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Is Kurtis Hagen's "Is infiltration of extremist groups justified?" justified?
22 Plays3 years ago
Josh and M take a look at Kurtis Hagen's 2010 piece, "Is infiltration of extremist groups justified?"
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Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
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Transcript
Infiltration and Persuasion Tactics
00:00:00
Speaker
Okay, so just to be clear, my mission is to pose online as a 9-11 truther, infiltrate various Reddit communities which oppose the official theory that Osama bin Laden orchestrated the event, and then persuade people to think that's stupid. Indeed. Now, your cover name is Gareth, you are the proud owner of a cat called Mickels, and your favourite colour is blue. Yeah, I've read the dossier, it's weirdly detailed. Why would I need to be able to describe my genital warts?
00:00:28
Speaker
Look, you never know where a conversation online is going to go. Yeah, sure, fine. But the bit that I see it doesn't describe is how I go about persuading these truthers to give up on their conspiracy theory. Just make it look stupid. Say some stupid things. Like? I don't know. Unicorns behind the attack. Osama bin Laden was a hologram. The Queen is actually a Sasha Baron Cohen character.
00:00:53
Speaker
That seems a bit basic. Look, your job is to simply make truthers realise that their views are silly by making their views look silly. It's a really simple task. Should we only take you all about an afternoon? But... I don't like it when you say that word. But...
00:01:13
Speaker
Aren't they gonna realise I'm a plant almost immediately? Hey, fellow kids, I'm a 9-11 truther! I believe the Twin Tails were destroyed by a controlled demolition caused by a unicorn, so it's gonna take that seriously. Hmm... You know, I panic when you start ruminating like that. So you're saying we can't just send you into a Reddit community making outrageous claims and expect people to take you seriously?
00:01:38
Speaker
Well, it's not 8 or even 4chan. Which means you might have to go away and do some actual research? Yeah, and that then raises a big question. What if they're right? What if it turns out we're the ones who are wrong? Inconceivable. Yeah, but we are running a conspiracy against them, so... Don't ask whatever is on your lips.
00:02:01
Speaker
What, and he'll be out here, what, what, if this isn't the first conspiracy we run against? And why would the New Zealand government be involved in a conspiracy around 9-11? I don't know, why are we running a secret PSYOPs campaign to persuade people it wasn't an inside job? I, uh, well, well, uh, sold. Yeah, okay, well, while you're trying to work that out, I'm going to go and make people think the Flat Earth Theory is stupid. We can at least agree we don't want the real shape of the Earth getting out. Toodles.
00:02:40
Speaker
The podcaster's guide to the conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr N Denton.
Podcast Introduction and Technical Issues
00:02:50
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. I am Josh Addison in Auckland, New Zealand, and they are Dr. M. Denteth in Zhuhai, China. I notice you're not doing your usual sipping of alcohol at the start of every episode. Is that because you've run out or because it's too early in the afternoon where you are? It is 4pm here, so I could justify having a drink.
00:03:12
Speaker
But I also kind of feel that whiskey at 4pm is kind of a waste. Whiskey to my mind is either something you have on your birthday at breakfast, or you have after dinner. Now of course I could go to the fridge and get a beer, but I just haven't. I've just had a glass of coffee. I've just had an espresso shot from my fancy espresso machine. So frankly, that will do me for the time being. Well as long as there's something in your system affecting you,
00:03:41
Speaker
We should probably have a disclaimer at the start here. Internet is not the greatest this week, possibly at both of our ends, to be quite honest. So there may be the occasional dip in quality, but we'll see what we can do.
00:03:58
Speaker
We will persevere, and by we will persevere, you will persevere, or you'll stop listening to the episode. But either way, things are going to happen. Yes. So the quality of the internet connection, unfortunately, is not something we can do about. The quality of the content of this episode is entirely within our control. But frankly, we make no guarantees about that either, really.
00:04:21
Speaker
Indeed. This podcast does not come with a satisfaction guarantee in any way, shape or form. No. No, it doesn't. But maybe it should, because this week we're back to a more and more conspiracy theory masterpiece theatre. We've got another paper to look at by someone whose name has not come up before. Unless I'm misremembering.
00:04:41
Speaker
No, this is a new entrant into the conspiracy theory theory literature, a name we will see quite often going forward.
Critique of Government Infiltration Proposals
00:04:50
Speaker
He's one of the contributors to my 2018 book, Taking Conspiracy Theory Seriously. And this is his first paper, which is a critique of a paper we covered only a little while ago by
00:05:05
Speaker
two authors by name of Sunstein and the questionably pronounced Adrian Vermule. So that's Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermule, or Adrian Vermule, or Adrian Vermule. I think at the time we had a bit of debate as the pronunciation. We will simply call them SNV going forward. Good work actually, yeah. So I guess before we give the game away completely, how about you play that pleasant little sting and we get into things? Indeedy.
00:05:33
Speaker
Welcome to Conspiracy Theory Masterpiece Theatre. So today we are looking at a paper called, Is Infiltration of Extremist Groups Justified?
00:05:51
Speaker
by Curtis Hagen. This was published in the International Journal of Applied Philosophy, issue 24, 2010. Which, according to my math, was something in the realm of 40 years ago. Something like that. I mean given the pandemic, it certainly feels like 2010 was 40 years ago.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yep, no, I think you must be about right. And as we suggested earlier, this paper is very much a reaction to or a critical evaluation of calls itself. That paper, conspiracy theories, causes and cures by Sunstein and Vermeule, which you looked at, that was the most recent paper we looked at. It was, in fact, the reason why we ended up looking at that paper was so we'd have the kind of frontispiece to be able to look at this paper.
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, so that was episode 316. I mean, nine episodes ago, I think there was what with your quarantining and everything sort of extended the period between these ones that normally would be, but let's get straight back into it.
