List conspiracy theories here.

Actually there's a split between conspiracy theories, those which are backwards-looking / present-describing and are alternative explanations for reality (moon, JFK, 9/11, iraq), and where ones that are true (or truer) are going to be

and ones which are forward-looking - not explaining today but explaining tomorrow. I'm not sure the traditional explanation of people wanting the messyness of reality to be structured in some way actually works for these or not. These are explanations for things that haven't happened yet

"I'm special because I was here for the end times" is how a lot of that rolls imo

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.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 14 July 2020 15:45 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Speaking from a sample of one (my son's flatmate), it's too many shit podcasts and too much weed.

the brain struggling with a world that is random and cruel and looking for patterns and hope anywhere possible
the powerless looking to secret knowledge as a source of power
and yes it's hard to accept that you/your time isn't special in some way because you're stuck perceiving the world through your eyes in your lifetime

plus the occasional conspiracy theory actually being true

Speaking from a sample of one (my son's flatmate), it's too many shit podcasts and too much weed.

BINGO

lots of liberal-ish friends of friends today defending investigating Wayfair because "we should take all rumors of trafficking seriously".

brb, going on Reddit to concoct a theory of how Chuck E Cheese restaurants are hiding children in the Skee Ball machine.

wonder if any of these folks have heard of "swatting" before

when you posted that did you not know the chuck e cheese conspiracy is already a thing?

https://gamerant.com/chuck-e-cheese-missing-children-hoax-five-nights-at-freddys/

Omg!

The “You’re Wrong About” podcast did a good episode about trafficking & the associated hysteria/conspiracies a few months ago, it was v good& interesting

I swear it was 'pomentiful'. I haven't been sleeping nights

It's not just you.

Boris Johnson fake went to Scotland on holiday and fake cancelled after the fake location was fake leaked.

https://dorseteye.com/boris-johnson-camping-trip-was-a-fake/

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/how-qanon-rode-pandemic-new-heights-fueled-viral-anti-mask-n1236695

Interesting piece here on qanon and anti-masks, and how in some cases the freakouts are intentional for an approving audience.

They actually managed to interview the Arizona woman that lost it in Target, she's back down off the deep end now and getting help.

"There's just such a lack of human connection right now," Rein Lively said. "That engagement that you're getting on social media, it's addictive."

This right here is key.

Trump Jr. currently has the coronavirus.

p.s. I just made this one up and didn't read it anywhere.

That's my googling sorted for today

Shaming people who believe illogical things just pushes them further into their radicalization networks.
Disinformation is everywhere. We need to teach people how to spot it early.

This is my Conspiracy Chart. I think it helps. pic.twitter.com/uDOCh5p9Ou

— Abbie Richards (@abbieasr) October 3, 2020

didn't know about a few of these but the "mattress firm" one is my favorite so far

yeah that and 'Finland doesn't exist' jumped out at me

I hadn't heard about Denver International Airport before.

Never heard of Mattress Firm before but I'm assuming there's a similar one for sile place or lets face it any other business that sells out of a big warehouse unit in an area where there are lots of big warehouse units

TILE not SILE ffs

As a few ppl on twitter have pointed out, most of the things in the green, 'actually happened' triangle imply the existence of a deep state

If your benchmark for a deep state is that there are government agencies who have non-public goals and deploy resources towards those goal, sure - but 99% of the yammering about the deep state is waaaayyy up in the top segment.

(not to say that I totally buy into the graph though - I do not, personally, have questions about Roswell)

where's "stevie wonder can see"

I think someone could easily fall under the influence of climate cranks without necessarily being one step away from going the full nut-cake QAnon. I once knew a very nice disability support worker (who was a former children's entertainer) who was a 9/11 truther and he wasn't remotely fash or QAnon adjacent!

"finland doesn't exist" reminds me of the episode of garfield & friends where garfield proves that there is no such state as wyoming

i googled denver int'l airport and at first glance am not entirely sure why it belongs in "we have questions" as opposed to "unequivocally false but mostly harmless"

I wonder if some of it is just different senses of scale? Like, to me, having an airport twice the size of Manhattan sounds insane, but I've never been to Denver...

This is MONSTER ERASURE and I am not having it!!!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ejfsum6XkAMmJz5?format=jpg&name=900x900

where's "covid doesn't exist"? that's a current one with one of my siblings. entertaining watching them try and argue with their "it was made in a Chinese lab" buddies.

@calzino hahaha awesome

@kinder - covid-19 denial is in the yellow anti-science layer

i believe it isn't!

