-
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Winger" data-cid="572426" data-time="1460695767"><p>I was just pointing out that your comment on this article seemed to reach the wrong conclusion. Nothing to do with "pro disease"</p></blockquote>
<br>
Really? I disagree . Nothing new there though I guess. -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Winger" data-cid="572423" data-time="1460695452">
<div>
<p>Does that include you Or just anyone who has a different viewpoint to you?</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>Includes me. For a long time I thought Ricky Ponting was over-rated. And I found stuff online to support that. And I was wrong. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Its possible to form almost any view on anything - and no matter how extreme you will find really solid sounding research to support that. But if you dig into that research it usually falls apart. But people almost never dig. Which is odd as now its incredibly easy to dig.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>50 years ago when shysters like Eric Van Dinakaran were saying "spacemen built the pyramids!" & listing all his sources it was hard to check all those sources. So if you bought his shit, sure, you were probably at least semi retarded, but there was an excuse. But now anyone beliving him is a fucking laughing stock as its incredibly easy to check his made up shit. And people did check and his sources were his cousin Bob and a paper retracted a year later by the author when peer review pointed out his huge errors. And then they asked what his actual qualifications were. And his book sales fell off a cliff, people asked him a LOT of questions & it all went a bit "Errrmmm...."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Whether I, or you, agree or disagree with something is irelevant. <em><strong>Its the degree to which people have actually dug into what they are basing that belief on</strong></em>. If you hold strong beliefs you owe it to yourself to look at those from 360 degrees. More so if you try impose those beliefs on others. Most people only seek out stuff that supports their beliefs, no matter how lacking in credability. Its why "Doctor Gillian Mckeith" was rich. Even tho' she wasn't a doctor.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(that's one of my all time favourites - "One of the earliest criticisms focuses on McKeith's diploma in nutrition from American Association of Nutritional Consultants.<em><strong> In 2004, the same diploma was also awarded, upon application and payment, to Ben Goldacre's dead cat Henrietta</strong></em>")</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Is it OK to think vacines are bad if your source is the surgeon general, 800 double blind trials & 10 years of peer reviewed papers? Yes, almost certainly, tho' maybe take 10 minutes to actually google those lead papers & see who wrote them & who paid for them. </p>
<p>Is it OK to think vacines are bad if your source is Jenny McCarthy, a website written by a guy who, <strong><em>when you look</em></strong>, has a PHD in astral travel from Bangkok Online University & your friend Pete who has a spaz kid? Of course not, you're clearly a fucking idiot. Even more so if you didn't check that PHD bit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And the great thing is that will literally take 10 minutes to check. In the modern internet age if you are basing your nutrition on "Doctor" Gillian McKeith & you hadn't realised she's not a doctor you are a gulliable tard who should not be making important decisions for yourself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I don't think people with different opinions to me are semi retard morons. I think people with opinions different to me who support those beliefs with shit that takes me 30 seconds to dismantle using google are semi retard morons.</p> -
I don't think that went quite the way Winger expected .<br><br>
Pretty much every single source you've quoted has turned out to be batshit crazy from the idiot who said 9/11 was an inside job and also believes that the Bataclan attack was a false flag to the owner of thd natural news who thinks Bill Gates is bioengineering a flu designed to wipe out minorities .<br><br><br>
More weirdness from the pro disease crowd. <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.theywantyoudead.com'>http://www.theywantyoudead.com</a> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="jegga" data-cid="572566" data-time="1460715689">
<div>
<p>I don't think that went quite the way Winger expected .<br><br>
Pretty much every single source you've quoted has turned out to be batshit crazy from the idiot who said 9/11 was an inside job and also believes that the Bataclan attack was a false flag to the owner of thd natural news who thinks <strong>Bill Gates is bioengineering a flu designed to wipe out minorities .</strong><br><br><br>
More weirdness from the pro disease crowd. <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.theywantyoudead.com'>http://www.theywantyoudead.com</a></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>In that case I'm only going to acknowledge my Pakeha side to flus and colds from now on.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="gollum" data-cid="572541" data-time="1460714454">
<div>
<p>Includes me. For a long time I thought Ricky Ponting was over-rated. And I found stuff online to support that. And I was wrong. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Its possible to form almost any view on anything - and no matter how extreme you will find really solid sounding research to support that. But if you dig into that research it usually falls apart. But people almost never dig. Which is odd as now its incredibly easy to dig.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>50 years ago when shysters like Eric Van Dinakaran were saying "spacemen built the pyramids!" & listing all his sources it was hard to check all those sources. So if you bought his shit, sure, you were probably at least semi retarded, but there was an excuse. But now anyone beliving him is a fucking laughing stock as its incredibly easy to check his made up shit. And people did check and his sources were his cousin Bob and a paper retracted a year later by the author when peer review pointed out his huge errors. And then they asked what his actual qualifications were. And his book sales fell off a cliff, people asked him a LOT of questions & it all went a bit "Errrmmm...."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Whether I, or you, agree or disagree with something is irelevant. <em><strong>Its the degree to which people have actually dug into what they are basing that belief on</strong></em>. If you hold strong beliefs you owe it to yourself to look at those from 360 degrees. More so if you try impose those beliefs on others. Most people only seek out stuff that supports their beliefs, no matter how lacking in credability. Its why "Doctor Gillian Mckeith" was rich. Even tho' she wasn't a doctor.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(that's one of my all time favourites - "One of the earliest criticisms focuses on McKeith's diploma in nutrition from American Association of Nutritional Consultants.<em><strong> In 2004, the same diploma was also awarded, upon application and payment, to Ben Goldacre's dead cat Henrietta</strong></em>")</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Is it OK to think vacines are bad if your source is the surgeon general, 800 double blind trials & 10 years of peer reviewed papers? Yes, almost certainly, tho' maybe take 10 minutes to actually google those lead papers & see who wrote them & who paid for them. </p>
<p>Is it OK to think vacines are bad if your source is Jenny McCarthy, a website written by a guy who, <strong><em>when you look</em></strong>, has a PHD in astral travel from Bangkok Online University & your friend Pete who has a spaz kid? Of course not, you're clearly a fucking idiot. Even more so if you didn't check that PHD bit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And the great thing is that will literally take 10 minutes to check. In the modern internet age if you are basing your nutrition on "Doctor" Gillian McKeith & you hadn't realised she's not a doctor you are a gulliable tard who should not be making important decisions for yourself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I don't think people with different opinions to me are semi retard morons. I think people with opinions different to me who support those beliefs with shit that takes me 30 seconds to dismantle using google are semi retard morons.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>Good post</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And agree with this</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Most people only seek out stuff that supports their beliefs"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Its subconscious with just about everyone. So people start with a belief that say vaccines are great and then find the evidence to support it (not the other way around). This process is built on other 'invisible' beliefs about the society we live in and our place in it. So for example many could never contemplate that these official bodies might be corrupt (rotten to the core in some cases - this only applies of course in bad countries like Russia) for example. Even though the evidence with global warming is that they clearly are at least in this respect. Acceptance of this belief just goes too deep. So our in-built defense mechanisms kick in. Like labeling people funking idiots for example. Or getting angry. Or abusing people etc.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>re "spacemen built the pyramids!". Maybe they did re the Sumerian tablets. And the impossibility of building them 000,s of years back with primitive technology.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="NTA" data-cid="572012" data-time="1460553646">
<div>
<p>And the Internet isn't necessarily responsible for people being gullible shit birds:<br><br><a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.cracked.com/article_20007_5-ridiculous-lies-that-fooled-whole-world.html">http://www.cracked.com/article_20007_5-ridiculous-lies-that-fooled-whole-world.html</a></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, but can we trust these "facts"?</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="gollum" data-cid="572541" data-time="1460714454">
<div>
<p>... Its why "Doctor Gillian Mckeith" was rich. Even tho' she wasn't a doctor...</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>As said on TV by someone who I forget but should be remembered.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Dr Gillian McKeith. Or to give her her full medical title Gillian McKeith".</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Catogrande" data-cid="572636" data-time="1460734692">
<div>
