JFK Assassination Forum

Do you think that there is a way for folks to try to separate the JFKA from their worldview, make it a “less critical cog” in their thinking. Perhaps they could try to just consider the JFKA an arbitrary abnormality. I know that when I simply opened my mind and thought that maybe there was a chance that the investigators, etc actually involved in the investigation and reporting got it (mostly) right, I began to consider things differently and eventually converted from believing that there “must have been a conspiracy” to seeing that there really doesn’t appear to be any credible evidence of a conspiracy. But I believe that I do remain open to being able to objectively consider any new evidence of a conspiracy that might arise.

At the risk of sounding like an insufferable know-it-all - which I am, of course, but I hate to sound like one  - I think it's virtually impossible in this day and age. These days, it's a combination of (1) strong confirmation bias combined with (2) the ability to live in an echo chamber of folks who continually reinforce that confirmation bias thanks to the internet and all forms of social media. Across the entire spectrum of political, religious and weirdness beliefs, huge numbers of people are essentially cultists. They would literally have to be deprogrammed the way someone is deprogrammed out of the Moonies or Scientology - no easy task. The cult comes to define these individuals and serves as a very comforting substitute family.

I started out my religious journey in a fundie organization that many people would describe as cult-like, to the extent of entering a graduate seminary. I dropped out after a year because the light bulb went on that fast: No one in his right mind could believe this stuff. We're all just pretending in order to fit in. Why did I have that epiphany? I really don't know. Maybe I've been blessed or cursed with the "ultra-rational gene." That epiphany didn't cause me to abandon the entire enterprise but launched me on a l-o-n-g quest for what I actually could and did believe. So now, like any rational person, I worship a little plastic figurine of Sai Baba that I keep on the dashboard of my car. 

I truly have no answers. Across the entire spectrum of political, religious and weirdness beliefs, I have somehow deprogrammed myself (or at least kid myself that I have) through intense study and thought and the good old rational gene eventually kicking in. I have no real clue as to what is going on with someone like Michael or his LN-fanatic counterpart. But these days there are Michaels everywhere, not just the JFKA community by any means. As a veteran of perhaps 40 internet forums - eventually banned from all of them and proud of it, by God!  - I've been down this road again and again with Gee-Whiz True Believers of every stripe. (The Ed Forum, to its credit, was the only one from which I self-banned to wild applause.)

Ones like Michael are the most puzzling because he is clearly very intelligent, very educated and capable of rational and non-wacky thought in other areas. But when it comes to the JFKA, he posts stuff that is literally the equivalent of "The earth is flat" or "King Charles is a reptilian alien." When he is called out on this, he just digs in his heels even deeper. When his absurdities are factually exposed, he just moves on to the next absurdity without missing a beat. Maybe it's some combination of conspiracy-prone mindset, confirmation bias, huge ego, self-amusment and hidden agenda that has hardened into a one-man MTG Cult. Those whose minds are simply not tracking in the channels of normality are more obvious and not nearly as interesting.

"Stay thirsty, my friends."

LE--

Well, you, me and everyone else has wondered the same thing.

There is a guy named Pat Speer who wrote a lot about this.

https://www.patspeer.com/

I think what Charles says is on the right track. Across the entire spectrum of Weirdness, as well as political and religious beliefs (both being their own species of Weirdness!), confirmation bias is surely the most difficult pitfall to avoid.

In many areas - the JFKA, UFOs, crop circles, poltergeists, whatever - I don't think I have any confirmation bias at all. I merely find these subjects interesting, but I don't particularly care what the explanation turns out to be or have any great need for a particular explanation to be true.

With something like the survival of consciousness after death, or the existence of a deity - well, yes, I do have much more of a visceral or emotional involvement and thus a stronger confirmation bias. I try to be doubly careful in reaching convictions in these areas, which is why in discussions and debates with Gee-Whiz True Believer fanatics I am often accused of being a skeptic or debunker when this is not true at all (except in the sense in which everyone should remain a bit skeptical of his own most cherished beliefs). Based on truly vast amounts of study and a fair amount of experience, I have arrived at quite strong convictions in these areas - but not to the point of losing rationality or being unable to see the countervailing arguments.

It's really difficult for me to see how someone would have a strong confirmation bias insofar as the JFKA is concerned. But people clearly do - on both sides of the debate, LN and CT alike. What would be the deep need for the LN narrative or any conspiracy theory to be true, to the extent of this need overwhelming the ability to think rationally? The answer has to be that the JFKA is a critical cog in one's worldview. The explanation for the JFKA must to be "X," and "X" will inevitably mesh with one's overarching worldview. It is in fact the overarching worldview that is determining what "X" will be. I think this has to be the explanation when we see a fanatical LNer or CTer who is wedded to his position like a religious fundie and who regards anything to the contrary as practically a personal insult. You're not just challenging his position on the JFKA; you're challenging who he is, what he thinks the world is all about.

And yet ... can confirmation bias really be the explanation when we see someone as intelligent and educated as Michael say the preposterous things he says in regard to the JFKA? As far as I can tell, he says nothing comparably preposterous in his writings about Mormonism, Intellgent Design, the Civil War or the Shroud of Turin. He has to know at some level that the conspiracy he posits is a complete fantasy, impossible in the real world.

I'm thoroughly puzzled. If I were to give him and those like him more credit than "they simply lose the ability to think rationally when it comes to the JFKA," I would say that making these preposterous claims must serve some agenda that isn't clear to me. "I'm just going to shovel so much conspiracy sh*t that sooner or later they'll have to reopen the investigation." Maybe, but this seems a stretch as an explanation for the amount of time and effort that Michael puts into his conspiracy sh*t.

It's a puzzle! Michael, of course, would say he simply follows the evidence and applies the same critical-thinking skills to the JFKA that he applies to his other interests and that the LNers and even I are the ones being ruled by our confirmation biases. He even categorizes me as a fanatical LNer because there can be no shades of gray in the war of Good (CT) versus Evil (LN) in which he sees himself as being engaged.

I remember a debate on some religion forum where atheists made the argument that only magical-thinking dolts believe in a deity. Wait, I said, many of the greatest philosophers, scientists and other academics who have ever lived, right up to the level of Nobel Laureates, have been and are devout theists. Do you seriously think they abandon the critical-thinking skills that have carried them to the pinnacles of their fields and turn into magical-thinking dolts when it comes to their assessment of theism versus atheism? "Yes, we do," came the predictable answer. "They are victims of their confirmation biases." (But the atheists, you see, are not! They are immune to confirmation biases! And on it goes ...)

Do you think that there is a way for folks to try to separate the JFKA from their worldview, make it a “less critical cog” in their thinking. Perhaps they could try to just consider the JFKA an arbitrary abnormality. I know that when I simply opened my mind and thought that maybe there was a chance that the investigators, etc actually involved in the investigation and reporting got it (mostly) right, I began to consider things differently and eventually converted from believing that there “must have been a conspiracy” to seeing that there really doesn’t appear to be any credible evidence of a conspiracy. But I believe that I do remain open to being able to objectively consider any new evidence of a conspiracy that might arise.

No direct shot from Oswald could have made that/there damage to the glass, when the needed angles are inspected.
No ricochet from Oswald could have made that damage, or it could, but would be an impossible ricochet when the needed angles are inspected.
So, the damage to the glass confirms a 2nd shooter.

The damage to the windshield glass and chrome piece were not caused by ricochets. They were caused by strikes by large bullet fragments that exited Kennedy's head. Those strikes were not impossible. There was no second shooter.

I like Gus Russo. I wish he would ID who LHO met in New Orleans, from G2, or who related that story to him.