Zoltan Istvan's Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy Theory Essay Zoltan Istvan proposes a popular idea for why human society hasn’t encountered alien species; they are machines and on a different molecular level, one that people cannot perceive. Digging deeper past the first base-conspiracy of if aliens exist or not, Istvan attempts to argue his robotic lifeforms theory by using logic, analogies, and sources that mostly seem to weakly support if not be entirely unrelated to the theory as well as mainly relying on his influence and connection to his target audience. Istvan’s main argument may seem to be about whether or not we are alone in the universe, however going off the article’s title and main points, his main argument is for why we haven’t met aliens yet. His favorite …show more content…
He references his own articles to support points in his paragraphs, and the few sources that are not from him are other web articles from self-proclaimed internet scientists (with the exception of Stephen Hawking – even then the support had little to do with his main argument). Istvan employs the use of many fallacies, the most egregious being sweeping generalization, faulty analogy, faulty sign, begs the question, and appeals to authority to name a few. Most of his fallacies are from the result of jumping to conclusions that don’t seem to support one another; making the sweeping generalization that, ‘like all evolving life, the key to attaining the highest form of being and intelligence possible was to intimately become and control the best universal elements’, he makes assumptions that because what follows for humans must be true for aliens. This is seen in his use a faulty analogies with relating humans to aliens and then aliens to ants (and even microbes) - we cannot possibly fathom how one may work to the other (well yes - ants and humans...but,) Istvan is making claims and presenting them as fact when we cannot necessarily disprove them. Istvan may form his article in such a way that assumes the reader knows what he is talking about however, doing so lends the writing into more unconnected steps and tend to be based on conclusions which are unstated or unproven, making leaps between ‘faulty signs’ and ‘begs the question’ by stating claims like, “Humans may be able able to conduct physics experiments that could level the entire universe … [meaning] alien intelligence will make contact and let us know what we can and can’t do”, it relies on the idea that aliens a. Do exist, and b. Are third level generation creatures who don’t care for human life. The author is very much aware of his audience and uses rhetoric greatly to his