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Lee Basham's conspiracy theories and rationality
29 Plays3 years ago
Josh and M review Lee Basham's chapter in "Beyond Rationality," "Conspiracy Theories and Rationality."
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Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
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Transcript
Are ambitious government conspiracies unstoppable?
00:00:00
Speaker
We here at the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy have this to say about conspiracies. There really isn't anything you can do about them. Yes, the kinds of conspiracies most of us are worried about. The ambitious, malevolent, government-run conspiracies. Just can't be stopped. Individuals are powerless against such institutions, and so really we should just sit back and let them get on with it. It is, after all, exactly what they want.
00:00:26
Speaker
And what they want, they get. Unless.
How can individuals combat ambitious conspiracies?
00:00:30
Speaker
Yes. Well, unless we get out and say, vote. Or join a local union. Maybe engage in a bit of the old protest. Maybe form a citizen committee or assembly? Which means, actually, there's a whole host of things we could possibly do in the face of such ambitious and malevolent conspiracies.
Why do people procrastinate politically?
00:00:52
Speaker
But... Yes? Well, except for the fact that I'm so lazy. I mean, sure I could do those things. Or I could rewatch the Rutgerhauer classic Split Second. Ooh, good idea. Maybe we could join that union, form that committee and protest that thing tomorrow.
00:01:11
Speaker
Hmm, only after we re-watch The Arrival, it's got Charlie Sheen in it. Ooh, and if someone with the gravitas of a Charlie Sheen appears in the film, people are forced to watch it. Hmm, conspiratorial.
Who are Josh Addison and Dr. M. Denton?
00:01:32
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Denton.
00:01:42
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. I am Josh Addison in Auckland, New Zealand there, Dr. M. Denteth in Zhuhai, China. Do we call you Associate Professor Denteth or is that sort of a job title and less of a
00:01:57
Speaker
It's a grey area in that technically it's my title now that I've got the position. There's kind of big questions to what happens when you stop being a professor.
Josh Addison's job transition
00:02:09
Speaker
Well, exactly. You'll always be a doctor. You're doctorate as a matter of history that jobs come and go. As I'm finding, I'm changing jobs as well. It's very exciting.
00:02:20
Speaker
It's true. I mean, I'm assuming you've been fired from your last job for salacious activities online, and now you're desperately searching around the internet for a new job for a person of your calibre. So I'm assuming some kind of mole person activity digging holes beneath the surface to serve our cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers. That would make for a better story. So I'd probably say yes if anyone asks, although the fact is I basically got headhunted. It was very exciting.
00:02:49
Speaker
Ooh, tell us more. Well, I mean, somebody came to me and said, hey, do you want a job rather than me going to someone else and saying, hey, will you give me a job? And you said yes to this mysterious phrase. I mean, does the person have a briefcase with a large amount of money? Do they have a fedora that copped over what one eye to appear mysterious? Then they go, shh.
00:03:09
Speaker
No, there was a bunch of fairly ordinary workaday telephone calls and meetings. And then I said, yes, I would like to take this job. And they said very well, take this job. And I said, yes. And they said, yes. And here we are. You know, you could make the story so much more mysterious in every option I give you. You simply go for the most mundane and boring opportunities. Yep, that's the kind of guy I am. You know who isn't boring and mundane?
Alex Jones and the August 11th US lockdown prediction
00:03:34
Speaker
Alex Jones. There are many, many things. I don't say Charles.
00:03:39
Speaker
It's true. Now Alex Jones did predict. We've got a bit of the old lag here, so we'll have to negotiate around that. So Alex Jones did predict that the 11th of August US time was going to be the day the US went into a major lockdown.
00:03:58
Speaker
So there's going to be some kind of federal alert sent across the country. Biden was going to give a speech from the throne declaring the U.S. to be under martial law and also going to be locked down, locked down, locked down. So to our listeners in the U.S. who are now sheltering in place because they aren't allowed to leave their homes because of the tyrant Joe Biden, we hear you and we feel you at this time.
00:04:24
Speaker
Where was Alex Jones getting this information? If you can describe it in non-pornographic detail. The internet? That's close to pornography, I'm afraid. I mean, I believe it was Jack Praseevik, who was the person who was his actual source, who turns out not to be the most reliable source in the world. But he did find it on the internet. And the internet's where we find all of our information. So ipso facto, it must be accurate.
Mike Lindell's election fraud conference
00:04:52
Speaker
No, I can't fault your logic.
00:04:54
Speaker
Now also, there's more, there's more current developments because supposedly Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Guy, that's his full name, I assume, Mike Lindell the My Pillow Guy, is having a conference of his own today and tomorrow, and he's going to finally prove that Trump actually won the election?
00:05:13
Speaker
Yes, so he's doing a two-day workshop conference thing where he's going to expose the plan by China to basically defraud the Americans of a decent election in a way which will show that when they present the evidence to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court will vote nine to zero to reinstate Donald Trump as President of the United States of America.
00:05:39
Speaker
And as you can imagine, it's going swimmingly. Well, it would pretty much have to, wouldn't it? Is he involved with these with the cyber ninjas? I think everyone's involved with the cyber ninjas these days, but yes, I believe so.
00:05:54
Speaker
and some of them are already expressing doubt, I understand, as though you could doubt such a thing. Yeah, so it does seem as if Mike Lindell has been scammed, and it does seem that the evidence that Mike Lindell has, which is proof positive of a stolen election, turns out to be
00:06:14
Speaker
if not utterly insubstantial, at least highly questionable and contestable. Now we'll come back to this next week because the workshop and the conference are still ongoing and we certainly don't want to jump the gun. Maybe Mike Lindell has a special pillow embroidered with the information that will show that Donald Trump really did win the election, which will come up after we finish recording, thus making us look like fools with eggs on our faces if we
00:06:42
Speaker
clear case closed now so next week we'll check in to see whether a the u.s really is under martial law and b with the supreme court justices despite the fact they're under martial law vote to reinstate donald trump as president because michael indell he might still be able to pull something out of his pillow at the very last moment eggy faces all around
Introduction to Lee Basham's work on conspiracy theories
00:07:06
Speaker
But until that date, we do have an episode to get on with here, and it's another episode of our Conspiracy Theory Masterpiece Theatre. We're having another look at the works of Lee Basham, Friend of the Show, and multi-time contributor to this very segment. Indeed. So before we get too far into it, why don't you play that catchy sting, and then we can begin properly. Indeed, I should now erect the fortress around our heart.
00:07:37
Speaker
Welcome to Conspiracy Theory Masterpiece Theatre.
00:07:46
Speaker
Righto, so today we are looking at Conspiracy Theories and Rationality by Lee Basham. This formed chapter four of Beyond Rationality by Karl Jensen and Rom Hari. No, no, no, Josh, I just want to interrupt you there. I do think when you use, when you mention the name of the book, you should say it in the same way that someone says Beyond 2000.
00:08:08
Speaker
Oh, please, please, please restate what you just said. Certainly. This is chapter four of Beyond Rationality by Carl Jensen and Ramaire, published in 2011. Now, having read this paper,
00:08:24
Speaker
most of it, we'll get to that in a minute. This didn't really sound like Lee kind of restating pretty much all that had come before in this was this sort of a, it was like he was introducing the field to someone else was sort of beyond rationality, a bit of a cross disciplinary book, and he was representing philosophy in it. Or how did that
00:08:45
Speaker
I have no idea. I have never read any other chapter than Lee's chapter from this book because, as Josh will be aware from the version of the document we've read, it's a scan. I got that scan as part of an interlibrary loan whilst I was at the University of Auckland.
00:09:04
Speaker
I thus only requested one chapter of the book because due to copyright related things, you can either choose 10% or one chapter of the book, which ever is longest. And so I've only ever read one chapter of the book, which is Lee Basham's chapter in beyond rationality. So I have no idea. But you're right. The chapter by and large is a summary of work to date.
00:09:28
Speaker
and thus in our discussion of the chapter we'll probably spend not so much time on the first two thirds of the material given that we've talked about this kind of stuff at length in previous instances of the series let alone the podcast in general rather we'll spend more time our
00:09:49
Speaker
towards the end of the chapter which is where the novel material that Lee contributes is to be found which is not to say the chapter is not worthwhile as a whole
00:10:00
Speaker
Lee does a very admirable job of summarizing the literature and laying out exactly what philosophers have said about why it's irrational to treat conspiracy theories as irrational beliefs.
Lee Basham's insights on epistemic interest in conspiracies
00:10:14
Speaker
It's just that we don't need to repeat so much of this material, especially given that our listeners are very au fait with this material by this point in time. And for a new listener,
00:10:24
Speaker
who is simply popping in to listen to this discussion of Lee Basham's chapter, I'd recommend going back and listening to earlier episodes of the series, which has made me realize that I've actually never marked out on the podcast feed that this is kind of a sub-series within the podcast proper. But basically this series is every three episodes, so if you go back by three weeks you'll find an earlier instance of Conspiracy Theory, Masterpiece Theater.
00:10:54
Speaker
But on with the show. So yes, it is a long piece, so we'll be skipping across a lot. But let's just dive straight in with the introductory section where it begins, interest in conspiracy theory is growing among philosophers and cultural analysts. Probably the most powerful reason is the extraordinary conspiracy theories that have become popular in recent decades. But these researchers do not endorse any of these conspiracy theories. Their interest in these astonishing claims is epistemic.
00:11:24
Speaker
how do we distinguish the conspiracy theories that ought to be believed from the ones that should not? Which I guess is the question we've become well used to throughout all of this series. So he sort of talks about how some people will write conspiracy theories as just plain crazy. You know, these people, they're tinfoil hats, they're just lunatics, suggesting that belief in conspiracies is some sort of a psychiatric problem, but of course it isn't.
00:11:51
Speaker
As Lee points out, the DSM acknowledges no conspiracy theorizing disorder. Extreme paranoia can be taken as a psychiatric disorder, but that's not equivalent to conspiracy theorizing.
00:12:10
Speaker
And so Lee says, eventually we're forced to wonder what really consigns these theorists and their theories to the irrational, while simultaneously accepting as rational the theory that a group of Arab Islamists conspired to learn to fly giant passenger planes, hijacked four, and escaping law enforcement and eluding fighter interception successfully attacked the Pentagon and New York City.
00:12:34
Speaker
Now 9-11 is a frequent example in this chapter, which is kind of interesting for the sheer fact that, as we've pointed out, the earlier works in the literature kind of don't talk about 9-11 at all, in part because some of them were published pre-2001, and also interesting for the sheer fact that
00:12:52
Speaker
Sometime next month we'll be recording an episode about the 20th anniversary of 9-11. And one suggestion for a topic for that episode is looking at the role 9-11 plays as an example in the conspiracy theory theory literature.
00:13:10
Speaker
Whereas this of course was written in 2011, so coming up on the 10th anniversary at the time. So this does, from what I've seen so far, seem to be sort of peak 9-11. The examples came up and now this seems to be the main one that people spend a lot of time talking about, as we will shortly see.
00:13:29
Speaker
But Lee finishes off the introductory section by saying the conspiracy theorists dispute with mainstream constructs is a complex epistemic dispute, one that goes to the heart of how we make reasonable judgments about the motives and methods at work in our hierarchical increasingly centralized system
00:13:48
Speaker
of economic, political and cultural power. So yes, so Lee is situating epistemology here into the discussion of social epistemology, which is how do we do our epistemic work, given that we are contra-migrant Thatcher people in a society?
