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Conspiraloon™ Conspiracy Theorist Characteristics (AKA 'conspiraloons', 'tinfoil hatters', 'loonspuds', 'fruit'n'jobs' etc.)
Arrogance, relentlessness, inability to answer questions, fondness for certain stock phrases, inability to employ or understand Occam's Razor, inability to tell good evidence from bad, inability to withdraw, leaping to conclusions, using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims, and, it's always a conspiracy.
Maybe, but not here.
Welcome to Conspiraloonery Central, the home of proud members of the Conspiraloon™ Alliance.
"We'll keep fighting - and we'll win!"
40 comments:
What miracle of advanced alien technology have I stumbled upon here?
Its an entirely new carbon based life form
If the alternative is to be a lying cunt, then I'm proud to be a conspiraloon!!
What we seek is not conflict but peaceful dialogue with conspiraloons and grown ups alike, to shape a better future for all!
Paul: Surely that should have read, "to shape-shift a better future for all!"?
Do you support equal rights for female reptilian shapeshifters from outer space? If not, I'm off to join the Real Conspiraloon™ Faction!
On reflection, in order to conform to expectations, yes
Do you support equal rights for female reptilian shapeshifters from outer space?
What matters to us is what lies beneath, and anyway you lot can look like anything you want so gender /race/species is a bit irrelevant.
Has anybody invited this bloke to join the alliance yet...
http://www.jamescasbolt.com/
On second thoughts...
i have a job lot of those special shades from They Live! going cheap, of course, they do reveal that blair is thatcher in disguise, but we already knew that didn't we ?
when you're wearing them you can also see that kittens brains are built into every cctv camera, when you hear that noise as they move it's not motors, it's mewing
i only accept payment in Lunaros™ but paypal has that option, delivery guaranteed two days before payment thanks to faster than light courier (note: in the event of payment not being made after delivery, a quantum paradox will undeliver your order)
Hallo
I am sick of seeing pointless dialectic and 'controversial' theories endlessly debated, when not only is the truth glaringly obvious to anyone with a brain cell but most are not just fit exegetes for such crucial issues.
How refreshing to find this webpage. I'm at the final stages of my dossier which I believe proves beyond all doubt that Razorlight done 9/11. Razorlight are Tavistock created, CIA funded black ops agents. If I am wrong - which without the slightest apprehension I concede there is a slim chance I might be - then I will call myself a scholar and set up a research group and endeavour to find a use for such words as 'dustification' and enjoy the confused yet pitying looks on people's faces on a daily basis as a fitting penance. But I'm not wrong, I know I'm not; I can't be.
You have been lied to! Open your eyes! Take a red pill! etc etc
Its good to see someone doesn't get it
Sarcasm.....sorry looks like it didn't translate :(
Those definitions in the post....yes, I see those formed in arguments and used against others....mostly by people not willing to step outside of what they've defined as a 'loon' and what they do and don't want to give consideration to.
However, my comments are borne out of frustration that I keep coming across people who fit those definitions. Not in jest, as in my little effort above, but in earnest. They do as much to discredit an issue as the people who use their examples to decide how they're going to react to what you say.
Basically, who can do the most 'damage' - the ones who label you a loon, or the ones who consistently feed that stereotype?
@kenadie
nicely put
or is that a wind-up?
Stef,
The first comment was. The second was an explanation for it. It shouldn't be that easy to parody the type.....maybe I just visit too many of the wrong sort of forums.
I once saw a discussion between someone I really didn't want to think of as a 'loon', as I hate the term being so indiscriminately applied, and someone else clearly out to bait. The baiter started asking him about the 'Grand Unified Theory of the Spindle of Time' or something like that, and the 'loon' spoke about it in return, apparently knowledgeably. The baiter had just pulled this 'theory' off the top of his head to confuse the loon - but ended up confusing himself by it apparently being a recognised phenomena. I went off to Google it and unsurprisingly found no results. Then I wanted to slap myself for thinking "Christ - he really is a f**king loon".
My take on the subject of conspiraloonacy...
http://tinyurl.com/2znmna
I would say those that dismiss people as loons are the greater problem. If someone talks shit, then at least you know where you are with them and they are easy enough to avoid.
