Sound of Freedom (2023)

I thought the film was excellent. Great script great directing great acting. That's it

I watched this one a while ago. I'd say the film is over-hyped in every possible way. It's a B-movie with poor writing, wooden acting, and horrible ADR quality. However, the cinematography is better than average, so it has some positives. Likewise, I didn't find any right-wing conspiracies (unless one counts the Christian undertones as such). I rated it 2/5.

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I think people who are judgemental about this movie without seeing it have a lot to answer for. This is a very real and dangerous situation and the world needs to be aware of it. Kids in South America Matter Too

Furthermore I researched this film and found the actual newspaper articles about the case. It's truly horrific what these people were doing. Crimes like this need to be exposed

They, um…have been? This isn’t exactly something new or earth shattering discovery. It isn’t like the US has been sitting on their hands. Defending this film ignores Ballard and the film makers obvious agenda here.

I agree. Wouldn't it be terrible if someone said otherwise?



Why do people who tout this movie assume they are the first people to have ever heard about human trafficking?



And, in case the movie doesn't touch on this, pretty much everybody thinks it's a bad thing and would like it to stop. Moral outrage towards child abuse didn't suddenly begin three ****ing years ago.

Watch Fox News much?

This movie also cleverly avoids putting in all of the wackiest of the conspiracy theories in the narrative, that these children are trafficked so that Oprah and Tom Hanks can ritually drink their blood for the adrenochrome that they need as demons. Because if they led with that, you greatly decrease the number of people who would watch it. Though the believers of that kind of nonsense who go to see the flick understand that is "the rest of the story".

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

We knew that about Oprah... but had no idea Tom Hanks was part of it.

Conspiracy theories are inspired by some genuinely concerning reports such as consuming the blood of young people to stay vital and making it a business. And then there's the never ending stream of reports of sexual abuse, often of children, by powerful and connected people like Bryan Singer ,Roman Polanski,Allison Mack,Danny Masterson,Harvey Weinstein,Ezra Miller,Kaalan Walker ,Bill Cosby,Victor Salva, and how many more names could we add?

Don't forget, an actual island set aside for sexual escapades with underage kids with flight logs showing a long list of celebrities and politicians, even former presidents as guests. And then the guy who ran the island committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. And then the woman who worked as his pimp was convicted in a sex trafficking case where none of the people who were her clients were revealed, charged, or convicted.

We can laugh it up about adrenochrome and pizzagate, but you don't need a theory to grasp that there are conspiracies.

Wow. Kay. 'Nuff said.


*QUIETLY LEAVES ROOM*

"There are conspiracies" is not a defense of any particular conspiracy. That is, however, a useful window into the ways in which the existence of bad thing X somehow becomes twisted into supposed evidence of bad thing Y.

Two facts inform our present context. One is that we're living in a post Manning/Assange/Snowden world. We no longer have the comforting pillow of presumption that it is most likely the case that nothing strange is afoot in the status quo.


Indeed, news reporting has leaned into this. If you listened to left-wing legacy media sources, you were told that Trump stole an election with the help of the Russians. If you listened to right-wing sources, you were told that Democrats stole an election with the help of Dominion. So, it was a leftwing conspiracy, or it was a rightwing conspiracy, or perhaps both conspiracies are true or perhaps it is just a great conspiratorial lie perpetrated by one or both parties. The only conclusion we cannot escape is that we're being lied to about a very important set of facts by what used to be culturally trusted sources.



In short, presumption now favors credulity.



Second, and this was evidenced in my prior post, we already have proof of conspiracies regarding sexual abuse among powerful elites. Weinstein wasn't acting alone. He was protected systemically. Savile didn't act alone. He was protected systemically. Epstein didn't act alone. What happened on that island was systemic.



In short, presumption not only favors credulity in suspicion, but also the specific suspicion that some rich and powerful people are involved in some very dark activities.



