What books are you reading ? (conspiracy related, science, etc...)

meganix said:
I have "Everyday Anarchy" and "Practical Anarchy" on my shelf at home and don't know honestly what to think of it's content. The inherent logic appeals to me, but there are really not any emprical evidence to back it up. It's about Anarcho-Capitalism and mostly about the ethical case for it. It's more thoughtfully put together, than the fear based type of Government conspiracy "NWO" that wants you to run from or fight every authority you meet and in so make you apporach the Libertarian Ideology instead. It use strict logic as a primary base but there are some false Dilemma/black and white fallacy in it.

It's philosphical, kind of philsophical that reminds me most about the Old Greek's philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle. Moral Absolutism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism
instead of the more "modern" Moral Relativsm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism
That started with the decline of relligion and seperation of state and church. It would actually quite help people understand what is so "pervasive" about the Libertarian/Capitalist apporach to society, and why it's on the rise through the internet

I think that holding this moral standard in your personal life is very healthy. If it can be used as a guide for society, I'm much more sceptical about
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You make an interesting point and back it up with things I have not read before. Thanks for that. Not that I wanted to subvert this thread but for me what I like about that theory we are talking about is that it says that instigating violence is wrong. That is something I strongly agree with. If that makes me an absolutist than I guess I am cool with that. I think we can do better than the crime and punishment system we have. I think it lets some people get away with the worst crimes possible by obfuscating them with millions of man-made laws. Lets start another thread about this or talk about it in private?
 
Gary Cook said:
You make an interesting point and back it up with things I have not read before. Thanks for that. Not that I wanted to subvert this thread but for me what I like about that theory we are talking about is that it says that instigating violence is wrong. That is something I strongly agree with. If that makes me an absolutist than I guess I am cool with that. I think we can do better than the crime and punishment system we have. I think it lets some people get away with the worst crimes possible by obfuscating them with millions of man-made laws. Lets start another thread about this or talk about it in private?
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Private would be better as Metabunk is not a discussion site but a site for debunking bunk.
 
Gary Cook said:
You make an interesting point and back it up with things I have not read before. Thanks for that. Not that I wanted to subvert this thread but for me what I like about that theory we are talking about is that it says that instigating violence is wrong. That is something I strongly agree with. If that makes me an absolutist than I guess I am cool with that. I think we can do better than the crime and punishment system we have. I think it lets some people get away with the worst crimes possible by obfuscating them with millions of man-made laws. Lets start another thread about this or talk about it in private?
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Sure. You can start out by hearing the Audio books. Then we can start at thread in the "chit chat" section to see what empirical observations that would either support the "AnCap" principle or puncture it. Especially all modern economic theory runs completely counter to it, but I don't have enough knowledge about Economics to make a case against free market, maybe other people has.

Edit: This forum would be better suited for a discussion like that
http://www.debate.org/search?q=Anarcho Capitalism

Also Books I would recommend is the series of "Big Ideas explained simple"
There is about
Philosophy
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explained/dp/0756668611/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395417718&sr=1-2&keywords=big ideas simply explained
Buisness
http://www.amazon.com/Business-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explained/dp/1465415858/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395417718&sr=1-1&keywords=big ideas simply explained
Economics
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explained/dp/0756698278/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395417718&sr=1-3&keywords=big ideas simply explained
Psychology
http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explained/dp/0756689708/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395417718&sr=1-4&keywords=big ideas simply explained
Politics
http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explained/dp/1465402144/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395417718&sr=1-6&keywords=big ideas simply explained
Religion
http://www.amazon.com/Religions-Book-Ideas-Simply-Explained/dp/1465408436/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395417718&sr=1-5&keywords=big ideas simply explained
 
I just ran across a book called "The Israeli Solution" By Caroline Glick... any of you read it yet, or familiar with the author? Looks pretty interesting tbh.
 
