Quote:
Originally Posted by SD-Stranger
Trimmed for character count
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Before I begin, let's clear up two things:
1. When I write about conspiracy theorists, I am not talking about people who are on a mission to find out the truth. I would call those people
truth seekers, and I am one of them. I want to know the truth no matter how contrary it may be to my current beliefs. But conspiracy theorists are different, and I thought this one was easy to understand. They purposely take information and twist it in a way that fits their own world view (confirmation bias), which is usually that there is some secret organization pulling the strings in society. In other words, they aren't searching for the real truth, they are only searching for the truths that confirm their existing point of view while deliberately ignoring information that doesn't fit that view. As such, they aren't searching for the truth. They're searching for a conspiracy. The difference is extremely significant.
Note how the definition doesn't include "a search for the truth." I stand by my distinction. Also, since you wrote you have made up your mind and I'm wasting my time (which is true) shows that you aren't searching for truth, but instead for information that fits your beliefs - not letting information form your beliefs.
2. When I call you dumpster divers "elite," I obviously don't mean it in a sense that many CTers do - that you are really the ones manipulating major world events for your own purposes. I mean it in the sense that you believe you "know" things that the public just doesn't "get." In other words, you are elitist because you consider yourself superior, sometimes challenging the accepted version but hardly ever accepting it. So you are in an elite minority group. This is a distinction I should have made more clear.
I'm only going to spend a brief amount of time on Koresh, because you clearly don't want to discuss him in a reasonable manner. You asked if he believed in conspiracies, which I answered. Now, you're wanting to go all red herring and spin things in a completely different manner by bringing up the death of people in his cult/compound. Notice how I didn't bring that up? My statement was that he believed in conspiracies, you didn't address that, just offered up distractions, especially about psychoactive drugs. Like I said in the beginning, you get
no points for bringing up Scientology arguments.
Once again, you completely dodged the question concerning the link between the TSA and this major conspiracy of psychologists (lol, you still don't understand the difference between psychology and psychiatry) to drug people into docility. Instead, you went right to the Nazi argument, a perfect illustration of why conspiracy theorists don't seek to know the truth, but live in a bubble of fear that they create for themselves.
Combining corporate interests with psychology (or just about any other field) is a horrible idea. On that, we agree. The problem is, you seem to believe there's this widespread conspiracy of psychologists trying to manipulate the public, working as arbiters of powerful groups in the shadows. It's hilarious, honestly, especially given the fact that you even type you don't care what most psychologists do. It's hard to take you seriously when you say that, then try to either create this conspiracy of psychologists/psychiatrists (that only exists in the minds of Scientologists) as part of your conspiracy beliefs or just as a vindictive thing to get under my skin because you felt offended when I demonized the majority of conspiracy theorists.
As for Century of the Self, I've posted it on Sherdog more than anyone else, so that's not going to work.
I spent time studying conspiracies. I did my due diligence. However, I never lost my principle of being skeptical of everyone and all sources of information. Claims have to be validated, and time and time again, what I found is that CTers were more interested in raising "questions" than making verifiable claims. No one can accuse me of simply accepting the official story.
I had written a longer reply for my next point, but for the sake of attrition, I'll just say this. I don't live in fear that George Soros is trying to control my life. That's insane. Instead of Bohemian Grove, try the Montpelerin Society. Instead of UN agenda to control everything, try rigging the financial system out of greed. Time and time again, a parsimonious explanation is needed instead of trying to tie unrelated events into a much larger conspiracy. Doing so takes a person further away from the truth, and that type of ideology is purposely designed to make people disengage from a system that isn't benefiting them.
The only real claim you've made is that psychology is more harmful than conspiracy theories, which is laughable and demonstrates why I am really wasting my time. I gave you specifics as to what psychologists do that are helpful. You have given me nothing that CTers do to
truly help others. Sitting on one's ass and "questioning" things only helps the self. Psychologists who work for a pittance helping children who have been sexually abused is actually helping. The fact that you even compare the two shows the bubble you live in.
