My reaction to the Norwegian 22th of July massacre #2 - conspiracy theories

This is a rather rambling reaction to the mass murders/terrorist acts in Norway at the 22nd of July, 2011. This was recorded 10 days later. It may feel like I'm going off at a tangent here, but I feel that the tragedy itself is better covered elsewhere and that my task is to contribute with my perspective on rationality and on a history (where I'm admittedly an amateur).

I'm trying to be spontaneous here and some of the thoughts in the later part of the clips are definitely speculative, so don't expect too much in the way of scientific annotation. Still, when it comes to the pattern-seeking stuff, it's stuff I've heard elsewhere in popular science, so I may dig up some sources later. Here's something I dug up fairly quickly, though: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=patternicity-finding-meaning...

I refer to some earlier videos of mine.
These are:

RUU #8b - Possibility of evidence for means possibility for evidence against
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODQIyhlb5z4

RUU #10: Intelligent Design and Modus Tollens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q_EPF9Z2mc
This clips shows a similar example of circular reasoning in inductive reasoning, with the same failure to compare outcome probabilities under a simple and complicated model.

Fundamentalism and conspiracy theory:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBh51Ui-mMo


Recommended book:
Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History
David Aaronovitch
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Voodoo-Histories-Conspiracy-Shaping-History/dp/022407...
I think it doesn't go far enough in explaining the mechanisms behind conspiracy thinking, though.

Recommended book about persecutions of Christian heretics by by the Christian orthodoxy:
Ammianus Marcellinus: The Later Roman Empire (AD 354--378).
Edward Gibbon: The decline and fall of the roman empire.

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• Oslo
• Utøya
• massacre
• terrorist
• Anders Behring Breivik
• mental bug
• conspiracy theory
• conspiracy theories