GoSeigen wrote:stevensfo wrote:servodude wrote:Just been talking to the guy fixing the air-con in the office
- apparently the flat earth stuff going about on the internet has been made up and put about by "them in charge" to make the conspiracy theorists look silly
- not a hint of irony
- sd
Well, the expression 'Conspiracy theory' is a brilliant way of finishing an argument or putting a different slant on the evidence. Just as "Oh that's racist" or "Child abuse" can change the whole tone of a discussion even if racism or child abuse doesn't really enter into it. It's just enough to say it.
So you think people who claim the moon landings are made up and that the earth is not spherical but everyone has been pulling the wool over our eyes from Galileo onwards are worthy of a serious good faith consideration of their ideas and further, that labelling people by a category called race and then allowing them to face daily abuse and discrimination and in many jurisdictions introducing law to specifically restrict their rights and prevent them from participating in an equal basis in society does not merit the label racism, because you might just offend some snowflake who is innocently using the term Pakistani or Pikey in a harmless joke about curry smells or drive-laying?
GS
I think that you have either not understood the point I was making, or have drunk too much coffee.
No, I do not believe the flat-earthers etc are worthy of consideration. Far from it. Nor was I actually talking about Racism.
I was simply pointing out how certain expressions can be used in a rhetorical sense. Thus, a different slant can be put on arguments simply by using the word 'Conspiracy', immediately adding the idea, maybe subconsciously, that the idea is probably absurd.
As I said in another thread, a discussion on the ABRSM Music forum was stopped in its tracks when someone used the word 'racist' to describe general criticism of Music teaching in France.
Hope that clears things up.
Steve