Testing for Absurdity, or The Gravy Line

[pomeroo]

Please study the events of the OP-Plans for example prior to the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the context of the event before spouting off and displaying your lack of knowledge on the subject at hand with the final goal of attacking my character. Thanks.

I have read considerably more on the Vietnam War and the political climate surrounding it than you have. Your own posted material refutes the notion that a "conspiracy" was involved.

Your character invites attack because you are a dogged liar who has no regard for reason or truth.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Very nice, but at the moment I'm pursuing a different tack - I'm trying to determine a way to "bound" the stupidity of conspiracy theories. Is there a maximum level of stupidity that even the most stupifying theory cannot exceed? Thoughts on this are appreciated.

Well Einstein once stated that the only two things that were infinite were the Universe and stupidity, and that he wasn't sure about the Universe.

Of course the real question is can stupidity be quantised and if so what should a quantum of stupid be called?

 

[AZCat]

Well Einstein once stated that the only two things that were infinite were the Universe and stupidity, and that he wasn't sure about the Universe.

Of course the real question is can stupidity be quantised and if so what should a quantum of stupid be called?

A "Stundie", perhaps? As in, "I've just absorbed three Stundies by reading killtowns inane theories!"

Another question: is there conservation of stupidity? Can I draw a control volume around someone (killtown, for example) and determine the source of his massive emissions of stupid (in the kilo-Stundie, or "kS" range).

 

[PhantomWolf]

A "Stundie", perhaps? As in, "I've just absorbed three Stundies by reading killtowns inane theories!"

Another question: is there conservation of stupidity? Can I draw a control volume around someone (killtown, for example) and determine the source of his massive emissions of stupid (in the kilo-Stundie, or "kS" range).

No, I think that Stupid is related to Entropy and actually increases over time. It requires energy and work to combat Stupid and lower its level. This of course does pose the question. If the debunkers shut up shop, would the universe die its heat death or stupid death first?

eta: I also have to wonder how many stundies would be considered a fatal dosage....?

 

[AZCat]

No, I think that Stupid is related to Entropy and actually increases over time. It requires energy and work to combat Stupid and lower its level. This of course does pose the question. If the debunkers shut up shop, would the universe die its heat death or stupid death first?

eta: I also have to wonder how many stundies would be considered a fatal dosage....?

Alcohol must play a factor, because I find that I (and numerous other people) radiate increased stundie levels when we're drinking. Perhaps some form of equivalency could be developed, such as:
3 Beam&Cokes is roughly equivalent to one stundie (about the point I start to develop stupid theories about work)
5 Beam&Cokes ~ two stundies (I have moved on to theories about women)
6 Beam&Cokes ~ three stundies (I have theories relating women, work and solar energy)

Notice that the relationship is not linear - I think this means something (but what, I don't know - I"m drinking).

 

[Triterope]

Wait a minute. If stupidity and the universe are both infinite, how can one be measurable in terms of the other? How can something be infinite, and also smaller than something else? For stupidity to be a measurable quantity, it must first be non-infinite, which Einstein said it is not. It follows, therefore, that stupidity and the universe are coextensive. Which explains a hell of a lot.

 

[SYLVESTER1592]

Proposal: Credibility Score Baseline

RMackey, I think your algorithm overlooks one very important factor: namely, the credibility of the person raising the argument.

I'm much less likely to believe a theory is absurd if it's been proposed by someone with a history of solidly researching everything they say, as opposed to someone with a long history of cutting-and-pasting everything they see on Prison Planet.

Sounds hard; converting the subjective into the objective. This is probably a stupid question, but is this like creating some sort of TrustMetric?

Other pages that describe the TrustMetric Evaluation project and TrustMetric criteria , that are used for Gooogle and other search engines are described on Trustmetrics Wiki

I’m not a computer programmer, but would something similar work for the problem of identifying a reliable source or rejecting an unreliable one? If it was, it would be based on previous experience and already tested technology and could therefore give more credibility to the outcome of the test.

SYL

 

[PhantomWolf]

Wait a minute. If stupidity and the universe are both infinite, how can one be measurable in terms of the other? How can something be infinite, and also smaller than something else? For stupidity to be a measurable quantity, it must first be non-infinite, which Einstein said it is not. It follows, therefore, that stupidity and the universe are coextensive. Which explains a hell of a lot.

Well... perhaps, but mathematically....

Whole Numbers are a subset of Real numbers and therefore must be smaller since Real Number have numbers that Whole Numbers don't, yet both are infinite sets. Also though Whole Numbers are infinate, they are measurable and are quantised. try not to think too hard about this, it might cause your brain to explode.

 

[TruthSeeker1234]

Can you suggest an example of something that was once considered a kooky conspiracy theory but later became generally accepted as authoritative?

Here are two:

The overthrow of Iran by the CIA in the early 1950's. This is now considered historical fact. It certainly would have been very, very relevant information for the U.S. public to have known during the 1979 hostage crises. A generation of Iranians had grown up knowing that their democratically elected president was ousted by U.S. operatives and replaced by the puppet Shah.

