Debunking and why we do it.

There is no greater threat to freedom in this country than the influx of conspiracy theorists and their conspiracies. There is no greater calling than to expose these conspiracies for what they are, paranoid delusions. There is no greater satisfaction and use of time than protecting the status quo. Conspiracies require an inordinate and frankly insurmountable level of planning, coordinating and covering up that the mere possibility of their existence in reality is infinitely impossible. The internet for all it’s grace and beauty is actually the provocateur in this case, which is why we need to use it to fight back and expose, ridicule and protect the malleable from the conspiracy theory conspirators and their conspiracies. The worst part about these conspiracy theorists is that they actually think they are serving their country, when in reality they are serving themselves and their paranoid delusions. At this the time the sane still outnumber the insane, so we must band together and nip this in the proverbial bud before they are able to grow. While I would never promote violence, I’ve witnessed a punch in the face work quite effectively against a 9/11 truther.

Another method and means to protect the status quo against these paranoid conspiracy theorists is to not only expose each and every false detail, but to oversaturate the internet with the most ridiculous lambasting of the conspiracies you can think of. For example, “REAL TRUTH OF 911, caused and conspired by a man who lives in the moon who was annoyed that they were called they were called the twin towers instead of moon babies.” That way, by making ridiculous statements it keeps those wavering off the path of truth from taking the regular and just as ridiculous conspiracy theories seriously. Let’s face facts, conspiracy theorists are outnumbered, there are more of us then them, but they are dangerous in that they can sway the weak minded and it only takes one maniac to believe in them and to do something horrible. Those more articulate and adept at research should focus on debunking as many of you do on this site and the less articulate and equally dedicated people can flood the market with fake(r) and false(r) conspiracies. A combination of debunking and flooding the market with conspiracy theories will not only help preserve the status quo, but frustrate those on the fence and will help bring them back to the truth, the official story. A win/win/win for everyone, keep up the good work people.

I disagree with your point of view here.

You seem to associate a moral drive of debunking to that of protecting the status quo and freedom against conspiracy theorists. This, in my opinion, introduces a bias that contradicts the purpose of debunking in the first place. Debunking the way I see it is about challenging ideas and exaggerations by empirically scrutinizing evidences and claims, thus removing junk information in the interest of facts. It is not a champion for certain schools of thought. Otherwise, what would make debunkers any different than that of conspiracy theorists if all they got to go on are differing lines of reasoning?

While it is true that there are many conspiracy theories that can be empirically be proven false, and there are many theorists who bears questionable intents, debunking and why one should debunk should never be about antagonizing such theories and people. It should about uncovering factual information and little else. If in uncovering factual information it prevents others from doing stupid things, like attempting to shoot down airplanes because they think are spraying chemtrails, then all the better, but at it's whole, debunking should be a relatively neutral affair.

And just to chime my opinion on the status quo here, I don't see any reason to protect it personally, though that would depend on what your idea of the status quo is. Some states of affairs are known to create ample amounts of human suffering as seen through the ages, and today's society is no different.

I agree with Rico, and strongly disagree with the OP, unifymass. Debunking is about identifying bunk, it's not about preserving the status quo, it's about making things better. It's certainly not about punching people in the fact, or any form of actual polarizing action. It's simply about finding and exposing errors and faslehoods.

It's certainly not about creating fake conspiracies. I've created one parody conspiracy as an illustration of how the chemtrail rationale can be applied to other subjects.
http://chemspots.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/chemspots-hidden-in-plain-sight/

But "flooding the market" is counterproductive, and dishonest.

All that said, debunking IS a good calling, but only honest and trustworthy debunking is going to be successful, otherwise you simply be dismissed as a shill.

Mick said:

It's certainly not about creating fake conspiracies. I've created one parody conspiracy as an illustration of how the chemtrail rationale can be applied to other subjects.
http://chemspots.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/chemspots-hidden-in-plain-sight/

Click to expand...

Argh! I call Poe's Law. I'm there in the comments.

Mick said:

All that said, debunking IS a good calling, but only honest and trustworthy debunking is going to be successful, otherwise you simply be dismissed as a shill.

Click to expand...

Being honest is no guarantee of immunity from name calling - CT's tend to think of debukers as dishonest and untrustworthy by definition and default because to do otherwise requires they abandon their idea - and that is the one thing they seem to be unable to do.

