9/11 Trutherism and what I just can't figure out about the conspiracy crowd

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > 9/11 Trutherism and what I just can't figure out about the conspiracy crowd

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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For those interested, here is an interesting academic paper on beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories.

quote:

Abstract:
Conspiracy theories can form a monological belief system: a self-sustaining worldview comprised of a network of mutually supportive beliefs. The present research shows that even endorsement of mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively correlated. In Study 1(n= 37), the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered. In Study 2
(n=102), the more participants believed that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when U.S. special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive. Hierarchical regression models showed that mutually incompatible conspiracy theories are positively associated because both are associated with the view that the authorities are engaged in a cover-up (Study 2). The monological nature of conspiracy belief appears to be driven not by conspiracy theories directly supporting one another, but by broader beliefs supporting conspiracy theories in general.

http://www.academia.edu/1207098/Dead_and_alive_Beliefs_in_contradictory_conspiracy_theories

# ¿ Sep 12, 2013 13:11

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 08:49

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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I gotta give it to the 9/11 truthers, but they've been out in front of the WTC Path train several times over the past few weeks (that I've seen), even during freezing cold weather and until at least 8 or 9 PM.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2014 01:40

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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Sorry if this has been posted before, but my aunt just posted this on her Facebook wall and it's too good to let go. It's a video about how Beyonce and Jay-Z are secretly in league with the Illuminati, and thus are also in league with the Prince of Darkness himself, Lucifer.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=539459799432356

The comments are especially ridiculous.

edit:

This video has also just created a really awesome sounding storyline for a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign.

Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Jan 9, 2014

# ¿ Jan 9, 2014 03:41

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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I found this on YouTube not long ago and it still makes me giggle. Not sure how I found it, but that doesn't really matter anymore.

ALERT BREAKING NEWS EARTH HAS 4 MAGNETIC POLES!!!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hCL8ZpXM9E

quote:

THIS WILL COME AS A COMPLETE SHOCK THAT THIS PLANET HAS TWO NORTH POLES AND TWO SOUTH POLES, AND TWO OF THEM ARE RUSHING TOGETHER WHICH WILL IN TURN LEAD TO A FULL MAGNETIC REVERSAL IT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW GUYS, NOT LONG BEFORE WE GET FULL MAGNETIC DISLOCATION AND THEN WE ARE IN UNCHARTED TERRITORY, TO SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL WITH A CONTRIBUTION OR SIMPLY BY THE HOST A COFFEE LINK BELOW

# ¿ Jul 13, 2014 08:18

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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Cracked posted this article and I decided to read the comment section and holy poo poo do a lot of conspiracy theorists read Cracked. I wasn't expecting this level of pushback from the article in question, but the majority of the comments (at least on the FB page) seem to be about people defending themselves not as conspiracy theorists (which a lot of them are claiming is a bullshit grouping tactic developed by The Man), but as "free thinkers" who like to think for themselves and come to their own logical conclusions. Nevermind that they may be verifiably wrong.

A bunch of them also use things like the NSA spying on Americans thing as proof that...uhh...conspiracy theories are real? Just because one thing actually happened doesn't mean poo poo, but I don't have the willingness to actually respond to these creeps.

(Space indicates separate posts. This guy really likes conspiracy theories)

Stephen Rawley posted:

It's funny how people just pick out the obviously crazy junk and lump everyone together into one group. If you disagree with any mainstream view you MUST believe in reptilians and that the moon landing was fake! You can't possibly have rational and provable points with anything else!

Glenn Beck is an idiot and has nothing to do with "conspiracy theorists" It's a made up term to put anyone who questions authority into a demonized category so that any valid points they have are immediately disregarded as crazy.
No one agrees on everything. Someone can believe that 9/11 was an inside job and still believe in the moon landing etc.

Cracked has turned into garbage. Anyone who uses the term "conspiracy theorist" is just lumping anyone with a differing view of events into a box in order to completely disregard anything they have to say to stifle thought. Pure propaganda crap. Apparently everyone is completely retarded and there are no experts out there except for the ones on TV. If no one ever questioned the mainstream view we would all be slaves to the catholic church and still think the world is flat, the sun revolves around the Earth, and animals spontaneously generate. Anyone who still believes in global warming is a moron.

Joe Bates doesn't seem to get the level of respect 20 years worth of data deserves.

Joe Bates posted:

Climate change is the term used by morons who think weather patterns are a new phenomenon. 20 years of data is apparently enough for them to think the world is going to end.

You mean the same conspiracy theorist that is donating millions of dollars in money, food, water, and other essentials to the children illegally crossing the border? What do you fucks do to help others, or make a difference? Stick to stupid and nonsensical videos and stupid gifs, you don't look like uneducated liberal tools that way.

Will someone please think of the poor, beleaguered Glenn Beck!

