People: don't speculate, don't buy into conspiracies, rely on hard evidence. The more you veer into conspiracy territory the more anything else you say will fail to be taken seriously. Remember that.
Your language is rather imprecise. "Conspiracy theory" and "evidence" are not opposites. "Speculation" and "conspiracy" are not synonyms. Conspiracy is a particular act for which there may or may not be evidence. In fact, there are a variety of federal and state laws that criminalize different types of conspiracies--in order for individuals to be prosecuted under those laws, evidence of conspiracy is by definition required to be presented.
Excuse me for being pedantic, but I think that the tendency of people to equate "conspiracy theory" and "wild speculation" is too often taken advantage of by public relations types to discredit whistleblowers and critics of the status quo. Don't forget how many things we know for certain today that only five months ago would have been dismissed as "conspiracy theories".
It is good advice for people here to avoid speculation, but it's worth pointing out that if foul play were involved at all in this man's death, it most certainly would involve a criminal conspiracy. That's a very big if, though, in my opinion.
I say "conspiracy theory" because that's the category of thought that falls into a particular kind of rationality anti-pattern.
Here's a general formula for most "conspiracy theory" thinking:
Step 1: Characterize the "official theory" of some event or phenomenon, often in an overly simplistic manner.
Step 2: Identify some sort of inconsistency or counterintuitive result in the relationship between the "official theory" and the purported evidence.
Step 3: Use that inconsistency to leap to the conclusion that an alternate theory must necessarily be correct.
I've seen this pattern played out a million times in as many different scenarios.
For example, look at the moon landing denialists. They point out that the shadows look unusual in Apollo footage. THEREFORE THE WHOLE THING WAS FAKED ON A SOUND STAGE ON EARTH.
Or, look at the JFK conspiracy theorists. They point out that if you position JFK and Governor Connally in the seemingly most normal riding positions in the presidential limousine then the bullet alleged to have passed through JFK's neck and also to have injured Connally would have had to travel a very unlikely route. THEREFORE THE WHOLE THING IS A FRAUD AND IN REALITY JFK WAS ASSASSINATED BY THE CIA.
Or, look at the 9/11 truthers. They point out that the temperature that structural steel melts at is higher than the temperature that jet fuel burns at. THEREFORE THE WHOLE THING IS AN ELABORATE RUSE BY THE US GOVERNMENT AND THE BUILDINGS WERE DEMOLISHED USING PLANTED EXPLOSIVES.
And so on.
Here we have a perfect example of the beginnings of another conspiracy theory in progress. Hastings' car didn't appear to leave much damage on the palm tree he allegedly collided with. Logically the only conclusion is that a vast government conspiracy remote controlled his car to veer off the road and trigger the explosion of a fire bomb in order to prevent him from revealing secrets that they didn't want revealed.
The point being made here is that isn't what conspiracy theories are. Conspiracy theories are about shadowy unknown cabals who create secret plans and execute them. They're not necessarily wrong, just usually.
You're equating leaps of logic with conspiracy theories. For example, saying "crystal power cured my cancer" is a leap of logic.
Saying that there's probably a consortium of Big Pharma, government officials and diamond mining companies who create astroturf groups that are tasked with publicly ridiculing crystal power in the popular press is a conspiracy theory.
It's not stupid because it's a conspiracy theory, it's stupid because it's stupid.
Wondering if Michael Hastings, a muckraking journalist who was claiming to have new muck who also died under strange circumstances may have been murdered, that's speculation. Speculating that this was the result of a secret plan hatched by more than one person would be a conspiracy theory. All should be judged on their merits.
Putting the possibility that a journalist may have had his car bombed on the credibility scale with "troofers" and fake Moon landing people is bizarre, though. I'm pretty sure that a journalist somewhere got murdered today to make sure he/she didn't report on something. It happens all of the time.
"It's not stupid because it's a conspiracy theory, it's stupid because it's stupid."
I'd say that an "anti-crystal" conspiracy is stupid not because it is stupid (which is just a tautology) but rather because there is no actual evidence for it. In order to not be written off as a "crazy conspiracy theory", you are going to need more than weak circumstantial evidence on par with newspaper clippings haphazardly pinned to a wall with spiderwebs of red yard.
Or, look at the Gulf of Tonkin Incident deniers. People alleged that Pres. Johnson made up his own pretext to initiate the Vietnam War.
Or, look at the people who alleged that the CIA had agents operating as journalists in domestic and foreign media.
Or, look at those loonies who said that the gov't listened to all our phone calls. They even had a name for that lunacy, they called it ECHELON.
