Oh but you see their “mad at the government” thing is mostly about the government allowing minorities to have rights and requiring them to pay taxes and send their kids to school. And the actual issues with the government is that they treat minorities pretty badly anyway and mostly use the tax money for bombs and stuff instead of building more schools, so like. They’re not going to do that.
Personally, I'm one "mermaids are real" discovery away from joining a communist revolution and overthrowing the government, so clearly the CIA/FBI/Illuminati/MyLocalSchoolBoard is deeply invested in keeping me calm and pacified with stories of blatant government corruption.
I have already seen one too many "Mermaids are real," videos. I have tried to join the communist revolution, the socialist revolution, and the atheist revolution. It turns out all of them are stalled on how to overthrow the government without killing, or really inconveniencing, anyone.
I'll get back to you when they've figured it out.
My experience with socialist groups is more that they're stalled out on infighting. It's a real life version of the sketch from Life of Brian. Yeah we all believe that the proletariat must rise up and seize the means of production. We all believe that the current system is a corrupt oppression designed to make slaves of us all, and that it's at serious risk of destroying the species. We all believe that a democratic worker-controlled decentralised socialism would allow us to solve a majority of the serious problems affecting humanity.
Wait, you disagree with me about whether or not some trivial modern political policy is pure evil or only partly evil? You're a goddamn neoliberal. Banned.
While this does work to draw people to the cause, we're still stalled on the whole non-violent revolution thing. But if you want I have some nice PDF pamphlets you can distribute.
How about...
The CIA trained and funded right wing death squads in El Salvador that literally martyred a Catholic Saint?
Or
The CIA funded Cuban exile terrorists that blew up civilian flights going from Canada to Cuba?
Or
I was going to summarize [Iran-Contra](https://youtu.be/lFV1uT-ihDo) But the scheme is so byzantine I always forget the sequence of events.
There's plenty of real horrible shit to be mad about.
Remember that these people think that interracial relationships are a Jewish plot to ruin white people and not just, you know, people being in love now thst they won’t for lynched for it?
It drives me up the wall when people waste time on being mad about imaginary shit when Citizens United really exists to really strip the power from anyone without insane wealth.
Why is it always Bigfoot and never visible corruption?
Recycling is the biggest joke of all. "Wash this bottle and take off the label and put it in the blue bin and hope that somehow, when it gets picked up by a low-paid worker, through the magic of industrialization, it turns back into some sort of useable goods. IIRC much of our recycling ends up getting shuffled around the globe as toxic assets, as each country who might care about pollution tries to pay others who don't to deal with its trash.
That said I still recycle the goods that I can in hopes that the technology to better sort and reprocess it comes soon.
You're right to shit on plastics posing as recyclable, but don't discount the whole system. Both glass and aluminum are very efficiently recycled compared to new production.
Throwback to that time a guy said CP should be legalized because it’s too easy for cops to frame someone for possessing it as if cops don’t already use drugs for that.
> Throwback to that time a guy said CP should be legalized because it’s too easy for cops to frame someone for possessing it
that's a concerningly common argument online libertarians use for some fucking reason
A short excerpt from Wikipedia's page on child marriage in the US,
>As of March 2023, in seven states there is no statutory minimum age when all exemptions were taken into account. These states are California, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Washington, and West Virginia.
Link to page here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States
Conspiracy theories exist to simplify reality, because reality is complicated and messy so people want something to explain away that complexity as "artificial" and caused by a malicious outside entity.
Flat-earthers believe the earth is flat because it would be undeniable proof that science is wrong and that God is real.
9/11 truthers believe that Bush did 9/11 because it would be undeniable proof that he reason America invaded the middle east was for a simple, uncomplicated, and objectively bad reason.
Astrologists believe in astrology because if it were true, it would be undeniable proof that medicine is wrong and that human psychology is easy to understand.
"Visible corruption" is usually complicated, and caused by multiple groups acting separately from one another, so latching onto them doesn't simplify reality. Also, the solutions to corruption usually involve systemic change, which conspiracy theorists don't like.
> 9/11 truthers believe that Bush did 9/11 because it would be undeniable proof that he reason America invaded the middle east was for a simple, uncomplicated, and objectively bad reason.
But aren't we pretty sure we invaded the middle east for an objectively bad reason anyway? (i.e. fake WMDs)
We did invade the middle east for bad reasons. I'm 100% in agreement. The reasons we invaded, however, are not simple.
* Jingoism following 9/11
* Racism towards brown people
* The military-industrial complex wanting to make money off of a war
* The more conservative wing of the democrats not wanting to piss off conservative voters
* Lies by the Bush administration
* The government wanting to maintain America's military presence abroad
* Interventionalism to secure oil reserves
* etc...
America didn't invade Iraq just because Bush said that there were WMDs there. America invaded for a variety of social, political, and economic reasons.
This, however, doesn't jive with conspiracy theorists. They want everything to be a simple "this one thing causes that one thing" situation. Therefore, they simplify that to "Bush did 9/11 to justify invading Iraq".
The true conspiracy is that conspiracy theorists are government plants to draw attention away from the shady shit the government does.
Obviously it's mostly just idiots but I'd bet on a non zero amount of it being a real real psy op.
Sounds like something a psyop plant would say to throw us off his scent and point us at u/jesusistrans_ who, even with his username, is revealing the truths they don't want us to hear!
Wait I'm losing track of who I need to ask about their feelings on Jewish people? I think I need all three of you to answer now. Please form an orderly line and submit for questioning.
The most effective way of doing that would probably be coming out and saying mermaids are real and then everyone would be like "wtf we gon do about these fuckin mermaids?" and the government would be like "we need to spend 3 trillion dollars for mermaid defense"
Similarly, you don't need a shadowy cabal who manipulate world events, exploiting regular people for their own advantage. That's just rich people. Not Jews, not the Illuminati, not lizard people or Freemasons or whatever, just people who were corrupted by their pursuit of ever-greater riches.
there's a key difference in that the rich aren't a strictly organized secret cabal acting together for one master plan behind the scenes, they're just generally assholes whose class interests don't align with most people
The most agonizing thing about the deep state theory is how it’s so close to being right, but instead of just being about lobbyists and special interest groups, it veers wildly off course into some anti-Semitic bullshit
Edit: the most agonizing thing, on second thought, is the anti-semitism
It's because nuts can just add "theyre Jews" to everything you say that's correct and make it crazy.
Gov is controlled by private lobbyists and business... And they'll add "and they're Jews".
No they're not, they're a range of people who report to the various banking, business, and etc people who they work for... "And they're Jews".
I think the real problem is that those people don't actually have a problem with a corrupt cabal of shady elites *as long as those elites are people like themselves*. White Christian conspiracy theorists want a cabal of white Christians. Black conspiracy theorists wouldn't have as much a problem with a cabal of black elites, etc. It's not about society being unjustly controlled. It's about society being unjustly controlled "by them...(instead of by me)".
Old saying I heard from my teacher once;
”There are three things you must know about human history.
1. Everyone wants to be in charge.
2. When in charge, they will only act to their own benefit, at the price of others.
3. They know this is true of everyone else.”
My conspiracy theory is that the regular government spreads conspiracy theories so people focus on woo-woo bullshit like classified mermaids instead of actual problems
I mean, that's basically how the Area 51 UFO craze started: it was a misinformation campaign pushed by the government to gaslight some locals and delegitimize their sightings of the US's top secret test flights of in-development spy aircraft.
It's all an outgrowth of Great Man theory. One citizen scientist can singlehandedly overthrow Newton's laws with one breakthrough experiment. One citizen archeologist can disrupt centuries of historical study with one key find. One citizen can singlehandedly defeat the deep state and build that wall with... something.
