List conspiracy theories here.

There's a one-sided standoff shaping up in Tucson, Arizona. A group called Veterans on Patrol, headed up by a guy who has never served in the military, found an abandoned homeless camp.

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab)

in fairness, he wanted to call the group "citizens on patrol", but that name was already taken

i'm getting more and more cynical about conspiracy theories. as i continue to read up on history, i am slowly coming to realize how much of history came about because of bizarre conspiracy theories. i posted on another thread about wat tyler's rebellion, and how much of it came out because of a conspiracy theory called the Great Rumour. in America, history was shaped by conspiracy theories like the Corrupt Bargain, the Slave Power Conspiracy, the Business Plot, and i'm starting to think, you know, fuck it, we should embrace this side of ourselves. because it's not about "smart" or "stupid". there were plenty of intelligent people who believed the Business Plot was a real thing and not just a couple of drunk plutocrats blowing off steam. if people are motivated to make positive changes in the world by believing donald trump killed his wife and buried her in the rose garden, go for it. obviously that's provably false, but it doesn't actually hurt a conspiracy theory for it to be provably false. at worst it just goes away to be replaced by a new one.

we are not reasonable people, but have the misfortune to live in a society that assumes and expects us to be reasonable. the worst thing we can do is buy into the lie that reason conquers all.

a satirical version of a weirdo militia called 'veterans on patrol' which was led by someone who had never served in the military would seem a little on-the-nose but here we are i guess

i'd be v interested in a podcast oral history of "Veterans on Patrol"

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, June 6, 2018 8:34 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thank u so much for getting the Police Academy 4 theme song stuck in my head.

And yes, rusho, the notion of humans as a rational species is maybe the most pernicious of our mythologies.

idk I view this like all the wacky sportswriters who always pick some terrible longshot team to "win it all this year", part tongue-in-cheek, part with the knowledge that if the 100-to-1 shot actually hits they'll get a good amount of publicity out of it. when it comes to stuff like this and Pizzagate and "9/11 was an inside job" I often wonder how much of it is legit and how much is trying to stake a claim on something that has a small chance of making you look very smart. mostly just so you can play out the ultimate fantasy of proving wrong all the people who called you an idiot.

anyway, not gonna get interested in this one until someone can tell me how the Clintons are involved

I dunno, I'd have to check with a professional to be sure but I think they call that psychosis.

Like running around every day at 4:27 to shove your busted watch in the face of all the naysayers who implored you to get it fixed. I knew it would be right eventually! I knew it!!!

I might as well just learn to roll with it, though, since this is clearly the direction we're headed as a species.

anyway, not gonna get interested in this one until someone can tell me how the Clintons are involved

well since you asked

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/De5q_DyU8AAqIAr.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/De5q_DyU8AAqIAr.jpg

i posted on another thread about wat tyler's rebellion, and how much of it came out because of a conspiracy theory called the Great Rumour. in America, history was shaped by conspiracy theories like the Corrupt Bargain, the Slave Power Conspiracy, the Business Plot, and i'm starting to think, you know, fuck it, we should embrace this side of ourselves. because it's not about "smart" or "stupid". there were plenty of intelligent people who believed the Business Plot was a real thing and not just a couple of drunk plutocrats blowing off steam.

― Arch Bacon (rushomancy), Wednesday, June 6, 2018 1:38 PM (three hours ago)

maybe i'm misunderstanding you but i thought the business plot was a real thing? even if it never got past the talking stage.

meanwhile the Trump administration defends keeping actual children in actual cages:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/04/merkley-shelter-migrant-children-trump-593988

yea someone ought to tell the Arizona guys, they'll be pissed

I'm sure they'll get right on it

maybe i'm misunderstanding you but i thought the business plot was a real thing? even if it never got past the talking stage.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.)

my reading of the results of the congressional investigation was "no way in fucking hell were these guys ever going to actually overthrow the government". even if they hadn't picked as a figurehead smedley butler, who immediately made a big stink about it to the press, eventually they would've talked to somebody who would have pointed out to them what a dumbshit idea their "conspiracy" was.

government based on fabricated conspiracies isn't exactly a new thing. this goes at least as far back as that time cicero (as far as anybody can tell) totally made up a conspiracy about catiline because he was worried that catiline's policies were too friendly towards the poor.

