Any conspiracy theorists here?

[David Harper]

Anyone here who thinks;

we never landed on the moon
9/11 was an inside job
Sandy Hook was a hoax
Oswald was framed
the marathon bombers didn't do it
we didn't kill Bin Laden
no plane hit the pentagon
covid is fake
covid vax is a plot by Bill Gates to plant microchips in us

 

[Tom C]

No. But I might come close.

 

[NiagaraPete]

What about Ancient Aliens and the Oak Island treasure. Yes on both accounts.

 

[daftcombo]

Conspiracy theories have been created by aliens to divide human people and take control of the earth.

 

[David Harper]

Conspiracy theories have been created by aliens to divide human people and take control of the earth.

agreed but I would replace "aliens" with "right wingers".

 

[KellenVancouver]

I subscribe to none of those. But outlandish conspiracy theories remind me of the boy who cried wolf. They serve to stifle our sensitivity to real conspiracies. Yes, there really are people and groups that conspire as a cabal to maximize outcomes to achieve secret goals, it would be naïve not to recognize that, but how easily it must be for them to cloak their activities behind the veil of populist stupidity as exampled by the list above.

 

[nc42acc]

agreed but I would replace "aliens" with "right wingers".

David may I make another suggestion? Replace “aliens” with “subjectivists”.

 

[orangejello]

Statistically there are bound to be some. They are fairly ubiquitous in the general population, particularly in the US.

 

[Slayer]

Anyone here who thinks;

we never landed on the moon
9/11 was an inside job
Sandy Hook was a hoax
Oswald was framed
the marathon bombers didn't do it
we didn't kill Bin Laden
no plane hit the pentagon
covid is fake
covid vax is a plot by Bill Gates to plant microchips in us

I think the term conspiracy theory was created to shut down a conversation or investigation. So i dislike the term as it is thrown around these days for everything. Kind of like the term Karen these days.
Yes, there are a lot of nut jobs out there with some pretty whacky ideas, but that doesn't mean we should label something as a conspiracy when someone begins to question something. It's become an easy way to shut down a conversation that someone finds uncomfortable or unwilling to respond to.

 

[Stokdoof]

Some people believe, one day, there will be Spotify Hifi.

 

[HiFidFan]

Isn't there a house like structure on the moon?

 

[litemotiv]

What about Ancient Aliens and the Oak Island treasure. Yes on both accounts.

I remember reading the Erich von Daniken books when i was very young (around 12-14 i think), i thought they were very intriguing back then.

 

[Madjalapeno]

Is Santa real?

 

[Koeitje]

You missed the flat earthers. Those are some real nutters. Everybody knows that the earth is a cube.

 

[KellenVancouver]

Perhaps a list of real conspiracies would be more apropos...
Just a few examples:
-- Watergate (obviously)
-- CIA facilitating trafficking of cocaine in Los Angeles (still debatable, although past CIA officials have confirmed it).
-- Dreyfus affair (another obvious example from history)
-- The so-called "Markovic affair" in 1960s France (rather fascinating that one)
-- In my neck of the woods, the Rajneesh attempt to win Wasco County elections through (1) Salmonella poisoning and (2) "importing" homeless people as voters
-- US military conducted 239 simulated bacterial warfare tests over US populated areas, 1950s through 1970s (San Francisco being the most infamous)

And more recently, there is the rather interesting case of the so-called "Steele Dossier" (explained in detail by CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/18/politics/steele-dossier-reckoning/index.html)

 

[sq225917]

I'll go with something other than what we told hit the pentagon. And historians are wrong about the dates and mechanisms of manufacture of much of ancient Egypt. I also think we've very probably advanced to quite high levels of civilisation, to be all but wiped out before, maybe multiple times. Probably not this far but certainly somewhere between the middle ages and the industrial revolution.

 

[PatentLawyer]

My brother in law is such a conspiracist and while I (and others) respectfully disagree with, and simply try to avoid discussion of, such matters, he belittles those who accept the generally accepted realities. He has alienated many of his family members and nearly all of his friends.

So my view here is that you are welcome to believe what you want, but so am I.

 

[David Harper]

My brother in law is such a conspiracist and while I (and others) respectfully disagree with, and simply try to avoid discussion of, such matters, he belittles those who accept the generally accepted realities. He has alienated many of his family members and nearly all of his friends.

So my view here is that you are welcome to believe what you want, but so am I.

we must have the same brother in law

 

[Lambda]

Is it still a conspiracy theory if it relay happened?
for example:

Operation Midnight Climax - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[oivavoi]

There are real conspiracies, of course, just like there is an enormous amount of stupid conspiracy theories.

This short article does a good job of criteria we can use for distinguishing between the two: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-conspiracy-theory-director/
My simple hunch is that a conspiracy theory is less likely to be true the more people would need to know about it.

As an example, it's obviously (to me at least) completely wacky to believe that 9/11 didn't happen or was an inside job. What is not completely wacky, and has been backed up by plenty of indirect evidence even though it has not been widely reported, is that CIA could have let the hijackers do more or less as they pleased in the US in the years leading up to the attack, as they were over-confident in their ability to stop attacks and hoped to turn some of the attackers in order to get a source on the inside of al-qaida. This book is amazing and presents the known facts rather dryly: https://www.amazon.de/Watchdogs-Didnt-Bark-Crimes-Terror/dp/1510721363/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&dchild=1&keywords=the+watchdogs+didn't+bark&qid=1629847560&s=books&sr=1-1
We'll probably not know for sure for many, many years, but this is a conspiracy I regard as a possibility, unlike the crazier stuff.

Lots of similar examples. Conspiracies exist, but they are usually smaller in scope and involve less people with more limited aims than what the wacky conspiracy theories say.