Skeptic Project

By Muertos

Originally posted on Muertos's blog (link)

I've blogged several times before about the Zeitgeist Movement.  This bizarre organization, based almost exclusively on the Internet and spawned from the <em style="font-style: italic;">Zeitgeist series of Internet films, is primarily aimed at spreading conspiracy theories, but another objective of the movement is to implement a total top-down reordering of society along the lines of a neo-utopian vision called the Venus Project.  In this blog I'm not going to take on the conspiracy aspects of the Zeitgeist Movement, because I think I've covered that topic well already.  Instead, I'm going to discuss their utopian ideology, a subject which hasn't interested me much in the past; however, a book I read recently did a fantastic job of articulating and fleshing out the doubts I always had about the Zeitgeisters' ambitious plans for humanity's future.  Therefore, in this blog I intend to explain why the Zeitgeist Movement/Venus Project's utopian vision for the future of humanity is, at best, doomed never to get off the ground, and at worst is a recipe for a catastrophe that could potentially claim millions of lives.

First, the basic background.  In the 1970s Jacque Fresco, who bills himself as an "industrial designer," came up with what he thought was a great idea for human progress: let's all live in specially-designed circular cities and put computers in charge of the world to distribute resources according to the scientific method.  Since the seventies, and particularly since Fresco fell in with <em style="font-style: italic;">Zeitgeist director and conspiracy theorist Peter Joseph Merola, Fresco and his followers have championed what they call a "resource-based economy" (RBE).  We'll all be happier, say Merola and Fresco, abolishing our horrible "money system" and living in an RBE.  All needs will be met, all wants pacified, and all desires fulfilled--by robots and computers.  It's difficult to find a group of utopians with bigger <em style="font-style: italic;">cajones than the Zeitgeist Movement.

In 1998 James C. Scott, a professor who specializes in agrarian studies with a sociological bent, published a ground-breaking book called <em style="font-style: italic;">Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.  (You can find it on Amazon here).  This book, which commanded a great deal of attention from sociologists, agriculturalists, and historians, examines a few of the great social engineering disasters of the 20th century, including Stalin's forced collectivization in Russia in the 1930s and the Quixotic plan of a dictator in Tanzania in the 1970s to relocate most of his population to efficient, government-run farm villages.  In <em style="font-style: italic;">Seeing Like a State, Scott analyzes the causes of these failures, which are naturally complex but they can be boiled down to a few common elements.  The most important element is what Scott refers to as "high modernist ideology," which he defines thusly:

"[High modernism] is best conceived as a strong, one might even say muscle-bound, version of the self-confidence about scientific and technical progress, the expansion of production, the growing satisfaction of human needs, the mastery of nature (including human nature), and, above all, the rational design of social order commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws.  It originated, of course, in the West, as a by-product of unprecedented progress in science and technology."

This definition describes the Zeitgeist Movement/Venus Project perfectly.  The departure point of Zeitgeisters' belief system--aside from conspiracy theories, of course--is the assumption that all the material needs of the world's people can be provided at our current level of technology, if only we change our social and economic system to allow it.  Zeitgeisters embody Scott's definition of high modernist ideology in several interesting ways.  First, there is the blind and virtually unquestioning acceptance of the concept of superabundance, which Zeitgeisters believe is technologically created.  Second, Zeitgeisters' ideology explicitly refers to the "scientific method," which they say is the bedrock of how their system will organize the world.  Thirdly, they insist that human nature is mutable and will be subordinated to ideology in an RBE order.  Finally, their visions--lavishly illustrated in artist's depictions of circular cities and YouTube videos--unabashedly wallow in technological and aesthetic fetishism.  Any one of their designs could have been torn from a sketchbook from the 1930s film <em style="font-style: italic;">Things To Come, depicting a utopian future world where denizens of an automated city are pampered by ubiquitous machinery.

Scott's analysis, however, does not bode well for high modernist projects.  The thesis of <em style="font-style: italic;">Seeing Like a State is that high modernist ideology ignores the complexity, expansiveness, and functional chaos of systems and social structures that develop organically--such as our "money system" that Zeitgeisters want to abolish.  In simpler terms, high modernist projects are doomed to fail because they are profoundly naïve about human behavior, institutions and culture.  High modernists simply assume that people and their behaviors can be neatly crammed into well-ordered boxes that will operate efficiently.  Their contempt for the idea of human nature is a by-product of this myopia.  History shows, however, that these types of projects <em style="font-style: italic;">always fail.  When a high modernist project is undertaken by an authoritarian state, such as the Soviet Union under Stalin, the zeal to achieve unrealistic goals combined with the state's increasing efforts to streamline the process often results in death and suffering on a colossal scale.

Let's take an example, one that doesn't involve mass murder: the city of Brasília.  In the 1950s, the government of Brazil was eager to forge a totally new capital city, one that would be functional, efficient, beautiful and above all ultra-modern.  The government cleared a tract of jungle in the interior and went right to work, utilizing the best city planners who envisioned broad open squares, spacious apartment buildings, and easy access of the city's residents (mostly government bureaucrats) to places of work as well as cultural facilities.  When it opened in 1960, Brasília was the most modern and remarkable city on the globe.

Sounds great, right?  Well, not so much.  In fact Brasília was a dismal failure.  No one congregates in the broad open squares because there's nothing to do there--no shops, no places of social interaction, no <em style="font-style: italic;">reason to go there other than to <em style="font-style: italic;">be there.  Everyone hates the apartment buildings because they're bland, blocky and utterly devoid of any sort of character.  Traffic is a nightmare because the streets are all highways designed for a single purpose: to take people from their homes to workplaces.  There are no side streets, no neighborhoods, none of the character of an urban city.  As a result, Brasília's residents are frustrated and depressed, and the place has the reputation of being bleak and oppressive, like Batman's Gotham City if it were designed by Ayn Rand's fictional architect Howard Roarke.  High modernist planning certainly failed the people of Brasília.

Another and more sinister example: Stalin's forced collectivization.  In the late 1920s, Stalin wanted to modernize the Soviet Union and streamline its process of agricultural production, thus ending Russia's age-old problems of feeding itself.  (He also wanted to crush the peasant class, but that's beside the point).  His high modernism was administrative in nature, involving lumping all the peasants in a village together in one commune with specific production quotas.  The project was a disaster on a virtually genocidal scale.  Millions of people starved to death between 1929 and 1934, and when Stalin's quotas weren't met, brutal repression and crackdown were the result.  The Soviet state was ideologically incapable of recognizing that its high modernist ideology simply couldn't replace the culture, micro-economies and behavior patterns of Russian peasants.  In a conflict between those peasants and ideology, the peasants paid the price.  The soil of Russia today is littered with their bones.

What does this all have to do with the Zeitgeist Movement?  Just this: <em style="font-style: italic;">Zeitgeist wants the entire human race to adopt a high modernist ideology regarding the production and distribution of resources. Peter Merola's and Jacque Fresco's plans for the future are far grander than Brasília or even the collectivization of Stalin's peasant masses.  Zeitgeisters demand nothing less than radical transformation of the <em style="font-style: italic;">entire earth.  Not that this goal will ever come even remotely within their reach, but Scott's book very clearly explains why the goal itself is naïve, misguided and ultimately dangerous.  It's the ultimate pinnacle of high modernist folly, and would invariably collapse into a disaster so bloody and chaotic that it would make Stalin's forced collectivization look benign by comparison.

Scott explains how high modernist projects almost invariably tempt authoritarian measures in their implementation:

"First and foremost, high modernism implies a truly radical break with history and tradition....All human habits and practices that were inherited and hence not based on scientific reasoning--from the structure of the family and patterns of residence to moral values and forms of production--would have to be reexamined and redesigned...

The sources of this view are deeply authoritarian. If a planned social order is better than the accidental, irrational deposit of historical practice, two conclusions follow. Only those who have the scientific knowledge to discern and create this superior social order are fit to rule in the new age. Further, those who through retrograde ignorance refuse to yield to the new scientific plan need to be educated to its benefits or else swept aside."

If the Zeitgeisters ever got their way, this would be the inevitable result.  The change they envision for society is so massive, so sweeping and so total that the only way it could ever be implemented would be by force--probably by the force of a large authoritarian government or perhaps multi-national coalition.  To be fair, Zeitgeisters do not now advocate the use of force to achieve their Resource Based Economy, at least so far as I know.  Also, do not misunderstand me as stating that I think Zeitgeisters <em style="font-style: italic;">intend a bloody result to their designs; clearly they don't.  However, it's plain that the temptation to use force to achieve their goals lies on the other side of the inevitable realization that a Resource Based Economy isn't going to happen by itself and that it's not likely to be adopted voluntarily by significant sectors of the world's population.  As in Stalin's Russia, the ideology will inevitably be valued over the people who resist it, whether they resist willingly or by accident.  Zeitgeisters already operate with disturbing ease in the realm of "ends justify the means" arguments--just ask one why it's justifiable to push demonstrably false conspiracy theories in the service of talking up a Resource Based Economy and you will experience this phenomenon.

Even without the addition of an authoritarian implementation, the Zeitgeisters' RBE model is a recipe for mass suffering.  High modernist projects that attempt to tinker with peoples' basic means of food and sustenance are particularly dangerous, because even slight mistakes in the ideological model of distribution usually translate into starving bellies somewhere.  One can easily imagine the RBE model failing to supply food and necessities because the high modernists who thought it up have done so without regard to the way our organic and chaotic system of resource management--imperfect as it clearly is--actually works on the ground.  Zeitgeisters would be reluctant to undermine their own ideology by allowing the old "money system" economics to backstop their bold plans for fear that people would come to rely on the backstopping and that ultimately nothing would change.  Here again the temptation to ignore or rationalize mass suffering to avoid admitting ideological failure is probably irresistible.  Even without any nefarious designs, therefore, the Zeitgeist program for a better world is ominous.

High modernist projects fail because they fundamentally devalue organically-created social structures, and they invariably victimize people because this process of devaluation is, in itself, profoundly dehumanizing.  In high modernist schemes the residents of Brasília, the peasants of 1930s Russia or the farmers of Tanzania are reduced to nothing more than interchangeable cogs in a gigantic machine, designed by people who profess to know better and who demand compliance with their better way.  This is the essence of the Zeitgeist Movement's social vision for the future.  The pretty pictures of circular cities and neatly-trimmed parks and gardens look great in YouTube videos, but they do not show the profound suffering and staggering human cost that adopting such a lifestyle would necessarily entail.  They don't show those things because Zeitgeisters are fundamentally incapable of conceiving that their ideology <em style="font-style: italic;">could have that effect.  They're as blind as the overzealous architects, city planners and Soviet revolutionaries described in <em style="font-style: italic;">Seeing Like a State.  Given the colossal scale of Zeitgeist's designs, their dangerous naïvete far outstrips any of those examples.

Fortunately, in the real world we don't have to worry about Zeitgeisters implementing their designs, because they'll never get anywhere close to achieving them.  Zeitgeist is a fringe movement existing mostly on the Internet.  Oddly, its internal cohesion seems to owe more to its reliance on conspiracy theories than on any conscious unification behind the RBE concept (despite what many of its followers say to the contrary).  Not a single economist, sociologist or government official, to my knowledge, has associated him or herself with the Zeitgeist Movement.  The leader of the movement, Peter Joseph Merola, holds no position of power and isn't likely to in the future.  But it's worth thinking about why the Zeitgeist Movement's defective ideology, and other schemes like it that will invariably be proposed in the future, hold attraction for some people.  High modernist plans have been with us for a long time and will probably continue to be implemented in the future--and they will fail as spectacularly, and often as bloodily, as the past schemes detailed in <em style="font-style: italic;">Seeing Like a State.  What we can learn from these failures, and from Scott's book, is how to recognize these projects when some future politician, revolutionary or industrial designer proposes them and demands we follow them.  Analyzing the failure of such past schemes arms us with invaluable knowledge on how to resist future ones.  In that sense, <em style="font-style: italic;">Seeing Like a State is a very important book, and one that deserves to be read by anyone who, like the Zeitgeisters, dreams of a bold new future for humanity.  They may learn that the infinitesimal chances of success of such bold futures often come at an appalling and tragic human cost.

After nine years of "investigating", speculation and internet gossip, the 9/11 truth movement has yet to present a scintilla of evidence to support the various "theories" they have invented. Their failure could be explained by the fact that muslim extremists conspired to commit the acts on 9/11, or from the absence of good investigating. I'm not arguing that one could dig up evidence of thermite if they just looked harder, but that if you grant certain premises and claims promoted by the truth movement, you would expect the researchers involved to do some kind of follow up. This essay outlines the kinds of research you would expect to hear about if there were good researchers in the 9/11 truth movement.

