WTF has happened to 'skepticism'

tanabear said:
This is quite a convoluted explanation. There are two things here. One, there was a conspiracy, if you wish to use that term, by high-ranking officials in the US government and elsewhere to sell the Iraq war to the American people. Two, what they were selling was a conspiracy theory about Iraq, WMD and links to Al-Qaeda. It is this conspiracy theory that I am referring too. This conspiracy did not exist. Saddam Hussein was not in league with Osama bin Laden to transfer WMD which could lead to mushroom clouds over American cities.
Click to expand...
Sure.
 
tanabear said:
What exactly is a weak conspiracy theory? Is this a new Skeptic term? It was not only the lies about WMD, but it also included falsehoods about Saddam's links to Osama and Al-Qaeda. This false narrative was widely believed by the American people. This would seem like a strong conspiracy theory to me. Plus, it led to the complete decimation of an entire country. This seems a lot more consequential than someone wondering if the moon landings were faked.




Is this really what they had in mind?

"The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting".
Frank DeMartini, WTC Project Manager

A white paper in the files of the Port Authority state,

"The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact."

So "fully loaded", "large jetliner" and "600mph" implies small planes, not fully loaded and traveling slow. Skeptics are best at semantics.

Of course, to say that the buildings "collapsed" is really a misnomer. The official explanation is "crush-down crush-up."



So you are admitting that the highly loaded term "conspiracy theory" is meant only to apply to people questioning official narratives. Thus a "conspiracy theory" is not necessarily a false belief, it is just a contrary one to the powers that be.
Click to expand...

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70154
 
BobTheCoward said:
If something can't be solved with skepticism, don't get upset when people use skepticism on it at the skepticism forum. This is a forum devoted to the means, and not about achieving some end.
Click to expand...

If someone on the hammer forum goes to the louve and starts smashing things with a hammer, I think other people on the hammer forum can reasonably ask him why he's doing that. Saying "hammers are good at smashing stuff" isn't a good reason, no matter where he happens to be.

Anyway, this exchange between us began with you saying:

Is skepticism meant to have a purpose? And if you desire to solve problems, you should be on a problem solving forum and not a skepticism forum.
Click to expand...

And yes, my claim is that every act of skepticism has a purpose. Examining that purpose can offer insight.
 
BobTheCoward said:
Then it is good that we are not talking about hammering outside of the hammer forum.
Click to expand...

Can it be? Is the whole perplexingly frustrating body of your work meant solely with the grand purpose of leading here, to this, to the declaration that it has now come upon us: it's Hammer Time? And that we can't touch this?
 
BobTheCoward said:
You talked about someone smashing things at the Louvre. No one mentioned taking hammering outside the hammer forum. So any point based on the Louvre is moot.
Click to expand...

There is no goddamn "hammer forum" in the real world. There's no part of life where going "I'm just not going to look into whether or not this is true" is a good thing.

I await whatever intentionally dense nonsense your character is gonna vomit out.
 
JoeMorgue said:
There is no goddamn "hammer forum" in the real world. There's no part of life where going "I'm just not going to look into whether or not this is true" is a good thing.

I await whatever intentionally dense nonsense your character is gonna vomit out.
Click to expand...

This forum is a hammer forum
 
BobTheCoward said:
You talked about someone smashing things at the Louvre. No one mentioned taking hammering outside the hammer forum. So any point based on the Louvre is moot.
Click to expand...

I thought the hammer forum, like this one, was meant to be populated by real people. Persumably those real people are talking about hammers. So one of them goes to the Louve and starts hammering things. Then he comes on the hammer forum and talks about his choice of hammer for that job.

Some people on the hammer forum might say he made a poor choice of hammer because, for instance, a larger one would be more efficient. Someone else might say actually it would be better if he had chosen a nerf hammer because then he'd have done less damage to the art.

You seem to think that the first comment is acceptable but the second is not, and I can't understand how you delineate hammer discussions in order to make that distinction.

Furthermore, even if you can explain some coherent way to limit the discussion in that way, I don't think it's worthwhile to do so with respect to skepticism.
 
Roboramma said:
I thought the hammer forum, like this one, was meant to be populated by real people. Persumably those real people are talking about hammers. So one of them goes to the Louve and starts hammering things. Then he comes on the hammer forum and talks about his choice of hammer for that job.

Some people on the hammer forum might say he made a poor choice of hammer because, for instance, a larger one would be more efficient. Someone else might say actually it would be better if he had chosen a nerf hammer because then he'd have done less damage to the art.

You seem to think that the first comment is acceptable but the second is not, and I can't understand how you delineate hammer discussions in order to make that distinction.

Furthermore, even if you can explain some coherent way to limit the discussion in that way, I don't think it's worthwhile to do so with respect to skepticism.
Click to expand...

I'm fine with both discussions. The limits of hammer's is an acceptable subject on the hammer forum. I object to non hammer proposals to fix the paintings.
 
I honestly have no idea what anyone is talking about anymore.

I'm skeptical that my brain is still working correctly. :confused:
 
BobTheCoward said:
I'm fine with both discussions. The limits of hammer's is an acceptable subject on the hammer forum. I object to non hammer proposals to fix the paintings.
Click to expand...

So you are okay with discussions about the purpose of hammers as it applies to their application.

So it seems your answer to this question:

Is skepticism meant to have a purpose?
Click to expand...
Is yes.

And
And if you desire to solve problems, you should be on a problem solving forum and not a skepticism forum.
Click to expand...
This is clearly nonsense.
 
Roboramma said:
So you are okay with discussions about the purpose of hammers as it applies to their application.

