tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post2971745099436406772..comments2024-03-28T16:22:14.888-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Conspiracies and ConnectionsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-16374672349755074442012-07-22T13:46:01.935-07:002012-07-22T13:46:01.935-07:00"Anonymous said...
Please exercise your Komm..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />Please exercise your Komment control more aggressively in the future and keep the mental peasants out.<br /><br /> Thanks."<br /><br />Oh, so you are the "Komment Kontrol" Klown - the guy who thinks that substituting K for C makes you sound as klever as Noel Koward. It doesn't. It makes you kome akross as a khlidish khowder-head.<br /><br />And so strong is your faith in your secret gnostic knowledge that you wish to protect it by excluding from this forum anyone who might challenge you on it.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43205606780512545432012-07-22T13:36:56.948-07:002012-07-22T13:36:56.948-07:00"Anonymous said...
No coincidence is too biz..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />No coincidence is too bizarre for them not to explain away in some twisted bizarre fantastical imagining in order to preserve their faux idea that they have some "special knowledge" or “way of knowing” that places them above the hoi poi? No?"<br /><br />No. We just don't care to believe silly bullshit concocted by people who aren't especially knowledgeable about anything.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5447982470552161332012-07-22T13:34:57.153-07:002012-07-22T13:34:57.153-07:00"Anonymous said...
You break a guy's ank..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />You break a guy's ankles and he will fall over, with the rest of his bones intact and him still being recognizably human in shape. What does not happen is every other bone in his body breaking up at the same exact time so he falls down neatly into his own footprint, unrecognizably human."<br /><br />That's because the strength-to-weight ratio of human bone in a body is far greater than the strength-to-weight ratio of steel in a building (intrinsic strength of the material to total weight, that is) - i.e., the safety factor for a human is a great deal greater than for a building. In the same way that a cardboard box can be pretty strong as long as it is the size of a cardboard box, but it wouldn't be if it were the size of an airplane hangar.<br /><br />And buildings fall straight down because that is the direction that the earth's gravitaional force points.<br /><br />You should try learning physics from physics books......not from Road-Runner cartoons.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31040787040721648962012-07-22T11:58:14.388-07:002012-07-22T11:58:14.388-07:00Anonymous:"Their obsession with Bugliosi and ...Anonymous:"Their obsession with Bugliosi and Posner is laughable. Just go to Amazon and read a smattering of the gazillion one star reviews their books received to see what they left out or distorted in their books."<br /><br />Well, God knows that one can rely on the opinions of AMAZON reviewers, mental giants to a man.I think that I will continue to have a greater measure of confidence in the work of Bugliosi and Posner than in the conspiracy "theorists," let alone their touchingly gullible followers.<br /><br />"Please exercise your Komment control more aggressively in the future and keep the mental peasants out."<br /><br />Ah, the true appeal of conspiracy theories. They let people believe that they are in the know, that they have the gnosis that is denied to the rank and file. Well, whatever makes one feel better about one's lot in life.<br /><br />SyonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-37371564086640198102012-07-21T22:58:28.370-07:002012-07-21T22:58:28.370-07:00"Typically, we only find out about their crim..."Typically, we only find out about their crimes years later when famous hitmen like Sammy “the Bull” Gravano or Johnny Martorano fess up to 20 or more murders under the grant of immunity in exchange for testimony implicating their bosses who ordered the hits. But for their confessions, all the murders they committed were conspiracies and would have never been solved, so professionally did they conduct themselves."<br /><br />Yes, that's true in the case of the mob. As for the CIA it's usualy leaked documents that show the CIA's bloody fingerprints in the deaths of World leaders like Diem, Allende, or the attempted assasination of Castro, etc...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40330644475466363562012-07-21T17:01:17.022-07:002012-07-21T17:01:17.022-07:00" Mr. Anon said...
"pat said...
