It's been pretty well documented from this debate forum that any talk of conspiracy theories are strictly frowned upon and even ridiculed when presented. Often, threads that pose a question regarding a certain kind of conspiracy don't last longer than a page or two, because the OP has been chastised by a sufficient portion of the community for asking such seemingly moronic, baseless and even "crazy" questions.
But where do we draw the line, personally? Do all conspiracy theories regardless of merit or evidence deserve lambasting? Or are there some that can at least be heard and tolerably discussed? Or should all conspiracies be discussed openly up to and including the fringe topics of lizard people and alien overlords?
For this I've listed about 3 different types/levels of conspiracy theories and will be posting a poll for people to vote on which, if any, are acceptable to be debated.
Level 1: The Benign Conspiracy
This falls under conspiracies involving individual peoples or corporations working towards a single end result. Such as discussions on assassinations of political figures, The "Gay Agenda", Women's Rights Groups wanting female dominance, development of weapons technologies. Things that don't necessarily have to target yourself as a person and are really just suspected goals and triggered events that have no "real" effect on how the world works. Conspiracy Theorists who fall under this category tend to blame individual targets rather than believe a more widespread agenda.
Level 2: The Systemic Conspiracy
This falls under conspiracies involving a more wide spread message or campaign. Such as the bombing of the twin towers as excuses to go to war with other nations for oil, Jews & international banks looking for Globalist ideals, wiretapping & surveillance, "Big Brother" conspiracies and the Government purposefully releasing airborn sicknesses to control the population. These are more indicative of beliefs that the Government and Corporations as a whole seek to control everything we do in our lives. How freedom isn't really free and that we are all heading towards a New World Order.
Level 3: The Fringe Conspiracy
This falls under conspiracies involving the more "off the wall" kind of conspiracies. These don't just involve individuals, corporations or world governments, but rather other worldly influences involving the supernatural or extraterrestrial. Level 3 is not really "accurate" in scale per se as it can be a mix of Level 1 and Level 2 conspiracies. These could be theories as benign as the existence of big foot, ghosts, aliens and the Loch Ness Monster. Or they could be as Systemic as believing all celebrities are trauma based mind control victims with "handlers" and of our elected Government officials are all preplanned through ancient lizard folk bloodlines, demonic possession through deals with the devil or time travel with indigo children. The reason both of these are all clumped together in Level 3 is because for the most part these conspiracies all require some level of faith or suspension of what we know as real. Which makes them all the more shunned from discussion in any public or private forum that not openly admit itself to being a place for conspiracy "nuts".
So just for redundancy sake, where do you draw the line?
My answer to conspiracy theories has always been the same; show me the evidence. Most of the conspiracy theories I've encountered (almost exclusively 9/11 "truthers") don't present evidence at all, they just "ask questions." Questions aren't evidence. If you have a question about something, you should seek out the answer via studies, reports, accounts, and experts in the field.
However, reading this, I realize that these types of conspiracies really only fit into level 3, and maybe level 2. I think that most of what you would call a level 1 conspiracy are simply observations based on what various groups say. As an extreme example, when I say that environmentalists don't want a better planet, they want to destroy industrial civilization, it's not a conspiracy theory if I can point to articles of prominent environmentalists actually saying that. This is simply my moral evaluation of them, not a conspiracy.
When someone says that lizard people are running the government in a perfect shadow conspiracy that can't produce evidence, do we really need to do anything but dismiss them when the government can't cover up something as simple as an extramarital affair of one of its prominent members? The claim of lizard people is utterly arbitrary, that is, not related to reality in any way. One can't evaluate it because it's not appealing to evidence that exists.
When someone says that corporations are poisoning our groundwater, that's something we can test, we can observe, we can find out for ourselves. If it's true, great, let's talk about it. If not, then great, we can all see why.
So I guess my answer is that level 1 can be okay when it identifies cultural trends, and some level 2s do the same. Level 3s are never correct and can be dismissed without any further thought.
Its difficult to say, as I find myself all over your scale, on one hand I think the guys behind lose change are off their gourds about 9/11 as an inside job, on the other I have no trouble believing that key white house officials ignored the threat on the biases that there's nothing al-queda could do that would be that bad. The first line of thought requires a truly massive conspiracy that would be unable to be concealed while the second only requires the temporary lapse of judgment by one key official. So I suppose that puts me in category one, on the other hand I believe aliens exist so category three. I find myself disinclined to believe people when they start with the "_" agenda but still listen. I tune people out around the tri-lateral commission and new world order bull.
The Levels aren't really based on anything official. I kind of just lumped them into my own observations on what qualifies in each category, to me anyway.
Level 1 can fall into conspiracy every now and then due to certain statements like "The Catholic Church wanted John F. Kennedy dead for not being in their pockets" or "Affirmative Action is being used to oppress white people" or some other thing like that. Not necessarily meant to be a whole Government wide conspiracy but something that can be used to attack and question the goals of individual groups or people.
Overall I think, it IS hard to reasonably argue against most conspiracy theories. Because there is no official counter position other than "you're crazy". It's not like the Government will ever officially address any 9/11 conspiracy, or an International Banking Conglomerate would ever come out and say "Yes, I'm totally funneling money into your government to work towards eliminating the borders between Mexico, America & Canada".
But I thought this thread would be a unique and interesting idea to funnel all of that taboo discussion into one big poll and get everyone's opinion out in the open about all the things conspiracy theorists are afraid to talk about on here and risk social ostracizing.
Overall I think, it IS hard to reasonably argue against most conspiracy theories. Because there is no official counter position other than "you're crazy".
The best way would be to convince the theorist (especially if they're pushing Level 2 or Level 3 conspiracies) that such a conspiracy, if it existed, would be so powerful that it could effectively suppress evidence of its own existence. So a world with a Level 3 conspiracy, particularly, would be indistinguishable from a world without any Level 3 conspiracies.
But then again, if someone actually believes that shape-shifting lizard-men have puppeteered world affairs for the past 2000 years (ever since they murdered Jesus Christ and created Catholicism to stunt humanity's spiritual growth)... exempli gratia... I don't know how much they can be grounded in reality.
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Do I Contradict Myself? Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
I don't tolerate conspiracies, but that isn't to say that all conspiracies are invalid (which is why I can't choose something in the poll). Just the ones that have no evidence. For example, PETA is actually pretty shady.
To be completely honest and not offensive, people believe some things that I strongly believe are fake (a lot of it is forms of faith, psychics and some other stuff) yet because I might believe something labeled as a "conspiracy theory" I'm a crazy person or stupid.
I'll honestly listen to whatever someone wants to tell me. If they swear they saw bigfoot or they say 9/11 was an inside job I don't dismiss it, I just say to myself its what they believe. I even believe in a few theories, nothing too crazy though.
Personally I don't like it when conspiracy theories are dismissed immediately without even considering them. I do think there's a lot of nutty ideas out there that are probably complete hokum but that can't be the case for everything. People have and do conspire, people have shown time and again that they can be evil ****s and have nefarious intentions. Conspiracies have and do happen.
Example 1: Operation Northwoods. This was a plan by the American government to commit false flag operations which were to be blamed on Cuba in order to get the population ok with going to war with them. Luckily it was vetoed by Kennedy (who later died to a "magic bullet").
Example 2:Operation Midnight Climax. The CIA ran brothels and would have the prostitutes dose the johns with LSD (acid) in order to see the effects it would have on unsuspecting, non-consenting people.
There are some others that I know of but I'm tired and can't think of them at the moment. But the point stands, this stuff does happen. To simply dismiss it as "crazy conspiracy talk" is rather naive IMO. Now I'm not saying the moon landing was fake or that chem trails are real, but there is some stuff out there that is questionable.
As for the poll, I didn't vote as where I draw the line really depends on the issue and who/where I'm learning about it from.
The problem with conspiracy theorists in total is that they take bits and pieces of the evidence to suit the conspiracy and then throw the rest of it out.
They make large assumptions about things but when confronted with fact backed up by math and science they instantly retort to something else.
