@NEUROSPORT,
In his 2008 paper entitled ?conspiracy theories? Obama?s information Czar ( Sunstein ) outlined the most effective strategies at government?s disposal for fighting ?conspiracy theories?. Being a Jew as well as part of the government, of course Sunstein could give a rat?s ass about anything other than getting the upper hand - his paper gives no consideration whatsoever to the possibility that the government may be wrong, and dissidents might be right. In fact he EXPLICITLY makes the assumption that government is always right. This insane notion according to him is ?a standard assumption in policy analysis? - after all, why would the government assume anything else ?
The intended audience for Sunstein?s paper is government officials in agencies such as FBI, DHS etc. The format of the paper is that of a manual for mind control. This makes it extremely difficult to read for a ?normal? person or even a conspiracy theorist, but I didn?t want you to miss out on the to-the-point discussion of certain aspects of human nature, as well as society that it offers. This understanding I believe is mandatory for every intellectual. More importantly the paper offers a rare glimpse of exactly how the government sees its people, and just how little respect it truly has for us. This is why I felt compelled to offer this analysis of the paper for you.
The 30 page article is too large to cover therefore I will only deal with parts which I find important. Italicized blocks of text are direct quotes from Sunstein?s ?conspiracy theories?. From the outset Sunstein correctly rejects the notion that conspiracy theorists are mentally ill:
Why do people accept conspiracy theories ?? It is tempting to answer in terms of individual pathology. Perhaps conspiracy theories are a product of mental illness, such as paranoia or narcissism. And indeed, there can be no doubt that some people who accept conspiracy theories are mentally ill and subject to delusions. But we have seen that in many communities and even nations, such theories are widely held. It is not plausible to suggest that all or most members of those communities are afflicted by mental illness. The most important conspiracy theories are hardly limited to those who suffer from any kind of pathology.
When attempting to engage a lemming in a debate concerning a conspiracy theory one is usually met with a blanket ?Oh! You?re a conspiracy nut !? Automatically considering every conspiracy theorist insane is a defense mechanism that lemmings commonly use because they are terrified of an actual argument. Regardless of how effective this strategy may be as employed by slaves and lemmings Sunstein correctly points out that the notion is completely absurd, because for example in many Muslim countries as much as 80% of people believe 9-11 was an inside job - and 80% of a nation simply cannot be mentally ill. Sunstein then proceeds to analyze how people come to hold beliefs.
For most of what they believe that they know, human beings lack personal or direct information; they must rely on what other people think (?) they know very few things, and what they know is wrong.
This is a most brutally revealing and true statement. You may or may not agree that most of what you know is wrong, but you simply cannot ( unless you?re a ******* idiot ) dispute the fact that most of the information in our heads has been acquired not from direct experience but through indirect means such as parents, teachers, friends, television, radio, newspapers etc. An honest intellectual would have to come to the conclusion that he knows virtually nothing ( and some of the best philosophers did come to just that conclusion ) but most of us choose to pretend that we ?know? things which in actuality we merely believe.
Antecedent beliefs are a key to the success or failure of [theories] (?) Here, as elsewhere, people attempt to find some kind of equilibrium among their assortment of beliefs, and acceptance or rejection of a [theory] will often depend on which of the two leads to equilibrium. Some beliefs are also motivated, in the sense that people are pleased to hold them or displeased to reject them. Acceptance (or for that matter rejection) of a [theory] is frequently motivated in that sense. After some [event] has occurred, those influences are crucial, for most people will have little or no direct information about its cause. How many people know, directly or on the basis of personal investigation, whether Al Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, or whether Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy on his own? (?) Inevitably people must rely on the beliefs of other people.
People must somehow decide what to believe in a situation where they lack any true knowledge. Most of the time people will choose believing whatever makes them feel best.
Prior to any event people already hold a multitude of beliefs ( antecedent beliefs ). Some of these beliefs people are heavily invested into. For example a person may be invested in beliefs that Jesus is lord, his spouse and parents love him/her and of course ( the one that is relevant to this discussion ) that the government is looking out for him. These beliefs are motivated, highly motivated. In some extreme cases a person will KILL to hold on to such a belief. Sunstein correctly points out that a new belief will be accepted or rejected based on how well it fits ( whether it allows for an equilibrium ) with the antecedent motivated beliefs ( beliefs the person already has and is not willing to give up ). In other words, for example, the belief that 9-11 was an inside job will be REJECTED because it contradicts the motivated belief that the government is looking out for you.
