Greg Carlwood has become a talent scout for conspiracy theories |330|

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Greg Carlwood has become a talent scout for conspiracy theories |330|
by Alex Tsakiris | Oct 18 | Skepticism



Greg Carlwood of The Higherside Chats on the difference between conspiracy data and interpretation.

photo by: Skeptiko
On this episode of Skeptiko, I’m joined by Greg Carlwood to talk about his podcast, The Higherside Chats:

Greg Carlwood:…I consider myself a conspiracy talent scout. I scout out the researchers and I’m like, “This guy, he makes a good case for his position,” let’s have them do their thing and help walk them through their own research, because it’s often very dense… it takes a lot of framing to be like, “This is where we’re going to go today. We’re getting off on this level of the elevator today.”

… one aspect that’s important to me is separating data from interpretation. I know you talk about a lot of data here; that line is something Gordon [White] has just drilled into my head… when you’re listening to a guy talk for two hours about [his] research, you have to be able to say, “Where was the research and where was the spin you put on it?” Because you can look at the same data and come to different conclusions, so it is important to separate data from conclusion.
 
Alex's questions at the end of the podcast:

Does a conspiratorial world view do more harm than good? To Alex, that everything is a conspiracy is a given, but how far into conspiracy should we go -- what are the pros and cons of adopting a conspiratorial world view? Maybe it's better to look the other way?
 
Does a conspiratorial world view do more harm than good? To Alex, that everything is a conspiracy is a given, but how far into conspiracy should we go -- what are the pros and cons of adopting a conspiratorial world view? Maybe it's better to look the other way?

I've been to THC and listened to a couple of episodes on EU theory and Judy Wood's analysis of the collapse of the two towers. I've also watched a few videos on her idea that the towers were "dustified", and must admit that for the first time, I've been persuaded that 9/11 was likely the result of some kind of covert operation and not due to some kind of explosion(s). It seems plain as day that "dustification" explains things better; I mean, you can actually see how large chunks of the towers turned into dust during their descent.

As she says, when you don't know what's going on, you rely on known phenomena such as explosives and don't even think about stuff turning to dust. But it's just so obvious when it's pointed out, as are numerous other observations such as why we don't see large amounts of debris, why the weight of two 110-story buildings didn't seem to produce much of a seismic effect, and why it didn't affect the underground water systems, which one would have expected if tons and tons of debris had plunged to the ground.

The questions about who did it and why are still a mystery, of course. As is the speculation that it's evidence for free directed energy which could be used for good purposes if the perpetrators wanted it to. But still, this is one conspiracy theory I've become more ready to accept.
 
A few things that stood out to me, from the very end of the interview:

Greg mentioned that outliers will occasionally break through and escape the trap, so to speak, and the elites allow it because it doesn't threaten the system if only a few people get out. I tend to take that a step further and say that having those outliers get through actually strengthens the system, because it gives the elites a chance to point at them and say "See? These people made it! Clearly there's nothing wrong with the system, because if there was, no one would ever make it!" So, you use that to convince people that there's nothing going on behind the scenes, and they stop looking for it and dismiss anyone who says there's anything going on.

This might seem extreme to others here, but I can't help but wonder how suicide might factor into all of this. Toward the end, Greg said that you can acknowledge how bad and difficult things are, but that doesn't mean you should stop fighting the uphill battle. Well, what if someone decides that the best way for them is to simply egress? I mean, if we're looking at it from a big-picture, spiritual standpoint, I don't see how committing suicide to leave this world is much different from moving out of a bad neighborhood or ending a bad marriage. And yet I see a lot of condemnation for suicide, even among a lot of people in spiritual communities. Lots of talk about how it's the biggest mistake you can make, how you'll be sent back to live through all the same problems until you "get it right", and so on. One of the things Alex and Greg discussed is that every group and movement can and has been infiltrated. If that's the case, I have to wonder if some elements of spiritual community may have been infiltrated as well, to spread propaganda against a legitimate and highly effective tool of resistance.

I guess I'm really getting into the conspiracy spirit today.
 
Does a conspiratorial world view do more harm than good? To Alex, that everything is a conspiracy is a given, but how far into conspiracy should we go -- what are the pros and cons of adopting a conspiratorial world view? Maybe it's better to look the other way?

