Paranoid Schizophrenia or just a deluded CTer?

[Skeptic Ginger]

I've seen more than one CTer who really seemed more like someone suffering from a paranoid personality disorder than just your usual CT believer. I was wondering how other skeptics were responding to CTers who seemed more mentally ill than just lacking critical thinking skills? Where is the line between the two?


A woman I had never met approached me in the grocery store yesterday and started warning me about the swine flu vaccine plot. After I tried a bit of evidence based responses she spread out into CTs about aspartame, the government secret ops and the Federal Reserve plot. With each one she asked if I had heard 'X*' and how could I possibly refute the CT if I wasn't aware of 'X'.

I have no idea why this woman approached me of all people. But by the 3rd or 4th CT I thought she might be having paranoid delusions rather than just being a fool who believed in all sorts of crap. None of the CTs were about someone after her individually, so I could have been wrong. Most psych patients I've seen with this kind of disorder create CTs involving themselves individually.

But it did make me wonder, how do we tell the difference and is there always a difference between mental illness with a paranoid component and just poor critical thinking skills and a tendency to believe CTs?



*Each CT had some supposed evidence if only I knew about I would surely believe.

[Pardalis]

I'm sure you are aware of fantasy-proned personality.

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=84

That lady probably follows already a gamut of "woo"practices (new age and stuff).

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm sure you are aware of fantasy-proned personality.

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=84

That lady probably follows already a gamut of "woo"practices (new age and stuff).That explains Sylvia Browne, but not her followers.

While the fantasy prone personality you note is related, I was thinking more about paranoid delusions and CTers.

[Longfellow]

Skeptigirl, not so long ago I had an encounter eerily like yours right down to the (elderly in my case) woman approaching me to start a conversation in order to rail about the swine flu vaccine. I gently interrupted her and said I'd read up on those claims and found them wanting so she moved on to chem-trails. After politely listening to her for about 5 minutes, I came to the conclusion that something was likely very amiss in the way with which she sees the world and that no argument I could make, no matter how well articulated, would ever dissuade her. As a matter of fact, she reminded me of my wife and her Apollo Hoax belief but that's another thread.

How I usually respond to those among us who just don't seem to be 'all there' is to be as courteous as possible while making as gracious an exit from the dialog as quickly as I can. I've even been known to leave the queue at the druggist just to get away from them. Drives my wife nuts. Was she mentally ill? (the older woman, not my wife) I have no idea. Are hers and my world-views vastly different? Sure seemed so. The point is I doubted that this elderly woman was ever going to say anything even remotely interesting to me so why even bother listening? Is that a bit arrogant? Damn straight! We're all at least a little bit egocentric at times.

And as far as my wife goes . . . honey-bunny. . . everything you say is of the utmost importance to me. :blush:

[JoeyDonuts]

Confirmation bias coupled with pride and an elitist mentality their everyday accomplishments don't entitle them to - it can be a powerful and intoxicating combination.

Basically, they're shifting responsibility for failings in their own life on to whatever the conspiracy "target" might be. Or it could be completely ego-based. Or they might be true believers themselves, in which case they are most likely lost, barring some tragic and jolting event.

Their charismatic leaders might be true believers, or just con men. In either case, they are extremely adept in picking followers and telling them exactly what they want to hear. If you liken conspiracy theory circles to a highly disorganized internet cult, you'll be in the mental ballpark for the phenomena at work here...that's my understanding anyway.

[Praktik]

I think that since the whole mindset is so foreign to us it is tempting to chalk it up to mental illness, but sadly, I don't think that's the case for 99.9% of them.

Its in our nature as pattern-seeking individuals to place events in a matrix. Add in some alienation from government and the closed-loop of the CT world and its something that many people who are not mentally ill will fall into.

It is slightly bizarre that she approached a stranger to talk about this stuff, but then again I get approached by strangers now and then about "normal" political issues so I'm not sure there's enough info here to conclude that this is some manifestation of paranoid schizophrenia.

Also - while there is something "paranoid" to many CTs I think we should separate that use of the term from the clinical one. There are many "paranoid" CTs but we should see that as simply an adjective rather than a clinical use of the term.

[McHrozni]

Generally speaking, people who agree with one CT tend to agree with others. This woman is not exactly unique. Jason Bermas went on record a long time ago, and stated he believed in 42 most popular conspiracy theories, I believe?
I don't know if I could even name 42 conspriacy theories in all.

McHrozni

[LightinDarkness]

I think its hard to tell. Paranoid schizophrenics tend to buy wholesale into CTs because it surrounds them with people who agree with them that "they" are really out to get them. I think when dealing with people face to face one way that you might be able to tell the difference is how quickly YOU become part of the conspiracy.

For example, there are quite a few in the CT movement who believe they are being "gang stalked" by large groups of people. When they explain this to you and you ask them why they would be important enough for The Elite (TM) to stalk, you usually end up as being part of the gang stalking group against them. I am more likely to believe the CTs promoting themselves as victims of gang stalking are mentally ill then just your normal delusional CT.

I think part of the problem when trying to draw the line between CT and mental illness is that, to the normal person, the absolute refusal of CTs to believe in reality based on evidence seems like something that could only come form mental illness. When you approach life in a logical and rational manner and believe in things based on evidence, those who do not could easy appear to simply be mentally ill.

[LightinDarkness]

It just occurred to me that I had a conversation with some colleagues about this a month ago over lunch. One is a professor of psychology as a major research university, and another is a doctoral student in psychiatry. Here is what I was able to surmise:

There is general agreement in the scholarly literature that there is a correlation between mental illness and belief in conspiracy theory. The theories behind the diagnosis of several types of illnesses (including paranoid schizophrenia) are not in dispute about this relationship.

The problem is doing any comprehensive research to quantitatively prove the correlation and the direction of the relationship. Traditional methods of medical research for mental illness won't work because CTers will not truthfully answer interview or survey questions, even if double blind, because They(TM) are likely involved. The other problem is that it is difficult to get some people to admit they are a CTer in the first place (causing systematic social desirability bias in respondents). Finally, the other major problem is that CTers themselves may not agree on what threshold of belief is required to be a CT, thus, there is no way to come to a general definition that will catch most of the population of CTers.

[zaphod2016]

There is general agreement in the scholarly literature that there is a correlation between mental illness and belief in conspiracy theory. The theories behind the diagnosis of several types of illnesses (including paranoid schizophrenia) are not in dispute about this relationship.


I'm no sociologist, but I have to think the recent "biased media" meme has a lot to do with it also. As a conservative, I can't watch the liberal media. As a liberal, I don't trust the establishment press. As a result, both groups are relying on less reliable forms of news (i.e. Alex Jones, youtube videos, etc).

[Praktik]

I'm no sociologist, but I have to think the recent "biased media" meme has a lot to do with it also. As a conservative, I can't watch the liberal media. As a liberal, I don't trust the establishment press. As a result, both groups are relying on less reliable forms of news (i.e. Alex Jones, youtube videos, etc).

Actually I was thinking about this exact thing last night, discussing the degrees to which "extremists" on "both sides" say unhinged things. Now I've been arguing against equivalency because I don't think adding up a "Dem" and "Republican" ledger really helps us understand what's behind their respective wingnuts and because it can lead one to believe that it's all a wash and that the extremisms cancel each other out.

But the more I thought about it I started thinking about the explosion of media outlets brought to us through the World Wide Web and through the expansion of choice on radio and TV.

Sure, movement conservatives had the pamphlets of the 80s and the "closed loop" of their thinking was already sealed. But nowadays with the internet the availability is just that much easier.

This goes for Truthers, anti-war movement and heck, even skeptics (a large part of my daily routine involves the skeptical blogs out there).

We can all go and read the **** that agrees with us. And we can do so much easier than before.

Now more rational individuals will still be able to navigate the swamps but part of me thinks that those prone to "closed loop" thinking have had a "hardening" of their positions over the past decade or so.

And I think that at least partially explains just how ******* crazy the Republicans are getting these days and the resistance of the Truth Movement to finally dying out.

This "hardening" I think is anethema to the discourse required for a democratic give and take.

[Brainster]

I do believe there's a continuum here, and whether one is actually diagnosed depends largely on how far along the continuum they are. There are several 9-11 Truthers who have been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia or other mental illness to my knowledge including:

Sean Fitzgerald. The Troofer who killed his father (http://www.gazette.com/articles/plea-58479-agree-surgeon.html) is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, and in this case the prosecution agrees.

Mike Cook (http://web.archive.org/web/20070209031650/http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=5994):

Cook's legal troubles began after he shared information to an aide about 9/11 being an inside job as well as telling the aide he legally possessed firearms, including a 45 caliber pistol locked safely away in glove box of his car.

Not surprisingly, the aide reported this to the authorities. I believe that Cook spent over a year in a mental hospital.

Clare Swinney (http://clareswinney.wordpress.com/incarcerated-in-a-psychiatric-ward-because-i-said-911-was-an-inside-job/):

I was wrongly diagnosed as delusional by the psychiatric staff of Ward 7 at Northland Base Hospital in Whangarei and held hospital against my will for 11 days in mid-2006, because I maintained the attacks of 9/11 were orchestrated by criminal elements inside the US Administration.

Actually reading the article reveals that Clare was detained because she had told a relative that she thought she was being followed by the NWO, and that if it came down to it, she'd rather commit suicide than be killed:

Although I didn’t have the opportunity to tell Dr Abass this, I speculated that as a whole these e-mails were designed to prime me with fear for a subsequent encounter with a man, who looked the part of a cold-war assassin, which took place on June the 1st. This pallid-skinned, clean-shaven man with dark blond hair, who was dressed in expensive-looking black clothing and was sporting an army-style hair cut, looked completely out of place in mid-town Whangarei. He made a point of coming uncomfortably close up behind me while I waited at a major intersection in town on June the 1st. There was no reason for him to have come as close as he did, unless he had wanted to intimidate me, so I stepped several meters to the left, to put a safe distance between us. When the buzzer signalled that it was time to cross, I walked purposefully slowly and got directly behind him. When we reached the pavement on the other side of the road, he glanced backwards briefly, his cold grey-blue eyes scanning my face to see if I was watching him, and then he clenched and unclenched his right hand four times. I carried on walking and saw he’d stopped on a corner and was watching me, and then when I looked back again a few seconds later, he had gone.

I was absolutely terrified by this, particularly so as I was horribly conscious of the content of the threatening e-mails I had received in the days preceding this. (A Englishman who has been researching the New World Order, stated he has heard of these kind of tactics being used “often” to harass people in “the anti-war and 9-11 Truth Movement.” His letter to the hospital can be viewed at the end of this post). Consequently, with my heart thumping wildly, I strode to Police Superintendent Viv Rickard, who happened to be in the town Mall at the time, and told him I believed the SIS was threatening my life because of my work in exposing the truth about 9/11. Rickard said he believed me, but said he thought that others on the police force might not, so advised me to deal with him directly about the matter.
Subsequent to the encounter with the man dressed in black, I had a discussion with a family member about hypothetical scenarios and my very real fears, to the point at which I said that if it were between a man with a gun and tablets, I would prefer the latter. This was not about being suicidal, it was about preferring a non-violent death to a violent one.

I strongly suspect that there are others.

[Praktik]

Well Brainster you've provided some good empirical evidence here. Perhaps I'll have to reduce my over-estimation and say that 95% of truthers aren't clinically schizophrenic.

In these cases we actually have enough information to make the judgment that they were clinically ill - so likely there are more.

I would say though, that in nearly any demographic there are those who are mentally ill. It cuts across the spectrum. The real meat of the question has to be: are there some demographics where these cases cluster more frequently?

And I wouldn't be surprised to see slightly elevated levels among truthers given the nature of those ideas.

All that being said, we should refrain from actually accusing someone of being mentally ill - because #1 it shouldn't be something that we accuse someone of (like we do with murder and other things to be ashamed of), and #2 in most cases we will not have the data or expertise necessary to make that call.

[Orphia Nay]

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200501/conspiracy-theories-explained

Paranoid schizophrenics are prone to delusions, tales in which random events become deeply meaningful. Some believe in complex conspiracies; others think they are Jesus Christ.

These stories sound crazy, but they may be the brain's efforts to make sense of its own internal messages, suggests Shitij Kapur, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and vice president of research at the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. In addition to other brain abnormalities, schizophrenics have too much dopamine. Just as addicts' desensitized dopamine systems make them feel that nothing matters, high levels of the neurotransmitter make schizophrenics believe that everything is significant.

I wonder if the reverse is true: whether CTs cause the brain to produce too much dopamine, and a snowball effect occurs whereby the believer latches onto more and more CTs.

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
It is slightly bizarre that she approached a stranger to talk about this stuff, but then again I get approached by strangers now and then about "normal" political issues so I'm not sure there's enough info here to conclude that this is some manifestation of paranoid schizophrenia.I wasn't implying I could diagnose this woman with any kind of certainty in a 5 minute grocery conversation.

...Also - while there is something "paranoid" to many CTs I think we should separate that use of the term from the clinical one. There are many "paranoid" CTs but we should see that as simply an adjective rather than a clinical use of the term.That was my point. How do we know? Is there any data on the percentage of CTers who are mentally ill vs those just taken in with a particular CT or CTs? Is there a clear distinction or is it a matter of degree? Could we find a brain defect in some CTers that doesn't exist in others?

I'm very familiar with borderline personality disorders that include paranoid components.

The Free Medical Dictionary (http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/paranoid+ideation) defines paranoid ideation as:an exaggerated, sometimes grandiose, belief or suspicion, usually not of a delusional nature, that one is being harassed, persecuted, or treated unfairly.Mind you, I am thinking this through via the thread, so my ideas may progress here.

What my encounter made me wonder about was how often the mental illness version of paranoia encompassed CTs rather than just personal level paranoia. I was wondering if the idea a CT was specifically about the individual was a symptom of mental illness while the more general CT wasn't?