So it seems your answer to this question:

Is yes.

And

This is clearly nonsense.
Click to expand...

Just because a discussion of purpose occurs does not mean it has a purpose.

And I don't understand the nonsense thing.
 
ArchSas said:
You underestimate the CTers. I've run into several Titanic-related conspiracy theories in the past. IIRC, the main ones are: 1) That the Titanic never actually sank; White Star was committing insurance fraud by sinking the Olympic, which had already been damaged, and 2) That J.P. Morgan intentionally had the ship sunk to kill business rivals; I think that one is actually part of the Qanon CT now, so it might be somewhat popular now, considering how that crapshow has grown.
Click to expand...

I think the latest popular one was that the Bankers had the ship sunk to kill several opponents of a Federal Reserve Bank.

:blackcat:
 
Have you also noticed that if you compare images of the Titanic sinking from hitting an ice berg, and of ships sinking from being torpedoed, some of them sink in exactly the same way? Obvious proof the Titanic loss was a controlled sinking!!11
 
BobTheCoward said:
Just because a discussion of purpose occurs does not mean it has a purpose.
Click to expand...
Maybe, but in general human actions have a motivation. If skepticism is good it's good because it's useful to achieving some ends, so when theprestige says that your skepticism creates rather than solves problems that seems like a valid criticism to me, and I suspect most people.

You may consider skepticism to be an ends in itself, but if so I'm curious what ever lead you to that viewpoint.
 
Roboramma said:
Maybe, but in general human actions have a motivation. If skepticism is good it's good because it's useful to achieving some ends, so when theprestige says that your skepticism creates rather than solves problems that seems like a valid criticism to me, and I suspect most people.

You may consider skepticism to be an ends in itself, but if so I'm curious what ever lead you to that viewpoint.
Click to expand...

I'm not interested in solving problems with skepticism. And until this is international solve-problems forums, I'm in the right place.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Ahem.

Dave
Click to expand...

JoeMorgue said:
There is no goddamn "hammer forum" in the real world. There's no part of life where going "I'm just not going to look into whether or not this is true" is a good thing.

I await whatever intentionally dense nonsense your character is gonna vomit out.
Click to expand...
Haven't you learned yet, never say never on the internet because somewhere sometime, if it can exist on the internet there are probably more than one.
 
Thor 2 said:
It's an English thing implying someone is of a lower class "commoner" as distinct from aristocratic I suppose. It has become to mean someone of low social status, education, and intelligence, from my understanding.

I recall one Mrs Slowcome (not sure of spelling here), in the series "Are you being served", used to refer to folk as common or dead common, in a derisive manner.
Click to expand...

Tally Ho! chaps. Ex-public school bod, here. I come from Lancashire originally, and I suppose I used to have quite a pronounced accent, when I first went to school. A bloke in my year (Paul Young's record producer, these days) decided that all Northerners ate "n'owt but chip butties" - Chip Butty stuck as a nickname.

I sort of accidentally came across The Common Potato as a username a few years ago. As well as sounding a bit like "The Commentator", it has that personal meaning.

You're right, of course, about "common". Doesn't Hyacinth Bucket deserve a mention? Of course, it's quite permissible to call someone common who really isn't. It's an English banter thing.
 
Last edited:
The Common Potato said:
Tally Ho! chaps. Ex-public school bod, here. I come from Lancashire originally, and I suppose I used to have quite a pronounced accent, when I first went to school. A bloke in my year (Paul Young's record producer, these days) decided that all Northerners ate "n'owt but chip butties" - Chip Butty stuck as a nickname.

I sort of accidentally came across The Common Potato as a username a few years ago. As well as sounding a bit like "The Commentator", it has that personal meaning.

You're right, of course, about "common". Doesn't Hyacinth Bucket deserve a mention? Of course, it's quite permissible to call someone common who really isn't. It's an English banter thing.
Click to expand...


Well Tally Ho back then! :thumbsup:

Phew! So you're not going to flay me alive for looking down on common folk. :)
 
BobTheCoward said:
I'm not interested in solving problems with skepticism. And until this is international solve-problems forums, I'm in the right place.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but this isn't the 5-years-olds-asking-why forum. Questioning almost everything isn't the same as skepticism.
 
To be fair, Bob's probably not the only one. There are plenty of apparently endless -- and apparently pointless -- argument-fests we see here, which you read in horrified fascination, thinking "WTF!", before shrugging and saying "Different strokes ..."

Heck, I've even caught myself at it. Got sucked into some discussion, then after a while wondering why on earth I care at all.

Of course, we can draw two possible lessons from this thought. The first would be to remain self aware about one's motivations, instead of thoughtlessly burrowing through some rabbit hole just because one's happened to poke one's head inside one. The second is to give up entirely on such self-awareness (or else, to compartmentalize, and to indulge in rabbit-hole-burrowing just for the heck of it).

Clearly Bob favors the latter. But equally clearly, Bob's not the only one to do that, albeit he is the only one to actually admit to it.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I'm not interested in solving problems with skepticism. And until this is international solve-problems forums, I'm in the right place.
Click to expand...

What use do you see skepticism as having for you?

I think that's an important question in order to analyse whether or not you are doing it in a way that's tailored to those aims, whatever they may be.
 
A plus, if indeed there is any, is Bob's apparently unemotional approach to every issue, something I've tried to be mindful of.

To get back on topic of the TS, emotional arguments can have some place in skeptical analysis, but it's best to leave them on the back burner, especially for sensitive issues, else you end up with the mess you see in the politics and social issues sections.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom