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For me, the thing that kills the theory for me is the idea that, in the middle of western Europe being about as politically stable and integrated as modern Afgh

For me, the thing that kills the theory for me is the idea that, in the middle of western Europe being about as politically stable and integrated as modern Afghanistan, all the warlords pillaging the country to kill each other were able to not only unanimously agree on "let's change the year to a nice round number", but were also able to coordinate this without leaving any historical records of it. Here's the thing about conspiracies: they have a shelf life. The amount of time you can keep a conspiracy secret is bounded by the number of conspirators, how well you can get them to shut up, and how long it has been since the conspiracy occurred. You can take a secret only you know to your grave, but work in a group of ten and someone will confess before their death. Bring in hundreds or thousands and the conspiracy will be blown open accidentally before you can even execute on it. Now think of how many people had to cooperate to change something as simple and fundamental as the passage of recorded history. Hell, forget the fact that these were all angry, violent warlords; just think of how many scribes, monks, and bureaucrats would all have to remember to write 1000 instead of 736 whenever they wrote a date. It only takes one slip-up to reveal the fraud to archaeologists in the far future, even if they all agreed that they wanted to live in the nice round-number millennium. And nobody would be trying to protect against that because nobody would be thinking, "how do we hide this from 21st century archaeologists trying to discover our time crimes?"

User23 4y ago
> Here's the thing about conspiracies: they have a shelf life. The amount of time you can keep a conspiracy secret is bounded by the number of conspirators, how well you can get them to shut up, and how long it has been since the conspiracy occurred. You can take a secret only you know to your grave, but work in a group of ten and someone will confess before their death. As you effectively prove, any long running conspiracy must have tools to discredit defectors. I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that if, hypothetically, some WEF flunky went on twitter and started posting about a global depopulation conspiracy, that the prestige media would either ignore or deny (“debunk”) it and any alternative sources would be smeared and delegitimized somehow. One possible tool for discrediting tales of one’s real conspiracy would be spreading stories of various fake conspiracies and then lumping them all together as nonsense.
- synu 4y ago
  This only works as long as the defectors have no evidence, right? That seems like it would be harder to guarantee.
  - User23 4y ago
    So long as the defectors have no credible evidence. Evidence and people both are observably fairly easily discredited for the majority of the population.
    - synu 4y ago
      Isn’t that a good thing? I can deliver a bunch of non-credible evidence for basically anything I make up. It’s unfortunate if a person is blowing a whistle on something real but can’t actually prove it, but the alternative is just believing whatever fits your biases. You end up with those alternative news sites where everyone just believes everything they hear and there are vast interconnected conspiracies running everything.
      - ospzfmbbzr 4y ago
        Non-credible is totally subjective. You are always taking someones word unless you check for yourself. Who do you believe? It's not the alternative it's the way things are. Evidence to the contrary doesn't discredit anything in the minds of most people... They are more likely to simply attack the person putting forth the evidence for causing them cognitive dissonance migraines.
        synu 4y ago
        Credibility of evidence is not totally subjective. I (and you, and anyone) can personally prove in a variety of ways that the earth is not flat, but still many people believe there is a conspiracy that the earth is round. Of course they all tell each other that all facts are subjective anyway and wouldn’t it be cool and interesting if you were in on a big secret and everyone else except you and your new friends were sheep.. oh and by the way did you know that it’s actually lizard people who started the idea that the earth was round? Doesn’t that feel right and would explain why your life hasn’t turned out the way you wanted? And so on. In this case I’m explicitly talking about making up non-credible evidence. If everything is subjective then whatever I made up is as good as anything else, I just need to tune it to your biases to make it feel as truthy as possible. But if you believe me then you’ll start to have problems when you need things to actually be true (like running a space program or military for example).
starwind 4y ago
> Here's the thing about conspiracies: they have a shelf life. The amount of time you can keep a conspiracy secret is bounded by the number of conspirators, how well you can get them to shut up, and how long it has been since the conspiracy occurred. You can take a secret only you know to your grave, but work in a group of ten and someone will confess before their death. Bring in hundreds or thousands and the conspiracy will be blown open accidentally before you can even execute on it. That's what they want you think!
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  If someone has the means to compel the silence of millions then we're not talking about a conspiracy anymore. We're talking about the SCP Foundation. The conspiracy will grow to encompass the entire planet, after which there will be no one to hide the conspiracy from[0]. [0] https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/everyone-knows https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/everyone-knows
dehrmann 4y ago
> Bring in hundreds or thousands and the conspiracy will be blown open accidentally There's still a credibility issue. There are a lot of people who claim to have worked for the government and have direct knowledge of extraterrestrials. They mostly come across as crazy, but this might also be what a conspiracy looks like. Even when people expose it, they just look crazy and are easily dismissed.
t_mann 4y ago
Fyi, someone actually built a formal model to demonstrate that large conspiracies are probabilistically doomed to get exposed: https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0127/Can-mathematics-help-solve-conspiracy-theory-debates https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0127/Can-mathematics-... However, the model makes a few simplifying assumptions, eg a single leak is sufficient to expose the conspiracy, and I think it also doesn't cover mortality. A conspiracy that wasn't exposed up until the death of all in the know would probably be considered as succesful by the model. I think it's fair to assume that the probability of getting exposed at least significantly drops at that point.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  This is specifically the mathematical model I'm referencing, I should probably save this so I remember what to cite next time. While there probably are conspiracies that would take multiple leaks to fully expose, one thing to note is that leaks tend to be correlated with one another. Newsworthy reporting on conspiracy leaks inspires copycat leaks[0] - either to get one's fifteen minutes of fame or to jump ship before the prosecutions come about. A conspiracy that is "successful" in the sense that it was taken to the grave can still get exposed, though. Sure, the members of the conspiracy can't leak it themselves, but they also can no longer destroy any physical evidence or information they left behind. So that evidence could itself be considered a conspirator that cannot die and will eventually leak. [0] This also applies to school shootings.
  - teakettle42 4y ago
    Doesn’t this assume the existence of a strong fourth estate and/or an executive branch, able and willing to investigate leaks? There are ways to at least partially inoculate against leaks; regulatory capture and elimination of accountability, quid pro quo journalism, “fact checking”-driven censorship, or just simply positioning yourself politically so that the responsible entities don’t want to investigate. Anything left over can be written off as a smear job, a conspiracy theory, etc.
ornxka 4y ago
>I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible. - Charles Colson, advisor to Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal
- zionic 4y ago
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Why leak it more than once, though? At this point, the facts are already well-established. It's just that we as a society apparently just don't care enough to hold our rulers accountable (with torches and pitchforks if necessary).
    - zionic 4y ago
      >people already know Do they, though? Most people don’t know shit outside their preferred news channel. Zoomers are faithfully recreating the boomer flaw via moderation so they have a nicely curated injection of sludge
  - labster 4y ago
    Nah, it leaks. Besides the big leaks like Chelsea Manning, there are constant small leaks: things like anonymous sources to the papers, and via Congressmembers (who collectively leak like a sieve). A lot of that is intentional.
    - zionic 4y ago
      What’s the leak ratio? How many people go to work for the NSA/FBI/ATF every day? What percentage of them leak?

User23 4y ago

> Here's the thing about conspiracies: they have a shelf life. The amount of time you can keep a conspiracy secret is bounded by the number of conspirators, how well you can get them to shut up, and how long it has been since the conspiracy occurred. You can take a secret only you know to your grave, but work in a group of ten and someone will confess before their death. As you effectively prove, any long running conspiracy must have tools to discredit defectors. I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that if, hypothetically, some WEF flunky went on twitter and started posting about a global depopulation conspiracy, that the prestige media would either ignore or deny (“debunk”) it and any alternative sources would be smeared and delegitimized somehow. One possible tool for discrediting tales of one’s real conspiracy would be spreading stories of various fake conspiracies and then lumping them all together as nonsense.

synu 4y ago
This only works as long as the defectors have no evidence, right? That seems like it would be harder to guarantee.
- User23 4y ago
  So long as the defectors have no credible evidence. Evidence and people both are observably fairly easily discredited for the majority of the population.
  - synu 4y ago
    Isn’t that a good thing? I can deliver a bunch of non-credible evidence for basically anything I make up. It’s unfortunate if a person is blowing a whistle on something real but can’t actually prove it, but the alternative is just believing whatever fits your biases. You end up with those alternative news sites where everyone just believes everything they hear and there are vast interconnected conspiracies running everything.
    - ospzfmbbzr 4y ago
      Non-credible is totally subjective. You are always taking someones word unless you check for yourself. Who do you believe? It's not the alternative it's the way things are. Evidence to the contrary doesn't discredit anything in the minds of most people... They are more likely to simply attack the person putting forth the evidence for causing them cognitive dissonance migraines.
      - synu 4y ago
        Credibility of evidence is not totally subjective. I (and you, and anyone) can personally prove in a variety of ways that the earth is not flat, but still many people believe there is a conspiracy that the earth is round. Of course they all tell each other that all facts are subjective anyway and wouldn’t it be cool and interesting if you were in on a big secret and everyone else except you and your new friends were sheep.. oh and by the way did you know that it’s actually lizard people who started the idea that the earth was round? Doesn’t that feel right and would explain why your life hasn’t turned out the way you wanted? And so on. In this case I’m explicitly talking about making up non-credible evidence. If everything is subjective then whatever I made up is as good as anything else, I just need to tune it to your biases to make it feel as truthy as possible. But if you believe me then you’ll start to have problems when you need things to actually be true (like running a space program or military for example).

starwind 4y ago

kmeisthax 4y ago
If someone has the means to compel the silence of millions then we're not talking about a conspiracy anymore. We're talking about the SCP Foundation. The conspiracy will grow to encompass the entire planet, after which there will be no one to hide the conspiracy from[0]. [0] https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/everyone-knows https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/everyone-knows

dehrmann 4y ago

> Bring in hundreds or thousands and the conspiracy will be blown open accidentally There's still a credibility issue. There are a lot of people who claim to have worked for the government and have direct knowledge of extraterrestrials. They mostly come across as crazy, but this might also be what a conspiracy looks like. Even when people expose it, they just look crazy and are easily dismissed.

t_mann 4y ago

Fyi, someone actually built a formal model to demonstrate that large conspiracies are probabilistically doomed to get exposed: https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0127/Can-mathematics-help-solve-conspiracy-theory-debates https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2016/0127/Can-mathematics-... However, the model makes a few simplifying assumptions, eg a single leak is sufficient to expose the conspiracy, and I think it also doesn't cover mortality. A conspiracy that wasn't exposed up until the death of all in the know would probably be considered as succesful by the model. I think it's fair to assume that the probability of getting exposed at least significantly drops at that point.

kmeisthax 4y ago
This is specifically the mathematical model I'm referencing, I should probably save this so I remember what to cite next time. While there probably are conspiracies that would take multiple leaks to fully expose, one thing to note is that leaks tend to be correlated with one another. Newsworthy reporting on conspiracy leaks inspires copycat leaks[0] - either to get one's fifteen minutes of fame or to jump ship before the prosecutions come about. A conspiracy that is "successful" in the sense that it was taken to the grave can still get exposed, though. Sure, the members of the conspiracy can't leak it themselves, but they also can no longer destroy any physical evidence or information they left behind. So that evidence could itself be considered a conspirator that cannot die and will eventually leak. [0] This also applies to school shootings.
- teakettle42 4y ago
  Doesn’t this assume the existence of a strong fourth estate and/or an executive branch, able and willing to investigate leaks? There are ways to at least partially inoculate against leaks; regulatory capture and elimination of accountability, quid pro quo journalism, “fact checking”-driven censorship, or just simply positioning yourself politically so that the responsible entities don’t want to investigate. Anything left over can be written off as a smear job, a conspiracy theory, etc.

ornxka 4y ago

>I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible. - Charles Colson, advisor to Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal

zionic 4y ago
- int_19h 4y ago
  Why leak it more than once, though? At this point, the facts are already well-established. It's just that we as a society apparently just don't care enough to hold our rulers accountable (with torches and pitchforks if necessary).
  - zionic 4y ago
    >people already know Do they, though? Most people don’t know shit outside their preferred news channel. Zoomers are faithfully recreating the boomer flaw via moderation so they have a nicely curated injection of sludge
- labster 4y ago
  Nah, it leaks. Besides the big leaks like Chelsea Manning, there are constant small leaks: things like anonymous sources to the papers, and via Congressmembers (who collectively leak like a sieve). A lot of that is intentional.
  - zionic 4y ago
    What’s the leak ratio? How many people go to work for the NSA/FBI/ATF every day? What percentage of them leak?