Ricky Varandas, Is Fake Science Evil? |530|

Sure we can. I think that claiming something is 100% true that couldn't be proven in a court of law and result in a conviction and is against the accepted explanation, is a CT.
Well if we ever regain our freedoms again (and I am cautiously optimistic that we might), there will be a lot of people that we know are guilty that will never see the inside of a court of law.

Besides, giving an example of one type of CT that everyone might agree on, doesn't alter the fact that there are a lot of claims now which are on the borderline between CTs and something more solid. This has been hugely exacerbated by the rise in censorship. For example, I think there is substantial evidence that the COVID vaccines are not safe. For example:

https://thecovidblog.com/category/vaccine-adverse-effects/

A lot of people would claim that ANY doubts about the vaccines are CTs.

David
 
Besides, giving an example of one type of CT that everyone might agree on, doesn't alter the fact that there are a lot of claims now which are on the borderline between CTs and something more solid. This has been hugely exacerbated by the rise in censorship. For example, I think there is substantial evidence that the COVID vaccines are not safe. For example:

https://thecovidblog.com/category/vaccine-adverse-effects/

A lot of people would claim that ANY doubts about the vaccines are CTs.

David

That's a good example of distinguishing between valid doubts/suspicions/concerns and CTs/CTers.

On the one hand we have doctors/health care workers/individuals reporting adverse effects, public health services investigating those reports by looking at medical records, algorithms constantly monitoring reportable conditions for any unexpected increases in outcomes, monitoring of databases (such as Eric's insurance data) for unexpected increases in outcomes, etc.

Then we have people like David who monitor anti-COVID CT websites instead, and credulously swallow completely unvetted "information".

Yeah, there are doubts about the completeness of a voluntary reporting system. And...how sensitive is the process to picking up serious rare outcomes? How sensitive is it to picking up serious common outcomes? That's the one I worry about more. Somebody shows up with GBS, everybody jumps on it, asking about COVID or vaccination. But a 75 year old shows up with a heart attack, and I doubt anybody's thinking "vaccine adverse event". And you know there are reasonable doubts/suspicions/concerns, because the medical journals are full of these kinds of questions/studies. That's where these discussions take place - at medical conferences, at health care centers, in the medical journals, maybe even within the pharmaceutical industry (yeah, right), etc. If you want the actual people who can do something about it to know about it, you take it to where the discussions take place. You don't post it on a website that's a cesspool of misinformation and expect it to be noticed or taken seriously. Like I said, it takes about 5 seconds to recognize that the "information" on that website is easily debunked, so it will be ignored by anybody involved in any part of the vaccination program.

Now, I'm not a fan of censorship, and the blanket censoring/black-listing of anything that gets scooped up by the surveillance algorithms worries me. However, that process is only affecting the misinformation machine. It isn't affecting the discussion of reasonable doubts/suspicions/concerns, because those discussions are taking place elsewhere. So it's hard to see what we lose, in terms of the ability to air suspicions, by not hearing from the misinformation peddlers.

If you don't want people to think you are a CTer, don't link to CT websites. If you want people to think you can distinguish between suspicions that fall on the border between CT's and something solid, don't link to a website that falls completely within the extreme CT side of the line. So far, none of the CTers have given us anything that is even in the general vicinity of "look, we identified these fuckers before the mainstream did".
 
That's a good example of distinguishing between valid doubts/suspicions/concerns and CTs/CTers.

On the one hand we have doctors/health care workers/individuals reporting adverse effects, public health services investigating those reports by looking at medical records, algorithms constantly monitoring reportable conditions for any unexpected increases in outcomes, monitoring of databases (such as Eric's insurance data) for unexpected increases in outcomes, etc.

Then we have people like David who monitor anti-COVID CT websites instead, and credulously swallow completely unvetted "information".
.

Well, it's a lot more complicated than that. IMO, You're correct in what you say - as is David - but you both are presenting an overly simplistic picture of what is happening.