To start, let's grant the 9/11 Truth community that the nanothermite article written by Steven Jones is sound science. After the research had been completed you would expect the scientists involved  to submit their paper to a reputable scientific journal, and to have an independent lab attempt to replicate their findings. Since this is not what the scientists of the nanothermite paper have done, we need to ask ourselves why they have not done this. The most important piece of evidence for their case, the smoking gun that would be great interest to the scientific and historical communities is submitted to a random pay to enter journal in south korea for $800 with no further follow ups.
Second, I'll grant the 9/11 truth community that the 9/11 hijackers are still alive somewhere in the Middle East. It is a well known fact that Richard Gage and David Ray Griffin travel around the world promoting their books and dvds about their 9/11 conspiracy theories. With this in mind, why haven't either of them interviewed one of the living hijackers? Surely this would be damning evidence of a cover up. It is also striking that none of the 9/11 conspiracy researchers have even interviewed any of these living hijackers over the phone.

Third, I'll grant the 9/11 truth community that the architects and engineers for 9/11 truth have great arguments and calculations done to support their controlled demolition theory. You would expect some of them to get together and write an engineering paper to send to a reputable scientific journal. Again, why haven't they done this? What exactly are they waiting for? It's clear that the list of members for AE for 911 truth is nothing more than a conspiracy theory fan club. In a ten year time span, one could find 1000 credulous people in any field to believe just about anything. We musn't forget that even smart people can believe really stupid things.

To conclude this article I would like to knock down a few conspiracy claims one last time. Since these have been covered extensively by skeptics such as Mark Roberts, the JREF forum and other debunking websites, they will be very quick responses.

Controlled Demolition Theory (with bombs): There is no evidence of flying glass, loud explosions that would have been picked up by the three seismograph stations in NYC, accounts of deafening or blast lung, nothing noticed by the thousands of forensic investigators who looked at the steel, no demolition wires or wireless devices found and no video/audio evidence of loud explosions that would have been heard from a mile away. There were also bomb sniffing dogs that were brought in during clean up. Not one detected any bombs. Since we don't see any of these tell-tale signs we can conclude there were no bombs in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Controlled Demolition Theory (Thermite): Thermite has never been used to demolish a building, and would not even work.(1) There is no plausible way to rig up the building to have the thermite burn up at the same time. Thermite cuts gravitationally so if you put it around the columns it would just burn through the floor. The chemical signatures of the dust samples studied by Steven Jones match the primer paint of the columns and do not have the right ignition temperatures as thermite(off by 400 degrees). We can conclude that the red grey chips found are not thermite and are probably primer paint chips. Lastly, none of the forensic investigators reported any kind of thermitic effects on the steel, and none of the bomb sniffing dogs trained to sniff out incendaries (thermite) detected any. (2) There are many other logical problems with the Controlled Demolition theory. How would they rig the building with thermite without any of the security guards, building inspectors, contruction managers finding out? If the security of the WTC buildings let them in, why did some of them die in the building?(surely they would know to leave) And why blow up the towers, putting the conspirators at a huge risk for exposure?

Iron Microspheres: Iron mircospheres could have formed from columns bending or the heating of the columns. These can easily account for the so-called "mysterious" iron microspheres which the other investigations into the dust addressed back in 2003. This is another example of anomaly hunting that conspiracy theorists engage in.
No Planer Theory: The planes could have easily reached the recorded speeds because they came in on a 20,000 foot dive. A perfect example demonstrating this is Egypt Air Flight 990 which reached speeds over 600 MPH before crashing. (3) All of the video evidence, eyewitness testimony and physical evidence of the plane itself show that there were planes that crashed into the WTC buildings.

Reccomended sites and papers that debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories:
http://www.nmsr.org/nmsr911.htm
911myths.com
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/home Mark Robert's website
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/Mackey_drg_nist_review_2_1.pdf&nbsp;  Ryan Mackey's White Paper that refutes David Ray Griffin's arguments.
http://sites.google.com/site/911guide/
JREF Forum
Sources:
1)http://nmskeptic.blogspot.com/2010/03/video-jesse-ventura-doesnt-want-world.html
2)http://ronmossad.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-word-on-niels-harrit-nanothermite.html
3)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990

By Muertos (muertos@gmail.com)

If there's one perennial truth in the world of conspiracy theories, it's this: nothing's ever new.  If you spend even a small amount of time pushing back against conspiracy theories, especially on the Internet, you'll notice very quickly that conspiracy theorists often respond to you with very similar arguments, and they usually make these arguments sound like they're making them for the first time.  Conspiracy theorists often have misconceptions--both innocent and sometimes deliberate--about people who don't share their belief systems, and especially about those who actively refute them.  The purpose of this blog is to expose the reader (whether he or she is a conspiracy theorist or not) to the most popular of these misconceptions, and to address them one by one.

As I said on a previous blog that also used this "top 10 arguments" format, at CS.com we don't stifle debate--in fact we like it.  However, because so much of dialogue with conspiracy theorists involves hearing and responding to points that have been made ad infinitum previously, often for years on end, there is some value in consolidating some of conspiracy theorists' top misconceptions about debunkers.  This blog is aimed primarily at people who may be fairly new to the world of conspiracy theories, or those who've begun to dip a toe into the waters of critical thinking and argument and want to have some pithy comebacks when a conspiracy theorist throws one of these shopworn clichés at you.  If that describes you, dig in!

The arguments that will be dealt with in this blog are the following:

1.  "You don't believe in Conspiracy Theory X, Y or Z?  You must love/support/never question the government, then!"

2.  "You don't believe in conspiracy theories because you've been conditioned to trust the mainstream media."

3.  "Debunkers simply ignore the evidence."

4.  "Debunkers are biased." and related "Debunkers are arrogant, always convinced they're right."

5.  "Debunkers ignore the fact that some conspiracy theories turn out to be true."

6.  "You believe everything is a coincidence!"  and related "If I'm a conspiracy theorist, you must be a coincidence theorist!"

7.  "So, you don't believe there is corruption in government/business/the world?"

8.  "I'm not a conspiracy theorist!  You are a conspiracy theorist!"

9.  "You don't believe in conspiracy theories because you've been brainwashed by vaccines/fluoridated water/RFID chips."

10.  "You debunk conspiracies because you're a paid disinformation agent."

Taking each one of these misconceptions in turn:

1.  "You don't believe in Conspiracy Theory X, Y or Z?  You must love/support/never question the government, then!"

This is without a doubt the number one misconception that conspiracy theorists harbor about debunkers, and it's one of their favorite comebacks.  Nearly every conspiracy theorist I've ever talked to has deployed this argument in one form or another.  9/11 Truthers particularly love it, since most of them believe at least one government (usually the U.S.'s, but sometimes Israel's) is responsible for the attacks, and anyone who defends what conspiracy theorists call the "official story" is automatically tarred as a mouthpiece for that evil, corrupt government.

The argument is invalid because it establishes a binary choice.  Either you believe the conspiracy theory 100%, or you believe the government 100%.  There is no in-between.  In the mind of a conspiracy theorist, it's not possible to question or oppose the government and also deny the validity of conspiracy theories accusing that government of wrongdoing; you're either enlightened or you're a shill.  I find this phenomenon interesting because it illustrates the shallowness of conspiracist thinking and also, in a subtle way, the attraction conspiracy theories have for their followers.  Conspiracy theorists like these theories because they separate a complicated world into black and white, good and evil, wrongdoers and the enlightened warriors.  Consequently, if you aren't willing to stand up and be counted with the enlightened warriors, you may as well cross over to the dark side.  There is no gray area.

The argument also illustrates a clear presupposition of the conspiracist crowd: that the government controls and dominates the information structure, and that the government is the ultimate source of all "official stories" used to explain events that conspiracy theorists question.  This is also a binary choice, dividing the information out there into two diametrically opposed camps, the "official story" and "the truth," again brooking no possibility of information falling into any other category.  Reality is that the government, at least in the western world, really doesn't dominate the information structure, and government is rarely the ultimate source of what happened on a given event.  It simply doesn't occur to conspiracy theorists that facts proving how a particular event, such as 9/11, actually happened can be ascertained from non-governmental, non-"official" sources.

On 9/11, for instance, the government was not the source of the facts we know about that day.  Thousands of people saw with their own eyes the planes strike the towers.  Media outlets from all over the world--including the non-western world--extensively documented what happened.  I remember on 9/11 telephone exchanges and web servers crashed repeatedly because so many people were talking about what happened.  The details that emerged about what happened, especially the identity of the terrorists and their Al-Qaeda affiliations, were in most cases initially reported by non-governmental sources, and in all cases were subsequently verified by media reporting unconnected to governmental investigations.  (For example, 9/11 Truthers routinely ignore the fact that Al-Jazeera, the largest news network in the Islamic world, investigated 9/11 extensively, even going so far as to interview the planners and perpetrators on a documentary program--there's no way the U.S. government could have had any involvement with this).  Yet, to be asked the question, "Well, you must never question the government, then, do you?" means that conspiracists view an event like 9/11 as having been essentially inexplicable at the moment of its occurrence, and then a sole and unified voice of authority pronounced from on high what the expected interpretation was to be.  In reality that's not how it happened.

Debunkers question governmental actions all the time.  Personally I believe the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake.  I believe the PATRIOT Act should be repealed.  I believe there's a case for charging George W. Bush with war crimes.  Those are my personal beliefs.  Yet I am a noted and vociferous critic of 9/11 conspiracy theories.  I'm not atypical either.  One of the best debunkers in America, Vincent Bugliosi, who wrote the all-time best book on the Kennedy assassination which demolishes all the conspiracy theories, went so far as to write a book stating his view that George W. Bush is guilty of murder as a result of the Iraq War.  So to claim that "debunkers always love the government" or "debunkers never question the government" is absurd and insulting.

2.  "You don't believe in conspiracy theories because you've been conditioned to trust the mainstream media."

This is a species of what I call the Sheeple Argument.  Conspiracy theorists typically have a great deal of contempt for society at large, and assume that most people are complacent zombies with no more intellectual capacity than sheep being led to an abattoir, hence the derisive term "sheeple."  The "brainwashed by mainstream media" trope is similar to the "you always trust the government" line, but goes a step further by asserting obliquely that major media outlets such as cable news channels, wire services and newspapers are also controlled by the government or the powers that be, and are little more than uncritical loudspeakers carpet-bombing the public with official pronouncements that obscure "what really happened."

This Sheeple Argument assumes many forms.  I had a conspiracy theorist tell me that I'm incapable of believing anything I didn't see on CNN, despite the fact that I don't even watch CNN; I had another one predict that I would eventually sign on to 9/11 Truth when the conspiracy theory was presented to me "by someone you trust."  A perennial favorite is when conspiracy theorists cite statistics like the number of people who vote for American Idol celebrities versus those who profess to care about national or international issues.  (This assumes that someone who cares about international issues can't also watch American Idol).

Like argument #1, the departure point for this belief is the assumption that people are incapable of ascertaining facts, of filtering good information from bad, or from distinguishing credible sources from non-credible ones.  Both of these arguments have at the core of their reasoning the certainty that it is the identity of the speaker as opposed to the content of the message that is determinative of peoples' beliefs.  I seriously doubt this is even close to being as true as conspiracy theorists believe it is.  Why, after all, do some people watch Fox News?  Is it because they trust Glenn Beck so completely--or could it be because they like the content of what Glenn Beck says, and thus expect him to frequently make statements that they like and agree with?  What would happen if Glenn Beck read one of Rachel Maddow's scripts on his show by mistake?  There would be a lot of complaints.  To hear conspiracy theorists tell it, if Glenn Beck says something, anything, his fans believe it unquestioningly.  I can't see Fox News viewers believing Rachel Maddow talking points simply because Glenn Beck says them (or vice-versa).

The "brainwashed by mainstream media" line is also at once a sour-grapes argument, and a breathtaking hypocrisy.  It's sour-grapes because conspiracy theorists, frustrated at being unable to get respectable large-audience media outlets to endorse nuttery like 9/11 Truth, NWO, ancient astronaut or Apollo moon hoax claims, lash out and deride those media outlets as tainted and untrustworthy, thus elevating fringe media like Alex Jones or Nexus Magazine to higher status.  It's hypocritical too because conspiracy theorists will seize upon any mainstream media report that they think supports their claims, and that particular media report will be treated as an unimpeachable "smoking gun."  A famous example is the brain-crushingly stupid claim that the 9/11 hijackers are still alive (we did an article on this subject), where Exhibit A for the Truthers is invariably a BBC news article reporting on mistaken identities in the early days of the 9/11 investigations.  For some reason, that BBC article is gospel truth, but yet BBC as a whole is "mainstream media" whose untrustworthy reporting is part and parcel of brainwashing the sheeple against conspiracy theories.

3.  "Debunkers simply ignore the evidence."

This argument is deployed in response to a debunker who brushes off any or all of the usually voluminous links to YouTube videos, quote mines, and links to stories on Prison Planet, Infowars or Above Top Secret in support of their conspiracy claims.  Further dismissal of such "evidence" will often elicit a sad shake of the head and a statement like, "There are none so blind as those who will not see," or some other cliché that attempts to paint the debunker as an arbitrary rejecter shooting from the hip to attack ideas he doesn't like.

