About the idea that conspiracies are all nonsense?

[Baruch]

If there is no Deity, then there is no Devil ... and so there is no virtue or vice ... and we are all innocent no matter what happens.  Seems like a form of "easy grace" Christianity only minus Jesus.  Be sure and tell the judicial system that they are unnecessary, and the police too.  Everyone is innocent in their heart, and can't be held liable for acts of commission or omission.

Not all criminal acts are covered by RICO (conspiracy) ... but sometimes they are.  As I pointed out before, where one falls on "interpretation" of past events ... is a matter of one's hidden political agenda.  Personally, I am not the type to assign blame ... I see the Titanic for instance as a human tragedy.

My political agenda is this ... I find humanity guilty, not innocent.

[Johan]

Why would I believe in a god? What a silly question. To you, evil people allowing evil things to happen is as unlikely as a god existing? Really? I can't completely prove it, therefore the idea is as dumb as god... Ok. If you say so.

Umm you're leaving out a very important detail or two. Lets fix that. To me, believing that evil people have allowed evil things to happen, despite ANY shred of evidence or even the very slightest indication (think beyond microscopic level) that they did so, is as unlikely as a god existing. Yes.

I don't doubt for a moment that evil people do evil things. In a word, duh. Of course they do. But when you're talking about something that involves so many people as such a high level, there would have to be at least some level of indication that some sort of advanced knowledge (and therefore some sort of cover up of said advanced knowledge) took place. But in this case, there is none, nada, zip. To pull that off such a cover up at that level with absolutely zero indication that anything underhanded took place would take a large group of people who are INCREDIBLY good. Way better than the likes of Bush and Cheney and they people they surrounded themselves with would have ever been capable of. So yeah, god is more likely. Way more likely.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Legal?  Convicted?  But "the law is an ass".  Getting out of jail free, or being sent to the gas chamber ... is a political act ... which means I don't care what exact judicial bullshit was used.

What a crock! By that kind of logic, Cunard Lines, who literally thought that any accident that the Titanic could get in could be safely waited out, should have provided each passenger with an armored personal submarine in the off chance that aliens from another planet swoop down to scoop up the ship and carry it away. By that logic, NASA, whose every launch of the STS always carried some amount of risk, should have provided each astronaut with an armored personal reentry vehicle in the case that Russians shot it down with a nuclear bomb. Who would prepare for that? You CAN'T prepare for that. Life is risk. Hide under your bed and never come out if you think that risk is too much for you.

I used to work with NASA.

Surrrre you did.

Of course no one deliberately chose for the Challenger to explode.  But there are commercial situations, where people make money off of failure (they even take out life insurance policies on employees, that the company benefits from, not the family).  Then negligence is ... part of the plan, plausible deniability (see most governments) ... and ka-ching in their Cayman Islands bank account.

If you think that the insurance that NASA supposedly collected for the Challenger accident is anywhere near the cost of that particular mission up to that point, then you are insane. Because the shuttle took almost a half billion per launch. Unless you think there are a half-billion in insurance policies floating around for the Challenger, there was no mishap that was going to make NASA, or anyone involved, come out in the black. If you think there was, I want to see it. Which of course, you're going to dodge around this, like you did with producing any evidence that there were demonstrable harm associated with GMOs.

Yes, employers take out insurance for certain employees, because those employees represent a significant investment of time and effort that the employers would do well to recoup the loss for should they perish. It takes an absurd amount of training to make an astronaut, which NASA foots the bill for. That's a lot of time and effort sunk into one person.

On the other hand, not everyone sees reality as deeply unredeemable evil as I do.

Well, who cares if I don't subscribe to your fantasy?

[Baruch]

Back in my younger days I actually I helped work 3 days on one of the spectrometers for the Hubble telescope (I was personally invited to do so by the principle engineer for one part of it).  But if you prefer your fantasy, you are entitled to it ;-)  I really wanted to do more on the Space Program ... but I was kept to busy by the MIC developing weapons etc for the Cold War.