Where people go off the rails is when they speculate about who (Oprah!), what (adrenochrome!), where (a pizza shop!), why (to gain eternal youth by appeasing Ba'al!), and how (with the help of Reptilians!). Any particular "theory" forwarded without evidence and analysis is basically fanfic.


But premature theories pop-up because we have a need for cognitive closure and there is a perverse expectation that we often put on our "canaries" (e.g., if you identify a problem without a solution you may be rejected out of hand; if suspect "foul play", you will be pressed for evidence of particular wrong doing (that is, no one satisfied with the claim that a crime has been committed, they expect a suspect to be named and indicted).



We might also note that these "theories" have the perverse effect of providing cover for actual conspiracies ("Oh, you think institution X is lying to you, do you?"). Hence, child trafficking is at once a tragic and documented reality, but also a mere lie/myth perpetuated by the gullible, the fearful, and the hateful.

If we are to debunk the fool, we have to be cautious not to put pressure on our credulity in X (and X associated activities) in the process of roasting a particular Y.

I don't think this follows. This is the kind of logical leap I just alluded to: we're being lied to, therefore I'm willing to believe more things in general. I don't think that's how truth works. It is asymmetric with lies, because there is one set of truths but a potentially infinite number of falsities.

I also feel like the logic kind of flows the other way: if your entire point is that anyone could be deceiving you, that includes the people arguing that a conspiracy is true. A rise in deception seems like a reason to tighten your evidentiary standards, not loosen them. The only really logical response to the disinformation you're talking about is higher levels of skepticism across the board. That's the really insidious thing about deception: it actually creates more opportunities for counter-deception. Being lied to about sex crimes among the powerful probably makes it more likely you'll be lied to ABOUT those crimes, too.

This is another problem with conspiracies: they reference existing "conspiracies" that are, frankly, usually less dramatic or widespread. They'll cite a conspiracy that goes to 5 to justify the possibility of one that goes to 50. And by definition, they are citing conspiracies that were exposed. And that's part of the argument against any conspiracy: why hasn't it come out? Why don't we have proof? The bigger it is, the less likely it can be suppressed over time. So every conspiracy cited is actually creating more problems for the conspiracy theorist, in that they have to explain why the "next" one has gone unproven relative to the ones they cite.

Obviously "some" is doing a lot of work here in both places in which it's used. There's a lot of rich and powerful people, so undoubtedly some of them are doing awful things. But being willing to believe this of non-specific people about non-specific badness is a very different claim than specific people, doing specific things.

Precisely. I'm glad we agree on this, at least.

I think if you're sufficiently vague, as described here, you'll be met with less resistance. And what resistance you'll be met with will probably be more like "I agree with what you're saying in a vacuum, but in this case it inadvertently lends support to people who believe the really crazy stuff." Once something is considered taboo, people find ways to say it without saying it, and the ways they do that look exactly like your post earlier.

Right, a lot of stuff gets smuggled in. Hence the pushback and cautioning when someone flirts around with the notion of any conspiracy in this general space.

Sure, agreed. In the exact same way the existence of all this awful stuff is used to casually shoehorn in more dramatic and less evidenced claims, the dismissal of those less evidenced claims sometimes risks downplaying the more evidenced ones.

What I mean here is limited. I only mean "credulity" in the bare sense that "there are ongoing conspiracies in our society" and, slightly more specifically, "there are ongoing conspiracies involving sexual exploitation of children in our society." Again, think of the systemic abuses referred to earlier.

To be clear, if you took that to mean that I meant leaping to particular conclusions (who, what, when, why, and how) without evidence, then that would be quite unjustified. But that isn't what I am talking about.

I am, rather, talking about something in the middle.

Between the light of our common knowledge and the long shadow of our wild speculations is a penumbra. That penumbra is a space of understanding that "something is going on," but not quite knowing what. It is a space of malaise, malcontent, and dissatisfaction. An itch that cannot quite be scratched.

