Grading Woes

 Again, no update this week. Grading week is upon me. We'll be back next week to hopefully wrap this book up. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Origin Story: We Never Went to the Moon pp. 10-12

  Kaysing begins, as all conspiracy theory books do, with how he arrived at the knowledge of the conspiracy. Kaysing worked for seven years at Rocketdyne, “ the firm that built the main propulsion units for Apollo …” Let’s be clear that Kaysing is trying to pull a fast one on the reader already. He’s not claiming that he worked on the propulsion engines, he’s just saying that he worked at the company which made them. He’s curiously leaving out what his position was at Rocketdyne. If he worked on the boosters that would be front and center. This is very similar to the infamous Area 51 “whistleblower” but actual liar, Bob Lazar. Lazar claimed that he worked at Los Alamos but then leaves it at that. In reality, he worked for a company that developed film for the government at Los Alamos. We are meant to think he did something important at Alamos because that’s where “the Bomb” was made. I’m sure that film development is an important part of whatever was going on there, but that’s not ...
Read more

Environmentalism: Behold a Pale Horse pp. 215-216

A common trait amongst conspiracy theorists is that they like to brag that they know everything. They've seen the "TRUTH" and this sight has given them perfect knowledge. It does not matter that the knowledge they have will also run counter to other conspiracy theorists, requires a whole new reality, or is just plain bonkers. Conspiracy theorists have this trait of speaking with authority on every subject that comes across their mind.  Cooper, we may remember, was in the Navy and possibly the Air Force. He took some classes in radio but in every other respect, he's just a regular guy. Cooper gets a lot of credit from the UFOlogy circuit and the conspiracy crowd because he worked in Naval Intelligence, but to us--that means nothing. He claims an expertise in everything--but as we're about to see: he has very little understanding of the natural world especially.  In a symposium held in 1957...possibly the Bilderberg meeting that he alluded to last time, the JASON so...
Read more

Women Troubles: Proofs of a Conspiracy...pp. 113-123

We ended last week with Robison's very long and circular fallacy of the appeal to false authority. To recap, he lauds Newton--as he should--but then claims that because Newton believed in god we all should too. In fact, all of the smart people in his time believed in god, so therefore...that belief is what made them smart. It's a long fallacy that is seeking to discredit Weishaupt on intellectual grounds because it looks like that is what he was doing. It's a sleight of hand trick that works in person, but when we read this kind of trick it is more confusing than anything else. As I wrote, and repeatedly said, "why are we talking about Laplace again?"  By this point in the work, we are aware that Robison does not like the Illuminati and he's laid out their case of Deism/atheism. In the 18th century that should be enough, so this roundabout tactic is unnecessary. It's especially redundant because Robison can trade on his name if he wants. It is the only rea...
Read more