Unfortuantly i am dealing with a rash of conspiracy nuts.
from 9/11 truthers to JFK was killed by the CIA to martin luther king JR was assinated by a hit squad.
The problem with most conspiracy is that they are loosely based on some facts and then a whole lot of assumption and speculation.
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I disregard anyone who says "drink the kool-aid", "_____ agenda", or even uses the word "sheeple". I'm sick of that **** and I see a lot of it on news article comments and a little on forums I go to.
I have actually heard it from not so uneducated people that big pharmacy companies do actually have a cure for aids but they are not releasing it the public because they want a bigger pay day.
I have actually heard it from not so uneducated people that big pharmacy companies do actually have a cure for aids but they are not releasing it the public because they want a bigger pay day.
This is a very prevalent belief in anti-colonial schools of thought because of the ways in which AIDS has helped control the global south and the ways in which AIDS assistance has become a tool of control for those minority groups.
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Asking people to remove quotes in their signatures is tyranny! If I can't say something just because someone's feelings are hurt then no one would ever be able to say anything! Political correctness is stupid.
I have actually heard it from not so uneducated people that big pharmacy companies do actually have a cure for aids but they are not releasing it the public because they want a bigger pay day.
Well it's HIGHLY likely that drug companies do hold out on releasing drugs in order to maintain profitability on their existing lines. There's no sense in competing with yourself. Pretend you spent tens of millions of dollars developing and manufacturing antiretroviral drugs, and then your researchers discovered a better drug. Why on earth would you release the new one, when your current line is profitable? it's much better to hold on to your new discovery, so when a competitor releases their version, you have a trump card.
I don't think that's a conspiracy, that's just good (and unfortunate) business sense. Technology companies do this all the time, and so do hackers. The recent iphone jailbreak is a perfect example: the team that made it had a vulnerability, but chose to hold onto it (not release) until apple released their newest OS. Same concept. But conspiracies surely do exist, especially where they would be profitable. The only way we're ever going to really know about them is through whistleblowers. Hopefully we get to find out what's in Wikileaks' insurance file. other conspiracy theories are true though. companies and countries pay armies of people on computers to support or defend them online. Israel does this to a large degree. It's called astroturfing, and it definitely exists. That is a very real conspiracy.
I'm not so sure that conspiracies need evidence to be considered, after all, they wouldn't be theories if there were concrete evidence. they'd just be conspiracies. I think the real criteria upon which we should judge conspiracies are motive and feasibility.
I'm not so sure that conspiracies need evidence to be considered, after all, they wouldn't be theories if there were concrete evidence. they'd just be conspiracies. I think the real criteria upon which we should judge conspiracies are motive and feasibility.
Theory doesn't mean what you think it means. But that's semantics.
I feel the exact opposite about not just conspiracies, but everything. Show me the evidence. Evidence evidence evidence. If you don't have evidence, no matter how coherent your conspiracy hypothesis (which is the term that we should be using) is, I'm not going to believe you. I'm not going to tell you're wrong, but I'm going to hold judgment until evidence has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt one way or another.
Otherwise you open yourself up to belief in any random nonsense. Without requiring evidence how can one realistically differentiate between reality and fantasy (which many people are simply unable to do, hence the proliferation of conspiracy hypothesizers)? I find most conspiracies rank right up there with most claims about miracles: People believing crap that re-enforces preconceived ideologies.
Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
Never strongly considered conspiricy theories becuase of the planning it takes to pull it off and the complete secrecy needed. But then I ran into an old friend who had explained how he had created a crisis at work to improve his position and authority. This crisis enabled him to propose solutions to fix the problems. Now the main problem was lack of sales, but the core problem was the company approach to sales was wrong. to change it, he manipulated everything to work within the system while setting the stage for the destruction of the system.
Today it has worked. Took 12 months to be a problem, 6 months to cause collapse and 3 months to fix with his ideal goals.
So if somebody I know has the means to pull this off in a company, I strongly suspect there are many like him doing similar jobs in industry, education, and politics.
Regards,
If he acted on his own then it's not really a conspiracy.
