# Conspiracy Theories



## TeenageAngst (Nov 12, 2012)

Alternate title: Why TA is so Batshit Paranoid About the Government.

*9/11*

I could easily drop about 2 days straight worth of videos on this one alone. Everything about 9/11 from the way it happened, the physics behind it, the way the government was run, the clean up, the aftermath, the investigation, it all stinks to high heaven. 9/11 is above and beyond my favorite conspiracy of them all, mostly because there's just so many theories about it. From crazy alien claims to people blaming Israel to people claiming the planes weren't even planes at all, but missiles. And then there's the fringe kooks who take the 9/11 Commission Report seriously, haha!

*Project MK ULTRA
*
This one is by far the spookiest one I've encountered because it's been admitted by our own government to be true. Iran-Contra was bad, but this just makes everything the CIA does come into question. Drugging and experimenting on the civilian population of the United States and Canada with ridiculous levels of mind-altering medication, including LSD, lead to dozens of permanently damaged lives. The attempt at covering the operation up though ended up incriminating the people responsible even more.

*Holocaust Denial*
This is pretty much the granddaddy of all conspiracy theories that no one knows anything about. Most people think it's just crazy racists that think the Germans never killed any Jews, but it's actually completely different. I took on the fools errand of chasing this conspiracy theory down the rabbit hole for months, and when I emerged I was a sad and wiser man. Also, this is easily the most offensive conspiracy theory to talk about, or even mention, because of the tender connotations it carries.

I'm going to go more in-depth on those later but I wanna know what yous guyses think about conspiracy theories.


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## Mayonnaise (Nov 12, 2012)

I love them.

They're fun to read.


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## BRN (Nov 12, 2012)

Having been to Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Plachow, Warsaw, and some of the on-location scenes from _Schindler's List_, not punching a denialist I met once is something I'm genuinely proud of. Birkenau in particular is haunting.

You wanna talk about conspiracy, though, why not talk about the European Union? It's an exercise in dictatorship, or anti-technocracy at its worst.


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## Hakar Kerarmor (Nov 12, 2012)

Conspiracy theories are the delusions of sad little people who need to pretend that they know something that the 'sheeple' don't.


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## BRN (Nov 12, 2012)

Hakar Kerarmor said:


> Conspiracy theories are the delusions of sad little people who need to pretend that they know something that the 'sheeple' don't.



_that's what they want you to think_


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## NaxThewolf (mike) (Nov 12, 2012)

just see go to anonymous they will tell you everything


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## TeenageAngst (Nov 12, 2012)

SIX said:


> Having been to Auschwitz, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Plachow, Warsaw, and some of the on-location scenes from _Schindler's List_, not punching a denialist I met once is something I'm genuinely proud of. Birkenau in particular is haunting.
> 
> You wanna talk about conspiracy, though, why not talk about the European Union? It's an exercise in dictatorship, or anti-technocracy at its worst.



I thought it was crazy too, but I'll explain later. I'm going to lay them out in historical order, the holocaust coming first, then MK ULTRA, the 9/11.


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## LizardKing (Nov 12, 2012)

Most conspiracy theories make me want to punch babies.


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## Aleu (Nov 12, 2012)

There's a reason why they're still "theories". All of which are pretty retarded.


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## Riley (Nov 12, 2012)

I think my favourite has to be chemtrails.  For those lucky enough to not have been exposed to this idiocy, there are people out there who think that the condensation trails ('contrails,' as they are known to sane people) from airplanes are actually poison gasses from chemical sprayers mounted on every single aircraft in existence.  

Nevermind that a remedial grasp of physics can explain this in about a second, no, every government in the world is collaborating to affix these chemical sprayers to every aircraft in the world to spray the poison.  Jury's out on what the poison is supposed to actually do, though.


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## Fallowfox (Nov 12, 2012)

It's amazing that conspiracy theorists instantly become experts in what an exploding building should look like or what a shadow on the moon should appear as. 

The general motive of a conspriacy seems to be 'pick the tiniest most specific detail of a situation, which you know nobody else will have an understanding of. Then pretend you know about it and that it has grandeous implications. It boths makes you sound exciting and extremely smart, unless of course you happen to choose a detail that somebody already understands, then you look like a git,'.



Riley said:


> I think my favourite has to be chemtrails.  For  those lucky enough to not have been exposed to this idiocy, there are  people out there who think that the condensation trails ('contrails,' as  they are known to sane people) from airplanes are actually poison  gasses from chemical sprayers mounted on every single aircraft in  existence.
> 
> Nevermind that a remedial grasp of physics can explain this in about a  second, no, every government in the world is collaborating to affix  these chemical sprayers to every aircraft in the world to spray the  poison.  Jury's out on what the poison is supposed to actually do,  though.



Slowly kill you by shortening your life expectancy- making your death appear entirely natural! 
The men and women responsible [though mostly men wearing fancy suits and dark glasses] take a drug every morning that negate's the poison's effect. 

We should live hundreds of years but these evil people are contracting our life expectancies as part of their evil bid to decrease the world's population for some reason!

...but since the world's population is rising faster than ever a better conspiracy would be that they are spraying sex hormones and OH MY GAWD THAT'S WHY MY DAUGHTER HIT PUBERTY A YEAR EARLIER THAN AVERAGE!


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## Smelge (Nov 12, 2012)

Sorry, so the holocaust never happened? So, what? 6 million Jewish people up and flew away to the fucking moon to live in peace and harmony?

Fucking retarded.


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## Fallowfox (Nov 12, 2012)

Smelge said:


> Sorry, so the holocaust never happened? So, what? 6 million Jewish people up and flew away to the fucking moon to live in peace and harmony?
> 
> Fucking retarded.



No, they live on the dark side of the moon in a giant star of david shaped mother ship, planning their invasion to make a niew zion on earth. 

[oh wait that's already a film isn't it?]


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## dinosaurdammit (Nov 12, 2012)

Ancient Aliens


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## Unsilenced (Nov 12, 2012)

dinosaurdammit said:


> Ancient Aliens



Damnit. I was going to post that.



I see conspiracy theorists as just being really egotistical. Their whole thing is that they know something that the rest of the population is just too stupid or complacent to have figured out. Nevermind all the physicists and chemists out there who have actual knowledge about these things, they're THE ONLY ONES to figure out that steel isn't flammable or whatever bullshit they're going on about this time. Pretty much all of their "arguments" are made by the logic that "well people who aren't me are so stupid that of course the government can get away with cartoonishly evil things," which raises a question: Why doesn't the government assassinate conspiracy theorists? 

I mean, seriously. If the government/illuminati/voices in your head are so rutheless, why don't they just shoot people who "figure it out?" They can get away with causing 9/11, but not making it look like some fat guy in a tinfoil hat overdosed on his heart medicine? 

If conspiracy theorists had even a shred of reason in their bones, they would realize that either A) they're wrong or B) not even the government/shadow organization that committed the act gives a single lonely shit what they have to say about it.


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## Riley (Nov 12, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Slowly kill you by shortening your life expectancy- making your death appear entirely natural!
> The men and women responsible [though mostly men wearing fancy suits and dark glasses] take a drug every morning that negate's the poison's effect.
> 
> We should live hundreds of years but these evil people are contracting our life expectancies as part of their evil bid to decrease the world's population for some reason!
> ...



Hmm, a counter-conspiracy, I see.


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## TeenageAngst (Nov 12, 2012)

Thanks for posting that, Lizardking, I'll be sure to address your points when I get to 9/11. I love debunking debunkers.

Right now though, I want to detail the first in the firing order:

*Holocaust Denial
*
Official story: The Nazis systematically killed over 6 million Jews in concentration camps via gas chambers as a final solution once Hitler realized he was losing WWII, along with millions of others, such as homosexuals, political dissidents, prisoners of war, Poles, and Gypsies.

Popular opinion of Holocaust denial: Deniers think it was all a hoax, that the holocaust never happened, that there were no camps, and that all those people never died. They also are obviously racists who glorify what the Nazis did.

What I've found: Holocaust deniers tend to not be radical extremists. Most of those are just poison in the well. Most have legitimate concerns about how the entire story was portrayed. They agree the camps existed, they agree they imprisoned millions of Jews and were the cause of widespread death at the hands of the racist Nazi regime, but most tend to disagree over the homicidal gas chambers in specific.

I first want to mention why I even bothered giving this theory credence in the first place. Turns out Holocaust denial is technically illegal in just about every western nation aside from the USA. This struck me as extremely bizarre, after all, I know other nations out there have free speech too, right? So what gives? I mean really, how many people are actually Holocaust deniers, and who honestly takes them seriously enough for them to be a threat? Why not just leave the crazies be? The more I looked into this, the more I began to realize there's not just a lot of legislation against Holocaust denial in specific, there's some pretty damning repercussions for even talking about it. Jail for years, career suicide, media slander, etc. You don't hear about this kind of thing happening with David Ikian conspiracy nuts, so I was immediately curious. Just hearing about this theory immediately registered as some strange, dangerous, arcane knowledge.

I'm oversimplifying what has literally been an obsession of mine for a period of months, but I'm going to lay out the basic gist of the theory. Deniers don't believe gas chambers were used to kill the prisoners of the concentration camps. They don't think homicidal gas chambers existed at all, and that the only gas chambers used were for delousing purposes of bed-sheets, clothes, mattresses etc. They believe most of the people who died in the concentration camps died of Typhus, a deadly plague spread by lice that wiped out an enormous part of the Russian population after World War 1. Because the Germans didn't have access to penicillin, an advantage the Allies had, their camps were susceptible to Typhus unless preventative measures were taken. This included gassing linens with Zyklon B (a pesticide), shaving inmates heads, and quarantining the camps. Deniers also tend to believe that the stories surrounding the Holocaust tend to be... pretty ridiculous at best. It follows the old trope that if you tell a story with enough emotional power, it overrides people's ability to think logically. Because of this, when you scrutinize the details, just about every technical point about the Holocaust operations falls flat. Their general alternative theory is that the camps were mainly used as labor camps for German factories. Using the inmates for slave labor makes sense, and even historians will agree this was a widespread practice. However, as the war started to turn for the Allies, the German supply lines were cut. The Allied bombing and total war tactics on Axis infrastructure meant the German war machine was falling apart and supplies to the camps were extremely limited. Without adequate food, medicine, or other vital supplies the camps became a breeding ground for disease, namely Typhus. The Germans couldn't let the inmates go free or fall into the hands of the Soviets or they'd risk another deadly epidemic across all of Eastern Europe, so they pushed the inmates west where they knew they would be captured by the American forces. Their efforts were in vain however and massive numbers of inmates died to Typhus as well as malnutrition and dehydration brought on by other illnesses and squalid living conditions.

Physical evidence notwithstanding, this seems like an entirely logical assumption. The Germans are still mean racist sons of bitches, but they're just not intentionally throwing Jews into ovens. If anything it sounds more realistic. The point of this alternative viewpoint, excluding the gas chambers, is to portray WWII as a war in which there were no good guys or bad guys, just winners and losers. The Soviets had Stalin and his atrocities. The Germans had Hitler and his terrible racist treatment, with hundreds of thousands if not millions dead because of his crazy ideologies, and the Allies had Churchill, who placed a supply embargo on Greece until 500,000 Greeks died of starvation and who prevented aid during the Bengal Famine. Lest we forget the Americans who initiated total war against the Germans, intentionally bombing civilian cities with zero military targets within, and the terrible treatment of PoWs under General Eisenhower's control. All in all it paints a sobering view of WWII which allows us to critically analyze all the aftereffects.

We cannot, however, ignore the physical evidence. What of the Auschwitz gas chambers? What about Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec, Buchenwald? The first one is far too complex for me to explain in a forum post but it essentially involves grasping at straws in terms of eyewitness testimonies and original blueprints. I'm going to defer to this video which explains the flaws in the operations in-depth. Also it might be worth checking out the infamous David Cole video.

As for the Operation Reinhard deathcamps, there's spotty evidence that they even existed and every detail about their operation is plagued with both inaccuracies and physical improbabilities. For instance, an eyewitness account claiming the use of diesel exhaust from a captured Soviet tank engine as a means of generating a lethal level of carbon monoxide is both impractical and highly improbable. The burial space given by the eyewitnesses doesn't match up with the sheer number of people each camp was claimed to have exterminated. These are a few of the proposed problems with these camps.

As for Buchenwald, that's a whole other kettle of fish. It involves the birth of the psychological warfare department, the creation of the CIA, and characters that had their hands in everything from forging human skin lampshades to buying and editing the Zapruder film. This is beyond the scope of this post, but if you want I can rattle off names, places, dates, and associations later on.

So, all in all, how does Holocaust denial stack up? I've arranged 3 categories by which a theory should be judged: How interesting it is, how crazy it is, and how relevant it is.

For interesting, I give Holocaust denial 9/10 Bilderbergs. It's unlikely you're going to find a more taboo or dangerous conspiracy theory outside of some extremely esoteric one that endangers you personally. Holocaust denial is extremely touchy even among conspiracy theorists and the few people that bother to research it do so feverishly.

