Government: Conspiracy vs Liberty

James Daugherty (daugh@home.msen.com)
Thu, 15 Jan 1998 06:30:12 -0500


Anders Sandberg Wrote:

|True. But I'm becoming a bit worried about the prevalence of
|conspiracy thinking; it is alsmot the secular religion of the 90's. I
|almost daily hear people explain things in the world around them by
|references to conspiracies, and it seems to be the favored rhetorical
|tool for anybody outside the direct political mainstream (sometimes in
|it too) to explain the situation by some form of conspiracy (ranging
|from the patriarchal to the statist to the market conspiracy).

One can say the same about "government benevolence" theories.
Those are by far the more popular...Bill and Hilary "care" about us,
"the government is us", etc etc ad nauseum. Regulatory agency are
put in place to "help" us....

||To me this is a sign of sloppy thinking. Sure, there are dirty
|dealings and secret alliances out there, but that doesn't give
|conspiracy theories explanatory power.

Does so! Unless you are a strict materialist reductionist...in
which case purposeful human action is a delusion.

A conspiracy theory usually
|works by showing some suggestive but weak evidence, and then
|explaining away the lack of confirmation by cover-up. It is
|unfalsifiable ("Of course there are no witnessess, they have all been
|scared into silence"), defends itself vigorously from criticism ("See?
|They have indoctrinated you too!") and promotes spread (in order to
|help others see the truth). In short, they make very efficient memes,
|but they do not have to be true to spread well.

This is bigotted stereotyping above. Just as in any other field of
inquiry, some theories are better supported by evidence than others.
In the case of the Ron Brown there are now 4 whistle blowers
who have come forward! The reality of cover-up is now well supported by
evidence
but still, people supposedly interested in liberty and opposing govt
tyranny "aren't interested"! Looks to me that irrational "pro-govt" memes
are much more powerful than "conspiracy memes"....too bad!

|Keep an open mind, but not so open your brain falls out.

Sanders, you give no indication what-so-ever that you are considering
_any_ specific evidence regarding any particular conspiracy theory. Methinks
many, but not all Extropians, fear to see and therefore reject, the evidence
that their hopes for the future will be dashed unless the conspiracy that is
government can be defeated.....pointing-out the chronic on-going conspiracies
within and around government are an important tool in building a better
future with little or no government.

The govt's reaction to cloning is just a hint of how anti-extropian it is and
will continue to be unless a popular anti-govt memetic field can be erected.

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