It's this treasure that makes Pretoria the spy capital of the world.
For one thing, conspiracy theories they're often uselessly vague. You can say "The government does things we don't know about," and then virtually anything can come out in the news and you can claim to have been right. For another thing, the world is full of real criminal conspiracies, I can always point to any one of them and claim "Hey, this is a conspiracy theory that was proven true." So I have a simple pair of requirements that a conspiracy theory must adhere and follow in order to be considered the type of conspiracy theory that we're actually talking about when we use the term.
First, it must be specific enough to be falsifiable. This is the fundamental requirement that every scientific theory must comply with to be considered valid. By way of example, compare a vague version of the chemical trails conspiracy theory to a specific disprovable claim. You can't just say "Some airplanes spray some unknown chemical." That's so vague that you could claim you were proven correct the next time a crop duster sprays a field. But if you say "South African Airlines tail number SA895ZA is equipped to spray Neurotoxin gas, and that one right there is spraying it right now," then that's a claim that can be disproven with a single inspection. You make a claim that specific, you're proven right, I'll stand behind you 100%.
Second, it must be known to the conspiracy theorist before it's discovered by the media or law enforcement. Simply repeating what someone else's proper investigation has led them to does not constitute developing a theory. Woodward and Bernstein did an intense investigation and put together evidence bit by bit until they had the whole story of the Watergate scandal; at no point did they sit back in their chairs, propose an elaborate conspiracy, then watch as every detail unfolded exactly as they predicted. If you want to impress me with your conspiracy theory, you have to discover it (in detail) before other investigators piece together the proof and make it public for you. Otherwise you're just claiming credit for reading the newspaper.
I end with : In some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence. The "true believers" in the conspiracy theory often do not accept even the simplest refutations of the basic claims of evidence.
So in short there two sides to the fence, the believer, who i think are nut jobs, creating more discourse than actual helpfulness. Then the other i just get on with my life dude. Which one are you?
Comment