As far as crazy goes, I give it 4/10 tinfoil hats. It falls short of crazy, and certainly isn't in the batshit insane category  It's definitely out there though, and great claims necessitate great evidence. Unfortunately for Holocaust deniers, most of this evidence is circumstantial, but there is enough to spur some discussion on the subject. Certainly a conversation between a well-read denier and an open-minded historian on the subject would be something I'd love to read.

And finally, relevance, I give the theory 6/10 missing WMDs. Most of what happened during WWII explains the Cold War era almost in its entirety. The entire history of the state of Israel can be traced back to the Holocaust and its far reaching implications. That being said, the world has evolved since then and the motivations of various nations have changed over the decades. Still, I feel understanding this theory and its implications to still be somewhat relevant in today's world.

And there you have it, Holocaust denial. Next on the list is Project MK ULTRA, or perhaps the JFK assassination since that one totally slipped my mind.


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## Sutekh_the_Destroyer (Nov 12, 2012)

They're entertaining to read, but I don't believe a word of it. There's a guy next to me in my english class who believes all these conspiracy theories. We always argue about whether Paul McCartney's really dead or not.


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## Rasly (Nov 12, 2012)

I like them, many of them are crazy, but they are still smarter then people that just belive whatever they hear on tv.


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## Fallowfox (Nov 12, 2012)

Rasly said:


> I like them, many of them are crazy, but they are still smarter then people that just belive whatever they hear on tv.



*than

and no, believing whatever you read on the internet after googling 'roswell' or 'top secret' does not make you any smarter than someone who believes everything they hear from Fox. It's just a more exteme version of dogma.


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## Rasly (Nov 12, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> and no, believing whatever you read on the internet after googling  'roswell' or 'top secret' does not make you any smarter than someone who  believes everything they hear from Fox. It's just a more exteme version  of dogma.


well, people that google for info, at least are choosing for themself in what to belive, while people that get their info from tv, are just accepting whatever theory was chosen for them. So, they are a bit smarter, imho.


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## LizardKing (Nov 12, 2012)

TeenageAngst said:


> What I've found: Holocaust deniers tend to not be radical extremists. Most of those are just poison in the well. Most have legitimate concerns about how the entire story was portrayed. They agree the camps existed, they agree they imprisoned millions of Jews and were the cause of widespread death at the hands of the racist Nazi regime, but most tend to disagree over the homicidal gas chambers in specific.



If that was the only point of contention, and that the conspiracy wasn't that it didn't happen, but that the _cause _of those deaths was disputed, it's a far more feasible theory. Psychological warfare is a long-established and well-studied phenomenon - ancient, even - and I wouldn't find it all too surprising to discover that it was true. It's not something I have any real knowledge about though, so I don't have any input on it.


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## BRN (Nov 12, 2012)

LizardKing said:


> If that was the only point of contention, and that the conspiracy wasn't that it didn't happen, but that the _cause _of those deaths was disputed, it's a far more feasible theory. Psychological warfare is a long-established and well-studied phenomenon - ancient, even - and I wouldn't find it all too surprising to discover that it was true. It's not something I have any real knowledge about though, so I don't have any input on it.



  I've held a Zyklon B canister, and seen an [admittedly, collapsed] gas shower, along with eight tonnes of human hair.

Evidence? Head to Poland. *twitch*


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## LizardKing (Nov 12, 2012)

SIX said:


> I've held a Zyklon B canister, and seen an [admittedly, collapsed] gas shower, along with eight tonnes of human hair.
> 
> Evidence? Head to Poland. *twitch*



There's always option C: Both theories are correct, but that some/all deaths caused by starvation/illness were attributed to gassings. I can't say I really have a strong opinion on any of these, since I haven't really looked into it in any detail, but at the very least it makes more sense than most conspiracy theories (I'm looking at you, chemtrails).


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## TeenageAngst (Nov 12, 2012)

SIX said:


> I've held a Zyklon B canister, and seen an [admittedly, collapsed] gas shower, along with eight tonnes of human hair.
> 
> Evidence? Head to Poland. *twitch*



The shower/undressing rooms were labeled as lichenkeller, they were used to store the corpses from the typhus epidemic in the camp because they were cool, dark, and underground. There was a gas chamber that did use Zyklon B at Auschwitz but it was used for fumigation only, even the tour guides will admit this.


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## Fallowfox (Nov 12, 2012)

Rasly said:


> well, people that google for info, at least are choosing for themself in what to belive, while people that get their info from tv, are just accepting whatever theory was chosen for them. So, they are a bit smarter, imho.



I could choose to believe fairies knit underpants beneath the atmosphere of Jupiter. A wonderful display of imagination but not a sign of intelligence. 

A conspiracy theorist may choose to get their beliefs from Google search results that had loaded queries. 
A far right extremist may choose to get their beliefs by reading the daily mail. 

At the end of the day both individuals are suckling at the faecal teat of the rotten media they have each chosen.


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## Toshabi (Nov 12, 2012)

Conspiracy Theories: Fan Fics made by people who actually believe that their made up stories are real.


Either or, the only conspiracy theories I actually believe are the ones made by Keanu Reeves.


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## Sutekh_the_Destroyer (Nov 12, 2012)

Toshabi said:


> Either or, the only conspiracy theories I actually believe are the ones made by Keanu Reeves.



My mind is now officially blown.


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## Fallowfox (Nov 12, 2012)

Toshabi said:


> Conspiracy Theories: Fan Fics made by people who actually believe that their made up stories are real.
> 
> 
> Either or, the only conspiracy theories I actually believe are the ones made by Keanu Reeves.




Oxygen _is_ poisonous.


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## badlands (Nov 12, 2012)

we are all in the matrix.


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## BRN (Nov 12, 2012)

Fallowfox said:


> Oxygen _is_ poisonous.


It's true, 100% of humans who breathe it die.


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## Percy (Nov 12, 2012)

SIX said:


> It's true, 100% of humans who breathe it die.


It's what we need to survive, and it's slowly killing us all.


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## Tf'd Toucan (Nov 12, 2012)

The Illuminati
This is one the of the most well known conspiracies to date.  This cult is basically the exact opposite of the Jehova's Witnesses.  The witnesses preach the word of their religion to persuade you (unsuccessfully) but the Illuminati do much worse.  To put it in simplest terms 'convert or be killed'

they inderectly call out to an unsuspecting victim and give them a choice, sell your soul for enlightenment, or deal with whatever comes your way.  I heard a story from a while ago, but i don't remember who it was.  He was comfronted by someone claiming to be a part of the Illuminati, and tried to convince him to join, he declined and went on his way.

This confrontation inspired him to create a music album "Illuminati" However, within three months this man was killed.  By who? No one knows.  By what?  A falling piano did him in.  

excuse me if i'm wrong, but i only heard what i know by word of mouth, not any hard evidence


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## Riley (Nov 12, 2012)

Tf'd Toucan said:


> A falling piano did him in.



Just like a toon.


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## Echo Wolf (Nov 12, 2012)

Riley said:


> Just like a toon.



Son of a', it's been in front of us the whole time! The Illuminati is run by Judge Doom and their secret agenda is to destroy cartoons and Christianity. How did we not see this before? Come on guys we need to get on the ball.


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## Ryuu (Nov 13, 2012)

Dont forget about the Myans...


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## Percy (Nov 13, 2012)

Ryuu said:


> Dont forget about the Myans...


It's pretty well realized that the end-of-the-world thing is all BS anyway...


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## Pembroke (Nov 13, 2012)

I love conspiracy theories myself, they make life more interesting. Not sure I hold much belief in most of them though I do believe there is some sort of conspiracy behind energy drinks.


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## BRN (Nov 13, 2012)

Pembroke said:


> I love conspiracy theories myself, they make life more interesting. Not sure I hold much belief in most of them though I do believe there is some sort of conspiracy behind energy drinks.



Oooh, I'm drinking a Red Bull as I type. What's the conspiracy?


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## Pembroke (Nov 13, 2012)

SIX said:


> Oooh, I'm drinking a Red Bull as I type. What's the conspiracy?




Centuries ago humans discovered caffeine and its energising properties and began to use it to enhance their abilities to work and remain alert, companies eventually exploited this and now we have a large population of the workforce addicted to caffeine, the problem with that is that like any drug you eventually build up a tolerance.

Personally I believe energy drinks were created and popularised as the new fuel for the mindless workforce because we are building a tolerance to caffeine and they need a new way to keep us hooked and focused. They even get you hooked earlier now by encouraging teenagers to drink the energy drink and there has been attempts to incorporate it into recreational drinking (see fourloko) though that didn't exactly go as planned.


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## BRN (Nov 13, 2012)

Pembroke said:


> Centuries ago humans discovered caffeine and its energising properties and began to use it to enhance their abilities to work and remain alert, companies eventually exploited this and now we have a large population of the workforce addicted to caffeine, the problem with that is that like any drug you eventually build up a tolerance.
> 
> Personally I believe energy drinks were created and popularised as the new fuel for the mindless workforce because we are building a tolerance to caffeine and they need a new way to keep us hooked and focused. They even get you hooked earlier now by encouraging teenagers to drink the energy drink and there has been attempts to incorporate it into recreational drinking (see fourloko) though that didn't exactly go as planned.



Intentional exposure to addictive chemicals to increase profits, while making the common man totally dependent! How diabolical. 

Interesting! :3


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## Randy-Darkshade (Nov 13, 2012)

It doesn't matter what world event happens, someone will start conspiracy theories about it. Which basically means every historical event is a conspiracy according to people who believe in conspiracy theories. 

9/11, a big historical event, has conspiracy theories.

WW2, another big historical event, again has conspiracy theories. 

And I am sure if I go digging around I can find many more historical events that also have some conspiracy theories attached to it.


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## ADF (Nov 13, 2012)

I'm not fond of the term "conspiracy theorist" as it's over used and applied to too many things. Enron was a conspiracy, Madoff's ponzi scheme was a conspiracy, that the CDOs prior to the economic crash were fraudulent was a conspiracy, that Goldman Sachs was robo signing mortgages was a conspiracy theory. All eventually proven true. Conspiracy theories become conspiracy fact all the time, but the moment people hear a conspiracy theory they automatically disregard it on grounds that all conspiracies must be false. 

Latest conspiracy theory I'm keeping track of is the GATA one, because things in the precious metals market just stink of manipulation. How the hell can twice the US's annual silver output, a quarter of global output, magically come out of nowhere and get dumped onto the market over a 15 minute period; crashing the price? They can make unlimited paper contracts for precious metals so long as they never have to deliver on them, it's argued that less than 1% of these contracts are actually backed by physical. Yet you keep seeing large quantities of these contracts get issued every time the metal prices begin to rise, as if someone out there is actively trying to suppress these prices. Never mind alchemy, some genius figured out they can make gold simply by issuing more paper, and the market accepts those paper contracts as real gold. 

Counting ETF contracts as supply of a commodity will be regarded as one of the worst decisions the commodity market has ever made, because the supply of actual raw materials we use every day is being distorted by these leveraged contracts. We could actually have a fraction of the food the market says we do, simply because some idiots issued more contracts counting as the supply of those commodities than actually exists. Just so there is more supply of contracts for people to speculate price movements with, but of course the world cannot actually eat paper contracts for food that doesn't exist...

Obviously there are stupid ones, but people shouldn't regard every conspiracy theory as something to be automatically shrugged off.


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## Pembroke (Nov 13, 2012)

SIX said:


> Intentional exposure to addictive chemicals to increase profits, while making the common man totally dependent! How diabolical.
> 
> Interesting! :3



Haha glad you think so.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Nov 13, 2012)

ADF said:


> I'm not fond of the term "conspiracy theorist" as it's over used and applied to too many things. Enron was a conspiracy, Madoff's ponzi scheme was a conspiracy, that the CDOs prior to the economic crash were fraudulent was a conspiracy, that Goldman Sachs was robo signing montages was a conspiracy theory. All eventually proven true. Conspiracy theories become conspiracy fact all the time, but the moment people hear a conspiracy theory they automatically disregard it on grounds that all conspiracies must be false.



So what you're saying is, every event that has happened in this world is just a conspiracy? I don't think so. 



> Latest conspiracy theory I'm keeping track of is the GATA one, because things in the precious metals market just stink of manipulation. How the hell can twice the US's annual silver output, a quarter of global output, magically come out of nowhere and get dumped onto the market over a 15 minute period; crashing the price? They can make unlimited paper contracts for precious metals so long as they never have to deliver on them, it's argued that less than 1% of these contracts are actually backed by physical. Yet you keep seeing large quantities of these contracts get issued every time the metal prices begin to rise, as if someone out there is actively trying to suppress these prices. Never mind alchemy, some genius figured out they can make gold simply by issuing more paper, and the market accepts those paper contracts as real gold.



The problem I have with conspiracy theorists is that they believe everything the government does, is somehow a conspiracy. No matter what it is.




> Obviously there are stupid ones, but people shouldn't regard every conspiracy theory as something to be automatically shrugged off.



But it's okay for conspiracy theorists to think everything is a conspiracy?


