I Believe Most Conspiracy theories

[cali]

are bunk, and most of the claims aren't even authenticated, like the one of the missing nuke. Rumors fuel conspiracy theories. So why do they proliferate among intelligent people? I think it's largely an attempt to make order in tumultuous times. People want explanations that fit their world view, as well.

Are all conspiracy theories bunK? Probably not, but by their very nature they're impossible to prove. For me, one of the biggest strikes against CTs is that some of the larger ones-like those going on about an attack taking place before Sept 21, would require literally thousands of people. And I don't believe you can get thousands of people to keep their mouths shut.

A CT positing that bushco planned to nuke U.S cities also assumes that there are hundreds if not thousands of Americans, who would go along with it.

Hard to buy into.

[seemslikeadream]

1. hundreds if not thousands of Americans, who would go along with it

absolutely not true


There is no reason why you or anyone else lump all people into one category


but I also posted this
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1801086&mesg_id=1801086

[Zodiak]

29. Or all hypotheses in one category

Each hypothesis is judged on its own merit, and of course supporting evidence is the gold standard.

The use of the term "Conspiracy Theory" is too loose to be a useful definition in itself. To some, "Conspiracy Theory" disparagingly describes any hypothesis to which a person does not believe to be true concerning human events. That definition is too personalized to be useful, and I suspect that is the functional definition being used here.

The most strict definition of the term would of course emcompass a lot of events that turned out to be true (Pentagon papers, Gulf of Tonkin incident, run-up to the Iraq war), so the true definition of the term has lost its meaning in today's times.

A hypothesis is well-supported, moderately supported, weakly supported, barely plausable, or not supported at all. That is it....a hypothesis does not ask for anyone's "belief", just evidential support. No one is asked to "buy" anything.

As far as the loose nuke hypothesis I have seen going around, everything hinges on confirmation of the amount loaded and the amount that arrived (from what I know, it is a discrepancy in the reporting of the incident that has caused this hypothesis to be generated). If 6 were loaded and 5 arrived, we have a problem, but that awaits verification. The rest (using the nuke to hit ourselves in a false flag attack) is barely plausable, but worthy of consideration in light of the fact that this whole event should not have happened in the first place and there is a lot of circumstantial evidence brewing around the legal framework Bushco has set up for itself and its desire for more war.

So people are rightfully talking about it. Some even "believe" it is going to happen. Big deal....no reason for me to make a thread on how those people suck because they brought belief into it.

I also do not ascribe myself to ad hoc assumptions, which the OP has a glaring example of (well, two). First, that something like this would take the collusion of thousands. I have seen no proof of that at all. However, I would imagine that a few dozen of the right people would be all you need. Two, there is also the ad hoc assumption that people cannot keep their mouths shut. There are many historical examples of successful secrets kept from the public...even today. How long did it take for us to find out for sure that Bush knew about Iraq intel that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction? We suspected it, but it has been YEARS until we got the proof. Meanwhile, the war has raged for years.

That particular conspiracy only took the collusion of dozens, and it was secret enough to fool Colin Powell and all of Congress. Yes, we all thought it was true, but we didn't know for sure. We do now. Funny how those of us who were saying this years ago were called "conspiracy theorists" by the bulkof this country (even Democrats) in an attempt to marginalize the truth. Now that conspiracy theory is an incontrovertible fact.

Ad hoc assumptions are insidious things that prevent true logical construction from occurring. If a person starts out on the wrong foot, they shouldn't be surprised if they never arrive where they want to be.

[Bjornsdotter]

2. Yeah

...I got sent to the office and my Mom had to come to school over a little conspiracy theory called Watergate.

Hard to buy into.

Cheers

[bahrbearian]

3. Why would they lie to us?

[cali]

4. I said most for a reason.

Obviously there are some that aren't bunk. That was one of them. And ot involved a relatively small group of people in a third rate break in, not the bombing of American cities.

[leftofthedial]

11. a small group of burglars--and a bunch of folks at CREEP

--and the entire Nixon Administration in the coverup

and if the nascent bush neocon cabal had not betrayed Nixon in order to seize the repuke party, it would have remained "bunk"

[H2O Man]

13. Watergate

involved many, many things beyond a "third rate break in."