<p>As said on TV by someone who I forget but should be remembered.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Dr Gillian McKeith. Or to give her her full medical title Gillian McKeith".</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>Ben Goldacre who is easily one of my favourite authors utterly destroyed her. Flat Earth News & Bad Science should be taught in schools instead of Brave New World or 1984 or some shit. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.badscience.net/2010/07/and-then-i-was-incompetently-libelled-by-a-litigious-millionaire/'>http://www.badscience.net/2010/07/and-then-i-was-incompetently-libelled-by-a-litigious-millionaire/</a></p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Nepia" data-cid="572600" data-time="1460719753"><p>In that case I'm only going to acknowledge my Pakeha side to flus and colds from now on.</p></blockquote>
<br>
Winger pmed me , apparently after the minorities he's coming for the apple fanbois. -
<div style="font-size:12px;">
<p>Quote from Winger</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Good post</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And agree with this</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Most people only seek out stuff that supports their beliefs"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Its subconscious with just about everyone. So people start with a belief that say vaccines are great and then find the evidence to support it (not the other way around). This process is built on other 'invisible' beliefs about the society we live in and our place in it. So for example many could never contemplate that these official bodies might be corrupt (rotten to the core in some cases - this only applies of course in bad countries like Russia) for example. Even though the evidence with global warming is that they clearly are at least in this respect. Acceptance of this belief just goes too deep. So our in-built defense mechanisms kick in. Like labeling people funking idiots for example. Or getting angry. Or abusing people etc.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>re "spacemen built the pyramids!". Maybe they did re the Sumerian tablets. And the impossibility of building them 000,s of years back with primitive technology."</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="http://edge.alluremedia.com.au/uploads/businessinsider/2015/11/Alanis.jpg" alt="Alanis.jpg"></p>
</div> -
Winger ... ummm ... (shakes head) ... nah ... <br><br><br>
Gollum, 'Bad Science' is excellent. We even had a thread on it a year or so back after one of our English posters (Dodge maybe?) read it. I had also included it in the 'TSF Book Club' too.<br><br>
The scary thing about it all was McKeith was essentially an amusing anecdote compared to the other 'conspiracies' he explored therein.<br><br>
The funny thing about our thread about it on TSF is one poster (can't remember who, don't think it was Winger) got all worked up about the fact that people who had read the book were shaking their virtual heads over McKeith's reasons for eating greens (chlorophyll ) and saying "what's wrong with eating vegetables" whilst ignoring the wooshing sound he was hearing .... -
Bad science is an excellent read , the parts about AIDS in South Africa are pretty depressing though and show what happens if you get a winger type in charge of a country with low levels of literacy . Having said that there's no excuse for anyone turning their back on science in the first world , it must be soul destroying to be in the medical profession and have to deal with people who believe in homeopathy , other alternative "remedies " or the effects of outbreaks because pro disease nutters don't vaccinate .
-
911...<br><br>
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11623395'>http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11623395</a> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Catogrande" data-cid="572636" data-time="1460734692">
<div>
<p>As said on TV by someone who I forget but should be remembered.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"Dr Gillian McKeith. Or to give her her full medical title Gillian McKeith".</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>HIGNFY. I think it was Martin Clunes.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="jegga" data-cid="572646" data-time="1460755134">
<div>
<p>Bad science is an excellent read , the parts about AIDS in South Africa are pretty depressing though and show what happens if you get a winger type in charge of a country with low levels of literacy . Having said that there's no excuse for anyon<span style="color:#ff0000;">e turning their back on science in the first world </span>, it must be soul destroying to be in the medical profession and have to deal with people who believe in homeopathy , other alternative "remedies " or the effects of outbreaks because pro disease nutters don't vaccinate .</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>Science agree within reason. Pseudo science I don't. But many can't tell the difference. As many still think religious books contains the truth. A lot in the West have just replaced stories backed by religious books.with stories backed by pseudo science (including about the world ending due to our wickedness).</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It's just where the world is at today. We still collectively need our myths but we have now just adapted different ones.</p> -
<p>The weird thing is Winger I could probably understand it if you believed one or two alternative veiwpoints here and there but you believe the opposite of what most sane rational people believe to be true on practically every subject from Putin being a corrupt arsehole to vaccinations being beneficial . If bullshit theories were turds you'd practically be a sewer in one of the larger European cities.</p>
