# Are conspiracy theories more popular now than ever?



## Dumple Stilzkin (Dec 31, 2020)

It seems the last few years it’s not just certain people that believe them. In my day to day life I interact with many different people due to the job I have. I’ve noticed that more and more people will just cut right to it and tell you whatever bullshit conspiracy theory they believe. 
The most common ones related to vaccines and COVID-19, but I’ve also been hearing more about the idea that all of Hollywood, various sports figures and of course politicians are involved in an elaborate well orchestrated plot to slowly erode our morals and ethics. Getting us used to pedophilia and extreme violence in order to lull us into complacency over the slow evolution of Satanism being the new norm. 
I really think that in school we need to teach classes that help people sort through fact and fiction better, giving them skills to think more critically and objectively when it comes to receiving new information. 
Am I the only one who thinks this crap is on the rise? The people who I’ve spoke with are so convinced there’s no having a rational conversation with them. They seem like they themselves are leaning toward being mentally unhealthy. What can we do about this?


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## JSanta (Dec 31, 2020)

I think they are symptomatic of the wider disregard of fact and anti-intellectualism in favor of opinion and group-think. I can't speak for other countries, but in the States, we do a pretty shitty job of teaching our kids how to be critical thinkers. I adjunct teach at a university, and I've just started including guides on discerning between fact and opinion as de-facto parts of the syllabus because I got tired of having to explain it. I'll talk the students through the differences, but my hope is that they quickly learn that they need to analyze and critically address information for bias and falsehoods.


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## c7spheres (Dec 31, 2020)

- I wonder if more people believe in them or if less people care about expressing their opinions about them.
- It seems like the increase would also be due to what I assume is an increase in distrust for government, police, employers and people in general. People are getting lied to and slighted more than ever nowadays.
- Possibly more often than not maybe peoples bad vibes or thoughts are coming true. 
- I believe not in a consipiracy or plot amongst people to "slowly erode our morals and ethics. Getting us used to pedophilia and extreme violence in order to lull us into complacency over the slow evolution of Satanism being the new norm." as your post says, but I do believe this is happening and it's more of a natural prgression of events. Satans involvement is probably not true. Satans on vacation. He's no longer buying souls and he already lit the fire.


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## nightflameauto (Dec 31, 2020)

For the most part, the politicians who decide on education in the states don't want people to be able to think critically and analyze information to sort out fact from fiction. If people are able to see through their bullshit, they won't get (re)elected.

Beyond the problems with our education system though, people in general tend to just go with whatever flow they happen to find themselves in. And it doesn't take many people online spinning yarns for it to get picked up by the lurkers and run with it. In a way it's not that different from what I used to see as a dairy farmer. One cow looks in a certain direction and perks her ears and within seconds you see the entire herd running that direction whether there's anything of interest there or not. Most folks aren't stopping to think about what they hear. They just absorb it and regurgitate it as fact.

Add to that our mainstream media desperately clinging to social media as if it's the absolute pinnacle of truth and facts just to keep their ratings up and it spreads the misinformation even further and wider. "They wouldn't lie on the TV news! They'd get in trouble for it!" I've heard that argument way too many times, even in the face of proven bullshit where channels have been taken to court for false stories.

I don't know if we'll ever escape the seeming endless conspiracy whack-job stories, but right now the prospects aren't looking too good.


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## StevenC (Dec 31, 2020)

The increase is for the same reason as every increase in belief of disinformation: widespread internet access and usage.

Every conspiracy hypothesis believer is fabricating a whole lot of extra fluff onto reality because they're not capable of understanding the actual nuance in our world.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> - I wonder if more people believe in them or if less people care about expressing their opinions about them.
> - It seems like the increase would also be due to what I assume is an increase in distrust for government, police, employers and people in general. People are getting lied to and slighted more than ever nowadays.
> - Possibly more often than not maybe peoples bad vibes or thoughts are coming true.
> - I believe not in a consipiracy or plot amongst people to "slowly erode our morals and ethics. Getting us used to pedophilia and extreme violence in order to lull us into complacency over the slow evolution of Satanism being the new norm." as your post says, but I do believe this is happening and it's more of a natural prgression of events. Satans involvement is probably not true. Satans on vacation. He's no longer buying souls and he already lit the fire.


Can you elaborate more on what you mean by the last few sentences?


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## c7spheres (Dec 31, 2020)

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Can you elaborate more on what you mean by the last few sentences?



- I think that with everyone being not just exposed, but saturated, with debauchery, that it's like a fire has been lit. - - It's different than the past because of the wide and fast spread due to the internet which compounds it exponentially. 
- We're essentially facing a moral/ethical epidemic. It's not so much what people are doing. That stuff's always been going on. It's more about the acceptance of basically everything and anything no matter how disgusting it is.

- I think it's only a matter of time before the pedofiles and groups like NAMBLA get their way. LGBT paved the way for them socially and in the courts so it's only a matter of time for the processes to work themselves out (in a general way).
- And no I'm not comparing LGBT to pedofiles in any way. What I'm saying is groups like NAMBLA can use all the court battles and tactics that LGBT had to go through to it's own advantage. For example right now NAMBLA has been trying to get itself removed from the DSM manual which is something LGBT took years to achieve. Now that they've achieved that it will be much easier for NAMBLA to do the same, just because a lot of the same arguments and ground/leg work won't have to be made again. If they keep filing lawsuits, appealing decisions etc they will eventually get their way, and that likeliehood goes up the more time that passes. Most people said it could never happen with LGBT and it did after several decades of slowly changing people views and filing lawsuits. It also is happening with medical and recreational marijuana etc. 
- I'm not saying anything is wrong with LGBT or pot smokeres etc. I do have a problem with pedofiles commiting sexual acts or even mental manipulation with children. I also think all of this mental fuckery should be kept out of the schools. To fuck with a pubescent childs mind regarding sexuality and orientation etc, imo, is a crime. This also goes for religion and other things I think should be considered personal too. Leave the kids alone. If they figure themselves to be whatever religion or sexual identity etc then that's something they should come to on their own.


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## JSanta (Dec 31, 2020)

StevenC said:


> The increase is for the same reason as every increase in belief of disinformation: widespread internet access and usage.
> 
> Every conspiracy hypothesis believer is fabricating a whole lot of extra fluff onto reality because they're not capable of understanding the actual nuance in our world.



I disagree. The internet may be a symptom of the problem, but it's not the problem. If people cannot or refuse to think critically and to seek fact, the internet acts as a way to amplify their beliefs and engage in confirmation bias in an easily accessible way.


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## JSanta (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> - I think that with everyone being not just exposed, but saturated, with debauchery, that it's like a fire has been lit. - - It's different than the past because of the wide and fast spread due to the internet which compounds it exponentially.
> - We're essentially facing a moral/ethical epidemic. It's not so much what people are doing. That stuff's always been going on. It's more about the acceptance of basically everything and anything no matter how disgusting it is.
> 
> - I think it's only a matter of time before the pedofiles and groups like NAMBLA get their way. LGBT paved the way for them socially and in the courts so it's only a matter of time for the processes to work themselves out (in a general way).
> ...



I don't understand how you're conflating the abuse of children with sexual orientation and cannabis use. I think it's also extremely disingenuous to frame LGBTQ and morals/ethics as one in the same, as they are not at all related in any tangible sense.


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## c7spheres (Dec 31, 2020)

JSanta said:


> I don't understand how you're conflating the abuse of children with sexual orientation and cannabis use. I think it's also extremely disingenuous to frame LGBTQ and morals/ethics as one in the same, as they are not at all related in any tangible sense.



I'm not doiing that. I thought I went out of my way to emphasize I'm not doing that. I also never equated it to abuse or used the word abuse. Apparently I need to work on my writing skills because I'm coming from a totally different place then I think you think I am.


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## JSanta (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> - I think that with everyone being not just exposed, but saturated, with debauchery, that it's like a fire has been lit. - - It's different than the past because of the wide and fast spread due to the internet which compounds it exponentially.
> - We're essentially facing a moral/ethical epidemic. It's not so much what people are doing. That stuff's always been going on. It's more about the acceptance of basically everything and anything no matter how disgusting it is.
> 
> *- I think it's only a matter of time before the pedofiles and groups like NAMBLA get their way. LGBT paved the way for them socially and in the courts so it's only a matter of time for the processes to work themselves out (in a general way).
> ...





c7spheres said:


> I'm not doiing that. I thought I went out of my way to emphasize I'm not doing that. I also never equated it to abuse or used the word abuse. Apparently I need to work on my writing skills because I'm comgin from a totally different place then I think you think I am.



I bolded the text I am specifically referring to. I see what you're trying to say, but you're using examples to build a case in which the two items are completely unrelated. You tossed in recreational cannabis use, which is also not related to your discussion. The history of cannabis legalization in this country is racial in nature.


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## StevenC (Dec 31, 2020)

JSanta said:


> I disagree. The internet may be a symptom of the problem, but it's not the problem. If people cannot or refuse to think critically and to seek fact, the internet acts as a way to amplify their beliefs and engage in confirmation bias in an easily accessible way.


Totally agree. It's not the fault of the internet, but I know plenty of previously sane people who have gone off the deep end in their 40s and 50s once they got a smartphone and Facebook. The internet is more responsible in my opinion for the rampancy, at least outside of America where we don't have as much of an education issue.

There's 60+ years worth of people who grew up before the internet and just assume that if something has been published it has an amount of legitimacy and can't tell one URL from another.


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## Demiurge (Dec 31, 2020)

Conspiracy theories satisfy a desire to "customize belief" which is probably at its highest demand in history, and they have a the means of dissemination in history, the 'net. So it might be a fair assessment.

BUT, I also don't exactly remember a world without conspiracy theories. Maybe it was just me, being into paranormal stuff as a kid, so I always keen to shit held beyond traditional belief- like a little Fox Mulder. Raised religious, there was always the fear of the evil outside world looking to devour us. History in school, a network of conspiracy real or imagined. IMO, we're still decades from assessing how much 9/11 has fucked-up America in how the following cultural divide virtually split reality in two between the two sides. Maybe it's just always been, this tenuousness in how society perceives things.


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## c7spheres (Dec 31, 2020)

JSanta said:


> I bolded the text I am specifically referring to. I see what you're trying to say, but you're using examples to build a case in which the two items are completely unrelated. You tossed in recreational cannabis use, which is also not related to your discussion. The history of cannabis legalization in this country is racial in nature.



I think they are totally related because the LGBT community did a lot of work to get where they are now with gay marriage, rights etc. This case law can totally be used to argue the same points for any group, which NAMBLA is trying to use. I'm NOT saying gay stoners are conspiring, supporting or wanting to legalize pedophilia in any way.

- My whole point was that by slowly and constantly chipping away one court battle at a time that basically any group of people or acts that were previously thought of as immoral will eventually get what they want. This includes LGBT, weed, interracial marriage, Satanism (now an offical religion) and a lot of other things too. 

- Is it evolution or is it the breakdown of the moral fabric of society etc? It's all just multiple points of view, really. 

- Both LGBT, Marijuana, NAMBLA and a host of many other things that were once thought of as "immoral" slowly become accepted over time. - This has only changed because of the constant pressure or thought assimilation/mind changing of the population in general. That's not good or bad unto itself. 
- But who's doing it? That's a conspiracy theory unto itself. I think everything in the world is just a result of everyone trying to get their way at any particular point in time. Some people push agenda's etc. but I honestly don't think it's needed. I think only time is needed. People are already there on their own. 

- I remember when the Simpsons TV show cartoon came out. It was considered offensive and very edgy. I wonder if anyone still thinks that : )

- I'm not saying gay stoners are responsible or to blame or wrong about anything. I'm merely stating that it's a similar thing in the sense that at some point in time these things were considred "taboo", and over time with many concerted efforts the public perception was slowly changed. 

- Eventually people will start accepting pedophiles too. Not because they think it's ok, but because it will be drilled into their heads for decades from pre-birth to the grave, and will be pushed in schools which require them to think that way or be chastised etc. - Simialr to how the military breaks down people and reprograms them in boot camp to become soldiers. The human is no longer themselves. They're just a tool at that point or unable to escape the abusive situation. - Before you say that would never happen in the schools remember people said the same things about what schools teach nowadays. 
- Basically the way the world is now is that if you don't accept everything and anything the mainstream tells you to believe, accept, or think about about gays, race, religion, politics, the virus, etc.. then you will chastised, given a failing grade, fired from your job, not hired to a job, cast out of society, etc.. 
-- Essentially, many groups or communities of people seem to extort desired behaviors or beliefs out of people to get their way. - Everyone can claim to stand for justice and the "American way" etc or whatever, but the reality is you just don't see this almost ever in the real world. Most are wolves in sheeps clothing. Liars. - Most people and especially groups or people are liars and hypocrites. At least in my life experience. At the end of the day it's always about money, then power, then resources.

- In short, many people are in a sort of agentic state. 
- Ethics, morals, religious beliefs and other debateable issues are just extra curricular activities for people. When the shit hits the fan most people will throw it all away for whatever results they want. The reality is that we are intelligent animals always playing the survival of the fittest game. Since languange and technology happened they've just become another weapon we use on each other. 
- All this languange and posturing as civilized creatures is really just a requirement people begrudgingly comply with so they don't suffer the consequences of those that can cause harm to them. It's why suddenly everyone loves LGBT, It's why everyone has to pretend to like the millitary or a certain political party etc. If you say anything agains the grain of what our handlers wnat you to say or believe then you get cut off. At the same time they all claim to supporty freedom of speech, open and civil dialog etc. That's just to get peopel to open up so they can figure out who's getting cut. 
- The quickest way to figure out who you are is to ask yourself what you would do if you had all the power, money, resources and labor. If you were a god for lack of a better term what would the universe look like? Does it mean if we stray from that we are no longer who we are? No, it' just means we lost sight, got tricked, extorted etc. We're only different if we decide that on our own and mean it in our heart.

TLDR; 
I'm not blaming Satanic gay militant stoners for anything. There is no ill will goin on here. 

- This is way to long of a read, and I now believe you've conspired against me to make me type all this  These freakin threads. 
- Leave me alone. I knew if I came in here I'd get trapped. Damn you @Dumple Stilzkin , I took your bait!


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## StevenC (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> I think they are totally related because the LGBT community did a lot of work to get where they are now with gay marriage, rights etc. This case law can totally be used to argue the same points for any group, which NAMBLA is trying to use.


Except that is not how precedent works _*at all*_.


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## c7spheres (Dec 31, 2020)

StevenC said:


> Except that is not how precedent works _*at all*_.


 Good thing I'm not in that business then  I just assumed that since NAMBLA wants out of the DSM they'd be using similar arguments that LGBT did. I know nothing. I'm glad I'm wrong.


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## Randy (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> Good thing I'm not in that business then  I just assumed that since NAMBLA wants out of the DSM they'd be using similar arguments that LGBT did. I know nothing. I'm glad I'm wrong.



Pedophilia is illegal because people below a certain age aren't considered mentally equiped to provide consent. Smoking and drinking underage are illegal because the idea is that they have resounding effects that can be damaging to someone's development or kill them, and a youth isn't believe to have the mental capacity to make decisions that could kill them then or years down the road.

So no, you're not going to erode a law that's going to change that just by saying a man can marry another consenting man. That's bullshit.


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## StevenC (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> Good thing I'm not in that business then  I just assumed that since NAMBLA wants out of the DSM they'd be using similar arguments that LGBT did. I know nothing. I'm glad I'm wrong.


The strong argument for LGBTQ rights is "consenting adults". This cannot be argued for paedophiles by definition.

All the major legal cases for LGBTQ rights aren't relevant to paedophilia. None of them having anything to do with legal age, they're about private interactions, marriage, freedom of speech and anti-discrimination. Nobody discriminates against paedophiles until they become rapists anyway.


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## c7spheres (Dec 31, 2020)

Randy said:


> Pedophilia is illegal because people below a certain age aren't considered mentally equiped to provide consent. Smoking and drinking underage are illegal because the idea is that they have resounding effects that can be damaging to someone's development or kill them, and a youth isn't believe to have the mental capacity to make decisions that could kill them then or years down the road.
> 
> So no, you're not going to erode a law that's going to change that just by saying a man can marry another consenting man. That's bullshit.





StevenC said:


> The strong argument for LGBTQ rights is "consenting adults". This cannot be argued for paedophiles by definition.
> 
> All the major legal cases for LGBTQ rights aren't relevant to paedophilia. None of them having anything to do with legal age, they're about private interactions, marriage, freedom of speech and anti-discrimination. Nobody discriminates against paedophiles until they become rapists anyway.



Pedophiles claim their mental condition is a sexual orientation. That's hard to accept, but I wonder if they are right. I don't believe having sex or a relationship with a child is right under any circumstances but obviously children is what attracts them. Is that a mental disorder or an orientation? Can't it still be an orientation and still be illegal to pursue a relationship/sex with a child simultaneiously? God, just talking about it feels wrong. I'm playing devils advocate atm. I guess what I'm saying is how can they prove this is a mental disorder? Isn't it all just opinion in reality? If I ever meet a pedophile I wil certainly discriminate against them. I just won't accept it.


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## StevenC (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> Pedophiles claim their mental condition is a sexual orientation. That's hard to accept, but I wonder if they are right. I don't believe having sex or a relationship with a child is right under any circumstances but obviously children is what attracts them. Is that a mental disorder or an orientation? Can't it still be an orientation and still be illegal to pursue a relationship/sex with a child simultaneiously? God, just talking about it feels wrong. I'm playing devils advocate atm. I guess what I'm saying is how can they prove this is a mental disorder? Isn't it all just opinion in reality? If I ever meet a pedophile I wil certainly discriminate against them. I just won't accept it.


I mean, I don't know what the value of the distinction between classifying it as a disorder or not is. But it's not an orientation, it's at best a fetish. We're all attracted to certain kinds of people and that's not a problem, regardless. There are plenty of paedophiles living celibate lives because they know they can't act on their urges, and frankly I don't see how they're a problem to anyone. 

Much like all things with sexuality, gender, and by extension consciousness, it's incredibly hard to study and verify. But it's a very simple distinction between letting people live their lives on the provision that it isn't hurting anyone. Healthy homosexual relationships aren't anymore harmful to anyone than a healthy heterosexual relationship, and that inherently can't be said about a paedophilic relationship.


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## Randy (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> Pedophiles claim their mental condition is a sexual orientation. That's hard to accept, but I wonder if they are right. I don't believe having sex or a relationship with a child is right under any circumstances but obviously children is what attracts them. Is that a mental disorder or an orientation? Can't it still be an orientation and still be illegal to pursue a relationship/sex with a child simultaneiously? God, just talking about it feels wrong. I'm playing devils advocate atm. I guess what I'm saying is how can they prove this is a mental disorder? Isn't it all just opinion in reality? If I ever meet a pedophile I wil certainly discriminate against them. I just won't accept it.



Unpopular opinion but you can't outlaw what people think. So I mean, there's really nothing to chase after there. The illegality is having sexual contact with a child, because they can't consent to it. I'll repeat, nothing about legalizing gay marriage or gay sex or anything else has the faintest connection to legalizing sexual contact with someone who can't consent. 

If you're talking about legalizing or making it illegal for people to think whatever they want to think, that's not a thing. You could think about kid dicks all day long, you're not going to jail unless you pursue one. Not now, not 10 years ago, not 100 years ago.


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## c7spheres (Dec 31, 2020)

Randy said:


> Unpopular opinion but you can't outlaw what people think. So I mean, there's really nothing to chase after there. The illegality is having sexual contact with a child, because they can't consent to it. I'll repeat, nothing about legalizing gay marriage or gay sex or anything else has the faintest connection to legalizing sexual contact with someone who can't consent.
> 
> If you're talking about legalizing or making it illegal for people to think whatever they want to think, that's not a thing. You could think about kid dicks all day long, you're not going to jail unless you pursue one. Not now, not 10 years ago, not 100 years ago.



I guess what I'm getting at is that if by some disaster it actually gets removed form the DSM and is saw as an orientation then that would be a step closer to what they want and a small victory for them. Over time it would be come more accepted as an orientation and people will start to sympathize with them. Eventually they might get their way. 
- Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's right/wrong. I'm just saying it's a similar path of how gay's were in the DSM, then got removed, then made progress. Even after gay marriage passed, many states still currently have sodomy (and even oral sex by straight people) still illegal. It's strange because what those states are essentialy dictating is that you can be gay be not have common forms of gay sex (which also applies to straight people. I wonder if people ever actually get charged with it or not. 
- Obviously many more people are against pedophilia, but the less it's seen as a mental disorder the more on board people will be with it, over time. It's a conditioning process to get people to accept it. What's scary is with all this pedo-preist and pedo boyscout leader stuff it seems to be way more rampant than anyone use to think. 
- I'm confused why if literally everyone but pedo and beasty are considered an orientation now, and pedo and beasty fits the liiteral definition of sexual orientation, then wouldn't it seem they are being singled out just as LGBT were so many years ago? What specifically is it that makes it a mental disorder? Again, playing devils advocate. I don't support this stuff.


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## Randy (Dec 31, 2020)

All of this just sounds like arbitrary moral outrage tbh


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## StevenC (Dec 31, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> I guess what I'm getting at is that if by some disaster it actually gets removed form the DSM and is saw as an orientation then that would be a step closer to what they want and a small victory for them. Over time it would be come more accepted as an orientation and people will start to sympathize with them. Eventually they might get their way.
> - Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's right/wrong. I'm just saying it's a similar path of how gay's were in the DSM, then got removed, then made progress. Even after gay marriage passed, many states still currently have sodomy (and even oral sex by straight people) still illegal. It's strange because what those states are essentialy dictating is that you can be gay be not have common forms of gay sex (which also applies to straight people. I wonder if people ever actually get charged with it or not.
> - Obviously many more people are against pedophilia, but the less it's seen as a mental disorder the more on board people will be with it, over time. It's a conditioning process to get people to accept it. What's scary is with all this pedo-preist and pedo boyscout leader stuff it seems to be way more rampant than anyone use to think.
> - I'm confused why if literally everyone but pedo and beasty are considered an orientation now, and pedo and beasty fits the liiteral definition of sexual orientation, then wouldn't it seem they are being singled out just as LGBT were so many years ago? What specifically is it that makes it a mental disorder? Again, playing devils advocate. I don't support this stuff.


Being attracted to kids isn't an orientation. Being attracted to specifically male children or specifically female children is a subset of an orientation. Being attracted to kids is at best a fetish. And there is a nuanced difference there.

You have to remember that it's going to be incredibly difficult to argue that people should be protected based on their desire to harm someone else. Or that specifically harming people should be decriminalised or legalised. Like legalising paedophilia requires changing the definition of rape. There's no comparison.


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## xzyryabx (Dec 31, 2020)

Not only are the number of dummies increasing (for a multitude of reasons), they now have numerous venues to congregate and share/reinforce their dumminess, they are being used by powerfully entities (both internal.and external) to sow misinformation and disninformation, and there are no laws protecting the public interest from these campaigns.
We reap what we sow, and we have sown (is that even the right word?!) A shitload of stupid in this world.
Can you fix stupid? Not easily. Good luck us.


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## SpaceDock (Dec 31, 2020)

What’s wrong with being a Satanist?


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## zappatton2 (Dec 31, 2020)

I remember the constant moral panics of the 80's; of heavy metal and rap music, of horror films, of pornography, of marijuana, of homosexuality, of Dungeons & Dragons, of Garbage Pail Kids, and the ensuing belief that it was all leading to the broader advance of Satanism in society. Hell, the stories of Satanic rituals were legendary, and little if any of them had a spot of real evidence to back them up.

It always seemed to start with American preachers and the politicians close to them, but it certainly made a home here. My own parents truly believed gay rights were the next step in an orchestrated effort to bring about the coming of the antichrist (a belief they currently insist they never had). There will always be conspiracies, and they will always appeal to folks who fear social change.

But I will concede that it seems the internet really streamlined it all. Like every conspiracist can now virtually gather to get their stories straight.


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## c7spheres (Dec 31, 2020)

Randy said:


> All of this just sounds like arbitrary moral outrage tbh



It totally is. You'd think they'd have cleaned all these old law's up by now. It's crazy. Reading up on this Nambla thing apparently they were part of the ilga until 1993. Even only 30 years ago apparently they were included and many thought differently, until one day something happened I guess. Anyways, Fuck that. I hope someone comes along with a better conspiracy to talk about . Happy new year : )



StevenC said:


> Being attracted to kids isn't an orientation. Being attracted to specifically male children or specifically female children is a subset of an orientation. Being attracted to kids is at best a fetish. And there is a nuanced difference there.
> 
> You have to remember that it's going to be incredibly difficult to argue that people should be protected based on their desire to harm someone else. Or that specifically harming people should be decriminalised or legalised. Like legalising paedophilia requires changing the definition of rape. There's no comparison.



I wasn't talking about or arguing that at all. But I see that it's a subset fetish now from what you said. I thought being a pedo wasn't illegal but acting upon it was.Let's talk about something else. Pedo talk sucks. Happy new year : ) 


SpaceDock said:


> What’s wrong with being a Satanist?


 Nothing, imo. Happy new year ; )


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## spudmunkey (Dec 31, 2020)

The internet and social media has taken down barriers that didn't exist before, and given all ideas seemingly equal footing. Two people with blue checkmarks next to their name are seen as "equals" on Twitter no matter the context, even when one of them is an actor/musician/athlete and the other has 4 medical degrees and published dozens of peer-reviewed studies.


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## BenjaminW (Dec 31, 2020)

Sorry for randomly inserting my thoughts here, but I have kind of a weird relationship with conspiracy theories: They can seem really interesting mainly because they're outlandish, but I also have to remind myself that not everything I read, see, or hear about is true and that I have better things to do than read stuff about conspiracy theories all day.


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## Randy (Dec 31, 2020)

BenjaminW said:


> Sorry for randomly inserting my thoughts here, but I have kind of a weird relationship with conspiracy theories: They can seem really interesting mainly because they're outlandish, but I also have to remind myself that not everything I read, see, or hear about is true and that I have better things to do than read stuff about conspiracy theories all day.



Thanks for getting this back on track.

I grew up in the X-Files era and my dad was also a big fan of JFK conspiracies. 

So I've always found them interesting, stuff like Rosewell, Bohemian Grove, etc. I mean, totally tongue in cheek as most of them are hilarious stupid or inconsequential. But they're fun "outside the box" kinda thought experiments.

It's a shame the last decade or so conspiracies are lopsided basically just wielded as political defamation. The pedophile stuff especially. Accuse everyone you don't like as being a pedophile since it's an almost impossible stain to get off of you. Bring back the lizard people stuff.


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## mastapimp (Jan 1, 2021)

Is misinformation on the rise? Yes. With it, certain people are attracted to the way of thinking that they're one step ahead or they're "in" on some secret agenda. I think as there's more crazy stories circulating and shared amongst peers/friends, that more people are biting on these outlandish conspiracies than would have in the past. 

Before social media, this kinda stuff was mostly attached to chain letter emails or talking to some "pseudo intellectual" at a bar. My dad's vietnam war buddies would send bullshit (mostly political) all the time in emails back in the early to mid 90s.

