• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Simplifying Conspiracy Theories

Aoidoi

Illuminator
A
Joined
May 29, 2002
Messages
4,654
Reading over yet another JKF conspiracy theory thread it occurred to me... why do all the theorists assume Oswald had to be framed? Isn't it a much simpler conspiracy theory to just claim he was in on it? I mean, he didn't appear to be pro-Kennedy, it's hardly a stretch to say someone talked him into doing it... why all the arguing about film alterations and eyewitness testimony when you could just say the Cubans/CIA/LBJ/whoever met up with Oswald and told him the president would be driving past where he worked?

9/11 - why bother with simultaneously hitting towers with something else to knock them down? Surely even severely damaging them was enough for... well, whatever the conspirators were after. Explosives, space weapons, it's all so... unnecessary. Like Austin Powers villain unnecessary.

Any other conspiracy theories where you can just knock out big parts of the usual theories without impacting the overall "THEY were behind it!" thinking?
 
Aoidoi said:
9/11 - why bother with simultaneously hitting towers with something else to knock them down? Surely even severely damaging them was enough for... well, whatever the conspirators were after. Explosives, space weapons, it's all so... unnecessary. Like Austin Powers villain unnecessary.
Click to expand...

To use some poker terminology, because it gives you more outs. Suppose somehow that all the 9-11 Truthers became convinced that yes, there had been 19 hijackers recruited by Al Qaeda, and they commandeered the planes and flew them into the WTC buildings, the Pentagon and the strip mine in Shanksville. If the conspiracy theory relies only on that part not being true, then it's all over with. But if you layer on the controlled demolition at the WTC, then you've still got a conspiracy theory. And indeed, there are "Truthers" I've dealt with who propose LIHOP plus controlled demolition.

In addition, you have what we might call the requirement of intentionality. Everything that happened was intended to happen. Thus we get the "Truthers" proposing the beam weapons, simply because they can't imagine how all the concrete was "dustified".

Elaborate schemes like this seem crazy, but just remember that such convoluted plots are commonplace in Hollywood blockbuster movies.
 
Brainster said:
In addition, you have what we might call the requirement of intentionality. Everything that happened was intended to happen. Thus we get the "Truthers" proposing the beam weapons, simply because they can't imagine how all the concrete was "dustified".
Click to expand...

Thus conspiracy theories take on similarities to religions. With a religion, unexplained random events are actually acts of god - i.e. "someone" out there caused the event, there is no "randomness". And we can, supposedly, appeal to god to intercede on our behalf, thus we are not helpless against these random events.

The collalpse of the WTC was an event that, once the planes had crashed, was inevitible and out of human control. Like a natural disaster, there was nothing humanly possible to stop it. To believe that it was an intentional part of the event (i.e. explosives) is more tolerable for some people, regardless of the ones who were perceived to have caused it, than believing it was an act of nature that we were helpless against.
 
But isn't the whole idea of an all-powerful conspiracy killing the POTUS in broad daylight and in front of thousands of witnesses in itself unnecessarily complex? If they're so powerful that they can mold all investigations to their liking and falsify all medical and other reports, why not kill him the previous night and then claim that the President died of a brain aneurysm? Nobody (except THEM, of course) knows there was a crime.
 
timhau said:
But isn't the whole idea of an all-powerful conspiracy killing the POTUS in broad daylight and in front of thousands of witnesses in itself unnecessarily complex? If they're so powerful that they can mold all investigations to their liking and falsify all medical and other reports, why not kill him the previous night and then claim that the President died of a brain aneurysm? Nobody (except THEM, of course) knows there was a crime.
Click to expand...

That's how they did it with FDR. ;)
 
Aoidoi said:
Reading over yet another JKF conspiracy theory thread it occurred to me... why do all the theorists assume Oswald had to be framed? Isn't it a much simpler conspiracy theory to just claim he was in on it? I mean, he didn't appear to be pro-Kennedy, it's hardly a stretch to say someone talked him into doing it... why all the arguing about film alterations and eyewitness testimony when you could just say the Cubans/CIA/LBJ/whoever met up with Oswald and told him the president would be driving past where he worked?

9/11 - why bother with simultaneously hitting towers with something else to knock them down? Surely even severely damaging them was enough for... well, whatever the conspirators were after. Explosives, space weapons, it's all so... unnecessary. Like Austin Powers villain unnecessary.

