We talk a lot here about the group-think and cognitive dissonance the status-quo requires but rarely do I cover the same about the other side, the "conspiracy theorist" side.
HEY! Before, you say it I know what you're all about to say, what about
this article? What I'm going to be talking about here in this post is not "conspiracy theories" themselves but rather the conspiracy theorists. There are tons of conspiracy theories, if there weren't we wouldn't need "conspiracy" as a crime. They're real, I don't think anyone who reads this blog is going to deny that, but that doesn't mean that they're always real and it doesn't mean that even if the conspiracy as a whole is largely correct that they have the actual details correct.
For instance, I differ from "9/11 Truthers" in that I don't give a fuck whether the towers were brought down by airplanes or explosives, have any of you ever asked why that has to be necessary to have a conspiracy around 9/11? As Mike Ruppert says in his
Truth and Lies of 9/11, that's speculation, when there are plenty of
facts surrounding the ordeal. We're not going into these here, that's not the point of this post, what I think is important though is that conspiracy theorists get so caught up in the narrative pushed that itself becomes a conspiracy to keep it going.
When I say it needs a conspiracy to keep it going, I mean it. This fellow I discovered yesterday by the name of
Jim Stone provides a clear example.
Jim Stone is still convinced that the explosions in Syria were a nuke. Of course, when I had done
my post on Syria, I had published it JUST HOURS after I became aware of that video of the attack late at night and was disturbed by it so stayed up all night trying to get people to look at it and tell me. It's now four days later, on top of the expert analysis provided by Michael of the explosion video in question there are also plenty of video of plainclothes people sifting through the rubble, etc. NO NUKE! (UPDATE: Gordon Duff's video has now re-raised the question and I have a lead on soil samples, see UPDATE-6 on Syria) Right?
Not for Jim Stone...
Jim Stone now alleges that a cover-up is underway and naturally me ( a guy who hates blogging and is a
professional programmer ) is in on it (see Update-5 from my post on Syria).
Here's the best part though, I went to his
soapbox forum to try to clear up the story, and do you know what he did? He deleted my post and then made up a story about me! Looking through his "forum" (at budgetcamerareview.com ???) you see plenty of references to "the shill". Watch what I'm going to do here, you'll like this.
Jim Stone's "shill", is no different from the political "terrorist". This guy uses the EXACT same tactics as the "elites" he's "fighting" (and taking donations for, of course). He's built up the same sort of invisible, "they're everywhere" enemy while making arbitrary announcements about the "attacks" (which no one can ever verify because he disposes of all evidence of the "attack" details). A "shill storm". His whole story about how my blog was hacked by shills, etc, etc is not unlike the U.S.'s own "Bin Laden's in the ocean, trust us" crap.
He even has his loyal members acting as the brownshirts, seeking out contrary views and eliminating them. You see, he can accomplish this for the same reasons governments can continue pushing the boundaries of law & order towards terrorism by claiming he's constantly under attack. He uses this also for donations by claiming that "hacks" have had him lose his equipment.
He has his members so sold on the fact that Jim Stone is so heroic (yes, there are many references amongst his work of himself as heroic, for a social parallel think western 'freedom' which the 'terrorists hate') and ground-breaking that governments have sent "shills" 24/7 to disrupt the distribution of his "information", which effectively destroys any real information not pre-approved by Jim Stone. Again, similar to how to "protect freedom" we must destroy it because of terrorists, in Jim Stone's world information must be destroyed to protect the real information from shills.
The moral of the story here is, conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists are two different beasts. Have I ever asked for money? Been dishonest? When I said '
A lockdown in the U.S. appears imminent', was I wrong? Seriously, what are the odds of just guessing that an unprecedented event would happen? I'm not boasting my ego here, I'm just trying to show there's a difference between blind conspiracy faith and using reasonable evidence to build a story, but you have to consider ALL INFORMATION!
This site isn't about conspiracy theories, it's about critical thinking wherever that takes us. Wherever it takes us, I'd rather be proven rightly wrong than have people blindly believe I'm wrongly right.
Update-1
Of course if I write about someone directly I always ensure they're aware of it. Jim Stone has declined to come here himself however, he did send me this email in response to me notifying him of the story:
On May 9, 2013 10:31 PM, <james@jimstonefreelance.com> wrote:
We will see how many hits that gets, I am keeping track.
When you establish an active community of people and your rating states that your web site visitors are age 40-50 males who are college educated, then you will have room for comment, for now I see a phoney blogger page set up by someone who probably works for one govern[m]ent or another,
this ALWAYS happens when I NAIL IT,
Thanks for the confirmation - why would you care if I was right or not if you had nothing to lose by me being wrong?
I am not so thin skinned, please go burn a tinfoil hat and liberate your mind like a good little shill,
Yours truly,
Jim Stone
Oh Jim, I don't care about your silly theories, and like I said I'm happy with my small community here. I care that you decided the correct thing to do in response to being challenged on your beliefs was invent a story about me.
This is Richard, government agent, signing off!
Update-2
Jim Stone now believes he is under "direct physical threat" because he's posted the moment of criticality and "broke" the story.
Here is proof that the only searches blogger was recording at the time from people were about nukes on Syria. Note this tweet was on May 6th.
Here is proof that I also posted it, again, note the date. You'll notice that my post on Syria is dated the 5th!
admin 5:54PM
This is spot on, and is why I deleted that thread you mentioned, if we are going to overcome the monster we have to stay focused. And I have to agree, Innadiated and his other names (the one who set up the blog) is a shill so high in his expertise that he is beyond professional, he could be one of the best, if not the best one out there. There is no doubt that because this site broke the nuke story and posted the moment of criticality and did not back down, on top of it being a relatively large site (with over 2 million hits to the main site and this forum combined just through may 10 this month) they would want to do everything they can to destroy this forum.
And by the way, I have not mentioned it much, but some really flaky things are going on with regard to the nuke story, including threats against this web site, damage to hardware, and attempts to deface this site all of which failed. Ok, I am going to cut to the chase here -
I have a very good reason to believe (that goes beyond what I posted above) that I am under direct physical threat at this time SO, FOR THE RECORD:
1. I am not sick and have ABSOLUTELY no health issues at all, not even a sore toe. My condition is athletic though I do have a (slight , very slight) tummy, and I have no pains or sickness ANYWHERE. So I am not going to die from a health related issue.
2. I am not suicidal in any way whatsoever and have a large network of friends here now that like me very much.
3. This web site, all backups as well, are not behind on anything or in any danger of being shut down for any reason other than direct force
4. I am not sick of doing this, though I wish I did not have to. But as long as there is filth to clean, I intend to clean it.
5. I am extremely careful with traffic and won´t get run over unless someone drives on the sidewalk
6. My neighborhood is safe, there is zero drug or gang activity here, so I won´t get shot being robbed or get caught in any crossfire.
7. There is no extemperaneous reason for me to vanish or for the site to go offline whatsoever. ALL CLEAR, unless I get bumped by the Jewish community or one of their paid goons over stating things AS THEY ARE and not backing down. I have seen WAY TOO MANY PLANE CRASHES AND SUICIDES LATELY, and there is absolutely no reason for me to reach a similar fate outside of direct intent by those who would wish to shut me down.
The severe shillage on this forum proves beyond all doubt that WE hit the nail on the head. It was not just me, I depend upon everyone's work here to help push things forward and help uncover things I missed, and for that I can state that there could not possibly be a better group of people who can get to the bottom of things on the web than this forum, you have all made it an information gold mine,
thank you.
Of course, Jim Stone is under no "physical threat" from me unless he doesn't like my words slapping him across the face. This was in response to:
In a forum like this one where the very foundation is based on critical and analytical thinking, it is critical that the trolls and shills prevent this in any way they can.
Here's why:
When a person is thinking critically, they are using and developing the area of their brains that allow for that type of thinking. The more you think this way, the more refined and astute that ara of the brain becomes. And in a world where critical thinking is the enemy of the control structure of the elites, they and their minions will do anything to make sure the critical thinking portion of the brain gets as little use as possible.
When a troll injects religion into the forum, they bring the reader's brain out of critical thinking mode and into reflective, belief or creative mode. Now that the brain is in this mode, it's nearly incapable of the critical thinking part because it's busy elsewhere.
Slinging personal insults puts the brain into defensive emotional mode where critical thought is overpowered with emotion.
Calling things into doubt puts the brain into cognitive dissonance mode where the reader struggles with him/her self.
Trying to suck the reader or target into an argument by challenging them to a dispute or moving them into an adversarial stance means the person is in competitive mode rather than critical thinking mode.
Just about anything that pulls the reader into any other mode of thinking can be used in the same way.
The above methods of thinking obviously serve their own purposes, but the key to knowing when someone is trying to use these natural emotions and responses is, well, one is to look at the nature of the purpose of this forum. Is it a religious forum? Is it a place to argue? Is the shill trying to draw your attention away from the purpose of this forum in any way?
If so, they're using subtle and highly refined forms of mind control to keep you from developing that critical thinking part of your brain by keeping it busy with other stuff.
We're all human here and we all have beliefs and emotions. Please don't let shills use this forum to draw those out of you here.
Edited to add: The experience I just had here with a troll trying to suck me into a debate is the perfect example. He used everything from trying to insult my intelligence, to personal attacks, to calling me out directly in the thread title to saying I was Jim's b**ch. He tried everything, including using the same words I used in other posts to try and suck me in with familiarity but I just kept deleting his crap because I recognized it as him targeting me because he sees me as a prominent or influential member here and he tried to sway me or get me to loose it. I simply did what I'm committed to doing here - keeping this place as troll and shill free as possible while contributing as much as I can. Hence, this post.
I've edited the paragraph above a number of times to add things. So if you see changes it's me doing it and not the holonet :)
Isn't that cute?
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Richard Fantin is a self-taught software developer who has mostly throughout his career focused on financial applications and high frequency trading. He currently works for CenturyLink
Nazayh Zanidean is a Project Coordinator for a mid-sized construction contractor in Calgary, Alberta. He enjoys writing as a hobby on topics that include foreign policy, international human rights, security and systemic media bias.