-
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="jegga" data-cid="572798" data-time="1460797549">
<div>
<p>The weird thing is Winger I could probably understand it if you believed one or two alternative veiwpoints here and there but you believe the opposite of what most sane rational person believes to be true on practically every subject from Putin being a corrupt arsehole to vaccinations being beneficial . If bullshit theories were turds you'd practically be a sewer in one of the larger European cities.</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>I just look at the evidence regardless of where it leads. People like you just believe the stories. That you were told as a child and now just accept as a fact. And refuse to have them challenged. These stories now form a key part of your ego. The ruling elite maintain control in this way. Brainwash a child and they have the majority for life</p> -
<p>Remember that vaccination debate?</p>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/01/watch-2-magicians-destroy-anti-vaccine-movement-90-seconds.html'>http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/01/watch-2-magicians-destroy-anti-vaccine-movement-90-seconds.html</a></p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Winger" data-cid="572849" data-time="1460799501">
<div>
<p>I just look at the evidence regardless of where it leads. People like you just believe the stories. That you were told as a child and now just accept as a fact. And refuse to have them challenged. These stories now form a key part of your ego. The ruling elite maintain control in this way. Brainwash a child and they have the majority for life</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>Ok Oliver, thats some superb bullshit right there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;">Meet Oliver. Like many of his friends, Oliver thinks he is an expert on 9/11. He spends much of his spare time looking at conspiracist websites and his research has convinced him that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, of 11 September 2001 were an inside job. The aircraft impacts and resulting fires couldn’t have caused the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center to collapse. The only viable explanation, he maintains, is that government agents planted explosives in advance. He realises, of course, that the government blames Al-Qaeda for 9/11 but his predictable response is pure Mandy Rice-Davies: they would say that, wouldn’t they?</p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;">Polling evidence suggests that Oliver’s views about 9/11 are by no means unusual. Indeed, peculiar theories about all manner of things are now widespread. There are conspiracy theories about the spread of AIDS, the 1969 Moon landings, UFOs, and the assassination of JFK. Sometimes, conspiracy theories turn out to be right – Watergate really was a conspiracy – but mostly they are bunkum. They are in fact vivid illustrations of a striking truth about human beings: however intelligent and knowledgeable we might be in other ways, many of us still believe the strangest things. You can find people who believe they were abducted by aliens, that the Holocaust never happened, and that cancer can be cured by positive thinking. A 2009 Harris Poll found that between one‑fifth and one‑quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation, astrology and the existence of witches. You name it, and there is probably someone out there who believes it.</p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;"><span>You realise, of course, that Oliver’s theory about 9/11 has little going for it, and this might make you wonder why he believes it. The question ‘Why does Oliver believe that 9/11 was an inside job?’ is just a version of a more general question posed by the US skeptic Michael Shermer: why do people believe weird things? The weirder the belief, the stranger it seems that someone can have it. Asking why people believe weird things isn’t like asking why they believe it’s raining as they look out of the window and see the rain pouring down. It’s obvious why people believe it’s raining when they have compelling evidence, but it’s far from obvious why Oliver believes that 9/11 was an inside job when he has access to compelling evidence that it </span><i>wasn’t</i><span> an inside job.</span></p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;">I want to argue for something which is controversial, although I believe that it is also intuitive and commonsensical. My claim is this: Oliver believes what he does because that is the kind of <i>thinker</i> he is or, to put it more bluntly, <i>because there is something wrong with how he thinks</i>. The problem with conspiracy theorists is not, as the US legal scholar Cass Sunstein argues, that they have little relevant information. The key to what they end up believing is how they <i>interpret</i> and <i>respond to</i> the vast quantities of relevant information at their disposal. I want to suggest that this is fundamentally a question of the way they are. Oliver isn’t mad (or at least, he needn’t be). Nevertheless, his beliefs about 9/11 are the result of the peculiarities of his intellectual constitution – in a word, of his intellectual character.