I've been to THC and listened to a couple of episodes on EU theory and Judy Wood's analysis of the collapse of the two towers. I've also watched a few videos on her idea that the towers were "dustified", and must admit that for the first time, I've been persuaded that 9/11 was likely the result of some kind of covert operation and not due to some kind of explosion(s). It seems plain as day that "dustification" explains things better; I mean, you can actually see how large chunks of the towers turned into dust during their descent.

As she says, when you don't know what's going on, you rely on known phenomena such as explosives and don't even think about stuff turning to dust. But it's just so obvious when it's pointed out, as are numerous other observations such as why we don't see large amounts of debris, why the weight of two 110-story buildings didn't seem to produce much of a seismic effect, and why it didn't affect the underground water systems, which one would have expected if tons and tons of debris had plunged to the ground.

The questions about who did it and why are still a mystery, of course. As is the speculation that it's evidence for free directed energy which could be used for good purposes if the perpetrators wanted it to. But still, this is one conspiracy theory I've become more ready to accept.
it cool that you were open to this data :)
 
And yet I see a lot of condemnation for suicide, even among a lot of people in spiritual communities. Lots of talk about how it's the biggest mistake you can make...
that's not what I hear. I hear mediums and NDErs saying something more like a nonjudgmental, "what's the point?" i.e. there's nothing to escape from or into, just more learning/evolving.

or, said another way:

One of the things Alex and Greg discussed is that every group and movement can and has been infiltrated. If that's the case, I have to wonder if some elements of spiritual community may have been infiltrated
that's a given... from the beginning of time probably :)
 
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I prefer to think of it as "the back story" rather than a conspiracy....though the back story usually includes some elements of conspiracy....meaning it involves people or groups of people who remain behind the scenes and want you to believe something other than the truth. I love discovering the back story. So for example (off topic here), my oil geologist friend pointed out that the real reason OPEC now came out with a limit on pumping is because they are already pumping as much as they can, so why not say that's a limit. You won't find this view in the mainstream, I don't think.

Enjoyed the interview and will be listening to some of his podcasts. I must say, it takes a long time to absorb all this stuff, and then to put things together to make some sense out of it all. Not sure I'm there yet.
 
I didn't think many things were still out there that would blow my mind until I listened to the THC interview of Ed Haslam author of Dr. Mary's Monkey and Judith Vary Baker, author of Me and Lee. These are hall of famers. Lots of great back story.
http://thehighersidechats.com/ed-haslam-dr-marys-monkey-the-polio-vaccine-and-lee-harvey-oswald/

I've never been into the JFK stuff because... it's old, not my generation, and done to death I thought. But this interview made it interesting to me.
 
Does a conspiratorial world view do more harm than good? To Alex, that everything is a conspiracy is a given, but how far into conspiracy should we go -- what are the pros and cons of adopting a conspiratorial world view? Maybe it's better to look the other way?

If they are selling hate, shop somewhere else.
 
I think the conspirat
Does a conspiratorial world view do more harm than good? To Alex, that everything is a conspiracy is a given, but how far into conspiracy should we go -- what are the pros and cons of adopting a conspiratorial world view? Maybe it's better to look the other way?

To ask, "Who are we? And why are we here?" requires that one challenge authority because it was authority that gave you the original narrative you believed before you asked these questions.

Greg talks about how when 9/11 came up, it divided his group of friends and he was just... different. I can completely relate as the same thing happened to me.

The narratives we believe become the framework for our thought processes and become part of our identities. These narratives, like a car, ferry us around as we navigate life. Some people are content with a mediocre commercial-grade narrative provided by some trusted authority. Like the car they drive, they don't know how it works and are afraid to mess with it, but it still gets them around. Other people like to tweak their narratives, soup it up, beef it up, or make something new from scratch... they either end up with a badass machine or a hooptie.

If new data or life experience contradicts a narrative that forms the framework for mental structure, this becomes a weakness in the structure. People respond to this weakness by either walling it off with defense mechanisms like anger so that they won't go near it again, OR they allow curiosity to draw them in to see what's really going on in there. And like a new old house, often the exposure of one crumbling area of the structure leads to many others... in the end, if one falls down the conspiracy rabbit hole by challenging authority, one may end up with an entirely re-built mental structure.

In the world of stuff, there are DIY types who want to know what lies beneath the facade, and then there are people who would rather not know how the structure was made and would rather pay an "authority" with a good reputation to do it for them. Spiritual seekers and conspiracy theorists who challenge authority are more of the spiritual and philosophical DIY types. Sometimes DIY construction is not as good as the "pros"... sometimes it is a lot better, but takes a lot more time. In the end, there's no argument that the DIY type gains knowledge and a better understanding of the structure in which he lives, and sometimes that's worth it even if a pro could have improved the external appearance a little.

In regards to actual conspiracies, I think Greg and Alex laid it out there really well. Hierarchy (the male organizational structure) can be very powerful, but tends to become corrupt over time as low-empathy people rise to the top. Networking or crowd-sourcing (the female organizational structure) is also powerful but in a less focused manner. Hierarchy has tended to dominate but as corruption begins it becomes unstable and flips. What is interesting about this period of history is that the WWW which is sort of the supreme female organizational structure comes at a time when hierarchy is also peaking. The only way things will be stable is if there is balance between these two with each keeping the other in check.
 
I didn't think many things were still out there that would blow my mind until I listened to the THC interview of Ed Haslam author of Dr. Mary's Monkey and Judith Vary Baker, author of Me and Lee. These are hall of famers. Lots of great back story.
http://thehighersidechats.com/ed-haslam-dr-marys-monkey-the-polio-vaccine-and-lee-harvey-oswald/

I've never been into the JFK stuff because... it's old, not my generation, and done to death I thought. But this interview made it interesting to me.
Ed Haslam is all about JFK! LHO was working with Dr. Mary and Judy (his grilfreind) were testing the cancer vaccines before he was transfered to Dallas for his role as patisse.
 
I already served my time on the conspiracists team. Now emerged on the other side, I see it as on the one hand a kind of crutch, and on the other, an example of how society has repeated missed opportunities.

Take an example, in Russia the overthrow of the tsarist regime was followed by the installation of something which was a continuation of the same thing. In the West, the displacement of the control by religion was replaced with control by scientism. Into a void doesn't necessarily flow freedom, there is too much eagerness to grasp something to fill the vacated space with the comfort of the familiar, which all too often means no change at all. In this context, conspiracy theory merely replaces visible authorities with less visible authorities - that is, no change at all.

When I describe it as a crutch, I mean something to lean on for support. Here it is important to ask, what kind of mental state does this support bring? Now each person will have their own answer to that. I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself. However, personally the crutch soon turned into a leaden weight, I left it behind in order to move into a more uplifted mental state. This latter is I think an important aim for society as a whole. Each person moves at his or her own pace, but is is important to ask whether one's worldview helps or hinders in this regard.
 
that's not what I hear. I hear mediums and NDErs saying something more like a nonjudgmental, "what's the point?" i.e. there's nothing to escape from or into, just more learning/evolving.
I'm not sure about that. I'd say permanent physical problems/disabilities/deformities would count as something to escape from. Sometimes there's nothing to learn from a particular situation aside from "This makes me miserable and I wish I'd never been born."
 
Which is harder to believe? That a bunch of middle eastern men were unwittingly trained in America as pilots so they could fly a plane into a building all in the name of Islam or that the US government decided to attack its own people? Either explanation is crazy and yet one of these accounts of 9/11 has to be real. Ironically, this is the power of conspiracy theories. Do shape shifting lizard men really control the world? Probably not, but under every absurd conspiracy is a kernel of truth. The more outrageous the conspiracy theory the more likely the theory is to make us stop and reflect on what our implicit assumptions about the nature of the world we perceive are. How much of what we take as fact about the world - the stuff we call consensus reality - is really just a version of the facts designed by others in power to reinforce and promulgate an ideology that may be hurting the naïve majority who take it to be true? To put it more crudely: sometimes a large amount of absurd bullshit wakes us up to the small amounts of absurd bullshit that routinely permeate our everyday life and get taken in by us as gospel "fact." Perhaps what is most frightful of all, is the knowledge that some of this absurd bullshit - the crazy conspiracy theory - is actually at some level a very useful metaphor for what is actually really going on in our society.
 
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Probably not, but under every absurd conspiracy is a kernel of truth.
I don't see it. Every important event, and quite a few unimportant ones, are subject to conspiracy theories as soon as they occur. The internet gives the opportunity for everyone, whatever their knowledge or expertise, to give vent to their favourite theory no matter how misplaced. Because conspiracies happen it doesn't mean every event is the result of a conspiracy, yet every event has a theory attached. In the difference between the two lies reality.

Given what we know of Islamic fundamentalism, even traduced through broadcast media, it is far from impossible to imagine suitably motivated individuals with a desire to attack the West undertaking such an enterprise. The alternative is to find an explanation why people of similar motives who attacked London buses, a Madrid train, bombed Bali and shot people in a Paris nightclub were also under Western influence. The only difference is one of scale, and the fact the US hadn't been attacked on its homeland since a few Japanese balloon bombs headed east in WW2. Because the fall out from 9/11 may have fit a particular US overseas agenda, albeit one among a small number of hawks, does not mean they instituted the attack. It would have been easier for agents provocateur overseas to create an atrocity (the standard way of marshalling support at home for incursions abroad), than fly planes into New York buildings. This doesn't mean the theory is unthinkable, but it does defy all precedent regarding covert military operations. This lack of precedent merely fuels the conspiracist in his conclusions, until truth becomes the malleable putty that fits his natural predisposition.
 
Which is harder to believe? That a bunch of middle eastern men were unwittingly trained in America as pilots so they could fly a plane into a building all in the name of Islam or that the US government decided to attack its own people? Either explanation is crazy and yet one of these accounts of 9/11 has to be real. Ironically, this is the power of conspiracy theories. Do shape shifting lizard men really control the world? Probably not, but under every absurd conspiracy is a kernel of truth. The more outrageous the conspiracy theory the more likely the theory is to make us stop and reflect on what our implicit assumptions about the nature of the world we perceive are. How much of what we take as fact about the world - the stuff we call consensus reality - is really just a version of the facts designed by others in power to reinforce and promulgate an ideology that may be hurting the naïve majority who take it to be true? To put it more crudely: sometimes a large amount of absurd bullshit wakes us up to the small amounts of absurd bullshit that routinely permeate our everyday life and get taken in by us as gospel "fact." Perhaps what is most frightful of all, is the knowledge that some of this absurd bullshit - the crazy conspiracy theory - is actually at some level a very useful metaphor for what is actually really going on in our society.
maybe, but it seems like step 1 is determining what really happened.
 
I don't see it. Every important event, and quite a few unimportant ones, are subject to conspiracy theories as soon as they occur. The internet gives the opportunity for everyone, whatever their knowledge or expertise, to give vent to their favourite theory no matter how misplaced. Because conspiracies happen it doesn't mean every event is the result of a conspiracy, yet every event has a theory attached. In the difference between the two lies reality.

Given what we know of Islamic fundamentalism, even traduced through broadcast media, it is far from impossible to imagine suitably motivated individuals with a desire to attack the West undertaking such an enterprise. The alternative is to find an explanation why people of similar motives who attacked London buses, a Madrid train, bombed Bali and shot people in a Paris nightclub were also under Western influence. The only difference is one of scale, and the fact the US hadn't been attacked on its homeland since a few Japanese balloon bombs headed east in WW2. Because the fall out from 9/11 may have fit a particular US overseas agenda, albeit one among a small number of hawks, does not mean they instituted the attack. It would have been easier for agents provocateur overseas to create an atrocity (the standard way of marshalling support at home for incursions abroad), than fly planes into New York buildings. This doesn't mean the theory is unthinkable, but it does defy all precedent regarding covert military operations. This lack of precedent merely fuels the conspiracist in his conclusions, until truth becomes the malleable putty that fits his natural predisposition.

Given what we know of US elite - a bunch who conducted many wars, and supported even more; who tortured and slaughered people on its land and abroad; who installed a propaganda machine breeding fear to the whole world and hostility to any alternative; who forgiven countless misdeeds to its corporate buddies yet was always eager to punish a guy smonking a joint; who gave up any pretense of "democracy" and is constantly seeking "civil rights" it once promiced to populace... Should I continue... I think there is no need to do so, so let's move to a conclusion: there is nothing inherenty unthinkable in a notion of state(-sponsored) terrorism within the state's own borders. As long as most people remain docile, repeat state interpretations, follow its institutions and never actively resist, let alone uprise, guys and gals above would be free to do the most horrendously atrocious and the most derangedly idiotic deeds they want, and get away with them.
 
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