What I've come to realize is that people that share these conspiracies have no clue how anything actually works behind the scenes, and with that comes distrust. Understanding how certain things work, especially in the scientific field, is not something you can easily explain to someone that doesn't have the same technical language and experience. I went to school for engineering and have been working in the biomedical electronics field for over 10 years with some other guys that have had top secret clearances, sent shit into outer space, pioneered the first WiFi chips, etc. When you talk to these guys about "how stuff works" it takes a lot of the mystery out of things and you can easily dismiss related conspiracies as people not understanding a lick of how science and physics are applied. 

Personally, I work on an ingested electronics application for intrabody communication using radio devices. When I discuss what I do with other engineers, I can easily explain the safety regulations we've adhered to through FCC and FDA as well as other IEEE standards and SAR testing. When I discuss this to guys I play basketball with that are anti-vaxxers and have little to no understanding of physics/electronics, they think it's a "Big Brother" style mind control device that the government will force upon them. I hear the same bullshit about 5G towers. The general population has no idea how a cell phone works, and they shouldn't have to. But there's a certain level of trust they must have that using it is safe, and the government will make sure these devices are held to a safety standard. Unfortunately, some people see the word "government" and equate it with mistrust....and those people are often hopeless when it comes to breaking through.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Jan 1, 2021)

Thanks for all the good replies.


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## Ralyks (Jan 1, 2021)

I'll tell ya what, a good chunk of people I know (friends and people I don't talk to as much but still have on social media for reasons) that were neo-hippie namaste types suddenly became borderline, if not totally, QAnoners and right wing conspirators, and sudden anyone remotely left was a pedophile. Then I did some research and found out hippies and conspiracy theories go hand in hand. Then though about it for a few minutes and realized I probably didn't need to research that to come to that conclusion. I consider myself a little hippie-esque but holy shit...


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## tedtan (Jan 1, 2021)

I don’t want to derail the thread again, but I think this clarification needs to be made, so I’ll respond here and then drop the topic.



c7spheres said:


> - I think it's only a matter of time before the pedofiles and groups like NAMBLA get their way. LGBT paved the way for them socially and in the courts so it's only a matter of time for the processes to work themselves out (in a general way).
> - And no I'm not comparing LGBT to pedofiles in any way. What I'm saying is groups like NAMBLA can use all the court battles and tactics that LGBT had to go through to it's own advantage. For example right now NAMBLA has been trying to get itself removed from the DSM manual which is something LGBT took years to achieve. Now that they've achieved that it will be much easier for NAMBLA to do the same, just because a lot of the same arguments and ground/leg work won't have to be made again. If they keep filing lawsuits, appealing decisions etc they will eventually get their way, and that likeliehood goes up the more time that passes. Most people said it could never happen with LGBT and it did after several decades of slowly changing people views and filing lawsuits. It also is happening with medical and recreational marijuana etc.



I don’t see that playing out for one simple reason - someone who is LGBTQ+ isn’t hurting anyone, neither themself nor anyone else by being LGBTQ+. That’s a big part of why we are seeing LGBTQ+ becoming accepted now. (Keep in mind that LGB has been acceptable in many societies goin way back, e.g., Ancient Rome, Japan, multiply genders in Thailand, etc. It’s only been an issue in western culture because of the Judeo Christian religions).

In contrast, pedofiles are predators that prey on those weaker than them. This is not similar to LGBTQ+, it’s much closer to serial killers, serial rapists, and other sociopaths. So no matter how open we become to various sexual orientations, it’s never acceptable to prey on others, especially those who cannot defend themselves, such as children.


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## TedEH (Jan 1, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> We're essentially facing a moral/ethical epidemic.


[Citation needed]....? It seems to me that people are generally more moral/ethical now than they have been before. I suppose it depends on what you think of as "ethical" and how ethical you think people are or have been. I've got no real basis for this, but I have doubts that people were _more_ ethical before we had widespread internet access. You just couldn't generally see what everyone was doing/saying.



JSanta said:


> I disagree. The internet may be a symptom of the problem, but it's not the problem.


I find it a bit ironic that the system that gives us widespread access to information is pointed at as a tool for ignorance.



StevenC said:


> I mean, I don't know what the value of the distinction between classifying it as a disorder or not is.


Classification is a step in the getting something accepted. Something that is "officially" a "mental disorder" is "bad", so removing that classification can be pointed at as an argument for socially accepting something.



SpaceDock said:


> What’s wrong with being a Satanist?


Depends, do you mean LaVeyan or the Temple, religious people calling anything they don't like "satanic", or actual demon worship? 



mastapimp said:


> The general population has no idea how a cell phone works, and they shouldn't have to


Except that when presented with a question for which you have no answer - the internet gives us a reasonably reliable way to _get_ that answer without relying on just making up whatever random BS we can think of, or guessing. Sure, nobody needs to know how a cell phone works - but there's also not really any excuse to falsely _claim_ to know how a cell phone works when the information is available. So many people are perfectly comfortable answering a question with BS, be it knowingly or not.

I feel like we forget that all this stuff existed long before the internet did. There's an AM station here that hosts random conspiracy nuts in the middle of the night and it's sort of fascinating and sad at the same time - 'cause you can _tell_ that nobody has any idea what they're talking about, but they just _want to believe so badly_. It's clearly being made up on the spot as they go sometimes.

One of my exes a long time ago was into ghost hunting - by which I mean she believed they were real and spoke to her, and they would get together with random pieced together radio equipment they found (I know they don't have any idea what any of it is or does) and search for "orbs" and stuff like that. When I met them I thought they were kidding or just kinda going with it for fun - role playing or something. But no. They believe it. DEEPLY. They made a point of calling me out for being closed minded and "skeptical", because to them skepticism is derogatory.

IMO:

All that to say that people.... want to believe things. They don't like gaps in understanding, they don't like uncertainty. Some people are comfortable with "I don't know", but many are not and will fill that gap with whatever. I think we assume people want the truth, but they don't: they want _the answer_. The answer is not necessarily the truth, but to admit this would be to acknowledge not knowing something. I mean, why do people believe in religion? Why is it entirely normal to believe any number of spiritual or supernatural things? Why do we believe in souls? Ghosts? Aliens? 5G Nanobots in our vaccines? I don't see a distinction between these things.


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## StevenC (Jan 1, 2021)

TedEH said:


> I find it a bit ironic that the system that gives us widespread access to information is pointed at as a tool for ignorance.


The internet doesn't have any inherent way to give widespread access to truth, just information. People have been basing their beliefs on op-eds for way longer than the internet, just now there are way more op-eds.

They're all the same "anyone can edit Wikipedia" crowd because none of them have ever tried to edit Wikipedia. Incurious people know it's better to seem curious.


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## TedEH (Jan 1, 2021)

StevenC said:


> The internet doesn't have any inherent way to give widespread access to truth, just information.


Sure - note I didn't say truth, I said information. It's in the quote you quoted. _Some_ information is still better than no information though, generally speaking. I mean, for as knowledgeable and smart as we'd like to call ourselves, so much of "common knowledge" comes from the internet now. It's not like books or newspapers or radio or whatever else were infallible sources of information either - but those things didn't connect you _any source_ you wanted access to in an instant. The need to judge the quality of information or try to back it up with something is not new, but being able to access it anywhere and anytime certainly is - as well as the ability to broadcast new information just as easily.

Imagine you're in a conversation, and suddenly you wonder what the rough population of Finland is.

Before internet:
You basically just either make an entirely unrealistic/uneducated guess, or resign to not knowing. I mean, does Finland even exist? If you REALLY need to know, you can make a trip out to the library or something. Maybe it's mentioned in an encyclopedia you have on-hand for some reason, but that information could be out of date or just wrong. Or you can ask someone, maybe they're a teacher, or just particularly knowledgeable about it for some reason, but you're still getting unreliable information, if any at all. You could maybe make some phone calls, to like a tourism place, and they would have a bunch of factoids you could use, but they could also be wrong.

Now, with Internet:
You reach for you phone and can say with ~90% confidence that there's about 5.5 million people in Finland, up from about 5.3 a decade ago. Or better yet, shout it at your smart speaker without even expending the effort to lift your phone off the table.

Access to information is now ubiquitous. The ability to process that information however has not changed.


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## MFB (Jan 2, 2021)

As Pete Holmes says, "there was a time where if you didnt know where Tom Petty was from? You just. didn't. know."


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## drgamble (Jan 2, 2021)

The internet has changed a lot about our culture. I don't know that conspiracy theories are any more prevalent now than they were 20 or 30 years ago. There have always been conspiracy theories about a whole range of topics. The internet has made the information a lot easier to convey than before, that is for sure. It also facilitates the use of a disinformation campaign by linking a whole bunch of semi related things together to try to "prove" whatever conspiracy is being claimed.

I think there is a big problem with what people consider evidence. I don't know that I can just go along and say it is a lack of critical thinking. The problem is that people don't pay as much attention to the sources of information as much as the message. There is a lot of confirmation bias when it comes to just about any topic out there these days. People will believe just about any source as long as it fits along with whatever it is that they believe now. I have my base in math and science, where the scientific method has always been the standard for evidence. I find that these days a lot of people get frustrated by something like the scientific method because beliefs can shift quite significantly over time. I see this being the case with Covid. People will still quote stuff from February and March and say "the scientists said this back in March, and now they are saying the opposite now, I thought they were experts." 

The internet has allowed people a means to make money off of content, and this is a pretty new thing. There is a certain element of profiteering going on with the disinformation crowd now that didn't really exist 20 years ago. I have seen videos out there where a doctor or group of doctors will go out and make videos, some of them viral, that will promote some of the alternative opinions that people have regarding some of the conspiracy theories. Many people will latch onto some of these theories as truth because they want to hear that the government is purposefully trying to misinform and control people. At the same time, some of these doctors are making money off of the content that they create or have some other therapy or product that they are pushing as the answer to the problem. Somehow, it is hard for some to see through this. What makes this part of the internet worse is when sites take down said videos because of disinformation. In recent times, this has only exacerbated the issue by making it seem like a strike against free speech. It is viewed as censorship and the motive behind the removal is viewed as something "they don't want you to see". 

I guess to some all of this up, I think the internet has facilitated the spread of conspiracy theories and has encouraged it at the same time. Not only is it easier to spread information, it is easier to make money off of the information. Unfortunately, most of the money being made on the internet is advertisement based. This has also caused the general decline in the quality of news that is available online. The major players now report the things that will get clicks to generate income. Advertisers do not care about the content of news articles, they actually reward headlines, better known as clickbait. The internet has made a lot of information available to everyone, sadly, I'm not sure that it has made it any easier to find good information.


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## narad (Jan 2, 2021)

Yes...


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## LordCashew (Jan 2, 2021)

drgamble said:


> The internet has allowed people a means to make money off of content, and this is a pretty new thing. There is a certain element of profiteering going on with the disinformation crowd now that didn't really exist 20 years ago.



I guess televangelists were way ahead of the curve there. I remember hearing about the Illuminati and the imminent apocalypse all the time as a kid in the ‘90s, and the pastors and hosts peddling books and tapes about that stuff were doing quite well.


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## Justaguitarist (Jan 3, 2021)

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> It seems the last few years it’s not just certain people that believe them. In my day to day life I interact with many different people due to the job I have. I’ve noticed that more and more people will just cut right to it and tell you whatever bullshit conspiracy theory they believe.
> The most common ones related to vaccines and COVID-19, but I’ve also been hearing more about the idea that all of Hollywood, various sports figures and of course politicians are involved in an elaborate well orchestrated plot to slowly erode our morals and ethics. Getting us used to pedophilia and extreme violence in order to lull us into complacency over the slow evolution of Satanism being the new norm.
> I really think that in school we need to teach classes that help people sort through fact and fiction better, giving them skills to think more critically and objectively when it comes to receiving new information.
> Am I the only one who thinks this crap is on the rise? The people who I’ve spoke with are so convinced there’s no having a rational conversation with them. They seem like they themselves are leaning toward being mentally unhealthy. What can we do about this?



I think that this is a very complex issue that has many causes. Here are my two cents:

- I think that conspiracy theories are jumping more into the mainstream lately because companies and corporations usually support right-wingers way more than left-wingers, even if the right-wingers are extreme. A good example of this is Trump. At first glance, he might seem like a very extreme crazy candidate but his policies are pretty standard neo-libertarian/capitalistic policies. He got into the White House because his opinions are pretty palatable to the companies that support his campaign. Companies would prefer to monetarily support extreme right-wingers than, for example, Bernie Sanders. If companies support presidential campaigns those politicians get more into the mainstream. This is nothing new. Coca-cola supported Right-Wing death squads in Colombia (source here: https://geopoliticsalert.com/coca-cola-death-squad ). Right-Wing politicians usually believe in conspiracy theories and they have support from corporations.

- I feel like Post-Truth is also a reason why these conspiracies are getting more popular. People value emotional truths over logical ones and this gets worse as people lose their critical thinking. This was one of the flaws of Post-Modernism in my opinion. This is a hilarious video on Post-Truth: 

- I also think that the Internet allows people to be in echo-chambers filled with people that agree with them, away from disagreeing opinions.

- I also think that this pandemic worsened the conspiracy situation. People are very desperate lately, for obvious reasons, and that makes them vulnerable to both religious extremism and conspiracy theories. Times of crisis creates a rise in these conspiracies. A good example was Weimar Germany. Because of the Great Depression, people were more vulnerable to extremism and the Nazi party was elected because of that. ~

This is a great video that has a lot to do with this conversation: 

Also holy shit i found this and it´s comedy gold 
https://www.reddit.com/r/guitarcirclejerk/comments/kp22x6/infectiously_good_toan/


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## drgamble (Jan 3, 2021)

LordIronSpatula said:


> I guess televangelists were way ahead of the curve there. I remember hearing about the Illuminati and the imminent apocalypse all the time as a kid in the ‘90s, and the pastors and hosts peddling books and tapes about that stuff were doing quite well.