00:06:55
Speaker
This paper rubbed me the wrong way and I don't think that's entirely fair of me. You've read my notes. This paper bugged me and I'm not sure if my problems with it are entirely justified, but let's just get into it and we'll see. So I also had the same kind of issues you have now when I read the paper probably a decade ago. I don't have the same kind of issues I had a decade ago
00:07:25
Speaker
that I do now. Your comments on the paper and the notes are basically where I was back in 2010 when I read it, but not necessarily reflective of how I see the paper now. Okay, maybe you can catch me up by the end of this. Maybe we'll be singing the same tune.
00:07:45
Speaker
But Josh, you don't sing. No, sometimes I sing, but not often and not well. I think it's the point. So let's begin. This paper has an abstract, which is always useful because we can just quote the whole thing entirely and don't have to think up an introduction into the paper ourselves. The abstract reads. Actually, it must be your turn to read an abstract.
00:08:07
Speaker
It must be. And I'm fairly sure you've deliberately chosen it's my time to read the abstract because you're going to go, how many times can a mispronounce vermule? Let's find out. So the abstract goes something like this. In fact, it goes exactly like this. Well, depending on your pronunciation, vermule. So maybe it does go something like this after all. Many intellectuals scoff at what they call conspiracy theories. But two Harvard Law professors, Cass Sunstein, now working for the Obama administration, and Adrian Vermule go further.
00:08:37
Speaker
They argue in the Journal of Political Philosophy that groups that espouse such theories ought to be infiltrated and undermined by government agents and allies. While some may find this proposal appalling, as indeed we all should, others may find the argument plausible, especially if they have been swayed by the notion that conspiracy theories or a definable subset thereof, by their nature, somehow or another, do not warrant belief.
00:09:06
Speaker
I will argue that Sunstein and Vermeule's proposal not only conflicts with the values of an open society, but is also epistemically indefensible. In making my case, I will adopt their favoured example, counter-narratives, about 9-11.
00:09:23
Speaker
which all makes perfect sense, I think. Now, I did notice this paper, let me just count, it is 16 pages long and five of those are endnotes. Oh, yes, Curtis does love his footnotes or endnotes in this paper. Admittedly, he's a man after my own heart in that early on in my career, I used to have footnotes and endnotes galore in essays in the first draft of my PhD thesis.
00:09:53
Speaker
My supervisors kind of drummed that out of me at the time, but I still have the temptation to put a lot of footnotes into work. And so I kind of go, yep, I understand. Footnotes are really, really useful if you want to expand upon a point, whilst at the same time not ruining the flow of your argument. The problem with footnotes, or in-notes as my supervisors pointed out, is that very few people ever actually read them.
00:10:22
Speaker
I have to admit, I haven't read through them all. I just skimmed them, but I did see actually at the start of the end note section before any actual end notes, there's the paragraph, in mid-January 2010, a draft of this article prompted writer Mark Estrin to blog about the topic.
00:10:39
Speaker
An internet buzz immediately ensued, including within a couple days blogs by Mark Crispin, Miller, Glenn Greenwald, and many others. This buzz caught the attention of David Ray Griffin, who quickly developed an impressive book-length critique entitled Cognitive Infiltration, an Obama appointee's plan to undermine the 9-11 conspiracy theory to which readers are hereby directed.
00:10:58
Speaker
Which interested readers are hereby directed. David Ray Griffin seems to be quite a big 9-11 truther. He's also a relatively prominent philosopher of religion, which is also fairly interesting. His domain of expertise is actually the philosophy of religion.
00:11:20
Speaker
As a sideline he's been doing work on Basically inside job hypotheses around 9-11 advocating for them. He's a very interesting character in the philosophical literature Because arguably David Ray Griffin is a major conspiracy theory theorist but as far as I'm aware his output has largely been books and
00:11:45
Speaker
not journal articles, but blogs and things of that particular strike, which has never really entered into the philosophical discussion of the debate. He's not about defining the terms of the debate and working out the contours of what conspiracy theories are and aren't. He's more interested in going, look, people label the inside job hypotheses as pejorative conspiracy theories. I'm going to argue people are wrong about that.
00:12:15
Speaker
So he's a kind of interesting character within the literature in that he is a prominent philosopher and yet we don't really ever talk about him. Yes, I mean later on in this article they're gonna, I can't remember if it's in the body or in another end note, they make reference to his book I think Debunking, 9-11 Debunking or something, which was a response to the famous popular mechanics debunking of 9-11 truth theories.
00:12:43
Speaker
Anyway, David Bray Griffin has written a lot of books and all books and they're quite long books so I'm quite impressed by his ability to simply churn material out, which is not a comment on the quality of it. By I just mean he seems to be able to produce an awful lot of work in a very small amount of time.
00:13:03
Speaker
So moving into the paper proper, he starts by setting out his goals, as a good introduction should, where he says that Sunstein and Vermeule, they suggest undermining conspiracy theories by engaging in a conspiracy against groups that promote them. I will argue that beyond the obvious irony, this recommendation is epistemically indefensible, even when considering the rather extreme case of 9-11 conspiracy theories, which is their primary example.
Re-examining 9-11 Conspiracy Theories
00:13:31
Speaker
I'm not sure. Now let's just pause there because I think one of the things that rubs you the wrong way around this article is that you take it that Curtis is engaging in 9-11 inside job apologetics.
00:13:48
Speaker
at the very least some industrial strength devils advocating in their favour. That's what it does come across. Now I should point out he does say the rather extreme example of 9-11 conspiracy theories here. So yes, you could read the articles being a kind of
00:14:06
Speaker
A hidden defense of 9-11 conspiracy theories are warranted. Sunstein and Vermeule are wrong to put them for as being demonstrably false. You could put for the argument as being, well, look, the example they use is bad. I'm going to give you a story as to why that example is bad.
