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Real conspiracies are super boring. For example we had this guy in Australia James Ashby who was the chief of staff for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party. The

by dools 5y ago

Real conspiracies are super boring. For example we had this guy in Australia James Ashby who was the chief of staff for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party. They play to a lot of the fake conspiracy types that also fall into the “basket of deplorables” from which other conservative governments globally garner their support. However all the outlandish shit that PHON either spread directly or nurture indirectly (such as NASA doctoring climate change data) is far more interesting than the actual conspiracy they were alleged to have perpetrated which was James Ashby pressuring candidates to use his signage company: https://www.afr.com/politics/knives-out-for-hanson-staffer-ashby-accused-of-profiting-off-candidates-20161220-gtepe4 https://www.afr.com/politics/knives-out-for-hanson-staffer-a...

Joeboy 5y ago
I guess my go-to ideas of "conspiracy theories" are things like MKULTRA, Gladio, COINTELPRO, Stargate Project, ECHELON etc. Which seem extremely interesting, to me anyway, and I think we can say those things are "real". Whereas I find the QAnon, AntiVax etc stuff fairly tedious (although I do find the sociology behind them interesting). Maybe it's more about my relationship with these things, rather than than the theories themselves.
- dools 5y ago
  Yeah I guess those things don’t really strike me as conspiracies, like I guess they fit the technical definition in some ways especially if they’re deemed illegal but just because a program is covert doesn’t make it a conspiracy. It might just be a dumb or poorly executed idea (although I suppose also “harm” may be in the eye of the beholder)
  - Joeboy 5y ago
    Maybe it's an age difference thing (I'm old), but to me MKULTRA feels like the absolute archetype of "conspiracy theory" material. I'm fairly sure that's how it was regarded before the Church Committee investigation, and to a large extent afterwards. I think if you were applying the "real conspiracies are boring" heuristic you'd have dismissed it pretty quickly. Edit: There's a bit in Jon Ronson's Them: Adventures with Extremists, where he hangs out with Alex Jones, who tells him about secret events where powerful men don robes and perform weird rituals. Which sounds outlandish but Ronson goes along with Jones to infiltrate Bohemian Grove, and sure enough there are powerful men in robes, performing weird rituals. At that point, Ronson notes that it no longer seems outlandish, it just seems like some middle aged men letting off steam. I think perhaps things just seem inherently more boring when there's no mystery attached.

by dools 5y ago

Joeboy 5y ago

I guess my go-to ideas of "conspiracy theories" are things like MKULTRA, Gladio, COINTELPRO, Stargate Project, ECHELON etc. Which seem extremely interesting, to me anyway, and I think we can say those things are "real". Whereas I find the QAnon, AntiVax etc stuff fairly tedious (although I do find the sociology behind them interesting). Maybe it's more about my relationship with these things, rather than than the theories themselves.

dools 5y ago
Yeah I guess those things don’t really strike me as conspiracies, like I guess they fit the technical definition in some ways especially if they’re deemed illegal but just because a program is covert doesn’t make it a conspiracy. It might just be a dumb or poorly executed idea (although I suppose also “harm” may be in the eye of the beholder)
- Joeboy 5y ago
  Maybe it's an age difference thing (I'm old), but to me MKULTRA feels like the absolute archetype of "conspiracy theory" material. I'm fairly sure that's how it was regarded before the Church Committee investigation, and to a large extent afterwards. I think if you were applying the "real conspiracies are boring" heuristic you'd have dismissed it pretty quickly. Edit: There's a bit in Jon Ronson's Them: Adventures with Extremists, where he hangs out with Alex Jones, who tells him about secret events where powerful men don robes and perform weird rituals. Which sounds outlandish but Ronson goes along with Jones to infiltrate Bohemian Grove, and sure enough there are powerful men in robes, performing weird rituals. At that point, Ronson notes that it no longer seems outlandish, it just seems like some middle aged men letting off steam. I think perhaps things just seem inherently more boring when there's no mystery attached.