00:14:07
Speaker
where society has a whole bunch of different power structures, cultural influences, and things which sometimes get in the way of our day-to-day epistemic duties. And you'll recall from the previous of Lee's papers that we've looked at, his concern really, whereas some of the people writing on conspiracy theories will talk about
00:14:29
Speaker
sort of the features of the theories themselves and other people will talk about features of the theorists themselves. Lee's always been interested in the features of the society in which these conspiracy theories take place and we're going to be seeing a lot of that. But the next section is the definition of conspiracy theory and it's a very familiar but very good recap of basically everything that's been said in terms of defining what a conspiracy theory is up until now.
00:14:56
Speaker
So he first gives the definition of a conspiracy as the intentional attempt or success at deception by a group of individuals secretly cooperating for the creation or perpetuation of that deception.
00:15:10
Speaker
which then leads to the definition of a conspiracy theory being,
00:15:32
Speaker
which is basically the definition that we've always been looking at. And then he then looks at the various things that people have proposed as additions to this, what he calls the core definition of a conspiracy theory.
00:15:48
Speaker
So he looks at the idea that a conspiracy theory must be contrary to the official story, citing the likes of David Cody and Johar Riker. He looks at the suggestion that a conspiracy theory must involve activity that is morally suspect.
00:16:03
Speaker
looking at Charles Pigton and Brian L. Keeley, the idea that a conspiracy theory must be of a historical event, citing Pigton, Keeley, Cody, and Pete Mandic, and the idea that a conspiracy theory must not be widely accepted when another of you hierarchies. And he basically goes into each four of those cases, and in each case
00:16:27
Speaker
says that he doesn't think those are necessary parts of the definition, the core definition of a conspiracy theory. And there's a lot of good argument there and a lot of good examples and counter examples, but again, it's stuff we've covered in the past and there's a lot to this paper, so we might just sort of skip over that fairly quickly.
00:16:45
Speaker
At one point I did like, though, that he brings up in the section is the difference between salience versus meaning. He sort of says in regard to some of them, especially the idea that the conspiracy theory must be contrary to the official story, that this says something about the salience of a conspiracy theory. It's possibly pointing out these are the conspiracy theories we should be more concerned with or be more worried about.
00:17:10
Speaker
But that doesn't actually mean that that's part of the definition of what it is to be a conspiracy theory. It's getting the issue confused. But at the end of all this section, he says, in conclusion, instead of adopting one or more of these restrictions on conspiracy theory, we should opt for the core definition. It is straightforward, involves only the deed itself, and lacks the ambiguities of amendments like morally suspect or unpopular.
00:17:37
Speaker
It's also consistent with conspiracy theories about the present and future. Finally, it avoids confusing our particular interests in conspiracy theories or our expectations about our society with the very idea of conspiracy theory.
00:17:51
Speaker
and rounds things out by restating Charles Pigdon's argument that basically, as he puts it, on most any reasonable definition of conspiracy theory, we are all conspiracy theorists.
Impact of conspiracies on societal power structures
00:18:02
Speaker
I mean, you'll remember that from the previous papers. We basically said, you know, if you believe in the history books, you're a conspiracy theorist because history is chock full of conspiracies.
00:18:12
Speaker
And if you don't believe in the history books, then you're also a conspiracy theorist because you think the history books are a tissue of lies being promulgated by a cadre of people who want you to believe otherwise. So ipso facto, whether you believe history or you don't believe history, you turn out to be a conspiracy theorist.
00:18:33
Speaker
And so this idea brings us into the next section, which is objections to conspiracy theory. And Lee talks about the fact that, basically, conspiracies are everywhere, from minor benign conspiracies to wide-ranging, highly significant ones. And the question becomes, how far up do the conspiracies go? Do they go right to the top?
00:18:58
Speaker
is this something we should look for in our highest echelons of power or governmental institutions and what have you. Again, there is a bunch to this chapter that is very good and very well laid out and stated, but it's also stuff that we've seen before in Lee's other
00:19:18
Speaker
these other papers around sort of the nature of society, how open is society, is our society the sort where we can be confident that there isn't a lot of conspiracies going on or that we cannot be confident of that, especially of the, as he talks about, ambitious conspiracies. These are the big ones, the ones in his, what was his other paper? Malevolent global conspiracies, global malevolent, yeah.
00:19:44
Speaker
So he says we need sufficient epistemic access if we're able to detect and dismantle the most ambitious conspiracies. Do we have this access? Some philosophers claim we do. Others object to ambitious conspiracy theories on more theoretical grounds. So again he's going into the idea that can we
00:20:05
Speaker
know enough about the existence or non-existence of these conspiracy theories from what we know about our society. And as we've seen in the past, he sort of said, we can possibly imagine a society in which we could be certain there are no large scale conspiracies going on, but it would not look like the society that we live in today.
00:20:28
Speaker
So again I'm skipping over quite a lot to get to the next section which is the origin and evolution of conspiracy theories. So Lee starts by saying he sort of gives two paths for where a conspiracy theory might originate. He says a conspiracy theory can come about as the initial explanation of an event
00:20:49
Speaker
And here the example is the initial explanation. Did I say official just then? I was getting myself confused because an example of this initial explanation is the official theory around 9-11 attacks, the theory that it was carried out by agents of Al-Qaeda conspiring to perform their attacks.
00:21:06
Speaker
And then he says the other way conspiracy theories can originate is a conspiracy theory as contra the official story. And so this, of course, would be the inside job, US government false flag type theories around 9-11.
00:21:21
Speaker
And he brings up the idea of the perceived prior probability of conspiracy as being something that has a big effect on how conspiracies arise, basically. As he says, the perceived, so in other words, we're talking about how your perception of how likely, how probable certain conspiracies are,
00:21:46
Speaker
in various contexts or various areas of society. So it says the perceived prior probability of conspiracy determines the birth and evidential development of conspiracy theories. A high prior probability of conspiracy supports path one, that's conspiracy is the initial explanation, and then a low prior probability supports path two, contrary to the official story. So in other words,
00:22:11
Speaker
If you're talking about an area or a group of people or what have you where you believe there is a high probability of these people conspiring, you'll be happy to suggest, propose a conspiracy theory involving those people right off the bat. Whereas if you have a low
00:22:29
Speaker
prior probability of certain people conspiring it's likely that the official story is going to be there they're not conspiring and so therefore conspiracy theories will be opposing the conspiracy and so he talks about this this you know this isn't we're not necessarily talking about society as a whole I mean we have you know as you'll remember from other papers and other discussions and other episodes we've talked about the idea that in certain you know in certain societies
00:22:56
Speaker
Conspiracies may be more thought as more probable than others. If you're living in a sort of closed or more authoritarian or what have you society, you'll probably be more likely more accepting of conspiracy theories because you think they're more likely to occur. But he's saying it doesn't necessarily have to be an entire society we're talking about. We can talk about individual groups. So, for instance,
00:23:16
Speaker
There are people who we think are conspiring a lot, like Islamist terrorists or, say, neo-Nazi groups. If some sort of racist attack were to happen, we would be quite happy to believe that that were a result of a conspiracy on the part of them. And then, in some cases, we have a low probability, we assign a low probability to other arguments, like, say, the government.
00:23:46
Speaker
We get the idea that when something like 9-11 happens, we're quite happy to fairly straight away accept a conspiracy theory that it was Islamist terrorists behind it and reluctant to accept a conspiracy theory that the government was behind it.
00:24:05
Speaker
But then, if you're a person who those things are flipped, or if you're a person who thinks that governments do conspire a lot, and you perceive there being a high prior probability of conspiracies coming from the government, then you might want to suggest a conspiracy theory opposing the official theory, as we see with the 9-11 inside jobs stuff.
00:24:30
Speaker
And then there's a lot of argument around the conspiratorial nature of society, which we've seen in various papers involving Lee and Brian L. Keeley and the discussions that have gone back and forth around them.
00:24:46
Speaker
And he brings up an interesting point that the people who oppose an official theory may feel an epistemic obligation, as he puts it, to refute the official theory before proposing their own. Now, Lee thinks that you don't actually need to do this. If you have a better theory, then you can just propose that you don't actually need to tear down the official theory in order to propose your own, and yet most of the time,
00:25:11
Speaker
people do. As he points out, the 9-11 truth conspiracy theorists spend most of their time picking holes in the official theory as opposed to simply presenting a theory on their own.
00:25:25
Speaker
And he says, I suspect the reason for this is that these conspiracy theorists perceive a low prior probability that the September 11th, 2001 attacks could be the work of the US government, or they at least perceive that their intended audience believe there is little prior probability of this. So that's what he is suggesting causes people to spend a lot of their time going against the official theory because they know the official theory is held by people who
00:25:53
Speaker
don't think there is a great chance that the government could have conspired, so they figure they really need to bolster their point in that way. Yes, so this is the classic case of going, well, I mean, it seems unlikely the government would commit this attack, given that we know that unrest in the Middle East has led to widespread anti-American sentiment.
00:26:15
Speaker
But at the same time, there are some niggling doubts here. We need to persuade people that those niggling doubts should make them kind of flip their probability calculus. So we have to spend some time dismantling the official theory in order to persuade people to look at some kind of rival explanation.
00:26:36
Speaker
So he finishes the sections talking about conspiracy theorists saying, as their books, websites and indie films gain traction, they force official notice.
How do authorities and media respond to conspiracies?
00:26:46
Speaker
How might conspiracy theorists reason about the inevitable government and media response? We turn to this next.
00:26:52
Speaker
Now, I do have a question about this, which is, is it really the case? I mean, who's the they here? So it's conspiracy theorists' books and websites and empty films gain traction. They force official notices. So the question is, who is noticing this? I mean, there's a little bit of a worry here that there's a kind of assumption of there being this kind of monolithic governmental or media estate.
00:27:22
Speaker
that then says, oh, there's some kind of niggling issue in the discourse. And we've really got to crush that, which I don't know is necessarily the best description of what really happens, particularly around the 9-11 narratives. I thought he was more sort of talking about a popular consciousness kind of thing.
00:27:42
Speaker
So yes, the they is vague in the same sense that you say, people are talking about this. But I assume that's what he was sort of saying, that when, when quote unquote, people start talking about 9-11, and it starts getting attention in the same way that QAnon did recently, rightly or wrongly.
00:28:01
Speaker
people suddenly QAnon was getting a hell of a lot more attention than it used to, and people were talking about it. But as I hear in my opinion, that's sort of an exaggeration by the media. Yeah, precisely. So part of the worry here is that you can make the claim people are talking about this, and that claim could be aspirational rather than factual, maybe no empirical data that shows that people are talking about this at all.
00:28:28
Speaker
So yeah, there's some vagueness here, which is, it's not a death knell to any kind of discussion that's going on here, but it is one of those things where maybe, like the QAnon thing, we're kind of overstating a problem.
00:28:43
Speaker
But nevertheless, we get to the section conspiracy theory and the prediction of cover-up, which is where he says that when a conspiracy theory becomes popular in this possibly vaguely defined way, authorities and the media will feel the need to respond.
00:29:02
Speaker
And this section goes through a bunch of reasons, basically why people would feel either obliged or possibly pressured or possibly forced to endorse the status quo.