What conspiracy theorists fail to recognize, however, is that, with extremely rare exceptions, there's nothing new under the sun.  Conspiracy theorists constantly rehash, re-package and re-broadcast the same old tired theories, often genuinely unaware of how old and tired they are.  9/11 theories are especially threadbare.  Almost all of the main conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 involve some sort of "controlled demolition" claim, which has been widely circulating at least since Thierry Meyssan's 2002 book 9-11: The Big Lie, and most likely before.  All of the usual bits of "evidence" pointing to a 9/11 conspiracy--squibs, Pentagon wreckage, free-fall claims, hijackers-still-alive, Willy Rodriguez, the "pull it" quote, etc.--were well-established gag lines in the 9/11 Truth movement no later than 2003.  Indeed, the only significant 9/11 theory that I'm aware of that's newer than 2005 is Dr. Judy Wood's ludicrous assertion that Star Trek-style beam weapons blew up the World Trade Center towers.  It's all been done, and it's all been debunked.  Repeatedly.

Of what utility is it, then, that Jesse Ventura gave an interview last week where he speculates (again) that 9/11 was a "controlled demolition?"  He's not presenting anything new.  Is a YouTube clip of Alex Jones warning, on last night's show, that we're all going to be herded into FEMA camps soon anything new?  He's been making that same claim for years.  Am I ignoring "evidence" by not watching the latest David Icke video?  I already know what David Icke has to say.  It's as crazy in 2010 as it was in 1991.  Nothing new under the sun.

Yet, to conspiracy theorists, every new video, every new Alex Jones film, every new Infowars story is freshly-minted "proof" of a conspiracy, even though it's just a new take on a very old theory.  Many conspiracy theorists we deal with on CS.com are quite young and have only recently fallen into the paranoid fold.  They probably don't even know who Thierry Meyssan is, or that Erich von Däniken has been pushing his ancient astronaut crap since at least 1968.  These days you can even run into Truthers who have never seen Loose Change because it was before their time.  So when someone today repeats the claim made in Loose Change that 9/11 was done to steal gold underneath the Twin Towers, a lot of conspiracy theorists think this is genuinely new.  They vomit up this "new" evidence to debunkers, and are puzzled why the brush-off is so quick.

In addition to this myopia, conspiracy theorists are prone to a technique called "slamming."  That is, they post vast multitudes of links, usually to YouTube videos, in rows as endlessly inexorable as the legions of battle droids in a Star Wars film, and insist that if you, the debunker, don't refute every single point made in every single one of those videos, you are "ignoring the evidence."  It's a Sisyphian game if you do manage to refute every point, because then the conspiracy theorist will say, "Oh yeah?  What about these?" and then slam you again with a huge spate of links.  This moving-the-goalpost behavior is very common among conspiracy theorists, but unfortunately they take debunkers' unwillingness to sit through the same YouTube video for the 67th time this week, electing instead to go spend time with their kids, as "proof" that the debunker can't refute the claims made in it.  Thus, some especially tiresome tidbits achieve the cachet, in conspiracy circles, of being "undebunkable."

This argument, like the last one, is also ironic.  I have never seen a 9/11 Truther comprehensively refute the NIST Report, for instance.  Usually it's a hit-and-run job like "Oh, well, the NIST is part of the government, so you can't trust it," or "we already know that jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel."  So the slamming technique is ultimately hypocritical--as is argument #3.

4.  "Debunkers are biased." and related "Debunkers are arrogant, always convinced they're right."

The "bias" argument is fairly common, and is one usually leveled at websites such as this or other written pieces that (conspiracy theorists think) are somehow analogous to news sources.  The argument goes that debunkers can't see the truth because they're blinded by "bias" against conspiracy theories, and that even if evidence is presented to show a particular conspiracy theory is true, they wouldn't be able to see it because of this bias.

This argument toes the line between source/credibility arguments and what I call the epistemological objections to debunking, which quickly veer off into philosophical tangents like, "What do we really know?" and "How can we really know a particular fact is true?"  Conspiracy theorists who use the bias argument start from what seems at first like a rational departure point, that everything, even conspiracy theories, must stand or fall on the strength of the evidence available to support it, and that evidence should be considered afresh in all cases.  However, once you accept this rational view, the conspiracy theorist almost always starts slamming you with the same YouTube, Prison Planet, Infowars and Above Top Secret links that we saw in argument #3 and claiming that these things are evidence--and you're right back to the "Well, how do you know Alex Jones is wrong?" discussion.

Facts have no bias.  The facts of what happened on 9/11 do not care whether they point to Osama bin Laden, or to George W. Bush, or to Britney Spears.  The facts of the Kennedy assassination do not care whether they finger Lee Harvey Oswald, Lyndon Johnson or the Beatles.  If the facts indicated that 9/11 really was an "inside job," as strongly as the facts in real life indicate that it was not, then the conclusion that 9/11 was an "inside job" would be every bit as inescapable as the conclusion that Osama did it is in the real world.  If George W. Bush really did do 9/11, the facts would indicate that, and anyone who claimed that Osama bin Laden was really behind it would be a conspiracy theorist.  But they don't.  The facts demonstrate Osama did it.  Don't blame the facts if they lead to a conclusion you don't like.

Not all purported facts are equal, either.  Many are misconceptions, distortions, mistakes, or outright lies.  You may have heard that 4,000 Jews were warned to stay home on 9/11.  That is not a fact; it is a lie.  How do we know it's a lie?  Because there's no evidence to support it, and there is a great deal of credible evidence to contradict it.  Yet, lurking under the surface of the "you're biased!" argument is a tacit assumption by the conspiracy theorist that if you don't treat false claims and innuendo the same way as you do verifiable facts, you're somehow being unfair.  Bias doesn't work that way.  It never has, but this is something most conspiracy theorists have a particular difficulty understanding.

The "debunkers are arrogant" argument is not much different.  If you present a fact and can legitimately back it up, it is not arrogant to assert the truth of this fact and deny that conflicting claims are factual.  I use the George Washington example.  I know that George Washington was the first President of the United States.  If asked to, I can prove that fact is true.  If there is some poor sap out there who believes for whatever reason that Calvin Coolidge was the first President of the United States, my insistence that he is wrong is not me being unfair to him.  It's asserting what is true and what is false.  This isn't arrogance.  It's reality!

5.  "Debunkers ignore the fact that some conspiracy theories turn out to be true."

I love this one.  Ask, "Oh yeah?  Which ones?" and I can virtually guarantee that the list rattled off by the conspiracy theorist will contain (a) the Reichstag fire; (b) Operation Northwoods; and (c) MKULTRA.

This answer looks unimpeachable at first glance.  However, first impressions can be deceiving.  These aren't conspiracy theories--nor are the others the conspiracy theorist is likely to mention, such as Iran-Contra, Enron, Watergate, COINTELPRO, the 1953 Iranian coup, or the ouster of Allende in Chile in the 1970s.

Conspiracy theorists almost always conflate and confuse real examples of government or corporate secrecy or wrongdoing with perceived examples.  They ignore the differences, which are important.  To them, the fact that anybody, anywhere in government suggested or successfully took a covert or illegal action makes it more likely that someone must have in some other case--even if the transgression in the past is proven, and the one the conspiracy theorist believes happened is not.  There's also a difference in scale and result.  If the CIA did something that was dishonest 50 years ago that was comparatively minor in scope and didn't result in any deaths or crimes being committed, a conspiracy theorist will use the small long-ago transgression to "demonstrate" that it's likely the CIA would be willing to commit murder or criminal activity on a vast scale.

Let's take an example.  Conspiracy theorists love Operation Northwoods.  This was a plan proposed by some military brass in a 1962 document which would have had the CIA fake terrorist incidents and blame them on Cuban forces, thus building public support for U.S. military action against Cuba.  President John F. Kennedy rejected the plan out of hand and the officer who suggested it was later relieved of his command.  The document was not declassified until 1998.

Why is this not a conspiracy theory?  Well, first off, it was rejected; it never got off the ground.  Second, it was not even known about until the 1990s.  It's not like some conspiracy theorists were sitting around in 1962, batting scenarios around and someone said, "Hmm, you know, I bet the CIA is planning to stage false-flag attacks against the U.S. to justify an invasion of Cuba!" and then magically, 36 years later, a document drops out of the sky that proves this speculation was correct all along.  The real conspiracy (to do what?  Type up a memo and give it to the President?) was over and done with in 1962 and was a dead issue long before conspiracy theorists ever found out about it.  What it "proves" about conspiracy theories is exactly nothing.

Similarly, the other trope conspiracy theorists love to use, the Reichstag fire, wasn't even a conspiracy, much less a conspiracy theory.  In February 1933 the Reichstag was set ablaze by Marinus van der Lubbe in an act of arson.  It was not a false flag operation, and there is considerable evidence that van der Lubbe acted alone.  The Nazi Party made hay out of the incident while they were trying to gain power in Germany, but that does not mean they did it.  This not an example of a "conspiracy theory that came true."  It's not even relevant to conspiracy theories.  But for some bizarre reason conspiracy theorists trot it out on cue every time argument #5 makes an appearance.

Real-life conspiracies are much different than the fantasy plots that conspiracy theorists imagine exist.  Iran-Contra, Enron, Watergate and the others were all very small plots with very few participants; in all cases there were whistleblowers, in none of those cases were any lives lost, and none of these conspiracies were even suspected before there was ample evidence to support their existence.  In Watergate, for example, investigators knew there was a White House connection the very first night the Watergate burglars were arrested.  Similarly, there were no conspiracy theories floating around about secret government mind control experiments before MKULTRA was revealed, at least none that I'm aware of.  Real conspiracies always leave convincing and unmistakable evidence in their wake.  Conspiracy theories are unsupported by evidence.

I am not aware of any conspiracy theory that was postulated first without evidence and then later "turned out to be true."  That's not how conspiracies work in the real world.  Conspiracy theorists haven't learned this yet.

6.  "You believe everything is a coincidence!" and related "If I'm a conspiracy theorist, you must be a coincidence theorist!"

Dwelling as they do in a binary world of black-and-white extremes, conspiracy theorists believe that the polar opposite of devious design is innocent coincidence.  Thus, if you don't believe in conspiracy theories, you must believe in coincidences.

The simple answer is: yes, we do.  However, that's not the end of the story.  Conspiracy theorists don't understand how coincidences really work, so it's not surprising that they misuse the concept to try to prove that their detractors are gullible dupes who'll believe anything.

Let's say I'm a Wall Street day trader.  Today I get up and have a hunch that Acme Airlines is going to decline tomorrow.  I sell my 50,000 shares of Acme Airlines and pocket the money.  Tomorrow, an Acme Airlines jumbo jet crashes killing 300 people.  The investigation indicates massive negligence on behalf of the company, and Acme Airlines' stock becomes worthless.  The fact that I sold my stock the day before the crash is a coincidence.  To a conspiracy theorist, however, it's "evidence" that I must be behind the crash, because to them the chances are too wild that someone who stood to gain from Acme's misfortune would happen to pick that day to sell their stock.

However, what if I woke up yesterday and decided to sell shares of ABC Co. instead of Acme?  Acme would still have crashed without any help from me, and then I wouldn't have gained anything because my stock would have gone down the same as all other Acme shareholders.  No one would care about me, and I wouldn't be a "suspect" in conspiracy theorists' eyes.  Or, if I sold the stock but Acme didn't crash, for the same reason nobody would care.  The type of decision I made with respect to the Acme case--the decision to sell stock or stand pat--is something I do every day as a Wall Street trader, and it's not noteworthy or unusual at all.  It is only the unforseeable fluke of the Acme plane crash the next day that somehow transforms my unremarkable decision, the type of thing I would do every day if I was in that business, into a "wild coincidence" that seems so farfetched that there's no way it could have happened unless I had "foreknowledge" of the crash.

Let's take another example, also involving a plane crash.  Let's assume that the average odds of dying in a plane crash from any cause--pilot error, equipment malfunction, terrorist incident, bad weather, etc.--are 1 in 1,000,000.  That is, every time anyone steps on a plane anywhere in the world, their odds of not making it to their destination alive are 1 in 1,000,000.  (In reality the odds of dying in a plane crash are much smaller than that, because many millions of people travel by plane every week with comparatively few crashes, but assume these numbers just to make them easy).

Now take a specific person.  Let's say he's a U.S. Senator.  Furthermore, he's a U.S. Senator who is known as very progressive and very anti-war.  Further still, he is running for re-election.  Even beyond that, the election is in only a few days.  Even beyond that, a key issue in this election is this Senator's stance on a potential war that many believe is soon to begin.

Suppose this man, in these specific circumstances, sets foot on an airplane a few days before an election.  Under these circumstances, what are the odds the Senator won't get to his destination alive?

Simple: 1 in 1,000,000, just the same as anybody else.  His specific circumstances and the timing of his journey, however extraordinary, make no difference whatsoever to the probability that he will survive his trip or die on the way.  If he traveled as an average joe in the middle of July, his chances of getting off that plane in a body bag are still 1 in 1,000,000.

