For the titular article, see my below post, published under a jovial nom de plume:
"Michael Rozeff's Lethal Naïveté on Conspiracy," Sir Nigel Edmond III, February 24, 2009 http://anti-state.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=21829
"Jesus Is an Anarchist," June 1, 2006 http://praxeology.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf
Theophysics http://geocities.com/theophysics/
tl:dr
Rozeff is wrong. But the Misesians and Rockwellians and even Paulians to some degree have to avoid the third rail of conspiracy in order to look legit. I'm fine with that, but Rozeff is a little off base by denouncing it. After all, how can he know about a conspiracy he doesn't know about? In other words, he's trying to prove a negative.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
liberty student:tl:dr Rozeff is wrong. But the Misesians and Rockwellians and even Paulians to some degree have to avoid the third rail of conspiracy in order to look legit. I'm fine with that, but Rozeff is a little off base by denouncing it. After all, how can he know about a conspiracy he doesn't know about? In other words, he's trying to prove a negative.
Actually, it can be easy to prove a negative. If someone says that X *didn't* occur (i.e., a negative) at event Y, then look at event Y and see if it occured. For example, if someone says that during a particular Michael Jackson concert, Mr. Jackson *didn't* do the moonwalk on stage, then look at the uninterrupted video of the concert (such that there is no cuts, and no point when the camera wasn't on Jackson when he was on stage), and if one sees no moonwalk--and further, if no one in the audience reports seeing him moonwalk--then that's proof that Jackson, in fact, didn't moonwalk at said time.
The canard that "one can't prove a negative" appears to be a confused way of saying that one can't verify unverifiable assertions, as one certainly can prove negatives.
At any rate, the most prolific promulgators of conspiracy theories are governments, with the U.S. government leading the pack. Since obviously more than one person was involved in planning the 9/11 attacks, then by definition the U.S. government's mendacious, self-serving, anti-historical, anti-physical law, anti-factual and provably false official fairy tale is a conspiracy theory, as the U.S. government is putting forth a theory concerning the 9/11 attacks which involves a conspiracy.
Furthermore, conspiracies are ubiquitous (witness all the laws on the books against conspiracy, and how many people are routinely charged under said laws), and the most egregious perpetrators of murderously brutal conspiracies are governments upon their own innocent citizens. More than six times the amount of noncombatants have been systematically murdered for purely ideological reasons by their own governments within the past century than were killed in that same time-span from wars. From 1900 to 1923, various Turkish regimes murdered from 3.5 million to over 4.3 million of its own Armenians, Greeks, Nestorians, and other Christians. The Soviet government murdered over 61 million of its own noncombatant subjects. The communist Chinese government murdered over 76 million of it own subjects. The National Socialist German government murdered some 16 million of it own subjects. And that's only a sampling of governments mass-murdering their own noncombatant subjects within the past century. (The preceding figures are from Prof. Rudolph Joseph Rummel's University of Hawaii website.)
All totaled, neither the private-sector crime which government is largely responsible for promoting and causing or even the wars committed by governments upon the subjects of other governments come anywhere close to the crimes government is directly responsible for committing against its own citizens--certainly not in amount of numbers. Without a doubt, the most dangerous presence to ever exist throughout history has always been the people's very own government. (This is also historically true for the U.S. govermment, as no group has killed more U.S. citizens than the U.S. government. Viz., the Civil War; etc.)
Not only were all of these government mass-slaughters conspiracies--massive conspiracies, at that--but they were conspiracies of which the 9/11 attacks are quite piddling by comparison.
Moreover, terrorism is the health of the state (indeed, government is itself a logical subset of terrorism, since it uses initiatory violence and the threat thereof in order to maintain its existence and achieve its political agenda; and the word terrorism originally referred exclusively to government actions: i.e., the Reign of Terror in France against critics of the state, which was done according to the law--and later on the word terrorism was used to refer to other governments), which is why so many governments throughout history have manufactured duplicitous terrorism in which to serve as a pretext in order to usurp ever more power and control.
liberty student:tl:dr
James Redford: liberty student: tl:dr tl:dr
liberty student: tl:dr
Know your audience. The key to communicating is informing people in a manner they can understand, on a topic they find interesting (or you can help them find interest in).
Walls of text get read by almost no one. The ability to be concise and develop a conversation is much more valuable than posting massive amounts of research in single chunks.
When you stop talking TO and start talking WITH people, that's when knowledge transfers.
