Tabloid shit rather than actual journalism. Oh, c'mon. Really? "Pizzagate" was shown to be false years ago. :lol:

An example of a "true conspiracy theory" please. — 180 Proof

The only very specific conspiracy theories I know for sure are true are regarding conspiracies I've been personally involved in, featuring me as a manager conspiring with other managers.

It's harder with large public events, like 9/11. The more specific the conspiracy theory, the less likely it is to be true. I know with a high degree of certainty that building 7 did not collapse from office fires (just from watching the footage), and I can infer that there was some kind of conspiracy involved there, but exactly what it was I have no idea. So that's a true but very vague theory.

What about the theory that the Moon landing was staged by Stanley Kubrick? I even had my own just now. I thought a program on TV was staged. What about the theory claiming that elementary particles are truly elementary, while seeing them as composite can solve many unsolved mysteries. Is the standard model a conspiracy theory?

:rofl:

There was a plot to knock down the WTC and it succeeded. "The conspiracy" that those building were brought down by US government actors is simply unfounded. I watched the event unfold from just before the second airliner crashed into the tower as it happened from a Brooklyn apartment window and then rooftop. I've never had grounds to fill the gaps of what I observed or is publicly known with idle speculations which only raise more questions than they answer. The "truther conspiracy" about 9-11 is simply nonsense.

St. Michael’s Church, Fort Walton, Kansas. Front pew, right leg. Hollow.

Conspiracy theory? Old wine in a new bottle.

See :point:

Maya (/ˈmɑːjə/; Devanagari: माया, IAST: māyā), literally "illusion" or "magic", has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In later Vedic texts, Māyā connotes a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem." — Maya(Wikipedia)

The evil demon, also known as Descartes' demon, malicious demon and evil genius, is an epistemological concept that features prominently in Cartesian philosophy. In the first of his 1641 Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes imagines that an evil demon, of "utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me." This evil demon is imagined to present a complete illusion of an external world, so that Descartes can say, "I shall think that the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds and all external things are merely the delusions of dreams which he has devised to ensnare my judgement. I shall consider myself as not having hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses, but as falsely believing that I have all these things." — Deus deceptor (Wikipedia)

The Matrix Film Series

The simulation hypothesis is a proposal regarding the nature of existence which posits that all of existence is an artificial simulation, such as a computer simulation. Some versions rely on the development of a simulated reality, a proposed technology that would be able to convince its inhabitants that the simulation was "real". — Simulation Hypothesis

There was a plot to knocked down the WTC and it succeeded. — 180 Proof

Was it a conspiracy as well as a plot? A secret plot just is a conspiracy isn't it?

There is no single truther conspiracy. I don't believe any particular one.

Was it a conspiracy as well as a plot? — bert1

I'm not aware of any compelling evidence of a "conspiracy by the US government" to cover-up what actually happened on "9-11". Snowden? Assange? Wikileaks? Trump Administration (populated by "truthers" with access to "official secrets")? FSB/GRU? Nada.

:yawn:

A secret plot just is a conspiracy isn't it?

Think of it this way: 'a criminal enterprise (e.g. gang, cartel) colluding with law enforcement officials' corresponds to a conspiracy and 'laundering illicit drug money' or 'bribing a judge' or 'robbing a bank', etc correspond to plots.

I defended one of five people (the ring leader) charged with conspiracy. The rest plead out but my guy walked. I found conspiracy to be what they called it: "The prosecutor's darling." The Soviets were masters. I did a lot of research on it and found that a zealous defense could really trip up the state. While one might argue that the criminal charge of conspiracy is different than the type of conspiracy we are talking about here, they aren't too far apart. When you start peeling the onion, you often find there is no nut inside. I forgot what all I argued, but it was not worth the time and resources for the state to continue the charge.

The point here, I think, is that the willing suspension of disbelief is a good and fun thing for conspiracy theories. But after a relaxing respite from the real world, you don't walk out of the theater thinking that it was a thought-provoking movie.

We have other movies for that. We should try to learn to tell the difference. Peel the onion. Look for the nut. Be willing to walk away when you don't have anything.

this is boring me stupid

Gulf of Tonkin, Project MK Ultra, Tuskegee Syphillis study…its actually not that hard to find them if you actually look.
Those three in particular involve government cover up and/or secrecy. All are a matter of public record now.

The fact you can reference crazy ones like flat earth or lizard people which are clearly untrue doesn't mean they all aren’t true. We have a word for that kind of logic.
The question of conspiracy theories isnt about the conclusions, its about how they got there. Like all inquiry we should follow evidence and rationality.