Of course, the circumstance I'm describing is the October 2002 situation of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, who was unlucky and died in a plane crash days before the elections in which the impending invasion of Iraq was a major political issue.  Despite absolutely no evidence of foul play--the cause of the crash was pilot error--I had conspiracy theorists tell me at the time that it had to have been a veiled assassination, because "what are the chances?  That can't be a coincidence!"

Evidently, conspiracy theorists believe that extraneous circumstances--whether a person is a prominent politician, whether a war is about to start, how far it is from an election, and what the politician's stance on that potential war is--can somehow magically make it so much less likely that a plane crash could happen from accidental circumstances as the same thing could result from foul play.  Mind you, this is in the total absence of evidence that the Wellstone crash was rigged.  Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that probabilities alone suffice to prove a conspiracy, and can replace that absence of evidence, because "What are the chances?!?!?"

Probabilities are never evidence.  Conspiracy theorists need to quit pretending that probabilities alone can replace actual evidence of a conspiracy.  This is one of the stupidest arguments employed by conspiracy theorists, scraping the ultimate bottom of an already very deep abyss of logical fallacy and non sequitur.

7.  "So, you don't believe there is corruption in government/business/the world?"

This is a variation of argument #1, and doesn't require much discussion beyond what I've already said about it.  It's a very similar binary choice: either you believe in conspiracy theories, or you believe all is right with the world, governments and corporations never commit any form of malfeasance and you cannot believe that evil exists anywhere in the world.

Of course, this argument is insulting to the intelligence.  Yes, corruption does occur in governments and corporations, as it does in all human enterprises.  Yes, bad people sometimes do bad things.  But belief in this truth of human nature does not translate, automatically and inextricably, into belief in conspiracy theories.  To suggest that non-believers in conspiracy theories must disbelieve them because they can't bring themselves to envision corruption or malfeasance in any sphere is utterly absurd.

And, not to get philosophical about it, but not all evil is created equal.  Bernie Madoff is one of the most notorious criminals of our time.  He bilked many people of their life savings and destroyed the lives of many of them.  He did it for profit and evidently without any remorse.  Bernie Madoff is corrupt, and evil at least on some level.

However, what if Bernie Madoff was not the administrator of a Ponzi scheme, but say a CIA operative?  Suppose some pointy-headed conspirators came to him and said, "Hey Bernie, we've got this secret plan to blow up the World Trade Centers and kill thousands of people, and we need your help to do it.  Are you in?"  What's to say Bernie Madoff wouldn't reply, "No way.  I draw the line at that!"  Just because people are corrupt, steal money, forge documents, or endorse nefarious plans, doesn't mean that they're cold-blooded megalomaniacal killers willing and able to bathe in the blood of thousands of innocent people.  Conspiracy theorists often assume that all forms of malfeasance or corruption are equal.  They're not.  As usual, human nature is far more complicated than their simplistic black-and-white categories.

8.  "I'm not a conspiracy theorist!  You are a conspiracy theorist!"

This argument is classic projection.  Most conspiracy theorists deeply resent being called conspiracy theorists.  (I recently had a believer in Judy Wood's 9/11 space beams tell me, "I am not a conspiracy theorist!")  They'll do anything to squirm out from under the label or, better yet, twist the label 180 degrees and use it as a weapon against the debunker.  This leads to some interesting argumentative acrobatics, particularly when conspiracy theorists start playing games with the definition of "conspiracy theorist."

One of the most common formulations of this argument is to claim that debunkers are themselves conspiracy theorists, because they believe in "official conspiracy theories," such as the "official story" of 9/11.  So the reasoning goes, because debunkers believe that Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda hijackers conspired to crash planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we therefore believe in a "conspiracy theory" that is indistinguishable from Truthers' flights of fancy except for the fact that the "official conspiracy theory" bears the imprimatur of government or mainstream endorsement.  The purpose of this argument is to confuse people into believing that conspiracy theories and the "official story" are essentially equal co-claimants on the truth, and that conspiracy theories have no less chance of being true than does the "official story."

What they fail to understand is that conspiracy theories are different than facts.  Yes, what happened on 9/11 was a conspiracy, hatched by Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other Al-Qaeda terrorists.  However, there are plenty of facts to support this belief.  It is not a theory, it is a fact.  A conspiracy theory is the fantastic notion that the WTC towers were blown up by secret explosives or science-fiction beam weapons.  It's a theory because there are no facts that support it.  There is no such thing as an "official conspiracy theory."  There is the truth, which is supported by facts, and there are theories, which are supported by speculation.  They are not equal co-claimants on the truth.  One is truth, and the other is garbage.

The difference between a debunker and a conspiracy theorist is very simple.   The debunker believes in facts, evidence, logic and supported conclusions.  The conspiracy theorist believes in fantasy, supposition, conjecture, innuendo and jumping to unwarranted conclusions.  Conspiracy theorists never like to hear this and they never will, and this paragraph will probably generate more hate mail than any other part of this essay.  (You can send it to muertos@gmail.com).  But, harsh or not, it is the truth.

9.  "You don't believe in conspiracy theories because you've been brainwashed by vaccines/fluoridated water/RFID chips."

This is another form of Sheeple Argument, and if you hear it from someone, you can be sure that person is very deep in the clutches of almost pathological paranoia.  It's almost futile to point out that there's not a shred of evidence that fluoridated water causes "brainwashing," or that RFID chips are being implanted into people without their knowledge.  If you ask a conspiracy theorist for "evidence" that these things are true, you'll almost certainly get Alex Jones clips or articles, or other super-paranoid doom-and-gloom scenarios that often also involve wild claims about vaccinations, forced population reduction, etc., usually masterminded by imaginary organizations like "the NWO" or "the Illuminati."

It is difficult to push back against these arguments because they're so irrational.  Anyone who is so delusional as to believe that fluoridated water or RFID chips cause "brainwashing" is not likely to be persuaded by the total absence of evidence that either of these things are true.  For more than 50 years the effects of fluoride in water have been studied, and not once has any evidence surfaced to the effect that it "brainwashes" people.  I find it amusing that when this argument is made conspiracy theorists exempt themselves from the "brainwashing" effect, when they presumably drink the same water as the rest of us, but maybe the theta rays emanating from Alex Jones broadcasts and Jeff Rense's website somehow counteract the effect of fluoridated water.  Nevertheless, all you can do is scoff at this argument.  You can't do much more.

10.  "You debunk conspiracies because you're a paid disinformation agent."

This is very similar to #9, but the difference is it's not a Sheeple claim, where debunkers are assumed to be "brainwashed" and "asleep" whether through willful ignorance or victimization by the same mind control techniques that conspiracy theorists sometimes believe are used on everyone.  Instead, this version of the argument is a direct accusation that the debunker is themselves part of the conspiracy.  This argument was recently used against me on an Internet forum where I was accused of being a member of "Project Vigilance," supposedly a government-funded effort to recruit bloggers and other cyberspace warriors to debunk conspiracy theories and tar their believers as nutjobs not worthy of serious attention.

Personally, I find this argument both humorous and sad.  It's humorous because the notion that our government (or anyone's government) has nothing better to do with taxpayer money than to pay people like me to post on the Internet debunking 9/11 beam weapons, FEMA camps and reptile people is utterly fantastic.  It's sad because it shows not only the depths of paranoia at which conspiracy theorists live their lives, but also the ridiculous sense of self-importance that they gain from their belief in such theories.  How could some guy posting on Internet message forums from his basement in suburban Chicago really be a threat to a power structure so omnipotent and powerful that it keeps secret beam weapons on hand for events like 9/11 and can cause earthquakes in Haiti from hundreds of miles away by using HAARP?  The truly paranoid conspiracy theorists like to cast themselves in movie roles, like the heroic Neo in the movie The Matrix: an ordinary guy who somehow "wakes up" to a hidden truth, and then fights the good fight against all odds to bring that truth to others.  In such a simplistic story there have to be villains.  Argument #10 unequivocally casts debunkers in the role of villains.  It also provides an easy excuse for ignoring anything they have to say: because they're paid disinformation agents, naturally everything they say is a lie.

For the record, I don't get paid for writing these articles.  I've never been paid, nor offered, a single dime for any debunking activity I've ever done.  Twisted as it may sound, I do this because I enjoy it, and because I feel that combating illogic and promoting critical thinking is a worthwhile activity.  I also feel conspiracy theories are dangerous both to reason and to political discourse.  There's also something of the contrarian in me: the vast majority of material on the Internet regarding conspiracy theories is pro-conspiracy.  There's a very small minority of sites and sources that devote considerable attention to refuting these ridiculous conspiracy theories.  I just want people to do a search for "9/11" and not have eight links to Truther sites pop up in their first ten search results.  It'd be nice for them to get the facts for a change.  That's why I do this.

It occurs to me as I write this blog that perhaps the idea that someone would debunk for free, and for enjoyment, is even more offensive to conspiracy theorists than the notion that they would do it for money at the government's behest.  I mean, if your world view is so ignorant and illogical that people are actually offended by it to the point where they'll take to the Net to refute you year after year, you perhaps ought to rethink your world view!

Conclusion

There's very rarely anything new in conspiracy-land.  Almost everything conspiracy theorists throw at you is something that's been around for years, or even decades, in one form or another.  On the one hand it's comforting to know that the fact that conspiracy theories are still regarded by most people as fringe kooky stuff means that the sheer power of repetition will not serve to improve conspiracy theorists' fortunes in the future, at least until some real evidence of their claims surfaces; but on the other hand it's depressing to have to hack away at the same silly arguments that were debunked years ago which are still being repeated as if there was something new.  The ten arguments listed in this blog aren't going away.  I'm sure I'll be hearing them as long as I maintain an interest in conspiracy theories.  But since other debunkers will doubtless hear them too, I thought that corralling them and analyzing them is a worthwhile task.

[ Please discuss this article on the forums. ]

By Muertos (muertos@gmail.com)

If you spend any time at all listening to the arguments of conspiracy theorists, particularly 9/11 Truthers, sooner or later you'll encounter the "Sacred List" argument.  This phenomenon, which was given its name by the terrific bloggers over at Screw Loose Change, is a staple of conspiracy theorizing, but once you begin to delve into it you see how pathetically stupid and illogical it is.  It's worth a blog post both because Sacred List arguments are extremely common in conspiracist circles, and also because it helps illustrate in graphic detail how profoundly disconnected from logic and reality conspiracy theorists are.

What is a Sacred List argument?

A Sacred List argument is a type of supposed discrepancy or anomaly in one official record or another that conspiracy theorists claim indicates holes in an "official story" or some other truth that conspirators are trying to cover up.  Because conspiracy theorists rarely if ever have any coherent beginning-to-end narrative of what they think happened, their entire basis for argument depends on discrepancies; consequently, perceived anomalies are very important to them.  What defines a Sacred List argument, however, is that whatever the conspiracy theorists claim the anomaly is, logically it would have been extremely easy for the alleged conspirators to change or falsify it--and the act of doing so would be child's play compared to the magnitude of other acts that theorists claim the conspirators committed.

This description of a Sacred List argument doesn't really jell until you peruse some examples.

Examples of Sacred List Arguments

1.  "The 9/11 hijackers aren't on any of the flight manifests."

This is the classic paradigm of the Sacred List, and is frequently pushed by arch-Truthers like David Ray Griffin and Killtown (example here).  Because purported passenger lists of the planes hijacked on 9/11 do not contain the names of the hijackers (or "alleged hijackers," as 9/11 Truthers say), to them this is a piece of "evidence" indicating that there were no hijackers, or no persons with Arabic names, aboard the planes.

2.  "Bin Laden has never been indicted for 9/11."

Truthers claim (example here) that because no U.S. court has issued an indictment of Osama bin Laden for conceiving and directing the 9/11 attacks, this is "evidence" indicating that he didn't do it.  Usually the perceived rationale behind this move is that if bin Laden was indicted, captured and brought to trial, he would present evidence of his innocence of 9/11, which the conspirators obviously do not want to happen.

3.  "9/11 does not even appear on Bin Laden's FBI Wanted poster!"

This is a variation of #2 above.  Because the official FBI's "Wanted" bulletin on Osama bin Laden (here) does not mention the September 11 attacks, this is more "evidence" indicating that he did not do it, or at least that the FBI's claims of evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11 is shaky or faulty.  (Example of this argument).

4.  "Barbara Olson/Todd Beamer/other noted 9/11 victims are not listed on the Social Security Death Index."

Barbara Olson is one of the more well-known victims of 9/11, not merely because she is one of the people who is known to have made telephone calls from Flight 77 (more on that later) but also because she was married to Ted Olson, former solicitor general of the United States.  Truthers have scoured the Social Security Death Index for anomalies, and found that Barbara Olson is not listed there.  Jim Fetzer, a notorious 9/11 Truther, has used this argument (example here).  Supposedly this means that Barbara Olson isn't dead.  This jives with some Truthers' theories that Flight 77 did not crash near Shanksville, PA, that it was secretly diverted and passengers taken off (and then what happened to them?), or even that Flight 77 was not hijacked at all.  Similar claims have occasionally been made regarding other 9/11 victims.