Food for thought.
liberty student: James Redford: liberty student: tl:dr tl:dr Know your audience. The key to communicating is informing people in a manner they can understand, on a topic they find interesting (or you can help them find interest in). Walls of text get read by almost no one. The ability to be concise and develop a conversation is much more valuable than posting massive amounts of research in single chunks. When you stop talking TO and start talking WITH people, that's when knowledge transfers. Food for thought.
James Redford: If one finds, as you stated in regards to yourself, seven paragraphs too long to read, then I can't help them.
If I read every 7 paragraphs everyone posted online, I would starve to death. The onus is on you to give people a compelling reason to read your seven paragraphs, not to expect someone to read them. In a market, merit is not determined by compulsion.
Being concise is important. Writing what your audience wants to read is important.
tl;dr is feedback. It means, shorten this up, and I might read it. Take the signals the market sends and refine your offering if success matters to you (I assume it does).
liberty student: James Redford: If one finds, as you stated in regards to yourself, seven paragraphs too long to read, then I can't help them. If I read every 7 paragraphs everyone posted online, I would starve to death. The onus is on you to give people a compelling reason to read your seven paragraphs, not to expect someone to read them. In a market, merit is not determined by compulsion. Being concise is important. Writing what your audience wants to read is important. tl;dr is feedback. It means, shorten this up, and I might read it. Take the signals the market sends and refine your offering if success matters to you (I assume it does).
The "signal" one recieves from the erudition by the writer ought to be motivation enough to read on. If I have to raise people up from babes in seven paragraphs, then I cannot do it.
But, further, your criteria is false, for the aforesaid reason.
James Redford:one recieves from the erudition by the writer ought to be motivation enough to read on
Ah yes. The labour theory of value. You are entitled for people to read you.
Cruel, cruel world!
liberty student: James Redford:one recieves from the erudition by the writer ought to be motivation enough to read on Ah yes. The labour theory of value. You are entitled for people to read you. Cruel, cruel world!
Not so. I was born a genius. My erudition shines through with little effort by me.
Of course, my point was that a writer's erudition (appart from what labor might have been expended) ought to send a signal as to whether one should read on. As I said, if I have to raise people up from babes in seven paragraphs, then I cannot do it.
As I further said, your stated criteria is false, for the aforesaid reason.
James Redford:Not so. I was born a genius. My erudition shines through with little effort by me.
Well, it is obvious that you are full of win.
James Redford:Of course, my point was that a writer's erudition (appart from what labor might have been expended) ought to send a signal as to whether one should read on.
Not if there is no market for the subject matter.
James Redford:As I said, if I have to raise people up from babes in seven paragraphs, then I cannot do it.
Looks like genius has it's limitations. Cruel, cruel world.
liberty student: James Redford:Not so. I was born a genius. My erudition shines through with little effort by me. Well, it is obvious that you are full of win. James Redford:Of course, my point was that a writer's erudition (appart from what labor might have been expended) ought to send a signal as to whether one should read on. Not if there is no market for the subject matter. James Redford:As I said, if I have to raise people up from babes in seven paragraphs, then I cannot do it. Looks like genius has it's limitations. Cruel, cruel world.
You are correct that I am "full of win," to use your anti-orthographical idiom.
But I also see that your comments are a waste of time. You're not interested in actually advancing the discussion, or learning something new. Your mind is stuck in some type of American Idol contest. Well, I hope that works out for you.
James Redford: For the titular article, see my below post, published under a jovial nom de plume: "Michael Rozeff's Lethal Naïveté on Conspiracy," Sir Nigel Edmond III, February 24, 2009 http://anti-state.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=21829
I agree with Rozeff [somewhat unusual for me].
There is no need to analyze or expose all of the different conspiracies[ real or imagined] - government is one giant conspiracy.
If you have government you must have "conspiracies"- it is the completely natural result of having an organization in the first place which is both fundamentally corrupt, and fundamentally in denial of human nature [as accounted for by human action theory] and therefor in a state of continual and unavoidable collapse/failure across the board.
As it alway fails and its center continually collapses inward [ like one of those black holes in space?] it must always reinvent itself by expanding outward and seeking more control [e.g. new laws, new faces, new territories, new conspiracies etc. etc.], control which, of course, it never really gets.
The conspiracies you and others see are all just a natural result of having government in the first place- they go with the territory.
Stranger things have happened, but I find it curious that a professed anarchist [yourself] does not appear to see this.
The 9/11 "Conspiracy"
What I find it even more curious [ I mean funny/curious], is that Rozeff, Shaffer and Rockwell et al [including most here]all appear to be in complete denial of the truth about 9/11[ or more accurately have no intellectual curiosity about it] - i.e. of the overwhelming scientific evidence that no planes flew into either WTC 1 or 2, no plane crashed into the Pentagon, and that no plane flew into the ground in Shanksville PA, and that all 4 events were one gigantic media conspiracy/hoax for the short term benefit [of course] of the US government.