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## ADF (Nov 13, 2012)

Randy-Darkshade said:


> So what you're saying is, every event that has happened in this world is just a conspiracy? I don't think so.



I didn't say anything along those terms. I was simply referencing several instances that were regarded as conspiracy theories that ended up being true, so to react to every conspiracy theory claim as if anything that's a conspiracy theory is automatically wrong is a flawed approach.



Randy-Darkshade said:


> The problem I have with conspiracy theorists is that they believe everything the government does, is somehow a conspiracy. No matter what it is.



Where did I say you must believe every single conspiracy out there? I simply stated that there are real conspiracy theories that end up being upgraded to conspiracy fact, despite being disregarded as laughable prior.



Randy-Darkshade said:


> But it's okay for conspiracy theorists to think everything is a conspiracy?



Where did I say that? 

You've seemed to have invented this category of conspiracy theorist that is defined as having to believe everything out there, people pick and choose what sounds realistic to them. There are of course the nutters out there, but even they don't believe 'everything' under the conspiracy theory category.


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## Randy-Darkshade (Nov 13, 2012)

ADF said:


> I didn't say anything along those terms. I was simply referencing several instances that were regarded as conspiracy theories that ended up being true, so to react to every conspiracy theory claim as if anything that's a conspiracy theory is automatically wrong is a flawed approach.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You didn't say any of that yourself, I was just stating this is the impression I get from conspiracy theorists because no matter what a government does, someone out there will come up with a conspiracy theory.

I watched a documentary that studies various conspiracies which invites a group of conspiracy theorists along for a road trip, the host tries to disprove their theories on these trips. One was about Aliens. There was one woman claiming she saw a UFO in broad daylight flying above a packed highway, yet she was the only driver to see it. Which makes me wonder what the fudge she was smoking that day.

Then there was another guy who believes there will be an alien attack one day and is actually stocking canned food up, collecting weapons and has even made a fucking tinfoil hat. >.> 

They did one about 9/11 and most of the theories claimed were disproved. Cause each person on the road trip had their own conspiracy theory. Naturally a couple couldn't be proved or disproved. Yet some of those on this show, despite having their theories shot down and disproved still believed they were right. 

Of course some conspiracies are true, like the Jimmy Saville cover up from the BBC.


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## Bulveye (Nov 13, 2012)

Rasly said:


> I like them, many of them are crazy, but they are still smarter then people that just belive whatever they hear on tv.


I know a conspiracy theorist (idiot) who used to be my manager, and he wouldn't watch mainstream news but instead read biased conspiracy websites and then of course claimed we were the ones being brainwashed. It's pretty hypocritical. The thing that gets me is that he thinks the government is ridiculously stupid yet were able to pull off something as elaborate as 9/11 so we could have more control in the middle east. He even went as far as to say the theater shooting in Colorado was done by the government so Obama could pass more gun control laws and take away more of his constitutional rights. It's sad to see since he is my friend, but he's absolutely batshit crazy at this point. 
I was doing some research on it and it seems like a lot of conspiracy theorists suffer from paranoid personality disorder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_personality_disorder


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## Unsilenced (Nov 13, 2012)

Pembroke said:


> Centuries ago humans discovered caffeine and its energising properties and began to use it to enhance their abilities to work and remain alert, companies eventually exploited this and now we have a large population of the workforce addicted to caffeine, the problem with that is that like any drug you eventually build up a tolerance.
> 
> Personally I believe energy drinks were created and popularised as the new fuel for the mindless workforce because we are building a tolerance to caffeine and they need a new way to keep us hooked and focused. They even get you hooked earlier now by encouraging teenagers to drink the energy drink and there has been attempts to incorporate it into recreational drinking (see fourloko) though that didn't exactly go as planned.



That's not so much a conspiracy as it is marketing. At least once you take out the "they want us to be on caffeine" thing. They couldn't give a fuck what caffeine does as long as it's habit forming and almost completely unregulated. As always, there's kind of a cause-effect thing. They didn't just randomly start making fucktons of energy-drinks because of any grand master plan; they made them because human beings are hardwired to crave stimulants and sugar. People wanted more than they could find in their normal coffee and tea, and have thus far been willing to buy caffeine as strong as companies can make it. Sure they can push it with marketing, but if it weren't something people wanted it wouldn't work. 

Most conspiracy theories I find fall apart at motivation. They often involve the co-operation of massive entities (generally corporations and the government) in an endeavor that one or both of them doesn't really stand to gain anything from. Why would Coca Cola give a shit whether or not caffeine makes you a better worker/citizen? Why would the government want you to drink caffeine? Caffeine overdose causes paranoia, not passivity, and it's certainly not doing anything good in terms of health costs. You could say that some people were taking bribes from this and that, but in order for the entire company (make that companies, dozens of them that are all competing with each other) and the government to all be down with it, there would have to basically be a giant orgy of money, at which point the paper trail would be so long that it would gain sentience and report itself. 

It's kind of depressing, really. All this corruption and greed and we haven't gotten a single moon laser or private clone army. So many ruthless people out there, is it so much to ask that just a few of them also be bond-villian insane?


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## Ozriel (Nov 13, 2012)

There's a book at the library that revolves around the government being aliens and personally targeting him called Behold a Pale horse.


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## TeenageAngst (Nov 24, 2012)

*The JFK Assassination*

Official story: President Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine, who shot him with a Carcano rifle from the window of the Texas school book depository. Oswald fired three shots, and the President and Governor Connally both received severe wounds due to a single bullet passing through the President and into the Governor.

Popular Opinion of the JFK assassination conspiracy: There might have been a shooter in the grassy knoll, but no one really knows. Anyway, it probably doesn't mean conspiracy, saying that is just jumping to conclusions.

What I've found: The actual assassination was of course from a shooter in the grassy knoll, anyone who sees the footage can tell this clear as day. The real conspiracy lies much deeper however.

I gave my videos and material regarding the Kennedy assassination another look and, after having already mentioned Holocaust denial, I feel it's worthy of discussing before getting further into the nitty-gritties of other conspiracies. Let me take you back, some 18 years prior to the assassination, to the concentration camp at Buchenwald. This was the end of WWII during 1945 and the Allies were faced with a unique problem. Their total war tactics had left most of German-occupied Europe a smoking crater, not so much "liberated" as utterly demolished. The Soviets were making the decision not to relinquish the land they'd acquired during the process of the war, thus Stalin's Soviet empire was now becoming almost indistinguishable from Nazi Germany. Compounding this issue, the German people themselves felt righteous indignation that their lands were conquered by the Allies, most notably the Americans. Finally, during the course of the military expansion of WWII, the so-called Military Industrial Complex began to form. The compartmentalized United States military was now so large and air-tight that certain parts of the government, namely congress, were no longer aware of what other parts, the Pentagon, were doing. From these circumstances came two important organizations: the CIA and the Psychological Warfare division.

Psychological Warfare, or as it called itself, Information Control, were the first to step a single boot inside the Buchenwald concentration camp. Throughout the war, as during any war, rumors abounded concerning atrocities on both sides. Everything from the Nazis making human soap, a rumor dating back to World War 1 and the German cadaver factories, to human skin lampshades and homicidal gas chambers disguised as showers. The PsychWar's job was to basically provide evidence of these atrocities by planting them inside the Buchenwald camp and making the German people see them themselves on a forced tour of the camp, as well as United States senators and press reporters. None of these people, even the congressmen, knew it was a PsychWar-staged tour. The result, as the Holocaust deniers claim, was that many of these rumors even to this day are considered fact. There was one man in charge of this specific task inside the Buchenwald camp, his name was Charles Jackson, or C. D. Jackson.

General C. D. Jackson was intimately tied to the Eisenhower presidency and the formation of the CIA. In addition to this, he was a speechwriter for Eisenhower and involved in numerous anti-communist propaganda campaigns in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, he was the head publisher of Time-Life and a founding member of the Bilderberg Group. An anti-communist revolt did eventually break out in Hungary, and C. D. Jackson implored President Eisenhower to assist the rebels. He sent numerous frantic memos to the President calling for action. Eisenhower however, in spite of their previous relationship, refused to send troops to help the Hungarian rebels. C. D. Jackson felt betrayed by this and immediately began shifting the Time-Life publications to favor John F. Kennedy for the presidency. When Kennedy was elected, Jackson urged him to enter Vietnam. Vietnam was a subject of Time-Life publications' focus years before we ever committed combat troops, and this was largely C. D. Jackson's doing. Kennedy however was reluctant to invade Vietnam which only further frustrated the exasperated C. D. Jackson. The final blow came with the embarrassing Bay of Pigs incident.

There are numerous things in this picture that strike me as inherently wrong. Going back to the Buchenwald camp, the fact that U.S. senators were led on a tour of a PsychWar demonstration without any information of such. This set a terrible precedent of our own government using its own misinformation to urge other political officials to make decisions. The fact that Eisenhower had a speech writer and cabinet member who was a Psychological Warfare founder leads me to wonder what lies were peddled to the people. Jackson using his media empire to promote his political views is reminiscent of Rupert Murdock and his Clearchannel corporation. But what about Kennedy, would Jackson be so crazy as to have him assassinated? This is my opinion, but I would think so. The motivation is clear, he was betrayed by two separate presidents, and LBJ obviously wanted the war in Vietnam badly. He had the ties to the CIA to carry it out, and the Warren commission itself was full of people that should have been suspects, not investigators. For instance, John McCloy and Allen Dulles were included amongst the committee members. The Warren commission's problems were part and parcel what happened with the 9/11 commission, for future reference. Perhaps the most damning evidence of all was the fact that the Zapruder film was purchased by Time-Life and doctored with two splices removing several frames.

There are numerous intricacies involved in the Kennedy assassination from doctored autopsy photos to contradictory eyewitness reports, and of course the craziness that is the "magic bullet". For that kind of thing, I'd like to direct you to a pair of videos that are both interesting and rather thorough in their coverage of the subject:

http://youtu.be/ODw2QMFkf_0
http://youtu.be/WpX90eQuO04

In my opinion, Oswald was probably a shooter, but there was another shooter in the grassy knoll. Also, it was probably the CIA behind the entire thing. The point isn't so much how Kennedy was killed, it's the involvement of the CIA at all, including Allen Dulles being a committee member. It's the relationships of the members of the Warren commission. And finally, it's C. D. Jackson's involvement. The fact that he was consulted to look at what is considered the most critical piece of evidence in the Kennedy assassination is remarkable enough, but that he got away scott free with doctoring the footage reveals nothing short of conspiracy. These commission members and Jackson included were an old boys club going back to World War II. They were founding CIA members who were now ex-members and upset with the direction the government was taking.

Oh, I almost forgot my rating!

The JFK assassination gets 5/10 Bilderbergs for interesting. It's interesting in as much it's a textbook example of a conspiracy theory. If you want a conspiracy theory where there is ample evidence that no one will stop and think about long enough to realize the implications, it's the JFK assassination. What is more interesting is the background and the cast of characters.

For crazy, it gets 2/10 tinfoil hats. The JFK assassination conspiracy definitely isn't crazy. No one is going to look at you weird if you say, "You know, I think there was a shooter in the grassy knoll," let alone write you off as a lunatic.

Lastly it gets 5/10 missing WMDs. As with its interesting factor, the JFK assassination is only relevant from the perspective of who was involved in the events leading up to and taking place after. The assassination itself is a rather straightforward study and isolated incident, a smaller part in a much larger story with much grander implications.

Next, as promised, I'm going to talk about Project MK-ULTRA, a fascinating little conspiracy.


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## Neuron (Nov 24, 2012)

Unsilenced said:


> I mean, seriously. If the government/illuminati/voices in your head are so rutheless, why don't they just shoot people who "figure it out?" They can get away with causing 9/11, but not making it look like some fat guy in a tinfoil hat overdosed on his heart medicine?


Actually, there was a former CIA operative that talked who explains this.

I can't find the video right now, but essentially, he says that the government actually doesn't cover a lot of true conspiracy theories up and you can go out and find all the information you could ever want or need on it. You can talk about it all you like all day on a forum on the internet, and no one cares. There are CIA operatives who talk about their former work and yet don't get any serious repercussions from it. The key is that the mainstream media is so heavily influenced in one direction, and that there is just so much absolute bullshit that ISN'T true amongst the very few things that may be something to consider, that the problem really solves itself.

The conspiracy theorists are opposed in all directions and often getting the picture entirely wrong anyway due to huge amounts of disinformation, some government created, but most isn't as he pointed out people just create it themselves so the government doesn't exactly need to. It would be a great deal of effort and resources to deal individually with even the most occasional instance of someone touching on one of the rare true facts, so instead the media portrays a certain image of those people, the everyday schmuck makes fun of them and calls them stupid, and problem solved. A complacent and still widely ignorant population is achieved and maintained, even with the most credible of whistle blowers because those guys have a lot of trouble getting noticed outside the fringe because of this.

I personally agree with ADF on this. It's not unreasonable to question the official stories and authority around you, but in doing so it is good to have a healthy amount of skepticism. I think that it's interesting that so many conspiracy theories that are definitely more riddled with disinformation generally tend to distract people from researching long and hard about our financial institutions and the implications. But I think it's one of the more important questions people should ask themselves, since there's an awful lot of funny things going on within it.


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## Aetius (Nov 24, 2012)

Tf'd Toucan said:


> The Illuminati
> This is one the of the most well known conspiracies to date. This cult is basically the exact opposite of the Jehova's Witnesses. The witnesses preach the word of their religion to persuade you (unsuccessfully) but the Illuminati do much worse. To put it in simplest terms 'convert or be killed'
> 
> they inderectly call out to an unsuspecting victim and give them a choice, sell your soul for enlightenment, or deal with whatever comes your way. I heard a story from a while ago, but i don't remember who it was. He was comfronted by someone claiming to be a part of the Illuminati, and tried to convince him to join, he declined and went on his way.
> ...



I bet Obama did it.


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## Takeo Wolf (Nov 26, 2012)

It is funny to listen to people talking about conspiracy theorys


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## TeenageAngst (May 17, 2013)

*CIA PROJECTS*

Official story: The CIA engaged in various projects with varying levels of success throughout the middle of the 20th century, ending with PROJECT MKULTRA. These involved various uses of unethical chemical and psychological torture.

Popular opinion of the CIA PROJECTS: Most people don't know much about them, or if they do, it's only a loose knowledge of the MKULTRA program. Those that know of it seem to think it's crazy, but don't really hold much of an opinion on it. Perhaps because they think it's exaggerated or didn't really happen.

What I've found: The CIA PROJECTS are some of the most damning and incriminating evidence against the CIA's operations. Aside from the tremendous implications brought forth by the PROJECTS themselves, it sets a precedent for how the CIA handles its operations, what its limits are, and raises suspicion wherever they are involved.

Okay, so we've all heard about MK ULTRA, the legendary fiasco where the CIA engaged in terrible acts against its own people in the name of finding new interrogation techniques, or even achieving mind control. There's more to the story though, and as I hope to make clear, this is something the CIA has been involved in since its inception.

First, once again, we need to go back. Way back to the ending of WWII with operation PAPERCLIP and the interrogation camp DUSTBIN. This was a prototype for the later PROJECTs the CIA would conduct via clandestine operations against U.S. citizens. Essentially, as with any war, after WWII to the victors when the spoils. However, unlike most wars, these were spoils not so much of art and gold as intellect. The German scientists were held in interrogation camps such as DUSTBIN for weeks or even months. Although not much about these techniques is known, what is for sure is that the accompanying operation, PAPERCLIP, was highly successful in denationalizing the Nazi scientists and bringing them over to the American side. For sure, most of these men probably weren't die-hard Nazis, but perhaps a few were. Needless to say, the American ideals and hatred of the Nazi atrocities, many of which were designed of overseen by some of these very scientists, were put on hold in the name of claiming more men for the Allied powers than the Soviets could grab. It was out of this operation and the atmosphere of the intense cold war that the PROJECTS began.

Starting in 1949 with PROJECT BLUEBIRD, the goal of the CIA was ridiculous yet simple: Take what was already successfully achieved by the Psychological Warfare division and scientifically refine it to the point of weaponization. In specific, it was shooting for the ability to create a super spy. One with a multiple personality disorder that would be incapable of remembering actions committed by the other personality. This artificially induced psychological disorder would be used to create time-bomb assassins, spys, etc. for use against the communists. Although it seemed like a good idea at the time, during the 50s it became clear this was damn near impossible to pull off. Never one to give up though, the CIA changed it up and rolled all their progress into the expanded PROJECT ARTICHOKE.

As the programs continued, they increased in harshness. Taking what was learned in BLUEBIRD, PROJECT ARTICHOKE sought to refine its methods. Using forced morphine addiction/withdrawal, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and other forms of torture, the CIA hoped to gain significantly better interrogation techniques for use against enemy spies. What's more, they still had not entirely given up their ambition on creating a mind control method useful for either causing spies to forget events or causing them to carry out actions against their will. This even included the use of LSD. Although it is possible BLUEBIRD utilized such measures, it's impossible to know for sure because the files in BLUEBIRD were for the most part lost, secured, destroyed, or otherwise made inaccessible. Thus, ARTICHOKE is the earliest PROJECT we know much about.

All of this is of course dwarfed by PROJECT MKULTRA. As ARTICHOKE became scrutinized, just as BLUEBIRD was, it became necessary to change up the name and goals. What this program did was more refining of the goals of ARTICHOKE (that is, less research into mind control and more into brainwashing and torture). Most of all it expanded, now affecting thousands of people, even unwitting civilians. The blowback from this was tremendous, with many subjects requiring psychological counseling, committing suicide, etc. Some were coerced, for example, heroin addicts were forced to endure experimentation to receive their reward, heroin. Some people died in the course of the program while others went insane. There is even evidence that the Unabomber, a subject of these experiments, was a form of blowback. As a final nail in the incriminating coffin, when finally exposed for the crimes, Richard Helms, the then director of the CIA, tried to destroy all the documents pertaining to PROJECT MKULTRA.

So what, then, is the takeaway from all this? Although MKULTRA officially ended in the 70s there's no reason to believe the CIA gave up on its goals, nor should we believe there was nothing valuable learned and utilized that may never come to light. The fact these operations continued for the better part of 30 years before being discovered should be reason alone to believe that they are capable of performing massive operations in complete secret, even from other portions of the government. This goes hand in hand with other government experiments going on at the same time, including eugenics, forced sterilization, and the legendary Tuskegee syphilis experiments. These operations set the stage for the *capacity* for the CIA or other government agencies to carry out conspiratorial acts in secret.

For interesting, MKULTRA gets a whopping 8/10 Bilderbergs. Good conspiracy theories are inherently interesting, and the more truth you mix in, the more interesting they get. MKULTRA and the corresponding PROJECTs are both true and documented, making their occurrence nothing short of chilling. The recitation of these accounts is almost exactly like the horrific recitations of Japanese and German POW experiments, and these were committed during peacetime!

For crazy, I'm giving these 3/10 tinfoil hats. It's crazy, but it's true. It's so mind-bogglingly unbelievable though that cognitive dissonance kicks in with most of the people who learn about it, thus elevating its craziness even above the JFK assassination.

For relevance, I'm giving it 7/10 missing WMDs. Although the PROJECTs ended long ago, there is no reason to believe they ever completely ended. Furthermore it's impossible to truly know the extent to which their influence was felt since most of the documentation was lost. Some dots, like I've already posted, are quite easy to connect, while others are lost to the sands of time.


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## PastryOfApathy (May 17, 2013)

I love conspiracy theories, more so the people who are stupid enough to actually believe them. 

However I will always be a true believer in the wonderful little man known as David Icke who believes that he is the son of god, and that the world is secretly controlled by shapeshifting lizard people. He also thinks _The Matrix_ was a documentary. Seriously read his books sometime they're astounding.


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## Duality Jack (May 17, 2013)

PastryOfApathy said:


> I love conspiracy theories, more so the people who are stupid enough to actually believe them.
> 
> However I will always be a true believer in the wonderful little man known as David Icke who believes that he is the son of god, and that the world is secretly controlled by shapeshifting lizard people. He also thinks _The Matrix_ was a documentary. Seriously read his books sometime they're astounding.



MK ULTRA is not really a theory though. It has been proven to exist... and what they did was proven.


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## Gr8fulFox (May 17, 2013)

I think the liquids ban at the airport is a conspiracy to get me to buy expensive soda inside the terminal. Seriously, there is no good reason why I can't bring sealed cans of Coke into an airport terminal; it's just a way to get me to pay $5 for a 20 OZ bottle of soda.


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## TeenageAngst (May 17, 2013)

Mokushi said:


> MK ULTRA is not really a theory though. It has been proven to exist... and what they did was proven.



It's more a conspiracy fact I guess, like Iran-Contra, but that sounds kinda dumb.

I'm actually going to talk about Iran-Contra a little but it's too small to get its own full segment and it's not that interesting. Folks need to know about it because it's EXTREMELY relevant to modern politics though. Basically Iran was holding hostages under the Reagan administration and a deal was worked out through Oliver North to arrange a sale of weapons via intermediaries to the Iranians in exchange for prisoners. The proceeds from the sale went to the Contras, Nicaraguan "freedom fighters" the U.S. was supporting via proxy. Reagan was in the dark about the deal for the most part and adamantly claimed there would be no weapons-for-hostages negotiations since that's pretty much the worst thing you can do in a hostage situation. That is until the cat was let out of the bag. Congress had no idea the Pentagon was doing this, and the white house had only limited information. The point is twofold. First, that the United States operates almost entirely via proxy so as to claim "plausible deniability" should their proxy people get caught. Second, and this was also illustrated in the MKULTRA bit but especially here, *it's entirely possible for secret operations to be carried out by one branch of government without the other branches knowing.*

Why is this important? Realizing this and the full extent of what it means is entirely necessary to understanding *why* otherwise kooky things like 9/11 being carried out by a small group within the U.S. government is a real possibility. Thousands experimented on by the CIA in secret, proven true. The Pentagon waging a proxy war via a weapons-for-hostages sale right under congress and the white house's noses, also proven true. The possibility that Al-Quada, a faction we created in the 80s to combat the Soviets, could have been a proxy entity like the Contras, used to begin a massive conflict in the middle-east? Doesn't sound so crazy in context, but I'll get to that later.


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## Lobar (May 18, 2013)

I seriously doubt Reagan was in the dark about Iran-Contra.  The hearings about Iran-Contra mark the original use of the "I do not recall" defense.  At one point, when asked about a particular arms transaction, Reagan looked at some notes his staff had prepared for him and read verbatim, "If the question comes up, you might want to say you were surprised."

More Reagan goodness: It is sometimes claimed that the government under the Reagan administration invented crack.  There is nothing to support that specific accusation, but the CIA did give the Contras a free pass to import cocaine for sale in the U.S. to provide them with another revenue stream.  Reagan was just fine with allowing crack to flow into urban neighborhoods as long as it furthered his efforts to topple foreign Communist leaders (if anything, he probably saw it as synergizing with his Southern Strategy).

There's no shortage of horrible atrocities backed by the United States during the Cold War (Guatemala in particular makes for a grisly read).  Really, it was only a "cold" war in the sense that American troops never fired at Russian troops and vice versa, but we sure had our puppet forces murdering each other in droves.

But as for surreptitious shit that Americans actually got their hands dirty with, the FBI formed a program of operations called COINTELPRO to counter domestic Communist activists as well as civil rights activists, most notably the Black Panthers.  These activities included a couple assassinations, and the infamous mass mailing of the "Black Panther Coloring Book" under the guise of it being produced and disseminated by the Black Panthers themselves (but it ended up getting sent to white neighborhoods? :V).

COINTELPRO was disbanded by necessity when its existence was revealed via a robbery of an FBI field office in 1971, but does that mean this sort of shit no longer continues to happen?  Nobody really knows.


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## CynicalCirno (May 18, 2013)

I don't like conspiracy theories:
1)They're terrifying - Suddenly something unexpected pops up and you begin doubting people you'd otherwise admire.
2)They're pointless - connecting between people and speculating is really nice but it doesn't mean anything unless you bring me data, and I'd frankly rather get the data myself.
3)They're inaccurate - on one hand understanding motives is something that many people perceive differently, and on the other hand humans aren't complicated enough to do most of the things described in the theories - we naturally barely withstand being in 100 man communities, there should be no reason we'll withstand big global networks. If you're still in there, you're for the money, or you've got a strange ideology.
4)No matter what people tell you, you'll never know for sure, so why even try? You have to dig as underground as the ones accused in the theories to get quality information.
5)If you really believe you need a big noisy headline to spice life up, then your life is probably very, very dull. Mine isn't. I don't need anything to make it more interesting. 

I agree with conspiracy theories about medias, tycoons and some companies, as their greed powers them, and makes them do something like raise prices before the sale, etc.


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 24, 2013)

This next one is just one that I've been reading up on lately. Not a modern conspiracy theory, but fun food for thought.

*Jesus Christ and his Disciples
*
Official Story: Depending on whether or not you're of the religious stripe, he was either the literal incarnation of the son of god or just a really interesting prophet that shook the Mesopotamian area at the time. His disciples were also real people.

Popular Opinion of Jesus Christ: He probably wasn't really the son of god, but he was definitely a prophet for Christianity about two thousand years ago. His disciples were real first-hand chroniclers of his life, even if they embellished.

What I've found: Jesus of Nazareth didn't exist. If a Jesus did exist, he's quite far removed from anything Christians would recognize. If anything he's a smattering of a bunch of prominent figures from the time mixed with generous amounts of myth added in by people claiming to have followed him.

