Debunkers and cognitive dissonance

[Scott Sommers]

Let me try and address this question, or at least what I think this question is about. I think you are asking about the motives of the members here that are referred to as debunkers - the guys and girls who think that 9/11 Truth is a bucket of house urine. You suggest it has something to do with drawing those Truther folk into a rational discourse. In fact, this is strikingly similar to what that guy - Cass Sunstein - was trying to get at with his suggestion of cognitive infiltration.
http://visibility911.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/SSRN-id1084585.pdf

And my answer? Do I think that's what's going on here on the 9/11 Conspiracy Forum? Not at all. I think most of the so-called debunking isn't fundamentally different from the Truthing, at least in its psychological origins.

And why do I think this? Let's go back to your original point.

A chance remark I made to Scott Sommers some time ago in another thread has led me to wonder whether there isn't an element of cognitive dissonance to the behaviour of debunkers in this forum,

If you go back to that thread, my point was that the term cognitive dissonance is being thrown on this forum like it has no meaning. Truther and debunker alike, use the term to mean some general bad thing about people's thinking. And then there's that other term ripped off from Wikipedia, the Krugger & Dunning Effect. Why bother at all with these terms when they're not properly understood? Isn't it enough to say that Bill Smith has no idea what thermite is or what happens to concrete when you make it really hot? But I figure people keep slinging around these terms 'cause they're those top-schooled, real educated people's kind of insults full of tough words that the lower downs don't quite get.

What keeps this forum going for the debunkers? The chance to call people stupid in more and more obscure ways. And now that the thermite jokes have run out and a We Are Change demonstration turns into a hundred people screaming at pedestrians, ya' gotta reach out for some more of those top-schooled people's vocabulary - even if you don't really know how to use the words.

This forum is just a bunch of folks yelling and screaming at each other. And if you don't believe me, take at look at the most active threads. Take a look at the threads that hit 100 pages. It's all the stupidest Truthers. The stupider you are, the more you can attract attention on the JREF. And if you're a messed up old lady with no friends and brain damage, and want some attention, come to the JREF and say some really stupid things. I have 50 videos of planes hitting the WTC and that proves that no planes hit the WTC, says one voice, and it hits a 100 pages.

I think this forum is great and I've learned a lot being here. But if you ask me why the same group of debunkers keep posting the same things year after year to the same pack of 9/11 retards, this is what I think. It's a good thing that they do this, but does that mean they have noble motives? Not at all.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Let me try and address this question, or at least what I think this question is about. I think you are asking about the motives of the members here that are referred to as debunkers - the guys and girls who think that 9/11 Truth is a bucket of house urine. You suggest it has something to do with drawing those Truther folk into a rational discourse.

I'm surprised you got that from the OP. What I'm trying to suggest is that the motivations of those referred to as debunkers are far more complex, and less well understood by ourselves, than a simple attempt to draw truthers into a rational disourse, because we have ample evidence that any such attempt is mostly doomed to failure. I have at least some awareness of my own motives, I find it a continual source of frustration that truthers so rarely respond to rational argument, and yet I keep trying. It would be interesting to have a better insight into why I do so.

What keeps this forum going for the debunkers? The chance to call people stupid in more and more obscure ways. And now that the thermite jokes have run out and a We Are Change demonstration turns into a hundred people screaming at pedestrians, ya' gotta reach out for some more of those top-schooled people's vocabulary - even if you don't really know how to use the words.

I think there's an element of that, yes, but there are still people who on occasion actually try to present rational counter-arguments to the truthers, even in the face of irrational responses. I'm interested in why we still bother.

I think this forum is great and I've learned a lot being here. But if you ask me why the same group of debunkers keep posting the same things year after year to the same pack of 9/11 retards, this is what I think. It's a good thing that they do this, but does that mean they have noble motives? Not at all.

I tend to agree; certainly there's no reason to start from the presumption that anyone's motives are above criticism. So do you think that bullying and ridiculing truthers is the sole motivation in play here, or is there a possibility that things are a little more complex than that? Because if all that were going on here were simply abuse and ridicule, I suspect you wouldn't have learned very much from it at all.

Dave

 

[Scott Sommers]

I'm surprised you got that from the OP.

I can not be accused of being a careful and committed member of this forum, and you may just have seen evidence of this.