00:29:15
Speaker
And to me, this section really seemed to be like Lee going whole hog into his idea of a closed society. There's a sort of society where we cannot in any way be sure that conspiracies aren't happening at any time. In talk of sort of the suggestion of
00:29:33
Speaker
people being threatened or blackmailed and sent photographs of their children playing from anonymous email sources and all that sort of stuff. He basically goes through and lists a whole lot of ways in which
00:29:53
Speaker
members of the quote-unquote establishment would not be inclined to go against the status quo and how other people who might be can be persuaded by the powers that be to toe the line.
00:30:12
Speaker
And towards the end of that, he then refers to the Sunstein Infamural paper that we looked at relatively recently and says of that, but if the political elite of a world superpower is openly publishing white papers on the importance of using disinformation tactics, we can only boggle at the extent and aims of its actual projects.
00:30:33
Speaker
So yes, he, like we've seen, possibly others, seems to have taken quite a dim view to the Sun-Sen-Infimule suggestion that maybe what we want to do is start infiltrating and spreading disinformation to combat other conspiracy theories.
00:30:49
Speaker
Well, I mean, it is the kind of thing which will lead to more conspiracy theories about the treatment of conspiracy theorists by the people the conspiracy theorists think are engaging in bad treatment of conspiracy theorists in the first place. But yes, as he says, basically, if people are willing to quite openly advocate for that sort of disinformation tactics, then what other sorts of tactics are they? Would they be willing to count on its behind closed doors? And so basically all of all of this
00:31:16
Speaker
section essentially leads up to the idea that ambitious conspiracy theories, as he calls them, your sort of global malevolent ones, would be likely to be covered up.
00:31:31
Speaker
And then the next section is the development and evolution of 9-11 conspiracy theories. And once again, this is a very good summation, I think, of what's happened before, of where they kind of started and how they developed, he talks about
00:31:49
Speaker
the operation Northwoods being cited as the sort of precedent for here's what the what the administration would has thought about doing in the past. He talks about the the various bits of errant data to use Brian Alkely's term that people appeal to when doubting the official theory. He talks about where have we
00:32:16
Speaker
As he says, the list is immense, but a sample might include the surprising absence of wreckage at the Pentagon, the lack of any impact marks on the building by the giant wing-mounted engines, or the weirdly divergent descriptions of the object that struck the Pentagon, a congressman describing a jetline or an ordinary citizen eyewitness describing a small missile-like craft.
00:32:33
Speaker
Then there's the striking resemblance to a controlled demolition at both the World Trade Center towers and the Bazaar in seemingly deceitful detail that the FBI claims to have found a terrorist's paper passport surviving the fireball of an impact undamaged atop the wreckage of the towers, or the incongruity that many of the men accused of being hijackers have since been found alive in their home countries. So these are all the sorts of things we've heard numerous times before in 9-11 conspiracy theories.
00:32:59
Speaker
As a side note, I think sort of reading this section and comparing it to the last one we looked at, which rubbed me the wrong way a little bit. I wonder, this one seemed very much to be presenting this sort of stuff as here are bits of evidence that people cite. It kind of felt like the previous one was a bit more
00:33:27
Speaker
It felt like it was saying, these are things that have refuted the official theory. And so that's why we're justified in doubting the official theory, which I thought was a bit of a strong claim. I don't know. Maybe I still just have a B in my bonnet and I should just get over it. I'm not sure.
00:33:43
Speaker
Well, Josh, you should stop wearing bonnets in this day and age. Although that being said, if you want to wear a bonnet, you wear a bonnet. It just isn't 2021 fashion. I don't know what 2021 fashion is these days. I dress like an evil wizard all the time, but I haven't seen many people with bonnets in the last century.
00:34:06
Speaker
All I can say is I have Scottish ancestry, I burn in moments in sunlight, so any sort of shade I can supply myself is fully welcome.
00:34:17
Speaker
But anyway, so he talks about errant data, he talks about the project for a new American century, the plan that the likes of Rumsfeld and Chaney and what have you were just looking for an excuse to implement. He talks about loose change as being one of the things that sort of drew all of this stuff together. And actually, now I think about it
00:34:38
Speaker
I should have actually checked which version of Loose Change he's probably referring to, because as we discussed in our coverage of Loose Change, there are so many different iterations of that film. He does say Loose Change Second Edition.
00:34:54
Speaker
Ah, so not final cut. I figured which one that was. Not the final cut, but not the first one either. I also can't remember which one we watched. I think it was second edition that we watched. I can't remember. Yeah, there was something weird about how the final cut is the one you have to pay for and the second edition is still free. It's all very confusing.
00:35:12
Speaker
But he ends the section having given a good overview of how the theory came up and developed and what it draws on. He says, can the theory enter mainstream political orthodoxy and create important changes in policy and law? In the case of 9-11 theory, this attempt is known as the 9-11 Truth Movement. It has failed in all of these goals, but as an epistemic creature, it continues to thrive.
00:35:39
Speaker
And so from there we get into the section on determining the prior probability of conspiracy, which is obviously is a term that's come up a bunch before. You've talked about your view on these things are going to be coloured by whether or not you believe there's a high or a low prior probability of conspiracy with regard to various parties and various
00:36:03
Speaker
elements of society, but how do you actually determine whether or not something has a low or a high prior probability of conspiracy? And this is where he starts looking into that.
00:36:13
Speaker
So he says, we're back to the all-important issue of the prior probability of conspiracy. Again, it's this background theory of reality, how conspiratorial our society is, that's often what's really at issue when we debate conspiracy theories themselves, which as we've seen has been the common thread to Lee's works all the way through. It's looking at the conspiratorial nature of the society to see whether or not, how rational it is to hold individual conspiracy theories.
00:36:43
Speaker
So then the question becomes, how conspiratorial is society? And unfortunately, there is a wrinkle in that because if the conspiracies are competent, he again refers to Yuhar Reicher talking about genuine conspiracy theories, but if the conspiracies are competent,
00:37:03
Speaker
then they'll be good at hiding their existence. As he said, as he just talked about, you're likely to see this sort of cover-up of these kind of things, which means if there are a high number of competent conspiracies going on, it will look like the amount of conspiracy is low.
00:37:24
Speaker
So he says, so from the view of evidence, the fact that a conspiracy theorist assumes a distrusting vision of the world doesn't make her any more irrational than the fact many of us assume a more trusting vision of the world. But there's something to be said for the practical consideration that where a conspiracy theory is not obviously false, we should take its accusation seriously.
00:37:44
Speaker
In studying these, we can identify the vulnerabilities that help make these accusations plausible in the first place with an eye to reducing these vulnerabilities in the future. This is a lesson often missed in the debate. In their theories, conspiracy theorists often locate real vulnerabilities to manipulation and deception and surprising but important motives for why hierarchical power might exploit these, if not yesterday or today, then tomorrow.
Rational responses to indeterminate conspiracy evidence
00:38:10
Speaker
Which leads on to the next section. Did you have anything about that? That did seem a more significant section. Did anything else chop out it?
00:38:17
Speaker
to you about that one? No so I mean it's I mean it's a point that Lee has made in the past which is look given the hierarchical nature of power and knowledge in our society if the people who control the levers of power are also able to do things to kind of limit people's epistemic access or at least manipulate
00:38:41
Speaker
the way that people are able to perceive the world, it's going to be relatively easy to engage in a competent conspiracy, which is to make sure that evidence of your malfeasance is just not going to be detectable by the hoi polloi. Now, he put a whole bunch of caveats in there. He points out there is actually evidence you can bring to bear in situations of this type. If it turns out that
00:39:08
Speaker
The evidence that you're looking at contradicts things like the laws of physics or the laws of nature. Then you might end up going, well, I mean, the government tells us that we're controlled by flying pigs. But I should say, by flying penguins.
00:39:27
Speaker
penguins can't fly, penguins can't fly. So there are, and if you point out there are types of evidence you just basically can't get around manipulating. Logical contradictions are going to be an issue here as well. But by and large, if you do think there's a whole bunch of social knowledge out there, which people in positions of power are able to manipulate or keep from the public,
00:39:54
Speaker
then working out the prior probability, i.e. which kind of world you live in, turns out to be part of the conspiracy itself. And that's what then leads into the next section, which is so
00:40:10
Speaker
What can we do if we suspect we live in a world like that, where people in positions of power are able to stop us from ever realising we're being conspired against?
00:40:25
Speaker
what do we do in that kind of world? So that brings us to the section rational responses to conspiracy theory, agnosticism and pragmatic rejection. Now I have to admit this was a long pace and I've
00:40:41
Speaker
had other demands on my time this week what with the the the changing jobs and numerous other things i haven't actually read through this section in its entirety so i think perhaps you'd better take the reins here just so i make sure i don't skip over too much oh josh these excuses i mean as as a as an associate professor at a prestigious university 40 pages long this one that's that's that's more reading than i do in a decade
00:41:08
Speaker
Look, Josh, you had warned you had to do the homework before this week. I mean, we have to talk after class about this. I mean, you can't just turn up to a seminar like this having not done the reading and then expect the lecturer to be the person who kind of finishes you off. Do you need me to finish you off, Josh?
00:41:27
Speaker
Yes, I do. Finish me off, Dr. Dentith. Alright. This time, and only this time. So, Lee starts this section with,
00:41:43
Speaker
By studied, I mean that the theory is not obviously internally inconsistent, doesn't invoke implausible psychological motives and reasoning, or contradict basic background knowledge we possess about human nature, basic science and history. Passmany has its role too.
00:42:02
Speaker
But even if it passes these and similar epistemic tests, we're often in no position to deny or embrace it. It's an epistemically indeterminate theory. So he's pointing out here that, look, there are going to be certain conspiracy theories where they're not contradicted by any evidence out there in the world. They're not confirmed by any evidence out there in the world either.
00:42:31
Speaker
And so we've got a kind of, well, what do we do? I've looked into 9-11 conspiracy theories. I've seen that the official theory seems to have a lot of adherence. I've seen that the conspiracy theory about it being a controlled demolition has lots of adherence as well.
00:42:49
Speaker
Both sides of this debate are engaging in a kind of evidential debate. The inside jobbers, they've got evidence that they want to put forward showing that the outside job hypothesis looks incoherent or at least evidentially suspect. The outside jobbers are going to look, the inside jobbers are overstating the amount of evidence here. I'm worried, I'm using the word jobbing far too much for this particular discussion. What am I going to do? Well, in this kind of situation, it seems that
00:43:18
Speaker
epistemically it's indeterminate as to what I should believe so maybe I just have to engage in kind of studied agnosticism and go well I just don't believe anything at this particular point in time now of course Josh you're the master of agnosticism is this the right way to be talking about agnosticism?
00:43:38
Speaker
No, it kind of is really. If you look at agnosticism as being sort of a fallibilistic epistemic stance, it's the idea that we just don't know enough. We are fallible in our knowledge and it isn't making a claim either way, but it's not saying
00:43:59
Speaker
I mean, the agnosticism, as I had looked at it, wasn't saying, you can't have an opinion. It's just saying, if you do have an opinion, you need to acknowledge that it could be wrong because we don't know enough to be able to say definitively either way. So yeah, it works for me.
00:44:17
Speaker
Excellent. So he goes on to say, there is a scenario, however, where from a pragmatic stance, conspiracy theorizing in brackets of this type becomes questionable and as human beings living lives as whole persons in the real world, it becomes pragmatically irrational, a self-inflicted wound that has no justifying characteristic.
00:44:40
Speaker
This is the pursuit of an epistemically indeterminate theory that depicts an irresistible, malevolent conspiracy. When we find ourselves in this scenario, pragmatic rejection of the conspiracy theory is the only rational course. Pragmatic, not epistemic rationality, guides us.
00:45:02
Speaker
Right. So it's not, it's we should, we should reject it. We should reject it not because we have firm epistemic grounds too, but because there are other reasons for us too. And I assume he will get into these other reasons shortly. Yeah.
00:45:17
Speaker
On the assumption that we are non-psychotic, capable investigators without a desire for merely getting practice, the basic argument for pragmatic rejection of a conspiracy theory is simple. 1. If an investigation is bound to be futile as concerns the truth of the matter, and there is no other significant epistemic reason to undertake or continue the exercise,
00:45:42
Speaker
then there is no significant epistemic reason for undertaking it or continuing it. So,
00:45:50
Speaker
If an action has no significant epistemic reason for undertaking or continuing it, and there is no pragmatic reason for undertaking or continuing it, and there is also reason for not undertaking or continuing it, then it should not be undertaken or continued. Three, so such an investigation should not be undertaken or continued.
00:46:13
Speaker
If it does nothing for our knowledge and only hurts our lives, we shouldn't do it." So his argument here basically is, look, if you are pursuing an epistemically indeterminate theory about a malevolent and vicious conspiracy theory, then there are significant costs for engaging in that investigation from a pragmatic or social perspective.
00:46:40
Speaker
And those costs are going to be bad to species since you're not going to be able to prove it either way. So given there are costs, the best thing is to simply go, look, there's nothing I can do and just get on with your life.
00:46:55
Speaker
Which seems to be a more sophisticated statement of his old one living with the conspiracy theory. You just gotta live with it. But bringing things into the more epistemic side of things as well in terms of whether or not you're justified in looking into it and what have you.
00:47:13
Speaker
Now he does point out there's another pragmatic turn we can make here. But you go, an epistemically indeterminate theory may, if point to events so devastating that it nevertheless is worth defending against, taking action that would undermine the prospects for success or even dismantle the conspiracy itself should it actually exist.
00:47:36
Speaker
In a phrase, we play it safe. We toss hand grenades into dark holes. We've seen this tactic many times before, sometimes laudable, sometimes sadistic. Both the NATO alliance and the Warsaw Pact were at least a response to the fear that the other side was conspiring to bring about its annihilation. While on the surface, both sides were openly praising their peaceful coexistence.
00:48:02
Speaker
So there might be certain situations where you go, look, pragmatically, even though we can't prove the theory one way or the other, we should probably act as if the theory is true. Because if it turns out we get it wrong, the cost is going to be immense. So we might as well treat the theory as being true and do what we would have done if we had proven it. Yes. That's Josh there. I have no more sophisticated response to that.
00:48:32
Speaker
then I agree to this line of argumentation, yes.
00:48:35
Speaker
It sounds like you just agreed to be a war criminal. Yeah, obviously. But he also points out there's an epistemic irony in all of this. If we find pragmatic rejection of conspiracy theory becomes practically our way of life, we've learned something. We've discovered something deeply disturbing about our epistemic relation to the basic processes of the political and economic structure we live in, a relationship in profound need of repair.
00:49:05
Speaker
In a mind sufficiently self-reflective, situated in a society sufficiently hierarchical, a society whose systems of power, goals, and real manner of policy are sufficiently obscured, pragmatic rejection will eventually destabilize itself. This is the real power of pragmatic rejection. In the end it compresses our fundamental question with an entirely general ever-growing force. Is this an open society?
00:49:35
Speaker
Yes, I guess that does make sense, because it's fair enough to say, here's this conspiracy that our government is up to something horrible, well...
00:49:45
Speaker
I can't know either way, so let's just reject it and get on with our lives because that's easier. But then if you find yourself doing that over and over and over again, hang on. So I'm ignoring a hell of a lot of potential of theories that our government is up to something.
00:50:05
Speaker
I suppose it sort of becomes a where there's smoke there's fire situation almost or it's at least it justifies simply the quantity over and above any questions of the quality gives us cause to look into these things which we decided just before that there's no point looking into I guess as a whole they add up to.
00:50:31
Speaker
It's also the point that if it turns out there are lots of conspiracy theories about what the government is up to, and it turns out there's no good evidence that shows that those conspiracy theories are unwarranted,
00:50:45
Speaker
Then that does raise an interesting question of, so why can't I prove my government isn't involved in conspiracies against me? I mean, surely if I live in an open society, that evidence of the benevolence of my government should be pretty easy to access.
00:51:04
Speaker
with that there's no easy access to the evidence of its benevolence maybe does suggest that they are being malevolent and they're covering it up at which point you end up going i don't think our society is anywhere near as open as maybe i've been led to believe hmm
00:51:24
Speaker
All of which takes us to the conclusion, which I did read because I usually read the conclusion of these papers first, kind of so I know where the paper's going to be here. Are you the kindest person who reads the end of the murder mystery novel to find out who did it so you can then feel smug about working it out as the novel goes along?
00:51:43
Speaker
No, no, I'm not. But I do. Well, I mean, because often papers like this will state the conclusion and the introduction anyway, but this one didn't so much. So I definitely wanted to make sure I had the thread properly as I was reading it through. But anyway.
00:52:00
Speaker
The conclusion to the paper reads in full, conspiracy theories represent a revealing epistemic critique of our access to evidence in a hierarchical society.