[Niccolo_Macchiavelli]

5. we're trying to follow patterns

nothing more. There are many lines combining and strange coincidential similarities. As for the current one there beeing a MIHOP event tomorrow 14. September 2007, (i'd suggest Washington DC) we'll see.

It's not something i really want to be right about

[cali]

6. If anything happens tomorrow

I will certainly say I was wrong, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it won't.

[Niccolo_Macchiavelli]

8. and i hope

you are right.

[Adsos Letter]

7. I agree, Cali...Here's a good source on this very phenomenon for you...

"Selling Fear" by Gregory S. Camp

http://www.amazon.com/Selling-Fear-Conspiracy-Theories-End-Times/dp/0801057213

It's really very good.

[H2O Man]

9. Hard to say.

Every time a DA prosecutes two or more people for a crime, even if there isn't a specific charge that says "conspiracy," the DA is saying the two (or more) people conspired to commit a crime -- unless there was absolutely no planning. While there are various rates for convictions, depending on the quality of the prosecutor, the ability of the investigators, and the evidence at hand, and while there are some mighty good defense attorneys, I think that the majority of conspiracy theories are valid.

And, of course, there are some crimes that aren't ever officially solved.

[cali]

12. That's hardly what I was referring to.

Yes, I know there's a legal definition of conspiracy. That was not what I was talking about, and I actually think that was fairly clear, so your comment is not actually responsive to the gist of my OP.

[H2O Man]

16. I think it is.

In fact, up-thread, you respond to a post about Watergate. And, as I noted there, Watergate involved far more than a "third-rate" burglary.

But it was uncovered because of a buglary that was anything but third-rate was disrupted.

Did the Plame scandal involve a conspiracy? While one was not charged, Mr. Fitzgerald certainly spoke about a dark cloud over the OVP.

Is the neocon/AIPAC espionage scandal a conspiracy? Of course.

Iran-Contra? Yep.

I wasn't joking with my response, and I did not miss the point of the OP. I was making a serious response, and I think that it is correct.

[cali]

22. Thanks for telling me what I was saying. I'll try NOT to return the favor

Was Watergate a conspiracy, yes. And I was being too flip about "a third rate burglary". Was Plame a conspiracy? Yes. A group of people outed a CIA agent in an attempt to discredit those who had discredited them.

Is the neo/con AIPAC espionage case a conspiracy? Don't know enough about it.

In any case, those were not the type of CTs I was talking about, and partly I left myself open to assumptions such as yours, by dashing something off, and not crafting it.

The kind of CT I'm talking about is MIHOP, and the rumors swirling around bushco perpetrating an attack tomorrow. I'm talking about theories like the ones that Israel contols the U.S. gov't.

I hope this makes things clearer, but hey, you'll believe what you WANT to believe. You're hardly immune from that.

[H2O Man]

27. Sometimes I

even believe things I don't want to believe. I wish that I were immune to Bush having been selected as president in 2000 by the US Supreme Court -- if only it were as easy as you say!

Reading your most recent response, I am going to assume that you intended to say that there are some conspiracy theories that strike you as being beyond rational thought, and that those are the ones that you do not believe. I would be willing to bet a dollar to a doughnut that you and I would probably not believe quite a few of the same ones. But I could be wrong about that.

My humble point was that conspiracy (literally from the root "to breathe together") theories are frequently true. The same rules for investigating crimes (or potential/possible crimes) on a small scale apply on a large scale. No case illustrates that better than the one that you, like many others, call "Watergate."

[AntiFascist]

37. The absolute theories are the ones that are likely to be wrong....

Israel no more controls the US government than Saudi Arabia, but you have to admit that AIPAC is a very powerful lobbying group, and there is plenty of evidence that the Administration is compromised with respect to Saudi Arabia.

[JuniperLea]

23. I believe you were correct as well

Iran-Contra involved a lot more people than Ollie North and his secretary!

If secrets could not be kept by thousands of people, there would be no need for security clearances, confidentiality agreements, redacted government documents, freedom of information... I could go on and on and on...

[H2O Man]

33. Right.

In fact, when we hear terms such as "Watergate" and "Iran-Contra," most Americans are primarily aware of one or possibly two of the individual crimes that are actually part of a much larger, systematic cluster of crimes that are -- by definition -- conspiracies.

In the case of the Warren Commission, without even touching what did or did not happen on 11-22-63 in Dallas, we know today -- without any chance at all of being wrong -- that several agencies that are under the authority of the executive branch, did not turn over all the documents they were supposed to to the commission tasked with the investigation. Many of these documents have become public in the years since. A decision to not turn these various documents over to the WC was made at some level, in several agencies, and then followed through upon.

In several instances, the people who made these decisions, or who were carrying them out, lied about their actions. This in and of itself does not mean they played any role in Dallas. What it does mean is that bureaucrats in government -- from the town/city level, to the state and national level -- keep information from the public. This amounts to lying, and is done for dozens of reasons. It is largely learned behavior, too. Hence, by its nature, government involves "conspiracies of silence that speak louder than words" (Lennon).

[JuniperLea]

38. I think the whole "you can't keep thousands of people quiet"

Is just another government planted seed, and a very condescending one at that, to keep us all feeling stupid and/or superior. Personally, I know for a fact it is absolute bullshite.

See my response to the OP...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1801251&mesg_id=1801573

[AntiFascist]

47. Wasn't Nixon caught on tape...

stating that the Warren Comission was one of the biggest hoaxes perpetrated on the American populace, or something to that effect? This fact alone whould provide plenty of fuel for JFK conspiracy theorists.

[JuniperLea]

21. Oh, it most certainly is exactly the same thing eom

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. You also raelize Global Warming is a conspiracy

by the liberal left

Oh and in criminal law conspiracy is a very valid term

In fact, conspiracies (in legal terms) happen more often than not... and involve oh folks like your local mafia, gangs, et al

In fact, the qualifiers for one are simple... look it up

So I'd say most conspiracies are NOT bunk... but the media has trained you to think that conspiracies are loonie toons

Just my two cents on this

And given how in the recent past some of those so called conspiracies are growing some real legs is kind of funny.

[cali]

19. Yes, it's true that

people label things that aren't conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories, but in a way that butresses rather than detracts from my argument. People want to make things fit into their world view.

As for your oh so knowing theory that the media trained me, let me assure you that isn't so. I was deeply influenced by my father, who had was certainly not influenced by the media. He was an anthropologist and historian with an interest in why humans are so drawn to conspiracy theories. OH, and I don't have TV and I don't read MSM pubications, with the exception of the Sunday Times.

I find it interesting that so many here, when confronted with opinions that don't fall into DU common thought, resort to "you must have been brainwashed by the mighty wurlitzer. nope.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Then your father would have told you

that the influence of the wide society is far wider than just the obvious messages and places

Since Watergate (A real honest to goodness conspiracy in the highest corridors of power) there has been an effort by media organizations, of all stripes, to make people discount Conspiracty Theories. Yes, even criminal conspiracies like oh I don't know WATERGATE, or the Giancanno brothers.

So perhaps you should take your father's research and examine it

The influence of the media is quite extensive... and it is well beyond just readying the Sunday Times (media outlet), or watching the TV, which you don't do

It is all over... books, magazines, music... billboards, even conversations with neighboors

And it is not only into discounting CT, but also pushing things like oh abject militarism and subservience to authority

So let me repeat this for you. Go read your father's research... you will be shocked at how extensive this is... and yes even you, have fallen for it

For that matter even me.

It takes being conscious of it and it takes work.

It also takes being aware of the disonance in our lives... and not being naive and believing that if we do not watch Teevee, we are safe from the message.

[JuniperLea]

40. The MO for such things...

Is usually condescension. "What? You believe that? How stupid!"

Or my current favorite... "how childish"... or, "don't go all building seven on me now".

The harder "they" try to make a point like this, the farther I dig. All you have to do is ask the one basic question we should all ask about absolutely everything we are presented with: Who benefits?

Who benefits from people feeling stupid for bringing up a conspiracy theory?

Who benefits from one group of people shutting up another group of people by making them feel stupid for believing their own lying eyes and ears?

Who benefits?

[JuniperLea]

39. DU common thought?

:rofl:

Seriously? I've never seen a beast such as that around here!