5.  "Records of phone calls made to Ted Olson show that Barbara could not have called him from Flight 77, as the official story goes."

More Barbara Olson lore, this one focusing specifically on her calls to her husband as Flight 77 was headed toward its fiery doom in Shanksville.  (This argument is sometimes employed with regard to other victims too, but the Truthers love to pick on Barbara Olson for some reason).  Supposedly, "evidence" of phone records shows discrepancies regarding the calls received when compared with those the "official story" maintains happened.  David Ray Griffin is the source of this argument (here) but it's been widely repeated in Truther circles.  This is a subspecies of the various conspiracist arguments that the phone calls could not have been possible at all (the "cell-phone-versus-Airfone" debate), which supposedly proves that the evil gubbermint used "voice-morphing technology" to fake the calls.

6.  "The flags in U.S. courtrooms usually have gold fringes.  A gold-fringed flag is a military flag, and the presentation of a military flag in a civil courtroom means that the U.S. civil courts are actually under military control."

This is a non-9/11 related example, and comes from the milieu of the militia/patriot/sovereign citizen movement.  Supposedly, the fringe on flags in courtrooms is of great significance, and can mean only that courts who use these flags are actually under military control--which conspiracy theorists usually intend to mean that "civil government" was overthrown by the military some time in the past.  (Example here).  This does not involve a list, but I classify this as a Sacred List argument because in this case the flag in the courtroom is the equivalent of the list that is, in conspiracists' minds, a telltale indicator of "what really happened."

Why Sacred List Arguments Are Stupid

To those reluctant to use critical thinking, Sacred List arguments are easily turned into "smoking guns."  But they're stupid because of one central reason: what do the conspirators possibly have to lose by simply altering the lists?

Think about it.  Assume you're one of the masterminds of 9/11.  You're out there killing people, faking plane hijackings, and blowing up some of the largest buildings on Earth.  You're covering it up every which way, sparing no expense to do so.  With all of this power at your disposal, and with your obvious willingness to violate the law with impunity, how much trouble would it be to simply fake a list or other official document?

Let's see how this works as applied to the examples I gave.

1.  Flight Manifests.

The 9/11 hijackers supposedly don't appear on the official flight manifests.  Okay--how hard would it have been to simply fake those manifests, and release ones that do include the hijackers' names?  The real explanation for the "hijackers aren't on the manifests" phenomenon is that 9/11 Truthers have repeatedly and deliberately confused lists of the victims of 9/11 with official passenger manifests.  (See discussion on this confusion here).  The hijackers weren't victims, they were perpetrators; and furthermore, if you do look at what are the real passenger manifests (you can download the one from Flight 77 here) you will find the hijackers on them.

Really, how stupid is this argument?  If the supposed absence of hijackers was really a "smoking gun," wouldn't the powers-that-be have simply corrected the lists?  If they've already murdered 3,000 innocent people, why would they stop at forging a passenger manifest?  Yet, conspiracy theorists ask to you believe that the conspirators either were afraid of doing that, for whatever reason, or that they were so incompetent that they just let it slip--and have not tried to correct the slip-up in 9 years.

2.  Bin Laden's Indictment.

Bin Laden hasn't been indicted for 9/11.  That is true.  Why hasn't he been?  Because virtually the only chance of catching bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in Waziristan (a remote section of Pakistan), is by the intercession of U.S. military forces--and the U.S. wants to try bin Laden as an enemy combatant under a military tribunal.  (See discussion on this issue here).  If he's indicted for 9/11, by, for instance, the federal court in the Southern District of New York, where the World Trade Center attacks happened, he would be subject to prosecution by that civilian court.  It is also standard practice for federal suspects wanted for many crimes to be subject to only one indictment for an earlier crime; meaning, as they commit more crimes, authorities usually do not keep adding indictments piecemeal, one for each crime.  Bin Laden was indicted for the 1996 terrorist bombings in Africa.  That was years before 9/11.

This is a quite common practice, by the U.S. as well as others.  Mobster Al Capone wasn't convicted and jailed for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre or any of his other infamous crimes; he landed at Alcatraz for tax evasion.  Saddam Hussein was tried and executed under Iraqi law not for his most infamous crimes--the invasion of Kuwait, or the chemical bombing of Kurdish towns in 1988--but rather, for a much more obscure offense, a series of assassinations in 1982 that few outside of Iraq had ever heard of.  Serial killers are rarely indicted for all their suspected crimes.  Where a suspect has a number of crimes to his or her name, a prosecutor has a wide range of charges to choose from.

In short, it has nothing to do with a supposed dearth of evidence.  It has everything to do with prosecutorial strategy regarding how, and particularly where, a suspect is indicted.

Personally, as a former attorney, I disagree with the decision not to indict Osama for 9/11.  I believe he should be charged with that crime, and, even if captured alive by the military, I think he should be tried in a civilian court.  It is interesting to note that other 9/11 figures, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have been indicted and will be tried in civilian courts.  I would think it likely that, if (God willing) Osama is captured, he will eventually be indicted for 9/11--probably after he's already been found guilty by a military tribunal.

Note that on the FBI's page listing its most wanted terrorists, including bin Laden it specifically says:

"The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice. Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001." (emphasis added)

If bin Laden was truly innocent, and the people behind 9/11 really wanted to frame him, how hard would it be to come up with a phony indictment?  They wouldn't even need to rig a grand jury; they'd just present them trumped-up evidence indicating his guilt.  This would be the first thing the conspirators would have done after 9/11! If it was a frame-up, how could they possibly have let something like this slip through the cracks?  Once again, as with all Sacred List arguments, conspirators want you to believe either that (A) the conspirators, having committed all sorts of other heinous crimes, stopped short at the relatively easy step of securing a phony indictment; or (B) the conspirators were so careless as to allow this oversight, which has not been corrected after nearly 9 years.

3.  Bin Laden's Wanted Poster

This is pretty much the same story as the indictment.  The FBI does not listed unindicted charges on wanted posters; that's been the Bureau's policy for a long time.  (Discussion here).  Once again, if 9/11 was a conspiracy, how hard or dangerous would it be to come up with a phony wanted poster?  Is there any possible way that the conspirators would have overlooked this, or would have feared doing that, which is far dwarfed by the other crimes the 9/11 Truthers claim they committed?

4.  Barbara Olson's Absence from the Death Index.

There are a number of reasons why Barbara Olson and other passengers don't show up on the SSDI.  They may not have been involved with the Social Security program; their deaths may not have been officially reported to the Social Security bureau; or their survivors may still be receiving death benefits (the most likely explanation).  The SSDI is not, and never purported to be, a comprehensive list either of all deaths in the U.S., or of the deaths of all persons in the U.S. who had Social Security numbers.  You can see a detailed explanation of these exclusions, and specifically with regard to 9/11 victims, here.

But again, as with the passenger lists and wanted poster, how hard would it have been for conspirators to put phony names on the SSDI?  Why would they, after having either murdered Barbara Olson outright or at least faked her death (and sent her someplace where she has never been seen anywhere in the world since September 2001), have blanched at adding her name to the SSDI?

This argument makes no sense at all, and is one of the more laughable ones employed by Truthers.

5.  Barbara Olson's Phone Records.

You know the drill by now.  If the phone records show that Barbara Olson didn't phone her husband from Flight 77, how hard would it have been for the conspirators to plant phony phone records that did show she called him?  And why would they have chosen not to take this step, if it was so easy?

In fact, 9/11 Truthers are simply lying about Barbara Olson's phone records.  You can see the records of the calls reproduced here as well as a lengthy discussion of the issue.  The records do show that she called her husband from Flight 77.  Evidence to the contrary is totally false.

6.  Gold-Fringed Flag

The presence of gold fringe on an American flag is purely ceremonial, and has absolutely no substantive significance.   That it means anything, much less military jurisdiction, is a total myth.  This myth has been tried in various court proceedings, and hammered down brutally every single time.  Tax protestors love this argument, but they've never won on it.  In fact, even making the argument in court is a sanctionable offense--meaning, it's so stupid that a judge will fine you for insulting his or her intelligence by bringing it up.

But even if it was true, how hard would it be for the secret military government of the United States to issue an edict to all its courts saying, "Whatever you do, don't hang a fringed flag in your courtroom"?  Especially if that argument could successfully release someone from the obligation of paying taxes, why on earth would the government not close that loophole and save itself millions a year in lost tax revenue?  Of the Sacred List arguments, the gold-fringed flag is by far the silliest.

Conclusion

Conspiracy theorists love Sacred List arguments, but they universally employ them without understanding how ludicrous they really are.  Truthers really want you to believe that a cabal of conspirators who killed thousands of innocent people were either too careless or too scared to fake passenger lists, phone records and other documents; tax protestors really want you to believe that the "military government" of the U.S. attaches such symbolic importance to the fringe on a courtroom flag that they are willing to let defendants escape justice and people renege on tax obligations so as to preserve it.  Do these make any sense at all?

Sacred List arguments are among the most easily debunked of all conspiracy claims.  The next time someone tells you that the FBI admits it has no evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11, ask them how stupid they think the conspirators really are.  Chances are the answer won't make any sense--just like the Sacred List arguments themselves.

By Muertos (muertos@gmail.com)

Since ConspiracyScience.com has been identified by Zeitgeist Movement ("ZM") leader Peter Joseph Merola as an entity hostile to his organization--and even well before that identification explicitly occurred--we, the regulars at ConspiracyScience.com, have come to notice a cycle repeating itself frequently on our forum and to a lesser degree in comments sections of various blogs that have been posted here.  One or more active ZM members will join our forums, posit a number of points disputing our views of the ZM, and then leave after a cataract of argument based on those points.  (You can see an example of the most recent cycle here).  As has been noted on or forums, by me and by others (here) the points raised by ZM members tend to be remarkably similar, often employing almost the exact same words and usually the same basic concepts.  In the interests of saving time and repetitive keyboard-pounding in both camps, I thought I would write this blog outlining the most common "canned" ZM replies to our criticisms, and an evaluation of each of them in turn.

The purpose of this blog is not to stifle debate.  At CS, we like and enjoy debate--perhaps too much!  Many of our regulars are former or even current ZM members who have come to the CS forums to express criticism (and, sometimes, support) of things said within the ZM and by leaders of the ZM.  However, as argument with conspiracy theorists almost always involves the eternal re-hashing of points that have been made before, this blog may be useful at least in the sense of sparing everyone the brain-ache of trying to "reinvent the wheel" every time one or another of these arguments comes up.  In other words, we're presenting our own canned answers to respond to the Zeitgeisters' own!

The arguments that will be dealt with in this blog are the following:

1. "The movies aren't the movement."


2. "Any ZM member can come up with their own content.  The movies are simply Peter's content."


3. "Okay, what's your program for solving the world's problems?"


4. "I'm agnostic regarding conspiracy theories" or, related, "What happened on 9/11 isn't relevant."


5. "You haven't even tried to debunk our (the ZM's) 80+ page Orientation Guide..."


6. "The Zeitgeist films are still valuable because they challenge people to think."


7. "I am not a conspiracy theorist!" or, related "You all are conspiracy theorists!"


8. "Peter Joseph isn't the leader of the ZM" or, related "the ZM has no leaders."


9. "You don't research anything.  All you want to do is make ad hominem attacks against me/Peter Joseph/the ZM."


10. "The ZM is a young movement" or, conversely, "the ZM is gaining supporters all the time and will soon reach critical mass."

Taking each one of these arguments in turn:

1.  "The movies aren't the movement."

Context: Usually stated in response to criticism of conspiracy theories promoted by the Zeitgeist films.

Example: Peter Merola himself said:

"My films are not the movement. If you don't want me to promote the movement through a means which has a precedent for millions of views, just let me know!"

Purpose: The purpose of this argument is to turn attention away from the deceptive conspiracy aspects of the ZM and re-focus it on subjects ZM would rather discuss, such as the Venus Project and a resource-based economy ("RBE").

Discussion:  This is probably the #1 reply ZM members use when responding to criticism of the conspiracy aspects of the Zeitgeist films.  That is not surprising, considering it's the conspiracy aspects of the ZM that attracted the interest and criticism of ConspiracyScience.com in the first place.  By way of background, Peter Merola came to public attention, even before the foundation of the ZM, as a result of the release of his 2007 Internet film Zeitgeist (often called Zeitgeist I or "Z1" by ZM members) with had as its three main theses the suppositions that Christianity is a false construct, the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, and evil bankers secretly rule the world.  It was not until later that Merola was introduced to Jacque Fresco's neo-utopian idea called the Venus Project, and later still that the ZM was organized as "the activist arm of the Venus Project."  In his second film, Zeitgeist: Addendum, often called Zeitgeist II or "Z2," Merola again posited the same conspiracy theories as the first film, though he spent less time on them, and at the end advanced the Venus Project as the "cure" for these social ills.

