Michael Shermer: Conspiracy Thinking, Wokeness, and the Future of Free Thought

The founder of Skeptic magazine discusses whether conspiracy thinking is on the rise and whether it's coded right or left.

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Michael Shermer: Conspiracy Thinking, Wokeness, and the Future of Free Thought

HD Video Download

"Even paranoids have real enemies," said the poet Delmore Schwartz, who was both clinically paranoid and definitely on to something, according to today's guest: Michael Shermer, the founder of Skeptic magazine, Substack superstar, and author of many best-selling books about rationalism, the evolution of morality, and pseudoscience.

He quotes Schwartz in his latest book, Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, to drive home the point that big, world-changing secret plots happen all the time, but there are reliable ways for us to decide whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, 9/11 was an inside job, or vaccines cause autism. For the record, Shermer says yes, no, and no on those counts.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Shermer about whether conspiracy thinking is on the rise, whether it's coded left or right, how wokeness poisons science, and whether the reelection of Donald Trump means free thought is ascendant. This interview was recorded at a live event in New York City in January. Sign up for invites to and news about Reason's New York events here.

Previous appearances:

• "Michael Shermer: How Scientific American Got Woke," by Nick Gillespie
• "The Future of Science: Podcast," by Matt Welch
• "Michael Shermer on Why Even Scientists, Transhumanists, and Atheists Want To Believe in Heaven," by Nick Gillespie
• "Reason and Science Make Us Moral: Michael Shermer on The Moral Arc," by Zach Weissmueller
• "Michael Shermer: Evolutionary Economics and the Google Theory of Peace," by Dan Hayes

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

Comments

[Rick James]

Nick Gillespie: Hello my fellow kids... isn't this *checks notes* woke thing just the worst, man?

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

That leather jacket is starting to really feel the strain.

[LIBtranslator]

Where did Nick find a Machine Republican who admits believing in the single-bullet triangle (where 45º = horizontal plane)?

[MWAocdoc]

Back when "Skeptic" was dedicated to debunking charlatans and exposing frauds I was an enthusiastic subscriber. Then the Skeptics Society dropped "The Amazing Randi" in favor of woke socialism in pursuit of "fact-checking" conspiracy theorists and propagandizing social causes like so many other hostile takeovers of previously interesting organizations. No thanks!

[Rick James]

I too used to run in those circles. Then Atheism Plus happened...

[MWAocdoc]

Sorry, I confused "Skeptical Inquirer" magazine with "Skeptic" magazine. Apparently, "Skeptic" still debunks mystics, the paranormal and mass delusions while "Inquirer" switched to "misinformation" that more frequently than not turned out to be true.

[MasterThief]

I loved the early to mid 2010s skeptic community. It opened the door for all sorts of research into logic and philosophy. It's one if the things that lured me into libertarianism. Left-libertarians and other progressive voices in the community poisoned it and killed the great conversations we used to have.

To the main point of the article: both sides entertain plenty of conspiracy theories. The difference is the left is supported by the establishment and their theories are presumed to be true in spite of contrary evidence. The right more frequently are considered nuts despite having a much better record of catching confirmed conspiracies

[SRG2]

I subscribe to, and like, both - Skeptical Inquirer hasn't quite followed SciAm into the abyss.

[MWAocdoc]

I tried to read a recent issue, couldn't find anything without a "science denier" theme and gave up again for a few more years.

[LIBtranslator]

Yewse Nazi whiners insist the only possible alternative to Christian National Socialism is Bellamy Communism, right? Now act surprised that Sci-Amer believed that and elected the only way to put daylight between itself and MAGAts. It was a good magazine until God's Own Prohibitionists reacted to the Nolan Chart with a Children's Crusade to make horizontal monotheistic monofilamentism the One True Faith.

[JasonT20]

Hmm. Could it be that you liked the Skeptics Society when their targets were things you already believed were false? But then they turned their skepticism toward the things you believed...