Although the general historical consensus seems to be that a Jesus of some sort existed during the time of the Jesus of the bible, there's really no consensus on just *who* that Jesus was. This is mainly because at the time there were several contenders and would-be Christs all vying for the spotlight, and each one with similar powers to those of the vaunted Jesus of Nazareth. This is primarily because just about everything special that's attributed to Jesus came from other deities worshipped around the same area around the same time. This was not uncommon at the time, as the Roman emperor Julius Caesar was considered to be the son of god as well, and even declared by the Roman senate as having been born of a virgin. In order to make Jesus stand out, the people worshipping him needed to attribute *at least* as much interesting stuff to him as Caesar.

But how do we know if he really existed? How about all those eyewitness testimonies from the bible and the Nag Hammadi? Well, during the time Jesus was supposed to have existed, the Jews found themselves under religious persecution from the Romans. This caused them to do weird and crazy things in an attempt to save their religion and themselves from their Roman oppressors. On the one hand, many Jews found themselves converting to the Greek philosophies, with their logical worldviews. Others tried to reform Judaism as their faiths were split apart, both by edict and by geography. Over several decades, these various branches of Judaism adopted very different forms of practice and faith, as they were separated and didn't have a common temple or high holy members to consult. Of these various offshoots were born the Jesus cults. These cults were very different from the Christianity we know today. Jesus was more of a concept than a man, a concept based loosely off the Jewish god as well as several notable prophets that carried the Jesus cult faith to the grave with them, but only after attracting many new members. These cults met, spoke, disagrees, wrote to each other, and were both more inclusive and less threatening to the Romans than traditional Judaism, and the more social aspects this religion seemed to involve worked to make it something attractive and warm.

This all changed with Paul. Paul was a real stick in the mud and seemed to be filled with self-loathing. There is good reason to suspect he was a closeted homosexual, especially with modern understanding of how repressed homosexuality tends to project itself through the psyche and a thorough look at his writings, but of course it's impossible to prove. In the Jesus cults, and the mythical figure of Jesus they spoke of, he found redemption for something beyond his control, whatever it might be, and this message was a powerful motivator for other fledgling Christians. Paul's letters and writings created some solidarity in the Jesus movements and attracted even more converts to the rapidly growing religion. Paul himself however never really mentioned Jesus as an actual person having lived and died as a human on Earth. That would come later with the gospels.

The gospel Q as well as Mark were written first, some time around 70ad at the earliest, many decades after Jesus was supposed to have lived. Mark's gospel left out much of the miracle work and spoke of Jesus as more a mortal than the son of god. This gospel was then re-written some time in the 2nd century by both Matthew and Luke almost simultaneously, with Luke also writing the book of Acts. John came later, having all three of the former gospels in hand some time towards the end of the 2nd century, a good 200 years after Jesus was supposed to have been alive. Of all the gospels, John's sticks out the most. This is because, like the uncanonized gospel of Thomas, John was a gnostic Christian. The gnostics didn't believe Jesus was ever an actual physical person but rather used his life as a metaphor. They were the ones who primarily made up the Christian mystery cults and attributed many of the miracles to Jesus. This group was very powerful in the Roman lands and even among members of the church well into the 5th century, until they were eventually quashed by the Catholic church.

Ultimately, the Jesus we know today was formed by politics. Many gnostic texts, some no more valid and timely than the ones in the New Testament, were simply thrown away in favor of the politically stronger historical Jesus, with Ignatius at the front of the movement. Were other gospels or books to be included the picture of Jesus we have today would be very different indeed, as many of the books are contradictory and surprising in what hidden details they reveal. To be honest, most of it sounds almost like bible fanfiction!

For interesting, the Jesus myth gets 7/10 Bilderbergs. While not really a conspiracy theory, it's so darned interesting to learn about the politics, the culture, and the movements surrounding the formation of the bible and Jesus figure as we know them.

For crazy, it gets 5/10 tinfoil hats. Most historians will scoff at the notion that Jesus never existed, although they'd also scoff he was the literal son of god. At the end of the day, the historical Jesus exists only so far as you are willing to stretch you definition.

For relevance, it gets 5/10 missing WMDs. Although it might seem pedantic and trifling to worry about, studying the background of the bible has lead to surprising and interesting tidbits about the culture and history of the Middle East, and the history of the religion is not something to be overlooked if you're trying to understand Christians today.


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## Sutekh_the_Destroyer (Aug 24, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> - jesus jesus jesus jesus -



That was actually a very, very good and interesting read. You should do more of these hoax analysis if you've got the time, and if you do you should do it on the moon landing hoax claims.


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## CaptainCool (Aug 24, 2013)

Sutekh_the_Destroyer said:


> That was actually a very, very good and interesting read. You should do more of these hoax analysis if you've got the time, and if you do you should do it on the moon landing hoax claims.



I agree, that was pretty great!

Did we talk about lemmings here yet? I'm too lazy to go through the thread...
Most people believe that lemmings are suicidal morons when it truth it was _Disney_ that created that myth! In a documentary they threw down three dozen lemings from a cliff and through clever editing they made it look like a whole horde of them dived down the cliff to their deaths.
They won an academy award and even today people still believe that lemmings regularly kill themselves.


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## Machine (Aug 24, 2013)

Every politician you know is secretly a lizard.

All hail our snake overlords.


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## Troj (Aug 24, 2013)

Riley said:


> I think my favourite has to be chemtrails.  For those lucky enough to not have been exposed to this idiocy, there are people out there who think that the condensation trails ('contrails,' as they are known to sane people) from airplanes are actually poison gasses from chemical sprayers mounted on every single aircraft in existence.



I love the people who post Youtube videos documenting chemtrails in movies--especially animated movies--to "prove" that Hollywood is in on the conspiracy, and is trying to soothe people into a false sense of security by sneaking chemtrails into films.



			
				PastryOfApathy said:
			
		

> However I will always be a true believer in the wonderful little man known as David Icke who believes that he is the son of god, and that the world is secretly controlled by shapeshifting lizard people. He also thinks _The Matrix_ was a documentary. Seriously read his books sometime they're astounding.



Oh, David Icke is one of my favorite nutjobs. I've watched his documentary series on Netflix.

He used to be a Canadian politician, and then started wearing all purple and, yes, calling himself the son of God, and then he started preaching about how ancient people weren't sufficiently advanced enough to build pyramids, temples, or crop circles, and that this was proof that they'd been visited by an advanced race called the Annunaki, who apparently resembled white-skinned people. Also hiding on our planet, of course, are the evil shape-shifting lizard people from the planet Draco, who formed the Illuminati, and who live among us in the forms of George Bush, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and every major celebrity and politician. The Illuminati smugly drops hints of its existence by including subliminal messages in advertising and corporate logos. 

What's fascinating is that the dude sounds totally lucid and normal when he speaks. He's not psychotic; he's delusional.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum is Alex Jones, a right-wing Truther nutjob who's obsessed with the Bilderburg Group, the Bohemian Grove, and the general idea that all politicians are part of a Satanic cult.

Articles:

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories



			
				the above article said:
			
		

> In 2010, Swami and a co-author summarized this research in The  Psychologist, a scientific journal. They found, perhaps surprisingly,  that believers are more likely to be cynical about the world in general  and politics in particular. Conspiracy theories also seem to be more  compelling to those with low self-worth, especially with regard to their  sense of agency in the world at large. Conspiracy theories appear to be  a way of reacting to uncertainty and powerlessness.





> â€œIf you know the truth and others donâ€™t, thatâ€™s one way you can reassert  feelings of having agency,â€ Swami says. It can be comforting to do your  own research even if that research is flawed. It feels good to be the  wise old goat in a flock of sheep.





> Surprisingly, Swamiâ€™s work has also turned up a correlation between  conspiracy theorizing and strong support of democratic principles. But  this isnâ€™t quite so strange if you consider the context. Kathryn  Olmsted, a historian at the University of California, Davis, says that  conspiracy theories wouldnâ€™t exist in a world in which real conspiracies  donâ€™t exist. And those conspiracies â€” Watergate or the Iran-contra  Affair â€” often involve manipulating and circumventing the democratic  process. Even people who believe that the Sandy Hook shooting was  actually a drama staged by actors couch their arguments in concern for  the preservation of the Second Amendment.





> In 2006, the political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler  identified a phenomenon called the â€œbackfire effect.â€ They showed that  efforts to debunk inaccurate political information can leave people more  convinced that false information is true than they would have been  otherwise. Nyhan isnâ€™t sure why this happens, but it appears to be more  prevalent when the bad information helps bolster a favored worldview or  ideology.



What a Conspiracy Theorist Believes: The Psychology of Conspiracy Theorists and Climate Change Deniers



> The more people believed in free-market ideology, the less they believed  in climate science; the more they accepted science in general, the more  they accepted the conclusions of climate science; and the more likely  they were to be conspiracy theorists, the less likely they were to  believe in climate science.





> These results fit in with a longer literature on what has come to be  known as â€œmotivated reasoning.â€ Other things being equal, people tend to  believe what they want to believe, and to disbelieve new information  that might challenge them.



Paranoia and the Roots of Conspiracy Theories



> Melley proposes that conspiracy thinking arises from a combination of  two factors, when someone: 1) holds strong individualist values and 2)  lacks a sense of control. The first attribute refers to people who care  deeply about an individual's right to make their own choices and direct  their own lives without interference or obligations to a larger system  (like the government). But combine this with a sense of powerlessness in  one's own life, and you get what Melley calls _agency panic_, "intense anxiety about an apparent loss of autonomy" to outside forces or regulators.


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## captainbrant (Aug 24, 2013)

.


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## Kitsune Cross (Aug 24, 2013)

Elvis presley, adolf hitler and michael jackson, are not dead and living here in Argentina, lolwtf


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## Troj (Aug 24, 2013)

captainbrant said:


> I have nothing against conspiracy theorists. Why would I resent someone for approaching the world creatively and critically? There's nothing immoral or disrespectful in believing something ridiculous or wrong, so long as the belief is a product of skepticism, not prejudice.



Problem is, a number of popular conspiracy theories are fueled by prejudices against Jews, blacks, the government, various political parties, and the like.

Other problem is, just because conspiracy theories are novel doesn't mean they're rooted in critical or logical thinking, because conspiracy theorists are usually reluctant to give up their theories, even in the face of compelling counter-arguments and contrary evidence.

Third problem is, if enough people buy into a conspiracy theory, that can negatively affect how they respond to very real and very serious world problems and demands. Bad data translates into misguided actions.

Fourth problem is, many conspiracy theories allow people to blame The Big Conspiracy on their personal failures and pains, instead of taking responsibility for them.


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## captainbrant (Aug 24, 2013)

.


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## Inpw (Aug 24, 2013)

I personally love the Moon landing conspiracy.

It actually has some rock hard evidence against it and the strange fact that no human being have passed the geostationary orbit zone since. It is strange to think that maybe the US government staged a landing just to win the space race in the late 60's. According to many guidable persons IMO, a retroreflector has been placed on the surface for more accurate distance measurements. Myhtbusters stated they proved the moon landing's story and used a strong lazer to reflect of this set of mirrors and received a signal back. Did we put a man on the moon? I really don't know.


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## Sutekh_the_Destroyer (Aug 24, 2013)

Accretion said:


> I personally love the Moon landing conspiracy.
> 
> It actually has some rock hard evidence against it and *the strange fact that no human being have passed the geostationary orbit zone since.* It is strange to think that maybe the US government staged a landing just to win the space race in the late 60's. According to many guidable persons IMO, a retroreflector has been placed on the surface for more accurate distance measurements. Myhtbusters stated they proved the moon landing's story and used a strong lazer to reflect of this set of mirrors and received a signal back. Did we put a man on the moon? I really don't know.



It's probably the huge costs involved. The cost of all Apollo 11 alone was $1.75 billion in today's money, and with the total cost of all the Apollo missions adding up to $170 Billion in today's money it simply isn't feasible in the current economy.

Then there's the way we've already been to the moon and got a lot of information out of it - we don't need to go back yet. And landing on Mars if quite a while off, although I think it will happen within our lifetimes.

If you have any doubts this page basically debunks any questions conspiracy theorists raise against the moon landings.


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## Troj (Aug 24, 2013)

captainbrant said:


> Conspiracy theories are, by definition, marginal, and I think illogical thinking- or as I euphemized before, "creative" thinking- is okay as long as it's marginal. Similarly, it is never the case that "enough people buy into a conspiracy theory," or at least not enough people with influence or political power. At least not to my knowledge.



Well, I consider climate change denial a conspiracy theory, and it's much less marginal than it should be. Ditto "Birtherism," which is mainstream enough to be hinted at on Fox News on a regular basis.

Not to mention, Timothy McVeigh was what one might call a conspiracy theorist, and we all know how that turned out. Most of the time, yeah, these types are marginal and unimportant, but occasionally, one or more the nuts gets access to some weapons, and then things can go south in a hurry.

Your final point is well-taken, though--people can find lots of ways to avoid accountability. Of course, that doesn't excuse avoiding accountability.


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## Inpw (Aug 24, 2013)

Sutekh_the_Destroyer said:


> It's probably the huge costs involved. The cost of all Apollo 11 alone was $1.75 billion in today's money, and with the total cost of all the Apollo missions adding up to $170 Billion in today's money it simply isn't feasible in the current economy.
> 
> Then there's the way we've already been to the moon and got a lot of information out of it - we don't need to go back yet. And landing on Mars if quite a while off, although I think it will happen within our lifetimes.
> 
> If you have any doubts this page basically debunks any questions conspiracy theorists raise against the moon landings.



Many of the silly claims some of the non believers made are complete BS for example the flag waving thing. I checked the video and it only moved upon twisting it into the ground. In a vacuum this wave motion looks exactly the same. But even though all of the sensationalist claims against the pictures and ideas are either lacking the understanding or even be completely off. I still wonder if NASA wouldn't have rather staged the whole thing anyways. The only way to actually prove anything to anyone is personally showing them the evidence.

For example, if astronauts are being sent to mars in the next few years. People will witness a rocket heading into space until it's out of sight. The rest is all controlled by media. How honest are the things you witness on Television? I'm not saying they didn't but I am saying it's an interesting concept which makes it a truly intriguing conspiracy theory.


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## Fallowfox (Aug 24, 2013)

I think the most convincing evidence of the moon landing is the fact that the USSR recognised it. They would have been overjoyed to point out a state deception.


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## captainbrant (Aug 25, 2013)

.


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 25, 2013)

Troj, your psychological analysis is good but incomplete. As a conspiracy theorist I gotta say I fit the profile quite nicely. My feelings of self-worth could likely be measured in pocket change, my outlook towards society in general is cynical, particularly in the realm of politics. Most of my research stems from the concern of the well being of our basic civil liberties, and frankly I only actually research conspiracies that interest me. I am rather individualistic, and it does feel good to be a wise old goat amongst the sheep, so to speak. With such a profile laid out it would be hilariously easy for the experts in academia to alternate between painting me as a kook and condescendingly patting me on the head for my at least noble intentions, as they could with many conspiracy theorists. It doesn't however take into account the fact that we're not all so easy to shoo away.

I, for instance, and just about every other conspiracy theorist I know, do not blame the problems in our lives on grander schemes. My slow progress in college is in no way related to the Kennedy assassination. My family's poverty is not linked to 9/11, nor is my broken motorcycle the result of climate change (although an argument was made for ethanol in the gas possibly corroding the jets, so maybe there's that). There are kooks who do, and they're generally ostracized by genuine conspiracy theorists who make their cases with actual evidence and with logical conclusions. The general rule of thumb I use is if the conclusion the conspiracy theorist draws is a more cohesive and mundane explanation than the standing story, it's probably at least partially true.

Which is another point people often forget, history is not so simply compartmentalized. One cannot understand our engagements in the Middle East without understanding the Cold War. One can't understand the Cold War without understanding World War II. One can't understand World War II without knowing at least the basics of World War I, and one can't understand World War I without understanding the doctrine of colonialism and arms races. The line from our parading around in the Philippines to the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan for instance, if told honestly, is filled with stern historical lessons about empire building. Our fights in the Middle East right now trace all the way back, almost a century ago, to the ending of World War I. These are incredibly long and complicated timelines filled with details written by the winners and altered by the losers for better appeal. To be able to say with certainty that we completely understand the events behind them is absurd.

A good conspiracy theorist does not rely in a single source of evidence. They often have lots, sometimes circumstantial, but other times more solid and even indisputable. People often think that if one part of the theory is debunked, or even most of it, that the entire thing is worthless, something the conspiracy theorists sometimes reciprocate against the accepted stories. Take 9/11 for instance. What if all 4 planes were hijacked, both towers fell of their own volition, and the pentagon was hit in a lucky spot. What if the entire story, told front to back was true, except for just one detail. What if the passport recovered at ground zero from one of the hijackers who crashed into the World Trade Center didn't actually survive the cataclysm but was in fact planted there. Who planted it? Where did it come from? What were they trying to accomplish? The entire dialog shifts because one detail falls out of place. Conspiracy theorists don't have to be right about everything, or even most things. Their job is to ask questions and poke around for evidence, and they'll admit they don't have all the answers. They just have to be right once, because if that one piece doesn't fit, the entire story has to change to accommodate it.

So how is any of this practical? Why should anyone care about such minor details since, as I've already admitted, it doesn't effect my day to day life, nor the lives of billions of others. Plus, even if we did know, how on earth could we use the information, since it's mostly going on beyond our control anyway? I will give you an extremely practical example:

This, is the Char B1. It was an obsolete and mostly useless tank built by the French and used against the Germans in World War II. The Char B1, along with every other tank produced by the French during this period, was plagued with problems stemming from now well understood phenomena. Group-think, design by committee, an outdated tank doctrine, but most damning of all, a strong military industrial complex. The results were extremely expensive and questionably functional vehicles that were being used in place of much more competent designs. This was in no small way the reason for France's hasty defeat and a significant number of casualties.

This, is the M2/M3 Bradley. The Bradley was build during the 80s to replace the phenomenally successful M113A3 Gavin which is still in service today. The Bradley, like the Char B1, succumbed to the cost/complexity spiral that ended up with the overweight, unreliable, tactically useless vehicle we have today. This was also due to well known phenomena; Group-think, design by committee, and worst of all, a strong military industrial complex. The result was a vehicle that could not perform to either the performance levels cited by its manufacturers, nor the performance demanded while in the field, all while costing tens of billions of dollars. There were warning flags all throughout it's development in the 80s and even during Desert Storm, but none were heeded. Now in Iraq, this is the result.

And this.

And this. This one btw is from an RPG-7, one of the most common weapons in the third world.

Military history buffs knew about this conspiracy (many military history buffs moonlight as conspiracy theorists btw) and didn't trust the numbers nor the performance promises made by both the government and BAE Systems. No military history buff would have been caught dead rolling into danger in an M2/M3 Bradley and for good reason. Had people involved in the creation of this vehicle (but *not* involved in the direct payout of the MIC, which tends to be just a few corrupt brass-hats towards the top) done their homework, they never would have allowed the Bradley Fighting Vehicle to become the mess it is today and many lives would have been saved, both in casualty numbers and in the number of people disabled. If X people had known about Y, Z never would have happened. Unless it's not too much to expect people developing IFVs to know something about basic armored vehicle history and design.

So before you pass off conspiracy theorists as loons, or before you throw out conspiracies as something unknowable or far beyond the scope of ordinary people to deal with, and especially before you write our painstaking research off as a coping mechanism for personal issues (Troj), just think about those people who ride in vehicles like the M3 Bradley, or the M1 Abrams, or the Stryker, or the Osprey, or any of our time bomb war machines, and what they would do if *they* knew a little something about a conspiracy or two.


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## DarrylWolf (Aug 25, 2013)

I live in Dallas and am disappointed with the official story of Lee Harvey Oswald killing Kennedy when we all KNOW his death was caused by extraterrestrial Jewish Freemasons from inside the planet, working alongside Opus Dei Catholic Teamsters and a Dallas-based branch of the Mafia, both of which had time traveled to obtain rare performance-enhancing drugs that would have enabled them to carry out their heinous deeds.


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## Mayfurr (Aug 25, 2013)

Accretion said:


> I still wonder if NASA wouldn't have rather staged the whole thing anyways. [...] For example, if astronauts are being sent to mars in the next few years. People will witness a rocket heading into space until it's out of sight. The rest is all controlled by media.



You've just watched "Capricorn One", haven't you? 



Accretion said:


> The only way to actually prove anything to anyone is personally showing them the evidence.



Unfortunately, even then a lot of people already have their minds made up about certain things, and if you showed them high-definition photos of the Apollo landing sites taken from modern space-craft they'd STILL rather extend the "conspiracy" rather than admit they were wrong.



Fallowfox said:


> *I think the most convincing evidence of the moon landing is the fact that the USSR recognised it. *They would have been overjoyed to point out a state deception.



<nods> And _why _did the USSR recognise that the US _had _got to the moon? Because the moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts were very similar chemically to the lunar soil samples returned to the USSR by their unmanned Luna probes. If the Apollo moon rocks were substantially different to the Luna soil samples, the USSR would have smelled a large capitalist rat and would have wasted no time in debunking the Apollo missions. Remember, the USSR was not at all hesitant to debunk US claims of "we're not flying over the USSR with spy planes, honest" with the downed U-2 pilot Gary Powers...

The fact that both the Apollo and Luna samples have significant differences to Earth rock (having practically no water in them to start with) precluded _both_ from being fakes.



DarrylWolf said:


> I live in Dallas and am disappointed with the official story of Lee Harvey Oswald killing Kennedy when we all KNOW his death was caused by extraterrestrial Jewish Freemasons from inside the planet, working alongside Opus Dei Catholic Teamsters and a Dallas-based branch of the Mafia, both of which had time traveled to obtain rare performance-enhancing drugs that would have enabled them to carry out their heinous deeds.



You forgot the Girl Scouts. Why else have they developed a nuclear testing range at Milton Keynes in England?


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## Saga (Aug 25, 2013)

Tupac is alive.
Tupac didnt die in the shooting, the other guy did.
Tupac watched the coachella performance from his hideout in cuba.
Tupac is returning in 2015.
Tupac is a magical celestial being who is impervious to bullets.
Tupac never existed, it was all a cunning ruse and you were all tricked.


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## Sutekh_the_Destroyer (Aug 25, 2013)

Accretion said:


> Many of the silly claims some of the non believers made are complete BS for example the flag waving thing. I checked the video and it only moved upon twisting it into the ground. In a vacuum this wave motion looks exactly the same. But even though all of the sensationalist claims against the pictures and ideas are either lacking the understanding or even be completely off. *I still wonder if NASA wouldn't have rather staged the whole thing anyways.* The only way to actually prove anything to anyone is personally showing them the evidence.
> 
> For example, if astronauts are being sent to mars in the next few years. People will witness a rocket heading into space until it's out of sight. The rest is all controlled by media. How honest are the things you witness on Television? I'm not saying they didn't but I am saying it's an interesting concept which makes it a truly intriguing conspiracy theory.



This video here explains how it would have actually _easier_ to send men to the moon than it was to have staged it in a TV studio.


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## Troj (Aug 25, 2013)

> I, for instance, and just about every other conspiracy theorist I know,  do not blame the problems in our lives on grander schemes. My slow  progress in college is in no way related to the Kennedy assassination.  My family's poverty is not linked to 9/11, nor is my broken motorcycle  the result of climate change (although an argument was made for ethanol  in the gas possibly corroding the jets, so maybe there's that). There  are kooks who do, and they're generally ostracized by genuine conspiracy  theorists who make their cases with actual evidence and with logical  conclusions.



And there may be more than one "species" of conspiracy theorist. Because the loud kooks are more entertaining and/or scary, they may be getting more attention.

There certainly _are_ conspiracies in the world--in the sense that there are powerful people and/or organizations capable of pulling media, government, and societal strings for their own personal benefit--and the irony is that a lot of the real ones are overlooked or under-explored because they're less sexy than the ones that gain traction.

In the past, our own government has exposed its people to dangerous chemicals without their knowledge, lied about providing them with treatments for diseases just to observe the progression of the illness, and sent some of them to internment camps against their will. Our government has also had a hand in toppling "Leftist" governments it didn't like, and installing/supporting right-wing puppets we believed (foolishly) were going to be our BFFs. Then, there's the business of the NSA gathering information on its own citizens without their knowledge.

Jon Ronson's "The Men Who Stare at Goats" suggests that our government has been up to some pretty bizarre shit behind the scenes. 

So, you can't be too naive, either, because you're right that the dominant narrative or official story rarely tells "the whole story." There are always pieces that are just plain missing, as well as pieces that have been strategically withheld or "spun" by whomever's gotten to hold the talking stick.



> The general rule of thumb I use is if the conclusion the  conspiracy theorist draws is a more cohesive and mundane explanation  than the standing story, it's probably at least partially true.



Occam's Razor is generally a good rule to apply, yeah. 

One of the glaring issues with the Satanic Panic theories in the 80s and 90s was that in order for the conspiracy to be plausible and workable, people needed to generate increasingly complex and convoluted chains of "yesbuts." The starting premise had seemed really neat and nice--_too _neat and nice, in fact and that's always a red flag--but supporting the claim that Satanists were responsible for EVERYTHING ended up requiring a lot of legwork.

Ditto when someone's prevailing theory is "Because Jews." Yet another overly simple solution that ends up becoming more and more convoluted as more and more logical holes have to be plugged.



> Which is another point people often forget, history is not so simply  compartmentalized. One cannot understand our engagements in the Middle  East without understanding the Cold War. One can't understand the Cold  War without understanding World War II. One can't understand World War  II without knowing at least the basics of World War I, and one can't  understand World War I without understanding the doctrine of colonialism  and arms races. The line from our parading around in the Philippines to  the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan for instance, if told honestly,  is filled with stern historical lessons about empire building. Our  fights in the Middle East right now trace all the way back, almost a  century ago, to the ending of World War I. These are incredibly long and  complicated timelines filled with details written by the winners and  altered by the losers for better appeal. To be able to say with  certainty that we completely understand the events behind them is  absurd.