Real c..." Mr. Anon said... <br />"pat said...<br /><br />Real conspiracy theories come from real conspiracy nuts. They tend to see all sorts of odd connections that we - the deluded and ignorant masses - never notice. They patronize us for being blind. They are well pleased with themselves. Their eyes glow with pleasure at their specialness."<br /><br />One gets the impression from talking to such people that, if they ever did win you over to their point of view, they would end up very disappointed. It's much more fun for them to be the bearers of secret knowledge."<br /><br /><br />Yes, but what is interesting about this observation is that the exact same thing can be said of "anti-conspiracy nuts" don't you think?<br /><br />No coincidence is too bizarre for them not to explain away in some twisted bizarre fantastical imagining in order to preserve their faux idea that they have some "special knowledge" or “way of knowing” that places them above the hoi poi? No?<br /><br />Regarding conspiracies. Most things in life are conspiracies of sorts. It’s called people working together in secret. Planning with your sweetheart to get married but haven’t told the rents? That’s a conspiracy for you. Starting a company with some friends, but keeping it under wraps so that competitors don’t steal your thunder until the product is ready? That’s a conspiracy for you.<br /><br />For the unwashed who are unfamiliar with how the criminal justice system works or who have never scanned over a federal or state docket sheet if you did you will find that the dockets are chock full of cases that involve allegations of a conspiracy. The Federal government even created a special statute, the RICO statute, to deal with the overwhelming fact that criminals often work together (there’s strength in numbers).<br /><br />Insider trading (usually a conspiracy); Drug dealing (usually conspiracy e.g. a drug dealer has suppliers and runners etc.); Fencing stolen goods ( yup); any gang related case, etc… the list can go on.<br /> <br />Steve’s observation that it was unusual that both Oswald and Ruby had ties to organizations that made it a regular practice to kill people (the CIA and mob respectively) could have been improved by pointing out these two organizations not only murder people in the regular course of business, but also do so in complete secrecy in a conspiratorial fashion with other members of their organization who are sworn to secrecy upon the pain of death. <br /><br />Typically, we only find out about their crimes years later when famous hitmen like Sammy “the Bull” Gravano or Johnny Martorano fess up to 20 or more murders under the grant of immunity in exchange for testimony implicating their bosses who ordered the hits. But for their confessions, all the murders they committed were conspiracies and would have never been solved, so professionally did they conduct themselves.<br /><br />Steve, I am sorry you choose to give the anti-conspiracy mental midgets so much space. <br /><br />Their obsession with Bugliosi and Posner is laughable. Just go to Amazon and read a smattering of the gazillion one star reviews their books received to see what they left out or distorted in their books.<br /><br />Please exercise your Komment control more aggressively in the future and keep the mental peasants out.<br /><br />Thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-33179946974855710132012-07-21T16:38:38.443-07:002012-07-21T16:38:38.443-07:00"Then apparently, you don't even know one..."Then apparently, you don't even know one thing. Steel doesn't have to lose all of it's strength (just enough of it), or do so everywhere in a steel building for the building to collapse. Just as you don't have to break every bone in a man's body to make him fall - just breaking his ankle bones will do."<br /><br />You break a guy's ankles and he will fall over, with the rest of his bones intact and him still being recognizably human in shape. What does not happen is every other bone in his body breaking up at the same exact time so he falls down neatly into his own footprint, unrecognizably human.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61677219108577594572012-07-21T14:12:24.084-07:002012-07-21T14:12:24.084-07:00"Anonymous said...
For JFK to have been kill..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />For JFK to have been killed by a lone gunman, there sure were a lot of convenient witnesses who ended up dead around that time.<br /><br />http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/JFK/deaths.html"<br /><br />Yeah, like this one (from the list you linked to):<br /><br />6/80, Jesse Curry, Dallas Police Chief at time of assassination, Heart attack<br /><br />Or perhaps that should be "Heart Attack". I mean, it's inconceivable that a 66 year old man with a low-stress job like Chief of Police would succumb to a heart attack in 1980, a mere seventeen years after the JFK assasination. A little top.....convenient...if you ask me. Obviously he was the victim of a black-ops job.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7082462530680692682012-07-21T14:02:51.311-07:002012-07-21T14:02:51.311-07:00"Anonymous said...
I do know one thing. Ste..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />I do know one thing. Steel doesn't just go from having lots of strength to zero strength simultaneously throughout a building, without there being explosives that were set up in the building beforehand."<br /><br />Then apparently, you don't even know one thing. Steel doesn't have to lose all of it's strength (just enough of it), or do so everywhere in a steel building for the building to collapse. Just as you don't have to break every bone in a man's body to make him fall - just breaking his ankle bones will do.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30086944348495679552012-07-21T13:48:16.042-07:002012-07-21T13:48:16.042-07:00"I do know one thing. Steel doesn't just ...<i>"I do know one thing. Steel doesn't just go from having lots of strength to zero strength simultaneously throughout a building, without there being explosives that were set up in the building beforehand."</i><br /><br />Mr. Anon is right. You say you know only one thing about the World Trade Center on 9/11, and yet even this modest epistemological claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny.<br /><br />You nicely illustrate the problems with today's conspiracy theorists. Of course conspiracies exist. They might even be common. But conspiracy theorists so muck up the public discourse by trumpeting the most bizarre notions of reality that more balanced people with far more plausible and interesting conspiracies are easily neglected in the din of competing theories by the informed public.Pincher Martinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-10535981363841183962012-07-21T00:22:48.617-07:002012-07-21T00:22:48.617-07:00"An understanding that you evidently do not h..."An understanding that you evidently do not have. Just because YOU don't understand something, doesn't mean it can't happen. In order for us to accept that argument, we would have to know what other things YOU don't understand. YOU may not understand very much at all."<br /><br />I do know one thing. Steel doesn't just go from having lots of strength to zero strength simultaneously throughout a building, without there being explosives that were set up in the building beforehand.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39273656589269566042012-07-20T22:11:05.387-07:002012-07-20T22:11:05.387-07:00Kind of surprised at the level of dismissal of con...<i>Kind of surprised at the level of dismissal of conspiracy theories in the comments tbh. If you can see through the hogwash of the PC religion, I would think that you'd see through a lot of other hogwash as well.</i><br /><br />Yeah, it's strange. If you're not skeptical about the prime suspect's self-serving story about what happened on 9/11/01, you're still a slave to your TV.ben tillmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-40113105959875685202012-07-20T21:12:41.337-07:002012-07-20T21:12:41.337-07:00Confederate Grand Conspiracy: Essentially, Booth w...<i>Confederate Grand Conspiracy: Essentially, Booth was acting in concert with high ranking Confederates. This one is difficult to entirely dismiss, as Booth seems to have had some contacts with the Confederate military/intelligence. Most historians do not favor it, but it is possible.</i><br /><br />The CSA "grand conspiracy" that I do hope will eventually be revealed through some found documents (this does occasionally happen) would be direct involvement in the New York City Draft Riots--presumably to divert reserves and resources during the Gettysburg Campaign. The timing was only a few days--hours really--off. 1000+ people died in those riots.<br /><br />And the rebs were all over Gotham, that much we do know. Not just individual spies but whole front companies and safe houses, including a shipping company that had the latest editions of <i>Times</i> and other dailies (open source intelligence) in Richmond 24 hours after they came off the presses.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15779911461220631112012-07-20T20:56:21.022-07:002012-07-20T20:56:21.022-07:00"Anonymous said...
This is true irrespective..."Anonymous said...<br /><br />This is true irrespective of how ridiculous the official explanation of how WTC7 collapsed into its own footprint is and the implications that follow from an understanding that event."<br /><br />An understanding that you evidently do not have. Just because YOU don't understand something, doesn't mean it can't happen. In order for us to accept that argument, we would have to know what other things YOU don't understand. YOU may not understand very much at all.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7872952124378460882012-07-20T17:07:57.595-07:002012-07-20T17:07:57.595-07:00"It's funny, I don't think I've e..."It's funny, I don't think I've ever seen iSteve mention the 9/11 truth movement. You'd think that, being the salient conspiracy theory right now, it might warrant a brief mention in an article like this, but.... nope."<br /><br />It's wise IMO. Pick your battles. Adopting the 9/11 truth banner would make it too easy for Steve's opponents to paint him as a "whackjob conspiracy theorist nutcase" and then use ad hom to dismiss his arguments.<br /><br />This is true irrespective of how ridiculous the official explanation of how WTC7 collapsed into its own footprint is and the implications that follow from an understanding that event.<br /><br />Kind of surprised at the level of dismissal of conspiracy theories in the comments tbh. If you can see through the hogwash of the PC religion, I would think that you'd see through a lot of other hogwash as well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-12440656643213208152012-07-20T14:53:54.360-07:002012-07-20T14:53:54.360-07:00The problem with conspiracy theories isn't the...<i>The problem with conspiracy theories isn't the idea of a conspiracy, but rather a kind of breakdown of reasoning processes on the part of the conspiracy theorists, who end up building an evidence-proof shell around their brains regarding the conspiracy</i><br /><br />At which point the conspiracy theory becomes another religion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-66935754342053567682012-07-20T12:57:21.076-07:002012-07-20T12:57:21.076-07:00As an aside, I'm not sure how much more weight...As an aside, I'm not sure how much more weight to give current historians than current thinkers at the time and place where the event took place. On one hand, the current historians are far away enough from the events they're studying that they're not necessarily caught up in, say, personal anger at the bloody war that took their brother and three of their cousins. On the other hand, they are much further away than contemporary observers, and there's little reason to believe that serious study of the worldview of, say, Austrians in 1914, is going to give you anything like the insight into that worldview that you'd have by having grown up in Austria in the 1910s. <br /><br />And it sure seems to me, as an outsider, like history has fads and conventions and factions that drive what people study and believe as much as the local fads and conventions and factions did for local/contemporary observers. <br /><br />Similarly, historians have access to some data that wasn't available before, like when classified documents are declassified, or when notorious people publish their memoirs or are put on trial for their crimes. But historians must also be missing vast amounts of information that was available to contemporaries. Greg Cochran was making the thin/thick reasoning distinction in some posts recently. It seems like modern historians have access to much better data on which to do thin reasoning (instead of guessing what the orders Hitler sent to his generals were, you can read them), but I suspect they often lack a lot of the data useful for thick reasoning (what you've heard from a lot of connected friends in Berlin, the public mood in Vienna or Paris at the beginning of WW1, etc).NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42618902328194067992012-07-20T07:34:23.788-07:002012-07-20T07:34:23.788-07:00From one of the links in your column: "Klute&...From one of the links in your column: "Klute" "The Parallax View" "All the President's Men" "The Conversation" etc.--I dunno, it somehow hadn't occurred to me to associate these with American cinema's greatest achievementAlcalde Jaime Miguel Curleohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11801154986193443160noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-64971072407330024732012-07-20T07:16:01.789-07:002012-07-20T07:16:01.789-07:00Mr. Sailer, there was a rather good short paper by...Mr. Sailer, there was a rather good short paper by U.Va's Paul Cantor tying into the cultural strand of your column: an analysis of the appeal of the "The X-Files" television series back in 2001. <a href="http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_06_1_cantor.pdf" rel="nofollow">Link</a><br /><br />It's actually almost like a companion piece for yours because its thesis is the erosion of the traditional state behind its media depiction. Though he doesn't attempt to class the subject above the level of other pop entertainment, you might like his contrast of the portrayal of the FBI in the 60s, versus the portrayal of the same agency more recently.Dave in Calif.