Conspiracy Theorists Make My Brain Hurt

54 minutes ago, northivanastan said:

That's not just true for conspiracy theories, it's true for all sorts of beliefs, especially if one forms part of their identity around them as a conspiracy theorist would. It's called the backfire effect, I believe. It affects everyone and it takes some effort to defeat.

This is why should we ever scientifically prove that there is in fact, no God... it wouldn't make a lick of difference. 

26 minutes ago, hybridial said:

 

This is why should we ever scientifically prove that there is in fact, no God... it wouldn't make a lick of difference. 

Equally important reasons are that the idea of "God" is so nebulous that science can't make any serious claims about it, and that religious beliefs aren't beliefs that people come to after careful consideration of the evidence anyway (honest theists admit this). 

Especially when considering how spirituality works as well, based on personal experience first and foremost, and not on demonstration (to others, etc.).

Besides, the idea of "God" is pretty complex and there are multiple interpretations of it in various systems. What/who "god" is, is something that will ultimately be beyond human capacity to understand or prove IMO.

I think that effort is best spent on other advancements and improvements to the world and our understanding of it.

6 hours ago, frag enabler said:

Not sure why I decided to catch up to all this dross - the levels of delusion, hypocrisy and hyperbole are through the roof and all these smarmy attempts at sarcasm only confirm what I was saying. Have fun in your echo chamber.

What... are you even talking about?

10 minutes ago, Zulk RS said:

What... are you even talking about?

Let's leave him be, don't play his game and just ignore, it's what I'm doing since I've read his posts recently.

21 minutes ago, seed said:

 

Let's leave him be, don't play his game and just ignore, it's what I'm doing since I've read his posts recently.

Agreed, it was fun while it lasted, but lets leave the guy alone now. There's nothing we can gain from this anymore.

Conspiracy theorists grew big because our worldview became consensus-based on a national, if not global scale, and there is a feeling of power in disrupting this consensus through wordplay or asking a fact-checking of the obvious. Especially as conspiracy theorists now don't need to build up survivalist bunkers and wear tinfoil hats, but only shitpost on social media. They are the new millenium satanists, that's all.

Add to that that there are "conspiracy theories" that are real, like state surveillance, corporate corruption or police brutality.

edit: I am pretty convinced that despite the boomer cliché, QAnon is an evolution of Pizzagate which itself is an evolution of g*mer**** and 4chanese bullshittery and the overall feeling of internet impunity. It's not so much here a mark of modern irrationality (like 5G stuff) than our inability to contain social nuisance.

8 minutes ago, Sunnyfruit said:

state surveillance

Oh yes, this right here, which reminds me of the chip conspiracy the anti-vaxxers are still spreading, that the "government wants to monitor us".

Newsflash - the government is already monitoring us, and they sure as hell don't need any "chips" to do it.

12 minutes ago, seed said:

Newsflash - the government is already monitoring us, and they sure as hell don't need any "chips" to do it.

Sure they already do -they always did-, but you can't blame them for wanting to do it more efficiently -after all, tapping phones and running a network of informal informants, snitches etc. at every corner gets old quick, and it's soooooo 20th century. It's your taxpayer's money, too, after all ;-)

1 hour ago, seed said:

Newsflash - the government is already monitoring us, and they sure as hell don't need any "chips" to do it.

Not to mention the Turkish invention of making advertisement money illegal for private companies not complying with the government is already being picked up in almost all countries. And it will succeed.

A lot of misinformation in this thread except for the instances of statements which were true. I'm not talking about the untrue statements which could be true in certain circumstances depending on the situation, just the statements that were never not untrue. All in all, very informative except the parts that weren't. Not informative I mean. You know what I mean?
 

23 minutes ago, stphrz said:

A lot of misinformation in this thread except for the instances of statements which were true. I'm not talking about the untrue statements which could be true in certain circumstances depending on the situation, just the statements that were never not untrue. All in all, very informative except the parts that weren't. Not informative I mean. You know what I mean?
 

Like... totally dude.

