|
Post by ineluki on Jul 18, 2011 8:52:55 GMT -4
Not mention, both puppet writing styles are amazingly similar. ie: exact. In a way that's what annoys me most. They don't even try to hide their sockpuppetry, they really seem to believe we are too dumb to notice.
|
|
Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
|
Post by Bob B. on Jul 18, 2011 9:26:53 GMT -4
One thing I find universal among HBs is immaturity. I’ve been doing this for ten years now and I can’t remember arguing with an HB yet that didn’t have a real childish streak.
Take Fattydash for instance. Overall he expressed himself pretty well and gave the superficial appearance of maturity, but then he’d do stuff like the fake flattery. I also believe his sock-puppetry was a very immature thing to do. Also his behavior regarding answering for his prior sock-puppetry was really childish. I don’t believe for a minute that he didn’t understand what was being asked, or that he was being evasive because he didn’t want to answer. I think he was being evasive to provoke agitation in those asking the questions. It was trollish behavior, plain and simply.
It seems that every time an HB starts to lose an argument, he/she turns into a big baby.
|
|
|
Post by twik on Jul 18, 2011 12:01:32 GMT -4
Not mention, both puppet writing styles are amazingly similar. ie: exact. In a way that's what annoys me most. They don't even try to hide their sockpuppetry, they really seem to believe we are too dumb to notice. Well, to give fattydash some credit, when he was banned BAUT as DrT, the "voice of reason" type HB, his next alias was MaryB, who was quite vitriolic. But I think everyone who'd seen DrT on BAUT was pretty convinced he was fattydash here, just on styistic basis.
|
|
|
Post by echnaton on Jul 18, 2011 12:31:47 GMT -4
We all seem to have our individualistic takes on the motive for HBs behavior, mostly revolving around the theme that it starts with a belief in a hoax and everything else is used to justify the initial belief. Fattydash was certainly an interesting part of the hoax continuum being more superficially rational than most But his dedication to the cause appeared to be as deep and as desperate as the best of them. Like others he sufferers from what to me is a key common theme among HBs; the inability or unwillingness to differentiate between fact, interpretation and meaning.
At least he served to let us document and respond to some aspects of the hoax that had not been presented before. I found the discussion about the error of the landing coordinates instructive.
|
|
|
Post by ka9q on Jul 20, 2011 2:47:18 GMT -4
It is my experience that there is no single psychological profile of conspiracy theorists. I do, however, believe that a vast majority of them really do believe what they are saying, no matter how insane it seems to anyone else. I'm coming around to this point of view myself, though I'm still quite undecided and looking for further insights. I long ago gave up hope of ever persuading a HB to change his position, so why do I still debate them? Well, one reason is to ensure that any silent bystanders know that there's another side to the story. But I'm also just plain fascinated. I really want to understand why these people say what they say -- and apparently believe it. Hoax believers' claims can be so patently absurd and counter to demonstrable facts and logic that I often find it impossible to accept that they really do believe what they're saying. I often succumb to the temptation to label them as conscious liars. The reaction usually confirms either their sincerity or a truly remarkable degree of acting skill. Since there just aren't that many good actors in the world, I'm forced to conclude that most hoax believers really are genuine true believers. And this totally baffles me. I just don't understand it. It is so much easier to settle scientific and engineering questions than to understand human behavior. After all, you can design experiments, collect data, and apply logic to science and engineering. Human beings are remarkably resistant to that sort of thing. Lately I've been locking horns with another prolific HB on Youtube, hunchbacked. He's posted here under other names I can't recall at the moment, but his writing style is unique and unusually distinctive. He says he's a degreed engineer in the French aerospace industry, and he does seem to have a rudimentary exposure to the fields in which he claims expertise (electronics, computers, orbital mechanics, optical geometry, etc). Lately he has produced a veritable flood of YT videos with an interesting take on the usual "whistle blower" HB meme. Each analyzes an Apollo technical document on a particular subsystem or aspect of mission operations purporting to find many reasons why it could not work as described. He theorizes that the documentation was produced by otherwise competent engineers rebelling against being forced to participate in the Apollo "fraud" by burying little clues that only he is sufficiently smart and discerning to reveal. Hunchbacked seems to have two basic working assumptions: Anything he doesn't already know isn't importantAnything he doesn't understand cannot possibly workAnd there's so much he doesn't understand... A current example is his analysis of the 8-bit analog-to-digital (A/D) converter in the LM telemetry system. Now I know of at least four ways to build an A/D converter and I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn there are more that I didn't know about. But hunchbacked knows only one, and it's so inefficient that I've never seen it used except for pedagogical (teaching) purposes, probably because it's easy to understand. The LM didn't use it, ergo the system was an obviously unworkable fake. The actual technique ("successive approximation") was clearly spelled out in the documentation. Wikipedia would have quickly confirmed the existence of this technique but he flatly insisted the term was a joke. He also said that the step-by-step description in the text was also a "joke" not meant to be taken seriously. His Apollo videos (well over 100 at last count) are filled with enough of this kind of 'reasoning' to give any knowledgeable engineer a splitting headache in a matter of seconds. As I understand the Dunning-Kruger effect, it posits -- for Americans at least -- an inverse relationship between true and perceived competence. In effect, it embodies the old saying the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. D-K certainly rings true for me; I remember very well my abrupt transitions from high school (where I didn't have to work very hard) to college (the exact opposite) and again from college to the "real world". But hunchbacked brings another saying to mind that suggests a modification to the D-K hypothesis: a little knowledge can be dangerous. I think the relationship between true and perceived knowledge and competence may not be monotonic. It could be that they both start low; after all, most laymen completely untrained in brain surgery will readily admit that fact. But introductory training starts a very steep rise in perceived competence ("a little knowledge is dangerous") until an inflection point is reached where the person has his first epiphany about just how much more is left to learn. Beyond that point, the D-K effect as described takes over. D-K point out that their effect is most pronounced with Americans and is much less prevalent or even nonexistent in certain other cultures (especially Asian, but also European). Since hunchbacked is European, not American, that's another interesting tidbit to ponder. Like I said, engineering seems trivial in comparison to understanding human behavior.
|
|
|
Post by laurel on Jul 20, 2011 22:18:43 GMT -4
Hunchbacked posted under the name Inquisitivemind here.
|
|
|
Post by ka9q on Jul 21, 2011 1:09:30 GMT -4
Hunchbacked posted under the name Inquisitivemind here. That sounds right. Not a very accurate description, is it?
|
|
|
Post by twik on Jul 23, 2011 12:18:50 GMT -4
I noticed some odd comparisons between fattydash and the classic poster Moon Man, that I think are indicative of a certain type of HB poster.
First, the insistence on their professional credentials, without the willingness to actually detail them. That, in itself, isn't too untoward - the internet is a scary place, and not everyone is as brave as JayUtah in allowing themselves to be publicly identified. But it does set up a non-assailable arguing position of "I'm a scientist/lawyer/doctor/Navy SEAL, and I KNOW these things better than you, hahahaha!"
Second, the continuous posting, and the insistence that they are spending incredible hours, to the detriment of their sleep and health, answering questions. While LO and other mods like people to answer questions, I don't think they commonly assign time limits. But fattydash and MM insisted that there studies took unbelievable amounts of time, which surely would have been to the detriment of their supposedly highly responsible professional duties. Most of us treat the board like a hobby, that does not require that sort of self-sacrifice. Many HBs do seem to be prolific posters, at least in the first rush of their ideas (unless they're seagulls who never return to their first post at all). It's sort of an all-or-nothing mentality.
Then, the suggestion that somehow their computers are being hacked. I'm not sure if this is an excuse ("You should have seen the brilliant explication of my views I just typed, but THE COMPUTER ATE IT!"), or that HBs just tend to pick up a lot of viruses, and cannot believe that it's their own browsing habits that are the cause, rather than a deliberate attack. It seems to verify their suspicion that posting on internet message boards is Very Important Work, and the men in black are out to stop them at all costs.
|
|
|
Post by frenat on Jul 23, 2011 13:53:37 GMT -4
Cosmored/DavidC/Rocky claimed computer issues too. He complained multiple times of not being able to stay logged in. Of course the fact that he exclusively posted from public computers in web cafes never factored into his diagnosis. He was SURE that the moderator was doing it.
|
|
|
Post by theteacher on Jul 23, 2011 17:22:18 GMT -4
I noticed some odd comparisons between fattydash and the classic poster Moon Man, that I think are indicative of a certain type of HB poster. First, the insistence on their professional credentials, without the willingness to actually detail them. All due respect, but this doesn't apply very well to moonman. He explicitly said the following: "I am not a scientist and never claimed to be, I do legal work".
|
|
|
Post by twik on Jul 23, 2011 19:14:08 GMT -4
I noticed some odd comparisons between fattydash and the classic poster Moon Man, that I think are indicative of a certain type of HB poster. First, the insistence on their professional credentials, without the willingness to actually detail them. All due respect, but this doesn't apply very well to moonman. He explicitly said the following: "I am not a scientist and never claimed to be, I do legal work". Yes, he claimed that he had somehow won a case that had "changed the law in both Canada and the United States". Although, when pressed, he conceded that he wasn't exactly a lawyer. In any case, his argument was that he was highly educated in a field that demands considerable understanding of logic and evidence, which gave him the intellectual tools to deconstruct the hoax, as he saw it. And yet, all evidence from his posting indicated that he actually didn't have the credentials he claimed.
|
|
|
Post by ka9q on Jul 23, 2011 19:25:52 GMT -4
While I do consider the law to be an intellectual field that demands considerable understanding of logic and evidence, it is a far cry from science. Science seeks the truth, wherever it leads, and that's the last thing most lawyers want. They pick a conclusion favorable to their client, seek only that evidence which supports it, and attempt to discredit any evidence that doesn't.
Just like our hoax believer friends.
|
|
|
Post by theteacher on Jul 23, 2011 21:12:05 GMT -4
While I do consider the law to be an intellectual field that demands considerable understanding of logic and evidence, it is a far cry from science. Science seeks the truth, wherever it leads, and that's the last thing most lawyers want. They pick a conclusion favorable to their client, seek only that evidence which supports it, and attempt to discredit any evidence that doesn't. Just like our hoax believer friends. - which reminds me of www.indiauncut.com/iublog/article/38-ways-to-win-an-argument-arthur-schopenhauer/
|
|
|
Post by Count Zero on Jul 24, 2011 0:57:49 GMT -4
I read the first dozen or so, then had an aneurysm. la;ghperrrrrrqivc bbl.......
|
|
|
Post by echnaton on Jul 24, 2011 10:02:36 GMT -4
While I do consider the law to be an intellectual field that demands considerable understanding of logic and evidence, it is a far cry from science. Science seeks the truth, wherever it leads, and that's the last thing most lawyers want. They pick a conclusion favorable to their client, seek only that evidence which supports it, and attempt to discredit any evidence that doesn't. Just like our hoax believer friends. That is only a part of what attorneys do Most legal work involves contacts. That practice requires identifying contingencies and planning for them and in a manner that all parties can agree on, even if one is working to favor the client. Mostly legal professionals need to be liked and trusted by their clients, something that is hard to imagine Moonman ever achieving.
|
|