Author Topic: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.  (Read 125858 times)

Offline gillianren

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #30 on: June 15, 2012, 01:14:33 AM »
I like Disney movie music.
"This sounds like a job for Bipolar Bear . . . but I just can't seem to get out of bed!"

"Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labour-saving device in the face of complexity."  --Henry Louis Gates

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #31 on: June 15, 2012, 05:21:34 AM »
In the long run, I'm more interested in learning about Apollo and manned spaceflight in general than I am arguing with conspiracy theorists these days.
That's actually why I spar with him in the first place. Most Apollo deniers just parrot the same, tired claims we've heard so many times. They're just boring. Hunchbacked is different. He produces copious amounts of original off-the-wall claims, and while researching rebuttals to them I learn many things I might not otherwise learn. I find that enjoyable even if he doesn't.

I am baffled that he claims to have an engineering degree. I see several possible explanations, none of which seem completely satisfactory:

1. He's simply lying about having such a degree.

2. His French engineering school, which I don't really know anything about, either has no academic standards to speak of or he simply managed to slip past them somehow. In my years of interviewing candidates for engineering jobs at work, I've noticed that even major, well-regarded universities produce the occasional graduate who leaves me utterly baffled as to how he or she actually got a degree. There are very few exceptions: MIT and perhaps Cal Tech. They seem to be extremely thorough at weeding out those who don't belong there.

3. He cheated his way to a degree.

4. He actually knew his stuff at one time. Or more precisely, he once knew enough to know what he did not know, but something has happened to him since.

I can't figure it out, but I lean toward #2, possibly combined with some of #4.



« Last Edit: June 15, 2012, 05:26:00 AM by ka9q »

Offline frenat

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #32 on: June 15, 2012, 08:24:57 AM »
maybe he's a train engineer?  Model trains?
-Reality is not determined by your lack of comprehension.
 -Never let facts stand in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
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Offline Chew

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #33 on: June 15, 2012, 08:47:00 AM »
My favorite "hunchie" was his claim that a "flat spin" meant a space vehicle would naturally point its flat part towards the center of the orbiting body. So, so bizarre.

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #34 on: June 15, 2012, 09:24:51 AM »
He is so prolific and so bizarre with his Apollo claims, and has made them for so long, that I'd be hard pressed to pick just one single favorite. The Apollo 'hoax' seems to have consumed his life for at least the past few years; producing Youtube videos (and defending them against the Apollogists) seems to be his full time occupation.

Of course, it wasn't exactly a surprise to see him on other forums attacking the Warren Commission and proclaming that JFK was murdered by a vast CIA conspiracy -- the same agency he believes primarily responsible for the Apollo "hoax". I believe the phenomenon is known as "crank magnetism".

He genuinely seems to feel a profound rage at what he sees as the biggest "crime against science" in human history: the "fake" Apollo program. As arrogant and clueless as he is, I actually feel kinda sorry for him.






Offline mako88sb

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #35 on: June 15, 2012, 12:09:11 PM »
I know quite well that I'll never be able to talk any sense into him, but he's just too fascinating a character to ignore. The overused "slow motion train wreck" metaphor comes to mind.

Yes, despite myself, I find I'm checking out his latest posts whenever I get access to our computer. His persistence is an admirable trait but it's unfortunate he can't recognize how misguided he's become. I thought he was retired or out of work but I seen he responded to someones query a few days ago and stated that yes, he's still working. Maybe consulting work from home? I don't know how much time he spends making his videos and responding to critique but it certainly does seem to occupy an inordinate amount of his time.

I have to commend you for taking the time to try and enlighten him even though it's not likely that he will ever admit he's wrong. I imagine there's probably a few people who aren't to sure if the landings where real and checked out some of his videos. Seeing your persuasive counters to the contrary may of steered some in the right direction.

I see he's posted a new video, this time concerning "intended incoherence's" in a lunar rock he noticed. No doubt a sure sign that the geologists where also unwilling participants in all of this.

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #36 on: June 15, 2012, 01:51:45 PM »
"Intentional incoherences" have become his primary theme. That is, he believes many competent, honest people were forced (by the CIA, naturally) to do useless work on the Apollo project, and in protest they hid many clues that he is the first to discover. They usually take the form of some unworkable circuit, design or subsystem. Basically, if something was used in Apollo, that proves it couldn't work -- even if the exact same design is widely used outside the space program.