"The movies aren't the movement" is both a false statement and a disingenuous one.  I, in particular, have devoted considerable words and attention to explaining why the Zeitgeist films and their conspiracy claims are in fact the heart and soul of the ZM, and why, despite Peter Merola's occasional half-hearted attempts to distance himself from them, he will never fully repudiate or jettison them.  (CS blog on this topic)  (My personal blog on this topic)  (Previous article by Edward Winston which addresses, among other things, the "movies aren't the movement" argument) Just to sum up the basic reasons why conspiracy theories and conspiracy thinking is so primal to the ZM, the main points are:

1.  Zeitgeist I is the prime motivator of interest in the ZM and the #1 recruiting tool used by the ZM.  Peter Merola has explicitly admitted this.  See also the quote above, evidencing his enthusiasm for promoting the ZM through the popularity that his conspiracy films have generated.

2.  Zeitgeist I DVDs are still routinely handed out by ZM members at recruiting events, routinely promoted by ZM members, and its popularity is widely touted by ZM members.  By contrast, Zeitgeist II, which still deals with conspiracy theories but spends less time on them, has been viewed by 90% fewer people than Zeitgeist I has.

3. The second Zeitgeist film has the subtitle Addendum.  An addendum does not stand on its own.  It's connected to something, namely, the first Zeitgeist film.  Some Zeitgeisters will try to make a distinction between the first film (which doesn't mention the Venus Project) and the second (which does), but the use of the word Addendum means that the second film is forever shackled to the first one.

4.  The ZM has the same name as the films.  Merola explains this away by saying it would be pointless to change the name because those who want to research it can easily discover the association, so why bother?  Of course this is silly; the real way to dissociate the ZM from the Zeitgeist films is not only to change the name, but to make unequivocal statements that the ZM does not support conspiracy theories, which would be unlikely to be credible so long as Merola remains the leader of the movement or so long as conspiracy discussion is openly permitted on the ZM forums.  Neither the expulsion of Merola nor a ban on conspiracy discussion is likely to happen, because both would be PR and recruitment suicide for the ZM.

5.  Most ZM members are conspiracy theorists.  There are a few exceptions, and some of them are occasionally brave enough to speak up about their discomfort with being associated with a conspiracy movement, but they are usually shouted down or dismissed by conspiracy theorists including Merola himself.  (Example) (Example)  However, it is clear that conspiracy theorists constitute a large portion of, if not the bulk of, the ZM, and it's why they joined.

Some ZM members have addressed this matter directly, by criticizing the statement that "the movies aren't the movement."  One post by a member called DoniMusic states it pretty succinctly:

"Also, a quick thought on the "Z films" not being a direct representation of the movement. I've got to say that this kind of stance is weak in my opinion. I understand why Peter would take that stance. Most likely to distance the movement from the conspiratorial notions of the films in general. I suppose being connected to conspiracy theories could damage the credibility of what we are trying to achieve. However, those films are what got everybody in the door. It's like going to a nudist colony only to find out that it's "clothing optional". The bottom line here is that people are in this movement because of the information they got from the films. I could not imagine many people are coming here having not seen them (understood is another story). So why are we towing this sketchy "the films aren't the movement" line. It's very doublespeak-esque, and in my opinion a bit of a weak cop-out to avoid difficult lines of questioning."

DoniMusic is one of the few stating openly what should be obvious: to accept that "the movies aren't the movement" is to accept that the ZM has committed a massive bait-and-switch on its members, and that those same members have accepted this deception without question.  The Zeitgeist films promote conspiracy theories, and those who joined the ZM did so presumably to combat those conditions.  Now Merola claims "the movies aren't the movement" and what the ZM is really about is the Venus Project.  How many of these members would accept the explanation from their leader that the reason they joined the movement in the first place is not relevant to what they are supposedly trying to achieve?  That's not very good marketing, and it sounds flimsy because it is: the bait-and-switch never happened.  The movies are very much the movement, which means that conspiracy theories and the promotion of conspiracy ideology is a very strong--if unacknowledged--goal of the ZM.

"The movies aren't the movement" is absolutely false.  The movies, and the conspiracy theories they espouse, are the heart and soul of the ZM, by Merola's own admission.  The ZM is a conspiracy movement, as their members have asserted often and as the actions of the ZM leadership, especially Peter Merola, has demonstrated.  Arguing to the contrary is simply pointless.

2.  "Any ZM member can come up with their own content.  The movies are simply Peter's content."

Context: Again used in response to criticism of the Zeitgeist films in relation to the ZM.

Example: Merola has stated, in response to one of his followers who was surprised to learn that Jacque Fresco does not believe in 9/11 conspiracy:

"One day I might make a movie about Fishing... that doesnt mean the movement has anything to do with it, despite the name 'zeitgeist'."

Purpose:  The purpose of this argument, similar to the previous one, is to minimize the relevance of Peter Merola's personal beliefs on conspiracy theories to the ZM as a whole in an attempt to decouple the ZM from the Zeitgeist films and pretend that the ZM does not have, as a strong but unacknowledged goal, to promote conspiracy theories and conspiracy thinking.

Discussion:  This argument is extremely misleading.  It ignores the reality of who is in charge of the ZM and what the name Zeitgeist really means.

Yes, it is literally true that Zeitgeist I was a movie made on a solo basis by Peter Merola before he ever heard of the Venus Project.  Yes, it is literally true that (to my knowledge) even Zeitgeist: Addendum was not specifically sanctioned or produced by the Venus Project, although the film touts it prominently.  However, it stretches credibility to believe that any member of the ZM can make a movie with any content and use the Zeitgeist title, as if the title has no connection whatsoever to the content within.

Merola is probably right that someday he could make a film called Zeitgeist: Gone Fishin' which, instead of conspiracy theories and the Venus Project, would be an education in how to bait hooks and reel in walleye on your local bayou.  What would this "content" have to do with the ZM?  Probably nothing, which begs the question of why he would even put the Zeitgeist name on it.

On the other hand, suppose, for example, I joined the ZM, and successfully passed the "test" that Merola has recently instituted to ensure that those who post on his forum know about and agree with the supposed tenets of the ZM.  After three months of good behavior--meaning, without disagreeing with Merola or Jacque Fresco--let's say I make my own Internet movie called Zeitgeist III: Total Refutation which refutes the first two films point by point, demonstrating the factual inaccuracy of Merola's contentions regarding Christianity, 9/11 and the money system.  What would happen to me?  I would be expelled from the ZM, and Merola would almost certainly take some action to get me to take the title Zeitgeist off my movie that disagrees with him.  By promoting my film--my own personal "content"--as a Zeitgeist film, I would be trying to make use of the publicity and cachet (among conspiracy theorists, at least) that the Zeitgeist name carries.  There is no way in hell that my own personal "content," at odds with the official ideology of the ZM, would be allowed to stand under that name.

I venture to say that if I, as a hypothetical ZM member, made a movie called Zeitgeist III: Going Fishin' With Muertos that had nothing to do with conspiracy theories or refuting anything in the previous two movies, Merola would still not let me use the Zeitgeist name.  After all, what's wrong with simply Going Fishin' With Muertos? (For the record, I hate fishing).

This argument is very silly, as these examples demonstrate.

3.  "Okay, what's your program for solving the world's problems?"

Context: Used in response to less specific criticisms of the ZM as a whole, and sometimes specifically in response to criticisms of the conspiracy aspects of the ZM.

Example:  This comeback was used on my own blog in one of the comments where a ZM member said:

"Also, I would very much be interested in your views of the world today and to know if you have, or know of somebody who has, an idea to improve the world's, and the people that live on it, quality of life."

Purpose: The purpose of this argument is purely diversionary.  It is designed to steer conversation away from the conspiracy aspects of the ZM and to the tenets of the Venus Project itself, which ZM members are usually far more willing to discuss.

Discussion: This argument is a shameless attempt at agenda control.  It tries to place the ZM critic in a no-win scenario: if you can't come up with a program on the spot to solve the world's problems, the ZM member will respond along the lines of, "Well, since I have the Venus Project and you admit you have no better idea, why not try the Venus Project?"  If you do suddenly come up with an idea to save the world, suddenly you are debating the merits of your proposal versus the Venus Project.  Either way you are no longer debating the conspiracy aspects of the ZM.  And if you reject the legitimacy of the question, the ZM member will attempt to claim the moral high ground by asking why you want to talk about that ooky conspiracy stuff when you should be debating the efficacy of various proposals to save the world.

This is an old tactic from the antiquated Willy Loman school of door-to-door sales.  "You don't want to buy my vacuum cleaner?  Well, then how are you going to get your rug clean?"  By accepting debate on these terms you've implicitly limited the universe of permissible options to two, and only two, alternatives: either you buy what the salesman is selling, or you're doomed forever to live with a dirty rug that cannot be cleaned by any other means.  By deploying this argument Zeitgeisters want to trap you into a similar binary choice: either accept the ZM and its program to remake the world with an RBE, or you're dooming the planet to a bleak future of economic rapaciousness and environmental degradation.  It also has a moral component.  It paints the Zeitgeister as an altruist who wants only to save humanity--appealing, incidentally, to conspiracy theorists' conceit that they are privy to special knowledge that will "save" everybody--and portrays the ZM critic as a defender of the evil status quo.

For obvious reasons, under no circumstances should this argument be regarded as legitimate.  It is shamelessly manipulative, counter-intuitive, illogical and silly--even if you do have a good idea for solving the world's problems.  Disputing conspiracy theories and the conspiracy aspects of the ZM is not a discussion directed at solving the world's problems--I certainly do think making the world a better place is a worthwhile discussion to have, but that's not the discussion you're having when you're talking about the conspiracy aspects of the ZM.  When discussing the conspiracy aspects of the ZM, even answering the question is providing a "get out of jail free" card to the Zeitgeister.  This question should not be tolerated in a debate regarding the ZM, at least not when you're talking about conspiracy theories promoted and supported by the ZM.

This argument is also addressed in an article by Edward regarding the ZM.

4.  "I'm agnostic regarding conspiracy theories" or, related, "What happened on 9/11 isn't relevant."

Context: Used in responses to criticisms of the conspiracy aspects of the ZM.

Example: Statements to this effect are often used by Zeitgeisters against each other, when arguing about the conspiracy aspects of the ZM, and sometimes against critics.  An example occurs in this topic where a user called "jamesmcm" says:

"The 9/11 stuff may or may not be insane, but I don't see why it matters.  What's done is done, there is no use in fighting over whether it was planned or not now - it will only harm our progress forward.  We must focus on the future, not bicker over the past."

Purpose: This argument, like #3, is also diversionary, used to steer the topic of conversation away from conspiracy matters, and it is sometimes used as an entrée to #7 below when ZM members do not wish to appear to be conspiracy theorists.  Note in the above example jamesmcm is doing both: he establishes himself as a supposed agnostic regarding 9/11, but then wonders why anyone would bother talking about it.

Discussion: This argument tries to reach the same finish line as #3, but via a different path.  The objective is still to change the subject from conspiracy theories to the Venus Project, but at least this one isn't as shamelessly manipulative.  What does make this argument faulty, however, is the fact that the Zeitgeist movies' and many ZM members' views regarding conspiracies, particularly 9/11 conspiracies, are directly relevant to how seriously we (the non-ZM rest of the world) should take the ZM.  Conspiracy theories regarding 9/11 are factually unsupportable.  Peter Merola continues to stand behind the Zeitgeist films and their 9/11 claims, meaning that either (A) he has researched the claims so poorly as to be taken in by 9/11 conspiracy theories that are easily disproven by only a few minutes' research, or (B) he knows the claims are false but for some reason (probably recruitment) is willing to continue to be associated with them.  Why, therefore, should anyone trust a movie that lies to them about 9/11 to propose a viable solution to the world's problems in the form of the Venus Project?  Zeitgeisters don't want to discuss this dichotomy (see #6 below) because they can't answer it.  Consequently, they must try to sweep the conspiracy theory questions under the rug or minimize their importance in order to remain credible in the debate.

This argument is disingenuous too, because Zeitgeisters themselves, including Peter Merola, do not really believe that 9/11 is irrelevant.  In a post regarding the possible changing of the ZM's name due to the conspiracy aspects of the Zeitgeist films, Merola stated:

"As far as the 911 and religious "conspiracy theories" you denote- they are, despite the controversy, still highly relevant... 911 is not taboo- nothing is taboo. If everyone simply didn't talk about ideas because they were afraid of what other's thought, society would be paralyzed." (emphasis added)

Regarding the "agnosticism" component of this argument, I have yet to meet a ZM member who is a true "agnostic" regarding 9/11.  The problem with "agnosticism" regarding conspiracy theories is that it's not intellectually possible in the same way as, say, a belief in God or something else that cannot be proven empirically.  What happened on 9/11 can, and has been, proven beyond doubt with factual, empirical evidence.  You can't be agnostic about it.  If you read the NIST report on the collapse of the WTC towers (most Truthers haven't), and then watch Loose Change (or even Zeitgeist I) and after both experiences you scratch your head and say, "Hmm, I don't really know which one to believe," then you are implicitly accepting the conspiracy theory, because in order to take this position you must necessarily reject the empirical proof contained in the NIST report.  I do not doubt that there are people out there (unfortunately) who do this sort of thing, and those people are probably genuinely unaware that they have become conspiracy theorists.  (See also argument #7 below).  More often, professions of "agnosticism" regarding conspiracy theories is little more than a fig leaf for a nascent belief in conspiracy theories, or unwillingness to acknowledge that one has become a conspiracy theorist.  (I can already hear the hate mail coming based on that statement!)