Yes indeed they were ahead of their time. The difference now is that anyone with a phone can broadcast whatever craziness they want. 

It's funny watching the Flat Earth stuff. Sometimes I'll watch a bunch of Flat Earth stuff just to get a bang out of it. I remember watching a documentary back in the late 90s about the fake moon landing. There is a pretty compelling argument that the US had some motivation to fake a moon landing, but it would have fallen apart by now. I'm pretty sure the Russians would have called us out on this a long time ago if they could prove that it was all a sham.


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## drgamble (Jan 3, 2021)

Justaguitarist said:


> I think that this is a very complex issue that has many causes. Here are my two cents:
> 
> - I think that conspiracy theories are jumping more into the mainstream lately because companies and corporations usually support right-wingers way more than left-wingers, even if the right-wingers are extreme. A good example of this is Trump. At first glance, he might seem like a very extreme crazy candidate but his policies are pretty standard neo-libertarian/capitalistic policies. He got into the White House because his opinions are pretty palatable to the companies that support his campaign. Companies would prefer to monetarily support extreme right-wingers than, for example, Bernie Sanders. If companies support presidential campaigns those politicians get more into the mainstream. This is nothing new. Coca-cola supported Right-Wing death squads in Colombia (source here: https://geopoliticsalert.com/coca-cola-death-squad ). Right-Wing politicians usually believe in conspiracy theories and they have support from corporations.
> 
> ...




For sure the pandemic and the political climate have made the conspiracy theories seem more prevalent. I'm in my 40s and there are a lot of the conspiracy theories that have been around for a long time. I think that some of the theories around the media have gained some traction because it seems that a lot of the media is only worried about being the first to report something. A lot of times, they don't get nearly any of the details right and that doesn't help build trust with people. Seriously, it seems that a lot of news reporting has gotten very lazy compared to the days when you had to either watch the nightly news or wait for the newspaper the next day to find out what was going on in the world. There just seemed to be more depth in reporting and it was almost fatal to print inaccurate information. I think even the big media companies have almost gotten to a level that was once considered tabloid level reporting. Come to think of it, before the internet, we got most of our conspiracy theories from the tabloids, and there were always people that just ate that stuff up. This is why I don't think they are any more prevalent, the internet has just made it easier for everyone to talk about it.


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## TedEH (Jan 3, 2021)

Justaguitarist said:


> because companies and corporations usually support right-wingers way more than left-wingers


I think that very much depends on the type and scale of the companies. Or maybe it's just an American thing. Most businesses I'm familiar with (outside of maybe some of the huge ones) would much rather be seen as left than right.



Justaguitarist said:


> This is a hilarious video


It gets really obnoxious towards the end. Almost unwatchably so.



Justaguitarist said:


> Post-Truth


I find this kind of deconstruction funny, 'cause it seems to me that people using that term are implying that something is new or changed or shifted away from some norm or ideal of everyone searching for truth. We're not in some kind of "post-truth" because we were never at a "pre-truth" or "everyone-accepting-the-objective-truth" state. People have believed what they wanted to believe and landed at opposing conclusions with the same evidence since there were people to believe it, and that never changed. If anything, I would imagine more people believe more things that are true now than at any other point in history, probably. Can I back that up? Nope! But neither can anyone back up the opposite.



Justaguitarist said:


> that makes them vulnerable to both religious extremism and conspiracy theories


Where does the religious extremism come in? I've not seen any religious extremism as a result of the pandemic. If it's happening, I don't know that it's being talked about much.


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## Justaguitarist (Jan 3, 2021)

TedEH said:


> I think that very much depends on the type and scale of the companies. Or maybe it's just an American thing. Most businesses I'm familiar with (outside of maybe some of the huge ones) would much rather be seen as left than right.
> 
> 
> It gets really obnoxious towards the end. Almost unwatchably so.
> ...



Have you heard about Keneth Copeland? He´s an evangelical pastor that says he can cure covid-19 and is a multi-millionaire by now. He´s absolutely deranged. Here´s an interesting video about him.


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## Randy (Jan 3, 2021)

I find it interesting that all the mega church folks are guys and gals that would look weird as fuck in any normal setting. Kenneth Copeland looks like he was hatched from an egg.


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## bostjan (Jan 3, 2021)

Just my hot take, but anyone who gets most of their information from youtube is probably going to be painfully misinformed. A big part of the problem, whether you call it feel-facts, post-truth, or widespread stupidity, is that we no longer value information from expert sources over information from loudmouth dumbasses, whegher through laziness or convenience or even lack of informational resources.

If I learned mathematics from a college mathematics professor, I'm better informed than if I learned the same from a bunch of puppets. That's not to say that there is no value in the latter, but, for whatever reason, we've come to be more skeptical of official sources of information than we had been in the recent past.

It sometimes seems like virtually everyone buys into at least one conspiracy these days. As the economic situation of the general public within our circle of acquaintences gets generally worse, that tends to trend stronger, because people become less satisfied, overall, with reality.


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## LordCashew (Jan 3, 2021)

Randy said:


> I find it interesting that all the mega church folks are guys and gals that would look weird as fuck in any normal setting. Kenneth Copeland looks like he was hatched from an egg.


My (highly superstitious conspiracy theory believing) grandma used to say you could tell Kenneth Copeland was evil because he has “snake eyes.” 

She also said left-handed people belong to Satan...


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## TedEH (Jan 3, 2021)

Justaguitarist said:


> Have you heard about Keneth Copeland?


Guys like that have always existed though. Covid didn't create that, it just gave him an excuse to step in the spotlight for a moment. There's not really any "extremism" there. He's clearly a nut, I'll give you that.



bostjan said:


> If I learned mathematics from a college mathematics professor, I'm better informed than if I learned the same from a bunch of puppets.


I want to agree, but I can't. If you receive the exact same information, the source of it doesn't matter. What matters is if the information is true or not. A professor is still a person, and is still fallible like anyone else. Don't get me wrong, there's still more value in the word of someone educated or experienced over any Joe with an opinion and a webcam, but there's also some very well educated people on youtube. Some of the most controversial/disliked people on YouTube are very educated (like Jordan Peterson).



bostjan said:


> we no longer value information from expert sources


^ I think this is a more fair phrasing.


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## bostjan (Jan 3, 2021)

TedEH said:


> I want to agree, but I can't. If you receive the exact same information, the source of it doesn't matter. What matters is if the information is true or not. A professor is still a person, and is still fallible like anyone else. Don't get me wrong, there's still more value in the word of someone educated or experienced over any Joe with an opinion and a webcam, but there's also some very well educated people on youtube. Some of the most controversial/disliked people on YouTube are very educated (like Jordan Peterson).
> 
> 
> ^ I think this is a more fair phrasing.



Youtube doesn't vet anyone. Professors have to go through a decade of formal education and another decade of on the job vetting. Sure, the professor can and will make mistakes, but in terms of knowing what they are doing, it's not the same playing field.


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## StevenC (Jan 3, 2021)

Also, people who didn't go to university (or didn't go for a science-y subject) don't understand what education is at that level at all. They don't understand the rigour and detail involved and they think it's some cult keeping them out and down. Those are the kinds of people who believe in these anti-science conspiracies

Also, to narad's video, anyone who uses rocket science as an example of something difficult is a dumbass.


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## Randy (Jan 3, 2021)

LordIronSpatula said:


> My (highly superstitious conspiracy theory believing) grandma used to say you could tell Kenneth Copeland was evil because he has “snake eyes.”
> 
> She also said left-handed people belong to Satan...



Well so far she's batting 1.000


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## narad (Jan 4, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Also, people who didn't go to university (or didn't go for a science-y subject) don't understand what education is at that level at all. They don't understand the rigour and detail involved and they think it's some cult keeping them out and down. Those are the kinds of people who believe in these anti-science conspiracies
> 
> Also, to narad's video, anyone who uses rocket science as an example of something difficult is a dumbass.



"Of course I know how to do that, it's not exactly 'under a glass moon' science"


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## Lemonbaby (Jan 4, 2021)

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> The people who I’ve spoke with are so convinced there’s no having a rational conversation with them. They seem like they themselves are leaning toward being mentally unhealthy. What can we do about this?


Do we need to do something about this?


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## thraxil (Jan 4, 2021)

Relevant:

https://guitar.com/news/conspiracy-theory-covid-19-vaccine-boss-metal-zone/


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## Flappydoodle (Jan 4, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Also, people who didn't go to university (or didn't go for a science-y subject) don't understand what education is at that level at all. They don't understand the rigour and detail involved and they think it's some cult keeping them out and down. Those are the kinds of people who believe in these anti-science conspiracies
> 
> Also, to narad's video, anyone who uses rocket science as an example of something difficult is a dumbass.



But let's also be honest, academia has become quite a self-censoring, circle-jerking affair. That leads to a certain amount of group-think and stifles the type of difficult question asking which can disprove current hypotheses. Funding comes from government agencies or private investors, and if you piss people off, you won't get funded. 

Professors ABSOLUTELY bury results and theories they don't like, especially when there is massive pressure (publish or perish, promotions, expectations, students need to graduation). Again - only human. No amount of formal education will stamp that out.

Definitely worse in some disciplines than others. Like I doubt maths or physics has been affected much. But social sciences are reaching joke/parody status now, and you'll be shocked how much current medical practice is not actually supported by scientific evidence. 

Overall the process works and it will probably self-correct given enough time - as long as professors are allowed the academic freedom to ask questions. When universities stamp down hard on them for any controversy, that system will start to break down, which will suck.


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## StevenC (Jan 4, 2021)

Flappydoodle said:


> But let's also be honest, academia has become quite a self-censoring, circle-jerking affair. That leads to a certain amount of group-think and stifles the type of difficult question asking which can disprove current hypotheses. Funding comes from government agencies or private investors, and if you piss people off, you won't get funded.
> 
> Professors ABSOLUTELY bury results and theories they don't like, especially when there is massive pressure (publish or perish, promotions, expectations, students need to graduation). Again - only human. No amount of formal education will stamp that out.
> 
> ...


And when it comes to conspiracies no one is talking about the self perpetuation that may or may not happen in social sciences. They're talking about biologists, chemists, physicists and mathematicians lying to them on a grand scale.


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## bostjan (Jan 4, 2021)

Flappydoodle said:


> But let's also be honest, academia has become quite a self-censoring, circle-jerking affair. That leads to a certain amount of group-think and stifles the type of difficult question asking which can disprove current hypotheses. Funding comes from government agencies or private investors, and if you piss people off, you won't get funded.
> 
> Professors ABSOLUTELY bury results and theories they don't like, especially when there is massive pressure (publish or perish, promotions, expectations, students need to graduation). Again - only human. No amount of formal education will stamp that out.
> 
> ...



I don't suppose you understand how science education works, if you think it's anything like that. Students learn about the historical science and recreate the experiments that led to those theories, and even often try to disprove them. If there was some sort of conspiracy hiding the ether or the speed of light or the shape of the earth or whatever other garbage pseudoscience prophets want to shove down everyone's throats, nothing about formal higher science education would hold any muster, but it does, and on its own merits, so there is no widespread conspiracy to hide the truth, when it comes to mathematics, physics, or chemistry.

And, if someone has some sort of conspiracy theory that they think is strong enough to supplant the accepted theory, they should try to get it to withstand some form of scrutiny, on some level, that elevates it, in some way, above the accepted theory, yet, there is not one recent such theory that can withstand any such equal scrutiny under any terms that the conspiracy theorists themselves care to define.


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## narad (Jan 4, 2021)

Flappydoodle said:


> Professors ABSOLUTELY bury results and theories they don't like, especially when there is massive pressure (publish or perish, promotions, expectations, students need to graduation). Again - only human. No amount of formal education will stamp that out.



You have entered The Conspiracy Zooonne...


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## StevenC (Jan 4, 2021)

I can totally get on board with the rationale of some of the smaller conspiracies. Like, I could see how the moon landing could have been faked up until whenever it was practical for random folks to get hold of high powered lasers. There's a good motive in proving Western technological superiority of the Soviets both for intimidation and for morale. But then the Russians never protested that the USA made it to the moon, no one else has tried since and the aforementioned retroreflectors.

What I can't cope with is the NWO type conspiracies where we're lied to about everything, science and education is all a smokescreen, and there both is a global shadow government but they're doing stuff right now to consolidate power. The stuff that requires complicity from millions of people, or a whole superfluous secondary layer of corruption on top of the broad daylight corruption that they don't bother to notice.

(Yes I totally am crossposting my frustration from deluded facebook friends)


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## TedEH (Jan 4, 2021)

Today I learned that some people think Australia doesn't exist - and that all so-called Australians are actors.


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## bostjan (Jan 4, 2021)

TedEH said:


> Today I learned that some people think Australia doesn't exist - and that all so-called Australians are actors.



I mean, to be fair, a magical island with six foot tall jumping rats and beavers who have duck faces stapled on them does sound like a little kid made everything up. Next learning that every single piece of wildlife there wants nothing more than to kill you just to play with your entrails, that the entire nation is often on fire, and the whole place is 50 °C... well, perfect cover story to make people not want to go there.


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## TedEH (Jan 4, 2021)

The way this year has been going, that all doesn't sound too bad.


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## c7spheres (Jan 4, 2021)

TedEH said:


> Today I learned that some people think Australia doesn't exist - and that all so-called Australians are actors.



- What happened to that island off the coast of Australia? Not New Zealand, the other side/west of Australia? That's more like the Mandela affect. I do remember Mandela dying in the 80's, it was a big deal. I also remember that island on the globes in school. It's also where that missing Malaysia flight went down. 
- We have crossed over into an alternate dimension caused by a botched hedron collider black hole experiment! It's all truth and all lies. It just depends what dimension you're from. Now that we're all mixed together there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. The only solution is to play guitar and party hard!