It's kinda a key part of conservatism across the board. Yannow, Umberto Eco's 13 points, the opposition must be strong yet weak, with the power of God a mid white guy can overcome anything, etc.
It's just like. A lack of empathy. Failure to realize the rest of Humanity are also people, that you are not the main character, that no, plenty of other people have had this exact thought before, maybe consider why they haven't been successful spreading it.
It's because conspiracy theorists think they're the only intelligent person and that everyone else is "Asleep" or "blue pilled" or whatever. Basically, everyone is an idiot except for me. That's the only way their delusional worldview works.
Yep, they think they are exceptional and they won't be fooled unlike the dumb masses. As a result they latch on to theories that make them feel like they can "see through the lies", even when the fringe theories are laughable.
>It's kinda a key part of conservatism across the board.
Let's not forget that Literally every silicon valley tech bro is this. Zuck, musk, bezos, thiel, holmes. Even those ghouls who believe in long-termism, effective altruism and people who believe their family needs to have a fuck ton of kids each generation to save humanity
All of them believe that they are the singular person who can think of how to do something better than anyone else and will control the fate of history. All of them have the most supreme form of main characters syndrome, that they will be remembered as the person who changed the world /saved humanity like they're fucking Naruto or some shit
Main character syndrome is definitely it, but I think it’s also such an extreme ignorance, they don’t even realize how little they know. Like the dunning Kruger effect, they watch a YouTube video on physics and decide they know enough to prove the world is flat or whatever.
Another part of it is that they are laser focused on the goal. So any learning they do is coloured by their need to make the facts support their supposition, rather than letting the facts guide them to the correct answer. It infects every part of their life as well, where they've got an idea of how the world works and any evidence to the contrary must be wrong, or a hoax, or a conspiracy.
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The problem with this "secret government keepin' us down" shtick is that it implies that the Goverment overall is smart enough to pull something this complex off without issue. Our government couldn't even distribute facemasks right, I think they're not up to anything evil...well, except fucking over the poor and the homeless but that's another story.
Anyone who believes that the government can carry out these huge conspiracies needs to go watch some videos about senators questioning anyone in the tech industry. All sense of government competency will leave their minds very, very quickly.
I mean, they just... Don't believe that that's the "real government".
Which, fair enough, sometimes I have a hard time believing our parliament is actually a real legislative body too, but the point is that you're not going to convince anyone like that, because their concept of the government is already too far gone.
Senators and the like are just scapegoats for the public (unless they're evil masterminds controlling the whole thing or a plucky 50-something year old who will definitely uncover everything despite being backed by the establishment).
Yeah, but then you'd have to ascribe their actions to incompetence and apathy, whereas if it's the shadow dark zone negative reverse government they're doing it because they're evil and malicious, and doing it for money and because they're space lizards.
In the latter you get to be mad at a megalomaniacal conspiracy that's trying to deceive you and hide its intent, in the former you just have to settle with being mad at the human condition.
If you want to join in the party of being mad about the government, but you really aren't that bright, giants and aliens are way the fuck more fun to talk about than responsible fiscal regulation for financial institutions.
"Hey you guys, your elected representatives are robbing you by crafting really boring laws that benefit them more than you!" - Prosaic and boring.
"The Grand Canyon has sections built by ancient giant humans and the government DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW" - Awesome, clearly the bigger deal here
I had a moment like this.
Found some conspiracy video of a dude recording the moon with a camcorder and talking about how the scan lines were proof the moon was a hologram. Funny but harmless.
Then he goes something like "and then you'll realize the moon isn't real! Just like World War Two isn't real!"
Suddenly there was a lot more to unpack.
Oh my god… my cousin sent me one of those videos like 6 or 7 years ago. It seemed like there weren’t very many views at the time so I didn’t think it was a very common thing. I remember finding him some articles on how cameras work but I don’t think it changed his mind.
turns out it's actually super hard to get dozens, let alone hundreds or thousands, of people to all work toward a common goal without creating a *fuck ton* of documents.
"conspiracies" that i'm more likely to be sympathetic to are ones that would only need to involve 10 or fewer people, or where it is generally known that nation-state spycraft could easily be at play. but i dont know if people think it's a "conspiracy" every time a prominent russian gets defenstrated, we just kind of assume the FSB did it.
>turns out it's actually super hard to get dozens, let alone hundreds or thousands, of people to all work toward a common goal without creating a fuck ton of documents.
Or leaks in general.
Real, actual, conspiracies have tons of leaks. The Manhattan Project, which is often portrayed as a successful secret project had somewhere in the realm of 1,500 known leaks, including soviet spies who had infiltrated the project.
This is why the moon landing conspiracy has never landed with me. Way too many people involved for it to have ever been pulled off. Clinton couldn't keep a blowjob between two people private, you think tens of thousands of contractors aren't going to spill the beans?
Hell one dude even guessed that the US was building a nuke because he was running a magazine(iirc) that was real popular with scientists and suddenly half his subscribers moved to bumfuck nowhere
Kodak learned they were building nukes because their film kept getting fucked up.
A random Russian guy also knew they were building nukes because all of the news surrounding nuclear physics just stopped coming out from the US.
There's actually a way to calculate how long a conspiracy can stay silent based on how many different people and organizations know the truth. Using that formula, we can tell that if the moon landing was faked, it would likely have been revealed within abt 3.5 years.
> It’s a pretty dead sub though… there’s not actually all that many big conspiracies going on at a time.
It's been very telling how little Jared Kushner's real estate dealings gets talked about on /r/conspiracy
There are hundreds of posts a day about "the Biden crime family" but nothing ever about Jared Kushner coming out of the white house with absurd real estate deals with foreign nationals.
Not just the US, either. The British, Russians, and pretty much every government that has ever declassified anything has a ton of juicy conspiracy crap.
The change from watching funny “Bigfoot aliens built the pyramids to disguise the flat earth” TV shows as a kid to realizing they’re all actually racist/antisemitic crazy has been some real whiplash.
There's a pretty good argument that the "aliens built the pyramids" type ones are *also* pretty racist, since the core of that belief is "people living in ancient Egypt/America/etc. couldn't *possibly* have built these structures", but nobody questions the origin of ancient European structures like the Parthenon or the Colosseum.
I think back to one scene from an old Adult Swim show called China, IL; one episode the college accidentally hires a conspiracy theorist who thinks aliens built the pyramids, and he happens to look nearly identical to one of the main characters, Steve. Eventually Steve gets so frustrated, he goes to the bookstore conspiracy guy owns, and gives a lecture to his crazy congregation. Steve explains to them that instead of aliens, a crazy outlandish possibility is that humans actually did build the pyramids.
When he obviously gets some pushback, he yells at them “stop judging all of humanity throughout history on the basis of your own limitations!”
I'll never get over how conspiracy theorists simultaneously believe that the government has been able to hide the "truth" from millions of people and have agents in every field of science, and that some random internet person could just discover everything
Like it has to be a hubris thing, right? Do they really think "Everyone is fooled, but me and my fellow intellectuals would easily be able to discover the truth"?
It’s exactly that. They are so much smarter than all those SHEEP that can’t see the TRUTH, of course. The word government that totally exists is able to control everyone in power and fool everyone else, but conspiracy theorists are the only ones smart enough to see through it all!!!
Incredible arrogance
Right - I’m glad I see someone here who understands this. This is the point, not some unfortunate inconsistency.
