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sgreffenius · 3 years

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Conspiracy theories

I had a teacher once who said that to define a word or a contested concept, determine what it is not. So it might be with a phrase we have heard and read about a lot lately: conspiracy theory. Even more popular is conspiracy theories, which lets you group numerous theories together, and treat them alike.

Let’s consider what conspiracy theories are not. They are not:

Rumors

Predictions

Lies

Fanciful stories

Fabrications

Impossibilities

Delusions

Alternately, conspiracy theories are often treated as, or they function as:

Accusations

Hypotheses

Speculation

Alternate accounts

Narratives

Authors of conspiracy theories, and people who do not dismiss them out of hand, tend to be skeptics. They distinguish plausible accounts from implausible ones. They feel comfortable with synonyms in the second list.

People who dismiss conspiracy theories also tend to be skeptics, but in the other direction. If something has a whiff of conspiracy about it, they stay away. They are quite conscious of what would happen to them if other people were to whisper conspiracy theorist behind their backs, or in public. They know because they have seen contemptuous ridicule heaped on others.

Where does that leave us with our definition then? We’ll consider parts of speech and other definitional matters in part two.

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Aphorism for the day:

“Moral behavior is when you act in the other guy’s interest, not your own. If you expect the other guy to reciprocate, that’s delusion.”

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Time for a bit of part two here.

Here’s the main message: get suspicious when people play fast and loose with parts of speech. For instance, if an immigrant family resides in the United States without proper authorization, nativists call them illegals. Illegal is an adjective. You can’t add an s to that word to make it a noun. Yet does it not sound degrading when you do? “You illegals, go back where you came from.” Contempt drips.

Another one that lives large is messaging. That’s where you add ing to message, the verb, to turn it into a noun. First of all, to say, “I want to message you, but I don’t have your cell,” sounds too hip by half. The old-fashioned,“I want to send you a message...” works better.

Message always works better as a noun than messaging. If you say something like, “The messaging is all wrong,” you immediately sound like you are up to something Orwellian, or at least devious in your use of words, and you probably are.

Now we come a two-word variant, which as Gollum would say, sounds tricksy. What advantage do you gain when you take two nouns, then make one an adjective for the other? After all, conspiracy is a noun. You cannot use it to describe what kind of theory you have in front of you, unless you press it into service for that purpose. Why would you want to do that?

As soon as you ask the question, the answer becomes obvious. How do you respond when someone says, “That’s just a conspiracy theory.”? Imagine if someone came to your garden and said dismissively, “That’s just a hay grass.”? All you can say is, “So what? What does that even mean?”

So the person who wants to put you down deigns to explain: “What you said is a theory about a conspiracy.” Ooohhh, got it. Still, why would you choose the word theory, if not to deliver a putdown? It seems explanation or hypothesis would be more accurate, if you want to talk about nefarious plans made by more than one person.

Let’s take a few examples of how conspiracy theories work in real life. All of them, in one way or another, involve the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I will develop these examples rapidly, with confidence that you know the back story, or can easily look it up.

In the early 1950s, the FBI charged Julius Rosenberg with espionage. They falsely charged his wife, Ethel, as a co-conspirator, in order to ‘persuade’ her to testify against her husband. When she refused, they electrocuted her at Sing Sing, on the same day they executed Julius. In this case, the FBI formulated a conspiracy theory based on false testimony against Ethel, and they stayed with it because they would not back off their threat.

Only ten years later, the FBI mounted a long, extensive investigation into the murder of President Kennedy. A lot of people at the time, including the president’s brother Bobby, believed that more than one person had a hand in Jack’s death. Yet the FBI insisted that one person - a ‘lone nut’ - had planned the murder and carried it out.

If the FBI had investigated John Wilkes Booth, they would have insisted he was a lone nut, too, if that’s the conclusion Andrew Johnson wanted. The Kennedy case, then, was the opposite of the Rosenberg case, in that it suited the FBI’s purposes to deny a conspiracy existed, despite a great deal of evidence to indicate the murder was not the work of one person.

