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Why do CTists never cite CT books?

Some think the the publishing houses ar full of guberment spies so they do not trust books.

Some on the internet just see a title of a topic and assume it is supporting their views.
 
Well I think this is a general trend with followers of any creed or system of knowledge....

How many left-leaning radicals have read Das Kapital?

How many self-proclaimed christians have read the Bible (from cover to cover)?

How many people who uphold the tenets of free enterprise have read The Wealth of Nations?

How many believers in the theory of evolution have read The Origin of Species?

How many armchair philosophers have read The Critique of Pure Reason?

How many scientists have read The Principia?

And so on, and so on ..............
 
Hopsicker gets cited a fair amount because he's the one who created the claim that Mohamed Atta lived with a stripper and snorted cocaine. But Griffin really has done almost no original research into 9-11; he just popularizes "work" that has been done by others.
 
Interesting approach. I personally would have taken the opportunity to teach the kids how to use the Internet for finding factually accurate information. I would probably setup a fake Wikipedia page with questionable material (available only locally, so it doesn't confuse anybody else), and let the kids figure out what to believe and what not to believe -- using real books or whatever other resource they feel is reliable.
There are fake sites already operating! Just search 9/11 truth. The false information flows freely. Teach them how to see the false information in 9/11 and cure yourself.
The kids may teach you.
 
Well I think this is a general trend with followers of any creed or system of knowledge....

How many left-leaning radicals have read Das Kapital?

How many self-proclaimed christians have read the Bible (from cover to cover)?

How many people who uphold the tenets of free enterprise have read The Wealth of Nations?

How many believers in the theory of evolution have read The Origin of Species?

How many armchair philosophers have read The Critique of Pure Reason?

How many scientists have read The Principia?

And so on, and so on ..............

The examples you picked tend towards the fons et origio classics. "Left-leaning radicals" do actually read, but they're more likely to read Chomsky, or some exegesis of Marx handed out by whichever SWP-a-like they belong to, or Naomi Klein, or 100s of names, than they are to slog through Das Kapital. Likewise evolutionists are probably more likely to read Richard Dawkins than Darwin these days.

With CTists, you could just as easily argue, how many have read Barruel if you're going to go for the 'classics' as an entry bar.

It's important also to compare like with like. Passive acceptance of a particular belief is one thing; e.g. all those Christians who don't read the Bible but hear excerpts in Church.

But my query was about active advocates. It's one thing to discuss a subject with someone who, however crazy they might be, has read into their pet crankery, another to be confronted by internet trolls who are apparently less familiar with the theory than their opponents. And don't even seem to know the Cliff Notes very well...

Which reminds me: would any of the Truthers and believers in a conspiracy theory care to contradict my impression and reel off the titles they have actually read?


Tests will follow.

:D
 
In watching the burden-of-proof table tennis that passes for debate between our resident crop of CTists and the debunkers, it struck me that the CTists almost never cite any conspiracy theory literature, whether about 9/11 or anything else.

Why?

I'd say it's because CT books are just a rehash of all the crap that's on-line anyway.
 
How many left-leaning radicals have read Das Kapital?

How many left-leaning radicals cite left-leaning literature in their arguments?


How many self-proclaimed christians have read the Bible (from cover to cover)?

How many Christians cite the Bible in their arguments?


How many people who uphold the tenets of free enterprise have read The Wealth of Nations?

How many people trying to promote free enterprise cite free enterprise literature in their arguments?


How many believers in the theory of evolution have read The Origin of Species?

How many people trying to promote the theory of evolution cite scientific literature about evolution in their arguments?


How many armchair philosophers have read The Critique of Pure Reason?

How many people discussing philosophy cite philosophy literature in their arguments?


How many scientists have read The Principia?

How many scientists cite scientific literature in their arguments?

Methinks you missed the point...
 
Methinks you missed the point...

To be fair I think the thread has strayed a bit, and that what Greening said is in line with what we're discussing.

To me the flaws of the truth movement are primarily a reflection of the greater society, rather than a nutty fringe being incapable of coherent thought.

There are many otherwise reasonable people in the truth movement. I know very intelligent people who have been taken in by films like Zeitgeist etc. I should mention that when I say "otherwise reasonable" I am not implying that it is unreasonable to consider a 9/11 conspiracy, but rather the chronic inability or unwillingness to do either of the following:

A. Admit fault when part or all of their theory is shown to be false.

B. Consider their sources of information and actively try to improve the quality of them.

In my opinion, these aren't "truther" symptoms, they're "people symptoms". You'll find these intellectual/emotional characteristics and much, much worse in every day life, and especially within other sub-cultures. People don't read. People have difficulty sitting still and thinking for more than a few seconds at a time.

If truthers are interested in a banking conspiracy they should study history and economics.

