[tmbchr]™

Choosing Information Sources



I want to continue with some of the issues I raised around the role of self-directed learning in conspiracy, occult and “fringe” topics. One of the biggest hurdles I’ve noticed myself is locating and trusting information sources. It seems like a constant battle.

Interestingly, if I look back a few months or years in my studies, I’ll realize that some sources which seemed really great back then seem really shitty or unreliable to me now. It’s not always easy to articulate how this process works, but it seems like there’s a lot to be gained by looking at it more closely.

Does anybody have a decent set of criteria that they use to evaluate information sources, either on the web, print, media, etc? I remember in highschool, I had a lot of teachers who were very wary of the internet, and wouldn’t accept online sources in research papers, etc. I always though that was rather stupid and old-fashioned. What they should have been teaching instead was strategies on choosing and researching your information sources. One of the challenges especially apparent in the conspiracy field is that a lot of mainstream sources seem “compromised” or else we cultivate the idea that they aren’t reliable or can’t tell the whole story. So then we’ll dive into sources which are far far less credible, but which have much wilder, more speculative information.

One of the strategies I’ll use sometimes myself is I will read fringe sources to establish a general idea of what to look for in a particular conspiracy theory area. And then I will try to track down the original sources they quote - whether it’s research papers, lectures, interviews, books, etc. Then you can base your observations on primary sources, or at least closer to it. Many times though in conspiracy theory, such things won’t be readily available or totally worth sifting through on your own, and you’ll be forced to deal with an excerpt from the original material, without fulling knowing the context of it.

It might also be more useful to say what it is that turns you immediately off to a particular source. I’ll often find myself browsing the internet on a particular topic, and I can very very quickly eliminate particular sources. But again, it’s hard to exactly state why I’ll tune one thing out, but another in. Does anybody have good thoughts on this? I know for me there are at least a couple things which I can jot down off the top of my head that quickly turn me off to information sources, particularly of the conspiracy genre:

  1. weird racism, promotion of hate
  2. things that rampantly violate logic
  3. things that are not consistent to themselves (contradiction)
  4. things that appeal too much to fear or despair (trying hard to elicit an emotional response)
  5. things that are highly speculative but claim to be literal fact
  6. poor writing, confusing layout and organization
  7. sources which claim to have “figured it all out” or are insistent on their own inerrancy
  8. “squishy” sources - things that are too New Age driven, use too many buzzwords and vague concepts
  9. Sources which rely exclusively on channeled information, or information that is only available to them because of some special privilege (access to secret libraries, etc)
  10. Sources which seem more interested in self-aggrandizement than anything else
  11. Sources that require paid access or other membership status, or which have a quasi “cult” following or potential
  12. Sources which completely violate things that I know to be true through research of my own

Hm, I guess I had more of those than I thought I would. But still it’s really only a partial list, and I’d love to expand it some more. I also freely admit that I quite regularly violate any number of items from that list any time I’m searching. Sometimes you have to use the bad sources to spring-board you to the good, and also give you a ground against which to work. I’d also like to put together a list of “positive” criteria. How do you recognize a good author, etc. Any thoughts on this, fire away…







8 Reader Responses

  1. Liberty Joan Adams Says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 5:29 pm

    My first hint is in the URL.
    I generally look at things with a .org as falling into one of two categories: 1. possibly serious, put together by a group of people who care, and with some form of legitimacy, or 2. well-funded, run by a group of nut-jobs, and totally rediculous.
    .gov type sources are the best. They’re usually full of propoganda but have an air of legitimacy about them since they’re run by government organizations. When you find information on a .gov source that backs some weird point you’re tying to make it’s going to make it that much harder for “in the box” thinkers to argue with you.

    .edu was always good for research papers, and generally acceptable as good information. Watch out for professors’ private pages, though. They can be full of random rantings.
    For regular .com sites I usually look at the layout first, like you mentioned. Colors, organization, text, images, all that gives a general feel for who the people are that run the thing.

  2. Fell Says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 6:35 pm

    I find that cross-reference is really the best way.

    My friend Jason used to walk by Robert Anton Wilson’s Prometheus Rising in the bookstore all the time, for years, and then finally picked it up one to day his weary amusement. It probably has one of the ugliest covers I’ve ever seen before, there’s no editing within, and almost every page within has spelling or grammatical errs. But it was also the first book that really gave me the metaphysical kick to the junk. Appearances can be deceiving, as the saying goes, but it also goes to show one the power of design and professionalism (chaos vs order, I suppose).

    As for red flags, we may be a bit of the opposite. I find that when writers take a serious approach to socially taboo issues, such as race, fear, generally anything that would ultimately paint them a danger, but if they handle themselves well I will pursue them. It’s when writers and spiritualists get to pansy in their works that I am wary. I believe in an Ultimate Love, but as an incarnate and manifest entity in the here and now, it’s not all there is to explore.

    I also give a favourable eye to pain. I would like to see humanity overcome their sufferances, their infliction of pain upon one another and learn to accept. But it’s through the flesh we encounter sensuality and suffering. When one starts to focus too much one one or the other, I figure they are either ignorant of the human gamut or have some sort of agenda.

    I try to see everything from their point of view, and that is when I can really start to comparitively understand. It’s one thing to read about, say, the Third Reich. It’s another to delve into it and truly try to find the healthiest, best way to handle such thinking. Delving into the kshatriya and the early Buddhist Aryan canon, it’s easy to find strength in their arguments. But it doesn’t make me a neo-Nazi. I will also explore the sympathetic writings of the Jewish people and I can understand their point of view, too. This is when I truly get to see something for what it is.

    And I agree with both of them.

    Dichotomy is the way of the world. Don’t dismiss it too outrightly. Though, that is just my suggestion. Just learn as much as you can, both scholarly and via personal adventure.

