Why the open hostililty?

Hivemind187

I'm not going to run crying to the mods over this because its just stupid but why is there such open and self righteous hostility to conspiracy theories and theorists?

Granted, about 95% of what gets said is far fetched BS and about 95% of the remaining 5% is down to misunderstanding or jumping to a conclusion but I wonder at the necessity for such vitriolic rants in the responses. Rants that by their very nature tend to drag things so far off topic as to be unrecognisable to their OP.

The majority of conspiracy theorists might be misguided, misjudging or misinterpreting the facts but at least, for the most part, they are willing to ask questions and not to be swayed by the official line or the standard story.

Is asking questions a bad thing all of a sudden? Is demanding the truth a bad thing? What about demanding honesty and transparency from those we have elected to power, the ones supposed to represent our views?

Doubtless I'll get some snotty reply espousing the virtues of empiricism, evidence, proof (which are all fine) and making allegations of paranoia, wild imaginations, ignorance and nutter-ism - but that is the price I have to pay for frequenting boards.

Gordon

Hivemind187 wrote:

Doubtless I'll get some snotty reply espousing the virtues of empiricism, evidence, proof (which are all fine) and making allegations of paranoia, wild imaginations, ignorance and nutter-ism - but that is the price I have to pay for frequenting boards.

Woah, woah, why the open hostility and snotty anger?

r3nu4l

Hivemind187 wrote:

Is demanding the truth a bad thing?

Let me be the first to say "You can't handle the truth!" <-- I hate it when people say that!

Anyway, with that out of the way. I've looked at a lot of conspiraciy theories in my time and managed to find huge flaws in a lot of them and minor flaws in others but I don't see anything wrong with people questioning and coming up with new ideas!

Scientists advance by never accepting that what we already "know" is absolutely correct. With any theory, it only takes one proven example against that theory to destroy the theory or else modify the theory to explain what has been observed.

I therefore applaud the serious enthusiast and by that I mean the ones who don't make huge leaps of logic or jump to conclusions. I'm talking about the guys who really question hard, not just Governments but their own theories as well.

What I don't like are the number of nutjobs that an exciting area like conspiracy theories can attract. The ones who think that just because they read it on the internet or saw a grainy video purporting to be real that they are therefore correct. Those people annoy me.

Don't forget that human beings naturally want to feel safe and secure. They look to their bosses at work, police, army and ultimately Government to protect them as adults and therefore taking 9/11 as an example the very notion that a Government could be complicit in an attack on their own citizens will seem too terrible to contemplate for many who will therefore dismiss these claims instantly because it disturbs the illusion of safety and security.

I must admit too that quite often, the type of people who promote a lot of conspiracy theories are usually the same types who can be found protesting against the Government anyway or espousing 'dubious/subversice' politics like radical socialism.

That's how I see it anyway...kinda wish I'd stopped typing after the ridiculous movie quote gag.

bonkey

Hivemind187 wrote:

Is asking questions a bad thing all of a sudden? Is demanding the truth a bad thing?

It depends how you combine them.

Demanding truth whilst refusing to accept answers because they don't fit with preformed ideas, opinions, or stances is a bad thing, yes.

Insisting that answers are not good enough because they're not 100% certain is fine. Demanding truth whilst doing this is not, as you can generally never have 100% certainty and thus never have the truth you demand.

What about demanding honesty and transparency from those we have elected to power, the ones supposed to represent our views?

You'll find that on the politics forum.

Doubtless I'll get some snotty reply

Here's what I don't understand...

Is it so hard to ask a question about civility without abandoning it yourself?

Kernel launches accusations of trollery and what-have-you.
You pre-suppose snottiness.

What happened to just asking questions?
What happened to demanding the truth?

What if the truth is something about empricism and all of those things you've already dismissed as "snotty"? Does that still entitle you to the civility you've abandoned yourself?

Take our other thread. You rail on about how people blindly believe the mainstream media and are then surprised to find out that it doesn't apply to me in at least one area.

Do you think I find your "sheeple-esque" references civil? Your admitted presumption that I didn't know the details of what I was discussing?

Maybe you'll find if you're less presumptive and dismissive of differing opinions particularly before they're offered, that people will offer you a similar courtesy.

r3nu4l

I get the feeling there's more to this thread than meets the eye. Was this born out of a row on another thread?

bonkey

I'm guessing its to do with the false-flag thread.

I'm not sure whether its me, Diogenes or both of us who are allegedly being openly hostile....given that hive doesn't actually state who he (I'm assuming "he") or what he's referring to.

Personally, I had no problems. I was even ignoring the comments in that thread about people believing what they read, then the surprise that after my commenting about doing your own research, I showed I had actually done my own research.

But the presumption of a "snotty" response is a step too far, especially when all its doing is trying to insinuate that a skeptical, scientific stance is somehow unreasonable.