I think there's an element of that, yes, but there are still people who on occasion actually try to present rational counter-arguments to the truthers, even in the face of irrational responses. I'm interested in why we still bother.

I continued trying to do this for a long time, even after I knew it wouldn't work, out of reflex. Honestly, until I came here, I didn't understand how people could be so stupid so consistently while they were trying to be taken seriously. But, until I came here, I had never seen anyone argue any way except from a rational, evidence-based perspective. I have given up posting to the Truth 'tards because they don't respond to good arguments. But that took me about 2 years.

So do you think that bullying and ridiculing truthers is the sole motivation in play here, or is there a possibility that things are a little more complex than that? Because if all that were going on here were simply abuse and ridicule, I suspect you wouldn't have learned very much from it at all.

I think motives are always complex and difficult to summarize. I don't believe that reducing the motives of those on the JREF to cognitive bias like that thing everyone calls the Krugger & Dunning Effect is very useful. This almost certainly gets done because the engineering and science majors here took psychology as their arts elective. There are much more appropriate models of personality used in sociology that are less distant from common sense.

In fact, I am increasingly curious about the debunkers that come here and had thought about writing something about this. I don't have nearly as much information about this group of people, though. Ironically, Truthers and other conspiracy theorists post vast amounts of personal information about themselves on the Internet.

I'd be interested in getting a better understanding of this. I might be wrong with my cynical image of debunking. It may just be my only boredom dealing with the Truth idiots.

 

[Horatius]

Honestly, until I came here, I didn't understand how people could be so stupid so consistently while they were trying to be taken seriously. But, until I came here, I had never seen anyone argue any way except from a rational, evidence-based perspective.

While there are certainly truthers who are posting here who are quite bone-headedly stupid, while also being gloriously ignorant of that stupidity, they're actually the least interesting group, except for the aforementioned ridicule.

The much more interesting group are those who are clearly not bone-headedly stupid, but who, for some reason, still subscribe to at least some of the stupid theories the first group promotes. These are the ones I'd like to study. What makes an otherwise intelligent person support an irrational position so devoutly?

We make jokes about the Truth Cult and the like, but there's some truth to that. This mindset seems to be shared by lots of people who, while being otherwise intelligent, support some sort of irrational woo, be that 9/11 Truth, homoeopathy, theism, Ufology, or any of a dozen other topics.

In the initial stages of any new woo, it's necessary to debunk the "factual" claims, in order to demonstrate that the belief is, in fact, erroneous. Once that has been done, though, our work becomes much more about trying to figure out why someone believes these things, and what can be done to change those beliefs, or prevent them in the first place. Of course, this is much harder than simply pointing out that, say, the collapse of WTC7 took longer than 7 seconds, and as such, not as many people will be well suited to that task. And so far, from what I've seen, the people who try to answer the larger question of why people believe the irrational in favour of the rational have not succeeded.

Fundamentally, showing that a belief is irrational is much easier than finding out why someone holds that belief so strongly. Sure, in some cases it's because they're just idiots who can't understand anything, but not always, or even most of the time.

 

[Scott Sommers]

I've written extensively about this here and elsewhere. And this is my point that it's not a psychological issue, and this is especially true for that group you describe as

group are those who are clearly not bone-headedly stupid, but who, for some reason, still subscribe to at least some of the stupid theories the first group promotes.

I don't joke about the Truth Cult. But I do think this analogy completely misses the point of the issue. It's not some cognitive bias that's clouding their logical processes, and if only we could get past that with some intervention, they would hear a bell and see the light. This is what Cass Sunstein is missing with all his talk about bringing conspiracy theorists into the public sphere. It's got nothing at all to do with that.

 

[Horatius]

Okay, so if it's not a "psychological issue", then what is it? Are you restricting "psychological issue" to only mental illnesses?

It seems to me, there are only a few things that could lead someone to ostensibly support such things:

1. Stupidity
2. Mental Illness
3. Cognitive issues innate to humanity
4. A ploy in support of some other goal
5. Trolling

Can you name any other motivation that wouldn't fall into one of those broad categories? Aside from the last two, which would be deliberate (cynical) choices to espouse a belief, but not to actually hold it, these are all what I'd refer to as "psychological issues".

 

[Scott Sommers]

Psychological issues are those aspects of personality for which explanations are related to individual differences between people, and these differences are measurable on an interval scale. This would include your definitions 1, 2, 3 and perhaps 5. Your #4 implies deception, which probably plays a role in conspiracy theory, but is not what this discussion is about.