[MWAocdoc]

Well, I started with the assumption that they started with: that ANYONE can be fooled, especially "scientists" who think they cannot be fooled. So it's entirely possible that my biases were not all completely apparent to me at the time. But even so, I think I can tell propaganda from scientific evidence most of the time.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

Highly unlikey that is the case.

"More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. Those are some of the telling figures that emerged from Nature's survey of 1,576 researchers who took a brief online questionnaire on reproducibility in research."

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

Now, Jason, you should at least know what the word 'believe' means, right? Our most certain convictions are and must be the ones unsupported. They are first principles. Your futher mistake could be easily remedied. Take "all men are created equal" you say "best hypothesis until contradictory evidence comes is" ----and that is a double mistake. If you say that then by definition you DON"T believe it !!! And where does your evidence stop and you have a conviction??

Yes, we initially doubt but not everything.And to say you believe something is to say it is BEDROCK.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

Skeptic magazine is now devoted to hatred of anyone with a firm conviction not shared by them

Does he even see the baneful, increasingly baneful influence of people like Richard Dawkins

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

Conspiracy thinking is on the rise because there's been so many retarded conspiracies lately.

This isn't to say that there's been one superintelligent organization pulling the world's strings behind the curtain, but rather many near-retarded organizations trying to pull the world's strings in front of everybody. It doesn't need to be secret or clever to be a conspiracy.

Look at the WEF's Schwab publicly bragging how they infiltrated Canada's Liberal government cabinet to place people who will advance the totalitarian policies they proudly publish on the front page of their website.

You can't say that is not a conspiracy, even though it has moronic members boasting about it.

[Rick James]

Look at the WEF's Schwab publicly bragging how they infiltrated Canada's Liberal government cabinet to place people who will advance the totalitarian policies they proudly publish on the front page of their website.

You don't have to go that far back or be that obscure: Look how an EU minister just admitted they interfered with Romania's elections and they'll "do the same" in Germany if they don't vote correctly.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

For "democracy"!

Seriously, I do now better understand. As described by others, to many progressives (and probably most liberals and Democrats), "democracy" is more a conglomeration of institutions than abstract ideals. Their world view is very much centered on building institutions that can do things for (and to) people. Actual freedom and autonomy, including old-school democratic democratic ideals like liberty, limited government selected by all citizens, and the right to reject institutional control, just defies the progressive concept of central control.

[mtrueman]

"As described by others, to many progressives (and probably most liberals and Democrats), "democracy" is more a conglomeration of institutions than abstract ideals. "

That's oligarchy. And it's not just progressives who follow it. Look at the inauguration where we had a president backed by a handful of the world's richest men. The deep state doesn't get any deeper than that. Democracy is different: the people rule, the government obeys. That's why the founding fathers did their best to avoid democracy, and insist on a republic ruled by property owners.

[MWAocdoc]

I agree. It's a subtle difference but important, nonetheless. On the one hand it is reasonable, for example, to suspect that there was a government conspiracy behind the assassination of JFK, looking for and analyzing new information to support or refute the possibility. On the other hand it's quite another thing to simply conclude that it MUST have been a conspiracy because there are still questions or things that don't add up. There is no possible doubt now that there was a conspiracy to conduct dangerous gain-of-function virus research in China to avoid scrutiny and oversight here in the US. There is still some doubt - and may always be some doubt - as to whether the COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a lab leak in Wuhan from that dangerous research, although the coincidences strain belief by now. Yet the fact-check crowd continues to this day to label this conspiracy theory as misinformation. Global warming is a different kind of conspiracy theory. It represents the fact-check crowd substituting official science consensus for actual scientific evidence and proof of cause and effect, calling it "settled science" when, in fact, there is no such thing as settled science EVER!

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

Well said.

[SRG2]

Global warming is a different kind of conspiracy theory. It represents the fact-check crowd substituting official science consensus for actual scientific evidence and proof of cause and effect, calling it "settled science" when, in fact, there is no such thing as settled science EVER!

Within the climate science community it is accepted that the evidence for climate change is overwhelming. The conspiracy here is denialists claiming that there is a scientific conspiracy to promote climate change (for grant money, population control, social control or whatever.)

