Thursday, January 14, 2010

Good morning loyal readers. WorldNetDaily has an interesting piece about presidential advisor Cass Sunstein and conspiracy theories. Apparently Sunstein wrote a Harvard Law paper in 2008 called "Conspiracy Theories".

In the 30-page paper – obtained and reviewed by WND – Sunstein argues the best government response to "conspiracy theories" is "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups."

Continued Sunstein: "We suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies (acting either virtually or in real space, and either openly or anonymously) will undermine the crippled epistemology of believers by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity."

Sunstein said government agents "might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action."
Sunstein lists a number of "conspiracy theories". One is "The view that the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy." Sunstein does admit that "some conspiracy theories, under our definition, have turned out to be true."

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