And yet the penumbra is epistemically warranted. We have the light of evidence. We have former conspiracy theories which have been confirmed (e.g., MK-ULTRA, Operation Paperclip, ubiquitous ongoing government surveillance, evidence of UAPs/UFOs, sexual exploitation of women and children). In some glaring cases, we know that the people involved have not been held to account (e.g., James Clapper lied repeatedly to congress about government agencies not spying on U.S. citizens, the clientele of Epstein's enterprise have only been partially named and none prosecuted).

What should we conclude? Is our government no longer spying on us? Were our intelligence agencies shamed into modesty by the Snowden leaks? Or do you think they're still collecting everything they can? Did #metoo fix everything wrong in our society, or did it direct our attention to the tip of the iceberg? Are rich and powerful people (e.g., Prince Andrew) who enjoyed the services of the "Lolita Express" still buggering kids or did Epstein's convenient suicide cause them to vanish into a puff of smoke? Answering yes to such questions does not commit you to the reality of reptilian hybrids, blood sacrifices on the moon, pizza parlor sex dungeons, etc.

You deprecated the reality of previously confirmed conspiracies as being no big deal (mere "5's" compared to alleged "50's"). But we already have level 50 conspiracy theories being confirmed or elevated in plausibility. See below.

Example 1: UAPs/UFOs used to be so radical a suggestion that we would laugh at people for the mere mention of their credulity in the phenomena. Now, we have the U.S. military joining congressional hearings and frankly stating that they have evidence of inexplicable craft observed on multiple occasions. We can speculate that we're being intentionally misled by these alleged revelations, but only if we're willing to entertain a counter-conspiracy to deflate a conspiracy.

Example 2: Epstein is a level 50 event. We know of some people who went to that island and attended those parties. We know that Bill Clinton rode the Lolita Express numerous times and was spotted with young girls in transit. The rejoinder offered here is often a tu quoque (e.g., President Trump said Epstein is a great guy!), but a tu quoque does NOT refute a claim, but merely associates others in the same impropriety.

Example 3: The Tuskegee Study. Scientists watched African American men slowly die so that they could do research into the effects of Syphilis.

Example 4: The FBI encouraging MLK to commit suicide to impede the Civil Rights movement is a level 50.

How many Level 50's, past and present, do we need?

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The Sound of Freedom is frustrating because it is talking out of both sides of its mouth. One the one hand child trafficking obviously occurs and is bad. On the other hand, the promotion of the film has dipped into wild stuff (e.g., Jim Caviezel banging on about adrenochroming kids to Baptist Ministers while promoting the film at a church event). The Sound of Freedom is frustrating because it is arguably equivocating on a troll's truism (the true fact of child trafficking and conspiracy theories about Hollywood child trafficking). Holden is justified in mocking this. The "official" stance is that it is an innocent action thriller, but the wider speech-act appears to nod at a "Satanic Panic."

So, why is it so hard to accept the penumbra? Why does this film do the dance of a troll's truism? Why do we polarize into mocking denial or credulous theorizing? My guess is good-old fashioned cognitive dissonance. That is, if you really believed something was deeply wrong with the world, that would imply that you need to do something about it and also that you are not really in a state of true knowledge (as what is wrong has been promoted by a systemic lie). Thus, people either charge in trying to fix it (Take that, lizard people!) or deprecate it (LOL, conspiracies!). People either get off the bench and theorize or shrug and minimize.

I think the conspiracy nutter is right in noting that you have to be insane to think that there aren't conspiracies, serious conspiracies, concerning conspiracies, ongoing conspiracies. On the other hand, I think that that anti-conspiracy theorist advocates are correct in hammering the "theory" part of it, because the theories are generally anything but the wildest of speculations.

Finally caught up with Sound of Freedom the other night. This is a very impressive film due in equal parts to its subject matter and its production. It’s actually a crime thriller based upon a true story that has the feel of a docudrama.

It’s public knowledge that the film’s subject is human trafficking, specifically child sex trafficking, so it’s important to note that there are no graphic scenes of pedophilia or pederasty, very little violence, and a paucity of foul language. It has a PG-13 rating. The film simply tells the story of a few men who undertake the rescue of children who have been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. There are no political or religious themes. Still, most viewers will find themselves choking up, especially in the first part of the movie when the shock and depravity sinks home of what’s happening with these children.