Now we come to a comparison between two elections, and two so-called conspiracy theories. They are actually just accusations, dressed up as conspiracy theories. After the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton charged that Donald Trump became president with help from Russia. The FBI tried to lend support to this accusation, but it misplayed the situation just as badly as it misplayed both the Rosenberg case and the Kennedy assassination. Or you could simply say, “The truth will out.”

After the 2020 election, Donald Trump charged that various organizations and people across the country had stolen the election from him. He said officials used fraud to rig the vote in order to elect his opponent. He tried mightily to enlist his own Justice Department in the cause, but the FBI just hates him, deep down, so he would never find help in that quarter. He had to rely on Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell as his advocates, poor substitutes for the attorney general and the FBI director, to be sure.

Interestingly, Trump’s accusations have no more substance than Clinton’s, yet we observe how differently people treat the two candidates. To this day, Clinton believes Russia helped Trump steal the 2016 election, as do former intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper. You can even say Russia collusion is Clinton’s pet conspiracy theory, no evidence required.

Trump, by contrast, makes enemies by the bushel, and sinks well below Clinton on the likability scale, which tells you something. Then he encourages insurrection based on his “Stop the Steal” campaign. He and his supporters go way past conspiracy theories at this point. The mob that invaded the Capitol did not care how nameless conspirators might have rigged the vote: they just wanted their man to stay in office.

So people refer to QAnon conspiracy theories to discredit the mob, but the mob’s behavior speaks for itself. You do not need online conspiracy theories to explain why an angry mob would beat a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher. Yet that is what we do. We seem to think that if we can suppress conspiracy theories, we can also suppress insurrections at the Capitol building, or anywhere else they might occur.

Beware the use of any phrase as an epithet. Some conspiracy theories are true, others are not. Far better to use vocabulary appropriate to the case. The FBI presses charges of conspiracy against Ethel Rosenberg to extort testimony against her husband. After Jack Ruby executes his victim in the basement of a Dallas county jail, the FBI concludes nearly a year later, “Justice was done. Oswald acted alone.” That is what Johnson, Hoover, Warren, Dulles, Ford, Specter, and dozens of investigators wanted Warren’s report to conclude.

We jump ahead fifty-five years to find that practically the whole Department of Justice goes along with Clinton’s charges of conspiracy, partly because the department cannot forget how Trump fired James Comey. They also seem to respect Clinton because her husband used to be president. Mueller nabbed numerous Trump cronies, but uncovered no evidence of collusion or other nefarious electoral behavior among the lot. Yet a lot of people still believe it was so.

Mainstream accounts say Trump’s accusations about a stolen election are delusional, the accuser mad. No one says that, or will say that about Clinton. The comparison does not suggest that Trump’s charges might be valid, or that he carefully weighs his words. It does suggest that when we analyze evidence and narratives that account for election outcomes, we do not need to discuss conspiracies, or theories. We just want to understand what happened.

So let’s drop the term conspiracy theory, and its plural cousin, conspiracy theories. Consider complicated stories case by case. We have a rich vocabulary to discuss crimes, evidence, motives, context, and multitudinous details that help us make sense of history. Let’s use it. The epithet conspiracy theory empties our brains, clouds our insight, and debases our thought.

#conspiracy theories

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thegraytalon-blog · 5 years

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Resident Evil 2 Review (Remake)

Overview:

Hey everyone, once again The Gray Talon takes aim, chooses his targets wisely and considers his prey carefully and TODAY we will be diving back into the zombie infested town of Raccoon City as Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield to see how this remake stacks up. Is it a truly a definitive survival horror modern masterpiece on a title that is over 20 years old or is it a cheap knock off for a quick cash grab like other remakes or remasters rather, have done oh so many times in the past since this console generation started? Let’s jump right in and find out! (And once again I will do my best to not spoil the plot.)