5 hours ago, stphrz said:

A lot of misinformation in this thread

Ah yes, the floor is made out of floor!

44 minutes ago, Flesh420 said:

Only posting some things here because the vast majority of you don't seem to understand that most Mainstream journalists are CFR goons and intelligence assets.

I think you're giving too much credit to the deep state. Mainstream journalists are goons for the companies they work for. CFR is an organization that connects governments around the world, so it should be no surprise that any corruption that those governments are susceptible to, would be potentially present in the CFR. There are many, many more entities at play than you realize, and not all of them are completely bent on global domination. The corrupt ones are actually more interested in one simple thing in particular - money. Think about it - bribery is legal in the USA. Corporations are allowed to give massive donations to political groups, which helps them get elected. Why? Because they write the laws and adjudicate upon them in court. And what better corporation to jump in the money pool than a media giant? It's not a conspiracy - it's happening right before our eyes, and most of us actually pay and vote for it. They literally pay each other for favors out in broad daylight. It's not a deep state - it's just what happens when you have private control of both the government and the news.

44 minutes ago, Flesh420 said:

They've purposely not taught what happens when communism takes over, and they've purposely not taught that communism takes over via "Equality" in the public school system. 

Communism is an idea. A communist group or government could take over another group, but that's not inherent in the meaning of communism. As for this weird fear of the word equality, I'm at a loss. Are you in favor if inequality? Do you associate communism with brainwashing and government issued underwear, which is why you're against the modern trend of... no uniforms, and um treating people of color and queerness as like, actual human beings?

44 minutes ago, Flesh420 said:

They do not teach that the first people to get shot after a communistic/fascist takeover are the useful idiots that helped the take over. 

Communist and fascist are opposites. This is like saying "We all know what happens after eating a healthy/unhealthy meal"

44 minutes ago, Flesh420 said:

If we're supposed to trust science, we should question why science is disregarding basic science like women growing babies.

Seriously. You can't just drop this in. What are you even talking about - pro-life? Anti-birth control? Anti women's rights? 

44 minutes ago, Flesh420 said:

When a system censors a president of a free world we all should be paying attention.

You mean DJT? He's literally going to run for pres again. Orange man has been "cancelled" in only the most fragile, still-shitting-my-diaper kind of way.

@Flesh420 I won't debunk any of your post as I am sure a lot of other people will do that. Just gonna say that you are making a lot of extraordinary claims, and I hope for your own sake that you've treated and continue to treat such claims with the skepticism they deserve.

Before you come to a conclusion, you should do research and use a variety of sources - mainstream and alternative, left-wing and right-wing - and seek out information that might contradict your view. You might find that you're wrong and that the people you trust are wrong. Try to accept that possibility, even if it is hard.

And lastly: You're right to think that something is wrong with the world, because something *is* wrong. But the source of those problems may not be what you think it is.

I just wanted decent healthcare, decent wages and decent worker’s rights. I had to leave the US to get any of that because it’s all lumped in as “communism” over there. We can throw around all the subterfuge we want but it boils down to the basics at the end of the day.

Rights are still not fully equal for racial or sexual minorities, but it’s a heck of a lot closer over here. The policing is also substantially less violent on the whole, making the inequity less of a “hot button issue”. This too is called “part of the communist agenda” in the US whenever it’s brought up. 

Again, we can talk in circles about all kinds of crazy shit til the end of time but ultimately America’s days are numbered if progress on any/all of these issues is going to continually be met with a brick wall, as has been the case for the last few decades.

13 hours ago, Flesh420 said:

Only posting some things here because the vast majority of you don't seem to understand that most Mainstream journalists are CFR goons and intelligence assets.

And this is why I get so royally fucked off with conspiracy theorists. You do not listen, and you do not consider other viewpoints. Has anyone who has posted in this thread even intimated that the mainstream media should be trusted? No. But as soon you hear people expressing viewpoints contrary to your own, you immediately slip into the fallback conspiracy excuses of sheep this media evil that. Everyone has an agenda, from the media to the sources you get your information from.

