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Comment by simplotek | Hacker News Reader

> I always find it interesting how when these things get revealed, nobody seems to update their priors on "conspiracy theories" going forward.

The problem with this blend of specious reasoning is that to start off these conspiracy theories do not have any prior whatsoever. These conspiracy loons build their system of belief at best around flimsy conjectures, and reinforce their baseless beliefs on any noise that they manage to overfit around those.

A broken clock being right twice a day does not vindicate conspiracies around broken clocks.

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This is a good point and I don't disagree. What i'm referring to though is how this incident, snowden leaks, NSA metadata spying, MKultra, etc. etc. all are described as "nutjob" theories until they're proven. Then we just say "oh yeah everyone knew that" and go back to saying anything that doesn't sound mainstream reasonable is crazy

>snowden leaks, NSA metadata spying, MKultra all are described as "nutjob" theories

Is this true, in any real numbers?

I can definitely say in the early days of Echelon development (mid to late 1990's) any attempt to raise awareness would be dismissed. Some of that is surely due to people not understanding the technology at the time.

Apart from anything else, it seems like the popular theories about politicians running paedophile rings came after the mainstream media revelations about very well connected socialite Jeffrey Epstein, not before.

Posting a wild theory about al Qaeda and three letter agencies and US 'neoconservative' foreign policy on September 10th 2001 is at least interesting, if not exactly hard evidence you know anything. Posting one on September 12th 2001 isn't an indication of you having been aware of anything more than the news cycle.

> Apart from anything else, it seems like the popular theories about politicians running paedophile rings came after the mainstream media revelations about very well connected socialite Jeffrey Epstein, not before.

They're hardly new. The QAnon/Pizzagate "adrenochrome" conspiracy theory is just the old Jewish blood libel with a slightly scifi modernization and a touch of the 80s Satanic panic.

Something interesting about humans is that they often criticize members of their outgroups for being bad at thinking or holding false beliefs, but in the process of doing so the person doing the criticizing demonstrates that they suffer from the very same problem.

Case in point:

> They're hardly new. The QAnon/Pizzagate "adrenochrome" conspiracy theory is just the old Jewish blood libel with a slightly scifi modernization and a touch of the 80s Satanic panic.

It is not possible to possess this knowledge, as it is a reference to the beliefs of potentially millions of people. And yet to the (standard) human mind, the exact opposite seems true.

It is strange that our whole world runs on this phenomenon, but it seems like it is not possible to get anyone to discuss the phenomenon. Granted, expecting someone who is suffering from the phenomenon to acknowledge it at the time that it occurs isn't terribly realistic, and I can accept that. But the weird part to me is that it is rarely possible to get anyone to acknowledge the phenomenon....it is very much like the fable of the emperor having no clothes, but in real life, right here and now.

Nah, arguing "you can't ever analyze the belief structure of a large group" is a non-starter for me. We've seen the blood libel crop up over and over again for literally thousands of years, and here it is again.

> Nah, arguing "you can't ever analyze the belief structure of a large group" is a non-starter for me.

I know, that's my point (of "It is not possible to possess this knowledge, as it is a reference to the beliefs of potentially millions of people"). One HAS TO use one's imagination to perform such an "analysis"....but it is imagined - the very thing (the imaginary, and some actual) conspiracy theorists are mocked for!

If the topic was something other than conspiracy theories (or any culture war topic), presenting one's imagination as fact would not stand on Hacker News...but when the topic is a culture war one, this standard inverts: then, acceptable norms to a large degree change to "imagination is ok, but appeals to truth are considered bad/unacceptable/weird".

> We've seen the blood libel crop up over and over again for literally thousands of years, and here it is again.

Where is it? Can you point it out in a way that I also can see it?

And how did it get here, by you making a reference to it?

Re: popular theories post-Epstein:

In the late 80s/very early 90s there were people in Usenet’s alt.sex who told of their participation, as children, in wealthy sex rings. One in particular made claims that he had been well-compensated, in that he was also provided an excellent education and developed the connections to the wealthy and powerful that ensured his outstanding success in adult life.

These theories are (a) not new and (b) IMO likely true. Having seen what humans are capable of doing to one another, I have absolutely no doubt that there is a cadre of powerful people who use child rape to gain blackmail material, ensure loyalty, and to get their sick jollies off.

I am always surprised by those who express doubt. Have they not watched the news? Humans can do the most horrific things for pleasure, let alone power and wealth.

Sure, sexual abuse is obviously very common and not unconnected with power, stories about actual abuse and similar fantasies about abuse and power have been around forever, and untangling the two isn't always easy, especially when they crop up during the same well-publicised case like the UK's Operation Yewtree. And sometimes you hear something about a famous person long before it becomes more than gossip (I heard about a friend of an acquaintance who was in Hollywood "dating" the wealthy and very eligible fortysomething X-men director when we were all in our late teens a decade before rather grubbier accounts about Bryan Singer and very young men appeared)

But there's a big difference between that and various very grand theories about certain US politicians that claim the story of Epstein is new evidence and corroboration, not old news and inspiration.

