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What is a conspiracy theorist?

Without Rights

Muse
Without Rights
Joined
Feb 8, 2007
Messages
928
Before coming to JREF I thought of conspiracy theorists as people who believe crazy things, like David Icke believing the elite are reptiles and the like. I never considered tax protestors as CT's. Or people who belong to a political party other than Dem or Rep as CT's, or people who just question the government in general as CT's, or people who believe corporations will do evil things for money as CT's. But that's what I get here. I have been labeled a CT so many times since I have been here that it frustrates me and makes me want to leave. I find it funny, the way I came here was on referral because I had questions and my friend said this was a good place to get them answered. Instead I get bombarded with slurs and ad hominems and get labelled a CTer because I don't completely and utterly trust every aspect of Government and corporate worlds.

I don't think 911 was an inside job, but I question the official account, does that make me a CTer? I am not rep or dem, so am I a CTer? I think corporatations brainwash people with the TV so they will buy their products and the image potrayed in the commercial along with it, much in the fashion of Noam Chomsky, does that make me and him a CT?

I thought I would get intellegent responses but they are actually few and far between (I have met some very intuitive and intelligent people), between the slander and name calling. And then when I get mad and start name calling back I get S*** for that also.

Some of you claim you run people off this forum with facts that contradict their beliefs, I beg to differ. I think you run off everybody with insults and teaming up on people and that frustrates them and makes them want to leave. You are not going to win the hearts and minds with slander. All you are going to do is erect a forum where everybody has pretty much the same ideologies and when somebody new comes along the bashing will drive them away so you can claim they it was the facts that drove them out.

Let the bashing begin!!!
 
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A conspiracy theory attempts to attribute the ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually political, social, or historical events), or the concealment of such causes from public knowledge, to a secret, and often deceptive, plot by a covert alliance of powerful or influential people or organizations. Many conspiracy theories claim that major events in history have been dominated by conspirators who manipulate political happenings from behind the scenes.
The first recorded use of the phrase "conspiracy theory" dates back to an economics article in the 1920s, but it was only in the 1960s that it entered popular usage. It entered the supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary as late as 1997.[1]
The term "conspiracy theory" is used by mainstream scholars and in popular culture to identify a type of folklore similar to an urban legend, especially an explanatory narrative which is constructed with particular methodological flaws.[2] The term is also used pejoratively to dismiss claims that are alleged by critics to be misconceived, paranoid, unfounded, outlandish, irrational, or otherwise unworthy of serious consideration. For example "Conspiracy nut" and "conspiracy theorist" are used as pejorative terms. Some whose theories or speculations are labeled a "conspiracy theory" reject the term as prejudicial.
The term "conspiracy theory" may be a neutral descriptor for any conspiracy claim. To conspire means "to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful end."[3] However, conspiracy theory is also used to indicate a narrative genre that includes a broad selection of (not necessarily related) arguments for the existence of grand conspiracies, any of which might have far-reaching social and political implications if true.
Whether or not a particular conspiracy allegation may be impartially or neutrally labeled a conspiracy theory is subject to some controversy. Conspiracy theory has become a highly charged political term, and the broad critique of 'conspiracy theorists' by academics, politicians, psychologists, and the media cuts across traditional left-right political lines.
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conspiracy theoristWP
belief that event is plot: a belief that a particular event is the result of a secret plot rather than the actions of an individual person or chance
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http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/search.aspx?q=conspiracy+theorist

a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators
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http://209.161.33.50/dictionary/conspiracy theorists

also http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=conspiracy+theorist

fwiw
 
Well since I've been dealing with them (yeah I know I'm new here but I've clocked over 5000 posts on BAUT and 2000 on ApolloHoax) I've always considered a CT to be someone that automatically jumps to the conculsion that some "higher up person or people (TPTB)" is covering up "The Truth" of a specific matter. Usually this means that they instantly dismiss the "official version" and claim "the government" (I always wonder why the US Government is THE Government, I mean we have our own bunch of idiots down here, why don't they count?) is lying about it.
 
Usually this means that they instantly dismiss the "official version" and claim "the government" is lying about it.
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Jumping to conclusions is one thing, being on the fence gets you the label in here. I have no conclusions but when I ask a question everybody jumps like a hungry dog on a bone.

(I always wonder why the US Government is THE Government, I mean we have our own bunch of idiots down here, why don't they count?)
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I guess that is just a internet fallacy. I am used to calling my government the government because I mainly speak with Americans. If I said American government to them they would be like "I know what Government your talking about moron"
 
why are we arguing its definition? its in the dictionary. that's the only definition we should use.
 
Without Rights said:
Jumping to conclusions is one thing, being on the fence gets you the label in here. I have no conclusions but when I ask a question everybody jumps like a hungry dog on a bone.
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Such is the risk one runs when visiting 'net message boards; especially ones that have had a long string of sock-puppets and people misrepresenting themselves. That said, try not to let it bother you. If you have legitimate questions, ask them, take the quality answers, ignore the cruft.
 
Arkan_Wolfshade said:
Such is the risk one runs when visiting 'net message boards; especially ones that have had a long string of sock-puppets and people misrepresenting themselves. That said, try not to let it bother you. If you have legitimate questions, ask them, take the quality answers, ignore the cruft.
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I would rather join another forum where I don't get bashed. It is too hard to take an insult lying down, it is my nature to fight back.
 
A few problems, we have no examples of what you have posted as your doubts of the official story so we cannot judge how good your ideas are or how they were received.

The corporations thing is baffling to me. Essentially you say they advertise. So do small businesses, charities, religions, politicians, and lobby groups among many others. If by brainwashed you mean influenced in their buying decisions, I can understand it. If you mean there's some nefarious greater plan than getting them to buy a box of wheaties, you are going to have to offer some proof. I must admit though, its not a very impressive start (in my less than humble opinion).

I have yet to see any negative reference to other political parties (you even have them in the US? I have seen negative inferences for both Republicans and democrat)? Maybe I missed something, another point where a few examples would help.

It might just behove you to thicken your skin if you are going to frequent a skeptical forum. I take a fair amount of crap for my marijuana advocacy, c'est la vie.
 
Without Rights said:
Jumping to conclusions is one thing, being on the fence gets you the label in here. I have no conclusions but when I ask a question everybody jumps like a hungry dog on a bone.
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Well, I'll give you one example.

For years, CTers have claimed that Larry Silverstein made huge profits out of the attacks.

For years, people like yours truly have challenged the CTers to prove that claim. Also, for years, people like yours truly have given a quite detailled breakdown of Silverstein's profits and losses, proving there is no profit, quite the contrary.

Nevertheless, CTers keep jumping to the conclusion that Silverstein somehow made huge profits, never mind the evidence proves this wrong.

And the same goes for many of the CTers claims. They don't resist honest scrutiny, yet CTers keep repeating them as if they never have been debunked.

Does this justify ad-hominem against CTers? In my book no.
But don't expect that the "arguments" of the CTers will be treated nicely. They are mostly rubbish, and when you read the same rubbish for the 100th time, well, you are not so nice anymore.

Please, instead of jumping to conclusions, read the arguments, try to understand them, try to address all the facts, not the arbitrary selection CTers are so fond of.
 
Without Rights said:
Before coming to JREF I thought of conspiracy theorists as people who believe crazy things, like David Icke believing the elite are reptiles and the like. I never considered tax protestors as CT's. Or people who belong to a political party other than Dem or Rep as CT's, or people who just question the government in general as CT's, or people who believe corporations will do evil things for money as CT's. But that's what I get here.
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Personally, I have a vary narrow definition of a conspiracy theorist. To be certain, conspiracies do exist, have existed, and will continue to exist as long as humans are around. However, my definition of a conspiracy theorist is as follows:
A person who takes, on faith, the existence of vast, interconnected groups of people whose primary intention is to do harm to the public in complete secrecy, and a person who actively searches for evidence to support that belief.
Ancillary qualifications as follows:
-Rejects all evidence contrary to the conspiracy theory
-Accepts all evidence supporting the conspiracy theory regardless of source
-Displays complete ignorance towards the nature of science, mathematics and proper investigative practices.
-Lacks critical thinking skills and the ability to logically analyze the validity of an argument.
I have been labeled a CT so many times since I have been here that it frustrates me and makes me want to leave. I find it funny, the way I came here was on referral because I had questions and my friend said this was a good place to get them answered. Instead I get bombarded with slurs and ad hominems and get labelled a CTer because I don't completely and utterly trust every aspect of Government and corporate worlds.
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Quit whining. Words on the internet are as ephemeral as that fart I just let out, and none have the power to do you harm.
I don't think 911 was an inside job, but I question the official account, does that make me a CTer?
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That depends on whether your questions are based upon ignorance of the official account, or upon consistent, logical analysis. Present your objections and see what other critical thinkers say about them.
I am not rep or dem, so am I a CTer? I think corporatations brainwash people with the TV so they will buy their products and the image potrayed in the commercial along with it, much in the fashion of Noam Chomsky, does that make me and him a CT?
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Even Noam thinks 9/11 conspiracy theories are stupid.
I thought I would get intellegent responses but they are actually few and far between (I have met some very intuitive and intellegent people), between the slander and name calling. And then when I get mad and start name calling back I get S*** for that also.
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Show you're the bigger man, and don't get angry at what people say to you on the internet?
Some of you claim you run people off this forum with facts that contradict their beliefs, I beg to differ. I think you run off everybody with insults and teaming up on people and that frustrates them and makes them want to leave.
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It is unfortunate that you feel this way about the forum. Personally, I think newbies get a fair chance to make their case. Their frustration seems to come from poor reasoning skills and the realization that their fundamentally held beliefs are assailable through logic.
You are not going to win the hearts and minds with slander. All you are going to do is erect a forum where everybody has pretty much the same ideologies and when somebody new comes along the bashing will drive them away so you can claim they it was the facts that drove them out.
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Once again, to those who are new, grow a thick skin. This is a forum for critical thinkers, and conspiracy theories have consistently been shown to be devoid of any critical thinking.
 
