Skeptics Have Nothing to Talk About in Europe?
So right after Christmas, I’m headed to Berlin to speak at the 26C3 conference. It’s the 26th (!) annual Chaos Communication Congress, the annual conference of the Chaos Computer Club. Being a newbie I cannot speak from experience, but to me it sounds somewhat like an indoor Burning Man festival. Their page states that CCC “attracts a diverse audience of thousands of hackers, scientists, artists, and utopians from all around the world.” I guess I fall into the Utopian category, evidenced by my affinity for futuristic jumpsuits.
Why me? Well, the slogan for this year’s conference is Here Be Dragons, and apparently, someone told them that I once made a video of the same name. They must have answered “Good enough for me,” because the next thing I knew I had a plane ticket in my hand. For all they know I could have made a documentary about Komodo. Or Wagnerian characters. Or recursive fractal curves.
They seem to be a fairly skeptical bunch. I’ve spoken with a number of people from the conference and even connected with a few Berlin skeptics, and the word is that nobody in Berlin is religious or believes in any weirdo New Age sheit. In my experience, this means one of two things: Either it’s completely true, or it’s completely false. I find that the people who identify themselves most strongly as skeptics believe only in that which cannot be proven, and passionately hate or distrust anything that can be proven.
This means that there are two probable outcomes to my talk: People will doze after hearing me assert that the sky is blue for the umpteenth time, or they will storm the stage and tear me limb from limb for challenging their cherished belief that an undetectable energy force surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the universe together.
Fortunately, I’m the first session on the last day, when everyone’s either sleeping one off or wishing they were. So it doesn’t really make all that much difference what I talk about. This is good, because if I can avoid bringing my computer and phone, all the better. This is a computer hackers conference, and look at this scary page of all the things you have to do to secure your phone and computer while you’re there. If that’s not enough to dissuade me from making a Keynote presentation that I can deliver from my MacBook, I don’t know what is.
I’m curious to know your thoughts, especially if you’re European, and most especially if you’re German. What are audiences there going to want to hear?
As an European person, I think the pertinent fact is this: Most “enlightened” Europeans think that Europe is a bastion of skepticism because we don’t have a ton of evangelical nutheads, and because there are no Evolution deniers on TV. In reality, there’s still a large faction of people over here who don’t believe in Evolution (maybe statistics about that would be something interesting to include in the presentation) and who use all kinds of woo (for example, some of the European public healthcare systems pay for stuff like acupuncture and homeopathy – one example is Switzerland, which had a science/evidence-based approach for what to include until recently, when a public vote changed the law to include some non-science/evidence-based treatments).
We’re not as bad as America, I guess, but there’s still a lot of work to be done over here; the areas which require work are probably different from those in the US.
Well, there is a lot of medical nonsense, recently there was a big promotion of a neurodermatitis-“medicine” on state-sponsored TV (WDR/ARD) made of vitamin B12 and avocado-oil. http://esowatch.com/index.php?title=Regividerm (german)
Hello Brian,
speaking as a member of the CCC, but not in any official CCC capacity: Conspiracy theories are quite popular with the hacker crowd. I can imagine if you’re going to talk about conspiracy skepticism, you’re going to be faced with some specific question about a part of the engine of one of the planes that crashed into the pentagon on September 11th or something which you will have a hard time disputing unless you’re very well prepared for that topic.
I’ve had my fair share of discussion with people that believed that vaccines are used to control the population and other anti big-pharma conspiracies. That 9/11 was orchestrated by George Bush Senior. That we never went to the moon with humans. (I’ve heard that robots did it or that we later went when nobody was looking to explain some of the findings now.)
You can contact me on my email and I will be willing to share some other conspiracy theories you’re going to encounter which are perpetuated by well-read german blogs affiliated with the german hacker scene .
I have a friend of the black hat variety; he and almost uniformly all the individuals he discusses tactics with, love the conspiracy garbage.
It’s an odd convolution of thought, but the hacker crowd, regardless of national origin, seems enamored of conspiracies …
Hey Brian,
I am German as well and I second the theme of conspiracy theories. They are big around here, especially around the hacker crowd. But be aware you might face some really hard questions.
Cheers,
eulenherr
As a German (but not a hacker) I agree with the last two posts. While homeopathy and similar nonsense are really popular here, a high tech crowd as you’ll find at the CCC will probably dismiss that stuff easily, while the conspiracy stuff going through the interwebs may have quite a few supporters. I wonder if the movie “23” (the German original) might be a good way to prepare for some of the people you will meet.
Good luck.
M
Does Holocaust denial have any supporters?
Nope. Some, but negligible.
Conspiracy theories are probably a good idea, with 9/11 being one of the more common ones. There’s huge dislike for Bush II over here, which leads some even otherwise skeptical people to buy into 9/11 truthism.
Yes, religion isn’t a big talking point, mainly cause people are hardly trying to push it into schools like in america.
Quackery and Conspiracies will be good.
Perhaps linking the 2, because it will be easier to convince people that quackery is bad, and then use the same arguments to debunk some of the conspiracies.
Berlin is too far away, perhaps if you’ll ever come to the Netherlands? ;-)
I am European, have lived in Germany and still live “almost” there (30 km from the border). I think Germans have some inexplicable attraction for whatever sounds to them as “natural” and “close to nature”. That’s why, in my very humble opinion, things like homeopathy are so strong there: they are marketed as “natural”, whatever that means. At the same time, that explain Germany’s very proactive attitude towards recycling, not using disposable things, renewable energy sources, etc.