00:14:24
Speaker
I know something about Curtis's views, so I have a kind of qualified opinion here as to exactly what move he's making here. But I think charitably, if we're going to treat this argument seriously, we should go down the devil's advocacy route, because that's the most charitable interpretation of what Curtis is doing here, which is going, look, the example that Sunstein and Vermeer use here to show that conspiracy theories are mad, bad and dangerous,
00:14:53
Speaker
is not a particularly good example because we can postulate that some rational people, acting rationally, form rational beliefs that 9-11 was an inside job, thus showing that this is not the kind of example that Sunstein and the Muir should be using in the first instance.
00:15:12
Speaker
Well, let's see where he goes then. So he does quite a good summary of the Sunstein and Vimeo page, which, as I recall, was relatively lengthy. But he says, Sunstein and Vimeo's argument in a nutshell is as follows.
00:15:28
Speaker
One, lots of people are susceptible to belief in conspiracy theories. Two, some of these theories are demonstrably false. They are products of crippled epistemology, that is, they're based on limited and incorrect information and fueled by informational and reputational cascades. In an open society, one is not warranted in believing things that imply that knowledge-producing institutions are as unreliable as some extreme theories imply.
00:15:52
Speaker
In addition, some of these theories are harmful, as shown by the Oklahoma City bombing, which is blamed, at least in part, on a conspiracy theory regarding federal agents' actions in the Waco siege of 1993.
00:16:04
Speaker
Four, the government should try to counter demonstrably false and harmful theories. Five, but conspiracy theorists often dismiss evidence that comes from government operatives. The theories have a self-sealing quality that makes it more difficult for outsiders to rebut or even to question them. Six, therefore, the government should infiltrate groups that espouse conspiracy theories in order to undermine those theories by introducing cognitive diversity from the inside.
00:16:28
Speaker
In my response, I will focus on one, the notion of demonstratively false theories and how that is determined, two, the inappropriateness of the recommended infiltrations in an open society, and three, the slippery slope of the practice of deceit.
00:16:44
Speaker
which is as good a statement of intent as you could want, I think. He talks about the relationship between these epistemic issues and the actual consequences of them, these harms that they're worried about, and finishes up by saying,
00:17:01
Speaker
Now, to be clear, I'm not here arguing that the 9-11 Truth Movement is right in its most basic claims. I'm merely pointing out that the relation between potential harm or good such theories can engender is connected to whether or not they're true or at least contain valuable truths.
00:17:17
Speaker
And so by challenging the claim that 9-11 counter narratives are demonstrably false, I'm also thereby challenging the implicit claim that such narratives are, on balance, harmful. If they are not demonstrably false and therefore not clearly pernicious, then the notion that biased and deceitful means ought to be employed to eradicate them is an odious notion indeed.
00:17:36
Speaker
So that very much, I mean, that puts the cards on the table straight away. The answer to his question is infiltration of extremist groups justified was very definitely a no, and he's going to be setting out why. But as we go on, I don't know, it sort of feels like that statement of intent there
00:17:54
Speaker
Well, we'll see as we go through, but it felt to me like that sort of ends up taking a backseat to a discussion around whether or not Sunstein and Vignol's main example of 9-11 truth conspiracy theories are demonstrably false. So yes and no. I mean, it is true that this does kind of take a backseat in the argument as presented in the article. But I also take it that it's kind of self-evident from the beginning.
00:18:24
Speaker
that if you can go, look, if S and V's hypothesis about demonstrably wrong conspiracy theories is itself wrong, then it just follows from that that their policy recommendation about what to do about demonstrably false conspiracy theories has to be wrong as well. So it's basically good old conditional logic. You're going, if A then B, well,
00:18:51
Speaker
not a, therefore not be. Yeah, I mean, I suppose the charitable reading of this is to keep that little sentence in mind all the way through. And he does come back to it every so often. He does kind of reiterate that point. So at any rate, we move on to the next section of the paper called conspiracy theories and crippled epistemologies, the term that Sunstein and Vermeule use a bit in their paper.
00:19:16
Speaker
He talks about what they say about conspiracy theories. If you recall, they will not admit. They are happy with the definition of conspiracy theory that allows conspiracy theories to be true, even when they go from being opposed to the official theory to being the commonly accepted one. He points out that
00:19:45
Speaker
Quoting here, it should be noted that according to this definition the notion that the Nazis were systematically exterminating Jews would have at some point in time clearly counted as conspiracy theory, one that turned out to be true. This is an important example. It shows that one cannot simply reject a conspiracy theory because it seems too extreme in the brutality it attributes to powerful figures,
00:20:05
Speaker
or because of the scale of complicity that would be required, or because of the industrial efficiency with which it is said to be carried out. Shocking though a theory may be, so too are known precedents. Now what's particularly interesting here is that Curtis is going to eventually be one of those people who wants to respect the ordinary language understanding of conspiracy theory, which is to say that it's in some sense opposed to some official theory of an event.
00:20:35
Speaker
So Curtis' latter work is going to argue that part of the definition of what counts as a conspiracy theory is it's in opposition to some kind of official theory or explanation of an event. Now, so now we start getting into this stuff. He talks about how Sunstein and Vermeule say that they're focusing on demonstrably false conspiracy theories, not ones where the truth is simply undetermined.
00:21:01
Speaker
And Hagen does take exception to this. So the first thing that I got hung up on was this segment where he says, they cannot mean, however, that theories that postulate inside a complicity in the events of 9-11 are literally demonstrably false, for that would require a logical contradiction. But there's nothing contradictory about the notion of inside a complicity, so they must mean demonstrably false in some weaker sense. Now, I couldn't make sense of that. Where is the logical contradiction that he's talking about?