In other words, is there a differ difference when it comes to calling something a mental illness in a person who believes the FBI is after them personally and a person who believes there is a secret world government controlling much of their life?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Now I'm wondering if the fantasy prone personality, the CT prone personality, and the pathological liar personality (differs from believing in the supernatural in that they just have a grossly distorted version of past events) aren't something we are seeing more often than just the misled person?

The approach to such people would be very different than the approach to the people the believers simply convinced.

[Brainster]

What my encounter made me wonder about was how often the mental illness version of paranoia encompassed CTs rather than just personal level paranoia. I was wondering if the idea a CT was specifically about the individual was a symptom of mental illness while the more general CT wasn't?

Yes, I think that's a very interesting point. In each of the three cases I cited, the real evidence of paranoia was not so much the 9-11 Trutherism as it was the belief that they were personally in danger due to their knowledge and dissemination of 9-11 Troof:

Sean Fitzgerald was in Thailand, spreading the word of 9-11 Truth when he became convinced the Thai secret service was after him while riding his bike one day. To shake his pursuers, he rode his bike the wrong way down a major highway and was hit by a truck. He called a Colorado "Truther" named Michael Woolsey from his hospital bed and implored him and everybody else to call Alex Jones and inform him of his plight. The theory apparently was that if Alex Jones knew about his situation, the New World Order wouldn't be able to
kill him. His father actually called into Alex Jones to advise old leatherlungs of the situation. For once, Alex acted sensibly, suggesting that the father contact the US embassy in Thailand. A few days later, the dad flew to Thailand and brought his son back home, and a few weeks after that, convinced his father was the devil, Sean entered his parents' bedroom while they were sleeping and stabbed the old man to death.

Michael Cook was apparently giving regular rides to his teacher's aide. Convinced he was in personal danger due to his 9-11 Trooferism, he decided to let the aide know that she was taking a risk by riding with him. To prove how serious he was, he showed her his gun.

Clare Swinney thought a man who stood too close to her at a crosswalk was giving her a threat to stop talking about 9-11 Truth.

So in each of the cases, the real indicator of severe mental problems was the belief that "they" were after him/her, not so much the grander conspiracy theory.

[zaphod2016]

We can all go and read the **** that agrees with us. And we can do so much easier than before.

This is an excellent point.

When I went hardcore Paulian in '08 I ended up in a Paul-aganda feedback loop for a few months. Paul-topia invaded almost every site I visited for a few weeks.

It was very surreal to watch how fast it fell apart. I felt like I had woken from a dream, unsure if anything I had learned in the last 6 months was true, or just a hallucination.

And after more objective analysis:

10% was well-meaning half truths
60% was deception through omission
20% was editorial that could not be objectively proven either way
10% was legitimate, objective fact

Your mileage may vary.

[MervinFerd]

Based on interactions with Truthers online, the most consistent characteristic is Narcissism. Necessarily, the Truther sees himself as vastly smarter, or braver, than all the learned experts who think he is daft.

Many do not seem paranoid: they speak openly of their knowledge of the Vast Conspiracy that can make hundreds disappear. With no concern that, if the theory were true, they would be in grave danger.

Trutherism developed in a way different than other CTs. It adopted a lot of techniques, and probably personnel, from Crank Science. Endless analysis of the supposed physics of building collapse, video analysis of internet compressed videos, thermite, etc. All very pseudo-technical. I think this means that TM pulled in a different species of Nut than the John Birch Society.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Based on interactions with Truthers online, the most consistent characteristic is Narcissism. Necessarily, the Truther sees himself as vastly smarter, or braver, than all the learned experts who think he is daft.

Many do not seem paranoid: they speak openly of their knowledge of the Vast Conspiracy that can make hundreds disappear. With no concern that, if the theory were true, they would be in grave danger.Paranoia does not have to include imminent fear. Believing in CTs is paranoid whether you fear the CT or not.

True paranoid schizophrenics with significant disease don't necessarily hide under their beds. They'll gladly talk to you for hours about their delusions.

Trutherism developed in a way different than other CTs. It adopted a lot of techniques, and probably personnel, from Crank Science. Endless analysis of the supposed physics of building collapse, video analysis of internet compressed videos, thermite, etc. All very pseudo-technical. I think this means that TM pulled in a different species of Nut than the John Birch Society.Lots of CTs fit this pattern. Look at the Kennedy assassination CTs. Look at the Roswell stuff.

[Sporanox]

From a simple sociological perspective, cultists and other individuals who subscribe to extremist beliefs are bound first by what may be considered "emotional" ties. Feelings of belonging and personal relationships seem to be two of the common examples, if I recall correctly. Once they are settled into their community, the environment gradually shapes their beliefs to the point where they are a cultist.

This explains a number of truthers I've met - all eager to get in on a trendy movement about sticking it to the Man, reveling in their internet conquests. The endless feedback loop of affirmation from other paranoids surely doesn't help.

[MervinFerd]

Paranoia does not have to include imminent fear. Believing in CTs is paranoid whether you fear the CT or not.

True paranoid schizophrenics with significant disease don't necessarily hide under their beds. They'll gladly talk to you for hours about their delusions.

But, most of these folks are not true schizophrenics. They are rational enough to put together superficially reasonable treatises, to carry on arguments on BBSs, and to sound sane in short interviews. The true crazies that show up on the BBSs are a different breed--they are not going to create any kind of mass movement, ever.

I'm thinking of the situation a couple of years ago, the real crazies and the professional Truthers are about all that is left now.

Lots of CTs fit this pattern. Look at the Kennedy assassination CTs. Look at the Roswell stuff.

Hmmmm. No one postulates that Kennedy was killed by a Death Ray from a satellite, or secretly poisoned and the Zapruder film and all the autopsy photos faked. Same for Roswell: Postulated Gov't coverup of a crash, but nothing high-tech about it. Nobody claims the UFO and the alien bodies were transported to the backside of the Moon by a secret Gov't program.

UN/NWO/Black Helicopters: Institutionally impossible and wildly ridiculous. But, there are helicopters, and the UN does have troops, sometimes, and a few people have advocated a world government.

IOW, in other theories, there remains some scant contact with the Real World. It is possible for a reasonably sane person to be pulled in. Trutherism, OTOH, reduced its appeal to the narrowest of fringes and has nearly disappeared in just a few years.

[Skeptic Ginger]

But, most of these folks are not true schizophrenics. They are rational enough to put together superficially reasonable treatises, to carry on arguments on BBSs, and to sound sane in short interviews. The true crazies that show up on the BBSs are a different breed--they are not going to create any kind of mass movement, ever.You might be quite surprised to hear how convincing some paranoid schizophrenics actually sound.

...Hmmmm. No one postulates that Kennedy was killed by a Death Ray from a satellite, or secretly poisoned and the Zapruder film and all the autopsy photos faked. Same for Roswell: Postulated Gov't coverup of a crash, but nothing high-tech about it. Nobody claims the UFO and the alien bodies were transported to the backside of the Moon by a secret Gov't program.

UN/NWO/Black Helicopters: Institutionally impossible and wildly ridiculous. But, there are helicopters, and the UN does have troops, sometimes, and a few people have advocated a world government.

IOW, in other theories, there remains some scant contact with the Real World. It is possible for a reasonably sane person to be pulled in. Trutherism, OTOH, reduced its appeal to the narrowest of fringes and has nearly disappeared in just a few years.Perhaps you are less well read on these other CTs. I assure you they can be as elaborate and as technically detailed as the 911 CTs.

[deep]

Trutherism, OTOH, reduced its appeal to the narrowest of fringes and has nearly disappeared in just a few years.


How are you measuring that, exactly?

[UNLoVedRebel]

How are you measuring that, exactly?

By this.
http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/tt332/JREFImages/JMC.jpg

[MervinFerd]

How are you measuring that, exactly?

How about looking at the number of posts to this forum? And the number of Truthers posting here?

[MervinFerd]

You might be quite surprised to hear how convincing some paranoid schizophrenics actually sound.

Most likely. But, if you followed individual posters for a year or more here, or on DU, it was very obvious which were Loons and which were insufferable jerks. The Truthers who turned Pro and became minor celebrities were certainly not schizophrenic. And, they were the ones who drove the Movement in the direction it went.[/quote]


Perhaps you are less well read on these other CTs. I assure you they can be as elaborate and as technically detailed as the 911 CTs.

True, I haven't checked out the current state of those CTs. I don't doubt that there are people out there spinning extraordinary stories.

However, we are nearly 50 years into JFK assassination and Roswell CTs. The stories that have some popular support all remain within some bound of obvious absurdity. Trutherism, in contrast, flamed brightly for a very few years and then was completely dominated by extravagant nuttiness. Paul Thompson's 9/11 Timeline and similar could have maintained a following indefinitely, but were overwhelmed by Controlled Demolition and No Planes.

[Tippit]

Based on interactions with Truthers online, the most consistent characteristic is Narcissism. Necessarily, the Truther sees himself as vastly smarter, or braver, than all the learned experts who think he is daft.



Based on interactions with "debunkers" online, the most consistent characteristic I have encountered is also Narcissism, with the propensity to use a type of condescension that only comes with the warmth and security of being part of the herd. Of course, I am smarter than most everyone, at least based on intelligence quotient, and I take pride in my ability to brush off those who think I am crazy or stupid for what I know. I am also smart enough to have considered whether I believe what I do as a function of my ego, or as an attempt to individuate myself, and I have, unfortunately for me, ruled this out.



Many do not seem paranoid: they speak openly of their knowledge of the Vast Conspiracy that can make hundreds disappear. With no concern that, if the theory were true, they would be in grave danger.



Since paranoia can be defined simply as irrational fear, and I am neither fearful nor irrational, it follows that I'm not paranoid. The perpetrators of the conspiracies I'm aware of are protected by the general mindset that views any and all conspiracy theories as ridiculous by default, an aura of dis-believability in essence.



Trutherism developed in a way different than other CTs. It adopted a lot of techniques, and probably personnel, from Crank Science. Endless analysis of the supposed physics of building collapse, video analysis of internet compressed videos, thermite, etc. All very pseudo-technical. I think this means that TM pulled in a different species of Nut than the John Birch Society.

9/11 truth developed because of a lot of strange contradictions and seeming coincidences added up to uncertainty about the official story in the minds of many.

[JihadJane]

How about looking at the number of posts to this forum? And the number of Truthers posting here?

Perhaps they have concluded that debating with a herd of people suffering from chronic Domineering Personality Disorder is futile.

[Ignorantbystander]

talking about paranoid and deluded?

This is from Eric Hufschmid's YouTube account:
"I don't check my messages very often. Besides, almost everybody who contacts me and wants to be my friend is turning out to be a Zionist agent who is trying to manipulate me."

poor guy....

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
9/11 truth developed because of a lot of strange contradictions and seeming coincidences added up to uncertainty about the official story in the minds of many.Hate to break it to you, dude, but the rest of us are not duped. You are.

[Orphia Nay]

talking about paranoid and deluded?

This is from Eric Hufschmid's YouTube account:
"I don't check my messages very often. Besides, almost everybody who contacts me and wants to be my friend is turning out to be a Zionist agent who is trying to manipulate me."

poor guy....

:big:

The CTists see enemies everywhere.

And that, is the conspiracy mindset.

It's not a belief in corrupt leaders. Hell, we all believe in corrupt leaders. It's a belief in a corrupt everybody. It's driving around in a world where every single person you see out of your windshield is utterly bloodthirsty and amoral, all except for you and a few, brave friends. What could make you feel more important than that?


http://www.cracked.com/article_15740_was-911-inside-job.html

[MervinFerd]

Of course, I am smarter than most everyone, at least based on intelligence quotient, and I take pride in my ability to brush off those who think I am crazy or stupid for what I know.

Q.E.D.

[Praktik]

Based on interactions with "debunkers" online, the most consistent characteristic I have encountered is also Narcissism, with the propensity to use a type of condescension that only comes with the warmth and security of being part of the herd.

Actually Tippit hits an important point here. Especially in the more personal debates I've had on a local board with people who actually know me in real life and one of whom I considered one of my closest friends before this all came between us - the debates got so personalized and existential I ended up trying to take a step back frequently and wonder how much I may have matched up the criticisms I was levelling at them.

And I never really came up with a satisfactory answer. Fact is, there IS some ego-massaging involved in being a debunker. As much as we criticize them for having the conceit to call themselves "truthers" - our mirror-image conceit is that we have a better appraisal of reality than they do. Each of us applauds ourselves for not falling for the BS our opponents do: truthers like to think they're not "sheep" like us, and we like to think we're not deluded like they are.

So how do I account for the existence of these counterparts to the "Truther Conceit" on my end of things?

Well I think its simply part of human nature. Nearly everyone thinks their way of looking at the world is "right". The "conceit" is universal. So why focus on it so much?

In my mind it kind of cancels out. So this isn't really a criticism that I think can really "level your opponent" or give you a "win" in any debate when you direct it at your opponents. I DO think there is something to the truther mindset that perhaps exaggerates this conceit and takes it farther than other, more rational mindsets. But we cannot claim to be free of conceit.

All of us have it, even those who do not participate in these debates on either side.

And what I tell myself, at the end of the day, is that even if there are 6 or 7 billion individual "conceits" out here - not everyone is going to be interpreting reality in a way that matches up to the objective reality of the world. Some of us will be cleaving closer to the truth than others. And yes, I think that I cleave closer to the truth than a truther, since the mindset essentially requires distortions of history and a simplification of the mechanics of policy making and of the competing blocs of the world in order to maintain coherence.

maybe this is my conceit at work, but I don't think I need to do so much distorting to maintain my outlook..;)

[Tippit]

Hate to break it to you, dude, but the rest of us are not duped. You are.

Duped how, exactly? It's not like I've spent a fortune on conspiracy-minded literature. I've come through the financial crisis smelling like a rose because I understand the root cause. This just sounds like more condescension.

