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The idea of chemtrails is appealing to so many people because it's a way to express outrage toward the elites or upper echelons in society. The theories are al

by firloop 10y ago

The idea of chemtrails is appealing to so many people because it's a way to express outrage toward the elites or upper echelons in society. The theories are always a bit vaporous (like the chemtrails themselves), but I think it's stemming from an honest, genuine sense of frustration that one is being cheated or manipulated by a system that doesn't represent them. Chemtrails give a head to this boogeyman.

glaberficken 10y ago
Interesting point of view. thanks for sharing
unsignedqword 10y ago
Those theorists are quite irrational, but what I find most ridiculous about a lot of them is not the theories themselves, but the idea that they have the ability to actually fight back. Sensationalists like Alex Jones assert crazy ideas such as the government tainting our tap water to perform mass mind control and yet at the same time spread this message that they can resist against the upcoming "New World Order." With chemtrails specifically, on YouTube, you'll find videos of people spraying vinegar bottles outside when they see airplane contrails outside, believing it to be some sort of deterrent against their effects. If I believed that the government was capable of shit like super-effective mind control and all that other shit, I'd pretty much believe there's no hope for the world and recline to live the rest of my life in a bunker somewhere.
- NhanH 10y ago
  Yeah, the interesting thing about conspiracy is that they're almost always self inconsistent: they believe in government/ elite having "super power", and yet also incompetent enough to cause fuck up that would require the existence of said conspiracy to cover things up.
- omegaham 10y ago
  This. If the government is really that omnipresent and controlling in our lives, are they really going to let some blogger who knows the Truth run amok and post it everywhere? Yes siree, this government is capable of faking the Moon landing, concealing the existence of aliens / lizard people, and executing 9/11 to invade Iraq, but they are powerless against some random dickhead with a laptop who spotted the holes in the Official Story that this omnipotent cabal just couldn't cover up. Riiight.
  - iamben 10y ago
    The counter argument, of course, is that by 'removing' / silencing said conspiracist it would be proof they were right all along.
  - unsignedqword 10y ago
    I have to clarify: them knowing and proliferating the 'truth' is one thing, whereas the idea that they can actually do something about it is what I'm really getting at. They paint a pessimistic picture of the world that's at odds with the idea that somehow they can band together somehow and fix it.
  - WayneBro 10y ago
    Not this. "The government" is just groups of people. Some groups, such as the NSA, certainly do have the ability to be close to omniscient (or as much as it matters here). Their motto is "Total Information Awareness" for crying out loud! Didn't you ever read Brave New World? You don't publicly kill the Truth-knowing bloggers. You drown them out with by a million distractions. See also: Mao's Hundred Flowers campaign. I'm not going to argue every stupid conspiracy theory that anyone can name...but I don't need to. There are plenty of actual conspiracy facts that should be sufficient to convince anybody that this kind of shit actually happens. COINTELPRO, Operation Mockingbird and MK Ultra to name a few. The modern "skeptic" gets it all wrong - they don't question anything and come to conclusions way too quickly. That's because they're not actually skeptics, they're just afraid of getting out of their mental comfort zone.
- glenstein 10y ago
  This is probably a different way of expressing the same thing, but I think what is salient to people is that there isn't anything to be done about these kinds of conspiracies. It unleashes a satisfying chemical cocktail in the brain of outrage, fear, and the sense that something "serious" is going on. And unless you're being asked to do something trivial like spray the air with vinegar or line your wallet with aluminum foil, generally the conspiracy is not accompanied by any obvious call to action that might bring on feelings of tedium and responsibility. All the entertainment value, none of the responsibility.
api 10y ago
Think about the metaphor: an invisible cloud of poison being sprayed from far above us and descending over the entire population to make us sick and control our minds. There is such a thing but it is dispersed through radio, TV, and the Internet, not airplaines. It's particularly thick during an election year.
iamben 10y ago
I think this is pretty much exactly right. It's also tough to accept that the world is a messy place with a lot of loose ends that will never be tied. Religion used to 'make sense' of the what and why for a lot of people. But when you don't have that, and you don't want to think we are all just the result of a huge amount of luck, conspiracy theory gives you something to believe in. Much like religion it's also next to impossible to argue against, because you're arguing against belief and not reason. You can show someone a thousand pieces of evidence and they'll say "that's what they want you to believe". But a single piece of 'evidence' in the opposite direction, however spurious, is enough to yield a thousand "I told you so / I was right all along" comments. With chemtrails, for instance - you can point out the science as much as you like, but as soon a believer reads something like the cloud seeding over Asia [1] or the germ war testing off the UK [2], you might as well give up. Similarly with pretty much any other conspiracy theory. [1] http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-and-indonesia-begin-cloud-seeding-to-fight-haze-how-cloud-seeding-works http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-and-indone... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalsc...
aburan28 10y ago
The problem is that these conspiracy theories started to attract believers that there was global geoengineering occurring and some even started to think that this "geo-engineering" was to mitigate climate change. That kind of craziness needed to be debunked along time ago
mikeash 10y ago
In my experience it's just plain ignorance. If you know nothing at all about condensation and combustion chemistry and atmospheric properties, the claim that those white lines in the sky are mind-altering chemicals is just as believable as the claim that it's water created by burning fuel. If the former claim is the first one you encounter, it's easy to just accept it.
Laforet 10y ago
I never took the conspiracy seriously but I was decently surprised by the number of contrails visible in the sky on a clear day during my visits to the Northeast of USA. I understand it was probably a due to a combination of climate (my visits all happened to be in Winter) and the sheer density of commercial flights in that airspace, however the observation did make me feel a little empathy for those people who buy into conspiracy theories since the trails can appear very much unnatural and menancing.
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  Well...powering heavier-than-air flying machines by burning dead dinosaurs is about as unnatural as it gets. Civilization and all that ;) Edit: someone seems to think that unnatural = wrong? On the Internet - a place that is so un-natural that it doesn't even physically exist? What irony.
  - treebeard901 10y ago
    Some planes still use leaded fuel which presumably fall closest to the ground in poorer parts of the country because in many cities airports are built where land is cheapest. Certainly not the same as chemtrails but I have wondered what kind of health effects come as a result.
    - Laforet 10y ago
      Children living close to the airport serving leaded avgas were found to have a small but tangible increase in blood lead levels. General aviation itself has been on the decline for the past few decades and alternative fuel seems to be finally getting approved at last, so the problem seems to be a well managed one. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/