So, argument #4 is false from two angles: most ZM members do not believe that 9/11 and other conspiracy theories are irrelevant, and most ZM who claim they are "agnostic" on these questions really aren't as agnostic as they profess to be or as some may honestly think they are.  Furthermore, if the ZM ever did achieve the 50 million members they say they want to get, these hair-splitting arguments are far too attenuated to translate successfully to any forum broad or persuasive enough to attract that sort of mainstream cachet--people would just assume that Zeitgeisters are conspiracy theorists, which in fact most of them are.  Needless to say, this argument is a dead end.

5.  "You haven't even tried to debunk our (the ZM's) 80+ page Orientation Guide..."

Context: Used in a variety of contexts where debate goes toward subjects ZM members do not wish to discuss.

Example: Merola himself uses this argument in his "Diagnosis of Intellectual Inhibition" (linked earlier).  He states:

"There is no critical examination of any of my lectures, no critical examination of our 90 page Orientation Guide, etc. Nothing. It is dismissal by association in a profoundly biased way... which is yet another form of psychological denial."

Purpose: Purely diversionary.  This argument is, like #3, an attempt to change the subject, and like #1 an attempt to brush aside the conspiracy aspects of the ZM.

Discussion: Zeitgeisters are very fond of touting their voluminous Orientation Guide, which is supposedly required reading for all ZM neophytes.  It drones on for page after page about the evils of capitalism and the shining hope for humanity that is a RBE.  Conspiracy theories are nowhere mentioned in the Orientation Guide, which is why ZM members like to cite it (though the Orientation Guide does refer to the 9/11 attacks and mentions "supposed 'Islamic terrorists'" in quotes, thus suggesting that they aren't real).

This argument is disingenuous when deployed, as it usually is, in a response to criticisms of the conspiracy aspects of the ZM.  However, an invitation to debunk the Orientation Guide instead of the Zeitgeist films results in a false equation.  While the Orientation Guide does contain assertions of purported fact--many of which are spurious--its main purpose is similar to that of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto: it's an argumentative document intended to justify an ideology, which is by definition a statement of opinion.  The Zeitgeist films, particularly Zeitgeist I, serve a different purpose: they purport to explain to the audience what objective fact actually is.  No one who drills into the ZM site deep enough to hit the Orientation Guide has any illusion that, by the time they sit down to read it, they are being asked to evaluate a belief system.  However, most people who watch Zeitgeist I do not realize they are being asked to evaluate a belief system: they see a film that presents what looks to them like assertions of fact.  Debunking Zeitgeist I is useful, because it causes people to realize that the assertions made in the film are not factually supportable.  Debunking the Orientation Guide is not useful because you're debunking Peter Merola and Jacque Fresco's ideological opinions.  I have plenty of ideological opinions; everyone does.  That is different than asserting matters of fact.

Witness the difference:

STATEMENT 1: "The Beatles assassinated John F. Kennedy."

STATEMENT 2: "You should listen to the Beatles, because they are the best rock and roll band ever."

Statement 1, though facially ridiculous, is an assertion of purported fact.  You can debunk it with facts: there is no evidence that anyone other than Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK; the Beatles were not present at the scene; no evidence connects any of them to the assassination, etc., etc.  Statement 2 is an argument.  If you disagree that the Beatles are the best rock and roll band ever, you can certainly try to argue the point by comparing the Beatles to the Rolling Stones or Iron Maiden or whoever, but you're now arguing opinions, not facts.  To the extent facts are marshaled to support an opinion--"The Beatles have sold more records than anyone!"--you can, of course, evaluate those facts empirically, but the main point of Statement 2 is to ask you to accept a belief.  The statements are simply apples and oranges.

Personally, I am not very interested in the Venus Project.  I believe it's silly, and would be an abomination if it was actually instituted (do you really want the world to be ruled by computers?) but if the Zeitgeist films had not come along and hijacked the Venus Project, I wouldn't be writing blogs on the Internet explaining how silly I think the Venus Project is.  The issue I care about is the promotion of conspiracy theories and conspiracy ideology.  The Zeitgeist films present conspiracy theories as purported facts, and they encourage their audience to think in terms of conspiracy theories and view the world as a result of conspiracy theories.  That's what I have a problem with, because the conspiracy theories are not factually supportable.  Whether the conspiracy theorists that comprise a large portion of the ZM membership think the Venus Project is a good idea is not really an issue for me.  If they're going to promote the Venus Project by using conspiracy theories, however, I'm going to argue that their conspiracy theories are wrong.  The Orientation Guide doesn't concern me very much.

6.  "The Zeitgeist films are still valuable because they challenge people to think."

Context: Used to defend the Zeitgeist films as a whole, particularly when individual claims in the films have been shown to be false or misleading.

Example: Merola himself made this argument recently in a topic touting his forthcoming 300-page (!) "resource guide" to the new upcoming Zeitgeist recut.  In this topic Merola stated:

"Z1 is less of a traditional docu[mentary] than a challenge in critical thought. There are also deliberate exaggerations as the work is artistic in it means. It is a combination of gesture and fact and is deliberately provocative."

Purpose: This is an apologetic argument.  It is usually deployed after a critic has highlighted factual deficiencies in the Zeitgeist films, and is intended to illustrate the supposed value of the films even if those deficiencies exist (which Zeitgeisters rarely concede directly).

Discussion: This argument is patently ridiculous.  Essentially, a ZM member asking you to accept this argument is telling you that it's OK to lie to people as long as you are "challenging" their "critical thought."

The Zeitgeist films were not made or promoted as "works of art by Peter Joseph."  They were made and promoted as documentaries, and the matters asserted in them are purported to be factual statements.  None are presented as suppositions or "challenges."  The obvious intent is to induce literal belief in the matters asserted on the part of the audience.  If this is done with knowledge that the matters asserted are not true, this is known, in arcane technical jargon, as "lying."

Example: I see you at the grocery store.  I run up to you in a panic and say, "I just drove by your house, and saw that it was on fire!"  You jump in your car and drive over to your house, discovering that it is not on fire.  The next time you encounter me you'll probably have some unkind words for me.  Suppose I reply, "My statement to you was deliberately provocative.  I wanted to challenge your capacity for critical thought, and make you think about how you can be more fire-safe around your home."

If I said this to you, you'd probably punch me in the face.

Yet this is precisely what Merola is asking his viewers to excuse.  He admits to "deliberate exaggerations" and then praises the value of them because it's "artistic" and "challenges" people.  If this was his intent, why didn't he write a novel or create a fictional movie positing these suppositions?  You don't make a documentary, purporting to tell people the truth, and then when called on your deliberate exaggerations excuse it by saying it was "artistic."  Movie directors do this when they make films like Braveheart or Amadeus which deliberately distort history, but then again those films are understood as fiction or at the very least as being fiction that is based on a true story, which everyone knows means they aren't literal truth.  If Mel Gibson or Milos Forman wanted to tell the literally true story about William Wallace or Wolfgang Mozart, they'd make documentaries about them, and audiences would evaluate and respond to those movies on different terms than they respond to Braveheart and Amadeus.  Peter Merola made a documentary--not a fiction film, not based on a true story.  The argument that we are supposed to excuse his deliberate exaggerations is not only stupid, it's morally offensive.

7.  "I am not a conspiracy theorist!" or, related "You all are conspiracy theorists!"

Context: Sometimes resorted to when ZM members become defensive and flustered regarding charges that they and their movement promote conspiracy theories.

Example: Used recently in an argument on ConspiracyScience.com forum in which a ZM member stated:

"you guys are JUST as bad as the truthers, but opposite....No, sorry, im not a 9/11 truther, so your theories about me can stop...."

This ZM member had recently posted a YouTube video which supported the "no plane" conspiracy theory regarding 9/11.  He did so in the context of claiming he was "agnostic" about 9/11 (see #4 above).

Purpose: Projection.  Conspiracy theorists usually resent being called conspiracy theorists.  Some 9/11 Truthers do not reject the term "Truther," because they believe it reinforces that what they think happened on 9/11 is the "truth," but even they reject the label "conspiracy theorist" because it's almost universally pejorative.  They are very eager to avoid this label, and will do almost anything to scramble out from under it.  Usually rejection of the "conspiracy theorist" label involves one or both of the following tactics, which in any sane world should be mutually exclusive: either denouncing the label itself as pejorative and unfair, or conversely (or sometimes additionally) expanding its definition to include the viewpoints and behavior of the person making the accusation.

Discussion: Making this argument work essentially means skewing the generally-understood meaning of "conspiracy theorist" or "conspiracy theory" in any and every way possible.  Merola himself has done this in a page on the ZM's FAQ about "Do we support conspiracy theories?"  (They claim they do not, but actually they do, as I explained in a previous blog about that specific page).  One thing that conspiracy theorists love to do is to point to something that is generally accepted--which they often label the "official story"--and try to define that as a conspiracy theory, which is why you hear 9/11 Truthers talk about the "Official Conspiracy Theory" or "OCT," the explanation that 9/11 was the work of Osama bin Laden's 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers.  The purpose of this is to try to level the playing field and make the "official story" and the conspiracy theory essentially equal co-claimants on the truth, which in their minds you are supposed to accept in the name of being "open-minded."  No evaluation is given to which story is more factually supportable.  The name of the game is to call something, anything, a "conspiracy theory" to try to make the critic feel guilty about using that term.

A less commonly used, and infinitely stupider, tactic is for the ZM member to point to assumptions that critics make about them or their arguments and claim that those assumptions amount to "conspiracy theories."  Example: a high official of the ZM posted on the ConspiracyScience forums, using many of the arguments listed in this blog.  He was predictably evasive about whether he himself was a conspiracy theorist, and professed "agnosticism" about what happened on 9/11.  He did not respond directly to the questions regarding his beliefs about 9/11; however, the ZM member's own personal web site contained a prominent link to the 9/11 Truther video In Plane Sight, which is a notorious conspiracy screed.  When members of our forum pointed this out and said that the ZM member was a conspiracy theorist, the ZM member responded by denouncing the "conspiracy theories" that we were formulating regarding him.  Never mind that this reasoning makes no sense whatsoever.  Pointing out that a person's statements and associations on another site are at odds with what he was telling us on our forum is not a "conspiracy theory."  It was just an excuse--a very flimsy one at that--to try to use the term "conspiracy theory" in any way possible as a weapon against the critics of the conspiracy theories in which the ZM member was a believer.  Such is the very silly world and infantile argumentative tactics of conspiracy theorists.

8.  "Peter Joseph isn't the leader of the ZM" or, related "the ZM has no leaders."

Context: often raised against criticism of how the ZM is run and/or criticism of Peter J. Merola's goals, tactics and communications style as the leader of the ZM.  Also raised when discussion turns to whether the ZM is a cult or exhibits cult-like tendencies, as compared to known cults with strong leaders such as the People's Temple, Heaven's Gate, etc.

Example: The ZM member who recently visited our forum employed this argument:

"peter is simply 1 member in a movement of no leaders. he is a prominent figure who attracts attention from people like you. the movement is ideas, not a person....leadership is another word for evil. i wouldnt be a member of TZM if i thought i was following someone."

Purpose: As with many Zeitgeisters' arguments, one main purpose of this argument is to (again) try to decouple the ZM from Merola's conspiracy films--by distancing it from Merola himself--but it also serves another purpose.  Much of the criticism of the ZM--on the ConspiracyScience.com forums, at least--centers around actions taken on the ZM forums, which are heavily moderated.  Action is often taken by moderators, and by Merola himself, against members who express disagreement with Merola's words or acts.  The "Peter Joseph isn't the leader" argument is deployed to defuse perceptions that the ZM is tightly controlled, that its message is carefully stage-managed or that Merola's own actions have the capability of reflecting badly on the ZM as a whole.

Discussion: This argument is also patently ridiculous.  The decentralized and open source nature of some aspects of the ZM, such as the establishment and conduct of local chapters, may present the illusion that the ZM is decentralized and open-source as a whole.  However, it is clearly evident from even a perfunctory glance that the overarching content, message and message discipline, administration and direction of the ZM is under the virtually total control of one person: Peter Joseph Merola.  Even Jacque Fresco, who created the Venus Project idea in the 1970s, is almost always spoken of by ZM members as a conceptual and consultative resource, a sort of Oracle of Delphi who makes proclamations that are then brought down from the mountain (or up from Venus, Florida, as it were) and then translated into reality by the footsoldiers of the ZM.  It is Fresco's ideas that are being implemented; it is Fresco's designs that will be achieved; it is Fresco's views on a RBE that will be validated, supposedly, by the eventual success of the ZM.  Who is actually out there on the ground (supposedly) doing all of this implementation, achievement and validation?  The members of the ZM, under the direction of Peter Joseph Merola.