00:21:30
Speaker
So I think the problem here is one of semantics, rather, is about logic. So it's fairly clear when you look at the S and V paper that this is a reply to, that actually they can't literally mean that the conspiracy theories they're concerned about are demonstrably false. They can be demonstrated to be absolutely false.
00:21:53
Speaker
false and thus unwarranted they can really only mean a much weaker claim which is that the evidence seems to stack against these theories so that ordinary reasoners would be justified and then and then going well actually i'm just not willing to buy that for a dollar
00:22:12
Speaker
So I think Curtis is trying to argue here that if as a philosopher we take SNV literally, they can't really mean this thing because it's completely compatible to believe variations of these conspiracy theories which aren't as extreme as the ones that SNV put forward.
00:22:34
Speaker
That is, I think, the semantic issue here. They can't literally mean demonstrably false. What they must mean is false according to the evidence, and that must be a conditional claim. Right. Yes, that phrase requires a logical contradiction. I hear that in a philosophy article. I kind of take it seriously, but perhaps you meant it in a
00:22:57
Speaker
different way and so yes as you say I mean I think it's more it's a ping against Sunstein and Vermeule for talking about demonstrable falseness in that they can't really mean a they have to really mean something which is a weaker version of a because if they really do mean a then a whole bunch of evidence is going to contradict their view but yes it's it's probably not the clearest
00:23:25
Speaker
presentation of what he's trying to say. And so he goes on to say, I'll assume, charitably, I think, that by demonstrably false, they mean something like the following. The evidence is so overwhelmingly against the theory that it is irrational from the standpoint of the information available in the society as a whole to believe it.
00:23:45
Speaker
So he does say, OK, it doesn't make sense to take them literally, literally. So it would make more sense to use this weaker definition of what they mean by demonstrably false. But even then, a bit further down continues, I will argue that even by this weaker criterion, the claim that 9-11 counter-narratives are demonstrably false is false.
00:24:09
Speaker
And a bit later, further, on the one hand, the sense of demonstrably false they intend, the more clearly false is their claim that all counter narratives about 9-11 qualify. And on the other hand, the weaker the sense of demonstrably false, the more suspect the inference that illiberal infiltration is justified on the basis of a theory meeting that low standard.
00:24:27
Speaker
Now that's an important point there because that's once again bringing it back to the question of is infiltration justified? By then going well look, if they mean the stronger sense of demonstrably false as in clearly false, well that obviously doesn't work because we can show examples of people rationally believing these things so they're not demonstrably false.
00:24:48
Speaker
if they mean the weaker sense, which is that we should treat these theories as being unwarranted. But also it turns out we can give a case for actually, we can show at least some degree of warrant with respect to some of these theories in the weaker sense.
00:25:05
Speaker
then the idea of engaging in cognitive infiltration of those groups seems really really suspicious because at that point you're then going okay so these theories are harmful and we don't like them they might be true but we're going to try and persuade people not to believe them even though they might be true and that seems like a bad policy decision in a liberal democracy yes
00:25:30
Speaker
Yes, a fair point, but I think at this point, this is where I really started to have my doubts about this paper, because from this point on, for the next one, two, three pages, it basically becomes essentially a bunch of 9-11 truth arguments. Now, again, we can
00:25:50
Speaker
We can say it's being done in a particular context of Sunstein and Vermeule have said that the example of 9-11 truth conspiracy theories are demonstrably false. And he wants to say, well, no, no, they're not. Here are a bunch of objections to saying that. But the leaks that he goes to to say that had me
00:26:14
Speaker
a little concerned. And the particular things he brings up are very much 9-11 talking points he talks about. I mean, so he says at the start, obviously, Sunstein and Vemuel in this one paper weren't going to make the entire case for the official version of 9-11. You know, that's well beyond the scope of a single journal article. But says that possibly they should have
00:26:40
Speaker
maybe referenced someone who has made such a case and says you know they could have talked about popular mechanics the popular mechanics debunking 911 myths but then immediately points out that David Ray Griffiths has replied to that in his debunking 911 debunking they talk about the the the NIST reports but then goes on to say that their um
00:27:02
Speaker
essentially biased by being part of the government. He talks about whether or not things were in freefall. He talks about the whole molten metal supposedly being on the scene and whether or not steel could have melted.
00:27:22
Speaker
He talks about the various individuals who are convinced that the Billings 7 was professionally imploded. Linking off to PatriotsQuestion911.com and other such sites.
00:27:41
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, again, if I keep reminding myself all the way along that no, he's just reacting back to their point and saying that, well, no, maybe it's not as cut and dry and obvious as they want to say, because there are lots of people who disagree, then fair enough. But it just keeps going. And it just keeps bringing up points that I keep seeing as canonical 9-11 truth stuff.
00:28:09
Speaker
Now, admittedly, I mean, we're both on record as people who believe the outside job hypothesis of September 11th. The Twin Towers and the attack on Washington, D.C., so the Pentagon and like, was due to the actions of Al Qaeda as masterminded by Osama bin Laden, et cetera, et cetera. And so when I read this paper back in 2010, I had the same kind of misgivings, because as someone who goes, I just don't think there's anything to
00:28:39
Speaker
the 9-11 inside job set of conspiracy theories. This does look as you say, if not a full-throated defense of 9-11 truth positions, a very awkwardly phrased devil's advocacy of standard talking points that people might have issue with.