Conspiracy denial denialism!!!! Now that's a truly astonishing level of meta! ;)

where's "covid doesn't exist"? that's a current one with one of my siblings.

One of my daughter's friends was playing with her in the park a week or so and she turned to me the other day and said, "Coronavirus is fake, it's not real". She's 6. Her parents are nice but idiots.

So as I figured, the Wisconsin pharmacist who ruined vaccine doses was motivated by conspiracy theory.
I know we just encounter conspiracy theory nutjobs more often nowadays but there truly are more of them no? Any studies/stats on that? I've def encountered more irl the past decade then I did the previous 3 decades combined.
I'm more concerned about them and their effects than most other "real societal problems", partly because they seem to make those problems worse than they already are. Are a significant portion of humans just hardwired for magical thinking/"secret knowledge" BS? The % decrease in ppl who believe in religious nonsense has been offset by those who believe in conspiracy theory nonsense.

I'm sure the internet has lead to greater dissemination of conspiracy theories and wider adoption of them. for example: I cannot count the number of people I have encountered, of different social, ethnic, and national backgrounds, of different political persuasions, or of none, that have watched and believed the Loose Change films.

Undoubtedly they are disseminated at a more furious pace than ever before, but I still don't think that explains how many more people seemingly believe in them than ever before.

Right, I agree. Psychologist in me thinks it has to do with society growing more complex by the day which causes fear, paranoia, and helplessness in ppl. Clutching onto a conspiracy theory (or theories! ppl I've met generally believe in more than one if they believe in any) gives them a sense of control and understanding.

The illusion of control is the biggest conspiracy theory of them all imo

The trusted journal Fortean Times had a recent editorial about how the mainstream media is treating current conspiracy theories as a new form of moral panic (specifically Q-Anon, 5G, Vaccine chips, etc.), thus giving marginal fringe groups much more coverage than they probably warrant... and disseminating their influence far more widely than some back alley message board ever could.

I also think there's a growing cadre of voices, from Trump on down, yelling that mainstream media sources are fake, and so other 'news' sources, from Newsmax and OANN to randos on youtube, are being sought out as the alternative. My neighbor is a well educated attorney and a very nice person in most instances, but she's totally down the 5G/vaccination rabbit holes.

Yeah I think balkanazation of the news media, which is part of a larger trend of mistrust in authority and expertise, feeds the growth. It's funny to witness, after decades of it being the Left denouncing Big Brother, don't trust anyone over 30, the govt started AIDS etc...to see the patriotic Right get on the bandwagon. And steer it straight towards Crazy Town obv.

in other news, there is some kind of crackpot theory that Helen Keller was a fraud (?) apparently taking root w kids? idk what is this world anymore

thread here:

Guys, something insane happened to me today.

I am on a text chain with my teenage nieces and nephews along with my mom (their grandma) and today my mom asked them if they knew who Helen Keller was...

And their response was that Helen Keller was a fraud who didn't exist.

— Daniel Kunka (@unikunka) January 5, 2021

Hmmm...

https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/comments/krpvc8/stabbed_by_a_qanon_member_i_have_left_qanon_cult/

A whole ton of comments under that story pointing out that this particular poster has a history of trolling though, so I'm gonna proceed with caution.

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.

There have been developments in this story, this friend of my friend is now a rabid anti-lockdown activist and anti-vaxxer - apparently she is refusing to take the COVID vaccine because it changes your DNA and also because Bill Gates. They've been keeping in touch and she wanted my friend's email address so she could send her 'background information' on the pandemic - I advised strongly against this! Anyway, so they chatted recently and my friend said she was happy to give her email address but she didn't want sent any stuff on the pandemic and they agreed, but her friend asked her if she didn't mind if they talked about what she was going to send her instead. One of her big things is Agenda 21, which I don't think has been mentioned itt yet:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21

You can google it and find out that it's a favourite among right wing loons, the gist of it being the usual one world government/ one religion stuff, but with added niceties like people being forced off their land to live in boxes (literally) in cities. This woman's main brainworm though - which is connected to Agenda 21 but also to the Georgia Guidestones in some way - is that the elites are working to reduce the world's population to 500 million people (or something) by any means possible. Also, there is some connection to the Illuminati and the Book of Daniel. You know what they say, you can choose your family but you can't choose youur friends.

apparently she is refusing to take the COVID vaccine because it changes your DNA

Did she cite any peer-reviewed papers to back this assertion up?