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Post by ka9q on Aug 14, 2011 18:30:48 GMT -4
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that questions were the only tools/weapons of the HB. It's just that how they use questions is one of their distinguishing features. Questions are designed to be ambiguous so their answers can be used out of context; aggressive and leading; deliberately difficult or impossible to answer; and so on.
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Post by echnaton on Aug 15, 2011 13:18:14 GMT -4
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that questions were the only tools/weapons of the HB. It's just that how they use questions is one of their distinguishing features. Questions are designed to be ambiguous so their answers can be used out of context; aggressive and leading; deliberately difficult or impossible to answer; and so on. A technique know for its dubious nature since antiquity as Sophism.
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Post by Glom on Aug 15, 2011 15:09:45 GMT -4
I don't know what posts you are referring to but it sounds like a humorously dismissive way of alluding to him. There was a thread on the old BABB that ranked all the hoax proponents as various villains in The Lord of the Rings. It was a bit of nerdy fun. Here it is.
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Post by echnaton on Aug 15, 2011 15:35:58 GMT -4
I don't know what posts you are referring to but it sounds like a humorously dismissive way of alluding to him. There was a thread on the old BABB that ranked all the hoax proponents as various villains in The Lord of the Rings. It was a bit of nerdy fun. Here it is. Yes, that's the one. From a long time ago, in a board far far away.
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Post by JayUtah on Aug 16, 2011 12:26:28 GMT -4
Yes, I think it's not quite so simplistic.
In one way of thinking, conspiracy theorists do little more than raise questions. Real historians raise questions but then undertake to try to answer them. A conspiracist would say, "Did you know that eight astronauts died before Apollo even got off the ground?" and just leave it there to insinuate that there's something suspicious. A real historian would try to put that in a meaningful context of lifestyle, occupation, statistics, and so forth to see what the real explanation might be. The conspiracist is happy to leave it as an unproven suggestion that the deaths are suspicious.
"How could Apollo get to the Moon on less computer power than today's washing machines?" Of course there's an answer -- including the fact that washing machines didn't even have any computing power at all not more than a few years ago. But the conspiracist just lets that hang out there as if it were somehow suspicious.
And right there, in another way of thinking, is the particular flavor of complex question that conspiracists are fond of asking. The hidden premise is that any amount of computing power is required to solve some particular problem.
"How did the astronauts survive the searing radiation hell of the lunar surface?" implies that there is already known to be a searing radiation hell. These "complex" (so-called because they incorporate a premise that must be accepted before any answer at all can be given) can arise from deliberate malformation of the question or simply out of ignorance of the relevant science.
"How much radiation is in the Van Allen belts?" doesn't have a simple, general answer. Even for some well-specified time-variable trajectory on a given date and time the answer would be an absorbed-dose profile that varies by energy and radiation type. So if someone were compelled to provide a brief answer to that question, it could easily be misapplied to other conditions for which the answer isn't valid.
I get bitten by that. The lay audiences to whom I typically speak want a simple answer. When the answer can't be simple by nature, I have to carefully say "Well, under these precise conditions the simple answer would be X." Then someone else reports X without the conditions and suggests it's a general figure that should work in all cases.
We too use questions in a probative fashion. Our questions are not merely requests for information, but are also designed expose the weakness in a claim. This is why we compel people to answer them.
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Post by lukepemberton on Aug 16, 2011 14:18:37 GMT -4
Keeping within the theme I can see why Bill Kaysing is cast as Sauron, being the ultimate moonhoax villain. However, given he was a soft old kook who behaved like a grandfather telling stories from his rocking chair; could we just force Dr Evil into the storyline somewhere as a compromise. You know, inept, bit puddled and couldn't do evil if he tried. I'd cast Ralph Rene as an Orc. <edit: Referred to Ralph Rene by surname. This is a tradition reserved for those that have achieved academic recognition.>
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