What the nutjobs were saying was (and remains) that the NSA reads all your email and listens to all your phone calls or that it has unfettered access to this data. The Snowden leaks confirmed this to be false, but the nutjobs keep claiming it.

People said "everyone knew about" phone metadata collection because they did. It was a huge news story in 2006 when USA Today broke it. https://www.kpcc.org/npr-news/2006-05-11/phone-companies-gav... https://www.npr.org/2006/05/11/5398629/report-nsa-collecting...

How many of these would you need to update in the direction of "maybe some of them do know some of what they're talking about"?

Edit: Read the question again, and try to answer it. Let me rephrase the question:

How many times do you need to find out that something the media told you was "misinformation" or "a conspiracy theory" was actually true, to start questioning them a biiiit more?

Sorry you’re interpreting the release of these documents as evidence that the conspiracists were right? If the conspiracy was correct, these would never be made public, not “they would be made public in a pretty reasonable span of time for our abysmally slow justice system,” which appears to be what’s happening.

People filed a legal request to keep them private, that request has been overruled. What’s the conspiracy?

> What’s the conspiracy?

Don't underestimate the ability of these conspiracy loons to fabricate more and more stories. I expect them to react to tasting a big nothing sandwich with more conspiracy theories on how shady imaginary organizations edited out all the smoking guns.

The conspiracy i'm referring to was the whole overall scheme, not specifically this this article

I think the public at large believes Epstein met with powerful people and trafficked with human sex slaves. The conspiracy narrative is about how Epstein died and whether there’s a powerful guilty people can basically control the justice system.

Right, _now_ they believe that. This is my whole point! Previously if you said that a powerful man who became a finance billionaire with nobody in industry knowing him had a secret island where he hosted presidents, royalty, billionaires, intellectuals and they did drugs and raped kids those same people would have dismissed it as "conspiracy theory"

There's a new possibility that many of these 'crazy' conspiracies are intentional misdirections. Elon is king of this, as learned through his press releases with Tesla. One could almost back-test many of the crazy, stupid ideas, like the pizza parlor and now this most recent Balagencia deal, as all misdirections for what actually takes place.

I think what you’re describing is people being skeptical of claims without evidence and then being convinced of those claims by evidence.

I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Edit: Just to be crystal clear given that surely there was some evidence of his misdeeds prior to the recent blow up (e.g. his Florida arrest and subsequent soft handling by Acosta etc.), what you're seeing is a rough correlation between the % of people who believe a claim and the volume/credibility of the evidence in support of that claim. So yeah, when there was little evidence few people believed it. Now that there's a lot, everyone takes it as fact. The only thing shocking here is how utterly reasonable it is.

Now they believe that because some victims came forward and didn't get dismissed, and the mainstream media reported on it.

The possibility that claims about Epstein might have been laughed at if the story had been broken by people who normally focus on talking about crisis actors and chemtrails but those people didn't break the story because they didn't know anything about it (and were too busy talking about crisis actors and chemtrails) isn't a particularly good argument for taking that group more seriously

> Now they believe that because some victims came forward and didn't get dismissed, and the mainstream media reported on it.

https://ml4a.github.io/ml4a/how_neural_networks_are_trained/

> The possibility that claims about Epstein might have been laughed at if the story had been broken by people who normally focus on talking about crisis actors and chemtrails but those people didn't break the story because they didn't know anything about it (and were too busy talking about crisis actors and chemtrails) isn't a particularly good argument for taking that group more seriously

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology...

Since it's established that the canard that the mainstream wouldn't touch a story like Epstein's is false, and we haven't established any evidence of the non-mainstream being so well-informed and independent from the news cycle they had his number long before then, it'd be a lot more interesting to engage with earnest arguments that Epstein was framed, or that there's new evidence Epstein was involved with controlled demolitions people were talking about before he was involved in cheese pizza[1], than "that's just your opinion, man" in nerdsnipe form...

[1]https://ml4a.github.io/ml4a/how_neural_networks_are_trained/

> Since it's established that the canard that the mainstream wouldn't touch a story like Epstein's is false...

"Touching" a story (True/False) is not the same as a story being reported on in a proper manner. Printing one story in the middle of one newspaper technically satisfies "touched".

(Note: I have not made a claim that only one story on Epstein was printed, I am only describing what would be required to satisfy "touched").

Also: while choosing a maximally absurd complaint (that isn't even believed by conspiracy theorists) is an excellent rhetorical technique, it may not be so useful for engaging in truthful, good faith discussion.

> ...and we haven't established any evidence of the non-mainstream being so well-informed and independent from the news cycle they had his number long before then...

Who is the "we" that "establishes" things, and decides what information constitutes "evidence" and what does not?

Please explicitly state the person or organization that performs this duty that you are referring to.

> ...it'd be a lot more interesting to engage with earnest arguments that Epstein was framed, or that there's new evidence Epstein was involved with controlled demolitions people were talking about before he was involved in cheese pizza[1], than "that's just your opinion, man" in nerdsnipe form...

Can you explain what the intent of this is, and what it is you are referring to by "Epstein was involved with controlled demolitions" and "before he was involved in cheese pizza" and ""that's just your opinion, man" in nerdsnipe form"?

My intuition is that you are representing that conspiracy theorists (or perhaps even me) believes such things, or has made such claims, but I'd prefer if you explain yourself rather than me making speculative accusations.

> Who is the "we" that "establishes" things, and decides what information constitutes "evidence" and what does not?

LMAO.

We are HNers participating in a discussion, in which you appear to be taking issue with the point I made that Epstein offers no reason to update our priors on conspiracy theorists knowing things the mainstream media doesn't because Epstein was unmasked by lawyers, police and mainstream media, not conspiracy theorists. (And mainstream media did not, as far as I'm aware, rush to insist he couldn't possibly have done such awful things)

I presume if you felt evidence to the contrary existed - that people who were onto Epstein were pooh-poohed as conspiracy theorists until the truth came out - you'd have offered me that as a counter argument rather than a list of links about heuristics and cognitive biases. (If actually do have the evidence, I apologise for the excessively charitable assumption about your understanding of how to engage in truthful, good-faith discussion and look forward to seeing it)

> My intuition is that you are representing that conspiracy theorists (or perhaps even me) believes such things, or has made such claims, but I'd prefer if you explain yourself rather than me making speculative accusations.

We're in a subthread about whether we should be updating our priors on conspiracy theories in general based on revelations about Epstein. I'm thinking an honest attempt to demonstrate alignment between Epstein revelations and popular conspiracy theories (that wasn't after, and derivative of mainstream reporting on Epstein) might be an more interesting counterargument than a list of articles about cognitive biases. In the absence of such evidence, I don't really see Epstein offering any reason for anyone to update any priors they have on popular conspiracy theories.

Cute that someone that responds with a series of Wikipedia links is demanding explicit statements in response and lecturing me on truthful, good faith discussions though.

>> Who is the "we" that "establishes" things, and decides what information constitutes "evidence" and what does not?

> LMAO.

Not an answer to the question.

If you have an aversion to answering questions that's fine, but I'd prefer an acknowledgement (just a request though, not a requirement).

> We are HNers participating in a discussion...

Well there's a problem: you do not actually know the degree to which other HN'ers agree with you.

> ...in which you appear to be taking issue with the point I made that Epstein offers no reason to update our priors on conspiracy theorists knowing things the mainstream media doesn't because Epstein was unmasked by lawyers, police and mainstream media, not conspiracy theorists. (And mainstream media did not, as far as I'm aware, rush to insist he couldn't possibly have done such awful things)

You also do not have comprehensive knowledge of what has happened in the conspiracy theory world, or in the journalism world (including editorial decisions made behind closed doors).

> I presume if you felt evidence to the contrary existed - that people who were onto Epstein were pooh-poohed as conspiracy theorists until the truth came out - you'd have offered me that as a counter argument rather than a list of links about heuristics and cognitive biases.

I've formed no strong belief because I understand the significance of the content of those links - you on the other hand seem to (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) have not only formed a strong belief, but also mistaken it for knowledge.

> (If actually do have the evidence, I apologise for the excessively charitable assumption about your understanding of how to engage in truthful, good-faith discussion and look forward to seeing it)

No charity required - I am not here to make friends. (Nice dig though! :) )

> I'm thinking an honest attempt to demonstrate alignment between Epstein revelations and popular conspiracy theories (that wasn't after, and derivative of mainstream reporting on Epstein) might be an more interesting counterargument than a list of articles about cognitive biases.

Making up stupid beliefs and implicitly attributing them to your ideological opponents is a demonstration of something: the poor thinking skills and dishonesty of the person who made the claim: you.

> In the absence of such evidence, I don't really see Epstein offering any reason for anyone to update any priors they have on popular conspiracy theories.

At the very least, conspiracy theorists had the ability to take this story very seriously, and discuss it in much greater depth than normies. Opinions vary on how seriously child abuse should be taken - some are strict, others are more accepting.

> Cute that someone that responds with a series of Wikipedia links is demanding explicit statements in response and lecturing me on truthful, good faith discussions though.

What's cute about it, and what's the problem with including links that are relevant to a discussion?

> If you have an aversion to answering questions that's fine, but I'd prefer an acknowledgement

Not gonna lie, if you're genuinely struggling to understand that a sentence that begins "We are HNers participating in the discussion" [emphasis original] might actually be intended as an answer to a "who is the 'we'" question quoted directly above it, not a separate sentence fragment for you to come up with an obtuse response to, I'm not sure you're really equipped to pass judgement on other people's thinking skills through the medium of text.

If you're merely feigning ignorance of the basic syntax of the English language as a rhetorical flourish, it's... also not impressive.

> What's cute about it, and what's the problem with including links that are relevant to a discussion?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

> At the very least, conspiracy theorists had the ability to take this story very seriously, and discuss it in much greater depth than normies. Opinions vary on how seriously child abuse should be taken - some are strict, others are more accepting.