There are a lot of psychological processes impacting perception and behavior. These are both at the personal psychology level and in the realm of social psychology. The real world is not a laboratory populated by totally rational, mission oriented, objective researchers performing controlled studies; the mission being to arrive at the truth of a situation, like the safety and effectiveness of covid vaccines.

Crowd psychology is a fascinating and important area of study. This includes the well known phenomenon of "group think", but much more. Mass cognitive dissonance is another key factor.

What data one looks at, what results can be shared, how those results are received, whether or not they are further disseminated and, if further disseminated, how they are received by a wider audience, are all dependent on social psychological forces. If there is a covid conspiracy (again, I'm on the fence still) then something like 95% of the conspiracy's implementation is being done by players consciously and subconsciously under the influence of social psychological forces and not because they are official members of a cabal of plotters with sinister ulterior motives.

Then there's politicians and they are very influential in many situations that become the subject of CTs. Politicians rarely act on scientific evidence. They have an entirely different set of criteria and are also heavily under the influence of social psychology.

AS an example, I studied the Vietnam war (I wasn't a participant in it b/c I was just a little kid at that time). By 1968 it was recognized that the war was unwinnable. This is amply proven in memories written by the decision makers, documents from FOIA requests and other sources. The data is very consistent on what was reported to and known by those at the highest levels, including President Johnson. Johnson really suffered over this knowledge. He has even written as much himself in his memories. It really tore him up and caused him decide to not for a second term. Yet he could not, politically, withdraw US troops. His escalation and continuation of the war despite knowing it could not be won was not to make the "military industrial complex" more wealthy nor attributable to any of the ulterior motives that CTists conceive of. It was pure political considerations. It took Nixon's election to be able to steer the political environment in a different direction and, even then, it was another three years to before troops were pretty much totally drawn down. Young Americans were being killed and maimed the entire time.

Covid could be something similar. The Who and Fauci came out with a terrifying announcement. That set a massive course of events into action. Why would Fauci and The Who do that? Professional distortions. Virus fighters fight viruses. They see the world through the narrow lens of epidemiology. No one moderated that perspective b/c they were afraid of being wrong and due to various emergent local political opportunities (like in the US, bludgeoning Trump).

From there, doing something about covid became the paramount focus of government. Emotional energy was invested in masking/distancing and then the vaccines. This is analogous to the Vietnam situation circa 1968.
 
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Well, it's a lot more complicated than that. IMO, You're correct in what you say - as is David - but you both are presenting an overly simplistic picture of what is happening.

I agree - my evaluation of whether or not I'm going to waste any time listening to someone's "theory" is simplistic. Mostly because I've put in the time giving people the benefit of the doubt, so I have a pretty good idea of the shape of the ROC curve, and where my trade-off between sensitivity and specificity sits.

I realize that the why/how is more complicated and multi factored. Sometimes I'm interested in that - in a "where things go wrong" kind of way. But mostly I'm more interested in how the average Joe can get it right.
 
I agree - my evaluation of whether or not I'm going to waste any time listening to someone's "theory" is simplistic. Mostly because I've put in the time giving people the benefit of the doubt, so I have a pretty good idea of the shape of the ROC curve, and where my trade-off between sensitivity and specificity sits.

I realize that the why/how is more complicated and multi factored. Sometimes I'm interested in that - in a "where things go wrong" kind of way. But mostly I'm more interested in how the average Joe can get it right.
ROC curve. Nice. Good use of the concept.

Re; avg Joe getting it right - I brought up social psychology, politics, etc as explanatory because it appears to me that CTists usually work backwards. That is to say that their radar is constantly scanning for opportunities to confirm their world view. They start with finding a fit, however forced, for their explanations and then look for the "evidence" of the conspiracy that they can hang their collective hat on.