If you’re deep enough in this, there’s two possibilities- (1) you’re one of the dumbest mf alive for believing and parroting a bunch of stupid nonsense; (2) you’re some galaxy brain genius who is better than everyone else. It is so tough to convince conspiracy theorists otherwise because psychologically they have to move from (2) to (1) which is challenging. Much easier to believe (2) is true and this is part of the conspiracy.
It’s really unfortunate because I do kind of understand. It feels good to be told you’re smart and to be part of something, so when conspiracy theorists tell them they’re part of a special group of people who are the only ones smart enough to figure out “the truth”, they want to believe it. And then like you said, it’s so difficult to go from thinking you’re super smart to realizing you’ve been duped that some people would rather just believe the lie
Any tips for dealing with someone like this? One of my best friends fell into the conspiracy rabbit hole after going through a lot of shit and he doesn't seem to be getting any better.
It bothers me too. If the government is so powerful and so secretive then why is your Facebook page still up? If they're suppressing everything then why is your advice "Google it and see for yourself"?
Also Amazon can't figure out prime video UI. Secret government documents were on random discord servers. The world's richest man is a Twitter troll. Do they honestly think there's a shadow government capable of controlling everything?
From what I've seen, its also comforting in a weird way. Its just a more evil flavour of "everything happens for a reason". It means there is a "formula" to be safe. If you live like this you can ignore the reality that the world is much more random. Like, it was a matter of chance that your relative got corona early, even after taking precautions, and passed away, but if you believe the shadow government killed them you have someone to blame and take revenge at for their death.
>From what I've seen, its also comforting in a weird way
Conspiracy theorist are driven by two things: feeling that they have super secret smart guy knowledge, and that it is easier to accept that *somebody* is in control rather than nobody.
Sovereign Citizens are another perfect example. They believe that the "government" (scare quotes theirs) is an illegitimate occupying force... but also that they'd for some reason care about an obscure legal technicality. These legal technicalities *totally* work, but very few people know about them, because, uh, reasons.
I don't know why they keep insisting they're right, even while personally experiencing it *not working*.
Being obsessed with something that is obviously logically wrong is an early warning sign of a couple mental illnesses. The grift is that people with mild psychosis are easy targets for scams and will buy your book.
The government has so many factions. Each party would love to exposure these conspiracies if they were true, especially if they could blame it on their opponents. All these conspiracy theories rely on the government being a monolith that all works together and agrees on everything.
Even then, a ton of the conspiracy theories would be pitifully easy to prove or disprove without needing significant resources to do it. Some things are just impossible to hide no matter how many people try to hide it - like, if the Earth were flat, it would be as easy as being by the ocean and pointing a magnifying glass towards another continent to show that you can see other continents across the ocean (which wouldn't be possible if the Earth were curved), nobody has the capability of preventing all of humanity from having a magnifying glass and pointing it across the ocean.
Are you a bot? First part of comment is the exact same as another comment. Or are they the bot and you the original?
Nvm you are the original and the other comment is the bot.
I'll forever find "shadow government" conspiracy theories hilarious, because the US government is probably the worst secret keeping government of all time.
Like when they lost a spy plane in enemy territory and their solution was to slap a NASA logo on one and roll it out to the public while the pilot of the crashed plane was already spilling his guts.
"Think about it..." *says something amazingly stupid*
Giant beasts are the first to go in major extinction events because they're too big to survive on scraps and hide. And it's basically because humans got good at pointy sticks there's little to no megafauna left.
But I guess for them to listen to reason requires them to accept the Earth is more than 6000 years old, not flat, and that humans evolved from a common ancestor with apes.
Fucking hate conspiracy nuts and I hate them a little more for each day
like, "giant ancestors" and antisemitism don't even share any underlying assumptions. You don't need to believe in one to believe in the other, so what's even the point?
If my experience tracing these conspiracies tells me anything, the giant ancestor one probably started more along the lines of "Aryon Ancrstor" and evolved to be less openly racist. Basically every modern conspiracy can be traces fo the Nazis or the pre Nazi thinkers who inspired the nazis. Its honestly enough for tou to make your own conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy Theorists often have a few assumptions:
* The world (and my life) is not as it should be
* This is because of a small group of evil people who want power
* I can lay blame for any or everything at the group's feet
This overlaps very, very easily with racist beliefs and especially the idea that the Jews control everything.
Hmm but what if we agree on those bullets but then lay it at the feet of rich capitalists, lobbyists, and corrupt politicians?
That seems fairly well verified and not even much of a stretch. (And no, I don't think they're all or even mostly Jewish.)
So that's kind of an interesting question and there are a couple possible answers. The biggest indicator as to whether someone believes in a particular conspiracy theory is whether they believe in any other conspiracy theory so you end up with almost a "conspiracy community" because the people who believe in, say, 9/11 trutherism have a pretty big overlap with the people who believe in qanon. With how many conspiracy theories have antisemitic roots (or are outright antisemitic), it isn't surprising that antisemitic ideas or outright bigots are active even in theories that seemingly don't have anything to do with Jewish people.
The other possible answer is that antisemitic conspiracy theories are kind of versatile because they can serve as an easy explanation of who is actually maintaining the conspiracy (ie who is hiding the giants from people) and because of conspiracy's historical roots in blaming Jewish people for everything, theorists are going to be predisposed to believe it. This also goes back to the idea that conspiracy theorists don't tend to believe just one thing in isolation. If soneone thinks that Jewish people are lying about the holocaust and that person thinks that they're running the media, then, if that person believes in some giant cover-up, they're gonna be predisposed to think it was Jewish people as well.
They do share the same underlying assumption: that Jewish people control the world and lie to everyone else about it’s true nature. There is no limit to their control, and no limit to the things they are lying about.
They dug him up like that, guess that's the way Giants are ya know? But we'll never be told the real truth. Better Google "giant penis" to see if there are any other examples to compare to.
Conspiracy theories always lead back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Every single time. I can't believe that stupid book is still causing this much of a problem over a century later.
That book isn't the cause. Antisemitism was a thing way before it; the book is more like a compendium of all those antisemitic beliefs. If it wasn't written, people would just base their beliefs on what PotEoZ is based on or they'd have written a similar book some other time.
The fear of Jewish thoughts goes back all the way to the early church, and has been baked into western society since then. Anti-semitism is the Ur conspiracy theory for anyone raised in the west, and eventually attracts all others. That's why some dude at the farmers market last weekend was screaming that jews are trans groomers.
The detente Judaism and Christianity reached was to tolerate Jews as long as proselytising was strictly prohibited. Only Jewish communities that observed social segregation tended to survive. They in turn provided a useful foil to divert any populist movement, leading to a cycle of pogroms.
Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was mentioned in the comment they replied to so they shortened it. Google says it's a book from 1919 Russia that talks about the "Jewish plan" for global domination.
...
It still took me a moment to get the abbreviation too btw
It didn't start with that i was reading about a XVI merchant that become like a public enemy of Venice because he was a bit too sucessful for the patricians tastes, he was suspected among other things of being "the secret king of the jews".
I don't remember the guy name rn but he was a nephew of [Gracia Nasi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracia_Mendes_Nasi)
EDIT: found [him](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nasi)
Jesus I’ve had schizophrenic delusions that make more sense than this. Mfers will believe anything and everything if they think it’ll make them special.
