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Petra Liverani

Is dismissal of an theory on the basis of implausibility committing the fallacy of Argument from Incredulity?

Is dismissal of an theory on the basis of implausibility committing the fallacy of Argument from Incredulity?

In discussion on my question regarding the terms conspiracy theory/theorist and the fallacies, loaded question and strawman, ROTE stated that some conspiracy theories were "implausible" as if this automatically discounted them. I responded with the argument that when we have a greater awareness, what might seem implausible actually becomes predictable and gave the example of the film, Collateral Murder, for which overwhelming evidence - and reason (what is the work of intelligence agencies after all?) - suggests was faked to infiltrate Wikileaks. Thus we should never judge by seeming implausibility but only by the evidence. Of course, if there is no evidence to analyse then it's not unreasonable to dismiss a theory on the basis of implausibility but if there is ... then it has primacy in guiding our judgement, of course, not what we believe to be implausible/plausible, impossible/possible. It's the evidence! And a knowledge of precedence always helps too.

So another theory that might seem implausible at first sight is that not only is Chelsea Manning an intelligence agent (the evidence is overwhelming) but also that Julian's wife, Stella Moris, is too. While the evidence is overwhelming in Chelsea's case I wouldn't say it's overwhelming in Stella's, however, there are certain indicators and we have precedence that shows forming relationships with infiltrees is a well-evidenced phenomenon.

Precedence
In the film, Allies, starring Marion Cotillard and Brad Pitt, based on a book that is based true events the Cotillard German spy character ends up marrying the Pitt US officer character and bearing his child. There is also a book written about infiltrators developing relationships with British women, notably Helen Steel of McLibel fame, Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/mclibel-leaflet-police-bob-lambert-mcdonalds
"An undercover police officer posing for years as an environmental activist co-wrote a libellous leaflet that was highly critical of McDonald's, and which led to the longest civil trial in English history, costing the fast-food chain millions of pounds in fees."

An undercover policeman co-wrote an allegedly libellous leaflet leading to the longest civil trial in English history. Rather remarkable wouldn't you say?

Indicators
We might wonder how Stella and Julian had children while he was locked up in the Ecuadorian Embassy with very few visitors and great oversight while he was in there and why their children were announced quite a long time after - the first one especially - they were born.

We might wonder why Stella Moris changed her name from Sara Gonzalez Devant at all (supposedly it was to "protect herself and her family" but why and how?) but particularly to Stella Moris which, as a friend pointed out, is only one letter different from Stella Maris for which we see symbolism all over the place. Notably it is connected to La Sirene which is connected to The Sirens, the lurers of sailors to their watery graves.

I don't think there's enough evidence to say that Stella Moris is an agent but certainly there are indicators.

asked on Sunday, Jun 12, 2022 11:31:59 PM by Petra Liverani

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Dr. Richard
1

The Argument from Incredulity boils down to this: “I cannot imagine how this could be true, therefore it must be false.” It is a fallacy because the fact one does not believe the proposition does not make the proposition false. Truth or falsity is independent of belief. For example, you can believe with all your heart and soul that the earth is flat, but that belief does not change what the earth actually is.

 The error, as I see it, is the focus of the discussion. Instead of saying, “I do not believe it, therefore it is false,” the response should be, “I do not believe it. Please provide more evidence.” 

 Always keep in mind the burden of proof rests with he who makes the proposition. 

answered on Monday, Jun 13, 2022 12:15:56 PM by Dr. Richard

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Petra Liverani writes:

For example, you can believe with all your heart and soul that the earth is flat, but that belief does not change what the earth actually is.

True but my point is not really about what the fallacy, argument from incredulity, is, I mean it's pretty straightforward unlike others which I can't really get my head around.

My point is that we are more likely to commit that fallacy when we suffer a lack of awareness - it might seem that an artefact such as the film, Collateral Murder, being faked is highly implausible ... until we go through the logical process of looking at the perfectly predictable expectation of attempted infiltration of Wikileaks and how that might be achieved. It also helps to question a few mistaken assumptions we might have such as power not voluntarily making itself look bad or power not pushing things right in our faces, "hidden-in-plain-sight" style with the supreme confidence we simply won't recognise it - these two behaviours seem very counterintuitive except when we understand that power doesn't (and couldn't and wouldn't) operate in the same way as normal people ... and certainly doesn't have the same effect on normal people as normal people do on other normal people.