Any other conspiracy theories where you can just knock out big parts of the usual theories without impacting the overall "THEY were behind it!" thinking?
Click to expand...



I think it's because, in that case, they would have to admit that some, most or possibly all of the evidence in favour of the "OCT" is in fact, legitimate evidence. Consider how many of them start off with claiming that all the evidence is an "obvious fraud", "scientifically impossible", or even completely non-existent, and you'll see why they won't do that.

If Oswald did shoot JFK at the Behest of "Someone", then things like the Magic Bullet, Back and To the Left, and 3 Shots in X Seconds must be accepted as being not only possible, but necessary.

The same goes for any of a multitude of 9/11 theories, and probably most other CTs, if you think about it.

It's these sorts of "anomalies" that most CTists credit with "waking them up". If they had to admit that these anomalies don't exist, or don't mean what they thought they meant, it means they didn't really "wake up" to anything. Without these wake up calls, then, their belief in conspiracies can be seen as nothing more than their own paranoid fantasies.
 
timhau said:
But isn't the whole idea of an all-powerful conspiracy killing the POTUS in broad daylight and in front of thousands of witnesses in itself unnecessarily complex? If they're so powerful that they can mold all investigations to their liking and falsify all medical and other reports, why not kill him the previous night and then claim that the President died of a brain aneurysm? Nobody (except THEM, of course) knows there was a crime.
Click to expand...
It seems to me that if one was going to go to all the trouble of a public assassination there would at least be a purpose to doing so beyond getting rid of the man. Framing a political opponent for the assassination, for instance. But why frame Oswald? He was just some guy. If anything it seems like you'd frame Cuba or Russia and use it as an excuse to change policy... but as it stands all that was accomplished was removing Kennedy which as stated, could have been done much more efficiently.

I suppose it's a function of the kind of mentality that is prone to believe in conspiracy theories. They pick out details and insist that those particular details must be wrong without contemplating how irrelevant those details are to the overall situation. Missing the forest for the trees, so to speak.

The Freeman thing seems to be entirely based on this concept. Some minor details mean that the completely obvious somehow isn't.

The reason I started the thread was just a sense of amusement when I realized that these conspiracy theories always end up in convoluted messes when the apparently omnipotent people behind the scenes could have accomplished the same results with much simpler plans. I guess being omnipotent means you never need to worry about efficiency. ;)

I long ago decided it would take more effort to hoax the moon landing than to actually send people to the moon, for example. So what's the point? It's not gonna save you money or effort to hoax it, so just go do it!
 
I think another point to mention is that much like religion conspiracy theories encourage each theorist to make up their own truth. And just as how your unlikely to find 2 christians who believe exactly the same thing, you are unlikely to find two truthers that believe it went down exactly the same way.

The problem is if these facts were self evident, this wouldn't happen. Sure within the scientific comunity there is debate about some subjects, but for the majority there is consensus. And more importantly those not within the consensus do not have functional information. For example, if a scientist were to surmize that there is no terminal velocity. And then attempted an experiment , he would not suddenly have results that confirmed that there is no terminal velocity. Yet truthers on a constant basis " find" proof that fits their specific version of events.

I adopted a quote from why people believe wierd things ( i believe it was from a jewish buisness man originally) for conspiracies.

" If the conspiracy is fake, then you have nothing to worry about. But if the conspiracy is real, you wouldn't know about it anyway because the smartest minds in the world are working against you."

The fact that conspiracy nuts think that out of everyone in the world low income 20 somethings ( which i happily state that i am, untill i get through university) are cracking this code destroys me.
 
Last edited:
There was a term which I believe was coined in this very sub-forum that describes this tendency of conspiracy theories to be overly convoluted and needlessly complicated:

Smacco's Rozar -(or variations thereof), being the reverse of Occam's Razor.

I don't remember who first came up with it, but it succinctly encapsulates the Truther mindset where the more complicated the plot, the more likely the Truther is to believe it.
 
The thing is, hollywood has convoluted plots, so people expect plots to be convoluted, hence when a theory is posited that is convoluted, they tend to believe.

It all boils down to Jones , ( or whatever flavor of the day is there) saying " life is like a movie" which is up there with " you live forever" as a list of things people would want to hear. I mean what is more interesting , a Scanner Darkly or my life?
 
Brainache said:
There was a term which I believe was coined in this very sub-forum that describes this tendency of conspiracy theories to be overly convoluted and needlessly complicated:

Smacco's Rozar -(or variations thereof), being the reverse of Occam's Razor.