There are other categories of explanation, for example, the kind of definitions of social and cultural construction encountered in non-psychology social sciences, such as sociology and anthropology. My point is not that there are no psychological explanations for conspiracy beliefs. There's loads of research being on these as we speak. My opinion, however, is that these do not provide much meaning to this discussion. What is needed is a better understanding of the social construction of conspiracy theory and not knowledge of how individual differences predict conspiracy theory beliefs.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

What is needed is a better understanding of the social construction of conspiracy theory and not knowledge of how individual differences predict conspiracy theory beliefs.

Speaking without any background in sociology, it seems to me that the history of religions and related belief systems provides plenty of data that can help us to understand the social construction of conspiracy theory.

There are, as far as I can see, only three reasons why we do it. One is that "almost always"; every now and then a truther is intellectually honest enough to re-examine his claims in the light of counter-arguments, and finds them to be untenable. We have a few posting here who have made that leap, and no longer believe in the conspiracy theories. Another is the commonly voiced argument that we're only doing it for the lurkers. Again, now and then we see a post from someone who was initially swayed, whether completely or partially, by the conspiracy theories, but on seeing debunkers' responses was able to recognise the flaws in them. These are both rare occasions, though, and there is little reward to be had from either.

The third, then, is this: we are, in some sense, trying to reconcile the deeply held belief that all reasonably intelligent people are capable of rational analysis of evidence, with the obvious observation that some truthers, intelligent enough to frame grammatically correct sentences and post them on a discussion forum, are nevertheless completely unable to see beyond their prejudices, however glaringly obvious they may be to the rest of us.

You have postulated a "deeply held belief that all reasonably intelligent people are capable of rational analysis of evidence." In my opinion, a rational analysis of the available evidence tells us that, even if all reasonably intelligent people may be capable of rational analysis, rational analysis is not their usual approach.

I subscribe to more of a "for the lurkers" justification, mainly because of my personal experience. My initial examination of Rob Balsamo's nonsense led me straight into the web's vast storehouse of 9/11 misinformation, where it can be difficult to separate 9/11 fact from fiction. As I began to understand which sources were more reliable and which were reliably unreliable, both reliable and unreliable sources led me to JREF and to several other sites at which both arguments and counter-arguments could be found and evaluated.

Although we see little here that is new, we continue to see old arguments being presented as though they were fresh and/or irrefutable. When that happens, posting summaries and/or pointers to actual facts and/or refutations helps the lurkers who come to JREF as I did.

I agree that many (and quite possibly most) of the "debunker" posts here are as worthless as the average "truther" post. On the other hand, a complete failure to counter nonsensical claims would allow the claimants to claim their claims have gone unchallenged, which would be a disservice to the lurkers who come here in search of genuine content.

It seems the debunkers here may be growing tired of posting pointers to refutations of routine claims. I could give several recent examples of "truther" claims that have gone largely unrefuted, but stating the specifics in this thread would cause too many digressions.

 

[Scott Sommers]

Speaking without any background in sociology, it seems to me that the history of religions and related belief systems provides plenty of data that can help us to understand the social construction of conspiracy theory.

This could be, but there is much more to sociology than "the history of religions and related belief systems". Sociology is the stream of social sciences that emerged from the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Weber and it is this that makes it different from psychology. There is a lot involved in this that is relevant to the development of personality. But it is a conception of personality that is not related to the measurement of individual differences.

 

[Scott Sommers]

So Dave, I've been thinking about your point. Let's do a case study of this and see how this situation really unfolds. Let's go over to Videos of the Pentagon, Elusive as Nessie that's started by someone claiming to be a new member by the name of Rocky Bonobo.

Rocky starts out with a seemingly innocent post. Not too long, not too short, well-informed enough to make someone curious (suspicious?) but with a very direct question. Why not give it a try? Everyone is always claiming the problem with Truth scumbags is that they're "always moving the goal posts." Rocky seems ohhhhhh so genuine, you just want to rush in and help him.

This is followed by thoughtful answers from cantonear1968, alienentity, JohnG, Travis, Sabrina. Texas Jack provided an excellent link. Some critical, even sarcastic remarks came from Mr. Skinny, twinstead, and sylvan8798.