If truthers are interested in collapse dynamics they should study structural engineering and physics.

But, as has been pointed out, it looks like most of them aren't even willing to read the books which establish and defend their belief-set in the first place.

I feel like the "Truth Movement" itself could potentially be a very respectable thing, partly a reaction to the political corruption of recent years in general. Instead we have a group of underachieving, sometimes very narcissistic people screaming at the top of their lungs before they've really learned their ass from their elbow. The result is bad for everyone.

Yes there are exceptions to this admittedly generalized description.

No, I do not blame ANYONE for considering a LIHOP or MIHOP 9/11 conspiracy theory.

I was a "truther" for a few months and it inspired me to learn, not to pretend I knew. The entire experience beautifully demonstrated my own susceptibility to flimsy or outright false items presented as rock solid evidence, quotes taken far from their context, ability to assume my interpretations of the situation were correct and that all I needed to do was to "fill in the blanks" and the facts would surely prove my case etc.
 
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Here's some CTists take on this topic.


Only one of them mentions any books at all, and thinks Nick Terry won't read them because he'd be scared of how many pages they contain.

The rest go downhill from there.
 
how many of you did read the NISt report of the WTC investigation?
Dr. Greenings excluded :P
 
Michael C Ruppert
Crossing the Rubbicon
is a good one. well nobody will agree on that :)
 
Ah, some book recommendations! Amazing what one can shake out from them if you push hard enough.

Ask Nick if he has read "Conspiracy of fools" by Kurt Eichenwald.... I'll bet he has not.
I'd bet the 746 numbered pages would scare him.

Or perhaps "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin.
A little shorter at 624 pages.

Or a dozen or so others....

It it that exact rhetoric in that thread which is the reason I will never join there.

So recommendation #1 is about Enron. Great! How does that tie in with 9/11 Was An Inside Job?

And recommendation #2 is about the Federal Reserve, written by a Bircher. Is it me, or is there something of a big leap from here to the plausibility of an Inside Job on 9/11/01?

I do like this bit, tho'

I'd bet the 746 numbered pages would scare him

I can beat that!! 1231 pages!! and it's not in English!!

http://www.amazon.de/Kalkulierte-Morde-Christian-Gerlach/dp/3930908638/
 
Michael C Ruppert
Crossing the Rubbicon
is a good one. well nobody will agree on that :)

I would agree with that assessment. I would suggest the 9/11 Commission Report as a great conspiracy theory book too. The NIST report as well since you mentioned it earlier.
 
I would agree with that assessment. I would suggest the 9/11 Commission Report as a great conspiracy theory book too. The NIST report as well since you mentioned it earlier.

The 9-11 Report has NOTHING on Loose Change or Debunking 9-11 Debunking.

That's why they've been so effective in proving 9-11 was TEH CONSPIRACY, or a the very least, getting another 'real' investigation underway.

Keep swinging for the bleachers, swing. You'll all get there someday.
 
In watching the burden-of-proof table tennis that passes for debate between our resident crop of CTists and the debunkers, it struck me that the CTists almost never cite any conspiracy theory literature, whether about 9/11 or anything else.

Why?

Is it because the YouTube generation are that incapable of reading?

The reason has more to do with the ranks from which "Truthers" are born. The majority of those claiming the title of "9/11 Truther" carry activist DNA... they came from the same general gene pool of people who would be defacing Starbucks and protesting the World Bank if not for 9/11/2001.

The activist mentality is much more interested in reaction than accuracy... they're more than willing to promote a falsehood if it achieves the desired result of attention and reaction. So, as a result, yes, with a tendency of not being concerned about factual representation in favor of attention, there will be no desire to "bone up" on appropriate research.

I've always contended that "9/11 Truthers" are not conspiracy theorists, they're activists.
 
The reason has more to do with the ranks from which "Truthers" are born. The majority of those claiming the title of "9/11 Truther" carry activist DNA... they came from the same general gene pool of people who would be defacing Starbucks and protesting the World Bank if not for 9/11/2001.

The activist mentality is much more interested in reaction than accuracy... they're more than willing to promote a falsehood if it achieves the desired result of attention and reaction. So, as a result, yes, with a tendency of not being concerned about factual representation in favor of attention, there will be no desire to "bone up" on appropriate research.

I've always contended that "9/11 Truthers" are not conspiracy theorists, they're activists.

replace 'activist' with 'troll' and you may have a point.
 
Well... "trolls" are just attention-seekers who are interested in sparking reaction than engaging in meaningful debate anyway.
 
I would agree with that assessment. I would suggest the 9/11 Commission Report as a great conspiracy theory book too. The NIST report as well since you mentioned it earlier.

Well by your standards then, we should label all high school textbooks on World History, "Conspiracy Theory" Books.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth...

TAM;)
 
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