How it has been represented in the popular forums is a separate matter. There's a reason that denialists so rarely cite original research.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Climate is never static. The idea that the natural climate of the earth is one that sustains human life is totally made up by humans.

[mtrueman]

What idea wasn't totally made up by humans?

Are you for or against a climate that sustains human life? What is the point you are trying to make?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Science doesn't care about my opinion.

Some people push the idea that climate change is 100% man made. This is bullshit at face value. Sure we can contribute but since it happens without humans we are not the cause. We have been in a warming trend since the end of the last ice age.

I think it silly to deny warming, but sillier to think wealth redistribution is a solution. I think trying to push people to only use electricity is foolish. If the grid goes down, why can't I heat my house with gas?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Some people are surprised to find remains of civilization a couple hundred feet below the ocean. I'm not. That was a result of climate change. It is said the ending of the ice age raised the oceans around 400 feet.

[mtrueman]

"It is said the ending of the ice age raised the oceans around 400 feet."

I believe it's called thermal expansion of the ocean. As the water warms it occupies more volume. We're still in the ice age, as the icecaps at the poles show. Why does an ice age end? Why does an ice age begin? Until you answer that, recent CO2 increases seem to be the most reasonable explanation for the warming that we've observed. Blaming some vague 'natural cycles' is mere hand waving that no self respecting scientist would argue.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

The melting of the glaciers added to the sea levels.

""Blaming some vague 'natural cycles' is mere hand waving that no self respecting scientist would argue.""

Vague "natural cycles"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth

Like I said, we can contribute, but absent humans it still does exist.

[mtrueman]

"The melting of the glaciers added to the sea levels."

I believe that's minimal. Thermal expansion is the main culprit.

"but absent humans it still does exist."

True, but billions of fossil fuel burning humans will only exacerbate the phenomena, won't they? The CO2 we emit comes from that, and has never been so high as it is now, through multiple cycles of ice ages. I don't see why there is a strong impetus to minimize human responsibility unless it's a politically motivated defense of the status quo.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

You don't think the current glaciers melting pose any risk? There was a hell of a lot more mass in ice then than now.

""True, but billions of fossil fuel burning humans will only exacerbate the phenomena, won't they?""

The US has done a great job reducing its output. You will have to take that up with other countries. This country can't pull all the weight.

[mtrueman]

"You don't think the current glaciers melting pose any risk?"

It's the warming that poses the risk. If it gets too warm, our food crops will fail and famine on a scale we've never seen before could result. If you'll pardon a personal note, I live at an elevation of 2000 meters. Melting glaciers are the least of my worries.

[LIBtranslator]

Sea level rises because rivers carry muddy water to the sea.
CORRECTION! Sea level rises because rivers conspire to carry muddy water to the sea.

[mtrueman]

Personally, I think it's a good thing we are blessed with a climate that allows us to sustain not only human life, but complex human societies. If climate is changing in a way to call that into question, by heating up beyond our food crop's abilities to feed us, for example, that's a call to action.

" but sillier to think wealth redistribution is a solution"

Wealth is always being distributed. If you are willing to dismiss climate change by the assertion that climate is always changing, apply the same objection to wealth distribution. Pretty much any human activity is a form of wealth distribution. Opposing this is wrong headed.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""by heating up beyond our food crop's abilities to feed us, f""

I have this weird idea that if you had a magic vacuum cleaner and sucked up all the sand in the Sahara you would find evidence of civilization.

""Wealth is always being distributed.""

Distributed freely is different than distributed by decree.

[mtrueman]

"Distributed freely is different than distributed by decree."

Freely as in Free Market? It's only possible by state violence or the threat of state violence. In the end, the result is the same. Wealth is redistributed, it's unavoidable, and it's no reason to ignore the implications of climate science.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""Freely as in Free Market? It's only possible by state violence or the threat of state violence.""

What's the odds that long long ago, before government was a concept, humanoids traded freely with each other?