The star, Jim Caviezel, is a medium weight actor, but his performance is both believable and appealing. Oscar winning Mira Sorvino is effective despite having moderate screen time. There are several actors who really stand out. Bill Camp as “Vampiro”, who as a former cartel accountant became dedicated to rescuing children from traffickers, shines as a hardy life-loving local advocate. Most impressive were the two main child actors, Cristal Aparicio and Lucas Avila, who play Rocio and Miguel respectively, whose performances seem real, and emotionally draw the viewer into their plight.

The film’s focus shines light upon this horrific practice that we in the U.S. do not often hear about for one reason or another. A shocking statistic stated in the picture is that there are more people enslaved today than there were two centuries ago when slavery was legal, the lion’s share being children. It strains credulity that the pursuit of the perpetrators of this heinous crime has seemingly become disrespected by the same factions that are silent about its existence. But the subject matter should rise above politics or fashion. In a prudent world both points of view would come together in a united effort to stamp out child sex trafficking. Sound of Freedom is an important picture that brings this world wide crime into the light of day.

I have yet to see this film, but do plan on taking in at some point in the future, even if it is just so I can help moderate the thread more effectively.

I did happen to check out the first part of an interview with both Tim Ballard and Jim Caviezel, which was hosted by Jordan Peterson. The interview took place about a week before the film hit theaters. I think I have less interest in the film and more interest in the child trafficking issue at this point, and even though the interview centered around the film for the most part, Tim Ballard did speak about his time on the Homeland Security Child Trafficking unit.

Right off the bat, Peterson hits them with several points of criticism, asking Ballard point blank about some of the more conspiracy-driven claims that have been leveled at the both the film and the film makers, including Ballard and Caviezel. As far as the adrenochrome stuff, Ballard straight up disavows it immediately in very clear language. He says his reports, which are on file and available publicly, speak to...



...and he has never claimed it himself in any interviews etc. He claims his official reports have been conflated with those conspiracies, which are then used to discredit him and his work.

That was his take right before the release of the film, anyway. I will say that this guy has clearly experienced quite a bit of trauma in his life, and appears to suffer from a fairly bad case of PTSD. He explains why, which I won't go into here due to its graphic nature, but let's just say, considering the agencies and work he was involved with for years, and the nature of the work he did, it totally follows that he would be both passionate about the subject, and somewhat unstable in some ways. He has trouble talking about his time on the job, breaking down emotionally during the interview.

Caviezel, on the other hand, seems to be more than a bit off. I am not finished with his portion of the interview, and I have heard he has tried to bring up the celebrity conspiracy at other times/in other places, so perhaps this guy is off the deep end, but as of yet, the times Peterson cut over to him during the interview, he seemed oddly robotic and disconnected. I don't have a read on the guy as of yet, but he was giving off Stepford Wife vibes in the little footage of him I have seen so far.

I will check back in after I have finished the interview and will try to get the film in at some point soon, most likely after I finish up the Halloween challenge.

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Yeah, I think this is why some of the criticism goes a little far. There doesn't seem to be sufficient reason (from what I've heard so far, at least) to think the film's exclusion of the crazy stuff is cleverly hiding their dog whistle beliefs, or whatever. It seems plausible that they actually wanted to make a documentary about the problem, and unfortunately this topic is such that some people will take it as a wink wink, nudge nudge kind of thing to the really insane stuff.

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

This is where I start to get skeptical. On paper I get it: X, Y, and Z have happened, all sound like crazy conspiracies that would be dismissed otherwise, so why shouldn't we open our minds to other seemingly crazy possibilities? It sort of makes sense.

But I think there's still a fundamental disconnect in conspiracy thinking, which uses all known conspiracies to inflate the probability of unknown (IE: unproven) ones. I kind of alluded to this earlier, where it almost logics out the other way: it shows that conspiracies get exposed! It shows how hard it is to keep the really crazy stuff secret. And it makes you wonder why they'd admit (or accidentally reveal, or whatever) to that awful stuff but not this.