And I have said it before, I will say it again- large scale conspiracies are virtually fundamentally impossible due to the very nature of human psychology. The idea that even most journalists are, as you put it, "intelligence assets" is weapons grade lunacy with not a teaspoon of hard evidence to back it up. Can I disprove it completely? No. But can you prove it completely? No, you cannot. You have a cognitive bias and that is blinding you.

13 hours ago, Flesh420 said:

When a system censors a president of a free world we all should be paying attention.

"Systems" are not government and have zero obligation to follow free speech laws. Free speech laws cover the government and nothing else. If you came into my business or home and started telling me rubbish about how orange man had the election stolen from him in spite of every judge (including republican ones) tossing out the case because the "evidence" has all the substance of wet tissue paper then I would tell you to go away. My house, my rules. Don't like it, go elsewhere. Same with Twitter and Facebook. They have rules in place they are well within their rights to put in place. And you agree to be bound by them when you sign up. They may be inconsistent in how they apply them but that means nothing at the end of the day. Their house, their rules.

12 hours ago, magicsofa said:

I think you're giving too much credit to the deep state.

Definitely this.

I do laugh a bit because even if there is some big shadowy take over the world group... they're not doing a very good job, and they have already lost. People are getting more unruly, not less so. And history shows any time a group tries to control a large number of people, they all fail and fall eventually. It can take decades, even centuries, but they ultimately all collapse under the strain of what they try to create.

Just asking...   Did anyone watch at least a chunk of the video?

6 minutes ago, Gokuma said:

Just asking...   Did anyone watch at least a chunk of the video?

The times I have tried to watch three-hour videos with titles like "Deep State Psyop: Trump Brennan and the UFO Files," it really hasn't been worth it.

I watched it for a good bit and then left it on listening to it in the background while I worked on stuff for over an hour.   Some pretty messed up stuff.   Didn't hear anything specific about UFO's and I don't go chasing that stuff.   What about all the unconstitutional gestapo shit that happened to that woman?

4 minutes ago, Gokuma said:

I watched it for a good bit and then left it on listening to it in the background while I worked on stuff for over an hour.   Some pretty messed up stuff.   Didn't hear anything specific about UFO's and I don't go chasing that stuff.   What about all the unconstitutional gestapo shit that happened to that woman? 

I looked her name up and around that time there was a criminal case against her (domestic abuse) around the time of that video. Seeing that she's involved with Infowars, and is a conspiracy theorist, of course she would claim that any prosecution against her is a "deep state" operation to silence her.

You didn't listen to the part about all the charges they made up for a secret grand jury prosecution and that they changed a supposed burglary charge to a totally different robbery charge which has much different legal meanings on the spot and backdated it totally illegally erasing the initial supposed charge of burglary.   They had screwed up regarding her old address in whatever system and alleged that she burglarized herself somehow.    What domestic abuse was there?  Who did what to who?

Admittedly, as soon as I heard Alex Jones mentioned that discouraged me from listening a bit, but it seems he was rather uninvolved and simply going to receive and distribute her documentary.   But I'd like to hear at least an explanation for all the episode that happened to her and her family starting right while her documentary was being sent to its first recipient.

jfc when will this thread die

And with the current pandemic, it gets even worse.
 

9 hours ago, Flesh420 said:

If we're supposed to trust science, we should question why science is disregarding basic science like women growing babies.

Scientific methods require you to admit mistakes in your scientific studies when someone else points them out.

54 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

Scientific methods require you to admit mistakes in your scientific studies when someone else points them out.

Exactly. Science by it's nature is self correcting when more evidence comes to light. In theory at least. Human tendency to bias means this does not always transpire of course. Conspiracy nuts have coined the term scientism, as if science is a religion that must be followed without question. I challenge them to show footage of a science teacher telling a class that. No takers so far...

Just bringing out this EXCELLENT site called Rational Wiki, its purpose is to debunk conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific crap: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

11 minutes ago, DSC said:

Just bringing out this EXCELLENT site called Rational Wiki, its purpose is to debunk conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific crap: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

Have referred to it numerous times, great site.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf

Oops.