[mtrueman]

Government has always been a part of human and animal societies. It's the state, a permanent hierarchy that parasites and regulates human activities that is relatively recent. Wealth distribution of a type and a scale you disagree with may be the only way forward to a continuation of human civilization. It's a matter of priorities. Most of us like to see our grandchildren thrive, even if it means sacrificing some of the comforts or modern life today.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""What idea wasn't totally made up by humans?""

Things exist outside of the human experience.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, it still does make a sound. All of the physics that make the sound are still there regardless of human acknowledgement.

[mtrueman]

"Things exist outside of the human experience. "

Ideas don't exist outside of human experience. Unless you consider whatever motivates the activities of other life forms, but it amounts to the same thing.

"All of the physics that make the sound are still there regardless of human acknowledgement."

Isn't that contentious? Aren't there experiments in physics that call that into question? Where the presence of an observer alters the experiment? I'm not a physicist, but it seems you are underestimating the role of consciousness, which so far, no scientist has been able to adequately explain or account for.

But I agree that it seems likely that if a tree falls, it will make a sound whether or not someone is there to hear it.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""'I'm not a physicist, but it seems you are underestimating the role of consciousness,""

The world around you does not care about your consciousness. Things happen a certain way regardless of the observer. Your perception of an event cannot change the event, but it may affect how you perceive the event. Which then might not be in concert with what happened.

""But I agree that it seems likely that if a tree falls, it will make a sound whether or not someone is there to hear it."'

I think it's because you recognize what I am saying. Things happen the way they happen regardless of observer.

[mtrueman]

"The world around you does not care "

It's not about whether or not the world cares. It's about how consciousness interacts with the physical world. That's a problem scientists have yet to provide us with an explanation for. "The Hard Problem," as some scientists call it, I believe. You are too eager to brush the problem under the carpet.

"Things happen the way they happen regardless of observer."

That seems to be true for some things like natural phenomena at a human scale. I don't know about very large or very small scales. I'm not sure about interactions between people, like ESP etc. I like Rupert Sheldrake's idea that consciousness is a field that extends beyond our heads and out into space. He uses it to explain, for example, the feeling we get sometimes that we are being stared at. Consciousness is still a mystery and it's reckless to make categorical statements about what it can and can't do.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""Consciousness is still a mystery and it's reckless to make categorical statements about what it can and can't do."'

Like interact with the physical world?

[mtrueman]

"Like interact with the physical world?"

Follow the evidence. That's what Rupert Sheldrake would advise. We can devise experiments to test how consciousness interacts with the world. That should be our starting point. Try devising an experiment around 'the world around you doesn't care.'

In any case none of this is about our response to climate change. We live in climate that is conducive to human civilization and we should endeavor to keep it that way, even if it means finding and exploiting alternative sources of energy.

[BigT]

Climate is changing, the earth appears to be warming. Man's role is very unclear, and certainly grossly over-rated. At most Man might be responsible for a few %.
There is not a conspiracy to promote climate change since that implies intentional organization and coordination. It is more like spontaneous gullibility and virtue-signalling by the incurious, uninformed, and stupid. You amongst them.
I have done my own original research - you can, too - on the land-falling of hurricanes in the US. It is the only data set going back to the late 1850's that has a very reliable (hurricanes are easily observed and never missed in the past 160 years, before that a few might have been missed since Florida was sparsely populated and the Civil War might have distracted people) and accurate (wind velocity was easily measured by 1850) that is publicly available and not open to tampering (see Hansen, James). Just plot the number and intensity from then to the present and see what you see.

Both number and intensity (that can be calculated several ways) are dead flat best-fit straight lines. The distribution between less intense and more intense (1-3 vs cat 4-5) has changed a bit, a few more Cat 4-5 and a few less 1-3 storms.

Hence man-made global warming is insignificant.

[mtrueman]

"Just plot the number and intensity from then to the present and see what you see. "

Intensity or wind speed is only one of the measurements of hurricanes, and not the most important one. More damage is caused by storm surge and rainfall. Wind speed comes in third.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

But you start off with a silly claim.
So one of the CHIEF deniers is a man who fits your idea of expertise but still denies.