The question of conspiracy theories isnt about the conclusions, its about how they got there. Like all inquiry we should follow evidence and rationality. — DingoJones

Yes, of course. Problem is, your rationality and evidence might be part of a conspiracy also.

In what way?

In what way? — DingoJones

I the way that what you perceive as reality and rational evidence for it today, might be as unreal and flavored with irrational evidence in the reality of tomorrow. I tried to explain this wrt to the standard model in elementary particle physics. The very thought that quarks and leptons are composite is by most physicists regarded as irrational or it's at least ignored. All evidence is interpreted in the standard way. While the composite model has clear advantages and explaining power.

Gulf of Tonkin, Project MK Ultra, Tuskegee Syphillis study… — DingoJones

IMO these were simply US government plots. Under the aegis of "official secrecy" they do not constitute conspiracies, or a grand conspiracy as such, but in their days, respectively, "legal" (not ethical, not just) covert activities. Cover stories – the clandestine m.o. – are not necessarily "cover-ups" (e.g. obstruction of justice, interferring with a judicial preceeding, witness tampering / intimidation, falsifying records, etc).

The fact you can reference crazy ones like flat earth or lizard people which are clearly untrue — DingoJones

If I look around me, neither flat Earth, nor global Earth theories are true. They are both conspiracy theories, as far as I'm concerned. The flat-space theory in cosmology is a conspiracy theory all the same, like the standard model in physics, where all sounds that appear to be questioning the fundamentality of the basic ingredients are slammed down by trying to keep them out from forums ("low quality", or "sub-standard quality", very appropriate in the context of the standard model), from publications (the peer review considered it nonsense), popular press (scientific journalists fearing for their jobs), and academic life (because of the same fear).

I chose those three to specifically deny that counter argument. They were not legal. They involved lying to the public and to other branches of government to which the perpetrators were supposed to be accountable. In each case, efforts were made to hide these activities from again, other parts of the government to which they were accountable.
Thats enough to call it a conspiracy, and doing otherwise seems like bending a ways over to avoid using the term “conspiracy”. Understandable given the associating theories I offered above, but for myself I will not concede language for the sake of optics.
Also, there are confessions by perpetrators of these sorts of conspiracies detailing how the phrase “conspiracy theory” was purposefully tainted and smeared so its use would have exactly the effect of easy dismissal. Its a language game, and there are detailed expositions about these sorts of tactics.

That sounds more like error than conspiracy. There are conventions and orthodoxies in all human institutions, including scientific academia. Calling it conspiracy is an unnecessary dilution of the term.

That sounds more like error than conspiracy. There are conventions and orthodoxies in all human institutions, including scientific academia. Calling it conspiracy is an unnecessary dilution of the term. — DingoJones

It is the way the reality operates. What is a conspiracy today can be reality tomorrow.

Dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous Period), after living on Earth for about 165 million years. — www.usgs.gov

Approximately 300,000 years ago, the first Homo sapiens — anatomically modern humans — arose alongside our other hominid relatives. — www.forbes.com

Humans have been humans for a period of time that's 0.2% of the dinosaur age. Look how much we've achieved but among all that one particular ability stands out - space exploration. My theory is that dinosaurs in the 165 million years they were on earth perfected space tech and left the earth for another planet in another solar system, perhaps even to another galaxy, leaving earth to mammals, bequeathing it to, ultimately, humans who, I suppose, have to follow suit.

This is my favorite conspiracy theory. :grin:

The fact you can reference crazy ones like flat earth or lizard people which are clearly untrue doesn't mean they all aren’t true. — DingoJones

And here is misunderstanding regarding such conspiracies.

lizard people, those proclaimed by David Icke, this isn't really a conspiracy in full meaning, obviously there is no such thing as "lizard people" literary, instead he is figuratively referring to tiny portion of wealthy individuals that have control over wide aspect of economy world wide such as banksters and similar master minds who push new world order agenda, which is a fact that is observable.

A better question is, why does he speak of them as "lizards" rather than referring to them directly?

And "flat earth" isn't conspiracy either except it's labeled as such, obviously it's clear the earth is not flat plate, but in old times no one was aware that the earth is round and that it's not the center of universe, not even the church.
If the church leaders knew that fact (or didn't believed) then surely wouldn't call N. Copernicus heretic.
Even ancients believed the Earth is the center around which stars are circling.

But that's not unknown, including the answer to, why was flat earth labeled as "conspiracy" (much later) even though it has nothing to do with conspiracy as theory or intentional plotting?

