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FAUXTON
Jun 2, 2005

spero che tu stia bene

For a lot of people it stems from a burning desire to justify perceived exceptionalism. That's why they frequently are libertarians, ("I shall rule this land from my fortress") Randians ("I'm just better than everyone else"), and frequent MLM schemes and internet frippery so they can claim to "own a business." If they have some kind of inside knowledge nobody else has then they are special and it starts pinging whatever short circuit in their brain that spits out dopamine when they get a reason to feel special.

It can explain the tie-ins with MRA's and PUA-ism and general wardrobe shitheelery like fedoras.

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Ramagamma
Feb 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
Conspiracy theorists, in my limited experience are bat-poo poo retarded and not worth listening too. They take concepts which are worthy of debate ie: "The Government does not have our best interests at heart" or "the monetary system is designed to imprison us" and mix it with things like "chemtrails" and "false flag operations" and "fluoride is a poison" and "vaccines are killing you".

Actively not socially interacting with these sorts is the best method.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Blind Pineapple posted:

As far as 9/11 conspiracies go, I find the alternate "explanations" centered around the WTC and Pentagon to be crap, but United 93 getting shot down seems pretty realistic. Maybe I'm the idiot here, but why wouldn't the military hit a hijacked plane after 3 others just flew into crowded landmarks? It has nothing to do with an inside job and the motivations are a lot more plausible (if not justifiable) than manufacturing a reason to go to war overseas. It doesn't even have to have fake phone calls or black box recordings. I am somewhat curious as to how all those calls got recorded, but there could be an easy answer to that. The main point is, why would the government take the chance on a ragtag group of airline passengers stopping another heinous attack, even if they were somehow aware such a thing was occurring on the plane?

That's not even a conspiracy theory. Bush gave authorization to shoot down Flight 93, and NORAD scrambled jets but they didn't have time to arm them so the pilots planned to ram the plane, but they didn't find it in time. Everyone has said that they tried to bring Flight 93 down before it could hit its target. NORAD even testified to the 9/11 commission that they would have been successful in stopping it before it reached Washington, but the commission concluded that was bullshit because NORAD didn't even find out that Flight 93 was hijacked until after it crashed.

The 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 1 posted:

The Vice President stated that he called the President to discuss the rules of engagement for the CAP. He recalled feeling that it did no good to establish the CAP unless the pilots had instructions on whether they were authorized to shoot if the plane would not divert. He said the President signed off on that concept. The President said he remembered such a conversation, and that it reminded him of when he had been an interceptor pilot. The President emphasized to us that he had authorized the shootdown of hijacked aircraft.
...
The guidance for Wherley was to send up the aircraft, with orders to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatened the Capitol. General Wherley translated this in military terms to flying "weapons free"-that is, the decision to shoot rests in the cockpit, or in this case in the cockpit of the lead pilot. He passed these instructions to the pilots that launched at 10:42 and afterward.
...
NORAD officials have maintained consistently that had the passengers not caused United 93 to crash, the military would have prevented it from reaching Washington, D.C. That conclusion is based on a version of events that we now know is incorrect. The Langley fighters were not scrambled in response to United 93; NORAD did not have 47 minutes to intercept the flight; NORAD did not even know the plane was hijacked until after it had crashed.

There's no need to speculate because everyone from the President on down openly admitted they wanted to shoot down Fight 93, even tried to argue that they would have been successful because at least that would be one ray of competence on that black day of unpreparedness and failure.

If they had shot down the plane, they wouldn't have cooked up some tale about brave passengers, faked a bunch of phone calls, and paid off/threatened everyone's families to lie: they would have bragged about it forever and ever because Bush was that desperate to show that he did something, anything, to respond to the attacks rather than reading a children's book while the towers went down.

It's mind-boggling that rather than reading the report and finding problems in the official story (but that takes work), people just go on flights of fancy over basic questions answered in the Commission Report even over points like this where the report agrees with them! Christ, if you have questions, start with the report. It's pretty good and goes into detail about everything. Even if you think it's all just lies and cover-ups, if you want to debunk the official story you should probably know what it actually is!

Edit: Oh hey, Blind Pineapple, the frustration in the last paragraph is directed at truthers, not at you. I was posting to answer your question, but somehow it turned into a rant against the truthers by the end, sorry. Don't take it personally, but do read the report; it's actually readable and very interesting.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Sep 13, 2013

Prester Jane
Nov 4, 2008

by Hand Knit

The Entire Universe posted:

For a lot of people it stems from a burning desire to justify perceived exceptionalism. That's why they frequently are libertarians, ("I shall rule this land from my fortress") Randians ("I'm just better than everyone else"), and frequent MLM schemes and internet frippery so they can claim to "own a business." If they have some kind of inside knowledge nobody else has then they are special and it starts pinging whatever short circuit in their brain that spits out dopamine when they get a reason to feel special.