- People hate hearing about the the moon landing. It's all trust based. We don't really know, we just really assume and really trust what we're told. Is it more likely we put a man on the moon, or more likely our gov't lied to everyone, again? Maybe both are true. Maybe not. 
- I think the moon consipiracy rises when people found out some images were just art representations and some footage was faked. It's understandable. Maybe the Russias are behind the consipracy. The world may never know.


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## StevenC (Jan 4, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> - What happened to that island off the coast of Australia? Not New Zealand, the other side/west of Australia? That's more like the Mandela affect. I do remember Mandela dying in the 80's, it was a big deal. I also remember that island on the globes in school. It's also where that missing Malaysia flight went down.
> - We have crossed over into an alternate dimension caused by a botched hedron collider black hole experiment! It's all truth and all lies. It just depends what dimension you're from. Now that we're all mixed together there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. The only solution is to play guitar and party hard!
> 
> 
> ...


You can point a laser at a retroreflector the Apollo missions put on the moon.


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## bostjan (Jan 4, 2021)

MH 370? The debris was found off the coast of Africa and Reunion, I thought. There are tons of islands off the western coast of Australia, though.

It's pretty difficult to prove that we _didn't_ go to the Moon. There are tons of photos, moon rocks, broadcast video, witnesses, stuff we left on the lunar surface, etc.

What's the evidence it was faked? A mysterious woman (of whom no records exist) claimed she watched lunar landing on TV and saw an empty Coca-Cola bottle roll across the screen. Ok, sounds legit. LOL


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## profwoot (Jan 4, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> - What happened to that island off the coast of Australia? Not New Zealand, the other side/west of Australia? That's more like the Mandela affect. I do remember Mandela dying in the 80's, it was a big deal. I also remember that island on the globes in school. It's also where that missing Malaysia flight went down.
> - We have crossed over into an alternate dimension caused by a botched hedron collider black hole experiment! It's all truth and all lies. It just depends what dimension you're from. Now that we're all mixed together there's no putting the genie back in the bottle. The only solution is to play guitar and party hard!
> 
> 
> ...



If the moon landings are faked, they sure were thorough in creating thousands of hours of footage testing the various components. And they secretly had access to video post-production tech that wouldn't exist for decades. And the Russians would definitely have to be in on it. Oh and all the giant rockets.



Like all conspiracy theories, the one about the moon landing is only believable in the absolute absence of knowledge on any relevant topic.


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## Justaguitarist (Jan 4, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Just my hot take, but anyone who gets most of their information from youtube is probably going to be painfully misinformed. A big part of the problem, whether you call it feel-facts, post-truth, or widespread stupidity, is that we no longer value information from expert sources over information from loudmouth dumbasses, whegher through laziness or convenience or even lack of informational resources.
> 
> If I learned mathematics from a college mathematics professor, I'm better informed than if I learned the same from a bunch of puppets. That's not to say that there is no value in the latter, but, for whatever reason, we've come to be more skeptical of official sources of information than we had been in the recent past.
> 
> It sometimes seems like virtually everyone buys into at least one conspiracy these days. As the economic situation of the general public within our circle of acquaintences gets generally worse, that tends to trend stronger, because people become less satisfied, overall, with reality.



Yeah, it´s kinda true that youtube doesn´t give you all the accurate information, but some channels are great and worth watching. It doesn´t replace classes with experts or long complex books and studies, but it can spark interest in science and learning. It´s mostly like documentaries. My favourite field is history, and these are some great channels about it.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9ZtilfKJds0iWytR_pnOQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv_vLHiWVBh_FR9vbeuiY-A

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK09g6gYGMvU-0x1VCF1hgA

Also, there is a cool podcast that tells the history of Rome in great detail. I really like it.
https://open.spotify.com/show/6wiEd40oPbQ9UK1rSpIy8I


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## c7spheres (Jan 5, 2021)

bostjan said:


> MH 370? The debris was found off the coast of Africa and Reunion, I thought. There are tons of islands off the western coast of Australia, though.


 But the islands are no longer on the map. It's all just ocean. Mandela effect, in full effect : )
- I think really what happened is all those maps came out like that because it was just easier to put New Zealand to the left and make it look normal. Like a big mistake was made. It still doesn't expalin what that other giant continent like island was on some of them though. Wierd stuff. 



profwoot said:


> If the moon landings are faked, they sure were thorough in creating thousands of hours of footage testing the various components. And they secretly had access to video post-production tech that wouldn't exist for decades. And the Russians would definitely have to be in on it. Oh and all the giant rockets.
> 
> 
> 
> Like all conspiracy theories, the one about the moon landing is only believable in the absolute absence of knowledge on any relevant topic.






StevenC said:


> You can point a laser at a retroreflector the Apollo missions put on the moon.



- I'm not saying we didn't go to the moon. I'm condident we did, but I'm also saying we don't really know anything other than what we're told. Everything is trust based and that trust is rapidly eroding because of the misuse/abuse of the internet/information. 
- I would say I trust most authorities in their fields of expertise, because there's little reason not to, plus they don't want to destroy their credibility, but it's sad to see more hacks appearing like they're legit and I think it can be difficult for many to figure out they're a hack to begin with. 

- The Scientific method is a good way to vet some things but, then again, sometimes conspiracy theorys could actually turn out to be true, though outlandish. 

- I think the method of "more likely than not" should be applied to most things. 


- I'm just having fun here everyone. There needs to be a devils advocate and it's a conspiracy thread too!


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## mastapimp (Jan 5, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> - I'm not saying we didn't go to the moon. I'm condident we did, but I'm also saying we don't really know anything other than what we're told.



You know there's still a living astronaut that landed on the Moon. And if you dispute that, he'll punch you in the face.


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## JSanta (Jan 5, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> - I'm not saying we didn't go to the moon. I'm condident we did, but I'm also saying we don't really know anything other than what we're told. Everything is trust based and that trust is rapidly eroding because of the misuse/abuse of the internet/information.
> - I would say I trust most authorities in their fields of expertise, because there's little reason not to, plus they don't want to destroy their credibility, but it's sad to see more hacks appearing like they're legit and I think it can be difficult for many to figure out they're a hack to begin with.
> 
> - The Scientific method is a good way to vet some things but, then again, sometimes conspiracy theorys could actually turn out to be true, though outlandish.
> ...



You have several PhDs that have contributed to this thread already; the barrier to establish something as a fact is pretty high. 

I heard this on NPR years ago, and it's still very relevant. Young woman is at an academic conference and the speaker asks everyone to raise their hand if it's a fact that the moon rotates around the Earth. Everyone raised their hand. Then the speaker asks how do they know it's a fact. All but a few still had their hand up. 

It's one thing to believe what you're told, it's another to seek out whether or not what you were told is based in facts or not. That's completely on you, not the other way around. I can stand in front of my classroom and tell my students any number of things. I am the expert in the field. But that shouldn't be enough, they need to validate either through their own research or data collection that what I'm saying is indeed factual. 

That's why (IMO) conspiracy theories and all sorts of other false "news" runs rampant. People don't do their homework to fact check the information, and that's on them. Even though the barrier today compared to pre-internet days is much lower to determine what is real and what isn't.


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## lurè (Jan 5, 2021)

The core concept of conspiracy theories is that there's is an objective truth that is kept hidden for mantaining lower classes in disadvantages conditions and upper classes rich.

Anti vaxxers, flat earthe believers, 9/11 ...they all share the same pattern: I'm in this underpriviliged conditions because some truth is kept hidden to my eyes, preventing me to reach a wellness state.


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## bostjan (Jan 5, 2021)

"Guys, JFK faked Obama's birth certificate the 5G covid landing is an inside job!"


...


That's how ~90% of conspiracy theories sound to me.


...


Except Epstein didn't kill himself.


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## Justaguitarist (Jan 5, 2021)

In the end, conspiracy theories exist because they´re slightly connected to some truth. For example, the government really lies to you. They´re just exaggerated and taken to the extreme. If the government was more transparent about things like war crimes, I doubt there would be this many conspiracy theories.
They´re the symptom of a distrust a lot of people have of authorities, and sometimes that distrust is earned.


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## narad (Jan 5, 2021)

lurè said:


> The core concept of conspiracy theories is that there's is an objective truth that is kept hidden for mantaining lower classes in disadvantages conditions and upper classes rich.
> 
> Anti vaxxers, flat earthe believers, 9/11 ...they all share the same pattern: I'm in this underpriviliged conditions because some truth is kept hidden to my eyes, preventing me to reach a wellness state.



Along that line, there's this natural questioning of education and expertise. There was a time when pretty much everyone wanted to go to university, or at least saw the value in it, but now I feel it's sour grapes mentality that says -- hey, if you went to university, they didn't teach you the real hidden truth. Actually, me, the guy who watches youtube videos on who built the pyramids until 4am -- I am the one who is truly educated.

Of course, getting an education to the point where you become an actual expert is fucking hard (/harder than watching youtube videos).

That's the really damaging aspect of all of this conspiracy culture IMO. It used to be a fun detour to go learn about some "hidden truth", until ultimately you had to reconcile it with reality. Bigfoot, faked moon landings, area 51, these are all kind of fun things to ponder. But people used to ultimately value actually getting educated on things, and eventually had to reconcile conspiracy info sources with established ones. Now, the predisposition is that any real fact (which we might just call one accepted by the scientific community and which has stood the test of time/competing theories) is now fake, and what is real is anything different you can find some blogs about.


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## lurè (Jan 5, 2021)

narad said:


> Along that line, there's this natural questioning of education and expertise. There was a time when pretty much everyone wanted to go to university, or at least saw the value in it, but now I feel it's sour grapes mentality that says -- hey, if you went to university, they didn't teach you the real hidden truth. Actually, me, the guy who watches youtube videos on who built the pyramids until 4am -- I am the one who is truly educated.
> 
> Of course, getting an education to the point where you become an actual expert is fucking hard (/harder than watching youtube videos).
> 
> That's the really damaging aspect of all of this conspiracy culture IMO. It used to be a fun detour to go learn about some "hidden truth", until ultimately you had to reconcile it with reality. Bigfoot, faked moon landings, area 51, these are all kind of fun things to ponder. But people used to ultimately value actually getting educated on things, and eventually had to reconcile conspiracy info sources with established ones. Now, the predisposition is that any real fact (which we might just call one accepted by the scientific community and which has stood the test of time/competing theories) is now fake, and what is real is anything different you can find some blogs about.



Exactly.

They ultimately want to be seduced and not educated.
Education requires time and effort; seduction it's just a matter of minutes, the perfect timing for a 4 minutes youtube video of an housewife explaining how vaccines cause autism.


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## StevenC (Jan 5, 2021)

lurè said:


> The core concept of conspiracy theories is that there's is an objective truth that is kept hidden for mantaining lower classes in disadvantages conditions and upper classes rich.
> 
> Anti vaxxers, flat earthe believers, 9/11 ...they all share the same pattern: I'm in this underpriviliged conditions because some truth is kept hidden to my eyes, preventing me to reach a wellness state.


The worst part of this is that there is some truth to it. There are systems in place that perpetuate wealth inequality, but it's fairly straightforward and surface level classical kleptocracy. But people instead come up with a second deeper fantasy that doesn't explain anything any better.

My current least favourite conspiracy is the "Brexit was sabotaged" one, where the EU is part of a worldwide cabal and Brexit was a grassroots rebellion not backed by billionaires that Boris/May/Gove/Rees-Mogg are purposefully sinking. It has to always be 4D chess with these people, not just some rich pricks leveraging racism for what amounts to insider trading.


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## Demiurge (Jan 5, 2021)

Justaguitarist said:


> In the end, conspiracy theories exist because they´re slightly connected to some truth. For example, the government really lies to you. They´re just exaggerated and taken to the extreme. If the government was more transparent about things like war crimes, I doubt there would be this many conspiracy theories.
> They´re the symptom of a distrust a lot of people have of authorities, and sometimes that distrust is earned.



This is true, but it's kind of hilarious what comes out of this distrust. People will blow-past the obvious things like, "gee, these politicians are acting for the enrichment of themselves and their wealthy donors before their own constituents" (a profound betrayal), and harp about microchips in vaccines. The fantastical narratives seem to carry a greater appeal than the more pedestrian- and probably more fixable- ones.


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## StevenC (Jan 5, 2021)

Demiurge said:


> This is true, but it's kind of hilarious what comes out of this distrust. People will blow-past the obvious things like, "gee, these politicians are acting for the enrichment of themselves and their wealthy donors before their own constituents" (a profound betrayal), and harp about microchips in vaccines. The fantastical narratives seem to carry a greater appeal than the more pedestrian- and probably more fixable- ones.


I'm sure politicians love conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theorists don't realise why at all.


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## Flappydoodle (Jan 5, 2021)

StevenC said:


> And when it comes to conspiracies no one is talking about the self perpetuation that may or may not happen in social sciences. They're talking about biologists, chemists, physicists and mathematicians lying to them on a grand scale.



Well, this entirely depends on the conspiracy IMO. It's healthy to have a good amount of scepticism, especially when it comes to new science.

If it's flat earth or something easily disproven, then yeah, it's obviously lunacy

If it's things which literally can't make sense, like 5G covid, then obviously it's just impossible for a person with high school level science understanding to believe

If it's the Wakefield vaccine stuff, yeah it's been debunked totally many, many times

BUT if people are questioning "the science" on things, especially new information, that's totally fair IMO. And let's be totally honest - scientists are usually pretty bad spokespeople, and it's not like they haven't confidently said things which later showed to be wrong. Guidelines change, policies change. Again, that's fair enough that science evolves. But it's often twisted.

For example, back in March the UK chief scientific advisors were saying masks don't work, don't buy masks etc. Later, they made them compulsory. Were they knowingly lying? IMO, yes. I think they were delivering the politically expedient message, due to shortages and they didn't want people to buy all the stock. Point is, they didn't say "there's a shortage, so leave masks to medical professional who need them". They used their platform as respected experts to lie. So no wonder that their credibility falls and then people start to not believe them. That was a really dumb and short-sighted thing to do.



bostjan said:


> I don't suppose you understand how science education works, if you think it's anything like that. Students learn about the historical science and recreate the experiments that led to those theories, and even often try to disprove them. If there was some sort of conspiracy hiding the ether or the speed of light or the shape of the earth or whatever other garbage pseudoscience prophets want to shove down everyone's throats, nothing about formal higher science education would hold any muster, but it does, and on its own merits, so there is no widespread conspiracy to hide the truth, when it comes to mathematics, physics, or chemistry.
> 
> And, if someone has some sort of conspiracy theory that they think is strong enough to supplant the accepted theory, they should try to get it to withstand some form of scrutiny, on some level, that elevates it, in some way, above the accepted theory, yet, there is not one recent such theory that can withstand any such equal scrutiny under any terms that the conspiracy theorists themselves care to define.



I understand science education pretty well (actual Professor, lol)

Maybe we're talking about different conspiracy theories, or what I'd consider different "levels" of conspiracy theory. If it's 5G covid or flat earth then yeah, that's a real failing of critical thinking and basic understanding. But if it's mask scepticism or that sort of thing, I wouldn't personally say that's totally unreasonable.

As far as my field goes, it's been a very messy year with LOTS of total bullshit papers published, lots of scientists desperately latching onto Covid to get attention/funding. Look at Professor Didier Roult for example. Guy has 2,000 published papers, 10,000's of citations, owns several companies. He's one of the most famous virologists in the world. An expert in every sense of the word, who should be credible. He published papers which led people down the hydroxychloroquine path. The papers themselves were flawed, but Raoult was everywhere promoting it like crazy. We wasted a huge amounts of time and money pursuing and replicating those studies. And that's a relatively simple drug treatment trial. If you want to do something like epidemiological studies about whether masks work, that's going to be very messy. Very difficult to separate signal from noise, especially when there is so much political involvement/influence and you'll be attached by whoever your findings disagree with.

This is part of the real messy side of science. Normally this stuff isn't really broadcast in public though and the studies are done, some sort of consensus is reached, and that gradually filters down to guidelines etc.

I can give you several good examples of mass campaigns to deceive people though. One is the nutritional science field and dietary recommendations. That was almost certainly distorted by the US agricultural industries, leading everybody down the stupid food pyramid, "everything corn" path, painting fat as bad, sugar as good etc. It's taken decades to undo that with research and evidence, and even now it's pretty messy.



narad said:


> You have entered The Conspiracy Zooonne...



Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not? It's widely known that negative results don't get published, that data gets selected for publication etc. It's also widely accepted that most published research is incorrect, and even extremely high impact publications can't be replicated :/


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## Flappydoodle (Jan 5, 2021)

JSanta said:


> You have several PhDs that have contributed to this thread already; the barrier to establish something as a fact is pretty high.
> 
> I heard this on NPR years ago, and it's still very relevant. Young woman is at an academic conference and the speaker asks everyone to raise their hand if it's a fact that the moon rotates around the Earth. Everyone raised their hand. Then the speaker asks how do they know it's a fact. All but a few still had their hand up.
> 
> ...



Agree. And I'd go even further. I think it's quite unreasonable to expect people to actually DO the critical thinking or fact checking. A lot of the time, it's simply impossible.

You're right that usually we are relying on experts, usually in the form of consensus or formal guidelines (in my field of medicine). Problem is, we have "corruption" of the experts or expert opinion. For example, you have renowned hospitals now using homeopathy, acupuncture and other pseudoscience which is not evidence-based whatsoever. So Aunt Karen watches a video about the wonder of Qi and acupuncture, and you want to tell her that it's bullshit, and she says "yeah well Mayo Clinic uses is"... how can you refute that?

The amount of things in the medical field which are not backed by scientific evidence, yet we take for granted, would make your head spin. It's crazy.


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## StevenC (Jan 5, 2021)

Flappydoodle said:


> For example, back in March the UK chief scientific advisors were saying masks don't work, don't buy masks etc. Later, they made them compulsory. Were they knowingly lying? IMO, yes. I think they were delivering the politically expedient message, due to shortages and they didn't want people to buy all the stock. Point is, they didn't say "there's a shortage, so leave masks to medical professional who need them". They used their platform as respected experts to lie. So no wonder that their credibility falls and then people start to not believe them. That was a really dumb and short-sighted thing to do.


Except that's never what anyone said. If you want to make the argument that's what people heard, ok. But the advice was always social distancing seems to work, we're not sure on masks yet. That's not lying, it's the opposite of lying because at the time there wasn't much clarity on masks.

In science, language is deliberately chosen to communicate precise technical things, and when things aren't precisely known language is deliberately chosen to communicate the vagueness. You can't call someone a liar because they said your yes/no question didn't have a yes/no answer.


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## JSanta (Jan 5, 2021)

Flappydoodle said:


> Agree. And I'd go even further. I think it's quite unreasonable to expect people to actually DO the critical thinking or fact checking. A lot of the time, it's simply impossible.
> 
> You're right that usually we are relying on experts, usually in the form of consensus or formal guidelines (in my field of medicine). Problem is, we have "corruption" of the experts or expert opinion. For example, you have renowned hospitals now using homeopathy, acupuncture and other pseudoscience which is not evidence-based whatsoever. So Aunt Karen watches a video about the wonder of Qi and acupuncture, and you want to tell her that it's bullshit, and she says "yeah well Mayo Clinic uses is"... how can you refute that?
> 
> The amount of things in the medical field which are not backed by scientific evidence, yet we take for granted, would make your head spin. It's crazy.



I completely disagree with your assertation that it's either unreasonable or impossible for people to critically think or fact check. Access to the internet is ubiquitous, which makes access to factual information quite literally available at the push of a few buttons. 

I'm not sure what you do in the medical field, but looking through my university library, there are plenty of peer-reviewed studies on homeopathy and acupuncture. The research is out there, so it's not a factual statement to say that it's not. 

To touch on your last point, my father is one of those opinion-based nut jobs where facts don't matter. How do I argue against that? I don't. He lives in a post-truth world where unless facts align with his world views, they are not facts. So we don't talk about those things. It's not my responsibility to be the idiot sherpa.


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## Louis Cypher (Jan 5, 2021)

StevenC said:


> You can't call someone a liar because they said your yes/no question didn't have a yes/no answer.


Thats the problem right there though, everything in the world right now has to be boiled down to the binary yes or no, with us or against us, Left/Right etc etc..... In relation to covid/mask advice early on, I would say if someone thinks the scientific advisors were or are lying then what exactly was in it for them to lie? Really did they actually put people lives at risk for the sake of staying on point with the political messaging? If I remember rightly the WHO back at the start was not 100% on masks being effective, because they and the scientists/experts around the world were still learning about the virus and its causes & symptoms, coz it was a brand new virus. Thats the cool thing about science, as you learn more as more evidence comes to light, and science can make complete 180's when the evidence proves thats required. 

Certainly in the UK and US the gaslighting by the respective governments and the right wing press has been to make sure any blame is laid at the door of the experts and scientists, which is why the credibility of experts is questioned regualry and not the credibility or responsibility of those actually in power. The Scientists can only advise what is best to do. The actual putting in to place of rules, restrictions or the lack of is purely down to the government. Hence the 3rd full lockdown in the UK's continuing groundhog day with covid


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## narad (Jan 5, 2021)

Flappydoodle said:


> Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not? It's widely known that negative results don't get published, that data gets selected for publication etc. It's also widely accepted that most published research is incorrect, and even extremely high impact publications can't be replicated :/



Not sarcastic. You're doing a lot of "widely known" handwaving, but in short, I don't agree with really any of your generalizations or their implications. I mean, how can you be a scientist and think that most of the literature is flawed? Is your work flawed? Your collaborators'? Or are you just the apparently rare good guys that are doing it right? How would you go about taking this out of the realm of hearsay?

Of course science is a noisy process, and some publications won't stand the test of time, but it trends in the right direction, in ways that are robust to special interests, to people who would want to "BURY results", etc. like it's a Dan Brown novel. Even if humans who would do such things exist, the process marches on. And I just find it irresponsible to present it otherwise.


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## Thaeon (Jan 5, 2021)

Flappydoodle said:


> Well, this entirely depends on the conspiracy IMO. It's healthy to have a good amount of scepticism, especially when it comes to new science.
> 
> If it's flat earth or something easily disproven, then yeah, it's obviously lunacy
> 
> ...



I think some of the vagueness and unintentional confusion also comes from liability issues. Most scientists don't want to definitively say what they know, because if they do and someone somewhere responds poorly, regardless of how isolated it is and probable it wouldn't happen, that scientist is now actionable in court if no official statements have been made by something like the CDC. Science is messy. I'm not going to say that its not. They do get things wrong sometimes. And I'm sure there are plenty of them that are corrupt and want to get paid. The field unfortunately doesn't pay all that well.


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## JSanta (Jan 5, 2021)

narad said:


> Not sarcastic. You're doing a lot of "widely known" handwaving, but in short, I don't agree with really any of your generalizations or their implications. I mean, how can you be a scientist and think that most of the literature is flawed? Is your work flawed? Your collaborators'? Or are you just the apparently rare good guys that are doing it right? How would you go about taking this out of the realm of hearsay?
> 
> Of course science is a noisy process, and some publications won't stand the test of time, but it trends in the right direction, in ways that are robust to special interests, to people who would want to "BURY results", etc. like it's a Dan Brown novel. Even if humans who would do such things exist, the process marches on. And I just find it irresponsible to present it otherwise.



THIS

I had a hypothesis that was not supported when I analyzed the results of my research for my dissertation. So I did what quite literally every other researcher does and state that my hypothesis was not supported by the data that was collected. To both outright state and believe anything to the contrary is intellectually dishonest and borderline dangerous. 

That's not to say that there aren't dishonest individuals, that's certainly the case. But they are the exception and not the rule. When a researcher has a hypothesis proved wrong, they state as much and move on. The truth is we don't care right or wrong. Collect facts, present facts, move on to the next project.


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## bostjan (Jan 5, 2021)

Flappydoodle said:


> I understand science education pretty well (actual Professor, lol)
> 
> Maybe we're talking about different conspiracy theories, or what I'd consider different "levels" of conspiracy theory. If it's 5G covid or flat earth then yeah, that's a real failing of critical thinking and basic understanding. But if it's mask scepticism or that sort of thing, I wouldn't personally say that's totally unreasonable.
> 
> ...



Not sure what kind of professor you are, but for credentials like that, you seem to be conflating an awful lot of things. What is published in a journal is not to the same standard of what we put in textbooks. Even with that said, what is published in peer-reviewed journals is still one of the best standards we have for the quality of information.

It is true that there are a few Bogdanov's and Surgisphere's out there publishing phony papers, but those papers are very rare to begin with and it's excessively rare for them not to be retracted as soon as they are exposed (often within weeks of publication). I don't know how long the record is between research being published in a journal and being exposed as false, but it's generally not a regular occurrence.

On the topic of covid, there certainly has been an awful lot of bullshit getting pushed with hydroxychloroquine, and some other things, so maybe there is a flaw in the peer-review system, but it's a very recent development and seems to mostly be due to the chaos that the world has been in the past 12ish months.

Picking on the mask example: The scientific consensus is that masks are partially effective. Conspiracy theorists are telling people that they are largely ineffective. Is that the same thing? Who, in this case, is more correct and who is more incorrect? Why?


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## mastapimp (Jan 5, 2021)

narad said:


> Not sarcastic. You're doing a lot of "widely known" handwaving, but in short, I don't agree with really any of your generalizations or their implications. I mean, how can you be a scientist and think that most of the literature is flawed? Is your work flawed? Your collaborators'? Or are you just the apparently rare good guys that are doing it right? How would you go about taking this out of the realm of hearsay?
> 
> Of course science is a noisy process, and some publications won't stand the test of time, but it trends in the right direction, in ways that are robust to special interests, to people who would want to "BURY results", etc. like it's a Dan Brown novel. Even if humans who would do such things exist, the process marches on. And I just find it irresponsible to present it otherwise.



I've come across flawed methodology a few times in papers, usually from universities where the authors aren't yet PhD graduates. I've never felt like these people were trying to push the wrong results and I'd never gamble pushing an idea forward based on a single paper. When these examples of flawed papers come up, they are still a teaching tool of what not to do or how to improve when it comes time to test the hypotheses. If it doesn't hold up, the paper doesn't get cited and may fade into obscurity and is hopefully not a building block for future studies/research.


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## JSanta (Jan 5, 2021)

mastapimp said:


> I've come across flawed methodology a few times in papers, usually from universities where the authors aren't yet PhD graduates. I've never felt like these people were trying to push the wrong results and I'd never gamble pushing an idea forward based on a single paper. When these examples of flawed papers come up, they are still a teaching tool of what not to do or how to improve when it comes time to test the hypotheses. If it doesn't hold up, the paper doesn't get cited and may fade into obscurity and is hopefully not a building block for future studies/research.



I don't think this can be overstated: there is a significant difference between flawed methodology and outright fraudulent data. 

I appreciate that you brought this up.


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## nightflameauto (Jan 5, 2021)

While there are often papers published in journals that need to be retracted, there's a weird counter-culture brewing among the scientific community of attempting to subvert positive, fact based papers. For example, the rumors around this retraction: 
Black Holes in the Core of the Earth

Supposedly it was intentionally created as a call-out to out how shitty the review system is. When you have supposedly accredited folks pushing out obvious tripe like that just to "game the system," you end up with skeptics leaping at the opportunity to complain loudly and often about how shit the entire scientific community is. When, in fact, it's much like every other community involving people. A few great actors, a few more positive actors, a large swath of well intentioned but mediocre actors, and a few nutbars with exceedingly loud voices that make everyone else look worse just by existing.