Almost every conspiracy theorist shifts quickly from the evidence for a specific unproven conspiracy to past conspiracies, merely to establish that conspiracies are possible, which is a very low bar to clear and not evidence of any specific claim. It happens every time I engage with them, sometimes immediately. But I really think they shoot themselves in the foot there: in order to establish that these things happen sometimes, they have to paint themselves into a corner, left to explain why these other ones haven't been exposed. I think conspiracy theorists forget that part of the argument is not "it can't happen" but more "it's very hard to keep these things quiet." A lot of people believe a lot of things in other areas that, if you boil them down, end up amounting to just "if that were true we'd know it by now/I'd have heard of it."

It's related to the fundamental contradiction of almost every conspiracy theorist: it's SO obvious, just look at the evidence! But also it's being covered up by incredibly resourceful and powerful people. It's simultaneously hidden and obvious.

I don't think of Epstein or UFOs as on the same level you do. For example, a "level 50" for UFOs is actual evidence of aliens, not "the government ostensibly admits it's not sure what this is." I'm not super interested in us parsing our relative scoring systems here though, all I'm really getting at is that there isn't a good, clear exchange rate between these theories, and it's pretty typical to ignore degree altogether. "The government was spying on us" was never as unbelievable as even a couple of the toppings on the Pizzagate lore.

There's a little intellectual paradox I like to talk about, usually when someone, frustrated with me or anyone else, says something like "you just think you're right about everything!" I will then note that everybody thinks they're right about everything, because if they didn't think they were right, they'd change their mind.

BUT, any reasonable person must concede they are wrong about some things. They just don't know what they are. So we are left knowing we are wrong sometimes, but thinking we are right in every particular instance.

Conspiracies are much the same: obviously conspiracies exist (though I'm of the mind that real, true, shocking ones are vanishingly rare and almost invariably exposed), but the evidence for any one specific one is sparse, because if it were otherwise it would have already be part of the public record.

No particular unproved conspiracy is necessarily made more likely on my reasoning.

Consider the difference between a contrary statement and a contradictory statement. The contradiction of "Bob is brilliant" is "Bob is NOT brilliant." This contradiction allows for anything in the universe to be true of Bob, save for the proposition that he is brilliant (e.g., Bob might be a fiction, Bob might be an idiot, Bob might be of middling intelligence, Bob might be intelligent). Arguing that "Bob is not brilliant" (contradicting some status quo presumption that he is brilliant) does NOT commit us to believing, for example, that Bob does not even exist. The penumbra is the contradiction of the presumptive belief that "Conspiracies theories are false" (full stop). A contrary statement, on the other hand, is particular, right? If one says, "Bob is brilliant" and the reply is "Bob is sharp but not quite brilliant," then a particular stance must now be defended in opposition to the claim. One contrary statement to, "There was no conspiracy to kill Kennedy" is "Kennedy was killed by interdimensional reptilians." However, even if we agree that something was hinky about Kennedy's assassination, we are in no way committed to saying that the probability that he was killed by interdimensional reptilians has substantively increased. The penumbra is that of a contradictory rather than contrary opposition.
Stuff we've found out is RARELY stuff that has been freely admitted to. Snowden, Manning, and Assange were whistleblowers. Consider how these whistleblower have been treated. Do you really think the government was happy about them spilling the beans?

Other revelations have resulted from deductive work based on imperfect redactions made in documents secured under FOIA requests. In other cases, it's theft. It was a burglary that revealed the COINTELPRO program. None of this was free or easy.

That some conspiracies are exposed does NOT commit us to the proposition that all conspiracies have now been exposed. That's rather silly. Even if someday some historian might uncover some unknown conspiracies, that does not mean that the general public is any wiser today. What we have learned is that government agencies have, in fact, successfully kept programs secret for many decades! Indeed, the Pentagon keeps failing audits. The Pentagon has claimed (repeatedly) that they just can't keep track of trillions of dollars
How hard is it to keep things secret when the permanent military state apparatus of the nation does not have to account for trillions in assets or pass audits?

