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Speaking as a recovering conspiracy theorist, it simply makes more sense from a cause/effect standpoint. Knowing what America is like, doing wanton destruction towards it with no goal or desired result beyond the act seems too idiotic for anyone to actually commit (the actual motivations are more complex than that, but this is what it seems like to someone out of the know); the attacks being the result of actions taken by the people who gained from the attacks (directly or a couple degrees removed) simply makes more sense.twistedmentat posted:If they are just doing it for the money, its disgusting and they are doing incredible harm to society and progress by doing it. It creates a atmosphere of distrust of all sources of information and of any authority figure. I highly disagree. In my experience, scientists are just as ignorant about things outside their field as the average person, sometimes even more so. Hell, I distinctly remember many of the more prominent conspiracy theorists being scientists and other "experts" who's experience in their field unequivically disprove the official story. Main point is completely valid, though.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:06
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Popular Thug Drink posted:This just proves my point though. If Nedelin eventually came to light, how is there zero documentation on any lost cosmonauts? At this point state secrecy is in and of itself a reason to invent conpsiracies, in order to fill the gap where there must be secret knowledge hidden away. It wouldn't be too hard to destroy documents that had to do with the mission, or even just getting rid of any mention of using a human in the test (though it would have some glaring holes if read later on). Dealing with the people who also worked on the project wouldn't be too har either; most likely you'd just need say it needs to be hidden for have them any sort of a chance at having a career (especially outside the agency). Sure, it wouldn't be easy by any definition of the word, but it's far from impossible.
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Jan 15, 2014 00:16
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Popular Thug Drink posted:This is the first step towards being a conspiracy theorist. It's not possible that the USSR accidentally killed a human in a failed spaceflight and destroyed every bit of evidence that the flight or the pilot ever existed. The process of building and launching a ship, as well as training a pilot, takes too many people and generates too much paper for all of it to be suppressed. I'm not suggesting that the dead cosmonaut thing has any sort of basis in reality, but it's not exactly hard to hide something when your project is already semi-covert. I feel like I'm getting far too defensive for a side I'm supposed to be against, so here's this: Practically every popular conspiracy theory is a collection of "independently plausible truths"* (with some unconnected facts, if any) put together in such a way that it becomes the theorist's inalienable proof of how the world works. At it's best, conspiracy theories can be a good basis for a creative writing exercise. *By this, I mean any sort of factor that has even the slightest of chances of being real, even if it would be contradicted by another "independently plausible truth". twistedmentat posted:I think you missed Yeah, that happens to me quite a bit. 
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Jan 15, 2014 05:01
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goverment is pretty much incorrect all the time, science a little bit less so.
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Strudel Man posted:Of course. Because contradictions aren't really the problem in the first place, aren't why they imagine the conspiracy. People come up with complex cabals because the truth is itself uncomfortable, not because it clashes logically with other things they know, or think they know. That really isn't the case. Conspiracy theorists (or at least the ones I've known) almost live only to tell the uncomfortable "truth"; hell, half the appeal of conspiracy theories is that they reveal something that's kept from the public, or even delibrately ignored by them. I can only speak personally about this, but I fell for conspiracy theories almost purely because it contradicts what (I thought) I knew. Sure, not liking the truth may fuel conspiracies when an event happens, but the people who latch onto these things LOVE uncomfortable truths. This is also why many conspiracy theorists are bigotted as gently caress.
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Jan 18, 2014 23:21
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Baronjutter posted:Why is every remaining hard core climate denialist I've ever met invariably a hard core capitalist libertarian with zero science education? A legitimate conspiracy theory. The right-wing establishment has made climate-denialism (yes I know it's not a real word) a defining issue for them for the sake of the supportive industries that would be adversely affected by efforts to curb climate change. This doesn't just include the oil and automotive industry, but literally any corporation or business that deals with energy, transportation, and even food in a substantial measure. From there, it just came down to making up the talking points you listed in your post and implementing what you learned in media manipulation 101. One argument I have heard from the same people that breaks the mold is that it's too late to do anything to change climate change, so the only thing we should do is respond to it as the effects become apparent. I mean, at least he's admitting climate change is real, right?