Also there is a fundamental difference between "lizard people" and "flat plate earth" in that lizard people "conspiracy" is offensive while flat plate is actually a offensive conspiracy of non conspiracy.

Humans have been humans for a period of time that's 0.2% of the dinosaur age. Look how much we've achieved but among all that one particular ability stands out - space exploration. My theory is that dinosaurs in the 165 million years they were on earth perfected space tech and left the earth for another planet in another solar system, perhaps even to another galaxy, leaving earth to mammals, bequeathing it to, ultimately, humans who, I suppose, have to follow suit.

This is my favorite conspiracy theory. — TheMadFool

Not bad, it seems to support the origin of "lizard people" :grin:

:smirk:

And "flat earth" isn't conspiracy either except it's labeled as such, obviously it's clear the earth is not flat plate, but in old times no one was aware that the earth is round and that it's not the center of universe, not even the church. — SpaceDweller

Well... If I look around me the world is neither flat nor global. The same can be said about cosmologists, being mostly flat spacers.

The thing with Flat-Earthers is that they see the imprinting, imposing, of the globe on the people as a conspiracy.

The thing with Flat-Earthers is that they see the imprinting, imposing, of the globe on the people as a conspiracy. — Verdi

Flat earthers are jokers, a kind of trolls having fun, (but there are exceptions)

Most of them don't know anything about flat earth, they don't even know to point out bible verses that support their flat earth idea.
In fact there is no such thing as "flat earth" in the bible to begin with, only allusions that contributed to false dogma.

How many people would have been labeled a "conspiracy theorist" for saying the Gulf of Tonkin incident never took place or was staged by the US? [1] Or what about the US government carrying out radiological experiments on US citizens for decades? [2]

If they're capable of sending US citizens to war under false pretenses, or carrying out Unit 731-esque experiments on their own citizens, do people really need any more incentive to mistrust their government every step of the way?

I'm not aware of any compelling evidence of a "conspiracy by the US government" to cover-up what actually happened on "9-11". — 180 Proof

You know almost no country in the world (at least in modern times) goes to war without having an excuse (aka. Casus belli) to do so?

Exceptions are chained (subsequent) wars, such as continued but independent wars against terrorism.

I'm going to kill myself from boredom, but to buy myself a bit of time I'll make another post. I think the issue here is that the meaning of 'conspiracy theory' can no longer be deduced from the meaning of 'conspiracy' and 'theory', both of which are totally respectable concepts. What has happened, at some point, maybe in the last thirty years or so (I don't know, don't really care) is that the combination 'conspiracy theory' has had falsity and irrationality imported into its definition. That's the way 180 is using the word-combo, I guess, and I am sick to say, consistently with current usage. I'm objecting to that usage, because I'm an old cunt. I hate it when people hijack words. Happens all the time. It's perfectly clear to me that 180 does believe some conspiracy theories, because he thinks plots happen. Plots are conspiracies by definition. And theories are theories by definition. Therefore plot theories, some of which he believes, are also conspiracy theories, if we take the meanings of those words separately.

It'd be interesting (not) to find out the earliest use of the 'conspiracy theory' combo implying falsity. Any ideas? I'm not interested by the way. I don't give a fuck.

political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith suggested that the term entered everyday language in the United States after 1964, the year in which the Warren Commission published its findings on the Kennedy assassination

wikipedia

My opinion however is that conspiracy theory has it's origins with UFO and alien abductions, it all started 1961 (3 years before 1964)
Example story

My reasoning is that UFO stories were much more plausible and had more potential to be labeled as "conspiracy theory" rather than Kennedy assasination.

That's interesting (I hate to say). Looks like the term goes back longer than I thought. According to Wikipedia there may have been a time that it wasn't implicitly derogatory.

Not bad, it seems to support the origin of "lizard people" :grin: — SpaceDweller

Yes, I do recall reading that a coupla suns ago. We have bigger worries though viz. God. In an odd and very peculiar way we know He's the one behind all this - from paper cuts to volcanoes to magnitude 9 and higher earthquakes to the tsunamis that follow them - and yet no conspiracy theorist ever writes a single line on/about the guy upstairs, the so-called white-bearded skydaddy of religion. It's as if we've blocked him out like we do sometimes to someone who's a royal pain in the ass ( :lol: ). As Willaim Cowper said, 1788/1778 AD, "God moves in mysterious ways". Well then God's the mother of all, Texas-sized, conspiracy theory there is.

Just a moment...there's someone knocking at my door. :wink: