conspiracy theories that ended up being true

i am convinced i had it in late 2019, i was the sickest i've ever been, i felt like i was going insane. could have just been a bad flu but who knows

It very well may have been covid.. it was definitely making the rounds by then

My wife swears we both had it in late 2019 as well. She remembers being phenomenally ill with something we both caught after I went into NYC for a jazz gig. I don't remember myself, but it's certainly possible.

My family and I also got sick around December 2019 with something that had flu-like symptoms, though we tested negative for flu. However, it does seem like all the evidence points to this emerging in Wuhan maybe October 2019 at the earliest, with only probably very isolated pockets of cases outside Wuhan until January 2020. There are so many flu-like viruses out there and this was during flu season, so I think the most likely explanation is that it was a coincidence. Not everyone who has an anecdote of being sick in late 2019 could have had Covid, otherwise it would have had to be circulating much more widely than any evidence shows.

for two days in December 2019 my wife was unable to taste anything but salt. everything she ate outside of fruit & vegetables tasted really salty to her. then it suddenly went away. that was kinda weird.

My whole family also caught a bad, non-flu virus that was rampant in late 2019. What we had was not covid.

the reagan/carter 'october surprise' theory seems pretty likely to be true.

going back to 1857: president buchanan did some behind-the-scenes meddling with the dred scott case.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, October 17, 2012 3:39 PM (ten years ago)

I actually didn't realize the October surprise theory wasn't accepted fact (can't remember where I first heard it), but this is pretty conclusive:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html

Good overview of how a lot of discourse about Covid got dismissed as conspiracy theory:

https://jacobin.com/2023/03/covid-19-pandemic-lab-leak-conspiracy-theory-scientific-method-partisan-politics-evidence/

Oh hey you're back with that

The scientific community never ruled out lab leak, but believed it's not the most likely origin.

The people arguing lab leak weren't arguing for its consideration, they were arguing that it happened and wanted the scientific community to embrace it

Ok sure

it has been an odd few years because the lab leak thing was one of the first things I heard about covid (in late 2010 when it was "everyone in wuhan is saying sars is back") and the Chinese dissident communities (for all their various faults) have stuck with it ever since, while opinion in the west seems to bubble and sway on the basis of very little evidence one way or the other. it helps if you already knew wuhan as being well-known for this I guess.

lol 2019 not 2010, my arthritis is flaring up terribly and I can barely type on this stupid phone

https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/the-ufo-craze-was-created-by-government

The "War on Drugs" was started by the Nixon Administration as a way to crack down on Black people and "hippies."

xp I posted earlier in the what are you reading thread about the ufo book I'm in the middle of. Just picked it up for the first time today and the chapter I started leads with the skinwalker ranch. Coincidence? Or conspiracy?