The Political Thread

[Professor Bear]

It has to be a simple conspiracy theory otherwise the MAGA crowd won't be able to understand it.  So: it wasn't MAGA that stormed the capital buildings, it was Antifa, and anyone who thinks otherwise has been brainwashed by the fake news media and/or George Soros.  Any dead people are crisis actors.  Any witnesses are lying.  The infamously far-left liberal US police force is in on it.

[The Legendary Shark]

Dear Terran Stakeholder,

Your governments aren't working properly. Maybe you should let all us good and wise and friendly people at the UN take over for a while - just until you can get things fixed, of course.

Love and kisses,

The Management.

[JayzusB.Christ]

It has to be a simple conspiracy theory otherwise the MAGA crowd won't be able to understand it.  So: it wasn't MAGA that stormed the capital buildings, it was Antifa, and anyone who thinks otherwise has been brainwashed by the fake news media and/or George Soros.  Any dead people are crisis actors.  Any witnesses are lying.  The infamously far-left liberal US police force is in on it.

Unreal.  Stupidity really does seem to be rampant.  It's cold comfort to see Mitch McConnell finally growing a pair, though it seems to be like throwing a tin of peas at world hunger at this stage.  Also, am I being tin-foil-hattish to think that a BLM crowd would be crushed by the police a lot more violently than a crowd of gun-toting white supremacists were?

[The Legendary Shark]

...am I being tin-foil-hattish to think...

I wouldn't worry about that. "Tin-foil-hat" is just a thought-stopper label, like "conspiracy theorist" or "Tory." They're like big signs with DO NOT THINK ABOUT written on them nailed to ideas.

[JayzusB.Christ]

...am I being tin-foil-hattish to think...

I wouldn't worry about that. "Tin-foil-hat" is just a thought-stopper label, like "conspiracy theorist" or "Tory." They're like big signs with DO NOT THINK ABOUT written on them nailed to ideas.

Sorry, Sharky, I don't subscribe to that at all.  When someone refuses to accept an overwhelming weight of expert analysis in favour of a flimsy fringe idea, I don't want to be part of their group. I'll gladly THINK about the alternative viewpoint but I'll go with the more convincing facts every time.

As for the specific instance I cited, I don't know. If the theory doesn't hold weight, I'll disregard it, as I have done with other ideas many times.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

[JayzusB.Christ]

...am I being tin-foil-hattish to think...

I wouldn't worry about that. "Tin-foil-hat" is just a thought-stopper label, like "conspiracy theorist" or "Tory." They're like big signs with DO NOT THINK ABOUT written on them nailed to ideas.

Sorry, Sharky, I don't subscribe to that at all.  When someone refuses to accept an overwhelming weight of expert analysis in favour of a flimsy fringe idea, I don't want to be part of their group. I'll gladly THINK about the alternative viewpoint but I'll go with the more convincing facts every time.

As for the specific instance I cited, I don't know. If the theory doesn't hold weight, I'll disregard it, as I have done with other ideas many times.

Also, I should probably apologise for using the term 'tin-foil-hattish' in the post before that and replace it with the word 'wrong' - which I might be, but I was wondering what other boarders think.

Belief in fringe, unproven theories have played a large part in causing the violence in the USA today, and Trump is happy to start, or at least fuel them - the supposed election steal being the main one, of course, but also QAnon and coronavirus denial. 

[The Legendary Shark]

All I said was think about it, not believe. Beliefs evolve over time as more information comes to light. We none of us believe the same thing - and God help the rest of the universe if we ever do - which I think is great.

What I meant was really what you said, to not be afraid of thinking about something just because somebody's nailed a thought-stopper to it. To think about something doesn't mean to accept it but to not think about something does mean to accept it as either true or false.

I wasn't having a go or anything, I'm just fascinated by the ubiquity of labels and how they guide us both physically and mentally, and how they can be weaponized and spread like linguistic viruses.

[IndigoPrime]

Alternate viewpoints are fine, but people are being radicalised to believe the most outlandish nonsense, and social media has created a way of being that is more about sharing than thinking and reasoning. A friend of a friend has gone down a rabbithole of wrong in the USA. This person was sharing and typing PROOF in all-caps of things like that pic of the supposed antifa bloke in the Capitol. Said proof? A tattoo. An ANTIFA tattoo! Except it wasn't—it was from the videogame Dishonored.

[Funt Solo]

Also, am I being tin-foil-hattish to think that a BLM crowd would be crushed by the police a lot more violently than a crowd of gun-toting white supremacists were?

No, it doesn't take fringe-theory lunacy to come to that conclusion. Personally, I don't think there was collusion between the police and the protesters - everything moved too quickly for that to be the case, and there's strong evidence (most of which you can watch) that it was chaos first, planning (the take-back) much later.

So, firstly, there wasn't a large protest at the Capitol - there was a rally at the White House. That was pre-planned and had a police presence, but no huge trouble was expected because it was Trump addressing Trump supporters. Then he told them to march on the Capitol Building (a few streets away), and off they went.

At the Capitol Building, you've got several sets of police (the number of forces working in that area is almost lunacy itself - the USA is nothing if not an enormous paper-driven bureaucracy working somewhat in the dark ages), each with their own command & control - and they were overwhelmed. One plains-clothes group shot the female protester who later died. Elsewhere, there was a lone black police officer holding back a large crowd as best he could as he retreated through the building desperately calling for back up. Code word: shit-show.

Armed police did retreat: but it was that or open fire against a much larger crowd than they'd have been able to contain.  Plus, they were being pepper-sprayed by militant rioters.

(Another factor is that, as the Capitol has been closed to tour groups for months due to Covid restrictions, the local police forces are on skeleton staffing.)

---

Now: if there had been a planned BLM protest that day, I've no doubt we'd have seen a much stronger police presence in the first place, who would have been prepared to put down any riot (with overwhelming force). So, people aren't wrong to think a BLM protest would have been met with more force - but it would have been planned for in advance. This was "president's hoodlums go mental". Hindsight predicts it perfectly.

[Funt Solo]

"Tin-foil-hat" is just a thought-stopper label, like "conspiracy theorist" or "Tory." They're like big signs with DO NOT THINK ABOUT written on them nailed to ideas.

The idea that anyone who uses a particular phrase is incapable of rational thought is arrogant. I don't particularly like most uses of the phrase "snowflake", but I don't dismiss the speaker out of hand as someone who hasn't thought through their position.

Your notion that someone who uses the term "conspiracy theorist" is somehow lacking in a rational thought process next to someone who doesn't use that term is (probably demonstrably) the opposite of the truth.

Example: believers in a flat earth have not really applied logic in the same way as, say, the developers of the global GPS system. Because one group is made up of credulous people who have gotten as far as being able to read, and the other group have applied themselves to an expert-level problem and developed a solution that works to the benefit of humanity.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Now: if there had been a planned BLM protest that day, I've no doubt we'd have seen a much stronger police presence ...

I reckon there was a huge police presence, they were just wearing their nice red hats instead of their blue work hats.

[Funt Solo]

Yeah - I don't think these are off-duty cops:




(Amusingly, once the rebels-without-a-clue gained access to the building, they behaved as if they were in a tour group - walking along the roped off paths and admiring the paintings. Then stealing some things.)

[The Legendary Shark]

The idea that anyone who uses a particular phrase is incapable of rational thought is arrogant.

Yes it is, which is why I didn't say that. Indeed, by suggesting that a person's own mind is perfectly capable of seeing through such standard rhetorical devices, I was suggesting the exact opposite of that.

[Funt Solo]

Riddle me this...




Sure, you got me: the think you intimated wasn't really the thing you intimated at all. Uh-huh, sure, ya got me etc.