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Author Topic: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason  (Read 12641 times)

jaked122

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #30 on: October 25, 2015, 09:33:06 pm »

I don't think that you've set your domain large enough.


You should also include religion in that. What other things justify ignoring the evidence in front of you?


There are too many, and they should all be in this.

4maskwolf

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #31 on: October 25, 2015, 09:41:32 pm »

Don't forget the hollow earth and the additional JFK shooters
Required article from The Onion.

Reelya

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #32 on: October 25, 2015, 09:57:07 pm »

Jfk is suspect though. Even the investigators from the Warren commission now claim there was a cover up. Definitely something going on there.

Orange Wizard

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #33 on: October 25, 2015, 10:17:54 pm »

I don't think that you've set your domain large enough.
You should also include religion in that. What other things justify ignoring the evidence in front of you?
There are too many, and they should all be in this.
We already have the religion thread for that.
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Please don't shitpost, it lowers the quality of discourse
Hard science is like a sword, and soft science is like fear. You can use both to equally powerful results, but even if your opponent disbelieve your stabs, they will still die.

Culise

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #34 on: October 25, 2015, 10:44:06 pm »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You left out "rape culture", "patriarchy", "Anistasia Romanov", "the singularity", the "vast right-wing conspiracy" against the Clintons, "majestic 12", the "Philadelphia experiment", "super soldiers",  and the "liberal media"

EDIT:
Also the Catholic Church
Also also fnord

Hmmm, I swear I typed something out there, but I can't see it anymore.  FnordFnord fnord fnord
...how odd.  And somewhat unsettling. 
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Flying Dice

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #35 on: October 25, 2015, 10:59:20 pm »

Jfk is suspect though. Even the investigators from the Warren commission now claim there was a cover up. Definitely something going on there.

Yeah, but the most likely explanation there was that it was the Mob, not whatever it is that JFK conspiracy theorists believe beyond there being more than one shooter.
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BFEL

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #36 on: October 26, 2015, 12:21:05 am »

Y'know, there is a conspiracy theory *I* believe in.

Specifically, I believe certain shaving cream manufacturers put some kind of slow acting hair growth chemical in it.
You've heard the old wives tale about how shaving makes it grow back faster? Well this could explain why.

I like this one because unlike most conspiracies, its not some world shattering craziness, its just some people finding a way to continue making money off their product. Even if it turns out to be true, the biggest reaction it will get from the public would be a shrug, and THAT is how you keep something secret. By being too boring to care about.
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Reelya

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #37 on: October 26, 2015, 12:42:32 am »

Most plausible conspiracies involve large sums of money. e.g. the scientists who discovered the cause of stomach ulcers, the bacteria H. Pylori (for which they have now received a Nobel Prize) faced hostility from doctors and the pharmaceutical companies because it threatened an $8 billion a year industry. Basically almost the entire medical establishment was like "a cure? fuck that when we can keep 'em coming back for permanent treatment!"

The evidence was so good that by 1994 the NIH issued a statement urging all doctors to stop using the previous treatments (which only maintain the ulcer syptoms rather than curing them), yet by this point less than 1% of people were receiving the proper, simple and very cheap, treatments that had been known for over a decade. This prompted the big pharma corporations to strike a special deal with the FDA by which their ineffective drugs would no longer require a doctor's prescription (i.e. they could now lie to you on TV about antacids being the only "cure"). the FDA is so crooked that they go "oh, so your profitable drug has been shown by science to be no good, well we'll just clear the way to sell it everywhere, why not?". That's clear collusion between the big pharma corporations and the FDA against science and against people's health. Hence, that was a conspiracy.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2015, 12:49:56 am by Reelya »
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Orange Wizard

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #38 on: October 26, 2015, 12:46:01 am »

I believe certain shaving cream manufacturers put some kind of slow acting hair growth chemical in it.
Yeah and the district council keeps sending "maintenance" crews to the water well to put mind-control drugs in it.

Although, in all seriousness, that's a pretty reasonable idea. I also don't use shaving cream so SUCK IT, BIG CREAM
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Please don't shitpost, it lowers the quality of discourse
Hard science is like a sword, and soft science is like fear. You can use both to equally powerful results, but even if your opponent disbelieve your stabs, they will still die.

Bohandas

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #39 on: October 26, 2015, 12:56:14 am »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That reminds me 0f another conspiract theory that I forgot. The "big pharma is trying to suppress effective herbal medications to protect their profits" theory, which is a remarkably sinister theory in that there really is a conspiracy going on but it is exactly the opposite of what the conspiracy theory states, to wit in reality manufacturers of herbal medicines invented this conspiracy theory because they didn't want people to know that just about every herbal remedy that actually works already has a safer and/or cheaper synthetic version.
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Reelya

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #40 on: October 26, 2015, 01:42:37 am »

That's a case of where there's smoke there's fire. e.g. Amazonian Indian treatments for Crohn's disease have cured people who had been told by American doctors they needed to have their entire stomachs removed (after already having 5 previous surgeries in which they normal cut a chunk of your bowels out). After a few months of treatment by shamanic medicine, this guy was completely free of - what western medicine considers to be totally incurable - Crohn's Disease. There are definitely untapped medicines and treatments in places like the Amazon.