Ah... an actual argument in favour of conspiracy theorists. Trouble is, whilst conspiracy theorists had the ability to take the Epstein story very seriously, so did courts, the police, editors of mainstream newspapers of all persuasions and the millions of sheeple that need to wake up, so it's clear that the ability to take it very seriously is not a skill unique to conspiracy theorists. And many conspiracy theorists - at least those of a certain political persuasion - also had the ability to take very seriously the claim that Donald Trump had been fighting a secret decades long battle against paedophile cabals that would be resolved in a judgement day called the Storm, as soon as those pesky fake ballots had been sorted out. I'm not sure the ability to believe something about paedophile rings most other people also are able to believe is really a superpower which makes up for believing in stuff about paedophile rings which didn't happen and was never going to happen because it was utterly silly.

But hey, maybe the Storm happened and disputing the fact that Trump is actually acting POTUS and rounding up Deep State paedophiles for execution as we speak is just overconfidence in the wrong sources, a form of naive realism no conspiracy theorist could ever be guilty of.

> Not gonna lie, if you're genuinely struggling to understand that a sentence that begins "We are HNers participating in the discussion" [emphasis original] might actually be intended as an answer to a "who is the 'we'" question quoted directly above it, not a separate sentence fragment for you to come up with an obtuse response to

I realize that.

Feel free to explain how you acquired knowledge of consensus belief among the people you are referring to.

> ...I'm not sure you're really equipped to pass judgement on other people's thinking skills through the medium of text.

I have more certainty than you. I believe I am correct, and I encourage you to demonstrate that you are correct (you do possess this knowledge, and can explain how), or that I am incorrect (in presuming you are speculating).

>> What's cute about it, and what's the problem with including links that are relevant to a discussion?

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

It's a popular meme and is often used to represent victory in internet disagreements, but it is not nearly as magical as it seems. After all, I too can post links to various memes and declare victory too.

We are in disagreement over a precise point of contention, that meme is not applicable. But feel free to pretend that it is.

> Ah... an actual argument in favour of conspiracy theorists. Trouble is, whilst conspiracy theorists had the ability to take the Epstein story very seriously, so did courts, the police, editors of mainstream newspapers of all persuasions and the millions of sheeple that need to wake up, so it's clear that the ability to take it very seriously is not a skill unique to conspiracy theorists.

A problem: you are evaluating a simulation of reality, not reality itself. You do not actually have knowledge of the activities of all these people.

It is amazing that conspiracy theorists get laughed at by normies suffering from delusions of omniscience. Amazing, but fitting in a way.

> And many conspiracy theorists - at least those of a certain political persuasion - also had the ability to take very seriously the claim that Donald Trump had been fighting a secret decades long battle against paedophile cabals that would be resolved in a judgement day called the Storm, as soon as those pesky fake ballots had been sorted out. I'm not sure the ability to believe something about paedophile rings most other people also are able to believe is really a superpower which makes up for believing in stuff about paedophile rings which didn't happen and was never going to happen because it was utterly silly.

I don't deny that many conspiracy theorists are idiots (they are humans after all), and I've made no claim about them having superpowers. Manufacturing strawmen, attributing them to your counterpart, and then knocking them down is fun and popular, but it is not sound reasoning.

> But hey, maybe the Storm happened and disputing the fact that Trump is actually acting POTUS and rounding up Deep State paedophiles for execution as we speak is just overconfidence in the wrong sources, a form of naive realism no conspiracy theorist could ever be guilty of.

And hey, maybe you and your crew's dream will come true and the age of consent will be lowered to 15. Dare to dream!

> Feel free to explain how you acquired knowledge of consensus belief among the people you are referring to.

Me: various arguments to the effect that the fact that conspiracy theorists may believe in Epstein Island (much like many people who aren't conspiracy theorists) doesn't give any reason to stop regarding many of them as idiots

You: "I don't deny that many conspiracy theorists are idiots"

These statements seem pretty aligned, and as I said from the very beginning, if you had the evidence of sterling original Epstein research by conspiracy theorists to actually rebut the former statement, you'd be better off presenting that than 1001 tangents.

I've no idea why you believe I need to have established consensus belief in all of Hacker News to use the word "we" about you and me, never mind need to know "all the activities of all those people" to know something as trivially simple to establish as the media took Epstein Island seriously. Come on, you're not honestly claiming that one needs omniscience to have any confidence that Epstein Island was reported on by seriously by mainstream media are you!?!?

Funnily enough, you seem happy not only making similar generalised references statements to the actions of normies and conspiracy theorists alike yourself, but insist on going one step further and insisting that you have insight into the former's "delusions of omniscience". Normies are too stuck in a simulation of reality to have any confidence in their faculties telling them media did, in fact report seriously on Epstein, but you can trust your insights into the deepest delusions of their minds. Perhaps, in your simulation of reality, this seems like a sound logical argument. To me, it sounds like you should probably read your link about cognitive biases...

> Manufacturing strawmen, attributing them to your counterpart, and then knocking them down is fun and popular, but it is not sound reasoning.

> And hey, maybe you and your crew's dream will come true and the age of consent will be lowered to 15

Yeah, no.

