The Great Internet Conspiracy: Truth Movement Retrospective

[R.Mackey]

It is also curious that many CT promoters were marketing their ideas via VHS videos in the 1990s, and later on DVDs, media which should translate snugly into the YouTube format, but the advent of YouTube hasn't changed their profile significantly. Alex Jones was a possible exception, but he's sort of John the Baptist to the Twoof Movement's Jesus, and you were very astute in noting how he has blown relatively hot and cold towards 9/11 Truth.

The sudden upsurge of Twoofiness thus clearly rested on its novelty; 9/11 Truth was to YouTube as Dire Straits were to CD players in 1980s Britain.

Actually we saw reliance on video much earlier than that, of course... but video still just wasn't that easy to replicate until 2005. I mention in the writeup how my primary education was particularly conspiracy-friendly -- we were bombarded by all kinds of nutso videos and television programming, everything from "In Search Of..." to fringe stuff that never made it to broadcast.

Novelty counts for a lot. But I still think it only happened because, in addition to being novel, it was easily accessible, and it just happened to hit us in a way that was impossible to forget. Think about having a crappy song stuck in your head that you can't stop humming, even though you don't even like it. 9/11 Truth did that. I can't recall any of the other wacko idea doing that to me, not even Kennedy Assassination stuff.

The 9/11 Commission report undpubtedly caused a spike in 'doubt', but what is interesting is how relatively few references were made to it in the heyday of Twoofing. The two NIST reports may have played a greater role in stoking the fire, but looking back, I think the average Twoofer has a fourth- or fifth-hand relationship to those sources. This decline is undoubtedly a product of web 2.0. They source their doubts from videos inspired by web-pages inspired by books which have cherrypicked the original reports. On the rare occasions that a Twoofer looked at the original reports, they picked out one item to become their idee fixe. RebIbis is probably the classic example of that re: WTC7.

I'd argue that RedIbis is merely a classic sophist, but for most Truthers this is completely true. I was astounded to find that Dr. Griffin hadn't even read the NIST Reports, but based all of his complaints on the NIST FAQ. Even Jim Hoffman, based on some of his more spectacular mistakes, seems to have only read NCSTAR1, not any of the more detailed project reports.

I think we'd find that a very high proportion of argumentation over 9/11, especially in this forum, has degenerated into an argument over process and form. Case in point being the misunderstandings of what peer review actually is.

Yup. It's nothing but a more complex form of semantic argument.

 

[Edx]

Seriously. Can one really have TOO much mescaline?

mescaline, its the only way to fly

 

[Nick Terry]

Actually we saw reliance on video much earlier than that, of course... but video still just wasn't that easy to replicate until 2005. I mention in the writeup how my primary education was particularly conspiracy-friendly -- we were bombarded by all kinds of nutso videos and television programming, everything from "In Search Of..." to fringe stuff that never made it to broadcast.

This begs the question of how many conspiraloons put their warblings onto Betamax.

Novelty counts for a lot. But I still think it only happened because, in addition to being novel, it was easily accessible, and it just happened to hit us in a way that was impossible to forget. Think about having a crappy song stuck in your head that you can't stop humming, even though you don't even like it. 9/11 Truth did that. I can't recall any of the other wacko idea doing that to me, not even Kennedy Assassination stuff.

I think we shouldn't underestimate how much easier it was for the videos to go viral, because of three relatively new outlets: MySpace, Facebook and blogs, and because internet forums had become more sophisticated and user-friendly. Virtually all of these outlets were only a few years old when Loose Change was made, and it may well have helped the rapid spread of the meme that MySpace was popular with teens, while Facebook had already captured the college crowd.

This was also the same time that Wikipedia grew past a million articles in English, and when Google became uber-dominant. It wasn't until 2006 that I first encountered students trying to cite Wikipedia as a source. Since then, Wikipedia has expanded fourfold, while the articles have become better over the years; so in the long run, some of the changes brought about by web 2.0 hurt the spread of the CT.

A straight up search for 9/11 (no qualifiers) yields 527 million hits on Google, only slightly less than for 'Iraq'; it's pretty clear that the Truth movement benefited from the sheer volume of exposure for the event online, with pretty much every media outlet being fully online by the time the CT went viral. By comparison, JFK gets 51 million hits; I think the tenfold difference is a good measure of how much more impact 9/11 had than the JFK assassination did, which is widely recognised as the first real global television/media event.

 

[911kongen]

This is likely to be my very last project on the 9/11 Truth Movement.

As you probably know if you've followed this Forum for a while, I've spent some time trying to understand in the abstract how the Truth Movement behaves. I found this more productive than having the same arguments over and over again. These efforts produced my Inflationary Model of Conspiracy Theories and my whitepaper on Irreducible Delusion. And finally, earlier this year, I showed through experiment that the Truth Movement is dead.

I've also learned a great deal from other posters, such as ref's series on the origins of the Truth Movement, and more recently, Myriad's fine posts on The Masochistic Lie and earlier efforts, Scott Sommers's observations (and eventual published article), the work of Dave Thomas, and many others too numerous to list here. In recent months we have seen many excellent articles and productions about the Truth Movement, including books from Jonathan Kay, Anthony Summers and Robyn Swan, a fine series of articles at Slate Magazine, and chrismohr's mammoth video series following his debate against Richard Gage.

But despite all of this discussion, and despite several years of experience with the Truthers, I was left with one unanswered question:

Why?​

What is it about this conspiracy theory, and no other conspiracy theory, that captured my attention? What made this particular strain of crazy worth my effort, when there are so many to choose from? And why do so many "debunkers" keep coming back, even after the Truth Movement has dwindled to almost nothing?

Earlier this year, I finally began to see a possible answer. As I set about writing it up, I also eventually came to a deeper understanding of what caused it in the first place -- and how technology figures prominently in its evolution. I hinted at this in a recent thread. What I found is not at all what I expected. If my hypothesis is correct, it has some definite, concrete implications for how we should respond to Truthers and other conspiracy theorists in the future. It also allows some strong predictions about the next great conspiracy theory.

Like most of my whitepapers, this one exceeded its original scope. It runs to a total of 82 pages including end notes. But unlike my previous work criticizing Dr. Griffin, this is not a science paper (at best, social science), and not nearly so dry. It is also not a debunking paper. This is a work about the Truth Movement itself, not its claims. You are also free to copy it if you like.

You may download the paper here, in PDF format: http://minus.com/mnClzKjzb

With this investigation complete, and following my own advice, I am now clearing my Ignore list once and for all. I will also still be around for useful discussion. But don't expect me to argue with the Truthers about their 9/11 beliefs. That duty has been discharged.

Some of the claims in my paper are sure to be controversial, though I hope you find them interesting and at least plausibly supported. Any comments, feel free to post them here.

Thanks,
Ryan Mackey

We have a discussion in Norway today, about ignoring the extreme right wing. We have not let them speak in news papers or on TV. They have just been ignored. Breivik said he and other people was being ignored, and that he had to get attention, then he bombed the government and went on a killing spree on a youth camp for the labour party. So we are debating in Norway if ignoring extreme view points can make then desperate and act on the hate they have building inside them.

Do you think the right thing is to ignore them? I can see your point in ignoring them now, but don't you think the debunking that has been done has been extremely important? Now the debunking is out there and we can't save people that are in denial.. and we should not spent any time on them either...

 

[uke2se]

I haven't finished the paper yet as I'm on holiday and don't really have the time to read it all in one go, but I must say it is extremely interesting and well written. Great job!

 

[R.Mackey]

We have a discussion in Norway today, about ignoring the extreme right wing. We have not let them speak in news papers or on TV. They have just been ignored. Breivik said he and other people was being ignored, and that he had to get attention, then he bombed the government and went on a killing spree on a youth camp for the labour party. So we are debating in Norway if ignoring extreme view points can make then desperate and act on the hate they have building inside them.

Do you think the right thing is to ignore them? I can see your point in ignoring them now, but don't you think the debunking that has been done has been extremely important? Now the debunking is out there and we can't save people that are in denial.. and we should not spent any time on them either...

An interesting point.

Before I answer, though, let me be more careful with analogies. Anders Breivik is not the same thing as the Truth Movement. He's a psychopath. The vast majority of Truthers are practically inert, and certainly non-violent. There may be the odd phony tough-guy Truther who drops threats in my e-mail, and there are also psychos who also happen to be Truthers like Jared Loughner, but we're really talking about different things.

Having said that, absolutely I think you need to ignore them. If you start catering to murderers and thugs like Breivik, you're just going to send the message that mayhem and destruction works.

Also, you'll note in my writeup that I don't advocate ignoring Truthers. What I advocate is ignoring their Truther beliefs. I want to see them rehabilitated. If a lunatic like Breivik actually has a good point buried in his hatred, then by all means, have that conversation. But under no circumstances should he be rewarded for acts of violence.

It's hard to tell from this far away, through the filter of newspapers, but I think your public response to Breivik has been appropriately low-key.

 

[Nick Terry]

Truthers are almost universally ignored in the real world. The same applies to fascists. Neither group participates in the normal societal conversation as expressed in the media, except at the very fringes, where they are usually told to eff off.