All it takes is a very few people acting in bad faith to give the skeptics their cudgel to pummel the entire process. And sadly, even some well educated people fall for it.


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## bostjan (Jan 5, 2021)

nightflameauto said:


> While there are often papers published in journals that need to be retracted, there's a weird counter-culture brewing among the scientific community of attempting to subvert positive, fact based papers. For example, the rumors around this retraction:
> Black Holes in the Core of the Earth
> 
> Supposedly it was intentionally created as a call-out to out how shitty the review system is. When you have supposedly accredited folks pushing out obvious tripe like that just to "game the system," you end up with skeptics leaping at the opportunity to complain loudly and often about how shit the entire scientific community is. When, in fact, it's much like every other community involving people. A few great actors, a few more positive actors, a large swath of well intentioned but mediocre actors, and a few nutbars with exceedingly loud voices that make everyone else look worse just by existing.
> ...



Alan Sokal had done the same thing back in the 1990's.

Let's get this clear: no system is perfect. No one knows everything. No set of rules perfectly governs everything without any gaps. The idea behind real science, though, is to strive to get closer to perfection by opening all ideas up to argument, discussion, and defense. Conspiracy theories don't typically do that to the same extent, and superstitions often do not allow that sort of discourse at all.

Guys like Fioranelli and Sokal are trying to improve the system by exposing weaknesses, not replace it with superstitions.


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## StevenC (Jan 5, 2021)

This feels like a valid point to mention that not enough people believe there is a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars.


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## nightflameauto (Jan 5, 2021)

StevenC said:


> This feels like a valid point to mention that not enough people believe there is a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars.



Elon Musk shot his car towards Mars in hopes of snagging the teapot. We have yet to get his report on whether or not he was successful.


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## bostjan (Jan 5, 2021)

Forget Earth, the whole universe is flat, a la Willem De Sitter.


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## TedEH (Jan 5, 2021)

Most of my jokes fall flat, does that count?


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## bostjan (Jan 5, 2021)

TedEH said:


> Most of my jokes fall flat, does that count?


Ba-dump *clunk*


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## profwoot (Jan 5, 2021)

Couple things that might aid further discussion:

First, an issue of definition. It's a shame there hasn't arisen an alternative to the term "conspiracy theory" to describe what so many people believe in these days. This type of belief isn't completely unrelated to the concept of "two or more people plotting to commit a crime" but it's a pretty distinct phenomenon having to do with rejection of reality and paranoid delusions and alternate reality stories usually related to one or more shadowy all-powerful cabals.

For example, a purported moon landing hoax would probably have to involve a decent proportion of the literally SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND people who worked on the project, so yeah conspiracy, I guess. But that's sort of necessary back-fill; the actual impetus of the idea is simple distrust/gainsaying of reality. No two conspiracy believers actually agree on what the conspiracy actually was -- Qanon for example has tons of factions and subfactions with more created every day. They only agree about the core rejection of reality, not about what alternate reality to replace it with.

The 2nd issue I'll briefly mention is the "epistemological divorce" that has happened in the US and seemingly to various degrees across the world. Half of Americans, for a whole host of reasons, ended up on the side of known techniques for gaining knowledge developed since the enlightenment, and the other half of Americans ended up on the side of the pre-enlightenment methods -- basically guesswork and superstition (I'm simplifying here; folks measured the diameter of the earth with surprising accuracy well over 2000 years ago, for instance).

It's not that one side is definitely right about everything and the other definitely wrong; it's that one side has the benefit of all the work done over the centuries trying to pin down how reality works, flawed though this work may be, while the other side... let's just say any relationship between their beliefs and reality are coincidental.

So while academic scholarship has plenty of issues (that I'm also happy to discuss), I would argue that topic is only germane to a discussion of conspiracy theories if one thinks these issues are so extreme that the scientific worldview has failed entirely in its goal of counteracting the inherent biases of human cognition for the purpose of increasing our knowledge about reality -- a proposition I deem objectively false.


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## StevenC (Jan 5, 2021)

The real conspiracy is getting people to believe conspiracies.


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## c7spheres (Jan 5, 2021)

mastapimp said:


> You know there's still a living astronaut that landed on the Moon. And if you dispute that, he'll punch you in the face.



You mean the same one that says he saw the UFO's when he went up there!? Yes, I'm poking fun. : ) 

- But seriously though. Why is Buzz Aldrin saying he saw UFO's and lying to/confusing everyone with this and then recants his statements? Either he's some kind of asshole, just looking for a quick dollar, or he was forced to recant or felt bad about lying and recanted. I wonder which it is.





JSanta said:


> You have several PhDs that have contributed to this thread already; the barrier to establish something as a fact is pretty high....



- I think the problem with people in general and apparently PHDs too is they read way to far into things, or possibly don't read enough. Probably cause I type to much and it becomes a tldr.
- For example. *I've never once said we didn't land on the moon*, but many have responded or commented like I've been arguiing that we didn't go the entire time, even though I've clearly stated I never said it, and in fact stated I'm confident we went there.




This is how the internet and universities tell me to respond as an alternative:




mastapimp said:


> You know there's still a living astronaut that landed on the Moon. And if you dispute that, he'll punch you in the face.






JSanta said:


> You have several PhDs that have contributed to this thread already; the barrier to establish something as a fact is pretty high....



- I don't know why you think we didn't go to the moon. It's obvious we did and you're uneducated for thinking that. Additionally, to say grey aliens conspired with the NWO and are behind the covid vaccine in an attempt to kill us all is just preposterous! Why would any sane person think that!


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## profwoot (Jan 5, 2021)

I think in general, internet debates are thought to be personal far too often. In reality, the concern (at least for me) is not whether any of the interlocutors actually espouse a bad idea, but rather whether obvious falsehoods are treated such that they might appear to have merit to those reading (the vast majority of whom will never participate in the discussion; this mostly includes me, for example. I suddenly started posting a bit here recently for some reason but still haven't posted anywhere else on the internet in several years, despite being, against my better judgement, Very Online).


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## JSanta (Jan 5, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> You mean the same one that says he saw the UFO's when he went up there!? Yes, I'm poking fun. : )
> 
> - But seriously though. Why is Buzz Aldrin saying he saw UFO's and lying to/confusing everyone with this and then recants his statements? Either he's some kind of asshole, just looking for a quick dollar, or he was forced to recant or felt bad about lying and recanted. I wonder which it is.
> 
> ...



I never accused you of anything. I'm simply pointing out that the barrier to establish something as being a fact (i.e. something as truth) is very high. The onus is on you (the ALL of you, not you in particular) to make a coherent counterpoint.


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## StevenC (Jan 5, 2021)

Does anyone know why I need two doses of the micro chip injection? Gain stacking?


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## narad (Jan 5, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Does anyone know why I need two doses of the micro chip injection? Gain stacking?



One is just used as a clean booster shot.


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## profwoot (Jan 5, 2021)

narad said:


> One is just used as a clean booster shot.


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## lurè (Jan 6, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Does anyone know why I need two doses of the micro chip injection? Gain stacking?



The second has a noise gate chip in.


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## TedEH (Jan 6, 2021)

It's like the 4-cable thing - you need one in front, and one in the loop.


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## StevenC (Jan 6, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> - But seriously though. Why is Buzz Aldrin saying he saw UFO's and lying to/confusing everyone with this and then recants his statements? Either he's some kind of asshole, just looking for a quick dollar, or he was forced to recant or felt bad about lying and recanted. I wonder which it is.


When Buzz Aldrin who is a NASA astronaut says he saw a UFO he doesn't mean a flying saucer or alien spacecraft. He means an "unidentified flying object", as in he saw something that was flying but wasn't sure what it was.

UFO is the term used for any unidentified flying object be it flying saucer, flying teapot, flying teapot or cosmic debris. He was likely talking about panels that had detached from the rocket and would have been following his same trajectory.

This is how Buzz can honestly say he saw a UFO and he didn't see aliens. This isn't a controversy even slightly.


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## bostjan (Jan 6, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> You mean the same one that says he saw the UFO's when he went up there!? Yes, I'm poking fun. : )
> 
> - But seriously though. Why is Buzz Aldrin saying he saw UFO's and lying to/confusing everyone with this and then recants his statements? Either he's some kind of asshole, just looking for a quick dollar, or he was forced to recant or felt bad about lying and recanted. I wonder which it is.



Which Buzz Aldrin quote are you referencing? The one in 2005? I've never seen nor heard the quote itself, only references to it. I don't believe Aldrin ever recanted his statements, only said that what he had said was taken out of context.

Most of what conspiracy folks use to back up extraterrestrial theories is out of context. For example, UFO is simply a military/aviation term for "unidentified flying object," and, at least back in the late 60's and early 70's, it meant what it said it meant. A UFO was any object that was encountered whilst flying that could not be identified. Often times, during early space flights, UFOs were jettisoned boosters or other debris from the rocket. A UFO could also be a weather balloon, a bird, etc.

Anyway, the "he'll punch you in the face" comment, I trust, was a joke. Buzz Aldrin is something like 90 years old, but still gets violent when people accost him with moon landing conspiracy theories.



c7spheres said:


> - I think the problem with people in general and apparently PHDs too is they read way to far into things, or possibly don't read enough. Probably cause I type to much and it becomes a tldr.
> - For example. *I've never once said we didn't land on the moon*, but many have responded or commented like I've been arguiing that we didn't go the entire time, even though I've clearly stated I never said it, and in fact stated I'm confident we went there.



Who said you said we didn't land on the moon? I'm seeing you saying that we just have to trust the people who say we did, and a bunch of people responding by bringing up physical evidence that we were there. Seems like a rational call and response to me.



c7spheres said:


> This is how the internet and universities tell me to respond as an alternative:



What's the problem with those two statements? The second doesn't even seem to correlate to anything you brought up in your post. Maybe I'm missing something. The Buzz Aldrin punching "you" thing, I'm sure was a joke, based on Aldrin's history of attacking people, but, even assuming it's not, and assuming that "you" was directed at @c7spheres in particular, I don't see how threatening to sick a 90-ish year old man who is uninvolved in the forum on you could be taken seriously.

I guess sarcasm is very difficult to convey over text. I'm 99.9% certain @mastapimp was being sarcastic, but only 70% certain you are being sarcastic, although I'm usually 100% sure when I'm sarcastic, I'm not even sure that I am being sarcastic anymore with this response.


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## StevenC (Jan 6, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Which Buzz Aldrin quote are you referencing? The one in 2005? I've never seen nor heard the quote itself, only references to it. I don't believe Aldrin ever recanted his statements, only said that what he had said was taken out of context.
> 
> Most of what conspiracy folks use to back up extraterrestrial theories is out of context. For example, UFO is simply a military/aviation term for "unidentified flying object," and, at least back in the late 60's and early 70's, it meant what it said it meant. A UFO was any object that was encountered whilst flying that could not be identified. Often times, during early space flights, UFOs were jettisoned boosters or other debris from the rocket. A UFO could also be a weather balloon, a bird, etc.
> 
> ...


Buzz turns 91 this month!


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## mastapimp (Jan 6, 2021)

bostjan said:


> I guess sarcasm is very difficult to convey over text. I'm 99.9% certain @mastapimp was being sarcastic, but only 70% certain you are being sarcastic, although I'm usually 100% sure when I'm sarcastic, I'm not even sure that I am being sarcastic anymore with this response.



I clearly forgot to include the  at the end of my statement. I apologize for the confusion.


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## c7spheres (Jan 6, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Which Buzz Aldrin quote are you referencing? The one in 2005? I've never seen nor heard the quote itself, only references to it. I don't believe Aldrin ever recanted his statements, only said that what he had said was taken out of context.
> 
> Most of what conspiracy folks use to back up extraterrestrial theories is out of context. For example, UFO is simply a military/aviation term for "unidentified flying object," and, at least back in the late 60's and early 70's, it meant what it said it meant. A UFO was any object that was encountered whilst flying that could not be identified. Often times, during early space flights, UFOs were jettisoned boosters or other debris from the rocket. A UFO could also be a weather balloon, a bird, etc.
> 
> ...




I'm not taking it seriously. Sure there was some sarcasm n there. I gotta use more of these too 
- I can't find the original Buzz interview where he's talking about it, but in the ET interview he basically just says he "technically" saw a UFO. In the other one I saw he seemed a bit less detached about it. It don't mean aliens, but then the other astronaut right after that is talking about how Niel Armstrong said he saw aliens watching them while they were on the moon. I mean, I don't see Neil or Buzz caling bullshit on him or anything anywhere so I guess everyone should just trust him then. I have no choise but to believe in aliens on the moon now. They are here. They're coming for us.


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## nightflameauto (Jan 6, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> I'm not taking it seriously. Sure there was some sarcasm n there. I gotta use more of these too
> - I can't find the original Buzz interview where he's talking about it, but in the ET interview he basically just says he "technically" saw a UFO. In the other one I saw he seemed a bit less detached about it. It don't mean aliens, but then the other astronaut right after that is talking about how Niel Armstrong said he saw aliens watching them while they were on the moon. I mean, I don't see Neil or Buzz caling bullshit on him or anything anywhere so I guess everyone should just trust him then. I have no choise but to believe in aliens on the moon now. They are here. They're coming for us.


Considering the number of high altitude fliers that see "things" out the windows, including several well documented military experiences, the possibility that somebody standing on the moon, in a spacesuit built back then, would see "things" is somewhere quite a ways north of 0%. Especially considering the possible air quality that could be maintained in those suits at the time.

