Conspiracy theories or facts? Why social standing and piece of mind may effect your evaluation

[repoman]

I am going to pick a specific example:

A.) Israel directly funds or influences ISIS.
B.) This is why ISIS doesn't kill Jews.

You can find stuff about this online if you look.

So let's assume for the sake of argument that A is true and that B is not because they are too busy killing other people. A person saying this fact would be cast as anti-semitic and lose a lot of face socially and look like a kook. Many would not even want to look up the evidence of this.

If it is not true, then you would be making scurrilous accusation and would be an antisemitic kook.

One thing is true, I would not put anything past any government in general, so saying that A and B are impossible is naive. Being sure of A and B without good evidence might even be worse.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

More like ISIS realizes the IDF actually knows it's business:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...t-western-journalist-to-survive-a6793876.html

 

[repoman]

ISIS and Israel is just an example. For the sake of the thread I don't care if it is true or not.

 

[untermensche]

Ultimately who knows what many nations are doing? They work in secret.

But it is convenient that the US invasion of Iraq created many new enemies.

Convenient and profitable for the MIC.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ultimately who knows what many nations are doing? They work in secret.

But it is convenient that the US invasion of Iraq created many new enemies.

Convenient and profitable for the MIC.

Our attack on Iraq created no new enemies. Any nation that is after us now was already after us before Iraq.

 

[untermensche]

Ultimately who knows what many nations are doing? They work in secret.

But it is convenient that the US invasion of Iraq created many new enemies.

Convenient and profitable for the MIC.

Our attack on Iraq created no new enemies. Any nation that is after us now was already after us before Iraq.

It created many many new enemies. To deny it is to live in a fantasy world.

It is what happens when you kill and mutilate and torture innocent people on a huge scale like the US did in Iraq.

And the people profiting in the MIC couldn't be happier.

 

[Will Wiley]

It is interesting we see endless whining about Trump but relatively little about Clinton or Cruz who are far worse.
I think it is easy to criticize Trump as he is such a buffoon. It's almost cool to do so. But not to criticize Hillary Clinton or Cruz.

 

[Tigers!]

ISIS and Israel is just an example. For the sake of the thread I don't care if it is true or not.

If you aren't interested in truth then why bother evaluation of any kind? Perhaps you will be lied to?

 

[coloradoatheist]

You can't just lump all conspiracy theories together and say that if one is true than all of them is true, because some of them do have some or whole truths and some are far fetched. Governments and the US government have done some bad things before bu doesn't mean they were behind the 9/11 attacks or other items.

 

[repoman]

 

[ronburgundy]

I'm unclear on what point the OP is trying to make.

Is it that many people reject conspiracy theories out-of-hand, not because they have good reason to, but because they fear appearing like a "kook"?

If that's the claim, then I agree. I think we need to formally recognize the widespread fallacy, I call the "conspiracy fallacy", which is basically a sub-type of ad-hominem.
It is the fallacy of labeling a theory "a conspiracy theory" as though that automatically makes it absurd and implausible. The primary function of political parties, factions within them, corporate boardrooms, special interest groups, and most organizations in general is in order to be able to conspire with others to advance your shared interests and cause. Conspiracies happen everywhere, everyday. In general, whether a theory involves a conspiracy has little bearing on its plausibility. It is all a matter of the specific issue and context that determines whether the type and level of conspiracy and in some cases secrecy required is implausible relative to other explanations.

For example, commercial media (i.e., corporations) conspiring within and between media outlets (i.e, the Associated Press) to control the "news" they report to advance corporate profits and interests is not only not implausible, but it is absurdly implausible that they would not be doing this. The moon landing being faked and still covered up to the present day is absurdly implausible, while the Bush administration being involved in 9-11 is not that implausible in terms of motives or ethics (Cheney and the neocons have done very heinous things), but is implausible pragmatically and maintaining secrecy about it.