By that time, Gord_in_Tornoto was prompted to post that,

Try re-reading the responses to your original post. All your questions have been answered.

"I find it unlikely" is not a response to anything if you do not understand the issues involved.

But that was only post #14 in a thread that's now 4 pages and 143 posts long. What's been going on since then?

Well for one thing, Rocky keeps going on about how he won't accept any explanation that anyone will give.

So Gord, enlighten me. What issues am I missing?

I have yet to see a legitimate reason why the FBI would refuse to release the tapes. I've heard a lot about why it's dubious that the event was captured on film, but very little about their non-disclosure reasoning.

It's not rocket science. If the cameras show nothing, then there's nothing to be lost by releasing the videos.

And then in post #39, Bill Smith jumps in with typically unrelated information that just confuses things all to Hell. In the next 104 posts, Bill posts 9 times - that almost 10% of the posts.

Then Rocky starts dropping some of those Truth memes, like these gems...post #70

A great problem with the events surrounding 9/11 is two-fold. First, we have the people hitherto known as the Truthers. There are indeed some extreme theories espoused by some of them, and they unintentionally do an incredible disservice to their own cause. When I read nonsense about mirrors and lasers bringing down the Twin Towers, it discredits every other alternative theory about the official events of that day. It paints every doubter with the same wacko brush. However, I do not believe this to be the case.

post #75

I'm going to stop repeating myself, but the notion that the Pentagon -- the brain-power behind the largest, most powerful military in the world -- didn't happen to have any cameras, either on the building itself or on the grounds, which might have captured more of the events (save one) is dumbfounding. Let me say it slowly... THIS.... IS... THE... PENTAGON, which should, by all common sense, have cutting-edge security features. I believe that cameras are often pointed outward, to film parking lots, people entering and leaving, etc. As the plane apparently came in low enough to knock over light poles, one would imagine cameras placed to film outward would certainly capture something. Also, I believe the corridor where the Pentagon sits is a heavily traveled area, chock-full of businesses, hotels, roads, and highways. It would be very, very easy to believe that nearby businesses would catch something inadvertently with their cameras.

And then he's gone.

So here's my conclusion. The JREF is now years and years old. Virtually no one believes there are skeptical members of the community suddenly showing up out of nowhere to find out what's happening with 9/11. Some here are willing to give people who make this claim the benefit of the doubt. But actually, this politeness dies out pretty quickly. In this case, in 14 posts. By then, some members are ridiculing the pretend skeptic and the name calling begins. The resident trouble makers parachute in and start their nonsense. From there, it's just a bunch of guys and gals on the JREF making fun of the Truthers.

All of this reminds me of something you posted a few months in reply to someone expressing offense at your disbelief they could really be who they claim they are. I like this writing so much that I reproduce it in its entirety.

Originally Posted by aaarrrggh
Please don't instantly assume everybody is out to lie to you. It's not very rational of you ;-)

On the contrary, it's solidly based in experience. A great many posters have come here with a post that resembles your OP in every detail - the statement of support for the conventional narrative, the example of skeptical behaviour in an unrelated area, followed by the citation of an attempted rebuttal by truthers of a counter-argument to some fine detail of one of their theories, and the suggestion that that citation, far beyond demonstrating (or, more usually, failing to demonstrate) that some truther theory is stupid not in every conceivable way but rather in every way but one, somehow suggests that the conventional narrative of 9/11 has some shortcomings. The pattern is so familiar that it's known locally as "the mark of Woo", and is usually traced to a sockpuppet of a former member.

As further evidence emerges, I may find that this impression is wrong, in which case I'll be happy to revise my conclusions, but you should be aware that conspiracy theorists pretending not to be conspiracy theorists, for their first few posts anyway, are common enough on this forum to be considered a cliché.

Dave

 

[little grey rabbit]

I really can't speak for most Truthers, but I hope most of the genuine ones eventually come to something like this

Magna Est Veritas

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.

For want of me the world's course will not fail:
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

Eventually the phenomena of which 9/11 is simply one symptom will collapse. One hopes one will live to see it happen, but plenty of others have had the same feeling and reached old age and died without seeing it.

In the meantime its fun to wind up the Diabolicals.

 

[newton3376]

So Dave, I've been thinking about your point. Let's do a case study of this and see how this situation really unfolds. Let's go over to Videos of the Pentagon, Elusive as Nessie that's started by someone claiming to be a new member by the name of Rocky Bonobo.

I think he was obvious from the beginning..

But actually, this politeness dies out pretty quickly. In this case, in 14 posts. By then, some members are ridiculing the pretend skeptic and the name calling begins.

I was guilty of doing that in this thread (actually I often do that)...the guy irritated me.

Several things irritate me because of my background...

1. False technical/engineering/physics arguments. Although he didn't make many arguments like this.....this is one of the things that annoys the hell out of me.

2. Arguments that make assumptions based off of imagination. He made several arguments in this category that really irritated me. Including...

His assertion that surely the nerve center for the “most powerful military on the planet” would have cameras all over the place....after all his local bank has “dozens”.

I hate it when people who know little to nothing about government agencies, facilities, processes, etc make assumptions and then use those assumptions to accuse people of some nefarious act. It freaking irritates me because I am involved in that "world" and take personal offense to it.

His assumption that because the “FBI was on hand mere minutes after the event” that we can conclude something suspicious....I mean WTF? There are FBI guys at the Pentagon every damn day....they have a freaking field office in DC too....so to assume this and then use that to accuse the FBI is also something I find offensive.

So for me debunking is somewhat personal....repeat lies, errors, or distortions about a topic that I have some direct expertise or involvement in and I can't stop myself from saying or writing something.

I'm not sure if there is another, deeper psychological reason why I chose to respond to truthers...if there is I would need to really sit down and think about it to identify it.

 

[Scott Sommers]

I'm not sure if there is another, deeper psychological reason why I chose to respond to truthers...if there is I would need to really sit down and think about it to identify it.

In the sense that Dave and I mean it, there's a psychological reason for everything. Whether that 'reason' can be considered an 'error' or something else, such as deception, mental illness, some sort of personality flaw, etc. has been the focus of discussions in this direction.

My point to Dave is that his description of what happens in a thread is probably wrong. Threads appear to decline very quickly and there's only a handful of people willing to throw answers at the same stupid questions being asked over and over. Most of the members who end up in a such threads seem to be there for the name calling. Any Truthers that remain 'til the end of these silly threads are from that cast of attention mongers who feature as regulars in these sorts of things and not the OP, who disappears sometimes forever.

 

[newton3376]

In the sense that Dave and I mean it, there's a psychological reason for everything. Whether that 'reason' can be considered an 'error' or something else, such as deception, mental illness, some sort of personality flaw, etc. has been the focus of discussions in this direction.

In my case we would have to analyze my history I think to get to deeper issues...

I used to be very VERY religious...to the point of preaching sermons, singing, being a leader in youth groups, etc etc etc

I also debated Evolution/religion every chance I got for many, many years...I was deeply invested in it. I saw a lot of people hurt as a result of their beliefs for various reasons.

So my transformation from a die hard believer...to what I am today....and my history of debating people are all likely contributing factors I'm sure.

My point to Dave is that his description of what happens in a thread is probably wrong. Threads appear to decline very quickly and there's only a handful of people willing to throw answers at the same stupid questions being asked over and over. Most of the members who end up in a such threads seem to be there for the name calling. Any Truthers that remain 'til the end of these silly threads are from that cast of attention mongers who feature as regulars in these sorts of things and not the OP, who disappears sometimes forever.

There is very little "real" debate anymore.

Forums are either skeptics patting themselves on the back or truthers patting themselves on the back....and in general few people ever change their views due to a debate.

Most people that are actually engaged in a debate are not there to learn....but to prove the other side wrong. Most people watching a debate are there to cheer their side on and aren't there to learn.

In real life situations I have found that often when two people are having a disagreement.....the two sides don't really listen to each other. They either wait for the other person to finish talking so they can make their point...or they listen intently for anything they can attack when it is their turn. They rarely just listen and try to understand the other side. The same is true on the internet I guess....

As for myself....I enjoy debate because it was debating that caused me to change my beliefs and views on various topics....I learned from the debates. And I continue to do so even today. So the "9/11 debate", if you can call it that, does have some value...IMO.

 

[bill smith]

A chance remark I made to Scott Sommers some time ago in another thread has led me to wonder whether there isn't an element of cognitive dissonance to the behaviour of debunkers in this forum, not least myself. It's not what the truthers like to think it is; they have a typically half-formed belief that cognitive dissonance is responsible for the conclusion that 9/11 was not an inside job, even though that belief more or less contradicts any rational definition of cognitive dissonance. It's more to do with how we engage with truthers, and how that relates to our belief systems concerning evidence, rationality and human behaviour.

We're all familiar with the pattern of posting on a typical thread here. A truther makes a claim that appears on the face of it to support a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Several regulars point out internal inconsistencies within the claim, inconsistencies between the claim and other related claims made by the same truther, inconsistencies between the claim and the evidence, and inconsistencies between the claim and any possible rationally constructed narrative. As we can all predict, the truther will then handwave away any responses on the flimsiest of pretexts, will rapidly change the subject to a completely different claim, will misrepresent all the responses so as to construct spurious counter-refutations, or in some other way avoid addressing the objections raised to his claim. Having done so, at some point he will declare himself unconvinced by the objections, and imply that an inside job is proven. We all know it's going to happen, and it almost always does.

There are, as far as I can see, only three reasons why we do it. One is that "almost always"; every now and then a truther is intellectually honest enough to re-examine his claims in the light of counter-arguments, and finds them to be untenable. We have a few posting here who have made that leap, and no longer believe in the conspiracy theories. Another is the commonly voiced argument that we're only doing it for the lurkers. Again, now and then we see a post from someone who was initially swayed, whether completely or partially, by the conspiracy theories, but on seeing debunkers' responses was able to recognise the flaws in them. These are both rare occasions, though, and there is little reward to be had from either.

The third, then, is this: we are, in some sense, trying to reconcile the deeply held belief that all reasonably intelligent people are capable of rational analysis of evidence, with the obvious observation that some truthers, intelligent enough to frame grammatically correct sentences and post them on a discussion forum, are nevertheless completely unable to see beyond their prejudices, however glaringly obvious they may be to the rest of us. We are confronted with information that is inconsistent with our beliefs, and we respond by trying ever harder to convince truthers, who almost by definition cannot be convinced. For the most part, it's futile and unrewarding. There is little new material of interest available to debunkers, because there is little or nothing new from the truth movement (see R.Mackey's "Lost in Space" thread for a justification of this assertion). So we find ourselves repeating the same explanations to the same people who have repeatedly rejected them for inadequate reasons, and perhaps wondering why we bother.

If this is true, I'm not sure exactly what the solution is, other than simply ignoring the 9/11 truth movement, a solution most of the world has adopted quite successfully. But what it does explain, I think, is the ongoing fascination amongst people dedicated to critical thinking for the pointless act of trying to address those incapable of it through rational debate, despite more often than not failing. This is also consistent with the periodic debates on whether or not we should shut down this forum; we are conflicted on whether any of it is worthwhile or not, because we believe it should be worthwhile but observe that it tends not to be.

It's an explanation, of course, that's equally applicable to any other part of the forum, but I think I see it often here.

Thoughts? Not just from debunkers; I'd be interested to see what truthers think, if only because I expect an entertaining level of misrepresentation from them of everything I've tried to say. And, of course, there's always the chance that my cognitive dissonance will compel me to try to respond.

Dave

Debunkers and cognitive dissonance is a recognised condition Dave. See what this swarm of Ph.d Pschologists are saying. They are trying to help you and your kindred to face the Truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEGgAk1AbA4&feature=player_embedded#!

PS, In the normal course of events we would have many debunkers saying that they refuse to watch this video because it is posted by a Truther, but as the video makes clear the real reason they do not watch is the pure fear of having the Truth look them in the eye..

 

[newton3376]

Debunkers and cognitive dissonance is a recognised condition Dave. See what this swarm of Ph.d Pschologists are saying. They are trying to help you and your kindred to face the Truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEGgAk1AbA4&feature=player_embedded#!

PS, In the normal course of events we would have many debunkers saying that they refuse to watch this video because it is posted by a Truther, but as the video makes clear the real reason they do not watch is the pure fear of having the Truth look them in the eye..

We all know you aren't really a truther Bill.....

 

[Dave Rogers]

So Dave, I've been thinking about your point. Let's do a case study of this and see how this situation really unfolds. Let's go over to Videos of the Pentagon, Elusive as Nessie that's started by someone claiming to be a new member by the name of Rocky Bonobo.