Normal people generally try to do things they don't want other people to know about in a clandestine manner while power, at least when they're perpetrating psyops, are not clandestine at all! They do it right in our faces ... but we don't see it. It is truly magical. The fakery of Collateral Murder is laid bare like an open book but only two people worked it out as far as I can tell on the internet (me and survivalist, Tankman1989). How can that be? How can something be laid bare so openly and yet only an absolutely tiny number of people worked it out? Moreover, not only did only a tiny number work it out, no one is paying attention to the new information. No one responded to Tankman on his post and while some people have chimed in with me on my posts on the internet no influential person has "run with the ball" and written an article about it or anything like that. Quite incredibly, I'm a friend (or was??) of a person who couldn't be more connected ... and he doesn't want a bar of it even though presumably that information could be helpful to his son, Julian. He didn't respond by at least discussing my analysis or by refuting my argument, no. His reaction was simply one of upset and even though I've approached him (and others connected) no one will respond in any intelligent way. It's very much a case of massive cognitive dissonance getting in the way.

We cannot forget that our psychology plays a massive role in how we perceive things. Numerous academics talk about the conspiracist/disbeliever-by-default mindset which I agree is a phenomenon ... but it's certainly not the only mindset and we must consider ALL mindsets that tend to blind us from the truth including the so-called sheeple/believer-by-default mindset and the various mindsets in between disbeliever-by-default and believer-by-default.

Those in power weaponise who we are against us (and have done for centuries, millennia perhaps) and they most certainly understand us better than we understand ourselves.

We are social animals. While the term sheeple is used pejoratively we are social animals! We are like sheep in that way and there's no point denying it. We are also like other species in that we form hierarchies and respect alphas. These attributes are used against us.

I know people who don't believe the mask is an effective measure but wore it anyway when the propaganda was intense not just because they were worried about a fine but because they don't want to stand out from the crowd or attract opprobrium. Is that unreasonable? Those in power rely on that attribute. If everyone who didn't believe the mask is an effective measure simply refused to wear one (like me) it would probably all fall apart but they don't. Interestingly, on public transport in Sydney now we still hear over the loudspeaker, "Masks are mandatory on public transport, fines will apply" but fewer people are wearing them. They have propaganda/mask fatigue and are simply not wearing them. Probably the police are less out there in force dishing out fines, I don't know.

When I cottoned on to the world being run differently from what I thought I was advised by a disbeliever-by-default friend to check out the moon landings. While I found the hoax book, Wagging the Moondoggie, quite compelling, perusal of the evidence said loud and clear they were genuine. I realised, however, that I couldn't persuade the disbelievers no matter what I said and no matter the fact that I was "with them" on events being hoaxes in most cases and could approach the moon landings from a disbeliever-generally (but not by default) perspective which is different from the perspective of someone who doesn't disbelieve most of the time. Nothing, nada, niente. They will not see it.

I wondered if those in power might weaponise the moon landings against the disbelievers-by-default and so I predicted that the first person to say we didn't go to the moon, Bill Kaysing, was an agent whose purpose was to encourage the disbelievers-by-default to not believe in the moon landings thereby making themselves a laughing stock and undermine themselves when they tried to call out the real lies, a kind of The Boy Who Cried Wolf effect. Sure enough! Consultation of Bill's Wikipedia bio and an interview with him shows loud and clear he's an agent and couldn't possibly be the Head of Technical Publications at Rocketdyne as is claimed. It's quite hilarious. Those in power know that disbelievers-by-default won't look at the moon landing evidence with clear sight and won't recognise that what Bill says is utterly ludicrous (as is what is said about him) while anyone who does look at the evidence clear sightedly would realise that Bill talks nonsense, however, generally, they're not going to expect him to be an agent, are they? But I did because at the time I predicted he was an agent I was starting to realise that they weaponise who we are against us and it wasn't just talking nonsense that indicated Bill was an agent - nothing added up at all with him.

