You’re attacking a straw man. There are groups vying for control. The question is whether or not there is one group controlling everything, and I think that’s highly unlikely.
Way I see it, you have two competing overarching theories, “spontaneous order” and “orchestrated order”.
I see a lot of chaos, too. Conspiracy theorists will look at something that I regard as chaos (say, the Sandy Hook massacre) and say, “Oh, yeah, that was planned (by a conspiracy).” There seems to be an unwillingness to accept that there is a lot of chaos on the world, and while some things are controlled, much of it is not.
Not attacking a strawman, I asked him to clarify and then talked about the context.
“Conspiracy theorists” often look at an event that’s heavily covered by the media, that serves a perceived state interest, and investigate it further. Particularly if it receives disproportionate emphasis, like the various mass casualty events that were referenced so often they’re just referred to by dates (“9/11”, “7/7”, “Oct. 7”, etc.). Sandy Hook served a perceived state interest (popular disarmament), and people perceived “weird things about it”, so to speak, so interpretations of the event differed. Sometimes people try to explain the formation of these theories in terms of fulfillment of an emotional need (“they can’t accept this would just happen so they need to pretend someone is in control”), which is just inaccurate. They have a mental model, whether accurate in a given case or not, where there’s an antagonistic power structure of some kind orchestrating events or narratives for its own benefit, and are simply applying that lens to understand new events and narratives.
At the end of the day, it is a fact that the U.S. government does things like this in general. You look at declassified CIA documents from the past, they are very open about overthrowing governments, manipulating public perception, and all sorts of other shady behavior. But they’re not open about them as they’re doing them. So we’re left with the difficulty of figuring it out for ourselves.
Way I see it, you have two competing overarching theories, “spontaneous order” and “orchestrated order”.
You’re assuming that there is order and working backwards.
Sometimes people try to explain the formation of these theories in terms of fulfillment of an emotional need (“they can’t accept this would just happen so they need to pretend someone is in control”), which is just inaccurate.
You didn’t explain how that was inaccurate. You just said they were using a “mental model”. Why are they using that mental model, though? It’s because they need somebody to be in control.
This has actually been studied. Sociologists have studied conspiracy theorists, and they are often people with control issues.
Way I see it, you have two competing overarching theories, “spontaneous order” and “orchestrated order”.
I mean “order” in the sense of “enforced form”. The shape of things, namely, a broader, shared agenda of government and major corps. And I’m not assuming it, I’m describing the content of theories.
You didn’t explain how that was inaccurate. You just said they were using a “mental model”. Why are they using that mental model, though? It’s because they need somebody to be in control.
I did explain it, actually.
This has actually been studied. Sociologists have studied conspiracy theorists, and they are often people with control issues.
Correlation and causation issue? Point to the studies, show their methods and conclusions (although IMHO don’t bother).
You’re attacking a straw man. There are groups vying for control. The question is whether or not there is one group controlling everything, and I think that’s highly unlikely.
I see a lot of chaos, too. Conspiracy theorists will look at something that I regard as chaos (say, the Sandy Hook massacre) and say, “Oh, yeah, that was planned (by a conspiracy).” There seems to be an unwillingness to accept that there is a lot of chaos on the world, and while some things are controlled, much of it is not.
Not attacking a strawman, I asked him to clarify and then talked about the context.
“Conspiracy theorists” often look at an event that’s heavily covered by the media, that serves a perceived state interest, and investigate it further. Particularly if it receives disproportionate emphasis, like the various mass casualty events that were referenced so often they’re just referred to by dates (“9/11”, “7/7”, “Oct. 7”, etc.). Sandy Hook served a perceived state interest (popular disarmament), and people perceived “weird things about it”, so to speak, so interpretations of the event differed. Sometimes people try to explain the formation of these theories in terms of fulfillment of an emotional need (“they can’t accept this would just happen so they need to pretend someone is in control”), which is just inaccurate. They have a mental model, whether accurate in a given case or not, where there’s an antagonistic power structure of some kind orchestrating events or narratives for its own benefit, and are simply applying that lens to understand new events and narratives.
At the end of the day, it is a fact that the U.S. government does things like this in general. You look at declassified CIA documents from the past, they are very open about overthrowing governments, manipulating public perception, and all sorts of other shady behavior. But they’re not open about them as they’re doing them. So we’re left with the difficulty of figuring it out for ourselves.
This is the straw man:
You’re assuming that there is order and working backwards.
You didn’t explain how that was inaccurate. You just said they were using a “mental model”. Why are they using that mental model, though? It’s because they need somebody to be in control.
This has actually been studied. Sociologists have studied conspiracy theorists, and they are often people with control issues.
I mean “order” in the sense of “enforced form”. The shape of things, namely, a broader, shared agenda of government and major corps. And I’m not assuming it, I’m describing the content of theories.
I did explain it, actually.
Correlation and causation issue? Point to the studies, show their methods and conclusions (although IMHO don’t bother).