Not a book, but an article..
"The Belief Engine"
copyright 1995 by James Alcock

snippet:
External Quote:
Nineteenth-century rationalists predicted that superstition and irrationality would be defeated by universal education. However, this has not happened. High literacy rates and universal education have done little to decrease such belief, and poll after poll indicates that a large majority of the public believe in the reality of "occult" or "paranormal" or "supernatural" phenomena. Why should this be so? Why is it that in this highly scientific and technological age superstition and irrationality, abound?
 
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Just picked up a volume of Wind, Sand and Stars and Flight to Arras by Antoine Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince) for 2 dollars.
Did any pilots here read him and were inspired by his writings? It's very romantic and sentimental, evocative with great passages.
External Quote:

And the crew travel a sort of submarine route in a lighted chamber.
Pilot, mechanic, and radio operator are shut up in what might be a laboratory. They are obedient to the play of dial-hands, not to the unrolling of the landscape.
Out of doors the mountains are immersed in tenebrous darkness; but they are no longer mountains, they are invisible powers whose approach must be computed.
The operator sits in the light of his lamp, dutifully setting down figures; the mechanic ticks off points on his chart; the pilot swerves in response to the drift of the mountains as quickly as he sees that the summits he intends to pass on the left have deployed straight ahead of him in a silence and secrecy as of military preparations.
...
And despite our dwindling fuel we continued to nibble at the golden bait which each time seemed more surely the true light of a beacon, was each time a promise of a landing and of life-and we had each time to change our star.
And with that we knew ourselves to be lost in interplanetary space among a thousand inaccessible planets, we who sought only the one veritable planet, our own, that planet on which alone we should find our familiar countryside, the houses of our friends, our treasures.
...
There is a peak ahead, still distant. The pilot will not reach it before another hour of flight in the night. What is to be the significance of that peak? On a night of full moon it will be a useful landmark. In fainter moonglow it will be a bit of wreckage strewn in shadow, dangerous, but marked clearly enough by the lights of villages.
But if the pilot flies blind, has bad luck incorrecting his drift, is dubious about his position, that peak begins to
stir with a strange life and its threat fills the breadth of the night sky in the same way as a single mine, drifting at the will of the current, can render the whole of the ocean a danger.
 
I'm ordering the book Flight to Arras from a private seller....
External Quote:

Extract from ''Flight To Arras'' Published 1943
''The German on the ground knows us by the pearly white scarf which every plane flying at high altitude trails behind like a bridal veil. The disturbance created by our meteoric flight crystallizes the watery vapor in the atmosphere. We unwind behind us a cirrus of icicles. If the atmospheric conditions are favorable to the formation of clouds, our wake will thicken bit by bit and become an evening cloud over the countryside''.
https://www.facebook.com/ChemtrailsAreNotRealIdiotsAre/posts/383279691792102
 
Stupid said:
I'm ordering the book Flight to Arras from a private seller....
External Quote:

Extract from ''Flight To Arras'' Published 1943
''The German on the ground knows us by the pearly white scarf which every plane flying at high altitude trails behind like a bridal veil. The disturbance created by our meteoric flight crystallizes the watery vapor in the atmosphere. We unwind behind us a cirrus of icicles. If the atmospheric conditions are favorable to the formation of clouds, our wake will thicken bit by bit and become an evening cloud over the countryside''.
https://www.facebook.com/ChemtrailsAreNotRealIdiotsAre/posts/383279691792102
Click to expand...

Slightly longer excerpt you posted in 2010 :)
http://contrailscience.com/fightercontrails-over-kent-1941/comment-page-1/#comment-52140
External Quote:

From the book "Flight To Arras" by Antoine de Saint Exupery, written in 1942 about a military mission in 1940:
_______________________
"Are the anti-aircraft firing, Dutertre?"
"I believe they are firing, Captain."

Dutertre cannot tell. The bursts are too distant and the smoke is blended in with the ground. They cannot hope to bring us down by such vague firing. At thirty three thousand feet we are virtually invulnerable. They are firing in order to gauge our position, and probably also to guide the fighter groups towards us. A fighter group diluted in the sky like invisible dust.

The German on the ground knows us by the pearly white scarf which every plane flying at high altitude trails behind like a bridal veil. The disturbance created by our meteoric flight crystallizes the watery vapor in the atmosphere. We unwind behind us a cirrus of icicles. If the atmospheric conditions are favorable to the formation of clouds, our wake will thicken bit by bit and become an evening cloud over the countryside.

The fighters are guided towards us by their radio, by the bursts on the ground, and by the ostentatious luxury of our white scarf. Nevertheless we swim in an emptiness almost interplanetary. Everything around us and within us is total immobility."
 
I'll scan the passage(s) when I receive the book......or make a short video.
Thanks for remembering my old post !
 
Pete Tar said:
Just picked up a volume of Wind, Sand and Stars and Flight to Arras by Antoine Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince) for 2 dollars.
Click to expand...
Hmm. Jealous. A pioneer of his time. A bit like Cousteau. I've only read quotes of his work. I'll have to wait for the Reader's Digest version. :)
 
B-17 the fifteen ton Flying Fortress. It blows the the "B17 contrails weren't contrails" theory out of the water. Early operations (by the RAF!) in the B17 were cancelled when they began to contrail.
 
I am currently reading (listening/audio books) subjects that are the antipathy of science - and my current thinking.......some books on metaphysical, spiritual, New Age, and other subjects that I assume I disagree with.
I think it's somewhat important to at least gain a broader understanding of some of the ideas I do not embrace, thereby expanding my understanding, and dialog......when the subjects are brought up.

In the past, I've read on subjects like....western Buddhism from Jack Kornfield, Jung, the AA "big book", and others......even very good classic books like Siddhartha (Hesse, 1922) (one of my favorite books).

Penney Peirce, Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration
Icke, 2012: An Awakening

....and more.
Suggestions welcome.
 
....example.....Peirce's notion of good body frequency (high and low) and living within "certain frequencies and vibrations", is often contrary to bad frequencies like HAARP and cell towers (low and high).
Yet some people tend to believe both at the same time.
Peirce confuses the issue by somehow reinventing the term "frequency" as some sort of inner awareness, soul, and unexplored intuitive energies into the unknown.

Yes, it's difficult to listen to....like a never-ending Random Deepak Chopra Quote Generator
 
Leifer said:
Peirce's notion of good body frequency (high and low) and living within "certain frequencies and vibrations", is often contrary to bad frequencies like HAARP and cell towers (low and high).
Yet some people tend to believe both at the same time.
Click to expand...
what?
 
A magician among the spirits by Houdini.

Great read it really stresses the importance that critical thinking skills have nothing to do with intelligence.

External Quote:
There is no doubt in my mind that some of these scientists are sincere in their belief but unfortunately it is through this very sincerity that thousands become converts. The fact that they are scientists does not endow them with an especial gift for detecting the particular sort of fraud used by mediums, nor does it bar them from being deceived, especially when they are fortified in their belief by grief, for the various books and records of the subject are replete with deceptions practised on noted scientists who have essayed to investigate prominent mediums. It is perfectly rational to suppose that I may be deceived once or twice by a new illusion, but if my mind, which has been so keenly trained for years to invent mysterious effects, can be deceived, how much more susceptible must the ordinary observer be.
External Quote:
It is true that some of the things I read seemed mystifying but I question
if they would be were they to be reproduced under different circumstances, under test conditions, and before expert mystifiers and open minded committees. Mine has not been an investigation of a few days or weeks or months but one that has extended over thirty years and in that thirty years I have not found one incident that savoured of the genuine. If there had been any real unalloyed demonstration to work on, one that did not reek of fraud, one that could not be reproduced by earthly powers, then there would be something for a foundation, but up to the present time everything that I have investigated has been the result of deluded brains or those which were too actively and intensely willing to believe.
 
I am reading "Hidden Worlds in Quantum Physics" by Gouesbet and would strongly recommend it for anyone who wishes to get a feel for the real debate that has been and is still going on in quantum physics between the scientists. You will understand why our current theory of QM, while brilliantly predictive, is a bit of a "hack". You will also see that the real "magic" is "spooky action at a distance". The book is devoted to discussing the attempts to remove this "magic" (hidden variable theories) as well as the non-locality limits that must be placed on such theories because of Bell's Theorem.