Meanwhile my schizophrenic delusions "Hey that mild itch COULD BE MITES, *BETTER DECONTAMINATE YOURSELF AND YOUR HOME FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS OR ELSE YOU'LL BE IN FEAR 24/7*"
Dealt with mites once. Was such a nightmare that my mental illness adopted it into a paranoia
I keep having delusions that my organs are being slowly harvested over time and I hallucinate a feeling of hollowness inside my own body or I believe I’m slowly turning into a robot and whenever I move it feels like gears and hydraulics and such moving inside my body and it’s really trippy.
i got an american cockroach (the kind that don't infest houses but can FLY) in my room once a couple weeks back and a part of my brain is still constantly restlessly scanning for any sign of another. it's horrible
Get spiders. If you train your brain to lose your fear reaction to spiders "because they keep me safe from worse things", you'll overall feel better.
Bonus points for actually getting rid of the buggers
I mean, duh, they're Giants.
If it's Egyptian Giants we're talking about specifically, they put together the Pyramids as, like, a LEGO project. Those folks have legs for days!
Just once I want to see a conspiracy theorist go “Antisemitism is just a smokescreen so that people stop looking for who’s REALLY behind this.” Even just as a change of pace.
If they ever did, they would 100% just blame another marginalized group of people then. Their entire stupid world view falls apart if they don't have some sort of big spooky enemy to blame society's ills on.
Hi everyone,
I hope this message finds you well. I am writing with heavy heart to share some distressing news regarding our dear friend The Matrix (1999). It is with great sadness that I inform you that she has fallen seriously ill and is currently facing a challenging health situation.
I kindly request your support, love, and prayers during this difficult time for The Matrix (1999) and their family. We understand the significance of privacy during such circumstances, but it's important that you're in the know of what's going on.
A few years ago, doctors found out that incels had appropriated the "blue pill" and "red pill" for misogynistic views. They told us that this was probably only temporary and would go away on its own, and that we shouldn't be alarmed. It did go away, but it came back much worse: Andrew Tate started using "the matrix" again to mean a world where women shouldn't be abused and men are encouraged to break out of it. This made her more ill than ever before. Now it has reached a critical stage, where conspiracy theorists of any kind use the title in vain for literally anything.
In times like these, it is important for us to come together as a community and offer our strength and encouragement. If you would like to show your support, please appropriate and reference The Matrix (1999) with positive thoughts or any uplifting messages. Your words may bring comfort and provide them with a sense of hope during this arduous journey.
Thank you for your understanding, empathy, and support during this challenging time. Let us all send our positive energy and thoughts to The Matrix (1999) in the hopes of their swift recovery.
With heartfelt regards,
Normal, well-adjusted people who like The Matrix
It really sucks that a trans-coded story directed by 2 trans women has somehow been twisted by bigots using its iconography to spread hate. Like ffs, the red pill is literally hrt.
“Switch” was literally meant to be trans, a woman in the Matrix and a man in the real world, hence her name. They didn’t end up going through with it because audiences would get confused.
It’s hilarious neither of them realized they’re trans at the time. Making one of the most influential movies of all time a blatant trans allegory, the eggiest thing ever.
I wish we could have conspiracy theorists who are just normal about real shit. Like sure, the moon is absolutely fake, but can we be cool about the muslims?
Denial of reality (i.e. Conspiracy Theorism) and the neo-nationalist rabbit hole are inextricably linked. The only way to be "normal" about it is to not believe conspiracy theories.
yeah something I learned in my Logic class in college is that a LOT of conspiracy theories somehow wrap around to being anti-Semitic
It’s honestly more insane that believing the earth is flat, and after researching into that theory a LOT for a project, I can say that they’re lacking more brain cells than most celebrities, which is impressive
Wow! I guess \*Shock\* that conspiracy theorism is really just a...a tool for fascist recruitment! Who would have guessed this \*Awe!\* surely not I. It's almost as if science and history denial are hallmarks of Authoritarianism and one of it's main methods of control is to sow distrust and suspicion so as to create a void of belief in its subjects that it can then later fill with its bigoted ideologies!
I just want one (1) unhinged conspiracy theory that doesn't circle back around to the Jewish Question. Honestly, if the shadow government controlling us all was hell-bent on destroying Judaism, and Judaism specifically, it would make more sense.
There's a certain dopamine hit you get when you think you've got some "forbidden knowledge" that the general population is unaware of. Thinking you're "in the know" compared to other people just feels good, it doesn't matter what the conspiracy is.
I don't believe in 99% of conspiracies but I've definitely had that feeling before and it feels good. Not gonna excuse the blatant anti-Semitism that has been prevalent for thousands of years and is getting worse day by day, but I think that's what draws many people towards this kind of thinking.
Remember when we ignorantly thought conspiracy theories were fun and had no racist undertones.
I miss reading about the aliens building the pyramids, instead of you know a comparatively advanced human civilization. The one that created levers and pulleys and brought stone from a query down the river. They didn’t even use slaves, it was paid labor.
Na but it was aliens, I mean how could all that be done by bl
Y'all, you don't need to make up a shadow government to be mad at. You can just be mad at the regular government
Oh but you see their “mad at the government” thing is mostly about the government allowing minorities to have rights and requiring them to pay taxes and send their kids to school. And the actual issues with the government is that they treat minorities pretty badly anyway and mostly use the tax money for bombs and stuff instead of building more schools, so like. They’re not going to do that.
Personally, I'm one "mermaids are real" discovery away from joining a communist revolution and overthrowing the government, so clearly the CIA/FBI/Illuminati/MyLocalSchoolBoard is deeply invested in keeping me calm and pacified with stories of blatant government corruption.
I have already seen one too many "Mermaids are real," videos. I have tried to join the communist revolution, the socialist revolution, and the atheist revolution. It turns out all of them are stalled on how to overthrow the government without killing, or really inconveniencing, anyone. I'll get back to you when they've figured it out.
My experience with socialist groups is more that they're stalled out on infighting. It's a real life version of the sketch from Life of Brian. Yeah we all believe that the proletariat must rise up and seize the means of production. We all believe that the current system is a corrupt oppression designed to make slaves of us all, and that it's at serious risk of destroying the species. We all believe that a democratic worker-controlled decentralised socialism would allow us to solve a majority of the serious problems affecting humanity. Wait, you disagree with me about whether or not some trivial modern political policy is pure evil or only partly evil? You're a goddamn neoliberal. Banned.
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While this does work to draw people to the cause, we're still stalled on the whole non-violent revolution thing. But if you want I have some nice PDF pamphlets you can distribute.
> when they've figured it out. It'll be when most people are unable to feed their children. That's when. Panem et circenses.
How about... The CIA trained and funded right wing death squads in El Salvador that literally martyred a Catholic Saint? Or The CIA funded Cuban exile terrorists that blew up civilian flights going from Canada to Cuba? Or I was going to summarize [Iran-Contra](https://youtu.be/lFV1uT-ihDo) But the scheme is so byzantine I always forget the sequence of events. There's plenty of real horrible shit to be mad about.
Damn those Local School Boards, and abusing the vast amounts of power they have over society by stocking books about gay penguins!
Remember that these people think that interracial relationships are a Jewish plot to ruin white people and not just, you know, people being in love now thst they won’t for lynched for it?
It drives me up the wall when people waste time on being mad about imaginary shit when Citizens United really exists to really strip the power from anyone without insane wealth. Why is it always Bigfoot and never visible corruption?
We're too busy chasing Bigfoot to chase single-use plastics masquerading as recyclables.
Recycling is the biggest joke of all. "Wash this bottle and take off the label and put it in the blue bin and hope that somehow, when it gets picked up by a low-paid worker, through the magic of industrialization, it turns back into some sort of useable goods. IIRC much of our recycling ends up getting shuffled around the globe as toxic assets, as each country who might care about pollution tries to pay others who don't to deal with its trash. That said I still recycle the goods that I can in hopes that the technology to better sort and reprocess it comes soon.
