A Beginner's Guide to the Conspiracy Game

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Paul Bacon said:

For that matter, are people who believe in God conspiracy theorists?

You'll have to educate me here:  In what sense do you think "believing in God" (or for that matter "not believing in God") resembles a conspiracy?  That is like saying "believing the JFK assassination occurred" resembles a conspiracy, is it not?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Michael Clark said:

I wanted to bring that up but I didn’t want search for Lance’s paranoid or paranormal experience in which he believes he and his Volkswagen Beetle (bus?) were enveloped, and then spared, by a swarm of alien invaders. Perhaps he’ll recount the story for us.

Also, for those who don’t know, or don’t recall, Lance’s parents, or grandparents were tycoons in the United Fruit empire, IIRC. Perhaps Lance will reiterate that relationship, for the sake of accuracy.

Sure, happy to:  In 1971, a borrowed VW Beetle that I was driving between Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam was followed at early twilight by a small disk at a distance of about 50 yards for around 30-45 seconds.  My passenger, a highly skeptical friend who mercilessly ridiculed my religious beliefs and other woo-woo interests, saw the exact same thing and was far more freaked-out than I.  I have no idea what it was, but we both had a strong sense that it was "not normal."  The "paranormal" aspect, which is common in UFO sightings, is that I, who should have been raving about this event to anyone who would listen, clearly recalled it but mysteriously didn't talk about it even to my fiancé until several years later.

No big deal, no conspiracy.  Just a real-world event such as millions of people have had that does not have an easy explanation (but may well have a mundane one).  It and my interest in the field has never led me to play the Conspiracy Game.

Michael, old sod, you ARE MAKING MY VERY POINT.  See Items 6.b and 6.c of my original post.  You are so deep in the Conspiracy Game that I'm surprised you trust yourself (I don't want to plant any dark thoughts, but are you SURE that's really you looking back at you from the mirror?).

I mentioned in a jocular (I thought) vein the quite true facts that my maternal grandmother, a very wealthy Kansas City socialite who died in 1967, was an acquaintance of the Dulles family and that Lorenzo Dow Baker, one of the founders of the United Fruit Company, was a relative (my middle name is Baker, but I haven't been able to trace the precise relationship).  Because I was not fully hip to the nuances of the Conspiracy Game, I had no idea of the uproar this information would cause.  Yeah, we disinformation agents go around revealing little anecdotes such as that in the midst of the very conspiracy communities we are infiltrating.  That's how it works - we're diabolical geniuses most of the time, but occasionally we trip over own tongues.

Oh, dear, I fear I have sent our 9/11 Truther psychiatrist loon into a new and elevated level of Lance Paranoia.  Please, sir, do not cancel all appointments and barricade yourself in your office with a large-caliber handgun and a vial of holy water - everything will be OK, I promise. 

[Cliff Varnell]

That's the second post in a row Lance has addressed me with all cap screaming.

Careful old boy, you might pop a vein.

[Guest]

16 hours ago, Robert Harper said:

This dribble from the guy who recently dumped on the site and said adios and then returned without any acknowledgement of the  contradiction of his "bold announcement." Even recently he wrote that "someone" had told him that his input was desired, so he deigned to return and give his "legal" insight (not that he was looking at the site, mind you, cause he dumped on it, but "someone" told him he was needed.) It must be lonely talking to cats in Arizona and the need to expound his "insights" overcame his revulsion at the depths to which the site had fallen. The final indignity? He thinks all should thank him for his desperate attempt to be relevant.

That's "drivel" not "dribble," unless you think I'm drooling as I type - oh, you do?

"You're welcome" was irony, my overly serious friend - see Item 11.e of my original post.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

That's the second post in a row Lance has addressed me with all cap screaming.

Careful old boy, you might pop a vein.

PROBABLY NOT!  See what fun I'm having?  It was barely 5 a.m. when I started this morning, and I must say I'm on quite a roll as I wait for my wife to WAKE UP so we can go for our morning walk.  I actually came here this morning because I failed to keep a Word document of my original post and wanted to copy it, having no expectation that I'd be blessed with so much fodder for mirth.

Cliff, you are really are becoming something of a master of non sequiturs, irrelevancies and pointless observations - has "weaponizing" been reduced to this sad state?  Come on, hit me with something substantive!

You folks actually think I'm as humorless and obsessive about all this as you are.  If I weren't my own best audience, if I didn't find my own contributions so exceedingly droll and such good exercise for my brain, I wouldn't bother at all.  Don't flatter yourself that anyone here is going to cause me to "pop a vein," unless I pop one laughing.

[Guest]

For the record, it was not I who complained about the post by 9/11 Truther Psychiatrist accusing me of being some sort of paid disinformation agent.  I LOVE this sort of stuff because it serves to underscore the very points I seek to make.

Sunstein defined "cognitive infiltration" (for which he was widely booed and hissed) as a program “whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups.”

Apart from that "government agents and their allies" bit, I am indeed a card-carrying, one-man cognitive infiltrator!  I'm like the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee insofar as cognitive infiltration is concerned!  I do indeed, in my little cognitively infiltrating way, attempt to "undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups."

Guilty - and proud of it.