While the book is mathematically sound ("this is not a pop album"), there is a path for pedestrians. To be honest, most pages have no mathematics at all, but only experienced mechanics will follow the maths.

The introduction by Jean Bricmont is well worth the investment alone. You can read this introduction on-line at Google Books (just scroll to the top).
 
6a74197af42c656ee59bb88297b0d2c9.jpg
 
Slightly OT (or at least orthogonal to it), as a general introduction to the art of critical thinking, I've always been a fan of Gause and Weinberg's Are Your Lights On?

It's the sort of book department heads often dump on their employees, thinking it will magically make them all expert problem solvers through osmosis. (I should know: In the early 1990s, I bought copies by the case, foisting them upon the technicians I managed.) However, if you're not reading it because you have to, it can be an informative and entertaining introduction to problem solving. (And, after all, isn't that what debunking is -- orthogonally speaking, at least?)
 
I have this fun book my friend gave me called "gods of the new millenium" by Alan Alford.

Takes the works of Zecharia Sitchin and completely runs wild with them
My friend let me keep this copy as he has a newer edition where there is a footnote where the Author admits he was talking complete garbage for most of the book.

but if you ever wanted "proof" that Adam lived for 93,000 years, there was a nuclear catastrophe in the Middle east in 2024BC, and how the Nazca lines were caused by human slaves rebelling hijacking a nibiru "God"'s flying machine.and defacing his artwork, then this is the book for you
 
The High Girders by John Prebble (1956)
921bd5a1a98a4eb66d1de55a505f0936.jpg

Its the definitive account of the building of the first Tay railway bridge, the disaster that befell it in 1879, and the subsequent inquiry. Works on many levels; the historical, the scientific and the social.

But for me the most interesting aspect is the detailed account of the accident investigation, and how the Victorian method of investigation of such incidents isn't all that different from those employed these days.
 
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good thread - interesting stuff

A book that I read (admittedly a while ago now) had a profound effect on my thinking regarding conspiracy theories, especially ones surrounding complex events.

It was called, The Last Days of Hitler - it was first published in 1947, and the author was Hugh Trevor Roper.

Hugh Trevor Roper was a British army intelligence officer, who was tasked by British intelligence to investigate the circumstances around Hitler's "death" immediately after the fall of Berlin.

Posters from the UK will probably know who Hugh Trevor Roper was - but for people unfamiliar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Trevor-Roper (respected historian, professor of modern history Oxford Don etc)

His conclusion - was that Hilter shot himself (together with Eva Braun) and the bodies were burnt in the garden of the Chancellery

he did somewhat blot his copy book later in life when he authenticated the fraudulent Hitler Diaries.

Anyway I read his updated edition - published in the mid 60's and I always remember the Forward - written by the author to explain the new edition of the book, with added material.

In it he explained how conspiracy theories (for there were lots around the 40/50/60's about the final fate of Hitler - it suited the Soviet agenda to create uncertainty) take hold.

In the immediate aftermath of any event, things are chaotic, people who witness the event(s) all have slightly differing views and recollections – but after time and piecing together all the material (and new material not initially available), investigating any seemingly contradictory statements etc a common narrative emerges, from chaos comes consensus - the fog gently lifts

Hugh Trevor Roper also made the killer point that in contrast to the Chaos to Consensus – with a Conspiracy, with people working to a script to get that initial consensus, i.e. everyone knowing what to say things will initially make sense, it will all fit together because that was the intent after all - but, in time it will slowly unravel

this always struck me as so powerful, so simple and so true - the very fact that there is confusion, the fact that people will have different versions of events is THE biggest damnation of the whole "conspiracy" meme

maybe the conclusion is CT's like staying in the fog - it saves them from seeing what is really out there
 
Although a literary work and much more than just this, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow is a very interesting take on all this world of conspiracy theory, paranoia. Not an easy read, but a must for people who are interested in how these processes work
 
Leifer said:
What books/authors have influenced you, or do you recommend ?
.......related to "debunking" or of the understanding of science, and related human tendencies - to believe ??
Click to expand...
Alice in Quantum
Great way to understand(?) QM using Alice in Wonderland as a vehicle...did I mention 'no math'?

