Know any conspiracy theorists?

I know a guy who's a fringe conspiracy theorist. We had many debates over beers about many of the classics, but his big one is that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated and perpetrated by the US government. He does agree that the world is round though, so he's got that going for him.

Conspiracy Theory is too general of a term and has been appropriated as a mechanism to discredit people who have naughty questions.

con·spir·a·cy
noun
a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.


the·o·ry
noun
a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.


Two perfectly valid words when put together seem to nullify each other. Every unraveled conspiracy that proved to be true started with a theory. This doesn't mean that embracing one means an alignment with all, but the tin foil hat seems to be a "one size fits all" proposition these days. Access to information and narratives is virtually unlimited these days. We are an info addled society and to "trust" any particular narrative brings with it an element of blind faith. More often than not dark holes hold nothing but dirt. But they are a perfect place to hide dark secrets, too. Critical thinking requires analysis, even if that means nothing more than trying to understand why conspiracy theories even exist.

So many non-political things have become magnetic and pulled to their respective poles. There are very few things opposing adherents can say "on that we can agree" in the process of discourse. Two people can make an agreement to avoid ad hominem attacks on each other in debate but quickly find surrogates for their disdain with their opponents "sources". These sources often involve statistics. From my place of employment all the way up to more grandiose things I have become aware of what I call statistical shadow puppetry. The objective of manipulating data presented as empirical evidence to project a predetermined conclusion.

It's hard to land on a comfortable conclusion these days. Maybe that's just how the aliens want us to be. 🤣

I wish more people would come to that realization and put it into practice.  All to often people with strong opinions about things turn about every conversation into something that accesses one of those those topics and then the hailstorm starts pouring from their lips.  Personally, I'm not interested and don't want to hear it.  Even if I agree with you.  If you insist then my 50 caliber mouth will go off and it's not going to be pleasant for anyone.

Everything is... weird right now. Everybody is trying to make sense of it, many (most?) are struggling to do so.

So just imagine a world where there was complete honesty about all the conspiracy topics. The reality is probably much worse, or more nefarious that what even they believe.

Speculation is a great thing, but solves nothing.

two conspiracy guys die in a car crash. They get to heaven and meet St. Peter at the gates. He welcomes them and they are excited and ask can me meet god? Of course. They meet him and say we have a really important question that we would like the answer to. OK-what's the question? What happened on 9/11? Did the government do this? God explains no, it was Bin Laden and there is no conspiracy. One guy turns to the other-"This is bigger than we thought."

BLASPHEMY!!!   

Some say that sunburst is...














...the Sign of the Devil!

I think social media exacerbates the whole conspiracy theory situation. The nature of the algorithms is such that a confirmation bias chamber is built specially-tailored for you. Critical thinking is out the window when folks enter into the echo chamber. We’re fed what keeps us focused on the screen.

Conspiracy theories used to be cool, especially the ones where you really couldn't prove or disprove. Today's are basically lies, that with a little logic and 'FACTS', you can easily disprove. But...some people fiercely believe these and you can't convince them otherwise.

Yeah, a brother in law. The world is flat and they’ve been lying to us. Doesn’t matter if you tell them then how do you explain ships disappearing over the horizon and flying in a plane how there is a curve to the atmosphere and the land and if there is a ship that gets near the edge do they just fall off. Doesn’t matter what you say he claims he has a reason but will have to get together sometime and he will explain. I do not waste my time. j
Everything it seems has a conspiracy. Oh and the weirdest some subscribe to is we are actually part of a computer simulation and every once in a while there is a glitch. Give me a break 😂

If I'm not mistaken, the term came into use after the Kennedy assassination to dismiss speculation about what happened.

The truth is that conspiracies are real.  Sometimes the conspiracy is the the occam's razor, most reasonable explanation.  The mafia is real, political corruption is real, people have lied to us.  Sometimes really far out things turn out to be true, too.  Who would've guessed Epstein's island was a real thing?

One of my favorite examples of this is how recently there were little hearings about UFO activity.  What is the explanation that ISN'T a "conspiracy theory"?  The three most likely explanations are:
1.  There are aliens, and the government has been hiding them.
2.  No aliens, but military is testing stuff and is okay with us thinking it is aliens to protect the secrets.
3.  None of these are true, but the gov't wanted a headline news story to push other stuff off of coverage (a couple of these things coincided with major Hunter Biden stories, for example).

Which one of those three opinions could I voice loudly and confidently and NOT be a conspiracy theorist?  I don't see any explanation for UFOs that doesn't involve a "conspiracy".  We're just picking our own flavor.

The problem is when people get addicted to the idea of being the insider, the one who knows everything and pities everyone else for falling for all of the lies.  These are the Dale Gribble people, who won't accept the most reasonable explanation for anything.  Then there are the kind I've worked with that will see a couple YouTube videos and be true believers pretty quickly.  I think people get tired of being lied to, and are desperate for a way to feel like they've found some truth.

Me?  Start with the most reasonable explanations and work your way up... but don't eliminate the possibility that the outlandish explanation could be the true one just because someone labels it a "conspiracy theory"; there's a non-zero chance it is being attacked that way because they don't want you asking those questions.  Also, try to remember "don't attribute to malevolence what can still be explained by incompetence".