Once the person accepts the government?s official story ( based on the emotional ?reasoning? described above ) he/she will from that point on regard this belief as knowledge. Once the belief is accepted the person will not retain the memory of the mechanism of acceptance ? only the belief itself. From that point on the person ?knows? that 9-11 was not an inside job. This belief in turn, of course, becomes a motivated belief. From that point on, therefore, any new information a person receives will be accepted or rejected depending on whether it fits with the ?knowledge? that 9-11 was NOT an inside job. These new accumulated beliefs will in turn reinforce the belief that 9-11 was not an inside job etc. The process will continue to run in cyclical fashion until the person is ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN in his beliefs which in fact are founded in ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. This is not a sign of a mental illness ? this is what happens in normal people. New equilibrium is reached as a function of previous equilibrium NOT any sort of objective factual information or anything epistemologically valid.
Cascades:
To see how informational cascades work, imagine a group of people who are trying to assign responsibility for some loss of life. Assume that the group members are announcing their views in sequence. Each member attends, reasonably enough, to the judgments of others. Andrews is the first to speak. He suggests that the event was caused by [Andrews?s explanation]. Barnes now knows Andrews?s judgment; she should certainly go along with Andrew?s account if she agrees independently with him. But if her independent judgment is otherwise, she would?if she trusts Andrews no more and no less than she trusts herself?be indifferent about what to do, and she might simply flip a coin.
Now turn to a third person, Charleton. Suppose that both Andrews and Barnes have endorsed the [theory], but that Charleton?s own view, based on limited information, suggests that they are probably wrong. In that event, Charleton might well ignore what he knows and follow Andrews and Barnes. It is likely, after all, that both Andrews and Barnes had evidence for their conclusion, and unless Charleton thinks that his own information is better than theirs, he should follow their lead. If he does, Charleton is in a cascade. Of course Charleton will resist if he has sufficient grounds to think that Andrews and Barnes are being foolish. But if he lacks those grounds, he is likely to go along with them.
Now suppose that Charleton is speaking in response to what Andrews and Barnes did, not on the basis of his own information, and also that later people know what Andrews, Barnes, and Charleton said. On reasonable assumptions, they will reach the same conclusion regardless of their private information (which, we are supposing, is relevant but inconclusive). This will happen even if Andrews initially speculated in a way that does not fit the facts. That initial speculation, in this example, can start a process by which a number of people are led to participate in a cascade, accepting a [theory] whose factual foundations are fragile.
It was previously mentioned that people must inevitably rely on what others think. However what others think also relies on what yet other people think. In the end nobody really knows why they think what they do and what they think depends not on any hard evidence that they had but on the idea that seeded the informational cascade. ( reputational cascades to be addressed shortly ).
Of course the example is highly stylized and in that sense unrealistic; [real cascades] arise through more complex processes.
Yes. A real cascade would not be started with a single person coming to a random conclusion. A real cascade would start with mass media coming out with the same analysis ( dictated directly by the white house ) on all channels. The ?conclusion? that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the 9-11 attacks was provided by the media IMMEDIATELY after the attacks. There was NO investigation. The self-proclaimed ?experts? otherwise known as TALKING HEADS have offered a blanket statement that OBL was responsible because Al Qaeda was the only organization with the resources to execute such an attack.
Really ? I guess that means that Al Qaeda?s resources are greater than those of Mossad and CIA ?
The point was to get the ?conclusion? out as soon as possible. This conclusion immediately seeded the informational cascade which once started, like an avalanche, could no longer be stopped. Soon afterwards it became ?common knowledge? that OBL done it, even though there was still no evidence whatsoever of anything of the sort.
Similarly the ?conclusion? that the buildings collapsed due to the fires was offered IMMEDIATELY even though it took months for NIST to do the analysis, and in the end, hard as they tried, they could not explain the collapse of WTC7 anyway. But the bogus ?conclusion? that fires done it, was offered at the right time and universally across all TV Channels seeding the cascade such that this too soon became ?common knowledge? even though it was a judgement based on NOTHING.