[Tippit]

And I never really came up with a satisfactory answer. Fact is, there IS some ego-massaging involved in being a debunker. As much as we criticize them for having the conceit to call themselves "truthers" - our mirror-image conceit is that we have a better appraisal of reality than they do. Each of us applauds ourselves for not falling for the BS our opponents do: truthers like to think they're not "sheep" like us, and we like to think we're not deluded like they are.



This, at least with regard to 9/11 conspiracies specifically, is a function of the highly polarizing nature of the event, and how it is interpreted. Each proponent of their argument feels there is a huge amount at stake here, and there really is, and so when argument and evidence don't suffice to convince their counterparts, all we're left with is contempt. This only serves to breed further polarization, create more suspicion and distrust, and makes the process of convincing anyone of anything all that more difficult. The same thing has occurred on a much larger scale in politics between Republicans and Democrats. In political discussions, many of us will quickly attempt to ascertain what political party the speaker associates herself with, and then judge accordingly, barely offering an ear to what that person actually has to say if they are determined to be the "enemy".

This has the unfortunate byproduct in the political arena of letting politicians get away with murder. They are judged less in truth based upon what they do, but upon how much political support they have. There are no corrupt Republicans or Democrats it seems, only corrupt accusers in the opposite party. This is a sad and scary development I think, and I will be happier if someday we all go back to just being Americans, if we ever can.



So how do I account for the existence of these counterparts to the "Truther Conceit" on my end of things?

Well I think its simply part of human nature. Nearly everyone thinks their way of looking at the world is "right". The "conceit" is universal. So why focus on it so much?

In my mind it kind of cancels out. So this isn't really a criticism that I think can really "level your opponent" or give you a "win" in any debate when you direct it at your opponents. I DO think there is something to the truther mindset that perhaps exaggerates this conceit and takes it farther than other, more rational mindsets. But we cannot claim to be free of conceit.

All of us have it, even those who do not participate in these debates on either side.



I agree with most of this, but I think far from merely "canceling out", the polarity serves to obscure the real truth, or at least, the best approximation of it, and it stifles civil discourse. At some point, being called crazy or stupid in every post makes me not care about what "debunkers" say or think, and I'm sure it's mutual. I often wonder why these people bother to even engage us in debate. After all, if we're crazy and/or stupid, then certainly our arguments are utterly baseless and without merit, and we will be resigned to the trash heap of history, with little need of rebuttal.

As far as "truthers" being more conceited than "debunkers", that's ridiculous. There is plenty of hate to go around it seems, and based on the fact that anyone who doubts what happened on 9/11 is in a distinct minority, the ridicule and disdain are almost entirely one-sided. If you don't believe me, pick the least ridiculous aspect of 9/11 truth, create a moniker on a forum somewhere, and try to play devil's advocate and see how you're treated.

[Praktik]

As far as "truthers" being more conceited than "debunkers", that's ridiculous. There is plenty of hate to go around it seems, and based on the fact that anyone who doubts what happened on 9/11 is in a distinct minority, the ridicule and disdain are almost entirely one-sided. If you don't believe me, pick the least ridiculous aspect of 9/11 truth, create a moniker on a forum somewhere, and try to play devil's advocate and see how you're treated.

Well the evidence I use to come to these conclusions is based on a few things:

1) The name of the movement itself: the "TRUTH" movement. This denotes a special capacity to know the truth, and I think its evidence that their version of the universal "conceit" I mentioned above is ingrained as deeply as those who prosletyze biblical "truth".

2) The "hip vs square" or "truther vs sheeple" mode of thought. I can't count how many times debates have been sidetracked by long debates about my "blinkers" or my post-secondary "programming". Why this continual need to refer to your opponent being a "sheep"? This is rampant throughout the movement and is part of the reason I've given the Truther conceit a higher "conceit rating" than their debate opponents.

Disclaimers: I should re-iterate that debunkers have their own conceits, so no one is blameless. Also -> #1 and #2 are not unique to Truthers, die hard religionists pretend to have a special access to "truth" as in #1 and #2 can trace its roots back to the counterculture of the 60s and you can see parallel thoughts in anti-consumerist tracts.

And I should also mention that in my above post my closing sentence about my specific outlook cleaving closer to reality than a truther outlook could be seen as a variation of #1, I just don't constantly tout that or constantly deride my opposition for being "sheep" following whatever AJ tells them. Its more the "truther reflex" of nearly always coming back to that "hip vs square", "truthers vs the sheep" analysis that I think elevates them above the norm in this respect.

[MervinFerd]

our mirror-image conceit is that we have a better appraisal of reality than they do.

I think you are falling into the fallacy of False Equivalence.

There are valid, and invalid arguments. Indisputable facts and lies. Coherent explanations and arrant nonsense. Expert opinion and ignorant foolishness.

Distinguishing between these is ultimately a matter of perception, as is distinguishing between Red and Blue colors. But the distinction is real, nonetheless.

The real conceit is to pretend we cannot be sure that the sky is blue.

[Praktik]

I think you are falling into the fallacy of False Equivalence.

Notice I have also concluded that my (or ours, as debunkers) conceit is perhaps outpaced by the nature of the conceits undergirding truther thoughts.

So its a nuanced view. I don't think conceits are equivalent in that they are rooted in different things in different people and manifest themselves differently in our expression.

All the same, to pretend that as debunkers we don't have any conceit undergirding our position (such as a smugness or self-satisfaction at being "right" or "seeing things as they are" or "cutting through the BS") is on some level, a form of denial.

That being said, sometimes conceits are sourced in matters of fact. A handsome looking dude with a perfect body maybe conceited about that fact - but then again, he's a handsome looking dude with a perfect body so there's maybe a reason for it..;)

Continuing the analogy then, maybe our conceit is rooted in the fact that well, we really are right.

This is all a product of going down the rabbit hole too many times to count with Truthers and after page upon page of forum-battling it gets to a nearly existential level and these are the kinds of weird self-reflections these debates have driven me to.

[Tippit]

Well the evidence I use to come to these conclusions is based on a few things:

1) The name of the movement itself: the "TRUTH" movement. This denotes a special capacity to know the truth, and I think its evidence that their version of the universal "conceit" I mentioned above is ingrained as deeply as those who prosletyze biblical "truth".



I can't disagree here. I don't like being labeled a "truther", and I don't consider myself one, even tho I will undoubtedly be labeled as such. But I think you misunderstood the reason for the name, which is presumably not to dictate the truth, but to attempt to get the truth that they feel has been covered up. But even this presumes that everyone else is not interested in the truth, which I would hope is not the case. What is a more neutral sounding alternative?



2) The "hip vs square" or "truther vs sheeple" mode of thought. I can't count how many times debates have been sidetracked by long debates about my "blinkers" or my post-secondary "programming". Why this continual need to refer to your opponent being a "sheep"? This is rampant throughout the movement and is part of the reason I've given the Truther conceit a higher "conceit rating" than their debate opponents.



It's a way of calling you stupid, in retaliation. Again, anyone who questions what happened on 9/11 is way out-numbered, and is going to be called crazy and stupid far more often than you will be called a "sheep". The ridicule is mostly one-sided, and so truthers are undoubtedly far more defensive as a result. I know I am. While I may be simply wrong, I know I'm not crazy or stupid, so no matter how many times I hear it, it doesn't necessarily bother me other than to prejudice me with respect to their views. I don't know any of you in person so it isn't exactly hurtful.

[Tippit]

The real conceit is to pretend we cannot be sure that the sky is blue.

But, only a fool would pretend that we can be as certain of what happened on 9/11 as we can that the sky is blue.

[Tippit]

Continuing the analogy then, maybe our conceit is rooted in the fact that well, we really are right.



9/11 wasn't a science experiment, it was a historical event, the facts of which are highly contested. You have no way of knowing, and no real way of knowing whether you "really" are "right", nor do I. What you do have is the reassuring bleat of the media, and the endorsement of hundreds of millions of brain-dead people, which is certainly cause (if not just cause) for conceit.

For psychological reasons, it's much easier for human beings to believe in things certainly, than to assume a probabilistic viewpoint. Life is much easier this way. There is no room for any doubt in a debunker's mind, so it must be squashed immediately. I have no doubt my life would be much easier if i just accepted the "fact" that Osama Bin Laden and a bunch of evil arabs did it, and that's the end of the story. Unfortunately that's not possible.

[Praktik]

9/11 wasn't a science experiment, it was a historical event, the facts of which are highly contested. You have no way of knowing, and no real way of knowing whether you "really" are "right", nor do I. What you do have is the reassuring bleat of the media, and the endorsement of hundreds of millions of brain-dead people, which is certainly cause (if not just cause) for conceit.

For psychological reasons, it's much easier for human beings to believe in things certainly, than to assume a probabilistic viewpoint. Life is much easier this way. There is no room for any doubt in a debunker's mind, so it must be squashed immediately. I have no doubt my life would be much easier if i just accepted the "fact" that Osama Bin Laden and a bunch of evil arabs did it, and that's the end of the story. Unfortunately that's not possible.

See what I mean though? Don't want to personalize this too much but you're really dipping back into the "sheeple" approach with me and while you didn't use the word the terms "reassuring bleat of the media" and "endorsement of hundreds of millions of brain-dead people" are basically saying that the reason I think I'm right is because I'm a follower.

You're NOT a follower, obviously because you subscribe to some form of LIHOP/MIHOP, and people like me don't think we're right because of careful research, critical thinking and education - but because we wanna be on the bandwagon and because we are followers (ie sheeple).

THIS is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of the special conceit of trutherism. Now I didn't say that I had perfect knowledge of the events of that day, nor did I say it was possible to get that.

Just that my eventual conclusions against the predominant LIHOP/MIHOP scenarios are right. The rest is you filling in the absence of knowledge of my personal journey on these issues with the standard truther trope of being sheeple.

See what I mean about this being a pervasive feature of the truth movement??

[Praktik]

It's a way of calling you stupid, in retaliation. Again, anyone who questions what happened on 9/11 is way out-numbered, and is going to be called crazy and stupid far more often than you will be called a "sheep". The ridicule is mostly one-sided, and so truthers are undoubtedly far more defensive as a result. I know I am. While I may be simply wrong, I know I'm not crazy or stupid, so no matter how many times I hear it, it doesn't necessarily bother me other than to prejudice me with respect to their views. I don't know any of you in person so it isn't exactly hurtful.

Well the ridicule might feel one-sided here, on a skeptic's forum. But if we were on ATS I think we'd conclude that its one-sided the other way.

This is definitely a more balanced post than your subsequent post directed at me on page 2.

I would think though that our feelings of it being "more on the other side" is kind of like what goes down in the politics forum, with dems counting the republican outrages and missing their own and vice versa. Kinda like this: (http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2008/03/17/true_enough_excerpt_one/index.html)

One cause of this is a phenomenon psychologists call "selective perception," which was described, most famously, in a study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13128974) by social scientists Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantril in the early 1950s. The pair set out to determine how an Ivy League football championship game -- in which Princeton trounced Dartmouth -- had been perceived so differently by fans of the opposing teams. Each campus was in an uproar over what each described as the other side's blatantly unsportsmanlike play.

Hastorf and Cantril showed a film clip of the game to groups at each school -- two fraternities at Dartmouth and two eating clubs at Princeton. They asked the students to act as unbiased referees, marking down all infractions they could spot. The results were remarkable: The Dartmouth fans mainly noticed Princeton's errors, while the Princeton fans concentrated on Dartmouth's.

The fans weren't deliberately overlooking things, Hastorf and Cantril stress. This was a matter of visual perception: Each side, that is, really did "see" a completely different game. When one Dartmouth alumnus was shown a film of the game, he decided it must have been badly edited. He'd heard that his side had played dirty, but where were those parts on the movie? He simply could not see them.

To understand how opposing fans saw the game so differently, consider what a football game really is: organized chaos. "There's an instant before it collapses into some generally agreed-upon fact when a football play, like a traffic accident, is all conjecture and fragments and partial views," Michael Lewis points out in "The Blind Side," his fantastic exploration of the modern game. But it's not just car accidents and football plays that are like this; nearly everything is.

Think about a schoolyard at recess, a baseball game, a political debate. Think about a confrontation at sea, a presidential assassination, a terrorist attack. Or just think about all that happened to you yesterday: Every "thing" that occurs is really a million smaller things involving a million people. But which of the million things, and which of the million people, do we notice? And which do we overlook? So we are each going to be more sensitive to these kinds of things directed at the group with which we self-identify.

But this gets back to my earlier points in this thread: namely that there are mirror images of conceit, and I guess now we should add ridicule, on both sides of this debate.

Neither side is completely free of it. I do think however that there are certain features of the Truth movement, like say orbital beam weapons, and some of the more fanciful ideas out there (and the frequent use of fallacies) that actually deserve ridicule.

Now you personally, we've just met online, and so far I see nothing that deserves ridicule from what have been more thoughtful posts than what you'd see on ATS. Not every truther is foaming at the mouth.

And I do think that these debates have now gone on for so many years that people are a little inured to the ridicule that's bandied about, and I do think JREF could do better at self-censoring these outbursts. Part of it might be issue-fatigue, and people having worked their way towards their positions through pages and pages and pages of debate: when a new truther comes along spouting stuff that's been debunked a million times, Im sure its hard to refrain from poking a little fun.

I hope you stick around though.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Duped how, exactly? It's not like I've spent a fortune on conspiracy-minded literature. I've come through the financial crisis smelling like a rose because I understand the root cause. This just sounds like more condescension.Duped by the stuff like the Loose Change folks sell. The science and the engineering evidence says the towers fell by the force of the jet crashes and the heat of the fire. That is what the scientific evidence shows.

I was under the impression you believe all the scientists and engineers were duped and a handful of fringe 'experts' are the ones who are correct.