The problem with conspiracy theories are like the ripples in the matrix. People are not good liars. It's a lot easier to smell BS than to pick it up and dispose of it. People who "discover" these things are like people who read the Bible (or any holy book) and all of a sudden get some special revelation (That people who read it for 2000 years never saw before).
People want to be special and noticed and conspiracy theories are a way to do just that.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
Basically a conspiracy theory shouldn't have "if you disagree with me, you're part of the conspiracy" reasoning.
Something like "Nazis burned down the Reichstag" is very plausible. Besides the fact that we know the Nazis are guilty of far worse, this type of thing has happened in history (To look at American history, look at Mountain Meadows.), and it doesn't require much imagination to see one NSDAP official burning down the Reichstag instead of an anarchist.
Something like "the government caused 9/11" isn't. While Bush may infuriate me at times, and Israel may infuriate me at times, but I seriously doubt you could have them tell every Jew in New York to be late for work that day. I also don't see any sign that those planes are unmanned drones and holograms and blah blah blah. (Seriously?)
I've also seen a lot of woowoo types say the reason they aren't millionaires--I mean, the reason my perpetual motion machine hasn't revolutionized the energy industry--is because of conspiracies against them personally.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I know quite a few things that are banned "conspiracy theories" have a lot more basis to them that most people believe.
I find myself questioning alongside conspiracy theories. JFK is a big one. There is just an amazing substantial amount of evidence that points to something other than the "offical story". I also know for a fact UFO craft and other such things aren't "weather ballons" ect. That doesn't mean I jump to extra terrestirals either.
I believe significantly in systimatic class warfare and have seen substantial evidence to support it. Most people don't like it because its ugly. But its true.
But aliens did NOT build the pyramids, the Illuminati are not in control of the world, The whales are not conspiring to overthrow us and partner with the chimpanzies to wipe out humanity. Dragons, unicorns, bigfood, Loch Ness Monster, and other such things don't exist.
I don't like conspiracy theories in real life because logic usually breaks them when you actually think about it. In fiction I love them though. Probably my favorite conspiracy are aglets, their true purpose is sinister.
I think real conspiracies are a lot harder than most people think. Obviously, things like price fixing exist, but sweeping conspiracies do not - anyone who has worked in government knows that government conspiracies are impossible because if the government was well organized enough to have actual conspiracies it wouldn't be so dysfunctional. Any true conspiracy would have to be kept to a very small number of people.
Conspiracy theories about medicines and vaccines are complete bull****.
Actual conspiracies are way more focused than the vast conspiracies of 9/11 truthers and the Zionist agenda.
Like, say, selling weapon to a hostile foreign power so you can aid fascist rebels in order to maintain the balance of power with a foreign empire. Now that's a conspiracy - specifically, Iran/Contra. Or overthrowing an independent government to replace it with a tyrant that would be friendly to your interests - specifically, the installation of the Shah in Iran. Or, you could rig interest rates on financial transactions in order to reap billions of dollars in profits - the LIBOR scandal. Or you could weaken your already tasked central government, allowing yourself more breathing room for clandestine activities benefiting the wealth and power of your members, like Pakistan's army is doing right now.
Conspiracies exist, they're clandestine projects, but they have some kind of clear, self interested goal. They also almost invariably show up as being blatantly obvious once they get going, as people aren't stupid and reaping the benefits of conspiracy requires showing up to get paid. Large conspiracies don't work very well since the best way to break security is to tell a huge number of people about your awesome secret project.
Most government conspiracies involve undermining political powers and spying. In the private sector, it's all about the money. Just using secrecy to advance your goals.
Conspiracy theories about medicines and vaccines are complete bull****.
I work in the medical field and I actually don't think they will ever pass a "cure" for cancer. Its a trillion dollar industry and its not in any of the medicine makers best intrest to have a cheap effective way to cure any given disiease. Especially cancer.
Less than 1% of most donations to "cancer charities" actually go to any real research. The vast majority goes to massive organizations that go out and promote certain drugs, TV commercials, ect. I no longer give a damn dime to any of those charities anymore.