Conspiracy theories as critiques in hierarchical societies
00:52:11
Speaker
A studied agnosticism about the truth or falsity of many conspiracy theories often results. But theory by theory, if decisive evidence is unavailable, precaution futile and belief misery, we're left with pragmatic rationality to guide us. Pragmatic rejection is our rational recourse.
00:52:30
Speaker
In their popularity, conspiracy theories are also a barometer of a steep rise in the perceived prior probability of high-level malevolent conspiracy. But our epistemic analysis indicates this is not a rising tide of irrationality. Basic tests of internal consistency and coherence with established background beliefs often contribute little. When our evaluation of a conspiracy theory comes down to questions of institutional deception, manipulation and neglect, it's difficult to proceed in a way that doesn't powerfully predispose us for or against the theory.
00:53:00
Speaker
Prior probability is a powerful critical element of our evaluation. But whatever the truth about the tragic events of September 11, 2001, on reflection it's not obvious the official story is true, nor obvious it's not. This is the reality for a billion people who say they don't know and the point of departure for epistemologists.
00:53:20
Speaker
Unfortunately, it often ends with that. Call it the United States of Amnesia. Conspiracy theories about society-wide political and economic manipulation, abuse, and mass murder are really refuted and laid to rest. Instead, they've forgotten or become museum relics emptied of significance. In the rush of contemporary civilization, memories are short, attention fractured, and concentration quickly perishes. We just move on.
00:53:43
Speaker
The awesome spectacle of seemingly omnipotent governments and ideologically unified corporate global mass media, along with the population driven by consumption and hedonism, might create a sense of futility where subversive narratives are concerned, but then, in new form, the subversive narratives are reborn and powerfully spread. The growing pace and intensity of this cycle should give us pause, though. Perhaps the philosophical answer doesn't lie in seeking new, intellectually sophisticated ways to ignore it, but in addressing the spreading dessert.
00:54:10
Speaker
In addressing the Spreading Gizzard, our scarcity of real epistemic access and discovering ways this can be reversed in a world of unprecedented connectivity so epistemic rationality can play a decisive role. Creative work lies ahead.
00:54:26
Speaker
And there you have it. So yeah, I mean, a very good and comprehensive, I think, summation of a whole lot of stuff that's come before, which then gives Lee the ability to really sort of double down and expand on his ideas about sort of the open nature of society or not as the case may be and what this tells us. So while I did stumble a little towards the end in my reading of it,
00:54:57
Speaker
the majority of it that I did read, I found most enjoyable. And if this is something you're interested in and you haven't read it, I think it would be a very good primer, I suppose, if you're wanting to sort of bring someone up to speed in the state of things at this point, this would be the piece to show them.
00:55:11
Speaker
Yes, it is a very good chapter for both providing a summary of literature to date in 2011 and also advancing a very interesting argument about what we should do in the face of certain types of conspiracy theories.
00:55:28
Speaker
And actually looking at the conclusion, one thing we didn't talk about that was in the main part of the chapter was a really interesting discussion Lee has about the amnesiac effect in political discourse, because he does run the argument that it does seem that we kind of forget about things that happened more than 20 years ago.
00:55:51
Speaker
which allows governments which have engaged in widespread deception or conspiracy in the past to think, oh, we're not the same as that. So the kind of political scandals of the 1960s are forgotten by the time you get to the 1980s.
00:56:08
Speaker
the same people get involved in the same kind of capers, people are aghast, and then by the 2000s people have forgotten about the things that went on in the 1980s and the cycle continues. And so he points out there is this kind of weird institutional forgetfulness
00:56:25
Speaker
about what governments have done in the past, which really doesn't help with this particular type of discussion of working out which path are we on with respect to prior probabilities when judging the likelihood that a conspiracy is occurring at any given time.
00:56:45
Speaker
And of course, as we just said at the top, it is coming up on 20 years since September 11. And something we may end up talking about when we discuss this thing, it does kind of seem that there's the possibility that 20 years on 9-11 is going to be knocked off the perch by COVID conspiracy theories, which do seem to be coming up as the
00:57:09
Speaker
is the main one. So yeah, possibly a little depressingly, it seems as though Lee may be about to be proved right again. But we'll talk about more about that later. So that's it for this episode. Next week, we're going to talk about how someone spent six months infiltrating a far right group right here in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
00:57:33
Speaker
which is an interesting story that just came out this week. But right now, once we finish doing this episode, we're going to do our bonus episode. What do we have in the bonus episode this week? Well, this week in the patrons bonus episode of the podcasters guide to the conspiracy, we'll be talking about the remains of Eli Cohen, which apparently a New Zealander knows about. And there's a bit of a scandal there as to
00:58:00
Speaker
why nothing has been done about that. We want to know more about spies. That's the episode to listen to. We'll also be talking about Tucker Carlson's love of Victor Orban and looking into a weird corporate conspiracy by a small corporate interest you may have heard of called
00:58:21
Speaker
eBay. And how eBay has been engaging in harassing people? Well, I can't believe any self-respecting tech company would stoop to such lengths, but you'll have to convince me when we record the bonus episode for this week, which we are just about to do. And if you'd like to listen to that bonus episode, you'll need to be a patron of this podcast. And if you're not currently a patron of this podcast, you can become one by going to Betrayon and searching for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy.
00:58:50
Speaker
But whether you're a patron or not, thanks for sticking with us to the end of this one. And one way or another, I expect we'll talk to you later, in which case it simply remains for me to say goodbye. And for me to say bye good. The podcaster's guide to the conspiracy is Josh Addison and me, Dr. M.R. Extenteth. You can contact us at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com and please do consider supporting the podcast via our Patreon.
00:59:22
Speaker
And remember, silent green is meeples.