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Jan 20, 2014 20:03
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Mr. Funny Pants posted:The "string" unravels when you examine it closely. And the same argument that people make against Oswald being the shooter (he was incompetent, the mob or CIA wouldn't have given him such a big job) is actually accurate regarding Ruby. Ruby was, putting it charitably, a hothead. Putting it less charitably, he was a loving nut known for extreme mood swings. That doesn't really explain much. Yeah, hypothetically you wouldn't send some an unhinged hothead to kill someone who killed the president, but the mafia is a very hotheaded organization (if memory serves, so was the CIA of that time, but I'm not going anywhere near that). It doesn't take much intellegence (or wisdom, really) to be a successful crime boss, let alone enough to kill a world leader (or their killer). As for the time, yes you would think someone given the task of killing the president's assassins would be more attentive towards something like that, but if what people say about Jack Ruby is true, he's the type who'd believe he could get away with overlooking that detail (and was right only by pure luck). Unless the more specific details go against it, it still could fit with Ruby being tasked with killing Oswald. For why he brought his dog, he could have figured it would have been easier to find (and be taken care) if it was in his car. Yeah, this is a pretty piss poor excuse, but the official explanation is so terrible practically anything is at least more believable than it, if not outright calls into question the validity of the explanation. This doesn't mean people have free reign to act like they figured out the truth of the situation, but it does mean that a more thorough examination (and explanation) is needed before certain possibilities can be disregarded. Edit: To balance that out: Red Warrior posted:You can't read a particular book or watch a documentary on a subject and believe that it presents the only reasonable explanation. Single books or documentaries pushing a 'controversial' explanation are going to selectively present the evidence to support their viewpoints. MizPiz fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 19:54
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Popular Thug Drink posted:How so? There's a long history of lone nuts with guns assassinating political leaders. It happens pretty frequently. What's unbelievable about it? I was focused on the Jack Ruby side, should have clarified that. The only problem I had with Oswald's story is the motivation, and it's more from me being curious about why someone would do something like that than anything else. As far as I remember, the explanation was pretty much "dude was straightup cray-cray" with some of the standard tropes for the deperessed, mentally abnormal person thrown in. By no means does this call into question the entire story behind the event, but it does make it seem like there wasn't much effort put in to investigating it. Jack Ruby's side is what's throwing a wrench in the explanation. I just haven't gotten anything that's even close to an understandable explanation behind what happened with him.
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Jan 21, 2014 21:20
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Mr. Funny Pants posted:Option A: A nutbag two-bit nightclub owner with tenuous (at best) ties to organized crime is given the monumentally important task of silencing the man who could spill his guts and take down the entire conspiracy. So the mafia smart enough to put a bazillion pieces into place to get the president left one of the most important pieces to an unstable jag-off. Still got enough sizeable holes a conspiracy theory can live, but I'm coming around. For the record, nobody needs to know about a conspiracy to be involved in it, just the right motivation; that said, I won't go there since the only thing we could have to go on is speculation. The only thing I need is to know whether or not Oswald had any connextions to organized crime, than it should be closed for me (but even I can't guarentee that ). However, my fallback theory is still Templars killed JFK because he was a threat to their New World Order and they wanted his Piece of Eden.To explain that thing, my experience with people with that level of arrogence and delusions of grandier is that they'll do anything they feel they can get away with. Basically, as long as it's insignificant enough or they feel like they can justify the action, it's free game for them. Could very well be misinterpreting what Ruby's like, but it does seem like he fits that billing. Also, I was agreeing with what the person said about giving credibility to a controversial claim simply because it's controversial, wasn't meant for you. Popular Thug Drink posted:So a crazy, angry guy who shot the president makes sense, but a crazy, angry guy who shot the guy who shot the president doesn't? MizPiz fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 22:14
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SedanChair posted:Then it's not a conspiracy, period. You are wrong. Because people only get involved with or do things when they know every minute detail about it. No one ever does anything simply for the sake of themselves, someone close to them, or even a personal belief they hold.
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Jan 21, 2014 22:38
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SedanChair posted:If what you meant to say was that people can unwittingly participate in conspiracy theories, you are correct. What you said was that conspiracies can take place without anyone knowing they are participating in a conspiracy, which doesn't make any sense. So I did, got me there. My bad.
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Jan 21, 2014 23:03
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Popular Thug Drink posted:It's still an ambiguous and unanswerable question. From what I remember, they were talking with North Vietnamese forces about reaching a peace agreement, which LBJ tried building off of before it collapsed. I don't think they really got anywhere beyond getting on good terms with the NVC by Kennedy's death, but I do remember Kennedy's administration played a big part in getting the peace talks going. From there, we can get into how Henry Kissinger may or may not have had the war extended so Nixon can win the 1968 elections.
