Conspiracy theories, or ignorance is bliss?

I read something interesting the other week, an article about why conspiracy theorists seem to believe ‘all’ of the theories out there.
It basically said (IIRC) all people look for patterns in things, and when you find a pattern, you get a hit of dopamine.
But in some people, because of a genetic difference, that dopamine hit is much, much, higher. Those people are far more likely to believe conspiracy theories, which explains why the people that believe them, are very likely to believe ‘all’ of them.
This does not mean that all, or indeed any of them are necessarily wrong of course.

A work colleague introduced me to Thrive the other day.

Which is?

We had the covid protestors near my shop last Sunday.
WTF are they actually protesting about?

Yeah, what's Thrive?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2063834/reviews this maybe? Not watched it, and not likley to either. Maybe ignorance is bliss indeed!

I think it's a conspiracy for the OP to get everyone to find out what Thrive is.
I'm out.

WTF are they actually protesting about?

Probably the optional vaccine.

WTF are they actually protesting about?

what have you got? 5G, anti western medicine, anti modernity, anti-compulsion, anti the societal contract...We get them at the surgery I manage, I take their leaflets, smile and tell them to leave. I'n not interesting in getting into a debate with them.

What if all these conspiracies are one big conspiracy?.
THEY makes you think.

We've had one recently at the site I work at. Luckily he has left now. Amongst his theories were that having the Covid injection make you 4 times more likely to catch Covid than without having it. The Queen had been dead for 6 months, she had been kept on a life support to preserve the body. We never did get the reason why anyone would do that, as they have announced she was dead anyway.
And, the most bizarre, microplastics are genetically changing us, and babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago. He is convinced. When we (all) pointed out that our childrens genitals were never measured when born, he just said a Nurse does it when we werent there, and all the data is online. Of course we all laughed at him for his idiocy.

^^^*reaches for tape measure

What if all these conspiracies are one big conspiracy?.

Some sort of Great Reset.

, the most bizarre, microplastics are genetically changing us, and babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than

Tell him to watch Crimes of the Future 🤣

Some sort of Great Reset

Yeah that.

We all like to think we know what's going on but getting your head round reality is difficult. It's much easier to just believe a nice, simple conspiracy theory.

Mate of mine did a huge amount of work about 9/11 and the collapse of one of the buildings. He even produced a film about his findings and he certainly had a pretty solid argument with plenty to back up his thoughts.

Problem is, he then went down the rabbit hole and everything's a conspiracy now, especially after covid and he's lost most of the people who thought his original stuff had some merit.

martymac

I read something interesting the other week, an article about why conspiracy theorists seem to believe ‘all’ of the theories out there.
.......
This does not mean that all, or indeed any of them are necessarily wrong of course.

This could almost benefit from deciding what a conspiracy theory actually is?
Just off the top of my head .... I guess if it's "true" (or even true in terms of beyond reasonable doubt) is it a conspiracy theory?
(Perhaps a different question is are we taking a scientific definition of theory or "public use" definition? That might seem pedantic except many conspiracies seem to make a big deal - like "evolution is just a theory")

One other reason people might believe more than one conspiracy theory might simply be because they are true and have good evidence?

Another reason might simply be that there are different levels of evidence that may require a detailed expert knowledge to question.

An example might be flat earthers like to say gravity doesn't exist... which to some extent is partially true in that gravity doesn't exist as it's been taught to them in school HOWEVER should someone actually understand gravity existing as a displacement to space-time then the idea of a "shape" to earth, the solar system or anything else is a pointless question without the frame of reference.

However ... this then extends to "fool me once shame on you"... if someone is lied to about one thing they can understand why should they trust something they can't understand without the expert knowledge?

HOWEVER... Even though I think mostly it's simply a mix of laziness, stupidity and lack of morality.

e.g. You could question why our kids are being deliberately lied to by their science teachers following a curriculum that is deliberately set out to force children to lie in order to get good marks?

Is that a conspiracy because for example we want kids to grow up into people who doubt anything a real scientist says? (and by extension an economist or any other expert) or as I believe is far more likely that our education system simply doesn't care about scientific truth and doesn't care if it leads to increasing numbers of people believing in conspiracy theories.