All three [and others] have continued to stick their heads in the sand about this issue rather than risk theirs and the Mises Institutes comfortable little intellectual niche on the fringes of academia - what a sick, sad joke!
Rothbard must be rolling in his grave.
Hello From a "Post- Austrian",Anarcho-Capitalist ,Taoist, 911 "No- Planer" :
I have to agree with Liberty Student. Oftentimes, you can shorten your essays considerably by cutting unnecessary examples or anecdotes and reducing them to their very core messages.I also used to post walls of text, but I'm trying to improve. Arguing on YouTube may not always be satisfying intellectually, but it's a good exercise for learning to make it short (if you limit yourself to one comment, that is).
I know I'm prone to ramble on sometimes... No joke. So Redford wants to write a long post. His choice it really doesn't matter. Somebody might come along and read it. So be it. If not, then Redford wrote a long post for himself. The slight quarrel I have is Redford seemed to turn the argument into a you have to read my post, which obviously - no, nobody needs to read a post. I'm sure not all my posts are read, and I've skipped others. And thus is life...
*sigh* a post about a post...lol
"I used to see a mountain as a mountain.. Thereafter.. when I saw a mountain; lo! it was not a mountain.. yet now of final tranquillity: I see a mountain just as a mountain as I used to.." - Master Yuan; molon labe
As a case in point, James Redford, I'll repost your essay in a much more abbreviated, but hopefully equally expressive way:Actually, it can be easy to prove a negative. If someone says that X *didn't* occur (i.e., a negative) at event Y, then look at event Y and see if it occured.At any rate, the most prolific promulgators of conspiracy theories are governments, with the U.S. government leading the pack. Since obviously more than one person was involved in planning the 9/11 attacks, then by definition the U.S. government's mendacious false official fairy tale is a conspiracy theory.Furthermore, conspiracies are ubiquitous (witness all the laws on the books against conspiracy, and how many people are routinely charged under said laws), and the most egregious perpetrators of murderously brutal conspiracies are governments upon their own innocent citizens.Without a doubt, the most dangerous presence to ever exist throughout history has always been the people's very own government. Moreover, terrorism is the health of the state, which is why so many governments throughout history have manufactured duplicitous terrorism in which to serve as a pretext in order to usurp ever more power and control.
onebornfreedotblogspotdotcom:What I find it even more curious [ I mean funny/curious], is that Rozeff, Shaffer and Rockwell et al [including most here]all appear to be in complete denial of the truth about 9/11[ or more accurately have no intellectual curiosity about it]
There is a lot of interest in it. But LRC, Mises org etc are not the avenues to discuss it. Just as Lew doesn't post instructions on how to bake muffins or practice yoga, doesn't mean people on that site (or this one) don't have an interest in baking or exercise.
onebornfreedotblogspotdotcom:All three [and others] have continued to stick their heads in the sand about this issue rather than risk theirs and the Mises Institutes comfortable little intellectual niche on the fringes of academia - what a sick, sad joke!
It's not an issue for them. It is an issue for you. Their issue (and I agree) is keeping an eye on the big prize. Take your own risks, you're in no position to criticize the risks others choose to, or not choose to take for your pet issues.
onebornfreedotblogspotdotcom:Rothbard must be rolling in his grave.
Who cares.
wilderness: I'm sure not all my posts are read, and I've skipped others.
Obviously you were not born a genius!
James Redford: Actually, it can be easy to prove a negative. If someone says that X *didn't* occur (i.e., a negative) at event Y, then look at event Y and see if it occured. For example, if someone says that during a particular Michael Jackson concert, Mr. Jackson *didn't* do the moonwalk on stage, then look at the uninterrupted video of the concert (such that there is no cuts, and no point when the camera wasn't on Jackson when he was on stage), and if one sees no moonwalk--and further, if no one in the audience reports seeing him moonwalk--then that's proof that Jackson, in fact, didn't moonwalk at said time. The canard that "one can't prove a negative" appears to be a confused way of saying that one can't verify unverifiable assertions, as one certainly can prove negatives.
A conspiracy by definition is a secret. A secret is an unknown. Further, the contents of the secret would also be unknown. It is impossible to know the unknown unknowns. Therefore it is an attempt to provide negative proof by Rozeff.
As to your strawman, of course I am talking about the unverifiable as proof. Your Michael Jackson example is not an example of attempting to prove a negative because contradictory proof exists. It is a strawman.
I'm only responding because Sphairon took the time to clean up your text.
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