[Skeptic Ginger]

But, only a fool would pretend that we can be as certain of what happened on 9/11 as we can that the sky is blue.
Nonsense. There are many many things about 911 we can be certain of. Just because you don't accept overwhelming evidence doesn't mean the rest of us can't.

[Skeptic Ginger]

9/11 wasn't a science experiment, it was a historical event, the facts of which are highly contested.If a single schizophrenic contests some scientific conclusion, does that equal: "highly contested"? How about a group of fringies? Because some religiously indoctrinated folks want Intelligent Design or the Bible to be true, does that make the theory of evolution, "highly contested"?

NO. Truthers are a fringe group and the actual evidence and conclusions about 911 are in no way, "highly contested". You can claim a fringe group contests the conclusions. But elevating that to "highly contested" is a self important fantasy version.

You have no way of knowing, and no real way of knowing whether you "really" are "right",....Yes, I do. It's called scientific evidence.

[MervinFerd]

Continuing the analogy then, maybe our conceit is rooted in the fact that well, we really are right.

This is all a product of going down the rabbit hole too many times to count with Truthers and after page upon page of forum-battling it gets to a nearly existential level and these are the kinds of weird self-reflections these debates have driven me to.

I can understand that feeling.

There is a branch of elite liberal-arts academia that tries to see reality as a social construction and all cultures and viewpoints as equivalent. This may be one source of the reluctance of our media and political leaders to label preposterous lies as "lies". Without the somewhat binary distinction between rational opinion and nonsense, civil dialogue becomes impossible. Witness our August "debate" on health insurance reform.

We should be open-minded, but not so much that our brains fall out.

[Tippit]

See what I mean though? Don't want to personalize this too much but you're really dipping back into the "sheeple" approach with me and while you didn't use the word the terms "reassuring bleat of the media" and "endorsement of hundreds of millions of brain-dead people" are basically saying that the reason I think I'm right is because I'm a follower.



No, I didn't say you think you're right because you're a follower, I said the fact that consensus is on your side is cause for conceit. It's easier to bully people around when you have a baying mob behind you. That is no indication of whether the mob is right or wrong.



You're NOT a follower, obviously because you subscribe to some form of LIHOP/MIHOP, and people like me don't think we're right because of careful research, critical thinking and education - but because we wanna be on the bandwagon and because we are followers (ie sheeple).



I'm agnostic on whether Osama Bin Laden and some evil arabs were responsible for 9/11, based on research, critical thinking, education, and a non-mainstream interpretation of history. I couldn't care less about bandwagons, being a contrarian, or anything other than knowing the truth about what happened, at least to the degree that is possible.



THIS is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of the special conceit of trutherism. Now I didn't say that I had perfect knowledge of the events of that day, nor did I say it was possible to get that.



There is no special conceit of "trutherism". What you interpret as conceit is merely defensiveness in the face of polarization, ridicule, and your inability to accept conclusions that differ from yours.



Just that my eventual conclusions against the predominant LIHOP/MIHOP scenarios are right. The rest is you filling in the absence of knowledge of my personal journey on these issues with the standard truther trope of being sheeple.



What's more conceited, insisting that you know what happened with certainty, which is requisite for knowing that you're "right", or disbelieving the official story, and distrusting the storytellers? It's obviously the former.

[UNLoVedRebel]

There is no room for any doubt in a debunker's mind, so it must be squashed immediately.
Where's the Jihad Jane "mind reading alert" spambot when you need it?

[Tippit]

So we are each going to be more sensitive to these kinds of things directed at the group with which we self-identify.



That Salon article isn't about sensitivity, it's about how different people can interpret reality in entirely different ways. It's about how people can draw multiple different conclusions from the same evidence.



Neither side is completely free of it. I do think however that there are certain features of the Truth movement, like say orbital beam weapons, and some of the more fanciful ideas out there (and the frequent use of fallacies) that actually deserve ridicule.



Of course there are. The ridiculousness of the theory varies with its plausibility, or some cases its possibility. But it's not rational or in any way fair to judge critics or skeptics of the official 9/11 story by the most ridiculous of theories that happen to exist, or by the most unstable and violent, and racist of theorists, which is what goes on here all the time.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

9/11 wasn't a science experiment, it was a historical event, the facts of which are highly contested.


Personally, I'd only consider a topic "highly contested" if there's contention between a significant number of individuals who are professionals in the field.

In the same way that evolution can't really be considered "highly contested" because mostly religious fundamentalists raise a stink about it, 9/11 can't be considered "highly contested" because a relative handful of average citizens raise a stink about it.

If you want to claim 9/11 is an historical event that's "highly contested", you'll need to show me a number of professional historians that question the generally accepted account.

[Tippit]

Where's the Jihad Jane "mind reading alert" spambot when you need it?

That's funny, because I've not seen one iota of doubt or skepticism from any of the so-called skeptics on this forum towards the official story. Not a single sentence in a single post. Not even the slightest hint of doubt about any aspect about what supposedly happened. The question of whether 9/11 happened the way the government and media claim it happened seems to be a binary proposition. The story must be that airtight, and apparently free of contradictions and strange coincidences. Of course, it really isn't, not by a long shot.

I'm not a mind reader, just a post-reader. If there is any skeptic on this forum who has any doubts what-so-ever about what happened on 9/11, about any aspect, please, let me know. I'm willing to bet on crickets, because of the simple fact that even if you did have doubts there is no way you would air them on this forum.

[UNLoVedRebel]

What's more conceited, insisting that you know what happened with certainty, which is requisite for knowing that you're "right", or disbelieving the official story, and distrusting the storytellers? It's obviously the former.
What's conceited is calling the victims of 9/11 "storytellers".

**** you.

[Tippit]

Duped by the stuff like the Loose Change folks sell. The science and the engineering evidence says the towers fell by the force of the jet crashes and the heat of the fire. That is what the scientific evidence shows.



9/11 wasn't a science experiment, it was a crime scene. What's the scientific value of a scientific conclusion derived from tampered or falsified evidence? Are you familiar with the adage, "You don't have to commit the perfect crime, but merely be in charge of the following investigation"?



I was under the impression you believe all the scientists and engineers were duped and a handful of fringe 'experts' are the ones who are correct.

I'm under the impression that the government, big banks, and big corporations are composed of a bunch of liars and crooks, and that the evidence is not clear enough and the problem not simple enough for honest scientists and engineers to solve.

[Tippit]

If a single schizophrenic contests some scientific conclusion, does that equal: "highly contested"? How about a group of fringies? Because some religiously indoctrinated folks want Intelligent Design or the Bible to be true, does that make the theory of evolution, "highly contested"?

NO. Truthers are a fringe group and the actual evidence and conclusions about 911 are in no way, "highly contested". You can claim a fringe group contests the conclusions. But elevating that to "highly contested" is a self important fantasy version.



If roughly 1/3 of American people don't believe the official story of 9/11 in one regard or another, I would call that highly contested. If your claim is that only experts are qualified to contest something, then that is rejected as an implicit appeal to authority. Unlike you, I don't need experts to tell me the color of *****.



Yes, I do. It's called scientific evidence.

9/11 wasn't a high school science experiment, it was a crime scene of massive scale. Scientific conclusions mean nothing, if we don't trust the chain of custody of the evidence. Please try to wrap your head around that.

[UNLoVedRebel]

That's funny, because I've not seen one iota of doubt or skepticism from any of the so-called skeptics on this forum towards the official story.
Because "the official story" is a term used by a counterculture. The term is meaningless.
The question of whether 9/11 happened the way the government and media claim it happened seems to be a binary proposition.
A gross reification fallacy.
The story must be that airtight, and apparently free of contradictions and strange coincidences. Of course, it really isn't, not by a long shot.
A gross Texas Sharpshooter fallacy.
I'm not a mind reader, just a post-reader. Then why did you say this?
There is no room for any doubt in a debunker's mind, so it must be squashed immediately.
If there is any skeptic on this forum who has any doubts what-so-ever about what happened on 9/11, about any aspect, please, let me know. I'm willing to bet on crickets, because of the simple fact that even if you did have doubts there is no way you would air them on this forum.
The poverty of agnosticism - a coward's position.

[UNLoVedRebel]

If roughly 1/3 of American people don't believe the official story of 9/11 in one regard or another, I would call that highly contested.
This is why "the official story" is meaningless. You can have it mean whatever you want it to mean. 5% of Americans believe the government "made it happen". yes 5%. You cannot change that fact by making up definitions.

[Praktik]

Of course there are. The ridiculousness of the theory varies with its plausibility, or some cases its possibility. But it's not rational or in any way fair to judge critics or skeptics of the official 9/11 story by the most ridiculous of theories that happen to exist, or by the most unstable and violent, and racist of theorists, which is what goes on here all the time.

I can agree with this fully.

What you interpret as conceit is merely defensiveness in the face of polarization, ridicule, and your inability to accept conclusions that differ from yours.

Less so this, which calls to mind the innumerable times I've had people on the other side end a post with references to my "inability", or "unwillingness" to accept information that might "challenge" my worldview.

I really don't think that's the case, but even if it was it wouldn't be something I'd even be conscious of. So if I couldn't even detect that, being so "blinkered", then how could you?

As I feel I may have said a hundred times - it's possible that my filtering of 9/11 lore has considered conclusions different from mine honestly, and decided that they didn't compare favourably with the conclusions I ended up accepting.

Sorry man but I have to say that this quote and the one I pointed to above are both variations on the "sheeple" theme.

And its no big knock against you this has been a fine conversation but I think the appearance of this theme perhaps goes to demonstrate that the majority of your sources are concentrated in movement materials. I would suggest that broadening things a bit may help you avoid this pitfall - or at least trying to keep some intellectual distance between you and what you're reading.

I know when I was in my Chomsky phase in early Uni days his style and some of his themes would resurface regularly in my writing.

[Tippit]

And its no big knock against you this has been a fine conversation but I think the appearance of this theme perhaps goes to demonstrate that the majority of your sources are concentrated in movement materials. I would suggest that broadening things a bit may help you avoid this pitfall - or at least trying to keep some intellectual distance between you and what you're reading.

I know when I was in my Chomsky phase in early Uni days his style and some of his themes would resurface regularly in my writing.

I'm not really a Johnny-come-lately conspiracy theorist. I changed after reading a single book in 1994, after validating the sources of the book and finding corroborating evidence. When 9/11 happened, the associated contradictions merely fit a pattern. While I don't know what exactly happened on 9/11, I know that the ascribed motivations of the perpetrators are ridiculous and unlikely given the context of everything else I know. And that's enough for me to cast my suspicion on persons other than those who seem to be the obvious perpetrators.

[woolfe99]

That's funny, because I've not seen one iota of doubt or skepticism from any of the so-called skeptics on this forum towards the official story. Not a single sentence in a single post. Not even the slightest hint of doubt about any aspect about what supposedly happened. The question of whether 9/11 happened the way the government and media claim it happened seems to be a binary proposition. The story must be that airtight, and apparently free of contradictions and strange coincidences. Of course, it really isn't, not by a long shot.

I'm not a mind reader, just a post-reader. If there is any skeptic on this forum who has any doubts what-so-ever about what happened on 9/11, about any aspect, please, let me know. I'm willing to bet on crickets, because of the simple fact that even if you did have doubts there is no way you would air them on this forum.

The problem with concluding that people are somehow brainwashed (or highly biased, or biting their tongues, however you want to formulate it) because they do not make rhetorical concessions to an alternative viewpoint is that this isn't how people naturally think or communicate. Epistemological uncertainties always exist, technically. Yet it doesn't really matter for purposes of an internet discussion that there is just the tiniest possibility that the alternative view may be correct. We don't need to qualify every statement we make in probabilistic terms. For example, I don't need to refer to the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "alleged" events, or qualify my reference to those events by degrees of "probability." For purposes of discussion, I can treat them as events, in spite of there being some tiny degree of epistemological uncertainty about their occurrence.

Now, if we are to assume that the evidence for the alternative hypothesis is of sufficient merit as to prompt substantial uncertainties in the rational mind, then expressing the occurrence of the event without the attendant probability qualifiers would be problematic. The trouble here is that you believe in the case of 911 that the arguments countering the mainstream view have sufficient merit, and hence you are arguing that the lack of concessions is evidence of dogma, brainwashing, or bias. That is a hidden and assumed premise in your argument above. Yet it begs the real question - whether those arguments really do have any significant merit. The fact is, a lack of concessions in and of itself doesn't have to mean any of the things you're suggesting it means; there need not be anything suspicious about a lack of concessions. It can simply mean that the sum total of all the arguments against the official version is insufficient to trigger anything beyond trivial and therefore non-noteworthy levels of uncertainty.

- Woolfe

[Praktik]

ok woolfe Im saving this one and will probably refer to in for the future..:)

[Cl1mh4224rd]

That's funny, because I've not seen one iota of doubt or skepticism from any of the so-called skeptics on this forum towards the official story.


While that may be true, it's only because you need to look harder (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=143280). And maybe tone down your own self-certainty just wee bit, especially if you're going to "lecture" us about how it's such a bad thing. It's getting embarrassingly hypocritical.

[Tippit]

The problem with concluding that people are somehow brainwashed (or highly biased, or biting their tongues, however you want to formulate it) because they do not make rhetorical concessions to an alternative viewpoint is that this isn't how people naturally think or communicate. Epistemological uncertainties always exist, technically. Yet it doesn't really matter for purposes of an internet discussion that there is just the tiniest possibility that the alternative view may be correct. We don't need to qualify every statement we make in probabilistic terms. For example, I don't need to refer to the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as "alleged" events, or qualify my reference to those events by degrees of "probability." For purposes of discussion, I can treat them as events, in spite of there being some tiny degree of epistemological uncertainty about their occurrence.



I agree, but your analogy is poor. One third of the American public did not doubt who bombed Hiroshima and why.