Example; The pre-existing world view = US government is evil, ruthless and powerful. 9/11 happens. First reaction = "no way a guy living in a cave pulled off 9/11. Only the US government could do this and they did it to start imperial conquests and enrich the military industrial complex (MIC") because that's what they do. Then the CTists search for proof begins and we get "evidence" like "No way a building can fall straight down", "Building 7!", "Dancing Jews", "that doesn't look like an airplane hole in the Pentagon. It must have been a missile fired by the US military!".

Another example is the alleged CIA involvement with pedophilic rings. CTist pre-existing world view = Powerful people are messing with our minds! MK Ultra was a real program that did unethical things to explore mind control and means of extracting truth from prisoners or other targets (actually true enough, albeit an isolated incident that was busted). The CIA wants to control our minds and mess with our reality. They will do anything in that regard. There are no limits. They would even damage children as part of their nefarious and satanic master plan. Then a Washington, DC based cult - The finders - is identified. The cult engages in child abuse. One of the cult leaders allegedly has some kind of military intelligence background in his past. Someone allegedly in the CIA owns a storage shed rented by the Finders cult. Pictures of naked children are found in the shed. Allegedly, a Customs agent working the case asks a CIA guy for intel related to activities in a foreign country. CIA guy turns down the request. All of that confirms to the the CTist mind their existing bias/position that the CIA is running child molestation cults as part of some kind of operation because that is what the CTists want to prove. The CTists are constantly scanning for the opportunity to confirm what they already believed to be true.

The CTists are an explanation looking for an event.

So, in my humble and probably misguided - and no doubt, useless - attempt to break the CT cycle, I introduce the higher level idea that human behaviors are not always rational, target directed or based on science. In fact, incompetence, social psychology, personal psychology, bureaucratic inertia and disorganization and political calculations are far more often the correct explanation than omniscient/all powerful carefully plotting cabals of conspirators. Also, that coincidences happen and statistical probabilities need to be considered (e.g. lots of intel guys in Washington DC and some might own storage units as an investment, lots of former intel guys. They're a dime a dozen in the military and in every day life as veterans doing what every day people do. And Intel almost always not = James Bond/ CIA super spook.

Most CTists appear to be unreachable for deeply imbedded psychological reasons, but maybe some moderate ones could be helped by diminishing their preconceived notions about how the world, organizations and individual people really operate. CTists are not open minded or objective, as they claim to be. Quite the opposite. maybe some of them could learn to approach events with true objectivity if they had a broader range of potential explanation paths in their tool box.

Anyhow, my CT alert goes off when I see people automatically assigning their pre-existing pet CT bias explanations to emerging events.
 
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Another example is the alleged CIA involvement with pedophilic rings. CTist pre-existing world view = Powerful people are messing with our minds! MK Ultra was a real program that did unethical things to explore mind control and means of extracting truth from prisoners or other targets (actually true enough, albeit an isolated incident that was busted). The CIA wants to control our minds and mess with our reality. They will do anything in that regard. There are no limits. They would even damage children as part of their nefarious and satanic master plan.

This is weapons technology. If any country's Military is not studying and infiltrating these weapon systems, they're not doing their job. Everybody's on board with that and knows that our guys better be monitoring and involved in it because our enemies are guaranteed to be. The question that seems to get your panties in a bunch is: Where is the line they can not cross? Anything along that line of questioning seems to get a kneejerk reaction from you throwing the conversation back to acting like this isn't all common knowledge accepted by everyone in CT, and YOU insist that CT's are claiming CIA engineered ANY of it from scratch. They're not claiming that. But that seems to be your favorite strawman to attack.
 
This is weapons technology. If any country's Military is not studying and infiltrating these weapon systems, they're not doing their job. Everybody's on board with that and knows that our guys better be monitoring and involved in it because our enemies are guaranteed to be. The question that seems to get your panties in a bunch is: Where is the line they can not cross? Anything along that line of questioning seems to get a kneejerk reaction from you throwing the conversation back to acting like this isn't all common knowledge accepted by everyone in CT, and YOU insist that CT's are claiming CIA engineered ANY of it from scratch. They're not claiming that. But that seems to be your favorite strawman to attack.
Weapons systems? Weapons tech? What on earth are you talking about?