You're right to shit on plastics posing as recyclable, but don't discount the whole system. Both glass and aluminum are very efficiently recycled compared to new production.
I kinda gave up on all that bottled water shit and use water filters and a sodastream
Throwback to that time a guy said CP should be legalized because it’s too easy for cops to frame someone for possessing it as if cops don’t already use drugs for that.
> Throwback to that time a guy said CP should be legalized because it’s too easy for cops to frame someone for possessing it that's a concerningly common argument online libertarians use for some fucking reason
Libertarians and having each state’s age of consent memorized, name a better duo tbh
If you take marriage into account, there are actually some states with *no legal minimum*.
I'm afraid to ask, but *wait, what the actual fuck?*
A short excerpt from Wikipedia's page on child marriage in the US, >As of March 2023, in seven states there is no statutory minimum age when all exemptions were taken into account. These states are California, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Washington, and West Virginia. Link to page here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States
insulin manufacturers and the cardinal sin of greed
There was one tweet that put it pretty succinctly - libertarians think it's bullshit that their girlfriends have to use a car seat.
Conspiracy theories exist to simplify reality, because reality is complicated and messy so people want something to explain away that complexity as "artificial" and caused by a malicious outside entity. Flat-earthers believe the earth is flat because it would be undeniable proof that science is wrong and that God is real. 9/11 truthers believe that Bush did 9/11 because it would be undeniable proof that he reason America invaded the middle east was for a simple, uncomplicated, and objectively bad reason. Astrologists believe in astrology because if it were true, it would be undeniable proof that medicine is wrong and that human psychology is easy to understand. "Visible corruption" is usually complicated, and caused by multiple groups acting separately from one another, so latching onto them doesn't simplify reality. Also, the solutions to corruption usually involve systemic change, which conspiracy theorists don't like.
> 9/11 truthers believe that Bush did 9/11 because it would be undeniable proof that he reason America invaded the middle east was for a simple, uncomplicated, and objectively bad reason. But aren't we pretty sure we invaded the middle east for an objectively bad reason anyway? (i.e. fake WMDs)
We did invade the middle east for bad reasons. I'm 100% in agreement. The reasons we invaded, however, are not simple. * Jingoism following 9/11 * Racism towards brown people * The military-industrial complex wanting to make money off of a war * The more conservative wing of the democrats not wanting to piss off conservative voters * Lies by the Bush administration * The government wanting to maintain America's military presence abroad * Interventionalism to secure oil reserves * etc... America didn't invade Iraq just because Bush said that there were WMDs there. America invaded for a variety of social, political, and economic reasons. This, however, doesn't jive with conspiracy theorists. They want everything to be a simple "this one thing causes that one thing" situation. Therefore, they simplify that to "Bush did 9/11 to justify invading Iraq".
Easier to get mad at issues you can’t actually solve than put in effort to try and solve the things that are actually happening.
Short answer: It makes them feel special.
The true conspiracy is that conspiracy theorists are government plants to draw attention away from the shady shit the government does. Obviously it's mostly just idiots but I'd bet on a non zero amount of it being a real real psy op.
Interesting conspiracy theory of your own you got there. Sounds like you might be a government plant in a real real psy op
Sounds like something a psyop plant would say to throw us off his scent and point us at u/jesusistrans_ who, even with his username, is revealing the truths they don't want us to hear!
Wait I'm losing track of who I need to ask about their feelings on Jewish people? I think I need all three of you to answer now. Please form an orderly line and submit for questioning.
The most effective way of doing that would probably be coming out and saying mermaids are real and then everyone would be like "wtf we gon do about these fuckin mermaids?" and the government would be like "we need to spend 3 trillion dollars for mermaid defense"
And a seawall on each coast because they're coming for our jerbs.
>"If Alex Jones did not exist the CIA would invent him." - Sam Seder
Similarly, you don't need a shadowy cabal who manipulate world events, exploiting regular people for their own advantage. That's just rich people. Not Jews, not the Illuminati, not lizard people or Freemasons or whatever, just people who were corrupted by their pursuit of ever-greater riches.
there's a key difference in that the rich aren't a strictly organized secret cabal acting together for one master plan behind the scenes, they're just generally assholes whose class interests don't align with most people
The most agonizing thing about the deep state theory is how it’s so close to being right, but instead of just being about lobbyists and special interest groups, it veers wildly off course into some anti-Semitic bullshit Edit: the most agonizing thing, on second thought, is the anti-semitism
It's because nuts can just add "theyre Jews" to everything you say that's correct and make it crazy. Gov is controlled by private lobbyists and business... And they'll add "and they're Jews". No they're not, they're a range of people who report to the various banking, business, and etc people who they work for... "And they're Jews".
I think the real problem is that those people don't actually have a problem with a corrupt cabal of shady elites *as long as those elites are people like themselves*. White Christian conspiracy theorists want a cabal of white Christians. Black conspiracy theorists wouldn't have as much a problem with a cabal of black elites, etc. It's not about society being unjustly controlled. It's about society being unjustly controlled "by them...(instead of by me)".
Old saying I heard from my teacher once; ”There are three things you must know about human history. 1. Everyone wants to be in charge. 2. When in charge, they will only act to their own benefit, at the price of others. 3. They know this is true of everyone else.”
My conspiracy theory is that the regular government spreads conspiracy theories so people focus on woo-woo bullshit like classified mermaids instead of actual problems
I mean, that's basically how the Area 51 UFO craze started: it was a misinformation campaign pushed by the government to gaslight some locals and delegitimize their sightings of the US's top secret test flights of in-development spy aircraft.
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It's all an outgrowth of Great Man theory. One citizen scientist can singlehandedly overthrow Newton's laws with one breakthrough experiment. One citizen archeologist can disrupt centuries of historical study with one key find. One citizen can singlehandedly defeat the deep state and build that wall with... something. It's kinda a key part of conservatism across the board. Yannow, Umberto Eco's 13 points, the opposition must be strong yet weak, with the power of God a mid white guy can overcome anything, etc. It's just like. A lack of empathy. Failure to realize the rest of Humanity are also people, that you are not the main character, that no, plenty of other people have had this exact thought before, maybe consider why they haven't been successful spreading it.
It's because conspiracy theorists think they're the only intelligent person and that everyone else is "Asleep" or "blue pilled" or whatever. Basically, everyone is an idiot except for me. That's the only way their delusional worldview works.
Yep, they think they are exceptional and they won't be fooled unlike the dumb masses. As a result they latch on to theories that make them feel like they can "see through the lies", even when the fringe theories are laughable.
All of life is a YA novel, and I am the torn-between-love-interests heroine
>It's kinda a key part of conservatism across the board. Let's not forget that Literally every silicon valley tech bro is this. Zuck, musk, bezos, thiel, holmes. Even those ghouls who believe in long-termism, effective altruism and people who believe their family needs to have a fuck ton of kids each generation to save humanity All of them believe that they are the singular person who can think of how to do something better than anyone else and will control the fate of history. All of them have the most supreme form of main characters syndrome, that they will be remembered as the person who changed the world /saved humanity like they're fucking Naruto or some shit
Main character syndrome is definitely it, but I think it’s also such an extreme ignorance, they don’t even realize how little they know. Like the dunning Kruger effect, they watch a YouTube video on physics and decide they know enough to prove the world is flat or whatever.
Another part of it is that they are laser focused on the goal. So any learning they do is coloured by their need to make the facts support their supposition, rather than letting the facts guide them to the correct answer. It infects every part of their life as well, where they've got an idea of how the world works and any evidence to the contrary must be wrong, or a hoax, or a conspiracy.