Steven Koonin (no one more expert than he) twrote a 2000-word essay, "Climate Science Is Not Settled," that was published in an issue of The Wall Street Journal.[26][27] The main points of the article were that:

the limits of climate measurement data make it hard to untangle the planet's response to human influences, from natural changes that are poorly understood.
The results of various climate models disagree with or contradict each other.
Press releases, summaries, headlines, and news stories often don't accurately reflect the consensus among scientists.
The science is not mature enough to make useful projections about the future of the climate, nor what effects past or future human actions might have on it.

[mtrueman]

"Global warming is a different kind of conspiracy theory. "

Is the denial of global warming yet another different kind of conspiracy theory? Or something else entirely? Is it even a 'theory' at all at?

[MWAocdoc]

Well, the way it is stated is a misstatement certainly. No one sane questions "global warming" per se. The misstatement of what most denialists believe allows them to label us as whackos. What most climate change denialists actually believe is that human burning of fossil fuels has not been proven to be a major cause of global warming, or even that it is a cause at all, since it can be an EFFECT of larger cyclic natural changes (and some evidence suggests that CO2 rises lag behind temperature rises requiring the cause to occur after the effect which would violate fundamental epidemiological principles). At the very least the official conclusions are not clearly justified by the scientific evidence and the consensus opinions are tainted by funding of the reports and research by the government officials who want to prove it for political purposes.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

And when they start throwing phrases around like "the science is settled" it tells me they have no clue about science.

[mtrueman]

"What most climate change denialists actually believe is that human burning of fossil fuels has not been proven to be a major cause of global warming,"

You are asking too much. Proof is for mathematics and criminal trials. Science doesn't work that way. It goes by preponderance of evidence. How do you expect to prove that billions of people emitting billions of tons of heat trapping gases into the atmosphere causes warming? Build a replica of earth to act as a control in an ongoing experiment?

"(and some evidence suggests that CO2 rises lag behind temperature rises requiring the cause to occur after the effect which would violate fundamental epidemiological principles)"

That is a surprising effect, isn't it? But it's in the past and what we are doing today may break the patterns of the past. I think carbon has a cycle like the water cycle, only much much longer. What the industrial age has done is to speed it up dramatically and unprecedentedly. That will have all sorts of unforeseen consequences. Carbon that is sequestered deep in the earth and is expected to be re-introduced into the atmosphere after billions of years, suddenly is pumped up, burned and released.

[MWAocdoc]

"You are asking too much." Sorry, but it is not I who is asking for proof. They are saying that the science is settled, and I am saying that it has NOT been settled. More importantly, they are saying that there is sufficient scientific proof to justify autocratic imposition of draconian socioeconomic restrictions on fossil fuel burning that would have devastating impact on the world population with no guarantees that it would stop or even slow global warming or be less severe than the socioeconomic effects of the global warming itself.

[mtrueman]

"and I am saying that it has NOT been settled."

I believe it is settled. The heat trapping character of greenhouse gases has been well known and understood for over 150 years. The global temperature and CO2 content has been observed and measured over the same period and has been shown to be rising. Over the same period billions of humans have been emitting billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. I don't see anyone of note questioning these.

Did you read the recent brief submitted by 3 climate scientists to the court in The Hague? This should convince that the science is settled. Nowhere do they dispute that greenhouse gases exist. They don't dispute that temperature and CO2 concentrations have been rising. They don't dispute that human activity has increase greenhouse gas in the atmosphere by billions of tons. So how do they attack the legitimacy of climate science? Not through science, but economics. These scientists claim essentially that remediation is economically unsound. Not scientifically unsound, mind you, as the science is settled. They have to resort to the pseudo science of economics to make their case.

Does 'the science is settled' mean that there are no scientists who believe that greenhouse gases don't trap heat? No doubt. Are there scientists who claim that the earth is cooling and CO2 decreasing? Why not. There are cranks in every field, even science. There are some who claim the existence of luminiferous aether or the legitimacy of phrenology. Do you really want to align yourself with these crack pots?

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

The main error is to think that it is Yes or No

Is ____ The best way to fight it
Can we fight it
Is there a better use of that huge amount of money
Is maybe Climate Change a good thing.