[melody]

14. Depends upon the conspiracy theory -- I don't believe them unless I see reasonable proof

The idea that there are "no conspiracy theories" is not supportable by evidence. Conspiracies happen all the time. It's how government works. Any crime with two or more participants is a conspiracy.

>And I don't believe you can get thousands of people to keep their mouths shut.

Actually, you can. It's amazing what a few episodes of financial ruin and/or death will do to quiet witnesses.

That said, I think a number of the more dire scenarios are unlikely. Most non-sociopathic human beings, when hearing about a nuclear attack such as the ones you've described, would talk and talk loudly, no matter the potential risk.

>I think it's largely an attempt to make order in tumultuous times.

And I think some people resist the evidence of criminal conspiracies for the same reason people ignore serious health symptoms until some crisis arises. It's a need to not see risk in tumultuous times.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. Gawddammit .... there go my tin foil futures.

[bahrbearian]

17. Invest in Kool-Aid

[hfojvt]

18. I think there is a conspiracy

to circulate alot of false CTs in order to cover up the real conspiracies. :evilgrin:


Obviously, there is a large amount of secret activities going on all the time, and there is alot of obfuscating and dishonesty and spin that is readily apparent if you look closely. Anybody can see alot of that, but it's kinda hard for joe blogger to uncover an actual secret plan from their home.

[JuniperLea]

41. You do the evil grin thing... but you are so very correct!

That is exactly what is happening.

[JuniperLea]

20. I work in PR and I see dozens of freakishly unbelievable stories

every year. Thousands of people know about them, and yet there are no leaks to the press. Some of these stories would curl your hair! You've seen many stories just like them in the news, yet these particular stories somehow never make it out to the public.

How many very important news stories have you personally seen buried? If you've been around here for any length of time, you've seen quite a few.

You can get a lot of people to keep their mouths shut about stuff. It's not all that hard. I've signed a confidentiality agreement with my firm. If I told you any of these juicy stories, my life would be ruined forever. Seriously. I'd never be able to work in my profession again. Never.

The more stories I become privy to, the more I believe that you can keep ANYTHING secret.

[Bjornsdotter]

24. Yep

...I've seen a huge story buried, complete with documentation.

I agree, anything can be kept secret.

Cheers

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. I worked in EMS for ten years

and yep, I know of more than one story that was buried in front of my eyes

In one case I was a willing participant... to keep the peace and quiet of a family who just lost a son to a drug overdose

It ran me a bottle of good booze, as in the REALLY GOOD STUFF...what was it, over 150 USD oh fifteen years ago

And the exclusive on the big story of the evening

And this is kind of SOP

;-)

[Junkdrawer]

25. Do you think Operation Gladio is a Bunk Conspiracy Theory?

If not, would you have thought so before the 1990 Italian revelations?

BBC Video Link
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=38293

[SalviaBlue]

26. We must question everything

I think that questioning the little nuke mistake is a healthy and intelligent thing to do. Believing the official story without question is stupid. The right-wing has successfully branded anyone who questions their version of reality a "conspiracy theorist."

I think being a conspiracy theorist is a GOOD thing.

QUESTION EVERYTHING! QUESTION AUTHORITY! They are known liars after all. Nothing should be taken at face value. Research. Verify.

We need to fight the right's demonization of critical thinkers by bravely putting all of the theories out in the open and quit letting them treat us like we are crazy to even consider that there are people in power who would do harm to others to achieve their goals.

Peace

[cali]

31. Questioning everything is fine. A good thing.

Questioning the nuke mistake is a good thing too. And I haven't come to a conclusion about that. But a lot of the conspiracy stuff and rumors that swirl around are easy to disprove, but they bounce back like flubber. That's not being a critical thinker. That's forcing square pegs into round holes.

[Rainscents]

30. I would keep my eyes open from...

Sept 14th - 27th! I believe, something BIG will happen. My guess on date would be on Sept 18th.

Whatever happens, at first, it will shock the world and then, once the dust settle, people (world) will demand the truth! This event will lead to Peace on Earth!

[cadmium]

32. Another reason for proliferating conspiracy theories is

that as the regular media is less believable it is natural to look for alternative theories and information.

Also, I was mostly willing to buy the MSM 9-11 reporting in the beginning, except for the improbable idea that simultaneously airliners could be hijacked by people armed only with boxcutters.

