Reply To: What is Conspiracy Theory?


Latest News Forums Discussion Forum What is Conspiracy Theory? Reply To: What is Conspiracy Theory?

#52986
Clark
Guest

Some common CT terms:

Them / They – (never defined).
Official Story – (varies at need).
MSM – (varies at need).
Controlled Opposition – (varies at need).
Cognitive Dissonance – (selectively applied).
World View – (selectively applied).

Some common CT arguments:

You’re just defending the official story because:
* you’re scared of the implications,
* you’ve been immersed in their propaganda all your life,
* you can’t handle the cognitive dissonance,
* your entire world would collapse.

Some common CT argument tricks:

Quote mining:
* quotes abstracted from a talk or article,
* removal of context.

Cherry-picking:
* assembling experts from the small proportion of contrarians,
* assembling mined quotes.

“Just asking questions”.

“Gish Galloping”: reeling off a load of facts, factoids or “zombie facts” (ie. continually resurrected fallacies) as if they had bearing upon an unrelated point – related to “changing the subject”.

Superficial plausibility: something that sounds true, though the reality is more complex.

Appeal to authority: chosen from assembled contrarian experts.