Jason Spinks posted:

Oh sure, don't want the sheeple thinking outside the box a little. That would make the world worse. Especially when you consider so many of these "wacko" theories have turned out to be true.

I certainly don't buy into every conspiracy theory going, but I like to be able to think for myself, do my research, and come to my own conclusions without being labeled as a wacko from some douche working at Cracked magazine who is ignorant enough to believe the lone gunman theory.

Jason Spinks, coming to his own conclusions by reading regurgitated blog posts about the JFK assassination since 9/11.

Jarrad Pechie posted:

I read this. It's basically a bunch of slamming on anyone who doesn't believe any ''official'' story about anything.

I'm also a massive fan of how many of these conspiracy theorists are ready and willing to completely discredit other theories that they don't personally believe in, but my theory? Oh well that's obviously true, I mean you'd have to be a sheep to not believe in ~my conspiracy theory~

As an aside, I think it's great how people are calling Cracked "the next Upworthy or Buzzfeed" because they make lists when they've been making lists for years and years now. It's almost like...conspiracy theorists are idiots?

Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Jul 16, 2014

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 14:33

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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QuarkJets posted:

I'm hoping that it will have the reverse effect. Find something absolutely ludicrous, show him the minimum burden of proof that he has required for things like magic internet wands, and then say "look at what a low burden of proof might lead someone to believe"

Like if there are some people who believe that the world is actually controlled by vampiric furries who poo poo ice cream, and there are some videos of people who are all "I totally saw one, look at this photo of a raccoon, this is one of them he just shapeshifted right before I took the photo", or something?

The guy probably isn't going to sullenly question the error of his ways, and then thank you for opening his eyes to the reality of the situation. He's probably just gonna think you're making fun of him and really you're the bad guy in that situation.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 13:18

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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QuarkJets posted:

You apparently don't cure crazy with facts and evidence, either, so how the gently caress do you cure crazy?

I'd actually be interested in knowing if conspiracy theorists have grown in number since, say, 9/11. I would imagine the overall distrust in government has caused the numbers to increase, as well as the proliferation of conspiracy theories on both sides of the political spectrum.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 21:50

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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quote:

During the video I was thinking how this guy come up with such good parodies and it came across my mind that he might be illuminati or something, then they showed the illuminati! Then I went to dislike the video and when I went back to see if I disliked it my dislike went away... Is Youtube corrupt? Also I was scared to make this comment because when I re watched the video they said "they're always watching". Well poo poo... Conspiracy and corruption everywhere!

This is meta as gently caress.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 15:24

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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Cracked linked a new article "5 Conspiracy Theories That Are So Dumb They're Brilliant." The comments on Facebook are fairly tame, but with a large number of people claiming Cracked is actually a bunch of cultural marxists and full liberal (but that's nothing new). Also people unironically agreeing that Obama is probably allowing ebola into the US because "it's POSSIBLE. Makes you think..." which seems to be the goto response these days.

Speaking of which, yesterday someone on my feed mentioned seeing a weird atmospheric phenomenon (moon dog) and didn't know what it was, and when a plane flew past it left a vapor that distorted the image. Someone chimed in saying it was chemtrails, then after they were called out on it, linked infowars articles in defense, then at the end decided that they were just kidding and that the people arguing against her were just unfunny nerds who don't understand sarcasm. Then she deleted all of her posts.

Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Oct 10, 2014

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 20:31

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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You know the video of the woman saying Monster energy drinks are the work of the devil? I have a friend who believes her 100%. When I asked him if the part where the M looks like the number 6 in Hebrew could be a coincidence, and he responded with "there's no such thing as coincidence."

Which is something I've only ever heard from conspiracy theorists, now that I think about it.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2014 05:46

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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As a bit of an aside I was introduced to the Mysterious Universe podcast by some friends and it is great fun. In 4 episodes I've learned about fairies, goatmen, psychics, and that apparently there are things that are too crazy for even the hosts of this podcast to believe.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2014 20:20

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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My uncle responded to an article titled "Pentagon: US may lose high-tech military superiority to China, Russia"

His response?

"thats because they have UFO technology now and is on the competitive edge."

# ¿ Jan 29, 2015 18:45

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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http://realitieswatch.com/man-created-aids-robert-gallo/

This popped up on my Facebook feed. The website contains other high-grade conspiracy articles, such as how the Illuminati killed Tupac, and that the Boston bombing was a false flag operation.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2015 03:28

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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Here's some more crazy poo poo that's popped up. http://thespiritscience.net/2015/01/04/alien-species-a-z-part-2/

I don't know what a "theoretical documentary" is, but apparently they're composed of a bunch of random video game footage edited together and are narrated with text-to-speech.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2015 21:15

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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itstime4lunch posted:

This is quite a long thread, and I'm not going to pretend to have read all of it, but has anyone asked if maybe us "rational" non-conspiracy theorists are socialized into many or most of our beliefs in a very similar way to conspiracy theorists? Perhaps rather than treating them as exceptions and odd cases, we could examine how the processes they go through in coming to believe in conspiracies might be able to illuminate some aspects about the way all of us come to believe many things.