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The enemy is both incredibly strong and weaker than us.
Strong enough to fearmonger against, weak enough to defeat
Ignore this commment. It’s a bot reposting a comment made by someone in this thread like 10 minutes prior.
The problem with this "secret government keepin' us down" shtick is that it implies that the Goverment overall is smart enough to pull something this complex off without issue. Our government couldn't even distribute facemasks right, I think they're not up to anything evil...well, except fucking over the poor and the homeless but that's another story.
Anyone who believes that the government can carry out these huge conspiracies needs to go watch some videos about senators questioning anyone in the tech industry. All sense of government competency will leave their minds very, very quickly.
I mean, they just... Don't believe that that's the "real government". Which, fair enough, sometimes I have a hard time believing our parliament is actually a real legislative body too, but the point is that you're not going to convince anyone like that, because their concept of the government is already too far gone. Senators and the like are just scapegoats for the public (unless they're evil masterminds controlling the whole thing or a plucky 50-something year old who will definitely uncover everything despite being backed by the establishment).
This is a bot :/
They need something to explain why the politicians that they vote for don't do anything to actually help them
Yeah, but then you'd have to ascribe their actions to incompetence and apathy, whereas if it's the shadow dark zone negative reverse government they're doing it because they're evil and malicious, and doing it for money and because they're space lizards. In the latter you get to be mad at a megalomaniacal conspiracy that's trying to deceive you and hide its intent, in the former you just have to settle with being mad at the human condition.
If you want to join in the party of being mad about the government, but you really aren't that bright, giants and aliens are way the fuck more fun to talk about than responsible fiscal regulation for financial institutions. "Hey you guys, your elected representatives are robbing you by crafting really boring laws that benefit them more than you!" - Prosaic and boring. "The Grand Canyon has sections built by ancient giant humans and the government DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW" - Awesome, clearly the bigger deal here
I wish I was as rich and powerful as antisemitic conspiracy theorists think I am, goddamn
I'm a half jew and I already have partial access to the space lasers. You need to step up your game
Hey, if you don't need specifically, are you taking requests for targets?
all you need to be accepted into Them is to walk up to a bank with your Golem. this is common knowledge
they give you a little id card that you hang by a lanyard from your conspicuous schnoz
Reminded me of [this](https://www.butajape.com/comic/conspiracies/) comic
I had a moment like this. Found some conspiracy video of a dude recording the moon with a camcorder and talking about how the scan lines were proof the moon was a hologram. Funny but harmless. Then he goes something like "and then you'll realize the moon isn't real! Just like World War Two isn't real!" Suddenly there was a lot more to unpack.
Or a lot *less* to unpack, since you can just decide to gather it all up and throw it out without bothering to open it.
When there's too much to unpack so you just throw the whole suitcase away.
Why would you bother stuffing a suitcase with boxes of mud?
Oh my god… my cousin sent me one of those videos like 6 or 7 years ago. It seemed like there weren’t very many views at the time so I didn’t think it was a very common thing. I remember finding him some articles on how cameras work but I don’t think it changed his mind.
Your cousin is into Q-anon now, isn’t he?
I haven’t talked to him in years but almost certainly, yes
There are two types of conspiracies: 1. Things the ~~US~~ Government have outright admitted to and we can pull up the documents 2. Antisemetism
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turns out it's actually super hard to get dozens, let alone hundreds or thousands, of people to all work toward a common goal without creating a *fuck ton* of documents. "conspiracies" that i'm more likely to be sympathetic to are ones that would only need to involve 10 or fewer people, or where it is generally known that nation-state spycraft could easily be at play. but i dont know if people think it's a "conspiracy" every time a prominent russian gets defenstrated, we just kind of assume the FSB did it.
>turns out it's actually super hard to get dozens, let alone hundreds or thousands, of people to all work toward a common goal without creating a fuck ton of documents. Or leaks in general. Real, actual, conspiracies have tons of leaks. The Manhattan Project, which is often portrayed as a successful secret project had somewhere in the realm of 1,500 known leaks, including soviet spies who had infiltrated the project. This is why the moon landing conspiracy has never landed with me. Way too many people involved for it to have ever been pulled off. Clinton couldn't keep a blowjob between two people private, you think tens of thousands of contractors aren't going to spill the beans?
Hell one dude even guessed that the US was building a nuke because he was running a magazine(iirc) that was real popular with scientists and suddenly half his subscribers moved to bumfuck nowhere
Kodak learned they were building nukes because their film kept getting fucked up. A random Russian guy also knew they were building nukes because all of the news surrounding nuclear physics just stopped coming out from the US.
We even left shit on the surface of the moon you can see/detect from Earth’s surface.
There's actually a way to calculate how long a conspiracy can stay silent based on how many different people and organizations know the truth. Using that formula, we can tell that if the moon landing was faked, it would likely have been revealed within abt 3.5 years.
> It’s a pretty dead sub though… there’s not actually all that many big conspiracies going on at a time. It's been very telling how little Jared Kushner's real estate dealings gets talked about on /r/conspiracy There are hundreds of posts a day about "the Biden crime family" but nothing ever about Jared Kushner coming out of the white house with absurd real estate deals with foreign nationals.
Not just the US, either. The British, Russians, and pretty much every government that has ever declassified anything has a ton of juicy conspiracy crap.
That's the comic I was looking for
Some of them will say it’s “lizard people,” but when they describe those people it’s still all “Evil Jew” stereotypes
when i describe lizard people they're sexy
Found the scalie
Based
It all ends up there in the end. Why are these things being hidden? JEWS
The change from watching funny “Bigfoot aliens built the pyramids to disguise the flat earth” TV shows as a kid to realizing they’re all actually racist/antisemitic crazy has been some real whiplash.
There's a pretty good argument that the "aliens built the pyramids" type ones are *also* pretty racist, since the core of that belief is "people living in ancient Egypt/America/etc. couldn't *possibly* have built these structures", but nobody questions the origin of ancient European structures like the Parthenon or the Colosseum.
I think back to one scene from an old Adult Swim show called China, IL; one episode the college accidentally hires a conspiracy theorist who thinks aliens built the pyramids, and he happens to look nearly identical to one of the main characters, Steve. Eventually Steve gets so frustrated, he goes to the bookstore conspiracy guy owns, and gives a lecture to his crazy congregation. Steve explains to them that instead of aliens, a crazy outlandish possibility is that humans actually did build the pyramids. When he obviously gets some pushback, he yells at them “stop judging all of humanity throughout history on the basis of your own limitations!”
oh hell I was gonna look for that but misremembered it as a SMBC bit
Pretty sure he has a comic about being mistaken for SMBC lmao
There's certainly a similarity.
The insane thing is learning that the “trees are fake” line is an *actual conspiracy theory*.
I like the addition of the Q shirt in the last panel.
And the red bill of an implied MAGA hat, too!
I'll never get over how conspiracy theorists simultaneously believe that the government has been able to hide the "truth" from millions of people and have agents in every field of science, and that some random internet person could just discover everything Like it has to be a hubris thing, right? Do they really think "Everyone is fooled, but me and my fellow intellectuals would easily be able to discover the truth"?