Reputational cascade:
[Theories] do not take hold only because of information. Sometimes people profess belief in a [theory], or at least suppress their doubts, because they seek to curry favor. (?)
In a reputational cascade, people think that they know what is right, or what is likely to be right, but they nonetheless go along with the crowd in order to maintain the good opinion of others. Suppose that Albert suggests that [Albert?s theory], and that Barbara concurs with Albert, not because she actually thinks that Albert is right, but because she does not wish to seem, to Albert, to be some kind of [an idiot]. If Albert and Barbara say that [Albert?s theory], Cynthia might not contradict them publicly and might even appear to share their judgment -- not because she believes
that judgment to be correct, but because she does not want to face their hostility or lose their good opinion. It should be easy to see how this process might generate a cascade.
Once Albert, Barbara, and Cynthia offer a united front on the issue, their friend David might be reluctant to contradict them even if he thinks that they are wrong. The apparently shared view of Albert, Barbara, and Cynthia carry information; that view might be right. But even if David has reason to believe that they are wrong, he might not want to take them on publicly. His own silence will help build the informational and reputational pressure on those who follow.
I already gave the real-world examples of how this works. You may not personally think that OBL was responsible for 9-11 but do you really want to disagree with the ?experts? ? You don?t want to be considered an idiot do you ? Maybe you do not think that fires would cause that type of dramatic collapse ( or for that matter you do not think that buildings like WTC7 can collapse spontaneously for no reason whatsoever ) but you can?t know better than Popular Mechanics can you ? If Popular Mechanics says it then it must be true ? right ?
Chances are you don?t know that Popular Mechanics was specifically enlisted by the government to ?debunk? conspiracy theories ( Sunstein admits this fact in the paper ). Chances are also that you don?t know that Ben Chertoff of popular mechanics is the cousin of Michael Chertoff ( head of Department of Homeland Security ), which Sunstein also admits in the paper. Thus the lie set forth by the government by controlling supposedly independent experts ( a practice Sunstein not only admits, but actively encourages throughout the paper ) sets off the reputational cascade.
[Government] enlists nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts. Although government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes, too close a connection will prove self-defeating if it is exposed -- as witness the humiliating disclosures showing that apparently independent opinions on scientific and regulatory questions were in fact paid for by think-tanks with ties to the Bush administration.
Indeed. In the paragraph above Sunstein openly admits to the conspiracy while writing a paper on fighting conspiracy theories. I would expect the arrogance and hypocrisy of this to shock an average person ( since an average person is extremely na?ve ) but of course I personally do not find it the least bit surprising. After all Larry Silverstein ( a Jewish Billionaire ) who insured the WTC against terrorism a month before 9-11 and subsequently collected billions of dollars of insurance has ON VIDEOTAPE admitted to ordering the demolition of WTC7.
Many people believe that a conspiracy such as 9-11 being inside job is infeasible because it would be too difficult to keep it secret. What these people fail to realize that it is NOT secret and never has been. It is secret only in the heads of double-thinking self-censoring lemming slaves which incidentally account for most of the US population. This is called the ?big lie? technique. For more information refer to the Wikipedia article about it:
Big Lie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Group polarization:
There are clear links between cascades and the well established phenomenon of group polarization, by which members of a deliberating group typically end up in a more extreme position in line with their tendencies before deliberation began. Group polarization has been found in hundreds of studies involving over a dozen countries. Group polarization occurs for reasons that parallel the mechanisms that produce cascades. Informational influences play a large role. In any group with some initial inclination, the views of most people in the group will inevitably be skewed in the direction of that inclination. As a result of hearing the various arguments, social interactions will lead people toward a more extreme point in line with what group members initially believed. Reputational factors matter as well. People usually want to be perceived favorably by other group members. Once they hear what others believe, some will adjust their positions at least slightly in the direction of the dominant position.