That said, take out homeopathy and I like almost everything else about Germany, from the language to (yes) the food. I wish you a very good time in Berlin!
Not so many religious zealots, but lots lots of other kind of woo, especially in medicine. So Europe is not a holy cow ;)
lol i’m beginning to enjoy his rants.
ps i think he has a crush on u brian
Aw, that’s cute, someone has a mancrush on Brian.
Just to add something to my previous post: The CCC are definitely the good guys. VERY nerdy, but they have developed from a group of well-meaning hackers (“Dear *** bank, we have just taken 100,000 Euros from you and you did not even notice. You may want to reconsider your safety precautions.”) to the German equivalent of the EFF. Giving a talk at their meeting should be fun.
M
It’s debatable whether grey hats are good guys.
I’m from Sweden but I think some insight into woo in Germany. One thing that’s pretty big over there is homeopathy (and other alternative medicine). And I think that the whole swineflu/vaccine-debate has been pretty heated there as well.
Well I’m not European and have never been to Europe (or Germany for that matter) so I have no idea. From what I know about them though I think your guess is probably spot on. I would expect a lot of self important eurotrash who look down at Americans who don’t trash America. So you might want to start off by making fun of a few American things first in order to get the crowd to warm to you a little bit and then move onto other nonsense that might be popular in Germany. I’m not a fan of trashing the country overseas so I wouldn’t say that, but a few universal things like crop circles and aliens with American examples might lower their pitchforks a few centimeters lower in the air.
I would expect people who claim they are skeptical who start every sentence with “nobody can convince me.” Of course, that’s good advice when traveling to any convention anywhere. Good luck.
German speaking: As already stated, homeopathy is really big here.
Also a very popular publisher for IT material is closely associated with an online magazine called “telepolis” which peddles conspiracy nonsense like 9/11 and moon hoax drivel. At least before I stopped reading it.
I distinctly remember a video from two years ago from this very conference where the topic was “how the modern world is very complicated and we cannot understand it anymore” or something like that.
The speakers asked the audience “how many of you think the Americans landed on the moon” and “how many of you think 9/11 happened like in the official version”, needless to say all those smart hackers didn’t believe the stuff uneducated sheeple do.
In general, hacker culture and the CCC are somewhat influenced by Robert Anton Wilsons “Illuminatus!” trilogy and his weird beliefs
Great news! Will be at the ccc and am looking forward to your talk.
As others above allready mentioned, conspiracy theories would be a good topic. As well as quackery. And as the zeitgeist here is very green a talk about critical thinking about green ideas like eat local and the likes would be a good idea too.
I love those guidelines. I have already done all of those, and more. Knowing security keeps me safe. Going to a hacker conference and not knowing those is a serious recipe for disaster… Although, those hackers are most likely to just fool around with you, and not really take your data… But be prepared regardless…
Even if the hackers don’t take your data, Customs have the right to search and seize your electronic devices. But you’re more likely to simply lose them.
Obviously Brian hasn’t been eaten alive by the CCC crowd, so we Germans would love to know what his impressions were. I only saw the video feed, but it seems he didn’t dare to broach the subject of 9/11 conspiracy theories and stuck to his Russian cosmonauts. World Domination/Illuminati stuff in general is more popular here anyway, most Germans feel our government has been bullied into fighting its first little war after 1945.
Who’s interested, you can download Brian’s performance here:
http://ftp.ccc.de/congress/26c3/mp4-ipod/26c3-3710-en-the_lost_cosmonauts_iProd.mp4
Maybe Tim could explain to me how he identifies “eurotrash”, it doesn’t jibe with the majority opinion on Wikipedia:
Eurotrash is a derogatory term used chiefly in North America for Europeans, especially those who perceived to be young, wealthy, and resident in the United States.
But considering the rest of his comment, he’s already embittered enough and expects to be trashed in return. Yes Tim, the US may not be the best of all countries, but we don’t look down on Americans just because they’re more religulous than us. We have plenty of our own crackpots, nutcases and fanatics. Fear not that reason will invade from Germany – at least not anytime soon.
Well we have not been quite forced to join the war, though our german gov acted highly criminal on doing it. And I’m not even talking about the humanitarian side of this. When the “Bundeswehr” our military corps was build up, it was designed as a pure defensive army. It was only for the purpose of defence.
Now our wise politicians seem to forget and send our troops anywhere just like that. Democracy? Yeah right. Surveys showed CLEARLY that this is far away from what the people wanted. Oh and for you as a skeptic it could be of interest that germany is not a real country. Yeah look it up.
Once we were divided (east/west) and it was about time to create a state in western germany, we did it, but and here is the interesting fact:
We created a provisionally state. It is within the agreement from then, that there should be a new agreement and a foundation of the german Republic once both unite. Guess what happened, we swallowed the east tearing down the industry leaving millions without jobs where there was fullemployment in the former GDR. Since then western germany is paying a “solidary fund” to eastern germany each year. Seems to be a good idea? Well things didnt change that much in over 21years to now. In reality, companies are exploiting this fund with building a cheap facility in the east and getting their part. After they got their money they are usually fast gone. Well you could refer to many things which are wrong here. Luckily we dont have that much believers over here, so thats not that big deal. You should fix that in the states, i mean once you have been the peak of modern thinking ;) The Independence War was a good example that it should be the people who should count.
Now many ideas which are perfectly in the original american spirit are fought as communist or unpatriotic. It seems as though people in the US dont even get that they are patriotic for BP and Exxon but not for their country after all.
greetings from germany
by the way i love this blog. :)