(Not gonna lie, I'm not the participant in this exchange whose views on consent are so unconventional they were babbling about how opinions on child abuse were "varied" and some people were "more accepting" in their last post. Can't say I've experienced people espousing acceptance of child abusers in normie-land, but if you actually have the need to seek such people out, your victims have my sympathies...)

> Me: various arguments to the effect that the fact that conspiracy theorists may believe in Epstein Island (much like many people who aren't conspiracy theorists) doesn't give any reason to stop regarding many of them as idiots

Modifying claims after the fact isn't exactly good faith.

> These statements seem pretty aligned, and as I said from the very beginning, if you had the evidence of conspiracy theorists' early Epstein insights to actually rebut the former statement, you'd be better off presenting than 1001 tangents.

I didn't present 1001 tangents.

> I've no idea why you believe I need to have established consensus belief in all of Hacker News to use the word "we" about you and me

Your claim implied that you had consensus support on HN.

> ever mind need to know "all the activities of all those people" to know something as trivially simple to establish as the media took Epstein Island seriously.

"take X seriously" is not a True/False binary.

> Come on, you're not honestly claiming that one needs omniscience to have any confidence that Epstein Island was reported on by seriously by mainstream media are you!?!?

If this was necessarily(!) true (which you do not actually know, in fact), it would be literally not possible for something nefarious to happen with the media.

> Funnily enough, you seem happy not only making similar generalised references statements to the actions of normies and conspiracy theorists alike yourself, but insist on going one step further and insisting that you have insight into the former's "delusions of omniscience".

You have made several comprehensive claims about the nature of journalist coverage of this story. You are speculating, necessarily.

> Normies are too stuck in a simulation of reality to have any confidence in their faculties telling them media did, in fact report seriously on Epstein, but you can trust your insights into the deepest delusions of their minds.

Omniscience isn't required to tell when a human is running on heuristics, at least under certain scenarios (claims of knowledge that require omniscience, for example).

> Perhaps, in your simulation of reality, this seems like a sound logical argument. To me, it sounds like you should probably read your link about cognitive biases...

Try not attributing things to me that I haven't done.

> Yeah, no.

Would you enjoy if I claimed again that this is your wish, despite it not actually being true?

> Not gonna lie, I'm not the participant in this exchange whose views on consent are so unconventional they were babbling about how opinions on child abuse were "varied" and some people were "more accepting" in their last post.

a) Child molesters exist - therefore opinions on child abuse vary.

b) Not all people took the Epstein thing identically seriously (conspiracy theorists are generally extremely concerned about child abuse, based on how they talk anyways) - therefore opinions on child abuse vary.

c) Considering the nature of this crime, if compared to other instances of child abuse, MANY people thought the amount and style of media coverage of this story was inconsistent. It is physically possible for it to be inconsistent, whether it was is subjective, and would/should require a substantial amount of work before passing any sort of serious judgment.

> Can't say I've experienced people espousing acceptance of child abusers in normie-land, but if you have more need to seek such people out, your victims have my sympathies...)

Espousing acceptance is not required for variance - even lesser outrage is a variation.

My main overall concern is this: the degree of actual interest the public has in the integrity of very important institutions is not a universal constant, nor is the capability people have to exercise sound judgment. If there was something bad going on behind the scenes in this case or others, the ease with which bad actors can get away with various bad things is a function of the quality of the public, and the quality of journalism (something that MANY people, not just conspiracy theorists, have commented negatively on). Things could be very, very bad, and we may have very little way to know it with certainty. To me, this is a big deal, and I find it rather disgusting that the default view seems to range from mild interest to falling of the chair laughing at people who do care.

Honestly, if you're generating these responses with GPT-3 that's a pretty funny and creative use of the tool, and you completely got me for the first couple of posts!

If there's an actual human in there that thinks that it's tenable to argue that 'Epstein Island was taken seriously by mainstream media' is a "comprehensive and bold" claim that no amount of articles which report on Epstein Island in detail in a serious tone could possible prove, whereas assertions that normies run on delusions of omniscience is just something you know ... I'm a bit less impressed.

Can't speak for other normies (I'll leave that to you), but personally I don't laugh at conspiracy theorists because they "care", I laugh at them because they make mind-numbingly stupid arguments.

> Honestly, if you're generating these responses with GPT-3 that's a pretty funny and creative use of the tool, and you completely got me for the first couple of posts!

Biological AI is not particularly novel either, the probability of this class of comment NOT appearing during disagreements between humans is rare...but only for certain topics. I wonder if we were to review our conversation, how many (at least plausible) instances of it we could individually nominate.

> If there's an actual human in there that thinks that it's tenable to argue that 'Epstein Island was taken seriously by mainstream media' is a "comprehensive and bold" claim...

a) "take X seriously" is not a True/False binary" - would you be willing to discuss this aspect and the significance of it to the topic?

b) considering (a), have you not made broad claims about the quality/intent of journalism organizations?

c) arguing a point is fine, asserting it as a fact (or in the form of a fact without acknowledging it as an opinion) is something else, and the acceptability of this behavior seems to vary depending on the topic.

