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The guardian reports on a sobering event in Washington DC.
US police have arrested a man wielding an assault rifle who entered a pizza restaurant that was the target of fake news reports it was operating a child abuse ring led by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her top campaign aide.
[...] The suspect entered the restaurant and pointed a gun at a restaurant employee, who fled and notified authorities, police said. The man then discharged the weapon inside the restaurant. There were no injuries.
[...] [Police] said the suspect during an interview with investigators revealed that he came to the establishment to "self-investigate" Pizzagate, the police statement said. Pizzagate is a baseless conspiracy, which falsely claims Clinton and her campaign chief John Podesta were running a child sex ring from the restaurant's backrooms.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @12:45PM
There are interesting questions around this event...
Gunman walks into restaurant, fires one shot into the ground, and is peacefully arrested. Hmmm... One article points out that the guy is actually a second-tier actor [imdb.com].
I am waiting for the prosecution. If, after a week or two, he is quietly released on some technicality, then he was hired to make a scene. To distract from...what?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:05PM
On a site where the community likes to think of itself as grounded in science, conspiracy theories sure seem to dominate despite being completely anti-scienitific.
Conspiracy theories are the opposite of scientific theory - both attempt to explain the world, but the former are unfalsifiable and can be increasingly elaborated to accommodate new observations and ultimately, any information contradicting a conspiracy theory can be answered with, “Well sure, that’s what they want you to think.”
The right has been anti-science for so many decades now its sadly no surprise that the people here who are most vulnerable to conspiracy propaganda are the most right-wing.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 06 2016, @02:29PM
but the former are unfalsifiable
Well, actually, its more like geology. If you dig over there to the 10Myr strata you'll find a delicious crude oil salt dome with cap of natgas. Now sometimes they're wrong, but practically all the time they're right and eventually you admit you don't have to dig the entire freaking earth up to verify the model found every oil deposit, you just admit you have a working theoretical model that predicts where you'll find oil.
Or in this case, CP. If you build a model for finding weird CP or almost CP or abuse evidence or peculiar ultra high density of symbology and peculiar behavior, and the more you dig the more you find as long as you follow your model, then its a good model by the geologic criteria. And given decades or centuries of criminal justice investigation into these type of people, you can expect to find "grooming" and tada here's dozens of pix of Biden and really creeped out teen girls. At least they're (mostly?) post puberty females who already know how to handle teen boys their age so they can handle an old Biden. Of course you take a million group photos and you're gonna find a small number of rando creepy ones that mean nothing, but it sure was easy to find and there sure are a lot of them... Of course a teen girl looking creeped out next to an old man does not prove anything illegal ever happened, but it is interesting.
and ultimately, any information contradicting a conspiracy theory can be answered with
Sometimes for PR oriented theories, shaping public opinion is kinda the point not a bug. None the less that's an example of belief not a real model. You can't predict if you gained access to computers over there you'd find a folder full of "thats what they want you to think". You can't dig anything up with a belief, its pretty much the end of the conversation.
I'm just saying the cycle of "find weird stuff" "dig into the now usual suspects" is a rotating wheel thats gone around quite a few turns this time and it's still spining slowly. Just like prospecting for oil eventually every well comes up dry. There seems to be a hell of a lot of oil in this particular salt dome and I look forward to seeing more pumped out, its gonna be interesting.
Wonder what they'll find tomorrow? Recent past implies it'll continue to be interesting, whatever it is.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:42PM
"conspiracy theories sure seem to dominate despite being completely anti-scienitific."
Is anthropology a science? You know - the study of man.
Do you know people? I mean, real people, living near you, who have wants, desires, dreams, etc ad nauseum. Have you ever unearthed any conspiracies among them? Maybe two children conspired to trick you into believing they did their chores/homework/whatever, so that they could have their candy. Conspiracies, mostly minor petty ones, take place all around us, every day. Doctors, nurses, and family often conspire to hide the facts from terminally ill patients. Children conspire to cheat for better grades in school.
Are you going to pretend that rich bastards never conspire?
The thing about them is, they are more likely to "get away" with their conspiracies. They can afford high dollar security and muscle, whereas the kids cheating on exams cannot.
Anthropology. Empiric evidence, if nothing else, tells us that people DO conspire to get ahead in life. Some of the theories are based on better evidence, some of them are based on complete bullshit. But, they all remain theories, unless and until proven.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:09PM
You fail vocab.
Conspiracy theories and people cooperating for their benefit are not even remotely the same thing.