Now, if we are to assume that the evidence for the alternative hypothesis is of sufficient merit as to prompt substantial uncertainties in the rational mind, then expressing the occurrence of the event without the attendant probability qualifiers would be problematic. The trouble here is that you believe in the case of 911 that the arguments countering the mainstream view have sufficient merit, and hence you are arguing that the lack of concessions is evidence of dogma, brainwashing, or bias. That is a hidden and assumed premise in your argument above. Yet it begs the real question - whether those arguments really do have any significant merit. The fact is, a lack of concessions in and of itself doesn't have to mean any of the things you're suggesting it means; there need not be anything suspicious about a lack of concessions. It can simply mean that the sum total of all the arguments against the official version is insufficient to trigger anything beyond trivial and therefore non-noteworthy levels of uncertainty.

- Woolfe

You don't have a monopoly on rationality, or objectivity for that matter, so "uncertainties in the rational mind" is next to meaningless. Insinuating that anyone who doubts the events of 9/11 is irrational isn't a valid argument. I'm not arguing that a lack of concessions is suspicious nor am I casting aspersions on debunkers, I'm claiming that it is the polarity and the highly emotional and disturbing nature of the subject itself which is the cause. The nature of the debunker's stance is that if they admit a solitary doubt about the veracity of any of the evidence, it casts a shroud on all of the other evidence, which to them is not acceptable.

It seems reasonable to me that if roughly one third of the American people have doubts about 9/11, that a few debunkers might have some too. Is there anything you personally find remotely suspicious about any aspect of 9/11? If so, please share. I won't hold my breath.

[Tippit]

While that may be true, it's only because you need to look harder (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=143280). And maybe tone down your own self-certainty just wee bit, especially if you're going to "lecture" us about how it's such a bad thing. It's getting embarrassingly hypocritical.

Thanks for the link. I love the "I'm not crazy, but" disclaimer at the very top. Do you have an instance where these questions become unresolved and become suspicions, because after briefly scanning the thread I didn't see anything like this. At least the thread has some unbiased skepticism.

[UNLoVedRebel]

I agree, but your analogy is poor. One third of the American public did not doubt who bombed Hiroshima and why.
One third of the American public don't doubt who did 9/11 and why so what exactly is your point?

[woolfe99]

I agree, but your analogy is poor. One third of the American public did not doubt who bombed Hiroshima and why.

Wait a minute here. Wasn't it you, above, who accused others of appealing to authority by relying on experts? Now you go and appeal to an (alleged) popular opinion (I doubt the 1/3 number, but will accept it for the sake of argument). Let's not forget here that your post which I had replied to was about a lack of concessions on the part of those who believe the mainstream account of what happened. What does the number of people who believe in the alternate version have to do with the appropriateness or lack thereof of making such concessions? Isn't it based on the merits of the arguments? I don't feel I need to make concessions to creationists either unless their arguments warrant such, and creationists are actually in the vast majority.




You don't have a monopoly on rationality, or objectivity for that matter, so "uncertainties in the rational mind" is next to meaningless. Insinuating that anyone who doubts the events of 9/11 is irrational isn't a valid argument.
It seems reasonable to me that if roughly one third of the American people have doubts about 9/11, that a few debunkers might have some too. Is there anything you personally find remotely suspicious about any aspect of 9/11? If so, please share. I won't hold my breath.

Multiple straw men here, and you'r changing the subject. I never said I had a "monopoly on rationality," nor did I assert that "anyone who doubts the events of 9/11 is irrational." I was responding to your point about a lack of concessions. That is all.


I'm not arguing that a lack of concessions is suspicious nor am I casting aspersions on debunkers, I'm claiming that it is the polarity and the highly emotional and disturbing nature of the subject itself which is the cause. The nature of the debunker's stance is that if they admit a solitary doubt about the veracity of any of the evidence, it casts a shroud on all of the other evidence, which to them is not acceptable.

You are arguing that people bite their tongues and refrain from making objective observations for fear their emotionally charged belief would then be called into doubt. But no, you aren't "casting aspersions on debunkers." Sure you aren't. Your second sentence is just the same question beg - you interpret the lack of concessions one way, but in fact it is equally plausible that the arguments advanced to support the alternative narrative just do not warrant the concessions.

It seems reasonable to me that if roughly one third of the American people have doubts about 9/11, that a few debunkers might have some too.

Or maybe they're debunkers because they are the ones who, after examining the evidence and arguments, just don't have any significant uncertainty. Cause and effect? :eek:

Is there anything you personally find remotely suspicious about any aspect of 9/11? If so, please share. I won't hold my breath.

And suppose I do not? Sorry, I don't dance a dog and pony show because someone wants to interpret my refusal to do so according to his own preconceptions and evaluation of the evidence, when in fact the evidence itself is the only real issue.

Insofar as "concessions" go in general, I will say the following. Conceding that one cannot explain a particular anomaly doesn't necessarily trigger any significant doubt about the overarching narrative. CTers are very fond of their pet anomalies. I have encountered this "why don't you make concessions" rhetoric with Holocaust deniers, and it is the same answer. We don't concede doubt about the narrative because we don't have any significant doubt. If I can't explain a particular anomaly, that will not alter the verdict when the anomaly stands against a mountain of evidence and where the anomaly itself is undoubtedly subject to more than one reasonable interpretation.

- woolfe

[JoeyDonuts]

It seems reasonable to me that if roughly one third of the American people have doubts about 9/11, that a few debunkers might have some too. Is there anything you personally find remotely suspicious about any aspect of 9/11? If so, please share. I won't hold my breath.

Over here, cool guy.

My questions, such as they are, have more to do with the multiple-point intelligence failure that enabled Al-Qaeda to pull off the attack.

We were probed, infiltrated, studied, and attacked by a determined and capable foe. Even so, they left plenty of breadcrumbs and the pieces should have been put together.

I can't say that I have any questions about the response of NEADS/NORAD on the morning of the attack. They were given a *************** of a scenario and basically effected some kind of response with one eye blind and one hand tied behind their backs. Admirable response, as were the efforts of the emergency response teams.

What I do not question is the motives and methods as laid out in the 9/11 Commission Report, the NIST data, and expounded on by literature such as The Looming Tower. There exists no verifiable information that supports an alternate version of events. None. The only way that a person can effectively claim that something else happened is to inflate the scenario to require government secrecy and repression - something else that doesn't have direct evidence. This point was inflamed by the unscrupulous tactics of the Bush administration, but there isn't a single shred of anecdotal or physical evidence that adds up to a workable alternate theory implicating individuals within our own government.

You can nit-pick at minutae all you'd like and ask your questions until you're blue in the face. However, it just won't do to point out supposed anomalies in the "official story." I know they exist. Every investigation ever conducted cannot possibly hope to have a zero-defect standard, that's impossible. But with accumulated evidence and expert analysis, you have a veritable mountain of independently verified data supporting the events as laid out in the 9/11 Commission report.

Now contrast that with the complete failure of personnel within the 9/11 truth movement to come up with and agree upon a workable theory that makes any sense whatsoever with what we know about structural engineering, explosives performance, chemistry, pressure, international relations, counter-terrorism, and what have you. The various "theories" bandied about do not hold up to any kind of inspection.

So, that would say to me that folks in the 9/11 truth movement:
a) can't see "through the veil" nearly as well as they'd like to think
b) lack the scientific expertise to verify and make sense of physical and recorded evidence (but don't let this stop them from trying.)
c) are willing to latch on to any theory that implicates an administration or country that they detest, no matter how scientifically loony it might be

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's funny, because I've not seen one iota of doubt or skepticism from any of the so-called skeptics on this forum towards the official story. Not a single sentence in a single post. Not even the slightest hint of doubt about any aspect about what supposedly happened. The question of whether 9/11 happened the way the government and media claim it happened seems to be a binary proposition. The story must be that airtight, and apparently free of contradictions and strange coincidences. .....That's because we are looking at the evidence. :D

As for your absolutism regarding the government and media versions, I believe there is evidence of many errors in these reports. But none of the erroneous information supports or questions the basic gist of what happened. That is, 2 jetliners were hijacked and flown into the buildings which subsequently collapsed.

Personally, I put a lot of weight into the "asleep at the wheel" evidence. And I believe the "let it happen" is plausible, though unlikely.

[Tippit]

That's because we are looking at the evidence. :D



The evidence of what, and collected and presented by whom? If corrupt aspects of the government are being indicted, then why do you think it's logical to appeal to the government/media sponsored "evidence" to convince anyone of what happened on 9/11? You're better off discussing the evidence that the government is or is not completely corrupt.



As for your absolutism regarding the government and media versions, I believe there is evidence of many errors in these reports. But none of the erroneous information supports or questions the basic gist of what happened. That is, 2 jetliners were hijacked and flown into the buildings which subsequently collapsed.

Personally, I put a lot of weight into the "asleep at the wheel" evidence. And I believe the "let it happen" is plausible, though unlikely.

Thanks for being honest. Hanlon's razor wins the day again, apparently.

[Skeptic Ginger]

The evidence of what, and collected and presented by whom? If corrupt aspects of the government are being indicted, then why do you think it's logical to appeal to the government/media sponsored "evidence" to convince anyone of what happened on 9/11? You're better off discussing the evidence that the government is or is not completely corrupt.....Not that I think you have any symptoms of schizophrenia, Tippit. I don't think CTers are necessarily pathological in their paranoia.

However, I'm going to call this as I see it. Your post suggests you lack normal trust in the engineering and scientific fields when it comes to 911.

If the information on the tower collapse came from a single source, like Kim Jung Il's information controlling government, then it make sense to be suspicious of that information.

But the reason your suspicion is abnormal, is in order for there to be some CT here as you suspect, the amount of people involved and the effort involved to control the information would need to be so extensive that it is just not possible.

I have this same argument with the anti-vaxers on occasion. They believe the government and/or Big Pharma actually has the capability to dupe thousands and thousands of scientists and other experts in multiple countries. It is simply absurd.

The extent of a conspiracy needed to meet the 911 truther's version of reality is beyond realistic.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Had to look Hanlon's razor up: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Actually, I find the evidence overwhelmingly supports malice in the Bush administration IMO. I just don't think there is evidence Bush had the inside information on exactly what was planned for 911 nor do I think Bush was capable of such complex future planning as would have been needed to know about 911 beforehand, plan to let it happen, all so they could justify invading Iraq. I think it's more like Occam's razor here.

According to reports, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had discussed plans to invade Iraq in December of 1999. One of the issues supposedly discussed was the need for something significant in order to sell such an invasion to the pubic. Richard Clarke discusses this in his book, Against All Enemies and I believe Paul O'Neill confirmed the account after his defection from the Bush team but I may have my sources mixed up here. (Sources but not the facts.)

Some claim this was nothing more than updating contingency plans. The events that unfolded suggest it was more than that.

So overall, there is evidence to base this line of thought on. There may not be enough evidence to take it to the bank.

But all that planning and implosive devices in the towers, that is absurdly far fetched. One has to suspend reality to think it could be pulled off. It makes no sense in the real world.

[woolfe99]

One must also ask the question of how a government that had both the will and ability to pull off 9/11 as an inside job, in order to supply a justification for invading Iraq, ended up getting caught with its pants down over WMD's. It would have been so much easier to claim they found WMD's there when there actually weren't any than to have pulled off 911 as an inside job. Heck, they wouldn't have even had to plant them (which they certainly could have done). They could have just phonied up some test results to claim they found trace amounts (which were presumably removed or destroyed by the Iraqis). Any government so concerned about having adequate security (meaning political) justification for an invasion as to pull off a huge conspiracy, involving incredibly diverse agencies and vast numbers of insiders, would at very least have pulled off a smaller and much more containable one in service of the same goal.

- Dave

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Any government so concerned about having adequate security (meaning political) justification for an invasion as to pull off a huge conspiracy, involving incredibly diverse agencies and vast numbers of insiders, would at very least have pulled off a smaller and much more containable one in service of the same goal.


They ran out of money in the Black Ops Budget. [/tongue-in-cheek]

[Tippit]

Not that I think you have any symptoms of schizophrenia, Tippit. I don't think CTers are necessarily pathological in their paranoia.



Gee, thanks. I am, however, neither pathological nor paranoid.



However, I'm going to call this as I see it. Your post suggests you lack normal trust in the engineering and scientific fields when it comes to 911.



I trust honest engineers and scientists to make reasonable conclusions about the evidence they have been presented with which can be independently verified and for which the chain of custody does not begin with the US government or the consolidated mainstream media. For instance, video tape from multiple sources documents the rate of fall of the towers and WTC 7. Scientists and engineers have accurately concluded that the towers didn't fall at anywhere close to free fall speeds. I don't contest these types of conclusions based on similar evidence. The NIST report and the explanation for WTC 7 is a complete joke, on the other hand, and I read the entire thing.



If the information on the tower collapse came from a single source, like Kim Jung Il's information controlling government, then it make sense to be suspicious of that information.



I'm afraid your faith in your own government, and especially the accountability of the political system and how it selects leaders is terribly misplaced. It will probably take a lot of social turmoil and upheaval for you to become aware of this, unfortunately.



But the reason your suspicion is abnormal, is in order for there to be some CT here as you suspect, the amount of people involved and the effort involved to control the information would need to be so extensive that it is just not possible.



I reject this assumption out-of-hand. For instance, I haven't even made any specific claims about 9/11, but you assume I must believe that the most implausible, ridiculous, and risky theory has to be the most likely. Of course, that's unfair.

What if everything about the official story were true, right down to the bogeyman Osama Bin Laden's complicity, but Bin Laden himself was contracted to do the job for one billion dollars, and promised protection by some unknown western person representing the military industrial complex? The conspiracy has grown by one person in my example, but the event takes on an entirely different meaning. You can add other highly compartmentalized agents who may not even have understood their role in perpetrating 9/11 and obtain plausible scenarios. I'm not going to speculate.