00:29:01
Speaker
But I think it is important to note here that these are positions that are put forward by what appear to be reasonable people who have worries about the official theory of what happened on 9-11. And all Curtis has to do here is go look,
00:29:18
Speaker
Sunstein and the Mule provide very little evidence in their presentation as to why we should take 9-11 conspiracy theories to be demonstrably false. All I've got to do, speaking as Curtis here, is simply point out, look, here are some rationales as to why people do not take
00:29:38
Speaker
this to be a demonstrably false conspiracy theory, ipsofacto really something in the mule declare victory when they've got no grounds to declare victory at all. They just don't do the work to go, the example we're using here actually then justifies our policy recommendation.
00:29:55
Speaker
Another problem I had is sort of the jumping between, I guess, the specific and the general. The 9-11 stuff is the example they chose to make. If it turns out that 9-11 is a bad example and doesn't actually fulfill the criteria that they're looking for in the sort of a conspiracy theory that you'd be justified in infiltration, blah, blah, blah.
00:30:25
Speaker
That doesn't mean that they're wrong to say it's okay to infiltrate conspiracy theories. That just means they need to come up with another example. And it seems, it kind of, it seems, the paper seems to be saying because their example is wrong, they're wrong. But I feel like you could reply to that by saying, okay, yes, you've proved their example is a bad example. But that doesn't mean that their overall theory is wrong. They've just chosen the wrong thing to illustrate it.
00:30:56
Speaker
Now, that is a fair point. I'm going to say that's a fair point whilst also going, I don't think that government should engage in the infiltration of communities that say things about them which are mean. But you are correct. If it turns out the example that SNVs use is bad, that doesn't necessarily tell us that their policy recommendation is bad. As you point out, it simply might mean that they need to find a better example.
00:31:22
Speaker
Now one reply to that might be hard to find a better example because it may turn out that once again the standard that SNVs use for justifying the infiltration of these groups, of this notion of demonstrable falseness,
00:31:39
Speaker
may not apply to any particular theory because as Curtis points out in the introduction if you use the extreme case of 9-11 which is to say the one where everyone goes look this is a really harmful theory for people to believe because it calls into question trust in the American government etc etc
00:32:01
Speaker
If it turns out that SNV's most extreme example also turns out to be a bad example, then you've probably got grounds at that point to then go, there probably aren't going to be any other examples which are going to do the same kind of work. Because if this example doesn't work,
00:32:20
Speaker
What example are you going to use that actually justifies that policy recommendation? Now, admittedly, saying that in the year of the pandemic 2021, when we've got COVID-19 conspiracy theories, we had the insurrection at the beginning of the year, there may be better examples now. But at the time, people might go, well, look, if this doesn't work for 9-11 conspiracy theories, this probably isn't going to work for any conspiracy theory.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I guess the other thing is it seems to muddy the distinction, I guess, between theory and practice.
Theory vs. Practice in Conspiracies
00:32:57
Speaker
Like, so, okay, in practice, we're having trouble finding a decent article, a decent example that proves our point.
00:33:05
Speaker
but that doesn't necessarily disprove the theory. And it seems like by focusing on whether or not this example is a good example of something that's demonstrably false, the sort of flip side of that, it's still an option that if you could find a conspiracy theory that is demonstrably false, then yes, it would be justified in the government infiltrating groups for that particular conspiracy theory. It doesn't feel like it's actually
00:33:33
Speaker
It doesn't feel like this avenue will actually prove the overall theoretical point he wants to make, even if he's shown that in practice this one example doesn't do the job. But maybe we will... I do think that's a fair point.
00:33:50
Speaker
And then I think you're right to say that, yes. If we agree with the assumptions that SNV work with, and I think those are questionable assumptions as to whether cognitive infiltration of groups is a good idea when being done by governments,
00:34:06
Speaker
Then yes, if it turns out this is a bad example, it doesn't really matter. Their theory might still be okay. So a better critique of the cognitive infiltration thing would be to focus on no examples are ever going to fit because actually it turns out it's just a bad principle.
00:34:25
Speaker
But I do think he points out that the remotable falseness standard that SNV use isn't a particularly good one because you can just show that actually you can generate reasonable beliefs for these extreme cases.
00:34:39
Speaker
So at this point, the next section is open and closed societies, which I think is a topic that will be familiar to you if you've been following this series along, whether or not we live in an open or closed society, and what implications that has on conspiracy theories and the like. So he starts by talking about how Sunstein and Vermeule claim that, but basically they're going to claim that
00:35:05
Speaker
in an open society, conspiracy theories don't, or decent sized conspiracies rather, don't usually remain secret for too long. And they say there's, he quotes them saying, talking about, despite abundant evidence that an open society's government action does not usually remain secret for very long, and then says, hey, well, what's this abundant evidence?
00:35:28
Speaker
and points out that they only mention two examples about exposing secret programs. At which point he can then give two examples that counter that. Yeah, talks about Watergate and Iran-Contra, talks about secrets that were held for a long time, the Gulf of Tonkin, USS Liberty, Operation Northwards, NK Ultra, Tuskegee Experiment, are all the ones he lists off. I thought
00:35:56
Speaker
There were a couple of interesting points that I thought he made in the section, which are ones that I hadn't seen made before. The one idea about the revelation of secrets, he says,
00:36:08
Speaker
Further, the idea that a secret is either revealed or it is not is simplistic and inaccurate. Secrets are often partially revealed, as in our own contra. There was a conspiracy exposed for sure, but one cannot credibly assert that we got to the bottom of it. Secrets are also sometimes disputably revealed. Many so-called conspiracy theories fall into this category. When a jury found that the government was involved in a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King, as it did,
00:36:31
Speaker
Was a conspiracy revealed? Well, most people don't even know about that finding, so it wasn't revealed very widely. But some may say that preponderance of evidence, it was a civil case, not a criminal case, is not enough, or they may question the validity of the verdict for one reason or another. So whether this counts as a conspiracy that was revealed is ambiguous on at least two counts, and this kind of ambiguity is the norm.