Or think back to the 2008 bailouts which included billions of dollars in foreign payouts. When the Federal Reserve was called on the carpet, the Fed chair flat out said he didn't have to tell congress where that money was going because the Federal Reserve is not technically an apparatus of the U.S. government.

James Clapper was caught flat out lying in testimony that U.S. agencies do not spy on U.S. citizens. There were no consequences for his perjury.

So, when government agencies can fail audits "losing" trillions, when the Federal Reserve can spend your money without providing details to congress on where it is going, when government officials can flat out lie to congress without consequences, why would you imagine that it is so hard to keep a secret? You just have to use magic words like "national security" and you can bury as much as you like.
Again, proof of past conspiracies does not directly lend credence to any particular conspiracy (contrary vs. contradictory/penumbre vs. shadow). However, if one's interlocutor is mocking/mitigating the very idea of successful conspiracies as a take-out of they very idea of ANY conspiracies being true, there is nothing illicit in pointing to past conspiracies as evidence of the probability of current ones.
This is not a logical contradiction. Every critic of poems, books, and films attempts to show us, for the first time, what we missed when we perused an artwork. The critic must show what is there (i.e., it must be "in the text") and yet to be interesting it must be something that everyone else somehow missed (otherwise why waste our time telling us what we already knew?).

Is it possible for something to be false in light of good evidence and still find millions of people believing it anyway, despite a vocal minority pointing to that evidence? Well, atheists would say yes. The atheist sees no credible evidence for believing in God, but billions continue to do so, despite their best efforts. This does not mean that the atheists are "wrong," just that they have not succeeded in their marketing aims.

Those frustrated by climate denial would say yes. Scientists continually regurgitate details about carbon in the atmosphere caused by humans and extra heat retained in the atmosphere. They've exercised detailed arguments based on evidence and they have still failed. Surely, you would not argue that these people have failed simply because they have failed to argue their side of the case?
How about the Tuskegee study or the FBI plot to get MLK to commit suicide?

If you don't think Epstein is a level 50, I have no idea would count for you. This is a proven conspiracy. It involves some very powerful people including royalty and former presidents. No one who paid for those services has been prosecuted, only the people who provided them. The people who paid for these services (i.e., buggering kids on a private island) are still largely unnamed and roaming free.
We watched the government and the scientific establishment deny, for decades, that these phenomena were anything but mundane events (e.g., weather balloons). Suddenly, out of the clear blue, the military pivots and testifies to congress that inexplicable craft are regularly shadowing U.S. military operations. That's beyond concerning.

People were humiliated. Careers were wrecked. Reputations were tarnished. Even saying that something weird was going on was enough to invite derisive laughter. But now we find that these phenomena are not just plausible, but well-documented, and that we have no idea what is going on. We are observing craft appear to break known laws of physics, running circles around jet fighters, entering and exiting the ocean, accelerating to ridiculous speeds, stopping on a dime, etc.

But we're STILL deprecating this evidence on the basis that we don't have proof positive that it's E.T.? Seriously? We've discovered something truly inexplicable (from what we know of science and technology). At the very least, the most plausible "mundane" hypothesis is that some government(s) on this planet have achieved levels of technology that appear to defy the laws of physics. But it's not E.T., so it's boring? This is a massive pivot on the part of the government. UFOs have become UAPs and they have graduated from systematic denial (of even being anything interesting/inexplicable), to an avowed national security concern.
No, no. That's what people say now. Before the leaks of the 2000's, it was a joke. People were mocked and derided for thinking that their government was interested in spying on them. To even suggest it was to be implicated the most ridiculous straw-arguments "debunking" the position ("Well, you must wear a tin-foil hat, right?"). People now act like we knew it all along, but we didn't. We suspected it uneasily and made fun of "conspiracy theorists" who were banging on about digital privacy. Well, it turns out the nutters were right. So, now the pivot is "Well, we always kinda knew and we never really cared, so no big deal. Of course governments regularly spy on their citizens, violating their civil right. No big deal." Before Snowden, you were a fool for suspecting. After Snowden, all of the sudden we retconned our credulity (you were a fool if you didn't suspect it).
How do you know that they are "vanishingly rare"? How do you know that they are almost "invariably exposed"? You only know what you see. And the thought that what you see is all there is a documented cognitive bias.