It can explain the tie-ins with MRA's and PUA-ism and general wardrobe shitheelery like fedoras.

Probably the best example of this cross section of shitbaggery is a conspiracy theorist by the name of Michael Tsarion. He is a midrange guy in the movement, not huge by any means, but big enough to get on Coast-2Coast and Alex Jones from time to time. Michael Tsarion is an Irish occultist who is a big big fan of Ayn Rand. He spouts off an especially smug brand of over-intellectualized gibberish that is almost unintelligible unless you have really familiarized yourself with Occultism. He makes documentaries that he charges massive amounts ($75 a pop last I checked) where he goes into detail about the secrets he has uncovered, like the true Irish origin of civilization, or why Ayn Rand was an unappreciated visionary because we American's like to squash the people trying hardest to help us. He also runs a membership of his website(which is pricey) where he gets into the real hardcore information that he can't put out into the general public with his interviews or documentaries. (But you should totally buy those too, because they contain a ton of important information.) He also markets a bunch of his own brand of occult paraphernalia, like his own Tarot Deck. (Which he sells a 4 part video series on how to use, for a few hundred bucks.) The message is always "You too can learn to be spiritually evolved and free if you just learn all this information I am providing at this very reasonable price".

Michael Tsarion also has some of the best word salad/buzzword talks out there. I mean just listen to this youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iec6tMPnh88 In the first 90 seconds of this discussion we get "Jewish bankers that have been installed as puppets by the British Crown to undermine the economy of America" followed by a discussion of whether or not Obama is a clone of Akhenaton. The whole thing is worth listening too, but after about 2 minutes it just breaks down into a long string of "look at how obvious this is but yet dumdum sheeple still go along with it." Naturally, Michael Tsarion makes a great living doing this and is esteemed as a serious scholar in the community.

Carlton Banks Teller
Nov 18, 2004


Vorpal Cat posted:

One advantage that thermite has over C4 for the purposes of a conspiracy theorist is that you can make thermite out of iron oxide and aluminum dust. How hard do you think it is to find evidence of iron oxide and aluminum dust in the world trade center ruble. Why bother looking for other posible explanations for you evidence when you already know the answer.

This and the general 'testimony' of the Architects for Truth group are what convinced my aunt. She's outside the usual profile of a truther: mid-50s, center-left Democrat, hates Alex Jones/Icke types and yet, there she is. In her case, I think it's just disgust at Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld mixed with hearing half-truths that subsequently got justified and built upon by the conspiracy machine. Thermite was detected!! It's just iron oxide and aluminum. But it was SUPER-thermite!!

The one name she tends to refer to in debates is Steven E. Jones. He's a physicist, and he's published papers! ... but he has no building forensics knowledge and doesn't publish in peer-reviewed journals. Of course, that's just because he's speaking truth to power and THEY don't want to get his message out.

Of course, she also had a large brain tumor when she bought into the conspiracy during the first real burst of truther media output of ~2005. :iiam:

Skellybones
May 31, 2011




Fun Shoe
A big part of what Alex Jones (claims to?) believe about the Conspiracy is that the Comspiracy attempts to use a kind of 'sympathetic magic' that involves publicising the plot in a sneaky way. So all those magazine and album covers with the WTC on them with a 9 or 11 or a plane somewhere else on the cover? Those movies, games and shows which featured the WTC somehow in the script? That was the Illuminati wizards planting subtle foreknowledge of their villainy in order to make the eventual explosions extra big. Fortunately, when someone notices this and points it out, like a brave talk radio host, the plan is TOO public and must be abandoned.

So when you see a headline referring to imminent smallpox-carrying Mexican aliens being inserted into major cities in order to depopulate the eastern seaboard, you can rest easy that such an event will never happen, because magic.

withak
Jan 15, 2003


Fun Shoe

Enjoy posted:

What is the conspiracy theorist explanation for why they are allowed to go around blowing the cover of the conspirators on something as easily controlled as the internet?

While governments have unlimited power and competence in planning and executing their far-reaching conspiracies, and at keeping the operation a secret from all but a few select geniuses after the event, they are totally incompetent at shutting up those select few who are able to find out the secret.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

withak posted:

While governments have unlimited power and competence in planning and executing their far-reaching conspiracies, and at keeping the operation a secret from all but a few select geniuses after the event, they are totally incompetent at shutting up those select few who are able to find out the secret.

The government is afraid to move against Alex Jones because they know he's right and shutting him up would only confirm everything, and a government with the skill and resources to murder thousands of people and make the world believe it was a terrorist attack would be unable to simply assassinate him and make it look like an accident. Or maybe they could, but they don't bother because the information is out there and it's too late anyway, so they are just counting on the bottomless credulity of the American people to believe the official story.

Walton Simons
May 16, 2010

ELECTRONIC OLD MEN RUNNING THE WORLD

Popular Thug Drink posted:

My favorites are the people who think that by analyzing 480p Youtube footage, they can discern exactly how the building was destroyed. A collapsing building is a collapsing building, regardless of what made it collapse. They look the same. And all that 'falling at the speed of gravity' poo poo, I talked to a guy who claimed this and it turns out he actually did not know simple physics. F=m*a completely wrecked his argument. Didn't shut him up though.

Arrrrggg, this reminded me of college (I'm English so age 16-18) some truther DVD was posted through everyone's letterbox, so quite an operation for a conspiracy in the USA and it was quite frightening the way that everyone believed it. At an age where you really should be exercising some sort of critical thinking, all but one of a group of reasonably educated nearly-adults swallowed it without question and wouldn't accept any other explanation. I think the biggest arguments involved the size of the hole in the Pentagon, the infamous 'untouched' lawn, 'CIA Agents' removing black boxes (because the government would pull off this huge conspiracy but leave the data recorders with all the evidence on them in the wreckage and hope they find them first :downs:) and the fact that the Pentagon impact CCTV wasn't in 60FPS HDTV.

Anyway, one argument from my friend was that the towers fell 'faster than the speed of gravity' :psyduck: Even without getting into the horribly garbled terminology, even my AS-Level Physics education told me it was total bollecks. If the towers fell faster then 9.8m/s^2, there are bigger problems then terrorists and conspiracies. I explained this, he didn't seem to understand and carried on spouting it.

I only convinced one of the group that it was rubbish before the hot topic moved onto PS2 vs Xbox or something. We're 25/26 now so I really must ask if they still believe it next time I see them.

J.A.B.C.
Jul 2, 2007

There's no need to rush to be an adult.


VitalSigns posted:

The government is afraid to move against Alex Jones because they know he's right and shutting him up would only confirm everything, and a government with the skill and resources to murder thousands of people and make the world believe it was a terrorist attack would be unable to simply assassinate him and make it look like an accident. Or maybe they could, but they don't bother because the information is out there and it's too late anyway, so they are just counting on the bottomless credulity of the American people to believe the official story.

:golfclap:

Though it's been said before in the thread, the way I see conspiracy theories is that they have taken the place of the monomyth, the great big explanation that ties this random, chaotic world together in a way that makes sense. It also helps that it gives a feeling of importance and purpose to the 'enlightened', as well as helping confirm their own worldview.

"Let's be honest here: Which one is scarier? that we were tricked by a criminal mastermind, or that we were led by an idiot?" - Moviebob

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso

Prester John posted:

In the truther movement there are two big, but informal, camps. You could call them the "Alex Jones Crowd" and the "David Icke Crowd".
I don't want to wade waist-deep in all of Icke's crazy, but I have seen him in some YouTube video repeating vague platitudes with which most liberals would agree; e.g. that income inequality and rampant pollution are stupid. Is that how he presents himself before drawing people into his Sleestak TimeCube crazy?

quote:

There is an experience the Schizophrenic mind has often, and that is "waking up". Suddenly, all the connections become clear, you can see the world for what it really is. It is as plain as day. It all makes sense. Naturally to the Schizophrenic mind this sort of thing can happen over pretty illogical/mundane stuff, but experiencing it is sort of a high, and it can be kind of habit forming. Conspiracy theorists often also talk of this "waking up" experience, where all of the sudden it clicked for them and they could see it all.( For most I have personally encountered this was during watching a documentary like Loose Change or its ill-begotten ilk.)

Once you have this waking up experience, you relearn everything about the world. You have a life changing perspective that causes you to re-evaluate literally everything. (I imagine it is very similar too, if not identical too, the dramatic conversion experience some people go through with religion.) You spend time rethinking everything, the world is suddenly a different place. There is an order to things, a higher pattern you can now perceive. You can place previous mysterious world events into neatly labeled mental folders that explain it all. On top of this, the fact that no one else in your day-to-day life can see this pattern gives you a sort of superiority feeling. You can see it, your smarter, you rose above your cultural brainwashing and now you can truly perceive the truth. When major world events happen and you create a mental narrative for them, one that gets matched up by Alex Jone's take on the event, and supported by other "awake" people, it becomes a very deep mental hole that is very difficult to dig your way out of. In short, when your "real truth" is verified by other people you perceive to be "awake" just like you, its enthralling. Perhaps not thrilling, not always pleasant (fear and anxiety play a tremendous role in all this) but it does occupy almost all your attention and spare time.
This is interesting to me because I've long been fascinated by Internet subcultures that appear to be essentially based around mental illness. Self-harm is a symptom of mental illness, but "ana and mia" websites are something else. Paranoia and schizophrenia are mental illnesses, but "gangstalking," my favourite conspiracy theory, is a loosely connected network of people building shaky rationales for their persecution complex. These communities seem to serve the purpose of helping their members feel less alone, but keep them wallowing in their illness, dependent on the community and the worldview it supports for what little positive reinforcement they can get in their miserable lives. Your thoughts?

Prester John posted:

Yeah, Icke's main message is that all of 3 dimensional reality is a gigantic holographic simulation we built for ourselves, so just chill out. Our hologram has gotten hijacked a bit by external influences not native to this particular space-time continuum(the reptilian aliens), but that is no reason to panic, we are going to get through this. Remember, its all just a simulation, and the important thing is the connections you make and how you decide to help the people in your daily life.

woke wedding drone
Jun 1, 2003

by exmarx
Fun Shoe
The gangstalking thing is just sad because every single one of those people needs help. JFK people or truthers are just people who have a quirky perspective, a fun way of looking at all the chaos in the world. People who think that everyone in their life has meetings about "let's antagonize Joe by secret hand signals, you've got bus stop duty today agent 7" are trapped in a world of terrible suffering.

e: on my phone, otherwise I'd track down those "gangstalking" comics that would have been a brilliant parody of fallacious reasoning if the author had any self-awareness.

e2: here we go

woke wedding drone fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Sep 13, 2013

Antifa Sarkeesian
Jun 4, 2009

yo les digo que no, que no soy la madre de nadie, pero que, eso si, los conozco a todos, a todos los jóvenes poetas del DF, a los que nacieron aquí y a los que llegaron de provincias, y a los que el oleaje trajo de otros lugares de Latinoamérica, y que los quiero a todos
Goons patting themselves on the back for being more logical than Alex Jones and a literal schizophrenic ITT.

Prester Jane
Nov 4, 2008

by Hand Knit

Halloween Jack posted:

I don't want to wade waist-deep in all of Icke's crazy, but I have seen him in some YouTube video repeating vague platitudes with which most liberals would agree; e.g. that income inequality and rampant pollution are stupid. Is that how he presents himself before drawing people into his Sleestak TimeCube crazy?



Icke is a bit different than the regular conspiracy crowd. He starts off perfectly rational and will go into detail about real events and problems in the world. He has been a pretty outspoken critic of Corporatism, both political parties in the US, Isreal, and especially the banking cartel. Actually, having attended one of his 10 hour lectures, I would say probably about 65% of the time was spent discussing pretty non crazy stuff. About 20% of his time was spent on the whole "we are all one" New Agey kind of stuff. And the rest was spent on some pretty out there ideas. He might have spent about 3-4 minutes on the reptilian alien thing. The main thing with Icke that is unlike a ton of other conspiracy theorists, his stuff is at least internally consistent. And he's not angry and shouting about it. His presentation is also very positive, especially compared to an Alex Jones. He doesn't try to terrify his audience, he tells them that no matter its all going to be okay. He emphasizes personal spiritual growth as the way to improve society. All in all he is pretty harmless and I think that is part of his charm. He talks a ton of sense and kind of just eases the nuttier stuff in there.

If you really want to get a sense of Icke without delving in deep I would recommend the Vice Documentary on him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w2dMekIJLw


Halloween Jack posted:

This is interesting to me because I've long been fascinated by Internet subcultures that appear to be essentially based around mental illness. Self-harm is a symptom of mental illness, but "ana and mia" websites are something else. Paranoia and schizophrenia are mental illnesses, but "gangstalking," my favourite conspiracy theory, is a loosely connected network of people building shaky rationales for their persecution complex. These communities seem to serve the purpose of helping their members feel less alone, but keep them wallowing in their illness, dependent on the community and the worldview it supports for what little positive reinforcement they can get in their miserable lives. Your thoughts?

In my experience this would be essentially correct. Many of your rank and file conspiracy theorists consume a steady diet of conspiracy material. It doesn't have to be too new or groundbreaking just so long as it agrees with their beliefs.(Hell, every one of Icke's books is 85% rehash of stuff he's already written then whatever new stuff thrown on top of it.) It keeps your worldview intact, reassures you of your special status, and provides more "facts" you can use to challenge the plebs that surround you. Other theorists are constantly looking for that next deep revelation and so press ever onward into nuttier and nuttier territory. And it can get pretty nutty. Jones and Icke are tame compared to people like Freeman or Alex Collier.

Zeroisanumber
Oct 23, 2010

Nap Ghost

Prester John posted:

Icke is a bit different than the regular conspiracy crowd. He starts off perfectly rational and will go into detail about real events and problems in the world. He has been a pretty outspoken critic of Corporatism, both political parties in the US, Isreal, and especially the banking cartel. Actually, having attended one of his 10 hour lectures, I would say probably about 65% of the time was spent discussing pretty non crazy stuff. About 20% of his time was spent on the whole "we are all one" New Agey kind of stuff. And the rest was spent on some pretty out there ideas. He might have spent about 3-4 minutes on the reptilian alien thing. The main thing with Icke that is unlike a ton of other conspiracy theorists, his stuff is at least internally consistent. And he's not angry and shouting about it. His presentation is also very positive, especially compared to an Alex Jones. He doesn't try to terrify his audience, he tells them that no matter its all going to be okay. He emphasizes personal spiritual growth as the way to improve society. All in all he is pretty harmless and I think that is part of his charm. He talks a ton of sense and kind of just eases the nuttier stuff in there.

He sounds like a harmless old hippie with some out there ideas and now I sort of feel bad for all of the years of "lol Lizards" that I've done. :(

A Sloth
Aug 4, 2010
EVERY TIME I POST I AM REQUIRED TO DISCLOSE THAT I AM A SHITHEAD.

ASK ME MY EXPERT OPINION ON GENDER BASED INSULTS & "ENGLISH ETHNIC GROUPS".


:banme:

Ramagamma posted:

Conspiracy theorists, in my limited experience are bat-poo poo retarded and not worth listening too. They take concepts which are worthy of debate ie: "The Government does not have our best interests at heart" or "the monetary system is designed to imprison us" and mix it with things like "chemtrails" and "false flag operations" and "fluoride is a poison" and "vaccines are killing you".

Actively not socially interacting with these sorts is the best method.

Depends if they are a legit devoted conspiracy theorist or just curiously paranoid like I have been myself. It doesn't usually take me long to pick apart the bullshit though, and I have a friend who the same who is happy to learn when the conspiracy theories he believes are bullshit. But yes, trying to debate with the run of the mill internet conspiracy theorist is most likely a wasted effort. Never really spoke to a dogmatic loon in person before, other than somebody who believed in the Icke lizard men thing in my circle of friends. We just made fun of him.

Also Icke is a loveable nutter.

Also an excellent paper on the subject here:

“What about building 7?” A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories
Michael J. Wood* and Karen M. Douglas
http://www.frontiersin.org/personality_science_and_individual_differences/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00409/abstract

Also hilariously misrepresented by Press TV, the Iranian state propaganda outlet.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/07/12/313399/conspiracy-theorists-vs-govt-dupes/

A Sloth fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Sep 13, 2013

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

VitalSigns posted:

Don't take it personally, but do read the report; it's actually readable and very interesting.

There's a 'King of the Hill' episode where Dale reads the Warren Commission and goes through the supplemental materials and concludes that Oswald really did act alone. He then becomes obnoxiously patriotic (to the point that he reports Hank to DHS)

Thanks for bringing in some more information.

The Bloop
Jul 5, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

McDowell posted:

I also think United 93 might have been shot down and the resistance story is either an embellishment or fiction.

fermun posted:

The military probably did give authorization to take the planes out, but fighter jets weren't allowed to hang around being fueled and armed until after 9/11 which takes a while, so they likely would have had to ram the plane to take it out. There are numerous recorded cell phone calls and the flight recorder going all the way to the crash and none say anything about being shot down. The debris field was only about 1.5 miles, which is consistent with a high-speed crash crash and far too small for a plane that is breaking up prior to crashing. It's not conclusive, but the official story certainly makes more sense given the data.
I am no expert on any of the science, but I have always harbored a strong suspicion that the United 93 was shot down. I am just paranoid enough not to want to say why because I fear getting someone in a high station in trouble for talking about it before it even hit the news and then recanting and verbally redacting their statement. Of course, they could easily have been mistaken as well.

woke wedding drone
Jun 1, 2003

by exmarx
Fun Shoe

Trent posted:

I am no expert on any of the science, but I have always harbored a strong suspicion that the United 93 was shot down. I am just paranoid enough not to want to say why because I fear getting someone in a high station in trouble for talking about it before it even hit the news and then recanting and verbally redacting their statement. Of course, they could easily have been mistaken as well.

Yeah, people at every level of the military and government were reporting all sorts of bad info to each other that day. Hell everybody was. People were saying New York had been nuked or was "gone." Time rapidly brought perspective.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

SedanChair posted:

Yeah, people at every level of the military and government were reporting all sorts of bad info to each other that day. Hell everybody was. People were saying New York had been nuked or was "gone." Time rapidly brought perspective.

It is perception that matters, not reality. In the end the cultural memory of 9/11 will be in very broad strokes and people will have their own 'ideas' or just won't think about history - like the JFK Assassination.

But on the idea of objective reality it's interesting how 9/11 ties in with the propagation of cell phones. They played a big role in the narrative of the attack (the passengers contacting their families, cell phone owners in NYC as small heroes). The Mass Media fear culture played up the whole child abduction thing in the following couple years. The result was everyone buying cell phones and often getting them for their kids.

Now it is alot easier to propagate both rumors and facts - and the State has a new way to supervise people :tinfoil:

The Warszawa
Jun 6, 2005

Look at me. Look at me.

I am the captain now.
Cass Sunstein has a very interesting paper on how conspiracy theories perpetuate in groups and how they can be combated by basically having government feed the correct information into self-sealing conspiracy theorist groups.

Ironically, Sunstein's paper has been pointed to in order to "show" that Sunstein believes that the government should infiltrate groups to destroy them from within in some kind of Orwellian nightmare scenario.

Rhesus Pieces
Jun 27, 2005

SedanChair posted:

Yeah, people at every level of the military and government were reporting all sorts of bad info to each other that day. Hell everybody was. People were saying New York had been nuked or was "gone." Time rapidly brought perspective.

I distinctly remember hearing erroneous reports about there being 12 more hijacked airliners in the sky, along with the State Department being car-bombed and the National Mall being on fire.

Of course all of these turned out not to be true, but to a conspiracy theorist any retracted initial report is a sign of a cover-up in progress.

limp dick calvin
Sep 1, 2006

Strepitoso. Vedete? Una meraviglia.
I think it's fair to say most people in the military have no more idea what's happening than the average person watching the news.

Sir Tonk
Apr 18, 2006
Young Orc

Consummate Professional posted:

I think it's fair to say most people in the military have no more idea what's happening than the average person watching the news.

On the enlisted side, for sure. Officers above company grade should, in theory, have a grasp of current events.

Rencall posted:

Wake up, sheeple....

Anyone that uses that phrase should be ignored from that point forward.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Rhesus Pieces posted:

I distinctly remember hearing erroneous reports about there being 12 more hijacked airliners in the sky, along with the State Department being car-bombed and the National Mall being on fire.

I remember my Mom telling me the National Mall was destroyed. I guess the total grounding of all flights was an overabundance of caution to know for sure how many planes were hijacked.

Mc Do Well fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Sep 14, 2013

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Trent posted:

I am no expert on any of the science, but I have always harbored a strong suspicion that the United 93 was shot down. I am just paranoid enough not to want to say why because I fear getting someone in a high station in trouble for talking about it before it even hit the news and then recanting and verbally redacting their statement. Of course, they could easily have been mistaken as well.

The 9/11 Commission covered extensively how the military tried and failed to shoot down Flight 93, and how NORAD tried to look good for the commission with an erroneous claim that if it hadn't crashed they would have shot it down in time. They would not have faked phone calls and flight recordings and eyewitness accounts and whatever impossible poo poo to cover up blowing up the flight. They would have told everyone they shot it down and bragged about how good our air defense was.

If the government was doing all these big cover ups and lying to the American people, you would think they would fabricate a story that inspires confidence and loyalty, not one that makes them look as useless and incompetent as possible.

I, from literally the same page, posted:

Direct quotes from the 9/11 commission.

Christ, I was complaining that people jump off into speculation and conspiracy theories without even reading the report about what happened, but apparently I can't even count on people reading a 10-sentence excerpt that I posted on this very page :eng99:

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Sep 14, 2013

Prester Jane
Nov 4, 2008

by Hand Knit

Rhesus Pieces posted:

I distinctly remember hearing erroneous reports about there being 12 more hijacked airliners in the sky, along with the State Department being car-bombed and the National Mall being on fire.