00:36:52
Speaker
The upshot is that the simplistic notion that conspiracies are usually revealed is easily deconstructed, although it's a notion that continues to be spread even by scholars who should know better. So yeah, that is a good point, which I don't recall seeing before, that when we talk about secrets, conspiracies eventually come out. So it's not actually as simple as that. There's a spectrum, I guess, of what it means for a conspiracy to be revealed.
00:37:16
Speaker
Yes, and indeed, as he points out, sometimes you might reveal the secret in such a way that because no one notices it, or it never gets broadcast to enough people, people go, but...
00:37:29
Speaker
the knowledge is out there and people go, yeah, but where do you find it? Oh, it's all right. We put it in a filing cabinet, in a disused basement, in a toilet with the sign, but we're of the leopard in front of it. But the planning, the planning permissions for building a bypass through your house were on public display. Just that no one knew where to look for them. Indeed.
00:37:53
Speaker
So sort of getting into the idea of open and closed societies, and again he's pointing out that this is more of a case of a spectrum than a black and white distinction. As he says it's, and this is something that we've talked about plenty before, it's more rational to believe in conspiracy theories in a more closed society, in a more totalitarian society. This is something we've said plenty of times. He goes point out that of course in a completely totalitarian society,
00:38:23
Speaker
people are probably actually unlikely to believe in conspiracy theories, because in a completely totalitarian society where everybody's completely indoctrinated, that believe everything the state said, so would never think to
00:38:36
Speaker
come up with conspiracy theories. So as he puts it, the optimal environment for conspiracy theories would be some place in between where it's plausible for them to both spread and be true. Indeed, the distinction between open and closed societies is misleading. There's a spectrum and the extremes are merely ideals. People can legitimately disagree about exactly where the United States is at this time on that spectrum.
00:38:59
Speaker
which I thought was another good point. And it's as interesting to see the more sort of nuance coming into this kind of argument.
00:39:06
Speaker
Yes, which is why we should talk about more open or more closed societies. We should recognize that no society is completely open, especially in societies where we know we have secret services and the like. And I don't think we yet have an example of a completely closed society.
Open vs. Closed Societies in Conspiracy Theories
00:39:25
Speaker
In part because I think for a completely closed society, you might need to solve the problem of free will with a problem there being making sure nobody has it.
00:39:33
Speaker
I mean, I guess technically that was the point of 1984 and the idea of creating a language where it would be impossible to express particular views. But of course the whole point of 1984, the novel, was the idea that it hasn't quite worked by the time the novel takes place.
00:39:54
Speaker
So his criticism in this area is that as he puts it, although Sunstein and Vermeule make rhetorical gestures to the value of open societies, their recommendations involve moving in the direction of a more closed one. So another big because as he puts it, their recommendation is that we enact a conspiracy to combat these conspiracy theories. So that's that's becoming more closed rather than more open.
00:40:25
Speaker
And he goes on to say, supposing for a moment that Sunstein and Vermeule's argument is a good one, where do we stop? And here he refers to Brian Kiwi's paper, God as the ultimate conspiracy theory, which we've looked at before. So in reference to that paper, he says, if those in power determine that the belief in the existence of God is demonstrably false, and certainly some people do find this belief ridiculous,
00:40:46
Speaker
And if, as is surely the case, some religious extremists may be dangerous, should the government infiltrate religious groups and try to undermine their belief in God? Which, I mean, yeah, I suppose is a good old reductio ad absurdum. Yes, and that's sort of where that thing ends up. All the way through this,
00:41:05
Speaker
And I think this is just my reading of it. Looking through, it's not necessarily a defect, but it's just the fact that every time it comes back to that demonstrably false thing, and I sort of thought, well, that was a criterion that they mentioned, but that wasn't the only thing they said. It seems to be the thing that he just keeps going on and on about
00:41:27
Speaker
And although he mentions obviously the harm in that last one, he talked, you know, mentioned the fact that religious extremists may be dangerous, so there is a potential for harm there. It always seemed like it was the demonstrably false criterion is the important one and things are merely harmful, possibly because of it or something. And I don't know. Yeah.
00:41:51
Speaker
As I said at the start, this one rubbed me the wrong way, and I'm not sure that's fear, but that was just the fear. But you've been rubbed, and now Heron lays the rub. So the final section is deceit as the cure for a crippled epistemology?
00:42:08
Speaker
where he says he starts by saying, in describing their proposal, Sunstein and Vermeule repeatedly employ the phrase introducing cognitive diversity. But what does this really mean? Make no mistake, Sunstein and Vermeule regard certain conspiracies as diseases that need to be cured. They are not advocating infiltrating groups that espouse these theories for the purposes of achieving a more informed open and fair inquiry. They want to see these groups undermined, at least and preferably eliminated, and they're willing to sanction the seats to accomplish that goal.
00:42:37
Speaker
as indeed they do, they sort of, well, I mean, yeah. As I recall from looking at their paper, they did a lot of on the one hand, on the other hand, on the other other hand stuff, sort of saying if you're open about the fact that you're from the government, they're not going to believe you. But if you're lying to them, then if you're concealing that fact, then there is a danger that you'll be found out. And then that's going to undermine you even more than if you'd been open in the first place.
00:43:07
Speaker
but then you could also that could actually work in your favor if you if you so uncertainty and doubt and so as he says
00:43:17
Speaker
According to Sunstein and Vermeer's proposal, the stated objective would be closer to where the corrupted COINTEL program actually ended up. They explicitly consider the possibility that the infiltrations they recommend might have partially exposed so uncertainty and distrust within conspiratorial groups, which could raise the costs of organization and communication. They consider this as a jolly good outcome. These effects are desirable, not perverse.