So to get back to flat earth belief, Dr Richard, it reminds me of a very pertinent quote from Donald James aka Dresden James, a British television and non-fiction writer. While our mindsets are weaponised against us, another aspect of our psychology is massively weaponised against us: our difficulty in moving from our beliefs which may not have been established because of any particular mindset but just for whatever reason. We tend to be very loath to move from our beliefs when they're ingrained. Belief-wise I'd say most of us are not very agile ... but when it comes to analysing what those in power get up to it really requires a mind that can go from believing X one day to Y the next. You really need to be able to go, "Oh you mean I believed X for 50 years and now you're saying it's a load of bollocks? Okaaay, yes I see that."

"A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn’t the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn’t flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."

"The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves."

posted on Tuesday, Jun 14, 2022 01:56:16 AM
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Dr. Richard writes:
[To Petra Liverani]

“My point is that we are more likely to commit that fallacy when we suffer a lack of awareness--”

I think your point is more psychological than logical.

[ login to reply ] posted on Tuesday, Jun 14, 2022 11:12:25 AM
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Petra Liverani writes:
[To Dr. Richard]

I think you'll agree, Dr Robert, that people don't accept information if there are certain things that block acceptance such as a sense of implausibility, a contradiction of their belief system, etc so it doesn't matter how much you explain their argument is a logical fallacy or how much you brandish clear evidence in their face they won't pay the slightest attention. I think it's worth putting some effort into recognising that increased awareness can make things more plausible and therefore easier to accept.

There is ingrained stereotypical thinking about "conspiracy theories" and "conspiracy theorists" that needs some light shed on it and there is also significant ignorance of the prevalence of psychological operations and their MO.

[ login to reply ] posted on Wednesday, Jun 15, 2022 07:05:05 AM
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Dr. Richard writes:
[To Petra Liverani]

I still see what you describe as a physicological issue, not a logical issue.

I think this is the heart of your point: Why do people believe certain things when the evidence against the belief overwhelming? Ignoring evidence those people accept as valid seems to take a special kind of willful blindness to reality.

I think I have one possible answer, and it is this “special kind of willful blindness” I address. This also illustrates the importance of education at an early age. Just as a pilot must undergo periodic recurrency training to fly, a person must undergo recurrency cognitive training (continuing education) to think clearly. 

Festinger’s Question comes from his famous 1956 book, “When Prophecy Fails.” Suppose (1) an individual believes something with his whole heart and soul; (2) he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; and (3) he is then presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, evidence he himself fully accepts as true, that his first belief is wrong. Festinger’s Question is: What will happen?

The answer, well documented by six decades of subsequent research, shows that people respond to dissonant beliefs using three key strategies. 

First, they can ignore the dissonant belief. In essence, saying I don’t want to believe it. Therefore it isn’t true. This is the willful blindness. The person simply blanks out the dissonant evidence. This, as the psychologists would say, is a form of repression. This is pure subjectivism, holding the primacy of consciousness to be true instead of the primacy of existence.

Second, they can reduce the importance of the conflicting belief. This is evident by phrases such as “I’ll think about it tomorrow,” meaning I have more important things to consider. This, as the psychologists would say, is a form of evasion.

Third, they can make the newer conflicting belief consistent with the older existing belief by twisting the evidence, then claiming the two beliefs are not really in conflict. This, as the psychologists would say, is rationalization. Michael Shermer calls it “motivated reasoning.” 

What Festinger did not expect was people did not question their beliefs. Quite the opposite. Psychologists were astonished to find people became stronger in their irrational beliefs after having been presented with unequivocal and undeniable evidence the subject himself entirely accepted as true. For example, if a person believed the earth was flat and then was presented with indisputable evidence of the spherical planet. As a result, they became firmer in their flat earth belief. Today, psychologists call this the “Backfire Effect.”

Festinger found the most difficult beliefs for people to examine are those beliefs that have been (1) held for a long time, (2) adopted before the age of reason, and (3) most often repeated. 