Of course all of these turned out not to be true, but to a conspiracy theorist any retracted initial report is a sign of a cover-up in progress.

The standard Truther line is that there were 3 separate simultaneous military drills going on that day simulating hijacked aircraft and some of them striking buildings. Truther's assert that as a result of the drills NORAD couldn't distinguish what was real world and what was exercise which was a big component of the attacks successfully happening. This naturally also explains why there were so many erroneous reports that day, real world and exercise were getting confused in the reporting to the press. Truthers also assert that governments frequently use drills as a coverup for real planned false flags. This provides both confusion during the actual attack or credible cover if the attack is aborted. The biggest smoking gun example of this that Truther's will point to is some private security guy from the 7/7 bombings in London. On the day of the attacks he was interviewed and claimed that he was involved in a city wide disaster simulation that simulated the exact same trains and bus being targetd at the exact same locations at the exact same time it was happening. According to him this caused some real confusion because at first they couldn't believe that it was actually happening.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Prester John posted:

On the day of the attacks he was interviewed and claimed that he was involved in a city wide disaster simulation that simulated the exact same trains and bus being targetd at the exact same locations at the exact same time it was happening. According to him this caused some real confusion because at first they couldn't believe that it was actually happening.

Well it's not like intelligence agencies haven't strung people along before - I wouldn't put it past Tony Blair and MI5 to say 'gently caress it'

Zeroisanumber
Oct 23, 2010

Nap Ghost

Rhesus Pieces posted:

I distinctly remember hearing erroneous reports about there being 12 more hijacked airliners in the sky, along with the State Department being car-bombed and the National Mall being on fire.

Of course all of these turned out not to be true, but to a conspiracy theorist any retracted initial report is a sign of a cover-up in progress.

Yeah, I remember hearing that terrorists were shooting up New York and that a group of them were fighting with Capitol Police in Washington D.C. In retrospect it's all silly and unbelievable, but the unbelievable had already happened three times that day, so...

MrNemo
Aug 26, 2010

"I just love beeting off"

I recommended it in the other conspiracy thread but Ron Johnson's book Them is an interesting look at the community of outsider groups including a few different conspiracy theory groups. He also spends some time with white Supremacist groups in the US and Islamic extremists in the UK. It's interesting the toes between these two and conspiracy theory believers, most of them seem to have some level of acceptance of conspiracies.

GlyconsCat
Sep 4, 2013
Prester John - very good info. Thanks for posting it. Some years ago, I briefly bought into the AIDS denier conspiracy theory, but that was just my own ignorance at work. There was some mainstream-looking magazine with a woman on the cover who was absolutely positive that AIDS didn't really exist, and the irresponsible journalist covering the story was one of those "show both sides of the controversy" types who made this whacko viewpoint seem quite plausible. It just seemed so easy to believe that there was this massive effort at work to make AIDS into this big problem because... well, actually, I'm not sure why I thought anybody would want to do that. Grant money? All those hookers and blow that AIDS researchers get? I can't say it made me feel superior, but it did make me a little scared and want to do something to stop this awful injustice. Thankfully, that mindset didn't last that long once I'd investigated.

I suspect that the further away we get in time from 9/11, the weirder and more extreme the nutters involved in the conspiracy theories around 9/11 are going to get. At this point, so removed from that date in time as we are, it feels like the truthers are saying stuff that would never have found traction right after the attack. Maybe the attack itself is now of secondary importance.

happyhippy
Feb 21, 2005

Playing games, watching movies, owning goons. 'sup
Pillbug

GlyconsCat posted:

I suspect that the further away we get in time from 9/11, the weirder and more extreme the nutters involved in the conspiracy theories around 9/11 are going to get. At this point, so removed from that date in time as we are, it feels like the truthers are saying stuff that would never have found traction right after the attack. Maybe the attack itself is now of secondary importance.

My friends and I were joking about this.
When CGI becomes advanced to replicate the videos taken that day perfectly some shithead will create a video 'just discovered from another angle' or kick it off again.
Then 50-100 years you will get death bed testimonials that he/she was involved with the conspiracy.
And 100-500 years people will start to think the WTC towers never existed or were constructed to be blown up by Elvis.
In truth, reality I bet will be much much worse with them.

verdigris murder
Jul 10, 2011

by FactsAreUseless
One of the best things about conspiracy experts is that usually there's a direct correlation between bong hits and crazy theories. It's awesome that those traumatised by horrific events in their past can find mysteries and horrors of the present day, and craft them into a sort of coping mechanism.

