Funniest Conspiracy Theories

[Rev. Powell]

Alan Moore perfectly expresses my own view on conspiracy theories here.

http://youtu.be/NgSbaKpCjq4
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[lester1/2jr]

Ulthar - creating a scene that looks like a bombing would not be hard to pull off at all. What would be hard would be to somehow coerce all the runners and spectators to agree to be a part of a conspiracy, as well as convincing all the loved ones of the people injured or killed to also play along (and all of their friends and loved ones).

There are also people who believe the bombing was real but it was staged by the government, not the two brothers. There have been cases like that remember the Anthrax attacks that was some demented guy from the medical lab.

[ulthar]

Ulthar - creating a scene that looks like a bombing would not be hard to pull off at all. What would be hard would be to somehow coerce all the runners and spectators to agree to be a part of a conspiracy, as well as convincing all the loved ones of the people injured or killed to also play along (and all of their friends and loved ones).

I don't disagree with that at all, but was more addressing the notion of believing the media presentation of information.  Anything can be believably faked these days, and 'video' or other visual evidence does not imply 'truth.'

There is no doubt that media is driving some stories akin to WAG THE DOG.  In fact, there is a documentary about social media (GENERATION LIKE) that has a section showing a "live stream" news show driving their own stories...it's pretty interesting, really. They "tell people" what is important, and then, after the mention, the web traffic of those stories skyrockets and they can THEN point to "see, look how popular this is."

So, at least in pop culture related stories, WAG THE DOG is documented as happening.  Would not surprise me to see substantiation of the effect in other areas of "news" as well.

Conspiracy theories in general break down with 'numbers.' The number of people that to need to be involved or 'in on the secret' for some of the pet theories gets pretty crazy.

[zombie no.one]

Alan Moore perfectly expresses my own view on conspiracy theories here.

http://youtu.be/NgSbaKpCjq4

I'd say he's not so much talking about conspiracy theories as conspiracy theorISTS, and that's an important distinction.

anyone who identifies themselves as a 'conspiracy theorist' is not to be trusted - and likewise anyone who declares that all officially documented versions of events are unequivocally 'the truth' is not to be trusted either. Everything needs to be judged as objectively as possible on its own merits, and doing that will not make you a conspiracy theorist if you then happen to distrust certain officially presented narratives.

[JaseSF]

They faked the moon landing is one conspiracy theory. Someone was probably watching Capricorn One a bit too seriously.

I'm not sure it's a conspiracy but our world, in large part due to overabundance of political correctness, is becoming more and more like the worlds portrayed in Harrison Bergeron and  Idiocracy. I also feel there's an emasculation of men trend with today's society.

[dean]

So that's why you always answer my posts. 

I like to keep the crazies close. It's why I come here...

[lester1/2jr]

liberals used to believe that Reagan told the ayatollahs to hold off on releasing the hostages till after he was elected "Hi, this is Ronnie, the eagle flies at midnight, ixnay on the Eleasray"

[Olivia Bauer]

Whaaaat? The streets were covered in blood and body parts!

You mean like is shown in every horror movie with any FX budget at all?

I'm not saying it was a hoax or was staged, but do you really think the visual impact part of such a hoax would be all that hard to pull off?  After all, that's why these theories gain so much traction...because they are just believable enough to hook just enough people to gain critical mass.

Check out the movie WAG THE DOG (1997) if you have not seen it. That film came out when a lot of folks were claiming the Clinton Administration was doing exactly that. The film is very much worth a watch.

I've seen convincing movie gore. But there is no way in hell someone could orchestrate that in real time.

They would also have to bribe the cops, forensics, witnesses, the victims, the victims' family, the press, and somehow convince the bomber to go to trial (where be was given the death penalty). Not to mention there was a second bomber, his cousin who was killed by police.

[indianasmith]

Exactly!  Most conspiracies fall into the "a secret too big to keep" category.

I have a former student who is absolutely convinced 9/11 was an inside job carried out by our own government.  I asked him once:
"How many people do you think it would take to carry out a conspiracy of that magnitude?  And what are the odds that not one of them spilled the beans?"

Folks like this are impervious to logic and facts; when I mentioned to one 9/11 "Truther" that MIT had completely debunked the idea that the impact of a jetliner could never have brought down the twin towers, his immediate response was "Oh, they're in on the fix!"

Really?  MIT???

[zombie no.one]

a conspiracy as big as 9/11 cannot be proven or debunked on one piece of evidence alone. The whole argument from both sides is so massive and complex that you'd probably need 100 years to examine all the ins and outs...

How about the bible as an example of conspiracy theory central... I'm sure any dedicated Christian guy who turned up to work one morning, took their boss to one side and calmly explained that the entire world was being manipulated and controlled by "the evil one" would probably be asked to clear their desk and leave, yet there is is in black & white (1 John 5:19)

[Trevor]

They faked the moon landing is one conspiracy theory. Someone was probably watching Capricorn One a bit too seriously.

 

[ER]

The theory that Trevor's underwear is actually brand spanking clean, and rumors to the contrary were spread by jealous people wearing skid-marked briefs.

[ulthar]

I've seen convincing movie gore. But there is no way in hell someone could orchestrate that in real time.

Who says it has to be done in real time?  That's the ENTIRE POINT of the Sandy Hook "truthers," for example...that the whole enchilada was one giant, staged production.

Were you in Boston on the day of the bombing?  If not, you are taking the word of people who claim to have been there and witnessed it as real.

Now, it does get nutty to believe the conspiracy claims as the number of people involved grows, but their entire point is that strictly speaking, and based on objectively verifiable data,  you don't know.

I can see their point. I am VERY skeptical of EVERYTHING I hear on the news.  Journalism is no longer a field of integrity (if it every really was...), and those in that field do manipulate information and the presentation of information every day. They do this even for stories that don't have the 'legs' of a larger story like the Boston bombing or Sandy Hook or 9/11.

Really; watch the movie WAG THE DOG and watch the documentary GENERATION LIKE.  There are a few others, such as the documentary STARSUCKERS that touch on this stuff as well.

Or, do you also think there is ANYTHING "real" about "Reality TV?"

The short version of all this is that people don't latch onto these conspiracy theories in a vacuum.  Their willingness to believe this stuff is based on a lot of fact where such manipulations are DOCUMENTED to occur.  The only thing that becomes debatable is "scale."

[lester1/2jr]

ulthar-

No one is saying there aren't conspiracies.

Here's one from a few months ago

http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/16/media/richard-engel-nbc-news/

Richard Engel was kidnapped by what he believed were Shia militants. They played Shia stuff on their phones and had Shia symbols spray painted on the wall. One blogger, who is from the middle east, thought the whole thing made no sense because they would have had no reason to do that and the symbols and other things in the video and story seemed phony.

It turns out: he was right! there WAS a conspiracy to manipulate the media into thinking Engel had been kidnapped by these particular forces in order to try and get western support for something or other.


At the same time, most events can be explained pretty basically

9/11 was carried out by Muslim terrorists who want the United States out of the middle east, have bombed US interests/ embassies etc before, and who through a series of steps gained control of an aircraft yadda yadda

I've asked 9/11 truthers what they think happened. None of them have an answer. were the planes radio controlled? were the people on the plane CIA agents willing to die for the CIA?

The Boston Bombing was carried out by people who we know spent months building the bombs, watching jihadist videos, we have their search histories, the crime itself was similar to attacks carried out in the region of the world the two brothers were from. The other theories stink and fall apart under the most basic scrutiny.

People can believe what they want but there is a measure called "quality". just because someone has another theory doesn't mean it's good.

[Skull]

My wife something like this:

The amazing part about fake Big Foot sightings is the number of people dressed as Big Foot and sighted while walking in the woods... Those Big Foot costumes are not cheap. :)