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Home >Categories
I have made an attempt to categorise the linked sites according to the reasons I don't like them. Sites may appear in more than one category, and the assignments can sometimes be arbitrary. Please if you think I have classified something incorrectly. Categories and assignments may change from time to time.
This picture indicates that there are some books relevant to the category in the Millenium Bookshop. Click on the picture to go to the list of books.
| Health Fraud ( sites ) | Health fraud falls into two broad classes - telling people lies that may kill them or someone else, and stealing from people by selling bogus medicines. | |
| Anti-vaccination Liars ( sites ) | It is almost beyond the comprehension of sane people that there should be organised opposition to vaccines. A special place should be reserved in Hell for the people who want to kill or maim children by preventing them from receiving vaccinations. This is a special case of health fraud, because most of the other sorts at least pretend to cure something. | |
| Dentistry Fraud ( sites ) | Fraud in dentistry differs from most health fraud in that it is often carried out by qualified dentists. Most of the fraud is based on frightening people about two chemicals - fluoride and mercury. | |
| Racism ( sites ) | Racism takes many forms and points in many directions. Sites are included here because they derogate someone simply because of where they were born or who their parents happened to be. Holocaust deniers go in here, because they usually mention Jews, as if the reality of an atrocity is determined by who it happened to. | |
| Religious bigotry ( sites ) | Religion, unlike skin colour, is a matter of choice, so criticism of others' religious beliefs is legitimate. The sites here go beyond that by substituting abuse for criticism or by being gratuitously offensive. | |
| Creationism ( sites ) | Could there be a greater abuse of both science and Christianity than creationism? | |
| Sexuality ( sites ) | The sites here attack someone because of their sex, gender or sexual preferences or are offensive because of the message they convey about sexuality. Expect to see man-hating feminists, misogynists, gay bashers, straight bashers, paedophiles and other vermin. | |
| Pseudoscience ( sites ) | These are sites where the idiocy is supported by an appeal to science. The madness of the Recovered Memory and Satanic Ritual Abuse campaigners is included here. | |
| Buffoonery ( sites ) | These sites are included because of general stupidity. I expect to see a few of the Pseudoscience sites included here also. | |
| MLM, Pyramid Schemes, Scams and Frauds ( sites ) | Get rich quick, just forget about things like mathematics, the population of the world, and how many friends you would like to still have at the end of the year. A pyramid scheme is a pyramid scheme, even if black-letter law pretends it is not. Pyramid schemes aren't the only way fraudsters try to empty wallets. The sites listed here include many methods of making you poorer. You can read a commentary about multi-level marketing here. | |
| Cults ( sites ) | "A destructive cult is a pyramid-shaped authoritarian regime with a person or group of people that have dictatorial control. It uses deception in recruiting new members (e.g. people are NOT told up front what the group is, what the group actually believes and what will be expected of them if they become members). It also uses mind control techniques to keep people dependent and obedient". Steven Hassan | |
| Conspiracy ( sites ) | Just because you're paranoid doesn't meant that nobody's really out to get you. Conspiracy theories are the bread and butter of many of the people whose sites appear elsewhere on this site. | |
| Liars ( sites ) | Some people are just stupid. Some are just bigoted and uninformed. Some people naïvely believe and repeat the lies of others. Some tell deliberate lies. The sites listed under this category belong to the liars. Nobody could continue to believe this crap, so by saying it they admit to being liars. Anyone listed here who objects to being called a liar can refer to the "About this site" page and see the options for complaint. | |
| Disreputable Journals ( of them) | One of the tests for validity of scientific information is if it has been published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. In order to legitimise nonsense, people create journals which are far from reputable. Some will print anything that fits a certain ideological viewpoint, some specialise in publishing papers that have been rejected by places which have high standards, some will publish anything provided a fee is paid, some pretend to to peer review but allow the authors to nominate their own reviewers. Some do all of these things. This is a list of journals and publications where the contents should be taken with a grain of salt. Or even a bushel. | |
| Others | This is where I put all those sites which don't fit somewhere else. I have work to do if too many sites end up here. | |
| Spam | These aren't web sites of spammers. These are collections of spam messages which arrived uninvited here at The Millenium Project. | |
| Politics | This category is no longer used. As most of the political parties and sites that were featured here were included because of racism or stupidity, the listings have been redistributed to the appropriate categories. Here's a comment from 25 August 2001 which is relevant to the discussion of politics and The Millenium Project. I received an email this week from someone querying the inclusion of a site which expressed an extremist political position. I had another look at the site and I couldn't see why it was included, so I have removed it. The nature of the site was such that the content changes frequently, so it is quite possible that the latest version is nothing like what it was when it was added to the list a couple of years ago. I know that things change over time, and it is impossible for me to check all these sites on a regular basis, so I appreciate it when I am told that something no longer seems to fit. Having said that, though, the particular site still contained political opinions which are far different to mine. When The Millenium Project was young there was a category for Mad Politics, but I deleted it when I observed that there were other categories, such as racism and religious bigotry, which were the real reasons why I didn't like the politics. I have no problem with honestly held opinions, and there have been many people who have, with good faith, given cogent and thoughtful intellectual justifications for all sorts of political views from the most lassez faire rightists to the looniest of communists, from monarchists who believe that kings are gods to republicans and democrats who believe in the absolute power of the people. (Please note that it is almost a universal truth that the words used in the name of any political party have nothing to do with what those words really mean. They are brand names.) I won't list political sites just because their politics differ from mine. I will, however, continue to list racism, bigotry, lying and stupidity. |
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