Have you paid a visit to CNN’s website lately? Don’t be so haughty.

And events like the Gulf Oil Spill and all the nastiness that happened after don’t just ‘happen’.

I don’t really care for militias, for the record.

I have. Why do you ask?

Where there is a state religion, such as during much of European history, religious dogma did have an obvious effect on polity. In medieval England rites were chanted in Latin behind screens and could not be understood by commoners. That might perhaps be characterized as a kind of conspiracy among those who are in a position to influence human events, but I am not sure that the effect was as profound as it might seem. Chattel is still chattel, no matter the rites.

“Do conspiracies exist among those who are in a position to influence human events? I think there is no question of it.

But can such conspiracies manipulate humanity to the point where free will and spontineity could not overcome those influences? I think not.”

Have you looked at religions?

I remain skeptical that human events can be molded, for the same reason that I am skeptical of classical psychoanalysis (i.e. early childhood determines adult results), simply because it cannot be shown to be the case in all examples.

Do conspiracies exist among those who are in a position to influence human events? I think there is no question of it.

But can such conspiracies manipulate humanity to the point where free will and spontineity could not overcome those influences? I think not.

It appears however that in the example of the American democracy, our two-party system has generally preserved the status quo of the powerful forces in society you refer to (large corporations and wealthy individuals). So I tend to think free will is not doing all it could to prevent the influence of those forces over the vote.

Note to conspiracy skeptics and lovers. The current issue of Scientific American has a great article arguing that human history is not guided by intentions in the way we all like to assume. They point out that results dictate behaviour not ‘plans” or “design”. Why then should the most powerful forces in society be any different?

Now assuming we nationalize oil companies like 80% of the planet, perhaps it would be fair to blame the federal government.

The facts remain that Obama has been broadly open to oil drilling, which is going to have to be a reality one way or the other simply because we have no other technology that can replace hydrocarbons for fuels (yet).

The 2005 energy policy act indicated that over 80% of our nation’s energy supply for the next 25 years would still have to come from hydrocarbons, and that presumes maximum effort toward developing renewable sources.

I think accidents like these are horrendous and tragic, but part of living in an industrialized world. We could all go back to candles and salted meat of half the world’s population disappears. But I tend to think that both quality and quantity of life depends on oil right now. Should we pursue nuclear, solar, wind and fuel cells? Yes. But will they be able to wean us off hydrocarbons any time in the next three to four decades? No.

So I think it’s unwise to turn this into an political debate over the ideology of hydrocarbons. Obviously we need to see what we can do to prevent more such incidents, and make sure there is accountability.

However, we are, as a question of science, inexorably dependent upon hyrdrocarbons at this point in history. We need to continue to explore and produce them, while at the same time pursuing all avenues to prevent the kind of human error and faults in planning that led to the catastrophe in the Gulf.

The alternative I think will be a shortage of energy around the world, which will cause much more human misery than this spill. We’ve got to get beyond it, with intelligence as well as compassion.

I think this Evenson guy has been watching too much Star Trek. We ought to beam him back up to the Enterprise, Scotty!

As for the rest of them, yeah, it’s the same tin-foil hat stuff. For anyone wondering/whining about the SPLC’s focus on conspiracy theorists, you have to remember where this kind of thing can lead. Public figures can end up dead and federal buildings exploded if any of these people try to ‘stop’ these conspiracies from happening.