Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on March 08, 2016, 01:06:35 PM
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In part triggered by the discussions on access to the forum, I have wondered frequently whether above all other divides, male female, theist atheist, good guys wanks, if the real division is cock up conspiracy.
I know a number of people who think that almost everything we think is a conspiracy, the moon landings, 9 11, school shootings in the U.S., and I look at my experience of life and laugh. The amount of effort to lie convincingly is exhausting when spread across large numbers. We can and do lie all the time but the bigger the lie the more difficult it is to sustain.
That isn't to say, of course, that what people say I the truth, just what they hope it might be. We have such malfunctioning bullshit filters that we create a mass pile of the stuff, not because we mean to, but because that's how we work.
Some things happen because we are bad but to truly create disaster you need to add in quite how shite we are at plans.
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Somebody - I forget who for the moment - once observed: "Never invoke conspiracy where plain old human stupidity will cover it."
ETA: It's called Hanlon's Razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
There's a sort of not especially distant parallel with religious belief here: some people seem happier with conspiracy even if it means malice rather than blind blundering. I say that based on threads here where some theists give the distinct impression of preferring a non-omnibenevolent, non-omnipotent and non-omniscient god - just as long as it's a god of some sort - rather than no god at all. It's as though a pissed and/or incompetent and/or downright malevolent captain of the ship is better than nobody on the bridge.
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And this triggers the thought that most of our problems are derived from us being unable to deal with complexity. The Prisoner's dilemma is boiled down but more complex the issues and we are held in the amber of the tragedy of the commons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
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In part triggered by the discussions on access to the forum, I have wondered frequently whether above all other divides, male female, theist atheist, good guys wanks, if the real division is cock up conspiracy.
I know a number of people who think that almost everything we think is a conspiracy, the moon landings, 9 11, school shootings in the U.S., and I look at my experience of life and laugh. The amount of effort to lie convincingly is exhausting when spread across large numbers. We can and do lie all the time but the bigger the lie the more difficult it is to sustain.
That isn't to say, of course, that what people say I the truth, just what they hope it might be. We have such malfunctioning bullshit filters that we create a mass pile of the stuff, not because we mean to, but because that's how we work.
Some things happen because we are bad but to truly create disaster you need to add in quite how shite we are at plans.
These days there are some very nasty things going on both in the real world and online, and of course online you really have no idea who or what you are dealing with or what their agenda might be.
Then there are the security forces: who knows what tricks they get up to in the fight against terrorism?
Remember, paranoia is a perfectly rational condition when everyone really is out to get you. :)
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I know a number of people who think that almost everything we think is a conspiracy,
Who said that? When?
ippy
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These days there are some very nasty things going on both in the real world and online, and of course online you really have no idea who or what you are dealing with or what their agenda might be.
Then there are the security forces: who knows what tricks they get up to in the fight against terrorism?
Remember, paranoia is a perfectly rational condition when everyone really is out to get you. :)
I don't think anyone is out to get you LA!
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These kinds of things are really easy to do if someone wants to:
https://mediatemple.net/community/products/dv/204405044/block-a-specific-ip-address-from-accessing-your-website
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I know a number of people who think that almost everything we think is a conspiracy,
Who said that? When?
ippy
Some people think that emails (generally from Nigeria) asking for money aren't a conspiracy!