Conspiracy Theorists?

morstar

Are they the product of inflexible minds that have to believe there is order to everything?

As a child, I had a firm belief that adults knew exactly what they were doing and life was very structured. It's anything but! Maybe some people just can't grasp this. I get that governments do some dodgy stuff. I strongly believe the US in particular wilfully promotes misinformation as it clouds the more subversive stuff they get up to. But world order idea is bonkers and it's messing up Cake Stop.

pblakeney

Paging Manc33!

I quite enjoy an Eton Mess. Just the way I like Cake Stop. It would be boring otherwise. :P

class5700

most conspiracy theories require the world to be very simple and easy to understand. anyone who does any studying of economics, politics, human behaviour, biology, physics, or geology will realise that the world is in fact extremely complicated and very difficult to understand.

alternatively, conspiracy theories require large numbers humans to be incredibly clever over a broad range of skills and to act in concert, despite the fact that we know that people are often very good at a narrow band of individual talents, but pretty average at most other things, and the fact that humans act in accordance to what they perceive to be their own self interests, which can change often and rapidly.

this all seems pretty obvious to me, as it would to anyone who has studied history, human behaviour, and who reads widely in different forms of media.

conspiracies absolutely do exist. they are regularly outed as such, but the bigger the conspiracy theory the more unlikely it is.

if you want to believe that the world is a simple place that is easy to understand, that is easily manipulated by highly intelligent, well informed and loyal conspirators, then good for you. you can also question whether the Earth has a group of mice living in the core that pulls on levers to make things happen, or that your father may not be your real father.

at a certain point you have to look at what is most likely and draw your faiths from that.

fundamentally, conspiracy theorists suffer from the desire to know more than others. humans usually value intelligence and knowledge, and appearing to be more knowledgeable, by having the 'inside scoop' that others are not privy to, is no doubt an enticing short-cut..

the more I read and study, the more I realise that the world is so vast and complicated that no one can purport to understand it. what is the famous quote about quantum mechanics? anyone who says they understand it is lying? I think a similar statement would apply to the world around us.

how on earth is anyone supposed to gauge the combined effects of so many competing interests in so many differing and changing environments to make a coherent picture of what is going on when and how? that is what is required just to understand the world, and then you have to world work with others, who apparently are collectively all-powerful and 100% loyal, to effect changes within it.

unlikely.

and don't feed the trolls.

chris_bass

Conspiracy theories are all built on the premise that if you can't disprove something it must be true, even if there is no proof it is actually true. And it is much harder to prove something didn't happen or isn't true than did or is.

For example it is impossible to prove you are not having an affair with someone's wife.

RDW

http://xkcd.com/258/

DeVlaeminck

I wouldn't want some blanket ban on conspiracy theories simply because it's better to keep an open mind on things - if people want to argue a case for something let them go ahead - if they can't provide any evidence then just ignore them and they'll shut up. Even people who are trolling or slightly mad aren't going to keep it up if nobody engages with them - trouble is people do even if it's calling them a troll or mad.

If you look at conspiracy theories - was there secret services involvement in Diana's death? Was there a high level cover up of paedophilia in govt ? Were there plans including elements of our secret services for a coup d'etat against the Wilson govt in the 70s ? Was there American involvement in 9/11.

Now at one time all of these would have been seen as totally ridiculous but there is good evidence now to suggest that one or probably two of them are true - who knows what we now see as ridiculous might turn out to have been possible. I don't agree that conspiracy theorists have inflexible minds - in some cases I think it's the opposite - perhaps their minds are too flexible that they have difficultly judging the likelihood of different possibilities.

RDW

I'm afraid you're all missing the big picture here. Don't you think it's suspicious that there are so many conspiracy theories, and that so many people believe them? The only possible explanation is that some sinister shadowy organisation, which probably reports to a cabal of thirty-third degree Freemasons, Google executives and DIA agents at Bohemian Grove, is generating these theories and using the Internet (probably created by DARPA for this very purpose) to propagate them. Their motive, of course, is to draw our attention away from what is really going on...

Edit: Observant readers will notice that this comment has been edited since I posted it. But by whom, and to what purpose? Could it be that the original version contained information so dangerous that it had to be suppressed immediately?

rick_chasey

If you're lucky enough that the aliens haven't got around to twisting your mind, and you manage to put on your tinfoil hat before their rays put you into the real matrix which in turn is propped up by the illuminati (who have cut a deal with the Aliens), then you'll be able to share the wisdom to those less fortunate see the light.

pinno

So what your saying is that the conspiracists are conspiring to manipulate the minds of the non-conspiracists in a conspiracy conspired by conspiring overlords.
My keyboard will soon be worn out and therefore there must have been someone who cleverly planned that.

The next time you hear clicks and crackles whilst you are on the phone, it's them - they're listening.

We should start a new thread: The great tin foil hat debate.

RDW

team47b

Conspiracy theories gives stupid people something to talk about.

How to kill a thread, stone dead

Or is it?

RDW

team47b wrote:

Conspiracy theories gives stupid people something to talk about.

How to kill a thread, stone dead

Or is it?

Looks like you're using reverse psychology on us (typical MKUltra psy-ops technique!) to keep this thread going for your own sinister purposes. Or is that just what you want us to think? Is this a double, triple or quadruple bluff? Who are you really working for?

team47b

RDW wrote:

team47b wrote:

Conspiracy theories gives stupid people something to talk about.