One may say, “every belief should be open to reexamination upon the presentation of credible evidence,” but attempting to live up to that standard is difficult and takes a concentrated effort. But, we all fall victim to not examining those beliefs we want to believe in. 

When children are taught that a belief is true from the time they are infants, well before the age of reason, and it is constantly repeated not only at home but in school, I think Festinger gave us the answer. 

This explains why it is impossible to have a conversation on the two subjects one should never discuss socially: religious and political beliefs. Both of which are drilled into children from the time they are born. People born to parents of a particular religion usually grow up believing in that same religion. The same seems to be true in politics and other areas of life.

 

[ login to reply ] posted on Wednesday, Jun 15, 2022 12:54:18 PM
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Petra Liverani writes:

[To Dr. Richard]

Thank you, Dr Richard. What you say makes sense although one thing does puzzle me slightly:

"But, we all fall victim to not examining those beliefs we want to believe in."

Why do people WANT to believe any particular thing so much? I know my intelligence is only averagely superior and certainly my breadth of knowledge is extremely limited but I think the reason I'm a superior analyst is that I'm simply genuinely not attached to my beliefs. There are things I'd rather not believe because they're such heinous crimes involving children and people in authority, some of whom I've had quite a lot of respect for, but apart from the cognitive dissonance of accepting those crimes I don't care! If we went to the moon, great, if we didn't and it was a psyop well so be it. I don't want the fact to be that a particular group committed an act of terror (assuming the act of terror reported really was done) or not done it. Why do people care so much about their beliefs? Why do they want their belief to be true rather than believe what is true? I don't understand it.

I understand the "putting off till tomorrow" attitude because no matter how open-minded we are there's a certain period of cognitive dissonance needed to get through when our beliefs are entrenched and we're asked to change them. So yes "park" one's examination for a little while but then either have a proper look or recognise that because you're unwilling to examine the challenge to your belief you're not really in a position to hold your current belief strongly and thus you need to downgrade that belief to equivocality until you've looked properly if you ever do.

The fact of our tendency to split into particular profiles that tend us to believe in particular ways makes us such easy prey for those in power who understand that phenomenon. My goodness do they exploit that human attribute to their advantage.

Of course, self-styled skeptic, Michael Shermer - I find most self-styled skeptics to simply be apologists for the mainstream narrative - indulges in the logical fallacy, argumentum ad speculum or Hypothesis Contrary to Fact, when he speaks of the difficulty of laying explosives clandestinely in the WTC buildings. What does the evidence say about the collapses? What does the evidence say brought those buildings down and surely to goodness there can be no confusion between a controlled collapse using explosives and an uncontrolled collapse by fire? How can there possibly be confusion between two entirely different types of destructions? Why would we need to resort to speculative, "How would they lay the explosives ...?" questions?

I mentioned to my sister, who tends to believe simply nothing but isn't interested in poring over the evidence, just last night how some people still insist that WTC-7 collapsed by fire. She looked at me incredulously and said, "Really? Even though there was no fire?" I clarified that there had been modest fires during the day just not a lick of flame at the time of its destruction. She simply couldn't believe it. But most people really have no idea how elastic the Emperor's New Clothes effect is nor how well those in power understand its extreme elasticity and how they can have supreme, unshakeable confidence in it by making so much of their deception "hidden in plain sight" so utterly shamelessly - hence not even a lick of flame disguising WTC-7's impeccable implosion that they even showcased from seven vantage points - unexpected collapse right? but somehow there were seven people armed with cameras all placed at strategic points and poised ready to capture that 6.5 second graceful sinking showing roofline perfectly horizontal for a number of seconds. I can't help laughing along with them sometimes even though I despise how they exploit our human frailties and mock us.

[ login to reply ] posted on Wednesday, Jun 15, 2022 11:38:27 PM
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Dr. Richard writes:
[To Petra Liverani]

You ask: Why do people WANT to believe any particular thing so much? Michael Shermer wrote an entire book to answer this question. His conclusion: There is n reason. People believe what they want to believe for no logical reason. This takes you back to Festinger.