Also the FDA which is supposed to be regulating drug companies are litterally on their payrole and its on the books for anyone to see. They get massive amounts of funding from drug companies.
This really isn't so much as a conspiracy (as everything is very out in the open just no one really gives it recognition) as it is an ugly truth no one likes to look at.
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But where do we draw the line, personally? Do all conspiracy theories regardless of merit or evidence deserve lambasting? Or are there some that can at least be heard and tolerably discussed? Or should all conspiracies be discussed openly up to and including the fringe topics of lizard people and alien overlords?
For this I've listed about 3 different types/levels of conspiracy theories and will be posting a poll for people to vote on which, if any, are acceptable to be debated.
Level 1: The Benign Conspiracy
This falls under conspiracies involving individual peoples or corporations working towards a single end result. Such as discussions on assassinations of political figures, The "Gay Agenda", Women's Rights Groups wanting female dominance, development of weapons technologies. Things that don't necessarily have to target yourself as a person and are really just suspected goals and triggered events that have no "real" effect on how the world works. Conspiracy Theorists who fall under this category tend to blame individual targets rather than believe a more widespread agenda.
Level 2: The Systemic Conspiracy
This falls under conspiracies involving a more wide spread message or campaign. Such as the bombing of the twin towers as excuses to go to war with other nations for oil, Jews & international banks looking for Globalist ideals, wiretapping & surveillance, "Big Brother" conspiracies and the Government purposefully releasing airborn sicknesses to control the population. These are more indicative of beliefs that the Government and Corporations as a whole seek to control everything we do in our lives. How freedom isn't really free and that we are all heading towards a New World Order.
Level 3: The Fringe Conspiracy
This falls under conspiracies involving the more "off the wall" kind of conspiracies. These don't just involve individuals, corporations or world governments, but rather other worldly influences involving the supernatural or extraterrestrial. Level 3 is not really "accurate" in scale per se as it can be a mix of Level 1 and Level 2 conspiracies. These could be theories as benign as the existence of big foot, ghosts, aliens and the Loch Ness Monster. Or they could be as Systemic as believing all celebrities are trauma based mind control victims with "handlers" and of our elected Government officials are all preplanned through ancient lizard folk bloodlines, demonic possession through deals with the devil or time travel with indigo children. The reason both of these are all clumped together in Level 3 is because for the most part these conspiracies all require some level of faith or suspension of what we know as real. Which makes them all the more shunned from discussion in any public or private forum that not openly admit itself to being a place for conspiracy "nuts".
So just for redundancy sake, where do you draw the line?
However, reading this, I realize that these types of conspiracies really only fit into level 3, and maybe level 2. I think that most of what you would call a level 1 conspiracy are simply observations based on what various groups say. As an extreme example, when I say that environmentalists don't want a better planet, they want to destroy industrial civilization, it's not a conspiracy theory if I can point to articles of prominent environmentalists actually saying that. This is simply my moral evaluation of them, not a conspiracy.
When someone says that lizard people are running the government in a perfect shadow conspiracy that can't produce evidence, do we really need to do anything but dismiss them when the government can't cover up something as simple as an extramarital affair of one of its prominent members? The claim of lizard people is utterly arbitrary, that is, not related to reality in any way. One can't evaluate it because it's not appealing to evidence that exists.
When someone says that corporations are poisoning our groundwater, that's something we can test, we can observe, we can find out for ourselves. If it's true, great, let's talk about it. If not, then great, we can all see why.
So I guess my answer is that level 1 can be okay when it identifies cultural trends, and some level 2s do the same. Level 3s are never correct and can be dismissed without any further thought.
When in doubt, call a judge.
Objectivist here. Hit me up to talk philosophy.
Level 1 can fall into conspiracy every now and then due to certain statements like "The Catholic Church wanted John F. Kennedy dead for not being in their pockets" or "Affirmative Action is being used to oppress white people" or some other thing like that. Not necessarily meant to be a whole Government wide conspiracy but something that can be used to attack and question the goals of individual groups or people.