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Jan 21, 2014 23:20
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Going through this thread again, I got a few questions to ask: Why is everyone convinced that creating a conspiracy requires someone with a superhuman genius? As long as you have resources, friends in the right places, and enough ambition to follow through pulling off a conspiracy can be pretty effortless no matter the situation. The only factor is time, and even that becomes a non-issue if you have enough power. Why is everyone who had a hand in a conspiracy automatically a willful agent? It would stand to reason that if you were at the center of a conspiracy, the only people you would allow know about it is the people you directly plan it with. Telling others will not only create liabilities for you, but will, at best, be completely pointless. Why do people think it's so hard to keep a conspiracy hidden? Ignoring that any half way decent conspiracy will disguise the actions taken in some plausible, unrelated way, it's not exactly hard to get something by the general public. Given the amount media that's produced on a daily basis, the fact most people are spread extremely thin with their day to day lives, and the general complacency of the public, they would barely be a factor in the conspiracy equation.
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Jan 22, 2014 04:20
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computer parts posted:Because for some strange reason none of the educated people can pick up on the conspiracy either, it's just the people who are prescribed medication for crazy pills. Most educated people I know have other poo poo they need to worry about and/or aren't interested in the slightest about conspiracies except for maybe the "woah, dude" effect of them. Just because you're oh so much smarter than the general public doesn't mean you're immune from manipulation or deception.
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Jan 22, 2014 04:43
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Just bumping this thread to let y'all know that Art Bell, host of Coast to Coast AM, has died. In honor of his memory, I'm going to dedicate myself to figure out how Alex Jones and his deep state puppetmasters are the ones who killed him.
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Apr 19, 2018 14:23
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Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:It's very very easy to incorporate Jewish conspiracy themes into new conspiracy theories without meaning to or without even realizing it, because the idea of an ages-spanning conspiracy being laid out through careful research is catnip to most conpsiracy theorists even if they don't agree with the identity of the perpetrator. There's been enough antisemitic conspiracy literature published throughout history that they think there must be something in there even if it's nothing to do with the Jews. So you get poo poo like Bill Cooper including the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an appendix in Behold a Pale Horse because that poo poo is dynamite as long as you search/replace all the Jew references. I really want to give Bill Cooper credit because he was trying to subvert anti-semitism in the conspiracy community. Given the Protocols place in history, especially among the esoteric types, it's extremely hard to just dismiss it outright; even if it is completely fraudulent (it is), you still need to address how and why it became so influential. "Proving" that the manuscript was published to make Jewish people the scapegoat for the illuminati's plan and prevent any cohesive opposition from being formed does that pretty well.
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Apr 25, 2018 14:21
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twistedmentat posted:The Protocols were straight up copied from two books, which I think are a Dialog in Hell and something called Berrlitz I think. Both are bog standard jews are in league with the devil and seek to destroy Christian nations. Almost all modern conspiracies spawn from it, or Morning of the Magicians, which was from some guy who thought HP Lovecraft was writing true stories, not products of his racist fears of the nebulous unknown. Even if people are unaware of the Anti-Semetic origins of conspiracies, they will still use the same ideas. The whole Rothschild and Bilderberg conspiracies are great examples of it. You get people who would never think of Jews being the secret masters of the world, just these groups of bankers and other money men get together and rule the world secretly. The worst part about it is that this is basically true
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Apr 26, 2018 04:35
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:There is barely any “bankers” in the richest people list. And there is definitely a reason that word is the shorthand instead of other words Just because there aren't that many bankers in Forbes top 100 doesn't mean that financial institutions aren't at the center of the neoliberal global order. And the reason it's the shorthand is because the average person's interaction with the financial industry is almost exclusively done through banks.
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Apr 26, 2018 04:53
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:More like “bankers” was a reasonable description of the Rothschilds and people have several reasons to want envoke them instead of someone else. Same general reason George soros is brought up eight billion percent more often than any other random billionaire He's brought up because right wing media made a consorted effort to make him into the liberal billionaire boogeyman, especially through there more conspiracy minded outlets. This is literally a conspiracy to taint economic justice efforts with anti-semitism.
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Apr 26, 2018 21:36
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Instant Sunrise posted:Wasn’t Protocols written as pro-tsarist propaganda to scapegoat the 1905 Russian revolution on Jewish people and justify the pogroms? Pretty much, it was originally written as a joke between anti-semites, then they decided to use it for pogrom propaganda.
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May 1, 2018 15:28
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