You could say the same over government spread covid misinformation... you didn't need to be a social scientist to work out that lying about the reason to wear a mask was in anything beyond short term going to lead to anything other than mass non-compliance to the point where wearing one to protect the vulnerable became all but pointless.

Or if we go further out on the "conspiracy of conspiracy theories"??? Perhaps having the population believe in conspiracy theories is part of the plan? The "mother" of all conspiracy theories (at least in modern times) could be Area 51 ... where perhaps the idea was it was better for the public to think aliens crash landed than have it public knowledge where they were developing and testing new military planes?

 It’s much easier to just believe a nice, simple conspiracy theory.

Some are less "nice" than others

The NSA mass surveillance was the one that I was astonished with.  I wouldn't have thought it would have been technically possible to process that much data but I was wrong

fun chart

We all like to think we know what’s going on but getting your head round reality is difficult. It’s much easier to just believe a nice, simple conspiracy theory.

As complex and baroque as many conspiracy theories are they're actually about trying to make the world simpler to grasp. Its much more comforting to think theres some sort of shadowy orgamisation  making bad things happen because it makes it feel like the solutions to the worlds problems are comparatively simple. A reality where things happen because of huge random mixture bad planning, no planning, a lack of joined up vision, human failings, unintended consequences and that basically things often happen for no reason is much more difficult to digest. And its depressing as its makes the world too complicated to even describe let alone fix.

Part of the thrill really is just making the world simpler.

And, the most bizarre, microplastics are genetically changing us

That's actually fairly plausible.

You could question why our kids are being deliberately lied to by their science teachers following a curriculum that is deliberately set out to force children to lie in order to get good marks?

Can you explain what on earth you mean by this?

Some sort of Great Reset.

I've taken to replying that Lanzarote isn't that great a resort, and then walk off.

The “mother” of all conspiracy theories (at least in modern times) could be Area 51 … where perhaps the idea was it was better for the public to think aliens crash landed than have it public knowledge where they were developing and testing new military planes?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQ_FsmU19g

This is a really good UFO video, seems well researched and believable, but I am not an expert.
He does a lot on paranormal and conspiracy theories, sets out 'what happened' and then picks holes in it is the standard format. This one is a bit different.
As he says, if we can debunk 99% of these theories, doesn't that make the other 1% much more interesting?

babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago.

So governments around the world have been measuring and keeping records for at least 50 years then?

Thing is most people in power actually aren't that clever...

The organisations that actually run countries civil service,MI?, CIA, etc are too busy stopping the people in power ****ing up.

The real control os global finacial its not a conspiracy more a system.

Birds aren't real.

Some are less “nice” than others

At the top of that inverted triangle are theories that are people revelling in their disgust - all the satanic child-organ-harvesting bullshit. Spite and disgust are much bigger motivating factors in our lives than we like to think and theres a bunch of key ingredients - shadowy under world, children being 'harvested' and ungodly rituals- and the idea that its all happening under people's noses. When they all happen to come together in one package  the revoltingness of it is too thrilling.

Its something that has happened throughout history but social media has become an unwitting accelerator of. Facebook for instance used to have a very simple engagement for driving content 'Likes' - 'like' a post and its algorithm will direct other content to you that it thinks you'll like too with the simple aim of encouraging you to spend more time on the platform - but thats fine because your spending that time consuming stuff you 'like'. . But they changed that to a range of responses. People often used to moan that there was no 'dislike' button but Facebook wouldn't want that because its a criticism of the original poster that would discourage people from posting as much in future, but instead it gave you a range of responses rather than just 'like':  "Love", "Haha", "Wow", "Sad", and "Angry". What people dont really realise is those responses are scored - 'like' and 'love' have low scores and 'sad' and 'angry' have high scores. If you express sadness, shock or anger about a topic Facebook will feed you more things to be shocked and angry about - because you'll spend more time on the site being thrilled by the horribleness of things.

Its nothing new - politics and tabloid journalism have been inventing things to be angry about for centuries - I remember the Daily Express once had a full page headline that simply said 'IT JUST GOT WORSE'. All social media has is a much faster feedback loop and they've removed humans from that loop.