> ...that no amount of articles which report on Epstein Island in detail in a serious tone could possible prove...

I propose: In human communication, there is a serious problem (in addition to many others, like dodging questions) with a delta between what is actually said, what is interpreted by the other party, and the willingness of all parties to acknowledge that this phenomenon is in play. (Like in this case: I made no such claim.)

Do you think there is any merit to this proposal?

> ...whereas assertions that normies run on delusions of omniscience is just something you know ... I'm a bit less impressed.

I am unimpressed (but not surprised in the slightest) that you say "is" "just something you know", immediately after me saying "Omniscience isn't required to tell when a human is running on heuristics, at least under certain scenarios (claims of knowledge that require omniscience, for example)."

> Can't speak for other normies....

Why not? You know what employees of journalism institutions do, do you not have the same ability with normies?

> (I'll leave that to you)...

Which I've done only in a certain way, and only to a certain degree.

> ...but personally I don't laugh at conspiracy theorists because they "care", I laugh at them because they make mind-numbingly stupid arguments.

Many of them do indeed, but what stupid arguments have I made? And do you believe that the fact that some conspiracy theorists make make mind-numbingly stupid arguments has any bearing on the truth value of the point of contention between the two of us? (Or, perhaps the comment was more for rhetorical effect, or simply an innate reaction.)

I think this (and related topics) has substantial relevance here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism

Any thoughts on that?

Indeed. For example this discussion started when I actually said that journalists and police officers took Epstein Island seriously, in response to another commenter suggesting people would have just dismissed Epstein Island as a conspiracy theory.

There is a problem in human communication (or human-bot communication) when one party refuses to acknowledge that the seriousness of some policemen and journalists might be well-evidenced by the phenomenon of many newspaper reports detailing Jeffrey Epstein's arrest and prosecution, and instead of accepting or at least offering an alternative interpretation of the phenomenon[1], rejects it on the basis they don't have "knowledge of all the activities of all those people" and giggling to themselves about how normies' claims rely on omniscience.

This problem is typically resolved by ceasing the communication.

> Indeed. For example this discussion started when I actually said that journalists and police officers took Epstein Island seriously, in response to another commenter suggesting people would have just dismissed Epstein Island as a conspiracy theory.

Was yours a suggestion that that journalists and police officers took Epstein Island "seriously" (a highly ambiguous term, a perfect fit for current cultural norms), or was it more of a claim of fact?

> There is a problem in human communication (or human-bot communication) when one party refuses to acknowledge that the seriousness of some policemen and journalists might be well-evidenced by the phenomenon of many newspaper reports detailing Jeffrey Epstein's arrest and prosecution...

This ("one party refuses to acknowledge") implies that it is a fact that these articles are objectively ~"very well done" (could not have been substantially better, etc).

> ...and instead of accepting or at least offering an alternative interpretation of the phenomenon[1]...

My complaint is that humans perceive and represent opinions as facts. My proposal is that we stop doing this, or at least admit as individuals and a culture that this is how things currently work.

What is actually true here is not known, hence I do not make an assertion of facts of what happened (with respect to the underlying crime).

This approach is celebrated when done by science, but in other domains it seems to be considered the opposite of the correct way to behave.

> ...rejects it on the basis they don't have "knowledge of all the activities of all those people"...

Despite me addressing exactly this claim at least once already, you continue to misrepresent what I have actually said: I haven't rejected investigations as being necessarily false, but rather your claims that you possess knowledge (as opposed to belief) about the actions and quality of reporting.

> ... and giggling to themselves about how normies' claims rely on omniscience.

I don't find it funny, it scares the fuck out of me.

> This problem is typically resolved by ceasing the communication.

It stops the instance of the problem, but the underlying problem (people refusing to consider the importance of truth) does not go away.

> This ("one party refuses to acknowledge") implies that it is a fact that these articles are objectively ~"very well done" (could not have been substantially better, etc).

But it doesn't. At no point has anybody at all claimed that articles are "objectively very well done", "could not have been substantially better" or anything remotely close to that. I did reject the idea that Epstein Island would have been [generally] "dismissed as a conspiracy theory" by pointing out that it has been treated with considerably more seriousness than that by many people generally unreceptive to conspiracy theorists, including journalists (and policemen, and courts, and ordinary normies like me).

For someone that claims to be interested in philosophy of mind stuff around belief-formation and the importance of truth, you seem remarkably incapable of considering the possibility that your belief that I hold a belief which I never even hinted at (and in fact do not believe) constitutes an error of judgement rather than knowledge so sound you can reliably deduce delusions of omniscience[1] from it. If you are sincerely interested in the problem of "humans perceive and represent opinions as facts", I recommend rereading the thread and counting the number of statements you have made which are caveated as beliefs versus the number you have expressed as facts (in some cases explicitly dismissing the possibility of error). The total may surprise you, especially if haranguing others to couch their inferences as beliefs and opinions rather than statements is important to you. But if composing a reply is more satisfying than striving for self awareness or intellectual consistency, don't let me stop you.