We live in an age of misinformation, disinformation, truthiness, simulation, and infotainment. Our information ecology is that of a port-a-potty. Government agencies have been caught repeatedly lying to the public without consequence. Democrats and Republicans have accused each other of conspiring to steal the last presidential elections. If one of them is right, we should be concerned. If both are wrong, then it seems we have a conspiracy of lies.

Complicit ignorance is a poor response to rabid conspiracy theorizing. The epistemics or our age leave us with the dilemma of knee-jerk denialism and wild speculation. In the middle is the penumbra. And until we can pass through the horns of the dilemma by minimally acknowledging that we have grounds to believe that serious conspiracies happen and are still happening, we'll be trapped in the polemic of those who are willfully blind and those who see the face of Jesus in their grilled-cheese sandwich.
The invitation to fallacy here is obvious. There can be no unknown conspiracies because we either lack evidence them or if we have evidence they are known conspiracies.

This like saying that there are no likely unknown species, because we either lack evidence for them or if we have evidence for them then they are known. However, there are new species being discovered everyday. Discovery is a process that moves us from known to unknown. Every new scientific advancement begins as a crank theory that resists falsification and has enough verification that it is finally accepted. You might as well say that the evidence for Einstein's theory of relativity was "spare" in 1905 and 1915 because scientists had not yet conducted thousands on experiments testing it. Sure, the evidence was sparse in 1905, but Einstein was right.

Again, my position is that of the penumbra, the contradictory (not contrary position). I am not committed to any particular "unconfirmed theory" which, by definition, has "sparse evidence" until it graduates to being a "confirmed theory."

Thus what you said here is, at best, true-but-trivial, and at worst an invitation into a fallacy. Beware tautological refutations.

Two very broad things, followed by two specific ones.

First, as I said before, I'm not interested in parsing the severity of conspiracies. I have plenty of reasons for not putting those things in the same categories as these other claims, but I sense an unbridgeable divide already, so would rather not bother.

Part of that is related to the second broad thing, which is the way these conversations unnecessarily expand in size and time commitment. If you want me to see these engagements through, an effort to stop them from tripling in size a couple replies in would help with that. Part of the reason this seems to happen is the inclusion of all sorts of related (to varying degrees) topics, almost invariably on contentious political topics that would by themselves obviously fall outside of our No Politics rule, but which get dragged in via frequent and often unnecessary analogy. As I've indicated before, this is still one of those rules that requires good faith from participants to work. People don't like it when I nip these conversations in the bud, long before they've broken any rules, but this is a good example of why it happens.

Now, the two granular things:

I quite obviously didn't say this. I said that the exposure of conspiracies necessitates an explanation for why those are exposed and others are not, which means the logic of "conspiracies exist, therefore this one is more likely" doesn't work, and in fact might point in the other direction. It's a wash at best.

Nor is it analogous to whatever other examples you've thrown out, because the inevitability of discovery is one of the core arguments against conspiracies in general. Cripes, it's why we have the word "conspiracy" rather than "secret" in the first place: to denote it's sprawling (and therefore fragile) nature.

It is, at minimum, a logical tension, because it renders every specific complaint unfalsifiable. Why do you believe it? Well, because it's so obvious, look at all the evidence! Why don't we have proof? Well, because the people covering it up are so powerful! They're suppressing evidence!

Being the first to discover a thing is not at lal what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the two mutually at odds explanations that manage to cover 100% of possible objections.