Overall I think, it IS hard to reasonably argue against most conspiracy theories. Because there is no official counter position other than "you're crazy". It's not like the Government will ever officially address any 9/11 conspiracy, or an International Banking Conglomerate would ever come out and say "Yes, I'm totally funneling money into your government to work towards eliminating the borders between Mexico, America & Canada".
But I thought this thread would be a unique and interesting idea to funnel all of that taboo discussion into one big poll and get everyone's opinion out in the open about all the things conspiracy theorists are afraid to talk about on here and risk social ostracizing.
The best way would be to convince the theorist (especially if they're pushing Level 2 or Level 3 conspiracies) that such a conspiracy, if it existed, would be so powerful that it could effectively suppress evidence of its own existence. So a world with a Level 3 conspiracy, particularly, would be indistinguishable from a world without any Level 3 conspiracies.
But then again, if someone actually believes that shape-shifting lizard-men have puppeteered world affairs for the past 2000 years (ever since they murdered Jesus Christ and created Catholicism to stunt humanity's spiritual growth)... exempli gratia... I don't know how much they can be grounded in reality.
Very Well Then I Contradict Myself.
I'll honestly listen to whatever someone wants to tell me. If they swear they saw bigfoot or they say 9/11 was an inside job I don't dismiss it, I just say to myself its what they believe. I even believe in a few theories, nothing too crazy though.
LOL
Example 1: Operation Northwoods. This was a plan by the American government to commit false flag operations which were to be blamed on Cuba in order to get the population ok with going to war with them. Luckily it was vetoed by Kennedy (who later died to a "magic bullet").
Example 2:Operation Midnight Climax. The CIA ran brothels and would have the prostitutes dose the johns with LSD (acid) in order to see the effects it would have on unsuspecting, non-consenting people.
There are some others that I know of but I'm tired and can't think of them at the moment. But the point stands, this stuff does happen. To simply dismiss it as "crazy conspiracy talk" is rather naive IMO. Now I'm not saying the moon landing was fake or that chem trails are real, but there is some stuff out there that is questionable.
As for the poll, I didn't vote as where I draw the line really depends on the issue and who/where I'm learning about it from.
They make large assumptions about things but when confronted with fact backed up by math and science they instantly retort to something else.
Unfortuantly i am dealing with a rash of conspiracy nuts.
from 9/11 truthers to JFK was killed by the CIA to martin luther king JR was assinated by a hit squad.
The problem with most conspiracy is that they are loosely based on some facts and then a whole lot of assumption and speculation.
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Thanks to Nex3 for the avatar visit ye old sig and avatar forum
Me: Why do you say that?
You: Atlantis was a tiny island in the Mediterranean with flying cars and magic crystals.
Me: You have 10 seconds.
That about sums it up.
This is a very prevalent belief in anti-colonial schools of thought because of the ways in which AIDS has helped control the global south and the ways in which AIDS assistance has become a tool of control for those minority groups.
Well it's HIGHLY likely that drug companies do hold out on releasing drugs in order to maintain profitability on their existing lines. There's no sense in competing with yourself. Pretend you spent tens of millions of dollars developing and manufacturing antiretroviral drugs, and then your researchers discovered a better drug. Why on earth would you release the new one, when your current line is profitable? it's much better to hold on to your new discovery, so when a competitor releases their version, you have a trump card.
I don't think that's a conspiracy, that's just good (and unfortunate) business sense. Technology companies do this all the time, and so do hackers. The recent iphone jailbreak is a perfect example: the team that made it had a vulnerability, but chose to hold onto it (not release) until apple released their newest OS. Same concept. But conspiracies surely do exist, especially where they would be profitable. The only way we're ever going to really know about them is through whistleblowers. Hopefully we get to find out what's in Wikileaks' insurance file. other conspiracy theories are true though. companies and countries pay armies of people on computers to support or defend them online. Israel does this to a large degree. It's called astroturfing, and it definitely exists. That is a very real conspiracy.
I'm not so sure that conspiracies need evidence to be considered, after all, they wouldn't be theories if there were concrete evidence. they'd just be conspiracies. I think the real criteria upon which we should judge conspiracies are motive and feasibility.