In determining who "owns" or "runs" the ZM, it's useful to employ an analogy.  For the sake of this analogy let's treat "Zeitgeist" and everything that it means--the films, the conspiracy theories, the "activism" to implement the Venus Project, the advocacy of an RBE, etc.--as a brand name, a sort of intellectual property.  Who has ownership of this intellectual property?  Merola does.  He and people appointed by him are the ones who make the decisions about what you see when you click on the ZM website, which is the main portal through which ZM members interact with each other and with the movement.  While I don't know if Merola wrote every word of the Orientation Guide, certainly he must have at least approved it, and surely it is by his and his appointees' direction that it is available and widely touted on the website.  It is certainly by his fiat that the ZM has its name, which is named after the conspiracy films that he created and promoted.  Just browsing the ZM forums, a pronouncement by Merola is almost universally treated as the definitive last word on the subject (evidently Jacque Fresco doesn't post much).  Merola often locks posts after he himself has spoken, to reinforce the point that his is the last word.  Certainly the members of the ZM treat him as a leader.

Most importantly, it is Merola and moderators appointed by him who decide who is acting consistently with the goals and tenets of the movement and who is not.  Similarly with the example of "the movies are just Peter's content," let's hypothesize what would happen if I joined the ZM and put up my own website claiming to be a Zeitgeist Movement portal.  Let's say that my website presents evidence that refutes the claims in Merola's Zeitgeist movies, contains a point-by-point rebuttal of the Orientation Guide, and denounces a RBE as unachievable in the real world.  Let's say that my website is very clear that instead of following Jacque Fresco and Peter Merola's ideas, I think the ZM should follow the ideas of Karl Marx and become a Communist organization.  Clearly this would be totally at odds with the orthodoxy of the ZM and its accepted ideology.  What would happen to me?  If I was posting on the ZM forums, I would certainly be banned for opposing the program of the ZM, possibly even by Merola himself.  I'd probably be asked to take down Zeitgeist logos from my website and stop fostering the impression that I'm part of the ZM.  I would be asked to pursue my objectives under the rubric of a different organization.  The ZM would do its best to make clear that I was not associated with them.

The point is that, if the ZM truly had no leaders, it would have no orthodoxy either.  If the ZM has no leaders, that would mean that if I joined it I have just as much clout in the ZM as Peter Merola does.  If that were the case, why would my attempts to steer the ZM toward a different set of objectives and ideologies have any less validity than the objectives and ideologies favored by Merola and Fresco?  If there are no leaders in the ZM, the "brand name" of Zeitgeist becomes the public property of its members, theirs to do with absolutely as they please.  Unquestionably, this is not the case.  There are no ZM members who oppose a RBE.  It's exceedingly difficult to find a ZM member who is not a conspiracy theorist.  Those are the tenets and ideologies of the ZM established by Peter Merola.  Consequently, he is the leader of the ZM.

In the real world, movements and activist groups, which the ZM purports to be, can't function without leaders.  The Communist Party said it was about bringing equality to the people of Russia, but even Russians in 1917 made no mistake that Lenin was its leader.  The Democratic Party in the United States may accept all comers who wish to join it--there's far less policing of who joins (or remains in) the Democratic Party than there is in the ZM--but no one has any illusion that Barack Obama is the leader of the Democratic Party.  An organization cannot function effectively without some form of administrative direction, and to be cohesive an organization must have some form of orthodoxy.

Don't get me wrong: I am not criticizing the fact that the ZM has a leader.  What I am criticizing is that ZM members claim either that the ZM does not have leaders, or that Peter Merola is not the leader.  The protestations by ZM members that their movement is leaderless bring to mind scenes of toga-clad Greeks standing around in ancient times practicing pure democracy.  It's an illusion.  It's not real and never was.  No one who knows anything about how organizations in the real world work can have any doubt that the ZM has a leader.  Contending otherwise is simply absurd.

9.  "You don't research anything.  All you want to do is make ad hominem attacks against me/Peter Joseph/the ZM."

Context: Used as a blanket argument to dismiss all criticism of the ZM, the movies and/or Peter Merola.

Examples: There are many of them.  Almost all ZM members resort to the "ad hominem" protest eventually.  One ZM member makes both the "you don't research" and "ad hominem attacks" arguments here.  A particular ZM member who has sometimes commented on my blogs uses the "ad hominem attacks" protest nearly every time:

"Funny stuff; though yeah do wish you had some actual information to share instead of just spewing your rage &amp; destructive nonsense. You prove the point that it is easier to tear down other people's efforts than to make your own."

Purpose: This is a classic debate-ending tactic, akin to "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home!"  It is meant to terminate the argument by dismissing all criticism of the ZM and its leader as irrelevant and motivated solely by irrational animus.

Discussion: As I am fond of saying, "ad hominem" are conspiracy theorists' two favorite Latin words.  Any questioning of any source of pro-conspiracy information, particularly a questioning of that source's credibility, is universally dismissed as an "ad hominem" attack.  In truth an ad hominem is totally different (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem) but conspiracy theorists love it because they think it is a legitimate shield against all criticism, mainly because conspiracy theorists are generally incapable of distinguishing between the questioning of a source's credibility and an ad hominem attack.

This is not a very serious argument.  In the world of the ZM, no one is allowed to legitimately question Peter Merola or Jacque Fresco about anything, at any time, in any fashion.  ZM members admit disagreement with Merola or Fresco only very reluctantly and usually in an offhanded manner as a bargaining chip to some other statement ("I agree the conspiracy claims in Zeitgeist I might be exaggerated, but that doesn't change the fact that the Venus Project is really great").  In the world of the ZM, no one is allowed to question Merola's education, his understanding of history or economics, his research skills, or his motives in maintaining extremely tight message control without engaging in an "ad hominem" attack.  Similarly, if anyone questions why Jacque Fresco hasn't done more in his fifty years of industrial design to make his nifty Venus Project models closer to reality, that too is an "ad hominem" attack and totally illegitimate.  It matters not at all to ZM members that their leaders' education in and understanding of the subjects they purport to be experts on is directly relevant to the credibility they are entitled to by the world at large.

This blindness and grotesque misunderstanding of what is and is not an "ad hominem" attack frequently extends to the level of the sources Merola relied on to make the Zeitgeist films.  One that stands out in particular is D.M. Murdock, also known as "Acharya S.," a notoriously inaccurate pseudohistorian with no track record of peer-reviewed scholarship whose bizarre views on the history of Christianity served as much of the inspiration for Merola's claims of religious conspiracy in Zeitgeist I.  Acharya S.'s materials have no validity in the academic world, are poorly researched and themselves rely on spurious cherry-picked sources, and consequently are not taken seriously as credible research into comparative religion or ancient history; yet, time and time again, ZM members flood to the ConspiracyScience.com forums to defend her and claim that no one at ConspiracyScience.com has "researched her claims."  Any criticism of Archaya S., or questioning of whether her views are entitled to any sort of credibility, is regarded as an "ad hominem" attack.  This myopia proceeds from a profound misunderstanding of the academic process and how and why academic research and writing is judged to be credible, as I explained in a portion of an earlier blog responding to Merola's specific criticism of ConspiracyScience.com's statements regarding D.M. Murdock.

The truth is that conspiracy theorists in general, as well as many ZM members, do not understand what an "ad hominem" attack is.  It is, unfortunately, this lack of understanding that makes this one of the most popular arguments made by conspiracy theorists against material posted on ConspiracyScience.com, and I don't expect that to change any time soon.

10.  "The ZM is a young movement" or, conversely, "the ZM is gaining supporters all the time and will soon reach critical mass."

Context: These arguments usually come at the end of the discussion, as they are intended as debate-enders to render irrelevant any previous criticism.

Examples: Again, some variation of these arguments is almost certain to come up in any sustained debate with a ZM member.  One example appears here where a ZM member says:

"When we will reach a critical mass of people maybe even the most religious will see the benefit of joining the struggle to build a more sane, egalitarian and sustainable society which after all is the goal of most monotheistic religions."

Purpose: These arguments, which seem contradictory to each other on their face, actually serve the same purpose.  They are intended to render irrelevant all substantive criticism regarding the ZM.  They differ only where they're deployed.  "The ZM is a young movement" is intended to excuse the ZM's lack of any substantive real-world impact--i.e., why they haven't done more to advance their purported goals--and "we're gaining critical mass" is intended to predict that whatever anti-ZM viewpoints are out there will be relegated to the dustbin of history when the ZM belief system becomes the dominant one in society, as many ZM assume will eventually happen.

Discussion: I group these arguments together because they are both meant as blanket antidotes to criticism.  "The ZM is a young movement" or "the ZM hasn't been around very long" is a relatively weak response to the incontrovertible fact that the ZM hasn't accomplished very much since its beginnings.  They have made no progress on building a model city that demonstrates the capabilities of the Venus Project; to my knowledge they have raised no funds even to start a model city; and they are channeling most of their energy into "let's get the word out!" projects like a big-budget movie that is supposed to be bigger than Titanic and Avatar and will showcase the tenets of their belief system.  One who doubts why efforts of this nature haven't proceeded farther is invariably reminded that the ZM hasn't been around very long, and a "just wait and see" attitude will vindicate all their predictions.

"The ZM is gaining critical mass" is a conceit that plays into a common delusion of conspiracy theorists, that their point of view is always on the verge of gaining mainstream acceptance.  Statements like "the worm is turning" or "we're gaining critical mass" are common, for example, among 9/11 Truthers who accept on faith that their conspiracy beliefs will eventually become shared by a significant proportion of the public, if not the media.  To be sure, this argument may be intended just as much to buck up wilting spirits within conspiracy theorists' own circles as it is to warn critics that they are on the wrong side of history.  With respect to the ZM in particular, the "critical mass" argument is more often deployed as a trump card, in the nature of "Once everybody believes in the Venus Project, your criticisms won't matter in the long run."  Who can argue with that?

But is the ZM really gaining "critical mass?"  As with any other social cause that's primarily based on the Internet, it's difficult to tell.  This analysis from Alexa.com, which tracks web trends, does not bode well.  As of this writing (June 2010), page views for the ZM's main web portal are down 38% over the past three months, and graphs going back a year show page views on a gradual, though not a precipitous, decline.  Considerably fewer people visit the ZM site now than did a year ago.  Certainly the grandiose predictions of media notice for "Z-Day"--supposedly a worldwide awareness and promotion day, held in early March--did not come to fruition.  Merola has claimed that his movement has 400,000 adherents.  That is merely the number who have registered on his website; the percentage of those who are actual participating members is clearly much, much smaller.  There is no way to judge how many members the ZM has, but one thing is clear: if there has been a significant, sustained increase in real-world membership participation in the ZM over the past year indicating that a "critical mass" is soon at hand, there is no evidence to show it.

My own view is that the ZM's predictions of steady membership increase in the future are unwarranted.  Zeitgeist I came out three years ago.  It was far more popular, by a factor of nearly 90%, than its sequel, Zeitgeist: Addendum, showing that the public's appetite for Zeitgeist films was almost entirely satisfied by Merola's first effort.  True, he is supposedly working on a third film, or at least a new recut of the first film, and these will probably generate at least some temporary interest, but whether this will translate into significantly more members depends on how much cachet the main premises of the film--that Christianity is a lie, that 9/11 was an inside job, and that bankers rule the world--still have in 2010, three years after Merola already presented his conclusions on those points.  How much popularity the ZM will have in the future is anyone's guess, but for purposes of this article it seems clear that claims that the ZM will achieve "critical mass," in the sense of broad acceptance by the public in general, are wildly fanciful.

Conclusion

The ZM has many things wrong with it, but I think we can give pretty much unequivocal praise to one aspect of their organization: their message discipline is extremely tight.  The fact that ZM members continually spout the same ten arguments analyzed here, and often in the exact same words, is a tribute to how completely the ZM ideology and argument style has seeped down to the rank-and-file members who feel motivated to respond to criticism of the ZM and its leader.  While I certainly don't expect these arguments to stop being deployed as a result of this blog, I do think a comprehensive analysis of them has at least some value.

Speaking only for myself--though I suspect I'm not alone--I would rather not wind up discussing the ZM as often as we seem to do on ConspiracyScience.com.  Nearly every week there are recent events in the news that spawn new conspiracy theories, or new twists on old conspiracy theories, that need debunking; a recent example is the BP oil spill, which some believe was staged for whatever nefarious reason.  By contrast, the ZM promotes the same tired theories over and over again, and their defenders use the same tired arguments over and over again to deflect criticism of their movement.  There is something soul-grinding about arguing the same points over and over again.  If this blog saves somebody somewhere even five minutes of responding to these shopworn shibboleths, my time writing it will not have been in vain.