[Jim Harwood]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

No one could argue against the existence of conspiracies.  The Lincoln assassination was a conspiracy, solved in short order.  Nevertheless, even with the Lincoln assassination there are STILL those who are playing the Conspiracy Game (I'm not quite up to speed, but I think Roy Truly and Ruth Paine may have been involved in the Lincoln assassination as well).

You highly intelligent but reading-comprehension-challenged folks are COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT.  Are you really this dense, or are you so blinded by rage that you can't think clearly?

When one examines a Subject Event in a rational manner, "conspiracy" may well be the true explanation.  Those who live in the real world and those who are prone to see conspiracies everywhere may well agree on this explanation.  What identifies the Conspiracy Game is when you see the Subject Event being "analyzed" and "explained" IN THE MANNER THAT I OUTLINED IN MY ORIGINAL POST.

The Lincoln assassination is a near-perfect example.  It actually was a conspiracy.  The conspiracy was solved, it is part of the historical record, and those of us who live in the real world are in agreement.  Yet even here there are still those who insist on playing the Conspiracy Game, precisely as I have described it.

I gave an editorial opinion, but I didn't read your post

Edited September 1, 2019 by Jim Harwood

[Cliff Varnell]

44 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

PROBABLY NOT!  See what fun I'm having? 

You can't have fun without screaming?

Pathetic.

[Paul Bacon]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

You'll have to educate me here:  In what sense do you think "believing in God" (or for that matter "not believing in God") resembles a conspiracy?  That is like saying "believing the JFK assassination occurred" resembles a conspiracy, is it not?

You seem to require irrefutable proof of a conspiracy, for example Harvey and Lee, yet, as far as I know (haven't read the paper yet this morning) there is no irrefutable proof of the existence of God but you are a believer. 

My comment probably seemed a little obscure to you because I only paid attention to the last little bit of your OP.  Yet again, I couldn't bring myself to scale your wall of words.

[Jim Harwood]

It does seem like your post was "cribbed" straight out of the  old Seligman Sunbeam  paper and a deity they called  Delamer Duverus. 

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

 

[James DiEugenio]

Why anyone wastes time with this guy escapes me.

The Lincoln Conspiracy was solved?

Powell said, "They didn't catch but half of us."

[Jim Harwood]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Why anyone wastes time with this guy escapes me.

The Lincoln Conspiracy was solved?

Powell said, "They didn't catch but half of us."

I hate to do this it's tantamount to hijacking but here is Lance quoted in the book "Animals and the Afterlife" claiming he spoke with his dead dog Milhous while it came to him in a dream. He's definitely British, like the genocidal kook Prince Charles talking to his plants.

https://books.google.com/books?id=-t6jn3Zj_agC&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=lance+payette&source=bl&ots=3Ep_yFriud&sig=ACfU3U3lOKgsBTar8rinTGwwHpSd915Ohw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjoiIzihbDkAhUCIqwKHenCAhY4ChDoATAPegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=lance payette&f=false

 

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Jim Harwood

[Cory Santos]

4 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

CERTAINLY, the UFO field is rife with those who play the UFO version of the Conspiracy Game.  As I have said repeatedly, my intense involvement in the UFO field extends over 60 years and is far deeper than my involvement with the JFK assassination.  Although the JFK assassination community strikes me as the poster child for the Conspiracy Game, CERTAINLY it is found in ufology and many other fields of weirdness.

So if it is found in the UFO field, do you agree it does not discount your experience nor the field overall?

Also, are you going to the Area 51 storm event in September? 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

20 hours ago, Lance Payette said:

I’ve been working on a manuscript that really would be about “How to Think About Claims of Conspiracy” (or perhaps “How to Understand the Conspiracy Game”).

Good post and I would certainly like to see a book on this topic.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Jim Harwood said:

I gave an editorial opinion, but I didn't read your post

An odd admission, I must say.

2 hours ago, Jim Harwood said:

It does seem like your post was "cribbed" straight out of the  old Seligman Sunbeam  paper and a deity they called  Delamer Duverus. 

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

 

1 hour ago, Jim Harwood said:

I hate to do this it's tantamount to hijacking but here is Lance quoted in the book "Animals and the Afterlife" claiming he spoke with his dead dog Milhous while it came to him in a dream. He's definitely British, like the genocidal kook Prince Charles talking to his plants.

https://books.google.com/books?id=-t6jn3Zj_agC&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=lance+payette&source=bl&ots=3Ep_yFriud&sig=ACfU3U3lOKgsBTar8rinTGwwHpSd915Ohw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjoiIzihbDkAhUCIqwKHenCAhY4ChDoATAPegQICRAB#v=onepage&q=lance payette&f=false

 

Are you having some sort of meltdown?  I looked at the Wikipedia article for the Seligman Sunbeam and have utterly no idea what you're talking about.

Animals and the Afterlife was an incredibly successful book that launched the author onto a very successful career.  I had been told that my little story - which occurred more than 30 years ago, with the book being published (I think) in about 2000 - hadn't made the cut, but then I received a free copy of the book and there it was.  It was simply a dream involving a dead, beloved dog that could be interpreted as precognitive because it also involved a beloved cat who died shortly thereafter.  I am happy for others to read it - I have had what are called After Death Communications that were a hell of a lot more startling than THAT.

No, I am not British.  I have never even been to England.  Prince Charles is a "genocidal kook," is he?