Very true indeed. I've always been amazed how some of the subtlest tweaks, decisions, and coincidences in history went on to influence major events that might not've happened otherwise. It's like the butterfly in Bradbury's "Distant Sound of Thunder."



> Military history buffs knew about this conspiracy (many military history  buffs moonlight as conspiracy theorists btw) and didn't trust the  numbers nor the performance promises made by both the government and BAE  Systems. No military history buff would have been caught dead rolling  into danger in an M2/M3 Bradley and for good reason. Had people involved  in the creation of this vehicle (but *not* involved in the direct  payout of the MIC, which tends to be just a few corrupt brass-hats  towards the top) done their homework, they never would have allowed the  Bradley Fighting Vehicle to become the mess it is today and many lives  would have been saved, both in casualty numbers and in the number of  people disabled. If X people had known about Y, Z never would have  happened. Unless it's not too much to expect people developing IFVs to  know something about basic armored vehicle history and design.



That's really interesting! I didn't know any of that, so thanks for sharing.

You're right that _this_ kind of stuff does have an impact on real people in real time, because we're talking about technology that directly and observably harms people.

My question is, at what point does someone stop being a "conspiracy theorist," and start just being a researcher who's found some viable leads? 

Problem is, "conspiracy theorist" is usually a negative term, so most people (including me) immediately think of the obsessive circle-jerkin' crazies when we hear the word; we don't think of the people who've unmasked and researched real, viable conspiracies or behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

When I hear "conspiracy theorist," I think of David Icke, Alex Jones, Tim McVeigh, Dale Griffis, and the people who obsessively post chemtrail videos on Youtube. I think of people who basically started out WANTING their pet theory or pet "beef" to be true, and who've spent their lives narrowly trawling for evidence in support of it.  

So, the folks like you may have a "branding issue," if you don't see yourself as in the same camp as the above--that is, if you see yourself as someone who's open, skeptical, and curious to start with.


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## DrDingo (Aug 25, 2013)

My favourite conspiracy theory is that the Royal Family in the UK are infact all lizards. This is a genuine thing that some people choose to believe.


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## Saga (Aug 25, 2013)

Sutekh_the_Destroyer said:


> This video here explains how it would have actually _easier_ to send men to the moon than it was to have staged it in a TV studio.


The mythbusters did a thing on that too, they said that the topography of the moon allowed for 2 directional shadows from 1 light source and this stuff I didnt really understand by that = real

But of course they're just illuminati puppets paid to make you believe the moon landing was real *:v*/conspiracy


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## Inpw (Aug 25, 2013)

DrDingo said:


> My favourite conspiracy theory is that the Royal Family in the UK are infact all lizards. This is a genuine thing that some people choose to believe.



Ah yes the David Icke stuff.
I had a long discussion with one forum member on a SA forum that believed this nonsense. Also he believed unicorns are real but extinct creatures.


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## Fallowfox (Aug 25, 2013)

I've met more than enough art students who believe dragons and loch Ness monsters etc are real and remain undiscovered in some remote part of the Amazon. 

I believe I also heard of a conspiracy that there's an installation in North America that influences the Northern lights and thus causes earth quakes. I'm not sure if that conspiracy has already been mentioned. 

A delightful one I read in Newscientist was a Russian conspiracy that the rock which fragmented over the Urals was Europe's fault. Europe has been building wind turbines to deliberately blow the Earth into the path of said space-rock.


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## captainbrant (Aug 25, 2013)

.


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## Sutekh_the_Destroyer (Aug 25, 2013)

There's a guy at my school who says he believes the moon landings happened but the footage and photos are faked. He thinks NASA have moonbases and use teleportation to get there.

He's a nice guy and all but he is a bit of a nutter when it comes to the conspiracy theory department (unless of course he's pulling my and everyone else's leg).



Fallowfox said:


> A delightful one I read in Newscientist was a Russian conspiracy that the rock which fragmented over the Urals was Europe's fault. Europe has been building wind turbines to deliberately blow the Earth into the path of said space-rock.



I hope somebody told him that's not how it works.


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## Inpw (Aug 25, 2013)

Sutekh_the_Destroyer said:


> There's a guy at my school who says he believes the moon landings happened but the footage and photos are faked. He thinks NASA have moonbases and use teleportation to get there.



Lol :grin:



Fallowfox said:


> I believe I also heard of a conspiracy that there's an installation in North America that influences the Northern lights and thus causes earth quakes. I'm not sure if that conspiracy has already been mentioned.



You're talking about the HAARP conspiracy.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/artic...ut-theories-behind-government-research-alaska


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## Jabberwocky (Aug 25, 2013)

some believe the plesiosaur, often associated to the loch ness monster, are still alive but incredibly rare.
a curious thing, really. though i choose not to believe it. id rather keep the dinos as fossils.


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 25, 2013)

I'll do HAARP later. HAARP people are some of the worst conspiracy theorists, I swear...

Out of the legitimate theories I've found, probably the hardest one to convince others of is the Holocaust denial one. Nothing about the official story makes any sense at all and at times becomes physically impossible, but it has dead Jews in it so it must be 100% true. Even though I've never heard a good explanation for stuff like this and this.

9/11 is a close runner up though because it's got so many variations. I can already tell it's going to take more than one entry because of the sheer volume of 9/11 myths. Some are pretty plausible, most are bull, and some are true.


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## Falaffel (Aug 25, 2013)

Fallowfox said:


> I've met more than enough art students who believe dragons and loch Ness monsters etc are real and remain undiscovered in some remote part of the Amazon.
> 
> I believe I also heard of a conspiracy that there's an installation in North America that influences the Northern lights and thus causes earth quakes. I'm not sure if that conspiracy has already been mentioned.
> 
> A delightful one I read in Newscientist was a Russian conspiracy that the rock which fragmented over the Urals was Europe's fault. Europe has been building wind turbines to deliberately blow the Earth into the path of said space-rock.


Bloody hell...
People aren't really that stupid, are they?


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## DrDingo (Aug 25, 2013)

Falaffel said:


> Bloody hell...
> People aren't really that stupid, are they?


They just want to sound special. So they can pretend they know something others don't and act smart about it.


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## Saga (Aug 25, 2013)

All straw trilbys worn to cover your hair are infected with radioactive fleas.
Watch out, drdingo


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## DarrylWolf (Aug 25, 2013)

An interesting thing to keep in mind about science and its supposed ability to defeat conspiracy theories is that scientists are human beings, just as prone to bias as anyone else. If you came into an experiment believing that drug-addicted mothers give birth to retarded children, you would only find evidence in your experiment to back up that claim and ignore everything that says a "crack baby" can grow up and become an Olympic athlete, a renowned musician, or an Ivy League professor decades later. So, often times I find myself asking what the good is in running an experiment when scientists will only see what they WANT to see; the burden of proof is heavier on the outcome that disproves the hypothesis than on what proves the hypothesis. 

Conspiracy theorists just represent the extreme in people who "worship their own hypothesis" and will not be moved. I guess if there's one thing to be learned it's that scientists can be just as partisan in their views as conspiracy theorists so you have to take everything with a grain of salt.


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## Fallowfox (Aug 25, 2013)

DarrylWolf said:


> An interesting thing to keep in mind about science and its supposed ability to defeat conspiracy theories is that scientists are human beings, just as prone to bias as anyone else. If you came into an experiment believing that drug-addicted mothers give birth to retarded children, you would only find evidence in your experiment to back up that claim and ignore everything that says a "crack baby" can grow up and become an Olympic athlete, a renowned musician, or an Ivy League professor decades later. So, often times I find myself asking what the good is in running an experiment when scientists will only see what they WANT to see; the burden of proof is heavier on the outcome that disproves the hypothesis than on what proves the hypothesis.
> 
> Conspiracy theorists just represent the extreme in people who "worship their own hypothesis" and will not be moved. I guess if there's one thing to be learned it's that scientists can be just as partisan in their views as conspiracy theorists so you have to take everything with a grain of salt.



Double blind trials, darryl.


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## DarrylWolf (Aug 26, 2013)

There is one thing that science can never answer authoritatively- is science limited in what it can find out? When we pass on, science can't tell us what happens to us afterwards, other than decomposition of the material body. And yet, many have "flatlined", come back, and told vivid experiences of life after death and their testimonies are so many that I feel inclined to believe that there is something beyond this life. While scientists are conceited against supernatural explanations for events, I don't think there's a non-supernatural explanation for what happens to temporarily-dead people who get resuscitated and tell about the afterlife. Visions of Heaven and Hell, seeing the "movie" of one's life experiences, meeting loved ones from beyond the grave- the evidence is overwhelming to believe in a spiritual world. I think it can all be scientifically proven that this physical plane of existence is not the only world out there.


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## Rilvor (Aug 26, 2013)

DarrylWolf said:


> There is one thing that science can never answer authoritatively- is science limited in what it can find out? When we pass on, science can't tell us what happens to us afterwards, other than decomposition of the material body. And yet, many have "flatlined", come back, and told vivid experiences of life after death and their testimonies are so many that I feel inclined to believe that there is something beyond this life. While scientists are conceited against supernatural explanations for events, I don't think there's a non-supernatural explanation for what happens to temporarily-dead people who get resuscitated and tell about the afterlife. Visions of Heaven and Hell, seeing the "movie" of one's life experiences, meeting loved ones from beyond the grave- the evidence is overwhelming to believe in a spiritual world. I think it can all be scientifically proven that this physical plane of existence is not the only world out there.



That's even able to be experienced outside a lab environment with a spiritual tool called a "Shillelagh".


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## Hakar Kerarmor (Aug 26, 2013)

DarrylWolf said:


> While scientists are conceited against supernatural explanations for events



There are no supernatural explanations for events.
If something explains an event, it is part of the natural world.

Aside from that, Argument from Ignorance.


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## Fallowfox (Aug 26, 2013)

DarrylWolf said:


> There is one thing that science can never answer authoritatively- is science limited in what it can find out? When we pass on, science can't tell us what happens to us afterwards, other than decomposition of the material body. And yet, many have "flatlined", come back, and told vivid experiences of life after death and their testimonies are so many that I feel inclined to believe that there is something beyond this life. While scientists are conceited against supernatural explanations for events, I don't think there's a non-supernatural explanation for what happens to temporarily-dead people who get resuscitated and tell about the afterlife. Visions of Heaven and Hell, seeing the "movie" of one's life experiences, meeting loved ones from beyond the grave- the evidence is overwhelming to believe in a spiritual world. I think it can all be scientifically proven that this physical plane of existence is not the only world out there.



God of the gap arguments, darryl. 

On the subject of near death experiences though, these have been studied. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23672150
Out of body experiences can also be triggered in the lab, by tricking subjects into believing they are standing behind their own bodies, by showing them an image of a body ahead of them, being stroked, whilst stroking the subject's body with the same motions. 

One might just as easily argue that visions induced by hallucinogenic drugs are supernatural; 'the evidence that there are unicorns is overwhelming; so many people see them when they're on LSD!'

There may indeed be other universes and higher spatial dimensions we can't appreciate but this does not mean that they are magical or necessitate that we plop into them upon brain death.


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## Dreaming (Aug 26, 2013)

Holocaust deniers still exist.... these people vote and breathe our air

Favorite conspiracy theory: Hitler escaped Germany and lives in Antarctica with his alien buddies


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## Troj (Aug 26, 2013)

Everybody knows the Nazis escaped to a moon base, duh.


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 26, 2013)

I mean I'm technically a holocaust denier, and a truther, and for a while even a birther. However I was probably the only birther who legitimately didn't think Obama's place of birth really had any relevance considering the only reason that rule was put in was so that Alexander Hamilton couldn't run for president. Because fuck Hamilton.


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## Fallowfox (Aug 26, 2013)

Why am I not surprised?


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 26, 2013)

He was shot to death by Aaron Burr in a duel in New Jersey. Because at the time New Jersey was the only state where dueling was still legal. Yeah, even back then, Jersey was Jersey.


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## Fallowfox (Aug 26, 2013)

I wasn't talking about Hamilton. Sorry, I was making a bit of a mean comment. :\


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 26, 2013)

If I was offended by people thinking me a nut about believing in conspiracies I'd have given it up a long time ago. It's gotten to the point now where I know so much about the important stuff going on that nothing in the news is really news anymore. Unfortunately it's also to the point that it's almost impossible to relate to people in terms of politics since I'm operating on a completely different plane. For instance, the war in Afghanistan is being fought over oil and natural gas pipelines in a proxy war with Russia reminiscent of the Cold War engagements in Korea and Vietnam. No one in America knows about Turkmenistan, or how Russia turned off the gas and oil supply to the Ukraine and by extension almost all of Eastern Europe to prove who wore the pants in the relationship, costing their economies billions and annihilating the Orange revolution and democratic processes. Nor do they know Turkey and their relationship to the Caspian Sea resource exchange, including the drug trade that flows through the region. Nope, Americans think we're in Afghanistan for oil, our oil, as if somehow that makes sense.


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## Troj (Aug 26, 2013)

Holocaust Deniers--at least the ones I've read, have read about, and have talked to--pretty much strike me as dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semites who are attempting to hide behind trivial nit-picks, logic games, and "Just askin'."

