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The cognitive equivalent of driving backwards to lower the odometer. “What would have to be true in order to justify my beliefs? Oh, that’s what must be true.”
I honestly cannot understand how people can be so stupid as to believe that something so vast can be faked. Every example you can find of a conspiracy theory that was found to be true involved quite a bit less than millions of conspirators. Somehow that’s easily ignored by morons.
“Three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
Millions of white people gaslit themselves into believing black people are biologically inferior, with entire disciplines like phrenology being made up out of thin air.
Huge conspiracies are quite possible, if they take the right shape. Hide the alleged facts behind experts that everyone chooses to trust for no reason other than that they want it to be true. Make sure your claims are unfalsifiable because of time, expertise, or deceptive vagueness. Have “eye witnesses” make vague claims or none at all. Get people invested in propagating the lie by tying it to community and morality and social fabric and profit so people struggle to let go even if they disbelieve part of it.
The holocaust does not fit this pattern, but there is plenty of “common knowledge” that does.
I can’t help but think that calling racism a conspiracy is a weird semantic stretch though. It’s an incredibly shitty opinion first. Then the racist creates “facts” out of thin air to support it, to convince themselves they’re justified. There may have been some vast (what I would call) conspiracies, but there couldn’t be many.
What do you think a conspiracy is, if not a large group of people creating “facts” out of thin air to support something so that thing seems justified, and collating those “facts” into a narrative that makes the thing as believable as possible to wide audiences?
The Latin meaning of “conspiracy” is “combined breath”, or metaphorically “combined intent”. It is the shared intent of racists to justify racism, and so they conspire to create a narrative that justifies racism.
What is the difference between historians collectively deciding to hide the “truth” of ancient aliens and phrenologists collectively deciding to hide the truth that phrenology has no predictive power and was retrofitted to describe black people as psychologically adapted for slavery?
I think a conspiracy is when a group of people plan something, usually nefarious, and then execute it in secret. It typically wouldn’t be based on millions of shitty opinions that come from a combination of human nature and a suppression of empathy. In any case I’m not interested in arguing the definition, this is just how I think of conspiracies and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone on this. Think of them how you like, that’s your prerogative.
The context here was regarding the Holocaust. You may have a point that the way I worded things wasn’t the best to express my point, however my point entirely stands. It’s very stupid to think millions of people made up millions of stories that all match up to hard evidence. Which is in a very different category to racism and how easily I can believe people can run with that idea. All you have to do to be racist is be a selfish asshole who makes the wrong connections between ideas. You don’t need phrenology or anything else, that’s just a desperate attempt to prop it up after the fact.
In any case I’m not interested in arguing the definition
What else have you been doing in your replies to me? What else could you have argued, given my comment was about the definition of conspiracy?
You are free not to argue about definitions, but then don’t write comments arguing about a definition. If you dislike my comment but also think it’s not worth arguing against, use the downvote button. That’s what it’s there for.
I am not responding to the rest of your comment so I don’t tempt you into doing something you’re not interested in doing.
Goddamn you’re fucking pedantic. Fucking obviously meant that I don’t want to continue a pointless argument. What an asshole.
Okay, sorry to retract my previous kindness, but you’re making me curious now. How many more words would you continue to use to express you don’t want to continue this conversation? Could I trap you like Tantalus, constantly making yourself unhappy as you reach to have the last word, only for it to slip away as my next inane reply rolls in?
Not terribly surprising, but no less horrific. A lot of my extended family either died or fled the continent in the Holocaust. As vague napkin math, I think about 30% died, half managed to get out to Canada, the US, the UK, etc, and I’m a descendant of the 20% who managed to stay and hide.
All that said, fuck all genocide deniers, regardless of the specific genocide you’re talking about.
it gets worse - a couple of days ago right after a missile attack reddit was full of threads discussing how ukrainians have death wish forcing russians to kill them instead of stopping the war and the killings.
The internet will bring information to everybody they said
Nobody said it had to be accurate and truthful.
The information was brought to everybody, but it is getting drowned in misinformation.
And it did, right up until they started allowing the Internet to be used for profit.
be .ml
united states and soviet union both find evidence of a thing and agree on its existence
ignore it because AOCIA and Zionran Obamadami think the holocaust happened, so believing the holocaust happened is imperialism
This implies that they do not trust Soviet sources either then I suppose.
Revisionists corrupted the records 😭
Name one historian named “Victor”.
you had one job and you failed
The west won over China? I don’t get the logic.
The tankies are an exercise in overcorrection. Don’t swing the pendulum so far, as the Buddha once said, it’s all about balance and staying in the middle.
This too is the wrong reaction. The truth is the truth. You find out the truth by finding evidence. It’s rarely in the middle of 2 extremes. It’s just what it is.
At the very least, don’t assume the exact opposite of a false position is true.