[1]a deduction which only makes sense if "omniscience" is a prerequisite for "sufficiently reliable faculties to gauge whether some news items contain elements of seriousness"". I guess if you believe intermediate-level English language comprehension is an unattainable state requiring omniscience, it would explain a lot about your last few posts...

> At no point has anybody at all claimed that articles are "objectively very well done", "could not have been substantially better" or anything remotely close to that.

Let's try an experiment - can we at least agree that:

a) there does exist a level of quality element to journalism ("reporting" on a topic is not, comprehensively, a True/False binary)?

b) both of us have expressed at least some sort of opinion on the quality of reporting with regards to the Epstein affair?

> I did reject the idea that Epstein Island would have been [generally] "dismissed as a conspiracy theory" by pointing out that it has been treated with considerably more seriousness than that by many people generally unreceptive to conspiracy theorists, including journalists (and policemen, and courts, and ordinary normies like me).

Can we agree that:

a) It is physically possible that at least one journalism piece might have at least implied that stories about the Epstein affair are conspiracy theories (and thus not true)?

b) It may have actually occurred that at least one journalism piece actually did imply that (at least some) stories about the Epstein affair are conspiracy theories (and thus not true)?

> For someone that claims to be interested in philosophy of mind stuff around belief-formation and the importance of truth, you seem remarkably incapable of considering the possibility that your belief that I hold a belief which I never even hinted at (and in fact do not believe) constitutes an error of judgement rather than knowledge so sound you can reliably deduce delusions of omniscience[1] from it. If you are sincerely interested in the problem of "humans perceive and represent opinions as facts", I recommend rereading the thread and counting the number of statements you have made which are caveated as beliefs versus the number you have expressed as facts (in some cases explicitly dismissing the possibility of error).

A serious problem here is that I would be reviewing my own comments in a biased manner.

How about this: would you be willing to identity 2 or 3 examples of where you believe I have done this, including a link to the comment, a quote of the offending text, and your explanation of how the text demonstrates your claim? I prefer this approach because I believe providing specific evidence for one's claims is a very useful function is the practice of epistemology, and it can also give some signals as to the likelihood that the person making the claim is speaking truthfully, accurately, and in good faith (something that should be a consideration of all people involved in a conversation, including me).

I have quoted and disputed numerous of your specific claims, I would enjoy for you to do the same to mine. If I have made genuinely (or even plausibly) erroneous claims, I would very much like you to draw my attention to them.

> But if composing a reply is more satisfying than striving for self awareness or intellectual consistency, don't let me stop you.

I read this as an assertion that I am not acting in good faith or living up to what I ask of you, and I believe that encouraging you to expose this behavior in me using evidence is a good way to demonstrate that what you say is true, rather than leaving it up to the imagination of the reader.

> [1]a deduction which only makes sense if "omniscience" is a prerequisite for "sufficiently reliable faculties to gauge whether some news items contain elements of seriousness"".

The problem here is "some news item" - we have not been discussing one single news item - my complaint is that you made claims about the entirety of the journalism complex.

> I guess if you believe intermediate-level English language comprehension is an unattainable state requiring omniscience, it would explain a lot about your last few posts...

If you genuinely believe I've made this claim (or something resembling it), I encourage you to present evidence so as to demonstrate my untruthfulness.

>Sorry you’re interpreting the release of these documents as evidence that the conspiracists were right? If the conspiracy was correct, these would never be made public,

Just because a conspiracy has sprung leaks or failed in some vital aspect doesn't need to mean it never existed. Your argument is based on a very unusual definition of a conspiracy as a secret plot that's guaranteed to be all-powerful at information and damage control.

At least the conspiracy that I've been seeing has to do with the justice system behaving in an abnormal way with regard to these records. This seems like evidence that it's not behaving in an abnormal way.

> How many of these would you need to update in the direction of "maybe some of them do know some of what they're talking about"?

None of them knows anything at all about anything whatsoever. You're talking about morons who abuse conjectures to build up their personal fictional stories with the goal of fooling themselves into believing they are special and smarter than everyone around them.

Listening to conspiracy nuts regarding their pet conspiracies makes as much sense as taking investment advice from lottery winners: even if they are right once in their life,their whole rationalization is deeply wrong and has no bearing in reality.

It's less about the raw quantity and more about the proportion.

I can guess the outcome of the S&P 500 perfectly, if you don't count the wrong predictions. All I have to do is predict both directions, and say "see, told you it'd go up/down today".

One problem here is that a lot of people don't look at the source of the supposed conspiracy theory. They think "it's a conspiracy theory, it must be like all the rest." There are several so-called conspiracy theorists who are fairly accurate about predicting the shady behavior of the US government. There are a lot more conspiracy theorists who yell about flat earth and chemtrails. As with anything else, it's a good idea to check your sources and see where the theory comes from.

> There are several so-called conspiracy theorists who are fairly accurate about predicting the shady behavior of the US government.

Can you name a few so I can see what they have predicted?