Of course, they all worked just fine, he is simply unable to understand them.

I'm strongly reminded of Dr. John Nash in A Beautiful Mind and his strong delusion that the Russians were hiding secret messages in public newspapers and magazine articles that only he was smart enough to decode. This, more than any other reason, is why I strongly suspect paranoid schizophrenia -- with the caveat that I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, etc, etc.

Yet there's a psychological phenomenon -- with the French name of Folie à deux, interestingly enough -- in which otherwise normal people can pick up the delusions of someone who isn't healthy. I think this is one of the reasons it's necessary to debunk the Apollo deniers and other pseudoscientists such as creationists (evolution deniers), global warming deniers, etc.




« Last Edit: June 15, 2012, 01:57:46 PM by ka9q »

Offline gillianren

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #37 on: June 15, 2012, 02:32:45 PM »
To be strictly accurate, folie à deux is what I think of in English as "being a bad influence on one another."  As in, neither person would be anywhere near as crazy alone as they are in combination.
"This sounds like a job for Bipolar Bear . . . but I just can't seem to get out of bed!"

"Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labour-saving device in the face of complexity."  --Henry Louis Gates

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #38 on: June 15, 2012, 04:45:46 PM »
Again, with the caveat that I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, it does have the formal names of "shared psychotic disorder" or "induced delusional disorder".

Offline ChrLz

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #39 on: June 15, 2012, 08:58:14 PM »
I was going to comment that there probably isn't much mileage (kilometreage?) in actually seeking out HB material..  But then I went over to Abovetopsecret a while back to help reveal Fattydash/Patrick1000 in his latest incarnation, so I guess..

By my own petard, hoist I am..

Offline Echnaton

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #40 on: June 15, 2012, 09:41:33 PM »
I lump the "theory of the conspiracist mind" into a subset of the general "theory of mind."  Everybody has a theory of mind about how others perceive the world and see us, but each one of us takes a slightly different view.
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #41 on: June 15, 2012, 10:20:33 PM »
Interesting viewpoint. The mere existence of a "theory of mind" -- the realization that others have minds similar to yours, with their own views of the world around them -- is often cited as one of the characteristic features, along with self-awareness, of higher intelligence. Only a few species seem to have it, and even human children take a few years to develop it.

One of the interesting implications of a "theory of mind" is that lying, or even knowing what it means to lie, requires a sufficiently advanced intelligence. That probably explains why dogs, for example, are so guileless.

« Last Edit: June 15, 2012, 10:22:32 PM by ka9q »

Offline mako88sb

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #42 on: June 16, 2012, 01:30:44 AM »
Again, with the caveat that I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, it does have the formal names of "shared psychotic disorder" or "induced delusional disorder".

Is that what caused those Swedish twins to go bonkers a few years ago? That was easily the craziest thing I can recall seeing and reading about.

Offline ka9q

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #43 on: June 16, 2012, 02:05:15 AM »
Not sure who you're talking about, but there's some mention of them in the Wikipedia article.

Offline Echnaton

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Re: Hunchback aka inquisitivemind.
« Reply #44 on: June 16, 2012, 08:45:28 AM »
Interesting viewpoint. The mere existence of a "theory of mind" -- the realization that others have minds similar to yours, with their own views of the world around them -- is often cited as one of the characteristic features, along with self-awareness, of higher intelligence. Only a few species seem to have it, and even human children take a few years to develop it.

One of the interesting implications of a "theory of mind" is that lying, or even knowing what it means to lie, requires a sufficiently advanced intelligence. That probably explains why dogs, for example, are so guileless.

Chimps seem to have a theory of mind and can understand what other chimps can see and act accordingly.  Dogs can follow the gaze of a handler but don't seem to have the ability to imagine what another dog can see, leading us to conclude that bred-in instinct is at work rather than theory of mind.  The fact that each of us has a different theory of mind is one of the problems with eyewitness accounts.  No matter what we see, the human tendency to theorize a state of mind of others adds a unique and inseparable fifth dimension to what each of us observes. 

My theory of the conspiracist mind is that their theory of mind is an outlier on the distribution that leads them be overly fearful of being deceived.  It is that theory of mind that keeps them from an objective examination of the facts and to hear reason.  But as with all such theories, my belief is more perceptual than scientific.  And no doubt there are underlying biological issues of the same kind that give the all the members of this forum such different sets of skills.
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. —Samuel Beckett