ON the last point the great increase in CO2 has helped crops worldwide and the increase in heat will limit the much more numerous deaths from cold.

I spent maybe a year studying the whole thing. I still think that on balance is bullshit. The data is inconclusive, Inida and China are galactically ramping up coal, and the money is spent on dumb shit like windmills and solar farms

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

No, the denial is actually not even one thing at all

1) There is global warming but we can't do anything about it.
2)We can do something but not what we are doing
3) yeah , a problem but money is limited and this falls behind other priorities
4) what we are doing is making things WORSE. Check it out:India and China are HUGELY HUGELY accelerating coal usage, so we are just pissing trillions away to no good effect

At any rate stupid and foolish Biden's solar farms and wind farms are shit and we all know it.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

Can't go with this at all, it is ivory tower stuff that destroys a great number of people. When Biden knew ---and he must have-- that China was responsible for Covid he should have acted, not sought further info !!! While you are polishing your manifesto's footnotes about Hitler the Nazis are at your door. The main idea behindthe following has always seemed to me to be that you act at the FIRST injustice and not wait for a cumulatively horrible list of First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöllerthem

[MWAocdoc]

And it is reasonable to be curious about UFO sightings and ask for actual evidence explaining them. It's NOT reasonable to conclude that UFOs must be space alien craft visiting Earth from other planets simply because of a lack of evidence to the contrary. IF 99% of the sightings are explained by perfectly normal phenomena but one percent have not been convincingly explained yet, that does not mean that they cannot be explained and therefore MUST be space aliens.

[mtrueman]

"It's NOT reasonable to conclude that UFOs must be space alien craft visiting Earth from other planets simply because of a lack of evidence to the contrary."

Belief or disbelief in space aliens has nothing to do with conspiracy. Same with string theory, religion etc. They are explanations of nature of varying degrees of plausibility. A conspiracy is a secret plan to do something. Think of a couple of guys plotting to rob a gas station.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""A conspiracy is a secret plan to do something. ""

Like grouping people banding together to hide Biden's decline from the public?

[mtrueman]

If indeed they did band together. Yes, that's a conspiracy. If it's only individuals deciding to exercise discretion, then no. Conspiracies are not complicated. You need two or more people plotting together secretly to do something bad. That's it.

[BigT]

There must have been a core conspiracy of Jill, and some of his aids (all of whom SloJo seems to have been pardoned). After all, they arranged for the Easter Bunny to take Joe away and for numerous other interventions. Most others who might have noticed just went along for the ride since it appeared to be in their interests, and they gas-lit the rest of us (see Scarborough, Joe, Harris, Kamala, etc).
Let's go Brandon!

[MWAocdoc]

I agree. We have been inaccurately using "conspiracy theory" as a tag for widespread unsupported beliefs such as conspiracy theories, science deniers and paranormal phenomena. However, there is certainly a conspiracy to brand people who reasonably question official reports and positions as kooks; and also many conspiracies to cover up official misconduct. Some conspiracy theories turn out to be true despite the conspiracies to cast doubt upon the theories and discredit and suppress the questioners.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

I've never understood libertarians that demand we all accept the conventional wisdom as articulated by what may very well be self interested actors. RFK Jr. thinks that the CIA was involved in the assassination of his uncle. I'm pretty sure he knows more about it than Shermer or I. I can't prove it one way or the other but the lone shooter story never passed my personal smell test. I can respect anybody's opinion but in the end we rarely know the real truth about anything.

[mtrueman]

About the JFK assassination, we have reports from the Dallas police, the first to arrive at the book depository with expertise in assessing crime scenes. Their report makes it clear that it would be impossible for Oswald to do the shooting and moments later rush down and calmly enjoy a pop several floors below in the lunch room where police observed him.

There's also lots of eyewitnesses who said they heard shooting from the opposite direction, and all sorts of gaps in the official account, weird coincidences and connections.

[MWAocdoc]

That's my point. There are lots of questions, some of them legitimate, others fabricated to raise a doubt. There are also lots of facts, some of which do not jibe with each other. For the record, "eyewitness accounts" has proven over time to be the least reliable kind of evidence.

