Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Capital_Net_6438 t1_ixh3ukk wrote

Reply to comment by gimboarretino in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | November 21, 2022 by BernardJOrtcutt

Why isn’t this like: statistically it’s just not possible for all 1000 men in a sample to be less than 100 feet tall? What are the odds? At least one of them surely is 100 feet tall or more.

1

gimboarretino t1_ixhcq8a wrote

Mmm no, because no man above 100 feet tall has ever been observed. While on the other hand, many times in history it emerged that the official, authority-approved version of the facts was false. And the alternative, unofficial, "conspiratory" version was true. For example, the German Reichstag was indeed burn down by the nazi Government, and not (as the German goverment and mass media claimed) by the commies. Or the Tonkin incident... or the fact that tobacco companies were indeed aware of the harms of smoking and wrestling plotting against anti-smoking legislation and scientific evidences... etc.

So there is nothing absurd/unlikely to assume that a little % of the current "official versions of the facts" are not true or not entirely true.

3

Capital_Net_6438 t1_ixi9gbd wrote

I’m sure you’re right that many conspiracy theories are true. I just find your argument specious. Aren’t you saying:

Some Fs are Gs. These 1000 things are Fs. Therefore, some of those 1000 things are G.

1

gimboarretino t1_ixicijr wrote

I'm saying that out of 100 past "official versions of facts", X (where X is a number > 0) turned out to be false. So it's very likely that out of 100 contemporary "official version of facts", X (where X is > 0) will turn out to be false.

2