[ login to reply ] posted on Thursday, Jun 16, 2022 10:08:41 AM
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Petra Liverani writes:

[To Dr. Richard]

Interesting that Michael Shermer wrote a book on the subject as if he is an impartial analyst because by putting forward the seeming implausibility of laying explosives clandestinely, which forms the logical fallacy, Hypothesis Contrary to Fact, and ignoring the clear evidence of controlled demolition (the notion of controlled destructions and uncontrolled destructions by fire of high rise steel frame buildings being remotely confusable an absurd one to start with (let alone the simple physical impossibility of a high rise steel frame building coming down by fire), especially in the case of WTC-7 which they showcased to us from seven vantage points and rubbed in our faces sans a lick of flame) he obviously shows great signs of wanting to believe the utterly preposterous 9/11 narrative. Where is the genuine skepticism? Oh my goodness. Where is the skepticism?

ROTE speaks of certain conspiracy theories as being implausible. What's the plausibility of the world's mightiest nation's multi-trillion dollar defence system failing catastrophically four times in one morning, including, as the icing on the cake, a passenger airliner doing a 270 into Defence HQ, piloted by an alleged hijacker whose alleged flight instructor said of him that he cried when asked to do steep turns and stalls? I mean, you do have to laugh and marvel at how well they control our minds. It's quite something - telling us the truth underneath the propaganda with their ludicrously implausible base narrative further undermined by gratuitous little extras ... especially when you consider they've being doing it the same way for centuries using the same MO and getting away with it. It's just amazing. 

Of course, the seeming alternative is equally implausible, no? While it's clear that governments will effectively kill their citizens in various ways, for example, sending their soldiers off to phony wars, implementing extremely unfair health systems heavily compromised by pharmaceutical interests, etc, there's no way that the US government would have allowed all those poor people in the buildings and planes to be killed in the manner suggested if we accept the "false-flag" explanation. After all, if the US government (with the complicity and assistance of other nation's administrations, corporations, response agencies, etc - quite a lot of people needed to be involved) did it, it was primarily a psyop, right, they wanted us to BELIEVE in a terror event, it's not as if part of the agenda would have been to kill people for real so why would they when they can fake it so easily by faking planes (clearly evidenced), evacuating buildings, faking jumpers and people standing at windows waving pieces of clothing, staging drills to produce images of the injured, getting people to pretend to be "loved ones", shipping some of those who allegedly died off with new identities, making some of them up and using names of people who died some other way, etc - how they manage all that I have no idea but we have intelligence agencies on the job here, that's their job and they do that stuff all the time.

(I forgot to mention when speaking about the negative reaction from Julian's father, John Shipton, when telling him the film, Collateral Murder, was faked that in defence of its reality John told me he'd been introduced to the relatives of the allegedly killed Iraqi journalists. Those relatives had to be actors no? or perhaps they even were the relatives of the allegedly murdered journalists - the thing is though those journalists were not killed, they were agents playing a role as were the alleged relatives. I've had the same reaction from prominent 9/11 truthers - "but we know the loved ones". I know a little girl who was in the same class as a boy who allegedly died in an obviously staged event. The little girl's mother told me her daughter was traumatised by the little boy's alleged death. So disgusting that they use children in these events and traumatise others in the process.)

Option A - terrorist narrative - utterly implausible and physically impossible
Option B - US government murdering all the people in the planes and the buildings - equally implausible and effectively impossible

They've got us running in circles. That's because there's an Option C, the correct one.

See Does the use of the term false flag tend to create in our minds the fallacy, false dilemma?

[ login to reply ] posted on Thursday, Jun 16, 2022 09:51:42 PM
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Dr. Richard writes:
[To Petra Liverani]

I find your writing confusing. Exactly what is it you are saying?

[ login to reply ] posted on Friday, Jun 17, 2022 11:24:27 AM
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Petra Liverani writes:

[To Dr. Richard]

What I'm saying is that most people bar a couple of thousand perhaps (maybe even fewer) - and, of course, the few thousand "insiders" - have got it wrong about what kind of event 9/11 was. They think either:

A. Terrorists were responsible for the alleged death and injury on 9/11 OR
B. The US government was responsible for the alleged death and injury on 9/11

In reality the US government (with a great deal of complicity and assistance, including from my own Australian prime minister, John Howard, who oh-so-very coincidentally happened to be paying a "surprise" visit to Washington on the fateful day) was responsible for the 9/11 "event" (employing the "terrorists" to play patsy) BUT there is no evidence that favours real death and injury over fake. The planes were faked so no one died in a plane and they evacuated the buildings before destruction, also ensuring from the outset that many people didn't go up to their offices on the day anyway with subway drills and so on. There is simply no clear evidence of death or injury. All purported evidence for death and injury either favours fake over real or at least doesn't favour real. Just take a look. All the injured could easily be drill injured and the images we see in front of the Pentagon are simply laughable - loads of people "attending" to the very few injured miles from the building.

The thing people really can't seem to get their head around is that the perps tell us they did it. They tell us loud and clear by making their narrative so exaggeratedly implausible and downright impossible in the case of high rise steel frame buildings and the fakery so obvious such as planes melting into buildings and the very few fake bodies we see obviously fake. They didn't have to bring down WTC-7 at all on 9/11 (they could have brought it down discreetly later as they brought down WTCs 3-6) let alone showcase its perfect implosion and leave its collapse undisguised by even a lick of flame but they KNOW that their propaganda will work regardless of or even because of how ridiculous they make their story. They know that the Emperor's New Clothes effect has limitless elasticity because of the way power can addle peoples' minds.

Both A. and B. narratives were curated by them. Their B narrative was targeted to the people they anticipated wouldn't believe their nonsense story. They knew a certain percentage of people wouldn't believe them but they wanted them to also get the wrong end of the stick. They wanted us all - believers and disbelievers alike - to get the event wrong, and most of us did. For 13 years I believed the terrorist story and for four more the "US government did it".  It was only four years after that that I finally woke up to what kind of event it really was.

A fellow Australian pioneering researcher, Gerard Holmgren, who sadly died in 2010 from a brain tumour, four years before I had the slightest clue about 9/11 said:

"The official story required either that one descended into total intellectual senility in order to still believe it – perhaps deliberately made ridiculous for that very purpose – or else that one keep one's intellect alive but destroy almost everything that one had previously believed about how society works."

At the stage he said that he didn't realise (perhaps he never did) that that stark choice was a false dichotomy. We don't entirely have to destroy everything we believe about how society works if we recognise that the killing and injury were faked. Sure, for most people that's still way too much of a stretch, that doesn't fit into their paradigm of how the world works but it's not nearly as stark as either believing terrorists did the killing or the US government did it.

Since my awakening to the lies we've been told about health since covid I have a completely different idea about what kind of killing governments are capable of but that's another matter.

If it's still not clear please let me know.




[ login to reply ] posted on Friday, Jun 17, 2022 08:04:37 PM
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TrappedPrior (RotE)
1

Is dismissal of an theory on the basis of implausibility committing the fallacy of Argument from Incredulity?

Let's parse two alternative forms of the argument.

Form A

P) X is implausible

C) Therefore, X is impossible 

OR

C) Therefore, X is false

This is a fallacy (reverse appeal to possibility). Implausible and unlikely things happen all the time (e.g. Trump winning the 2016 election). Thus, something having a low probability does not mean it cannot or does not occur.

Now consider:

Form B

P) X is implausible

P) Very little (if any) evidence is provided for X

C) Therefore, we should suspend belief in X until there is more evidence

This is far more reasonable and is consistent with the principle of parsimony. Due to the conjunction effect, the more claims added to a theory, the less likely it becomes, which in turn demands a higher standard of evidence. Assuming there are theories/explanations that make less complex assumptions, these theories are to be preferred over X unless more evidence in favour of X is produced.

The problem with most conspiracy theories is that the claims they make are implausible (given that simpler explanations exist) and the conspiracy theorists rarely provide suitable evidence to make their statistically-implausible theories preferable to simpler ones.

Basically, I agree - if there is evidence, it should be evaluated. Ignoring the evidence to focus on pure probability is fallacious. But if insufficient or no evidence is given, dismissing extremely unlikely claims in favour of simpler ones is not fallacious at all.

answered on Monday, Jun 13, 2022 06:00:19 AM by TrappedPrior (RotE)

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Petra Liverani writes:

The problem with most conspiracy theories is that the claims they make are implausible (given that simpler explanations exist) and the conspiracy theorists rarely provide suitable evidence to make their statistically-implausible theories preferable to simpler ones.

I'd really like to emphasise the fact that increased awareness and understanding tends to make claims that might otherwise seem implausible actually predictable (or at least plausible) as is the example I gave with the fakery of the film, Collateral Murder.

I put to you, ROTE, that your notion of the plausibility/implausibility of a theory affects your appreciation of the evidence. The more plausible the theory, the more you will accept what you see before you as evidence supporting the theory and the less plausible the theory, the less you will accept what you see before you as evidence supporting the theory. Would you agree? It's always best if you can find a way to make the theory at least plausible before you even look at the evidence.

Do you agree that Collateral Murder was faked and that its being faked is not in fact implausible but that you might have thought it was before logical analysis?

Do you also agree that the fakery is done "hidden-in-plain-sight" style otherwise how would I - who knows nothing about warfare - have figured it out? I point out that like Tankman1989 who saw its fakery through the alleged weapon used not matching its purported impact, I also noticed odd bits of dialogue that seemed out of place.

"Oh, a lot of the background talk like the rude comments, laughs etc sounded out of place as well."

Would you also agree that power faking things "hidden-in-plain-sight" style rather than discreetly and clandestinely also seems incredibly implausible at first sight but that the evidence is clear that power does indeed do that? This is a relevant quote (edited and my emphasis) from Anthony Daniels, a British psychiatrist, that helps make that phenomenon more understandable. He applies it to communist propaganda and political correctness but we can see it applies equally to all propaganda from power elites.

"The purpose of propaganda is not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponds to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124952-political-correctness-is-communist-propaganda-writ-small-in-my-study

posted on Tuesday, Jun 14, 2022 02:43:16 AM
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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:
[To Petra Liverani]

I'd really like to emphasise the fact that increased awareness and understanding tends to make claims that might otherwise seem implausible actually predictable (or at least plausible) as is the example I gave with the fakery of the film, Collateral Murder.

That's not wrong, I suppose. 

I put to you, ROTE, that your notion of the plausibility/implausibility of a theory affects your appreciation of the evidence. The more plausible the theory, the more you will accept what you see before you as evidence supporting the theory and the less plausible the theory, the less you will accept what you see before you as evidence supporting the theory. Would you agree? It's always best if you can find a way to make the theory at least plausible before you even look at the evidence.

This goes back to the principle of parsimony that I mentioned earlier - theories that make simpler assumptions are preferred, all being equal.

Take for instance a person (Bob). Bob typically wears a 'good luck' charm which he claims prevents them from getting into trouble.

One day, Bob forgets to wear his good luck charm on the way to work...and gets run over by a car.

Alice visits him in the hospital and asks what happened. Bob says that because he didn't wear his good luck charm, he got 'bad luck' instead, and that's the reason he had that accident. Alice tells him it is just a coincidence, but he insists otherwise - as if the 'good luck' charm really did have magic powers.

The 'evidence' (or event) is that Bob was  hit by the car . The two theories to explain this are A) Bob didn't wear his good luck charm, or B) Bob was simply unlucky.

I would charge A with being implausible; there's no mechanism that explains how the charm would even work. Thus, even given 'evidence' (Bob being hit by a car when he didn't wear the charm), I'd consider this insufficient to prove theory A correct. Here, the simple explanation - he was just unlucky - is preferred.

Of course, should the simple theory fail to adequately explain the phenomenon, then we can move on to more complex ones.

As for your specific examples, I can't comment as I don't know much about the Collateral Murder. However, it is possible that things can be faked, by a government or otherwise. Thus, even if it is implausible or unintuitive on the surface, if there is evidence that can't be explained by a simple theory, we can then entertain the complex ones.