I don't remember who first came up with it, but it succinctly encapsulates the Truther mindset where the more complicated the plot, the more likely the Truther is to believe it.
Click to expand...

I ascribe this to the Conspiracy Theorist tendency to conflate "good story telling" with "plausibility." They think that something being more interesting somehow means it's more likely to be true.
 
sadhatter said:
The thing is, hollywood has convoluted plots, so people expect plots to be convoluted, hence when a theory is posited that is convoluted, they tend to believe.
Click to expand...
I was thinking the same thing. Because they have seen whatever James Bond villain taking the trouble to explain the whole evil plan, and then put him below a slowly-moving laser cutter (instead of just shooting him), that's what the real evil guys do in real life. "No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!" Maybe a lot of the conspiracy mindset is rooted in confusing fantasy with reality? Too much TV? Maybe this is why we see a lot of videos 'proving' things, but not a lot of the people posting the videos are able to articulate a cogent thought here at the JREF.
 
Alferd_Packer said:
Aoidoi, have you ever read Carl Sagan's essay "The Dragon in my Garage?"

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm
Click to expand...
It's been a while, but always a good read. :)

That's certainly the one of the concepts I think of when trying to pin down what, exactly, a conspiracy is supposed to be.

I do like the idea of life imitating movies in people's heads. Clearly the obvious solution must be wrong because it's NEVER the obvious solution in the movies. That actually seems like a reasonable explanation for why people think in such convoluted ways, because that is the way to "solve" a movie's plot.

Oh, and I love Smacco's Rozar... needlessly multiplying entities. Brilliant! :D
 
Brainache said:
There was a term which I believe was coined in this very sub-forum that describes this tendency of conspiracy theories to be overly convoluted and needlessly complicated:

Smacco's Rozar -(or variations thereof), being the reverse of Occam's Razor.

I don't remember who first came up with it, but it succinctly encapsulates the Truther mindset where the more complicated the plot, the more likely the Truther is to believe it.
Click to expand...


I recall Gravy used that term in his TAM 5.5 talk, but I don't know if he coined it.



carlitos said:
Maybe a lot of the conspiracy mindset is rooted in confusing fantasy with reality? Too much TV? Maybe this is why we see a lot of videos 'proving' things, but not a lot of the people posting the videos are able to articulate a cogent thought here at the JREF.
Click to expand...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_prone_personality


It's not just the CTists.
 
You know being a fan of conspiracy theory fiction, and fantasy ( d and d , well all role playing games really, acting, fantasy novels etc.) i find it hard to find anyone who shares the same interests but isn't a complete nutbar.

I actually did a wee study with a small sample group ( about 70 people, 10 role playing groups to be precise) and found about 1 in 5 had a decent grasp of reality( to be more specific, had decent social skills, didn't think magic was real, could hold a real conversation, etc). Though i would like to see the results of a real study, as per my anecdotal evidence isn't exactly the best thing to use.
 
Myron Proudfoot said:
More than once I've had a truther tell me that there was no such thing as a random event. EVER.
Click to expand...

Bingo. This is my completely unsubstantiated hypothesis about most conspiracy theories.

Some people find it more desirable to think that someone is behind the wheel, even if it happens to be someone evil, then to think that the world is chaotic and unpredictable. Because that at least implies "the good guys" could some day take control if they just beat the "bad guys" and get behind the wheel themselves.

(I think P&T alluded to something similar on their 'Conspiracy Theories' Episode)
 
I love when a truther makes a statement like that. One that would make the bigfoot crowd blush with its bold claims.

The problem is the world would make a crappy movie because it relies on so many random factors. People can't really wrap their brains around this so they like to write thier own little story about how things are happening.

On a side note, if there are no coincidences , then people better start being nice to me as i am born on december 25th, and the adopted son of a carpenter.
 
IMO, what's at the root of conspiracy theories is a very simple misunderstanding of how the world works: A great consequence must have an equally great cause.

It takes just a single guy with a grievance and a gun to take out Joe Schmo while he's driving to the grocery store. But to kill the president, you need more than mere bullets. The opposite idea is too frightening, because it would mean that no-one is safe from random acts of violence.

You see much the same with 9/11. If the planes had crashed into empty warehouses, no-one would have questioned the cause. But to destroy two iconic buildings, and kill 3000 people - that takes more than mere jet fuel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom