Alternative news sources

[drogulus]

     Parodies of conspiracy thinking are no more outlandish than real examples. As a thinker you're in trouble if you can't recognize a reductio.

     

Also, Project MKULTRA faked the moon landings.

     Scientists and philosophers speculate on the dubious question "why is there something rather than nothing?" An answer that appeals to me is that the Universe is mediocre, and nothing is more mediocre than Somethingness. Everythingness and Nothingness are too extreme.

[North Star]

"... And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords"

[drogulus]

     

"... And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords"

     Bernanke has gone too far this time!

     

[Parsifal]

Also, Project MKULTRA faked the moon landings. With chemtrails.

Sean's comments must be in there somewhere. 

http://xkcd.com/202/

[Sean]

drogulus

No, I don't think so. People have blind spots, but fringe thinkers have larger, more debilitating ones.

There's plenty of wacky non-mainstream stuff on the internet, alongside plenty of well researched non-mainstream stuff too. Let's say 9/11 is all exactly as the government and the media says: that wouldn't mean the research the Truth movement has done is rubbish, it would just mean it was mistaken. It's been carried out by qualified scientists who know what they're doing but instead of engaging with it rationally people are frightened and don't want to know and just trash it to begin with- because the implications if true are too much.

sanantonio

Leaks?  Nah, they just don't happen with the really important stuff.

Well there are dozens of eye witness accounts of explosions taking place on 9/11 and people coming forward in other ways with information inconsistent with the official story- the field of research is enormous.

Geo Dude

Again I'd question how it is that mainstream media is in any position to be fair and objective when most people want lies given them as truth, being unable to cope psychologically with radically different world outlooks that such balanced presentation of information might provide.

snyprrr

Yes, Century of the Self is excellent and highly recommendable; also the six hour Ring of Power.

Loose Change is on Youtube of course and also here for convenience  http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/ZCp61V9ZYhg/

MishaK

Well your journalist fits under the comments I'm making to drogulus above- he doesn't begin with an impartial analysis of the evidence but just tries to trash any other interpretation of it. I'll take a look at those other links, thanks.

If you'd have given the mainstream account of the 9/11 events to anyone before 9/11 they'd have agreed it makes a reasonable Bruce Willis movie plot, if you can suspend reality for yourself while entertaining it. It really is the most ridiculous conspiracy theory to punch holes in that you ever heard.

dyn Baa, baa, baa.

[Sean]

To lighten the tone here's a few thoughts on the Apollo programme I put to students recently after giving them a presentation on the space shuttle.

The Americans achieved the extraordinary manned moon landings of the late 1960s and early 70s. Many people then expected that more missions would follow to establish bases on the moon, followed by a mission to Mars.

However after Apollo 17 in 1972 NASA instead spent the next 40 years on their space shuttle program, which involved redesigning rocket and spaceship technology for low earth-orbit activity.

Ordinary rockets could always launch satellites, space probes and astronauts without a reusable shuttle, so why did they do this? Here are two non-mainstream reasons in popular culture-

1) NASA never sent men to the moon- they didn't have enough technology and it was all a hoax. The Space Shuttle is the best NASA ever did.

2) NASA never stopped going to the moon- it's been back there many times since the last official Apollo 17. All these missions are classified and the shuttle is just a distraction.

Some people think NASA has this because there are ancient ruins and artefacts on the moon from another civilization that it wants to explore privately...

[Sean]

Jeffrey

In fact,  the "Truther" version of the Truth is far more bizarre and requires more leaps of faith than any version of the offical story.

A large chunk of the population just doesn't agree with you.

And regarding mistakes in the programme for 9/11 there were several, the main one that Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania and didn't hit what was probably its target of Building 7. 7 was stuffed like a turkey with explosives and had no excuse to fall, but a decision had to be made at 5.20 to pull it after even the pitiful office fires had gone out, and it came down in perfectly symmetrical free-fall acceleration, a 47 story immense steel frame skyscraper, providing the most mysterious building collapse in the entire history of architecture.

As an aside, Towers 1 and 2 were hit by flights 11 and 175. 11 + 175 = 186. 186 / 2 = 93.

93, 93, 93. Apparently the number 93 has numerological significance...

Erato- the alternative theories I'm afraid are credible.

[Parsifal]

Really this is pointless.  Do we have the willpower to not feed the troll?

[The new erato]

Really this is pointless.  Do we have the willpower to not feed the troll?

This guy has students? The mind boggles.

[Karl Henning]

It is of course much easier to say something as obtuse as this:

with a straight face if you haven't actually first read the article I linked above: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1001-24.htm

I don't ever read Rolling Stone, but (the unnecessary odd vulgarity aside) this is fine stuff.

[The new erato]

The finishing line is particularly fine:

"People are longing for a smaller, stupider reality. Some, like Bush, sell a prepackaged version. Others just make theirs up out of thin air. God help us."

This is what it all boils down to.

[Karl Henning]

Yes, an excellent curtain line, and witheringly on target.

[Sean]

See the relevant documentaries and report back...   

[Todd]

As an aside, Towers 1 and 2 were hit by flights 11 and 175. 11 + 175 = 186. 186 / 2 = 93.

93, 93, 93. Apparently the number 93 has numerological significance...

Looks like someone is Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

[ibanezmonster]

Or:

[MishaK]

MishaK

Well your journalist fits under the comments I'm making to drogulus above- he doesn't begin with an impartial analysis of the evidence but just tries to trash any other interpretation of it. I'll take a look at those other links, thanks.

If you'd have given the mainstream account of the 9/11 events to anyone before 9/11 they'd have agreed it makes a reasonable Bruce Willis movie plot, if you can suspend reality for yourself while entertaining it. It really is the most ridiculous conspiracy theory to punch holes in that you ever heard.

Sean,

Yet again your feeble remnant of an intellect runs for cover and is MIA when challenged with logic, so your emotion takes over. You'd much rather see yourself as a "free thinker", someone smarter than the "sheeple", someone who stands out. You'd like to justify your existence as a social misfit by convincing yourself that you're better and society just isn't smart enough to appreciate you. You're not.

You clearly didn't read beyond the first line of the article I linked. So, I'll just challenge you here directly:

You say the "mainstream account of 9/11" is the "most ridiculous conspiracy theory". OK. So let's set it forth in simple terms. Here is the "mainstream's" positive theory of the event:

20 Islamist extremists trained and financed by Al Qaeda hijack four planes using standard hijacking modus operandi that has been in use at least since the 60s, but using the passengers' expectations of a negotiated hostage situation they instead fly the aircraft as manned missiles into a number of iconic opbjects, the twin towers, the pentagon, the fourth aircraft fails to reach its target as the passengers figure out what's going on and put up a fight. A wing of the Pentagon is destroyed, the twin towers eventually collapse from structural damage from the impacts and from burning fuel and other flammables, both from the building itself and the aircraft.

Pretty straightforward.

What's the alternative theory. Put forward a full account A to Z in your own words. Keep it simple. I'd like to see if you can do it. I have not seen a complete, coherent alternative theory yet. I'm not talking about issues with this or that piece of "evidence". Just a coherent therory from plot to execution.

Well there are dozens of eye witness accounts of explosions taking place on 9/11 and people coming forward in other ways with information inconsistent with the official story- the field of research is enormous.

Sean, for the millionth time, I am an eywitness. THERE WERE NO EXPLOSIONS! PERIOD! You should not trust incompetent eyewitnesses to distinguish between the sound of a collapsing building and the sounds of explosions, neither of which they have ever heard before in their lives outside of cheap action movie sound effects. You shouldn't trust them any more than you should trust someone with no exposure to classical music to distinguish between an oboe and and english horn in a dense orchestral passage.

[The new erato]

This isn't about logic MishaK. This is about trying to make sense (however wrongly) of a complex world that feels difficult to handle; and at the same time making oneself privvy to a level of insight that sets oneself above mere mortals. The essence isn't in the facts, but in the psyche of the conspiracy theorist.

[MishaK]

This isn't about logic MishaK. This is about trying to make sense (however wrongly) of a complex world that feels difficult to handle; and at the same time making oneself privvy to a level of insight that sets oneself above mere mortals. The essence isn't in the facts, but in the psyche of the conspiracy theorist.

Isn't that exactly what I said in my first paragraph?

[Brian]

I don't ever read Rolling Stone, but (the unnecessary odd vulgarity aside) this is fine stuff.

Rolling Stone ran David Foster Wallace's superb 2000 election article, or rather an article ostensibly about the 2000 election but really about the problem of identifying sincerity in a world where marketers use sincerity to sell products. It's been anthologized, in expanded form, in Wallace's book Consider the Lobster.

It's an inherent human trait to imprint patterns on random events, with those patterns strongly reflecting one's own beliefs. Read Kahnemann's Thinking, Fast and Slow. There's also a strong tendency to imprint meaning on random effects, and also to reverse the cause-effect relationship. Again, read Kahnemann. These affects have been proven again and again in double blind experiments. Hence all the stupid conspiracy theories floating around, their distribution being strongly helped by the Internet.

Thinking, Fast and Slow really is a great and extremely important book.

I totally agree with the OP. The lamestream media refuses to even acknowledge the remotest possibility that the world's leaders are controlled by shape-shifting reptilian aliens from outer space. Of course, this is because their jewish banker masters are in the pay of the same aliens, so that shouldn't be a surprise. Also, Project MKULTRA faked the moon landings. With chemtrails.

It really is the most ridiculous conspiracy theory to punch holes in that you ever heard.

Great description of Loose Change.

[The new erato]

Isn't that exactly what I said in my first paragraph?

Actually more or less, yes.