Graphics:

It’s 2019 and in this day and age one may begin to ask how much better can graphics truly get? And the answer lies no further than with Resident Evil 2. The new RE engine that Capcom is using holds such weight and presence here that you will begin to pause for several moments at a time as you take in the awe-inspiring meaty visuals on some of the zombies as they begin to deform and deteriorate before your very eyes whether it be from examining their idle corpses or studying and counting the pieces of brain chunks left after taking their heads off with that faithful shotgun or magnum. In terms of performance, I was playing this on my Xbox 1X and honestly it was damn near flawless. The framerate seemed consistent and almost locked at 60FPS for the most part, except during some intense action sequences when it dipped to below 50FPS but that was few and far between. Output on the 1X was a true 4K at 2160p. From the opening sequence to the part where you turn over that zombie’s head to reveal some juicy chunks of flesh to the first appearance of the horror that is Mr. X, the game is a true delight to witness through and through.

Gameplay and Control:

What happens when you marry the atmosphere, item crafting, inventory management and horror of RE7 with the camera and control scheme of RE4? Sex, people. Pure, simple, unadulterated, prolific and glorious sex is what you shall receive in return. This is quite possibly the most fluidly controlled RE game I have played since RE4 rolled around 15 years ago. The controls are air tight and responsive, allowing you to navigate the eerie police station and lab with ease. The signature shortcut 180 degree snap feature returns in RE as well that they have trademarked over the last 2 decades, where you hold down on the joystick and press X or A to quickly turn around in the opposite direction. A useful tool indeed when Mr. X comes a’ knockin! Now in terms of movement and combat, the game offers you several options. You can opt to simply run away from all forms of zombies and lickers who are trying to chow down or cop a piece of your ass like you’re grade A top choice meat in the mile high club and the only female member of a flight surrounded by ravenous love starved men. Or on the flipside, if you decide to run and gun your way through, might I suggest heavy emphasis on the GUN aspect and light on the RUN. Especially when lickers are present. You want to tip-toe around them and walk on eggshells whenever you see those Gene Simmons from KISS impostors lurking about. When you fire you always want to aim true for their heads, especially on Mr. X, even though shots only stun him, leaving a small window of time for you to run past and make your escape. In terms of weapons and upgrades, you start off with a simple handgun and have to work your way to unlocking other weapons via key cards or solving puzzles for guns such as the beloved shotgun, SMG, flamethrower and grenade launcher. You can also unlock greater inventory capacity via weapon holsters that are picked up during each separate campaign that makes life a lot easier. And finally, the puzzles are quite elaborate, just as they were from the original RE2 back in ‘98, so be prepared to put on that thinking cap throughout both Leon and Claire’s campaigns as you scratch your head to solve chemistry puzzles and even have to convert binary code to unlock elaborate doors in the lab sections.

Story/Campaign/Narrative:

The setting is 1998 in a small mid-western town of Raccoon City. You’re playing as rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy going to the police station for his first day on the job and/or a 90′s punk rock poster girl, college student Claire Redfield who’s in search of her brother Chris when all of a sudden the zombie T-Virus has just been unleashed onto the town and their stories converge at the police station where the majority of the game transpires.. For a 21 year old game, Capcom has made sure to make RE2 feel all grown up. While story aspects remain the same from the original release, they hired a brand new cast for voice over work as well as recreated most of the way scenes play out, like the first introduction to the illustrious Mr. X. Each campaign is fresh yet familiar and, for example, Leon’s first sighting of him is nuanced and a slow burn in a dark corridor, whereas on Claire’s run, although you first spot him in the same place, it is in a completely different and quite sudden, fast paced, way. The core of the narrative revolves around Leon and Claire both trying to achieve the same goal of figuring out a way to survive within the confounds of the Raccoon City police station while working separately in their unique campaigns. Things go awry and snowball downward and take them from the police station to the sewers and right to the laboratory where the T and G viruses are made once good ol’ Mr X shows up. And in case anyone hasn’t a clue who I’m speaking of, let’s just say once Mr. X shows up in his trench coat and fedora, you’ll do whatever it takes to stop yourself from crapping your pants suit while fleeing hastily in his opposite direction because if he catches you, well, then let’s just say he will give it to ya! And you’ll go down harder than than a hooker on a weekend romp in Vegas because this dude moves like the T-800 and hits like Mike Tyson. Prison Mike too mind you so stay frosty! Each campaign is about 6-8 hours long, depending on your pace and offers another set of playthroughs on Leon and Claire’s “B” side, which means you will start off in different areas and end up following different routes and pick up different gear at different times, etc. to receive a new and true ending. I suggest you play Leon A scenario first, then go on over to Claire’s B scenario for the final and let’s say, good ending. So we’re talking a total of about roughly 16 hours, over 24 hours if you play through the game 4 times for shits and gigs. Overall the game is heavily story driven and robust, leaving players feeling the true meaning of survival horror along the way as you try and unlock the mysteries surrounding each of the viruses associated with the aloof Umbrella Corporation.

