influence in big scale. 

An example for the classic one. The Gladio Operation(s) is a conspiracy theory for the American society and it is not much different than the absurd Illimunati for most Americans. Interesting thing is the amount of Americans who have come to realise the scale of interventions made by their governments in the last 70 years around the world constantly getting higher in the last 10 years. But while there is a reasonable systematic descriptions and explanations made by experts of these events, it always stays as a conspiracy theory, although conspiracy theories of ths kind often identify by far fetched tangled secrets noone actually knows. It's not beneficial, it is rejected also the proof of how the whole workd is against the said culture.

On the other hand, same society lives in a few other conspiracy theories of a different kind they collectively created by official and social conracts and living in them as if they are the natural environment. For example, that nonwhite people in the US are the biggest threat for whites and nonwhites alike. Or that Americans paranoia of the ultimate need of defending themselves with firearms. Everybody is after them. Another one is that the perpetrators of mass shootings are mentally ill psychopaths and that's why they happen. It's impossible to see for most Americans that these are collectively created conspiracy theories to conform and accomodate whatever is going wrong.

The important point is that they are all beneficial and profitable in some way, be it rejected or accepted.

Trying to calculate something like this with math is pretty silly in my opinion, bceause we are talking about masses of people. If they could do that they should also be able to calculate the centrfugal and centripetal forces based on power zones or them changing hands that shape all kind of relations globally.

But then even if they can, is it possible to transform this kind of information into knowledge to put into use in a practical way? (Besides the impossibility of the ideal intention) Sounds like a delusion to me.







"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

Baruch

The greatest conspiracy theories create whole nations, religions, even civilizations.  Are Americans any more likely to be immune to realizing that this applies to their own society?  So I am not sure it is wrong to be a conspiracy theorist.  The conspiracy theory that takes wings, will establish the next civilization.  Culture is like that ... giant turtles all the way down.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.