00:43:41
Speaker
is a good thing for government agents to disrupt these kinds of peaceful efforts to organize. Why? Because on Sunstein and Vermeule's view, such groups of spouse beliefs that are irrational, given that we live in an open society. And again, that was where I sort of thought, it seems to go into the epistemology more than it needs to. I don't think Sunstein and Vermeule were saying, it's good to disrupt these things because they have a bad epistemology. It's because they're bad epistemology
00:44:10
Speaker
can lead to things like the Oklahoma City bombing. And I know that he does acknowledge that later on, but it just sort of seems that the emphasis I guess always seems to be on the epistemological concerns above the others.
Ethical Concerns of Cognitive Infiltration
00:44:23
Speaker
Well, I mean, I suppose in defense of Curtis here, once again, if the worry is that the SNV case does not work in the, as Curtis states, the extreme case of 9-11 conspiracy theories, because we can show that there's reasonable belief in these conspiracy theories, then the policy recommendation of SNV does, in Curtis's word, appear to be quite odious.
00:44:52
Speaker
So if it turns out they're going, look, we should interfere in these groups even if they can rationally show that it's reasonable to believe these particular conspiracy theories, then that seems like massive governmental overreach.
00:45:11
Speaker
There's a funny bit at the end of the section where he talks about an example of the sort of thing they could be talking about, which comes from a draft of their paper, but not the actual final paper, which I thought was a bit weird, talking about the Lincoln group.
00:45:28
Speaker
which had been paying Iraqi newspapers in the early 2000s to publish lots of news stories written by US military personnel, without saying where it had come from and that these things were true but highly selective.
00:45:51
Speaker
And that just seemed like a weird thing to do, like presumably it was in the draft and not in the final for a reason, so why have a go at them for that one? Yes, I must admit, I do think this is not a particularly good move, which is to say
00:46:06
Speaker
Oh, but in a draft version of the paper, they made the following point. It isn't in the published version of the paper, but I really want to point out what was bad about this. As you point out, we actually don't know why that was removed between the draft and the published version. I mean, it could be simply the case that reviewers went, actually, this is not a good example and here's why.
00:46:28
Speaker
it could be that reviewers pointed out actually this is a bad example because you've misdescribed the situation or it could be the case that the authors between drafting the paper and publishing it when actually we're not particularly happy with this example for whatever reason they have and thus pinging people for removing something from a paper prior to publication.
00:46:49
Speaker
when you don't know why they removed that thing prior to publication. I just don't think is a move we should be making in written philosophy. In the same respect that I kind of get frustrated when people go, and X has given up on this view and their only reference is PERSCOM to say, look, I've had personal correspondence with the author and they've given up on this view. Okay, so unless you're going to provide me with the letter or the email,
00:47:18
Speaker
why would I believe that they've given up on the view of PERSCOM, especially given I've known of cases where someone said, oh, and the person X has given up on the view of PERSCOM. And then when you contact the person, no, I haven't given up on the view. I simply stopped corresponding with that person. And that person assumed that because I stopped corresponding with them, I've given up on that particular view.
00:47:42
Speaker
it's a very bad idea to use these kind of things in arguments, I feel. So yeah, I don't know. Maybe we should just disregard that section then.
00:47:55
Speaker
I don't know that it needs to be there, so perhaps we can just... Well, the thing which is interesting about this, because we will come back to this much later on, so the Sunstein and Vermeure piece ends up being republished in a book by Sunstein alone.
00:48:15
Speaker
and that's kind of fascinating and that it is essentially the same text with only very few modifications but The Mule ceases to be credited as an author of that piece. Now I think that's a legitimate question there when you've got essentially the same piece in two publications but you've got a massive difference which is the removal of a co-author
00:48:40
Speaker
then you can actually raise the question, okay, so what happened between time x and x plus one? Because you're dealing with published work at this point. I just don't think it's wise to be dealing with drafts when, as you say, you don't know what's going on between a paper being drafted and then getting through the review process and being published. Although, I should point out there are some questions about the review process around the Sunstein and Vermeule paper initially.
00:49:10
Speaker
which indicates that maybe it wasn't peer reviewed in the same respect that a standard paper would be in a philosophical journal. So at any rate, we come to the conclusion.
00:49:22
Speaker
which is short enough to read out entirely on its own, or entirely in full or other. It reads, Sunstein and Vermeule state that their recommendation of infiltration is to apply only to demonstrably false and potentially harmful theories. Their chief example of demonstrably false theories is the set of theories that posit insider complicity in the events of 9-11.
00:49:45
Speaker
What is the proof that settles this issue once and for all? My challenge to Sunstein and Vermeule is this. Can you prove in a fair form that the theories in question are false? Proof in an unfair form, of course, is no proof at all. The fact of the matter is this. They cannot prove it. So they wish to enforce their belief through epistemically illegitimate means. Their proposals exemplify intellectual cowardice.
00:50:06
Speaker
To adapt the bitingly critical remarks of the Chinese sage Lao Tse, the man of reasonableness makes his case between no one responds rolls up his sleeves and resorts to persuasion by other means.
00:50:17
Speaker
Of course, the point transcends this issue of what to do about alternative theories about 9-11. The point is that we cannot engage in the kind of epistemic shenanigans that Sunstein and Vermeule recommend and, at the same time, credibly assert that alternative to mainstream theories about whatever may be dismissed on account of our fear and unbiased structures and organizations that adjudicate the truth. So that's where it ends.