The debate here has become somewhat polarised, in my opinion, and perhaps newbies aren't given as much chance to explain their position as they should get. Nevertheless, it is more productive if you can calmly outline your concerns and be specific. Bear in mind also, that many of the CT activists who have come here play frustratingly coy games about what they believe which makes seasoned posters inclined to provoke them and call them out. If somebody accuses you of being something you're not, then tell them why they're wrong. Engaging them in a flame war won't lead to a constructive discussion.

Talking about tax protesting or politics outside Democrats and Republicans or Chomsky doesn't make you a conspiracy theorist, but it also not relevant to this sub-forum. Politics is over here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=6

Do you have an example of somebody accusing you of being a conspiracy theorist on the basis of your political view?

Any questions that you have about 9/11 that suggest a conspiracy make you, by definition, a conspiracy theorist - even if only a mild one. This doesn't mean that anybody is accusing you of being like David Icke - merely that you are speculating about a possible conspiracy. Again, I'd rather that people stuck to specific arguments and didn't draw general conclusions - but if people get it wrong, the best thing to do is calmly point out why. If you are asking questions that don't imply a conspiracy, then why are you asking them in a Conspiracy Theory forum?

Again, rather than a general rant, I'd like to see specific examples of people getting it wrong and insulting you.

Overall, it's best not to worry about labels and to focus on specific arguments.
 
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Without Rights said:
I never considered tax protestors as CT's. Or people who belong to a political party other than Dem or Rep as CT's, or people who just question the government in general as CT's, or people who believe corporations will do evil things for money as CT's. But that's what I get here.
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How do you define "tax protestors"? Because that's the only group you mention that I've ever seen automatically labelled CT. Being annoyed at paying taxes, or thinking taxes should be lower, isn't CT. But believing that you aren't legally reuqired to pay taxes because a flag has a fringe, or because you use your own personal definition of "income" or some such definitely is CT-ish.

For the others, you'll find, if you look with an open mind, a lot of people here who "belong to a political party other than Dem or Rep ..., or people who just question the government in general ..., or people who believe corporations will do evil things for money ..."

The difference is when you start believing that only parties other than Dems or Reps are valid, that government does nothing but lie, and that corporations are wholly evil without limit, that you get into CT territory. Believing all that at once compounds the problems.


Without Rights said:
I don't think 911 was an inside job, but I question the official account, does that make me a CTer? I am not rep or dem, so am I a CTer? I think corporatations brainwash people with the TV so they will buy their products and the image potrayed in the commercial along with it, much in the fashion of Noam Chomsky, does that make me and him a CT?
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Not any one of those things. All those together, and the dedication with which you believe them (in the face of evidence to the contrary), may be what makes you a CT.
 
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Without Rights said:
I never considered tax protestors as CT's.
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Most tax protestors aren't CTs but many are. Generally these people want to talk about the Federal Reserve, the elite bankers, and the Rothschilds (and the Zionists). The two groups tend to overlap in the extreme because both the income-tax arguments and conspiracy-theories are appealing in similar ways.

However, the tactics of tax-protesters and CTs are scarily identical. Essentially they both boil down to horrible misinterpretation of reality, terrible logic, and a total disregard for experts. In one case it happens to be scientific, and the other happens to be legal.

Personally, I love the income tax arguments because it's so trivial to dismantle tax protester arguments because the entire system is man-made with defined answers. CT claims are more difficult because the system is natural and the answers aren't always easy to find (or even possible to find).
 
Personally, I think that asking questions, even if phrased nicely, seemingly with no ulterior motive, can indeed be viewed as an indicator of a conspiracy theorists (the woo kind).

Let's say someone comes into a forum/thread with this: "Has anyone here heard about the reports that named hijackers were found to be alive after 9/11?"

On the surface, it looks like a simple question and it could be, easily answered by "It took time, but they have identified all the hijackers, and they are dead." However, what is far more likely is that this person already believes that 9/11 was some kind of "inside job" or at least that the government has "important" information that they are not revealing to us about the 9/11 attacks - both of those situations, in my mind, would identify a CTer by broad distrust of the government and/or authority in general.

As far as you're specifically concerned, Without Rights, I went over your initial participation here through your posting history and found that you opened somewhat belligerently (and regarding a point that had been cleared up within the thread of your first post, hours before). You were accused of being a conspiracist without having made any CT claims, though I find that almost understandable considering your handle which brings with it a set of preconceptions all its own. Further, in your first thread you managed to initiate a ****ing match by calling Al Gore "an idiot" because you disagree with his views. Now, it might be that I agree with you on that issue (well, both of them to some degree), but when you say something like that you're establishing the level of discourse about which you're now here complaining.

I haven't the time or the inclination to go through all of your posts, but the idea that you were somehow wronged just doesn't look accurate to me. It looks more to me like you were an aggressive bull coming out of the gate who is now trying to play Ferdinand...
 
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