Of course, there's a HUGE difference bwtween traditional Amazonian rainforest medicine practioners who have accumulated and passed down intricate working knowledge of local plants for thousands of years, vs your typical western alternative medicine practictioner, who is basically absorbing all this quack information from fringe publications.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2015, 01:59:06 am by Reelya »
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Loud Whispers

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #41 on: October 26, 2015, 05:52:30 am »

That's a case of where there's smoke there's fire. e.g. Amazonian Indian treatments for Crohn's disease have cured people who had been told by American doctors they needed to have their entire stomachs removed (after already having 5 previous surgeries in which they normal cut a chunk of your bowels out). After a few months of treatment by shamanic medicine, this guy was completely free of - what western medicine considers to be totally incurable - Crohn's Disease. There are definitely untapped medicines and treatments in places like the Amazon.

Of course, there's a HUGE difference bwtween traditional Amazonian rainforest medicine practioners who have accumulated and passed down intricate working knowledge of local plants for thousands of years, vs your typical western alternative medicine practictioner, who is basically absorbing all this quack information from fringe publications.
It disappoints me greatly that it's not real doctors working with the Shamans.

scriver

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #42 on: October 26, 2015, 07:49:57 am »

Considering so much of "western medicine" stems from "intricate working knowledge of local plants passed down for thousands of years", this is not really a surprise.
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wierd

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #43 on: October 26, 2015, 08:26:42 am »

modern western medicine consists of expensive research to create monopolistic supplies of drugs to make profits, not so much actual efficacy for killing germs safely or for actual cures. gone are the days of the shalk vaccine culture.

Take for instance, the efficacy of refined lemon grass volatile oil against a serious antibiotic resistant microbe, MRSA.
There is research showing clear efficacy of this stuff being wildly more effective at growthplate inhibition than vancomycin. Do you see followups on that research to make standardized preparations based on the method of action the oil uses? No. You see big pharma trying to make modifications to older antibiotics to slightly increase efficacy, claim it is a new drug, then market it for high prices for 10 years, while people have staph infections that literally eat them alive.

links to studies testing efficacy:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19292822
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1010518209000523
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bhoj_Singh/publication/260173692_Antimicrobial_activity_of_lemongrass_(Cymbopogon_citratus)_oil_against_microbes_of_environmental_clinical_and_food_origin/links/54912dcb0cf225bf66a9a13b.pdf
http://www.tiptopwebsite.com/premium-pdf/susanpelechaty42.pdf
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1472-765X.2009.02552.x/full

(You can get a rather large bottle of the stuff from amazon for 20$. Especially given the "microliter" sized samples used in the growthplate studies. A big bottle like that represents several years worth of treatment when properly diluted and applied.)

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Reelya

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Re: Conspiracy theories and the failure of reason
« Reply #44 on: October 26, 2015, 08:32:46 am »

That's a case of where there's smoke there's fire. e.g. Amazonian Indian treatments for Crohn's disease have cured people who had been told by American doctors they needed to have their entire stomachs removed (after already having 5 previous surgeries in which they normal cut a chunk of your bowels out). After a few months of treatment by shamanic medicine, this guy was completely free of - what western medicine considers to be totally incurable - Crohn's Disease. There are definitely untapped medicines and treatments in places like the Amazon.

Of course, there's a HUGE difference bwtween traditional Amazonian rainforest medicine practioners who have accumulated and passed down intricate working knowledge of local plants for thousands of years, vs your typical western alternative medicine practictioner, who is basically absorbing all this quack information from fringe publications.
It disappoints me greatly that it's not real doctors working with the Shamans.

You didn't read the article then, because that's what the entire article is about.

Quote
Take for instance, the efficacy of refined lemon grass volatile oil against a serious antibiotic resistant microbe, MRSA.

Not as big a deal, but on a BBC documentary they looked at all those "active' yoghurts and find they have absolutely zero measurable effect on increasing the health of your gut flora. And then they look at fresh dandelion, a traditional remedy for stomach upsets. That stuff actually worked consistently to boost good stomach bacteria, and the change is actually measurable in patients, unlike the yoghurt. But it's hard to corner the market in dandelions, whereas people who already sell the yoghurt can sell more by claiming it has magic powers. This kind of thing is not so much a conspiracy, as it is people have a huge vested interest in only selling you their stuff and couldn't give a shit about telling you about what actually works.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2015, 08:43:31 am by Reelya »
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