Here's one: certain googlers working with politicized us gov bureaucrats to reduce exposure and remove search results from google for the 2016 presidential campaign. This was and still is meme'd quite often.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Google-Leaks/Zach-Vor...

Like the "Epstein didn't kill himself" meme/conspiracy theory?

The prior is not about an individual theory, but that, e.g., 5% of theories turn out to be correct. Yet people will still believe that 0% of theories are correct.

This is precisely the problem of labeling all theories the powerful don't like "conspiracy theories".

I'm pretty certain that a substantial percentage of the most ridiculous conspiracies are posted online by paid shills to discredit all theories, so any dissenter can be labeled a "loon".

There are many reasonable people who believe the moon landing and reject the theory that "the world is run by satanists" but have many legitimate questions about the Epstein story.

For example, the theory that Epstein videotaped his "friends" for future blackmail is not in any way "loony". So the label "conspiracy theory" is entirely useless, we can only talk about individual cases.

> I'm pretty certain that a substantial percentage of the most ridiculous conspiracies are posted online by paid shills to discredit all theories, so any dissenter can be labeled a "loon".

So the “elite class” conspire together to craft fake conspiracies and flood the population with it so that they can label people who discover the real conspiracies as crazy?

You are bringing up the “elite class”. It could be foreign governments to create dissent. It could be Democrats to discredit a Republican forum or vice versa.

This is perfectly plausible. It's also intractable, and doesn't imply that we should believe more things, any more or less than it implies that we should disbelieve more things. No matter how much misdirection and falsehood is put out by whatever organized or unorganized bodies, we still only have what we see and hear and read and experience. It's just one more of a million obvious reasons we already have to be skeptical - skeptical of what we're told by authorities, but also skeptical of what we're told by any given person with any motivation to convince you of something: financial, political, or even just emotional, and that includes conspiracy theorists. But there's a balance - if you're too skeptical, then nothing has any meaning. You might as well not believe any information you receive, in which case you might as well become a hermit who lives off the land (which is fine, but not a realistic expectation for the whole world). Or, in the case of many conspiracy theorists, arbitrarily choose something to believe (arbitrary because their sources are not any more reliable than other sources), which really isn't any better.

So, we want to avoid falling off any given edge (becoming a hermit or a person with no opinions on anything, becoming a truly nutty conspiracy theorist, or becoming a mindless loyalist to some social/political group). A key tool for avoiding this is understanding a few things:

1. There is a bigger space than you think between having no opinion and having a full-blown conviction. I can believe or disbelieve something without making it into part of my identity or taking any kind of serious concrete action based on it or trying to convince everybody to go in the same direction as me.

2. It follows from #1 that it is OK to be wrong.

3. It follows from #1 that it is good to change opinions based on new information - it is not hypocritical.

>Yet people will still believe that 0% of theories are correct.

This is not a generous portrayal. The people you're talking about mostly believe things based on experience (e.g. evidence, though there are many other kinds of experience). Therefore, if their experience tells them something a person is insisting on is probably not true, well then that's their perfectly reasonable position at the time. That is not the same as having a conviction that any given thing is not true, and it is very much not the same as believing that "0%" of anything widely considered a "conspiracy theory" are true, for all cases, forever, as some kind of ridiculous rule.

I always knew there was something going on with broken clocks that we weren't supposed to find out about.

It certainly feels like the 90th of September sometimes

Operation Northwoods

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

Recent enough for you?

I’ll update with more federal government conspiracies when I’m not in mobile.

Anyone that denies conspiracies exist knows no history…

No one denies conspiracies exist. As you note, plenty of conspiracies have demonstrably existed.

"Conspiracies exist, therefore my pet conspiracy theory should be treated seriously by default" is the fallacy.

> "Conspiracies exist, therefore my pet conspiracy theory should be treated seriously by default" is the fallacy.

I think it is worth mentioning that this fallacy manifests in at least two forms:

1. When a conspiracy theorist actually says it (I have never encountered it despite spending substantial amount of time in various conspiracy theory forums). As a general rule, when a non-conspiracy theorist is describing things that happen in the conspiracy world (where they do not go), it is safe to assume that they have lost control of their imagination, and this is usually extremely obvious from their description.

See:

https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology...

2. When someone other than a conspiracy theorists imagines that a conspiracy theorist (typically also imagined, but not always) has said it or believes it (neither of which is required to true for it to be perceived as true).

I don't see anything upthread that "the fallacy" could be referring to in this instance.

It is perhaps also worth noting that "should be treated seriously by default" isn't actually all that bizarre (depending on the conspiracy theory, of course) - take something seriously is very different from believe to be necessarily true, though at the perceptual level things that are different can appear to be identical, and vice versa.

> Kennedy rejected the Northwoods proposal.

> Following presentation of the Northwoods plan, Kennedy removed Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Sooooo ... your smoking gun is that someone at some point had a plan to do something that conspiracy theorists say happens all the time, and their plan was rejected and they were fired for suggesting it?

To be fair, the fact it got that far - as a proposal delivered by the JCS to the President - is itself concerning. That's not some dumb intern's daydream.

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