Also, the word you are looking for sociology which is the study of human behaviour in groups. But I'm pretty sure you don't consider sociology a science since the field has produced so many conclusions you personally won't accept.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:00PM
I don't know you - you don't know me - you're just some anon fool on the internet - nothing you say counts.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:17PM
That's the best online interpretation of puting your fingers in your ears and going "na-na-na-na I can't hear you!" that I've ever read.
You are a fuckin riot!
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:45PM
As if some nobody named Runaway1956 is any more credible than AC. Or anyone for that matter. Take a note son: We're all nobodies.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:14PM
> Take a note son: We're all nobodies.
Speak for yourself son.
I'm Henry Kissinger.
I read soylent for the informative geopolitical commentary.
Runaway1956, VLM, Khallow, TheMighytBuzzard, Jmorris and Bradley13 are some of the most educated and insightful writers I have ever encountered. It is an honor to learn at their knee.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:14PM
Bark! Bark!
[wags tail]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:18PM
Conspiracy theories and people cooperating for their benefit are not even remotely the same thing.
The obvious rebuttal here is that all of the examples of cooperation given were conspiracies. Let's look at the actual definition:
1. A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful:
1.1 The action of plotting or conspiring:
Now let's look at the examples:
Maybe two children conspired to trick you into believing they did their chores/homework/whatever, so that they could have their candy.
Covert plotting? Check. Not doing chores/homework/whatever might not be a great harm. Subverting the rule of the parental unit might not be greatly illegal. But this still meets the definition of conspiracy as advertised.
Doctors, nurses, and family often conspire to hide the facts from terminally ill patients.
Again with the secret plans. And while the rest of us might find the intent noble, the terminally ill patient might strongly disagree that concealment of their true medical condition is harmless.
Children conspire to cheat for better grades in school.
Again, fits the definition.
So you say "You fail vocab", but he obviously does not since at least two of his three examples fits the definition and the last could.
I get the earlier post about the "anti-scientific" nature of conspiracy theories. But the grandparent has a point. There are conspiracies. The question isn't whether they exist, but how big do they get? And there's just not much point to discussing any sort of scientific basis for conspiracies without some actual conspiracies of the appropriate scale to study.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:33PM
> The obvious rebuttal
I think I'm gonna start the khallow drinking game.
Every time you say "the obvious rebuttal" everybody takes a shot.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:57PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @08:12PM
> The obvious rebuttal
Drink!
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:30PM
I have a minor degree in sociology and sociology is not a science. People who do sociology are barely literate in maths. Most studies are created by what the (current) government wants to fund and consequently studies contradict each other all the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:44PM
> People who do sociology are barely literate in maths.
People who do science are barely literate in maths. Most know the bare minimum to get by in their field.
Math is not a requirement for science. It is a requirement for a certain range of sciences, but is not for all forms of science.
A falsifiable premise does not require math.
Repeatable results do not require math.
So, another vocab fail. Unsurprising. Its always the people who consider themselves superior that fall on their faces due to sloppy thinking.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:33PM
I suppose it matters how your program of study was constituted. The sociology program where I did my master's was all math, all the time. It was quite proud to be the home of NORC (if you studied sociology, you'll have heard of them). Then, they were right next to the economists who'd collectively won a dozen or more Nobel prizes. A lot of keeping up with the Joneses to do there with quantitative methods...
I consider both those disciplines to be social sciences. "Social" because human beings make poor test subjects and will never give you the predictability you need to be a "real" science. But it is certainly not for lack of trying, lack of mathematical understanding, or loosey-goosey modeling.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:18AM
May be. One of my teacher was the head of some central government body, but he personally thought that boys schools promote homosexuality.
Sociology depends a lot on modelling and funnily it was sociology that taught me how measurement of variables via polling is flawed for giving wildly different results based questioner and how a question is framed. That itself is a razor that cuts through most of the publications. I am not dissing the whole discipline but a lot of "research" is borderline propaganda with bad sampling, small sample size and ridiculously in agreement with current government policies. In fact I will go out on a limb and say that every thing in sociology that is insightful is either 50 or more years old or is debunking 50 or more year old theory.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:24PM
Anthropology focuses on culture. Anthropologists abhor quantitative methods. Sociologists don't, and use the same approach and many of the tools that "real" scientists do, with the additional challenges that it's hard to get reproducibility when your subjects are self-aware, unpredictable beings, and when it's illegal and unethical to experiment on them in a way to satisfy true scientific rigor. Basically "real" scientists have it much easier.
But that's an aside.
Runaway's point still stands, I think, because people do conspire all the time, and because his examples were people who were working together to do something wrong. Believing that others do that makes it a "theory." But what I appreciate about how Runaway put it was how banal conspiracies can seem and how easy it can be to fall into one as a participant. You see one in real life, and you often can't bring yourself to believe it because that kind of thing only happens in movies, right? It doesn't help that the conspirators say it's "just business."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:46PM
> But what I appreciate about how Runaway put it was how banal conspiracies can seem
That's because conspiracies and conspiracy theories are wholly different things.
What's the difference? Well, conspiracy theories are never banal, rarely simplistic and are so mutable as to be unfalsifiable. Ask a conspiracy theorist what it would take to convince them that their theory was false. If you even get an answer it will be something so unreasonable as to be impossible for all practical purposes.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:55PM
Are you going to pretend that rich bastards never conspire?
No, they certainly do. And frequently, particularly if it's a simple quiet lie that only a few people know about, they get away with it.
What strains credibility is when major PUBLIC figures are claimed to be involved in conspiracies that would require hundreds or even thousands of people "in the know." Nobody can keep that kind of stuff quiet... even the Mob can't maintain that sort of loyalty over years or decades that these "conspiracies" claim to be hidden. And in most of these conspiracy cases, we're not just talking about NSA operations where you claim to only have people involved who would have a high-level of clearance and be recruited for loyalty or whatever -- there would often have to be oodles of random everyday government workers or civilians who would have to be "paid off" and likely "intimidated" if not just shot and buried in a ditch somewhere.
Anthropology. Empiric evidence, if nothing else, tells us that people DO conspire to get ahead in life. Some of the theories are based on better evidence, some of them are based on complete bullshit. But, they all remain theories, unless and until proven.
Wow. I don't think I've ever seen such a concise and complete repudiation of the scientific method in one sentence. It's throwing Karl Popper and "falsifiability" completely on its head. Science generally says, "Claims are only ever theories, which may forever be incomplete (and thus never the complete "truth"), unless or until they are falsified." The burden of proof in science is on empiricism to prove that something is NOT false. For you, the burden is on the doubter, who can apparently never falsify a theory -- only prove it.
I'm not sure anymore if you're trolling or if you actually believe what you say, but this is a profoundly anti-science attitude.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:34PM
What strains credibility is when major PUBLIC figures are claimed to be involved in conspiracies that would require hundreds or even thousands of people "in the know." Nobody can keep that kind of stuff quiet... even the Mob can't maintain that sort of loyalty over years or decades that these "conspiracies" claim to be hidden.
And yet what Ed Snowden revealed seemed to indicate it does happen. And for some reason James Clapper has still not been indicted for perjuring himself in front of Congress...
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:18PM
Convenient how you ignore the rest of the paragraph of that quotation from my post. If you don't see the difference between a bunch of loyal NSA operatives with secret clearances doing stuff behind closed doors vs. keeping secret a freakin' pizza parlor where the public comes in and out in broad daylight, all the apparent "clues" are readily visible for anyone to pick up on (and even appear on the menu!), and nobody apparently saw anything suspicious before now, I really don't know what to say.
And by the way, the thing that's conveniently forgotten about the Snowden thing is that there WERE leaks before then. You had Bill Binney [wikipedia.org], along with others in the early post-9/11 days which led to a 2005 New York Times expose [archive.org], which wasn't just a low-profile article -- it won a Pulitzer Prize! You had Thomas Tamm [wikipedia.org] who spoke out and was covered in 2008 in Newsweek. You had Thomas Drake [wikipedia.org], who gave details of more developments and even gave a televised interview on 60 Minutes in 2011.
And there were other more minor figures too. Snowden's revelations did NOT come from nowhere. He himself even said he was inspired by some of these previous people.
Anyone who pretends that the NSA's warrantless wiretapping hadn't been front-page news for years before Snowden obviously wasn't paying attention. Obviously Snowden produced further details, but you had at least a half-dozen high-profile leaks about the NSA's activities before Snowden came along -- and that was among supposedly loyal screened NSA operatives who were trained to keep secrets... not stuff visible on menus in a public pizza shop.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @11:00PM
I didn't read the original story (or "fake" story, or "conspiracy") about this pizza shop, so don't read this as a position either way. It is, however, easier to hide stuff in plain sight than you think. The apartment building across the street from me was running a brothel out of the street-level apartments. I've lived on the block almost 20 years, and it's chock full of yuppy families with toddlers. Nobody had any idea it was going on.
Even people you know really well can surprise you. I had a good friend that was the most cheerful person I knew. Until he stuck a shotgun in his mouth and ended it.