I think the whole spectrum from center to left has really failed to appreciate what is going on with pizzagate, qanon, Alex Jones, etc. This is not mere "tinfoil hat" stuff, this is the deliberate weaponization of conspiracy theory against political opponents.

deliberate and coordinated, so there's my conspiracy theory I guess

Traditionally shadowy science group The Jasons get chased out of the Pentagon
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/storied-jason-science-advisory-group-loses-contract-pentagon

The Georgia Guidestones... wt actual f?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

I'd never heard of this until yesterday when I was talking with a friend about how she'd gone for a coffee with an old friend of hers and how the conversation had turned somewhat weird. Now, she's known this friend for years but they only catch up with one another every now and again, this friend has always been religious but is now super religious. So, they were talking about Brexit (of course) when the friend said Brexit was just a smokescreen for what is really going on in the world - the smokescreen being a product of an elite of the Vatican(?!), global bankers (naturally) and, er, some other people she couldn't remember, the clue to all of this being the Georgia Guidestones. I think my friend sort of nodded along politely but I think when she was told the 2004 tsunami was manmade because some scientist in the early 20th century had shown you could manufacture tsunamis by drilling into the earth and dropping some sort of device into the earth's crust and the whole thrust of the Georgia Guidestones and the elites behind it is to drastically reduce the world's population, she demurred. Apparently her friend invited me and her to visit at her house out in Sussex, I said if you think I'm spending a weekend with an insane person you can forget it.

yeah this is real tho, wake up sheeple

also very real:

https://preview.redd.it/ps04q9titmp31.jpg?width=547&auto=webp&s=cab61e040019c4b0d39ab1b603aa7b4cf9941e98

but what if i want to interfere necessarily!

damn i always suspected u were a freemason troll

the sky is fake

Justin Trudeau is the son of Fidel Castro.

obv

or Mick Jagger IIRC

IDK if this exactly goes here, but is there some kind of right wing crank thing about "Delphi Method" or "Delphi Technique" as a means of false consensus building? I ask because there's a certain political process going on in my area that I don't want to get into and that someone I know described as using "Delphi Technique" to build a fake consensus. When I read descriptions of this, it sounded exactly like what is going on with this political process, but every single site/video/article I can find about it seems to be some kind of right wing crank site.

Never heard of it! Why is the consensus it builds false?

the Wayfair one might just be the dumbest of all time.

One of the allegedly trafficked people took to FB to say she was never missing and how stupid they are for believing this crap and the viewers were all berating her telling her she was still missing or she was on a fake "set" recording it

There's no arguing with people who insist that their brains remain broken.

It's the same names, though! The same names!!!

*googles*
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*regrets*

Yeah, I made the mistake of googling that one myself over the weekend. We are a dumb, dumb country.

I couldn't contain my laughter at everybody arguing with the "missing" girl as to whether she was really missing.

Esp since the ONLY report of her missing on the entire internet is this fake-looking website titled "Newsbreak" and the other 99% = Wayfair articles

I just genuinely don't know what the root cause of this strain of brain rot might be, where someone just flat out refuses to accept or even interact with any logical evidence that refutes these dumb theories.

It never ceases to amaze me that people can operate at such a diminished capacity and yet continue to do the things necessary for continued survival. Like you'd think they'd eventually walk into traffic because CARS ARE JUST PROPAGANDA AND DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST AND ALSO THIS FISTFUL OF BROKEN GLASS LOOKS LIKE DELICIOUS SUGARY CANDY YUM YUM

More like what they want you to think is 'logical evidence', sheeple.

xp

But I mean even that dude that stormed into the pizza place armed said the right things about being "wrong" after his arrest (presumably as advised by his counsel), but still doubled down on the overall theory just being more well hidden than they thought.

THIS FISTFUL OF BROKEN GLASS LOOKS LIKE DELICIOUS SUGARY CANDY YUM YUM

Relevant:

Cake: The Movie pic.twitter.com/GjoVeXm3FP

— Daniel 'danbanbam' Spencer (@danbanbam) July 13, 2020

The thing that really upsets me isn't that there is a conspiracy that Wayfair is a front for child trafficking, it's that mainstream news publications are running headlines like "Fact check: No evidence linking Wayfair to human trafficking operation"

Yeah just legitimizes it in the eyes of the theorists

*googles*
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.
*regrets*

yeah this

How widespread is 'Tom Hanks has been executed at some point in the past and the person you see today is his brother / someone pretending to be him" in, I guess, Qanon world and around?

Sometimes you see these things crop up but not sure if this is the work of an individual crank or a more common motif

Hanks is the Paul McCartney of today.

That Tom Hanks thing sounds like something cooked up by high school kids for a goof.

Goofy was the dingo that ate the baby