[pretzel4gore]

35. remember 'the war on poverty'?

back in the 50's, the Johnson Admin recognised that poverty was systemic- the result of economic mismanagement of an economy, and the richer an economy was, the harsher was the consequence of poverty, and even more then that, poverty fed on itself, and created reactionary mentality among the richer people, iow poverty was anti-american. So they declared 'war' on it, obviously using the term 'war' to emphasise a sincere serious effort etc....
And today the war on poverty has been transformed into a war on the poor, but notice how the forces of reaction have also taken an idea of progressives to ...well the war on drugs and war on.... bad breath, and the latest war on 'terror' all have thoroughly driven the very idea of the original war on 'poverty' into memory hole territory, move along, nada to see here peeple! Several factors caused this, but to say it plainly the 'greatest generation' ie the guys/gals who fought dubia dubia two, were benefitiaries of socialism in the 'new deal' just before the war, and the GI Bill afterwards- and they also noticed how unemployment fell to vitually zero when the war years saw jobs so plentiful and workers so needed due to the war that the long standing fiction that people are poor because they are too lazy to work, too stupid to try etc was universally revealed to be a blatant fiction; and that's partially why a 'war on poverty' even got off the ground during the 60's in the 1st place! Imagine the reaction such a progressive, 'socialist' idea would get today!
There isn't any 'conspiracy theory' here; it's plain fact. But the pig has been saying that people are poor cuz they're lazy (stupid) etc and the media has let them, for many many years now....call it what you will, but the 'big lie' is pushed by men who scheme (conspire) to do it, and tying the issue up in knots is just a waste of energy...

[Uncle Joe]

36. The assassinations of Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln,

the Soviet agent critic of Putin in Great Britain, and who knows how many others were for certain conspiracies.

I believe Hitler's beer hall putsch and the burning of the Reichstag as with most all coups are conspiracies.

More recently, the genocide committed against the Tutsis in Rwanda was born of conspiracy.

I believe it would be highly improbable to have assassinations, genocide and coups with out some form of conspiracy.

While I don't buy in to all conspiracies, I believe conspiracy theorists in general serve a useful function and are a form of self defense mechanism against such atrocities. I also believe if humanity didn't have conspiracy theorism (a word I just made up according to spell check) in our DNA, we could truly be as sheep or cattle led to the slaughter. They are truly happy animals, just eating grass, breeding and flatulating until they end up on our dinner table.

[JuniperLea]

42. Yep... all those people involved had to keep their mouths shut

Happens all the time... secrets aren't that hard to keep... and that is the jist of the OP... the one thing the OP feels lays waste to all conspiracy theories... hogwash.

[H2O Man]

43. Another common thing

in a larger. wide-spread cooperative effort is to simply have parts compartmentalized. Then, if a person talks about what they know, it is not viewed as people exposing the larger program. This is common in many parts of our government, including things that people do not view as "conspiracies." Its a function of systems preservation.

[JuniperLea]

45. You're right

I hadn't thought about that. Very common. Only a top few know the whole picture, everyone else just has a small portion of the whole.

It reminds me of the movie (based on a real situation) where all the men in the heist are issued numbers. No names are ever mentioned. So when one person was busted, they had no clue who they were working with, so when questioned, all they could say was number one did this, number two did that... no one could finger anyone else.

[warren pease]

44. First off, I don't believe that a small group of highly powerful people...

... get together once a month in a discreet banquet room in an understated but elegant hotel somewhere in the south of France with the exclusive purpose of deciding the most effective ways to fuck over Warren's life for the next few weeks.

I do, however, believe that at any given moment there are literally thousands -- maybe lots more -- ad hoc conspiracies of mutual convenience afoot that draw certain people with certain skill sets together to plan and execute an attack on a mutual enemy.

I've just described the exact nature of a high-level marketing strategy meeting at any of the numerous high-tech corporations I've consulted with, my job in most cases being to translate features and benefits into marketing messages that both boost the product on its own merits while attacking the alleged deficiencies of the competition. Tactics include sowing FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), questioning performance claims or raising compatibility issues, with the express purpose of eroding their competitors' sales, their market position, stealing their customers and, in the best case, driving them out of business.