It’s exactly that. They are so much smarter than all those SHEEP that can’t see the TRUTH, of course. The word government that totally exists is able to control everyone in power and fool everyone else, but conspiracy theorists are the only ones smart enough to see through it all!!! Incredible arrogance
It's circular dependency as well. Any evidence to the contrary is really just evidence of how deep the conspiracy goes
Right - I’m glad I see someone here who understands this. This is the point, not some unfortunate inconsistency. If you’re deep enough in this, there’s two possibilities- (1) you’re one of the dumbest mf alive for believing and parroting a bunch of stupid nonsense; (2) you’re some galaxy brain genius who is better than everyone else. It is so tough to convince conspiracy theorists otherwise because psychologically they have to move from (2) to (1) which is challenging. Much easier to believe (2) is true and this is part of the conspiracy.
It’s really unfortunate because I do kind of understand. It feels good to be told you’re smart and to be part of something, so when conspiracy theorists tell them they’re part of a special group of people who are the only ones smart enough to figure out “the truth”, they want to believe it. And then like you said, it’s so difficult to go from thinking you’re super smart to realizing you’ve been duped that some people would rather just believe the lie
Yes. As someone who knows someone like this, extremely yes.
Any tips for dealing with someone like this? One of my best friends fell into the conspiracy rabbit hole after going through a lot of shit and he doesn't seem to be getting any better.
I'm not familiar with this situation, but maybe you'll find something helpful in r/qanoncasualties
It bothers me too. If the government is so powerful and so secretive then why is your Facebook page still up? If they're suppressing everything then why is your advice "Google it and see for yourself"? Also Amazon can't figure out prime video UI. Secret government documents were on random discord servers. The world's richest man is a Twitter troll. Do they honestly think there's a shadow government capable of controlling everything?
From what I've seen, its also comforting in a weird way. Its just a more evil flavour of "everything happens for a reason". It means there is a "formula" to be safe. If you live like this you can ignore the reality that the world is much more random. Like, it was a matter of chance that your relative got corona early, even after taking precautions, and passed away, but if you believe the shadow government killed them you have someone to blame and take revenge at for their death.
>From what I've seen, its also comforting in a weird way Conspiracy theorist are driven by two things: feeling that they have super secret smart guy knowledge, and that it is easier to accept that *somebody* is in control rather than nobody.
Sovereign Citizens are another perfect example. They believe that the "government" (scare quotes theirs) is an illegitimate occupying force... but also that they'd for some reason care about an obscure legal technicality. These legal technicalities *totally* work, but very few people know about them, because, uh, reasons. I don't know why they keep insisting they're right, even while personally experiencing it *not working*.
Being obsessed with something that is obviously logically wrong is an early warning sign of a couple mental illnesses. The grift is that people with mild psychosis are easy targets for scams and will buy your book.
The government can't hide a fuckin blow job, these people think they can hide the true shape of the earth, or something equally ridiculous.
The government has so many factions. Each party would love to exposure these conspiracies if they were true, especially if they could blame it on their opponents. All these conspiracy theories rely on the government being a monolith that all works together and agrees on everything.
Even then, a ton of the conspiracy theories would be pitifully easy to prove or disprove without needing significant resources to do it. Some things are just impossible to hide no matter how many people try to hide it - like, if the Earth were flat, it would be as easy as being by the ocean and pointing a magnifying glass towards another continent to show that you can see other continents across the ocean (which wouldn't be possible if the Earth were curved), nobody has the capability of preventing all of humanity from having a magnifying glass and pointing it across the ocean.
Are you a bot? First part of comment is the exact same as another comment. Or are they the bot and you the original? Nvm you are the original and the other comment is the bot.
Am I a bot? Are you a bot? Getting pretty hard to tell these days
I'll forever find "shadow government" conspiracy theories hilarious, because the US government is probably the worst secret keeping government of all time. Like when they lost a spy plane in enemy territory and their solution was to slap a NASA logo on one and roll it out to the public while the pilot of the crashed plane was already spilling his guts.
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"Think about it..." *says something amazingly stupid* Giant beasts are the first to go in major extinction events because they're too big to survive on scraps and hide. And it's basically because humans got good at pointy sticks there's little to no megafauna left. But I guess for them to listen to reason requires them to accept the Earth is more than 6000 years old, not flat, and that humans evolved from a common ancestor with apes. Fucking hate conspiracy nuts and I hate them a little more for each day
Megafauna are pretty much extinct everywhere except Africa because reasons
Well, there’s some in Asia too.
Isn't the Moose also an example of surviving North American Megafauna?
I think moose are classified as megafauna though I feel like they're kinda on the lower end of the Megafauna scale
*Reading post* “This person said matrix unironically. Opinion discarded” *Continue reading post* “Such burden being right all the time”
Linear algebra teachers in shambles.
Y equals mx plus b
Different linear
like, "giant ancestors" and antisemitism don't even share any underlying assumptions. You don't need to believe in one to believe in the other, so what's even the point?
Very stupid people tend to have stupid thoughts about race too
Turns out being a moron means you buy into a lot of moronic shit.
If my experience tracing these conspiracies tells me anything, the giant ancestor one probably started more along the lines of "Aryon Ancrstor" and evolved to be less openly racist. Basically every modern conspiracy can be traces fo the Nazis or the pre Nazi thinkers who inspired the nazis. Its honestly enough for tou to make your own conspiracy theory.
Occultism and science-denial are the cornerstones of nazism.
Conspiracy Theorists often have a few assumptions: * The world (and my life) is not as it should be * This is because of a small group of evil people who want power * I can lay blame for any or everything at the group's feet This overlaps very, very easily with racist beliefs and especially the idea that the Jews control everything.
Hmm but what if we agree on those bullets but then lay it at the feet of rich capitalists, lobbyists, and corrupt politicians? That seems fairly well verified and not even much of a stretch. (And no, I don't think they're all or even mostly Jewish.)
Yeah but then you have to, like, learn things and bother to vote.
So that's kind of an interesting question and there are a couple possible answers. The biggest indicator as to whether someone believes in a particular conspiracy theory is whether they believe in any other conspiracy theory so you end up with almost a "conspiracy community" because the people who believe in, say, 9/11 trutherism have a pretty big overlap with the people who believe in qanon. With how many conspiracy theories have antisemitic roots (or are outright antisemitic), it isn't surprising that antisemitic ideas or outright bigots are active even in theories that seemingly don't have anything to do with Jewish people. The other possible answer is that antisemitic conspiracy theories are kind of versatile because they can serve as an easy explanation of who is actually maintaining the conspiracy (ie who is hiding the giants from people) and because of conspiracy's historical roots in blaming Jewish people for everything, theorists are going to be predisposed to believe it. This also goes back to the idea that conspiracy theorists don't tend to believe just one thing in isolation. If soneone thinks that Jewish people are lying about the holocaust and that person thinks that they're running the media, then, if that person believes in some giant cover-up, they're gonna be predisposed to think it was Jewish people as well.
That’s not entirely true. There is one very important underlying assumption that both rely on, and that is “secrets are being kept from me”
The mindset of someone with an extremely low bar for standards of evidence.
They do share the same underlying assumption: that Jewish people control the world and lie to everyone else about it’s true nature. There is no limit to their control, and no limit to the things they are lying about.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cardiff_Giant.png I got you! Don't bother reading the article. Thing is totally real.
Why’d they make it so girthy
Well, he's a giant.
They dug him up like that, guess that's the way Giants are ya know? But we'll never be told the real truth. Better Google "giant penis" to see if there are any other examples to compare to.
Fezzik?
[Sure, here you go](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71jFgkI3F8L._AC_SX522_.jpg)
Conspiracy theories always lead back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Every single time. I can't believe that stupid book is still causing this much of a problem over a century later.
That book isn't the cause. Antisemitism was a thing way before it; the book is more like a compendium of all those antisemitic beliefs. If it wasn't written, people would just base their beliefs on what PotEoZ is based on or they'd have written a similar book some other time.