But all the scientists who post here ... are Nobel Prize winners like Obama ;-))

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Here's the thing.. Conspiracy theories exist. We all know that.  This notion that we're all privileged to have access to all of the information to determine if it's a crackpot theory is nonsense.  As mentioned earlier the people involved in covering up and discrediting conspiracy investigations will go to great lengths to not only keep the information from the public eye,but will intentionally muddy the waters to insure that it remains just a crack pot theory.
The 911 ordeal is an example. If it was indeed a conspiracy as many believe all of the information simply is not made available to the public to sift through, but keep to your fantasies that you and you alone have the powers to determine what is or isn't the truth

[Johan]

Back in my younger days I actually I helped work 3 days on one of the spectrometers for the Hubble telescope (I was personally invited to do so by the principle engineer for one part of it). 

Hubble. Isn't that the one that didn't work?

[Johan]

Here's the thing.. Conspiracy theories exist. We all know that.  This notion that we're all privileged to have access to all of the information to determine if it's a crackpot theory is nonsense.  As mentioned earlier the people involved in covering up and discrediting conspiracy investigations will go to great lengths to not only keep the information from the public eye,but will intentionally muddy the waters to insure that it remains just a crack pot theory.

Ok but what if the water isn't muddy? What if there is no indication or evidence that any mud exists at all?

And what if we're not talking about the investigation of a murder of one relatively insignificant individual in some bum fuck town that no one ever heard of where maybe 4 people at most were directly involved with the investigation. And since its a small town, those 4 people are all life long friends and/or work for the same agency so they are therefore very easily able to falsify the investigation in such a way that no one would ever be able to detect any sort of 'muddied waters' at all. But what if instead we're talking about an event which took the lives of thousands of people and was therefore investigated by a small army of different individuals who never met, don't know each other at all and work for a wide variety of different agencies? Are you saying its plausible to expect all of those individuals to be able to carry out a massive cover up in tandem and that not one of them will ever speak of their actions and that the entire operation could be pulled off so effectively that there really isn't any hint that anyone muddied any water anywhere along the way?

Because when I look at things like 9/11 or the TWA flight 800 accident, that is what I see. No mud in the water at all. The conclusions of the investigations are crystal clear and the only people who dispute them are those who have no grasp of the science, engineering and/or common industry practices involved.

[Baruch]

Hubble. Isn't that the one that didn't work?

The original mirror was just a tiny bit off ... and they had to go up and fix it.  But the Hubble is still working, and established a new "farthest/oldest" galaxy record.  Fortunately I did not know that woman/mirror ;-)

[Baruch]

"Because when I look at things like 9/11 or the TWA flight 800 accident, that is what I see. No mud in the water at all. The conclusions of the investigations are crystal clear and the only people who dispute them are those who have no grasp of the science, engineering and/or common industry practices involved."

What you are saying is ... no laymen need discuss it, leave it to the experts.  Like the 9/11 Truth Commission or the FHA.  Neither you nor I are qualified architects or airplane designers ... like illiterate medieval peasants, we have to take the word of our magic working priests, and there are competing sects.

On the TWA flight 800 ... the official explanation seems plausible ... but the odds of a full plane having an explosion are much less ... the fuel is most explosive when it is nearing its destination.  But it isn't impossible that some spark could have set it off anyway.  It is also possible that the spark was a malfunctioning part, or something in the luggage that shouldn't have been there ... which some passenger innocently brought aboard (drug runners do this) ... and even then, the intent might not have been to blow the airplane up.  It is also possible that a US missile accidentally or deliberately brought it down, that isn't impossible.  And it is certainly possible, if that happened either accidentally or deliberately ... that there would be a coverup.  How about the passenger jet over Ukraine two years ago?  There are plenty of reasons for coverup there, by all parties.  And in terms of coverup, I have never seen a  list of the National Guard members who shot their guns at Kent State decades ago.  How come none of them ever wrote a memoire?

[Johan]

What you are saying is ... no laymen need discuss it, leave it to the experts.  Like the 9/11 Truth Commission or the FHA.  Neither you nor I are qualified architects or airplane designers ... like illiterate medieval peasants, we have to take the word of our magic working priests, and there are competing sects.

Nope that is not at all what I'm saying nor is it anything close what I meant. Discuss it all you want. But draw the line when that discussion heads off into whackoville. Observe:

On the TWA flight 800 ... the official explanation seems plausible ...

That's because it is plausible. Very much so.

but the odds of a full plane having an explosion are much less ... the fuel is most explosive when it is nearing its destination.

Ok I think you're getting some terms wrong here so I'm going to make some assumptions. Feel free to clarify if I'm assuming incorrectly. You say the odds of a full plane having an explosion are much less but I believe you a referring specifically to a fuel tank, not the plane itself. If so, you would be correct. Much more likely for an empty fuel tank to explode than a full one.


 

But it isn't impossible that some spark could have set it off anyway.

Again need some clarification here. The tank in question was empty. There are multiple tanks on a 747 which allow for very long flights so it is not at all unusual to see one departing on a flight with one or more empty tanks if the intended flight is going to be much shorter than the maximum range of the aircraft.

It is also possible that the spark was a malfunctioning part, or something in the luggage that shouldn't have been there ... which some passenger innocently brought aboard (drug runners do this) ... and even then, the intent might not have been to blow the airplane up.

Actually no, that's not possible, unless we're talking about one and only possibly scenario (see below). The damage of the wreckage reveals the chronology of the failure event very reliably. The damage showed that the initial explosion was in the center fuel tank. Something blowing up in a baggage compartment would have caused a different type of failure event and the resulting wreckage would have contained damage which looked different than what was found.

It is also possible that a US missile accidentally or deliberately brought it down, that isn't impossible.

Nope, not possible. Because if that had happened it would have left evidence. No such evidence existed. Ah but already hear you saying, but you didn't get to the last part of my post where I said it would all have been covered up and therefore we'd never know about said evidence. Fear not, we're getting there.

And it is certainly possible, if that happened either accidentally or deliberately ... that there would be a coverup.

And now we're in whackoville. If a missile brought that plane down, there would have been evidence of it that engineers from Boeing would have seen along with the FBI and the NTSB. If you want to cover that up, you would have to get all of the Boeing engineers as well as lots of Boeing middle and upper management to play ball and keep quiet about it forever. Plus you'd need several mid level NTSB investigators and their management chain to all play ball and participate/carry out said cover up as well as keep completely quiet about it forever. Same with the FBI guys involved. All would have had to have known or strongly suspected, all would have to be aware of the cover up and all would have to be motivated to keep quiet about it forever.

Now if you want to sit here and say yep, lots of people would have to know but all I'm saying is that a cover up is possible, quite frankly, you're dead wrong. A successful cover up of that scale is not possible. Not possible at all. And to think otherwise is just whacko. Can't put it any other way.

So by all means, discuss all you like. But draw the line when that discussion gets so whacko that it requires one to suspend all rational logic.

[josephpalazzo]

... the only people who dispute them are those who have no grasp of the science, engineering and/or common industry practices involved.

But they will throw the same accusations to you, that you "have no grasp of the science, engineering and/or common industry practices involved." Their positions is a matter of interpretations of the facts. Given the same set of data, they can look as the same data as you, but will give it a different twist. So given fact A, you will draw conclusion X, while they will draw conclusion Y. And so you can spend the next one hundred years with a CTer debating your differences, meanwhile passing each other.

[Gerard]

They are out to get you and take away your rights and freedoms, whether they had anything to with 9/11 or not, so luckily them being involved in 9/11 means next to nothing to me and I don't care about the answer. The answer matters very little. If Hitler killed 3000 less people than he did, would that make him a Saint? When the number of deaths you have caused is in seven figures, a couple thousand more deaths don't make much of a difference.

Why would I believe in a god? What a silly question. To you, evil people allowing evil things to happen is as unlikely as a god existing? Really? I can't completely prove it, therefore the idea is as dumb as god... Ok. If you say so. We can't prove there are exta-terrestrials, therefore that idea is as dumb as god. We can't prove there is a multiverse, therefore scientists should STFU and just accept that they don't have the evidence, right? This is what you sound like.

Believing stuff just because it suits your political worldview is generally a losing proposition.

Gerard

[aitm]

The people who subscribe to conspiracy theories, are a lot smarter than the people they think are capable of constructing such a design. Lets face the hard truth that for the vast portion, the government pays the least, hence most government workers are usually the lower third of the class, and the least motivated for private industry and by far the least knowledgable and driven to charge into entrepreneurship by themselves. So what most cp.'s are suggesting is that the dumbest of us, has routinely outsmarted the smarter of us by using methods and thinking so advanced that it quite literally suggests they were abducted and replaced by highly intelligent aliens and ……..whoa……..

[Baruch]

I really appreciate Johan's sharing of stuff I had forgotten.  In my post I was only looking at common sense aspects that were missing in details he was willing to add.

In many cases the reason why governments figure in coverup theories ... is because of politics.  People who like to think that the government is competent and honest ... believe that for their own political reasons too.  People who blindly support the government, or who blindly oppose it ... are extremists.  I am not an extremist (in that way) ... when I don't know the facts (and I think in most circumstances I don't) even though there will be people without any official connection to event X who will claim omniscience about it ... I am open to alternative explanation that is reasonable.  Others will think that there is one and only one reasonable explanation, that happens to correspond to the one they believe in.

Not every alternative explanation is implausible, nor does it involve little green men from Roswell.  Dog-people and other animal-people ... will bark their dogma ... then leave a turd in the front yard for someone else to clean up ;-)

[Johan]

Let me be clear. I am in no way saying I think the government as a whole is honest with the public. Nor do I think that no one within the upper levels of the military and the government ever covers anything up. Of course they do. But such cover ups are only possible on a very small scale and/or with very low profile events.

Did Hilary know immediately that those involved in the attack on Benghazi were not in fact protesting some movie as was initially reported? Probably. And therefore it is likely that her and not more than a few very close aids made a decision to try to deceive the public about who was involved for some reason and then later conspired to cover up the fact that they had the knowledge they had and yet chose to lie to public about for some reason. That is a conspiracy theory that I would say has at least some plausibility. It involves only a few people who are all within the same agency and therefore all presumably have the same goal. Not unreasonable at all to suspect such a thing might have taken place nor to question the story presented.

Similar example. Lets say mega corp X in the fast food business and their most of their locations are owned by private individuals who run the stores. Lets say one of those owners has several stores and lets say there's as disagreement between said store owner and the mega corp management and this disagreement goes on for quite a while and becomes quite expensive for mega corp. And then previously mentioned store owner ends up the victim of what appears to be some sort of random drive-by shooting. It would not be unreasonable to at least suspect that one or two of the upper level mega corp people had relationships certain unscrupulous individuals who would be happy to arrange a random drive by shooting of someone for cash from a source who is unknown to them. Again only a few individuals involved and all are within the same organization and all have the same common goal. Not unreasonable at all to suspect in such case.

On the other hand, some secret group of individuals within our own government conspired to wire both World Trade towers and several other World Trade buildings with explosives without any detection by anyone and then they further conspired to get some middle eastern individuals to carry out a coordinated hijacking plot and crash planes into said buildings. And they were able to execute this plan flawlessly. And then these individuals further conspired to bribe/threaten/kill off/whatever all involved in the ensuing investigation to keep their mouths shut and/or out and out lie about any evidence of the explosives used to demolish the buildings. And again, they were able to carry out this plan flawlessly. Yeah, now we're so far over the line into whackoville it isn't even funny.