MikeC said:

Being honest is no guarantee of immunity from name calling - CT's tend to think of debukers as dishonest and untrustworthy by definition and default because to do otherwise requires they abandon their idea - and that is the one thing they seem to be unable to do.

Click to expand...

True, but actually being dishonest is a sure-fire recipe for distrust. So I choose honesty.

I find that most of the time, the word 'shill' is used when you have just demolished their claims and that they have nothing to counter your information

Mick said:

I agree with Rico, and strongly disagree with the OP, unifymass. Debunking is about identifying bunk, it's not about preserving the status quo, it's about making things better. It's certainly not about punching people in the fact, or any form of actual polarizing action. It's simply about finding and exposing errors and faslehoods.

It's certainly not about creating fake conspiracies. I've created one parody conspiracy as an illustration of how the chemtrail rationale can be applied to other subjects.
http://chemspots.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/chemspots-hidden-in-plain-sight/

But "flooding the market" is counterproductive, and dishonest.

All that said, debunking IS a good calling, but only honest and trustworthy debunking is going to be successful, otherwise you simply be dismissed as a shill.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the delayed response.
While I wholeheartedly admire all your hard work, dedication towards truth and the eloquence, grace and honesty you use while ripping apart and destroying every conspiracy theory out there, I must say I disagree with you here. I’m certainly not advocating you, nor your equals who possess such patience, research and articulation skills to waste time and energy “flooding the market” with conspiracies, but I do believe it to be an admirable cause for those of lesser ability and skill. In the end, it’s about preserving order, protecting the common good and saving lives. Is it not? If it could prevent one life from being taken by a madman like a Timothy McVeigh who believed these conspiracy theories, then it would be worth it. It is a war to protect the truth by exposing errors and falsehoods in conspiracies that attempt to twist the official stories of news and events, and like any war, it must be fought on many fronts. Try as you might, but you cannot reason with the unreasonable, it doesn’t matter how much evidence you present in front of them and how blatantly obvious the official story is, some of these hardcore conspiracy theorists just can’t grasp real truth. Therefore, by flooding the market, you confuse and make them and their crazy theories even more ridiculous than they already are, they don’t know what to believe, eventually the truth will rise to the top because that is the only sane option remaining. And no it’s not “dishonest” and you mustn’t worry about people referring to you as a “shill”, as you well know, people do that to YOU here anyway, and you are as honest and straight forward as anyone. In a perfect world, we would only need people like you and our wars would be fought in plain sight, we wouldn’t have a need for drones, biological, chemical, nuclear weapons and preemptive strikes to protect our freedom, unfortunately we need all those things and more to protect ourselves and our freedom. You are providing a great service to the world and by no means am I degrading in any fashion what you are doing here, I just believe there is still more to be done and providing another avenue to assist in arriving at the same place. I’ve learned a lot reading your posts and from some of the other intelligent providers on this site, I especially enjoy your tolerance of the conspiracy theorists themselves that visit and post on here and love that you allow them the room to further expose themselves and their ideas.

No. The market is ALREADY flooded. Anyone interested in conspiracy theories is ALREADY faced with far more theories than they can shake a stick at, and they already have selected and compartmentalized their key beliefs. Adding more will not change anything for the believers. It will just create more things that need debunking.

Take Sandy Hook, does it help to have an endless stream of idiotic videos like the one in this thread?
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1173-Sandy-Hook-Media-staging-photos

Having more conspiracies does not confuse the conspiracy theorist, it just make them feel like there's even more evidence of something going on.

And if they find out some of the conspiracies were created by "disinfo agents", then that's EVEN MORE evidence.

You suggestion is entirely counterproductive. If you are doing it, then I strongly suggest you stop.

In the online game I play, we have a forum for the game. It has a separate section for non game posts. Along with discussions on music, and silly games that we invent (like write a story with each person writing one sentence and stopping in the middle), there is an area where politics get discussed (we have folks from a other English speaking countries also). The Sandy Hook and Dorner conspiracies showed up there.

A background of belief in conspiracies seem to be fueling more distrust of the government, the media and of other people and that in turn fuels more conspiracy theories.

My "chemspots" parody site got some attention from Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiratard/comments/1exopz/chemspots_old_diry_gum_on_the_sidewalk_is_the/