I have this same argument with the anti-vaxers on occasion. They believe the government and/or Big Pharma actually has the capability to dupe thousands and thousands of scientists and other experts in multiple countries. It is simply absurd.



How so? Is the composition of every single vaccine that is manufactured verified by thousands of qualified scientists and other experts in multiple countries? Of course not. You may not be able to tamper with everyone's vaccines all the time, but you can certainly tamper with some of them some of the time. There are plenty of credible stories involving bad vaccines, especially in Africa, where they are often refused.

There is nothing wrong with vaccination science, the problem is that the vaccine preservatives are often contaminated with neuro-toxins like Mercury! I don't really care whether you think I'm paranoid because I'm skeptical of taking vaccines, as long as you don't force them on me you are free to get vaccinated as often as you like.



The extent of a conspiracy needed to meet the 911 truther's version of reality is beyond realistic.

My version of economic reality has paid me handsomely over the years, I'm confident that my version of political reality is just as accurate, which is unfortunate for all of us.

[JoeyDonuts]

I trust honest engineers and scientists to make reasonable conclusions about the evidence they have been presented with which can be independently verified and for which the chain of custody does not begin with the US government or the consolidated mainstream media.

Why wouldn't the chain of custody include the U.S. Government? Their mandate is to protect its citizenry by investigating crimes, and that means collecting evidence. Who would you rather have collected evidence?

And how in the name of Charles Bronson do you get that the chain of evidentiary custody somehow included the "consolidated mainstream media," whatever the hell that is?

The NIST report and the explanation for WTC 7 is a complete joke, on the other hand, and I read the entire thing.

Oh really? And your scientific research background that qualifies you to read the NIST report and dismiss it as factually inaccurate would be what, exactly?

I'm afraid your faith in your own government, and especially the accountability of the political system and how it selects leaders is terribly misplaced. It will probably take a lot of social turmoil and upheaval for you to become aware of this, unfortunately.

Your smug is showing. Like it or not, you are proving the psychological paradigm of conspiracy believers - and by extension, Skeptigirl's point.

For instance, I haven't even made any specific claims about 9/11, but you assume I must believe that the most implausible, ridiculous, and risky theory has to be the most likely. Of course, that's unfair.

Well, you've gone and labeled the NIST documents as a "joke" so naturally you must find nothing in them that's scientifically viable.

What if everything about the official story were true, right down to the bogeyman Osama Bin Laden's complicity, but Bin Laden himself was contracted to do the job for one billion dollars, and promised protection by some unknown western person representing the military industrial complex? The conspiracy has grown by one person in my example, but the event takes on an entirely different meaning. You can add other highly compartmentalized agents who may not even have understood their role in perpetrating 9/11 and obtain plausible scenarios. I'm not going to speculate.

You don't seem to understand the first thing about how covert operations work in the real world. Your scenario hasn't inflated by just ONE person, you've implicated his entire agency. Plans aren't drawn up by one person who then goes ahead and executes it on behalf of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and the "Consolidated Mainstream Media." And even then - why would the conspiracy leave things to chance as far as any potential air defense response? You'd have to have people at the FAA, NORAD, NEADS, NMCC, the TSA people in the airport, the FBI, the airlines themselves.

Ask yourself this: If a handful of rag-tag internet sleuths can unravel the Impossibly Large Conspiracy, why hasn't there been a revelation by another countries' intelligence agency? Surely with their budgets and better access to HUMINT resources, they would have cracked a plot with such far-reaching international implications...especially countries with a beef against the Bush administration and a capable intel agency.

My version of economic reality has paid me handsomely over the years, I'm confident that my version of political reality is just as accurate, which is unfortunate for all of us.

Characters flying through cyberspace are cheap. I don't think there's anything to back up the value of yours.

[Childlike Empress]

9/11 wasn't a science experiment, it was a historical event, the facts of which are highly contested. You have no way of knowing, and no real way of knowing whether you "really" are "right", nor do I. What you do have is the reassuring bleat of the media, and the endorsement of hundreds of millions of brain-dead people, which is certainly cause (if not just cause) for conceit.

For psychological reasons, it's much easier for human beings to believe in things certainly, than to assume a probabilistic viewpoint. Life is much easier this way. There is no room for any doubt in a debunker's mind, so it must be squashed immediately. I have no doubt my life would be much easier if i just accepted the "fact" that Osama Bin Laden and a bunch of evil arabs did it, and that's the end of the story. Unfortunately that's not possible.


Well said.

[Tippit]

Had to look Hanlon's razor up: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

Actually, I find the evidence overwhelmingly supports malice in the Bush administration IMO. I just don't think there is evidence Bush had the inside information on exactly what was planned for 911 nor do I think Bush was capable of such complex future planning as would have been needed to know about 911 beforehand, plan to let it happen, all so they could justify invading Iraq. I think it's more like Occam's razor here.



You're defaulting to the assumption that I think Bush was responsible, which is derived from the idea that nothing important can happen without the President's involvement, which is derived from the idea that the President is the most powerful man in the world. All of these are ridiculous concepts. I disagree that Bush was the simpleton that most people think he is, as far as destroying the country and dismantling our civil liberties - mission accomplished. But Bush (or Cheney's) direct involvement in 9/11 isn't necessary. I find some of their actions to be highly suspicious, but I have nothing beyond that, so I don't make any accusations. It would have been nice to have their testimony to the 9/11 commission public, and under oath, but it was all done in secret.



According to reports, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz had discussed plans to invade Iraq in December of 1999. One of the issues supposedly discussed was the need for something significant in order to sell such an invasion to the pubic. Richard Clarke discusses this in his book, Against All Enemies and I believe Paul O'Neill confirmed the account after his defection from the Bush team but I may have my sources mixed up here. (Sources but not the facts.)

Some claim this was nothing more than updating contingency plans. The events that unfolded suggest it was more than that.

So overall, there is evidence to base this line of thought on. There may not be enough evidence to take it to the bank.

But all that planning and implosive devices in the towers, that is absurdly far fetched. One has to suspend reality to think it could be pulled off. It makes no sense in the real world.

I think a lot more was possible in 2001 than most people can conceive. I think it was likely given the circumstances.

EDIT: Hanlon's Razor is wholly inadequate for describing the modern world. I prefer Grey's Law instead, which says "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."

[Tippit]

One must also ask the question of how a government that had both the will and ability to pull off 9/11 as an inside job, in order to supply a justification for invading Iraq, ended up getting caught with its pants down over WMD's. It would have been so much easier to claim they found WMD's there when there actually weren't any than to have pulled off 911 as an inside job. Heck, they wouldn't have even had to plant them (which they certainly could have done). They could have just phonied up some test results to claim they found trace amounts (which were presumably removed or destroyed by the Iraqis). Any government so concerned about having adequate security (meaning political) justification for an invasion as to pull off a huge conspiracy, involving incredibly diverse agencies and vast numbers of insiders, would at very least have pulled off a smaller and much more containable one in service of the same goal.

- Dave

That's a good point, but it could be indicative of one other disturbing thing - the total audacity that occurs in a the complete vaccum of political accountability. After all, there were no WMDs, the government was caught with its pants down, and what happened? Whose heads rolled? Nobody's. It hardly even matters what the American public believes anymore. They're more worried about what Paris Hilton is wearing, or Kanye West is rapping about.

[Praktik]

That's a good point, but it could be indicative of one other disturbing thing - the total audacity that occurs in a the complete vaccum of political accountability. After all, there were no WMDs, the government was caught with its pants down, and what happened? Whose heads rolled? Nobody's. It hardly even matters what the American public believes anymore. They're more worried about what Paris Hilton is wearing, or Kanye West is rapping about.

Not so. Polling showed majorities favouring investigations into torture, (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/22/torture/index.html) large negatives on "trust in government" and on and on down the line.

Also: it is possible to be concerned about accountability and impunity in a non-CT context. (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/16/delusions/index.html)

[Tippit]

Not so. Polling showed majorities favouring investigations into torture, (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/22/torture/index.html) large negatives on "trust in government" and on and on down the line.



Ok, so a lot of people were upset. I am one of them. So what? What does this have to do with any actual accountability? I don't want polls, I want results.



Also: it is possible to be concerned about accountability and impunity in a non-CT context. (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/16/delusions/index.html)

Of course it is.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

I'm afraid your faith in your own government [...]


I'd just like to point out that you, and other conspiracy theorists, have a far, far greater "faith" in the abilities of the U.S. government than myself.

[Praktik]

Ok, so a lot of people were upset. I am one of them. So what? What does this have to do with any actual accountability? I don't want polls, I want results.

I was trying to highlight a reason to have faith in the common man. A central premise of most NWO type screeds is that the vast majority of America is filled with automatons blindly believing everything they hear on TV.

The sheeple.

People are more aware than you give them credit for. They just feel cynical or helpless to do much.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Getting back to the thread topic, (which isn't to argue the 911 CT ad nauseum, BTW), how does one determine where the line divides being suspicious but not paranoid and vice versa?

You cannot help but draw that line based on a range of normal vs abnormal behaviors which is unfortunately, subjective. But that is what defines abnormal behavior, deviation from the norm and that is subjective.

Back in nursing school, I took the MMPI, which is an inventory of thought. I scored right at, but not over the line dividing normal and abnormal because I was an atheist. Lots of the questions had to do with believing in a higher power. The 'norm' was established by surveying a large number of people in the Midwest including the Bible belt.

Clearly we must distinguish between just being different from the average person and being abnormal. Typically one uses problems coping and so on as the guide between being an individualist and having a pathological borderline personality disorder.

And, of course there are those occasional cases where someone bucks the norm only to be proved correct eventually. I imagine a lot of CTers envision themselves being vindicated one day.

The point of this thread was to explore, what makes one just an individualist, or uniquely insightful destined to be eventually vindicated? And, what makes one 'abnormal' with an unfounded belief in a CT, either paranoid or bordering on paranoia?

I suggest the difference is whether one's beliefs are supported by the evidence, even if remotely, and whether one's beliefs are too far fetched and therefore unrealistic. And sometimes it is a matter of whether one's rogue scientific conclusions or hypotheses have been thoroughly examined to the point the result isn't going to change.

Alfred Wegener (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener), for example, proposed moving crustal plates and was met with skepticism from fellow geologists. The evidence eventually proved his hypothesis correct. Michael Behe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe), OTOH, won't give up on his Irreducible Complexity hypothesis and it is way past time to give up on that hypothesis.

In the case of the 911 CTs, the CTers, while for whatever reason they cannot see it themselves, have a belief that is too far fetched to be realistic.

I could cite a dozen reasons supporting that conclusion. Those of you who know I am right don't need the list and the CTers don't accept it so I won't bother citing it here. Yes, it is a judgment call. But in many cases, including the 911 CTers, the judgment is by consensus that the evidence is unquestionable. In order for the 911 CT to be valid, one must ignore reality. That is paranoia, in this case, by definition.

[MervinFerd]

I suggest the difference is whether one's beliefs are supported by the evidence, even if remotely, and whether one's beliefs are too far fetched and therefore unrealistic. And sometimes it is a matter of whether one's rogue scientific conclusions or hypotheses have been thoroughly examined to the point the result isn't going to change.

Alfred Wegener (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener), for example, proposed moving crustal plates and was met with skepticism from fellow geologists. The evidence eventually proved his hypothesis correct.

Wegener might be a crank who happened to be right. You'd have to read his writings in the context of the then-current information to evaluate his contribution. Behe, OTOH, is pretty clearly a crank even if some aspect of irreducible complexity turned out to have merit.


In the case of the 911 CTs, the CTers, while for whatever reason they cannot see it themselves, have a belief that is too far fetched to be realistic.

I could cite a dozen reasons supporting that conclusion. Those of you who know I am right don't need the list and the CTers don't accept it so I won't bother citing it here. Yes, it is a judgment call. But in many cases, including the 911 CTers, the judgment is by consensus that the evidence is unquestionable. In order for the 911 CT to be valid, one must ignore reality. That is paranoia, in this case, by definition.

You need to take cult behavior into account. Are members of a cult paranoid?

What about a cynical opportunistic grifter? Dylan Avery?

[Tippit]

Getting back to the thread topic, (which isn't to argue the 911 CT ad nauseum, BTW), how does one determine where the line divides being suspicious but not paranoid and vice versa?



On what basis do you derive this continuum of suspicion and paranoia? Is it not possible for people to be more or less suspicious than you based on something other than paranoia?

Are you really just fishing for an excuse to label us all as unstable and dangerous, as other posters on this forum have done? That's one way of avoiding the arguments, whether or not it has anything to do with the truth. Isn't it enough to be "wrong" and live with ridicule? What exactly is it you fear from 9/11 truthers? Isn't it past the time of just ignoring us? Live and let live?



Clearly we must distinguish between just being different from the average person and being abnormal. Typically one uses problems coping and so on as the guide between being an individualist and having a pathological borderline personality disorder.



It sounds like you're a control freak who wants to be in the business of handing out mental diagnoses like candy, especially to people who disagree with you on subjects where you're obviously 100% correct.



And, of course there are those occasional cases where someone bucks the norm only to be proved correct eventually. I imagine a lot of CTers envision themselves being vindicated one day.



Except, in this case, we have nothing to gain by being proven "correct". If I'm correct, the world is in deep, deep ****. If not, I've spent a lot of time, energy, and anguish over nothing at all. Yet, none of this counts towards the sincerity of my doubt. We still get called liars, and lots of other names. And now you want to label us crazy and dangerous, abnormal.



The point of this thread was to explore, what makes one just an individualist, or uniquely insightful destined to be eventually vindicated? And, what makes one 'abnormal' with an unfounded belief in a CT, either paranoid or bordering on paranoia?



Who cares? Who are you to judge? Assuming we are all "paranoid", what next? Are paranoid people inherently dangerous? Should we be preemptively locked up for believing such crazy things?