by firloop 10y ago

glaberficken 10y ago

Interesting point of view. thanks for sharing

unsignedqword 10y ago

Those theorists are quite irrational, but what I find most ridiculous about a lot of them is not the theories themselves, but the idea that they have the ability to actually fight back. Sensationalists like Alex Jones assert crazy ideas such as the government tainting our tap water to perform mass mind control and yet at the same time spread this message that they can resist against the upcoming "New World Order." With chemtrails specifically, on YouTube, you'll find videos of people spraying vinegar bottles outside when they see airplane contrails outside, believing it to be some sort of deterrent against their effects. If I believed that the government was capable of shit like super-effective mind control and all that other shit, I'd pretty much believe there's no hope for the world and recline to live the rest of my life in a bunker somewhere.

NhanH 10y ago
Yeah, the interesting thing about conspiracy is that they're almost always self inconsistent: they believe in government/ elite having "super power", and yet also incompetent enough to cause fuck up that would require the existence of said conspiracy to cover things up.
omegaham 10y ago
This. If the government is really that omnipresent and controlling in our lives, are they really going to let some blogger who knows the Truth run amok and post it everywhere? Yes siree, this government is capable of faking the Moon landing, concealing the existence of aliens / lizard people, and executing 9/11 to invade Iraq, but they are powerless against some random dickhead with a laptop who spotted the holes in the Official Story that this omnipotent cabal just couldn't cover up. Riiight.
- iamben 10y ago
  The counter argument, of course, is that by 'removing' / silencing said conspiracist it would be proof they were right all along.
- unsignedqword 10y ago
  I have to clarify: them knowing and proliferating the 'truth' is one thing, whereas the idea that they can actually do something about it is what I'm really getting at. They paint a pessimistic picture of the world that's at odds with the idea that somehow they can band together somehow and fix it.
- WayneBro 10y ago
  Not this. "The government" is just groups of people. Some groups, such as the NSA, certainly do have the ability to be close to omniscient (or as much as it matters here). Their motto is "Total Information Awareness" for crying out loud! Didn't you ever read Brave New World? You don't publicly kill the Truth-knowing bloggers. You drown them out with by a million distractions. See also: Mao's Hundred Flowers campaign. I'm not going to argue every stupid conspiracy theory that anyone can name...but I don't need to. There are plenty of actual conspiracy facts that should be sufficient to convince anybody that this kind of shit actually happens. COINTELPRO, Operation Mockingbird and MK Ultra to name a few. The modern "skeptic" gets it all wrong - they don't question anything and come to conclusions way too quickly. That's because they're not actually skeptics, they're just afraid of getting out of their mental comfort zone.
glenstein 10y ago
This is probably a different way of expressing the same thing, but I think what is salient to people is that there isn't anything to be done about these kinds of conspiracies. It unleashes a satisfying chemical cocktail in the brain of outrage, fear, and the sense that something "serious" is going on. And unless you're being asked to do something trivial like spray the air with vinegar or line your wallet with aluminum foil, generally the conspiracy is not accompanied by any obvious call to action that might bring on feelings of tedium and responsibility. All the entertainment value, none of the responsibility.

api 10y ago

Think about the metaphor: an invisible cloud of poison being sprayed from far above us and descending over the entire population to make us sick and control our minds. There is such a thing but it is dispersed through radio, TV, and the Internet, not airplaines. It's particularly thick during an election year.

iamben 10y ago

I think this is pretty much exactly right. It's also tough to accept that the world is a messy place with a lot of loose ends that will never be tied. Religion used to 'make sense' of the what and why for a lot of people. But when you don't have that, and you don't want to think we are all just the result of a huge amount of luck, conspiracy theory gives you something to believe in. Much like religion it's also next to impossible to argue against, because you're arguing against belief and not reason. You can show someone a thousand pieces of evidence and they'll say "that's what they want you to believe". But a single piece of 'evidence' in the opposite direction, however spurious, is enough to yield a thousand "I told you so / I was right all along" comments. With chemtrails, for instance - you can point out the science as much as you like, but as soon a believer reads something like the cloud seeding over Asia [1] or the germ war testing off the UK [2], you might as well give up. Similarly with pretty much any other conspiracy theory. [1] http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-and-indonesia-begin-cloud-seeding-to-fight-haze-how-cloud-seeding-works http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-and-indone... [2] http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalsc...

aburan28 10y ago

The problem is that these conspiracy theories started to attract believers that there was global geoengineering occurring and some even started to think that this "geo-engineering" was to mitigate climate change. That kind of craziness needed to be debunked along time ago

mikeash 10y ago

In my experience it's just plain ignorance. If you know nothing at all about condensation and combustion chemistry and atmospheric properties, the claim that those white lines in the sky are mind-altering chemicals is just as believable as the claim that it's water created by burning fuel. If the former claim is the first one you encounter, it's easy to just accept it.

Laforet 10y ago

I never took the conspiracy seriously but I was decently surprised by the number of contrails visible in the sky on a clear day during my visits to the Northeast of USA. I understand it was probably a due to a combination of climate (my visits all happened to be in Winter) and the sheer density of commercial flights in that airspace, however the observation did make me feel a little empathy for those people who buy into conspiracy theories since the trails can appear very much unnatural and menancing.

Piskvorrr 10y ago
Well...powering heavier-than-air flying machines by burning dead dinosaurs is about as unnatural as it gets. Civilization and all that ;) Edit: someone seems to think that unnatural = wrong? On the Internet - a place that is so un-natural that it doesn't even physically exist? What irony.
- treebeard901 10y ago
  Some planes still use leaded fuel which presumably fall closest to the ground in poorer parts of the country because in many cities airports are built where land is cheapest. Certainly not the same as chemtrails but I have wondered what kind of health effects come as a result.
  - Laforet 10y ago
    Children living close to the airport serving leaded avgas were found to have a small but tangible increase in blood lead levels. General aviation itself has been on the decline for the past few decades and alternative fuel seems to be finally getting approved at last, so the problem seems to be a well managed one. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230438/