Many wrap themselves in bubbles and only see that which gets between them and what they want. Most of us only show others what we want them to see.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday December 07 2016, @02:43AM
Well I wasn't commenting in the context of "pizzagate". Frankly I don't know what to think of it, but I'm not seeing a smoking gun, especially not as regards the pizza parlor. Then again, there have been rumors of child trafficking / prostitution in and around D.C. elites for many years, at least back to Bush Sr.'s administration. And nothing came of that.
But the entire idea that "the government is reading your email and listening to your phone calls" and tracking everyone was totally considered a wild conspiracy theory and the people claiming it was happening were ridiculed just as much as the people posting about "pizzagate" are today. That's the point. There have been people ridiculed that way throughout history that turned out to be right.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @05:31PM
I find that some of the right wing conspiracy theories are no different than blind faith in something. Asking questions is hard, but believing something because it's not what the other side believes and everyone you surround yourself with approves -- then that's great! Facts be damned, I feel good about being liked by other people!
Scientific consensus is rarely achieved on faith based research.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:19PM
Sorry, but denial of conspiracy theories is just as anti-scientific as acceptance of them. I know we aren't supposed to believe this, but enough actual conspiracies have come to light that just assuming that no conspiracy is pushing things is unreasonable. One needs to ask, if there were a conspiracy, what evidence would I expect to see? One also needs a good definition of what a conspiracy. Is a trade union a conspiracy? If not, why not. What about a club of business men who socialize with each other an occasionally discuss business plans, while excluding those who aren't business men (of an appropriate stature)? If not, why not.
I tend to adopt a rather loose definition and consider BOTH of my examples to be conspiracies. They are people who meet to conspire (breathe together) in an exclusive group with the intent of benefiting themselves and scant concern over whether others are damages in the process. But note that this definition includes ANY company that maintains company secrets. You may well want a tighter definition, if so, what is it? Make it explicit enough that one can apply the definition to decide whether a particular group is or is not a conspiracy. That, after all, is what makes the definition scientific.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:35PM
> Sorry, but denial of conspiracy theories is just as anti-scientific as acceptance of them.
That's a bullshit reframing of the issue.
Get this through your head: conspiracies and conspiracy theories are two distinct things with only a small amount of overlap.
Legitimate conspiracies are falsifiable. Conspiracy theories are elaborated as needed to discount any contradictory evidence.
Ask any conspiracy theorist this simple question: What would convince you that the conspiracy theory is false?
If they won't answer or their answer is outlandish, then you aren't dealing with a rational examination of evidence, you are dealing with someone operating on faith.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday December 06 2016, @01:58PM
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Tuesday December 06 2016, @02:09PM
By that logic writing "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer" completely cleared OJ Simpson of any possible suspicion of guilt.
In the real world the stereotypical most obvious suspect is the guilt party. Their is not a series of bluffs and double bluffs, their are no triple agents, and the guilty party does not frame himself to make it look like he must be innocent.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:28PM
Sure, you can double-think it. And triple-think it. I'm not even sure which side of #pizzagate it would benefit. But I find the story very strange.
As far as conspiracy theories go, do recall the saying: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you." Sometimes there really are conspiracies. If not #pizzagate, then whoever might benefit from a faked attack like this. Give enough double- and triple-think, it could be either side.
Or the guy could just be a nutcase.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Tuesday December 06 2016, @04:53PM
Like Milo mysteriously canceling his talk on Pizzagate, saying he was told: "Not Yet"
Was that all a stunt to make PG seem more real? Or is more going on?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday December 06 2016, @03:15PM
Wasn't the fake news about a faked assault by a truth warrior, conceived to discredit alternative news sites and pushing the idea that pizzagate is fake?
I am confused nao.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 06 2016, @07:03PM
Which article? This one?:https://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/heres-what-we-know-about-the-pizzagate-gunman?utm_term=.jsmm1XjWQa#.eyd3bv4XP6 [buzzfeed.com]
Few quotes from said article:
According to a Facebook page that appeared to belong to him,
According to an IMDb page that appeared to belong to Welch,...
"appeared". Weasel words. Nothing is proven or concrete.
And then there is this major coincidence from IMDB:
(Filmography)
Something About Pizza (Short) 2005
The Gunman
Synopsys: A young girl comes from school hungry, but her brother left nothing of her favorite food: Pizza. Her only thought now is revenge.
So this guy also happens to have played a gunman in a short film about pizza? And it appears to have been filmed in Luxembourg. I smell a red herring.