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-1512816558338842062012-07-20T06:42:11.685-07:002012-07-20T06:42:11.685-07:00There is a throwaway comment in a Spider Robinson ...There is a throwaway comment in a Spider Robinson book, in which a future Beatles-worshiping cult holds as an article of faith that Elvis was somehow responsible for Lennon's assassination. <br /><br />The problem with conspiracy theories isn't the idea of a conspiracy, but rather a kind of breakdown of reasoning processes on the part of the conspiracy theorists, who end up building an evidence-proof shell around their brains regarding the conspiracy. Once they're all the way in, all evidence somehow supports the theory, even evidence that seems to everyone else to be obviously contradictory. <br /><br />As someone mentioned earlier, there are a lot of officially sanctioned conspiracy theories, which are within the Overton window. It's broadly acceptable to believe and assert various levels of deep dark conspiracy on the part of Muslim terrorists and extremists, and that has driven a great deal of really dumb policy. And this is aided by the fact that there really are conspiracies among violent extremist Muslims to blow people up--but those conspiracies tend to be much smaller and less elaborate and immensely less resourceful than the conspiracy theories suggest. <br /><br />The mental pathologies of conspiracy theories seem to me to be built on known flaws in human thinking, like confirmation bias (it's easier to remember and accept evidence for what you already believe) and the conjunction fallacy (a story becomes more plausible, the more details are added). It's worth keeping that in mind if you are trying to think about real conspiracies, which do exist--make an effort not to exclude contradictory evidence, try to work out how the evidence you see might contradict your views, etc.NOTAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-46092934652700087932012-07-20T03:21:15.972-07:002012-07-20T03:21:15.972-07:00For JFK to have been killed by a lone gunman, ther...For JFK to have been killed by a lone gunman, there sure were a lot of convenient witnesses who ended up dead around that time.<br /><br />http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/JFK/deaths.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76044449705873706822012-07-19T22:11:26.458-07:002012-07-19T22:11:26.458-07:00"pat said...
Real conspiracy theories come f..."pat said...<br /><br />Real conspiracy theories come from real conspiracy nuts. They tend to see all sorts of odd connections that we - the deluded and ignorant masses - never notice. They patronize us for being blind. They are well pleased with themselves. Their eyes glow with pleasure at their specialness."<br /><br />One gets the impression from talking to such people that, if they ever did win you over to their point of view, they would end up very disappointed. It's much more fun for them to be the bearers of secret knowledge.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17011241630391381652012-07-19T22:08:52.403-07:002012-07-19T22:08:52.403-07:00"C. Van Carter said...
One of the witnesses ..."C. Van Carter said...<br /><br />One of the witnesses subpoenaed by Jim Garrison was a guy named Fred Crisman, which ties the JFK thing into the UFO thing."<br /><br />Mr. Carter: Did Oswald ever visit Whitby, the vortex of all evil?<br /><br />By the way, sir, I greatly miss your "Craptocracy" blog.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-451561850578915562012-07-19T22:05:42.058-07:002012-07-19T22:05:42.058-07:00Speaking of conspiracies or conspiracy theories, h...Speaking of conspiracies or conspiracy theories, here's one from the Great Depression, little remembered today - a big-business/fascist orchestrated coup in America:<br /><br />http://www.damninteresting.com/the-revenge-of-the-fighting-quaker/Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50973817659461546892012-07-19T21:38:46.419-07:002012-07-19T21:38:46.419-07:00I think Lennon's shooting probably displaced t...<i>I think Lennon's shooting probably displaced the conspiracy idea with the lone-nut theory in the American mind even more than Reagan's shooting did.</i><br /><br />Conspiracy theorists actually have some interesting things to say about Lennon's connections with Polanski-Tate-Manson and the life-imitating-art aspects of Rosemary's Baby and Sharon Tate and The Dakota and the Beetle/Beatle thing.ben tillmannoreply@blogger.com