The Arithmetic of Life
Shows the math behind interesting questions such as, "What are the odds of you being you?"

The Father of Spin
It's about Edward L. Bernays, the man who was the master of spin and how people are influenced by propaganda

Stranger in a Strange Land
Grok this, mother f*cker! 'nuff said.
 
I am reading Kathryn S. Olmstead, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

It is interesting to see how actual victims of government power (e.g., individuals caught up in McCarthy's investigations in the fifties) prepared the way for later conspiracy theorists.

Her chapter "Trust No One" takes the reader from Watergate through the nineties and offers interesting context to the current day.

Mick mentioned David Aaronovitch, Voodoo Histories in an earlier post. The chapter on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a great study of how a myth is formed, debunked, and persists.
 
Leifer said:
"Them: Adventures with Extremists" by Jon Ronson. Seems quite good, starts off with the author following David Icke on tour. Then Jew and homosexual hating Muslim extremists hell-bent on disrupting British gov't...

I'm trying to decipher what is the dirty truth in this book, vs. what is poetic embellishments of factual circumstance.
Click to expand...
I probably shouldn't do this, but I'm going to defend Icke and expose Ronson, whose writing and personality I really, really like.

Thing is, truth is truth, right? And I found something interesting while reading this excellent book.

Exhibit A: Ronson's account of David Icke's infamous appearance on Terry Wogan's chat show:

them icke wogan.jpg


Exhibit B: Actual interview as transcribed from the video footage:
actual icke interview.JPG

Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NapHiWsoFXI

Maybe that's not significant to some, but it was to me. To me, Ronson's clearly manipulated events to fit his narrative, and deviated substantially from what actually occurred.

Still, it really is an entertaining and enlightening book, and his perspective on the Bilderberg/Bohemian Grove stuff in comparison to Jim Tucker and Alex Jones is incredibly revealing of the CT mind.
 
Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion (although that's 'preaching to the converted', for me)

I find that the best approach in life is to be as generally knowledgeable as possible, so I do enjoy pop science books for their quick and easy delivery of interesting information, although you do have to be wary that they aren't very in depth a lot of the time and only give you an easily accessible version of anything. Some of those I have enjoyed...

Richard Feynman - The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (great man, everyone should read him)
In Search of Schrodinger's Cat - John Gribbin
Electric Universe - David Bodanis (this is a very recommended book)
The Scientist, the Madman, the Thief, and their Lightbulb - Keith Tutt. Great overview of the silliness of over-unity devices.

Lastly, for quick reference of great men and women over the millennia, try EUREKA! - Hazel Muir. Very handy.
 
If anyone hasn't read 'Spook' by Mary Roach, I highly recommend that they do. I gave away my copy years ago to spread the love, but it's an incredible look at some people's beliefs regarding the afterlife. The fact that it's hilarious is a bonus.
She wrote another book, 'Stiff,' years before that I enjoyed greatly in high school. It's about death, bodies, burial, all that stuff.
Bonus recommendation: 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and other lessons from the crematory' by Caitlyn Doughtery. She's equally hilarious, equally dark and has a spectacular web series called Ask a Mortician, if you're ever morbidly curious about anything.
 
d6d3598b4631c26487a9d8bc20f5ac43.jpg

External Quote:
Rotgut gin—cheap, widely available, and remarkably potent—was the overwhelming drug of choice among London's working poor in the early 1700s. Sold for pennies in taverns and squalid gin shops, on street corners and even in jails, gin was the original opiate of the masses, plunging England's capital into chaos and giving rise to the first modern drug scare. Craze is an engaging social history of gin and the men and women whose lives it touched: the poor who drank it, the distillers who made it, the members of Parliament who feared it, and the prime minister who relied on its tax revenues to line his pockets.
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Craze.html?id=IfgXAQAAMAAJ

Interesting bit of social history.
 
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