The existence of the NSA. For at least two decades the NSA existed despite staunch denials from all official sources. "No Such Agency" was the official line. People who insisted were branded kooks and conspiracy theorists. To this day, though we know of its existence, we have no clue about the number of employees, the funding, or the activities of the NSA.

 

[Kage]

Wait a minute. If stupidity and the universe are both infinite, how can one be measurable in terms of the other? How can something be infinite, and also smaller than something else? For stupidity to be a measurable quantity, it must first be non-infinite, which Einstein said it is not. It follows, therefore, that stupidity and the universe are coextensive. Which explains a hell of a lot.

To explain PW and perhaps clarify:

There are two types of infinite, countable and uncountable.

Countably infinite sets are sets such as integers or rational numbers because they can be indexed. Two examples would be integers and multiples of two. The mind bender is that there are the same number of elements in both sets, even though there would seem to be twice as many in the first as in the second.

Uncountably infinite sets are sets like the real line. These are "more infinite" than countably infinite sets. To prove: Assume that the numbers on the real line are countable, i.e. the real line can be described by a set of numbers x(1), x(2) ... now creat a number a such that the first digit of a is different than the first digit of x(1), the second digit of a is different than the second digit of x(2) and so on. a is a real number but has not been indexed, which is a contradiction. Therefore the real line is not countable.

The biggest mind bender ever is that while rational numbers are countable, irrational numbers are not. Yet between every two rational numbers there is an irrational number and between every two irrational numbers there is a rational number.

Best not to think about it.

 

[Triterope]

Thanks for the input, Wolf and Kage. Somehow I knew someone here would find an advanced hypermathematical flaw in my little theory. From now on, I'll leave the calculations of infinity to the experts.

 

[Gravy]

The existence of the NSA. For at least two decades the NSA existed despite staunch denials from all official sources. "No Such Agency" was the official line. People who insisted were branded kooks and conspiracy theorists. To this day, though we know of its existence, we have no clue about the number of employees, the funding, or the activities of the NSA.

You've repeatedly made this claim and it's been repeatedly shown to be false. The existence of the NSA was not a secret. In fact, the NSA was involved in scandals that were front-page news in the '50s and '60s. Stop fantasizing and get help.

 

[TruthSeeker1234]

How 'bout the overthrow of Iran, Gravy? Answer that, and give us some links on NSA scandals too. I'd like to learn about that.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Testing to see if TS tries to weasel out of admitting the truth to himself.

The theory does so describe how this aspect of the attacks were carried out, and does so offer readily apparent candidates. Video of planes was inserted into live pictures of the towers. Towers were hit by either pre-planted explosives, [or] missiles, or directed energy weapons.

Do you admit that your theory does not have an answer as to what brought the towers down?

Yes or no?

 

[Gravy]

How 'bout the overthrow of Iran, Gravy? Answer that,

Answer what? I never claimed the U.S. (and Britain) weren't involved in that coup.

and give us some links on NSA scandals too. I'd like to learn about that.

I did that long ago. I suggest starting with a combination of the book The Code Breakers and the archives of The New York Times. The NSA has even had a High School Work-Study program for decades. I had a friend who participated in it in the '70s.

 

[Horatius]

I had this idea a few days ago, but I've had troubling logging onto the comic strip site, so here it is now....

 

[GregoryUrich]

So the "Gravy Line" is all theories within 2 standard deviations of the Normal Population. Which makes perfect sense since the other 5% of theories and those that support them are not part of the normal population

Well done Mackey.

I like Mackey's method. The only problem is that the competence of the person doing the rating is not taken into account. Probably less than 5% of the population understand physics at even my level, Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (Yes, even the electric engineers get two years of physics and mechanics combined).

Normal is not good. Normal went along with Hitler. Normal accepted slavery. Normal kept blacks from voting until the 60's.

 

[TruthSeeker1234]

Answer what? I never claimed the U.S. (and Britain) weren't involved in that coup.

Great. Gravy admits that the overthrow of Iran in the early 1950's was a conspiracy, denied and kept secret for decades.

Answer this: Don't you think it would have been very, very important for the U.S. people to have known that in 1979, during the hostage crises?

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

I like Mackey's method. The only problem is that the competence of the person doing the rating is not taken into account. Probably less than 5% of the population understand physics at even my level, Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (Yes, even the electric engineers get two years of physics and mechanics combined).

However, the grading would be spelled out and therefore open to debate by people reviewing the grading.

Normal is not good. Normal went along with Hitler. Normal accepted slavery. Normal kept blacks from voting until the 60's.

I think you mean to be using status quo, not normal in that.

 

[TruthSeeker1234]

Mackey's method, like anything else, will give garbage out if you put garbage in.

His example in the OP, linked to my article, makes two utterly false claims in attempting to dismiss my velocity study:

1. Mackey claims that my hypothesis does not yield any falsifiable predictions. This is plain wrong. My hypothesis predicts that legitimate plane videos will yield more stable graph lines after stabilization than before.

2. Mackey claims that video insertion technology does not exist, or did not exist in 2001. This whopper deserves its own thread.