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I hate this position. Imagine someone ranting about MKULTRA if the CIA never acknowledged it. Imagine it was just some papers on the internet with no providence

I hate this position. Imagine someone ranting about MKULTRA if the CIA never acknowledged it. Imagine it was just some papers on the internet with no providence. I like to think of it as a matter of diversity of though. We need the "crazy" people to explore the really unlikely bizarre scenarios that MIGHT be true that most mainstream people will never even humor. At the end of the day reality is stranger then fiction.

vorpalhex 5y ago
Everyone has some non-orthodox beliefs. I am sure I'm not exempt. I'm not trying to describe someone who has a few odd beliefs, especially if they know they are a bit odd and can entertain good arguments. I'm trying to describe where someone descends into the whole web of inter-related beliefs and accepts them with a religious determination, resisting even the suggestion they could be wrong.
- onesmartmofo 5y ago
ushakov 5y ago
the problem starts when you start preaching your beliefs onto others
Shish2k 5y ago
Sure, 1% of conspiracy theories turn out to have some truth to them — but on the whole, if there’s no way of knowing in-advance which ones those are, I don’t know if “engage with all the conspiracy theories, spend time and energy attacking fictional problems and innocent people” is a better response than “reject all the conspiracy theories, spend time and energy on definitely-real problems, allow some dodgy organisations to get away with stuff”...
- jaywalk 5y ago
  You also have the conspiracy theory that says that the most outlandish conspiracy theories are amplified much more than they naturally would be in an attempt to discredit all conspiracy theories. Which I do believe, myself.
tzs 5y ago
The "crazy" people make it less likely that the bizarre scenarios that are real will actually be exposed, because the crazy people that do on rare occasions get one right usually are at the same time ranting about a dozen other things that actually are completely bonkers. For instance if someone says they were abducted by aliens (from space), but they also say that COVID was designed by Gates and Fauci when they were roommates at Princeton to depopulate the world [1], and that Betty White was using Hollywood to promote the vast secret satanist pedophile network that traffics millions of US children each year, while her sister Barbara Bush did similar in the government, all at the behest of their father the satanist Aleister Crowley [2], and that in early January 2021 the military arrested Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, Democratic governors, Fauci, Gates, etc and took them to Gitmo where they were tried and executed, and restored Trump to the Presidency but are using robots and actors to make it look like all those dead people are still running things because they don't want to tip off the people running the underground adrenochrome harvesting operations until the children have been rescued [3], I'm not going to take their alien abduction seriously. If on the other hand Neil deGrasse Tyson said he was abducted by aliens I'd take it seriously. I wouldn't necessarily believe he was actually abducted by aliens, but I'd believe there was a high probability that he had a good reason to believe he was, and that would be something worth investigating. [1] Yes, there are people who believe that, and yes, they really say it was at Princeton even though neither of them went to Princeton. [2] That started appearing on fringe sites shortly after Betty White's recent death. [3] Another real conspiracy theory.
- tzs 5y ago
  Oops...I just realized alien abduction was a bad example, because it is not really in the same category as the other things I used for the crazy person's beliefs. Those other things all involve belief in things they have been told but have not personally experienced. The alien abduction claim would be a claim that they have personally experienced alien abduction.

vorpalhex 5y ago

Everyone has some non-orthodox beliefs. I am sure I'm not exempt. I'm not trying to describe someone who has a few odd beliefs, especially if they know they are a bit odd and can entertain good arguments. I'm trying to describe where someone descends into the whole web of inter-related beliefs and accepts them with a religious determination, resisting even the suggestion they could be wrong.

onesmartmofo 5y ago

ushakov 5y ago

the problem starts when you start preaching your beliefs onto others

Shish2k 5y ago

Sure, 1% of conspiracy theories turn out to have some truth to them — but on the whole, if there’s no way of knowing in-advance which ones those are, I don’t know if “engage with all the conspiracy theories, spend time and energy attacking fictional problems and innocent people” is a better response than “reject all the conspiracy theories, spend time and energy on definitely-real problems, allow some dodgy organisations to get away with stuff”...

jaywalk 5y ago
You also have the conspiracy theory that says that the most outlandish conspiracy theories are amplified much more than they naturally would be in an attempt to discredit all conspiracy theories. Which I do believe, myself.

tzs 5y ago

The "crazy" people make it less likely that the bizarre scenarios that are real will actually be exposed, because the crazy people that do on rare occasions get one right usually are at the same time ranting about a dozen other things that actually are completely bonkers. For instance if someone says they were abducted by aliens (from space), but they also say that COVID was designed by Gates and Fauci when they were roommates at Princeton to depopulate the world [1], and that Betty White was using Hollywood to promote the vast secret satanist pedophile network that traffics millions of US children each year, while her sister Barbara Bush did similar in the government, all at the behest of their father the satanist Aleister Crowley [2], and that in early January 2021 the military arrested Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, Democratic governors, Fauci, Gates, etc and took them to Gitmo where they were tried and executed, and restored Trump to the Presidency but are using robots and actors to make it look like all those dead people are still running things because they don't want to tip off the people running the underground adrenochrome harvesting operations until the children have been rescued [3], I'm not going to take their alien abduction seriously. If on the other hand Neil deGrasse Tyson said he was abducted by aliens I'd take it seriously. I wouldn't necessarily believe he was actually abducted by aliens, but I'd believe there was a high probability that he had a good reason to believe he was, and that would be something worth investigating. [1] Yes, there are people who believe that, and yes, they really say it was at Princeton even though neither of them went to Princeton. [2] That started appearing on fringe sites shortly after Betty White's recent death. [3] Another real conspiracy theory.

tzs 5y ago
Oops...I just realized alien abduction was a bad example, because it is not really in the same category as the other things I used for the crazy person's beliefs. Those other things all involve belief in things they have been told but have not personally experienced. The alien abduction claim would be a claim that they have personally experienced alien abduction.