In general, scientific inquiry may be humanity's best attempt at approaching something which approximates the underlying "truth" of reality and events, but we certainly don't have time in our lives to examine all of the things that science has supposedly "settled," and instead have to often rely on trusting that others have done this work already. Who to trust and who not to trust, then, becomes a very important issue.

It's interesting that people were saying that a possible motivation of conspiracy theorizing is that it makes the believers feel special and superior to those who don't have the information and understanding that they have. Couldn't that same motivation be attributed to people who write in internet threads discrediting conspiracy theories and discussing why conspiracy theorists are wrong?

This is essentially the "science is a liar sometimes" defense, or at least part of it. That for many people it comes down to "faith" or an appeal to authority rather than proving something yourself, or having done the work yourself. It falsely equates rationality with irrationality, much like how having a debate on evolution between a scientist and a theologian falsely equates the two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22bo6CKJcJM

There certainly is some level of smugness associated with people knocking conspiracy theorists down a notch. I'm guilty of it myself, as are most people in this thread I'm sure. But that has nothing to do with being right or wrong, so much as it has to do with schadenfreude. You can be a smug rear end in a top hat or you can be a very nice person, but if you believe in chemtrails you're still wrong either way.

Then there are people who claim their conspiracy theorizing IS scientific, but these are people who are either too biased to see how they're using the scientific method incorrectly, or too ignorant to apply the method at all. At the very end of the tunnel you have people claiming that the science against them (read: the majority of science) is in itself a conspiracy to keep their totally correct information silent.

Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Mar 3, 2015

# ¿ Mar 3, 2015 18:40

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 08:49

Verisimilidude: Dec 20, 2006; Strike quick and hurry at him,
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GrumpyDoctor posted:

They Fell For My Hoax 9/11 Video

linked in a top comment on that Facebook page

The comments are glorious.

quote:

Brenda Manke1 week ago

Not sure who you are Edward...obviously someone paid by the killers to try and confuse people. However, the truth about the WT7 building is that is was "pulled"...we know it was pulled because the owner of the building said it was. The confession of him stating that he had the building pulled was aired on a live interview...we don't think the building was pulled, we know it was.

quote:

Ookmongani6 months ago

You're a lying shill for the CIA. Shut the gently caress up you traitorous lying sack of poo poo. You don't have the talent to fake a video.

quote:

Nerve Damage4 months ago

Making a hoax video to somehow proclaim your supremacy to a group of people who may actually be "close" to correct is a bit ridiculous and disrespectful to those who died in that tragedy. I don't follow all of the conspiracy theories involved with the incident, but some information made headline news... like police/firefighter/medics reporting secondary explosions before the buildings came down... and the government subsequently denying those truths... and the fact that key witnesses and informants involved in the investigation have died of weird causes. Those two facts alone can push people to question the causes of 9/11 and for good reason... you don't have to be a "conspiracy nut" to question things.. but spending countless hours of your life trying to berate, belittle, and mock people and tragic events seems a bit psychotic...

quote:

Hollands Glorie3 weeks ago

You're a pathetic, ignorant and arrogant little bastard, and I hope God will rip your soul apart and let it burn into eternity. What if a 12 year old stumbles on this video, and takes your blatant lies as truthful, then you actually got the blood of the victims on your hands, because they will deny the 3000 of your countrymen that were killed by their own government, they will deny the hundreds of thousands of middle east victims that had to die because of this government wrongdoing. They will deny the Trillions of Dollars of taxpayers money that were stolen for this by the government.
YOU "sir", are the cancer of this society! If you had any respect for the dead left you would remove this video immediately.

quote:

mk4vws1 month ago

The fact that your dumbass edited a video is pathetic. You're a piece of poo poo as much as the ones behind that day. BUILDINGS CAN NOT COME DOWN IN THEIR OWN FOOTPRINT AS SUCH UNLESS CONTROLLABLY DEMOLISHED. Besides how did they rig building 7 to come down because it was deemed unsafe due to fire? Well you sure as hell aren't going to rig it when it's unsafe or on fire. That means it was already rigged and if you believe the official story that all those buildings were destroyed but yet our great magical government found all the highjackers' passports?? Lol Jesus what are they made from titanium?? You dumb asses

quote:

Alistair Houston6 months ago

Just because people fell for a hoax, doesn't mean build I g 7 wasn't brought down by controlled demolition. There is so much credible evidence that the official story of 9/11 is not true. I know you're going to say what evidence and I'll say just this right now, how come they couldn't find the planes that supposedly flew into the pentagon or crashed in Shankesville?

It goes on and on.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 20:17

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