Sunday, November 30, 2008

Waterboy Turns Shrink

Kevin Ryan, not merely content with embarassing himself pretending to be a structural engineer, now plays at being a psychologist, with a long article trying to explain why most people think he is an idiot.

Sociopathy, and a similar condition called disinhibition, are also caused by damage to the orbitofrontal cortex, and also involve very little tension. In the national discussion on 9/11, we have seen a few people who act as if they are sociopaths, lying easily and with confidence but without regard for the harm caused to others, and apparently without regret. These are the people who aggressively promote and defend the US government’s explanations of what happened that day, even as those explanations change radically, often to the point of contradicting the previous position completely. These adamant defenders of the official story of 9/11 have no regard for the truth or falsity of their claims, or for the fact that they are propping up the one and only source of power for those behind the disastrous 9/11 Wars. Such people might be sociopaths, or they might simply be professional liars.

Gee, I hope my orbitofrontal cortex is OK.

As the title of the article indicates the focus is actually on the "two Naomi's" Naomi Klein and Naomi Wolf. The latter comes under some criticism in this part:

Wolf’s essay uses several other techniques used by those who seem to be experiencing tension over 9/11 truth. She degrades those questioning the official story by first putting them in quotes – “”The 9/11 Truth Movement””, thereby implying they are either not real, or are not legitimate. She then quickly adds that “conspiracy theories surface where people are poorly educated and a vigorous press is lacking.” Wolf goes on to explain why such a large and growing number of people are interested in learning the truth about 9/11, suggesting that such “conspiracy theories” are “psychologically more comforting.”

The truth, of course, is plainly the opposite. As a group, those questioning the official story of 9/11 are at least as well educated as those who accept the official story without question.



Anecdotal evidence aside, this is actually proven wrong by the truther's own poll. The Zogby poll that they commissioned last year that showed a scant 4.6% support for MIHOP. This poll showed that those without a highschool diploma were twice as likely to believe in MIHOP as those with a college degree. Admittedly this is still only 6% of the population, but the poll results consistently show a trend of stronger support for conspiracy theories among the younger and less educated.

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