Thread: Loose Change
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Old 2nd May 2006, 12:45 PM   #2405
c4ts
Philosopher
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 8,420
I mean, if you are going to think about conspiracies, the larger they are, the less likely. If you ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE a conpsiracy, (and there is no real reason that you should) you get a kind of dichotomy. Either the Loose Change videos and related CT material are fabricated, or the much grander network of evidence supporting that the buildings fell because they were struck by planes is false. The second involves greater skill at photomanipulation, the cooperation of every major news company, the cooperation of the entire U.S. government (who, last I knew, could never agree on anything), and vast, innumerable resources. Geggy called it a pyramid, suggesting that there is even hierarchy involved, with one individual at the top. And this has been going on for years, decades, etc... Whereas a Loose Change conspiracy requires far fewer resources and cooperation to create a video expressing a misinformed interpretation of one event, put it on the internet, and generate support. You don't have to fake any media companies because the net has no quality control! You can lie to millions and you don't have to go through a publisher or broadcaster, or anyone else who might object. You don't even need skill at photoshop because most of the theory is conjecture, the inability to find existing evidence, testimony, and ambiguous photos. Don't even bother to photoshop them, just leave them cropped (or don't) and let the CT interpretation sink in! You don't have to fake evidence so it looks like you PROVED something, all you have to do is convince people. All you need is a couple of guys, some video editing software, a computer, and an internet connection.

The larger the conspiracy, the more cooperation required, the more resources and skill that go into it, the more likely it is to fail. You have to do a lot just to make it happen, and all these things have to run smoothly all the time. If you have a small conspiracy, you only need to do a few things that succeed and you are done. You do less, so there is less possibility for error, and the overall process is much shorter and easier.

And look: Terrorists freakin' love the internet. They can spread their cause to the masses with the push of a button, e-mail anyone pdf files on how to make bombs and where to coordinate the next strike, set up websites to take donations. Al Qaeda spreads their beheading propaganda videos all over the place. It's the fastest, cheapest way to reach and influence a global audience, and these people know how it's done. The terrorists fill the niche of the conspirators in the lesser example quite nicely.

Now, that doesn't mean that Al Qaeda has to be solely responsible, it may be another terrorist organization, but they have a motive to attack and undermine the U.S. government. Whereas for the greater conspiracy's motives are "to keep themselves in power," which isn't much of a motive since you can accomplish much without need of a conspiracy. If they're already using the world's resources to do it and taking their sweet time with it, they have very little left of the world to gain from a comparitively enormous expendeture. In fact the damn thing is so nebulous you can't pin down a logical motive. Compare this to the Al Qaeda terrorists, who have actual political concerns, a hell of a lot to gain from undermining the U.S., and see themselves as heavily oppressed by an overwhelming Western dictatorship- the exact viewpoint of the Loose Change Videos and related CT's! (In all seriousness, I see this a coincidence, a side effect of radicalist philosophy, and those CT's are nothing more than a few paranoids and their basement-dwelling beardo followers, but hey, CT's are fun!)

And I ask you, which is more likely and possible: Simple things with complicated effects, or complicated things with complicated effects to create increasingly complex illusions of simple things with complicated effects?

You decide. Postulate plurality at your own risk!
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