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How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

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Re: How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

#111

Post by Klinky »

Potando wrote: post #100
Klinky wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a large portion of the conspiracy theorist population probably has a mental illness that makes them susceptible to delusional thinking. Delusional people can lead very normal fully functioning lives, but mix a certain topic that offers patterns which make their brain go down a certain path, and they suddenly become very adamant about believing something that is illogical and irrational. There is probably litt…

I don't think it counts as a disease if the majority of people, including most successful people "suffer" from it without any negative consequences for themselves. For example religion.

A mental illness does not have to result in major negative side effects to be considered an illness. People can live very normal looking lives, while also having delusional thoughts.

Re: How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

#112

Post by Kiro »

> One was sure the plane had been hit by lightning and then floated in the South China Sea, transmitting to the satellite on battery power. When I kicked him out, he came back under aliases. I wound up banning anyone who used the word “lightning.”

That's some seriously messed up moderation. Who is this guy and what forum is he talking about?

Re: How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

#113

Post by hedgehog »

kevin_nisbet wrote: post #56
rdtsc wrote: post #32

I think the main point of the story is not to convince us that he has a good proof. But rather to document how we convince ourselves, and how we latch on to small things and head down a path. Once we are on a path we become commited to it and it becomes hard to turn back. Notice how he talks about the "crazies" on the forum. How they would use aliases, log back in and mention their stupid "lightning" theory, and he h…

This was also the part I found most interesting. Over the past several months, I've been putting an increasing level of thought into how people reach conclusions and investigate technical problems, and looking at things like confirmation bias, and I see it happen in myself and others. The best example I have, is a vendor I work with had an outage in their platform, and we spent weeks going through the data, where the…

You'll probably find some transferable ideas and methods for your work in "Psychology of Intelligence Analysis" and the follow up "Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis".

Re: How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

#114

Post by tiatia »

ekianjo wrote: post #91
bhouston wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started reading this and then I thought of Occam's Razor. This theory is appears way too complex to be true, something much simpler likely happened.

Yet Occam's Razor is rarely found to be true - it's actually easy to hide a slightly more complex plan and make it look like a simple one and convincing everyone by saying "think Occam's Razor". Occam's Razor is not rationality, it's just brain applying laziness to assume nothing ever complicated occurs. Edit: a very simple example: look at magic tricks. If Occam's Razor was true, then all magic tricks should imply t…

"If Occam's Razor was true, then all magic tricks should imply that those who perform them are actually magicians."

You obviously don't understand Occams Razor.

Re: How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

#116

Post by jkot »

damian2000 wrote: post #38
defen wrote: post #35

I don't understand why an entity with "state level resources" would need to go through this elaborate procedure to acquire a jet (which they presumably want to use for nefarious purposes). 1) What nefarious purpose could they possibly use it for? e.g. let's say they want to turn it into a flying bomb - do they really think the rest of the world won't figure out where it came from / who did it, simply because they're…

The theory has a lot of holes, but in the absence of the plane and much other hard evidence, it becomes really attractive to believe in it. What were the Russians doing in Malaysia? In fact Russians make up an increasing number of tourists in south east asia. I ran into many when I was in Phuket a couple of years back.

Perhaps they were on holiday?

Re: How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

#117

Post by Klinky »

fluxtemp wrote: post #103
Klinky wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a large portion of the conspiracy theorist population probably has a mental illness that makes them susceptible to delusional thinking. Delusional people can lead very normal fully functioning lives, but mix a certain topic that offers patterns which make their brain go down a certain path, and they suddenly become very adamant about believing something that is illogical and irrational. There is probably litt…

I'd say it's the opposite. The large portion of the population who believes everything the authorities tell them has a mental illness that prevents them from thinking critically and for themselves.

No one should abandon critical thinking.

Re: How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

#119

Post by crimsonalucard »

tbabb wrote: post #95
crimsonalucard wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets make it clear. I'm not vindicating his theory I'm saying it's equally ignorant to not consider a theory because it just seems improbable.

A theory being improbable is probably the best reason not to give it credit. A theory should be accepted only when the null hypothesis is more improbable.

keywords: "seems improbable" Just because something SEEMS improbable doesn't actually mean it IS improbable.

Re: How crazy am I to think I actually know where that Malaysia Airlines plane is?

#120

Post by slaction »

The real lesson learned here is that people stopped talking about what made this guy famous, and in an attempt to kick the fires and get the flames going again, he's doing whatever it takes to bring the story back into the public eye so that we will once again call on him for his expertise.
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