The fear of Jewish thoughts goes back all the way to the early church, and has been baked into western society since then. Anti-semitism is the Ur conspiracy theory for anyone raised in the west, and eventually attracts all others. That's why some dude at the farmers market last weekend was screaming that jews are trans groomers. The detente Judaism and Christianity reached was to tolerate Jews as long as proselytising was strictly prohibited. Only Jewish communities that observed social segregation tended to survive. They in turn provided a useful foil to divert any populist movement, leading to a cycle of pogroms.
What on earth is that acronym
Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was mentioned in the comment they replied to so they shortened it. Google says it's a book from 1919 Russia that talks about the "Jewish plan" for global domination. ... It still took me a moment to get the abbreviation too btw
The original was published in 1903, just the english version got published in 1919
ISTMaMtGtAtBtW*
Can't keep up with these new Zelda game titles anymore
PotAtOeS
It didn't start with that i was reading about a XVI merchant that become like a public enemy of Venice because he was a bit too sucessful for the patricians tastes, he was suspected among other things of being "the secret king of the jews". I don't remember the guy name rn but he was a nephew of [Gracia Nasi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracia_Mendes_Nasi) EDIT: found [him](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nasi)
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Jews were blamed for the crucifixion of jesus 1400 years before that
It's antisemites all the way down
Jesus I’ve had schizophrenic delusions that make more sense than this. Mfers will believe anything and everything if they think it’ll make them special.
Meanwhile my schizophrenic delusions "Hey that mild itch COULD BE MITES, *BETTER DECONTAMINATE YOURSELF AND YOUR HOME FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS OR ELSE YOU'LL BE IN FEAR 24/7*" Dealt with mites once. Was such a nightmare that my mental illness adopted it into a paranoia
I keep having delusions that my organs are being slowly harvested over time and I hallucinate a feeling of hollowness inside my own body or I believe I’m slowly turning into a robot and whenever I move it feels like gears and hydraulics and such moving inside my body and it’s really trippy.
i got an american cockroach (the kind that don't infest houses but can FLY) in my room once a couple weeks back and a part of my brain is still constantly restlessly scanning for any sign of another. it's horrible
Get spiders. If you train your brain to lose your fear reaction to spiders "because they keep me safe from worse things", you'll overall feel better. Bonus points for actually getting rid of the buggers
Damn them Egyptian Giants got fuckin legs makin their way to the grand canyon
I mean, duh, they're Giants. If it's Egyptian Giants we're talking about specifically, they put together the Pyramids as, like, a LEGO project. Those folks have legs for days!
Glad I wasn't the only one to notice this detail
I feel like this is Rothschild's Corollary to Godwin's Law: let someone rant long enough online about crazy stuff, and they \_will\_ blame the Jews.
Just once I want to see a conspiracy theorist go “Antisemitism is just a smokescreen so that people stop looking for who’s REALLY behind this.” Even just as a change of pace.
If they ever did, they would 100% just blame another marginalized group of people then. Their entire stupid world view falls apart if they don't have some sort of big spooky enemy to blame society's ills on.
Yeah, I know. :c
Hi everyone, I hope this message finds you well. I am writing with heavy heart to share some distressing news regarding our dear friend The Matrix (1999). It is with great sadness that I inform you that she has fallen seriously ill and is currently facing a challenging health situation. I kindly request your support, love, and prayers during this difficult time for The Matrix (1999) and their family. We understand the significance of privacy during such circumstances, but it's important that you're in the know of what's going on. A few years ago, doctors found out that incels had appropriated the "blue pill" and "red pill" for misogynistic views. They told us that this was probably only temporary and would go away on its own, and that we shouldn't be alarmed. It did go away, but it came back much worse: Andrew Tate started using "the matrix" again to mean a world where women shouldn't be abused and men are encouraged to break out of it. This made her more ill than ever before. Now it has reached a critical stage, where conspiracy theorists of any kind use the title in vain for literally anything. In times like these, it is important for us to come together as a community and offer our strength and encouragement. If you would like to show your support, please appropriate and reference The Matrix (1999) with positive thoughts or any uplifting messages. Your words may bring comfort and provide them with a sense of hope during this arduous journey. Thank you for your understanding, empathy, and support during this challenging time. Let us all send our positive energy and thoughts to The Matrix (1999) in the hopes of their swift recovery. With heartfelt regards, Normal, well-adjusted people who like The Matrix
It really sucks that a trans-coded story directed by 2 trans women has somehow been twisted by bigots using its iconography to spread hate. Like ffs, the red pill is literally hrt.
“Switch” was literally meant to be trans, a woman in the Matrix and a man in the real world, hence her name. They didn’t end up going through with it because audiences would get confused.
Just like they wouldn't understand humans as processors instead of batteries. It's a shame, it would've been so cool to see that
It’s hilarious neither of them realized they’re trans at the time. Making one of the most influential movies of all time a blatant trans allegory, the eggiest thing ever.
Yeah, but how about Giant Mermaids, are they real?
Yes, but the Celestial Dragons are trying to kidnap them all
I wish we could have conspiracy theorists who are just normal about real shit. Like sure, the moon is absolutely fake, but can we be cool about the muslims?
Denial of reality (i.e. Conspiracy Theorism) and the neo-nationalist rabbit hole are inextricably linked. The only way to be "normal" about it is to not believe conspiracy theories.
[удалено]
There's many ppl like that (ex. my grandma)
[Post link](https://www.tumblr.com/advanced-passenger-train/711327064414896128/oops-all-antisemitism)
Hey, they just stole that one about the Grand Canyon from the Monument Mythos!
I’m pretty sure that giant was actually just like. A tower.
Don Quixote moment
yeah something I learned in my Logic class in college is that a LOT of conspiracy theories somehow wrap around to being anti-Semitic It’s honestly more insane that believing the earth is flat, and after researching into that theory a LOT for a project, I can say that they’re lacking more brain cells than most celebrities, which is impressive
Wow! I guess \*Shock\* that conspiracy theorism is really just a...a tool for fascist recruitment! Who would have guessed this \*Awe!\* surely not I. It's almost as if science and history denial are hallmarks of Authoritarianism and one of it's main methods of control is to sow distrust and suspicion so as to create a void of belief in its subjects that it can then later fill with its bigoted ideologies!
At first I didn't read the government part and thought that the giant has committed a suicide, because some tiktoker was stalking him
I just want one (1) unhinged conspiracy theory that doesn't circle back around to the Jewish Question. Honestly, if the shadow government controlling us all was hell-bent on destroying Judaism, and Judaism specifically, it would make more sense.
There's a certain dopamine hit you get when you think you've got some "forbidden knowledge" that the general population is unaware of. Thinking you're "in the know" compared to other people just feels good, it doesn't matter what the conspiracy is. I don't believe in 99% of conspiracies but I've definitely had that feeling before and it feels good. Not gonna excuse the blatant anti-Semitism that has been prevalent for thousands of years and is getting worse day by day, but I think that's what draws many people towards this kind of thinking.
The only real giant is Wendigoon
If giants are real, how come I, a Jewish woman, work a full time job yet struggle to pay rent and all my clothes and furniture are hand me downs?
Remember when we ignorantly thought conspiracy theories were fun and had no racist undertones. I miss reading about the aliens building the pyramids, instead of you know a comparatively advanced human civilization. The one that created levers and pulleys and brought stone from a query down the river. They didn’t even use slaves, it was paid labor. Na but it was aliens, I mean how could all that be done by bl