Before 'Pizza Gate' and their ilk a bunch of very similar sounding theories were popping up in East Asia  - rumours would suddenly spring up out of nowhere implicating a figure or a group - with all the key ingredients - people in power, secrecy ,disappearing children and their organs, rituals - they'd escalate rapidly and  resulted in tragic mob violence and lynchings of innocent people. They're not connected to each other or to any of the nasty theories in the states. Its just nasty rumours throwing every horrible idea someone can think of into the same pot - but in a social media age sometimes all the ingredient come together to make something explosive.

Mate of mine did a huge amount of work about 9/11 and the collapse of one of the buildings. He even produced a film about his findings and he certainly had a pretty solid argument with plenty to back up his thoughts.

What were his conclusions and arguments . It was all a government plot to start a war on Muslims ? How did it differ from the findings reached by multidues of proper engineers.

https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html

If you want to arrive at a particular conclusion over a complex subject you can always find "evidence" to support a particular narrative.

The “mother” of all conspiracy theories (at least in modern times) could be Area 51

Actually the Mom and Pop is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A Russian disinformation campaign in 1903 that created a hoax document reporting to be a jewish plan for world domination. There was nothing new abut the anti semitism but its where the idea of a some sort of global cabal comes from and where every theory that  focuses on 'elites' 'the deep state'  or whatever operating behind governments or financial institutions or the media, you can basically substitute the word 'Jews' and find its precursor in that hoax document (which is basically a copy and paste mix of political satires.)

You could question why our kids are being deliberately lied to by their science teachers following a curriculum that is deliberately set out to force children to lie in order to get good marks?

Can you explain what on earth you mean by this?

Yeah, enquiring minds want to know.

I gave up on Fb five or six years ago, partly because I had someone with me to think about, having got back in touch via Fb, but more so because it was just becoming toxic - trying to deal with family posting crap about chemtrails and that sort of stuff was exhausting, so I stopped looking at it. I still have it on my tablet, just because messenger is useful for a bunch of us to keep in touch, but that’s about it.

Ive always thought that for Americans they have to deal with the fact that there was something very fishy about the JGK assassination. If you have a potential massive conspiracy at the heart of your recent history then it makes it much more believable that there many other massive conspiracies out their.

Some sort of Great Reset.

Nope. Aliens are real. Have been visiting earth for millenia preparing us for the invasion. The means of enslavement will be via a black oil. The governments are in on it. We will all get stung by genetically modified bees. There is a spaceship in Antarctica. There's a bloke can slither though drain pipes.*

* I may have watched X files once or twice 🤷🏼‍♂️🤣

JGK

Wait, what? Is this a new theory...?

2 questions regarding aliens.

1. Why are they so keen on anal probes

2. Why do they only abduct incomprehensible idiots (my only basis for this definition are my own prejudices) and they never take doctors, boffins or experts?

Thanks for the handy graphic, I had no idea that Prince - now King - Charles was a vampire.

he certainly had a pretty solid argument with plenty to back up his thoughts.

Plenty to back up but probably all easily debunked.

Conspiracy chart:

There's a least one, possibly two, that I would move from 'detached from reality' to 'we have questions'. I guess I must be a conspiracy theorist.

babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago

Would it matter if they did?

babies born now, have a smaller gap between their anus and genitals than 50 years ago

And when they grow up they are far fatter and taller than 50 years ago.
Obviously being farmed.

I see no one from Finland has posted on here yet....

regarding aliens.

Life imitating art. Nobody made a claim of being abducted by aliens until after Bugs Bunny was abducted by Marvin the Martian.

I had no idea that Prince – now King – Charles was a vampire.

I could live with him being a vampire, It his hands made from raw sausages that I'm worried about.

Life imitating art. Nobody made a claim of being abducted by aliens until after Bugs Bunny was abducted by Marvin the Martian.

Or, Bugs Bunny (and other theatrical influences) gave a potential explanation to encounters folk had been experiencing since biblical times but had previously put down to divine intervention since space travel wasn't so imminently possible in the public consciousness pre Sputnik.

1. Why are they so keen on anal probes

They don’t, that’s deliberate disinformation to make them sound absurd an inhibit belief in the truth.

They just shove the probe up the Urethra.

They just shove the probe up the Urethra

When it's my turn for abduction, I'll take the anal probe if it's all the same with you 😬