00:50:39
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, I'm going to say it again. It rubbed me the wrong way. And I was aware as I was reading it that I was doing the thing that I hate when I see other people do it, which is sort of reading it in a particular voice, even though there's no
00:50:57
Speaker
real, I mean, we've all seen someone sort of read out an email they got from someone and read it in a snarky voice and assume that they were being snarky, even though the actual sarcasm is something they've introduced to the email. It's, you know, the whole, oh, look at what they say here. Thanks for your help. You were so great. Geez, what an asshole, you know, but when in fact it was convenient. And I sort of
00:51:20
Speaker
Even though I tried not to at times, I was still reading it in the tone of, oh, you think 9-11 conspiracy views are demonstrably false, demonstrably false, are they? Well, how about this and this and this? Is it still demonstrably false? Did you demonstrate it? Is it demonstrably false? And that's not fair of me, I acknowledge.
00:51:37
Speaker
And of course, on top of that, it was also one of those situations where I do actually agree with his conclusion. I think it is a deeply dodgy move to be saying we should combat conspiracy theories by conspiring against them. It's definitely a problematic position to take, but I sort of had problems with how he got there.
00:51:59
Speaker
And yeah, again, just sort of the question of emphasis, I suppose, there was a lot of work, a decent chunk of the paper was on objecting to the idea that 9-11 truth has been conclusively demonstrably proven.
00:52:19
Speaker
False. I'm going to get my truth and false fix up. And then the later sections, by contrast, seemed a bit shorter in what should have been the real guts of the argument. And certainly in that, I mean, that conclusion there, my challenge to Sunstein and Vermule is this. Can you prove in a fair forum that the theories in question are false? Reads like a 9-11 truth manifesto, even though, charitably, that's not actually what he was going for there.
00:52:48
Speaker
But yes, I don't know, maybe I should shut up and I'm digging myself a deeper hole and that it's not nearly as bad as I thought it was, but it just seemed, the whole thing seemed a little bit off and seemed to be not trying to prove the conclusion that it stated at the outset that it was trying to prove, if that makes sense.
00:53:08
Speaker
I mean, I do agree that in general, just by showing that the one example that Sunstein and Vermeule focus on, 9-11 inside job hypotheses, doesn't necessarily show that Sunstein and Vermeule's overall hypothesis about cognitive infiltration is bad. Even though I personally think it's a fairly stupid policy to put forward for the sheer fact that what better way to prove a massive conspiracy against a set of conspiracy theorists
00:53:37
Speaker
than by showing that they're actually conspiring against us. I mean, it just seems like a self-defeating policy initiative. So there's the other thing to point out here, and I didn't point this out at the top of the show because I wanted you to be forthright in your discussion of this paper, is that Curtis is a listener to the podcast.
00:53:56
Speaker
So we'll be probably listening to your forthright discussion of his particular paper. Now, because we'll be dealing with future Curtis papers as well, I could have probably kept that on the back burner for quite some time, but it would seem just a little bit illegitimate. I thought it was important to make sure that you weren't going to pull any punches,
00:54:20
Speaker
Although, conversely, of course, people can then say, oh, but M, you pulled punches there by being all defensive because you know Curtis and also know Curtis is listening. So, of course, it actually cuts both ways.
00:54:35
Speaker
And I think part of it, it may be because I've been slightly poisoned by that Amy Baker Benjamin paper we looked at a while ago. Oh, and that was terrible. Which very definitely was sort of said it was making a particular argument, but then the whole thing was just a vehicle to advance the 9-11 truth theories. And this, even though that wasn't necessarily the case in this paper, it still sounded like
00:55:04
Speaker
the problematic ones that I've read before as well. So frankly, I blame you for poisoning my mind with dodgy papers in the past.
00:55:14
Speaker
Oh, you complain I poison your mind by forcing you to read anyway. Well, yes, no, that's true. So that's, yeah, certainly an interesting paper and interesting points made up, not made up, brought up. I look forward to hearing what Dr. Hagen has to tell us in the future. And that, I think, is all I have to say. Anything else before we wrap up the episode?
00:55:41
Speaker
No, apart from of course advertising the standard patron bonus episode, which this week is actually conveniently linked to our discussion of Curtis's paper, in that first of all we're going to talk about good old project Veritas and a bit of news actually from June, which I forgot to update people on before I left for China, and then a case of what might be government infiltration into
00:56:09
Speaker
a conspiratorial group, the fact that the Michigan kidnapping case, the one where people were planning to kidnap the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, may turn out to be a lot more complicated than people thought at the time.
00:56:29
Speaker
So if you're interested in hearing about those stories and you're not currently a patron, you can become one by going to Betrayon.com and searching for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. And if you already are a patron, then thank you very much. You are among the best and brightest and sweetest-nelling people in the world. It's just a scientific fact.
00:56:48
Speaker
Although I wasn't just thinking now, talking as we were about tone, of course you can patronize us, or of course you could power patron and you could patronize us. I mean you could really, really patronize us if you really wanted to. Some of those patrons are so patronizing.
00:57:06
Speaker
It's entirely within your rights to do so. Precisely. So we'll head off and record that bonus content just for you lucky patrons and to the rest of you, thank you for listening anyway because you're our audience and without you we're not really a podcast.
00:57:25
Speaker
We would be. It's one of those if a tree falls in a forest things. Look, if you upload an episode to a podcasting hosting service and no one listens, you're still a podcast. You're just not a very good podcast. Well, there we go. Without you, we would be not a very good podcast. And with you, we're probably not a very good podcast either.
00:57:50
Speaker
But marginally better. Marginally more, I don't know. I mean it is, it is, it is arguable. Anyway, patron or not, to the lot of you I say goodbye. And I say, by God. The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy is Josh Addison and me, Dr. M. R. X. Denton. You can contact us at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com and please do consider supporting the podcast via our Patreon.
00:58:19
Speaker
And remember, it's just a step to the left.