Theory doesn't mean what you think it means. But that's semantics.
I feel the exact opposite about not just conspiracies, but everything. Show me the evidence. Evidence evidence evidence. If you don't have evidence, no matter how coherent your conspiracy hypothesis (which is the term that we should be using) is, I'm not going to believe you. I'm not going to tell you're wrong, but I'm going to hold judgment until evidence has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt one way or another.
Otherwise you open yourself up to belief in any random nonsense. Without requiring evidence how can one realistically differentiate between reality and fantasy (which many people are simply unable to do, hence the proliferation of conspiracy hypothesizers)? I find most conspiracies rank right up there with most claims about miracles: People believing crap that re-enforces preconceived ideologies.
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great
If he acted on his own then it's not really a conspiracy.
People want to be special and noticed and conspiracy theories are a way to do just that.
Something like "Nazis burned down the Reichstag" is very plausible. Besides the fact that we know the Nazis are guilty of far worse, this type of thing has happened in history (To look at American history, look at Mountain Meadows.), and it doesn't require much imagination to see one NSDAP official burning down the Reichstag instead of an anarchist.
Something like "the government caused 9/11" isn't. While Bush may infuriate me at times, and Israel may infuriate me at times, but I seriously doubt you could have them tell every Jew in New York to be late for work that day. I also don't see any sign that those planes are unmanned drones and holograms and blah blah blah. (Seriously?)
I've also seen a lot of woowoo types say the reason they aren't millionaires--I mean, the reason my perpetual motion machine hasn't revolutionized the energy industry--is because of conspiracies against them personally.
On phasing:
I find myself questioning alongside conspiracy theories. JFK is a big one. There is just an amazing substantial amount of evidence that points to something other than the "offical story". I also know for a fact UFO craft and other such things aren't "weather ballons" ect. That doesn't mean I jump to extra terrestirals either.
I believe significantly in systimatic class warfare and have seen substantial evidence to support it. Most people don't like it because its ugly. But its true.
But aliens did NOT build the pyramids, the Illuminati are not in control of the world, The whales are not conspiring to overthrow us and partner with the chimpanzies to wipe out humanity. Dragons, unicorns, bigfood, Loch Ness Monster, and other such things don't exist.
Wizards in relation to modern.
"The bannings will continue until attendance improves."
Not sure if trolling or just very stupid.:fry:
Conspiracy theories about medicines and vaccines are complete bull****.
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Like, say, selling weapon to a hostile foreign power so you can aid fascist rebels in order to maintain the balance of power with a foreign empire. Now that's a conspiracy - specifically, Iran/Contra. Or overthrowing an independent government to replace it with a tyrant that would be friendly to your interests - specifically, the installation of the Shah in Iran. Or, you could rig interest rates on financial transactions in order to reap billions of dollars in profits - the LIBOR scandal. Or you could weaken your already tasked central government, allowing yourself more breathing room for clandestine activities benefiting the wealth and power of your members, like Pakistan's army is doing right now.
Conspiracies exist, they're clandestine projects, but they have some kind of clear, self interested goal. They also almost invariably show up as being blatantly obvious once they get going, as people aren't stupid and reaping the benefits of conspiracy requires showing up to get paid. Large conspiracies don't work very well since the best way to break security is to tell a huge number of people about your awesome secret project.
Most government conspiracies involve undermining political powers and spying. In the private sector, it's all about the money. Just using secrecy to advance your goals.
I work in the medical field and I actually don't think they will ever pass a "cure" for cancer. Its a trillion dollar industry and its not in any of the medicine makers best intrest to have a cheap effective way to cure any given disiease. Especially cancer.
Less than 1% of most donations to "cancer charities" actually go to any real research. The vast majority goes to massive organizations that go out and promote certain drugs, TV commercials, ect. I no longer give a damn dime to any of those charities anymore.
Also the FDA which is supposed to be regulating drug companies are litterally on their payrole and its on the books for anyone to see. They get massive amounts of funding from drug companies.
This really isn't so much as a conspiracy (as everything is very out in the open just no one really gives it recognition) as it is an ugly truth no one likes to look at.