I suggest the difference is whether one's beliefs are supported by the evidence, even if remotely, and whether one's beliefs are too far fetched and therefore unrealistic. And sometimes it is a matter of whether one's rogue scientific conclusions or hypotheses have been thoroughly examined to the point the result isn't going to change.



I suggest you can't get it through your head that we lack faith in the veracity of the evidence, and those in custody of it. Can you read that a few times and verify that you actually understand what it means?

[Skeptic Ginger]

On what basis do you derive this continuum of suspicion and paranoia? Is it not possible for people to be more or less suspicious than you based on something other than paranoia? More or less suspicious than me, absolutely. Do you agree there is a point where one can be so suspicious that it is obviously pathological paranoia?

Believing a group of people would go along with planting bombs in the Towers, none of them blow the whistle, not get caught, control the information, and so on is NOT POSSIBLE. It's pretty obvious to me and the 911 debunkers that such a belief is indeed beyond normal and crosses over into an abnormal assessment of reality.


Are you really just fishing for an excuse to label us all as unstable and dangerous, as other posters on this forum have done? That's one way of avoiding the arguments, whether or not it has anything to do with the truth. Isn't it enough to be "wrong" and live with ridicule? What exactly is it you fear from 9/11 truthers? Isn't it past the time of just ignoring us? Live and let live?I don't fear you at all and I don't see any obvious reason to think 911 CTers are dangerous.

Do you feel persecuted? ;)

I'm trying to understand how it is that individuals have such different realities.

It sounds like you're a control freak who wants to be in the business of handing out mental diagnoses like candy, especially to people who disagree with you on subjects where you're obviously 100% correct.I can see why this discussion might offend you. But that is not my intent. I don't, however, see any way to have this discussion and not offend some people.


Except, in this case, we have nothing to gain by being proven "correct". If I'm correct, the world is in deep, deep ****. If not, I've spent a lot of time, energy, and anguish over nothing at all. Yet, none of this counts towards the sincerity of my doubt. We still get called liars, and lots of other names. And now you want to label us crazy and dangerous, abnormal. Sounds pretty paranoid since I've not said anything about being dangerous. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume other people have said this to you?


Who cares? Who are you to judge? Assuming we are all "paranoid", what next? Are paranoid people inherently dangerous? Should we be preemptively locked up for believing such crazy things?Can you see, though, that the line on that continuum exists? If a person were hallucinating, for example, and you could see that was the case, you would know they were afraid of something that wasn't real and yet the person hallucinating would not know that and likely wouldn't believe you if you said they were hallucinating.

I suggest you can't get it through your head that we lack faith in the veracity of the evidence, and those in custody of it. Can you read that a few times and verify that you actually understand what it means?I am well aware of where you and the other 911 CTers are distorting your reality. Just like the example I noted about the hallucinations. But it isn't hallucinations that is the problem here. It is envisioning a TV or movie scenario where a group of people are so sophisticated they could actually carry something like the 911 CT version out. That just isn't possible in the real world.

How many people would it take? How would none of these conspirators not blow the whistle? How could they so carefully control the information and yet the CTers have it figured out while hundreds of engineering experts are duped? And so on. I'm sure you've heard this argument many times and you likely just discount it. But for those of us looking at the 911 events more rationally, we recognize the TV version of a secret Cabal is just that, a TV version and not consistent with the real world.

[Tippit]

More or less suspicious than me, absolutely. Do you agree there is a point where one can be so suspicious that it is obviously pathological paranoia?

Believing a group of people would go along with planting bombs in the Towers, none of them blow the whistle, not get caught, control the information, and so on is NOT POSSIBLE. It's pretty obvious to me and the 911 debunkers that such a belief is indeed beyond normal and crosses over into an abnormal assessment of reality.



Wonderful. Not only are you the arbiter of sanity, but also that which is possible, and impossible! I didn't realize I was in the midst of such spectacular greatness, an expert in probability. So tell me, are all of those examples independently impossible, or just in combination? Consider that anyone "blowing the whistle" to someone like you would be laughed at and dismissed.



I don't fear you at all and I don't see any obvious reason to think 911 CTers are dangerous.

Do you feel persecuted? ;)



Only on this forum, where I'm crazy, stupid, and associated with everything that is awful in the world from bigotry to holocaust denial because I have my doubts about 9/11.



I'm trying to understand how it is that individuals have such different realities.



It's called life. Since "objective reality" is an elusive concept, we have to work with this thing called inter-subjective reality. Sometimes it's a drag, and it can interrupt precious time deciding exactly what is and isn't possible.



I can see why this discussion might offend you. But that is not my intent. I don't, however, see any way to have this discussion and not offend some people.



I'm not offended, because I know myself, and I know that you hardly know anything about me, so any of your opinions aren't based on "reality".



Sounds pretty paranoid since I've not said anything about being dangerous. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume other people have said this to you?



I take it you haven't seen the threads on this forum where truthers are associated with psychopathic killers.



Can you see, though, that the line on that continuum exists? If a person were hallucinating, for example, and you could see that was the case, you would know they were afraid of something that wasn't real and yet the person hallucinating would not know that and likely wouldn't believe you if you said they were hallucinating.

I am well aware of where you and the other 911 CTers are distorting your reality. Just like the example I noted about the hallucinations. But it isn't hallucinations that is the problem here. It is envisioning a TV or movie scenario where a group of people are so sophisticated they could actually carry something like the 911 CT version out. That just isn't possible in the real world.



So truthers are suffering from a collective hallucination. Imagine that, not only are we paranoid, but we suffer from schizophrenia-like symptoms too!



How many people would it take? How would none of these conspirators not blow the whistle? How could they so carefully control the information and yet the CTers have it figured out while hundreds of engineering experts are duped? And so on. I'm sure you've heard this argument many times and you likely just discount it. But for those of us looking at the 911 events more rationally, we recognize the TV version of a secret Cabal is just that, a TV version and not consistent with the real world.

I already gave you an example where one wealthy western person contracts with OBL and his band of terrorists to do 9/11, and you all but ignored it. One additional person, and the entire scope and meaning of the conspiracy is changed. As far as whistle-blowing, if everyone shared your concept of possibility, then they wouldn't be taken very seriously. Not to mention that anyone powerful enough to do 9/11 would probably be capable of credible threats of death should they snitch. As far as controlling the information, you need only control the followup investigation, and the media will do the rest. Since we knew somehow almost immediately that Bin Laden was responsible, and since everyone saw those planes impact the towers, how many different possibilities do you think the FBI were enumerating when they were sifting through the rubble? After all, everything always happens as it seems. If two planes hit two buildings and they both collapse, the cause is obvious, right?

[MervinFerd]

Are you really just fishing for an excuse to label us all as unstable and dangerous, as other posters on this forum have done? That's one way of avoiding the arguments, whether or not it has anything to do with the truth. Isn't it enough to be "wrong" and live with ridicule? What exactly is it you fear from 9/11 truthers? Isn't it past the time of just ignoring us? Live and let live?

See, Tippitt, I've been arguing that Truthers are narcissistic jerks, but not paranoid.

Hope that make you feel better.

[Clare Swinney]

Skeptigirl wrote Not that I think you have any symptoms of schizophrenia, Tippit. I don't think CTers are necessarily pathological in their paranoia.

Do you have qualifications in the mental health area skeptigirl?

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Do you have qualifications in the mental health area skeptigirl?


Hmm... Are you suggesting that skeptigirl's possible lack of medical qualifications has led her to misdiagnose Tippit as not schizophrenic, when you believe he may in fact be schizophrenic?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Skeptigirl wrote

Do you have qualifications in the mental health area skeptigirl?Yes, I do. I am licensed to diagnose mental illness though I do not practice in this area of medicine.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

I'm under the impression that the government, big banks, and big corporations the jews are composed of a bunch of liars and crooks, and that the evidence is not clear enough and the problem not simple enough for honest scientists and engineers to solve.

Same pattern of thinking, just putting the right label on it.

[Mr.D]

and that the evidence is not clear enough and the problem not simple enough for honest scientists and engineers to solve.

But it is clear enough for theology professors and film school rejects? It's so simple that the less science education you have, the easier it is to solve?

It's self-contradictory positions like these that earn so many diehard truthers labels like "crackpot," "kook" and "batcrap insane."

[Mr.D]

Better idea.

Tippit,

Are there any members of the so-called "truth movement" that you are willing to label (in the layperson's sense of the words, not a medical diagnosis) as delusional, paranoid or just plain crazy?

CIT? They cite that the fact that all their witnesses reported seeing the plane impact the Pentagon as proof of their decoy thesis! Does that not strike you as having delusional thinking?

ChristopherA, who claims to have seen a documentary on the construction of the WTC towers, and that all evidence for said documentary has been systematically destroyed! (including old TV schedules and tape libraries of every TV station that aired it) Is that not evidence enough for you for paranoia (again, the layperson's definition)

How about MaGZ? Ace Baker? Judy Wood?

[Clare Swinney]

Yes, I do. I am licensed to diagnose mental illness though I do not practice in this area of medicine.

That is good. I would like your opinion about my case then. I work as a journalist in a dangerous area - people are threatened often. I have a letter from a researcher and a magazine editor who state that and these are posted on my website. Google: "Web of Evidence Clare Swinney." They are on the page entitled: "Held In A Psychiatric Ward And Called "Delusional" Because I Said 9/11 Was An Inside Job."

In 2006 I complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) in New Zealand about the channel TVNZ's false claims about Osama bin Laden being blamed for 9/11 during a news program. The BSA claimed there was substantial evidence to show bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, even though the FBI stated they have no evidence to connect him to 9/11 and the official story had more holes in it than Swiss cheese by that stage. Thus, the BSA was obviously lying. Interestingly, they declined to determine my complaint. (If you Google my name "Clare Swinney" and "TVNZ", you can find the document to validate that this claim is grounded in reality.)
I persisted in complaining to the BSA and was in contact with activists about staging a protest. Not long afterwards I began to receive threatening e-mail messages, (which I have copies of) and messages from a someone on a social networking site that used a picture of a man holding a shot gun. I have a copy of that too. These are posted on the Internet to enable people to examine the hard evidence for themselves.
A few days after receiving the first threatening message I went into town, and while I waited at traffic lights a man dressed in black came right up behind me - in my space. There was no reason for him to have done so unless he wanted to intimidate me, as there weren't many people around. As we walked across the crossing, I got behind him and when we got to the other side of the crossing, he looked back to see if I was watching him and then began opening and closing his right hand, in a menacing manner. He did it four times and as I was mindful of the threatening messages over the Internet, I took this as a related threat. I told the police superintendent who was standing nearby that I believed my life was being threatened by the SIS because of work I was doing in relation to 9/11. He said he believed me. These details have been published in a magazine called Uncensored and they have not been contested.

I have been advised by a man in England who is a researcher, that he has heard of the techniques that were used upon me, e-mail threats and an encounter with someone who looks as if he is in the secret service, being used often to try and silence people in the anti-war and 9/11 truth movement. You can view his letter on my website also.

Shortly afterwards I was diagnosed as "delusional." However, I received an apology from the hospital in relation to this diagnosis in 2008 and this can be viewed on the Internet. There is a link to the apology on my website.

Could you please tell me skeptigirl, as you are qualified to judge, am I "paranoid schizophrenic"? If you believe so please provide the evidence for your claim. I am interested to learn from the "experts."

[sleahead]

I trust honest engineers and scientists to make reasonable conclusions about the evidence they have been presented with which can be independently verified and for which the chain of custody does not begin with the US government or the consolidated mainstream media.


So how come you believe there were no WMDs in Iraq? Because the government told you? Because the mainstream media told you? I'm almost tempted to use the word 'sheeple' here.

[dudalb]

That is good. I would like your opinion about my case then. I work as a journalist in a dangerous area - people are threatened often. I have a letter from a researcher and a magazine editor who state that and these are posted on my website. Google: "Web of Evidence Clare Swinney." They are on the page entitled: "Held In A Psychiatric Ward And Called "Delusional" Because I Said 9/11 Was An Inside Job."

In 2006 I complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) in New Zealand about the channel TVNZ's false claims about Osama bin Laden being blamed for 9/11 during a news program. The BSA claimed there was substantial evidence to show bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, even though the FBI stated they have no evidence to connect him to 9/11 and the official story had more holes in it than Swiss cheese by that stage. Thus, the BSA was obviously lying. Interestingly, they declined to determine my complaint. (If you Google my name "Clare Swinney" and "TVNZ", you can find the document to validate that this claim is grounded in reality.)
I persisted in complaining to the BSA and was in contact with activists about staging a protest. Not long afterwards I began to receive threatening e-mail messages, (which I have copies of) and messages from a someone on a social networking site that used a picture of a man holding a shot gun. I have a copy of that too. These are posted on the Internet to enable people to examine the hard evidence for themselves.
A few days after receiving the first threatening message I went into town, and while I waited at traffic lights a man dressed in black came right up behind me - in my space. There was no reason for him to have done so unless he wanted to intimidate me, as there weren't many people around. As we walked across the crossing, I got behind him and when we got to the other side of the crossing, he looked back to see if I was watching him and then began opening and closing his right hand, in a menacing manner. He did it four times and as I was mindful of the threatening messages over the Internet, I took this as a related threat. I told the police superintendent who was standing nearby that I believed my life was being threatened by the SIS because of work I was doing in relation to 9/11. He said he believed me. These details have been published in a magazine called Uncensored and they have not been contested.

I have been advised by a man in England who is a researcher, that he has heard of the techniques that were used upon me, e-mail threats and an encounter with someone who looks as if he is in the secret service, being used often to try and silence people in the anti-war and 9/11 truth movement. You can view his letter on my website also.

Shortly afterwards I was diagnosed as "delusional." However, I received an apology from the hospital in relation to this diagnosis in 2008 and this can be viewed on the Internet. There is a link to the apology on my website.