</p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size:5em;;">U</span>sually, when philosophers try to explain why someone believes things (weird or otherwise), they focus on that person’s <i>reasons</i>rather than their character traits. On this view, the way to explain why Oliver believes that 9/11 was an inside job is to identify his reasons for believing this, and the person who is in the best position to tell you his reasons is Oliver. When you explain Oliver’s belief by giving his reasons, you are giving a ‘rationalising explanation’ of his belief.</p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;">The problem with this is that rationalising explanations take you only so far. If you ask Oliver why he believes 9/11 was an inside job he will, of course, be only too pleased to give you his reasons: it had to be an inside job, he insists, because aircraft impacts couldn’t have brought down the towers. He is wrong about that, but at any rate that’s his story and he is sticking to it. What he has done, in effect, is to explain one of his questionable beliefs by reference to another no less questionable belief. Unfortunately, this doesn’t tell us why he has <i>any</i> of these beliefs. There is a clear sense in which we still don’t know what is really going on with him.</p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;">Now let’s flesh out Oliver’s story a little: suppose it turns out that he believes lots of other conspiracy theories apart from the one about 9/11. He believes the Moon landings were faked, that Diana, Princess of Wales, was murdered by MI6, and that the Ebola virus is an escaped bioweapon. Those who know him well say that he is easily duped, and you have independent evidence that he is careless in his thinking, with little understanding of the difference between genuine evidence and unsubstantiated speculation. Suddenly it all begins to make sense, but only because the focus has shifted from Oliver’s <i>reasons</i> to his <i>character</i>. You can now see his views about 9/11 in the context of his intellectual conduct generally, and this opens up the possibility of a different and deeper explanation of his belief than the one he gives: he thinks that 9/11 was an inside job because he is gullible in a certain way. He has what social psychologists call a ‘conspiracy mentality’.</p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;"><span style="margin-left:0px;font-style:italic;color:rgb(12,119,109);">The gullible rarely believe they are gullible and the closed-minded don’t believe they are closed-minded</span></p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;">Notice that the proposed character explanation isn’t a rationalising explanation. After all, being gullible isn’t a reason for believing anything, though it might still be why Oliver believes 9/11 was an inside job. And while Oliver might be expected to know his reasons for believing that 9/11 was an inside job, he is the last person to recognise that he believes what he believes about 9/11 because he is gullible. It is in the nature of many intellectual character traits that you don’t realise you have them, and so aren’t aware of the true extent to which your thinking is influenced by them. The gullible rarely believe they are gullible and the closed-minded don’t believe they are closed-minded. The only hope of overcoming self-ignorance in such cases is to accept that other people – your co-workers, your spouse, your friends – probably know your intellectual character better than you do. But even that won’t necessarily help. After all, it might be that refusing to listen to what other people say about you <i>is</i> one of your intellectual character traits. Some defects are incurable.</p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;">Gullibility, carelessness and closed-mindedness are examples of what the US philosopher Linda Zagzebski, in her book <i>Virtues of the Mind</i> (1996), has called ‘intellectual vices’. Others include negligence, idleness, rigidity, obtuseness, prejudice, lack of thoroughness, and insensitivity to detail. Intellectual character traits are habits or styles of thinking. To describe Oliver as gullible or careless is to say something about his intellectual style or mind-set – for example, about how he goes about trying to find out things about events such as 9/11. Intellectual character traits that aid effective and responsible enquiry are <i>intellectual virtues</i>, whereas<i>intellectual vices</i> are intellectual character traits that impede effective and responsible inquiry. Humility, caution and carefulness are among the intellectual virtues Oliver plainly lacks, and that is why his attempts to get to the bottom of 9/11 are so flawed.</p>
<p style="font-size:22px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:'Noe Text', times, georgia, serif;">Oliver is fictional, but real-world examples of intellectual vices in action are not hard to find. Consider the case of the ‘underwear bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009. Abdulmutallab was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to affluent and educated parents, and graduated from University College London with a degree in mechanical engineering. He was radicalised by the online sermons of the Islamic militant Anwar al-Awlaki, who was subsequently killed by an American drone strike. It’s hard not to see the fact that Abdulmutallab was taken in by Awlaki’s sermons as at least partly a reflection of his intellectual character. If Abdulmutallab had the intellectual character not to be duped by Awlaki, then perhaps he wouldn’t have ended up on a transatlantic airliner with explosives in his underpants.</p>
Your favourite conspiracy theories