Or, after ECHELON was disproven, the nutters continued to insist that the gov't was spying on citizens. Crazy eh?
Sure, conspiracies are rare. But, you can't dismiss them with hand-waving, and, your comment is the prototypical hand-waving ad-hom comparing anyone who dares admit consideration of a conspiracy to Flat-Earthers. It's a cheap tactic.
You need to come up with a new name for your thought anti-pattern, because in English, "conspiracy theory" technically means a theory that there is a conspiracy, and there _are_ conspiracies. Some conspiracy theories turn out to be correct.
By trying to re-use a pre-existing word, you not only incense people who are alleging conspiracies, you prevent wider recognition of the idea you are fighting to have recognized.
"Step 1: Characterize the 'official theory' of some event or phenomenon, often in an overly simplistic manner"
...
" the moon landing denialists ... point out that the shadows look unusual in Apollo footage. THEREFORE THE WHOLE THING WAS FAKED ON A SOUND STAGE ON EARTH"
Ironically you are exemplifying the "overly simplistic" characterization of theories. E.g., the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists don't rely exclusively on the "path of the bullet" thing, they also talk about many other aspects that cast doubt on the Warren Commission's explanation.
Part of the problem with the "conspiracy theory" label is that those who use it in a pejorative way tend to lump together different views, as if to imply that they're all equally irrational. E.g., the idea that the Queen of England is a lizard-creature in a human-like disguise is commonly dumped in the same category with criticisms of the "911 Report" - and the "911 truth" people are treated as if they all held to a common set of claims.
Of course no one would have time to address all the myriad ideas out there. But that's no excuse for dismissing any whole subset of them. The only intellectually honest way to proceed is to address specific propositions, and always give fair consideration to the strongest, most plausible version of any claims.
His life was repeatedly threatened. What conspiracy?
If a dozen people threaten to kill you over five years, and you die in an even remotely suspicious manner, where's the conspiracy in that? There's a line of people that apparently would have liked to kill Hastings.
Even being pedantic, that would be a conspiracy... now, does that mean it's the kind of conspiracy theory that belongs on David Icke forums or InfoWars? Maybe not, but right now there is no logical consistency behind the theory that he was killed in a hit given the time, place and manner it occurred.
His death should be treated as suspicious because he was under regular threat by people that apparently wanted him dead, some of which were very powerful people.
What it shouldn't be treated as, is an open and shut case. Skepticism given the circumstances, is in my opinion valuable here. There's very little to be lost from making absolutely sure that this wasn't foul play.
Sure, I agree, it's important to be skeptical. But, one wonders why they would choose to kill him in such an open manner, after he sent an email saying that he was being investigated by the FBI to Wikileaks' lawyers among other folks. Surely he could be dealt with in a much quieter fashion that isn't so open to being discovered. We can also confirm that he was indeed traveling very fast, certainly fast enough for things to go as wrong as they did very quickly.
Well, if we're looking at hits, a few things stand out historically.
Sometimes murders are done as an open warning. The mafia has used that approach forever.
Why did the Russians use polonium to kill Alexander Litvinenko? Surely there were better ways to kill him that wouldn't leave behind a radiated dying body. Were they trying to make a statement? Seems plausible.
What could be better than to publicly kill the target in a manner that can't be provably traced back, but stands as an open and dramatic point for everybody else to 'learn' from?
EXACTLY. He was a JOURNALIST. The point is to kill someone who might be about to disclose something you don't want disclosed, and create a chilling effect preventing others who might consider disclosing, whistleblowing, leaking, or simply reporting such things from doing so for fear they too would be murdered. This WORKS. Killing someone in secret only performs the first function. This is the essence of the idiom "killing two birds with one stone." In this case, it's killing 1,000 (or more) journalists with one rigged car.
There is really no media shitstorm about Michael Hastings. It's practically over now. What stays long afterwards is the chilling effect sensed by journalists and would-be-whistleblowers - the fear that by disclosing or reporting on the wrong story, they too might find themselves up in smoke.
If people threaten to kill you for years and you die in a suspicious matter that is far from proof that the two are even remotely related.
Let the evidence guide us to an understanding of what has happened, let us not put an interpretation on the events merely because we "feel" it must have happened a certain way.
I haven't claimed at any point that there is proof Hastings was murdered.
When someone gets an ample number of death threats, and they die in an even remotely suspicious manner, it is not a conspiracy to consider that one of those threats may have become actual. It's that simple.
McChrystal's staffer told Hastings directly: if you write something we don't like, we will kill you. Where's the conspiracy in suspecting that staffer of murder, given he threatened to murder Hastings?