The CIA was studying how to extract the truth from prisoners in war and espionage scenarios. They began looking at LSD (a new drug at the time) and other substances and techniques. The program was a failure in that regard. Unfortunately, in conducting studies, they violated a lot of ethical standards. This was not the whole agency, of course. Rather a small compartment acting on its own. CTists want to make it like it was the whole agency. The people involved got caught and were punished. Btw, no children were involved to my knowledge.

You're being totally dishonest about what CTists say; again.

CTists are indeed saying that the CIA is harming children on a regular basis as part of bizarre practices. Alex says it all the time. He takes isolated examples involving sick individuals, like Aquino, and makes them out to be part of a larger coordinated effort to molest children in a satanic setting. He says that The Finders was definitely a CIA run pedophilic ring. Much more.

Alex is on the new thread about Jesus saying the "empire" (assume he means government of the US) and Islamic terrorists (AQ) are one and the same, allies in god knows what he imagines. More psi-ops, I suppose. Who knows? This is crazy talk. You need to own up to what your fellow travelers are saying. Where they get the basis for such insanity is beyond me. Assisting Bin Laden back when he was fighting the Russian in Afghanistan and long before Bin Laden decided to create a caliphate and attack the US? Reading tea leaves? Magic 8 ball? Voices in his head?
 
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Weapons systems? Weapons tech? What on earth are you talking about?

The CIA was studying how to extract the truth from prisoners in war and espionage scenarios. They began looking at LSD (a new drug at the time) and other substances and techniques.
Are you reading before you hit "post reply"?
 
Weapons systems? Weapons tech? What on earth are you talking about?

The CIA was studying how to extract the truth from prisoners in war and espionage scenarios. They began looking at LSD (a new drug at the time) and other substances and techniques. The program was a failure in that regard. Unfortunately, in conducting studies, they violated a lot of ethical standards. This was not the whole agency, of course. Rather a small compartment acting on its own. CTists want to make it like it was the whole agency. The people involved got caught and were punished. Btw, no children were involved to my knowledge.

You're being totally dishonest about what CTists say; again.

CTists are indeed saying that the CIA is harming children on a regular basis as part of bizarre practices. Alex says it all the time. He takes isolated examples involving sick individuals, like Aquino, and makes them out to be part of a larger coordinated effort to molest children in a satanic setting. He says that The Finders was definitely a CIA run pedophilic ring. Much more.

Alex is on the new thread about Jesus saying the "empire" (assume he means government of the US) and Islamic terrorists (AQ) are one and the same, allies in god knows what he imagines. More psi-ops, I suppose. Who knows? This is crazy talk. You need to own up to what your fellow travelers are saying. Where they get the basis for such insanity is beyond me. Assisting Bin Laden back when he was fighting the Russian in Afghanistan and long before Bin Laden decided to create a caliphate and attack the US? Reading tea leaves? Magic 8 ball? Voices in his head?
How far away are your and EllisR's cubicles from eachother.. JK, you're totally not intentionally obfuscating and I'm sure you're more than happy to stop dodging and answer the million dollar question...

What is the line they can not cross?
 
How far away are your and EllisR's cubicles from eachother.. JK, you're totally not intentionally obfuscating and I'm sure you're more than happy to stop dodging and answer the million dollar question...

What is the line they can not cross?

I note that I dutifully answer all of your questions to the best of my ability and you answer none of mine (go back and read our exchanges).

There are many lines "they" will not cross. There are lines in combat called rules of engagement (ROE). Individuals violate those from time to time same as people in all walks of life violate rules. When that happens, the violators are prosecuted under the UCMJ and are usually convicted and sentence to federal prison, if the crime was serious enough, or subjected to lesser penalties for less serious infractions.

There are all kinds of similar rules in the civilian intelligence services. Violators will be prosecuted. In addition there is going against civilian policy directives, which, while not illegal, can still be career limiting or career terminating. There are all kinds internal and external oversight committees. Congress oversees much of the activity. There are ethics manuals, etc. Since the Church Commission rogue behavior has been considerably reined in. What more do you want?

Do people in those communities break the law/rules? Sure. It happens. Same as doctors, lawyers, brick layers, teachers, gurus, restaurant workers, police, protesters.....all break laws and rules.

I will note that James Clapper got called before congress and he lied to them regarding collecting and storing data related to civilians and no warrants. He got off easy. He should be behind bars. Sometimes the system fails.
Yet, he was was caught in the lie.
Are they doing the crazy stuff Alex and your other CT buddies think they are? Hell no.
 
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I note that I dutifully answer all of your questions to the best of my ability and you answer none of mine (go back and read our exchanges).

There are many lines "they" will not cross. There are lines in combat called rules of engagement (ROE). Individuals violate those from time to time same as people in all walks of life violate rules. When that happens, the violators are prosecuted under the UCMJ and are usually convicted and sentence to federal prison, if the crime was serious enough, or subjected to lesser penalties for less serious infractions.

There are all kinds of similar rules in the civilian intelligence services. Violators will be prosecuted. In addition there is going against civilian policy directives, which, while not illegal, can still be career limiting or career terminating. There are all kinds internal and external oversight committees. Congress oversees much of the activity. There are ethics manuals, etc. Since the Church Commission rogue behavior has been considerably reined in. What more do you want?

Do people in those communities break the law/rules? Sure. It happens. Same as doctors, lawyers, brick layers, teachers, gurus, restaurant workers, police, protesters.....all break laws and rules.

Are they doing the crazy stuff Alex and your other CT buddies think they are? Hell no.
Agreed that the lines exist... NAME THEM
 
Agreed that the lines exist... NAME THEM

How much time and space do you want me to take for a guy who won't answer my questions?

Why don't you Google "rules governing cia" and do your own work?

I can assure you that starting and running satanic pedophilic rings are way outside the rules. As is blowing up US civilians on American soil and destroying aircraft and buildings in the process. Shooting a missile at the Pentagon would also be way outside the rules.
 
How much time and space do you want me to take for a guy who won't answer my questions?

Why don't you Google "rules governing cia" and do your own work?

I can assure you that starting and running satanic pedophilic rings are way outside the rules. As is blowing up US civilians on American soil and destroying aircraft and buildings in the process. Shooting a missile at the Pentagon would also be way outside the rules.
Nobody on this Forum is saying 3LA's(three letter agencies) engineered any of those situations. Many CT's are claiming the 3LA's had and intentionally passed up opportunities to stop them, which if true, could be used to argue the given 3LA as a failed entity, or even responsible.
The fact that you insist on attacking the strawman of the extreme claim (3LA's engineering them from scratch) which some CT's might be claiming, but nobody on Skeptiko Forum is claiming, shows you have a sensitive/soft spot for this area.

Americans should be able to assume that ANY government agency aware/involved with knowledge of 1 single child being tortured domestically within US, would engage to stop the harm at the first available opportunity, and not allow the harm to continue for purpose of gaining more intel.
That's the line.
I think your scared of talking about that line, so you try to make it sound like CTs aren't meeting your arguments by pretending that we think 3LA's are engineering these things.

You gave 3 examples above.
If any 3LA operation had an opportunity to stop one of those examples and let it pass hoping to gain more intel, they're a failed entity and responsible. Please disagree.
 