Sound, Music and Voice:

From the sounds of your character’s breathing as a creaking old wooden floor squeaks beneath you as you’re walking down a supposedly empty hallway to the terrifying growls and grunts of the zombies plowing towards you to munch on your no no parts, the sound effects are simply magnificent and remarkable. Sometimes the sound of silence is the biggest star of the show since Capcom does a tremendous job at making the player feel tensed up as they navigate the dark, gloomy and bloody corners of the police station. Just when you think the coast is clear and you’re about to reach that sweet, sweet save room, something unexpected usually happens that may cause you to almost lose control of your game pad and bowels as well. The music is subtle yet effective. The slow paced ambiance of woefully sounding background noises are a nice touch as you traverse the environment, carefully inspecting your surroundings ensuring your survival. The weapons too, when used, sound just as you would expect them. Nothing quite satisfies to the very core like hearing the sound of a shell of a shotgun or magnum blast and watching the zombie’s head explode in front of you like a popping a fat, overbearing zit. Or using the flamethrower and hearing the cracking sounds of fire as your enemies are burnt to a crisp then listening to the residual hissing sounds after you barbecued them like a rack of ribs on the 4th of July. The voice acting is surprisingly well done too. While not a familiarized sounding Leon from previous RE titles, I am glad they got someone who sounds fitting for the role. Fitting in a sense of a young buck who is just starting off in the real world and has yet to earn his stripes, but by the game’s end does so, ten-fold. Claire, too, sounds good and almost a little too surprisingly upbeat for the madness that is commencing around her. The supporting cast also does a great job to display the weighted turmoil surrounding them and the situation that they are all in.

Replay Value:

High as a kite on a windy March day! I had to literally drag myself on playing through this game a third time. I was infatuated with the entirety this game had to offer. I have not been this glamoured by a Resident Evil game since the likes of Resident Evil 4. There is just so much to go back and do too in terms of getting all of the playthroughs, weapons, upgrades, items and hey, even speed runs to unlock such things as infinite ammo. Who wouldn’t want to barrage Mr. X with a plethora of rockets or grenades to see if you can actually kill that rat bastard?

Conclusion:

My final score for Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 Remake is going to have to be a 9.5/10. Simply remarkable on all fronts. The video game industry now has set a new bar and new standard for remakes. Other companies are going to have a tough time toppling this undead opus. After you have finally run through both Leon and Claire’s individual campaign’s and the bittersweet zombie blood smoke has settled, what more can I say about this magnificently crafted game, other than why are you still listening to my dumbass for? Go play it for yourself to experience the horror and greatness!

PRO’S:

A beautifully yet horrifyingly detailed world from characters to environments.

Superb story with many terrifying moments.

Rewarding inventory and upgrades.

Satisfying camera and controls.

Tons of replay value.

CON’S:

If only playing one campaign it may be a bit on the short side for some.

A slightly long learning curve for newcomers as ammo tends to run very scarce at times.

#video games #reviews #resident evil #capcom

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