[mtrueman]

The account of someone who was nowhere near the crime scene is less reliable than another who was there on the spot. The members of the Warren Commission were nowhere near the site at the time of the shooting. They also declined to interview eyewitnesses.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

They always are ,that's why it's a plural accountS
But get it out to the public and secure protection for informants and you've got it. NYT found out conclusively that Biden was gaga for 4 years but how come it took 4 years to find out ????????

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

YOU sound stupid placing Voodoo on a par with Pope John Paul II under the assholishly juvenille heading 'religion.
Anway, to a scientific mind of eve the lowest quality it would not be a quesiton of religion but of GOD

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

Anyone who makes that one exception to reality and says all religions are the same IS A MORON. YOU ARE A MORON>

Must I answer for Santeria and Vodoo as a Catholic monk,
Sorry but you are a class A fool

[mtrueman]

"but rather many near-retarded organizations trying to pull the world's strings in front of everybody."

Isn't the WEF composed of hundreds of the largest corporations on the planet? Totalitarianism is anathema to these people. They are oligarchs - and want freedom from government interference. Ask a WEF member what his organization is doing to combat corporate tax avoidance if you want a clearer picture.

[Mother's Lament (Salt farmer)]

"Totalitarianism is anathema to these people."

Hahahaha, what the fuck. Go up to your boss and tell him that you think the employees should get to decide what happens and get back to us on how well that turns out.

That aside, big international corporations aren't the same thing as your local grocery chain or hardware store. Blackrock isn't Jim's Trucking out of Indianapolis. They couldn't give a shit about free markets. In fact, they're anti-free market. They're corporatist entities who got to where they are through lobbying for competition-killing regulations and to-big-to-fail government handouts.
Government is the medium they swim in.

[mtrueman]

"Go up to your boss and tell him that you think the employees should get to decide what happens and get back to us on how well that turns out."

What would that prove? I don't understand your point.

You don't appear to understand the difference between oligarchy and totalitarianism.

[JasonT20]

You don't seem to understand what oligarchy means. Oligarchy is literally defined as "government by the few" from the ancient greek, and that meaning is still exactly how it is used today. It isn't that these corporatists are rich that makes them oligarchs. It is that they have such outsized influence on government policies and actions that makes them oligarchs.

Do you really think that billionaires drop up to hundreds of millions of dollars on political spending without expecting that to gain them political power?

[mtrueman]

I agree with your definition. That's my understanding of oligarchy - government by the few where the 99% have next to no input. Totalitarianism is a more recent coinage where the government has total control over almost all aspects of life. The two are different as a totalitarian system won't allow billionaires, let alone have them dictate government policies.

[JasonT20]

Adding to it, totalitarianism and oligarchy are not inherently different forms of government. A totalitarian state is one where the government has ultimate control all over all aspects of the state's society. In theory, even an elected government could be totalitarian if there were no constraints on government power once elected. An oligarchy can be totalitarian as well. In fact, Soviet and Chinese communism were both totalitarian and oligarchies. (Though they would have a single leader, only Stalin and Mao themselves had true dictatorial levels of power. Later Soviet leaders and CCP leaders would have a lot of power, but the other party officials would also have a say.)

[mtrueman]

"In fact, Soviet and Chinese communism were both totalitarian and oligarchies. "

I disagree with that. Oligarchies feature governments influenced from without. Mostly the corporations in today's world, but also scholars, entertainers, and anyone with the will to make themselves heard and the resources to back it up. In a totalitarian system, like under Mao's China, the party ruled and viewed any source of influence outside itself as a threat to be suppressed.

[JasonT20]

I disagree with that. Oligarchies feature governments influenced from without. Mostly the corporations in today's world, but also scholars, entertainers, and anyone with the will to make themselves heard and the resources to back it up.