Places like JREF, where Truthers can come to splash around in a paddling-pool, can under certain circumstances fuel the delusions of Truthers, since they might come to believe some combination of (1) JREF = the wider world and/or (2) that their arguments have standing because someone is replying to them. In practice, Truthers make zero headway here, and instead of being told to eff off once, they're told to eff off over and over and over and over again. The ones that are still here are like the Eveready Bunnies of woo, perpetual-motion punchbags.

 

[chrismohr]

I'm real interested to hear more responses to Ryan's paper. There's a lot in the to digest. It's a bit early, but so far we've focused on the question of whether to ignore 9/11 truth arguments. What about his assertion that the 9/11 Truth movement itself is pretty much spent? I hear a Gage lecture and he packs the rooms, convincing lots of people. But Ryan has what looks like very good evidence that the movement has lost steam big time. Thoughts?

 

[beachnut]

Nice work.

 

[sylvan8798]

I'm real interested to hear more responses to Ryan's paper. There's a lot in the to digest. It's a bit early, but so far we've focused on the question of whether to ignore 9/11 truth arguments. What about his assertion that the 9/11 Truth movement itself is pretty much spent? I hear a Gage lecture and he packs the rooms, convincing lots of people. But Ryan has what looks like very good evidence that the movement has lost steam big time. Thoughts?

I don't know if this person's story about her attendance at this event is true or not, but if true it speaks to the need for non-truthers to remain vigilant. And maybe take up martial arts.

http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1131

 

[911kongen]

An interesting point.

Before I answer, though, let me be more careful with analogies. Anders Breivik is not the same thing as the Truth Movement. He's a psychopath. The vast majority of Truthers are practically inert, and certainly non-violent. There may be the odd phony tough-guy Truther who drops threats in my e-mail, and there are also psychos who also happen to be Truthers like Jared Loughner, but we're really talking about different things.

Having said that, absolutely I think you need to ignore them. If you start catering to murderers and thugs like Breivik, you're just going to send the message that mayhem and destruction works.

Also, you'll note in my writeup that I don't advocate ignoring Truthers. What I advocate is ignoring their Truther beliefs. I want to see them rehabilitated. If a lunatic like Breivik actually has a good point buried in his hatred, then by all means, have that conversation. But under no circumstances should he be rewarded for acts of violence.

It's hard to tell from this far away, through the filter of newspapers, but I think your public response to Breivik has been appropriately low-key.

How do you know Breivik is a psychopath? Yes, he did an extreme thing, but all you need to do extreme things is an extreme ideology. 911 was also extreme, but you don't think all of the 19 hijackers are psychopaths? They could just have a twisted ideology?

They are coming out with a report soon on Breiviks mental health. To me it looks like he is not sick in the head, but only had a twisted ideology. He probably is an narcissist but that is not an sickness in Norway, just an personality.

If I was lost in the NWO-conspiracy and I "knew" I had the truth, I would attack the government that I knew was making concentration camps, poisoning the water and fabricating elections. That does not make me a psychopath? It just makes me lost in a twisted ideology?

When I see people like Alex Jones saying its the truth, not a theory, I get worried. I had expected attacks against the government would come in USA, not just a a couple of kilometers from my apartment.

When people have extreme view points and is ignored, I think it can make them desperate. That will set them aside of society, and not letting them taking part in it. Im trying to follow the truth movement in USA, and it looks to me that the movement is dead, BUT that makes it more likely that extreme truthers will do extreme actions. Im just waiting for a big terrorist attack in USA done by a truther, and NWO-fanatic. Its just a matter of time, when AJ can freely broadcast his hatred. They said yesterday that they no longer will call it the The united states of America, but The Fascist state of America. A revolution is needed. If you buy AJs ideology you believe that government is poisoning water and the atmosphere, making concentration camps, making people Gay, making HIV, orchestrating terrorist attacks agains their own people, planing on killing 90 % off all humans.

If AJ had fooled me to believe all of this, I would attack the government! Breivik was fooled in to believe paranoid ideas. Many people have been manipulated and fooled to do extreme actions, but that does not make them psychopaths. They might be psychopaths, but they don't have to be...

 

[Oystein]

How do you know Breivik is a psychopath? Yes, he did an extreme thing, but all you need to do extreme things is an extreme ideology. 911 was also extreme, but you don't think all of the 19 hijackers are psychopaths? They could just have a twisted ideology?

They are coming out with a report soon on Breiviks mental health. To me it looks like he is not sick in the head, but only had a twisted ideology. He probably is an narcissist but that is not an sickness in Norway, just an personality.
...

Uhm, this is off-topic, but don't you think that having little remorse when looking children in the eye before shooting them is a bit ... out of the sane ordinary? Is thinking that the murder of the children of social democrats might bring about real, positive political change not rather deluded? It's not the ideology that makes Breivik special, it's this extreme disconnect from reality that made him translate that ideology into that particular act of violence that marks him as a psychopath. He must severly lack empathy.

 

[Oystein]

Truthers are almost universally ignored in the real world. The same applies to fascists. Neither group participates in the normal societal conversation as expressed in the media, except at the very fringes, where they are usually told to eff off.
...

Not entirely true. Both sometimes find venues where vulnerable segments of society come together. Social internet communities catered towards teenagers and adolescents being one example. I have seen in one such community both conspiracy theories strive (I found the JREF while debating 9/11 there and googling arguments and counter-arguments) and organized neo-nazis apparently spreading their ideology amid a receptive crowd, parts of which thought of right-wing symbolism as merely a fasion statement.

I found that debating CTers was relatively fruitless - mainly because kids would not read lengthy debates - but was surprisingly successful at running nazis off the board. In the latter case, I think they left when they noticed I had found out their tactics and the motivation behind some slogans, and was able to explain in relatively short sentences to interested youths why neo-nazi ideology actively works against their own immediate self-interest (nazism is anti-individualist, anti-hedonistic).

Today, that board is free both of Nazis and of CTers. In the former case, because the few ideologues went off to other venues, in the latter more because 9/11 CTs have grown out of fashion and interest no-one since the Loose Change craze has vaned.

 

[911kongen]

Uhm, this is off-topic, but don't you think that having little remorse when looking children in the eye before shooting them is a bit ... out of the sane ordinary? Is thinking that the murder of the children of social democrats might bring about real, positive political change not rather deluded? It's not the ideology that makes Breivik special, it's this extreme disconnect from reality that made him translate that ideology into that particular act of violence that marks him as a psychopath. He must severly lack empathy.

Well, Breivik did not shoot people that looked "young". He let them go, and they have confirmed this. He was after youth that was so old that their political views was set. To him that was 15-16 years and up, and he is right, he might have killed a coming prime minister. He also thought it was important to do something extreme to get attention, and his goal was to come to the youth camp when our VERY popular earlier prime minister was visiting the camp.

He also warned a mother with a baby, to get away from the carbomb. So he only wanted to hit the labour party, and to me it looks like he has a "normal" view on life. If I lived under Nazigermany it would be possible that I would have attacker the headquarter to the nazi-party and went on a killingspree on a hitler youth camp. If I did that, would I be a psychopath? Breivik was fooled to believe he lived in a regime worse than nazi-germany. We have a lot of "heros" in Norway that attacked nazists, and sicilians was killed. They are still heroes, and Brevik sees him self like that..

 

[Oystein]

I'm real interested to hear more responses to Ryan's paper. There's a lot in the to digest. It's a bit early, but so far we've focused on the question of whether to ignore 9/11 truth arguments. What about his assertion that the 9/11 Truth movement itself is pretty much spent? I hear a Gage lecture and he packs the rooms, convincing lots of people. But Ryan has what looks like very good evidence that the movement has lost steam big time. Thoughts?

When you go to a neo nazi meeting, you will find the room packed with neo-nazis. When you go to a Mormon celebration, the room is packed with Mormons. When you go to a convention of stamp collectors, everybody infects everybody with the enthusiasm for rare stamps.

This would give you a feeling like nazism, mormonism or stamp collecting are exciting ideas on the up and up.

They aren't. Just leave the packed rooms.

 

[Nursedan]

The paper, like your others, is fantastic. It's one of those situations where I've had these thoughts but haven't been able to articulate them, and I don't think I am even capable of articulating them this clearly.

Thanks Ryan.

 

[Marokkaan]

Hi all,

This is an excerpt of an email I sent Ryan about this a couple weeks ago, when I saw his first draft:

I hope your optimistic assessment of future similar theories is correct, that 9/11 was an anomalous convergence of factors not likely to come back after the next disaster. I seem to remember that the Kennedy assassination was a wingdinger and had real traction. Scarier still, theories of the global warming hoax and antievolutionists have frightening political clout, and in my mind both operate like conspiracy theories (but with political, religious and and economic motivations driving them).

I've often asked myself if my debate and 20 YouTube video rebuttals with Richard Gage was counterproductive. In treating Richard with respect, I was treating other newbie possible truthers with respect, and indeed twice as many people were moved in my direction as Richard's in the debate (in a room full of 240 9/11 Truth people and ten skeptics). I even used the preferred dissemination tool of 9/11 Truth: YouTube. My friends and wife say I am only giving credibility to a crazy theory.

