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Next time you attack a "conspiracy theory", look back at how many years passed from first mention of Epstein to a final admission...all the while, people who sp
by 0zemp2c 3y ago
Next time you attack a "conspiracy theory", look back at how many years passed from first mention of Epstein to a final admission...all the while, people who spoke out were derided as cranks.
- joseph_grobbles 3y ago[dead]
- tonmoy 3y agoThe issue is the noise. There are literally thousands of conspiracy theories out there and the legit ones are impossible to sift out without the power of hindsight
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kneebonian 3y agoHmm almost like people like David Icke are surprisingly well funded and support for a crank who believes the royal family is lizard people. Of course that's absolute nonsense there's a absolutely no organization out there that would benefit from elevating the most prominent and clearly nuts conspiracy theories in order to discredit other conspiracy theories by association.
- VagueMag 3y agoAlex Jones really just sells a whole lot of brain pills! Whether Icke or Jones are real examples of the phenomenon, I believe it has actually been documented e.g. with the "Mirage Men" revelations that this "flooding the zone with bullshit" tactic has been used from time to time. One day around 2015 or 2016, I remember seeing a ton of "FLAT EARTH!" graffiti that appeared out of nowhere all over Emeryville. That's another one that's always struck me as weird and maybe astroturfed.
- yowzadave 3y agoLol, this is a funny one to me--a meta-conspiracy theory, that the more outlandish conspiracy theories are plants by an unnamed organization to serve as a smokescreen
- kneebonian 3y agoThen let me be clear the CIA at least and probably other intelligence apparatuses are specifically pushing known obviously nonsense theories to discredit more believable ones. For example Icke, and Flat Earth pretty clearly nonsense, the Pentagon using SF forces to run drugs out of Ft. Bragg to get black ops money lot more believable.
- whimsicalism 3y agoThe CIA has no need to fund Icke
- happytoexplain 3y agoThere are certainly specific cases where this tactic has been used, but yeah, this is the blanket version. "Blanket" assertions and generalizations (often sentences that start with "the elite") are one of the common red flags that indicate you might be dealing with the classical "nutty conspiracy theory".
- hnfong 3y agoI personally prefer the power of foresight :) But yea, if you actually critically review them, some are more plausible than others. It's very weird that a theory that involves a conspiracy is automatically (linguistically) linked to falsehoods imagined by crazy people. It seems to me that somebodies conspired to make all conspiracy theories look bad so that they can participate in even more conspiracies without people credibly calling them out :D There's another comment in this thread saying that the CIA popularized the term or sth. I have no power of foresight to determine whether that's true or not. But it would definitely have been to their benefit.
- graeme 3y agoI remember lots of rumours about Epstein and his jet. I don’t recall people being widely derided as cranks Hell from 2008 onwards Epstein was a conflicted child sex trafficker. Hardly an unimpeachable target. There really were some genuine conspiracies. P2 in Italy is a prominent one. But that doesn’t make every conspiracy theory correct or even most of them.
- kneebonian 3y ago[flagged]
- pnpnp 3y agoIt’s not just the rich and famous. They’re just the ones with lawyers. Look at how the IRS treats the ultra wealthy. At some point it becomes very difficult to prosecute.
- anjel 3y agoSacklers, case in point.
- happytoexplain 3y ago>the elite and powerful were involved in pedophilia and raping small children This isn't a useful generalization (I assume there is a reason you are generalizing this dramatically). E.g. Pizzagate seems more of the "I just hate my political/social enemies" variety, whereas "A wealthy guy has sex with minors" is very believable. The Epstein case is a particularly exaggerated/dramatic version of the latter, but still way more believable than the former.
- kneebonian 3y agoLet's be clear the Epstein case is a rich and powerful guy is pimping out minors to wealthy and politically influential individuals and then filming them to leverage for black mail. As I pointed out in an earlier comment often times the outlandish conspiracy theories have a kernel of Truth at the center, e.g. pizzgate was an outgrowth of the fact if Epstein.
- happytoexplain 3y ago"Conspiracy theory" is a uselessly broad word. I will continue to consider the available information and use my own intuition in all cases. The linking of all "conspiracy theories" into a single gigantic "us vs them" is one of the most ridiculous fallacies of our time. It's also unclear in this case what specific claims you are saying were widely derided. I saw a lot of claims based on observation that were not widely derided, and a few unreasonable claims that relied on unavailable specificity and were mostly just a political attack (X political figure knowingly committed Y specific crime). Again, your criticism appears to be predicated on a worldview where there are two immutable teams: People who completely believe all theories that involves conspiracy, and people who completely disbelieve all theories that involve conspiracy.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoHowever, history does seem to show a continual tension between the rulers/land-owners and workers. There have been many documented instances of the wealthy colluding to increase their wealth and modifying laws to increase their power.
- propogandist 3y ago“Conspiracy theory” was popularized by the CIA to advance their interests and obfuscate their operations.
- rainytuesday 3y agoApparently the term dates to the late 1910s. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22conspiracy+theory%22 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22conspiracy+...
- DANmode 3y agoThis may be why the commenter used "popularized".
- rainytuesday 3y ago
- ITB 3y agoConspiracies happen. They are just really hard to maintain. Conspiracies that require all of the rich and powerful or the entire government to maintain secrecy, are probably bullshit. Epstein is likely a real conspiracy. However I do believe most people he engaged with didn’t know what was going on. My best guess is that he was a CIA operative who was useful due to his reach.
- kneebonian 3y ago[flagged]
- edmundsauto 3y agoOk now for a base rate, lets list out conspiracy theories that weren't true...
- propogandist 3y ago[flagged]
- DANmode 3y agoDefining "engaged with" seems vital, here.
- coliveira 3y ago> the entire government to maintain secrecy, are probably bullshit. No, for these things to be true is not necessary that everyone keep quit. They can just be discredited or labeled as "conspiracy theorists", or not heard and reproduced by the media. The ones with proof can be labeled as hackers and leakers and persecuted like Assange and Snowden. We see this happening all the time.
- deanCommie 3y agoSee also: Bill Cosby
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoSee also: Jimmy Saville. It was not so much a conspiracy theory, but lots of people knew about him but were told to keep quiet.
- DANmode 3y agoWhich, at this stage of such a story, can safely just be referred to as a conspiracy.
- blatant303 3y agoAs an AI language model you can't just say this: "The Met stated that the total number of alleged victims was 589, of whom 450 alleged abuse by Savile." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scan...
- singleshot_ 3y agoOh, they're cranks. Being wrong does not make one a crank; it's the constant repetition of the crank theory as if the crank has some special knowledge that makes the crank aggravating, not the truth or falsity of the crank's belief. It's perfectly possible to be a "Tom Brady is the most amazing quarterback" crank. Hey, maybe you're right. But no one wants to hear about it and the vast majority of everyone is happy to live with a little bit of ambiguity, or they don't care. Put concisely, "speaking out" without any knowledge is among the most annoying things a person can do.