Now, if that kind of sociopathic behavior is normal in today's hyper-competitive, zero-sum business environment -- and I submit some version of the above is prevalent in most successful companies, no matter the industry or the product -- why is it so hard to imagine that people who hold analogous positions in the public sector are immune from this kind of approach to destroying the competition?

One huge difference, particularly in the case of this administration, is the single-minded viciousness they evince, along with the various kinds of over-the-top revenge they exact, when deflecting or countering an attack on their policies or actions. After all, they're just marketing a certain world view -- one held almost exclusively by zealots and maniacs admittedly -- but a version of reality nonetheless.

It relies on the phony patriotism generated by constant war, along with the continuous, low-level background dread generated by this ridiculous "war on terror." And it doesn't tolerate dissenting points of view. Rather, it demands a uniform level of free-floating fear and hatred of the enemy du jour among the general population as today's predominant social control mechanism, and woe betide those who call bullshit on these trumped up warnings of the horrors just ahead.

Now, how did they achieve this state of nationwide paranoia at the very thought of radical Islamists operating unchecked in "the homeland?" How did they get us to do a striptease just to get on a plane? How did they convince us to abandon 220 years of Constitutional rights and freedoms just to protect our sorry asses from these vicious brown people? How did they manage to find some strutting Himmler clone to divulge his gut feelings about terrorist attacks without laughing him right off the stage? How did they convince even reasonably intelligent people that federal spying on our private communications is good for us? How did they manage to get an entire country of supposed rugged individualists to sit the hell down and shut the hell up?

Well... 9/11 changed everything, you see. We must learn to live with these small inconveniences because the great white father in Washington needs the widest possible latitude to protect us in these perilous times.

So, given that 9/11 was the single catalyzing event that made the Bush administration's entire criminal assault on decency, legitimacy and the Constitution possible, is it out of line to hypothesize that those who benefit most from the crime should at least be on the list of suspects?

On Sept. 10, 2001, Bush was a bumbling idiot presiding over an administration tanking quickly in the polls, with not much respect from Americans and unrelenting derision from overseas. The very next morning, he got really lucky – or perhaps his luck was created for him.

Personally, after sifting through alternate theories of what actually happened that day, the least likely conspiracy theory I can find is the one about 19 guys with box-cutters taking over four huge airliners, handling them like pros as a result of their extensive training in Cessnas, three of them executing maneuvers and hitting targets with the skill of Blue Angels pilots, the fourth being retaken by passengers who then sacrificed their own lives by crashing the plane into a field in rural Pennsylvania after talking about the whole thing to loved ones on cell phones that can't possibly work at airliner altitudes and speeds -- and the debris field for this plane was five to eight miles long, which doesn't work for a plane crash but is perfectly normal for a plane losing its parts after being attacked by air-to-air missiles.

Now *that's* one hell of a conspiracy theory. But that's not considered insane; it's the official story, backed up by a real commission report and passed into national lore along with unquestioned truths like Pickett's Charge or the Battle of Midway. That should be an insult to every American who values his or her national heritage. But that's hardly the case; it's the official truth and everything else -- no matter how well-sourced, no matter how reliant on pure physical evidence, no matter how simple in comparison to the official conspiracy theory -- is just the work of anti-American crackpots with an ax to grind.

So yeah... Conspiracies happen thousands of times every day -- in boardrooms, hotel banquet rooms, stuffy corporate conference rooms -- and their objective is to take over their tiny slices of the world. Is it so difficult to imagine that similarly inclined groups of people, who happen to have the resources of the entire US government at their disposal, don't also occasionally get together and decide how to use all that power to advance their agendas and, of course, enrich themselves and their pals in the process?


wp

[JuniperLea]

46. JuniperX applauds you!

*JuniperX stands, applauds, shakes her head, bites her lower lip, and stops clapping just long enough to wipe a tear from her eye*


Very, very well said. Brilliant.


I work in PR... I know all those tricks... and I couldn't possibly agree with you more.

[warren pease]

48. Enough gushing!

But thank you very much for the kind words. Sounds like we both swim with the same sharks.

And talk about a thread-killer. Man... my intent was to stimulate conversation, not end it.


wp