I am making headway on the thermitic dust test, and when that is done I will publicize the results with one more YouTube video. After that, like you I see myself going into semi-retirement, but out of respect I think it appropriate to be available for awhile to answer and clarify. So it'll be awhile before I follow your suggestion not to bother engaging. Your suggestions for dealing with 9/11 Truth have not yet been followed by me (except the one not to be insulting). I am enjoying life more as I spend less time on this these days!

You and I also come from very different backgrounds. As a science hobbyist I watch PBS science shows, read Carl Sagan and others, but don't do experimental method the way scientifically trained minds do. What was obviously way off base to you was compelling to me at first. I never succumbed to Gage's theories because there were some things I DID know and whatever I actually knew was contradicted by Gage et al (not scrambling the planes is exactly what Gary Hart predicted and warned would happen if terrorists attacked us; I saw the raging fires in Building Seven on ABC News on 9/11; I saw the binLaden confession video and knew binLaden was the guy in this video, not some fat phony binLaden, etc). With other things I developed the habit of asking, is this true? over and over again to every claim. But at first many of the claims slipped by even that net. I believed in freefall of the Towers, that no steel-frame structure had ever collapsed due to fire, that NIST made horrible mistakes and covered up their data, that there were rivers of molten steel, etc. Facing down Gage's technical claims is NOT easy for a nonscientist who doesn't even know how to ask the questions. I think Gage has a really compelling narrative for many people, which is why I hope my rebuttals help. I'm very good with keywords, and my 20 YouTubes pop up any time people google Gage, 9/11 Truth, etc. I do think people get caught by that narrative because the sheer quantity of the "evidence" is overwhelming and seems to make sense to a nontechnical person. And then they are, as you said, kind of trapped in what Gage calls "the nightmare that is 9/11." I wanted to answer all their questions. I feel that answering them Richard Gage's way showed something very powerful: a marrying minister in Denver can intelligently answer every assertion Gage makes, on his terms, and still win the debate. With 16,000 views of these videos, I hope it has an impact for as long as Richard Gage is traveling the world and giving his lectures.

It was fascinating to see that 9/11 Truth has lost so much steam in the past five years. People on JREF say that all the time but I did not know that was true. Your article demonstrates this to be true. Again, I have a very different perspective: a best friend for 35 years is a top 9/11 Truth activist, has convinced many of our mutual friends, and of course at my debates I saw hundreds of people like this. I know them well and there seem to be a lot of them. They aren't just internet phantoms; I know dozens of them personally.

Thanks again for a great article. I hope it finds wider distribution.

Its just easy like that, FEMA failed with his report. NIST failed with his report.

So we ask a new investigation. Do not try to put people in a corner with the mark: conspiracist

I have learned thanks to you guys. That the truthers and the debunkers have alot of similarities. The most of the people do not have the expertise to judge and just believe in the arguments of the people(who think they are the experts, or are really the experts). So based on these arguments they choose a side.

People like the threadstarter and you, are people who do not have the expertise to talk about this subject. The only thing you guys are doing, is to mislead people unconscious or conscious, with your own research based on pseudoscience.

 

[Marokkaan]

Linking people, like breivik to truthers. Jet another fail from the debunkers to try to denigrate the truth movement.

There is nothing weaker than that.

 

[Oystein]

Its just easy like that, FEMA failed with his report. NIST failed with his report.

Have you asked yourself: "Is this true?"?

I have learned thanks to you guys. That the truthers and the debunkers have alot of similarities. The most of the people do not have the expertise to judge and just believe in the arguments of the people(who think they are the experts, or are really the experts). So based on these arguments they choose a side.

Do you have the expertise?
Did you choose a side?
An honest answer to these two questions - two words is all that's required - will show us everything we need to know about you.

People like the threadstarter and you, are people who do not have the expertise to talk about this subject. The only thing you guys are doing, is to mislead people unconscious or conscious, with your own research based on pseudoscience.

Again - Do you have the expertise?

 

[Oystein]

Linking people, like breivik to truthers. Jet another fail from the debunkers to try to denigrate the truth movement.

There is nothing weaker than that.

You need to remember that there ARE truthers who call for the blood of very real people. In fact, if you got your way entirely, many people would face the death penalty. This IS a matter of life and deatch. Breivik felt that his killings were justified, and some truthers feel the killing of those who have activeky co-sonspired in this mass murder and high treason (there must be many thousands of them) would be justified.