Well, there's a classic case. I would point to my own behaviour in that thread in even more emphatic terms than you do. My first post in the thread sets out exactly the extent to which the I believe OP is willing to listen to reason, yet later on in the thread I find myself trying to reason with him. It's crazy; I know he won't listen, so what on earth is the point?

I'm not trying to point the finger at anyone else here for doing anything I don't do myself; in fact, I think I'm one of the classic cases. So, really, it's as much my own motivations I'm trying to unpick as anyone else's.

Dave

 

[Dave Rogers]

And, in the same spirit of cognitive dissonance, maybe I should look at the surprisingly few responses by truthers to a thread which is not exactly complimentary or supportive of the motivations of debunkers.

Funny, for a moment there I thought your thread title said "Bedunkers".

I agree with everything Dave says in his OP, except replace the word "truther" with "bedunker".

By implication, do you recognise a similar level of futility in engaging with us? And if so, why do you bother to continue trying? There are surely people out there who are more likely to be convinced of your beliefs than the majority of members of this forum. Why bother trying to do the impossible?

I dont expect debunkers to change their minds because they have too much pride. And excessive pride can sometime blind you from the truth

Same question: if you don't expect your posting to have any effect, why do you do it?

I really can't speak for most Truthers, but I hope most of the genuine ones eventually come to something like this

[...]

In the meantime its fun to wind up the Diabolicals.

I've snipped most of the reply because it's completely irrelevant. It seems to me that LGR is a self-admitted troll, which is why I don't normally reply to him; he's only here to disrupt and irritate. That, too, is a relatively pointless behaviour, but it's a different pointless behaviour, and a very common one. Therefore, I think we can safely ignore him entirely.

Debunkers and cognitive dissonance is a recognised condition Dave. See what this swarm of Ph.d Pschologists are saying. They are trying to help you and your kindred to face the Truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEGgAk1AbA4&feature=player_embedded#!

PS, In the normal course of events we would have many debunkers saying that they refuse to watch this video because it is posted by a Truther, but as the video makes clear the real reason they do not watch is the pure fear of having the Truth look them in the eye..

And finally, bill smith misses the point entirely; this is not about beliefs, but behaviour, and the YouTube video posted - with, I should note, a truly impressive Time To First Lie of ten seconds - is quite irrelevant to this discussion. I would ask bill the same question as I asked ergo and geggy, but my experience of bill smith is that the question he answers is never the one he was asked. Again, then, there's little point in trying to engage with him, because he will never reciprocate.

And yet, occasionally, I'm tempted to reply to at least some of these posters. And this is exactly the issue I'm trying to highlight.

Dave

 

[Horatius]

And yet, occasionally, I'm tempted to reply to at least some of these posters. And this is exactly the issue I'm trying to highlight.

Dave

I've just come back from my Iaido class, so I'm in my Iaido frame of mind.


In Iaido, we do sword-based kata that are often like this: I'm sitting down, facing away from someone. They are standing, approaching me with a drawn sword. I try to rise up, deflect their cut, and strike them down....all in the time they take to simply cut at my head.

As I've said in class many times, if we did this for real, we'd be killed more than 90% of the time!

But, just because you're almost certainly doomed to failure is no reason not to try to win.

Some time later I'll tell you about this Kendo tournament I was in one time.....


ETA: Hey! I should have read that page a bit more...The man in the top picture of this section:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iaido#Name

Is Haruna Matsuo Sensei, who I trained with once a year for about 15 years before he passed away. He would have won about 70% of the time, he was that good!

 

[Scott Sommers]

But, just because you're almost certainly doomed to failure is no reason not to try to win.

Yes, but that's because you are preparing for an arcane form of combat that involves physical and social equals. What I see happening here is that more and more, JREF members are treating this like the randori we do with the kids in the club. You can't possibly treat them like adults. Even if they ask you to, you might show them some courtesy and make it look like you're using effort, but really, you can't possibly do anything more than have fun with them.

And yet, occasionally, I'm tempted to reply to at least some of these posters. And this is exactly the issue I'm trying to highlight. Dave

Sure. Because occasionally it's fun. But when the kids don't know that it's just fooling around, like when ergo starts his Truther outrage act, it's not fun anymore. So Rocky's fun to play with until he starts acting as if outrage over the number of cameras at the Pentagon is really an argument. The it's just stupid.