Nobody on this Forum is saying 3LA's(three letter agencies) engineered any of those situations. Many CT's are claiming the 3LA's had and intentionally passed up opportunities to stop them, which if true, could be used to argue the given 3LA as a failed entity, or even responsible.
The fact that you insist on attacking the strawman of the extreme claim (3LA's engineering them from scratch) which some CT's might be claiming, but nobody on Skeptiko Forum is claiming, shows you have a sensitive/soft spot for this area.

Completely false statement by you. Who put the thermite in the buildings? Who shot the missile at the Pentagon? Who planted explosives in building 7?

Those are things that people here frequently say happened.

You are either the worst case of cognitive dissonance, ever - or you are a terrible liar - or you simply haven't read the multiple threads wherein all of that has been discussed. Either way, we're done talking because there's no point if you are unable to speak to reality.

EDIT: You know the whole building 7 CT thing is really exceptionally stupid. if "the government" took it down with a controlled demolition, they'd have no need to lie about it. They could just say the building was damaged and presented a hazard, so they demolished it. No one would question that.
 
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Amazing Story. Thank you for sharing it. I bet you caught a vibe on it. You know, like Sheldrakes Morphic Resonance surely doesn't stop at rats learning tricks in mazes, and dogs sensing their owner intentions long distance.

Certainly! The dream was so incredibly real that I believed the buildings had actually been destroyed upon waking! I vividly recall looking out the window and expecting that they would no longer be there, but seeing them still standing, and thinking to myself, "Fuck dreams! They are bound to confuse any of us!" - Damn I was wrong and wished I would have wrote all of that dream down in detail. For sure, you are right about Sheldrakes Morphic Resonance not applying to just rats learning tricks in mazes, or dogs sensing their owner's intentions, but also to young philosophers on sexcapades! Also, prophetic dreams are literal "lunacy," you never know when they are going to come true! I am not throwing this shit at walls and seeing what sticks, either. There was absolutely nothing in my head about those buildings getting destroyed when I was in New York in 99. Fortunately, I have a picture of myself pointing to the twin towers, while taking a fairy to the Statue of Liberty. Pretty fucking cool!
 
It could be his brain glitched and instead of remembering backwards like usual, it remembered forwards by mistake. Either way, he saw the future and it was murder.



Maybe. It would make for good TV.
It could be his brain glitched and instead of remembering backwards like usual, it remembered forwards by mistake. Either way, he saw the future and it was murder.



Maybe. It would make for good TV.

It will make GREAT TV! And yes.....accidentally, that remembering forward shit happens, and it is a real headache!
 
Sorry, but I don't agree with any of that.

Like I said, lab leak, etc are not what I'd call a CT.

The rest of your list is just normal checks and balances. Everyone knows that fools, political opportunists and profiteers will hijack any situation that they think can further their self-interests. Therefore, the governmental and social systems, both institutional and organically evolved, meet statements and proposed policies with skeptical opposition. It's just like how Democrats want to tax the bejeezus out of gainfully employed Americans and Republicans want to reduce taxes. They fight over it. The media gets involved and supports one side or the other. The people repeat the arguments they have been exposed to. One side wins or a compromise is made. Covid is no different than the taxation policy questions, the border, school curriculum, you name it. I just don't see CTists contributing in the picture at all.

https://rumble.com/vriaul-men-without-hats-safety-dance.html
I don't expect you to pay sufficient attention to this, but if you did by chance/accident you'd understand what I was saying here:
If there were not enough CT voices fighting against the established narrative:
-Lab leak would have been squashed
-Trumps Warpspeed would have been shot down. (Member how they all decried "I won't take any vax that comes from Trump"???)
-UN/WHO would have full control of the narrative, meaning Lockdowns until establishment ready with their preferred vax rollout (mandate across the board in conjunction with implementation of health passport and social credit system.)
-Anti-mandate protests would be illegal/terrorism because the result in hesitancy against emergency health measures.
-Apple/Facebook/Twitter/Maybe even Banks, etc would have disabled communication/access to offenders who risk causing hesitancy against emergency health measures.
 
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