I think this is about stating that we are not all the same.
To be dismissed by people with what is basically a blanket ad hominem used (equally thoughtlessly) by everyone from the prime minister to hipsters such as urban75 illustrates its utility to corall attitudes into well demarcated free speech zones.
To me its a question about causation, is there a role for human agency in the way the world is? Is power aggregated by a minority, and exercised in a completely different manner than that allowed to the rest of the population?
Do the various covert organisations and the secrecy surrounding much governmental activity have any purpose?
Do supernatural forces such as globalisation, capitalism have us in their sway or are they just mechanisms/cover stories for the way society is ordered?
To me, it looks like the latter, but the former is certainly more attractive to the notions of individualism we are comforted with.
I definitely don't see why what is basically peer pressure should stop you at least contemplating these things.
Stef covers it pretty well here
Paul
I agree with Stef's post. It was also covered here.
The article quoted within it, 'The Paranoid Shift' by Michael Hasty is one of the best I've ever seen written on the subject.
I've tended to assume the term 'conspiraloon' has been around longer than since July 2005, but could be wrong.
I've had it thrown at me more times than I could bore you with here...it didn't bother me as, like Shahid says near the top of this thread, I'd rather be a 'conspiraloon' than the alternative.
However, yes, if someone talks shit you and I can ignore them because we differentiate. Others, in fact quite a lot of people I come across, don't. And it's not that easy to avoid....when I've seen people engage in discussion about subjects such as 7/7 and 9/11 that need to be viewed objectively and dispassionately based on the available evidence, and all that happens is it ends up being an contest between whose theory has more merit than any other, then its frustrating to think that outsiders reading it will use it to form a picture of all those researching and campaigning.
Also, a lot of the time people like that aren't talking complete shit....there's some facts and rationality underpinning it. If someone talks total shit all the time, fair enough they can be easily dismissed, but if they sometimes talk shit and other times talk about the issues which need to be addressed, then it's even more annoying because others leap on the shit to discredit not only the rest of what they say but everyone else saying the same thing but in a more logical and reasonable way.
To me, there's a difference between being called a conspiraloon because you're asking questions that need to be asked because we're told so much by untrustworthy sources, and being called a conspiraloon because there are people out there doing a very good job of affecting general opinions of what people like us are trying to achieve.
I deal with it because I have to. And basically, if you act reasonably, then people can call you a loon all they like, but they're saying more about themselves than they are about you. It's not so much peer pressure; it's the knowledge that the stereotype which was created is like I've said, constantly being fed.
I've only seen the term 'conspiraloon' used over the last couple of years and from one specific corner of the Internet. In fairness to the folk who inhabit that corner they do have much more important things to do like convincing themselves the Labour Party isn't a re-animated corpse and launching cyber-pogroms
Is the dank corner of the Internet you are referring to the one founded by "one of most influential people in the UK web industry" (as he describes himself), better known as Mike Slocombe (FRSA, BA Hons (First Class) & Trustafarian dreadlock-wearer extraordinaire)?
An inhabitant of that place was the first person to ever call me one. But I've only been a Conspiraloon™ since July 2005 anyway.
To be honest, I get more of a thrill from being called a Gatekeeper. It makes me feel like a character in Dungeons & Dragons, rather than just a mentalist.
By the way, I don't really think 9/11 was Razorlight. Although laser weapons from space actually makes less sense to me.
I'm all for Johann Hari's descriptions of conspiraloons™:
'So open minded their brains have fallen out'
"There are other, sadder explanations too. Conspiracy theories are the ideologies of the impotent"
"But there is a deeper, almost-religious impulse behind conspiracy theories"
"They are a natural attempt to rebel against the cruel randomness of life"
"It is more comforting to believe there is a malevolent force controlling events than to acknowledge that we are simply arbitrarily evolved bits of carbon floating in a void"
I guess that makes me a brainless sad impotent religious rebel who believes that malevolent forces can and do control some events. Rather that than be an arbitrarily evolved bit of carbon floating in a void.
Rudolph Giuliani wasn't in his emergency bunker inside WTC7 on 9/11 which, as it turned out, was a stroke of luck because WTC7 collapsed due to fire melting the concrete because the sprinkler system didn't work because fire melted it.
He claims his scaly skin is down to old age but that's such a plain lie.
@anon - If I were drawing some Venn diagrams I'm sure I could come up with one with his name on
Curiously enough, we appear to share the same taste in cameras and based not too far from each other. He does, however, appear to have significantly more hair than me and is considerably more confident that he knows how the world works.
But let's not personalise this (really).
I suspect that there is a class/ social standing element that goes some way to explaining the distinction between Conspiraloons and Believers
The more of a stake you have in a system the more unlikely you are to face up to its darker side - no matter how much evidence of its terminal corruption. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas - no matter how cred their hairdo
@kenadie - the immediate aftermath of 9/11 did it for me. The lies that were being circulated were so transparent it took me months to get my head around understanding how the majority of people were swallowing them. The WMD thing/ obvious porkers leading up to the Iraq Invasion just cemented my scepticism. How people can have the brass nuts to claim that the evidence was compelling at the time when it so obviously wasn't and accuse those of us who mistrust the government on all related matters, including 7/7, of suffering from some form of mental illness is truly remarkable
IMHO Johann Hari is at his very best when talking about rich people as if he isn't one
Of course, the fact that cunts like Hari and Monbiot are pressed into service to write vacuous cack like the article linked to above is a very good sign indeed
I see he managed to get David Icke in there. Nice...
"They are a natural attempt to rebel against the cruel randomness of life"
So said, Johann Hari, the man whose surname is a clever anagram of 'hair', a definite cover for the fact he's a scaly-skinned shape-shifting lizard!
Cruel randomness of life? What a cunt!
There's nothing random about everyone getting up five days a week to drone off and do the same mundane job they do every day -- the same job that they fucking hate with every carbon atom in their bodies -- at precisely the same time everyone in the same timezone is doing the exactly the same thing.
There's nothing random about seeing the same shit in the newspapers day after day, nor is there anything random about watching the same shit on TV every day.
I tell you what is fucking random though, that cunts like Johann Hari can get paid to write shit about cruel randomness that doesn't fucking exist in much the same way as Johann Hari shouldn't.
diffident as i am, i think jh's opportunity to write is anything but random. He's a careerist cunt with a blairite desire to please(Its all about him) and shares his profound tendency to self pity.
And then an Iraqi sent him this, probably from somewhere in Kensington or on the South Bank:
"Your article in the Independent today, 20/3/2006, was really disappointing to all of your admirers. You let them down. You changed your mind and switched from pro-war to join the anti-war campaigners, means that you gave in bowed to the aggressors. So instead of blaming the terrorists for this mass killing in Iraq at the hand of the terrorists, you put the blame on Bush and Blair for liberating Iraqi people from the worst dictator in history. If your new stance is right, then it was wrong to stand up against Hitler in the WW II, because that war caused humanity 55 million casualties. So it was better not oppose the Axis sates. Is that fair? Is this is the justice that we are looking for? If the tyrants were left to do as they like because of the possible revenge from their followers, then our glob will be place for the tyrants only and the whole planet population will be living like sheep.
Abdulkhaliq Hussein"
Can it be true that even Iraqis won't be happy until the Coalition of the Killing have killed 55 million of them?
Where were all these terrorists in Iraq before the Coalition of the Killing invaded and why didn't they take out Saddam? Maybe they'd all been ASBO'd.
@kenadie - the immediate aftermath of 9/11 did it for me. The lies that were being circulated were so transparent it took me months to get my head around understanding how the majority of people were swallowing them. The WMD thing/ obvious porkers leading up to the Iraq Invasion just cemented my scepticism. How people can have the brass nuts to claim that the evidence was compelling at the time when it so obviously wasn't and accuse those of us who mistrust the government on all related matters, including 7/7, of suffering from some form of mental illness is truly remarkable
This is the problem I have. The lies and errors about 9/11 are very transparent. What I object to, is how often I see them presented very untransparently, where other, weaker arguments are brought in alongside them which are then used to attack the entire issue, and anyone else researching it and similar events.
I'm not sure I've made my position very clear.....the article I linked to above regarding Conspiracy Theorists was one I wrote myself. Stef, you and I seem to share the same view regarding how the term is used to smack down anyone and everyone with questions and the ability to apply a bit of critical thinking.
I've spent a lot of time on a forum similar to the type referred to here, where I've observed the abuse thrown at 'conspiraloons' and wondered how on earth otherwise reasonable people, who are perfectly capable of identifying the absurd lies those in power tell them can be so dismissive, and apparently able to arbitrarily judge what a government is capable of and what it isn't.
But after months and months of watching the exchanges, I'd sometimes find myself having sympathy for the 'sceptics' when they're faced with grainy YouTube video, comments taken out of context, speculation and generally badly framed arguments. They were given no incentive to look into the issue.
This is what I am talking about, not people like JH, who seem to inhabit a world where there's nothing in between total and utter randomness and the notion that we're ruled by a secret cabal of reptiles. The people on that forum are not idiots and they're actually very supportive of campaigns like J7, possibly since J7 doesn't rely on the existance of as yet unproven weapons technology to attempt to explain the event and doesn't argue that there were no trains and the bus was a missile cloaked in a hologram.
J7's single greatest strength is that is distinguishes between asking questions and speculation
The most effective trap laid for people unhappy with mainstream accounts of a particular event is to lure them into speculating what might have happened instead
And that's how to turn a sceptic into a fantasist in one easy lesson
It's a crude technique and once you're switched onto it it's unlikely you're ever going to fall for it again
kenadie
if you act reasonably, then people can call you a loon all they like, but they're saying more about themselves than they are about you.
That is pretty much the point.
The rub is that looking at things this way is pretty heady stuff.
We're brought up with a fairly straightforward morality and it violates our notions of this.
Its no wonder people start acting like kevin mccarthy in 'the invasion of the body snatchers'.
To me it's just a symptom of their wounded innocence.
Paul, your point makes perfect sense; I'm certainly not disagreeing with it.
The first comment I posted on here, which clearly led you to think I'm a moron - that was my point, badly made I guess, that as well as being mindful that there are plenty out there who'll scream 'Conspiraloon' at the slightest sign of dissent, we also need to consider that there are plenty out there who, rightly or wrongly, lead to many people feeling justified in using the term.
People who talk shit don't restrict themselves to talking about subjects of no consequence; they can and do end up causing apathy among people who may otherwise have been interested in taking a different view of world events. My post was an extreme example, but I've often seen worse.
I'm not defending those who fling the term around blindly; there is no defence for that and I've come up against plenty myself. But it would make what I'm trying to do a hell of a lot easier if some people, supposedly with the same aims, could employ a different approach. Take David Icke as an example. Read any of his books and you'll find a lot that makes sense in there and is backed up by solid evidence - but it's so wrapped up in his 'controversial' theories that both he and everything else he might have to say is ridiculed.
On one hand you can argue he's got every right to speak his own truth, but on the other you've got to ask how it serves him in the long run. Might it have been better for him, and everyone else, if he'd highlighted the interconnections of the rich and powerful without having to add all the bloodsucking lizard theories? And we could have a whole other debate about whether or not Icke is actually one of 'them' trying to put us off the scent!
I know a lot of this is heady stuff but there's lines some people aren't prepared to cross about how heady they can take, which could turn them off other issues to which they might have been prepared to give consideration.
glad you posted that kenadie. there was 33 comments on this post for too long and i was beginning to suspect a masonic conspiracy.
I know a lot of this is heady stuff but there's lines some people aren't prepared to cross about how heady they can take, which could turn them off other issues to which they might have been prepared to give consideration.
My feeling, which might be less than generous, is that it is both his point and purpose. I'm not a mind reader, and that is why anyone who would muddy fairly obvious truths with rather pantomime metaphysics is beyond me.
I wonder, will the Conspiraloon Alliance consider taking the bold step of becoming an NGO with Consultative Status to the UN?
You are a very mischievous person
/ reaches for special applications crayon
< Spits on hand />
< Slicks down hair />
< Asks Stef for a shot of his crayon />
^ and ^^ I don't see why the Conspiraloon Alliance shouldn't be given this status amongst the other three thousand or so entities.
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