  3. Ran Says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 6:37 pm

    Another huge turnoff: text is in ALL CAPITOL LETTERS. Also, and this seems unfair but I’ve found it to be a good indicator: the more graphics and the longer they take to load, the less reliable.

    Have you seen the catastrophist writing of “Sorcha Faal”? Quite well done — it aces all the easy tests, and then falls apart when you give it a close reading.

  4. Occult Investigator Says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 6:41 pm

    Ran, I’ve seen that name, but not read too much. I’ll have to check it out and see what makes it fall apart or not. Yeah the capital letters are a dead give away.

    Fell, I like where you’re going with that. I’ll find myself trying to really understand the whys of somebody’s beliefs, and sort of mentally adopt them for a time. I think I did the best job of using that technique in my research into Scientology. There’s so much just alarmist crap about it out there that I wanted to really get to the bottom and see what was actually possibly useful or effective somehow, and then be able to cut through the rest of it with that understanding. I agree about the Prometheus Rising cover and graphics and editing totally sucking balls - but the book was really a landmark in my mental development

  5. Occult Investigator Says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 6:43 pm

    I find that cross-reference is really the best way.

    One thing about that… I come across this thing all the time where I’ll find one source of information repeated everywhere on the internet. And the people who don’t just publish the whole thing will tend to use that as their starting place for further exposition. This can present some difficulty with cross-referencing because it makes it seem like there are multiple sources, when there are really just secondary and tertiary uses of an original source.

  6. Avalon Says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 7:15 pm

    I find that Evaluating Internet Research Sources by Robert Harris
    is a really good article on strategies and guidelines for determining the quality of information you encounter on the net, or for that matter, in real life.

  7. Avalon Says:
    July 14th, 2005 at 7:17 pm

    Don’t know why the Robert Harris link didn’t come through.

    http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm

  8. Fell Says:
    July 15th, 2005 at 1:42 pm

    I think I did the best job of using that technique in my research into Scientology. There’s so much just alarmist crap about it out there that I wanted to really get to the bottom and see what was actually possibly useful or effective somehow, and then be able to cut through the rest of it with that understanding.

    This is how I felt about the Third Reich. I didn’t sympathize with them at all, but more than that, I didn’t believe what I was taught in school and Hollywood cuz it all seemed so blatantly one-sided. Now, mind you, I have come to the conclusion that they were very cruel (Disneyland compared to the Japanese in WWII, however), but now I have enough to understand what the Jews did, what Hitler did, Himmler, and then the more vague involvements of conspirators such as the Vril, UR, a move towards Traditionalism, Rothschilds, et al. I take that all with a certain grain of salt, but I don’t dismiss it. Both were arses, the Jews spreading hate and anti-German propaganda all over their worldly publications and Hitler doing his Hitler thing. Two bullies battling, and unfortunately middle-class Jewish-raised folk, who had nothing to do with it, got screwed in the end.

    With Scientology, I’ve been meaning to rea a book on Dianetics for some time now. I went to the Church of Scientology in Vancouver once, the one by the VFS, for their advertised “free personality testing,” we thought it’d be fun. My gf at the time went in first to hear her results, and they did us one at a time. She literally came out crying. Next, my friend Harley went in, he came out perplexed. I went in, readied by their reactions, and oddly enough I had passed their exam on some levels but “still needed the support of the Church” to become the best person I could be. It was my blatant first-hand experience with their propaganda. I didn’t need to read an article about it. But I am still curious as to what makes them tick.

    One thing about that… I come across this thing all the time where I’ll find one source of information repeated everywhere on the internet. And the people who don’t just publish the whole thing will tend to use that as their starting place for further exposition. This can present some difficulty with cross-referencing because it makes it seem like there are multiple sources, when there are really just secondary and tertiary uses of an original source.

    I totally agree with you. I suppose I should’ve worded it differently, as in cross-referencing points of view à la Prometheus Rising. I don’t mean to come off as pretentious, in case I do, but I just wanted to say that everything you’re doing here is along these lines and it seems you’re taking it in at a good rate. Actually… better than I ever did, as you’re more organized and reasonable in your approach. I like a chaotic mish-mash better.

    Personally, I’ve found a definite difference in the way I gauge myself in regards to information. It’s nothing so ooh-ahh that writing it out here will make much of a difference to people, but just genuinly approaching everything from a learning point of view. It’s only when I’ve had a personal experience with something that it seems to become personalized. And I think that is the problem with language, is that it offers a veneer of a definition that is still actually an abstraction. It’s not till I’ve actually done something that I know all the aspects of it, in a personal sense, and I believe this is what mystics speak of when. The idea of particles and lighwaves and ecology actually ruin the sight of the beautiful cloud formations we get here in the summer, or a sunset that you can just sit back and lose yourself in. It’s like reading about sex, then actually getting around to losing your virginity.

    I’ve found it very interesting to just sit back and try to contemplate my own meaning of things around me. And my first experience with the undefinable was a few months ago when I was driving, I saw a pattern of cars parked along the side of the street and it was something — there is no word for it that I know of — just came to me. It was though that was a something, that there could be/ should be a definition for it, but there hadn’t been one yet. It was truly an awesome moment in my life, so simple though, and it showed me how much power language and words have over my perception. So I try, when I can, for that languageless observation. It’s hard, but not impossible.

    I also have had it when trying to temper myself to the strain of staring into the sun. You don’t really know how much power the sun has until your eyes water up, you lose control of the muscles in your face and your body recoils at its brilliance. Rather than just a ball of energy in the vast reaches of our solar system that we learn about in school, I had just had a very personal experience between myself and it. And yes, my eyesight is fine.

    I guess I’m blathering on here, so I’ll /end post.



SURROUND YOURSELF WITH STRENGTH.