Scratch a Holocaust Denier, and you'll usually find someone who hates Jews enough to believe that they'd fabricate or grossly exaggerate a major tragedy to keep consciously milking the world for sympathy, in order to get away with sinister, sneaky things.

When all reliable sources point to the number of people displaced, killed, or tortured as being somewhere in the millions, arguing over *exactly how many millions,* or averring that it wasn't part of an *intentional* genocide (because otherwise it would've been done better, the argument goes) makes one look like a dick.


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 26, 2013)

Troj said:


> Holocaust Deniers--at least the ones I've read, have read about, and have talked to--pretty much strike me as dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semites who are attempting to hide behind trivial nit-picks, logic games, and "Just askin'."



David Cole doesn't seem to be that type, nor does this Denierbud guy. I've actually talked to him and asked some specific questions about some of his theories, all of which he's adequately explained.



> Scratch a Holocaust Denier, and you'll usually find someone who hates Jews enough to believe that they'd fabricate or grossly exaggerate a major tragedy to keep consciously milking the world for sympathy, in order to get away with sinister, sneaky things.



The gross exaggerations and fabrications were already in place, just like during any war. All deniers (the non-racist ones anyway) are saying is that the Allied forces basically played them up so that the Nazis looked even more cartoonishly evil than they already were. Because when you have the blood of a million PoWs on your hands, and bombed civilian cities in all theaters on purpose, and specifically instituted total war tactics, and ran ethnic concentration camps of your own against Japanese-American citizens, and invented nuclear warfare, and both caused and prolonged famine in Eastern Europe, you really do have to resort to stories about Jews being killed by the millions in gas chambers and babies being thrown alive into ovens to make it seem like "the good guys won."



> When all reliable sources point to the number of people displaced, killed, or tortured as being somewhere in the millions, arguing over *exactly how many millions,* or averring that it wasn't part of an *intentional* genocide (because otherwise it would've been done better, the argument goes) makes one look like a dick.



Maybe if you're overly sentimental, but those of us who care about historical fact, especially when it's still being trotted out by Zionists in the USA in defense of Israel's discrimination against the Palestinians and pretty much everyone else in the Middle East, think it's pretty relevant. According to the deniers, most of the people who settled in Israel are actually people that were prisoners in the Nazi camps. Jewish refugees actually headed there right after the war in an attempt to peacefully coexist with the Palestinian inhabitants, like they had in times prior, but after WWI the British owned what was left of the Ottoman Empire and actually threw the Jewish refugees into a concentration camp of their own! It wasn't until Israel was sanctioned by the Allies that they were released and allowed to settle there.


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## Fallowfox (Aug 27, 2013)

Yes History is written by the victors and the violations of human rights the allies committed were awful, but this doesn't mean that Nazi Germany didn't run concentration camps like Dachau and Auschwitz. 

Recognising these events happened does not necessitate that one has positive views about Israel either. Just like recognising that Saddam Hussein gassed Kurdish people doesn't mean you necessarily supported the occupation of Iraq.


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## Troj (Aug 27, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> The gross exaggerations and fabrications were already in place, just like during any war. All deniers (the non-racist ones anyway) are saying is that the Allied forces basically played them up so that the Nazis looked even more cartoonishly evil than they already were.



...which is what people inevitably always do to their foes, yes. But, it doesn't mean that the Axis didn't do some genuinely atrocious things. (And the Allies certainly weren't saints, either, to be sure.)

Well, and when you look at wartime propaganda, the Germans and Italians got off light compared to the Japanese. We painted the complete sub-humans with no culture and a goofy babbling excuse for a language.

Compare Dr. Seuss's educational film on Germans versus the one on the Japan.



> Because when you have the blood of a million PoWs on your hands, and bombed civilian cities in all theaters on purpose, and specifically instituted total war tactics, and ran ethnic concentration camps of your own against Japanese-American citizens, and invented nuclear warfare, and both caused and prolonged famine in Eastern Europe, you really do have to resort to stories about Jews being killed by the millions in gas chambers and babies being thrown alive into ovens to make it seem like "the good guys won."



But, even the Nazis themselves have corroborated those accounts, as have people who were in the camps themselves, as have people who witnessed people being sent to the camps. It's not just the United States that tells these tales, and for the conspiracy to hold together, thousands upon thousands people across multiple countries AND on different sides of the conflict would have to cooperate to tell the same story.

There have been urban legends that have never been confirmed or substantiated--say, about people being made into lampshades and such. But, that some anecdotes are exaggerated or untrue doesn't mean it's _all_ a fabrication or exaggeration.

The main way people have usually tried to distance themselves from evil is to say that OUR actions had rhyme and reason, whereas THEIR actions were just motivated by pure evil and malice. Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem helped to pop THAT bubble in a very interesting way.



> Maybe if you're overly sentimental, but those of us who care about historical fact,



But, there's caring about historical fact, and there's concern-trolling about historical fact, in order to cast doubts on the narrative as a whole.

Holocaust Denial usually comes across as the latter. They seem to want to drive in a wedge of doubt, to knock down the entire structure. 

BUT, if I've actually read the two guys you mentioned, I've since forgotten, so your experiences with David Cole and the other guy may be different. 

Holocaust Denial, Birtherism, Trutherism, and Climate Change Denial all consistently come across as different forms of agenda-focused concern-trolling to me.



			
				Fallowfox said:
			
		

> Recognising these events happened does not necessitate that one has  positive views about Israel either. Just like recognising that Saddam  Hussein gassed Kurdish people doesn't mean you necessarily supported the  occupation of Iraq.



Precisely. They aren't mutually exclusive.

I've always said that just because you were harmed or victimized in the past doesn't excuse or justify hurting others in the present. You can still make a moral argument about someone's present behavior, without having to discredit their story of having been previously oppressed or harmed. 

Well, and it sure doesn't help that the surrounding Arab countries around Israel have often refused to accept Palestinian refugees, because they WANT to fan the flames of the conflict. 



			
				TA said:
			
		

> WWI the British owned what was left of the Ottoman Empire and actually threw the Jewish refugees into a concentration camp of their own! It wasn't until Israel was sanctioned by the Allies that they were released and allowed to settle there.



Fun fact: The British also built concentration camps for the Boers in Africa during the Second Boer War, where thousands of white Africans and an untold number of black Africans died from disease and malnutrition. Humans sure are nice to each other!


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 27, 2013)

> ...which is what people inevitably always do to their foes, yes. But, it doesn't mean that the Axis didn't do some genuinely atrocious things. (And the Allies certainly weren't saints, either, to be sure.)



I'm not saying they didn't. The camps definitely existed (most of them anyway) and they definitely held a lot of inmates, but they were slave labor camps, not extermination camps. The people that died of them likely died of a combination of malnutrition caused by cut supply lines and disease due to unsanitary conditions. Specifically typhus which was spread by lice. It's what ravaged the Soviet people when soldiers brought it back after World War I.



> But, even the Nazis themselves have corroborated those accounts, as have people who were in the camps themselves, as have people who witnessed people being sent to the camps. It's not just the United States that tells these tales, and for the conspiracy to hold together, thousands upon thousands people across multiple countries AND on different sides of the conflict would have to cooperate to tell the same story.



The Nazis confessed at the Nuremberg trials, after being tortured, and having their accounts read by their accusers. The Nazis also exaggerated and lied about what they did, claiming to have killed several times as many Jews than 6 million. They made up camps that didn't exist, made up extermination methods, and even made up locations. No one knows why, but it's likely because they realized the Allies had no idea what they were talking about and were just trying to play along in hopes of not being sentenced to death.

As for the "witnesses" that conspicuously crawled out of the woodwork right about the time of Schindler's List, their stories are usually ridiculous and never match both history or each other. Not saying they're all lying, but when the 50th person says they personally saw Dr. Mengele directing people off the train you gotta scratch your head.



> Holocaust Denial, Birtherism, Trutherism, and Climate Change Denial all consistently come across as different forms of agenda-focused concern-trolling to me.



There's usually truth buried in the politics, you can't let the stigma get in the way. I'm in no way trying to justify what the Germans did, as forcing Jews into slave labor because of their ethnicity was heinous enough, but allowing them to die in the camps for fear of spreading disease was even worse. However, by acknowledging the Germans weren't going that extra step it helps to make the entire even more real and relatable, that World War II was not "the good war". Everyone did stuff that was horrible. And honestly, after you take away the gas chambers, the Japanese were a hell of a lot worse than the Germans.


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## Kalmor (Aug 27, 2013)

I honestly have no time for holocaust deniers. Honestly, the grasping at straws and cherry picking is too much for me.


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## Dreaming (Aug 27, 2013)

Raptros said:


> I honestly have no time for holocaust deniers. Honestly, the grasping at straws and cherry picking is too much for me.


... one of the few rules I stick to: Leave the history and politics to the people who know what they're doing, the people who've spent their whole life and career researching these things. Though really I'm just too much of a moron to believe in conspiracy theories, there's no point in forming an opinion when somebody else already knows the facts


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## Kalmor (Aug 27, 2013)

Dreaming said:


> ... one of the few rules I stick to: Leave the history and politics to the people who know what they're doing, the people who've spent their whole life and career researching these things. Though really I'm just too much of a moron to believe in conspiracy theories, there's no point in forming an opinion when somebody else already knows the facts


It feels like the people who come up with these conspiracy theories just want attention and to "be different from the masses".

Maybe it's just exciting to be on the fringes of unpopular opinion. :V


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 27, 2013)

Okay Raptros.

BTW the Halon gas fire extinguishing system in M1 Abrams tanks and A2/3 Bradleys extinguished more troops than it did actual fires since it's a highly toxic gas and had a tendency to be triggered by sharp jolts, like one would normally experience while working in the field. It was propagandized as a safety feature and the troops were told it was more or less harmless, even though both the designers and the government knew it was dangerous. Good thing no one learned about that conspiracy.


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## Troj (Aug 27, 2013)

TeenageAngst said:


> Not saying they're all lying, but when the 50th person says they personally saw Dr. Mengele directing people off the train you gotta scratch your head.



Well, and there are other options besides "totally telling the truth" and "intentionally lying," especially given that memory is faulty (especially when people are under stress), and can be influenced through cues and suggestions after the fact.

Likewise, because many people died from stress, fatigue, disease and malnutrition in the camps doesn't mean that some people ALSO weren't gassed. They're not mutually exclusive.

And, at this point, discussions always become he said/she said, because mainstream historians say there's proof of the gas showers and ovens, and the deniers always say that the showers were showers and the ovens were ovens, and then everybody gets into arguments over Zyklon B levels, human remains in the ovens, and varying eyewitness accounts, based on their readings of secondary and tertiary resources.



> And honestly, after you take away the gas chambers, the Japanese were a hell of a lot worse than the Germans.



I think they were equally awful in different ways. BUT, Japan's role does get glossed over quite a bit. What the Japanese did to the Chinese, for example, was absolutely heinous, and most of it isn't covered in standard American history courses. (My conspiracy theory: good ol' racism and ethnocentrism at work, likely mixed with some additional guilt/shame over our role in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.)


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## TeenageAngst (Aug 28, 2013)

> Well, and there are other options besides "totally telling the truth" and "intentionally lying," especially given that memory is faulty (especially when people are under stress), and can be influenced through cues and suggestions after the fact.



This is freakin' weird all things considered, but there was a Jewish man who was actually outed for making up his entire experience in a concentration camp. Even when people were holding the papers proving he was never in the camp or any camp, he swore up and down he was telling the truth because he'd convinced himself of such. Every survivor story I've heard is completely crazy and makes no sense at all once you take away the emotional shock and awe.



> Likewise, because many people died from stress, fatigue, disease and malnutrition in the camps doesn't mean that some people ALSO weren't gassed. They're not mutually exclusive.



True, however it's highly unlikely people were gassed. The manners in which people claim it was done are ridiculous. A diesel motor (which frequently broke down) from a Soviet tank engine used for gassing people with carbon monoxide. I don't even think it's physically possible for a diesel motor to produce enough carbon monoxide to kill a room full of people like that. Or how about a diesel motor from a captured submarine, when there were neither captured submarines nor any significant bodies of water within 300 miles of the camp. Or an electrified floor. Or trucks where the exhaust pipes fed into the passenger compartment, killing the occupants. It's all loony toons stuff.



> And, at this point, discussions always become he said/she said, because mainstream historians say there's proof of the gas showers and ovens, and the deniers always say that the showers were showers and the ovens were ovens, and then everybody gets into arguments over Zyklon B levels, human remains in the ovens, and varying eyewitness accounts, based on their readings of secondary and tertiary resources.



Hence why I say you shouldn't knock it until you've seen what the non-racially-charged people have to say about it. David Cole's stuff on it is pretty good, but it's dated since he was at Auschwitz in the early 90s. Denierbud does a fantastic job of explaining the Operation Reinhard camps with 4 hours of material, as well as a full 40 minute presentation on Auschwitz alone and a good 2 hours explaining why the Allied forces propagandized Buchenwald.


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