Terry Pratchett on conspiracy thinking

[GlennB]

While reading the incomparably magnificent Terry Pratchett's Jingo the other day, I came across this passage :

"And then he realised why he was thinking like this.
He wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people.
It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No-one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things."

 

[Curnir]

From Hogfather:

It's amazing how good governments are, given their track record in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters.

One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too embarrassed to talk about it.

It's not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be abductees. Some have been abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of other aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops.

The planet Earth is now banned to an alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one who is big, hairy and has very large feet.

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.

 

[Dragon]

Another TP quote

Oddly enough only yesterday I was thinking of another quote from Jingo and how it applied to the CTers* -

Sergeant Colon had had a broad education. He'd been to the School of My Dad Always Said, the College of It Stands To Reason, and was now a post-graduate student of the University of What Some Bloke In The Pub Told Me.

*The main difference being that Sgt Colon is far more honest and knowledgeable than the typical CT believer we get here.

 

[28th Kingdom]

While reading the incomparably magnificent Terry Pratchett's Jingo the other day, I came across this passage :

"And then he realised why he was thinking like this.
He wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people.
It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No-one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things."

You people are so ass-backwards. Do you think this passage is talking about Truthers? HAHAHAHAHAHA... I'm so glad you posted this. Yes, it's talking about CTist alright...but Truthers aren't the CTist on the issue of 9/11 - YOU PEOPLE ARE THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS! You are the ones WHO INSIST on it being THEM...and not Us!

It certainly couldn't be one of Us i.e USG - because they're one of Us and you're one of Us. No...no, it must be THEM! Because, certainly you're not one of THEM. One of those wretched Arabs.

 

[Curnir]

You people are so ass-backwards. Do you think this passage is talking about Truthers? HAHAHAHAHAHA... I'm so glad you posted this. Yes, it's talking about CTist alright...but Truthers aren't the CTist on the issue of 9/11 - YOU PEOPLE ARE THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS! You are the ones WHO INSIST on it being THEM...and not Us!

It certainly couldn't be one of Us i.e USG - because they're one of Us and you're one of Us. No...no, it must be THEM! Because, certainly you're not one of THEM. One of those wretched Arabs.

Awww that's so CUTE. You havn't even read the book have you? Awww that's just precious.

*Curnir gives the little CTist a biiiiiig Hogswatch hug*

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

You people are so ass-backwards. Do you think this passage is talking about Truthers? HAHAHAHAHAHA... I'm so glad you posted this. Yes, it's talking about CTist alright...but Truthers aren't the CTist on the issue of 9/11 - YOU PEOPLE ARE THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS! You are the ones WHO INSIST on it being THEM...and not Us!

It certainly couldn't be one of Us i.e USG - because they're one of Us and you're one of Us. No...no, it must be THEM! Because, certainly you're not one of THEM. One of those wretched Arabs.

Don't whistle while you pee.

 

[Big Les]

QED

 

[28th Kingdom]

Have I read the book? Nope. Have I read the passage that the OP says is about conspiracy thinking? Yep. Does this passage make you look like a fool who doesn't know his ass from a whole in the ground. Certainly. Did I deftly elucidate this fact in a very terse and entertaining fashion. Ya betcha bottom dolla.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Have I read the book? Nope. Have I read the passage that the OP says is about conspiracy thinking? Yep. Does this passage make you look like a fool who doesn't know his ass from a whole in the ground. Certainly. Did I deftly elucidate this fact in a very terse and entertaining fashion. Ya betcha bottom dolla.

Do you not realize that the nebulous conspirators that carried out your plot (that makes it an inside job) are the "Them" the passage is talking about?

 

[Curnir]

Have I read the book?

Surprise, have you in fact read ANY book?

Have I read the passage that the OP says is about conspiracy thinking? Yep.

Have you understood it? No.

Does this passage make you look like a fool who doesn't know his ass from a whole in the ground.

No.

Did I deftly elucidate this fact in a very terse and entertaining fashion.

No.

Ya betcha bottom dolla.

Your english teacher should be ashamed.

Now read the passage one more time.

Oh and btw can you tell me when my goverment lied to me about 911?

 

[28th Kingdom]

Do you not realize that the nebulous conspirators that carried out your plot (that makes it an inside job) are the "Them" the passage is talking about?

I know that's what you myopic left-brain radicals thought it meant...but once I zoomed out and gave you the bigger picture...and how it relates to 9/11 - the USG is Us...and Islamic terrorists would be Them. (you know - those bad men who hide out in dark places like caves)

"You're either with Us...or you're with Them." (Terrorists)

Most powerful line Bush has ever spoken.

 

[28th Kingdom]

Oh and btw can you tell me when my goverment lied to me about 911?

That's your whole problem right there. Blinded by ego.

 

[Curnir]

That's your whole problem right there. Blinded by ego.

awwww cute as a button.

Ok then. The goverment of the country in which I am a citizen?

 

[28th Kingdom]

awwww cute as a button.

awwww dumb as a rock.

 

[Curnir]

awwww dumb as a rock.

Heh.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

I know that's what you myopic left-brain radicals thought it meant...but once I zoomed out and gave you the bigger picture...and how it relates to 9/11 - the USG is Us...and Islamic terrorists would be Them. (you know - those bad men who hide out in dark places like caves)

"You're either with Us...or you're with Them." (Terrorists)

Most powerful line Bush has ever spoken.

First off, learn how to use ellipses

Ellipsis in English
The Chicago Manual of Style suggests the use of an ellipsis (also known as an ellipse) for any omitted word, phrase, line or paragraph from within a quoted passage. There are two commonly used methods of using ellipses: one uses three dots for any omission, the second makes a distinction between omissions within a sentence (using three dots: ...) and omissions between sentences (using a period and a space followed by three nonbreaking-spaced dots: . . . .). Therefore, there is no such thing as a "four-dot ellipsis." A period followed by an ellipsis may look like four dots, but they are two separate entities.
Although some write ellipses without spaces, some institutions, such as the Oxford University Press, place one space in front of three non-spaced periods. Thus: “I have seen something ...” instead of “I have seen something...” The exception here is when a word has been cut off in the middle; that is, when the ellipsis stands for a part of one word: “‘He said he realized he was wro…’ I stopped mid-word, awestruck.” (In English this is often written as “‘He said he realized he was wro—’ I stopped mid-word, awestruck.”)
At least one style manual—the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers—recommends that the writer enclose an ellipsis in brackets ([ ]) when omitting part of an original quotation. The purpose of this is to prevent readers from confusing ellipses indicating omissions with ellipses included in the original text. However, most other style guides, including the Chicago Manual of Style, recommend the use of bare ellipses to indicate omissions.
According to Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style, the details of typesetting ellipses depend on the character and size of the font being set and the typographer's preference. Bringhurst writes that a full space between each dot is "another Victorian eccentricity. In most contexts, the Chicago ellipsis is much too wide"—he recommends using flush dots, or thin-spaced dots (up to M/5, but thin spaces should be avoided on the Web, because they cannot be displayed reliably in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6), or the prefabricated ellipsis character (Unicode U+2026, Latin entity …). Bringhurst suggests that normally an ellipsis should be spaced fore-and-aft to separate it from the text, but when it combines with other punctuation, the leading space disappears and the other punctuation follows. He provides the following examples:
i ... jk....l..., ll, ... lm...?n...!
In legal writing in the United States, Rule 5.3 in the Bluebook citation guide governs the use of ellipses and requires a space before the first dot and between the two subsequent dots. If an ellipsis ends the sentence, then there are three dots, each separated by a space, followed by the final punctuation.

Secondly, nice strawman. Try not assuming that the people of this forum are blindly following the political jabbering coming out of Washington and have not examined the available evidence and come to our own conclusions. Also, stop confusing the events of 9/11 with the actions taken afterward by the administration. Correlation does not prove causation.

 

[GreyPilgrim]

I've been away from the forums for a bit and this is the second thread I've looked at. Both involve posts by or about 28th Kingdom, and it's the first time I've come across the chap.

I'm going to spend a bit more time looking through more of the forum before form an opinion of him. Just thought I'd let you know that at the moment from the comments I HAVE read, the mental picture involves him wearing a striped cap with a small propeller on top.

Laters. GP

 

[GreyPilgrim]

I've been away from the forums for a bit and this is the second thread I've looked at. Both involve posts by or about 28th Kingdom, and it's the first time I've come across the chap.

I'm going to spend a bit more time looking through more of the forum before form an opinion of him. Just thought I'd let you know that at the moment from the comments I HAVE read, the mental picture involves him wearing a striped cap with a small propeller on top.

Laters. GP

Ok, done. After nine pages of his previous posts, I'm guessing it's all 9/11 CT stuff.

I still prefer Kerravon's rantings

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55480

 

[Mashuna]

I know that's what you myopic left-brain radicals thought it meant...

Still stuck on the whole left-brain / right-brain thing huh?

I love people telling me what a book means without having read it. It's like telling me about a massive hidden conspiracy without having bothered to think about it.

 

[politas]

Did I deftly elucidate this fact in a very terse and entertaining fashion[?]

Actually, no. Not in the slightest. You blathered, sir. You effused and pontificated, ultimately expelling nothing but empty air.