The human brain is a tricky little bastard. I objectively know certain things can't be real, but in the dead of the night when I see the family cat that's been dead for ten years running to her favorite place in the dark my brain still believes it for a split second.


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## vilk (Jan 6, 2021)

I'm pretty inclined to believe in conspiracy theories if the goal of the given conspiracy is to start a war / increase military spending, on account of the we have multiple real examples.

Gulf of Tonkin incident, our pathetic excuse to invade Vietnam, didn't happen. Pentagon admitted it in 2005.

No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, never were, no link to Al Queda, never was.


Also conspiracies to disenfranchise or imprison minorities. Can that even still be called conspiracy theory? It's more or less conspiracy fact.


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## nightflameauto (Jan 6, 2021)

Conspiracies can and do happen. That doesn't mean every conspiracy theory is based in fact. The examples you give are real conspiracies with tangible evidence trails. Quite a bit different from QAnon or the flat-earthers where you start with the premise that the truth is a lie comprised of thousands to millions of co-conspirators all acting in tandem to prevent the "real" reality from being acknowledged.


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## bostjan (Jan 6, 2021)

vilk said:


> I'm pretty inclined to believe in conspiracy theories if the goal of the given conspiracy is to start a war / increase military spending, on account of the we have multiple real examples.
> 
> Gulf of Tonkin incident, our pathetic excuse to invade Vietnam, didn't happen. Pentagon admitted it in 2005.
> 
> ...


Those are conspiracy theories, but are they "conspiracy theories?" I looked quite crazy when, back in 2002-2003, I was feverishly trying to convince everyone that the WMD thing made no logical sense and was thus bullshit. I said the same thing about al Queda in Iraq back then. It wasn't big brain stuff, just common sense. Why we would invade if they had WMD instead of getting the UN inspectors in there (who weren't being kept out)? Why would a fundamentalist religious group be supported by a secularist dictator? It was all ridiculous at the time, but people were angry about 911, so emotions >>>>>> logic, I guess...


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## StevenC (Jan 7, 2021)

Here's an idea:

Why don't we round up all the conspiracy theory nuts and like vanish them, giving them what they always wanted?


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## narad (Jan 8, 2021)

StevenC said:


> Here's an idea:
> 
> Why don't we round up all the conspiracy theory nuts and like vanish them, giving them what they always wanted?



What a conspiracy nut wants is essentially the feeling of being knowledgeable without putting the effort to gain knowledge. If you rounded them all up, no one would be happy because they'd all be surrounded by people who think they know what's really going on.


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## bostjan (Jan 8, 2021)

I love my dad. He was probably the kindest person I ever knew. But... well, when his health started going down hill, he'd talk, sometimes nonstop, about all of these crazy conspiracy theories he would see on the history channel, or some that he heard from people with whom he used to work.

Everyone in my family started to acknowledge that he was starting to behave differently - sometimes paranoid, starting to ramble, and on rare occasions, he'd go incoherent.

I know this is not the case for all people, but, it seems to me, often times, buying into really wild conspiracy theories is a sign of mental illness.

In my dad's case, I mean, he was the one who taught me about math and science as a little kid, and he knew his stuff. But, starting around the time he started having health problems, he would occasionally slip into weird conversations. The one that sticks out the most to me, was when he declared at a family dinner one evening that he didn't believe in gravity. At the time, I thought he was just testing me and being goofy, but, in retrospect, I think it might have been his mind starting to slip, because, ten years later, the Titanic never sunk, Hitler was living in Argentina, and we had never been to the moon.


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## Cyanide_Anima (Jan 26, 2021)

There's a lot of people who are into these websites/YouTube channels NTD News, The Epoch Times, America Uncensored, China Uncensored and some others that are even more extreme. These are very strange sources as they are all funded and supported by Falun Gong, which is a religious death cult. They're very anti-Chinese government (for some good reasons and some not so good). More and more people are sharing 'news' from these sources that have a pretty clear agenda when you dig into their history, their leader, and the reasons why they support Trump. 

They're trying to instigate an economic and physical war with China in order to destroy the government of China and 'restore' it back to its ancient purity. By purity I mean they seek racial purity, separation from modern technology, and to have a fascist right wing religious theocracy. 

They've pumped up Trump by a huge margin, spending a few million on Facebook ads to promote him. They also may be behind the Q anon movement or at least one of the main reasons it has spread on mainstream social media and news outlets. The similarities between the use of cult ideals and manipulation through their Falun Gong religion and through Q anon are very similar.

There's a lot of irony from the people who share videos and news from this source who claim that the Biden administration is a Chinese puppet government yet have no issue using a fascist religious movement's propaganda machine as a source. It's kind of scary how cognitively lazy the right has become, and how much of the conservative movement has been coopted by a foreign cult leader's media.


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## Justaguitarist (Jan 29, 2021)

Cyanide_Anima said:


> There's a lot of people who are into these websites/YouTube channels NTD News, The Epoch Times, America Uncensored, China Uncensored and some others that are even more extreme. These are very strange sources as they are all funded and supported by Falun Gong, which is a religious death cult. They're very anti-Chinese government (for some good reasons and some not so good). More and more people are sharing 'news' from these sources that have a pretty clear agenda when you dig into their history, their leader, and the reasons why they support Trump.
> 
> They're trying to instigate an economic and physical war with China in order to destroy the government of China and 'restore' it back to its ancient purity. By purity I mean they seek racial purity, separation from modern technology, and to have a fascist right wing religious theocracy.
> 
> ...



I read about Falun Gong and they do seem to be very cult-like. However, some of the things the Chinese government does to them are certainly human-rights violations. As a leftist (democratic socialist), I still think that the Chinese government kinda is a terrible dictatorship (mostly because it´s just a more ruthless force of state capitalism anyways).

But yeah the Falun Gong leader has said some very bigoted shit about interracial marriage and homosexuality. Also China, as a lot of other places, never wasn´t diverse. A lot of fascists have this very wrong understanding of history where they think that in ancient times there was no racial and cultural diversity. A lot of Arab countries, other Asian countries, and even the Roman empire ( in small ways) interacted with China in ancient times. The far-right has this mistified history that is unhistorical. For example, the Vikings did actually have peaceful contact with other cultures. They traded with the Slavs, with the Byzantines, with Medieval Europe... Some Vikings even traveled to the middle east where they fought as mercenaries and converted to Islam. The whole "pure race" "history" thing that fascists believe in is utterly unscientific and unhistoric.


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## bostjan (Jan 29, 2021)

Chinese socialism is scary. It's still socialism, because everything is owned by the government (society), but when the government is forcing people to labour on things that don't work (like smelting metal in their backyard wood stoves - yes, that really happened in early socialist China and no, it obviously didn't work), or to toil much harder for the betterment of society at their own personal cost (much like what is happening in modern socialist China to the lower class), or to obey strict social rules that the government justifies as negatively affecting productivity (z.B. with whom people associate or what they eat or whatever), or executing people for non-violent crimes (China executes more people than all other nations combined, many of whom are executed for financial crimes or drug offenses), all signs point also to authoritarianism. So you end up with a socialist dictatorship, just like Stalinist USSR or whatever.

I used to love travelling, before covid. I told everyone I'd go pretty much anywhere except certain parts of the Middle East, certain war zones, or China. The thought of finding myself, a libertarian-minded (in terms of social liberty, don't go all Ayn Rand on me, please) European-descended American, waking up in China, is just as terrifying to me as waking up in Mogadishu under the chaos of a raging war. Sure, I might not be captured for random in China, but the government there would have no qualms with throwing my into a mobile death van and not even bothering to report my killing as a statistic.


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## Cyanide_Anima (Jan 29, 2021)

My issue is not with fighting the Chinese government. I'm all for that. They're fascist as well. It's the end goal of the Falun Gong and they way in which they are going about making it happen. They lie about a lot of shit, including some of the human rights violations perpetrated against them. There isn't really any credible evidence to the "Falun Gong members being harvested for their organs on a massive scale" thing. They spread every western conspiracy theory under the sun and pander to all the far right ding dongs who have nothing better to do than propagandize themselves. I know several people who only trust these YouTube channels they have created for their information consumption. These channels are still saying Trump won, and they want people to rise up and commit acts of violence and continue the treasonous insurrection. If the Falun Gong leader gets his wish we have war with China and we have the USA in shambles which would only increase the chances of China winning such a war. Then whole world loses.


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## Justaguitarist (Jan 29, 2021)

Cyanide_Anima said:


> My issue is not with fighting the Chinese government. I'm all for that. They're fascist as well. It's the end goal of the Falun Gong and they way in which they are going about making it happen. They lie about a lot of shit, including some of the human rights violations perpetrated against them. There isn't really any credible evidence to the "Falun Gong members being harvested for their organs on a massive scale" thing. They spread every western conspiracy theory under the sun and pander to all the far right ding dongs who have nothing better to do than propagandize themselves. I know several people who only trust these YouTube channels they have created for their information consumption. These channels are still saying Trump won, and they want people to rise up and commit acts of violence and continue the treasonous insurrection. If the Falun Gong leader gets his wish we have war with China and we have the USA in shambles which would only increase the chances of China winning such a war. Then whole world loses.



There´s something wrong with your comment. China´s government isn´t "fascist". Fascism is a far-right authoritarian ultranationalist ideology based on the privatization of companies, the killing, and deportation of people who are considered "inferior", an ultra-militaristic state, a nostalgia for a mythologized past. Also, Fascists hate almost all leftist ideologies like marxism and anarchism. The first concentration camp was for leftist dissenters. To call Nazism "far-left" or to call all authoritarian regimes "Far left" is to fall for Nazi and Italian Fascist propaganda long after the fact. The nazi party did call themselves "National Socialists" but that was because socialism was seen in a good light and they wanted to take advantage of that (like when authoritarian countries call themselves The Democratic Republic of -insert country name here-).

I´m sorry for being super nitpicky, but every time someone calls Nazis leftists or the contrary, a political scientist jumps off a bridge somewhere. Probably.


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## Cyanide_Anima (Jan 29, 2021)

I'm not saying they are nazi's or right wingers. But China does have a lot in common with fascism. They have some fascist tendencies where they stamp out everything and silence everything that isn't what has been prescribed by the state. They're ultranationalist, ultraconservative, authoritarian, dictatorial, commit genocide, are imperialist, and there is an heir of racism (ie Han being the only true chinese). They do fit a lot of what fascism encapsulates. Even the Nazis called themselves Socialist which is contradictory to what fascism is. China has adopted a lot of fascist tendencies to into whatever system of government they have. They are not a purely communist state. They're almost state-controlled hyper-capitalists these days. But none of that has much to do with Falun Gong and their enormous influence over western conservatism.


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## Justaguitarist (Jan 29, 2021)

Cyanide_Anima said:


> I'm not saying they are nazi's or right wingers. But China does have a lot in common with fascism. They have some fascist tendencies where they stamp out everything and silence everything that isn't what has been prescribed by the state. They're ultranationalist, ultraconservative, authoritarian, dictatorial, commit genocide, are imperialist, and there is an heir of racism (ie Han being the only true chinese). They do fit a lot of what fascism encapsulates. Even the Nazis called themselves Socialist which is contradictory to what fascism is. China has adopted a lot of fascist tendencies to into whatever system of government they have. They are not a purely communist state. They're almost state-controlled hyper-capitalists these days. But none of that has much to do with Falun Gong and their enormous influence over western conservatism.



They were also never a communist state. A communist "state" would be a stateless, classless and moneyless society. So there isn´t a communist state. China and the USSR are/were called communist because the ruling party is a communist party.
Also, they´re the exact opposite of ultraconservative. They had a Cultural Revolution where they destroyed a lot of old artifacts, buildings, and books. Kinda the opposite of conservatism. BTW, do you like to read Chomsky? I´ve been planning to read some of his books sometime but I don´t know what´s the best book to start reading Chomsky. What do you recommend? 

But sorry for being this annoyingly nitpicky. I understood what you meant.


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## mmr007 (Feb 5, 2021)

My 2 cents...which may be an exaggeration of its worth.....

Yes conspiracy theories are more popular than ever because-
A) We have spent decades railing against "coastal elites" and whatnot with their advanced education resulting in a generation (and more) that distrusts formal education as a sign of liberal indoctrination and thus ignorance (not stupity, ignorance) is worn like a badge of courage. Thus we have too many people (especially in the US) primed for disinformation
B) Obviously everything you read on the internet is true, or has a kernal of truth therefore to the unintiated must be looked into further. When you look into it you will find all the false affirmation you didn't know you were looking for.
C) News has to be entertainment because it has to make money. Although I am liberal I can only handle MSNBC for all of about 10 minutes because it is NOT NEWS. It is 5 talking heads arguing about their opinion about something they read in the New York Times the day before. If you want news, read the economist (too expensive so uneducated americans can't) or watch BBC or Al jezeera. Gone are the days of Peter Jennings and field reporters stating what was observed. Now it is celebrities on the right and celebrities on the left giving opinion pieces so conspiracy theorists can actually justifiable say there is a lot of disinformation in main stream media.
D) As others have stated, it feels good to "know something" no one else does. I was one of a small group of people in my company that knew one of my bosses was having an affair and doing something else that could get him fired. That "secret" gave me a feeling of power because others wern't "in the know". Imagine the power you must feel if you "know" about the child eating predators in government and that cheese pizza is code for child pornography at the highest level and that a revolution and mass arrest is coming and nobody but you and a few others who deciphered the Q clues know and understand.

Is it fixable? Yes. See subparagraph A and C. Those will fix the pernicious aspects of B.

One quick fix. Since we constantly take "non-astronauts" into space and Virgin and others have space tourism flights coming this year, it is wise to use tax payer dollars to take the two most prominent flat earthers into space and say "See that round thing motherfucker?! Go back home and tell your friends what you saw here today." Then work from there


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