In other words once there is a definable group of people sharing common belief ( such as the belief that USA was attacked by foreign enemy on 9-11 ) then even if the individual members of the group initially had their doubts, by virtue of being in the group they will eventually lose those doubts and become absolutely convinced.
it is especially important to note that group polarization is particularly likely, and particularly pronounced, when people have a shared sense of identity and are connected by bonds of solidarity.43 These are circumstances in which arguments by outsiders, unconnected with the group, will lack much credibility, and fail to have much of an effect in reducing polarization
This is precisely what happens when a nation is at war. Or when a nation BELIEVES that it is at war. Few events in US history have united Americans like 9-11 attacks did. Once ?at war? the polarization was complete and at this point any criticism of the official 9-11 story would be an exercise in futility no matter how otherwise convincing the arguments.
Selection effects. A crippled epistemology can arise not only from informational and reputational dynamics within a given group, but also from self-selection of members into and out of groups with extreme views. Once polarization occurs or cascades arise, and the group?s median view begins to move in a certain direction, doubters and halfway believers will tend to depart while intense believers remain. (?) Group members may engage in a kind of double-think, segregating themselves, in a physical or informational sense, in order to protect their beliefs from challenge by outsiders. Even if the rank and file cannot coherently do this, group leaders may enforce segregation in order to insulate the rank and file from information or arguments that would undermine the leaders? hold on the group.
This is why most political forums will not tolerate conspiracy discussions in the main section. Such discussions are immediately moved to ?conspiracies? subforum or any other place where the members of the polarized group will never see them. When denial and ridicule fail, this self-selection and segregation technique is the last resort of a polarized group when it comes to protecting their epistemologically fragile beliefs. Needless to say conspiracy theorists are also excluded from all TV news shows even as all of these shows love to boast about the supposed diversity of opinions they present.
Pluralistic Ignorance:
[When the government attempts to rebut a conspiracy theory] audiences may infer from the government?s rebuttal efforts that the government estimates the conspiracy theory to be plausible, and fears that the third parties will themselves be persuaded. Second, some members of the audience may infer that many other members of the audience must believe the theory, or government would not be taking the trouble to rebut it. Consider circumstances of ?pluralistic ignorance,? in which citizens are unsure what other citizens believe. Citizens may take the fact of rebuttal itself as supplying information about the beliefs of other citizens, and may even use this information in forming their own beliefs. The government?s rebuttal may be a signal that other citizens believe in the conspiracy theory ? and may therefore make the theory more plausible.
This is absolutely crucial. Group polarization depends on members of the group believing that other members of the group believe the same thing as they do. Note that it doesn?t matter what other members REALLY think, only the PERCEPTION of what they think matters. In other words even if the majority of people think that Negroes are an inferior race to whites, as long as they don?t talk about out loud there will be a perception that they don?t think it, which will in turn reinforce the polarization of the overall group towards liberal views of racial equality.
But silence is only one way in which polarization can be maintained under the condition of pluralistic ignorance ( when people don?t know what other people think ). Control of information flow is another way ( see my article about it at the link directly below ):
DIY-AV • View topic - Information Flow - Vertical, Horizontal, Reflection
As long as people learn about what other people SUPPOSEDLY think through their TV ( as opposed to actually talking to people directly ) they can remain convinced that 9-11 conspiracy theories are fringe ( thus preserving group polarization ) even when in reality, as Sunstein admits, as much as 50% of New Yorkers believe 9-11 was an inside job, and in Muslim countries the number reaches 80%.
In conclusion what people consider knowledge is mostly false beliefs. These beliefs depend not on facts but on complex mechanisms of information flow. The mechanisms are in turn controlled by the government which is always on the cutting edge of mind control technology. In this chess mind game an average individual is not only hopelessly outclassed by the government but he or she doesn?t even realize that he is playing that game ( or is being played to be more precise ). As a result the government always wins, which is why Presidents never go to prison no matter how many thousands or millions of people die in for-profit wars, and no matter how many inside-jobs they blatantly pull off.
If you got this far now is a good time for you to consider whether you should continue trying to hold on to your equilibrium of antecedent beliefs, or whether you should ask the question ? WHAT DID REALLY HAPPEN ? ? and prepare to accept the truth no matter how painful it may be emotionally, no matter how unpalatable it may be socially.
Here is the link to the full paper by Sunstein:
SSRN-Conspiracy Theories by Cass Sunstein, Adrian Vermeule
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