How to kill a thread, stone dead

Or is it?

Looks like you're using reverse psychology on us (typical MKUltra psy-ops technique!) to keep this thread going for youw own sinister purposes. Or is that just what you want us to think? Is this a double, triple or quadruple bluff? Who are you really working for?

I work for...ooo you almost got me there

mfin

If you’re pre-disposed to believe unrelated conspiracy theory upon unrelated conspiracy theory to be true, then there’s potentially something odd about you. But, nowadays these unrelated theories on different topics are brought together on websites where a lot of pre-disposed auto-believers hang out and get exposed to lots more theories and are sucked into it more and more.

I have read a massive amount about the JFK assassination over the years as I find all the information around it fascinating. But, that said, I do not find the various conspiracy theories interesting in themselves as they are never conclusive otherwise they’d be fact and not ‘theories’.

Believing in stacks of theories, that by very definition are not fact, is odd.

chris_bass

manc33 has kind of inspired me to watch some of the theories online and my favorite is the one which seemed to suggest back to the future predicted 911. I thought it was a joke at first but it was entirely serious.

They all seem to be based on something which might be plausible and then searching through huge quantities of data and accounts to find something which either backs it up or at least doesn't disprove it.

They often call on 'experts' who are often people who have long since retired, probably with little to do and fancy their 5 minutes of fame.

morstar

Since starting the thread, I have come to the conclusion that conspiracy theorists are part of the conspiracy.
It all makes perfect sense. Get your ugly truth out there via the mouths of those who appear externally to be a tad eccentric. The natural tendency of 'normal' folk is to then dismiss the unpallatable story being told by an eccentric character.
All about controlling the message. Now who should expose conspiracy theorists as a government conspiracy?

pinno

I don't trust you an inch Morstar. I think you're one of them. It makes perfect sense that they sent you and I did pick up signals through my Cz73 Colander transmission decoder suggesting that.

morstar

Would that be a government issue Cz73 perchance?

pinno

I couldn't possibly say.

Do you own a heat lamp and is it mounted in a room lit with a red lamp and do you bask under it on top of a log?

MisterMuncher

They aren't theories. Theories, in the sense of a hypothesis explain phenomena, make predictions and are falsifiable. No conspiracy theory ever does, and are only ever applied to events in hindsight.

It's mental masturbation, a cheap holiday in someone else's misery, and a way to feel clever. They're almost as bad as those lying turds who rob the recently bereaved claiming they can speak with the departed.

DeVlaeminck

Not really true is it. A conspiracy theory usually does explain an event or events, they usually are falsifiable if you had sufficient knowledge. There is no difference between a conspiracy theory and a genuine theory in the sense you suggest there are just theories which have more or less evidence to support them.

I still say there are examples of what would have been called conspiracy theories which are now accepted to be at least likely explanations of what went on - I listed some above. Having an open mind on things means you are more likely to see things in terms of likelihood than definitely true and definitely false. Of course when it comes to people claiming the world is run by reptilian shape changers you might say that lacks evidence to the extent it's beyond what it is reasonable to consider but stuff like CIA involvement in Kennedy's assasination, secret service involvement in Diana's death, cover up of paedophilia and child murder amongst British elites - strikes me these things are certainly possibly true or at least partially so.

There is a danger in just writing off stuff as conspiracy theory and there are people no doubt who have used that to escape scrutiny of their actions.

mr_goo

Dr David Kelly. Conspiracy? Probably.

pinno

Alexander Litvinenko. Conspiracy? Definitely.

RDW

A couple of days ago I posted my theory tying together ISIS, The Reptilians, the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, chemtrails, 9/11, Roswell, the 'moon landings', the CIA, and the JFK assassination. Now my post and the entire thread that contained it have vanished without trace! The Conspiracy is clearly at work right here on Bikeradar, and will not stop at using the most Orwellian methods to conceal the TRUTH! Now that they've eliminated the posts, can it be long before they go after the posters?

Mark my words - if any of us should mysteriously disappear in the middle of writing a

morstar

I see what you di

ddraver

I suspect that most of y'all arent taking this over seriously but you re interested in the people that believe these things then you can do a lot worse than read "Them" by Jon Ronson

My favourite bit is when he's discussing with an Pro-Isreal, Anti Anti-Semitism league in the US (who have become as batsh1t crazy as the people they purport to protect) and David Icke. They say that when Icke says Lizard he really means Jew and so should be castigated and silenced as a racist while Icke is saying, "no, no I really do mean lizard, big green things with tails"

crispybug2

Here is a nice disassembling of the poster boy of conspiracy theorists, Alex Jones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma72HO-Sf1E

Warning:- Contains swearing

MisterMuncher

To those vaguely rational, contrary evidence might work. To the true believer, everything is just more evidence of the conspiracy. None yet have been able to adequately explain what the secret world government are actually up to, beyond starting that various horrors are all part of their plan. Apparently the secret government is in fact Tzeench from Warhammer 40K.

Pituophis

Isn't science the gradual and meticulous disproval of other people's theories?
Maybe the conspiracy theorists will be proved correct given enough time!

I've kept reptiles most of my life, and just like people, some are amiable and some are down right nasty. But rest assured, they are just not interested enough to take over the world.

Or are they? :shock: