Robin Baker
New
Alex I am a great fan of yours and have followed your journey from episode 1. I started listening to your podcasts because of an interest in NDEs that originated from reading Moody’s book ‘Life after Life’ and then discovering that my mother in law had experienced an NDE.
Your interviews have made me sensitive to and accepting of lots of things that I previously considered nonsense, such as UFOs and spirit mediums. Your guests’ reaction to your combative interview style has revealed the shallowness of materialist apologist arguments and the credibility of many researchers and experiencers of the paranormal. Your journey through Skeptiko has truly opened my mind. For this I sincerely thank you.
What I would like to do in this post is express an idea which I think you may find useful. It was given to me by a friend many years ago. While discussing a then topical conspiracy theory he told me that he found most conspiracy theories unsatisfactory because they relied on too high a level of competence being shown by authority figures or organisations for long periods. In contrast his personal experience was that these individuals and organisations commonly acted with a high degree of incompetence, particularly when viewed over the long term.
My friend’s credentials in this regard are impressive. As a consulting actuary he was responsible for bringing about the closure of a substantial life insurer as a result of actuarial insolvency. When asked to prepare a summary report of his actuarial analysis for the holding company board he drew a sketch of the Titanic sailing into an iceberg with caricatures of the life insurers CEO, CFO etc. on deck with voice balloons containing selected inane comments they had made drawn from board meeting minutes.
Having lived my entire life in Africa my experience of the actions of authority figures is similar to my friend’s. I find many, if not most authorities act with a high degree of incompetence, especially when viewed over the long term.
Recent international political events convince me that although African authorities may take the lead in incompetence, it is by no means limited to the shores of this continent.
My conjecture therefore is that incompetence rules, not conspiracy!
Thus I find the following entirely normal without requiring any complex secretive conspiracy:
You made the point recently; “How could the US military have appointed a man to oversee the Stargate project who was totally unsuitable for the job?”. My reaction is ;“Ha-ha, that is entirely to be expected!”
I am not a particular fan of Nassim Taleb but I recently listened to his book ‘Skin in the Game’ in which he rants vehemently against the competence of the Federal Reserve, political pollsters, academia, and many other authority figures. This raises my expectation that he too will be a believer in incompetence and might be an interesting and unusual guest on your show.
Your interviews have made me sensitive to and accepting of lots of things that I previously considered nonsense, such as UFOs and spirit mediums. Your guests’ reaction to your combative interview style has revealed the shallowness of materialist apologist arguments and the credibility of many researchers and experiencers of the paranormal. Your journey through Skeptiko has truly opened my mind. For this I sincerely thank you.
What I would like to do in this post is express an idea which I think you may find useful. It was given to me by a friend many years ago. While discussing a then topical conspiracy theory he told me that he found most conspiracy theories unsatisfactory because they relied on too high a level of competence being shown by authority figures or organisations for long periods. In contrast his personal experience was that these individuals and organisations commonly acted with a high degree of incompetence, particularly when viewed over the long term.
My friend’s credentials in this regard are impressive. As a consulting actuary he was responsible for bringing about the closure of a substantial life insurer as a result of actuarial insolvency. When asked to prepare a summary report of his actuarial analysis for the holding company board he drew a sketch of the Titanic sailing into an iceberg with caricatures of the life insurers CEO, CFO etc. on deck with voice balloons containing selected inane comments they had made drawn from board meeting minutes.
Having lived my entire life in Africa my experience of the actions of authority figures is similar to my friend’s. I find many, if not most authorities act with a high degree of incompetence, especially when viewed over the long term.
Recent international political events convince me that although African authorities may take the lead in incompetence, it is by no means limited to the shores of this continent.
My conjecture therefore is that incompetence rules, not conspiracy!
Thus I find the following entirely normal without requiring any complex secretive conspiracy:
- That US security authorities had been informed of plans for the 9/11 attack before the event, probably by Israeli agents, but did nothing to prevent it.
- That George Bush scuttled away to a place of safety instead of displaying national leadership when the attack was in progress.
- That the formal structures of both Republican and Democrat parties in the US in 2016 were so out of touch with their electorate that Trump was able to win the presidential election.
- That the Conservative party in the UK so mismanaged the Brexit debacle that they are only now realising what it has cost the country.
- That, in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, the CIA should hit on the idea of importing and wholesaling heroin to feed their secret budget, at huge cost to the US population it is commissioned to serve.
- That the overthrow of dictatorial rulers in the ‘Arab Spring’ has resulted in substantially worse conditions for most of their populations.
- That the involvement of foreign forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria has catastrophically worsened the lives of inhabitants and merely replaced bad problems with worse ones.
- That the populations of many rich western countries, who have never experienced the ravages of polio, measles and other infectious diseases, should protest against vaccination against covid 19.
You made the point recently; “How could the US military have appointed a man to oversee the Stargate project who was totally unsuitable for the job?”. My reaction is ;“Ha-ha, that is entirely to be expected!”
I am not a particular fan of Nassim Taleb but I recently listened to his book ‘Skin in the Game’ in which he rants vehemently against the competence of the Federal Reserve, political pollsters, academia, and many other authority figures. This raises my expectation that he too will be a believer in incompetence and might be an interesting and unusual guest on your show.