[ login to reply ] posted on Tuesday, Jun 14, 2022 08:08:23 AM
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Petra Liverani writes:

[To Rationalissimus of the Elenchus]

As for your specific examples, I can't comment as I don't know much about the Collateral Murder. However, it is possible that things can be faked, by a government or otherwise. Thus, even if it is implausible or unintuitive on the surface, if there is evidence that can't be explained by a simple theory, we can then entertain the complex ones.

OK, so even without looking at the film, rather than possible that it was faked how about more likely faked than not ?

I've just watched the first half of Ithaka, a film on Australian ABC that follows Julian's father, John Shipton, in his quest to help his son. There was a snippet of Mike Pompeo stating that Wikileaks was a hostile intelligence service. If the US administration considered Wikileaks a hostile intelligence service then it will be utterly predictable that it will attempt to infiltrate and that it will infiltrate successfully. We would completely expect it to fake artefacts used to infiltrate. This is all no-brainer stuff.

Of course, if you actually looked at the film and looked at Chelsea in her glamour shoots and so on you would get a more visceral sense of how those in power push their deception in our faces "hidden-in-plain-sight" style so that when another event that may not seem quite so predictable as the faking of Collateral Murder comes in front of you, the knowledge of CM and CM will give you a foundation from which to analyse this new event. You can apply the "does this show signs of hidden-in-plain-sight" lens? If I wasn't aware of the phenomenon of "hidden-in-plain-sight" I wouldn't have suspected Chelsea of being an agent. I might have wondered slightly at her glamorous photo but thought no more about it. This is what happens. When people don't understand the modus operandi of psyops they simply wonder and let it slide. I did it myself before I understood. There were a number of things that puzzled me but I just let them slide as I had no framework to apply them to.

[ login to reply ] posted on Tuesday, Jun 14, 2022 09:09:16 AM
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Dr. Richard writes:
[To Petra Liverani]

To me, you appear to have strayed from a logical discussion to a political one. See Rationalissimus of the Elenchus to get back on the logic train.  

To present:

A. Terrorists were responsible for the alleged death and injury on 9/11 OR
B. The US government was responsible for the alleged death and injury on 9/11

is the fallacy of the false alternative.

[ login to reply ] posted on Saturday, Jun 18, 2022 12:52:08 PM
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Petra Liverani writes:
[To Dr. Richard]

But isn't that exactly what I said? 

The perpetrators have curated the two narratives you've presented as if they are the only alternatives when there is a third one:

C. The US government was responsible for creating the psyop of 9/11 where they accused terrorists of hijacking planes and piloting them into buildings causing damage to one and resulting in the destructions of three as well as the deaths of 3,000 people and injury to 6,000 when what really happened was they destroyed and damaged buildings themselves, faked the planes and staged death and injury.

[ login to reply ] posted on Sunday, Jun 19, 2022 07:50:17 AM
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Jorge
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I think that the stakes should be part of your decision making. For example, if it's implausible that a comet will strike a house, the owner should stay. The stakes of leaving are high, like the cost of moving. This dismisses the theory of a comet striking the owner's house on the basis of implausibility and I argue that it's warranted. 

On the other hand, not dismissing the theory that a comet will not strike the house is also warranted because the stakes of staying are arguably low if we attach a really small probability and do some expected value calculation (if I recall this stuff correctly).

I do understand your point though. A detective might want to dismiss some implausible explanations of a crime scene while keeping others in the background. This might be assessed through experience.

Example: It is implausible that the crime is staged. But later on, the detective finds out about this kid that loves to play pranks. And this kid lives were the "crime" occurred. The implausible theory of a staged crime might be taken noted. 

Your question might be connected to the inference from the best explanation.

I think that the argument from incredulity would go something like this:

Witness: Detective! The kid staged the crime!

Detective: That's impossible! I will dismiss this theory.

If the detective dismissed the staged crime theory on the basis of incredulity, instead of on the basis of limited resources or something, then the detective will be committing the fallacy of argument from incredulity

answered on Sunday, Jun 19, 2022 10:13:38 PM by Jorge

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