Not actually directed at the dude above, as that'd be some weird passive aggressive thing.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


Halloween Jack posted:

I don't want to wade waist-deep in all of Icke's crazy, but I have seen him in some YouTube video repeating vague platitudes with which most liberals would agree; e.g. that income inequality and rampant pollution are stupid. Is that how he presents himself before drawing people into his Sleestak TimeCube crazy?

This is interesting to me because I've long been fascinated by Internet subcultures that appear to be essentially based around mental illness. Self-harm is a symptom of mental illness, but "ana and mia" websites are something else. Paranoia and schizophrenia are mental illnesses, but "gangstalking," my favourite conspiracy theory, is a loosely connected network of people building shaky rationales for their persecution complex. These communities seem to serve the purpose of helping their members feel less alone, but keep them wallowing in their illness, dependent on the community and the worldview it supports for what little positive reinforcement they can get in their miserable lives. Your thoughts?

I feel like this sort of experience is not so far outside of normal, non-conspiracy-related political thinking, though. Anyone who is an adherent of any minority political viewpoint (libertarianism, Marxism, whatever) will have a similar sort of "revelation" experience when they take its tenets and start analyzing the world around them. I feel like this is probably rather common with Marxists, in particular, when they begin seeing history through the lens of class conflict. For that matter, a particularly relevant piece of history might make a lot of dominoes fall into place. The only real difference I see with the conspiracy-minded is that their revelations don't actually make a drat bit of sense.

kitten emergency
Jan 13, 2008

get meow this wack-ass crystal prison
Conspiracy theorists and Alex Jones types make me really sad because I'm marginally ethical enough to not start peddling their shill and making (presumably?) fat stacks off of it.

I hadn't really kept up with the 9/11 truthers, so some of these stories about what they believe are fascinating.

Eat My Ghastly Ass
Jul 24, 2007

I have a lot of friends who buy into 9/11 truther stuff, water fluoridation, etc... lately one of my friends has become obsessed with this stupid sun gazing crap, as it "undoes the calcification of the pineal gland caused by fluorine," as well as constantly bugging everyone he knows about 9/11. His only source is a sun gazing web site, which has absolutely zero sources and paypal links everywhere begging for donations. No matter what I say, he has already gazed at the sun for 30 second a few times. I don't know what to do anymore; It's not like I work in the healthcare field or anything, what do I know. These people are like religious zealots, anything that doesn't fit their narrative is "what the MAN wants you to believe!"

How are u
May 19, 2005

by Azathoth

Yarbald posted:

I have a lot of friends who buy into 9/11 truther stuff, water fluoridation, etc... lately one of my friends has become obsessed with this stupid sun gazing crap, as it "undoes the calcification of the pineal gland caused by fluorine," as well as constantly bugging everyone he knows about 9/11. His only source is a sun gazing web site, which has absolutely zero sources and paypal links everywhere begging for donations. No matter what I say, he has already gazed at the sun for 30 second a few times. I don't know what to do anymore; It's not like I work in the healthcare field or anything, what do I know. These people are like religious zealots, anything that doesn't fit their narrative is "what the MAN wants you to believe!"

Wow that's both funny and very sad at the same time. He's doing a lot of irreversible damage to his eyes and has nobody to blame but himself.

OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc

serewit posted:

Conspiracy theorists and Alex Jones types make me really sad because I'm marginally ethical enough to not start peddling their shill and making (presumably?) fat stacks off of it.

I hadn't really kept up with the 9/11 truthers, so some of these stories about what they believe are fascinating.

Dunno, most of the hardcore conspiracy people aren't exactly what you'd call wealthy, and I expect it'll be pretty hard to keep up with the big dogs like Alex Jones who already has a rep and who lives this 24/7. It's going to be hard to compete with either experienced, hardened con-men or else crazy people who compulsively spend enormous amounts of time on stupid garbage.

Mooseontheloose
May 13, 2003

You should read Voodoo Histories. It provides a great look at modern conspiracies and where they come from.

At the end of the day, I do think people latch to conspiracy theories because it allows them to do two things:

1) Be smarter than everyone in the room.
2) To feel like they have control. 9/11 Trutherism comes from the fact that people can't take the idea of 19 psychopaths, who come from the "uncivilized" part of the world, can end the lives of 3000 people and turn the most powerful nation on Earth on it's head. The JFK theories make it clearer to me. If the President of the United States can be taken out at seemingly random, what shot do you have in the real world?

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Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
Forget conning these people - someone is telling them to stare directly into the sun multiple times a day - and apparently they believe it.

I'm really sorry about your friends, Yarbald. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing that your friend is going to turn into Harry Caray.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrFUBKCONfs

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