Could you please tell me skeptigirl, as you are qualified to judge, am I "paranoid schizophrenic"? If you believe so please provide the evidence for your claim. I am interested to learn from the "experts."



Sad,just plain sad.

[Björn Toulouse]

......The BSA claimed there was substantial evidence to show bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, even though the FBI stated they have no evidence to connect him to 9/11.....


Did they say that as you have quoted or did they use the term "hard evidence"? Do you understand the difference?

[Orphia Nay]

That is good. I would like your opinion about my case then. I work as a journalist in a dangerous area - people are threatened often. I have a letter from a researcher and a magazine editor who state that and these are posted on my website. Google: "Web of Evidence Clare Swinney." They are on the page entitled: "Held In A Psychiatric Ward And Called "Delusional" Because I Said 9/11 Was An Inside Job."

Welcome to the forum, Clare. Here is your link:
http://clareswinney.wordpress.com/incarcerated-in-a-psychiatric-ward-because-i-said-911-was-an-inside-job/

I persisted in complaining to the BSA and was in contact with activists about staging a protest. Not long afterwards I began to receive threatening e-mail messages, (which I have copies of) and messages from a someone on a social networking site that used a picture of a man holding a shot gun. I have a copy of that too. These are posted on the Internet to enable people to examine the hard evidence for themselves.

Could you tell us where to find these messages? Just leave the http://www. off the link until you have made 15 posts.


A few days after receiving the first threatening message I went into town, and while I waited at traffic lights a man dressed in black came right up behind me - in my space. There was no reason for him to have done so unless he wanted to intimidate me, as there weren't many people around. As we walked across the crossing, I got behind him and when we got to the other side of the crossing, he looked back to see if I was watching him and then began opening and closing his right hand, in a menacing manner. He did it four times and as I was mindful of the threatening messages over the Internet, I took this as a related threat. I told the police superintendent who was standing nearby that I believed my life was being threatened by the SIS because of work I was doing in relation to 9/11. He said he believed me. These details have been published in a magazine called Uncensored and they have not been contested.


Just because you felt threatened doesn't mean you were being threatened. Doesn't the saying go, "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity"? Did it occur to you that the man just had no sense of personal space and had a sore hand?

[Skeptic Ginger]

That is good. I would like your opinion about my case then. I work as a journalist in a dangerous area - people are threatened often. I have a letter from a researcher and a magazine editor who state that and these are posted on my website. Google: "Web of Evidence Clare Swinney." They are on the page entitled: "Held In A Psychiatric Ward And Called "Delusional" Because I Said 9/11 Was An Inside Job."

In 2006 I complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) in New Zealand about the channel TVNZ's false claims about Osama bin Laden being blamed for 9/11 during a news program. The BSA claimed there was substantial evidence to show bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, even though the FBI stated they have no evidence to connect him to 9/11 and the official story had more holes in it than Swiss cheese by that stage. Thus, the BSA was obviously lying. Interestingly, they declined to determine my complaint. (If you Google my name "Clare Swinney" and "TVNZ", you can find the document to validate that this claim is grounded in reality.)
I persisted in complaining to the BSA and was in contact with activists about staging a protest. Not long afterwards I began to receive threatening e-mail messages, (which I have copies of) and messages from a someone on a social networking site that used a picture of a man holding a shot gun. I have a copy of that too. These are posted on the Internet to enable people to examine the hard evidence for themselves.
A few days after receiving the first threatening message I went into town, and while I waited at traffic lights a man dressed in black came right up behind me - in my space. There was no reason for him to have done so unless he wanted to intimidate me, as there weren't many people around. As we walked across the crossing, I got behind him and when we got to the other side of the crossing, he looked back to see if I was watching him and then began opening and closing his right hand, in a menacing manner. He did it four times and as I was mindful of the threatening messages over the Internet, I took this as a related threat. I told the police superintendent who was standing nearby that I believed my life was being threatened by the SIS because of work I was doing in relation to 9/11. He said he believed me. These details have been published in a magazine called Uncensored and they have not been contested.

I have been advised by a man in England who is a researcher, that he has heard of the techniques that were used upon me, e-mail threats and an encounter with someone who looks as if he is in the secret service, being used often to try and silence people in the anti-war and 9/11 truth movement. You can view his letter on my website also.

Shortly afterwards I was diagnosed as "delusional." However, I received an apology from the hospital in relation to this diagnosis in 2008 and this can be viewed on the Internet. There is a link to the apology on my website.

Could you please tell me skeptigirl, as you are qualified to judge, am I "paranoid schizophrenic"? If you believe so please provide the evidence for your claim. I am interested to learn from the "experts."If this is an honest post, (as opposed to a troll post), I'd have to say your description is more likely than not, delusional paranoia rather than a realistic assessment of the events.

There is no reason you would pose a threat to anyone, even if 911 were an inside job. There are plenty of people who are convinced 911 is an inside job. No one is after them. Not enough people take them seriously. What unique reason would you in all the thousands of 'truthers' need and get special attention?


As for paranoid schizophrenia, that is not possible to diagnose from posts in a forum. One would need a much more thorough evaluation to make that diagnosis.

[Skeptic Ginger]

So how come you believe there were no WMDs in Iraq? Because the government told you? Because the mainstream media told you? I'm almost tempted to use the word 'sheeple' here.I don't know about Tippit's reasons but for me, it's because there is an overwhelming amount of evidence from a variety of sources that supports the conclusion there was no imminent threat from Saddam and he did not possess any WMDs that posed a threat to the US or a threat which required the US to invade Iraq.

[Slayhamlet]

That is good. I would like your opinion about my case then. I work as a journalist in a dangerous area - people are threatened often. I have a letter from a researcher and a magazine editor who state that and these are posted on my website. Google: "Web of Evidence Clare Swinney." They are on the page entitled: "Held In A Psychiatric Ward And Called "Delusional" Because I Said 9/11 Was An Inside Job."

In 2006 I complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) in New Zealand about the channel TVNZ's false claims about Osama bin Laden being blamed for 9/11 during a news program. The BSA claimed there was substantial evidence to show bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, even though the FBI stated they have no evidence to connect him to 9/11 and the official story had more holes in it than Swiss cheese by that stage. Thus, the BSA was obviously lying. Interestingly, they declined to determine my complaint. (If you Google my name "Clare Swinney" and "TVNZ", you can find the document to validate that this claim is grounded in reality.)
I persisted in complaining to the BSA and was in contact with activists about staging a protest. Not long afterwards I began to receive threatening e-mail messages, (which I have copies of) and messages from a someone on a social networking site that used a picture of a man holding a shot gun. I have a copy of that too. These are posted on the Internet to enable people to examine the hard evidence for themselves.
A few days after receiving the first threatening message I went into town, and while I waited at traffic lights a man dressed in black came right up behind me - in my space. There was no reason for him to have done so unless he wanted to intimidate me, as there weren't many people around. As we walked across the crossing, I got behind him and when we got to the other side of the crossing, he looked back to see if I was watching him and then began opening and closing his right hand, in a menacing manner. He did it four times and as I was mindful of the threatening messages over the Internet, I took this as a related threat. I told the police superintendent who was standing nearby that I believed my life was being threatened by the SIS because of work I was doing in relation to 9/11. He said he believed me. These details have been published in a magazine called Uncensored and they have not been contested.

I have been advised by a man in England who is a researcher, that he has heard of the techniques that were used upon me, e-mail threats and an encounter with someone who looks as if he is in the secret service, being used often to try and silence people in the anti-war and 9/11 truth movement. You can view his letter on my website also.

Shortly afterwards I was diagnosed as "delusional." However, I received an apology from the hospital in relation to this diagnosis in 2008 and this can be viewed on the Internet. There is a link to the apology on my website.

Could you please tell me skeptigirl, as you are qualified to judge, am I "paranoid schizophrenic"? If you believe so please provide the evidence for your claim. I am interested to learn from the "experts."

I searched your blog and could not find where you have posted the evidence for the threatening emails or for any of the messages or the username or picture of the person you said contacted you on a social networking site, nor even the name of that site. I saw the "apology" from the clinical director of the psychiatric ward, but it was only for any distress caused by your involuntary commitment to the ward. Nowhere is it admitted that you had been misdiagnosed.

And as for the incident with the man you thought was stalking you, I'm not sure what you mean by claiming it has not been contested. By whom do you mean? Was it not contested by Dr. Zubaran and others? Was not this story and other such potential indicators of a delusional disorder the reason for your commitment to the ward? As it appears to be based on nothing more than your own questionable interpretation of the event, I will say right now that I contest it, as does apparently skeptigirl. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if you can present some more substantive evidence that you were indeed being stalked, and that the Internet threats were of a serious nature and connected with the incident. I have myself been threatened before on the Internet. It comes with the territory, unfortunately. Extreme political disagreements are an especially contentious area, and some people are just hot-heads. This doesn't just happen to people with anti-government positions. Mark Roberts has been threatened numerous times by Truthers, believe it or not, including prominent ones like Kevin "hang 'em high" Barrett and insane ex-pilot Rob Balsamo of Pilots for 9/11 Truth.

You also said nothing about what precipitated your involuntary commitment to the psychiatric ward. How did that come about? Why was there a judge involved in the first place? Had you had a prior history of mental illness? I'm not at all convinced that you were being kept at the ward for nothing more than your political beliefs (i.e. belief in "9/11 truth" and other conspiracy theories), and your suggesting such seems to me rather disingenuous.

I will not, however, make any judgment as to the legality or correctness of your involuntary commitment to the psychiatric ward. I am not in a position to do so, nor am I very familiar with the laws of New Zealand in regard to the involuntary commitment of mental patients. In my state (I'm from the evil, fascist U.S.) it must be shown to the satisfaction of a judge that a person (provided they're not a minor) is a serious danger to themselves or others before involuntary commitment is considered an option. That seems a reasonable standard to me. If the law is different in New Zealand and you were not in fact judged to be such a danger, then it is my personal opinion that you were wronged and New Zealand law is unjust in this respect.

[Orphia Nay]

You also said nothing about what precipitated your involuntary commitment to the psychiatric ward. How did that come about? Why was there a judge involved in the first place? Had you had a prior history of mental illness? I'm not at all convinced that you were being kept at the ward for nothing more than your political beliefs (i.e. belief in "9/11 truth" and other conspiracy theories), and your suggesting such seems to me rather disingenuous.

Slayhamlet, I distinctly remember reading a month or two ago about Clare Swinney (in conjunction with reading the blog post posted earlier), and I recall that she was initially committed because a family member believed Clare was suicidal.

That is a separate issue to being "committed because of political beliefs", and a serious, justifiable reason for being committed.

[Orphia Nay]

Just checking my facts, and it's actually in Clare's blog post (http://clareswinney.wordpress.com/incarcerated-in-a-psychiatric-ward-because-i-said-911-was-an-inside-job/) that I read that:

"On the morning of June the 6th 2006, two social workers came to the door and advised that they’d come to take me to the public hospital’s psychiatric facility, as they’d heard I might be suicidal. Although I ventured to enlighten them I wasn’t, they didn’t listen as their unit had received a phone call from an ill-informed family member who’d said I might be on the verge of killing myself."

[Cuddles]

As already noted, this thread is not about Skeptigirl. Since the personal discussions have continued, I've dumped the whole lot to AAH along with replies. Please post on topic to the thread and don't bring personal issues into it.

[gtc]

Clare,

It is not possible to diagnose mental illnesses [including either delusional paranoia or paranoid schizophrenia] over the internet. If you have concerns about your mental health then you should visit a properly qualified professional.

[Brainster]

Just checking my facts, and it's actually in Clare's blog post (http://clareswinney.wordpress.com/incarcerated-in-a-psychiatric-ward-because-i-said-911-was-an-inside-job/) that I read that:

"On the morning of June the 6th 2006, two social workers came to the door and advised that they’d come to take me to the public hospital’s psychiatric facility, as they’d heard I might be suicidal. Although I ventured to enlighten them I wasn’t, they didn’t listen as their unit had received a phone call from an ill-informed family member who’d said I might be on the verge of killing myself."

And here's how that family member became so ill-informed:

Subsequent to the encounter with the man dressed in black, I had a discussion with a family member about hypothetical scenarios and my very real fears, to the point at which I said that if it were between a man with a gun and tablets, I would prefer the latter. This was not about being suicidal, it was about preferring a non-violent death to a violent one.

I can't imagine how anybody could construe that as talk of suicide.

:rolleyes:

[Eos of the Eons]

My mom is schizophrenic and has her own personal delusions. She doesn't rant on about current CTs that other people latch onto. My brother, on the other hand, has an IQ of 80 and latches onto every CT out there. He also falls for many scams. He totally lacks any critical thinking, while my mom has a ton of it and is very smart, yet paranoid. I think if you have a schizophrenic that has a lower than average IQ, It would be truly interesting, but many people who buy into CTs have any kind of IQ. I just find my brother to be especially gullible, while my mom isn't. My mom will get vaccines, but somehow didn't bother with them when her kids were babies (I got measles and my younger normal IQd brother got mumps and whooping cough). I think she was just lazy, as she has no problems with vaccines, and as she gets older she gets the flu vaccine.

My mom is mostly paranoid of people she knows or thinks she knows. Everyone is out to get HER and cause her some kind of personal grief in various ways. If people are schizophrenic, they will talk about elaborate plots in which they are involved as well.

A personal involved in CTs usually latch onto ones they discover elsewhere rather than in their own head, and aren't being personally "picked on" in the extent that a schizophrenia will claim.

CT head cases will think people need to know things. When he visited me after the birth of my second son he tried to tell all the nurses that milk was the root of all our ills, they needed to know that! While my mom would be looking out for people who would be wanting to harm her instead, and probably only be telling me about it since the nurses would be in on it, and she wouldn't want them to know that she was "on to them".

I hope this makes some sense to clarify what I feel is the difference between someone into CTs and someone who is truly schizophrenic.