It has become common in the last decade or so to equate "oligarch" with "rich people that really pull the strings of government even though they hold no official position in the government". Oligarchy can work that way, and mostly does in the modern world, but that is one type of oligarchy, not the only way the few rule the many. Aristocracy was actually the 'pure' and 'good' version of oligarchy, as Aristotle framed things.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

You mock but that mocked theory is the hottest thing in managment theory now HOLACRACY

istributed Authority
Defines foundational authorities and constraints that people have in their roles. Leaning towards autonomy and innovation.

Business value:

Unleashes people’s autonomy to take action and innovate without prior approval.
More operational speed.
Lays out mechanisms to protect the organization from people’s autonomy going out of control.

[JasonT20]

Conspiracy thinking is on the rise because there's been so many retarded conspiracies lately.

"Even paranoids have real enemies."

That can certainly be true. But they are still paranoid.

Paranoia usually refers to irrational and potentially harmful false feelings of persecution and danger. It is dysfunctional thinking that should never be encouraged.

If a paranoid person happens to be right that a conspiracy exists, then they are only right in the same way a stopped clock is right twice a day. It would not have been their paranoid thinking that got them to the truth. In fact, someone skeptical that takes the time and makes the effort to investigate whether the conspiracy exists is going to be orders of magnitude more useful in exposing the conspiracy than the paranoid believer. Because they will have the tools and evidence to convince other skeptics that the paranoid simply does not have.

[Rick James]

Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational

Like, I dunno, Nick, let me think...

*thinks*

"Her Penis"? Can you think of anyone who believes in that?

[mtrueman]

The gay demimonde has long referred to each other by feminine pronouns.

Scene from The Boys in the Band (1970) from the off Broadway play of 1968.

One gay man at a party asking another gay man about a third gay man:

Who is she? Who was she? Who does she hope to be?

[Rick James]

I wonder if any of those old-school gay men ever considered themselves "women"? Yeah, no they didn't.

[mtrueman]

"I wonder if any of those old-school gay men ever considered themselves "women"?"

They likely strongly identified as feminine or female. Hence the drag shows, mannerisms and the pronoun usage you were curious about. At the same time many seem to shun traditional masculinity. That doesn't make one a woman, but nevertheless ambiguous about sexuality and gender, maybe overwhelmingly.

When a man says "I'm a woman," don't take it as a literal statement of fact. I don't think anyone who says this is sincere, and you should take such statements for what they are: provocation, challenge, aspiration.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

Once at St Louis COmmunity College a definite non-Muslim girl walked buy in full Hijab and it sure seemed like she was saying "I dare you to say a word" same thing with perverts, gays, trans, etc.

If there are nuts among the straight there are among all much smaller groups. "My personal pronoun is dog"

[Use the Schwartz]

I enjoyed this Nick, thank you.

[Lester75]

There was definitely a conspiracy by the fossil fuel industry to support and bribe Trump with campaign contributions so that he subsidizes them instead of nuclear or solar or any other kind of energy. It worked.

We shouldn’t be subsidizing any kind of energy. If New England wants offshore wind let them build it. If data centers want to build mini nuclear plants let them. Oil is no longer king if it needs political propping.

[Truthfulness]

You have no understanding of what a conspiracy is. The fossil fuel industry is nowhere near as damaging as its opponents claim, so its no wonder they turn to Trump so they can keep their jobs.

You are not a bright person.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

Seems both of you are in the dark.

No solution is perfect , not at all.
INcreased Co2 is a very good thing. Great for crops and higher temp at least cuts down on the vastly more deaths from cold.

See the CO2 Coalition

and remember,what is said to cause opposites causes NEITHER.
Logically a posited cause of X and not-X (think rising heat and more snow) causes NEITHER.

[With Trump in, "now Lord you can let your servant go in peace"]

Assuming they were wrong to begin with. a very poor argument you make. WE need fossil fuels. your argument in practice fails all attempts to do anything. You would have to say Biden shouldn't have shut down Keystone. Laissez faire means that you should be for the way things were before either side tampered with the energy industry YET YOU DO NOT

[Truthfulness]

Once people stop believing in God, the problem is not that they will believe in nothing; rather, the problem is that they will believe anything. - C. S. Lewis